Volume 1 — THE JOURNAL OF SPECULATIVE PHILOSOPHY. Vol. I. 1867. No. 3. (continued 2)
Reading edition
Now, what is the real meaning of this objection, so boldly put forth? Does it speak of the original real synthesis of the conception of the individual (their own dear persons and other persons), and do they therefore mean to say, “there is nothing synthetized in this conception but the conception of an object generally—of the It, and of other objects (Its)—from which the first one is distinguished?” Or does that objection fly for protection to the common use of language, and do they therefore mean to say, “In language, the word I (Ego) signifies only individuality?” As far as the first is concerned, every one, who is as yet possessed of his senses, must see that by distinguishing one object from its equals, i. e. from other objects, we arrive only at a determined object, but not at a determined person. The synthesis of the conception of the personality is quite different. The Egoness (the in itself returning activity, the subject-objectivity, or whatever you choose to call it,) is originally opposed to the It, to the mere objectivity; and the positing of these conceptions is absolute, is conditioned by no other positing, is thetical, not synthetical. This conception of the Egoness, which has arisen in our Self, is now transferred to something, which in the first positing was posited as an It, as mere object, and is synthetically united with it; and it is only through this conditional synthesis that there first arises for us a Thou. The conception of Thou arises from the union of the It and the I. The conception of the Ego in this opposition; hence, as conception of the individual, is the synthesis of the I with itself. That which posits itself in the described act, not generally, but as Ego, is I; and that which in the same act is posited as Ego, not through itself, but through me, is Thou. Now it is doubtless possible to abstract from this product of a synthesis, for what we ourselves have synthetized we doubtless can analyze again, and when we so abstract, the remainder will be the general Ego, i. e. the not-object. Taken in this interpretation, the objection would be simply absurd.
But how if our opponents cling to the use of language? Even if it is true that the word “I” has hitherto signified in language only the individual, would this make it necessary that a distinction in the original synthesis is not to be remarked and named, simply because it has never before been noticed? But is it true? Of what use of language do they speak? Of the philosophical language? I have shown already that Kant uses the conception of the pure Ego in the same meaning I attach to it. If he says, “I am the thinking in this thinking,” does he then only oppose himself to other persons, and not rather to all object of thinking generally? Kant says again, “The fundamental principle of the necessary unity of apperception is itself identical, and hence an analytical proposition.” This signifies precisely what I have just stated, i. e. that the Ego arises through no synthesis, the manifold whereof might be further analyzed, but through an absolute thesis. But this Ego is the Egoness generally; for the conception of individuality arises clearly enough through synthesis, as I have just shown; and the fundamental principle of individuality is therefore a synthetical proposition. Reinhold, it is true, speaks of the Ego simply as of the representing; but this does not affect the present case; for when I distinguish 153myself as the representing from the represented, do I then distinguish myself from other persons, and not rather from all object of representation as such? But take even the case of these same much lauded philosophers, who do not, like Kant and like the Science of Knowledge, presuppose the Ego in advance of the manifold of representation, but rather heap it together, out of that manifold; do they, then, hold their one thinking in the manifold thinking to be only the thinking of the individual, and not rather of the intelligence generally? In one word: is there any philosopher of repute, who before them has ventured to discover that the Ego signifies only the individual, and that if the individuality is abstracted from, only an object in general remains?
Or do they mean ordinary use of language? To prove this use, I am compelled to cite instances from common life. If you call to anybody in the darkness “Who is there?” and he, presupposing that his voice is well-known to you, replies, “It is I,” then it is clear that he speaks of himself as this particular person, and wishes to be understood: “It is I, who am named thus or thus, and it is not any one of all the others, named otherwise;” and he so desires to be understood, because your question, “Who is there?” presupposes already that it is a rational being who is there, and expresses only that you wish to know which particular one amongst all the rational beings it may be.
But if you should, for instance—permit me this example, which I find particularly applicable—sew or cut at the clothing of some person, and should unawares cut the person himself, then he would probably cry out: “Look here, this is I; you are cutting me!” Now, what does he mean to express thereby? Not that he is this particular person, named thus or thus, and none other; for that you know very well; but that that which was cut was not his dead and senseless clothing, but his living and sensitive self, which you did not know before. By this “It is I,” the person does not distinguish himself from other persons, but from things. This distinction occurs continually in life; and we cannot take a step or move our hand without making it.
In short, Egoness and Individuality are very different conceptions, and the synthesis of the latter is clearly to be observed. Through the former conception, we distinguish ourselves from all that is external to us—not merely from all persons that are external to us—and hence we embrace by it not our particular personality, but our general spirituality. It is in this sense that the word is used, both in philosophical and in common language. The above objection testifies, therefore, not only to an unusual want of thought, but also to great ignorance in philosophical literature.
But our opponents insist on their incapability to think the required conception, and we must place faith in their assertions. Not that they lack the general conception of the pure Ego, for if they did, they would be obliged to desist from raising objections, just as a piece of log must desist. But it is the conception of this conception which they lack, and which they cannot attain. They have that conception in themselves, but do not know that they have it. The ground of this their incapability does not lie in any particular weakness of their thinking faculties, but in a weakness of their whole character. Their Ego, in the sense in which they take the word—i. e. their individual person—is the last object of their acting, and hence also the limit of their explicit thinking. It is to them, therefore, the only true substance, and reason is only an accident thereof. Their person does not exist as a particular expression of reason; but reason exists to help their person through the world; and if the person could get along just as well without reason, we might discharge reason from service, and there would be no reason at all. This, indeed, lurks in the whole system of their conceptions, and through all their assertions, and many of them are honest enough not to conceal it. Now, they are quite correct as far as they assert this incapacity in respect to their own persons—they only must not state as objective that which has merely subjective 154validity. In the Science of Knowledge the relation is exactly reversed: Reason alone is in itself, and individuality is but accidental; reason is the object, and personality the means to realize it; personality is only a particular manner of manifesting reason, and must always more and more lose itself in the universal form of reason. Only reason is eternal; individuality must always die out. And whosoever is not prepared to succumb to this order of things, will also never get at the true understanding of the Science of Knowledge.
X.
This fact that they can never understand the Science of Knowledge unless they first comply with certain conditions, has been told them often enough. They do not want to hear it again, and our frank warning affords them a new opportunity to attack us. Every conviction, they assert, must be capable of being communicated by conceptions—nay, it must even be possible to compel its acknowledgment. They say it is a bad example to assert that our Science exists for only certain privileged spirits, and that others cannot see or understand anything of it.
Let us see, first of all, what the Science of Knowledge does assert on this point. It does not assert that there is an original and inborn distinction between men and men, whereby some are made capable of thinking and learning what the others, by their nature, cannot think or learn. Reason is common to all, and is the same in all rational beings. Whatsoever one rational being possesses as a talent, all others possess also. Nay, we have even in this present article expressly admitted that the conceptions upon which the Science of Knowledge insists, are actually effective in all rational beings; for their efficacy furnishes the ground of a possibility of consciousness. The pure Ego, which they charge is incapable of thinking, lies at the bottom of all their thinking, and occurs in all their thinking, since all thinking is possible only through it. Thus far everything proceeds mechanically. But to get an insight into this asserted necessity—to think again this thinking—does not lie in mechanism, but, on the contrary, requires an elevation, through freedom, to a new sphere, which our immediate existence does not place in our possession. Unless this faculty of freedom has already existence, and has already been practised, the Science of Knowledge can accomplish nothing in a person. It is this power of freedom which furnishes the premises upon which the structure is to rest.
They certainly will not deny that every science and every art presupposes certain primary rudiments, which must first be acquired before we can enter into the science or art. “But,” say they, “if you only require a knowledge of the rudiments, why do you not teach them to us, if we lack them? Why do you not place them before us definitely and systematically? Is it not your own fault if you plunge us at once in medias res, and require the public to understand you before you have communicated the rudiments?” I reply: that is exactly the difficulty! These rudiments cannot be systematically forced upon you—they cannot be taught to you by compulsion! In one word, they are a knowledge which we can get only from ourselves. Everything depends upon this, that by the constant use of freedom, with clear consciousness of this freedom, we should become thoroughly conscious and enamored of this our freedom. Whenever it shall have become the well-matured object of education—from tenderest youth upwards—to develop the inner power of the scholar, but not to give it a direction; to educate man for his own use, and as instrument of his own will, but not as the soulless instrument of others;—then the Science of Knowledge will be universally and easily comprehensible. Culture of the whole man, from earliest youth—this is the only way to spread philosophy. Education must first content itself to be more negative than positive—more a mutual interchange with the scholar than a working upon him; more negative as far as possible—i. e. education must at least propose to itself this negativeness as its object, and must be positive only as a means of 155being negative. So long as education, whether with or without clear consciousness, proposes to itself the opposite object—labors only for usefulness through others, without considering that the using principle lies also in the individual; so long as education thus eradicates in earliest youth the root of self-activity, and accustoms man not to determine himself but to await a determination through others—so long, talent for philosophy will always remain an extraordinary favor of nature, which cannot be further explained, and which may therefore be called by the indefinite expression of “philosophical genius.”
The chief ground of all the errors of our opponents may perhaps be this, that they have never yet made clear to themselves what proving means, and that hence they have never considered that there is at the bottom of all demonstration something absolutely undemonstrable.
Demonstration effects only a conditioned, mediated certainty; by virtue of it, something is certain if another thing is certain. If any doubt arises as to the certainty of this other, then this certainty must again be appended to the certainty of a third, and so on. Now, is this retrogression carried on ad infinitum, or is there anywhere a final link? I know very well that some are of the former opinion; but these men have never considered that if it were so, they would not even be capable of entertaining the idea of certainty—no, not even of hunting after certainty. For what this may mean: to be certain; they only know by being themselves certain of something; but if everything is certain only on condition, then nothing is certain, and there is even no conditioned certainty. But if there is a final link, regarding which no question can be raised, why it is certain, then, there is an undemonstrable at the base of all demonstration.
They do not appear to have considered what it means: to have proven something to somebody. It means: we have demonstrated to him that a certain other certainty is contained, by virtue of the laws of thinking, which he admits, in a certain first certainty which he assumes or admits, and that he must necessarily assume the first if he assumes the second, as he says he does. Hence all communication of a conviction by proof, presupposes that both parts are at least agreed on something. Now, how could the Science of Knowledge communicate itself to the dogmatist, since they are positively not agreed in a single point, so far as the material of knowledge is concerned, and since thus the common point is wanting from which they might jointly start.[10]
Finally, they seem not to have considered that even where there is such a common point, no one can think into the soul of the other; that each must calculate upon the self-activity of the other, and cannot furnish him the necessary thoughts, but can merely advise how to construct or think those thoughts. The relation between free beings is a reciprocal influence upon each other through freedom, but not a causality through mechanically effective power. And thus the present dispute returns to the chief point of dispute, from which all our differences arise. They presuppose everywhere the relation of causality, because they indeed know no higher relation; and it is upon this that they base their demand: we ought to graft our conviction on their souls without any activity on their own part. But we proceed from freedom, and—which is but fair—presuppose freedom in them. Moreover, in thus presupposing the universal validity of the mechanism of cause and effect, they immediately contradict themselves; what they say and 156what they do, are in palpable contradiction. For, in presupposing the mechanism of cause and effect, they elevate themselves beyond it; their thinking of the mechanism is not contained in the mechanism itself. The mechanism cannot seize itself, for the simple reason that it is mechanism. Only free consciousness can seize itself. Here, therefore, would be a way to convince them of their error. But the difficulty is that this thought lies utterly beyond the range of their vision, and that they lack the agility of mind to think, when they think an object, not only the object, but also their thinking of the object; wherefore this present remark is utterly incomprehensible to them, and is indeed written only for those who are awake and see.
We reiterate, therefore, our assurance: we will not convince them, because one cannot will an impossibility; and we will not refute their system for them, because we cannot. True, we can refute it easily enough for us; it is very easy to throw it down—the mere breath of a free man destroys it. But we cannot refute it for them. We do not write, speak or teach for them, since there is positively no point from which we could reach them. If we speak of them, it is not for their own sake, but for the sake of others—to warn these against their errors, and persuade these not to listen to their empty and insignificant prattle. Now, they must not consider this, our declaration, as degrading for them. By so doing, they but evince their bad conscience, and publicly degrade themselves amongst us. Besides, they are in the same position in regard to us. They also cannot refute or convince us, or say anything, which could have an effect upon us. This we confess ourselves, and would not be in the least indignant if they said it. What we tell them, we tell them not at all with the evil purpose of causing them anger, but merely to save us and them unnecessary trouble. We should be truly glad if they were thus to accept it.
Moreover, there is nothing degrading in the matter itself. Every one who to-day charges his brother with this incapacity, has once been necessarily in the same condition. For we all are born in it, and it requires time to get beyond it. If our opponents would only not be driven into indignation by our declaration, but would reflect about it, and inquire whether there might not be some truth in it, they might then probably get out of that incapacity. They would at once be our equals, and we could henceforth live in perfect peace together. The fault is not ours, if we occasionally are pretty hard at war with them.
From all this it also appears, which I consider expedient to remark here, that a philosophy, in order to be a science, need not be universally valid, as some philosophers seem to assume. These philosophers demand the impossible. What does it mean: a philosophy is really universally valid? Who, then, are all these for whom it is to be valid? I suppose not to every one who has a human face, for then it would also have to be valid for children and for the common man, for whom thinking is never object, but always the means for his real purpose. Universally valid, then, for the philosophers? But who, then, are the philosophers? I hope not all those who have received the degree of doctor from some philosophical faculty, or who have printed something which they call philosophical, or who, perhaps, are themselves members of some philosophical faculty? Indeed, how shall we even have a fixed conception of the philosopher, unless we have first a fixed conception of philosophy—i. e. unless we first possess that fixed philosophy? It is quite certain that all those who believe themselves possessed of philosophy, as a science, will deny to all those who do not recognize their philosophy the name of philosopher, and hence will make the acknowledgment of their philosophy the criterion of a philosopher. This they must do, if they will proceed logically, for there is only one philosophy. The author of the Science of Knowledge, for instance, has long ago stated that he is of this opinion in regard to his system—not in so far as it is an individual representation of that system, but in so far as it is a system of 157transcendental idealism—and he hesitates not a moment to repeat this assertion. But does not this lead us into an evident circle? Every one will then say, “My philosophy is universally valid for all philosophers;” and will say so with full right if he only be himself convinced, though no other mortal being should accept his doctrine; “for,” he will add, “he who does not recognize it as valid is no philosopher.”
Concerning this point, I hold the following: If there be but one man who is fully and at all times equally convinced of his philosophy, who is in complete harmony with himself in this his philosophy, whose free judgment in philosophizing agrees perfectly with the judgment daily life forces upon him, then in this one man philosophy has fulfilled its purpose and completed its circle; for it has put him down again at the very same point from which he started with all mankind; and henceforth philosophy as a science really exists, though no other man else should comprehend and accept it; nay, though that one man might not even know how to teach it to others.
Let no one here offer the trivial objection that all systematic authors have ever been convinced of the truth of their systems. For this assertion is utterly false, and is grounded only in this, that few know what conviction really is. This can only be experienced by having the fullness of conviction in one’s self. Those authors were only convinced of one or the other point in their system, which perhaps was not even clearly conscious to themselves, but not of the whole of their system—they were convinced only in certain moods. This is no conviction. Conviction is that which depends on no time and no change of condition; which is not accidental to the soul, but which is the soul itself. One can be convinced only of the unchangeably and eternally True: to be convinced of error is impossible. But of such true convictions very few examples may probably exist in the history of philosophy; perhaps but one; perhaps not even this one. I do not speak of the ancients. It is even doubtful whether they ever proposed to themselves the great problem of philosophy. But let me speak of modern authors. Spinoza could not be convinced; he could only think, not put faith in his philosophy; for it was in direct contradiction with his necessary conviction in daily life, by virtue of which he was forced to consider himself free and self-determined. He could be convinced of it only in so far as it contained truth, or as it contained a part of philosophy as a science. He was clearly convinced that mere objective reasoning would necessarily lead to his system; for in that he was correct; but it never occurred to him that in thinking he ought to reflect upon his own thinking, and in that he was wrong, and thus made his speculation contradictory to his life. Kant might have been convinced; but, if I understand him correctly, he was not convinced when he wrote his Critique. He speaks of a deception, which always recurs, although we know that it is a deception. Whence did Kant learn, as he was the first who discovered this pretended deception, that it always recurs, and in whom could he have made the experience that it did so recur? Only in himself. But to know that one deceives one’s self, and still to deceive one’s self is not the condition of conviction and harmony within—it is the symptom of a dangerous inner disharmony. My experience is that no deception recurs, for reason contains no deception. Moreover, of what deception does Kant speak? Clearly of the belief that things per se exist externally and independent of us. But who entertains this belief? Not common consciousness, surely, for common consciousness only speaks of itself, and can therefore say nothing but that things exist for it (i. e. for us, on this standpoint of common consciousness); and that certainly is no deception, for it is our own truth. Common consciousness knows nothing of a thing per se, for the very reason that it is common consciousness, which surely never goes beyond itself. It is a false philosophy which first makes common consciousness assert such a conception, whilst only that false philosophy discovered it in its own sphere. Hence 158this so-called deception—which is easily got rid of, and which true philosophy roots out utterly—that false philosophy has itself produced, and as soon as you get your philosophy perfected, the scales will fall from your eyes, and the deception will never recur. You will, in all your life thereafter, never believe to know more than that you are finite, and finite in this determined manner, which you must explain to yourself, by the existence of such a determined world; and you will no more think of breaking through this limit than of ceasing to be yourself. Leibnitz, also, may have been convinced, for, properly understood—and why should he not have properly understood himself?—he is right. Nay, more—if highest ease and freedom of mind may suggest conviction; if the ingenuity to fit one’s philosophy into all forms, and apply it to all parts of human knowledge—the power to scatter all doubts as soon as they appear, and the manner of using one’s philosophy more as an instrument than as an object, may testify of perfect clearness; and if self-reliance, cheerfulness and high courage in life may be signs of inner harmony, then Leibnitz was perhaps convinced, and the only example of conviction in the history of philosophy.
XI.
In conclusion, I wish to refer in a few words to a very curious misapprehension. It is that of mistaking the Ego, as intellectual contemplation, from which the Science of Knowledge proceeds, for the Ego, as idea, with which it concludes. In the Ego, as intellectual contemplation, we have only the form of the Egoness, the in itself returning activity, sufficiently described above. The Ego in this form is only for the philosopher, and by seizing it thus, you enter philosophy. The Ego, as idea, on the contrary, is for the Ego itself, which the philosopher considers. He does not establish the latter Ego as his own, but as the idea of the natural but perfectly cultured man; just as a real being does not exist for the philosopher, but merely for the Ego he observes.
The Ego as idea is the rational being—firstly, in so far as it completely represents in itself the universal reason, or as it is altogether rational and only rational, and hence it must also have ceased to be individual, which it was only through sensuous limitation; and secondly, in so far as this rational being has also realized reason in the eternal world, which, therefore, remains constantly posited in this idea. The world remains in this idea as world generally, as substratum with these determined mechanical and organic laws; but all these laws are perfectly suited to represent the final object of reason. The idea of the Ego and the Ego of the intellectual contemplation have only this in common, that in neither of them the thought of the individual enters; not in the latter, because the Egoness has not yet been determined as individuality; and not in the former, because the determination of individuality has vanished through universal culture. But both are opposites in this, that the Ego of the contemplation contains only the form of the Ego, and pays no regard to an actual material of the same, which is only thinkable by its thinking of a world; while in the Ego of the Idea the complete material of the Egoness is thought. From the first conception all philosophy proceeds, and it is its fundamental conception; to the latter it does not return, but only determines this idea in the practical part as highest and ultimate object of reason. The first is, as we have said, original contemplation, and becomes a conception in the sufficiently described manner; the latter is only idea, it cannot be thought determinately and will never be actual, but will always more and more approximate to the actuality.
XII.
These are, I believe, all the misunderstandings which are to be taken into consideration, and to correct which a clear explanation may hope somewhat to aid. Other modes of working against the new system cannot and need not be met by me.
If a system, for instance, the beginning and end, nay, the whole essence of which, is that individuality be theoretically forgotten and practically denied, is denounced as egotism, and by men who, for the very 159reason because they are covertly theoretical egotists and overtly practical egotists, cannot elevate themselves into an insight into this system; if a conclusion is drawn from the system that its author has an evil heart, and if again from this evil-heartedness of the author the conclusion is drawn that the system is false; then arguments are of no avail; for those who make these assertions know very well that they are not true, and they have quite different reasons for uttering them than because they believed them. The system bothers them little enough; but the author may, perhaps, have stated on other occasions things which do not please them, and may, perhaps—God knows, how or where!—be in their way. Now such persons are perfectly in conformity with their mode of thinking, and it would be an idle undertaking to attempt to rid them of their nature. But if thousands and thousands who know not a word of the Science of Knowledge, nor have occasion to know a word of it, who are neither Jews nor Pagans, neither aristocrats nor democrats, neither Kantians of the old or of the modern school, or of any school, and who even are not originals—who might have a grudge against the author of the Science of Knowledge, because he took away from them the original ideas which they have just prepared for the public—if such men hastily take hold of these charges, and repeat and repeat them again without any apparent interest, other than that they might appear well instructed regarding the secrets of the latest literature; then it may, indeed, be hoped that for their own sakes they will take our prayer into consideration, and reflect upon what they wish to say before they say it.
INTRODUCTION TO IDEALISM. [From the German of Schelling. Translated by Tom Davidson.]
I.—IDEA OF TRANSCENDENTAL PHILOSOPHY.
1. All knowing is based upon the agreement of an objective with a subjective. For we know only the true, and truth is universally held to be the agreement of representations with their objects.
2. The sum of all that is purely objective in our knowledge we may call Nature; while the sum of all that is subjective may be designated the Ego, or Intelligence. These two concepts are mutually opposed. Intelligence is originally conceived as that which solely represents—Nature as that which is merely capable of representation; the former as the conscious—the latter as the unconscious. There is, moreover, necessary in all knowledge a mutual agreement of the two—the conscious and the unconscious per se. The problem is to explain this agreement.
3. In knowledge itself, in my knowing, objective and subjective are so united that it is impossible to say to which of the two the priority belongs. There is here no first and no second—the two are contemporaneous and one. In my efforts to explain this identity, I must first have it undone. In order to explain it, inasmuch as nothing else is given me as a principle of explanation beyond these two factors of knowledge, I must of necessity place the one before the other—set out from the one in order from it to arrive at the other. From which of the two I am to set out is not determined by the problem.
4. There are, therefore, only two cases possible:
A. Either the objective is made the first, and the question comes to be how a subjective agreeing with it is superinduced.
The idea of the subjective is not contained in the idea of the objective; they rather mutually exclude each other. The subjective, therefore, must be superinduced upon the objective. It forms no part of the conception of Nature that there should be something intelligent to represent it. Nature, to all appearance, would exist even were there nothing to represent it. The problem may therefore likewise be expressed 160thus: How is the Intelligent superinduced upon Nature? or, How comes Nature to be represented?
The problem assumes Nature, or the objective, as first. It is, therefore, manifestly, a problem of natural science, which does the same. That natural science really, and without knowing it, approximates, at least, to the solution of this problem can be shown here only briefly.
If all knowledge has, as it were, two poles, which mutually suppose and demand each other, they must reciprocally be objects of search in all sciences. There must, therefore, of necessity, be two fundamental sciences; and it must be impossible to set out from the one pole without being driven to the other. The necessary tendency of all natural science, therefore, is to pass from Nature to the intelligent. This, and this alone, lies at the bottom of the effort to bring theory into natural phenomena. The final perfection of natural science would be the complete mentalization of all the laws of Nature into laws of thought. The phenomena, that is, the material, must vanish entirely, and leave only the laws—that is, the formal. Hence it is that the more the accordance with law is manifested in Nature itself, the more the wrappage disappears—the phenomena themselves become more mental, and at last entirely cease. Optical phenomena are nothing more than a geometry whose lines are drawn through the light; and even this light itself is of doubtful materiality. In the phenomena of magnetism all trace of matter has already disappeared, and of those of gravitation; which even physical philosophers believed could be attributed only to direct spiritual influence, there remains nothing but the law, whose action on a large scale is the mechanism of the heavenly motions. The complete theory of Nature would be that whereby the whole of Nature should be resolved into an intelligence. The dead and unconscious products of Nature are only unsuccessful attempts of Nature to reflect itself, and dead Nature, so-called, is merely an unripe Intelligence; hence in its phenomena the intelligent character peers through, though yet unconsciously. Its highest aim, namely, that of becoming completely self-objective, Nature reaches only in its highest and last reflection, which is nothing else than man, or, more generally, what we call reason, by means of which Nature turns completely back upon itself, and by which is manifested that Nature is originally identical with what in us is known as intelligent and conscious.
This may perhaps suffice to prove that natural science has a necessary tendency to render Nature intelligent. By this very tendency it is that it becomes natural philosophy, which is one of the two necessary fundamental sciences of philosophy.
B. Or the subjective is made the first, and the problem is, how an objective is superinduced agreeing with it.
If all knowledge is based upon the agreement of these two, then the task of explaining this agreement is plainly the highest for all knowledge; and if, as is generally admitted, philosophy is the highest and loftiest of all sciences, it is certainly the main task of philosophy.
But the problem demands only the explanation of that agreement generally, and leaves it entirely undecided where the explanation shall begin, what it shall make its first, and what its second. Moreover, as the two opposites are mutually necessary to each other, the result of the operation must be the same, from whichever point it sets out.
To make the objective the first, and derive the subjective from it, is, as has just been shown, the task of natural philosophy.
If, therefore, there is a transcendental philosophy, the only course that remains for it is the opposite one, namely: to set out from the subjective as the first and the absolute, and deduce the origin of the objective from it.
Into these two possible directions of philosophy, therefore, natural and transcendental philosophy have separated themselves; and if all philosophy must have for its aim to make either an Intelligence out of Nature or a Nature out of Intelligence, then transcendental philosophy, to which the latter task belongs, is the 161other necessary fundamental science of philosophy.
II.—COROLLARIES.
In the foregoing we have not only deduced the idea of transcendental philosophy, but have also afforded the reader a glance into the whole system of philosophy, composed, as has been shown, of two principal sciences, which, though opposed in principle and direction, are counter-parts and complements of each other. Not the whole system of philosophy, but only one of the principal sciences of it, is to be here discussed, and, in the first place, to be more clearly characterized in accordance with the idea already deduced.
1. If, for transcendental philosophy, the subjective is the starting point, the only ground of all reality, and the sole principle of explanation for everything else, it necessarily begins with universal doubt regarding the reality of the objective.
As the natural philosopher, wholly intent upon the objective, seeks, above all things, to exclude every admixture of the subjective from his knowledge, so, on the other hand, the transcendental philosopher seeks nothing so much as the entire exclusion of the objective from the purely subjective principle of knowledge. The instrument of separation is absolute scepticism—not that half-scepticism which is directed merely against the vulgar prejudices of mankind and never sees the foundation—but a thorough-going scepticism, which aims not at individual prejudices, but at the fundamental prejudice, with which all others must stand or fall. For over and above the artificial and conventional prejudices of man, there are others of far deeper origin, which have been placed in him, not by art or education, but by Nature itself, and which pass with all other men, except the philosopher, as the principles of knowledge, and with the mere self-thinker as the test of all truth.
The one fundamental prejudice to which all others are reducible, is this: that there are things outside of us; an opinion which, while it rests neither on proofs nor on conclusions (for there is not a single irrefragable proof of it), and yet cannot be uprooted by any opposite proof (naturam furcâ expellas, tamen usque redibit), lays claim to immediate certainty; whereas, inasmuch as it refers to something quite different from us—yea, opposed to us—and of which there is no evidence how it can come into immediate consciousness, it must be regarded as nothing more than a prejudice—a natural and original one, to be sure, but nevertheless a prejudice.
The contradiction lying in the fact that a conclusion which in its nature cannot be immediately certain, is, nevertheless, blindly and without grounds, accepted as such, cannot be solved by transcendental philosophy, except on the assumption that this conclusion is implicitly, and in a manner hitherto not manifest, not founded upon, but identical, and one and the same with an affirmation which is immediately certain; and to demonstrate this identity will really be the task of transcendental philosophy.
2. Now, even for the ordinary use of reason, there is nothing immediately certain except the affirmation I am, which, as it loses all meaning outside of immediate consciousness, is the most individual of all truths, and the absolute prejudice, which must be assumed if anything else is to be made certain. The affirmation There are things outside of us, will therefore be certain for the transcendental philosopher, only through its identity with the affirmation I am, and its certainty will be only equal to the certainty of the affirmation from which it derives it.
According to this view, transcendental knowledge would be distinguished from ordinary knowledge in two particulars.
First—That for it the certainty of the existence of external objects is a mere prejudice, which it oversteps, in order to find the grounds of it. (It can never be the business of the transcendental philosopher to prove the existence of things in themselves, but only to show that it is a natural and necessary prejudice to assume external objects as real.)
Second—That the two affirmations, I am and There are things outside of me, which in the ordinary consciousness run together, 162are, in the former, separated and the one placed before the other, with a view to demonstrate as a fact their identity, and that immediate connection which in the other is only felt. By the act of this separation, when it is complete, the philosopher transports himself to the transcendental point of view, which is by no means a natural, but an artificial one.
3. If, for the transcendental philosopher, the subjective alone has original reality, he will also make the subjective alone in knowledge directly his object; the objective will only become an object indirectly to him, and, whereas, in ordinary knowledge, knowledge itself—the act of knowing—vanishes in the object, in transcendental knowledge, on the contrary, the object, as such, will vanish in the act of knowing. Transcendental knowledge is a knowledge of knowing, in so far as it is purely subjective.
Thus, for example, in intuition, it is only the objective that reaches the ordinary consciousness; the act of intuition itself is lost in the object; whereas the transcendental mode of intuition rather gets only a glimpse of the object of intuition through the act. Ordinary thought, therefore, is a mechanism in which ideas prevail, without, however, being distinguished as ideas; whereas transcendental thought interrupts this mechanism, and in becoming conscious of the idea as an act, rises to the idea of the idea. In ordinary action, the acting itself is forgotten in the object of the action; philosophizing is also an action, but not an action only. It is likewise a continued self-intuition in this action.
The nature of the transcendental mode of thought consists, therefore, generally in this: that, in it, that which in all other thinking, knowing, or acting escapes the consciousness, and is absolutely non-objective, is brought into consciousness, and becomes objective; in short, it consists in a continuous act of becoming an object to itself on the part of the subjective.
The transcendental art will therefore consist in a readiness to maintain one’s self continuously in this duplicity of thinking and acting.
III.—PRELIMINARY ARRANGEMENT OF TRANSCENDENTAL PHILOSOPHY.
This arrangement is preliminary, inasmuch as the principles of arrangement can be arrived at only in the science itself.
We return to the idea of science.
Transcendental philosophy has to explain how knowledge is possible at all, supposing that the subjective in it is assumed as the chief or first element.
It is not, therefore, any single part, or any particular object of knowledge, but knowledge itself, and knowledge generally, that it takes for its object.
Now all knowledge is reducible to certain original convictions or original fore-judgments; these different convictions transcendental philosophy must reduce to one original conviction; this one, from which all others are derived, is expressed in the first principle of this philosophy, and the task of finding such is no other than that of finding the absolutely certain, by which all other certainty is arrived at.
The arrangement of transcendental philosophy itself is determined by those original convictions, whose validity it asserts. Those convictions must, in the first place, be sought in the common understanding. If, therefore, we fall back upon the standpoint of the ordinary view, we find the following convictions deeply engraven in the human understanding:
A. That there not only exists outside of us a world of things independent of us, but also that our representations agree with them in such a manner that there is nothing else in the things beyond what they present to us. The necessity which prevails in our objective representations is explained by saying that the things are unalterably determined, and that, by this determination of the things, our ideas are also indirectly determined. By this first and most original conviction, the first problem of the philosophy is determined, viz.: to explain how representations can absolutely agree with objects existing altogether independently of them. Since it is upon the assumption that things are exactly as we represent them—that we certainly, therefore, know things as they are in themselves—that the possibility of all experience 163rests, (for what would experience be, and where would physics, for example, wander to, but for the supposition of the absolute identity of being and seeming?) the solution of this problem is identical with theoretical philosophy, which has to examine the possibility of experience.
B. The second equally original conviction is, that ideas which spring up in us freely and without necessity are capable of passing from the world of thought into the real world, and of arriving at objective reality.
This conviction stands in opposition to the first. According to the first, it is assumed that objects are unalterably determined, and our ideas by them; according to the other, that objects are alterable, and that, too, by the causality of ideas in us. According to the first, there takes place a transition from the real world into the world of ideas, or a determining of ideas by something objective; according to the second, a transition from the world of ideas into the real world, or a determining of the objective by a (freely produced) idea in us.
By this second conviction, a second problem is determined, viz.: how, by something merely thought, an objective is alterable, so as completely to correspond with that something thought.
Since upon this assumption the possibility of all free action rests, the solution of this problem is practical philosophy.
C. But with these two problems we find ourselves involved in a contradiction. According to B, there is demanded the dominion of thought (the ideal) over the world of sense; but how is this conceivable, if (according to A) the idea, in its origin, is already only the slave of the objective? On the other hand, if the real world is something quite independent of us, and in accordance with which, as their pattern, our ideas must shape themselves (by A), then it is inconceivable how the real world, on the other hand, can shape itself after ideas in us (by B). In a word, in the theoretical certainty we lose the practical; in the practical we lose the theoretical. It is impossible that there should be at once truth in our knowledge and reality in our volition.
This contradiction must be solved, if there is to be a philosophy at all; and the solution of this problem, or the answering of the question: How can ideas be conceived as shaping themselves according to objects, and at the same time objects as shaping themselves to ideas?—is not the first, but the highest, task of transcendental philosophy.
It is not difficult to see that this problem is not to be solved either in theoretical or in practical philosophy, but in a higher one, which is the connecting link between the two, neither theoretical nor practical, but both at once.
How at once the objective world conforms itself to ideas in us, and ideas in us conform themselves to the objective world, it is impossible to conceive, unless there exists, between the two worlds—the ideal and the real—a preëstablished harmony. But this preëstablished harmony itself is not conceivable, unless the activity, whereby the objective world is produced, is originally identical with that which displays itself in volition, and vice versa.
Now it is undoubtedly a productive activity that displays itself in volition; all free action is productive and productive only with consciousness. If, then, we suppose, since the two activities are one only in their principle, that the same activity which is productive with consciousness in free action, is productive without consciousness in the production of the world, this preëstablished harmony is a reality, and the contradiction is solved.
If we suppose that all this is really the case, then that original identity of the activity, which is busy in the production of the world, with that which displays itself in volition, will exhibit itself in the productions of the former, and these will necessarily appear as the productions of an activity at once conscious and unconscious.
Nature, as a whole, no less than in its different productions, will, of necessity, appear as a work produced with consciousness, and, at the same time, as a production 164of the blindest mechanism. It is the result of purpose, without being demonstrable as such. The philosophy of the aims of Nature, or teleology, is therefore the required point of union between theoretical and practical philosophy.
D. Hitherto, we have postulated only in general terms the identity of the unconscious activity, which has produced Nature, and the conscious activity, which exhibits itself in volition, without having decided where the principle of this activity lies—whether in Nature or in us.
Now, the system of knowledge can be regarded as complete only when it reverts to its principle. Transcendental philosophy, therefore, could be complete only when that identity—the highest solution of its whole problem—could be demonstrated in its principle, the Ego.
It is therefore postulated that, in the subjective—in the consciousness itself—that activity, at once conscious and unconscious, can be shown.
Such an activity can be no other than the æsthetic, and every work of art can be conceived only as the product of such. The ideal work of art and the real world of objects are therefore products of one and the same activity; the meeting of the two (the conscious and the unconscious) without consciousness, gives the real—with consciousness, the æsthetic world.
The objective world is only the primal, still unconscious, poetry of the mind; the universal organum of philosophy, the key-stone of its whole arch, is the philosophy of art.
IV.—ORGAN OF TRANSCENDENTAL PHILOSOPHY.
1. The only immediate object of transcendental consideration is the subjective (II.); the only organ for philosophizing in this manner is the inner sense, and its object is such that, unlike that of mathematics, it can never become the object of external intuition. The object of mathematics, to be sure, exists as little outside of knowledge, as that of philosophy. The whole existence of mathematics rests on intuition; it exists, therefore, only in intuition; and this intuition itself is an external one. In addition to this, the mathematician never has to deal immediately with the intuition—the construction itself—but only with the thing constructed, which, of course, can be exhibited outwardly; whereas the philosopher looks only at the act of construction itself, which is purely an internal one.
2. Moreover, the objects of the transcendental philosopher have no existence, except in so far as they are freely produced. Nothing can compel to this production, any more than the external describing of a figure can compel one to regard it internally. Just as the existence of a mathematical figure rests on the outer sense, so the whole reality of a philosophical idea rests upon the inner sense. The whole object of this philosophy is no other than the action of Intelligence according to fixed laws. This action can be conceived only by means of a peculiar, direct, inner intuition, and this again is possible only by production. But this is not enough. In philosophizing, one is not only the object considered, but always at the same time the subject considering. To the understanding of philosophy, therefore, there are two conditions indispensable: first, that the philosopher shall be engaged in a continuous internal activity, in a continuous production of those primal actions of the intelligence; second, that he shall be engaged in continuous reflection upon the productive action;—in a word, that he shall be at once the contemplated (producing) and the contemplating.
3. By this continuous duplicity of production and intuition, that must become an object which is otherwise reflected by nothing. It cannot be shown here, but will be shown in the sequel, that this becoming-reflected on the part of the absolutely unconscious and non-objective, is possible only by an æsthetic act of the imagination. Meanwhile, so much is plain from what has already been proved, that all philosophy is productive. Philosophy, therefore, no less than art, rests upon the productive faculty, and the difference between the two, upon the different direction of the productive power. For whereas 165production in art is directed outward, in order to reflect the unconscious by products, philosophical production is directed immediately inward, in order to reflect it in intellectual intuition. The real sense by which this kind of philosophy must be grasped, is therefore the æsthetic sense, and hence it is that the philosophy of art is the true organum of philosophy (III.)
Out of the vulgar reality there are only two means of exit—poetry, which transports us into an ideal world, and philosophy, which makes the real world vanish before us. It is not plain why the sense for philosophy should be more generally diffused than that for poetry, especially among that class of men, who, whether by memory-work (nothing destroys more directly the productive) or by dead speculation (ruinous to all imaginative power), have completely lost the æsthetic organ.
4. It is unnecessary to occupy time with common-places about the sense of truth, and about utter unconcern in regard to results, although it might be asked, what other conviction can yet be sacred to him who lays hands upon the most certain of all—that there are things outside of us? We may rather take one glance more at the so-called claims of the common understanding.
The common understanding in matters of philosophy has no claims whatsoever, except those which every object of examination has, viz., to be completely explained.
It is not, therefore, any part of our business to prove that what it considers true, is true, but only to exhibit the unavoidable character of its illusions. This implies that the objective world belongs only to the necessary limitations which render self-consciousness (which is I) possible; it is enough for the common understanding, if from this view again the necessity of its view is derived.
For this purpose it is necessary, not only that the inner works of the mental activity should be laid open, and the mechanism of necessary ideas revealed, but also that it should be shown by what peculiarity of our nature it is, that what has reality only in our intuition, is reflected to us as something existing outside of us.
As natural science produces idealism out of realism, by mentalizing the laws of Nature into laws of intelligence, or super-inducing the formal upon the material (I.), so transcendental philosophy produces realism out of idealism, by materializing the laws of Nature, or introducing the material into the formal.
GENESIS. By A. Bronson Alcott.
“God is the constant and immutable Good; the world is Good in a state of becoming, and the human soul is that in and by which the Good in the world is consummated.”—Plato.
I.—VESTIGES.
Behmen, the subtilest thinker on Genesis since Plato, conceives that Nature fell from its original oneness by fault of Lucifer before man rose physically from its ruins; and moreover, that his present existence, being the struggle to recover from Nature’s lapse, is embarrassed with double difficulties by deflection from rectitude on his part. We think it needs no Lucifer other than mankind collectively conspiring, to account for Nature’s mishaps, or Man’s. Since, assuming man to be Nature’s ancestor, and Nature man’s ruins rather, himself is the impediment he seeks to remove; and, moreover, conceiving Nature as corresponding in large—or macrocosmically—to his intents, for whatsoever embarrassments he finds therein, himself, and none other, takes the blame. Eldest of creatures, and progenitor of all below him, personally one and imperishable in essence, it follows that if debased forms appear in Nature, it must be consequent on Man’s degeneracy prior to their genesis. And it is only as he lapses out of his integrity, by 166debasing his essence, that he impairs his original likeness, and drags it into the prone shapes of the animal kingdom—these being the effigies and vestiges of his individualized and shattered personality. Behold these upstarts of his loins, everywhere the mimics jeering at him saucily, or gaily parodying their fallen lord.
“Most happy he who hath fit place assigned
To his beasts, and disaforestered his mind;
Can use his horse, goat, wolf, and every beast,
And is not ape himself to all the rest.”[11]
It is man alone who conceives and brings forth the beast in him, that swerves and dies; perversion of will by mis-choice being the fate that precipitates him into serpentine form, clothed in duplicity, cleft into sex,
“Parts of that Part which once was all.”
It is but one and the same soul in him, entertaining a dialogue with himself, that is symbolized in The Serpent, Adam, and the Woman; nor need there be fabulous “Paradises Lost or Regained,” for setting in relief this serpent symbol of temptation, this Lord or Lucifer in our spiritual Eden:
“First state of human kind,
Which one remains while man doth find
Joy in his partner’s company;
When two, alas! adulterate joined,
The serpent made the three.”
II.—THE DEUCE.
“I inquired what iniquity was, and found it to be no substance, but perversion of the Will from the Supreme One towards lower things.”—St. Augustine.
Better is he who is above temptation than he who, being tempted, overcomes; since the latter but suppresses the evil inclination in his breast, which the former has not. Whoever is tempted has so far sinned as to entertain the tempting lust stirring within him, and betraying his lapse from singleness or holiness. The virtuous choose, and are virtuous by choice; while the holy, being one, are above all need of deliberating, their volitions answering spontaneously to their desires. It is the cleft personality, or other within, that confronts and seduces the Will; the Adversary and Deuce we become individually, and thus impersonate in the Snake.[12]
III.—SERPENT SYMBOL.
One were an Œdipus to expound this serpent mythology; yet failing this, were to miss finding the keys to the mysteries of Genesis, and Nature were the chaos and abyss; since hereby the one rejoins man’s parted personality, and recreates lost mankind. Coeval with flesh, the symbol appears wherever traces of civilization exist, a remnant of it in the ancient Phallus worship having come to us disguised in our May-day dance. Nor was it confined to carnal knowledge merely. The serpent symbolized divine wisdom, also; and it was under this acceptation that it became associated with those “traditionary teachers of mankind whose genial wisdom entitled them to divine honors.” An early Christian sect, called Ophites, worshipped it as the personation of natural knowledge. So the injunction, “Be ye wise as serpents and harmless as doves,” becomes the more significant when we learn that seraph in the original means a serpent; cherub, a dove; these again symbolizing facts in osteological science as connected with the latest theories of the invertebrated cranium 167accepted by eminent naturalists, and so substantiating the symbol in nature; this being ophiomorphous, a series of spires, crowned, winged, webbed, finned, footed in structure, set erect, prone, trailing, as charged with life in higher potency or lower; man, supreme in personal uprightness, and holding the sceptre of dominion as he maintains his inborn rectitude, or losing his prerogative as he lapses from his integrity, thus debasing his form and parcelling his gifts away in the prone shapes distributed throughout Nature’s kingdoms; or, again, aspiring for lost supremacy, he uplifts and crowns his fallen form with forehead, countenance, speech, thereby liberating the genius from the slime of its prone periods, and restoring it to rectitude, religion, science, fellowship, the ideal arts.[13]
“Unless above himself he can
Erect himself, how poor a thing is man.”
IV.—EMBRYONS.
“The form is in the archetype before it appears in the work, in the divine mind before it exists in the creature.”—Leibnitz.
As the male impregnates the female, so mind charges matter with form and fecundity; the spermatic world being life in transmission and body in embryo. So the egg is a genesis and seminary of forms, (the kingdoms of animated nature sleeping coiled in its yolk) and awaits the quickening magnetism that ushers them into light. Herein the human embryon unfolds in series the lineaments of all forms in the living hierarchy, to be fixed at last in its microcosm, unreeling therefrom its faculties into filamental organs, spinning so minutely the threads, “that were it physically possible to dissolve away all other members of the body, there would still remain the full and perfect figure of a man. And it is this perfect cerebro-spinal axis, this statue-like tissue of filaments, that, physically speaking, is the man.“ The mind above contains him spiritually, and reveals him physically to himself and his kind. Every creature assists in its own formation, souls being essentially creative and craving form.
“For the creature delights in the image of the Creator; and the soul of man will in a manner clasp God to herself. Having nothing mortal, she is wholly inebriated from God; for she glories in the harmony under which the human body exists.”[14]
V.—PROMETHEUS.
“Imago Dei in animo; mundi, in corpore.”
Man is a soul, informed by divine ideas, and bodying forth their image. His mind is the unit and measure of things visible and invisible. In him stir the creatures potentially, and through his personal volitions are conceived and brought forth in matter whatsoever he sees, touches, and treads under foot. The planet he spins.
He omnipresent is,
All round himself he lies,
Osiris spread abroad;
Upstaring in all eyes.
Nature his globed thought,
Without him she were not,
Cosmos from chaos were not spoken,
And God bereft of visible token.
A theosmeter—an instrument of instruments—he gathers in himself all forces, partakes in his plenitude of omniscience, being spirit’s acme, and culmination in nature. A quickening spirit and mediator between mind and matter, he conspires with all souls, with the Soul of souls, in generating the substance in which he immerses his form, and wherein he embosoms his essence. Not elemental, but fundamental, essential, he generates elements and forces, expiring while consuming, and perpetually replenishing his waste; the 168final conflagration a current fact of his existence. Does the assertion seem incredible, absurd? But science, grown luminous and transcendent, boldly declares that life to the senses is ablaze, refeeding steadily its flame from the atmosphere it kindles into life, its embers the spent remains from which rises perpetually the new-born Phœnix into regions where flame is lost in itself, and light its resolvent emblem.[15]
“Thee, Eye of Heaven, the great soul envies not,
By thy male force is all we have, begot.”
VI.—IDEAL METHOD.
“It has ever been the misfortune of the mere materialist, in his mania for matter on the one hand and dread of ideas on the other, to invert nature’s order, and thus hang the world’s picture as a man with his heels upwards.”—Cudworth.
This inverse order of thought conducts of necessity to conclusions as derogatory to himself as to Nature’s author. Assuming matter as his basis of investigation, force as father of thought, he confounds faculties with organs, life with brute substance, and must needs pile his atom atop of atom, cement cell on cell, in constructing his column, sconce mounting sconce aspiringly as it rises, till his shaft of gifts crown itself surreptitiously with the ape’s glorified effigy, as Nature’s frontispiece and head. Life’s atomy with life omitted altogether, man wanting. Not thus reads the ideal naturalist the Book of lives. But opening at spirit, and thence proceeding to ideas and finding their types in matter, life unfolds itself naturally in organs, faculties begetting forces, mind moulding things substantially, its connections and inter-dependencies appear in series and degrees as he traces the leaves, thought the key to originals, man the connexus, archetype, and classifier of things; he, straightway, leading forth abreast of himself the animated creation from the chaos,—the primeval Adam naming his mates, himself their ancestor, contemporary and survivor.
VII.—DIALOGIC.
If the age of iron and brass be hard upon us, fast welding its fetters and chains about our foreheads and limbs, here, too, is the Promethean fire of thought to liberate letters, science, art, philosophy, using the new agencies let loose by the Dædalus of mechanic invention and discovery, in the service of the soul, as of the senses. Having recovered the omnipresence in nature, graded space, tunnelled the abyss, joined ocean and land by living wires, stolen the chemistry of atom and solar ray, made light our painter, the lightning our runner, thought is pushing its inquiries into the unexplored regions of man’s personality, for whose survey and service every modern instrument lends the outlay and means—facilities ample and unprecedented—new instruments for the new discoverers. Using no longer contentedly the eyes of a toiling circuitous logic, the genius takes the track of the creative thought, intuitively, cosmically, ontologically. A subtler analysis is finely disseminated, a broader synthesis accurately generalized from the materials accumulated on the mind during the centuries, the globe’s contents being gathered in from all quarters: the book of creation, newly illustrated and posted to date. The new Calculus is ours: an organon alike serviceable to naturalist and metaphysician: a Dialogic for resolving things into thoughts, matter into mind, power into personality, man into God, many into one; soul in souls seen as the creative controlling spirit, pulsating in all bodies, inspiring, animating, organizing, immanent in the atoms, circulating at centre and circumference, willing in all wills, personally embosoming all persons an unbroken synthesis of Being.
169