In 1836 I already published, under the title “_Ueber den Willen in der
Natur_” (second ed., 1854; third ed., 1867), the most essential supplement
to this book, which contains the most peculiar and important step in my
philosophy, the transition from the phenomenon to the thing in itself,
which Kant gave up as impossible. It would be a great mistake to regard
the foreign conclusions with which I have there connected my expositions
as the real material and subject of that work, which, though small as
regards its extent, is of weighty import. These conclusions are rather the
mere occasion starting from which I have there expounded that fundamental
truth of my philosophy with so much greater clearness than anywhere else,
and brought it down to the empirical knowledge of nature. And indeed this
is done most exhaustively and stringently under the heading “_Physische
Astronomie_;” so that I dare not hope ever to find a more correct or
accurate expression of that core of my philosophy than is given there.
Whoever desires to know my philosophy thoroughly and to test it seriously
must therefore give attention before everything to that section. Thus, in
general, all that is said in that little work would form the chief content
of these supplements, if it had not to be excluded on account of having
preceded them; but, on the other hand, I here take for granted that it is
known, for otherwise the very best would be wanting.
I wish now first of all to make a few preliminary observations from a
general point of view as to the sense in which we can speak of a knowledge
of the thing in itself and of its necessary limitation.
What is _knowledge_? It is primarily and essentially _idea_. What is
_idea_? A very complicated _physiological_ process in the brain of an
animal, the result of which is the consciousness of a _picture_ there.
Clearly the relation between such a picture and something entirely
different from the animal in whose brain it exists can only be a very
indirect one. This is perhaps the simplest and most comprehensible way of
disclosing the _deep gulf between the ideal and the real_. This belongs to
the things of which, like the motion of the earth, we are not directly
conscious; therefore the ancients did not observe it, just as they did not
observe the motion of the earth. Once pointed out, on the other hand,
first by Descartes, it has ever since given philosophers no rest. But
after Kant had at last proved in the most thorough manner the complete
diversity of the ideal and the real, it was an attempt, as bold as it was
absurd, yet perfectly correctly calculated with reference to the
philosophical public in Germany, and consequently crowned with brilliant
results, to try to assert the _absolute identity_ of the two by dogmatic
utterances, on the strength of a pretended intellectual intuition. In
truth, on the contrary, a subjective and an objective existence, a being
for self and a being for others, a consciousness of one’s own self, and a
consciousness of other things, is given us directly, and the two are given
in such a fundamentally different manner that no other difference can
compare with this. About himself every one knows directly, about all
others only very indirectly. This is the fact and the problem.
Whether, on the other hand, through further processes in the interior of a
brain, general conceptions (_Universalia_) are abstracted from the
perceptible ideas or images that have arisen within it, for the assistance
of further combinations, whereby knowledge becomes _rational_, and is now
called _thinking_—this is here no longer the essential question, but is of
subordinate significance. For all such _conceptions_ receive their content
only from the perceptible idea, which is therefore _primary knowledge_,
and has consequently alone to be taken account of in an investigation of
the relation between the ideal and the real. It therefore shows entire
ignorance of the problem, or at least it is very inept, to wish to define
that relation as that between _being_ and _thinking_. Thinking has
primarily only a relation to _perceiving_, but _perception_ has a relation
to the _real being_ of what is perceived, and this last is the great
problem with which we are here concerned. Empirical being, on the other
hand, as it lies before us, is nothing else than simply being given in
perception; but the relation of the latter to _thinking_ is no riddle, for
the conceptions, thus the immediate materials of thought, are obviously
_abstracted_ from perception, which no reasonable man can doubt. It may be
said in passing that one can see how important the choice of expressions
in philosophy is from the fact that that inept expression condemned above,
and the misunderstanding which arose from it, became the foundation of the
whole Hegelian pseudo-philosophy, which has occupied the German public for
twenty-five years.
If, however, it should be said: “The perception is itself the knowledge of
the thing in itself: for it is the effect of that which is outside of us,
and as this _acts_, so it _is_: its action is just its being;” to this we
reply: (1.) that the law of causality, as has been sufficiently proved, is
of subjective origin, as well as the sensation from which the perception
arises; (2.) that at any rate time and space, in which the object presents
itself, are of subjective origin; (3.) that if the being of the object
consists simply in its action, this means that it consists merely in the
changes which it brings about in others; therefore itself and in itself it
is nothing at all. Only of _matter_ is it true, as I have said in the
text, and worked out in the essay on the principle of sufficient reason,
at the end of § 21, that its being consists in its action, that it is
through and through only causality, thus is itself causality objectively
regarded; hence, however, it is also nothing in itself (ἡ ὑλη το αληθινον
ψευδος, _materia mendacium verax_), but as an ingredient in the perceived
object, is a mere abstraction, which for itself alone can be given in no
experience. It will be fully considered later on in a chapter of its own.
But the perceived object must be something _in itself_, and not merely
something _for others_. For otherwise it would be altogether merely idea,
and we would have an absolute idealism, which would ultimately become
theoretical egoism, with which all reality disappears and the world
becomes a mere subjective phantasm. If, however, without further question,
we stop altogether at the _world as idea_, then certainly it is all one
whether I explain objects as ideas in my head or as phenomena exhibiting
themselves in time and space; for time and space themselves exist only in
my head. In this sense, then, an identity of the ideal and the real might
always be affirmed; only, after Kant, this would not be saying anything
new. Besides this, however, the nature of things and of the phenomenal
world would clearly not be thereby exhausted; but with it we would always
remain still upon the ideal side. The _real_ side must be something _toto
genere_ different from _the world as idea_, it must be that which things
are _in themselves_; and it is this entire diversity between the ideal and
the real which Kant has proved in the most thorough manner.
Locke had denied to the senses the knowledge of things as they are in
themselves; but Kant denied this also to the perceiving _understanding_,
under which name I here comprehend what he calls the _pure_ sensibility,
and, as it is given _a priori_, the law of causality which brings about
the empirical perception. Not only are both right, but we can also see
quite directly that a contradiction lies in the assertion that a thing is
known as it is in and for itself, _i.e._, outside of knowledge. For all
knowing is, as we have said, essentially a perceiving of ideas; but my
perception of ideas, just because it is mine, can never be identical with
the inner nature of the thing outside of me. The being in and for itself,
of everything, must necessarily be _subjective_; in the idea of another,
however, it exists just as necessarily as _objective_—a difference which
can never be fully reconciled. For by it the whole nature of its existence
is fundamentally changed; as objective it presupposes a foreign subject,
as whose idea it exists, and, moreover, as Kant has shown, has entered
forms which are foreign to its own nature, just because they belong to
that foreign subject, whose knowledge is only possible by means of them.
If I, absorbed in this reflection, perceive, let us say lifeless bodies,
of easily surveyed magnitude and regular, comprehensible form, and now
attempt to conceive this spatial existence, in its three dimensions, as
their being in itself, consequently as the existence which to the things
is subjective, the impossibility of the thing is at once apparent to me,
for I can never think those objective forms as the being which to the
things is subjective, rather I become directly conscious that what I there
perceive is only a picture produced in my brain, and existing only for me
as the knowing subject, which cannot constitute the ultimate, and
therefore subjective, being in and for itself of even these lifeless
bodies. But, on the other hand, I must not assume that even these lifeless
bodies exist only in my idea, but, since they have inscrutable qualities,
and, by virtue of these, activity, I must concede to them a _being in
itself_ of some kind. But this very inscrutableness of the properties,
while, on the one hand, it certainly points to something which exists
independently of our knowledge, gives also, on the other hand, the
empirical proof that our knowledge, because it consists simply in _framing
ideas_ by means of subjective forms, affords us always mere _phenomena_,
not the true being of things. This is the explanation of the fact that in
all that we know there remains hidden from us a certain something, as
quite inscrutable, and we are obliged to confess that we cannot thoroughly
understand even the commonest and simplest phenomena. For it is not merely
the highest productions of nature, living creatures, or the _complicated_
phenomena of the unorganised world that remain inscrutable to us, but even
every rock-crystal, every iron-pyrite, by reason of its
crystallographical, optical, chemical, and electrical properties, is to
the searching consideration and investigation an abyss of
incomprehensibilities and mysteries. This could not be the case if we knew
things as they are in themselves; for then at least the simpler phenomena,
the path to whose qualities was not barred for us by ignorance, would
necessarily be thoroughly comprehensible to us, and their whole being and
nature would be able to pass over into our knowledge. Thus it lies not in
the defectiveness of our acquaintance with things, but in the nature of
knowledge itself. For if our perception, and consequently the whole
empirical comprehension of the things that present themselves to us, is
already essentially and in the main determined by our faculty of
knowledge, and conditioned by its forms and functions, it cannot but be
that things exhibit themselves in a manner which is quite different from
their own inner nature, and therefore appear as in a mask, which allows us
merely to assume what is concealed beneath it, but never to know it;
hence, then, it gleams through as an inscrutable mystery, and never can
the nature of anything entire and without reserve pass over into
knowledge; but much less can any real thing be construed _a priori_, like
a mathematical problem. Thus the empirical inscrutableness of all natural
things is a proof _a posteriori_ of the ideality and merely
phenomenal-actuality of their empirical existence.
According to all this, upon the path of _objective knowledge_, hence
starting from the _idea_, one will never get beyond the idea, _i.e._, the
phenomenon. One will thus remain at the outside of things, and will never
be able to penetrate to their inner nature and investigate what they are
in themselves, _i.e._, for themselves. So far I agree with Kant. But, as
the counterpart of this truth, I have given prominence to this other
truth, that we are not merely the _knowing subject_, but, in another
aspect, we ourselves also belong to the inner nature that is to be known,
_we ourselves are the thing in itself_; that therefore a _way from within_
stands open for us to that inner nature belonging to things themselves, to
which we cannot penetrate _from without_, as it were a subterranean
passage, a secret alliance, which, as if by treachery, places us at once
within the fortress which it was impossible to take by assault from
without. The thing in itself can, as such, only come into consciousness
quite directly, in this way, that _it is itself conscious of itself_: to
wish to know it objectively is to desire something contradictory.
Everything objective is idea, therefore appearance, mere phenomenon of the
brain.
Kant’s chief result may in substance be thus concisely stated: “All
conceptions which have not at their foundation a perception in space and
time (sensuous intuition), that is to say then, which have not been drawn
from such a perception, are absolutely empty, _i.e._, give no knowledge.
But since now perception can afford us only _phenomena_, not things in
themselves, we have also absolutely no knowledge of things in themselves.”
I grant this of everything, with the single exception of the knowledge
which each of us has of his own _willing_: this is neither a perception
(for all perception is spatial) nor is it empty; rather it is more real
than any other. Further, it is not _a priori_, like merely formal
knowledge, but entirely _a posteriori_; hence also we cannot anticipate it
in the particular case, but are hereby often convicted of error concerning
ourselves. In fact, our _willing_ is the one opportunity which we have of
understanding from within any event which exhibits itself without,
consequently the one thing which is known to us _immediately_, and not,
like all the rest, merely given in the idea. Here, then, lies the datum
which alone is able to become the key to everything else, or, as I have
said, the single narrow door to the truth. Accordingly we must learn to
understand nature from ourselves, not conversely ourselves from nature.
What is known to us immediately must give us the explanation of what we
only know indirectly, not conversely. Do we perhaps understand the rolling
of a ball when it has received an impulse more thoroughly than our
movement when we feel a motive? Many may imagine so, but I say it is the
reverse. Yet we shall attain to the knowledge that what is essential in
both the occurrences just mentioned is identical; although identical in
the same way as the lowest audible note of harmony is the same as the note
of the same name ten octaves higher.
Meanwhile it should be carefully observed, and I have always kept it in
mind, that even the inward experience which we have of our own will by no
means affords us an exhaustive and adequate knowledge of the thing in
itself. This would be the case if it were entirely an immediate
experience; but it is effected in this way: the will, with and by means of
the corporisation, provides itself also with an intellect (for the sake of
its relations to the external world), and through this now knows itself as
will in self-consciousness (the necessary counterpart of the external
world); this knowledge therefore of the thing in itself is not fully
adequate. First of all, it is bound to the form of the idea, it is
apprehension, and as such falls asunder into subject and object. For even
in self-consciousness the I is not absolutely simple, but consists of a
knower, the intellect, and a known, the will. The former is not known, and
the latter does not know, though both unite in the consciousness of an I.
But just on this account that I is not thoroughly _intimate_ with itself,
as it were transparent, but is opaque, and therefore remains a riddle to
itself, thus even in inner knowledge there also exists a difference
between the true being of its object and the apprehension of it in the
knowing subject. Yet inner knowledge is free from two forms which belong
to outer knowledge, the form of _space_ and the form of _causality_, which
is the means of effecting all sense-perception. On the other hand, there
still remains the form of _time_, and that of being known and knowing in
general. Accordingly in this inner knowledge the thing in itself has
indeed in great measure thrown off its veil, but still does not yet appear
quite naked. In consequence of the form of time which still adheres to it,
every one knows his will only in its successive _acts_, and not as a
whole, in and for itself: therefore no one knows his character _a priori_,
but only learns it through experience and always incompletely. But yet the
apprehension, in which we know the affections and acts of our own will, is
far more immediate than any other. It is the point at which the thing in
itself most directly enters the phenomenon and is most closely examined by
the knowing subject; therefore the event thus intimately known is alone
fitted to become the interpreter of all others.
For in every emergence of an act of will from the obscure depths of our
inner being into the knowing consciousness a direct transition occurs of
the thing in itself, which lies outside time, into the phenomenal world.
Accordingly the act of will is indeed only the closest and most distinct
_manifestation_ of the thing in itself; yet it follows from this that if
all other manifestations or phenomena could be known by us as directly and
inwardly, we would be obliged to assert them to be that which the will is
in us. Thus in this sense I teach that the inner nature of everything is
_will_, and I call will the thing in itself. Kant’s doctrine of the
unknowableness of the thing in itself is hereby modified to this extent,
that the thing in itself is only not absolutely and from the very
foundation knowable, that yet by far the most immediate of its phenomena,
which by this immediateness is _toto genere_ distinguished from all the
rest, represents it for us; and accordingly we have to refer the whole
world of phenomena to that one in which the thing in itself appears in the
very thinnest of veils, and only still remains phenomenon in so far as my
intellect, which alone is capable of knowledge, remains ever distinguished
from me as the willing subject, and moreover does not even in _inner_
perfection put off the form of knowledge of _time_.
Accordingly, even after this last and furthest step, the question may
still be raised, what that will, which exhibits itself in the world and as
the world, ultimately and absolutely is in itself? _i.e._, what it is,
regarded altogether apart from the fact that it exhibits itself as will,
or in general _appears_, _i.e._, in general is _known_. This question can
never be answered: because, as we have said, becoming known is itself the
contradictory of being in itself, and everything that is known is as such
only phenomenal. But the possibility of this question shows that the thing
in itself, which we know most directly in the will, may have, entirely
outside all possible phenomenal appearance, ways of existing,
determinations, qualities, which are absolutely unknowable and
incomprehensible to us, and which remain as the nature of the thing in
itself, when, as is explained in the fourth book, it has voluntarily
abrogated itself as _will_, and has therefore retired altogether from the
phenomenon, and for our knowledge, _i.e._, as regards the world of
phenomena, has passed into empty nothingness. If the will were simply and
absolutely the thing in itself this nothing would also be _absolute_,
instead of which it expressly presents itself to us there as only
_relative_.
I now proceed to supplement with a few considerations pertinent to the
subject the exposition given both in our second book and in the work
“_Ueber den Willen in der Natur_,” of the doctrine that what makes itself
known to us in the most immediate knowledge as will is also that which
objectifies itself at different grades in all the phenomena of this world;
and I shall begin by citing a number of psychological facts which prove
that first of all in our own consciousness the will always appears as
primary and fundamental, and throughout asserts its superiority to the
intellect, which, on the other hand, always presents itself as secondary,
subordinate, and conditioned. This proof is the more necessary as all
philosophers before me, from the first to the last, place the true being
or the kernel of man in the _knowing_ consciousness, and accordingly have
conceived and explained the I, or, in the case of many of them, its
transcendental hypostasis called soul, as primarily and essentially
_knowing_, nay, _thinking_, and only in consequence of this, secondarily
and derivatively, as _willing_. This ancient and universal radical error,
this enormous πρωτον ψευδος and fundamental ὑστερον προτερον, must before
everything be set aside, and instead of it the true state of the case must
be brought to perfectly distinct consciousness. Since, however, this is
done here for the first time, after thousands of years of philosophising,
some fulness of statement will be appropriate. The remarkable phenomenon,
that in this most essential point all philosophers have erred, nay, have
exactly reversed the truth, might, especially in the case of those of the
Christian era, be partly explicable from the fact that they all had the
intention of presenting man as distinguished as widely as possible from
the brutes, yet at the same time obscurely felt that the difference
between them lies in the intellect, not in the will; whence there arose
unconsciously within them an inclination to make the intellect the
essential and principal thing, and even to explain volition as a mere
function of the intellect. Hence also the conception of a soul is not only
inadmissible, because it is a transcendent hypostasis, as is proved by the
“Critique of Pure Reason,” but it becomes the source of irremediable
errors, because in its “simple substance” it establishes beforehand an
indivisible unity of knowledge and will, the separation of which is just
the path to the truth. That conception must therefore appear no more in
philosophy, but may be left to German doctors and physiologists, who,
after they have laid aside scalpel and spattle, amuse themselves by
philosophising with the conceptions they received when they were
confirmed. They might certainly try their luck in England. The French
physiologists and zootomists have (till lately) kept themselves free from
that reproach.
The first consequence of their common fundamental error, which is very
inconvenient to all these philosophers, is this: since in death the
knowing consciousness obviously perishes, they must either allow death to
be the annihilation of the man, to which our inner being is opposed, or
they must have recourse to the assumption of a continued existence of the
knowing consciousness, which requires a strong faith, for his own
experience has sufficiently proved to every one the thorough and complete
dependence of the knowing consciousness upon the brain, and one can just
as easily believe in digestion without a stomach as in a knowing
consciousness without a brain. My philosophy alone leads out of this
dilemma, for it for the first time places the true being of man not in the
consciousness but in the will, which is not essentially bound up with
consciousness, but is related to consciousness, _i.e._, to knowledge, as
substance to accident, as something illuminated to the light, as the
string to the resounding-board, and which enters consciousness from within
as the corporeal world does from without. Now we can comprehend the
indestructibleness of this our real kernel and true being, in spite of the
evident ceasing of consciousness in death, and the corresponding
non-existence of it before birth. For the intellect is as perishable as
the brain, whose product or rather whose action it is. But the brain, like
the whole organism, is the product or phenomenon, in short, the
subordinate of the will, which alone is imperishable.