because perception arises through the knowledge of causality, the relation
of subject and object is that of cause and effect. For this relation
subsists only between the immediate object and objects known indirectly,
thus always between objects alone. It is this false supposition that has
given rise to the foolish controversy about the reality of the outer
world; a controversy in which dogmatism and scepticism oppose each other,
and the former appears, now as realism, now as idealism. Realism treats
the object as cause, and the subject as its effect. The idealism of Fichte
reduces the object to the effect of the subject. Since however, and this
cannot be too much emphasised, there is absolutely no relation according
to the principle of sufficient reason between subject and object, neither
of these views could be proved, and therefore scepticism attacked them
both with success. Now, just as the law of causality precedes perception
and experience as their condition, and therefore cannot (as Hume thought)
be derived from them, so object and subject precede all knowledge, and
hence the principle of sufficient reason in general, as its first
condition; for this principle is merely the form of all objects, the whole
nature and possibility of their existence as phenomena: but the object
always presupposes the subject; and therefore between these two there can
be no relation of reason and consequent. My essay on the principle of
sufficient reason accomplishes just this: it explains the content of that
principle as the essential form of every object—that is to say, as the
universal nature of all objective existence, as something which pertains
to the object as such; but the object as such always presupposes the
subject as its necessary correlative; and therefore the subject remains
always outside the province in which the principle of sufficient reason is
valid. The controversy as to the reality of the outer world rests upon
this false extension of the validity of the principle of sufficient reason
to the subject also, and starting with this mistake it can never
understand itself. On the one side realistic dogmatism, looking upon the
idea as the effect of the object, desires to separate these two, idea and
object, which are really one, and to assume a cause quite different from
the idea, an object in itself, independent of the subject, a thing which
is quite inconceivable; for even as object it presupposes subject, and so
remains its idea. Opposed to this doctrine is scepticism, which makes the
same false presupposition that in the idea we have only the effect, never
the cause, therefore never real being; that we always know merely the
action of the object. But this object, it supposes, may perhaps have no
resemblance whatever to its effect, may indeed have been quite erroneously
received as the cause, for the law of causality is first to be gathered
from experience, and the reality of experience is then made to rest upon
it. Thus both of these views are open to the correction, firstly, that
object and idea are the same; secondly, that the true being of the object
of perception is its action, that the reality of the thing consists in
this, and the demand for an existence of the object outside the idea of
the subject, and also for an essence of the actual thing different from
its action, has absolutely no meaning, and is a contradiction: and that
the knowledge of the nature of the effect of any perceived object,
exhausts such an object itself, so far as it is object, _i.e._, idea, for
beyond this there is nothing more to be known. So far then, the perceived
world in space and time, which makes itself known as causation alone, is
entirely real, and is throughout simply what it appears to be, and it
appears wholly and without reserve as idea, bound together according to
the law of causality. This is its empirical reality. On the other hand,
all causality is in the understanding alone, and for the understanding.
The whole actual, that is, active world is determined as such through the
understanding, and apart from it is nothing. This, however, is not the
only reason for altogether denying such a reality of the outer world as is
taught by the dogmatist, who explains its reality as its independence of
the subject. We also deny it, because no object apart from a subject can
be conceived without contradiction. The whole world of objects is and
remains idea, and therefore wholly and for ever determined by the subject;
that is to say, it has transcendental ideality. But it is not therefore
illusion or mere appearance; it presents itself as that which it is, idea,
and indeed as a series of ideas of which the common bond is the principle
of sufficient reason. It is according to its inmost meaning quite
comprehensible to the healthy understanding, and speaks a language quite
intelligible to it. To dispute about its reality can only occur to a mind
perverted by over-subtilty, and such discussion always arises from a false
application of the principle of sufficient reason, which binds all ideas
together of whatever kind they may be, but by no means connects them with
the subject, nor yet with a something which is neither subject nor object,
but only the ground of the object; an absurdity, for only objects can be
and always are the ground of objects. If we examine more closely the
source of this question as to the reality of the outer world, we find that
besides the false application of the principle of sufficient reason
generally to what lies beyond its province, a special confusion of its
forms is also involved; for that form which it has only in reference to
concepts or abstract ideas, is applied to perceived ideas, real objects;
and a ground of knowing is demanded of objects, whereas they can have
nothing but a ground of being. Among the abstract ideas, the concepts
united in the judgment, the principle of sufficient reason appears in such
a way that each of these has its worth, its validity, and its whole
existence, here called _truth_, simply and solely through the relation of
the judgment to something outside of it, its ground of knowledge, to which
there must consequently always be a return. Among real objects, ideas of
perception, on the other hand, the principle of sufficient reason appears
not as the principle of the ground of _knowing_, but of _being_, as the
law of causality: every real object has paid its debt to it, inasmuch as
it has come to be, _i.e._, has appeared as the effect of a cause. The
demand for a ground of knowing has therefore here no application and no
meaning, but belongs to quite another class of things. Thus the world of
perception raises in the observer no question or doubt so long as he
remains in contact with it: there is here neither error nor truth, for
these are confined to the province of the abstract—the province of
reflection. But here the world lies open for sense and understanding;
presents itself with naive truth as that which it really is—ideas of
perception which develop themselves according to the law of causality.
So far as we have considered the question of the reality of the outer
world, it arises from a confusion which amounts even to a misunderstanding
of reason itself, and therefore thus far, the question could be answered
only by explaining its meaning. After examination of the whole nature of
the principle of sufficient reason, of the relation of subject and object,
and the special conditions of sense perception, the question itself
disappeared because it had no longer any meaning. There is, however, one
other possible origin of this question, quite different from the purely
speculative one which we have considered, a specially empirical origin,
though the question is always raised from a speculative point of view, and
in this form it has a much more comprehensible meaning than it had in the
first. We have dreams; may not our whole life be a dream? or more exactly:
is there a sure criterion of the distinction between dreams and reality?
between phantasms and real objects? The assertion that what is dreamt is
less vivid and distinct than what we actually perceive is not to the
point, because no one has ever been able to make a fair comparison of the
two; for we can only compare the recollection of a dream with the present
reality. Kant answers the question thus: “The connection of ideas among
themselves, according to the law of causality, constitutes the difference
between real life and dreams.” But in dreams, as well as in real life,
everything is connected individually at any rate, in accordance with the
principle of sufficient reason in all its forms, and this connection is
broken only between life and dreams, or between one dream and another.
Kant’s answer therefore could only run thus:—the _long_ dream (life) has
throughout complete connection according to the principle of sufficient
reason; it has not this connection, however, with _short_ dreams, although
each of these has in itself the same connection: the bridge is therefore
broken between the former and the latter, and on this account we
distinguish them.
But to institute an inquiry according to this criterion, as to whether
something was dreamt or seen, would always be difficult and often
impossible. For we are by no means in a position to trace link by link the
causal connection between any experienced event and the present moment,
but we do not on that account explain it as dreamt. Therefore in real life
we do not commonly employ that method of distinguishing between dreams and
reality. The only sure criterion by which to distinguish them is in fact
the entirely empirical one of awaking, through which at any rate the
causal connection between dreamed events and those of waking life, is
distinctly and sensibly broken off. This is strongly supported by the
remark of Hobbes in the second chapter of Leviathan, that we easily
mistake dreams for reality if we have unintentionally fallen asleep
without taking off our clothes, and much more so when it also happens that
some undertaking or design fills all our thoughts, and occupies our dreams
as well as our waking moments. We then observe the awaking just as little
as the falling asleep, dream and reality run together and become
confounded. In such a case there is nothing for it but the application of
Kant’s criterion; but if, as often happens, we fail to establish by means
of this criterion, either the existence of causal connection with the
present, or the absence of such connection, then it must for ever remain
uncertain whether an event was dreamt or really happened. Here, in fact,
the intimate relationship between life and dreams is brought out very
clearly, and we need not be ashamed to confess it, as it has been
recognised and spoken of by many great men. The Vedas and Puranas have no
better simile than a dream for the whole knowledge of the actual world,
which they call the web of Mâyâ, and they use none more frequently. Plato
often says that men live only in a dream; the philosopher alone strives to
awake himself. Pindar says (ii. η. 135): σκιας οναρ ανθρωπος (umbræ
somnium homo), and Sophocles:—
Ὀνω γυν ἡμας ουδεν οντας αλλο, πλην
Σιδωλ᾽ ὁσοιπερ ζωμεν, ὴ κουφην σκιαν.—Ajax, 125.
(Nos enim, quicunque vivimus, nihil aliud esse comperio quam simulacra et
levem umbram.) Beside which most worthily stands Shakespeare:—
“We are such stuff
As dreams are made on, and our little life
Is rounded with a sleep.”—_Tempest_, Act iv. Sc. 1.
Lastly, Calderon was so deeply impressed with this view of life that he
sought to embody it in a kind of metaphysical drama—“Life a Dream.”
After these numerous quotations from the poets, perhaps I also may be
allowed to express myself by a metaphor. Life and dreams are leaves of the
same book. The systematic reading of this book is real life, but when the
reading hours (that is, the day) are over, we often continue idly to turn
over the leaves, and read a page here and there without method or
connection: often one we have read before, sometimes one that is new to
us, but always in the same book. Such an isolated page is indeed out of
connection with the systematic study of the book, but it does not seem so
very different when we remember that the whole continuous perusal begins
and ends just as abruptly, and may therefore be regarded as merely a
larger single page.
Thus although individual dreams are distinguished from real life by the
fact that they do not fit into that continuity which runs through the
whole of experience, and the act of awaking brings this into
consciousness, yet that very continuity of experience belongs to real life
as its form, and the dream on its part can point to a similar continuity
in itself. If, therefore, we consider the question from a point of view
external to both, there is no distinct difference in their nature, and we
are forced to concede to the poets that life is a long dream.
Let us turn back now from this quite independent empirical origin of the
question of the reality of the outer world, to its speculative origin. We
found that this consisted, first, in the false application of the
principle of sufficient reason to the relation of subject and object; and
secondly, in the confusion of its forms, inasmuch as the principle of
sufficient reason of knowing was extended to a province in which the
principle of sufficient reason of being is valid. But the question could
hardly have occupied philosophers so constantly if it were entirely devoid
of all real content, and if some true thought and meaning did not lie at
its heart as its real source. Accordingly, we must assume that when the
element of truth that lies at the bottom of the question first came into
reflection and sought its expression, it became involved in these confused
and meaningless forms and problems. This at least is my opinion, and I
think that the true expression of that inmost meaning of the question,
which it failed to find, is this:—What is this world of perception besides
being my idea? Is that of which I am conscious only as idea, exactly like
my own body, of which I am doubly conscious, in one aspect as _idea_, in
another aspect as _will_? The fuller explanation of this question and its
answer in the affirmative, will form the content of the second book, and
its consequences will occupy the remaining portion of this work.
§ 6. For the present, however, in this first book we consider everything
merely as idea, as object for the subject. And our own body, which is the
starting-point for each of us in our perception of the world, we consider,
like all other real objects, from the side of its knowableness, and in
this regard it is simply an idea. Now the consciousness of every one is in
general opposed to the explanation of objects as mere ideas, and more
especially to the explanation of our bodies as such; for the thing in
itself is known to each of us immediately in so far as it appears as our
own body; but in so far as it objectifies itself in the other objects of
perception, it is known only indirectly. But this abstraction, this
one-sided treatment, this forcible separation of what is essentially and
necessarily united, is only adopted to meet the demands of our argument;
and therefore the disinclination to it must, in the meantime, be
suppressed and silenced by the expectation that the subsequent treatment
will correct the one-sidedness of the present one, and complete our
knowledge of the nature of the world.
At present therefore the body is for us immediate object; that is to say,
that idea which forms the starting-point of the subject’s knowledge;
because the body, with its immediately known changes, precedes the
application of the law of causality, and thus supplies it with its first
data. The whole nature of matter consists, as we have seen, in its causal
action. But cause and effect exist only for the understanding, which is
nothing but their subjective correlative. The understanding, however,
could never come into operation if there were not something else from
which it starts. This is simple sensation—the immediate consciousness of
the changes of the body, by virtue of which it is immediate object. Thus
the possibility of knowing the world of perception depends upon two
conditions; the first, _objectively expressed_, is the power of material
things to act upon each other, to produce changes in each other, without
which common quality of all bodies no perception would be possible, even
by means of the sensibility of the animal body. And if we wish to express
this condition _subjectively_ we say: The understanding first makes
perception possible; for the law of causality, the possibility of effect
and cause, springs only from the understanding, and is valid only for it,
and therefore the world of perception exists only through and for it. The
second condition is the sensibility of animal bodies, or the quality of
being immediate objects of the subject which certain bodies possess. The
mere modification which the organs of sense sustain from without through
their specific affections, may here be called ideas, so far as these
affections produce neither pain nor pleasure, that is, have no immediate
significance for the will, and are yet perceived, exist therefore only for
_knowledge_. Thus far, then, I say that the body is immediately _known_,
is _immediate object_. But the conception of object is not to be taken
here in its fullest sense, for through this immediate knowledge of the
body, which precedes the operation of the understanding, and is mere
sensation, our own body does not exist specifically as _object_, but first
the material things which affect it: for all knowledge of an object
proper, of an idea perceived in space, exists only through and for the
understanding; therefore not before, but only subsequently to its
operation. Therefore the body as object proper, that is, as an idea
perceived in space, is first known indirectly, like all other objects,
through the application of the law of causality to the action of one of
its parts upon another, as, for example, when the eye sees the body or the
hand touches it. Consequently the form of our body does not become known
to us through mere feeling, but only through knowledge, only in idea; that
is to say, only in the brain does our own body first come to appear as
extended, articulate, organic. A man born blind receives this idea only
little by little from the data afforded by touch. A blind man without
hands could never come to know his own form; or at the most could infer
and construct it little by little from the effects of other bodies upon
him. If, then, we call the body an immediate object, we are to be
understood with these reservations.
In other respects, then, according to what has been said, all animal
bodies are immediate objects; that is, starting-points for the subject
which always knows and therefore is never known in its perception of the
world. Thus the distinctive characteristic of animal life is knowledge,
with movement following on motives, which are determined by knowledge,
just as movement following on stimuli is the distinctive characteristic of
plant-life. Unorganised matter, however, has no movement except such as is
produced by causes properly so called, using the term in its narrowest
sense. All this I have thoroughly discussed in my essay on the principle
of sufficient reason, § 20, in the “Ethics,” first essay, iii., and in my
work on Sight and Colour, § 1, to which I therefore refer.
It follows from what has been said, that all animals, even the least
developed, have understanding; for they all know objects, and this
knowledge determines their movements as motive. Understanding is the same
in all animals and in all men; it has everywhere the same simple form;
knowledge of causality, transition from effect to cause, and from cause to
effect, nothing more; but the degree of its acuteness, and the extension
of the sphere of its knowledge varies enormously, with innumerable
gradations from the lowest form, which is only conscious of the causal
connection between the immediate object and objects affecting it—that is
to say, perceives a cause as an object in space by passing to it from the
affection which the body feels, to the higher grades of knowledge of the
causal connection among objects known indirectly, which extends to the
understanding of the most complicated system of cause and effect in
nature. For even this high degree of knowledge is still the work of the
understanding, not of the reason. The abstract concepts of the reason can
only serve to take up the objective connections which are immediately
known by the understanding, to make them permanent for thought, and to
relate them to each other; but reason never gives us immediate knowledge.
Every force and law of nature, every example of such forces and laws, must
first be immediately known by the understanding, must be apprehended
through perception before it can pass into abstract consciousness for
reason. Hooke’s discovery of the law of gravitation, and the reference of
so many important phenomena to this one law, was the work of immediate
apprehension by the understanding; and such also was the proof of Newton’s
calculations, and Lavoisier’s discovery of acids and their important
function in nature, and also Goethe’s discovery of the origin of physical
colours. All these discoveries are nothing more than a correct immediate
passage from the effect to the cause, which is at once followed by the
recognition of the ideality of the force of nature which expresses itself
in all causes of the same kind; and this complete insight is just an
example of that single function of the understanding, by which an animal
perceives as an object in space the cause which affects its body, and
differs from such a perception only in degree. Every one of these great
discoveries is therefore, just like perception, an operation of the
understanding, an immediate intuition, and as such the work of an instant,
an _apperçu_, a flash of insight. They are not the result of a process of
abstract reasoning, which only serves to make the immediate knowledge of
the understanding permanent for thought by bringing it under abstract
concepts, _i.e._, it makes knowledge distinct, it puts us in a position to
impart it and explain it to others. The keenness of the understanding in
apprehending the causal relations of objects which are known indirectly,
does not find its only application in the sphere of natural science
(though all the discoveries in that sphere are due to it), but it also
appears in practical life. It is then called good sense or prudence, as in
its other application it is better called acuteness, penetration,
sagacity. More exactly, good sense or prudence signifies exclusively
understanding at the command of the will. But the limits of these
conceptions must not be too sharply defined, for it is always that one
function of the understanding by means of which all animals perceive
objects in space, which, in its keenest form, appears now in the phenomena
of nature, correctly inferring the unknown causes from the given effects,
and providing the material from which the reason frames general rules as
laws of nature; now inventing complicated and ingenious machines by
adapting known causes to desired effects; now in the sphere of motives,
seeing through and frustrating intrigues and machinations, or fitly
disposing the motives and the men who are susceptible to them, setting
them in motion, as machines are moved by levers and wheels, and directing
them at will to the accomplishment of its ends. Deficiency of
understanding is called _stupidity_. It is just _dulness in applying the
law of causality_, incapacity for the immediate apprehension of the
concatenations of causes and effects, motives and actions. A stupid person
has no insight into the connection of natural phenomena, either when they
follow their own course, or when they are intentionally combined, _i.e._,
are applied to machinery. Such a man readily believes in magic and
miracles. A stupid man does not observe that persons, who apparently act
independently of each other, are really in collusion; he is therefore
easily mystified, and outwitted; he does not discern the hidden motives of
proffered advice or expressions of opinion, &c. But it is always just one
thing that he lacks—keenness, rapidity, ease in applying the law of
causality, _i.e._, power of understanding. The greatest, and, in this
reference, the most instructive example of stupidity I ever met with, was
the case of a totally imbecile boy of about eleven years of age, in an
asylum. He had reason, because he spoke and comprehended, but in respect
of understanding he was inferior to many of the lower animals. Whenever I
visited him he noticed an eye-glass which I wore round my neck, and in
which the window of the room and the tops of the trees beyond were
reflected: on every occasion he was greatly surprised and delighted with
this, and was never tired of looking at it with astonishment, because he
did not understand the immediate causation of reflection.