With the exception of man, no being wonders at its own existence; but it
is to them all so much a matter of course that they do not observe it. The
wisdom of nature speaks out of the peaceful glance of the brutes; for in
them the will and the intellect are not yet so widely separated that they
can be astonished at each other when they meet again. Thus here the whole
phenomenon is still firmly attached to the stem of nature from which it
has come, and is partaker of the unconscious omniscience of the great
mother. Only after the inner being of nature (the will to live in its
objectification) has ascended, vigorous and cheerful, through the two
series of unconscious existences, and then through the long and broad
series of animals, does it attain at last to reflection for the first time
on the entrance of reason, thus in man. Then it marvels at its own works,
and asks itself what it itself is. Its wonder however is the more serious,
as it here stands for the first time consciously in the presence of
_death_, and besides the finiteness of all existence, the vanity of all
effort forces itself more or less upon it. With this reflection and this
wonder there arises therefore for man alone, the _need for a metaphysic_;
he is accordingly an _animal metaphysicum_. At the beginning of his
consciousness certainly he also accepts himself as a matter of course.
This does not last long however, but very early, with the first dawn of
reflection, that wonder already appears, which is some day to become the
mother of metaphysics. In agreement with this Aristotle also says at the
beginning of his metaphysics: “Δια γαρ το θαυμαζειν οἱ ανθρωποι και νυν
και το πρωτον ηρξαντο φιλοσοφειν.” (_Propter admirationem enim et nunc et
primo inceperunt homines philosophari._) Moreover, the special
philosophical disposition consists primarily in this, that a man is
capable of wonder beyond the ordinary and everyday degree, and is thus
induced to make the _universal_ of the phenomenon his problem, while the
investigators in the natural sciences wonder only at exquisite or rare
phenomena, and their problem is merely to refer these to phenomena which
are better known. The lower a man stands in an intellectual regard the
less of a problem is existence itself for him; everything, how it is, and
that it is, appears to him rather a matter of course. This rests upon the
fact that his intellect still remains perfectly true to its original
destiny of being serviceable to the will as the medium of motives, and
therefore is closely bound up with the world and nature, as an integral
part of them. Consequently it is very far from comprehending the world in
a purely objective manner, freeing itself, so to speak, from the whole of
things, opposing itself to this whole, and so for a while becoming as if
self-existent. On the other hand, the philosophical wonder which springs
from this is conditioned in the individual by higher development of the
intellect, yet in general not by this alone; but without doubt it is the
knowledge of death, and along with this the consideration of the suffering
and misery of life, which gives the strongest impulse to philosophical
reflection and metaphysical explanation of the world. If our life were
endless and painless, it would perhaps occur to no one to ask why the
world exists, and is just the kind of world it is; but everything would
just be taken as a matter of course. In accordance with this we find that
the interest which philosophical and also religious systems inspire has
always its strongest hold in the dogma of some kind of existence after
death; and although the most recent systems seem to make the existence of
their gods the main point, and to defend this most zealously, yet in
reality this is only because they have connected their special dogma of
immortality with this, and regard the one as inseparable from the other:
only on this account is it of importance to them. For if one could
establish their doctrine of immortality for them in some other way, their
lively zeal for their gods would at once cool, and it would give place
almost to complete indifference if, conversely, the absolute impossibility
of immortality were proved to them; for the interest in the existence of
the gods would vanish with the hope of a closer acquaintance with them, to
the residuum which might connect itself with their possible influence on
the events of this present life. But if one could prove that continued
existence after death is incompatible with the existence of gods, because,
let us say, it pre-supposes originality of being, they would soon
sacrifice the gods to their own immortality and become zealous for
Atheism. The fact that the materialistic systems, properly so-called, and
also absolute scepticism, have never been able to obtain a general or
lasting influence, depends upon the same grounds.
Temples and churches, pagodas and mosques, in all lands and in all ages,
in splendour and vastness, testify to the metaphysical need of man, which,
strong and ineradicable, follows close upon his physical need. Certainly
whoever is satirically inclined might add that this metaphysical need is a
modest fellow who is content with poor fare. It sometimes allows itself to
be satisfied with clumsy fables and insipid tales. If only imprinted early
enough, they are for a man adequate explanations of his existence and
supports of his morality. Consider, for example, the Koran. This wretched
book was sufficient to found a religion of the world, to satisfy the
metaphysical need of innumerable millions of men for twelve hundred years,
to become the foundation of their morality, and of no small contempt for
death, and also to inspire them to bloody wars and most extended
conquests. We find in it the saddest and the poorest form of Theism. Much
may be lost through the translations; but I have not been able to discover
one single valuable thought in it. Such things show that metaphysical
capacity does not go hand in hand with the metaphysical need. Yet it will
appear that in the early ages of the present surface of the earth this was
not the case, and that those who stood considerably nearer than we do to
the beginning of the human race and the source of organic nature, had also
both greater energy of the intuitive faculty of knowledge, and a truer
disposition of mind, so that they were capable of a purer, more direct
comprehension of the inner being of nature, and were thus in a position to
satisfy the metaphysical need in a more worthy manner. Thus originated in
the primitive ancestors of the Brahmans, the Rishis, the almost
super-human conceptions which were afterwards set down in the Upanishads
of the Vedas.
On the other hand, there have never been wanting persons who were
interested in deriving their living from that metaphysical need, and in
making the utmost they could out of it. Therefore among all nations there
are monopolists and farmers-general of it—the priests. Yet their trade had
everywhere to be assured to them in this way, that they received the right
to impart their metaphysical dogmas to men at a very early age, before the
judgment has awakened from its morning slumber, thus in early childhood;
for then every well-impressed dogma, however senseless it may be, remains
for ever. If they had to wait till the judgment is ripe, their privileges
could not continue.
A second, though not a numerous class of persons, who derive their support
from the metaphysical need of man, is constituted by those who live by
_philosophy_. By the Greeks they were called Sophists, by the moderns they
are called Professors of Philosophy. Aristotle (_Metaph._, ii. 2) without
hesitation numbers Aristippus among the Sophists. In Diogenes Laertius
(ii. 65) we find that the reason of this is that he was the first of the
Socratics who accepted payment for his philosophy; on account of which
Socrates also returned him his present. Among the moderns also those who
live _by_ philosophy are not only, as a rule, and with the rarest
exceptions, quite different from those who live _for_ philosophy, but they
are very often the opponents, the secret and irreconcilable enemies of the
latter. For every true and important philosophical achievement will
overshadow their own too much, and, moreover, cannot adapt itself to the
views and limitations of their guild. Therefore it is always their
endeavour to prevent such a work from making its way; and for this
purpose, according to the age and circumstances in each case, the
customary means are suppressing, concealing, hushing up, ignoring and
keeping secret, or denying, disparaging, censuring, slandering and
distorting, or, finally, denouncing and persecuting. Hence many a great
man has had to drag himself wearily through life unknown, unhonoured,
unrewarded, till at last, after his death, the world became undeceived as
to him and as to them. In the meanwhile they had attained their end, had
been accepted by preventing him from being accepted, and, with wife and
child, had lived _by_ philosophy, while he lived _for_ it. But if he is
dead, then the thing is reversed; the new generation of the former class,
which always exists, now becomes heir to his achievements, cuts them down
to its own measure, and now lives _by_ him. That Kant could yet live both
_by_ and _for_ philosophy depended on the rare circumstance that, for the
first time since _Divus Antoninus_ and _Divus Julianus_, a philosopher sat
on the throne. Only under such auspices could the “Critique of Pure
Reason” have seen the light. Scarcely was the king dead than we see that
Kant also, seized with fear, because he belonged to the guild, modified,
expurgated, and spoiled his masterpiece in the second edition, and yet was
soon in danger of losing his place; so that Campe invited him to come to
him, in Brunswick, and live with him as the instructor of his family
(Ring., _Ansichten aus Kant’s Leben_, p. 68). University philosophy is, as
a rule, mere juggling. Its real aim is to impart to the students, in the
deepest ground of their thought, that tendency of mind which the ministry
that appoints to the professorships regards as consistent with its views.
The ministry may also be perfectly right in this from a statesman’s point
of view; only the result of it is that such philosophy of the chair is a
_nervis alienis mobile lignum_, and cannot be regarded as serious
philosophy, but as the mere jest of it. Moreover, it is at any rate just
that such inspection or guidance should extend only to the philosophy of
the chair, and not to the real philosophy that is in earnest. For if
anything in the world is worth wishing for—so well worth wishing for that
even the ignorant and dull herd in its more reflective moments would prize
it more than silver and gold—it is that a ray of light should fall on the
obscurity of our being, and that we should gain some explanation of our
mysterious existence, in which nothing is clear but its misery and its
vanity. But even if this is in itself attainable, it is made impossible by
imposed and compulsory solutions.
We shall now subject to a general consideration the different ways of
satisfying this strong metaphysical need.
By _metaphysics_ I understand all knowledge that pretends to transcend the
possibility of experience, thus to transcend nature or the given
phenomenal appearance of things, in order to give an explanation of that
by which, in some sense or other, this experience or nature is
conditioned; or, to speak in popular language, of that which is behind
nature, and makes it possible. But the great original diversity in the
power of understanding, besides the cultivation of it, which demands much
leisure, makes so great a difference between men, that as soon as a people
has emerged from the state of savages, no _one_ metaphysic can serve for
them all. Therefore among civilised nations we find throughout two
different kinds of metaphysics, which are distinguished by the fact that
the one has its evidence _in itself_, the other _outside itself_. Since
the metaphysical systems of the first kind require reflection, culture,
and leisure for the recognition of their evidence, they can be accessible
only to a very small number of men; and, moreover, they can only arise and
maintain their existence in the case of advanced civilisation. On the
other hand, the systems of the second kind exclusively are for the great
majority of men who are not capable of thinking, but only of believing,
and who are not accessible to reasons, but only to authority. These
systems may therefore be called metaphysics of the people, after the
analogy of poetry of the people, and also wisdom of the people, by which
is understood proverbs. These systems, however, are known under the name
of religions, and are found among all nations, not excepting even the most
savage. Their evidence is, as has been said, external, and as such is
called revelation, which is authenticated by signs and miracles. Their
arguments are principally threats of eternal, and indeed also temporal
evils, directed against unbelievers, and even against mere doubters. As
_ultima ratio theologorum_, we find among many nations the stake or things
similar to it. If they seek a different authentication, or if they make
use of other arguments, they already make the transition into the systems
of the first kind, and may degenerate into a mixture of the two, which
brings more danger than advantage, for their invaluable prerogative of
being imparted to _children_ gives them the surest guarantee of the
permanent possession of the mind, for thereby their dogmas grow into a
kind of second inborn intellect, like the twig upon the grafted tree;
while, on the other hand, the systems of the first kind only appeal to
grown-up people, and in them always find a system of the second kind
already in possession of their convictions. Both kinds of metaphysics,
whose difference may be briefly expressed by the words reasoned conviction
and faith, have this in common, that every one of their particular systems
stands in a hostile relation to all the others of its kind. Between those
of the first kind war is waged only with word and pen; between those of
the second with fire and sword as well. Several of the latter owe their
propagation in part to this last kind of polemic, and all have by degrees
divided the earth between them, and indeed with such decided authority
that the peoples of the earth are distinguished and separated more
according to them than according to nationality or government. They alone
_reign_, each in its own province. The systems of the first kind, on the
contrary, are at the most _tolerated_, and even this only because, on
account of the small number of their adherents, they are for the most part
not considered worth the trouble of combating with fire and
sword—although, where it seemed necessary, these also have been employed
against them with effect; besides, they occur only in a sporadic form. Yet
in general they have only been endured in a tamed and subjugated
condition, for the system of the second kind which prevailed in the
country ordered them to conform their teaching more or less closely to its
own. Sometimes it not only subjugated them, but even employed their
services and used them as a support, which is however a dangerous
experiment. For these systems of the first kind, since they are deprived
of power, believe they may advance themselves by craft, and never entirely
lay aside a secret ill-will which at times comes unexpectedly into
prominence and inflicts injuries which are hard to heal. For they are
further made the more dangerous by the fact that all the real sciences,
not even excepting the most innocent, are their secret allies against the
systems of the second kind, and without themselves being openly at war
with the latter, suddenly and unexpectedly do great mischief in their
province. Besides, the attempt which is aimed at by the enlistment
referred to of the services of the systems of the first kind by the
second—the attempt to add an inner authentication to a system whose
original authentication was external, is in its nature perilous; for, if
it were capable of such an authentication, it would never have required an
external one. And in general it is always a hazardous thing to attempt to
place a new foundation under a finished structure. Moreover, how should a
religion require the suffrage of a philosophy? It has everything upon its
side—revelation, tradition, miracles, prophecies, the protection of the
government, the highest rank, as is due to the truth, the consent and
reverence of all, a thousand temples in which it is proclaimed and
practised, bands of sworn priests, and, what is more than all, the
invaluable privilege of being allowed to imprint its doctrines on the mind
at the tender age of childhood, whereby they became almost like innate
ideas. With such wealth of means at its disposal, still to desire the
assent of poor philosophers it must be more covetous, or to care about
their contradiction it must be more fearful, than seems to be compatible
with a good conscience.
To the distinction established above between metaphysics of the first and
of the second kind, we have yet to add the following:—A system of the
first kind, thus a philosophy, makes the claim, and has therefore the
obligation, in everything that it says, _sensu stricto et proprio_, to be
true, for it appeals to thought and conviction. A religion, on the other
hand, being intended for the innumerable multitude who, since they are
incapable of examination and thought, would never comprehend the
profoundest and most difficult truths _sensu proprio_, has only the
obligation to be true _sensu allegorico_. Truth cannot appear naked before
the people. A symptom of this _allegorical_ nature of religions is the
_mysteries_ which are to be found perhaps in them all, certain dogmas
which cannot even be distinctly thought, not to speak of being literally
true. Indeed, perhaps it might be asserted that some absolute
contradictions, some actual absurdities, are an essential ingredient in a
complete religion, for these are just the stamp of its allegorical nature,
and the only adequate means of making the ordinary mind and the uncultured
understanding _feel_ what would be incomprehensible to it, that religion
has ultimately to do with quite a different order of things, with an order
of _things in themselves_, in the presence of which the laws of this
phenomenal world, in conformity with which it must speak, vanish; and that
therefore not only the contradictory but also the comprehensible dogmas
are really only allegories and accommodations to the human power of
comprehension. It seems to me that it was in this spirit that Augustine
and even Luther adhered to the mysteries of Christianity in opposition to
Pelagianism, which sought to reduce everything to the dull level of
comprehensibility. From this point of view it is also conceivable how
Tertullian could say in all seriousness: “_Prorsus credibile est, quia
ineptum est: ... certum est, quia impossibile_” (_De Carne Christi_, c.
5). This _allegorical_ nature of religions makes them independent of the
proofs which are incumbent on philosophy, and in general withdraws them
from investigation. Instead of this they require faith, that is, a
voluntary admission that such is the state of the case. Since, then, faith
guides action, and the allegory is always so framed that, as regards the
practical, it leads precisely to that which the truth _sensu proprio_
would also lead to, religion is justified in promising to those who
believe eternal salvation. Thus we see that in the main, and for the great
majority, who cannot apply themselves to thought, religions very well
supply the place of metaphysics in general, the need of which man feels to
be imperative. They do this partly in a practical interest, as the guiding
star of their action, the unfurled standard of integrity and virtue, as
Kant admirably expresses it; partly as the indispensable comfort in the
heavy sorrows of life, in which capacity they fully supply the place of an
objectively true metaphysic, because they lift man above himself and his
existence in time, as well perhaps as such a metaphysic ever could. In
this their great value and indeed necessity shows itself very clearly. For
Plato says, and says rightly, “φιλόσοφον πλῆθος ἁδύνατον εἶναι” (_vulgus
philosophum esse impossible est_. _De Rep._, vi. p. 89, _Bip_.) On the
other hand, the only stumbling-stone is this, that religions never dare to
confess their allegorical nature, but have to assert that they are true
_sensu proprio_. They thereby encroach on the province of metaphysics
proper, and call forth the antagonism of the latter, which has therefore
expressed itself at all times when it was not chained up. The controversy
which is so perseveringly carried on in our own day between
supernaturalists and rationalists also rests on the failure to recognise
the allegorical nature of all religion. Both wish to have Christianity
true _sensu proprio_; in this sense the former wish to maintain it without
deduction, as it were with skin and hair; and thus they have a hard stand
to make against the knowledge and general culture of the age. The latter
wish to explain away all that is properly Christian; whereupon they retain
something which is neither _sensu proprio_ nor _sensu allegorico_ true,
but rather a mere platitude, little better than Judaism, or at the most a
shallow Pelagianism, and, what is worst, an abject optimism, absolutely
foreign to Christianity proper. Moreover, the attempt to found a religion
upon reason removes it into the other class of metaphysics, that which has
its authentication _in itself_, thus to the foreign ground of the
philosophical systems, and into the conflict which these wage against each
other in their own arena, and consequently exposes it to the light fire of
scepticism and the heavy artillery of the “Critique of Pure Reason;” but
for it to venture there would be clear presumption.
It would be most beneficial to both kinds of metaphysics that each of them
should remain clearly separated from the other and confine itself to its
own province, that it may there be able to develop its nature fully.
Instead of which, through the whole Christian era, the endeavour has been
to bring about a fusion of the two, for the dogmas and conceptions of the
one have been carried over into the other, whereby both are spoiled. This
has taken place in the most open manner in our own day in that strange
hermaphrodite or centaur, the so-called philosophy of religion, which, as
a kind of gnosis, endeavours to interpret the given religion, and to
explain what is true _sensu allegorico_ through something which is true
_sensu proprio_. But for this we would have to know and possess the truth
_sensu proprio_ already; and in that case such an interpretation would be
superfluous. For to seek first to find metaphysics, _i.e._, the truth
_sensu proprio_, merely out of religion by explanation and interpretation
would be a doubtful and dangerous undertaking, to which one would only
make up one’s mind if it were proved that truth, like iron and other base
metals, could only be found in a mixed, not in a pure form, and therefore
one could only obtain it by reduction from the mixed ore.
Religions are necessary for the people, and an inestimable benefit to
them. But if they oppose themselves to the progress of mankind in the
knowledge of the truth, they must with the utmost possible forbearance be
set aside. And to require that a great mind—a Shakspeare; a Goethe—should
make the dogmas of any religion implicitly, _bonâ fide et sensu proprio_,
his conviction is to require that a giant should put on the shoe of a
dwarf.
Religions, being calculated with reference to the power of comprehension
of the great mass of men, can only have indirect, not immediate truth. To
require of them the latter is as if one wished to read the letters set up
in the form-chase, instead of their impression. The value of a religion
will accordingly depend upon the greater or less content of truth which it
contains under the veil of allegory, and then upon the greater or less
distinctness with which it becomes visible through this veil, thus upon
the transparency of the latter. It almost seems that, as the oldest
languages are the most perfect, so also are the oldest religions. If I
were to take the results of my philosophy as the standard of truth, I
would be obliged to concede to Buddhism the pre-eminence over the rest. In
any case it must be a satisfaction to me to see my teaching in such close
agreement with a religion which the majority of men upon the earth hold as
their own; for it numbers far more adherents than any other. This
agreement, however, must be the more satisfactory to me because in my
philosophising I have certainly not been under its influence. For up till
1818, when my work appeared, there were very few, exceedingly incomplete
and scanty, accounts of Buddhism to be found in Europe, which were almost
entirely limited to a few essays in the earlier volumes of “Asiatic
Researches,” and were principally concerned with the Buddhism of the
Burmese. Only since then has fuller information about this religion
gradually reached us, chiefly through the profound and instructive essays
of the meritorious member of the St. Petersburg Academy, J. J. Schmidt, in
the proceedings of his Academy, and then little by little through several
English and French scholars, so that I was able to give a fairly numerous
list of the best works on this religion in my work, “_Ueber den Willen in
der Natur_,” under the heading _Sinologie_. Unfortunately Csoma Körösi,
that persevering Hungarian, who, in order to study the language and sacred
writings of Buddhism, spent many years in Tibet, and for the most part in
Buddhist monasteries, was carried off by death just as he was beginning to
work out for us the results of his researches. I cannot, however, deny the
pleasure with which I read, in his provisional accounts, several passages
cited directly from the Kahgyur itself; for example, the following
conversation of the dying Buddha with Brahma, who is doing him homage:
“There is a description of their conversation on the subject of
creation,—by whom was the world made? Shakya asks several questions of
Brahma,—whether was it he who made or produced such and such things, and
endowed or blessed them with such and such virtues or properties,—whether
was it he who caused the several revolutions in the destruction and
regeneration of the world. He denies that he had ever done anything to
that effect. At last he himself asks Shakya how the world was made,—by
whom? Here are attributed all changes in the world to the moral works of
the animal beings, and it is stated that in the world all is illusion,
there is no reality in the things; all is empty. Brahma, being instructed
in his doctrine, becomes his follower” (Asiatic Researches, vol. XX. p.
434).
I cannot place, as is always done, the fundamental difference of all
religions in the question whether they are monotheistic, polytheistic,
pantheistic, or atheistic, but only in the question whether they are
optimistic or pessimistic, that is, whether they present the existence of
the world as justified by itself, and therefore praise and value it, or
regard it as something that can only be conceived as the consequence of
our guilt, and therefore properly ought not to be, because they recognise
that pain and death cannot lie in the eternal, original, and immutable
order of things, in that which in every respect ought to be. The power by
virtue of which Christianity was able to overcome first Judaism, and then
the heathenism of Greece and Rome, lies solely in its pessimism, in the
confession that our state is both exceedingly wretched and sinful, while
Judaism and heathenism were optimistic. That truth, profoundly and
painfully felt by all, penetrated, and bore in its train the need of
redemption.
I turn to a general consideration of the other kind of metaphysics, that
which has its authentication in itself, and is called _philosophy_. I
remind the reader of its origin, mentioned above, in a _wonder_ concerning
the world and our own existence, inasmuch as these press upon the
intellect as a riddle, the solution of which therefore occupies mankind
without intermission. Here, then, I wish first of all to draw attention to
the fact that this could not be the case if, in Spinoza’s sense, which in
our own day has so often been brought forward again under modern forms and
expositions as pantheism, the world were an “_absolute substance_,” and
therefore an _absolutely necessary existence_. For this means that it
exists with so great a necessity that beside it every other necessity
comprehensible to our understanding as such must appear as an accident. It
would then be something which comprehended in itself not only all actual
but also all possible existence, so that, as Spinoza indeed declares, its
possibility and its actuality would be absolutely one. Its non-being would
therefore be impossibility itself; thus it would be something the
non-being or other-being of which must be completely inconceivable, and
which could therefore just as little be thought away as, for example,
space or time. And since, further, _we ourselves_ would be parts, modes,
attributes, or accidents of such an absolute substance, which would be the
only thing that, in any sense, could ever or anywhere exist, our and its
existence, together with its properties, would necessarily be very far
from presenting itself to us as remarkable, problematical, and indeed as
an unfathomable and ever-disquieting riddle, but, on the contrary, would
be far more self-evident than that two and two make four. For we would
necessarily be incapable of thinking anything else than that the world is,
and is, as it is; and therefore we would necessarily be as little
conscious of its existence _as such_, _i.e._, as a problem for reflection,
as we are of the incredibly fast motion of our planet.
All this, however, is absolutely not the case. Only to the brutes, who are
without thought, does the world and existence appear as a matter of
course; to man, on the contrary, it is a problem, of which even the most
uneducated and narrow-minded becomes vividly conscious in certain brighter
moments, but which enters more distinctly and more permanently into the
consciousness of each one of us the clearer and more enlightened that
consciousness is, and the more material for thought it has acquired
through culture, which all ultimately rises, in minds that are naturally
adapted for philosophising, to Plato’s “θαυμαζειν, μαλα φιλοσοφικον παθος”
(_mirari, valde philosophicus affectus_), that is, to that _wonder_ which
comprehends in its whole magnitude that problem which unceasingly occupies
the nobler portion of mankind in every age and in every land, and gives it
no rest. In fact, the pendulum which keeps in motion the clock of
metaphysics, that never runs down, is the consciousness that the
non-existence of this world is just as possible as its existence. Thus,
then, the Spinozistic view of it as an absolutely necessary existence,
that is, as something that absolutely and in every sense ought to and must
be, is a false one. Even simple Theism, since in its cosmological proof it
tacitly starts by inferring the previous non-existence of the world from
its existence, thereby assumes beforehand that the world is something
contingent. Nay, what is more, we very soon apprehend the world as
something the non-existence of which is not only conceivable, but indeed
preferable to its existence. Therefore our wonder at it easily passes into
a brooding over the _fatality_ which could yet call forth its existence,
and by virtue of which such stupendous power as is demanded for the
production and maintenance of such a world could be directed so much
against its own interest. The philosophical astonishment is therefore at
bottom perplexed and melancholy; philosophy, like the overture to “Don
Juan,” commences with a minor chord. It follows from this that it can
neither be Spinozism nor optimism. The more special nature, which has just
been indicated, of the astonishment which leads us to philosophise clearly
springs from the sight of the _suffering and the wickedness_ in the world,
which, even if they were in the most just proportion to each other, and
also were far outweighed by good, are yet something which absolutely and
in general ought not to be. But since now nothing can come out of nothing,
these also must have their germ in the origin or in the kernel of the
world itself. It is hard for us to assume this if we look at the
magnitude, the order and completeness, of the physical world, for it seems
to us that what had the power to produce such a world must have been able
to avoid the suffering and the wickedness. That assumption (the truest
expression of which is Ormuzd and Ahrimines), it is easy to conceive, is
hardest of all for Theism. Therefore the freedom of the will was primarily
invented to account for wickedness. But this is only a concealed way of
making something out of nothing, for it assumes an _Operari_ that
proceeded from no _Esse_ (see Die beiden _Grundprobleme der Ethik_, p. 58,
_et seq._; second edition, p. 57 _et seq._.) Then it was sought to get rid
of evil by attributing it to matter, or to unavoidable necessity, whereby
the devil, who is really the right _Expediens ad hoc_, was unwillingly set
aside. To evil also belongs _death_; but wickedness is only the throwing
of the existing evil from oneself on to another. Thus, as was said above,
it is wickedness, evil, and death that qualify and intensify the
philosophical astonishment. Not merely that the world exists, but still
more that it is such a wretched world, is the _punctum pruriens_ of
metaphysics, the problem which awakens in mankind an unrest that cannot be
quieted by scepticism nor yet by criticism.
We find _physics_ also (in the widest sense of the word) occupied with the
explanation of the phenomena in the world. But it lies in the very nature
of its explanations themselves that they cannot be sufficient. Physics
cannot stand on its own feet, but requires a metaphysic to lean upon,
whatever airs it may give itself towards the latter. For it explains the
phenomena by something still more unknown than they are themselves; by
laws of nature, resting upon forces of nature, to which the power of life
also belongs. Certainly the whole present condition of all things in the
world, or in nature, must necessarily be explicable from purely physical
causes. But such an explanation—supposing one actually succeeded so far as
to be able to give it—must always just as necessarily be tainted with two
imperfections (as it were with two sores, or like Achilles with the
vulnerable heel, or the devil with the horse’s hoof), on account of which
everything so explained really remains still unexplained. First with this
imperfection, that the _beginning_ of every explanatory chain of causes
and effects, _i.e._, of connected changes, can absolutely _never_ be
reached, but, just like the limits of the world in space and time,
unceasingly recedes _in infinito_. Secondly with this, that the whole of
the efficient causes out of which everything is explained constantly rest
upon something which is completely inexplicable, the original _qualities_
of things and the _natural forces_ which play a prominent part among them,
by virtue of which they produce a specific kind of effect, _e.g._, weight,
hardness, impulsive force, elasticity, warmth, electricity, chemical
forces, &c., and which now remain in every explanation which is given,
like an unknown quantity, which absolutely cannot be eliminated, in an
otherwise perfectly solved algebraical equation. Accordingly there is no
fragment of clay, however little worth, that is not entirely composed of
inexplicable qualities. Thus these two inevitable defects in every purely
physical, _i.e._, causal, explanation show that such an explanation can
only be _relative_, and that its whole method and nature cannot be the
only one, the ultimate and thus the sufficient one, _i.e._, cannot be the
method of explanation that can ever lead to the satisfactory solution of
the difficult riddle of things, and to the true understanding of the world
and existence; but that the physical explanation in general and as such
requires further a _metaphysical_ explanation, which affords us the key to
all its assumptions, but just on this account must necessarily follow
quite a different path. The first step to this is that one should bring to
distinct consciousness and firmly retain the difference of the two, hence
the difference between _physics_ and _metaphysics_. It rests in general on
the Kantian distinction between _phenomenon_ and _thing in itself_. Just
because Kant held the latter to be absolutely unknowable, there was,
according to him, no _metaphysics_, but merely immanent knowledge, _i.e._,
_physics_, which throughout can speak only of phenomena, and also a
critique of the reason which strives after metaphysics. Here, however, in
order to show the true point of connection between my philosophy and that
of Kant, I shall anticipate the second book, and give prominence to the
fact that Kant, in his beautiful exposition of the compatibility of
freedom and necessity (Critique of Pure Reason, first edition, p. 532-554;
and Critique of Practical Reason, p. 224-231 of Rosenkranz’s edition),
shows how one and the same action may in one aspect be perfectly
explicable as necessarily arising from the character of the man, the
influence to which he has been subject in the course of his life, and the
motives which are now present to him, but yet in another aspect must be
regarded as the work of his free will; and in the same sense he says, § 53
of the “Prolegomena:” “Certainly natural necessity will belong to every
connection of cause and effect in the world of sense; yet, on the other
hand, freedom will be conceded to that cause which is not itself a
phenomenon (though indeed it is the ground of phenomena), thus nature and
freedom may without contradiction be attributed to the same thing, but in
a different reference—in the one case as a phenomenon, in the other case
as a thing in itself.” What, then, Kant teaches of the phenomenon of man
and his action my teaching extends to _all_ phenomena in nature, in that
it makes the _will_ as a thing in itself their foundation. This proceeding
is justified first of all by the fact that it must not be assumed that man
is specifically _toto genere_ radically different from the other beings
and things in nature, but rather that he is different only in degree. I
turn back from this premature digression to our consideration of the
inadequacy of physics to afford us the ultimate explanation of things. I
say, then, everything certainly is physical, but yet nothing is explicable
physically. As for the motion of the projected bullet, so also for the
thinking of the brain, a physical explanation must ultimately be in itself
possible, which would make the latter just as comprehensible as is the
former. But even the former, which we imagine we understand so perfectly,
is at bottom as obscure to us as the latter; for what the inner nature of
expansion in space may be—of impenetrability, mobility, hardness,
elasticity, and gravity remains, after all physical explanations, a
mystery, just as much as thought. But because in the case of thought the
inexplicable appears most immediately, a spring was at once made here from
physics to metaphysics, and a substance of quite a different kind from all
corporeal substances was hypostatised—a soul was set up in the brain. But
if one had not been so dull as only to be capable of being struck by the
most remarkable of phenomena, one would have had to explain digestion by a
soul in the stomach, vegetation by a soul in the plant, affinity by a soul
in the reagents, nay, the falling of a stone by a soul in the stone. For
the quality of every unorganised body is just as mysterious as the life in
the living body. In the same way, therefore, the physical explanation
strikes everywhere upon what is metaphysical, by which it is annihilated,
_i.e._, it ceases to be explanation. Strictly speaking, it may be asserted
that no natural science really achieves anything more than what is also
achieved by Botany: the bringing together of similars, classification. A
physical system which asserted that its explanations of things—in the
particular from causes, and in general from forces—were really sufficient,
and thus exhausted the nature of the world, would be the true
_Naturalism_. From Leucippus, Democritus, and Epicurus down to the
_Système de la Nature_, and further, to Delamark, Cabanis, and to the
materialism that has again been warmed up in the last few years, we can
trace the persistent attempt to set up a _system of physics without
metaphysics_, that is, a system which would make the phenomenon the thing
in itself. But all their explanations seek to conceal from the explainers
themselves and from others that they simply assume the principal matter
without more ado. They endeavour to show that all phenomena, even those of
mind, are physical. And they are right; only they do not see that all that
is physical is in another aspect also metaphysical. But, without Kant,
this is indeed difficult to see, for it presupposes the distinction of the
phenomenon from the thing in itself. Yet without this Aristotle, much as
he was inclined to empiricism, and far as he was removed from the Platonic
hyper-physics, kept himself free from this limited point of view. He says:
“Ει μεν ουν μη εστι τις ἑτερα ουσια παρα τας φυσει συνεστηκυιας, ἡ φυσικη
αν ειη πρωτη επιστημη; ει δε εστι τις ουσια ακινητος, αὑτη προτερα και
φιλοσοφια πρωτη, και καθολου οὑτως, ὁτι πρωτη; και περι του οντοσ ᾑ ον,
ταυτης αν ειη θεωρησαι.” (_Si igitur non est aliqua alia substantia,
prœter eas, quœ natura consistunt, physica profecto prima scientia esset:
quodsi autem est aliqua substantia immobilis, hœc prior et philosophia
prima, et universalis sic, quod prima; et de ente, prout ens est,
speculari hujus est_), “Metaph.,” V. 1. Such an _absolute system of
physics_ as is described above, which leaves room for no _metaphysics_,
would make the _Natura naturata_ into the _Natura naturans_; it would be
physics established on the throne of metaphysics, yet it would comport
itself in this high position almost like Holberg’s theatrical would-be
politician who was made burgomaster. Indeed behind the reproach of
atheism, in itself absurd, and for the most part malicious, there lies, as
its inner meaning and truth, which gives it strength, the obscure
conception of such an absolute system of physics without metaphysics.
Certainly such a system would necessarily be destructive of ethics; and
while Theism has falsely been held to be inseparable from morality, this
is really true only of _metaphysics in general_, _i.e._, of the knowledge
that the order of nature is not the only and absolute order of things.
Therefore we may set up this as the necessary _Credo_ of all just and good
men: “I believe in metaphysics.” In this respect it is important and
necessary that one should convince oneself of the untenable nature of an
_absolute system of physics_, all the more as this, the true _naturalism_,
is a point of view which of its own accord and ever anew presses itself
upon a man, and can only be done away with through profound speculation.
In this respect, however, all kinds of systems and faiths, so far and so
long as they are accepted, certainly serve as a substitute for such
speculation. But that a fundamentally false view presses itself upon man
of its own accord, and must first be skilfully removed, is explicable from
the fact that the intellect is not originally intended to instruct us
concerning the nature of things, but only to show us their relations, with
reference to our will; it is, as we shall find in the second book, only
the medium of motives. Now, that the world schematises itself in the
intellect in a manner which exhibits quite a different order of things
from the absolutely true one, because it shows us, not their kernel, but
only their outer shell, happens accidentally, and cannot be used as a
reproach to the intellect; all the less as it nevertheless finds in itself
the means of rectifying this error, in that it arrives at the distinction
between the phenomenal appearance and the inner being of things, which
distinction existed in substance at all times, only for the most part was
very imperfectly brought to consciousness, and therefore was inadequately
expressed, indeed often appeared in strange clothing. The Christian
mystics, when they call it the _light of nature_, declare the intellect to
be inadequate to the comprehension of the true nature of things. It is, as
it were, a mere surface force, like electricity, and does not penetrate to
the inner being.
The insufficiency of pure naturalism appears, as we have said, first of
all, on the empirical path itself, through the circumstance that every
physical explanation explains the particular from its cause; but the chain
of these causes, as we know _a priori_, and therefore with perfect
certainty, runs back to infinity, so that absolutely no cause could ever
be the first. Then, however, the effect of every cause is referred to a
law of nature, and this finally to a force of nature, which now remains as
the absolutely inexplicable. But this inexplicable, to which all phenomena
of this so clearly given and naturally explicable world, from the highest
to the lowest, are referred, just shows that the whole nature of such
explanation is only conditional, as it were only _ex concessis_, and by no
means the true and sufficient one; therefore I said above that physically
everything and nothing is explicable. That absolutely inexplicable element
which pervades all phenomena, which is most striking in the highest,
_e.g._, in generation, but yet is just as truly present in the lowest,
_e.g._, in mechanical phenomena, points to an entirely different kind of
order of things lying at the foundation of the physical order, which is
just what Kant calls the order of things in themselves, and which is the
goal of metaphysics. But, secondly, the insufficiency of pure naturalism
comes out clearly from that fundamental philosophical truth, which we have
fully considered in the first half of this book, and which is also the
theme of the “Critique of Pure Reason;” the truth that every _object_,
both as regards its objective existence in general and as regards the
manner (forms) of this existence, is throughout conditioned by the knowing
_subject_, hence is merely a phenomenon, not a thing in itself. This is
explained in § 7 of the first volume, and it is there shown that nothing
can be more clumsy than that, after the manner of all materialists, one
should blindly take the objective as simply given in order to derive
everything from it without paying any regard to the subjective, through
which, however, nay, in which alone the former exists. Samples of this
procedure are most readily afforded us by the fashionable materialism of
our own day, which has thereby become a philosophy well suited for
barbers’ and apothecaries’ apprentices. For it, in its innocence, matter,
assumed without reflection as absolutely real, is the thing in self, and
the one capacity of a thing in itself is impulsive force, for all other
qualities can only be manifestations of this.
With naturalism, then, or the purely physical way of looking at things, we
shall never attain our end; it is like a sum that never comes out. Causal
series without beginning or end, fundamental forces which are inscrutable,
endless space, beginningless time, infinite divisibility of matter, and
all this further conditioned by a knowing brain, in which alone it exists
just like a dream, and without which it vanishes—constitute the labyrinth
in which naturalism leads us ceaselessly round. The height to which in our
time the natural sciences have risen in this respect entirely throws into
the shade all previous centuries, and is a summit which mankind reaches
for the first time. But however great are the advances which _physics_
(understood in the wide sense of the ancients) may make, not the smallest
step towards _metaphysics_ is thereby taken, just as a plane can never
obtain cubical content by being indefinitely extended. For all such
advances will only perfect our knowledge of the _phenomenon_; while
_metaphysics_ strives to pass beyond the phenomenal appearance itself, to
that which so appears. And if indeed it had the assistance of an entire
and complete experience, it would, as regards the main point, be in no way
advantaged by it. Nay, even if one wandered through all the planets and
fixed stars, one would thereby have made no step in _metaphysics_. It is
rather the case that the greatest advances of physics will make the need
of metaphysics ever more felt; for it is just the corrected, extended, and
more thorough knowledge of nature which, on the one hand, always
undermines and ultimately overthrows the metaphysical assumptions which
till then have prevailed, but, on the other hand, presents the problem of
metaphysics itself more distinctly, more correctly, and more fully, and
separates it more clearly from all that is merely physical; moreover, the
more perfectly and accurately known nature of the particular thing more
pressingly demands the explanation of the whole and the general, which,
the more correctly, thoroughly, and completely it is known empirically,
only presents itself as the more mysterious. Certainly the individual,
simple investigator of nature, in a special branch of physics, does not at
once become clearly conscious of all this; he rather sleeps contentedly by
the side of his chosen maid, in the house of Odysseus, banishing all
thoughts of Penelope (cf. ch. 12 at the end). Hence we see at the present
day the _husk of nature_ investigated in its minutest details, the
intestines of intestinal worms and the vermin of vermin known to a nicety.
But if some one comes, as, for example, I do, and speaks of the _kernel of
nature_, they will not listen; they even think it has nothing to do with
the matter, and go on sifting their husks. One finds oneself tempted to
call that over-microscopical and micrological investigator of nature the
cotquean of nature. But those persons who believe that crucibles and
retorts are the true and only source of all wisdom are in their own way
just as perverse as were formerly their antipodes the Scholastics. As the
latter, absolutely confined to their abstract conceptions, used these as
their weapons, neither knowing nor investigating anything outside them, so
the former, absolutely confined to their empiricism, allow nothing to be
true except what their eyes behold, and believe they can thus arrive at
the ultimate ground of things, not discerning that between the phenomenon
and that which manifests itself in it, the thing in itself, there is a
deep gulf, a radical difference, which can only be cleared up by the
knowledge and accurate delimitation of the subjective element of the
phenomenon, and the insight that the ultimate and most important
conclusions concerning the nature of things can only be drawn from
self-consciousness; yet without all this one cannot advance a step beyond
what is directly given to the senses, thus can get no further than to the
problem. Yet, on the other hand, it is to be observed that the most
perfect possible knowledge of nature is the corrected _statement of the
problem_ of metaphysics. Therefore no one ought to venture upon this
without having first acquired a knowledge of all the branches of natural
science, which, though general, shall be thorough, clear, and connected.
For the problem must precede its solution. Then, however, the investigator
must turn his glance inward; for the intellectual and ethical phenomena
are more important than the physical, in the same proportion as, for
example, animal magnetism is a far more important phenomenon than mineral
magnetism. The last fundamental secret man carries within himself, and
this is accessible to him in the most immediate manner; therefore it is
only here that he can hope to find the key to the riddle of the world and
gain a clue to the nature of all things. The special province of
metaphysics thus certainly lies in what has been called mental philosophy.
“The ranks of living creatures thou dost lead
Before me, teaching me to know my brothers
In air and water and the silent wood:
Then to the cave secure thou leadest me,
Then show’st me mine own self, and in my breast
The deep, mysterious miracles unfold.”(28)
Finally, then, as regards the _source or the foundation_ of metaphysical
knowledge, I have already declared myself above to be opposed to the
assumption, which is even repeated by Kant, that it must lie _in mere
conceptions_. In no knowledge can conceptions be what is first; for they
are always derived from some perception. What has led, however, to that
assumption is probably the example of mathematics. Mathematics can leave
perception altogether, and, as is especially the case in algebra,
trigonometry, and analysis, can operate with purely abstract conceptions,
nay, with conceptions which are represented only by signs instead of
words, and can yet arrive at a perfectly certain result, which is still so
remote that any one who adhered to the firm ground of perception could not
arrive at it. But the possibility of this depends, as Kant has clearly
shown, on the fact that the conceptions of mathematics are derived from
the most certain and definite of all perceptions, from the _a priori_ and
yet intuitively known relations of quantity, and can therefore be
constantly realised again and controlled by these, either arithmetically,
by performing the calculations which are merely indicated by those signs,
or geometrically, by means of what Kant calls the construction of the
conceptions. This advantage, on the other hand, is not possessed by the
conceptions out of which it was believed metaphysics could be built up;
such, for example, as essence, being, substance, perfection, necessity,
reality, finite, infinite, absolute, ground, &c. For such conceptions are
by no means original, as fallen from heaven, or innate; but they also,
like all conceptions, are derived from perceptions; and as, unlike the
conceptions of mathematics, they do not contain the mere form of
perception, but more, empirical perceptions must lie at their foundation.
Thus nothing can be drawn from them which the empirical perceptions did
not also contain, that is, nothing which was not a matter of experience,
and which, since these conceptions are very wide abstractions, we would
receive with much greater certainty at first hand from experience. For
from conceptions nothing more can ever be drawn than the perceptions from
which they are derived contain. If we desire pure conceptions, _i.e._,
such as have no empirical source, the only ones that can be produced are
those which concern space and time, _i.e._, the merely formal part of
perception, consequently only the mathematical conceptions, or at most
also the conception of causality, which indeed does not originate in
experience, but yet only comes into consciousness by means of it (first in
sense-perception); therefore experience indeed is only possible by means
of it; but it also is only valid in the sphere of experience, on which
account Kant has shown that it only serves to communicate the connection
of experience, and not to transcend it; that thus it admits only of
physical application, not of metaphysical. Certainly only its _a priori_
origin can give apodictic certainty to any knowledge; but this limits it
to the mere _form_ of experience in general, for it shows that it is
conditioned by the subjective nature of the intellect. Such knowledge,
then, far from taking us beyond experience, gives only one _part_ of
experience itself, the _formal_ part, which belongs to it throughout, and
therefore is universal, consequently mere form without content. Since now
metaphysics can least of all be confined to this, it must have also
_empirical_ sources of knowledge; therefore that preconceived idea of a
metaphysic to be found purely _a priori_ is necessarily vain. It is really
a _petitio principii_ of Kant’s, which he expresses most distinctly in § 1
of the Prolegomena, that metaphysics must not draw its fundamental
conceptions and principles from experience. In this it is assumed
beforehand that only what we knew _before_ all experience can extend
beyond all possible experience. Supported by this, Kant then comes and
shows that all such knowledge is nothing more than the form of the
intellect for the purpose of experience, and consequently can never lead
beyond experience, from which he then rightly deduces the impossibility of
all metaphysics. But does it not rather seem utterly perverse that in
order to discover the secret of experience, _i.e._, of the world which
alone lies before us, we should look quite away from it, ignore its
content, and take and use for its material only the empty forms of which
we are conscious _a priori_? Is it not rather in keeping with the matter
that _the science of experience in general_, and as such, should also be
drawn from experience? Its problem itself is given it empirically; why
should not the solution of it call in the assistance of experience? Is it
not senseless that he who speaks of the nature of things should not look
at things themselves, but should confine himself to certain abstract
conceptions? The task of metaphysics is certainly not the observation of
particular experiences, but yet it is the correct explanation of
experience as a whole. Its foundation must therefore, at any rate, be of
an empirical nature. Indeed the _a priori_ nature of a part of human
knowledge will be apprehended by it as a given _fact_, from which it will
infer the subjective origin of the same. Only because the consciousness of
its _a priori_ nature accompanies it is it called by Kant _transcendental_
as distinguished from _transcendent_, which signifies “passing beyond all
possibility of experience,” and has its opposite in _immanent_, _i.e._,
remaining within the limits of experience. I gladly recall the original
meaning of this expression introduced by Kant, with which, as also with
that of the Categories, and many others, the apes of philosophy carry on
their game at the present day. Now, besides this, the source of the
knowledge of metaphysics is not _outer_ experience alone, but also
_inner_. Indeed, what is most peculiar to it, that by which the decisive
step which alone can solve the great question becomes possible for it,
consists, as I have fully and thoroughly proved in “_Ueber den Willen in
der Natur_,” under the heading, “_Physische Astronomie_,” in this, that at
the right place it combines outer experience with inner, and uses the
latter as a key to the former.
The origin of metaphysics in empirical sources of knowledge, which is here
set forth, and which cannot fairly be denied, deprives it certainly of
that kind of apodictic certainty which is only possible through knowledge
_a priori_. This remains the possession of logic and mathematics—sciences,
however, which really only teach what every one knows already, though not
distinctly. At most the primary elements of natural science may also be
deduced from knowledge _a priori_. By this confession metaphysics only
surrenders an ancient claim, which, according to what has been said above,
rested upon misunderstanding, and against which the great diversity and
changeableness of metaphysical systems, and also the constantly
accompanying scepticism, in every age has testified. Yet against the
possibility of metaphysics in general this changeableness cannot be urged,
for the same thing affects just as much all branches of natural science,
chemistry, physics, geology, zoology, &c., and even history has not
remained exempt from it. But when once, as far as the limits of human
intellect allow, a true system of metaphysics shall have been found, the
unchangeableness of a science which is known _a priori_ will yet belong to
it; for its foundation can only be _experience in general_, and not the
particular and special experiences by which, on the other hand, the
natural sciences are constantly modified and new material is always being
provided for history. For experience as a whole and in general will never
change its character for a new one.
The next question is: How can a science drawn from experience pass beyond
it and so merit the name of metaphysics? It cannot do so perhaps in the
same way as we find a fourth number from three proportionate ones, or a
triangle from two sides and an angle. This was the way of the pre-Kantian
dogmatism, which, according to certain laws known to us _a priori_, sought
to reason from the given to the not given, from the consequent to the
reason, thus from experience to that which could not possibly be given in
any experience. Kant proved the impossibility of a metaphysic upon this
path, in that he showed that although these laws were not drawn from
experience, they were only valid for experience. He therefore rightly
taught that in such a way we cannot transcend the possibility of all
experience. But there are other paths to metaphysics. The whole of
experience is like a cryptograph, and philosophy the deciphering of it,
the correctness of which is proved by the connection appearing everywhere.
If this whole is only profoundly enough comprehended, and the inner
experience is connected with the outer, it must be capable of being
_interpreted_, _explained_ from itself. Since Kant has irrefutably proved
to us that experience in general proceeds from two elements, the forms of
knowledge and the inner nature of things, and that these two may be
distinguished in experience from each other, as that of which we are
conscious _a priori_ and that which is added _a posteriori_, it is
possible, at least in general, to say, what in the given experience, which
is primarily merely phenomenal, belongs to the _form_ of this phenomenon,
conditioned by the intellect, and what, after deducting this, remains over
for the _thing in itself_. And although no one can discern the thing in
itself through the veil of the forms of perception, on the other hand
every one carries it in himself, indeed is it himself; therefore in
self-consciousness it must be in some way accessible to him, even though
only conditionally. Thus the bridge by which metaphysics passes beyond
experience is nothing else than that analysis of experience into
phenomenon and thing in itself in which I have placed Kant’s greatest
merit. For it contains the proof of a kernel of the phenomenon different
from the phenomenon itself. This can indeed never be entirely separated
from the phenomenon and regarded in itself as an _ens extramundanum_, but
is always known only in its relations to and connections with the
phenomenon itself. But the interpretation and explanation of the latter,
in relation to the former, which is its inner kernel, is capable of
affording us information with regard to it which does not otherwise come
into consciousness. In this sense, then, metaphysics goes beyond the
phenomenon, _i.e._, nature, to that which is concealed in or behind it (το
μετα το φυσικον), always regarding it, however, merely as that which
manifests itself in the phenomenon, not as independent of all phenomenal
appearance; it therefore remains immanent, and does not become
transcendent. For it never disengages itself entirely from experience, but
remains merely its interpretation and explanation, since it never speaks
of the thing in itself otherwise than in its relation to the phenomenon.
This at least is the sense in which I, with reference throughout to the
limitations of human knowledge proved by Kant, have attempted to solve the
problem of metaphysics. Therefore his Prolegomena to future metaphysics
will be valid and suitable for mine also. Accordingly it never really goes
beyond experience, but only discloses the true understanding of the world
which lies before it in experience. It is neither, according to the
definition of metaphysics which even Kant repeats, a science of mere
conceptions, nor is it a system of deductions from _a priori_ principles,
the uselessness of which for the _end_ of metaphysics has been shown by
Kant. But it is rational knowledge, drawn from perception of the external
actual world and the information which the most intimate fact of
self-consciousness affords us concerning it, deposited in distinct
conceptions. It is accordingly the science of experience; but its subject
and its source is not particular experiences, but the totality of all
experience. I completely accept Kant’s doctrine that the world of
experience is merely phenomenal, and that the _a priori_ knowledge is
valid only in relation to phenomena; but I add that just as phenomenal
appearance, it is the manifestation of that which appears, and with him I
call this the thing in itself. This must therefore express its nature and
character in the world of experience, and consequently it must be possible
to interpret these from this world, and indeed from the matter, not the
mere form, of experience. Accordingly philosophy is nothing but the
correct and universal understanding of experience itself, the true
exposition of its meaning and content. To this the metaphysical, _i.e._,
that which is merely clothed in the phenomenon and veiled in its forms, is
that which is related to it as thought to words.
Such a deciphering of the world with reference to that which manifests
itself in it must receive its confirmation from itself, through the
agreement with each other in which it places the very diverse phenomena of
the world, and which without it we do not perceive. If we find a document
the alphabet of which is unknown, we endeavour to make it out until we hit
upon an hypothesis as to the significance of the letters in accordance
with which they make up comprehensible words and connected sentences.
Then, however, there remains no doubt as to the correctness of the
deciphering, because it is not possible that the agreement and connection
in which all the letters of that writing are placed by this explanation is
merely accidental, and that by attributing quite a different value to the
letters we could also recognise words and sentences in this arrangement of
them. In the same way the deciphering of the world must completely prove
itself from itself. It must throw equal light upon all the phenomena of
the world, and also bring the most heterogeneous into agreement, so that
the contradiction between those which are most in contrast may be
abolished. This proof from itself is the mark of genuineness. For every
false deciphering, even if it is suitable for some phenomena, will
conflict all the more glaringly with the rest. So, for example, the
optimism of Leibnitz conflicts with the palpable misery of existence; the
doctrine of Spinoza, that the world is the only possible and absolutely
necessary substance, is incompatible with our wonder at its existence and
nature; the Wolfian doctrine, that man obtains his _Existentia_ and
_Essentia_ from a will foreign to himself, is contradicted by our moral
responsibility for the actions which proceed with strict necessity from
these, in conflict with the motives; the oft-repeated doctrine of the
progressive development of man to an ever higher perfection, or in general
of any kind of becoming by means of the process of the world, is opposed
to the _a priori_ knowledge that at any point of time an infinite time has
already run its course, and consequently all that is supposed to come with
time would necessarily have already existed; and in this way an
interminable list might be given of the contradictions of dogmatic
assumptions with the given reality of things. On the other hand, I must
deny that any doctrine of my philosophy could fairly be added to such a
list, because each of them has been thought out in the presence of the
perceived reality, and none of them has its root in abstract conceptions
alone. There is yet in it a fundamental thought which is applied to all
the phenomena of the world as their key; but it proves itself to be the
right alphabet at the application of which all words and sentences have
sense and significance. The discovered answer to a riddle shows itself to
be the right one by the fact that all that is said in the riddle is
suitable to it. In the same way my doctrine introduces agreement and
connection into the confusion of the contrasting phenomena of this world,
and solves the innumerable contradictions which, when regarded from any
other point of view, it presents. Therefore, so far, it is like a sum that
comes out right, yet by no means in the sense that it leaves no problem
over to solve, no possible question unanswered. To assert anything of that
sort would be a presumptuous denial of the limits of human knowledge in
general. Whatever torch we may kindle, and whatever space it may light,
our horizon will always remain bounded by profound night. For the ultimate
solution of the riddle of the world must necessarily be concerned with the
things in themselves, no longer with the phenomena. But all our forms of
knowledge are adapted to the phenomena alone; therefore we must comprehend
everything through coexistence, succession, and causal relations. These
forms, however, have meaning and significance only with reference to the
phenomenon; the things in themselves and their possible relations cannot
be apprehended by means of those forms. Therefore the actual, positive
solution of the riddle of the world must be something that human intellect
is absolutely incapable of grasping and thinking; so that if a being of a
higher kind were to come and take all pains to impart it to us, we would
be absolutely incapable of understanding anything of his expositions.
Those, therefore, who profess to know the ultimate, _i.e._, the first
ground of things, thus a primordial being, an absolute, or whatever else
they choose to call it, together with the process, the reasons, motives,
or whatever it may be, in consequence of which the world arises from it,
or springs, or falls, or is produced, set in existence, “discharged,” and
ushered forth, are playing tricks, are vain boasters, when indeed they are
not charlatans.
I regard it as a great excellence of my philosophy that all its truths
have been found independently of each other, by contemplation of the real
world; but their unity and agreement, about which I had been unconcerned,
has always afterwards appeared of itself. Hence also it is rich, and has
wide-spreading roots in the ground of perceptible reality, from which all
nourishment of abstract truths springs; and hence, again, it is not
wearisome—a quality which, to judge from the philosophical writings of the
last fifty years, one might regard as essential to philosophy. If, on the
other hand, all the doctrines of a philosophy are merely deduced the one
out of the other, and ultimately indeed all out of one first principle, it
must be poor and meagre, and consequently wearisome, for nothing can
follow from a proposition except what it really already says itself.
Moreover, in this case everything depends upon the correctness of _one_
proposition, and by a single mistake in the deduction the truth of the
whole would be endangered. Still less security is given by the systems
which start from an intellectual intuition, _i.e._, a kind of ecstasy or
clairvoyance. All knowledge so obtained must be rejected as subjective,
individual, and consequently problematical. Even if it actually existed it
would not be communicable, for only the normal knowledge of the brain is
communicable; if it is abstract, through conceptions and words; if purely
perceptible or concrete, through works of art.
If, as so often happens, metaphysics is reproached with having made so
little progress, it ought also to be considered that no other science has
grown up like it under constant oppression, none has been so hampered and
hindered from without as it has always been by the religion of every land,
which, everywhere in possession of a monopoly of metaphysical knowledge,
regards metaphysics as a weed growing beside it, as an unlicensed worker,
as a horde of gipsies, and as a rule tolerates it only under the condition
that it accommodates itself to serve and follow it. For where has there
ever been true freedom of thought? It has been vaunted sufficiently; but
whenever it wishes to go further than perhaps to differ about the
subordinate dogmas of the religion of the country, a holy shudder seizes
the prophets of tolerance, and they say: “Not a step further!” What
progress of metaphysics was possible under such oppression? Nay, this
constraint which the privileged metaphysics exercises is not confined to
the _communication_ of thoughts, but extends to _thinking_ itself, for its
dogmas are so firmly imprinted in the tender, plastic, trustful, and
thoughtless age of childhood, with studied solemnity and serious airs,
that from that time forward they grow with the brain, and almost assume
the nature of innate thoughts, which some philosophers have therefore
really held them to be, and still more have pretended to do so. Yet
nothing can so firmly resist the comprehension of even the _problem_ of
metaphysics as a previous solution of it intruded upon and early implanted
in the mind. For the necessary starting-point for all genuine philosophy
is the deep feeling of the Socratic: “This one thing I know, that I know
nothing.” The ancients were in this respect in a better position than we
are, for their national religions certainly limited somewhat the imparting
of thoughts; but they did not interfere with the freedom of thought
itself, because they were not formally and solemnly impressed upon
children, and in general were not taken so seriously. Therefore in
metaphysics the ancients are still our teachers.
Whenever metaphysics is reproached with its small progress, and with not
having yet reached its goal in spite of such sustained efforts, one ought
further to consider that in the meanwhile it has constantly performed the
invaluable service of limiting the boundless claims of the privileged
metaphysics, and yet at the same time combating naturalism and materialism
proper, which are called forth by it as an inevitable reaction. Consider
to what a pitch the arrogance of the priesthood of every religion would
rise if the belief in their doctrines was as firm and blind as they really
wish. Look back also at the wars, disturbances, rebellions, and
revolutions in Europe from the eighth to the eighteenth century; how few
will be found that have not had as their essence, or their pretext, some
controversy about beliefs, thus a metaphysical problem, which became the
occasion of exciting nations against each other. Yet is that whole
thousand years a continual slaughter, now on the battlefield, now on the
scaffold, now in the streets, in metaphysical interests! I wish I had an
authentic list of all crimes which Christianity has really prevented, and
all good deeds it has really performed, that I might be able to place them
in the other scale of the balance.
Lastly, as regards the _obligations_ of metaphysics, it has only one; for
it is one which endures no other beside it—the obligation to be _true_. If
one would impose other obligations upon it besides this, such as to be
spiritualistic, optimistic, monotheistic, or even only to be moral, one
cannot know beforehand whether this would not interfere with the
fulfilment of that first obligation, without which all its other
achievements must clearly be worthless. A given philosophy has accordingly
no other standard of its value than that of truth. For the rest,
philosophy is essentially _world-wisdom_: its problem is the world. It has
to do with this alone, and leaves the gods in peace—expects, however, in
return, to be left in peace by them.
SUPPLEMENTS TO THE SECOND BOOK.
“Ihr folget falscher Spur,
Denkt nicht, wir scherzen!
Ist nicht der Kern der Natur
Menschen im Herzen?”
—Goethe.