Volume 1 — THE JOURNAL OF SPECULATIVE PHILOSOPHY. Vol. I. 1867. No. 3.

THE MONADOLOGY. [Translated from the French of Leibnitz, by F. H. Hedge.]

1. The Monad, of which we shall here speak, is merely a simple substance entering into those which are compound; simple, that is to say, without parts.

2. And there must be simple substances, since there are compounds; for the compound is only a collection or aggregate of simples.

3. Where there are no parts, neither extension, nor figure, nor divisibility is possible; and these Monads are the veritable Atoms of Nature—in one word, the Elements of things.

4. There is thus no danger of dissolution, and there is no conceivable way in which a simple substance can perish naturally.

5. For the same reason, there is no way in which a simple substance can begin naturally, since it could not be formed by composition.

6. Therefore we may say that the Monads can neither begin nor end in any other way than all at once; that is to say, they cannot begin except by creation, nor end except by annihilation; whereas that which is compounded, begins and ends by parts.

7. There is also no intelligible way in which a Monad can be altered or changed in its interior by any other creature, since it would be impossible to transpose anything in it, or to conceive in it any internal movement—any movement excited, directed, augmented or diminished within, such as may take place in compound bodies, where there is change of parts. The Monads have no windows through which anything can enter or go forth. It would be impossible for any accidents to detach themselves and go forth from the substances, as did formerly the Sensible Species of the Schoolmen. Accordingly, neither substance nor accident can enter a Monad from without.

8. Nevertheless Monads must have qualities—otherwise they would not even be entities; and if simple substances did not differ in their qualities, there would be no means by which we could become aware of the changes of things, since all that is in compound bodies is derived from simple ingredients, and Monads, being without qualities, would be indistinguishable one from another, seeing also they do not differ in quantity. Consequently, a plenum being supposed, each place could in any movement receive only the just equivalent of what it had had before, and one state of things would be indistinguishable from another.

9. Moreover, each Monad must differ from every other, for there are never two beings in nature perfectly alike, and in which it is impossible to find an internal difference, or one founded on some intrinsic denomination.

10. I take it for granted, furthermore, 130that every created being is subject to change—consequently the created Monad; and likewise that this change is continual in each.

11. It follows, from what we have now said, that the natural changes of Monads proceed from an internal principle, since no external cause can influence the interior.

12. But, besides the principle of change, there must also be a detail of changes, embracing, so to speak, the specification and the variety of the simple substances.

13. This detail must involve multitude in unity or in simplicity: for as all natural changes proceed by degrees, something changes and something remains, and consequently there must be in the simple substance a plurality of affections and relations, although there are no parts.

14. This shifting state, which involves and represents multitude in unity, or in the simple substance, is nothing else than what we call Perception, which must be carefully distinguished from apperception, or consciousness, as will appear in the sequel. Here it is that the Cartesians have especially failed, making no account of those perceptions of which we are not conscious. It is this that has led them to suppose that spirits are the only Monads, and that there are no souls of brutes or other Entelechies. It is owing to this that they have vulgarly confounded protracted torpor with actual death, and have fallen in with the scholastic prejudice, which believes in souls entirely separate. Hence, also, ill affected minds have been confirmed in the opinion that the soul is mortal.

15. The action of the internal principle which causes the change, or the passage from one perception to another, may be called Appetition. It is true, the desire cannot always completely attain to every perception to which it tends, but it always attains to something thereof, and arrives at new perceptions.

16. We experience in ourselves the fact of multitude in the simple substance, when we find that the least thought of which we are conscious includes a variety in its object. Accordingly, all who admit that the soul is a simple substance, are bound to admit this multitude in the Monad, and Mr. Boyle should not have found any difficulty in this admission, as he has done in his dictionary—Art. Rorarius.

17. Besides, it must be confessed that Perception and its consequences are inexplicable by mechanical causes—that is to say, by figures and motions. If we imagine a machine so constructed as to produce thought, sensation, perception, we may conceive it magnified—the same proportions being preserved—to such an extent that one might enter it like a mill. This being supposed, we should find in it on inspection only pieces which impel each other, but nothing which can explain a perception. It is in the simple substance, therefore—not in the compound, or in machinery—that we must look for that phenomenon; and in the simple substance we find nothing else—nothing, that is, but perceptions and their changes. Therein also, and therein only, consist all the internal acts of simple substances.

18. We might give the name of Entelechies to all simple substances or created Monads, inasmuch as there is in them a certain completeness (perfection), (ἔχουσι τὸ ἔντελες). There is a sufficiency (αὐτάρκεια) which makes them the sources of their own internal actions, and, as it were, incorporeal automata.

19. If we choose to give the name of soul to all that has perceptions and desires, in the general sense which I have just indicated, all simple substances or created Monads may be called souls. But as sentiment is something more than simple perception, I am willing that the general name of Monads and Entelechies shall suffice for those simple substances which have nothing but perceptions, and that the term souls shall be confined to those whose perceptions are more distinct, and accompanied by memory.

20. For we experience in ourselves a state in which we remember nothing, and have no distinct perception, as when we are in a swoon or in a profound and dreamless sleep. In this state the soul does not differ sensibly from a simple Monad; but since this state is not permanent, and since the soul delivers herself from it, she is something more.

13121. And it does not by any means follow, in that case, that the simple substance is without perception: that, indeed, is impossible, for the reasons given above; for it cannot perish, neither can it subsist without affection of some kind, which is nothing else than its perception. But where there is a great number of minute perceptions, and where nothing is distinct, one is stunned, as when we turn round and round in continual succession in the same direction; whence arises a vertigo, which may cause us to faint, and which prevents us from distinguishing anything. And possibly death may produce this state for a time in animals.

22. And as every present condition of a simple substance is a natural consequence of its antecedent condition, so its present is big with its future.

23. Then, as on awaking from a state of stupor, we become conscious of our perceptions, we must have had perceptions, although unconscious of them, immediately before awaking. For each perception can have no other natural origin but an antecedent perception, as every motion must be derived from one which preceded it.

24. Thus it appears that if there were no distinction—no relief, so to speak—no enhanced flavor in our perceptions, we should continue forever in a state of stupor; and this is the condition of the naked Monad.

25. And so we see that nature has given to animals enhanced perceptions, by the care which she has taken to furnish them with organs which collect many rays of light and many undulations of air, increasing their efficacy by their union. There is something approaching to this in odor, in taste, in touch, and perhaps in a multitude of other senses of which we have no knowledge. I shall presently explain how that which passes in the soul represents that which takes place in the organs.

26. Memory gives to the soul a kind of consecutive action which imitates reason, but must be distinguished from it. We observe that animals, having a perception of something which strikes them, and of which they have previously had a similar perception, expect, through the representation of their memory, the recurrence of that which was associated with it in their previous perception, and incline to the same feelings which they then had. For example, when we show dogs the cane, they remember the pain which it caused them, and whine and run.

27. And the lively imagination, which strikes and excites them, arises from the magnitude or the multitude of their previous perceptions. For often a powerful impression produces suddenly the effect of long habit, or of moderate perceptions often repeated.

28. In men as in brutes, the consecutiveness of their perceptions is due to the principle of memory—like empirics in medicine, who have only practice without theory. And we are mere empirics in three-fourths of our acts. For example, when we expect that the sun will rise to-morrow, we judge so empirically, because it has always risen hitherto. Only the astronomer judges by an act of reason.

29. But the cognition of necessary and eternal truths is that which distinguishes us from mere animals. It is this which gives us Reason and Science, and raises us to the knowledge of ourselves and of God; and it is this in us which we call a reasonable soul or spirit.

30. It is also by the cognition of necessary truths, and by their abstractions, that we rise to acts of reflection, which give us the idea of that which calls itself “I,” and which lead us to consider that this or that is in us. And thus, while thinking of ourselves, we think of Being, of substance, simple or compound, of the immaterial, and of God himself. We conceive that that which in us is limited, is in him without limit. And these reflective acts furnish the principal objects of our reasonings.

31. Our reasonings are founded on two great principles, that of “Contradiction,” by virtue of which we judge that to be false which involves contradiction, and that to be true which is opposed to, or which contradicts the false.

32. And that of the “Sufficient Reason,” 132by virtue of which we judge that no fact can be real or existent, no statement true, unless there be a sufficient reason why it is thus, and not otherwise, although these reasons very often cannot be known to us.

33. There are also two sorts of truths—those of reasoning and those of fact. Truths of reasoning are necessary, and their opposite is impossible; those of fact are contingent, and their opposite is possible. When a truth is necessary, we may discover the reason of it by analysis, resolving it into simpler ideas and truths, until we arrive at those which are ultimate.^[3]

34. It is thus that mathematicians by analysis reduce speculative theorems and practical canons to definitions, axioms and postulates.

35. And finally, there are simple ideas of which no definition can be given; there are also axioms and postulates,—in one word, ultimate principles, which cannot and need not be proved. And these are “Identical Propositions,” of which the opposite contains an express contradiction.

36. But there must also be a sufficient reason for truths contingent, or truths of fact—that is, for the series of things diffused through the universe of creatures—or else the process of resolving into particular reasons might run into a detail without bounds, on account of the immense variety of the things of nature, and of the infinite division of bodies. There is an infinity of figures and of movements, present and past, which enter into the efficient cause of my present writing; and there is an infinity of minute inclinations and dispositions of my soul, present and past, which enter into the final cause of it.

37. And as all this detail only involves other anterior or more detailed contingencies, each one of which again requires a similar analysis in order to account for it, we have made no advance, and the sufficient or final reason must be outside of the series of this detail of contingencies,^[4] endless as it may be.

38. And thus the final reason of things must be found in a necessary Substance, in which the detail of changes exists eminently as their source. And this is that which we call God.

39. Now this Substance being a sufficient reason of all this detail, which also is everywhere linked together, there is but one God, and this God suffices.

40. We may also conclude that this supreme Substance, which is Only,^[5] Universal, and Necessary—having nothing outside of it which is independent of it, and being a simple series of possible beings—must be incapable of limits, and must contain as much of reality as is possible.

41. Whence it follows that God is perfect, perfection being nothing but the magnitude of positive reality taken exactly, setting aside the limits or bounds in that which is limited. And there, where there are no bounds, that is to say, in God, perfection is absolutely infinite.

42. It follows also that the creatures have their perfections from the influence of God, but they have their imperfections from their proper nature, incapable of existing without bounds; for it is by this that they are distinguished from God.

43. It is true, moreover, that God is not only the source of existences, but also of essences, so far as real, or of that which is real in the possible; because the divine understanding is the region of eternal truths, or of the ideas on which they depend, and without Him there would be nothing real in the possibilities, and not only nothing existing, but also nothing possible.

44. At the same time, if there be a reality in the essences or possibilities, or in the eternal truths, this reality must be founded in something existing and actual, consequently in the existence of the necessary Being, in whom essence includes existence, or with whom it is sufficient to be possible in order to be actual.

45. Thus God alone (or the necessary Being) possesses this privilege, that he must exist if possible; and since nothing can hinder the possibility of that which includes no bounds, no negation, and consequently no contradiction, that alone is 133sufficient to establish the existence of God a priori. We have likewise proved it by the reality of eternal truths. But we have also just proved it a posteriori by showing that, since contingent beings exist, they can have their ultimate and sufficient reason only in some necessary Being, who contains the reason of his existence in himself.

46. Nevertheless, we must not suppose, with some, that eternal verities, being dependent upon God, are arbitrary, and depend upon his will, as Des Cartes, and afterward M. Poiret, appear to have conceived. This is true only of contingent truths, the principle of which is fitness, or the choice of the best; whereas necessary truths depend solely on His understanding, and are its internal object.

47. Thus God alone is the primitive Unity, or the simple original substance of which all the created or derived Monads are the products; and they are generated, so to speak, by continual fulgurations of the Divinity, from moment to moment, bounded by the receptivity of the creature, of whose existence limitation is an essential condition.

48. In God is Power, which is the source of all; then Knowledge, which contains the detail of Ideas; and, finally, Will, which generates changes or products according to the principle of optimism. And this answers to what, in created Monads, constitutes the subject or the basis, the perceptive and the appetitive faculty. But in God these attributes are absolutely infinite or perfect, and in the created Monads, or in the Entelechies (or perfectihabiis, as Hermolaus Barbarus translates this word), they are only imitations according to the measure of their perfection.

49. The creature is said to act externally, in so far as it possesses perfection, and to suffer from another (creature) so far as it is imperfect. So we ascribe action to the Monad, so far as it has distinct perceptions, and passion, so far as its perceptions are confused.

50. And one creature is more perfect than another, in this: that we find in it that which serves to account a priori for what passes in the other; and it is therefore said to act upon the other.

51. But in simple substances this is merely an ideal influence of one Monad upon another, which can pass into effect only by the intervention of God, inasmuch as in the ideas of God one Monad has a right to demand that God, in regulating the rest from the commencement of things, shall have regard to it; for since a created Monad can have no physical influence on the interior of another, it is only by this means that one can be dependent on another.

52. And hence it is that actions and passions in creatures are mutual; for God, comparing two simple substances, finds reasons in each which oblige him to accommodate the one to the other. Consequently that which is active in one view, is passive in another—active so far as what we clearly discern in it serves to account for that which takes place in another, and passive so far as the reason of that which passes in it is found in that which is clearly discerned in another.

53. Now, as in the ideas of God there is an infinity of possible worlds, and as only one can exist, there must be a sufficient reason for the choice of God, which determines him to one rather than another.

54. And this reason can be no other than fitness, derived from the different degrees of perfection which these worlds contain, each possible world having a claim to exist according to the measure of perfection which it enfolds.

55. And this is the cause of the existence of that Best, which the wisdom of God discerns, which his goodness chooses, and his power effects.

56. And this connection, or this accommodation of all created things to each, and of each to all, implies in each simple substance relations which express all the rest. Each, accordingly, is a living and perpetual mirror of the universe.

57. And as the same city viewed from different sides appears quite different, and is perspectively multiplied, so, in the infinite multitude of simple substances, there are given, as it were, so many different worlds which yet are only the perspectives 134of a single one, according to the different points of view of each Monad.

58. And this is the way to obtain the greatest possible variety with the greatest possible order—that is to say, the way to obtain the greatest possible perfection.

59. Thus this hypothesis (which I may venture to pronounce demonstrated) is the only one which properly exhibits the greatness of God. And this Mr. Boyle acknowledges, when in his dictionary (Art. Rorarius) he objects to it. He is even disposed to think that I attribute too much to God, that I ascribe to him impossibilities; but he can allege no reason for the impossibility of this universal harmony, by which each substance expresses exactly the perfections of all the rest through its relations with them.

60. We see, moreover, in that which I have just stated, the a priori reasons why things could not be other than they are. God, in ordering the whole, has respect to each part, and specifically to each Monad, whose nature being representative, is by nothing restrained from representing the whole of things, although, it is true, this representation must needs be confused, as it regards the detail of the universe, and can be distinct only in relation to a small part of things, that is, in relation to those which are nearest, or whose relations to any given Monad are greatest. Otherwise each Monad would be a divinity. The Monads are limited, not in the object, but in the mode of their knowledge of the object. They all tend confusedly to the infinite, to the whole; but they are limited and distinguished by the degrees of distinctness in their perceptions.

61. And compounds symbolize in this with simples. For since the world is a plenum, and all matter connected, and as in a plenum every movement has some effect on distant bodies, in proportion to their distance, so that each body is affected not only by those in actual contact with it, and feels in some way all that happens to them, but also through their means is affected by others in contact with those by which it is immediately touched—it follows that this communication extends to any distance. Consequently, each body feels all that passes in the universe, so that he who sees all, may read in each that which passes everywhere else, and even that which has been and shall be, discerning in the present that which is removed in time as well as in space. “Συμπνόιει Πάντα,” says Hippocrates. But each soul can read in itself only that which is distinctly represented in it. It cannot unfold its laws at once, for they reach into the infinite.

62. Thus, though every created Monad represents the entire universe, it represents more distinctly the particular body to which it belongs, and whose Entelechy it is: and as this body expresses the entire universe, through the connection of all matter in a plenum, the soul represents also the entire universe in representing that body which especially belongs to it.

63. The body belonging to a Monad, which is its Entelechy or soul, constitutes, with its Entelechy, what may be termed a living (thing), and, with its soul, what may be called an animal. And the body of a living being, or of an animal, is always organic; for every Monad, being a mirror of the universe, according to its fashion, and the universe being arranged with perfect order, there must be the same order in the representative—that is, in the perceptions of the soul, and consequently of the body according to which the universe is represented in it.

64. Thus each organic living body is a species of divine machine, or a natural automaton, infinitely surpassing all artificial automata. A machine made by human art is not a machine in all its parts. For example, the tooth of a brass wheel has parts or fragments which are not artificial to us; they have nothing which marks the machine in their relation to the use for which the wheel is designed; but natural machines—that is, living bodies—are still machines in their minutest parts, ad infinitum. This makes the difference between nature and art, that is to say, between the Divine art and ours.

65. And the author of nature was able to exercise this divine and infinitely wonderful art, inasmuch as every portion of nature is not only infinitely divisible, as 135the ancients knew, but is actually subdivided without end—each part into parts, of which each has its own movement. Otherwise, it would be impossible that each portion of matter should express the universe.

66. Whence it appears that there is a world of creatures, of living (things), of animals, of Entelechies, of souls, in the minutest portion of matter.

67. Every particle of matter may be conceived as a garden of plants, or as a pond full of fishes. But each branch of each plant, each member of each animal, each drop of their humors, is in turn another such garden or pond.

68. And although the earth and the air embraced between the plants in the garden, or the water between the fishes of the pond, are not themselves plant or fish, they nevertheless contain such, but mostly too minute for our perception.

69. So there is no uncultured spot, no barrenness, no death in the universe—no chaos, no confusion, except in appearance, as it might seem in a pond at a distance, in which one should see a confused motion and swarming, so to speak, of the fishes of the pond, without distinguishing the fishes themselves.

70. We see, then, that each living body has a governing Entelechy, which in animals is the soul of the animal. But the members of this living body are full of other living bodies—plants, animals—each of which has its Entelechy, or regent soul.

71. We must not, however, suppose—as some who misapprehended my thought have done—that each soul has a mass or portion of matter proper to itself, or forever united to it, and that it consequently possesses other inferior living existences, destined forever to its service. For all bodies are in a perpetual flux, like rivers. Their particles are continually coming and going.

72. Thus the soul does not change its body except by degrees. It is never deprived at once of all its organs. There are often metamorphoses in animals, but never Metempsychosis—no transmigration of souls. Neither are there souls entirely separated (from bodies), nor genii without bodies. God alone is wholly without body.

73. For which reason, also, there is never complete generation nor perfect death—strictly considered—consisting in the separation of the soul. That which we call generation, is development and accretion; and that which we call death, is envelopment and diminution.

74. Philosophers have been much troubled about the origin of forms, of Entelechies, or souls. But at the present day, when, by accurate investigations of plants, insects and animals, they have become aware that the organic bodies of nature are never produced from chaos or from putrefaction, but always from seed, in which undoubtedly there had been a preformation; it has been inferred that not only the organic body existed in that seed before conception, but also a soul in that body—in one word, the animal itself—and that, by the act of conception, this animal is merely disposed to a grand transformation, to become an animal of another species. We even see something approaching this, outside of generation, as when worms become flies, or when caterpillars become butterflies.

75. Those animals, of which some are advanced to a higher grade, by means of conception, may be called spermatic; but those among them which remain in their kind—that is to say, the greater portion—are born, multiply, and are destroyed, like the larger animals, and only a small number of the elect among them, pass to a grander theatre.

76. But this is only half the truth. I have concluded that if the animal does not begin to be in the order of nature, it also does not cease to be in the order of nature, and that not only there is no generation, but no entire destruction—no death, strictly considered. And these a posteriori conclusions, drawn from experience, accord perfectly with my principles deduced a priori, as stated above.

77. Thus we may say, not only that the soul (mirror of an indestructible universe) is indestructible, but also the animal itself, although its machine may often perish in part, and put off or put on organic spoils.

13678. These principles have furnished me with a natural explanation of the union, or rather the conformity between the soul and the organized body. The soul follows its proper laws, and the body likewise follows those which are proper to it, and they meet in virtue of the preëstablished harmony which exists between all substances, as representations of one and the same universe.

79. Souls act according to the laws of final causes, by appetitions, means and ends; bodies act according to the laws of efficient causes, or the laws of motion. And the two kingdoms, that of efficient causes and that of final causes, harmonize with each other.

80. Des Cartes perceived that souls communicate no force to bodies, because the quantity of force in matter is always the same. Nevertheless, he believed that souls might change the direction of bodies. But this was because the world was at that time ignorant of the law of nature, which requires the conservation of the same total direction in matter. Had he known this, he would have hit upon my system of preëstablished harmony.

81. According to this system, bodies act as if there were no souls, and souls act as if there were no bodies; and yet both act as though the one influenced the other.

82. As to spirits, or rational souls, although I find that at bottom the same principle which I have stated—namely, that animals and souls begin with the world and end only with the world—holds with regard to all animals and living things, yet there is this peculiarity in rational animals, that although their spermatic animalcules, as such, have only ordinary or sensitive souls, yet as soon as those of them which are elected, so to speak, arrive by the act of conception at human nature, their sensitive souls are elevated to the rank of reason and to the prerogative of spirits.

83. Among other differences which distinguish spirits from ordinary souls, some of which have already been indicated, there is also this: that souls in general are living mirrors, or images of the universe of creatures, but spirits are, furthermore, images of Divinity itself, or of the Author of Nature, capable of cognizing the system of the universe, and of imitating something of it by architectonic experiments, each spirit being, as it were, a little divinity in its own department.

84. Hence spirits are able to enter into a kind of fellowship with God. In their view he is not merely what an inventor is to his machine (as God is in relation to other creatures), but also what a prince is to his subjects, and even what a father is to his children.

85. Whence it is easy to conclude that the assembly of all spirits must constitute the City of God—that is to say, the most perfect state possible, under the most perfect of monarchs.

86. This City of God, this truly universal monarchy, is a moral world within the natural; and it is the most exalted and the most divine among the works of God. It is in this that the glory of God most truly consists, which glory would be wanting if his greatness and his goodness were not recognized and admired by spirits. It is in relation to this Divine City that he possesses, properly speaking, the attribute of goodness, whereas his wisdom and his power are everywhere manifest.

87. As we have established above, a perfect harmony between the two natural kingdoms—the one of efficient causes, the other of final causes—so it behooves us to notice here also a still further harmony between the physical kingdom of nature and the moral kingdom of grace—that is to say, between God considered as the architect of the machine of the universe, and God considered as monarch of the divine City of Spirits.

88. This harmony makes all things conduce to grace by natural methods. This globe, for example, must be destroyed and repaired by natural means, at such seasons as the government of spirits may require, for the chastisement of some and the recompense of others.

89. We may say, furthermore, that God as architect contains entirely God as legislator, and that accordingly sins must carry their punishment with them in the order of nature, by virtue even of the mechanical 137structure of things, and that good deeds in like manner will bring their recompense, through their connection with bodies, although this cannot, and ought not always to, take place on the spot.

90. Finally, under this perfect government, there will be no good deed without its recompense, and no evil deed without its punishment, and all must redound to the advantage of the good—that is to say, of those who are not malcontents—in this great commonwealth, who confide in Providence after having done their duty, and who worthily love and imitate the Author of all good, pleasing themselves with the contemplation of his perfections, following the nature of pure and genuine Love, which makes us blest in the happiness of the loved. In this spirit, the wise and good labor for that which appears to be conformed to the divine will, presumptive or antecedent, contented the while with all that God brings to pass by his secret will, consequent and decisive,—knowing that if we were sufficiently acquainted with the order of the universe we should find that it surpasses all the wishes of the wisest, and that it could not be made better than it is, not only for all in general, but for ourselves in particular, if we are attached, as is fitting, to the Author of All, not only as the architect and efficient cause of our being, but also as our master and the final cause, who should be the whole aim of our volition, and who alone can make us blest.

A CRITICISM OF PHILOSOPHICAL SYSTEMS. [Translated from the German of J. G. Fichte, by A. E. Kroeger.]

[Note.—The following completes Fichte’s Second Introduction to the Science of Knowledge, or his Criticism of Philosophical Systems. In the first division of what follows, Fichte traces out his own transcendental standpoint in the Kantian Philosophy, and next proceeds, in the second division, to connect it with what was printed in our previous number, criticising without mercy the dogmatic standpoint. By the completion of this article, we have given to the readers of our Journal Fichte’s own great Introductions to that Science of Knowledge, which is about to be made accessible to American readers through the publishing house of Messrs. Lippincott & Co., Philadelphia. Our readers are, therefore, especially prepared to enter upon a study of Fichte’s wonderful system, for none of these Introductions, as indeed none of Fichte’s works of Science, have ever before been published in the English language. In a subsequent number we shall print Fichte’s “Sun-clear Statement regarding the true nature of the Science of Knowledge,” a masterly exhibition of the treatment of scientific subjects in a popular form. We hope that all who have read, or will read these articles, will also enter upon a study of the great work which they are designed to prepare for; the study is worth the pains.—Editor.]

I.

It is not the habit of the Science of Knowledge, nor of its author, to seek protection under any authority whatever. The person who has first to see whether this doctrine agrees with the doctrine of somebody else before he is willing to be convinced by it, is not one whom this science calculates to convince, because the absolute self-activity and independent faith in himself which this science presupposes, is wanting in him.

It was therefore quite a different motive than a desire to recommend his doctrines, which led the author of the Science of Knowledge to state that his doctrine was in perfect harmony with Kant’s doctrine, and was indeed the very same. In this opinion he has been confirmed by the continued elaboration of his system, which he was compelled to undertake. Nevertheless, all others who pass for students of Kant’s philosophy, and who have spoken on the subject—whether they were friends or opponents of the Science of Knowledge—have unanimously asserted the contrary; and by their advice, even Kant himself, who ought certainly best to understand himself, asserts the contrary. If the author of the Science of Knowledge were disposed towards a certain manner of thinking, this would be welcome news to him. Moreover, since he considers it no disgrace to have misunderstood Kant, and 138foresees that to have misunderstood him will soon be considered no disgrace by general opinion, he ought surely not to hesitate to assume that disgrace, especially as it would confer upon him the honor of being the first discoverer of a philosophy which will certainly become universal, and be productive of the most beneficial results for mankind.

It is indeed scarcely explicable why friends and opponents of the Science of Knowledge so zealously contradict that assertion of its author, and why they so earnestly request him to prove it, although he never promised to do so, nay, expressly refused, since such a proof would rather belong to a future History of Philosophy than to a present representation of that system. The opponents of the Science of Knowledge in thus calling for a proof, are certainly not impelled by a tender regard for the fame of the author of that Science; and the friends of it might surely leave the subject alone, as I myself have no taste for such an honor, and seek the only honor which I know, in quite a different direction. Do they clamor for this proof in order to escape my charge, that they did not understand the writings of Kant? But such an accusation from the lips of the author of the Science of Knowledge is surely no reproach, since he confesses as loudly as possible, that he also has not understood them, and that only after he had discovered in his own way the Science of Knowledge, did he find a correct and harmonious interpretation of Kant’s writings. Indeed, that charge will soon cease to be a reproach from the lips of anybody. But perhaps this clamor is raised to escape the charge that they did not recognize their own doctrine, so zealously defended by them, when it was placed before them in a different shape from their own. If this is the case, I should like to save them this reproach also, if there were not another interest, which to me appears higher than theirs, and to which their interest shall be sacrificed. The fact is, I do not wish to be considered for one moment more than I am, nor to ascribe to myself a merit which I do not possess.

I shall therefore, in all probability, be compelled to enter upon the proof which they so earnestly demand, and hence improve the opportunity at present offered to me.

The Science of Knowledge starts, as we have just now seen, from an intellectual contemplation, from the absolute self-activity of the Ego.

Now it would seem beyond a doubt, and evident to all the readers of Kant’s writings, that this man has declared himself on no subject more decisively, nay, I might say contemptuously, than in denying this power of an intellectual contemplation. This denial seems so thoroughly rooted in the Kantian System, that, after all the elaboration of his philosophy, which he has undertaken since^[6] the appearance of the Critique of Pure Reason, and by means of which, as will be evident to any one, the propositions of that first work have received a far higher clearness and development than they originally possessed;—he yet, in one of his latest works, feels constrained to repeat those assertions with undiminished energy, and to show that the present style of philosophy, which treats all labor and exertion with contempt, as well as a most disastrous fanaticism, have resulted from the phantom of an intellectual contemplation.

Is any further proof needed, that a Philosophy, which is based on the very thing so decidedly rejected by the Kantian System, must be precisely the opposite of that system, and must be moreover the very senseless and disastrous system, of which Kant speaks in that work of his? Perhaps, however, it might be well first to inquire, whether the same word may not express two utterly different conceptions in the two systems. In Kant’s terminology, all contemplation is directed upon a Being (a permanent Remaining); and intellectual contemplation would thus signify in his system the immediate consciousness of a non-sensuous Being, or the immediate consciousness (through pure thinking) of the thing per se; and hence a creation of the 139thing per se through its conception, in nearly the same manner as the existence of God is demonstrated from the mere conception of God;—those who do so must look upon God’s existence as a mere sequence of their thinking. Now Kant’s system—taking the direction it did take—may have considered it necessary in this manner to keep the thing per se at a respectful distance. But the Science of Knowledge has finished the thing per se in another manner; that Science knows it to be the completest perversion of reason, a purely irrational conception. To that science all being is necessarily sensuous, for it evolves the very conception of Being from the form of sensuousness. That science regards the intellectual contemplation of Kant’s system as a phantasm, which vanishes the moment one attempts to think it, and which indeed is not worth a name at all. The intellectual contemplation, whereof the Science of Knowledge speaks, is not at all directed upon a Being, but upon an Activity; and Kant does not even designate it, (unless you wish to take the expression “Pure apperception” for such a designation). Nevertheless, it can be clearly shown where in Kant’s System it ought to have been mentioned. I hope that the categorical imperative of Kant occurs in consciousness, according to his System. Now what sort of consciousness is this of the categorical imperative? This question Kant never proposed to himself, because he never treated of the basis of all Philosophy. In his Critique of Pure Reason he treated only of theoretical Philosophy, and could therefore not introduce the categorical imperative; in his Critique of Practical Reason, he treated only of practical Philosophy, wherein the question concerning the manner of consciousness could not arise.

This consciousness is doubtless an immediate, but no sensuous consciousness—hence exactly what I call intellectual contemplation. Now, since we have no classical author in Philosophy, I give it the latter name, with the same right with which Kant gives it to something else, which is a mere nothing; and with the same right I insist that people ought first to become acquainted with the significance of my terminology before proceeding to judge my system.

My most estimable friend, the Rev. Mr. Schulz—to whom I had made known my indefinite idea of building up the whole Science of Philosophy on the pure Ego, long before I had thoroughly digested that idea, and whom I found less opposed to it than any one else—has a remarkable passage on this subject. In his review of Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason, he says: “The pure, active self-consciousness, in which really every one’s Ego consists, must not be confounded—for the very reason because it can and must teach us in an immediate manner—with the power of contemplation, and must not be made to involve the doctrine that we are in possession of a supersensuous, intellectual power of contemplation. For we call contemplation a representation, which is immediately related to an object. But pure self-consciousness is not representation, but is rather that which first makes a representation to become really a representation. If I say, ‘I represent something to myself,’ it signifies just the same as if I said, ‘I am conscious that I have a representation of this object.’”

According to Mr. Schulz, therefore, a representation is that whereof consciousness is possible. Now Mr. Schulz also speaks of pure self-consciousness. Undoubtedly he knows whereof he speaks, and hence, as philosopher, he most truly has a representation of pure self-consciousness. It was not of this consciousness of the philosopher, however, that Mr. Schulz spoke, but of original consciousness; and hence the significance of his assertion is this: Originally (i. e. in common consciousness without philosophical reflection) mere self-consciousness does not constitute full consciousness, but is merely a necessary compound, which makes full consciousness first possible. But is it not the same with sensuous contemplation? Does sensuous contemplation constitute a consciousness, or is it not rather merely that whereby a representation first becomes a representation? Contemplation without conception is confessedly 140blind. How, then, can Mr. Schulz call (sensuous) contemplation (excluding from it self-consciousness) representation? From the standpoint of the philosopher, as we have just seen, self-consciousness is equally representation; from the standpoint of original contemplation, sensuous contemplation is equally not representation. Or does the conception constitute a representation? The conception without contemplation is confessedly empty. In truth, self-consciousness, sensuous contemplation, and conception, are, in their isolated separateness, not representations—they are only that through which representations become possible. According to Kant, to Schulz, and to myself, a complete representation contains a threefold: 1st. That whereby the representation relates itself to an object, and becomes the representative of a Something—and this we unanimously call the sensuous contemplation (even if I am myself the object of my representation, it is by virtue of a sensuous contemplation, for then I become to myself a permanent in time); 2d. That through which the representation relates itself to the subject, and becomes my representation; this I also call contemplation (but intellectual contemplation), because it has the same relation to the complete representation which the sensuous contemplation has; but Kant and Schulz do not want it called so; and, 3d. That through which both are united, and only in this union become representation; and this we again unanimously call conception.

But to state it tersely: what is really the Science of Knowledge in two words? It is this: Reason is absolutely self-determined; Reason is only for Reason; but for Reason there is also nothing but Reason. Hence, everything, which Reason is, must be grounded in itself, and out of itself, but not in or out of another—some external other, which it could never grasp without giving up itself. In short, the Science of Knowledge is transcendental idealism. Again, what is the content of the Kantian system in two words? I confess that I cannot conceive it possible how any one can understand even one sentence of Kant, and harmonize it with others, except on the same presupposition which the Science of Knowledge has just asserted. I believe that that presupposition is the everlasting refrain of his system; and I confess that one of the reasons why I refused to prove the agreement of the Science of Knowledge with Kant’s system was this: It appeared to me somewhat too ridiculous and too tedious to show up the forest by pointing out the several trees in it.

I will cite here one chief passage from Kant. He says: “The highest principle of the possibility of all contemplation in relation to the understanding is this: that all the manifold be subject to the conditions of the original unity of apperception.” That is to say, in other words, “That something which is contemplated be also thought, is only possible on condition that the possibility of the original unity of apperception can coexist with it.” Now since, according to Kant, contemplation also is possible only on condition that it be thought and comprehended—otherwise it would remain blind—and since contemplation itself is thus subject to the conditions of the possibility of thinking—it follows that, according to Kant, not only Thinking immediately, but by the mediation of thinking, contemplation also, and hence all consciousness, is subject to the conditions of the original unity of apperception.

Now, what is this condition? It is true, Kant speaks of conditions, but he states only one as a fundamental condition. What is this condition of the original unity of apperception? It is this (see § 16 of the Critique of Pure Reason), “that my representations can be accompanied by the ‘I think’”—the word “I” alone is italicised by Kant, and this is somewhat important; that is to say, I am the thinking in this thinking.

Of what “I” does Kant speak here? Perhaps of the Ego, which his followers quietly heap together by a manifold of representations, in no single one of which it was, but in all of which collectively it now is said to be. Then the words of Kant would signify this: I, who think D, am the same I who thought A, B and C, 141and it is only through the thinking of my manifold thinking, that I first became I to myself—that is to say, the identical in the manifold? In that case Kant would have been just such a pitiable tattler as these Kantians; for in that case the possibility of all thinking would be conditioned, according to him, by another thinking, and by the thinking of this thinking; and I should like to know how we could ever arrive at a thinking.

But, instead of tracing the consequences of Kant’s statement, I merely intended to cite his own words. He says again: “This representation, ‘I think,’ is an act of spontaneity, i. e. it cannot be considered as belonging to ‘sensuousness’.“ (I add: and hence, also, not to inner sensuousness, to which the above described identity of consciousness most certainly does belong.) Kant continues: “I call it pure apperception, in order to distinguish it from the empirical (just described) apperception, and because it is that self-consciousness, which, in producing the representation ‘I think’—which must accompany all other representations, and is in all consciousness one and the same—can itself be accompanied by no other representation.”

Here the character of pure self-consciousness is surely clearly enough described. It is in all consciousness the same—hence undeterminable by any accident of consciousness; in it the Ego is only determined through itself, and is thus absolutely determined. It is also clear here, that Kant could not have understood this pure apperception to mean the consciousness of our individuality, nor could he have taken the latter for the former; for the consciousness of my individuality, as an I, is necessarily conditioned by, and only possible through, the consciousness of another individuality, a Thou.

Hence we discover in Kant’s writings the conception of the pure Ego exactly as the Science of Knowledge has described it, and completely determined. Again, in what relation does Kant, in the above passage, place this pure Ego to all consciousness? As conditioning the same. Hence, according to Kant, the possibility of all consciousness is conditioned by the possibility of the pure Ego, or by pure self-consciousness, just as the Science of Knowledge holds. In thinking, the conditioning is made the prior of the conditioned—for this is the significance of that relation; and thus it appears that, according to Kant, a systematic deduction of all consciousness, or, which is the same, a System of Philosophy, must proceed from the pure Ego, just as the Science of Knowledge proceeds; and Kant himself has thus suggested the idea of such a Science.

But some one might wish to weaken this argument by the following distinction: It is one thing to condition, and another to determine.

According to Kant, all consciousness is only conditioned by self-consciousness; i. e. the content of that consciousness may have its ground in something else than self-consciousness; provided the results of that grounding do not contradict the conditions of self-consciousness; those results need not proceed from self-consciousness, provided they do not cancel its possibility.

But, according to the Science of Knowledge, all consciousness is determined through self-consciousness; i. e. everything which occurs in consciousness is grounded, given and produced by the conditions of self-consciousness, and a ground of the same in something other than self-consciousness does not exist at all.

Now, to meet this argument, I must show that in the present case the determinateness follows immediately from the conditionedness, and that, therefore, the distinction drawn between both is not valid in this instance. Whosoever says, “All consciousness is conditioned by the possibility of self-consciousness, and as such I now propose to consider it,” knows in this his investigation, nothing more concerning consciousness, and abstracts from everything he may believe, further to know concerning it. He deduces what is required from the asserted principle, and only what he thus has deduced as consciousness is for him consciousness, and everything else is and remains nothing. Thus the derivability from self-consciousness determines 142for him the extent of that which he holds to be consciousness, because he starts from the presupposition that all consciousness is conditioned by the possibility of self-consciousness.

Now I know very well that Kant has by no means built up such a system; for if he had, the author of the Science of Knowledge would not have undertaken that work, but would have chosen another branch of human knowledge for his field. I know that he has by no means proven his categories to be conditions of self-consciousness; I know that he has simply asserted them so to be; that he has still less deduced time and space, and that which in original consciousness is inseparable from them—the matter which fills time and space—as such conditions; since of these he has not even expressly stated, as he has done in the case of the categories, that they are such conditions. But I believe I know quite as well that Kant has thought such a system; that all his writings and utterances are fragments and results of this system, and that his assertions get meaning and intention only through this presupposition. Whether he did not himself think this system with sufficient clearness and definiteness to enable him to utter it for others; or whether he did, indeed, think it thus clearly and merely did not want so to utter it, as some remarks would seem to indicate, might, it seems to me, be left undecided; at least somebody else must investigate this matter, for I have never asserted anything on this point.^[7] But, however such an investigation may result, this merit surely belongs altogether to the great man; that he first of all consciously separated philosophy from external objects, and led that science into the Self. This is the spirit and the inmost soul of all his philosophy, and this also is the spirit and soul of the Science of Knowledge.

I am reminded of a chief distinction which is said to exist between the Science of Knowledge and Kant’s system, and a distinction which but recently has been again insisted upon by a man who is justly supposed to have understood Kant, and who has shown that he also has understood the Science of Knowledge. This man is Reinhold, who, in a late essay, in endeavoring to prove that I have done injustice to myself, and to other successful students of Kant’s writings—in stating what I have just now reiterated and proved, i. e. that Kant’s system and the Science of Knowledge are the same—proceeds to remark: “The ground of our assertion, that there is an external something corresponding to our representations, is most certainly held by the Critique of Pure Reason to be contained in the Ego; but only in so far as empirical knowledge (experience) has taken place in the Ego as a fact; that is to say, the Critique of Pure Reason holds that this empirical knowledge has its ground in the pure Ego only in relation to its transcendental content, which is the form of that knowledge; but in regard to its empirical content, which gives that knowledge objective validity, it is grounded in the Ego through a something which is not the Ego. Now, a scientific form of philosophy was not possible so long as that something, which is not Ego, was looked for outside of the Ego as ground of the objective reality of the transcendental content of the Ego.”

Thus Reinhold. I have not convinced my readers, or demonstrated my proof, until I have met this objection.

The (purely historical) question is this: Has Kant really placed the ground of experience (in its empirical content) in a something different from the Ego?

I know very well that all the Kantians, except Mr. Beck, whose work appeared after the publication of the Science of Knowledge, have really understood Kant to say this. Nay, the last interpreter of 143Kant, Mr. Schulz, whom Kant himself has endorsed, thus interprets him. How often does Mr. Schulz admit that the objective ground of the appearances is contained in something which is a thing in itself, &c., &c. We have just seen how Reinhold also interprets Kant.

Now it may seem presumptuous for one man to arise and say: “Up to this moment, amongst a number of worthy scholars who have devoted their time and energies to the interpretation of a certain book, not a single one has understood that book otherwise than utterly falsely; they all have discovered in that system the very doctrine which it refutes—dogmatism, instead of transcendental idealism; and I alone understand it rightly.” Yet this presumption might be but seemingly so; for it is to be hoped that other persons will adopt that one man’s views, and that, therefore, he will not always stand alone. There are other reasons why it is not very presumptuous to contradict the whole number of Kantians, but I will not mention them here.

But what is most curious in this matter is this—the discovery that Kant did not intend to speak of a something different from the Ego, is by no means a new one. For ten years everybody could read the most thorough and complete proof of it in Jacobi’s “Idealism and Realism,” and in his “Transcendental Idealism.” In those works, Jacobi has put together the most evident and decisive passages from Kant’s writings on this subject, in Kant’s own words. I do not like to do again what has once been done, and cannot be done better; and I refer my readers with the more pleasure to those works, as they, like all philosophical writings of Jacobi, may be even yet of advantage to them.

A few questions, however, I propose to address to those interpreters of Kant. Tell me, how far does the applicability of the categories extend, according to Kant, particularly of the category of causality? Clearly only to the field of appearances, and hence only to that which is already in us and for us. But in what manner do we then come to accept a something different from the Ego, as the ground of the empirical content of Knowledge? I answer: only by drawing a conclusion from the grounded to the ground; hence by applying the category of causality. Thus, indeed, Kant himself discovers it to be, and hence rejects the assumption of things, &c., &c., outside of us. But his interpreters make him forget for the present instance the validity of categories generally, and make him arrive, by a bold leap, from the world of appearances to the thing per se outside of us. Now, how do these interpreters justify this inconsequence?

Kant evidently speaks of a thing per se. But what is this thing to him? A noumenon, as we can find in many passages of his writings. Reinhold and Schulz also hold it to be a noumenon. Now, what is a noumenon? According to Kant, to Reinhold, and Schulz, a something, which our thinking—by laws to be shown up, and which Kant has shown up—adds to the appearance, and which must so be added in thought;^[8] which, therefore, is produced only through our thinking; not, however, through our free, but through a necessary thinking, which is only for our thinking—for us thinking beings.

But what do those interpreters make of this noumenon or thing in itself? The thought of this thing in itself is grounded in sensation, and sensation they again assert to be grounded in the thing in itself. Their globe rests on the great elephant, and the great elephant—rests on the globe. Their thing in itself, which is a mere thought, they say affects the Ego. Have they then forgotten their first speech, and is the thing, per se, which a moment ago was but a mere thought, now turned into something more? Or do they seriously mean to apply to a mere thought, the exclusive predicate of reality, i. e. causality? And such teachings are put forth as the 144astonishing discoveries of the great genius, who, with his torch, lights up the retrograde philosophical century.

It is but too well known to me that the Kantianism of the Kantians is precisely the just described system—is really this monstrous composition of the most vulgar dogmatism, which allows things per se to make impressions upon us, and of the most decided idealism, which allows all being to be generated only through the thinking of the intelligence, and which knows nothing of any other sort of being. From what I am yet going to say on this subject, I except two men—Reinhold, because with a power of mind and a love of truth which do credit to his heart and head, he has abandoned this system, (which, however, he still holds to be the Kantian system, and I only disagree with him on this purely historical question,) and Schulz, because he has of late been silent on philosophical questions, which leaves it fair to assume that he has begun to doubt his former system.

But concerning the others, it must be acknowledged by all who have still their inner sense sufficiently under control to be able to distinguish between being and thinking and not to mix both together, that a system which thus mixes being and thinking receives but too much honor if it is spoken of seriously. To be sure, very few men may be properly required to overcome the natural tendency towards dogmatism sufficiently to lift themselves up to the free flight of Speculation. What was impossible for a man of overwhelming mental activity like Jacobi, how can it be expected of certain other men, whom I would rather not name? But that these incurable dogmatists should have persuaded themselves that Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason was food for them; that they had the boldness to conclude—since Kant’s writings had been praised (God may know by what chance!) in some celebrated journal—they might also now follow the fashion and become Kantians; that since then, for years, they, in their intoxication, have be-written many a ream of valuable paper, without ever, in all this time, having come to their senses, or understood but one period of all they have written; that up to the present day, though they have been somewhat rudely shaken, they have not been able to rub the sleep out of their eyes, but rather prefer to beat and kick about them, in the hope of striking some of these unwelcome disturbers of their peace; and that the German public, so desirous of acquiring knowledge, should have bought their blackened paper with avidity, and attempted to suck up the spirit of it—nay, should even, perhaps, have copied and recopied these writings without ever clearly perceiving that there was no sense in them: all this will forever, in the annals of philosophy, remain the disgrace of our century, and our posterity will be able to explain these occurrences of our times only on the presupposition of a mental epidemic, which had taken hold of this age.

But, will these interpreters reply: your argument is, after all—if we abstract from Jacobi’s writings, which, to be sure, are rather hard to swallow, since they quote Kant’s own words—no more than this: it is absurd; hence Kant cannot have meant to say it. Now, if we admit the absurdity, as unfortunately we must, why, then, might not Kant have said these absurdities, just as well as we others, amongst whom there are some, of whom you yourself confess the merits, and to whom you doubtless will not deny all sound understanding?

I reply: to be the inventor of a system is one thing, and to be his commentators and successors, another. What, in case of the latter, would not testify to an absolute want of sound sense, might certainly evince it in the former. The ground is this: the latter are not yet possessed of the idea of the whole—for if they were so possessed, there would be no necessity for them to study the system; they are merely to construct it out of the parts which the inventor hands over to them; and all these parts are, in their minds, not fully determined, rounded off, and made smooth, until they are united into a natural whole. Now, this construction of the parts may require some time, and during this time it may 145occur that these men determine some parts inaccurately, and hence place them in contradiction with the whole, of which they are not yet possessed. The discoverer of the idea of the whole, on the contrary, proceeds from this idea, in which all parts are united, and these parts he separately places before his readers, because only thus can he communicate the whole. The work of the former is a synthetizing of that which they do not yet possess, but are to obtain through the synthesis; the work of the latter is an analyzing of that which he already possesses. It is very possible that the former may not be aware of the contradiction in which the several parts stand to the whole which is to be composed of them, for they may not have got so far yet as to compare them. But it is quite certain that the latter, who proceeded from the composite, must have thought, or believed that he thought, the contradiction which is in the parts of his representation—for he certainly at one time held all the parts together. It is not absurd to think dogmatism now, and in another moment transcendental idealism; for this we all do, and must do, if we wish to philosophize about both systems; but it is absurd to think both systems as one. The interpreters of Kant’s system do not necessarily think it thus as one; but the author of that system must certainly have done so if his system was intended to effect such a union.

Now, I, at least, am utterly incapable of believing such an absurdity on the part of any one who has his senses; how, then, can I believe Kant to have been guilty of it? Unless Kant, therefore, declares expressly in so many words, that he deduces sensation from an impression of the thing, per se, or, to use his own terminology, that sensation must be explained in philosophy, from a transcendental object which exists outside of us, I shall not believe what these interpreters tell us of Kant. But if he does make this declaration, I shall consider the Critique of Pure Reason rather as the result of the most marvellous accident than as the product of a mind.

But, say our opponents, does not Kant state expressly that “The object is given to us,” and “that this is possible because the object affects us as in a certain manner,” and “that there is a power of attaining representations by the manner in which objects affect us, which power is called sensuousness.” Nay, Kant says even this: “How should our knowledge be awakened into exercise if it were not done by objects that touch our senses and partly produce representations themselves, while partly putting our power of understanding into motion, to compare, connect and separate these representations, and thus to form the raw material of our sensuous impressions into a knowledge which is called experience.” Well, these are probably all the passages which can be adduced by our opponents. Now, putting merely passages against passages, and words against words, and abstracting altogether from the idea of the whole, which I assume these interpreters never to have had, let me ask first, if these passages could really not be united with Kant’s other frequently repeated statements, viz., that it is folly to speak of an impression produced upon us by an external transcendental object,—how did it happen that these interpreters preferred to sacrifice the many statements, which assert a transcendental idealism, to these few passages, which assert a dogmatism, than vice versa? Doubtless because they did not attempt the study of Kant’s writings with an impartial mind, but had their heads full of that dogmatism—which constitutes their very being—as the only correct system, which they assumed such a sensible man as Kant must necessarily also hold to be the only correct system; and because they thus did not seek to be taught by Kant, but merely to be confirmed by him in their old way of thinking.

But cannot these seemingly opposite statements be united? Kant speaks in these passages of objects. What this word is to signify, we clearly must learn from Kant himself. He says: “It is the understanding which adds the object to the appearance, by connecting the manifold of the appearance in one consciousness. When this is done, we say we know the 146object, for we have effected a synthetical unity in the manifold of the contemplation, and the conception of this unity is the representation of the object = X. But this X is not the transcendental object (i. e. the thing per se), for of that we know not even so much.”

What, then, is this object? That which the understanding adds to the appearance, a mere thought. Now, the object affects—i. e. something which is a mere thought affects. What does this mean? If I have but a spark of logic, it means simply: it affects in so far as it is; hence it is only thought as affecting. Let us now see what Kant means when he speaks about the “power to obtain representations by the manner in which objects affect us.” Since we only think the affection itself, we doubtless only think likewise that which is common to the affection. Or: if you posit an object with the thought that it has affected you, you think yourself in this case affected; and if you think that this occurs in respect to all the objects of your perception, you think yourself as liable to be affected generally—or, in other words, you ascribe to yourself, through this your thinking, receptivity or sensuousness.

But do we not thus assume, after all, affection to explain knowledge? Let me state the difference in one word: it is true, all our knowledge proceeds from an affection, but not an affection through an object. This is Kant’s doctrine, and that of the Science of Knowledge. As Mr. Beck has overlooked this important point, and as Reinhold does not call sufficient attention to that which makes the positing of a non-Ego possible, I consider it proper to explain the matter in a few words. In doing so I shall use my own terminology, and not Kant’s, because I naturally have my own more at my command.

When I posit myself, I posit myself as a limited; in consequence of the contemplation of my self-positing, I am finite.

This, my limitedness—since it is the condition which makes my self-positing possible—is an original limitedness. Somebody might wish to explain this still further, and either deduce the limitedness of myself as the reflected, from my necessary limitedness as the reflecting; which would result in the statement: I am finite to myself, because I can think only the finite;—or he might explain the limitedness of the reflecting from that of the reflected, which would result in the statement: I can think only the finite, because I am finite. But such an explanation would explain nothing, for I am originally neither the reflecting nor the reflected, but both in their union; which union I cannot think, it is true, because I separate, in thinking, the reflecting from the reflected.

All limitedness is, by its very conception, a determined, and not a general limitedness.

From the possibility of an Ego, we have thus deduced the necessity of a general limitedness of the Ego. But the determinedness of this limitedness cannot be deduced, since it is, as we have seen, that which conditions all Egoness. Here, therefore, all deduction is at an end. This determinedness appears as the absolutely accidental, and furnishes the merely empirical of our knowledge. It is this determinedness, for instance, by virtue of which I am, amongst all possible rational beings, a man, and amongst all men this particular person, &c., &c.

This, my limitation, in its determinedness, manifests itself as a limitation of my practical power (here philosophy is therefore driven from the theoretical to the practical sphere); and the immediate perception of this limitation is a feeling (I prefer to use this word instead of Kant’s “sensation,” for feeling only becomes sensation by being related in thinking to an object); for instance, the feeling of sweet, red, cold, &c.

To forget this original feeling, leads to a bottomless transcendental idealism, and to an incomplete philosophy, which cannot explain the simply sensible predicates of objects. Now, the endeavor to explain this original feeling from the causality of a something, is the dogmatism of the Kantians, which I have just shown up, and which they would like to put on Kant’s shoulders. This, their something, is the everlasting thing per se. All transcendental explanation, on the contrary, stops at 147the immediate feeling, from the reason just pointed out. It is true, the empirical Ego, which transcendental idealism observes, explains this feeling to itself by the law, “No limitation without a limiting;” and thus, through contemplation of the limiting, produces extended matter, of which it now, as of its ground, predicates the merely subjective sensation of feeling; and it is only by virtue of this synthesis that the Ego makes itself an object. The continued analysis and the continued explanation of its own condition, give to the Ego its own system of a universe; and the observation of the laws of this explanation gives to the philosopher his science. It is here that Kant’s Realism is based, but his Realism is a transcendental idealism.

This whole determinedness, and hence also the total of feelings which it makes possible, is to be regarded as a priori—i. e. absolutely, without any action of our own—determined. It is Kant’s receptivity, and a particular of this receptivity is an affection. Without it, consciousness is unexplainable.

There is no doubt that it is an immediate fact of consciousness—I feel myself thus or thus determined. Now, when the oft-lauded philosophers attempt to explain this feeling, is it not clear that they attempt to append something to it which is not immediately involved in the fact? and how can they do this, except through thinking, and through a thinking according to a category, which category is here that of the real ground? Now, if they have not an immediate contemplation of the thing per se and its relations, what else can they possibly know of this category, but that they are compelled to think according to it? They assert nothing but that they are compelled to add in thought a thing as the ground of this feeling. But this we cheerfully admit in regard to the standpoint which they occupy. Their thing is produced by their thinking; and now it is at the same time to be a thing per se, i. e. not produced by thinking.

I really do not comprehend them; I can neither think this thought, nor think an understanding which does think it; and by this declaration, I hope I have done with them forever.

VII.

Having finished this digression, we now return to our original intention, which was to describe the procedure of the Science of Knowledge, and to justify it against the attacks of certain philosophers. We said, the philosopher observes himself in the act whereby he constructs for himself the conception of himself; and we now add, he also thinks this act of his.

For the philosopher, doubtless, knows whereof he speaks; but a mere contemplation gives no consciousness; only that is known which is conceived and thought. This conception or comprehension of his activity is very well possible for the philosopher, since he is already in possession of experience; for he has a conception of activity in general, and as such, namely, as the opposite of the equally well known conception of Being; and he also has a conception of this particular activity, as that of an intelligence, i. e. as simply an ideal activity, and not the real causality of the practical Ego; and moreover, a conception of the peculiar character of this particular activity as an in itself returning activity, and not an activity directed upon an external object.

But here as well as everywhere it is to be well remembered that the contemplation is and remains the basis of the conception, i. e. of that which is conceived in the conception. We cannot absolutely create or produce by thinking; we can only think that which is immediately contemplated by us. A thinking, which has no contemplation for its basis, which does not embrace a contemplation entertained in the same undivided moment, is an empty thinking, or is really no thinking at all. At the utmost it may be the thinking of a mere sign of the conception, and if this sign is a word, as seems likely, the mere thoughtless utterance of this word. I determine my contemplation by the thinking of an opposite; this and nothing else is the meaning of the expression—I comprehend the contemplation.

148Through thinking, the activity, which the philosopher thinks, becomes objective to him, i. e. it floats before him, in so far as he thinks it, as something which checks or limits the freedom (the undeterminedness) of his thinking. This is the true and original significance of objectivity. As certain as I think, I think a determined something; or, in other words, the freedom of my thinking, which might have been directed upon an infinite manifold of objects, is now, when I think, only directed upon that limited sphere of my thinking which the present object fills. It is limited to this sphere. I restrict myself with freedom to this sphere, if I contemplate myself in the doing of it. I am restricted by this sphere, if I contemplate only the object and forget myself, as is universally done on the standpoint of common thinking. What I have just now said is intended to correct the following objections and misunderstandings.

All thinking is necessarily directed upon a being, say some. Now the Ego of the Science of Knowledge is not to have being; hence it is unthinkable, and the whole Science, which is built upon such a contradiction, is null and void.

Let me be permitted to make a preliminary remark concerning the spirit which prompts this objection. When the wise men, who urge it, take the conception of the Ego as determined in the Science of Knowledge, and examine it by the rules of their logic, they doubtless think that conception, for how else could they compare and relate it to something else? If they really could not think it, they would not be able to say a word about it, and it would remain altogether unknown to them. But they have really, as we see, happily achieved the thinking of it, and so must be able to think it. Yet, because according to their traditional and misconceived rules, they ought to have been unable to think it, they would now rather deny the possibility of an act, while doing it, than give up their rule; they would believe an old book rather than their own consciousness. How little can these men be aware of what they really do! How mechanically, and without any inner attention and spirit, must they produce their philosophical specimens! Master Jourdan after all was willing to believe that he had spoken prose all his lifetime, without knowing it, though it did appear rather curious; but these men, if they had been in his place, would have proven in the most beautiful prose that they could not speak prose, since they did not possess the rules of speaking prose, and since the conditions of the possibility of a thing must always precede its reality. Nay, if critical idealism should continue to be a burden to them, it is to be expected that they will next go to Aristotle for advice as to whether they really live, or are already dead and buried. By doubting the possibility of ever becoming conscious of their freedom and Egoness, they are covertly already doubting this very point.

Their objection might therefore be summarily put aside, since it contradicts, and thus annihilates itself. But let us see where the real ground of the misunderstanding may be concealed.

All thinking necessarily proceeds from a being, say they. Now what does this mean? If it is to mean what we have just shown up, namely, that there is in all thinking a thought, an object of the thinking, to which this particular thinking confines itself, and by which it seems to be limited, then their premise must undoubtedly be admitted; and it is not the Science of Knowledge which is going to deny it. This objectivity for the mere thinking does doubtless also belong to the Ego, from which the Science of Knowledge proceeds; or, which means the same, to the act whereby the Ego constructs itself for itself. But it is only through thinking and only for thinking that it has this objectivity; it is merely an ideal being.

If, however, the being, of their above assertion, is to mean not a mere ideal, but a real being, i. e. a something, limiting not only the ideal, but also the actually productive, the practical activity of the Ego—that is to say, a something permanent in time and persistent in space—then that assertion of theirs is unwarranted. 149If it were correct, no science of philosophy were possible, for the conception of the Ego would be unthinkable; and self-consciousness, nay, even consciousness, would also be impossible. If it were correct, we, it is true, should be compelled to stop philosophizing; but this would be no gain to them, for they would also have to stop refuting us. But do they not themselves repudiate the correctness of their assertion? Do they not think themselves every moment of their life as free and as having causality? Do they not, for instance, think themselves the free, active authors of the very sensible and very original objections, which they bring up from time to time against our system? Now, is then this “themselves” something which checks and limits their causality, or is it not rather the very opposite of the check, namely, the very causality itself? I must refer them to what I have said in § v. on this subject. If such a sort of being were ascribed to the Ego, the Ego would cease to be Ego; it would become a thing, and its conception would be annihilated. It is true that afterwards—not afterwards as a posteriority in time, but afterwards in the series of the dependence of thinking—we also ascribe such a being to the Ego, which, nevertheless, remains and must remain Ego in the original meaning of the word; this being consisting partly of extension and persistency in space, and in this respect it becomes a body, and partly identity and permanency in time, and in this respect it becomes a soul. But it is the business of philosophy to prove, and genetically to explain how the Ego comes to think itself thus, and all this belongs not to that which is presupposed, but to that which is to be deduced. The result, therefore, remains thus: the Ego is originally only an acting; if you but think it as an active, you have already an Empirical, and hence a conception of it, which must first be deduced.^[9]

But our opponents claim that they do not make their assertion without all proof; they want to prove it by logic, and, if God is willing, by the logical proposition of contradiction.

If there is anything which clearly shows the lamentable condition of philosophy as a science in these our days, it is that such occurrences can take place. If anybody were to speak about mathematics, natural sciences, or any other science, in a manner which would indicate beyond a doubt his complete ignorance concerning the first principles of such a science, he would be at once sent back to the school from which he ran away too soon. But in philosophy it is not to be thus. If in philosophy a man shows in the same manner his complete ignorance, we are, with many bows and compliments to the sharp-sighted man, to give him publicly that private schooling which he so sadly needs, and without betraying the least smile or gesture of disgust. Have, then, the philosophers in two thousand years made clear not a single proposition which might now be considered as established for that science without further proof? If there is such a proposition, it is certainly that of the distinction of logic, as a purely formal science, from real philosophy or metaphysics. But what is really the true meaning of this terrible logical proposition of contradiction which is to crush at one stroke our whole system? As far as I know, simply this: if a conception is already determined by a certain characteristic, then it must not be determined by another opposite characteristic. But by what characteristic the conception is originally to be characterized, this logical theorem does not say, nor can say, for it presupposes the original determination, and is applicable only in so far as that is presupposed. Concerning the original determination another science will have to decide.

These wise men tell us that it is contradictory 150not to determine a conception by the predicate of actual being. Yet how can this be contradictory, unless the conception has first been thus determined by the predicate of actual being, and has then had that predicate denied to it? But who authorized them to determine the conception by that predicate? Do not these adepts in logic perceive that they postulate their principle, and turn around in an evident circle? Whether there really be a conception, which is originally—by the laws of the synthetizing, not of the merely analyzing reason—not determined by that predicate of actual being, this they will have to go and learn from contemplation; logic only warns them against afterwards again applying the same predicate to that conception; of course also, in the same respect, in which they have denied the determinability of the conception by that predicate.

But certainly if they have not yet elevated themselves to the consciousness of that contemplation, which is not determined by the predicate of being, (for that they should unconsciously possess that contemplation itself, Reason herself has taken care of,) then all their conceptions, which can be derived only from sensuous contemplation, are very properly determined by the predicate of this actual being. In that case, however, they must not believe that logic has taught them this asserted connection of thinking and being, for their knowledge of it is altogether derived from their unfortunate empirical self. They, standing on the standpoint of knowing no other conceptions than those derived from sensuous contemplation, would, of course, contradict themselves if they were to think one of their conceptions without the predicate of actual being. We, on our part, are also well content to let them retain this rule for themselves, since it is most assuredly universally valid for the whole sphere of their possible thinking; and to let them always carefully keep an eye on this rule, so that they may not violate it. As for ourselves, however, we cannot use this their rule any longer, for we possess a few conceptions more, resting in a sphere over which their rule does not extend, and about which they can speak nothing, since it does not exist for them. Let them, therefore, attend to their own business hereafter, and leave us to attend to ours. Even in so far as we grant them the rule, namely, that every thinking must have an object of thinking; it is by no means a logical rule, but rather one which logic presupposes, and through which logic first becomes possible. To think, is the same as to determine objects; both conceptions are identical; logic furnishes the rules of this determining, and hence presupposes clearly enough the determining generally as a part of consciousness. That all thinking has an object can be shown only in contemplation. Think! and observe in this thinking how you do it, and you will doubtless find that you oppose to your thinking an object of this thinking.

Another objection, somewhat related to the above, is this: If you do not proceed from a being, how can you, without being illogical, deduce a being? You will never be able to get anything else out of what you take in hand than what is already contained in it, unless you proceed dishonestly and use juggler tricks.

I reply: Nor do we deduce being in the sense in which you use the word, i. e. as being, per se. What the philosopher takes up is an acting, which acts according to certain laws, and what he establishes is the series of necessary acts of this acting. Amongst these acts there occurs one which to the acting itself appears as a being, and which by laws to be shown up, must so appear to it. The philosopher who observes the acting from a higher standpoint, never ceases to regard it as an acting. A being exists only for the observed Ego, which thinks realistically; but for the philosopher there is acting, and only acting, for he thinks idealistically.

Let me express it on this occasion in all clearness: The essence of transcendental idealism generally, and of the Science of Knowledge particularly, consists in this, that the conception of being is not at all viewed as a first and original conception, but simply as a derived conception; derived from the opposition of activity. Hence it is considered only as a negative 151conception. The only positive for the idealist is Freedom; being is the mere negative of freedom. Only thus has idealism a firm basis, and is in harmony with itself. But dogmatism, which believed itself safely reposing upon being, as a basis no further to be investigated or grounded, regards this assertion as a stupidity and horror, for it is its annihilation. That wherein the dogmatist, amongst all the inflictions which he has experienced from time to time, still found a hiding place—namely, some original being, though it were but a raw and formless matter—is now utterly destroyed, and he stands naked and defenceless. He has no weapons against this attack except the assurance of his hearty disgust, and his confession, that he does not understand, and positively cannot and will not think, what is required of him. We cheerfully give credence to this statement, and only beg that he will also place faith in our assurance, that we find it not at all difficult to think our system. Nay, if this should be too much for him, we can even abstain from it, and leave him to believe whatever he chooses on this point. That we do not and cannot force him to adopt our system, because its adoption depends upon freedom, has already been often enough admitted.

I say that the dogmatist has nothing left but the assurance of his incapacity, for the idea of intrenching himself behind general logic, and conjuring the shade of the Stagirite, because he knows not how to defend his own body, is altogether new, and will find few imitators even in this universal state of despair; since the least school knowledge of what logic really is, will suffice to make every one reject this protection.

Let no one be deceived by these opponents, if they adopt the language of idealism, and admitting with their lips the correctness of its views, protest that they know well enough that being is only to signify being for us. They are dogmatists. For every one who asserts that all thinking and consciousness must proceed from a being, makes being something primary; and it is this which constitutes dogmatism. By such a confusion of speech they but demonstrate the utter confusion of their conceptions; for what may a being for us mean, which is, nevertheless, to be an original not-derived being? Who, then, are those “we,” for whom alone this being is? Are they intelligences as such? Then the statement “there is something for the intelligence,” signifies, this something is represented by the intelligence; and the statement “it is only for the intelligence,” signifies, it is only represented. Hence the conception of a being, which, from a certain point of view, is to be independent of the representation, must, after all, be derived from the representation, since it is to be, only through it; and these men would, therefore, be more in harmony with the Science of Knowledge than they believed. Or are those “we” themselves things, original things, things in themselves? How, then, can anything be for them; how can they even be for themselves, since the conception of a thing involves merely that it is, but not that the thing is for itself? What may the word for signify to them? Is it, perhaps, but an innocent adornment which they have adopted for the sake of fashion?

VIII.

The Science of Knowledge has said, “It is not possible to abstract from the Ego.” This assertion may be regarded from two points of view—either from the standpoint of common consciousness, and then it means, “We never have another representation than that of ourselves; throughout our whole life, and in all moments of our life, we think only I, I, I, and nothing but I.” Or it may be viewed from the standpoint of the philosopher, and then it will have the following significance: “The Ego must necessarily be added in thought to whatever occurs in consciousness;” or as Kant expresses it, “All my representations must be thought as accompanied by—I think.” What nonsense were it to maintain the first interpretation to be the true one, and what wretchedness to refute it in that interpretation. But in the latter interpretation the assertion of the Science of Knowledge will doubtless be acceptable to every one who is but able to understand it; and if it had only been thus understood 152before, we should long ago have been rid of the thing per se, for it would have been seen that we are always the Thinking, whatever we may think, and that hence nothing can occur in us which is independent of us, because it all is necessarily related to our thinking.

IX.

“But,” confess other opponents of the Science of Knowledge, “as far as our own persons are concerned, we cannot, under the conception of the Ego, think anything else than our own dear persons as opposed to other persons. Ego (I) signifies my particular person, named, for instance, Caius or Sempronius, as distinguished from other persons not so named. Now, if I should abstract, as the Science of Knowledge requires me to do, from this individual personality, there would be nothing left to me which might be characterized as I; I might just as well call the remainder It.”