Kant says, and in this we agree with Kant, that “all thought must
directly by means of certain signs relate ultimately to _Anschauungen_.”
The word _Anschauung_ (the “onlooking,” generally translated by
“intuition”) means the immediate presence of sense-perception. Says Kant:
“The effect of an object upon our faculty of representation is called
sensation, and that intuition which refers to an object by means of
sensation is called empirical intuition.” For instance, I see a rose: The
image of the rose which I see is the appearance or the phenomenon. Kant
continues:
“That which in the phenomenon corresponds to the sensation I
term its _matter_, but that which effects that the contents of
the phenomenon can be arranged under certain relations, I call
its _form_.”
In other words matter is that which affects the senses and form is to
be expressed in relations. The difference between the formal and the
material is obvious. The formal is of great importance, nay, it is of
paramount importance, but the formal is neither anything apart from the
material nor is it a substance. Both concepts are disparate, but they
have been derived by mental abstraction from the same reality.
We fully agree with Kant when he continues:
“That in which our sensations are merely arranged, and by which
they are susceptible of assuming a certain form, cannot be
itself sensation.”
But we do not agree with Kant when from this proposition he derives the
following conclusion:
“It is, then, the _matter_ of all phenomena that is given to us
_a posteriori_; the _form_ must lie ready _a priori_ for them
in the mind, and consequently can be regarded separately from
all sensation.”
Here lies the great fallacy of Kant, which rests upon an erroneous
statement and an actual distortion of fact. The phenomenon of a rose
which I see before me is not merely sensory, but also formal. The
phenomenon, i. e. the image of the rose (_die Anschauung_) is a sensation
of a special form. The term sensation as it is generally used implies
its having a special form. Accordingly the form does not, at least not
from the beginning, lie ready _a priori_ in the mind; the form is given
together with the sensation.
Kant speaks of “that which is annexed to perception by the conceptions
of understanding,” as if our understanding added the formal out of the
mind to the sensory elements given by experience. What is the mind? The
mind is a product of the world; it is a system of symbols representing
the things of the world and their relations including such possible
relations as are worthy of aspiring for. In short, the mind consists of
ideas and ideals.[44]
It has often been said that the mind is the creator of the sensory and
noumenal world. This is incorrectly expressed, for mind _is_ the sensory
and noumenal world itself. The sense-pictures, the thought-symbols, and
the ideals of a man are actual parts of his mind. They are not products
but constituents of his mind. Their organised totality is his mind
itself. The activity which takes place in a mind, i. e. the combining,
the separating, and recombining of memories, thoughts, and ideals are the
actual realities, and if we speak of a man’s understanding, or reason,
or any other so-called faculty, we have to deal with abstractions. The
activity of mentally separating form and matter might be called by the
general term understanding. However the faculty of understanding is not a
distinct mental organ, it consists in the single acts of understanding,
and the word understanding is a mental symbol representing them all
together as if they were one thing.
And certainly these acts of understanding as little import the formal
into the world of sensation as the miner carries the metals into the
mines. The formal, the relational, or the _a priori_, is first extracted
out of the data of experience not otherwise than iron is gained out of
the ores. The ore is not iron but it contains iron, the phenomenon of
a rose is not purely a sense-impression, it is a sense-impression of
a certain form. We are aware of the fact that mind is an entirely new
creation different from the non-mental world, yet at the same time we
maintain that the elements from which mind develops are the same as
the elements of the non-mental world. Nature furnishes the entire raw
material and whatever new creation the product of a new development is,
nothing can be added to the raw material, of which the formal is the most
indispensable part.
The raw material of sensory phenomena as soon as it is worked out, and
also the activity of working it out are called mind. Mind accordingly
originates with the appearance of sentient substance as the organisation
of feelings and the memories of feelings—these memories being conditioned
through the preservation of the form of sentient substance. Mind is not
something different from the world but must be considered as its product
and highest efflorescence. Mind is made of the same substance as the
universe and the mind-forms are the forms of objective existence.
As soon as a system of forms has developed in a sentient being, thus
constituting its mind, this system can again be referred to the
objective forms of things. In this sense we can say with Kant, that the
understanding imports form into phenomena; and this re-importation, this
referring the objectively formal to the subjective system of formal
thought, is an essential element in cognition.