By _objectification_ I understand the self-exhibition in the real
corporeal world. However, this world itself, as was fully shown in the
first book and its supplements, is throughout conditioned by the knowing
subject, thus by the intellect, and therefore as such is absolutely
inconceivable outside the knowledge of this subject; for it primarily
consists simply of ideas of perception, and as such is a phenomenon of the
brain. After its removal the thing in itself would remain. That this is
the _will_ is the theme of the second book, and is there proved first of
all in the human organism and in that of the brutes.
The knowledge of the external world may also be defined as the
_consciousness of other things_, in opposition to _self-consciousness_.
Since we have found in the latter that its true object or material is the
will, we shall now, with the same intention, take into consideration the
consciousness of other things, thus objective knowledge. Now here my
thesis is this: _that which in self-consciousness, thus subjectively is
the intellect, presents itself in the consciousness of other things, thus
objectively, as the brain; and that which in self-consciousness, thus
subjectively, is the will, presents itself in the consciousness of other
things, thus objectively, as the whole organism_.
To the evidence which is given in support of this proposition, both in our
second book and in the first two chapters of the treatise “_Ueber den
Willen in der Natur_,” I add the following supplementary remarks and
illustrations.
Nearly all that is necessary to establish the first part of this thesis
has already been brought forward in the preceding chapter, for in the
necessity of sleep, in the alterations that arise from age, and in the
differences of the anatomical conformation, it was proved that the
intellect is of a secondary nature, and depends absolutely upon a single
organ, the brain, whose function it is, just as grasping is the function
of the hand; that it is therefore physical, like digestion, not
metaphysical, like the will. As good digestion requires a healthy, strong
stomach, as athletic power requires muscular sinewy arms, so extraordinary
intelligence requires an unusually developed, beautifully formed brain of
exquisitely fine texture and animated by a vigorous pulse. The nature of
the will, on the contrary, is dependent upon no organ, and can be
prognosticated from none. The greatest error in Gall’s phrenology is that
he assigns organs of the brain for moral qualities also. Injuries to the
head, with loss of brain substance, affect the intellect as a rule very
disadvantageously: they result in complete or partial imbecility or
forgetfulness of language, permanent or temporary, yet sometimes only of
one language out of several which were known, also in the loss of other
knowledge possessed, &c., &c. On the other hand, we never read that after
a misfortune of this kind the _character_ has undergone a change, that the
man has perhaps become morally worse or better, or has lost certain
inclinations or passions, or assumed new ones; never. For the will has not
its seat in the brain, and moreover, as that which is metaphysical, it is
the _prius_ of the brain, as of the whole body, and therefore cannot be
altered by injuries of the brain. According to an experiment made by
Spallanzani and repeated by Voltaire,(35) a snail that has had its head
cut off remains alive, and after some weeks a new head grows on, together
with horns; with this consciousness and ideas again appear; while till
then the snail had only given evidence of blind will through unregulated
movements. Thus here also we find the will as the substance which is
permanent, the intellect, on the contrary, conditioned by its organ, as
the changing accident. It may be defined as the regulator of the will.
It was perhaps Tiedemann who first compared the cerebral nervous system to
a _parasite_ (_Tiedemann und Trevirann’s Journal für Physiologie_, Bd. i.
§ 62). The comparison is happy; for the brain, together with the spinal
cord and nerves which depend upon it, is, as it were, implanted in the
organism, and is nourished by it without on its part _directly_
contributing anything to the support of the economy of the organism;
therefore there can be life without a brain, as in the case of brainless
abortions, and also in the case of tortoises, which live for three weeks
after their heads have been cut off; only the _medulla oblongata_, as the
organ of respiration, must be spared. Indeed a hen whose whole brain
Flourens had cut away lived for ten months and grew. Even in the case of
men the destruction of the brain does not produce death directly, but only
through the medium of the lungs, and then of the heart (_Bichat, Sur la
Vie et la Mort_, Part ii., art. ii. § 1). On the other hand, the brain
controls the relations to the external world; this alone is its office,
and hereby it discharges its debt to the organism which nourishes it,
since its existence is conditioned by the external relations. Accordingly
the brain alone of all the parts requires sleep, because its _activity_ is
completely distinct from its _support_; the former only consumes both
strength and substance, the latter is performed by the rest of the
organism as the nurse of the brain: thus because its activity contributes
nothing to its continued existence it becomes exhausted, and only when it
pauses in sleep does its nourishment go on unhindered.
The second part of our thesis, stated above, will require a fuller
exposition even after all that I have said about it in the writings
referred to. I have shown above, in chapter 18, that the thing in itself,
which must lie at the foundation of every phenomenon, and therefore of our
own phenomenal existence also, throws off in self-consciousness _one_ of
its phenomenal forms—space, and only retains the other—time. On this
account it presents itself here more immediately than anywhere else, and
we claim it as will, according to its most undisguised manifestation. But
no _permanent substance_, such as matter is, can present itself in time
alone, because, as § 4 of the first volume showed, such a substance is
only possible through the intimate union of space and time. Therefore, in
self-consciousness the will is not apprehended as the enduring substratum
of its impulses, therefore is not perceived as a permanent substance; but
only its individual acts, such as purposes, wishes, and emotions, are
known successively and during the time they last, directly, yet not
perceptibly. The knowledge of the will in self-consciousness is
accordingly not a _perception_ of it, but a perfectly direct becoming
aware of its successive impulses. On the other hand, for the knowledge
which is directed _outwardly_, brought about by the senses and perfected
in the understanding, which, besides time, has also space for its form,
which two it connects in the closest manner by means of the function of
the understanding, causality, whereby it really becomes _perception_—this
knowledge presents to itself _perceptibly_ what in inner immediate
apprehension was conceived as will, as _organic body_, whose particular
movements visibly present to us the acts, and whose parts and forms
visibly present to us the sustained efforts, the fundamental character, of
the individually given will, nay, whose pain and comfort are perfectly
immediate affections of this will itself.
We first become aware of this identity of the body with the will in the
individual actions of the two, for in these what is known in
self-consciousness as an immediate, real act of will, at the same time and
unseparated, exhibits itself outwardly as movement of the body; and every
one beholds the purposes of his will, which are instantaneously brought
about by motives which just as instantaneously appear at once as
faithfully copied in as many actions of his body as his body itself is
copied in his shadow; and from this, for the unprejudiced man, the
knowledge arises in the simplest manner that his body is merely the
outward manifestation of his will, _i.e._, the way in which his will
exhibits itself in his perceiving intellect, or his will itself under the
form of the idea. Only if we forcibly deprive ourselves of this primary
and simple information can we for a short time marvel at the process of
our own bodily action as a miracle, which then rests on the fact that
between the act of will and the action of the body there is really no
causal connection, for they are directly _identical_, and their apparent
difference only arises from the circumstance that here what is one and the
same is apprehended in two different modes of knowledge, the outer and the
inner. Actual willing is, in fact, inseparable from doing and in the
strictest sense only that is an act of will which the deed sets its seal
to. Mere resolves of the will, on the contrary, till they are carried out,
are only intentions, and are therefore matter of the intellect alone; as
such they have their place merely in the brain, and are nothing more than
completed calculations of the relative strength of the different opposing
motives. They have, therefore, certainly great probability, but no
infallibility. They may turn out false, not only through alteration of the
circumstances, but also from the fact that the estimation of the effect of
the respective motives upon the will itself was erroneous, which then
shows itself, for the deed is untrue to the purpose: therefore before it
is carried out no resolve is certain. The _will itself_, then, is
operative only in real action; hence in muscular action, and consequently
in _irritability_. Thus the _will_ proper objectifies itself in this. The
cerebrum is the place of motives, where, through these, the will becomes
choice, _i.e._, becomes more definitely determined by motives. These
motives are ideas, which, on the occasion of external stimuli of the
organs of sense, arise by means of the functions of the brain, and are
also worked up into conceptions, and then into resolves. When it comes to
the real act of will these motives, the workshop of which is the cerebrum,
act through the medium of the cerebellum upon the spinal cord and the
motor nerves which proceed from it, which then act upon the muscles, yet
merely as _stimuli_ of their irritability; for galvanic, chemical, and
even mechanical stimuli can effect the same contraction which the motor
nerve calls forth. Thus what was _motive_ in the brain acts, when it
reaches the muscle through the nerves, as mere stimulus. Sensibility in
itself is quite unable to contract a muscle. This can only be done by the
muscle itself, and its capacity for doing so is called _irritability_,
_i.e._, _susceptibility to stimuli_. It is exclusively a property of the
muscle, as sensibility is exclusively a property of the nerve. The latter
indeed gives the muscle the _occasion_ for its contraction, but it is by
no means it that, in some mechanical way, draws the muscle together; but
this happens simply and solely on account of the _irritability_, which is
a power of the muscle itself. Apprehended from without this is a _Qualitas
occulta_, and only self-consciousness reveals it as the _will_. In the
causal chain here briefly set forth, from the effect of the motive lying
outside us to the contraction of the muscle, the will does not in some way
come in as the last link of the chain; but it is the metaphysical
substratum of the irritability of the muscle: thus it plays here precisely
the same part which in a physical or chemical chain of causes is played by
the mysterious forces of nature which lie at the foundation of the
process—forces which as such are not themselves involved as links in the
causal chain, but impart to all the links of it the capacity to act, as I
have fully shown in § 26 of the first volume. Therefore we would ascribe
the contraction of the muscle also to a similar mysterious force of
nature, if it were not that this contraction is disclosed to us by an
entirely different source of knowledge—self-consciousness as _will_.
Hence, as was said above, if we start from the will our own muscular
movement appears to us a miracle; for indeed there is a strict causal
chain from the external motive to the muscular action; but the will itself
is not included as a link in it, but, as the metaphysical substratum of
the possibility of an action upon the muscle through brain and nerve, lies
at the foundation of the present muscular action also; therefore the
latter is not properly its _effect_ but its _manifestation_. As such it
enters the world of idea, the form of which is the law of causality, a
world which is entirely different from the _will_ in itself: and thus, if
we start from the _will_, this manifestation has, for attentive
reflection, the appearance of a miracle, but for deeper investigation it
affords the most direct authentication of the great truth that what
appears in the phenomenon as body and its action is in itself _will_. If
now perhaps the motor nerve that leads to my hand is severed, the will can
no longer move it. This, however, is not because the hand has ceased to
be, like every part of my body, the objectivity, the mere visibility, of
my will, or in other words, that the irritability has vanished, but
because the effect of the motive, in consequence of which alone I can move
my hand, cannot reach it and act on its muscles as a stimulus, for the
line of connection between it and the brain is broken. Thus really my will
is, in this part, only deprived of the effect of the motive. The will
objectifies itself directly, in irritability, not in sensibility.
In order to prevent all misunderstandings about this important point,
especially such as proceed from physiology pursued in a purely empirical
manner, I shall explain the whole process somewhat more thoroughly. My
doctrine asserts that the whole body is the will itself, exhibiting itself
in the perception of the brain; consequently, having entered into its
forms of knowledge. From this it follows that the will is everywhere
equally present in the whole body, as is also demonstrably the case, for
the organic functions are its work no less than the animal. But how, then,
can we reconcile it with this, that the _voluntary_ actions, those most
undeniable expressions of the will, clearly originate in the brain, and
thus only through the spinal cord reach the nerve fibres, which finally
set the limbs in motion, and the paralysis or severing of which therefore
prevents the possibility of voluntary movement? This would lead one to
think that the will, like the intellect, has its seat only in the brain,
and, like it, is a mere function of the brain.
Yet this is not the case: but the whole body is and remains the exhibition
of the will in perception, thus the will itself objectively perceived by
means of the functions of the brain. That process, however, in the case of
the acts of will, depends upon the fact that the will, which, according to
my doctrine, expresses itself in every phenomenon of nature, even in
vegetable and inorganic phenomena, appears in the bodies of men and
animals as a _conscious will_. A _consciousness_, however, is essentially
a unity, and therefore always requires a central point of unity. The
necessity of consciousness is, as I have often explained, occasioned by
the fact that in consequence of the increased complication, and thereby
more multifarious wants, of an organism, the acts of its will must be
guided by _motives_, no longer, as in the lower grades, by mere stimuli.
For this purpose it had at this stage to appear provided with a knowing
consciousness, thus with an intellect, as the medium and place of the
motives. This intellect, if itself objectively perceived, exhibits itself
as the brain, together with its appendages, spinal cord, and nerves. It is
the brain now in which, on the occasion of external impressions, the ideas
arise which become motives for the will. But in the _rational_ intellect
they undergo besides this a still further working up, through reflection
and deliberation. Thus such an intellect must first of all unite in _one_
point all impressions, together with the working up of them by its
functions, whether to mere perception or to conceptions, a point which
will be, as it were, the focus of all its rays, in order that that unity
of consciousness may arise which is the the _theoretical ego_, the
supporter of the whole consciousness, in which it presents itself as
identical with the _willing ego_, whose mere function of knowledge it is.
That point of unity of consciousness, or the theoretical ego, is just
Kant’s synthetic unity of apperception, upon which all ideas string
themselves as on a string of pearls, and on account of which the “I
think,” as the thread of the string of pearls, “must be capable of
accompanying all our ideas.”(36) This assembling-place of the motives,
then, where their entrance into the single focus of consciousness takes
place, is the brain. Here, in the non-rational consciousness, they are
merely perceived; in the _rational_ consciousness they are elucidated by
conceptions, thus are first thought in the abstract and compared; upon
which the will chooses, in accordance with its individual and immutable
character, and so the _purpose_ results which now, by means of the
cerebellum, the spinal cord, and the nerves, sets the outward limbs in
motion. For although the will is quite directly present in these, inasmuch
as they are merely its manifestation, yet when it has to move according to
motives, or indeed according to reflection, it requires such an apparatus
for the apprehension and working up of ideas into such motives, in
conformity with which its acts here appear as resolves: just as the
nourishment of the blood with chyle requires a stomach and intestines, in
which this is prepared, and then as such is poured into the blood through
the _ductus thoracicus_, which here plays the part which the spinal cord
plays in the former case. The matter may be most simply and generally
comprehended thus: the will is immediately present as irritability in all
the muscular fibres of the whole body, as a continual striving after
activity in general. Now if this striving is to realise itself, thus to
manifest itself as movement, this movement must as such have some
direction; but this direction must be _determined_ by something, _i.e._,
it requires a guide, and this is the nervous system. For to the mere
irritability, as it lies in the muscular fibres and in itself is pure
will, all directions are alike; thus it determines itself in no direction,
but behaves like a body which is equally drawn in all directions; it
remains at rest. Since the activity of the nerves comes in as motive (in
the case of reflex movements as a stimulus), the striving force, _i.e._,
the irritability, receives a definite direction, and now produces the
movements. Yet those external acts of will which require no motives, and
thus also no working up of mere stimuli into ideas in the brain, from
which motives arise, but which follow immediately upon stimuli, for the
most part inward stimuli, are the reflex movements, starting only from the
spinal cord, as, for example, spasms and cramp, in which the will acts
without the brain taking part. In an analogous manner the will carries on
the organic life, also by nerve stimulus, which does not proceed from the
brain. Thus the will appears in every muscle as irritability, and is
consequently of itself in a position to contract them, yet only _in
general_; in order that some definite contraction should take place at a
given moment, there is required here, as everywhere, a cause, which in
this case must be a stimulus. This is everywhere given by the nerve which
goes into the muscle. If this nerve is in connection with the brain, then
the contraction is a conscious act of will, _i.e._, takes place in
accordance with motives, which, in consequence of _external_ impressions,
have arisen as ideas in the brain. If the nerve is _not_ in connection
with the brain, but with the _sympathicus maximus_, then the contraction
is involuntary and unconscious, an act connected with the maintenance of
the organic life, and the nerve stimulus which causes it is occasioned by
_inward_ impressions; for example, by the pressure upon the stomach of the
food received, or of the chyme upon the intestines, or of the in-flowing
blood upon the walls of the heart, in accordance with which the act is
digestion, or _motus peristalticus_, or beating of the heart, &c.
But if now, in this process, we go one step further, we find that the
muscles are the product of the blood, the result of its work of
condensation, nay, to a certain extent they are merely solidified, or, as
it were, clotted or crystallised blood; for they have taken up into
themselves, almost unaltered, its fibrin (_cruor_) and its colouring
matter (_Burdach’s Physiologie_, Bd. v. § 686). But the force which forms
the muscle out of the blood must not be assumed to be different from that
which afterwards moves it as irritability, upon nerve stimulus, which the
brain supplies; in which case it then presents itself in
self-consciousness as that which we call _will_. The close connection
between the blood and irritability is also shown by this, that where, on
account of imperfection of the lesser circulation, part of the blood
returns to the heart unoxidised, the irritability is also uncommonly weak,
as in the batrachia. Moreover, the movement of the blood, like that of the
muscle, is independent and original; it does not, like irritation, require
the influence of the nerve, and is even independent of the heart, as is
shown most clearly by the return of the blood through the veins to the
heart; for here it is not propelled by a _vis a tergo_, as in the case of
the arterial circulation; and all other mechanical explanations, such as a
power of suction of the right ventricle of the heart, are quite
inadequate. (See _Burdach’s Physiologie_, Bd. 4, § 763, and _Rösch, Ueber
die Bedeutung des Blutes, § II, seq._) It is remarkable to see how the
French, who recognise nothing but mechanical forces, controvert each other
with insufficient grounds upon both sides; and Bichat ascribes the flowing
back of the blood through the veins to the pressure of the walls of the
capillary tubes, and Magendie, on the other hand, to the continue action
of the impulse of the heart (_Précis de Physiologie par Magendie_, vol.
ii. p. 389). That the movement of the blood is also independent of the
nervous system, at least of the cerebral nervous system, is shown by the
fetus, which (according to _Müller’s Physiologie_), without brain and
spinal cord, has yet circulation of the blood. And Flourens also says:
“_Le mouvement du cœur, pris en soi, et abstraction faite de tout ce qui
n’est pas essentiellement lui, comme sa durée, son énergie, ne dépend ni
immédiatement, ni coinstantanément, du système nerveux central, et
conséquemment c’est dans tout autre point de ce système que dans les
centres nerveux eux-mêmes, qu’il faut chercher le principe primitif et
immédiat de ce mouvement_” (_Annales des sciences naturelles p. Audouin et
Brougniard_, 1828, vol. 13). Cuvier also says: “_La circulation survit à
la déstruction de tout l’encéphale et de toute la moëlle épiniaire_ (_Mém.
de l’acad. d. sc._, 1823, vol. 6; _Hist. d. l’acad. p. Cuvier_,” p. cxxx).
“_Cor primum vivens et ultimum moriens_,” says Haller. The beating of the
heart ceases at last in death. The blood has made the vessels themselves;
for it appears in the ovum earlier than they do; they are only its path,
voluntarily taken, then beaten smooth, and finally gradually condensed and
closed up; as Kaspar Wolff has already taught: “_Theorie der Generation_,”
§ 30-35. The motion of the heart also, which is inseparable from that of
the blood, although occasioned by the necessity of sending blood into the
lungs, is yet an original motion, for it is independent of the nervous
system and of sensibility, as Burdach fully shows. “In the heart,” he
says, “appears, with the maximum of irritability, a minimum of
sensibility” (_loc. cit._, § 769). The heart belongs to the muscular
system as well as to the blood or vascular system; from which, however, it
is clear that the two are closely related, indeed constitute one whole.
Since now the metaphysical substratum of the force which moves the muscle,
thus of irritability, is the _will_, the will must also be the
metaphysical substratum of the force which lies at the foundation of the
movement and the formations of the blood, as that by which the muscles are
produced. The course of the arteries also determines the form and size of
all the limbs; consequently the whole form of the body is determined by
the course of the blood. Thus in general the blood, as it nourishes all
the parts of the body, has also, as the primary fluidity of the organism,
produced and framed them out of itself. And the nourishment which
confessedly constitutes the principal function of the blood is only the
continuance of that original production of them. This truth will be found
thoroughly and excellently explained in the work of Rösch referred to
above: “_Ueber die Bedeutung des Blutes_,” 1839. He shows that the blood
is that which first has life and is the source both of the existence and
of the maintenance of all the parts; that all the organs have sprung from
it through secretion, and together with them, for the management of their
functions, the nervous system, which appears now as _plastic_, ordering
and arranging the life of the particular parts within, now as _cerebral_,
controlling the relation to the external world. “The blood,” he says, p.
25, “was flesh and nerve at once, and at the same moment at which the
muscle freed itself from it the nerve, severed in like manner, remained
opposed to the flesh.” Here it is a matter of course that the blood,
before those solid parts have been secreted from it, has also a somewhat
different character from afterwards; it is then, as Rösch defines it, the
chaotic, animated, slimy, primitive fluid, as it were an organic emulsion,
in which all subsequent parts are _implicite_ contained: moreover, it has
not the red colour quite at the beginning. This disposes of the objection
which might be drawn from the fact that the brain and the spinal cord
begin to form before the circulation of the blood is visible or the heart
appears. In this reference also Schultz says (_System der Circulation_, §
297): “We do not believe that the view of Baūmgärten, according to which
the nervous system is formed earlier than the blood, can consistently be
carried out; for Baūmgärten reckons the appearance of the blood only from
the formation of the corpuscles, while in the embryo and in the series of
animals blood appears much earlier in the form of a pure plasma.” The
blood of invertebrate animals never assumes the red colour; but we do not
therefore, with Aristotle, deny that they have any. It is well worthy of
note that, according to the account of Justinus Kerner (_Geschichte zweier
Somnambulen_, § 78), a somnambulist of a very high degree of clairvoyance,
says: “I am as deep in myself as ever a man can be led; the force of my
mortal life seems to me to have its source in the blood, whereby, through
the circulation in the veins, it communicates itself, by means of the
nerves, to the whole body, and to the brain, which is the noblest part of
the body, and above the blood itself.”
From all this it follows that the will objectifies itself most immediately
in the blood as that which originally makes and forms the organism,
perfects it by growth, and afterwards constantly maintains it, both by the
regular renewal of all the parts and by the extraordinary restoration of
any part that may have been injured. The first productions of the blood
are its own vessels, and then the muscles, in the irritability of which
the will makes itself known to self-consciousness; but with this also the
heart, which is at once vessel and muscle, and therefore is the true
centre and _primum mobile_ of the whole life. But for the individual life
and subsistence in the external world the will now requires two assistant
systems: _one_ to govern and order its inner and outer activity, and
_another_ for the constant renewal of the mass of the blood; thus a
controller and a sustainer. It therefore makes for itself the nervous and
the intestinal systems; thus the _functiones animales_ and the _functiones
naturales_ associate themselves in a subsidiary manner with the
_functiones vitales_, which are the most original and essential. In the
_nervous system_, accordingly, the will only objectifies itself in an
indirect and secondary way; for this system appears as a mere auxiliary
organ, as a contrivance by means of which the will attains to a knowledge
of those occasions, internal and external, upon which, in conformity with
its aims, it must express itself; the internal occasions are received by
the _plastic_ nervous system, thus by the sympathetic nerve, this
_cerebrum abdominale_, as mere stimuli, and the will thereupon reacts on
the spot without the brain being conscious; the _outward_ occasions are
received by the brain, as _motives_, and the will reacts through conscious
actions directed outwardly. Therefore the whole nervous system
constitutes, as it were, the antennæ of the will, which it stretches
towards within and without. The nerves of the brain and spinal cord
separate at their roots into sensory and motory nerves. The sensory nerves
receive the knowledge from without, which now accumulates in the thronging
brain, and is there worked up into ideas, which arise primarily as
motives. But the motory nerves bring back, like couriers, the result of
the brain function to the muscle, upon which it acts as a stimulus, and
the irritability of which is the immediate manifestation of the will.
Presumably the plastic nerves also divide into sensory and motory,
although on a subordinate scale. The part which the ganglia play in the
organism we must think of as that of a diminutive brain, and thus the one
throws light upon the other. The ganglia lie wherever the organic
functions of the vegetative system require care. It is as if there the
will was not able by its direct and simple action to carry out its aims,
but required guidance, and consequently control; just as when in some
business a man’s own memory is not sufficient, and he must constantly take
notes of what he does. For this end mere knots of nerves are sufficient
for the interior of the organism, because everything goes on within its
own compass. For the exterior, on the other hand, a very complicated
contrivance of the same kind is required. This is the brain with its
feelers, which it stretches into the outer world, the nerves of sense. But
even in the organs which are in communication with this great nerve
centre, in very simple cases the matter does not need to be brought before
the highest authority, but a subordinate one is sufficient to determine
what is needed; such is the spinal cord, in the reflex actions discovered
by Marshall Hall, such as sneezing, yawning, vomiting, the second half of
swallowing, &c. &c. The will itself is present in the whole organism,
since this is merely its visible form; the nervous system exists
everywhere merely for the purpose of making the _direction_ of an action
possible by a control of it, as it were to serve the will as a mirror, so
that it may see what it does, just as we use a mirror to shave by. Hence
small sensoria arise within us for special, and consequently simple,
functions, the ganglia; but the chief sensorium, the brain, is the great
and skilfully contrived apparatus for the complicated and multifarious
functions which have to do with the ceaselessly and irregularly changing
external world. Wherever in the organism the nerve threads run together in
a ganglion, there, to a certain extent, an animal exists for itself and
shut off, which by means of the ganglion has a kind of weak knowledge, the
sphere of which is, however, limited to the part from which these nerves
directly come. But what actuates these parts to such _quasi_ knowledge is
clearly the _will_; indeed we are utterly unable to conceive it otherwise.
Upon this depends the _vita propria_ of each part, and also in the case of
insects, which, instead of a spinal cord, have a double string of nerves,
with ganglia at regular intervals, the capacity of each part to continue
alive for days after being severed from the head and the rest of the
trunk; and finally also the actions which in the last instance do not
receive their motives from the brain, _i.e._, instinct and natural
mechanical skill. Marshall Hall, whose discovery of the reflex movements I
have mentioned above, has given us in this the _theory of involuntary
movements_. Some of these are normal or physiological; such are the
closing of the places of ingress to and egress from the body, thus of the
_sphincteres vesicæ et ani_ (proceeding from the nerves of the spinal
cord); the closing of the eyelids in sleep (from the fifth pair of
nerves), of the larynx (from _N. vagus_) if food passes over it or
carbonic acid tries to enter; also swallowing, from the pharynx, yawning
and sneezing, respiration, entirely in sleep and partly when awake; and,
lastly, the erection, ejaculation, as also conception, and many more.
Some, again, are abnormal and pathological; such are stammering,
hiccoughing, vomiting, also cramps and convulsions of every kind,
especially in epilepsy, tetanus, in hydrophobia and otherwise; finally,
the convulsive movements produced by galvanic or other stimuli, and which
take place without feeling or consciousness in paralysed limbs, _i.e._, in
limbs which are out of connection with the brain, also the convulsions of
beheaded animals, and, lastly, all movements and actions of children born
without brains. All cramps are a rebellion of the nerves of the limbs
against the sovereignty of the brain; the normal reflex movements, on the
other hand, are the legitimate autocracy of the subordinate officials.
These movements are thus all involuntary, because they do not proceed from
the brain, and therefore do not take place in accordance with motives, but
follow upon mere stimuli. The stimuli which occasion them extend only to
the spinal cord or the _medulla oblongata_, and from there the reaction
directly takes place which effects the movement. The spinal cord has the
same relation to these involuntary movements as the brain has to motive
and action, and what the sentient and voluntary nerve is for the latter
the incident and motor nerve is for the former. That yet, in the one as in
the other, that which really moves is the _will_ is brought all the more
clearly to light because the involuntarily moved muscles are for the most
part the same which, under other circumstances, are moved from the brain
in the voluntary actions, in which their _primum mobile_ is intimately
known to us through self-consciousness as the _will_. Marshall Hall’s
excellent book “On the Diseases of the Nervous System” is peculiarly
fitted to bring out clearly the difference between volition and will, and
to confirm the truth of my fundamental doctrine.
For the sake of illustrating all that has been said, let us now call to
mind that case of the origination of an organism which is most accessible
to our observation. Who makes the chicken in the egg? Some power and skill
coming from without, and penetrating through the shell? Oh no! The chicken
makes itself, and the force which carries out and perfects this work,
which is complicated, well calculated, and designed beyond all expression,
breaks through the shell as soon as it is ready, and now performs the
outward actions of the chicken, under the name of _will_. It cannot do
both at once; previously occupied with the perfecting of the organism, it
had no care for without. But after it has completed the former, the latter
appears, under the guidance of the brain and its feelers, the senses, as a
tool prepared beforehand for this end, the service of which only begins
when it grows up in self-consciousness as intellect, which is the lantern
to the steps of the will, its ἡγεμονικον, and also the supporter of the
objective external world, however limited the horizon of this may be in
the consciousness of a hen. But what the hen is now able to do in the
external world, through the medium of this organ, is, as accomplished by
means of something secondary, infinitely less important than what it did
in its original form, for it made itself.
We became acquainted above with the cerebral nervous system as an
_assistant organ_ of the will, in which it therefore objectifies itself in
a secondary manner. As thus the cerebral system, although not directly
coming within the sphere of the life-functions of the organism, but only
governing its relations to the outer world, has yet the organism as its
basis, and is nourished by it in return for its services; and as thus the
cerebral or animal life is to be regarded as the production of the organic
life, the brain and its function, knowledge, thus the intellect, belong
indirectly and in a subordinate manner to the manifestation of the _will_.
The will objectifies itself also in it, as will to apprehend the external
world, thus as _will to know_. Therefore great and fundamental as is the
difference in us between willing and knowing, the ultimate substratum of
both is yet the same, the _will_, as the real inner nature of the whole
phenomenon. But knowing, the intellect, which presents itself in
self-consciousness entirely as secondary, is to be regarded not only as
the accident of the will, but also as its work, and thus, although in a
circuitous manner, is yet to be referred to it. As the intellect presents
itself physiologically as the function of an organ of the body,
metaphysically it is to be regarded as a work of the will, whose
objectification or visible appearance is the whole body. Thus the will _to
know_, objectively perceived, is the brain; as the will _to go_,
objectively perceived, is the foot; the will _to grasp_, the hand; the
will _to digest_, the stomach; the will _to beget_, the genitals, &c. This
whole objectification certainly ultimately exists only for the brain, as
its perception: in this the will exhibits itself as organised body. But so
far as the brain knows, it is _itself_ not known, but is the _knower_, the
subject of all knowledge. So far, however, as in objective perception,
_i.e._, in the consciousness of _other things_, thus secondarily, _it is
known_, it belongs, as an organ of the body, to the objectification of the
will. For the whole process is the _self-knowledge of the will_; it starts
from this and returns to it, and constitutes what Kant has called the
_phenomenon_ in opposition to the thing in itself. Therefore that which is
_known_, that which is _idea_, is the _will_; and this idea is what we
call body, which, as extended in space and moving in time, exists only by
means of the functions of the brain, thus only in it. That, on the other
hand, which _knows_, which _has that idea_, is the _brain_, which yet does
not know itself, but only becomes conscious of itself subjectively as
intellect, _i.e._, as the _knower_. That which when regarded from within
is the faculty of knowledge is when regarded from without the brain. This
brain is a part of that body, just because it itself belongs to the
objectification of the _will_, the will’s _will to know_ is objectified in
it, its tendency towards the external world. Accordingly the brain, and
therefore the intellect, is certainly conditioned immediately by the body,
and this again by the brain, yet only indirectly, as spatial and
corporeal, in the world of perception, not in itself, _i.e._, as will.
Thus the whole is ultimately the will, which itself becomes idea, and is
that unity which we express by I. The brain itself, so far as it is
_perceived_—thus in the consciousness of other things, and hence
secondarily—is only idea. But in itself, and so far as it _perceives_, it
is the will, because this is the real substratum of the whole phenomenon;
its will to know objectifies itself as brain and its functions. We may
take the voltaic pile as an illustration, certainly imperfect, but yet to
some extent throwing light upon the nature of the human phenomenon, as we
here regard it. The metals, together with the fluid, are the body; the
chemical action, as the basis of the whole effect, is the will, and the
electric current resulting from it, which produces shock and spark, is the
intellect. But _omne simile claudicat_.
Quite recently the _physiatrica_ point of view has at last prevailed in
pathology. According to it diseases are themselves a curative process of
nature, which it introduces to remove, by overcoming its causes, a
disorder which in some way has got into the organism. Thus in the decisive
battle, the crisis, it is either victorious and attains its end, or else
is defeated. This view only gains its full rationality from our
standpoint, which shows the _will_ in the vital force, that here appears
as _vis naturœ medicatrix_, the will which lies at the foundation of all
organic functions in a healthy condition, but now, when disorder has
entered, threatening its whole work, assumes dictatorial power in order to
subdue the rebellious forces by quite extraordinary measures and entirely
abnormal operations (the disease), and bring everything back to the right
track. On the other hand, that the _will itself_ is sick, as Brandis
repeatedly expresses himself in his book, “_Ueber die Anwendung der
Kälte_,” which I have quoted in the first part of my essay, “_Ueber den
Willen in der Natur_,” is a gross misunderstanding. When I weigh this, and
at the same time observe that in his earlier book, “_Ueber die
Lebenskraft_,” of 1795, Brandis betrayed no suspicion that this force is
in itself the will, but, on the contrary, says there, page 13: “It is
impossible that the vital force can be that which we only know through our
consciousness, for most movements take place without our consciousness.
The assertion that this, of which the only characteristic known to us is
consciousness, also affects the body without consciousness is at the least
quite arbitrary and unproved;” and page 14: “Haller’s objections to the
opinion that all living movements are the effect of the soul are, as I
believe, quite unanswerable;” when I further reflect that he wrote his
book, “_Ueber die Anwendung der Kälte_,” in which all at once the will
appears so decidedly as the vital force, in his seventieth year, an age at
which no one as yet has conceived for the first time original fundamental
thoughts; when, lastly, I bear in mind that he makes use of my exact
expressions, “will and idea,” and not of those which are far more commonly
used by others, “the faculties of desire and of knowledge,” I am now
convinced, contrary to my earlier supposition, that he borrowed his
fundamental thought from me, and with the usual honesty which prevails at
the present day in the learned world, said nothing about it. The
particulars about this will be found in the second (and third) edition of
my work, “_Ueber den Willen in der Natur_,” p. 14.
Nothing is more fitted to confirm and illustrate the thesis with which we
are occupied in this chapter than Bichat’s justly celebrated book, “_Sur
la vie et la mort_.” His reflections and mine reciprocally support each
other, for his are the physiological commentary on mine, and mine are the
philosophical commentary on his, and one will best understand us both by
reading us together. This refers specially to the first half of his work,
entitled “_Recherches physiologiques sur la vie_.” He makes the foundation
of his expositions the opposition of the _organic_ to the _animal_ life,
which corresponds to mine of the will to the intellect. Whoever looks at
the sense, not at the words, will not allow himself to be led astray by
the fact that he ascribes the will to the animal life; for by will, as is
usual, he only understands conscious volition, which certainly proceeds
from the brain, where, however, as was shown above, it is not yet actual
willing, but only deliberation upon and estimation of the motives, the
conclusion or product of which at last appears as the act of will. All
that I ascribe to the _will_ proper he ascribes to the _organic_ life, and
all that I conceive as _intellect_ is with him the _animal_ life: the
latter has with him its seat in the brain alone, together with its
appendages: the former, again, in the whole of the remainder of the
organism. The complete opposition in which he shows that the two stand to
each other corresponds to that which with me exists between the will and
the intellect. As anatomist and physiologist he starts from the objective,
that is, from the consciousness of other things; I, as a philosopher,
start from the subjective, self-consciousness; and it is a pleasure to see
how, like the two voices in a duet, we advance in harmony with each other,
although each expresses something different. Therefore, let every one who
wishes to understand me read him; and let every one who wishes to
understand him, better than he understood himself, read me. Bichat shows
us, in article 4, that the _organic_ life begins earlier and ends later
than the _animal_ life; consequently, since the latter also rests in
sleep, has nearly twice as long a duration; then, in articles 8 and 9,
that the organic life performs everything perfectly, at once, and of its
own accord; the animal life, on the other hand, requires long practice and
education. But he is most interesting in the sixth article, where he shows
that the _animal_ life is completely limited to the intellectual
operations, therefore goes on coldly and indifferently, while the emotions
and passions have their seat in the _organic_ life, although the occasions
of them lie in the animal, _i.e._, the cerebral, life. Here he has ten
valuable pages which I wish I could quote entire. On page 50 he says: “_Il
est sans doute étonnant, que les passions n’ayent jamais leur terme ni
leur origine dans les divers organs de la vie animale; qu’au contraire les
parties servant aux fonctions internes, soient constamment affectées par
elles, et même les déterminent suivant l’état où elles se trouvent. Tel
est cependant ce que la stricte observation nous prouve. Je dis d’abord
que l’effet de toute espèce de passion, constamment étranger à la vie
animale, est de faire naître un changement, une altération quelconque dans
la vie organique._” Then he shows in detail how anger acts on the
circulation of the blood and the beating of the heart, then how joy acts,
and lastly how fear; next, how the lungs, the stomach, the intestines, the
liver, glands, and pancreas are affected by these and kindred emotions,
and how grief diminishes the nutrition; and then how the animal, that is,
the brain life, is untouched by all this, and quietly goes on its way. He
refers to the fact that to signify intellectual operations we put the hand
to the head, but, on the contrary, we lay it on the heart, the stomach,
the bowels, if we wish to express our love, joy, sorrow, or hatred; and he
remarks that he must be a bad actor who when he spoke of his grief would
touch his head, and when he spoke of his mental effort would touch his
heart; and also that while the learned make the so-called soul reside in
the head, the common people always indicate the well-felt difference
between the affections of the intellect and the will by the right
expression, and speak, for example, of a capable, clever, fine head; but,
on the other hand, say a good heart, a feeling heart, and also “Anger
boils in my veins,” “Stirs my gall,” “My bowels leap with joy,” “Jealousy
poisons my blood,” &c. “_Les chants sont le langage des passions, de la
vie organique, comme la parole ordinaire __ est celui de l’entendement, de
la vie animale: la déclamation, tient le milieu, elle anime la langue
froide du cerveau par la langue expressive des organes intérieurs, du
cœur, du foie, de l’estomac_,” &c. His conclusion is: “_La vie organique
est le terme où aboutissent, et le centre d’où partent les passions_.”
Nothing is better fitted than this excellent and thorough book to confirm
and bring out clearly that the body is only the embodied (_i.e._,
perceived by means of the brain functions, time, space, and causality)
will itself, from which it follows that the will is the primary and
original, the intellect, as mere brain function, the subordinate and
derived. But that which is most worthy of admiration, and to me most
pleasing, in Bichat’s thought is, that this great anatomist, on the path
of his purely physiological investigations, actually got so far as to
explain the unalterable nature of the _moral character_ from the fact that
only the _animal_ life, thus the functions of the brain, are subject to
the influence of education, practice, culture, and habit, but the moral
character belongs to the _organic_ life, _i.e._, to all the other parts,
which cannot be modified from without. I cannot refrain from giving the
passage; it occurs in article 9, § 2: “_Telle est donc la grande
différence des deux vies de l’animal_” (cerebral or animal and organic
life) “_par rapport à l’inégalité de perfection des divers systèmes de
fonctions, dont chacune résulte; savoir, que dans l’une la prédominance ou
l’infériorité d’un système relativement aux autres, tient presque toujours
à l’activité ou à l’inertie plus grandes de ce système, à l’habitude
d’agir ou de ne pas agir; que dans l’autre, au contraire, cette
prédominance ou cette infériorité sont immédiatement liées a la texture
des organes, et jamais à leur éducation. Voilà pourquoi le tempérament
physique et le_ CHARACTÈRE MORAL _ne sont point susceptible de changer par
l’éducation, qui modifie si prodigieusement les actes de la vie animale;
car, comme nous l’avons vu, tous deux_ APPARTIENNENT À LA VIE ORGANIQUE.
_La charactère est, si je puis m’exprimer ainsi, la physionomie des
passions; le tempérament est celle des fonctions __ internes: or les unes
et les autres étant toujours les mêmes, ayant une direction que l’habitude
et l’exercice ne dérangent jamais, il est manifeste que le tempérament et
le charactère doivent être aussi soustraits à l’empire de l’éducation.
Elle peut modérer l’influence du second, perfectionner assez le jugement
et la réflection, pour rendre leur empire supérieur au sien, fortifier la
vie animal afin qu’elle résiste aux impulsions de l’organique. Mais
vouloir par elle dénaturer le charactère, adoucir ou exalter les passions
dont il est l’expression habituelle, agrandir ou resserrer leur sphère,
c’est une entreprise analogue a celle d’un médecin qui essaierait d’élever
ou d’abaisser de quelque degrés, et pour toute la vie, la force de
contraction ordinaire au cœur dans l’état de santé, de précipiter ou de
ralentir habituellement le mouvement naturel aux artères, et qui est
nécessaire à leur action, etc. Nous observerions à ce médecin, que la
circulation, la respiration, etc., ne sont point sous le domaine de la
volonté_ (volition), _quelles ne peuvent être modifiées par l’homme, sans
passer à l’état maladif, etc. Faisons la même observation à ceux qui
croient qu’on change le charactère, et par-là, même les_ PASSIONS,
_puisque celles-ci sont un_ PRODUIT DE L’ACTION DE TOUS LES ORGANES
INTERNES, _ou qu’elles y ont au moins spécialement leur siège._” The
reader who is familiar with my philosophy may imagine how great was my joy
when I discovered, as it were, the proof of my own convictions in those
which were arrived at upon an entirely different field, by this
extraordinary man, so early taken from the world.
A special authentication of the truth that the organism is merely the
visibility of the will is also afforded us by the fact that if dogs, cats,
domestic cocks, and indeed other animals, bite when violently angry, the
wounds become mortal; nay, if they come from a dog, may cause hydrophobia
in the man who is bitten, without the dog being mad or afterwards becoming
so. For the extremest anger is only the most decided and vehement will to
annihilate its object; this now appears in the assumption by the saliva of
an injurious, and to a certain extent magically acting, power, and springs
from the fact that the will and the organism are in truth one. This also
appears from the fact that intense vexation may rapidly impart to the
mother’s milk such a pernicious quality that the sucking child dies
forthwith in convulsions (_Most, Ueber sympathetische Mittel_, p. 16).
Note On What Has Been Said About Bichat.
Bichat has, as we have shown above, cast a deep glance into human nature,
and in consequence has given an exceedingly admirable exposition, which is
one of the most profound works in the whole of French literature. Now,
sixty years later, M. Flourens suddenly appears with a polemic against it
in his work, “_De la vie et de l’intelligence_,” and makes so bold as to
declare without ceremony that all that Bichat has brought to light on this
important subject, which was quite his own, is false. And what does he
oppose to him in the field? Counter reasons? No, counter assertions(37)
and authorities, indeed, which are as inadmissible as they are
remarkable—Descartes and Gall! M. Flourens is by conviction a Cartesian,
and to him Descartes, in the year 1858, is still “_le philosophe par
excellence_.” Now Descartes was certainly a great man, yet only as a
forerunner. In the whole of his dogmas, on the other hand, there is not a
word of truth; and to appeal to these as authorities at this time of day
is simply absurd. For in the nineteenth century a Cartesian in philosophy
is just what a follower of Ptolemy would be in astronomy, or a follower of
Stahl in chemistry. But for M. Flourens the dogmas of Descartes are
articles of faith. Descartes has taught, _les volontés sont des pensées_:
therefore this is the case, although every one feels within himself that
willing and thinking are as different as white and black. Hence I have
been able above, in chapter 19, to prove and explain this fully and
thoroughly, and always under the guidance of experience. But above all,
according to Descartes, the oracle of M. Flourens, there are two
fundamentally different substances, body and soul. Consequently M.
Flourens, as an orthodox Cartesian, says: “_Le premier point est de
séparer, même par les mots, ce qui est du corps de ce qui est de l’âme_”
(i. 72). He informs us further that this “_âme réside uniquement et
exclusivement dans le cerveau_” (ii. 137); from whence, according to a
passage of Descartes, it sends the _spiritus animales_ as couriers to the
muscles, yet can only itself be affected by the brain; therefore the
passions have their seat (_siège_) in the heart, which is altered by them,
yet their place (_place_) in the brain. Thus, really thus, speaks the
oracle of M. Flourens, who is so much edified by it, that he even utters
it twice after him (i. 33 and ii. 135), for the unfailing conquest of the
ignorant Bichat, who knows neither soul nor body, but merely an animal and
an organic life, and whom he then here condescendingly informs that we
must thoroughly distinguish the parts where the passions have their _seat_
(_siègent_) from those which they _affect_. According to this, then, the
passions _act_ in one place while they _are_ in another. Corporeal things
are wont to act only where they are, but with an immaterial soul the case
may be different. But what in general may he and his oracle really have
thought in this distinction of _place_ and _siège_, of _sièger_ and
_affecter_? The fundamental error of M. Flourens and Descartes springs
really from the fact that they confound the motives or occasions of the
passions, which, as ideas, certainly lie in the intellect, _i.e._, in the
brain, with the passions themselves, which, as movements of the will, lie
in the whole body, which (as we know) is the perceived will itself. M.
Flourens’ second authority is, as we have said, Gall. I certainly have
said, at the beginning of this twentieth chapter (and already in the
earlier edition): “The greatest error in Gall’s phrenology is, that he
makes the brain the organ of moral qualities also.” But what I censure and
reject is precisely what M. Flourens praises and admires, for he bears in
his heart the doctrine of Descartes: “_Les volontés sont des pensées._”
Accordingly he says, p. 144: “_Le premier service que Gall a rendu à la
physiologie (?) a éte de rammener le moral à l’intellectuel, et de faire
voir que les facultés morales et les facultés intellectuelles sont du même
ordre, et de les placer toutes, autant les unes que les autres, uniquement
et exclusivement dans le cerveau._” To a certain extent my whole
philosophy, but especially the nineteenth chapter of this volume, consists
of the refutation of this fundamental error. M. Flourens, on the contrary,
is never tired of extolling this as a great truth and Gall as its
discoverer; for example, p. 147: “_Si j’en étais à classer les services
que nous a rendu Gall, je dirais que le premier a été de rammener les
qualités morales au cerveau_;”—p. 153: “_Le cerveau seul est l’organe de
l’âme, et de l’âme dans toute la plénitude de ses fonctions_” (we see the
simple soul of Descartes still always lurks in the background, as the
kernel of the matter); “_il est le siège de toutes les facultés
intellectuelles.... Gall a rammené_ LE MORAL A L’INTELLECTUEL, _il a
rammené les qualités morales au même siège, au même organe, que les
facultés intellectuelles_.” Oh how must Bichat and I be ashamed of
ourselves in the presence of such wisdom! But, to speak seriously, what
can be more disheartening, or rather more shocking, than to see the true
and profound rejected and the false and perverse extolled; to live to find
that important truths, deeply hidden, and extracted late and with
difficulty, are to be torn down, and the old, stale, and late conquered
errors set up in their place; nay, to be compelled to fear that through
such procedure the advances of human knowledge, so hardly achieved, will
be broken off! But let us quiet our fears; for _magma est vis veritatis et
prævalebit_. M. Flourens is unquestionably a man of much merit, but he has
chiefly acquired it upon the experimental path. Just those truths,
however, which are of the greatest importance cannot be brought out by
experiments, but only by reflection and penetration. Now Bichat by his
reflection and penetration has here brought a truth to light which is of
the number of those which are unattainable by the experimental efforts of
M. Flourens, even if, as a true and consistent Cartesian, he tortures a
hundred more animals to death. But he ought betimes to have observed and
thought something of this: “Take care, friend, for it burns.” The
presumption and self-sufficiency, however, such as is only imparted by
superficiality combined with a false obscurity, with which M. Flourens
undertakes to refute a thinker like Bichat by counter assertions, old
wives’ beliefs, and futile authorities, indeed to reprove and instruct
him, and even almost to mock at him, has its origin in the nature of the
Academy and its _fauteuils_. Throned upon these, and saluting each other
mutually as _illustre confrère_, gentlemen cannot avoid making themselves
equal with the best who have ever lived, regarding themselves as oracles,
and therefore fit to decree what shall be false and what true. This impels
and entitles me to say out plainly for once, that the really superior and
privileged minds, who now and then are born for the enlightenment of the
rest, and to whom certainly Bichat belongs, are so “by the grace of God,”
and accordingly stand to the Academy (in which they have generally
occupied only the forty-first _fauteuil_) and to its _illustres
confrères_, as born princes to the numerous representatives of the people,
chosen from the crowd. Therefore a secret awe should warn these gentlemen
of the Academy (who always exist by the score) before they attack such a
man,—unless they have most cogent reasons to present, and not mere
contradictions and appeals to _placita_ of Descartes, which at the present
day is quite absurd.
FOOTNOTES
1 Bruno and Spinoza are here entirely to be excepted. They stand each
for himself and alone, and belong neither to their age nor their
quarter of the globe, which rewarded the one with death and the
other with persecution and insult. Their miserable existence and
death in this Western world is like that of a tropical plant in
Europe. The banks of the sacred Ganges were their true spiritual
home; there they would have led a peaceful and honoured life among
men of like mind. In the following lines, with which Bruno begins
his book _Della Causa Principio et Uno_, for which he was brought to
the stake, he expresses clearly and beautifully how lonely he felt
himself in his age, and he also shows a presentiment of his fate
which led him to delay the publication of his views, till that
inclination to communicate what one knows to be true, which is so
strong in noble minds, prevailed:
“_Ad partum properare tuum, mens ægra, quid obstat;_
_ Seclo hæc indigno sint tribuenda licet?_
_ Umbrarum fluctu terras mergente, cacumen_
_ Adtolle in clarum, noster Olympe, Jovem._”
Whoever has read this his principal work, and also his other Italian
writings, which were formerly so rare, but are now accessible to all
through a German edition, will find, as I have done, that he alone
of all philosophers in some degree approaches to Plato, in respect
of the strong blending of poetical power and tendency along with the
philosophical, and this he also shows especially in a dramatic form.
Imagine the tender, spiritual, thoughtful being, as he shows himself
to us in this work of his, in the hands of coarse, furious priests
as his judges and executioners, and thank Time which brought a
brighter and a gentler age, so that the after-world whose curse was
to fall on those fiendish fanatics is the world we now live in.
2 Bayard Taylor’s translation of “Faust,” vol. i. p. 14.—TRS.
3 “Faust,” scene vi., Bayard Taylor’s translation, vol. i. p.
134.—TRS.
4 Observe here that I always quote the “Kritik der reinen Vernunft”
according to the paging of the first edition, for in Rosenkranz’s
edition of Kant’s collected works this paging is always given in
addition. Besides this, I add the paging of the fifth edition,
preceded by a V.; all the other editions, from the second onwards,
are the same as the fifth, and so also is their paging.
5 Cf. Christian Wolf’s “_Vernünftige Gedanken von Gott, Welt und
Seele_,” § 577-579. It is strange that he only explains as
contingent what is necessary according to the principle of
sufficient reason of becoming, _i.e._, what takes place from causes,
and on the contrary recognises as necessary that which is so
according to the other forms of the principle of sufficient reason;
for example, what follows from the _essentia_ (definition), thus
analytical judgments, and further also mathematical truths. The
reason he assigns for this is, that only the law of causality gives
infinite series, while the other kinds of grounds give only finite
series. Yet this is by no means the case with the forms of the
principle of sufficient reason in pure space and time, but only
holds good of the logical ground of knowledge; but he held
mathematical necessity to be such also. Compare the essay on the
principle of sufficient reason, § 50.
6 With my refutation of the Kantian proof may be compared the earlier
attacks upon it by Feder, _Ueber Zeit, Raum und Kausalität_, § 28;
and by G. E. Schulze, _Kritik der theoretischen Philosophie_, Bd.
ii. S. 422-442.
7 See _Sext. Empir. Pyrrhon. hypotyp._, lib. i. c. 13, νοουμενα
φαινομενοις αντετιθη Αναξαγορας (intelligibilia apparentibus
opposuit Anaxagoras).
8 That the assumption of a limit of the world in time is certainly not
a necessary thought of the reason may be also proved historically,
for the Hindus teach nothing of the kind, even in the religion of
the people, much less in the Vedas, but try to express
mythologically by means of monstrous chronology the infinity of this
phenomenal world, this fleeting and baseless web of Mâyâ, for they
at once bring out very ingeniously the relativity of all periods of
time in the following mythus (Polier, _Mythologie des Indous_, vol.
ii. p. 585). The four ages, in the last of which we live, embrace
together 4,320,000 years. Each day of the creating Brahma has 1000
such periods of four ages, and his nights have also 1000. His year
has 365 days and as many nights. He lives 100 of his years, always
creating; and if he dies, at once a new Brahma is born, and so on
from eternity to eternity. The same relativity of time is also
expressed in the special myth which is quoted in Polier’s work, vol.
ii. p. 594, from the Puranas. In it a Rajah, after a visit of a few
seconds to Vishnu in his heaven, finds on his return to earth that
several millions of years have elapsed, and a new age has begun; for
every day of Vishnu is 100 recurrences of the four ages.
9 Kant said, “It is very absurd to expect enlightenment from reason,
and yet to prescribe to her beforehand which side she must
necessarily take” (“Critique of Pure Reason,” p. 747; V. 775). On
the other hand, the following is the naive assertion of a professor
of philosophy in our own time: “If a philosophy denies the reality
of the fundamental ideas of Christianity, it is either false, or,
_even if true, it is yet useless_.” That is to say, for professors
of philosophy. It was the late Professor Bachmann who, in the Jena
_Litteraturzeitung_ for July 1840, No. 126, so indiscreetly blurted
out the maxim of all his colleagues. However, it is worth noticing,
as regards the characteristics of the University philosophy, how
here the truth, if it will not suit and adapt itself, is shown the
door without ceremony, with, “Be off, truth! we cannot make _use_ of
you. Do we owe you anything? Do you pay us? Then be off!”
10 By the way, Machiavelli’s problem was the solution of the question
how the prince, _as a prince_, was to keep himself on the throne in
spite of internal and external enemies. His problem was thus by no
means the ethical problem whether a prince, as a man, ought to will
such things, but purely the political one how, if he so wills, he
can carry it out. And the solution of this problem he gives just as
one writes directions for playing chess, with which it would be
folly to mix up the answer to the question whether from an ethical
point of view it is advisable to play chess at all. To reproach
Machiavelli with the immorality of his writing is just the same as
to reproach a fencing-master because he does not begin his
instructions with a moral lecture against murder and slaughter.
11 Although the conception of legal right is properly negative in
opposition to that of wrong, which is the positive starting-point,
yet the explanation of these conceptions must not on this account be
entirely negative.
12 I specially recommend here the passage in Lichtenberg’s
“Miscellaneous Writings” (Göthingen, 1801, vol. ii. p. 12): “Euler
says, in his letters upon various subjects in connection with
natural science (vol. ii. p. 228), that it would thunder and lighten
just as well if there were no man present whom the lightning might
strike. It is a very common expression, but I must confess that it
has never been easy for me completely to comprehend it. It always
seems to me as if the conception _being_ were something derived from
our thought, and thus, if there are no longer any sentient and
thinking creatures, then there is nothing more whatever.”
13 Lichtenberg says in his “_Nachrichten und Bemerkungen von und über
sich selbst_” (_Vermischte Schriften, Göttingen_, 1800, vol. i. p.
43): “I am extremely sensitive to all noise, but it entirely loses
its disagreeable character as soon as it is associated with a
rational purpose.”
14 That the three-toed sloth has nine must be regarded as a mistake;
yet Owen still states this, “_Ostéologie Comp._,” p. 405.
15 This, however, does not excuse a professor of philosophy who,
sitting in Kant’s chair, expresses himself thus: “That mathematics
as such contains arithmetic and geometry is correct. It is
incorrect, however, to conceive arithmetic as the science of time,
really for no other reason than to give a pendant (_sic_) to
geometry as the science of space” (Rosenkranz in the “_Deutschen
Museum_,” 1857, May 14, No. 20). This is the fruit of Hegelism. If
the mind is once thoroughly debauched with its senseless jargon,
serious Kantian philosophy will no longer enter it. The audacity to
talk at random about what one does not understand has been inherited
from the master, and one comes in the end to condemn without
ceremony the fundamental teaching of a great genius in a tone of
peremptory decision, just as if it were Hegelian foolery. We must
not, however, fail to notice that these little people struggle to
escape from the track of great thinkers. They would therefore have
done better not to attack Kant, but to content themselves with
giving their public full details about God, the soul, the actual
freedom of the will, and whatever belongs to that sort of thing, and
then to have indulged in a private luxury in their dark back-shop,
the philosophical journal; there they may do whatever they like
without constraint, for no one sees it.
16 This chapter, along with the one which follows it, is connected with
§ 8 and 9 of the first book.
17 Illgen’s “_Zeitschrift für Historische Theologie_,” 1839, part i, p.
182.
_ 18 Gall et Spurzheim_, “_Des Dispositions Innées_,” 1811, p. 253.
19 This chapter is connected with § 12 of the first volume.
20 This chapter is connected with § 13 of the first volume.
21 This chapter and the one which follows it are connected with § 9 of
the first volume.
22 This chapter is connected with the conclusion of § 9 of the first
volume.
23 This chapter is connected with § 14 of the first volume.
24 A principal use of the study of the ancients is that it preserves us
from _verbosity_; for the ancients always take pains to write
concisely and pregnantly, and the error of almost all moderns is
verbosity, which the most recent try to make up for by suppressing
syllables and letters. Therefore we ought to pursue the study of the
ancients all our life, although reducing the time devoted to it. The
ancients knew that we ought not to write as we speak. The moderns,
on the other hand, are not even ashamed to print lectures they have
delivered.
25 This chapter is connected with § 15 of the first volume.
26 This chapter is connected with § 16 of the first volume.
27 This chapter is connected with § 15 of the first volume.
28 [Bayard Taylor’s translation of Faust, vol. i. 180. Trs.]
29 This chapter is connected with § 18 of the first volume.
30 This chapter is connected with § 19 of the first volume.
31 It is remarkable that Augustine already knew this. In the fourteenth
book, “_De Civ. Dei_,” c. 6, he speaks of the _affectionibus animi_,
which in the preceding book he had brought under four categories,
_cupiditas_, _timor_, _lætitia_, _tristitia_, and says: “_Voluntas
est quippe in omnibus, imo omnes nihil aliud, quam voluntates sunt:
nam quid est cupiditas et lætitia, nisi voluntas in eorum
consensionem, quæ volumus? et quid est metus atque tristitia, nisi
voluntas in dissensionem ab his, quæ nolumus? cet._”
32 By those who place mind and learning above all other human qualities
this man will be reckoned the greatest of his century. But by those
who let virtue take precedence of everything else his memory can
never be execrated enough. He was the cruelest of the citizens in
persecuting, putting to death, and banishing.
33 The _Times_ of 18th October 1845; from the _Athenæum_.
34 This chapter is connected with § 20 of the first volume.
_ 35 Spallanzani, Risultati di esperienze sopra la riproduzione della
testa nelle lumache terrestri_: in the _Memorie di matematica e
fisica della Società Italiana_, Tom. i. p. 581. _Voltaire, Les
colimaçons du révérend père l’escarbotier_.
36 Cf. Ch. 22.
_ 37 « __Tout ce qui est relatif à l’entendement appartient à la vie
animale,__ »__ dit Bichat, et jusque-là point de doute; __« __tout
ce qui est relatif aux passions appartient à la vie
organique,__ »__—et ceci est absolument faux._ Indeed!—_decrevit
Florentius magnus_.