Chapter I. The Standpoint of Idealism.

The World As Will And Idea

By

Arthur Schopenhauer

Translated From The German By

R. B. Haldane, M.A.

And

J. Kemp, M.A.

Vol. II.

Containing the Criticism of the Kantian Philosophy, and the Supplements to

the First and Part of the Second Book of Vol. I.

“Paucis natus est, qui populum ætatis suæ cogitat.”—SEN.

Sixth Edition

London

Kegan Paul, Trench, Trübner & Co.

1909

CONTENTS

Appendix: Criticism of the Kantian Philosophy.

Supplements to the First Book.

First Half. The Doctrine Of The Idea Of Perception. (To § 1-7 of the

First Volume.)

Chapter I. The Standpoint of Idealism.

Chapter II. The Doctrine of Perception or Knowledge Of The

Understanding.

Chapter III. On The Senses.

Chapter IV. On Knowledge _A Priori_.

Second Half. The Doctrine of the Abstract Idea, or Thinking.

Chapter V. On The Irrational Intellect.

Chapter VI. On The Doctrine of Abstract or Rational Knowledge.

Chapter VII. On The Relation of the Concrete Knowledge of Perception

to Abstract Knowledge.

Chapter VIII. On The Theory Of The Ludicrous.

Chapter IX. On Logic In General.

Chapter X. On The Syllogism.

Chapter XI. On Rhetoric.

Chapter XII. On The Doctrine Of Science.

Chapter XIII. On The Methods Of Mathematics.

Chapter XIV. On The Association Of Ideas.

Chapter XV. On The Essential Imperfections Of The Intellect.

Chapter XVI. On The Practical Use Of Reason And On Stoicism.

Chapter XVII. On Man’s Need Of Metaphysics.

Supplements to the Second Book.

Chapter XVIII. On The Possibility Of Knowing The Thing In Itself.

Chapter XIX. On The Primacy Of The Will In Self-Consciousness.

Chapter XX. Objectification Of The Will In The Animal Organism.

Note On What Has Been Said About Bichat.

Footnotes

APPENDIX: CRITICISM OF THE KANTIAN PHILOSOPHY.

C’est le privilège du vrai génie, et surtout du génie qui ouvre

une carrière,

de faire impunément de grandes fautes.—_Voltaire._

It is much easier to point out the faults and errors in the work of a

great mind than to give a distinct and full exposition of its value. For

the faults are particular and finite, and can therefore be fully

comprehended; while, on the contrary, the very stamp which genius

impresses upon its works is that their excellence is unfathomable and

inexhaustible. Therefore they do not grow old, but become the instructor

of many succeeding centuries. The perfected masterpiece of a truly great

mind will always produce a deep and powerful effect upon the whole human

race, so much so that it is impossible to calculate to what distant

centuries and lands its enlightening influence may extend. This is always

the case; for however cultivated and rich the age may be in which such a

masterpiece appears, genius always rises like a palm-tree above the soil

in which it is rooted.

But a deep-reaching and widespread effect of this kind cannot take place

suddenly, because of the great difference between the genius and ordinary

men. The knowledge which that one man in one lifetime drew directly from

life and the world, won and presented to others as won and arranged,

cannot yet at once become the possession of mankind; for mankind has not

so much power to receive as the genius has power to give. But even after a

successful battle with unworthy opponents, who at its very birth contest

the life of what is immortal and desire to nip in the bud the salvation of

man (like the serpents in the cradle of Hercules), that knowledge must

then traverse the circuitous paths of innumerable false constructions and

distorted applications, must overcome the attempts to unite it with old

errors, and so live in conflict till a new and unprejudiced generation

grows up to meet it. Little by little, even in youth, this new generation

partially receives the contents of that spring through a thousand indirect

channels, gradually assimilates it, and so participates in the benefit

which was destined to flow to mankind from that great mind. So slowly does

the education of the human race, the weak yet refractory pupil of genius,

advance. Thus with Kant’s teaching also; its full strength and importance

will only be revealed through time, when the spirit of the age, itself

gradually transformed and altered in the most important and essential

respects by the influence of that teaching, will afford convincing

evidence of the power of that giant mind. I have, however, no intention of

presumptuously anticipating the spirit of the age and assuming here the

thankless _rôle_ of Calchas and Cassandra. Only I must be allowed, in

accordance with what has been said, to regard Kant’s works as still very

new, while many at the present day look upon them as already antiquated,

and indeed have laid them aside as done with, or, as they express it, have

left them behind; and others, emboldened by this, ignore them altogether,

and with brazen face go on philosophising about God and the soul on the

assumption of the old realistic dogmatism and its scholastic teaching,

which is as if one sought to introduce the doctrines of the alchemists

into modern chemistry. For the rest, the works of Kant do not stand in

need of my feeble eulogy, but will themselves for ever praise their

author, and though perhaps not in the letter, yet in the spirit they will

live for ever upon earth.

Certainly, however, if we look back at the first result of his teaching,

at the efforts and events in the sphere of philosophy during the period

that has elapsed since he wrote, a very depressing saying of Goethe

obtains confirmation: “As the water that is displaced by a ship

immediately flows in again behind it, so when great minds have driven

error aside and made room for themselves, it very quickly closes in behind

them again by the law of its nature” (_Wahrheit und Dichtung_, Theil 3, s.

521). Yet this period has been only an episode, which is to be reckoned as

part of the lot referred to above that befalls all new and great

knowledge; an episode which is now unmistakably near its end, for the

bubble so long blown out yet bursts at last. Men generally are beginning

to be conscious that true and serious philosophy still stands where Kant

left it. At any rate, I cannot see that between Kant and myself anything

has been done in philosophy; therefore I regard myself as his immediate

successor.

What I have in view in this Appendix to my work is really only a defence

of the doctrine I have set forth in it, inasmuch as in many points that

doctrine does not agree with the Kantian philosophy, but indeed

contradicts it. A discussion of this philosophy is, however, necessary,

for it is clear that my train of thought, different as its content is from

that of Kant, is yet throughout under its influence, necessarily

presupposes it, starts from it; and I confess that, next to the impression

of the world of perception, I owe what is best in my own system to the

impression made upon me by the works of Kant, by the sacred writings of

the Hindus, and by Plato. But I can only justify the contradictions of

Kant which are nevertheless present in my work by accusing him of error in

these points, and exposing mistakes which he committed. Therefore in this

Appendix I must proceed against Kant in a thoroughly polemical manner, and

indeed seriously and with every effort; for it is only thus that his

doctrine can be freed from the error that clings to it, and its truth

shine out the more clearly and stand the more firmly. It must not,

therefore, be expected that the sincere reverence for Kant which I

certainly feel shall extend to his weaknesses and errors also, and that I

shall consequently refrain from exposing these except with the most

careful indulgence, whereby my language would necessarily become weak and

insipid through circumlocution. Towards a living writer such indulgence is

needed, for human frailty cannot endure even the most just refutation of

an error, unless tempered by soothing and flattery, and hardly even then;

and a teacher of the age and benefactor of mankind deserves at least that

the human weakness he also has should be indulged, so that he may not be

caused pain. But he who is dead has thrown off this weakness; his merit

stands firm; time will purify it more and more from all exaggeration and

detraction. His mistakes must be separated from it, rendered harmless, and

then given over to oblivion. Therefore in the polemic against Kant I am

about to begin, I have only his mistakes and weak points in view. I oppose

them with hostility, and wage a relentless war of extermination against

them, always mindful not to conceal them indulgently, but rather to place

them in the clearest light, in order to extirpate them the more surely.

For the reasons given above, I am not conscious either of injustice or

ingratitude towards Kant in doing this. However, in order that, in the

eyes of others also, I may remove every appearance of malice, I wish first

to bring out clearly my sincere reverence for Kant and gratitude to him,

by expressing shortly what in my eyes appears to be his chief merit; and I

shall do this from a standpoint so general that I shall not require to

touch upon the points in which I must afterwards controvert him.

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_Kant’s greatest merit is the distinction of the phenomenon from the thing

in itself_, based upon the proof that between things and us there still

always stands the _intellect_, so that they cannot be known as they may be

in themselves. He was led into this path through Locke (see _Prolegomena

zu jeder Metaph._, § 13, Anm. 2). The latter had shown that the secondary

qualities of things, such as sound, smell, colour, hardness, softness,

smoothness, and the like, as founded on the affections of the senses, do

not belong to the objective body, to the thing in itself. To this he

attributed only the primary qualities, _i.e._, such as only presuppose

space and impenetrability; thus extension, figure, solidity, number,

mobility. But this easily discovered Lockeian distinction was, as it were,

only a youthful introduction to the distinction of Kant. The latter,

starting from an incomparably higher standpoint, explains all that Locke

had accepted as _primary qualities_, _i.e._, qualities of the thing in

itself, as also belonging only to its phenomenal appearance in our faculty

of apprehension, and this just because the conditions of this faculty,

space, time, and causality, are known by us _a priori_. Thus Locke had

abstracted from the thing in itself the share which the organs of sense

have in its phenomenal appearance; Kant, however, further abstracted the

share of the brain-functions (though not under that name). Thus the

distinction between the phenomenon and the thing in itself now received an

infinitely greater significance, and a very much deeper meaning. For this

end he was obliged to take in hand the important separation of our _a

priori_ from our _a posteriori_ knowledge, which before him had never been

carried out with adequate strictness and completeness, nor with distinct

consciousness. Accordingly this now became the principal subject of his

profound investigations. Now here we would at once remark that Kant’s

philosophy has a threefold relation to that of his predecessors. First, as

we have just seen, to the philosophy of Locke, confirming and extending

it; secondly, to that of Hume, correcting and making use of it, a relation

which is most distinctly expressed in the “_Prolegomena_” (that most

beautiful and comprehensible of all Kant’s important writings, which is

far too little read, for it facilitates immensely the study of his

philosophy); thirdly, a decidedly polemical and destructive relation to

the Leibnitz-Wolfian philosophy. All three systems ought to be known

before one proceeds to the study of the Kantian philosophy. If now,

according to the above, the distinction of the phenomenon from the thing

in itself, thus the doctrine of the complete diversity of the ideal and

the real, is the fundamental characteristic of the Kantian philosophy,

then the assertion of the absolute identity of these two which appeared

soon afterwards is a sad proof of the saying of Goethe quoted above; all

the more so as it rested upon nothing but the empty boast of intellectual

intuition, and accordingly was only a return to the crudeness of the

vulgar opinion, masked under bombast and nonsense, and the imposing

impression of an air of importance. It became the fitting starting-point

for the still grosser nonsense of the clumsy and stupid Hegel. Now as

Kant’s separation of the phenomenon from the thing in itself, arrived at

in the manner explained above, far surpassed all that preceded it in the

depth and thoughtfulness of its conception, it was also exceedingly

important in its results. For in it he propounded, quite originally, in a

perfectly new way, found from a new side and on a new path, the same truth

which Plato never wearies of repeating, and in his language generally

expresses thus: This world which appears to the senses has no true being,

but only a ceaseless becoming; it is, and it is not, and its comprehension

is not so much knowledge as illusion. This is also what he expresses

mythically at the beginning of the seventh book of the Republic, the most

important passage in all his writings, which has already been referred to

in the third book of the present work. He says: Men, firmly chained in a

dark cave, see neither the true original light nor real things, but only

the meagre light of the fire in the cave and the shadows of real things

which pass by the fire behind their backs; yet they think the shadows are

the reality, and the determining of the succession of these shadows is

true wisdom. The same truth, again quite differently presented, is also a

leading doctrine of the Vedas and Puranas, the doctrine of Mâyâ, by which

really nothing else is understood than what Kant calls the phenomenon in

opposition to the thing in itself; for the work of Mâyâ is said to be just

this visible world in which we are, a summoned enchantment, an inconstant

appearance without true being, like an optical illusion or a dream, a veil

which surrounds human consciousness, something of which it is equally

false and true to say that it is and that it is not. But Kant not only

expressed the same doctrine in a completely new and original way, but

raised it to the position of proved and indisputable truth by means of the

calmest and most temperate exposition; while both Plato and the Indian

philosophers had founded their assertions merely upon a general perception

of the world, had advanced them as the direct utterance of their

consciousness, and presented them rather mythically and poetically than

philosophically and distinctly. In this respect they stand to Kant in the

same relation as the Pythagoreans Hicetas, Philolaus, and Aristarchus, who

already asserted the movement of the earth round the fixed sun, stand to

Copernicus. Such distinct knowledge and calm, thoughtful exposition of

this dream-like nature of the whole world is really the basis of the whole

Kantian philosophy; it is its soul and its greatest merit. He accomplished

this by taking to pieces the whole machinery of our intellect by means of

which the phantasmagoria of the objective world is brought about, and

presenting it in detail with marvellous insight and ability. All earlier

Western philosophy, appearing in comparison with the Kantian unspeakably

clumsy, had failed to recognise that truth, and had therefore always

spoken just as if in a dream. Kant first awakened it suddenly out of this

dream; therefore the last sleepers (Mendelssohn) called him the

“all-destroyer.” He showed that the laws which reign with inviolable

necessity in existence, _i.e._, in experience generally, are not to be

applied to deduce and explain _existence itself_ that thus the validity of

these laws is only relative, _i.e._, only arises after existence; the

world of experience in general is already established and present; that

consequently these laws cannot be our guide when we come to the

explanation of the existence of the world and of ourselves. All earlier

Western philosophers had imagined that these laws, according to which the

phenomena are combined, and all of which—time and space, as well as

causality and inference—I comprehend under the expression “the principle

of sufficient reason,” were absolute laws conditioned by nothing, _æternæ

veritates_; that the world itself existed only in consequence of and in

conformity with them; and therefore that under their guidance the whole

riddle of the world must be capable of solution. The assumptions made for

this purpose, which Kant criticises under the name of the Ideas of the

reason, only served to raise the mere phenomenon, the work of Mâyâ, the

shadow world of Plato, to the one highest reality, to put it in the place

of the inmost and true being of things, and thereby to make the real

knowledge of this impossible; that is, in a word, to send the dreamers

still more soundly to sleep. Kant exhibited these laws, and therefore the

whole world, as conditioned by the form of knowledge belonging to the

subject; from which it followed, that however far one carried

investigation and reasoning under the guidance of these laws, yet in the

principal matter, _i.e._, in knowledge of the nature of the world in

itself and outside the idea, no step in advance was made, but one only

moved like a squirrel in its wheel. Thus, all the dogmatists may be

compared to persons who supposed that if they only went straight on long

enough they would come to the end of the world; but Kant then

circumnavigated the world and showed that, because it is round, one cannot

get out of it by horizontal movement, but that yet by perpendicular

movement this is perhaps not impossible. We may also say that Kant’s

doctrine affords the insight that we must seek the end and beginning of

the world, not without, but within us.

All this, however, rests on the fundamental distinction between dogmatic

and _critical_ or _transcendental philosophy_. Whoever wishes to make this

quite clear to himself, and realise it by means of an example, may do so

very briefly by reading, as a specimen of dogmatic philosophy, an essay of

Leibnitz entitled “_De Rerum Originatione Radicali_,” and printed for the

first time in the edition of the philosophical works of Leibnitz by

Erdmann (vol. i. p. 147). Here the origin and excellence of the world is

demonstrated _a priori_, so thoroughly in the manner of

realistic-dogmatism, on the ground of the _veritates æternæ_ and with the

assistance of the ontological and cosmological proofs. It is indeed once

admitted, by the way, that experience shows the exact opposite of the

excellence of the world here demonstrated; but experience is therefore

given to understand that it knows nothing of the matter, and ought to hold

its tongue when philosophy has spoken a priori. Now, with Kant, the

_critical philosophy_ appeared as the opponent of this whole method. It

takes for its problem just these _veritates æternæ_, which serve as the

foundation of every such dogmatic structure, investigates their origin,

and finds it in the human mind, where they spring from the peculiar forms

which belong to it, and which it carries in itself for the purpose of

comprehending an objective world. Thus, here, in the brain, is the quarry

which supplies the material for that proud dogmatic edifice. But because

the critical philosophy, in order to attain to this result, was obliged to

go beyond the _veritates æternæ_ upon which all the preceding dogmatism

was founded, and make these truths themselves the objects of

investigation, it became _transcendental_ philosophy. From this, then, it

also follows that the objective world, as we know it, does not belong to

the true being of the thing in itself, but is merely its phenomenal

appearance conditioned by those very forms which lie _a priori_ in the

intellect (_i.e._, the brain), therefore it cannot contain anything but

phenomena.

Kant, indeed, did not attain to the knowledge that the phenomenon is the

world as idea, and the thing in itself is the will. But he showed that the

phenomenal world is conditioned just as much through the subject as

through the object, and because he isolated the most universal forms of

its phenomenal appearance, _i.e._, of the idea, he proved that we may know

these forms and consider them in their whole constitution, not only by

starting from the object, but also just as well by starting from the

subject, because they are really the limits between object and subject

which are common to them both; and he concluded that by following these

limits we never penetrate to the inner nature either of the object or of

the subject, consequently never know the true nature of the world, the

thing in itself.

He did not deduce the thing in itself in the right way, as I shall show

presently, but by means of an inconsistency, and he had to pay the penalty

of this in frequent and irresistible attacks upon this important part of

his teaching. He did not recognise the thing in itself directly in the

will; but he made a great initial step towards this knowledge in that he

explained the undeniable moral significance of human action as quite

different from and not dependent upon the laws of the phenomenon, nor even

explicable in accordance with them, but as something which touches the

thing in itself directly: this is the second important point of view for

estimating his services.

We may regard as the third the complete overthrow of the Scholastic

philosophy, a name by which I wish here to denote generally the whole

period beginning with Augustine, the Church Father, and ending just before

Kant. For the chief characteristic of Scholasticism is, indeed, that which

is very correctly stated by Tennemann, the guardianship of the prevailing

national religion over philosophy, which had really nothing left for it to

do but to prove and embellish the cardinal dogmas prescribed to it by

religion. The Schoolmen proper, down to Suarez, confess this openly; the

succeeding philosophers do it more unconsciously, or at least unavowedly.

It is held that Scholastic philosophy only extends to about a hundred

years before Descartes, and that then with him there begins an entirely

new epoch of free investigation independent of all positive theological

doctrine. Such investigation, however, is in fact not to be attributed to

Descartes and his successors,(1) but only an appearance of it, and in any

case an effort after it. Descartes was a man of supreme ability, and if we

take account of the age he lived in, he accomplished a great deal. But if

we set aside this consideration and measure him with reference to the

freeing of thought from all fetters and the commencement of a new period

of untrammelled original investigation with which he is credited, we are

obliged to find that with his doubt still wanting in true seriousness, and

therefore surrendering so quickly and so entirely, he has, indeed, the

appearance of wishing to throw off at once all the early implanted

opinions belonging to his age and nation, but does so only apparently and

for a moment, to assume them again immediately and hold them all the more

firmly; and so is it with all his successors down to Kant. Goethe’s lines

are, therefore, very applicable to a free independent thinker of this

kind:

“Saving Thy gracious presence, he to me

A long-legged grasshopper appears to be,

That springing flies, and flying springs,

And in the grass the same old ditty sings.”(2)

Kant had reasons for assuming the air of also intending nothing more. But

the pretended spring, which was permitted because it was known that it

leads back to the grass, this time became a flight, and now those who

remain below can only look after him, and can never catch him again.

Kant, then, ventured to show by his teaching that all those dogmas which

had been so often professedly proved were incapable of proof. Speculative

theology, and the rational psychology connected with it, received from him

their deathblow. Since then they have vanished from German philosophy, and

one must not allow oneself to be misled by the fact that here and there

the word is retained after the thing has been given up, or some wretched

professor of philosophy has the fear of his master in view, and lets truth

take care of itself. Only he who has observed the pernicious influence of

these conceptions upon natural science, and upon philosophy in all, even

the best writers of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, can estimate

the extent of this service of Kant’s. The change of tone and of

metaphysical background which has appeared in German writing upon natural

science since Kant is remarkable; before him it was in the same position

as it still occupies in England. This merit of Kant’s is connected with

the fact that the unreflecting pursuit of the laws of the phenomenon, the

elevation of these to the position of eternal truths, and thus the raising

of the fleeting appearance to the position of the real being of the world,

in short, _realism_ undisturbed in its illusion by any reflection, had

reigned throughout all preceding philosophy, ancient, mediæval, and

modern. Berkeley, who, like Malebranche before him, recognised its

one-sidedness, and indeed falseness, was unable to overthrow it, for his

attack was confined to _one_ point. Thus it was reserved for Kant to

enable the idealistic point of view to obtain the ascendancy in Europe, at

least in philosophy; the point of view which throughout all non-Mohammedan

Asia, and indeed essentially, is that of religion. Before Kant, then, we

were in time; now time is in us, and so on.

Ethics also were treated by that realistic philosophy according to the

laws of the phenomenon, which it regarded as absolute and valid also for

the thing in itself. They were therefore based now upon a doctrine of

happiness, now upon the will of the Creator, and finally upon the

conception of perfection; a conception which, taken by itself, is entirely

empty and void of content, for it denotes a mere relation that only

receives significance from the things to which it is applied. “To be

perfect” means nothing more than “to correspond to some conception which

is presupposed and given,” a conception which must therefore be previously

framed, and without which the perfection is an unknown quantity, and

consequently has no meaning when expressed alone. If, however, it is

intended tacitly to presuppose the conception “humanity,” and accordingly

to make it the principle of morality to strive after human perfection,

this is only saying: “Men ought to be as they ought to be,”—and we are

just as wise as before. In fact “perfect” is very nearly a mere synonym of

“complete,” for it signifies that in one given case or individual, all the

predicates which lie in the conception of its species appear, thus are

actually present. Therefore the conception “perfection,” if used

absolutely and in the abstract, is a word void of significance, and this

is also the case with the talk about the “most perfect being,” and other

similar expressions. All this is a mere jingle of words. Nevertheless last

century this conception of perfection and imperfection had become current

coin; indeed it was the hinge upon which almost all speculation upon

ethics, and even theology, turned. It was in every one’s mouth, so that at

last it became a simple nuisance. We see even the best writers of the

time, for example Lessing, entangled in the most deplorable manner in

perfections and imperfections, and struggling with them. At the same time,

every thinking man must at least dimly have felt that this conception is

void of all positive content, because, like an algebraical symbol, it

denotes a mere relation _in abstracto_. Kant, as we have already said,

entirely separated the undeniably great ethical significance of actions

from the phenomenon and its laws, and showed that the former directly

concerned the thing in itself, the inner nature of the world, while the

latter, _i.e._, time, space, and all that fills them, and disposes itself

in them according to the law of causality, is to be regarded as a changing

and unsubstantial dream.

The little I have said, which by no means exhausts the subject, may

suffice as evidence of my recognition of the great merits of Kant,—a

recognition expressed here both for my own satisfaction, and because

justice demands that those merits should be recalled to the memory of

every one who desires to follow me in the unsparing exposure of his errors

to which I now proceed.

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It may be inferred, upon purely historical grounds, that Kant’s great

achievements must have been accompanied by great errors. For although he

effected the greatest revolution in philosophy and made an end of

Scholasticism, which, understood in the wider sense we have indicated, had

lasted for fourteen centuries, in order to begin what was really the third

entirely new epoch in philosophy which the world has seen, yet the direct

result of his appearance was only negative, not positive. For since he did

not set up a completely new system, to which his disciples could only have

adhered for a period, all indeed observed that something very great had

happened, but yet no one rightly knew what. They certainly saw that all

previous philosophy had been fruitless dreaming, from which the new age

had now awakened, but what they ought to hold to now they did not know. A

great void was felt; a great need had arisen; the universal attention even

of the general public was aroused. Induced by this, but not urged by

inward inclination and sense of power (which find utterance even at

unfavourable times, as in the case of Spinoza), men without any

exceptional talent made various weak, absurd, and indeed sometimes insane,

attempts, to which, however, the now interested public gave its attention,

and with great patience, such as is only found in Germany, long lent its

ear.

The same thing must once have happened in Nature, when a great revolution

had altered the whole surface of the earth, land and sea had changed

places, and the scene was cleared for a new creation. It was then a long

time before Nature could produce a new series of lasting forms all in

harmony with themselves and with each other. Strange and monstrous

organisations appeared which did not harmonise either with themselves or

with each other, and therefore could not endure long, but whose still

existing remains have brought down to us the tokens of that wavering and

tentative procedure of Nature forming itself anew.

Since, now, in philosophy, a crisis precisely similar to this, and an age

of fearful abortions, was, as we all know, introduced by Kant, it may be

concluded that the services he rendered were not complete, but must have

been negative and one-sided, and burdened with great defects. These

defects we now desire to search out.

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First of all we shall present to ourselves clearly and examine the

fundamental thought in which the aim of the whole “Critique of Pure

Reason” lies. Kant placed himself at the standpoint of his predecessors,

the dogmatic philosophers, and accordingly he started with them from the

following assumptions:—(1.) Metaphysics is the science of that which lies

beyond the possibility of all experience. (2.) Such a science can never be

attained by applying principles which must first themselves be drawn from

experience (_Prolegomena_, § 1); but only what we know _before_, and thus

_independently of_ all experience, can reach further than possible

experience. (3.) In our reason certain principles of this kind are

actually to be found: they are comprehended under the name of Knowledge of

pure reason. So far Kant goes with his predecessors, but here he separates

from them. They say: “These principles, or this knowledge of pure reason,

are expressions of the absolute possibility of things, _æternæ veritates_,

sources of ontology; they stand above the system of the world, as fate

stood above the gods of the ancients.” Kant says, they are mere forms of

our intellect, laws, not of the existence of things, but of our idea of

them; they are therefore valid merely for our apprehension of things, and

hence they cannot extend beyond the possibility of experience, which,

according to assumption 1, is what was aimed at; for the _a priori_ nature

of these forms of knowledge, since it can only rest on their subjective

origin, is just what cuts us off for ever from the knowledge of the nature

of things in themselves, and confines us to a world of mere phenomena, so

that we cannot know things as they may be in themselves, even _a

posteriori_, not to speak of _a priori_. Accordingly metaphysics is

impossible, and criticism of pure reason takes its place. As opposed to

the old dogmatism, Kant is here completely victorious; therefore all

dogmatic attempts which have since appeared have been obliged to pursue an

entirely different path from the earlier systems; and I shall now go on to

the justification of my own system, according to the expressed intention

of this criticism. A more careful examination, then, of the reasoning

given above will oblige one to confess that its first fundamental

assumption is a _petitio principii_. It lies in the proposition (stated

with particular clearness in the _Prolegomena_, § 1): “The source of

metaphysics must throughout be non-empirical; its fundamental principles

and conceptions must never be taken from either inner or outer

experience.” Yet absolutely nothing is advanced in proof of this cardinal

assertion except the etymological argument from the word metaphysic. In

truth, however, the matter stands thus: The world and our own existence

presents itself to us necessarily as a riddle. It is now assumed, without

more ado, that the solution of this riddle cannot be arrived at from a

thorough understanding of the world itself, but must be sought in

something entirely different from the world (for that is the meaning of

“beyond the possibility of all experience”); and that everything must be

excluded from that solution of which we can in any way have _immediate_

knowledge (for that is the meaning of possible experience, both inner and

outer); the solution must rather be sought only in that at which we can

arrive merely indirectly, that is, by means of inferences from universal

principles _a priori_. After the principal source of all knowledge has in

this way been excluded, and the direct way to truth has been closed, we

must not wonder that the dogmatic systems failed, and that Kant was able

to show the necessity of this failure; for metaphysics and knowledge _a

priori_ had been assumed beforehand to be identical. But for this it was

first necessary to prove that the material for the solution of the riddle

absolutely cannot be contained in the world itself, but must be sought for

only outside the world in something we can only attain to under the

guidance of those forms of which we are conscious _a priori_. But so long

as this is not proved, we have no grounds for shutting ourselves off, in

the case of the most important and most difficult of all questions, from

the richest of all sources of knowledge, inner and outer experience, in

order to work only with empty forms. I therefore say that the solution of

the riddle of the world must proceed from the understanding of the world

itself; that thus the task of metaphysics is not to pass beyond the

experience in which the world exists, but to understand it thoroughly,

because outer and inner experience is at any rate the principal source of

all knowledge; that therefore the solution of the riddle of the world is

only possible through the proper connection of outer with inner

experience, effected at the right point, and the combination thereby

produced of these two very different sources of knowledge. Yet this

solution is only possible within certain limits which are inseparable from

our finite nature, so that we attain to a right understanding of the world

itself without reaching a final explanation of its existence abolishing

all further problems. Therefore _est quadam prodire tenus_, and my path

lies midway between the omniscience of the earlier dogmatists and the

despair of the Kantian Critique. The important truths, however, which Kant

discovered, and through which the earlier metaphysical systems were

overthrown, have supplied my system with data and materials. Compare what

I have said concerning my method in chap. xvii. of the Supplements. So

much for the fundamental thought of Kant; we shall now consider his

working out of it and its details.

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Kant’s style bears throughout the stamp of a pre-eminent mind, genuine

strong individuality, and quite exceptional power of thought. Its

characteristic quality may perhaps be aptly described as a _brilliant

dryness_, by virtue of which he was able to grasp firmly and select the

conceptions with great certainty, and then to turn them about with the

greatest freedom, to the astonishment of the reader. I find the same

brilliant dryness in the style of Aristotle, though it is much simpler.

Nevertheless Kant’s language is often indistinct, indefinite, inadequate,

and sometimes obscure. Its obscurity, certainly, is partly excusable on

account of the difficulty of the subject and the depth of the thought; but

he who is himself clear to the bottom, and knows with perfect distinctness

what he thinks and wishes, will never write indistinctly, will never set

up wavering and indefinite conceptions, compose most difficult and

complicated expressions from foreign languages to denote them, and use

these expressions constantly afterwards, as Kant took words and formulas

from earlier philosophy, especially Scholasticism, which he combined with

each other to suit his purposes; as, for example, “transcendental

synthetic unity of apperception,” and in general “unity of synthesis”

(_Einheit der Synthesis_), always used where “union” (_Vereinigung_) would

be quite sufficient by itself. Moreover, a man who is himself quite clear

will not be always explaining anew what has once been explained, as Kant

does, for example, in the case of the understanding, the categories,

experience, and other leading conceptions. In general, such a man will not

incessantly repeat himself, and yet in every new exposition of the thought

already expressed a hundred times leave it in just the same obscure

condition, but he will express his meaning once distinctly, thoroughly,

and exhaustively, and then let it alone. “_Quo enim melius rem aliquam

concipimus eo magis determinati sumus ad eam unico modo exprimendam_,”

says Descartes in his fifth letter. But the most injurious result of

Kant’s occasionally obscure language is, that it acted as _exemplar vitiis

imitabile_; indeed, it was misconstrued as a pernicious authorisation. The

public was compelled to see that what is obscure is not always without

significance; consequently, what was without significance took refuge

behind obscure language. Fichte was the first to seize this new privilege

and use it vigorously; Schelling at least equalled him; and a host of

hungry scribblers, without talent and without honesty, soon outbade them

both. But the height of audacity, in serving up pure nonsense, in

stringing together senseless and extravagant mazes of words, such as had

previously only been heard in madhouses, was finally reached in Hegel, and

became the instrument of the most barefaced general mystification that has

ever taken place, with a result which will appear fabulous to posterity,

and will remain as a monument of German stupidity. In vain, meanwhile,

Jean Paul wrote his beautiful paragraph, “Higher criticism of

philosophical madness in the professorial chair, and poetical madness in

the theatre” (_Æsthetische Nachschule_); for in vain Goethe had already

said—

“They prate and teach, and no one interferes;

All from the fellowship of fools are shrinking;

Man usually believes, if only words he hears,

That also with them goes material for thinking.”(3)

But let us return to Kant. We are compelled to admit that he entirely

lacks grand, classical simplicity, _naïveté_, _ingénuité_, _candeur_. His

philosophy has no analogy with Grecian architecture, which presents large

simple proportions revealing themselves at once to the glance; on the

contrary, it reminds us strongly of the Gothic style of building. For a

purely individual characteristic of Kant’s mind is a remarkable love of

_symmetry_, which delights in a varied multiplicity, so that it may reduce

it to order, and repeat this order in subordinate orders, and so on

indefinitely, just as happens in Gothic churches. Indeed, he sometimes

carries this to the extent of trifling, and from love of this tendency he

goes so far as to do open violence to truth, and to deal with it as Nature

was dealt with by the old-fashioned gardeners, whose work we see in

symmetrical alleys, squares, and triangles, trees shaped like pyramids and

spheres, and hedges winding in regular curves. I will support this with

facts.

After he has treated space and time isolated from everything else, and has

then dismissed this whole world of perception which fills space and time,

and in which we live and are, with the meaningless words “the empirical

content of perception is given us,” he immediately arrives with one spring

at _the logical basis of his whole philosophy, the table of judgments_.

From this table he deduces an exact dozen of categories, symmetrically

arranged under four heads, which afterwards become the fearful procrustean

bed into which he violently forces all things in the world and all that

goes on in man, shrinking from no violence and disdaining no sophistry if

only he is able to repeat everywhere the symmetry of that table. The first

that is symmetrically deduced from it is the pure physiological table of

the general principles of natural science—the axioms of intuition,

anticipations of perception, analogies of experience, and postulates of

empirical thought in general. Of these fundamental principles, the first

two are simple; but each of the last two sends out symmetrically three

shoots. The mere categories were what he calls _conceptions_; but these

principles of natural science are _judgments_. In accordance with his

highest guide to all wisdom, symmetry, the series must now prove itself

fruitful in the syllogisms, and this, indeed, is done symmetrically and

regularly. For, as by the application of the categories to sensibility,

experience with all its _a priori_ principles arose for the understanding,

so by the application of _syllogisms_ to the categories, a task performed

by the _reason_ in accordance with its pretended principle of seeking the

unconditioned, the _Ideas_ of the reason arise. Now this takes place in

the following manner: The three categories of relation supply to

syllogistic reasoning the three only possible kinds of major premisses,

and syllogistic reasoning accordingly falls into three kinds, each of

which is to be regarded as an egg out of which the reason hatches an Idea;

out of the categorical syllogism the Idea of the _soul_, out of the

hypothetical the Idea of the _world_, and out of the disjunctive the Idea

of _God_. In the second of these, the Idea of the world, the symmetry of

the table of the categories now repeats itself again, for its four heads

produce four theses, each of which has its antithesis as a symmetrical

pendant.

We pay the tribute of our admiration to the really exceedingly acute

combination which produced this elegant structure, but we shall none the

less proceed to a thorough examination of its foundation and its parts.

But the following remarks must come first.

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It is astonishing how Kant, without further reflection, pursues his way,

following his symmetry, ordering everything in accordance with it, without

ever taking one of the subjects so handled into consideration on its own

account. I will explain myself more fully. After he has considered

intuitive knowledge in a mathematical reference only, he neglects

altogether the rest of knowledge of perception in which the world lies

before us, and confines himself entirely to abstract thinking, although

this receives the whole of its significance and value from the world of

perception alone, which is infinitely more significant, generally present,

and rich in content than the abstract part of our knowledge. Indeed, and

this is an important point, he has nowhere clearly distinguished

perception from abstract knowledge, and just on this account, as we shall

afterwards see, he becomes involved in irresolvable contradictions with

himself. After he has disposed of the whole sensible world with the

meaningless “it is given,” he makes, as we have said, the logical table of

judgments the foundation-stone of his building. But here again he does not

reflect for a moment upon that which really lies before him. These forms

of judgment are indeed _words_ and _combinations of words_; yet it ought

first to have been asked what these directly denote: it would have been

found that they denote _conceptions_. The next question would then have

been as to the nature of _conceptions_. It would have appeared from the

answer what relation these have to the ideas of perception in which the

world exists; for perception and reflection would have been distinguished.

It would now have become necessary to examine, not merely how pure and

merely formal intuition or perception _a priori_, but also how its

content, the empirical perception, comes into consciousness. But then it

would have become apparent what part the _understanding_ has in this, and

thus also in general what the _understanding_ is, and, on the other hand,

what the _reason_ properly is, the critique of which is being written. It

is most remarkable that he does not once properly and adequately define

the latter, but merely gives incidentally, and as the context in each case

demands, incomplete and inaccurate explanations of it, in direct

contradiction to the rule of Descartes given above.(4) For example, at p.

11; V. 24, of the “Critique of Pure Reason,” it is the faculty of

principles _a priori_; but at p. 299; V. 356, it is said that reason is

the faculty of _principles_, and it is opposed to the understanding, which

is the faculty of _rules_! One would now think that there must be a very

wide difference between principles and rules, since it entitles us to

assume a special faculty of knowledge for each of them. But this great

distinction is made to lie merely in this, that what is known _a priori_

through pure perception or through the forms of the understanding is a

rule, and only what results from mere conceptions is a principle. We shall

return to this arbitrary and inadmissible distinction later, when we come

to the Dialectic. On p. 330; V. 386, reason is the faculty of inference;

mere judging (p. 69; V. 94) he often explains as the work of the

understanding. Now, this really amounts to saying: Judging is the work of

the understanding so long as the ground of the judgment is empirical,

transcendental, or metalogical (Essay on the Principle of Sufficient

Reason, § 31, 32, 33); but if it is logical, as is the case with the

syllogism, then we are here concerned with a quite special and much more

important faculty of knowledge—the reason. Nay, what is more, on p. 303;

V. 360, it is explained that what follows directly from a proposition is

still a matter of the understanding, and that only those conclusions which

are arrived at by the use of a mediating conception are the work of the

reason, and the example given is this: From the proposition, “All men are

mortal,” the inference, “Some mortals are men,” may be drawn by the mere

understanding. On the other hand, to draw the conclusion, “All the learned

are mortal,” demands an entirely different and far more important

faculty—the reason. How was it possible for a great thinker to write the

like of this! On p. 553; V. 581, reason is all at once the constant

condition of all voluntary action. On p. 614; V. 642, it consists in the

fact that we can give an account of our assertions; on pp. 643, 644; V.

671, 672, in the circumstance that it brings unity into the conceptions of

the understanding by means of Ideas, as the understanding brings unity

into the multiplicity of objects by means of conceptions. On p. 646; V.

674, it is nothing else than the faculty which deduces the particular from

the general.

The understanding also is constantly being explained anew. In seven

passages of the “Critique of Pure Reason” it is explained in the following

terms. On p. 51; V. 75, it is the faculty which of itself produces ideas

of perception. On p. 69; V. 94, it is the faculty of judging, _i.e._, of

thinking, _i.e._, of knowing through conceptions. On p. 137 of the fifth

edition, it is the faculty of knowledge generally. On p. 132; V. 171, it

is the faculty of rules. On p. 158; V. 197, however, it is said: “It is

not only the faculty of rules, but the source of principles (_Grundsätze_)

according to which everything comes under rules;” and yet above it was

opposed to the reason because the latter alone was the faculty of

principles (_Principien_). On p. 160; V. 199, the understanding is the

faculty of conceptions; but on p. 302; V. 359, it is the faculty of the

unity of phenomena by means of rules.

Against such really confused and groundless language on the subject (even

though it comes from Kant) I shall have no need to defend the explanation

which I have given of these two faculties of knowledge—an explanation

which is fixed, clearly defined, definite, simple, and in full agreement

with the language of all nations and all ages. I have only quoted this

language as a proof of my charge that Kant follows his symmetrical,

logical system without sufficiently reflecting upon the subject he is thus

handling.

Now, as I have said above, if Kant had seriously examined how far two such

different faculties of knowledge, one of which is the specific difference

of man, may be known, and what, in accordance with the language of all

nations and all philosophers, reason and understanding are, he would

never, without further authority than the _intellectus theoreticus_ and

_practicus_ of the Schoolmen, which is used in an entirely different

sense, have divided the reason into theoretical and practical, and made

the latter the source of virtuous conduct. In the same way, before Kant

separated so carefully conceptions of the understanding (by which he

sometimes means his categories, sometimes all general conceptions) and

conceptions of the reason (his so-called Ideas), and made them both the

material of his philosophy, which for the most part deals only with the

validity, application, and origin of all these conceptions;—first, I say,

he ought to have really examined what in general a _conception_ is. But

this very necessary investigation has unfortunately been also neglected,

and has contributed much to the irremediable confusion of intuitive and

abstract knowledge which I shall soon refer to. The same want of adequate

reflection with which he passed over the questions: what is perception?

what is reflection? what is conception? what is reason? what is

understanding? allowed him to pass over the following investigations,

which were just as inevitably necessary: what is it that I call the

_object_, which I distinguish from the _idea_? what is existence? what is

object? what is subject? what is truth, illusion, error? But he follows

his logical schema and his symmetry without reflecting or looking about

him. The table of judgments ought to, and must, be the key to all wisdom.

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I have given it above as the chief merit of Kant that he distinguished the

phenomenon from the thing in itself, explained the whole visible world as

phenomenon, and therefore denied all validity to its laws beyond the

phenomenon. It is certainly remarkable that he did not deduce this merely

relative existence of the phenomenon from the simple undeniable truth

which lay so near him, “_No object without a subject_,” in order thus at

the very root to show that the object, because it always exists merely in

relation to a subject, is dependent upon it, conditioned by it, and

therefore conditioned as mere phenomenon, which does not exist in itself

nor unconditioned. Berkeley, to whose merits Kant did not do justice, had

already made this important principle the foundation-stone of his

philosophy, and thereby established an immortal reputation. Yet he himself

did not draw the proper conclusions from this principle, and so he was

both misunderstood and insufficiently attended to. In my first edition I

explained Kant’s avoidance of this Berkeleian principle as arising from an

evident shrinking from decided idealism; while, on the other hand, I found

idealism distinctly expressed in many passages of the “Critique of Pure

Reason,” and accordingly I charged Kant with contradicting himself. And

this charge was well founded, if, as was then my case, one only knew the

“Critique of Pure Reason” in the second or any of the five subsequent

editions printed from it. But when later I read Kant’s great work in the

first edition, which is already so rare, I saw, to my great pleasure, all

these contradictions disappear, and found that although Kant does not use

the formula, “No object without a subject,” he yet explains, with just as

much decision as Berkeley and I do, the outer world lying before us in

space and time as the mere idea of the subject that knows it. Therefore,

for example, he says there without reserve (p. 383): “If I take away the

thinking subject, the whole material world must disappear, for it is

nothing but a phenomenon in the sensibility of our subject, and a class of

its ideas.” But the whole passage from p. 348-392, in which Kant expounded

his pronounced idealism with peculiar beauty and clearness, was suppressed

by him in the second edition, and instead of it a number of remarks

controverting it were introduced. In this way then the text of the

“Critique of Pure Reason,” as it has circulated from the year 1787 to the

year 1838, was disfigured and spoilt, and it became a self-contradictory

book, the sense of which could not therefore be thoroughly clear and

comprehensible to any one. The particulars about this, and also my

conjectures as to the reasons and the weaknesses which may have influenced

Kant so to disfigure his immortal work, I have given in a letter to

Professor Rosenkranz, and he has quoted the principal passage of it in his

preface to the second volume of the edition of Kant’s collected works

edited by him, to which I therefore refer. In consequence of my

representations, Professor Rosenkranz was induced in the year 1838 to

restore the “Critique of Pure Reason” to its original form, for in the

second volume referred to he had it printed according to the _first_

edition of 1781, by which he has rendered an inestimable service to

philosophy; indeed, he has perhaps saved from destruction the most

important work of German literature; and this should always be remembered

to his credit. But let no one imagine that he knows the “Critique of Pure

Reason” and has a distinct conception of Kant’s teaching if he has only

read the second or one of the later editions. That is altogether

impossible, for he has only read a mutilated, spoilt, and to a certain

extent ungenuine text. It is my duty to say this here decidedly and for

every one’s warning.

Yet the way in which Kant introduces the _thing in itself_ stands in

undeniable contradiction with the distinctly idealistic point of view so

clearly expressed in the first edition of the “Critique of Pure Reason,”

and without doubt this is the chief reason why, in the second edition, he

suppressed the principal idealistic passage we have referred to, and

directly declared himself opposed to the Berkeleian idealism, though by

doing so he only introduced inconsistencies into his work, without being

able to remedy its principal defect. This defect, as is known, is the

introduction of the _thing in itself_ in the way chosen by him, the

inadmissibleness of which was exposed at length by G. E. Schulze in

“_Ænesidemus_,” and was soon recognised as the untenable point of his

system. The matter may be made clear in a very few words. Kant based the

assumption of the thing in itself, though concealed under various modes of

expression, upon an inference from the law of causality—an inference that

the empirical perception, or more accurately the _sensation_, in our

organs of sense, from which it proceeds, must have an external cause. But

according to his own account, which is correct, the law of causality is

known to us _a priori_, consequently is a function of our intellect, and

is thus of _subjective_ origin; further, sensation itself, to which we

here apply the law of causality, is undeniably _subjective_; and finally,

even space, in which, by means of this application, we place the cause of

this sensation as object, is a form of our intellect given _a priori_, and

is consequently _subjective_. Therefore the whole empirical perception

remains always upon a _subjective_ foundation, as a mere process in us,

and nothing entirely different from it and independent of it can be

brought in as a _thing in itself_, or shown to be a necessary assumption.

The empirical perception actually is and remains merely our idea: it is

the world as idea. An inner nature of this we can only arrive at on the

entirely different path followed by me, by means of calling in the aid of

self-consciousness, which proclaims the will as the inner nature of our

own phenomenon; but then the thing in itself will be one which is _toto

genere_ different from the idea and its elements, as I have explained.

The great defect of the Kantian system in this point, which, as has been

said, was soon pointed out, is an illustration of the truth of the

beautiful Indian proverb: “No lotus without a stem.” The erroneous

deduction of the thing in itself is here the stem; yet only the method of

the deduction, not the recognition of a thing in itself belonging to the

given phenomenon. But this last was Fichte’s misunderstanding of it, which

could only happen because he was not concerned with truth, but with making

a sensation for the furtherance of his individual ends. Accordingly he was

bold and thoughtless enough to deny the thing in itself altogether, and to

set up a system in which, not, as with Kant, the mere form of the idea,

but also the matter, its whole content, was professedly deduced _a priori_

from the subject. In doing this, he counted with perfect correctness upon

the want of judgment and the stupidity of the public, which accepted

miserable sophisms, mere hocus-pocus and senseless babble, for proofs; so

that he succeeded in turning its attention from Kant to himself, and gave

the direction to German philosophy in which it was afterwards carried

further by Schelling, and ultimately reached its goal in the mad sophistry

of Hegel.

I now return to the great mistake of Kant, already touched on above, that

he has not properly separated perceptible and abstract knowledge, whereby

an inextricable confusion has arisen which we have now to consider more

closely. If he had sharply separated ideas of perception from conceptions

merely thought _in abstracto_, he would have held these two apart, and in

every case would have known with which of the two he had to do. This,

however, was unfortunately not the case, although this accusation has not

yet been openly made, and may thus perhaps be unexpected. His “object of

experience,” of which he is constantly speaking, the proper object of the

categories, is not the idea of perception; neither is it the abstract

conception, but it is different from both, and yet both at once, and is a

perfect chimera. For, incredible as it may seem, he lacked either the

wisdom or the honesty to come to an understanding with himself about this,

and to explain distinctly to himself and others whether his “object of

experience, _i.e._, the knowledge produced by the application of the

categories,” is the idea of perception in space and time (my first class

of ideas), or merely the abstract conception. Strange as it is, there

always runs in his mind something between the two, and hence arises the

unfortunate confusion which I must now bring to light. For this end I must

go through the whole theory of elements in a general way.

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The “Transcendental Æsthetic” is a work of such extraordinary merit that

it alone would have been sufficient to immortalise the name of Kant. Its

proofs carry such perfect conviction, that I number its propositions among

incontestable truths, and without doubt they are also among those that are

richest in results, and are, therefore, to be regarded as the rarest thing

in the world, a real and great discovery in metaphysics. The fact,

strictly proved by him, that a part of our knowledge is known to us _a

priori_, admits of no other explanation than that this constitutes the

forms of our intellect; indeed, this is less an explanation than merely

the distinct expression of the fact itself. For _a priori_ means nothing

else than “not gained on the path of experience, thus not come into us

from without.” But what is present in the intellect, and has not come from

without, is just what belongs originally to the intellect itself, its own

nature. Now if what is thus present in the intellect itself consists of

the general mode or manner in which it must present all its objects to

itself, this is just saying that what is thus present is the intellect’s

forms of knowing, _i.e._, the mode, fixed once for all, in which it

fulfils this its function. Accordingly, “knowledge _a priori_” and “the

intellect’s own forms” are at bottom only two expressions for the same

things thus to a certain extent synonyms.

Therefore from the doctrine of the Transcendental Æsthetic I knew of

nothing to take away, only of something to add. Kant did not carry out his

thought to the end, especially in this respect, that he did not reject

Euclid’s whole method of demonstration, even after having said on p. 87;

V. 120, that all geometrical knowledge has direct evidence from

perception. It is most remarkable that one of Kant’s opponents, and indeed

the acutest of them, G. E. Schulze (_Kritik der theoretischen

Philosophie_, ii. 241), draws the conclusion that from his doctrine an

entirely different treatment of geometry from that which is actually in

use would arise; and thus he thought to bring an apagogical argument

against Kant, but, in fact, without knowing it, he only began the war

against the method of Euclid. Let me refer to § 15 of the first book of

this work.

After the full exposition of the universal _forms_ of perception given in

the Transcendental Æsthetic, one necessarily expects to receive some

explanation as to its _content_, as to the way in which the _empirical_

perception comes into our consciousness, how the knowledge of this whole

world, which is for us so real and so important, arises in us. But the

whole teaching of Kant contains really nothing more about this than the

oft-repeated meaningless expression: “The empirical element in perception

is _given_ from without.” Consequently here also from the _pure forms of

perception_ Kant arrives with one spring at _thinking_ at the

_Transcendental Logic_. Just at the beginning of the Transcendental Logic

(Critique of Pure Reason, p. 50; V. 74), where Kant cannot avoid touching

upon the content of the empirical perception, he takes the first false

step; he is guilty of the πρωτον ψευδος. “Our knowledge,” he says, “has

two sources, receptivity of impressions and spontaneity of conceptions:

the first is the capacity for receiving ideas, the second that of knowing

an object through these ideas: through the first an _object_ is given us,

through the second it is thought.” This is false; for according to it the

_impression_, for which alone we have mere receptivity, which thus comes

from without and alone is properly “given,” would be already an _idea_,

and indeed an _object_. But it is nothing more than a mere _sensation_ in

the organ of sense, and only by the application of the _understanding_

(_i.e._, of the law of causality) and the forms of perception, space and

time, does our _intellect_ change this mere _sensation_ into an _idea_,

which now exists as an object in space and time, and cannot be

distinguished from the latter (the object) except in so far as we ask

after the thing in itself, but apart from this is identical with it. I

have explained this point fully in the essay on the principle of

sufficient reason, § 21. With this, however, the work of the understanding

and of the faculty of perception is completed, and no conceptions and no

thinking are required in addition; therefore the brute also has these

_ideas_. If conceptions are added, if thinking is added, to which

spontaneity may certainly be attributed, then knowledge of _perception_ is

entirely abandoned, and a completely different class of ideas comes into

consciousness, non-perceptible abstract conceptions. This is the activity

of the _reason_, which yet obtains the whole content of its thinking only

from the previous perception, and the comparison of it with other

perceptions and conceptions. But thus Kant brings thinking into the

perception, and lays the foundation for the inextricable confusion of

intuitive and abstract knowledge which I am now engaged in condemning. He

allows the perception, taken by itself, to be without understanding,

purely sensuous, and thus quite passive, and only through thinking

(category of the understanding) does he allow an _object_ to be

apprehended: thus he brings _thought into the perception_. But then,

again, the object of thinking is an individual real object; and in this

way thinking loses its essential character of universality and

abstraction, and instead of general conceptions receives individual things

as its object: thus again he _brings perception into thinking_. From this

springs the inextricable confusion referred to, and the consequences of

this first false step extend over his whole theory of knowledge. Through

the whole of his theory the utter confusion of the idea of perception with

the abstract idea tends towards a something between the two which he

expounds as the object of knowledge through the understanding and its

categories, and calls this knowledge _experience_. It is hard to believe

that Kant really figured to himself something fully determined and really

distinct in this object of the understanding; I shall now prove this

through the tremendous contradiction which runs through the whole

Transcendental Logic, and is the real source of the obscurity in which it

is involved.

In the “Critique of Pure Reason,” p. 67-69; V. 92-94; p. 89, 90; V. 122,

123; further, V. 135, 139, 153, he repeats and insists: the understanding

is no faculty of perception, its knowledge is not intuitive but

discursive; the understanding is the faculty of judging (p. 69; V. 94),

and a judgment is indirect knowledge, an idea of an idea (p. 68; V. 93);

the understanding is the faculty of thinking, and thinking is knowledge

through conceptions (p. 69; V. 94); the categories of the understanding

are by no means the conditions under which objects are given in perception

(p. 89; V. 122), and perception in no way requires the functions of

thinking (p. 91; V. 123); our understanding can only think, not perceive

(V. pp. 135, 139). Further, in the “Prolegomena,” § 20, he says that

perception, sensation, _perceptio_, belongs merely to the senses; judgment

to the understanding alone; and in § 22, that the work of the senses is to

perceive, that of the understanding to think, _i.e._, to judge. Finally,

in the “Critique of Practical Reason,” fourth edition, p. 247;

Rosenkranz’s edition, p. 281, he says that the understanding is

discursive; its ideas are thoughts, not perceptions. All this is in Kant’s

own words.

From this it follows that this perceptible world would exist for us even

if we had no understanding at all; that it comes into our head in a quite

inexplicable manner, which he constantly indicates by his strange

expression the perception is _given_, without ever explaining this

indefinite and metaphorical expression further.

Now all that has been quoted is contradicted in the most glaring manner by

the whole of the rest of his doctrine of the understanding, of its

categories, and of the possibility of experience as he explains it in the

Transcendental Logic. Thus (Critique of Pure Reason, p. 79; V. 105), the

understanding through its categories brings unity into the manifold of

_perception_, and the pure conceptions of the understanding refer _a

priori_ to objects of _perception_. P. 94; V. 126, the “categories are the

condition of experience, whether of perception, which is found in it, or

of thought.” V. p. 127, the understanding is the originator of experience.

V. p. 128, the categories determine the _perception_ of objects. V. p.

130, all that we present to ourselves as connected in the object (which is

yet certainly something perceptible and not an abstraction), has been so

connected by an act of the understanding. V. p. 135, the understanding is

explained anew as the faculty of combining _a priori_, and of bringing the

multiplicity of given ideas under the unity of apperception; but according

to all ordinary use of words, apperception is not the thinking of a

conception, but is _perception_. V. p. 136, we find a first principle of

the possibility of all perception in connection with the understanding. V.

p. 143, it stands as the heading, that all sense perception is conditioned

by the categories. At the same place the _logical function of the

judgment_ also brings the manifold of given perceptions under an

apperception in general, and the manifold of a given perception stands

necessarily under the categories. V. p. 144, unity comes into perception,

by means of the categories, through the understanding. V. p. 145, the

thinking of the understanding is very strangely explained as synthetically

combining, connecting, and arranging the manifold of perception. V. p.

161, experience is only possible through the categories, and consists in

the connection of _sensations_, which, however, are just perceptions. V.

p. 159, the categories are _a priori_ knowledge of the objects of

perception in general. Further, here and at V. p. 163 and 165, a chief

doctrine of Kant’s is given, this: _that the understanding first makes

Nature possible_, because it prescribes laws for it _a priori_, and Nature

adapts itself to the system of the understanding, and so on. Nature,

however, is certainly perceptible and not an abstraction; therefore, the

understanding must be a faculty of perception. V. p. 168, it is said, the

conceptions of the understanding are the principles of the possibility of

experience, and the latter is the condition of phenomena in space and time

in general; phenomena which, however, certainly exist in perception.

Finally, p. 189-211; V. 232-265, the long proof is given (the

incorrectness of which is shown in detail in my essay on the principle of

sufficient reason, § 23) that the objective succession and also the

coexistence of objects of experience are not sensuously apprehended, but

are only brought into Nature by the understanding, and that Nature itself

first becomes possible in this way. Yet it is certain that Nature, the

course of events, and the coexistence of states, is purely perceptible,

and no mere abstract thought.

I challenge every one who shares my respect towards Kant to reconcile

these contradictions and to show that in his doctrine of the object of

experience and the way it is determined by the activity of the

understanding and its twelve functions, Kant thought something quite

distinct and definite. I am convinced that the contradiction I have

pointed out, which extends through the whole Transcendental Logic, is the

real reason of the great obscurity of its language. Kant himself, in fact,

was dimly conscious of the contradiction, inwardly combated it, but yet

either would not or could not bring it to distinct consciousness, and

therefore veiled it from himself and others, and avoided it by all kinds

of subterfuges. This is perhaps also the reason why he made out of the

faculties of knowledge such a strange complicated machine, with so many

wheels, as the twelve categories, the transcendental synthesis of

imagination, of the inner sense, of the transcendental unity of

apperception, also the schematism of the pure conceptions of the

understanding, &c., &c. And notwithstanding this great apparatus, not even

an attempt is made to explain the perception of the external world, which

is after all the principal fact in our knowledge; but this pressing claim

is very meanly rejected, always through the same meaningless metaphorical

expression: “The empirical perception is given us.” On p. 145 of the fifth

edition, we learn further that the perception is given through the object;

therefore the object must be something different from the perception.

If, now, we endeavour to investigate Kant’s inmost meaning, not clearly

expressed by himself, we find that in reality such an object, different

from the perception, but which is by no means a conception, is for him the

proper object for the understanding; indeed that it must be by means of

the strange assumption of such an object, which cannot be presented in

perception, that the perception first becomes experience. I believe that

an old deeply-rooted prejudice in Kant, dead to all investigation, is the

ultimate reason of the assumption of such an _absolute object_, which is

an object in itself, _i.e._, without a subject. It is certainly not the

_perceived object_, but through the conception it is added to the

perception by thought, as something corresponding to it; and now the

perception is experience, and has value and truth, which it thus only

receives through the relation to a conception (in diametrical opposition

to my exposition, according to which the conception only receives value

and truth from the perception). It is then the proper function of the

categories to add on in thought to the perception this directly

non-perceptible object. “The object is given only through perception, and

is afterwards thought in accordance with the category” (Critique of Pure

Reason, first edition, p. 399). This is made specially clear by a passage

on p. 125 of the fifth edition: “Now the question arises whether

conceptions _a priori_ do not also come first as conditions under which

alone a thing can be, not perceived certainly, but yet _thought_ as an

_object_ in general,” which he answers in the affirmative. Here the source

of the error and the confusion in which it is involved shows itself

distinctly. For the _object_ as such exists always only for _perception_

and in it; it may now be completed through the senses, or, when it is

absent, through the imagination. What is thought, on the contrary, is

always an universal non-perceptible _conception_, which certainly can be

the conception of an object in general; but only indirectly by means of

conceptions does thought relate itself to _objects_, which always are and

remain _perceptible_. For our thinking is not able to impart reality to

perceptions; this they have, so far as they are capable of it (empirical

reality) of themselves; but it serves to bring together the common element

and the results of perceptions, in order to preserve them, and to be able

to use them more easily. But Kant ascribes the objects themselves to

thought, in order to make experience and the objective world dependent

upon _understanding_, yet without allowing understanding to be a faculty

of _perception_. In this relation he certainly distinguishes perception

from thought, but he makes particular things sometimes the object of

perception and sometimes the object of thought. In reality, however, they

are only the object of the former; our empirical perception is at once

_objective_, just because it proceeds from the causal nexus. Things, not

ideas different from them, are directly its object. Particular things as

such are perceived in the understanding and through the senses; the

one-sided impression upon the latter is at once completed by the

imagination. But, on the contrary, as soon as we pass over to thought, we

leave the particular things, and have to do with general conceptions,

which cannot be presented in perception, although we afterwards apply the

results of our thought to particular things. If we hold firmly to this,

the inadmissibleness of the assumption becomes evident that the perception

of things only obtains reality and becomes experience through the thought

of these very things applying its twelve categories. Rather in perception

itself the empirical reality, and consequently experience, is already

given; but the perception itself can only come into existence by the

application to sensation of the knowledge of the causal nexus, which is

the one function of the understanding. Perception is accordingly in

reality intellectual, which is just what Kant denies.

Besides in the passages quoted, the assumption of Kant here criticised

will be found expressed with admirable clearness in the “Critique of

Judgment,” § 36, just at the beginning; also in the “Metaphysical

Principles of Natural Science,” in the note to the first explanation of

“Phenomenology.” But with a _naïveté_ which Kant ventured upon least of

all with reference to this doubtful point, it is to be found most

distinctly laid down in the book of a Kantian, Kiesewetter’s “_Grundriss

einer algemeinen Logik_,” third edition, part i., p. 434 of the

exposition, and part ii., § 52 and 53 of the exposition; similarly in

Tieftrunk’s “_Denklehre in rein Deutschem Gewande_” (1825). It there

appears so clearly how those disciples who do not themselves think become

a magnifying mirror of the errors of every thinker. Once having determined

his doctrine of the categories, Kant was always cautious when expounding

it, but his disciples on the contrary were quite bold, and thus exposed

its falseness.

According to what has been said, the object of the categories is for Kant,

not indeed the thing in itself, but yet most closely akin to it. It is the

_object in itself_; it is an object that requires no subject; it is a

particular thing, and yet not in space and time, because not perceptible;

it is an object of thought, and yet not an abstract conception.

Accordingly Kant really makes a triple division: (1.) the idea; (2.) the

object of the idea; (3.) the thing in itself. The first belongs to the

sensibility, which in its case, as in that of sensation, includes the pure

forms of perception, space and time. The second belongs to the

understanding, which thinks it through its twelve categories. The third

lies beyond the possibility of all knowledge. (In support of this, _cf._

Critique of Pure Reason, first edition, p. 108 and 109.) The distinction

of the idea from the object of the idea is however unfounded; this had

already been proved by Berkeley, and it appears from my whole exposition

in the first book, especially chap. i. of the supplements; nay, even from

Kant’s own completely idealistic point of view in the first edition. But

if we should not wish to count the object of the idea as belonging to the

idea and identify it with the idea, it would be necessary to attribute it

to the thing in itself: this ultimately depends on the sense which is

attached to the word object. This, however, always remains certain, that,

when we think clearly, nothing more can be found than idea and thing in

itself. The illicit introduction of that hybrid, the object of the idea,

is the source of Kant’s errors; yet when it is taken away, the doctrine of

the categories as conceptions _a priori_ also falls to the ground; for

they bring nothing to the perception, and are not supposed to hold good of

the thing in itself, but by means of them we only think those “objects of

the ideas,” and thereby change ideas into experience. For every empirical

perception is already experience; but every perception which proceeds from

sensation is empirical: this sensation is related by the understanding, by

means of its sole function (knowledge _a priori_ of the law of causality),

to its cause, which just on this account presents itself in space and time

(forms of pure perception) as object of experience, material object,

enduring in space through all time, yet as such always remains idea, as do

space and time themselves. If we desire to go beyond this idea, then we

arrive at the question as to the thing in itself, the answer to which is

the theme of my whole work, as of all metaphysics in general. Kant’s error

here explained is connected with his mistake, which we condemned before,

that he gives no theory of the origin of empirical perception, but,

without saying more, treats it as _given_, identifying it with the mere

sensation, to which he only adds the forms of intuition or perception,

space and time, comprehending both under the name sensibility. But from

these materials no objective idea arises: this absolutely demands the

relation of the idea to its cause, thus the application of the law of

causality, and thus understanding; for without this the sensation still

remains always subjective, and does not take the form of an object in

space, even if space is given with it. But according to Kant, the

understanding must not be assigned to perception; it is supposed merely to

_think_, so as to remain within the transcendental logic. With this again

is connected another mistake of Kant’s: that he left it to me to adduce

the only valid proof of the _a priori_ nature of the law of causality

which he rightly recognised, the proof from the possibility of objective

empirical perception itself, and instead of it gives a palpably false one,

as I have already shown in my essay on the principle of sufficient reason,

§ 23. From the above it is clear that Kant’s “object of the idea” (2) is

made up of what he has stolen partly from the idea (1), and partly from

the thing in itself (3). If, in reality, experience were only brought

about by the understanding applying its twelve different functions in

order to _think_ through as many conceptions _a priori_, the objects which

were previously merely perceived, then every real thing would necessarily

as such have a number of determinations, which, as given _a priori_,

absolutely could not be thought away, just like space and time, but would

belong quite essentially to the existence of the thing, and yet could not

be deduced from the properties of space and time. But only one such

determination is to be found—that of causality. Upon this rests

materiality, for the essence of matter consists in action, and it is

through and through causality (_cf._ Bk. II. ch. iv.) But it is

materiality alone that distinguishes the real thing from the picture of

the imagination, which is then only idea. For matter, as permanent, gives

to the thing permanence through all time, in respect of its matter, while

the forms change in conformity with causality. Everything else in the

thing consists either of determinations of space or of time, or of its

empirical properties, which are all referable to its activity, and are

thus fuller determinations of causality. But causality enters already as a

condition into the empirical perception, and this is accordingly a thing

of the understanding, which makes even perception possible, and yet apart

from the law of causality contributes nothing to experience and its

possibility. What fills the old ontologies is, with the exception of what

is given here, nothing more than relations of things to each other, or to

our reflection, and a farrago of nonsense.

The language in which the doctrine of the categories is expressed affords

an evidence of its baselessness. What a difference in this respect between

the Transcendental Æsthetic and the Transcendental Analytic! In the

former, what clearness, definiteness, certainty, firm conviction which is

freely expressed and infallibly communicates itself! All is full of light,

no dark lurking-places are left: Kant knows what he wants and knows that

he is right. In the latter, on the other hand, all is obscure, confused,

indefinite, wavering, uncertain, the language anxious, full of excuses and

appeals to what is coming, or indeed of suppression. Moreover, the whole

second and third sections of the Deduction of the Pure Conceptions of the

Understanding are completely changed in the second edition, because they

did not satisfy Kant himself, and they have become quite different from

the first edition, though not clearer. We actually see Kant in conflict

with the truth in order to carry out his hypothesis which he has once

fixed upon. In the Transcendental Æsthetic all his propositions are really

proved from undeniable facts of consciousness, in the Transcendental

Analytic, on the contrary, we find, if we consider it closely, mere

assertions that thus it is and must be. Here, then, as everywhere, the

language bears the stamp of the thought from which it has proceeded, for

style is the physiognomy of the mind. We have still to remark, that

whenever Kant wishes to give an example for the purpose of fuller

explanation, he almost always takes for this end the category of

causality, and then what he has said turns out correct; for the law of

causality is indeed the real form of the understanding, but it is also its

only form, and the remaining eleven categories are merely blind windows.

The deduction of the categories is simpler and less involved in the first

edition than in the second. He labours to explain how, according to the

perception given by sensibility, the understanding produces experience by

means of thinking the categories. In doing so, the words recognition,

reproduction, association, apprehension, transcendental unity of

apperception, are repeated to weariness, and yet no distinctness is

attained. It is well worth noticing, however, that in this explanation he

does not once touch upon what must nevertheless first occur to every

one—the relation of the sensation to its external cause. If he did not

intend this relation to hold good, he ought to have expressly denied it;

but neither does he do this. Thus in this way he evades the point, and all

the Kantians have in like manner evaded it. The secret motive of this is,

that he reserves the causal nexus, under the name “ground of the

phenomenon,” for his false deduction of the thing in itself; and also that

perception would become intellectual through the relation to the cause,

which he dare not admit. Besides this, he seems to have been afraid that

if the causal nexus were allowed to hold good between sensation and

object, the latter would at once become the thing in itself, and introduce

the empiricism of Locke. But this difficulty is removed by reflection,

which shows us that the law of causality is of subjective origin, as well

as the sensation itself; and besides this, our own body also, inasmuch as

it appears in space, already belongs to ideas. But Kant was hindered from

confessing this by his fear of the Berkeleian idealism.

“The combination of the manifold of perception” is repeatedly given as the

essential operation of the understanding, by means of its twelve

categories. Yet this is never adequately explained, nor is it shown what

this manifold of perception is before it is combined by the understanding.

But time and space, the latter in all its three dimensions, are

_continua_, _i.e._, all their parts are originally not separate but

combined. Thus, then, everything that exhibits itself in them (is given)

appears originally as a _continuum_, _i.e._, its parts appear already

combined and require no adventitious combination of a manifold. If,

however, some one should seek to interpret that combining of the manifold

of perception by saying that I refer the different sense-impressions of

one object to this one only—thus, for example, perceiving a bell, I

recognise that what affects my eye as yellow, my hand as smooth and hard,

my ear as sounding, is yet only one and the same body,—then I reply that

this is rather a consequence of the knowledge _a priori_ of the causal

nexus (this actual and only function of the understanding), by virtue of

which all those different effects upon my different organs of sense yet

lead me only to one common cause of them, the nature of the body standing

before me, so that my understanding, in spite of the difference and

multiplicity of the effects, still apprehends the unity of the cause as a

single object, which just on that account exhibits itself in perception.

In the beautiful recapitulation of his doctrine which Kant gives at p.

719-726 or V. 747-754 of the “Critique of Pure Reason,” he explains the

categories, perhaps more distinctly than anywhere else, as “the mere rule

of the synthesis of that which empirical apprehension has given _a

posteriori_.” It seems as if here he had something in his mind, such as

that, in the construction of the triangle, the angles give the rule for

the composition of the lines; at least by this image one can best explain

to oneself what he says of the function of the categories. The preface to

the “Metaphysical First Principles of Natural Science” contains a long

note which likewise gives an explanation of the categories, and says that

they “differ in no respect from the formal acts of the understanding in

judging,” except that in the latter subject and predicate can always

change places; then the judgment in general is defined in the same passage

as “an act through which given ideas first become knowledge of an object.”

According to this, the brutes, since they do not judge, must also have no

knowledge of objects. In general, according to Kant, there are only

conceptions of objects, no perceptions. I, on the contrary, say: Objects

exist primarily only for perception, and conceptions are always

abstractions from this perception. Therefore abstract thinking must be

conducted exactly according to the world present in perception, for it is

only their relation to this that gives content to conceptions; and we must

assume for the conceptions no other _a priori_ determined form than the

faculty of reflection in general, the nature of which is the construction

of conceptions, _i.e._, of abstract non-perceptible ideas, which

constitutes the sole function of the _reason_, as I have shown in the

first book. I therefore require that we should reject eleven of the

categories, and only retain that of causality, and yet that we should see

clearly that its activity is indeed the condition of empirical perception,

which accordingly is not merely sensuous but intellectual, and that the

object so perceived, the object of experience, is one with the idea, from

which there remains nothing to distinguish except the thing in itself.

After repeated study of the “Critique of Pure Reason” at different periods

of my life, a conviction has forced itself upon me with regard to the

origin of the Transcendental Logic, which I now impart as very helpful to

an understanding of it. Kant’s only discovery, which is based upon

objective comprehension and the highest human thought, is the _apperçu_

that time and space are known by us _a priori_. Gratified by this happy

hit, he wished to pursue the same vein further, and his love of

architectonic symmetry afforded him the clue. As he had found that a pure

intuition or perception _a priori_ underlay the empirical _perception_ as

its condition, he thought that in the same way certain _pure conceptions_

as presuppositions in our faculty of knowledge must lie at the foundation

of the empirically obtained _conceptions_, and that real empirical thought

must be only possible through a pure thought _a priori_, which, however,

would have no objects in itself, but would be obliged to take them from

perception. So that as the _Transcendental Æsthetic_ establishes an _a

priori_ basis of mathematics, there must, he supposed, also be a similar

basis for logic; and thus, then for the sake of symmetry, the former

received a pendant in a _Transcendental Logic_. From this point onwards

Kant was no more free, no more in the position of purely, investigating

and observing what is present in consciousness; but he was guided by an

assumption and pursued a purpose—the purpose of finding what he assumed,

in order to add to the Transcendental Æsthetic so happily discovered a

Transcendental Logic analogous to it, and thus symmetrically corresponding

to it, as a second storey. Now for this purpose he hit upon the table of

judgments, out of which he constructed, as well as he could, the table of

categories, the doctrine of twelve pure _a priori_ conceptions, which are

supposed to be the conditions of our _thinking_ those very _things_ the

_perception_ of which is conditioned by the two _a priori_ forms of

sensibility: thus a _pure understanding_ now corresponded symmetrically to

a _pure sensibility_. Then another consideration occurred to him, which

offered a means of increasing the plausibility of the thing, by the

assumption of the _schematism_ of the pure conceptions of the

understanding. But just through this the way in which his procedure had,

unconsciously indeed, originated betrayed itself most distinctly. For

because he aimed at finding something _a priori_ analogous to every

empirical function of the faculty of knowledge, he remarked that between

our empirical perception and our empirical thinking, conducted in abstract

non-perceptible conceptions, a connection very frequently, though not

always, takes place, because every now and then we try to go back from

abstract thinking to perception; but try to do so merely in order really

to convince ourselves that our abstract thought has not strayed far from

the safe ground of perception, and perhaps become exaggeration, or, it may

be, mere empty talk; much in the same way as, when we are walking in the

dark, we stretch out our hand every now and then to the guiding wall. We

go back, then, to the perception only tentatively and for the moment, by

calling up in imagination a perception corresponding to the conceptions

which are occupying us at the time—a perception which can yet never be

quite adequate to the conception, but is merely a temporary

_representative_ of it. I have already adduced what is needful on this

point in my essay on the principle of sufficient reason, § 28. Kant calls

a fleeting phantasy of this kind a schema, in opposition to the perfected

picture of the imagination. He says it is like a monogram of the

imagination, and asserts that just as such a schema stands midway between

our abstract thinking of empirically obtained conceptions, and our clear

perception which comes to us through the senses, so there are _a priori

schemata of the pure conceptions of the understanding_ between the faculty

of perception _a priori_ of pure sensibility and the faculty of thinking

_a priori_ of the pure understanding (thus the categories). These

schemata, as monograms of the pure imagination _a priori_, he describes

one by one, and assigns to each of them its corresponding category, in the

wonderful “Chapter on the Schematism of the Pure Conceptions of the

Understanding,” which is noted as exceedingly obscure, because no man has

ever been able to make anything out of it. Its obscurity, however,

vanishes if it is considered from the point of view here indicated, but

there also comes out more clearly in it than anywhere else the intentional

nature of Kant’s procedure, and of the determination formed beforehand of

finding what would correspond to the analogy, and could assist the

architectonic symmetry; indeed this is here the case to such a degree as

to be almost comical. For when he assumes schemata of the pure (empty) _a

priori_ conceptions of the understanding (categories) analogous to the

empirical schemata (or representatives through the fancy of our actual

conceptions), he overlooks the fact that the end of such schemata is here

entirely wanting, For the end of the schemata in the case of empirical

(real) thinking is entirely connected with the _material content_ of such

conceptions. For since these conceptions are drawn from empirical

perception, we assist and guide ourselves when engaged in abstract

thinking by now and then casting a momentary glance back at the perception

out of which the conceptions are framed, in order to assure ourselves that

our thought has still real content. This, however, necessarily presupposes

that the conceptions which occupy us are sprung from perception, and it is

merely a glance back at their material content, indeed a mere aid to our

weakness. But in the case of _a priori_ conceptions which as yet have no

content at all, clearly this is necessarily omitted. For these conceptions

are not sprung from perception, but come to it from within, in order to

receive a content first from it. Thus they have as yet nothing on which

they could look back. I speak fully upon this point, because it is just

this that throws light upon the secret origin of the Kantian

philosophising, which accordingly consists in this, that Kant, after the

happy discovery of the two forms of intuition or perception _a priori_,

exerted himself, under the guidance of the analogy, to prove that for

every determination of our empirical knowledge there is an _a priori_

analogue, and this finally extended, in the schemata, even to a mere

psychological fact. Here the apparent depth and the difficulty of the

exposition just serve to conceal from the reader that its content remains

a wholly undemonstrable and merely arbitrary assumption. But he who has

penetrated at last to the meaning of such an exposition is then easily

induced to mistake this understanding so painfully attained for a

conviction of the truth of the matter. If, on the contrary, Kant had kept

himself here as unprejudiced and purely observant as in the discovery of

_a priori_ intuition or perception, he must have found that what is added

to the pure intuition or perception of space and time, if an empirical

perception arises from it, is on the one hand the sensation, and on the

other hand the knowledge of causality, which changes the mere sensation

into objective empirical perception, but just on this account is not first

derived and learned from sensation, but exists _a priori_, and is indeed

the form and function of the pure understanding. It is also, however, its

sole form and function, yet one so rich in results that all our empirical

knowledge rests upon it. If, as has often been said, the refutation of an

error is only complete when the way it originated has been psychologically

demonstrated, I believe I have achieved this, with regard to Kant’s

doctrine of the categories and their schemata, in what I have said above.

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After Kant had thus introduced such great errors into the first simple

outlines of a theory of the faculty of perception, he adopted a variety of

very complicated assumptions. To these belongs first of all the synthetic

unity of apperception: a very strange thing, very strangely explained.

“The _I think_ must be able to accompany all my ideas.” Must—be able: this

is a problematic-apodictic enunciation; in plain English, a proposition

which takes with one hand what it gives with the other. And what is the

meaning of this carefully balanced proposition? That all knowledge of

ideas is thinking? That is not the case: and it would be dreadful; there

would then be nothing but abstract conceptions, or at any rate a pure

perception free from reflection and will, such as that of the beautiful,

the deepest comprehension of the true nature of things, _i.e._, of their

Platonic Ideas. And besides, the brutes would then either think also, or

else they would not even have ideas. Or is the proposition perhaps

intended to mean: no object without a subject? That would be very badly

expressed by it, and would come too late. If we collect Kant’s utterances

on the subject, we shall find that what he understands by the synthetic

unity of apperception is, as it were, the extensionless centre of the

sphere of all our ideas, whose radii converge to it. It is what I call the

subject of knowing, the correlative of all ideas, and it is also that

which I have fully described and explained in the 22d chapter of the

Supplements, as the focus in which the rays of the activity of the brain

converge. Therefore, to avoid repetition, I now refer to that chapter.

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That I reject the whole doctrine of the categories, and reckon it among

the groundless assumptions with which Kant burdened the theory of

knowledge, results from the criticism given above; and also from the proof

of the contradictions in the Transcendental Logic, which had their ground

in the confusion of perception and abstract knowledge; also further from

the proof of the want of a distinct and definite conception of the nature

of the understanding and of the reason, instead of which we found in

Kant’s writings only incoherent, inconsistent, insufficient, and incorrect

utterances with regard to these two faculties of the mind. Finally, it

results from the explanations which I myself have given of these faculties

of the mind in the first book and its Supplements, and more fully in the

essay on the principle of sufficient reason, § 21, 26, and

34,—explanations which are very definite and distinct, which clearly

follow from the consideration of the nature of our knowledge, and which

completely agree with the conceptions of those two faculties of knowledge

that appear in the language and writings of all ages and all nations, but

were not brought to distinctness. Their defence against the very different

exposition of Kant has, for the most part, been given already along with

the exposure of the errors of that exposition. Since, however, the table

of judgments, which Kant makes the foundation of his theory of thinking,

and indeed of his whole philosophy, has, in itself, as a whole, its

correctness, it is still incumbent upon me to show how these universal

forms of all judgment arise in our faculty of knowledge, and to reconcile

them with my exposition of it. In this discussion I shall always attach to

the concepts understanding and reason the sense given them in my

explanation, which I therefore assume the reader is familiar with.

An essential difference between Kant’s method and that which I follow lies

in this, that he starts from indirect, reflected knowledge, while I start

from direct or intuitive knowledge. He may be compared to a man who

measures the height of a tower by its shadow, while I am like him who

applies the measuring-rule directly to the tower itself. Therefore, for

him philosophy is a science _of_ conceptions, but for me it is a science

_in_ conceptions, drawn from knowledge of perception, the one source of

all evidence, and comprehended and made permanent in general conceptions.

He passes over this whole world of perception which surrounds us, so

multifarious and rich in significance, and confines himself to the forms

of abstract thinking; and, although he never expressly says so, this

procedure is founded on the assumption that reflection is the ectype of

all perception, that, therefore, all that is essential in perception must

be expressed in reflection, and expressed in very contracted forms and

outlines, which are thus easily surveyed. According to this, what is

essential and conformable to law in abstract knowledge would, as it were,

place in our hands all the threads by which the varied puppet-show of the

world of perception is set in motion before our eyes. If Kant had only

distinctly expressed this first principle of his method, and then followed

it consistently, he would at least have been obliged to separate clearly

the intuitive from the abstract, and we would not have had to contend with

inextricable contradictions and confusions. But from the way in which he

solves his problem we see that that fundamental principle of his method

was only very indistinctly present to his mind, and thus we have still to

arrive at it by conjecture even after a thorough study of his philosophy.

Now as concerns the specified method and fundamental maxim itself, there

is much to be said for it, and it is a brilliant thought. The nature of

all science indeed consists in this, that we comprehend the endless

manifold of perceptible phenomena under comparatively few abstract

conceptions, and out of these construct a system by means of which we have

all those phenomena completely in the power of our knowledge, can explain

the past and determine the future. The sciences, however, divide the wide

sphere of phenomena among them according to the special and manifold

classes of the latter. Now it was a bold and happy thought to isolate what

is absolutely essential to the conceptions as such and apart from their

content, in order to discover from these forms of all thought found in

this way what is essential to all intuitive knowledge also, and

consequently to the world as phenomenon in general; and because this would

be found _a priori_ on account of the necessity of those forms of thought,

it would be of subjective origin, and would just lead to the ends Kant had

in view. Here, however, before going further, the relation of reflection

to knowledge of perception ought to have been investigated (which

certainly presupposes the clear separation of the two, which was neglected

by Kant). He ought to have inquired in what way the former really repeats

and represents the latter, whether quite pure, or changed and to some

extent disguised by being taken up into its special forms (forms of

reflection); whether the form of abstract reflective knowledge becomes

more determined through the form of knowledge of perception, or through

the nature or constitution which unalterably belongs to itself, _i.e._, to

reflective knowledge, so that even what is very heterogeneous in intuitive

knowledge can no longer be distinguished when it has entered reflective

knowledge, and conversely many distinctions of which we are conscious in

the reflective method of knowledge have also sprung from this knowledge

itself, and by no means point to corresponding differences in intuitive

knowledge. As the result of this investigation, however, it would have

appeared that knowledge of perception suffers very nearly as much change

when it is taken up into reflection as food when it is taken into the

animal organism whose forms and compounds are determined by itself, so

that the nature of the food can no longer be recognised from the result

they produce. Or (for this is going a little too far) at least it would

have appeared that reflection is by no means related to knowledge of

perception as the reflection in water is related to the reflected objects,

but scarcely even as the mere shadow of these objects stands to the

objects themselves; which shadow repeats only a few external outlines, but

also unites the most manifold in the same form and presents the most

diverse through the same outline; so that it is by no means possible,

starting from it, to construe the forms of things with completeness and

certainty.

The whole of reflective knowledge, or the reason, has only one chief form,

and that is the abstract conception. It is proper to the reason itself,

and has no direct necessary connection with the world of perception, which

therefore exists for the brutes entirely without conceptions, and indeed,

even if it were quite another world from what it is, that form of

reflection would suit it just as well. But the combination of conceptions

for the purpose of judging has certain definite and normal forms, which

have been found by induction, and constitute the table of judgments. These

forms are for the most part deducible from the nature of reflective

knowledge itself, thus directly from the reason, because they spring from

the four laws of thought (called by me metalogical truths) and the _dictum

de omni et nullo_. Certain others of these forms, however, have their

ground in the nature of knowledge of perception, thus in the

understanding; yet they by no means point to a like number of special

forms of the understanding, but can all be fully deduced from the sole

function which the understanding has—the direct knowledge of cause and

effect. Lastly, still others of these forms have sprung from the

concurrence and combination of the reflective and intuitive modes of

knowledge, or more properly from the assumption of the latter into the

former. I shall now go through the moments of the judgment one by one, and

point out the origin of each of them in the sources referred to; and from

this it follows of itself that a deduction of categories from them is

wanting, and the assumption of this is just as groundless as its

exposition was found to be entangled and self-conflicting.

1. The so-called _Quantity_ of judgments springs from the nature of

concepts as such. It thus has its ground in the reason alone, and has

absolutely no direct connection with the understanding and with knowledge

of perception. It is indeed, as is explained at length in the first book,

essential to concepts, as such, that they should have an extent, a sphere,

and the wider, less determined concept includes the narrower and more

determined. The latter can therefore be separated from the former, and

this may happen in two ways,—either the narrower concept may be indicated

as an indefinite part of the wider concept in general, or it may be

defined and completely separated by means of the addition of a special

name. The judgment which carries out this operation is in the first case

called a particular, and in the second case an universal judgment. For

example, one and the same part of the sphere of the concept tree may be

isolated through a particular and through an universal judgment,

thus—“Some trees bear gall-nuts,” or “All oaks bear gall-nuts.” One sees

that the difference of the two operations is very slight; indeed, that the

possibility of it depends upon the richness of the language. Nevertheless,

Kant has explained this difference as disclosing two fundamentally

different actions, functions, categories of the pure understanding which

determines experience _a priori_ through them.

Finally, a concept may also be used in order to arrive by means of it at a

definite particular idea of perception, from which, as well as from many

others, this concept itself is drawn; this happens in the singular

judgment. Such a judgment merely indicates the boundary-line between

abstract knowledge and knowledge of perception, and passes directly to the

latter, “This tree here bears gall-nuts.” Kant has made of this also a

special category.

After all that has been said there is no need of further polemic here.

2. In the same way the _Quality_ of the judgment lies entirely within the

province of reason, and is not an adumbration of any law of that

understanding which makes perception possible, _i.e._, it does not point

to it. The nature of abstract concepts, which is just the nature of the

reason itself objectively comprehended, carries with it the possibility of

uniting and separating their spheres, as was already explained in the

first book, and upon this possibility, as their presupposition, rest the

universal laws of thought of identity and contradiction, to which I have

given the name of _metalogical_ truths, because they spring purely from

the reason, and cannot be further explained. They determine that what is

united must remain united, and what is separated must remain separate,

thus that what is established cannot at the same time be also abolished,

and thus they presuppose the possibility of the combination and separation

of spheres, _i.e._, of judgment. This, however, lies, according to its

_form_, simply and solely in the reason, and this _form_ has not, like the

_content_ of the judgments, been brought over from the perceptible

knowledge of the understanding, and therefore there is no correlative or

analogue of it to be looked for there. After the perception has been

brought about through the understanding and for the understanding, it

exists complete, subject to no doubt nor error, and therefore knows

neither assertion nor denial; for it expresses itself, and has not, like

the abstract knowledge of the reason, its value and content in its mere

relation to something outside of it, according to the principle of the

ground of knowing. It is, therefore, pure reality; all negation is foreign

to its nature, can only be added on through reflection, and just on this

account remains always in the province of abstract thought.

To the affirmative and negative Kant adds the infinite judgment, making

use of a crotchet of the old scholastics, an ingeniously invented

stop-gap, which does not even require to be explained, a blind window,

such as many others he made for the sake of his architectonic symmetry.

3. Under the very wide conception of _Relation_ Kant has brought three

entirely different properties of judgments, which we must, therefore,

examine singly, in order to recognise their origin.

(_a._) The _hypothetical judgment_ in general is the abstract expression

of that most universal form of all our knowledge, the principle of

sufficient reason. In my essay on this principle, I already showed in 1813

that it has four entirely different meanings, and in each of these

originally originates in a different faculty of knowledge, and also

concerns a different class of ideas. It clearly follows from this, that

the source of the hypothetical judgment in general, of that universal form

of thought, cannot be, as Kant wishes to make it, merely the understanding

and its category of causality; but that the law of causality which,

according to my exposition, is the one form of knowledge of the pure

understanding, is only one of the forms of that principle which embraces

all pure or _a priori_ knowledge—the principle of sufficient reason—which,

on the other hand, in each of its meanings has this hypothetical form of

judgment as its expression. We see here, however, very distinctly how

kinds of knowledge which are quite different in their origin and

significance yet appear, if thought _in abstracto_ by the reason, in one

and the same form of combination of concepts and judgments, and then in

this form can no longer be distinguished, but, in order to distinguish

them, we must go back to knowledge of perception, leaving abstract

knowledge altogether. Therefore the path which was followed by Kant,

starting from the point of view of abstract knowledge, to find the

elements and the inmost spring of intuitive knowledge also, was quite a

wrong one. For the rest, my whole introductory essay on the principle of

sufficient reason is, to a certain extent, to be regarded merely as a

thorough exposition of the significance of the hypothetical form of

judgment; therefore I do not dwell upon it longer here.

(_b._) The form of the _categorical judgment_ is nothing but the form of

judgment in general, in its strictest sense. For, strictly speaking,

judging merely means thinking, the combination of, or the impossibility of

combining, the spheres of the concepts. Therefore the hypothetical and the

disjunctive combination are properly no special forms of the judgment; for

they are only applied to already completed judgments, in which the

combination of the concepts remains unchanged the categorical. But they

again connect these judgments, for the hypothetical form expresses their

dependence upon each other, and the disjunctive their incompatibility.

Mere concepts, however, have only _one_ class of relations to each other,

those which are expressed in the categorical judgment. The fuller

determination, or the sub-species of this relation, are the intersection

and the complete separateness of the concept-spheres, _i.e._, thus

affirmation and negation; out of which Kant has made special categories,

under quite a different title, that of _quality_. Intersection and

separateness have again sub-species, according as the spheres lie within

each other entirely, or only in part, a determination which constitutes

the _quantity_ of the judgments; out of which Kant has again made a quite

special class of categories. Thus he separates what is very closely

related, and even identical, the easily surveyed modifications of the one

possible relation of mere concepts to each other, and, on the other hand,

unites what is very different under this title of relation.

Categorical judgments have as their metalogical principle the laws of

thought of identity and contradiction. But the _ground_ of the connection

of the concept-spheres which gives _truth_ to the judgment, which is

nothing but this connection, may be of very different kinds; and,

according to this, the truth of the judgment is either logical, or

empirical, or metaphysical, or metalogical, as is explained in the

introductory essay, § 30-33, and does not require to be repeated here. But

it is apparent from this how very various the direct cognitions may be,

all of which exhibit themselves in the abstract, through the combination

of the spheres of two concepts, as subject and predicate, and that we can

by no means set up the sole function of the understanding as corresponding

to them and producing them. For example, the judgments, “Water boils, the

sine measures the angle, the will resolves, business distracts,

distinction is difficult,” express through the same logical form the most

different kinds of relations; but from this we obtain the right, however

irregular the beginning may be, of placing ourselves at the standpoint of

abstract knowledge to analyse direct intuitive knowledge. For the rest,

the categorical judgment springs from knowledge of the understanding

proper, in my sense, only when causation is expressed by it; this is,

however, the case in all judgments which refer to a physical quality. For

if I say, “This body is heavy, hard, fluid, green, sour, alkaline,

organic, &c., &c.,” this always refers to its effect, and thus is

knowledge which is only possible through the pure understanding. Now,

after this, like much which is quite different from it (for example, the

subordination of very abstract concepts), has been expressed in the

abstract through subject and predicate, these mere relations of concepts

have been transferred back to knowledge of perception, and it has been

supposed that the subject and predicate of the judgment must have a

peculiar and special correlative in perception, substance and accident.

But I shall show clearly further on that the conception substance has no

other true content than that of the conception matter. Accidents, however,

are quite synonymous with kinds of effects, so that the supposed knowledge

of substance and accident is never anything more than the knowledge of

cause and effect by the understanding. But the special manner in which the

idea of matter arises is explained partly in § 4 of the first book, and

still more clearly in the essay on the principle of sufficient reason at

the end of § 21, p. 77 (3d ed., p. 82), and in some respects we shall see

it still more closely when we investigate the principle of the permanence

of substance.

(_c._) _Disjunctive judgments_ spring from the law of thought of excluded

third, which is a metalogical truth; they are, therefore, entirely the

property of the reason, and have not their origin in the understanding.

The deduction of the category of community or _reciprocity_ from them is,

however, a glaring example of the violence which Kant sometimes allowed to

be done to truth, merely in order to satisfy his love of architectonic

symmetry. The illegitimacy of that deduction has already often been justly

condemned and proved upon various grounds, especially by G. E. Schulze in

his “_Kritik der theoretischen Philosophie_,” and by Berg in his

“_Epikritik der Philosophie_.” What real analogy is there, indeed, between

the problematical determination of a concept by disjunctive predicates and

the thought of reciprocity? The two are indeed absolutely opposed, for in

the disjunctive judgment the actual affirmation of one of the two

alternative propositions is also necessarily the negation of the other;

if, on the other hand, we think two things in the relation of reciprocity,

the affirmation of one is also necessarily the affirmation of the other,

and _vice versa_. Therefore, unquestionably, the real logical analogue of

reciprocity is the vicious circle, for in it, as nominally in the case of

reciprocity, what is proved is also the proof, and conversely. And just as

logic rejects the vicious circle, so the conception of reciprocity ought

to be banished from metaphysics. For I now intend, quite seriously, to

prove that there is no reciprocity in the strict sense, and this

conception, which people are so fond of using, just on account of the

indefiniteness of the thought, is seen, if more closely considered, to be

empty, false, and invalid. First of all, the reader must call to mind what

causality really is, and to assist my exposition, see upon this subject §

20 of the introductory essay, also my prize-essay on the freedom of the

will, chap. iii. p. 27 _seq._, and lastly the fourth chapter of the second

book of this work. Causality is the law according to which the conditions

or states of matter which appear determine their position in time.

Causality has to do merely with conditions or states, indeed, properly,

only with _changes_, and neither with matter as such, nor with permanence

without change. _Matter_, as such, does not come under the law of

causality, for it neither comes into being nor passes away; thus neither

does the whole _thing_, as we commonly express ourselves, come under this

law, but only the _conditions_ or _states_ of matter. Further, the law of

causality has nothing to do with _permanence_, for where nothing changes

there is no producing of _effects_ and no causality, but a continuing

quiet condition or state. But if, now, such a state is changed, then the

new state is either again permanent or it is not, but immediately

introduces a third state, and the necessity with which this happens is

just the law of causality, which is a form of the principle of sufficient

reason, and therefore cannot be further explained, because the principle

of sufficient reason is the principle of all explanation and of all

necessity. From this it is clear that cause and effect stand in intimate

connection with, and necessary relation to, the _course of time_. Only

because the state A. precedes in time the state B., and their succession

is necessary and not accidental, _i.e._, no mere sequence but a

consequence—only because of this is the state A. cause and the state B.

effect. The conception _reciprocity_, however, contains this, that both

are cause and both are effect of each other; but this really amounts to

saying that each of the two is the earlier and also the later; thus it is

an absurdity. For that both states are simultaneous, and indeed

necessarily simultaneous, cannot be admitted, because, as necessarily

belonging to each other and existing at the same time, they constitute

only _one_ state. For the permanence of this state there is certainly

required the continued existence of all its determinations, but we are

then no longer concerned with change and causality, but with duration and

rest, and nothing further is said than that if _one_ determination of the

whole state be changed, the new state which then appears cannot continue,

but becomes the cause of the change of all the other determinations of the

first state, so that a new third state appears; which all happens merely

in accordance with the simple law of causality, and does not establish a

_new_ law, that of reciprocity.

I also definitely assert that the conception _reciprocity_ cannot be

supported by a single example. Everything that one seeks to pass off as

such is either a state of rest, to which the conception of causality,

which has only significance with reference to changes, finds no

application at all, or else it is an alternating succession of states of

the same name which condition each other, for the explanation of which

simple causality is quite sufficient. An example of the first class is

afforded by a pair of scales brought to rest by equal weights. Here there

is no effect produced, for there is no change; it is a state of rest;

gravity acts, equally divided, as in every body which is supported at its

centre of gravity, but it cannot show its force by any effect. That the

taking away of one weight produces a second state, which at once becomes

the cause of the third, the sinking of the other scale, happens according

to the simple law of cause and effect, and requires no special category of

the understanding, and not even a special name. An example of the second

class is the continuous burning of a fire. The combination of oxygen with

the combustible body is the cause of heat, and heat, again, is the cause

of the renewed occurrence of the chemical combination. But this is nothing

more than a chain of causes and effects, the links of which have

alternately _the same name_. The burning, A., produces free heat, B., this

produces new burning, C. (_i.e._, a new effect which has the same name as

the cause A., but is not individually identical with it), this produces

new heat, D. (which is not really identical with the effect B., but only

according to the concept, _i.e._, it has the same name), and so on

indefinitely. A good example of what in ordinary life is called

reciprocity is afforded by a theory about deserts given by Humboldt

(_Ansichten der Natur_, 2d ed., vol. ii. p. 79). In the sandy deserts it

does not rain, but it rains upon the wooded mountains surrounding them.

The cause is not the attraction of the clouds by the mountains; but it is

the column of heated air rising from the sandy plain which prevents the

particles of vapour from condensing, and drives the clouds high into the

heavens. On the mountains the perpendicular rising stream of air is

weaker, the clouds descend, and the rainfall ensues in the cooler air.

Thus, want of rain and the absence of plants in the desert stand in the

relation of reciprocity; it does not rain because the heated sand-plain

sends out more heat; the desert does not become a steppe or prairie

because it does not rain. But clearly we have here again, as in the

example given above, only a succession of causes and effects of the same

names, and throughout nothing essentially different from simple causality.

This is also the case with the swinging of the pendulum, and indeed also

with the self-conservation of the organised body, in which case likewise

every state introduces a new one, which is of the same kind as that by

which it was itself brought about, but individually is new. Only here the

matter is complicated, because the chain no longer consists of links of

two kinds, but of many kinds, so that a link of the same name only recurs

after several others have intervened. But we always see before us only an

application of the single and simple law of causality which gives the rule

to the sequence of states, but never anything which must be comprehended

by means of a new and special function of the understanding.

Or is it perhaps advanced in support of the conception of reciprocity that

action and reaction are equal? But the reason of this is what I urge so

strongly and have fully explained in the essay on the principle of

sufficient reason, that the cause and the effect are not two bodies, but

two successive states of bodies, consequently each of the two states

implicates all bodies concerned; thus the effect, _i.e._, the newly

appearing state, for example, in the case of an impulse, extends to both

bodies in the same proportion; therefore the body impelled produces just

as great a change in the body impelling as it itself sustains (each in

proportion to its mass and velocity). If one pleases to call this

reciprocity, then absolutely every effect is a reciprocal effect, and no

new conception is introduced on this account, still less does it require a

new function of the understanding, but we only have a superfluous synonym

for causality. But Kant himself, in a moment of thoughtlessness, exactly

expressed this view in the “Metaphysical First Principles of Natural

Science” at the beginning of the proof of the fourth principle of

mechanics: “All external effect in the world is reciprocal effect.” How

then should different functions lie _a priori_ in the understanding for

simple causality and for reciprocity, and, indeed, how should the real

succession of things only be possible and knowable by means of the first,

and their co-existence by means of the second? According to this, if all

effect is reciprocal effect, succession and simultaneity would be the same

thing, and therefore everything in the world would take place at the same

moment. If there were true reciprocity, then perpetual motion would also

be possible, and indeed _a priori_ certain; but it is rather the case that

the _a priori_ conviction that there is no true reciprocity, and no

corresponding form of the understanding, is the ground of the assertion

that perpetual motion is impossible.

Aristotle also denies reciprocity in the strict sense; for he remarks that

two things may certainly be reciprocal causes of each other, but only if

this is understood in a different sense of each of them; for example, that

one acts upon the other as the motive, but the latter acts upon the former

as the cause of its movement. We find in two passages the same words:

Physic., lib. ii. c. 3, and Metaph., lib. v. c. 2. Εστι δε τινα και

αλληλων αιτια; οἱον το πονειν αιτιον της ευεξιας, και αὑτη του πονειν;

αλλ᾽ ου τον αυτον τροπον, αλλα το μεν ὡς τελος, το δε ὡς αρχη κινησεως.

(_Sunt præterea quæ sibi sunt mutuo causæ, ut exercitium bonæ habitudinis,

et hæc exercitii: at non eodem modo, sed hæc ut finis, aliud ut principium

motus._) If, besides this, he had accepted a reciprocity proper, he would

have introduced it here, for in both passages he is concerned with

enumerating all the possible kinds of causes. In the _Analyt. post._, lib.

ii. c. 11, he speaks of a circle of causes and effects, but not of

reciprocity.

4. The categories of _Modality_ have this advantage over all others, that

what is expressed through each of them really corresponds to the form of

judgment from which it is derived; which with the other categories is

scarcely ever the case, because for the most part they are deduced from

the forms of judgment with the most capricious violence.

Thus that it is the conceptions of the possible, the actual, and the

necessary which occasion the problematic, assertatory, and apodictic forms

of judgment, is perfectly true; but that those conceptions are special,

original forms of knowledge of the understanding which cannot be further

deduced is not true. On the contrary, they spring from the single original

form of all knowledge, which is, therefore, known to us _a priori_, the

principle of sufficient reason; and indeed out of this the knowledge of

_necessity_ springs directly. On the other hand, it is only because

reflection is applied to this that the conceptions of contingency,

possibility, impossibility, and actuality arise. Therefore all these do

not by any means spring from _one_ faculty of the mind, the understanding,

but arise through the conflict of abstract and intuitive knowledge, as

will be seen directly.

I hold that to be necessary and to be the consequent of a given reason are

absolutely interchangeable notions, and completely identical. We can never

know, nor even think, anything as necessary, except so far as we regard it

as the consequent of a given reason; and the conception of necessity

contains absolutely nothing more than this dependence, this being

established through something else, and this inevitable following from it.

Thus it arises and exists simply and solely through the application of the

principle of sufficient reason. Therefore, there is, according to the

different forms of this principle, a physical necessity (the effect from

the cause), a logical (through the ground of knowing, in analytical

judgments, syllogisms, &c.), a mathematical (according to the ground of

being in time and space), and finally a practical necessity, by which we

intend to signify not determination through a pretended categorical

imperative, but the necessary occurrence of an action according to the

motives presented, in the case of a given empirical character. But

everything necessary is only so relatively, that is, under the

presupposition of the reason from which it follows; therefore absolute

necessity is a contradiction. With regard to the rest, I refer to § 49 of

the essay on the principle of sufficient reason.

The contradictory opposite, _i.e._, the denial of necessity, is

_contingency_. The content of this conception is, therefore,

negative—nothing more than this: absence of the connection expressed by

the principle of sufficient reason. Consequently the contingent is also

always merely relative. It is contingent in relation to something which is

not its reason. Every object, of whatever kind it may be—for example,

every event in the actual world—is always at once necessary and

contingent, _necessary_ in relation to the _one_ condition which is its

cause: _contingent_ in relation to everything else. For its contact in

time and space with everything else is a mere coincidence without

necessary connection: hence also the words chance, συμπτωμα, _contingens_.

Therefore an absolute contingency is just as inconceivable as an absolute

necessity. For the former would be simply an object which stood to no

other in the relation of consequent to its reason. But the

inconceivability of such a thing is just the content of the principle of

sufficient reason negatively expressed, and therefore this principle must

first be upset before we can think an absolute contingency; and even then

it itself would have lost all significance, for the conception of

contingency has meaning only in relation to that principle, and signifies

that two objects do not stand to each other in the relation of reason and

consequent.

In nature, which consists of ideas of perception, everything that happens

is necessary; for it proceeds from its cause. If, however, we consider

this individual with reference to everything else which is not its cause,

we know it as contingent; but this is already an abstract reflection. Now,

further, let us abstract entirely from a natural object its causal

relation to everything else, thus its necessity and its contingency; then

this kind of knowledge comprehends the conception of the _actual_, in

which one only considers the _effect_, without looking for the cause, in

relation to which one would otherwise have to call it _necessary_, and in

relation to everything else _contingent_. All this rests ultimately upon

the fact that the _modality_ of the judgment does not indicate so much the

objective nature of things as the relation of our knowledge to them.

Since, however, in nature everything proceeds from a cause, everything

_actual_ is also _necessary_, yet only so far as it is _at this time, in

this place;_ for only so far does determination by the law of causality

extend. Let us leave, however, concrete nature and pass over to abstract

thinking; then we can present to ourselves in reflection all the natural

laws which are known to us partly _a priori_, partly only _a posteriori_,

and this abstract idea contains all that is in nature at _any_ time, in

_any_ place, but with abstraction from every definite time and place; and

just in this way, through such reflection, we have entered the wide

kingdom of _the possible_. But what finds no place even here is the

_impossible_. It is clear that possibility and impossibility exist only

for reflection, for abstract knowledge of the reason, not for knowledge of

perception; although it is the pure forms of perception which supply the

reason with the determination of the possible and impossible. According as

the laws of nature, from which we start in the thought of the possible and

impossible, are known _a priori_ or _a posteriori_, is the possibility or

impossibility metaphysical or physical.

From this exposition, which requires no proof because it rests directly

upon the knowledge of the principle of sufficient reason and upon the

development of the conceptions of the necessary, the actual, and the

possible, it is sufficiently evident how entirely groundless is Kant’s

assumption of three special functions of the understanding for these three

conceptions, and that here again he has allowed himself to be disturbed by

no reflection in the carrying out of his architectonic symmetry.

To this, however, we have to add the other great mistake, that, certainly

according to the procedure of earlier philosophy, he has confounded the

conceptions of necessity and contingency with each other. That earlier

philosophy has applied abstraction to the following mistaken use. It was

clear that that of which the reason is given inevitably follows, _i.e._,

cannot not be, and thus necessarily is. But that philosophy held to this

last determination alone, and said that is necessary which cannot be

otherwise, or the opposite of which is impossible. It left, however, the

ground and root of such necessity out of account, overlooked the

relativity of all necessity which follows from it, and thereby made the

quite unthinkable fiction of an _absolute necessity_, _i.e._, of something

the existence of which would be as inevitable as the consequent of a

reason, but which yet was not the consequent of a reason, and therefore

depended upon nothing; an addition which is an absurd _petitio_, for it

conflicts with the principle of sufficient reason. Now, starting from this

fiction, it explained, in diametrical opposition to the truth, all that is

established by a reason as contingent, because it looked at the relative

nature of its necessity and compared this with that entirely imaginary

_absolute_ necessity, which is self-contradictory in its conception.(5)

Now Kant adheres to this fundamentally perverse definition of the

contingent and gives it as explanation. (Critique of Pure Reason, V. p.

289-291, 243. V. 301, 419. V. 447, 486, 488.) He falls indeed into the

most evident contradiction with himself upon this point, for on p. 301 he

says: “Everything contingent has a cause,” and adds, “That is contingent

which might possibly not be.” But whatever has a cause cannot possibly not

be: thus it is necessary. For the rest, the source of the whole of this

false explanation of the necessary and the contingent is to be found in

Aristotle in “_De Generatione et Corruptione_,” lib. ii. c. 9 et 11, where

the necessary is explained as that which cannot possibly not be: there

stands in opposition to it that which cannot possibly be, and between

these two lies that which can both be and not be,—thus that which comes

into being and passes away, and this would then be the contingent. In

accordance with what has been said above, it is clear that this

explanation, like so many of Aristotle’s, has resulted from sticking to

abstract conceptions without going back to the concrete and perceptible,

in which, however, the source of all abstract conceptions lies, and by

which therefore they must always be controlled. “Something which cannot

possibly not be” can certainly be thought in the abstract, but if we go

with it to the concrete, the real, the perceptible, we find nothing to

support the thought, even as possible,—as even merely the asserted

consequent of a given reason, whose necessity is yet relative and

conditioned.

I take this opportunity of adding a few further remarks on these

conceptions of modality. Since all necessity rests upon the principle of

sufficient reason, and is on this account relative, all _apodictic_

judgments are originally, and according to their ultimate significance,

_hypothetical_. They become _categorical_ only through the addition of an

_assertatory_ minor, thus in the conclusion. If this minor is still

undecided, and this indecision is expressed, this gives the problematical

judgment.

What in general (as a rule) is apodictic (a law of nature), is in

reference to a particular case only problematical, because the condition

must actually appear which brings the case under the rule. And conversely,

what in the particular as such is necessary (apodictic) (every particular

change necessary through the cause), is again in general, and predicated

universally, only problematical; because the causes which appear only

concern the particular case, and the apodictic, always hypothetical

judgment, always expresses merely the general law, not the particular case

directly. All this has its ground in the fact that possibility exists only

in the province of reflection and for the reason; the actual, in the

province of perception and for the understanding; the necessary, for both.

Indeed, the distinction between necessary, actual, and possible really

exists only in the abstract and according to the conception; in the real

world, on the other hand, all three fall into one. For all that happens,

happens _necessarily_, because it happens from causes; but these

themselves have again causes, so that the whole of the events of the

world, great and small, are a strict concatenation of necessary

occurrences. Accordingly everything actual is also necessary, and in the

real world there is no difference between actuality and necessity, and in

the same way no difference between actuality and possibility; for what has

not happened, _i.e._, has not become actual, was also not possible,

because the causes without which it could never appear have not themselves

appeared, nor could appear, in the great concatenation of causes; thus it

was an impossibility. Every event is therefore either necessary or

impossible. All this holds good only of the empirically real world,

_i.e._, the complex of individual things, thus of the whole particular as

such. If, on the other hand, we consider things generally, comprehending

them _in abstracto_, necessity, actuality, and possibility are again

separated; we then know everything which is in accordance with the _a

priori_ laws which belong to our intellect as possible in general; that

which corresponds to the empirical laws of nature as possible in this

world, even if it has never become actual; thus we distinguish clearly the

possible from the actual. The actual is in itself always also necessary,

but is only comprehended as such by him who knows its cause; regarded

apart from this, it is and is called contingent. This consideration also

gives us the key to that _contentio_ περι δυνατων between the Megaric

Diodorus and Chrysippus the Stoic which Cicero refers to in his book _De

Fato_. Diodorus says: “Only what becomes actual was possible, and all that

is actual is also necessary.” Chrysippus on the other hand says: “Much

that is possible never becomes actual; for only the necessary becomes

actual.” We may explain this thus: Actuality is the conclusion of a

syllogism to which possibility gives the premises. But for this is

required not only the major but also the minor; only the two give complete

possibility. The major gives a merely theoretical, general possibility _in

abstracto_, but this of itself does not make anything possible, _i.e._,

capable of becoming actual. For this the minor also is needed, which gives

the possibility for the particular case, because it brings it under the

rule, and thereby it becomes at once actual. For example:

_Maj._ All houses (consequently also my house) can be destroyed by fire.

_Min._ My house is on fire.

_Concl._ My house is being destroyed by fire.

For every general proposition, thus every major, always determines things

with reference to actuality only under a presupposition, therefore

hypothetically; for example, the capability of being burnt down has as a

presupposition the catching fire. This presupposition is produced in the

minor. The major always loads the cannon, but only if the minor brings the

match does the shot, _i.e._, the conclusion, follow. This holds good

throughout of the relation of possibility to actuality. Since now the

conclusion, which is the assertion of actuality, always follows

_necessarily_, it is evident from this that all that is actual is also

necessary, which can also be seen from the fact that necessity only means

being the consequent of a given reason: this is in the case of the actual

a cause: thus everything actual is necessary. Accordingly, we see here the

conceptions of the possible, the actual, and the necessary unite, and not

merely the last presuppose the first, but also the converse. What keeps

them apart is the limitation of our intellect through the form of time;

for time is the mediator between possibility and actuality. The necessity

of the particular event may be fully seen from the knowledge of all its

causes; but the concurrence of the whole of these different and

independent causes seems to us _contingent_; indeed their independence of

each other is just the conception of contingency. Since, however, each of

them was the necessary effect of _its_ causes, the chain of which has no

beginning, it is evident that contingency is merely a subjective

phenomenon, arising from the limitation of the horizon of our

understanding, and just as subjective as the optical horizon at which the

heavens touch the earth.

Since necessity is the same thing as following from given grounds, it must

appear in a special way in the case of every form of the principle of

sufficient reason, and also have its opposite in the possibility and

impossibility which always arises only through the application of the

abstract reflection of the reason to the object. Therefore the four kinds

of necessity mentioned above stand opposed to as many kinds of

impossibility, physical, logical, mathematical and practical. It may

further be remarked that if one remains entirely within the province of

abstract concepts, possibility is always connected with the more general,

and necessity with the more limited concept; for example, “An animal _may_

be a bird, a fish, an amphibious creature, &c.” “A nightingale _must_ be a

bird, a bird _must_ be an animal, an animal _must_ be an organism, an

organism _must_ be a body.” This is because logical necessity, the

expression of which is the syllogism, proceeds from the general to the

particular, and never conversely. In the concrete world of nature (ideas

of the first class), on the contrary, everything is really necessary

through the law of causality; only added reflection can conceive it as

also contingent, comparing it with that which is not its cause, and also

as merely and purely actual, by disregarding all causal connection. Only

in this class of ideas does the conception of the _actual_ properly occur,

as is also shown by the derivation of the word from the conception of

causality. In the third class of ideas, that of pure mathematical

perception or intuition, if we confine ourselves strictly to it, there is

only necessity. Possibility occurs here also only through relation to the

concepts of reflection: for example, “A triangle _may_ be right-angled,

obtuse-angled, or equiangular; its three angles _must_ be equal to two

right-angles.” Thus here we only arrive at the possible through the

transition from the perceptible to the abstract.

After this exposition, which presupposes the recollection of what was said

both in the essay on the principle of sufficient reason and in the first

book of the present work, there will, it is hoped, be no further doubt as

to the true and very heterogeneous source of those forms which the table

of judgments lays before us, nor as to the inadmissibility and utter

groundlessness of the assumption of twelve special functions of the

understanding for the explanation of them. The latter point is also

supported by a number of special circumstances very easily noted. Thus,

for example, it requires great love of symmetry and much trust in a clue

derived from it, to lead one to assume that an affirmative, a categorical,

and an assertatory judgment are three such different things that they

justify the assumption of an entirely special function of the

understanding for each of them.

Kant himself betrays his consciousness of the untenable nature of his

doctrine of the categories by the fact that in the third chapter of the

Analytic of Principles (_phænomena et noumena_) several long passages of

the first edition (p. 241, 242, 244-246, 248-253) are omitted in the

second—passages which displayed the weakness of that doctrine too openly.

So, for example, he says there (p. 241) that he has not defined the

individual categories, because he could not define them even if he had

wished to do so, inasmuch as they were susceptible of no definition. In

saying this he forgot that at p. 82 of the same first edition he had said:

“I purposely dispense with the definition of the categories although I may

be in possession of it.” This then was, _sit venia verbo_, wind. But this

last passage he has allowed to stand. And so all those passages wisely

omitted afterwards betray the fact that nothing distinct can be thought in

connection with the categories, and this whole doctrine stands upon a weak

foundation.

This table of the categories is now made the guiding clue according to

which every metaphysical, and indeed every scientific inquiry is to be

conducted (Prolegomena, § 39). And, in fact, it is not only the foundation

of the whole Kantian philosophy and the type according to which its

symmetry is everywhere carried out, as I have already shown above, but it

has also really become the procrustean bed into which Kant forces every

possible inquiry, by means of a violence which I shall now consider

somewhat more closely. But with such an opportunity what must not the

_imitatores servum pecus_ have done! We have seen. That violence then is

applied in this way. The meaning of the expressions denoted by the titles,

forms of judgment and categories, is entirely set aside and forgotten, and

the expressions alone are retained. These have their source partly in

Aristotle’s _Analyt. priora_, i. 23 (περι ποιοτητος και ποσοτητος των του

συλλογισμου ὁρων: _de qualitate et quantitate terminorum syllogismi_), but

are arbitrarily chosen; for the extent of the concepts might certainly

have been otherwise expressed than through the word _quantity_, though

this word is more suited to its object than the rest of the titles of the

categories. Even the word _quality_ has obviously been chosen on account

of the custom of opposing quality to quantity; for the name quality is

certainly taken arbitrarily enough for affirmation and negation. But now

in every inquiry instituted by Kant, every quantity in time and space, and

every possible quality of things, physical, moral, &c., is brought by him

under those category titles, although between these things and those

titles of the forms of judgment and of thought there is absolutely nothing

in common except the accidental and arbitrary nomenclature. It is needful

to keep in mind all the respect which in other regards is due to Kant to

enable one to refrain from expressing in hard terms one’s repugnance to

this procedure. The nearest example is afforded us at once by the pure

physiological table of the general principles of natural science. What in

all the world has the quantity of judgments to do with the fact that every

perception has an extensive magnitude? What has the quality of judgments

to do with the fact that every sensation has a degree? The former rests

rather on the fact that space is the form of our external perception, and

the latter is nothing more than an empirical, and, moreover, entirely

subjective feeling, drawn merely from the consideration of the nature of

our organs of sense. Further, in the table which gives the basis of

rational psychology (Critique of Pure Reason, p. 344; V. 402), the

_simplicity_ of the soul is cited under quality; but this is just a

quantitative property, and has absolutely no relation to the affirmation

or negation in the judgment. But quantity had to be completed by the

_unity_ of the soul, which is, however, already included in its

simplicity. Then modality is forced in in an absurd way; the soul stands

in connection with _possible_ objects; but connection belongs to relation,

only this is already taken possession of by substance. Then the four

cosmological Ideas, which are the material of the antinomies, are referred

to the titles of the categories; but of this we shall speak more fully

further on, when we come to the examination of these antinomies. Several,

if possible, still more glaring examples are to be found in the table of

the _Categories of Freedom!_ in the “Critique of Practical Reason;” also

in the first book of the “Critique of Judgment,” which goes through the

judgment of taste according to the four titles of the categories; and,

finally, in the “Metaphysical First Principles of Natural Science,” which

are entirely adapted to the table of the categories, whereby the false

that is mingled here and there with what is true and excellent in this

important work is for the most part introduced. See, for example, at the

end of the first chapter how the unity, the multiplicity, and the totality

of the directions of lines are supposed to correspond to the categories,

which are so named according to the quantity of judgments.

‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐

The principle of the _Permanence of Substance_ is deduced from the

category of subsistence and inherence. This, however, we know only from

the form of the categorical judgment, _i.e._, from the connection of two

concepts as subject and predicate. With what violence then is that great

metaphysical principle made dependent upon this simple, purely logical

form! Yet this is only done _pro forma_, and for the sake of symmetry. The

proof of this principle, which is given here, sets entirely aside its

supposed origin in the understanding and in the category, and is based

upon the pure intuition or perception of time. But this proof also is

quite incorrect. It is false that in mere time there is _simultaneity_ and

_duration_; these ideas only arise from the union of _space_ with time, as

I have already shown in the essay on the principle of sufficient reason, §

18, and worked out more fully in § 4 of the present work. I must assume a

knowledge of both these expositions for the understanding of what follows.

It is false that time _remains_ the same through all change; on the

contrary, it is just time itself that is fleeting; a permanent time is a

contradiction. Kant’s proof is untenable, strenuously as he has supported

it with sophisms; indeed, he falls into the most palpable contradictions.

Thus, after he has falsely set up co-existence as a mode of time (p. 177;

V. 219), he says, quite rightly (p. 183; V. 226), “Co-existence is not a

mode of time, for in time there are absolutely no parts together, but all

in succession.” In truth, space is quite as much implicated in

co-existence as time. For if two things are co-existent and yet not one,

they are different in respect of space; if two states of one thing are

co-existent (_e.g._, the glow and the heat of iron), then they are two

contemporaneous effects of _one_ thing, therefore presuppose matter, and

matter presupposes space. Strictly speaking, co-existence is a negative

determination, which merely signifies that two things or states are not

different in respect of time; thus their difference is to be sought for

elsewhere. But in any case, our knowledge of the permanence of substance,

_i.e._, of matter, must be based upon insight _a priori_; for it is raised

above all doubt, and therefore cannot be drawn from experience. I deduce

it from the fact that the principle of all becoming and passing away, the

law of causality, of which we are conscious _a priori_, is essentially

concerned only with the _changes_, _i.e._, the successive _states_ of

matter, is thus limited to the form, and leaves the matter untouched,

which therefore exists in our consciousness as the foundation of all

things, which is not subject to becoming or passing away, which has

therefore always been and will always continue to be. A deeper proof of

the permanence of substance, drawn from the analysis of our perception of

the empirical world in general, is to be found in the first book of this

work, § 4, where it is shown that the nature of matter consists in the

absolute _union of space and time_, a union which is only possible by

means of the idea of causality, consequently only for the understanding,

which is nothing but the subjective correlative of causality. Hence, also,

matter is never known otherwise than as producing effects, _i.e._, as

through and through causality; to be and to act are with it one, which is

indeed signified by the word _actuality_. Intimate union of space and

time—causality, matter, actuality—are thus one, and the subjective

correlative of this one is the understanding. Matter must bear in itself

the conflicting properties of both factors from which it proceeds, and it

is the idea of causality which abolishes what is contradictory in both,

and makes their co-existence conceivable by the understanding, through

which and for which alone matter is, and whose whole faculty consists in

the knowledge of cause and effect. Thus for the understanding there is

united in matter the inconstant flux of time, appearing as change of the

accidents, with the rigid immobility of space, which exhibits itself as

the permanence of substance. For if the substance passed away like the

accidents, the phenomenon would be torn away from space altogether, and

would only belong to time; the world of experience would be destroyed by

the abolition of matter, annihilation. Thus from the share which space has

in matter, _i.e._, in all phenomena of the actual—in that it is the

opposite and counterpart of time, and therefore in itself and apart from

the union with the latter knows absolutely no change—the principle of the

permanence of substance, which recognises everything as _a priori_

certain, had to be deduced and explained; but not from mere time, to which

for this purpose and quite erroneously Kant has attributed _permanence_.

In the essay on the principle of sufficient reason, § 23, I have fully

explained the incorrectness of the following proof of the _a priori_

nature and of the necessity of the law of causality from the mere

succession of events in time; I must, therefore, content myself here by

referring to that passage.(6) This is precisely the case with the proof of

reciprocity also, the concept of which I was obliged to explain above as

invalid. What is necessary has also been said of modality, the working out

of the principles of which now follows.

There are still a few points in the further course of the transcendental

analytic which I should have to refute were it not that I am afraid of

trying the patience of the reader; I therefore leave them to his own

reflection. But ever anew in the “Critique of Pure Reason” we meet that

principal and fundamental error of Kant’s, which I have copiously

denounced above, the complete failure to distinguish abstract, discursive

knowledge from intuitive. It is this that throws a constant obscurity over

Kant’s whole theory of the faculty of knowledge, and never allows the

reader to know what he is really speaking about at any time, so that

instead of understanding, he always merely conjectures, for he alternately

tries to understand what is said as referring to thought and to

perception, and remains always in suspense. In the chapter “On the

Division of all Objects into Phenomena and Noumena,” Kant carries that

incredible want of reflection as to the nature of the idea of perception

and the abstract idea, as I shall explain more fully immediately, so far

as to make the monstrous assertion that without thought, that is, without

abstract conceptions, there is no knowledge of an object; and that

perception, because it is not thought, is also not knowledge, and, in

general, is nothing but a mere affection of sensibility, mere sensation!

Nay, more, that perception without conception is absolutely void; but

conception without perception is yet always something (p. 253; V. 309).

Now this is exactly the opposite of the truth; for concepts obtain all

significance, all content, only from their relation to ideas of

perception, from which they have been abstracted, derived, that is,

constructed through the omission of all that is unessential: therefore if

the foundation of perception is taken away from them, they are empty and

void. Perceptions, on the contrary, have in themselves immediate and very

great significance (in them, indeed, the thing in itself objectifies

itself); they represent themselves, express themselves, have no mere

borrowed content like concepts. For the principle of sufficient reason

governs them only as the law of causality, and determines as such only

their position in space and time; it does not, however, condition their

content and their significance, as is the case with concepts, in which it

appears as the principle of the ground of knowing. For the rest, it looks

as if Kant really wished here to set about distinguishing the idea of

perception and the abstract idea. He objects to Leibnitz and Locke that

the former reduced everything to abstract ideas, and the latter everything

to ideas of perception. But yet he arrives at no distinction; and although

Locke and Leibnitz really committed these errors, Kant himself is burdened

with a third error which includes them both—the error of having so mixed

up knowledge of perception and abstract knowledge that a monstrous hybrid

of the two resulted, a chimera of which no distinct idea is possible, and

which therefore necessarily only confused and stupefied students, and set

them at variance.

Certainly thought and perception are separated more in the chapter

referred to “On the Division of all Objects into Phenomena and Noumena”

than anywhere else, but the nature of this distinction is here a

fundamentally false one. On p. 253; V. 309, it is said: “If I take away

all thought (through the categories) from empirical knowledge, there

remains absolutely no knowledge of an object, for through mere perception

nothing at all is thought, and that this affection of sensibility is in me

establishes really no relation of such ideas to any object.” This sentence

contains, in some degree, all the errors of Kant in a nutshell; for it

brings out clearly that he has falsely conceived the relation between

sensation, perception, and thought, and accordingly identifies the

perception, whose form he yet supposes to be space, and indeed space in

all its three dimensions, with the mere subjective sensation in the organs

of sense, but only allows the knowledge of an object to be given through

thought, which is different from perception. I, on the contrary, say:

Objects are first of all objects of perception, not of thought, and all

knowledge of _objects_ is originally and in itself perception. Perception,

however, is by no means mere sensation, but the understanding is already

active in it. The thought, which is added only in the case of men, not in

the case of the brutes, is mere abstraction from perception, gives no

fundamentally new knowledge, does not itself establish objects which were

not before, but merely changes the form of the knowledge already won

through perception, makes it abstract knowledge in concepts, whereby its

concrete or perceptible character is lost, but, on the other hand,

combination of it becomes possible, which immeasurably extends the range

of its applicability. The material of our thought is, on the other hand,

nothing else than our perceptions themselves, and not something which the

perceptions did not contain, and which was added by the thought; therefore

the material of everything that appears in our thought must be capable of

verification in our perception, for otherwise it would be an empty

thought. Although this material is variously manipulated and transformed

by thought, it must yet be capable of being reduced to perception, and the

thought traced back to this—just as a piece of gold can be reduced from

all its solutions, oxides, sublimates, and combinations, and presented

pure and undiminished. This could not happen if thought itself had added

something, and, indeed, the principal thing, to the object.

The whole of the chapter on the Amphiboly, which follows this, is merely a

criticism of the Leibnitzian philosophy, and as such is on the whole

correct, though the form or pattern on which it is constructed is chosen

merely for the sake of architectonic symmetry, which here also is the

guiding clue. Thus, to carry out the analogy with the Aristotelian

Organon, a transcendental Topic is set up, which consists in this, that

every conception is to be considered from four points of view, in order to

make out to which faculty of knowledge it belongs. But these four points

of view are quite arbitrarily selected, and ten others might be added to

them with just as much right; but their fourfold number corresponds to the

titles of the categories, and therefore the chief doctrine of Leibnitz is

divided among them as best it may be. By this critique, also, to some

extent, certain errors are stamped as natural to the reason, whereas they

were merely false abstractions of Leibnitz’s, who, rather than learn from

his great philosophical contemporaries, Spinoza and Locke, preferred to

serve up his own strange inventions. In the chapter on the Amphiboly of

Reflection it is finally said that there may possibly be a kind of

perception entirely different from ours, to which, however, our categories

are applicable; therefore the objects of that supposed perception would be

_noumena_, things which can only be _thought_ by us; but since the

perception which would give that thought meaning is wanting to us, and

indeed is altogether quite problematical, the object of that thought would

also merely be a wholly indefinite possibility. I have shown above by

quotations that Kant, in utter contradiction with himself, sets up the

categories now as the condition of knowledge of perception, now as the

function of merely abstract thought. Here they appear exclusively in the

latter sense, and it seems quite as if he wished to attribute them merely

to discursive thought. But if this is really his opinion, then necessarily

at the beginning of the Transcendental Logic, before specifying the

different functions of thought at such length, he was necessarily bound to

characterise thought in general, and consequently to distinguish it from

perception; he ought to have shown what knowledge is given by mere

perception, and what that is new is added by thought. Then we would have

known what he was really speaking about; or rather, he would then have

spoken quite differently, first of perception, and then of thought;

instead of which, as it is, he is always dealing with something between

the two, which is a mere delusion. There would not then be that great gap

between the transcendental Æsthetic and the transcendental Logic, where,

after the exposition of the mere form of perception, he simply dismisses

its content, all that is empirically apprehended, with the phrase “It is

given,” and does not ask how it came about, _whether with or without

understanding_; but, with one spring, passes over to abstract thought; and

not even to thought in general, but at once to certain forms of thought,

and does not say a word about what thought is, what the concept is, what

is the relation of abstract and discursive to concrete and intuitive, what

is the difference between the knowledge of men and that of brutes, and

what is reason.

Yet it was just this distinction between abstract knowledge and knowledge

of perception, entirely overlooked by Kant, which the ancients denoted by

φαινομενα and νοουμενα,(7) and whose opposition and incommensurability

occupied them so much in the philosophemes of the Eleatics, in Plato’s

doctrine of Ideas, in the dialectic of the Megarics, and later the

Scholastics in the controversy between Nominalism and Realism, the seed of

which, so late in developing, was already contained in the opposite mental

tendencies of Plato and Aristotle. But Kant, who, in an inexcusable

manner, entirely neglected the thing to denote which the words φαινομενα

and νοουμενα had already been taken, took possession of the words, as if

they were still unappropriated, in order to denote by them his thing in

itself and his phenomenon.

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Since I have been obliged to reject Kant’s doctrine of the categories,

just as he rejected that of Aristotle, I wish here to indicate as a

suggestion a third way of reaching what is aimed at. What both Kant and

Aristotle sought for under the name of the categories were the most

general conceptions under which all things, however different, must be

subsumed, and through which therefore everything that exists would

ultimately be thought. Just on this account Kant conceived them as the

_forms_ of all thought.

Grammar is related to logic as clothes to the body. Should not, therefore,

these primary conceptions, the ground-bass of the reason, which is the

foundation of all special thought, without whose application, therefore,

no thought can take place, ultimately lie in those conceptions which just

on account of their exceeding generality (transcendentalism) have their

expression not in single words, but in whole classes of words, because one

of them is thought along with every word whatever it may be, whose

designation would therefore have to be looked for, not in the lexicon but

in the grammar? In fact, should they not be those distinctions of

conceptions on account of which the word which expresses them is either a

substantive or an adjective, a verb or an adverb, a pronoun, a

preposition, or some other particle—in short, the parts of speech? For

undoubtedly these denote the forms which all thought primarily assumes,

and in which it directly moves; accordingly they are the essential forms

of speech, the fundamental constituent elements of every language, so that

we cannot imagine any language which would not consist of at least

substantives, adjectives, and verbs. These fundamental forms would then

have subordinated to them those forms of thought which are expressed

through their inflections, that is, through declension and conjugation,

and it is unessential to the chief concern whether in denoting them we

call in the assistance of the article and the pronoun. We will examine the

thing, however, somewhat more closely, and ask the question anew: What are

the forms of thought?

(1.) Thought consists throughout of judging; judgments are the threads of

its whole web, for without making use of a verb our thought does not move,

and as often as we use a verb we judge.

(2.) Every judgment consists in the recognition of the relation between

subject and predicate, which it separates or unites with various

restrictions. It unites them from the recognition of the actual identity

of the two, which can only happen in the case of synonyms; then in the

recognition that the one is always thought along with the other, though

the converse does not hold—in the universal affirmative proposition; up to

the recognition that the one is sometimes thought along with the other, in

the particular affirmative proposition. The negative propositions take the

opposite course. Accordingly in every judgment the subject, the predicate,

and the copula, the latter affirmative or negative, must be to be found;

even although each of these is not denoted by a word of its own, as is

however generally the case. The predicate and the copula are often denoted

by _one_ word, as “Caius ages;” sometimes one word denotes all three, as

_concurritur_, _i.e._, “the armies engage.” From this it is evident that

the forms of thought are not to be sought for precisely and directly in

words, nor even in the parts of speech, for even in the same language the

same judgment may be expressed in different words, and indeed in different

parts of speech, yet the thought remains the same, and consequently also

its form; for the thought could not be the same if the form of thought

itself were different. But with the same thought and the same form of

thought the form of words may very well be different, for it is merely the

outward clothing of the thought, which, on the other hand, is inseparable

from _its_ form. Thus grammar only explains the clothing of the forms of

thought. The parts of speech can therefore be deduced from the original

forms of thought themselves which are independent of all language; their

work is to express these forms of thought in all their modifications. They

are the instrument and the clothing of the forms of thought, and must be

accurately adapted to the structure of the latter, so that it may be

recognised in them.

(3.) These real, unalterable, original forms of thought are certainly

_those of Kant’s logical table of judgments_; only that in this table are

to be found blind windows for the sake of symmetry and the table of the

categories; these must all be omitted, and also a false arrangement.

Thus:—

(_a._) _Quality_: affirmation and negation, _i.e._, combination and

separation of concepts: two forms. It depends on the copula.

(_b._) _Quantity_: the subject-concept is taken either in whole or in

part: totality or multiplicity. To the first belong also individual

subjects: Socrates means “all Socrateses.” Thus two forms. It depends on

the subject.

(_c._) _Modality_: has really three forms. It determines the quality as

necessary, actual, or contingent. It consequently depends also on the

copula.

These three forms of thought spring from the laws of thought of

contradiction and identity. But from the principle of sufficient reason

and the law of excluded middle springs—

(_d._) _Relation._ It only appears if we judge concerning completed

judgments, and can only consist in this, that it either asserts the

dependence of one judgment upon another (also in the plurality of both),

and therefore combines them in the _hypothetical_ proposition; or else

asserts that judgments exclude each other, and therefore separates them in

the _disjunctive_ proposition. It depends on the copula, which here

separates or combines the completed judgments.

The _parts of speech_ and grammatical forms are ways of expressing the

three constituent parts of the judgment, the subject, the predicate, and

the copula, and also of the possible relations of these; thus of the forms

of thought just enumerated, and the fuller determinations and

modifications of these. Substantive, adjective, and verb are therefore

essential fundamental constituent elements of language in general;

therefore they must be found in all languages. Yet it is possible to

conceive a language in which adjective and verb would always be fused

together, as is sometimes the case in all languages. Provisionally it may

be said, for the expression of the _subject_ are intended the substantive,

the article, and the pronoun; for the expression of the _predicate_, the

adjective, the adverb, and the preposition; for the expression of the

_copula_, the verb, which, however, with the exception of the verb to be,

also contains the predicate. It is the task of the philosophy of grammar

to teach the precise mechanism of the expression of the forms of thought,

as it is the task of logic to teach the operations with the forms of

thought themselves.

_Note._—As a warning against a false path and to illustrate the above, I

mention S. Stern’s “_Vorläufige Grundlage zur Sprachphilosophie_,” 1835,

which is an utterly abortive attempt to construct the categories out of

the grammatical forms. He has entirely confused thought with perception,

and therefore, instead of the categories of thought, he has tried to

deduce the supposed categories of perception from the grammatical forms,

and consequently has placed the grammatical forms in direct relation to

perception. He is involved in the great error that _language_ is

immediately related to _perception_, instead of being directly related

only to thought as such, thus to the _abstract concepts_, and only by

means of these to perception, to which they, however, have a relation

which introduces an entire change of the form. What exists in perception,

thus also the relations which proceed from time and space, certainly

becomes an object of thought; thus there must also be forms of speech to

express it, yet always merely in the abstract, as concepts. Concepts are

always the primary material of thought, and the forms of logic are always

related to these, never _directly_ to perception. Perception always

determines only the material, never the formal truth of the proposition,

for the formal truth is determined according to the logical rules alone.

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I return to the Kantian philosophy, and come now to the _Transcendental

Dialectic_. Kant opens it with the explanation of _reason_, the faculty

which is to play the principal part in it, for hitherto only sensibility

and understanding were on the scene. When considering his different

explanations of reason, I have already spoken above of the explanation he

gives here that “it is the faculty of principles.” It is now taught here

that all the _a priori_ knowledge hitherto considered, which makes pure

mathematics and pure natural science possible, affords only _rules_, and

no _principles_; because it proceeds from perceptions and forms of

knowledge, and not from mere conceptions, which is demanded if it is to be

called a principle. Such a principle must accordingly be knowledge _from

pure conceptions_ and yet _synthetical_. But this is absolutely

impossible. From pure conceptions nothing but _analytical_ propositions

can ever proceed. If conceptions are to be synthetically and yet _a

priori_ combined, this combination must necessarily be accomplished by

some third thing, through a pure perception of the formal possibility of

experience, just as synthetic judgments _a posteriori_ are brought about

through empirical perception; consequently a synthetic proposition _a

priori_ can never proceed from pure conceptions. In general, however, we

are _a priori_ conscious of nothing more than the principle of sufficient

reason in its different forms, and therefore no other synthetic judgments

_a priori_ are possible than those which proceed from that which receives

its content from that principle.

However, Kant finally comes forward with a pretended principle of the

reason answering to his demand, yet only with this _one_, from which

others afterwards follow as corollaries. It is the principle which Chr.

Wolf set up and explained in his “_Cosmologia_,” sect. i. c. 2, § 93, and

in his “_Ontologia_,” § 178. As now above, under the title of the

Amphiboly, mere Leibnitzian philosophemes were taken for natural and

necessary aberrations of the reason, and were criticised as such, so here

precisely the same thing happens with the philosophemes of Wolf. Kant

still presents this principle of the reason in an obscure light, through

indistinctness, indefiniteness, and breaking of it up (p. 307; V. 361, and

322; V. 379). Clearly expressed, however, it is as follows: “If the

conditioned is given, the totality of its conditions must also be given,

and therefore also the _unconditioned_, through which alone that totality

becomes complete.” We become most vividly aware of the apparent truth of

this proposition if we imagine the conditions and the conditioned as the

links of a suspended chain, the upper end of which, however, is not

visible, so that it might extend _ad infinitum_; since, however, the chain

does not fall, but hangs, there must be above _one_ link which is the

first, and in some way is fixed. Or, more briefly: the reason desires to

have a point of attachment for the causal chain which reaches back to

infinity; it would be convenient for it. But we will examine the

proposition, not in figures, but in itself. Synthetic it certainly is;

for, analytically, nothing more follows from the conception of the

conditioned than that of the condition. It has not, however, _a priori_

truth, nor even _a posteriori_, but it surreptitiously obtains its

appearance of truth in a very subtle way, which I must now point out.

Immediately, and _a priori_, we have the knowledge which the principle of

sufficient reason in its four forms expresses. From this immediate

knowledge all abstract expressions of the principle of sufficient reason

are derived, and they are thus indirect; still more, however, is this the

case with inferences or corollaries from them. I have already explained

above how _abstract_ knowledge often unites a variety of _intuitive_

cognitions in _one_ form or _one_ concept in such a way that they can no

longer be distinguished; therefore abstract knowledge stands to intuitive

knowledge as the shadow to the real objects, the great multiplicity of

which it presents through one outline comprehending them all. Now the

pretended principle of the reason makes use of this shadow. In order to

deduce from the principle of sufficient reason the unconditioned, which

directly contradicts it, it prudently abandons the immediate concrete

knowledge of the content of the principle of sufficient reason in its

particular forms, and only makes use of abstract concepts which are

derived from it, and have value and significance only through it, in order

to smuggle its unconditioned somehow or other into the wide sphere of

those concepts. Its procedure becomes most distinct when clothed in

dialectical form; for example, thus: “If the conditioned exists, its

condition must also be given, and indeed all given, thus completely, thus

the totality of its conditions; consequently, if they constitute a series,

the whole series, consequently also its first beginning, thus the

unconditioned.” Here it is false that the conditions of a conditioned can

constitute a _series_. Rather must the totality of the conditions of

everything conditioned be contained in its _nearest_ ground or reason from

which it directly proceeds, and which is only thus a _sufficient_ ground

or reason. For example, the different determinations of the state which is

the cause, all of which must be present together before the effect can

take place. But the series, for example, the chain of causes, arises

merely from the fact that we regard what immediately before was the

condition as now a conditioned; but then at once the whole operation

begins again from the beginning, and the principle of sufficient reason

appears anew with its claim. But there can never be for a conditioned a

properly successive _series_ of conditions, which exist merely as such,

and on account of that which is at last conditioned; it is always an

alternating series of conditioneds and conditions; as each link is laid

aside the chain is broken, and the claim of the principle of sufficient

reason entirely satisfied, it arises anew because the condition becomes

the conditioned. Thus the principle of _sufficient_ reason always demands

only the completeness of the _immediate or next condition_, never the

completeness of a _series_. But just this conception of the completeness

of the condition leaves it undetermined whether this completeness should

be simultaneous or successive; and since the latter is chosen, the demand

now arises for a complete series of conditions following each other. Only

through an arbitrary abstraction is a series of causes and effects

regarded as a series of causes alone, which exists merely on account of

the last effect, and is therefore demanded as its _sufficient_ reason.

From closer and more intelligent consideration, and by rising from the

indefinite generality of abstraction to the particular definite reality,

it appears, on the contrary, that the demand for a _sufficient_ reason

extends only to the completeness of the determinations of the _immediate_

cause, not to the completeness of a series. The demand of the principle of

sufficient reason is completely extinguished in each sufficient reason

given. It arises, however, immediately anew, because this reason is again

regarded as a consequent; but it never demands directly a series of

reasons. If, on the other hand, instead of going to the thing itself, we

confine ourselves to the abstract concepts, these distinctions vanish.

Then a chain of alternating causes and effects, or of alternating logical

reasons and consequents, is given out as simply a chain of causes of the

last effect, or reasons of the last consequent, and the _completeness of

the conditions_, through which alone a reason becomes _sufficient_,

appears as the completeness of that assumed _series_ of reasons alone,

which only exist on account of the last consequent. There then appears the

abstract principle of the reason very boldly with its demand for the

unconditioned. But, in order to recognise the invalidity of this claim,

there is no need of a critique of reason by means of antinomies and their

solution, but only of a critique of reason understood in my sense, an

examination of the relation of abstract knowledge to direct intuitive

knowledge, by means of ascending from the indefinite generality of the

former to the fixed definiteness of the latter. From such a critique,

then, it here appears that the nature of the reason by no means consists

in the demand for an unconditioned; for, whenever it proceeds with full

deliberation, it must itself find that an unconditioned is an absurdity.

The reason as a faculty of knowledge can always have to do only with

objects; but every object for the subject is necessarily and irrevocably

subordinated to the principle of sufficient reason, both _a parte ante_

and _a parte post_. The validity of the principle of sufficient reason is

so involved in the form of consciousness that we absolutely cannot imagine

anything objective of which no _why_ could further be demanded; thus we

cannot imagine an absolute absolute, like a blind wall in front of us.

That his convenience should lead this or that person to stop at some

point, and assume such an absolute at pleasure, is of no avail against

that incontestable certainty _a priori_, even if he should put on an air

of great importance in doing so. In fact, the whole talk about the

absolute, almost the sole theme of philosophies since Kant, is nothing but

the cosmological proof _incognito_. This proof, in consequence of the case

brought against it by Kant, deprived of all right and declared outlawed,

dare no longer show itself in its true form, and therefore appears in all

kinds of disguises—now in distinguished form, concealed under intellectual

intuition or pure thought; now as a suspicious vagabond, half begging,

half demanding what it wants in more unpretending philosophemes. If an

absolute must absolutely be had, then I will give one which is far better

fitted to meet all the demands which are made on such a thing than these

visionary phantoms; it is matter. It has no beginning, and it is

imperishable; thus it is really independent, and _quod per se est et per

se concipitur_; from its womb all proceeds, and to it all returns; what

more can be desired of an absolute? But to those with whom no critique of

reason has succeeded, we should rather say—

“Are not ye like unto women, who ever

Return to the point from which they set out,

Though reason should have been talked by the hour?”

That the return to an unconditioned cause, to a first beginning, by no

means lies in the nature of reason, is, moreover, practically proved by

the fact that the primitive religions of our race, which even yet have the

greatest number of followers upon earth, Brahmanism and Buddhaism, neither

know nor admit such assumptions, but carry the series of phenomena

conditioning each other into infinity. Upon this point, I refer to the

note appended to the criticism of the first antinomy, which occurs further

on; and the reader may also see Upham’s “Doctrine of Buddhaism” (p. 9),

and in general all genuine accounts of the religions of Asia. Judaism and

reason ought not to be identified.

Kant, who by no means desires to maintain his pretended principle of

reason as objectively valid, but merely as subjectively necessary, deduces

it even as such only by means of a shallow sophism, p. 307; V. 364. He

says that because we seek to subsume every truth known to us under a more

general truth, as far as this process can be carried, this is nothing else

than the pursuit of the unconditioned, which we already presuppose. But,

in truth, in this endeavour we do nothing more than apply reason, and

intentionally make use of it to simplify our knowledge by enabling us to

survey it—reason, which is that faculty of abstract, general knowledge

that distinguishes the reflective, thinking man, endowed with speech, from

the brute, which is the slave of the present. For the use of reason just

consists in this, that we know the particular through the universal, the

case through the rule, the rule through the more general rule; thus that

we seek the most general points of view. Through such survey or general

view our knowledge is so facilitated and perfected that from it arises the

great difference between the life of the brutes and that of men, and again

between the life of educated and that of uneducated men. Now, certainly

the series of _grounds of knowledge_, which exist only in the sphere of

the abstract, thus of reason, always finds an end in what is

indemonstrable, _i.e._, in an idea which is not further conditioned

according to this form of the principle of sufficient reason, thus in the

_a priori_ or _a posteriori_ directly perceptible ground of the first

proposition of the train of reasoning. I have already shown in the essay

on the principle of sufficient reason, § 50, that here the series of

grounds of knowledge really passes over into grounds of becoming or of

being. But one can only desire to make this circumstance hold good as a

proof of an unconditioned according to the law of causality, or even of

the mere demand for such an unconditioned, if one has not yet

distinguished the forms of the principle of sufficient reason at all, but,

holding to the abstract expression, has confounded them all. Kant,

however, seeks to establish that confusion, through a mere play upon

words, with _Universalitas_ and _Universitas_, p. 322; V. 379. Thus it is

fundamentally false that our search for higher grounds of knowledge, more

general truths, springs from the presupposition of an object unconditioned

in its being, or has anything whatever in common with this. Moreover, how

should it be essential to the reason to presuppose something which it must

know to be an absurdity as soon as it reflects? The source of that

conception of the unconditioned is rather to be found only in the

indolence of the individual who wishes by means of it to get rid of all

further questions, whether his own or of others, though entirely without

justification.

Now Kant himself denies objective validity to this pretended principle of

reason; he gives it, however, as a necessary subjective assumption, and

thus introduces an irremediable split into our knowledge, which he soon

allows to appear more clearly. With this purpose he unfolds that principle

of reason further, p. 322; V. 379, in accordance with the method of

architectonic symmetry of which he is so fond. From the three categories

of relation spring three kinds of syllogisms, each of which gives the clue

for the discovery of a special unconditioned, of which again there are

three: the soul, the world (as an object in itself and absolute totality),

and God. Now here we must at once note a great contradiction, of which

Kant, however, takes no notice, because it would be very dangerous to the

symmetry. Two of these unconditioneds are themselves conditioned by the

third, the soul and the world by God, who is the cause of their existence.

Thus the two former have by no means the predicate of unconditionedness in

common with the latter, though this is really the point here, but only

that of inferred being according to the principles of experience, beyond

the sphere of the possibility of experience.

Setting this aside, we recognise in the three unconditioneds, to which,

according to Kant, reason, following its essential laws, must come, the

three principal subjects round which the whole of philosophy under the

influence of Christianity, from the Scholastics down to Christian Wolf,

has turned. Accessible and familiar as these conceptions have become

through all these philosophers, and now also through the philosophers of

pure reason, this by no means shows that, without revelation, they would

necessarily have proceeded from the development of all reason as a

production peculiar to its very nature. In order to prove this it would be

necessary to call in the aid of historical criticism, and to examine

whether the ancient and non-European nations, especially the peoples of

Hindostan and many of the oldest Greek philosophers, really attained to

those conceptions, or whether it is only we who, by quite falsely

translating the Brahma of the Hindus and the Tien of the Chinese as “God,”

good-naturedly attribute such conceptions to them, just as the Greeks

recognised their gods everywhere; whether it is not rather the case that

theism proper is only to be found in the religion of the Jews, and in the

two religions which have proceeded from it, whose followers just on this

account comprise the adherents of all other religions on earth under the

name of heathen, which, by the way, is a most absurd and crude expression,

and ought to be banished at least from the writings of the learned,

because it identifies and jumbles together Brahmanists, Buddhists,

Egyptians, Greeks, Romans, Germans, Gauls, Iroquois, Patagonians,

Caribbeans, Otaheiteans, Australians, and many others. Such an expression

is all very well for priests, but in the learned world it must at once be

shown the door: it can go to England and take up its abode at Oxford. It

is a thoroughly established fact that Buddhism, the religion which numbers

more followers than any other on earth, contains absolutely no theism,

indeed rejects it. As regards Plato, it is my opinion that he owes to the

Jews the theism with which he is periodically seized. On this account

Numenius (according to Clem. Alex., _Strom._, i. c. 22, Euseb. _præp.

evang._, xiii. 12, and Suidas under Numenius) called him the _Moses

græcisans_: Τι γαρ εστι Πλατων, η Μωσης αττικιζων; and he accuses him of

having stolen (αποσυλησας) his doctrine of God and the creation from the

Mosaical writings. Clemens often repeats that Plato knew and made use of

Moses, _e.g._, _Strom._, i. 25.—v. c. 14, § 90, &c., &c.; _Pædagog._, ii.

10, and iii. 11; also in the _Cohortatio ad gentes_, c. 6, where, after he

has bitterly censured and derided the whole of the Greek philosophers in

the preceding chapter because they were not Jews, he bestows on Plato

nothing but praise, and breaks out into pure exultation that as Plato had

learnt his geometry from the Egyptians, his astronomy from the

Babylonians, magic from the Thracians, and much also from the Assyrians,

so he had learnt his theism from the Jews: Οιδα σου τους διδασκαλους, καν

αποκρυπτειν εθελῇς, ... δοξαν την του θεου παρ᾽ αυτων ωφελησει των Εβραιων

(_Tuos magistros novi, licet eos celare velis, ... illa de Deo sententia

suppeditata tibi est ab Hebræis_). A pathetic scene of recognition. But I

see a remarkable confirmation of the matter in what follows. According to

Plutarch (_in Mario_), and, better, according to Lactantius (i. 3, 19),

Plato thanked Nature that he had been born a human being and not a brute,

a man and not a woman, a Greek and not a barbarian. Now in Isaac Euchel’s

“Prayers of the Jews,” from the Hebrew, second edition, 1799, p. 7, there

is a morning prayer in which God is thanked and praised that the

worshipper was born a Jew and not a heathen, a free man and not a slave, a

man and not a woman. Such an historical investigation would have spared

Kant an unfortunate necessity in which he now becomes involved, in that he

makes these three conceptions spring necessarily from the nature of

reason, and yet explains that they are untenable and unverifiable by the

reason, and thus makes the reason itself a sophisticator; for he says, p.

339; V. 397: “There are sophistications, not of man, but of pure reason

itself, from which even the wisest cannot free himself, and although after

much trouble he may be able to avoid error, yet he never can escape from

the illusion which unceasingly torments and mocks him.” Therefore these

Kantian “Ideas of the Reason” might be compared to the focus in which the

converging reflected rays from a concave mirror meet several inches before

its surface, in consequence of which, by an inevitable process of the

understanding, an object presents itself to us there which is a thing

without reality.

But the name “Idea” is very unfortunately chosen for these pretended

necessary productions of the pure theoretical reason, and violently

appropriated from Plato, who used it to denote the eternal forms which,

multiplied through space and time, become partially visible in the

innumerable individual fleeting things. Plato’s “Ideas” are accordingly

throughout perceptible, as indeed the word which he chose so definitely

signifies, for it could only be adequately translated by means of

perceptible or visible things; and Kant has appropriated it to denote that

which lies so far from all possibility of perception that even abstract

thought can only half attain to it. The word “Idea,” which Plato first

introduced, has, moreover, since then, through two-and-twenty centuries,

always retained the significance in which he used it; for not only all

ancient philosophers, but also all the Scholastics, and indeed the Church

Fathers and the theologians of the Middle Ages, used it only in that

Platonic sense, the sense of the Latin word _exemplar_, as Suarez

expressly mentions in his twenty-fifth Disputation, sect. 1. That

Englishmen and Frenchmen were later induced by the poverty of their

languages to misuse this word is bad enough, but not of importance. Kant’s

misuse of the word idea, by the substitution of a new significance

introduced by means of the slender clue of not being object of experience,

which it has in common with Plato’s ideas, but also in common with every

possible chimera, is thus altogether unjustifiable. Now, since the misuse

of a few years is not to be considered against the authority of many

centuries, I have always used the word in its old, original, Platonic

significance.

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The refutation of _rational psychology_ is much fuller and more thorough

in the first edition of the “Critique of Pure Reason” than in the second

and following editions, and therefore upon this point we must make use of

the first edition exclusively. This refutation has as a whole very great

merit and much truth. Yet I am clearly of the opinion that it was merely

from his love of symmetry that Kant deduced as necessary the conception of

the soul from the paralogism of substantiality by applying the demand for

the unconditioned to the conception _substance_, which is the first

category of relation, and accordingly maintained that the conception of a

soul arose in this way in every speculative reason. If this conception

really had its origin in the presupposition of a final subject of all

predicates of a thing, one would have assumed a soul not in men alone, but

also just as necessarily in every lifeless thing, for such a thing also

requires a final subject of all its predicates. Speaking generally,

however, Kant makes use of a quite inadmissible expression when he talks

of something which can exist only as subject and not as predicate (_e.g._,

Critique of Pure Reason, p. 323; V. 412; Prolegomena, § 4 and 47); though

a precedent for this is to be found in Aristotle’s “Metaphysics,” iv. ch.

8. Nothing whatever exists as subject and predicate, for these expressions

belong exclusively to logic, and denote the relations of abstract

conceptions to each other. Now their correlative or representative in the

world of perception must be substance and accident. But then we need not

look further for that which exists always as substance and never as

accident, but have it directly in matter. It is the substance

corresponding to all properties of things which are their accidents. It

is, in fact, if one wishes to retain the expression of Kant which has just

been condemned, the final subject of all predicates of that empirically

given thing, that which remains after the abstraction of all its

properties of every kind. And this holds good of man as of a brute, a

plant, or a stone, and is so evident, that in order not to see it a

determined desire not to see is required. That it is really the prototype

of the conception substance, I will show soon. But subject and predicate

are related to substance and accident rather as the principle of

sufficient reason in logic to the law of causality in nature, and the

substitution or identification of the former is just as inadmissible as

that of the latter. Yet in the “Prolegomena,” § 46, Kant carries this

substitution and identification to its fullest extent in order to make the

conception of the soul arise from that of the final subject of all

predicates and from the form of the categorical syllogism. In order to

discover the sophistical nature of this paragraph, one only needs to

reflect that subject and predicate are purely logical determinations,

which concern abstract conceptions solely and alone, and that according to

their relation in the judgment. Substance and accident, on the other hand,

belong to the world of perception and its apprehension in the

understanding, and are even there only as identical with matter and form

or quality. Of this more shortly.

The antithesis which has given occasion for the assumption of two

fundamentally different substances, body and soul, is in truth that of

objective and subjective. If a man apprehends himself objectively in

external perception, he finds a being extended in space and in general

merely corporeal; but if, on the other hand, he apprehends himself in mere

self-consciousness, thus purely subjectively, he finds himself a merely

willing and perceiving being, free from all forms of perception, thus also

without a single one of the properties which belong to bodies. Now he

forms the conception of the soul, like all the transcendental conceptions

called by Kant Ideas, by applying the principle of sufficient reason, the

form of all objects, to that which is not an object, and in this case

indeed to the subject of knowing and willing. He treats, in fact, knowing,

thinking, and willing as effects of which he seeks the cause, and as he

cannot accept the body as their cause, he assumes a cause of them entirely

different from the body. In this manner the first and the last of the

dogmatists proves the existence of the soul: Plato in the “Phædrus” and

also Wolf: from thinking and willing as the effects which lead to that

cause. Only after in this way, by hypostatising a cause corresponding to

the effect, the conception of an immaterial, simple, indestructible being

had arisen, the school developed and demonstrated this from the conception

of _substance_. But this conception itself they had previously constructed

specially for this purpose by the following artifice, which is worthy of

notice.

With the first class of ideas, _i.e._, the real world of perception, the

idea of matter is also given; because the law governing this class of

ideas, the law of causality, determines the change of the states or

conditions, and these conditions themselves presuppose something

permanent, whose changes they are. When speaking above of the principle of

the permanence of substance, I showed, by reference to earlier passages,

that this idea of matter arises because in the understanding, for which

alone it exists, time and space are intimately united, and the share of

space in this product exhibits itself as the permanence of matter, while

the share of time appears as the change of states. Purely in itself,

matter can only be thought _in abstracto_, and not perceived; for to

perception it always appears already in form and quality. From this

conception of _matter_, _substance_ is again an abstraction, consequently

a higher _genus_, and arose in this way. Of the conception of matter, only

the predicate of permanence was allowed to remain, while all its other

essential properties, extension, impenetrability, divisibility, &c., were

thought away. Like every higher _genus_, then, the concept _substance_

contains _less in itself_ than the concept _matter_, but, unlike every

other higher _genus_, it does not contain _more under it_, because it does

not include several lower _genera_ besides matter; but this remains the

one true species of the concept substance, the only assignable thing by

which its content is realised and receives a proof. Thus the aim with

which in other cases the reason produces by abstraction a higher

conception, in order that in it several subordinate species may be thought

at once through common determinations, has here no place; consequently

that abstraction is either undertaken idly and entirely without aim, or it

has a secret secondary purpose. This secret purpose is now brought to

light; for under the conception substance, along with its true sub-species

matter, a second species is co-ordinated—the immaterial, simple,

indestructible substance, soul. But the surreptitious introduction of this

last concept arose from the fact that the higher concept _substance_ was

framed illogically, and in a manner contrary to law. In its legitimate

procedure the reason always frames the concept of a higher genus by

placing together the concepts of several species, and now comparing them,

proceeds discursively, and by omitting their differences and retaining the

qualities in which they agree, obtains the generic concept which includes

them all but has a smaller content. From this it follows that the concepts

of the species must always precede the concept of the genus. But, in the

present case, the converse is true. Only the concept matter existed before

the generic concept _substance_. The latter was without occasion, and

consequently without justification, as it were aimlessly framed from the

former by the arbitrary omission of all its determinations except one. Not

till afterwards was the second ungenuine species placed beside the concept

matter, and so foisted in. But for the framing of this second concept

nothing more was now required than an express denial of what had already

been tacitly omitted in the higher generic concept, extension,

impenetrability, and divisibility. Thus the concept _substance_ was framed

merely to be the vehicle for the surreptitious introduction of the concept

of the immaterial substance. Consequently, it is very far from being

capable of holding good as a category or necessary function of the

understanding; rather is it an exceedingly superfluous concept, because

its only true content lies already in the concept of matter, besides which

it contains only a great void, which can be filled up by nothing but the

illicitly introduced species _immaterial substance_; and, indeed, it was

solely for the purpose of containing this that it was framed. Accordingly,

in strictness, the concept substance must be entirely rejected, and the

concept matter everywhere put in its place.

‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐

The categories were a procrustean bed for every possible thing, but the

three kinds of syllogisms are so only for the three so-called Ideas. The

Idea of the soul was compelled to find its origin in the form of the

categorical syllogism. It is now the turn of the dogmatic ideas concerning

the universe, so far as it is thought as an object in itself, between two

limits—that of the smallest (atom), and that of the largest (limits of the

universe in time and space). These must now proceed from the form of the

hypothetical syllogism. Nor for this in itself is any special violence

necessary. For the hypothetical judgment has its form from the principle

of sufficient reason, and not the cosmological alone but all those

so-called Ideas really have their origin in the inconsiderate and

unrestricted application of that principle, and the laying aside of it at

pleasure. For, in accordance with that principle, the mere dependence of

an object upon another is ever sought for, till finally the exhaustion of

the imagination puts an end to the journey; and thus it is lost sight of

that every object, and indeed the whole chain of objects and the principle

of sufficient reason itself, stand in a far closer and greater dependence,

the dependence upon the knowing subject, for whose objects alone, _i.e._,

ideas, that principle is valid, for their mere position in space and time

is determined by it. Thus, since the form of knowledge from which here

merely the cosmological Ideas are derived, the principle of sufficient

reason, is the source of all subtle hypostases, in this case no sophisms

need be resorted to; but so much the more is sophistry required in order

to classify those Ideas according to the four titles of the categories.

(1.) The cosmological Ideas with regard to time and space, thus of the

limits of the world in both, are boldly regarded as determined through the

category of _quantity_, with which they clearly have nothing in common,

except the accidental denotation in logic of the extent of the concept of

the subject in the judgment by the word _quantity_, a pictorial expression

instead of which some other might just as well have been chosen. But for

Kant’s love of symmetry this is enough. He takes advantage of the

fortunate accident of this nomenclature, and links to it the transcendent

dogmas of the world’s extension.

(2.) Yet more boldly does Kant link to _quality_, _i.e._, the affirmation

or negation in a judgment, the transcendent Ideas concerning matter; a

procedure which has not even an accidental similarity of words as a basis.

For it is just to the _quantity_, and not to the _quality_ of matter that

its mechanical (not chemical) divisibility is related. But, what is more,

this whole idea of divisibility by no means belongs to those inferences

according to the principle of sufficient reason, from which, however, as

the content of the hypothetical form, all cosmological Ideas ought to

flow. For the assertion upon which Kant there relies, that the relation of

the parts to the whole is that of the condition to the conditioned, thus a

relation according to the principle of sufficient reason, is certainly an

ingenious but yet a groundless sophism. That relation is rather based upon

the principle of contradiction; for the whole is not through the part, nor

the parts through the whole, but both are necessarily together because

they are one, and their separation is only an arbitrary act. It depends

upon this, according to the principle of contradiction, that if the parts

are thought away, the whole is also thought away, and conversely; and by

no means upon the fact that the parts as the _reason_ conditioned the

whole as the _consequent_, and that therefore, in accordance with the

principle of sufficient reason, we were necessarily led to seek the

ultimate parts, in order, as its reason, to understand from them the

whole. Such great difficulties are here overcome by the love of symmetry.

(3.) The Idea of the first cause of the world would now quite properly

come under the title of _relation_; but Kant must reserve this for the

fourth title, that of _modality_, for which otherwise nothing would

remain, and under which he forces this idea to come by saying that the

contingent (_i.e._, according to his explanation, which is diametrically

opposed to the truth, every consequent of its reason) becomes the

necessary through the first cause. Therefore, for the sake of symmetry,

the conception of _freedom_ appears here as the third Idea. By this

conception, however, as is distinctly stated in the observations on the

thesis of the third conflict, what is really meant is only that Idea of

the cause of the world which alone is admissible here. The third and

fourth conflicts are at bottom tautological.

About all this, however, I find and assert that the whole antinomy is a

mere delusion, a sham fight. Only the assertions of the antitheses really

rest upon the forms of our faculty of knowledge, _i.e._, if we express it

objectively, on the necessary, _a priori_ certain, most universal laws of

nature. Their proofs alone are therefore drawn from objective grounds. On

the other hand, the assertions and proofs of the theses have no other than

a subjective ground, rest solely on the weakness of the reasoning

individual; for his imagination becomes tired with an endless regression,

and therefore he puts an end to it by arbitrary assumptions, which he

tries to smooth over as well as he can; and his judgment, moreover, is in

this case paralysed by early and deeply imprinted prejudices. On this

account the proof of the thesis in all the four conflicts is throughout a

mere sophism, while that of the antithesis is a necessary inference of the

reason from the laws of the world as idea known to us _a priori_. It is,

moreover, only with great pains and skill that Kant is able to sustain the

thesis, and make it appear to attack its opponent, which is endowed with

native power. Now in this regard his first and constant artifice is, that

he does not render prominent the _nervus argumentationis_, and thus

present it in as isolated, naked, and distinct a manner as he possibly

can; but rather introduces the same argument on both sides, concealed

under and mixed up with a mass of superfluous and prolix sentences.

The theses and antitheses which here appear in such conflict remind one of

the δικαιος and αδικος λογος which Socrates, in the “Clouds” of

Aristophanes, brings forward as contending. Yet this resemblance extends

only to the form and not to the content, though this would gladly be

asserted by those who ascribe to these most speculative of all questions

of theoretical philosophy an influence upon morality, and therefore

seriously regard the thesis as the δικαιος, and the antithesis as the

αδικος λογος. I shall not, however, accommodate myself here with reference

to such small, narrow, and perverse minds; and, giving honour not to them,

but to the truth, I shall show that the proofs which Kant adduced of the

individual theses are sophisms, while those of the antitheses are quite

fairly and correctly drawn from objective grounds. I assume that in this

examination the reader has always before him the Kantian antinomy itself.

If the proof of the thesis in the first conflict is to be held as valid,

then it proves too much, for it would be just as applicable to time itself

as to change in time, and would therefore prove that time itself must have

had a beginning, which is absurd. Besides, the sophism consists in this,

that instead of the beginninglessness of the series of states, which was

at first the question, suddenly the endlessness (infinity) of the series

is substituted; and now it is proved that this is logically contradicted

by completeness, and yet every present is the end of the past, which no

one doubted. The end of a beginningless series can, however, always be

_thought_, without prejudice to the fact that it has no beginning; just

as, conversely, the beginning of an endless series can also be _thought_.

But against the real, true argument of the antithesis, that the changes of

the world necessarily presuppose an infinite series of changes

_backwards_, absolutely nothing is advanced. We can think the possibility

that the causal chain will some day end in an absolute standstill, but we

can by no means think the possibility of an absolute beginning.(8)

With reference to the spatial limits of the world, it is proved that, if

it is to be regarded as a _given whole_, it must necessarily have limits.

The reasoning is correct, only it was just the first link of it that was

to be proved, and that remains unproved. Totality presupposes limits, and

limits presuppose totality; but here both together are arbitrarily

presupposed. For this second point, however, the antithesis affords no

such satisfactory proof as for the first, because the law of causality

provides us with necessary determinations only with reference to time, not

to space, and affords us _a priori_ the certainty that no occupied time

can ever be bounded by a previous empty time, and that no change can be

the first change, but not that an occupied space can have no empty space

beside it. So far no _a priori_ decision on the latter point would be

possible; yet the difficulty of conceiving the world in space as limited

lies in the fact that space itself is necessarily infinite, and therefore

a limited finite world in space, however large it may be, becomes an

infinitely small magnitude; and in this incongruity the imagination finds

an insuperable stumbling-block, because there remains for it only the

choice of thinking the world either as infinitely large or infinitely

small. This was already seen by the ancient philosophers: Μητροδωρος, ὁ

καθηγητης Επικουρου, φηδιν ατοπον ειναι εν μεγαλῳ πεδιῳ ἑνα σταχυν

γεννηθηναι, και ἑνα κοσμον εν τῳ απειρῳ (_Metrodorus, caput scholæ

Epicuri, absurdum ait, in magno campo spicam unam produci, et unum in

infinito mundum_) Stob. Ecl., i. c. 23. Therefore many of them taught (as

immediately follows), απειρους κοσμους εν τῳ απειρῳ (_infinitos mundos in

infinito_). This is also the sense of the Kantian argument for the

antithesis, only he has disfigured it by a scholastic and ambiguous

expression. The same argument might be used against the limitation of the

world in time, only we have a far better one under the guidance of

causality. In the case of the assumption of a world limited in space,

there arises further the unanswerable question, What advantage has the

filled part of space enjoyed over the infinite space that has remained

empty? In the fifth dialogue of his book, “_Del Infinito, Universo e

Mondi_,” Giordano Bruno gives a full account of the arguments for and

against the finiteness of the world, which is very well worth reading. For

the rest, Kant himself asserts seriously, and upon objective grounds, the

infinity of the world in space in his “Natural History of the Theory of

the Heavens,” part ii. ch. 7. Aristotle also acknowledges the same,

“Phys.,” iii. ch. 4, a chapter which, together with the following one, is

very well worth reading with reference to this antinomy.

In the second conflict the thesis is at once guilty of a very palpable

_petitio principii_, for it commences, “Every _compound_ substance

consists of simple parts.” From the compoundness here arbitrarily assumed,

no doubt it afterwards very easily proves the simple parts. But the

proposition, “All matter is compound,” which is just the point, remains

unproved, because it is simply a groundless assumption. The opposite of

simple is not compound, but extended, that which has parts and is

divisible. Here, however, it is really tacitly assumed that the parts

existed before the whole, and were brought together, whence the whole has

arisen; for this is the meaning of the word “compound.” Yet this can just

as little be asserted as the opposite. Divisibility means merely the

possibility of separating the whole into parts, and not that the whole is

compounded out of parts and thus came into being. Divisibility merely

asserts the parts _a parte post_; compoundness asserts them _a parte

ante_. For there is essentially no temporal relation between the parts and

the whole; they rather condition each other reciprocally, and thus always

exist at the same time, for only so far as both are there is there

anything extended in space. Therefore what Kant says in the observations

on the thesis, “Space ought not to be called a _compositum_, but a

_totum_,” &c., holds good absolutely of matter also, which is simply space

become perceptible. On the other hand, the infinite divisibility of

matter, which the antithesis asserts, follows _a priori_ and

incontrovertibly from that of space, which it fills. This proposition has

absolutely nothing against it; and therefore Kant also (p. 513; V. 541),

when he speaks seriously and in his own person, no longer as the

mouthpiece of the αδικος λογος, presents it as objective truth; and also

in the “Metaphysical First Principles of Natural Science” (p. 108, first

edition), the proposition, “Matter is infinitely divisible,” is placed at

the beginning of the proof of the first proposition of mechanics as

established truth, having appeared and been proved as the fourth

proposition in the Dynamics. But here Kant spoils the proof of the

antithesis by the greatest obscurity of style and useless accumulation of

words, with the cunning intention that the evidence of the antithesis

shall not throw the sophisms of the thesis too much into the shade. Atoms

are no necessary thought of the reason, but merely an hypothesis for the

explanation of the difference of the specific gravity of bodies. But Kant

himself has shown, in the dynamics of his “Metaphysical First Principles

of Natural Science,” that this can be otherwise, and indeed better and

more simply explained than by atomism. In this, however, he was

anticipated by Priestley, “On Matter and Spirit,” sect. i. Indeed, even in

Aristotle, “Phys.” iv. 9, the fundamental thought of this is to be found.

The argument for the third thesis is a very fine sophism, and is really

Kant’s pretended principle of pure reason itself entirely unadulterated

and unchanged. It tries to prove the finiteness of the series of causes by

saying that, in order to be _sufficient_, a cause must contain the

complete sum of the conditions from which the succeeding state, the

effect, proceeds. For the completeness of the determinations present

_together_ in the state which is the cause, the argument now substitutes

the completeness of the series of causes by which that state itself was

brought to actuality; and because completeness presupposes the condition

of being rounded off or closed in, and this again presupposes finiteness,

the argument infers from this a first cause, closing the series and

therefore unconditioned. But the juggling is obvious. In order to conceive

the state A. as the sufficient cause of the state B., I assume that it

contains the sum of the necessary determinations from the co-existence of

which the estate B. inevitably follows. Now by this my demand upon it as a

_sufficient_ cause is entirely satisfied, and has no direct connection

with the question how the state A. itself came to be; this rather belongs

to an entirely different consideration, in which I regard the said state

A. no more as cause, but as itself an effect; in which case another state

again must be related to it, just as it was related to B. The assumption

of the finiteness of the series of causes and effects, and accordingly of

a first beginning, appears nowhere in this as necessary, any more than the

presentness of the present moment requires us to assume a beginning of

time itself. It only comes to be added on account of the laziness of the

speculating individual. That this assumption lies in the acceptance of a

cause as a _sufficient reason_ is thus unfairly arrived at and false, as I

have shown at length above when considering the Kantian principle of pure

reason which coincides with this thesis. In illustration of the assertion

of this false thesis, Kant is bold enough in his observations upon it to

give as an example of an unconditioned beginning his rising from his

chair; as if it were not just as impossible for him to rise without a

motive as for a ball to roll without a cause. I certainly do not need to

prove the baselessness of the appeal which, induced by a sense of

weakness, he makes to the philosophers of antiquity, by quoting from

Ocellus Lucanus, the Eleatics, &c., not to speak of the Hindus. Against

the proof of this antithesis, as in the case of the previous ones, there

is nothing to advance.

The fourth conflict is, as I have already remarked, really tautological

with the third; and the proof of the thesis is also essentially the same

as that of the preceding one. His assertion that every conditioned

presupposes a complete series of conditions, and therefore a series which

ends with an unconditioned, is a _petitio principii_, which must simply be

denied. Everything conditioned presupposes nothing but its condition; that

this is again conditioned raises a new consideration which is not directly

contained in the first.

A certain appearance of probability cannot be denied to the antinomy; yet

it is remarkable that no part of the Kantian philosophy has met so little

contradiction, indeed has found so much acceptance, as this exceedingly

paradoxical doctrine. Almost all philosophical parties and text-books have

regarded it as valid, and have also repeatedly reconstructed it; while

nearly all Kant’s other doctrines have been contested, and indeed there

have never been wanting some perverse minds which rejected even the

transcendental æsthetic. The undivided assent which the antinomy, on the

other hand, has met with may ultimately arise from the fact that certain

persons regard with inward satisfaction the point at which the

understanding is so thoroughly brought to a standstill, having hit upon

something which at once is and is not, so that they actually have before

them here the sixth trick of Philadelphia in Lichtenberg’s broadsheet.

If we examine the real meaning of Kant’s _Critical Solution_ of the

cosmological problem which now follows, we find that it is not what he

gives it out to be, the solution of the problem by the disclosure that

both sides, starting from false assumptions, are wrong in the first and

second conflicts, and that in the third and fourth both are right. It is

really the confirmation of the antitheses by the explanation of their

assertions.

First Kant asserts, in this solution, obviously wrongly, that both sides

started from the assumption, as their first principle, that with the

conditioned the completed (thus rounded off) _series_ of its conditions is

given. Only the thesis laid down this proposition, Kant’s principle of

pure reason, as the ground of its assertions; the antithesis, on the other

hand, expressly denied it throughout, and asserted the contrary. Further,

Kant charges both sides with this assumption, that the world exists in

itself, _i.e._, independently of being known and of the forms of this

knowledge, but this assumption also is only made by the thesis; indeed, it

is so far from forming the ground of the assertions of the antithesis that

it is absolutely inconsistent with them. For that it should all be given

is absolutely contradictory of the conception of an infinite series. It is

therefore essential to it that it should always exist only with reference

to the process of going through it, and not independently of this. On the

other hand, in the assumption of definite limits also lies that of a whole

which exists absolutely and independently of the process of completely

measuring it. Thus it is only the thesis that makes the false assumption

of a self-existent universe, _i.e._, a universe given prior to all

knowledge, and to which knowledge came as to something external to itself.

The antithesis from the outset combats this assumption absolutely; for the

infinity of the series which it asserts merely under the guidance of the

principle of sufficient reason can only exist if the regressus is fully

carried out, but not independently of it. As the object in general

presupposes the subject, so also the object which is determined as an

_endless_ chain of conditions necessarily presupposes in the subject the

kind of knowledge corresponding to this, that is, the _constant following_

of the links of that chain. But this is just what Kant gives as the

solution of the problem, and so often repeats: “The infinity of the world

is only _through_ the regressus, not _before_ it.” This his solution of

the conflict is thus really only the decision in favour of the antithesis

in the assertion of which this truth already lies, while it is altogether

inconsistent with the assertions of the thesis. If the antithesis had

asserted that the world consisted of infinite series of reasons and

consequents, and yet existed independently of the idea and its regressive

series, thus in itself, and therefore constituted a given whole, it would

have contradicted not only the thesis but also itself. For an infinite can

never be given as a whole, nor an _endless_ series exist, except as an

endless progress; nor can what is boundless constitute a whole. Thus this

assumption, of which Kant asserts that it led both sides into error,

belongs only to the thesis.

It is already a doctrine of Aristotle’s that an infinity can never be

_actu_, _i.e._, actual and given, but only _potentiâ_. Ουκ εστιν ενεργειᾳ

ειναι το απειρον ... αλλ᾽ αδυνατον το εντελεχειᾳ ον απειρον (_infinitum

non potest esse actu: ... sed impossibile, actu esse infinitum_), Metaph.

K. 10. Further: κατ᾽ ενεργειαν μεν γαρ ουδεν εστιν απειρον, δυναμει δε επι

την διαιρεσιν (_nihil enim actu infinitum est, sed potentia tantum, nempe

divisione ipsa_). _De generat. et corrupt._, i., 3. He develops this fully

in the “Physics,” iii. 5 and 6, where to a certain extent he gives the

perfectly correct solution of the whole of the antinomies. He expounds the

antinomies in his short way, and then says, “A mediator (διαιτητου) is

required;” upon which he gives the solution that the infinite, both of the

world in space and in time and in division, is never _before_ the

regressus, or progressus, but in it. This truth lies then in the rightly

apprehended conception of the infinite. Thus one misunderstands himself if

he imagines that he can think the infinite, of whatever kind it may be, as

something objectively present and complete, and independent of the

regressus.

Indeed if, reversing the procedure, we take as the starting-point what

Kant gives as the solution of the conflict, the assertion of the

antithesis follows exactly from it. Thus: if the world is not an

unconditioned whole and does not exist absolutely but only in the idea,

and if its series of reasons and consequents do not exist _before_ the

regressus of the ideas of them but only _through_ this regressus, then the

world cannot contain determined and finite series, because their

determination and limitation would necessarily be independent of the idea,

which would then only come afterwards; but all its series must be

infinite, _i.e._, inexhaustible by any idea.

On p. 506; V. 534, Kant tries to prove from the falseness of both sides

the transcendental ideality of the phenomenon, and begins, “If the world

is a whole existing by itself, it is either finite or infinite.” But this

is false; a whole existing of itself cannot possibly be infinite. That

ideality may rather be concluded from the infinity of the series in the

world in the following manner:—If the series of reasons and consequents in

the world are absolutely without end, the world cannot be a given whole

independent of the idea; for such a world always presupposes definite

limits, just as on the contrary infinite series presuppose an infinite

regressus. Therefore, the presupposed infinity of the series must be

determined through the form of reason and consequent, and this again

through the form of knowledge of the subject; thus the world as it is

known must exist only in the idea of the subject.

Now whether Kant himself was aware or not that his critical solution of

the problem is really a decision in favour of the antithesis, I am unable

to decide. For it depends upon whether what Schelling has somewhere very

happily called Kant’s system of accommodation extended so far; or whether

Kant’s mind was here already involved in an unconscious accommodation to

the influence of his time and surroundings.

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The solution of the third antinomy, the subject of which was the Idea of

freedom, deserves a special consideration, because it is for us very well

worth notice that it is just here in connection with _the Idea of freedom_

that Kant is obliged to speak more fully of the _thing in itself_, which

was hitherto only seen in the background. This is very explicable to us

since we have recognised the thing in itself as the _will_. Speaking

generally, this is the point at which the Kantian philosophy leads to

mine, or at which mine springs out of his as its parent stem. One will be

convinced of this if one reads with attention pp. 536 and 537; V. 564 and

565, of the “Critique of Pure Reason,” and, further, compares these

passages with the introduction to the “Critique of Judgment,” pp. xviii.

and xix. of the third edition, or p. 13 of Rosenkranz’s edition, where

indeed it is said: “The conception of freedom can in its object (that is

then the will) present to the mind a thing in itself, but not in

perception; the conception of nature, on the other hand, can present its

object to the mind in perception, but not as a thing in itself.” But

specially let any one read concerning the solution of the antinomies the

fifty-third paragraph of the Prolegomena, and then honestly answer the

question whether all that is said there does not sound like a riddle to

which my doctrine is the answer. Kant never completed his thought; I have

merely carried out his work. Accordingly, what Kant says only of the human

phenomenon I have extended to all phenomena in general, as differing from

the human phenomenon only in degree, that their true being is something

absolutely free, _i.e._, a will. It appears from my work how fruitful this

insight is in connection with Kant’s doctrine of the ideality of space,

time, and causality.

Kant has nowhere made the thing in itself the subject of a special

exposition or distinct deduction; but, whenever he wants it, he introduces

it at once by means of the conclusion that the phenomenon, thus the

visible world, must have a reason, an intelligible cause, which is not a

phenomenon, and therefore belongs to no possible experience. He does this

after having assiduously insisted that the categories, and thus causality

also, had a use which was absolutely confined to possible experience; that

they were merely forms of the understanding, which served to spell out the

phenomena of the world of sense, beyond which, on the other hand, they had

no significance, &c., &c. Therefore, he denies in the most uncompromising

manner their application to things beyond experience, and rightly explains

and at once rejects all earlier dogmatism as based upon the neglect of

this law. The incredible inconsistency which Kant here fell into was soon

noticed, and used by his first opponents to make attacks on his philosophy

to which it could offer no resistance. For certainly we apply the law of

causality entirely _a priori_ and before all experience to the changes

felt in our organs of sense. But, on this very account, this law is just

as much of subjective origin as these sensations themselves, and thus does

not lead to a thing in itself. The truth is, that upon the path of the

idea one can never get beyond the idea; it is a rounded-off whole, and has

in its own resources no clue leading to the nature of the thing in itself,

which is _toto genere_ different from it. If we were merely perceiving

beings, the way to the thing in itself would be absolutely cut off from

us. Only the other side of our own being can disclose to us the other side

of the inner being of things. This path I have followed. But Kant’s

inference to the thing in itself, contrary as it is to his own teaching,

obtains some excuse from the following circumstance. He does not say, as

truth required, simply and absolutely that the object is conditioned by

the subject, and conversely; but only that the manner of the appearance of

the object is conditioned by the forms of knowledge of the subject, which,

therefore, also come _a priori_ to consciousness. But that now which in

opposition to this is only known _a posteriori_ is for him the immediate

effect of the thing in itself, which becomes phenomenon only in its

passage through these forms which are given _a priori_. From this point of

view it is to some extent explicable how it could escape him that

objectivity in general belongs to the form of the phenomenon, and is just

as much conditioned by subjectivity in general as the mode of appearing of

the object is conditioned by the forms of knowledge of the subject; that

thus if a thing in itself must be assumed, it absolutely cannot be an

object, which however he always assumes it to be, but such a thing in

itself must necessarily lie in a sphere _toto genere_ different from the

idea (from knowing and being known), and therefore could least of all be

arrived at through the laws of the combination of objects among

themselves.

With the proof of the thing in itself it has happened to Kant precisely as

with that of the _a priori_ nature of the law of causality. Both doctrines

are true, but their proof is false. They thus belong to the class of true

conclusions from false premises. I have retained them both, but have

proved them in an entirely different way, and with certainty.

The thing in itself I have neither introduced surreptitiously nor inferred

according to laws which exclude it, because they really belong to its

phenomenal appearance; nor, in general, have I arrived at it by roundabout

ways. On the contrary, I have shown it directly, there where it lies

immediately, in the will, which reveals itself to every one directly as

the in-itself of his own phenomenal being.

And it is also this immediate knowledge of his own will out of which in

human consciousness the conception of _freedom_ springs; for certainly the

will, as world-creating, as thing in itself, is free from the principle of

sufficient reason, and therewith from all necessity, thus is completely

independent, free, and indeed almighty. Yet, in truth, this only holds

good of the will in itself, not of its manifestations, the individuals,

who, just through the will itself, are unalterably determined as its

manifestations in time. But in the ordinary consciousness, unenlightened

by philosophy, the will is at once confused with its manifestation, and

what belongs only to the former is attributed to the latter, whence arises

the illusion of the unconditioned freedom of the individual. Therefore

Spinoza says rightly that if the projected stone had consciousness, it

would believe that it flew of its own free will. For certainly the

in-itself of the stone also is the will, which alone is free; but, as in

all its manifestations, here also, where it appears as a stone, it is

already fully determined. But of all this enough has already been said in

the text of this work.

Kant fails to understand and overlooks this immediate origin of the

conception of freedom in every human consciousness, and therefore he now

places (p. 533; V. 561) the source of that conception in a very subtle

speculation, through which the unconditioned, to which the reason must

always tend, leads us to hypostatise the conception of freedom, and it is

only upon this transcendent Idea of freedom that the practical conception

of it is supposed to be founded. In the “Critique of Practical Reason,” §

6, and p. 158 of the fourth and 235 of Rosenkranz’s edition, he yet

deduces this last conception differently by saying that the categorical

imperative presupposes it. The speculative Idea is accordingly only the

primary source of the conception of freedom for the sake of this

presupposition, but here it obtains both significance and application.

Neither, however, is the case. For the delusion of a perfect freedom of

the individual in his particular actions is most lively in the conviction

of the least cultivated man who has never reflected, and it is thus

founded on no speculation, although often assumed by speculation from

without. Thus only philosophers, and indeed only the most profound of

them, are free from it, and also the most thoughtful and enlightened of

the writers of the Church.

It follows, then, from all that has been said, that the true source of the

conception of freedom is in no way essentially an inference, either from

the speculative Idea of an unconditioned cause, nor from the fact that it

is presupposed by the categorical imperative. But it springs directly from

the consciousness in which each one recognises himself at once as the

_will_, _i.e._, as that which, as the thing in itself, has not the

principle of sufficient reason for its form, and which itself depends upon

nothing, but on which everything else rather depends. Every one, however,

does not recognise himself at once with the critical and reflective

insight of philosophy as a determined manifestation of this will which has

already entered time, as we might say, an act of will distinguished from

that will to live itself; and, therefore, instead of recognising his whole

existence as an act of his freedom, he rather seeks for freedom in his

individual actions. Upon this point I refer the reader to my prize-essay

on the freedom of the will.

Now if Kant, as he here pretends, and also apparently did in earlier

cases, had merely inferred the thing in itself, and that with the great

inconsistency of an inference absolutely forbidden by himself, what a

remarkable accident would it then be that here, where for the first time

he approaches the thing in itself more closely and explains it, he should

recognise in it at once the _will_, the free will showing itself in the

world only in temporal manifestations! I therefore really assume, though

it cannot be proved, that whenever Kant spoke of the thing in itself, in

the obscure depths of his mind he already always indistinctly thought of

the will. This receives support from a passage in the preface to the

second edition of the “Critique of Pure Reason,” pp. xxvii. and xxviii.,

in Rosenkranz’s edition, p. 677 of the Supplement.

For the rest, it is just this predetermined solution of the sham third

conflict that affords Kant the opportunity of expressing very beautifully

the deepest thoughts of his whole philosophy. This is the case in the

whole of the “Sixth Section of the Antinomy of Pure Reason;” but, above

all, in the exposition of the opposition between the empirical and the

intelligible character, p. 534-550; V. 562-578, which I number among the

most admirable things that have ever been said by man. (As a supplemental

explanation of this passage, compare a parallel passage in the Critique of

Practical Reason, p. 169-179 of the fourth edition, or p. 224-231 of

Rosenkranz’s edition.) It is yet all the more to be regretted that this is

here not in its right place, partly because it is not found in the way

which the exposition states, and therefore could be otherwise deduced than

it is, partly because it does not fulfil the end for which it is there—the

solution of the sham antinomy. The intelligible character, the thing in

itself, is inferred from the phenomenon by the inconsistent use of the

category of causality beyond the sphere of all phenomena, which has

already been sufficiently condemned. In this case the will of man (which

Kant entitles reason, most improperly, and with an unpardonable breach of

all use of language) is set up as the thing in itself, with an appeal to

an unconditioned ought, the categorical imperative, which is postulated

without more ado.

Now, instead of all this, the plain open procedure would have been to

start directly from the will, and prove it to be the in-itself of our own

phenomenal being, recognised without any mediation; and then to give that

exposition of the empirical and the intelligible character to explain how

all actions, although necessitated by motives, yet, both by their author

and by the disinterested judge, are necessarily and absolutely ascribed to

the former himself and alone, as depending solely upon him, to whom

therefore guilt and merit are attributed in respect of them. This alone

was the straight path to the knowledge of that which is not phenomenon,

and therefore will not be found by the help of the laws of the phenomenon,

but is that which reveals itself through the phenomenon, becomes knowable,

objectifies itself—the will to live. It would then have had to be

exhibited merely by analogy as the inner nature of every phenomenon. Then,

however, it certainly could not have been said that in lifeless or even

animal nature no faculty can be thought except as sensuously conditioned

(p. 546; V. 574), which in Kant’s language is simply saying that the

explanation, according to the law of causality, exhausts the inner nature

of these phenomena, and thus in their case, very inconsistently, the thing

in itself disappears. Through the false position and the roundabout

deduction according with it which the exposition of the thing in itself

has received from Kant, the whole conception of it has also become

falsified. For the will or the thing in itself, found through the

investigation of an unconditioned cause, appears here related to the

phenomenon as cause to effect. But this relation exists only within the

phenomenal world, therefore presupposes it, and cannot connect the

phenomenal world itself with what lies outside it, and is _toto genere_

different from it.

Further, the intended end, the solution of the third antinomy by the

decision that both sides, each in a different sense, are right, is not

reached at all. For neither the thesis nor the antithesis have anything to

do with the thing in itself, but entirely with the phenomenon, the

objective world, the world as idea. This it is, and absolutely nothing

else, of which the thesis tries to show, by means of the sophistry we have

laid bare, that it contains unconditioned causes, and it is also this of

which the antithesis rightly denies that it contains such causes.

Therefore the whole exposition of the transcendental freedom of the will,

so far as it is a thing in itself, which is given here in justification of

the thesis, excellent as it is in itself, is yet here entirely a μεταβασις

εις αλλο γενος. For the transcendental freedom of the will which is

expounded is by no means the unconditioned causality of a cause, which the

thesis asserts, because it is of the essence of a cause that it must be a

phenomenon, and not something which lies beyond all phenomena and is _toto

genere_ different.

If what is spoken of is cause and effect, the relation of the will to the

manifestation (or of the intelligible character to the empirical) must

never be introduced, as happens here: for it is entirely different from

causal relation. However, here also, in this solution of the antinomy, it

is said with truth that the empirical character of man, like that of every

other cause in nature, is unalterably determined, and therefore that his

actions necessarily take place in accordance with the external influences;

therefore also, in spite of all transcendental freedom (_i.e._,

independence of the will in itself of the laws of the connection of its

manifestation), no man has the power of himself to begin a series of

actions, which, however, was asserted by the thesis. Thus also freedom has

no causality; for only the will is free, and it lies outside nature or the

phenomenon, which is just its objectification, but does not stand in a

causal relation to it, for this relation is only found within the sphere

of the phenomenon, thus presupposes it, and cannot embrace the phenomenon

itself and connect it with what is expressly not a phenomenon. The world

itself can only be explained through the will (for it is the will itself,

so far as it manifests itself), and not through causality. But _in the

world_ causality is the sole principle of explanation, and everything

happens simply according to the laws of nature. Thus the right lies

entirely on the side of the antithesis, which sticks to the question in

hand, and uses that principle of explanation which is valid with regard to

it; therefore it needs no apology. The thesis, on the other hand, is

supposed to be got out of the matter by an apology, which first passes

over to something quite different from the question at issue, and then

assumes a principle of explanation which is inapplicable to it.

The fourth conflict is, as has already been said, in its real meaning

tautological with the third. In its solution Kant develops still more the

untenable nature of the thesis; while for its truth, on the other hand,

and its pretended consistency with the antithesis, he advances no reason,

as conversely he is able to bring no reason against the antithesis. The

assumption of the thesis he introduces quite apologetically, and yet calls

it himself (p. 562; V. 590) an arbitrary presupposition, the object of

which might well in itself be impossible, and shows merely an utterly

impotent endeavour to find a corner for it somewhere where it will be safe

from the prevailing might of the antithesis, only to avoid disclosing the

emptiness of the whole of his once-loved assertion of the necessary

antinomy in human reason.

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Now follows the chapter on the transcendental ideal, which carries us back

at once to the rigid Scholasticism of the Middle Ages. One imagines one is

listening to Anselm of Canterbury himself. The _ens realissimum_, the

essence of all realities, the content of all affirmative propositions,

appears, and indeed claims to be a necessary thought of the reason. I for

my part must confess that to my reason such a thought is impossible, and

that I am not able to think anything definite in connection with the words

which denote it.

Moreover, I do not doubt that Kant was compelled to write this

extraordinary chapter, so unworthy of him, simply by his fondness for

architectonic symmetry. The three principal objects of the Scholastic

philosophy (which, as we have said, if understood in the wider sense, may

be regarded as continuing down to Kant), the soul, the world, and God, are

supposed to be deduced from the three possible major propositions of

syllogisms, though it is plain that they have arisen, and can arise,

simply and solely through the unconditioned application of the principle

of sufficient reason. Now, after the soul had been forced into the

categorical judgment, and the hypothetical was set apart for the world,

there remained for the third Idea nothing but the disjunctive major.

Fortunately there existed a previous work in this direction, the _ens

realissimum_ of the Scholastics, together with the ontological proof of

the existence of God set up in a rudimentary form by Anselm of Canterbury

and then perfected by Descartes. This was joyfully made use of by Kant,

with some reminiscence also of an earlier Latin work of his youth.

However, the sacrifice which Kant makes to his love of architectonic

symmetry in this chapter is exceedingly great. In defiance of all truth,

what one must regard as the grotesque idea of an essence of all possible

realities is made an essential and necessary thought of the reason. For

the deduction of this Kant makes use of the false assertion that our

knowledge of particular things arises from a progressive limitation of

general conceptions; thus also of a most general conception of all which

contains all reality _in itself_. In this he stands just as much in

contradiction with his own teaching as with the truth, for exactly the

converse is the case. Our knowledge starts with the particular and is

extended to the general, and all general conceptions arise by abstraction

from real, particular things known by perception, and this can be carried

on to the most general of all conceptions, which includes everything under

it, but almost nothing _in it_. Thus Kant has here placed the procedure of

our faculty of knowledge just upside down, and thus might well be accused

of having given occasion to a philosophical charlatanism that has become

famous in our day, which, instead of recognising that conceptions are

thoughts abstracted from things, makes, on the contrary the conceptions

first, and sees in things only concrete conceptions, thus bringing to

market the world turned upside down as a philosophical buffoonery, which

of course necessarily found great acceptance.

Even if we assume that every reason must, or at least can, attain to the

conception of God, even without revelation, this clearly takes place only

under the guidance of causality. This is so evident that it requires no

proof. Therefore Chr. Wolf says (_Cosmologia Generalis, prœf._, p. 1):

_Sane in theologia naturali existentiam Numinis e principiis cosmologicis

demonstramus. Contingentia universi et ordinis naturæ, una cum

impossibilitate casus, sunt scala, per quam a mundo hoc adspectabili ad

Deum ascenditur._ And, before him, Leibnitz said, in connection with the

law of causality: _Sans ce grand principe on ne saurait venir à la preuve

de l’existence de Dieu_. On the other hand, the thought which is worked

out in this chapter is so far from being essential and necessary to

reason, that it is rather to be regarded as a veritable masterpiece of the

monstrous productions of an age which, through strange circumstances, fell

into the most singular aberrations and perversities, such as the age of

the Scholastics was—an age which is unparalleled in the history of the

world, and can never return again. This Scholasticism, as it advanced to

its final form, certainly derived the principal proof of the existence of

God from the conception of the _ens realissimum_, and only then used the

other proofs as accessory. This, however, is mere methodology, and proves

nothing as to the origin of theology in the human mind. Kant has here

taken the procedure of Scholasticism for that of reason—a mistake which

indeed he has made more than once. If it were true that according to the

essential laws of reason the Idea of God proceeds from the disjunctive

syllogism under the form of an Idea of the most real being, this Idea

would also have existed in the philosophy of antiquity; but of the _ens

realissimum_ there is nowhere a trace in any of the ancient philosophers,

although some of them certainly teach that there is a Creator of the

world, yet only as the giver of form to the matter which exists without

him, δεμιουργος, a being whom they yet infer simply and solely in

accordance with the law of causality. It is true that Sextus Empiricus

(_adv. Math._, ix. § 88) quotes an argument of Cleanthes, which some have

held to be the ontological proof. This, however, it is not, but merely an

inference from analogy; because experience teaches that upon earth one

being is always better than another, and man, indeed, as the best, closes

the series, but yet has many faults; therefore there must exist beings who

are still better, and finally one being who is best of all (κρατιστον,

αριστον), and this would be God.

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On the detailed refutation of speculative theology which now follows I

have only briefly to remark that it, and in general the whole criticism of

the three so-called Ideas of reason, thus the whole Dialectic of Pure

Reason, is indeed to a certain extent the goal and end of the whole work:

yet this polemical part has not really an absolutely universal, permanent,

and purely philosophical interest, such as is possessed by the preceding

doctrinal part, _i.e._, the æsthetic and analytic; but rather a temporary

and local interest, because it stands in a special relation to the leading

points of the philosophy which prevailed in Europe up till the time of

Kant, the complete overthrow of which was yet, to his immortal credit,

achieved by him through this polemic. He has eliminated theism from

philosophy; for in it, as a science and not a system of faith, only that

can find a place which is either empirically given or established by valid

proofs. Naturally we only mean here the real seriously understood

philosophy which is concerned with the truth, and nothing else; and by no

means the jest of philosophy taught in the universities, in which, after

Kant as before him, speculative theology plays the principal part, and

where, also, after as before him, the soul appears without ceremony as a

familiar person. For it is the philosophy endowed with salaries and fees,

and, indeed, also with titles of Hofrath, which, looking proudly down from

its height, remains for forty years entirely unaware of the existence of

little people like me, and would be thoroughly glad to be rid of the old

Kant with his Critiques, that they might drink the health of Leibnitz with

all their hearts. It is further to be remarked here, that as Kant was

confessedly led to his doctrine of the _a priori_ nature of the conception

of causality by Hume’s scepticism with regard to that conception, it may

be that in the same way Kant’s criticism of all speculative theology had

its occasion in Hume’s criticism of all popular theology, which he had

given in his “Natural History of Religion,” a book so well worth reading,

and in the “Dialogues on Natural Religion.” Indeed, it may be that Kant

wished to a certain extent to supplement this. For the first-named work of

Hume is really a critique of popular theology, the pitiable condition of

which it seeks to show; while, on the other hand, it points to rational or

speculative theology as the genuine, and that which is worthy of respect.

But Kant now discloses the groundlessness of the latter, and leaves, on

the other hand, popular theology untouched, nay, even establishes it in a

nobler form as a faith based upon moral feeling. This was afterwards

distorted by the philosophasters into rational apprehensions,

consciousness of God, or intellectual intuitions of the supersensible, of

the divine, &c., &c.; while Kant, as he demolished old and revered errors,

and knew the danger of doing so, rather wished through the moral theology

merely to substitute a few weak temporary supports, so that the ruin might

not fall on him, but that he might have time to escape.

Now, as regards the performance of the task, no critique of reason was

necessary for the refutation of the _ontological_ proof of the existence

of God; for without presupposing the æsthetic and analytic, it is quite

easy to make clear that that ontological proof is nothing but a subtle

playing with conceptions which is quite powerless to produce conviction.

There is a chapter in the “_Organon_” of Aristotle which suffices as fully

for the refutation of the ontological proof as if it had been written

intentionally with that purpose. It is the seventh chapter of the second

book of the “_Analyt. Post._” Among other things, it is expressly said

there: “το δε ειναι ουκ ουσια ουδενι,” _i.e._, _existentia nunquam ad

essentiam rei pertinet_.

The refutation of the _cosmological_ proof is an application to a given

case of the doctrine of the Critique as expounded up to that point, and

there is nothing to be said against it. The _physico-theological_ proof is

a mere amplification of the cosmological, which it presupposes, and it

finds its full refutation only in the “Critique of Judgment.” I refer the

reader in this connection to the rubric, “Comparative Anatomy,” in my work

on the Will in Nature.

In the criticism of this proof Kant has only to do, as we have already

said, with speculative theology, and limits himself to the School. If, on

the contrary, he had had life and popular theology also in view, he would

have been obliged to add a fourth proof to the three he has

considered—that proof which is really the effective one with the great

mass of men, and which in Kant’s technical language might best be called

the _keraunological_. It is the proof which is founded upon the needy,

impotent, and dependent condition of man as opposed to natural forces,

which are infinitely superior, inscrutable, and for the most part

threatening evil; to which is added man’s natural inclination to personify

everything, and finally the hope of effecting something by prayers and

flattery, and even by gifts. In every human undertaking there is something

which is not in our power and does not come within our calculations; the

wish to win this for oneself is the origin of the gods. “_Primus in orbe

Deos fecit timor_” is an old and true saying of Petronius. It is

principally this proof which is criticised by Hume, who throughout appears

as Kant’s forerunner in the writings referred to above. But those whom

Kant has placed in a position of permanent embarrassment by his criticism

of speculative theology are the professors of philosophy. Salaried by

Christian governments, they dare not give up the chief article of

faith.(9) Now, how do these gentlemen help themselves? They simply declare

that the existence of God is self-evident. Indeed! After the ancient

world, at the expense of its conscience, had worked miracles to prove it,

and the modern world, at the expense of its understanding, had brought

into the field ontological, cosmological, and physico-theological

proofs—to these gentlemen it is self-evident. And from this self-evident

God they then explain the world: that is their philosophy.

Till Kant came there was a real dilemma between materialism and theism,

_i.e._, between the assumption that a blind chance, or that an

intelligence working from without in accordance with purposes and

conceptions, had brought about the world, _neque dabatur tertium_.

Therefore atheism and materialism were the same; hence the doubt whether

there really could be an atheist, _i.e._, a man who really could attribute

to blind chance the disposition of nature, so full of design, especially

organised nature. See, for example, Bacon’s Essays (_sermones fideles_),

Essay 16, on Atheism. In the opinion of the great mass of men, and of the

English, who in such things belong entirely to the great mass (the mob),

this is still the case, even with their most celebrated men of learning.

One has only to look at Owen’s “_Ostéologie Comparée_,” of 1855, preface,

p. 11, 12, where he stands always before the old dilemma between

Democritus and Epicurus on the one side, and an intelligence on the other,

in which _la connaissance __ d’un être tel que l’homme a existé avant que

l’homme fit son apparition_. All design must have proceeded from an

_intelligence_; he has never even dreamt of doubting this. Yet in the

lecture based upon this now modified preface, delivered in the _Académie

des Sciences_ on the 5th September 1853, he says, with childish naivete:

“_La téléologie, ou la théologie scientifique_” (_Comptes Rendus_, Sept.

1853), that is for him precisely the same thing! Is anything in nature

designed? then it is a work of intention, of reflection, of intelligence.

Yet, certainly, what has such an Englishman and the _Académie des

Sciences_ to do with the “Critique of Judgment,” or, indeed, with my book

upon the Will in Nature? These gentlemen do not see so far below them.

These _illustres confrères_ disdain metaphysics and the _philosophie

allemande_: they confine themselves to the old woman’s philosophy. The

validity of that disjunctive major, that dilemma between materialism and

theism, rests, however, upon the assumption that the present given world

is the world of things in themselves; that consequently there is no other

order of things than the empirical. But after the world and its order had

through Kant become mere phenomenon, the laws of which rest principally

upon the forms of our intellect, the existence and nature of things and of

the world no longer required to be explained according to the analogy of

the changes perceived or effected by us in the world; nor must that which

we comprehend as means and end have necessarily arisen as the consequence

of a similar knowledge. Thus, inasmuch as Kant, through his important

distinction between phenomenon and thing in itself, withdrew the

foundation from theism, he opened, on the other hand, the way to entirely

different and more profound explanations of existence.

In the chapter on the ultimate aim of the natural dialectic of reason it

is asserted that the three transcendent Ideas are of value as regulative

principles for the advancement of the knowledge of nature. But Kant can

barely have been serious in making this assertion. At least its opposite,

that these assumptions are restrictive and fatal to all investigation of

nature, is to every natural philosopher beyond doubt. To test this by an

example, let any one consider whether the assumption of the soul as an

immaterial, simple, thinking substance would have been necessarily

advantageous or in the highest degree impeding to the truths which Cabanis

has so beautifully expounded, or to the discoveries of Flourens, Marshall

Hall, and Ch. Bell. Indeed Kant himself says (_Prolegomena_, § 44), “The

Ideas of the reason are opposed and hindering to the maxims of the

rational knowledge of nature.”

It is certainly not the least merit of Frederick the Great, that under his

Government Kant could develop himself, and dared to publish the “Critique

of Pure Reason.” Hardly under any other Government would a salaried

professor have ventured such a thing. Kant was obliged to promise the

immediate successor of the great king that he would write no more.

‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐

I might consider that I could dispense with the criticism of the ethical

part of the Kantian philosophy here because I have given a detailed and

thorough criticism of it twenty-two years later than the present work in

the “_Beiden Grundproblemen der Ethik_.” However, what is here retained

from the first edition, and for the sake of completeness must not be

omitted, may serve as a suitable introduction to that later and much more

thorough criticism, to which in the main I therefore refer the reader.

On account of Kant’s love of architectonic symmetry, the theoretical

reason had also to have a _pendant_. The _intellectus practicus_ of the

Scholastics, which again springs from the νους πρακτικος of Aristotle (_De

Anima_, iii. 10, and _Polit._, vii. c. 14: ὁ μεν γαρ πρακτικος εστι λογος,

ὁ δε θεωρητικος), provides the word ready made. Yet here something quite

different is denoted by it—not as there, the reason directed to technical

skill. Here the practical reason appears as the source and origin of the

undeniable ethical significance of human action, and of all virtue, all

nobleness, and every attainable degree of holiness. All this accordingly

should come from mere _reason_, and demand nothing but this. To act

rationally and to act virtuously, nobly, holily, would be one and the

same; and to act selfishly, wickedly, viciously, would be merely to act

irrationally. However, all times and peoples and languages have

distinguished the two, and held them to be quite different things; and so

does every one even at the present day who knows nothing of the language

of the new school, _i.e._, the whole world, with the exception of a small

company of German _savants_. Every one but these last understands by

virtuous conduct and a rational course of life two entirely different

things. To say that the sublime founder of the Christian religion, whose

life is presented to us as the pattern of all virtue, was _the most

rational_ of all men would be called a very unbecoming and even a

blasphemous way of speaking; and almost as much so if it were said that

His precepts contained all the best directions for a perfectly _rational

life_. Further, that he who, in accordance with these precepts, instead of

taking thought for his own future needs, always relieves the greater

present wants of others, without further motive, nay, gives all his goods

to the poor, in order then, destitute of all means of subsistence, to go

and preach to others also the virtue which he practises himself; this

every one rightly honours; but who ventures to extol it as the highest

pitch of _reasonableness_? And finally, who praises it as a _rational_

deed that Arnold von Winkelried, with surpassing courage, clasped the

hostile spears against his own body in order to gain victory and

deliverance for his countrymen? On the other hand, if we see a man who

from his youth upwards deliberates with exceptional foresight how he may

procure for himself an easy competence, the means for the support of wife

and children, a good name among men, outward honour and distinction, and

in doing so never allows himself to be led astray or induced to lose sight

of his end by the charm of present pleasures or the satisfaction of

defying the arrogance of the powerful, or the desire of revenging insults

and undeserved humiliations he has suffered, or the attractions of useless

aesthetic or philosophical occupations of the mind, or travels in

interesting lands, but with great consistency works towards his one

end,—who ventures to deny that such a philistine is in quite an

extraordinary degree _rational_, even if he has made use of some means

which are not praiseworthy but are yet without danger? Nay, more, if a bad

man, with deliberate shrewdness, through a well-thought-out plan attains

to riches and honours, and even to thrones and crowns, and then with the

acutest cunning gets the better of neighbouring states, overcomes them one

by one, and now becomes a conqueror of the world, and in doing so is not

led astray by any respect for right, any sense of humanity, but with sharp

consistency tramples down and dashes to pieces everything that opposes his

plan, without compassion plunges millions into misery of every kind,

condemns millions to bleed and die, yet royally rewards and always

protects his adherents and helpers, never forgetting anything, and thus

reaches his end,—who does not see that such a man must go to work in a

most rational manner?—that, as a powerful understanding was needed to form

the plans, their execution demanded the complete command of the _reason_,

and indeed properly of _practical reason_? Or are the precepts which the

prudent and consistent, the thoughtful and far-seeing Machiavelli

prescribes to the prince _irrational_?(10)

As wickedness is quite consistent with reason, and indeed only becomes

really terrible in this conjunction, so, conversely, nobleness is

sometimes joined with want of reason. To this may be attributed the action

of Coriolanus, who, after he had applied all his strength for years to the

accomplishment of his revenge upon the Romans, when at length the time

came, allowed himself to be softened by the prayers of the Senate and the

tears of his mother and wife, gave up the revenge he had so long and so

painfully prepared, and indeed, by thus bringing on himself the just anger

of the Volscians, died for those very Romans whose thanklessness he knew

and desired so intensely to punish. Finally, for the sake of completeness,

it may be mentioned that reason may very well exist along with want of

understanding. This is the case when a foolish maxim is chosen, but is

followed out consistently. An example of this is afforded by the case of

the Princess Isabella, daughter of Philip II., who vowed that she would

not put on a clean chemise so long as Ostend remained unconquered, and

kept her word through three years. In general all vows are of this class,

whose origin is a want of insight as regards the law of causality, _i.e._,

want of understanding; nevertheless it is rational to fulfil them if one

is of such narrow understanding as to make them.

In agreement with what we have said, we see the writers who appeared just

before Kant place the conscience, as the seat of the moral impulses, in

opposition to the reason. Thus Rousseau, in the fourth book of “_Emile_,”

says: “_La raison nous trompe, mais la conscience ne trompe jamais_;” and

further on: “_Il est impossible d’expliquer par les conséquences de notre

nature le principe immédiat de la conscience indépendant de la raison

même_.” Still further: “_Mes sentimens naturels parlaient pour l’intérêt

commun, ma raison rapportait tout a moi.... On a beau vouloir etablir la

vertu __ par la raison seul, quelle solide base peut-on lui donner_?” In

the “_Rêveries du Promeneur_,” prom. 4 ême, he says: “_Dans toutes les

questions de morale difficiles je me suis tojours bien trouvé de les

résoudre par le dictamen de la conscience, plutôt que par les lumières de

la raison_.” Indeed Aristotle already says expressly (_Eth. Magna_, i. 5)

that the virtues have their seat in the αλογῳ μοριῳ της ψυχης (_in parte

irrationali animi_), and not in the λογον εχοντι (_in parte rationali_).

In accordance with this, Stobæus says (Ecl., ii, c.7), speaking of the

Peripatetics: “Την ηθικην αρετην ὑπολαμβανουσι περι το αλογον μερος

γιγνεσθαι της ψυχης, επειδη διμερη προς την παρουσαν θεωριαν ὑπεθεντο την

ψυχην, το μεν λογικον εχουσαν, το δ᾽ αλογον. Και περι μεν το λογικον την

καλοκαγαθιαν γιγνεσθαν, και την φρονησιν, και την αγχινοιαν, και σοφιαν,

και ευμαθειαν, και μνημην, και τας ὁμοιους; περι δε το αλογον, σωφροσυνην,

και δικαιοσυνην, και ανδρειαν, και τας αλλας τας ηθικας καλουμενας

αρετας.” (_Ethicam virtutem circa partem animæ ratione carentem versari

putant, cam duplicem, ad hanc disquisitionem, animam ponant, ratione

præditam, et ea carentem. In parte vero ratione prædita collocant

ingenuitatem, prudentiam, perspicacitatem, sapientiam, docilitatem,

memoriam et reliqua; in parte vero ratione destituta temperantiam,

justitiam, fortitadinem, et reliquas virtutes, quas ethicas vocant._) And

Cicero (_De Nat. Deor._, iii., c. 26-31) explains at length that reason is

the necessary means, the tool, of all crime.

I have explained _reason_ to be the _faculty of framing concepts_. It is

this quite special class of general non-perceptible ideas, which are

symbolised and fixed only by words, that distinguishes man from the brutes

and gives him the pre-eminence upon earth. While the brute is the slave of

the present, and knows only immediate sensible motives, and therefore when

they present themselves to it is necessarily attracted or repelled by

them, as iron is by the magnet, in man, on the contrary, deliberation has

been introduced through the gift of reason.

This enables him easily to survey as a whole his life and the course of

the world, looking before and after; it makes him independent of the

present, enables him to go to work deliberately, systematically, and with

foresight, to do evil as well as to do good. But what he does he does with

complete self-consciousness; he knows exactly how his will decides, what

in each case he chooses, and what other choice was in the nature of the

case possible; and from this self-conscious willing he comes to know

himself and mirrors himself in his actions. In all these relations to the

conduct of men reason is to be called _practical_; it is only theoretical

so far as the objects with which it is concerned have no relation to the

action of the thinker, but have purely a theoretical interest, which very

few men are capable of feeling. What in this sense is called _practical

reason_ is very nearly what is signified by the Latin word _prudentia_,

which, according to Cicero (_De Nat. Deor._ ii., 22), is a contraction of

_providentia_; while, on the other hand, _ratio_, if used of a faculty of

the mind, signifies for the most part theoretical reason proper, though

the ancients did not observe the distinction strictly. In nearly all men

reason has an almost exclusively practical tendency; but if this also is

abandoned thought loses the control of action, so that it is then said,

“_Scio meliora, proboque, deteriora sequor_,” or “_Le matin je fais des

projets, et le soir je fais des sottises_.” Thus the man does not allow

his conduct to be guided by his thought, but by the impression of the

moment, after the manner of the brute; and so he is called irrational

(without thereby imputing to him moral turpitude), although he is not

really wanting in reason, but in the power of applying it to his action;

and one might to a certain extent say his reason is theoretical and not

practical. He may at the same time be a really good man, like many a one

who can never see any one in misfortune without helping him, even making

sacrifices to do so, and yet leaves his debts unpaid. Such an irrational

character is quite incapable of committing great crimes, because the

systematic planning, the discrimination and self-control, which this

always requires are quite impossible to him. Yet, on the other hand, he

will hardly attain to a very high degree of virtue, for, however much

inclined to good he may be by nature, those single vicious and wicked

emotions to which every one is subject cannot be wanting; and where reason

does not manifest itself practically, and oppose to them unalterable

maxims and firm principles, they must become deeds.

Finally, _reason_ manifests itself very specially as _practical_ in those

exceedingly rational characters who on this account are called in ordinary

life practical philosophers, and who are distinguished by an unusual

equanimity in disagreeable as in pleasing circumstances, an equable

disposition, and a determined perseverance in resolves once made. In fact,

it is the predominance of reason in them, _i.e._, the more abstract than

intuitive knowledge, and therefore the survey of life by means of

conceptions, in general and as a whole, which has enabled them once for

all to recognise the deception of the momentary impression, the fleeting

nature of all things, the shortness of life, the emptiness of pleasures,

the fickleness of fortune, and the great and little tricks of chance.

Therefore nothing comes to them unexpectedly, and what they know in the

abstract does not surprise nor disturb them when it meets them in the

actual and in the particular case, though it does so in the case of those

less reasonable characters upon whom the present, the perceptible, the

actual, exerts such an influence that the cold, colourless conceptions are

thrown quite into the background of consciousness, and forgetting

principles and maxims, they are abandoned to emotions and passions of

every kind. I have already explained at the end of the first book that in

my opinion the ethics of Stoicism were simply a guide to a truly

reasonable life, in this sense. Such a life is also repeatedly praised by

Horace in very many passages. This is the significance of his _nil

admirari_, and also of the Delphic Μηδεν αγαν. To translate _nil admirari_

“to admire nothing” is quite wrong. This Horatian maxim does not concern

the theoretical so much as the practical, and its real meaning is: “Prize

no object unconditionally. Do not fall in love with anything; do not

believe that the possession of anything can give you happiness. Every

intense longing for an object is only a delusive chimera, which one may

just as well, and much more easily, get quit of by fuller knowledge as by

attained possession.” Cicero also uses _admirari_ in this sense (_De

Divinatione_, ii. 2). What Horace means is thus the αθαμβια and

ακαταπληξις, also αθαυμασια, which Democritus before him prized as the

highest good (see _Clem. Alex. Strom._, ii. 21, and cf. _Strabo_, i. p. 98

and 105). Such reasonableness of conduct has properly nothing to do with

virtue and vice; but this practical use of reason is what gives man his

pre-eminence over the brute, and only in this sense has it any meaning and

is it permissible to speak of a dignity of man.

In all the cases given, and indeed in all conceivable cases, the

distinction between rational and irrational action runs back to the

question whether the motives are abstract conceptions or ideas of

perception. Therefore the explanation which I have given of reason agrees

exactly with the use of language at all times and among all peoples—a

circumstance which will not be regarded as merely accidental or arbitrary,

but will be seen to arise from the distinction of which every man is

conscious, of the different faculties of the mind, in accordance with

which consciousness he speaks, though certainly he does not raise it to

the distinctness of an abstract definition. Our ancestors did not make the

words without attaching to them a definite meaning, in order, perhaps,

that they might lie ready for philosophers who might possibly come

centuries after and determine what ought to be thought in connection with

them; but they denoted by them quite definite conceptions. Thus the words

are no longer unclaimed, and to attribute to them an entirely different

sense from that which they have hitherto had means to misuse them, means

to introduce a licence in accordance with which every one might use any

word in any sense he chose, and thus endless confusion would necessarily

arise. Locke has already shown at length that most disagreements in

philosophy arise from a false use of words. For the sake of illustration

just glance for a moment at the shameful misuse which philosophers

destitute of thoughts make at the present day of the words substance,

consciousness, truth, and many others. Moreover, the utterances and

explanations concerning reason of all philosophers of all ages, with the

exception of the most modern, agree no less with my explanation of it than

the conceptions which prevail among all nations of that prerogative of

man. Observe what Plato, in the fourth book of the Republic, and in

innumerable scattered passages, calls the λογιμον, or λογιστικον της

ψυχης, what Cicero says (_De Nat. Deor._, iii. 26-31), what Leibnitz and

Locke say upon this in the passages already quoted in the first book.

There would be no end to the quotations here if one sought to show how all

philosophers before Kant have spoken of reason in general in my sense,

although they did not know how to explain its nature with complete

definiteness and distinctness by reducing it to one point. What was

understood by reason shortly before Kant’s appearance is shown in general

by two essays of Sulzer in the first volume of his miscellaneous

philosophical writings, the one entitled “Analysis of the Conception of

Reason,” the other, “On the Reciprocal Influence of Reason and Language.”

If, on the other hand, we read how reason is spoken about in the most

recent times, through the influence of the Kantian error, which after him

increased like an avalanche, we are obliged to assume that the whole of

the wise men of antiquity, and also all philosophers before Kant, had

absolutely no reason at all; for the immediate perceptions, intuitions,

apprehensions, presentiments of the reason now discovered were as utterly

unknown to them as the sixth sense of the bat is to us. And as far as I am

concerned, I must confess that I also, in my weakness, cannot comprehend

or imagine that reason which directly perceives or apprehends, or has an

intellectual intuition of the super-sensible, the absolute, together with

long yarns that accompany it, in any other way than as the sixth sense of

the bat. This, however, must be said in favour of the invention or

discovery of such a reason, which at once directly perceives whatever you

choose, that it is an incomparable expedient for withdrawing oneself from

the affair in the easiest manner in the world, along with one’s favourite

ideas, in spite of all Kants, with their Critiques of Reason. The

invention and the reception it has met with do honour to the age.

Thus, although what is essential in reason (το λογιμον, ἡ φρονησις,

_ratio_, _raison_, Vernunft) was, on the whole and in general, rightly

understood by all philosophers of all ages, though not sharply enough

defined nor reduced to one point, yet it was not so clear to them what the

understanding (νους, διανοια, _intellectus_, _esprit_, Verstand) is.

Therefore they often confuse it with reason, and just on this account they

did not attain to a thoroughly complete, pure, and simple explanation of

the nature of the latter. With the Christian philosophers the conception

of reason received an entirely extraneous, subsidiary meaning through the

opposition of it to revelation. Starting, then, from this, many are justly

of opinion that the knowledge of the duty of virtue is possible from mere

reason, _i.e._, without revelation. Indeed this aspect of the matter

certainly had influence upon Kant’s exposition and language. But this

opposition is properly of positive, historical significance, and is

therefore for philosophy a foreign element, from which it must keep itself

free.

We might have expected that in his critiques of theoretical and practical

reason Kant would have started with an exposition of the nature of reason

in general, and, after he had thus defined the _genus_, would have gone on

to the explanation of the two _species_, showing how one and the same

reason manifests itself in two such different ways, and yet, by retaining

its principal characteristic, proves itself to be the same. But we find

nothing of all this. I have already shown how inadequate, vacillating, and

inconsistent are the explanations of the faculty he is criticising, which

he gives here and there by the way in the “Critique of Pure Reason.” The

_practical_ reason appears in the “Critique of Pure Reason” without any

introduction, and afterwards stands in the “Critique” specially devoted to

itself as something already established. No further account of it is

given, and the use of language of all times and peoples, which is treated

with contempt, and the definitions of the conception given by the greatest

of earlier philosophers, dare not lift up their voices. In general, we may

conclude from particular passages that Kant’s opinion amounts to this: the

knowledge of principles _a priori_ is the essential characteristic of

reason: since now the knowledge of the ethical significance of action is

not of empirical origin, it also is an _a priori_ principle, and

accordingly proceeds from the reason, and therefore thus far the reason is

_practical_. I have already spoken enough of the incorrectness of this

explanation of reason. But, independently of this, how superficial it is,

and what a want of thoroughness it shows, to make use here of the single

quality of being independent of experience in order to combine the most

heterogeneous things, while overlooking their most essential and

immeasurable difference in other respects. For, even assuming, though we

do not admit it, that the knowledge of the ethical significance of action

springs from an imperative lying in us, an unconditioned _ought_, yet how

fundamentally different would such an imperative be from those universal

_forms of knowledge_ of which, in the “Critique of Pure Reason,” Kant

proves that we are conscious _a priori_, and by virtue of which

consciousness we can assert beforehand an unconditioned _must_, valid for

all experience possible for us. But the difference between this _must_,

this necessary form of all objects which is already determined in the

subject, and that _ought_ of morality is so infinitely great and palpable

that the mere fact that they agree in the one particular that neither of

them is empirically known may indeed be made use of for the purpose of a

witty comparison, but not as a philosophical justification for regarding

their origin as the same.

Moreover, the birthplace of this child of practical reason, the _absolute

ought_ or the categorical imperative, is not in the “Critique of Practical

Reason,” but in that of “Pure Reason,” p. 802; V. 830. The birth is

violent, and is only accomplished by means of the forceps of a

_therefore_, which stands boldly and audaciously, indeed one might say

shamelessly, between two propositions which are utterly foreign to each

other and have no connection, in order to combine them as reason and

consequent. Thus, that not merely perceptible but also abstract motives

determine us, is the proposition from which Kant starts, expressing it in

the following manner: “Not merely what excites, _i.e._, what affects the

senses directly, determines human will, but we have a power of overcoming

the impressions made upon our sensuous appetitive faculty through ideas of

that which is itself in a more remote manner useful or hurtful. These

deliberations as to what is worthy of desire, with reference to our whole

condition, _i.e._, as to what is good and useful, rest upon reason.”

(Perfectly right; would that he only always spoke so rationally of

reason!) “Reason _therefore_ gives! also laws, which are imperatives,

_i.e._, objective laws of freedom, and say what ought to take place,

though perhaps it never does take place”! Thus, without further

authentication, the categorical imperative comes into the world, in order

to rule there with its unconditioned _ought_—a sceptre of wooden iron. For

in the conception “_ought_” there lies always and essentially the

reference to threatened punishment, or promised reward, as a necessary

condition, and cannot be separated from it without abolishing the

conception itself and taking all meaning from it. Therefore an

_unconditioned ought_ is a _contradictio in adjecto_. It was necessary to

censure this mistake, closely as it is otherwise connected with Kant’s

great service to ethics, which consists in this, that he has freed ethics

from all principles of the world of experience, that is, from all direct

or indirect doctrines of happiness, and has shown in a quite special

manner that the kingdom of virtue is not of this world. This service is

all the greater because all ancient philosophers, with the single

exception of Plato, thus the Peripatetics, the Stoics, and the Epicureans,

sought by very different devices either to make virtue and happiness

dependent on each other in accordance with the principle of sufficient

reason, or to identify them in accordance with the principle of

contradiction. This charge applies with equal force to all modern

philosophers down to Kant. His merit in this respect is therefore very

great; yet justice demands that we should also remember here first that

his exposition and elaboration often does not correspond with the tendency

and spirit of his ethics, and secondly that, even so, he is not really the

first who separated virtue from all principles of happiness. For Plato,

especially in the “Republic,” the principal tendency of which is just

this, expressly teaches that virtue is to be chosen for itself alone, even

if unhappiness and ignominy are inevitably connected with it. Still more,

however, Christianity preaches a perfectly unselfish virtue, which is

practised not on account of the reward in a life after death, but quite

disinterestedly from love to God, for works do not justify, but only

faith, which accompanies virtue, so to speak, as its symptom, and

therefore appears quite irrespective of reward and of its own accord. See

Luther’s “_De Libertate Christiana_.” I will not take into account at all

the Indians, in whose sacred books the hope of a reward for our works is

everywhere described as the way of darkness, which can never lead to

blessedness. Kant’s doctrine of virtue, however, we do not find so pure;

or rather the exposition remains far behind the spirit of it, and indeed

falls into inconsistency. In his _highest good_, which he afterwards

discussed, we find virtue united to happiness. The ought originally so

unconditioned does yet afterwards postulate one condition, in order to

escape from the inner contradiction with which it is affected and with

which it cannot live. Happiness in the highest good is not indeed really

meant to be the motive for virtue; yet there it is, like a secret article,

the existence of which reduces all the rest to a mere sham contract. It is

not really the reward of virtue, but yet it is a voluntary gift for which

virtue, after work accomplished, stealthily opens the hand. One may

convince oneself of this from the “Critique of Practical Reason” (p.

223-266 of the fourth, or p. 264-295 of Rosenkranz’s, edition). The whole

of Kant’s moral theology has also the same tendency, and just on this

account morality really destroys itself through moral theology. For I

repeat that all virtue which in any way is practised for the sake of a

reward is based upon a prudent, methodical, far-seeing egoism.

The content of the absolute ought, the fundamental principle of the

practical reason, is the famous: “So act that the maxim of your will might

always be also valid as the principle of a universal legislation.” This

principle presents to him who desires a rule for his own will the task of

seeking such a rule for the wills of all. Then the question arises how

such a rule is to be found. Clearly, in order to discover the rule of my

conduct, I ought not to have regard to myself alone, but to the sum of all

individuals. Then, instead of my own well-being, the well-being of all

without distinction becomes my aim. Yet the aim still always remains

well-being. I find, then, that all can be equally well off only if each

limits his own egoism by that of others. From this it certainly follows

that I must injure no one, because, since this principle is assumed to be

universal, I also will not be injured. This, however, is the sole ground

on account of which I, who do not yet possess a moral principle, but am

only seeking one, can wish this to be a universal law. But clearly in this

way the desire of well-being, _i.e._, egoism, remains the source of this

ethical principle. As the basis of politics it would be excellent, as the

basis of ethics it is worthless. For he who seeks to establish a rule for

the wills of all, as is demanded by that moral principle, necessarily

stands in need of a rule himself; otherwise everything would be alike to

him. But this rule can only be his own egoism, since it is only this that

is affected by the conduct of others; and therefore it is only by means of

this egoism, and with reference to it, that each one can have a will

concerning the conduct of others, and that it is not a matter of

indifference to him. Kant himself very naively intimates this (p. 123 of

the “Critique of Practical Reason;” Rosenkranz’s edition, p. 192), where

he thus prosecutes the search for maxims for the will: “If every one

regarded the need of others with complete indifference, _and thou also

didst belong_ to such an order of things, wouldst thou consent thereto?”

_Quam temere in nosmet legem sancimus iniquam!_ would be the rule of the

consent inquired after. So also in the “Fundamental Principles of the

Metaphysic of Morals” (p. 56 of the third, and p. 50 of Rosenkranz’s,

edition): “A will which resolved to assist no one in distress would

contradict itself, for cases might arise in which _it required the love

and sympathy of others_,” &c. &c. This principle of ethics, which when

light is thrown upon it is therefore nothing else than an indirect and

disguised expression of the old, simple principle, “_Quod tibi fieri non

vis, alteri ne feceris_,” is related first and directly to passivity,

suffering, and then only by means of this to action. Therefore, as we have

said, it would be thoroughly serviceable as a guide for the constitution

of the State, which aims at the prevention of _the suffering of wrong_,

and also desires to procure for all and each the greatest sum of

well-being. But in ethics, where the object of investigation is _action_

as _action_, and in its direct significance for the _actor_—not its

consequences, suffering, or its relation to others—in this reference, I

say, it is altogether inadmissible, because at bottom it really amounts to

a principle of happiness, thus to egoism.

We cannot, therefore, share Kant’s satisfaction that his principle of

ethics is not a material one, _i.e._, one which sets up an object as a

motive, but merely formal, whereby it corresponds symmetrically to the

formal laws with which the “Critique of Pure Reason” has made us familiar.

Certainly it is, instead of a law, merely a formula for finding such a

law. But, in the first place, we had this formula already more briefly and

clearly in the “_Quod tibi fieri non vis, alteri ne feceris_;” and,

secondly, the analysis of this formula shows that it is simply and solely

the reference to one’s own happiness that gives it content, and therefore

it can only be serviceable to a rational egoism, to which also every legal

constitution owes its origin.

Another mistake which, because it offends the feelings of every one, has

often been condemned, and was satirised by Schiller in an epigram, is the

pedantic rule that for an act to be really good and meritorious it must be

done simply and solely out of respect for the known law and the conception

of duty, and in accordance with a maxim known to the reason _in

abstracto_, and not from any inclination, not from benevolence felt

towards others, not from tender-hearted compassion, sympathy, or emotion

of the heart, which (according to the “Critique of Practical Reason,” p.

213; Rosenkranz’s edition, p. 257) to right-thinking persons are indeed

very burdensome, as confusing their deliberate maxims. The act must be

performed unwillingly and with self-compulsion. Remember that nevertheless

the hope of reward is not allowed to enter, and estimate the great

absurdity of the demand. But, what is saying more, this is directly

opposed to the true spirit of virtue; not the act, but the willingness to

do it, the love from which it proceeds, and without which it is a dead

work, constitutes its merit. Therefore Christianity rightly teaches that

all outward works are worthless if they do not proceed from that genuine

disposition which consists in true goodwill and pure love, and that what

makes blessed and saves is not the works done (_opera operata_), but the

faith, the genuine disposition, which is the gift of the Holy Ghost alone,

and which the free, deliberative will, having only the law in view, does

not produce. This demand of Kant’s, that all virtuous conduct shall

proceed from pure, deliberate respect for the law and in accordance with

its abstract maxims, coldly and without inclination, nay, opposed to all

inclination, is just the same thing as if he asserted that every work of

art must be accomplished by a well-considered application of æsthetical

rules. The one is just as perverse as the other. The question, already

handled by Plato and Seneca, whether virtue can be taught, is to be

answered in the negative. We must finally make up our minds to see, what

indeed was the source of the Christian doctrine of election by grace, that

as regards its chief characteristic and its inner nature, virtue, like

genius, is to a certain extent inborn; and that just as little as all the

professors of æsthetics could impart to any one the power of producing

works of genius, _i.e._, genuine works of art, so little could all the

professors of ethics and preachers of virtue transform an ignoble into a

virtuous and noble character, the impossibility of which is very much more

apparent than that of turning lead into gold. The search for a system of

ethics and a first principle of the same, which would have practical

influence and would actually transform and better the human race, is just

like the search for the philosopher’s stone. Yet I have spoken at length

at the end of the fourth book of the possibility of an entire change of

mind or conversion of man (new birth), not by means of abstract (ethics)

but of intuitive knowledge (the work of grace). The contents of that book

relieve me generally of the necessity of dwelling longer upon this point.

That Kant by no means penetrated to the real significance of the ethical

content of actions is shown finally by his doctrine of the highest good as

the necessary combination of virtue and happiness, a combination indeed in

which virtue would be that which merits happiness. He is here involved in

the logical fallacy that the conception of merit, which is here the

measure or test, already presupposes a theory of ethics as its own

measure, and thus could not be deducible from it. It appeared in our

fourth book that all genuine virtue, after it has attained to its highest

grade, at last leads to a complete renunciation in which all willing finds

an end. Happiness, on the other hand, is a satisfied wish; thus the two

are essentially incapable of being combined. He who has been enlightened

by my exposition requires no further explanation of the complete

perverseness of this Kantian view of the highest good. And, independent of

my positive exposition, I have no further negative exposition to give.

Kant’s love of architectonic symmetry meets us also in the “Critique of

Practical Reason,” for he has given it the shape of the “Critique of Pure

Reason,” and has again introduced the same titles and forms with manifest

intention, which becomes specially apparent in the table of the categories

of freedom.

‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐

The “Philosophy of Law” is one of Kant’s latest works, and is so poor

that, although I entirely disagree with it, I think a polemic against it

is superfluous, since of its own weakness it must die a natural death,

just as if it were not the work of this great man, but the production of

an ordinary mortal. Therefore, as regards the “Philosophy of Law,” I give

up the negative mode of procedure and refer to the positive, that is, to

the short outline of it given in the fourth book. Just one or two general

remarks on Kant’s “Philosophy of Law” may be made here. The errors which I

have condemned in considering the “Critique of Pure Reason,” as clinging

to Kant throughout, appear in the “Philosophy of Law” in such excess that

one often believes he is reading a satirical parody of the Kantian style,

or at least that he is listening to a Kantian. Two principal errors,

however, are these. He desires (and many have since then desired) to

separate the Philosophy of Law sharply from ethics, and yet not to make

the former dependent upon positive legislation, _i.e._, upon arbitrary

sanction, but to let the conception of law exist for itself pure and _a

priori_. But this is not possible; because conduct, apart from its ethical

significance, and apart from the physical relation to others, and thereby

from external sanction, does not admit even of the possibility of any

third view. Consequently, when he says, “Legal obligation is that which

_can_ be enforced,” this _can_ is either to be understood physically, and

then all law is positive and arbitrary, and again all arbitrariness that

achieves its end is law; or the _can_ is to be understood ethically, and

we are again in the province of ethics. With Kant the conception of legal

right hovers between heaven and earth, and has no ground on which to

stand; with me it belongs to ethics. Secondly, his definition of the

conception law is entirely negative, and thereby inadequate.(11) Legal

right is that which is consistent with the compatibility of the respective

freedom of individuals together, according to a general law. Freedom (here

the empirical, _i.e._, physical, not the moral freedom of the will)

signifies not being hindered or interfered with, and is thus a mere

negation; compatibility, again, has exactly the same significance. Thus we

remain with mere negations and obtain no positive conception, indeed do

not learn at all, what is really being spoken about, unless we know it

already from some other source. In the course of the exposition the most

perverse views afterwards develop themselves, such as that in the state of

nature, _i.e._, outside the State, there is no right to property at all,

which really means that all right or law is positive, and involves that

natural law is based upon positive law, instead of which the case ought to

be reversed. Further, the founding of legal acquisition on possession; the

ethical obligation to establish the civil constitution; the ground of the

right of punishment, &c., &c., all of which, as I have said, I do not

regard as worth a special refutation. However, these Kantian errors have

exercised a very injurious influence. They have confused and obscured

truths long known and expressed, and have occasioned strange theories and

much writing and controversy. This certainly cannot last, and we see

already how truth and sound reason again make way for themselves. Of the

latter, the “_Naturrecht_” of J. C. F. Meister specially bears evidence,

and is thus a contrast to many a preposterous theory, though I do not

regard it as on this account a pattern of perfection.

‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐

On the “Critique of Judgment” also, after what has been said, I must be

very short. We cannot but be surprised that Kant, to whom art certainly

was very foreign, and who to all appearance had little susceptibility for

the beautiful, indeed probably never had the opportunity of seeing an

important work of art, and who seems, finally, to have had no knowledge of

Goethe, the only man of his century and nation who was fit to be placed by

his side as his giant equal,—it is, I say, surprising how, notwithstanding

all this, Kant was able to render a great and permanent service to the

philosophical consideration of art and the beautiful. His merit lies in

this, that much as men had reflected upon the beautiful and upon art, they

had yet really always considered it only from the empirical point of view,

and had investigated upon a basis of facts what quality distinguished the

object of any kind which was called beautiful from other objects of the

same kind. On this path they first arrived at quite special principles,

and then at more general ones. They sought to separate true artistic

beauty from false, and to discover marks of this genuineness, which could

then serve again as rules. What gives pleasure as beautiful and what does

not, what therefore is to be imitated, what is to be striven against, what

is to be avoided, what rules, at least negative rules, are to be

established, in short, what are the means of exciting æsthetic

satisfaction, _i.e._, what are the conditions of this residing in the

object—this was almost exclusively the theme of all treatises upon art.

This path was followed by Aristotle, and in the most recent times we find

it chosen by Home, Burke, Winckelmann, Lessing, Herder, and many others.

It is true that the universality of the æsthetical principles discovered

finally led back to the subject, and it was observed that if the effect

upon the subject were adequately known we would then also be able to

determine _a priori_ the causes of this which lie in the object, and thus

alone this method of treatment could attain to the certainty of a science.

This occasioned once and again psychological disquisitions. Specially

however, Alexander Baumgarten produced with this intention a general

æsthetic of all beauty, in which he started from the conception of the

perfection of sensuous knowledge, that is, of knowledge of perception.

With him also, however, the subjective part is done with as soon as this

conception has been established, and he passes on to the objective part

and to the practical, which is connected with it. But here also the merit

was reserved for Kant of investigating seriously and profoundly _the

feeling itself_, in consequence of which we call the object occasioning it

beautiful, in order to discover, wherever it was possible, the constituent

elements and conditions of it in our nature. His investigation, therefore,

took an entirely subjective direction. This path was clearly the right

one, for in order to explain a phenomenon which is given in its effects,

one must know accurately this effect itself, if one is to determine

thoroughly the nature of the cause. Yet Kant’s merit in this regard does

not really extend much further than this, that he has indicated the right

path, and by a provisional attempt has given an example of how, more or

less, it is to be followed. For what he gave cannot be regarded as

objective truth and as a real gain. He gave the method for this

investigation, he broke ground in the right direction, but otherwise he

missed the mark.

In the “Critique of Æsthetical Judgment” the observation first of all

forces itself upon us that Kant retains the method which is peculiar to

his whole philosophy, and which I have considered at length above—I mean

the method of starting from abstract knowledge in order to establish

knowledge of perception, so that the former serves him, so to speak, as a

_camera obscura_ in which to receive and survey the latter. As in the

“Critique of Pure Reason” the forms of judgment are supposed to unfold to

him the knowledge of our whole world of perception, so in this “Critique

of Æsthetical Judgment” he does not start from the beautiful itself, from

the perceptible and immediately beautiful, but from the _judgment_ of the

beautiful, the so-called, and very badly so-called, judgment of taste.

This is his problem. His attention is especially aroused by the

circumstance that such a judgment is clearly the expression of something

that takes place in the subject, but yet is just as universally valid as

if it concerned a quality of the object. It is this that struck him, not

the beautiful itself. He starts always merely from the assertions of

others, from the judgment of the beautiful, not from the beautiful itself.

It is therefore as if he knew it simply from hearsay, not directly. A

blind man of high understanding could almost in the same way make up a

theory of colours from very accurate reports which he had heard concerning

them. And really we can only venture to regard Kant’s philosophemes

concerning the beautiful as in almost the same position. Then we shall

find that his theory is very ingenious indeed, that here and there telling

and true observations are made; but his real solution of the problem is so

very insufficient, remains so far below the dignity of the subject, that

it can never occur to us to accept it as objective truth. Therefore I

consider myself relieved from the necessity of refuting it; and here also

I refer to the positive part of my work.

With regard to the form of his whole book, it is to be observed that it

originated in the idea of finding in the teleological conception the key

to the problem of the beautiful. This inspiration is deduced, which is

always a matter of no difficulty, as we have learnt from Kant’s

successors. Thus there now arises the strange combination of the knowledge

of the beautiful with that of the teleology of natural bodies in _one_

faculty of knowledge called _judgment_, and the treatment of these two

heterogeneous subjects in one book. With these three powers of knowledge,

reason, judgment, and understanding, a variety of

symmetrical-architectonic amusements are afterwards undertaken, the

general inclination to which shows itself in many ways in this book; for

example, in the forcible adaptation of the whole of it to the pattern of

the “Critique of Pure Reason,” and very specially in the antinomy of the

æsthetical judgment, which is dragged in by the hair. One might also

extract a charge of great inconsistency from the fact that after it has

been incessantly repeated in the “Critique of Pure Reason” that the

understanding is the faculty of judgment, and after the forms of its

judgment have been made the foundation-stone of all philosophy, a quite

special faculty of judgment now appears, which is completely different

from the former. For the rest, what I call the faculty of judgment, the

capacity for translating knowledge of perception into abstract knowledge,

and again of applying the latter correctly to the former, is explained in

the positive part of my work.

By far the best part of the “Critique of Æsthetical Judgment” is the

theory of the sublime. It is incomparably more successful than that of the

beautiful, and does not only give, as that does, the general method of

investigation, but also a part of the right way to it—so much so that even

though it does not give the real solution of the problem, it yet touches

very closely upon it.

In the “Critique of the Teleological Judgment,” on account of the

simplicity of the matter, we can recognise perhaps more than anywhere else

Kant’s rare talent of turning a thought this way and that way, and

expressing it in a multitude of different ways, until out of it there

grows a book. The whole book is intended to say this alone: although

organised bodies necessarily appear to us as if they were constructed in

accordance with a conceived design of an end which preceded them, yet we

are not justified in assuming that this is objectively the case. For our

intellect, to which things are given from without and indirectly, which

thus never knows their inner nature through which they arise and exist,

but merely their outward side, cannot otherwise comprehend a certain

quality peculiar to organised productions of nature than by analogy, for

it compares it with the intentionally accomplished works of man, the

nature of which is determined by a design and the conception of this

design. This analogy is sufficient to enable us to comprehend the

agreement of all the parts with the whole, and thus indeed to give us the

clue to their investigation; but it must by no means on this account be

made the actual ground of explanation of the origin and existence of such

bodies. For the necessity of so conceiving them is of subjective origin.

Somewhat in this way I would epitomise Kant’s doctrine on this question.

In its most important aspect he had expounded it already in the “Critique

of Pure Reason,” p. 692-702; V., 720-730. But in the knowledge of _this_

truth also we find David Hume to be Kant’s worthy forerunner. He also had

keenly controverted that assumption in the second part of his “Dialogues

concerning Natural Religion.” The difference between Hume’s criticism of

that assumption and Kant’s is principally this, that Hume criticised it as

an assumption based upon experience, while Kant, on the other hand,

criticised it as an _a priori_ assumption. Both are right, and their

expositions supplement each other. Indeed what is really essential in the

Kantian doctrine on this point we find already expressed in the commentary

of Simplicius on Aristotle’s Physics: “ἡ δε πλανη γεγονεν αυτοις απο του

ἡγεισθαι, παντα τα ἑνεκα του γινομενα κατα προαιρεσιν γενεσθαι και

λογισμον, τα δε φυσει μη ὁυτως ὁραν γινομενα.” (_Error iis ortus est ex

eo, quod credebant, omnia, quæ propter finem aliquem fierent, ex proposito

et ratiocinio fieri, dum videbant, naturæ opera non ita fieri._) _Schol.

in Arist., ex edit. Berol._, p. 354. Kant is perfectly right in the

matter; and it was necessary that after it had been shown that the

conception of cause and effect is inapplicable to the whole of nature in

general, in respect of its existence, it should also be shown that in

respect of its qualities it is not to be thought of as the effect of a

cause guided by motives (designs). If we consider the great plausibility

of the physico-theological proof, which even Voltaire held to be

irrefragable, it was clearly of the greatest importance to show that what

is subjective in our comprehension, to which Kant had relegated space,

time, and causality, extends also to our judgment of natural bodies; and

accordingly the compulsion which we feel to think of them as having arisen

as the result of premeditation, according to designs, thus in such a way

that _the idea of them preceded their existence_, is just as much of

subjective origin as the perception of space, which presents itself so

objectively, and that therefore it must not be set up as objective truth.

Kant’s exposition of the matter, apart from its tedious prolixity and

repetitions, is excellent. He rightly asserts that we can never succeed in

explaining the nature of organised bodies from merely mechanical causes,

by which he understands the undesigned and regular effect of all the

universal forces of nature. Yet I find here another flaw. He denies the

possibility of such an explanation merely with regard to the teleology and

apparent adaptation of _organised_ bodies. But we find that even where

there is no organisation the grounds of explanation which apply to _one_

province of nature cannot be transferred to another, but forsake us as

soon as we enter a new province, and new fundamental laws appear instead

of them, the explanation of which is by no means to be expected from the

laws of the former province. Thus in the province of the mechanical,

properly so called, the laws of gravitation, cohesion, rigidity, fluidity,

and elasticity prevail, which in themselves (apart from my explanation of

all natural forces as lower grades of the objectification of will) exist

as manifestations of forces which cannot be further explained, but

themselves constitute the principles of all further explanation, which

merely consists in reduction to them. If we leave this province and come

to the phenomena of chemistry, of electricity, magnetism, crystallisation,

the former principles are absolutely of no use, indeed the former laws are

no longer valid, the former forces are overcome by others, and the

phenomena take place in direct contradiction to them, according to new

laws, which, just like the former ones, are original and inexplicable,

_i.e._, cannot be reduced to more general ones. Thus, for example, no one

will ever succeed in explaining even the dissolving of a salt in water in

accordance with the laws proper to mechanics, much less the more

complicated phenomena of chemistry. All this has already been explained at

length in the second book of the present work. An exposition of this kind

would, as it seems to me, have been of great use in the “Critique of the

Teleological Judgment,” and would have thrown much light upon what is said

there. Such an exposition would have been especially favourable to his

excellent remark that a more profound knowledge of the real being, of

which the things of nature are the manifestation, would recognise both in

the mechanical (according to law) and the apparently intentional effects

of nature one and the same ultimate principle, which might serve as the

more general ground of explanation of them both. Such a principle I hope I

have given by establishing the will as the real thing in itself; and in

accordance with it generally in the second book and the supplements to it,

but especially in my work “On the Will in Nature,” the insight into the

inner nature of the apparent design and of the harmony and agreement of

the whole of nature has perhaps become clearer and deeper. Therefore I

have nothing more to say about it here.

The reader whom this criticism of the Kantian philosophy interests should

not neglect to read the supplement to it which is given in the second

essay of the first volume of my “Parerga and Paralipomena,” under the

title “_Noch einige Erläuterungen zur Kantischen Philosophie_” (Some

Further Explanations of the Kantian Philosophy). For it must be borne in

mind that my writings, few as they are, were not composed all at once, but

successively, in the course of a long life, and with long intervals

between them. Accordingly, it must not be expected that all I have said

upon one subject should stand together in one place.

SUPPLEMENTS TO THE FIRST BOOK.

“ ‘Warum willst du dich von uns Allen

Und unsrer Meinung entfernen?’

Ich schreibe nicht euch zu gefallen,

Ihr sollt was lernen.”

—GOETHE.

First Half. The Doctrine Of The Idea Of Perception. (To § 1-7 of the First

Volume.)

Chapter I. The Standpoint of Idealism.

In boundless space countless shining spheres, about each of which, and

illuminated by its light, there revolve a dozen or so of smaller ones, hot

at the core and covered with a hard, cold crust, upon whose surface there

have been generated from a mouldy film beings which live and know—this is

what presents itself to us in experience as the truth, the real, the

world. Yet for a thinking being it is a precarious position to stand upon

one of those numberless spheres moving freely in boundless space without

knowing whence or whither, and to be only one of innumerable similar

beings who throng and press and toil, ceaselessly and quickly arising and

passing away in time, which has no beginning and no end; moreover, nothing

permanent but matter alone and the recurrence of the same varied organised

forms, by means of certain ways and channels which are there once for all.

All that empirical science can teach is only the more exact nature and law

of these events. But now at last modern philosophy especially through

Berkeley and Kant, has called to mind that all this is first of all merely

a _phenomenon of the brain_, and is affected with such great, so many, and

such different _subjective_ conditions that its supposed absolute reality

vanishes away, and leaves room for an entirely different scheme of the

world, which consists of what lies at the foundation of that phenomenon,

_i.e._, what is related to it as the thing in itself is related to its

mere manifestation.

“The world is my idea” is, like the axioms of Euclid, a proposition which

every one must recognise as true as soon as he understands it; although it

is not a proposition which every one understands as soon as he hears it.

To have brought this proposition to clear consciousness, and in it the

problem of the relation of the ideal and the real, _i.e._, of the world in

the head to the world outside the head, together with the problem of moral

freedom, is the distinctive feature of modern philosophy. For it was only

after men had spent their labour for thousands of years upon a mere

philosophy of the object that they discovered that among the many things

that make the world so obscure and doubtful the first and chiefest is

this, that however immeasurable and massive it may be, its existence yet

hangs by a single thread; and this is the actual consciousness in which it

exists. This condition, to which the existence of the world is irrevocably

subject, marks it, in spite of all _empirical_ reality, with the stamp of

_ideality_, and therefore of mere _phenomenal appearance_. Thus on one

side at least the world must be recognised as akin to dreams, and indeed

to be classified along with them. For the same function of the brain

which, during sleep, conjures up before us a completely objective,

perceptible, and even palpable world must have just as large a share in

the presentation of the objective world of waking life. Both worlds,

although different as regards their matter, are yet clearly moulded in the

one form. This form is the intellect, the function of the brain. Descartes

was probably the first who attained to the degree of reflection which this

fundamental truth demands, and consequently he made it the starting-point

of his philosophy, though provisionally only in the form of a sceptical

doubt. When he took his _cogito ergo sum_ as alone certain, and

provisionally regarded the existence of the world as problematical, he

really discovered the essential and only right starting-point of all

philosophy, and at the same time its _true_ foundation. This foundation is

essentially and inevitably the _subjective_, the _individual

consciousness_. For this alone is and remains immediate; everything else,

whatever it may be, is mediated and conditioned through it, and is

therefore dependent upon it. Therefore modern philosophy is rightly

regarded as starting with Descartes, who was the father of it. Not long

afterwards Berkeley followed the same path further, and attained to

_idealism_ proper, _i.e._, to the knowledge that the world which is

extended in space, thus the objective, material world in general, exists

as such simply and solely in our _idea_, and that it is false, and indeed

absurd, to attribute to it, _as such_, an existence apart from all idea

and independent of the knowing subject, thus to assume matter as something

absolute and possessed of real being in itself. But his correct and

profound insight into this truth really constitutes Berkeley’s whole

philosophy; in it he had exhausted himself.

Thus true philosophy must always be idealistic; indeed, it must be so in

order to be merely honest. For nothing is more certain than that no man

ever came out of himself in order to identify himself directly with things

which are different from him; but everything of which he has certain, and

therefore immediate, knowledge lies within his own consciousness. Beyond

this consciousness, therefore, there can be no _immediate_ certainty; but

the first principles of a science must have such certainty. For the

empirical standpoint of the other sciences it is quite right to assume the

objective world as something absolutely given; but not so for the

standpoint of philosophy, which has to go back to what is first and

original. Only consciousness is immediately given; therefore the basis of

philosophy is limited to facts of consciousness, _i.e._, it is essentially

_idealistic_. Realism which commends itself to the crude understanding, by

the appearance which it assumes of being matter-of-fact, really starts

from an arbitrary assumption, and is therefore an empty castle in the air,

for it ignores or denies the first of all facts, that all that we know

lies within consciousness. For that the _objective existence_ of things is

conditioned through a subject whose ideas they are, and consequently that

the objective world exists only as _idea_, is no hypothesis, and still

less a dogma, or even a paradox set up for the sake of discussion; but it

is the most certain and the simplest truth; and the knowledge of it is

only made difficult by the fact that it is indeed so simple, and that it

is not every one who has sufficient power of reflection to go back to the

first elements of his consciousness of things. There can never be an

absolute and independent objective existence; indeed such an existence is

quite unintelligible. For the objective, as such, always and essentially

has its existence in the consciousness of a subject, is thus the idea of

this subject, and consequently is conditioned by it, and also by its

forms, the forms of the idea, which depend upon the subject and not on the

object.

That _the objective world would exist_ even if there existed no conscious

being certainly seems at the first blush to be unquestionable, because it

can be thought in the abstract, without bringing to light the

contradiction which it carries within it. But if we desire to _realise_

this abstract thought, that is, to reduce it to ideas of perception, from

which alone (like everything abstract) it can have content and truth, and

if accordingly we try _to imagine an objective world without a knowing

subject_, we become aware that what we then imagine is in truth the

opposite of what we intended, is in fact nothing else than the process in

the intellect of a knowing subject who perceives an objective world, is

thus exactly what we desired to exclude. For this perceptible and real

world is clearly a phenomenon of the brain; therefore there lies a

contradiction in the assumption that as such it ought also to exist

independently of all brains.

The principal objection to the inevitable and essential _ideality of all

objects_, the objection which, distinctly or indistinctly, arises in every

one, is certainly this: My own person also is an object for some one else,

is thus his idea, and yet I know certainly that I would continue to exist

even if he no longer perceived me. But all other objects also stand in the

same relation to his intellect as I do; consequently they also would

continue to exist without being perceived by him. The answer to this is:

That other being as whose object I now regard my person is not absolutely

_the subject_, but primarily is a knowing individual. Therefore, if he no

longer existed, nay, even if there existed no other conscious being except

myself, yet the subject, in whose idea alone all objects exist, would by

no means be on that account abolished. For I myself indeed am this

subject, as every conscious being is. Consequently, in the case assumed,

my person would certainly continue to exist, but still as idea, in my own

knowledge. For even by me myself it is always known only indirectly, never

immediately; because all existence as idea is indirect. As _object_,

_i.e._, as extended, occupying space and acting, I know my body only in

the perception of my brain. This takes place by means of the senses, upon

data supplied by which the percipient understanding performs its function

of passing from effect to cause, and thereby, in that the eye sees the

body or the hands touch it, it constructs that extended figure which

presents itself in space as my body. By no means, however, is there

directly given me, either in some general feeling of bodily existence or

in inner self-consciousness, any extension, form, or activity, which would

then coincide with my nature itself, which accordingly, in order so to

exist, would require no other being in whose knowledge it might exhibit

itself. On the contrary, that general feeling of bodily existence, and

also self-consciousness, exists directly only in relation to the _will_,

that is, as agreeable or disagreeable, and as active in the acts of will,

which for external perception exhibit themselves as actions of the body.

From this it follows that the existence of my person or body as _something

extended and acting_ always presupposes a _knowing being_ distinct from

it; because it is essentially an existence in apprehension, in the idea,

thus an existence _for another_. In fact, it is a phenomenon of brain,

just as much whether the brain in which it exhibits itself is my own or

belongs to another person. In the first case one’s own person divides

itself into the knowing and the known, into object and subject, which here

as everywhere stand opposed to each other, inseparable and irreconcilable.

If, then, my own person, in order to exist as such, always requires a

knowing subject, this will at least as much hold good of the other objects

for which it was the aim of the above objection to vindicate an existence

independent of knowledge and its subject.

However, it is evident that the existence which is conditioned through a

knowing subject is only the existence in space, and therefore that of an

extended and active being. This alone is always something known, and

consequently _an existence for another_. On the other hand, every being

that exists in this way may yet have _an existence for itself_, for which

it requires no subject. Yet this existence for itself cannot be extension

and activity (together space-occupation), but is necessarily a being of

another kind, that of a thing in itself, which, as such, can never be an

_object_. This, then, would be the answer to the leading objection set

forth above, which accordingly does not overthrow the fundamental truth

that the objectively given world can only exist in the idea, thus only for

a subject.

We have further to remark here that Kant also, so long at least as he

remained consistent, can have thought no _objects_ among his things in

themselves. For this follows from the fact that he proves that space, and

also time, are mere forms of our perception, which consequently do not

belong to things in themselves. What is neither in space nor in time can

be no _object_; thus the being of _things in themselves_ cannot be

objective, but of quite a different kind, a metaphysical being.

Consequently that Kantian principle already involves this principle also,

that the _objective_ world exists only as _idea_.

In spite of all that one may say, nothing is so persistently and ever anew

misunderstood as _Idealism_, because it is interpreted as meaning that one

denies the _empirical_ reality of the external world. Upon this rests the

perpetual return to the appeal to common sense, which appears in many

forms and guises; for example, as an “irresistible conviction” in the

Scotch school, or as Jacobi’s _faith_ in the reality of the external

world. The external world by no means presents itself, as Jacobi declares,

upon credit, and is accepted by us upon trust and faith. It presents

itself as that which it is, and performs directly what it promises. It

must be remembered that Jacobi, who set up such a credit or faith theory

of the world, and had the fortune to impose it upon a few professors of

philosophy, who for thirty years have philosophised upon the same lines

lengthily and at their ease, is the same man who once denounced Lessing as

a Spinozist, and afterwards denounced Schelling as an atheist, and who

received from the latter the well-known and well-deserved castigation. In

keeping with such zeal, when he reduced the external world to a mere

matter of faith he only wished to open the door to faith in general, and

to prepare belief for that which was afterwards really to be made a matter

of belief; as if, in order to introduce a paper currency, one should seek

to appeal to the fact that the value of the ringing coin also depends

merely on the stamp which the State has set upon it. Jacobi, in his

doctrine that the reality of the external world is assumed upon faith, is

just exactly “the transcendental realist who plays the empirical idealist”

censured by Kant in the “Critique of Pure Reason,” first edition, p. 369.

The true idealism, on the contrary, is not the empirical but the

transcendental. This leaves the empirical reality of the world untouched,

but holds fast to the fact that every _object_, thus the empirically real

in general, is conditioned in a twofold manner by the subject; in the

first place _materially_ or as _object_ generally, because an objective

existence is only conceivable as opposed to a subject, and as its idea; in

the second place _formally_, because the mode of existence of an object,

_i.e._, its being perceived (space, time, causality), proceeds from the

subject, is pre-arranged in the subject. Therefore with the simple or

Berkeleian idealism, which concerns the object in general, there stands in

immediate connection the Kantian idealism, which concerns the specially

given _mode or manner_ of objective existence. This proves that the whole

material world, with its bodies, which are extended in space and, by means

of time, have causal relations to each other, and everything that depends

upon this—that all this is not something which is there _independently_ of

our head, but essentially presupposes the functions of our brain _by means

of which_ and _in_ which alone _such_ an objective arrangement of things

is possible. For time, space, and causality, upon which all those real and

objective events rest, are themselves nothing more than functions of the

brain; so that thus the unchangeable _order_ of things which affords the

criterion and clue to their empirical reality itself proceeds only from

the brain, and has its credentials from this alone. All this Kant has

expounded fully and thoroughly; only he does not speak of the brain, but

calls it “the faculty of knowledge.” Indeed he has attempted to prove that

when that objective order in time, space, causality, matter, &c., upon

which all the events of the real world ultimately rest, is properly

considered, it cannot even be conceived as a self-existing order, _i.e._,

an order of the thing in itself, or as something absolutely objective and

unconditionally given, for if one tries to think this out it leads to

contradictions. To accomplish this was the object of the antinomies, but

in the appendix to my work I have proved the failure of the attempt. On

the other hand, the Kantian doctrine, even without the antinomies, leads

to the insight that things and the whole mode of their existence are

inseparably bound up with our consciousness of them. Therefore whoever has

distinctly grasped this soon attains to the conviction that the assumption

that things also exist as such, apart from and independently of our

consciousness, is really absurd. That we are so deeply involved in time,

space, causality, and the whole regular process of experience which rests

upon them, that we (and indeed the brutes) are so perfectly at home, and

know how to find our way from the first—this would not be possible if our

intellect were one thing and things another, but can only be explained

from the fact that both constitute one whole, the intellect itself creates

that order, and exists only for things, while they, on the other hand,

exist only for it.

But even apart from the deep insight, which only the Kantian philosophy

gives, the inadmissibility of the assumption of absolute realism which is

so obstinately clung to may be directly shown, or at least made capable of

being felt, by the simple exhibition of its meaning in the light of such

considerations as the following. According to realism, the world is

supposed to exist, as we know it, independently of this knowledge. Let us

once, then, remove all percipient beings from it, and leave only

unorganised and vegetable nature. Rock, tree, and brook are there, and the

blue heaven; sun, moon, and stars light this world, as before; yet

certainly in vain, for there is no eye to see it. Let us now in addition

place in it a percipient being. Now that world presents itself _again_ in

his brain, and repeats itself within it precisely as it was formerly

without it. Thus to the _first_ world a _second_ has been added, which,

although completely separated from it, resembles it to a nicety. And now

the _subjective_ world of this perception is precisely so constituted in

_subjective_, known space as the _objective_ world in _objective_,

infinite space. But the subjective world has this advantage over the

objective, the knowledge that that space, outside there, is infinite;

indeed it can also give beforehand most minutely and accurately the whole

constitution or necessary properties of all relations which are possible,

though not yet actual, in that space, and does not require to examine

them. It can tell just as much with regard to the course of time, and also

with regard to the relation of cause and effect which governs the changes

in that external world. I think all this, when closely considered, turns

out absurd enough, and hence leads to the conviction that that absolute

objective world outside the head, independent of it and prior to all

knowledge, which at first we imagined ourselves to conceive, is really no

other than the second, the world which is known _subjectively_, the world

of idea, as which alone we are actually able to conceive it. Thus of its

own accord the assumption forces itself upon us, that the world, as we

know it, exists also only for our knowledge, therefore in the _idea_

alone, and not a second time outside of it.(12) In accordance, then, with

this assumption, the thing in itself, _i.e._, that which exists

independently of our knowledge and of every knowledge, is to be regarded

as something completely different from the _idea_ and all its attributes,

thus from objectivity in general. What this is will be the subject of our

second book.

On the other hand, the controversy concerning the reality of the external

world considered in § 5 of the first volume rests upon the assumption,

which has just been criticised, of an objective and a subjective world

both in _space_, and upon the impossibility which arises in connection

with this presupposition of a transition from one to the other, a bridge

between the two. Upon this controversy I have still to add the following

remarks.

The subjective and the objective do not constitute a continuous whole.

That of which we are immediately conscious is bounded by the skin, or

rather by the extreme ends of the nerves which proceed from the cerebral

system. Beyond this lies a world of which we have no knowledge except

through pictures in our head. Now the question is, whether and how far

there is a world independent of us which corresponds to these pictures.

The relation between the two could only be brought about by means of the

law of causality; for this law alone leads from what is given to something

quite different from it. But this law itself has first of all to prove its

validity. Now it must either be of _objective_ or of _subjective_ origin;

but in either case it lies upon one or the other side, and therefore

cannot supply the bridge between them. If, as Locke and Hume assume, it is

_a posteriori_, thus drawn from experience, it is of _objective_ origin,

and belongs then itself to the external world which is in question.

Therefore it cannot attest the reality of this world, for then, according

to Locke’s method, causality would be proved from experience, and the

reality of experience from causality. If, on the contrary, it is given _a

priori_, as Kant has more correctly taught us, then it is of _subjective_

origin, and in that case it is clear that with it we remain always in the

_subjective_ sphere. For all that is actually given _empirically_ in

perception is the occurrence of a sensation in the organ of sense; and the

assumption that this, even in general, must have a cause rests upon a law

which is rooted in the form of our knowledge, _i.e._, in the functions of

our brain. The origin of this law is therefore just as subjective as that

of the sensation itself. The cause of the given sensation, which is

assumed in consequence of this law, presents itself at once in perception

as an _object_, which has space and time for the form of its

manifestation. But _these forms_ themselves again are entirely of

subjective origin; for they are the mode or method of our faculty of

perception. That transition from the sensation to its cause which, as I

have repeatedly pointed out, lies at the foundation of all

sense-perception is certainly sufficient to give us the empirical presence

in space and time of an empirical object, and is therefore quite enough

for the practical purposes of life; but it is by no means sufficient to

afford us any conclusion as to the existence and real nature, or rather as

to the intelligible substratum, of the phenomena which in this way arise

for us. Thus that on the occasion of certain sensations occurring in my

organs of sense there arises in my head a perception of things which are

extended in space, permanent in time, and causally efficient by no means

justifies the assumption that they also exist in themselves, _i.e._, that

such things with these properties belonging absolutely to themselves exist

independently and outside of my head. This is the true outcome of the

Kantian philosophy. It coincides with an earlier result of Locke’s, which

is just as true, but far more easily understood. For although, as Locke’s

doctrine permits, external things are absolutely assumed as the causes of

sensations, yet there can be no _resemblance_ between the sensation in

which the _effect_ consists and the objective nature of the _cause_ which

occasions it. For the sensation, as organic function, is primarily

determined by the highly artificial and complicated nature of our organs

of sense. It is therefore merely excited by the external cause, but is

then perfected entirely in accordance with its own laws, and thus is

completely subjective. Locke’s philosophy was the criticism of the

functions of sense; Kant has given us the criticism of the functions of

the brain. But to all this we have yet to add the Berkeleian result, which

has been revised by me, that every object, whatever its origin may be, is

_as object_ already conditioned by the subject, is in fact merely its

_idea_. The aim of realism is indeed the object without subject; but it is

impossible even to conceive such an object distinctly.

From this whole inquiry it follows with certainty and distinctness that it

is absolutely impossible to attain to the comprehension of the inner

nature of things upon the path of mere _knowledge_ and _perception_. For

knowledge always comes to things from without, and therefore must for ever

remain outside them. This end would only be reached if we could find

_ourselves_ in the inside of things, so that their inner nature would be

known to us directly. Now, how far this is actually the case is considered

in my second book. But so long as we are concerned, as in this first book,

with objective comprehension, that is, with _knowledge_, the world is, and

remains for us, a mere _idea_, for here there is no possible path by which

we can cross over to it.

But, besides this, a firm grasp of the point of view of _idealism_ is a

necessary counterpoise to that of _materialism_. The controversy

concerning the _real_ and the _ideal_ may also be regarded as a

controversy concerning the existence of _matter_. For it is the reality or

ideality of this that is ultimately in question. Does matter, as such,

exist only in our _idea_, or does it also exist independently of it? In

the latter case it would be the thing in itself; and whoever assumes a

self-existent matter must also, consistently, be a materialist, _i.e._, he

must make matter the principle of explanation of all things. Whoever, on

the contrary, denies its existence as a thing in itself is _eo ipso_ an

idealist. Among the moderns only Locke has definitely and without

ambiguity asserted the reality of matter; and therefore his teaching led,

in the hands of Condillac, to the sensualism and materialism of the

French. Only Berkeley directly and without modifications denies matter.

The complete antithesis is thus that of idealism and materialism,

represented in its extremes by Berkeley and the French materialists

(Hollbach). Fichte is not to be mentioned here: he deserves no place among

true philosophers; among those elect of mankind who, with deep

earnestness, seek not their own things but the _truth_, and therefore must

not be confused with those who, under this pretence, have only their

personal advancement in view. Fichte is the father of the _sham

philosophy_, of the _disingenuous_ method which, through ambiguity in the

use of words, incomprehensible language, and sophistry, seeks to deceive,

and tries, moreover, to make a deep impression by assuming an air of

importance—in a word, the philosophy which seeks to bamboozle and humbug

those who desire to learn. After this method had been applied by

Schelling, it reached its height, as every one knows, in Hegel, in whose

hands it developed into pure charlatanism. But whoever even names this

Fichte seriously along with Kant shows that he has not even a dim notion

of what Kant is. On the other hand, materialism also has its warrant. It

is just as true that the knower is a product of matter as that matter is

merely the idea of the knower; but it is also just as one-sided. For

materialism is the philosophy of the subject that forgets to take account

of itself. And, accordingly, as against the assertion that I am a mere

modification of matter, this must be insisted upon, that all matter exists

merely in my idea; and it is no less right. A knowledge, as yet obscure,

of these relations seems to have been the origin of the saying of Plato,

“ὑλη αληθινον ψευδος” (_materia mendacium verax_).

_Realism_ necessarily leads, as we have said, to _materialism_. For if

empirical perception gives us things in themselves, as they exist

independently of our knowledge, experience also gives us the _order_ of

things in themselves, _i.e._, the true and sole order of the world. But

this path leads to the assumption that there is only _one_ thing in

itself, matter; of which all other things are modifications; for the

course of nature is here the absolute and only order of the world. To

escape from these consequences, while realism remained in undisputed

acceptance, spiritualism was set up, that is, the assumption of a second

substance outside of and along with matter, an _immaterial substance_.

This dualism and spiritualism, equally unsupported by experience and

destitute of proof and comprehensibility, was denied by Spinoza, and was

proved to be false by Kant, who dared to do so because at the same time he

established idealism in its rights. For with realism materialism, as the

counterpoise of which spiritualism had been devised, falls to the ground

of its own accord, because then matter and the course of nature become

mere phenomena, which are conditioned by the intellect, as they have their

existence only in its _idea_. Accordingly spiritualism is the delusive and

false safeguard against materialism, while the real and true safeguard is

idealism, which, by making the objective world dependent upon us, gives

the needed counterpoise to the position of dependence upon the objective

world, in which we are placed by the course of nature. The world from

which I part at death is, in another aspect, only my idea. The centre of

gravity of existence falls back into the _subject_. What is proved is not,

as in spiritualism, that the knower is independent of matter, but that all

matter is dependent on him. Certainly this is not so easy to comprehend or

so convenient to handle as spiritualism, with its two substances; but

χαλεπα τα καλα.

In opposition to the _subjective_ starting-point, “the world is my idea,”

there certainly stands provisionally with equal justification the

_objective_ starting-point, “the world is matter,” or “matter alone is

absolute” (since it alone is not subject to becoming and passing away), or

“all that exists is matter.” This is the starting-point of Democritus,

Leucippus, and Epicurus. But, more closely considered, the departure from

the subject retains a real advantage; it has the start by one perfectly

justified step. For consciousness alone is the _immediate_: but we pass

over this if we go at once to matter and make it our starting-point. On

the other hand, it would certainly be possible to construct the world from

matter and its properties if these were correctly, completely, and

exhaustively known to us (which is far from being the case as yet). For

all that has come to be has become actual through _causes_, which could

operate and come together only by virtue of the _fundamental forces of

matter_. But these must be perfectly capable of demonstration at least

objectively, even if subjectively we never attain to a knowledge of them.

But such an explanation and construction of the world would not only have

at its foundation the assumption of an existence in itself of matter

(while in truth it is conditioned by the subject), but it would also be

obliged to allow all the _original qualities_ in this matter to pass

current and remain absolutely inexplicable, thus as _qualitates occultæ_.

(Cf. § 26, 27 of the first volume.) For matter is only the vehicle of

these forces, just as the law of causality is only the arranger of their

manifestations. Therefore such an explanation of the world would always

remain merely relative and conditioned, properly the work of a _physical

science_, which at every step longed for a _metaphysic_. On the other

hand, there is also something inadequate about the subjective

starting-point and first principle, “the world is my idea,” partly because

it is one-sided, since the world is far more than that (the thing in

itself, will), and indeed its existence as idea is to a certain extent

only accidental to it; but partly also because it merely expresses the

fact that the object is conditioned by the subject, without at the same

time saying that the subject, as such, is also conditioned by the object.

For the assertion, “the subject would still remain a knowing being if it

had no object, _i.e._, if it had absolutely no idea,” is just as false as

the assertion of the crude understanding, “the world, the object, would

still exist, even if there were no subject.” A consciousness without an

object is no consciousness. A thinking subject has conceptions for its

object; a subject of sense perception has objects with the qualities

corresponding to its organisation. If we rob the subject of all special

characteristics and forms of its knowledge, all the properties of the

object vanish also, and nothing remains but _matter without form and

quality_, which can just as little occur in experience as a subject

without the forms of its knowledge, but which remains opposed to the naked

subject as such, as its reflex, which can only disappear along with it.

Although materialism pretends to postulate nothing more than this

matter—for instance, atoms—yet it unconsciously adds to it not only the

subject, but also space, time, and causality, which depend upon special

properties of the subject.

The world as idea, the objective world, has thus, as it were, two poles;

the simple knowing subject without the forms of its knowledge, and crude

matter without form and quality. Both are completely unknowable; the

subject because it is that which knows, matter because without form and

quality it cannot be perceived. Yet both are fundamental conditions of all

empirical perception. Thus the knowing subject, merely as such, which is a

presupposition of all experience, stands opposed as its pure counterpart

to the crude, formless, and utterly dead (_i.e._, will-less) matter, which

is given in no experience, but which all experience presupposes. This

subject is not in time, for time is only the more definite form of all its

ideas. The matter which stands over against it is, like it, eternal and

imperishable, endures through all time, but is, properly speaking, not

extended, for extension gives form, thus it has no spatial properties.

Everything else is involved in a constant process of coming into being and

passing away, while these two represent the unmoved poles of the world as

idea. The permanence of matter may therefore be regarded as the reflex of

the timelessness of the pure subject, which is simply assumed as the

condition of all objects. Both belong to phenomena, not to the thing in

itself, but they are the framework of the phenomenon. Both are arrived at

only by abstraction, and are not given immediately, pure and for

themselves.

The fundamental error of all systems is the failure to understand this

truth. _Intelligence and matter are correlates_, _i.e._, the one exists

only for the other, both stand and fall together, the one is only the

reflex of the other. Indeed they are really _one and the same thing_

regarded from two opposite points of view; and this one thing, I am here

anticipating, is the manifestation of the will, or the thing in itself.

Consequently both are secondary, and therefore the origin of the world is

not to be sought in either of the two. But because of their failure to

understand this, all systems (with the exception perhaps of that of

Spinoza) sought the origin of all things in one of these two. Some of

them, on the one hand, suppose an intelligence, νους, as the absolutely

First and δημιουργος, and accordingly in this allow an idea of things and

of the world to precede their actual existence; consequently they

distinguish the real world from the world of idea; which is false.

Therefore matter now appears as that through which the two are

distinguished, as the thing in itself. Hence arises the difficulty of

procuring this matter, the ὑλη, so that when added to the mere idea of the

world it may impart reality to it. That original intelligence must now

either find it ready to hand, in which case it is just as much an absolute

First as that intelligence itself, and we have then two absolute Firsts,

the δημιουργος and the ὑλη; or the absolute intelligence must create this

matter out of nothing, an assumption which our understanding refuses to

make, for it is only capable of comprehending changes in matter, and not

that matter itself should come into being or pass away. This rests

ultimately upon the fact that matter is essential, the correlate of the

understanding. On the other hand, the systems opposed to these, which make

the other of the two correlates, that is, matter, the absolute First,

suppose a matter which would exist without being perceived; and it has

been made sufficiently clear by all that has been said above that this is

a direct contradiction, for by the existence of matter we always mean

simply its being perceived. But here they encounter the difficulty of

bringing to this matter, which alone is their absolute First, the

intelligence which is finally to experience it. I have shown this weak

side of materialism in § 7 of the first volume. For me, on the contrary,

matter and intelligence are inseparable correlates, which exist only for

each other, and therefore merely relatively. Matter is the idea of the

intelligence; the intelligence is that in whose idea alone matter exists.

The two together constitute _the world as idea_, which is just Kant’s

_phenomenon_, and consequently something secondary. What is primary is

that which manifests itself, _the thing in itself_, which we shall

afterwards discover is the will. This is in itself neither the perceiver

nor the perceived, but is entirely different from the mode of its

manifestation.

As a forcible conclusion of this important and difficult discussion I

shall now personify these two abstractions, and present them in a dialogue

after the fashion of Prabodha Tschandro Daya. It may also be compared with

a similar dialogue between matter and form in the “_Duodecim Principia

Philosophiæ_” of Raymund Lully, c. 1 and 2.

_The Subject._

I am, and besides me there is nothing. For the world is my idea.

_Matter._

Presumptuous delusion! I, I am, and besides me there is nothing, for the

world is my fleeting form. Thou art a mere result of a part of this form

and altogether accidental.

_The Subject._

What insane arrogance! Neither thou nor thy form would exist without me;

ye are conditioned by me. Whosoever thinks me away, and believes he can

still think ye there, is involved in gross delusion, for your existence

apart from my idea is a direct contradiction, a meaningless form of words.

_Ye are_ simply means ye are perceived by me. My idea is the sphere of

your existence; therefore I am its first condition.

_Matter._

Fortunately the audacity of your assertion will soon be put to silence in

reality and not by mere words. Yet a few moments and thou actually art no

more. With all thy boasting thou hast sunk into nothing, vanished like a

shadow, and shared the fate of all my transitory forms. But I, I remain,

unscathed and undiminished, from age to age, through infinite time, and

behold unshaken the play of my changing form.

_The Subject._

This infinite time through which thou boastest that thou livest, like the

infinite space which thou fillest, exists only in my idea. Indeed it is

merely the form of my idea which I bear complete in myself, and in which

thou exhibitest thyself, which receives thee, and through which thou first

of all existest. But the annihilation with which thou threatenest me

touches me not; were it so, then wouldst thou also be annihilated. It

merely affects the individual, which for a short time is my vehicle, and

which, like everything else, is my idea.

_Matter._

And if I concede this, and go so far as to regard thy existence, which is

yet inseparably linked to that of these fleeting individuals, as something

absolute, it yet remains dependent upon mine. For thou art subject only so

far as thou hast an object; and this object I am. I am its kernel and

content, that which is permanent in it, that which holds it together, and

without which it would be as disconnected, as wavering, and unsubstantial

as the dreams and fancies of thy individuals, which have yet borrowed from

me even the illusive content they possess.

_The Subject._

Thou dost well to refrain from contesting my existence on the ground that

it is linked to individuals; for, as inseparably as I am joined to them,

thou art joined to thy sister, Form, and hast never appeared without her.

No eye hath yet seen either thee or me naked and isolated; for we are both

mere abstractions. It is in reality _one_ being that perceives itself and

is perceived by itself, but whose real being cannot consist either in

perceiving or in being perceived, since these are divided between us two.

_Both._

We are, then, inseparably joined together as necessary parts of one whole,

which includes us both and exists through us. Only a misunderstanding can

oppose us two hostilely to each other, and hence draw the false conclusion

that the one contests the existence of the other, with which its own

existence stands or falls.

‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐

This whole, which comprehends both, is the world as idea, or the world of

phenomena. When this is taken away there remains only what is purely

metaphysical, the thing in itself, which in the second book we shall

recognise as the will.