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diff --git a/old/11100.txt b/old/11100.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..0e11bd4 --- /dev/null +++ b/old/11100.txt @@ -0,0 +1,24755 @@ +Project Gutenberg's History Of Modern Philosophy, by Richard Falckenberg + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: History Of Modern Philosophy + From Nicolas of Cusa to the Present Time + +Author: Richard Falckenberg + +Release Date: February 15, 2004 [EBook #11100] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK HISTORY OF MODERN PHILOSOPHY *** + + + + +Produced by Juliet Sutherland, Lazar Liveanu and PG Distributed +Proofreaders + + + + + +HISTORY OF MODERN PHILOSOPHY + +From Nicolas of Cusa to the Present Time + + + +by + +RICHARD FALCKENBERG + +_Professor of Philosophy in the University of Erlangen_ + + + + +_THIRD AMERICAN FROM THE SECOND GERMAN EDITION_ + + +TRANSLATED WITH THE AUTHOR'S SANCTION BY +A.C. ARMSTRONG, JR. +_Professor of Philosophy in Wesleyan University_ + + + +1893 + + + + +TRANSLATOR'S PREFACE. + +The aim of this translation is the same as that of the original work. Each +is the outcome of experience in university instruction in philosophy, and +is intended to furnish a manual which shall be at once scientific and +popular, one to stand midway between the exhaustive expositions of the +larger histories and the meager sketches of the compendiums. A pupil of +Kuno Fischer, Fortlage, J.E. Erdmann, Lotze, and Eucken among others, +Professor Falckenberg began his career as _Docent_ in the university of +Jena. In the year following the first edition of this work he became +_Extraordinarius_ in the same university, and in 1888 _Ordinarius_ at +Erlangen, choosing the latter call in preference to an invitation to Dorpat +as successor to Teichmueller. The chair at Erlangen he still holds. His work +as teacher and author has been chiefly in the history of modern philosophy. +Besides the present work and numerous minor articles, he has published the +following: _Ueber den intelligiblen Charakter, zur Kritik der Kantischen +Freiheitslehre_ 1879; _Grundzuege der Philosophie des Nicolaus Cusanus_, +1880-81; and _Ueber die gegenwaertige Lage der deutschen Philosophie_, 1890 +(inaugural address at Erlangen). Since 1884-5 Professor Falckenberg has +also been an editor of the _Zeitschrift fuer Philosophie und philosophische +Kritik_, until 1888 in association with Krohn, and after the latter's +death, alone. At present he has in hand a treatise on Lotze for a German +series analogous to Blackwood's Philosophical Classics, which is to be +issued under his direction. Professor Falckenberg's general philosophical +position may be described as that of moderate idealism. His historical +method is strictly objective, the aim being a free reproduction of the +systems discussed, as far as possible in their original terminology and +historical connection, and without the intrusion of personal criticism. + +The translation has been made from the second German edition (1892), +with still later additions and corrections communicated by the author in +manuscript. The translator has followed the original faithfully but +not slavishly. He has not felt free to modify Professor Falckenberg's +expositions, even in the rare cases where his own opinions would have led +him to dissent, but minor changes have been made wherever needed to fit the +book for the use of English-speaking students. Thus a few alterations have +been made in dates and titles, chiefly under the English systems and from +the latest authorities; and a few notes added in elucidation of portions +of the text. Thus again the balance of the bibliography has been somewhat +changed, including transfers from text to notes and _vice versa_ and a few +omissions, besides the introduction of a number of titles from our English +philosophical literature chosen on the plan referred to in the preface +to the first German edition. The glossary of terms foreign to the German +reader has been replaced by a revision and expansion of the index, with the +analyses of the glossary as a basis. Wherever possible, and this has been +true in all important cases, the changes have been indicated by the usual +signs. + +The translator has further rewritten Chapter XV., Section 3, on recent +British and American Philosophy. In this so much of the author's +(historical) standpoint and treatment as proved compatible with the aim of +a manual in English has been retained, but the section as a whole has been +rearranged and much enlarged. + +The labor of translation has been lightened by the example of previous +writers, especially of the translators of the standard treatises of +Ueberweg and Erdmann. The thanks of the translator are also due to several +friends who have kindly aided him by advice or assistance: in particular to +his friend and former pupil, Mr. C.M. Child, M.S., who participated in the +preparation of a portion of the translation; and above all to Professor +Falckenberg himself, who, by his willing sanction of the work and his +co-operation throughout its progress, has given a striking example of +scholarly courtesy. + +A.C.A., Jr. + +Wesleyan University, June, 1893. + + + +PREFACE TO THE FIRST GERMAN EDITION. + +Since the appearance of Eduard Zeller's _Grundriss der Geschichte der +griechischen Philosophie_ (1883; 3d ed. 1889) the need has become even more +apparent than before for a presentation of the history of modern philosophy +which should be correspondingly compact and correspondingly available for +purposes of instruction. It would have been an ambitious undertaking to +attempt to supply a counterpart to the compendium of this honored scholar, +with its clear and simple summation of the results of his much admired five +volumes on Greek philosophy; and it has been only in regard to practical +utility and careful consideration of the needs of students--concerning +which we have enjoyed opportunity for gaining accurate information in the +review exercises regularly held in this university--that we have ventured +to hope that we might not fall too far short of his example. + +The predominantly practical aim of this _History_--it is intended to serve +as an aid in introductory work, in reviewing, and as a substitute for +dictations in academical lectures, as well as to be a guide for the +wider circle of cultivated readers--has enjoined self-restraint in the +development of personal views and the limitation of critical reflections +in favor of objective presentation. It is only now and then that critical +hints have been given. In the discussion of phenomena of minor importance +it has been impossible to avoid the _oratio obliqua_ of exposition; but, +wherever practicable, we have let the philosophers themselves develop their +doctrines and reasons, not so much by literal quotations from their +works, as by free, condensed reproductions of their leading ideas. If the +principiant view of the forces which control the history of philosophy, and +of the progress of modern philosophy, expressed in the Introduction and in +the Retrospect at the end of the book, have not been everywhere verified +in detail from the historical facts, this is due in part to the limits, in +part to the pedagogical aim, of the work. Thus, in particular, more space +has for pedagogical reasons been devoted to the "psychological" explanation +of systems, as being more popular, than in our opinion its intrinsic +importance would entitle it to demand. To satisfy every one in the choice +of subjects and in the extent of the discussion is impossible; but our hope +is that those who would have preferred a guide of this sort to be entirely +different will not prove too numerous. In the classification of movements +and schools, and in the arrangement of the contents of the various systems, +it has not been our aim to deviate at all hazards from previous accounts; +and as little to leave unutilized the benefits accruing to later comers +from the distinguished achievements of earlier workers in the field. In +particular we acknowledge with gratitude the assistance derived from the +renewed study of the works on the subject by Kuno Fischer, J.E. Erdmann, +Zeller, Windelband, Ueberweg-Heinze, Harms, Lange, Vorlander, and Puenjer. + +The motive which induced us to take up the present work was the perception +that there was lacking a text-book in the history of modern philosophy, +which, more comprehensive, thorough, and precise than the sketches of +Schwegler and his successors, should stand between the fine but detailed +exposition of Windelband, and the substantial but--because of the division +of the text into paragraphs and notes and the interpolation of pages of +bibliographical references--rather dry outline of Ueberweg. While the +former refrains from all references to the literature of the subject and +the latter includes far too many, at least for purposes of instruction, and +J.B. Meyer's _Leitfaden_ (1882) is in general confined to biographical and +bibliographical notices; we have mentioned, in the text or the notes and +with the greatest possible regard for the progress of the exposition, both +the chief works of the philosophers themselves and some of the +treatises concerning them. The principles which have guided us in these +selections--to include only the more valuable works and those best adapted +for students' reading, and further to refer as far as possible to the most +recent works--will hardly be in danger of criticism. But we shall not +dispute the probability that many a book worthy of mention may have been +overlooked. + +The explanation of a number of philosophical terms, which has been added as +an appendix at the suggestion of the publishers, deals almost entirely +with foreign expressions and gives the preference to the designations of +fundamental movements. It is arranged, as far as possible, so that it may +be used as a subject-index. + +JENA, December 23, 1885. + + + +PREFACE TO THE SECOND GERMAN EDITION. + +The majority of the alterations and additions in this new edition are in +the first chapter and the last two; no departure from the general character +of the exposition has seemed to me necessary. I desire to return my +sincere thanks for the suggestions which have come to me alike from public +critiques and private communications. In some cases contradictory requests +have conflicted--thus, on the one hand, I have been urged to expand, on the +other, to cut down the sections on German idealism, especially those on +Hegel--and here I confess my inability to meet both demands. Among the +reviews, that by B. Erdmann in the first volume of the _Archiv fuer +Geschichte der Philosophie_, and, among the suggestions made by letter, +those of H. Heussler, have been of especial value. Since others commonly +see defects more clearly than one's self, it will be very welcome if I can +have my desire continually to make this _History_ more useful supported by +farther suggestions from the circle of its readers. In case it continues to +enjoy the favor of teachers and students, these will receive conscientious +consideration. + +For the sake of those who may complain of too much matter, I may remark +that the difficulty can easily be avoided by passing over Chapters I., V. +(Sec.Sec. 1-3), VI., VIII., XII., XV., and XVI. + +Professor A.C. Armstrong, Jr., is preparing an English translation. My +earnest thanks are due to Mr. Karl Niemann of Charlottenburg for his kind +participation in the labor of proof-reading. + +R.F. + +ERLANGEN, June 11, 1892. + + + * * * * * + + +%CONTENTS.% + + + +INTRODUCTION + + + +CHAPTER I. + +THE PERIOD OF TRANSITION: FROM NICOLAS OF CUSA TO DESCARTES + +1. Nicolas of Cusa +2. The Revival of Ancient Philosophy and the Opposition to it +3. The Italian Philosophy of Nature +4. Philosophy of the State and of Law +5. Skepticism in France +6. German Mysticism +7. The Foundation of Modern Physics +8. Philosophy in England to the Middle of the Seventeenth Century + (_a_) Bacon's Predecessors + (_b_) Bacon + (_c_) Hobbes + (_d_) Lord Herbert of Cherbury +9. Preliminary Survey + + + + +PART I. + +%From Descartes to Kant.% + + + +CHAPTER II. + +DESCARTES + +1. The Principles +2. Nature +3. Man + + +CHAPTER III. + +THE DEVELOPMENT AND TRANSFORMATION OF CARTESIANISM IN THE NETHERLANDS AND +IN FRANCE + +1. Occasionalism: Geulincx +2. Spinoza + _(a)_ Substance, Attributes, and Modes + _(b)_ Anthropology; Cognition and the Passions + _(c)_ Practical Philosophy +3. Pascal, Malebranche, Bayle + + +CHAPTER IV. + +LOCKE + + _(a)_ Theory of Knowledge + _(b)_ Practical Philosophy + + +CHAPTER V. + +ENGLISH PHILOSOPHY IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY + +1. Natural Philosophy and Psychology +2. Deism +3. Moral Philosophy +4. Theory of Knowledge + _(a)_ Berkeley + _(b)_ Hume + _(c)_ The Scottish School + + +CHAPTER VI. + +THE FRENCH ILLUMINATION + +1. The Entrance of English Doctrines +2. Theoretical and Practical Sensationalism +3. Skepticism and Materialism +4. Rousseau's Conflict with the Illumination + + +CHAPTER VII. + +LEIBNITZ + +1. Metaphysics: the Monads, Representation, the Pre-established Harmony; +the Laws of Thought and of the World +2. The Organic World +3. Man: Cognition and Volition +4. Theology and Theodicy + + +CHAPTER VIII. + +THE GERMAN ILLUMINATION + +1. The Contemporaries of Leibnitz +2. Christian Wolff +3. The Illumination as Scientific and as Popular Philosophy +4. The Faith Philosophy + + + + +PART II. + +%From Kant to the Present Time.% + + + +CHAPTER IX. + +KANT + +1. Theory of Knowledge + _(a)_ The Pure Intuitions (Transcendental Aesthetic) + _(b)_ The Concepts and Principles of the Pure Understanding + (Transcendental Analytic) + _(c)_ The Reason's Ideas of the Unconditioned (Transcendental + Dialectic) +2. Theory of Ethics +3. Theory of the Beautiful and of Ends in Nature + _(a)_ Aesthetic Judgment + _(b)_ Teleological Judgment +4. From Kant to Fichte + + +CHAPTER X. + +FICHTE + +1. The Science of Knowledge + _(a)_ The Problem + _(b)_ The Three Principles + _(c)_ The Theoretical Ego + _(d)_ The Practical Ego +2. The Science of Ethics and of Right +3. Fichte's Second Period: his View of History and his Theory +of Religion + + +CHAPTER XI. + +SCHELLING + +1_a_. Philosophy of Nature +1_b_. Transcendental Philosophy +2. System of Identity +3_a_. Doctrine of Freedom +3_b_. Philosophy of Mythology and Revelation + + +CHAPTER XII. + +SCHELLING'S CO-WORKERS + +1. The Philosophers of Nature +2. The Philosophers of Identity (F. Krause) +3. The Philosophers of Religion (Baader and Schleiermacher) + + +CHAPTER XIII. + +HEGEL + +1. Hegel's View of the World and his Method +2. The System + (_a_) Logic + (_b_) The Philosophy of Nature + (_c_) The Doctrine of Subjective Spirit + (_d_) The Doctrine of Objective Spirit + (_e_) Absolute Spirit + + +CHAPTER XIV. + +THE OPPOSITION TO CONSTRUCTIVE IDEALISM: FRIES, HERBART, SCHOPENHAUER + +1. The Psychologists: Fries and Beneke +2. Realism: Herbart +3. Pessimism: Schopenhauer + + +CHAPTER XV. + +PHILOSOPHY OUT OF GERMANY + +1. Italy +2. France +3. Great Britain and America +4. Sweden, Norway, Denmark, and Holland + + +CHAPTER XVI. + +GERMAN PHILOSOPHY SINCE THE DEATH OF HEGEL + +1. From the Division of the Hegelian School to the Materialistic +Controversy +2. New Systems: Trendelenburg, Fechner, Lotze, and Hartmann +3. From the Revival of the Kantian Philosophy to the Present Time + (_a_) Neo-Kantianism, Positivism, and Kindred Phenomena + (_b_) Idealistic Reaction against the Scientific Spirit + (_c_) The Special Philosophical Sciences +4. Retrospect + + +INDEX + + + * * * * * + + +INTRODUCTION. + +In no other department is a thorough knowledge of history so important as +in philosophy. Like historical science in general, philosophy is, on the +one hand, in touch with exact inquiry, while, on the other, it has a +certain relationship with art. With the former it has in common its +methodical procedure and its cognitive aim; with the latter, its intuitive +character and the endeavor to compass the whole of reality with a glance. +Metaphysical principles are less easily verified from experience than +physical hypotheses, but also less easily refuted. Systems of philosophy, +therefore, are not so dependent on our progressive knowledge of facts as +the theories of natural science, and change less quickly; notwithstanding +their mutual conflicts, and in spite of the talk about discarded +standpoints, they possess in a measure the permanence of classical works of +art, they retain for all time a certain relative validity. The thought of +Plato, of Aristotle, and of the heroes of modern philosophy is ever proving +anew its fructifying power. Nowhere do we find such instructive errors as +in the sphere of philosophy; nowhere is the new so essentially a completion +and development of the old, even though it deem itself the whole and assume +a hostile attitude toward its predecessors; nowhere is the inquiry so much +more important than the final result; nowhere the categories "true and +false" so inadequate. The spirit of the time and the spirit of the people, +the individuality of the thinker, disposition, will, fancy--all these exert +a far stronger influence on the development of philosophy, both by way of +promotion and by way of hindrance, than in any other department of thought. +If a system gives classical expression to the thought of an epoch, a +nation, or a great personality; if it seeks to attack the world-riddle from +a new direction, or brings us nearer its solution by important original +conceptions, by a subtler or a simpler comprehension of the problem, by a +wider outlook or a deeper insight; it has accomplished more than it could +have done by bringing forward a number of indisputably correct principles. +The variations in philosophy, which, on the assumption of the unity of +truth, are a rock of offense to many minds, may be explained, on the one +hand, by the combination of complex variety and limitation in the motives +which govern philosophical thought,--for it is the whole man that +philosophizes, not his understanding merely,--and, on the other, by the +inexhaustible extent of the field of philosophy. Back of the logical labor +of proof and inference stand, as inciting, guiding, and hindering agents, +psychical and historical forces, which are themselves in large measure +alogical, though stronger than all logic; while just before stretches +away the immeasurable domain of reality, at once inviting and resisting +conquest. The grave contradictions, so numerous in both the subjective +and the objective fields, make unanimity impossible concerning ultimate +problems; in fact, they render it difficult for the individual thinker to +combine his convictions into a self-consistent system. Each philosopher +sees limited sections of the world only, and these through his own eyes; +every system is one-sided. Yet it is this multiplicity and variety of +systems alone which makes the aim of philosophy practicable as it endeavors +to give a complete picture of the soul and of the universe. The history of +philosophy is the philosophy of humanity, that great individual, which, +with more extended vision than the instruments through which it works, +is able to entertain opposing principles, and which, reconciling old +contradictions as it discovers new ones, approaches by a necessary and +certain growth the knowledge of the one all-embracing truth, which is +rich and varied beyond our conception. In order to energetic labor in the +further progress of philosophy, it is necessary to imagine that the goddess +of truth is about to lift the veil which has for centuries concealed her. +The historian of philosophy, on the contrary, looks on each new system as +a stone, which, when shaped and fitted into its place, will help to raise +higher the pyramid of knowledge. Hegel's doctrine of the necessity +and motive force of contradictories, of the relative justification of +standpoints, and the systematic development of speculation, has great and +permanent value as a general point of view. It needs only to be guarded +from narrow scholastic application to become a safe canon for the +historical treatment of philosophy. + +In speaking above of the worth of the philosophical doctrines of the past +as defying time, and as comparable to the standard character of finished +works of art, the special reference was to those elements in speculation +which proceed less from abstract thinking than from the fancy, the heart, +and the character of the individual, and even more directly from the +disposition of the people; and which to a certain degree may be divorced +from logical reasoning and the scientific treatment of particular +questions. These may be summed up under the phrase, views of the world. The +necessity for constant reconsideration of them is from this standpoint at +once evident. The Greek view of the world is as classic as the plastic art +of Phidias and the epic of Homer; the Christian, as eternally valid as the +architecture of the Middle Ages; the modern, as irrefutable as Goethe's +poetry and the music of Beethoven. The views of the world which proceed +from the spirits of different ages, as products of the general development +of culture, are not so much thoughts as rhythms in thinking, not theories +but modes of intuition saturated with feelings of worth. We may dispute +about them, it is true; we may argue against them or in their defense; but +they can neither be established nor overthrown by cogent proofs. It is not +only optimism and pessimism, determinism and indeterminism, that have their +ultimate roots in the affective side of our nature, but pantheism and +individualism, also idealism and materialism, even rationalism and +sensationalism. Even though they operate with the instruments of thought, +they remain in the last analysis matters of faith, of feeling, and of +resolution. The aesthetic view of the world held by the Greeks, the +transcendental-religious view of Christianity, the intellectual view of +Leibnitz and Hegel, the panthelistic views of Fichte I and Schopenhauer are +vital forces, not doctrines, postulates, not results of thought. One view +of the world is forced to yield its pre-eminence to another, which it has +itself helped to produce by its own one-sidedness; only to reconquer its +opponent later, when it has learned from her, when it has been purified, +corrected, and deepened by the struggle. But the elder contestant is no +more confuted by the younger than the drama of Sophocles by the drama of +Shakespeare, than youth by age or spring by autumn. + +If it is thus indubitable that the views of the world held in earlier times +deserve to live on in the memory of man, and to live as something better +than mere reminders of the past--the history of philosophy is not a cabinet +of antiquities, but a museum of typical products of the mind--the value +and interest of the historical study of the past in relation to the exact +scientific side of philosophical inquiry is not less evident. In every +science it is useful to trace the origin and growth of problems and +theories, and doubly so in philosophy. With her it is by no means the +universal rule that progress shows itself by the result; the statement of +the question is often more important than the answer. The problem is more +sharply defined in a given direction; or it becomes more comprehensive, +is analyzed and refined; or if now it threatens to break up into subtle +details, some genius appears to simplify it and force our thoughts back +to the fundamental question. This advance in problems, which happily is +everywhere manifested by unmistakable signs, is, in the case of many of the +questions which irresistibly force themselves upon the human heart, the +only certain gain from centuries of endeavor. The labor here is of more +value than the result. + +In treating the history of philosophy, two extremes must be avoided, +lawless individualism and abstract logical formalism. The history +of philosophy is neither a disconnected succession of arbitrary +individual opinions and clever guesses, nor a mechanically developed series +of typical standpoints and problems, which imply one another in just the +form and order historically assumed. The former supposition does violence +to the regularity of philosophical development, the latter to its vitality. +In the one case, the connection is conceived too loosely, in the other, too +rigidly and simply. One view underestimates the power of the logical Idea, +the other overestimates it. It is not easy to support the principle that +chance rules the destiny of philosophy, but it is more difficult to avoid +the opposite conviction of the one-sidedness of formalistic construction, +and to define the nature and limits of philosophical necessity. The +development of philosophy is, perhaps, one chief aim of the world-process, +but it is certainly not the only one; it is a part of the universal aim, +and it is not surprising that the instruments of its realization do not +work exclusively in its behalf, that their activity brings about results, +which seem unessential for philosophical ends or obstacles in their way. +Philosophical ideas do not think themselves, but are thought by living +spirits, which are something other and better than mere thought +machines--by spirits who live these thoughts, who fill them with personal +warmth and passionately defend them. There is often reason, no doubt, for +the complaint that the personality which has undertaken to develop some +great idea is inadequate to the task, that it carries its subjective +defects into the matter in hand, that it does too much or too little, or +the right thing in the wrong way, so that the spirit of philosophy seems +to have erred in the choice and the preparation of its instrument. But the +reverse side of the picture must also be taken into account. The thinking +spirit is more limited, it is true, than were desirable for the perfect +execution of a definite logical task; but, on the other hand, it is far +too rich as well. A soulless play of concepts would certainly not help +the cause, and there is no disadvantage in the failure of the history of +philosophy to proceed so directly and so scholastically, as, for instance, +in the system of Hegel. A graded series of interconnected general forces +mediate between the logical Idea and the individual thinker--the spirit of +the people, of the age, of the thinker's vocation, of his time of life, +which are felt by the individual as part of himself and whose impulses +he unconsciously obeys. In this way the modifying, furthering, hindering +correlation of higher and lower, of the ruler with his commands and the +servant with his more or less willing obedience, is twice repeated, the +situation being complicated further by the fact that the subject affected +by these historical forces himself helps to make history. The most +important factor in philosophical progress is, of course, the state of +inquiry at the time, the achievements of the thinkers of the immediately +preceding age; and in this relation of a philosopher to his predecessors, +again, a distinction must be made between a logical and a psychological +element. The successor often commences his support, his development, or his +refutation at a point quite unwelcome to the constructive historian. At all +events, if we may judge from the experience of the past, too much caution +cannot be exercised in setting up formal laws for the development of +thought. According to the law of contradiction and reconciliation, a +Schopenhauer must have followed directly after Leibnitz, to oppose his +pessimistic ethelism to the optimistic intellectualism of the latter; when, +in turn, a Schleiermacher, to give an harmonic resolution of the antithesis +into a concrete doctrine of feeling, would have made a fine third. But it +turned out otherwise, and we must be content. + + * * * * * + + +The estimate of the value of the history of philosophy in general, given at +the start, is the more true of the history of modern philosophy, since the +movement introduced by the latter still goes on unfinished. We are still at +work on the problems which were brought forward by Descartes, Locke, and +Leibnitz, and which Kant gathered up into the critical or transcendental +question. The present continues to be governed by the ideal of culture +which Bacon proposed and Fichte exalted to a higher level; we all live +under the unweakened spell of that view of the world which was developed in +hostile opposition to Scholasticism, and through the enduring influence of +those mighty geographical and scientific discoveries and religious reforms +which marked the entrance of the modern period. It is true, indeed, that +the transition brought about by Kant's noetical and ethical revolution was +of great significance,--more significant even than the Socratic period, +with which we are fond of comparing it; much that was new was woven on, +much of the old, weakened, broken, destroyed. And yet, if we take into +account the historical after-influence of Cartesianism, we shall find that +the thread was only knotted and twisted by Kantianism, not cut through. The +continued power of the pre-Kantian modes of thought is shown by the fact +that Spinoza has been revived in Fichte and Schelling, Leibnitz in Herbart +and Hegel, the sensationalism of the French Illuminati in Feuerbach; and +that even materialism, which had been struck down by the criticism of the +reason (one would have thought forever), has again raised its head. Even +that most narrow tendency of the early philosophy of the modern period, the +apotheosis of cognition is,--in spite of the moralistic counter-movement +of Kant and Fichte,--the controlling motive in the last of the great +idealistic systems, while it also continues to exercise a marvelously +powerful influence on the convictions of our Hegel-weary age, alike within +the sphere of philosophy and (still more) without it. In view of the +intimate relations between contemporary inquiry and the progress of thought +since the beginning of the modern period, acquaintance with the latter, +which it is the aim of this _History_ to facilitate, becomes a pressing +duty. To study the history of philosophy since Descartes is to study the +pre-conditions of contemporary philosophy. + +We begin with an outline sketch of the general characteristics of modern +philosophy. These may be most conveniently described by comparing them with +the characteristics of ancient and of mediaeval philosophy. The character +of ancient philosophy or Greek philosophy,--for they are practically the +same,--is predominantly aesthetic. The Greek holds beauty and truth closely +akin and inseparable; "cosmos" is his common expression for the world and +for ornament. The universe is for him a harmony, an organism, a work of +art, before which he stands in admiration and reverential awe. In quiet +contemplation, as with the eye of a connoisseur, he looks upon the world or +the individual object as a well-ordered whole, more disposed to enjoy the +congruity of its parts than to study out its ultimate elements. He prefers +contemplation to analysis, his thought is plastic, not anatomical. He finds +the nature of the object in its form; and ends give him the key to the +comprehension of events. Discovering human elements everywhere, he is +always ready with judgments of worth--the stars move in circles because +circular motion is the most perfect; the right is better than left, upper +finer than lower, that which precedes more beautiful than that which +follows. Thinkers in whom this aesthetic reverence is weaker than the +analytic impulse--especially Democritus--seem half modern rather than +Greek. By the side of the Greek philosophy, in its sacred festal garb, +stands the modern in secular workday dress, in the laborer's blouse, with +the merciless chisel of analysis in its hand. This does not seek beauty, +but only the naked truth, no matter what it be. It holds it impossible to +satisfy at once the understanding and taste; nay, nakedness, ugliness, +and offensiveness seem to it to testify for, rather than against, the +genuineness of truth. In its anxiety not to read human elements into +nature, it goes so far as completely to read spirit out of nature. The +world is not a living whole, but a machine; not a work of art which is to +be viewed in its totality and enjoyed with reverence, but a clock-movement +to be taken apart in order to be understood. Nowhere are there ends in the +world, but everywhere mechanical causes. The character of modern thought +would appear to a Greek returned to earth very sober, unsplendid, undevout, +and intrusive. And, in fact, modern philosophy has a considerable amount +of prose about it, is not easily impressed, accepts no limitations from +feeling, and holds nothing too sacred to be attacked with the weapon of +analytic thought. And yet it combines penetration with intrusiveness; +acuteness, coolness, and logical courage with its soberness. Never before +has the demand for unprejudiced thought and certain knowledge been made +with equal earnestness. This interest in knowledge for its own sake +developed so suddenly and with such strength that, in presumptuous +gladness, men believed that no previous age had rightly understood what +truth and love for truth are. The natural consequence was a general +overestimation of cognition at the expense of all other mental activities. +Even among the Greek thinkers, thought was held by the majority to be the +noblest and most divine function. But their intellectualism was checked +by the aesthetic and eudaemonistic element, and preserved from the +one-sidedness which it manifests in the modern period, because of the +lack of an effective counterpoise. However eloquently Bacon commends the +advantages to be derived from the conquest of nature, he still understands +inquiry for inquiry's sake, and honors it as supreme; even the ethelistic +philosophers, Fichte and Schopenhauer, pay their tribute to the prejudice +in favor of intellectualism. The fact that the modern period can show +no one philosophic writer of the literary rank of Plato, even though it +includes such masters of style as Fichte, Schelling, Schopenhauer, and +Lotze, not to speak of lesser names, is an external proof of how noticeably +the aesthetic impulse has given way to one purely intellectual. + +When we turn to the character of mediaeval thinking; we find, instead of +the aesthetic views of antiquity and the purely scientific tendency of the +modern era, a distinctively religious spirit. Faith prescribes the objects +and the limitations of knowledge; everything is referred to the hereafter, +thought becomes prayer. Men speculate concerning the attributes of God, on +the number and rank of the angels, on the immortality of man--all purely +transcendental subjects. Side by side with these, it is true, the world +receives loving attention, but always as the lower story merely,[1] above +which, with its own laws, rises the true fatherland, the kingdom of grace. +The most subtle acuteness is employed in the service of dogma, with the +task of fathoming the how and why of things whose existence is certified +elsewhere. The result is a formalism in thought side by side with profound +and fervent mysticism. Doubt and trust are strangely intermingled, and a +feeling of expectation stirs all hearts. On the one side stands sinful, +erring man, who, try as hard as he may, only half unravels the mysteries of +revealed truth; on the other, the God of grace, who, after our death, will +reveal himself to us as clearly as Adam knew him before the fall. God +alone, however, can comprehend himself--for the finite spirit, even +truth unveiled is mystery, and ecstasy, unresisting devotion to the +incomprehensible, the culmination of knowledge. In mediaeval philosophy +the subject looks longingly upward to the infinite object of his thought, +expecting that the latter will bend down toward him or lift him upward +toward itself; in Greek philosophy the spirit confronts its object, the +world, on a footing of equality; in modern philosophy the speculative +subject feels himself higher than the object, superior to nature. In +the conception of the Middle Ages, truth and mystery are identical; to +antiquity they appear reconcilable; modern thought holds them as mutually +exclusively as light and darkness. The unknown is the enemy of knowledge, +which must be chased out of its last hiding-place. It is, therefore, easy +to understand that the modern period stands in far sharper antithesis to +the mediaeval era than to the ancient, for the latter has furnished it many +principles which can be used as weapons against the former. Grandparents +and grandchildren make good friends. + +[Footnote 1: On the separation and union of the three worlds, _natura, +gratia, gloria_, in Thomas Aquinas, cf. Rudolph Eucken, _Die Philosophie +des Thomas von Aquino und die Kultur der Neuzeit_, Halle. 1886.] + +When a new movement is in preparation, but there is a lack of creative +force to give it form, a period of tumultuous disaffection with existing +principles ensues. What is wanted is not clearly perceived, but there is a +lively sense of that which is not wanted. Dissatisfaction prepares a place +for that which is to come by undermining the existent and making it +ripe for its fall. The old, the outgrown, the doctrine which had become +inadequate, was in this case Scholasticism; modern philosophy shows +throughout--and most clearly at the start--an anti-Scholastic character. If +up to this time Church dogma had ruled unchallenged in spiritual affairs, +and the Aristotelian philosophy in things temporal, war is now declared +against authority of every sort and freedom of thought is inscribed on +the banner.[1] "Modern philosophy is Protestantism in the sphere of the +thinking spirit" (Erdmann). Not that which has been considered true for +centuries, not that which another says, though he be Aristotle or Thomas +Aquinas, not that which flatters the desires of the heart, is true, but +that only which is demonstrated to my own understanding with convincing +force. Philosophy is no longer willing to be the handmaid of theology, +but must set up a house of her own. The watchword now becomes freedom and +independent thought, deliverance from every form of constraint, alike from +the bondage of ecclesiastical decrees and the inner servitude of prejudice +and cherished inclinations. But the adoption of a purpose leads to the +consideration of the means for attaining it. Thus the thirst for knowledge +raises questions concerning the method, the instruments, and the limits of +knowledge; the interest in noetics and methodology vigorously develops, +remains a constant factor in modern inquiry, and culminates in Kant, not +again to die away. + +[Footnote 1: The doctrine of twofold truth, under whose protecting cloak +the new liberal movements had hitherto taken refuge, was now disdainfully +repudiated. Cf. Freudenthal, _Zur Beurtheilung der Scholastik_, in vol. +iii. of the _Archiv fuer Geschichte der Philosophie_, 1890. Also, H. Reuter, +_Geschichte der religioesen Aufklaerung im Mittelalter_ 1875-77; and Dilthey, +_Einleitung in die Geisteswissenschaften_, 1883.] + +This negative aspect of modern tendencies needs, however, a positive +supplement. The mediaeval mode of thought is discarded and the new one is +not yet found. What can more fittingly furnish a support, a preliminary +substitute, than antiquity? Thus philosophy, also, joins in that great +stream of culture, the Renaissance and humanism, which, starting from +Italy, poured forth over the whole civilized world. Plato and Neoplatonism, +Epicurus and the Stoa are opposed to Scholasticism, the real Aristotle to +the transformed Aristotle of the Church and the distorted Aristotle of the +schools. Back to the sources, is the cry. With the revival of the ancient +languages and ancient books, the spirit of antiquity is also revived. The +dust of the schools and the tyranny of the Church are thrown off, and the +classical ideal of a free and noble humanity gains enthusiastic adherents. +The man is not to be forgotten in the Christian, nor art and science, the +rights and the riches of individuality in the interest of piety; work for +the future must not blind us to the demands of the present nor lead us to +neglect the comprehensive cultivation of the natural capacities of the +spirit. The world and man are no longer viewed through Christian eyes, the +one as a realm of darkness and the other as a vessel of weakness and wrath, +but nature and life gleam before the new generation in joyous, hopeful +light. Humanism and optimism have always been allied. + +This change in the spirit of thought is accompanied by a corresponding +change in the object of thought: theology must yield its supremacy to the +knowledge of nature. Weary of Christological and soteriological questions, +weary of disputes concerning the angels, the thinking spirit longs to +make himself at home in the world it has learned to love, demands real +knowledge,--knowledge which is of practical utility,--and no longer seeks +God outside the world, but in it and above it. Nature becomes the home, the +body of God. Transcendence gives place to immanence, not only in theology, +but elsewhere. Modern philosophy is naturalistic in spirit, not only +because it takes nature for its favorite object, but also because it +carries into other branches of knowledge the mathematical method so +successful in natural science, because it considers everything _sub ratione +naturae_ and insists on the "natural" explanation of all phenomena, even +those of ethics and politics. + +In a word, the tendency of modern philosophy is anti-Scholastic, +humanistic, and naturalistic. This summary must suffice for preliminary +orientation, while the detailed division, particularization, modification, +and limitation of these general points must be left for later treatment. + +Two further facts, however, may receive preliminary notice. The +indifference and hostility to the Church which have been cited among the +prominent characteristics of modern philosophy, do not necessarily mean +enmity to the Christian religion, much less to religion in general. In +part, it is merely a change in the object of religious feeling, which +blazes up especially strong and enthusiastic in the philosophy of the +sixteenth century, as it transfers its worship from a transcendent deity to +a universe indued with a soul; in part, the opposition is directed against +the mediaeval, ecclesiastical form of Christianity, with its monastic +abandonment of the world. It was often nothing but a very deep and strong +religious feeling that led thinkers into the conflict with the hierarchy. +Since the elements of permanent worth in the tendencies, doctrines, and +institutions of the Middle Ages are thus culled out from that which is +corrupt and effete, and preserved by incorporation into the new view of the +world and the new science, and as fruitful elements from antiquity enter +with them, the progress of philosophy shows a continuous enrichment in +its ideas, intuitions, and spirit. The old is not simply discarded and +destroyed, but purified, transformed, and assimilated. The same fact +forces itself into notice if we consider the relations of nationality and +philosophy in the three great eras. The Greek philosophy was entirely +national in its origin and its public, it was rooted in the character of +the people and addressed itself to fellow-countrymen; not until toward its +decline, and not until influenced by Christianity, were its cosmopolitan +inclinations aroused. The Middle Ages were indifferent to national +distinctions, as to everything earthly, and naught was of value in +comparison with man's transcendent destiny. Mediaeval philosophy is in its +aims un-national, cosmopolitan, catholic; it uses the Latin of the schools, +it seeks adherents in every land, it finds everywhere productive +spirits whose labors in its service remain unaffected by their national +peculiarities. The modern period returns to the nationalism of antiquity, +but does not relinquish the advantage gained by the extension of mediaeval +thought to the whole civilized world. The roots of modern philosophy are +sunk deep in the fruitful soil of nationality, while the top of the +tree spreads itself far beyond national limitations. It is national and +cosmopolitan together; it is international as the common property of the +various peoples, which exchange their philosophical gifts through an active +commerce of ideas. Latin is often retained for use abroad, as the +universal language of savants, but many a work is first published in the +mother-tongue--and thought in it. Thus it becomes possible for the ideas +of the wise to gain an entrance into the consciousness of the people, from +whose spirit they have really sprung, and to become a power beyond the +circle of the learned public. Philosophy as illumination, as a factor in +general culture, is an exclusively modern phenomenon. In this speculative +intercourse of nations, however, the French, the English, and the Germans +are most involved, both as producers and consumers. France gives the +initiative (in Descartes), then England assumes the leadership (in Locke), +with Leibnitz and Kant the hegemony passes over to Germany. Besides these +powers, Italy takes an eager part in the production of philosophical +ideas in the period of ferment before Descartes. Each of these nations +contributes elements to the total result which it alone is in a position +to furnish, and each is rewarded by gifts in return which it would be +incapable of producing out of its own store. This international exchange of +ideas, in which each gives and each receives, and the fact that the chief +modern thinkers, especially in the earlier half of the era, prior to Kant, +are in great part not philosophers by profession but soldiers, statesmen, +physicians, as well as natural scientists, historians, and priests, give +modern philosophy an unprofessional, worldly appearance, in striking +contrast to the clerical character of mediaeval, and the prophetic +character of ancient thinking. + +Germany, England, and France claim the honor of having produced the first +_modern_ philosopher, presenting Nicolas of Cusa, Bacon of Verulam, and +Rene Descartes as their candidates, while Hobbes, Bruno, and Montaigne have +received only scattered votes. The claim of England is the weakest of all, +for, without intending to diminish Bacon's importance, it may be said that +the programme which he develops--and in essence his philosophy is nothing +more--was, in its leading principles, not first announced by him, and +not carried out with sufficient consistency. The dispute between the two +remaining contestants may be easily and equitably settled by making the +simple distinction between forerunner and beginner, between path-breaker +and founder. The entrance of a new historical era is not accompanied by an +audible click, like the beginning of a new piece on a music-box, but is +gradually effected. A considerable period may intervene between the point +when the new movement flashes up, not understood and half unconscious of +itself, and the time when it appears on the stage in full strength and +maturity, recognizing itself as new and so acknowledged by others: the +period of ferment between the Middle Ages and modern times lasted almost +two centuries. It is in the end little more than logomachy to discuss +whether this time of anticipation and desire, of endeavor and partial +success, in which the new struggles with the old without conquering it, and +the opposite tendencies in the conflicting views of the world interplay in +a way at once obscure and wayward, is to be classed as the epilogue of the +old era or the prologue of the new. The simple solution to take it as a +_transition period_, no longer mediaeval but not yet modern, has met with +fairly general acceptance. Nicolas of Cusa (1401-64) was the first to +announce _fundamental principles_ of modern philosophy--he is the leader in +this intermediate preparatory period. Descartes (1596-1650) brought forward +the first _system_--he is the father of modern philosophy. + +A brief survey of the literature may be added in conclusion: + +Heinrich Ritter's _Geschichte der neueren Philosophie_ (vols. ix.-xii. of +his _Geschichte der Philosophie_), 1850-53, to Wolff and Rousseau, has +been superseded by more recent works, J.E. Erdmann's able _Versuch einer +wissenschaftlichen Darstellung der neueren Philosophie_ (6 vols., 1834-53) +gives in appendices literal excerpts from non-German writers; the same +author's _Grundriss der Geschichte der Philosophie_ (2 vols., 1869; 3d ed., +1878) contains at the end the first exposition of German Philosophy since +the Death of Hegel [English translation in 3 vols., edited by W. S. Hough, +1890.--TR.]. Ueberweg's _Grundriss_ (7th ed. by M. Heinze, 1888) is +indispensable for reference on account of the completeness of its +bibliographical notes, which, however, are confusing to the beginner +[English translation by G.S. Morris, with additions by the translator, Noah +Porter, and Vincenzo Botta, New York, 1872-74.--TR.]. The most detailed and +brilliant exposition has been given by Kuno Fischer (1854 seq.; 3d +ed., 1878 seq.; the same author's _Baco und seine Nachfolger_, 2d ed., +1875,--English translation, 1857, by Oxenford,--supplements the first two +volumes of the _Geschichte der neueren Philosophie_). This work, which is +important also as a literary achievement, is better fitted than any other +to make the reader at home in the ideal world of the great philosophers, +which it reconstructs from its central point, and to prepare him for the +study (which, of course, even the best exposition cannot replace) of the +works of the thinkers themselves. Its excessive simplification of problems +is not of great moment in the first introduction to a system [English +translation of vol. iii. book 2 (1st ed.), _A Commentary on Kant's Critick +of the Pure Reason_, by J.P. Mahaffy, London, 1866; vol. i. part 1 and part +2, book 1, _Descartes and his School_, by J, P. Gordy, New York, 1887; +of vol. v. chaps, i.-v., _A Critique of Kant_, by W.S. Hough, London, +1888.--TR.]. Wilhelm Windelband _(Geschichte der neueren Philosophie_, +2 vols., 1878 and 1880, to Hegel and Herbart inclusive) accentuates the +connection of philosophy with general culture and the particular sciences, +and emphasizes philosophical method. This work is pleasant reading, yet, in +the interest of clearness, we could wish that the author had given more +of positive information concerning the content of the doctrines treated, +instead of merely advancing reflections on them. A projected third volume +is to trace the development of philosophy down to the present time. +Windelband's compendium, _Geschichte der Philosophie_, 1890-91, is +distinguished from other expositions by the fact that, for the most part, +it confines itself to a history of _problems_. Baumann's _Geschichte der +Philosophie_, 1890, aims to give a detailed account of those thinkers only +who have advanced views individual either in their content or in their +proof. Eduard Zeller has given his _Geschichte der deutschen Philosophie +seit Leibniz_ (1873; 2d ed., 1875) the benefit of the same thorough +and comprehensive knowledge and mature judgment which have made his +_Philosophie der Griechen_ a classic. [Bowen's _Modern Philosophy_, +New York, 1857 (6th ed., 1891); Royce's _Spirit of Modern Philosophy_, +1892.--TR.] + +Eugen Duehring's hypercritical _Kritische Geschichte der Philosophie_ +(1869; 3d ed., 1878) can hardly be recommended to students. Lewes (German +translation, 1876) assumes a positivistic standpoint; Thilo (1874), a +position exclusively Herbartian; A. Stoeckl (3d ed., 1889) writes from the +standpoint of confessional Catholicism; Vincenz Knauer (2d ed., 1882) is +a Guentherian. With the philosophico-historical work of Chr. W. Sigwart +(1854), and one of the same date by Oischinger, we are not intimately +acquainted. + +Expositions of philosophy since Kant have been given by the Hegelian, C.L. +Michelet (a larger one in 2 vols., 1837-38, and a smaller one, 1843); by +Chalybaeus (1837; 5th ed., 1860, formerly very popular and worthy of it, +English, 1854); by Fr. K. Biedermann (1842-43); by Carl Fortlage (1852, +Kantio-Fichtean standpoint); and by Friedrich Harms (1876). The last of +these writers unfortunately did not succeed in giving a sufficiently clear +and precise, not to say tasteful, form to the valuable ideas and original +conceptions in which his work is rich. The very popular exposition by an +anonymous author of Hegelian tendencies, _Deutschlands Denker seit Kant_ +(Dessau, 1851), hardly deserves mention. + +Further, we may mention some of the works which treat the historical +development of particular subjects: On the history of the _philosophy of +religion_, the first volume of Otto Pfleiderer's _Religionsphilosophie auf +geschichtlicher Grundlage_ (2d ed., 1883;--English translation by Alexander +Stewart and Allan Menzies, 1886-88.--TR.), and the very trustworthy +exposition by Bernhard Puenjer (2 vols., 1880, 1883; English translation by +W. Hastie, vol. i., 1887.--TR.). On the history of _practical philosophy_, +besides the first volume of I.H. Fichte's _Ethik_ (1850), Franz Vorlaender's +_Geschichte der philosophischen Moral, Rechts- und Staatslehre der +Englaender und Franzosen_ (1855); Fr. Jodl, _Geschichte der Ethik in der +neueren Philosophie_ (2 vols., 1882, 1889), and Bluntschli, _Geschichte der +neueren Staatswissenschaft_ (3d ed., 1881); [Sidgwick's _Outlines of +the History of Ethics_, 3d ed., 1892, and Martineau's _Types of Ethical +Theory_, 3d ed., 1891.--TR.]. On the history of the _philosophy of +history_: Rocholl, _Die Philosophie der Geschichte_, 1878; Richard Fester, +_Rousseau und die deutsche Geschichtsphilosophie_, 1890 [Flint, _The +Philosophy of History in Europe_, vol. i., 1874, complete in 3 vols., 1893 +_seq_.]. On the history of _aesthetics_, R. Zimmermann, 1858; H. Lotze, +1868; Max Schasler, 1871; Ed. von Hartmann (since Kant), 1886; Heinrich +von Stein, _Die Entstehung der neueren Aesthetik_ (1886); [Bosanquet, _A +History of Aesthetic_, 1892.--TR.]. Further, Fr. Alb. Lange, _Geschichte +des Materialismus_, 1866; 4th ed., 1882; [English translation by E.C. +Thomas, 3 vols., 1878-81.--TR.]; Jul. Baumann, _Die Lehren von Raum, Zeit +und Mathematik in der neueren Philosophie_, 1868-69; Edm. Koenig, _Die +Entwickelung des Causalproblems von Cartesius bis Kant_, 1888, _seit +Kant_, 1890; Kurd Lasswitz, _Geschichte der Atomistik vom Mittelalter bis +Newton_, 2 vols., 1890; Ed. Grimm, _Zur Geschichte des Erkenntnissproblems, +von Bacon zu Hume_, 1890. The following works are to be recommended on the +period of transition: Moritz Carriere, _Die philosophische Weltanschauung +der Reformationszeit_, 1847; 2d ed., 1887; and Jacob Burckhardt, _Kultur +der Renaissance in Italien_, 4th ed., 1886. Reference may also be made to +A. Trendelenburg, _Historische Beitraege zur Philosophie_, 3 vols., 1846-67; +Rudolph Eucken, _Geschichte und Kritik der Grundbegriffe der Gegenwart_, +1878; [English translation by M. Stuart Phelps, 1880.--TR.]; the same, +_Geschichte der philosophischen Terminologie_, 1879; the same, _Beitraege +zur Geschichte der neueren Philosophie_, 1886 (including a valuable +paper on parties and party names in philosophy); the same, _Die +Lebensanschauungen der grossen Denker_, 1890; Ludwig Noack, +_Philosophiegeschichtliches Lexicon_, 1879; Ed. Zeller, _Vortraege und +Abhandlungen_, three series, 1865-84; Chr. von Sigwart, _Kleine Schriften_, +2 vols., 1881; 2d ed., 1889. R. Seydel's _Religion und Philosophie_, 1887, +contains papers on Luther, Schleiermacher, Schelling, Weisse, Fechner, +Lotze, Hartmann, Darwinism, etc., which are well worth reading. + +Among the smaller compends Schwegler's (1848; recent editions revised +and supplemented by R. Koeber) remains still the least bad [English +translations by Seelye and Smith, revised edition with additions, New York, +1880; and J.H. Stirling, with annotations, 7th ed., 1879.--TR.]. The meager +sketches by Deter, Koeber, Kirchner, Kuhn, Rabus, Vogel, and others are +useful for review at least. Fritz Schultze's _Stammbaum der Philosophie_, +1890, gives skillfully constructed tabular outlines, but, unfortunately, in +a badly chosen form. + + + +CHAPTER I. + +THE PERIOD OF TRANSITION: FROM NICOLAS OF CUSA TO DESCARTES. + + +The essays at philosophy which made their appearance between the middle of +the fifteenth century and the middle of the seventeenth, exhibit mediaeval +and modern characteristics in such remarkable intermixture that they can +be assigned exclusively to neither of these two periods. There are eager +longings, lofty demands, magnificent plans, and promising outlooks in +abundance, but a lack of power to endure, a lack of calmness and maturity; +while the shackles against which the leading minds revolt still bind too +firmly both the leaders and those to whom they speak. Only here and there +are the fetters loosened and thrown off; if the hands are successfully +freed, the clanking chains still hamper the feet. It is a time just suited +for original thinkers, a remarkable number of whom in fact make their +appearance, side by side or in close succession. Further, however little +these are able to satisfy the demand for permanent results, they ever +arouse our interest anew by the boldness and depth of their brilliant +ideas, which alternate with quaint fancies or are pervaded by them; by the +youthful courage with which they attacked great questions; and not least +by the hard fate which rewarded their efforts with misinterpretation, +persecution, and death at the stake. We must quickly pass over the broad +threshold between modern philosophy and Scholastic philosophy, which is +bounded by the year 1450, in which Nicolas of Cusa wrote his chief +work, the _Idiota_, and 1644, when Descartes began the new era with +his _Principia Philosophiae_; and can touch, in passing, only the most +important factors. We shall begin our account of this transition period +with Nicolas, and end it with the Englishmen, Bacon, Hobbes, and Lord +Herbert of Cherbury. Between these we shall arrange the various figures +of the Philosophical Renaissance (in the broad sense) in six groups: +the Restorers of the Ancient Systems and their Opponents; the Italian +Philosophers of Nature; the Political and Legal Philosophers; the Skeptics; +the Mystics; the Founders of the Exact Investigation of Nature. In Italy +the new spiritual birth shows an aesthetic, scientific, and humanistic +tendency; in Germany it is pre-eminently religious emancipation--in the +Reformation. + + +%1. Nicolas of Cusa.% + +Nicolas[1] was born in 1401, at Cues (Cusa) on the Moselle near Treves. +He early ran away from his stern father, a boatman and vine-dresser named +Chrypps (or Krebs), and was brought up by the Brothers of the Common Life +at Deventer. In Padua he studied law, mathematics, and philosophy, but the +loss of his first case at Mayence so disgusted him with his profession that +he turned to theology, and became a distinguished preacher. He took part +in the Council of Basle, was sent by Pope Eugen IV. as an ambassador to +Constantinople and to the Reichstag at Frankfort; was made Cardinal in +1448, and Bishop of Brixen in 1450. His feudal lord, the Count of Tyrol, +Archduke Sigismund, refused him recognition on account of certain quarrels +in which they had become engaged, and for a time held him prisoner. +Previous to this he had undertaken journeys to Germany and the Netherlands +on missionary business. During a second sojourn in Italy death overtook +him, in the year 1464, at Todi in Umbria. The first volume of the Paris +edition of his collected works (1514) contains the most important of his +philosophical writings; the second, among others, mathematical essays and +ten books of selections from his sermons; the third, the extended work, _De +Concordantia Catholica_, which he had completed at Basle. In 1440 (having +already written on the Reform of the Calendar) he began his imposing series +of philosophical writings with the _De Docta Ignorantia_, to which the +_De Conjecturis_ was added in the following year. These were succeeded by +smaller treatises entitled _De Quaerendo Deum, De Dato Patris Luminum, De +Filiatione Dei, De Genesi_, and a defense of the _De Docta Ignorantia_. His +most important work is the third of the four dialogues of the _Idiota_ ("On +the Mind"), 1450. He clothes in continually changing forms the one supreme +truth on which all depends, and which cannot be expressed in intelligible +language but only comprehended by living intuition. In many different ways +he endeavors to lead the reader on to a vision of the inexpressible, or +to draw him up to it, and to develop fruitfully the principle of the +coincidence of opposites, which had dawned upon him on his return journey +from Constantinople (_De Visione Dei, Dialogus de Possest, De Beryllo, +De Ludo Globi, De Venatione Sapientiae, De Apice Theoriae, Compendium_). +Sometimes he uses dialectical reasoning; sometimes he soars in mystical +exaltation; sometimes he writes with a simplicity level to the common mind, +and in connection with that which lies at hand; sometimes, with the most +comprehensive brevity. Besides these his philosophico-religious works +are of great value, _De Pace Fidei, De Cribratione Alchorani_. Liberal +Catholics reverence him as one of the deepest thinkers of the Church; but +the fame of Giordano Bruno, a more brilliant but much less original figure, +has hitherto stood in the way of the general recognition of his great +importance for modern philosophy. + +[Footnote 1: R. Zimmermann, _Nikolaus Cusanus als Vorlaeufer Leibnizens_, in +vol. viii. of the _Sitzungsberichte der philosophisch-historischen Klasse +der Akademie der Wissenschaften_, Vienna, 1852, p. 306 seq. R. Falckenberg, +_Grundzuege der Philosophie des Nikolaus Cusanus mit besonderer +Beruecksichtigung der Lehre vom Erkennen_, Breslau, 1880. R. Eucken, +_Beitraege zur Geschichte der neueren Philosophie_, Heidelberg, 1886, p. 6 +seq.; Joh. Uebinger, _Die Gotteslehre des Nikolaus Cusanus_, Muenster, +1888. Scharpff, _Des Nikolaus von Cusa wichtigste Schriften in deutscher +Uebersetzung, Freiburg i. Br_., 1862.] + +Human knowledge and the relation of God to the world are the two poles of +the Cusan's system. He distinguishes four stages of knowledge. Lowest of +all stands sense (together with imagination), which yields only confused +images; next above, the understanding (_ratio_), whose functions comprise +analysis, the positing of time and space, numerical operations, and +denomination, and which keeps the opposites distinct under the law of +contradiction; third, the speculative reason (_intellectus_), which finds +the opposites reconcilable; and highest of all the mystical, supra-rational +intuition (_visio sine comprehensione, intuitio, unio, filiatio_), +for which the opposites coincide in the infinite unity. The intuitive +culmination of knowledge, in which the soul is united with God,--since +here even the antithesis of subject and object disappears,--is but seldom +attained; and it is difficult to keep out the disturbing symbols and images +of sense, which mingle themselves in the intuition. But it is just this +insight into the incomprehensibility of the infinite which gives us a true +knowledge of God; this is the meaning of the "learned ignorance," the +_docta ignorantia_. The distinctions between these several stages of +cognition are not, however, to be understood in any rigid sense, for +each higher function comprehends the lower, and is active therein. The +understanding can discriminate only when it is furnished by sensation with +images of that which is to be discriminated, the reason can combine only +when the understanding has supplied the results of analysis as material for +combination; while, on the other hand, it is the understanding which is +present in sense as consciousness, and the reason whose unity guides +the understanding in its work of separation. Thus the several modes of +cognition do not stand for independent fundamental faculties, but for +connected modifications of one fundamental power which work together and +mutually imply one another. The position that an intellectual function of +attention and discrimination is active in sensuous perception, is a view +entirely foreign to mediaeval modes of thought; for the Scholastics were +accustomed to make sharp divisions between the cognitive faculties, on the +principle that particulars are felt through sense and universals thought +through the understanding. The idea on which Nicolas bases his argument for +immortality has also an entirely modern sound: viz., that space and time +are products of the understanding, and, therefore, can have no power over +the spirit which produces them; for the author is higher and mightier than +the product. + +The confession that all our knowledge is conjecture does not simply mean +that absolute and exact truth remains concealed from us; but is intended at +the same time to encourage us to draw as near as possible to the eternal +verity by ever truer conjectures. There are degrees of truth, and our +surmises are neither absolutely true nor entirely false. Conjecture becomes +error only when, forgetting the inadequacy of human knowledge, we rest +content with it as a final solution; the Socratic maxim, "I know that I +am ignorant," should not lead to despairing resignation but to courageous +further inquiry. The duty of speculation is to penetrate deeper and deeper +into the secrets of the divine, even though the ultimate revelation will +not be given us until the hereafter. The fittest instrument of speculation +is furnished by mathematics, in its conception of the infinite and the +wonders of numerical relations: as on the infinite sphere center and +circumference coincide, so God's essence is exalted above all opposites; +and as the other numbers are unfolded from the unit, so the finite proceeds +by explication from the infinite. A controlling significance in the serial +construction of the world is ascribed to the ten, as the sum of the first +four numbers--as reason, understanding, imagination, and sensibility are +related in human cognition, so God, spirit, soul, and body, or infinity, +thought, life, and being are related in the objective sphere; so, further, +the absolute necessity of God, the concrete necessity of the universe, +the actuality of individuals, and the possibility of matter. Beside the +quaternary the tern also exercises its power--the world divides into the +stages of eternity, imperishability, and the temporal world of sense, +or truth, probability, and confusion. The divine trinity is reflected +everywhere: in the world as creator, created, and love; in the mind as +creative force, concept, and will. The triunity of God is very variously +explained--as the subject, object, and act of cognition; as creative +spirit, wisdom, and goodness; as being, power, and deed; and, preferably, +as unity, equality, and the combination of the two. + +God is related to the world as unity, identity, _complicatio_, to +otherness, diversity, _explicatio_, as necessity to contingency, as +completed actuality to mere possibility; yet, in such a way that the +otherness participates in the unity, and receives its reality from this, +and the unity does not have the otherness confronting it, outside it. God +is triune only as the Creator of the world, and in relation to it; in +himself he is absolute unity and infinity, to which nothing disparate +stands opposed, which is just as much all things as not all things, and +which, as the Areopagite had taught of old, is better comprehended by +negations than by affirmations. To deny that he is light, truth, spirit, +is more true than to affirm it, for he is infinitely greater than anything +which can be expressed in words; he is the Unutterable, the Unknowable, +the supremely one and the supremely absolute. In the world, each thing has +things greater and smaller by its side, but God is the absolutely greatest +and smallest; in accordance with the principle of the _coincidentia +oppositorum_, the absolute _maximum_ and the absolute _minimum_ coincide. +That which in the world exists as concretely determinate and particular, +is in God in a simple and universal way; and that which here is present +as incompleted striving, and as possibility realizing itself by gradual +development, is in God completed activity. He is the realization of all +possibility, the Can-be or Can-is (_possest_); and since this absolute +actuality is the presupposition and cause of all finite ability and action, +it may be unconditionally designated ability (_posse ipsum_), in antithesis +to all determinate manifestations of force; namely, to all ability to be, +live, feel, think, and will. + +However much these definitions, conceived in harmony with the dualistic +view of Christianity, accentuate the antithesis between God and the world, +this is elsewhere much softened, nay directly denied, in favor of a +pantheistic view which points forward to the modern period. Side by side +with the assertion that there is no proportion whatever between the +infinite and the finite, the following naively presents itself, in open +contradiction to the former: God excels the reason just as much as +the latter is superior to the understanding, and the understanding to +sensibility, or he is related to thought as thought to life, and life to +being. Nay, Nicolas makes even bolder statements than these, when he calls +the universe a sensuous and mutable God, man a human God or a humanly +contracted infinity, the creation a created God or a limited infinity; thus +hinting that God and the world are at bottom essentially alike, differing +only in the form of their existence, that it is one and the same being +and action which manifests itself absolutely in God, relatively and in a +limited way in the system of creation. It was chiefly three modern ideas +which led the Cusan on from dualism to pantheism--the boundlessness of the +universe, the connection of all being, and the all-comprehensive richness +of individuality. Endlessness belongs to the universe as well as to God, +only its endlessness is not an absolute one, beyond space and time, but +weakened and concrete, namely unlimited extension in space and unending +duration in time. Similarly, the universe is unity, yet not a unity +absolutely above multiplicity and diversity, but one which is divided into +many members and obscured thereby. Even the individual is infinite in a +certain sense; for, in its own way, it bears in itself all that is, it +mirrors the whole world from its limited point of view, is an abridged, +compressed representation of the universe. As the members of the body, the +eye, the arm, the foot, interact in the closest possible way, and no one +of them can dispense with the rest, so each thing is connected with each, +different from it and yet in harmony with it, so each contains all the +others and is contained by them. All is in all, for all is in the universe +and in God, as the universe and God in all. In a still higher degree man is +a microcosm (_parvus mundus_), a mirror of the All, since he not merely, +like other beings, actually has in himself all that exists, but also has +a knowledge of this richness, is capable of developing it into conscious +images of things. And it is just this which constitutes the perfection of +the whole and of the parts, that the higher is in the lower, the cause in +the effect, the genus in the individual, the soul in the body, reason +in the senses, and conversely. To perfect, is simply to make active a +potential possession, to unfold capacities and to elevate the unconscious +into consciousness. Here we have the germ of the philosophy of Bruno and of +Leibnitz. + +As we have noticed a struggle between two opposite tendencies, one +dualistic and Christian, one pantheistic and modern, in the theology of +Nicolas, so at many other points a conflict between the mediaeval and the +modern view of the world, of which our philosopher is himself unconscious, +becomes evident to the student. It is impossible to follow out the details +of this interesting opposition, so we shall only attempt to distinguish in +a rough way the beginnings of the new from the remnants of the old. Modern +is his interest in the ancient philosophers, of whom Pythagoras, Plato, and +the Neoplatonists especially attract him; modern, again, his interest in +natural science[1] (he teaches not only the boundlessness of the world, but +also the motion of the earth); his high estimation of mathematics, although +he often utilizes this merely in a fanciful symbolism of numbers; his +optimism (the world an image of the divine, everything perfect of its kind, +the bad simply a halt on the way to the good); his intellectualism (knowing +the primal function and chief mission of the spirit; faith an undeveloped +knowledge; volition and emotion, as is self-evident, incidental results of +thought; knowledge a leading back of the creature to God as its source, +hence the counterpart of creation); modern, finally, the form and +application given to the Stoic-Neoplatonic concept of individuality, and +the idealistic view which resolves the objects of thought into products +thereof.[2] This last position, indeed, is limited by the lingering +influence of nominalism, which holds the concepts of the mind to be merely +abstract copies, and not archetypes of things. Moreover, _explicatio, +evolutio_, unfolding, as yet does not always have the meaning of +development to-day, of progressive advance. It denotes, quite neutrally, +the production of a multiplicity from a unity, in which the former has lain +confined, no matter whether this multiplicity and its procession signify +enhancement or attenuation. For the most part, in fact, involution, +_complicatio_ (which, moreover, always means merely a primal, germinal +condition, never, as in Leibnitz, the return thereto) represents the more +perfect condition. The chief examples of the relation of involution and +evolution are the principles in which science is involved and out of which +it is unfolded; the unit, which is related to numbers in a similar way; +the spirit and the cognitive operations; God and his creatures. However +obscure and unskillful this application of the idea of development may +appear, yet it is indisputable that a discovery of great promise has been +made, accompanied by a joyful consciousness of its fruitfulness. Of the +numberless features which point backward to the Middle Ages, only one need +be mentioned, the large space taken up by speculations concerning the +God-man (the whole third book of the _De Docta Ignorantia_), and by those +concerning the angels. Yet even here a change is noticeable, for the +earthly and the divine are brought into most intimate relation, while in +Thomas Aquinas, for instance, they form two entirely separate worlds. In +short, the new view of the world appears in Nicolas still bound on every +hand by mediaeval conceptions. A century and a half passed before the +fetters, grown rusty in the meanwhile, broke under the bolder touch of +Giordano Bruno. + +[Footnote 1: The attention of our philosopher was called to the natural +sciences, and thus also to geography, which at this time was springing into +new life, by his friend Paul Toscanelli, the Florentine. Nicolas was the +first to have the map of Germany engraved (cf. S. Ruge in _Globus_, vol. +lx., No. I, 1891), which, however, was not completed until long after his +death, and issued in 1491.] + +[Footnote 2: On the modern elements in his theory of the state and of +right, cf. Gierke, _Das deutsche Genossenschaftsrecht_, vol. iii. Sec. II, +1881.] + + +%2. The Revival of Ancient Philosophy and the Opposition to it%. + +Italy is the home of the Renaissance and the birthplace of important +new ideas which give the intellectual life of the sixteenth century its +character of brave endeavor after high and distant ends. The enthusiasm +for ancient literature already aroused by the native poets, Dante (1300), +Petrarch (1341), and Boccaccio (1350), was nourished by the influx of Greek +scholars, part of whom came in pursuance of an invitation to the Council of +Ferrara and Florence (1438) called in behalf of the union of the Churches +(among these were Pletho and his pupil Bessarion; Nicolas Cusanus was one +of the legates invited), while part were fugitives from Constantinople +after its capture by the Turks in 1453. The Platonic Academy, whose +most celebrated member, Marsilius Ficinus, translated Plato and the +Neoplatonists into Latin, was founded in 1440 on the suggestion of Georgius +Gemistus Pletho[1] under the patronage of Cosimo dei Medici. The writings +of Pletho ("On the Distinction between Plato and Aristotle"), of Bessarion +(_Adversus Calumniatorem Platonis_, 1469, in answer to the _Comparatio +Aristotelis et Platonis_, 1464, an attack by the Aristotelian, George of +Trebizond, on Pletho's work), and of Ficinus (_Theologia Platonica_, 1482), +show that the Platonism which they favored was colored by religious, +mystical, and Neoplatonic elements. If for Bessarion and Ficinus, just as +for the Eclectics of the later Academy, there was scarcely any essential +distinction between the teachings of Plato, of Aristotle, and of +Christianity; this confusion of heterogeneous elements was soon carried +much farther, when the two Picos (John Pico of Mirandola, died 1494, and +his nephew Francis, died 1533) and Johann Reuchlin (_De Verbo Mirifico_, +1494; _De Arte Cabbalistica_, 1517), who had been influenced by the former, +introduced the secret doctrines of the Jewish Cabala into the Platonic +philosophy, and Cornelius Agrippa von Nettesheim of Cologne (_De Occulta +Philosophia_, 1510; cf. Sigwart, _Kleine Schriften_, vol. i. p. 1 seq.) +made the mixture still worse by the addition of the magic art. The impulse +of the modern spirit to subdue nature is here already apparent, only that +it shows inexperience in the selection of its instruments; before long, +however, nature will willingly unveil to observation and calm reflection +the secrets which she does not yield to the compulsion of magic. + +[Footnote 1: Pletho died at an advanced age in 1450. His chief work, the +[Greek: Nomoi], was given to the flames by his Aristotelian opponent, +Georgius Scholarius, surnamed Gennadius, Patriarch of Constantinople. +Portions of it only, which had previously become known, have been +preserved. On Pletho's life and teachings, cf. Fritz Schultze, _G.G. +Plethon_, Jena, 1874.] + +A similar romantic figure was Phillipus Aureolus Theophrastus Bombast +Paracelsus[1] von Hohenheim (1493-1541), a traveled Swiss, who endeavored +to reform medicine from the standpoint of chemistry. Philosophy for +Paracelsus is knowledge of nature, in which observation and thought +must co-operate; speculation apart from experience and worship of the +paper-wisdom of the ancients lead to no result. The world is a living +whole, which, like man, the microcosm, in whom the whole content of +the macrocosm is concentrated as in an extract, runs its life course. +Originally all things were promiscuously intermingled in a unity, the +God-created _prima materia_, as though inclosed in a germ, whence the +manifold, with its various forms and colors, proceeded by separation. +The development then proceeds in such a way that in each genus that is +perfected which is posited therein, and does not cease until, at the last +day, all that is possible in nature and history shall have fulfilled +itself. But the one indwelling life of nature lives in all the manifold +forms; the same laws rule in the human body as in the universe; that which +works secretly in the former lies open to the view in the latter, and the +world gives the clew to the knowledge of man. Natural becoming is brought +about by the chemical separation and coming together of substances; the +ultimate constituents revealed by analysis are the three fundamental +substances or primitive essences, quicksilver, sulphur, and salt, by which, +however, something more principiant is understood than the empirical +substances bearing these names: _mercurius_ means that which makes bodies +liquid, _sulfur_, that which makes them combustible, _sal_, that which +makes them fixed and rigid. From these are compounded the four elements, +each of which is ruled by elemental spirits--earth by gnomes or pygmies, +water by undines or nymphs, air by sylphs, fire by salamanders (cf. with +this, and with Paracelsus's theory of the world as a whole, Faust's two +monologues in Goethe's drama); which are to be understood as forces +or sublimated substances, not as personal, demoniacal beings. To each +individual being there is ascribed a vital principle, the _Archeus_, an +individualization of the general force of nature, _Vulcanus_; so also to +men. Disease is a checking of this vital principle by contrary powers, +which are partly of a terrestrial and partly of a sidereal nature; and the +choice of medicines is to be determined by their ability to support the +Archeus against its enemies. Man is, however, superior to nature--he is not +merely the universal animal, inasmuch as he is completely that which other +beings are only in a fragmentary way; but, as the image of God, he has also +an eternal element in him, and is capable of attaining perfection through +the exercise of his rational judgment. Paracelsus distinguishes three +worlds: the elemental or terrestrial, the astral or celestial, and the +spiritual or divine. To the three worlds, which stand in relations of +sympathetic interaction, there correspond in man the body, which nourishes +itself on the elements, the spirit, whose imagination receives its food, +sense and thoughts, from the spirits of the stars, and, finally, the +immortal soul, which finds its nourishment in faith in Christ. Hence +natural philosophy, astronomy, and theology are the pillars of +anthropology, and ultimately of medicine. This fantastic physic of +Paracelsus found many adherents both in theory and in practice.[2] Among +those who accepted and developed it may be named R. Fludd (died 1637), and +the two Van Helmonts, father and son (died 1644 and 1699). + +[Footnote 1: On Paracelsus cf. Sigwart, _Kleine Schriften_, vol. i. p. 25 +seq.; Eucken, _Beitraege zur Geschichteder neueren Philosophie_, p. 32 seq.; +Lasswitz, _Geschichte der Atomistik_, vol. i. p. 294 seq.] + +[Footnote 2: The influence of Paracelsus, as of Vives and Campanella, is +evident in the great educator, Amos Comenius (Komensky, 1592-1670), whose +pansophical treatises appeared in 1637-68. On Comenius cf. Pappenheim, +Berlin, 1871; Kvacsala, Doctor's Dissertation, Leipsic, 1886; Walter +Mueller, Dresden, 1887.] + +Beside the Platonic philosophy, others of the ancient systems were also +revived. Stoicism was commended by Justus Lipsius (died 1606) and Caspar +Schoppe (Scioppius, born 1562); Epicureanism was revived by Gassendi +(1647), and rhetorizing logicians went back to Cicero and Quintilian. Among +the latter were Laurentius Valla (died 1457); R. Agricola (died 1485); the +Spaniard, Ludovicus Vives (1531), who referred inquiry from the authority +of Aristotle to the methodical utilization of experience; and Marius +Nizolius (1553), whose _Antibarbarus_ was reissued by Leibnitz in 1670. + +The adherents of Aristotle were divided into two parties, one of which +relied on the naturalistic interpretation of the Greek exegete, +Alexander of Aphrodisias (about 200 A.D.), the other on the pantheistic +interpretation of the Arabian commentator, Averroes (died 1198). The +conflict over the question of immortality, carried on especially in Padua, +was the culmination of the battle. The Alexandrist asserted that, according +to Aristotle, the soul was mortal, the Averroists, that the rational part +which is common to all men was immortal; while to this were added the +further questions, if and how the Aristotelian view could be reconciled +with the Church doctrine, which demanded a continued personal existence. +The most eminent Aristotelian of the Renaissance, Petrus Pomponatius (_De +Immortalite Animae_, 1516; _De Fato, Libero Arbitrio, Providentia et +Praedestinatione_), was on the side of the Alexandrists. Achillini and +Niphus fought on the other side. Caesalpin (died 1603), Zabarella, and +Cremonini assumed an intermediate, or, at least, a less decided position. +Still others, as Faber Stapulensis in Paris (1500), and Desiderius Erasmus +(1520), were more interested in securing a correct text of Aristotle's +works than in his philosophical principles. + + * * * * * + +Among the Anti-Aristotelians only two famous names need be mentioned, that +of the influential Frenchman, Petrus Ramus, and the German, Taurellus. +Pierre de la Ramee (assassinated in the massacre of St. Bartholomew, +1572), attacked the (unnatural and useless) Aristotelian logic in his +_Aristotelicae Animadversiones_, 1543, objecting, with the Ciceronians +mentioned above, to the separation of logic and rhetoric; and attempted a +new logic of his own, in his _Institutiones Dialecticae_, which, in spite +of its formalism, gained acceptance, especially in Germany.[1] Nicolaus +Oechslein, Latinized Taurellus (born in 1547 at Moempelgard; at his death, +in 1606, professor of medicine in the University of Altdorf), stood quite +alone because of his independent position in reference to all philosophical +and religious parties. His most important works were his _Philosophiae +Triumphus_, 1573; _Synopsis Aristotelis Metaphysicae_, 1596; _Alpes Caesae_ +(against Caesalpin, and the title punning on his name), 1597; and _De Rerum +Aeternitate_, 1604.[2] The thought of Taurellus inclines toward the ideal +of a Christian philosophy; which, however, Scholasticism, in his view, did +not attain, inasmuch as its thought was heathen in its blind reverence +for Aristotle, even though its faith was Christian. In order to heal this +breach between the head and the heart, it is necessary in religion to +return from confessional distinctions to Christianity itself, and in +philosophy, to abandon authority for the reason. We should not seek to be +Lutherans or Calvinists, but simply Christians, and we should judge on +rational grounds, instead of following Aristotle, Averroes, or Thomas +Aquinas. Anyone who does not aim at the harmony of theology and philosophy, +is neither a Christian nor a philosopher. One and the same God is the +primal source of both rational and revealed truth. Philosophy is the basis +of theology, theology the criterion and complement of philosophy. The one +starts with effects evident to the senses and leads to the suprasensible, +to the First Cause; the other follows the reverse course. To philosophy +belongs all that Adam knew or could know before the fall; had there been no +sin, there would have been no other than philosophical knowledge. But after +the fall, the reason, which informs us, it is true, of the moral law, but +not of the divine purpose of salvation, would have led us to despair, since +neither punishment nor virtue could justify us, if revelation did not teach +us the wonders of grace and redemption. Although Taurellus thus softens the +opposition between theology and philosophy, which had been most sharply +expressed in the doctrine of "twofold truth" (that which is true in +philosophy may be false in theology, and conversely), and endeavors to +bring the two into harmony, the antithesis between God and the world still +remains for him immovably fixed. God is not things, though he is all. He +is pure affirmation; all without him is composed, as it were, of being and +nothing, and can neither be nor be known independently: _negatio non nihil +est, alias nec esset nec intelligeretur, sed limitatio est affirmationis_. +Simple being or simple affirmation is equivalent to infinity, eternity, +unity, uniqueness,--properties which do not belong to the world. He who +posits things as eternal, sublates God. God and the world are opposed to +each other as infinite cause and finite effect. Moreover, as it is our +spirit which philosophizes and not God's spirit in us, so the faith through +which man appropriates Christ's merit is a free action of the human spirit, +the capacity for which is inborn, not infused from above; in it, God acts +merely as an auxiliary or remote cause, by removing the obstacles which +hinder the operation of the power of faith. With this anti-pantheistic +tendency he combines an anti-intellectualistic one--being and production +precedes and stands higher than contemplation; God's activity does not +consist in thought but in production, and human blessedness, not in the +knowledge but the love of God, even though the latter presupposes the +former. While man, as an end in himself, is immortal--and the whole man, +not his soul merely--the world of sense, which has been created only for +the conservation of man (his procreation and probation), must disappear; +above this world, however, a higher rears its walls to subserve man's +eternal happiness. + +[Footnote 1: On Ramus cf. Waddington's treatises, one in Latin, Paris, +1849, the other in French, Paris, 1855.] + +[Footnote 2: Schmid Schwarzenburg has written on Taurellus, 1860, 2d ed., +1864.] + +The high regard which Leibnitz expressed for Taurellus may be in part +explained by the many anticipations of his own thoughts to be found in +the earlier writer. The intimate relation into which sensibility and +understanding are brought is an instance of this from the theory of +knowledge. Receptivity is not passivity, but activity arrested (through the +body). All knowledge is inborn; all men are potential philosophers (and, so +far as they are loyal to conscience, Christians); the spirit is a thinking +and a thinkable universe. Taurellus's philosophy of nature, recognizing +the relative truth of atomism, makes the world consist of manifold simple +substances combined into formal unity: he calls it a well constructed +system of wholes. A discussion of the origin of evil is also given, with a +solution based on the existence and misuse of freedom. Finally, it is to +be mentioned to the great credit of Taurellus, that, like his younger +contemporaries, Galileo and Kepler, he vigorously opposed the Aristotelian +and Scholastic animation of the material world and the anthropomorphic +conception of its forces, thus preparing the way for the modern view of +nature to be perfected by Newton. + + +%3. The Italian Philosophy of Nature%. + +We turn now from the restorers of ancient doctrines and their opponents to +the men who, continuing the opposition to the authority of Aristotle, point +out new paths for the study of nature. The physician, Hieronymus Cardanus +of Milan (1501-76), whose inclinations toward the fanciful were restrained, +though not suppressed, by his mathematical training, may be considered the +forerunner of the school. While the people should accept the dogmas of the +Church with submissive faith, the thinker may and should subordinate all +things to the truth. The wise man belongs to that rare class who neither +deceive nor are deceived; others are either deceivers or deceived, or both. +In his theory of nature, Cardanus advances two principles: one passive, +matter (the three cold and moist elements), and an active, formative one, +the world-soul, which, pervading the All and bringing it into unity, +appears as warmth and light. The causes of motion are attraction and +repulsion, which in higher beings become love and hate. Even superhuman +spirits, the demons, are subject to the mechanical laws of nature. + +The standard bearer of the Italian philosophy of nature was Bernardinus +Telesius[1] of Cosenza (1508-88; _De Rerum Natura juxta Propria Principia_, +1565, enlarged 1586), the founder of a scientific society in Naples called +the Telesian, or after the name of his birthplace, the Cosentian Academy. +Telesius maintained that the Aristotelian doctrine must be replaced by an +unprejudiced empiricism; that nature must be explained from itself, and by +as few principles as possible. Beside inert matter, this requires only two +active forces, on whose interaction all becoming and all life depend. These +are warmth, which expands, and cold, which contracts; the former resides in +the sun and thence proceeds, the latter is situated in the earth. Although +Telesius acknowledges an immaterial, immortal soul, he puts the emphasis +on sensuous experience, without which the understanding is incapable of +attaining certain knowledge. He is a sensationalist both in the theory of +knowledge and in ethics, holding the functions of judgment and thought +deducible from the fundamental power of perception, and considering the +virtues different manifestations of the instinct of self-preservation +(which he ascribes to matter as well). + +[Footnote 1: Cf. on Telesius, Florentine, 2 vols., Naples, 1872-74; K. +Heiland, _Erkenntnisslehre und Ethik des Telesius_, Doctor's Dissertation +at Leipsic, 1891. Further, Rixner and Siber, _Leben und Lehrmeinungen +beruehmter Physiker am Ende des XVI. und am Anfang des XVII. Jahrhunderts_, +Sulzbach (1819-26), 7 Hefte, 2d ed., 1829. Hefte 2-6 discuss Cardanus, +Telesius, Patritius, Bruno, and Campanella; the first is devoted to +Paracelsus, and the seventh to the older Van Helmont (Joh. Bapt.).] + +With the name of Telesius we usually associate that of Franciscus Patritius +(1529-97), professor of the Platonic philosophy in Ferrara and Rome +_(Discussiones Peripateticae,_ 1581; _Nova de Universis Philosophia_, +1591), who, combining Neoplatonic and Telesian principles, holds that the +incorporeal or spiritual light emanates from the divine original light, in +which all reality is seminally contained; the heavenly or ethereal +light from the incorporeal; and the earthly or corporeal, from the +heavenly--while the original light divides into three persons, the One and +All _(Unomnia)_, unity or life, and spirit. + +The Italian philosophy of nature culminates in Bruno and Campanella, of +whom the former, although he is the earlier, appears the more advanced +because of his freer attitude toward the Church. Giordano Bruno was born +in 1548 at Nola, and educated at Naples; abandoning his membership in the +Dominican Order, he lived, with various changes of residence, in France, +England, and Germany. Returning to his native land, he was arrested in +Venice and imprisoned for seven years at Rome, where, on February 17, 1600, +he suffered death at the stake, refusing to recant. (The same fate overtook +his fellow-countryman, Vanini, in 1619, at Toulouse.) Besides three +didactic poems in Latin (Frankfort, 1591), the Italian dialogues, _Della +Causa, Principio ed Uno_, Venice, 1584 (German translation by Lasson, +1872), are of chief importance. The Italian treatises have been edited by +Wagner, Leipsic, 1829, and by De Lagarde, 2 vols., Goettingen, 1888; the +Latin appeared at Naples, in 3 vols., 1880, 1886, and 1891. Of a passionate +and imaginative nature, Bruno was not an essentially creative thinker, but +borrowed the ideas which he proclaimed with burning enthusiasm and lofty +eloquence, and through which he has exercised great influence on later +philosophy, from Telesius and Nicolas, complaining the while that the +priestly garb of the latter sometimes hindered the free movement of his +thought. Beside these thinkers he has a high regard for Pythagoras, Plato, +Lucretius, Raymundus Lullus, and Copernicus (died 1543).[1] He forms the +transition link between Nicolas of Cusa and Leibnitz, as also the link +between Cardanus and Spinoza. To Spinoza Bruno offered the naturalistic +conception of God (God is the "first cause" immanent in the universe, to +which self-manifestation or self-revelation is essential; He is _natura +naturans_, the numberless worlds are _natura naturata_); Leibnitz he +anticipated by his doctrine of the "monads," the individual, imperishable +elements of the existent, in which matter and form, incorrectly divorced by +Aristotle as though two antithetical principles, constitute one unity. +The characteristic traits of the philosophy of Bruno are the lack of +differentiation between pantheistic and individualistic elements, the +mediaeval animation and endlessness of the world, and, finally, the +religious relation to the universe or the extravagant deification of nature +(nature and the world are entirely synonymous, the All, the world-soul, +and God nearly so, while even matter is called a divine being).[2] + +[Footnote 1: Nicolaus Copernicus (Koppernik; 1473-1543) was born at Thorn; +studied astronomy, law, and medicine at Cracow, Bologna, and Padua; and +died a Canon of Frauenberg. His treatise, _De Revolutionibus Orbium +Caelestium_, which was dedicated to Pope Paul III., appeared at Nuremberg +in 1543, with a preface added to it by the preacher, Andreas Osiander, +which calls the heliocentric system merely an hypothesis advanced as a +basis for astronomical calculations. Copernicus reached his theory rather +by speculation than by observation; its first suggestion came from the +Pythagorean doctrine of the motion of the earth. On Copernicus cf. Leop. +Prowe, vol. i. _Copernicus Leben_, vol. ii. (_Urkunden_), Berlin, 1883-84; +and K. Lohmeyer in Sybel's _Historische Zeitschrift_, vol. lvii., 1887.] + +[Footnote 2: Cf. on Bruno, H. Brunnhofer (somewhat too enthusiastic), +Leipsic, 1882; also Sigwart, _Kleine Schriften_, vol. i. p. 49 _seq_.] + +Bruno completes the Copernican picture of the world by doing away with the +motionless circle of fixed stars with which Copernicus, and even Kepler, +had thought our solar system surrounded, and by opening up the view into +the immeasurability of the world. With this the Aristotelian antithesis of +the terrestrial and the celestial is destroyed. The infinite space (filled +with the aether) is traversed by numberless bodies, no one of which +constitutes the center of the world. The fixed stars are suns, and, like +our own, surrounded by planets. The stars are formed of the same materials +as the earth, and are moved by their own souls or forms, each a living +being, each also the residence of infinitely numerous living beings of +various degrees of perfection, in whose ranks man by no means takes the +first place. All organisms are composed of minute elements, called _minima_ +or monads; each monad is a mirror of the All; each at once corporeal and +soul-like, matter and form, each eternal; their combinations alone being +in constant change. The universe is boundless in time, as in space; +development never ceases, for the fullness of forms which slumber in the +womb of matter is inexhaustible. The Absolute is the primal unity, exalted +above all antitheses, from which all created being is unfolded and in which +it remains included. All is one, all is out of God and in God. In +the living unity of the universe, also, the two sides, the spiritual +(world-soul), and the corporeal (universal matter), are distinguishable, +but not separate. The world-reason pervades in its omnipresence the +greatest and the smallest, but in varying degrees. It weaves all into +one great system, so that if we consider the whole, the conflicts and +contradictions which rule in particulars disappear, resolved into the +most perfect harmony. Whoever thus regards the world, becomes filled with +reverence for the Infinite and bends his will to the divine law--from true +science proceed true religion and true morality, those of the spiritual +hero, of the heroic sage. + +Thomas Campanella[1] (1568-1639) was no less dependent on Nicolas and +Telesius than Bruno. A Calabrian by birth like Telesius, whose writings +filled him with aversion to Aristotle, a Dominican like Bruno, he was +deprived of his freedom on an unfounded suspicion of conspiracy against the +Spanish rule, spent twenty-seven years in prison, and died in Paris after a +short period of quiet. Renewing an old idea, Campanella directed attention +from the written volume of Scripture to the living book of nature as being +also a divine revelation. Theology rests on faith (in theology, Campanella, +in accordance with the traditions of his order, follows Thomas Aquinas); +philosophy is based on perception, which in its instrumental part comprises +mathematics and logic, and in its real part, the doctrine of nature and of +morals, while metaphysics treats of the highest presuppositions and the +ultimate grounds,--the "pro-principles," Campanella starts, as Augustine +before him and Descartes in later times, from the indisputable certitude of +the spirit's own existence, from which he rises to the certitude of God's +existence. On this first certain truth of my own existence there follow +three others: my nature consists in the three functions of power, +knowledge, and volition; I am finite and limited, might, wisdom, and +love are in man constantly intermingled with their opposites, weakness, +foolishness, and hate; my power, knowledge, and volition do not extend +beyond the present. The being of God follows from the idea of God in us, +which can have been derived from no other than an infinite source. It would +be impossible for so small a part of the universe as man to produce from +himself the idea of a being incomparably greater than the whole universe. +I attain a knowledge of God's nature from my own by thinking away from +the latter, in which, as in everything finite, being and non-being are +intermingled, every limitation and negation, by raising to infinity +my positive fundamental powers, _posse, cognoscere_, and _velle_, or +_potentia, sapientia_, and _amor_, and by transferring them to him, who is +pure affirmation, _ens_ entirely without _non-ens_. Thus I reach as the +three pro-principles or primalities of the existent or the Godhead, +omnipotence, omniscience, and infinite love. But the infrahuman world may +also be judged after the analogy of our fundamental faculties. The +universe and all its parts possess souls; there is naught without +sensation; consciousness, it is true, is lacking in the lower creatures, +but they do not lack life, feeling, and desire, for it is impossible +for the animate to come from the inanimate. Everything loves and hates, +desires and avoids. Plants are motionless animals, and their roots, +mouths. Corporeal motion springs from an obscure, unconscious impulse of +self-preservation; the heavenly bodies circle about the sun as the center +of sympathy; space itself seeks a content _(horror vacui_). + +[Footnote 1: Campanella's works have been edited by Al. d'Ancona, Turin, +1854, Cf. Sigwart, _Kleine Schriften_, vol. i. p. 125 _seq_.] + +The more imperfect a thing is, the more weakened is the divine being in it +by non-being and contingency. The entrance of the naught into the divine +reality takes place by degrees. First God projects from himself the ideal +or archetypal world (_mundus archetypus_), _i.e._, the totality of the +possible. From this ideal world proceeds the metaphysical world of eternal +intelligences _(mundus mentalis)_, including the angels, the world-soul, +and human spirits. The third product is the mathematical world of space +_(mundus sempiternus_), the object of geometry; the fourth, the temporal +or corporeal world; the fifth, and last, the empirical world _(mundus +situalis_), in which everything appears at a definite point in space and +time. All things not only love themselves and seek the conservation of +their own being, but strive back toward the original source of their being, +to God; _i.e._, they possess religion. In man, natural and animal religion +are completed by rational religion, the limitations of which render a +revelation necessary. A religion can be considered divine only when it is +adapted to all, when it gains acceptance through miracles and virtue, and +when it contradicts neither natural ethics nor the reason. Religion is +union with God through knowledge, purity of will, and love. It is inborn, +a law of nature, not, as Machiavelli teaches, a political invention. + +Campanella desired to see the unity in the divine government of the world +embodied in a pyramid of states with the papacy at the apex: above the +individual states was to come the province, then the kingdom, the empire, +the (Spanish) world-monarchy, and, finally, the universal dominion of the +Pope. The Church should be superior to the State, the vicegerent of God to +temporal rulers and to councils. + + +%4. Philosophy of the State and of Law%. + +The originality of the modern doctrines of natural law was formerly +overestimated, as it was not known to how considerable an extent the way +had been prepared for them by the mediaeval philosophy of the state and of +law. It is evident from the equally rich and careful investigations of Otto +Gierke[1] that in the political and legal theories of a Bodin, a Grotius, +a Hobbes, a Rousseau, we have systematic developments of principles long +extant, rather than new principles produced with entire spontaneity. Their +merit consists in the principiant expression and accentuation and the +systematic development of ideas which the Middle Ages had produced, and +which in part belong to the common stock of Scholastic science, in part +constitute the weapons of attack for bold innovators. Marsilius of Padua +(_Defensor Pacis_, 1325), Occam (died 1347), Gerson (about 1400), and the +Cusan[2] _(Concordantia Catholica_, 1433) especially, are now seen in a +different light. "Under the husk of the mediaeval system there is revealed +a continuously growing antique-modern kernel, which draws all the living +constituents out of the husk, and finally bursts it" (Gierke, _Deutsches +Genossenschaftsrecht_, vol. iii. p. 312). Without going beyond the +boundaries of the theocratico-organic view of the state prevalent in +the Middle Ages, most of the conceptions whose full development was +accomplished by the natural law of modern times were already employed in +the Scholastic period. Here we already find the idea of a transition on the +part of man from a pre-political natural state of freedom and equality into +the state of citizenship; the idea of the origin of the state by a contract +(social and of submission); of the sovereignty of the ruler (_rex major +populo; plenitudo potestatis_), and of popular sovereignty[3] (_populus +major principe_); of the original and inalienable prerogatives of the +generality, and the innate and indestructible right of the individual to +freedom; the thought that the sovereign power is superior to positive +law _(princeps legibus solutus_), but subordinate to natural law; even +tendencies toward the division of powers (legislative and executive), +and the representative system. These are germs which, at the fall of +Scholasticism and the ecclesiastical reformation, gain light and air for +free development. + +[Footnote 1: Gierke, _Johannes Althusius und die Entwickelung der +naturrechtlichen Staatstheorien_, Breslau, 1880; the same, _Deutsches +Genossenschaftsrecht_, vol. iii. Sec. II, Berlin, 1881. Cf. further, Sigm. +Riezler, _Die literarischen Widersacher der Paepste_, Leipsic, 1874; A. +Franck, _Reformateurs et Publicistes de L'Europe_, Paris, 1864.] + +[Footnote 2: Nicolas' political ideas are discussed by T. Stumpf, Cologne, +1865.] + +[Footnote 3: Cf. F. von Bezold, _Die Lehre von der Volkssouveraenitaet im +Mittelalter_, (Sybel's _Historische Zeitschrift_, vol. xxxvi., 1876).] + +The modern theory of natural law, of which Grotius was the most influential +representative, began with Bodin and Althusius. The former conceives +the contract by which the state is founded as an act of unconditional +submission on the part of the community to the ruler, the latter conceives +it merely as the issue of a (revocable) commission: in the view of the one, +the sovereignty of the people is entirely alienated, "transferred," in that +of the other, administrative authority alone is granted, "conceded," while +the sovereign prerogatives remain with the people. Bodin is the founder +of the theory of absolutism, to which Grotius and the school of Pufendorf +adhere, though in a more moderate form, and which Hobbes develops to the +last extreme. Althusius, on the other hand, by his systematic development +of the doctrine of social contract and the inalienable sovereignty of the +people, became the forerunner of Locke[1] and Rousseau. + +[Footnote 1: Ulrich Huber (1674) may be called the first representative +of constitutionalism, and so the intermediate link between Althusius and +Locke. Cf. Gierke, _Althusius_, p. 290.] + +The first independent political philosopher of the modern period was +Nicolo Machiavelli of Florence (1469-1527). Patriotism was the soul of his +thinking, questions of practical politics its subject, and historical fact +its basis.[1] He is entirely unscholastic and unecclesiastical. The power +and independence of the nation are for him of supreme importance, and the +greatness and unity of Italy, the goal of his political system. He +opposes the Church, the ecclesiastical state, and the papacy as the chief +hindrances to the attainment of these ends, and considers the means by +which help may be given to the Fatherland. In normal circumstances a +republican constitution, under which Sparta, Rome, and Venice have achieved +greatness, would be the best. But amid the corruption of the times, the +only hope of deliverance is from the absolute rule of a strong prince, +one not to be frightened back from severity and force. Should the ruler +endeavor to keep within the bounds of morality, he would inevitably be +ruined amid the general wickedness. Let him make himself liked, especially +make himself feared, by the people; let him be fox and lion together; let +him take care, when he must have recourse to bad means for the sake of the +Fatherland, that they are justified by the result, and still to preserve +the appearance of loyalty and honor when he is forced to act in their +despite--for the populace always judges by appearance and by results. The +worst thing of all is half-way measures, courses intermediate between good +and evil and vacillating between reason and force. Even Moses had to kill +the envious refractories, while Savonarola, the unarmed prophet, was +destroyed. God is the friend of the strong, energy the chief virtue; and +it is well when, as was the case with the ancient Romans, religion is +associated with it without paralyzing it. The current view of Christianity +as a religion of humility and sloth, which preaches only the courage +of endurance and makes its followers indifferent to worldly honor, +is unfavorable to the development of political vigor. The Italians have +been made irreligious by the Church and the priesthood; the nearer Rome, +the less pious the people. When Machiavelli, in his proposals looking +toward Lorenzo (II.) dei Medici (died 1519), approves any means for +restoring order, it must be remembered that he has an exceptional case +in mind, that he does not consider deceit and severity just, but only +unavoidable amid the anarchy and corruption of the time. But neither the +loftiness of the end by which he is inspired, nor the low condition of +moral views in his time, justifies his treatment of the laws as mere means +to political ends, and his unscrupulous subordination of morality to +calculating prudence. Machiavelli's general view of the world and of life +is by no means a comforting one. Men are simple, governed by their passions +and by insatiable desires, dissatisfied with what they have, and inclined +to evil. They do good only of necessity; it is hunger which makes them +industrious and laws that render them good. Everything rapidly degenerates: +power produces quiet, quiet, idleness, then disorder, and, finally, ruin, +until men learn by misfortune, and so order and power again arise. History +is a continual rising and falling, a circle of order and disorder. +Governmental forms, even, enjoy no stability; monarchy, when it has run out +into tyranny, is followed by aristocracy, which gradually passes over into +oligarchy; this in turn is replaced by democracy, until, finally, anarchy +becomes unendurable, and a prince again attains power. No state, however, +is so powerful as to escape succumbing to a rival before it completes the +circuit. Protection against the corruption of the state is possible only +through the maintenance of its principles, and its restoration only by a +return to the healthy source whence it originated. This is secured either +by some external peril compelling to reflection, or internally, by wise +thought, by good laws (framed in accordance with the general welfare, and +not according to the ambition of a minority), and by the example of good +men. + +[Footnote 1: In his _Essays on the First Decade of Livy (Discorsi)_, +Machiavelli investigates the conditions and the laws of the maintenance of +states; while in _The Prince (II Principe_, 1515), he gives the principles +for the restoration of a ruined state. Besides these he wrote a history +of Florence, and a work on the art of war, in which he recommended the +establishment of national armies.] + +In the interval between Machiavelli and the system of natural law of +Grotius, the Netherlander (1625: _De Jure Belli et Pacis_), belong the +socialistic ideal state of the Englishman, Thomas More (_De Optimo +Reipublicae Statu deque Nova Insula Utopia_, 1516), the political theory of +the Frenchman, Jean Bodin (_Six Livres de la Republique_, 1577, Latin 1584; +also a philosophico-historical treatise, _Methodus ad Facilem Historiarum +Cognitionem_, and the _Colloquium Heptaplomeres_, edited by Noack, 1857), +and the law of war of the Italian, Albericus Gentilis, at his death +professor in Oxford (_De Jure Belli_, 1588). Common to these three was +the advocacy of religious tolerance, from which atheists alone were to +be excepted; common, also, their ethical standpoint in opposition to +Machiavelli, while they are at one with him in regard to the liberation of +political and legal science from theology and the Church. With Gentilis +(1551-1611) this separation assigns the first five commandments to divine, +and the remainder to human law, the latter being based on the laws of human +nature (especially the social impulse). In place of this derivation of law +and the state from the nature of man, Jean Bodin (1530-96) insists on an +historical interpretation; endeavors, though not always with success, to +give sharp definitions of political concepts;[1] rejects composite +state forms, and among the three pure forms, monarchy, aristocracy, and +democracy, rates (hereditary) monarchy the highest, in which the subjects +obey the laws of the monarch, and the latter the laws of God or of nature +by respecting the freedom and the property of the citizens. So far, no +one has correctly distinguished between forms of the state and modes of +administration. Even a democratic state may be governed in a monarchical +or aristocratic way. So far, also, there has been a failure to take into +account national peculiarities and differences of situation, conditions to +which legislation must be adjusted. The people of the temperate zone are +inferior to those of the North in physical power and inferior to those of +the South in speculative ability, but superior to both in political gifts +and in the sense of justice. The nations of the North are guided by +force, those of the South by religion, those between the two by reason. +Mountaineers love freedom. A fruitful soil enervates men, when less +fertile, it renders them temperate and industrious. + +[Footnote 1: What is the state? What is sovereignty? The former is defined +as the rational and supremely empowered control over a number of families +and of whatever is common to them; the latter is absolute and continuous +authority over the state, with the right of imposing laws without being +bound by them. The prince, to whom the sovereignty has been unconditionally +relinquished by the people in the contract of submission, is accountable to +God alone.] + +Attention has only recently been called (by O. Gierke, in the work already +mentioned, Heft vii. of his _Untersuchungen zur deutschen Staats- und +Rechtsgeschichte_, Breslau, 1880) to the Westphalian, Johannes Althusius +(Althusen or Althaus) as a legal philosopher worthy of notice. He was born, +1557, in the Grafschaft Witgenstein; was a teacher of law in Herborn and +Siegen from 1586, and Syndic in Emden from 1604 to his death in 1638. His +chief legal work was the _Dicaeologica_, 1617 (a recasting of a treatise +on Roman law which appeared in 1586), and his chief political work the +_Politica_, 1603 (altered and enlarged 1610, and reprinted, in addition, +three times before his death and thrice subsequently). Down to the +beginning of the eighteenth century he was esteemed or opposed as chief +among the _Monarchomachi_, so called by the Scotchman, Barclay (_De Regno +et Regali Potestate_, 1600); since that time he has fallen into undeserved +oblivion. The sovereign power (_majestas_) of the people is untransferable +and indivisible, the authority vested in the chosen wielder of the +administrative power is revocable, and the king is merely the chief +functionary; individuals are subjects, it is true, but the community +retains its sovereignty and has its rights represented over against the +chief magistrate by a college of ephors. If the prince violates the +compact, the ephors are authorized and bound to depose the tyrant, and to +banish or execute him. There is but one normal state-form; monarchy and +polyarchy are mere differences in administrative forms. Mention should +finally be made of his valuation of the social groups which mediate between +the individual and the state: the body politic is based on the narrower +associations of the family, the corporation, the commune, and the province. + +While with Bodin the historical, and with Gentilis the _a priori_ method of +treatment predominates, Hugo Grotius[1] combines both standpoints. He bases +his system on the traditional distinction of two kinds of law. The origin +of positive law is historical, by voluntary enactment; natural law is +rooted in the nature of man, is eternal, unchangeable, and everywhere the +same. He begins by distinguishing with Gentilis the _jus humanum_ from the +_jus divinum_ given in the Scriptures. The former determines, on the one +hand, the legal relations of individuals, and, on the other, those of whole +nations; it is _jus personale_ and _jus gentium_.[2] + +[Footnote 1: Hugo de Groot lived 1583-1645. He was born in Delft, became +Fiscal of Holland in 1607, and Syndic of Rotterdam and member of the States +General in 1613. A leader of the aristocratic party with Oldenbarneveld, he +adhered to the Arminians or Remonstrants, was thrown into prison, freed in +1621 through the address of his wife, and fled to Paris, where he lived +till 1631 as a private scholar, and, from 1635, as Swedish ambassador. Here +he composed his epoch-making work, _De Jure Belli et Pacis_, 1625. Previous +to this had appeared his treatise, _De Veritate Religionis Christianae_, +1619, and the _Mare Liberum_, 1609, the latter a chapter from his maiden +work, _De Jure Praedae_, which was not printed until 1868.] + +[Footnote 2: The meaning which Grotius here gives to _jus gentium_ +(=international law), departs from the customary usage of the Scholastics, +with whom it denotes the law uniformly acknowledged among all nations. +Thomas Aquinas understands by it, in distinction to _jus naturale_ proper, +the sum of the conclusions deduced from this as a result of the development +of human culture and its departure from primitive purity. Cf. Gierke, +_Althusius_, p. 273; _Deutsches Genossenschaftsrecht_, vol. iii. p. 612. +On the meaning of natural law cf. Gierke's Inaugural Address as Rector at +Breslau, _Naturrecht und Deutsches Recht_, Frankfort-on-the-Main, 1883.] + +The distinction between natural and conventional law which has been already +mentioned, finds place within both: the positive law of persons is called +_jus civile_, and the positive law of nations, _jus gentium voluntarium_. +Positive law has its origin in regard for utility, while unwritten law +finds its source neither in this nor (directly) in the will of God,[1] but +in the rational nature of man. Man is by nature social, and, as a rational +being, possesses the impulse toward ordered association. Unlawful means +whatever renders such association of rational beings impossible, as the +violation of promises or the taking away and retention of the property +of others. In the (pre-social) state of nature, all belonged to all, but +through the act of taking possession _(occupatio)_ property arises (sea and +air are excluded from appropriation). In the state of nature everyone has +the right to defend himself against attack and to revenge himself on the +evil-doer; but in the political community, founded by contract, personal +revenge is replaced by punishment decreed by the civil power. The aim of +punishment is not retribution, but reformation and deterrence. It belongs +to God alone to punish because of sin committed, the state can punish only +to prevent it. (The antithesis _quia peccatum est_--_ne peccetur_ comes +from Seneca.) + +[Footnote 1: Natural law would be valid even if there were no God. With +these words the alliance between the modern and the mediaeval philosophy of +law is severed.] + +This energetic revival of the distinction already common in the Middle Ages +between "positive and natural," which Lord Herbert of Cherbury brought +forward at the same period (1624) in the philosophy of religion, gave the +catchword for a movement in practical philosophy whose developments extend +into the nineteenth century. Not only the illumination period, but all +modern philosophy down to Kant and Fichte, is under the ban of the +antithesis, natural and artificial. In all fields, in ethics as well as in +noetics, men return to the primitive or storm back to it, in the hope of +finding there the source of all truth and the cure for all evils. Sometimes +it is called nature, sometimes reason (natural law and rational law are +synonymous, as also natural religion and the religion of the reason), by +which is understood that which is permanent and everywhere the same in +contrast to the temporary and the changeable, that which is innate in +contrast to that which has been developed, in contrast, further, to that +which has been revealed. Whatever passes as law in all places and at all +times is natural law, says Grotius; that which all men believe forms the +content of natural religion, says Lord Herbert. Before long it comes to +be said: that _alone_ is genuine, true, healthy, and valuable which has +eternal and universal validity; all else is not only superfluous and +valueless but of evil, for it must be unnatural and corrupt. This step is +taken by Deism, with the principle that whatever is not natural or rational +in the sense indicated is unnatural and irrational. Parallel phenomena are +not wanting, further, in the philosophy of law (Gierke, _Althusius_). But +these errors must not be too harshly judged. The confidence with which they +were made sprang from the real and the historical force of their underlying +idea. + +As already stated, the "natural" forms the antithesis to the supernatural, +on the one hand, and to the historical, on the other. This combination of +the revealed and the historical will not appear strange, if we remember +that the mediaeval view of the world under criticism was, as Christian, +historico-religious, and, moreover, that for the philosophy of religion the +two in fact coincide, inasmuch as revelation is conceived as an historical +event, and the historical religions assume the character of revealed. The +term arbitrary, applied to both in common, was questionable, however: as +revelation is a divine decree, so historical institutions are the products +of human enactment, the state, the result of a contract, dogmas, inventions +of the priesthood, _the results of development, artificial constructions_! +It took long ages for man to free himself from the idea of the artificial +and conventional in his view of history. Hegel was the first to gather +the fruit whose seeds had been sown by Leibnitz, Lessing, Herder, and the +historical school of law. As often, however, as an attempt was made from +this standpoint of origins to show laws in the course of history, only one +could be reached, a law of necessary degeneration, interrupted at times +by sudden restorations--thus the Deists, thus Machiavelli and Rousseau. +Everything degenerates, science itself only contributes to the +fall--therefore, back to the happy beginnings of things! + +If, finally, we inquire into the position of the Church in regard to the +questions of legal philosophy, we may say that, among the Protestants, +Luther, appealing to the Scripture text, declares rulers ordained by God +and sacred, though at the same time he considers law and politics but +remotely related to the inner man; that Melancthon, in his _Elements of +Ethics_ (1538), as in all his philosophical text-books,[1] went back to +Aristotle, but found the source of natural law in the Decalogue, being +followed in this by Oldendorp (1539), Hemming (1562), and B. Winkler +(1615).[2] + +[Footnote 1: The edition of Melancthon's works by Bretschneider and +Bindseil gives the ethical treatises in vol. xvi. and the other +philosophical treatises in vol. xiii. (in part also in vols. xi. and xx.).] + +[Footnote 2: Cf. C.v. Kaltenborn, _Die Vorlaeufer des Hugo Grotius_, +Leipsic, 1848.] + +On the Catholic side, the Jesuits (the Order was founded in 1534, and +confirmed in 1540), on the one hand, revived the Pelagian theory of freedom +in opposition to the Luthero-Augustinian doctrine of the servitude of the +will, and, on the other, defended the natural origin of the state in a +(revocable) contract in opposition to its divine origin asserted by the +Reformers, and the sovereignty of the people even to the sanctioning of +tyrannicide. Bellarmin (1542-1621) taught that the prince derives his +authority from the people, and as the latter have given him power, so they +retain the natural right to take it back and bestow it elsewhere. The view +of Juan Mariana (1537-1624; _De Rege_, 1599) is that, as the people in +transferring rights to the prince retain still greater power themselves, +they are entitled in given cases to call the king to account. If he +corrupts the state by evil manners, and, degenerating into the tyrant, +despises religion and the laws, he may, as a public enemy, be deprived by +anyone of his authority and his life. It is lawful to arrest tyranny in any +way, and those have always been highly esteemed who, from devotion to the +public welfare, have sought to kill the tyrant. + + +%5. Skepticism in France.% + +Toward the end of the sixteenth century, and in the very country which was +to become the cradle of modern philosophy, there appeared, as a forerunner +of the new thinking, a skepticism in which that was taken for complete +and ultimate truth which with Descartes constitutes merely a moment or +transition point in the inquiry. The earliest and the most ingenious among +the representatives of this philosophy of doubt was Michel de Montaigne +(1533-92), who in his _Essays_--which were the first of their kind and soon +found an imitator in Bacon; they appeared in 1580 in two volumes, with an +additional volume in 1588--combined delicate observation and keen thinking, +boldness and prudence, elegance and solidity. The French honor him as one +of their foremost writers. The most important among these treatises or +essays is considered to be the "Apology for Raymond of Sabunde" (ii. 12) +with valuable excursuses on faith and knowledge. Montaigne bases his doubt +on the diversity of individual views, each man's opinion differing from his +fellow's, while truth must be one. There exists no certain, no universally +admitted knowledge. The human reason is feeble and blind in all things, +knowledge is deceptive, especially the philosophy of the day, which clings +to tradition, which fills the memory with learned note-stuff, but leaves +the understanding void and, instead of things, interprets interpretations +only. Both sensuous and rational knowledge are untrustworthy: the former, +because it cannot be ascertained whether its deliverances conform to +reality, and the latter, because its premises, in order to be valid, need +others in turn for their own establishment, etc., _ad infinitum_. Every +advance in inquiry makes our ignorance the more evident; the doubter alone +is free. But though certainty is denied us in regard to truth, it is not +withheld in regard to duty. In fact, a twofold rule of practical life is +set up for us: nature, or life in accordance with nature and founded on +self-knowledge, and supernatural revelation, the Gospel (to be understood +only by the aid of divine grace). Submission to the divine ruler and +benefactor is the first duty of the rational soul. From obedience proceeds +every virtue, from over-subtlety and conceit, which is the product of +fancied knowledge, comes every sin. Montaigne, like all who know men, has +a sharp eye for human frailty. He depicts the universal weakness of human +nature and the corruption of his time with great vivacity and not without a +certain pleasure in the obscene; and besides folly and passion, complains +above all of the fact that so few understand the art of enjoyment, of which +he, a true man of the world, was master. + +The skeptico-practical standpoint of Montaigne was developed into a system +by the Paris preacher, Pierre Charron (1541-1603), in his three books _On +Wisdom_ (1601). Doubt has a double object: to keep alive the spirit +of inquiry and to lead us on to faith. From the fact that reason and +experience are liable to deception and that the mind has at its disposal no +means of distinguishing truth from falsehood, it follows that we are born +not to possess truth but to seek it. Truth dwells alone in the bosom of +God; for us doubt and investigation are the only good amid all the error +and tribulation which surround us. Life is all misery. Man is capable of +mediocrity alone; he can neither be entirely good nor entirely evil; he is +weak in virtue, weak in vice, and the best degenerates in his hands. Even +religion suffers from the universal imperfection. It is dependent on +nationality and country, and each religion is based on its predecessor; +the supernatural origin of which all religions boast belongs in fact +to Christianity alone, which is to be accepted with humility and with +submission of the reason. Charron lays chief emphasis, however, on the +practical side of Christianity, the fulfillment of duty; and the "wisdom" +which forms the subject of his book is synonymous with uprightness +(_probite_), the way to which is opened up by self-knowledge and whose +reward is repose of spirit. And yet we are not to practice it for the +sake of the reward, but because nature and reason, i.e., God, absolutely +(entirely apart from the pleasurable results of virtue) require us to be +good. True uprightness is more than mere legality, for even when outward +action is blameless, the motives may be mixed. "I desire men to be upright +without paradise and hell." Religion seeks to crown morality, not to +generate it; virtue is earlier and more natural than piety. In his +definition of the relation between religion and ethics, his delimitation +of morality from legality, and his insistence on the purity of motives (do +right, because the inner rational law commands it), an anticipation of +Kantian principles may be recognized. + +Under Francis Sanchez (died 1632; his chief work is entitled _Quod Nihil +Scitur_), a Portuguese by birth, and professor of medicine in Montpellier +and Toulouse, skepticism was transformed from melancholy contemplation into +a fresh, vigorous search after new problems. In the place of book-learning, +which disgusts him by its smell of the closet, its continued prating of +Aristotle, and its self-exhaustion in useless verbalism, Sanchez desires +to substitute a knowledge of things. Perfect knowledge, it is true, can be +hoped for only when subject and object correspond to each other. But how +is finite man to grasp the infinite universe? Experience, the basis of +all knowledge, gropes about the outer surface of things and illumines +particulars only, without the ability either to penetrate to their inner +nature or to comprehend the whole. We know only what we produce. Thus +God knows the world which he has made, but to us is vouchsafed merely an +insight into mediate or second causes, _causae secundae_. Here, however, +a rich field still lies open before philosophy--only let her attack her +problem with observation and experiment rather than with words. + +The French nation, predisposed to skepticism by its prevailing acuteness, +has never lacked representatives of skeptical philosophy. The transition +from the philosophers of doubt whom we have described to the great Bayle +was formed by La Mothe le Vayer (died 1672; _Five Dialogues_, 1671), the +tutor of Louis XIV., and P.D. Huet(ius), Bishop of Avranches (died 1721), +who agreed in holding that a recognition of the weakness of the reason is +the best preparation for faith. + + +6. %German Mysticism%. + +In a period which has given birth to a skeptical philosophy, one never +looks in vain for the complementary phenomenon of mysticism. The stone +offered by doubt in place of bread is incapable of satisfying the impulse +after knowledge, and when the intellect grows weary and despairing, the +heart starts out in the quest after truth. Then its path leads inward, the +mind turns in upon itself, seeks to learn the truth by inner experience and +life, by inward feeling and possession, and waits in quietude for divine +illumination. The German mysticism of Eckhart[1] (about 1300), which had +been continued in Suso and Tauler and had received a practical direction +in the Netherlands,--Ruysbroek (about 1350) to Thomas a Kempis (about +1450),--now puts forth new branches and blossoms at the turning point of +the centuries. + +[Footnote 1: Master Eckhart's _Works_ have been edited by F. Pfeiffer, +Leipsic, 1857. The following have written on him: Jos. Bach, Vienna, 1864; +Ad. Lasson, Berlin, 1868; the same, in the second part of Ueberweg's +_Grundriss_, last section; Denifle, in the _Archiv fuer Litteratur und +Kulturgeschichte des Mittelalters_. ii. 417 _seq_.; H. Siebeck, +_Der Begriff des Gemuts in der deutschen Mystik (Beitraege zur +Entstehungsgeschichte der neueren Psychologie_, i), Giessen Programme, +1891.] + +Luther himself was originally a mystic, with a high appreciation of Tauler +and Thomas a Kempis, and published in 1518 that attractive little book by +an anonymous Frankfort author, the _German Theology_. When, later, he fell +into literalism, it was the mysticism of German Protestantism which, in +opposition to the new orthodoxy, held fast to the original principle of +the Reformation, _i.e._, to the principle that faith is not assent to +historical facts, not the acceptance of dogmas, but an inner experience, +a renewal of the whole man. Religion and theology must not be confounded. +Religion is not doctrine, but a new birth. With Schwenckfeld, and also with +Franck, mysticism is still essentially pietism; with Weigel, and by the +addition of ideas from Paracelsus, it is transformed into theosophy, and as +such reaches its culmination in Boehme. + +Caspar Schwenckfeld sought to spiritualize the Lutheran movement and +protested against its being made into a pastors' religion. Though he had +been aroused by Luther's pioneer feat, he soon saw that the latter had not +gone far enough; and in his _Letter on the Eucharist_, 1527, he defined the +points of difference between Luther's view of the Sacrament and his own. +Luther, he maintained, had fallen back to an historical view of faith, +whereas the faith which saves can never consist in the outward acceptance +of an historical fact. He who makes salvation dependent on preaching and +the Sacrament, confuses the invisible and the visible Church, _Ecclesia +interna_ and _externa_. The layman is his own priest. + +According to Sebastian Franck (1500-45), there are in man, as in everything +else, two principles, one divine and one selfish, Christ and Adam, an +inner and an outer man; if he submits himself to the former (by a timeless +choice), he is spiritual, if to the latter, carnal. God is not the cause +of sin, but man, who turns the divine power to good or evil. He who denies +himself to live God is a Christian, whether he knows and confesses +the Gospel or not. Faith does not consist in assent, but in inner +transformation. The historical element in Christianity and its ceremonial +observances are only the external form and garb (its "figure"), have merely +a symbolic significance as media of communication, as forms of revelation +for the eternal truth, proclaimed but not founded by Christ; the Bible is +merely the shadow of the living Word of God. + +Valentin Weigel (born in 1533, pastor in Zschopau from 1567), whose works +were not printed until after his death, combines his predecessors' doctrine +of inner and eternal Christianity with the microcosmos-idea of Paracelsus. +God, who lacks nothing, has not created the world in order to gain, but in +order to give. Man not only bears the earthly world in his body, and the +heavenly world of the angels in his reason (his spirit), but by virtue of +his intellect (his immortal soul) participates in the divine world also. As +he is thus a microcosm and, moreover, an image of God, all his knowledge +becomes self-knowledge, both sensuous perception (which is not caused by +the object, but only occasioned by it), and the knowledge of God. The +literalist knows not God, but he alone who bears God in himself. Man +is favored above other beings with the freedom to dwell in himself or +in God. When man came out from God, he was his own tempter and made himself +proud and selfish. Thus evil, which had before remained hidden, was +revealed, and became sin. As the separation from God is an eternal act, so +also redemption and resurrection form an inner event. Christ is born in +everyone who gives up the I-ness (_Ichheit_); each regenerate man is a son +of God. But no vicarious suffering can save him who does not put off the +old Adam, no matter how much an atheology sunk in literalism may comfort +itself with the hope that man can "drink at another's cost" (that the merit +of another is imputed to him).[1] + +[Footnote 1: Weigel is discussed by J.O. Opel, Leipsic, 1864.] + +German mysticism reaches its culmination in the Goerlitz cobbler, Jacob +Boehme (1575-1624; _Aurora, or the Rising Dawn_; _Mysterium Magnum, or +on the First Book of Moses_, etc. The works of Boehme, collected by his +apostle, Gichtel, appeared in 1682 in ten volumes, and in 1730 in six +volumes; a new edition was prepared by Schiebler in 1831-47, with a second +edition in 1861 _seq_.). Boehme's doctrine[1] centers about the problem of +the origin of evil. He transfers this to God himself and joins therewith +the leading thought of Eckhart, that God goes through a process, that he +proceeds from an unrevealed to a revealed condition. At the sight of a tin +vessel glistening in the sun, he conceived, as by inspiration, the idea +that as the sunlight reveals itself on the dark vessel so all light needs +darkness and all good evil in order to appear and to become knowable. +Everything becomes perceptible through its opposite alone: gentleness +through sternness, love through anger, affirmation through negation. +Without evil there would be no life, no movement, no distinctions, no +revelation; all would be unqualified, uniform nothingness. And as in nature +nothing exists in which good and evil do not reside, so in God, besides +power or the good, a contrary exists, without which he would remain unknown +to himself. The theogonic process is twofold: self-knowledge on the part of +God, and his revelation outward, as eternal nature, in seven moments. + +[Footnote 1: Cf. Windelband's fine exposition, _Geschichte der neueren +Philosophie_, vol. i. Sec.19. The following have written on Boehme: Fr. Baader +(in vols. iii. and xiii. of his _Werke_); Hamberger, Munich, 1844: H. A. +Fechner, Goerlitz, 1857; A. v. Harless, Berlin, 1870, new edition, Leipsic, +1882.] + +At the beginning of the first development God is will without object, +eternal quietude and rest, unqualified groundlessness without determinate +volition. But in this divine nothingness there soon awakes the hunger after +the aught (somewhat, existence), the impulse to apprehend and manifest +self, and as God looks into and forms an image of himself, he divides into +Father and Son. The Son is the eye with which the Father intuits himself, +and the procession of this vision from the groundless is the Holy Ghost. +Thus far God, who is one in three, is only understanding or wisdom, wherein +the images of all the possible are contained; to the intuition of self must +be added divisibility; it is only through the antithesis of the revealed +God and the unrevealed groundless that the former becomes an actual +trinity (in which the persons stand related as essence, power, and +activity), and the latter becomes desire or nature in God. + +At the creation of the world seven equally eternal qualities, +source-spirits or nature-forms, are distinguished in the divine nature. +First comes desire as the contractile, tart quality or pain, from which +proceed hardness and heat; next comes mobility as the expansive, sweet +quality, as this shows itself in water. As the nature of the first was to +bind and the second was fluid, so they both are combined in the bitter +quality or the pain of anxiety, the principle of sensibility. (Contraction +and expansion are the conditions of perceptibility.) From these three forms +fright or lightning suddenly springs forth. This fourth quality is the +turning-point at which light flames up from darkness and the love of +God breaks forth from out his anger; as the first three, or four, forms +constitute the kingdom of wrath, so the latter three constitute the kingdom +of joy. The fifth quality is called light or the warm fire of love, and has +for its functions external animation and communication; the sixth, report +and sound, is the principle of inner animation and intelligence; the +seventh, the formative quality, corporeality, comprehends all the preceding +in itself as their dwelling. + +The dark fire of anger (the hard, sweet, and bitter qualities) and the +light fire of love (light, report, and corporeality), separated by the +lightning-fire, in which God's wrath is transformed into mercy, stand +related as evil and good. The evil in God is not sin, but simply the +inciting sting, the principle of movement; which, moreover, is restrained, +overcome, transfigured by gentleness. Sin arises only when the creature +refuses to take part in the advance from darkness to light, and obstinately +remains in the fire of anger instead of forcing his way through to the +fire of love. Thus that which was one in God is divided. Lucifer becomes +enamored of the tart quality (the _centrum naturae_ or the matrix) and will +not grow into the heart of God; and it is only after such lingering behind +that the kingdom of wrath become a real hell. Heaven and hell are not +future conditions, but are experienced here on earth; he who instead of +subduing animality becomes enamored of it, stands under the wrath of God; +whereas he who abjures self dwells in the joyous kingdom of mercy. He alone +truly believes who himself becomes Christ, who repeats in himself what +Christ suffered and attained. + +The creation of the material world is a result of Lucifer's fall. Boehme's +description of it, based on the Mosaic account of creation, may be passed +without notice; similarly his view of cognition, familiar from the earlier +mystics, that all knowledge is derived from self-knowledge, that our +destination is to comprehend God from ourselves, and the world from God. +Man, whose body, spirit, and soul hold in them the earthly, the sidereal, +and the heavenly, is at once a microcosm and a "little God." + +Under the intractable form of Boehme's speculations and amid their riotous +fancy, no one will fail to recognize their true-hearted sensibility and an +unusual depth and vigor of thought. They found acceptance in England and +France, and have been revived in later times in the systems of Baader and +Schelling. + + +%7. The Foundation of Modern Physics%. + +In no field has the modern period so completely broken with tradition as +in physics. The correctness of the Copernican theory is proved by Kepler's +laws of planetary movement, and Galileo's telescopical observations; the +scientific theory of motion is created by Galileo's laws of projectiles, +falling bodies, and the pendulum; astronomy and mechanics form the entrance +to exact physics--Descartes ventures an attempt at a comprehensive +mechanical explanation of nature. And thus an entirely new movement is at +hand. Forerunners, it is true, had not been lacking. Roger Bacon (1214-94) +had already sought to obtain an empirical knowledge of nature based upon +mathematics; and the great painter Leonardo da Vinci (1452-1519) had +discovered the principles of mechanics, though without gaining much +influence over the work of his contemporaries. It was reserved for the +triple star which has been mentioned to overthrow Scholasticism. The +conceptions with which the Scholastic-Aristotelian philosophy of nature +sought to get at phenomena--substantial forms, properties, qualitative +change--are thrown aside; their place is taken by matter, forces working +under law, rearrangement of parts. The inquiry into final causes is +rejected as an anthropomorphosis of natural events, and deduction from +efficient causes is alone accepted as scientific explanation. Size, shape, +number, motion, and law are the only and the sufficient principles of +explanation. For magnitudes alone are knowable; wherever it is impossible +to measure and count, to determine force mathematically, there rigorous, +exact science ceases. Nature a system of regularly moved particles of +mass; all that takes place mechanical movement, viz., the combination, +separation, dislocation, oscillation of bodies and corpuscles; mathematics +the organon of natural science! Into this circle of modern scientific +categories are articulated, further, Galileo's new conception of motion +and the conception of atoms, which, previously employed by physicists, as +Daniel Sennert (1619) and others, is now brought into general acceptance +by Gassendi, while the four elements are definitively discarded (Lasswitz, +_Geschichte der Atomistik_, 1890). Still another doctrine of Democritus +is now revived; an evident symptom of the quantification and mechanical +interpretation of natural phenomena being furnished by the doctrine of the +subjectivity of sense qualities, in which, although on varying grounds, +Kepler, Galileo, Descartes, Gassendi, and Hobbes agree.[1] Descartes and +Hobbes will be discussed later. Here we may give a few notes on their +fellow laborers in the service of the mechanical science of nature. + +[Footnote 1: Cf. chapter vi. in Natorp's work on _Descartes' +Erkenntnisstheorie_, Marburg, 1882, and the same author's _Analekten zur +Geschichte der Philosophie_, in the _Philosophische Monatshefte_, vol. +xviii. 1882, p. 572 _seq_.] + +We begin with John Kepler[1] (1571-1630; chief work, _The New Astronomy or +Celestial Physics, in Commentaries on the Motions of Mars_, 1609). Kepler's +merit as an astronomer has long obscured his philosophical importance, +although his discovery of the laws of planetary motion was the outcome of +endeavors to secure an exact foundation for his theory of the world. The +latter is aesthetic in character, centers about the idea of a universal +world-harmony, and employs mathematics as an instrument of confirmation. +For the fact that this theory satisfies the mind, and, on the whole, +corresponds to our empirical impression of the order of nature, is not +enough in Kepler's view to guarantee its truth; by exact methods, by means +of induction and experiment, a detailed proof from empirical facts must be +found for the existence not only of a general harmony, but of definitely +fixed proportions. Herewith the philosophical application of mathematics +loses that obscure mystical character which had clung to it since the time +of Pythagoras, and had strongly manifested itself as late as in Nicolas of +Cusa. Mathematical relations constitute the deepest essence of the real and +the object of science. Where matter is, there is geometry; the latter is +older than the world and as eternal as the divine Spirit; magnitudes are +the source of things. True knowledge exists only where quanta are known; +the presupposition of the capacity for knowledge is the capacity to count; +the spirit cognizes sensuous relations by means of the pure, archetypal, +intellectual relations born in it, which, before the advent of +sense-impressions, have lain concealed behind the veil of possibility; +inclination and aversion between men, their delight in beauty, the pleasant +impression of a view, depend upon an unconscious and instinctive perception +of proportions. This quantitative view of the world, which, with a +consciousness of its novelty as well as of its scope, is opposed to the +qualitative view of Aristotle;[2] the opinion that the essence of the human +spirit, as well as of the divine, nay, the essence of all things, consists +in activity; that, consequently, the soul is always active, being conscious +of its own harmony at least in a confused way, even when not conscious of +external proportions; further, the doctrine that nature loves simplicity, +avoids the superfluous, and is accustomed to accomplish large results with +a few principles--these remind one of Leibnitz. At the same time, the law +of parsimony and the methodological conclusions concerning true hypotheses +and real causes (an hypothesis must not be an artificially constructed set +of fictions, forcibly adjusted to reality, but is to trace back phenomena +to their real grounds), obedience to which enabled him to deduce _a priori_ +from causes the conclusions which Copernicus by fortunate conjecture had +gathered inductively from effects--these made our thinker a forerunner of +Newton. The physical method of explanation must not be corrupted either +by theological conceptions (comets are entirely natural phenomena!) or by +anthropomorphic views, which endow nature with spiritual powers. + +[Footnote 1: See Sigwart, _Kleine Schriften_, vol. i. p. 182 _seq_.; R. +Eucken, _Beitraege zur Geschichte der neueren Philosophie_, p. 54 _seq_.] + +[Footnote 2: Aristotle erred when he considered qualitative distinctions +(_idem_ and _aliud_) ultimate. These are to be traced back to quantitative +differences, and the _aliud_ or _diversum_ is to be replaced by _plus et +minus_. There is nothing absolutely light, but only relatively. Since +all things are distinguished only by "more or less," the possibility of +mediating members or proportions between them is given.] + +Intermediate between Bacon and Descartes, both in the order of time and in +the order of fact, and a co-founder of modern philosophy, stands Galileo +Galilei (1564-1641).[1] Galileo exhibits all the traits characteristic +of modern thinking: the reference from words to things, from memory to +perception and thought, from authority to self-ascertained principles, from +chance opinion, arbitrary opinion, and the traditional doctrines of the +schools, to "knowledge," that is, to one's own, well grounded, indisputable +insight, from the study of human affairs to the study of nature. Study +Aristotle, but do not become his slave; instead of yielding yourselves +captive to his views, use your own eyes; do not believe that the mind +remains unproductive unless it allies itself with the understanding of +another; copy nature, not copies merely! He equals Bacon in his high +estimation of sensuous experience in contrast to the often illusory +conclusions of the reason, and of the value of induction; but he does not +conceal from himself the fact that observation is merely the first step in +the process of cognition, leaving the chief role for the understanding. +This, supplementing the defect of experience--the impossibility of +observing all cases--by its _a priori_ concept of law and with its +inferences overstepping the bounds of experience, first makes induction +possible, brings the facts established into connection (their combination +under laws is thought, not experience), reduces them to their primary, +simple, unchangeable, and necessary causes by abstraction from contingent +circumstances, regulates perception, corrects sense-illusions, _i. e_., +the false judgments originating in experience, and decides concerning the +reality or fallaciousness of phenomena. Demonstration based on experience, +a close union of observation and thought, of fact and Idea (law)--these +are the requirements made by Galileo and brilliantly fulfilled in his +discoveries; this, the "inductive speculation," as Duehring terms it, which +derives laws of far-reaching importance from inconspicuous facts; this, +as Galileo himself recognizes, the distinctive gift of the investigator. +Galileo anticipates Descartes in regard to the subjective character of +sense qualities and their reduction to quantitative distinctions,[2] while +he shares with him the belief in the typical character of mathematics and +the mechanical theory of the world. The truth of geometrical propositions +and demonstrations is as unconditionally certain for man as for God, only +that man learns them by a discursive process, whereas God's intuitive +understanding comprehends them with a glance and knows more of them than +man. The book of the universe is written in mathematical characters; motion +is the fundamental phenomenon in the world of matter; our knowledge reaches +as far as phenomena are measurable; the qualitative nature of force, back +of its quantitative determinations, remains unknown to us. When Galileo +maintains that the Copernican theory is philosophically true and not merely +astronomically useful, thus interpreting it as more than a hypothesis, +he is guided by the conviction that the simplest explanation is the most +probable one, that truth and beauty are one, as in general he concedes +a guiding though not a controlling influence in scientific work to the +aesthetic demand of the mind for order, harmony, and unity in nature, to +correspond to the wisdom of the Creator. + +[Footnote 1: Cf. Natorp's essay on Galileo, in vol. xviii. of the +_Philosophische Monatshefte_, 1882.] + +[Footnote 1: This doctrine is developed by Galileo in the controversial +treatise against Padre Grassi, _The Scales (Il Saggiatore_, 1623, in the +Florence edition of his collected works, 1842 _seq_., vol. iv. pp. +149-369; cf. Natorp, _Descartes' Erkenntnisstheorie_, 1882, chap. vi.). In +substance, moreover, this doctrine is found, as Heussler remarks, _Baco_, +p. 94, in Bacon himself, in _Valerius Terminus (Works_, Spedding, vol. iii. +pp. 217-252.)] + +One of the most noted and influential among the contemporaries, countrymen, +and opponents of Descartes, was the priest and natural scientist, Petrus +Gassendi,[1] from 1633 Provost of Digne, later for a short period professor +of mathematics at Paris. His renewal of Epicureanism, to which he was +impelled by temperament, by his reverence for Lucretius, and by the +anti-Aristotelian tendency of his thinking, was of far more importance for +modern thought than the attempts to revive the ancient systems which have +been mentioned above (p. 29). Its superior influence depends on the fact +that, in the conception of atoms, it offered exact inquiry a most useful +point of attachment. The conflict between the Gassendists and the +Cartesians, which at first was a bitter one, centered, as far as physics +was concerned, around the value of the atomic hypothesis as contrasted with +the corpuscular and vortex theory which Descartes had opposed to it. It +soon became apparent, however, that these two thinkers followed along +essentially the same lines in the philosophy of nature, sharply as they +were opposed in their noetical principles. Descartes' doctrine of body is +conceived from an entirely materialistic standpoint, his anthropology, +indeed, going further than the principles of his system would allow. +Gassendi, on the other hand, recognizes an immaterial, immortal reason, +traces the origin of the world, its marvelous arrangement, and the +beginning of motion back to God, and, since the Bible so teaches, believes +the earth to be at rest,--holding that, for this reason, the decision must +be given in favor of Tycho Brahe and against Copernicus, although the +hypothesis of the latter affords the simpler and, scientifically, the more +probable explanation. Both thinkers rejoice in their agreement with the +dogmas of the Church, only that with Descartes it came unsought in the +natural progress of his thought, while Gassendi held to it in contradiction +to his system. It is the more surprising that Gassendi's works escaped +being put upon the Index, a fate which overtook those of Descartes in 1663. + +[Footnote 2: Pierre Gassendi, 1592-1655: _On the Life and Character of +Epicurus_, 1647; _Notes on the Tenth Book of Diogenes Laertius, with a +Survey of the Doctrine of Epicurus_, 1649. _Works_, Lyons, 1658, Florence, +1727. Cf. Lange, _History of Materialism_, book i. Sec. 3, chap, 1; Natorp, +_Analekten, Philosophische Monatshefte_, vol. xviii. 1882, p. 572 _seq_.] + +As modern thought derives its mechanical temper equally from both these +sources, and the natural science of the day has appropriated the corpuscles +of Descartes under the name of molecules, as well as the atoms of Gassendi, +though not without considerable modification in both conceptions (Lange, +vol. i. p. 269), so we find attempts at mediation at an early period. +While Pere Mersenne (1588-1648), who was well versed in physics, sought +an indecisive middle course between these two philosophers, the English +chemist, Robert Boyle, effected a successful synthesis of both. The son +of Richard Boyle, Earl of Cork, he was born at Lismore in 1626, lived in +literary retirement at Oxford from 1654, and later in Cambridge, and died, +1692, in London, president of the Royal Society. His principal work, _The +Sceptical Chemist (Works_, vol. i. p. 290 _seq_.), appeared in 1661, the +tract, _De Ipsa Natura_, in 1682.[1] By his introduction of the atomic +conception he founded an epoch in chemistry, which, now for the first, was +freed from bondage to the ideas of Aristotle and the alchemists. +Atomism, however, was for Boyle merely an instrument of method and not a +philosophical theory of the world. A sincerely religious man,[2] he regards +with disfavor both the atheism of Epicurus and his complete rejection of +teleology--the world-machine points to an intelligent Creator and a purpose +in creation; motion, to a divine impulse. He defends, on the other hand, +the right of free inquiry against the priesthood and the pedantry of the +schools, holding that the supernatural must be sharply distinguished from +the natural, and mere conjectures concerning insoluble problems from +positions susceptible of experimental proof; while, in opposition to +submission to authority, he remarks that the current coin of opinion must +be estimated, not by the date when and the person by whom it was minted but +by the value of the metal alone. Cartesian elements in Boyle are the start +from doubt, the derivation of all motion from pressure and impact, and the +extension of the mechanical explanation to the organic world. His inquiries +relate exclusively to the world of matter so far as it was "completed on +the last day but one of creation." He defends empty space against Descartes +and Hobbes. He is the first to apply the mediaeval terms, primary and +secondary qualities, to the antithesis between objective properties which +really belong to things, and sensuous or subjective qualities present only +in the feeling subject.[3] + +[Footnote 1: Boyle's _Works_ were published in Latin at Geneva, in 1660, in +six volumes, and in 1714 in five; an edition by Birch appeared at London, +1744, in five volumes, second edition, 1772, in six. Cf. Buckle, _History +of Civilization in England_, vol. i. chap. vii. pp. 265-268; Lange, +_History of Materialism_, vol. i. pp. 298-306; vol. ii. p. 351 _seq_.; +Georg Baku, _Der Streit ueber den Naturbegriff, Zeitschrift fuer +Philosophie_, vol. xcviii., 1891, p. 162 _seq_.] + +[Footnote 2: The foundation named after him had for its object to promote +by means of lectures the investigation of nature on the basis of atomism, +and, at the same time, to free it from the reproach of leading to atheism +and to show its harmony with natural religion. Samuel Clarke's work on _The +Being and Attributes of God_, 1705, originated in lectures delivered on +this foundation.] + +[Footnote 3: Eucken, _Geschichte der philosophischen Terminologie_, +pp. 94, 196.] + + +%8. Philosophy in England to the Middle of the Seventeenth Century.% + +%(a) Bacon's Predecessors.%--The darkness which lay over the beginnings +of modern English philosophy has been but incompletely dispelled by +the meritorious work of Ch. de Remusat _(Histoire de la Philosophie en +Angleterre depuis Bacon jusqu'a Locke_, 2 vols., 1878). The most recent +investigations of J. Freudenthal _(Beitraege zur Geschichte der Englischen +Philosophie_, in the _Archiv fuer Geschichte der Philosophie_, vols. iv. and +v., 1891) have brought assistance in a way deserving of thanks, since they +lift at important points the veil which concealed Bacon's relations to his +predecessors and contemporaries, by describing the scientific tendencies +and achievements of Digby and Temple. The following may be taken from his +results. + +Everard Digby (died 1592; chief work, _Theoria Analytica,_ 1579), +instructor in logic in Cambridge from 1573, who was strongly influenced +by Reuchlin and who favored an Aristotelian-Alexandrian-Cabalistic +eclecticism, was the first to disseminate Neoplatonic ideas in England; +and, in spite of the lack of originality in his systematic presentation of +theoretical philosophy, aroused the study of this branch in England into +new life. His opponent, Sir William Temple [1] (1553-1626), by his defense +and exposition of the doctrine of Ramus (introduced into Great Britain by +George Buchanan and his pupil, Andrew Melville), made Cambridge the chief +center of Ramism. He was the first who openly opposed Aristotle. + +[Footnote 1: Temple was secretary to Philip Sidney, William Davison, and +the Earl of Essex, and, from 1619, Provost of Trinity College, Dublin. +His maiden work, _De Unica P. Rami Methodo_, which he published under the +pseudonym, Mildapettus 1580, was aimed at Digby's _De Duplici Methodo_. His +chief work, _P. Rami Dialectics Libri Dua Scholiis, Illustrati_, appeared +in 1584.] + +Bacon was undoubtedly acquainted with both these writers and took ideas +from both. Digby represented the scholastic tendency, which Bacon +vehemently opposed, yet without being able completely to break away +from it. Temple was one of those who supplied him with weapons for this +conflict. Finally, it must be mentioned that many of the English scientists +of the time, especially William Gilbert (1540-1603; _De Magnete_, 1600), +physician to Queen Elizabeth, used induction in their work before Bacon +advanced his theory of method. + +%(b) Bacon%.--The founder of the empirical philosophy of modern times was +Francis Bacon (1561-1626), a contemporary of Shakespeare. Bacon began +his political career by sitting in Parliament for many years under Queen +Elizabeth, as whose counsel he was charged with the duty of engaging in +the prosecution of his patron, the Earl of Essex, and at whose command he +prepared a justification of the process. Under James I, he attained the +highest offices and honors, being made Keeper of the Great Seal in 1617, +Lord Chancellor and Baron Verulam in 1618, and Viscount St. Albans in +1621. In this last year came his fall. He was charged with bribery, and +condemned; the king remitted the imprisonment and fine, and for the +remainder of his life Bacon devoted himself to science, rejecting every +suggestion toward a renewal of his political activity. The moral laxity +of the times throws a mitigating light over his fault; but he cannot be +aquitted of self-seeking, love of money and of display, and excessive +ambition. As Macaulay says in his famous essay, he was neither malignant +nor tyrannical, but he lacked warmth of affection and elevation of +sentiment; there were many things which he loved more than virtue, and many +which he feared more than guilt. He first gained renown as an author by his +ethical, economic, and political _Essays_, after the manner of Montaigne; +of these the first ten appeared in 1597, in the third edition (1625) +increased to fifty-eight; the Latin translation bears the title _Sermones +Fideles_. His great plan for a "restoration of the sciences" was intended +to be carried out in four, or rather, in six parts. But only the first two +parts of the _Instauratio Magna_ were developed: the _encyclopaedia_, or +division of all sciences[1], a chart of the _globus intellectualis_, on +which was depicted what each science had accomplished and what still +remained for each to do; and the development of the _new method_. Bacon +published his survey of the circle of the sciences in the English work, the +_Advancement of Learning_, 1605, a much enlarged revision of which, _De +Dignitate et Augmentis Scientiarum_, appeared in Latin in 1623. In 1612 +he printed as a contribution to methodology the draft, _Cogitata et Visa_ +(written 1607), later recast into the [first book of the] _Novum Organum_, +1620. This title, _Novum Organum_, of itself indicates opposition to +Aristotle, whose logical treatises had for ages been collected under the +title _Organon_. If in this work Bacon had given no connected exposition +of his reforming principles, but merely a series of aphorisms, and this +an incomplete one, the remaining parts are still more fragmentary, only +prefaces and scattered contributions having been reduced to writing. The +third part was to have been formed by a description of the world or natural +_history, Historia Naturalis_, and the last,--introduced by a _Scala +Intellectus_ (ladder of knowledge, illustrations of the method +by examples), and by _Prodromi_ (preliminary results of his own +inquiries),--by natural _science, Philosophia Secunda_. The best edition of +Bacon's works is the London one of Spedding, Ellis & Heath, 1857 _seq_., 7 +vols., 2d ed., 1870; with 7 volumes additional of _The Letters and Life of +Francis Bacon, including His Occasional Works_, and a Commentary, by J. +Spedding, 1862-74. Spedding followed this further with a briefer _Account +of the Life and Times of Francis Bacon_, 2 vols., 1878[2]. + +[Footnote 1: According to the faculties of the soul, memory, imagination, +and understanding, three principal sciences are distinguished; history, +poesy, and philosophy. Of the three objects of the latter, "nature strikes +the mind with a direct ray, God with a refracted ray, and man himself +with a reflected ray." Theology is natural or revealed. Speculative +(theoretical) natural philosophy divides into physics, concerned with +material and efficient causes, and metaphysics, whose mission, according to +the traditional view, is to inquire into final causes, but in Bacon's own +opinion, into formal causes; operative (technical) natural philosophy +is mechanics and natural magic. The doctrine concerning man comprises +anthropology (including logic and ethics) and politics. This division of +Bacon was still retained by D'Alembert in his preliminary discourse to the +_Encyclopedie_.] + +[Footnote 2: Cf. on Bacon, K. Fischer, 2d ed., 1875; Chr. Sigwart, in the +_Preussische Jahrbuecher_, 1863 and 1864, and in vol. ii. of his _Logik_; +H. Heussler, _Baco und seine geschichtliche Stellung_, Breslau, 1889. +[Adamson, _Encyclopedia Britannica_, 9th. ed., vol. iii. pp. 200-222; +Fowler, English Philosophers Series, 1881; Nichol, Blackwood's +Philosophical Classics, 2 vols., 1888-89.--TR.]] Bacon's merit was +threefold: he felt more forcibly and more clearly than previous +thinkers the need of a reform in science; he set up a new and grand +ideal--unbiased and methodical investigation of nature in order to +mastery over nature; and he gave information and directions as to +the way in which this goal was to be attained, which, in spite of their +incompleteness in detail, went deep into the heart of the subject and laid +the foundation for the work of centuries.[1] His faith in the omnipotence +of the new method was so strong, that he thought that science for the +future could almost dispense with talent. He compares his method to a +compass or a ruler, with which the unpractised man is able to draw circles +and straight lines better than an expert without these instruments. + +[Footnote 1: His detractors are unjust when they apply the criterion of the +present method of investigation and find only imperfection in an imperfect +beginning.] + +All science hitherto, Bacon declares, has been uncertain and unfruitful, +and does not advance a step, while the mechanic arts grow daily more +perfect; without a firm basis, garrulous, contentious, and lacking in +content, it is of no practical value. The seeker after certain knowledge +must abandon words for things, and learn the art of forcing nature to +answer his questions. The seeker after fruitful knowledge must increase +the number of discoveries, and transform them from matters of chance into +matters of design. For discovery conditions the power, greatness, and +progress of mankind. Man's power is measured by his knowledge, knowledge is +power, and nature is conquered by obedience--_scientia est potentia; natura +parendo vincitur_. + +Bacon declares three things indispensable for the attainment of this +power-giving knowledge: the mind must understand the instruments of +knowledge; it must turn to experience, deriving the materials of knowledge +from perception; and it must not rise from particular principles to the +higher axioms too rapidly, but steadily and gradually through middle +axioms. The mind can accomplish nothing when left to itself; but undirected +experience alone is also insufficient (experimentation without a plan is +groping in the dark), and the senses, moreover, are deceptive and not acute +enough for the subtlety of nature--therefore, methodical experimentation +alone, not chance observation, is worthy of confidence. Instead of the +customary divorce of experience and understanding, a firm alliance, a +"lawful marriage," must be effected between them. The empiricists merely +collect, like the ants; the dogmatic metaphysicians spin the web of their +ideas out of themselves, like the spiders; but the true philosopher must be +like the bee, which by its own power transforms and digests the gathered +material. + +As the mind, like a dull and uneven mirror, by its own nature distorts the +rays of objects, it must first of all be cleaned and polished, that is, it +must be freed from all prejudices and false notions, which, deep-rooted by +habit, prevent the formation of a true picture of the world. It must root +out its prejudices, or, where this is impossible, at least understand them. +Doubt is the first step on the way to truth. Of these Phantoms or Idols to +be discarded, Bacon distinguishes four classes: Idols of the Theater, of +the Market Place, of the Den, and of the Tribe. The most dangerous are +the _idola theatri_, which consist in the tendency to put more trust in +authority and tradition than in independent reflection, to adopt current +ideas simply because they find general acceptance. Bacon's injunction +concerning these is not to be deceived by stage-plays (_i.e._, by the +teachings of earlier thinkers which represent things other than they are); +instead of believing others, observe for thyself! The _idola fori_, which +arise from the use of language in public intercourse, depend upon the +confusion of words, which are mere symbols with a conventional value and +which are based on the carelessly constructed concepts of the vulgar, with +things themselves. Here Bacon warns us to keep close to things. The _idola +specus_ are individual prepossessions which interfere with the apprehension +of the true state of affairs, such as the excessive tendency of thought +toward the resemblances or the differences of things, or the investigator's +habit of transferring ideas current in his own department to subjects of a +different kind. Such individual weaknesses are numberless, yet they may in +part be corrected by comparison with the perceptions of others. The _idola +tribus_, finally, are grounded in the nature of the human species. To this +class belong, among others, illusions of the senses, which may in part be +corrected by the use of instruments, with which we arm our organs; further, +the tendency to hold fast to opinions acceptable to us in spite of contrary +instances; similarly, the tendency to anthropomorphic views, including, +as its most important special instance, the mistake of thinking that we +perceive purposive relations everywhere and the working of final causes, +after the analogy of human action, when in reality efficient causes alone +are concerned. Here Bacon's injunction runs, not to interpret natural +phenomena teleologically, but to explain them from mechanical causes; not +to narrow the world down to the limits of the mind, but to extend the mind +to the boundaries of the world, so that it shall understand it as it +really is. + +To these warnings there are added positive rules. When the investigator, +after the removal of prejudices and habitual modes of thought, approaches +experience with his senses unperverted and a purified mind, he is to +advance from the phenomena given to their conditions. First of all, the +facts must be established by observation and experiment, and systematically +arranged,[1] then let him go on to causes and laws.[2] The true or +scientific induction[3] thus inculcated is quite different from the +credulous induction of common life or the unmethodical induction of +Aristotle. Bacon emphasizes the fact that hitherto the importance of +negative instances, which are to be employed as a kind of counter-proof, +has been completely overlooked, and that a substitute for complete +induction, which is never attainable, may be found, on the one hand, in the +collection of as many cases as possible, and, on the other, by considering +the more important or decisive cases, the "prerogative instances." Then the +inductive ascent from experiment to axiom is to be followed by a deductive +descent from axioms to new experiments and discoveries. Bacon rejects +the syllogism on the ground that it fits one to overcome his opponent in +disputation, but not to gain an active conquest over nature. In his own +application of these principles of method, his procedure was that of a +dilettante; the patient, assiduous labor demanded for the successful +promotion of the mission of natural investigation was not his forte. His +strength lay in the postulation of problems, the stimulation and direction +of inquiry, the discovery of lacunae and the throwing out of suggestions; +and many ideas incidentally thrown off by him surprise us by their +ingenious anticipations of later discoveries. The greatest defect in his +theory was his complete failure to recognize the services promised by +mathematics to natural science. The charge of utilitarianism, which has +been so broadly made, is, on the contrary, unjust. For no matter how +strongly he emphasizes the practical value of knowledge, he is still in +agreement with those who esteem the godlike condition of calm and cheerful +acquaintance with truth more highly than the advantages to be expected from +it; he desires science to be used, not as "a courtezan for pleasure," but +"as a spouse for generation, fruit and comfort," and--leaving entirely out +of view his isolated acknowledgments of the inherent value of knowledge--he +conceives its utility wholly in the comprehensive and noble sense that the +pursuit of science, from which as such all narrow-minded regard for direct +practical application must keep aloof, is the most important lever for the +advancement of human culture. + +[Footnote 1: Bacon illustrates the method by the explanation of heat. The +results of experimental observation are to be arranged in three tables. The +table of presence contains many different cases in which heat occurs; the +table of absence, those in which, under circumstances otherwise the same, +it is wanting; the table of degrees or comparison enumerates phenomena +whose increase and decrease accompany similar variations in the degree of +heat. That which remains after the _exclusion_ now to be undertaken (of +that which cannot be the nature or cause of heat), yields as a preliminary +result or commencement of interpretation (as a "first vintage"), the +definition of heat: "a motion, expansive, restrained, and acting in its +strife upon the smaller particles of bodies."] + +[Footnote 2: This goal of Baconian inquiry is by no means coincident with +that of exact natural science. Law does not mean to him, as to the physical +scientist of to-day, a mathematically formulated statement of the course of +events, but the nature of the phenomenon, to be expressed in a definition +(E. Koenig, _Entwickelung des Causalproblems bis Kant_, 1883, pp. 154-156). +Bacon combines in a peculiar manner ancient and modern, Platonic and +corpuscular fundamental ideas. Rejecting final causes with the atomists, +yet handing over material and efficient causes (the latter of which sink +with him to the level of mere changing occasional causes) to empirical +physics, he assigns to metaphysics, as the true _science_ of nature, the +search for the "forms" and properties of things. In this he is guided by +the following metaphysical presupposition: Phenomena, however manifold +they may be, are at bottom composed of a few elements, namely, permanent +properties, the so-called "simple natures," which form, as it were, the +alphabet of nature or the colors on her palette, by the combination of +which she produces her varied pictures; _e. g_., the nature of heat and +cold, of a red color, of gravity, and also of age, of death. Now the +question to be investigated becomes, What, then, is heat, redness, etc.? +The ground essence and law of the natures consist in certain forms, +which Bacon conceives in a Platonic way as concepts and substances, but +phenomenal ones, and, at the same time, with Democritus, as the grouping or +motion of minute material particles. Thus the form of heat is a particular +kind of motion, the form of whiteness a determinate arrangement of material +particles. Cf. Natge, _Ueber F. Bacons Formenlehre_, Leipsic, 1891, in +which Heussler's view is developed in more detail. [Cf. further, Fowler's +_Bacon_, English Philosophers Series, 1881, chap. iv.--TR.]] + +[Footnote 3: The Baconian method is to be called induction, it is true, +only in the broad sense. Even before Sigwart, Apelt, _Theorie der +Induction_, 1854, pp. 151, 153, declared that the question it discussed was +essentially a method of abstraction. This, however, does not detract from +the fame of Bacon as the founder, of the theory of inductive investigation +(in later times carefully elaborated by Mill).] + +Bacon intended that his reforming principles should accrue to the benefit +of practical philosophy also, but gave only aphoristic hints to this +end. Everything is impelled by two appetites, of which the one aims at +individual welfare, the other at the welfare of the whole of which the +thing is a part (_bonum suitatis_--_bonum communionis_). The second is not +only the nobler but also the stronger; this holds of the lower creatures as +well as of man, who, when not degenerate, prefers the general welfare to +his individual interests. Love is the highest of the virtues, and is never, +as other human endowments, exposed to the danger of excess; therefore the +life of action is of more worth than the life of contemplation. By this +principle of morals Bacon marked out the way for the English ethics of +later times.[1] He notes the lack of a science of character, for which more +material is given in ordinary discourse, in the poets and the historians, +than in the works of the philosophers; he explains the power of the +affections over the reason by the fact that the idea of present good fills +the imagination more forcibly than the idea of good to come, and summons +persuasion, habit, and morals to the aid of the latter. We must endeavor +so to govern the passions (each of which combines in itself a masculine +impetuosity with a feminine weakness) that they shall take the part of +the reason instead of attacking it. Elsewhere Bacon gives (not entirely +unquestionable) directions concerning the art of making one's way. Acute +observations and ingenious remarks everywhere abound. In order to inform +one's self of a man's intentions and ends, it is necessary to "keep a good +mediocrity in liberty of speech, which invites a similar liberty, and in +secrecy, which induces trust." "In order to get on one must have a little +of the fool and not too much of the honest." "As the baggage is to an +army, so is riches to virtue. It cannot be spared nor left behind, but it +hindereth the march; yea, and the care of it sometimes loseth or disturbeth +the victory" (impedimenta--baggage and hindrance). On envy and malevolence +he says: "For men's minds will either feed upon their own good or upon +others' evil; ... and whoso is out of hope to attain another's virtue will +seek to come at even hand by depressing another's fortune." + +[Footnote 1: Cf. Vorlaender, p. 267 _seq_.] + +In ethics, as in theoretical philosophy, Bacon demands the completion of +natural knowledge by revelation. The light of nature (the reason and the +conscience) is able only to convince us of sin and not to give us complete +information concerning our duty,--_e.g._, the lofty moral principle, Love +your enemies. Similarly, natural theology is quite sufficient to place +the existence of God beyond doubt, by reasoning from the order in nature +("slight tastes of philosophy may perchance move one to atheism but fuller +draughts lead back to religion"); but the doctrines of Christianity are +matters of faith. Religion and science are separate fields, any confusion +of which involves the danger of an heretical religion or a fabulous +philosophy. The more a principle of faith contradicts the reason, the +greater the obedience and the honor to God in accepting it. + +%(c) Hobbes%.--Hobbes stands in sharp contrast to Bacon both in disposition +and in doctrine. Bacon was a man of a wide outlook, a rich, stimulating, +impulsive nature, filled with great plans, but too mobile and desultory to +allow them to ripen to perfection; Hobbes is slow, tenacious, persistent, +unyielding, his thought strenuous and narrow. To this corresponds a +profound difference in their systems, which is by no means adequately +characterized by saying that Hobbes brings into the foreground the +mathematical element neglected by his predecessor, and turns his attention +chiefly to politics. The dependence of Hobbes on Bacon is, in spite of +their personal acquaintance, not so great as formerly was universally +assumed. His guiding stars are rather the great mathematicians of the +Continent, Kepler and Galileo, while Cartesian influences also are not +to be denied. He finds his mission in the construction of a strictly +mechanical view of the world. Mechanism applied to the world gives +materialism; applied to knowledge, sensationalism of a mathematical type; +applied to the will, determinism; to morality and the state, ethical and +political naturalism. Nevertheless, the empirical tendency of his nation +has a certain power over him; he holds fast to the position that all ideas +ultimately spring from experience. With his energetic but short-breathed +thinking, he did not succeed in fusing the rationalistic elements received +from foreign sources with these native tendencies, so as to produce +a unified system. As Grimm has correctly shown (_Zur Geschichte des +Erkenntnissproblems_), there is an unreconciled contradiction between the +dependence of thought on experience, which he does not give up, and the +universal validity of the truths derived from pure reason, which he asserts +on the basis of the mathematico-philosophical doctrines of the Continent. A +similar unmediated dualism will meet us in Locke also. + +Thomas Hobbes (1588-1679) was repelled while a student at Oxford by +Scholastic methods in thought, with which he agreed only in their +nominalistic results (there are no universals except names). During +repeated sojourns in Paris, where he made the acquaintance of Gassendi, +Mersenne, and Descartes, he devoted himself to the study of mathematics, +and was greatly influenced by the doctrines of Galileo; while the disorders +of the English revolution led him to embrace an absolutist theory of the +state. His chief works were his politics, under the title _Leviathan_, +1651, and his _Elementa Philosophiae_, in three parts (_De Corpore, De +Homine, De Cive_), of which the third, _De Cive_, appeared first (in Latin; +in briefer form and anonymously, 1642, enlarged 1647), the first, _De +Corpore_, in 1655, and the second, _De Homine_, in 1658. These had +been preceded by two books [1] written, like the two last parts of the +_Elements_, in English: _On Human Nature_ and _De Corpore Politico_, +composed 1640, printed without the author's consent in 1650. Besides these +he wrote two treatises _Of Liberty and Necessity_, 1646 and 1654, +and prepared, 1668, a collected edition of his works (in Latin). In +Molesworth's edition, 1839-45, the Latin works occupy five volumes and the +English eleven.[2] + +[Footnote 1: Or rather one; the treatise _On Human Nature_ consists of +the first thirteen chapters of the work, _Elements of Law, Natural and +Politic_, and the _De Corpore Politico_ of the remainder.] + +[Footnote 2: Cf. on Hobbes, G.C. Robertson (Blackwood's Philosophical +Classics, vol. x.), 1886; Toennies in the _Vierteljahrsschrift fuer +wissenschaftliche Philosophie_, Jahrg. 3-5, 1879-81.] + +Philosophy is formally defined by Hobbes as knowledge of effects from +causes and causes from effects by means of legitimate rational inference. +This implies the equal validity of the deductive and inductive +methods,--while Bacon had proclaimed the latter the most important +instrument of knowledge,--as well as the exclusion of theology based on +revelation from the domain of science. Philosophy is objectively defined as +the theory of body and motion: _all that exists is body; all that occurs, +motion_. Everything real is corporeal; this holds of points, lines, and +surfaces, which as the limits of body cannot be incorporeal, as well as +of the mind and of God. The mind is merely a (for the senses too) refined +body, or, as it is stated in another place, a movement in certain parts +of the organic body. All events, even internal events, the feelings and +passions, are movements of material parts. "Endeavor" is a diminutive +motion, as the atom is the smallest of bodies; sensation and representation +are changes in the perceiving body. Space is the idea of an existing thing +as such, _i. e_., merely as existing outside the perceiving subject; time, +the idea of motion. All phenomena are corporeal motions, which take place +with mechanical necessity. Neither formal nor final causes exist, but only +efficient causes. All that happens takes its origin in the activity of an +external cause, and not in itself; a body at rest (or in motion) remains +at rest (or in motion) forever, unless affected by another in a contrary +sense. And as bodies and their changes constitute the only objects of +philosophy, so the mathematical method is the only correct method. + +There are two kinds of bodies: natural bodies, which man finds in nature, +and artificial bodies, which he himself produces. By the latter Hobbes +refers especially to the state as a human artefact. Man stands between the +two as the most perfect natural body and an element in the political body. +Philosophy, therefore, besides the introductory _philosophia prima_, which +discusses the underlying concepts, consists of three parts: physics, +anthropology, and politics. Even the theory of the state is capable of +demonstrative treatment; moral phenomena are as subject to the law of +mechanical causation as physical phenomena. + +The first factor in the cognitive process is an impression on a +sense-organ, which, occasioned by external motion, continues onward to the +heart and from this center gives rise to a reaction. The perception or +sensation which thus arises is entirely subjective, a function of the +knower merely, and in no way a copy of the external movement. The +properties light, color, and sound, which we believe to be without us, are +merely internal phenomena dependent on outer and inner motions, but with no +resemblance to them. Memory consists in the lingering effects or residuary +traces of perception; it is a sense or consciousness of having felt before +_(sentire se sensisse meminisse est_), and ideas are distinguished from +sensations as the perfect from the present tense. Experience is the +totality of perceptions retained in memory, together with a certain +foresight of the future after the analogy of the past. These stages of +cognition, which can yield prudence but not necessary and universal +knowledge, are present in animals as well as men. The human capacity for +science is dependent on the faculty of speech; words are conventional +signs to facilitate the retention and communication of ideas. As the +memory-images denoted by words are weaker, fainter, and less clearly +discriminated than the original sensations, it comes to pass that a number +of similar ideas of memory receive a common name. Thus abstract general +ideas and generic concepts arise, to which nothing real corresponds, for +in reality particulars alone exist. The universal is a human artefact. The +combination of words into propositions, being an addition or subtraction +of arbitrary symbols or marks, is called judgment; the combination of +propositions into syllogisms, inference; the united body of true or +demonstrated principles, science--hence mathematics is the type of all +knowledge. In short, thought is nothing but calculation and the words with +which we operate are mere counters; he who takes counters for coin is a +fool. Animals lack reason, _i.e._, this power of combining artificial +symbols. + +Hobbes's theory of the will is characterized by the same! sensationalism +and mechanism as his theory of knowledge. All spiritual events originate +in impressions of sense. Man responds to the action of objects by a double +reaction, adding to the theoretical reaction of sensation a practical one +in the feeling of pleasure or pain (according as the impression furthers or +hinders the vital function), whence desire and aversion follow in respect +to future experience. Further developments from the feelings experienced at +the signs of honor (the acknowledgment of superior power) and the contrary, +are the affections of pride, courage, anger, of shame and repentance, of +hope and love, of pity, etc. Deliberation is the alternation of different +appetites; the final, victorious one which immediately precedes action is +called will. Freedom cannot be predicated of the will, but only of the +action, and even in this case it means simply the absence of external +restraints, the procedure of the action from the will of the agent; while +the action is necessary nevertheless. Every motion is the inevitable result +of the sum of the preceding (including cerebral) motions. + +Things which we desire are termed good, and those which we shun, evil. +Nothing is good _per se_ or absolutely, but only relatively, for a given +person, place, time, or set of circumstances. Different things are good to +different men, and there is no objective, universal rule of good and +evil, so long as men are considered as individuals, apart from society. A +definite criterion of the good is first reached in the state: that is right +which the law permits, that wrong which it forbids; good means that which +is conducive to the general welfare. In the state of nature nothing is +forbidden; nature gives every man a right to everything, and right is +coextensive with might. What, then, induces man to abandon the state of +nature and enter the state of citizenship? The opinion of Aristotle and +Grotius that the state originates in the social impulse is false; for man +is essentially not social, but selfish, and nothing but regard for his own +interests bids him seek the protection of the state; the civil commonwealth +is an artificial product of fear and prudence. The highest good is +self-preservation; all other goods, as friendship, riches, wisdom, +knowledge, and, above all, power, are valuable only as instruments of the +former. The precondition of well-being, for which each man strives by +nature, is security for life and health. This is wanting in the state of +nature, in which the passions govern; for the state of nature is a state +of war of everyone against everyone _(bellum omnium contra omnes_). Each +man strives for success and power, and, since he cannot trust his fellow, +seeks to subdue, nay, to kill him; each looks upon his fellow as a wolf +which he prefers to devour rather than submit himself to the like +operation. Now, as no one is so weak as to be incapable of inflicting on +his fellows that worst of evils, death, and thus the strongest is unsafe, +reason, in the interest of everyone, enjoins a search after peace and the +establishment of an ordered community. The conditions of peace are the +"laws of nature," which relate both to politics and to morals but which do +not attain their full binding authority until they become positive laws, +injunctions of the sovereign power. Peace is attainable only when each man, +in return for the protection vouchsafed to him, gives up his natural right +to all. The compact by which each renounces his natural liberty to do what +he pleases, provided all others are ready for the same renunciation,--to +which are added, further, the laws of justice (sanctity of covenants), +equity, gratitude, modesty, sociability, mercifulness, etc., whose +opposites would bring back the state of nature,--this compact is secured +against violation by the transfer of the general power and freedom to a +single will (the will of an assembly or of an individual person), which +then represents the general will. The civil contract includes, then, two +moments: first, renunciation; second, irrevocable transference and +(absolute) submission. The second unites the multitude into a civil +personality, the most perfect unity being vouchsafed by absolute monarchy. +The sovereign is the soul of the political body; the officials, its limbs; +reward and punishment, its nerves; law and equity, its reason. + +The social contract theory has often experienced democratic interpretation +and application, both before and since Hobbes's time; and, in fact, it does +not include _per se_ the irrevocability of the transfer, the absoluteness +of the sovereign power, and the monarchical head, which Hobbes considered +indispensable in order to guard against the danger of anarchy. In every +abridgment of the supreme power, whether by division or limitation, he sees +a step toward the renewal of the state of nature; and he defends with iron +rigor the omnipotence of the state and the complete lack of legal status on +the part of all individuals in contrast with it. The citizen is not to obey +his own conscience, which has simply the value of a private opinion, +but the laws, as the public conscience; while the supreme ruler, on the +contrary, is superior to the civil laws, for it is he that decrees, +interprets, alters, and abrogates them. He is lord over the property, the +life, and the death of the citizens, and can do no one wrong. For he +alone has retained his original natural right to all, which the rest have +entirely and forever renounced. He must have regard, indeed, to the welfare +of the people, but he is accountable to God alone. The obligation of the +subject to obey is extinguished in one case only,--when the civil power is +incapable of providing him further with external and internal protection. +For the rest, Hobbes declares the existing public order the lawful one, the +evils of arbitrary rule much more tolerable than the universal hostility of +the state of nature, and aversion to tyrants a disease inherited from the +republicans of antiquity. + +The sovereign, by the laws and by instruction, determines what is good and +evil; he determines also what is to be believed. Religion unsanctioned by +the state is superstition. The temporal ruler is also the spiritual ruler, +the king, the chief pastor, and the clergy his servants. One and the same +community is termed state in so far as it consists of men, and church in so +far as it consists of Christian men (the ecclesiastical commonwealth). The +dogmas which the law prescribes are to be received without investigation, +to be swallowed like pills, without mastication. + +The principle that every passion and every action is in its nature +indifferent, that right and wrong exist only in the state, that the will +of a despot is to determine what is moral and what immoral, has given just +offense. Moreover, this was not, in fact, Hobbes's deepest conviction. Even +without ascribing great importance to isolated statements,[1] it must +be admitted that his doctrine was interpreted more narrowly than it was +intended. He does not say that no moral distinctions whatever exist before +the foundation of the state, but only that the state first supplies a fixed +criterion of the good. Moral ideas have a certain currency before this, but +they lack power to enforce themselves. Further, when he ascribes the origin +of the state to self-interest, this does not mean that reason, conscience, +generosity, and love for our fellows are entirely wanting in the state of +nature, but only that they are not general enough, and, as against the +passions, not strong enough to furnish a foundation for the edifice of the +state. Not only exaggeration in statement but also uncouthness of thought +may be forgiven the representative of a movement which is at once new and +strengthened by the consciousness of agreement with a naturalistic theory +of knowledge and physics; and the vigor of execution compels admiration, +even though many obscurities remain to be deplored _(e. g_., the relation +of the two moral standards, the standard of the reason or natural law and +the standard of positive law). And recognition must be accorded to the +significant kernel of doctrine formed, on the one hand, by the endeavor to +separate ethics from theology, and on the other, by the thoughts--which, it +is true, were not perfectly brought out--that the moral is not founded on +a natural social impulse, but on a law of the reason, and first gains a +definite criterion in society, and that the interests of the individual are +inseparably connected with those of the community. In any case, the +attempt to form a naturalistic theory of the state would be an undertaking +deserving of thanks, even if the promulgation of this theory had done no +further service than to challenge refutation. + +[Footnote 1: God inscribed the divine or natural law (Do not that to +another, etc.) on the heart of man, when he gave him the reason to rule his +actions. The laws of nature are, it is true, not always legally binding +(_in foro externo_), but always and everywhere binding on the conscience +(_in foro interno_). Justice is the virtue which we can measure by civil +laws; love, that which we measure by the law of nature merely. The ruler +_ought_ to govern in accordance with the law of nature.] + +%(d) Lord Herbert of Cherbury.%--Between Bacon (1605, 1620) and Hobbes +(1642, 1651) stands Lord Herbert of Cherbury (1581-1648), who, by his +work _De Veritate_ (1624),[1] became the founder of deism, that theory of +"natural religion," which, in opposition to the historical dogmatic faith +of the Church theology, takes the reason, which is the same in all men, +as its basis and morality for its content. Lord Herbert introduces his +philosophy of religion by a theory of knowledge which makes universal +consent the highest criterion of truth (_summa veritatis norma consensus +universalis_), and bases knowledge on certain self-evident principles +(_principia_), common to all men in virtue of a natural instinct, which +gives safe guidance. These common notions (_notitiae communes_) precede all +reflective inquiry, as well as all observation and experience, which would +be impossible without them. The most important among them are the religious +and ethical maxims of conscience. + +[Footnote 1: _Tractatus de Veritate prout distinguitur a Revelatione, a +Verisimili, a Possibile, et a False_. Also, _De Religione Gentilium_, 1645, +complete 1663.] + +This natural instinct is both an impulse toward truth and a capacity for +good or impulse to self-preservation. The latter extends not only to the +individual but to all things with which the individual is connected, to the +species, nay, to all the rest of the world, and its final goal is eternal +happiness: all natural capacities are directed toward the highest good or +toward God. The sense for the divine may indeed be lulled to sleep or led +astray by our free will, but not eradicated. To be rational and to be +religious are inseparable; it is religion that distinguishes man from the +brute, and no people can be found in which it is lacking. If atheists +really exist, they are to be classed with the irrational and the insane. + +The content of natural religion may be summed up in the following five +articles, which all nations confess: 1. That there is a Supreme Being +(_numen supremum_). 2. That he ought to be worshiped. 3. That virtue and +piety are the chief elements of worship. 4. That man ought to repent of his +sins. 5. That there are rewards and punishments in a future life. Besides +these general principles, on the discovery of which Lord Herbert greatly +prides himself, the positive religions contain arbitrary additions, which +distinguish them from one another and which owe their origin, for the most +part, to priestly deception, although the rhapsodies of the poets and the +inventions of the philosophers have contributed their share. The essential +principles of natural religion (God, virtue, faith, hope, love, and +repentance) come more clearly to light in Christianity than in the +religions of heathendom, where they are overgrown with myths and +ceremonies. + +The _Religio Medici_ (1642) of Sir Thomas Browne shows similar tendencies. + + +%9. Preliminary Survey.% + +In the line of development from the speculations of Nicolas of Cusa to the +establishment of the English philosophy of nature, of religion, and of the +state by Bacon, Herbert, and Hobbes, and to the physics of Galileo, modern +ideas have manifested themselves with increasing clearness and freedom. +Hobbes himself shows thus early the influence of Descartes's decisive step, +with which the twilight gives place to the brightness of the morning. In +Descartes the empiricism and sensationalism of the English is confronted by +rationalism, to which the great thinkers of the Continent continue loyal. +In Britain, experience, on the Continent the reason is declared to be the +source of cognition; in the former, the point of departure is found in +particular impressions of sense, on the latter, in general concepts and +principles of the understanding; there the method of observation is +inculcated and followed, here, the method of deduction. This antithesis +remained decisive in the development of philosophy down to Kant, so that it +has long been customary to distinguish two lines or schools, the Empirical +and the Rationalistic, whose parallelism may be exhibited in the following +table (when only one date is given it indicates the appearance of the +philosopher's chief work): + + _Empiricism. Rationalism_. + Bacon, 1620. (Nicolas, 1450; Bruno, 1584). + Hobbes, 1651. _Descartes_, died 1650. + _Locke_, 1690 (1632-1704). Spinoza, (1632-) 1677. + Berkeley, 1710. _Leibnitz_, 1710. + Hume, 1748. Wolff, died 1754. + +We must not forget, indeed, the lively interchange of ideas between the +schools (especially the influence of Descartes on Hobbes, and of the latter +on Spinoza; further, of Descartes on Locke, and of the latter on Leibnitz) +which led to reciprocal approximation and enrichment. Berkeley and +Leibnitz, from opposite presuppositions, arrive at the same idealistic +conclusion--there is no real world of matter, but only spirits and ideas +exist. Hume and Wolff conclude the two lines of development: under the +former, empiricism disintegrates into skepticism; under the latter, +rationalism stiffens into a scholastic dogmatism, soon to run out into a +popular eclecticism of common sense. + +If we compare the mental characteristics of the three great nations which, +in the period between Descartes and Kant, participated most productively in +the work of philosophy,--the Italians, with their receptive temperament and +so active in many fields, exerted a decisive influence on its development +and progress in the transition period alone,--it will be seen that the +Frenchman tends chiefly to acuteness, the Englishman to clearness and +simplicity, the German to profundity of thought. France is the land of +mathematical, England of practical, Germany of speculative thinkers; the +first is the home of the skeptics, though of the enthusiasts as well; the +second, of the realists; the third, of the idealists. + +The English philosopher resembles a geographer who, with conscientious +care, outlines a map of the region through which he journeys; the +Frenchman, an anatomist who, with steady stroke, lays bare the nerves and +muscles of the organism; the German, a mountaineer who loses in clear +vision of particular objects as much as he gains in loftiness of position +and extent of view. The Englishman describes the given reality, the +Frenchman analyses it, the German transfigures it. + +The English thinker keeps as close as possible to phenomena, and the +principles which he uses in the explanation of phenomena themselves lie in +the realm of concrete experience. He explains one phenomenon by another; he +classifies and arranges the given material without analyzing it; he keeps +constantly in touch with the popular consciousness. His reverence for +reality, as this presents itself to him, and his distrust of far-reaching +abstraction, are so strong that it is enough for him to take his bearings +from the real, and to give a true reproduction of it, while he willingly +renounces the ambition to form it anew in concepts. With this respect for +concrete reality he combines a similar reverence for ethical postulates. +When the development of a given line of thought threatens to bring him into +conflict with practical life, he is honest enough to draw the conclusions +which follow from his premises and to give them expression, but he avoids +the collision by a simple compromise, shutting up the refinements of +philosophy in the study and yielding in practice to the guidance of +natural instinct and conscience. His support, therefore, of theories which +contradict current views in morals is free from the levity in which the +Frenchman indulges. Life and thought are separate fields, contradictions +between them are borne in patience, and if science draws its material from +life it shows itself grateful for the favor by giving life the benefit of +the useful outcome of its labors, and, at the same time, shielding it from +the revolutionary or disintegrating effect of its doubtful paradoxes. + +While the deliberate craft of English philosophy does not willingly lose +sight of the shores of the concrete world, French thought sails boldly and +confidently out into the open sea of abstraction. It is not strange that +it finds the way to the principles more rapidly than the way back to +phenomena. A free road, a fresh start, a straight course--such is the +motto of French thinking. Whatever is inconsistent with rectilinearity is +ignored, or opposed as unfitting. The line drawn by Descartes through the +world between matter and spirit, and that by Rousseau between nature +and culture, are distinctive of the philosophical character of their +countrymen. Dualism is to them entirely congenial; it satisfies their +need for clearness, and with this they are content. Antithesis is in the +Frenchman's blood; he thinks in it and speaks in it, in the salon or on the +platform, in witty jest or in scientific earnestness of thought. Either A +or not-A, and there is no middle ground. This habit of precision and +sharp analysis facilitates the formation of closed parties, whereas each +individual German, in philosophy as in politics, forms a party of his own. +The demand for the removal of the rubbish of existing systems and the +sanguine return to the sources, give French philosophy an unhistorical, +radical, and revolutionary character. Minds of the second order, who are +incapable of taking by themselves the step from that which is given to the +sources, prove their radicalism by following down to the roots that which +others have begun (so Condillac and the sensationalism of Locke). Moreover, +philosophical principles are to be translated into action; the thinker has +shown himself the doctrinaire in his destructive analysis of that which +is given, so, also, he hopes to play the dictator by overturning existing +institutions and establishing a new order of things,--only his courageous +endeavor flags as soon in the region of practice as in that of theory. + +The German lacks the happy faculty, which distinguishes the two nations +just discussed, of isolating a problem near at hand, and he is accustomed +to begin his system with Leda's egg; but, by way of compensation, he +combines the lofty flight of the French with the phlegmatic endurance of +the English, _i.e._, he seeks his principles far above experience, but, +instead of stopping with the establishment of points of view or when he +has set the note, he carries his principles through in detail with loving +industry and comprehensive architectonic skill. While common sense turns +the scale with the English and analytical thought with the French, the +German allows the fancy and the heart to take an important part in the +discussion, though in such a way that the several faculties work together +and in harmony. While in France rationalism, mysticism, and the philosophy +of the heart were divided among different thinkers (Descartes, Malebranche +and Pascal, Rousseau), there is in every German philosopher something of +all three. The skeptical Kant provides a refuge for the postulates of +thought in the sanctuary of faith; the earnest, energetic Fichte, toward +the end of his life, takes his place among the mystics; Schelling thinks +with the fancy and dreams with the understanding; and under the broad cloak +of the Hegelian dialectic method, beside the reflection of the Critique of +Reason and of the Science of Knowledge, the fancies of the Philosophy of +Nature, the deep inwardness of Boehme, even the whole wealth of empirical +fact, found a place. As synthesis is predominant in his view of things, so +a harmonizing, conciliatory tendency asserts itself in his relations to his +predecessors: the results of previous philosophers are neither discarded +out of hand nor accepted in the mass, but all that appears in any way +useful or akin to the new system is wrought in at its proper place, though +often with considerable transformation. In this work of mediation there is +considerable loss in definiteness, the just and comprehensive consideration +of the most diverse interests not always making good the loss. And since +such a philosophy, as we have already shown, engages the whole man, its +disciple has neither impulse nor strength left for reforming labors; while, +on the other hand, he perceives no external call to undertake them, since +he views the world through the glasses of his system. Thus philosophy in +Germany, pursued chiefly by specialists, remains a professional affair, and +has not exercised a direct transforming influence on life (for Fichte, who +helped to philosophize the French out of Germany, was an exception); but +its influence has been the greater in the special sciences, which in +Germany more than any other land are handled in a philosophic spirit. + +The mental characteristics of these nations are reflected also in their +methods of presentation. The style of the English philosopher is sober, +comprehensible, diffuse, and slightly wearisome. The French use a fluent, +elegant, lucid style which entertains and dazzles by its epigrammatic +phrases, in which not infrequently the epigram rules the thought. The +German expresses his solid, thoughtful positions in a form which is at +once ponderous and not easily understood; each writer constructs his own +terminology, with a liberal admixture of foreign expressions, and the +length of his paragraphs is exceeded only by the thickness of his books. +These national distinctions may be traced even in externals. The Englishman +makes his divisions as they present themselves at first thought, and rather +from a practical than from a logical point of view. The analytic Frenchman +prefers dichotomy, while trichotomy corresponds to the synthetic, +systematic character of German thinking; and Kant's naive delight, because +in each class the third category unites its two predecessors, has been +often experienced by many of his countrymen at the sight of their own +trichotomies. + +The division of labor in the pre-Kantian philosophy among these three +nationalities entirely agrees with the account given of the peculiarities +of their philosophical endowment. The beginning falls to the share of +France; Locke receives that tangled skein, the problem of knowledge, +from the hand of Descartes, and passes it on to Leibnitz; and while the +Illumination in all three countries is converting the gold inherited from +Locke and Leibnitz into small coin, the solution of the riddle rings out +from Koenigsberg. + + + + +PART I. + +FROM DESCARTES TO KANT. + + + +CHAPTER II. + +DESCARTES. + +The long conflict with Scholasticism, which had been carried on with ever +increasing energy and ever sharper weapons, was brought by Descartes to a +victorious close. The new movement, long desired, long sought, and prepared +for from many directions, at length appears, ready and well-established. +Descartes accomplishes everything needful with the sure simplicity of +genius. He furnishes philosophy with a settled point of departure in +self-consciousness, offers her a method sure to succeed in deduction from +clear and distinct conceptions, and assigns her the mechanical explanation +of nature as her most imperative and fruitful mission. + +Rene Descartes was born at La Haye in Touraine, in 1596, and died at +Stockholm in 1650. Of the studies taught in the Jesuit school at La Fleche, +mathematics alone was able to satisfy his craving for clear and certain +knowledge. The years 1613-17 he spent in Paris; then he enlisted in the +military service of the Netherlands, and, in 1619, in that of Bavaria. +While in winter quarters at Neuburg, he vowed a pilgrimage to Loretto if +the Virgin would show him a way of escape from his tormenting doubts; and +made the saving discovery of the "foundations of a wonderful science." +At the end of four years this vow was fulfilled. On his return to Paris +(1625), he was besought by his learned friends to give to the world his +epoch-making ideas. Though, to escape the distractions of society, he kept +his residence secret, as he had done during his first stay in Paris, and +frequently changed it, he was still unable to secure the complete privacy +and leisure for scientific work which he desired. Therefore he went to +Holland in 1629, and spent twenty years of quiet productivity in Amsterdam, +Franecker, Utrecht, Leeuwarden, Egmond, Harderwijk, Leyden, the palace of +Endegeest, and five other places. His work here was interrupted only by +a few journeys, but much disturbed in its later years by annoying +controversies with the theologian Gisbert Voetius of Utrecht, with Regius, +a pupil who had deserted him, and with professors from Leyden. His +correspondence with his French friends was conducted through Pere Mersenne. +In 1649 he yielded to pressing invitations from Queen Christina of Sweden +and removed to Stockholm. There his weak constitution was not adequate to +the severity of the climate, and death overtook him within a few months. + +The two decades of retirement in the Netherlands were Descartes's +productive period. His motive in developing and writing out his thoughts +was, essentially, the desire not to disappoint the widely spread belief +that he was in possession of a philosophy more certain than the common one. +The work entitled _Le Monde_, begun in 1630 and almost completed, remained +unprinted, as the condemnation of Galileo (1632) frightened our philosopher +from publication; fragments of it only, and a brief summary, appeared +after the author's death. The chief works, the _Discourse on Method_, the +_Meditations on the First Philosophy_, and the _Principles of Philosophy_ +appeared between 1637 and 1644,--the _Discours de la Methode_ in 1637, +together with three dissertations (the "Dioptrics," the "Meteors," and the +"Geometry"), under the common title, _Essais Philosophiques_. To the (six) +_Meditationes de Prima Philosophia_, published in 1641, and dedicated to +the Paris Sorbonne, are appended the objections of various savants to whom +the work had been communicated in manuscript, together with Descartes's +rejoinders. He himself considered the criticisms of Arnauld, printed fourth +in order, as the most important. The Third Objections are from Hobbes, the +Fifth from Gassendi, the First, which were also the first received, from +the theologian Caterus of Antwerp, while the Second and Sixth, collected by +Mersenne, are from various theologians and mathematicians. In the second +edition there were added, further, the Seventh Objections, by the Jesuit +Bourdin, and the Replies of the author thereto. The four books of the +_Principia Philosophiae_, published in 1644 and dedicated to Elizabeth, +Countess Palatine, give a systematic presentation of the new philosophy. +The _Discourse on Method_ appeared, 1644, in a Latin translation, the +_Meditations_ and the _Principles_ in French, in 1647. The _Treatise on the +Passions_ was published in 1650; the _Letters_, 1657-67, in French, 1668, +in Latin. The _Opera Postuma_, 1701, beside the _Compendium of Music_ +(written in 1618) and other portions of his posthumous writings, contain +the "Rules for the Direction of the Mind," supposed to have been written in +1629, and the "Search for Truth by the Light of Nature." The complete works +have been often published, both in Latin and in French. The eleven volume +edition of Cousin appeared in 1824-26.[1] + +[Footnote 1: Of the many treatises on the philosophy of Descartes those of +C. Schaarschmidt (_Descartes und Spinoza_, 1850) and J.H. Loewe, 1855, may +be mentioned. Further, M. Heinze has discussed _Die Sittenlehre des +Descartes_, 1872; Ed. Grimm, _Descartes' Lehre von den angeborenen +Ideen_, 1873; G. Glogau, _Darlegung und Kritik des Grundgedankens der +Cartesianisch. Metaphysik (Zeitschrift fuer Philosophie_, vol. lxxiii. p. +209 _seq_.), 1878; Paul Natorp, _Descartes' Erkenntnisstheorie_, 1882; +and Kas. Twardowski, _Idee und Perception_ in Descartes, 1892. In French, +Francisque Bouillier (_Histoire de la Philosophie Cartesienne_, 1854) and +E. Saisset (_Precurseurs et Disciples de Descartes_, 1862) have written +on Cartesianism. [The _Method, Meditations, and Selections from the +Principles_ have been translated into English by John Veitch, 5th ed., +1879, and others since; and H.A.P. Torrey has published _The Philosophy +of Descartes in Extracts from his Writings_, 1892 (Sneath's Modern +Philosophers). The English reader may be referred, also, to Mahaffy's +_Descartes_, 1880, in Blackwood's Philosophical Classics; to the article +"Cartesianism," _Encyclopedia Britannica_, 9th ed., vol. v., by Edward +Caird; and, for a complete discussion, to the English translation of +Fischer's _Descartes and his School_' by J.P. Gordy, 1887.--TR.]] + +We begin our discussion with Descartes's noetical and metaphysical +principles, and then take up in order his doctrine of nature and of man. + + +%1. The Principles%. + +That which passes nowadays for science, and is taught as such in the +schools, is nothing but a mass of disconnected, uncertain, and often +contradictory opinions. A principle of unity and certainty is entirely +lacking. If anything permanent and irrefutable is to be accomplished in +science, everything hitherto considered true must be thoroughly demolished +and built up anew. For we come into the world as children and we form +judgments of things, or repeat them after others, before we have come into +the full possession of our intellectual powers; so that it is no wonder +that we are filled with a multitude of prejudices, from which we can +thoroughly escape only by considering everything doubtful which shows the +least sign of uncertainty. Let us renounce, therefore, all our old views, +in order later to accept better ones in their stead; or, perchance, to +take the former up again after they shall have stood the test of rational +criticism. The recognized precaution, never to put complete confidence in +that which has once deceived us, holds of our relation to the senses as +elsewhere. It is certain that they sometimes deceive us--perhaps they do so +always. Again, we dream every day of things which nowhere exist, and there +is no certain criterion by which to distinguish our dreams from our waking +moments,--what guarantee have we, then, that we are not always dreaming? +Therefore, our doubt must first of all be directed to the existence of +sense-objects. Nay, even mathematics must be suspected in spite of the +apparent certainty of its axioms and demonstrations, since controversy +and error are found in it also. + +I doubt or deny, then, that the world is what it appears to be, that there +is a God, that external objects exist, that I have a body, that twice +two are four. One thing, however, it is impossible for me to bring into +question, namely, that I myself, who exercise this doubting function, +exist. There is one single point at which doubt is forced to halt--at the +doubter, at the self-existence of the thinker. I can doubt everything +except that I doubt, and that, in doubting, I am. Even if a superior being +sought to deceive me in all my thinking, he could not succeed unless I +existed, he could not cause me not to exist so long as I thought. To be +deceived means to think falsely; but that something is thought, no matter +what it be, is no deception. It might be true, indeed, that nothing at all +existed; but then there would be no one to conceive this non-existence. +Granted that everything may be a mistake; yet the being mistaken, the +thinking is not a mistake. Everything is denied, but the denier remains. +The whole content of consciousness is destroyed; consciousness itself, the +doubting activity, the being of the thinker, is indestructible. _Cogitatio +sola a me divelli nequit_. Thus the settled point of departure required for +knowledge is found in the _self-certitude of the thinking ego_. From the +fact that I doubt, _i.e._, think, it follows that I, the doubter, the +thinker, am. _Cogito, ergo sum_ is the first and most certain of all +truths. + +The principle, "I think, therefore I am," is not to be considered a +deduction from the major premise, "Whatever thinks exists." It is rather +true that this general proposition is derived from the particular and +earlier one. I must first realize in my own experience that, as thinking, I +exist, before I can reach the general conclusion that thought and existence +are inseparable. This fundamental truth is thus not a syllogism, but a +not further deducible, self-evident, immediate cognition, a pure +intuition--_sum cogitans_. Now, if my existence is revealed by my activity +of thought, if my thought is my being, and the converse, if in me thought +and existence are identical, then I am a being whose essence consists in +thinking. I am a spirit, an ego, a rational soul. My existence follows only +from my thinking, not from any chance action. _Ambulo ergo sum_ would not +be valid, but _mihi videor_ or _puto me ambulare, ergo sum_. If I believe +I am walking, I may undoubtedly be deceived concerning the outward action +(as, for instance, in dreams), but never concerning my inward belief. +_Cogitatio_ includes all the conscious activities of the mind, volition, +emotion, and sensation, as well as representation and cognition; they are +all _modi cogitandi_. The existence of the mind is therefore the most +certain of all things. We know the soul better than the body. It is for +the present the only certainty, and every other is dependent on this, the +highest of all. + +What, then, is the peculiarity of this first and most certain knowledge +which renders it self-evident and independent of all proof, which makes +us absolutely unable to doubt it? Its entire clearness and distinctness. +Accordingly, I may conclude that everything which I perceive as clearly and +distinctly as the _cogito ergo sum_ is also true, and I reach this general +rule, _omne est verum, quod clare et distincte percipio_. So far, then, we +have gained three things: a challenge; to be inscribed over the portals +of certified knowledge, _de omnibus dubitandum_; a basal truth, _sum +cogitans_; a criterion of truth, _clara et distinct a perceptio_. + +The doubt of Descartes is not the expression of a resigned spirit which +renounces the unattainable; it is precept, not doctrine, the starting point +of philosophy, not its conclusion, a methodological instrument in the hand +of a strong and confident longing for truth, which makes use of doubt to +find the indubitable. It is not aimed at the possibility of attaining +knowledge, but at the opinion that it has already been attained, at the +credulity of the age, at its excessive tendency toward historical and +poly-historical study, which confuses the acquisition and handing down of +information with knowledge of the truth. That knowledge alone is certain +which is self-attained and self-tested--and this cannot be learned +or handed down; it can only be rediscovered through examination and +experience. Instead of taking one's own unsupported conjectures or the +opinions of others as a guide, the secret of the search for truth is to +become independent and of age, to think for one's self; and the only remedy +against the dangers of self-deception and the ease of repetition is to be +found in doubting everything hitherto considered true. This is the meaning +of the Cartesian doubt, which is more comprehensive and more thorough +than the Baconian. Descartes disputed only the certitude of the knowledge +previously attained, not the possibility of knowledge--for of the latter no +man is more firmly convinced than he. He is a rationalist, not a skeptic. +The intellect is assured against error just as soon as, freed from +hindrances, it remains true to itself, as it puts forth all its powers and +lets nothing pass for truth which is not clearly and distinctly known. +Descartes demands the same thing for the human understanding as Rousseau at +a later period for the heart: a return to uncorrupted nature. This faith in +the unartificial, the original, the natural, this radical and naturalistic +tendency is characteristically French. The purification of the mind, its +deliverance from the rubbish of scholastic learning, from the pressure of +authority, and from inert acceptance of the thinking of others--this is +all. Descartes finds the clearest proof of the mind's capacity for truth in +mathematics, whose trustworthiness he never seriously questioned, but only +hypothetically, in order to exhibit the still higher certainty of the "I +think, therefore I am." He wants to give philosophy the stable character +which had so impressed him in mathematics when he was a boy, and recommends +her, therefore, not merely the evidence of mathematics as a general +example, but the mathematical method for definite imitation. Metaphysics, +like mathematics, must derive its conclusions by deduction from +self-evident principles. Thus the geometrical method begins its rule in +philosophy, a rule not always attended with beneficial results. + +With this criterion of truth Descartes advances to the consideration of +ideas. He distinguishes volition and judgment from ideas in the narrow +sense (_imagines_), and divides the latter, according to their origin, into +three classes: _ideae innatae, adventitiae, a me ipso factae_, considering +the second class, the "adventitious" ideas, the most numerous, but the +first, the "innate" ideas, the most important. No idea is higher or clearer +than the idea of God or the most perfect being. Whence comes this idea? +That every idea must have a cause, follows from the "clear and distinct" +principle that nothing produces nothing. It follows from this same +principle, _ex nihilo nihil fit_, however, that the cause must contain as +much reality or perfection--_realitas_ and _perfectio_ are synonymous--as +the effect, for otherwise the overplus would have come from nothing. So +much ("objective," representative) reality contained in an idea, so much or +more ("formal," actual) reality must be contained in its cause. The idea +of God as infinite, independent, omnipotent, omniscient, and creative +substance, has not come to me through the senses, nor have I formed it +myself. The power to conceive a being more perfect than myself, can have +only come from someone who is more perfect in reality than I. Since I know +that the infinite contains more reality than the finite, I may conclude +that the idea of the infinite has not been derived from the idea of the +finite by abstraction and negation; it precedes the latter, and I become +conscious of my defects and my finitude only by comparison with the +absolute perfection of God. This idea, then, must have been implanted in me +by God himself. The idea of God is an original endowment; it is as innate +as the idea of myself. However incomplete it may be, it is still +sufficient to give a knowledge of God's existence, although not a perfect +comprehension of his being, just as a man may skirt a mountain without +encircling it. + +Descartes brings in the idea of God in order to escape solipsism. So long +as the self-consciousness of the ego remained the only certainty, there was +no conclusive basis for the assumption that anything exists beyond self, +that the ideas which apparently come from without are really occasioned by +external things and do not spring from the mind itself. For our natural +instinct to refer them to objects without us might well be deceptive. It is +only through the idea of God, and by help of the principle that the cause +must contain at least as much reality as the effect, that I am taken beyond +myself and assured that I am not the only thing in the world. For as this +idea contains more of representative, than I of actual reality, I cannot +have been its cause. + +To this empirical argument, which derives God's existence from our idea +of God (from the fact that we have an idea of him), Descartes joins the +(modified) ontological argument of Anselm, which deduces the existence of +God from the concept of God. While the ideas of all other things include +only the possibility of existence, necessary existence is inseparable from +the concept of the most perfect being. God cannot be thought apart from +existence; he has the ground of his existence in himself; he is _a se_ +or _causa sui_. Finally, Descartes adds a third argument. The idea of +perfections which I do not possess can only have been imparted to me by a +more perfect being than I, which has bestowed on me all that I am and +all that I am capable of becoming. If I had created myself, I would have +bestowed upon myself these absent perfections also. And the existence of a +plurality of causes is negatived by the supreme perfection which I conceive +in the idea of God, the indivisible unity of his attributes. Among the +attributes of God his veracity is of special importance. It is impossible +that he should will to deceive us; that he should be the cause of our +errors. God would be a deceiver, if he had endowed us with a reason to +which error should appear true, even when it uses all its foresight in +avoiding it and assents only to that which it clearly and distinctly +perceives. Error is man's own fault; he falls into it only when he misuses +the divine gift of knowledge, which includes its own standard. Thus +Descartes finds new confirmation for his test of truth in the _veracitas +dei_. Erdmann has given a better defense of Descartes than the philosopher +himself against the charge that this is arguing in a circle, inasmuch as +the existence of God is proved by the criterion of truth, and then the +latter by the former: The criterion of certitude is the _ratio cognoscendi_ +of God's existence; God is the _ratio essendi_ of the criterion of +certitude. In the order of existence God is first, he creates the reason +together with its criterion; in the order of knowledge the criterion +precedes, and God's existence follows from it. Descartes himself endeavors +to avoid the circle by making _intuitive_ knowledge self-evident, and by +not bringing in the appeal to God's veracity in _demonstrative_ knowledge +until, in reflective thought, we no longer have each separate link in the +chain of proof present to our minds with full intuitive certainty, but only +remember that we have previously understood the matter with clearness and +distinctness. + +Our ideas represent in part things, in part qualities. Substance is defined +by the concept of independence as _res quae ita existit, ut nulla alia re +indigeat ad existendum_; a pregnant definition with which the concept of +substance gains the leadership in metaphysics, which it held till the time +of Hume and Kant, sharing it then with the conception of cause or, rather, +relinquishing it to the latter. The Spinozistic conclusion that, according +to the strict meaning of this definition, there is but one substance, God, +who, as _causa sui_, has absolutely no need of any other thing in order to +his existence, was announced by Descartes himself. If created substances +are under discussion, the term does not apply to them in the same sense +(not _univoce_) as when we speak of the infinite substance; created beings +require a different explanation, they are things which need for their +existence only the co-operation of God, and have no need of one another. +Substance is cognized through its qualities, among which one is pre-eminent +from the fact that it expresses the essence or nature of the thing, and +that it is conceived through itself, without the aid of the others, while +they presuppose it and cannot be thought without it. The former fundamental +properties are termed attributes, and these secondary ones, modes or +accidents. Position, figure, motion, are contingent properties of +body; they presuppose that it is extended or spatial; they are _modi +extensionis_, as feeling, volition, desire, representation, and judgment +are possible only in a conscious being, and hence are merely modifications +of thought. Extension is the essential or constitutive attribute of body, +and thought of mind. Body is never without extension, and mind never +without thought--_mens semper cogitat_. Guided by the self-evident +principle that the non-existent has no properties, we argue from a +perceived quality to a substance as its possessor or support. Substances +are distinct from one another when we can clearly and distinctly cognize +one without the other. Now, we can adequately conceive mind without a +corporeal attribute and body without a spiritual one; the former has +nothing of extension in it, the latter nothing of thought: hence thinking +substance and extended substance are entirely distinct and have nothing +in common. Matter and mind are distinct _realiter_, matter and extension +_idealiter_ merely. Thus we attain three clear and distinct ideas, three +eternal verities: _substantia infinita sive deus, substantia finita +cogitans sive mens, substantia extensa sive corpus_. + +By this abrupt contraposition of body and mind as reciprocally independent +substances, Descartes founded that dualism, as whose typical representative +he is still honored or opposed. This dualism between the material and +spiritual worlds belongs to those standpoints which are valid without being +ultimate truth; on the pyramid of metaphysical knowledge it takes a high, +but not the highest, place. We may not rest in it, yet it retains a +permanent value in opposition to subordinate theories. It is in the +right against a materialism which still lacks insight into the essential +distinction between mind and matter, thought and extension, consciousness +and motion; it loses its validity when, with a full consideration and +conservation of the distinction between these two spheres, we succeed in +bridging over the gulf between them, whether this is accomplished through +a philosophy of identity, like that of Spinoza and Schelling, or by an +idealism, like that of Leibnitz or Fichte. In any case philosophy retains +as an inalienable possession the negative conclusion, that, in view of the +heterogeneity of consciousness and motion, the inner life is not reducible +to material phenomena. This clear and simple distinction, which sets bounds +to every confusion of spiritual and material existence, was an act of +emancipation; it worked on the sultry intellectual atmosphere of the time +with the purifying and illuminating power of a lightning flash. We shall +find the later development of philosophy starting from the Cartesian +dualism. + +Descartes himself looked upon the fundamental principles which have now +been discussed as merely the foundation for his life work, as the entrance +portal to his cosmology. Posterity has judged otherwise; it finds his chief +work in that which he considered a mere preparation for it. The start from +doubt, the self-certitude of the thinking ego, the rational criterion of +certitude, the question of the origin of ideas, the concept of substance, +the essential distinction between conscious activity and corporeal being, +and, also, the principle of thoroughgoing mechanism in the material world +(from his philosophy of nature)--these are the thoughts which assure his +immortality. The vestibule has brought the builder more fame, and has +proved more enduring, than the temple: of the latter only the ruins remain; +the former has remained undestroyed through the centuries. + + +%2. Nature.% + +What guarantee have we for the existence of material objects affecting our +senses? That the ideas of sense do not come from ourselves, is shown by +the fact that it is not in our power to determine the objects which we +perceive, or the character of our perception of them. The supposition that +God has caused our perceptions directly, or by means of something which has +no resemblance whatever to an external object extended in three dimensions +and movable, is excluded by the fact that God is not a deceiver. In +reliance on God's veracity we may accept as true whatever the reason +declares concerning body, though not all the reports of the senses, +which so often deceive us. At the instance of the senses we clearly and +distinctly perceive matter distinct from our mind and from God, extended +in three dimensions, length, breadth, and depth, with variously formed and +variously moving parts, which occasion in us sensations of many kinds. The +belief that perception makes known things as they really are is a prejudice +of sense to be discarded; on the contrary, it merely informs us concerning +the utility or harmfulness of objects, concerning their relation to man as +a being composed of soul and body. (The body is that material thing which +is very intimately joined with the mind, and occasions in the latter +certain feelings, _e.g._, pain, which as merely cogitative it would not +have.) Sense qualities, as color, sound, odor, cannot constitute the +essence of matter, for their variation or loss changes nothing in it; I can +abstract from them without the material thing disappearing.[1] There is one +property, however, extensive magnitude (_quantitas_), whose removal would +imply the destruction of matter itself. Thus I perceive by pure thought +that the essence of matter consists in extension, in that which constitutes +the object of geometry, in that magnitude which is divisible, figurable, +and movable. This thesis (_corpus = extensio sive spatium_) is next +defended by Descartes against several objections. In reply to the objection +drawn from the condensation and rarefaction of bodies, he urges that the +apparent increase or decrease in extension is, in fact, a mere change of +figure; that the rarefaction of a body depends on the increase in size of +the intervals between its parts, and the entrance into them of foreign +bodies, just as a sponge swells up when its pores become filled with water +and, therefore, enlarged. The demand that the pores, and the bodies which +force their way into them, should always be perceptible to the senses, is +groundless. He meets the second point, that we call extension by itself +_space_, and not body, by maintaining that the distinction between +extension and corporeal substance is a distinction in thought, and not in +reality; that attribute and substance, mathematical and physical bodies, +are not distinct in fact but only in our thought of them. We apply the +term space to extension in general, as an abstraction, and body to a given +individual, determinate, limited extension. In reality, wherever extension +is, there substance is also,--the non-existent has no extension,--and +wherever space is, there matter is also. Empty space does not exist. +When we say a vessel is empty, we mean that the bodies which fill it are +imperceptible; if it were absolutely empty its sides would touch. Descartes +argues against the atomic theory and against the finitude of the world, as +he argues against empty space: matter, as well as space, has no smallest, +indivisible parts, and the extension of the world has no end. In the +identification of space and matter the former receives fullness from +the latter, and the latter unlimitedness from the former, both internal +unlimitedness (endless divisibility) and external (boundlessness). Hence +there are not several matters but only one (homogeneous) matter, and only +one (illimitable) world. + +[Footnote 1: They are merely subjective states in the perceiver, and +entirely unlike the motions which give rise to them, although there is +a certain agreement, as the differences and variations in sensation are +paralleled by those in the object.] + +Matter is divisible, figurable, movable quantity. Natural science needs no +other principles than these indisputably true conceptions, by which all +natural phenomena may be explained, and must employ no others. The most +important is motion, on which all the diversity of forms depends. Corporeal +being has been shown to be extension; corporeal becoming is motion. Motion +is defined as "the transporting of one part of matter, or of one body, from +the vicinity of those bodies that are in immediate contact with it, +or which we regard as at rest, to the vicinity of other bodies." This +separation of bodies is reciprocal, hence it is a matter of choice which +shall be considered at rest. Besides its own proper motion in reference to +the bodies in its immediate vicinity, a body can participate in very many +other motions: the traveler walking back and forth on the deck of a ship, +for instance, in the motion of the vessel, of the waves, and of the earth. +The common view of motion as an activity is erroneous; since it requires +force not only to set in motion bodies which are at rest, but also to stop +those which are in motion, it is clear that motion implies no more activity +than rest. Both are simply different states of matter. Since there is no +empty space, each motion spreads to a whole circle of bodies: A forces B +out of its place, B drives out C, and so on, until Z takes up the position +which A has left. + +The ultimate cause of motion is God. He has created bodies with an +original measure of motion and rest, and, in accordance with his immutable +character, he preserves this quantity of motion unchanged: it remains +constant in the world as a whole, though it varies in individual bodies. +For with the power to create or destroy motion bodies lack, further, the +power to alter their quantity of motion. By the side of God, the primary +cause of motion, the laws of motion appear as secondary causes. The first +of these is the one become familiar under the name, law of inertia: +Everything continues of itself in the state (of motion or rest) in which it +is, and changes its state only as a result of some extraneous cause. The +second of these laws, which are so valuable in mechanics, runs: Every +portion of matter tends to continue a motion which has been begun in the +same direction, hence in a straight line, and changes its direction only +under the influence of another body, as in the case of the circle above +described. Descartes bases these laws on the unchangeableness of God and +the simplicity of his world-conserving (_i.e._, constantly creative) +activity. The third law relates to the communication of motion; but +Descartes does not recognize the equality of action and reaction as +universally as the fact demands. If a body in motion meets another body, +and its power (to continue its motion in a straight line) is less than the +resistance of the other on which it has impinged, it retains its motion, +but in a different direction: it rebounds in the opposite direction. If, on +the contrary, its force is greater, it carries the other body along with +it, and loses so much of its own motion as it imparts to the latter. The +seven further rules added to these contain much that is erroneous. As +_actio in distans_ is rejected, all the phenomena of motion are traced back +to pressure and impulse. The distinction between fluid and solid bodies is +based on the greater or less mobility of their parts. + +The leading principle in the special part of the Cartesian physics,--we +can only briefly sketch it,--which embraces, first, celestial, and, then, +terrestial phenomena, is the axiom that we cannot estimate God's power and +goodness too highly, nor ourselves too meanly. It is presumptuous to seek +to comprehend the purposes of God in creation, to consider ourselves +participants in his plans, to imagine that things exist simply for our +sake--there are many things which no man sees and which are of advantage +to none. Nothing is to be interpreted teleologically, but all must be +interpreted from clearly known attributes, hence purely mechanically. +After treating of the distances of the various heavenly bodies, of the +independent light of the sun and the fixed stars and the reflected light of +the planets, among which the earth belongs, Descartes discusses the motion +of the heavenly bodies. In reference to the motion of the earth he seeks a +middle course between the theories of Copernicus and Tycho Brahe. He agrees +with Copernicus in the main point, but, in reliance on his definition +of motion, maintains that the earth is at rest, viz., in respect to its +immediate surroundings. It is clear that the harmony of his views with +those of the Church (though it was only a verbal agreement) was not +unwelcome to him. According to his hypothesis,--as he suggests, perhaps an +erroneous hypothesis,--the fluid matter which fills the heavenly spaces, +and which may be compared to a vortex or whirlpool, circles about the sun +and carries the planets along with it. Thus the planets move in relation to +the sun, but are at rest in relation to the adjacent portions of the matter +of the heavens. In view of the biblical doctrine, according to which the +world and all that therein is was created at a stroke, he apologetically +describes his attempt to explain the origin of the world from chaos under +the laws of motion as a scientific fiction, intended merely to make the +process more comprehensible. It is more easily conceivable, if we think +of the things in the world as though they had been gradually formed from +elements, as the plant develops from the seed. We now pass to the Cartesian +anthropology, with its three chief objects: the body, the soul, and the +union of the two. + + +3. %Man.% + +The human body, like all organic bodies, is a machine. Artificial automata +and natural bodies are distinguished only in degree. Machines fashioned by +the hand of man perform their functions by means of visible and tangible +instruments, while natural bodies employ organs which, for the most part, +are too minute to be perceived. As the clock-maker constructs a clock from +wheels and weights so that it is able to go of itself, so God has made +man's body out of dust, only, being a far superior artist, he produces a +work of art which is better constructed and capable of far more wonderful +movements. The cause of death is the destruction of some important part of +the machine, which prevents it from running longer; a corpse is a broken +clock, and the departure of the soul comes only as a result of death. The +common opinion that the soul generates life in the body is erroneous. It +is rather true that life must be present before the soul enters into union +with the body, as it is also true that life must have ended before it +dissolves the bond. + +The sole principles of physiology are motion and heat. The heat (vital +warmth, a fire without light), which God has put in the heart as the +central organ of life, has for its function the promotion of the +circulation of the blood, in the description of which Descartes mentions +with praise the discoveries of Harvey _(De Motu Cordis et Sanguinis in +Animalibus_, 1628). From the blood are separated its finest, most fiery, +and most mobile parts, called by Descartes "animal spirits" _(spiritus +animales sive corporales_), and described as a "very subtle wind" or "pure +and vivid flame," which ascend into the cavities of the brain, reach +the pineal gland suspended in its center _(conarion, glans pinealis, +glandula_), pass into the nerves, and, by their action on the muscles +connected with the nerves, effect the motions of the limbs. These views +refer to the body alone, and so are as true of animals as of men. If +automata existed similar to animals in all respects, both external and +internal, it would be absolutely impossible to distinguish them from real +animals. If, however, they were made to resemble human bodies, two signs +would indicate their unreality--we would find no communication of ideas by +means of language, and also an absence of those bodily movements which +take their origin in the reason (and not merely in the constitution of the +body). The only thing which raises man above the brute is his rational +soul, which we are on no account to consider a product of matter, but which +is an express creation of God, superadded. The union of the soul or the +mind _(anima sive mens_) with the body is, it is true, not so loose that +the mind merely dwells in the body, like a pilot in a ship, nor, on the +other hand, in view of the essential contrariety of the two substances, is +it so intimate as to be more than a _unio compositionis_. Although the soul +is united to the whole body, an especially active intercourse between them +is developed at a single point, the pineal gland, which is distinguished by +its central, protected position, above all, by the fact that it is the only +cerebral organ that is not double. This gland, together with the animal +spirits passing to and from it, mediates between mind and body; and as the +point of union for the twofold impressions from the (right and left) eyes +and ears, without which objects would be perceived double instead of +single, is the seat of the soul. Here the soul exercises a direct influence +on the body and is directly affected by it; here it dwells, and at will +produces a slight, peculiar movement of the gland, through this a change +in the course of the animal spirits (for it is not capable of generating +motion, but only of changing its direction), and, finally, movements of the +members; just as, on the other hand, it remarks the slightest change in the +course of the _spiritus_ through a corresponding movement of the gland, +whose motions vary according to the sensuous properties of the object to be +perceived, and responds by sensations. Although Descartes thus limits the +direct interaction of soul and body to a small part of the organism, he +makes an exception in the case of _memoria_, which appears to him to be +more of a physical than a psychical function, and which he conjectures to +be diffused through the whole brain. + +In spite of the comprehensive meaning which Descartes gives to the notion +_cogitatio_, it is yet too narrow to leave room for an _anima vegetativa_ +and an _anima sensitiva_. Whoever makes mind and soul equivalent, holds +that their essence consists in conscious activity alone, and interprets +sensation as a mode of thought, cannot escape the paradox of denying to +animals the possession of a soul. Descartes does not shrink from such +a conclusion. Animals are mere machines; they are bodies animated, but +soulless; they lack conscious perception and appetition, though not the +appearance of them. When a clock strikes seven it knows nothing of the +fact; it does not regret that it is so late nor long soon to be able to +strike eight; it wills nothing, feels nothing, perceives nothing. The lot +of the brute is the same. It sees and hears nothing, it does not hunger or +thirst, it does not rejoice or fear, if by these anything more than mere +corporeal phenomena is to be meant; of all these it possesses merely the +unconscious material basis; it moves and motion goes on in it--that is all. +The psychology of Descartes, which has had important results,[1] divides +_cogitationes_ into two classes: _actiones_ and _passiones_. Action denotes +everything which takes its origin in, and is in the power of, the soul; +passion, everything which the soul receives from without, in which it can +make no change, which is impressed upon it. The further development of this +distinction is marred by the crossing of the most diverse lines of thought, +resulting in obscurities and contradictions. Descartes's simple, naive +habits of thought and speech, which were those of a man of the world rather +than of a scholar, were quite incompatible with the adoption and consistent +use of a finely discriminated terminology; he is very free with _sive_, and +not very careful with the expressions _actio, passio, perceptio, affectio, +volitio_. First he equates activity and willing, for the will springs +exclusively from the soul--it is only in willing that the latter is +entirely independent; while, on the other hand, passivity is made +equivalent to representation and cognition, for the soul does not create +its ideas, but receives them,--sensuous impressions coming to her quite +evidently from the body. These equations, "_actio_--the practical, _passio_ += the theoretical function," are soon limited and modified, however. The +natural appetites and affections are forms of volition, it is true, but not +free products of the mind, for they take their origin in its connection +with the body. Further, not all perceptions have a sensuous origin; when +the soul makes free use of its ideas in imagination, especially when in +pure thought it dwells on itself, when without the interference of the +imagination it gazes on its rational nature, it is by no means passive +merely. Every act of the will, again, is accompanied by the consciousness +of volition. The _volitio_ is an activity, the _cogitatio volitionis_ a +passivity; the soul affects itself, is passively affected through its own +activity, is at the same instant both active and passive. + +[Footnote 1: For details cf. the able monograph of Dr. Anton Koch, 1881.] + +Thus not every volition, _e.g._ sensuous desire, is action nor all +perception, _e.g._ that of the pure intellect, passion. Finally, certain +psychical phenomena fall indifferently under the head of perception or of +volition, _e.g._, pain, which is both an indistinct idea of something and +an impulse to shun it. In accordance with these emendations, and omitting +certain disturbing points of secondary importance, the matter may be thus +represented: + + COGITATIO. + | + | + ACTIO | PASSIO + | + | + | +(Mens sola; clarae et distinctae | (Mens unita cum corpore; +ideae.) | confusae ideae.) + | +VOLITIO: | + 6. Voluntas. 3b. Commotiones | 3a. Affectus. 2. Appetitus naturales. + | intellectuales| | | + | | \ / + | | --------v------- + Judicium. | Sensus interni +---------------------------------+----------------------------------- + | + | +PERCEPTIO: 4. Imaginatio + ------^------ + / \ + 5. Intellectus 4b. Phantasia. | 4a. Memoria. 1. Sensus externi. + + +Accordingly six grades of mental function are to be distinguished: (1) +The external senses. (2) The natural appetites. (3) The passions (which, +together with the natural appetites, constitute the internal senses, +and from which the mental emotions produced by the intellect are quite +distinct). (4) The imagination with its two divisions, passive memory and +active phantasy. (5) The intellect or reason. (6) The will. These various +stages or faculties are, however, not distinct parts of the soul, as in the +old psychology, in opposition to which Descartes emphatically defends the +_unity of the soul_. It is one and the same psychical power that exercises +the higher and the lower, the rational and the sensuous, the practical and +the theoretical activities. + +Of the mental functions, whether representative images, perceptions, or +volitions, a part are referred to body (to parts of our own body, often +also to external objects), and produced by the body (by the animal spirits +and, generally, by the nerves as well), while the rest find both object and +cause in the soul. Intermediate between the two classes stand those acts +of the will which are caused by the soul, but which relate to the body, +_e.g._, when I resolve to walk or leap; and, what is more important, the +_passions_, which relate to the soul itself, but which are called forth, +sustained, and intensified by certain motions of the animal spirits. Since +only those beings which consist of a body as well as a soul are capable of +the passions, these are specifically human phenomena. These affections, +though very numerous, may be reduced to a few simple or primary ones, +of which the rest are mere specializations or combinations. Descartes +enumerates six primitive passions (which number Spinoza afterward reduced +one-half)--_admiratio, amor et odium, cupiditas (desir), gaudium et +tristitia_. The first and the fourth have no opposites, the former being +neither positive nor negative, and the latter both at once. Wonder, which +includes under it esteem and contempt, signifies interest in an object +which neither attracts us by its utility nor repels us by its hurtfulness, +and yet does not leave us indifferent. It is aroused by the powerful or +surprising impression made by the extraordinary, the rare, the unexpected. +Love seeks to appropriate that which is profitable; hate, to ward off that +which is harmful, to destroy that which is hostile. Desire or longing looks +with hope or fear to the future. When that which is feared or hoped for +has come to pass, joy and grief come in, which relate to existing good and +evil, as desire relates to those to come. + +The Cartesian theory of the passions forms the bridge over which its author +passes from psychology to ethics. No soul is so weak as to be incapable of +completely mastering its passions, and of so directing them that from them +all there will result that joyous temper advantageous to the reason. The +freedom of the will is unlimited. Although a direct influence on the +passions is denied it,--it can neither annul them merely at its bidding, +nor at once reduce them to silence, at least, not the more violent +ones,--it still has an indirect power over them in two ways. During the +continuance of the affection (e.g., fear) it is able to arrest the bodily +movements to which the affection tends (flight), though not the emotion +itself, and, in the intervals of quiet, it can take measures to render a +new attack of the passion less dangerous. Instead of enlisting one passion +against another, a plan which would mean only an appearance of freedom, +but in fact a continuance in bondage, the soul should fight with its own +weapons, with fixed maxims _(judicia)_, based on certain knowledge of good +and evil. The will conquers the emotions by means of principles, by clear +and distinct knowledge, which sees through and corrects the false values +ascribed to things by the excitement of the passions. Besides this negative +requirement, "subjection of the passions," Descartes' contributions to +ethics--in the letters to Princess Elizabeth on human happiness, and to +Queen Christina on love and the highest good--were inconsiderable. Wisdom +is the carrying out of that which has been seen to be best, virtue is +steadfastness, sin inconstancy therein. The goal of human endeavor is peace +of conscience, which is attained only through the determination to be +virtuous, i.e., to live in harmony with self. + +Besides its ethical mission, the will has allotted to it the theoretical +function of affirmation and negation, i.e., of judgment. If God in his +veracity and goodness has bestowed on man the power to know truth, how is +misuse of this power, how is error possible? Single sensations and ideas +cannot be false, but only judgments--the reference of ideas to objects. +Judgment or assent is a matter of the will; so that when it makes erroneous +affirmations or negations, when it prefers the false judgment to the true, +it alone is guilty. Our understanding is limited, our will unlimited; the +latter reaches further than the former, and can assent to a judgment +even before its constituent parts have attained the requisite degree of +clearness. False judgment is prejudgment, for which we can hold neither God +nor our own nature responsible. The possibility of error, as well as the +possibility of avoiding error, resides in the will. This has the power to +postpone its assent or dissent, to hold back its decision until the ideas +have become entirely clear and distinct. The supreme perfection is the +_libertas non errandi_. Thus knowledge itself becomes a moral function; the +true and the good are in the last analysis identical. The contradiction +with which Descartes has been charged, that he makes volition and cognition +reciprocally determinative, that he bases moral goodness on the clearness +of ideas and _vice versa_, does not exist. We must distinguish between a +theoretical and a practical stadium in the will; it is true of the latter +that it depends on knowledge of the right, of the former that the knowledge +of the right is dependent on it. In order to the possibility of moral +_action_ the will must conform to clear judgment; in order to the +production of the latter the will must _be_ moral. It is the unit-soul, +which first, by freely avoiding overhasty judgment, cognizes the truth, to +exemplify it later in moral conduct. + + + +CHAPTER III. + +THE DEVELOPMENT AND TRANSFORMATION OF CARTESIANISM IN THE NETHERLANDS AND +IN FRANCE.[1] + +[Footnote 1: Cf. G. Monchamp, _Histoire du Cartesianisme en Belgique_, +Brussels, 1886.] + +%1. Occasionalism: Geulincx.% + +The propagation and defense of a system of thought soon give occasion +to its adherents to purify, complete, and transform it. Obscurities and +contradictions are discovered, which the master has overlooked or allowed +to remain, and the disciple exerts himself to remove them, while retaining +the fundamental doctrines. In the system of Descartes there were two +closely connected points which demanded clarification and correction, viz., +his double dualism (1) between extended substance and thinking substance, +(2) between created substance and the divine substance. In contrast with +each other matter and mind are substances or independent beings, for +the clear conception of body contains naught of consciousness, thought, +representation, and that of mind nothing of extension, matter, motion. +In comparison with God they are not so; apart from the creator they can +neither exist nor be conceived. In every case where the attempt is made to +distinguish between intrinsic and general (as here, between substance in +the stricter and wider senses), an indecision betrays itself which is not +permanently endured. + +The substantiality of the material and spiritual worlds maintained by +Descartes finds an excellent counterpart in his (entirely modern) tendency +to push the _concursus dei_ as far as possible into the background, to +limit it to the production of the original condition of things, to give +over motion, once created, to its own laws, and ideas implanted in the mind +to its own independent activity; but it is hard to reconcile with it the +view, popular in the Middle Ages, that the preservation of the world is a +perpetual creation. In the former case the relation of God to the world is +made an external relation; in the latter, an internal one. In the one the +world is thought of as a clock, which once wound up runs on mechanically, +in the second it is likened to a piece of music which the composer himself +recites. If God preserves created things by continually recreating them +they are not substances at all; if they are substances, preservation +becomes an empty word, which we repeat after the theologians without giving +it any real meaning. + +Matter and spirit stand related in our thought only by way of exclusion; +is the same true of them in reality? They can be conceived and can exist +without each other; can they, further, without each other effect all that +we perceive them to accomplish? There are some motions in the material +world which we refer to a voluntary decision of the soul, and some among +our ideas (_e.g._, perceptions of the senses) which we refer to corporeal +phenomena as their causes. If body and soul are substances, how can they +be dependent on each other in certain of their activities, if they are of +opposite natures, how can they affect each other? How can the incorporeal, +unmoved spirit move the animal spirits and receive impulses from them? +The substantiality (reciprocal independence) of body and mind, and their +interaction (partial reciprocal dependence), are incompatible, one or +the other is illusory and must be abandoned. The materialists (Hobbes) +sacrifice the independence of mind, the idealists (Berkeley, Leibnitz), the +independence of matter, the occasionalists, the interaction of the two. +This forms the advance of the last beyond Descartes, who either naively +maintains that, in spite of the contrariety of material and mental +substances, an exchange of effects takes place between them as an +empirical fact, or, when he realizes the difficulty of the anthropological +problem,--how is the union of the two substances in man possible,--ascribes +the interaction of body and mind, together with the union of the two, to +the power of God, and by this abandonment of the attempt at a natural +explanation, opens up the occasionalistic way of escape. Further, in +his more detailed description of the intercourse between body and mind +Descartes had been guilty of direct violations of his laws of natural +philosophy. If the quantity of motion is declared to be invariable and a +change in its direction is attributed to mechanical causes alone, we must +not ascribe to the soul the power to move the pineal gland, even in the +gentlest way, nor to control the direction of the animal spirits. These +inconsistencies also are removed by the occasionalistic thesis. + +The question concerning the substantiality of mind and matter in relation +to God, is involved from the very beginning in this latter problem, "How +is the appearance of interaction between the two to be explained without +detriment to their substantiality in relation to each other?" The denial +of the reciprocal dependence of matter and spirit leads to sharper +accentuation of their common dependence upon God. Thus occasionalism forms +the transition to the pantheism of Spinoza, Geulincx emphasizing the +non-substantiality of spirits, and Malebranche the non-substantiality of +bodies, while Spinoza combines and intensifies both. And yet history was +not obliging enough to carry out this convenient and agreeable scheme of +development with chronological accuracy, for she had Spinoza complete his +pantheism _before_ Malebranche had prepared the way. The relation which was +noted in the case of Bruno and Campanella is here repeated: the earlier +thinker assumes the more advanced position, while the later one seems +backward in comparison; and that which, viewed from the standpoint of the +question itself, may be considered a transition link, is historically to be +taken as a reaction against the excessive prosecution of a line of thought +which, up to a certain point, had been followed by the one who now shrinks +back from its extreme consequences. The course of philosophy takes first a +theological direction in the earlier occasionalists, then a metaphysical +(naturalistic) trend in Spinoza, to renew finally, in Malebranche, the +first of these movements in opposition to the second. The Cartesian school, +as a whole, however, exhibits a tendency toward mysticism, which was +concealed to a greater or less extent by the rationalistic need for clear +concepts, but never entirely suppressed. + +Although the real interaction of body and mind be denied, some explanation +must, at least, be given for the appearance of interaction, _i.e._ for the +actual correspondence of bodily and mental phenomena. Occasionalism denotes +the theory of occasional causes. It is not the body that gives rise to +perception, nor the mind that causes the motion of the limbs which it has +determined upon--neither the one nor the other can receive influence from +its fellow or exercise influence upon it; but it is God who, "on the +occasion" of the physical motion (of the air and nerves); produces the +sensation (of sound), and, "at the instance" of the determination of the +will, produces the movement of the arms. The systematic development and +marked influence of this theory, which had already been more or less +clearly announced by the Cartesians Cordemoy and De la Forge,[1] was due to +the talented Arnold Geulincx (1624-69), who was born at Antwerp, taught +in Lyons (1646-58) and Leyden, and became a convert to Calvinism. It +ultimately gained over the majority of the numerous adherents of the +Cartesian philosophy in the Dutch universities,--Renery (died 1639) and +Regius (van Roy; _Fundamenta Physicae_, 1646; _Philosophia Naturalis_, +1661) in Utrecht; further, Balthasar Bekker (1634-98; _The World +Bewitched_, 1690), the brave opponent of the belief in angels and devils, +of magic, and of prosecution for witchcraft,--in the clerical orders in +France and, finally, in Germany. + +[Footnote 1: Gerauld de Cordemoy, a Parisian advocate (died 1684, +_Dissertations Philosophiques_, 1666), communicated his occasionalistic +views orally to his friends as early as 1658 (cf. L. Stein in the _Archiv +fuer Geschichte der Philosophie_, vol. i., 1888, p. 56). Louis de la Forge, +a physician of Saumur, _Tractatus de Mente Humana_, 1666, previously +published in French; cf. Seyfarth, Gotha, 1887. But the logician, Johann +Clauberg, professor in Duisburg (1622-65; _Opera_, edited by Schalbruch, +1691), is, according to the investigations of Herm. Mueller _(J. Clauberg +und seine Stellung im Cartesianismus_, Jena, 1891), to be stricken from +the list of thinkers who prepared the way for occasionalism, since in his +discussion of the anthropological problem (_corporis et animae conjunctio_) +he merely develops the Cartesian position, and does not go beyond it. He +employs the expression _occasio_, it is true, but not in the sense of the +occasionalists. According to Clauberg the bodily phenomenon becomes the +stimulus or "occasion" (not for God, but) for the soul to produce from +itself the corresponding mental phenomenon.] + +Geulincx himself, besides two inaugural addresses at Leyden (as Lector in +1662, Professor Extraordinary in 1665), published the following treatises: +_Quaestiones Quodlibeticae_ (in the second edition, 1665, entitled +_Saturnalia_) with an important introductory discourse; _Logica Fundamentis +Suis Restituta_, 1662; _Methodus Inveniendi Argumenta_ (new edition by +Bontekoe, 1675); and the first part of his Ethics--_De Virtute et Primis +ejus Proprietatibus, quae vulgo Virtutes Cardinales Vocantur, Tractatus +Ethicus Primus_, 1665. This chief work was issued complete in all six parts +with the title, _[Greek: Gnothi seauton] sive Ethica_, 1675, by Bontekoe, +under the pseudonym Philaretus. The _Physics_, 1688, the _Metaphysics_, +1691, and the _Annotata Majora in Cartesii Principia Philosophiae_, 1691, +were also posthumous publications, from the notes of his pupils. In view of +the rarity of these volumes, and the importance of the philosopher, it is +welcome news that J.P.N. Land has undertaken an edition of the collected +works, in three volumes, of which the first two have already appeared.[1] +The Hague, 1891-92.[2] + +[Footnote 1: On vol. i. cf. Eucken, _Philosophische Monatshefte_, vol. +xxviii., 1892, p,200 _seq_.] + +[Footnote 2: On Geulincx see V. van der Haeghen, _Geulincx, Etude sur sa +Vie, sa Philosophie, et ses Ouvrages_, Ghent, 1886, including a complete +bibliography; and Land in vol. iv. of the _Archiv fuer Geschichte der +Philosophie_, 1890. [English translation, _Mind_, vol. xvi. p. 223 _seq_.]] + +Geulincx bases the _occasionalistic_ position on the principle, _quod +nescis, quomodo fiat, id non facis_. Unless I know how an event happens, I +am not its cause. Since I have no consciousness how my decision to speak or +to walk is followed by the movement of my tongue or limbs, I am not the one +who effects these. Since I am just as ignorant how the sensation in my mind +comes to pass as a sequel to the motion in the sense-organ; since, further, +the body as an unconscious and non-rational being can effect nothing, it is +neither I nor the body that causes the sensation. Both the bodily movement +and the sense-impression are, rather, the effects of a higher power, of the +infinite spirit. The act of my will and the sense-stimulus are only _causae +occasionales_ for the divine will, in an incomprehensible way, to effect, +in the one case, the execution of the movement of the limbs resolved upon, +and, in the other, the origin of the perception; they are (unsuitable) +instruments, effective only in the hand of God; he brings it to pass that +my will goes out beyond my soul, and that corporeal motion has results in +it. The meaning of this doctrine is misapprehended when it is assumed,--an +assumption to which the Leibnitzian account of occasionalism may mislead +one,--that in it the continuity of events, alike in the material and the +psychical world, is interrupted by frequent scattered interferences from +without, and all becoming transformed into a series of disconnected +miracles. An order of nature such as would be destroyed by God's action +does not exist; God brings everything to pass; even the passage of motion +from one body to another is his work. Further, Geulincx expressly says that +God has imposed such _laws_ on motion that it harmonizes with the soul's +free volition, of which, however, it is entirely independent (similar +statements occur also in De la Forge). And with this our thinker +appears--as Pfleiderer[1] emphasizes--closely to approach the +pre-established harmony of Leibnitz. The occasionalistic theory certainly +constitutes the preliminary step to the Leibnitzian; but an essential +difference separates the two. The advance does not consist in the +substitution by Leibnitz of one single miracle at creation for a number of +isolated and continually recurring ones, but (as Leibnitz himself remarks, +in reply to the objection expressed by Father Lami, that a perpetual +miracle is no miracle) in the exchange of the immediate causality of God +for natural causation. With Geulincx mind and body act on each other, but +not by their own power; with Leibnitz the monads do not act on one another, +but they act by their own power.[2]--When Geulincx in the same connection +advances to the statements that, in view of the limitedness and passivity +of finite things, God is the only truly active, because the only +independent, being in the world, that all activity is his activity, that +the human (finite) spirit is related to the divine (infinite) spirit as +the individual body to space in general, viz., as a section of it, so that, +by thinking away all limitations from our mind, we find God in us and +ourselves in him, it shows how nearly he verges on pantheism. + +[Footnote 1: Edm. Pfleiderer, _Geulincx, als Hauptvertreter der +occasionalistischen Metaphysik und Ethik_, Tuebingen, 1882; the same, +_Leibniz und Geulincx mit besonderer Beziehung auf ihr Uhrengleichnis_, +Tuebingen, 1884.] + +[Footnote 2: See Ed. Zeller, _Sitzungsberichte der Berliner Akademie der +Wissenschaften_, 1884, p. 673 _seq_.; Eucken, _Philosophische Monatshefte_, +vol. xix., 1893, p. 525 _seq_; vol. xxiii., 1887, p. 587 _seq_.] + +Geulincx's services to noetics have been duly recognized by Ed. Grimm +(Jena, 1875), although with an excessive approximation to Kant. In this +field he advances many acute and suggestive thoughts, as the deduction +which reappears in Lotze, that the actually existent world of figure and +motion cognized by thought, though the real world, is poorer than the +wonderful world of motley sensuous appearance conjured forth in our minds +on the occasion of the former, that the latter is the more beautiful and +more worthy of a divine author. Further, the conviction, also held by +Lotze, that the fundamental activities of the mind cannot be defined, but +only known through inner experience or immediate consciousness (he +who loves, knows what love is; it is a _per conscientiam et intimam +experientiam notissima res_); the praiseworthy attempt to give a systematic +arrangement, according to their derivation from one another, to the innate +mathematical concepts, which Descartes had simply co-ordinated (the concept +of surface is gained from the concept of body by abstracting from the third +dimension, thickness--the act of thus abstracting from certain parts of +the content of thought, Geulincx terms _consideratio_ in contrast to +_cogitatio_, which includes the whole content); and, finally, the still +more important inquiry, whether it is possible for us to reach a knowledge +of things independently of the forms of the understanding, as in pure +thought we strip off the fetters of sense. The possibility of this is +denied; there is no higher faculty of knowledge to act as judge over the +understanding, as the latter over the sensibility, and even the wisest +man cannot free himself from the forms of thought (categories, _modi +cogitandi_). And yet the discussion of the question is not useless: the +reason should examine into the unknowable as well as the knowable; it is +only in this way that we learn that it is unknowable. As the highest forms +of thought Geulincx names subject (the empty concept of an existent, _ens_ +or _quod est_) and predicate _(modus entis_), and derives them from two +fundamental activities of the mind, a combining function _(simulsumtio, +totatio_) and an abstracting function (one which removes the _nota +subjecti_). Substance and accident, substantive and adjective, are +expressions for subjective processes of thought and hence do not hold +of things in themselves. With reference to the importance, nay, to the +indispensability, of linguistic signs in the use of the understanding, the +science of the forms of thought is briefly termed grammar. + +The principle _ubi nihil vales, ibi nihil velis_, forms the connection +between the occasionalistic metaphysics and ethics, the latter deducing the +practical consequences of the former. Where thou canst do nothing, there +will nothing. Since we can effect nothing in the material world, to which +we are related merely as spectators, we ought also not to seek in it the +motives and objects of our actions. God, does not require works, but +dispositions only, for the result of our volition is beyond our power. Our +moral vocation, then, consists in renunciation of the world and retirement +into ourselves, and in patient faithfulness at the post assigned to us. +Virtue is _amor dei ac rationis_, self-renouncing, active, obedient love +to God and to the reason as the image and law of God in us. The cardinal +virtues are _diligentia_, sedulous listening for the commands of the +reason; _obedientia_, the execution of these _justitia_, the conforming of +the whole life to what is perceived to be right; finally, _humilitas_, +the recognition of our impotency and self-renunciation (_inspectio_ and +_despectio_, or _derelictio, neglectus, contemptus, incuria sui_). The +highest of these is humility, pious submission to the divine order of +things; its condition, the self-knowledge commended in the title of the +Ethics; the primal evil, self-love (_Philautia_--_ipsissimum peccatum_). +Man is unhappy because he seeks happiness. Happiness is like our shadows; +it shuns us when we pursue it, it follows us when we flee from it. The joys +which spring from virtue are an adornment of it, not an enticement to it; +they are its result, not its aim. The ethics of Geulincx, which we cannot +further trace out here, surprises one by its approximation to the views of +Spinoza and of Kant. With the former it has in common the principle of love +toward God, as well as numerous details; with the latter, the absoluteness +of the moral law (_in rebus moralibus absolute praecipit ratio aut vetat, +nulla interposita conditione_); with both the depreciation of sympathy, on +the ground that it is a concealed egoistic motive. + +The denial of substantiality to individual things, brought in by the +occasionalists, is completed by Spinoza, who boldly and logically proclaims +pantheism on the basis of Cartesianism and gives to the divine All-one a +naturalistic instead of a theological character. + + +%2. Spinoza.% + +Benedictus (originally Baruch) de Spinoza sprang from a Jewish family of +Portugal or Spain, which had fled to Holland to escape persecution at home. +He was born in Amsterdam in 1632; taught by the Rabbin Morteira, and, +in Latin, by Van den Ende, a free-thinking physician who had enjoyed a +philological training; and expelled by anathema from the Jewish communion, +1656, on account of heretical views. During the next four years he found +refuge at a friend's house in the country near Amsterdam, after which he +lived in Rhynsburg, and from 1664 in Voorburg, moving thence, in 1669, to +The Hague, where he died in 1677. Spinoza lived in retirement and had few +wants; he supported himself by grinding optical glasses; and, in 1673, +declined the professorship at Heidelberg offered him by Karl Ludwig, the +Elector Palatine, because of his love of quiet, and on account of the +uncertainty of the freedom of thought which the Elector had assured him. +Spinoza himself made but two treatises public: his dictations on the first +and second parts of Descartes's _Principia Philosophiae_, which had been +composed for a private pupil, with an appendix, _Cogitata Metaphysica_, +1663, and the _Tractatus Theologico-Politicus_, published anonymously +in 1670, in defense of liberty of thought and the right to unprejudiced +criticism of the biblical writings. The principles expressed in the latter +work were condemned by all parties as sacrilegious and atheistic, and +awakened concern even in the minds of his friends. When, in 1675, Spinoza +journeyed to Amsterdam with the intention of giving his chief work, the +_Ethics_, to the press, the clergy and the followers of Descartes applied +to the government to forbid its issue. Soon after Spinoza's death it was +published in the _Opera Posthuma_, 1677, which were issued under the care +of Hermann Schuller,[1] with a preface by Spinoza's friend, the physician +Ludwig Meyer, and which contained, besides the chief work, three incomplete +treatises (_Tractatus Politicus, Tractatus de Intellectus Emendatione, +Compendium Grammatices Linguae Hebraeae_) and a collection of Letters by +and to Spinoza. The _Ethica Ordine Geometrico Demonstrata_, in five parts, +treats (1) of God, (2) of the nature and origin of the mind, (3) of the +nature and origin of the emotions, (4) of human bondage or the strength +of the passions, (5) of the power of the reason or human freedom. It has +become known within recent times that Spinoza made a very early sketch +of the system developed in the _Ethics_, the _Tractatus Brevis de Deo et +Homine ejusque Felicitate_, of which a Dutch translation in two copies was +discovered, though not the original Latin text. This treatise was published +by Boehmer, 1852, in excerpts, and complete by Van Vloten, 1862, and by +Schaarschmidt, 1869. It was not until our own century, and after Jacobi's +_Ueber die Lehre des Spinoza in Briefen an Moses Mendelssohn_ (1785) +had aroused the long slumbering interest in this much misunderstood +philosopher, who has been oftener despised than studied, that complete +editions of his works were prepared, by Paulus 1802-03; Gfroerer, 1830; +Bruder, 1843-46; Ginsberg (in Kirchmann's _Philosophische Bibliothek_, +4 vols.), 1875-82; and Van Vloten and Land,[2] 2 vols., 1882-83. B. +Auerbach has worked Spinoza's life into a romantic novel, _Spinoza, ein +Denkerleben_, 1837; 2d ed., 1855 [English translation by C.T. Brooks, +1882.] + +[Footnote 1: See L. Stein in the _Archiv fuer Geschichte der Philosophie_, +vol. i., 1888, p. 554 _seq_.] + +[Footnote 2: For the literature on Spinoza the reader is referred to +Ueberweg and to Van der Linde's _B. Spinoza, Bibliografie_, 1871; while +among recent works we shall mention only Camerer's _Die Lehre Spinozas_, +Stuttgart, 1877. An English translation of _The Chief Works of Spinoza_ has +been given by Elwes, 1883-84; a translation of the _Ethics_ by White, +1883; and one of selections from the _Ethics_, with notes, by Fullerton in +Sneath's Modern Philosophers, 1892. Among the various works on Spinoza, the +reader may be referred to Pollock's _Spinoza, His Life and Times_, 1880 +(with bibliography to same year); Martineau's _Study of Spinoza_, 1883; and +J. Caird's _Spinoza_, Blackwood's Philosophical Classics, 1888.--TR.] + +We shall consider Spinoza's system as a completed whole as it is given in +the _Ethics_; for although it is interesting for the investigator to trace +out the development of his thinking by comparing this chief work with its +forerunner (that _Tractatus Brevis_ "concerning God, man, and the happiness +of the latter," whose dialogistical portions we may surmise to have been +the earliest sketch of the Spinozistic position, and which was followed by +the _Tractatus de Intellectus Emendatione_) such a procedure is not equally +valuable for the student. In regard to Spinoza's relations to other +thinkers it cannot be doubted, since Freudenthal's[1] proof, that he was +dependent to a large degree on the predominant philosophy of the schools, +_i.e._ on the later Scholasticism (Suarez[2]), especially on its Protestant +side (Jacob Martini, Combachius, Scheibler, Burgersdijck, Heereboord); +Descartes, it is true, felt the same influence. Joel,[3]: Schaarschmidt, +Sigwart,[4] R. Avenarius,[5] and Boehmer[6] = have advanced the view that +the sources of Spinoza's philosophy are not to be sought exclusively in +Cartesianism, but rather that essential elements were taken from the +Cabala, from the Jewish Scholasticism (Maimonides, 1190; Gersonides, died +1344; Chasdai Crescas, 1410), and from Giordano Bruno. In opposition +to this Kuno Fischer has defended, and in the main successfully, the +proposition that Spinoza reached, and must have reached, his fundamental +pantheism by his own reflection as a development of Descartes's principles. +The traces of his early Talmudic education, which have been noticed in +Spinoza's works, prove no dependence of his leading ideas on Jewish +theology. His pantheism is distinguished from that of the Cabalists by +its rejection of the doctrine of emanation, and from Bruno's, which +nevertheless may have influenced him, by its anti-teleological character. +When with Greek philosophers, Jewish theologians, and the Apostle Paul +he teaches the immanence of God (_Epist. 21_), when with Maimonides and +Crescas he teaches love to God as the principal of morality, and with the +latter of these, determinism also, it is not a necessary consequence that +he derived these theories from them. That which most of all separates him +from the mediaeval scholastics of his own people, is his rationalistic +conviction that God can be known. His agreement with them comes out most +clearly in the _Tractatus Theologico-Politicus_. But even here it holds +only in regard to undertaking a general criticism of the Scriptures and to +their figurative interpretation, while, on the other hand, the demand for +a special historical criticism, and the object which with Spinoza was +the basis of the investigation as a whole, were foreign to mediaeval +Judaism--in fact, entirely modern and original. This object was to make +science independent of religion, whose records and doctrines are to edify +the mind and to improve the character, not to instruct the understanding. +"Spinoza could not have learned the complete separation of religion and +science from Jewish literature; this was a tendency which sprang from the +spirit of his own time" (Windelband, _Geschichte der neueren Philosophie_, +vol. i. p. 194). + +[Footnote 1: J. Freudenthal, _Spinoza und die Scholastik_ in the +_Philosophische Aufsaetze, Zeller zum 50-Jaehrigen Doktorjubilaeum gewidmet_, +Leipsic, 1887, p. 85 _seq_. Freudenthal's proof covers the _Cogitata +Metaphysica_ and many of the principal propositions of the _Ethics_.] + +[Footnote 2: The Spanish Jesuit, Francis Suarez, lived 1548-1617. _Works_, +Venice, 1714 Cf. Karl Werner, _Suarez und die Scholastik der letzten +Jahrhunderte_, Regensburg, 1861.] + +[Footnote 3: M. Joel, _Don Chasdai Crescas' religions-philosophische Lehren +in ihrem geschichtlichen Einfluss_, 1866; _Spinozas Theo.-pel. Traktat +auf seine Quellen geprueft_, 1870; _Zur Genesis der Lehre Spinozas mit +besonderer Beruecksichtigung des kurzen Traktats_, 1871.] + +[Footnote 4: _Spinozas neu entdeckter Traktat elaeutert u. s. w_., 1866; +_Spinozas kurzer Traktat uebersetzt mit Einleitungen und Erlaeuterungen_, +1870.] + +[Footnote 5: _Ueber die beiden ersten Phasen des Spinozistischen +Pantheismus und das Verhaeltniss der zweiten zur dritten Phase_, 1868.] + +[Footnote 6: _Spinozana_ in Fichte's _Zeitschrift fuer Philosophie_ vols. +xxxvi., xlii., lvii., 1860-70.] + +The logical presuppositions of Spinoza's philosophy lie in the fundamental +ideas of Descartes, which Spinoza accentuates, transforms, and adopts. +Three pairs of thoughts captivate him and incite him to think them through: +first, the rationalistic belief in the power of the human spirit to possess +itself of the truth by pure thought, together with confidence in the +omnipotence of the mathematical method; second, the concept of substance, +together with the dualism of extension and thought; finally, the +fundamental mechanical position, together with the impossibility +of interaction between matter and spirit, held in common with the +occasionalists, but reached independently of them. Whatever new elements +are added (_e. g_., the transformation of the Deity from a mere aid to +knowledge into its most important, nay, its only object; as, also, the +enthusiastic, directly mystical devotion to the all-embracing world-ground) +are of an essentially emotional nature, and to be referred less to +historical influences than to the individuality of the thinker. The +divergences from his predecessors, however, especially the extension of +mechanism to mental phenomena and the denial of the freedom of the will, +inseparable from this, result simply from the more consistent application +of Cartesian principles. Spinoza is not an inventive, impulsive spirit, +like Descartes and Leibnitz, but a systematic one; his strength does not +lie in brilliant inspirations, but in the power of resolutely thinking a +thing through; not in flashes of thought, but in strictly closed circles of +thought. He develops, but with genius, and to the end. Nevertheless this +consecutiveness of Spinoza, the praises of which have been unceasingly sung +by generations since his day, has its limits. It holds for the unwavering +development of certain principles derived from Descartes, but not with +equal strictness for the inter-connection of the several lines of thought +followed out separately. His very custom of developing a principle straight +on to its ultimate consequences, without regard to the needs of the heart +or to logical demands from other directions, make it impossible for the +results of the various lines of thought to be themselves in harmony; his +vertical consistency prevents horizontal consistency. If the original +tendencies come into conflict (the consciously held theoretical principles +into conflict with one another, or with hidden aesthetic or moral +principles), either one gains the victory over the other or both insist +on their claims; thus we have inconsistencies in the one case, and +contradictions in the other (examples of which have been shown by Volkelt +in his maiden work, _Pantheismus und Individualismus im Systeme Spinozas_, +1872). Science demands unified comprehension of the given, and seeks the +smallest number of principles possible; but her concepts prove too narrow +vessels for the rich plenitude of reality. He who asks from philosophy more +than mere special inquiries finds himself confronted by two possibilities: +first, starting from one standpoint, or a few such, he may follow a direct +course without looking to right or left, at the risk that in his +thought-calculus great spheres of life will be wholly left out of view, or, +at least, will not receive due consideration; or, second, beginning from +many points of departure and ascending along converging lines, he may seek +a unifying conclusion. In Spinoza we possess the most brilliant example of +the former one-sided, logically consecutive power of (also, no doubt, +violence in) thought, while Leibnitz furnishes the type of the many-sided, +harmonistic thinking. The fact that even the rigorous Spinoza is not +infrequently forced out of the strict line of consistency, proves that the +man was more many-sided than the thinker would have allowed himself to be. + +To begin with the formal side of Spinozism: the rationalism of Descartes +is heightened by Spinoza into the imposing confidence that absolutely +everything is cognizable by the reason, that the intellect is able by its +pure concepts and intuitions entirely to exhaust the multiform world of +reality, to follow it with its light into its last refuge.[1] Spinoza is +just as much in earnest in regard to the typical character of mathematics. +Descartes (with the exception of an example asked for in the second of the +Objections, and given as an appendix to the _Meditations_, in which he +endeavors to demonstrate the existence of God and the distinction of body +and spirit on the synthetic Euclidean method), had availed himself of the +analytic form of presentation, on the ground that, though less cogent, it +is more suited for instruction since it shows the way by which the matter +has been discovered. Spinoza, on the other hand, rigorously carried out the +geometrical method, even in externals. He begins with definitions, adds to +these axioms (or postulates), follows with propositions or theorems as the +chief thing, finally with demonstrations or proofs, which derive the later +propositions from the earlier, and these in turn from the self-evident +axioms. To these four principal parts are further added as less essential, +deductions or corollaries immediately resulting from the theorems, and the +more detailed expositions of the demonstrations or scholia. Besides these, +some longer discussions are given in the form of remarks, introductions, +and appendices. + +[Footnote 1: Heussler's objections (_Der Rationalismus des_ 17 +_Jahrhunderts_, 1885, pp. 82-85) to this characterization of Kuno Fischer's +are not convincing. The question is not so much about a principle +demonstrable by definite citations as about an unconscious motive in +Spinoza's thinking. Fischer's views on this point seem to us correct. +Spinoza's mode of thinking is, in fact, saturated with this strong +confidence in the omnipotence of the reason and the rational constitution +of true reality.] + +If everything is to be cognizable through mathematics, then everything must +take place necessarily; even the thoughts, resolutions, and actions of man +cannot be free in the sense that they might have happened otherwise. Thus +there is an evident methodological motive at work for the extension +of mechanism to all becoming, even spiritual becoming. But there are +metaphysical reasons also. Descartes had naively solved the anthropological +problem by the answer that the interaction of mind and body is +incomprehensible but actual. The occasionalists had hesitatingly questioned +these conclusions a little, the incomprehensibility as well as the +actuality, only at last to leave them intact. For the explanation that +there is a real influence of body on mind and _vice versa_, though not +an immediate but an occasional one, one mediated by the divine will, is +scarcely more than a confession that the matter is inexplicable. Spinoza, +who admits neither the incognizability of anything real, nor any +supernatural interferences, roundly denies both. There is no intercourse +between body and soul; yet that which is erroneously considered such +is both actually present and explicable. The assumed interaction is as +unnecessary as it is impossible. Body and soul do not need to act on one +another, because they are not two in kind at all, but constitute one being +which may be looked at from two different sides. This is called body when +considered under its attribute of extension, and spirit when considered +under its attribute of thought. It is quite impossible for two substances +to affect each other, because by their reciprocal influence, nay, by their +very duality, they would lose their independence, and, with this, their +substantiality. There is no plurality of substances, but only one, the +infinite, the divine substance. Here we reach the center of the system. +There is but one becoming and but one independent, substantial being. +Material and spiritual becoming form merely the two sides of one and the +same necessary world-process; particular extended beings and particular +thinking beings are nothing but the changeable and transitory states +_(modi)_ of the enduring, eternal, unified world-ground. "Necessity in +becoming and unity of being," mechanism and pantheism--these are the +controlling conceptions in Spinoza's doctrine. Multiplicity, the +self-dependence of particular things, free choice, ends, development, all +this is illusion and error. + +%(a) Substance, Attributes, and Modes%.--There is but one substance, and +this is infinite (I. _prop_. 10, _schol; prop_. 14, _cor_. 1). Why, then, +only one and why infinite? With Spinoza as with Descartes independence is +the essence of substantiality. This is expressed in the third definition: +"By substance I understand that which is in itself and is conceived by +means of itself, _i.e._, that the conception of which can be formed without +the aid of the conception of any other thing." _Per substantiam intelligo +id, quod in se est et per se concipitur; hoc est id, cujus conceptus +non indiget conceptu alterius rei, a quo formari debeat_. An absolutely +self-dependent being can neither be limited (since, in respect to its +limits, it would be dependent on the limiting being), nor occur more than +once in the world. Infinity follows from its self-dependence, and its +uniqueness from its infinity. + +Substance is the being which is dependent on nothing and on which +everything depends; which, itself uncaused, effects all else; which +presupposes nothing, but itself constitutes the presupposition of all that +is: it is pure being, primal being, the cause of itself and of all. Thus in +Spinoza the being which is without presuppositions is brought into the most +intimate relation with the fullness of multiform existence, not coldly and +abstractly exalted above it, as by the ancient Eleatics. Substance is the +being in (not above) things, that in them which constitutes their reality, +which supports and produces them. As the cause of all things Spinoza calls +it God, although he is conscious that he understands by the term something +quite different from the Christians. God does not mean for him a +transcendent, personal spirit, but only the _ens absolute infinitum (def. +sexta)_, the essential heart of things: _Deus sive substantia_. + +How do things proceed from God? Neither by creation nor by emanation. He +does not put them forth from himself, they do not tear themselves free from +him, but they follow out of the necessary nature of God, as it follows from +the nature of the triangle that the sum of its angles is equal to two right +angles (I. _prop_. 17, _schol_.). They do not come out from him, but remain +in him; just this fact that they are in another, in God, constitutes their +lack of self-dependence (I. _prop_. 18, _dem.: nulla res, quae extra Deum +in se sit_). God is their inner, indwelling cause (_causa immanens, non +vero transiens_.--I. _prop_. 18), is not a transcendent creator, but +_natura naturans_, over against the sum of finite beings, _natura naturata_ +(I. _prop_. 29, _schol_.): _Deus sive natura_. + +Since nothing exists out of God, his actions do not follow from external +necessity, are not constrained, but he is free cause, free in the sense +that he does nothing except that toward which his own nature impels him, +that he acts in accordance with the laws of his being (_def. septima: ea +res libera dicitur, quae ex sola suae naturae necessitate existit et a se +sola ad agendum determinatur; Epist_. 26). This inner necessitation is +so little a defect that its direct opposite, undetermined choice and +inconstancy, must rather be excluded from God as an imperfection. Freedom +and (inner) necessity are identical; and antithetical, on the one side, to +undetermined choice and, on the other, to (external) compulsion. Action in +view of ends must also be denied of the infinite; to think of God as acting +in order to the good is to make him dependent on something external to him +(an aim) and lacking in that which is to be attained by the action. With +God the ground of his action is the same as the ground of his existence; +God's power and his essence coincide (I. _prop_. 34: _Dei potentia est ipsa +ipsius essentia_). He is the cause of himself (_def. prima: per causam sui +intelligo id, cujus essentia involvit existentiam, sive id, cujus natura +non potest concipi nisi existens_); it would be a contradiction to hold +that being was not, that God, or substance, did not exist; he cannot be +thought otherwise than as existing; his concept includes his existence. To +be self-caused means to exist necessarily (I. _prop_. 7). The same thing +is denoted by the predicate eternal, which, according to the eighth +definition, denotes "existence itself, in so far as it is conceived to +follow necessarily from the mere definition of the eternal thing." + +The infinite substance stands related to finite, individual things, not +only as the independent to the dependent, as the cause to the caused, as +the one to the many, and the whole to the parts, but also as the universal +to the particular, the indeterminate to the determinate. From infinite +being as pure affirmation (I. _prop_. 8, _schol_. I: _absoluta affirmatio_) +everything which contains a limitation or negation, and this includes every +particular determination, must be kept at a distance: _determinatio negatio +est (Epist_. 50 and 41: a determination denotes nothing positive, but a +deprivation, a lack of existence; relates not to the being but to the +non-being of the thing). A determination states that which distinguishes +one thing from another, hence what it is _not_, expresses a limitation of +it. Consequently God, who is free from every negation and limitation, is to +be conceived as the absolutely indeterminate. The results thus far reached +run: _Substantia una infinita--Deus sive natura--causa sui (aeterna) et +rerum (immanens)--libera necessitas--non determinata_. Or more briefly: +Substance = God = nature. The equation of God and substance had been +announced by Descartes, but not adhered to, while Bruno had approached the +equation of God and nature--Spinoza decisively completes both and combines +them. + +A further remark may be added concerning the relation of God and the world. +In calling the infinite at once the permanent essence of things and their +producing cause, Spinoza raises a demand which it is not easy to fulfill, +the demand to think the existence of things in substance as a following +from substance, and their procession from God as a remaining in him. He +refers us to mathematics: the things which make up the world are related to +God as the properties of a geometrical figure to its concepts, as theorems +to the axiom, as the deduction to the principle, which from eternity +contains all that follows from it and retains this even while putting +it forth. It cannot be doubted that such a view of causality contains +error,--it has been characterized as a confusion of _ratio_ and _causa_, +of logical ground and real cause,--but it is just as certain that Spinoza +committed it. He not only compares the dependence of the effect on its +cause to the dependence of a derivative principle on that from which it is +derived, but fully equates the two; he thinks that in logico-mathematical +"consequences" he has grasped the essence of real "effects": for him the +type of all legality, as also of real becoming, was the necessity which +governs the sequence of mathematical truths, and which, on the one hand, is +even and still, needing no special exertion of volitional energy, while, on +the other, it is rigid and unyielding, exalted above all choice. Philosophy +had sought the assistance of mathematics because of the clearness and +certainty which distinguish the conclusions of the latter, and which she +wished to obtain for her own. In excess of zeal she was not content with +striving after this ideal of indefectible certitude, but, forgetting the +diversity of the two fields, strove to imitate other qualities which +are not transferable; instead of learning from mathematics she became +subservient to it. + +Substance does not affect us by its mere existence, but through an +_Attribute_. By attribute is meant, according to the fourth definition, +"that which the understanding perceives of substance as constituting the +essence of it" _(quod intellectus de substantia percipit, tanquam ejusdem +essentiam constituens)_. The more reality a substance contains, the more +attributes it has; consequently infinite substance possesses an infinite +number, each of which gives expression to its essence, but of which two +only fall within our knowledge. Among the innumerable divine attributes +the human mind knows those only which it finds in itself, thought and +extension. Although man beholds God only as thinking and extended +substance, he yet has a clear and complete; an adequate--idea of God. Since +each of the two attributes is conceived without the other, hence in itself +(_per se_), they are distinct from each other _realiter_, and independent. +God is absolutely infinite, the attributes only in their kind (_in suo +genere_). + +How can the indeterminate possess properties? Are the attributes merely +ascribed to substance by the understanding, or do they possess reality +apart from the knowing subject? This question has given rise to much +debate. According to Hegel and Ed. Erdmann the attributes are something +external to substance, something brought into it by the understanding, +forms of knowledge present in the beholder alone; substance itself is +neither extended nor cogitative, but merely appears to the understanding +under these determinations, without which the latter would be unable to +cognize it. This "formalistic" interpretation, which, relying on a passage +in a letter to De Vries (_Epist_. 27), explains the attributes as mere +modes of intellectual apprehension, numbers Kuno Fischer among its +opponents. As the one party holds to the first half of the definition, the +other places the emphasis on the second half ("that which the +_understanding_ perceives--as constituting the _essence_ of substance"). +The attributes are more than mere modes of representation--they are real +properties, which substance possesses even apart from an observer, nay, in +which it consists; in Spinoza, moreover, "must be conceived" is the +equivalent of "to be." Although this latter "realistic" party undoubtedly +has the advantage over the former, which reads into Spinoza a subjectivism +foreign to his system, they ought not to forget that the difference in +interpretation has for its basis a conflict among the motives which control +Spinoza's thinking. The reference of the attributes to the understanding, +given in the definition, is not without significance. It sprang from the +wish not to mar the indeterminateness of the absolute by the opposition of +the attributes, while, on the other hand, an equally pressing need for the +conservation of the immanence of substance forbade a bold transfer of the +attributes to the observer. The real opinion of Spinoza is neither so +clear and free from contradictions, nor so one-sided, as that which his +interpreters ascribe to him. Fischer's further interpretation of the +attributes of God as his "powers" is tenable, so long as by _causa_ and +_potentia_ we understand nothing more than the irresistible, but +non-kinetic, force with which an original truth establishes or effects +those which follow from it. + +As the dualism of extension and thought is reduced from a substantial to +an attributive distinction, so individual bodies and minds, motions and +thoughts, are degraded a stage further. Individual things lack independence +of every sort. The individual is, as a determinate finite thing, burdened +with negation and limitation, for every determination includes a negation; +that which is truly real in the individual is God. Finite things are +_modi_ of the infinite substance, mere states, variable states, of God. By +themselves they are nothing, since out of God nothing exists. They possess +existence only in so far as they are conceived in their connection with the +infinite, that is, as transitory forms of the unchangeable substance. They +are not in themselves, but in another, in God, and are conceived only +in God. They are mere affections of the divine attributes, and must be +considered as such. + +To the two attributes correspond two classes of modes. The most important +modifications of extension are rest and motion. Among the modes of thought +are understanding and will. These belong in the sphere of determinate and +transitory being and do not hold of the _natura naturans_: God is exalted +above all modality, above will and understanding, as above motion and rest. +We must not assert of the _natura naturata_ (the world as the sum of all +modes), as of the _natura naturans_, that its essence involves existence +(I. _prop_. 24): we can conceive finite things as non-existent, as well as +existent (_Epist_. 29). This constitutes their "contingency," which must +by no means be interpreted as lawlessness. On the contrary, all that takes +place in the world is most rigorously determined; every individual, finite, +determinate thing and event is determined to its existence and action by +another similarly finite and determinate thing or event, and this cause is, +in turn, determined in its existence and action by a further finite mode, +and so on to infinity (I. _prop_. 28). Because of this endlessness in the +series there is no first or ultimate cause in the phenomenal world; all +finite causes are second causes; the primary cause lies within the sphere +of the infinite and is God himself. The modes are all subject to the +constraint of an unbroken and endless nexus of efficient causes, which +leaves room neither for chance, nor choice, nor ends. Nothing can be or +happen otherwise than as it is and happens (I. _prop_. 29, 33). + +The causal chain appears in two forms: a mode of extension has its +producing ground in a second mode of extension; a mode of thought can be +caused only by another mode of thought--each individual thing is determined +by one of its own kind. The two series proceed side by side, without a +member of either ever being able to interfere in the other or to effect +anything in it--a motion can never produce anything but other motions, an +idea can result only in other ideas; the body can never determine the mind +to an idea, nor the soul the body to a movement. Since, however, extension +and thought are not two substances, but attributes of one substance, +this apparently double causal nexus of two series proceeding in exact +correspondence is, in reality, but a single one. (III. _prop_. 2, _schol_.) +viewed from different sides. That which represents a chain of motions when +seen from the side of extension, bears the aspect of a series of ideas from +the side of thought. _Modus extensionis et idea illius modi una cademque +est res, sed duobus modis expressa_ (II. _prop_. 7, _schol_.; cf. III. +_prop_. 2, _schol_.). The soul is nothing but the idea of an actual body, +body or motion nothing but the object or event in the sphere of extended +actuality corresponding to an idea. No idea exists without something +corporeal corresponding to it, no body, without at the same time existing +as idea, or being conceived; in other words, everything is both body and +spirit, all things are animated (II. _prop_. 13, _schol_.). Thus the famous +proposition results; _Ordo et connexio idearum idem est ac ordo et connexio +rerum (sive corporum; II. prop_. 7), and in application to man, "the order +of the actions and passions of our body is simultaneous in nature with the +order of the actions and passions of the mind" (III. _prop. 2, schol_.). + +The attempt to solve the problem of the relation between the material and +the mental worlds by asserting their thoroughgoing correspondence and +substantial identity, was philosophically justifiable and important, +though many evident objections obtrude themselves upon us. The required +assumption, that there is a mental event corresponding to _every_ bodily +one, and _vice versa_, meets with involuntary and easily supported +opposition, which Spinoza did nothing to remove. Similarly he omitted +to explain how body is related to motion, mind to ideas, and both to +actuality. The ascription of a materialistic tendency to Spinoza is not +without foundation. Corporeality and reality appear well-nigh identical for +him,--the expressions _corpora_ and _res_ are used synonymously,--so that +there remains for minds and ideas only an existence as reflections of +the real in the sphere of [an] ideality (whose degree of actuality it is +difficult to determine). Moreover, individualistic impulses have been +pointed out, which, in part, conflict with the monism which he consciously +follows, and, in part, subserve its interests. An example of this is given +in the relation of mind and idea: Spinoza treats the soul as a sum of +ideas, as consisting in them. An (at least apparently substantial) bond +among ideas, an ego, which possesses them, does not exist for him: the +Cartesian _cogito_ has become an impersonal _cogitatur_ or a _Deus +cogitat_. In order to the unique substantiality of the infinite, the +substantiality of individual spirits must disappear. That which argues for +the latter is their I-ness (_Ichheit_), the unity of self-consciousness; +it is destroyed, if the mind is a congeries of ideas, a composite of them. +Thus in order to relieve itself from the self-dependence of the individual +mind, monism allies itself with a spiritual atomism, the most extreme which +can be conceived. The mind is resolved into a mass of individual ideas. + +Mention may be made in passing, also, of a strange conception, which +is somewhat out of harmony with the rest of the system, and of which, +moreover, little use is made. This is the conception of _infinite modes_. +As such are cited, _facies totius mundi, motus et quies, intellectus +absolute infinitus_. Kuno Fischer's interpretation of this difficult +conception may be accepted. It denotes, according to him, the connected sum +of the modes, the itself non-finite sum total of the finite--the universe +meaning the totality of individual things in general (without reference to +their nature as extended or cogitative); rest and motion, the totality of +material being; the absolutely infinite understanding, the totality of +spiritual being or the ideas. Individual spirits together constitute, as +it were, the infinite intellect; our mind is a part of the divine +understanding, yet not in such a sense that the whole consists of the +parts, but that the part exists only through the whole. When we say, the +human mind perceives this or that, it is equivalent to saying that God--not +in so far as he is infinite, but as he expresses himself in this human +mind and constitutes its essence--has this or that idea (II. _prop_. II, +_coroll_). + +The discussion of these three fundamental concepts exhausts all the chief +points in Spinoza's doctrine of God. Passing over his doctrine of body (II. +between _prop_. 13 and _prop_. 14) we turn at once to his discussion of +mind and man. + +%(b) Anthropology: Cognition and the Passions.%--Each thing is at once mind +and body, representation and that which is represented, idea and ideate +(object). Body and soul are the same being, only considered under different +attributes. The human mind is the idea of the human body; it cognizes +itself in perceiving the affections of its body; it represents all that +takes place in the body, though not all adequately. As man's body is +composed of very many bodies, so his soul is composed of very many ideas. +To judge of the relation of the human mind to the mind of lower beings, we +must consider the superiority of man's body to other bodies; the more +complex a body is, and the greater the variety of the affections of +which it is capable, the better and more adapted for adequate cognition, +the accompanying mind.--A result of the identity of soul and body is +that the acts of our will are not free (_Epist_. 62): they are, in fact, +determinations of our body, only considered under the attribute of thought, +and no more free than this from the constraint of the causal law (III. +_prop_. 2, _schol_.).--Since the mind does nothing without at the same time +knowing that it does it--since, in other words, its activity is a conscious +activity, it is not merely _idea corporis humani_, but also _idea ideae +corporis_ or _idea mentis_. + +All adherents of the Eleatic separation of the one pure being from the +manifold and changing world of appearance are compelled to make a +like distinction between two kinds and two organs of _knowledge_. The +representation of the empirical manifold of separately existing individual +things, together with the organ thereof, Spinoza terms _imaginatio_; the +faculty of cognizing the true reality, the one, all-embracing substance, he +calls _intellectus. Imaginatio_ (imagination, sensuous representation) +is the faculty of inadequate, confused ideas, among which are included +abstract conceptions, as well as sensations and memory-images. The objects +of perception are the affections of our body; and our perceptions, +therefore, are not clear and distinct, because we are not completely +acquainted with their causes. In the merely perceptual stage, the mind +gains only a confused and mutilated idea of external objects, of the body, +and of itself; it is unable to separate that in the perception (_e.g._, +heat) which is due to the external body from that which is due to its own +body. An inadequate idea, however, is not in itself an error; it becomes +such only when, unconscious of its defectiveness, we take it for complete +and true. Prominent examples of erroneous ideas are furnished by general +concepts, by the idea of ends, and the idea of the freedom of the will. The +more general and abstract an idea, the more inadequate and indistinct it +becomes; and this shows the lack of value in generic concepts, which are +formed by the omission of differences. All cognition which is carried on by +universals and their symbols, words, yields opinion and imagination merely +instead of truth. Quite as valueless and harmful is the idea of ends, with +its accompaniments. We think that nature has typical forms hovering before +it, which it is seeking to actualize in things; when this intention is +apparently fulfilled we speak of things as perfect and beautiful; when it +fails, of imperfect and ugly things. Such concepts of value belong in the +sphere of fictions. The same is true of the idea of the freedom of the +will, which depends on our ignorance of that which constrains us. Apart +from the consideration that "the will," the general conception of which +comes under the rubric of unreal abstractions, is in fact merely the sum of +the particular volitions, the illusion of freedom, _e.g._, that we will +and act without a cause, arises from the fact that we are conscious of +our action (and also of its proximate motives), but not of its (remoter) +determining causes. Thus the thirsty child believes it desires its milk of +its own free will, and the timid one, that it freely chooses to run away +(_Ethica, III. prop_. 2, _schol_.; I. _app_.) If the falling stone were +conscious, it would, likewise, consider itself free, and its fall the +result of an undetermined decision. + +Two degrees are to be distinguished in the true or adequate knowledge +of the intellect: rational knowledge attained through inference, and +intuitive, self-evident knowledge; the latter has principles for its +object, the former that which follows from them. Instead of operating with +abstract concepts the reason uses common notions, _notiones communes_. +Genera do not exist, but, no doubt, something common to all things. All +bodies agree in being extended; all minds and ideas in being modes of +thought; all beings whatever in the fact that they are modes of the divine +substance and its attributes; "that which is common to all things, and +which is equally in the part and in the whole, cannot but be adequately +conceived." The ideas of extension, of thought, and of the eternal and +infinite essence of God are adequate ideas. The adequate idea of each +individual actual object involves the idea of God, since it can neither +exist nor be conceived apart from God, and "all ideas, in so far as +they are referred to God, are true." The ideas of substance and of the +attributes are conceived through themselves, or immediately (intuitively) +cognized; they are underivative, original, self-evident ideas. + +There are thus three kinds, degrees, or faculties of cognition--sensuous or +imaginative representation, reason, and immediate intuition. Knowledge of +the second and third degrees is necessarily true, and our only means +of distinguishing the true from the false. As light reveals itself and +darkness, so the truth is the criterion of itself and of error. Every +truth is accompanied by certainty, and is its own witness (II. _prop_. 43, +_schol_.).--Adequate knowledge does not consider things as individuals, +but in their necessary connection and as eternal sequences from the +world-ground. The reason perceives things under the form of eternity: _sub +specie aeternitatis_ (II. _prop_. 44, _cor_. 2). + +In his theory of the _emotions_, Spinoza is more dependent on Descartes +than anywhere else; but even here he is guided by a successful endeavor +after greater rigor and simplicity. He holds his predecessor's false +concept of freedom responsible for the failure of his very acute inquiry. +All previous writers on the passions have either derided, or bewailed, or +condemned them, instead of investigating their nature. Spinoza will +neither denounce nor ridicule human actions and appetites, but endeavor +to comprehend them on the basis of natural laws, and to consider them as +though the question concerned lines, surfaces, and bodies. He aims not +to look on hate, anger, and the rest as flaws, but as necessary, though +troublesome, properties of human nature, for which, as really as for heat +and cold, thunder and lightning, a causal explanation is requisite.--As a +determinate, finite being the mind is dependent in its existence and its +activity on other finite things, and is incomprehensible without them; +from its involution in the general course of nature the inadequate ideas +inevitably follow, and from these the passive states or emotions; the +passions thus belong to human nature, as one subject to limitation and +negation.--The destruction of contingent and perishable things is effected +by external causes; no one is destroyed by itself; so far as in it lies +everything strives to persist in its being (III. _prop_. 4 and 6). The +fundamental endeavor after self-preservation constitutes the essence of +each thing (III. _prop_. 7). This endeavor _(conatus)_ is termed will +_(voluntas)_ or desire _(cupiditas)_ when it is referred to the mind alone, +and appetite _(appetitus)_ when referred to the mind and body together; +desire or volition is conscious appetite (III. _prop_. 9, _schol_.). We +call a thing good because we desire it, not desire a thing because we hold +it good (cf. Hobbes, p. 75). To desire two further fundamental forms of the +emotions are added, pleasure and pain. If a thing increases the power of +our body to act, the idea of it increases the power of our soul to think, +and is gladly imagined by it. Pleasure (_laetitia_) is the transition of +a man to a greater, and pain (_tristitia_) his transition to a lesser +perfection. + +All other emotions are modifications or combinations of the three original +ones, to which Spinoza reduces the six of Descartes (cf. p. 105). In +the deduction and description of them his procedure is sometimes aridly +systematic, sometimes even forced and artificial, but for the most part +ingenious, appropriate, and psychologically acute. Whatever gives us +pleasure augments our being, and whatever pains us diminishes it; hence we +seek to preserve the causes of pleasurable emotions, and love them, to do +away with the causes of painful ones, and hate them. "Love is pleasure +accompanied by the idea of an external cause; hate is pain accompanied by +the idea of an external cause." Since all that furthers or diminishes the +being of (the cause of our pleasure) the object of our love, exercises +at the same time a like influence on us, we love that which rejoices the +object of our love and hate that which disturbs it; its happiness and +suffering become ours also. The converse is true of the object of our hate: +its good fortune provokes us and its ill fortune pleases us. If we are +filled with no emotion toward things like ourselves, we sympathize in their +sad or joyous feelings by involuntary imitation. Pity, from which we +strive to free ourselves as from every painful affection, inclines us to +benevolence or to assistance in the removal of the cause of the misery of +others. Envy of those who are fortunate, and commiseration of those who are +in trouble, are alike rooted in emulation. Man is by nature inclined +to envy and malevolence. Hate easily leads to underestimation, love to +overestimation, of the object, and self-love to pride or self-satisfaction, +which are much more frequently met with than unfeigned humility. Immoderate +desire for honor is termed ambition; if the desire to please others is kept +within due bounds it is praised as unpretentiousness, courtesy, modesty +(_modestia_). Ambition, luxury, drunkenness, avarice, and lust have no +contraries, for temperance, sobriety, and chastity are not emotions +(passive states), but denote the power of the soul by which the former +are moderated, and which is discussed later under the name _fortitudo_. +Self-abasement or humility is a feeling of pain arising from the +consideration of our weakness and impotency; its opposite is +self-complacency. Either of these may be accompanied by the (erroneous) +belief that we have done the saddening or gladdening act of our own free +will; in this case the former affection is termed repentance. Hope and fear +are inconstant pleasure and pain, arising from the idea of something past +or to come, concerning whose coming and whose issue we are still in doubt. +There is no hope unmingled with fear, and no fear without hope; for he who +still doubts imagines something which excludes the existence of that which +is expected. If the cause of doubt is removed, hope is transformed into a +feeling of confidence and fear into despair. There are as many kinds of +emotions as there are classes among their objects or causes. + +Besides the emotions to be termed "passions" in the strict sense, states +of passivity, Spinoza recognizes others which relate to us as active. Only +those which are of the nature of pleasure or desire belong to this class +of _active_ emotions; the painful affections are entirely excluded, since +without exception they diminish or arrest the mind's power to think. The +totality of these nobler impulses is called _fortitudo_ (fortitude), and +a distinction is made among them between _animositas_ (vigor of soul) and +_generositas_ (magnanimity, noble-mindedness), according as rational +desire is directed to the preservation of our own being or to aiding our +fellow-men. Presence of mind and temperance are examples of the former, +modesty and clemency of the latter. By this bridge, the idea of the active +emotions, we may follow Spinoza into the field of ethics. + +%(c) Practical Philosophy.%--Spinoza's theory of ethics is based on the +equation of the three concepts, perfection, reality, activity (V. _prop_. +40, _dem_.). The more active a thing is, the more perfect it is and the +more reality it possesses. It is active, however, when it is the complete +or adequate cause of that which takes place within it or without it; +passive when it is not at all the cause of this, or the cause only in part. +A cause is termed adequate, when its effect can be clearly and distinctly +perceived from it alone. The human mind, as a _modus_ of thought, is active +when it has adequate ideas; all its passion consists in confused ideas, +among which belong the affections produced by external objects. The essence +of the mind is thought; volition is not only dependent on cognition, but at +bottom identical with it. + +Descartes had already made the will the power of affirmation and negation. +Spinoza advances a step further: the affirmation cannot be separated from +the idea affirmed, it is impossible to conceive a truth without in the +same act affirming it, the idea involves its own affirmation. "Will and +understanding are one and the same" (II. _prop_. 49, _cor_.). For Spinoza +moral activity is entirely resolved into cognitive activity. To the two +stages of knowing, _imaginatio_ and _intellectus_, correspond two stages +of willing--desire, which is ruled by imagination, and volition, which is +guided by reason. The passive emotions of sensuous desire are directed to +perishable objects, the active, which spring from reason, have an eternal +object--the knowledge of the truth, the intuition of God. For reason there +are no distinctions of persons,--she brings men into concord and gives them +a common end (IV. _prop_. 35-37,40),--and no distinctions of time (IV. +_prop_. 62, 66), and in the active emotions, which are always good, no +excess (IV. _prop_. 61). The passive emotions arise from confused ideas. +They cease to be passions, when the confused ideas of the modifications of +the body are transformed into clear ones; as soon as we have clear ideas, +we become active and cease to be slaves of desire. We master the emotions +by gaining a clear knowledge of them. Now, an idea is clear when we cognize +its object not as an individual thing, but in its connection, as a link in +the causal chain, as necessary, and as a mode of God. The more the mind +conceives things in their necessity, and the emotions in their reference to +God, the less it is passively subject to the emotions, the more power it +attains over them: "Virtue is power" (IV. _def_. 8; _prop_. 20, _dem_.). It +is true, indeed, that one emotion can be conquered only by another stronger +one, a passive emotion only by an active one. The active emotion by which +knowledge gains this victory over the passions is the joyous consciousness +of our power (III. _prop_. 58, 59). Adequate ideas conceive their objects +in union with God; thus the pleasure which proceeds from knowledge of, +and victory over, the passions is accompanied by the idea of God, and, +consequently (according to the definition of love), by _love toward God_ +(V. _prop_. 15, 32). The knowledge and love of God, together, "intellectual +love toward God,"[1] is the highest good and the highest virtue (IV. +_prop_. 28). Blessedness is not the reward of virtue, but virtue itself. +The intellectual love of man toward God, in which the highest peace of the +soul, blessedness, and freedom consist, and in virtue of which (since it, +like its object and cause, true knowledge, is eternal), the soul is not +included in the destruction of the body (V. _prop_. 23, 33), is a part of +the infinite love with which God loves himself, and is one and the same +with the love of God to man. The eternal part of the soul is reason, +through which it is active; the perishable part is imagination or sensuous +representation, through which it is passively affected. We are immortal +only in adequate cognition and in love to God; more of the wise man's soul +is immortal than of the fool's. + +[Footnote 1: The conception _amor Dei intellectualis_ in Spinoza is +discussed in a dissertation by C. Luelmann, Jena, 1884.] + +Spinoza's ethics is intellectualistic--virtue is based on knowledge.[1] It +is, moreover, naturalistic--morality is a necessary sequence from human +nature; it is a physical product, not a product of freedom; for the acts of +the will are determined by ideas, which in their turn are the effects +of earlier causes. The foundation of virtue is the effort after +self-preservation: How can a man desire to act rightly unless he desires to +be (IV. _prop_. 21, 22)? Since reason never enjoins that which is contrary +to nature, it of necessity requires every man to love himself, to seek +that which is truly useful to him, and to desire all that makes him more +perfect. According to the law of nature all that is useful is allowable. +The useful is that which increases our power, activity, or perfection, or +that which furthers knowledge, for the life of the soul consists in thought +(IV. _prop. 26; app. cap_. 5). That alone is an evil which restrains man +from perfecting the reason and leading a rational life. Virtuous action is +equivalent to following the guidance of the reason in self-preservation +(IV. _prop_. 24).--Nowhere in Spinoza are fallacies more frequent than +in his moral philosophy; nowhere is there a clearer revelation of the +insufficiency of his artificially constructed concepts, which, in their +undeviating abstractness, are at no point congruent with reality. He is +as little true to his purpose to exclude the imperative element, and to +confine himself entirely to the explanation of human actions considered as +facts, as any philosopher who has adopted a similar aim. He relieves the +inconsistency by clothing his injunctions under the ancient ideal of the +free wise man. This, in fact, is not the only thing in Spinoza which +reminds one of the customs of the Greek moralists. He renews the Platonic +idea of a philosophical virtue, and the opinion of Socrates, that right +action will result of itself from true insight. Arguing from himself, from +his own pure and strong desire for knowledge, to mankind in general, he +makes reason the essence of the soul, thought the essence of reason, and +holds the direction of the impulse of self-preservation to the perfection +of knowledge, which is "the better part of us," to be the natural one. + +[Footnote 1: That virtue which springs from knowledge is alone genuine. +The painful, hence unactive, emotions of pity and repentance may impel to +actions whose accomplishment is better than their omission. Emotion caused +by sympathy for others and contrition for one's own guilt, both of which +increase present evil by new ones, have only the value of evils of a lesser +kind. They are salutary for the irrational man, in so far as the one spurs +him on to acts of assistance and the other diminishes his pride. They +are harmful to the wise man, or, at least, useless; he is in no need of +irrational motives to rational action. Action from insight is alone true +morality.] + +All men endeavor after continuance of existence (III. _prop_. 6); why not +all after virtue? If all endeavor after it, why do so few reach the goal? +Whence the sadly large number of the irrational, the selfish, the vicious? +Whence the evil in the world? Vice is as truly an outcome of "nature" as +virtue. Virtue is power, vice is weakness; the former is knowledge, the +latter ignorance. Whence the powerless natures? Whence defective knowledge? +Whence imperfection in general? + +The concept of imperfection expresses nothing positive, nothing actual, but +merely a defect, an absence of reality. It is nothing but an idea in us, +a fiction which arises through the comparison of one thing with another +possessing greater reality, or with an abstract generic concept, a pattern, +which it seems unable to attain. That concepts of value are not properties +of things themselves, but denote only their pleasurable or painful effects +on us, is evident from the fact that one and the same thing may be at the +same time good, bad, and indifferent: the music which is good for the +melancholy man may be bad for the mourner, and neither good nor bad for the +deaf. Knowledge of the bad is an abstract, inadequate idea; in God there is +no idea of evil. If imperfection and error were something real, it would +have to be conceded that God is the author of evil and sin. In reality +everything is that which it can be, hence without defect: everything actual +is, in itself considered, perfect. Even the fool and the sinner cannot be +otherwise than he is; he appears imperfect only when placed beside the wise +and the virtuous. Sin is thus only a lesser reality than virtue, evil a +lesser good; good and bad, activity and passivity, power and weakness +are merely distinctions in degree. But why is not everything absolutely +perfect? Why are there lesser degrees of reality? Two answers are given. +The first is found only between the lines: the imperfections in the +being and action of individual things are grounded in their finitude, +particularly in their involution in the chain of causality, in virtue of +which they are acted on from without, and are determined in their action +not by their own nature only, but also by external causes. Man sins because +he is open to impressions from external things, and only superior natures +are strong enough to preserve their rational self-determination in spite +of this. The other answer is expressly given at the end of the first part +(with an appeal to the sixteenth proposition, that everything which +the divine understanding conceives as creatable has actually come into +existence). "To those who ask why God did not so create all men that they +should be governed only by reason, I reply only: because matter was not +lacking to him for the creation of every degree of perfection from highest +to lowest; or, more strictly, because the laws of his nature were so ample +as so suffice for the production of everything conceivable by an infinite +intellect." All possible degrees of perfection have come into being, +including sin and error, which represent the lowest grade. The universe +forms a chain of degrees of perfection, of which none must be wanting: +particular cases of defect are justified by the perfection of the whole, +which would be incomplete without the lowest degree of perfection, vice +and wickedness. Here we see Spinoza following a path which Leibnitz was to +broaden out into a highway in his _Theodicy_. Both favor the quantitative +view of the world, which softens the antitheses, and reduces distinctions +of kind to distinctions of degree. Not till Kant was the qualitative view +of the world, which had been first brought into ethics by Christianity, +restored to its rights. An ethics which denies freedom and evil is nothing +but a physics of morals. + +In his _theory of the state_ Spinoza follows Hobbes pretty closely, but +rejects absolutism, and declares democracy, in which each is obedient to +self-imposed law, to be the form of government most in accordance with +reason. (So in the _Tractatus Theologico-Politicus_, while in the later +_Tractatus Politicus_ he gives the preference to aristocracy.) In +accordance with the supreme right of nature each man deems good, and seeks +to gain, that which seems to him useful; all things belong to all, each may +destroy the objects of his hate. Conflict and insecurity prevail in the +state of nature as a result of the sensuous desires and emotions (_homines +ex natura hostes_); and they can be done away with only through the +establishment of a society, which by punitive laws compels everyone to do, +and leave undone, that which the general welfare demands. Strife and breach +of faith become sin only in the state; before its formation that alone was +wrong which no one had the desire and power to do. Besides this mission, +however, of protecting selfish interests by the prevention of aggression, +the civil community has a higher one, to subserve the development of +reason; it is only in the state that true morality and true freedom are +possible, and the wise man will prefer to live in the state, because +he finds more freedom there than in isolation. Thus the dislocation of +concepts, which is perceptible in Spinoza's ethics, repeats itself in his +politics. First, virtue is based on the impulse of self-preservation and +the good is equated with that which is useful to the individual; then, with +a transformation of mere utility into "true" utility, the rational moment +is brought in (first as practical prudence, next as the impulse after +knowledge, and then, with a gradual change of meaning, as moral wisdom), +until, finally, in strange contrast to the naturalistic beginning, the +Christian idea of virtue as purity, self-denial, love to our neighbors and +love to God, is reached. In a similar way "Spinoza conceives the starting +point of the state naturalistically, its culmination idealistically."[1] + +[Footnote 1: C. Schindler in his dissertation _Ueber den Begriff des +Guten und Nuetzlichen bei Spinoza_, Jena, 1885, p. 42, a work, however, +which does not penetrate to the full depth of the matter. Cf. Eucken, +_Lebensanschauungen_, p. 406.] + +The fundamental ideas of the Spinozistic system, and those which render +it important, are rationalism, pantheism, the essential identity of the +material and spiritual worlds, and the uninterrupted mechanism of becoming. +Besides the twisting of ethical concepts just mentioned, we may briefly +note the most striking of the other difficulties and contradictions which +Spinoza left unexplained. There is a break between his endeavor to exalt +the absolute high above the phenomenal world of individual existence, and, +at the same time, to bring the former into the closest possible conjunction +with the latter, to make it dwell therein--a break between the transcendent +and immanent conceptions of the idea of God. No light is vouchsafed on the +relation between primary and secondary causes, between the immediate divine +causality and the divine causality mediated through finite causes. The +infinity of God is in conflict with his complete cognizability on the +part of man; for how is a finite, transitory spirit able to conceive +the Infinite and Eternal? How does the human intellect rise above modal +limitations to become capable and worthy of the mystical union with God? +Reference has been already made to the twofold nature of the attributes (as +forms of intellectual apprehension and as real properties of substance) +which invites contradictory interpretations. + + +3. %Pascal, Malebranche, Bayle.% + +Returning from Holland to France, we find a combination of Cartesianism +and mysticism similar to that which we have noticed in the former country. +Under Geulincx these two forces had lived peacefully together; in Spinoza +they had entered into the closest alliance; with Blaise Pascal (1623-62), +the first to adopt a religious tendency, they came into a certain +antithesis. Spinoza had taught: through the knowledge of God to the love +of God; in Pascal the watchword becomes, God is not conceived through +the reason, but felt with the heart. After attacking the Jesuits in his +_Provincial Letters_, and unveiling the worthlessness of their casuistical +morality, Pascal, constrained by a genuine piety, undertook to construct a +philosophy of Christianity; but the attempt was ended by the early death of +the author, who had always suffered under a weak constitution. Fragments of +this work were published by his friends, the Jansenists, under the title, +_Thoughts on Religion_, 1669, though not without mediating alterations. +The Port-Royal _Logic (The Art of Thinking_, 1662), edited by Arnauld and +Nicole, was based on a treatise of Pascal. His thought, which was not +distinguished by clearness, but by depth and movement, and which, after +the French fashion, delighted in antitheses, was influenced by Descartes, +Montaigne, and Epictetus. He, too, finds in mathematics the example for +all science, and holds that whatever transcends mathematics transcends the +reason. By the application of mathematics to the study of nature we attain +a mundane science, which is certain, no doubt, and which makes constant +progress,[1] but which does not satisfy, since it reveals nothing of the +infinite, of the whole, without which the parts remain unintelligible. +Hence all natural philosophy together is not worth an hour's toil. Pascal +consoles himself for our ignorance concerning external things by the +stability of ethics. + +[Footnote 1: It is this uninterrupted progress which raises the reason +above the operations of nature and the instincts of animals. While the bees +build their cells to-day just as they did a thousand years ago, science is +continually developing. This guarantees to us our immortal destiny.] + +The leading principles of his ethics are as follows: In sin the love to God +created in us has left us and self-love has transgressed its limits; pride +has delivered us over to selfishness and misery. Our nature is corrupted, +but not beyond redemption. In his actions worthless and depraved, man is +seen to be exalted and incomprehensible in his ends; in reality he is +worthy of abhorrence, but great in his destination. No philosophy or +religion has so taught us at once to know the greatness and the misery of +man as Christianity: this bids him recognize his low condition, but at the +same time to endeavor to become like God. We must humbly despise the world +and renounce ourselves; in order to love God, we must hate ourselves. Moral +reformation is an act of divine grace, and the merit of human volition +consists only in not resisting this. God transforms the heart by a heavenly +sweetness, grants it to know that spiritual pleasure is greater than bodily +pleasure, and infuses into it a disgust at the allurements of sin. Virtue +is finding one's greatest happiness in God or in the eternal good. As +morality is a matter of feeling, not of thought, so God, so even the first +principles on which the certitude of demonstration depends, are the object, +not of reason, but of the heart. That which certifies to the highest +indemonstrable principles is a feeling, a belief, an instinct of nature: +_les principes se sentent_. As a defender of the needs and rights of the +heart, Pascal is a forerunner of the great Rousseau. His depreciation of +the reason to exalt faith establishes a certain relationship with the +skeptics of his native land, among whom Cousin has unjustly classed him +(_Etudes sur Pascal_, 5th ed., 1857).[1] + +[Footnote 1: Of the works on Pascal we may mention that of H. Reuchlin, +1840: Havet's edition of the _Pensees_, with notes, Paris, 1866; and the +_Etude_ by Ed. Droz, Paris, 1886.] + +Nicolas Malebranche (1638-1715), a member of the Oratory of Jesus, in +Paris, which was opposed by the Jesuits, completed the development of +Cartesianism in the religious direction adopted by Pascal. His thought +is controlled by the endeavor to combine Cartesian metaphysics and +Augustinian Christianity, those two great forces which constituted the +double citadel of his order. His collected works appeared three years +before his death; and a new edition in four volumes, prepared by +J. Simon, in 1871. His chief work, _On the Search for Truth_ (new edition +by F. Bouillier, 1880), appeared in 1675, and was followed by the +_Treatise on Ethics_ (new edition by H. Joly, 1882) and the _Christian +and Metaphysical Meditations_ in 1684, the _Discussions on Metaphysics and +on Religion_ in 1688, and various polemic treatises. The best known among +the doctrines of Malebranche is the principle that _we see all things in +God (que nous voyons toutes choses en Dieu_.--_Recherche_, iii. 2, 6). What +does this mean, and how is it established? It is intended as an answer to +the question, How is it possible for the mind to cognize the body if, as +Descartes has shown, mind and body are two fundamentally distinct and +reciprocally independent substances? + +The seeker after truth must first understand the sources of error. Of these +there are two, or, more exactly, five--as many as there are faculties of +the soul. Error may spring from either the cognitive or the appetitive +faculty; in the first case, either from sense-perception, the imagination, +or the pure understanding, and, in the latter, from the inclinations or the +passions. The inclinations and the passions do not reveal the nature of +things, but only express how they affect us, of what value they are to +us. Further still, the senses and the imagination only reproduce the +impressions which things make on us as feeling subjects, express only what +they are for us, not what they are in themselves. The senses have been +given us simply for the preservation of our body, and so long as we expect +nothing further from them than practical information concerning the +(useful or hurtful) relation of things to our body, there is no reason for +mistrusting them,--here we are not deceived by sensation, but at most by +the overhasty judgment of the will. "Consider the senses as false witnesses +in regard to the truth, but as trustworthy counselors in relation to the +interests of life!"--Sensation and imagination belong to the soul in virtue +of its union with the body; apart from this it is pure spirit. The essence +of the soul is thought, for this function is the only one which cannot be +abstracted from it without destroying it. Hence there can be no moment in +the life of the soul when it ceases to think; it thinks always (_l'ame +pense toujours_), only it does not always remember the fact. + +The kinds of knowledge differ with the classes of things cognized. God is +known immediately and intuitively. He is necessary and unlimited being, +the universal, infinite being, being absolutely; he only is known through +himself. The concept of the infinite is the presupposition of the concept +of the finite, and the former is earlier in us; we gain the conception of +a particular thing only when we omit something from the idea of "being in +general," or limit it. God is cogitative, like spirits, and extended, like +bodies, but in an entirely different manner from created things. We know +our own soul through consciousness or inner perception. We know its +existence more certainly than that of bodies, but understand its nature +less perfectly than theirs. To know that it is capable of sensations of +pain, of heat, of light, we must have experienced them. For knowledge +of the minds of others we are dependent upon conjecture, on analogical +inferences from ourselves. + +But how is the unextended soul capable of cognizing extended body? Only +through the medium of _ideas_. The ideas occupy an intermediate position +between objects, whose archetypes they are, and representations in the +soul, whose causes they are. The ideas, after the pattern of which God +has created things, and the relations among them (necessary truths), are +eternal, hence uncaused; they constitute the wisdom of God and are not +dependent on his will. Things are in God in archetypal form, and are +cognized through these their archetypes in God. Ideas are not produced by +bodies, by the emission of sensuous images,[1] nor are they originated by +the soul, or possessed by it as an innate possession. But God is the cause +of knowledge, although he neither imparts ideas to the soul in creation nor +produces them in it on every separate occasion. The ideas or perfections of +things are in God and are beheld by spirits, who likewise dwell in God as +the universal reason. As space is the place of bodies, so God is the +place of spirits. As bodies are modes of extension, so their ideas are +modifications of the idea of extension or of "intelligible extension." The +principle stated at the beginning, that things are perceived in God, is, +therefore, supported in the following way: we perceive bodies (through +ideas, which ideas, and we ourselves, are) in God. + +[Footnote 1: Malebranche's refutation of the emanation hypothesis of the +Peripatetics is acute and still worthy of attention. If bodies transmitted +to the sense-organs forms like themselves, these copies, which would +evidently be corporeal, must, by their departure, diminish the mass of the +body from which they came away, and also, because of their impenetrability, +obstruct and interfere with one another, thus destroying the possibility of +clear impressions. A further point against the image theory is furnished by +the increase in the size of an object, when approached. And, above all, it +can never be made conceivable how motion can be transformed into sensations +or ideas.] + +As the knowledge of truth has been found to consist in seeing things as God +sees them, so morality consists in man's loving things as God loves them, +or, what amounts to the same thing, in loving them to that degree which +is their due in view of their greater or less perfection. If, in the last +analysis, all cognition is knowledge of God, so all volition is loving God; +there is implanted in every creature a direction toward the Creator. God is +not only the primordial, unlimited being, he is also the highest good, +the final end of all striving. As the ideas of things are imperfect +participations in, or determinations of universal being, the absolute +perfection of God, so the particular desires, directed toward individual +objects, are limitations of the universal will toward the good. How does +it happen that the human will, so variously mistaking its fundamental +direction toward God, attaches itself to perishable goods, and prefers +worthless objects to those which have value, and earthly to heavenly +pleasure? The soul is, on the one hand, united to God, on the other, united +to the body. The possibility of error and sin rests on its union with the +body, since with the ideas (as representations of the pure understanding) +are associated sensuous images, which mingle with and becloud them, and +passions with the inclinations (or the will of the soul, in so far as it is +pure spirit). This gives, however, merely the possibility of the immoral, +sensuous, God-estranged disposition, which becomes actual only through +man's free act, when he fails to stand the test. For sin does not consist +in having passions, but in consenting to them. The passion is not caused by +the corporeal movement of which it is the sequel, but only occasioned by +it; and the same is true of the movement of the limbs and the decision +of the will. The one true cause of all that happens is God. It is he who +produces affections in the soul, and motion in the material world. For the +body possesses only the capacity of being moved; and the soul cannot be the +cause of the movement, since it would then have to know how it produces +the latter. In fact those who lack a medical training have no idea of the +muscular and nervous processes involved. Without God we cannot even move +the tongue. It is he who raises our arm, even when we use it contrary to +his law. + +Anxious to guard his pantheism from being identified with that of Spinoza, +Malebranche points out that, according to his views, the universe is in +God, not, as with Spinoza, that God is in the universe; that he teaches +creation, which Spinoza denies; that he distinguishes, which Spinoza had +not done, between the world in God (the ideas of things) and the world of +created things, and between intelligible and corporeal extension. It may +be added that he maintains the freedom of God and of man, which Spinoza +rejects, and that he conceives God, who brings everything to pass, not as +nature, but as omnipotent will. Nevertheless, as Kuno Fischer has shown, +he approaches the naturalism of Spinoza more nearly than he is himself +conscious, when he explains finite things as limitations (hence as modes) +of the divine existence, posits the will of God in dependence on his wisdom +(the uncreated world of ideas), thus limiting it in its omnipotence, and, +which is decisive, makes God the sole author of motion, _i.e._, a natural +cause. His attempt at a Christian pantheism was consequently unsuccessful. +But its failure has not shattered the well-grounded fame of its thoughtful +author as the second greatest metaphysician of France. + +Pierre Poiret[1] (1646-1719; for some years a preacher in Hamburg; lived +later in Rhynsburg near Leyden) was rendered hostile to Cartesianism +through the influence of mystical writings (among others those of +Antoinette Bourignon, which he published), and through the perception of +the results to which it had led in Spinoza. All cognition is taking up the +form of the object. The perfection of man is based more on his passive +capacities than on his active reason, which is concerned with mere ideas, +unreal shadows; the mathematical spirit leads to fatalism, to the denial of +freedom. The passive faculties, on the contrary, are in direct intercourse +with reality, the senses with external material objects, and the arcanum of +the mind, the basis of the soul, the intellect, with spiritual truths +and with God, whose existence is more certain than our own. Man is not +unconcerned in the development of the highest power of the mind, he must +offer himself to God in sincere humility. In subordination to the passive +intellect, the external faculty, the active reason, is also to be +cultivated; it deserves care, like the skin. Evil consists in the absurdity +that the creature, who apart from God is nothing, ascribes to himself an +independent existence. + +[Footnote 1: Poiret: _Cogitationes Rationates de Deo, Anima, et Malo_, +1677, the later editions including a vehement attack on the atheism of +Spinoza: _L'Economie Divine_, 1682; _De Eruditione Solida, Superficiaria, +et Falsa_, 1692; _Fides et Ratio Collatae_, against Locke, 1707.] + +Le Vayer and Huet, who have been already mentioned (pp. 50-51), +mediate between the founders of skepticism and Bayle, its most gifted +representative. The latter of these two wrote a _Criticism of the Cartesian +Philosophy_, 1689, besides a _Treatise on the Impotence of the Human Mind_, +which did not appear until after his death. He opposes, among other things, +the criterion of truth based on evidence, since there is an evidence of +the false not to be distinguished from that of the true, as well as the +position that God becomes a deceiver in the bestowal of a weak and blind +reason--for he gives us, at the same time, the power to know its deceptive +character. + +As the last among those influenced by Descartes but who advanced beyond +him, may be mentioned the acute Pierre Bayle (1647-1706; professor in Sedan +and Rotterdam; _Works_, 1725-31[1]), who greatly excited the world of +letters by his occasional and polemic treatises, and still more by the +journal, _Nouvelles de la Republique des Lettres_ from 1684, and his +_Historical and Critical Dictionary_, in two volumes, 1695 and 1697. +Nowhere do the most opposite antitheses dwell in such close proximity as +in the mind of Bayle. Along with an ever watchful doubt he harbors a most +active zeal for knowledge, with a sincere spirit of belief (which has been +wrongly disputed by Lange, Zeller, and Puenjer) a demoniacal pleasure in +bringing to light absurdities in the doctrines of faith, with absolute +confidence in the infallibility of conscience an entirely pessimistic view +of human morality. His strength lies in criticism and polemics, his work in +the latter (aside from his hostility to fanaticism and the persecution of +those differing in faith) being directed chiefly against optimism and the +deistic religion of reason, which holds the Christian dogmas capable of +proof, or, at least, faith and knowledge capable of reconciliation. The +doctrines of faith are not only above reason, incomprehensible, but +contrary to reason; and it is just on this that our merit in accepting +them depends. The mysteries of the Gospel do not seek success before the +judgment seat of thought, they demand the blind submission of the reason; +nay, if they were objects of knowledge they would cease to be mysteries. +Thus we must choose between religion and philosophy, for they cannot be +combined. For one who is convinced of the untrustworthiness of the reason +and her lack of competence in things supernatural, it is in no wise +contradictory or impossible to receive as true things which she declares +to be false; he will thank God for the gift of a faith which is entirely +independent of the clearness of its objects and of its agreement with the +axioms of philosophy. Even, when in purely scientific questions he calls +attention to difficulties and shows contradictions on every hand, Bayle by +no means intends to hold up principles with contradictory implications as +false, but only as uncertain.[2] The reason, he says, generalizing from his +own case, is capable only of destruction, not of construction; of +discovering error, not of finding truth; of finding reasons and +counter-reasons, of exciting doubt and controversy, not of vouchsafing +certitude. So long as it contents itself with controverting that which is +false, it is potent and salutary; but when, despising divine assistance, it +advances beyond this, it becomes dangerous, like a caustic drug which +attacks the healthy flesh after it has consumed that which was diseased. + +[Footnote 1: Cf. on Bayle, L. Feuerbach. 1838, 2d ed., 1844; Eucken in the +_Allgemeine Zeitung_, supplement to Nos. 251, 252, October 27, 28, 1891.] + +[Footnote 2: Thus, in regard to the problem of freedom, he finds it hard +to comprehend how the creatures, who are not the authors of their own +existence, can be the authors of their own actions, but, at the same time, +inadmissible to think of God as the cause of evil. He seeks only to show +the indemonstrability and incomprehensibility of freedom, not to reject it. +For he sees in it the condition of morality, and calls attention to +the fact that the difficulties in which those who deny freedom involve +themselves are far greater than those of their opponents. He shows himself +entirely averse to the determinism and pantheism of Spinoza.] + +He who seeks to refute skepticism must produce a criterion of truth. If +such exists, it is certainly that advanced by Descartes, the evidence, the +evident clearness of a principle. Well, then, the following principles pass +for evident: That one, who does not exist, can have no responsibility for +an evil action; that two things, which are identical with the same thing, +are identical with each other; that I am the same man to-day that I was +yesterday. Now, the revealed doctrines of original sin and of the Trinity +show that the first and second of these axioms are false, and the Church +doctrine of the preservation of the world as a continuous creation, that +the last principle is uncertain. Thus if not even self-evidence furnishes +us a criterion of truth, we must conclude that none whatever exists. +Further, in regard to the origin of the world from a single principle, its +creation by God, we find this supported, no doubt, both by the conclusions +of the pure reason and by the consideration of nature, but controvened by +the fact of evil, by the misery and wickedness of man. Is it conceivable +that a holy and benevolent God has created so unhappy and wicked a being? + +Bayle's motives in defending faith against reason were, on the one hand, +his personal piety, on the other, his conviction of the unassailable purity +of Christian ethics. All the sects agree in regard to moral principles, and +it is this which assures us of the divinity of the Christian revelation. +Nevertheless, he does not conceal from himself the fact that possession of +the theoretical side of religion is far from being a guarantee of practice +in conformity with her precepts. It is neither true that faith alone leads +to morality nor that unbelief is the cause of immorality. A state composed +of atheists would be not at all impossible, if only strict punishments and +strict notions of honor were insisted upon. + +The judgments of the natural reason in moral questions are as certain +and free from error as its capacity is shown to be weak and limited in +theoretical science. The idea of morality never deceives anyone; the moral +law is innate in every man. Although Christianity has given the best +development of our duties, yet the moral law can be understood and followed +by all men, even by heathen and atheists. We do not need to be Christians +in order to act virtuously; the knowledge given by conscience is not +dependent upon revelation. From the knowledge of the good to the practice +of it is, it is true, a long step; we may be convinced of moral truth +without loving it, and God's grace alone is able to strengthen us against +the power of the passions, by adding to the illumination of the mind an +inclination of the heart toward the good. Temperament, custom, self-love +move the soul more strongly than general truths. As in life pleasure is far +outbalanced by pain and vexation, so far more evil acts are done than good +ones: history is a collection of misdeeds, with scarcely one virtuous act +for a thousand crimes. It is not the external action that constitutes the +ethical character of a deed, but the motive or disposition; almsgiving from +motives of pride is a vice, and only when practiced out of love to one's +neighbors, a virtue. God looks only at the act of the will; our highest +duty, and one which admits of no exceptions, is never to act contrary to +conscience. + + + +CHAPTER IV. + +LOCKE. + +After the Cartesian philosophy had given decisive expression to the +tendencies of modern thought, and had been developed through occasionalism +to its completion in the system of Spinoza, the line of further progress +consisted in two factors: Descartes's principles--one-sidedly rationalistic +and abstractly scientific, as they were--were, on the one hand, to be +supplemented by the addition of the empirical element which Descartes had +neglected, and, on the other, to be made available for general culture by +approximation to the interests of practical life. England, with its freer +and happier political conditions, was the best place for the accomplishment +of both ends, and Locke, a typically healthy and sober English thinker, +with a distaste for extreme views, the best adapted mind. Descartes, the +rationalist, had despised experience, and Bacon, the empiricist, had +despised mathematics; but Locke aims to show that while the reason is the +instrument of science, demonstration its form, and the realm of knowledge +wider than experience, yet this instrument and this form are dependent for +their content on a supply of material from the senses. The emphasis, it is +true, falls chiefly on the latter half of this programme, and posterity, +especially, has almost exclusively attended to the empirical side of +Locke's theory of knowledge in giving judgment concerning it. + +John Locke was born at Wrington, not far from Bristol, in 1632. At Oxford +he busied himself with philosophy, natural science, and medicine, being +repelled by the Scholastic thinkers, but strongly attracted by the writings +of Descartes. In 1665 he became secretary to the English ambassador to the +Court of Brandenburg. Returning thence to Oxford he made the acquaintance +of Lord Anthony Ashley (from 1672 Earl of Shaftesbury; died in Holland +1683), who received him into his own household as a friend, physician, and +tutor to his son (the father of Shaftesbury, the moral philosopher), and +with whose varying fortunes Locke's own were henceforth to be intimately +connected. Twice he became secretary to his patron (once in 1667--with +an official secretaryship in 1672, when Shaftesbury became Lord +Chancellor--and again in 1679, when he became President of the Council), +but both times he lost his post on his friend's fall. The years 1675-79 +were spent in Montpellier and Paris. In 1683 he went into voluntary exile +in Holland (where Shaftesbury had died in January of the same year), and +remained there until 1689, when the ascension of the throne by William of +Orange made it possible for him to return to England. Here he was made +Commissioner of Appeals, and, subsequently, one of the Commissioners of +Trade and Plantations (till 1700). He died in 1704 at Gates, in Essex, at +the house of Sir Francis Masham, whose wife was the daughter of Cudworth, +the philosopher. + +Locke's chief work, _An Essay concerning Human Understanding_, which had +been planned as early as 1670, was published in 1689-90, a short abstract +of it having previously appeared in French in Le Clerc's _Bibliotheque +Universelle_, 1688. His theoretical works include, further, the two +posthumous treatises, _On the Conduct of the Understanding_ (originally +intended for incorporation in the fourth edition of the _Essay_, which, +however, appeared in 1700 without this chapter, which probably had proved +too extended) and the _Elements of Natural Philosophy_. To political +and politico-economic questions Locke contributed the two _Treatises on +Government_, 1690, and three essays on money and the coinage. In the year +1689 appeared the first of three _Letters on Tolerance_, followed, in 1693, +by _Some Thoughts on Education_, and, in 1695, by _The Reasonableness of +Christianity as delivered in the Scriptures_. The collected works appeared +for the first time in 1714, and in nine volumes in 1853; the philosophical +works (edited by St. John) are given in Bonn's Standard Library +(1867-68).[1] + +[Footnote 1: Lord King and Fox Bourne have written on Locke's life, 1829 +and 1876. A comparison of Locke's theory of knowledge with Leibnitz's +critique was published by Hartenstein in 1865, and one by Von Benoit (prize +dissertation) in 1869, and an exposition of his theory of substance by De +Fries in 1879. Victor Cousin's _Philosophie de Locke_ has passed through +six editions. [Among more recent English discussions reference may be made +to Green's Introduction to Hume's _Treatise on Human Nature_, 1874 (new ed. +1890), which is a valuable critique of the line of development, Locke, +Berkeley, Hume; Fowler's _Locke_, in the English Men of Letters, 1880; and +Fraser's _Locke_, in Blackwood's Philosophical Classics, 1890.--TR.]] + +%(a) Theory of Knowledge.%--Locke's theory of knowledge is controlled by +two tendencies, one native, furnished by the Baconian empiricism, and the +other Continental, supplied by the Cartesian question concerning the origin +of ideas. Bacon had demanded the closest connection with experience as +the condition of fruitful inquiry. Locke supports this commendation of +experience by a detailed description of the services which it renders to +cognition, namely, by showing that, in simple ideas, perception supplies +the material for complex ideas, and for all the cognitive work of the +understanding. Descartes had divided ideas, according to their origin, into +three classes: those which are self-formed, those which come from without, +and those which are innate (p. 79), and had called this third class the +most valuable. Locke disputes the existence of ideas in the understanding +from birth, and makes it receive the elements of knowledge from the senses, +that is, from without. He is a representative of sensationalism,--not in +the stricter sense, first put into the term by those who subsequently +continued his endeavors, that thought arises from perception, that it is +transformed sensation--but in the wider sense, that thought is (free) +operation with ideas, which are neither created by it nor present in it +from the first, but given to it by perception, that, consequently, the +cognitive process begins with sensation and so its first attitude is a +passive one. From the standpoint of the Cartesian problem, which he solves +in a sense opposite to Descartes, Locke supplements the empiricism of Bacon +by basing it on a psychologically developed theory of knowledge. That in +the course of the inquiry he introduces a new principle, which causes him +to diverge from the true empirical path, will appear in the sequel. + +The question "How our ideas come into the mind" receives a negative answer +(in the first book of the _Essay_): "There are no innate principles in the +mind"[1] The doctrine of the innate character of certain principles is +based on their universal acceptance. The asserted agreement of mankind in +regard to the laws of thought, the principles of morality, the existence +of God, etc., is neither cogent as an argument nor correct in fact. In the +first place, even if there were any principles which everyone assented to, +this would not prove that they had been created in the soul; the fact of +general consent would admit of a different explanation. Granted that no +atheists existed, yet it would not necessarily follow that the universal +conviction of the existence of God is innate, for it might have been +gradually reached in each case through the use of the reason--might have +been inferred, for instance, from the perception of the purposive character +of the world. Second, the fact to which this theory of innate ideas appeals +is not true. No moral rule can be cited which is respected by all nations. +The idea of identity is entirely unknown to idiots and to children. If +the laws of identity and contradiction were innate they must appear in +consciousness prior to all other truths; but long before a child is +conscious of the proposition "It is impossible for the same thing to be and +not to be," it knows that sweet is not bitter, and that black is not white. +The ideas first known are not general axioms and abstract concepts, but +particular impressions of the senses. Would nature write so illegible a +hand that the mind must wait a long time before becoming able to read what +had been inscribed upon it? It is often said, however, that innate ideas +and principles may be obscured and, finally, completely extinguished +by habit, education, and other extrinsic circumstances. Then, if +they gradually become corrupted and disappear, they must at least be +discoverable in full purity where these disturbing influences have not +yet acted; but it is especially vain to look for them in children and the +ignorant. Perhaps, however, these possess such principles unconsciously; +perhaps they are imprinted on the understanding, without being attended +to? This would be a contradiction in terms. To be in the mind or the +understanding simply means "to be understood" or to be known; no one can +have an idea without being conscious of it. Finally, if the attempt be +made to explain "originally in the mind" in so wide a sense that it would +include all truths which man can ever attain or is capable of discovering +by the right use of reason, this would make not only all mathematical +principles, but all knowledge in general, all sciences, and all arts +innate; there would be no ground even for the exclusion of wisdom and +virtue. Therefore, either all ideas are innate or none are. This is an +important alternative. While Locke decides for the second half of the +proposition, Leibnitz defends the first by a delicate application of the +concept of unconscious representation and of implicit knowledge, which his +predecessor rejects out of hand. + +[Footnote 1: According to Fox Bourne this first book was written after the +others. Geil _(Ueber die Abhaengigkeit Lockes von Descartes_, Strassburg, +1887, chap, iii.) has endeavored to prove that, since the arguments +controverted are wanting in Descartes, the attack was not aimed at +Descartes and his school, but at native defenders of innate ideas, as Lord +Herbert of Cherbury and the English Platonists (Cudworth, More, Parker, +Gale). That along with these the Cartesian doctrine was a second and +chief object of attack is shown by Benno Erdmann in his discussion of the +treatises by G. Geil and R. Sommer _(Lockes Verhaeltnis zu Descartes_, +Berlin, 1887) in the _Archiv fuer Geschichte der Philosophie_, ii, pp. +99-121.] + +Locke's positive answer to the question concerning the origin of ideas is +given in his second book. Ideas are not present in the understanding from +the beginning, nor are they originated by the understanding, but received +through sensation. The understanding is like a piece of white paper +on which perception inscribes its characters. All knowledge arises in +experience. This is of two kinds, derived either from the external senses +or the internal sense. The perception of external objects is termed +Sensation, that of internal phenomena (of the states of the mind itself) +Reflection. External and internal perception are the only windows +through which the light of ideas penetrates into the dark chamber of the +understanding. The two are not opened simultaneously, however, but one +after the other; since the perceptions of the sensible qualities of bodies, +unlike that of the operations of the mind itself, do not require an effort +of attention, they are the earlier. The child receives ideas of sensation +before those of reflection; internal perception presupposes external +perception. + +In this distinction between sensation and reflection, we may recognize +an after-effect of the Cartesian dualism between matter and spirit. +The antithesis of substances has become a duality in the faculties of +perception. But while Descartes had so far forth ascribed precedence to the +mind in that he held the self-certitude of the ego to be the highest and +clearest of all truths and the soul to be better known than the body, in +Locke the relation of the two was reversed, since he made the perception +of self dependent on the precedent perception of external objects. This +antithesis was made still sharper in later thinking, when Condillac made +full use of the priority of sensation, which in Locke had remained without +much effect; while Berkeley, on the other hand, reduced external perception +to internal perception. + +All original ideas are representations either of the external senses or +of the internal sense, or of both. And since, in the case of ideas of +sensation, there is a distinction between those which are perceived by a +single one of the external senses and those which come from more than one, +four classes of simple ideas result: (1) Those which come from one external +sense, as colors, sounds, tastes, odors, heat, solidity, and the like. +(2) Those which come from more than one external sense (sight and touch), +as extension, figure, and motion. (3) Reflection on the operations of our +minds yields ideas of perception or thinking (with its various modes, +remembrance, judging, knowledge, faith, etc.), and of volition or willing. +(4) From both external and internal perception there come into the mind the +ideas of pleasure and pain, existence, power, unity, and succession. These +are approximately our original ideas, which are related to knowledge as +the letters to written discourse; as all Homer is composed out of only +twenty-four letters, so these few simple ideas constitute all the material +of knowledge. The mind can neither have more nor other simple ideas than +those which are furnished to it by these two sources of experience. + +Locke differs from Descartes again in regard to extension and thought. +Extension does not constitute the essence of matter, nor thought the +essence of mind. Extension and body are not the same; the former is +presupposed by the latter as its necessary condition, but it is the former +alone which yields mathematical matter. The essence of physical matter +consists rather in solidity: where impenetrability is found there is body, +and the converse; the two are absolutely inseparable. With space the case +is different. I cannot conceive unextended matter, indeed, but I can easily +conceive immaterial extension, an unfilled space Further, if the essence +of the soul consisted in thought, it must be always thinking. As the +Cartesians maintained, it must have ideas as soon as it begins to be, which +is manifestly contrary to experience. Thinking is merely an activity of +the mind, as motion is an activity of the body, and not its essential +characteristic. The mind does not receive ideas until external objects +occasion perception in it through impressions, which it is not able to +avert. The understanding may be compared to a mirror, which, without +independent activity and without being consulted, takes up the images of +things. Some of the simple ideas which have been mentioned above represent +the properties of things as they really are, others not. The former class +includes all ideas of reflection (for we are ourselves the immediate object +of the inner sense); but among the ideas of sensation those only which come +from different senses, hence extension, motion and rest, number, figure, +and, further, solidity, are to be accounted _primary_ qualities, _i. e_., +such as are actual copies of the properties of bodies. All other ideas, on +the contrary, have no resemblance to properties of bodies; they represent +merely the ways in which things act, and are not copies of things. The +ideas of _secondary_ or derivative qualities (hard and soft, warm and cold, +colors and sounds, tastes and odors) are in the last analysis caused--as +are the primary--by motion, but not perceived as such. Yellow and warm are +merely sensations in us, which we erroneously ascribe to objects; with +equal right we might ascribe to fire, as qualities inherent in it, the +changes in form and color which it produces in wax and the pain which it +causes in the finger brought into proximity with it. The warmth and the +brightness of the blaze, the redness, the pleasant taste, and the aromatic +odor of the strawberry, exist in these bodies merely as the power to +produce such sensations in us by stimulation of the skin, the eye, the +palate, and the nose. If we remove the perceptions of them, they disappear +as such, and their causes alone remain--the bulk, figure, number, texture, +and motion of the insensible particles. The ground of the illusion lies in +the fact that such qualities as color, etc., bear no resemblance to their +causes, in no wise point to these, and in themselves contain naught of +bulk, density, figure, and motion, and that our senses are too weak +to discover the material particles and their primary qualities.--The +distinction between qualities of the first and second order--first advanced +by the ancient atomists, revived by Galileo and Descartes on the threshold +of the modern period, retained by Locke, and still customary in the natural +science of the day--forms an important link in the transition from the +popular view of all sense-qualities as properties of things in themselves +to Kant's position, that spatial and temporal qualities also belong +to phenomena alone, and are based merely on man's subjective mode of +apprehension, while the real properties of things in themselves are +unknowable. + +Thus far the procedure of the understanding has been purely passive. But +besides the capacity for passively receiving simple ideas, it possesses the +further power of variously combining and extending these original ideas +which have come into it from without, of working over the material given +in sensation by the combination, relation, and separation of its various +elements. In this it is active, but not creative. It is not able to form +new simple ideas (and just as little to destroy such as already exist), but +only freely to combine the elements furnished without its assistance by +perception (or, following the figure mentioned above, to combine into +syllables and words the separate letters of sensation). Complex ideas arise +from simple ideas through voluntary combination of the latter. + +Perception is the first step toward knowledge. After perception the most +indispensable faculty is retention, the prolonged consciousness of present +ideas and the revival of those which have disappeared, or, as it were, have +been put aside. For an idea to be "in the memory" means that the mind +has the capacity to reproduce it at will, whereupon it recognizes it as +previously experienced. If our ideas are not freshened up from time to time +by new impressions of the same sort they gradually fade out, until finally +(as the idea of color in one become blind in early life) they completely +disappear. Ideas impressed upon the mind by frequent repetition are rarely +entirely lost. Memory is the basis for the intellectual functions of +discernment and comparison, of composition, abstraction, and naming. Since, +amid the innumerable multitude of ideas, it is not possible to assign to +each one a definite sign, the indispensable condition of language is found +in the power of abstraction, that is, in the power of generalizing ideas, +of compounding many ideas into one, and of indicating by the names of the +general ideas, or of the classes and species, the particular ideas also +which are contained under these. Here is the great distinction between +man and the brute. The brute lacks language because he lacks (not all +understanding whatever, _e.g._, not a capacity, though an imperfect one, of +comparison and composition, but) the faculty of abstraction and of forming +general ideas. The object of language is simply the quick and easy +communication of our thoughts to others, not to give expression to the real +essence of objects. Words are not names for particular things, but signs +of general ideas; and _abstracta_ nothing more than an artifice for +facilitating intellectual intercourse. This abbreviation, which aids in +the exchange of ideas, involves the danger that the creations of the mind +denoted by words will be taken for images of real general essences, of +which, in fact, there are none in existence, but only particular things. In +order to prevent anyone to whom I am speaking from understanding my words +in a different sense from the one intended, it is necessary for me to +define the complex ideas by analyzing them into their elements, and, on the +other hand, to give examples in experience of the simple ideas, which do +not admit of definition, or to explain them by synonyms. Thus much from +Locke's philosophy of language, to which he devotes the third book of the +_Essay_. + +Complex ideas, which are very numerous, may be divided into three classes: +Modes, Substances, and Relations. + +_Modes_ (states, conditions) are such combinations of simple ideas which do +not "contain in them the supposition of subsisting by themselves, but are +considered as dependencies on, or affections of substances." They fall into +two classes according as they are composed of the same simple ideas, or +simple ideas of various kinds; the former are called simple, the latter +mixed, modes. Under the former class belong, for example, a dozen or a +score, the idea of which is composed of simple units; under the latter, +running, fighting, obstinacy, printing, theft, parricide. The formation of +_mixed_ modes is greatly influenced by national customs. Very complicated +transactions (sacrilege, triumph, ostracism), if often considered and +discussed, receive for the sake of brevity comprehensive names, which +cannot be rendered by a single expression in the language of other +nations among whom the custom in question is not found. The elements most +frequently employed in the formation of mixed modes are ideas of the two +fundamental activities, thinking and motion, together with power, which is +their source. Locke discusses _simple_ modes in more detail, especially +those derived from the ideas of space, time, unity, and power. +Modifications of space are distance, figure, place, length; since any +length or measure of space can be repeated to infinity, we reach the idea +of immensity. As modes of time are enumerated succession (which we perceive +and measure only by the flow of our ideas), duration, and lengths or +measures of duration, the endless repetition of which yields the idea of +eternity. From unity are developed the modes of numbers, and from the +unlimitedness of these the idea of infinity. No idea, however, is richer +in modes than the idea of power. A distinction must be made between active +power and passive power, or mere receptivity. While bodies are not capable +of originating motion, but only of communicating motion received, we notice +in ourselves, as spiritual beings, the capacity of originating actions and +motions. The body possesses only the passive power of being moved, the mind +the active power of producing motion. This latter is termed "will." Here +Locke discusses at length the freedom of the will, but not with entire +clearness and freedom from contradictions (cf. below). + +Modes are conditions which do not subsist of themselves, but have need of +a basis or support; they are not conceivable apart from a thing whose +properties or states they are. We notice that certain qualities always +appear together, and habitually refer them to a substratum as the ground of +their unity; in which they subsist or from which they proceed. _Substance_ +denotes this self-existent "we know not what," which has or bears the +attributes in itself, and which arouses the ideas of them in us. It is the +combination of a number of simple ideas which are presumed to belong to one +thing. From the ideas of sensation the understanding composes the idea of +body, and from the ideas of reflection that of mind. Each of these is just +as clear and just as obscure as the other; of each we know only its effects +and its sensuous properties; its essence is for us entirely unknowable. +Instead of the customary names, material and immaterial substances, +Locke recommends cogitative and incogitative substances, since it is not +inconceivable that the Creator may have endowed some material beings with +the capacity of thought. God,--the idea of whom is attained by uniting the +ideas of existence, power, might, knowledge, and happiness with that of +infinity,--is absolutely immaterial, because not passive, while finite +spirits (which are both active and passive) are perhaps only bodies which +possess the power of thinking. + +While the ideas of substances are referred to a reality without the mind as +their archetype, to which they are to conform and which they should image +and represent, _Relations_ (_e.g._, husband, greater) are free and immanent +products of the understanding. They are not copies of real things, but +represent themselves alone, are their own archetypes. We do not ask whether +they agree with things, but, conversely, whether things agree with them +(Book iv. 4.5). The mind reaches an idea of relation by placing two things +side by side and comparing them. If it perceives that a thing, or a +quality, or an idea begins to exist through the operation of some other +thing, it derives from this the idea of the causal relation, which is the +most comprehensive of all relations, since all that is actual or possible +can be brought under it. _Cause_ is that which makes another thing to begin +to be; _effect_, that which had its beginning from some other thing. The +production of a new quality is termed alteration; of artificial things, +making; of a living being, generation; of a new particle of matter, +creation. Next in importance is the relation of _identity and diversity_. +Since it is impossible for a thing to be in two different places at the +same time and for two things to be at the same time in the same place, +everything that at a given instant is in a given place is identical with +itself, and, on the other hand, distinct from everything else (no matter +how great the resemblance between them) that at the same moment exists in +another place. Space and time therefore form the _principium +individuationis_. By what marks, however, may we recognize the identity of +an individual at different times and in different places? The identity of +inorganic matter depends on the continuity of the mass of atoms which +compose it; that of living beings upon the permanent organization of +their parts (different bodies are united into _one_ animal by a common +life); personal identity consists in the unity of self-consciousness, not +in the continuity of bodily existence (which is at once excluded by the +change of matter). The identity of the person or the ego must be carefully +distinguished from that of substance and of man. It would not be impossible +for the person to remain the same in a change of substances, in so far as +the different beings (for instance, the souls of Epicurus and Gassendi) +participated in the same self-consciousness; and, conversely, for a spirit +to appear in two persons by losing the consciousness of its previous +existence. Consciousness is the sole condition of the self, or personal +identity.--The determinations of space and time are for the most part +relations. Our answers to the questions "When?" "How long?" "How large?" +denote the distance of one point of time from another (_e.g._, the birth of +Christ), the relation of one duration to another (of a revolution of the +sun), the relation of one extension to another well-known one taken as a +standard. Many apparently positive ideas and words, as young and old, large +and small, weak and strong, are in fact relative. They imply merely the +relation of a given duration of life, of a given size and strength, to that +which has been adopted as a standard for the class of things in question. A +man of twenty is called young, but a horse of like age, old; and neither of +these measures of time applies to stars or diamonds. Moral relations, which +are based on a comparison of man's voluntary actions with one of the three +moral laws, will be discussed below. + +The inquiry now turns from the origin of ideas to their _cognitive value_ +or their _validity_, beginning (in the concluding chapters of the second +book) with the accuracy of single ideas, and advancing (in Book iv., which +is the most important in the whole work) to the truth of judgments. An idea +is real when it conforms to its archetype, whether this is a thing, real +or possible, or an idea of some other thing; it is adequate when the +conformity is complete. The idea of a four-sided triangle or of brave +cowardice is unreal or fantastical, since it is composed of incompatible +elements, and the idea of a centaur, since it unites simple ideas in a +way in which they do not occur in nature. The layman's ideas of law or of +chemical substances are real, but inadequate, since they have a general +resemblance to those of experts, and a basis in reality, but yet only +imperfectly represent their archetypes. Nay, further, our ideas of +substances are all inadequate, not only when they are taken for +representations of the inner essences of things (since we do not know these +essences), but also when they are considered merely as collections of +qualities. The copy never includes all the qualities of the thing, the less +so since the majority of these are powers, _i.e._, consist in relations to +other objects, and since it is impossible, even in the case of a single +body, to discover all the changes which it is fitted to impart to, or +to receive from, other substances. Ideas of modes and relations are all +adequate, for they are their own archetypes, are not intended to represent +anything other than themselves, are images without originals. An idea of +this kind, however, though perfect when originally formed, may become +imperfect through the use of language, when it is unsuccessfully intended +to agree with the idea of some other person and denominated by a current +term. In the case of mixed modes and their names, therefore, the +compatibility of their elements and the possible existence of their objects +are not enough to secure their reality and their complete adequacy; in +order to be adequate they must, further, exactly conform to the meaning +connected with their names by their author, or in common use. Simple +ideas are best off, according to Locke, in regard both to reality and to +adequacy. For the most part, it is true, they are not accurate copies of +the real qualities, of things, but only the regular effects of the powers +of things. But although real qualities are thus only the causes and not +the patterns of sensations, still simple ideas, by their constant +correspondence with real qualities, sufficiently fulfill their divinely +ordained end, to serve us as instruments of knowledge, _i.e._, in the +discrimination of things.--An unreal and inadequate idea becomes false only +when it is referred to an object, whether this be the existence of a thing, +or its true essence, or an idea of other things. Truth and error belong +always to affirmations or negations, that is, to (it may be, tacit) +propositions. Ideas uncombined, unrelated, apart from judgments, ideas, +that is, as mere phenomena in the mind, are neither true nor false. + +Knowledge is defined as the "perception of the connexion and agreement, or +disagreement and repugnancy" of two ideas; truth, as "the right joining or +separating of signs, _i.e._, ideas or words." The object of knowledge +is neither single ideas nor the relations of ideas to things, but the +_relations of ideas among themselves_. This view was at once paradoxical +and pregnant. If all cognition, as Locke suggests in objection to his own +theory, consists in perceiving the agreement or disagreement of our ideas, +are not the visions of the enthusiast and the reasonings of sober thinkers +alike certain? are not the propositions, A fairy is not a centaur, and a +centaur is a living being, just as true as that a circle is not a triangle, +and that the sum of the angles of a triangle is equal to two right angles? +The mind directly perceives nothing but its own ideas, but it seeks a +knowledge of things! If this is possible it can only be indirect +knowledge--the mind knows things through its ideas, and possesses criteria +which show that its ideas agree with things. + +Two cases must be clearly distinguished, for a considerable number of our +ideas, viz., all complex ideas except those of substances, make no claim +to represent things, and consequently cannot represent them falsely. For +mathematical and moral ideas and principles, and the truth thereof, it is +entirely immaterial whether things and conditions correspondent to them +exist in nature or not. They are valid, even if nowhere actualized; they +are "eternal truths," not in the sense that they are known from childhood, +but in the sense that, as soon as known, they are immediately assented +to.[1] The case is different, however, with simple ideas and the ideas of +substances, which have their originals without the mind and which are to +correspond with these. In regard to the former we may always be certain +that they agree with real things, for since the mind can neither +voluntarily originate them (_e.g._, cannot produce sensations of color +in the dark) nor avoid having them at will, but only receive them from +without, they are not creatures of the fancy, but the natural and regular +productions of external things affecting us. In regard to the latter, the +ideas of substances, we may be certain at least when the simple ideas which +compose them have been found so connected in experience. Perception has +an external cause, whose influence the mind is not able to withstand. The +mutual corroboration furnished by the reports of the different senses, the +painfulness of certain sensations, the clear distinction between ideas from +actual perception and those from memory, the possibility of producing and +predicting new sensations of an entirely definite nature in ourselves and +in others, by means of changes which we effect in the external world (e.g. +by writing down a word)--these give further justification for the trust +which we put in the senses. No one will be so skeptical as to doubt in +earnest the existence of the things which he sees and touches, and to +declare his whole life to be a deceptive dream. The certitude which +perception affords concerning the existence of external objects is indeed +not an absolute one, but it is sufficient for the needs of life and the +government of our actions; it is "as certain as our happiness or misery, +beyond which we have no concernment, either of knowing or being." In regard +to the past the testimony of the senses is supplemented by memory, in +which certainty [in regard to the continued existence of things previously +perceived] is transformed into high probability; while in regard to the +existence of other finite spirits, numberless kinds of which may be +conjectured to exist, though their existence is quite beyond our powers of +perception, certitude sinks into mere (though well-grounded) faith. + +[Footnote 1: Thus it results that knowledge, although dependent on +experience for all its materials, extends beyond experience. The +understanding is completely bound in the reception of simple ideas; less so +in the combination of these into complex ideas; absolutely free in the act +of comparison, which it can omit at will; finally, again, completely bound +in its recognition of the relation in which the ideas it has chosen +to compare stand to one another. There is room for choice only in the +intermediate stage of the cognitive process; at the beginning (in the +reception of the simple ideas of perception, a, b, c, d), and at the end +(in judging how the concepts a b c and a b d stand related to each other), +the understanding is completely determined.] + +More certain than our _sensitive_ knowledge of the existence of external +objects, are our immediate or _intuitive_ knowledge of our own existence +and our mediate or _demonstrative_ knowledge of the existence of God. +Every idea that we have, every pain, every thought assures us of our own +existence. The existence of God, however, as the infinite cause of all +reality, endowed with intelligence, will, and supreme power, is inferred +from the existence and constitution of the world and of ourselves. Reality +exists; the real world is composed of matter in motion and thinking beings, +and is harmoniously ordered. Since it is impossible for any real being to +be produced by nothing, and since we obtain no satisfactory answer to the +question of origin until we rise to something existent from all eternity, +we must assume as the cause of that which exists an Eternal Being, which +possesses in a higher degree all the perfections which it has bestowed upon +the creatures. As the cause of matter and motion, and as the source of all +power, this Being must be omnipotent; as the cause of beauty and order in +the world, and, above all, as the creator of thinking beings, it must be +omniscient. But these perfections are those which we combine in the idea +of God. + +Intuitive knowledge is the highest of the three degrees of knowledge. It is +gained when the mind perceives the agreement or disagreement of two ideas +at first sight, without hesitation, and without the intervention of any +third idea. This immediate knowledge is self-evident, irresistible, and +exposed to no doubt. Knowledge is demonstrative when the mind perceives the +agreement (or disagreement) of two ideas, not by placing them side by side +and comparing them, but through the aid of other ideas. The intermediate +links are called proofs; their discovery is the work of the reason, and +quickness in finding them out is termed sagacity. The greater the number +of the intermediate steps, the more the clearness and distinctness of the +knowledge decreases, and the more the possibility of error increases. +In order for an argument (_e. g_., that a = d) to be conclusive, every +particular step in it (a = b, b = c, c = d) must possess intuitive +certainty. Mathematics is not the only example of demonstrative knowledge, +but the most perfect one, since in mathematics, by the aid of visible +symbols, the full equality and the least differences among ideas may be +exactly measured and sharply determined. + +Besides real existence Locke, unsystematically enough, enumerates three +other sorts of agreement between ideas,--in the perception of which he +makes knowledge consist,--viz., identity or diversity (blue is not yellow), +relation (when equals are added to equals the results are equal), and +coexistence or necessary connexion (gold is fixed). We are best off in +regard to the knowledge of the first of these, "identity or diversity," for +here our intuition extends as far as our ideas, since we recognize every +idea, as soon as it arises, as identical with itself and different from +others. We are worst off in regard to "necessary connexion." We know +something, indeed, concerning the incompatibility or coexistence of certain +properties (_e. g_., that the same object cannot have two different sizes +or colors at the same time; that figure cannot exist apart from extension): +but it is only in regard to a few qualities and powers of bodies that we +are able to discover dependence and necessary connexion by intuitive or +demonstrative thought, while in most cases we are dependent on experience, +which gives us information concerning particular cases only, and affords no +guarantee that things are the same beyond the sphere of our observation and +experiment. Since empirical inquiry furnishes no certain and universal +knowledge, and since the assumption that like bodies will in the same +circumstances have like effects is only a conjecture from analogy, natural +science in the strict sense does not exist. Both mathematics and ethics, +however, belong in the sphere of the demonstrative knowledge of relations. +The principles of ethics are as capable of exact demonstration as those of +arithmetic and geometry, although their underlying ideas are more complex, +more involved, hence more exposed to misunderstanding, and lacking in +visible symbols; though these defects can, and should, in part be made good +by careful and strictly consistent definitions. Such moral principles as +"where there is no property there is no injustice," or "no government +allows absolute liberty," are as certain as any proposition in Euclid. + +The advantage of the mathematical and moral sciences over the physical +sciences consists in the fact that, in the former, the real and nominal +essences of their objects coincide, while in the latter they do not; and, +further, that the real essences of substances are beyond our knowledge. The +true inner constitution of bodies, the root whence all their qualities, and +the coexistence of these, necessarily proceed, is completely unknown to us; +so that we are unable to deduce them from it. Mathematical and moral ideas, +on the other hand, and their relations, are entirely accessible, for they +are the products of our own voluntary operations. They are not copied from +things, but are archetypal for reality and need no confirmation from +experience. The connexion constituted by our understanding between the +ideas crime and punishment _(e. g_., the proposition: crime deserves +punishment) is valid, even though no crime had ever been committed, and +none ever punished. Existence is not at all involved in universal +propositions; "general knowledge lies only in our own thoughts, and +consists barely in the contemplation of our own abstract ideas" and their +relations. The truths of mathematics and ethics are both universal and +certain, while in natural science single observations and experiments are +certain, but not general, and general propositions are only more or less +probable. Both the particular experiments and the general conclusions are +of great value under certain circumstances, but they do not meet the +requirements of comprehensive and certain knowledge. + +The _extent_ of our knowledge is very limited--much less, in fact, than +that of our ignorance. For our knowledge reaches no further than our ideas, +and the possibility of perceiving their agreements. Many things exist of +which we have no ideas--chiefly because of the fewness of our senses and +their lack of acuteness--and just as many of which our ideas are only +imperfect. Moreover, we are often able neither to command the ideas +which we really possess, or at least might attain, nor to perceive their +connexions. The ideas which are lacking, those which are undiscoverable, +those which are not combined, are the causes of the narrow limits of human +knowledge. + +There are two ways by which knowledge may be extended: by experience, on +the one hand, and, on the other, by the elevation of our ideas to a state +of clearness and distinctness, together with the discovery and systematic +arrangement of those intermediate ideas which exhibit the relation of other +ideas, in themselves not immediately comparable. The syllogism, as an +artificial form, is of little value in the perception of the agreements +between these intermediate and final terms, and of none whatever in the +discovery of the former. Analytical and identical propositions which merely +explicate the conception of the subject, but express nothing not already +known, are, in spite of their indefeasible certitude, valueless for the +extension of knowledge, and when taken for more than verbal explanations, +mere absurdities. Even those most general propositions, those "principles" +which are so much talked of in the schools, lack the utility which is so +commonly ascribed to them. Maxims are, it is true, fit instruments for the +communication of knowledge already acquired, and in learned disputations +may perform indispensable service in silencing opponents, or in bringing +the dispute to a conclusion; but they are of little or no use in the +discovery of new truth. It is a mistake to believe that special cases (as +5 = 2 + 3, or 5 = 1 + 4) are dependent on the truth of the abstract rule +(the whole is equal to the sum of its parts), that they are confirmed by +it and must be derived from it. The particular and concrete is not only +as clear and certain as the general maxim, but better known than this, +as well as earlier and more easily perceived. Nay, further, in cases +where ideas are confused and the meanings of words doubtful, the use of +axioms is dangerous, since they may easily lend the appearance of proved +truth to assertions which are really contradictory. + +Between the clear daylight of certain knowledge and the dark night of +absolute ignorance comes the twilight of probability. We find ourselves +dependent on _opinion_ and presumption, or judgment based upon probability, +when experience and demonstration leave us in the lurch and we are, +nevertheless, challenged to a decision by vital needs which brook no delay. +The judge and the historian must convince themselves from the reports of +witnesses concerning events which they have not themselves observed; and +everyone is compelled by the interests of life, of duty, and of eternal +salvation to form conclusions concerning things which lie beyond the limits +of his own perception and reflective thought, nay, which transcend all +human experience and rigorous demonstration whatever. To delay decision and +action until absolute certainty had been attained, would scarcely allow +us to lift a single finger. In cases concerning events in the past, the +future, or at a distance, we rely on the testimony of others (testing their +reports by considering their credibility as witnesses and the conformity of +the evidence to general experience in like cases); in regard to questions +concerning that which is absolutely beyond experience, _e.g._, higher +orders of spirits, or the ultimate causes of natural phenomena, analogy is +the only help we have. If the witnesses conflict among themselves, or with +the usual course of nature, the grounds _pro_ and _con_ must be carefully +balanced; frequently, however, the degree of probability attained is so +great that our assent is almost equivalent to complete certainty. No +one doubts,--although it is impossible for him to "know,"--that Caesar +conquered Pompey, that gold is ductile in Australia as elsewhere, that iron +will sink to-morrow as well as to-day. Thus opinion supplements the lack of +certain knowledge, and serves as a guide for belief and action, wherever +the general lot of mankind or individual circumstances prevent absolute +certitude. + +Although in this twilight region of opinion demonstrative proofs are +replaced merely by an "occasion" for "taking" a given fact or idea "as true +rather than false," yet assent is by no means an act of choice, as the +Cartesians had erroneously maintained, for in knowledge it is determined by +clearly discerned reasons, and in the sphere of opinion, by the balance of +probability. The understanding is free only in combining ideas, not in its +judgment concerning the agreement or the repugnancy of the ideas compared; +it lies within its own power to decide whether it will judge at all, and +what ideas it will compare, but it has no control over the result of the +comparison; it is impossible for it to refuse its assent to a demonstrated +truth or a preponderant probability. + +In this recognition of objective and universally valid relations existing +among ideas, which the thinking subject, through comparisons voluntarily +instituted, discovers valid or finds given, but which it can neither alter +nor demur to, Locke abandons empirical ground (cf. p. 155) and approaches +the idealists of the Platonizing type. His inquiry divides into two very +dissimilar parts (a psychological description of the origin of ideas and a +logical determination of the possibility and the extent of knowledge), the +latter of which is, in Locke's opinion, compatible with the former, but +which could never have been developed from it. The rationalistic edifice +contradicts the sensationalistic foundation. Locke had hoped to show the +value and the limits of knowledge by an inquiry into the origin of ideas, +but his estimate of this value and these limits cannot be proved from the +_a posteriori_ origin of ideas--it can only be maintained in despite of +this, and stands in need of support from some (rationalistic) principle +elsewhere obtained. Thinkers who trace back all simple ideas to outer and +inner perception we expect to reject every attempt to extend knowledge +beyond the sphere of experience, to declare the combinations of ideas +which have their origin in sensation trustworthy, and those which are +formed without regard to perception, illusory; or else, with Protagoras, +to limit knowledge to the individual perceiving subject, with a consequent +complete denial of its general validity. But exactly the opposite of all +these is found in Locke. The remarkable spectacle is presented of a +philosopher who admits no other sources of ideas than perception and the +voluntary combination of perceptions, transcending the limits of experience +with proofs of the divine existence, viewing with suspicion the ideas of +substance formed at the instance of experience, and reducing natural +science to the sphere of mere opinion; while, on the other hand, he +ascribes reality and eternal validity to the combinations of ideas formed +independently of perception, which are employed by mathematics and ethics, +and completely abandons the individualistic position in his naive faith in +the impregnable validity of the relations of ideas, which is evident to all +who turn their attention to them. The ground for the universal validity of +the relations among ideas as well as of our knowledge of them, naturally +lies not in their empirical origin (for my experience gives information to +me alone, and that only concerning the particular case in question), but in +the uniformity of man's rational constitution. If two men really have the +same ideas--not merely think they have because they use similar +language--it is impossible, according to Locke, that they should hold +different opinions concerning the relation of their ideas. With this +conviction, that the universal validity of knowledge is rooted in the +uniformity of man's rational constitution, and the further one, that we +attain certain knowledge only when things conform to our ideas, Locke +closely approaches Kant; while his assumption of a fixed order of relations +among ideas, which the individual understanding cannot refuse to recognize, +and the typical character assigned to mathematics, associate him with +Malebranche and Spinoza. In view of these points of contact with the +rationalistic school and his manifold dependence on its founder, we may +venture the paradox, that Locke may not only be termed a Baconian with +Cartesian leanings, but (almost) a Cartesian influenced by Bacon. The +possibility must not be forgotten, however, that rationalistic suggestions +came to him also from Galileo, Hobbes, and Newton.[1] + +[Footnote 1: Cf. the article by Benno Erdmann cited p. 156, note.] + +Intermediate between knowledge and opinion stands faith as a form of assent +which is based on testimony rather than on deductions of the reason, +but whose certitude is not inferior to that of knowledge, since it is a +communication from God, who can neither deceive nor be deceived. Faith +and the certainty thereof depend on reason, in so far as reason alone can +determine whether a divine revelation has really been made and the meaning +of the words in which the revelation has come down to us. In determining +the boundaries of faith and reason Locke makes use of the +distinction--which has become famous--between things above reason, +according to reason, and contrary to reason. Our conviction that God exists +is according to reason; the belief that there are more gods than one, or +that a body can be in two different places at the same time, contrary +to reason; the former is a truth which can be demonstrated on rational +grounds, the latter an assumption incompatible with our clear and distinct +ideas. In the one case revelation confirms a proposition of which we +were already certain; in the other an alleged revelation is incapable +of depriving our certain knowledge of its force. Above reason are those +principles whose probability and truth cannot be shown by the natural use +of our faculties, as that the dead shall rise again and the account of the +fall of part of the angels. Among the things which are not contrary to +reason belong miracles, for they contradict opinion based on the usual +course of nature, it is true, but not our certain knowledge; in spite of +their supernatural character they deserve willing acceptance, and receive +it, when they are well attested, whereas principles contrary to reason must +be unconditionally rejected as a revelation from God. Locke's demand for +the subjection of faith to rational criticism assures him an honorable +place in the history of English deism. He enriched the philosophy of +religion by two treatises of his own: _The Reasonableness of Christianity_, +1695, and three _Letters on Tolerance_, 1689-1692. The former transfers the +center of gravity of the Christian religion from history to the doctrine of +redemption; the _Letters_ demand religious freedom, mutual tolerance among +the different sects, and the separation of Church and State. Those sects +alone are to receive no tolerance which themselves exercise none, and which +endanger the well-being of society; together with atheists, who are +incapable of taking oaths. In other respects it is the duty of the state to +protect all confessions and to favor none. + +%(b) Practical Philosophy.%--Locke contributed to practical philosophy +important suggestions concerning freedom, morality, politics, and +education. Freedom is the "power to begin or forbear, continue or put an +end to" actions (thoughts and motions). It is not destroyed by the fact +that the will is always moved by desire, more exactly, by uneasiness under +present circumstances, and that the decision is determined by the judgment +of the understanding. Although the result of examination is itself +dependent on the unalterable relations of ideas, it is still in our power +to decide whether we will consider at all, and what ideas we will take into +consideration. Not the thought, not the determination of the will, is free, +but the person, the mind; this has the power to suspend the prosecution of +desire, and by its judgment to determine the will, even in opposition +to inclination. Four stages must, consequently, be distinguished in the +volitional process: desire or uneasiness; the deliberative combination of +ideas; the judgment of the understanding; determination. Freedom has its +place at the beginning of the second stage: it is open to me to decide +whether to proceed at all to consideration and final judgment concerning a +proposed action; thus to prevent desire from directly issuing in movements; +and, according to the result of my examination, perhaps, to substitute for +the act originally desired an opposite one. Without freedom, moral judgment +and responsibility would be impossible. The above appears to us to +represent the essence of Locke's often vacillating discussion of freedom +(II. 21). Desire is directed to pleasure; the will obeys the understanding, +which is exalted above motives of pleasure and the passions. Everything is +physically good which occasions and increases pleasure in us, which removes +or diminishes pain, or contributes to the attainment of some other good and +the avoidance of some other evil. Actions, on the contrary, are morally +good when they conform to a rule by which they are judged. Whoever +earnestly meditates on his welfare will prefer moral or rational good to +sensuous good, since the former alone vouchsafes true happiness. God has +most intimately united virtue and general happiness, since he has made the +preservation of human society dependent on the exercise of virtue. + +The mark of a law for free beings is the fact that it apportions reward for +obedience and punishment for disobedience. The laws to which an action must +conform in order to deserve the predicate "good" are three in number +(II. 28): by the divine law "men judge whether their actions are sins +or duties"; by the civil law, "whether they be criminal or innocent" +(deserving of punishment or not); by the law of opinion or reputation, +"whether they be virtues or vices." The first of these laws threatens +immorality with future misery; the second, with legal punishments; the +third, with the disapproval of our fellow-men. + +The third law, the law of opinion or reputation, called also philosophical, +coincides on the whole, though not throughout, with the first, the divine +law of nature, which is best expressed in Christianity, and which is the +true touchstone of the moral character of actions. While Locke, in his +polemic against innate ideas, had emphasized the diversity of moral +judgments among individuals and nations (as a result of which an action is +condemned in one place and praised as virtuous in another), he here gives +prominence to the fact of general agreement in essentials, since it is only +natural that each should encourage by praise and esteem that which is to +his advantage, while virtue evidently conduces to the good of all who +come into contact with the virtuous. Amid the greatest diversity of moral +judgments virtue and praise, vice and blame, go together, while in general +that is praised which is really praiseworthy--even the vicious man approves +the right and condemns that which is faulty, at least in others. Locke was +the first to call attention to general approval as an external mark of +moral action, a hint which the Scottish moralists subsequently exploited. +The objection that he reduced morality to the level of the conventional is +unjust, for the law of opinion and reputation did not mean for him the +true principle of morality, but only that which controls the majority of +mankind--If anyone is inclined to doubt that commendation and disgrace are +sufficient motives to action, he does not understand mankind; there is +hardly one in ten thousand insensible enough to endure in quiet the +constant disapproval of society. Even if the lawbreaker hopes to escape +punishment at the hands of the state, and puts out of mind the thought of +future retribution, he can never escape the disapproval of his misdeeds +on the part of his fellows. In entire harmony with these views is Locke's +advice to educators, that they should early cultivate the love of esteem in +their pupils. + +Of the four principles of morals which Locke employs side by side, and in +alternation, without determining their exact relations--the reason, the +will of God, the general good (and, deduced from this, the approval of +our fellow-men), self-love--the latter two possess only an accessory +significance, while the former two co-operate in such a way that the one +determines the content of the good and the other confirms it and gives +it binding authority. The Christian religion does the reason a threefold +service--it gives her information concerning our duty, which she could have +reached herself, indeed, without the help of revelation, but not with +the same certitude and rapidity; it invests the good with the majesty of +absolute obligation by proclaiming it as the command of God; it increases +the motives to morality by its doctrines of immortality and future +retribution. Although Locke thus intimately joins virtue with earthly joy +and eternal happiness, and although he finds in the expectation of heaven +or hell a welcome support for the will in its conflict with the passions, +we must remember that he values this regard for the results and rewards of +virtue only as a subsidiary motive, and does not esteem it as in itself +ethical: eternal happiness forms, as it were, the "dowry" of virtue, +which adds to its true value in the eyes of fools and the weak, though it +constitutes neither its essence nor its basis. Virtue seems to the wise man +beautiful and valuable enough even without this, and yet the commendations +of philosophers gain for her but few wooers. The crowd is attracted to her +only when it is made clear to it that virtue is the "best policy." + +In politics Locke is an opponent of both forms of absolutism, the despotic +absolutism of Hobbes and the patriarchal absolutism of Filmer (died 1647; +his _Patriarcha_ declared hereditary monarchy a divine institution), and +a moderate exponent of the liberal tendencies of Milton (1608-74) and +Algernon Sidney (died 1683; _Discourses concerning Government_). The two +_Treatises on Civil Government_, 1690, develop, the first negatively, the +second positively, the constitutional theory with direct reference to the +political condition of England at the time. All men are born free and with +like capacities and rights. Each is to preserve his own interests, without +injuring those of others. The right to be treated by every man as a +rational being holds even prior to the founding of the state; but then +there is no authoritative power to decide conflicts. The state of nature is +not in itself a state of war, but it would lead to this, if each man should +himself attempt to exercise the right of self-protection against injury. In +order to prevent acts of violence there is needed a civil community, based +on a free contract, to which each individual member shall transfer his +freedom and power. Submission to the authority of the state is a free act, +and, by the contract made, natural rights are guarded, not destroyed; +political freedom is obedience to self-imposed law, subordination to the +common will expressing itself in the majority. The political power is +neither tyrannical, for arbitrary rule is no better than the state of +nature, nor paternal, for rulers and subjects are on an equality in the use +of the reason, which is not the case with parents and children. The +supreme power is the legislative, intrusted by the community to its chosen +representatives--the laws should aim at the general good. Subordinate +to the legislative power, and to be kept separate from it, come the two +executing powers, which are best united in a single hand (the king), viz., +the executive power (administrative and judicial), which carries the laws +into effect, and the federative power, which defends the community against +external foes. The ruler is subject to the law. If the government, through +violation of the law, has become unworthy of the power intrusted to it, and +has forfeited it, sovereign authority reverts to the source whence it +was derived, that is, to the people. The people decides whether its +representatives and the monarch have deserved the confidence placed in +them, and has the right to depose them, if they exceed their authority. As +the sworn obedience (of the subjects) is to the law alone, the ruler who +acts contrary to law has lost the right to govern, has put himself in a +state of hostility to the people, and revolution becomes merely necessary +defense against aggression. + +Montesquieu made these political ideas of Locke the common property of +Europe.[1] Rousseau did a like service for Locke's pedagogical views, given +in the modest but important _Thoughts concerning Education_, 1693. The +aim of education should not be to instill anything into the pupil, but to +develop everything from him; it should guide and not master him, should +develop his capacities in a natural way, should rouse him to independence, +not drill him into a scholar. In order to these ends thorough and +affectionate consideration of his individuality is requisite, and private +instruction is, therefore, to be preferred to public instruction. Since it +is the business of education to make men useful members of society, it must +not neglect their physical development. Learning through play and object +teaching make the child's task a delight; modern languages are to be +learned more by practice than by systematic study. The chief difference +between Locke and Rousseau is that the former sets great value on arousing +the sense of esteem, while the latter entirely rejects this as an +educational instrument. + +[Footnote 1: Cf. Theod. Pietsch, _Ueber das Verhaeltniss der politischen +Theorien Lockes zu Montesquieus Lehre von der Teilung der Gewalten_ Berlin +dissertation, Breslau, 1887.] + + + +CHAPTER V. + +ENGLISH PHILOSOPHY IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. + +Besides the theory of knowledge, which forms the central doctrine in his +system, Locke had discussed the remaining branches of philosophy, though in +less detail, and, by his many-sided stimulation, had posited problems +for the Illumination movement in England and in France. Now the several +disciplines take different courses, but the after-influence of his powerful +mind is felt on every hand. The development of deism from Toland on is +under the direct influence of his "rational Christianity"; the ethics of +Shaftesbury stands in polemic relation to his denial of everything innate; +and while Berkeley and Hume are deducing the consequences of his theory of +knowledge, Hartley derives the impulse to a new form of psychology from his +chapter on the association of ideas. + + +%1. Natural Philosophy and Psychology.% + +In Locke's famous countryman, Isaac Newton (1642-1727),[1] the modern +investigation of nature attains the level toward which it had striven, at +first by wishes and demands, gradually, also, in knowledge and achievement, +since the end of the mediaeval period. Mankind was not able to discard at +a stroke its accustomed Aristotelian view of nature, which animated things +with inner, spirit-like forces. A full century intervened between Telesius +and Newton, the concept of natural law requiring so long a time to break +out of its shell. A tremendous revolution in opinion had to be effected +before Newton could calmly promulgate his great principle, "Abandon +substantial forms and occult qualities and reduce natural phenomena to +mathematical laws," before he could crown the discoveries of Galileo and +Kepler with his own. For this successful union of Bacon's experimental +induction with the mathematical deduction of Descartes, this combination of +the analytic and the synthetic methods, which was shown in the demand +for, and the establishment of, mathematically formulated natural laws, +presupposes that nature is deprived of all inner life [2] and all +qualitative distinctions, that all that exists is compounded of uniformly +acting parts, and that all that takes place is conceived as motion. With +this Hobbes's programme of a mechanical science of nature is fulfilled. The +heavens and the earth are made subject to the same law of gravitation. How +far Newton himself adhered to the narrow meaning of mechanism (motion from +pressure and impulse), is evident from the fact that, though he is often +honored as the creator of the dynamical view of nature, he rejected _actio +in distans_ as absurd, and deemed it indispensable to assume some "cause" +of gravity (consisting, probably, in the impact of imponderable material +particles). It was his disciples who first ventured to proclaim gravity as +the universal force of matter, as the "primary quality of all bodies" (so +Roger Cotes in the preface to the second edition of the _Principia_, 1713). + +[Footnote 1: 1669-95 professor of mathematics in Cambridge, later resident +in London; 1672, member, and, 1703, president of the Royal Society. Chief +work, _Philosophic Naturalis Principia Mathematica_, 1687. _Works_, 1779 +_seq_. On Newton cf. K. Snell, 1843; Durdik, _Leibniz und Newton_, 1869; +Lange, _History of Materialism_, vol. i. p. 306 _seq_.] + +[Footnote 2: That the mathematical view of nature, since it leaves room for +quantitative distinctions alone, is equivalent to an examination of nature +had been clearly recognized by Poiret. As he significantly remarked: The +principles of the Cartesian physics relate merely to the "cadaver" of +nature _(Erud_., p. 260).] + +Newton resembles Boyle in uniting profound piety with the rigor of +scientific thought. He finds the most certain proof for the existence of +an intelligent creator in the wonderful arrangement of the world-machine, +which does not need after-adjustment at the hands of its creator, and whose +adaptation he praises as enthusiastically as he unconditionally rejects +the mingling of teleological considerations in the explanation of physical +phenomena. By this "physico-theological" argument he furnishes a welcome +support to deism. While the finite mind perceives in the sensorium of the +brain the images of objects which come to it from the senses, God has all +things in himself, is immediately present in all, and cognizes them without +sense-organs, the expanse of the universe forming his sensorium. + + * * * * * + +The transfer of mechanical views to psychical phenomena was also +accompanied by the conviction that no danger to faith in God would +result therefrom, but rather that it would aid in its support. The chief +representatives of this movement, which followed the example of Gay, +were the physician, David Hartley[1] (1704-57), and his pupil, Joseph +Priestley,[2] a dissenting minister and natural scientist (born 1733, died +in Philadelphia 1804; the discoverer of oxygen gas, 1774). + +The fundamental position of these psychologists is expressed in two +principles: (1) all cognitive and motive life is based on the mechanism of +psychical elements, the highest and most complex inner phenomena (thoughts, +feelings, volitions) are produced by the combination of simple ideas, +that is, they arise through the "association of ideas "; (2) all inner +phenomena, the complex as well as the simple, are accompanied by, or rather +depend on, more or less complicated physical phenomena, viz., nervous +processes and brain vibrations. Although Hartley and Priestley are agreed +in their demand for an associational and physiological treatment of +psychology, and in the attempt to give one, they differ in this, that +Hartley cautiously speaks only of a parallelism, a correspondence between +mental and cerebral processes, and rejects the materialistic interpretation +of inner phenomena, pointing out that the heterogeneity of motion and ideas +forbids the reduction of the latter to the former, and that psychological +analysis never reaches corporeal but only psychical elements. Moreover, it +is only with reluctance that, conscious of the critical character of the +conclusion, he admits the dependence of brain vibrations on the mechanical +laws of the material world and the thoroughgoing determinateness of the +human will, consoling himself with the belief that moral responsibility +nevertheless remains intact. Priestley, on the contrary, boldly avows the +materialistic and deterministic consequences of his position, holds that +psychical phenomena are not merely accompanied by material motions but +consist in them (thought is a function of the brain), and makes psychology, +as the physics of the nerves, a part of physiology. The denial of +immortality and the divine origin of the world is, however, by no means +to follow from materialism. Priestley not only combated the atheism of +Holbach, but also entered the deistic ranks with works of his own on +Natural Religion and the Corruptions of Christianity. + +[Footnote 1: Hartley, _Observations on Man, his Frame, his Duties, his +Expectations_. 1749.] + +[Footnote 2: Priestley, _Hartley's Theory of the Human Mind on the +Principles of the Association of Ideas_, 1775; _Disquisitions relating to +Matter and Spirit_, 1777; _The Doctrine of Philosophical Necessity_, 1777; +_Free Discussions of the Doctrines of Materialism_, 1778 (against Richard +Price's _Letters on Materialism and Philosophical Necessity_). Cf. on +both Schoenlank's dissertation, _Hartley und Priestley, die Begruender des +Assoziationismus in England_, 1882.] + +As early as in Hartley[1] the principle, which is so important for ethics, +appears that things and actions (_e.g._, promotion of the good of others) +which at first are sought and done because they are means to our own +enjoyment, in time come to have a direct worth of their own, apart from the +original egoistic end. James Mill (1829) has repeated this thought in later +times. As fame becomes an immediate object of desire to the ambitious man, +and gold to the miser, so, through association, the impulse toward that +which will secure approval may be transformed into the endeavor after that +which deserves approval. + +[Footnote 1: Cf. Jodl, _Geschichte der Ethik_, vol. i. p. 197 _seq_.] + +Among later representatives of the Associational school we may mention +Erasmus Darwin _(Zooenomia, or the Laws of Organic Life_, 1794-96). + + + +%2. Deism%. + +As Bacon and Descartes had freed natural science, Hobbes, the state, and +Grotius, law from the authority of the Church and had placed them on an +independent basis, _i.e._, the basis of nature and reason, so deism[1] +seeks to free religion from Church dogma and blind historical faith, and to +deduce it from natural knowledge. In so far as deism finds both the source +and the test of true religion in reason, it is rationalism; in so far as it +appeals from the supernatural light of revelation and inspiration to the +natural light of reason, it is naturalism; in so far as revelation and its +records are not only not allowed to restrict rational criticism, but are +made the chief object of criticism, its adherents are freethinkers. + +[Footnote 1: Cf. Lechler's _Geschichte des Englischen Deismus_, 1841, which +is rigorously drawn from the sources. [Hunt, _History of Religious Thought +in England_, 1871-73 [1884]; Leslie Stephen, _History of English Thought in +the Eighteenth Century_, 1876 [1880]; Cairns, _Unbelief in the Eighteenth +Century_, 1881.]] + +The general principles of deism may be compressed into a few theses. There +is a natural religion, whose essential content is morality; this comprises +not much more than the two maxims, Believe in God and Do your duty. + +Positive religions are to be judged by this standard. The elements in them +which are added to natural religion, or conflict with it, are superfluous +and harmful additions, arbitrary decrees of men, the work of cunning rulers +and deceitful priests. Christianity, which in its original form was the +perfect expression of the true religion of reason, has experienced great +corruptions in its ecclesiastical development, from which it must now be +purified. + +These principles are supported by the following arguments: Truth is one +and there is but one true religion. If the happiness of men depends on the +fulfilment of her commands, these must be comprehensible to every man and +must have been communicated to him; and since a special revelation and +legislation could not come to the knowledge of all, they can be no other +than the laws of duty inscribed on the human heart. In order to salvation, +then, we need only to know God as creator and judge, and to fulfill his +commands, _i.e._. to live a moral life. The one true religion has been +communicated to man in two forms, through the inner natural revelation of +reason, and the outer historical revelation of the Gospel. Since both have +come from God they cannot be contradictory. Accordingly natural religion +and the true one among the positive religions do not differ in their +content, but only in the manner of their promulgation. Reason tries +historical religion by the standard furnished by natural religion, and +distinguishes actual from asserted revelation by the harmony of its +contents with reason: the deist believes in the Bible because of the +reasonableness of its teachings; he does not hold these teachings true +because they are found in the Bible. If a positive religion contains +less than natural religion it is incomplete; if it contains more it is +tyrannical, since it imposes unnecessary requirements. The authority of +reason to exercise the office of a judge in regard to the credibility of +revelation is beyond doubt; indeed, apart from it there is no means of +attaining truth, and the acceptance of an external revelation as genuine, +and not merely as alleged to be such, is possible only for those who have +already been convinced of God's existence by the inner light of reason. + +To these logical considerations is added an historical position, which, +though only cursorily indicated at the beginning, is evidenced in +increasing detail as the deistic movement continues on its course. Natural +religion is always and everywhere the same, is universal and necessary, is +perfect, eternal, and original. As original, it is the earliest religion, +and as old as the world; as perfect, it is not capable of improvement, but +only of corruption and restoration. Twice it has existed in perfect purity, +as the religion of the first men and as the religion of Christ. Twice +it has been corrupted, in the pre-Christian period by idolatry, which +proceeded from the Egyptian worship of the dead, in the period after Christ +by the love of miracle and blind reverence for authority. In both cases the +corruption has come from power-loving priests, who have sought to frighten +and control the people by incomprehensible dogmas and ostentations, +mysterious ceremonies, and found their advantage in the superstition of the +multitude,--each new divinity, each new mystery meaning a gain for them. As +they had corrupted the primitive religion into polytheism, so Christianity +was corrupted by conforming it to the prejudices of those to be converted, +in whose eyes the simplicity of the new doctrine would have been no +recommendation for it. The Jew sought in it an echo of the Law, the heathen +longed for his festivals and his occult philosophy; so it was burdened +with unprofitable ceremonial observances and needless profundity, it was +Judaized and heathenized. It was inevitable that the doctrines of original +sin, of satisfaction and atonement should prove especially objectionable to +the purely rational temper of the deists. Neither the guilt of others (the +sin of our ancestors) nor the atonement of others (Christ's death on the +cross) can be imputed to us; Christ can be called the Savior only by way of +metaphor, only in so far as the example of his death leads us on to faith +and obedience for ourselves. The name atheism, which, it is true, orthodoxy +held ready for every belief incorrect according to its standard, was on the +contrary undeserved. The deists did not attack Christian revelation, still +less belief in God. They considered the atheist bereft of reason, and they +by no means esteemed historical revelation superfluous. The end of the +latter was to stir the mind to move men to reflection and conversion, to +transform morals, and if anyone declared it unnecessary because it contains +nothing but natural truths, he was referred to the works of Euclid, which +certainly contain nothing which is not founded in the reason, but which no +one but a fool will consider unnecessary in the study of mathematics. + +That which we have here summarized as the general position of deism, gained +gradual expression through the regular development and specialization of +deistic ideas in individual representatives of the movement. The chief +points and epochs were marked by Toland's _Christianity not Mysterious_, +1696; Collins's _Discourse of Freethinking_, 1713; Tindal's _Christianity +as Old as the Creation_, 1730; and Chubb's _True Gospel of Jesus Christ_, +1738. The first of these demands a critique of revelation, the second +defends the right of free investigation, the third declares the religion +of Christ, which is merely a revived natural religion, to be the oldest +religion, the fourth reduces it entirely to moral life. + +The deistic movement was called into life by Lord Herbert of Cherbury (pp. +79-80) and continued by Locke, in so far as the latter had intrusted to +reason the discrimination of true from false revelation, and had admitted +in Christianity elements above reason, though not things contrary to +reason. Following Locke, John Toland (1670-1722) goes a step further with +the proof that the Gospel not only contains nothing contrary to reason, but +also nothing above reason, and that no Christian doctrine is to be called +mysterious. To the demand that we should worship what we do not comprehend, +he answers that reason is the only basis of certitude, and alone decides on +the divinity of the Scriptures, by a consideration of their contents. The +motive which impels us to assent to a truth must lie in reason, not in +revelation, which, like all authority and experience, is merely the way by +which we attain the knowledge of the truth; it is a means of instruction, +not a ground of conviction. All faith has knowledge and understanding for +its conditions, and is rational conviction. Before we can put our trust in +the Scriptures, we must be convinced that they were in fact written by the +authors to whom they are ascribed, and must consider whether these men, +their deeds, and their works, were worthy of God. The fact that God's +inmost being is for us inscrutable does not make him a mystery, for even +the common things of nature are known to us only by their properties. +Miracles are also in themselves nothing incomprehensible; they are +simply enhancements of natural laws beyond their ordinary operations, by +supernatural assistance, which God vouchsafes but rarely and only for +extraordinary ends. Toland explains the mysteries smuggled into the ethical +religion of Christianity as due to the toleration of Jewish and heathen +customs, to the entrance of learned speculation, and to the selfish +inventions of the clergy and the rulers. The Reformation itself had not +entirely restored the original purity and simplicity. + +Thus far Toland the deist. In his later writings, the five _Letters to +Serena_, 1704, addressed to the Prussian queen, Sophia Charlotte, and +the _Pantheisticon_ (Cosmopoli, 1720), he advances toward a hylozoistic +pantheism. + +The first of the Letters discusses the prejudices of mankind; the second, +the heathen doctrine of immortality; the third, the origin of idolatry; +while the fourth and fifth are devoted to Spinoza, the chief defect in +whose philosophy is declared to be the absence of an explanation of motion. +Motion belongs to the notion of matter as necessarily as extension and +impenetrability. Matter is always in motion; rest is only the reciprocal +interference of two moving forces. The differences of things depend on the +various movements of the particles of matter, so that it is motion which +individualizes matter in general into particular things. As the Letters +ascribe the purposive construction of organic beings to a divine reason, so +the _Pantheisticon_ also stops short before it reaches the extreme of naked +materialism. Everything is from the whole; the whole is infinite, one, +eternal, all-rational. God is the force of the whole, the soul of +the world, the law of nature. The treatise includes a liturgy of the +pantheistic society with many quotations from the ancient poets. + +Anthony Collins (1676-1729), in his _Discourse of Free-thinking_, shows +the right of free thought _(i. e_., of judgment on rational grounds) in +general, from the principle that no truth is forbidden to us, and that +there is no other way by which we can attain truth and free ourselves from +superstition, and the right to apply it to God and the Bible in particular, +from the fact that the clergy differ concerning the most important matters. +The fear that the differences of opinion which spring from freethinking may +endanger the peace of society lacks foundation; on the contrary, it is +only restriction of the freedom of thought which leads to disorders, by +weakening moral zeal. The clergy are the only ones who condemn liberty of +thought. It is sacrilege to hold that error can be beneficial and truth +harmful. As a proof that freethinking by no means corrupts character, +Collins gives in conclusion a list of noble freethinkers from Socrates down +to Locke and Tillotson. Among the replies to the views of Collins we may +mention the calmly objective Boyle Lectures by Ibbot, and the sharp and +witty letter of Richard Bentley, the philologist. Neither of these attacks +Collins's leading principle, both fully admitting the right to employ the +reason, even in religious questions; but they dispute the implication that +freethinking is equivalent to contentious opposition. On the one hand, they +maintain that Collins's thinking is too free, that is, unbridled, hasty, +presumptuous, and paradoxical; on the other, that it is not free enough +(from prejudice). + +After Shaftesbury had based morality on a natural instinct for the +beautiful and had made it independent of religion, as well as served the +cause of free thought by a keenly ironical campaign against enthusiasm and +orthodoxy, and Clarke had furnished the representatives of natural religion +a useful principle of morals in the objective rationality of things, the +debate concerning prophecy and miracles[1] threatened to dissipate the +deistic movement into scattered theological skirmishes. At this juncture +Matthew Tindal (1657-1733) led it back to the main question. His +_Christianity as Old as the Creation_ is the doomsday book of deism. +It contains all that has been given above as the core of this view of +religion. Christ came not to bring in a new doctrine, but to exhort to +repentance and atonement, and to restore the law of nature, which is as old +as the creation, as universal as reason, and as unchangeable as God, +human nature, and the relations of things, which we should respect in our +actions. Religion is morality; more exactly, it is the free, constant +disposition to do as much good as possible, and thereby to promote the +glory of God and our own welfare. For the harmony of our conduct with +the rules of reason constitutes our perfection, and on this depends our +happiness. Since God is infinitely blessed and self-sufficient his purpose +in the moral law is man's happiness alone. Whatever a positive religion +contains beyond the moral law is superstition, which puts emphasis on +worthless trivialities. The true religion occupies the happy mean between +miserable unfaith, on the one hand, and timorous superstition, wild +fanaticism, and pietistical zeal on the other. In proclaiming the +sovereignty of reason in the sphere of religion as well as elsewhere, we +are only openly demanding what our opponents have tacitly acknowledged in +practice _(e. g_.> in allegorical interpretation) from time immemorial. God +has endowed us with reason in order that we should by it distinguish truth +from falsehood. + +[Footnote 1: The chief combatant in the conflict over the argument from +prophecy, which was called forth by Whiston's corruption hypothesis, +was Collins _(A Discourse of the Grounds and Reasons of the Christian +Religion_, 1724). Christianity is based on Judaism; its fundamental article +is that Jesus is the prophesied Messiah of the Jews, its chief proof the +argument from Old Testament prophecy, which, it is true, depends on the +typical or allegorical interpretation of the passages in question. Whoever +rejects this cuts away the ground from under the Christian revelation, +which is only the allegorical import of the revelation of the Jews.--The +second proof of revelation, the argument from miracles, was shaken by +Thomas Woolston _(Six Discourses on the Miracles of our Saviour_, 1727-30), +by his extension of the allegorical interpretation to these also. He +supported himself in this by the authority of the Church Fathers, and, +above all, by the argument that the accounts of the miracles, if taken +literally, contradict all sense and understanding. The unavoidable doubts +which arise concerning the literal interpretation of the resurrection of +the dead, the healing of the sick, the driving out of devils, and the other +miracles, prove that these were intended only as symbolic representations +of the mysterious and wonderful effects which Jesus was to accomplish. Thus +Jairus's daughter means the Jewish Church, which is to be revived at the +second coming of Christ; Lazarus typifies humanity, which will be raised +again at the last day; the account of the bodily resurrection of Jesus is +a symbol of his spiritual resurrection from his grave in the letter of +Scripture. Sherlock, whose _Trial of the Witnesses of the Resurrection of +Jesus_ was long considered a cogent answer to the attacks of Woolston, +was opposed by Peter Annet, who, without leaving the refuge of figurative +interpretation open, proceeded still more regardlessly in the discovery of +contradictory and incredible elements in the Gospel reports, and declared +all the scriptural writers together to be liars and falsifiers. If a man +believes in miracles as supernatural interferences with the regular course +of nature (and they must be so taken if they are to certify to the divine +origin of the Scriptures), he makes God mutable, and natural laws imperfect +arrangements which stand in need of correction. The truth of religion is +independent of all history.] + +Thomas Chubb (1679-1747), a man of the people (he was a glove maker and +tallow-chandler), and from 1715 on a participant in deistic literature and +concerned to adapt the new ideas to the men of his class, preached in _The +True Gospel of Jesus Christ_ an honorable working-man's Christianity., +Faith means obedience to the law of reason inculcated by Christ, not the +acceptance of the facts reported about him. The gospel of Christ was +preached to the poor before his death and his asserted resurrection and +ascension. It is probable that Christ really lived, because of the great +effect of his message; but he was a man like other men. His gospel is his +teaching, not his history, his own teaching, not that of his followers--the +reflections of the apostles are private opinions. Christ's teaching +amounts, in effect, to these three fundamental principles: (1) Conform +to the rational law of love to God and one's neighbor; this is the only +ground of divine acceptance. (2) After transgression of the law, repentance +and reformation are the only grounds of divine grace and forgiveness. (3) +At the last day every one will be rewarded according to his works. By +proclaiming these doctrines, by carrying them out in his own pure life +and typical death, and by founding religio-ethical associations on the +principle of brotherly equality, Christ selected the means best fitted for +the attainment of his purpose, the salvation of human souls. His aim was +to assure men of future happiness (and of the earthly happiness connected +therewith), and to make them worthy of it; and this happiness can only be +attained when from free conviction we submit ourselves to the natural moral +law, which is grounded on the moral fitness of things. Everything which +leads to the illusion that the favor of God is attainable by any other +means than by righteousness and repentance, is pernicious; as, also, the +confusion of Christian societies with legal and civil societies, which +pursue entirely different aims. + +Thomas Morgan _(The Moral Philosopher, a Dialogue between the Christian +Deist, Philalethes, and the Christian Jew, Theophanes, 1737 seq_.) stands +on the same ground as his predecessors, by holding that the moral truth of +things is the criterion of the divinity of a doctrine, that the Christian +religion is merely a restoration of natural religion, and that the apostles +were not infallible. Peculiar to him are the application of the first of +these principles to the Mosaic law, with the conclusion that this was not a +revelation; the complete separation of the New Testament from the Old (the +Church of Christ and the expected kingdom of the Jewish Messiah are as +opposed to each other as heaven and earth); and the endeavor to give a +more exact explanation of the origin of superstition, the pre-Christian +manifestations of which he traces back to the fall of the angels, and those +since Christ to the intermixture of Jewish elements. He seeks to solve his +problem by a detailed critique of Israelitish history, which is lacking in +sympathy but not in spirit, and in which, introducing modern relations +into the earliest times, he explains the Old Testament miracles in part as +myths, in part as natural phenomena, and deprives the heroes of the Jews of +their moral renown. The Jewish historians are ranked among the poets; the +God of Israel is reduced to a subordinate, local tutelary divinity; the +moral law of Moses is characterized as a civil code limited to external +conduct, to national and mundane affairs, with merely temporal sanctions, +and the ceremonial law as an act of worldly statecraft; David is declared +a gifted poet, musician, hypocrite, and coward; the prophets are made +professors of theology and moral philosophy; and Paul is praised as the +greatest freethinker of his time, who defended reason against authority +and rejected the Jewish ritual law as indifferent. Whatever is spurious in +Christianity is a remnant of Judaism, all its mysteries are misunderstood +and falsely (_i.e._ literally) applied allegories. Out of regard for Jewish +prejudices Christ's death was figuratively described as sacrificial, as in +earlier times Moses had been forced to yield to the Egyptian superstitions +of his people. Morgan looks for the final victory of the rational morality +of the pure, Pauline, or deistic Christianity over the Jewish Christianity +of orthodoxy. Among the works of his opponents the following deserve +mention: William Warburton's _Divine Legation of Moses, and_ Samuel +Chandler's _Vindication of the History of the Old Testament_. + +It maybe doubted whether Bolingbroke (died 1751; cf. p. 203) is to be +classed among the deists or among their opponents. On the one hand, he +finds in monotheism the original true religion, which has degenerated +into superstition through priestly cunning and fantastical philosophy; in +primitive Christianity, the system of natural religion, which has been +transformed into a complicated and contentious science by its weak, +foolish, or deceitful adherents; in theology, the corruption of religion; +in Bacon, Descartes, and Locke, types of untrammeled investigation. On +the other hand, he seeks to protect revelation from the reason whose +cultivation he has just commended, and to keep faith and knowledge +distinct, while he demands that the Bible, with all the undemonstrable +and absurd elements which it contains, be accepted on its own authority. +Religion is an instrument indispensable to the government for keeping the +people in subjection. Only the fear of a higher power, not the reason, +holds the masses in check; and the freethinkers do wrong in taking a bit +out of the mouth of the sensual multitude, when it were better to add to +those already there. + +As Hume, the skeptic, leads empiricism to its fall, so Hume, the +philosopher of religion (see below), leads deism toward dissolution. Among +those who defended revealed Christianity against the deistical attacks we +may mention the names of Conybeare (1732) and Joseph Butler (1736). The +former argues from the imperfection and mutability of our reason to like +characteristics in natural religion. Butler (cf. p. 206) does not admit +that natural and revealed religion are mutually exclusive. Christian +revelation lends a higher authority to natural religion, in which she finds +her foundation, and adapts it to the given relations and needs of mankind, +adding, however, to the rational law of virtue new duties toward God the +Son and God the Holy Ghost. It is evident that in order to be able to deal +with their opponents, the apologetes are forced to accommodate themselves +to the deistic principle of a rational criticism of revelation. + +Notwithstanding the fear which this principle inspired in the men of the +time, it soon penetrated the thought even of its opponents, and found +its way into the popular mind through the channels of the Illumination. + +Although it was often defended and applied with violence and with a +superfluous hatred of the clergy, it forms the justifiable element in the +endeavors of the deists. It is a commonplace to-day that everything which +claims to be true and valid must justify itself before the criticism of +reason; but then this principle, together with the distinction between +natural and positive religion based upon it, exerted an enlightening and +liberating influence. The real flaw in the deistical theory, which was +scarcely felt as such, even by its opponents, was its lack of religious +feeling and all historical sense, a lack which rendered the idea acceptable +that religions could be "made," and priestly falsehoods become world-moving +forces. Hume was the first to seek to rise above this unspeakable +shallowness. There was a remarkable conflict between the ascription to +man, on the one hand, of an assured treasure of religious knowledge in +the reason, and the abandonment of him, on the other, to the juggling of +cunning priests and despots. Thus the deists had no sense either for the +peculiarities of an inward religious feeling, which, in happy prescience, +rises above the earthly circle of moral duties to the world beyond, or for +the involuntary, historically necessary origin and growth of the particular +forms of religion. Here, again, we find that turning away from will and +feeling to thought, from history to nature, from the oppressive complexity +of that which has been developed to the simplicity of that which is +original, which we have noted as one of the most prominent characteristics +of the modern period. + + +%3. Moral Philosophy.% + +The watchword of deism was "independence in religion"; that of modern +ethical philosophy is "independence in morals." Hobbes had given this out +in opposition to the mediaeval dependence of ethics on theology; now it was +turned against himself, for he had delivered morality from ecclesiastical +bondage only to subject it to the no less oppressive and unworthy yoke of +the civil power. Selfish consideration, so he had taught, leads men to +transfer by contract all power to the ruler. Right is that which the +sovereign enjoins, wrong that which he forbids. Thus morality was conceived +in a purely negative way as justice, and based on interest and agreement. +Cumberland, recognizing the one-sidedness of the first of these positions, +announces the principle of universal benevolence, at which Bacon had hinted +before him, and in which he is followed by the school of Shaftesbury. +Opposition to the foundation of ethics on self-love and convention, again, +springs up in three forms, one idealistic, one logical, and one aesthetic. +Ethical ideas have not arisen artificially through shrewd calculation and +agreement, but have a natural origin. Cudworth, returning to Plato and +Descartes, assumes an innate idea of the good. Clarke and Woolston base +moral distinctions on the rational order of things, and characterize +the ethically good action as a logical truth translated into practice. +Shaftesbury derives ethical ideas and actions from a natural instinct for +judging the good and the beautiful. Moreover, Hobbes's ethics of interest +experiences, first, correction at the hands of Locke (who, along with a +complete recognition of the "legal" character of the good, distinguishes +the sphere of morality from that of mere law, and brings it under the +law of "reputation," hence of a "tacit" agreement), and then a frivolous +intensification under Mandeville and Bolingbroke. A preliminary conclusion +is reached in the ethical labors of Hume and Smith. + +Richard Cumberland _(De Legibus Naturae_, 1672) turns to experience with +the questions, In what does morality consist? Whence does it arise? and +What is the nature of moral obligation? and finds these answers: Those +actions are good, or in conformity to the moral law of nature, which +promote the common good _(commune bonum summa lex)_. Individual welfare +must be subordinated to the good of all, of which it forms only a part. The +psychological roots of virtuous action are the social and disinterested +affections, which nature has implanted in all beings, especially in those +endowed with reason. There is nothing in man more pleasing to God than +love. We recognize our obligation to the virtue of benevolence, or that God +commands it, from the rewards and punishments which we perceive to follow +the fulfillment or non-fulfillment of the law,--the subordination of +individual to universal good is the only means of attaining true happiness +and contentment. Men are dependent on mutual benevolence. He who labors +for the good of the whole system of rational beings furthers thereby the +welfare of the individual parts, among whom he himself is one; individual +happiness cannot be separated from general happiness. All duties are +implied in the supreme one: Give to others, and preserve thyself. This +principle of benevolence, advanced by Cumberland with homely simplicity, +received in the later development of English ethics, for which it pointed +out the way, a more careful foundation. + +The series of emancipations of morality begins with the Intellectual System +of Ralph Cud worth _(The Intellectual System of the Universe_, 1678; _A +Treatise concerning Eternal and Immutable Morality_, 1731). Ethical ideas +come neither from experience nor from civil legislation nor from the will +of God, but are necessary ideas in the divine and the human reason. Because +of their simplicity, universality, and immutability, it is impossible for +them to arise from experience, which never yields anything but that which +is particular and mutable. It is just as impossible that they should spring +from political constitutions, which have a temporal origin, which are +transitory, and which differ from one another. For if obedience to positive +law is right and disobedience wrong, then moral distinctions must have +existed before the law; if, on the other hand, obedience to the civil law +is morally indifferent, then more than ever is it impossible that this +should be the basis of the moral distinctions in question. A law can bind +us only in virtue of that which is necessarily, absolutely, or _per se_ +right; therefore the good is independent, also, of the will of God. The +absolutely good is an eternal truth which God does not create by an act of +his will, but which he finds present in his reason, and which, like the +other ideas, he impresses on created spirits. On the _a priori_ ideas +depends the possibility of science, for knowledge is the perception of +necessary truth. + +In agreement with Cudworth that the moral law is dependent neither on human +compact nor on the divine will, Samuel Clarke (died 1729) finds the eternal +principles of justice, goodness, and truth, which God observes in his +government of the universe, and which should also be the guide of human +action, embodied in the nature of things or in their properties, powers, +and relations, in virtue of which certain things, relations, and modes +of action are suited to one another, and others not. Morality is the +subjective conformity of conduct to this objective fitness of things; the +good is the fitting. Moral rules, to which we are bound by conscience and +by rational insight, are valid independently of the command of God and of +all hope or fear in reference to the life to come, although the principles +of religion furnish them an effective support, and one which is almost +indispensable in view of the weakness of human nature. They are not +universally observed, indeed, but universally acknowledged; even the +vicious man cannot refrain from praising virtue in others. He who is +induced by the voice of passion to act contrary to the eternal relations +or harmony of things, contradicts his own reason in thus undertaking to +disturb the order of the universe; he commits the absurdity of willing that +things should be that which they are not. Injustice is in practice that +which falsity and contradiction are in theoretical affairs. In his +well-known controversy with Leibnitz, Clarke defends the freedom of the +will against the determinism of the German philosopher. + +In William Wollaston (died 1724), with whom the logical point of view +becomes still more apparent, Clarke found a thinker who shared his +convictions that the subjective moral principle of interest was +insufficient, and, hence, an objective principle to be sought; that +morality consists in the suitableness of the action to the nature and +destination of the object, and that, in the last analysis, it is coincident +with truth. The highest destination of man is, on the one hand, to know the +truth, and, on the other, to express it in actions. That act is good whose +execution includes the affirmation (and its omission the negation) of a +truth. According to the law of nature, a rational being ought so to conduct +himself that he shall never contradict a truth by his actions, _i. e_., to +treat each thing for what it is. Every immoral action is a false judgment; +the violation of a contract is a practical denial of it. The man who is +cruel to animals declares by his act that the creature maltreated is +something which in fact it is not, a being devoid of feeling. The murderer +acts as though he were able to restore life to his victim. He who, in +disobedience toward God, deals with things in a way contrary to their +nature, behaves as though he were mightier than the author of nature. To +this equation of truth and morality happiness is added as a third identical +member. The truer the pleasures of a being the happier it is; and a +pleasure is untrue whenever more (of pain) is given for it than it is +worth. A rational being contradicts itself when it pursues an irrational +pleasure.--The course of moral philosophy has passed over the logical +ethics of Clarke and Wollaston as an abstract and unfruitful idiosyncrasy, +and it is certain that with both of these thinkers their plans were greater +than their performances. But the search for an ethical norm which should +be universally valid and superior to the individual will, did not lack +justification in contrast to the subjectivism of the other two schools of +the time--the school of interest and the school of benevolence, which made +virtue a matter of calculation or of feeling. + + * * * * * + +The English ethics of the period culminates in Shaftesbury (1671-1713), +who, reared on the principles of his grandfather's friend Locke, formed +his artistic sense on the models of classical antiquity, to recall to the +memory of his age the Greek ideal of a beautiful humanity. Philosophy, +as the knowledge of ourselves and that which is truly good, a guide to +morality and happiness; the world and virtue, a harmony; the good, the +beautiful as well; the whole, a controlling force in the particular--these +views, and his tasteful style of exposition, make Shaftesbury a modern +Greek; it is only his bitterness against Christianity which betrays the +son of the new era. Among the studies collected under the title +_Characteristics of Men, Manners, Opinions, Times_, 1711, the most +important are those on Enthusiasm, on Wit and Humor, on Virtue and Merit, +and the Moralists.[1] + +[Footnote 1: Georg v. Gizycki has written on Shaftesbury's philosophy, +1876. [Cf. Fowler's _Shaftesbury and Hutchison_, English Philosophers +Series, 1882.--TR.]] + +Shaftesbury's fundamental metaphysical concept is aesthetic: unity in +variety is for him the all-pervasive law of the world. In every case where +parts work in mutual dependence toward a common result, there rules a +central unity, uniting and animating the members. The lowest of these +substantial unities is the ego, the common source of our thoughts and +feelings. But as the parts of the organism are governed and held together +by the soul, so individuals are joined with one another into species and +genera by higher unities. Each individual being is a member in a system of +creatures, which a common nature binds together. Moreover, since order and +harmony are spread throughout the world, and no one thing exists out of +relation to all others and to the whole, the universe must be conceived +as animated by a formative power which works purposively; this all-ruling +unity is the soul of the world, the universal mind, the Deity. The finality +and beauty of those parts of the world which we can know justifies the +inference to a like constitution of those which are unapproachable, so that +we may be certain that the numerous evils which we find in the details, +work for the good of a system superior to them, and that all apparent +imperfections contribute to the perfection of the whole. As our philosopher +makes use of the idea of the world-harmony to support theism and the +theodicy, so, further, he derives the content of morality from it, thus +giving ethics a natural basis independent of self-interest and conventional +fancies. + +A being is good when its impulses toward the preservation and welfare of +the species is strong, and those directed to its own good not too strong. +The virtue of a rational being is distinguished from the goodness of +a merely "sensible creature" by the fact that man not only possesses +impulses, but reflects upon them, that he approves or disapproves his own +conduct and that of others, and thus makes his affections the object of a +higher, reflective, judging affection. This faculty of moral distinctions, +the sense for right and wrong, or, which amounts to the same thing, for +beauty and ugliness, is innate; we approve virtue and condemn vice by +nature, not as the result of a compact, and from this natural feeling for +good and evil exercise develops a cultivated moral taste or tact. And when, +further, the reason, by means of this faculty of judgment, gains control +over the passions, man becomes an ethical artist, a moral virtuoso. + +Virtue pleases by its own worth and beauty, not because of any external +advantage. We must not corrupt the love of the good for its own sake by +mixing with it the hope of future reward, which at the best is admissible +only as a counter-weight against evil passions. When Shaftesbury speaks of +future bliss, his highest conception of the heavenly life is uninterrupted +friendship, magnanimity, and nobility, as a continual rewarding of virtue +by new virtue. + +The good is the beautiful, and the beautiful is the harmonious, the +symmetrical; hence the essence of virtue consists in the balance of the +affections and passions. Of the three classes into which Shaftesbury +divides the passions, one, including the "unnatural" or unsocial +affections, as malevolence, envy, and cruelty, which aim neither at the +good of the individual nor that of others, is always and entirely evil. + +The two other classes, the social (or "natural") affections and the +"self-affections," may be virtuous or vicious, according to their degree, +_i. e_., according to the relation of their strength to that of the other +affections. In itself a benevolent impulse is never too strong; it +can become so only in comparison with self-love, or in respect to the +constitution of the individual in question, and conversely. Commonly the +social impulses do not attain the normal standard, while the selfish exceed +it; but the opposite case also occurs. Excessive parental tenderness, the +pity which enervates and makes useless for aid, religious zeal for making +converts, passionate partisanship, are examples of too violent social +affections which interfere with the activity of the other inclinations. +Just as erroneous, on the other side, is the neglect of one's own good. +For although the possession of selfish inclinations does not make a +man virtuous, yet the lack of them is a moral defect, since they are +indispensable to the general good. No one can be useful to others who +does not keep himself in a condition for service. The impulse to care for +private welfare is good and necessary in so far as it comports with the +general welfare or contributes to this. The due proportion between the +social passions, which constitute the direct source of good, and those of +self-love, consists in subordinating the latter to the former. The kinship +of this ethics of harmony with the ethical views of antiquity is evident. +It is completed by the eudemonistic conclusion of the system. + +As the harmony of impulses constitutes the essence of virtue, so also it is +the way to true happiness. Experience shows that unsocial, unsympathetic, +vicious men are miserable; that love to society is the richest source +of happiness; that even pity for the suffering of others occasions more +pleasure than pain. Virtue secures us the love and respect of others, +secures us, above all, the approval of our own conscience, and true +happiness consists in satisfaction with ourselves. The search after this +pure, constant, spiritual pleasure in the good, which is never accompanied +by satiety and disgust, should not be called self-seeking; he alone takes +pleasure in the good who is already good himself. + +Shaftesbury is not well disposed toward positive Christianity, holding that +it has made virtue mercenary by its promises of heavenly rewards, removed +moral questions entirely out of this world into the world to come, and +taught men most piously to torment one another out of pure supernatural +brotherly love. In opposition to such transcendental positions Shaftesbury, +a priest of the modern view of the world, gives virtue a home on earth, +seeks the hand of Providence in the present world, and teaches men to reach +faith in God by inspiring contemplation of the well-ordered universe. +Virtue without piety is possible, indeed, though not complete. But morality +is first and fixed, hence it is the condition and the criterion of genuine +religion. Revelation does not need to fear free rational criticism, for the +Scriptures are accredited by their contents. Besides reason, banter is +with Shaftesbury a second means for distinguishing the genuine from the +spurious: ridicule is the test of truth, and wit and humor the only +cure for enthusiasm. With these he scourges the over-pious as religious +parasites, who for safety's sake prefer to believe too much rather than too +little. + +Before Shaftesbury's theory of the moral sense and the disinterested +affections had gained adherents and developers, the danger, which indeed +had not always been escaped, that man might content himself with the +satisfaction of possessing noble impulses, without taking much care +to realize them in useful actions, called forth by way of reaction, a +paradoxical attempt at an apology for vice. Mandeville, a London physician +of French extraction, and born in Holland, had aroused attention by his +poem, _The Grumbling Hive; or Knaves Turned Honest_, 1706, and in response +to vehement attacks upon his work, had added a commentary to the second +edition, _The Fable of the Bees; or Private Vices Public Benefits_, 1714. +The moral of the fable is that the welfare of a society depends on the +industry of its members, and this, in turn, on their passions and vices. +Greed, extravagance, envy, ambition, and rivalry are the roots of +the acquisitive impulse, and contribute more to the public good than +benevolence and the control of desire. Virtue is good for the individual, +it is true, since it makes him contented with himself and acceptable to God +and man, but great states require stronger motives to labor and industry +in order to be prosperous. A people among whom frugality, self-denial, and +quietness of spirit were the rule would remain poor and ignorant. Besides +holding that virtue furthers the happiness of society, Shaftesbury makes a +second mistake in assuming that human nature includes unselfish +inclinations. It is not innate love and goodness that make us social, but +our passions and weaknesses (above all, fear); man is by nature +self-seeking. All actions, including the so-called virtues, spring from +vanity and egoism; thus it has always been, thus it is in every grade of +society. In social life, indeed, we dare not display all these desires +openly, nor satisfy them at will. Shrewd lawgivers have taught men to +conceal their natural passions and to limit them by artificial ones, +persuading them that renunciation is true happiness, on the ground that +through it we attain the supreme good--reputation among, and the esteem of +our fellows. Since then honor and shame have become the strongest motives +and have incited men to that which is called virtue, _i.e._, to actions +which apparently imply the sacrifice of selfish inclinations for the good +of society, while they are really done out of pride and self-love. By +constantly feigning noble sentiments before others man comes, finally, to +deceive himself, believing himself a being whose happiness consists in the +renunciation of self and all that is earthly, and in the thought of his +moral excellence.--The crass assumptions in Mandeville's reasoning are +evident at a glance. After analyzing virtue into the suppression of desire, +after labeling the impulse after moral approbation vanity, lawful self-love +egoism, and rational acquisitiveness avarice, it was easy for him to prove +that it is vice which makes the individual industrious and the state +prosperous, that virtue is seldom found, and that if it were universal it +would become injurious to society. + +With different shading and with less one-sidedness, Bolingbroke (cf. +p. 193) defended the standpoint of naturalism. God has created us for +happiness in common; we are destined to assist one another. Happiness is +attainable in society alone, and society cannot exist without justice and +benevolence. He who exercises virtue, _i.e._, promotes the good of the +species, promotes at the same time his own good. All actions spring from +self-love, which, guided at first by an immediate instinct, and later, by +reason developed through experience, extends itself over ever widening +spheres. We love ourselves in our relatives, in our friends, further still, +in our country, finally, in humanity, so that self-love and social love +coincide, and we are impelled to virtue by the combined motives of interest +and duty. This is an ethic of common sense from the standpoint of the +cultured man of the world--which at the proper time has the right, no +doubt, to gain itself a hearing. + +Meanwhile Shaftesbury's ideas had impressed Hutcheson and Butler, according +to the peculiarities of each. Both of these writers deem it necessary to +explain and correct the distinction between the selfish and the benevolent +affections by additions, which were of influence on the ethics of Hume; +both devote their zeal to the new doctrine of feelings of reflection or +moral taste, in which the former gives more prominence to the aesthetic, +merely judging factor, the latter to the active or mandatory one. + +Francis Hutcheson[1] (died 1747), professor at Glasgow, in his posthumous +_System of Moral Philosophy_, 1755, which had been preceded by an _Inquiry +concerning the Original of our Ideas of Beauty and Virtue_, 1725, pursues +the double aim of showing against Hobbes and Locke the originality and +disinterestedness both of benevolence and of moral approval. Virtue is not +exercised because it brings advantage to the agent, nor approved on account +of advantage to the observer. + +[Footnote 1: Cf. Fowler's treatise, cited above--TR.] + +(1) The benevolent affections are entirely independent of self-love and +regard for the rewards of God and of man, nay, independent even of the +lofty satisfaction afforded by self-approbation. This last, indeed, is +vouchsafed to us only when we seek the good of others without personal +aims: the joy of inward approval is the result of virtue, not the motive to +it. If love were in reality a concealed egoism, it would yield to control +in cases where it promises advantage, which, as experience shows, is not +the fact. Benevolence is entirely natural and as universal in the moral +world as gravitation in the corporeal; and like gravitation further in +that its intensity increases with propinquity--the nearer the persons, the +greater the love. Benevolence is more widespread than malevolence; even +the criminal does more innocent and kind acts in his life than criminal +ones--the rarity of the latter is the reason why so much is said about +them. + +(2) Moral judgment is also entirely uninfluenced by consideration of the +advantageous or disadvantageous results for the agent or the spectator. The +beauty of a good deed arouses immediate satisfaction. Through the moral +sense we feel pleasure at observing a virtuous action, and aversion when we +perceive an ignoble one, feelings which are independent of all thought of +the rewards and punishments promised by God, as well as of the utility or +harm for ourselves. Hutcheson argues a complete distinction between moral +approval and the perception of the agreeable and the useful, from the facts +that we judge a benevolent action which is forced, or done from motives of +personal advantage, quite differently from one inspired by love; that we +pay esteem to high-minded characters whether their fortunes be good or +ill; and that we are moved with equal force by fictitious actions, as, for +instance, on the stage, and by those which really take place. + +(3) A few further particulars may be emphasized from the comprehensive +systematization which Hutcheson industriously and thoughtfully gave to +Shaftesbury's ideas. Two points reveal the forerunner of Hume. First, the +role assigned to the reason in moral affairs is merely subsidiary. Our +motive to action is never the knowledge of a true proposition, but always +simply a wish, affection, or impulse. Ultimate ends are given by the +feelings alone; the reason can only discover the means thereto. Secondly, +the turbulent, blind, rapidly passing passions are distinguished from the +calm, permanent affections, which are mediated by cognition. The latter are +the nobler; among them, in turn, the highest place is occupied by those +conducive to the general good, whose worth is still further determined +by the extent of their objects. From this is derived the law that a kind +affection receives the more lively approval, the more calm and deliberate +it is, the higher the degree of happiness experienced by the object of the +action, and the greater the number of persons affected by it. Patriotism +and love of mankind in general are higher virtues than affection for +friends and children. As the goal of the self-regarding affections, +perfection makes its appearance--for the first time in English ethics--by +the side of happiness. + +Joseph Butler[1] (1692-1752; _Sermons on Human Nature_, 1726; cf. p. 194) +maintains still more strictly than Hutcheson the immediateness both of the +affections and the moral estimation of them. He declares that even the +self-regarding impulses as such are un-egoistic, and makes moral judgment +leave out of view all consequences, either foreseen or present, whereas his +predecessor had resolved the goodness of the action into its advantageous +effects (not for the agent and the spectator, but for its object and) for +society. The conscience--so Butler terms the moral sense--directly approves +or disapproves characters and actions in themselves, no matter what good or +ill they occasion in the world. We judge a mode of action good, not because +it is useful to society, but because it corresponds to the demands of the +conscience. This must be unconditionally obeyed, whatever be the issue. We +must not act contrary to truth and justice, even if it should seem to bring +about more happiness than misery.--Butler, too, furnishes material for the +ethics of Hume, by his revival of the separation, previously defended by +the Stoics, of desire and passion from self-love or interest. Self-love +desires a thing because it expects pleasure from it, but the natural +impulses impel us toward their objects immediately, _i. e_., without a +representation of the pleasure to be gained; and repetition is necessary +before the artificial motive of egoistic pleasure-seeking can be added to +the natural motive of inborn desire. Self-love always presupposes original, +immediate affections. + +[Footnote 1: Cf. Collins's _Butler_, Blackwood's Philosophical Classics. +1881.--TR.] + +The English moral science of the century is brought to a conclusion by Adam +Smith[1] (1723-90), the celebrated founder of political economy.[2] Smith +not only takes into consideration--like his greater friend, Hume--all the +problems proposed by his predecessors, but, further (in his _Theory of +Moral Sentiments_, 1759, published while he was professor at Glasgow), +combines the various attempts at their solution, not by eclectic +co-ordination but by working them over for himself, and arranges them on a +uniform principle, thus accomplishing a work which has not yet received +due recognition beyond the limits of his native land. He reached this +comprehensive moral principle by recognizing the full bearing of a thought +which Hume had incidentally expressed, that moral judgment depends on +participation in the feelings of the agent, and by following out with fine +psychological observation this sympathy of men into its first and last +manifestations. In this way a twofold kind of morality was revealed to him: +mere propriety of behavior and real merit in action. On the one hand, that +is, the sympathy of the spectator--as Hume has one-sidedly emphasized--is +directed to the utility of the consequences (or to the "merit") of the +action, and, on the other, to the fitness of the motives (or their +"propriety"). An action is proper when the impartial spectator is able to +sympathize with its motive, and meritorious if he can sympathize also with +its end or effect; _i.e._, if, in the first case, the feelings are suitable +to their objects (neither too strong nor too weak), and, in the second +case, the consequences of the act are advantageous to others. Merit = +propriety + utility. The main conclusion is this: Sympathy is that by +means of which virtue is recognized and approved, as well as that which is +approved as virtue; it is _ratio cognoscendi_ as well as _ratio essendi_, +the criterion as well as the source of morality. Thus Smith endeavors to +solve the two principal problems of English ethics--the criterion and the +origin of virtue--with a common answer. + +[Footnote 1: Cf. Farrer's _Adam Smith_, English Philosophers Series, +1880.--TR.] + +[Footnote 2: The epoch-making work, with which he called economic science +into existence, _The Wealth of Nations_\ appeared in 1776. Cf. Wilhelm +Hassbach, _Untersuchungen ueber Adam Smith_, Leipsic, 1891.] + +"Sympathy" denotes primarily nothing more than the innate and purely formal +power of imitating to a certain degree the feelings of others. From this +modest germ is developed by a progressive growth the wide-spreading tree of +morality: moral judgment, the moral imperative with its religious sanction, +and ethical character. Accordingly we may distinguish different stages +in the development of sympathy--the psychological stage of mere +fellow-feeling, the aesthetic stage of moral appreciation, the imperative +stage of moral precepts, which further on are construed as commands of +God (the famous Kantian definition of religion was announced in Glasgow +a generation earlier than in Koenigsberg), finally, the concluding stage +wherein these laws of duty are taken up into the disposition. Besides +these, there results from the mechanism of the sympathetic feelings a +series of phenomena, which, although they do not entirely conform to the +ethical standard, yet exercise a salutary effect on the permanence of +society; _e.g._, our exceptional judgment of the deeds of the great, the +rich, and the fortunate, as also the higher worth ascribed to good (and, +conversely, the greater guilt to bad) intentions when successfully carried +out into action, in comparison with those which fall short of their result. + +The first, the purely psychological stage, includes three cases. The +spectator sympathizes (1) with the feelings of the agent; (2) with the +gratitude or anger of the person affected by the action; (3) the person +observed sympathizes in return with the imitative and judging feelings of +the spectator. + +The fundamental laws of sympathy are as follows: We are roused to imitate +the feeling of another by the perception either of its signs (its natural +consequences or its natural expression in visible and audible motions), or +of its causes (the circumstances and experiences which occasion it), the +latter exercising a more potent influence than the former. The wooden leg +of the beggar is more effective in exciting our pity than his anxious air; +the sight of dental instruments is more eloquent than the plaints of +the sufferer from toothache. In order to be able to imitate vividly the +feelings of a person, we must know the causes of them.--The feeling of +the spectator is, on the average, less intense than that of the person +observed, so long as the latter does not control and repress his emotions +in view of the calmness of the former. The difference of intensity between +the original and the sympathetic feelings differs widely with the various +classes of emotions. It is difficult to take part in feelings which arise +from bodily conditions, but easy to share those in the production of which +the imagination is concerned--hence easier to share in hope and fear than +in pleasure and pain.--We sympathize more readily with feelings which are +agreeable to the observer, the observed, and other participants than with +such as are not so; more willingly, therefore, with cheerfulness, love, +benevolence than with grief, hatred, malevolence. This is not only true of +temporary affections, but especially of those general dispositions which +depend on a more or less happy situation in life; we sympathize more +vividly with the fortunes of the rich and noble, because we consider them +happier than the poor and lowly. Wealth and high rank are objects of +general desire chiefly because their possessor enjoys the advantage of +knowing that whatever gives him joy or sorrow always arouses similar +feelings in countless other men. The root of all ambition is the wish to +rule over the hearts of our fellows by compelling them to make our feelings +their own; the central nerve of all happiness consists in seeing our own +sensations shared by those about us and reflected back, as it were, from +manifold mirrors. Small annoyances often have a diverting effect on the +spectator; great success easily excites his envy; great sorrows and minor +joys, on the contrary, are always sure of our sympathy. Hence the morose +man, to whom everything is an occasion of ill-humor, is nowhere welcome, +and the man of cheerful disposition, who rejoices in each little event and +whose good spirits are contagious, everywhere. + +Not less admirable than the fine gift of observation which guides Smith in +his discovery of the primary manifestations and the laws of sympathy is the +skill with which he deduces moral phenomena, from the simplest to the +most complex--moral judgment, the moral law, its application to one's own +conduct, the conscience--from the interchange of sympathetic feelings. From +involuntary comparison of the representative feeling of the spectator with +its original in the person observed arises an agreeable or disagreeable +feeling of judgment, a judgment of value, approbating or rejecting the +latter. This is approving when the intensity of the original harmonizes +with that of the copy, disapproving when the former exceeds or fails to +attain the latter. In the one case the emotion is judged suitable to the +object which causes it; in the other, too violent or too weak. It is always +a certain mean of passion which, as "proper," receives approval (esteem, +love, or admiration). In the case of the social passions excess is more +readily condoned, in the case of the unsocial and selfish ones, defect; +hence we judge the over-sensitive more leniently than the over-vengeful. +Anger must be well-grounded and must express itself with great moderation +to arouse in the spectator a like degree of sympathetic resentment. For +here the sympathy of the spectator is divided between two parties, and +fellow-feeling with the angry one is weakened by fear for the person +menaced by him, whereas, in the case of kind affections, sympathy is +increased by doubling. While our judgment of propriety or decorum rests on +simple participation in the sentiments of the agent, our judgment of +merit and demerit is based, in addition, on sympathy with the feelings +of gratitude or resentment experienced by the person on whom the action +terminates. An act is meritorious if it appears to us to deserve thanks +and reward, ill-deserving if it seems to merit resentment and punishment. +Nature has inscribed on the heart, apart from all reflection on the utility +of punishment, an independent, immediate, and instinctive approbation of +the sacred law of retribution. This is the point at which a hitherto purely +contemplative sympathy passes over into an active impulse, which prepares +us to support the victim of attack and insult in his defense and revenge. + +This participation in the circumstances and feelings of others is a +reciprocal phenomenon. The spectator takes pains to share the sentiments of +the person observed; and the latter, on his part, endeavors to reduce the +emotions which move him to a degree which will render participation in them +possible for the former. In these reciprocal efforts we have the beginnings +of the two classes of virtues--the gentle, amiable virtues of sympathy +and sensibility, and the exalted, estimable virtues of self-denial and +self-command. Both of these conditions of mind, however, are considered +virtues only when they are manifested in unusual intensity: humanity is +a remarkably delicate fellow-feeling, greatness of soul a rare degree of +self-command. (The consideration for those about one which is ethically +demanded is given, moreover, to a certain extent involuntarily. The man +in trouble and the merry man alike restrain themselves in the company of +persons who are indifferent, or in an opposite mood, while they give rein +to their emotions when with those similarly affected. Joy is enhanced by +sympathy, and grief mitigated.) Thus the perfection of human nature and the +divinely willed harmony among the feelings of men are dependent on every +man feeling little for himself and much for others; on his holding his +selfish inclinations in check and giving free course to his benevolent +ones. This is the injunction of Christianity as well as of nature. And +as, on the one hand, the content of the moral law is thus deduced from +sympathy, so, on the other, this yields the formal criterion of good: +Look upon thy sentiments and actions in the light in which the impartial +spectator would see them. Conscience is the spectator taken up into our own +breast. It remains to consider the origin of this third, imperative stage. + +From daily experience of the fact that we judge the conduct of others, and +they ours, and from the wish to gain their approval, arises the habit of +subjecting our own actions to criticism. We learn to look at ourselves +through the eyes of others, we assign the spectator and judge a place in +our own heart, we make his calm objective judgment our own, and hear the +man within calling to us: Thou art responsible for thy acts and intentions. +In this way we are placed in a position to overcome two great delusions, +one of passion, which overestimates the present at the expense of the +future, and one of self-love, which overestimates the individual at the +expense of other men; delusions from which the impartial spectator is free, +for the pleasure of the moment seems to him no more desirable than pleasure +to come, and one person is just the same to him as another. Through +comparison of like cases in the exercise of self-examination certain rules +or principles are formed concerning what is right and good. Reverence for +these general rules of living is called the sense of duty. The last step in +the process consists in our enhancement of the binding authority of moral +rules by looking on them as commands of God. Here Smith adds subtle +discussions of the question, in what cases actions ought to be done simply +out of regard for these abstract maxims, and in what others we welcome the +co-operation of a natural impulse or passion. We ought to be angry and to +punish with reluctance, merely because reason enjoins it, but, on the other +hand, we should be benevolent and grateful from affection; she is not a +model wife who performs her duties merely from a sense of duty, and not +from inclination also. Further, in all cases where the rules cannot be +formulated with perfect exactness and definiteness (as they can in the case +of justice), and are not absolutely valid without exception, reverence for +them must be assisted by a natural taste for modifying and supplementing +the general maxims to suit particular instances. + +In this sketch of the course of Smith's moral philosophy much that is fine +and much that is of importance has of necessity been passed over--his +excellent analysis of the relations of benevolence and justice, and +numerous descriptions of traits of character, _e. g_., his ingenious +parallel between pride and vanity. We may briefly mention, in conclusion, +his observations on the irregularities of moral judgment. Prosperity and +success exert an influence on this, which, though hurtful to its purity, +must, on the whole, be considered advantageous to mankind. Our lenience +toward the defects of princes, the great, and the rich, and our over-praise +for their excellent qualities are, from the moral standpoint, an injustice, +but one which has this advantage, that it encourages ambition and industry, +and maintains social distinctions intact, which without loyalty and respect +toward superiors would be broken down. For most men the road to fortune +coincides with the path to virtue. Again, it is a beneficent provision of +nature that we put a higher estimate on a successfully executed act of +benevolence, and reward it more, than a kind intention which fails of +execution; that we judge and punish the purposed crime which is not carried +out more leniently than the one which is completed; that we even ascribe +a certain degree of accountability to an unintentional act of good or +evil--although in these cases the moralist is compelled to see an ethically +unjustifiable corruption of the judgment by external success or failure +beyond the control of the agent. The first of these irregularities does +not allow the man of good intentions to content himself with noble desires +merely, but spurs him on to greater endeavors to carry them out--man +is created for action; the second protects us from the inquisitorial +questioning of motives, for it is easy for the most innocent to fall under +grave suspicion. To this inconsistency of feeling we owe the necessary +legal principle that deeds only, not intentions, are punishable. God +has reserved for himself judgment concerning dispositions. The third +irregularity, that he who inflicts unintentional injury is not guilty, even +in his own eyes, but yet seems bound to make atonement and reparation, +is useful in so far as it warns everyone to be prudent, while the +corresponding illusion, in virtue of which we are grateful to an +involuntary benefactor--for instance, the bearer of good tidings--and +reward him, is at least not harmful, for any reason appears sufficient for +the bestowal of kind intentions and actions. + +It is impossible to explain in brief the relation of Smith's ethical +theory to his political economy. His merit in the former consists in his +comprehensive and characteristic combination of the results reached by his +predecessors, and in his preparation for Kantian views, so far as this +was possible from the empirical standpoint of the English. His impartial +spectator was the forerunner of the categorical imperative. + +English ethics after Smith may, almost without exception, be termed +eclecticism. This is true of Ferguson _(Institutes of Moral Philosophy_, +1769); of Paley (1785); of the Scottish School (Dugald Stewart, 1793). +Bentham's utilitarianism was the first to bring in a new phase. + + +%4. Theory of Knowledge.% + +(a) %Berkeley%.--George Berkeley, a native of Ireland, Bishop of Cloyne +(1685-1753; _An Essay toward a New Theory of Vision_, 1709; _A Treatise +concerning the Principles of Human Knowledge_, 1710; _Three Dialogues +between Hylas and Philonous_, 1713; _Alciphron, or the Minute Philosopher_, +1732, against the freethinkers; _Works_, 1784. Fraser's edition of the +Collected Works appeared in 1871, in four volumes),[1] is related to Locke +as Spinoza to Descartes. He notices blemishes and contradictions allowed by +his predecessor to remain, and, recognizing that the difficulty is not to +be remedied by minor corrections and artificial hypotheses, goes back to +the fundamental principles, takes these more earnestly than their author, +and, by carrying them out more strictly, arrives at a new view of the +world. The points in Locke's doctrines which invited a further advance were +the following: Locke proclaims that our knowledge extends no further +than our ideas, and that truth consists in the agreement of ideas among +themselves, not in the agreement of ideas with things. But this principle +had scarcely been announced before it was violated. In spite of his +limitation of knowledge to ideas, Locke maintains that we know (if not the +inner constitution, yet) the qualities and powers of things without us, and +have a "sensitive" certainty of their existence. Against this, it is to be +said that there are no primary qualities, that is, qualities which exist +without as well as within us. Extension, motion, solidity, which are cited +as such, are just as purely subjective states in us as color, heat, and +sweetness. Impenetrability is nothing more than the feeling of resistance, +an idea, therefore, which self-evidently can be nowhere else than in the +mind experiencing it. Extension, size, distance, and motion are not even +sensations (we see colors only, not quantitative determinations), but +relations which we in thinking add to the sense-qualities (secondary +qualities), and which we are not able to represent apart from them; their +relativity alone would forbid us to consider them objective. And material +substances, the "support" of qualities invented by the philosophers, are +not only unknown, but entirely non-existent. Abstract matter is a phrase +without meaning, and individual things are collections of ideas in us, +nothing more. If we take away all sense-qualities from a thing, absolutely +nothing remains. Our ideas are not merely the only; objects of knowledge, +but also the only existing things--_nothing exists except minds and +their ideas_. Spirits alone are active beings, they only are indivisible +substances, and have real existence, while the being of bodies (as +dependent, inert, variable beings, which are in a constant process of +becoming) consists alone in their appearance to spirits and their being +perceived by them. Incogitative, hence passive, beings are neither +substances, nor capable of producing ideas in us. Those ideas which we do +not ourselves produce are the effects of a spirit which is mightier than +we. With this a second inconsistency was removed which had been overlooked +by Locke, who had ascribed active power to spirits alone and denied it to +matter, but at the same time had made the former affected by the latter. If +external sense is to mean the capacity for having ideas occasioned by the +action of external material things, then there is no external sense. A +third point wherein Locke had not gone far enough for his successor, +concerned the favorite English doctrine of nominalism. Locke, with his +predecessors, had maintained that all reality is individual, and that +universals exist only in the abstracting understanding. From this point +Berkeley advances a step further, the last, indeed, which was possible in +this direction, by bringing into question the possibility even of abstract +ideas. As all beings are particular things, so all ideas are particular +ideas. + +[Footnote 1: Cf. also Fraser's _Berkeley_ (Blackwood's Philosophical +Classics) 1881; Eraser's _Selections from Berkeley_, 4th ed., 1891; and +Krauth's edition of the _Principles_, 1874, with notes from several +sources, especially those translated from Ueberweg.--TR.] + +Berkeley looks on the refutation of these two fundamental mistakes--the +assumption of general ideas in the mind, and the belief in the existence +of a material world outside it--as his life work, holding them the chief +sources of atheism, doubt, and philosophical discord. The first of these +errors arises from the use of language. Because we employ words which +denote more than one object, we have believed ourselves warranted in +concluding that we have ideas which correspond to the extension of the +words in question, and which contain only those characteristics which are +uniformly found in all objects so named. This, however, is not the case.[1] +We speak of many things which we cannot represent: names do not always +stand for ideas. The definition of the word triangle as a three-sided +figure bounded by straight lines, makes demands upon us which our faculties +of imagination are never fully able to meet; for the triangle that we +represent to ourselves is always either right-angled or oblique-angled, and +not--as we must demand from the abstract conception of the figure--both and +neither at once. The name "man" includes men and women, children and the +aged, but we are never able to represent a man except as an individual of a +definite age and sex. Nevertheless we are in a position to make a safe +use of these non-presentative but useful abbreviations, and by means of a +particular idea to develop truths of wider application. This takes place +when, in the demonstration, those qualities are not considered which +distinguish the idea from others with a like name. In this case the +given idea stands for all others which are known by the same name; the +representative idea is not universal, but serves as such. Thus when I have +demonstrated the proposition, the sum of all the angles of a triangle is +equal to two right angles, for a given triangle, I do not need to prove +it for every triangle thereafter. For not only the color and size of the +triangle are indifferent, but its other peculiarities as well; the question +whether it is right-angled or obtuse-angled, whether it has equal +sides, whether it has equal or unequal angles, is not mentioned in the +demonstration, and has no influence upon it. _Abstracta_ exist only in this +sense. In considering the individual Paul I can attend exclusively to those +characteristics which he has in common with all men or with all living +beings, but it is impossible for me to represent this complex of common +qualities apart from his individual peculiarities. Self-observation shows +that we have no general concepts; reason, that we can have none, for the +combination of opposite elements in one idea would be a contradiction in +terms. Motion in general, neither swift nor slow, extension in general, +at once great and small, abstract matter without sensuous +determinations--these can neither exist nor be perceived. + +[Footnote 1: Against the Berkeleyan denial of abstract notions the popular +philosopher, Joh. Jak. Engel, directed an essay, _Ueber die Realitaet +allgemeiner Begriffe_ (Engel's _Schriften_, vol. x.), to which attention +has been called by O. Liebmann, _Analysis tier Wirklichkeit_, 2d ed., p. +473.] + +The "materialistic" hypothesis--so Berkeley terms the assumption that a +material world exists apart from perceiving mind, and independently of +being perceived--is, first, unnecessary, for the facts which it is to +explain can be explained as well, or even better, without it; and, second, +false, since it is a contradiction to suppose that an object can exist +unperceived, and that a sensation or idea is the copy of anything itself +not a sensation or idea. Ideas are the only objects of the understanding. +Sensible qualities (white, sweet) are subjective states of the soul; sense +objects (sugar), sensation-complexes. If sensations need a substantial +support, this is the soul which perceives them, not an external thing which +can neither perceive nor be perceived. Single ideas, and those combined +into objects, can exist nowhere else than in the mind; the being of sense +objects consists in their being perceived (_esse est percipi_). I see light +and feel heat, and combine these sensations of sight and touch into the +substance fire, because I know from experience that they constantly +accompany and suggest each other.[1] The assumption of an "object" apart +from the idea is as useless as its existence would be. Why should God +create a world of real things without the mind, when these can neither +enter into the mind, nor (because unperceived) be copied by its ideas, nor +(because they themselves lack perception and power) produce ideas in it? +Ideas signify nothing but themselves, _i. e_., affections of the subject. + +[Footnote 1: The fire that I see is not the cause of the pain which I +experience in approaching it, but the visual image of the flame is only a +sign which warns me not to go too near. If I look through a microscope +I see a different object from the one perceived with the naked eye. Two +persons never see the same object, they merely have like sensations.] + +The further question arises, What is the origin of ideas? Men have been led +into this erroneous belief in the reality of the material world by the +fact that certain ideas are not subject to our will, while others are. +Sensations are distinguished from the ideas of imagination, which we can +excite and alter at pleasure, by their greater strength, liveliness, and +distinctness, by their steadiness, regular order, and coherence, and by +the fact that they arise without our aid and whether we will or no. Unless +these ideas are self-originated they must have an external cause. This, +however, can be nothing else than a willing, thinking Being; for without +will it could not be active and act upon me, and without ideas of its own +it could not communicate ideas to me. Because of the manifoldness and +regularity of our sensations the Being which produces them must, further, +possess infinite power and intelligence. The ideas of imagination are +produced by ourselves, real perceptions are produced by God. The connected +whole of divinely produced ideas we call nature, and the constant +regularity in their succession, the laws of nature. The invariableness of +the divine working and the purposive harmony of creation reveal the wisdom +and goodness of the Almighty more clearly than "astonishing and exceptional +events." When we hear a man speak we reason from this activity to his +existence. How much less are we entitled to doubt the existence of God, who +speaks to us in the thousandfold works of nature. + +The natural or created ideas which God impresses on us are copies of +the eternal ideas which he himself perceives, not, indeed, by passive +sensation, but through his creative reason. Accordingly when it was +maintained that things do not exist independently of perception, the +reference was not to the individual spirit, but to all spirits. When I +turn my eyes away from an object it continues to exist, indeed, after +my perception has ended--in the minds of other men and in that of the +Omnipresent One. The pantheistic conclusion of these principles, in the +sense of Geulincx and Malebranche,[1] which one expects, was really +suggested by Berkeley. Everything exists only in virtue of its +participation in the one, permanent, all-comprehensive spirit; individual +spirits are of the same nature with the universal reason, only they are +less perfect, limited, and not pure activity, while God is passionless +intelligence. But if, in the last analysis, God is the cause of all, this +does not hold of the free actions of men, least of all of wicked ones. The +freedom of the will must not be rejected because of the contradictions +which its acceptance involves; motion, also, and mathematical infinity +imply incomprehensible elements. In the philosophy of nature Berkeley +prefers the teleological to the mechanical view, since the latter is able +to discover the laws of phenomena only, but not their efficient and +final causes. Sense and experience acquaint us merely with the course +of phenomenal effects; the reason, which opens up to us the realm of +causation, of the spiritual, is the only sure guide to science and truth. +The understanding does not feel, the senses do not know. We have no +(sensuous) idea of other spirits, but only a notion of them; instead of +themselves we perceive their activities merely, from which we argue +to souls like ourselves, while we know our own mind by immediate +self-consciousness.[2] + +[Footnote 1: The example of Arthur Collier shows that the same results +which Berkeley reaches empirically can be obtained from the standpoint of +rationalism. Following Malebranche, and developing further the idealistic +tendencies of the latter, Collier had, independently of Berkeley, conceived +the doctrine of the "non-existence or impossibility of an external world "; +but had not worked it out in his _Clavis Universalis_, 1713, until after +the appearance of Berkeley's chief work, and not without consideration of +this. The general point of view and the arguments are the same: Existence +is equivalent to being perceived by God; the creation of a real world of +matter apart from the ideal world in God and from sensuous perceptions in +us would have been a superfluous device, etc.] + + +[Footnote 2: It should be remembered, however, that this immediate +knowledge of ourselves is also "not after the manner of an idea or +sensation." Our knowledge of spirits is always mediated by "notions" not by +"ideas" in the strict sense, that is, not by "images." Cf. _Principles_, +Sec.Sec. 27, 135 _seq_., especially in the second edition.--TR.] + +In contrast to the fearlessness with which Berkeley propounds his +spiritualism, his anxious endeavors to take away the appearance of paradox +from his immaterialistic doctrine, and to show its complete agreement with +common sense, excite surprise. Even the common man, he argues, desires +nothing more than that his perceptions be real; the distinction between +idea and object is an invention of philosophers. Here Berkeley cannot be +acquitted of a certain sophistical play upon the term "idea," which, in +fact, is ambiguous. He understands by it _that which_ the soul perceives +(its immediate, inner object), but the popular mind, _that through which_ +the soul perceives an object. The reality of an idea in us is different +from the idea of a real thing, or from the reality of that which is +perceived without us by means of the idea, and it is just this last meaning +which common sense affirms and Berkeley denies. In any case it was a work +of great merit to have transferred the existence of objects beyond our +ideas, of things-in-themselves, out of the region of the self-evident into +the region of the problematical. We never get beyond the circle of our +ideas, and if we posit a thing-in-itself as the ground and object of the +idea, this also is simply a thought, an idea. For us there is no being +except that of the perceiver and the perceived. Later we shall meet two +other forms of idealism, in Leibnitz and Fichte. Both of these agree with +Berkeley that spiritual beings alone are active, and active beings alone +real, and that the being of the inactive consists in their being perceived. +But while in Berkeley the objective ideas are impressed upon finite spirits +by the Infinite Spirit from without and singly, with Leibnitz they appear +as a fullness of germs, which God implanted together in the monads at the +beginning, and which the individual develops into consciousness, and with +Fichte they become the unconscious productions of the Absolute Ego acting +in the individual egos. For the two former as many worlds exist as there +are individual spirits, their harmony being guaranteed, in the one case, by +the consistency of God's working, and, in the other, by his foresight. For +Fichte, on the other hand, there is but one world, for the absolute is not +outside the individual spirits, but the uniformly working force within +them. + +(b) Hume.--David Hume was born in Edinburgh in 1711, and died in the same +city, 1776. His position as librarian, which he held in the place of +his birth, 1752-57, gave the opportunity for his _History of England_( +1754-62). His chief work, the _Treatise on Human Nature_, which, however, +found few readers, was composed during his first residence in France in +1734-37. Later he worked over the first book of this work into his +_Enquiry concerning Human Understanding_ (1748); the second book into _A +Dissertation on the Passions_; and the third _into An Enquiry concerning +the Principles of Morals_. These, and others of his essays, found so much +favor that, during his second sojourn in France, as secretary to Lord +Hertford, in 1763-66, he was already honored as a philosopher of world-wide +renown. Then, after serving for some time as Under-Secretary of State, he +retired to private life at home (1769). + +The three books of the _Treatise on Human Nature_, which appeared in +1739-40, are entitled _Of the Understanding, Of the Passions, Of Morals_. +Of the five volumes of the Essays, the first contains the _Essays Moral, +Political, and Literary_, 1741-42; the second, the _Enquiry concerning +Human Understanding_, 1748; the third, the _Enquiry concerning the +Principles of Morals_, 1751; the fourth, the _Political Discourses_, 1752; +the fifth, 1757, the _Four Dissertations_, including that _On the Passions_ +and the _Natural History of Religion_. After Hume's death appeared the +_Autobiography_, 1777; the _Dialogues concerning Natural Religion_, 1779; +and the two small essays on _Suicide_ and the _Immortality of the Soul_, +1783.[1] The _Philosophical Works_ were published in 1827, and frequently +afterward.[2] + +[Footnote 1: Or 1777, cf. Green and Grose's edition, vol. iii. p. 67 +_seq_.--Tr.] + +[Footnote 2: Among the works on Hume we may mention Jodl's prize treatise, +1872, and Huxley's _Hume_ (English Men of Letters), 1879. [The reader may +be referred also to Knight's _Hume_ (Blackwood's Philosophical Classics), +1886; to T.H. Green's "Introductions" in Green and Grose's edition of the +collected works in four volumes, 1874 (new ed. 1889-90), which is now +standard; and to Selby-Bigge's reprint of the original edition of the +_Treatise_, I vol., 1888, with a valuable Analytical Index.]] + +Hume's object, like that of Berkeley, is the improvement of Locke's +doctrine of knowledge. In several respects he does not go so far as +Berkeley, in others very much farther. In agreement with Berkeley's +ultra-nominalism, which combats even the possibility of abstract ideas, he +yet does not follow him to the extent of denying external reality. On the +other hand, he carries out more consistently Berkeley's hint that immediate +sensation includes less than is ascribed to it (_e.g._, that by vision +we perceive colors only, and not distance, etc.), as well as his +principle--destructive to the certainty of our knowledge of nature--that +there is no causality among phenomena; and brings the question of substance +to, the negative conclusion, that there is no need whatever for a support +for groups of qualities, and, therefore, that substantiality is to be +denied to immaterial as well as to material beings. The points in Locke's +philosophy which seemed to Hume to need completion were different from +those at which Berkeley had struck in. The antithesis of rational and +empirical knowledge is more sharply conceived; the combination of ideas is +not left to the choice of the understanding but placed under the dominion +of psychological laws; and to the distinction between outer and inner +experience (to the former of which priority is conceded, on the ground that +we must have had an external sensation before we can, through reflection, +be conscious of it as an internal phenomenon), there is added a second, as +important as the other and crossing it, between impressions and ideas, of +which the former are likewise made prior to the latter. + +Everyone will acknowledge the considerable difference between a sensation +actually present (of heat, for instance) and the mere idea of one +previously experienced, or shortly to come. This consists in the greater +force, liveliness, and vividness of the former. Although these two classes +of states (the idea of a landscape described by a poet and the perception +of a real one, anger and the thought of anger) are only quantitatively +distinct, they are scarcely ever in danger of being confused--the most +lively idea is always less so than the weakest perception. The actual, +outer or inner, sensations may be termed impressions; the weaker images of +memory or imagination, which they leave behind them, ideas. Since nothing +can gain entrance to the soul except through the two portals of outer and +inner experience, there is no idea which has not arisen from an impression +or several such; every idea is the image and copy of an impression. But +as the understanding and imagination variously combine, separate, and +transpose the elements furnished by the senses and lingering in memory, the +possibility of error arises. A hidden, and, therefore more dangerous source +of error consists in the reference of an idea to a different impression +than the one of which it is the copy. The concepts substance and causality +are examples of such false reference. + +The combination of ideas takes place without freedom, in a purely +mechanical, way according to fixed rules, which in the last analysis +reduce to three fundamental laws of association: Ideas are associated +(1) according to their resemblance and contrast; (2) according to their +contiguity in space and time; (3) according to their causal connection. +Mathematics is based on the operation of the first of these laws, on +the immediate or mediate knowledge of the resemblance, contrariety, and +quantitative relations of ideas; the descriptive and experimental part of +the sciences of nature and of man on the second; religion, metaphysics, and +that part of physical and moral science which goes beyond mere observation +on the third. The theory of knowledge has to determine the boundaries of +human understanding and the degree of credibility to which these sciences +are entitled. + +The objects of human thought and inquiry are either relations of ideas or +matters of fact. To the former class belong the objects of mathematics, the +truths of which, since they are analytic (_i. e_., merely explicate in the +predicate the characteristics already contained in the subject, and add +nothing new to this), and since they concern possible relations only, +not reality, possess intuitive or demonstrative certainty. It is only +propositions concerning quantity and number that are discoverable _a +priori_ by the mere operation of thought, without dependence on real +existence, and that can be proved from the impossibility of their +opposites--mathematics is the only demonstrative science. + +We reach certainty in matters of fact by direct perception, or by +inferences from other facts, when they transcend the testimony of our +senses and memory. These arguments from experience are of an entirely +different sort from the rational demonstrations of mathematics; as the +contrary of a fact is always thinkable (the proposition that the sun will +not rise to-morrow implies no logical contradiction), they yield, strictly +speaking, probability only, no matter how strong our conviction of their +accuracy may be. Nevertheless it is advisable to separate this species of +inferences from experience--whose certainty is not doubted except by the +philosophers--from uncertain probabilities, as a class intermediate between +the latter and demonstrative truth (demonstrations--proofs--probabilities). +All reasonings concerning matters of fact are based on the relation of +cause and effect. Whence, then, do we obtain the knowledge of cause and +effect? Not by _a priori_ thought. Pure reason is able only to analyze +concepts into their elements, not to connect new predicates with them. All +its judgments are analytic, while synthetic judgments rest on experience. +Judgments concerning causation belong in this latter class, for effects are +entirely distinct from causes; the effect is not contained in the cause, +nor the latter in the former. In the case of a phenomenon previously +unknown we cannot tell from what causes it has proceeded, nor what +its effect will be. We argue that fire will warm us, and bread afford +nourishment, because we have often perceived these causal pairs closely +connected in space and time. But even experience does not vouchsafe all +that we desire. It shows nothing more than the coexistence and succession +of phenomena and events; while the judgment itself, _e. g_., that the +motion of one body stands in causal connection with that of another, +asserts more than mere contiguity in space and time, it affirms not merely +that the one precedes the other, but that it produces it--not merely that +the second follows the first, but that it results from it. The bond which +connects the two events, the force that puts forth the second from the +first, the necessary connection between the two is not perceived, but added +to perception by thought, construed into it.[1] What, then, is the occasion +and what the warrant for transforming perceived succession in time into +causal succession, for substituting _must_ for _is_, for interpreting the +observed connection of fact into a necessary connection which always eludes +observation? + +[Footnote 1: The weakness of the concept of cause had been recognized +before Hume by the skeptic, J. Glanvil (1636-80). Causality itself cannot +be perceived; we infer it from the constant succession of two phenomena, +without being able to show warrant for the transformation of _thereafter_ +into _thereby_.] + +We do not causally connect every chance pair of successive events, but +those only which have been repeatedly observed together. The wonder is, +then, that through oft-repeated observation of certain objects we come to +believe that we know something about the behavior of other like objects, +and the further behavior of these same ones. From the fact that I have seen +a given apple fall ten times to the ground, I infer that all the apples in +the world do the same when loosened, instead of flying upward, which, in +itself, is quite as thinkable; I infer further that this has always +been the case, and will continue to be so to all eternity. Where is the +intermediate link between the proposition, "I have found that such an +object has always been attended with such an effect," and this other, "I +foresee that other objects which are, in appearance, similar, will be +attended with similar effects"? This postulate, that the future will be +like the past, and that like causes will have like effects, rests on a +purely psychological basis. In virtue of the laws of association the sight +of an object or event vividly recalls the image of a second, often observed +in connection with the former, and leads us involuntarily to expect its +appearance anew. The idea of causal connection is based on feeling (the +feeling of inner determination to pass from one idea to a second), not upon +insight; it is a product of the imagination, not of the understanding. From +the habitual perception of two events in connection (sunshine and heat) +arises the mental determination to think of the second when we perceive the +first, and, anticipating the senses, to count on its appearance. It is now +possible to state of what impression the idea of the causal nexus is the +copy: the impression on which it is based is the habitual transition from +the idea of a thing to its customary attendant. Hence the idea of causality +has a purely subjective significance, not the objective one which we +ascribe to it. It is impossible to determine whether there is a real +necessity of becoming corresponding to the felt necessity of thought. +In life we never doubt the fact, but for science our conviction of the +uniformity of nature remains a merely probable (though a very highly +probable) conviction. Complete certainty is vouchsafed only by rational +demonstration and immediate experience. The necessary bond which we +postulate between cause and effect can neither be demonstrated nor felt. + +If all experiential reasonings depend on the idea of causality, and this +has no other support than subjective mental habit, it follows that all +knowledge of nature which goes beyond mere observed fact is not knowledge +(neither demonstrative knowledge nor knowledge of fact), but belief.[1] The +probability of our belief in the regularity of natural phenomena increases, +indeed, with every new verification of the assumptions based thereon; but, +as has been shown, it never rises to absolute certainty. Nevertheless +inferences from experience are trustworthy and entirely sufficient for +practical life, and the aim of the above skeptical deliverances was not +to shake belief--only a fool or a lunatic can doubt in earnest the +immutability of nature--but only to make it clear that it is mere belief, +and not, as hitherto held, demonstrative or factual knowledge. Our doubt +is intended to define the boundary between knowledge and belief, and to +destroy that absolute confidence which is a hindrance rather than a help to +investigation. We should recognize it as a wise provision of nature that +the regulation of our thoughts and the belief in the objective validity +of our anticipation of future events have not been confided to the weak, +inconstant, inert, and fallacious reason, but to a powerful instinct. In +life and action we are governed by this natural impulse, in spite of all +the scruples of the skeptical reason. + +[Footnote 1: Hume distinguishes belief as a form of knowledge from +religious faith, both in fact and in name. In the _Treatise_--the passage +is wanting in the _Enquiry_--our conviction of the external existence of +the objects of perception is also ascribed to the former, which later +formed Jacobi's point of departure. Religious faith is referred to +revelation.] + +In Hume's earlier work his destructive critique of the idea of cause +is accompanied by a deliverance in a similar strain on the concept of +substance, which is not included in the shorter revision. Substances are +not perceived through impressions, but only qualities and powers. The +unknown something which is supposed to have qualities, or in which these +are supposed to inhere, is an unnecessary fiction of the imagination. A +permanent similarity of attributes by no means requires a self-identical +support for these. A thing is nothing more than a collection of qualities, +to which we give a special name because they are always found together. The +idea of substance, like the idea of cause, is founded in a subjective habit +which we erroneously objectify. The impression from which it has arisen +is our inner perception that our thought remains constant in the repeated +experience of the same group of qualities (whenever I see sugar, _I do the +same thing_, that is, I combine the qualities white color, sweet taste, +hardness, etc., with one another), or the impression of a uniform +combination of ideas. The idea of substance becomes erroneous through the +fact that we refer it not to the inner activity of representation, to which +it rightly belongs, but to the external group of qualities, and make it +a real, permanent substratum for the latter. Mental substances disappear +along with material substances. The soul or mind is, in reality, nothing +more than the sum of our inner states, a collection of ideas which flow +on in a continuous and regular stream; it is like a stage, across which +feelings, perceptions, thoughts, and volitions are passing while it does +not itself come into sight. A permanent self or ego, as a substratum of +ideas, is not perceived; there is no invariable, permanent impression. That +which leads to the assumption of personal identity is only the frequent +repetition of similar trains of ideas, and the gradual succession of +our ideas, which is easily confused with constancy. Thus robbed of its +substantiality, the soul has no further claims to immateriality and +immortality, and suicide ceases to be a crime.[1] + +[Footnote 1: Cf. the essays on _Suicide_ and the _Immortality of the Soul_, +1783, whose authorship by Hume, however, is not absolutely established [of. +Green and Grose, as above, p. 221, note first.--TR.]] + +Is Hume roundly to be called a skeptic? [1] He never impugned the validity +of mathematical reasonings, nor experimental truths concerning matters of +fact; in regard to the former his thought is rationalistic, in regard to +the latter it is empirical or, more accurately, sensationalistic. His +attitude toward the empirical sciences of nature and of mind is that of a +semi-skeptic or probabilist, in so far as they go beyond the establishment +of facts to the proof of connections under law and to inferences concerning +the future. Habit is for him a safe guide for life, although it does not go +beyond probabilities; absolute knowledge is unattainable for us, but +not indispensable. Toward metaphysics, as an alleged science of the +suprasensible, he takes up an entirely negative attitude. If an argument +from experience is to be assured of merely that degree of probability which +is sufficient for belief, it must not only have a well-established fact (an +impression or memory-image) for its starting point, but, together with its +conclusion, it must keep within the limits of possible experience. The +limits of possible experience are also the limits of the knowable; +inferences to the continued existence of the soul after death and to the +being of God are vain sophistry and illusion. According to the famous +conclusion of the _Essay_, all volumes which contain anything other than +"abstract reasonings concerning quantity or number" or "experimental +reasonings concerning matter of fact and existence" deserve to be committed +to the flames. In view of this limitation of knowledge to that which is +capable of exact measurement and that which is present in experience, as +well of the principle that the elements added by thought are to be +sharply distinguished from the positively given (the immediate facts of +perception), we must agree with those who call Hume the father of modern +positivism.[2] + +[Footnote 1: In the _Essay_, Hume describes his own standpoint as mitigated +or academical skepticism in antithesis to the Cartesian, which from doubt +and through doubt hopes to reach the indubitable, and to the excessive +skepticism of Pyrrhonism, which cripples the impulse to inquiry. This +moderate skepticism asks us only, after resisting the tendency to +unreflecting conclusions, to make a duty of deliberation and caution in +judging, and to restrain inquiry within those fields which are accessible +to our knowledge, _i.e._, the fields of mathematics and empirical fact. In +the _Treatise_ Hume had favored a sharper skepticism and extended his doubt +more widely, _e.g._, even to the trustworthiness of geometry. Cf. on this +point Ed. Grimm, _Zur Geschichte des Erkenntnissproblems_, 1890, p, 559 +_seq_.] + +[Footnote 2: So Volkelt, _Erfahrung und Denken_, 1886, p. 105.] + + * * * * * + +As a philosopher of religion Hume is the finisher and destroyer of deism. +Of the three principles of the deists--religion, its origin and its truth +are objects of scientific investigation; religion has its origin in the +reason and the consciousness of duty; natural religion is the oldest, the +positive religions are degenerate or revived forms of natural religion--he +accepts the first, while rejecting the other two. Religion may correspond +to reason or contradict it, but not proceed from it. Religion has its basis +in human nature, yet not in its rational but its sensuous side; not in +the speculative desire for knowledge, but in practical needs; not in the +contemplation of nature, but in looking forward with fear or joy to the +changing events of human life. Anxiety and hope concerning future events +lead us to posit unseen powers as directing our destiny, and to seek their +favor. The capriciousness of fortune points to a plurality of gods; +the tendency to conceive all things like ourselves gives them human +characteristics; the powerful impression made by all that comes within the +sphere of the senses incites us to connect the divine power with visible +objects; the allegorical laudation and deification of eminent men leads to +a completed polytheism. That this and not (mono-) theism was the original +form of religion, Hume assumes to be a fact for historical times, and a +well-founded conjecture for prehistoric ages. Those who hold that humanity +began with a perfect religion find it difficult to explain the obscuration +of the truth, endow immature ages with a developed use of the reason which +they can scarcely have possessed, make error grow worse with increasing +culture, and contradict the historical progress upward which is everywhere +else observed. The philosophical knowledge of God is a very late product of +mature reflection; even monotheism, as a popular religion, did not arise +from rational reflection, although its chief principle is in agreement +with the results of philosophy, but from the same irrational motives +as polytheism. Its origin from polytheism is accomplished by the +transformation of the leading god (the king of the gods or the tutelary +deity of the nation) through the fear and emulous flattery of his votaries +into the one, infinite, spiritual ruler of the world. Amid the folly of the +superstitious herd, however, this refined idea is not long preserved in its +purity; the more exalted the conception entertained of the supreme deity, +the more imperatively the need makes itself felt for the interpolation +between this being and mankind of mediators and demi-gods, partaking more +of the human nature of the worshipers and more familiar to them. Later +a new purification takes place, so that the history of religion shows a +continuous alternation of the lower and higher forms. + +After depriving theism of its prerogative of originality, Hume further +takes away from it its fame as in every respect the best religion. It is +disadvantageously distinguished from polytheism by the fact that it is more +intolerant, makes its followers pusillanimous, and, by its incomprehensible +dogmas, puts their faith to severer tests; while it is on a level with +polytheism in that most of its adherents exalt belief in foolish mysteries, +fanaticism, and the observance of useless customs above the practice of +virtue. + +The _Natural History of Religion_, which far outbids the conclusions of +the deists by its endeavors to explain religion, not on rational, but on +historical and psychological grounds, and to separate it entirely +from knowledge by relegating it to the sphere of practice, leaves the +possibility of a philosophical knowledge of God an open question. The +_Dialogues concerning Natural Religion_ greatly diminish this hope. +The most cogent argument for the intelligence of the world-ground, the +teleological argument, is a hypothesis which has grave weaknesses, and one +to which many other equally probable hypotheses may be opposed. The finite +world, with its defects and abounding misery amid all its order and +adaptation, can never yield an inference to an infinite, perfect +unit-cause, to an all-powerful, all-wise, and benevolent deity. To this +the eleventh section of the _Enquiry_ adds the argument, that it is +inadmissible to ascribe to the inferred cause other properties than those +which are necessary to explain the observed effect. The tenth section of +the same _Essay_ argues that there is no miracle supported by a sufficient +number of witnesses credible because of their intelligence and honesty, and +free from a preponderance of contradictory experiences and testimony of +greater probability. In short, the reason is neither capable of reaching +the existence of God by well-grounded inference nor of comprehending the +truth of the Christian religion with its accompanying miracles. That which +transcends experience cannot be proven and known, but only believed in. +Whoever is moved by faith to give assent to things which contradict all +custom and experience, is conscious of a continued miracle in his own +person. + +Hume never denied the existence of God, never directly impugned revelation. +His final word is doubt and uncertainty. It is certain that his counsel not +to follow the leadership of the reason in religious matters, but to submit +ourselves to the power of instinct and common opinion, was less earnest and +less in harmony with the nature of the philosopher than his other advice, +to take refuge from the strife of the various forms of superstition in the +more quiet, though dimmer regions of--naturally, the skeptical--philosophy. +Hume's originality and greatness in this field consist in his genetic view +of the historical religions. They are for him errors, but natural ones, +grounded in the nature of man, "sick men's dreams," whose origin and course +he searches out with frightful cold-bloodedness, with the dispassionate +interest of the dissector. + + * * * * * + +In his moral philosophy[1] Hume shows himself the empiricist only, not the +skeptic. The laws of human nature are capable of just as exact empirical +investigation as those of external nature; observation and analysis promise +even more brilliant success in this most important, and yet hitherto so +badly neglected, branch of science than in physics. As knowledge and +opinion have been found reducible to the associative play of ideas, and the +store of ideas, again, to original impressions and shown derivable from +these; so man's volition and action present themselves as results of the +mechanical working of the passions, which, in turn, point further back to +more primitive principles. The ultimate motives of all action are pleasure +and pain, to which we owe our ideas of good and evil. The direct passions, +desire and aversion, joy and sorrow, hope and fear, are the immediate +effects of these original elements. From the direct arise in certain +circumstances the indirect passions, pride and humility, love and hatred +(together with respect and contempt); the first two, if the objects which +excite feeling are immediately connected with ourselves, the latter, when +pleasure and pain are aroused by the accomplishments or the defects of +others. While love and hate are always conjoined with a readiness +for action, with benevolence or anger, pride and humility are pure, +self-centered, inactive emotions. + +[Footnote 1: Cf. G. von Gizycki, _Die Ethik David Humes_, 1878.] + +All moral phenomena, will, moral judgment, conscience, virtue, are not +simple and original data, but of a composite or derivative nature. They are +without exception products of the regular interaction of the passions. With +such views there can be, of course, no question of a freedom of the will. +If anyone objects to determinism, that virtues and vices, if they are +involuntary and necessary, are not praise-or blame-worthy, he is to be +referred to the applause paid to beauty and talent, which are considered +meritorious, although they are not dependent upon our choice. The legal +attitude of theology and law first caused all desert to be based upon +freedom, whereas the ancient philosophers spoke unhesitatingly of +intellectual virtues. + +Hume does not, like nearly all his predecessors and contemporaries, find +the determining grounds of volition in ideas, but in the feelings. After +curtailing the rights of the reason in the theoretical field in favor of +custom and instinct, he dispossesses her also in the sphere of practice. +Impassive reason, judging only of truth and falsehood, is an inactive +faculty, which of itself can never inspire us with inclination and desire +toward an object, can never itself become a motive. It is only capable +of influencing the will indirectly, through the aid of some affection. +Abstract relations of ideas, and facts as well, leave us entirely +indifferent so long as they fail to acquire an emotional value through +their relation to our state of mind. When we speak of a victory of reason +over passion it is nothing but a conquest of one passion by another, _i. +e_., of a violent passion by a calm one. That which is commonly called +reason here is nothing but one of those general and calm affections _(e. +g_., the love of life) which direct the will to a distant good, without +exciting any sensible emotion in the mind; by passion we commonly +understand the violent passions only, which engender a marked disturbance +in the soul and the production of which requires a certain propinquity of +the object. A man is said to be industrious "from reason," when a calm +desire for money makes him laborious. It is a mistake to consider all +violent passions powerful, and all calm ones weak. The prevalence of calm +affections constitutes the essence of strength of mind. + +As reason is thus degraded from a governor of the will to a "slave of the +passions," so, further, judgment concerning right and wrong is taken away +from her. Moral distinctions are determined by our sense of the agreeable +and the disagreeable. We pass an immediate judgment of taste on the actions +of our fellow-men; the good pleases, evil displeases. The sight of virtue +gives us satisfaction; that of vice repels us. Accordingly an action or +trait of mind is virtuous when it calls forth in the observer an agreeable, +disinterested sentiment of approbation. + +What, then, are the actions which receive such general approval, and how is +the praise to be explained which the spectator bestows on them? We approve +such traits of character as are immediately agreeable or useful, either to +the person himself or to others. This yields four classes of praiseworthy +qualities. The first class, those which are agreeable to the possessor +(quite apart from any utility to himself or to others), includes +cheerfulness, greatness of mind, courage, tranquillity, and benevolence; +the second, those immediately agreeable to others, modesty, good manners, +politeness, and wit; the third, those useful to ourselves, strength of +will, industry, frugality, strength of body, intelligence and other mental +gifts. The fourth class comprises the highest virtues, the qualities useful +to others, benevolence and justice. Pleasure and utility are in all cases +the criterion of merit. The monkish virtues of humility and mortification +of the flesh, which bring no pleasure or advantage either to their +possessor or to society, are considered meritorious by no one who +understands the subject. + +If the moral value of actions is thus made to depend on their effects, we +cannot dispense with the assistance of reason in judging moral questions, +since it alone can inform us concerning these results of action. Reason, +however, is not sufficient to determine us to praise or blame. Nothing but +a sentiment can induce us to give the preference to beneficial and useful +tendencies over pernicious ones. This feeling is evidently no other than +satisfaction in the happiness of men and uneasiness in view of their +misery--in short, it is sympathy. By means of the imagination we enter into +the experiences of others and participate in their joy and sorrow. Whatever +depresses or rejoices them, whatever inspires them with pride, fills us +with similar emotions. From the habit of sympathetically passing moral +judgment on the actions of others, and of seeing our own judged by them, +is developed the further one of keeping a constant watch over ourselves and +of considering our dispositions and deeds from the standpoint of the good +of others. This custom is called conscience. Allied to this is the love of +reputation, which continually leads us to ask, How will our behavior appear +in the eyes of those with whom we associate? + +Within the fourth and most important class, the social virtues, Hume +distinguishes between the natural virtues of humanity and benevolence and +the artificial virtues of justice and fidelity. The former proceed from our +inborn sympathy with the good of others, while the latter, on the other +hand, are not to be derived from a natural passion, an instinctive love of +humanity, but are the product of reflection and art, and take their origin +in a social convention. + +In order that an action may gain the approval of the spectator two other +things are required besides its salutary effects: it must be a mark +of character, of a permanent disposition, and it must proceed from +disinterested motives. Hume is obliged by this latter position to show that +disinterested benevolence actually exists, that the unselfish affections +do not secretly spring from self-love. To cite only one of the thousand +examples of benevolence in which no discernible interest is concerned, +we desire happiness for our friends even when we have no expectation +of participating in it. The accounts of human selfishness are greatly +overdrawn, and those who deduce all actions from it make the mistake of +taking the inevitable consequences of virtue--the pleasure of self-approval +and of being esteemed by others--for the only motives to virtue. Because +virtue, in the outcome, produces inner satisfaction and is praised by +others, it does not follow that it is practiced merely for the sake of +these agreeable consequences. Self-love is a secondary impulse, whose +appearance at all presupposes primary impulses. Only after we have +experienced the pleasure which comes from the satisfaction of such an +original impulse (_e. g_., ambition), can this become the object of a +conscious reflective search after pleasure, or of egoism. Power brings no +enjoyment to the man by nature devoid of ambition, and he who is naturally +ambitious does not desire fame because it affords him pleasure, but +conversely, fame affords him pleasure because he desires it. The natural +propensity which terminates directly on the object, without knowledge or +foresight of the pleasurable results, comes first, and egoistic reflection +directed toward the hoped-for enjoyment can develop only after this has +been satisfied. The case is the same with benevolence as with the love +of fame. It is implanted in the constitution of our minds as an original +impulse immediately directed toward the happiness of other men. After +it has been exercised and its exercise rewarded by self-satisfaction, +admiration, thanks, and reciprocation, it is indeed possible for the +expectation of such agreeable consequences to lead us to the repetition of +beneficent acts. But the original motive is not an egoistic, regard for +useful consequences. If, from the force of the passion alone, vengeance +may be so eagerly pursued that every consideration of personal quiet and +security is silenced, it may also be conceded that humanity causes us +to forget our own interests. Nay, further, the social affections, as +Shaftesbury has proven, are the strongest of all, and the man will rarely +be found in whom the sum of the benevolent impulses will not outweigh that +of the selfish ones. + +In the section on justice Hume attacks the contract theory. Law, property, +and the sacredness of contracts exist first in society, but not first in +the state. The obligation to observe contracts is, indeed, made stronger by +the civil law and civil authority, but not created by them. Law arises from +convention, _i. e_., not from a formal contract, but a tacit agreement, a +sense of common interest, and this agreement, in turn, proceeds from an +original propensity to enter into social relations. The unsocial and +lawless state of nature is a philosophical fiction which has never existed; +men have always been social. They have all at least been born into the +society of the family, and they know no-more terrible punishment than +isolation. States are not created, however, by a voluntary act, but have +their roots in history. The question at issue between Hobbes and Hume was +thus adjusted at a later period by Kant: the state, it is true, has not +historically arisen from a contract, yet it is allowable and useful to +consider it under the aspect of a contract as a regulative idea. + + +Only once since David Hume, in Herbert Spencer, has the English nation +produced a mind of like comprehensive power. Hume and Locke form the +culminating points of English thought. They are national types, in that +in them the two fundamental tendencies of English thinking, clearness of +understanding and practical sense, were manifested in equal force. In Locke +these worked together in harmonious co-operation. In Hume the friendly +alliance is broken, the common labor ceases; each of the two demands its +full rights; a painful breach opens up between science and life. Reason +leads inevitably to doubt, to insight into its own weakness, while life +demands conviction. The doubter cannot act, the agent cannot know. It is +true that a substitute is found for defective knowledge in belief based +upon instinct and custom; but this is a makeshift, not a solution of the +problem, an acknowledgment of the evil, not a cure for it. Further, Hume's +greatness does not consist in the fact that he preached modesty to the +contending parties, that he banished the doubting reason into the study +and restricted life to belief in probabilities, but in the mental strength +which enabled him to endure sharp contradictions, and, instead of an +overhasty and easy reconciliation, to suspend the one impulse until the +other had made its demands thoroughly, completely, and regardlessly heard. +Though he is distinguished from other skeptics by the fact that he not +only shows the fundamental conceptions of our knowledge of nature and the +principles of religion uncertain and erroneous, but finds _necessary_ +errors in them and acutely uncovers their origin in the lawful workings +of our inner life, yet his historical influence essentially rests on his +skepticism. In his own country it roused in the "Scottish School" the +reaction of common sense, while in Germany it helped to wake a kindred but +greater spirit from the bonds of his dogmatic slumbers, and to fortify him +for his critical achievements. + +(c) %The Scottish School%.--Priestley's associational psychology, +Berkeley's idealism, and Hume's skepticism are legitimate deductions from +Locke's assumption that the immediate objects of thought are not things but +ideas, and that judgment or knowledge arises from the combination of ideas +originally separate. The absurdity of the consequences shows the falsity of +the premises. The true philosophy must not contradict common sense. It +is not correct to look upon the mind as a sheet of white paper on which +experience inscribes single characters, and then to make the understanding +combine these originally disconnected elements into judgments by means of +comparison, and the belief in the existence of the object come in as a +later result added to the ideas by reflection. It is rather true that the +elements discovered by the analysis of the cognitive processes are far from +being the originals from which these arise. It is not isolated ideas that +come first, but judgments, self-evident axioms of the understanding, which +form part of the mental constitution with which God has endowed us; and +sensation is accompanied by an immediate belief in the reality of the +object. Sensation guarantees the presence of an external thing possessing a +certain character, although it is not an image of this property, but merely +a sign for something in no wise resembling itself. + +This is the standpoint of the founder[1] of the Scottish School, Thomas +Reid (1710-96, professor in Aberdeen and Glasgow; _An Inquiry into the +Human Mind on the Principles of Common Sense_, 1764; _Essays on the +Intellectual Powers of Man_, 1785, _Essays on the Active Powers_, 1788, +together under the title, _Essays on the Powers of the Human Mind. +Collected Works_, 1804, and often since, especially the edition by +Hamilton, with valuable notes and dissertations, 7th ed., 2 vols., 1872). +We may recognize in it a revival of the common notions of Herbert, as well +as a transfer of the innate faculty of judgment inculcated by the ethical +and aesthetic writers from the practical to the theoretical field; the +"common sense" of Reid is an original sense for truth, as the "taste" +of Shaftesbury and Hutcheson was a natural sense for the good and the +beautiful. Like Jacobi at a later period, Reid points out that mediate, +reasoned knowledge presupposes a knowledge which is immediate, and all +inference and demonstration, fixed, undemonstrable, immediately certain +fundamental truths. The fundamental judgments or principles of common +sense, which are true for us, even if [possibly] not true in themselves, +are discoverable by observation (empirical rationalism). In the enumeration +of them two dangers are to be avoided: we must neither raise contingent +principles to the position of axioms, nor, from an exaggerated endeavor +after unity, underestimate the number of these self-evident principles. +Reid himself is always more sparing with them than his disciples. He +distinguishes two classes: first principles of necessary truth, and first +principles of contingent truth or truth of fact. As first principles of +necessary truth he cites, besides the axioms of logic and mathematics, +grammatical, aesthetic, moral, and metaphysical principles (among the last +belong the principles: "That the qualities which we perceive by our senses +must have a subject, which we call body, and that the thoughts we are +conscious of must have a subject, which we call mind"; "that whatever +begins to exist, must have a cause which produced it"). He lays down twelve +principles as the basis of our knowledge of matters of fact, in which his +reference to the doubt of Berkeley and Hume is evident. The most important +of these are: "The existence of everything of which I am conscious"; "that +the thoughts of which I am conscious, are the thoughts of a being which I +call myself, my mind, my person"; "our own personal identity and continued +existence, as far back as we remember anything distinctly"; "that those +things do really exist which we distinctly perceive by our senses, and are +what we perceive them to be"; "that we have some degree of power over our +actions, and the determinations of our will"; "that there is life and +intelligence in our fellow-men"; "that there is a certain regard due... to +human authority in matters of opinion"; "that, in the phenomena of +nature, what is to be, will probably be like what has been in similar +circumstances." + +[Footnote 1: In the sense of "chief founder"; cf. McCosh's _Scottish +Philosophy_, 1875, pp. 36, 68 _seq_., which is the standard authority on +the school as a whole.--TR.] + +The widespread and lasting favor experienced by this theory, with its +invitation to forget all earnest work in the problems of philosophy +by taking refuge in common sense, shows that a general relaxation had +succeeded the energetic endeavors which Hume had demanded of himself and +of his readers. With this declaration of the infallibility of common +consciousness, the theory of knowledge, which had been so successfully +begun, was incontinently thrust aside, although, indeed, empirical +psychology gained by the industrious investigation of the inner life by +means of self-observation. James Beattie continued the attack on Hume +in his _Essay on the Nature and Immutability of Truth in Opposition to +Sophistry and Skepticism_, 1770, on the principle that wisdom must never +contradict nature, and that whatever our nature compels us to believe, +hence whatever all agree in, is true. In his briefer dissertations Beattie +discussed Memory and Imagination, Fable and Romance, the Effects of + +Poetry and Music, Laughter, the Sublime, etc. While Beattie had given the +preference to psychological and aesthetic questions, James Oswald (1772) +appealed to common sense in matters of religion, describing it as an +instinctive faculty of judgment concerning truth and falsehood. The most +eminent among the followers of Reid was Dugald Stewart (professor in +Edinburgh; _Elements of the Philosophy of the Human Mind_, 1792-1827; +_Collected Works_, edited by Hamilton, 1854-58), who developed the +doctrines of the master and in some points modified them. Thomas +Brown (1778-1820), who is highly esteemed by Mill, Spencer, and Bain, +approximated the teachings of Reid and Stewart to those of Hume. The +philosophy of the Scottish School was long in favor both in England and in +France, where it was employed as a weapon against materialism. + +By way of appendix we may mention the beginnings of a psychological +aesthetics in Henry Home (Lord Kames, 1696-1782), and Edmund Burke +(1728-97).[1] Home, in ethics a follower of Hutcheson, is fond of +supporting his aesthetic views by examples from Shakespeare. Beauty (chap. +iii.) appears to belong to the object itself, but in reality it is only an +effect, a "secondary quality," of the object; like color, it is nothing but +an idea in the mind, "for an object is said to be beautiful for no other +reason but that it appears so to the spectator." It arises from regularity, +proportion, order, simplicity--properties which belong to sublimity as well +(chap, iv.), but to which they are by no means so essential, since it is +satisfied with a less degree of them. While the beautiful excites emotions +of sweetness and gayety, the sublime rouses feelings which are agreeable, +it is true, but which are not sweet and gay, but strong and more serious. +Burke's explanation goes deeper. He derives the antithesis of the sublime +and the beautiful from the two fundamental impulses of human nature, the +instinct of self-preservation and the social impulse. Whatever is contrary +to the former makes a strong and terrible impression on the soul; whatever +favors the latter makes a weak but agreeable one. The terrible delights us +(first depressing and then exalting us), when we merely contemplate it, +without being ourselves affected by the danger or the pain--this is the +sublime. On the other hand, that is beautiful which inspires us with +tenderness and affection without our desiring to possess it. Sublimity +implies a certain greatness, beauty, a certain smallness. Delight in both +is based on bodily phenomena. Terror moderated exercises a beneficent +influence on the nerves by stimulating them and giving them tension; +the gentle impression of beauty exerts a quieting effect upon them. The +disturbances caused by the former, and the recovery induced by the latter, +are both conducive to health, and hence, experienced as pleasures. + +[Footnote 1: Home, _Elements of Criticism_, 1762. Burke, _A Philosophical +Inquiry info the Origin of our Ideas of the Sublime and the Beautiful_, +1756.] + + + + + +CHAPTER VI. + +THE FRENCH ILLUMINATION. + +In the last decade of the seventeenth century France had yielded the +leadership in philosophy to England. Whereas Hobbes had in Paris imbibed +the spirit of the Galilean and Cartesian inquiry, while Bacon, Locke, and +even Hume had also visited France with advantage, now French thinkers take +the watchword from the English. Montesquieu and Voltaire, returning from +England in the same year (1729), acquaint their countrymen with the ideas +of Locke and his contemporaries. These are eagerly caught up; are, step +by step, and with the logical courage characteristic of the French mind, +developed to their extreme conclusions; and, at the same time, spread +abroad in this heightened form among the people beyond the circles of the +learned, nay, even beyond the educated classes. The English temperament is +favorable neither to this advance to extreme revolutionary inferences nor +to this propagandist tendency. Locke combines a rationalistic ethics with +his semi-sensational theory of knowledge; Newton is far from finding in his +mechanical physics a danger for religious beliefs; the deists treat the +additions of positive religion rather as superfluous ballast than as +hateful unreason; Bolingbroke wishes at least to conceal from the people +the illuminating principles which he offers to the higher classes. Such +halting where farther progress threatens to become dangerous to moral +interests does more honor to the moral, than to the logical, character of +the philosopher. But with the transfer of these ideas to France, the wall +of separation is broken down between the theory of knowledge and the theory +of ethics, between natural philosophy and the philosophy of religion; +sensationalism forces its way from the region of theory into the sphere +of practice, and the mechanical theory is transformed from a principal +of physical interpretation into a metaphysical view of the world of an +atheistical character. Naturalism is everywhere determined to have its +own: if knowledge comes from the senses, then morality must be rooted +in self-interest; whoever confines natural science to the search for +mechanical causes must not postulate an intelligent Power working from +design, even to explain the origin of things and the beginning of +motion--has no right to speak of a free will, an immortal soul, and a deity +who has created the world. Further, as Bayle's proof that the dogmas of +the Church were in all points contradictory to reason had, contrary to its +author's own wishes, exerted an influence hostile to religion, and as, +moreover, the political and social conditions of the time incited to revolt +and to a break with all existing institutions, the philosophical ideas from +over the Channel and the condition of things at home alike pressed toward +a revolutionary intensification of modern principles, which found +comprehensive expression in the atheists' Bible, the _System of Nature_ of +Baron Holbach, 1770. The movement begins in the middle of the thirties, +when Montesquieu commences to naturalize Locke's political views in France, +and Voltaire does the same service for Locke's theory of knowledge, +and Newton's natural philosophy, which had already been commended by +Maupertuis. The year 1748, the year also of Hume's _Essay_, brings +Montesquieu's chief work and La Mettrie's _Man a Machine_. While the +_Encyclopedia_, the herald of the Illumination, begun in 1751, is advancing +to its completion (1772, or rather 1780), Condillac (1754) and Bonnet +(1755) develop theoretical sensationalism, and Helvetius (_On Mind_, +1758; in the same year, D'Alembert's _Elements of Philosophy_) practical +sensationalism. Rousseau, engaged in authorship from 1751 and a contributor +to the _Encyclopedia_ until 1757 comes into prominence, 1762, with his two +chief works, _Emile_ and the _Social Contract_. Parallel with these we +find interesting phenomena in the field of political economy: Morelly's +communistic _Code of Nature_ (1755), the works of Quesnay (1758), the +leader of the physiocrats, and those of Turgot, 1774. + +Our discussion takes up, first, the introduction and popularization of +English ideas; then, the further development of these into a consistent +sensationalism, into the morality of interest, and into materialism; +finally, the reaction against the illumination of the understanding in +Rousseau's philosophy of feeling.[1] + +[Footnote 1: On the whole chapter cf. Damiron, _Memoires pour Servir a +l'Histoire de la Philosophie au XVIII. Siecle_, 3 vols., 1858-64; and +John Morley's _Voltaire_, 1872 [1886], _Rousseau_, 1873 [1886], and +_Diderot and the Encyclopedists_, 1878 [new ed., 1886].] + + +1. %The Entrance of English Doctrines%. + +Montesquieu[1] (1689-1755) made Locke's doctrine of constitutional +monarchy and the division of powers (pp. 179-180), with which he joins the +historical point of view of Bodin and the naturalistic positions of the +time, the common property of the cultivated world. Laws must be adapted to +the character and spirit of the nation; the spirit of the people, again, +is the result of nature, of the past, of manners, of religion, and of +political institutions. Nature has bestowed many gifts on the Southern +peoples, but few on those of the North; hence the latter need freedom, +while the former readily dispense with it. Warm climates produce greater +sensibility and passionateness, cold ones, muscular vigor and industry; in +the temperate zones nations are less constant in their habits, their vices, +and their virtues. The laws of religion concern man as man, those of the +state concern him as a citizen; the former have for their object the moral +good of the individual, the latter, the welfare of society; the first aim +at immutable, the second at mutable good. Laws and manners are closely +interrelated. Right is older than the state, and the law of justice holds +even in the state of nature; but in order to assure peace positive right is +required in three forms, international, political, and civil. + +[Footnote 1: Montesquieu, _Persian Letters_, 1721; _Considerations on +the Causes of the Greatness of the Romans and of their Decadence_, 1734; +_Spirit of Laws_, 1748.] + +Each of the four political forms has a passion for its underlying +principle: despotism has fear; monarchy, honor (personal and class +prejudice); aristocracy, the moderation of the nobility; democracy, +political virtue, which subordinates personal to general welfare, and +especially the inclination to equality and frugality. While republics are +destroyed by extravagance, lust, and self-seeking, a monarchy can dispense +with civil virtue, patriotism, and moral disinterestedness, since in it +false honor, luxury, and wantonness subserve the public good. Great states +tend toward despotism; smaller ones toward aristocracy, or a democratic +republicanism; for those of medium size monarchy, which is intermediate +between the two former, is the best form of constitution. Although +Montesquieu, in his _Lettres Persanes_, shows himself enthusiastic for the +federal republics of Switzerland and the Netherlands, his opinions are +different after his return from England, and in his _Esprit des Lois_ he +praises the English form of government as the ideal of civil liberty. + +Political freedom consists in liberty to do (not what we wish, but) what +we ought, or in doing that which the laws allow. Such lawful freedom is +possible only where the constitution of the state and criminal legislation +inspire the citizen with a sense of security. In order to prevent misuse of +the supreme power, the different authorities in the state must be divided +so that they shall hold one another in check. In particular Montesquieu +demands for the judicial power absolute independence of the executive power +(which Locke had termed the federative) as well as of the legislative +power. The last belongs to parliament, which includes in its two houses an +aristocratic and a democratic element. + +Voltaire[1] (1694-1778)--he himself had made this anagram from his name, +Arouet l(e) j(eune)--seemed by his many-sided receptivity almost made to be +the interpreter of English ideas; in the words of Windelband, he "combines +Newton's mechanical philosophy of nature, Locke's noetical empiricism, and +Shaftesbury's moral philosophy under the deistic point of view." The +same qualities which made him the first journalist, enabled him to free +philosophy from its scholastic garb, and, by concentrating it on the +problems which press most upon the lay mind (God, freedom, immortality), +to make it a living force among the people. His superficiality, as Erdmann +acutely remarks, was his strength. True religion, so reason teaches us, +consists in loving God and in being just and forbearing to our fellow-men +as to our brothers; morality is so natural and necessary that it is no +wonder that all philosophers since Zoroaster have inculcated the same +principles. The less of dogma the better the religion; atheism is not +so bad as superstition, which teaches men to commit crimes with an easy +conscience. He considered it the chief mission of his life to destroy these +two miserable errors. He endeavored to controvert atheism by rational +arguments, while with passionate hatred and contemptuous wit he attacked +positive Christianity and his persecutors, the priesthood. The existence +of God is for him not merely a moral postulate, but a result of scientific +reasoning. One of his famous sayings was: "If God did not exist it would be +necessary to invent him; but all nature cries out to us that he exists." He +defends immortality in spite of theoretical difficulties, because of its +practical necessity; his attitude toward the freedom of the will, which +he had energetically defended in the beginning, grows constantly more +skeptical with increasing age. His position in regard to the question +of evil experiences a similar change--the Lisbon earthquake made him an +opponent of optimism, though he had previously favored it. + +[Footnote 1: David Friedrich Strauss, _Voltaire, sechs Vortraege_, 1870.] + + +%2. Theoretical and Practical Sensationalism.% + +We turn next from the popular introduction and dissemination of Locke's +doctrines, which left their contents unchanged, to their principiant +development by the French sensationalists. Condillac (1715-80) always +thinks of his work as a completion of Locke's, whose _Essay_ he held not to +have gone down to the final root of the cognitive process. Locke did not +go far enough, Condillac thinks, in his rejection of innate elements; he +failed to trace out the origin of perception, reflection, cognition, and +volition, as also the relation between the external senses, the internal +sense, and the combining intellect, which he discussed as separate sources, +the two former of particular, and the last of complex, ideas; in short, +he omitted to inquire into the origin of the first function of the soul. +Berkeley was right in feeling that a simplification was needed here; but by +erroneously reducing outer perception to inner perception, he reached the +absurd conclusion of denying the external world. The true course is just +the opposite of this--the one already taken by the Bishop of Cork, Peter +Browne (died 1735; _The Procedure, Extent, and Limits of the Human +Understanding_, 1728): understanding and reflection must be reduced to +sensation. All psychical functions are transformed sensations. The soul has +only one original faculty, that of sensation; all the others, theoretical +and practical alike, are acquired, _i.e._, they have gradually developed +from the former. Condillac is related to Locke as Fichte to Kant; in +the former case the transition is mediated by Browne, in the latter +by Reinhold. Each crowns the work of his predecessor with a unifying +conclusion; each demands and offers a genetic psychology which finds the +origin of all the spiritual functions--from sensation and feelings of +pleasure and pain up to rational cognition and moral will--in a single +fundamental power of the soul. But there is a great difference, materially +as well as formally, between these kindred undertakings, a difference +corresponding to that between Locke's empiricism and Kant's idealism. +The idea of ends, which controls the course of thought in Fichte as in +Leibnitz, is entirely lacking in Condillac; that which is first in time, +sensation, is for the Science of Knowledge and the Monadology only the +beginning, not the essence, of psychical activity, while Condillac makes +no distinction between beginning and ground, but expressly identifies +_principe_ and _commencement_. With Fichte and Leibnitz sensation is +immature thought, with Condillac thought is refined sensation. The former +teach a teleological, the latter a mechanical mono-dynamism. The Science +of Knowledge, moreover, makes a very serious task of the deduction of the +particular psychical functions from the original power, while Condillac +takes it extraordinarily easy. Good illustrations of his way of effacing +distinctions instead of explaining them are given by such monotonously +recurring phrases as memory is "nothing but" modified sensation; comparison +and simultaneous attention to two ideas "are the same thing"; sensation +"gradually becomes" comparison and judgment; reflection is "in its origin" +attention itself; speech, thought, and the formation of general notions +are "at bottom the same"; the passions are "only" various kinds of desire; +understanding and will spring "from one root," etc. + +The demand for a single fundamental psychical power comes from Descartes, +and Condillac does not hesitate to retain the word _penser_ itself as a +general designation for all mental functions. Similarly he holds fast to +the dualism between extension and sensation as reciprocally incompatible +properties, opposes the soul as the "simple" subject of thought to +"divisible" matter, and sees in the affections of the bodily organs merely +the "occasions" on which the soul of itself alone exercises its sensitive +activity. Even freedom--the supremacy of thought over the passions--is +maintained, in striking contrast to the whole tendency of his doctrine and +to the openly announced principle, that pleasure controls the attention and +governs all our actions. He has just as little intention of doubting the +existence of God. All is dependent on God. He is our lawgiver; it is in +virtue of his wisdom that from small beginnings--perception and need--the +most splendid results, science and morality, are developed under the hands +of man. Whoever undertakes to complain that He has concealed from us the +nature of things and granted us to know relations alone, forgets that we +need no more than this. We do not exist in order to know; to live is to +enjoy. + +The theme of the _Treatise on the Sensations_, 1754, is: Memory, +comparison, judgment, abstraction, and reflection (in a word, cognition) +are nothing but different forms of attention; similarly the emotions, the +appetites, and the will, nothing but modifications of desire; while both +alike take their origin in sensation. Sensation is the sole source and the +sole content of the life of the mind as a whole. To prove these positions +Condillac makes use of the fiction of a statue, in which one sense awakes +after another, first the lowest of the senses, smell, and last the most +valuable, the sense of touch, which compels us (by its perception of +density or resistance) to project our sensations, and thus wakes in us the +idea of an external world. In themselves sensations are merely subjective +states, modes of our own being; without the sense of touch we would ascribe +odor, sound, and color to ourselves. Condillac distinguishes between +sensation and _ideas_ in a twofold sense, as mere ideas (the memory or +imagination of something not present), and as ideas of objective things +(the image, representative of a body); this latter sense is meant when he +says, touch sensations only are also ideas. + +For the details of the deduction, which often makes very happy use of a +rich store of psychological material, the reader must be referred to the +more extended expositions. Here we can only cite as examples the chief +among the genetic definitions. Perceptions (impressions) and consciousness +are the same thing under different names. A lively sensation, in which the +mind is entirely occupied, becomes attention, without the necessity of +assuming an additional special faculty in the mind. Attention, by its +retentive effect on the sensation, becomes memory. Double attention--to +a new sensation, and to the lingering trace of the previous one--is +comparison; the recognition of a relation (resemblance or difference) +between two ideas is judgment; the separation of an idea from another +naturally connected with it, by the aid of voluntary linguistic symbols, +is abstraction; a series of judgments is reflection; and the sum total of +inner phenomena, that wherein ideas succeed one another, the ego or person. +All truths concern relations among ideas. The tactual idea of solidity +accustoms us to project the sensations of the other senses also, to +transfer them thither where they are not; hence arise the ideas of our +body, of external objects, and of space. If we perceive several such +projected qualities together, we refer them to a substratum--substance, +which we know to exist, although not what it is. By force we mean the +unknown, but indubitably existent, cause of motion. + +There are no indifferent mental states; every sensation is accompanied by +pleasure or pain. Joy and pain give the determining law for the operation +of our faculties. The soul dwells longer on agreeable sensations; without +interest, ideas would pass away like shadows. The remembrance of past +impressions more agreeable than the present ones is need; from this +springs desire (_desir_) then the emotions of love, hate, hope, fear, and +astonishment; finally, the will as an unconditional desire accompanied by +the thought of its possible fulfillment. All inclinations, good and bad +alike, spring from self-love. The predicates "good" and "beautiful" +denote the pleasure-giving qualities of things, the former, that which is +agreeable to smell and taste (and the passions), the latter, that which +pleases sight, hearing, feeling (and the intellect). Morality is the +conformity of our actions to laws, which men have established by convention +with mutual obligations. In this way the good, which at first was the +servant of the passions, becomes their lord. + +Man's superiority to the brute depends on the greater perfection of his +sense of touch; on the greater variety of his wants and his associations +of ideas; on the idea of death, which leads him to seek not merely the +avoidance of pain but also self-preservation; and the possession of +language. Without denomination no abstractions, no thought, no handing +down of knowledge. Although all that is mental has its origin, in the last +analysis, in simple sensations, its development requires emancipation from +the sensuous, and language is the means for freeing ourselves from the +pressure of sensations by the generalization and combination of ideas. + +A more moderate representative of sensationalism was Charles Bonnet, who +later exercised a considerable influence in Germany, especially until +Tetens (1720-93; _Essay in Psychology, or Considerations on the Operations +of the Soul_, 1755; _Analytical Essay on the Faculties of the Soul_, 1760; +_Philosophical Palingenesis, or Ideas on the Past and the Future of Living +Beings_, 1769, including a defense of Christianity; _Collected Works_, +1779). Sensations, to which he, too, reduces all mental life, are, in his +view, reactions of the immaterial soul to sense stimuli, which operate +merely as occasional causes. On the other hand, he emphasizes more strongly +than Condillac the dependence of psychical phenomena on physiological +conditions, and endeavors to show definite brain vibrations as the basis +not only of habit, memory, and the association of ideas, but also of +the higher mental operations. In harmony with these views he adheres to +determinism, and finds the motive of all endeavor: in self-love, and +its ultimate aim in happiness. To the latter the hope of immortality is +indispensable. The link between Bonnet's theory of the thoroughgoing +dependence of the soul on the body and his orthodox convictions, is formed +by his idea of an imperishable ethereal body, which enables the soul in the +life to come to remember its life on earth and, after the dissolution of +the present material body, to acquire a new one. Animals as well as men +share in the continuance of existence and the transition to a higher stage. + +The material earnestness of these thinkers is in sharp contrast to the +superficial and frivolous manner in which Helvetius (1715-71) carries out +sensationalism in the sphere of ethics. His chief work, _On Mind_, came out +in 1758; and a year after his death, the work _On Man, his Intellectual +Faculties and his Education_. The search for pleasure or self-love is, as +Helvetius thinks he has discovered for the first time,[1] the only motive +of action; the laws of interest reign in the moral world as the laws of +motion in the physical world; justice and love for our neighbors are +based on utility; we seek friends in order to be amused, aided, and, in +misfortune, compassionated by them; the philanthropist and the monster both +seek only their own pleasure. + +[Footnote 1: In reality not only English moralists, but also some among his +countrymen, had anticipated him in the position that all actions proceed +from selfishness, and that virtue is merely a refined egoism. Thus La +Rochefoucauld in his _Maxims (Reflexions, ou Sentences et Maximes Morales_, +1665), La Bruyere _(Les Characteres et les Moeurs de ce Siecle_, 1687), and +La Mettrie (of. pp, 251-253).] + +Helvetius draws the proof for these positions from Condillac. Recollection +and judgment are sensation. The soul is originally nothing more than the +capacity for sensation; it receives the stimulus to its development from +self-love, _i.e._, from powerful passions such as the love of fame, on the +one hand, and, on the other, from hatred of _ennui_, which induces man to +overcome the indolence natural to him and to submit himself to the irksome +effort of attention--without passion he would remain stupid. The sum of +ideas collected in him is called intellect. All distinctions among men +are acquired, and concern the intellect only, not the soul: that which is +innate--sensibility and self-love--is the same in all; differences arise +only through external circumstances, through education. Man is the pupil of +all that environs him, of his situation and his chance experience. The most +important instrument in education is the law; the function of the lawgiver +is to connect public and personal welfare by means of rewards and +punishments, and thus to elevate morality. A man is called virtuous when +his stronger passions harmonize with the general interest. Unfortunately +the virtues of prejudice, which do not contribute to the public good, are +more honored among most nations than the political virtues, to which alone +real merit belongs. And self-interest is always the one motive to just and +generous action; we serve only our own interests in furthering the welfare +of the community. As the promulgator of these doctrines was himself a kind +and generous man, Rousseau could make to him the apt reply: You endeavor in +vain to degrade yourself below your own level; your spirit gives evidence +against your principles; your benevolent heart discredits your doctrines. + +The morality of enlightened self-love or "intelligent self-interest" +appears in a milder form in Maupertuis (_Works_, 1752), and Frederick the +Great,[1] to the latter of whom D'Alembert objected by letter that interest +could never generate the sense of duty and reverence for the law. + +[Footnote 1: _Essay on Self-love as a Principle of Morals_, 1770, printed +in the proceedings of the Academy of Sciences. Cf. on Frederick, Ed. +Zeller, 1886.] + + +%3. Skepticism and Materialism.% + +The ideas thus far developed move in a direction whose further pursuit +inevitably issues in materialism. Diderot, the editor of the _Encyclopedia +of the Sciences, Arts, and Trades_ (1751-72), which gathered all the +currents of the Illumination into one great stream and carried them to the +open sea of popular culture, reflects in his intellectual development +the dialectical movement from deism through skepticism to atheism and +materialism, and was a co-laborer in the work which brought the whole +movement to a conclusion, Holbach's _System of Nature_. Two decades, +however, before the latter work, the outcome of a long development of +thought, appeared, the physician La Mettrie[1] (1709-51) had promulgated +materialism, though rather in an anthropological form than as a +world-system, and with cynical satisfaction in the violation of traditional +beliefs--in his _Natural History of the Soul_, 1745, in a disguised form, +and, undisguised, in his _Man a Machine_, 1748--and at the same time +(_Anti-Seneca, or Discourse on Happiness_, 1748) had sketched out for +Helvetius the outlines of the sensationalistic morality of interest. While +ill with a violent fever he observed the influence of the heightened +circulation of the blood on his mental tone, and inferred that thought is +the result of the bodily organization. The soul can only be known from the +body. The senses, the best philosophers, teach us that matter is never +without form and motion; and whether all matter is sentient or not, +certainly all that is sentient is material, and every part of the organism +contains a vital principle (the heart of a frog beats for an hour after +its removal from the body; the parts of cut-up polyps grow into perfect +animals). All ideas come from without, from the senses; without +sense-impressions no ideas, without education, few ideas, the mind of a man +grown up in isolation remains entirely undeveloped; and since the soul is +entirely dependent on the bodily organs, along with which it originates, +grows, and declines, it is subject to mortality. Not only animals, as +Descartes has shown, but men, who differ from the brutes only in degree, +are mere machines; by the soul we mean that part of the body which thinks, +and the brain has fine muscles for thinking as the leg its coarse ones for +walking. + +[Footnote 1: La Mettrie was born at St. Malo, and educated in Paris, and in +Leyden under Boerhave; he died in Berlin, whither Frederick the Great +had called him after he had been driven out of his native land and from +Holland. On La Mettrie cf. Lange, _History of Materialism_, vol. ii. pp. +49-91; and DuBois-Reymond's Address, 1875.] + +If man is nothing but body, there is no other pleasure than that of the +body. There is a difference, however, between sensuous pleasure, which is +intense and brief, and intellectual pleasure, which is calm and lasting. +The educated man will prefer the latter, and find in it a higher and more +noble happiness; but nature has been just enough to grant the common +multitude, in the coarser pleasures, a more easily attainable happiness. +Enjoy the moment, till the farce of life is ended! Virtue exists only in +society, which restrains from evil by its laws, and incites to good by +rousing the love of honor. The good man, who subordinates his own welfare +to that of society, acts under the same necessity as the evil-doer; hence +repentance and pangs of conscience, which increase the amount of pain +in the world, but are incapable of effecting amendment, are useless and +reprehensible: the criminal is an ill man, and must not be more harshly +punished than the safety of society requires. Materialism humanizes and +exercises a tranquilizing influence on the mind, as the religious view of +the world, with its incitement to hatred, disturbs it; materialism frees +us from the sense of guilt and responsibility, and from the fear of future +suffering. A state composed of atheists, is not only possible, as Bayle +argued, but it would be the happiest of all states. + +Among the editors of the _Encyclopedia_, the mathematician D'Alembert +_(Elements of Philosophy_, 1758) remained loyal to skeptical views. Neither +matter nor spirit is in its essence knowable; the world is probably quite +different from our sensuous conception of it. As Diderot (1713-84), and +the _Encyclopedia_ with him, advanced from skepticism to materialism, +D'Alembert retired from the editorial board (1757), after Rousseau, also, +had separated himself from the Encyclopedists. Diderot[1] was the leading +spirit in the second half of the eighteenth century, as Voltaire in the +first half. His lively and many-sided receptivity, active industry, clever +and combative eloquence, and enthusiastic disposition qualified him for +this role beyond all his contemporaries, who testify that they owe even +more to his stimulating conversation than to his writings. He commenced by +bringing Shaftesbury's _Inquiry into Virtue and Merit_ to the notice of +his countrymen; and then turned his sword, on the one hand, against the +atheists, to refute whom, he thought, a single glance into the microscope +was sufficient, and, on the other, against the traditional belief in a +God of anger and revenge, who takes pleasure in bathing in the tears of +mankind. Then followed a period of skepticism, which is well illustrated by +the prayer in the _Thoughts on the Interpretation of Nature_, 1754: O God! +I do not know whether thou art, but I will guide my thoughts and actions +as though thou didst see me think and act, etc. Under the influence +of Holbach's circle he finally reached (in the _Conversation between +D'Alembert and Diderot_, and _D'Alembert's Dream_, written in 1769, but not +published until 1830, in vol. iv. of the _Memoires, Correspondance, et +Ouvrages Inedits de Diderot_) the position of naturalistic monism--there +exists but one great individual, the All. Though he had formerly +distinguished thinking substance from material substance, and had based the +immortality of the soul on the unity of sensation and the unity of the ego, +he now makes sensation a universal and essential property of matter +(_la pierre sent_), declares the talk about the simplicity of the +soul metaphysico-theological nonsense, calls the brain a self-playing +instrument, ridicules self-esteem, shame, and repentance as the absurd +folly of a being that imputes to itself merit or demerit for necessary +actions, and recognizes no other immortality than that of posthumous fame. +But even amid these extreme conclusions, his enthusiasm for virtue remains +too intense to allow him to assent to the audacious theories of La Mettrie +and Helvetius. + +[Footnote 1: _Works_ in twenty-two vols., Paris, Briere, 1821; latest +edition, 1875 _seq_. Cf. on Diderot the fine work by Karl Rosenkranz, +_Diderots Leben und Werke_, 1866.] + +French natural science also tended toward materialism. Buffon _(Natural +History_, 1749 _seq_) endeavors to facilitate the mechanical explanation +of the phenomena of life by the assumption of living molecules, from +which visible organisms are built up. Robinet (_On Nature_, 1761 _seq_.), +availing himself of Spinozistic and Leibnitzian conceptions, goes still +further, in that he endows every particle of matter with sensation, looks +on the whole world as a succession of living beings with increasing +mentality, and subjects the interaction of the material and psychical sides +of the individual, as well as the relation of pleasure and pain in the +universe, to a law of harmonious compensation. + +The _System of Nature_, 1770, which bore on its title page the name of +Mirabaud, who had died 1760, proceeded from the company of freethinkers +accustomed to meet in the hospitable house of Baron von Holbach (died +1789), a native of the Palatinate. Its real author was Holbach himself, +although his friends Diderot, Naigeon, Lagrange, the mathematician, and the +clever Grimm (died 1807) seem to have co-operated in the preparation +of certain sections. The cumbrous seriousness and the dry tone of this +systematic combination of the radical ideas which the century had produced, +were no doubt the chief causes of its unsympathetic reception by the +public. Similarly unsuccessful was the popular account of materialism with +which Holbach followed it, in 1772, and Helvetius's excerpts from the +_System of Nature_, 1774. + +Holbach applies himself to the despiritualization of nature and the +destruction of religious prejudices with sincere faith in the sacred +mission of unbelief--the happiness of humanity depends on atheism. "O +Nature, sovereign of all beings, and ye her daughters, Virtue, Reason, and +Truth, be forever our only divinities." What has made virtue so difficult +and so rare? Religion, which divides men instead of uniting them. What has +so long delayed the illumination of the reason, and the discovery of truth? +Religion with its mischievous errors, God, spirit, freedom, immortality. +Immortality exists only in the memory of later generations; man is the +creature of a day; nothing is permanent but the great whole of nature and +the eternal law of universal change. Can a clock broken into a thousand +pieces continue to mark the hours? The senseless doctrine of freedom was +invented only to solve the senseless problem of the justification of God in +view of the existence of evil. Man is at every moment of his life a passive +instrument in the hands of necessity; the universe is an immeasurable +and uninterrupted chain of actions and reactions, an eternal round of +interchanging motions, ruled by laws, a change in which would at once alter +the nature of all things. The most fatal error is the idea of human and +divine spirits, which has been advanced by philosophers and adopted with +applause by fools. The opinion that man is divided into two substances is +based on the fact that, of the changes in our body, we directly perceive +only the external molar movements, while, on the other hand, the inner +motions of the invisible molecules are known only by their effects. These +latter have been ascribed to the mind, which, moreover, we have adorned +with properties whose emptiness is manifested by the fact that they are all +mere negations of that which we know. Experience reveals to us only the +extended, the corporeal, the divisible--but the mind is to be the opposite +of all three, yet at the same time to possess the power (how, no man can +tell) of acting on that which is material and of being acted upon by it. +In thus dividing himself into body and soul, man has in reality only +distinguished between his brain and himself. Man is a purely physical +being. All so-called spiritual phenomena are functions of the brain, +special cases of the operation of the universal forces of nature. Thought +and volition are sensation, sensation is motion. The moving forces in the +moral world are the same as those in the physical world; in the latter they +are called attraction and repulsion, in the former, love and hate; +that which the moralist terms self-love is the same instinct of +self-preservation which is familiar in physics as the force of inertia. + +As man has doubled himself, so also he has doubled nature. Evil gave the +first impulse to the formation of the idea of God, pain and ignorance have +been the parents of superstition; our sufferings were ascribed to unknown +powers, of which we were in fear, but which, at the same time, we hoped to +propitiate by prayer and sacrifice. The wise turned with their worship and +reverence toward a more worthy object, to the great All; and, in fact, if +we seek to give the word God a tenable meaning, it signifies active nature. +The error lay in the dualistic view, in the distinction between nature and +itself, _i.e._ its activity, and in the belief that the explanation of +motion required a separate immaterial Mover. This assumption is, in the +first place, false, for since the All is the complex of all that exists +there can be nothing outside it; motion follows from the existence of the +universe as necessarily as its other properties; the world does not receive +it from without, but imparts it to itself by its own power. In the second +place the assumption is useless; it explains nothing, but confuses the +problems of natural science to the point of insolubility. In the third +place it is self-contradictory, for after theology has removed the Deity +as far away from man as possible, by means of the negative metaphysical +predicates, it finds itself necessitated to bring the two together again +through the moral attributes--which are neither compatible with one another +nor with the meta-physical--and crowns the absurdity by the assurance that +we can please God by believing that which is incomprehensible. Finally, the +assumption is dangerous; it draws men away from the present, disturbs their +peace and enjoyment, stirs up hatred, and thus makes happiness and morality +impossible. If, then, utility is the criterion of truth, theism--even in +the mild form of deism--is proven erroneous by its disastrous consequences. +All error is bane. + + +Matter and motion are alike eternal. Nature is an active, self-moving, +living whole, an endless chain of causes and effects. All is in unceasing +motion, all is cause (nothing is dead, nothing rests), all is effect (there +is no spontaneous motion, none directed to an end). Order and disorder are +not in nature, but only in our understanding; they are abstract ideas to +denote that which is conformable to our nature and that which is contrary +to it. The end of the All is itself alone, is life, activity; the universal +goal of particular beings, like that of the universe, is the conservation +of being. + +Anthropology is for Holbach essentially reduced to two problems, the +deduction of thought from motion, and of morality from the physical +tendency to self-preservation. The forces of the soul are no other than +those of the body. All mental faculties develop from sensation; sensations +are motions in the brain which reveal to us motions without the brain. All +the passions may be reduced to love and hate, desire and aversion, and +depend upon temperament, on the individual mixture of the fluid parts. +Virtue is the equilibrium of the fluids. All human actions proceed from +interest. Good and bad men are distinguished only by their organizations, +and by the ideas they form concerning happiness. With the same necessity +as that of the act itself, follow the love or contempt of fellow-men, +the pleasure of self-esteem and the pain of repentance (regret for evil +consequences, hence no evidence of freedom). Neither responsibility nor +punishment is done away with by this necessity--have we not the right to +protect ourselves against the stream which damages our fields, by building +dikes and altering its course? The end of endeavor is permanent happiness, +and this can be attained through virtue alone. The passions which are +useful to society compel the affection and approval of our fellows. In +order to interest others in our welfare we must interest ourselves in +theirs--nothing is more indispensable to man than man. The clever man acts +morally, interest binds us to the good; love for others means love for the +means to our own happiness. Virtue is the art of making ourselves happy +through the happiness of others. Nature itself chastises immorality, since +she makes the intemperate unhappy. Religion has hindered the recognition of +these rules, has misunderstood the diseases of the soul, and applied false +and ineffective remedies; the renunciation which she requires is opposed to +human nature. The true moralist recognizes in medicine the key to the human +heart; he will cure the mind through the body, control the passions and +hold them in check by other passions instead of by sermons, and will teach +men that the surest road to personal ends is to labor for the public good. +Illumination is the way to virtue and to happiness. + +Volney (Chasseboeuf, died 1820; _Catechism of the French Citizen_, 1793, +later under the title _Natural Law or Physical Principles of Morals deduced +front the Organization of Man and of the Universe_; further, _The Ruins; +Complete Works_, 1821) belongs among the moralists of self-love, although, +besides the egoistic interests, he takes account of the natural sympathetic +impulses also. This is still more the case with Condorcet (_Sketch of +an Historical View of the Progress of the Human Mind_, 1794), who was +influenced alike by Condillac and by Turgot, and who defends a tendency +toward universal perfection both in the individual and in the race. Besides +the selfish affections, which are directed as much to the injury as to the +support of others, there lies in the organization of man a force which +steadily tends toward the good, in the form of underived feelings of +sympathy and benevolence, from which moral self-judgment is developed by +the aid of reflection. The aim of true ethics and social art is not to make +the "great" virtues universal, but to make them needless; the nearer the +nations approximate to mental and moral perfection, the less they stand in +need of these--happy the people in which good deeds are so customary that +scarcely an opportunity is left for heroism. The chief instrument for the +moral cultivation of the people is the development of the reason, the +conscience, and the benevolent affections. Habituation to deeds of kindness +is a source of pure and inexhaustible happiness. Sympathy with the good of +others must be so cultivated that the sacrifice of personal enjoyment will +be a sweeter joy than the pleasure itself. Let the child early learn to +enjoy the delight of loving and of being loved. We must, finally, strive +toward the gradual diminution of the inequalities of capacity, of property, +and between ruler and ruled, for to abolish them is impossible. + +Of the remaining philosophers of the revolutionary period mention may be +made of the physician Cabanis _(Relations of the Physical and the Moral in +Man, 1799)_, and Destutt de Tracy _(Elements of Ideology, 1801 seq.)_. The +former is a materialist in psychology (the nerves are the man, ideas are +secretions of the brain), considers consciousness a property of organic +matter (the soul is not a being, but a faculty), and makes moral sympathy +develop out of the animal instincts of preservation and nourishment. +De Tracy, also, derives all psychical activity from organization and +sensation. His doctrine of the will, though but briefly sketched, is +interesting. The desires have a passive and an active side (corresponding +to the twofold action of the nerves, on themselves and on the muscles); on +the one hand, they are feelings of pleasure or pain, and on the other, they +lead us to action--will is need, and, at the same time, the source of +the means for satisfying this need. Both these feelings and the external +movements are probably based upon unconscious organic motions. The will is +rightly identified with the personality, it is the ego itself, the totality +of the physico-psychical life of man attaining to self-consciousness. The +inner or organic life consists in the self-preserving functions of the +individual, the outer or animal life, in the functions of relation (of +sense, of motion, of speech, of reproduction); individual interests are +rooted in the former, sympathy in the latter. The primal good is freedom, +or the power to do what we will; the highest thing in life is love. In +order to be happy we must avoid punishment, blame, and pangs of conscience. + + +%4. Rousseau's Conflict with the Illumination.% + +The Genevese, Jean Jacques Rousseau[1] (1712-78), stands in a similar +relation of opposition to the French Illumination as the Scottish School to +the English, and Herder and Jacobi to the German. He points us away from +the cold sophistical inferences of the understanding to the immediate +conviction of feeling; from the imaginations of science to the unerring +voice of the heart and the conscience; from the artificial conditions of +culture to healthy nature. The vaunted Illumination is not the lever of +progress, but the source of all degeneration; morality does not rest on the +shrewd calculation of self-interest, but on original social and sympathetic +instincts (love for the good is just as natural to the human heart as +self-love; enthusiasm for virtue has nothing to do with our interest; what +would it mean to give up one's life for the sake of advantage?); the truths +of religion are not objects of thought, but of pious feeling. + +[Footnote 1: Cf. Brockerhoff, Leipsic, 1863-74; L. Moreau, Paris, 1870.] + +Rousseau commenced his career as an author with the _Discourse on the +Sciences and the Arts_, 1750 (the discussion of a prize question, crowned +by the Academy of Dijon), which he describes as entirely pernicious, and +the _Discourse on the Origin and the Bases of the Inequality among Men_, +1753. By nature man is innocent and good, becoming evil only in society. +Reflection, civilization, and egoism are unnatural. In the happy state of +nature pity and innocent self-love (_amour de soi_) ruled, and the +latter was first corrupted by the reason into the artificial feeling of +selfishness (_amour propre_) in the course of social development--thinking +man is a degenerate animal. Property has divided men into rich and poor; +the magistracy, into strong and weak; arbitrary power, into masters and +slaves. Wealth generated luxury with its artificial delights of science and +the theater, which make us more unhappy and evil than we otherwise are; +science, the child of vice, becomes in turn the mother of new vices. All +nature, all that is characteristic, all that is good, has disappeared with +advancing culture; the only relief from the universal degeneracy is to be +hoped for from a return to nature on the part of the individual and society +alike--from education and a state conformed to nature. The novel _Emile_ is +devoted to the pedagogical, and the _Social Contract, or the Principles of +Political Law_, to the political problem. Both appeared in 1762, followed +two years later by the _Letters from the Mountain_, a defense against the +attacks of the clergy. In these later writings Rousseau's naturalistic +hatred of reason appears essentially softened. + +Social order is a sacred right, which forms the basis of all others. It +does not proceed, however, from nature--no man has natural power over his +fellows, and might confers no right--consequently it rests on a contract. +Not, however, on a contract between ruler and people. The act by which the +people chooses a king is preceded by the act in virtue of which it is a +people. In the social contract each devotes himself with his powers and his +goods to the community, in order to gain the protection of the latter. +With this act the spiritual body politic comes into being, and attains its +unity, its ego, its will. The sum of the members is called the people; each +member, as a participant in the sovereignty, citizen, and, as bound to +obedience to the law, subject. The individual loses his natural freedom, +receiving in exchange the liberty of a citizen, which is limited by the +general will, and, in addition, property rights in all that he possesses, +equality before the law, and moral freedom, which first really makes him +master of himself. The impulse of mere desire is slavery, obedience to +self-imposed law, freedom. The sovereign is the people, law the general +popular will directed to the common good, the supreme goods, "freedom and +equality," the chief objects of legislation. The lawgiving power is the +moral will of the body politic, the government (magistracy, prince) its +executive physical power; the former is its heart, the latter its brain. +Rousseau calls the government the middle term between the head of the state +and the individual, or between the citizen as lawgiver and as subject--the +sovereign (the people) commands, the government executes, the subject +obeys. The act by which the people submits itself to its head is not a +contract, but merely a mandate; whenever it chooses it can limit, alter, or +entirely recall the delegated power. In order to security against illegal +encroachments on the part of the government, Rousseau recommends regular +assemblies of the people, in which, under suspension of governmental +authority, the confirmation, abrogation, or alteration of the constitution +shall be determined upon. Even the establishment of the articles of social +belief falls to the sovereign people. The essential difference between +Rousseau's theory of the state and that of Locke and Montesquieu consists +in his rejection of the division of powers and of representation by +delegates, hence in its unlimited democratic character. A generation after +it was given to the world, the French Revolution made the attempt to +translate it into practice. "The masses carried out what Rousseau himself +had thought, it is true, but never willed" (Windelband). + +Rousseau's theory of education is closely allied to Locke's (cf. above), +whose leading idea--the development of individuality--was entirely in +harmony with the subjectivism of the philosopher of feeling. Posterity has +not found it a difficult task to free the sound kernel therein from the +husks of exaggeration and idiosyncrasy which surrounded it. Among the +latter belong the preference of bodily over intellectual development, and +the unlimited faith in the goodness of human nature. Exercise the body, the +organs, the senses of the pupil, and keep his soul unemployed as long as +possible; for the first, take care only that his mind be kept free from +error and his heart from vice. In order to secure complete freedom from +disturbance in this development, it is advisable to isolate the child from +society, nay, even from the family, and to bring him up in retirement under +the guidance of a private tutor. + +As the Swiss republican spoke in Rousseau's politics, so his religious +theories[1] betray the Genevan Calvinist. "The Savoyard Vicar's Profession +of Faith" (in _Emile_) proclaims deism as a religion of feeling. The +rational proofs brought forward for the existence of God--from the motion +of matter in itself at rest, and from the finality of the world--are only +designed, as he declares by letter, to confute the materialists, and derive +their impregnability entirely from the inner evidence of feeling, which +amid the vacillation of the reason _pro_ and _con_ gives the final +decision. + +[Footnote 1: Cf. Ch. Borgeaud, _Rousseaus Religionsphilosophie_, Geneva and +Leipsic, 1883.] + +If we limit our inquiry to that which is alone of importance for us, and +rely on the evidence of feeling, it cannot be doubted that I myself exist +and feel; that there exists an external world which affects me; that +thought, comparison or judgment concerning relations is different from +sensation or the perception of objects--for the latter is a passive, +but the former an active process; that I myself produce the activity of +attention or consideration; that, consequently, I am not merely a sensitive +or passive, but also an active or intelligent being. The freedom of my +thought and action guarantees to me the immateriality of my soul, and is +that which distinguishes me from the brute. The life of the soul after +the decay of the body is assured to me by the fact that in this world the +wicked triumphs, while the good are oppressed. The favored position which +man occupies in the scale of beings--he is able to look over the universe +and to reverence its author, to recognize order and beauty, to love the +good and to do it; and shall he, then, compare himself to the brute?--fills +me with emotion and gratitude to the benevolent Creator, who existed before +all things, and who will exist when they all shall have vanished away, +to whom all truths are one single idea, all places a point, all times a +moment. The _how_ of freedom, of eternity, of creation, of the action of +my will upon matter, etc., is, indeed, incomprehensible to me, but _that_ +these are so, my feeling makes me certain. The worthiest employment of +my reason is to annihilate itself before God. "The more I strive to +contemplate his infinite essence the less do I conceive it. But it is, and +that suffices me. The less I conceive it, the more I adore." + +In the depths of my heart I find the rules for my conduct engraved by +nature in ineffaceable characters. Everything is good that I feel to be so. +The conscience is the most enlightened of all philosophers, and as safe +a guide for the soul as instinct for the body. The infallibility of its +judgment is evidenced by the agreement of different peoples; amid the +surprising differences of manners you will everywhere find the same ideas +of justice, the same notions of good and evil. Show me a land where it is +a crime to keep one's word, to be merciful, benevolent, magnanimous, where +the upright man is despised and the faithless honored! Conscience enjoins +the limitation of our desires to the degree to which we are capable of +satisfying them, but not their complete suppression--all passions are good +when we control them, all evil when they control us. + +In the second part of the "Profession du Foi du Vicaire Savoyard" Rousseau +turns from his attacks on sensationalism, materialism, atheism, and the +morality of interest, to the criticism of revelation. Why, in addition to +natural religion, with its three fundamental doctrines, God, freedom, and +immortality, should other special doctrines be necessary, which rather +confuse than clear up our ideas of the Great Being, which exact from us +the acceptance of absurdities, and make men proud, intolerant, and +cruel--whereas God requires from us no other service than that of the +heart? Every religion is good in which men serve God in a befitting manner. +If God had prescribed one single religion for us, he would have provided +it with infallible marks of its unique authenticity. The authority of the +fathers and the priesthood is not decisive, for every religion claims to be +revealed and alone true; the Mohammedan has the same right as the Christian +to adhere to the religion of his fathers. Since all revelation comes down +to us by human tradition, reason alone can be the judge of its divinity. +The careful examination of the documents, which are written in ancient +languages, would require an amount of learning which could not possibly be +a condition of salvation and acceptance with God. Miracles and prophecy are +not conclusive, for how are we to distinguish the true among them from +the false? If we turn from the external to the internal criteria of the +doctrines themselves, even here no decision can be reached between the +reasons _pro_ and _con_ (the author puts the former into the mouth of a +believer, and the latter into that of a rationalist); even if the former +outweighed the latter, the difficulty would still remain of reconciling it +with God's goodness and justice that the gospel has not reached so many of +mankind, and of explaining how those to whom the divinity of Christ is +now proclaimed can convince themselves of it, while his contemporaries +misjudged and crucified him. In my opinion, I am incapable of fathoming the +truth of the Christian religion and its value to those who confess it. The +investigation of the reason ends in "reverential doubt": I neither accept +revelation nor reject it, but I reject the obligation to accept it. My +heart, however, judges otherwise than the reflection of my intellect; for +this the sacred majesty and exalted simplicity of the Scriptures are a most +cogent proof that they are more than human, and that He whose history they +contain is more than man. The touching grace and profound wisdom of his +words, the gentleness of his conduct, the loftiness of his maxims, his +mastery over his passions, abundantly prove that he was neither an +enthusiast nor an ambitious sectary. Socrates lived and died like a +philosopher, Jesus like a God. The virtues of justice, patriotism, and +moderation taught by Socrates, had been exercised by the great men of +Greece before he inculcated them. But whence could Jesus derive in his time +and country that lofty morality which he alone taught and exemplified? +Things of this sort are not invented. The inventor of such deeds would +be more wonderful than the doer of them. Thus again, in the question of +revealed religion, the voice of the heart triumphs over the doubts of the +reason, as, in the question of natural religion, it had done over the +objections of opponents. It is true, however, that this enthusiasm is +paid not to the current Christianity of the priests, but to I the real +Christianity of the gospel. + +Rousseau was the conscience of France, which rebelled against the negations +and the bald emptiness of the materialistic and atheistic doctrines. By +vindicating with fervid eloquence the participation of the whole man in +the highest questions, in opposition to the one-sided illumination of the +understanding, he became a pre-Kantian defender of the faith of practical +reason. His emphatic summons aroused a loud and lasting echo, especially in +Germany, in the hearts of Goethe, Kant, and Fichte. + + + +CHAPTER VII. + +LEIBNITZ. + +In the contemporaries Spinoza and Locke, the two schools of modern +philosophy, the Continental, starting from Descartes, and the English, +which followed Bacon, had reached the extreme of divergence and opposition, +Spinoza was a rationalistic pantheist, Locke, an empirical individualist. +With Leibnitz a twofold approximation begins. As a rationalist he sides +with Spinoza against Locke, as an individualist with Locke against Spinoza. +But he not only separated rationalism from pantheism, but also qualified +it by the recognition (which his historical tendencies had of themselves +suggested to him) of a relative justification for empiricism, since he +distinguished the factual truths of experience from the necessary truths of +reason, gave to the former a noetical principle of their own, the principle +of sufficient reason, and made sensation an indispensable step to thought. + +To the tendencies thus manifested toward a just estimation and peaceful +reconciliation of opposing standpoints, Leibnitz remained true in all the +fields to which he devoted his activity. Thus, in the sphere of religion, +he took an active part in the negotiations looking toward the reunion of +the Protestant and Catholic Churches, as well as in those concerning the +union of the Lutheran and the Reformed. Himself a stimulating man, he yet +needed stimulation from without. He was an astonishingly wide reader, and +declared that he had never found a book that did not contain something +of value. With a ready adaptability to the ideas of others he combined a +remarkable power of transformative appropriation; he read into books more +than stood written in them. The versatility of his genius was unlimited: +jurist, historian, diplomat, mathematician, physical scientist, and +philosopher, and in addition almost a theologian and a philologist--he is +not only at home in all these departments, because versed in them, but +everywhere contributes to their advancement by original ideas and plans. In +such a combination of productive genius and wealth of knowledge Aristotle +and Leibnitz are unapproached. + +Gottfried Wilhelm Leibnitz was born in 1646 at Leipsic, where his father +(Friederich Leibnitz, died 1652) was professor of moral philosophy; in his +fifteenth year he entered the university of his native city, with law as +his principal subject. Besides law, he devoted himself with quite as much +of ardor to philosophy under Jacob Thomasius (died 1684, the father of +Christian Thomasius), and to mathematics under E. Weigel in Jena. In 1663 +(with a dissertation entitled _De Principio Individui_) he became Bachelor, +in 1664 Master of Philosophy, and in 1666, at Altdorf, Doctor of Laws, and +then declined the professorship extraordinary offered him in the latter +place. Having made the acquaintance of the former minister of the Elector +of Mayence, Freiherr von Boineburg, in Nuremberg, he went, after a short +stay at Frankfort-on-the-Main, to the court of the Elector at Mayence, at +whose request he devoted himself to the reform of legal procedure, besides +writing, while there, on the most diverse subjects. In 1672 he went to +Paris, where he remained during four years with the exception of a short +stay in London. The special purpose of the journey to Paris--to persuade +Louis XIV to undertake a campaign in Egypt, in order to divert him from his +designs upon Germany--was not successful; but Leibnitz was captivated +by the society of the Parisian scholars, among them the mathematician, +Huygens. From the end of 1676 until his death in 1716 Leibnitz lived +in Hanover, whither he had been called by Johann Friedrich, as court +councillor and librarian. The successor of this prince, Ernst August, who, +with his wife Sophie, and his daughter Sophie Charlotte, showed great +kindness to the philosopher, wished him to write a history of the princely +house of Brunswick; and a journey which he made in order to study for this +purpose was extended as far as Vienna and Rome. Upon his return he took +charge of the Wolfenbuettel library in addition to his other engagements. + +The marriage of the Princess Sophie Charlotte with Frederick of +Brandenburg, the first king of Prussia, brought Leibnitz into close +relations with Berlin. At his suggestion the Academy (Society) of Sciences +was founded there in 1700, and he himself became its first president. In +Charlottenburg he worked on his principal work, the _New Essays concerning +the Human Understanding_, which was aimed at Locke, but the publication of +which was deferred on account of the death of the latter in the interim +(1704), and did not take place until 1765, in Raspe's collective edition. +The death of the Prussian queen in 1705 interrupted for several years the +_Theodicy_, which had been undertaken at her request, and which did not +appear until 1710. In Vienna, where he resided in 1713-14, Leibnitz +composed a short statement of his system for Prince Eugen; this, according +to Gerhardt, was not the sketch in ninety paragraphs, familiar under the +title _Monadology_, which was first published in the original by J.E. +Erdmann in his excellent _Complete Edition of the Philosophical Works +of Leibnitz_, 1840, but the _Principles of Nature and of Grace_, which +appeared two years after the author's death in _L'Europe Savante_. +While Ernst August, as well as the German emperor and Peter the Great, +distinguished the philosopher, who was not indifferent to such honors, by +the bestowal of titles and preferments, his relations with the Hanoverian +court, which until then had been so cordial, grew cold after the Elector +Georg Ludwig ascended the English throne as George I. The letters +which Leibnitz interchanged with his daughter-in-law, gave rise to the +correspondence, continued to his death, with Clarke, who defended the +theology of Newton against him. The contest for priority between Leibnitz +and Newton concerning the invention of the differential calculus was later +settled by the decision that Newton invented his method of fluxions first, +but that Leibnitz published his differential calculus earlier and in a more +perfect form. The variety of pursuits in which Leibnitz was engaged was +unfavorable to the development and influence of his philosophy, in that it +hindered him from working out his original ideas in systematic form, and +left him leisure only for the composition of shorter essays. Besides the +two larger works mentioned above, the _New Essays_ and the _Theodicy_, we +have of philosophical works by Leibnitz only a series of private letters, +and articles for the scientific journals (the _Journal des Savants_ in +Paris, and the _Acta Eruditorum_ in Leipsic, etc.), among which may be +mentioned as specially important the _New System of Nature, and of the +Interaction of Substances as well as of the Union which exists between the +Soul and the Body_, 1695, which was followed during the next year by three +explanations of it, and the paper _De Ipsa Natura_, 1698. Previous to +Erdmann (1840) the following had deserved credit for their editions of +Leibnitz: Feller, Kortholt, Gruber, Raspe, Dutens, Feder, Guhrauer (the +German works), and since Erdmann, Pertz, Foucher de Careil, Onno Klopp, and +especially J.C. Gerhardt. The last named published the mathematical +works in seven volumes in 1849-63, and recently, Berlin, 1875-90, the +philosophical treatises, also in seven volumes.[1] In our account of the +philosophy of Leibnitz we begin with the fundamental metaphysical concepts, +pass next to his theory of living beings and of man (theory of knowledge +and ethics), and close with his inquiries into the philosophy of religion. + +[Footnote 1: We have a life of Leibnitz by G.E. Guhrauer, jubilee edition, +Breslau, 1846 [Mackie's _Life_, Boston, 1845 is based on Guhrauer]. Among +recent works on Leibnitz, we note the little work by Merz, Blackwood's +Philosophical Classics, 1884, and Ludwig Stein's _Leibniz und Spinoza_, +Berlin, 1890, in which with the aid of previously unedited material the +relations of Leibnitz to Spinoza (whom he visited at The Hague on his +return journey from Paris) are discussed, and the attempt is made to trace +the development of the theory of monads, down to 1697. The new exposition +of the Leibnitzian monadology by Ed. Dillman, which has just appeared, +we have not yet been able to examine [The English reader may be referred +further to Dewey's _Leibniz_ in Griggs's Philosophical Classics, 1888, and +Duncan's _Philosophical Works of Leibnitz_ (selections translated, +with notes), New Haven, 1890, as well as to the work of Merz already +mentioned.--TR.]] + + +%1. Metaphysics: the Monads, Representation, the Pre-established Harmony; +the Laws of Thought and of the World.% + +Leibnitz develops his new concept of substance, the monad,[1] in +conjunction with, yet in opposition to, the Cartesian and the atomistic +conceptions. The Cartesians are right when they make the concept of +substance the cardinal point in metaphysics and explain it by the concept +of independence. But they are wrong in their further definition of this +second concept. If we take independence in the sense of unlimitedness and +aseity, we can speak, as the example of Spinoza shows, of only one, the +divine substance. If the Spinozistic result is to be avoided, we must +substitute independent action for independent existence, self-activity +for self-existence. Substance is not that which exists through itself +(otherwise there would be no finite substances), but that which acts +through itself, or that which contains in itself the ground of its changing +states. Substance is to be defined by active force,[2] by which we mean +something different from and better than the bare possibility or capacity +of the Scholastics. The _potentia sive facultas_, in order to issue into +action, requires positive stimulation from without, while the _vis activa_ +(like an elastic body) sets itself in motion whenever no external hindrance +opposes. Substance is a being capable of action (_la substance est un etre +capable d'action_). With the equation of activity and existence (_quod non +agit, non existit_) the substantiality which Spinoza had taken away from +individual things is restored to them: they are active, consequently, in +spite of their limitedness, substantial beings (_quod agit, est substantia +singularis_). Because of its inner activity every existing thing is a +determinate individual, and different from every other being. Substance is +an individual being endowed with force. + +[Footnote 1: According to L. Stein's conjecture, Leibnitz took the +expression Monad, which he employs after 1696, from the younger (Franc. +Mercurius) van Helmont.] + +[Footnote 2: Francis Glisson (1596-1677, professor of medicine in Cambridge +and London) had as early as 1671, conceived substances as forces in his +treatise _De Natura Substantiae Energetica_. That Glisson influenced +Leibnitz, as maintained by H. Marion (Paris, 1880), has not been proven; +cf. L. Stein, p. 184.] + +The atomists are right when they postulate for the explanation of +phenomenal bodies simple, indivisible, eternal units, for every composite +consists of simple parts. But they are wrong when they regard these +invisible, minute corpuscles, which are intended to subserve this purpose +as indivisible: everything that is material, however small it be, is +divisible to infinity, nay, is in fact endlessly divided. If we are to find +indivisible units, we must pass over into the realm of the immaterial and +come to the conclusion that bodies are composed of immaterial constituents. +Physical points, the atoms, are physical, but not points; mathematical +points are indivisible, but not real; metaphysical or substantial +points, the incorporeal, soul-like units, alone combine in themselves +indivisibility and reality--the monads are the true atoms. Together with +indivisibility they possess immortality; as it is impossible for them to +arise and perish through the combination and separation of parts, they +cannot come into being or pass out of it in any natural way whatever, but +only by creation or annihilation. Their non-spatial or punctual character +implies the impossibility of all external influence, the monad develops its +states from its own inner nature, has need of no other thing, is sufficient +unto itself, and therefore deserves the Aristotelian name, entelechy. + +Thus two lines of thought combine in the concept of the monad. Gratefully +recognizing the suggestions from both sides, Leibnitz called Cartesianism +the antechamber of the true philosophy, and atomism the preparation for +the theory of monads. From the first it followed that the substances were +self-acting forces; from the second, that they were immaterial units. +Through the combination of both determinations we gain information +concerning the kind of force or activity which constitutes the being of the +monad: the monads are representative forces. There is nothing truly real in +the world save the monads and their representations [ideas, perceptions]. + +In discussing the representation in which the being and activity of the +monads consist, we must not think directly of the conscious activity of +the human soul. Representation has in Leibnitz a wider meaning than that +usually associated with the word. The distinction, which has become of the +first importance for psychology, between mere representation and conscious +representation, or between perception and apperception, may be best +explained by the example of the sound of the waves. The roar which we +perceive in the vicinity of the sea-beach is composed of the numerous +sounds of the single waves. Each single sound is of itself too small to be +heard; nevertheless it must make an impression on us, if only a small one, +since otherwise their total--as a sum of mere nothings--could not be +heard. The sensation which the motion of the single wave causes is a weak, +confused, unconscious, infinitesimal perception (_petite, insensible +perception_), which must be combined with many similar minute sensations +in order to become strong and distinct, or to rise above the threshold of +consciousness. The sound of the single wave is felt, but not distinguished, +is perceived, but not apperceived. These obscure states of unconscious +representation, which are present in the mind of man along with states of +clear consciousness, make up, in the lowest grade of existence, the whole +life of the monad. There are beings which never rise above the condition of +deep sleep or stupor. + +In conformity with this more inclusive meaning, perception is defined as +the representation of the external in the internal, of multiplicity in +unity _(representatio multitudinis in unitate_). The representing being, +without prejudice to its simplicity, bears in itself a multitude of +relations to external things. What now is the manifold, which is expressed, +perceived, or represented, in the unit, the monad? It is the whole world. +Every monad represents all others in itself, is a concentrated all, the +universe in miniature. Each individual contains an infinity in itself +_(substantia infinitas actiones simul exercet_) and a supreme intelligence, +for which every obscure idea would at once become distinct, would be able +to read in a single monad the whole universe and its history--all that is, +has been, or will be; for the past has left its traces behind it, and +the future will bring nothing not founded in the present: the monad is +freighted with the past and bears the future in its bosom. Every monad is +thus a mirror of the universe,[1] but a living mirror (_miror vivant de +l'univers_), which generates the images of things by its own activity +or develops them from inner germs, without experiencing influences from +without. The monad has no windows through which anything could pass in or +out, but in its action is dependent only on God and on itself. + +[Footnote 1: The objection has been made against Leibnitz, and not without +reason, that strictly speaking there is no content for the representation +of the monads, although he appears to offer them the richest of all +contents, the whole world. The "All" which he makes them represent is +itself nothing but a sum of beings, also representative. The objects of +representation are merely representing subjects; the monad A represents the +monads from B to Z, while these in turn do nothing more than represent one +another. The monad mirrors mirrors--where is the thing that is mirrored? +The essence of substance consists in being related to others, which +themselves are only points of relation; amid mere relativities we never +reach a real. That which prevented Leibnitz himself from recognizing this +empty formalism was, no doubt, the fact that for him the mere form of +representation was at once filled with a manifold experiential content, +with the whole wealth of spiritual life, and that the quantitative +differences in representation, which for him meant also degrees of feeling, +desire, action, and progress, imperceptibly took on the qualitative +vividness of individual characteristics. Moreover, it must not be +overlooked that the spiritual beings represent not merely the universe but +the Deity as well, hence a very rich object.] + +All monads represent the same universe, but each one represents it +differently, that is, from its particular point of view--represents that +which is near at hand distinctly, and that which is distant confusedly. +Since they all reflect the same content or object, their difference +consists only in the energy or degree of clearness in their +representations. So far then, as their action consists in representation, +distinct representation evidently coincides with complete, unhindered +activity, confused representation with arrested activity, or passivity. +The clearer the representations of a monad the more active it is. To have +clear and distinct perceptions only is the prerogative of God; to the +Omnipresent everything is alike near. He alone is pure activity; all +finite beings are passive as well, that is, so far as their perceptions are +not clear and distinct. Retaining the Aristotelian-Scholastic terminology, +Leibnitz calls the active principle form, the passive matter, and makes the +monad, since it is not, like God, _purus actus_ and pure form, consist of +form (entelechy, soul) and matter. This matter, as a constituent of the +monad, does not mean corporeality, but only the ground for the arrest of +its activity. The _materia prima_ (the principle of passivity in the monad) +is the ground, the _materia secunda_ (the phenomenon of corporeal mass) the +result of the indistinctness of the representations. For a group of monads +appears as a body when it is indistinctly perceived. Whoever deprives the +monad of activity falls into the error of Spinoza; whoever takes away +its passivity or matter falls into the opposite error, for he deifies +individual beings. + +No monad represents the common universe and its individual parts just as +well as the others, but either better or worse. There are as many +different degrees of clearness and distinctness as there are monads. + +Nevertheless certain classes may be distinguished. By distinguishing +between clear and obscure perceptions, and in the former class between +distinct and confused ones--a perception is clear when it is sufficiently +distinguished from others, distinct when its component parts are thus +distinguished--Leibnitz reaches three principal grades. Lowest stand the +simple or naked monads, which never rise above obscure and unconscious +perception and, so to speak, pass their lives in a swoon or sleep. If +perception rises into conscious feeling, accompanied by memory, then +the monad deserves the name of soul. And if the soul rises to +self-consciousness and to reason or the knowledge of universal truth, it +is called spirit. Each higher stage comprehends the lower, since even in +spirits many perceptions remain obscure and confused. Hence it was an error +when the Cartesians made thought or conscious activity--by which, it is +true, the spirit is differentiated from the lower beings--to such a degree +the essence of spirit that they believed it necessary to deny to it all +unconscious perceptions. + +From perception arises appetition, not as independent activity, but as a +modification of perception; it is nothing but the tendency to pass from one +perception to another (_l'appetit est la tendance d'une perception a +une autre_); impulse is perception in process of becoming. Where the +perceptions are conscious and rational appetition rises into will. All +monads are self-active or act spontaneously, but only the thinking ones are +free. Freedom is the spontaneity of spirits. Freedom does not consist in +undetermined choice, but in action without external compulsion according to +the laws of one's own being. The monad develops its representations out of +itself, from the germs which form its nature. The correspondence of +the different pictures of the world, however, is grounded in a divine +arrangement, through which the natures of the monads have from the +beginning been so adapted to one another that the changes in their states, +although they take place in each according to immanent laws and without +external influence, follow an exactly parallel course, and the result is +the same as though there were a constant mutual interaction. This general +idea of a _pre-established harmony_ finds special application in the +problem of the interaction between body and soul. Body and soul are like +two clocks so excellently constructed that, without needing to be regulated +by each other, they show exactly the same time. Over the numberless lesser +miracles with which occasionalism burdened the Deity, the one great miracle +of the pre-established harmony has an undeniable advantage. As one great +miracle it is more worthy of the divine wisdom than the many lesser ones, +nay, it is really no miracle at all, since the harmony does not interfere +with natural laws, but yields them. This idea may even be freed from its +theological investiture and reduced to the purely metaphysical expression, +that the natures of the monads, by which the succession of their +representations is determined in conformity with law, consist in nothing +else than the sum of relations in which this individual thing stands to all +other parts of the world, wherein each member takes account of all others +and at the same time is considered by them, and thus exerts influence +as well as suffers it. In this way the external idea of an artificial +adaptation is avoided. The essence of each thing is simply the position +which it occupies in the organic whole of the universe; each member is +related to every other and shares actively and passively in the life of +all the rest. The history of the universe is a single great process in +numberless reflections. + +The metaphysics of Leibnitz begins with the concept of representation +and ends with the harmony of the universe. The representations were +multiplicity (the endless plurality of the represented) in unity (the unity +of the representing monad); the harmony is unity (order, congruity of the +world-image) in multiplicity (the infinitely manifold degrees of clearness +in the representations). All monads represent the same universe; each one +mirrors it differently. The unity, as well as the difference, could not be +greater than it is; every possible degree of distinctness of representation +is present in each single monad, and yet there is a single harmonic accord +in which the unnumbered tones unite. Now order amid diversity, unity in +variety make up the concept of beauty and perfection. If, then, this world +shows, as it does, the greatest unity in the greatest multiplicity, so that +there is nothing wanting and nothing superfluous, it is the most perfect, +the best of all possible worlds. Even the lowest grades contribute to the +perfection of the whole; their disappearance would mean a hiatus; and if +the unclear and confused representations appear imperfect when considered +in themselves, yet they are not so in reference to the whole; for just on +this fact, that the monad is arrested in its representation or is passive, +_i.e._, conforms itself to the others and subordinates itself to them, rest +the order and connection of the world. Thus the idea of harmony forms the +bridge between the Monadology and optimism. + +As in regard to the harmony of the universe we found it possible to +distinguish between a half-mythical, narrative form of presentation and a +purely abstract conception, so we may make a similar distinction in the +doctrine of creation. This actual world has been chosen by God as the best +among many other conceivable worlds. Through the will of God the monads of +which the world consists attained their reality; as possibilities or +ideas they were present in the mind of God (as it were, prior to their +actualization), present, too, with all the distinctive properties and +perfections that they now exhibit in a state of realization, so that their +merely possible or conceivable being had the same content as their actual +being, and their essence is not altered or increased by their existence. +Now, since the impulse toward actualization dwells in every possible +essence, and is the more justifiable the more perfect the essence, a +competition goes on before God, in which, first, those monod-possibilities +unite which are mutually compatible or compossible, and, then, among the +different conceivable combinations of monads or worlds that one is ordained +for entrance into existence which shows the greatest possible sum of +perfection. It was, therefore, not the perfection of the single monad, but +the perfection of the system of which it forms a necessary part, that was +decisive as to its admission into existence. The best world was known +through God's wisdom, chosen through his goodness, and realized through his +power.[1] The choice was by no means arbitrary, but wholly determined by +the law of fitness or of the best (_principe du meilleur_); God's will must +realize that which his understanding recognizes as most perfect. It is at +once evident that in the competition of the possible worlds the victory of +the best was assured by the _lex melioris_, apart from the divine decision. + +[Footnote 1: In regard to the dependence of the world on God, there is a +certain conflict noticeable in Leibnitz between the metaphysical interests +involved in the substantiality of individual beings, together with the +moral interests involved in guarding against fatalism, and the opposing +interests of religion. On the one side, creation is for him only an +actualization of finished, unchangeable possibilities, on the other, he +teaches with the mediaeval philosophers that this was not accomplished by a +single act of realization, that the world has need of conservation, _i.e._, +of continuous creation.] + +This law is the special expression of a more general one, the principle +of sufficient reason, which Leibnitz added, as of equal authority, to the +Aristotelian laws of thought. Things or events are real (and assertions +true) when there is a sufficient reason for their existence, and for their +determinate existence. The _principium rationis sufficientis_ governs our +empirical knowledge of contingent truths or truths of fact, while, on +the other hand, the pure rational knowledge of necessary or eternal +(mathematical and metaphysical) truths rests on the _principium +contradictionis_. The principle of contradiction asserts, that is, whatever +contains a contradiction is false or impossible; whatever contains no +contradiction is possible; that whose opposite contains a contradiction +is necessary. Or positively formulated as the principle of identity, +everything and every representative content is identical with itself.[2] +Upon this antithesis between the rational laws of contradiction and +sufficient reason--which, however, is such only for us men, while the +divine spirit, which cognizes all things _a priori_, is able to reduce even +the truths of fact to the eternal truths--Leibnitz bases his distinction +between two kinds of necessity. That is metaphysically necessary whose +opposite involves a contradiction; that is morally necessary or contingent +which, on account of its fitness, is preferred by God to its (equally +conceivable) opposite. To the latter class belongs, further, the physically +necessary: the necessity of the laws of nature is only a conditional +necessity (conditioned by the choice of the best); they are contingent +truths or truths of fact. The principle of sufficient reason holds for +efficient as well as for final causes, and between the two realms there is, +according to Leibnitz, the most complete correspondence. In the material +world every particular must be explained in a purely mechanical way, but +the totality of the laws of nature, the universal mechanism itself, cannot +in turn be mechanically explained, but only on the basis of finality, so +that the mechanical point of view is comprehended in, and subordinated +to, the teleological. Thus it becomes clear how Leibnitz in the _ratio +sufficiens_ has final causes chiefly in mind. + +[Footnote 2: Within the knowledge of reason, as well as in experiential +knowledge, a further distinction is made between primary truths (which +need no proof) and derived truths. The highest truths of reason are the +identical principles, which are self-evident; from these intuitive truths +all others are to be derived by demonstration--proof is analysis and, as +free from contradictions, demonstration. The primitive truths of experience +are the immediate facts of consciousness; whatever is inferred from them is +less certain than demonstrative knowledge. Nevertheless experience is not +to be estimated at a low value; it is through it alone that we can assure +ourselves of the reality of the objects of thought, while necessary truths +guarantee only that a predicate must be ascribed to a subject (_e.g._, a +circle), but make no deliverance as to whether this subject exists or not.] + +To the broad and comprehensive tendency which is characteristic of +Leibnitz's thinking, philosophy owes a further series of general laws, +which all stand in the closest relation to one another and to his +monadological and harmonistic principles, viz., the law of continuity, the +law of analogy, the law of the universal dissimilarity of things or of the +identity of indiscernibles, and, finally, the law of the conservation of +force. + +The most fundamental of these laws is the _lex continui_. On the one hand, +it forbids every leap, on the other, all repetition in the series of beings +and the series of events. Member must follow member without a break and +without superfluous duplication; in the scale of creatures, as in the +course of events, absolute continuity is the rule. Just as in the monad one +state continually develops from another, the present one giving birth +to the future, as it has itself grown out of the past, just as nothing +persists, as nothing makes its entrance suddenly or without the way being +prepared for it, and as all extremes are bound together by connecting +links and gradual transitions,--so the monad itself stands in a continuous +gradation of beings, each of which is related to and different from each. +Since the beings and events form a single uninterrupted series, there are +no distinctions of kind in the world, but only distinctions in degree. Rest +and motion are not opposites, for rest may be considered as infinitely +minute motion; the ellipse and the parabola are not qualitatively +different, for the laws which hold for the one may be applied to the other. +Likeness is vanishing unlikeness, passivity arrested activity, evil a +lesser good, confused ideas simply less distinct ones, animals men with +infinitely little reason, plants animals with vanishing consciousness, +fluidity a lower degree of solidity, etc. In the whole world similarity +and correspondence rule, and it is everywhere the same as here--between +apparent opposites there is a distinction in degree merely, and hence, +analogy. In the macrocosm of the universe things go on as in the microcosm +of the monad; every later state of the world is prefigured in the earlier, +etc. If, on the one side, the law of analogy follows as a consequence from +the law of continuity, on the other, we have the _principium (identitatis) +indiscernibilium_. As nature abhors gaps, so also it avoids the +superfluous. Every grade in the series must be represented, but none more +than once. There are no two things, no two events which are entirely alike. +If they were exactly alike they would not be two, but one. The distinction +between them is never merely numerical, nor merely local and temporal, but +always an intrinsic difference: each thing is distinguished from every +other by its peculiar nature. This law holds both for the truly real (the +monads) and for the phenomenal world--you will never find two leaves +exactly alike. By the law of the conservation of force, Leibnitz corrects +the Cartesian doctrine of the conservation of motion, and approaches the +point of view of the present day. According to Descartes it is the sum of +actual motions, which remains constant; according to Leibnitz, the sum of +the active forces; while, according to the modern theory, it is the sum of +the active and the latent or potential forces--a distinction, moreover, of +which Leibnitz himself made use. + +We now turn from the formal framework of general laws, to the actual, to +that which, obeying these laws, constitutes the living content of the +world. + + +%2. The Organic World.% + +A living being is a machine composed of an infinite number of organs. The +natural machines formed by God differ from the artificial machines made by +the hand of man, in that, down to their smallest parts, they consist of +machines. Organisms are complexes of monads, of which one, the soul, is +supreme, while the rest, which serve it, form its body. The dominant monad +is distinguished from those which surround it as its body by the greater +distinctness of its ideas. The supremacy of the soul-monad consists in this +one superior quality, that it is more active and more perfect, and clearly +reflects that which the body-monads represent but obscurely. A direct +interaction between soul and body does not take place; there is only a +complete correspondence, instituted by God. He foresaw that the soul at +such and such a moment would have the sensation of warmth, or would wish an +arm-motion executed, and has so ordered the development of the body-monads +that, at the same instant, they appear to cause this sensation and to +obey this impulse to move. Now, since God in this foreknowledge and +accommodation naturally paid more regard to the perfect beings, to the more +active and more distinctly perceiving monads than to the less perfect ones, +and subordinated the latter, as means and conditions, to the former +as ends, the soul, prior to creation, actually exercised an ideal +influence--through the mind of God--upon its body. Its activity is the +reason why in less perfect monads a definite change, a passion takes place, +since the action was attainable only in this way, "compossible" with this +alone.[1] The monads which constitute the body are the first and direct +object of the soul; it perceives them more distinctly than it perceives, +through them, the rest of the external world. In view of the close +connection of the elements of the organism thus postulated, Leibnitz, in +the discussions with Father Des Bosses concerning the compatibility of +the Monadology with the doctrine of the Church, especially with the real +presence of the body of Christ in the Supper, consented, in favor of +the dogma, to depart from the assumption that the simple alone could be +substantial and to admit the possibility of composite substances, and of a +"substantial bond" connecting the parts of living beings. It appears least +in contradiction with the other principles of the philosopher to assign the +role of this _vinculum substantiate_ to the soul or central monad itself. + +[Footnote 1: Cf. Gustav Class, _Die metaphysischen Voraussetzungen des +Leibnizischen Determinismus_, Tuebingen, 1874.] + +Everything in nature is organized; there are no soulless bodies, no dead +matter. The smallest particle of dust is peopled with a multitude of living +beings and the tiniest drop of water swarms with organisms: every portion +of matter may be compared to a pond filled with fish or a garden full of +plants. This denial of the inorganic does not release our philosopher from +the duty of explaining its apparent existence. If we thoughtfully consider +bodies, we perceive that there is nothing lifeless and non-representative. +But the phenomenon of extended mass arises for our confused sensuous +perception, which perceives the monads composing a body together and +regards them as a continuous unity. Body exists only as a confused idea +in the feeling subject; since, nevertheless, a reality without the mind, +namely, an immaterial monad-aggregate, corresponds to it, the phenomenon +of body is a well-founded one _(phenomenon bene fundatum)_. As matter is +merely something present in sensation or confused representation, so space +and time are also nothing real, neither substances nor properties, but only +ideal things--the former the order of coexistences, the latter the order of +successions. + +If there are no soulless bodies, there are also no bodiless souls; the soul +is always joined with an aggregate of subordinate monads, though not always +with the same ones. Single monads are constantly passing into its body, +or into its service, while others are passing out; it is involved in a +continuous process of bodily transformation. Usually the change goes on +slowly and with a constant replacement of the parts thrown off. If it takes +place quickly men call it birth or death. Actual death there is as little +as there is an actual genesis; not the soul only, but every living thing +is imperishable. Death is decrease and involution, birth increase and +evolution. The dying creature loses only a portion of its bodily machine +and so returns to the slumberous or germinal condition of "involution", +in which it existed before birth, and from which it was aroused through +conception to development. Pre-existence as well as post-existence must +be conceded both to animals and to men. Leuwenhoek's discovery of the +spermatozoa furnished a welcome confirmation for this doctrine, that all +individuals have existed since the beginning of the world, at least as +preformed germs. The immortality of man, conformably to his superior +dignity, differs from the continued existence of all monads, in that after +his death he retains memory and the consciousness of his moral personality. + + +%3. Man: Cognition and Volition.% + +In reason man possesses reflection or self-consciousness as well as the +knowledge of God, of the universal, and of the eternal truths or _a priori_ +knowledge, while the animal is limited in its perception to experience, +and in its reasoning to the connection of perceptions in accordance with +memory. Man differs from higher beings in that the majority of his +ideas are confused. Under confused ideas Leibnitz includes both +sense-perceptions--anyone who has distinct ideas alone, as God, has no +sense-perceptions--and the feelings which mediate between the former and +the perfectly distinct ideas of rational thought. The delight of music +depends, in his opinion, on an unconscious numbering and measuring of +the harmonic and rhythmic relations of tones, aesthetic enjoyment of +the beautiful in general, and even sensuous pleasure, on the confused +perception of a perfection, order, or harmony. + +The application of the _lex continui_ to the inner life has a very wide +range. The principal results are: (1) the mind always thinks; (2) every +present idea postulates a previous one from which it has arisen; (3) +sensation and thought differ only in degree; (4) in the order of time, the +ideas of sense precede those of reason. We are never wholly without ideas, +only we are often not conscious of them. If thought ceased in deep sleep, +we could have no ideas on awakening, since every representation proceeds +from a preceding one, even though it be unconscious. + +In the thoughtful _New Essays concerning the Human Understanding_ Leibnitz +develops his theory of knowledge in the form of a polemical commentary +to Locke's chief work.[1] According to Descartes some ideas (the pure +concepts) are innate, according to Locke none, according to Leibnitz all. +Or: according to Descartes some ideas (sensuous perceptions) come from +without, according to Locke all do so, according to Leibnitz none. +Leibnitz agrees with Descartes against Locke in the position that the mind +originally possesses ideas; he agrees with Locke against Descartes, that +thought is later than sensation and the knowledge of universals later +than that of particulars. The originality which Leibnitz attributes to +intellectual ideas is different from that which Descartes had ascribed and +Locke denied to them. They are original in that they do not come into the +soul and are not impressed upon it from without; they are not original in +that they can develop only from previously given sense-ideas; again, they +are original in that they can be developed from confused ideas only because +they are contained in them _implicite_ or as pre-dispositions. +Thus Leibnitz is able to agree with both his predecessors up to a certain +point: with the one, that the pure concepts have their origin within the +mind; with the other, that they are not the earliest knowledge, but are +conditioned by sensations. This synthesis, however, was possible only +because Leibnitz looked on sensation differently from both the others. If +sensation is to be the mother of thought, and the latter at the same time +to preserve its character as original, _i.e._, as something not obtained +from without, sensation must, first, include an unconscious thinking in +itself, and, secondly, must itself receive a title to originality and +spontaneity. As the Catholic dogma added the immaculate conception of the +mother to that of the Son, so Leibnitz transfers the (virginal) origin of +rational concepts, independent of external influence, to sensations. The +monad has no windows. It bears germinally in itself all that it is to +experience, and nothing is impressed on it from without. The intellect +should not be compared to a blank tablet, but to a block of marble in whose +veins the outlines of the statue are prefigured. Ideas can only arise from +ideas, never from external impressions or movements of corporeal parts. +Thus _all_ ideas are innate in the sense that they grow from inner germs; +we possess them from the beginning, not developed (_explicite_), but +potentially, that is, we have the capacity to produce them. The old +Scholastic principle that "there is nothing in the understanding which was +not previously in sense" is entirely correct, only one must add, except the +understanding itself, that is, the faculty of developing our knowledge +out of ourselves. Thought lies already dormant in perception. With the +mechanical position (sensuous representation precedes and conditions +rational thought) is joined the teleological position (sensuous +representations exist, in order to render the origin of thoughts possible), +and with this purposive determination, sensation attains a higher dignity: +it is more than has been seen in it before, for it includes in itself the +future concept of the understanding in an unconscious form, nay, it is +itself an imperfect thought, a thought in process of becoming. Sensation +and thought are not different in kind, and if the former is called a +passive state, still passivity is nothing other than diminished activity. +Both are spontaneous; thought is merely spontaneous in a higher degree. + +[Footnote 1: A careful comparison of Locke's theory of knowledge with +that of Leibnitz is given by G. Hartenstein, _Abhandlungen der k. saechs. +Gesellschaft der Wissenschaften_, Leipsic, 1865, included in Hartenstein's +_Historisch-philosophische Abhandlungen_, 1870.] + +By making sensation and feeling the preliminary step to thought, Leibnitz +became the founder of that intellectualism which, in the system of Hegel, +extended itself far beyond the psychological into the cosmical field, and +endeavored to conceive not only all psychical phenomena but all reality +whatsoever as a development of the Idea toward itself. This conception, +which may be characterized as intellectualistic in its content, presents +itself on its formal side as a quantitative way of looking at the world, +which sacrifices all qualitative antitheses in order to arrange the +totality of being and becoming in a single series with no distinctions but +those of degree. If Leibnitz here appears as the representative of a view +of the world which found in Kant a powerful and victorious opponent, yet, +on the other hand, he prepared the way by his conception of innate ideas +for the Critique of Reason. By his theory of knowledge he forms the +transition link between Descartes and Kant, since he interprets necessary +truths not as dwelling in the mind complete and explicit from the start, +but as produced or raised into consciousness only on the occasion of +sensuous experience. It must be admitted, moreover, that this in reality +was only a restoration of Descartes's original position, _i.e._, a +deliverance of it from the misinterpretations and perversions which it +had suffered at the hands of adherents and opponents alike, but which +Descartes, it is true, had failed to render impossible from the start by +conclusive explanations. The author of the theory of innate ideas certainly +did not mean what Locke foists upon him, that the child in the cradle +already possesses the ideas of God, of thought, and of extension in full +clearness. But whether Leibnitz improved or only restored Descartes, it was +in any case an important advance when experience and thought were brought +into more definite relation, and the productive force in rational concepts +was secured to the latter and the occasion of their production to the +former. + +The unconscious or minute ideas, which in noetics had served to break the +force of Locke's objections against the innateness of the principles of +reason, are in ethics brought into the field against indeterminism. They +are involved whenever we believe ourselves to act without cause, from pure +choice, or contrary to the motives present. In this last case, a motive +which is very strong in itself is overcome by the united power of many in +themselves weaken The will is always determined, and that by an idea (of +ends), which generally is of a very complex nature, and in which the +stronger side decides the issue. An absolute equilibrium of motives is +impossible: the world cannot be divided into two entirely similar parts +(this in opposition to "Buridan's ass"). A spirit capable of looking us +through and through would be able to calculate all our volitions and +actions beforehand. + +In spite of this admitted inevitableness of our resolutions and actions, +the predicate of freedom really belongs to them, and this on two grounds. +First, they are only physically or morally, not metaphysically, necessary; +as a matter of fact, it is true, they cannot happen otherwise, but their +opposite involves no logical contradiction and remains conceivable. To +express this thought the formula, often repeated since, that our +motives only impel, incite, or stimulate the will, but do not compel it +(_inclinant, non necessitant_), was chosen, but not very happily. Secondly, +the determination of the will is an inner necessitation, grounded in the +being's own nature, not an external compulsion. The agent determines +himself in accordance with his own nature, and for this each bears the +responsibility himself, for God, when he brought the monads out of +possibility into actuality, left their natures as they had existed before +the creation in the form of eternal ideas in His understanding. Though +Leibnitz thus draws a distinction between his deterministic doctrine and +the "fatalism" of Spinoza, he recognizes a second concept of freedom, which +completely corresponds to Spinoza's. A decision is the more free the more +distinct the ideas which determine it, and a man the more free the more he +withdraws his will from the influence of the passions, _i.e._, confused +ideas, and subordinates it to that of reason. God alone is absolutely free, +because he has no ideas which are not distinct. The bridge between the +two conceptions of freedom is established by the principle that reason +constitutes the peculiar nature of man in a higher degree than the sum of +his ideas; for it is reason which distinguishes him from the lower beings. +According to the first meaning of freedom man is free, according to the +second, which coincides with activity, perfection, and morality, he should +become free. + +Morality is the result of the natural development of the individual. Every +being strives after perfection or increased activity, _i.e._, after more +distinct ideas. Parallel to this theoretical advance runs a practical +advance in a twofold form: the increasing distinctness of ideas, or +enlightenment, or wisdom, raises the impulse to transitory, sensuous +pleasure into an impulse to permanent delight in our spiritual perfection, +or toward happiness, while, further, it opens up an insight into the +connection of all beings and the harmony of the world, in virtue of which +the virtuous man will seek to promote the perfection and happiness of +others as well as his own, _i.e._, will _love_ them, for to love is to find +pleasure in the happiness of others. To promote the good of all, again, +is the same as to contribute one's share to the world-harmony and to +co-operate in the fulfillment of God's purposes. Probity and piety are the +same. They form the highest of the three grades of natural right, which +Leibnitz distinguishes as _jus strictum_ (mere right, with the principle: +Injure no one), _aequitas_ (equity or charity, with the maxim: To each +his due), and _probitas sive pietas_ (honorableness joined with religion, +according to the command: Lead an upright and morally pure life). They may +also be designated as commutative, distributive, and universal justice. +Belief in God and immortality is a condition of the last. + + +%4. Theology and Theodicy.% + +God is the ground and the end of the world. All beings strive toward him, +as all came out from him. In man the general striving toward the most +perfect Being rises into conscious love to God, which is conditioned by the +knowledge of God and produces virtuous action as its effect. Enlightenment +and virtue are the essential constituents of religion; all else, as cultus +and dogma, have only a derivative value. Religious ceremonies are an +imperfect expression of the practical element in piety, as the doctrines of +faith are a weak imitation of the theoretical. It is a direct contradiction +of the intention of the Divine Teacher when occult formulas and ceremonies, +which have no connection with virtue, are made the chief thing. The points +in which the creeds agree are more important than those by which they are +differentiated. Natural religion has found its most perfect expression in +Christianity, although paganism and Judaism had also grasped portions of +the truth. Salvation is not denied to the heathen, for moral purity is +sufficient to make one a partaker of the grace of God. The religion of the +Jews elevated monotheism, which, it is true, made its appearance among the +heathen in isolated philosophers, but was never the popular religion, into +a law; but it lacked the belief in immortality. Christianity made the +religion of the sage the religion of the people. + +Whatever of positive doctrine revelation has added to natural religion +transcends the reason, it is true, but does not contradict it. It contains +no principles contrary to reason (whose opposite can be proved), but, no +doubt, principles above reason, _i.e._, such as the reason could not have +found without help from without, and which it cannot fully comprehend, +though it is able approximately to understand them and to defend them +against objections. Hence Leibnitz defended the Trinity, which he +interpreted as God's power, understanding, and will, the eternity of the +torments of hell (which brought him the commendation of Lessing), and other +dogmas. Miracles also belong among the things the how and why of which we +are not in a position to comprehend, but only the that and what. Since the +laws of nature are only physically or conditionally necessary, _i.e._ have +been enacted only because of their fitness for the purposes of God, they +may be suspended in special cases when a higher end requires it. + +While the positive doctrines of faith cannot be proved--as, on the other +hand, they cannot be refuted--the principles of natural religion admit of +strict demonstration. The usual arguments for the existence of God are +useful, but need amendment. The ontological argument of Descartes, that +from the concept of a most perfect Being his existence follows, is +correct so soon as the idea of God is shown to be possible or free from +contradiction. The cosmological proof runs: Contingent beings point to a +necessary, self-existent Being, the eternal truths especially presuppose an +eternal intelligence in which they exist. If we ask why anything whatever, +or why just this world exists, this ultimate ground of things cannot be +found within the world. Every contingent thing or event has its cause in +another. However far we follow out the series of conditions, we never reach +an ultimate, unconditioned cause. Consequently the sufficient reason for +the series must be situated without the world, and, as is evident from the +harmony of things, can only be an infinitely wise and good Being. Here the +teleological proof comes in: From the finality of the world we reason to +the existence of a Being, as the author of the world, who works in view +of ends and who wills and carries out that which is best,--to the supreme +intelligence, goodness, and power of the Creator. A special inferential +value accrues to this position from the system of pre-established +harmony--it is manifest that the complete correspondence of the manifold +substances in the world, which are not connected with one another by any +direct interaction, can proceed only from a common cause endowed with +infinite intelligence and power. + +The possibility of proving the existence of one omnipotent and +all-beneficent God, and the impossibility of refuting the positive +dogmas, save the harmony of faith and reason, which Bayle had denied. +The conclusion of the _New Essays_ and the opening of the _Theodicy_ are +devoted to this theme. The second part gives, also against Bayle, the +justification of God in view of the evil in the world. _Si Deus est, unde +malum_? Optimism has to reckon with the facts of experience, and to show +that this world, in spite of its undeniable imperfections, is still the +best world. God could certainly have brought into actuality a world in +which there would have been less imperfection than in ours, but it would at +the same time have contained fewer perfections. No world whatever can exist +entirely free from evil, entirely without limitation--whoever forbids God +to create imperfect beings forbids him to create a world at all. Certain +evils--in general terms, the evil of finitude--are entirely inseparable +from the concept of created beings; imperfection attaches to every created +thing as such. Other evils God has permitted because it was only through +them that certain higher goods, which ought not to be renounced, could be +brought to pass. Think of the lofty feelings, noble resolves, and great +deeds which war occasions, think of national enthusiasm, readiness for +sacrifice, and defiance of death--all these would be given over, if war +should be taken out of the world on account of the suffering which it also +brings in its train. + +If we turn from the general principles to their application in detail, we +find a separate proof for the inevitableness or salutary nature of each of +the three kinds of evil--the metaphysical evil of created existence, the +physical evil of suffering (and punishment), and the moral evil of sin. +Metaphysical evil is absolutely unavoidable, if a world is to exist at all; +created beings without imperfection, finiteness, limitation, are entirely +inconceivable--something besides gods must exist. The physical evil of +misery finds its justification in that it makes for good. First of all, the +amount of suffering is not so great as it appears to discontented spirits +to be. Life is usually quite tolerable, and vouchsafes more joy and +pleasure than grief and hardship; in balancing the good and the evil we +must especially remember to reckon on the positive side the goods of +activity, of health, and all that which affords us, perchance, no +perceptible pleasure, but the removal of which would be felt as an evil +(_Theodicy_, ii. Sec. 251). Most evils serve to secure us a much greater good, +or to ward off a still greater evil. Would a brave general, if given the +choice of leaving the battle unwounded, but also without the victory, or of +winning the victory at the cost of a wound, hesitate an instant to choose +the latter? Other troubles, again, must be regarded as punishment for sins +and as means of reformation; the man who is resigned to God's will may be +certain that the sufferings which come to him will turn out for his good. + +Especially if we consider the world as a whole, it is evident that the +sum of evil vanishes before the sum of good. It is wrong to look upon the +happiness of man as the end of the world. Certainly God had the happiness +of rational beings in mind, but not this exclusively, for they form only +a part of the world, even if it be the highest part. God's purpose has +reference rather to the perfection of the whole system of the universe. Now +the harmony of the universe requires that all possible grades of reality +be represented, that there should be indistinct ideas, sense, and +corporeality, not merely a realm of spirits, and with these, conditions +of imperfection, feelings of pain, and theoretical and moral errors are +inevitably given. The connection and the order of the world demands a +material element in the monad, but happiness without alloy can never be the +lot of a spirit joined to a body. Thirdly, in regard to moral evil also we +receive the assurance that the sum of the bad is much less than that of the +good. Then, moral evil is connected with metaphysical evil: created beings +cannot be absolutely perfect, hence, also, not morally perfect or sinless. +But, in return for this, there is no being that is absolutely imperfect, +none only and entirely evil. With this is joined the well-known principle +of the earlier thinkers, that evil is nothing actual, but merely +deprivation, absence of good, lack of clear reason and force of will. That +which is real in the evil action, the power to act, is perfect and good, +and, as force, comes from God--the negative or evil element in it comes +from the agent himself; just as in the case of two ships of the same size, +but unequally laden, which drift with the current, the speed comes from the +stream and the retardation from the load of the vessels themselves. God +is not responsible for sin, for he has only permitted it, not willed it +directly, and man was already evil before he was created. The fact that God +foresaw that man would sin does not constrain the latter to commit the +evil deed, but this follows from his own (eternal) being, which God left +unaltered when he granted him existence. The guilt and the responsibility +fall wholly on the sinner himself. The permission of evil is explained by +the predominantly good results which follow from it (not, as in physical +evil, for the sufferer himself, but for others)--from the crime of Sextus +Tarquinius sprang a great kingdom with great men (of. the beautiful myth in +connection with a dialogue of Laurentius Valla, _Theodicy,_ iii. 413-416). +Finally, reference is made again to the contribution which evil makes to +the perfection of the whole. Evil has the same function in the world as the +discords in a piece of music, or the shadows in a painting--the beauty is +heightened by the contrast. The good needs a foil in order to come out +distinctly and to be felt in all its excellence. + +In the Leibnitzian theodicy the least satisfactory part is the +justification of moral evil. We miss the view defended in such grand +outlines by Hegel, and so ingeniously by Fechner, that the good is not +the flower of a quiet, unmolested development, but the fruit of energetic +labor; that it has need of its opposite; that it not merely must approve +itself in the battle against evil without and within the acting subject, +but that it is only through this conflict that it is attainable at all. +Virtue implies force of will as well as purity, and force develops only +by resistance. Although he does not appreciate the full depth of the +significance of pain, Leibnitz's view of suffering deserves more approval +than his questionable application to the ethical sphere of the quantitative +view of the world, with its interpretation of evil as merely undeveloped +good. But, in any case, the compassionate contempt of the pessimism of the +day for the "shallow" Leibnitz is most unjustifiable. + + + +CHAPTER VIII. + +THE GERMAN ILLUMINATION. + + +%1. The Contemporaries of Leibnitz.% + +The period between Kepler and Leibnitz in Germany was very poor in +noteworthy philosophical phenomena. The physicist, Christoph Sturm[1] of +Altdorf (died 1703), was a follower of Descartes, Joachim Jungius[2] (died +1657) a follower of Bacon, though not denying with the latter the value of +the mathematical method in natural science. Hieronymus Hirnhaym, Abbot at +Prague (_The Plague of the Human Race, or the Vanity of Human Learning_, +1676), declared the thirst for knowledge of his age a dangerous disease, +knowledge uncertain, since no reliance can be placed on sense-perception +and the principles of thought contradict the doctrines of faith, and +harmful, since it contributes nothing to salvation, but makes its +possessors proud and draws them away from piety. He maintained, further, +that divine authority is the only refuge for man, and moral life the true +science. Side by side with such skepticism Hirnhaym's contemporary, the +poet Angelus Silesius (Joh. Scheffler, died 1667), defended mysticism. +The teacher of natural law, Samuel Pufendorf[3] (1632-94, professor in +Heidelberg and Lund, died in Berlin), aimed to mediate between Grotius and +Hobbes. Natural law is demonstrable, its real ground is the will of God, +its noetical ground (not revelation, but) reason and observation of the +(social) nature of man, and the fundamental law the promotion of universal +good. The individual must not violate the interests of society in +satisfying his impulse to self-preservation, because his own interests +require social existence, and, consequently, respect for its conditions. + +[Footnote 1: Chr. Sturm: _Physica Conciliatrix_, 1687; _Physica Electiva_, +vol. i. 1697, vol. ii. with preface by Chr. Wolff, 1722; _Compendium +Universalium seu Metaphysica Euclidea_.] + +[Footnote 2: J. Jung _Logica Hamburgiensis_, 1638; cf. Guhrauer, 1859.] + +[Footnote 3: Pufendorf: _Elementa Juris Universalis_, 1660; _De Statu +Imperii Germanici_, 1667, under the pseudonym Monzambano; _De Jure Natures +et Gentium_ 1672, and an abstract of this, _De Officio Hominis et Civis_, +1673.] + +Pufendorf was followed by Christian Thomasius[1] (1655-1728; professor of +law at the University of Halle from its foundation in 1694). He was +the first instructor who ventured to deliver lectures in the German +language--in Leipsic from 1687--and at the same time was the editor of the +first learned journal in German (_Teutsche Monate, Geschichte der Weisheit +und Thorheit_). In Thomasius the characteristic features of the German +Illumination first came out in full distinctness, namely, the avoidance of +scholasticism in expression and argument, the direct relation of knowledge +to life, sober rationality in thinking, heedless eclecticism, and the +demand for religious tolerance. Philosophy must be generally intelligible, +and practically useful, knowledge of the world (not of God); its form, free +and tasteful ratiocination; its object, man and morals; its first duty, +culture, not learning; its highest aim, happiness; its organ and the +criterion of every truth, common sense. He alone gains true knowledge who +frees his understanding from prejudice and judges only after examining for +himself; the joy of mental peace is given to no one who does not free his +heart from foolish desires and vehement passions, and devote it to virtue, +to "rational love." The positive doctrines of Thomasius have less interest +than this general standpoint, which prefigured the succeeding period. He +divides practical philosophy into natural law which treats of the _justum_, +politics which treats of the _decorum_, and ethics which treats of the +_honestum_. Justice bids us, Do not to others what you would not that +others should do to you; decorum, Do to others as you would that they +should do to you; and morality, Do to yourself as you would that others +should do to themselves. The first two laws relate to external, the third +to internal, peace; legal duties may be enforced by compulsion, moral +duties not. + +[Footnote 1: Thomasius: _Institutionum Jurisprudentiae Divinae Libri Tres_, +1688; _Fundamenta Juris Naturae et Gentium_, 1705, both in Latin; in +German, appeared in 1691-96 the _Introduction and Application of Rational +and Moral Philosophy_.] + +If Thomasius was the leader of those popular philosophers who, unconcerned +about systematic continuity, discussed every question separately before +the tribunal of common sense, and found in their lack of allegiance to +any philosophical sect a sufficient guarantee of the unprejudicedness +and impartiality of their reflections, Count Walter von Tschirnhausen +(1651-1708; _Medecina Mentis sive Artis Inveniendi Praecepta Generalia_, +1687), a friend of Spinoza and Leibnitz, became the prototype of another +group of the philosophers of the Illumination. This group favored +eclecticism of a more scientific kind, by starting from considerations +of method and seeking to overcome the antithesis between rationalism and +empiricism. While fully persuaded of the validity and necessity of the +mathematical method in philosophical investigations, as well as elsewhere, +Tschirnhausen still holds it indispensable that the deductions, on the one +hand, start from empirical facts, and, on the other, that they be confirmed +by experiments. Inner experience gives us four primal facts, of which the +chief is the certainty of self-consciousness. The second, that many things +affect us agreeably and many disagreeably, is the basis of morals; the +third, that some things are comprehensible to us and others not, the +basis of logic; the fourth, that through the senses we passively receive +impressions from without, the basis of the empirical sciences, in +particular, of physics. Consequently consciousness, will, understanding, +and sensuous representation _(imaginatio)_, together with corporeality, +are our fundamental concepts. Not perception _(perceptio)_, but conception +_(conceptio)_ alone gives science; that which we can "conceive" is true; +the understanding as such cannot err, but undoubtedly the imagination can +lead us to confuse the merely perceived with that which is conceived. The +method of science is geometrical demonstration, which starts from +(genetic) definitions, and from their analysis obtains axioms, from their +combination, theorems. That which is thus proved _a priori_ must, as +already remarked, be confirmed _a posteriori_. The highest of all sciences +is natural philosophy, since it considers not sense-objects only, not (like +mathematics) the objects of reason only, but the actual itself in its true +character. Hence it is the divine science, while the human sciences busy +themselves only with our ideas or the relations of things to us. + + +%2. Christian Wolff.% + +Christian Wolff was born at Breslau in 1679, studied theology at Jena, and +in addition mathematics and philosophy, habilitated at Leipsic in 1703, +and obtained, through the instrumentality of Leibnitz, a professorship of +mathematics at Halle, in 1706. His lectures, which soon extended themselves +over all philosophical disciplines, met with great success. This +popularity, as well as the rationalistic tendency of his thinking, aroused +the disfavor of the pietists, Francke and Lange, who succeeded, in 1723, in +securing from King Frederick William I. his removal from his chair and his +expulsion from the kingdom. Finding a refuge in Marburg, he was called back +to Halle by Frederick the Great a short time after the latter's ascension +of the throne. Here he taught and wrote zealously until his death in 1754. +In his lectures, as well as in half of his writings,[1] he followed the +example of Thomasius in using the German language, which he prepared in +a most praiseworthy manner for the expression of philosophical ideas and +furnished with a large part of the technical terms current to-day. Thus +the terms _Verhaeltniss_ (relation), _Vorstellung_ (representation, idea), +_Bewusstsein_ (consciousness), _stetig (continuus)_, come from Wolff, as +well as the distinction between _Kraft_ (power) and _Vermoegen_ (faculty), +and between _Grund_ (ground) and _Ursache_ (cause),[2] Another great +service consisted in the reduction of the philosophy of Leibnitz to a +systematic form, by which he secured a dissemination for it which otherwise +it would scarcely have obtained. But he did not possess sufficient +originality to contribute anything remarkable of his own, and it showed +little self-knowledge when he became indignant at the designation +Leibnitzio-Wolffian philosophy, which was first used by his pupil, +Bilfinger. The alterations which he made in the doctrines of Leibnitz are +far from being improvements, and the parts which he rejected are just the +most characteristic and thoughtful of all. Such at least is the opinion +of thinkers to-day, though this mutilation and leveling down of the most +daring of Leibnitz's hypotheses was perhaps entirely advantageous for +Wolff's impression on his contemporaries; what appeared questionable to him +would no doubt have repelled them also. Leibnitz's two leading ideas, the +theory of monads and the pre-established harmony, were most of all affected +by this process of toning down. Wolff weakens the former by attributing +a representative power only to actual souls, which are capable of +consciousness, although he holds that bodies are compounded of simple +beings and that the latter are endowed with (a not further defined) force. +He limits the application of the pre-established harmony to the relation of +body and soul, which to Leibnitz was only a case especially favorable for +the illustration of the hypothesis. By such trifling the real meaning of +both these ideas is sacrificed and their bloom rubbed off.--While depth +is lacking in Wolff's thinking, he is remarkable for his power of +systematization, his persevering diligence, and his logical earnestness, +so that the praise bestowed on him by Kant, that he was the author of the +spirit of thoroughness in Germany, was well deserved. He, too, finds +the end of philosophy in the enlightenment of the understanding, the +improvement of the heart, and, ultimately, in the promotion of the +happiness of mankind. But while Thomasius demanded as a condition of such +universal intelligibility and usefulness that, discarding the scholastic +garb, philosophy should appear in the form of easy ratiocination, Wolff, on +the other hand, regards methodical procedure and certainty in results as +indispensable to its usefulness, and, in order to this certainty, +insists on distinctness of conception and cogency of proof. He demands +a _philosophia et certa et utilis_. If, finally, his methodical +deliberateness, especially in his later works, leads him into wearisome +diffuseness, this pedantry is made good by his genuinely German, honest +spirit, which manifests itself agreeably in his judgment on practical +questions. + +[Footnote 1: _Reasonable Thoughts on the Powers of the Human +Understanding_, 1712; _Reasonable Thoughts on God, the World, and the +Soul of Man, also on All Things in General_, 1719 (_Notes_ to this 1724); +_Reasonable Thoughts on the Conduct of Man_, 1720; _Reasonable Thoughts on +the Social Life of Man_, 1721; _Reasonable Thoughts on the Operations of +Nature_, 1723; _Reasonable Thoughts on the Purposes of Natural Things_, +1724; _Reasonable Thoughts on the Parts of Man, Animals, and Plants_, 1725, +all in German. Besides these there are extensive Latin treatises (1728-53) +on Logic, Ontology, Cosmology, Empirical and Rational Psychology, Natural +Theology, and all branches of Practical Philosophy. Detailed extracts may +be found in Erdmann's _Versuch einer wissenschaftlichen Darstellung_, ii. +2. The best account of the Wolffian philosophy has been given by Zeller +(pp. 211-273).] + +[Footnote 2: Eucken, _Geschichte der Terminologie_^ pp. 133-134.] + +Wolff reaches his division of the sciences by combining the two +psychological antitheses--the higher (rational) and lower (sensuous) +faculties of cognition and appetition. On the first is based the +distinction between the rational and the empirical or historical method of +treatment. The latter concerns itself with the actual, the former with the +possible and necessary, or the grounds of the actual; the one observes and +describes, the other deduces. The antithesis of cognition and appetition +gives the basis for the division into theoretical and practical philosophy. +The former, called metaphysics, is divided into a general part, which +treats of being in general whether it be of a corporeal or a spiritual +nature, and three special parts, according to their principal subjects, the +world, the soul, and God,--hence into ontology, cosmology, psychology, and +theology. The science which establishes rules for action and regards man as +an individual being, as a citizen, and as the head or member of a family, +is divided (after Aristotle) into ethics, politics, and economics, which +are preceded by practical philosophy in general, and by natural law. The +introduction to the two principal parts is furnished by formal logic. + +Philosophy is the science of the possible, _i.e._, of that which contains +no contradiction; it is science from concepts, its principle, the law of +identity, its form, demonstration, and its instrument, analysis, which in +the predicate explicates the determinations contained in the concept of the +subject. In order to confirm that which has been deduced from pure concepts +by the facts of experience, _psychologia rationalis_ is supplemented by +_psychologia empirica_, rational cosmology by empirical physics, and +speculative theology by an experimental doctrine of God (teleology). Wolff +gives no explanation how it comes about that the deliverances of the +reason agree so beautifully with the facts of experience; in his naive, +unquestioning belief in the infallibility of the reason he is a typical +dogmatist. + +A closer examination of the Wolffian philosophy seems unnecessary, since +its most essential portions have already been discussed under Leibnitz and +since it will be necessary to recur to certain points in our chapter on +Kant. Therefore, referring the reader to the detailed accounts in Erdmann +and Zeller, we shall only note that Wolff's ethics opposes the principle +of perfection to the English principle of happiness (that is good which +perfects man's condition, and this is life in conformity with nature or +reason, with which happiness is necessarily connected); that he makes the +will determined by the understanding, and assigns ignorance as the cause of +sin; that his philosophy of religion, which argues for a natural religion +in addition to revealed religion (experiential and rational proofs for the +existence of God, and a deduction of his attributes), and sets up certain +tests for the genuineness of revelation, favors a rationalism which was +flexible enough to allow his pupils either to take part in orthodox +movements or to advance to a deism hostile to the Church. + +Among the followers of Wolff, Alexander Baumgarten (1714-62) deserves +the first place, as the founder of German aesthetics _(Aesthetica_, 1750 +_seq_.). He perceives a gap in the system of the philosophical sciences. +This contains in ethics a guide to right volition, and in logic a guide +to correct thinking, but there are no directions for correct feeling, no +aesthetic. The beautiful would form the subject of this discipline. For the +perfection (the harmonious unity of a manifold, which is pleasant to the +spectator), which manifests itself to the will as the good and to the +clear thinking of the understanding as the true, appears--according to +Leibnitz--to confused sensuous perception as beauty. From this on the name +aesthetics was established for the theory of the beautiful, though in +Kant's great work it is used in its literal meaning as the doctrine of +sense, of the faculty of sensations or intuitions. Baumgarten's pupils +and followers, the aesthetic writer G.F. Meier at Halle, Baumeister, and +others, contributed like himself to the dissemination of the Wolffian +system by their manuals on different branches of philosophy. To this school +belong also the following: Thuemmig (_Institutiones Philosophia Wolfianae_, +1725-26); the theologian Siegmund Baumgarten at Halle, the elder brother +of the aesthete; the mathematician Martin Knutzen, Kant's teacher;[1] the +literary historian Gottsched [2] at Leipsic; and G. Ploucquet, who in +his _Methodus Calculandi in Logicis_, with a _Commentatio de Arte +Characteristica Universali_ appended to his _Principia de Substantiis et +Phaenomenis_, 1753, took up again Leibnitz's cherished plan for a logical +calculus and a universal symbolic language. The psychologist Kasimir von +Creuz (_Essay on the Soul_, in two parts, 1753-54), and J.H. Lambert,[3] +whom Kant deemed worthy of a detailed correspondence, take up a more +independent position, both demanding that the Wolffian rationalism be +supplemented by the empiricism of Locke, and the latter, moreover, in +anticipation of the Critique of Reason, pointing very definitely to the +distinction between content and form as the salient point in the theory of +knowledge. + +[Footnote 1: Benno Erdmann, _M. Knutzen und seine Zeit_, 1876.] + +[Footnote 2: Th. W. Danzel, _Gottsched und seine Zeit_, 1848.] + +[Footnote 3: Lambert: _Cosmological Letters_, 1761; _New Organon_, 1764; +_Groundwork of Architectonics_, 1771. Bernoulli edited some of Lambert's +papers and his correspondence.] + +Among the opponents of the Wolffian philosophy, all of whom favor +eclecticism, A. Ruediger[1] and Chr. Aug. Crusius,[2] who was influenced by +Ruediger, and, like him, a professor at Leipsic, are the most important. +Ruediger divides philosophy according to its objects, "wisdom, justice, +prudence," into three parts--the science of nature (which must avoid +one-sided mechanical views, and employ ether, air, and spirit as principles +of explanation); the science of duty (which, as metaphysics, treats of +duties toward God, as natural law, of duties to our neighbor, and deduces +both from the primary duty of obedience to the will of God); and the +science of the good (in which Ruediger follows the treatise of the Spaniard, +Gracian, on practical wisdom). Crusius agrees with Ruediger that mathematics +is the science of the possible, and philosophy the science of the actual, +and that the latter, instead of imitating to its own disadvantage the +deductive-analytical method of geometry, must, with the aid of experience +and with attention to the probability of its conclusions, rise to the +highest principles synthetically. Besides its deduction the determinism +of the Wolffian philosophy gave offense, for it was believed to endanger +morals, justice, and religion. The will, the special fundamental power of +the soul (consisting of the impulses to perfection, love, and knowledge), +is far from being determined by ideas; it is rather they which depend on +the will. The application of the principle of sufficient reason, which is +wrongly held to admit of no exception, must be restricted in favor of +freedom. For the rest, we may note concerning Crusius that he derives the +principle of sufficient reason (everything which is now, and before was +not, has a cause) and the principle of contingency from the principles of +contradiction, inseparability, and incompatibility, and these latter from +the principle of conceivability; that he rejects the ontological argument, +and makes the ground of obligation in morality consist in obedience toward +God, and its content in perfection. Among the other opponents of the +Wolffian philosophy, we may mention the theologian Budde(us)[3] +_(Institutiones Philosophiae Eclecticae_, 1705); Darjes (who taught in Jena +and Frankfort-on-the-Oder; _The Way to Truth_, 1755); and Crousaz (1744). + +[Footnote 1: Ruediger: _Disputatio de eo quod Omnes Idea Oriantur a +Sensione_, 1704; _Philosophia Synthetica_, 1707; _Physica Divina_, 1716; +_Philosophia Pragmatica_, 1723.] + +[Footnote 2: Crusius: _De Usu et Limitibus Principii Rationis_, 1743; +_Directions how to Live a Rational Life_ (theory of the will and of +ethics), 1744; _A Sketch of the Necessary Truths of Reason_, 1745; _Way to +the Certainty and Trustworthiness of Human Knowledge_, 1747.] + +[Footnote 3: J.J. Brucker _(Historia Critica Philosophiae_, 5 vols., +1742-44; 2d ed., 6 vols., 1766-67) was a pupil of Budde.] + + +%3. The Illumination as Scientific and as Popular Philosophy.% + +After a demand for the union of Leibnitz and Locke, of rationalism and +empiricism, had been raised within the Wolffian school itself, and still +more directly in the camp of its opponents, under the increasing influence +of the empirical philosophy of England,[1] eclecticism in the spirit of +Thomasius took full possession of the stage in the Illumination period. +There was the less hesitation in combining principles derived from entirely +different postulates without regard to their systematic connection, as +the interest in scholastic investigation gave place more and more to the +interest in practical and reassuring results. Metaphysics, noetics, and +natural philosophy were laid aside as useless subtleties, and, as in the +period succeeding Aristotle, man as an individual and whatever directly +relates to his welfare--the constitution of his inner nature, his duties, +the immortality of the soul, and the existence of God--became the exclusive +subjects of reflection. The fact that, besides ethics and religion, +psychology was chosen as a favorite field, is in complete harmony with the +general temper of an age for which self-observation and the enjoyment of +tender and elevated feelings in long, delightfully friendly letters and +sentimental diaries had become a favorite habit. Hand in hand with this +narrowing of the content of philosophy went a change in the form of +presentation. As thinkers now addressed themselves to all cultivated +people, intelligibility and agreeableness were made the prime requisites; +the style became light and flowing, the method of treatment facile and +often superficial. This is true not only of the popular philosophers +proper--who, as Windelband pertinently remarks (vol. i. p. 563), did not +seek after the truth, but believed that they already possessed it, and +desired only to disseminate it; who did not aim at the promotion of +investigation, but the instruction of the public--but to a certain extent, +also, of those who were conscious of laboring in the service of science. +Among the representatives of the more polite tendency belong, Moses +Mendelssohn[2] (1729-86); Thomas Abbt (_On Death for the Fatherland_, 1761; +_On Merit_, 1765); J.J. Engel (_The philosopher for the World_, 1775); G.S. +Steinbart (_The Christian Doctrine of Happiness_, 1778); Ernst Platner +(_Philosophical Aphorisms_, 1776, 1782; on Platner cf. M. Heinze, 1880); +G.C. Lichtenberg (died 1799; _Miscellaneous Writings_, 1800 _seq_.; a +selection is given in _Reclam's Bibliothek_); Christian Garve (died 1798; +_Essays_, 1792 _seq.; Translations from the Ethical Works of Aristotle, +Cicero, and Ferguson_); and Friedrich Nicolai[3] (died 1811). Eberhard, +Feder, and Meiners will be mentioned later among the opponents of the +Kantian philosophy. + +[Footnote 1: The influence of the English philosophers on the German +philosophy of the eighteenth century is discussed by Gustav Zart, 1881.] + +[Footnote 2: Mendelssohn: _Letters on the Sensations_, 1755; _On Evidence +in the Metaphysical Sciences_, a prize essay crowned by the Academy, 1764; +_Phaedo, or on Immortality_, 1767; _Jerusalem_, 1783; _Morning Hours, or on +the Existence of God_, 1785; _To the Friends of Lessing_ (against Jacobi), +1786; _Works_, 1843-44. Cf. on Mendelssohn, Kayserling, 1856, 1862, 1883.] + +[Footnote 3: Nicolai: _Library of Belles Lettres_, from 1757; _Letters on +the Most Recent German Literature_, from 1759; _Universal German Library_, +from 1765; _New Universal German Library_, 1793-1805.] + +Among the psychologists J.N. Tetens, whose _Philosophical Essays on Human +Nature_, 1776-77, show a remarkable similarity to the views of Kant,[1] +takes the first rank. The two thinkers evidently influenced each other. The +three fold division of the activities of the soul, "knowing, feeling, +and willing," which has now become popular and which appears to us +self-evident, is to be referred to Tetens, from whom Kant took it; in +opposition to the twofold division of Aristotle and Wolff into "cognition +and appetition," he established the equal rights of the faculty of +feeling--which had previously been defended by Sulzer (1751), the aesthetic +writer, and by Mendelssohn (1755, 1763, 1785). Besides Tetens, the +following should be mentioned among the psychologists: Tetens's opponent, +Johann Lossius (1775), an adherent of Bonnet; D. Tiedemann (_Inquiries +concerning Man_, from 1777), who was estimable also as a historian of +philosophy (_Spirit of Speculative Philosophy_, 1791-97); Von Irwing +(1772 _seq_.; 2d ed., 1777); and K. Ph. Moriz (_Magazin zur +Erfahrungsseelenlehre_, from 1785). Basedow (died 1790), Campe (died 1818), +and J.H. Pestalozzi (1745-1827) did valuable work in pedagogics. + +[Footnote 1: Sensation gives the content, and the understanding +spontaneously produces the form, of knowledge. The only objectivity of +knowledge which we can attain consists in the subjective necessity of the +forms of thought or the ideas of relation. Perception enables us to cognize +phenomena only, not the true essence of things and of ourselves, etc.] + +One of the clearest and most acute minds among the philosophers of the +Illumination was the deist Hermann Samuel Reimarus[1] (1694-1768), from +1728 professor in Hamburg. He attacks atheism, in whatever form it may +present itself, with as much zeal and conviction as he shows in breaking +down the belief in revelation by his inexorable criticism (in his +_Defense_, communicated in manuscript to a few friends only). He obtains +his weapons for this double battle from the Wolffian philosophy. The +existence of an extramundane deity is proved by the purposive arrangement +of the world, especially of organisms, which aims at the good--not merely +of man, as the majority of the physico-theologists have believed, but--of +all living creatures. To believe in a special revelation, _i.e._, a +miracle, in addition to such a revelation of God as this, which is granted +to all men, and is alone necessary to salvation, is to deny the perfection +of God, and to do violence to the immutability of his providence. To these +general considerations against the credibility of positive revelation +are to be added, as special arguments against the Jewish and Christian +revelations, the untrustworthiness of human testimony in general, the +contradictions in the biblical writings, the uncertainty of their meaning, +and the moral character of the persons regarded as messengers of God, whose +teachings, precepts, and deeds in no wise correspond to their high mission. +Jewish history is a "tissue of sheer follies, shameful deeds, deceptions, +and cruelties, the chief motives of which were self-interest and lust for +power." The New Testament is also the work of man; all talk of divine +inspiration, an idle delusion, the resurrection of Christ, a fabrication of +the disciples; and the Protestant system, with its dogmas of the Trinity, +the fall of man, original sin, the incarnation, vicarious atonement, and +eternal punishment, contrary to reason. The advance of Reimarus beyond +Wolff consists in the consistent application of the criteria for the divine +character of revelation, which Wolff had set up without making a positive, +not to speak of a negative, use of them. His weakness[2] consists in the +fact that, on the one hand, he contented himself with a rationalistic +interpretation of the biblical narratives, instead of pushing on--as Semler +did after him at Halle (1725-91)--to a historical criticism of the sources, +and, on the other, held fast to the alternative common to all the deists, +"Either divine or human, either an actual event or a fabrication," without +any suspicion of that great intermediate region of religious myth, of the +involuntary and pregnant inventions of the popular fancy. + +[Footnote 1: H.S. Reimarus: _Discussions on the Chief Truths of Natural +Religion_, 1754; _General Consideration of the Instincts of Animals_, 1762; +_Apology or Defense for the Rational Worshipers of God_. Fragments of the +last of these works, which was kept secret during its author's life, were +published by Lessing (the well-known "Wolffenbuettel Fragments," from +1774). A detailed table of contents is to be found in _Reimarus und seine +Schutzschrift_, 1862, by D. Fr. Strauss, included in the fifth volume of +his _Gesammelte Schriften_.] + +[Footnote 2: Cf. O. Pfleiderer, _Philosophy of Religion_, vol. i. p. 102, +p. 106 _seq_.] + +The philosophico-religious standpoint of G.E. Lessing (1729-81), in whom +the Illumination reached its best fruitage, was less one-sided. Apart from +the important aesthetic impulses which flowed from the _Laocoon_ (1766) and +the _Hamburg Dramaturgy_ (1767-69), his philosophical significance rests +on two ideas, which have had important consequences for the religious +conceptions of the nineteenth century: the speculative interpretation of +certain dogmas (the Trinity, etc.), and the application of the Leibnitzian +idea of development to the history of the positive religions. By both of +these he prepared the way for Hegel. In regard to his relation to his +predecessors, Lessing sought to mediate between the pantheism of Spinoza +and the individualism of Leibnitz; and in his comprehension of the latter +showed himself far superior to the Wolffians. He can be called a Spinozist +only by those who, like Jacobi, have this title ready for everyone +who expresses himself against a transcendent, personal God, and the +unconditional freedom of the will. Moreover, in view of his critical and +dialectical, rather than systematic, method of thinking, we must guard +against laying too great stress on isolated statements by him.[1] + +[Footnote 1: A caution which Gideon Spicker (_Lessings Weltanschauung_, +1883) counsels us not to forget, even in view of the oft cited avowal of +determinism, "I thank God that I must, and that I must the best." Among the +numerous treatises on Lessing we may note those by G.E. Schwarz (1854), and +Zeller (in Sybel's _Historische Zeitschrift_, 1870, incorporated in the +second collection of Zeller's _Vortraege und Abhandlungen_, 1877); and on +his theological position, that of K. Fischer on Lessing's _Nathan der +Weise_, 1864, as well as J.H. Witte's _Philosophie unserer Dichterheroen_, +vol. i. _(Lessing and Herder_), 1880. [Cf. in English, Sime, 2 vols., 1877, +and _Encyclopedia Britannica_, vol. xiv. pp, 478-482.--TR.]] + +Lessing conceives the Deity as the supreme, all-comprehensive, living +unity, which excludes neither a certain kind of plurality nor even a +certain kind of change; without life and action, without the experience of +changing states, the life of God would be miserably wearisome. Things are +not out of, but in him; nevertheless (as "contingent") they are distinct +from him. The Trinity must be understood in the sense of immanent +distinctions. God has conceived himself, or his perfections, in a twofold +manner: he conceived them as united and himself as their sum, and he +conceived them as single. Now God's thinking is creation, his ideas +actualities. By conceiving his perfections united he created his eternal +image, the Son of God; the bond between God representing and God +represented, between Father and Son, is the Holy Spirit. But when he +conceived his perfections singly he created the world, in which these +manifest themselves divided among a continuous series of particular beings. +Every individual is an isolated divine perfection; the things in the world +are limited gods, all living, all with souls, and of a spiritual nature, +though in different degrees. Development is everywhere; at present the soul +has five senses, but very probably it once had less than five, and in +the future it will have more. At first the actions of men were guided by +obscure instinct; gradually the reason obtained influence over the will, +and one day will govern it completely through its clear and distinct +cognitions. Thus freedom is attained in the course of history--the rational +and virtuous man consciously obeys the divine order of the world, while he +who is unfree obeys unconsciously. + +Lessing shares with the deistic Illumination the belief in a religion of +reason, whose basis and essential content are formed by morality; but he +rises far above this level in that he regards the religion of reason not +as the beginning but as the goal of the development, and the positive +religions as necessary transition stages in its attainment. As natural +religion differs in each individual according to his feelings and powers, +without positive enactments there would be no unity and community in +religious matters. Nevertheless the statutory and historical element is +not a graft from without, but a shell organically grown around natural +religion, indispensable for its development, and to be removed but +gradually and by layers--when the inclosed kernel has become ripe and firm. +The history of religions is an _education of the human race through divine +revelation_; so teaches his small but thoughtful treatise of 1780.[1] As +the education of the individual man puts nothing extraneous into him, but +only gives him more quickly and easily that which he could have reached of +himself, so human reason is illuminated by revelation concerning things +to which it could have itself attained, only that without God's help the +process would have been longer and more difficult--perhaps it would have +wandered about for many millions of years in the errors of polytheism, if +God had not been pleased by a single stroke (his revelation to Moses) to +give it a better direction. And as the teacher does not impart everything +to the pupil at once, but considers the state of development reached by him +at each given period, so God in his revelation observes a certain order and +measure. To the rude Jewish people he revealed himself first as a national +God, as the God of their fathers; they had to wait for the Persians to +teach them that the God whom they had hitherto worshiped as the most +powerful among other gods was the only one. Although this lowest stage in +the development of religion lacked the belief in immortality, yet it must +not be lightly valued; let us acknowledge that it was an heroic obedience +for men to observe the laws of God simply because they are the laws of God, +and not because of temporal or future rewards! The first practical teacher +of immortality was Christ; with him the second age of religion begins: the +first good book of elementary instruction, the Old Testament, from which +man had hitherto learned, was followed by the second, better one, the New +Testament. As we now can dispense with the first primer in regard to the +doctrine of the unity of God, and as we gradually begin to be able to +dispense with the second in regard to the doctrine of the immortality of +the soul, so this New Testament may easily contain still further truths, +which for the present we wonder at as revelations, until the reason shall +learn to derive them from other truths already established. Lessing himself +makes an attempt at a philosophical interpretation of the dogmas of the +Trinity (see above), of original sin, and of atonement. Such an advance +from faith to knowledge, such a development of revealed truths into proved +truths of reason, is absolutely necessary. We cannot dispense with the +truths of revelation, but we must not remain content with simply believing +them, but must endeavor to comprehend them; for they have been revealed in +order that they may become rational. They are, as it were, the sum which +the teacher of arithmetic tells his pupils beforehand so that they +may guide themselves by it; but if they content themselves with this +solution--which was given merely as a guide--they would never learn to +calculate. Hand in hand with the advance of the understanding goes the +progress of the will. Future recompenses, which the New Testament promises +as rewards of virtue, are means of education, and will gradually fall into +disuse: in the highest stage, the stage of purity of heart, virtue will +be loved and practiced for its own sake, and no longer for the sake of +heavenly rewards. Slowly but surely, along devious paths which are yet +salutary, we are being led toward that great goal. It will surely come, the +time of consummation, when man will do the good because it is good, this +time of the new, eternal Gospel, this third age, this "Christianity of +reason." Continue, Eternal Providence, thine imperceptible march; let me +not despair of thee because it is imperceptible, not even when to me thy +steps seem to lead backward. It is not true that the straight line is +always the shortest. + +[Footnote 1: _Die Erziehung des Menschengeschlects_.] + +With the thought that every individual must traverse the same course as +that by which the race attains its perfection, Lessing connects the idea +of the transmigration of souls. Why may not the individual man have been +present in this world more than once? Is this hypothesis so ridiculous +because it is the oldest? + +If Lessing abandoned the ranks of the deists by his recognition of the +fact that the positive religions contain truth in a gradual process of +purification, by his free criticism, on the other hand, he broke with +the orthodox, whose idolatrous reverence for the Bible was to him an +abomination. The letter is not the spirit, the Bible is not religion, nor +yet its foundation, but only its records. Contingent historical truths can +never serve as a proof of the necessary truths of reason. Christianity is +older than the New Testament. + +Already, in the case of Lessing, we may doubt, in view of his historical +temper and of certain speculative tendencies, whether he is to be included +among the Illuminati. In the case of Kant a decided protest must be +raised against such a classification. When Hegel numbers him among the +philosophers of the Illumination, on account of his lack of rational +intuition, and some theologians on account of his religious rationalism, +the answer to the former is that Kant did not lack the speculative gift, +but only that it was surpassed by his gift of reflection, and, to the +latter, that in regard to the positive element in religion he judged very +differently from the deists and appreciated the historical element more +justly than they--if not to the same extent as Lessing and Herder. We +do not need to lay great stress on the fact that Kant had a lively +consciousness that he was making a contribution to thought, and that the +Illumination contemplated this new doctrine without comprehending it, in +order to recognize that the difference between his efforts and achievements +and those of the Illumination is far greater than their kinship. For +although Kant is upon common ground with it, in so far as he adheres to its +motto, "Have courage to use thine own understanding, become a man, cease +to trust thyself to the guidance of others, and free thyself in all fields +from the yoke of authority," and, although besides such formal injunctions +to freedom of thought, he also shares in certain material tendencies and +convictions (the turning from the world to man, the attempt at a synthesis +of reason and experience, and the belief in a religion of reason); yet in +method and results, he stands like a giant among a race of dwarfs, like one +instructed, who judges from principles, among men of opinion, who merely +stick results together, a methodical systematizer among well-meaning but +impotent eclectics. The philosophy of the Illumination is related to +that of Kant as argument to science, as halting mediation to principiant +resolution, as patchwork to creation out of full resources, yet at the same +time as wish to deed and as negative preparation to positive achievement. +It was undeniably of great value to the Kantian criticism that the +Illumination had created a point of intersection for the various tendencies +of thought, and had brought about the approximation and mutual contact of +the opposing systems which then existed, while, at the same time, it had +crumbled them to pieces, and thus awakened the need for a new, more firmly +and more deeply founded system. + + +%4. The Faith Philosophy.% + +The philosophers of feeling or faith stand in the same relation to the +German Illumination as Rousseau to the French. Here also the rights of +feeling are vindicated against those of the knowing reason. Among the +distinguished representatives of this anti-rationalistic tendency Hamann +led the way, Herder was the most prolific, and Jacobi the clearest. That +the fountain of certitude is to be sought not in discriminating thought, +but in intuition, experience, revelation, and tradition; that the highest +truths can be felt only and not proved; that all existing things are +incomprehensible, because individual--these are convictions which, before +Jacobi defended them as based on scientific principles, had been vehemently +proclaimed by that singular man, J.G. Hamann (died 1788) of Koenigsberg. +From an unprinted review by Hamann, Herder drew the objections which his +"Metacritique" raises against Kant's Critique of Reason--that the division +of matter and form, of sensibility and understanding, is inadmissible; +that Kant misunderstood the significance of language, which is just where +sensibility and understanding unite, etc. + +In Herder[1] (1744-1803: after 1776 Superintendent-General in Weimar) the +philosophy of feeling gained a finer, more perspicuous and harmonious +nature, who shared Lessing's interest in history and his tendency to +hold fast equally to pantheism and to individualism. God is the all-one, +infinite, spiritual (non-personal) primal force, which wholly reveals +itself in each thing _(God: Dialogues on the System of Spinoza_, 1787). +To the life, power, wisdom, and goodness of God correspond the life and +perfection of the universe and of individual creatures, each of which +possesses its own irreplaceable value and bears in itself its future in +germ. Everywhere, one and the same life in an ascending series of powers +and forms with imperceptible transitions. Always, an inner and an outer +together; no power without organ, no spirit without a body. As thought is +only a higher stage of sensation, which develops from the lower by means of +language--reason, like sense, is not a productive but a receptive faculty +of knowing, perceiving ("_Vernehmen_")--so the free process of history is +only the continuation and completion of the nature-process (_Ideas for the +Philosophy of the History of Mankind_, 1784 _seq_.). Man, the last child of +nature and her first freedman, is the nodal point where the physical series +of events changes into the ethical; the last member of the organisms of +earth is at the same time the first in the spiritual development. The +mission of history is the unfolding of all the powers which nature +has concentrated in man as the compendium of the world; its law, that +everywhere on our earth everything be realized that can be realized there; +its end, humanity and the harmonious development of all our capacities. As +nature forms a single great organism, and from the stone to man describes +a connected development, so humanity is a one great individual which passes +through its several ages, from infancy (the Orient), through boyhood +(Eygpt and Phoenicia), youth (Greece), and manhood (Rome), to old age (the +Christian world). The spirit stands in the closest dependence upon nature, +and nature is concerned in history throughout. The finer organization of +his brain, the possession of hands, above all, his erect position, make +man, man and endow him with reason. Similarly it is natural conditions, +climate, the character of the soil, the surrounding animal and vegetable +life, etc., that play an essential part in determining the manners, the +characters, and the destinies of nations. The connection of nature with +history by means of the concept of development and through the idea that +the two merely represent different stages of the same fundamental process, +made Herder the forerunner of Schelling. + +[Footnote 1: On Herder cf. the biography by R. Haym, 2 vols., 1877, 1885; +and the work by Witte which has been referred to above (p. 306, note).] + +His polemic against Kant in the _Metacritique_, 1799 (against the _Critique +of Pure Reason_), and the dialogue _Calligone_, 1800 (against the _Critique +of Judgment_), is less pleasing. These are neither dignified in tone nor +essentially of much importance. In the former the distinction between +sensibility and reason is censured, and in the latter the separation of the +beautiful from the true and the good, but Kant's theory of aesthetics is +for the most part grossly misunderstood. The "disinterested" satisfaction +Herder makes a cold satisfaction; the harmonious activity of the cognitive +powers, a tedious, apish sport; the satisfaction "without a concept," +judgment without ground or cause. The positive elements in his own views +are more valuable. Pleasure in mere form, without a concept, and without +the idea of an end, is impossible. All beauty must mean or express +something, must be a symbol of inner life; its ground is perfection or +adaptation. Beauty is that symmetrical union of the parts of a being, in +virtue of which it feels well itself and gives pleasure to the observer, +who sympathetically shares in this well-being. The charm and value of the +_Calligone_ lie more in the warmth and clearness with which the expressive +beauty of single natural phenomena is described than in the abstract +discussion. + +Friedrich Heinrich Jacobi (1743-1819) gave the most detailed statement of +the position of the philosophy of feeling, and the most careful proof of +it. He was born in Duesseldorf, the son of a manufacturer; until 1794 he +lived in his native place and at his country residence in Pempelfort; later +he resided in Holstein, and, from 1805, in Munich, where, in 1807-13, he +was president of the Academy of Sciences. Of his works, collected in five +volumes, 1812-25, we are here chiefly concerned with the letters _On the +Doctrine of Spinoza_, 1785; _David Hume on Faith, or Idealism and Realism_, +1787; and the treatise _On Divine Things_, 1811, which called out +Schelling's merciless response, _Memorial of Jacobi_. Besides Hume and +Spinoza, the sensationalism of Bonnet and the criticism of Kant had made +the most lasting impression on Jacobi. His relation to Kant is neither that +of an opponent nor of a supporter and popularizer. He declares himself in +accord with Kant's critique of the understanding (the understanding is +merely a formal function, one which forms and combines concepts only, but +does not guarantee reality, one to which the material of thought must be +given from elsewhere and for which the suprasensible remains unattainable); +in regard to the critique of reason he raises the objection that it; makes +the Ideas mere postulates, which possess no guarantee for their reality. +The critique of sensibility appears to him still more unsatisfactory, as +it does not explain the origin of sensations. Without the concept of the +"thing-in-itself" one cannot enter the Kantian philosophy, and with it +one cannot remain there. Fichte has drawn the correct conclusion from the +Kantian premises; idealism is the unavoidable result of the Critique of +Reason and foretold by; it as the Messiah was foretold by John the Baptist. +And by the evil fruit we know the evil root: the idealistic theory is +philosophical nihilism, for it denies the reality of the external world, as +the materialism of Spinoza denies a transcendent God and the freedom of +the will. Reality slips away from both these systems--they are the only +consistent ones there are--material reality escaping from the former +and suprasensible reality from the latter; and this must be so, because +reality, of whatever kind it be, cannot be known, but only believed and +felt. The actual, the existence of the noumenal as well as of the external +world, even the existence of our own body, makes itself known to us through +revelation alone; the understanding comprehends relations only; the +certainty that a thing exists is attained only through experience and +faith. Sense and reason are the organs of faith, and hence the true +sources of knowledge; the former apprehends the natural, the latter, the +supernatural, while for the understanding is left only the analysis and +combination of given intuitions. + +Philosophy as a science from concepts must necessarily prove atheistic and +fatalistic. Conception and proof mean deduction from conditions. How shall +that which has no cause from which to explain it, the unconditioned, God, +and freedom, be comprehended and proved? Demonstration rises along the +chain of causes to the universe alone, not to a transcendent Creator; +mediate knowledge is confined to the sphere of conditioned being and +mechanical becoming. The intuitive knowledge of feeling alone leads us +beyond this, and along with the wonderful, the inconceivable power of +freedom in ourselves, which is above all nature, shows us the primal source +of all wonders, the transcendent God above us. The inference from our +own spiritual, self-conscious, free personality to that of God is no +unauthorized anthropomorphism--in the knowledge of God we may fearlessly +deify our human existence, because God, when he created man, gave his +divine nature human form. Reason and freedom are the same: the former +is theoretical, the latter practical elevation to the suprasensible. +Nevertheless virtue is not based upon an inflexible, despotic, abstractly, +formal law, but upon an instinct, which, however, does not aim at +happiness. Thus Jacobi attempts to mediate between the ethics of the +Illumination and the ethics of Kant, by agreeing with the former in regard +to the origin of virtue (it arises from a natural impulse), and with the +latter in regard to its nature (it consists in disinterestedness). Hence +with the Illumination he rejects the imperative form, and with Kant the +eudemonistic end. At the same time he endeavors to introduce Herder's idea +of individuality into ethics, by demanding that morality assume a special +form in each man. Schiller and the romantic school take from Jacobi their +ideal of the "beautiful soul," which from natural impulse realizes in its +action, and still more in its being, the good in an individual way. + + + + + +%PART II. FROM KANT TO THE PRESENT TIME.% + + + +CHAPTER IX. + +KANT. + +The suit between empiricism and rationalism had continued for centuries, +but still awaited final decision. Are all our ideas the result of +experience, or are they (wholly or in part) an original possession of the +mind? Are they received from without (by perception), or produced from +within (by self-activity)? Is knowledge a product of sensation or of pure +thought? All who had thus far taken part in this discussion had resembled +partisans or advocates rather than disinterested judges. They had given +less attention to investigation than to the defense of the traditional +theses of their schools; they had not endeavored to obtain results, but +to establish results already determined; and, along with real arguments, +popular appeals had not been despised. Each of the opposing schools had +given variations on a definite theme, and whenever timid attempts had been +made to bring the two melodies into harmony they had met with no approval. +The proceedings thus far had at least made it evident to the unbiased +hearer that each of the two parties made extravagant claims, and, in the +end, fell into self-contradiction. If the claim of empiricism is true, that +all our concepts arise from perception, then not only the science of the +suprasensible, which it denies, but also the science of the objects of +experience, about which it concerns itself, is impossible. For perception +informs us concerning single cases merely, it can never comprehend all +cases, it yields no necessary and universal truth; but knowledge which is +not apodictically valid for every reasoning being and for all cases is +not worthy the name. The very reasons which were intended to prove the +possibility of knowledge give a direct inference to its impossibility. The +empirical philosophy destroys itself, ending with Hume in skepticism and +probabilism. Rationalism is overtaken by a different, and yet an analogous +fate--it breaks up into a popular eclecticism. It believes that it +has discovered an infallible criterion of truth in the clearness and +distinctness of ideas, and a sure example for philosophical method in the +method of mathematics. In both points it is wrong. The criterion of +truth is insufficient, for Spinoza and Leibnitz built up their opposing +theories--the pantheism of the one and the monadology of the other--from +equally clear and distinct conceptions; tried by this standard +individualism is just as true as pantheism. Mathematics, again, does not +owe its unquestioned acceptance and cogent force to the clearness and +distinctness of its conceptions, but to the fact that these are capable +of construction in intuition. The distinction between mathematics and +metaphysics was overlooked, namely, that mathematical thought can transform +its conceptions into intuitions, can generate its objects or sensuously +present them, which philosophical thought is not in a position to do. The +objects of the latter must be given to it, and to the human mind they are +given in no other way than through sensuous intuition. Metaphysics seeks +to be a science of the real, but it is impossible to conjure being out of +thought; reality cannot be proved from concepts, it can only be felt. In +making the unperceivable and suprasensible (the real nature of things, the +totality of the world, the Deity, and immortality) the special object +of philosophy, rationalism looked on the understanding as a faculty of +knowledge by which objects are given. In reality objects can never be given +through concepts; these only render it possible to think objects given +in some other way (by intuition). It is true that concepts of the +suprasensible exist, but nothing can be known through them, there is +nothing intuitively given to be subsumed under them. + +With this failure to perceive the intuitive element in mathematics was +joined the mistake of overlooking its synthetic character. The syllogistic +method of presentation employed in the Euclidean geometry led to the belief +that the more special theorems had been derived from the simpler ones, and +these from the axioms, by a process of conceptual analysis; while the fact +is that in mathematics all progress is by intuition alone, the syllogism +serving merely to formulate and explain truths already attained, but not to +supply new ones. Following the example of mathematics thus misunderstood, +the mission of philosophy was made to consist in the development of +the truths slumbering in pregnant first principles by means of logical +analysis. If only there were metaphysical axioms! If we only did not +demand, and were not compelled to demand, of true science that it increase +our knowledge, and not merely give an analytical explanation of knowledge. +When once the clearness and distinctness of conceptions had been taken +in so purely formal a sense, it was inevitable that in the end, as +productivity became less, the principle should be weakened down to a mere +demand for the explanation and elucidation of the metaphysical ideas +present in popular consciousness. Thus the rationalistic current lost +itself in the shallow waters of the Illumination, which soon gave as +ready a welcome to the empirical theories--since these also were able to +legitimate themselves by clear and distinct conceptions--as it had given +to the results of the rationalistic systems. + +It was thus easy to see that each of the contending parties had been guilty +of one-sidedness, and that in order to escape this a certain mean must be +assumed between the two extremes; but it was a much more difficult matter +to discover the due middle ground. Neither of the opposing standpoints is +so correct as its defenders believe, and neither so false as its opponents +maintain. Where, then, on either side, does the mistaken narrowness begin, +and how far does the justification of each extend? + +The conflict centers, first, about the question concerning the origin of +human knowledge and the sphere of its validity. Rationalism is justified +when it asserts that some ideas do not come from the senses. If knowledge +is to be possible, some concepts cannot originate in perception, those, +namely, by which knowledge is constituted, for if they should, it would +lack universality and necessity. The sole organ of universally valid +knowledge is reason. Empiricism, on the other hand, is justified when it +asserts that the experiential alone is knowable. Whatever is to be knowable +must be given as a real in sensuous intuition. The only organ of reality is +sensibility. Rationalism judges correctly concerning the origin of the +most important classes of ideas; empiricism concerning the sphere of their +validity. The two may be thus combined: some concepts (those which produce +knowledge) take their origin in reason or are _a priori_, but they are +valid for objects of experience alone. The conflict concerns, secondly, the +use of the deductive (syllogistic) or the inductive method. Empiricism, +through its founder Bacon, had recommended induction in place of the barren +syllogistic method, as the only method which would lead to new discoveries. +It demands, above all things, the extension of knowledge. Rationalism, on +the contrary, held fast to the deductive method, because the syllogism +alone, in its view, furnishes knowledge valid for all rational beings. It +demands, first of all, universality and necessity in knowledge. Induction +has the advantage of increasing knowledge, but it leads only to empirical +and comparative, not to strict universality. The syllogism has the +advantage of yielding universal and necessary truth, but it can only +explicate and establish knowledge, not increase it. May it not be possible +so to do justice to the demands of both that the advantages which they seek +shall be combined, and the disadvantages which have been feared, avoided? +Are there not cognitions which increase our knowledge (are _synthetic_) +without being empirical, which are universally and necessarily valid +(_a priori_) without being analytic? From these considerations arises the +main question of the _Critique of Pure Reason_: How are synthetic judgments +_a priori_ possible? + +The philosophy of experience had overestimated sense and underestimated the +understanding, when it found the source of all knowledge in the faculty of +perception and degraded the faculty of thought to an almost wholly inactive +recipient of messages coming to it from without. From the standpoint of +empiricism concepts (Ideas) deserve confidence only in so far as they can +legitimate themselves by their origin in sensations (impressions). It +overlooks the _active_ character of all knowing. Among the rationalists, +on the other hand, we find an underestimation of the senses and an +overestimation of the understanding. They believe that sense reveals +only the deceptive exterior of things, while reason gives their true +non-sensuous essence. That which the mind perceives of things is deceptive, +but that which it thinks concerning them is true. The former power is the +faculty of confused, the latter the faculty of distinct knowledge. Sense is +the enemy rather than the servant of true knowledge, which consists in the +development and explication of pregnant innate conceptions and principles. +These philosophers forget that we can never reach reality by conceptual +analysis; and that the senses have a far greater importance for knowledge +than merely to give it an impulse; that it is they which supply the +understanding with real objects, and so with the content of knowledge. +Beside the (formal) activity (of the understanding), cognition implies a +passive factor, a reception of impressions. Neither sense alone nor the +understanding alone produces knowledge, but both cognitive powers are +necessary, the active and the passive, the conceptual and the intuitive. +Here the question arises, How do concept and intuition, sensuous and +rational knowledge, differ, and what is the basis of their congruence? +Notwithstanding their different points of departure and their variant +results, the two main tendencies of modern philosophy agree in certain +points. If the conflict between the two schools and their one-sidedness +suggested the idea of supplementing the conclusions of the one by those of +the other, the recognition of the incorrectness of their common +convictions furnished the occasion to go beyond them and to establish a +new, a higher point of view above them both, as also above the eclecticism +which sought to unite the opposing principles. The errors common to both +concern, in the first place, the nature of judgment and the difference +between sensibility and understanding. Neither side had recognized that +the peculiar character of judgment consists in _active connection_. The +rationalists made judgment an active function, it is true, but a mere +activity of conscious development, of elucidation and analytical inference, +which does not advance knowledge a single step. The empiricists described +it as a process of comparison and discrimination, as the mere perception +and recognition of the relations and connections already existing between +ideas; while in reality judgment does not discover the relations and +connections of representations, but itself establishes them. In the former +case the synthetic moment is ignored, in the latter the active moment. The +imperfect view of judgment was one of the reasons for the appearance of +extreme theories concerning the origin of ideas in reason or in perception. +Rationalism regards even those concepts which have a content as innate, +whereas it is only formal concepts which are so. Empiricism regards all, +even the highest formal concepts (the categories), as abstracted from +experience, whereas experience furnishes only the content of knowledge, +and not the synthesis which is necessary to it. On the one hand too much, +and on the other too little, is regarded as the original possession of the +understanding. The question "What concepts are innate?" can be decided only +by answering the further question, What are the concepts through which the +faculty of judgment connects the representations obtained from experience? +These connective concepts, these formal instruments of synthesis are +_a priori_. The agreement of the two schools is still greater in regard to +the relation of sense and understanding, notwithstanding the apparently +sharp contrast between them. The empiricist considers thought transformed, +sublimated perception, while the rationalist sees in perception only +confused and less distinct thought. For the former concepts are faded +images of sensations, for the latter sensations are concepts which have not +yet become clear; the difference is scarcely greater than if the one should +call ice frozen water, and the other should prefer to call water melted +ice. Both arrange intuition and thought in a single series, and derive the +one from the other by enhancement or attenuation. Both make the mistake of +recognizing only a difference in degree where a difference in kind exists. +In such a case only an energetic dualism can afford help. Sense and +understanding are not one and the same cognitive power at different stages, +but two heterogeneous faculties. Sensation and thought are not different in +degree, but in kind. As Descartes began with the metaphysical dualism of +extension and thought, so Kant begins with the noetical dualism of +intuition and thought. + +Much more serious, however, than any of the mistakes yet mentioned was +a sin of omission of which the two schools were alike guilty, and the +recognition and avoidance of which constituted in Kant's own eyes the +distinctive character of his philosophy and its principiant-advance beyond +preceding systems. The pre-Kantian thinker had proceeded to the discussion +of knowledge without raising _the question of the possibility of +knowledge_. He had approached things in the full confidence that the human +mind was capable of cognizing them, and with a naive trust in the power of +reason to possess itself of the truth. His trust was naive and ingenuous, +because the idea that it could deceive him had never entered his mind. Now +no matter whether this belief in man's capacity for knowledge and in the +possibility of knowing things is justifiable or not, and no matter how +far it may be justifiable, it was in any case untested; so that when the +skeptic approached with his objections the dogmatist was defenseless. +All previous philosophy, so far as it had not been skeptical, had been, +according to Kant's expression, dogmatic; that is, it had held as an +article of faith, and without precedent inquiry, that we possess the power +of cognizing objects. It had not asked _how_ this is possible; it had not +even asked what knowledge is, what may and must be demanded of it, and by +what means our reason is in a position to satisfy such demands. It had left +human intelligence and its extent uninvestigated. The skeptic, on the other +hand, had been no more thorough. He had doubted and denied man's capacity +for knowledge just as uncritically as the dogmatist had believed and +presupposed it. He had directed his ingenuity against the theories of +dogmatic philosophy, instead of toward the fundamental question of the +possibility of knowledge. Human intelligence, which the dogmatist had +approached with unreasoned trust and the skeptic with just as unreasoned +distrust, is subjected, according to the plan of the critical philosopher, +to a searching examination. For this reason Kant termed his standpoint +"criticism," and his undertaking a "Critique of Reason." Instead of +asserting and denying, he investigates how knowledge arises, of what +factors it is composed, and how far it extends. He inquires into the origin +and extent of knowledge, into its sources and its limits, into the grounds +of its existence and of its legitimacy. The Critique of Reason finds itself +confronted by two problems, the second of which cannot be solved until +after the solution of the first. The investigation of the sources of +knowledge must precede the inquiry into the extent of knowledge. Only after +the conditions of knowledge have been established can it be ascertained +what objects are attainable by it. Its sphere cannot be determined except +from its origin. + +Whether the critical philosopher stands nearer to the skeptic or to the +dogmatist is rather an idle question. He is specifically distinct from +both, in that he summons and guides the reason to self-contemplation, to +a methodical examination of its capacity for knowledge. Where the one had +blindly trusted and the other suspected and denied, he investigates; they +overlook, he raises the question of the possibility of knowledge. The +critical problem does not mean, Does a faculty of knowledge exist? but, Of +what powers is it composed? are all objects knowable which have been so +regarded? Kant does not ask whether, but how and by what means, knowledge +is possible. Everyone who gives himself to scientific reflection must +postulate that knowledge is possible, and the demand of the noetical +theorists of the day for a philosophy absolutely without assumptions is +quite incapable of fulfillment. Nay, in order to be able to begin his +inquiry at all, it was necessary for Kant to assume still more special +postulates; for that a cognition of cognition is possible, that there is a +critical, self-investigating reason could, at first, be only a matter of +belief. This would not have excluded a supplementary detailed statement +concerning the _how_ of this self-knowledge, concerning the organ of the +critical philosophy. But Kant never gave one, and the omission subsequently +led to a sharp debate concerning the character and method of the Critique +of Reason. On this point, if we may so express it, Kant remained a +dogmatist. + +Kant felt himself to be the finisher of skepticism; but this was chiefly +because he had received the strongest impulse to the development of his +critique of knowledge from Hume's inquiries concerning causation. Brought +up in the dogmatic rationalism of the Wolffian school, to which he +remained true for a considerable period as a teacher and writer (till about +1760), although at the same time he was inquiring with an independent +spirit, Kant was gradually won over through the influence of the English +philosophy to the side of empirical skepticism. Then--as the result, no +doubt, of reading the _Nouveaux Essais_ of Leibnitz, published in +1765--he returned to rationalistic principles, until finally, after a +renewal of empirical influences,[1] he took the position crystallized in +the _Critique of Pure Reason_, 1781, which, however, experienced still +other, though less considerable, changes in the sequel, just as in itself +it shows the traces of previous transformations. + +[Footnote 1: Cf. H. Vaihinger's _Kommentar zu Kants Kritik der reinen +Vernunft_, vol. i., 1881, pp. 48-49. This is a work marked by acuteness, +great industry, and an objective point of view which merits respect. The +second volume, which treats of the Transcendental Aesthetic, appeared in +1892.] + +It would be a most interesting task to trace in the writings which belong +to Kant's pre-critical period the growth and development of the fundamental +critical positions. Here, however, we can only mention in passing the +subjects of his reflection and some of the most striking anticipations and +beginnings of his epoch-making position. Even his maiden work, _Thoughts on +the True Estimation of Vis Viva_, 1747, betokens the mediating nature of +its author. In this it is argued that when men of profound and penetrating +minds maintain exactly opposite opinions, attention must be chiefly +directed to some intermediate principle to a certain degree compatible with +the correctness of both parties. The question under discussion was whether +the measure of _vis viva_ is equal, as the Cartesians thought, to the +product of the mass into the velocity, or, according to the Leibnitzians, +to the product of the mass into the square of the velocity. Kant's +unsatisfactory solution of the problem--the law of Descartes holds for +dead, and that of Leibnitz for living forces--drew upon him the derision +of Lessing, who said that he had endeavored to estimate living forces +without having tested his own. A similar tendency toward compromise--this +time it is a synthesis of Leibnitz and Newton--is seen in his +_Habilitationsschrift, Principiorum Primorum Cognitionis Metaphysicae Nova +Dilucidatio_, 1755, and in the dissertation _Monadologia Physica_, 1756. +The former distinguishes between _ratio essendi_ and _ratio cognoscendi_, +rejects the ontological argument, and defends determinism against Crusius +on Leibnitzian grounds. In the _Physical Monadology_ Kant gives his +adherence to dynamism (matter the product of attraction and repulsion), and +makes the monads or elements of body fill space without prejudice to +their simplicity. A series of treatises is devoted to subjects in natural +science: The Effect of the Tides in retarding the Earth's Rotation; The +Obsolescence of the Earth; Fire (Inaugural Dissertation), Earthquakes, and +the Theory of the Winds. The most important of these, the _General Natural +History and Theory of the Heavens_, 1755, which for a long time remained +unnoticed, and which was dedicated to Frederick II., developed the +hypothesis (carried out forty years later by Laplace in ignorance of Kant's +work) of the mechanical origin of the universe and of the motion of the +planets. It presupposes merely the two forces of matter, attraction and +repulsion, and its primitive chaotic condition, a world-mist with elements +of different density. It is noticeable that Kant acknowledges the failure +of the mechanical theory at two points: it is brought to a halt at the +origin of the organic world and at the origin of matter. The mechanical +cosmogony is far from denying creation; on the contrary, the proof that +this well-ordered and purposive world necessarily arose from the regular +action of material forces under law and without divine intervention, can +only serve to support our assumption of a Supreme Intelligence as the +author of matter and its laws; the belief is necessary, just because +nature, even in its chaotic condition, can act only in an orderly and +regular way. + +The empirical phase of Kant's development is represented by the writings +of the 60's. _The False Subtlety of the Four Syllogistic Figures_, 1762, +asserts that the first figure is the only natural one, and that the others +are superfluous and need reduction to the first. In the _Only Possible +Foundation for a Demonstration of the Existence of God_, 1763, which, in +the seventh Reflection of the Second Division, recapitulates the cosmogony +advanced in the _Natural History of the Heavens_, the discussions +concerning being ("existence" is absolute position, not a predicate which +increases the sum of the qualities but is posited in a merely relative +way), and the conclusion, prophetical of his later point of view, "It is +altogether necessary that we should be _convinced_ of the existence of God, +but not so necessary that his existence should be _demonstrated_" are more +noteworthy than the argument itself. This runs: All possibility presupposes +something actual wherein and whereby all that is conceivable is given as +a determination or a consequence. That actuality the destruction of which +would destroy all possibility is absolutely necessary. Therefore there +exists an absolutely necessary Being as the ultimate real ground of all +possibility; this Being is one, simple, unchangeable, eternal, the _ens +realissimum_ and a spirit. The _Attempt to introduce the Notion of +Negative Quantities into Philosophy_, 1763, distinguishes--contrary to +Crusius--between logical opposition, contradiction or mere negation (_a_ +and _not-a_, pleasure and the absence of pleasure, power and lack of +power), and real opposition, which cannot be explained by logic (+_a_ and +-_a_, pleasure and pain, capital and debts, attraction and repulsion; +in real opposition both determinations are positive, but in opposite +directions). Parallel with this it distinguishes, also, between logical +ground and real ground. The prize essay, _Inquiry concerning the Clearness_ +(Evidence) _of the Principles of Natural Theology and Ethics_, 1764, draws +a sharp distinction between mathematical and metaphysical knowledge, and +warns philosophy against the hurtful imitation of the geometrical method, +in place of which it should rather take as an example the method which +Newton introduced into natural science. Quantity constitutes the object of +mathematics, qualities, the object of philosophy; the former is easy and +simple, the latter difficult and complicated--how much more comprehensible +the conception of a trillion is than the philosophical idea of freedom, +which the philosophers thus far have been unable to make intelligible. +In mathematics the general is considered under symbols _in concrete_, in +philosophy, by means of symbols _in abstracto_; the former constructs its +object in sensuous intuition, while the object of the latter is given +to it, and that as a confused concept to be decomposed. Mathematics, +therefore, may well begin with definitions, since the conception which is +to be explained is first brought into being through the definition, while +philosophy must begin by seeking her conceptions. In the former the +definition is first in order, and in the latter almost always last; in the +one case the method is synthetic, in the other it is analytic. It is the +function of mathematics to connect and compare clear and certain concepts +of quantity in order to draw conclusions from them; the function of +philosophy is to analyze concepts given in a confused state, and to make +them detailed and definite. Philosophy has also this disadvantage, that +it possesses very many undecomposable concepts and undemonstrable +propositions, while mathematics has only a few such. "Philosophical truths +are like meteors, whose brightness gives no assurance of their permanence. +They vanish, but mathematics remains. Metaphysics is without doubt the most +difficult of all human sciences _(Einsichten)_, but a metaphysic has +never yet been written"; for one cannot be so kind as to "apply the term +philosophy to all that is contained in the books which bear this title." In +the closing paragraphs, on the ultimate bases of ethics, the stern features +of the categorical imperative are already seen, veiled by the English +theory of moral sense, while the attractive _Observations on the Feeling +of the Beautiful and the Sublime_, which appeared in the same year, still +naively follow the empirical road. + +The empirical phase reaches its skeptical termination in the satire _Dreams +of a Ghost-seer explained by the Dreams of Metaphysics_, 1766, which pours +out its ingenious sarcasm impartially on spiritualism and on the assumed +knowledge of the suprasensible. Here Kant is already clearly conscious of +his new problem, a theory of the limits of human reason, conscious also +that the attack on this problem is to be begun by a discussion of the +question of space. This second question had been for many years a frequent +subject of his reflections;[1] and it was this part of the general critical +problem that first received definitive solution. In the Latin dissertation +_On the Form and Principles of the Sensible and Intelligible World_, 1770, +which concludes the pre-critical period, and which was written on the +occasion of his assumption of his chair as ordinary professor, the +critique of sensibility, the new theory of space and time, is set forth in +approximately the same form as in the _Critique of Pure Reason_, while the +critique of the understanding and of reason, the theory of the categories +and the Ideas and of the sphere of their validity, required for its +completion the intellectual labor of several more years. For this essay, +_De Mundi Sensibilis atque Intelligibilis Forma et Principiis_, leaves +unchallenged the possibility of a knowledge of things in themselves and of +God, thus showing that its author has abandoned the skepticism maintained +in the _Dreams of a Ghost-seer_, and has turned anew to dogmatic +rationalism, whose final overthrow required another swing in the direction +of skeptical empiricism. In regard to the progress of this latter phase +of opinion, the letters to M. Herz are almost the only, though not very +valuable, source of information. + +[Footnote 1: _New Theory of Motion and Rest_, 1758; _On the First Ground of +the Distinction of Positions in Space_, 1768; besides several of the works +mentioned above.] + +The _Critique of Pure Reason_ appeared in 1781, much later than Kant had +hoped when he began a work on "The Limits of Sensibility and Reason," and a +second, altered edition in 1787.[1] After the _Prolegomena to every Future +Metaphysic which may present itself as Science_, 1783, had given a popular +form to the critical doctrine of knowledge, it was followed by the critical +philosophy of ethics in the _Foundation of the Metaphysics of Ethics_, +1785, and the _Critique of Practical Reason_, 1788; by the critical +aesthetics and teleology in the _Critique of Judgment_, 1790; and by the +critical philosophy of religion in _Religion within the Limits of Reason +Only_, 1793[2] (consisting of four essays, of which the first, "Of Radical +Evil," had already appeared in the _Berliner Monatsschrift_ in 1792). The +_Metaphysical Elements of Natural Science_, 1786, and the _Metaphysics +of Ethics_, 1797 (in two parts, "Metaphysical Elements of the Theory of +Right," and "Metaphysical Elements of the Theory of Virtue "), are devoted +to the development of the system. The year 1798 brought two more larger +works, the _Conflict of the Faculties_ and the _Anthropology_. Of the +reviews, that on Herder's _Ideen_ maybe mentioned, and among the minor +essays, the following: _Idea for a Universal History in a Cosmopolitan +Sense, Answer to the Question: What is Illumination f_ both in 1784; +_What does it mean to Orient oneself in Thought_? 1786; _On the Use of +Teleological Principles in Philosophy_, 1788; _On a Discovery according to +which all Recent Criticism of Pure Reason is to be superseded by a Previous +One_, 1790; _On the Progress of Metaphysics since the Time of Wolff; On +Philosophy in General, The End of all Things_, 1794; _On Everlasting +Peace_, 1795. Kant's _Logic_ was published by Jaesche in 1800; his _Physical +Geography_ and his _Observations on Pedagogics_ by F.T. Rink in 1803; his +lectures on the _Philosophical Theory of Religion_ (1817; 2d. ed., 1830) +and on _Metaphysics_ (1821; cf. Benno Erdmann in the _Philosophische +Monatshefte_, vol. xix. 1883, p. 129 _seq_., and vol. xx. 1884, p. 65 +_seq_.) by Poelitz. If we may judge by the specimens given by Reicke in the +_Altpreussische Monatsschrift_, 1882-84, and by Krause himself,[3] +the promised publication of a manuscript of Kant's last years, now in +possession of the Hamburg pastor, Albrecht Krause, and which discusses the +transition from the metaphysical elements of natural science to physics, +will hardly meet the expectations which some have cherished concerning it. +Benno Erdmann has issued _Nachtraege zu Kants Kritik der reinen Vernunft aus +Kants Nachlass_, 1881, and _Reflexionen Kants zur kritischen Philosophie +aus handschriftlichen Aufzeichnungen_--the first volume first _Heft +(Reflexionen zur Anthropologie_) appearing in 1882, the second volume +_(Reflexionen zur Kritik der reinen Vernunft, aus Kants Handexemplar +von Baumgartens Metaphysica)_ in 1884. Max Mueller has made an English +translation of the _Critique of Pure Reason_, 2 vols., 1881.[4] + +[Footnote 1: There has been much discussion and much has been written +concerning the relation of the two editions. In opposition to Schopenhauer +and Kuno Fischer it must be maintained that the alterations in the second +edition consist in giving greater prominence to realistic elements, which +in the first edition remained in the background, though present even +there.] + +[Footnote 2: This publication was the occasion of a conflict between Kant +and the censorship concerning the right of free religious inquiry; cf. +Dilthey in the _Archiv fuer Geschichte der Philosophie_, vol. in. 1890, pp. +418-450.] + +[Footnote 3: A. Krause: _I. Kant wider K. Fischer, zum ersten Male mit +Huelfe des verloren gewesenen Kantischen Hauptwerkes vertheidigt_, 1884 (in +reply, K. Fischer, _Das Streber- und Gruenderthum in der Litteratur_, +1884); also, _Das nachgelassene Werk I. Kants, mit Belegen +populaer-wissenschaftlich dargestellt_, 1888.] + +[Footnote 4: Besides this (centenary) translation the English reader may +be referred to the earlier version of Meiklejohn in Bonn's Library; to the +versions of the _Prolegomena_ by Bax (also in Bonn's Library, and including +the _Metaphysical Elements of Natural Science_), and Mahaffy and Bernard, +new ed., 1889; to Abbot's _Kant's Theory of Ethics_, 4th ed., 1889, +containing the _Foundation of the Metaphysics of Ethics_ and the _Critique +of Practical Reason_ entire, with portions of the _Metaphysics of Ethics_ +and _Religion within the Limits of Reason Only_; to Bernard's translation +of the _Kritik of Judgment_, 1892; and to Watson's _Selections from Kant_, +2d ed., 1888 (in Sneath's Modern Philosophers, 1892).--TR.] + +The best complete edition of the works of Kant is the second edition of +Hartenstein, in eight volumes, 1867-68, which is chronologically arranged +and excellently gotten up. Simultaneously with the first edition of +Hartenstein in ten volumes, in 1838 _seq_., appeared the edition in twelve +volumes by K. Rosenkranz and F.W. Schubert (containing in the last volumes +a biography of Kant by Schubert, and a history of the Kantian philosophy by +Rosenkranz, 1842). Kehrbach's edition of the principal works in Reclam's +_Universal-Bibliothek_, with the pagination of the original and collective +editions (1877 _seq_.), is more valuable than Von Kirchmann's edition of +the complete works in his _Philosophische Bibliothek_. + +Among the works on Kant those of Kuno Fischer (vols. iii.-iv. of the +_Geschichte der neueren Philosophie_, 3d ed., 1882; also Kant's _Leben und +die Grundlagen seiner Lehre_, 1860) take the first place. The writings of +Liebmann, Cohen, Stadler, Riehl, Volkelt, and others will be mentioned +later, in connection with the neo-Kantian movement; here we may give some +of the more important monographs and essays, selected from the enormously +developed Kantian literature: + +Ad. Boehringer, _Kants erkenntnisstheoretischer Idealismus_, 1888; +K. Dieterich, _Die Kantische Philosophie in ihrer inneren +Entwickelungsgeschichte_, 2 parts, 1885 (first published separately, +_Kant und Newton_, 1877; _Kant und Rousseau_, 1878); W. Dilthey, _Aus +den Rostocker Kanthandschriften_ in the _Archiv fuer Geschichte der +Philosophie_, vols. ii.-iii. 1889-90; M.W. Drobisch, _Kants Ding an sich +und sein Erfahrungsbegriff_, 1885; B. Erdmann, _Kants Kritizismus in der +I. und II. Auflage der Kritik der reinen Vernunft_, 1878; the same, _Kants +Prolegomena herausgegeben und erlaeutert_, 1878, Introduction (in reply Emil +Arnoldt, _Kants Prolegomena nicht doppelt redigiert_, 1879; cf. also H. +Vaihinger, _Die Erdmann-Arnoldtsche Kontroverse_ in the _Philosophische +Monatshefte_, vol. xvi. 1880); Franz Erhardt, _Kritik der Kantischen +Antinomienlehre_, 1888; R. Eucken, _Ueber Bilder und Gleichnisse bei +Kant, Zeitschrift fuer Philosophie_, vol. lxxxiii, 1883, reprinted in his +_Beitraege zur Geschichte der neueren Philosophie_, 1886; F. Frederichs, +_Der phaenomenale Idealismus Berkeleys und Kants_, 1871; the same, _Kants +Prinzip der Ethik_, 1879; Ed. von Hartmann, _Das Ding an sich und seine +Beschaffenheit_, 1871, in the 2d ed., 1875, and the 3d, 1885, entitled +_Kritische Grundlegung des transzendentalen Realismus_; C. Hebler, +_Kantiana_, in his _Philosophische Aufsaetze_, 1869; Alfred Hegler, _Die +Psychologie in Kants Ethik_, 1891; A. Hoelder, _Darstellung der Kantischen +Erkenntnisstheorie_, 1873 J. Jacobson, _Die Auffindung des Apriori_, 1876; +the same, _Ueber die Beziehungen zwischen Kategorien und Urtheilsformen_, +1877; Wilhelm Koppelmann, _Kants Lehre vom analytischen Urtheil, Philosoph. +Monatshefte_, vol. xxi, 1885; the same, _Lotzes Stellung zu Kants +Kritizismus, Zeitschrift fuer Philosophie_, vol. lxxxviii, 1886; the same, +_Kants Lehre vom kategorischen Imperativ_, 1888; the same, _Kant und die +Grundlagen der Christlichen Religion_, 1890; E. Laas, _Kants Analogien +der Erfahrung_, 1876; the same, _Einige Bemerkungen zur +Transzendentalphilosophie_, Strassburg _Abhandlungen_, 1884; J. Mainzer, +_Die kritische Epoche in der Lehre von der Einbildungskraft_, 1881; J.B. +Meyer, _Kants Psychologie_, 1870; F. Paulsen, _Was Kant uns sein kann, +Vierteljahrsschrift fuer wissenschaftliche Philosophie_, 1881; B. Puenjer, +_Die Religionslehre Kants_, 1874; R. Quaebicker, _Kants und Herbarts +metaphysische Grundansichten ueber das Wesen der Seele_, 1870; J. Rehmke, +_Physiologie und Kantianismus_, address in Eisenach, 1883; Rud. Reicke, +_Lose Blaetter aus Kants Nachlass_, 1889 (on this H. Vaihinger in the +_Zeitschrift fuer Philosophie_, vol. xcvi. 1889); O. Riedel, _Die +monadologischen Bestimmungen in Kants Lehre vom Ding an sich_, dissertation +at Kiel, 1884; O. Schneider, _Die psychologische Entwickelung des Apriori_, +1883; the same, _Transzendentalpsychologie_, 1891; F. Staudinger, +_Noumena_, 1884; M. Steckelmacher, _Die formale Logik Kants_, Breslau +Prize Essay, 1879; A. Stern, _Die Beziehung Garves zu Kant, +nebst ungedruckten Briefen_, 1884; C. Stumpf, _Psychologie und +Erkenntnisstheorie, Abhandlungen der bayerischen Akademie der +Wissenschaften_, 1891; G. Thiele, _Kants intellectuelle Anschauung als +Grundbegriff seines Kritizismus_, 1876; the same, _Die Philosophie Kants +nach ihrem systematischen Zusammenhange und ihrer logischhistorischen +Entiwickelung_, I. (1) _Kants vorkritische Naturphilosophie_, 1882; (2) +_Kants vorkritische Erkenntnisstheorie_, 1887; Ad. Trendelenburg, _Ueber +eine Luecke in Kants Beweis von der ausschliessenden Subjectivitaet des +Raumes and der Zeit_ in vol. iii. of his _Historische Beitraege zur +Philosophie_, 1867; Ueberhorst, _Kants Lehre von dem Verhaeltnisse der +Kategorien zu der Erfahrung_, 1878; H. Vaihinger, _Eine Blattversetzung in +Kants Prolegomena, Philosoph. Monatshefte_, vol. xv. 1879; the same, _Zu +Kants Widerlegung des Idealismus_, Strassburg _Abhandlungen_, 1884; J. +Walter, _Zum Gedaechtniss Kants, Festrede_, 1881; Th. Weber, _Zur Kritik der +Kantischen Erkenntnisstheorie_ (from the _Zeitschrift fuer Philosophie_), +1882; W. Windelband, _Ueber die verschiedenen Phasen der Kantischen Lehre +vom Ding an sich, Vierteljahrsschrift fuer wissenschaftliche Philosophie_, +1877 (cf. the same author's _Geschichte der neueren Philosophie_, Sec. 58); +J. Witte, _Beitraege zum Verstaendniss Kants_, 1874; the same, _Kantischer +Kritizismus gegenueber unkritischem Dilettantismus_ (against A. Stoehr), +1885; Wohlrabe, _Kants Lehre vom Gewissen_, 1889; E. Zeller, _Ueber das +Kantische Moralprinzip_, 1880; R. Zimmermann, _Ueber Kants Widerlegung des +Idealismus von Berkeley_, 1871; the same, _Ueber Kants mathematisches +Vorurtheil und dessen Folgen_, 1871. + +Popular expositions have been given by the following: K. Fortlage (in his +_Philos. Vortraege_, 1869); E. Last, _Mehr Licht! Die Haupsaetze Kants und +Schopenhauers_, 1879; the same, _Die realistiche und die idealistische +Anschauung entwickelt an Kants Idealitaet von Raum und Zeit_, 1884; H. +Romundt, _Antaeus, neuer Aufbau der Lehre Kants ueber Seele, Freiheit, +und Gott_, 1882; the same, _Grundlegung zur Reform der Philosophie, +vereinfachte und erweiterte Darstellung von Kants Kritik der reinen +Vernunft_, 1885; the same, _Die Vollendung des Socrates, Kants Grundlegung +zur Reform der Sittenlehre_; the same, _Ein neuer Paulus, Kants Grundlegung +zu einer sicheren Lehre von der Religion_, 1886; the same, _Die drei Fragen +Kants_, 1887; A. Krause, _Populaere Darstellung von Kants Kritik der reinen +Vernunft_, 1881; K. Lasswitz, _Die Lehre Kants von der Idealitaet des +Raumes und der Zeit_, 1883; Wilhelm Muenz, _Die Grundlagen der Kantischen +Erkenntnisstheorie_, 2d ed., 1885. + +Among foreigners Villers, Cousin, Nolen, Desdouits, Cantoni, E. Caird [_\A +Critical Account of the Philosophy of Kant_, 1877; _The Critical Philosophy +of Immanuel Kant_, 2 vols., 1889], Adamson _[On the Philosophy of Kant_, +1879, and a valuable article in the _Encyclopedia Britannica_, 9th ed., +vol. xiii.], Stirling [_Text-book to Kant_, 1881], [Watson, _Kant and his +English Critics_, 1881], Morris _Kant's Critique of Pure Reason_, Griggs's +Philosophical Classics, 1882, [Wallace, _Kant_, Blackwood's Philosophical +Classics, 1882; Porter, _Kant's Ethics_, Griggs's Philosophical Classics, +1886; Green, _Lectures_, Works, vol. ii., 1886.--Tr.], have among others +made contributions to Kantian literature. Of the older works we may mention +the dictionaries of E. Schmid, 1788, and Mellin (in six volumes), 1797 +_seq_., the critique of the Kantian philosophy in the first volume of +Schopenhauer's chief work, 1819, and the essay of C.H. Weisse, _In +welchem Sinne hat sich die deutsche Philosophie jetzt wieder an Kant zu +orientieren_, 1847. + +Kant's outward life was less eventful and less changeful than his +philosophical development.[1] Born in Koenigsberg in 1724, the son of J.G. +Cant, a saddler of Scottish descent, his home and school training were both +strict and of a markedly religious type. He was educated at the university +of his native city, and for nine years, from 1746 on, filled the place of +a private tutor. In 1755 he became _Docent_, in 1770 ordinary professor in +Koenigsberg, serving also for six years of this time as under-librarian. He +seldom left his native city and never the province. The clearness +which marked his extremely popular lectures on physical geography and +anthropology was due to his diligent study of works of travel, and to an +unusually acute gift of observation, which enabled him to draw from his +surroundings a comprehensive knowledge of the world and of man. He ceased +lecturing in 1797, and in 1804 old age ended a life which had always, even +in minute detail, been governed by rule. A man of extreme devotion to +duty, particularity, and love of truth, and an amiable, bright, and witty +companion, Kant belongs to the acute rather than to the profound thinkers. +Among his manifold endowments the tendency to combination and the faculty +of intuition (as the _Critique of Judgment_ especially shows) are present +to a noticeable degree, yet not so markedly as the power of strict analysis +and subtle discrimination. So that, although a mediating tendency is +rightly regarded as the distinguishing characteristic of the Kantian +thinking, it must also be remembered that synthesis is everywhere preceded +by a mighty work of analysis, and that this still exerts its power even +after the adjustment is complete. Thus Kant became the energetic defender +of a qualitative view of the world in opposition to the quantitative view +of Leibnitz, for which antitheses (_e.g._, sensation and thought, feeling +and cognition, good and evil, duty and inclination) fade into mere +differences of degree. + +[Footnote 1: The following have done especially valuable service in the +investigation of the development of Kant's doctrine: Paulsen (_Versuch +einer Entwickelungsgeschichte der Kantischen Erkenntnisstheorie_, 1875), +B. Erdmann, Vaihinger, and Windelband. Besides Hume and Leibnitz, Newton, +Locke, Shaftesbury, Rousseau, and Wolff exercised an important influence +on Kant.] + +In the beginning of this chapter we have indicated how the new ideal of +knowledge, under whose banner Kant brought about a reform of philosophy, +grew out of the conflict between the rationalistic (dogmatic) and the +empirical (skeptical) systems. This combines the Baconian ideal of the +extension of knowledge with the Cartesian ideal of certainty in knowledge. +It is synthetic judgments alone which extend knowledge, while analytic +judgments are explicative merely.[1] _A priori_ judgments alone are +perfectly certain, absolutely universal, and necessarily valid; while _a +posteriori_ judgments are subjectively valid merely, lack necessity, and, +at best, yield only relative universality.[2] All analytic judgments are _a +priori_, all empirical or _a posteriori_ judgments are synthetic. Between +the two lies the object of Kant's search. Do _synthetic judgments a priori_ +exist, and how are they possible? + +[Footnote 1: "All bodies are extended" is an analytic judgment; "all bodies +possess weight," a synthetic judgment. The former explicates the concept +of the subject by bringing into notice an idea already contained in it and +belonging to the definition as a part thereof; it is based on the law of +contradiction: an unextended body is a self-contradictory concept. The +latter, on the contrary, goes beyond the concept of the subject and adds +a predicate which had not been thought therein. It is experience which +teaches us that weight is joined to matter, a fact which cannot be derived +from the concept of matter. Almost all mathematical principles are +synthetic, and here, as will be shown, it is not experience but "pure +intuition" which permits us to go beyond the concept and add a new mark +to it.] + +[Footnote 2: The Scholastics applied the term _a priori_ to knowledge from +causes (from that which precedes), and _a posteriori_ to knowledge from +effects. Kant, following Leibnitz and Lambert, uses the terms to designate +the antithesis, knowledge from reason and knowledge from experience. An _a +priori_ judgment is a judgment obtained without the aid of experience. When +the principle from which it is derived is also independent of experience it +is absolutely _a priori_, otherwise it is relatively _a priori_.] + +Two sciences discuss the _how_, and a third the _if_ of such judgments, +which, at the same time, are ampliative and absolutely universal and +necessary. The first two sciences are pure mathematics and pure natural +science, of which the former is protected against doubt concerning its +legitimacy by its evident character, and the latter, by the constant +possibility of verification in experience; each, moreover, can point to +the continuous course of its development. All this is absent in the third +science, metaphysics, as science of the suprasensible, and to its great +disadvantage. Experiential verification is in the nature of things denied +to a presumptive knowledge of that which is beyond experience; it lacks +evidence to such an extent that there is scarcely a principle to be found +to which all metaphysicians assent, much less a metaphysical text-book +to compare with Euclid; there is so little continuous advance that it is +rather true that the later comers are likely to overthrow all that their +predecessors have taught. In metaphysics, therefore, which, it must be +confessed, is actual as a natural tendency, the question is not, as in +the other two sciences, concerning the grounds of its legitimacy, but +concerning this legitimacy itself. Mathematics and pure physics form +synthetic judgments _a priori_, and metaphysics does the same. But the +principles of the two former are unchallenged, while those of the third +are not. In the former case the subject for investigation is, Whence this +authority? in the latter case, Is she thus authorized? + +Thus the main question, How are synthetic judgments _a priori_ possible? +divides into the subordinate questions, How is pure mathematics possible? +How is pure natural science possible, and, How is metaphysics (in two +senses: metaphysics in general, and metaphysics as science) possible? The +Transcendental _Aesthetic_ (the critique of sensibility or the faculty +of intuition) answers the first of these questions; the Transcendental +_Analytic_ (the critique of the understanding), the second; and the +Transcendental _Dialectic_ (the critique of "reason" in the narrower sense) +and the Transcendental _Doctrine of Method (Methodenlehre)_, the third. The +Analytic and the Dialectic are the two parts of the Transcendental "Logic" +(critique of the faculty of thought), which, together with the Aesthetic, +forms the Transcendental "Doctrine of Elements" _(Elementarlehre)_, in +contrast to the Doctrine of Method. The _Critique of Pure Reason_ follows +this scheme of subordinate division, while the _Prolegomena_ co-ordinates +all four parts in the manner first mentioned. + +Let us anticipate the answers. Pure mathematics is possible, because there +are pure or _a priori intuitions_ (space and time), and pure natural +science or the metaphysics of phenomena, because there are _a priori +concepts_ (categories) _and principles_ of the pure understanding. +Metaphysics as a presumptive science of the suprasensible has been possible +in the form of unsuccessful attempts, because there are _Ideas_ or concepts +of reason which point beyond experience and look as though knowable objects +were given through them; but as real science it is not possible, because +the application of the categories is restricted to the limits of +experience, while the objects thought through the Ideas cannot be +sensuously given, and all assumed knowledge of them becomes involved in +irresolvable contradictions (antinomies). On the other hand, a science is +possible and necessary to teach the correct use of the categories, which +may be applied to phenomena alone, and of the Ideas, which may be applied +only to our knowledge of things (and our volition), and to determine the +origin and the limits of our knowledge--that is to say, a transcendental +philosophy. In regard to metaphysics (knowledge from pure reason), then, +this is the conclusion reached: Rejection of transcendent metaphysics (that +which goes beyond experience), recognition and development of immanent +metaphysics (that which remains within the limits of possible experience). +It is not possible as a metaphysic of things in themselves; it is possible +as a metaphysic of nature (of the totality of phenomena), and as a +metaphysic of knowledge (critique of reason). + +The interests of the reason are not exhausted, however, by the question, +What can we know? but include two further questions, What ought we to do? +and, What may we hope? Thus to the metaphysics of nature there is added +a metaphysics of morals, and to the critique of theoretical reason, a +critique of practical reason or of the will, together with a critique of +religious belief. For even if a "knowledge" of the suprasensible is denied +to us, yet "practical" grounds are not wanting for a sufficiently certain +"conviction" concerning God, freedom, and immortality. + +After carrying the question of the possibility of synthetic judgments _a +priori_ from the knowledge of nature over to the knowledge of our duty, +Kant raises it, in the third place, in regard to our judgment concerning +the subjective and objective purposiveness of things, or concerning their +beauty and their perfection, and adds to his critique of the intellect +and the will a critique of the faculty of aesthetic and teleological +_judgment_. + +The Kantian philosophy accordingly falls into three parts, one theoretical, +one practical (and religious), one aesthetic and teleological. + + * * * * * + +Before advancing to our account of the first of these parts, a few +preliminary remarks are indispensable concerning the presuppositions +involved in Kant's critical work and on the method which he pursues. The +presuppositions are partly psychological, partly (as the classification of +the forms of judgment and inference, and the twofold division of judgments) +logical, either in the formal or the transcendental sense, and partly +metaphysical (as the thing in itself). Kant takes the first of these from +the psychology of his time, by combining the Wolffian classification of the +faculties with that of Tetens, and thus obtains six different faculties: +lower (sensuous) and higher (intellectual) faculties of cognition, of +feeling, and of appetition; or sensibility (the capacity for receiving +representations through the way in which we are affected by objects), +understanding (the faculty of producing representations spontaneously and +of connecting them); the sensuous feelings of pleasure and pain, taste; +desire, and will. The understanding in the wide sense is equivalent to the +higher faculty of cognition, and divides further into understanding in the +stricter sense (faculty of concepts), judgment (faculty of judging), and +reason (faculty of inference). Of these the first gives laws to the faculty +of cognition or to nature, the second laws to taste, and the third laws to +the will. + +The most important of the fundamental assumptions concerns the relation, +the nature, and the mission of the two faculties of cognition. These do +not differ in degree, through the possession of greater or less +distinctness--for there are sensuous representations which are distinct and +intellectual ones which are not so--but specifically: Sensibility is the +faculty of intuitions, understanding the faculty of concepts. Intuitions +are particular, concepts general representations. The former relate to +objects directly, the latter only indirectly (through the mediation of +other representations). In intuition the mind is receptive, in conception +it acts spontaneously. "Through intuitions objects are _given_ to us; +through concepts they are _thought_." It results from this that neither of +the two faculties is of itself sufficient for the attainment of knowledge, +for cognition is objective thinking, the determination of objects, the +unifying combination or elaboration of a given manifold, the forming of a +material content. Rationalists and empiricists alike have been deceived +in regard to the necessity for co-operation between the senses and the +understanding. Sensibility furnishes the material manifold, which of itself +it is not able to form, while the understanding gives the unifying form, to +which of itself it cannot furnish a content. "Intuitions without concepts +are _blind_" (formless, unintelligible), "concepts without intuitions are +_empty_" (without content). In the one case, form and order are wanting; in +the other, the material to be formed. The two faculties are thrown back on +each other, and knowledge can arise only from their union. + +A certain degree of form is attained in sense, it is true, since the chaos +of sensations is ordered under the "forms of intuition," space and time, +which are an original possession of the intuiting subject, but this is +not sufficient, without the aid of the understanding, for the genesis of +knowledge. In view of the _a priori_ nature of space and time, though +without detraction from their intuitive character (they are immediate +particular representations), we may assign pure sensibility to the higher +faculty of cognition and speak of an intuiting reason. + +The forms of intuition and of thought come from within, they lie ready in +the mind _a priori_, though not as completed representations. They are +functions, necessary actions of the soul, for the execution of which a +stimulus from without, through sensations, is necessary, but which, when +once this is given, the soul brings forth spontaneously. The external +impulse merely gives the soul the occasion for such productive acts, while +their grounds and laws are found in its own nature. In this sense Kant +terms them "originally acquired," and in the Introduction to the _Critique +of Pure Reason_ declares that although it is indubitable that "all our +knowledge begins _with_ experience (impressions of sense), yet it does not +all arise _from_ experience." That a representation or cognition is _a +priori_[1] does not mean that it precedes experience in time, but that +(apart from the merely exciting, non-productive stimulation through +impressions already mentioned) it is independent of all experience, that it +is not derived or borrowed from experience. + +[Footnote 1: The terms _a priori_ representation and pure representation +(concept, intuition) are equivalent; but in judgments, on the other hand, +there is a distinction. A judgment is _a priori_ when the connection takes +place independently of experience, no matter whether the concepts connected +are _a priori_ or not. If the former is the case the _a priori_ judgment is +pure (mixed with nothing empirical); if the latter, it is mixed.] + +The material of intuition and thought is given to the soul, received by +it; it arises through the action of objects upon the senses, and is always +empirical. Intuition is the only organ of reality; in sensation the +presence of a real object as the cause of the sensation is directly +revealed. When Kant's transcendental idealism was placed by a reviewer on a +level with the empirical idealism of Berkeley, which denies the existence +of the external world, he distinctly asserted that it had never entered +his mind to question the reality of external things. Further, after the +existence of real things affecting the senses had been transformed in +his mind from a basis of the investigation into an object of inquiry, +he endeavored to defend this assumption (which at first he had naively +borrowed from the realism of pre-scientific thought) by arguments, but +without any satisfactory result.[1] + +[Footnote 1: The task of confirming the existence of things in themselves +changes under his hands into another, that of proving the existence of +external phenomena. "That external objects are real as representations" +Berkeley had never disputed.] + +On the basis of the inseparability of sensibility and understanding the +ideal of knowledge--an extension of knowledge to be attained by _a priori_ +means (p. 333)--experiences a remarkable addition in the position that the +rational synthesis thus obtained must be a knowledge of reality, must be +applied to matter given in intuition. To the question, "How are synthetic +judgments _a priori possible_?" is joined a second equally legitimate +inquiry, "How do they become _objectively valid_, or applicable to objects +of experience?" The principle from which their validity is proved--they are +applicable to objects of experience because _without them experience would +not be possible_, because they are _conditions of experience_--like the +criterion of apriority (strict universality and necessity), is one of the +noetic assumptions of the critical theory.[1] + +[Footnote 1: Cf. Vaihinger, _Kommentar_, i. pp. 425-430.] + +Inasmuch as its investigation relates to the conditions of experience the +Kantian criticism follows a method which it itself terms _transcendental_. +Heretofore, when the metaphysical method had been adopted, the object had +been the suprasensible; and when knowledge had been made the object of +investigation, the method followed had been empirical, psychological. Kant +had the right to consider himself the creator of noetics, for he showed it +the transcendental point of view. Knowledge is an object of experience, but +its conditions are not. The object is to explain knowledge, not merely to +describe it psychologically,--to establish a new science of knowledge from +principles, from pure reason. That which lies beyond experience is +sealed from our thought; that which lies on this side of it is still +uninvestigated, though capable and worthy of investigation, and in +extreme need thereof. Criticism forbids the _transcendent_ use of reason +(transcending experience); it permits, demands, and itself exercises the +_transcendental_[1] use of it, which explains an experiential object, +knowledge, from its conditions, which are not empirically given. + +[Footnote A: Kant applies the term _transcendental_ to the knowledge (the +discovery, the proof) of the _a priori_ factor and its relation to objects +of experience. Unfortunately he often uses the same word not only to +designate the _a priori_ element itself, but also as a synonym for +transcendent. In all three cases its opposite is _empirical_, namely, +empirico-psychological investigation by observation in distinction from +noetical investigation from principles; empirical origin in distinction +from an origin in pure reason, and empirical use in distinction from +application beyond the limits of experience.] + +There is, apparently, a contradiction between the empiristic result of the +Critique of Reason (the limitation of knowledge to objects of experience) +and its rationalistic proofs (which proceed metaphysically, not +empirically), and, in fact, a considerable degree of opposition really +exists. Kant argues in a metaphysical way that there can be no metaphysics. +This contradiction is solved by the distinction which has been mentioned +between that which is beyond, and that which lies within, the boundary of +experience. That metaphysic is forbidden which on the objective side soars +beyond experience, but that pure rational knowledge is permissible and +necessary which develops from principles the grounds of experiential +knowledge existing in the subject. In the Kantian school, however, these +complementary elements,--empirical result, transcendental or metaphysical, +properly speaking, pro-physical method,--were divorced, and the one +emphasized, favored, and further developed at the expense of the other. +The empiricists hold to the result, while they either weaken or completely +misunderstand the rationalism of the method: the _a priori_ factor, says +Fries, was not reached by _a priori_, but by _a posteriori_, means, and +there is no other way by which it could have been reached. The constructive +thinkers, Fichte and his successors, adopt and continue the metaphysical +method, but reject the empirical result. Fichte's aim is directed to +a system of necessary, unconscious processes of reason, among which, +rejecting the thing in itself, he includes sensation. According to +Schelling nature itself is _a priori_, a condition of consciousness. This +discrepancy between foundation and result continues in an altered form even +among contemporary thinkers--as a discussion whether the "main purpose" +of Criticism is to be found in the limitation of knowledge to possible +experience, or the establishment of _a priori_ elements--though many, in +adherence to Kant's own view, maintain that the metaphysics of knowledge +and of phenomena (immanent rationalism) is the only legitimate metaphysics. + + +%1. Theory of Knowledge. + +(a) The Pure Intuitions (Transcendental Aesthetic).%--The first part of the +Critique of Reason, the Transcendental Aesthetic, lays down the position +that _space and time_ are not independent existences, not real beings, and +not properties or relations which would belong to things in themselves +though they were not intuited, but _forms of our intuition_, which have +their basis in the subjective constitution of our, the human, mind. If we +separate from sensuous intuition all that the understanding thinks in it +through its concepts, and all that belongs to sensation, these two forms of +intuition remain, which may be termed pure intuitions, since they can be +considered apart from all sensation. As subjective _conditions_ (lying in +the nature of the subject) through which alone a thing can become an object +of intuition for us, they precede all empirical intuitions or are +_a priori_. + +Space and time are neither substantial receptacles which contain all +that is real nor orders inhering in things in themselves, but forms of +intuition. Now all our representations are either pure or empirical in +their origin, and either intuitive or conceptual in character. Kant +advances four proofs for the position that space and time are not empirical +and not concepts, but pure intuitions: (1) Time is not an empirical +concept which has been abstracted from experience. For the coexistence or +succession of phenomena, _i.e._, their existence at the same time or at +different times (from which, as many believe, the representation of time +is abstracted), itself presupposes time--a coexistence or succession is +possible only in time. It is no less false that space is abstracted from +the empirical space relations of external phenomena, their existence +outside and beside one another, or in different places, for it is +impossible to represent relative situation except in space. Therefore +experience does not make space and time possible; but space and time first +of all make experience possible, the one outer, the other inner experience. +They are postulates of perception, not abstractions from it. (2) Time is a +necessary representation _a priori_. We can easily think all phenomena away +from it, but we cannot remove time itself in view of phenomena in general; +we can think time without phenomena, but not phenomena without time. The +same is true of space in reference to external objects. Both are conditions +of the possibility of phenomena. (3) Time is not a discursive or general +concept. For there is but one time. And different times do not precede the +one time as the constituent parts of which it is made up, but are mere +limitations of it; the part is possible only through the whole. In the same +way the various spaces are only parts of one and the same space, and can +be thought in it alone. But a representation which can be given only by +a single object is a particular representation or an intuition. Because, +therefore, of the oneness of space and time, the representation of each +is an intuition. The _a priori_, immediate intuition of the one space is +entirely different from the empirical, general conception of space, which +is abstracted from the various spaces. (4) Determinate periods of time +arise by limitation of the one, fundamental time. Consequently this +original time must be unlimited or infinite, and the representation of it +must be an intuition, not a concept. Time contains in itself an endless +number of representations (its parts, times), but this is never the +case with a generic concept, which, indeed, is contained as a partial +representation in an endless number of representations (those of the +individuals having the same name), and, consequently, comprehends them all +under itself, but which never contains them in itself. The general concept +horse is contained in each particular representation of a horse as a +general characteristic, and that of justice in each representation of a +definite just act; time, however, is not contained in the different times, +but they are contained in it. Similarly the relation of infinite space to +the finite spaces is not the logical relation of a concept to examples of +it, but the intuitive relation of an unlimited whole to its limited parts. + +The _Prolegomena_ employs as a fifth proof for the intuitive character of +space, an argument which had already appeared in the essay _On the Ultimate +Ground of the Distinction of Positions in Space_. There are certain spatial +distinctions which can be grasped by intuition alone, and which are +absolutely incapable of comprehension through the understanding--for +example, those of right and left, above and below, before and behind. No +logical marks can be given for the distinction between the object and its +image in the mirror, or between the right ear and the left. The complete +description of a right hand must, in all respects (quality, proportionate +position of parts, size of the whole), hold for the left as well; +but, despite the complete similarity, the one hand cannot be exactly +super-imposed on the other; the glove of the one cannot be worn on the +other. This difference in direction, which has significance only when +viewed from a definite point, and the impossibility mentioned of a +congruence between an object (right hand) and its reflected image (left +hand) can be understood only by intuition; they must be seen and felt, and +cannot be made clear through concepts, and, consequently, can never be +explained to a being which lacks the intuition of space. + +In the "transcendental" exposition of space and time Kant follows this +"metaphysical" exposition, which had to prove their non-empirical, and +non-discursive, hence their _a priori_ and intuitive, character, with +the proof that only such an explanation of space and time could make it +conceivable how synthetic cognitions _a priori_ can arise from them. The +principles of mathematics are of this kind. The synthetic character of +geometrical truths is explained by the intuitive nature of space, their +apodictic character by its apriority, and their objective reality or +applicability to empirical objects by the fact that space is the condition +of (external) perception. The like is true of arithmetic and time. + +If space were a mere concept, no proposition could be derived from it which +should go beyond the concept and extend our knowledge of its properties. +The possibility of such extension or synthesis in mathematics depends on +the fact that spatial concepts can always be presented or "constructed" in +intuition. The geometrical axiom that in the triangle the sum of two sides +is greater than the third is derived from intuition, by describing the +triangle in imagination or, actually, on the board. Here the object is +given through the cognition and not before it.--If space and time were +empirical representations the knowledge obtained from them would lack +necessity, which, as a matter of fact, it possesses in a marked degree. +While experience teaches us only that something is thus or so, and not that +it could not be otherwise, the axioms, (space has only three dimensions, +time only one; only one straight line is possible between two points), +nay, all the propositions of mathematics are strictly universal and +apodictically certain: we are entirely relieved from the necessity of +measuring all triangles in the world in order to find out whether the sum +of their angles is equal to two right angles, and we do not need, as in the +case of judgments of experience, to add the limitation, so far as it is yet +known there are no exceptions to this rule. The apriority is the _ratio +essendi_ of the strict necessity involved in the "it must be so" _(des +Soseinmuessens_), while the latter is the _ratio cognoscendi_ of the former. +Now since the necessity of mathematical judgments can only be explained +through the ideality of space, this doctrine is perfectly certain, not +merely a probable hypothesis.--The validity of mathematical principles for +all objects of perception, finally, is based on the fact that they are +rules under which alone experience is possible for us. It should be +mentioned, further, that the conceptions of change and motion (change of +place) are possible only through and in the representation of time. No +concept could make intelligible the possibility of change, that is, of the +connection of contradictory predicates in one and the same thing, but the +intuition of succession easily succeeds in accomplishing it. + +The argument is followed by conclusions and explanations based upon it; +(1) Space is the form of the outer, time of the inner, sense. Through the +outer sense external objects are given to us, and through the inner sense +our own inner states. But since all representations, whether they have +external things for their objects or not, belong in themselves, as mental +determinations, to our inner state, time is the formal condition of all +phenomena in general, directly of internal (psychical) phenomena, and, +thereby, indirectly of external phenomena also. (2) The validity of the +relations of space and time cognizable _a priori_ is established for all +objects of possible experience, but is limited to these. They are valid +for _all phenomena_ (for all things which at any time may be given to our +senses), but only for these, not for things as they are _in themselves_. +They have "empirical reality, but, at the same time, transcendental +ideality." As external phenomena all things are beside one another in +space, and all phenomena whatever are in time and of necessity under +temporal relations; in regard to all things which can occur in our +experience, and in so far as they can occur, space and time are +objectively, therefore empirically, real. But they do not possess absolute +reality (neither subsistent reality nor the reality of inherence); for if +we abstract from our sensuous intuition both vanish, and, apart from the +subject (_N.B._, the transcendental subject, concerning which more below), +they are naught. It is only from man's point of view that we can speak +of space, and of extended, moveable, changeable things; for we can know +nothing concerning the intuitions of other thinking beings, we have no +means of discovering whether they are bound by the same conditions which +limit our intuitions, and which for us are universally valid. (3) Nothing +which is intuited in space is a thing in itself. What we call external +objects are nothing but mere representations of our sensibility, whose +true correlative, the _thing in itself_, cannot be known by ever so deep +penetration into the phenomenon; such properties as belong to things in +themselves can never be given to us through the senses. Similarly nothing +that is intuited in time is a thing in itself, so that we intuit ourselves +only as we appear to ourselves, and not as we are. + +The merely empirical reality of space and time, the limitation of their +validity to phenomena, leaves the certainty of knowledge within the limits +of experience intact; for we are equally certain of it, whether these forms +necessarily belong to things in themselves, or only to our intuitions +of things. The assertion of their absolute reality, on the other hand, +involves us in sheer absurdities (that is, it necessitates the assumption +of two infinite nonentities which exist, but without being anything real, +merely in order to comprehend all reality, and on one of which even our own +existence would be dependent), in view of which the origin of so peculiar +a theory as the idealism of Berkeley appears intelligible. The critical +theory of space and time is so far from being identical with, or akin to, +the theory of Berkeley, that it furnishes the best and only defense against +the latter. If anyone assumes the absolute or transcendental reality of +these forms, it is impossible for him to prevent everything, including even +our own existence, from being changed thereby into mere illusion. But +the critical philosopher is far from degrading bodies to mere illusion; +external phenomena are just as real for him as internal phenomena, though +only as phenomena, it is true, as (possible) representations. + +Phenomenon and illusion are not the same. The transcendental distinction +between phenomena and things in themselves must not be confused with the +distinction common to ordinary life and to physics, in accordance with +which we call the rainbow a mere appearance (better, illusion), but the +combination of sun and rain which gives rise to this illusion the thing +in itself, as that which in universal experience and in all different +positions with respect to the senses, is thus and not otherwise determined +in intuition, or that which essentially belongs to the intuition of the +object, and is valid for every human sensibility (in antithesis to that +which only contingently belongs to it, and is valid only for a special +position or organization of this or that sense). Similarly an object always +appears to grow smaller as its distance increases, while in itself it is +and remains of some fixed size. And this use of words is perfectly +correct, in the _physical or empirical_ sense of "in itself"; but in the +_transcendental_ sense the raindrops, also, together with their form and +size, are themselves mere phenomena, the "in itself" of which remains +entirely unknown to us. Kant, moreover, does not wish to see the +subjectivity of the forms of intuition placed on a level with the +subjectivity of sensations or explained by this, though he accepts it as +a fact long established. The sensations of color, of tone, of temperature +are, no doubt, like the representation of space in that they belong only to +the subjective constitution of the sensibility, and can be attributed to +objects only in relation to our senses. But the great difference between +the two is that these sense qualities may be different in different persons +(the color of the rose may seem different to each eye), or may fail to +harmonize with any human sense; that they are not _a priori_ in the same +strict sense as space and time, and consequently afford no knowledge of the +objects of possible experience independently of perception; and that they +are connected with the phenomenon only as the contingently added effects of +a particular organization, while space, as the condition of external +objects, necessarily belongs to the phenomenon or intuition of them. _It is +through space alone that it is possible for things to be external objects +for us_. The subjectivity of sensation is individual, while that of space +and time is general or universal to mankind; the former is empirical, +individually different, and contingent, the latter _a priori_ and +necessary. Space alone, not sensation, is a _conditio sine qua non_ of +external perception. Space and time are the sole _a priori_ elements of +the sensibility; all other sensuous concepts, even motion and change, +presuppose perception; the movable in space and the succession of +properties in an existing thing are empirical data. + +In confirmation of the theory that all objects of the senses are mere +phenomena, the fact is adduced that (with the exception of the will and the +feelings, which are not cognitions) nothing is given us through the senses +but representations of relations, while a thing in itself cannot be known +by mere relations. The phenomenon is a sum total of mere relations. In +regard to matter we know only extension, motion, and the laws of this +motion or forces (attraction, repulsion, impenetrability), but all these +are merely relations of the thing to something, else, that is, external +relations. Where is the inner side which underlies this exterior, and +which belongs to the object in itself? This is never to be found in the +phenomenon, and no matter how far the observation and analysis of nature +may advance (a work with unlimited horizons!) they reach nothing but +portions of space occupied by matter and effects which matter exercises, +that is, nothing beyond that which is comparatively internal, and which, +in its turn, consists of external relations. The absolutely inner side +of matter is a mere fancy; and if the complaint that the "inner side" of +things is concealed from us is to mean that we do not comprehend what +the things which appear to us may be in themselves, it is unjust and +irrational, for it demands that we should be able to intuit without +senses, in other words, that we should be other than men. The transcendent +questions concerning the noumenon of things are unanswerable; we know +ourselves, even, only as phenomena! A phenomenon consists in nothing but +the relation of something in general to the senses. + +It is indubitable _that_ something corresponds to phenomena, which, +by affecting our sensibility, occasions sensations in us, and thereby +phenomena. The very word, the very concept, "phenomenon", indicates a +relation to something which is not phenomenon, to an object not dependent +on the sensibility. _What_ this may be continues hidden from us, for +knowledge is impossible without intuition. Things in themselves are +unknowable. Nevertheless the idea (it must be confessed, the entirely empty +idea) of this "transcendental object", as an indeterminate somewhat = _x_ +which underlies phenomena, is not only allowable, but, as a limiting +concept, unavoidable in order to confine the pretensions of sense to the +only field which is accessible to it, that is, to the field of phenomena. + +The inference "space and time are nothing but representations and +representations are in us, therefore space and time as well as all +phenomena in them, bodies with their forces and motions, are in us," does +not accurately express Kant's position, for he might justly reply that, +according to him, bodies as phenomena are in different parts in space from +that which we assign to ourselves, and thus without us; that space is the +form of external intuition, and through it external objects arise for us +from sensations; but that, in regard to the things in themselves which +affect us, we are entirely ignorant whether they are within or without us. + +It can easily be shown by literal quotations that there were distinct +tendencies in Kant, especially in the first edition of his principal +work, toward a radical idealism which doubts or denies not merely the +cognizability, but also the existence of objects external to the subject +and its representations, and which degrades the thing in itself to a mere +thought in us, or completely does away with it (_e.g._, "The representation +of an object as a thing in general is not only insufficient, but, ... +independently of empirical conditions, in itself contradictory "). But +these expressions indicate only a momentary inclination toward such a view, +not a binding avowal of it, and they are outweighed by those in which +idealism is more or less energetically rejected. That which according to +Kant _exists outside the representation of the individual_ is twofold: (1) +the unknown things in themselves with their problematical characteristics, +as the ground of phenomena; (2) the phenomena "themselves" with their +knowable immanent laws, and their relations in space and time, as possible +representations. When I turn my glance away from the rose its redness +vanishes, since this predicate belongs to it only in so far and so long +as it acts in the light on my visual apparatus. What, then, is left? That +thing in itself, of course, which, when it appears to me, calls forth in me +the intuition of the rose. But there is still something else remaining--the +phenomenon of the rose, with its size, its form, and its motion in the +wind. For these are predicates which must be attributed to the phenomenon +itself as the object of my representation. If the rose, as determined in +space and time, vanished when I turned my head away, it could not, unless +intuited by a subject, experience or exert effects in space and time, could +not lose its leaves in the wind and strew the ground with its petals. +Perception and thought inform me not merely concerning events of which I am +a witness, but also of others which have occurred, or which will occur, in +my absence. The process of stripping the leaves from the rose has actually +taken place as a phenomenon and does not first become real by my subsequent +representation of it or inference to it. The things and events of the +phenomenal world exist both before and after my perception, and are +something distinct from my subjective and momentary representations of +them. The space and time, however, in which they exist and happen are +not furnished by the intuiting individual, but by the supra-individual, +_transcendental consciousness_ or generic reason of the race. The +phenomenon thus stands midway between its objective ground (the absolute +thing in itself) and the subject, whose common product it is, as a relative +thing in itself, as a reality which is independent of the contingent and +changing representation of the individual, empirical subject, which is +dependent for its form on the transcendental subject, and which is the only +reality accessible to us, yet entirely valid for us. The phenomenal world +is not a contingent and individual phenomenon, but one necessary for all +beings organized as we are, a phenomenon for humanity. My representations +are not the phenomena themselves, but images and signs through which I +cognize phenomena, _i.e._, real things as they are for me and for every man +(not as they are in themselves). The reality of phenomena consists in the +fact that they can be perceived by men, and the objective validity of my +knowledge of them in the fact that every man must agree in it. The laws +which the understanding (not the individual understanding!) imposes upon +nature hold for phenomena, because they hold for every man. Objectivity is +universal validity. If the world of phenomena which is intuited and known +by us wears a different appearance from the world of things in themselves, +this does not justify us in declaring it to be mere seeming and dreaming; a +dream which all dream together, and which all must dream, is not a dream, +but reality. As we must represent the world> so it is, though for us, of +course, and not in itself. + +Many places in Kant's works seem to argue against the intermediate position +here ascribed to the world of phenomena--according to which it is less than +things in themselves and more than subjective representation--which, since +they explain the phenomenon as a mere representation, leave room for only +two factors (on the one hand, the thing in itself = that in the thing which +cannot be represented; on the other, the thing for me = my representation +of the thing). In fact, the distinction between the phenomenon "itself" +and the representation which the individual now has of it and now does not +have, is far from being everywhere adhered to with desirable clearness; and +wherever it is impossible to substitute that which has been represented +and that which may be represented or possible intuitions for "mere +representations in me," we must acknowledge that there is a departure +from the standpoint which is assumed in some places with the greatest +distinctness. The latter finds unequivocal expression, among other places, +in the "Analogies of Experience" and the "Deduction of the Pure Concepts +of the Understanding," Sec. 2, No. 4 (first edition). The second of these +passages speaks of one and the same universal experience, in which all +perceptions are represented in thoroughgoing and regular connection, and of +the thoroughgoing affinity of phenomena as the basis of the possibility +of the association of representations. This affinity is ascribed to the +objects of the senses, not to the representations, whose association is +rather the result of the affinity, and not to the things in themselves, in +regard to which the understanding has no legislative power. + +The relation between the thing in itself and the phenomenon is also +variable. Now they are regarded as entirely heterogeneous (that which can +never be intuited exists in a mode opposed to that of the intuited and +intuitable), and now as analogous to each other (non-intuitable properties +of the thing in itself correspond to the intuitable characteristics of the +phenomenon). The former is the case when it is said that phenomena are in +space and time, while things in themselves are not; that in the first of +these classes natural causation rules, and in the second freedom; that +in the one-conditioned existence alone is found, in the other +unconditioned.[1] But just as often things in themselves and phenomena are +conceived as similar to one another, as two sides of the same object,[2] +of which one, like the counter-earth of the Pythagoreans, always remains +turned away from us, while the other is turned toward us, but does not +reveal the true being of the object. According to this each particular +thing, state, relation, and event in the world of phenomena would have its +real counterpart in the noumenal sphere: un-extended roses in themselves +would lie back of extended roses, certain non-temporal processes back of +their growth and decay, intelligible relations back of their relations in +space. This is approximately the relation of the two conceptions as in part +taught by Lotze himself, in part represented by him as taught by Kant. +Herbart's principle, "So much seeming, so much indication of being" (_wie +viel Schein so viel Hindeutung aufs Sein_), might also be cited in +this connection. That which continually impelled Kant, in spite of his +proclamation of the unknowableness of things in themselves, to form ideas +about their character, was the moral interest, but this sometimes threw its +influence in favor of their commensurability with phenomena and sometimes +in the opposite scale. For in his ethics Kant needs the intelligible +character or man as noumenon, and must assume as many men in themselves (to +be consistent, then, in general, as many beings in themselves) as there are +in the world of phenomena. But for practical reasons, again, the causality +of the man in himself must be thought of as entirely different from, and +opposed to, the mechanical causality of the sense world. Kant's judgment +is, also, no more stable concerning the value of the knowledge of the +suprasensible, which is denied to us. "I do not _need_ to know what +things in themselves may be, because a thing can never be presented to me +otherwise than as a phenomenon." And yet a natural and ineradicable need of +the reason to obtain some conviction in regard to the other world is said +to underlie the abortive attempts of metaphysics; and Kant himself uses +all his efforts to secure to the practical reason the satisfaction of this +need, though he has denied it to the speculative reason, and to make good +the gap in knowledge by faith. From the theoretical standpoint an extension +of knowledge beyond the limits of phenomena appears impossible, but +unnecessary; from the practical standpoint it is, to a certain extent, +possible and indispensable. + +[Footnote 1: Kant's conjectures concerning a common ground of material and +mental phenomena, and those concerning the common root of sensibility and +understanding, show the same tendency. On the one hand, duality, on the +other, unity.] + +[Footnote 2: "Phenomenon, which always has _two sides_, the one when the +object in itself is considered (apart from the way in which it is intuited, +and just because of which fact its character always remains problematical), +the other when we regard the form of the intuition of this object, which +must be sought not in the object in itself, but in the subject to whom the +object appears, while it nevertheless actually and necessarily belongs +to the phenomenon of _this object_." "This predicate "--_sc_., spatial +quality, extension--"is attributed to things only in so far as _they_ +appear to us."] + +There is, then, a threefold distinction to be made: (1) _Things in +themselves_, which can never be the object of our knowledge, because our +forms of intuition are not valid for them. (2) _Phenomena_, things for us, +nature or the totality of that which either is or, at least, may be the +object of our knowledge (here belong the possible inhabitants of the moon, +the magnetic matter which pervades all bodies, and the forces of attraction +and repulsion, though the first have never been observed, and the second is +not perceptible on account of the coarseness of our senses, and the +last, because forces in general are not perceptible; nature comprehends +everything whose existence "is connected with our perceptions in a possible +experience"[1]). (3) _Our representations_ of phenomena, _i.e._, that of +the latter which actually enters into the consciousness of the empirical +individual. In the realm of things in themselves there is no motion +whatever, but at most an intelligible correlate of this relation; in the +world of phenomena, the world of physics, the earth moves around the sun; +in the sphere of representation the sun moves around the earth. It is true, +as has been said, that Kant sometimes ignores the distinction between +phenomena as related to noumena and phenomena as related to +representations; and, as a result of this, that the phenomenon is either +completely volatilized into the representation[2] or split up into an +objective half independent of us and a representative half dependent on us, +of which the former falls into the thing in itself,[3] while the latter is +resolved into subjective states of the ego. + +[Footnote 1: "Nothing is actually given to us but the perception and the +empirical progress from this to other possible perceptions." "To call a +phenomenon a real thing antecedent to perception, means ... that in the +_progress of experience_ we must meet with such a perception."] + +[Footnote 2: Phenomena "are altogether in me," "exist only in our +sensibility as a modification of it." "There is nothing in space but that +which is actually represented in it." Phenomena are "mere representations, +which, if they are not given in us (in perception) nowhere exist."] + +[Footnote 3: Here Kant is guilty of the fault which he himself has +censured, of confusing the physical and transcendental meanings of "in +itself." He forgets that the thing, if it is momentarily not intuited or +represented by me, and therefore is not immediately given for me as an +individual, is nevertheless still present for me as man, is mediately +given, that is, is discoverable by future search. That which is without +my present consciousness is not for this reason without all human +consciousness. In fact, Kant often overlooks the distinction between actual +and possible intuition, so that for him the "objects" of the latter slip +out of space and time and into the thing in itself. To the "transcendental +object we may ascribe the extent and connection of our possible +perceptions, and say that it is given in itself before all experience." In +it "the real things of the past are given."] + +After the possibility and the legitimacy of synthetic judgments _a +priori_ have been proved for pure mathematics upon the basis of the +pure intuitions, there emerges, in the second place, the problem of the +possibility of _a priori_ syntheses in pure natural science, or the +question, Do pure concepts exist? And after this has been answered in the +affirmative, the further questions come up, Is the application of these, +first, to phenomena, and second, to things in themselves, possible and +legitimate, and how far? + +%(b) The Concepts and Principles of the Pure Understanding (Transcendental +Analytic).%--Sensations, in order to become "intuition" or the perception +of a phenomenon, needed to be ordered in space and time; in order to become +"experience" or a unified knowledge of objects, intuitions need a synthesis +through concepts. In order to objective knowledge the manifold of intuition +(already ordered by its arrangement in space and time) must be connected in +the unity of the concept. Sensibility gives the manifold to be connected, +the understanding the connecting unity. The former is able to intuit only, +the latter only to think; knowledge can arise only as the result of their +union. Intuitions depend on affections, concepts on functions, that is, on +unifying acts of the understanding. + +To discover the pure forms of thought it is necessary to isolate the +understanding, just as an isolation of the sensibility was necessary above +in order to the discovery of the pure forms of intuition. We obtain the +elements of the pure knowledge of the understanding by rejecting all that +is intuitive and empirical. These elements must be pure, must be concepts, +further, not derivative or composite, but fundamental concepts, and their +number must be complete. This completeness is guaranteed only when the pure +concepts or _categories_ are sought according to some common principle, +which assigns to each its position in the connection of the whole, and +not (as with Aristotle) collected by occasional, unsystematic inquiries +undertaken at random. The table of the forms of judgment will serve as a +guide for the discovery of the categories. Thought is knowledge through +concepts; the understanding can make no other use of concepts than to judge +by means of them. Hence, since the understanding is the faculty of judging, +the various kinds of connection in judgment must yield the various pure +"connective-concepts" (_Verknuepfungsbegriffe_.--K. Fischer) or categories. + +In regard to quantity, every judgment is universal, particular, or +singular; in regard to quality, affirmative, negative, or infinite; in +regard to relation, categorical, hypothetical, or disjunctive; and in +regard to modality, problematical, assertory, or apodictic. To these +twelve forms of judgment correspond as many categories, viz., I., Unity, +Plurality, Totality; II., Reality, Negation, Limitation; III., Subsistence +and Inherence (Substance and Accident), Causality and Dependence (Cause and +Effect), Community (Reciprocity between the Active and the Passive); +IV., Possibility--Impossibility, Existence--Non-existence, +Necessity--Contingency. + +The first six of these fundamental concepts, which have no correlatives, +constitute the mathematical, the second six, which appear in pairs, +the dynamical categories. The former relate to objects of (pure or of +empirical) intuition, the latter to the existence of these objects (in +relation to one another or to the understanding). Although all other _a +priori_ division though concepts must be dichotomous, each of the four +heads includes three categories, the third of which in each case arises +from the combination of the second and first,[1] but, nevertheless, is an +original (not a derivative) concept, since this combination requires a +special _actus_ of the understanding. Universality or totality is plurality +regarded as unity, limitation is reality combined with negation, community +is the reciprocal causality of substances, and necessity is the actuality +given by possibility itself. Kant omits, as unnecessary here, the useful, +easy, and not unpleasant task of noting the great number of derivative +concepts _a priori_ (predicables) which spring from the combination of +these twelve original concepts (predicaments = categories) with one +another, or with the modes of pure sensibility,--the concepts force, +action, passion, would belong as subsumptions under causality, presence +and resistance under community, origin, extinction, and change under +modality,--since his object is not a system, but only the principles of +one. His liking or even love for this division according to quantity, +quality, relation, and modality, which he always has ready as though it +were a universal key for philosophical problems, reveals a very strong +architectonic impulse, against which even his ever active skeptical +tendency is not able to keep up the battle. + +[Footnote 1: Concerning this "neat observation," Kant remarked that it +might "perhaps have important consequences in regard to the scientific form +of all knowledge of reason." This prophecy was fulfilled, although in a +different sense from that which floated before his mind. Fichte and Hegel +composed their "thought-symphonies" in the three-four time given by Kant.] + +In view of the derivation of the forms of thought from the forms of +judgment Kant does not stop to give a detailed proof that the categories +are concepts, and that they are pure. Their discursive (not intuitive) +character is evident from the fact that their reference to the object is +mediate only (and not, as in the case of intuition, immediate), and their +_a priori_ origin, from the necessity which they carry with them, and which +would be impossible if their origin were empirical. Here Kant starts from +Hume's criticism of the idea of cause. The Scottish skeptic had said that +the necessary bond between cause and effect can neither be perceived nor +logically demonstrated; that, therefore, the relation of causality is an +idea which we--with what right?--add to perceived succession in time. This +doubt (without the hasty conclusions), says Kant, must be generalized, must +be extended to the category of substance (which had been already done by +Hume, pp. 226-7, though the author of the Critique of Reason was not aware +of the fact), and to all other pure concepts of the understanding. Then we +may hope to kindle a torch at the spark which Hume struck out. The problem +"It is impossible to see why, because something exists, something else must +necessarily exist," is the starting point alike of Hume's skepticism and +Kant's criticism. The former recognized that the principle of causality +is neither empirical nor analytic, and therefore concluded that it is an +invention of reason, which confuses subjective with objective necessity. +The latter shows that in spite of its subjective origin it has an objective +value; that it is a truth which is independent of all experience, and yet +valid for all who have experience, and for all that can be experienced. + +Of the two questions, "How can the concepts which spring from our +understanding possess objective validity?" and, "How (through what means +or media) does their application to objects of experience take place?" +the first is answered in the Deduction of the Pure Concepts of the +Understanding, and the second in the chapter on their Schematism. + +The _Deduction_, the most difficult portion of the Critique, shows that the +objective validity of the categories, as concepts of objects in general, +depends on the fact that _through them alone experience_ as far as regards +the form of thought _is possible, _i.e._, it is only through them that any +object whatever can be thought. All knowledge consists in judgments; all +judgments contain a connection of representations; all connection--whether +it be conscious or not, whether it relates to concepts or to pure or +empirical intuitions--is an _act of the understanding_; it cannot be given +by objects, but only spontaneously performed by the subject itself. We +cannot represent anything as connected in the object unless we have +ourselves first connected it. The connection includes three conceptions: +that of the manifold to be connected (which is given by intuition), that +of the act of synthesis, and that of the unity; this last is two-fold, +an objective unity (the conception of an object in general in which the +manifold is united), and a subjective unity (the unity of consciousness +under which or, rather, through which the connection is effected). The +categories represent the different kinds of combination, each one of these, +again, being completed in three stages, which are termed the Synthesis of +Apprehension in Intuition, the Synthesis of Reproduction in Imagination, +and the Synthesis of Recognition in Concepts. If I wish to think the time +from one noon to the next, I must (1) grasp (apprehend) the manifold +representations (portions of time) in succession; (2) retain or renew +(reproduce) in thought those which have preceded in passing to those which +follow; (3) be conscious that that which is now thought is the same +with that thought before, or know again (recognize) the reproduced +representation as the one previously experienced. If the mind did not +exercise such synthetic activity the manifold of representation would not +constitute a whole, would lack the unity which consciousness alone can +impart to it. Without this _one_ consciousness, concepts and knowledge of +objects would be wholly impossible. The unity of pure self-consciousness +or of "transcendental apperception" is the postulate of all use of the +understanding. In the flux of internal phenomena there is no constant +or abiding self, but the unchangeable consciousness here demanded is a +precedent condition of all experience, and gives to phenomena a connection +according to laws which determine an object for intuition, _i.e._, the +conception of something in which they are necessarily connected.[1] +Reference to an object is nothing other than the necessary unity of +consciousness. The connective activity of the understanding, and with +it experience, is possible only through "the synthetic unity of pure +apperception," the "I think," which must be able to accompany all my +representations, and through which they first become _mine_. + +[Footnote 1: Object is "that which opposes the random or arbitrary +determination of our cognitions," and which causes "them to be determined +in a certain way _a priori_."] + +Experience (in the strict sense) is distinguished from perception +(experience in the wide sense) by its objectivity or universal validity. A +judgment of perception (the sun shines upon the stone and the stone becomes +warm) is only subjectively valid; while, on the other hand, a judgment of +experience (the sun warms the stone) aims to be valid not only for me and +my present condition, but always, for me and for everyone else. If the +former is to become the latter, an _a priori_ concept must be added to +the perception (in the above case, the concept of cause), under which the +perception is subsumed. The category determines the perceptions in view of +the form of the judgment, gives to the judgment its reference to an object, +and thus gives to the percepts, or rather, concepts (sunshine and warmth), +necessary and universally valid connection. The "reason why the judgments +of others" must "agree with mine" is "the unity of the object to which they +all relate, with which they agree, and hence must also all agree with one +another." + +Though the categories take their origin in the nature of the subject, they +are objective and valid for objects of experience, because experience is +possible alone through them. They are not the product, but the ground +of experience. The second difficulty concerns their applicability to +phenomena, which are wholly disparate. By what means is the gulf between +the categories, which are concepts and _a priori_, and perceptions, which +are intuitous and empirical, bridged over? The connecting link is supplied +by the imagination, as the faculty which mediates between sensibility and +understanding to provide a concept with its image, and consists in the +intuition of time, which, in common with the categories, has an _a priori_ +character, and, in common with perceptions, an intuitive character, so that +it is at once pure and sensuous. The subsumption of phenomena or empirical +intuitions under the category is effected through the _Schemata_[1] of the +concepts of the understanding, _i.e._, through _a priori_ determinations +of time according to rules, which relate to time-_series_, time-_content_, +time-_order_, and time-_comprehension_, and indicate whether I have to +apply this or that category to a given object. + +[Footnote 1: The schema is not an empirical image, but stands midway +between this (the particular intuition of a definite triangle or dog) and +the unintuitable concept, as a general intuition (of a triangle or a dog +in general, which holds alike for right- and oblique-angled triangles, for +poodles and pugs), or as a rule for determining our intuition in accordance +with a concept.] + +Each category has its own schema. The schema of quantity is number, as +comprehending the successive addition of homogeneous parts. Filled time +(being in time) is the schema of reality, empty time (not-being in time) +the schema of negation, and more or less filled time (the intensity of +sensation, indicating the degree of reality) the schema of limitation. +Permanence in time is the sign for the application of the category of +substance;[1] regular succession, for the application of the concept of +cause; the coexistence of the determinations of one substance with those of +another, the signal for their subsumption under the concept of reciprocity. +The schemata of possibility, actuality, and necessity, finally, are +existence at any time whatever (whensoever), existence at a definite time, +and existence at all times. By such schematic syntheses the pure concept +is brought near to the empirical intuition, and the way is prepared for an +application of the former to the latter, or, what is the same thing, for +the subsumption of the latter under the former. + +[Footnote 1: This determination is important for psychology. Since +the inner sense shows nothing constant, but everything in a continual +flux,--for the permanent subject of our thoughts is an identical activity +of the understanding, not an intuitable object,--the concept of substance +is not applicable to psychical phenomena. Representations of a permanent +(material substances) exist, indeed, but not permanent representations. The +abiding self (ego, soul) which we posit back of internal phenomena is, as +the Dialectic will show, a mere Idea, which, or, rather, the object of +which, maybe "thought" as substance, it is true, but cannot be "given" in +intuition, hence cannot be "known."] + +As a result of the fact that the schematism permits a presentation of the +categories in time intuition antecedent to all experience, the possibility +is given of synthetic judgments _a priori_ concerning objects of possible +experience. Such judgments, in so far as they are not based on higher +and more general cognitions, are termed "principles," and the system of +them--to be given, with the table of the categories as a guide, in +the _Analytic of Principles_ or the Doctrine of the Faculty of +Judgment--furnishes the outlines of "pure natural science." When thus +the rules of the subsumption to be effected have been found in the pure +concepts, and the conditions and criteria of the subsumption in the +schemata, it remains to indicate the principles which the understanding, +through the aid of the schemata, actually produces _a priori_ from its +concepts. + +The principle of quantity is the _Axiom of Intuition_, the principle of +quality the _Anticipation of Perception_; the principles of relation +are termed _Analogies of Experience_, those of modality _Postulates +of Empirical Thought in General_. The first runs, "All intuitions are +extensive quantities"; the second, "In all phenomena sensation, and the +real which corresponds to it in the object, has an intensive quantity, +i.e., a degree." The principle of the "Analogies" is, "All phenomena, as +far as their existence is concerned, are subject _a priori_ to rules, +determining their mutual relation in time" (in the second edition this is +stated as follows: "Experience is possible only through the representation +of a necessary connection of perceptions"). As there are three modes of +time, there result three "Analogies," the principles of permanence, of +succession (production), and of coexistence. These are: (1) "In all changes +of phenomena the substance is permanent, and its quantum is neither +increased nor diminished in nature." (2) "All changes take place according +to the law of connection between cause and effect"; or, "Everything that +happens (begins to be) presupposes something on which it follows according +to a rule." (3) "All substances, in so far as they are coexistent, stand in +complete community, that is, reciprocity, one to another." And, finally, +the three "Postulates": "That which agrees with the formal conditions of +experience (in intuition and in concepts) is possible," "That which is +connected with the material conditions of experience (sensation) is actual" +(perception is the only criterion of actuality). "That which, in its +connection with the actual, is determined by universal conditions of +experience, is (exists as) necessary." + +As the categories of substance and causality are specially preferred to the +others by Kant and the Kantians, and are even proclaimed by some as the +only fundamental concepts, so also the principles of relation have an +established reputation for special importance. The leading ideas in the +proofs of the "Analogies of Experience"--for in spite of their underivative +character the principles require, and are capable of, proof--may next be +noted. + +The time determinations of phenomena, the knowledge of their duration, +their succession, and their coexistence, form an indispensable part of our +experience, not only of scientific experience, but of everyday experience +as well. How is the objective time-determination of things and events +possible? If the matter in hand is the determination of the particulars of +a fight with a bloody ending, the witnesses are questioned and testify: +We heard and saw how A began the quarrel by insulting B, and the latter +answered the insult with a blow, whereupon A drew his knife and wounded his +opponent. Here the succession of perceptions on the part of the persons +present is accepted as a true reproduction of the succession of the actual +events. But the succession of perceptions is not always the sure indication +of an actual succession: the trees along an avenue are perceived one after +the other, while they are in reality coexistent. We might now propose the +following statement: The representation of the manifold of phenomena is +always successive, I apprehend one part after another. I can decide whether +these parts succeed one another in the object also, or whether they +are coexistent, by the fact that, in the second case, the series of +my perceptions is reversible, while in the first it is not. I can, if I +choose, direct my glance along the avenue in such a way that I shall begin +the second time with the tree at which I left off the first time; if I wish +to assure myself that the parts of a house are coexistent, I cause my eye +to wander from the upper to the lower portions, from the right side to the +left, and then to perform the same motions in the opposite direction. On +the other hand, it is not left to my choice to hear the thunder either +before or after I see the lightning, or to see a passing wagon now here, +now there, but in these cases I am bound in the succession of my sensuous +representations. The possibility of interchange in the series of +perceptions proves an objective coexistence, the impossibility of this, +an objective succession. But this criterion is limited to the immediate +present, and fails us when a time relation between unobserved phenomena is +to be established. If I go at evening into the dining room and see a vessel +of bubbling water, which is to be used in making tea, over a burning spirit +lamp, whence do I derive the knowledge that the water began, and could +begin, to boil only after the alcohol had been lighted, and not before? +Because I have often seen the flame precede the boiling of the water, and +in this the irreversibility of the two perceptions has guaranteed to me the +succession of the events perceived? Then I may only assume that it is very +probable, not that it is certain, that in this case also the order of the +two events has been the same as I have observed several times before. As a +matter of fact, however, we all assert that the water could not have come +into a boiling condition unless the generation of heat had preceded; that +in every case the fire must be there before the boiling of the water can +commence. Whence do we derive this _must_? Simply and alone from the +thought of a causal connection between the two events. Every phenomenon +_must_ follow in time that phenomenon of which it is the effect, and must +precede that of which it is the cause. It is through the relation of +causality, and through this alone, that the objective time relation of +phenomena is determined. If nothing preceded an event on which it must +follow according to a rule,[1] then all succession in perception would be +subjective merely, and nothing whatever would be objectively determined by +it as to what was the antecedent and what the consequent in the phenomenon +itself. We should then have a mere play of representations without +significance for the real succession of events. Only the thought of a rule, +according to which the antecedent state contains the necessary condition of +the consequent state, justifies us in transferring the time order of our +representations to phenomena.[2] Nay, even the distinction between +the phenomenon itself, as the object of our representations, and our +representations of it, is effected only by subjecting the phenomenon to +this rule, which assigns to it its definite position in time after another +phenomenon by which it is caused, and thus forbids the inversion of the +perceptions. We can derive the rule of the understanding which produces the +objective time order of the manifold from experience, only because we have +put it into experience, and have first brought experience into being by +means of the rule. We recapitulate in Kant's own words: The objective +(time) relation of phenomena remains undetermined by mere perception (the +mere succession in my apprehension, if it is not determined by means of a +rule in relation to an antecedent, does not guarantee any succession in +the object). In order that this may be known as determined, the relation +between the two states must be so conceived (through the understanding's +concept of causality) that it is thereby determined with necessity which of +them must be taken as coming first, and which second, and not conversely. +Thus it is only by subjecting the succession of phenomena to the law of +causality that empirical knowledge of them is possible. Without the concept +of cause no objective time determination, and hence, without it, no +experience. + +[Footnote 1: "A reality following on an empty time, that is, a beginning of +existence preceded by no state of things, can as little be apprehended as +empty time itself."] + +[Footnote 2: "If phenomena were things in themselves no one would be able, +from the succession of the representations of their manifold, to tell how +this is connected in the object."] + +That which the relation of cause and effect does for the succession[1] of +phenomena, the relation of reciprocity does for their coexistence, and that +of substance and accident for their duration. Since absolute time is not an +object of perception, the position of phenomena in time cannot be directly +determined, but only through a concept of the understanding. When I +conclude that two objects (the earth and the moon) must be coexistent, +because perceptions of them can follow upon one another in both ways, I +do this on the presupposition that the objects themselves reciprocally +determine their position in time, hence are not isolated, but stand in +causal community or a relation of reciprocal influence. It is only on the +condition of reciprocity between phenomena, through which they form a +whole, that I can represent them as coexistent. + +[Footnote 1: Against the objection that cause and effect are frequently, +indeed in most cases, simultaneous (_e.g._ the heated stove and the warmth +of the room), Kant remarks that the question concerns the order of time +merely, and not the lapse of time. The ball lying on a soft cushion is +simultaneous, it is true, with its effect, the depression in the cushion. +"But I, nevertheless, distinguish the two by the time relation of dynamical +connection. For if I place the ball on the cushion, its previously smooth +surface is followed by a depression, but if there is a depression in the +cushion (I know not whence) a leaden ball does not follow from it."] + +Coexistence and succession can be represented only in a permanent +substratum; they are merely the modes in which the permanent exists. Since +time (in which all change takes place, but which itself abides and does not +change) in itself cannot be perceived, the substratum of simultaneity and +succession must exist in phenomena themselves: the permanent in relation +to which alone all the time relations of phenomena can be determined, is +substance; that which alters is its determinations, accidents, or special +modes of existing. Alteration, _i.e._, origin and extinction, is true of +states only, which can begin and cease to be, and not of substances, which +change (_sich veraendern_), i.e., pass from one mode of existence into +another, but do not alter (_wechseln_), i.e., pass from non-existence into +existence, or the reverse. It is the permanent alone that changes, and +its states alone that begin and cease to be. The origin and extinction of +substances, or the increase and diminution of their quantum, would remove +the sole condition of the empirical unity of time; for the time relations +of the coexistent and the successive can be perceived only in an identical +substratum, in a permanent, which exists always. The law "From nothing +nothing comes, and nothing can return to nothing," is everywhere assumed +and has been frequently advanced, but never yet proved, for, indeed, it is +impossible to prove it dogmatically. Here the only possible proof for it, +the critical proof, is given: the principle of permanence is a necessary +condition of experience. The same argument establishes the principle of +sufficient reason, and the principle of the community of substances, +together with the unity of the world to be inferred from this. The three +Analogies together assert: "All phenomena exist in one nature and must so +exist, because without such a unity _a priori_ no unity of experience, +and therefore no determination of objects in experience, would be +possible."--In connection with the Postulates the same transcendental proof +is given for a series of other laws of nature _a priori_, viz., that in the +course of the changes in the world--for the causal principle holds only for +effects in nature, not for the existence of things as substances--there +can be neither blind chance nor a blind necessity (but only a conditional, +hence an intelligible, necessity); and, further, that in the series of +phenomena, there can be neither leap, nor gap, nor break, and hence no +void--_in mundo non datur casus, non datur fatum, non datur saltus, non +datur hiatus_. + +While the dynamical principles have to do with the relation of phenomena, +whether it be to one another (Analogies), or to our faculty of cognition +(Postulates), the mathematical relate to the quantity of intuitions and +sensations, and furnish the basis for the application of mathematics +to natural science.[1] An extensive quantity is one in which the +representation of the parts makes the representation of the whole possible, +and so precedes it. I cannot represent a line without drawing it in +thought, i.e., without producing all parts of it one after the other, +starting from a point. All phenomena are intuited as aggregates or as +collections of previously given parts. That which geometry asserts of +pure intuition (i.e., the infinite divisibility of lines) holds also of +empirical intuition. An intensive quantity is one which is apprehended only +as unity, and in which plurality can be represented only by approximation +to negation = 0. Every sensation, consequently every reality in phenomena, +has a degree, which, however small it may be, is never the smallest, but +can always be still more diminished; and between reality and negation there +exists a continuous connection of possible smaller intermediate sensations, +or an infinite series of ever decreasing degrees. The property of +quantities, according to which no part in them is the smallest possible +part, and no part is simple, is termed their continuity. All phenomena +are continuous quantities, i.e., all their parts are in turn (further +divisible) quantities. Hence it follows, first, that a proof for an empty +space or empty time can never be drawn from experience, and secondly, that +all change is also continuous. "It is remarkable," so Kant ends his proof +of the Anticipation, "that of quantities in general we can know one +_quality_ only _a priori_, namely, their continuity, while with regard to +quality (the real of phenomena) nothing is known to us _a priori_ but their +intensive _quantity_, that is, that they must have a degree. Everything +else is left to experience." + +[Footnote 1: In each particular science of nature, science proper (i.e., +apodictically certain science) is found only to the extent in which +mathematics can be applied therein. For this reason chemistry can never +be anything more than a systematic art or experimental doctrine; and +psychology not even this, but only a natural history of the inner sense or +natural description of the soul. That which Kant's _Metaphysical Elements +of Natural Science_, 1786--in four chapters, Phoronomy, Dynamics, +Mechanics, and Phenomenology--advances as pure physics or the metaphysics +of corporeal nature, is a doctrine of motion. The fundamental determination +of matter (of a somewhat which is to be the object of the external senses) +is motion, for it is only through motion that these senses can be affected, +and the understanding itself reduces all other predicates of matter to +this. The second and most valuable part of the work defines matter as the +movable, that which fills space by its moving force, and recognizes two +original forces, repulsive, expansive superficial force or force of +contact, by which a body resists the entrance of other bodies into its own +space, and attractive, penetrative force or the force which works at a +distance, in virtue of which all particles of matter attract one another. +In order to a determinate filling of space the co-operation of both +fundamental forces is required. In opposition to the mechanical theory of +the atomists, which explains forces from matter and makes them inhere in +it, Kant holds fast to the dynamical view which he had early adopted (cf. +p. 324), according to which forces are the primary factor and matter is +constituted by them.] + +The outcome of the Analytic of Principles sounds bold enough. _The +understanding is the lawgiver of nature_: "It does not draw its laws _a +priori_ from nature, but prescribes them to it"; the principles of the pure +understanding are the most universal laws of nature, the empirical laws of +nature only particular determinations of these. All order and regularity +take their origin in the spirit, and are put into objects by this. +Universal and necessary knowledge remained inexplicable so long as it was +assumed that the understanding must conform itself to objects; it is at +once explained if, conversely, we make objects conform themselves to the +understanding. This is a reversal of philosophical opinion which may justly +be compared to the Copernican revolution in astronomy; it is just as +paradoxical as the latter, but just as incontestably true, and just as rich +in results. The sequel will show that this strangely sounding principle, +that things conform themselves to our representations and the laws of +nature are dependent on the understanding, is calculated to make us humble +rather than proud. Our understanding is lawgiver within the limits of its +knowledge, no doubt, but it knows only within the limits of its legislative +authority; nature, to which it dictates laws, is nothing but a totality of +phenomena; beyond the limits of the phenomenal, where its commands become +of no effect, its wishes also find no hearing. + +In the second edition the Analytic of Principles contains as a supplement a +"Refutation of Idealism," which, in opposition to Descartes's position that +the only immediate experience is inner experience, from which we reach +outer experience by inference alone, argues that, conversely, it is only +through outer experience, which is immediate experience proper, that inner +experience--as the consciousness of my own existence in time--is possible. +For all time determination presupposes something permanent in perception, +and this permanent something cannot be in me (the mere representation of an +external thing), but only actually existing things which I perceive without +me. There is, further, a chapter on the "Ground of the Distinction of all +Objects in general into Phenomena and Noumena," with an appendix on the +Amphiboly (ambiguity) of the Concepts of Reflection. The latter shows +that the concepts of comparison: identity and difference, agreement and +opposition, the internal and the external, matter and form, acquire +entirely different meanings when they relate to phenomena and to things in +themselves (in other words, to things in their relation to the sensibility, +and in relation to the understanding merely); and further, in a criticism +of the philosophy of Leibnitz, reproaches him with having intellectualized +phenomena, while Locke is said to have sensationalized the concepts of the +understanding. + +The chapter on the distinction between phenomena and noumena very much +lessens the hopes, aroused, perchance, by the establishment of the +non-empirical origin of the categories, for an application of these not +confined to any experience. Although the categories, that is, are in their +origin entirely independent of all experience (so much so that they first +make experience possible), they are yet confined in their application +within the bounds of possible experience. They "serve only to spell +phenomena, that we may be able to read them as experience," and when +applied to things in themselves lose all significance.[1] Similarly the +principles which spring from them are "nothing more than principles of +possible experience," and can be referred to phenomena alone, beyond which +they are arbitrary combinations without objective reality. Things in +themselves may be thought, but they can never be known; for knowledge, +besides the empty thought of an object, implies intuitions which must be +subsumed under it or by which the object must be determined. In themselves +the pure concepts relate to all that is thinkable, not merely to that which +can be experienced, but the schemata, which assures their applicability in +the field of experience, at the same time limit them to this sphere. The +schematism makes the immanent use of the categories, and thus a metaphysics +of phenomena, possible, but the transcendent use of them, and consequently +the metaphysics of the suprasensible, impossible. The case would be +different if our intuition were intellectual instead of sensuous, or, +which is the same thing, if our understanding were intuitive instead of +discursive; then the objects which we think would not need to be given us +from another source (through sensuous intuition), but would be themselves +produced in the act by which we thought them. The divine spirit may be such +an archetypal, creative understanding (_intellectus archetypus_), which +generates objects by its thought; the human spirit is not such, and +therefore is confined, with its knowledge, within the circle of possible +perception.--The conception of "intellectual intuition" leads to a +distinction in regard to things in themselves: in its negative meaning +noumenon denotes a thing in so far as it is _not_ the object of our +_sensuous_ intuition, in its positive meaning a thing which is the +object of a _non-sensuous_ intuition. The positive thing in itself is a +problematical concept; its possibility depends on the existence of an +intuitive understanding, something about which we are ignorant. The +negative thing in itself cannot be known, indeed, but it can be thought; +and the representation of it is a possible concept, one which is not +self-contradictory[2] (a principle which is of great importance for +practical philosophy). Still further, it is an indispensable concept, which +shows that the boundary where our intuition ends is not the boundary of +the thinkable as well; and even if it affords no positive extension of +knowledge[3] it is, nevertheless, very useful, since it sets bounds to the +use of the understanding, and thus, as it were, negatively extends our +knowledge. That which lies beyond the boundary, the "how are they possible" +_(Wiemoeglichkeit)_ of things in themselves is shrouded in darkness, but the +boundary itself, _i.e._, the "that they are possible" _(Dassmoeglichkeit)_, +of things in themselves, and the unknowableness of their nature, belongs to +that which is within the boundary and lies in the light. In this way Kant +believed that the categories of causality and substance might be applied to +the relation of things in themselves to phenomena without offending against +the prohibition of their transcendent use, since here the boundary appeared +only to be touched, and not overstepped. + +[Footnote 1: "A pure use of the categories is no doubt possible, that is, +not self-contradictory, but it has no kind of objective validity, because +it refers to no intuition to which it is meant to impart the unity of an +object. The categories remain forever mere functions of thought by which no +object can be given to me, but by which I can only think whatever may +be given to me in intuition" (_Critique of Pure Reason_, Max Mueller's +translation, vol. ii. p. 220). Without the condition of sensuous intuition, +for which they supply the synthesis, the categories have no relation to any +definite object; for without this condition they contain nothing but the +logical function, or the form of the concept, by means of which alone +nothing can be known and distinguished as to any object belonging to it +(_Ibid_., pp. 213, 214).] + +[Footnote 2: The thing in itself denotes the object in so far as it can +be thought by us, but not intuited, and consequently not determined by +intuitions, _i.e._, cannot be known. It is only through the schematism +that the categories are limited to phenomena. O. Liebmann (_Kant und die +Epigonen_, p. 27, and _passim_) overlooks or ignores this when he says: +Kant here allows himself to "recognize an object emancipated from the +forms of knowledge, therefore an irrational object, _i.e._, to represent +something which is not representable--wooden iron." The thing in itself is +insensible, but not irrational, and the forms of intuition and forms of +thought joined by Liebmann under the title forms of knowledge have in Kant +a by no means equal rank.] + +[Footnote 3: A category by itself, freed from all conditions of intuition +(_e.g._, the representation of a substance which is thought without +permanence in time, or of a cause which should not act in time), can yield +no definite concept of an object.] + +Though the concepts of the understanding possess a cognitive value in the +sphere of phenomena alone, the hope still remains of gaining an entrance +into the suprasensible sphere through the concepts of reason. It is +indubitable that our spirit is conscious of a far higher need than that for +the mere connection of phenomena into experience; it is that which cannot +be experienced, the Ideas God, freedom, and immortality, which form the +real end of its inquiry. Can this need be satisfied, and how? Can this end +be attained, and reality be given to the Ideas? This is the third question +of the Critique of Reason. + +%(c) The Reason's Ideas of the Unconditioned (Transcendental +Dialectic).%--"All our knowledge begins with the senses, proceeds thence to +the understanding, and ends with reason." The understanding is the +faculty of rules, reason the faculty of principles. The categories of the +understanding are necessary concepts which make experience possible, and +which, therefore, can always be given in experience; the Ideas of reason +are necessary concepts to which no corresponding object can be given. Each +of the Ideas gives expression to an unconditioned. How does the concept of +the unconditioned arise, and what service does it perform for knowledge? + +As perceptions are connected by the categories in the unity of the +understanding, and thus are elevated into experience, so the manifold +knowledge of experience needs a higher unity, the unity of reason, in order +to form a connected system. This is supplied to it by the Ideas--which, +consequently, do not relate directly to the objects of intuition, but only +to the understanding and its judgments--in order, through the concept +of the unconditioned, to give completion to the knowledge of the +understanding, which always moves in the sphere of the conditioned, _i.e._, +to give it the greatest possible unity together with the greatest possible +extension. The concept of the absolute grows out of the logical task which +is incumbent on reason, _i.e._, inference, and it may be best explained +from this as a starting point. In the syllogism the judgment asserted in +the conclusion is derived from a general rule, the major premise. The +validity of this general proposition is, however, itself conditional, +dependent on higher conditions. Then, as reason seeks the condition for +each conditioned moment, and always commands a further advance in +the series of conditions, it acts under the Idea of _the totality +of conditions_, which, nevertheless, since it can never be given in +experience, does not denote an object, but only an heuristic maxim for +knowledge, the maxim, namely, never to stop with any one condition as +ultimate, but always to continue the search further. The Idea of the +unconditioned or of the completeness of conditions is a goal which we never +attain, but which we are continually to approach. The categories and the +principles of the understanding were _constitutive_ principles, the Ideas +are _regulative_ merely; their function is to guide the understanding, to +give it a direction helpful for the connection of knowledge, not to inform +it concerning the actual character of things. + +Since reason is the faculty of inference (as the understanding was found to +be the faculty of judgment), the forms of the syllogism perform the same +service for us in our search for the Ideas as the forms of judgment in +the discovery of the categories. To the categorical, hypothetical, and +disjunctive syllogisms correspond the three concepts of reason, the soul or +the thinking subject, the world or the totality of phenomena, and God, the +original being or the supreme condition of the possibility of all that can +be thought. By means of these we refer all inner phenomena to the ego as +their (unknown) common subject, think all beings and events in nature as +ordered under the comprehensive system of the (never to be experienced) +universe, and regard all things as the work of a supreme (unknowable) +intelligence. These Ideas are necessary concepts; not accidental products +nor mere fancies, but concepts sprung from the nature of reason; their +use is legitimate so long as we remember that we can have a problematical +concept of objects corresponding to them, but no knowledge of these; that +they are problems and rules for knowledge, never objects and instruments of +it. Nevertheless the temptation to regard these regulative principles as +constitutive and these problems as knowable objects is almost irresistible; +for the ground of the involuntary confusion of the required with the given +absolute lies not so much in the carelessness of the individual as in the +nature of our cognitive faculty. The Ideas carry with them an unavoidable +illusion of objective reality, and the sophistical inferences which spring +from them are not sophistications of men, but of pure reason itself, are +natural misunderstandings from which even the wisest cannot free himself. +At best we can succeed in avoiding the error, not in doing away with the +transcendental illusion from which it proceeds. We can see through the +illusion and avoid the erroneous conclusions built upon it, not shake off +the illusion itself. + +On this erroneous objective use of the Ideas three so-called sciences are +based: speculative psychology, speculative cosmology, and speculative +theology, which, together with ontology, constitute the stately structure +of the (Wolffian) metaphysics. The Critique of Reason completes its work +of destruction when, as Dialectic (Logic cf. Illusion), it follows the +refutation of dogmatic ontology--developed in the Analytic--which +believed that it knew things in themselves through the concepts of +the understanding, with a refutation of rational psychology, rational +cosmology, and rational theology. It shows that the first is founded on +paralogisms, and the second entangled in irreconcilable contradictions, +while the third makes vain efforts to prove the existence of the Supreme +Being. + +(i) _The Paralogisms of Rational Psychology_. The transcendental +self-consciousness or pure ego which accompanies and connects all my +representations, the subject of all judgments which I form, is, as the +Analytic recognized, the presupposition of all knowing (pp. 358-359), but +as such it can never become an object of knowledge. We must not make +a given object out of the subject which never can be a predicate, nor +substitute a real thinking substance for the logical subject of thought, +nor revamp the unity of self-consciousness into the simplicity and +identical personality of the soul. The rational psychology of the Wolffian +school is guilty of this error, and whatever of proof it advances for the +substantiality, simplicity, and personality of the soul, and, by way +of deduction, for its immateriality and immortality as well as for its +relation to the body, is based upon this substitution, this ambiguity of +the middle term, and therefore upon a _quaternio terminorum_,--all its +conclusions are fallacious. It is allowable and unavoidable to add in +thought an absolute subject, the unity of the ego, to inner phenomena;[1] +it is inadmissible to treat the Idea of the soul as a knowable thing. In +order to be able to apply the category of substance to it, we would have to +lay hold of a permanent in intuition such as cannot be found in the inner +sense. Empirical psychology, then, alone remains for the extension of our +knowledge of mental life, while rational psychology shrivels up from +a doctrine into a mere discipline, which watches that the limits of +experience are not overstepped. But even as a mere limiting determination +it has great value. For, along with the hope of proving the immateriality +and immortality of the soul, the fear of seeing them _disproved_ is also +dissipated; materialism is just as unfounded as spiritualism, and if the +conclusions of the latter concerning the soul as a simple, immaterial +substance which survives the death of the body, cannot be proved, yet we +need not, for that reason, regard them as erroneous, for the opposite is as +little susceptible of demonstration. The whole question belongs not in the +forum of knowledge, but in the forum of faith, and that which we gain by +the proof that nothing can be determined concerning it by theoretical +reasoning (viz., assurance against materialistic objections) is far more +valuable than what we lose. + +[Footnote 1: The rational concept of the soul as a simple, independent +intelligence does not signify an actual being, but only expresses certain +principles of systematic unity in the explanation of psychical phenomena, +viz., "To regard all determinations as existing in one subject, all powers, +as far as possible, as derived from, one fundamental power, all change +as belonging to the states of one and the same permanent being, and +to represent all phenomena in space as totally distinct from acts of +thought."] + +(2) _The Antinomies of Rational Cosmology_. If in its endeavor to spin +metaphysical knowledge concerning the nature of the spirit and the +existence of the soul after death out of the concept of the thinking ego +the reason falls into the snare of an ambiguous _terminus medius_, the +difficulties which frustrate its attempts to use the Idea of the world +in the extension of its knowledge _a priori_ are of quite a different +character. Here the formal correctness of the method of inference is not +open to attack. It may be proved with absolute strictness (and in the +apagogical or indirect form, from the impossibility of the contrary) that +the world has a beginning in time, and also that it is _limited_ in space; +that every compound substance consists of _simple_ parts; that, besides the +causality according to the laws of nature, there is a causality through +_freedom_, and that an _absolutely necessary Being_ exists, either as a +part of the world or as the cause of it. But the contrary may be proved +with equal stringency (and indirectly, as before): The world is infinite in +space and time; there is nothing simple in the world; there is no freedom, +but everything in the world takes place entirely according to the laws of +nature; and there exists no absolutely necessary Being either within the +world or without it. This is the famous doctrine of the conflict of the +four cosmological theses and antitheses or of the Antinomy of Pure Reason, +the discovery of which indubitably exercised a determining influence upon +the whole course of the Kantian Critique of Reason, and which forms one of +its poles. The transcendental idealism, the distinction between phenomena +and noumena, and the limitation of knowledge to phenomena, all receive +significant confirmation from the Antithetic. Without the critical +idealism (that which is intuited in space and time, and known through +the categories, is merely the phenomenon of things, whose "in itself" is +unknowable), the antinomies would be insoluble. How is reason to act in +view of the conflict? The grounds for the antitheses are just as conclusive +as those for the theses; on neither side is there a preponderance which +could decide the result. Ought reason to agree with both parties or with +neither? + +The solution distinguishes the first two antinomies, as the mathematical, +from the second two, as the dynamical antinomies; in the former, since it +is a question of the composition and division of quanta, the conditions may +be homogeneous with the conditioned, in the latter, heterogeneous. In the +former, thesis and antithesis are alike _false_, since both start from +the inadmissible assumption that the universe (the complete series of +phenomena) is given, while in fact it is only required of us (is an Idea). +The world does not exist in itself, but only in the empirical regress of +phenomenal conditions, in which we never can reach infinity and never the +limitation of the world by an empty space or an antecedent empty time, for +infinite space, like empty space (and the same holds in regard to time), is +not perceivable. Consequently the quantity of the world is neither finite +nor infinite. The question of the quantity of the world is unanswerable, +because the concept of a sense-world existing by itself _(before_ the +regress) is self-contradictory. Similarly the problem whether the composite +consists of simple elements is insoluble, because the assumption that +the phenomenon of body is a thing in itself, which, antecedent to all +experience, contains all the parts that can be reached in experience--in +other words, that representations exist outside of the representative +faculty--is absurd. Matter is infinitely divisible, no doubt, yet it does +not consist of infinitely numerous parts, and just as little of a definite +number of simple parts, but the parts exist merely in the representation +of them, in the division (decomposition), and this goes as far as possible +experience extends. The case is different with the dynamical antinomies, +where thesis and antithesis can both be _true_, in so far as the former +is referred to things in themselves and the latter to phenomena. The +contradiction vanishes if we take that which the thesis asserts and the +antithesis denies in different senses. The fact that in the world of +phenomena the causal nexus proceeds without interruption and without end, +so that there is no room in it either for an absolutely necessary Being or +for freedom, does not conflict with this other, that beyond the world of +sense there may exist an omnipotent, omniscient cause of the world, and an +intelligible freedom as the ground of our empirically necessary actions. +"May exist," since for the critical philosopher, who has learned that every +extension of knowledge beyond the limits of experience is impossible, the +question can concern only the conceivability of the world-ground and of +freedom. This possibility is amply sufficient to give a support for faith, +as, on the other hand, it is indispensable in order to satisfy at once the +demands of the understanding and of reason, especially to satisfy their +practical interests. For if it were not possible to resolve the apparent +contradiction, and to show its members capable of reconciliation, it would +be all over either with the possibility of experiential knowledge or with +the basis of ethics and religion. Without unbroken causal connection, no +nature; without freedom, no morality; and without a Deity, no religion. +Of special interest is the solution of the third antinomy, which is +accomplished by means of the valuable (though in the form in which it is +given by Kant, untenable) conception of the _intelligible character_.[1] +Man is a citizen of two worlds. As a being of the senses (phenomenon) he +is subject in his volition and action to the control of natural necessity, +while as a being of reason (thing in itself) he is free. For science his +acts are the inevitable results of precedent phenomena, which, in turn, +are themselves empirically caused; nevertheless moral judgment holds +him responsible for his acts. In the one case, they are referred to his +empirical character, in the other, to his intelligible character. Man +cannot act otherwise than he does act, if he be what he is, but he need not +be as he is; the moral constitution of the intelligible character, which +reflects itself in the empirical character, is his own work, and its +radical transformation (moral regeneration) his duty, the fulfillment of +which is demanded, and, hence, of necessity possible. + +[Footnote 1: On the difficulties in the way of this theory and the +possibility of their removal cf. R. Falckenberg, _Ueber den intelligiblen +Character, zur Kritik der Kantischen Freiheitslehre_ (from the _Zeitschrift +fuer Philosophie_, vol. lxxv.), Halle, 1879.] + +(3) _Speculative Theology_. The principle of complete determination, +according to which of all the possible predicates of things, as compared +with their opposites, one must belong to each thing, relates the thing to +be determined to the sum of all possible predicates or the _Idea of an ens +realissimum_, which, since it is the representation of a single being, may +be called the _Ideal_ of pure reason. From this prototype things, as its +imperfect copies, derive the material of their possibility; all their +manifold determinations are simply so many modes of limiting the concept of +the highest reality, which is their common substratum, just as all figures +are possible only as different ways of limiting infinite space. Or better: +the derivative beings are not related to the ideal of the original Being as +limitations to the sum of the highest reality (on which view the Supreme +Being would be conceived as an aggregate consisting of the derivative +beings, whereas these presuppose it, and hence cannot constitute it), but +as consequences to a ground. But reason does not remain content with this +entirely legitimate thought of the dependence of finite things on the ideal +of the Being of all beings, as a relation of concepts to the Idea, but, +dazzled by an irresistible illusion, proceeds to realize, to hypostatize, +and to personify this ideal, and, since she herself is dimly conscious of +the illegitimacy of such a transformation of the mere Idea into a given +object, devises _arguments for the existence of God_. Reason, moreover, +would scarcely be induced to regard a mere creation of its thought as a +real being, if it were not compelled from another direction to seek a +resting place somewhere in the regress of conditions, and to think the +empirical reality of the contingent world as founded upon the rock of +something absolutely necessary. There is no being, however, which appears +more fit for the prerogative of absolute necessity than that one the +concept of which contains the therefore to every wherefore, and is in no +respect defective; in other words, rational theology joins the rational +ideal of the most perfect Being with the fourth cosmological Idea of the +absolutely necessary Being. + +The proof of the existence of God may be attempted in three ways: we may +argue the existence of a supreme cause either by starting from a definite +experience (the special constitution and order of the sense-world, that +is, its purposiveness), or from an indefinite experience (any existence +whatever), or, finally, abstracting from all experience, from mere concepts +_a priori_. But neither the empirical nor the transcendent nor the +intermediate line of thought leads to the goal. The most impressive and +popular of the proofs is the _physico-theological_ argument. But even if we +gratuitously admit the analogy of natural products with the works of human +art (for the argument is not able to prove that the purposive arrangement +of the things in the world, which we observe with admiration, is +contingent, and could only have been produced by an ordering, rational +principle, not self-produced by their own nature according to general +mechanical laws), this can yield an inference only to an intelligent author +of the purposive form of the world, and not to an author of its matter, +only, therefore, to a world-architect, not to a world-creator. Further, +since the cause must be proportionate to the effect, this argument can +prove only a very wise and wonderfully powerful, but not an omniscient +and omnipotent, designer, and so cannot give any definite concept of +the supreme cause of the world. In leaping from the contingency of the +purposive order of the world to the existence of something absolutely +necessary and thence to an all-comprehensive reality, the teleological +argument abandons the ground of experience and passes over into the +_cosmological argument_, which in its turn is merely a concealed +ontological argument (these two differ only in the fact that the +cosmological proof argues from the antecedently given absolute necessity +of a being to its unlimited reality, and the ontological, conversely, from +supreme reality to necessary existence). The weaknesses of the cosmological +argument in its first half consist in the fact that, in the inference +from the contingent to a cause for it, it oversteps the boundary of the +sense-world, and, in the inference from the impossibility of an infinite +series of conditions to a first cause, it employs the subjective principle +of investigation--to assume hypothetically a necessary ultimate ground in +behalf of the systematic unity of knowledge--as an objective principle +applying to things in themselves. The _ontological argument_, finally, +which the two nominally empirical arguments hoped to avoid, but in which in +the end they were forced to take refuge, goes to wreck on the impossibility +of dragging out of an idea the existence of the object corresponding to it. +Existence denotes nothing further than the position of the subject with all +the marks which are thought in its concept--that is, its relation to our +knowledge, but does not itself belong to the predicates of the concept, and +hence cannot be analytically derived from the latter. The content of the +concept is not enriched by the addition of being; a hundred real dollars do +not contain a penny more than a hundred conceived dollars. All existential +propositions are synthetic; hence the existence of God cannot be +demonstrated from the concept of God. It is a contradiction, to be sure, to +say that God is not almighty, just as it is a contradiction to deny that +a triangle has three angles: _if_ posit the concept I must not remove +the predicate which necessarily belongs to it. If I remove the subject, +however, together with its predicate (the almighty God is not), no +contradiction arises, for in that case nothing remains to be contradicted. + +Thus all the proofs for the existence of a necessary being are shown to be +illusory, and the basis of speculative theology uncertain. Nevertheless the +idea of God retains its validity, and the perception of the inability of +reason to demonstrate its objective reality on theoretical grounds has +great value. For though the existence of God cannot be proved, it is true, +by way of recompense, that it cannot be disproved; the same grounds which +show us that the assertion of his existence is based on a weak foundation +suffice also to prove every contrary assertion unfounded. And should +practical motives present themselves to turn the scale in favor of the +assumption of a supreme and all-sufficient Being, reason would be obliged +to take sides and to follow these grounds, which, it is true, are not +objectively sufficient,[1] but still preponderant, and than which we know +none better. After, however, the objective reality of the idea of God is +guaranteed from the standpoint of ethics, there remains for transcendental +theology the important negative duty ("censorship," _Censor_) of exactly +determining the concept of the most perfect Being (as a being which through +understanding and freedom contains the first ground of all other things), +of removing from it all impure elements, and of putting an end to all +opposite assertions, whether atheistic, deistic (deism maintains the +possibility of knowing the existence of an original being, but declares all +further determination of this being impossible), or (in the dogmatic +sense) anthropomorphic. Theism is entirely possible apart from a mistaken +anthropomorphism, in so far as through the predicates which we take from +inner experience (understanding and will) we do not determine the concept +of God as he is in himself, but only _analogically_[2] in his relation to +the world. That concept serves only to aid us in our contemplation of +the world,[3] not as a means of knowing the Supreme Being himself. For +speculative purposes it remains a mere ideal, yet a perfectly faultless +one, which completes and crowns the whole of human knowledge. + +[Footnote 1: "They need favor to supply their lack of legitimate claims." +Of themselves alone, therefore, they are unable to yield any theological +knowledge, but they are fitted to prepare the understanding for it, and to +give emphasis to other possible (moral) proofs.] + +[Footnote 2: We halt _at_ the boundary of the legitimate use of reason, +without overstepping it, when we limit our judgment to the relation of +the world to the Supreme Being, and in this allow ourselves a symbolical +anthropomorphism only, which in reality has reference to our language alone +and not to the object.] + +[Footnote 3: We are compelled to _look on_ the world _as if_ it were the +work of a supreme intelligence and will. "We may confidently derive the +phenomena of the world and their existence from other (phenomena), as if no +necessary being existed, and yet unceasingly strive after completeness +in the derivation, as though such a being were presupposed as a supreme +ground." In short, physical (mechanical) _explanation_, and a theistic +point of view or teleological _judgment_.] + +Thus the value of the Ideas is twofold. By showing the untenable ness of +atheism, fatalism, and naturalism, they I clear the way for the objects of +faith. By providing natural science with the standpoint of a systematical +unity through teleological connection, they make an extension of the use of +the understanding possible within the realm of experience,[1] though not +beyond it. The systematic development of the Kantian teleology, which is +here indicated in general outlines only, is found in the second part of the +_Critique of Judgment_; while the practical philosophy, which furnishes the +only possible proof, the moral proof, for the reality of the Ideas, erects +on the site left free by the removal of the airy summer-houses of dogmatic +metaphysics the solid mansion of critical metaphysics, that is, the +metaphysics of duties and of hopes. "I was obliged to destroy knowledge +in order to make room for faith." The transition from the impossible +theoretical or speculative knowledge of things in themselves to the +possible "practical knowledge" of them (the belief that there is a God and +a future world) is given in the _Doctrine of Method_, which is divided into +four parts (the Discipline, the Canon, the Architectonic, and the History +of Pure Reason), in its second chapter. There, in the ideal of the _Summum +Bonum_, the proof is brought forward for the validity of the Ideas God, +freedom, and immortality, as postulates inseparable from moral obligation; +and by a cautious investigation of the three stages of assent (opinion, +knowledge, and belief) both doctrinal and moral belief are assigned their +places in the system of the kinds of knowledge. + +[Footnote 1: The principle to regard all order in the world (_e.g._, the +shape of the earth, mountains, and seas, the members of animal bodies) as +if it proceeded from the design of a supreme reason leads the investigator +on to various discoveries.] + +We may now sum up the results of the three parts of Kant's theoretical +philosophy. The pure intuitions, the categories, and the Ideas are +functions of the spirit, and afford non-empirical _(erfahrungsfreie)_ +knowledge concerning the objects of possible experience (and concerning the +possibility of knowledge). The first make universal and necessary knowledge +possible in relation to the forms under which objects can be given to us; +the second make a similarly apodictic knowledge possible in relation to +the forms under which phenomena must be thought; the third make possible a +judgment of phenomena differing from this knowledge, yet not in conflict +with it. The categories and the Ideas, moreover, yield problematical +concepts of objects which are not given to us in intuition, but which may +exist outside of space and time: things in themselves cannot be known, it +is true, but they can be thought, a fact of importance in case we should be +assured of their existence in some other way than by sensuous intuition. + +The determination of the limits of speculative reason is finished. +All knowing and all demonstration is limited to phenomena or possible +experience. But the boundary of that which can be experienced is not the +boundary of that which is, still less of that which ought to be; the +boundary of theoretical reason is not the boundary of practical reason. We +_ought_ to act morally; in order to be able to do this we must ascribe to +ourselves the power to initiate a series of events; and, in general, we are +warranted in assuming everything the non-assumption of which makes moral +action impossible. If we were merely theoretical, merely experiential +beings, we should lack all occasion to suppose a second, intelligible world +behind and above the world of phenomena; but we are volitional and active +beings under laws of reason, and though we are unable to know things in +themselves, yet we may and must _postulate_ them--our freedom, God, and +immortality. For not only that which is a condition of experience is true +and necessary, but that, also, which is a condition of morality. The +discovery of the laws and conditions of morality is the mission of +practical philosophy. + + +%2. Theory of Ethics.% + +The investigation now turns from the laws of nature, which express a +"must," to the laws of will, in which an "ought" is expressed, and by which +certain actions are not compelled, but prescribed. (If we were merely +rational, and not at the same time sensuous beings, the moral law would +determine the will in the form of a natural law; since, however, the +constant possibility of deviation is given in the sensibility, or, rather, +the moral standpoint can only be attained by conquering the sensuous +impulses, therefore the moral law speaks to us in the form of an "ought," +of an imperative.) Among the laws of the will or imperatives, also, +there are some which possess the character of absolute necessity and +universality, and which, consequently, are _a priori_. As the understanding +dictates laws to the phenomenal world, so practical reason gives a law to +itself, is _autonomous_; and as the _a priori_ laws of nature relate only +to the form of the objects of experience, so the moral law determines not +the content, but only the form of volition: "Act only on that maxim whereby +thou canst at the same time will that it should become a universal law." +The law of practical reason is a "categorical imperative." What does this +designation mean, and what is the basis of the formula of the moral law +which has just been given? + +Practical principles are either subjectively valid, in which case they are +termed maxims (volitional principles of the individual), or objectively +valid, when they are called imperatives or precepts. The latter are either +valid under certain conditions (If you wish to become a clergyman you must +study theology; he who would prosper as a merchant must not cheat his +customers), or unconditionally valid (Thou shalt not lie). All prudential +or technical rules are hypothetical imperatives, the moral law is a +categorical imperative. The injunction to be truthful is not connected with +the condition that we intend to act morally, but this general purpose, +together with all the special purposes belonging to it, to avoid lying, +etc., is demanded unconditionally and of everyone--as surely as we are +rational beings we are under moral obligation, not in order to reputation +here below and happiness above, but without all "ifs" and "in order to's." +Thou shalt unconditionally, whatever be the outcome. And as the moral law +is independent of every end to be attained, so it suffers neither increase +nor diminution in its binding force, whether men obey it or not. It has +absolute authority, no matter whether it is fulfilled frequently or seldom, +nay, whether it is fulfilled anywhere or at any time whatsoever in the +world! + +There is an important difference between the good which we are under +obligation to do and the evil which we are under obligation not to do, and +the goods and ills which we seek and avoid. The goods are always relatively +good only, _good for something_--as means to ends--and a bad use can be +made of all that nature and fortune give us as well as a good one. That +which duty commands is an end in itself, in itself good, absolutely +worthful, and no misuse of it is possible. It might be supposed that +pleasure, that happiness is an ultimate end. But men have very different +opinions in regard to what is pleasant, one holding one thing pleasurable +and another another. It is impossible to discover by empirical methods what +duty demands of all men alike and under all circumstances; the appeal is to +our reason, not to our sensibility. If happiness were the end of rational +beings, then nature had endowed us but poorly for it, since instead of an +unfailing instinct she has given us the weak and deceitful reason as a +guide, which, with its train, culture, science, art, and luxury, has +brought more trouble than satisfaction to mankind. Man has a destiny other +than well-being, and a higher one--the formation of good dispositions: here +we have the only thing in the whole world that can never be used for evil, +the only thing that does not borrow its value from a higher end, but itself +originally and inalienably contains it, and that gives value to all else +that merits esteem. "Nothing can possibly be conceived in the world, or +even out of it, which can be called good without qualification, except a +_good will_." Understanding, courage, moderation, and whatever other mental +gifts or praiseworthy qualities of temperament may be cited, as also the +gifts of fortune, "are undoubtedly good and desirable in many respects, but +they may also become extremely evil and mischievous, if the will which is +to make use of them is not good." These are the classic words with which +Kant commences the _Foundation of the Metaphysics of Ethics_. + +When does the will deserve the predicate "good"? Let us listen to the +popular moral consciousness, which distinguishes three grades of moral +recognition. He who refrains from that which is contrary to duty, no matter +from what motives--as, for example, the shopkeeper who does not cheat +because he knows that honesty is the best policy--receives moderate +praise for irreproachable outward behavior. We bestow warmer praise and +encouragement on him whom ambition impels to industry, kind feeling to +beneficence, and pity to render assistance. But he alone earns our esteem +who does his duty for duty's sake. Only in this third case, where not +merely the external action, nor merely the impulse of a happy disposition, +but the will itself, the maxim, is in harmony with the moral law, where +the good is done for the sake of the good, do we find true morality, that +unconditioned, self-grounded worth. The man who does that which is in +accordance with duty out of reflection on its advantages, and he who does +it from immediate--always unreliable--inclination, acts _legally_; he alone +acts _morally_ who, without listening to advantage and inclination, takes +up the law into his disposition, and does his duty because it is duty. The +sole moral motive is the consciousness of duty, _respect for the moral +lazy_[1] + +[Footnote 1: The respect or reverence which the law, and, derivatively, the +person in whom it is realized, compel from us, is, as self-produced through +a concept of reason and as the only feeling which can be known _a priori_, +specifically different from all feelings of inclination or fear awakened by +sensuous influences. As it strengthens and raises our rational nature, the +consciousness of our freedom and of our high destination, but, at the same +time, humbles our sensibility, there is mingled with the joy of exaltation +a certain pain, which permits no intimate affection for the stern and +sublime law. It is not quite willingly that we pay our respect--just +because of the depressing effect which this feeling exerts on our +self-love.] + +Here Kant is threatened by a danger which he does not succeed in escaping. +The moral law demands perfect purity in our maxims; only the idea of duty, +not an inclination, is to determine the will. Quite right. Further, the one +judging is himself never absolutely certain, even when his own volition is +concerned, that no motives of pleasure have mingled with the feeling of +duty in contributing to the right action, unless that which was morally +demanded has been contrary to all his inclinations. When a person who is +not in need and who is free from cupidity leaves the money-box intrusted +to his care untouched, or when a man who loves life overcomes thoughts of +suicide, I may assume that the former was sufficiently protected +against the temptation by his moderation, and the other by his cheerful +disposition, and I rate their behavior as merely legal. When, on the other +hand, an official inclined to extravagance faithfully manages the funds +intrusted to him, or one who is oppressed by hopeless misery preserves his +life, although he does not love it, then I may ascribe the abstinence from +wrongdoing to moral principles. This, too, may be admitted. We are +certain of the morality of a resolution only when it can be shown that no +inclination was involved along with the maxim. The cases where the right +action is performed in opposition to inclination are the only ones in which +we may be certain that the moral quality of the action is unmixed--are +they, then, the only ones in which a moral disposition is present? Kant +rightly maintains that the admixture of egoistic motives beclouds the +purity of the disposition, and consequently diminishes its moral worth. +With equal correctness he draws attention to the possibility that, even +when we believe that we are acting from pure principles, a hidden sensuous +impulse may be involved. But he leaves unconsidered the possibility that, +even when the inclinations are favorable to right action, the action may be +performed, not from inclination, but because of the consciousness of duty. +Given that a man is naturally industrious, does this happy predisposition +protect him from fits of idleness? And if he resists them, must it always +be his inclination to activity and never moral principle which overcomes +the temptation? In yielding to the danger of confounding the limits of our +certain knowledge of the purity of motives with the limits of moral action, +and in admitting true morality only where action proceeds from principle +in opposition to the inclinations, Kant really deserves the reproach of +rigorism or exaggerated purism--sometimes groundlessly extended to the +justifiable strictness of his views--and the ridicule of the well-known +lines of Schiller ("Scruples of Conscience" and "Decision" at the +conclusion of his distich-group "The Philosophers"): + +"The friends whom I love I gladly would serve, but to this inclination + incites me; + And so I am forced from virtue to swerve since my act, through affection, + delights me. + The friends whom thou lovest thou must first seek to scorn, for to no + other way can I guide thee; + 'Tis alone with disgust thou canst rightly perform the acts to which + duty would lead thee." + +If we return from this necessary limitation of a groundless inference +(that true morality is present only when duty is performed against our +inclinations, when it is difficult for us, when a conflict with sensuous +motives has preceded), to the development of the fundamental ethical +conceptions, we find that important conclusions concerning the origin and +content of the moral law result from the principle obtained by the analysis +of moral judgment: this law commands with _unconditional authority_--for +every rational being and under all circumstances--what has _unconditioned +worth_--the disposition which corresponds to it. The universality and +necessity (_unconditionalness_) of the categorical imperative proves that +it springs from no other source than reason itself. Those who derive +the moral law from the will of God subject it to a condition, viz., the +immutability of the divine will. Those who find the source of moral +legislation in the pursuit of happiness make rational will dependent on a +natural law of the sensibility; it would be folly to enjoin by a moral law +that which everyone does of himself, and does superabundantly. Moreover, +the theories of the social inclinations and of moral sense fail of their +purpose, since they base morality on the uncertain ground of feeling. Even +the principle of perfection proves insufficient, inasmuch as it limits the +individual to himself, and, in the end, like those which have preceded, +amounts to a refined self-love. Theonomic ethics, egoistic ethics, the +ethics of sympathy, and the ethics of perfection are all eudemonistic, and +hence heteronomic. The practical reason[1] receives the law neither from +the will of God nor from natural impulse, but draws it out of its own +depths; it binds itself. + +[Footnote 1: Will and practical reason are identical. The definition runs: +Will is the faculty of acting in accordance with the representation of +laws.] + +The grounds which establish the derivation of the moral law from the will +or reason itself exclude at the same time every material determination of +it. If the categorical imperative posited definite ends for the will, if it +prescribed a direction to definite objects, it could neither be known _a +priori_ nor be valid for all rational beings: its apodictic character +forbids the admission of empirical elements of every sort.[1] If we think +away all content from the law we retain the form of universal legality,[2] +and gain the formula: "Act so that the maxim of thy will can always at +the same time hold good as a principle of universal legislation." The +possibility of conceiving the principle of volition as a universal law of +nature is the criterion of morality. If you are in doubt concerning the +moral character of an action or motive simply ask yourself the question, +What would become of humanity if everyone were to act according to the same +principle? If no one could trust the word of another, or count on aid from +others, or be sure of his property and his life, then no social life would +be possible. Even a band of robbers cannot exist unless certain laws are +respected as inviolable duties. + +[Footnote 1: The moral law, therefore, is independent of all experience in +three respects, as to its origin, its content, and its validity. It springs +from reason, it contains a formal precept only, and its validity is not +concerned, whether it meets with obedience or not. It declares what ought +to be done, even though this never should be done.] + +[Footnote 2: The "formal principle" of the Kantian ethics has met very +varied criticism. Among others Edmund Pfleiderer (_Kantischer Kritizismus +und Englische Philosophie_, 1881) and Zeller express themselves +unfavorably, Fortlage and Liebmann (_Zur Analysis der Wirklichkeit_, 2d +ed., 1880, p. 671) favorably.] + +It was indispensable to free the supreme formula of the moral law from all +material determinations, _i.e._, limitations. This does not prevent us, +however, from afterward giving the abstract outline a more concrete +coloring. First of all, the concept of the dignity of persons in contrast +to the utility of things offers itself as an aid to explanation and +specialization. Things are means whose worth is always relative, consisting +in the useful or pleasant effects which they exercise, in the satisfaction +of a need or of the taste, they can be replaced by other means, which +fulfill the same purpose, and they have a (market or fancy) _value_; while +that which is above all value and admits of no equivalent has an ultimate +worth or _dignity_, and is an object of respect. The legislation which +determines all worth, and with this the disposition which corresponds to +it, has a dignity, an unconditioned, incomparable worth, and lends its +subjects, rational beings framed for morality, the advantage of being ends +in themselves. "Therefore morality, and humanity so far as it is capable of +morality, is that which alone possesses dignity." Accordingly the following +formulation of the moral law may be held equivalent to the first: "So act +as to treat humanity, whether in thine own person or in that of any other, +in every case as an end, never as a means only." + +A further addition to the abstract formula of the categorical imperative +results from the discussion of the question, What universal ends admit of +subsumption under it, _i.e._, stand the test of fitness to be principles of +a universal legislation? Here again Kant stands forth as an arbiter between +the contending parties, and, with a firm grasp, combines the useful +elements from both sides after winnowing them out from the worthless +principles. The majority of the eudemonistic systems, along with the +promotion of private welfare, prescribe the furtherance of universal good +without being able to indicate at what point the pursuit of personal +welfare should give way to regard for the good of others, while in the +perfectionist systems the social element is wanting or retreats unduly into +the background. The principle of happiness represents moral empiricism, the +principle of perfection moral rationalism. Kant resolves the antithesis +by restricting the theses of the respective parties within their proper +limits: "Make _thine own perfection_ and _the happiness of others_ the end +of thy actions;" these are the only ends which are at the same time duties. +The perfection of others is excluded by the fact that I cannot impart +to anyone a good disposition, for everyone must acquire it for himself; +personal happiness by the fact that everyone seeks it naturally. + +This antithesis (which is crossed by the further distinction between +perfect, _i.e._, indispensable, and imperfect duties) serves as a basis for +the division of moral duties into duties toward ourselves and duties toward +other men.[1] The former enjoin the preservation and development of our +natural and moral powers, the latter are duties of obligation (of respect) +or of merit (of love). Since no one can obligate me to feel, we are to +understand by love not the pathological love of complacency, but only the +active love of benevolence or practical sympathy. Since it is just as +impossible that the increase of the evils in the world should be a duty, +the enervating and useless excitation of pity, which adds to the pain of +the sufferer the sympathetic pain of the spectator, is to be struck off +the list of virtues, and active readiness to aid put in its place. In +friendship love and respect unite in exact equipoise. Veracity is one of +the duties toward self; lying is an abandonment of human dignity and under +no conditions allowable, not even if life depends on it. + +[Footnote 1: All duties are toward men, not toward supra-human or +infra-human beings. That which we commonly term duties toward animals, +likewise the so-called duties toward God, are in reality duties toward +ourselves. Cruelty to animals is immoral, because our sympathies are +blunted by it. To have religion is a duty to ourselves, because the view of +moral laws as laws of God is an aid to morality.] + +After it has been settled what the categorical imperative enjoins, the +further problem awaits us of explaining how it is possible. The categorical +imperative is possible only on I the presupposition of our _freedom_. Only +a free being gives laws to itself, just as an autonomous being alone is +free. In theoretical philosophy the pure self-consciousness, the "I think," +denoted a point where the thing in itself manifests to us not its nature, +indeed, but its existence. The same holds true in practical philosophy of +the moral law. The incontestable fact of the moral law empowers me to rank +myself in a higher order of things than the merely phenomenal order, and +in another causal relation than that of the merely necessary (mechanical) +causation of nature, to regard myself as a legislative member of an +intelligible world, and one independent of sensuous impulses--in short, to +regard myself as free. Freedom is the _ratio essendi_ of the self-given +moral law, the latter the _ratio cognoscendi_ of freedom. The law would +have no meaning if we did not possess the power to obey it: I can _because_ +I ought. It is true that freedom is a mere Idea, whose object can never be +given to me in an experience, and whose reality, consequently, cannot +be objectively known and proved, but nevertheless, is required with +satisfactory subjective necessity as the condition of the moral law and of +the possibility of its fulfillment. I may not say it is certain, but, with +safety, I am certain that I am free. Freedom is not a dogmatic proposition +of theoretical reason, but a _postulate_ of practical reason; and the +latter holds the _primacy_ over the former to this extent, that it can +require the former to show that certain transcendent Ideas of the +suprasensible, which are most intimately connected with moral obligation, +are compatible with the principles of the understanding. It was just in +view of the practical interests involved in the rational concepts God, +freedom, immortality, that it was so important to establish, at least, +their possibility (their conceivability without contradiction). That, +therefore, which the Dialectic recognized as possible is in the Ethics +shown to be real: Whoever seeks to fulfill his moral destiny--and this is +the duty of every man--must not doubt concerning the conditions of its +possible fulfillment, must, in spite of their incomprehensibility, +_believe_ in freedom and a suprasensible world. They are both postulates +of practical reason, _i.e._, assumptions concerning that which is in behalf +of that which ought to be. Naturally the interests of the understanding +must not be infringed upon by those of the will. The principle of the +complete causal determination of events retains its validity unimpeached +for the sphere of the knowledge of the understanding, that is, for the +realm of phenomena; while, on the other hand, it remains permissible for +us to postulate another kind of causality for the realm of things in +themselves, although we can have no idea of its _how_, and to ascribe to +ourselves a free intelligible character. + +While the Idea of freedom can be derived directly from the moral law as +a postulate thereof, the proof of the reality of the two other Ideas is +effected indirectly by means of the concept of the "highest good," in which +reason conceives a union of perfect virtue and perfect happiness. The +moral law requires absolute correspondence between the disposition and the +commands of reason, or holiness of will. But besides this supreme good +(_bonum supremum_) of completed morality, the highest good (_bonum +consummatum_) further contains a degree of happiness corresponding to the +degree of virtue. Everyone agrees in the judgment that, by rights, things +should go well with the virtuous and ill with the wicked, though this must +not imply any deduction from the principle previously announced that the +least impulse of self-interest causes the maxim to forfeit its worth: the +motive of the will must never be happiness, but always the being worthy of +happiness. The first element in the highest good yields the argument for +_immortality_, and the second the argument for the _existence of God_. (1) +Perfect correspondence between the will and the law never occurs in this +life, because the sensibility never allows us to attain a permanently good +disposition, armed against every temptation; our will can never be +holy, but at best virtuous, and our lawful disposition never escape the +consciousness of a constant tendency to transgression, or at least of +impurity. Since, nevertheless, the demands of the (Christian) moral law +continue in their unrelenting stringency to be the standard, we are +justified in the hope of an unlimited continuation of our existence, +in order that by constant progress in goodness we may draw nearer _in +infinitum_ to the ideal of holiness. (2) The establishment of a rational +proportion between happiness and virtue is also not to be expected until +the future life, for too often on earth it is the evil man who prospers, +while the good man suffers. A justly proportioned distribution of rewards +and punishment can only be expected from an infinite power, wisdom, and +goodness, which rules the moral world even as it has created the natural +world. Deity alone is able to bring the physical and moral realms into +harmony, and to establish the due relation between well-being and right +action. This, the moral argument, is the only possible proof for the +existence of God. Theology is not possible as speculative, but only as +moral theology. The certitude of faith, moreover, is only different from, +not less than, the certainty of knowledge, in so far as it brings with it +not an objective, but a subjective, although universally valid, necessity. +Hence it is better to speak of belief in God as a need of the reason than +as a duty; while a logical error, not a moral one, should be charged +against the atheist. The atheist is blind to the intimate connection which +exists between the highest good and the Ideas of the reason; he does not +see that God, freedom, and immortality are the indispensable conditions of +the realization of this ideal. + +Thus faith is based upon duty without being itself duty: ethics is the +_basis of religion_, which consists in our regarding moral laws as +(_instar_, as if they were) divine commands. They are not valid or +obligatory because God has given them (this would be heteronomy), but they +should be regarded as divine because they are necessary laws of reason. +Religion differs from ethics only in its form, not in its content, in that +it adds to the conception of duty the idea of God as a moral lawgiver, and +thus increases the influence of this conception on the will; it is simply +a means for the promotion of morality. Since, however, besides natural +religion or the pure faith of reason (the moral law and the moral +postulates), the historical religions contain statutory determinations or a +doctrinal faith, it becomes the duty of the critical philosopher to inquire +how much of this positive admixture can be justified at the bar of reason. +In this investigation the question of the divine revelation of dogma +and ceremonial laws is neither supra-rationalistically affirmed nor +naturalistically derived, but rationalistically treated as an open +question. + +The four essays combined under the title _Religion within the Limits of +Reason Only_ treat of the Radical Evil in Human Nature, the Conflict of the +Good Principle with the Evil for the Mastery over Man, the Victory of the +Good Principle over the Evil and the Founding of a Kingdom of God upon +Earth, and, finally, Service and False Service under the Dominion of the +Good Principle, or Religion and Priestcraft; or more briefly, the fall, the +atonement (the Christ-idea), the Church, and true and false service of God. + +(1) The individual evil deeds of the empirical character point to an +original fault of the intelligible character, a _propensity to evil_ +dwelling in man and not further deducible. This, although it is +self-incurred, may be called natural and innate, and consists (not in the +sensibility merely, but) in a freely chosen reversal of the moral order +of our maxims, in virtue of which the maxim of duty or morality is +subordinated to that of well-being or self-love instead of being +placed above it, and that which should be the supreme condition of all +satisfaction is degraded into a mere means thereto. Morality is therefore a +_conversion_ from the evil to the good, and requires a complete revolution +in the disposition, the putting on of a new man, a "new birth," +which, an act out of time, can manifest itself in the temporal world of +phenomena only as a gradual transformation in conduct, as a continuous +advance, but which, we may hope, is judged by him who knows the heart, +who regards the disposition instead of particular imperfect actions, as a +completed unity. + +(2) By the eternal Son of God, for whose sake God created all things, we +are to understand the ideal of the perfect man, which in truth forms the +end of creation, and is come down from heaven, etc. To believe in Christ +means to resolve to realize in one's self the ideal of human nature which +is well pleasing to God, or to make the divine disposition of the Son of +God our own, not to believe that this ideal has appeared on earth as an +actual man, in the person of Jesus of Nazareth. The only saving faith is +the belief of reason in the ideal which Christ represents, and not the +historical belief in his person. The vicarious atonement of the ideal +man for those who believe on him is to be interpreted to mean that the +sufferings and sacrifices (crucifixion of the flesh) imposed by moral +conversion, which are due to the sinful man as punishment, are assumed by +the regenerate man: the new Adam bears the sufferings of the old. In the +same way as that in which Kant handles the history of Christ and the +doctrine of justification, all biblical narratives and ecclesiastical +doctrines are in public instruction (from the pulpit) to be interpreted +morally, even where the authors themselves had no such meaning in mind. + +(3) The Church is a society based upon the laws of virtue, an ethical +community or a people of God, whose members confirm each other in the +performance of duty by example and by the profession of a common moral +conviction; we are all brothers, the children of one father. Ideally there +is only one (the universal, invisible) Church, and its foundation the pure +faith of reason; but in consequence of a weakness peculiar to human nature +the foundation of an actual church required the addition of a statutory +historical faith, with claims to a divine origin, from which a multitude of +visible churches and the antithesis of orthodox and heretics have sprung. +The history of the Church since the establishment of Christianity +represents the conflict between the historical faith and the faith of +reason; its goal is the submission of the former to the latter, as, indeed, +we have already begun to perceive that God does not require a special +service beyond the practice of virtue. + +(4) The true service of God consists in a moral disposition and its +manifestation: "All that man supposes himself able to do in order to please +God, beyond living a good life, is _false service_" False service is the +false subordination of the pure faith of reason to the statutory faith, by +which the attainment of the goal of religious development is hindered +and the laity are brought into dangerous dependence upon the clergy. +Priestcraft, hypocrisy, and fanaticism enter in the train of fetich +service. The church-faith is destined little by little to make itself +superfluous. It has been necessary as a vehicle, as a means for the +introduction and extension of the pure religion of morality, and it still +remains useful for a time, until humanity shall become of age; with man's +entrance on the period of youth and manhood, however, the leading-string of +holy traditions, which in its time did good service, becomes unnecessary, +nay, finally, a fetter. (This relative appreciation of the positive element +in religion, in antithesis to the unthinking rejection of it by the +Illumination, resembles the view of Lessing; cf. pp. 306-309.) Moreover, +since it is a duty to be a co-worker in the transition from the historical +to the pure religious faith, the clergy must be free as scientific +theologians, as scholars and authors to examine the doctrines of faith +and to give expression to dissenting opinions, while, as preachers in the +pulpit, speaking under commission, they are bound to the creeds. To decide +the articles of belief unalterable would be a crime against human +nature, whose primal destination is just this--to progress. To renounce +illumination means to trample upon the divine rights of reason. + +The "General Observations" appended to each division add to the four +principle discussions as many collateral inquiries concerning Operations +of Grace, Miracles, Mysteries, and Means of Grace, objects of transcendent +ideas, which do not properly belong in the sphere of religion within pure +reason itself, but which yet border on it. (1) We are entirely incapable of +calling forth works of grace, nay, even of indicating the marks by which +actual divine illuminations are distinguished from imaginary ones; the +supposed experience of heavenly influences belongs in the region of +superstitious religious illusion. But their impossibility is just as little +susceptible of proof as their reality. Nothing further can be said on the +question, save that works of grace may exist, and perhaps must exist in +order to supplement our imperfect efforts after virtue; and that everyone, +instead of waiting for divine assistance, should do for his own amendment +all that is in his power. (2) Kant judges more sharply in regard to the +belief in miracles, which contradict the laws of experience without in the +least furthering the performance of our duties. In practical life no one +regards miracles as possible; and their limitation to the past and to rare +instances does not make them more credible. (3) In so far as the Christian +mysteries actually represent impenetrable secrets they have no bearing on +moral conduct; so far as they are morally valuable they admit of rational +interpretation and thus cease to be mysteries. The Trinity signifies the +three moral qualities or powers united in the head of the moral state: the +one God as holy lawgiver, gracious governor, and just judge. (4) The +services of the Church have worth as ethical ceremonies, as emblems of the +moral disposition (prayer) and of moral fellowship (church attendance, +baptism, and the Lord's Supper); but to find in these symbolic ceremonies +means of grace and to seek to purchase the favor of God by them, is an +error of the same kind as sorcery and fetichism. The right way leads from +virtue to grace, not in the opposite direction; piety without morality is +worthless. + +The Kantian theory of religion is rationalistic and moralistic. The fact +that religion is based on morality should never be assailed. But the +foundation is not the building, the origin not the content and essence +of the thing itself. As far as the nature of religion is concerned, +the Kantian view does not exclude completion in the direction of +Schleiermacher's theory of feeling, just as by its speculative +interpretation of the Christian dogmas and its appreciation of the history +of religion as a gradual transformation of historical faith into a faith of +reason, it points out the path afterward followed by Hegel. The philosophy +of religion of the future must be, as some recent attempts aim to be (O. +Pfleiderer, Biedermann, Lipsius), a synthesis of Kant, Schleiermacher, and +Hegel. + +While the moral law requires rightness not only of the action, but also of +the disposition, the law of right is satisfied when the act enjoined is +performed, no matter from what motives. Legal right, as the sum of the +conditions under which the will of the one can consist with the will of +others according to a universal law, relates only to enforceable actions, +without concerning itself about motives. Private right includes right in +things or property, personal right or right of contract, and real-personal +right (marriage right); public right is divided into the right of states, +of nations, and of citizens of the world. Kant's theory of punishment is +original and important. He bases it not upon prudential regard for the +protection of society, or the deterrence or reformation of the criminal, +but upon the exalted idea of retaliation (_jus talionis_), which demands +that everyone should meet with what his deeds deserve: Eye for eye, life +for life. In _politics_ Kant favors democratic theories, though less +decidedly than Rousseau and Fichte. As he followed with interest the +efforts after freedom manifested in the American and French Revolutions, so +he opposed an hereditary nobility as a hindrance to the natural equality of +rights, and demanded freedom for the public expression of opinion as the +surest means of guarding against revolutions. The only legitimate form of +the state is the republican, _i.e._, that in which the executive power is +separated from the legislative power, in contrast to despotism, where they +are united in one hand. The best guaranty for just government and civil +liberty is offered by constitutional monarchy, in which the people through +its representatives exercises the legislative power, the sovereign the +executive power, and judges chosen by the people the judicial power. The +contract from which we may conceive the state to have arisen is not to be +regarded as an historical fact, but as a rational idea or rule, by which +we may judge whether the laws are just or not: that which the people as a +whole cannot prescribe for itself, this cannot be prescribed for it by +the ruler (cf. p. 235). That there is a constant progress--not only of +individuals, but--of the race, not merely in technical and intellectual, +but also in moral respects, is supported both by rational grounds (without +faith in such progress we could not fulfill our duty as co-laborers in it) +and by experiential grounds (above all, the unselfish sympathy which all +the world gave to the French Revolution); and the never-ending complaint +that the times are growing worse proves only that mankind is continually +setting up stricter standards for itself. The beginning of _history_ is to +be placed at the point where man passes out of the condition of innocence, +in which instinct rules, and begins to subdue nature, which hitherto he has +obeyed. The goal of history, again, is the establishment of the perfect +form of the state. Nature itself co-operates with freedom in the gradual +transformation of the state based on necessity _(Notstaat)_ into a rational +state, inasmuch as selfish competition and the commercial spirit require +peace, order, and justice for their own security and help to bring them +about. And so, further, we need not doubt that humanity will constantly +draw nearer to the ideal condition of everlasting peace among the nations +(guaranteed by a league of states which shall as a mediator settle disputes +between individual states), however impracticable the idea may at present +appear. + +If the bold declaration of Fortlage, that in Kant the system of absolute +truth appeared, is true of any one part of his philosophy, it is true of +the practical part, in which Christian morality has found its scientific +expression. If we may justly complain that on the basis of his sharp +distinction between legality and morality, between legal duty and +virtue-duty, Kant took into account only the legal side of the institutions +of marriage and of the state, overlooking the fact that besides these they +have a moral importance and purpose, if we may demand a social ethic as a +supplement to his ethics, which is directed to the duties of the individual +alone, yet these and other well-founded desiderata may be attained by +slight corrections and by the addition of another story to the Kantian +edifice, while the foundations are still retained. The bases are immovable. +Autonomy, absolute oughtness, the formal character of the law of reason, +and the incomparable worth of the pure, disinterested disposition--these +are the corner stones of the Kantian, nay, of all morals. + + +%3. Theory of the Beautiful and of Ends in Nature.% + +We now know the laws which the understanding imposes upon nature and those +which reason imposes upon the will. If there is a field in which to be +(_Sein_) and ought to be (_Sollen_), nature and freedom, which we have thus +far been forced to consider antithetical, are reconciled--and that there +is such a field is already deducible from the doctrine of the religious +postulates (as practical truths or assumptions concerning what is, in +behalf of what ought to be), and from the hints concerning a progress in +history (in which both powers co-operate toward a common goal)--then the +source of its laws is evidently to be sought in that faculty which mediates +alike between understanding and reason and between knowing and feeling: +in _Judgment_, as the higher faculty of feeling. Judgment, in the general +sense, is the faculty of thinking a particular as contained in a universal, +and exercises a twofold function: as "determinant" judgment it subsumes the +particular under a given universal (a law), as "reflective" it seeks the +universal for a given particular. Since the former coincides with the +understanding, we are here concerned only with the reflective judgment, +judgment in the narrower sense, which does not cognize objects, but judges +them, and this according to the principle of purposiveness.[1] + +[Footnote 1: The universal laws springing from the understanding, to +which every nature must conform to become an object of experience for us, +determine nothing concerning the particular form of the given reality; +we cannot deduce the special laws of nature from them. Nevertheless the +nature of our cognitive faculty does not allow us to accept the empirical +manifoldness of our world as contingent, but impels us to regard it as +purposive or adapted to our knowledge, and to look upon these special +laws as if an intelligence had given them in order to make a system of +experience possible.] + +This, in turn, is of two kinds. An object is really or _objectively_ +purposive (perfect) when it corresponds to its nature or its determination, +formally or _subjectively_ purposive (beautiful) when it is conformed to +the nature of our cognitive faculty. The perception of purpose is always +accompanied by a feeling of pleasure; in the first case, where the pleasure +is based on a concept of the object, it is a logical satisfaction, in the +second, where it springs only from the harmony of the object with our +cognitive powers, aesthetic satisfaction. The objects of the teleological +and the aesthetic judgment, the purposive and the beautiful products of +nature and art, constitute the desired intermediate field between nature +and freedom; and here again the critical question comes up, How, in +relation to these, synthetic judgments _a priori_ are possible? + +%(a) Esthetic Judgment.%--The formula holds of Kant's aesthetics as well as +of his theoretical and practical philosophy, that his aim is to overcome +the opposition between the empirical and the rationalistic theories, and to +find a middle course of his own between the two extremes. Neither Burke +nor Baumgarten satisfied him. The English aesthetics was sensational, the +German, _i.e._, that of the Wolffian school, rationalistic. The former +identified the beautiful with the agreeable, the latter identified it with +the perfect or with the conformity of the object to its concept; in the one +case, aesthetic appreciation is treated as sensuous pleasure, in the other, +it is treated as a lower, confused kind of knowledge, its peculiar nature +being in both cases overlooked. In opposition to the sensualization of +aesthetic appreciation, its character as judgment must be maintained; +and in opposition to its rationalization, its character as feeling. This +relation of the Kantian aesthetics to that of his predecessors explains +both its fundamental tendency and the elements in it which appear defective +and erroneous. In any case, Kant shows himself in this field also an +unapproachable master of careful analysis. + +The first task of aesthetics is the careful distinction of its object from +related phenomena. The beautiful has points of contact with the agreeable, +the good, the perfect, the useful, and the true. It is distinguished +from the true by the fact that it is not an object of knowledge, but +of satisfaction. If we inquire further into the difference between the +satisfaction in the beautiful and the satisfaction in the agreeable, in the +good (in itself), and in the (good for something, as a means, or in the) +useful, which latter three have this in common, that they are objects of +appetition--of sensuous want, of moral will, of prudential desire--it +becomes evident that the beautiful pleases through its mere representation +(that is, independently of the real existence of the object), and that +the delight in the beautiful is a contemplative pleasure. It is for +contemplation only, not to be sensuously enjoyed nor put to practical use; +and, further, its production is not a universal duty. Sensuous, prudential, +or moral appetition has always an "interest" in the actual existence of +the object; the beautiful, on the other hand, calls forth a disinterested +satisfaction. + +According to quality the beautiful is the object of a disinterested, free +(bound by no interest), and sportive satisfaction. According to quantity +and modality the judgment of taste claims universal and necessary validity, +without this being based upon concepts. This posits further differences +between the beautiful and the agreeable and the good. The good also pleases +universally, but it pleases through concepts; the agreeable as well as the +beautiful pleases without a concept, but it does not please universally. + +That which pleases the reason through the concept is good; that which +pleases the senses in sensation is agreeable. That which pleases +_universally and necessarily without a concept_ is beautiful. Moral +judgment demands the assent of all, and its universal validity is +demonstrable. The judgment concerning the agreeable is not capable of +demonstration, but neither does it pretend to possess universal validity; +we readily acknowledge that what is pleasant to one need not be so to every +other man. In regard to the beautiful, on the contrary, we do not content +ourselves with saying that tastes differ, but we expect it to please all. +We expect everyone to assent to our judgment of taste, although it is able +to support itself by no proofs. + +Here there is a difficulty: since the judgment of taste does not express +a characteristic of the object, but a state of mind in the observer, a +feeling, a satisfaction, it is purely subjective; and yet it puts forth a +claim to be universally communicable. The difficulty can be removed only on +the assumption of a common aesthetic sense, of a corresponding organization +of the powers of representation in all men, which yields the common +standard for the pleasurableness of the impression. The agreeable appeals +to that in man which is different in different individuals, the beautiful +to that which functions alike in all; the former addresses itself to +the passive sensibility, the latter to the active judgment. The +agreeable--because of the non-calculable differences in our sensuous +inclinations, which are in part conditioned by bodily states--possesses no +universality whatever, the good possesses an objective, and the beautiful +a subjective universality. The judgment concerning the agreeable has an +empirical, that concerning the beautiful an _a priori_, determining ground: +in the former case, the judgment follows the feeling, in the latter, it +precedes it. + +An object is considered beautiful (for, strictly speaking, we may say only +this, not that it is beautiful) when its form puts the powers of the human +mind in a state of harmony, brings the intuitive and rational faculties +into concordant activity, and produces an agreeable proportion between the +imagination and the understanding. In giving the occasion for an harmonious +play of the cognitive activities (that is, for an easy combination of the +manifold into unity) the beautiful object is purposive for us, for our +function of apprehension; it is--here we obtain a determination of the +judgment of taste from the standpoint of relation--_purposive without a +definite purpose_. We know perfectly well that a landscape which attracts +us has not been specially arranged for the purpose of delighting us, and we +do not wish to find in a work of art anything of an intention to please. +An object is perfect when it is purposive for itself (corresponds to its +concept); useful when it is purposive for our desire (corresponds to a +practical intention of man); beautiful when the arrangement of its parts +is purposive for the relation between the fancy and understanding of +the beholder (corresponds in an unusual degree to the conditions of our +apprehension). Perfection is internal (real, objective) purposiveness, and +utility is external purposiveness, both for a definite purpose; beauty, +on the other hand, is purposiveness without a purpose, formal, subjective +purposiveness. The beautiful pleases by its mere form. The satisfaction in +the perfect is of a conceptual or intellectual kind, the satisfaction in +the beautiful, emotional or aesthetic in character. + +The combination of these four determinations yields an exhaustive +definition of the beautiful: The beautiful is that which universally and +necessarily arouses disinterested satisfaction by its mere form +(purposiveness without the representation of a purpose). + +Since the pleasurableness of the beautiful rests on the fact that +it establishes a pleasing harmony between the imagination and the +understanding, hence between sensuous and intellectual apprehension, the +aesthetic attitude is possible only in sensuous-rational beings. The +agreeable exists for the animal as well, and the good is an object of +approval for pure spirits; but the beautiful exists for humanity alone. +Kant succeeded in giving very delicate and felicitous verbal expression +to these distinctions: the agreeable gratifies _(vergnuegt)_ and excites +inclination _(Neigung)_; the good is approved _(gebilligt)_ and arouses +respect _(Achtung)_; the beautiful "pleases" _(gefaellt)_ and finds "favor" +_(Gunst)_. + + +In the progress of the investigation the principle that beauty depends on +the form alone, and that the concept, the purpose, the nature of the +object is not taken into account at all in aesthetic judgment, experiences +limitation. In its full strictness this applies only to a definite and, in +fact, a subordinate division of the beautiful, which Kant marks off under +the name of pure or _free_ beauty. With this he contrasts _adherent_ +beauty, as that which presupposes a generic concept to which its form must +correspond and which it must adequately present. Too much a purist not +to mark the coming in of an intellectual pleasure as a beclouding of the +"purity" of the aesthetic satisfaction, he is still just enough to admit +the higher worth of adherent beauty. For almost the whole of artificial +beauty and a considerable part of natural beauty belong to this latter +division, which we to-day term ideal and characteristic beauty. Examples of +free or purely formal beauty are tapestry patterns, arabesques, fountains, +flowers, and landscapes, the pleasurableness of which rests simply on the +proportion of their form and relations, and not upon their conformity to a +presupposed significance and determination of the thing. A building, on the +contrary--a dwelling, a summer-house, a temple--is considered beautiful +only when we perceive in it not merely harmonious relations of the parts +one to another, but also an agreement between the form and the purpose or +generic concept: a church must not look like a chalet. Here the external +form is compared with an inner nature, and harmony is required between form +and content. Adherent beauty is significant and expressive beauty, which, +although the satisfaction in it is not "purely" aesthetic, nevertheless +stands higher than pure beauty, because it gives to the understanding also +something to think, and hence busies the whole spirit. + +The analytical investigations concerning the nature of the beautiful +receive a valuable supplement in the classical definition of genius. Kant +gives two definitions of productive talent, one formal and one genetic. + +Natural beauty is a beautiful thing; artificial beauty, a beautiful +representation of a thing. The gift of agreeably presenting a thing which +in itself, perhaps, is ugly, is called taste. To judge of the beautiful +it is sufficient to possess taste, but for its production there is still +another talent needed, spirit or genius. For an art product can fulfill +the demands of taste and yet not aesthetically satisfy; while formally +faultless, it may be spiritless. + +While beautiful nature looks as though it were art (as though it were +calculated for our enjoyment), beautiful art should resemble nature, must +not appear to be intentional though, no doubt, it is so, must show a +careful but not an overnice adherence to rules (_i.e._, not one which +fetters the powers of the artist). This is the case when the artist bears +the rule in himself, that is, when he is gifted. Genius is the +innate disposition (through) which (nature) gives rules to art; its +characteristics are originality, exemplariness, and unreflectiveness. It +does not produce according to definite rules which can be learned, but +it is a law in itself, it is original. It creates instinctively without +consciousness of the rule, and cannot describe how it produces its results. +It creates typical works which impel others to follow, not to imitate. It +is only in art that there are geniuses, _i.e._, spirits who produce that +which absolutely cannot be learned, while the great men of science differ +only in degree, not in kind, from their imitators and pupils, and that +which they discover can be learned by rule. + +This establishes the criteria by which genius may be recognized. If we ask +by what psychological factors it is produced the answer is as follows: +Genius presupposes a certain favorable relation between imagination and +reason. Genius is the faculty of aesthetic Ideas, but an aesthetic Idea is +a representation of the imagination which animates the mind, which adds to +a concept of the understanding much of ineffable thought, much that belongs +to the concept but which cannot be comprehended in a definite concept. With +the aid of this idea Kant solves the antinomy of the aesthetic judgment. +The thesis is: The judgment of taste is not based upon concepts; for +otherwise it would admit of controversy (would be determinable by proofs). +The antithesis is: It is based upon concepts; for otherwise we could not +contend about it (endeavor to obtain assent). The two principles are +reconcilable, for "concept" is understood differently in the two cases. +That which the thesis rightly seeks to exclude from the judgment of beauty +is the determinate concept of the understanding; that which the antithesis +with equal justice pronounces indispensable is the indeterminate concept, +the aesthetic Idea. + +The freest play is afforded the imagination by poetry, the highest of +all arts, which, with rhetoric ("insidious," on account of its earnest +intention to deceive), forms the group termed arts of speech. To the class +of formative arts belong architecture, sculpture, and painting as the art +of design. A third group, the art of the beautiful play of sensations, +includes painting as the art of color, and music, which as a "fine" art is +placed immediately after poetry, as an "agreeable" art at the very foot of +the list, and as the play of tone in the vicinity of the entertaining play +of fortune [games of chance] and the witty play of thought. The explanation +of the comic (the ludicrous is based, according to Kant, on a sudden +transformation of strained expectation into nothing) lays great (indeed +exaggerated) weight on the resulting physiological phenomena, the +bodily shock which heightens vital feeling and favors health, and which +accompanies the alternating tension and relaxation of the mind. + +Besides free and adherent beauty, there is still a third kind of aesthetic +effect, the Sublime. The beautiful pleases by its bounded form. But also +the boundless and formless can exert aesthetic effect: that which is great +beyond all comparison we judge sublime. Now this magnitude is either +extensive in space and time or intensive greatness of force or power; +accordingly there are two forms of the sublime. That phenomenon which mocks +the power of comprehension possessed by the human imagination or surpasses +every measure of our intuition, as the ocean and the starry heavens, is +mathematically sublime. That which overcomes all conceivable resistance, +as the terrible forces of nature, conflagrations, floods, earthquakes, +hurricanes, thunderstorms, is dynamically sublime or mighty. The former +is relative to the cognitive, the latter to the appetitive faculty. The +beautiful brings the imagination and the understanding into accord; by +the sublime the fancy is brought into a certain favorable relation, not +directly to be termed harmony, with reason. In the one case there arose a +restful, positively pleasurable mood; here a shock is produced, an indirect +and negative pleasure proceeding from pain. Since the sublime exceeds the +functional capability of our sensuous representations and does violence to +the imagination, we first feel small at the sight of the absolutely great, +and incapable of compassing it with our sensuous glance. The sensibility is +not equal to the impression; this at first seems contrary to purpose and +violent. This humiliating impression, however, is quickly followed by a +reaction, and the vital forces, which were at first checked, are stimulated +to the more lively activity. Moreover, it is the sensuous part of man +which is humbled and the spiritual part that is exalted: the overthrow of +sensibility becomes a triumph for reason. The sight of the sublime, that +is, awakens the _Idea of the unconditioned, of the infinite_. This Idea can +never be adequately presented by an intuition, but can be aroused only +by the inadequacy of all that is sensuous to present it; the infinite is +presented through the impossibility of presenting it. We cannot intuit the +infinite, but we can think it. In comparison with reason (as the faculty of +Ideas, the faculty of thinking the infinite) even the greatest thing that +can be given in the sense-world appears small; reason is the absolutely +great. "That is sublime the mere ability to think which proves a faculty +of the mind surpassing every standard of sense." "That is sublime which +pleases immediately through its opposition to the interest of the senses." +The conflict between phantasy and reason, the insufficiency of the former +for the attainment of the rational Idea, makes us conscious of the +superiority of reason. Just because we feel small as sensuous beings we +feel great as rational beings. The pleasure (related to the moral feeling +of respect and, like this, mingled with a certain pain) which accompanies +this consciousness of inner greatness is explained by the fact that the +imagination, in acknowledging reason superior, places itself in the +appropriate and purposive relation of subordination. It is evident from the +foregoing that the truly sublime is reason, the moral nature of man, his +predisposition and destination, which point beyond the present world. +Schiller declares that "in space the sublime does not dwell," and +Kant says, "Sublimity is contained in none of the things of nature, but +only in our mind, in so far as we are conscious of being superior to nature +within us and without us." Nevertheless, since in this contemplation we fix +our thoughts entirely on the object without reflecting on ourselves, we +transfer the admiration of right due to the reason and its Idea of the +infinite by subreption to the object by which the Idea is occasioned, and +call the object itself sublime, instead of the mood which it wakes in us. + +If the sublime marks the point where the aesthetic touches on the boundary +of the moral, the beautiful is also not without some relation to the good. +By showing the agreement of sensibility and reason, which is demanded by +the moral law, realized in aesthetic intuition (as a voluntary yielding of +the imagination to the legitimacy of the understanding), it gives us the +inspiring consciousness that the antithesis is reconcilable, that the +rational can be presented in the sensuous, and so becomes a "symbol of the +good." + +%(b) Teleological Judgment.%--Teleological judgment is not knowledge, but +a way of looking at things which comes into play where the causal or +mechanical explanation fails us. This is not the case if the purposiveness +is external, relative to its utility for something else. The fact that the +sand of the sea-shore furnishes a good soil for the pine neither furthers +nor prevents a causal knowledge of it. Only inner purposiveness, as it +is manifested in the products of organic nature, brings the mechanical +explanation to a halt. Organisms are distinguished above inorganic forms by +the fact that of themselves they are at once cause and effect, that they +are self-productive and this both as a species (the oak springs from the +acorn, and in its turn bears acorns) and as individuals (self-preservation, +growth, and the replacement of dying parts by new ones), and also by the +fact that the reciprocally productive parts are in their form and their +existence all conditioned by the whole. This latter fact, that the whole is +the determining ground for the parts, is perfectly obvious in the products +of human art. For here it is the representation of the whole (the idea of +the work desired) which as the ground precedes the existence and the form +of the parts (of the machine). But where is the subject to construct +organisms according to its representations of ends? We may neither conceive +nature itself as endowed with forces acting in view of ends, nor a +praetermundane intelligence interfering in the course of nature. Either of +these suppositions would be the death of natural philosophy: the hylozoist +endows matter with a property which conflicts with its nature, and the +theist oversteps the boundary of possible experience. Above all, the +analogy of the products of organic nature with the products of human +technique is destroyed by the fact that machines do not reproduce +themselves and their parts cannot produce one another, while the organism +organizes itself. + +For our discursive understanding an interaction between the whole and the +parts is completely incomprehensible. We understand when the parts precede +the whole (mechanically) or the representation of the whole precedes +the parts (teleologically); but to think the whole itself (not the Idea +thereof) as the ground of the parts, which is demanded by organic life, +is impossible for us. It would have been otherwise if an intuitive +understanding had been bestowed upon us. For a being possessing +intellectual intuition the antithesis between possibility and actuality, +between necessity and contingency, between mechanism and teleology, would +disappear along with that between thought and intuition. For such a being +everything possible (all that it thinks) would be at the same time +actual (present for intuition), and all that appears to us +contingent--intentionally selected from several possibilities and in order +to an end--would be necessary as well; with the whole would be given +the parts corresponding thereto, and consequently natural mechanism +and purposive connection would be identical, while for us, to whom the +intuitive understanding is denied, the two divide. Hence the teleological +view is a mere form of human representation, a subjective principle. We may +not say that a mechanical origin of living beings is impossible, but only +that we are unable to understand it. If we knew how a blade of grass or +a frog sprang from mechanical forces, we would also be in a position to +produce them. + +The antinomy of the teleological judgment--thesis: all production of +material things and their forms must be judged to be possible according to +merely mechanical laws; antithesis: some products of material nature cannot +be judged to be possible according to merely mechanical laws, but to judge +them requires the causality of final causes--is insoluble so long as both +propositions are taken for constitutive principles; but it is soluble when +they are taken as regulative principles or standpoints for judgment. For it +is in no wise contradictory, on the one hand, to continue the search for +mechanical causes as far as this is in any way possible, and, on the other, +clearly to recognize that, at last, this will still leave a remainder which +we cannot make intelligible without calling to our aid the concept of ends. +Assuming that it were possible to carry the explanation of life from life, +from ancestral organisms (for the _generatio aequivoca_ is an absurd +theory) so far that the whole organic world should represent one great +family descended from one primitive form as the common mother, even +then the concept of final causes would only be pushed further back, not +eliminated: the origin of the first organization will always resist +mechanical explanation. Besides this mission of putting limits to causal +derivation and of filling the gap in knowledge by a necessary, although +subjective, way of looking at things, the Idea of ends has still another, +the direct promotion of knowledge from efficient causes through the +discovery of new causal problems. Thus, for example, physiology owes the +impulse to the discovery of previously unnoticed mechanical connections +(cf. also p. 382 note) to the question concerning the purpose of organs. +As doctrines mechanism and teleology are irreconcilable and impossible; +as rules or maxims of inquiry they are compatible, and the one as +indispensable as the other. + +After the problem of life, which is insoluble by means of the mechanical +explanation, has necessitated the application of the concept of ends, the +teleological principle must, at least by way of experiment, be extended to +the whole of nature. This consideration culminates in the position that +man, as the subject of morality, must be held to be the final aim of the +world, for it is only in regard to a moral being that no further inquiry +can be raised as to the purpose of its existence. It also repeats the +moral argument for the existence of a supreme reason, thus supplementing +physico-theology, which is inadequate to the demonstration of one +absolutely perfect Deity; so that the third _Critique_, like the two +preceding, concludes with the Idea of God as an object of practical faith. + + * * * * * + +There are three original and pregnant pairs of thoughts which cause Kant's +name to shine in the philosophical sky as a star of the first magnitude: +the demand for a critique of knowledge and the proof of _a priori_ forms +of knowledge; the moral autonomy and the categorical imperative; the +regulative validity of the Ideas of reason and the practical knowledge of +the transcendent world. No philosophical theory, no scientific hypothesis +can henceforth avoid the duty of examining the value and legitimacy of its +conclusions, as to whether they keep within the limits of the competency of +human reason; whether Kant's determination of the origin and the limits of +knowledge may count on continued favor or not, the fundamental critical +idea, that reflection upon the nature and range of our cognitive faculty is +indispensable, retains its validity for all cases and makes an end of all +philosophizing at random.[1] No ethical system will with impunity pass by +the autonomous legislation of reason and the unconditional imperative (the +admonition of conscience translated into conceptual language): the nature +and worth of moral will will be everywhere sought in vain if they are not +recognized where Kant has found them--in the unselfish disposition, in that +maxim which is fitted to become a general law for all rational beings. +The doctrine of the Ideas, finally, reveals to us, beyond the daylight of +phenomenal knowledge, the starlit landscape of another mode of looking at +things,[2] in which satisfaction is afforded for the hitherto unmet wishes +of the heart and demands of the reason. + +[Footnote 1: "_Reason_ consists just in this, that we are able to give +account of all our concepts, opinions, and assertions, either on objective +or subjective grounds."] + +[Footnote 2: Those who regard all future metaphysics as refuted by the +Critique of Reason are to be referred to the positive side of the Kantian +doctrine of Ideas. Kant admits that the mechanical explanation does not +satisfy reason, and that, besides it, a judgment according to Ideas is +legitimate. When, therefore, the speculation of the constructive school +gives an ideal interpretation of the world, it may be regarded as an +extended application of "regulative principles," which exceeds its +authority only when it professes to be "objective knowledge."] + +The effect of the three _Critiques_ upon the public was very varied. The +first great work excited alarm by the sharpness of its negations and its +destruction of dogmatic metaphysics, which to its earliest readers appeared +to be the core of the matter; Kant was for them the universal destroyer. +Then the Science of Knowledge brought into prominence the positive, +boldly conquering side, the investigation of the conditions of empirical +knowledge. In later times the endeavor has been made to do justice to both +sides, but, in opposition to the overbold procedure of the constructive +thinkers, who had fallen into a revived dogmatism, more in the spirit of +caution and resignation. The second great work aroused glowing enthusiasm: +"Kant is no mundane luminary," writes Jean Paul in regard to the _Critique +of Practical Reason_, "but a whole solar system shining at once." +The third, because of its subject and by its purpose of synthetic +reconciliation between fields heretofore sharply separated, gained the +sympathy of our poet-heroes Schiller and Goethe, and awakened in a young, +speculative spirit Ideas for a Philosophy of Nature. Schelling reclaimed +the intuitive understanding, which Kant had problematically attributed to +the primal spirit, as the property of the philosopher, after Fichte had +drawn attention to the fact that the consciousness of the categorical +imperative, which Kant had not thoroughly investigated, could be nothing +else than intellectual intuition, because in it knowing and doing coincide. +Fichte, however, does not derive the material for his system from the +_Critique of Judgment_, though he also had a high appreciation of it, but +from the two earlier _Critiques_, the fundamental conceptions of which +he--following the hint that practical and theoretical reason are only +different applications of one and the same reason--brings into the closest +connection. He unites the central idea of the practical philosophy, the +freedom and autonomous legislation of the will, with the leading principle +of the theoretical philosophy, the spontaneity of the understanding, under +the original synthesis of the pure ego, in order to deduce from the +activity of the ego not only the _a priori_ forms of knowledge, but also, +rejecting the thing in itself, the whole content of empirical +consciousness. The thought which intervenes between the Kantian Critique +of Reason and the development of thoroughgoing idealism by Fichte, with +its criticisms of and additions to the former and its preparation for the +latter, may be glanced at in a few supplementary pages. + + +%4. From Kant to Fichte.% + +To begin with the works which aided in the extension and recognition of the +Kantian philosophy, besides Kant's _Prolegomena_, the following stand +in the front rank: _Exposition of the Critique of Pure Reason_, by the +Koenigsberg court preacher, Johannes Schulz, 1784; the flowing _Letters +concerning the Kantian Philosophy_, by K.L. Reinhold in Wieland's +_Deutscher Merkur_, 1786-87; and the _Allgemeine Litteraturzeitung_, in +Jena, founded in 1785, and edited by the philologist Schuetz and the jurist +Hufeland, which offered itself as the organ of the new doctrine. Jena +became the home and principal stronghold of Kantianism; while by the +beginning of the nineteenth century almost all German chairs belonged to +it, and the non-philosophical sciences as well received from it stimulation +and guiding ideas. + +In the camp of the enemy there was no less of activity. The Wolffian, +Eberhard of Halle, founded a special journal for the purpose of opposing +the Kantian philosophy: the _Philosophisches Magazin_, 1789, continued from +1792 as the _Philosophisches Archiv_. The Illumination collected its forces +in the _Philosophische Bibliothek_, edited by Feder and Meiners. Nicolai +waved the banner of common sense in the _Allgemeine deutsche Bibliothek_, +and in satirical romances, and was handled as he deserved by the heroes +of poetry and philosophy (cf. the _Xenien_ of Goethe and Schiller, Kant's +_Letter on Bookmaking_, and Fichte's cutting disposal of him, _Nicolai's +Life and Peculiar Opinions_). The attacks of the faith-philosophers have +been already noticed (pp. 310-314). + +The advance from Kant to Fichte was preparing alike among friends and +enemies, and this in two points. The demand was in part for a formal +complement (a first principle from which the Kantian results could be +deduced, and by which the dualism of sense and understanding could be +overcome), in part for material correction (the removal of the thing in +itself) and development (to radical idealism). Karl Leonhard Reinhold (born +at Vienna in 1758; fled from a college of the St. Barnabite order, 1783; +in 1787-94 professor in Jena, and then as the successor of Tetens in Kiel, +where he died in 1823) undertook the former task in his _Attempt at a New +Theory of the Human Faculty of Representation_, 1789. Kant's classical +theory of the faculty of cognition requires for its foundation a theory of +the faculty of representation, or an elementary philosophy, which shall +take for its object the deduction of the several functions of reason +(intuition, concept, Idea) from the original activity of representation. +The Kantian philosophy lacks a first principle, which, as first, cannot be +demonstrable, but only a fact immediately evident and admitted by everyone. +The primal fact, which we seek, is consciousness. No one can dispute that +every representation contains three things: the subject, the object, and, +between the two, the activity of representation. Accordingly the principle +of consciousness runs: "The representation is distinguished in +consciousness from the represented [object] and the representing [subject], +and is referred to both." From this first principle Reinhold endeavors to +deduce the well-known principles of the material manifold given by the +action of objects, and the forms of representation spontaneously produced +by the subject, which combine this manifold into unity. When, a few years +later, Fichte's Science of Knowledge brilliantly succeeded in bridging the +gap between sense and understanding by means of a first principle, thus +accomplishing what Reinhold had attempted, the latter became one of his +adherents, only to attach himself subsequently to Jacobi, and then to +Bardili (_Outlines of Logic_, 1800), and to end with a verbal philosophy +lacking both in influence and permanence. + +In Reinhold's elementary philosophy the thing in itself was changed from a +problematical, negative, merely limiting concept into a positive element of +doctrine. Objections were raised against Kantianism, as thus dogmatically +modified in the direction of realism, by Schulze, Maimon, and Beck--by +the first for purposes of attack, by the second in order to further +development, and by the third with an exegetical purpose. Gottlob Ernst +Schulze, professor in Helmstaedt, and from 1810 in Goettingen, in his +_Aenesidemus_ (1792, published anonymously), which was followed later by +psychological works, defended the skeptical position in opposition to +the Critique of Reason. Hume's skepticism remains unrefuted by Kant +and Reinhold. The thing in itself, which is to produce the material of +representation by affecting the senses, is a self-contradictory idea. The +application of the category of cause to things in themselves violates +the doctrine that the latter are unknowable and that the use of the pure +concepts of the understanding beyond the sphere of experience is +inadmissible. The transcendental philosophy has never proved that the +ground of the material of representation cannot, just as the form thereof, +reside in the subject itself. + +Side by side with the anti-critical skepticism of Aenesidemus-Schulze, +Salomon Maimon (died 1800; cf. Witte, 1876), who was highly esteemed by the +greatest philosophers of his time, represents critical skepticism. With +Reinhold he holds consciousness (as the combination of a manifold into +objective unity) to be the common root of sensibility and understanding, +and with Schulze, the concept of the thing in itself to be an imaginary or +irrational quantity, a thought that cannot be carried out; it is not only +unknowable, but unthinkable. That alone is knowable which we ourselves +produce, hence only the form of representation. The matter of +representation is "given," but this does not mean that it arises from the +action of the thing in itself, but only that we do not know its origin. +Understanding and sense, or spontaneity and receptivity, do not differ +generically, but only in degree, viz., as complete and incomplete +consciousness. Sensation is an incomplete consciousness, because we do not +know how its object arises. + +By the removal of the thing in itself Aenesidemus-Schulze sought to refute +the Kantian theory and Maimon to improve it. Sigismund Beck (1761-1840), in +his _Only Possible Standpoint from which the Critical Philosophy must be +Judged_, 1796,[1] seeks by it to elucidate the Kantian theory, holding up +idealism as its true meaning. In opposition to the usual opinion that a +representation is true when it agrees with its object, he points to the +impossibility of comparing the one with the other. Of objects out of +consciousness we can know nothing; after the removal of all that is +subjective there is nothing positive left of the representation. Everything +in it is produced by us; the matter arises together with the form through +the "original synthesis." + +[Footnote 1: This book forms the third volume of his _Expository Abridgment +of the Critical Writings of Professor Kant_; in the same year appeared the +_Outlines of the Critical Philosophy_. Cf. on Beck, Dilthey in the _Archiv +fuer Geschichte der Philosophie_, vol. ii., 1889, pp. 592-650.] + +The last mentioned attempts to develop the Kantian philosophy were so far +surpassed by Fichte's great achievement that they have received from their +own age and from posterity a less grateful appreciation and remembrance +than was essentially their due. A phenomenon of a different sort, which is +also to be placed at the threshold between Kant and Fichte, but which forms +rather a supplement to the noetics and ethics of the latter than a link in +the transition to them, has, on the contrary, gained an honorable position +in the memory of the German people, viz., Schiller's aesthetics.[1] In +its center stand the Kantian antithesis of sensibility and reason and +the reconciliation of the two sides of human nature brought about by its +occupation with the beautiful. Artistic activity or the play-impulse +mediates between the lower, sensuous matter-impulse and the higher, +rational form-impulse, and unites the, two in harmonious co-operation. +Where appetite seeks after satisfaction, and where the strict idea of duty +rules, there only half the man is occupied; neither lust nor moral worth is +beautiful. In order that beauty and grace may arise, the matter-impulse +and the form-impulse, or sensibility and reason, must manifest themselves +uniformly and in harmony. Only when he "plays" is man wholly and entirely +man; only through art is the development of humanity possible. The +discernment of the fact that the beautiful brings into equilibrium the two +fundamental impulses, one or the other of which preponderates in sensuous +desire and in moral volition, does not of itself decide the relative rank +of artistic and moral activity. The recognition of this mediating position +of art may be connected with the view that it forms a transitional stage +toward and a means of education for morality, as well as with the other, +that in it human nature attains its completion. Evidence of both views can +be found in Schiller's writings. At first he favors the Kantian moralism, +which admits nothing higher than the good will, and sets art the task +of educating men up to morality by ennobling their natural impulses. +Gradually, however, aesthetic activity changes in his view from a +preparation for morality into the ultimate goal of human endeavor. Peaceful +reconciliation is of more worth than the spirit's hardly gained victory +in the conflict with the sensibility; fine feeling is more than rational +volition; the highest ideal is the beautiful soul, in which inclination not +merely obeys the command of duty, but anticipates it. + +[Footnote 1: The most important of Schiller's aesthetic essays are those +_On Grace and Dignity_, 1793; _On Naive and Sentimental Poetry_, 1795-96; +and the _Letters on Aesthetic Education_, intermediate between them. Cf. +Kuno Fischer, _Schiller als Philosoph_, 1858, 2d ed. (_Schillerschriften_, +iii., iv.) 1891-92.] + + + +CHAPTER X. + +FICHTE. + +Fichte is a Kantian in about the same sense that Plato was a Socratic. +Instead of taking up and developing particular critical problems he +makes the vivifying kernel, the soul of criticism, his own. With the +self-activity of reason (as a real force and as a problem) for his +fundamental idea, he outlines with magnificent boldness a new view of the +world, in which the idealism concealed in Kant's philosophy under the +shell of cautious limitations was roused into vigorous life, and the great +Koenigsberger's noble words on the freedom, the position, and the power of +the spirit translated from the language of sober foresight into that of +vigorous enthusiasm. The world can be understood only from the standpoint +of spirit, the spirit only from the will. The ego is pure activity, and all +reality its product. Fichte's system is all life and action: its aim is not +to mediate knowledge, but to summon the hearer and reader to the production +of a new and pregnant fundamental view, in which the will is as much +a participant as the understanding; it begins not with a concept or a +proposition, but with a demand for action (posit thyself; do consciously +what thou hast done unconsciously so often as thou hast called thyself I; +analyze, then, the act of self-consciousness, and cognize in their elements +the forces from which all reality proceeds); its God is not a completed +absolute substance, but a self-realizing world-order. This inner vivacity +of the Fichtean principle, which recalls the pure actuality of Aristotle's +[Greek: nous] and the ceaseless becoming of Heraclitus, finds its complete +parallel in the fact that, although he was wanting neither in logical +consecutiveness nor in the talent for luminous and popular exposition, +Fichte felt continually driven to express his ideas in new forms, and, just +when he seemed to have succeeded in saying what he meant with the greatest +clearness, again unsatisfied, to seek still more exact and evident +renderings for his fundamental position, which proved so difficult to +formulate. + +The author of the _Wissenschaftslehre_ was the son of a poor ribbon maker, +and was born at Rammenau in Lusatia in 1762. The talents of the boy induced +the Freiherr von Miltiz to give him the advantage of a good education. +Fichte attended school in Meissen and in Pforta, and was a student of +theology at the universities of Jena and Leipsic. While a tutor in Zurich +he made the acquaintance of Lavater and Pestalozzi, as well as of his +future wife, Johanna Rahn, a niece of Klopstock. Returning to Leipsic, his +whole mode of thought was revolutionized by the Kantian philosophy, in +which it was his duty to instruct a pupil. This gives to the mind, as his +letters confess, an inconceivable elevation above all earthly things. "I +have adopted a nobler morality, and, instead of occupying myself with +things without me, have been occupied more with myself." "I now believe +with all my heart in human freedom, and am convinced that only on this +supposition duty and virtue of any kind are possible." "I live in a new +world since I have read the _Critique of Practical Reason_. Things which +I believed never could be proved to me, _e.g._, the idea of an absolute +freedom and duty, have been proved, and I feel the happier for it. It is +inconceivable what reverence for humanity, what power this philosophy gives +us, what a blessing it is for an age in which the citadels of morality +had been destroyed, and the idea of duty blotted out from all the +dictionaries!" A journey to Warsaw, whither he had been attracted by the +expectation of securing a position as a private tutor, soon afforded him +the opportunity of visiting at Koenigsberg the author of the system which +had effected so radical a transformation in his convictions. His rapidly +written treatise, _Essay toward a Critique of All Revelation_, attained the +end to which its inception was due by gaining for its author a favorable +reception from the honored master. Kant secured for Fichte a tutor's +position in Dantzic, and a publisher for his maiden work. When this +appeared, at Easter, 1792, the name of its author was by oversight omitted +from the title page, together with the preface, which had been furnished +after the rest of the book; and as the anonymous work was universally +ascribed to Kant (whose religious philosophy was at this time eagerly +looked for), the young writer became famous at a stroke as soon as the +error was explained. A second edition was issued as early as the following +year. + +After his marriage in Zurich, where he had completed several political +treatises (the address, _Reclamation of the Freedom of Thought from the +Princes of Europe, who have hitherto suppressed it, Heliopolis in the Last +Year of the Old Darkness_, and the two _Hefte, Contributions toward the +Correction of the Public Judgment on the French Revolution_, 1793), Fichte +accepted, in 1794, a call to Jena, in place of Reinhold, who had gone to +Kiel, and whose popularity was soon exceeded by his own. The same year saw +the birth of the _Wissenschaftslehre_. His stay in Jena was embittered by +conflicts with the clergy, who took offense at his ethical lectures (_On +the Vocation of the Scholar_) held on Sunday mornings (though not at an +hour which interfered with church service), and with the students, who, +after they had been untrue to their decision--which they had formed as a +result of these lectures--to dissolve their societies or orders, gave vent +to their spite by repeatedly smashing the windows of Fichte's residence. +Accordingly he took leave of absence, and spent the summer of 1795 in +Osmannstaedt. The years 1796-98, in which, besides the two _Introductions to +the Science of Knowledge_, the _Natural Right_ and the _Science of Ethics_ +(one of the most all important works in German philosophical literature) +appeared, mark the culmination of Fichte's famous labors. The so-called +atheistic controversy[1] resulted in Fichte's departure from Jena. The +_Philosophisches Journal_, which since 1797 had been edited by Fichte in +association with Niethammer, had published an article by Magister Forberg, +rector at Saalfeld, entitled "The Development of the Concept of Religion," +and as a conciliating introduction to this a short essay by Fichte, "On the +Ground of our Belief in a Divine Government of the World."[2] For this +it was confiscated by the Dresden government on the charge of containing +atheistical matter, while other courts were summoned to take like action. +In Weimar hopes were entertained of an amicable adjustment of the matter. +But when Fichte, after publishing two vindications[3] couched in vehement +language, had in a private letter uttered the threat that he would answer +with his resignation any censure proceeding from the University Senate, not +only was censure for indiscretion actually imposed, but his (threatened) +resignation accepted. + +[Footnote 1: Cf. Karl August Hase, _Jenaisches Fichtebuechlein_, 1856.] + +[Footnote 2: It is a mistake, Fichte writes here, referring to the +conclusion of Forberg's article ("Is there a God? It is and remains +uncertain," etc.), to say that it is doubtful whether there is a God or +not. That there is a moral order of the world, which assigns to each +rational individual his determined place and counts on his work, is most +certain, nay, it is the ground of all other certitude. The living and +operative moral order _(ordo ordinans)_ is itself God; we need no other +God, and can conceive no other. There is no ground in reason for going +beyond this world order to postulate a particular being as its cause. +Whoever ascribes personality and consciousness to this particular being +makes it finite; consciousness belongs only to the individual, limited ego. +And it is allowable to state this frankly and to beat down the prattle of +the schools, in order that the true religion of joyous well-doing may lift +up its head.] + +[Footnote 3: _Appeal to the Public_, and _Formal Defense against the Charge +of Atheism_, 1799. The first of these maintains that Fichte's standpoint +and that of his opponents are related as duty and advantage, sensible and +suprasensible, and that the substantial God of his accusers, to be derived +from the sensibility, is, as personified fate, as the distributer of all +happiness and unhappiness to finite beings, a miserable fetich.] + +Going to Berlin, Fichte found a friendly government, a numerous public for +his lectures, and a stimulating circle of friends in the romanticists, the +brothers Schlegel, Tieck, Schleiermacher, etc. In the first years of +his Berlin residence there appeared _The Vocation of Man. The Exclusive +Commercial State_, 1800; _The Sun-clear Report to the Larger Public on the +Essential Nature of the New Philosophy_, and the _Answer to Reinhold_, +1801. Three works, which were the outcome of his lectures and were +published in the year 1806 _(Characteristics of the Present Age, The Nature +of the Scholar, Way to the Blessed Life or Doctrine of Religion)_, form a +connected whole. In the summer of 1805 Fichte filled a professorship at +Erlangen, and later, after the outbreak of the war, he occupied for a short +time a chair at Koenigsberg, finding a permanent university position at the +foundation of the University of Berlin in 1810. His glowing _Addresses to +the German Nation_, 1808, which essentially aided in arousing the national +spirit, have caused his name to live as one of the greatest of orators +and most ardent of patriots in circles of the German people where his +philosophical importance cannot be understood. His death in 1814 was also a +result of unselfish labor in the service of the Fatherland. He succumbed to +a nervous fever contracted from his wife, who, with self-sacrifice equal +to his own, had shared in the care of the wounded, and who had brought the +contagion back with her from the hospital. On his monument is inscribed +the beautiful text, "The teachers shall shine as the brightness of the +firmament, and they that turn many to righteousness as the stars that +shine forever and ever." Forberg in his journal records this estimate: The +leading trait in Fichte's character is his absolute integrity. All his +words are weighty and important. His principles are stern and little +modified by affability. The spirit of his philosophy is proud and +courageous, one which does not so much lead as possess us and carry us +along. His philosophemes are inquiries in which we see the truth arise +before our eyes, and which just for this reason lay the foundations of +science and conviction. + +The philosopher's son, Immanuel Hermann Fichte (his own name was Johann +Gottlieb), wrote a biography of his father (1830; 2d ed., 1862), and +supervised the publication of both the _Posthumous Works_ (1834-35, 3 +vols.) and the _Collected Works_ (1845-46, 8 vols.). The simple and +luminous _Facts of Consciousness_ of 1811, or 1817 (not the lecture of 1813 +with the same title), is especially valuable as an introduction to the +system. Among the many redactions of the _Wissenschaftslehre_, the +epoch-making _Foundation of the whole Science of Knowledge_, 1794, with +the two _Introductions to the Science of Knowledge_, 1797, takes the first +rank, while of the practical works the most important are the _Foundation +of Natural Right according to the Principles of the Science of Knowledge_, +1796, and the _System of the Science of Ethics according to the Principles +of the_ _Science of Knowledge_, 1798, and next to these the _Lectures on +the Theory of the State_, 1820 (delivered in 1813).[1] + +[Footnote 1: At the same time as J.H. Loewe's book _Die Philosophie +Fichtes_, 1862, there appeared in celebration of the centenary of Fichte's +birthyear, or birthday, a large number of minor essays and addresses by +Friedrich Harms, A.L. Kym, Trendelenburg, Franz Hoffman, Karl Heyder, F.C. +Lott, Karl Koestlin, J.B. Meyer, and others (cf. Reichlin-Meldegg in vol. +xlii. of the _Zeitschrift fuer Philosophie_). Lasson has written, 1863, on +Fichte's relation to Church and state, Zeller on Fichte as a political +thinker (_Vortraege und Abhandlungen_, 1865), and F. Zimmer on his +philosophy of religion. Among foreign works we may note Adamson's _Fichte_, +1881, and the English translations of several of Fichte's works by Kroeger +[_Science of Knowledge_, 1868; _Science of Rights_, 1869--both also, 1889] +and William Smith [_Popular Writings_, 4th ed., 1889; also Everett's +_Fichte's Science of Knowledge_ (Griggs's Philosophical Classics, 1884), +and several translations in the _Journal of Speculative Philosophy_, +including one of _The Facts of Consciousness_.--TR.]] + + +%1. The Science of Knowledge.% + +%(a) The Problem.%--In Fichte's judgment Kant did not succeed in carrying +through the transformation in thought which it was his aim to effect, +because the age did not understand the spirit of his philosophy. This +spirit, and with it the great service of Kant, consists in _transcendental +idealism_, which by the doctrine that objects conform themselves to +representations, not representations to objects, draws philosophy away from +external objects and leads it back into ourselves. We have followed the +letter, he thinks, instead of the spirit of Kant, and because of a few +passages with a dogmatic ring, whose references to a given matter, the +thing in itself, and the like, were intended only as preliminary, have +overlooked the numberless others in which the contrary is distinctly +maintained. Thus the interpreters of Kant, using their own prejudices as a +criterion, have read into him exactly that which he sought to refute, and +have made the destroyer of all dogmatism himself a dogmatist; thus in the +Kantianism of the Kantians there has sprung up a marvelous combination of +crude dogmatism and uncompromising idealism. Though such an absurd +mingling of entirely heterogeneous elements may be excused in the case of +interpreters and successors, who have had to construct for themselves the +guiding principle of the whole from their study of the critical writings, +yet we cannot assume it in the author of the system, unless we believe the +_Critique of Pure Reason_ the result of the strangest chance, and not the +work of intellect. Two men only, Beck, the teacher of the Standpoint, and +Jacobi, the clearest mind of the century, are to be mentioned with respect +as having risen above the confusion of the time to the perception that Kant +teaches idealism, that, according to him, the object is not given, but +made. + +Besides the perspicuity which would have prevented these misunderstandings, +Fichte misses something further in Kant's work. Considered as a system +Kant's expositions were incomplete; and, on his own confession, his aim +was not to furnish the science itself, but only the foundation and the +materials for it. Therefore, although the Kantian philosophy is established +as far as its inner content is concerned, there is still need of earnest +work to systematize the fragments and results which he gives into a firmly +connected and impregnable whole. The _Wissenschaftslehre_ takes this +completion of idealism for its mission. It cannot solve the problem by a +commentary on the Kantian writings, nor by the correction and addition of +particulars, but only by restoring the whole at a stroke. He alone finds +the truth who new creates it in himself, independently and in his own way. +Thus Fichte's system contains the same view of the matter as the critical +system--the author is aware, runs the preface to the programme, _On the +Concept of the Science of Knowledge_, 1794, "that he never will be able to +say anything at which Kant has not hinted, immediately or mediately, +more or less clearly, before him,"--but in his procedure he is entirely +independent of the Kantian exposition. We shall first raise the question, +What in the Kantian philosophy is in need of completion? and, secondly, +What method must be adopted in completing it? + +Kant discusses the laws of intelligence when they are already applied to +objects, without enlightening us concerning the ground of these laws. He +derived the pure concepts (the laws of substantiality, of causality, etc.) +from (logic, and thus mediately from) experience instead of deducing +them from the nature of intelligence; similarly he never furnished +this deduction for the forms of intuition, space and time. In order to +understand that intelligence, and why intelligence, must act in just this +way (must think just by means of these categories), we must prove, and not +merely, with Kant, assert, that these functions or forms are really laws of +thought--or, what amounts to the same thing, that they are conditions of +self-consciousness. Again, even if it be granted that Kant has explained +the properties and relations of things (that they appear in space and time, +and that their accidents must be referred to substances), the question +still remains unanswered, Whence comes the matter which is taken up into +these forms? So long as the whole object is not made to arise before the +eyes of the thinker, dogmatism is not driven out of its last corner. The +thing in itself is, like the rest, only a thought in the ego. If thus +the antithesis between the form and the matter of cognition undergoes +modification, so, further, the allied distinction between understanding and +sensibility must, as Reinhold accurately recognized, be reduced to a common +principle and receptivity be conceived as self-limiting spontaneity. In +his practical philosophy also Kant left much unfinished. The categorical +imperative is susceptible of further deduction, it is not the principle +itself, but a conclusion from the true principle, from the injunction to +absolute _self-dependence on the part of reason_; moreover, the nature of +our consciousness of the moral law must be more thoroughly discussed, and +in order to gain a real, instead of a merely formal, ethics the relation of +this law to natural impulse. Finally, Kant never discussed the foundation +of philosophy as a whole, but always separated its theoretical from its +practical side, and Reinhold also did nothing to remove this dualism. In +short, some things that Kant only asserted or presupposed can and must be +proved, some that he kept distinct must be united. In what way are both to +be accomplished? + +Since correct inferences from correct premises yield correct results, and +correct inference is easy to secure, everything depends on the correct +point of departure. If we neglect this and consider only the process and +the results of inference, there are two consistent systems: the dogmatic +or realistic course of thought, which seeks to derive representations from +things; and the idealistic, which, conversely, seeks to derive being from +thought. Now, no matter how consistently dogmatism may proceed (and when it +does so it becomes, like the system of Spinoza, materialism and fatalism or +determinism, maintaining that all is nature, and all goes on mechanically; +treats the spirit as a thing among others, and denies its metaphysical and +moral independence, its immateriality and freedom), it may be shown to +be false, because it starts from a false principle. Thought can never be +derived from being, because it is not contained therein; from being only +being can proceed, and never representation. Being, however, can be derived +from thought, for consciousness is also being; nay, it is more than this, +it is conscious being. And as consciousness contains both being and a +knowledge of this being, idealism is superior to realism, because idealism +includes the latter as a moment in itself, and hence can explain it, though +it is not explicable by it. Dogmatism makes the mistake of going beyond +consciousness or the ego, and working with empty, merely formal concepts. A +concept is empty when nothing actual corresponds to it, or no intuition +can be subsumed under it (here it is to be noted that, besides sensuous +intuition, there is an intellectual intuition also; an example is found in +the ego as a self-intuiting being). Philosophy, indeed, may abstract and +must abstract, must rise above that which is given--for how could she +explain life and particular knowledge if she assumed no higher standpoint +than her object?--but true abstraction is nothing other than the separation +of factors which in experience always present themselves together; it +analyzes empirical consciousness in order to reconstruct it from its +elements, it causes empirical consciousness to arise before our eyes, it +is a pragmatic _history of consciousness_. Such abstraction, undertaken in +order to a genetic consideration of the ego, does not go beyond experience, +but penetrates into the depths of experience, is not transcendent, but +transcendental, and, since it remains in close touch with that which is +intuitable, yields a real philosophy in contrast to all merely formal +philosophy. + +These theoretical advantages of idealism are supplemented by momentous +reasons of a practical kind, which determine the choice between the two +systems, besides which none other is possible. The moral law says: Thou +shalt be self-dependent. If I ought to be so I must be able to be so; but +if I were matter I would not be able. Thus idealism proves itself to be the +ethical mode of thought, while the opposite mode shows that those who favor +it have not raised themselves to that independence of all that is external +which is morally enjoined, for in order to be able to know ourselves free +we must have made ourselves free.[1] Thus the philosophy which a man +chooses depends on what sort of a man he is. If, on the other hand, the +categorical imperative calls for belief in the reality of the external +world and of other minds, this is nothing against idealism. For idealism +does not deny the realism of life, but explains it as a necessary, though +not a final, mode of intuition. The dogmatic mode of thought is merely an +explanation from the standpoint of common consciousness, and for idealism, +as the only view which is both scientifically and practically satisfactory, +this explanation itself needs explaining. Realism and idealism, like +natural impulse and moral will in the sphere of action, are both grounded +in reason. But idealism is the true standpoint, because it is able to +comprehend and explain the opposing theory, while the converse is not the +case. + +[Footnote 1: Cf. O. Liebmann (_Ueber den individuellen Beweis fuer die +Freiheit des Willens p, 131. 1866)_ "Here we discover the noteworthy point +where theoretical and practical philosophy actually pass over into each +other. For this principle results: In order to carry out the individual +proof for the freedom of the will, I must do my duty."] + +The nature, the goal, and the methods of the Science of Knowledge have now +been determined. It is genuine, thoroughgoing idealism, which raises the +Kantian philosophy to the rank of an evident science by deducing its +premises from a first principle which is immediately certain, and by +removing the twofold dualism of intuition and thought, of knowledge and +volition, viz., by proving both contraries acts of one and the same ego. +While Reinhold had sought a supreme truth as a fundamental principle of +unity, without which the doctrine of knowledge would lack the systematic +form essential to science, while Beck had interpreted the spirit of the +Kantian philosophy in an idealistic sense, and Jacobi had demanded the +elimination of the thing in itself, all these desires combined are +fulfilled in Fichte's doctrine, and at the same time the results of the +Critique of Reason are given that evidence which Aenesidemus-Schulze had +missed in them. As an answer to the question, "How is knowledge brought +about?" (as well the knowledge of common sense as that given in the +particular sciences), "how is experience possible?", and as a construction +of common consciousness as this manifests itself in life and in the +particular sciences, Fichteanism adopts the name _Science of Knowledge_, +being distinguished from the particular sciences by the fact that they +discuss the voluntary, and it the necessary, representations or actions of +the spirit. (The representation of a triangle or a circle is a free one, it +may be omitted; the representation of space in general is a necessary one, +from which it is impossible for us to abstract.) How does intelligence +come to have sensations, to intuit space and time, and to form just such +categories (thing and property, cause and effect, and not others quite +different)? While Kant correctly described these functions of the intuiting +and thinking spirit, and showed them actual, they must further be proven, +be shown necessary or deduced. Deduced whence? From the "deed-acts" +(_Thathandlungen_) of the ego which lie at the basis of all consciousness, +and the highest of which are formulated in three principles. + +%(b) The Three Principles.%--At the portal of the Science of Knowledge we +are met not by an assertion, but by a summons--a summons to +self-contemplation. Think anything whatever and observe what thou dost, +and of necessity must do, in thinking. Thou wilt discover that thou dost +never think an object without thinking thyself therewith, that it is +absolutely impossible for thee to abstract from thine ego. And second, +consider what thou dost when thou dost think thine "ego." This means +to affirm or posit one's self, to be a subject-object. The nature of +self-consciousness is the identity of the representing [subject] and +the represented [object]. The pure ego is not a fact, but an original +doing, the act of being for self (_Fuersichsein_), and the (philosophical, +or--as seems to be the case according to some passages--even the common) +consciousness of this doing an intellectual intuition; through this we +become conscious of the deed-act which is ever (though unconsciously) +performing. This is the meaning of the first of the principles: "The _ego_ +posits originally and absolutely its own being," or, more briefly: The ego +posits itself; more briefly still: I am. The nature of the ego consists in +positing itself as existing.[1] Since, besides this self-cogitation of +the ego, an op-position is found among the facts of empirical +consciousness (think only of the principle of contradiction), and yet, +besides the ego, there is nothing which could be opposed, we must assume +as a second principle: To the ego there is absolutely opposited +a _non-ego_. These two principles must be united, and this can be +accomplished only by positing the contraries (ego and non-ego), since they +are both in the ego, as reciprocally limiting or partially sublating +one another, that is, each as _divisible_ (capable of quantitative +determination). Accordingly the third principle runs: "The ego opposes in +the ego a divisible non-ego to the divisible ego." From these principles +Fichte deduces the three laws of thought, identity, contradiction, and +sufficient reason, and the three categories of quality--reality, negation, +and limitation or determination. Instead of following him in these labors, +we may emphasize the significance of his view of the ego as pure activity +without an underlying substratum, with which he carries dynamism over from +the Kantian philosophy of nature to metaphysics. We must not conceive the +ego as something which must exist before it can put forth its activities. +Doing is not a property or consequence of being, but being is an accident +and effect of doing. All substantiality is derivative, activity is primal; +_being arises from doing_. The ego is nothing more than self-position; it +exists not only for itself (_fuer sich_), but also through itself (_durch +sich_). + +[Footnote 1: The ego spoken of in the first of the principles, the ego as +the object of intellectual intuition and as the ground and creator of all +being, is, as the second _Introduction to the Science of Knowledge_ clearly +announces, not the individual, but the I-ness _(Ichheit)_ (which is to be +presupposed as the prius of the manifold of representation, and which is +exalted above the opposition of subject and object), mentality in general, +eternal reason, which is common to all and the same in all, which is +present in all thinking and at the basis thereof, and to which particular +persons stand related merely as accidents, as instruments, as special +expressions, destined more and more to lose themselves in the universal +form of reason. But, further still, a distinction must be made between the +absolute ego as intuition (as the form of I-ness), from which the Science +of Knowledge starts, and the ego as Idea (as the supreme goal of practical +endeavor) with which it ends. In neither is the ego conceived as +individual; in the former the I-ness is not yet determined to the point of +individuality, in the latter individuality has disappeared, Fichte is right +when he thinks it remarkable that "a system whose beginning and end and +whole nature is aimed at forgetfulness of individuality in the theoretical +sphere and denial of it in the practical sphere" should be "called egoism." +And yet not only opponents, but even adherents of Fichte, as is shown by +_Friedrich Schlegel's_ philosophy of genius, have, by confusing the pure +and the empirical ego, been guilty of the mistake thus censured. On the +philosophy of the romanticists cf. Erdmann's _History_, vol. ii. Sec.Sec. 314, +315; Zeller, p. 562 _seq_.; and R. Haym, _Die Romantische Schule_, 1870.] + +The actions expressed in the three principles are never found pure in +experience, nor do they represent isolated acts of the ego. Intelligence +can think nothing without thinking itself therewith; it is equally +impossible for it to think "I am" without at the same time thinking +something else which is not itself; subject and object are inseparable. +It is rather true that the acts of position described are one single, +all-inclusive act, which forms only the first member in a connected system +of pre-conscious actions, through which consciousness is produced, and the +complete investigation of whose members constitutes the further business of +the Science of Knowledge as a theory of the nature of reason. In this the +Science of Knowledge employs a method which, by its rhythm of analysis and +synthesis, development and reconciliation of opposites, became the model of +Hegel's dialectic method. The synthesis described in the third principle, +although it balances thesis and antithesis and unites them in itself, still +contains contrary elements, in order to whose combination a new synthesis +must be sought. In this, in turn, the analytic discovery and the synthetic +adjustment of a contrariety is repeated, etc., etc. The original synthesis, +moreover, prescribes a division of the inquiry into two parts, one +theoretical and the other practical. For it contains the following +principles: The ego posits itself as limited by the non-ego--it functions +cognitively; and: The ego posits itself as determining the non-ego--it +functions volitionally and actively. + +%(c) The Theoretical Ego.%--In positing itself as determined by the +non-ego, the ego is at once passive (affected by something other than +itself) and active (it posits its own limitation). This is possible only as +it posits reality in itself only in part, and transfers to the non-ego so +much as it does not posit in itself. Passivity is diminished activity, +negation of the totality of reality. From reflection on this relation +between ego and non-ego spring the categories of reciprocal determination, +of causality (the non-ego as the cause of the passion of the ego), and +substantiality (this passion merely the self-limitation of the ego). +The conflict between the causality of the non-ego (by which the ego is +affected) and the substantiality of the ego (in which and the activity of +which all reality is contained) is resolved only by the assumption of two +activities (or, rather, of two opposite directions of one activity) in the +ego, one of which (centrifugal, expansive) strives infinitely outward while +the other (centripetal or contractile) sets a bound to the former, and +drives the ego back into itself, whereupon another excursus follows, and a +new limitation and return, etc. With every repetition of this double act +of production and reflection a special class of representations arises. +Through the first limitation of the in itself unlimited activity +"sensation" arises (as a product of the "productive imagination"). Because +the ego produces this unconsciously, it appears to be given, brought about +by influence from without. The second stage, "intuition," is reached when +the ego reflects on sensation, when it opposes to itself something foreign +which limits it. Thirdly, by reflection on intuition an "image" of that +which is intuited is constructed, and, as such, distinguished from a real +thing to which the image corresponds; at this point the categories and the +forms of intuition, space and time, appear, which thus arise along with +the object.[1] The fourth stadium is "understanding," which steadies the +fluctuating intuition into a concept, realizes the object, and looks upon +it as the cause of the intuition. Fifthly, "judgment" makes its appearance +as the faculty of free reflection and abstraction, or the power to consider +a definite content or to abstract from it. As judgment is itself the +condition of the bound reflection of the understanding, so it points in +turn to its condition, to the sixth and highest stage of intelligence, +"reason," by means of which we are able to abstract from all objects +whatever, while reason itself, pure self-consciousness, is that from +which abstraction is never possible. It is only in the highest stage that +consciousness or a representation of representation takes place. And at the +culmination of the theoretical ego the point of transition to the practical +ego appears. Here the ego becomes aware that in positing itself as +determined by the non-ego it has only limited itself, and therefore is +itself the ground of the whole content of consciousness; here it apprehends +itself as determining the non-ego or as acting, and recognizes as its chief +mission to impress the form of the ego as far as possible on the non-ego, +and ever to extend the boundary further. + +[Footnote 1: The object is a product of the ego only for the observer, not +for the observed ego itself, to which, from this standpoint of imagination, +it appears rather as a thing in itself independent of the ego and affecting +it. Further, it must so appear, because the ego, in its after reflection +on its productive activity, and just by this reflection, transforms the +productive action considered into a fixed and independent product found +existing.] + +The "deduction of representation" whose outline has just been given was the +first example (often imitated in the school of Schelling and Hegel) of a +_constructive psychology_, which, from the mission or the concept of the +soul--in this case from the nature of self-consciousness--deduces the +various psychical functions as a system of actions, each of which is in +its place implied by the rest, as it in turn presupposes them. This is +distinguished from the sensationalistic psychology, which is also genetic +(cf. pp. 245-250), as well as from the mechanical or associational +psychology, which likewise excludes the idea of an isolated coexistence of +mental faculties, by the fact that it demands a new manifestation of the +soul-ground in order to the ascent from one member of the series to +the next higher. It is also distinguished from sensationalism by its +teleological point of view. For no matter how much Fichte, too, may speak +of the mechanism of consciousness, it is plain to the reader of the +theoretical part of his system not only that he makes this mechanism work +in the service of an end, but also that he finds its origin in purposive +activity of the ego; while the practical part gives further and decisive +confirmation of the fact. The danger and the defect of such a constructive +treatment of psychology--as we may at once remark for all later +attempts--lies in imagining that the task of mental science has been +accomplished and all its problems solved when each particular activity of +the ego has been assigned its mission and work for the whole, and its place +in the system, without any indication of the means through which this +destination can be fulfilled. + +%(d) The Practical Ego.%--The deduction of representation has shown +how (through what unconscious acts of the ego) the different stages of +cognition, the three sensuous and the three intellectual functions of +representation, come into being. It has proved incapable, however, of +giving any account of the way in which the ego comes at one point to arrest +its activity, which tends infinitely outward, and to turn it back upon +itself. We know, indeed, that this first limitation, through which +sensation arises, and on which as a basis the understanding, by continued +reflection constructs the objective world, was necessary in order that +consciousness and knowledge might arise. If the ego did not limit its +infinite activity neither representation nor an objective world +would exist. But why, then, are there such things as consciousness, +representation, and a world? From the standpoint of the theoretical ego +this problem, "Whence the original non-ego or opposition (_Anstoss_), +which impels the ego back upon itself?" cannot be solved, since it is +only through the opposition that it itself arises. The "deduction of the +opposition," which the theoretical part of the Science of Knowledge did +not furnish, is to be looked for from the practical part. The primacy of +practical reason, already emphasized by Kant, gives us the answer: _The +ego_ limits itself and _is theoretical, in order to be practical_. The +whole machinery of representation and the represented world exists only to +furnish us the possibility of fulfilling our duty. We are intelligence in +order that we may be able to be will. + +Action, action--that is the end of our existence. Action is giving form to +matter, it is the alteration or elaboration of an object, the conquest of +an impediment, of a limitation. We cannot act unless we have something +in, on, and against which to act. The world of sensation and intuition is +nothing but a means for attaining our ethical destiny, it is "the material +of our duty under the form of sense." The theoretical ego posits an +object (_Gegenstand_) that the practical ego may experience resistance +(_Widerstand_). No action is possible without a world as the object of +action; no world is possible without a consciousness which represents it; +no consciousness possible without reflection of the ego on itself; no +reflection without limitation, without an opposition or non-ego. The +_Anstoss_ is deduced. The ego posits a limit (is theoretical) in order (as +practical) to overcome it. Our duty is the only _per se (Ansich)_ of +the phenomenal world, the only truly real element in it: "Things are in +themselves that which we ought to make of them." Objectivity exists only to +be more and more sublated, that is, to be so worked up that the activity +of the ego may in it become evident.--The same ground of explanation which +reveals the necessity of an external nature enables us to understand why +the one infinite ego (the universal life or the Deity, as Fichte puts it in +his later works) divides into the many empirical egos or individuals, why +it does not carry out its plan immediately, but through finite spirits as +its organs. Action is possible only under the form of the individual, only +in individuals are consciousness and morality possible. Without resistance, +no action; without conflict, no morality. Individuality, it is true, is to +be overcome and destroyed in moral endeavor; but in order to this it must +have existed. Virtue is a conquest over external _and internal_ nature. + +A gradation of practical functions corresponding to the series of +theoretical activities leads from feeling and striving (longing and +desire) through the system of impulses (the impulse to representation or +reflection, to production, to satisfaction) up to moral will or the impulse +to harmony with self, which stands opposed to the natural impulses as the +categorical imperative. The practical ego mediates between the theoretical +and the absolute ego. The ego ought to be infinite and self-dependent, but +finds itself finite and dependent on a non-ego--a contradiction which is +resolved by the ego becoming practical, by the fact that in ever increasing +measure it subdues nature to itself, and by such increasing extension +of the boundary draws nearer and ever nearer to the realization of its +destination, to become absolute ego. + + +%2. The Science of Ethics and of Right.% + +The moral law demands the control of the sensuous impulse by the pure +impulse. If the former aims at comfortable ease and enjoyment, the +latter is directed toward satisfaction with one's self, to endeavor and +self-dependence. (Enjoyment is inevitable, it is true, as satisfaction +where any impulse whatever is carried out; only it must not form the end +of action.) Morality is activity for its own sake, the radical evil--from +which only a miracle can deliver us, but a miracle which we must ourselves +perform--is inertness, lack of will to rise above the natural +determinateness of the impulse of self-preservation to the clear +consciousness of duty and of freedom. For the moral man there is no +resting; each end attained becomes for him the impulse to renewed endeavor, +each task fulfilled leads him to a fresh one. Become self-dependent, act +autonomously, make thyself free; let every action have a place in a series, +in the continuation of which the ego must become independent. To this +formal and universal norm, again, there is added a special injunction for +each individual. Each individual spirit has its definite mission assigned +to it by the world-order: each ought to do that which it alone should and +can do. Always fulfill thy moral vocation, thy special destination.[1] Or +both in popular combination: Never act contrary to conscience. + +[Footnote 1: Although Fichte was justly charged with surpassing even the +abstractness of the Kantian ethics with his bald moral principle, the +self-dependence of the ego, he deserves praise for having given ethics a +concrete content of indisputable soundness and utility by his introduction +of Jacobi's idea of purified individuality.] + +The elevation to freedom is accomplished gradually. At first freedom +consists only in the consciousness of the natural impulse, then follows +a breaking away from this by means of maxims, which in the beginning +are maxims of individual happiness. Later on a blind enthusiasm for +self-dependence arises and produces an heroic spirit, which would rather be +generous than just, which bestows sympathy more readily than respect; true +morality, however, does not arise until, with constant attention to the law +and continued watchfulness of self, duty is done for its own sake. No man +is for a moment secure of his morality without continued endeavor. In order +to deliverance from the original sin of inertness and its train, cowardice +and falsity, men stand in need of examples, such as have been given them in +the founders of religions, to construe for them the riddle of freedom. The +necessary enlightenment concerning moral conviction is given by the Church, +whose symbols are not to be looked upon as dogmatic propositions, but only +as means for the proclamation of the eternal verities, and which, like the +state (for both are institutions based on necessity), has for its object to +make itself unnecessary as time goes on. + +The system of duties distinguishes four classes of duties on the basis +of the twofold opposition of universal (non-transferable) and particular +(transferable) duties, and of unconditional duties (directed to the whole) +and conditional duties (directed toward self). These four classes are the +duties of self-preservation, of class, of non-interference with others, +and of vocation. The lower calling includes the producers, artisans, and +tradesmen, whose action terminates directly on nature; and the higher, +the scholars, teachers of the people or clergy, artists, and government +officials, who work directly on the community of rational beings. Fichte's +thoughtful and sympathetically written discussion of marriage is in +pleasant contrast to the bald, purely legal view of this relation adopted +by Kant. + +_Natural right_ is for Fichte, as for Kant, whose theory of right, +moreover, appeared later than Fichte's, entirely independent of ethics, +and distinguished from the latter by its exclusive reference to external +conduct instead of to the disposition and the will. The rule of right gains +from the moral law, it is true, new sanction for conscience, but cannot be +derived from the law.--The concept of right is to be deduced as a necessary +act of the ego, _i.e._, to be shown a condition of self-consciousness. The +ego must posit itself as an individual, and can accomplish this only by +positing itself in a relation of right to other finite rational beings; +without a thou, no I. A finite rational being cannot posit itself without +ascribing to itself a free activity in an external sense-world; and it +cannot effect this latter unless (1) it ascribes free activity to other +beings as well, hence not without assuming other finite rational beings +outside itself, and positing itself as standing in _the relation of right_ +to them; and unless (2) it ascribes to itself a material body and posits +this as standing under the influence of a person outside it. But, further, +Fichte considers it possible to deduce the particular constitution both of +the external world and of the human body (as the sphere of all free actions +possible to the person). In the former there must be present a tough, +durable matter capable of resistance, and light and air in order to the +possibility of intercourse between spirits; while the latter must be an +organized, articulated nature-product, furnished with senses, capable of +infinite determination, and adapted to all conceivable motions. + +If a community of free beings, such as has been shown the condition of +individual self-consciousness, is to be possible, the following must hold +as the law of right: So limit thy freedom that others may be free along +with thee. This law is conditioned on the lawful behavior of others. Where +this is lacking, where my fellow does not recognize and treat me as a free, +rational being, the right of coercion comes in; coercion, however, is not +to be exercised by the individual himself--since then there would be no +guaranty either for its successful exercise or for the non-violation of the +legal limit--but devolves upon the state. The state takes its origin in +the common will of all to unite for the safeguarding of their rights, and +determines by positive laws (intermediate between the law of right and +legal judgments) what shall be considered rights. Thus there result three +subjects for natural right: original rights or the sum of that which +pertains to freedom or personality (inviolability of the body and of +property), the right of coercion, and political right. The aim of +punishment is the reform of the evil doer and the deterrence of others. +Fichte is in agreement with Kant concerning the principle of popular +sovereignty (Rousseau) and the exercise of the political power through +representatives; but not so concerning the guaranties against the violation +of the fundamental law of the state. Instead of the division of powers +recommended by Kant he demands supervision of the rulers of the state by +ephors, who, themselves without any legislative or executive authority, +shall suspend the rulers in case they violate the law, and call them to +account before the community. Every constitution in which the rulers +are not responsible is despotic. Fichte did not continue loyal to this +principle, that the state is merely a legal institution. He not only +demands a state organization of labor by which everyone shall be placed in +a position to live from his work, in the _Natural Right_ and the _Exclusive +Commercial State_, but, in his posthumous _Theory of Right_, 1812, he makes +it the chief duty of the state to lead men, by the moral and intellectual +training of the people, to do from insight what they have hitherto done +from traditional belief. Through the education of the people the empirical +state is gradually to transform itself into the rational state. + + +%3. Fichte's Second Period: his View of History and his Theory of +Religion.% + +Fichte's transfer to Berlin brought him into more intimate contact with +the world, and along with new experiences and new emotions gave him new +problems. While a vigorously developing religious sentiment turned his +speculation to the relation of the individual ego to the primal source of +spiritual life, empirical reality also acquired greater significance for +him, and the intellectual, moral, and political situation of the time +especially attracted his attention. The last required philosophical +interpretation, demanded at once inquiry into its historical conditions and +a consideration of the means by which the glaring contradiction between +the condition of the nation at the time and the ideals of reason could be +diminished. The _Addresses to the German Nation_ outlined a plan for a +moral reformation of the world, to start with the education of the German +people;[1] while the _Characteristics of the Present Age_, which had +preceded the _Addresses_, defined the place of the age in the general +development of humanity. The scheme of historical periods given in +the _Characteristics_ and similarly in the _Theory of the State_ +(innocence--sin--supremacy of reason, with intermediate stages between each +two) is interesting as a forerunner of Hegel's undertaking. + +[Footnote 1: "Among all nations you are the one in whom the germ of human +perfection is most decidedly present." The spiritual regeneration of +mankind must proceed from the German people, for they are the one original +or primitive people of the new age, the only one which has preserved its +living language--French is a dead tongue--and has raised itself to true +creative poetry and free science. The ground of distinction between +Germanism and the foreign spirit lies in the question, whether we believe +in an original element in man, in the freedom, infinite perfectibility, and +eternal progress of our race, or put no faith in all these.] + +History is produced through the interaction of the two principles, faith +and understanding, which are related to each other as law and freedom, and +strives toward a condition in which these two shall be so reconciled that +faith shall have entirely passed over into the form of understanding, shall +have been transformed into insight, and understanding shall have taken up +the content of faith into itself. History begins with the coming together +of two original and primitive races, one of order or faith, and one of +freedom or understanding, neither of which would attain to an historical +development apart from the other. From the legal race the free race learns +respect for the law, as in turn it arouses in the former the impulse toward +freedom. The course of history divides into five periods. In the state +of "innocence" or of rational instinct that which is rational is done +unconsciously, out of natural impulse; in the state of "commencing sin" the +instinct for the good changes into an external compulsory authority, +the law of reason appears as a ruling power from without, which can be +disobeyed as well as obeyed. We ourselves live in the period of "completed +sinfulness," of absolute license and indifference to all truth, of +unlimited caprice and selfishness. But however far removed from the moral +ideal this age appears, in which the individual, freed from all restraints, +heeds naught except his egoistic desire, and in his care for his own +welfare forgets to labor for the universal, yet this ultimate goal, this +doing from free insight that which in the beginning was done out of blind +faith, cannot be attained unless authority shall have first been shaken off +and the individual become self-dependent. A few signs already betoken +the dawn of the fourth era, that of rational science or of "commencing +justification," in which truth shall be acknowledged supreme, and the +individual ego, at least as cognitive, shall submit itself to the generic +reason. Finally, with the era of rational art, or the state of "completed +justification and sanctification," wherein the will of the individual shall +entirely merge in life for the race, the end of the life of humanity +on earth--the free determination of all its relations according to +reason--will be fulfilled. + +In the Jena period the religious life of the ego simply coincided for +Fichte with its practical life; piety coincided with moral conduct; the +Deity with the absolute ego, with the moral law, with the moral order of +the world. A change subsequently took place in his views on this point. +He experienced feelings which, at least in quality, were distinct from +readiness for moral action, no matter how intimately they are intertwined +with this, and no matter how little they can actually be separated from +it; _religion_ is possible neither without a metaphysical belief in a +suprasensible world, nor without obedience to the moral law, yet in itself +it is not that belief nor this action, but the inner spirit which pervades +and animates all our thought and action--it is life, love, blessedness. And +as quiet blessedness is here distinguished from ceaseless action, so for +our thinker the inactive Deity, the self-identical life of the absolute, +separates from the active universal reason, which in its individual organs +advances from task to task. The earlier undivided and unique principle, the +absolute ego, divides into the _Ichheit_ (moral law, world-order), and an +absolute as the ground thereof. "The spirit (the ego, or, as Fichte now +prefers to say, knowledge) an image of God, the world an image of the +spirit." The active order of the world (the moral law which realizes +itself in individuals) the immediate, and objective reality the mediate, +revelation of the absolute! + +Does this view of religion, which Fichte incorporates also in the later +expositions of the Science of Knowledge, indicate an abandonment and denial +of the earlier standpoint? The philosophy of Fichte's second period is a +new system--so judge the majority of the historians of philosophy. It is +not a transformation, but a completion of the earlier system; the doctrine +promulgated in Berlin continues to be idealistic, as that advanced in Jena +had itself been pantheistic--this is the opinion of Fortlage and Harms, +in agreement with the philosopher himself and with his son. Kuno Fischer, +also, who shows a constant advance in the development of Fichteanism, a +gradual transition "without a break," may be counted among the minority who +hold that throughout his life Fichte taught but one system. We believe it +our duty to adhere to this latter view. The Science of Knowledge (the world +a product of the ego) enters as it is into the later form of the Fichtean +philosophy; the latter gives up none of the fundamental positions of the +former, but only adds to it a culmination, by which the appearance of +the building is altered, it is true, but not the edifice itself. In the +discussion of the question the following three have been emphasized as +the most important points of distinction between the two periods: In the +earlier system God is made equivalent to the absolute ego and the moral +order of the world, in the later he is separated from these and removed +beyond them; in the former the nature of God is described as activity, +in the latter, as being; in the one, action is designated as the highest +mission of man, in the other, blessed devotion to God. All three variations +of the later doctrine from the earlier may be admitted without giving up +the position that the former is only an extension of the latter and not +an essential modification of it (_i.e._, in its teachings concerning the +relation of the ego and the world). Fichte experienced religious feelings +the philosophical outcome of which he worked into his system. He now knows +a first thing (the Deity as distinct from the absolute ego) and a last +thing (the inwardness of religious devotion to the world-ground), which he +had before not overlooked, much less denied, but combined in one with the +second (the absolute ego or the moral order of the world) and the one +before the last (moral action). It is incorrect to say that, in his later +doctrine, Fichte substituted the inactive absolute in place of the active +absolute ego, and the quiet blessedness of contemplation in place of +ceaseless action. Not in place of these, but beyond them, while all +else remains as it was. The categorical imperative, the absolute ego or +knowledge is no longer God himself, but the first manifestation of God, +though a necessary revelation of him. Religion had previously been included +for Fichte in moral action; now fellowship with God goes beyond this, +though morality remains its indispensable condition and inseparable +companion. Finally, how to construe the previously avoided predicate, +being, in relation to the Deity, is shown by the no less frequent +designation of the absolute as the "Universal Life." The expression being, +which it must be confessed is ambiguous, here signifies in our opinion only +the quiet, self-identical activity of the absolute, in opposition to the +unresting, changeful activity of the world-order and its finite organs, not +that inert and dead being posited by the ego, the ascription of which to +the Deity Fichte had forbidden in his essay which had been charged with +atheism, not to speak of the existence-mode of a particular self-conscious +and personal being. Instead of speaking of a conversion of Fichte to +the position of his opponents, we might rather venture the paradoxical +assertion, that, when he characterizes the absolute as the only true being, +he intends to produce the same view in the mind of the reader as in his +earlier years, when he expressed himself against the application of the +concepts existence, substance, and conscious personality to God, on the +ground that they are categories of sense. The chief thing, at least, +remains unaltered: the opposition to a view of religion which transforms +the sublime and sacred teaching of Christianity "into an enervating +doctrine of happiness." + + + +CHAPTER XI. + +SCHELLING. + +Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph (von) Schelling was born January 27, 1775, at +Leonberg (in Wuertemberg), and died August 20, 1854, at the baths of Ragatz +(in Switzerland). In 1790-95 he attended the seminary at Tuebingen, in +company with Hoelderlin and Hegel, who were five years older than himself; +at seventeen he published a dissertation on the Fall of Man, and a +year later an essay on Religious Myths; and was called in 1798 from +Leipsic--where, after several treatises[1] in explanation of the Science +of Knowledge, he had issued, in 1797, the _Ideas for a Philosophy of +Nature_--to Jena. In the latter place he became acquainted with his future +wife, Caroline,[2] _nee_ Michaelis (1763-1809), widow of Boehmer and at this +time the brilliant wife of August Wilhelm Schlegel. From 1803 to 1806 he +served as professor in Wuerzburg; then followed two residences of fourteen +years each in Munich, separated by seven years in Erlangen: 1806-20 as +Member of the Academy of Sciences and General Secretary of the Academy of +the Plastic Arts (he received this latter position after delivering on the +king's birthday his celebrated address on "The Relation of the Plastic +Arts to Nature," 1807); and 1827-41 as professor in the newly established +university, and President of the Academy of Sciences. In 1812 Schelling +married his second wife, Pauline Gotter. Besides various journals[3] and +the works to be noticed later, two polemic treatises should be mentioned, +the _Exposition of the True Relation of the Philosophy of Nature to the +Improved Doctrine of Fichte_, 1806, in which his former friend is charged +with plagiarism, and the _Memorial of the Treatise on Divine Things by Herr +Jacobi_, 1812, which answers a bitter attack of Jacobi still more bitterly. +From this on our philosopher, once so fond of writing, becomes silent.[4] +The often promised issue of the positive philosophy, which had already been +twice commenced in print (_The Ages of the World_, 1815; _Mythological +Lectures_, 1830), was both times suspended. Being called to the Berlin +Academy by Frederick William IV., in order to counterbalance the prevailing +Hegelianism, Schelling delivered lectures in the university also (on +Mythology and Revelation), which he ceased, however, when notes taken by +his hearers were printed without his consent.[5] His collected works were +published in fourteen volumes (1856-61) under the care of his son, K.E.A. +Schelling.[6] + +[Footnote 1: _On the Possibility of a Form of Philosophy in General_, _On +the Ego as Principle of Philosophy_, both in 1795; _Letters on Dogmatism +and Criticism_, 1796; _Essays in Explanation of the Science of Knowledge_, +1797.] + +[Footnote 2: _Karoline_, Letters, edited by G. Waitz, 1871.] + +[Footnote 3: _Kritisches Journal der Philosophie_ (with Hegel), 1802; +_Zeitschrift fuer spekulative Physik_, 1800 (continued as _Neue Zeitschrift +fuer spekulative Physik_); _Jahrbuecher der Medizin als Wissenschaft_ (with +Marcus), 1806-08; _Allgemeine Zeitschrift von Deutschen fuer Deutsche_, +1813.] + +[Footnote 4: Besides a supplement to _Die Weltalter_ and his inaugural +lecture at Berlin, he published only two prefaces, one to _Viktor Cousin +ueber franzoesische und deutsche Philosophie_, done into German by Hubert +Beckers, 1834, and one to Steffens's _Nachgelassene Schriften_, 1846.] + +[Footnote 5: Paulus, _Die enduech offenbar gewordene positive Philosophie +der Offenbarung_, 1843. Frauenstaedt had previously published a sketch from +this later doctrine, 1842.] + +[Footnote 6: On Schelling cf. the Lectures by K. Rosenkranz, 1843; the +articles by Heyder in vol. xiii. of Herzog's _Realencyclopaedie fuer +protestantische Theologie_, 1860, and Jodl in the _Allgemeine deutsche +Biographie_; R. Haym, _Die romantische Schule_, 1870; _Aus Schellings +Leben, in Briefen_, edited by Plitt, 3 vols., 1869-70. [Cf. also Watson's +_Schelling's Transcendental Idealism_ (Griggs's Philosophical Classics, +1882); and several translations from Schelling in the _Journal of +Speculative Philosophy_.--TR.]] + +The leading motive in Schelling's thinking is an unusually powerful fancy, +which gives to his philosophy a lively, stimulating, and attractive +character, without making it to a like degree logically satisfactory. If +the systems of Fichte and Hegel, which in their content are closely related +to Schelling's, impress us by their logical severity, Schelling chains us +by his lively intuition and his suggestive power of feeling his way into +the inner nature of things. With him analogies outweigh reasons; he is +more concerned about the rich content of concepts than about their sharp +definition; and in the endeavor to show the unity of the universe, both in +the great and in the little, especially to show the unity of nature and +spirit, he dwells longer on the relationship of objects than on their +antitheses, which he is glad to reduce to mere quantitative and temporary +differences. He adds to this an astonishing mobility of thought, in virtue +of which every offered suggestion is at once seized and worked into his own +system, though in this the previous standpoint is unconsciously exchanged +for a somewhat altered one. Schelling's philosophy is, therefore, in a +continual state of flux, nearly every work shows it in a new form, and it +is always ideas from without whose incorporation has caused the transition. +Besides Leibnitz, Kant, and Fichte, who were already familiar to Schelling +as a pupil at Tuebingen, it was first Herder, then Spinoza and Bruno, who +exerted a transforming influence on his system, to be followed later by +Neoplatonism and Boehme's mysticism, and, finally, by Aristotle and +the Gnostics, not to speak of his intercourse with his contemporaries +Kielmeyer, Steffens, Baader, Eschenmayer, and others. Omitting his early +adherence to Fichte, at least three periods must be distinguished +in Schelling's thinking. The first period (1797-1800) includes the +epoch-making feat of his youth, the _philosophy of nature_, and, as an +equally legitimate second part of his system, the philosophy of spirit or +_transcendental philosophy_. The latter is a supplementary recasting of +Fichte's Science of Knowledge, while in the former Schelling follows Kant +and Herder. The second period, from 1801, adds to these two co-ordinate +parts, the philosophy of nature and the philosophy of spirit, and as a +fundamental discipline, a science of the absolute, the _philosophy of +identity_, which may be characterized as Spinozism revived on a Fichtean +basis. Besides the example of Spinoza, Giordano Bruno had most influence on +this form of Schelling's philosophy. With the year 1809, after the signs of +a new phase had become perceptible from 1804 on, his system enters on its +third, the theosophical, period, the period of the _positive philosophy_, +in which we shall distinguish a mystical and a scholastic stage. The former +is represented by the doctrine of freedom inspired by Jacob Boehme; the +latter, by the philosophy of mythology and revelation, which goes back to +Aristotle and the Gnostics. In the first period the absolute for Schelling +is creative nature; in the second, the identity of opposites; in the third +it is an antemundane process which advances from the not-yet-present of +the contraries to their overcoming. In neither of these advances is it +Schelling's intention to break with his previous teachings, but in each +case only to add a supplement. That which has hitherto been the whole is +retained as a part. The philosophy of nature takes its place beside the +completed Fichtean transcendental philosophy, with equal rights, though +with a reversed procedure; then the theory of identity assumes a place +above both; finally, a positive (existential) philosophy is added to the +previous negative (rational) philosophy. + + +%1a. Philosophy of Nature.% + +Schelling agrees with Fichte that philosophy is transcendental science, +the doctrine of the conditions of consciousness, and has to answer the +question, What must take place in order that knowledge may arise? They +agree, further, that these conditions of knowledge are necessary acts, +outgoings of an active original ground which is not yet conscious self, but +seeks to become such, and that the material world is the product of these +actions. Nature exists in order that the ego may develop. But while Fichte +correctly understood the purpose of nature, to help intelligence into +being, he failed to recognize the dignity of nature, for he deprived it of +all self-dependence, all life of its own, all generative power, and treated +it merely as a dead tool, as a passive, merely posited non-ego. Nature +is not a board which the original ego nails up before itself in order, +striking against it, to be driven back upon itself, to be compelled to +reflection, and thereby to become theoretical ego; in order, further, +working over the non-ego, and transforming it, to exercise its practical +activity: but it is a ladder on which spirit rises to itself. Spirit +develops out of nature; nature itself has a spiritual element in it; it +is undeveloped, slumbering, unconscious, benumbed intelligence. By +transferring to nature the power of self-position or of being subject, +Schelling exalts the drudge of the Science of Knowledge to the throne. +The threefold division, "infinite original activity--nature or +object--individual ego or subject," remains as in Fichte, only that the +first member is not termed pure ego, but nature, yet creative nature, +_natura naturans_. Schelling's aim is to show how from the object a subject +arises, from the existent something represented, from the representable a +representer, from nature an ego. He could only hope to solve this problem +if he conceived natural objects--in the highest of which, man, he makes +conscious spirit break forth or nature intuit itself--as themselves the +products of an original subject, of a creative ground striving toward +consciousness. For him also doing is more original than being. It would not +be exact, therefore, to define the difference between Fichte and Schelling +by saying that, with the former, nature proceeds from the ego, and with the +latter the ego, from nature. It is rather true that with them both nature +and spirit are alike the products of a third and higher term, which seeks +to become spirit, and can accomplish this only by positing nature. In the +Science of Knowledge, it is true, this higher ground is conceived as an +ethical, in the Philosophy of Nature as a physical, power, although one +framed for intelligence; in the former, moreover, the _natura naturata_ +appears as the position once for all of a non-spiritual, in the latter as +a progressive articulated construction, with gradually increasing +intelligence. In the unconscious products of nature, nature's aim to +reflect upon itself, to become intelligence, fails, in man it succeeds. +Nature is the embryonic life of spirit. Nature and spirit are essentially +identical: "That which is posited _out of_ consciousness is in its essence +the same as that which is posited _in_ consciousness also." Therefore +"the knowable must itself bear the impress of the knower." Nature the +preliminary stage, not the antithesis, of spirit; history, a continuation +of physical becoming; the parallelism between the ideal and the real +development-series--these are ideas from Herder which Schelling introduces +into the transcendental philosophy. The Kantio-Fichtean moralism, with +its sharp contraposition of nature and spirit, is limited in the +_Naturphilosophie_ by Herder's physicism. + +"Nature _is a priori_" (everything individual in it is pre-determined by +the whole, by the Idea of a nature in general); hence the forms of nature +can be deduced from the concept of nature. The philosopher creates nature +anew, he constructs it. Speculative physics considers nature as _subject_, +becoming, productivity (not, like empirical science, as object, being, +product), and for this purpose it needs, instead of individualizing +reflection, an intuition directed to the whole. To this productive nature, +as to the absolute ego of Fichte, are ascribed two opposite activities, +one expansive or repulsive, and one attractive, and on these is based the +universal law of _polarity_. The absolute productivity strives toward an +infinite product, which it never attains, because apart from arrest no +product exists. At definite points a check must be given it in order that +something knowable may arise. Thus every product in nature is the result +of a positive, centrifugal, accelerating, universalizing force, and a +negative, limiting, retarding, individualizing one. The endlessness of the +creative activity manifests itself in various ways: in the striving for +development on the part of every product, in the preservation of the genus +amid the disappearance of individuals, in the endlessness of the series of +products. Nature's creative impulse is inexhaustible, it transcends every +product. Qualities are points of arrest in the one universal force of +nature; all nature is a connected development. Because of the opposition in +the nature-ground between the stimulating and the retarding activity, the +law of duality everywhere rules. To these two forces, however, still a +third factor must be added as their copula, which determines the relation +or measure of their connection. This is the source of the threefold +division of the Philosophy of Nature. The magnet with its union of opposite +polar forces is the type of all configuration in nature. + +With Fichte's synthetic method and Herder's naturalistic principles +Schelling combines Kantian ideas, especially Kant's dynamism (matter is +a force-product),[1] and his view of the organic (organisms are +self-productive beings, and are regarded by us as ends in themselves, +because of the interaction between their members and the whole). The three +organic functions sensibility, irritability, and reproduction, on the other +hand, Schelling took from Kielmeyer, whose address _On the Relations of +the Organic Forces_, 1793, excited great attention. The concept of life is +dominant in Schelling's theory of nature. The organic is more original than +the inorganic; the latter must be explained from the former; that which is +dead must be considered as a product of departing life. No less erroneous +than the theory of a magic vital force is the mechanical interpretation, +which looks on life merely as a chemical phenomenon. The dead, mechanical +and chemical, forces are merely the negative conditions of life; to them +there must be added as a positive force a vital stimulus external to the +individual, which continually rekindles the conflict between the opposing +activities on which the vital process depends. Life consists, that is, in +the perpetual prevention of the equilibrium which is the object of the +chemical process. This constant disturbance proceeds from "universal +nature," which, as the common principle of organic and inorganic nature, as +that which determines them for each other, which founds a pre-established +harmony between them, deserves the name of the world-soul. Schelling +thus recognizes a threefold nature: organized, inorganic, and universal +organizing (according to Harms, cosmical) nature, of which the two former +arise from the third and are brought by it into connection and harmony. (As +Schelling here takes an independent middle course between the mechanical +explanation of life and the assumption of a specific vital force, so in +all the burning physical questions of the time he seeks to rise above the +contending parties by means of mediating solutions. Thus, in the question +of "single or double electricity," he ranges himself neither on the side of +Franklin nor on that of his opponents; in regard to the problem of light, +endeavors to overcome the antithesis between Newton's emanation theory and +the undulation theory of Euler; and, in his chapter on combustion, attacks +the defenders of phlogiston as well as those who deny it). + +[Footnote 1: Schelling terms his philosophy of nature dynamic atomism, +since it posits pure intensities as the simple (atoms), from which +qualities are to be explained.] + +Schelling's philosophy of nature[1] proposes to itself three chief +problems: the construction of general, indeterminate, homogeneous +matter, with differences in density alone, of determinate, qualitatively +differentiated matter and its phenomena of motion or the dynamical process, +and of the organic process. For each of these departments of nature an +original force in universal nature is assumed--gravity, light, and their +copula, universal life. Gravity--this does not mean that which as the force +of attraction falls within the view of sensation, for it is the union of +attraction and repulsion--is the principle of corporeality, and produces +in the visible world the different conditions of aggregation in solids, +fluids, and gases. Light--this, too, is not to be confounded with actual +light, of which it is the cause--is the principle of the soul (from it +proceeds all intelligence, it is a spiritual potency, the "first subject" +in nature), and produces in the visible world the dynamical processes +magnetism, electricity, and chemism. The higher unity of gravity and +light is the copula or life, the principle of the organic, of animated +corporeality or the processes of growth and reproduction, irritability, +and sensibility. + +[Footnote 1: This is contained in the following treatises: _Ideas for a +Philosophy of Nature, 1797; On the World-soul, 1798; First Sketch of a +System of the Philosophy of Nature, 1799; Universal Deduction of the +Dynamical Process or the Categories of Physics_ (in the _Zeitschrift fuer +spekulative Physik_) 1800. In the above exposition, however, the modified +philosophy of nature of the second period has also been taken into +account.] + +General _matter_ or the filling of space, arises from the co-operation of +three forces: the centrifugal, which manifests itself as repulsion (first +dimension), the centripetal, manifested as attraction (second dimension), +and the synthesis of the two, manifested as gravity (third dimension). +These forces are raised by light to a higher potency, and then make their +appearance as the causes of the _dynamical_ process or of the specific +differences of matter. The linear function of magnetism is the condition +of coherence; the surface force of electricity, the basis of the qualities +perceivable by sense; the tri-dimensional force of the chemical process, in +which the two former are united, produces the chemical qualities. Galvanism +forms the transition to living nature, in which through the operation of +the "copula" these three dynamical categories are raised to _organic_ +categories. To magnetism as the most general, and hence the lowest force, +corresponds reproduction (the formative impulse, as nutrition, growth, and +production, including the artistic impulse); electricity develops into +irritability or excitability; the higher analogue to the chemical process +as the most individual and highest stage is sensibility or the capacity +of feeling. (Such at least is Schelling's doctrine after Steffens had +convinced him of the higher dignity of that which is individual, whereas +at first he had made sensibility parallel with magnetism, and reproduction +with chemism, because the former two appear most seldom, and the latter +most frequently. Electricity and irritability always maintained their +intermediate position.) With the awakening of feeling nature has attained +its goal--intelligence. As inorganic substances are distinguished only by +relative degrees of repulsion and attraction, so the differentiation of +organisms is conditioned by the relation of the three vital functions: in +the lower forms reproduction predominates, then irritability gradually +increases, while in the highest forms both of these are subordinated to +sensibility. All species, however, are connected by a common life, all the +stages are but arrests of the same fundamental force. This accentuation +of the unity of nature, which establishes a certain kinship between +Schelling's philosophy of nature and Darwinism, was a great idea, which +deserves the thanks of posterity in spite of such defects as its often +sportive, often heedlessly bold reasoning in details. + +The parallelism of the potencies of nature, as we have developed it by +leaving out of account the numerous differences between the various +expositions of the _Naturphilosophie_, may be shown by a table: + + + +I. UNIVERSAL NATURE. II. INORGANIC NATURE III. ORGANIC NATURE. + (ORGANIZING) + 3. Copula 3. Organization + or Life. | + ___^___ /Chemical \ G | /Sensi- Man. + / \ |Process (3d| a | |bility. __^__ + 2. Light 2._Dynamical_|Dimen- | l | | / \ + (Soul). _Process_. < sion) | v | |Irritabi- Male + +b. At- \ (Determi- |Electri- | a |_|lity. (=Light) +traction.| nate |city (2d Di->n |Animal. + >1. Gra- matter.) | mension.) | i | + | vity 1. Indeter- |Magnetism | s |Repro- Female +a. Re- | (Body) minate |(1st Di- | m |duction (-Gravity) +pulsion / _matter_. \ mension.) / \ Plant. + + +%1b. Transcendental Philosophy.% + +The philosophy of nature explained the products of nature teleologically, +deduced them from the concept or the mission of nature, by ignoring the +mechanical origin of physical phenomena and inquiring into the significance +of each stage in nature in view of this ideal meaning of the whole. It asks +what is the outcome of the chemical process for the whole of nature, what +is given by electricity, by magnetism, etc.--what part of the general aim +of nature is attained, is realized through this or that group of phenomena. +The philosophy of spirit given in the _System of Transcendental Idealism_, +1800, finds itself confronted by corresponding questions concerning the +phenomena of intelligence, of morals, and of art. Here again Schelling does +not trace out the mechanics of the soul-life, but is interested only in the +meaning, in the teleological significance of the psychical functions. +His aim is a constructive psychology in the Fichtean sense, a history of +consciousness, and the execution of his design as well closely follows the +example of the _Wissenschaftslehre_. + +Since truth is the agreement of thought and its object, every cognition +necessarily implies the coming together of a subjective and an objective +factor. The problem of this coming together may be treated in two ways. +With the philosophy of nature we may start from the object and observe how +intelligence is added to nature. The transcendental philosophy takes the +opposite course, it takes its position with the subject, and asks, How +is there added to intelligence an object corresponding to it? The +transcendental philosopher has need of intellectual intuition in order to +recognize the original object-positing actions of the ego, which remain +concealed from common consciousness, sunk in the outcome of these acts. The +_theoretical_ part of the system explains the representation of objective +reality (the feeling connected with certain representations that we are +compelled to have them), from pure self-consciousness, whose opposing +moments, a real and an ideal force, limit each other by degrees,--and +follows the development of spirit in three periods ("epochs"). The first +of these extends from sensation, in which the ego finds itself limited, to +productive intuition, in which a thing in itself is posited over against +the ego and the phenomenon between the two; the second, from this point to +reflection (feeling of self, outer and inner intuition together with space +and time, the categories of relation as the original categories); the +third, finally, through judgment, wherein intuition and concept are +separated as well as united, up to the absolute act of will. Willing is +the continuation and completion of intuition;[1] intuition was unconscious +production, willing is conscious production. It is only through action that +the world becomes objective for us, only through interaction with other +active intelligences that the ego attains to the consciousness of a real +external world, and to the consciousness of its freedom. The _practical_ +part follows the will from impulse (the feeling of contradiction between +the ideal and the object) through the division into moral law and resistant +natural impulse up to arbitrary will. Observations on legal order, on the +state, and on history are added as "supplements." The law of right, by +which unlawful action is directed against itself, is not a moral, but a +natural order, which operates with blind necessity. The state, like law, is +a product of the genus, and not of individuals. The ideal of a cosmopolitan +legal condition is the goal of _history_, in which caprice and conformity +to law are one, in so far as the conscious free action of individuals +subserves an unconscious end prescribed by the world-spirit. History is the +never completed revelation of the absolute (of the unity of the conscious +and the unconscious) through human freedom. We are co-authors in the +historical world-drama, and invent our own parts. Not until the third (the +religious) period, in which he reveals himself as "providence," will God +_be_; in the past (the tragical) period, in which the divine power was felt +as "fate," and in the present (the mechanical) period, in which he appears +as the "plan of nature," God is not, but is only _becoming_. + +[Footnote 1: With this transformation of the antithesis between knowledge +and volition into a mere difference in degree, Schelling sinks back to the +standpoint of Leibnitz. In all the idealistic thinkers who start from Kant +we find the endeavor to overcome the Critical dualism of understanding and +will, as also that between intellect and sensibility. Schiller brings the +contrary impulses of the ego into ultimate harmonious union in artistic +activity. Fichte traces them back to a common ground; Schelling combines +both these methods by extolling art as a restoration of the original +identity. Hegel reduces volition to thought, Schopenhauer makes intellect +proceed from will.] + +An interesting supplement to the Fichtean philosophy is furnished by the +third, the _aesthetic_, part of the transcendental idealism, which makes +use of Kant's theory of the beautiful in a way similar to that in which the +philosophy of nature had availed itself of his theory of the organic. +Art is the higher third in which the opposition between theoretical and +practical action, the antithesis of subject and object, is removed; in +which cognition and action, conscious and unconscious activity, freedom and +necessity, the impulse of genius and reflective deliberation are united. +The beautiful, as the manifestation of the infinite in the finite, shows +the problem of philosophy, the identity of the real and the ideal, solved +in sensuous appearance. Art is the true organon and warrant of philosophy; +she opens up to philosophy the holy of holies, is for philosophy the +supreme thing, the revelation of all mysteries. Poesy and philosophy (the +aesthetic intuition of the artist and the intellectual intuition of +the thinker) are most intimately related; they were united in the old +mythology--why should not this repeat itself in the future? + + +%2. System of Identity.% + +The assertion which had already been made in the first period that "nature +and spirit are fundamentally the same," is intensified in the second into +the proposition, "The ground of nature and spirit, the absolute, is the +identity of the real and the ideal," and in this form is elevated into +a principle. As the absolute is no longer employed as a mere ground of +explanation, but is itself made the object of philosophy, the doctrine of +identity is added to the two co-ordinate disciplines, the philosophy of +nature and the philosophy of spirit, as a higher third, which serves as a +basis for them, and in Schelling's exposition of which several phases must +be distinguished.[1] + + +[Footnote 1: The philosophy of identity is given in the following +treatises: _Exposition of my System of Philosophy, 1801; Further +Expositions of the System of Philosophy, 1802; Bruno, or on the Divine and +Natural Principle of Things, 1803; Lectures on the Method of Academical +Study, 1803; Aphorisms by way of Introduction to the Philosophy of Nature, +Aphorisms on the Philosophy of Nature_ (both in the _Jahrbuecher fuer +Medizin), 1806_. Besides these the following also bear on this doctrine: +the additions to the second edition of the _Ideas_, 1803, and the +_Exposition_, against Fichte, 1806.] + +Following Spinoza, whom he at first imitated even in the geometrical method +of proof, Schelling teaches that there are two kinds of knowledge, the +philosophical knowledge of the reason and the confused knowledge of +the imagination, and, as objects of these, two forms of existence, the +infinite, undivided existence of the absolute, and the finite existence of +individual things, split up into multiplicity and becoming. The manifold +and self-developing things of the phenomenal world owe their existence +to isolating thought alone; they possess as such no true reality, and +speculation proves them void. While things appear particular to inadequate +representation, the philosopher views them _sub specie aeterni_, in their +_per se_, in their totality, in the identity, as Ideas. To construe things +is to present them as they are in God. But in God all things are one; +in the absolute all is absolute, eternal, infinitude itself. (Accord-to +Hegel's parody, the absolute is the night, in which all cows are black.) + +The world-ground appears as nature and spirit; yet in itself it is neither +the one nor the other, but the unity of both which is raised above all +contrariety, the indifference of objective and subjective. Although amid +the finitude of the things of the world the self-identity of the absolute +breaks up into a plurality of self-developing individual existences, yet +even in the phenomenal world of individuals the unity of the ground is not +entirely lost: each particular existence is a definite expression of the +absolute, and to it as such the character of identity belongs, though in +a diminished degree and mingled with difference (Bruno's "monads"). The +world-ground is absolute, the individual thing is relative, identity and +totality; nothing exists which is merely objective or merely subjective; +everything is both, only that one or other of these two factors always +predominates. This Schelling terms quantitative difference: the phenomena +of nature, like the phenomena of spirit, are a unity of the real and the +ideal, only that in the former there is a preponderance of the real, in the +latter a preponderance of the ideal. + +At first Schelling, in Neoplatonic fashion, maintained the existence of +another intermediate region between the spheres of the infinite and the +finite: absolute knowing or the self-knowledge of the identity. In this, +as the "form" of the absolute, the objective and the subjective are not +absolutely one, as they are in the being or "essence" of the absolute, but +ideally (potentially) opposed, though one _realiter_. Later he does away +with this distinction also, as existing for reflection alone, not for +rational intuition, and outbids his earlier determinations concerning the +simplicity of the absolute with the principle, that it is not only the +unity of opposites, but also the unity of the unity and the opposition or +the identity of the identity, in which fanciful description the dialogue +_Bruno_ pours itself forth. A further alteration is brought in by +characterizing the absolute as the identity of the finite and the infinite, +and by equating the finite with the real or being, the infinite with the +ideal or knowing. With this there is joined a philosophical interpretation +of the Trinity akin to Lessing's. In the absolute or eternal the finite +and the infinite are alike absolute. God the Father is the eternal, or the +unity of the finite and the infinite; the Son is the finite in God (before +the falling away); the Spirit is the infinite or the return of the finite +into the eternal. + +In the construction of the real series Schelling proceeds still more +schematically and analogically than in the _Naturphilosophie_ of the first +period, the contents of which are here essentially reproduced. With this is +closely connected his endeavor, in correspondence with the principles of +the theory of identity, to show in every phenomenon the operation of +all three moments of the absolute. In each natural product all three +"potencies" or stages, gravity A(^1), light A(^2), and organization A(^3), +are present, only in subordination to one of their number. Since the third +potency is never lacking, all is organic; that which appears to us as +inorganic matter is only the residuum left over from organization, +that which could become neither plant nor animal. New here is the +cohesion-series of Steffens (the phenomenon of magnetism), in which +nitrogen forms the south pole, carbon the north pole, and iron the point of +indifference, while oxygen, hydrogen, and water represent the east pole, +west pole, and indifference point in electrical polarity. In the organic +world plants represent the carbon pole, animals the nitrogen pole; the +former is the north pole, the latter the south. Moreover, the points of +indifference reappear: the plant corresponds to water, the animal to iron. +Schelling was far outdone in fantastic analogies of this kind by his +pupils, especially by Oken, who in his _Sketch of the Philosophy of +Nature_, 1805, compares the sense of hearing, for example, to the parabola, +to a metal, to a bone, to the bird, to the mouse, and to the horse. As +nature was the imaging of the infinite (unity or essence) into the finite +(plurality or form), so spirit is the taking up of the finite into the +infinite. In the spiritual realm also all three divine original potencies +are every, where active, though in such a way that one is dominant. In +intuition (sensation, consciousness, intuition, each in turn thrice +divided) the infinite and the eternal are subordinated to the finite; in +thought or understanding (concept, judgment, inference, each in three +kinds) the finite and the eternal are subordinated to the infinite; in +reason (which comprehends all under the form of the absolute) the finite +and the infinite are subordinated to the eternal. Intuition is finite +cognition, thought infinite cognition, reason eternal cognition. The forms +of the understanding do not suffice for the knowledge of reason; common +logic with its law of contradiction has no binding authority for +speculation, which starts with the equalization of opposites. In the +_Aphorisms by way of Introduction_ science, religion, and art figure as +stages of the ideal all, in correspondence with the potencies of the real +all--matter, motion, and organization. Nature culminates in man, history +in the state. Reason, philosophy, is the re-establishment of identity, the +return of the absolute to itself. + +Unconditioned knowledge, as Schelling maintains in his encyclopedia, +_i.e._, his _Lectures on the Method of Academical Study_, is the +presupposition of all particular knowledge. The function of universities is +to maintain intact the connection between particular knowledge and absolute +knowledge. The three higher faculties correspond to the three potencies in +the absolute: Natural Science and Medicine to the real or finite; History +and Law to the ideal or infinite; Theology to the eternal or the copula. +There is further a faculty of arts, the so-called Philosophical Faculty, +which imparts whatever in philosophy is teachable. The two lectures on +theology (viii. and ix.) are especially important. There are two forms of +religion, one of which discovers God in nature, while the other finds him +in history; the former culminates in the Greek religion, the latter in the +Christian, and with the founding of this the third period of history (which +Schelling had previously postponed into the future), the period of +providence begins. In Christianity mythology is based on religion, not +religion on mythology, as was the case in heathenism. The speculative +kernel of Christianity is the incarnation of God, already taught by the +Indian sages; this, however, is not to be understood as a single event in +time, but as eternal. It has been a hindrance to the development of +Christianity that the Bible, whose value is far below that of the sacred +books of India, has been more highly prized than that which the patristic +thinking succeeded in making out of its meager contents. + +If, finally, we compare Schelling's system of identity with its model, the +system of Spinoza, two essential differences become apparent. Although both +thinkers start from a principiant equal valuation of the two phenomenal +manifestations of the absolute, nature and spirit, Spinoza tends to posit +thought in dependence on extension (the soul represents what the body is), +while in Schelling, conversely, the Fichtean preference of spirit is still +potent (the state and art stand nearer to the absolute identity +than the organism, although, principiantly considered, the greatest +possible approximation to the equilibrium of the real and the ideal is as +much attained in the one as in the other). The second difference lies in +the fact that the idea of development is entirely lacking in Spinoza, while +in Schelling it is everywhere dominant. It reminds one of Lessing and +Herder, who also attempted to combine Spinozistic and Leibnitzian elements. + + + +%3a. Doctrine of Freedom.% + +The system of identity had, with Spinoza, distinguished two worlds, the +real world of absolute identity and the imagined world of differentiated +and changeable individual things; it had traced back the latter to the +former as its ground, but had not deduced it from the former. Whence, then, +the imagination which, instead of the unchangeable unity, shows us the +changing manifold? Whence the imperfections of the finite, whence evil? +The pantheism of Spinoza is inseparably connected with determinism, which +denies evil without explaining it. Evil and finitude demand explanation, +not denial, and this without the abandonment of pantheism. But explanation +by what? By the absolute, for besides the absolute there is naught. How, +then, must the pantheistic doctrine of the absolute be transformed in order +that the fact of evil and the separate existence of the finite may become +comprehensible? To this task are devoted the _Inquiries into the Nature of +Human Freedom (Philosophical Works_, vol. i., 1809, with which should be +compared the _Memorial of Jacobi_, 1812, and the _Answer to Eschenmayer_, +1813). + +As early as in the _Bruno_, the problem occasionally emerges why matters do +not rest with the original infinite unity of the absolute, why the finite +breaks away from the identical primal ground. The possibility of the +separation, it is answered, lies in the fact that the finite is like the +infinite _realiter_, and yet, ideally, is different from it; the actuality +of the coming forth, however, lies in the non-deducible self-will of +the finite. Then after Eschenmayer[1] _(Philosophy in its Transition to +Not-philosophy_, 1803) had characterized the procession of the Ideas out of +the Godhead as an impenetrable mystery for thought, before which philosophy +must yield to faith, Schelling, in the essay _Religion and Philosophy_, +1804, goes more deeply into the problem. The origin of the sense-world is +conceivable only as a breaking away, a spring, a _falling away_, +which consists in the soul's grasping itself in its selfhood, in its +subordination of the infinite in itself to the finite, and in its thus +ceasing to be in God. The procession of the world from the infinite is a +free act, a fact which can only be described, not deduced as necessary. The +counterpart of this attainment of independence on the part of things or +creation is history as the return of the world to its source. They are +related to each other as the fall to redemption. Both the dismission of the +world and its reception back, together with the intervening development, +are, however, events needed by God himself in order to become actual God: +He develops through the world. (A similar thought was not unknown in the +Middle Ages: if God is to give a complete revelation of himself he must +make known his grace; and this presupposes sin. As the occasion of divine +grace, the fall is a happy, saving fault; without it God could not have +revealed himself as gracious, as forgiving, hence not completely.) +Schelling's study of Jacob Boehme, to which he was led by Baader, +essentially contributed to the concentration of his thought on this point. +_The Exposition of the True Relation_, etc., already distinctly betrays the +influence of this mystic. In correspondence with Boehme's doctrine that God +is living God only through his inclusion of negation in himself, it is here +maintained: A being can manifest itself only when it is not merely one, but +has another, an opposition (the many), in itself, whereby it is revealed to +itself as unity. With the addition of certain Kantian ideas, in particular +the idea of transcendental freedom and the intelligible character, +Schelling's theosophy now assumes the following form: + +The only way to guard against the determinism and the lifeless God of +Spinoza is to assume something in God which is not God himself, to +distinguish between God as existent and that which is merely the ground of +his existence or "nature in God." In God also the perfect proceeds from the +imperfect, he too develops and realizes himself. The actual, perfect God, +who is intelligence, wisdom, goodness, is preceded by something which is +merely the possibility of all this, an obscure, unconscious impulse toward +self-representation. For in the last analysis there is no being but +willing; to willing alone belong the predicates of the primal being, +groundlessness, eternity, independence of time, self-affirmation. This +"ground of existence" is an obscure "longing" to give birth to self, an +unconscious impulse to become conscious; the goal of this longing is the +"understanding," the Logos, the Word, wherein God becomes revealed to self. +By the self-subordination of this longing to the understanding as its +matter and instrument, God becomes actual God, becomes spirit and love. The +operation of the light understanding on the dark nature-will consists in a +separation of forces, whence the visible world proceeds. Whatever in the +latter is perfect, rational, harmonious, and purposive is the work of the +understanding; the irrational remainder, on the other hand, conflict and +lawlessness, abortion, sickness and death, originates in the dark ground. +Each thing has two principles in it: its self-will it receives from nature +in God, yet, at the same time, as coming from the divine understanding, +it is the instrument of the universal will. In God the light and dark +principles stand in indissoluble unity, in man they are separable. The +freedom of man's will makes him independent of both principles; going over +from truth to falsehood, he may strive to make his selfhood supreme and +to reduce the spiritual in him to the level of a means, or--with divine +assistance--continuing in the center, he may endeavor to subordinate +the particular will to the will of love. Good consists in overcoming +resistance, for in every case a thing can be revealed only through its +opposite. If man yields to temptation it is his own guilty choice. Evil is +not merely defect, privation, but something positive, selfhood breaking +away, the reversal of the rightful order between the particular and the +universal will. The possibility of a separation of the two wills lies in +the divine ground (it is "permitted" in order that by overmastering the +self-will the will of love may approve itself), the actuality of evil is +the free act of the creature. Freedom is to be conceived, in the Kantian +sense, as equally far removed from chance or caprice and from compulsion: +Man chooses his own non-temporal, intelligible nature; he predestinates +himself in the first creation, _i.e._, from eternity, and is responsible +for his actions in the sense-world, which are the necessary results of that +free primal act. + +[Footnote 1: K. Ad. Eschenmayer was originally a physician, then, 1811-36, +professor of philosophy in Tuebingen, and died in 1852 at Kirchheim unter +Teck.] + +As in nature and in the individual, so also in the history of mankind, the +two original grounds of things do battle with one another. The golden age +of innocence, of happy indecision and unconsciousness concerning sin, when +neither good nor evil yet was, was followed by a period of the omnipotence +of nature, in which the dark ground of existence ruled alone, although +it did not make itself felt as actual evil until, in Christianity, the +spiritual light was born in personal form. The subsequent conflict of good +against evil, in which God reveals himself as spirit, leads toward a state +wherein evil will be reduced to the position of a potency and everything +subordinated to spirit, and thus the complete identity of the ground of +existence and the existing God be brought about. + +Besides this after-reconciliation of the two divine moments, Schelling +recognizes another, original unity of the two. The not yet unfolded unity +of the beginning (God as Alpha) he terms _indifference_ or groundlessness; +the more valuable unity of the end, attained by unfolding (God as Omega) +is called _identity_ or spirit. In the former the contraries are not yet +present; in the latter they are present no longer. The groundless divides +into two equally eternal beginnings, nature and light, or longing and +understanding, in order that the two may become one in love, and thereby +the absolute develop into the personal God. In this way Schelling endeavors +to overcome the antithesis between naturalism and theism, between dualism +and pantheism, and to remove the difficulties which arise for pantheism +from the fact of evil, as well as from the concepts of personality and of +freedom. + +In the two moments of the absolute (nature in God--personal spirit) we +recognize at once the antithesis of the real and ideal which was given +in the philosophy of identity. The chief difference between the mystical +period and the preceding one consists in the fact that the absolute itself +is now made to develop (from indifference to identity, from the neither-nor +to the as-well-as of the antithesis), and that there is conceded to the +sense-world a reality which is more than apparent, more than merely present +for imagination. That which facilitated this rapid, almost unceasing change +of position for Schelling, and which at the same time concealed the fact +from him, was, above all, the ambiguous and variable meaning of his leading +concepts. The "objective," for example, now signifies unconscious being, +becoming, and production, now represented reality, now the real, in so far +as it is not represented, but only _is_. "God" sometimes means the whole +absolute, sometimes only the infinite, spiritual moment in the absolute. +Scarcely a single term is sharply defined, much less consistently used in a +single meaning. + + +%3b. Philosophy of Mythology and Revelation.% + +Once again Schelling is ready with a new statement of the problem. +Philosophy is the science of the existent. In this, however, a distinction +is to be made between the _what (quid sit)_ and the _that (quod sit)_, or +between essence and existence. The apprehension of the essence, of the +concept, is the work of reason, but this does not go as far as actual +being. Rational philosophy cognizes only the universal, the possible, +the necessary truths (whose contradictory is unthinkable), but not the +particular and factual. This philosophy can only assert: If anything exists +it must conform to these laws; existence is not given with the _what_. +Hegel has ignored this distinction between the logical and the actual, has +confused the rational and the real. Even the system of identity was merely +rational, _i.e., negative_, philosophy, to which there must be added, as a +second part, a positive or existential philosophy, which does not, like the +former, rise to the highest principle, to God, but starts from this supreme +Idea and shows its actuality. + +The content of this phase of Schelling's thought[1] was so unfruitful, and +its influence so small, that brief hints concerning it must here suffice. +First of all, the doctrine of the divine potencies and of creation is +repeated in altered form, and then there is given a philosophy of the +history of religion as a reflection of the theogonic process in human +consciousness. + +[Footnote 1: On Schelling's negative and positive philosophy, published in +the four volumes of the second division of the _Works_, cf. Karl Groos, +_Die reine Vernunftwissenschaft, systematische Darstellung von Schellings +negativer Philosophie_, 1889; Konstantin Frantz, _Schellings positive +Philosophie_, in three parts, 1879-80; Ed. von Hartmann, _Gesammelte +Studien und Aufsaetze_, 1876, p. 650 _seq_.; Ad. Planck, _Schellings +nachgelassene Werke_, 1858; also the essay by Heyder, referred to above]. + +The potencies are now called the infinite ability to be (inactive will, +subject), pure being (being without potentiality, object), and spirit, +which is free from the one-sidednesses of mere potentiality and of +mere being, and master of itself (subject-object); to these is added, +further--not as a fourth, but as that which has the three predicates and +is wholly in each--the absolute proper, as the cause and support of these +attributes. The original unity of the three forms is dissolved, as the +first raises itself out of the condition of a mere potency and withdraws +itself from pure being in order to exist for itself; the tension extends +itself to the two others--the second now comes out from its selflessness, +subdues the first, and so leads the third back to unity. In creation +the three potencies stand related as the unlimited Can-be, the limiting +Must-be, and the Ought-to-be, or operate as material, formal, and final +causes, all held in undivided combination by the soul. It was not until the +end of creation that they became personalities. Man, in whom the potencies +come to rest, can divide their unity again; his fall calls forth a new +tension, and thereby the world becomes a world outside of God. History, the +process o progressive reconciliation between the God-estranged world and +God, passes through two periods--heathenism, in which the second person +works as a natural potency, and Christianity, in which it works with +freedom. In the discussion of these positive philosophy becomes a +_philosophy of mythology and revelation_. The irresistible force of +mythological ideas is explained by the fact that the gods are not creations +of the fancy, but real powers, namely, these potencies, which form the +substance of human conciousness. + +The history of religion has for its starting-point the relative monotheism +of humanity in its original unity, and for its goal the absolute monotheism +of Christianity. With the separation into nations polytheism arises. This +is partly simultaneous polytheism (a plurality of gods under a chief god), +partly successive polytheism (an actual plurality of divinities, changing +dynasties of several chief gods), and develops from star worship or Sabeism +up to the religion of the Greeks. The Greek mysteries form the transition +from mythology to revelation. While in the mythological process one or +other of the divine potencies (Ground, Son, Spirit) was always predominant, +in Christianity they return into unity. The true monotheism of revelation +shows God as an articulated unity, in which the opposites are contained, +as being overcome. The person of Christ constitutes the content of +Christianity, who, in his incarnation and sacrificial death, yields up the +independence out of God which had come to him through the fall of man. +The three periods in the development of the Church (real, substantial +unity--ideality or freedom--the reconciliation of the two) were +foreshadowed in the chief apostles: Peter, with his leaning toward the +past, represents the Papal Church; Paul the thinker the Protestant Church; +and the gentle John the Church of the future. + + + +CHAPTER XII. + +SCHELLING'S CO-WORKERS. + +In his period of vigorous creation Schelling was the center of an animated +philosophical activity. Each phase of his philosophy found a circle of +enthusiastic fellow-laborers, whom we must hesitate to term disciples +because of their independence and of their reaction on Schelling himself. +Only G.M. Klein (1776-1820, professor in Wuerzburg), Stutzmann (died 1816 +in Erlangen; _Philosophy of the Universe_, 1806; _Philosophy of History_, +1808), and the historians of philosophy Ast and Rixner can be called +disciples of Schelling. Prominent among his co-workers in the philosophy +of nature were Steffens, Oken, Schubert, and Carus; besides these the +physiologist Burdach, the pathologist Kieser, the plant physiologist Nees +von Esenbeck, and the medical thinker Schelver (_Philosophy of Medicine_, +1809) deserve mention. Besides Hegel, J.J. Wagner and Friedrich Krause +distinguished themselves as independent founders of systems of identity; +Troxler, Suabedissen, and Berger are also to be assigned to this group. +Baader and Schleiermacher were competitors of Schelling in the philosophy +of religion, and Solger in aesthetics. Finally Fr. J. Stahl (died 1861; +_Philosophy of Right_, 1830 _seq_..), was also influenced by Schelling. +There is a wide divergence in Schelling's school, as J.E. Erdmann +accurately remarks, between the naturalistic pantheist Oken and the +mystical theosophist Baader, in whom elements which had been united in +Schelling appear divided. + + +%1. The Philosophers of Nature.% + +Henrik Steffens[1] (a Norwegian, 1773-1845; professor in Halle, Breslau, +and Berlin) makes individual development the goal of nature--which is first +completely attained in man and in his peculiarity or talent--and holds that +the catastrophes of the spirit are reflected in the history of the earth. +Lorenz Oken[2] (1779-1851; professor in Jena 1807-27, then in Munich and +Zurich) identifies God and the universe, which comes to self-consciousness +in man, the most perfect animal; teaches the development of organisms from +an original slime (a mass of organic elements, infusoria, or cells); and +looks on the animal kingdom as man anatomized, in that the animal world +contains in isolated development that which man possesses collected in +minute organs--the worm is the feeling animal, the insect the light animal, +the snail the touch animal, the bird the hearing animal, the fish the +smelling animal, the amphibian the taste animal, the mammal the animal of +all senses. + +[Footnote 1: Steffens, _Contributions to the Inner Natural History of the +Earth_, 1801; _Caricatures of the Holiest_, 1819-21; _Anthropology_, 1822.] + +[Footnote 2: Oken: _On the Significance of the Bones of the Skull_, 1807; +_Text-book of the Philosophy of Nature_, 1809-11, 2d ed. 1831, 3d ed. 1843; +the journal _Isis_, from 1817. On Oken cf. C. Guettler, 1885.] + +While in Steffens geological interests predominate, and in Oken biological +interests, Schubert, Carus, and Ennemoser are the psychologists of the +school. Gotthilf Heinrich Schubert[1] (1780-1860; professor in Erlangen and +Munich) brings the human soul into intimate relation with the world-soul, +whose phantasy gives form to all that is corporeal, and delights to dwell +on the abnormal and mysterious phenomena of the inner life, the border-land +between the physical and the psychical, on the unconscious and the +half-conscious, on presentiments and clairvoyance, as from another +direction also Schelling's philosophy was brought into perilous connection +with somnambulism. A second predominantly contemplative thinker was Karl +Gustav Carus[2] (1789-1869; at his death in Dresden physician to the king; +_Lectures on Psychology_, 1831; _Psyche_, 1846; _Physis_, 1851), greatly +distinguished for his services to comparative anatomy. Carus endows the +cell with unconscious psychical life,--a memory for the past shows itself +in the inheritance of dispositions and talents, just as the formation of +milk in the breasts of the pregnant and the formation of lungs in the +embryo betray a prevision of the future,--and points out that with the +higher development of organic and spiritual life the antitheses constantly +become more articulate: individual differences are greater among men than +among women, among adults than among children, among Europeans than among +negroes. + +[Footnote 1: G.H. Schubert: _Views of the Dark Side of Natural Science_, +1808; _The Primeval World and the Fixed Stars_, 1822; _History of the +Soul_, 1830 (in briefer form, _Text-book of the Science of Man and of the +Soul_, 1838).] + +[Footnote 2: Not to be confused with Friedrich August Carus (1770-1807; +professor in Leipsic), whose _History of Psychology_, 1808, forms the third +part of his posthumous works.] + + +%2. The Philosophers of Identity.% + +It has been said of the Dane Johann Erich von Berger (1772-1833; from +1814 professor in Kiel; _Universal Outlines of Science_, 1817-27) that +he adopted a middle course between Fichte and Schelling. The same may be +asserted of Karl Ferdinand Solger (1780-1819; at his death professor in +Berlin; _Erwin, Four Dialogues on Beauty and Art_, 1815; _Lectures on +Aesthetics_, edited by Heyse, 1829), who points out the womb of the +beautiful in the fancy, and introduces into aesthetics the concept of +irony, that spirit of sadness at the vanity of the finite, though this is +needed by the Idea in order to its manifestation. + +In Johann Jacob Wagner[1] (1775-1841; professor in Wuerzburg) and in J.P.V. +Troxler[2] (1780-1866) we find, as in Steffens, a fourfold division instead +of Schelling's triads. Both Wagner and Troxler find an exact correspondence +between the laws of the universe and those of the human mind. Wagner +(in conformity to the categories essence and form, opposition and +reconciliation) makes all becoming and cognition advance from unity to +quadruplicity, and finds the four stages of knowledge in representation, +perception, judgment, and Idea. Troxler shares with Fries the +anthropological standpoint, (philosophy is anthropology, knowledge of the +world is self-knowledge), and distinguishes, besides the emotional nature +or the unity of human nature, four constituents thereof, spirit, +higher soul, lower soul (body, _Leib_), and body _(Koerper)_, and four +corresponding kinds of knowledge, in reverse order, sensuous perception, +experience, reason, and spiritual intuition, of which the middle two are +mediate or reflective in character, while the first and last are intuitive. +For D. Th. A. Suabedissen also (1773-1835; professor in Marburg; +_Examination of Man_, 1815-18) philosophy is the science of man, and +self-knowledge its starting point. + +[Footnote 1: J.J. Wagner: _Ideal Philosophy_, 1804; _Mathematical +Philosophy_, 1811; _Organon of Human Knowledge_, 1830, in three parts, +System of the World, of Knowledge, and of Language. On Wagner cf. L. Rabus, +1862.] + +[Footnote 2: Troxler: _Glances into the Nature of Man_, 1812; +_Metaphysics_, 1828; _Logic_, 1830.] + +The relatively limited reputation enjoyed in his own time and to-day by +Friedrich Krause[1] (born in Eisenberg 1781; habilitated in Jena 1802; +lived privately in Dresden; became a _Privatdocent_ in Goettingen from 1824; +and died at Munich 1832; _Prototype of Humanity_, 1812, and numerous other +works) has been due, on the one hand, to the appearance of his more gifted +contemporary Hegel, and, on the other, to his peculiar terminology. He not +only Germanized all foreign words in a spirit of exaggerated purism, but +also coined new verbal roots, _(Mael, Ant, Or, Om)_ and from these formed +the most extraordinary combinations (_Vereinselbganzweseninnesein, +Oromlebselbstschauen_). His most important pupil, Ahrens (professor in +Leipsic, died 1874; _Course of Philosophy_, 1836-38; _Natural Right_, +1852), helped Krause's doctrine to gain recognition in France and Belgium +by his fine translations into French; while it was introduced into Spain by +J.S. del Rio of Madrid (died 1869).--Since the finite is a negative, the +infinite a positive concept, and hence the knowledge of the infinite +primal, the principle of philosophy is the absolute, and philosophy itself +knowledge of God or the theory of essence. The Subjective Analytic Course +leads from the self-viewing of the ego up to the vision of God; the +Synthetic Course starts from the fundamental Idea, God, and deduces from +this the partial Ideas, or presents the world as the revelation of God. For +his attempted reconciliation of theism and pantheism Krause invented the +name panentheism, meaning thereby that God neither is the world nor stands +outside the world, but has the world in himself and extends beyond it. He +is absolute identity, nature and reason are relative identity, viz., the +identity of the real and ideal, the former with the character of reality, +the latter with the character of ideality. Or, the absolute considered from +the side of its wholeness (infinity) is nature, considered from the side of +its selfhood (unconditionality) is reason; God is the common root of both. +Above nature and reason is humanity, which combines in itself the highest +products of both, the most perfect animal body and self-consciousness. The +humanity of earth, the humanity known to us, is but a very small portion of +the humanity of the universe, which in the multitude of its members, which +cannot be increased, constitutes the divine state. Krause's most important +work is his philosophy of right and of history, with its marks of a highly +keyed idealism. He treats human right as an effluence of divine right; +besides the state or legal union, he recognizes many other +associations--the science and the art union, the religious society, the +league of virtue or ethical union. His philosophy of history +(_General Theory of Life_, edited by Von Leonhardi, 1843) follows the +Fichteo-Hegelian rhythm, unity, division, and reunion, and correlates the +several ages with these. The first stage is germinal life; the second, +youth; the third, maturity. The culmination is followed by a +reverse movement from counter-maturity, through counter-youth, to +counter-childhood, whereupon the development recommences--without +cessation. It is to be regretted that this noble-minded man joined to his +warm-hearted disposition, broad outlook, and rigorous method a heated +fancy, which, crippling the operation of these advantageous qualities, +led his thought quite too far away from reality. Ahrens, Von Leonhardi, +Lindemann, and Roeder may be mentioned as followers of Krause. + +[Footnote 1: On Krause cf. P. Hohlfeld, _Die Krausesche Philosophic_, 1879; +B. Martin, 1881; R. Eucken, _Zur Erinnerung an Krause, Festrede_, 1881. +From his posthumous works Hohlfeld and Wuensche have published the _Lectures +on Aesthetics_, the _System of Aesthetics_ (both 1882), and numerous other +treatises.] + + +%3. The Philosophers of Religion.% + +Franz (von) Baader, the son of a physician, was born in Munich in 1765, +resided there as superintendent of mines, and, from 1826, as professor +of speculative dogmatics, and died there also in 1841. His works, which +consisted only of a series of brief treatises, were collected (16 vols., +1851-60) by his most important adherent, Franz Hoffman[1] (at his death in +1881 professor in Wuerzburg). Baader may be characterized as a mediaeval +thinker who has worked through the critical philosophy, and who, a +believing, yet liberal Catholic, endeavors to solve with the instruments +of modern speculation the old Scholastic problem of the reconciliation of +faith and knowledge. His themes are, on the one hand, the development +of God, and, on the other, the fall and redemption, which mean for him, +however, not merely inner phenomena, but world-events. He is in sympathy +with the Neoplatonists, with Augustine, with Thomas Aquinas, with Eckhart, +with Paracelsus, above all, with Jacob Boehme, and Boehme's follower Louis +Claude St. Martin (1743-1804), but does not overlook the value of the +modern German philosophy. With Kant he begins the inquiry with the problem +of knowledge; with Fichte he finds in self-consciousness the essence, +and not merely a property, of spirit; with Hegel he looks on God or +the absolute spirit not only as the object, but also as the subject +of knowledge. He rejects, however, the autonomy of the will and the +spontaneity of thought; and though he criticises the Cartesian separation +between the thought of the creator and that of the creature, he as little +approves the pantheistic identification of the two--human cognition +participates in the divine, without constituting a part of it. + +[Footnote 1: Besides Hoffman, Lutterbeck and Hamberger have described and +expounded Baader's system. See also Baumann's paper in the _Philosophische +Monatshefte_, vol. xiv., 1878, p. 321 _seq_.] + +In accordance with its three principal objects, "God, Nature, and Man," +philosophy divides into fundamental science (logic or the theory of +knowledge and theology), the philosophy of nature (cosmology or the +theory of creation and physics), and the philosophy of spirit (ethics and +sociology). In all its parts it must receive religious treatment. Without +God we cannot know God. In our cognition of God he is at once knower +and known; our being and all being is a being known by him; our +self-consciousness is a consciousness of being known by God: _cogitor, ergo +cogito et sum_; my being and thinking are based on my being thought by +God. Conscience is a joint knowing with God's knowing (_conscientia_). +The relation between the known and the knower is threefold. Cognition is +incomplete and lacks the free co-operation of the knower when God merely +pervades (_durchwohnt_) the creature, as is the case with the devil's +timorous and reluctant knowledge of God. A higher stage is reached when the +known is present to the knower and dwells with him (_beiwohnt_). Cognition +becomes really free and perfect when God dwells in (_inwohnt_) the +creature, in which case the finite reason yields itself freely and in +admiration to the divine reason, lets the latter speak in itself, and +feels its rule, not as foreign, but as its own. (Baader maintains a like +threefoldness in the practical sphere: the creature is either the object +or, rather, the passive recipient, or the organ, or the representative of +the divine action, i.e., in the first case, God alone works; in the second, +he co-operates with the creature; in the third, the creature works with the +forces and in the name of God. Joyful obedience, conscious of its grounds, +is the highest freedom). Knowing and loving, thought and volition, +knowledge and faith, philosophy and dogma are as little to be abstractly +divided as thing and self, being and thought, object and subject. True +freedom and genuine speculation are neither blind traditional belief nor +doubting, God-estranged thinking, but the free recognition of authority, +and self-attained conviction of the truth of the Church doctrine. + +Baader distinguishes a twofold creation of the world and a double process +of development (an esoteric and an exoteric revelation) of God himself. +The creation of the ideal world, as a free act of love, is a non-deducible +fact; the theogonic process, on the contrary, is a necessary event by which +God becomes a unity returning from division to itself, and so a living God. +The eternal self-generation of God is a twofold birth: in the immanent +or logical process the unsearchable will (Father) gives birth to the +comprehensible will (Son) to unite with it as Spirit; the place of this +self-revelation is wisdom or the Idea. In the emanent or real process, +since desire or nature is added to the Idea and is overcome by it, these +three moments become actual persons. In the creation of the--at first +immaterial--world, in which God unites, not with his essence, but with +his image only, the same two powers, desire and wisdom, operate as the +principles of matter and form. The materialization of the world is a +consequence of the fall. Evil consists in the elevation of selfhood, which +springs from desire, into self-seeking. Lucifer fell because of pride, and +man, yielding to Lucifer's temptation, from baseness, by falling in love +with nature beneath him. By the creation of matter God has out of pity +preserved the world, which was corrupted by the fall, from the descent into +hell, and at the same time has given man occasion for moral endeavor. +The appearance of Christ, the personification of the moral law, is the +beginning of reconciliation, which man appropriates through the sacrament. +Nature participates in the redemption, as in the corruption. + +Friedrich Daniel Ernst Schleiermacher was born in 1768 at Breslau, and died +in 1834 in Berlin, where he had become preacher at Trinity church in 1809, +professor of theology in 1810, member of the philosophical section of the +Academy in 1811, and its secretary in 1814. Reared in the Moravian schools +at Niesky and Barby, he studied at Halle; and, between 1794 and 1804, was a +preacher in Landsberg on the Warthe, in Berlin (at the Charite Hospital), +and in Stolpe, then professor in Halle. He first attracted attention by the +often republished _Discourses on Religion addressed to the Educated among +those who despise it_, 1799 (critical edition by Puenjer, 1879), which was +followed in the succeeding year by the _Monologues_, and the anonymous +_Confidential Letters on Lucinde (Lucinde_ was the work of his friend Fr. +Schlegel). Besides several collections of sermons, mention must further +be made of his _Outlines of a Critique of Previous Ethics_, 1803; _The +Celebration of Christmas_, 1806; and his chief theological work, _The +Christian Faith_, 1822, new edition 1830. In the third (the philosophical) +division of his _Collected Works_ (1835-64) the second and third volumes +contain the essays on the history of philosophy, on ethical, and on +academic subjects; vols. vi. to ix., the Lectures on Psychology, Esthetics, +the Theory of the State, and Education, edited by George, Lommatsch, +Brandis, and Platz; and the first part of vol. iv., the _History of +Philosophy_ (to Spinoza), edited by Ritter. The _Monologues_ and _The +Celebration of Christmas_ have appeared in _Reclam's Bibliothek_. + +Schleiermacher's philosophy is a rendezvous for the most diverse systems. +Side by side with ideas from Kant, Fichte, and Schelling we meet Platonic, +Spinozistic, and Leibnitzian elements; even Jacobi and the Romanticists +have contributed their mite. Schleiermacher is an eclectic, but one who, +amid the fusion of the most diverse ideas, knows how to make his own +individuality felt. In spite of manifold echoes of the philosophemes of +earlier and of contemporary thinkers, his system is not a conglomeration +of unrelated lines of thought, but resembles a plant, which in its own way +works over and assimilates the nutritive elements taken up from the +soil. Schleiermacher is attractive rather than impressive; he is less a +discoverer than a critic and systematizer. His fine critical sense works in +the service of a positive aim, subserves a harmonizing tendency; he +takes no pleasure in breaking to pieces, but in adjusting, limiting, and +combining. There is no one of the given views which entirely satisfies him, +none which simply repels him; each contains elements which seem to him +worthy of transformation and adoption. When he finds himself confronted by +a sharp conflict of opinion, he seeks by careful mediation to construct +a whole out of the two "half truths," though this, it is true, does not +always give a result more satisfactory than the partial views which he +wishes to reconcile. A single example may be given of this conciliatory +tendency: space, time, and the categories are not only subjective forms of +knowledge, but at the same time objective forms of reality. "Not only" +is the watchword of his philosophy, which became the prototype of the +numberless "ideal realisms" with which Germany was flooded after Hegel's +death. If the skeptical and eclectic movements, which constantly make their +appearance together, are elsewhere divided among different thinkers, they +here come together in one mind in the form of a mediating criticism, which, +although it argues logically, is yet in the end always guided by the +invisible cords of a _feeling_ of justice in matters scientific. In its +weaker portions Schleiermacher's philosophy is marked by lack of grasp, +pettiness, and sportiveness. It lacks courage and force, and the rare +delicacy of the thought is not entirely able to compensate for this defect. +In its fear of one-sidedness it takes refuge in the arms of an often +faint-hearted policy of reconciliation. + +We shall not discuss the specifically theological achievements of this +many-sided man, nor his great services in behalf of the philological +knowledge of the history of philosophy--through his translation of Plato, +1804-28, and a series of valuable essays on Greek thinkers--but shall +confine our attention to the leading principles of his theory of knowledge, +of religion, and of ethics. + +The _Dialectic_[1] (edited by Jonas, 1839), treats in a transcendental part +and a technical or formal part of the concept and the forms of knowledge. +_Knowledge_ is thought. What distinguishes that thought which we call +knowledge from that other thought which does not deserve this honorable +title, from mere opinion? Two criteria: its agreement with the thought of +other thinkers (its universality and necessity), and its agreement with +the being which is thought in it. That thought alone is knowledge which is +represented as necessarily valid for all who are capable of thought, and +as corresponding to a being or reproducing it. These two agreements (among +thinkers, and of thought with the being which is thought) are the criteria +of knowledge--let us turn now to its factors. These are essentially the +two brought forward by Kant, sensibility and understanding; Schleiermacher +calls them the organic function and the intellectual function. The organic +activity of the senses furnishes us, in sensations, the unordered, manifold +material of knowledge, which is formed and unified by the activity of +reason. If we except two concepts which limit our knowledge, chaos and +God--absolute formlessness or chaos is an idea just as incapable of +realization as absolute unity or deity--every actual cognition is a product +of both factors, of the sensuous organization and of reason. But these two +do not play equal parts in every cognitive act. When the organic function +is predominant we have perception; when the intellectual function +predominates we have thought in the strict sense. A perfect balance of the +two would be intuition, which, however, constitutes the goal of knowledge, +never fully to be realized. These two kinds of knowledge, therefore, are +not specifically, but only relatively, different: in all perception reason +is also active, and in all thought sensibility, only to a less degree than +the opposite function. Moreover, perception and thought, or sensibility and +reason, are by no means to relate to different objects. They have the same +object, only that the organic activity represents it as an indefinite, +chaotic manifold, while the activity of reason (whose work consists +in discrimination and combination), represents it as a well-ordered +multiplicity and unity. It is the same being which is represented by +perception in the form of an "image," and by thought in the form of a +"concept." In the former case we have the world as chaos; in the latter, we +have it as cosmos. Inasmuch as the two factors in knowledge represent the +same object in relatively different ways, it may be said of them that they +are opposed to each other, and yet identical. The same is true of the two +modes of being which Schleiermacher posits as real and ideal over against +the two factors in thought. The real is that which corresponds to the +organic function, the ideal that which corresponds to the activity of +reason. These forms of being also are opposed, and yet identical. Our +self-consciousness gives clear proof of the fact that _thought and being_ +can be _identical_; in it, as thinking being, we have the identity of the +real and the ideal, of being and thought immediately given. As the ego, +in which the subject of thought and the object of thought are one, is the +undivided ground of its several activities, so God is the primal unity, +which lies at the basis of the totality of the world. As in Schelling, the +absolute is described as self-identical, absolute unity, exalted above +the antithesis of real and ideal, nay, above all antitheses. God is the +negation of opposites, the world the totality of them. If there were +an adequate knowledge of the absolute identity it would be an absolute +knowledge. This is denied, however, to us men, who are never able to rise +above the opposition of sensuous and intellectual cognition. The unity of +thought and being is presupposed in all thinking, but can never actually +be thought. As an Idea this identity is indispensable, but to think it +definitely, either by conception or judgment, is impossible. The concepts +supreme power (God or creative nature) and supreme cause (fate or +providence) do not attain to that which we seek to think in them: that +which has in it no opposition is an idea incapable of realization by man, +but, nevertheless, a necessary ideal, the presupposition of all cognition +(and volition), and the ground of all certitude. All knowledge must be +related to the absolute unity and be accompanied by it. Since, then, the +absolute identity cannot be presented, but ever sought for only, and +absolute knowledge exists only as an ideal, dialectic is not so much a +science as a technique of thought and proof, an introduction to philosophic +thinking or (since knowledge is thought in common) to discussion in +conformity with the rules of the art. With this the name dialectic returns +to its original Platonic meaning. + +[Footnote 1: Cf. Quaebicker, _Ueber Schleiermachers erkeuntnisstheoretische +Grundansicht_, 1871, and the _Inquiries_ by Bruno Weiss in the _Zeitschrift +fuer Philosophie_, vols. lxxiii.-lxxv., 1878-79.] + +The popular ideas of God ill stand examination by the standard furnished +by the principle of identity. The plurality of attributes which we are +accustomed to ascribe to God agree but poorly with his unity free from all +contrariety. In reality God does not possess these manifold attributes; +they first arise in the religious consciousness, in which his unconditioned +and undivided working is variously reflected and, as it were, divided. They +are only the various reflections of his undivided nature in the mind of +the observer. In God ability and performance, intelligence and will, his +thought of self and his thought of the world coincide in one. Even +the concept of personality must not be ascribed to God, since it is a +limitation of the infinite and belongs to mythology; while the idea of +life, on the contrary, is allowable as a protection against atheism and +fatalism. When Schleiermacher, further, equates the activity of God and the +causality of nature he ranges himself on the pantheistic side in regard +to the question of the "immanence or transcendence of God," without being +willing to acknowledge it. It sounds Spinozistic enough when he says: God +never was without the world, he exists neither before nor outside it, we +know him only _in_ us and in things. Besides that which he actually brings +forth, God could not produce anything further, and just as little does he +miraculously interfere in the course of the world as regulated by natural +law. Everything takes place necessarily, and man is distinguished above +other beings neither by freedom (if by freedom we understand anything more +than inner necessitation) nor by eternal existence. Like all individual +beings, so we are but changing states in the life of the universe, which, +as they have arisen, will disappear again. The common representations of +immortality, with their hope of future compensation, are far from pious. +The true immortality of religion is this--amid finitude to become one with +the infinite, and in one moment to be eternal. + +Schleiermacher's optimism well harmonizes with this view of the relation +between God and the world. If the universe is the phenomenon of the +divine activity, then considered as a whole it is perfect; whatever of +imperfection we find in it, is merely the inevitable result of finitude. +The bad is merely the less perfect; everything is as good as it can be; +the world is the best possible; everything is in its right place; even the +meanest thing is indispensable; even the mistakes of men are to be treated +with consideration. All is good and divine. In this way Schleiermacher +weds ideas from Spinoza to Leibnitzian conceptions. From the former he +appropriates pantheism, from the latter optimism and the concept of +individuality; he shares determinism with both: all events, even the +decisions of the will, are subject to the law of necessity. + +In the _philosophy of religion_ Schleiermacher created a new epoch by his +separation between religion and related departments with which it had often +been identified before his time, as it has been since. In its origin and +essence religion is not a matter of knowing, further, not a matter of +willing, but a matter of the heart. It lies quite outside the sphere of +speculation and of practice, coincides neither with metaphysics nor with +ethics, is not knowledge and not volition, but an intermediate third: it +has its own province in the emotional nature, where it reigns without +limitation; its essence is intuition and feeling in undivided unity. In +_feeling_ is revealed the presence of the infinite; in feeling we become +immediately aware of the Deity. The absolute, which in cognition and +volition we only presuppose and demand, but never attain, is actually +given in feeling alone as the relative identity and the common ground +of cognition and volition. Religion is _piety_, an affective, not an +objective, consciousness. And if certain religious ideas and actions +ally themselves with the pious state of mind, these are not essential +constituents of religion, but derivative elements, which possess a +religious significance only in so far as they immediately develop from +piety and exert an influence upon it. That which makes an act religious +is always feeling as a point of indifference between knowing and doing, +between receptive and forthgoing activity, as the center and junction +of all the powers of the soul, as the very focus of personality. And as +feeling in general is the middle point in the life of the soul, so, again, +the religious feeling is the root of all genuine feeling. What sort of a +feeling, then, is piety? Schleiermacher answers: A feeling of _absolute +dependence_. Dependence on what? On the universe, on God. Religion grows +out of the longing after the infinite, it is the sense and taste for the +All, the direction toward the eternal, the impulse toward the absolute +unity, immediate experience of the world harmony; like art, religion is the +immediate apprehension of a whole. In and before God all that is individual +disappears, the religious man sees one and the same thing in all that is +particular. To represent all events in the world as actions of a God, +to see God in all and all in God, to feel one's self one with the +eternal,--this is religion. As we look on all being within us and without +as proceeding from the world-ground, as determined by an ultimate cause, we +feel ourselves dependent on the divine causality. Like all that is finite, +we also are the effect of the absolute Power. While we stand in a relation +of interaction with the individual parts of the world, and feel ourselves +partially free in relation to them, we can only receive effects from God +without answering them; even our self-activity we have from him. +Nevertheless the feeling of dependence is not to be depressing, not +humbling merely, but the joyous sense of an exaltation and broadening of +life. In our devotion to the universe we participate in the life of the +universe; by leaning on the infinite we supplement our finitude--religion +makes up for the needy condition of man by bringing him into relation with +the absolute, and teaching him to know and to feel himself a part of the +whole. + +From this elevating influence of religion, which Schleiermacher eloquently +depicts, it is at once evident that his definition of it as a feeling of +absolute dependence is only half correct. It needs to be supplemented by +the feeling of freedom, which exalts us by the consciousness of the oneness +of the human reason and the divine. It is only to this side of religion, +neglected by Schleiermacher, that we can ascribe its inspiring influence, +which he in vain endeavors to derive from the feeling of dependence. Power +can never spring from humility as such. This defect, however, does not +detract from Schleiermacher's merit in assigning to religion a special +field of spiritual activity. While Kant treats religion as an appendix to +ethics, and Hegel, with a one-sidedness which is still worse, reduces it to +an undeveloped form of knowledge, Schleiermacher recognizes that it is +not a mere concomitant phenomenon--whether an incidental result or a +preliminary stage--of morality or cognition, but something independent, +co-ordinate with volition and cognition, and of equal legitimacy. The proof +that religion has its habitation in feeling is the more deserving of thanks +since it by no means induced Schleiermacher to overlook the connection of +the God-consciousness with self-consciousness and the consciousness of +the world. Schleiermacher's theory, moreover, may be held correct without +ignoring the relatively legitimate elements in the views of religion which +he attacked. With the view that religion has its seat in feeling, it is +quite possible to combine a recognition of the fact that it has its origin +in the will, and its basis in morals, and that, further, it has the +significance of being (to use Schopenhauer's words) the "metaphysics of the +people." + +Although religion and piety be made synonymous, it must still be admitted +that in a being capable of knowing and willing as well as of feeling, this +devout frame will have results in the spheres of cognition and action. In +regard to _cultus_ Schleiermacher maintains that a religious observance +which does not spring from one's own feeling and find an echo therein is +superstitious, and demands that religious feeling, like a sacred melody, +accompany all human action, that everything be done with religion, nothing +from religion. Instead of expressing itself in single specifically +religious actions, the religious feeling should uniformly pervade the whole +life. Let a private room be the temple where the voice of the priest is +raised. Dogmas, again, are descriptions of pious excitation, and take their +origin in man's reflection on his religious feelings, in his endeavor to +explain them, in his expression of them in ideas and words. The concepts +and principles of theology are valid only as descriptions and presentations +of feelings, not as cognitions; by their unavoidable anthropomorphic +character alone they are completely unfitted for science. The dogmatic +system is an envelopment which religion accepts with a smile. He who treats +religious doctrines as science falls into empty mythology. Principles of +faith and principles of knowledge are in no way related to one another, +neither by way of opposition nor by way of agreement; they never come into +contact. A theology in the sense of an actual science of God is impossible. +Further, out of its dogmas the Church constructs prescriptive symbols, a +step which must be deplored. It is to be hoped that some time religion will +no longer have need of the Church. In view of the present condition of +affairs it must be said that the more religious a man is the more secular +he must become, and that the cultured man opposes the Church in order to +promote religion. + +So-called natural religion is nothing more than an abstraction of thought; +in reality positive religions alone exist. Because of the infinity of God +and the finitude of man, the one, universal, eternal religion can only +manifest itself in the form of particular historical religions, which +are termed revealed because founded by religious heroes, creative +personalities, in whom an especially lively religious feeling is aroused by +a new view of the universe, and determines (not, like artistic inspiration, +single moments, but) their whole existence. Three stages are to be +distinguished in the development of religion, according as the world is +represented as an unordered unity (chaos), or as an indeterminate manifold +of forces and elements (plurality without unity), or, finally, as an +organized plurality dominated by unity (system)--fetichism with fatalism, +polytheism, mono- (including pan-) theism. Among the religions of the third +stadium Islam is physical or aesthetic in spirit; Judaism and Christianity, +on the other hand, ethical or teleological. The Christian religion is +the most perfect, because it gives the central place to the concept +of redemption and reconciliation (hence to that which is essential to +religion) instead of to the Jewish idea of retribution. + +The concept of individuality became of the highest importance for +Schleiermacher's ethics, as well as for his philosophy of religion; and +by his high appreciation of it he ranges himself with Leibnitz, Herder, +Goethe, and Novalis. Now two sides may be distinguished both in regard to +that which the individual is and to that which he ought to accomplish. Like +every particular being, man is an abbreviated, concentrated presentation of +the universe; he contains everything in himself, contains all, that is, in +a not yet unfolded, germinal manner, awaiting development in life in time, +but yet in a form peculiar to him, which is never repeated elsewhere. This +yields a twofold moral task. The individual ought to rouse into actuality +the infinite fullness of content which he possesses as possibility, as +slumbering germs, should harmoniously develop his capacities; yet in this +he must not look upon the unique form which has been bestowed upon him +as worthless. He is not to feel himself a mere specimen, an unimportant +repetition of the type, but as a particular, and in this particularity a +significant, expression of the absolute, whose omission would cause a gap +in the world. It is surprising that the majority of the thinkers who +have defended the value of individuality lay far less stress upon the +micro-cosmical nature of the individual and the development of his +capacities in all directions than on care for his peculiar qualities. +So also Schleiermacher. Yet he gradually returned from the extreme +individualism--the _Monologues_ affect one almost repellently by the +impulse which they give to vain self-reflection--which he at first +defended. + +In the _Ethics_ (edited by Kirchmann, 1870; earlier editions by Schweizer, +1835, and Twesten, 1841) Schleiermacher brings the well-nigh forgotten +concept of goods again into honor. The three points of view from which +ethics is to be discussed, and each of which presents the whole ethical +field in its own peculiar way--the good, virtue, duty--are related as +resultant, force, and law of motion. Every union of reason and nature +produced by the action of the former on the latter is called a _good_; the +sum of these unities, the highest good. According as reason uses nature +as an instrument in formation or as a symbol in cognition her action is +formative or indicative; it is, further, either common or peculiar. On the +crossing of these (fluctuating) distinctions of identical and individual +organization and symbolization is based the division of the theory of +goods: + + SPHERES. RELATIONS. GOODS. + _Ident. Organ.:_ Intercourse. Right. The State. + _Individ. Organ.:_ Property. Free Sociability. Class, House, + Friendship. + _Ident. Symbol.:_ Knowledge. Faith. School and + University. + _Individ. Symbol.:_ Feeling. Revelation. The Church + (Art). + +The four ethical communities, each of which represents the organic union +of opposites--rulers and subjects, host and guests, teachers and pupils +or scholars and the public, the clergy and the laity--have for their +foundation the family and the unity of the nation. Virtue (the personal +unification of reason and sensibility) is either disposition or skill, and +in each case either cognitive or presentative; this yields the cardinal +virtues wisdom, love, discretion, and perseverance. The division of duties +into duties of right, duties of love, duties of vocation, and duties of +conscience rests on the distinction between community in production and +appropriation, each of which may be universal or individual. The most +general laws of duty (duty is the Idea of the good in an imperative form) +run: Act at every instant with all thy moral power, and aiming at thy whole +moral problem; act with all virtues and in view of all goods, further, +Always do that action which is most advantageous for the whole sphere of +morality, in which two different factors are included: Always do that +toward which thou findest thyself inwardly moved, and that to which thou +findest thyself required from without. Instead of following further the +wearisome schematism of Schleiermacher's ethics, we may notice, finally, +a fundamental thought which our philosopher also discussed by itself: +The sharp contraposition of natural and moral law, advocated by Kant, is +unjustifiable; the moral law is itself a law of nature, viz., of rational +will. It is true neither that the moral law is a mere "ought" nor that the +law of nature is a mere "being," a universally followed "must." For, on the +one hand, ethics has to do with the law which human action really follows, +and, on the other, there are violations of rule in nature also. Immorality, +the imperfect mastery of the sensuous impulses by rational will, has an +analogue in the abnormalities--deformities and diseases--in nature, which +show that here also the higher (organic) principles are not completely +successful in controlling the lower processes. The higher law everywhere +suffers disturbances, from the resistance of the lower forces, which cannot +be entirely conquered. It is Schleiermacher's determinism which leads him, +in view of the parallelism of the two legislations, to overlook their +essential distinction. + +Adherents of Schleiermacher are Vorlaender (died 1867), George (died 1874), +the theologian, Richard Rothe (died 1867; cf. Nippold, 1873 _seq_.), and +the historians of philosophy, Brandis (died 1867) and H. Ritter (died +1869).[1] + +[Footnote 1: W. Dilthey (born 1834), the successor of Lotze in Berlin, is +publishing a life of Schleiermacher (vol. i. 1867-70). Cf. also Dilthey's +briefer account in the _Allgemeine deutsche Biographie_, and Haym's +_Romantische Schule_, 1870. Further, _Aus Schleiermachers Leben, in +Briefen_, 4 vols., 1858-63.] + + + +CHAPTER XIII. + +HEGEL. + +Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel was born at Stuttgart on August 27, 1770. He +attended the gymnasium of his native city, and, from 1788, the Tuebingen +seminary as a student of theology; while in 1793-1800 he resided as a +private tutor in Berne and Frankfort-on-the-Main. In the latter city the +plan of his future system was already maturing. A manuscript outline +divides philosophy, following the ancient division, logic, physics, and +ethics, into three parts, the first of which (the fundamental science, the +doctrine of the categories and of method, combining logic and metaphysics) +considers the absolute as pure Idea, while the second considers it as +nature, and the third as real (ethical) spirit. Hegel habilitated in 1801 +at Jena, with a Latin dissertation _On the Orbits of the Planets_, in +which, ignorant of the discovery of Ceres, he maintained that on rational +grounds--assuming that the number-series given in Plato's _Timaeus_ is the +true order of nature--no additional planet could exist between Mars and +Jupiter. This dissertation gives, further, a deduction of Kepler's laws. +The essay on the _Difference between the Systems of Fichte and Schelling_ +had appeared even previous to this. In company with Schelling he edited in +1802-03 the _Kritisches Journal der Philosophie_. The article on "Faith and +Knowledge" published in this journal characterizes the standpoint of Kant, +Jacobi, and Fichte as that of reflection, for which finite and infinite, +being and thought form an antithesis, while true _speculation_ grasps these +in their identity. In the night before the battle of Jena Hegel finished +the revision of his _Phenomenology of Spirit_, which was published in 1807. +The extraordinary professorship given him in 1805 he was forced to resign +on account of financial considerations; then he was for a year a newspaper +editor in Bamberg, and in 1808 went as a gymnasial rector to Nuremberg, +where he instructed the higher classes in philosophy. His lectures there +are printed in the eighteenth volume of his works, under the title +_Propaedeutic_. In the Nuremberg period fell his marriage and the +publication of the _Logic_ (vol. i. 1812, vol. ii. 1816). In 1816 he was +called as professor of philosophy to Heidelberg (where the _Encyclopedia_ +appeared, 1817), and two years later to Berlin. The _Outlines of the +Philosophy of Right_, 1821, is the only major work which was written in +Berlin. The _Jahrbuecher fuer wissenschaftliche Kritik_, founded in 1827 as +an organ of the school, contained a few critiques, but for the rest he +devoted his whole strength to his lectures. He fell a victim to the cholera +on November 14, 1831. The collected edition of his works in eighteen +volumes (1832-45) contains in vols. ii.-viii. the four major works which +had been published by Hegel himself (the _Encyclopaedia_ with additions +from the Lectures); in vols. i., xvi., and xvii. the minor treatises; in +vols. ix.-xv. the Lectures, edited by Cans, Hotho, Marheineke, and +Michelet. The Letters from and to Hegel have been added as a nineteenth +volume, under the editorship of Karl Hegel, 1887.[1] + +[Footnote 1: Hegel's Life has been written by Karl Rosenkranz (1844), who +has also defended the master (_Apologie Hegels_, 1858) against R. +Haym _(Hegel und seine Zeit,_ 1857), and extolled him as the national +philosopher of Germany (1870; English by G.S. Hall). Cf., further, the +neat popular exposition by Karl Koestlin, 1870, and the essays by Ed. von +Hartmann, _Ueber die dialektische Methode_, 1868, and _Hegels Panlogismus_ +(1870, incorporated in the _Gesammelte Studien und Aufsaetze_, 1876). [The +English reader may consult E. Caird's _Hegel_ in Blackwood's Philosophical +Classics, 1883; Harris's _Hegel's Logic_, Morris's _Hegel's Philosophy of +the State and of History_, and Kedney's _Hegel's Aesthetics_ in Griggs's +Philosophical Classics; and Wallace's translation of the "Logic"--from +the _Encyclopaedia_--with Prolegomena, 1874, 2d. ed., Translation, 1892, +Prolegomena to follow. Stirling's _Secret of Hegel, 2_ vols., London, 1865, +includes a translation of a part of the _Logic_, and numerous translations +from different works of the master are to be found in the _Journal of +Speculative Philosophy_. The _Lectures on the Philosophy of History_ have +been translated by J. Sibree, M.A., in Bohn's Library, 1860, and E.S. +Haldane is issuing a translation of those on the _History of Philosophy_, +vol. i., 1892.--TR.]] + +We may preface our exposition of the parts of the system by some remarks on +Hegel's standpoint in general and his scientific method. + + +%1. Hegel's View of the World and his Method.% + +In Hegel there revives in full vigor the intellectualism which from the +first had lain in the blood of German philosophy, and which Kant's moralism +had only temporarily restrained. The primary of practical reason is +discarded, and theory is extolled as the ground, center, and aim of human, +nay, of all existence. + +Leibnitz and Hegel are the classical representatives of the +intellectualistic view of the world. In the former the subjective +psychological point of view is dominant, in the latter, the objective +cosmical position: Leibnitz argues from the representative nature of the +soul to an analogous constitution of all elements of the universe; from the +general mission of all that is real, to be a manifestation of reason, Hegel +deduces that of the individual spirit, to realize a determinate series of +stages of thought. The true reality is reason; all being is the embodiment +of a pregnant thought, all becoming a movement of the concept, the world a +development of thought. The absolute or the logical Idea exists first as +a system of antemundane concepts, then it descends into the unconscious +sphere of nature, awakens to self-consciousness in man, realizes its +content in social institutions, in order, finally, in art, religion, and +science to return to itself enriched and completed, _i.e._, to attain a +higher absoluteness than that of the beginning. Philosophy is the +highest product and the goal of the world-process. As will, intuition, +representation, and feeling are lower forms of thought, so ethics, art, and +religion are preliminary stages in philosophy; for it first succeeds in +that which these vainly attempt, in presenting the concept adequately, in +conceptual form. + +If we develop that which is contained as a constituent factor or by +implication in the intellectualistic thesis, "All being is thought +realized, all becoming a development of thought," we reach the following +definitions: (i) The object of philosophy is formed by the Ideas of things. +Its aim is to search out the concept, the purpose, the significance of +phenomena, and to assign to these their corresponding positions in +the world and in the system of knowledge. It is chiefly interested in +discovering where in the scale of values a thing belongs according to +its meaning and its destination; the procedure is teleological, valuing, +aesthetic. Instead of a causal explanation of phenomena we are given an +ideal interpretation of them. (So Lotze accurately describes the character +of German idealism.) (2) If all that is real is a manifestation of reason +and each thing a stage, a modification of thought, then thought and being +are identical. (3) If the world is thought in becoming, and philosophy has +to set forth this process, philosophy is a theory of development. If each +thing realizes a thought, then all that is real is rational; and if the +world-process attains its highest stadium in philosophy, and this in +turn its completion in the system of absolute idealism, then all that is +rational is real. Reason or the Idea is not merely a demand, a longed for +ideal, but a world-power which accomplishes its own realization. "The +rational is real and the real is rational" (Preface to the _Philosophy of +Right_). Or to sum it up--Hegel's philosophy is _idealism, a system +of identity, and an optimistic doctrine of development_. What, then, +distinguishes Hegel from other idealists, philosophers of identity, and +teachers of development? What in particular distinguishes him from his +predecessor Schelling? + +In Schelling nature is the subject and art the conclusion of the +development; his idealism has a physical and aesthetical character, as +Fichte's an ethical character. In Hegel, however, the concept is the +subject and goal of the development, his philosophy is, in the words of +Haym, a "_Logisierung_" of the world, a _logical idealism_. + +The theory of identity is that system which looks upon nature and spirit as +one in essence and as phenomenal modes of an absolute which is above them +both. But while Schelling treats the real and the ideal as having equal +rights, Hegel restores the Fichtean subordination of nature to spirit, +without, however, sharing Fichte's contempt for nature. Nature is neither +co-ordinate with spirit nor a mere instrument for spirit, but a transition +stage in the development of the absolute, viz., the Idea in its other-being +_(Anderssein)_. It is spirit itself that becomes nature in order to become +actual, conscious spirit; before the absolute became nature it was already +spirit, not, indeed, "for itself" _(fuer sich)_, yet "in itself" _(an +sich)_, it was Idea or reason. The ideal is not merely the morning which +follows the night of reality, but also the evening which precedes it. +The absolute (the concept) develops from in-itself _(Ansich)_ through +out-of-self _(Aussersich)_ or other-being to for-itself _(Fuersich)_; it +exists first as reason (system of logical concepts), then as nature, +finally as living spirit. Thus Hegel's philosophy of identity is +distinguished from Schelling's by two factors: it subordinates nature to +spirit, and conceives the absolute of the beginning not as the indifference +of the real and ideal, but as ideal, as a realm of eternal thoughts. + +The assertion that Hegel represents a synthesis of Fichte and Schelling is +therefore justified. This is true, further, for the character of Hegel's +thought as a whole, in so far as it follows a middle course between the +world-estranged, rigid abstractness of Fichte's thinking and Schelling's +artistico-fanciful intuition, sharing with the former its logical +stringency as well as its dominant interest in the philosophy of spirit, +and with the latter its wide outlook and its sense for the worth and the +richness of that which is individual. + +We have characterized Hegel's system, thirdly, as a philosophy of +development. The point of distinction here is that Hegel carries out with +logical consecutiveness and up to the point of obstinacy the principle +of development which Fichte had discovered, and which Schelling also +had occasionally employed,--the threefold rhythm _thesis, antithesis, +synthesis_. Here we come to Hegel's _dialectic method_. He reached this as +the true method of speculation through a comparison of the two forms of +philosophy which he found dominant at the beginning of his career--the +Illumination culminating in Kant, on the one hand, and, on the other, the +doctrine of identity defended by Schelling and his circle--neither of which +entirely satisfied him. + +In regard to the main question he feels himself one with Schelling: +philosophy is to be metaphysics, the science of the absolute and its +immanence in the world, the doctrine of the identity of opposites, of the, +_per se_ of things, not merely of their phenomenon. But the form which +Schelling had given it seems to him unscientific, unsystematic, for +Schelling had based philosophical knowledge on the intuition of genius--and +science from intuition is impossible. The philosophy of the Illumination +impresses him, on the other hand, by the formal strictness of its inquiry; +he agrees with it that philosophy must be science from concepts. Only not +from abstract concepts. Kant and the Illumination stand on the platform +of reflection, for which the antithesis of thought and being, finite and +infinite remains insoluble, and, consequently, the absolute transcendent, +and the true essence of things unknowable. Hegel wishes to combine the +advantages of both sides, the depth of content of the one, and the +scientific form of the other. + +The intuition with which Schelling works is immediate cognition, directed +to the concrete and particular. The concept of the philosophy of reflection +is mediate cognition, moving in the sphere of the abstract and universal. +Is it not feasible to do away with the (unscientific) immediateness of the +one, and the (non-intuitive, content-lacking) abstractness of the other, +to combine the concrete with the mediate or conceptual, and in this way +to realize the Kantian ideal of an intuitive understanding? _A concrete +concept_ would be one which sought the universal not without the +particular, but in it; which should not find the infinite beyond the +finite, nor the absolute at an unattainable distance above the world, nor +the essence hidden behind the phenomenon, but manifesting itself therein. +If the philosophy of reflection, in the abstract lifelessness of its +concepts, looked on opposites as incapable of sublation, and Schelling +regarded them as immediately identical, if the former denied the identity +of opposites, and the latter maintained it primordially given (in the +absolute indifference which is to be grasped by intuition), the concrete +concept secures the identity of _opposites through self-mediation_, their +passing over into it; it teaches us to know the identity as the result of a +process. First immediate unity, then divergence of opposites, and, finally, +reconciliation of opposites--this is the universal law of all development. + +The conflict between the philosophy of reflection and the philosophy of +intuition, which Hegel endeavors to terminate by a speculation at once +conceptual and concrete, concerns (1) the organ of thought, (2) the object +of thought, (3) the nature and logical dignity of the contradiction. + +The organ of the true philosophy is neither the abstract reflective +understanding, which finds itself shut up within the limits of the +phenomenal, nor mystical intuition, which expects by a quick leap to gain +the summit of knowledge concerning the absolute, but reason as the faculty +of concrete concepts. That concept is concrete which does not assume an +attitude of cold repulsion toward its contrary, but seeks self-mediation +with the latter, and moves from thesis through antithesis, and with it, to +synthesis. Reason neither fixes the opposites nor denies them, but has them +become identical. The unity of opposites is neither impossible nor present +from the first, but the result of a development. + +The object of philosophy is not the phenomenal world or the relative, but +the absolute, and this not as passive substance, but as living subject, +which divides into distinctions, and returns from them to identity, which +develops through the opposites. The absolute is a process, and all that +is real the manifestation of this process. If science is to correspond +to reality, it also must be a process. Philosophy is thought-movement +(dialectic); it is a system of concepts, each of which passes over into +its successor, puts its successor forth from itself, just as it has been +generated by its predecessor. + +All reality is development, and the motive force in this development (of +the world as well as of science) is opposition, _contradiction_. Without +this there would be no movement and no life. Thus all reality is full of +contradiction, and yet rational. The contradiction is not that which is +entirely alogical, but it is a spur to further thinking. It must not +be annulled, but "sublated" _(aufgehoben), _i.e._, at once negated and +conserved. This is effected by thinking the contradictory concepts together +in a third higher, more comprehensive, and richer concept, whose moments +they then form. As sublated moments they contradict each other no longer; +the opposition or contradiction is overcome. But the synthesis is still +not a final one; the play begins anew; again an opposition makes its +appearance, which in turn seeks to be overcome, etc. Each separate concept +is one-sided, defective, represents only a part of the truth, needs to be +supplemented by its contrary, and, by its union with this, its complement, +yields a higher concept, which comes nearer to the whole truth, but still +does not quite reach it. Even the last and richest concept--the absolute +Idea--is by itself alone not the full truth; the result implies the whole +development through which it has been attained. It is only at the end +of such a dialectic of concepts that philosophy reaches complete +correspondence with the living reality, which it has to comprehend; and the +speculative progress of thought is no capricious sporting with concepts +on the part of the thinking subject, but the adequate expression of +the movement of the matter itself. Since the world and its ground is +development, it can only be known through a development of concepts. The +law which this follows, in little as in great, is the advance from position +to opposition, and thence to combination. The most comprehensive example +of this triad--Idea, Nature, Spirit--gives the division of the system; the +second--Subjective, Objective, Absolute Spirit--determines the articulation +of the third part. + + +%2. The System.% + +Hegel began with a _Phenomenology_ by way of introduction, in which (not +to start, like the school of Schelling, with absolute knowledge "as though +shot from a pistol") he describes the genesis of philosophical cognition +with an attractive mingling of psychological and philosophico-historical +points of view. He makes spirit--the universal world-spirit as well as +the individual consciousness, which repeats in brief the stages in the +development of humanity--pass through six stadia, of which the first three +(consciousness, self-consciousness, reason) correspond to the progress +of the intermediate part of the Doctrine of Subjective Spirit, which is +entitled _Phaenomenologie_, and the others (ethical spirit, religion, and +absolute knowledge) give an abbreviated presentation of that which the +Doctrine of Objective and Absolute Spirit develops in richer articulation. + +%(a) Logic% considers the Idea in the abstract element of thought, only as +it is thought, and not yet as it is intuited, nor as it thinks itself; its +content is the truth as it is without a veil in and for itself, or God in +his eternal essence before the creation of the world. Unlike common logic, +which is merely formal, separating form and content, speculative logic, +which is at the same time ontology or metaphysics, treats the categories as +real relations, the forms of thought as forms of reality: as thought and +thing are the same, so logic is the theory of thought and of being in one. +Its three principal divisions are entitled _Being, Essence, the Concept_. +The first of these discusses quality, quantity, and measure or qualitative +quantum. The second considers essence as such, appearance, and (essence +appearing or) actuality, and this last, in turn, in the moments, +substantiality, causality, and reciprocity. The third part is divided into +the sections, subjectivity (concept, judgment, syllogism), objectivity +(mechanism, chemism, teleology), and the Idea (life, cognition, the +absolute Idea). + +As a specimen of the way in which Hegel makes the concept pass over into +its opposite and unite with this in a synthesis, it will be sufficient to +cite the famous beginning of the _Logic_. How must the absolute first be +thought, how first defined? Evidently as that which is absolutely without +presupposition. The most general concept which remains after abstracting +from every determinate content of thought, and from which no further +abstraction is possible, the most indeterminate and immediate concept, is +pure _being_. As without quality and content it is equivalent to _nothing_. +In thinking pure being we have rather cogitated nothing; but this in turn +cannot be retained as final, but passes back into being, for in being +thought it exists as a something thought. Pure being and pure nothing are +the same, although we mean different things by them; both are absolute +indeterminateness. The transition from being to nothing and from nothing to +being is _becoming_. Becoming is the unity, and hence the truth of both. +When the boy is "becoming" a youth he is, and at the same time is not, a +youth. Being and not-being are so mediated and sublated in becoming that +they are no longer contradictory. In a similar way it is further shown +that quality and quantity are reciprocally dependent and united in measure +(which may be popularly illustrated thus: progressively diminishing heat +becomes cold, distances cannot be measured in bushels); that essence and +phenomenon are mutually inseparable, inasmuch as the latter is always the +appearance of an essence, and the former is essence only as it manifests +itself in the phenomenon, etc. + +The significance of the Hegelian logic depends less on its ingenious and +valuable explanations of particulars than on the fundamental idea, that the +categories do not form an unordered heap, but a great organically connected +whole, in which each member occupies its determinate position, and is +related to every other by gradations of kinship and subordination. This +purpose to construct a _globus_ of the pure concepts was itself a +mighty feat, which is assured of the continued admiration of posterity +notwithstanding the failure in execution. He who shall one day take it up +again will draw many a lesson from Hegel's unsuccessful attempt. Before +all, the connections between the concepts are too manifold and complex +for the monotonous transitions of this dialectic method (which Chalybaeus +wittily called articular disease) to be capable of doing them justice. +Again, the productive force of thought must not be neglected, and to it, +rather than to the mobility of the categories themselves, the matter of the +transition from one to the other must be transferred. + +%(b) The Philosophy of Nature% shows the Idea in its other-being. Out of +the realm of logical shades, wherein the souls of all reality dwell, +we move into the sphere of external, sensuous existence, in which the +concepts take on material form. Why does the Idea externalize itself? In +order to become actual. But the actuality of nature is imperfect, unsuited +to the Idea, and only the precondition of a better actuality, the actuality +of spirit, which has been the aim from the beginning: reason becomes +nature in order to become spirit; the Idea goes forth from itself in +order--enriched--to return to itself again. Only the man who once has been +in a foreign land knows his home aright. + +The relation of natural objects to one another and their action upon one +another is an external one: they are governed by mechanical necessity, +and the contingency of influences from without arrests and disturbs their +development, so that while reason is everywhere discernible in nature, +it is not reason alone; and much that is illogical, contrary to purpose, +lawless, painful, and unhealthy, points to the fact that the essence of +nature consists in externality. This inadequacy in the realization of the +Idea, however, is gradually removed by development, until, in "life," the +way is prepared for the birth of spirit. + +As Hegel in his philosophy of nature--which falls into three parts, +mechanics, physics, and organics--follows Schelling pretty closely, and, +moreover, does not show his power, it does not seem necessary to dwell +longer upon it. In the next section, also, in view of the fact that its +models, the constructive psychologies of Fichte and Schelling, have already +been discussed in detail, a statement of the divisions and connections must +suffice. + +%(c) The Doctrine of Subjective Spirit% makes freedom (being with or in +self) the essence and destination of spirit, and shows how spirit realizes +this predisposition in increasing independence of nature. The subject of +anthropology is spirit as the (natural, sensitive, and actual) "soul" of +a body; here are discussed the distinctions of race, nation, sex, age, +sleeping and waking, disposition and temperament, together with talents and +mental diseases, in short, whatever belongs to spirit in its union with a +body. Phenomenology is the science of the "ego," i.e., of spirit, in so +far as it opposes itself to nature as the non-ego, and passes through the +stages of (mere) consciousness, self-consciousness, and (the synthesis of +the two) reason. Psychology (better pneumatology) considers "spirit" in its +reconciliation with objectivity under the following divisions: Theoretical +Intelligence as intuition (sensation, attention, intuition), as +representation (passive memory, phantasy, memory), and (as conceiving, +judging, reasoning) thought; Practical Intelligence as feeling, impulse +(passion and caprice), and happiness; finally, the unity of the knowing and +willing spirit, free spirit or rational will, which in turn realizes itself +in right, ethics, and history. + +%(d) The Doctrine of Objective Spirit%, comprehending ethics, the +philosophy of right, of the state, and of history, is Hegel's most +brilliant achievement. It divides as follows: (1) Right (property, +contract, punishment); (2) Morality (purpose, intention and welfare, good +and evil); (3) Social Morality: (a) the family; (b) civil society; (c) the +state (internal and external polity, and the history of the world). In +right the will or freedom attains to outer actuality, in morality it +attains to inner actuality, in social morality to objective and subjective +actuality at once, hence to complete actuality. + +Right, as it were a second, higher nature, because a necessity posited and +acknowledged by spirit, is originally a sum of prohibitions; wherever it +seems to command the negative has only received a positive expression. +Private right contains two things--the warrant to be a person, and the +injunction to respect other persons as such. Property is the external +sphere which the will gives to itself; without property no personality. +Through punishment (retaliation) right is restored against un-right +(_Unrecht_), and the latter shown to be a nullity. The criminal is treated +according to the same maxim as that of his action--that coercion is +allowable. + +In the stadium of morality the good exists in the form of a requirement +which can never be perfectly fulfilled, as a mere imperative; there remains +an irrepressible opposition between the moral law and the individual will, +between intention and execution. Here the judge of good and evil is the +conscience, which is not secure against error. That which is objectively +evil may seem good and a duty to subjective conviction. (According to +Fichte this was impossible). + +On account of the conflict between duty and will, which is at this stage +irrepressible, Hegel is unable to consider morality, the sphere of the +subjective disposition, supreme. He thinks he knows a higher sphere, +wherein legality and morality become one: "social morality" +(_Sittlichkeit_). This sphere takes its name from _Sitte_, that custom +ruling in the community which is felt by the individual not as a command +from without, but as his own nature. Here the good appears as the spirit +of the family and of the people, pervading individuals as its substance. +Marriage is neither a merely legal nor a merely sentimental relation, but +an "ethical" (_sittliches_) institution. While love rules in the family, in +civil society each aims at the satisfaction of his private wants, and yet, +in working for himself, subserves the good of the whole. Class distinctions +are based on the division of labor demanded by the variant needs of men +(the agricultural, industrial, and thinking classes). Class and party honor +is, in Hegel's view, among the most essential supports of general morality. +Strange to say, he brings the administration of justice and the police into +the same sphere. + +The state, the unity of the family and civil society, is the completed +actualization of freedom. Its organs are the political powers (which are +to be divided, but not to be made independent): the legislative power +determines the universal, the executive subsumes the particular thereunder, +the power of the prince combines both into personal unity. In the will of +the prince the state becomes subject. The perfect form of the state is +constitutional monarchy, its establishment the goal of history, which +Hegel, like Kant, considers chiefly from the political standpoint. + +History is the development of the rational state; the world-spirit the +guiding force in this development; its instruments the spirits of the +nations and great men. A particular people is the expression of but one +determinate moment of the universal spirit; and when it has fulfilled +its commission it loses its legal warrant, and yields up its dominion to +another, now the only authorized one: the history of the world is the +judgment of the world, which is held over the nations. The world-historical +characters, also, are only the instruments of a higher power, the purposes +of which they execute while imagining that they are acting in their own +interests--their own deed is hidden from them, and is neither their purpose +nor their object. This should be called the cunning of reason, that it +makes the passions work in its service. + +History is progress in the consciousness of freedom. At first one only +knows himself free, then several, finally all. This gives three chief +periods, or rather four world-kingdoms,--Oriental despotism, the Greek +(democratic) and the Roman (aristocratic) republic, and the Germanic +monarchy,--in which humanity passes through its several ages. Like the sun, +history moves from east to west. China and India have not advanced beyond +the preliminary stages of the state; the Chinese kingdom is a family state, +India a society of classes stiffened into castes. The Persian despotism is +the first true state, and this in the form of a conquering military state. +In the youth and manhood of humanity the sovereignty of the people replaces +the sovereignty of one; but not all have yet the consciousness of freedom, +the slaves have no share in the government. The principle of the Greek +world, with its fresh life and delight in beauty, is individuality; hence +the plurality of small states, in which Sparta is an anticipation of +the Roman spirit. The Roman Republic is internally characterized by the +constitutional struggle between the patricians and the plebeians, and +externally by the policy of world conquest. Out of the repellent relations +between the universal and the individual, which oppose one another as +the abstract state and abstract personality, the unhappy imperial period +develops. In the Roman Empire and Judaism the conditions were given for the +appearance of Christianity. This brings with it the idea of humanity: every +man is free as man, as a rational being. In the beginning this emancipation +was religious; through the Germans it became political as well. The +remaining divisions cannot here be detailed. Their captions run: The +Elements of the Germanic Spirit (the Migrations; Mohammedanism; the +Frankish Empire of Charlemagne); the Middle Ages (the Feudal System and the +Hierarchy; the Crusades; the Transition from Feudal Rule to Monarchy, +or the Cities); Modern Times (the Reformation; its Effect on Political +Development; Illumination and Revolution). + +The philosophy of history[1] is Hegel's most brilliant and most lasting +achievement. His view of the state as the absolute end, the complete +realization of the good, is dominated, no doubt, by the antique ideal, +which cannot take root again in the humanity of modern times. But his +splendid endeavor to "comprehend" history, to bring to light the laws of +historical development and the interaction between the different spheres of +national life, will remain an example for all time. The leading ideas of +his philosophy of history have so rapidly found their way into the general +scientific consciousness that the view of history which obtained in +the period of the Illumination is well nigh incomprehensible to the +investigator of to-day. + +[Footnote 1: A well-chosen collection of aphorisms from the philosophy of +history is given by M. Schasler under the title _Hegel: Populaere Gedanken +aus seinen Werken_, 2d. ed., 1873.] + +%(e) Absolute Spirit% is the unity of subjective and objective spirit. +As such, spirit becomes perfectly free (from all contradictions) +and reconciled with itself. The break between subject and object, +representation and thing, thought and being, infinite and finite is done +away with, and the infinite recognized as the essence of the finite. The +knowledge of the reconciliation of the highest opposites or of the infinite +_in_ the finite presents itself in three forms: in the form of intuition +(art), of feeling and representation (religion), of thought (philosophy). + +(1) _Aesthetics_.--The beautiful is the absolute (the infinite in the +finite) in sensuous existence, the Idea in limited manifestation. According +to the relation of these moments, according as the outer form or the inner +content predominates, or a balance of the two occurs, we have the symbolic +form of art, in which the phenomenon predominates and the Idea is merely +suggested; or the classical form, in which Idea and intuition, or spiritual +content and sensuous form, completely balance and pervade each other, in +which the former of them is ceaselessly taken up into the latter; or +the romantic form, in which the phenomenon retires, and the Idea, the +inwardness of the spirit predominates. Classical art, in which form and +content are perfectly conformed to each other, is the most beautiful, but +romantic art is, nevertheless, higher and more significant. + +Oriental, including Egyptian and Hebrew, art was symbolic; Greek art, +classical; Christian art is romantic, bringing into art entirely new +sentiments of a knightly and a religious sort--love, loyalty and honor, +grief and repentance--and understanding how by careful treatment to ennoble +even the petty and contingent. The sublime belongs to symbolic art; the +Roman satire is the dissolution of the classical, and humor the dissolution +of the romantic, ideal. + +Architecture is predominantly symbolic; sculpture permits the purest +expression of the classical ideal; painting, music, and poetry bear a +romantic character. This does not exclude the recurrence of these three +stages within each art--in architecture, for example, as monumental +(the obelisk), useful (house and temple), and Gothic (the cathedral) +architecture. As the plastic arts reached their culmination among the +Hellenes, so the romantic arts culminate among the Christian nations. In +poetry, as the most perfect and universal (or the totality of) art, uniting +in itself the two contraries, the symbolic and the classical, the lyric +is a repetition of the architectonic-musical, the epic, of the +plastic-pictorial, the drama, the union of the lyric and the epic. + +(2) _Philosophy of Religion_.--The withdrawal from outer sensibility into +the inner spirit, begun in romantic art, especially in poetry, is completed +in religion. In religion the nations have recorded the way in which they +represent the substance of the world; in it the unity of the infinite and +the finite is felt, and represented through imagination. Religion is not +merely a feeling of piety, but a thought of the absolute, only not in the +form of thinking. Religion and philosophy are materially the same, both +have God or the truth for their object, they differ only in form--religion +contains in an empirical, symbolic form the same speculative content which +philosophy presents in the adequate form of the concept. Religion is +developing knowledge as it gradually conquers imperfection. It appears +first as definite religion in two stadia, natural religion and the religion +of spiritual individuality, and finally attains the complete realization of +its concept in the absolute religion of Christianity. + +Natural religion, in its lowest stage magic, develops in three forms--as +the religion of measure (Chinese), of phantasy (Indian or Brahmanical), and +of being in self (Buddhistic). In the Persian (Zoroastrian) religion of +light, the Syrian religion of pain, and the Egyptian religion of enigma, is +prepared the way for the transformation into the religion of freedom. The +Greek solves the riddle of the Sphinx by apprehending himself as subject, +as man. + +The religion of spiritual individuality or free subjectivity passes through +three stadia: the Jewish religion of sublimity (unity), the Greek religion +of beauty (necessity), the Roman religion of purposiveness (of the +understanding). In contrast to the Jewish religion of slavish obedience, +which by miracle makes known the power of the one God and the nullity of +nature, which has been "created" by his will, and the prosaic severity of +the Roman, which, in Jupiter and Fortuna, worships only the world-dominion +of the Roman people, the more cheerful art-religion of the Hellenes +reverences in the beautiful forms of the gods, the powers which man is +aware of in himself--wisdom, bravery, and beauty. + +The Christian or revealed religion is the religion of truth, of freedom, of +spirit. Its content is the unity of the divine nature and the human, God +as knowing himself in being known of man+; the knowledge of God is God's +self-knowledge. Its fundamental truths are the Trinity (signifying that God +differentiates and sublates the difference in love), the incarnation (as a +figure of the essential unity of the infinite and finite spirit), the fall, +and Christ's atoning death (this signifies that the realization of the +unity between man and God presupposes the overcoming of naturality and +selfishness). + +(3) _Philosophy_.--Finally the task remains of clothing the absolute +content given in religion in the form adequate to it, in the form of the +concept. In philosophy absolute spirit attains the highest stage, its +perfect self-knowledge. It is the self-thinking Idea. + +Here we must not look for further detailed explanations: philosophy is +just the course which has been traversed. Its systematic exposition is +encyclopaedia; the consideration of its own actualization, the history +of philosophy, which, as a "philosophical" discipline, has to show the +conformity to law and the rationality of this historical development, to +show the more than mere succession, the genetic succession, of systems, +as well as their connection with the history of culture. Each system +is the product and expression of its time, and as the self-reflection +of each successive stage in culture cannot appear before this has reached +its maturity and is about to be overcome. Not until the approach of the +twilight does the owl of Minerva begin its flight. + + + +CHAPTER XIV. + +THE OPPOSITION TO CONSTRUCTIVE IDEALISM: FRIES, HERBART, SCHOPENHAUER. + +In Fries, Herbart, and Schopenhauer a threefold opposition was raised +against the idealistic school represented by Fichte, Schelling, and +Hegel. The opposition of Fries is aimed at the method of the constructive +philosophers, that of Herbart against their ontological positions, and that +of Schopenhauer against their estimate of the value of existence. Fries +and Beneke declare that a speculative knowledge of the suprasensible is +impossible, and seek to base philosophy on empirical psychology; to the +monism (panlogism) of the idealists Herbart opposes a pluralism, to their +philosophy of becoming, a philosophy of being; Schopenhauer rejects their +optimism, denying rationality to the world and the world-ground. Among +themselves the thinkers of the opposition have little more in common than +their claim to a better understanding of the Kantian philosophy, and a +development of it more in harmony with the meaning of its author, than it +had experienced at the hands of the idealists. Whoever fails to agree +with them in this, and ascribes to the idealists whom they oppose better +grounded claims to the honor of being correct interpreters and consistent +developers of Kantian principles, will be ready to adopt the name +_Semi-Kantians_, given by Fortlage to the members of the opposition,--a +title which seems the more fitting since each of them appropriates only a +definitely determinable part of Kant's views, and mingles a foreign element +with it. In Fries this non-Kantian element comes from Jacobi's philosophy +of faith; in Herbart it comes from the monadology of Leibnitz, and the +ancient Eleatico-atomistic doctrine; in Schopenhauer, from the religion of +India and (as in Beneke) from the sensationalism of the English and the +French. We can only hint in passing at the parallelism which exists between +the chief representatives of the idealistic school and the leaders of +the opposition. Fries's theory of knowledge and faith is the empirical +counterpart of Fichte's Science of Knowledge. Schopenhauer, in his doctrine +of Will and Idea, in his vigorously intuitive and highly fanciful view of +nature and art, and, in general, in his aesthetical mode of philosophizing, +with its glad escape from the fetters of method, has so much in common with +Schelling that many unhesitatingly treat his system as an offshoot of the +Philosophy of Nature. The contrast between Herbart and Hegel is the more +pronounced since they are at one in their confidence in the power of the +concept. The most conspicuous point of comparison between the metaphysics +of the two thinkers is the significance ascribed by them to the +contradiction as the operative moment in the movement of philosophical +thought. The attitude of hostility which Schleiermacher assumed in relation +to Hegel's intellectualistic conception of religion induced Harms to give +to Schleiermacher also a place in the ranks of the opposition. Following +the chronological order, we begin with the campaign opened by Fries under +the banner of anthropology against the main branch of the Kantian school. + + +%1. The Psychologists: Fries and Beneke.% + +Jacob Friedrich Fries (1773-1843) was born and reared at Barby, studied +at Jena, and habilitated at the same university in the year 1801; he was +professor at Heidelberg in 1806-16, and at Jena from 1816 until his death. +His chief work was the _New Critique of Reason_, in three volumes, 1807 +(2d ed., 1828 _seq_.), which had been preceded, in 1805, by the treatise +_Knowledge, Faith, and Presentiment_. Besides these he composed a _Handbook +of Psychical Anthropology_, 1821 (2d ed., 1837 _seq_.), text-books of +Logic, Metaphysics, the Mathematical Philosophy of Nature, and Practical +Philosophy and the Philosophy of Religion, and a philosophical novel, +_Julius and Evagoras, or the Beauty of the Soul_. + +Fries adopts and popularizes Kant's results, while he rejects Kant's +method. With Reinhold and Fichte, he thinks "transcendental prejudice" has +forced its way into philosophy, a phase of thought for which Kant himself +was responsible by his anxiety to demonstrate everything. That _a priori_ +forms of knowledge exist cannot be proved by speculation, but only by +empirical methods, and discovered by inner observation; they are +given facts of reason, of which we become conscious by reflection or +psychological analysis. The _a priori_ element cannot be demonstrated nor +deduced, but only shown actually present. The question at issue[1] between +Fries and the idealistic school therefore becomes, Is the discovery of the +_a priori_ element itself a cognition _a priori_ or _a posteriori_? Is +the criticism of reason a metaphysical or an empirical, that is, an +anthropological inquiry? Herbart decides with the idealists: "All concepts +through which we think our faculty of knowledge are themselves metaphysical +concepts" (_Lehrbuch zur Einleitung_, p. 231). Fries decides: The criticism +of reason is an empirico-psychological inquiry, as in general empirical +psychology forms the basis of all philosophy. + +[Footnote 1: Cf. Kuno Fischer's Pro-Rectoral Address, _Die beiden +Kantischen Schulen in Jena_, 1862.] + +With the exception of this divergence in method Fries accepts Kant's +results almost unchanged, unless we must call the leveling down which they +suffer at his hands a considerable alteration. Only the doctrine of the +Ideas and of the knowledge of reason is transformed by the introduction and +systematization of Jacobi's principle of the immediate evidence of faith. +Reason, the faculty of Ideas, _i.e._, of the indemonstrable yet indubitable +principles, is fully the peer of the sensibility and the understanding. The +same subjective necessity which guarantees to us the objective reality of +the intuitions and the categories accompanies the Ideas as well; the faith +which reveals to us the _per se_ of things is no less certain than the +knowledge of phenomena. The ideal view of the world is just as necessary as +the natural view; through the former we cognize the same world as through +the latter, only after a higher order; both spring from reason or the +unity of transcendental apperception, only that in the natural view we are +conscious of the fact, from which we abstract in the ideal view, that this +is the condition of experience. That which necessitates us to rise from +knowledge to faith is the circumstance that the empty unity-form of reason +is never completely filled by sensuous cognition. The Ideas are of two +kinds: the aesthetic Ideas are intuitions, which lack clear concepts +corresponding to them; the logical Ideas are concepts under which no +correspondent definite intuitions can be subsumed. The former are reached +through combination; the latter by negation, by thinking away the +limitations of empirical cognition, by removing the limits from the +concepts of the understanding. By way of the negation of all limitations we +reach as many Ideas as there are categories, that is, twelve, among which +the Ideas of relation are the most important. These are the three axioms of +faith--the eternity of the soul (its elevation above space and time, to be +carefully distinguished from immortality, or its permanence in time), +the freedom of the will, and the Deity. Every Idea expresses something +absolute, unconditioned, perfect, and eternal.--The dualism of knowledge +and faith, of nature and freedom, or of phenomenal reality and true, higher +reality, is bridged over by a third and intermediate mode of apprehension, +feeling or presentiment, which teaches us the reconciliation of the two +realities, the union of the Idea and the phenomenon, the interpenetration +of the eternal and the temporal. The beautiful is the Idea as it manifests +itself in the phenomenon, or the phenomenon as it symbolizes the eternal. +The aesthetico-religious judgment looks on the finite as the revelation and +symbol of the infinite. In brief, "Of phenomena we have knowledge; in the +true nature of things we believe; presentiment enables us to cognize the +latter in the former." + +Theoretical philosophy is divided into the philosophy of nature, which +is to use the mathematical method, hence to give a purely mechanical +explanation of all external phenomena, including those of organic life, +and to leave the consideration of the world as a teleological realm to +religious presentiment--and psychology. The object of the former is +external nature, that of the latter internal nature. I know myself only as +phenomenon, my body through outer, my ego through inner, experience. It +is only a variant mode of appearing on the part of one and the same +reality--so Fries remarks in opposition to the _influxus physicus_ and +the _harmonia praestabilata_--which now shows me my person inwardly as +my spirit, and now outwardly as the life-process of my body. Practical +philosophy includes ethics, the philosophy of religion, and aesthetics. In +accordance with the threefold interest of our animal, sensuo-rational, and +purely rational impulses, there result three ideals for the legislation of +values. These are the ideal of happiness, the ideal of perfection, and the +ideal of morality, or of the agreeable, the useful, and the good, the third +of which alone possesses an unconditioned worth and validity as a universal +and necessary law. The moral laws are deduced from faith in the equal +personal dignity of men, and the ennobling of humanity set up as the +highest mission of morality. The three fundamental aesthetical tempers are +the idyllic and epic of enthusiasm, the dramatic of resignation, the lyric +of devotion. + +Fries's system is thus a union of Kantian positions with elements from +Jacobi, in which the former experience deterioration, and the latter +improvement, namely, more exact formulation. Among his adherents, and he +has them still, the following appear deserving of mention: the botanists +Schleiden and Hallier; the theologian De Wette; the philosophers Calker (of +Bonn, died 1870) and Apelt (1812-59). The last made himself favorably known +by his _Epochs of the History of Humanity_, 1845-46, _Theory of Induction_, +1854, and _Metaphysics_, 1857; his _Philosophy of Religion_ (1860) did not +appear until after his death. The Catholic theologian, Georg Hermes of Bonn +(1775-1831) favored a Kantianism akin to that of Fries. + + * * * * * + +The psychological view founded by Fries was consistently developed by +Friedrich Eduard Beneke (1798-1854). With the exception of three years of +teaching in Goettingen, 1824-27, whither he had gone in consequence of a +prohibition of his lectures called forth by his _Foundation of the Physics +of Ethics_, 1822, he was a member of the university of his native city, +Berlin, first as _Docent_, and, from 1832, after the death of Hegel, who +was unfavorably disposed toward him, as professor extraordinary.[1] Besides +Kant, Jacobi, and Fries, Schleiermacher, Herbart (with whom he became +acquainted in 1821), and the English thinkers exerted a determining +influence on the formation of his philosophy. Beneke denies the possibility +of speculative knowledge even more emphatically than Fries. Kant's +undertaking was aimed at the destruction of a non-experiential science from +concepts, and if it has not succeeded in preventing the neo-Scholasticism +of the Fichtean school, with its overdrawn attempts to revive a deductive +knowledge of the absolute, this has been chiefly due to the false, +non-empirical method of the great critic of reason. The root and basis of +all knowledge is experience; metaphysics itself is an empirical science, it +is the last in the series of philosophical disciplines. Whoever begins with +metaphysics, instead of ending with it, begins the house at the roof. +The point of departure for all cognition is inner experience or +self-observation; hence the fundamental science is psychology, and all +other branches of philosophy nothing but applied psychology. By the inner +sense we perceive our ego as it really is, not merely as it appears to us; +the only object whose _per se_ we immediately know is our own soul; in +self-consciousness being and representation are one. Thus, in opposition to +Kant, Beneke stands on the side of Descartes: The soul is better known +to us than the external world, to which we only transfer the existence +immediately given in the soul as a result of instinctive analogical +inference, so that in the descent of our knowledge from men organized +like ourselves to inorganic matter the inadequacy of our representations +progressively increases. + +[Footnote 1: On Beneke's character cf. the fourth of Fortlage's _Acht +psychologische Vortraege_, which are well worth reading.] + +Psychology--we may mention of Beneke's works in this field the +_Psychological Sketches_, 1825-27, and the _Text-book of Psychology_, 1833, +the third and fourth (1877) editions of which, edited by Dressler, contain +as an appendix a chronological table of all Beneke's works--must, as +internal natural science, follow the same method, and, starting with +the immediately given, employ the same instruments in the treatment of +experience as external natural science, _i.e._ the explanation of facts +by laws, and, further still, by hypotheses and theories. Gratefully +recognizing the removal of two obstacles to psychology, the doctrine of +innate ideas and the traditional theory of the faculties of the soul by +Locke and Herbart, (the commonly accepted faculties--memory, understanding, +feeling, will--are in fact not simple powers, but mere abstractions, +hypostatized class concepts of extremely complex phenomena,) Beneke seeks +to discover the simple elements from which all mental life is compounded. +He finds these in the numerous elementary faculties of receiving and +appropriating external stimuli, which the soul in part possesses, in part +acquires in the course of its life, and which constitute its substance; +each separate sense of itself includes many such faculties. Every act +or product of the soul is the result of two mutually dependent factors: +_stimulus and receptivity_. Their coming together gives the first of +the _four fundamental processes_, that of perception. The second is +the constant addition of new elementary faculties. By the third, +the equilibration or reciprocal transfer of the movable elements in +representations, Beneke explains the reproduction of an idea through +another associated with it, and the widening of the mental horizon by +emotion, _e.g._, the astounding eloquence of the angry. Since each +representation which passes out of consciousness continues to exist in the +soul as an unconscious product (where we cannot tell; the soul is not in +space), it is not retention, but obliviscence which needs explanation. That +which persists of the representation which is passing into unconsciousness, +and which makes its reappearance in consciousness possible, is called +a "trace" in reference to its departed cause, and a "disposition" +(_Angelegtheit_) in reference to its future results. Every such trace +or germ (_Anlage_)--that which lies intermediate between perception and +recollection--is a force, a striving, a tendency. The fourth of the +fundamental processes (which may be traced downward into the material +world, since the corporeal and the psychical differ only in degree and +pass over into each other) is the combination of mental products according +to the measure of their similarity, as these come to light in the formation +of judgments, comparisons, witticisms, of collective images, collective +feelings, and collective desires. The innate differences among men depend +on the greater or lesser "powerfulness, vivacity, and receptivity" of their +elementary faculties; all further differences arise gradually and are due +to the external stimuli; even the distinction between the human and the +animal soul, which consists in the spiritual nature of the former, is not +original. + +Of the five constructive forms of the soul, which result from the varying +relation between stimulus and faculty, four are emotional products or +products of moods. If the stimulus is too small pain (dissatisfaction, +longing) arises, while pleasure springs from a marked, but not too great, +fullness of stimulus. If the stimulus gradually increases to the point of +excess, blunted appetite and satiety come in; when the excess is sudden +it results in pain. A clear representation, a sensation arises when the +stimulus is exactly proportioned to the faculty; it is in this case only +that the soul assumes a theoretical attitude, that it merely perceives +without any admixture of agreeable or disagreeable feelings. Desire is +pleasure remembered, the ego the complex of all the representations which +have ever arisen in the soul, the totality of the manifold given within me. +For the immortality of the immaterial soul Beneke advances an original and +attractive argument based on the principle that, in consequence of the +constantly increasing traces, through which the substance of the soul is +continually growing, consciousness turns more and more from the outer +to the inner, until finally perception dies entirely away. At death the +connection with the outer world ceases, it is true, but not the inner being +of the soul, for which that which has hitherto been highest now becomes the +foundation for new and still higher developments. + +Like Herbart, on whom he was in many ways dependent, Beneke discussed +psychology and pedagogics with greater success than logic, metaphysics, +practical philosophy, and the philosophy of religion. He combats the +apriorism of Kant in ethics as elsewhere. The moral law does not arise +until the end of a long development. First in order are the immediately +felt values of things, which we estimate according to the degree of +enhancement or depression in the psychical state which they call forth. +From the feelings are formed concepts, from concepts judgments; and the +abstraction of the categorical imperative is a highly derivative phenomenon +and a very late result, although the feeling of oughtness or of moral +obligation, which accompanies the correct estimation of values and bids +us prefer spiritual to sensuous delights and the general good to our own +welfare, grows necessarily out of the inner nature of the human soul. There +are two sources of religion: one theoretical, for the idea of God; the +other practical, for the worship of God. We are impelled to the assumption +of a suprasensible, an unconditioned, a providence, on the one hand, by the +desire for a unitary conclusion for our fragmentary knowledge of the world; +and, on the other, by moral need, by our unsatisfied longing after the +good. The attributes which we ascribe to God are taken from experience, the +abstract attributes from being in general, the naturalistic from the world, +the spiritual from man. As an inevitable outcome of the transformation of +religious feelings into representations, and one which is harmless because +of the unmistakableness of their symbolic character, the anthropomorphic +predicates, through which we think the Deity as personal, themselves +establish the superiority of theism over pantheism. The object of religion, +moreover, is accessible only to the subjective certitude of feeling which +is given by faith, and not to scientific knowledge. + +Feuerbach's anthropological standpoint will be discussed below. Like +Friedrich Ueberweg (1826-71; professor in Koenigsberg; _System of Logic_, +1857, 5th ed., edited by J.B. Meyer, 1882--English translation, 1871), Karl +Fortlage was strongly influenced in his psychological views by Beneke. +Born in 1806 at Osnabrueck, and at his death in 1881 a professor in Jena, +Fortlage shared with Beneke an impersonality of character, as well as the +fate of meeting with less esteem from his contemporaries than he merited +by the seriousness and originality of his thinking. To his _System of +Psychology_, 1855, in two volumes, he added, as it were, a third volume, +his _Contributions to Psychology_, 1875, besides psychological lectures of +a more popular cast (_Eight Lectures_, 1869, 2d ed., 1872; _Four Lectures_, +1874).[1] Fortlage characterizes his psychological method--in the criticism +of which F.A. Lange fails to show the justice for which he is elsewhere +to be commended--as observation by the inner sense. In the first place, +consciousness, as the active form of representation, must be separated from +that of which we are conscious, from the "content of representation," which +is in itself unconscious, but capable of coming into consciousness. Next +Fortlage seeks to determine the laws of these two factors. In regard to +the content of representation he distinguishes more sharply than Herbart +between the fusibility of the homogeneous and the capacity for complex +combination possessed by the heterogeneous (the fusion of similars goes on +even without aid from consciousness, while the connection of dissimilars is +brought about only through the help of the latter), and adds to these two +general properties of the content of representation two further ones, its +revivability (its persistence in unconsciousness), and its dissolubility in +the scale of size, color, etc. Consciousness, on the other hand, which for +Fortlage coincides with the ego or self, is treated as the presupposition +of all representations, not as their result--it is underived activity. He +explains the nature of consciousness by the concept of attention, +characterizes them both as "questioning activity" (_Fragethaetigkeit_), and +follows them out in their various degrees from expectation through +observation up to reflection. The listening and watching of the hunter +when waiting for the game is only a prolongation of the same consciousness +which accompanies all less exciting representations. The essential element +in conscious or questioning activity is the oscillation between yes and no. + +As soon as the disjunction is decided by a yes, the desire which lies at +its basis, and which in the condition of consciousness is arrested, passes +over into activity. All consciousness is based on interest, and in its +origin is "arrested impulse" (_Triebhemmung_). "The direction of impulse +to an intuition to be expected only in the future is called +consciousness." The rank of a being depends on its capacity for +reflection: the greater the extent of its attention and the smaller +the stimuli which suffice to rouse this to action, the higher it stands. +Impulse--this is the fundamental idea of Fortlage's psychology, like will +with Fichte, and representation with Herbart--consists of an element of +representation and an element of feeling. + +Pleasure + effort-image = impulse. + +[Footnote 1: Among Fortlage's other works we may mention his valuable +_History of Poetry_, 1839; the _Genetic History of Philosophy since Kant_, +1852; and the attractive _Six Philosophical Lectures_, 1869, 2d ed., 1872.] + + +In his metaphysical convictions, to which he gave expression in his +_Exposition and Criticism of the Arguments for the Existence of God_, +1840, among other works, Fortlage belongs to the philosophers of identity. +Originally sailing in Hegel's wake, he soon recognizes that the roots of +the theory of identity go back to the Kantio-Fichtean philosophy, with +which the system of absolute truth, as he holds, has come into being. He +thus becomes an adherent of the Science of Knowledge, whose deductive +results he finds inductively confirmed by psychological experience. +Psychology is the empirical test for the metaphysical calculus of the +Science of Knowledge. In regard to the absolute Fortlage is in agreement +with Krause, the younger Fichte, Ulrici, etc., and calls his standpoint +_transcendent pantheism_. According to this all that is good, exalted, and +valuable in the world is divine in its nature; the human reason is of +the same essence as the divine reason (there can be nothing higher than +reason); the Godhead is the absolute ego of Fichte, which employs the +empirical egos as organs, which thinks and wills in individuals, in so +far as they think the truth and will the good, but at the same time as +universal subject goes beyond them. If, after the example of Hegel, we give +up transcendent pantheism in favor of immanence, two unphilosophical modes +of representing the absolute at once result--on the one hand, materialism; +on the other, popular, unphilosophical theism. If the Fichtean Science +of Knowledge could be separated from its difficult method, which it is +impossible ever to make comprehensible to the unphilosophical mind, it +would be called to take the place of religion.[1] + +[Footnote 1: Among Fortlage's posthumous manuscripts was one on the +Philosophy of Religion, on which Eucken published an essay in the +_Zeitschrift fuer Philosophie_, vol. lxxxii. 1883, p. 180 _seq_. after +Lipsius had given a single chapter from it--"The Ideal of Morality +according to Christianity"--in his _Jahrbuecher fuer protestantische +Theologie_ (vol. ix. pp. 1-45). The journals _Im Neuen Reich_, 1881, No. +24, and _Die Gegenwart_, 1882, No. 34, contained warmly written notices of +Fortlage by J. Volkelt. Leopold Schmid (in Giessen, died 1869) gives a +favorable and skillfully composed outline of Fortlage's system in his +_Grundzuege der Einleitung in die Philosophie mit einer Beleuchtung der +von K. Ph. Fischer, Sengler, und Fortlage ermoeglichten Philosophie der +That_, 1860, pp. 226-357. Cf. also Moritz Brasch, _K. Fortlage, Ein +philosophisches Charakterbild_, in _Unsere Zeit_, 1883, Heft II, +pp. 730-756, incorporated in the same author's _Philosophie der +Gegenwart_, 1888.] + + +%2. Realism: Herbart.% + +Johann Friedrich Herbart was scientifically the most important among the +philosophers of the opposition. Herbart was born at Oldenburg in 1776, the +son of a councilor of justice, and had already become acquainted with the +systems of Wolff and Kant before he entered the University of Jena in +1794. In 1796 he handed in to his instructor Fichte a critique of two of +Schelling's treatises, in which the youthful thinker already broke +away from idealism. While a private tutor in Switzerland he made the +acquaintance of Pestalozzi. In 1802 he habilitated in Goettingen, where, in +1805, he was promoted to a professorship extraordinary; while in 1809 he +received the professorship in Koenigsberg once held by Kant, and later by +W. Tr. Krug (died 1842). He died in 1841 at Goettingen, whither he had been +recalled in 1833. His _Collected Works_ were published in twelve volumes, +1850-52 (reprinted 1883 _seq_.), by his pupil Hartenstein, who has also +given an excellent exposition of his master's system in his _Probleme und +Grundlehren der allgemeinen Metaphysik_, 1836, and his _Grundbegriffe der +ethischen Wissenschaften_, 1844; a new edition, in chronological order, and +under the editorship of K. Kehrbach, began to appear in 1882, or rather +1887, and has now advanced to the fourth volume, 1891. Herbart's chief +works were written during his Koenigsberg residence: the _Text-book of +Introduction to Philosophy_, 1813, 4th ed., 1837 (very valuable as an +introduction to Herbartian modes of thought); _General Metaphysics_, 1829 +(preceded in 1806 and 1808 by _The Principal Points in Metaphysics_, with a +supplement, _The Principal Points in Logic); Text-book of Psychology_,[1] +1816, 2d ed., 1834; _On the Possibility and Necessity of applying +Mathematics to Psychology_, 1822; _Psychology as a Science_, 1824-25. The +two works on ethics, which were widely separated in time, were, on the +other hand, written in Goettingen: _General Practical Philosophy_, 1808; +_Analytical Examination of Natural Right and of Morals_, 1836. To these +may be added a _Discourse on Evil_, 1817; _Letters on the Doctrine of +the Freedom of the Human Will_, 1836; and the _Brief Encyclopaedia of +Philosophy_, 1831, 2d ed., 1841. His works on education and instruction, +whose influence and value perhaps exceed those of his philosophical +achievements (collected editions of the pedagogical works have been +prepared by O. Willmann, 1873-75, 2d ed., 1880; and by Bartholomaei), +extended through his whole life. Besides pedagogics, psychology was the +chief sphere of his services. + +[Footnote 1: English translation by M.K. Smith, 1891.] + +In antithesis to the philosophy of intuition with its imagined superiority +to the standpoint of reflection, Herbart makes philosophy begin with +attention to concepts, defining it as the elaboration of concepts. +Philosophy, therefore, is not distinguished from other sciences by its +object, but by its method, which again must adapt itself to the +peculiarity of the object, to the starting point of the investigation in +question--there is no universal philosophical method. There are as many +divisions of philosophy as there are modes of elaborating concepts. The +first requisite is the discrimination of concepts, both the discrimination +of concepts from others and of the marks within each concept. This work +of making concepts clear and distinct is the business of logic. With this +discipline, in which Herbart essentially follows Kant, are associated two +other forms of the elaboration of concepts, that of physical and that +of aesthetic concepts. Both of these classes require more than a merely +logical elucidation. The physical concepts, through which we apprehend the +world and ourselves, contain contradictions and must be freed from them; +their correction is the business of meta-physics. Metaphysics is the +science of the comprehensibility of experience. The aesthetic (including +the ethical) concepts are distinguished from the nature-concepts by a +peculiar increment which they occasion in our representation, and which +consists in a judgment of approval or disapproval. To clear up these +concepts and to free them from false allied ideas is the task of aesthetics +in its widest sense. This includes all concepts which are accompanied by a +judgment of praise or blame; the most important among them are the ethical +concepts. Thus, aside from logic, we reach two principal divisions of +philosophy, which are elsewhere contrasted as theoretical and practical, +but here in Herbart as metaphysics and aesthetics. Herbart maintains that +these are entirely independent of each other, so that aesthetics, since it +presupposes nothing of metaphysics, may be discussed before metaphysics, +while the philosophy of nature and psychology depend throughout on +ontological principles. Together with natural theology the two latter +sciences constitute "applied" metaphysics. This in turn presupposes +"general" metaphysics, which subdivides into four parts: Methodology, +Ontology, Synechology, _i.e._, the theory of the continuous ([Greek: +_suneches_]), which treats of the continua, space, time, and motion, and +Eidolology, _i.e._, the theory of images or representations. The last forms +the transition to psychology, while synechology forms the preparation +for the philosophy of nature, whose most general problems it solves. Our +exposition will not need to observe these divisions closely. + +Metaphysics starts with the given, but cannot rest content with it, for it +contains contradictions. In resolving these we rise above the given. What +_is given_? Kant has not answered this question with entire correctness. +We may, indeed, term the totality of the given "phenomena," but this +presupposes something which appears. If nothing existed there would also +nothing appear. As smoke points to fire, so appearance to being. So much +seeming, so much indication of being. Things in themselves may be known +mediately, though not immediately, by following out the indications of +being contained by the given appearance. Further, not merely the unformed +matter of cognition is given to us, but it is rather true that everything +comes under this concept which experience so presses on us that we cannot +resist it; hence not merely single sensations, but entire sensation-groups, +not merely the matter, but also the forms of experience. If the latter were +really subjective products, as Kant holds, it would necessarily be possible +for us at will to think each perceptive-content either under the category +of substance, or property, or cause--possible for us, if we chose, to see +a round table quadrilateral. In reality we are bound in the application of +these forms; they are given for each object in a definite way. The given +forms--Herbart calls them experience-concepts--contain contradictions. +How can these contradictions be removed? We may neither simply reject the +concepts which are burdened with contradictions, for they are given, nor +leave them as they are, for the logical _principium contradictionis_ +requires that the contradiction as such be rooted out. The +experience-concepts are valid (they find application in experience), but +they are not thinkable. Therefore we must so transform and supplement them +that they shall become free from contradictions and thinkable. The method +which Herbart employs to remove the contradictions is as follows: The +contradiction always consists in the fact that an _a_ should be the same as +a _b_, but is not so. The desiderated likeness of the two is impossible so +long as we think _a_ as _one_ thing. That which is unsuccessful in this +case will succeed, perhaps, if in thought we break up the _a_ into several +things--[Greek: _a b g_]. Then we shall be able to explain through the +"together" (_Zusammen_) of this plurality what we were unable to explain +from the undecomposed _a_, or from the single constituents of it. The +"together" is a "relation" established by thought among the elements of the +real. For this reason Herbart terms his method of finding out necessary +supplements to the given "the method of relations." Another name for the +same thing is "the method of contingent aspects." Mechanics operates with +contingent aspects when, for the sake of explanation, it resolves a given +motion into several components. Such fictions and substitutions--auxiliary +concepts, which are not real, but which serve only as paths for +thought--may be successfully employed by metaphysics also. The abstract +expression of this method runs: The contradiction is to be removed by +thinking one of its members as manifold rather than as one. In order to +observe the workings of this Herbartian machine we shall go over the four +principal contradictions by which his acuteness is put to the test--the +problems of inherence, of change, of the continuous, of the ego. + +We call the given sensation-complexes "things," and ascribe "properties" to +them. How can one and the same thing have different properties--how can +the one be at the same time many? To say that the thing "possesses" the +properties does not help the matter. The possession of the different +properties is itself just as manifold and various as the properties which +are possessed. Hence the concept of the thing and its properties must be +so transformed that the plurality which seems to be in the thing shall be +transferred without it. Instead of one thing let us assume several, each +with a single definite property, from whose "together" the appearance +of many qualities in one thing now arises. The appearance of manifold +properties in the one thing has its ground in the "together" of many +things, each of which has one simple quality. Again, it is just as +impossible for a thing to have different qualities in succession, or to +change, as it is for it to have them at the same time. The popular view +of change, which holds that a thing takes on different forms (ice, water, +steam) and yet remains the same substance, is untenable. How is it possible +to become another, and yet to remain the same? The universal feeling that +the concept needs correction betrays itself in the fact that everyone +involuntarily adds a cause to the change in thought, and seeks a cause for +it, and thus of himself undertakes a transformation of the concept, though, +it is true, an inadequate one. If we think this concept through we come +upon a trilemma, a threefold impossibility. Whether we endeavor to deduce +the change from external or from internal causes, or (with Hegel) to think +it as causeless, in each case we involve ourselves in inconceivabilities. +All three ideas--change as mechanism, as self-determination or freedom, +as absolute becoming--are alike absurd. We can escape these contradictions +only by the bold decision to conceive the quality of the existent as +unchangeable. For the truly existent there is no change whatever. It +remains, however, to explain the appearance of change, in which the wand of +decomposition and the "together" again proves its magic power. Supported by +the motley manifoldness of phenomena, we posit real beings as qualitatively +different, and view this diversity as partial contraposition; we resolve, +_e.g._, the simple quality _a_ into the elements _x_ + _z_, and a second +quality _b_ into _y - z_. So long as the individual things remain by +themselves, the opposition of the qualities will not make itself evident. +But as soon as they come together, something takes place--now the opposites +(+_z_ and -_z_) seek to destroy or at least to disturb each other. The +reals defend themselves against the disturbance which would follow if the +opposites could destroy each other, by each conserving its simple, +unchangeable quality, _i.e._, by simply remaining self-identical. +_Self-conservation against_ threatened _disturbances_ from without (it may +be compared to resistance against pressure) is the only real change, and +apparent change, the empirical changes of things, to be explained from +this. That which changes is only the relations between the beings, as a +thing maintains itself now against this and now against that other thing; +the relations, however, and their change are something entirely contingent +and indifferent to the existent. In itself the self-conservation of a real +is as uniform as the quality which is conserved, but in virtue of the +changing relations (the variety of the disturbing things) it can express +itself for the observer in manifold ways as force. The real itself changes +as little as a painting changes, for instance, when, seen near at hand, the +figures in it are clearly distinguished, while for the distant +observer, on the contrary, they run together into an indistinguishable +chaos. Change has no meaning in the sphere of the existent. + +Anyone who speaks thus has denied change, not deduced it. Among the many +objections experienced by Herbart's endeavor to explain the empirical +fact of change by his theory of self-conservation against threatened +disturbances Lotze's is the most cogent: The unsuccessful attempt to +solve the difficulties in the concept of becoming and action is still +instructive, for it shows that they cannot be solved in this way--from the +concept of inflexible being. If the "together," the threatened disturbance, +and the reaction against the latter be taken as realities, then, in the +affection by the disturber, the concept of change remains uneliminated and +uncorrected; if they be taken as unreal concepts auxiliary to thought, +change is relegated from the realm of being to the realm of seeming. +Herbart gives to them a kind of semi-reality, less true than the unmoving +ground of things (their unchangeable, permanent qualities), and more true +than their contradictory exterior (the empirical appearance of change). +Between being and seeming he thrusts in, as though between day and night, +the twilight region of his "contingent aspects," with their relations, +which are nothing to the real, their disturbances, which do not come to +pass, and their self-conservations, which are nothing but undisturbed +continuance in existence on the part of the real. + +Besides the contradictions in the concepts of inherence, of change, +and action and passion, it is the concept of being which prevents our +philosopher from ascribing a living character to reality. Being, as Kant +correctly perceived, contains nothing qualitative; it is absolute position. +Whoever affirms that an object _is_, expresses thereby that the matter is +to rest with the simple position; in which is included that it is nothing +dependent, relative, or negative. (Every negation is something relative, +relates to a precedent position, which is to be annulled by it.) Besides +being, the existent contains something more--a quality; it consists of this +absolute position and a _what_. If this _what_ is separated from being we +reach an "image"; united with being it yields an essence or a real. This +_what_ of things is not their sensuous qualities; the latter belong rather +to the mere phenomenon. No one of them indicates what the object is by +itself, when left alone. They depend on contingent circumstances, and apart +from these they would not exist--what is color in the dark? what sound +in airless space? what weight in empty space? what fusibility without +fire?--they are each and all relative. Since being excludes negation of +every kind, the quality of the existent must be absolutely _simple and +unchangeable_; it brooks no manifoldness, no quantity, no distinctions in +degree, no becoming; all this were a corruption of the purely affirmative +or positive character of being. The existent is unextended and eternal. +The Eleatics are to be praised because the need of escaping from the +contradictions in the world of experience led them to make themselves +masters of the concept of being without relation and without negation, and +of the simple, homogeneous quality of the existent in its full purity. But +while the Eleatics conceived the existent as one, the atomists made an +advance by assuming a _plurality_ of reals. The truly one never becomes +a plurality; plurality is given, hence an original plurality must be +postulated. Herbart characterizes his own standpoint as qualitative +atomism, since his reals are differentiated by their properties, not by +quantitative relations (size and figure). The idealists and the pantheists +make a false use of the tendency toward unity which, no doubt, is present +in our reason, when they maintain that true being must be one. There is +absolutely nothing in the concept of being to forbid us to think the +existent as many; while the world of phenomena, with its many things and +their many properties, gives irrefragable grounds which compel us to this +conclusion. Hence, according to Herbart, the true reality is a (very +large, though not, it is true, an infinite[1]) plurality of supra-sensible +(non-spatial and non-temporal) reals, or, according to the Leibnitzian +expression, monads, which all their life have nothing further to do than +to preserve intact against disturbances the simple quality in which they +consist (for the existent is not distinct from its quality; it does not +have the quality, but is the quality). Each thing has but one response for +the most varied influences: it answers all suggestions from without by +affirming its _what_, by continually repeating, as it were, the same note, +which gains a varying meaning only in so far as, in accordance with the +character of the disturber, it appears now as a third, now as a fifth or +seventh. This picture of the world is certainly not attractive; in it all +change and becoming, all life and all activity is offered up on the altar +of monotonous being. Happily Herbart is inconsistent enough to enliven this +comfortless waste of changeless being by the relatively real or semi-real +manifoldness of the self-conservations. + +The infinite divisibility of space and of matter forms the chief difficulty +in the problem of the continuous. Herbart endeavors to solve it by the +assumption of an intelligible space with "fixed" lines (lines formed by a +definite number of points, hence finitely divisible, and not continuous). +Metaphysics demands the fixed or discrete line, although common thought +is incapable of conceiving it. Space is a mere form of combination in +representation or for the observer, and yet it is objective, _i.e._, it is +valid for all intelligences, and not merely for human intelligence. +From his complex and unproductive endeavors to derive the appearance of +continuity from discontinuous reality we hurry on to the fourth, the +psychological problem, which Herbart discusses with great acuteness. He +considers it the chief merit of Fichte's Science of Knowledge that it +called attention to this problem. + +The concept of the ego, of whose reality we have so strong and immediate a +conviction that, in the formula of asseveration, "as true as I exist," +it is made the criterion of all other certitude, labors under various +contradictions. Besides the familiar difficulty, here especially sensible, +of one thing with many marks, it contains other absurdities of its own. In +the ego or self-consciousness subject and object are to be identical. +The identity of the representing and the represented ego is a +self-contradictory idea, for the law of contradiction forbids the equation +of opposites, while a subject is subject only through the fact that it is +not object. But, again, self-consciousness can never be realized, because +it involves a _regressus in infinitum_. The ego is defined as that which +represents itself. What is this "self"? It is, in turn, the self-knower. +This new explanation contains still a further self; which once more +signifies the self-knower and so on to infinity. The ego represents the +representation (_Vorstellen_) of its representation (_Vorstellen)_, etc. +The representation (_Vorstellung_) of the ego, therefore, can never be +actually brought to completion. (The assumption of the freedom of the will +leads to an analogous _regressus in infinitum_, in which the question, +"Willst thou thy volition?" "Willst thou the willing of this volition"? is +repeated to infinity.) The only escape from this tissue of absurdities +is to think the ego otherwise than is done by popular consciousness. The +knowing and the known ego are by no means the same, but the observing +subject in self-consciousness is one group of representations, the observed +subject another. Thus, for example, newly formed representations are +apperceived by the existing older ones, but the highest apperceiver is not, +in turn, itself apperceived. The ego is not a unit being, which represents +itself in the literal meaning of the phrase, but that which is represented +is a plurality. The ego is the junction of numberless series of +representations, and is constantly changing its place; it dwells now in +this representation, now in that. But as we distinguish the point of +meeting from the series which meet there, and imagine that it is possible +simultaneously to abstract from all the represented series (whereas in fact +we can only abstract from each one separately), there arises the appearance +of a permanent ego as the unit subject of all our representations. In +reality the ego is not the source of our representations, but the final +result of their combination. The representation, not the ego, is the +fundamental concept of psychology, the ego constituting rather its most +difficult problem.[1] It is a "result of other representations, which, +however, in order to yield this result, must be together in a single +substance, and must interpenetrate one another" (_Text-book of +Introduction_, p. 243). In this way Herbart defends the substantiality +of the soul against Kant and Fries. The soul's immortality (as also its +pre-existence) goes without saying, because of the non-temporal character +of the real. + +[Footnote 1: On the Herbartian psychology, cf. Ribot, _German Psychology of +To-day_, English Translation by Baldwin, 1886, pp. 24-67; and G.F. Stout, +_Mind_, vols. xiii.-xiv.--TR.] + +The soul is one of these reals which, unchangeable in themselves, enter +into various relations with others, and conserve themselves against the +latter. In its simple _what_ as unknowable as the rest, it is yet familiar +to us in its self-conservations. In the absence of a more fitting +expression for the totality of psychical phenomena we call these +_representations_, the phenomenal manifoldness of which is due to the +variety of the disturbances and exists for the observer alone. In itself, +without a plurality of dispositions and impulses, the soul is originally +not a representative force, but first becomes such under certain +circumstances, viz., when it is stimulated to self-conservation by other +beings. The sum of the reals which stand in immediate relation to the soul +is called its body; this, an aggregate of simple beings, furnishes the +intermediate link of causal relation between the soul and the external +world. The soul has its (movable) seat in the brain. In opposition to the +physiological treatment of psychology, Herbart remarks that psychology +throws much more light on physiology than she can ever receive from it. + +The simplest representations are the sensations, which, amid all their +variety, still group themselves into definite classes (odors, sounds, +colors). They serve us as symbols of the disturbing reals, but they are not +images of things, nor effects of these, but products of the soul itself: +the generation of sensations is the soul's peculiar way of guarding itself +against threatened disturbances. Every representation once come into being +disappears again from consciousness, it is true, but not from the soul. +It persists, unites with others, and stands with them in a relation of +interaction--in both cases according to definite laws. These original +representations are the only ones which the soul produces by its own +activity; all other psychical phenomena, feeling, desire, will, attention, +memory, judgment, the whole wealth of inner events, result of themselves +from the interplay of the primary representations under law. Representation +(more exactly sensation) is alone original; space, time, the categories, +which Kant makes _a priori_, are all acquired, _i.e._, like all the higher +mental life, they are the results of a psychical _mechanism_, results whose +production needs no renewed exertion on the part of the soul itself. It has +been a very harmful error in psychology hitherto to ascribe each particular +mental activity to a special _faculty of the soul_ having a similar name, +instead of deriving it from combinations of simple representations. +Abstract, empty class ideas have been treated as real forces, in the belief +that thus the single concrete acts had been "explained." + +There is no bitterer foe of the faculty theory than Herbart. His campaign +against it, if not victorious, was yet salutary, and the motives of his +hostility, up to a certain point, entirely justified. Nothing is more +useless than the assurance that what the soul actually does, that it must +also have the power to do. Who disputes this? A faculty explains nothing +so long as the laws under which its functions and its relations to other +faculties remain unexplained. But although the faculty idea serves no +positive end, it cannot be entirely discarded. It marks the boundary where +our ability to reduce one class of psychical phenomena to another ceases. +Herbart's polemic has no force against the moderate and necessary use of +this idea, no matter how much it was in place in view of the impropriety of +a superfluous multiplication of the faculties of the soul. The realization +of the ideal of psychology, the reduction of the complex phenomena of +mental life to the smallest possible number of simple elements, is limited +by the heterogeneity of the original phenomena, knowing, feeling, willing, +which wholly resists derivation from the combination of sensations. That +which blinded Herbart to these limitations was that tendency toward unity, +which, as a metaphysician and moral philosopher, he had all too willfully +suppressed, and which now took revenge for this infringement of its rights +by misleading the psychologist to an exaggeration which had important +consequences. Nevertheless his unsuccessful attempt remains interesting and +worthy of gratitude. + + + +The discovery of the laws which govern the interaction of the psychical +elements is the task of a _statics and a mechanics_ of representations. The +former investigates the equilibrium or the settled final state; the latter, +the change, _i.e._ the movements of representations. These names of +themselves betray Herbart's conviction that mathematics can and must be +applied to psychology. The bright hopes, however, which Herbart formed for +the attempt at a mathematical psychology, were fulfilled neither in his own +endeavors nor in those of his pupils, although, as Lotze remarks, it would +be asserting too much to say that the most general formulas which he set up +contradict experience.--The unity of the soul forces representations to act +on one another. Disparate representations, those, that is, which belong +to different representative series, as the visual image of a rose and the +auditory image of the word rose, or as the sensations yellow, hard, round, +ringing, connected in the concept gold piece, enter into complications +[complexes]. Homogeneous representations (the memory image and the +perceptual image of a black poodle) fuse into a single representation. +Opposed representations (red and blue) arrest one another when they are in +consciousness together. The connection and graded fusion of representations +is the basis of their retention and reproduction, as well as of the +formation of continuous series of representations. The reproduction is in +part immediate, a free rising of the representation by its own power as +soon as the hindrances give way; in part mediate, a coming up through +the help of others. On the _arrest_ of partially or totally opposed +representations Herbart bases his psychological calculus. Let there be +given simultaneously in consciousness three opposed representations of +different intensities, the strongest to be called _a_, the weakest _c_, the +intermediate one _b_. What happens? They arrest one another, _i.e._ a part +of each is forced to sink below the threshold of consciousness.[1] + +What is the amount of the arrest? As much as all the weaker representations +together come to--the sum of arrest or the sum of that which becomes +unconscious (as it were the burden to be divided) is equal to the sum of +all the representations with the exception of the strongest (hence = _b_ + +_c_), and is divided among the individual representations in the inverse +ratio of their strength, consequently in such a way that the strongest (the +one which most actively and successfully resists arrest) has the least, +and the weakest the most, of it to bear. It may thus come to pass that a +representation is entirely driven out of consciousness by two stronger +ones, while it is impossible for this to happen to it from a single one, +no matter how superior it be. The simplest case of all is when two equally +strong representations are present, in which case each is reduced to +the half of its original intensity. The sum of that which remains in +consciousness is always equal to the greatest representation. + +[Footnote 1: By their mutual pressure representations are transformed into +a mere _tendency_ to represent, which again becomes actual representation +when the arrest ceases. The parts of a representation transformed into a +tendency, and the residua remaining unobscured, are not pieces cut off, +but the quantity denotes merely a degree of obscuration in the whole +representation, or rather in the representation which actually takes +place.] + +As soon as a representation reaches the zero point of consciousness, or as +soon as a new representation (sensation) comes in, the others begin at +once to rise or sink. The Mechanics seeks to investigate the laws of these +movements of representations; but we may the more readily pass over its +complicated calculations since their precise formulas can never more than +very roughly represent the true state of the case, which simply rebels +against precision. The rock on which every immanent use of mathematics +in psychology must strike, is the impossibility of exactly measuring one +representation by another. We may, indeed, declare one stronger than +another on the basis of the immediate impression of feeling, but we cannot +say how much stronger it is, nor with reason assert that it is twice or +half as intense. Herbart's mathematical psychology was wrecked by this +insurmountable difficulty. The demand for exactness which it raised, but +which it was unable to satisfy with the means at its disposal, has recently +been renewed, and has led to assured results in psycho-physics, which works +on a different basis and with ingenious methods of measurement. + +Herbart endeavors, as we have seen, to deduce the various mental activities +from the play of representations, Feeling and desire are not something +beside representations, are not special faculties of the soul, but results +of the relations of representations, changing states of representations +arrested and working upward against hindrances. A representation which has +been forced out of consciousness persists as a _tendency or effort_ to +represent, and as such exerts a pressure on the conscious representations. +If a representation is suspended between counteracting forces a feeling +results; desire is the rise of a representation in the face of hindrances, +aversion is hesitation in sinking. If the effort is accompanied by the idea +that its goal is attainable, it is termed will. The character of a man +depends on the fact that definite masses of representations have +become dominant, and by their strength and persistence hold opposing +representations in check or suppress them. The longer the dominant mass of +representations exercises its power, the firmer becomes the habit of acting +in a certain way, the more fixed the will. Herbart's intellectualistic +denial of self-dependence to the practical capacities of the soul leads him +logically to determinism. Volition depends on insight, is determined by +representations; freedom signifies nothing but the fact that the will +can be determined by motives. If the individual decisions of man were +undetermined he would have no character; if the character were free in the +choice between two actions, then, along with the noblest resolve, there +would remain the possibility of an opposite decision; freedom of choice +would make pure chance the doer of our deeds. Pedagogics, above all, +must reject the idea of an undetermined freedom; education, along with +imputation, correction, and punishment, would be a meaningless word, if no +determining influence on the will of the pupil were possible.--This last +objection overlooks the fact that the pedagogical influence is always +mediate, and can do no more than, by disciplining the impulses of the pupil +and by supplying him with aids against immoral inclinations, to lighten his +moral task. We can work on the motives only, never directly on the will +itself. Otherwise it would be inexplicable that even the best pedagogical +skill proves powerless in the case of many individuals. + +Herbart's psychology was preceded by a philosophy of nature, which +construes matter from attraction and repulsion, and declares an _actio in +distans_ impossible. The intermediate link between physics and psychology +is formed by the science of organic life (physiology or biology); and +with this natural theology is connected by the following principles: The +purposiveness which we notice with admiration in men and the higher animals +compels us, since it can neither come from chance nor be explained on +natural grounds alone, to assume as its author a supreme artificer, +an intelligence which works by ends. It is true, indeed, that the existence +of the Deity is not demonstrated by the teleological argument; this is only +an hypothesis, but one as highly probable as the assumption that the human +bodies by which we are surrounded are inhabited by human souls--a fact +which we can only assume, not perceive nor prove. The assurance of faith +is different from that of logic and experience, but not inferior to it. +Religion is based on humility and grateful reverence, which is favored, not +injured, by the immeasurable sublimity of its object, the incompleteness of +our idea of the Supreme Being, and the knowledge of our ignorance. If faith +rests, on the one hand, on the teleological view of nature, it is, on the +other, connected with moral need, and exercises, in addition, aesthetic +influences. By comforting the suffering, setting right the erring, +reclaiming and pacifying the sinner, warning, strengthening, and +encouraging the morally sound, religion brings the spirit into a new and +better land, shows it a higher order of things, the order of providence, +which, amid all the mistakes of men, still furthers the good. The religious +spirit always includes an ethical element, and the bond of the Church holds +men together even where the state is destroyed. Indispensable theoretically +as a supplement to our knowledge, and practically because of the moral +imperfection of men, who need it to humble, warn, comfort, and lift them +up, religion is, nevertheless, in its origin independent of knowledge +and moral will. Faith is older than science and morals: the doctrine of +religion did not wait for astronomy and cosmology, nor the erection of +temples for ethics. Before the development of the moral concepts religion +already existed in the form of wonder without a special object, of a gloomy +awe which ascribed every sudden inner excitement to the impulse of an +invisible power. Since a speculative knowledge of the nature of God is +impossible, the only task which remains for metaphysics is the removal of +improper determinations from that which tradition and phantasy have to +say on the subject. We are to conceive God as personal, extramundane, and +omnipotent, as the creator, not of the reals themselves, but of their +purposive coexistence (_Zusammen_). In order, however, to rise from the +idea of the original, most real, and most powerful being to that of the +most excellent being we need the practical Ideas, without which the former +would remain an indifferent theoretical concept. Man can pray only to a +wise, holy, perfect, just, and good God. + +This, in essential outline, is the content of the scattered observations +on the philosophy of religion given by Herbart. Drobisch (_Fundamental +Doctrines of the Philosophy of Religion_, 1840), from the standpoint of +religious criticism and with a renewal of the moral argument, and Taute +(1840-52) and Fluegel (_Miracles and the Possibility of a Knowledge of God_, +1869) with an apologetic tendency and one toward a belief in miracles, +have, among others, endeavored to make up for the lack of a detailed +treatment of this discipline by Herbart--from which, moreover, much of +value could hardly have been expected in view of the jejuneness of his +metaphysical conceptions and the insufficiency of his appreciation of evil. + +It remains only to glance at Herbart's Aesthetics. The beautiful is +distinguished from the agreeable and the desirable, which, like it, are the +objects of preference and rejection, by the facts, first, that it arouses +an involuntary and disinterested judgment of approval; and second, that it +is a predicate which is ascribed to the object or is objective. To these is +added, thirdly, that while desire seeks for that which is to come, taste +possesses in the present that which it judges. + +That which pleases or displeases is always the form, never the matter; +and further, is always a relation, for that which is entirely simple is +indifferent. As in music we have succeeded in discovering the simplest +relations, which please immediately and absolutely--we know not why--so +this must be attempted in all branches of the theory of art. The most +important among them, that which treats of moral beauty, moral philosophy, +has therefore to inquire concerning the simplest relations of will, which +call forth moral approval or disapproval (independently of the interest +of the spectator), to inquire concerning the practical Ideas or +pattern-concepts, in accordance with which moral taste, involuntarily and +with unconditional evidence, judges concerning the worth or unworth of +(actually happening or merely represented) volitions. Herbart enumerates +five such primary Ideas or fundamental judgments of conscience. + +(1) The Idea of inner freedom compares the will with the judgment, the +conviction, the conscience of the agent himself. The agreement of his +desire with his own judgment, with the precept of his taste, pleases, lack +of agreement displeases. Since the power to determine the will according +to one's own insight of itself establishes only an empty consistency and +loyalty to conviction, and may also subserve immoral craft, the first Idea +waits for its content from the four following. + +(2) The Idea of perfection has reference to the quantitative relations +of the manifold strivings of a subject, in intensity, extension, and +concentration. The strong is pleasing in contrast with the weak, the +greater (more extended, richer) in contrast with the smaller, the collected +in contrast with the scattered; in other words, in the individual +desires it is energy which pleases, in their sum variety, in the system +co-operation. While the first two Ideas have compared the will of the +individual man with itself, the remaining ones consider its relation to the +will of other rational beings, the third to a merely represented will, and +the last two to an actual one. + +(3) According to the Idea of benevolence or goodness, which gives the most +immediate and definite criterion of the worth of the disposition, the will +pleases if it is in harmony with the (represented) will of another, _i.e._, +makes the satisfaction of the latter its aim. + +(4) The Idea of right is based on the fact that strife displeases. If +several wills come together at one point without ill-will (in claiming a +thing), the parties ought to submit themselves to right as a rule for the +avoidance of strife. + +(5) In retribution and equity, also, the original element is displeasure, +displeasure in an unrequited act as a disturbance of equilibrium. This +last Idea demands that no deed of good or evil remain unanswered; that in +reward, thanks, and punishment, a quantum of good and evil equal to that of +which he has been the cause return upon the agent. The one-sided deed of +good or ill is a disturbance, the removal of which demands a corresponding +requital. + +Herbart warns us against the attempt to derive the five original Ideas +(which scientific analysis alone separates, for in life we always judge +according to all of them together) from a single higher Idea, maintaining +that the demand for a common principle of morals is a prejudice. From +the union of several beings into one person proceed five other +pattern-concepts, the derived or social Ideas of the ethical institutions +in which the primary Ideas are realized. These correspond to the primary +Ideas in the reverse order: The system of rewards, which regulates +punishment; the legal society, which hinders strife; the system of +administration, aimed at the greatest possible good of all; the system +of culture, aimed at the development of the greatest possible power and +virtuosity; finally, as the highest, and that which unites the others in +itself, society as a person, which, when it is provided with the necessary +power, is termed the state. + +If we combine the totality of the original Ideas into the unity of the +person the concept of virtue arises. If we reflect on the limitations which +oppose the full realization of the ideal of virtue, we gain the concepts of +law and duty. An ethics, like that of Kant, which exclusively emphasizes +the imperative or obligatory character of the good, is one-sided; it +considers morality only in arrest, a mistake which goes with its false +doctrine of freedom. On the other hand, it was a great merit in Kant +that he first made clear the unconditional validity of moral judgment, +independent of all eudemonism. Politics and pedagogics are branches of the +theory of virtue. The end of education is development in virtue, and, as +a means to this, the arousing of varied interests and the production of a +stable character. + +In conclusion, we may sum up the points in which Herbart shows himself +a follower of Kant--he calls himself a "Kantian of the year 1828." His +practical philosophy takes from Kant its independence of theoretical +philosophy, the disinterested character of aesthetic judgment, the +absoluteness of ethical values, the non-empirical origin of the moral +concepts: "The fundamental ethical relations are not drawn from +experience." His metaphysics owes to Kant the critical treatment of the +experience-concepts (its task is to make experience comprehensible), in +which the leading idea in the Kantian doctrine of the antinomies, the +inevitableness of contradictions, is generalized, extended to all the +fundamental concepts of experience, and, as it were, transferred from the +Dialectic to the Analytic; it owes to him, further, the conception of being +as absolute position, and, finally, the dualism of phenomena and things +in themselves. Herbart (with Schopenhauer) considers the renewal of the +Platonic distinction between seeming and being the chief service of the +great critical philosopher, and finds his greatest mistake in the _a +priori_ character ascribed to the forms of cognition. In the doctrine of +the pure intuitions and the categories, and the Critique of Judgment, he +rejects, and with full consciousness, just those parts of Kant on which the +Fichtean school had built further. Finally, Herbart's method of thought, +his impersonality, the at times anxious caution of his inquiry, and the +neatness of his conceptions, are somewhat akin to Kant's, only that he +lacked the gift of combination to a much greater degree than his great +predecessor on the Koenigsberg rostrum. His remarkable acuteness is busier +in loosening than in binding; it is more happy in the discovery of +contradictions than in their resolution. Therefore he does not belong to +the kings who have decided the fate of philosophy for long periods of time; +he stands to one side, though it is true he is the most important figure +among these who occupy such a position. + +The first to give his adherence to Herbart in essential positions, and so +to furnish occasion for the formation of an Herbartian school, was Drobisch +(born 1802), in two critiques which appeared in 1828 and 1830. Besides +Drobisch, from whom we have valuable discussions of Logic (1836, 5th ed., +1887) and Empirical Psychology (1842), and an interesting essay on _Moral +Statistics and the Freedom of the Will_ (1867), L. Struempell (born 1812; +_The Principal Points in Herbart's Metaphysics Critically Examined_, 1840), +is a professor in Leipsic. The organ of the school, the _Zeitschrift +fuer exakte Philosophie_, now edited by Fluegel (the first volume, 1860, +contained a survey of the literature of the school), was at first issued +by T. Ziller, the pedagogical thinker, and Allihn. The _Zeitschrift fuer +Voelkerpsychologie und Sprachwissenschaft_, from 1859, edited by M. Lazarus +(born 1824; _The Life of the Soul_, 3 vols., 1856 _seq_., 3d ed., 1883 +_seq_.) and H. Steinthal (born 1823; _The Origin of Language_, 4th ed., +1888; _Sketch of the Science of Language_, part i. 2d ed., 1881; _General +Ethics_, 1885) of Berlin, also belongs to the Herbartian movement. +Distinguished service has been done in psychology by Nahlowsky (_The Life +of Feeling_, 1862, 2d. ed., 1884), Theodor Waitz in Marburg (1821-84; +_Foundation of Psychology_, 1846; _Text-book of Psychology_, 1849), and +Volkmann in Prague (1822-77; _Text-book of Psychology_, 3d. ed., by +Cornelius, 1884 and 1885); while Friedrich Exner (died 1853) was formerly +much spoken of as an opponent of the Hegelian psychology (1843-44). Robert +Zimmermann in Vienna (born 1824) represents an extreme formalistic tendency +in aesthetics (_History of Aesthetics_, 1858; _General Esthetics as Science +of Form_, 1865; further, a series of thorough essays on subjects in the +history of philosophy). Among historians of philosophy Thilo has given a +rather one-sided representation of the Herbartian standpoint. The school's +philosophers of religion have been mentioned above (p. 532). Beneke, whom +we have joined with Fries on account of his anthropological standpoint, +stands about midway between Herbart and Schopenhauer. He shares in the +former's interest in psychology, in the latter's foundation of metaphysical +knowledge on inner experience, and in the dislike felt by both for Hegel; +while, on the other hand, he differs from Herbart in his empirical method, +and from Schopenhauer in the priority ascribed to representation over +effort. + + +%3. Pessimism: Schopenhauer.% + +Schopenhauer is in all respects the antipodes of Herbart. If in Herbart +philosophy breaks up into a number of distinct special inquiries, +Schopenhauer has but one fundamental thought to communicate, in the +carrying out of which, as he is convinced, each part implies the whole and +is implied by the whole. The former operates with sober concepts where the +latter follows the lead of gifted intuition. The one is cool, thorough, +cautious, methodical to the point of pedantry; the other is passionate, +ingenious, unmethodical to the point of capricious dilettantism. In the one +case, philosophy is as far as possible exact science, in which the person +of the thinker entirely retires behind the substance of the inquiry; in the +other, philosophy consists in a sum of artistic conceptions, which derive +their content and value chiefly from the individuality of the author. The +history of philosophy has no other system to show which to the same +degree expresses and reflects the personality of the philosopher as +Schopenhauer's. This personality, notwithstanding its limitations and its +whims, was important enough to give interest to Schopenhauer's views, even +apart from the relative truth which they contain. + +Arthur Schopenhauer (1788-1860) was the son of a merchant in Dantzic and +his wife Johanna, _nee_ Trosiener, who subsequently became known as a +novelist. His early training was gained from foreign travel, but after the +death of his father he exchanged the mercantile career, which he had begun +at his father's request, for that of a scholar, studying under G.E. Schulze +in Goettingen, and under Fichte at Berlin. In 1813 he gained his doctor's +degree in Jena with a dissertation _On the Fourfold Root of the Principle +of Sufficient Reason_. Then he moved from Weimar, the residence of his +mother, where he had associated considerably with Goethe and had been +introduced to Indian philosophy by Fr. Mayer, to Dresden (1814-18). In the +latter place he wrote the essay _On Sight and Colors_ (1816; subsequently +published by the author in Latin), and his chief work, _The World as Will +and Idea_ (1819; new edition, with a second volume, 1844). After the +completion of the latter he began his first Italian journey, while his +second tour fell in the interval between his two quite unsuccessful +attempts (in Berlin 1820 and 1825) to propagate his philosophy from the +professor's desk. From 1831 until his death he lived in learned retirement +in Frankfort-on-the-Main. Here he composed the opuscule _On Will in +Nature_, 1836, the prize treatises _On the Freedom of the Human Will_ and +_On the Foundation of Ethics_ (together, _The Two Fundamental Problems +of Ethics_, 1841), and the collection of minor treatises _Parerga and +Paralipomena_, 2 vols., 1851 (including an essay "On Religion"). +J. Frauenstaedt has published a considerable amount of posthumous material +(among other things the translation, _B. Gracians Handorakel der +Weltklugheit_); the _Collected Works_ (6 vols., 1873-74, 2d ed., 1877, with +a biographical notice); _Lichtstrahlen aus Schopenhauers Werken_, 1861, 5th +ed. 1885; and a _Schopenhauer Lexicon_, 2 vols., 1871.[1] + +[Footnote 1: From the remaining Schopenhauer literature (F. Laban has +published a chronological survey of it, 1880) we may call attention to the +critiques of the first edition of the chief work by Herbart and Beneke, and +that of the second edition by Fortlage (_Jenaische Litteratur Zeitung_, +1845, Nos. 146-151); J.E. Erdmann _Herbart und Schopenhauer, eine Antithese +(Zeitschrift fuer Philosophie_, 1851); Wilh. Gwinner, _Schopenhauers +Leben_, 1878 (the second edition of _Schopenhauer aus persoenlichem +Umgang dargestellt_, 1862); Fr. Nietzsche, _Schopenhauer als Erzieher +(Unzeitgemaesse Betrachtungen, Stueck iii_., 1874); O. Busch, _A. +Schopenhauer_, 2d. ed., 1878; K. Peters, _Schopenhauer als Philosoph und +Schriftsteller_, 1880; R. Koeber, _Die Philosophie A. Schopenhauers_, 1888. +[The English reader may be referred to Haldane and Kemp's translation of +_The World as Will and Idea_, 3 vols., 1883-86; the translation of _The +Fourfold Root_ and the _Will in Nature_ in Bohn's Philosophical Library, +1889; Saunders's translations from the _Parerga and Paralipomena_, 1889 +_seq_.; Helen Zimmern's _Arthur Schopenhauer, his Life and his Philosophy_, +1876; W. Wallace's _Schopenhauer_, Great Writers Series, 1890 (with a +bibliography by Anderson, including references to numerous magazine +articles, etc.); Sully's _Pessimism_, 2d ed., 1882, chap. iv.; and Royce's +_Spirit of Modern Philosophy_, chap, viii., 1892.--TR.]] + +In regard to subjective idealism Schopenhauer confesses himself a +thoroughgoing Kantian. That sensations are merely states in us has long +been known; Kant opened the eyes of the world to the fact that the forms of +knowledge are also the property of the subject. I know things only as they +appear to me, as I represent them in virtue of the constitution of my +intellect; the world is my idea. The Kantian theory, however, is capable of +simplification, the various forms of cognition may be reduced to a single +one, to the category of causality or principle of sufficient reason--which +was preferred by Kant himself--as the general expression of the regular +connection of our representations. This principle, in correspondence with +the several classes of objects, or rather of representations--viz., pure +(merely formal) intuitions, empirical (complete) intuitions, acts of will, +abstract concepts--has four forms: it is the _principium rationis essendi, +rationis fiendi, rationis agendi, rationis cognoscendi_. The _ratio +essendi_ is the law which regulates the coexistence of the parts of space +and the succession of the divisions of time. The _ratio fiendi_ demands for +every change of state another from which it regularly follows as from its +cause, and a substance as its unchangeable substratum--matter. All changes +take place necessarily, all that is real is material; the law of causality +is valid for phenomena alone, not beyond them, and holds only for the +states of substances, not for substances themselves. In inorganic nature +causes work mechanically, in organic nature as stimuli (in which the +reaction is not equal to the action), and in animated nature as motives. +A motive is a conscious (but not therefore a free) cause; the law of +motivation is the _ratio agendi_. This serial order, "mechanical cause, +stimulus, and motive," denotes only distinctions in the mode of action, not +in the necessity of action. Man's actions follow as inevitably from his +character and the motives which influence him as a clock strikes the hours; +the freedom of the will is a chimera. Finally, the _ratio cognoscendi_ +determines that a judgment must have a sufficient ground in order to be +true. Judgment or the connection of concepts is the chief activity of the +reason, which, as the faculty of abstract thought and the organ of science, +constitutes the difference between man and the brute, while the possession +of the understanding with its intuition of objects is common to both. In +opposition to the customary overestimation of this gift of mediate +representations, of language, and of reflection, Schopenhauer gives +prominence to the fact that the reason is not a creative faculty like the +understanding, but only a receptive power, that it clarifies and transforms +the content furnished by intuition without increasing it by new +representations. + +Objective cognition is confined within the circle of our representations; +all that is knowable is phenomenon. Space, time, and causality spread out +like a triple veil between us and the _per se_ of things, and prevent a +vision of the true nature of the world. There is one point, however, at +which we know more than mere phenomena, where of these three disturbing +media only one, time-form, separates us from the thing in itself. This +point is the consciousness of ourselves. + +On the one hand, I appear to myself as body. My body is a temporal, +spatial, material object, an object like all others, and with them subject +to the laws of objectivity. But besides this objective cognition, I have, +further, an immediate consciousness of myself, through which I apprehend +my true being--I know myself as willing. My will is more than a mere +representation, it is the original element in me, the truly real which +appears to me as body. The will is related to the intellect as the primary +to the secondary, as substance to accident; it is related to the body +as the inner to the outer, as reality to phenomenon. The act of will is +followed at once and inevitably by the movement of the body willed, nay, +the two are one and the same, only given in different ways: will is the +body seen from within, body the will seen from without, the will become +visible, objectified. After the analogy of ourselves, again, who appear to +ourselves as material objects but in truth are will, all existence is to +be judged. The universe is the _mac-anthropos_; the knowledge of our own +essence, the key to the knowledge of the essence of the world. Like our +body, the whole world is the visibility of will. The human will is the +highest stage in the development of the same principle which manifests its +activity in the various forces of nature, and which properly takes its name +from the highest species. To penetrate further into the inner nature of +things than this is impossible. What that which presents itself as will +and which still remains after the negation of the latter (see below) is in +itself, is for us absolutely unknowable. + +The world is _per se_ will. None of the predicates are to be attributed to +the primal will which we ascribe to things in consequence of our subjective +forms of thought--neither determination by causes or ends, nor plurality: +it stands outside the law of causality, as also outside space and time, +which form the _principium individuationis_. The primal will is groundless, +blind stress, unconscious impulse toward existence; it is one, the one +and all, [Greek: en nai pan]. That which manifests itself as gravity, as +magnetic force, as the impulse to growth, as the _vis medicatrix naturae_, +is only this one world-will, whose unity (not conscious character!) shows +itself in the purposiveness of its embodiments. The essence of each thing, +its hidden quality, at which empirical explanation finds its limit, is its +will: the essence of the stone is its will to fall; that of the lungs is +the will to breathe; teeth, throat, and bowels are hunger objectified. +Those qualities in which the universal will gives itself material +manifestation form a series with grades of increasing perfection, a realm +of unchangeable specific forms or eternal Ideas, which (with a real value +difficult to determine) stand midway between the one primal will and +the numberless individual beings. That the organic individual does not +perfectly correspond to the ideal of its species, but only approximates +this more or less closely, is grounded in the fact that the stadia in the +objectification of the will, or the Ideas, contend, as it were, for matter; +and whatever of force is used up in the victory of the higher Ideas over +the lower is lost for the development of the examples of the former. The +higher the level on which a being stands the clearer the expression of its +individuality. The most general forces of nature, which constitute the raw +mass, play the fundamental bass in the world-symphony, the higher stages +of inorganic nature, with the vegetable and animal worlds, the harmonious +middle parts, and man the guiding treble, the significant melody. With the +human brain the world as idea is given at a stroke; in this organ the will +has kindled a torch in order to throw light upon itself and to carry out +its designs with careful deliberation; it has brought forth the intellect +as its instrument, which, with the great majority of men, remains in a +position of subservience to the will. Brain and thought are the same; the +former is nothing other than the will to know, as the stomach is will +to digest. Those only talk of an immaterial soul who import into +philosophy--where such ideas do not belong--concepts taught them when they +were confirmed. + +Schopenhauer's philosophy is as rich in inconsistencies as his personality +was self-willed and unharmonious. "He carries into his system all the +contradictions and whims of his capricious nature," says Zeller. From the +most radical idealism (the objective world a product of representation) he +makes a sharp transition to the crassest materialism (thought a function of +the brain); first matter is to be a mere idea, now thought is to be merely +a material phenomenon! The third and fourth books of _The World as Will and +Idea_, which develop the aesthetic and ethical standpoint of their author, +stand in as sharp a contradiction to the first (poetical) and the second +(metaphysical) books as these to each other. While at first it was +maintained that all representation is subject to the principle of +sufficient reason, we are now told that, besides causal cognition, there is +a higher knowledge, one which is free from the control of this principle, +viz., aesthetic and philosophical intuition. If, before, it was said that +the intellect is the creature and servant of the will, we now learn that in +favored individuals it gains the power to throw off the yoke of slavery, +and not only to raise itself to the blessedness of contemplation free from +all desire, but even to enter on a victorious conflict with the tyrant, +to slay the will. The source of this power--is not revealed. R. Haym _(A. +Schopenhauer_, 1864, reprinted from the _Preussische Jahrbuecher_) was not +far wrong in characterizing Schopenhauer's philosophy as a clever novel, +which entertains the reader by its rapid vicissitudes. + +The contemplation which is free from causality and will is the essence of +aesthetic life; the partial and total sublation, the quieting and negation +of the will, that of ethical life. It is but seldom, and only in the +artistic and philosophical genius, that the intellect succeeds in freeing +itself from the supremacy of the will, and, laying aside the question of +the _why_ and _wherefore_, _where_ and _when_, in sinking itself completely +in the pure _what_ of things. While with the majority of mankind, as with +animals, the intellect always remains a prisoner in the service of the will +to live, of self-preservation, of personal interests, in gifted men, +in artists and thinkers, it strips off all that is individual, and, in +disinterested vision of the Ideas, becomes pure, timeless subject, freed +from the will. Art removes individuality from the subject as well as from +the object; its comforting and cheering influence depends on the fact that +it elevates those enjoying it to the stand-point--raised above all pain +of desire--of a fixed, calm, completely objective contemplation of the +unchangeable essence, of the eternal types of things. For aesthetic +intuition the object is not a thing under relations of space, time, and +cause, but only an expression, an exemplification, a representative of +the Idea. Poetry, which presents--most perfectly in tragedy--the Idea of +humanity, stands higher than the plastic arts. The highest rank, however, +belongs to music, since it does not, like the other arts, represent single +Ideas, but--as an unconscious metaphysic, nay, a second, ideal world above +the material world--the will itself. In view of this high appreciation +of their art, it is not surprising that musicians have contributed a +considerable contingent to the band of Schopenhauer worshipers. A different +source of attraction for the wider circle of readers was supplied by the +piquant spice of pessimism. + +If the purposiveness of the phenomena of nature points to the unity of the +primal will, the unspeakable misery of life, which Schopenhauer sets forth +with no less of eloquence, proves the blindness and irrationality of the +world-ground. To live is to suffer; the world contains incomparably more +pain than pleasure; it is the worst possible world. In the world of +sub-animal nature aimless striving; in the animal world an insatiable +impulse after enjoyment--while the will, deceiving itself with fancied +happiness to come, which always remains denied it, and continually +tossed to and fro between necessity and _ennui_, never attains complete +satisfaction. The pleasure which it pursues is nothing but the removal of +a dissatisfaction, and vanishes at once when the longing is stilled, to +be replaced by fresh wants, that is, by new pains. In view of the +indescribable misery in the world, to favor optimism is evidence not so +much of folly and blindness as of a wanton disposition. The old saying is +true: Non-existence is better than existence. The misery, however, is the +just punishment for the original sin of the individual, which gave itself +its particular existence by an act of intelligible freedom. Redemption from +the sin and misery of existence is possible only through a second act +of transcendental freedom, which, since it consists in the complete +transformation of our being, and since it is supernatural in its origin, +the Church is right in describing as a new birth and work of grace. + +Morality presupposes pessimistic insight into the badness of the world and +the fruitlessness of all desire, and pantheistic discernment of the untruth +of individual existence and the identity in essence of all individuals +from a metaphysical standpoint. Man is able to free himself from egoistic +self-affirmation only when he perceives the two truths, that all striving +is vain and the longed-for pleasure unattainable, and that all individuals +are at bottom one, viz. manifestations of the same primal will. This is +temporarily effected in sympathy, which, as the only counterpoise to +natural selfishness, is the true moral motive and the source of all love +and justice. The sympathizer sees himself in others and feels their +suffering as his own. The entire negation of the will, however, inspiring +examples of which have been furnished by the Christian ascetics and +Oriental penitents, stands higher than the vulgar virtue of sympathy with +the sufferings of others. Here knowledge, turned away from the individual +and vain to the whole and genuine, ceases to be a motive for the will and +becomes a means of stilling it; the intellect is transformed from a motive +into a quietive, and brings him who gives himself up to the All safely +out from the storm of the passions into the peace of deliverance from +existence. Absence of will, resignation, is holiness and blessedness in +one. For him who has slain the will in himself the motley deceptive dream +of phenomena has vanished, he lives in the ether of true reality, which for +our knowledge is an empty nothingness ("Nirvana"), yet (as the ultimate, +incomprehensible _per se_, which remains after the annulling of the will) +only a relative nothingness--relative to the phenomenon. + +Schopenhauer disposes of the sense of responsibility and the reproofs of +conscience, which are inconvenient facts for his determinism, by making +them both refer, not to single deeds and the empirical character, but to +the indivisible act of the intelligible character. Conscience does not +blame me because I have acted as I must act with my character and the +motives given, but for being what in these actions I reveal myself to be. +_Operari sequitur esse_. My action follows from my being, my being was my +own free choice, and a new act of freedom is alone capable of transforming +it. + +If Schopenhauer is fond of referring to the agreement of his views with the +oldest and most perfect religions, the idea lies in the background that +religion,--which springs from the same metaphysical needs as philosophy, +and, for the great multitude, who lack the leisure and the capacity for +philosophical thought, takes the place of the former,--as the metaphysics +of the people, clothes the same fundamental truths which the philosopher +offers in conceptual form and supports by rational grounds in the garb of +myth and allegory, and places them under the protection of an external +authority. When this character of religion is overlooked, and that which +is intended to be symbolical is taken for literal truth (it is not +the supernaturalists alone who start with this unjust demand, but the +rationalists also, with their minimizing interpretations), it becomes the +worst enemy of true philosophy. In Christianity the doctrines of original +sin and of redemption are especially congenial to our philosopher, as well +as mysticism and asceticism. He declares Mohammedanism the worst religion +on account of its optimism and abstract theism, and Buddhism the best, +because it is idealistic, pessimistic, and--atheistic. + +It was not until after the appearance of the second edition of his +chief work that Schopenhauer experienced in increasing measure the +satisfaction--which his impatient ambition had expected much earlier--of +seeing his philosophy seriously considered. A zealous apostle arose for +him in Julius Frauenstaedt (died 1878; _Letters on the Philosophy of +Schopenhauer_, 1854; _New Letters on the Philosophy of Schopenhauer_, +1876), who, originally an Hegelian, endeavored to remove pessimism from the +master's system. Like Eduard von Hartmann, who will be discussed below, +Julius Bahnsen (died 1882; _The Contradiction in the Knowledge and Being +of the World, the Principle and Particular Verification of Real-Dialectic_, +1880-81; also, interesting characterological studies) seeks to combine +elements from Schopenhauer and Hegel, while K. Peters (_Will-world and +World-will_, 1883) shows in another direction points of contact with the +first named thinker. Of the younger members of the school we may name P. +Deussen in Kiel (_The Elements of Metaphysics_, 2d ed., 1890), and Philipp +Mainlaender (_Philosophy of Redemption_, 2d ed., 1879). As we have mentioned +above, Schopenhauer's doctrines have exercised an attractive force in +artistic circles also. Richard Wagner (1813-83; _Collected Writings_, 9 +vols., 1871-73, vol. x. 1883; 2d ed., 1887-88), whose earlier aesthetic +writings (_The Art-work of the Future_, 1850; _Opera and Drama_, 1851) had +shown the influence of Feuerbach, in his later works (_Beethoven_, 1870; +_Religion and Art_, in the third volume of the _Bayreuther Blaetter_, 1880) +became an adherent of Schopenhauer, after, in the _Ring of the Nibelung_, +he had given poetical expression to a view of the world nearly allied to +Schopenhauer's, though this was previous to his acquaintance with the works +of the latter.[1] One of the most thoughtful disciples of the Frankfort +philosopher and the Bayreuth dramatist is Fried rich Nietzsche (born 1844). +His _Unseasonable Reflections_, 1873-76,[2] is a summons to return from the +errors of modern culture, which, corrupted by the seekers for gain, by the +state, by the polite writers and savants, especially by the professors +of philosophy, has made men cowardly and false instead of simple and +honorable, mere self-satisfied "philistines of culture." In his writings +since 1878[3] Nietzsche has exchanged the role of a German Rousseau for +that of a follower of Voltaire, to arrive finally at the ideal of the man +above men.[4] + +[Footnote 1: Cf. on Wagner, Fr. v. Hausegger, _Wagner und Schopenhauer_, +1878. [English translation of Wagner's _Prose Works_ by Ellis, vol. i., +1892.--TR.]] + +[Footnote 2: "D. Strauss, the Confessor and the Author"; "On the Advantage +and Disadvantage of History for Life"; "Schopenhauer as an Educator"; "R. +Wagner in Bayreuth."] + +[Footnote 3: _Human, All-too-human_, new ed., 1886; _The Dawn, Thoughts on +Human Prejudices_, 1881; _The Merry Science_, 1882; _So spake Zarathustra_, +1883-84; _Beyond Good and Evil_, 1886; _On the Genealogy of Morals_, 1887, +2d ed., 1887; _The Wagner Affair_, 1888, 2d ed., 1892; _Goetzendaemmerung, or +How to Philosophize with the Hammer_, 1889.] + +[Footnote 4: Cf. H. Kaatz, _Die Weltanschauung Fr. Nietzsches, I. Kultur +und Moral_, 1892.] + + + +CHAPTER XV. + +PHILOSOPHY OUT OF GERMANY. + + +%1. Italy.% + +The Cartesian philosophy, which had been widely accepted in Italy, and had +still been advocated, in the sense of Malebranche, by Sigismond Gerdil +(1718-1802), was opposed as an unhistorical view of the world by +Giambattista Vico,[1] the bold and profound creator of the philosophy of +history (1668-1744; from 1697 professor of rhetoric in the University +of Naples). Vico's leading ideas are as follows: Man makes himself the +criterion of the universe, judges that which is unknown and remote by the +known and present. The free will of the individual rests on the judgments, +manners, and habits of the people, which have arisen without reflection +from a universal human instinct. Uniform ideas among nations unacquainted +with one another are motived in a common truth. History is the development +of human nature; in it neither chance nor fate rules, but the legislative +power of providence, in virtue of which men through their own freedom +progressively realize the idea of human nature. The universal course of +civilization is that culture transfers its abode from the forests and huts +into villages, cities, and, finally, into academies; the nature of the +nations is at first rude, then stern, gradually it becomes mild, nay, +effeminate, and finally wanton; at first men feel only that which is +necessary, later they regard the useful, the convenient, the agreeable +and attractive, until the luxury sprung from the sense for the beautiful +degenerates into a foolish misuse of things. Vico divides antiquity into +three periods: the divine (theocracy), the heroic (aristocracy), and the +human (democracy and monarchy). The same course of things repeats itself in +the nations of later times: to the patriarchal dominion of the fanciful, +myth-making Orient correspond the spiritual states of the migrations; to +the old Greek aristocracy, the chivalry and robbery of the period of the +Crusades; to the republicanism and the monarchy of later antiquity, the +modern period, which gives even the citizens and peasants a share in the +universal equality. If European culture had not been transplanted to +America, the same three-act drama of human development would there be +playing. Vico carries this threefold division into his consideration of +manners, laws, languages, character, etc. + +[Footnote 1: Vico: _Principles of a New Science of the Common Nature of +Nations_, 1725; _Works_, in six volumes, edited by G. Ferrari, 1835-37, +new ed.. 1853 _seq_. On Vico cf. K. Werner, 1877 and 1879. [Also Flint's +_Vico_, Blackwood's Philosophical Classics, 1884.--TR.]] + +If Vico anticipates the Hegelian view of history, Antonio Genovesi +(1712-69), who also taught at the University of Naples, and while the +former was still living, shows himself animated by a presentiment of the +Kantian criticism.[1] Appreciating Leibnitz and Locke, and appropriating +the idea of the monads from the one and the unknowableness of substance +from the other, he reaches the conviction--according to statements in his +letters--that sense-bodies are nothing but the appearances of intelligible +unities; that each being for us is an activity, whose substratum and +ground remains unknown to us; that self-consciousness and the knowledge +of external impressions yield phenomena alone, through the elaboration of +which we produce the intellectual worlds of the sciences. For the rest, +Genovesi thus advises his friends: Study the world, devote yourselves to +languages and to mathematics, think more about men than about the things +above us, and leave metaphysical vagaries to the monks! His countrymen +honor in him the man who first included ethics and politics in +philosophical instruction, and who used the Italian language both from the +desk and in his writings, holding that a nation whose scientific works are +not composed in its own tongue is barbarian. + +[Footnote 1: In the following account we have made use of a translation of +the concluding section of Francesco Florentine's _Handbook of the History +of Philosophy_, 1879-81, which was most kindly placed at our disposal by +Dr. J. Mainzer. Cf. _La Filosofia Contemporanea in Italia_, 1876, by the +same author; further, Bonatelli, _Die Philosophic in Italien seit_, 1815; +_Zeitschrift fuer Philosophic und philosophische Kritik_, vol. liv. 1869, p. +134 _seq._; and especially, K. Werner, _Die Italienische Philosophic des +XIX. Jahrhunderts_, 5 vols., 1884-86. [The English reader may be referred to +the appendix on Italian philosophy in vol. ii. of the English translation +of Ueberweg, by Vincenzo Botta; and to Barzellotti's "Philosophy in Italy," +_Mind_, vol. in. 1878.--TR.]] + +The sensationalism of Condillac, starting from Parma, gained influence over +Melchiore Gioja (1767-1828; _Statistical Logic_, 1803; _Ideology_, 1822) +and Giandomenico Romagnosi (1761-1835; _What is the Sound Mind?_ 1827), but +not without experiencing essential modification from both. The importance +of these men, moreover, lies more in the sphere of social philosophy than +in the sphere of noetics. + +Of the three greatest Italian philosophers of this century, Galluppi, +Rosmini, and Gioberti, the first named is more in sympathy with the Kantian +position than he himself will confess. Pasquale Galluppi[1] (1770-1846; +from 1831 professor at Naples) adheres to the principle of experience, but +does not conceive experience as that which is sensuously given, but as +the elaboration of this through the synthetic relations _(rapporti)_ of +identity and difference, which proceed from the activity of the mind. +Vincenzo de Grazia (_Essay on the Reality of Human Knowledge_, 1839-42), +who holds all relations to be objective, and Ottavio Colecchi (died 1847; +_Philosophical Investigations_, 1843), who holds them all subjective, +oppose the view of Galluppi that some are objective and others subjective. +According to De Grazia judgment is observation, not connection; it finds +out the relations contained in the data of sensation; it discovers, but +does not produce them. Colecchi reduces the Kantian categories to two, +substance and cause. Testa, Borelli (1824), and, among the younger men, +Cantoni, are Kantians; Labriola is an Herbartian. + +[Footnote 1: Galluppi: _Philosophical Essay on the Critique of Knowledge_, +1819 _seq.; Lectures on Logic and Metaphysics_, 1832 _seq.; Philosophy +of the Will_, 1832 _seq.; On the System of Fichte, or Considerations on +Transcendental Idealism and Absolute Rationalism_, 1841. By the _Letters +on the History of Philosophy from Descartes to Kant_, 1827, in the later +editions to Cousin, he became the founder of this discipline in his native +land.] + +Antonio Rosmini-Serbati[1] (born 1797 at Rovereto, died 1855 at Stresa) +regards knowledge as the common product of sensibility and understanding, +the former furnishing the matter, the latter the form. The form is one: the +Idea of being which precedes all judgment, which does not come from myself, +which is innate, and apprehensible by immediate inner perception _(essere +ideale, ente universale)_. The pure concepts (substance, cause, unity, +necessity) arise when the reflecting reason analyzes this general Idea +of being; the mixed Ideas (space, time, motion; body, spirit), when the +understanding applies it to sensuous experience. The universal Idea of +being and the particular existences are in their being identical, but in +their mode of existence different. In his posthumous _Theosophy_, +1859 _seq_., Rosmini no longer makes the universal being receive its +determinations from without, but produce them from its own inner nature +by means of an _a priori_ development. Vincenzo Gioberti[1] (born 1801 in +Turin, died 1852 at Paris) has been compared as a patriot with Fichte, and +in his cast of thought with Spinoza. In place of Rosmini's "psychologism," +which was advanced by Descartes and which leads to skepticism, he seeks to +substitute "ontologism," which is alone held capable of reconciling science +and the Catholic religion. By immediate intuition (the content of which +Gioberti comprehends in the formula "Being creates the existences") we +cognize the absolute as the creative ground of two series, the series of +thought and the series of reality. The endeavors of Rosmini and Gioberti to +bring the reason into harmony with the faith of the Church were fiercely +attacked by Giussepe Ferrari (1811-76) and Ausonio Franchi (1853), while +Francesco Bonatelli _(Thought and Cognition_, 1864) and Terenzio Mamiani +(1800-85; _Confessions of a Metaphysician_, 1865), follow a line of thought +akin to the Platonizing views of the first named thinkers. The review +_Filosofia delle Scuole Italiane_, called into life by Mamiani in 1870, has +been continued since 1886 under the direction of L. Ferri as the _Rivista +Italiana di Filosofia_. + +[Footnote 1: Rosmini: _New Essay on the Origin of Ideas_, 1830 (English +translation, 1883-84); _Principles of Moral Science_, 1831; _Philosophy +of Right_, 1841.] [Footnote B: Gioberti: _Introduction to the Study of +Philosophy_, 1840; _Philosophical Errors of A. Rosmini_, 1842; _On the +Beautiful_, 1841; _On the Good_, 1842; _Protology_ edited by Massari, 1857. +On both cf. R. Seydel, _Zeitschrift fuer Philosophie_, 1859.] + +The Thomistic doctrine has many adherents in Italy, among whom the Jesuit +M. Liberatore (1865) may be mentioned. The Hegelian philosophy has also +found favor there (especially in Naples), as well as positivism. The former +is favored by Vera, Mariano, Ragnisco, and Spaventa (died 1885); the +_Rivista di Filosofia Scientifica_, 1881 _seq_., founded by Morselli, +supports the latter, and E. Caporali's _La Nuova Scienza_, 1884, moves in +a similar direction. Pietro Siciliani _(On the Revival of the Positive +Philosophy in Italy_, 1871) makes the third, the critical, period of +philosophy by which scholasticism is overthrown and the reason made +authoritative, commence with Vico, and bases his doctrine on Vico's +formula: The conversion (transposition) of the _verum_ and the _factum_, +and _vice versa_. Subsequently he inclined to positivism, which he had +previously opposed, and among the representatives of which we may mention, +further, R. Ardigo of Pavia _(Psychology as Positive Science_, 1870; _The +Ethics of Positivism_, 1885; _Philosophical Works_, 1883 _seq_.), and +Andrea Angiulli of Naples (died 1890; _Philosophy and the Schools_, 1889), +who explain matter and spirit as two phenomena of the same essence; +further, Giuseppe Sergi, Giovanni Cesca, and the psychiatrist, C. Lombroso, +the head of the positivistic school of penal law. + + +%2. France.% + +Among the French philosophers of this century[1] none can compare in +far-reaching influence, both at home and abroad, with Auguste Comte,[2] the +creator of positivism (born at Montpellier in 1798, died at Paris in 1857), +whose chief work, the _Course of Positive Philosophy_, 6 vols., appeared in +1830 42. [English version, "freely translated and condensed," by Harriet +Martineau, 1853.] + +[Footnote 1: Accounts of French philosophy in the nineteenth century have +been given by Taine (1857, 3d ed., 1867); Janet _(La Philosophie Francaise +Contemporaine_, 2d ed., 1879); A. Franck; Ferraz (3 vols., 1880-89); Felix +Ravaisson (2d ed., 1884); the Swede, J. Borelius _(Glances at the Present +Position of Philosophy in Germany and France_, German translation by Jonas, +1887); [and Ribot, _Mind_, vol. ii., 1877].] + +[Footnote 2: On Comte cf. B. Puenjer, _Jahrbuecher fuer protestantische +Theologie_, 1878; R. Eucken, _Zur Wuerdigung Comtes und des Positivismus_, +in the _Aufsaetze zum Zellerjubilaeum_, 1887; Maxim. Bruett, _Der +Positivismus_, Programme of the _Realgymnasium des Johanneums_, Hamburg, +1889; [also, besides Mill, p. 560, John Morley, _Encyclopedia Britannica_, +vol. vi. pp. 229-238, and E. Caird, _The Social Philosophy and Religion of +Comte_, 1885.--Tr.]] + +The positive philosophy seeks to put an end to the hoary error that +anything more is open to our knowledge than given facts--phenomena and +their relations. We do not know the essence of phenomena, and just +as little their first causes and ultimate ends; we know--by means of +observation, experiment, and comparison--only the constant relations +between phenomena, the relations of succession and of similarity among +facts, the uniformities of which we call their laws. All knowledge is, +therefore, relative; there is no absolute knowledge, for the inmost essence +of facts, and likewise their origin, the way in which they are produced, +is for us impenetrable. We know only, and this by experience, that the +phenomenon A is invariably connected with the phenomenon B, that the +second always follows on the first, and call the constant antecedent of a +phenomenon its cause. We know such causes only as are themselves phenomena. +The fact that our knowledge is limited to the succession and coexistence of +phenomena is not to be lamented as a defect: the only knowledge which is +attainable by us is at the same time the only useful knowledge, that which +lends us practical power over phenomena. When we inquire into causes we +desire to hasten or hinder the effect, or to change it as we wish, or at +least to anticipate it in order to make our preparations accordingly. Such +foresight and control of events can be attained only through a knowledge +of their laws, their order of succession, their phenomenal causes. _Savoir +pour prevoir_. But, although the prevision of facts is the only knowledge +which we need, men have always sought after another, an "absolute" +knowledge, or have even believed that they were in possession of it; the +forerunners of the positive philosophy themselves, Bacon and Descartes, +have been entangled in this prejudice. A long intellectual development was +required to reach the truth, that our knowledge does not extend beyond +the cognition of the succession and coexistence of facts; that the same +procedure must be extended to abstract speculation which the common mind +itself makes use of in its single actions. On the other hand, the positive +philosophy, notwithstanding its rejection of metaphysics, is far from +giving its sanction to empiricism. Every isolated, empirical observation +is useless and uncertain; it obtains value and usefulness only when it is +defined and explained by a theory, and combined with other observations +into a law--this makes the difference between the observations of the +scholar and the layman. + +The positive stage of a science, which begins when we learn to explain +phenomena by their laws, is preceded by two others: a theological stage, +which ascribes phenomena to supposed personal powers, and a metaphysical +stage, which ascribes them to abstract natural forces. These three periods +denote the childhood, the youth, and the manhood of science. + +The earliest view of the world is the theological view, which derives the +events of the world from the voluntary acts of supernatural intelligent +beings. The crude view of nature sees in each individual thing a being +animated like man; later man accustoms himself to think of a whole class +of objects as governed by one invisible being, by a divinity; finally +the multitude of divinities gives place to a single God, who creates, +maintains, and rules the universe, and by extraordinary acts, by miracles, +interferes in the course of events. Thus fetichism (in its highest form, +astrolatry), polytheism, and monotheism are the stages in the development +of the theological mode of thought. In the second, the metaphysical, +period, the acts of divine volition are replaced by entities, by abstract +concepts, which are regarded as realities, as the true reality back of +phenomena. A force, a power, an occult property or essence is made to dwell +in things; the mysterious being which directs events is no longer called +God, but "Nature," and invested with certain inclinations, with a horror +of a vacuum, an aversion to breaks, a tendency toward the best, a _vis +medicatrix_, etc. Here belong, also, the vegetative soul of Aristotle, the +vital force and the plastic impulse of modern investigators. Finally the +positive stage is reached, when all such abstractions, which are even yet +conceived as half personal and acting voluntarily, are abandoned, and +the unalterable and universally valid laws of phenomena established by +observation and experiment alone. But to explain the laws of nature +themselves transcends, according to Comte, the fixed limits of human +knowledge. The beginning of the world lies outside the region of the +knowable, atheism is no better grounded than the theistic hypothesis, and +if Comte asserts that a blindly acting mechanism is less probable than a +world-plan, he is conscious that he is expressing a mere conjecture which +can never be raised to the rank of a scientific theory. The origin and the +end of things are insoluble problems, in answering which no progress has +yet been made in spite of man's long thought about them. Only that which +lies intermediate between the two inscrutable termini of the world is an +object of knowledge. + +It is not only the human mind in general that exhibits this advance from +the theological, through the metaphysical, to the positive mode of thought, +but each separate science goes through the same three periods--only that +the various disciplines have developed with unequal rapidity. While some +have already culminated in the positive method of treatment, others yet +remain caught in the theological period of beginnings, and others still are +in the metaphysical transition stage. Up to the present all three phases +of development exist side by side, and even among the objects of the most +highly developed sciences there are some which we continue to regard +theologically; these are the ones which we do not yet understand how to +calculate, as the changes of the weather or the spread of epidemics. Which +science first attained the positive state, and in what order have the +others followed? With this criterion Comte constructs his _classification +of the sciences_, in which, however, he takes account only of those +sciences which he calls abstract, that is, those which treat of "events" in +distinction from "objects." The abstract sciences (as biology) investigate +the most general laws of nature, valid for all phenomena, from which the +particular phenomena which experience presents to us cannot be deduced, but +on the basis of which an entirely different world were also possible. The +concrete sciences, on the other hand (_e.g._, botany and zooelogy), have to +do with the actually given combinations of phenomena. The former follow out +each separate one of the general laws through all its possible modes of +operation, the latter consider only the combination of laws given in an +object. Thus oaks and squirrels are the result of very many laws, inasmuch +as organisms are dependent not only on biological, but also on physical, +chemical, and mathematical laws. + +Comte enumerates six of these abstract sciences, and arranges them in such +a way that each depends on the truths of the preceding, and adds to these +its own special truths, while the first (the most general and simplest) +presupposes no earlier laws whatever, but is presupposed by all the +later ones. According to this principle of increasing particularity and +complexity the following scale results: (i) Mathematics, in which the +science of number, as being absolutely without presuppositions, precedes +geometry and mechanics; (2) Astronomy; (3) Physics (with five subordinate +divisions, in which the first place belongs to the theory of weight, and +the last to electrology, while the theory of heat, acoustics, and optics +are intermediate); (4) Chemistry; (5) Biology or physiology; (6) Sociology +or the science of society. This sequence, which is determined by the +increasing complexity and increasing dependence of the objects of the +sciences, is the order in which they have historically developed--before +the special laws of the more complicated sciences can be ascertained, the +general laws of the more simple ones must be accurately known. It is also +advisable to follow this same order of increasing complexity and difficulty +in the study of the sciences, for acquaintance with the methods of those +which are elementary is the best preparation for the pursuit of the higher +ones. In arithmetic and geometry we study positivity at its source; in the +sociological spirit it finds its completion. + +Mathematics entered on its positive stage at quite an early period, +chemistry and biology only in recent times, while, in the highest and most +complicated science, the metaphysical (negative, liberal, democratic, +revolutionary) mode of thought is still battling with the feudalism of the +theological mode. To make sociology positive is the mission of the second +half of Comte's work, and to this goal his philosophical activity had been +directed from the beginning. Comte rates the efforts of political economy +very low, with the exception of the work of Adam Smith, and will not let +them pass as a preparation for scientific sociology, holding that they are +based on false abstractions. Psychology, which is absent from the above +enumeration, is to form a branch of biology, and exclusively to use the +objective method, especially phrenology (to the three faculties of the +soul, "heart, character, and intellect," correspond three regions of the +brain). Self-observation, so Comte, making an impossibility out of a +difficulty, teaches, can at most inform us concerning our feelings and +passions, and not at all concerning our own thinking, since reflection +brings to a stop the process to which it attends, and thus destroys its +object. The sole source of knowledge is external sense-perception. In his +_Positive Polity_ Comte subsequently added a seventh fundamental science, +ethics or anthropology. + +Sociology,[1] the elevation of which to the rank of a positive science is +the principal aim of our philosopher, uses the same method as the natural +sciences, namely, the interrogation and interpretation of experience by +means of induction and deduction, only that here the usual relation of +these two instruments of knowledge is reversed. Between inorganic and +organic philosophy, both of which proceed from the known to the unknown, +there is this difference, that in the former the advance is from the +elements, as that which alone is directly accessible, to the whole which is +composed of them, while in the latter the opposite is the case, since here +the whole is better known than the individual parts of which it consists. +Hence, in inorganic science the laws of the composite phenomena are +obtained by deduction (from the laws of the simple facts inductively +discovered) and confirmed by observation; in sociology, on the other +hand, the laws are found through (historical) experience, and deductively +verified (from the nature of man as established by biology) only in the +sequel. Since the phenomena of society are determined not merely by the +general laws of human nature, but, above all, by the growing influence of +the past, historical studies must form the basis of sociological inquiry. + +[Footnote 1: Cf. Krohn: _Beitraege zur Kenntniss und Wuerdigung der +Soziologie, Jahrbuecher fuer Nationaloekonomie und Statistik_, New Series, +vols. i. and iii., 1880 and 1881.] + +Of the two parts of sociology, the Statics, which investigates the +equilibrium (the conditions of the existence, the permanence, and the +coexistence of social states), and Dynamics, which investigates the +movement (the laws of the progress) of social phenomena, the first was in +essence established by Aristotle. The fundamental concept of the Statics +is the _consensus_, the harmony, solidarity, or mutual dependence of the +members of the social organism. All its parts, science, art, religion, +politics, industry, must be considered together; they stand in such +intimate harmony and correlation that, for every important change of +condition in one of these parts, we may be certain of finding +corresponding changes in all the others, as its causes and effects. +Besides the selfish propensities, there dwell in man an equally original, +but intrinsically weaker, impulse toward association, which instinctively +leads him to seek the society of his fellows without reflection on the +advantages to be expected therefrom, and a moderate degree of +benevolence. As altruism conflicts with egoism, so the reason, together +with the impulse to get ahead, which can only be satisfied through +labor, is in continual conflict with the inborn disinclination to regulated +activity (especially to mental effort). The character of society depends on +the strength of the nobler incentives, that is, the social inclinations and +intellectual vivacity in opposition to the egoistic impulses and natural +inertness. The former nourish the progressive, the latter the conservative +spirit. Women are as much superior to men in the stronger development of +their sympathy and sociability as they are inferior in insight and reason. +Society is a group of families, not of individuals, and domestic life is +the foundation, preparation, and pattern for social life, Comte praises the +family, the connecting link between the individual and the species, as a +school of unselfishness, and approves the strictness of the Catholic Church +in regard to the indissolubility of the marriage relation. He remarks the +evil consequences of the constantly increasing division of labor, which +makes man egoistic and narrow-minded, since it hides rather than reveals +the social significance of the employment of the individual and its +connection with the welfare of the community, and seeks for a means of +checking them. Besides the universal education of youth, he demands +the establishment of a spiritual power to bring the general interest +continually to the minds of the members of all classes and avocations, to +direct education, and to enjoy the same authority in moral and intellectual +matters as is conceded to the astronomer in the affairs of his department. +The function of this power would be to occupy the position heretofore held +by the clergy. Comte conceives it as composed of positive philosophers, +entirely independent of the secular authorities, but in return cut off from +political influence and from wealth. Secular authority, on the other hand, +he wishes put into the hands of an aristocracy of capitalists, with the +bankers at the head of these governing leaders of industry. + +The Dynamics, the science of the temporal succession of social phenomena, +makes use of the principle of development. The progress of society, +which is to be regarded as a great individual, consists in the growing +predominance of the higher, human activities over the lower and animal. The +humanity in us, it is true, will never attain complete ascendency over the +animality, but we can approach nearer and nearer to the ideal, and it is +our duty to aid in this march of civilization. Although the law of progress +holds good for all sides of mental life, for art, politics, and morals, +as well as for science, nevertheless the most important factor in the +evolution of the human race is the development of the intellect as the +guiding power in us (though not in itself the strongest). Awakened first by +the lower wants, the intellect assumes in increasing measure the guidance +of human operations, and gives a determinate direction to the feelings. The +passions divide men, and, without the guidance of the speculative faculty, +would mutually cripple one another; that which alone unites them into +a collection force is a common belief, an idea. Ideas are related to +feeling--to quote a comparison from John Stuart Mill's valuable treatise +_Auguste Comte and Positivism_, 3d ed., 1882, a work of which we have made +considerable use--as the steersman who directs the ship is to the steam +which drives it forward. Thus the history of humanity has been determined +by the history of man's intellectual convictions, and this in turn by the +three familiar stages in the theory of the universe. With the development +from the theological to the positive mode of thought is most intimately +connected, further, the transition from the military to the industrial +mode of life. As the religious spirit prepares the way for the scientific +spirit, so without the dominion of the military spirit industry could not +have been developed. It was only in the school of war that the earliest +societies could learn order; slavery was beneficial in that through it +labor was imposed upon the greater part of mankind in spite of their +aversion to it. The political preponderance of the legists corresponds to +the intermediate, metaphysical stage. The sociological law (discovered by +Comte in the year 1822) harmonizes also with the customary division which +separates the ancient from the modern world by the Middle Ages. + +In his philosophy of history Comte gives the further application of these +principles. Here he has won commendation even from his opponents for a +sense of justice which merits respect and for his comprehensive view. The +outlooks and proposals for the future here interspersed were in later +writings[1] worked out into a comprehensive theory of the regeneration +of society; the extravagant character of which has given occasion to his +critics to make a complete division between the second, "subjective or +sentimental," period of his thinking, in which the philosopher is said to +be transformed into the high priest of a new religion, and the first, the +positivistic period, although the major part of the qualities pointed out +as characteristic of the former are only intensifications of some which may +be shown to have been present in the latter. Beneath the surface of the +most sober inquiry mystical and dictatorial tendencies pulsate in Comte +from the beginning, and science was for him simply a means to human +happiness. But now he no longer demands the independent pursuit of science +in order to the attainment of this end, but only the believing acceptance +of its results. The intellect is to be placed under the dominion of the +heart, and only such use made of it as promises a direct advantage for +humanity; the determination of what problems are most important at a given +time belongs to the priesthood. The systematic unity or harmony of the +mind demands this dominion of the feelings over thought. The religion of +positivism, which has "love for its principle, order for its basis, and +progress for its end," is a religion without God, and without any other +immortality than a continuance of existence in the grateful memory of +posterity. The dogmas of the positivist religion are scientific principles. +Its public _cultus_ with nine sacraments and a large number of annual +festivals, is paid to the _Grand Etre_ "Humanity" (which is not omnipotent, +but, on account of its composite character, most dependent, yet infinitely +superior to any of its parts); and, besides this, space, the earth, the +universe, and great men of the past are objects of reverence. Private +devotion consists in the adoration of living or dead women as our guardian +angels. The _ethics_ of the future declares the good of others to be the +sole moral motive to action (altruism). Comte's last work, the _Philosophy +of Mathematics_, 1856, indulges in a most remarkable numerical mysticism. +The historical influence exercised by Comte through his later writings is +extremely small in comparison with that of his chief work. Besides +Blignieres and Robinet, E. Littre, the well-known author of the +_Dictionnaire de la Langue Francaise_ (1863 _seq_.) who was the most +eminent of Comte's disciples and the editor of his _Collected Works_ (1867 +_seq_.), has written on the life and work of the master. Comte's school +divided into two groups--the apostates, with Littre (1801-81) at their +head, who reject the subjective phase and hold fast to the earlier +doctrine, and the faithful, who until 1877, when a new division between +strict and liberal Comteans took place within this group, gathered about P. +Laffitte (born 1823).[2] The leader of the English positivists is Frederic +Harrison (born 1831). Positivistic societies exist also in Sweden, Brazil, +Chili, and elsewhere. Positivism has been developed in an independent +spirit by J.S. Mill and Herbert Spencer. + +[Footnote 1: _Positivist Catechism_, 1852 [English translation by Congreve, +1858, 2d ed., 1883]; _System of Positive Polity_, 4 vols., 1851-54 [English +translation, 1875-77]. Cf. Puenjer, _A. Comtes "Religion der Menschheit_" in +the _Jahrbuecher fuer protestantische Theologie_, 1882.] + +[Footnote 2: On this division cf. E. Caro, _M. Littre et le Positivisme_, +1883, and Herm. Gruber (S.J.), _Der Positivismus vom Tode Comtes bis auf +unsere Tage_, 1891.] + +The following brief remarks on the course of French philosophy may also be +added. Against the sensationalism of Condillac as continued by Cabanis, +Destutt de Tracy (see above, pp. 259-260), and various physiologists, a +twofold reaction asserted itself. One manifestation of this proceeded from +the _theological school_, represented by the "traditionalists" Victor de +Bonald (1818), Joseph de Maistre (1753-1821; _St. Petersburg Soirees_, +1821), and F. de Lamennais (1782-1854), who, however, after his break with +the Church (_Words of a Believer_, 1834) developed in his _Sketch of a +Philosophy_, 1841 _seq_., an ontological system after Italian and German +models. The other came from the _spiritualistic school_, at whose head +stood Maine de Biran[1] (1766-1824; _On the Foundations of Psychology_; his +_Works_ have been edited by Cousin, 1841, Naville, 1859, and Bertrand) and +Royer Collard (1763-1845). Their pupil Victor Cousin (1792-1867; _Works_, +1846-50), who admired Hegel also, became the head of the _eclectic school_. +Cousin will neither deny metaphysics with the Scotch, nor construe +metaphysics _a priori_ with the Germans, but with Descartes bases it on +psychology. For a time an idealist of the Hegelian type (infinite and +finite, God and the world, are mutually inseparable; the Ideas reveal +themselves in history, in the nations, in great men), he gradually sank +back to the position of common sense. His adherents, among whom Theodore +Jouffroy (died 1842) was the most eminent, have done special service in the +history of philosophy. From Cousin's school, which was opposed by P. Leroux +and J. Reynaud, have come Ravaisson, Saisset, Jules Simon, P. Janet (born +1823),[2] and E. Caro (born 1826; _The Philosophy of Goethe_, 1866). Kant +has influenced Charles Renouvier (born 1817; _Essays in General Criticism_, +4 vols., 1854-64) and E. Vacherot (born 1809; _Metaphysics and Science_, +1858, 2d ed., 1863; _Science and Consciousness_, 1872). + +[Footnote 1: Cf. E. Koenig in _Philosophische Monatshefte_, vol. xxv. 1889, +p.160 _seq_.] + +[Footnote 2: Janet: _History of Political Science in its Relations to +Morals_, 1858, 3d ed., 1887; _German Materialism of the Present Day_, 1864, +English translation by Masson, 1866: _The Family_, 1855; _The Philosophy of +Happiness_, 1862; _The Brain and Thought_, 1867; _Elements of Morals_, +1869 [English translation by Corson, 1884]; _The Theory of Morals_, 1874 +[English translation by Mary Chapman, 1883]; _Final Causes_, 1876 [English +translation by Affleck, with a preface by Flint, new ed., 1883].] + +Among other thinkers of reputation we may mention the socialist Henri de +Saint-Simon (1760-1825; _Selected Works_, 1859), the physiologist Claude +Bernard (1813-78), the positivist H. Taine (1828-93; _The Philosophy of +Art_, English translation by Durand, 2d ed., 1873; _On Intelligence_, 1872, +English translation by Haye, 1871), E. Renan (1823-92; _The Life of +Jesus_, 1863, English translation by Wilbour, _Philosophical Dialogues and +Fragments_--English, 1883), the writer on aesthetics and ethics J.M. Guyau +(_The Problems of Contemporary Aesthetics_, 1884; _Sketch of an Ethic +without Obligation or Sanction_, 1885; _The Irreligion of the Future_, +1887), Alfred Fouillee _(The Future of Metaphysics founded on Experience_, +1889; _Morals, Art, and Religion according to Guyau_, 1889; _The +Evolutionism of the Idea-Forces_, 1890), and the psychologist Th. Ribot,[1] +editor of the _Revue Philosophique_ (from 1876). + +[Footnote 1: Ribot: _Heredity_, 2d ed., 1882 [English translation, 1875]; +_The Diseases of Memory_, 1881 [English translation, 1882]; _The Diseases +of the Will_, 1883 [English. 1884]; _The Diseases of Personality_, 1885 +[English, 1887]; _The Psychology of Attention_, 1889 [English, 1890]; +_German Psychology of To-day_, 2d ed., 1885 [English translation by +Baldwin, 1886].] + + +%3. Great Britain and America.% + +Prominent among the British philosophers of the nineteenth century[1] +are Hamilton, Bentham, J.S. Mill, and Spencer. Hamilton is the leading +representative of the Scottish School; Bentham is known as the advocate of +utilitarianism; Mill, an exponent of the traditional empiricism of English +thinking, develops the theory of induction and the principle of utility; +Spencer combines an agnostic doctrine of the absolute and thoroughgoing +evolution in the phenomenal world into a comprehensive philosophical +system.[2] In recent years there has been a reaction against empirical +doctrines on the basis of neo-Kantian and neo-Hegelian principles. Foremost +among the leaders of this movement we may mention T.H. Green. + +[Footnote 1: Cf. Harald Hoeffding, _Einleitung in die englische Philosophie +unserer Zeit_ (Danish, 1874), German (with alterations and additions by the +author) by H. Kurella, 1889; David Masson, _Recent British Philosophy_, +1865, 3d ed., 1877; Ribot, _La Psychologie Anglaise Contemporaine_, 1870, +2d ed., 1875 [English, 1874] Guyau, _La Morale Anglaise Contemporaine_, +1879 [Morris, _British Thought and Thinkers_, 1880; Porter, "On English and +American Philosophy," Ueberweg's _History_, English translation, vol. +ii. pp. 348-460; O. Pfleiderer, _Development of Theology_, 1890, book +iv.--TR.]] + +[Footnote 2: Cf. on Mill and Spencer, Bernh. Puenjer, _Jahrbuecher fuer +protestantische Theologie_, 1878.] + +The Scottish philosophy has been continued in the nineteenth century by +James Mackintosh (_Dissertation on the Progress of Ethical Philosophy_, +1830, 3d ed., 1863), and William Whewell (_History of the Inductive +Sciences_, 3d ed., 1857; _Philosophy of the Inductive Sciences_, 1840, 3d +ed., 1858-60). Its most important representative is Sir William Hamilton[1] +of Edinburgh (1788-1856), who, like Whewell, is influenced by Kant. +Hamilton bases philosophy on the facts of consciousness, but, in antithesis +to the associational psychology, emphasizes the mental activity of +discrimination and judgment. Our knowledge is relative, and relations its +only object. Consciousness can never transcend itself, it is bound to +the antithesis of subject and object, and conceives the existent under +relations of space and time. Hence the unconditioned is inaccessible to +knowledge and attainable by faith alone. Among Hamilton's followers belong +Mansel (_Metaphysics_, 3d. ed., 1875; _Limits of Religions Thought_, 5th +ed., 1870) and Veitch. The Scottish doctrine was vigorously opposed by J.F. +Ferrier (1808-64; _Institutes of Metaphysics_, 2d ed., 1856), who himself +developed an idealistic standpoint. + +[Footnote 1: Hamilton: _Discussions on Philosophy and Literature_, 1852, 3d +ed., 1866; _Lectures on Metaphysics_, 2d ed., 1860, and on _Logic_, 2d ed., +1866, edited by his pupils, Mansel and Veitch; _Reid's Works_, with notes +and dissertations, 1846, 7th ed., 1872. On Hamilton cf. Veitch, 1882, 1883 +[Monck, 1881].] + +In the United States the Scottish philosophy has exercised a wide +influence. In recent times it has been strenuously advocated, chiefly in +the spirit of Reid, by James McCosh (a native of Scotland, but since 1868 +in America; _The Intuitions of the Mind_, 3d ed., 1872; _The Laws of +Discursive Thought_, new ed., 1891; _First and Fundamental Truths_, 1889); +while in Noah Porter (died 1892; _The Human Intellect_, new ed., 1876; _The +Elements of Moral Science_, 1885) it appears modified by elements from +German thinking. + +Jeremy Bentham[1] (1748-1832) is noteworthy for his attempt to revive +Epicureanism in modern form. Virtue is the surest means to pleasure, and +pleasure the only self-evident good. Every man strives after happiness, but +not every one in the right way. The honest man calculates correctly, the +criminal falsely; hence a careful calculation of the value of the various +pleasures, and a prudent use of the means to happiness, is the first +condition of virtue; in this the easily attainable minor joys, whose +summation amounts to a considerable quantum, must not be neglected. The +value of a pleasure is measured by its intensity, duration, certainty, +propinquity, fecundity in the production of further pleasure, purity or +freedom from admixture of consequent pain, and extent to the greatest +possible number of persons. Every virtuous action results in a balance of +pleasure. Inflict no evil on thyself or others from which a balance of good +will not result. The end of morality is the "greatest happiness of the +greatest number," in the production of which each has first to care for +his own welfare: whoever injures himself more than he serves others acts +immorally, for he diminishes the sum of happiness in the world; the +interest of the individual coincides with the interest of society. The two +classes of virtues are prudence and benevolence. The latter is a natural, +though not a disinterested affection: happiness enjoyed with others is +greater than happiness enjoyed alone. Love is a pleasure-giving extension +of the individual; we serve others to be served by them. + +[Footnote 1: Bentham: _Introduction to the Principles of Morals and +Legislation_, 1789; new ed., 1823, reprinted 1876; _Deontology_, 1834, +edited by Bowring, who also edited the _Works_, 1838-43. _The Principles +of Civil and Criminal Legislation_, edited in French from Bentham's +manuscripts by his pupil Etienne Dumont (1801, 2d ed., 1820; English by +Hildreth, 5th ed., 1887), was translated into German with notes by F.E. +Beneke, 1830.] + +Associationalism has been reasserted by James Mill (1773-1836; _Analysis of +the Phenomena of the Human Mind_, 1829), whose influence lives on in the +work of his greater son. The latter, John Stuart Mill,[1] was born in +London 1806, and was from 1823 to 1858 a secretary in the India House; +after the death of his wife he lived (with the exception of two years of +service as a Member of Parliament) at Avignon; his death occurred in +1873. Mill's _System of Logic_ appeared in 1843, 9th ed., 1875; his +_Utilitarianism_, 1863, new ed., 1871; _An Examination of Sir William +Hamilton's Philosophy_, 1865, 5th ed., 1878; his notes to the new edition +of his father's work, _Analysis of the Phenomena of the Human Mind_, 2d +ed., 1878, also deserve notice. With the phenomenalism of Hume and the +(somewhat corrected) associational psychology of his father as a basis, +Mill makes experience the sole source of knowledge, rejecting _a priori_ +and intuitive elements of every sort. Matter he defines as a "permanent +possibility of sensation"; mind is resolved into "a series of feelings with +a background of possibilities of feeling," even though the author is not +unaware of the difficulty involved in the question how a series of feelings +can be aware of itself as a series. Mathematical principles, like all +others, have an experiential origin--the peculiar certitude ascribed to +them by the Kantians is a fiction--and induction is the only fruitful +method of scientific inquiry (even in mental science). The syllogism is +itself a concealed induction. + +[Footnote 1: Cf. on Mill. Taine, _Le Positivisme Anglais_, 1864 [English, +by Haye]; the objections of Jevons _(Contemporary Review_, December, 1877 +_seq_., reprinted in _Pure Logic and other Minor Works_, 1890; cf. _Mind_, +vol. xvi. pp. 106-110) to Mill's doctrine of the inductive character of +geometry, his treatment of the relation of resemblance, and his exposition +of the four methods of experimental inquiry in their relation to the law of +causation; and the finely conceived essay on utilitarianism, by C. +Hebler, _Philosophische Aufsatze_, 1869, pp. 35-66. [Also Mill's own +_Autobiography_, 1873: Bain's _John Stuart Mill, a Criticism_, 1882; and +T.H. Green, Lectures on the _Logic, Works_, vol. ii.--TR.]] + +When I assert the major premise the inference proper is already made, and +in the conclusion the comprehensive formula for a number of particular +truths which was given in the premise is merely explicated, interpreted. +Because universal judgments are for him merely brief expressions for +aggregates of particular truths, Mill is able to say that all knowledge is +generalization, and at the same time to argue that all inference is from +particulars to particulars. Inference through a general proposition is not +necessary, yet useful as a collateral security, inasmuch as the syllogistic +forms enable us more easily to discover errors committed. The ground of +induction, the uniformity of nature in reference both to the coexistence +and the succession of phenomena, since it wholly depends on induction, +is not unconditionally certain; but it may be accepted as very highly +probable, until some instance of lawless action (in itself conceivable) +shall have been actually proved. Like the law of causation, the principles +of logic are also not _a priori_, but only the highest generalizations from +all previous experience. + +Mill's most brilliant achievement is his theory of experimental inquiry, +for which he advances four methods: (1) The Method of Agreement: "If two +or more instances of the phenomenon under investigation have only one +circumstance in common, the circumstance in which alone all the instances +agree is the cause (or effect) of the given phenomenon." (2) The Method of +Difference: "If an instance in which the phenomenon under investigation +occurs, and an instance in which it does not occur, have every circumstance +in common save one, that one occurring only in the former; the circumstance +in which alone the two instances differ, is the effect, or the cause, or an +indispensable part of the cause, of the phenomenon," These two methods (the +method of observation, and the method of artificial experiment) may also be +employed in combination, and the Canon of the Joint Method of Agreement and +Difference runs: "If two or more instances in which the phenomenon occurs +have only one circumstance in common, while two or more instances in +which it does not occur have nothing in common save the absence of that +circumstance, the circumstance in which alone the two sets of instances +differ is the effect, or the cause, or an indispensable part of the +cause, of the phenomenon." (3) The Method of Residues: "Subduct from any +phenomenon such part as is known by previous inductions to be the effect of +certain antecedents, and the residue of the phenomenon is the effect of the +remaining antecedents." (4) The Method of Concomitant Variations: "Whatever +phenomenon varies in any manner whenever another phenomenon varies in some +particular manner, is either a cause or an effect of that phenomenon, or is +connected with it through some fact of causation." When the phenomena are +complex the deductive method must be called in to aid: from the inductively +ascertained laws of the action of single causes this deduces the laws +of their combined action; and, as a final step, the results of such +ratiocination are verified by the proof of their agreement with empirical +facts. To explain a phenomenon means to point out its cause; the +explanation of a law is its reduction to other, more general laws. In all +this, however, we remain within the sphere of phenomena; the essence of +nature always eludes our knowledge. + +In the chapter "Of Liberty and Necessity" (book vi. chap, ii.) Mill +emphasizes the position that the necessity to which human actions are +subject must not be conceived, as is commonly done, as irresistible +compulsion, for it denotes nothing more than the uniform order of our +actions and the possibility of predicting them. This does not destroy +the element in the idea of freedom which is legitimate and practically +valuable: we have the power to alter our character; it is formed _by_ us +as well as _for_ us; the desire to mould it is one of the most influential +circumstances in its formation. The principle of morality is the promotion +of the happiness of all sentient beings. Mill differs from Bentham, +however, from whom he derives the principle of utility, in several +important particulars--by his recognition of qualitative as well as of +quantitative differences in pleasures, of the value of the ordinary rules +of morality as intermediate principles, of the social feelings, and of the +disinterested love of virtue. Opponents of the utilitarian theory have +not been slow in availing themselves of the opportunities for attack thus +afforded.[1] A third distinguished representative of the same general +movement is Alexander Bain, the psychologist (born 1818; _The Senses and +the Intellect_, 3d ed., 1868; _The Emotions and the Will_, 3d ed., 1875; +_Mental and Moral Science_, 1868, 3d ed., 1872, part ii., 1872; _Mind and +Body_, 3d ed., 1874). + +[Footnote 1: On the relation of Bentham and Mill cf. Hoeffding, p. 68: +Sidgwick's _Outlines_, chap. iv. Sec. 16; and John Grote's _Examination of the +Utilitarian Philosophy_, 1870, chap. i.] + +The system projected by Herbert Spencer (born 1820), the major part of +which has already appeared, falls into five parts: _First Principles_, +1862, 7th ed., 1889; _Principles of Biology_, 1864-67, 4th ed., 1888; +_Principles of Psychology_, 1855, 5th ed., 1890; _Principles of Sociology_ +(vol. i. 1876, 3d ed., 1885; part iv. _Ceremonial Institutions_, 1879, 3d +ed., 1888, part v. _Political Institutions_, 1882, 2d ed., 1885, part vi. +_Ecclesiastical Institutions_, 1885, 2d ed., 1886, together constituting +vol. ii.); _Principles of Ethics_ (part i. _The Data of Ethics_, 1879, 5th +ed., 1888; parts ii. and iii. _The Inductions of Ethics_ and _The Ethics of +Individual Life_, constituting with part i. the first volume, 1892; part +iv. _Justice_, 1891). A comprehensive exposition of the system has been +given, with the authority of the author, by F.H. Collins in his _Epitome of +the Synthetic Philosophy_, 1889.[1] The treatise on _Education_, 1861, 23d +ed., 1890, his sociological writings, and his various essays have also +contributed essentially to Mr. Spencer's fame, both at home and abroad. The +_First Principles_ begin with the "Unknowable." Since human opinions, no +matter how false they may seem, have sprung from actual experiences, and, +when they find wide acceptance and are tenaciously adhered to, must have +something in them which appeals to the minds of men, we must assume that +every error contains a kernel of truth, however small it be. No one of +opposing views is to be accepted as wholly true, and none rejected as +entirely false. To discover the incontrovertible fact which lies at their +basis, we must reject the various concrete elements in which they disagree, +and find for the remainder the abstract expression which holds true +throughout its divergent manifestations. No antagonism is older, wider, +more profound, and more important than that between religion and science. +Here too some most general truth, some ultimate fact must lie at the basis. +The ultimate religious ideas are self-contradictory and untenable. No +one of the possible hypotheses concerning the nature and origin of +things--every religion may be defined as an _a priori_ theory of the +universe, the accompanying ethical code being a later growth--is logically +defensible: whether the world is conceived atheistically as self-existent, +or pantheistically as self-created, or theistically (fetichism, polytheism, +or monotheism), as created by an external agency, we are everywhere +confronted by unthinkable conclusions. The idea of a First Cause or of +the absolute (as Mansel, following Hamilton, has proved in his _Limits +of Religious Thought_) is full of contradictions. But however widely the +creeds diverge, they show entire unanimity, from the grossest superstition +up to the most developed theism, in the belief that the existence of the +world is a mystery which ever presses for interpretation, though it can +never be entirely explained. And in the progress of religion from crude +fetichism to the developed theology of our time, the truth, at first but +vaguely perceived, that there is an omnipresent Inscrutable which manifests +itself in all phenomena, ever comes more clearly into view. + +[Footnote 1: Cf. also Fiske's _Outlines of Cosmic Philosophy_, 2 vols., +1874. Numerous critiques and discussions of Spencer's views have been given +in various journals and reviews; among more extended works reference may be +made to Bowne, _The Philoesophy of Herbert Spencer_, 1874; Malcolm Guthrie, +_On Mr. Spencer's Formula of Evolution_, 1879, and the same author, _On Mr. +Spencer's Unification of Knowledge_, 1882; and T.H. Green, on Spencer and +Lewes, _Works_, vol. i.--TR.] + +Science meets this ultimate religious truth with the conviction, grasped +with increasing clearness as the development proceeds from Protagoras to +Kant, that the reality hidden behind all phenomena must always remain +unknown, that our knowledge can never be absolute. This principle maybe +established inductively from the incomprehensibility of the ultimate +scientific ideas, as well as deductively from the nature of intelligence, +through an analysis of the product and the process of thought. (1) The +ideas space, time, matter, motion, and force, as also the first states of +consciousness, and the thinking substance, the ego as the unity of subject +and object, all represent realities whose nature and origin are entirely +incomprehensible. (2) The subsumption of particular facts under more +general facts leads ultimately to a most general, highest fact, which +cannot be reduced to a more general one, and hence cannot be explained or +comprehended. (3) All thought (as has been shown by Hamilton in his essay +"On the Philosophy of the Unconditioned," and by his follower Mansel) +is the establishment of relations, every thought involving relation, +difference, and (as Spencer adds) likeness. Hence the absolute, the idea +of which excludes every relation, is entirely beyond the reach of an +intelligence which is concerned with relations alone, and which always +consists in discrimination, limitation, and assimilation--it is trebly +unthinkable. Therefore: Religion and Science agree in the supreme truth +that the human understanding is capable of relative knowledge only or of a +knowledge of the relative (Relativity). Nevertheless, according to Spencer, +it is too much to conclude with the thinkers just mentioned, that the +idea of the absolute is a mere expression for inconceivability, and its +existence problematical. The nature of the absolute is unknowable, but +not the existence of a basis for the relative and phenomenal. The +considerations which speak in favor of the relativity of knowledge and its +limitation to phenomena, argue also the existence of a non-relative, whose +phenomenon the relative is; the idea of the relative and the phenomenal +posits _eo ipso_ the existence of the absolute as its correlative, which +manifests itself in phenomena. We have at least an indefinite, though not +a definite, consciousness of the Unknowable as the Unknown Cause, the +Universal Power, and on this is founded our ineradicable belief in +objective reality. + +All knowledge is limited to the relative, and consists in increasing +generalization: the apex of this pyramid is formed by philosophy. Common +knowledge is un-unified knowledge; science is partially unified knowledge; +philosophy, which combines the highest generalizations of the sciences into +a supreme one, is completely unified knowledge. The data of philosophy +are--besides an Unknowable Power--the existence of knowable likenesses and +differences among its manifestations, and a resulting segregation of the +manifestations into those of subject and object. Further, derivative data +are space (relations of coexistence), time (relations of irreversible +sequence), matter (coexistent positions that offer resistance), motion +(which involves space, time, and matter), and force, the ultimate of +ultimates, on which all others depend, and from our primordial experiences +of which all the other modes of consciousness are derivable. Similarly the +ultimate primary truth is the _persistence of force_, from which, besides +the indestructibility of matter and the continuity of (actual or potential) +motion, still further truths may be deduced: the persistence of relations +among forces or the uniformity of law, the transformation and equivalence +of (mental and social as well as of physical) forces, the law of the +direction of motion (along the line of least resistance, or the line of +greatest traction, or their resultant), and the unceasing rhythm of +motion. Beyond these analytic truths, however, philosophy demands a law of +universal synthesis. This must be the law of _the continuous redistribution +of matter and motion_, for each single thing, and the whole universe +as well, is involved in a (continuously repeated) double process of +_evolution_ and _dissolution_, the former consisting in the integration of +matter[1] and the dissipation of motion, the latter in the absorption of +motion and the disintegration of matter. The law of evolution, in its +complete development, then runs: "Evolution is an integration of matter and +concomitant dissipation of motion; during which the matter passes from an +indefinite, incoherent homogeneity to a definite, coherent heterogeneity; +and during which the retained motion undergoes a parallel transformation." +This is inductively supported by illustrations from every region of nature +and all departments of mental and social life; and, further, shown +deducible from the ultimate principle of the persistence of force, through +the mediation of several corollaries to it, viz., the instability of the +homogeneous under the varied incidence of surrounding forces, the +multiplication of effects by action and reaction, and segregation. Finally +the principle of equilibration indicates the impassable limit at which +evolution passes over into dissolution, until the eternal round is again +begun. If it may be said of Hegel himself, that he vainly endeavored to +master the concrete fullness of reality with formal concepts, the criticism +is applicable to Spencer in still greater measure. The barren schemata of +concentration, passage into heterogeneity, adaptation, etc., which are +taken from natural science, and which are insufficient even in their own +field, prove entirely impotent for the mastery of the complex and peculiar +phenomena of spiritual life. + +[Footnote 1: Organic growth is the concentration of elements before +diffused; cf. the union of nomadic families into settled tribes.] + +Armed with these principles, however, Mr. Spencer advances to the +discussion of the several divisions of "Special Philosophy." Passing over +inorganic nature, he finds his task in the interpretation of the phenomena +of life, mind, and society in terms of matter, motion, and force under the +general evolution formula. This procedure, however, must not be understood +as in any wise materialistic. Such an interpretation would be a +misrepresentation, it is urged, for the strict relativity of the standpoint +limits all conclusions to phenomena, and permits no inference concerning +the nature of the "Unknowable." The _Principles of Biology_ take up the +phenomena of life. Life is defined as the "continuous adjustment of +internal relations to external relations." No attempt is made to explain +its origin, yet (in the words of Mr. Sully) it is clear that the lowest +forms of life are regarded as continuous in their essential nature with +sub-vital processes. The evolution of living organisms, from the lowest to +the highest, with the development of all their parts and functions, results +from the co-operation of various factors, external and internal, whose +action is ultimately reducible to the universal law. + +The field of _psychology_ is intimately allied with biology, and yet +istinguished from it. Mental life is a subdivision of life in general, and +may be subsumed under the general definition; but while biological truths +concern the connection between internal phenomena, with but tacit or +occasional recognition of the environment, psychology has to do neither +with the internal connection nor the external connection, but "the +connection between these two connections." Psychology in its subjective +aspect, again, is a field entirely _sui generis_. The substance of mind, +conceived as the underlying substratum of mental states, is unknowable; but +the character of those states of which mind, as we know it, is composed, +is a legitimate subject of inquiry. If this be carefully investigated, it +seems highly probable that the ultimate unit of consciousness is something +"of the same order as that which we call a nervous shock." Mind is +proximately composed of feelings and the relations between feelings; +from these, revived, associated, and integrated, the whole fabric of +consciousness is built up. There is, then, no sharp distinction between the +several phases of mind. If we trace its development objectively, in terms +of the correspondence between inner and outer phenomena, we find a gradual +progress from the less to the more complex, from the lower to the higher, +without a break. Reflex action, instinct, memory, reason, are simply +stages in the process. All is dependent on experience. Even the forms of +knowledge, which are _a priori_ to the individual, are the product +of experience in the race, integrated and transmitted by heredity, and +become organic in the nervous structure. In general the correspondence of +inner and outer in which mental life consists is mediated by the nervous +organism. The structure and functions of this condition consciousness and +furnish the basis for the interpretation of mental evolution in terms of +"evolution at large, regarded as a process of physical transformation." +Nevertheless mental phenomena and bodily phenomena are not identical, +consciousness is not motion. They are both phenomenal modes of the +unknowable, disparate in themselves, and giving no indication of the +ultimate nature of the absolute. Subjective analysis of human consciousness +yields further proof of the unity of mental composition. All mental action +is ultimately reducible to "the continuous differentiation and integration +of states of consciousness." The criterion of truth is the inconceivability +of the negation. Tried by this test, as by all others, realism is superior +to idealism, though in that "transfigured" form which implies objective +existence without implying the possibility of any further knowledge +concerning it,--hence in a form entirely congruous with the conclusion +reached by many other routes. + +_Sociology_ deals with super-organic evolution, which involves the +co-ordinated actions of many individuals. To understand the social unit, we +must study primitive man, especially the ideas which he forms of himself, +of other beings, and of the surrounding world. The conception of a mind or +other-self is gradually evolved through observation of natural phenomena +which favor the notion of duality, especially the phenomena of sleep, +dreams, swoons, and death. Belief in the influence of these doubles of the +dead on the fortunes of the living leads to sorcery, prayer, and praise. +Ancestor-worship is the ultimate source of all forms of religion; to it +can be traced even such aberrant developments as fetichism and idolatry, +animal-, plant-, and nature-worship. Thus the primitive man feels himself +related not only to his living fellows, but to multitudes of supernatural +beings about him. The fear of the living becomes the root of the political, +and the fear of the dead the root of the religious, control. A society is +an organic entity. Though differing from an individual organism in many +ways, it yet resembles it in the permanent relations among its component +parts. The Domestic Relations, by which the maintenance of the species is +now secured, have come from various earlier and less developed forms; the +militant type of society is accompanied by a lower, the industrial type +by a higher stage of this development. Ceremonial observance is the most +primitive kind of government, and the kind from which the political and +religious governments have differentiated. Political organization is +necessary in order to co-operation for ends which benefit the society +directly, and the individual only indirectly. The ultimate political force +is the feeling of the community, including as its largest part ancestral +feeling. Many facts combine to obscure this truth, but however much it may +be obscured, public feeling remains the primal source of authority. The +various forms and instruments of government have grown up through processes +in harmony with the general law. The two antithetical types of society are +the militant and the industrial--the former implies compulsory co-operation +under more or less despotic rule, with governmental assumption of functions +belonging to the individual and a minimizing of individual initiative; +in the latter, government is reduced to a minimum and best conducted by +representative agencies, public organizations are largely replaced by +private organizations, the individual is freer and looks less to the state +for protection and for aid. The fundamental conditions of the highest +social development is the cessation of war. The ideas and sentiments at the +basis of Ecclesiastical Institutions have been naturally derived from the +ghost-theory already described. The goal of religious development is the +final rejection of all anthropomorphic conceptions of the First Cause, +until the harmony of religion and science shall be reached in the +veneration of the Unknowable. The remaining parts of Mr. Spencer's +Sociology will treat of Professional Institutions, Industrial Institutions, +Linguistic Progress, Intellectual, Moral, and Aesthetic Progress. + +The subject matter of _ethics_ is the conduct termed good or bad. Conduct +is the adjustment of acts to ends. The evolution of conduct is marked by +increasing perfection in the adjustment of acts to the furtherance of +individual life, the life of offspring, and social life. The ascription of +ethical character to the highly evolved conduct of man in relation to +these ends implies the fundamental assumption, that "life is good or bad +according as it does, or does not, bring a surplus of agreeable feeling." +The ideal of moral science is rational deduction: a rational utilitarianism +can be attained only by the recognition of the necessary laws--physical, +biological, psychological, and sociological--which condition the results of +actions; among these the biological laws have been largely neglected in +the past, though they are of the utmost importance as furnishing the link +between life and happiness. The "psychological view," again, explains the +origin of conscience. In the course of development man comes to recognize +the superiority of the higher and more representative feelings as guides +to action; this form of self-restraint, however, is characteristic of the +non-moral restraints as well, of the political, social, and religious +controls. From these the moral control proper has emerged--differing from +them in that it refers to intrinsic instead of extrinsic effects--and the +element of coerciveness in them, transferred, has generated the feeling of +moral compulsion (which, however, "will diminish as fast as moralization +increases"). + +Such a rational ethics, based on the laws which condition welfare rather +than on a direct estimation of happiness, and premising the relativity of +all pains and pleasures, escapes fundamental objections to the earlier +hedonism (_e.g._, those to the hedonic calculus); and, combining the +valuable elements in the divergent ethical theories, yields satisfactory +principles for the decision of ethical problems. Egoism takes precedence +of altruism; yet it is in turn dependent on this, and the two, on due +consideration, are seen to be co-essential. Entirely divorced from the +other, neither is legitimate, and a compromise is the only possibility; +while in the future advancing evolution will bring the two into complete +harmony. The goal of the whole process will be the ideal man in the ideal +society, the scientific anticipation of which, absolute ethics, promises +guidance for the relative and imperfect ethics of the transition period. + +Examination of the actual, not the professed, ideas and sentiments of men +reveals wide variation in moral judgments. This is especially true of the +"pro-ethical" consciousnesses of external authorities, coercions, and +opinions--religious, political, and social--by which the mass of mankind +are governed; and is broadly due to variation in social conditions. Where +the need of external co-operation predominates the ethics of enmity +develops; where internal, peaceful co-operation is the chief social need +the ethics of amity results: and the evolution principle enables us to +infer that, as among certain small tribes in the past, so in the great +cultivated nations of the future, the life of amity will unqualifiedly +prevail. The Ethics of Individual Life shows the application of moral +judgments to all actions which affect individual welfare. The very fact +that some deviations from normal life are now morally disapproved, implies +the existence of both egoistic and altruistic sanctions for the moral +approval of all acts which conduce to normal living and the disapproval of +all minor deviations, though for the most part these have hitherto remained +unconsidered. Doubtless, however, moral control must here be somewhat +indefinite; and even scientific observation and analysis must leave the +production of a perfectly regulated conduct to "the organic adjustment of +constitution to [social] conditions." + +The Ethics of Social Life includes justice and beneficence. Human justice +emerges from sub-human or animal justice, whose law (passing over gratis +benefits to offspring) is "that each individual shall receive the benefits +and evils of its own nature and its consequent conduct." This is the law +of human justice, also, but here it is more limited than before by the +non-interference which gregariousness requires, and by the increasing need +for the sacrifice of individuals for the good of the species. The egoistic +sentiment of justice arises from resistance to interference with free +action; the altruistic develops through sympathy under social conditions, +these being maintained meanwhile by a "pro-altruistic" sentiment, into +which dread of retaliation, of social reprobation, of legal punishment, and +of divine vengeance enter as component parts. The idea of justice emerges +gradually from the sentiment of justice: it has two elements, one brute or +positive, with inequality as its ideal, one human or negative, the ideal +of which is equality. In early times the former of these was unduly +appreciated, as in later times the latter, the true conception includes +both, the idea of equality being applied to the limits and the idea of +inequality to the benefits of action. Thus the formula of justice becomes: +"Every man is free to do that which he wills, provided he infringes not the +equal freedom of any other man "--a law which finds its authority in the +facts, that it is an _a priori_ dictum of "consciousness after it has been +subject to the discipline of prolonged social life," and that it is also +deducible from the conditions of the maintenance of life at large and of +social life. From this law follow various particular corollaries or rights, +all of which coincide with ordinary ethical concepts and have legal +enactments corresponding to them. Political rights so-called do not exist; +government is simply a system of appliances for the maintenance of private +rights. Both the nature of the state and its constitution are variable: +the militant type requires centralization and a coercive constitution; +the industrial type implies a wider distribution of political power, but +requires a representation of interests rather than a representation of +individuals. Government develops as a result of war, and its function of +protection against internal aggression arises by differentiation from its +primary function of external defense. These two, then, constitute the +essential duties of the state; when war ceases the first falls away, and +its sole function becomes the maintenance of the conditions under which +each individual may "gain the fullest life compatible with the fullest life +of fellow-citizens." All beyond this, all interference with this life of +the individual, whether by way of assistance, restraint, or education, +proves in the end both unjust and impolitic. The remaining parts of the +_Ethics_ will treat of Negative and Positive Beneficence. + +If J.S. Mill and Spencer (the latter of whom, moreover, had announced +evolution as a world-law before the appearance of Darwin), move in a +direction akin to positivism, the same is true, further, of G.H. Lewes +(1817-78; _History of Philosophy_, 5th ed., 1880; _Problems of Life and +Mind_, 1874 _seq_). + +Turning to the discussion of particular disciplines, we may mention as +prominent among English logicians,[1] besides Hamilton, Whewell, and Mill, +Whately, Mansel, Thomson, De Morgan, Boole (_An Investigation of the Laws +of Thought_, 1854); W.S. Jevons (_The Principles of Science_, 2d ed., +1877); Venn (_Symbolic Logic_, 1881; _Empirical Logic_, 1889), Bradley, and +Bosanquet. Among more recent investigators in the field of psychology we +may name Carpenter, Ferrier, Maudsley, Galton, Ward, and Sully (_The Human +Mind_, 1892), and in the field of comparative psychology, Lubbock, Romanes +(_Mental Evolution in Animals_, 1883; _Mental Evolution in Man_, 1889), and +Morgan (_Animal Life and Intelligence_, 1891). Among ethical writers the +following, besides Spencer and Green, hold a foremost place: H. Sidgwick +_(The Methods of Ethics_, 4th ed., 1890), Leslie Stephen _(The Science of +Ethics_, 1882), and James Martineau _(Types of Ethical Theory_, 3d ed., +1891). The quarterly review _Mind_ (vols. i.-xvi. 1876-91, edited by G. +Croom Robertson; new series from 1892, edited by G.F. Stout) has since its +foundation played an important part in the development of English thought. + +[Footnote 1: Cf. Nedich, _Die Lehre von der Quantifikation des Praedikats_ +in vol. iii. of Wundt's _Philosophische Studien_; L. Liard, _Les +Logiciens Anglais Contemporains_, 1878; Al. Riehl in vol. i. of the +_Vierteljahrsschrift fuer wissenschaftliche Philosophie_, 1877 [cf. also +appendix A to the English translation of Ueberweg's _Logic_.--TR.].] + +German idealism, for which S.T. Coleridge (died 1834) and Thomas Carlyle +(died 1881) endeavored to secure an entrance into England, for a long +time gained ground there but slowly. Later years, however, have brought +increasing interest in German speculation, and much of recent thinking +shows the influence of Kantian and Hegelian principles. As pioneer of this +movement we may name J.H. Stirling _(The Secret of Hegel_, 1865); and as +its most prominent representatives John Caird _(An Introduction to the +Philosophy of Religion_, 1880), Edward Caird _(The Critical Philosophy of +Immanuel Kant_, 1889; _The Evolution of Religion_, 1893), both in Glasgow, +and T.H. Green (1836-82; professor at Oxford; _Prolegomena to Ethics_, +3d ed., 1887; _Works_, edited by Nettleship, 3 vols., 1885-88).[1] In +opposition to the hereditary empiricism of English philosophy--which +appears in Spencer and Lewes, as it did in Locke, Berkeley, and Hume, +though in somewhat altered form--Green maintains that all experience is +constituted by intelligible relations. Knowledge, therefore, is possible +only for a correlating self-consciousness; while nature, as a system of +relations, is likewise dependent on a spiritual principle, of which it is +the expression. Thus the central conception of Green's philosophy becomes, +"that the universe is a single eternal activity or energy, of which it is +the essence to be self-conscious, that is, to be itself and not itself +in one" (Nettleship). To this universal consciousness we are related as +manifestations or "communications" under the limitations of our physical +organization. As such we are free, that is, self-determined, determined by +nothing from without. The moral ideal is self-realization or perfection, +the progressive reproduction of the divine self-consciousness. This is +possible only in terms of a development of persons, for as a self-conscious +personality the divine spirit can reproduce itself in persons alone; and, +since "social life is to personality what language is to thought," +the realization of the moral ideal implies life in common. The nearer +determination of the ideal is to be sought in the manifestations of the +eternal spirit as they have been given in the moral history of individuals +and nations. This shows what has already been implied in the relation of +morality to personality and society, that moral good must first of all be +a common good, one in which the permanent well-being of self includes the +well-being of others also. This is the germ of morality, the development of +which yields, first, a gradual extension of the area of common good, and +secondly, a fuller and more concrete determination of its content. Further +representatives of this movement are W. Wallace, Adamson, Bradley; A. Seth +is an ex-member. + +[Footnote 1: Cf. on Green the Memoir by Nettleship in vol. iii. of the +_Works_.] + +The first and greatest of American philosophical thinkers was the +Calvinistic theologian Jonathan Edwards (1703-58; treatise on the _Freedom +of Will_, 1754; _Works_, 10 vols., edited by Dwight, 1830). Edwards's +deterministic doctrine found numerous adherents (among them his son, who +bore his father's name, died 1801) as well as strenuous opponents (Tappan, +Whedon, Hazard among later names), and essentially contributed to +the development of philosophical thought in the United States. For a +considerable period this crystallized for the most part around elements +derived from British thinkers, especially from Locke and the Scottish +School. In 1829 James Marsh called attention to German speculation [1] by +his American edition of Coleridge's _Aids to Reflection_, with an important +introduction from his own hand. Later W.E. Channing (1780-1842), the head +of the Unitarian movement, attracted many young and brilliant minds, the +most noted of whom, Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-82), became a leader among +the New England transcendentalists. Metaphysical idealism has, perhaps, met +with less resistance in America than in England. Kant and Hegel have been +eagerly studied (G.S. Morris, died 1889; C.C. Everett; J. Watson in Canada; +Josiah Royce, _The Spirit of Modern Philosophy_, 1892; and others); and +_The Journal of Speculative Philosophy_, edited by W.T. Harris, has since +1867 furnished a rallying point for idealistic interests. The influence +of Lotze has also been considerable (B.P. Bowne in Boston). Sympathy +with German speculation, however, has not destroyed the naturally close +connection with the work of writers who use the English tongue. Thus +Spencer's writings have had a wide currency, and his system numbers many +disciples, though these are less numerous among students of philosophy by +profession (John Fiske, _Outlines of Cosmic Philosophy_, 1874). + +[Footnote 1: Cf. Porter, _op. cit._] + +In the latest decades the broadening of the national life, the increasing +acquaintance with foreign thought, and the rapid development of university +work have greatly enlarged and deepened the interest in philosophical +pursuits. This is manifested most clearly in the field of psychology, +including especially the "new" or "physiological" psychology, and the +history of philosophy, though indications of pregnant thought in other +departments, as ethics and the philosophy of religion, and even of +independent construction, are not wanting. Among psychologists of the day +we may mention G.S. Hall, editor of _The American Journal of Psychology_ +(1887 seq.), G.T. Ladd (_Elements of Physiological Psychology_, 1887), +and William James (_Principles of Psychology_, 1890). _The International +Journal of Ethics_ (Philadelphia, 1890 seq.), edited by S. Burns Weston, is +"devoted to the advancement of ethical knowledge and practice"; among the +foreign members of its editorial committee are Jodl and Von Gizycki. The +weekly journal of popular philosophy, _The Open Court_, published in +Chicago, has for its object the reconciliation of religion and science; the +quarterly, _The Monist_ (1890 seq.), published by the same company under +the direction of Paul Carus (_The Soul of Man_, 1891), the establishment of +a monistic view of the world. Several journals, among them the _Educational +Review_ (1891 seq., edited by N.M. Butler), point to a growing interest in +pedagogical inquiry. _The American Philosophical Review_ (1892 seq., +edited by J.G. Schurman, _The Ethical Import of Darwinism_, 1887) is a +comprehensive exponent of American philosophic thought. + + +%4. Sweden, Norway, Denmark, and Holland.% + +In _Sweden_ an empirical period represented by Leopold (died 1829) and Th. +Thorild (died 1808), and based upon Locke and Rousseau, was followed, after +the introduction of Kant by D. Boethius, 1794, by a drift toward idealism. +This was represented in an extreme form by B. Hoeijer (died 1812), a +contemporary and admirer of Fichte, who defended the right of philosophical +construction, and more moderately by Christofer Jacob Boestrom (1797-1866), +the most important systematic thinker of his country. As predecessors of +Boestrom we may mention Biberg (died 1827), E.G. Geijer (died 1846), and S. +Grubbe (died 1853), like him professors in Upsala, and of his pupils, +S. Ribbing, known in Germany by his peculiar conception of the Platonic +doctrine of ideas (German translation, 1863-64), the moralist Sahlin +(1877), the historian, of Swedish philosophy[1] (1873 seq.) A. Nyblaeus of +Lund, and H. Edfeldt of Upsala, the editor of Boestrom's works (1883). + +[Footnote 1: Cf. Hoeffding, _Die Philosophie in Schweden_ in the +_Philosophische Monatshefte_, vol. xv. 1879, p. 193 seq.] + +Boestrom's philosophy is a system of self-activity and personalism which +recalls Leibnitz and Krause. The absolute or being is characterized as a +concrete, systematically articulated, self-conscious unity, which dwells +with its entire content in each of its moments, and whose members both bear +the character of the whole and are immanent in one another, standing in +relations of organic inter-determination. The antithesis between unity and +plurality is only apparent, present only for the divisive view of finite +consciousness. God is infinite, fully determinate personality (for +determination is not limitation), a system of self-dependent living beings, +differing in degree, in which we, as to our true being, are eternally and +unchangeably contained. Every being is a definite, eternal, and living +thought of God; thinking beings with their states and activities alone +exist; all that is real is spiritual, personal. Besides this true, +suprasensible world of Ideas, which is elevated above space, time, motion, +change, and development, and which has not arisen by creation or a process +of production, there exists for man, but only for him--man is formally +perfect, it is true, but materially imperfect (since he represents the real +from a limited standpoint)--a sensuous world of phenomena as the sphere of +his activity. To this he himself belongs, and in it he is spontaneously to +develop the suprasensible content which is eternally given him (i.e., his +true nature), namely, to raise it from the merely potential condition of +obscure presentiment to clear, conscious actuality. Freedom is the power +to overcome our imperfection by means of our true nature, to realize our +suprasensible capacities, to become for ourselves what we are in ourselves +(in God). The ethics of Boestrom is distinguished from the Kantian ethics, +to which it is related, chiefly by the fact that it seeks to bring +sensibility into a more than merely negative relation to reason. Society +is an eternal, and also a personal, Idea in God. The most perfect form +of government is constitutional monarchy; the ideal goal of history, the +establishment of a system of states embracing all mankind. + +J. Borelius of Lund is an Hegelian, but differs from the master in regard +to the doctrine of the contradiction. The Hegelian philosophy has adherents +in _Norway_ also, as G.V. Lyng (died 1884; _System of Fundamental Ideas_), +M.J. Monrad (_Tendencies of Modern Thought_, 1874, German translation, +1879), both professors in Christiania, and Monrad's pupil G. Kent (_Hegel's +Doctrine of the Nature of Experience_, 1891). + +The _Danish_ philosophy of the nineteenth century has been described +by Hoeffding in the second volume of the _Archiv fuer Geschichte der +Philosophie_, 1888. He begins with the representatives of the speculative +movement: Steffens (see above), Niels Treschow (1751-1833), Hans Christian +Oersted (1777-1851; _Spirit in Nature_, German translation, Munich, +1850-51), and Frederik Christian Sibbern (1785-1872). A change was brought +about by the philosophers of religion Soeren Kierkegaard (1813-55) and +Rasmus Nielsen (1809-84; _Philosophy of Religion_, 1869), who opposed +speculative idealism with a strict dualism of knowledge and faith, and were +in turn opposed by Georg Brandes (born 1842) and Hans Broechner (1820-75). +Among younger investigators the Copenhagen professors, Harald Hoeffding[1] +(born 1843) and Kristian Kroman[2] (born 1846) stand in the first rank. + +[Footnote 1: Hoeffding: _The Foundations of Human Ethics_, 1876, German +translation, 1880; _Outlines of Psychology_, 1882, English translation by +Lowndes, 1891, from the German translation, 1887; _Ethics_, 1887, German +translation by Bendixen, 1888.] + +[Footnote 2: Kroman: _Our Knowledge of Nature_, German translation, 1883; +_A Brief Logic and Psychology_, German translation by Bendixen, 1890.] + +Land (_Mind_, vol. iii. 1878) and G. von Antal (1888) have written on +philosophy in _Holland_. Down to the middle of the nineteenth century the +field was occupied by an idealism based upon the ancients, in particular +upon Plato: Franz Hemsterhuis (1721-90; _Works_, new ed., 1846-50), and the +philologists Wyttenbach and Van Heusde. Then Cornelius Wilhelm Opzoomer[3] +(1821-92; professor in Utrecht) brought in a new movement. Opzoomer +favors empiricism. He starts from Mill and Comte, but goes beyond them in +important points, and assigns faith a field of its own beside knowledge. +In opposition to apriorism he seeks to show that experience is capable of +yielding universal and necessary truths; that space, time, and causality +are received along with the content of thought; that mathematics itself is +based upon experience; and that the method of natural science, especially +deduction, must be applied to the mental sciences. The philosophy of mind +considers man as an individual being, in his connection with others, in +relation to a higher being, and in his development; accordingly it +divides into psychology (which includes logic, aesthetics, and ethology), +sociology, the philosophy of religion, and the philosophy of history. +Central to Opzoomer's system is his doctrine of the five sources of +knowledge: Sensation, the feeling of pleasure and pain, aesthetic, moral, +and religious feeling. If we build on the foundation of the first three +alone, we end in materialism; if we leave the last unused, we reach +positivism; if we make religious feeling the sole judge of truth, mysticism +is the outcome. The criteria of science are utility and progress. These are +still wanting in the mental sciences, in which the often answered but never +decided questions continually recur, because we have neither derived the +principles chosen as the basis of the deduction from an exact knowledge +of the phenomena nor tested the results by experience. The causes of this +defective condition can only be removed by imitating the study of nature: +we must learn that no conclusions can be reached except from facts, and +that we are to strive after knowledge of phenomena and their laws alone. We +have no right to assume an "essence" of things beside and in addition to +phenomena, which reveals itself in them or hides behind them. Pupils of +Opzoomer are his successor in his Utrecht chair, Van der Wyck, and Pierson. +We may also mention J.P.N. Land, who has done good service in editing +the works of Spinoza and of Geulincx, and the philosopher of religion +Rauwenhoff (1888). + +[Footnote 1: Opzoomer: _The Method of Science_, a Handbook of Logic, German +translation by Schwindt, 1852; _Religion_, German translation by Mook, +1869.] + +On the system of the Hungarian philosopher Cyrill Horvath (died 1884 at +Pesth) see the essay by E. Nemes in the _Zeitschrift fuer Philosophie_, +vol. lxxxviii, 1886. Since 1889 a review, _Problems of Philosophy and +Psychology_, has appeared at Moscow in Russian, under the direction of +Professor N. von Grot. + + + + +CHAPTER XVI. + +GERMAN PHILOSOPHY SINCE THE DEATH OF HEGEL. + +With Hegel the glorious dynasty which, with a strong hand, had guided the +fate of German philosophy since the conclusion of the preceding century +disappears. From his death (1831) we may date the second period of +post-Kantian philosophy,[1] which is markedly and unfavorably distinguished +from the first by a decline in the power of speculative creation and by +a division of effort. If previous to this the philosophical public, +comprising all the cultured, had been eagerly occupied with problems in +common, and had followed with unanimous interest the work of those who were +laboring at them, during the last fifty years the interest of wider circles +in philosophical questions has grown much less active; almost every +thinker goes his own way, giving heed only to congenial voices; the inner +connection of the schools has been broken down; the touch with thinkers of +different views has been lost. The latest decades have been the first +to bring a change for the better, in so far as new rallying points of +philosophical interest have been created by the neo-Kantian movement, by +the systems of Lotze and Von Hartmann, by the impulse toward the philosophy +of nature proceeding from Darwinism, by energetic labors in the field of +practical philosophy, and by new methods of investigation in psychology. + +[Footnote 1: On philosophy since 1831 cf. vol. iii. of J.E. Erdmann's +_History_; Ueberweg, _Grundriss_, part iii. Sec.Sec. 37-49 (English translation, +vol. ii. pp. 292-516); Lange, _History of Materialism_; B. Erdmann, _Die +Philosophie der Gegenwart_ in the _Deutsche Rundschau_, vols. xix., xx., +1879, June and July numbers; (A. Krohn,) _Streifzuege durch die Philosophie +der Gegenwart_ in the _Zeitschrift fuer Philosophie und philosophische +Kritik_, vols. lxxxvii., lxxxix., 1885-86; (Burt, _History of Modern +Philosophy_, 1892), also the third volume of Windelband's _Geschichte der +neueren Philosophie_, when it appears.] + + +%1. From the Division of the Hegelian School to the Materialistic +Controversy.% + +A decade after the philosophy of Hegel had entered on its supremacy a +division in the school was called forth by Strauss's _Life of Jesus_(1835). +The differences were brought to light by the discussion of religious +problems, in regard to which Hegel had not expressed himself with +sufficient distinctness. The relation of knowledge and faith, as he had +defined it, admitted of variant interpretations and deductions, and this in +favor of Church doctrine as well as in opposition to it. Philosophy has the +same content as religion, but in a different form, _i.e._, not in the form +of representation, but in the form of the concept--it transforms dogma into +speculative truth. The conservative Hegelians hold fast to the identity of +content in the two modes of cognition; the liberals, to the alteration +in form, which, they assert, brings an alteration in content with it. +According to Hegel the lower stage is "sublated" in the higher, _i.e._, +conserved as well as negated. The orthodox members of the school emphasize +the conservation of religious doctrines, their justification from the side +of the philosopher; the progressists, their negation, their overcoming by +the speculative concept. The general question, whether the ecclesiastical +meaning of a dogma is retained or to be abandoned in its transformation +into a philosopheme, divides into three special questions, the +anthropological, the soteriogical, and the theological. These are: whether +on Hegelian principles immortality is to be conceived as a continuance +of individual existence on the art of particular spirits, or only as the +eternity of the universal reason; whether by the God-man the person of +Christ is to be understood, or, on the other hand, the human species, the +Idea of Humanity; whether personality belongs to the Godhead before the +creation of the world, or whether it first attains to self-consciousness +in human spirits, whether Hegel was a theist or a pantheist, whether he +teaches the transcendence or the immanence of God. The Old Hegelians defend +the orthodox interpretation; the Young Hegelians oppose it. The former, +Goeschel, Gabler, Hinrichs, Schaller (died 1868; _History of the Philosophy +of Nature since Bacon_, 1841 _seq_.), J.E. Erdmann in Halle (1805-92; _Body +and Soul_, 1837; _Psychological Letters_, 1851, 6th ed., 1882; _Earnest +Sport_, 1871, 4th ed., 1890), form, according to Strauss's parliamentary +comparison carried out by Michelet, the "right"; the latter, Strauss, +Feuerbach, Bruno Bauer, and A. Ruge, who, with Echtermeyer, edited the +_Hallesche_, afterward _Deutsche, Jahrbuecher fuer Wissenschaft und Kunst_, +1838-42, the "left." Between them, and forming the "center," stand Karl +Rosenkranz[1] in Koenigsberg (1805-79), C.L. Michelet in Berlin (p. 16; +_Hegel, the Unrefuted World-philosopher_, 1870; _System of Philosophy_, +1876 _seq_.), and the theologians Marheineke (a pupil of Daub at +Heidelberg) and W. Vatke (_Philosophy of Religion_, edited by Preiss, +1888). Contrasted with these is the group of semi- or pseudo-Hegelians (p. +596), who declare themselves in accord with the theistic doctrines of the +right, but admit that the left represents Hegel's own opinion, or at least +the correct deductions from his position. + +[Footnote 1: K. Rosenkranz: _Psychology_, 1837, 3d ed., 1863; _Science +of the Logical Idea_, 1858; _Studies_, 1839 _seq_., _New Studies_, 1875 +_seq_.; _Aesthetics of the Ugly_, 1853; several works on the history of +poetry.] + +The following should also be mentioned as Hegelians: the philosopher of +history, Von Cieszkowski, the pedagogical writer, Thaulow (at Kiel, died +1883), the philosopher of religion and of law, A. Lasson at Berlin, the +aesthetic writers Hotho, Friedrich Theodor Vischer[1] (1807-87), and Max +Schasler (_Critical History of Aesthetics_, 1872; _Aesthetics_, 1886), +the historians of philosophy, Schwegler (died 1857; _History of Greek +Philosophy_, 1859, 4th ed., 1886, edited by Karl Koestlin, whose +_Aesthetics_ appeared 1869), Eduard Zeller[2] of Berlin (born 1814), +and Kuno Fischer (born 1824; 1856-72 professor at Jena, since then at +Heidelberg; _Logic and Metaphysics_, 2d ed., 1865). While Weissenborn (died +1874) is influenced by Schleiermacher also, and Zeller and Fischer strive +back toward Kant, Johannes Volkelt[3] in Wuerzburg (born 1848), who started +from Hegel and advanced through Schopenhauer and Hartmann, has of late +years established an independent noetical position and has done good +service by his energetic opposition to positivism _(Das Denken als +Huelfvorstellungs--Thaetigkeit und als Aupassungsvorgang_ in the _Zeitschrift +fuer Philosophic_, vols. xcvi., xcvii., 1889-90). + +[Footnote 1: Vischer: _Aesthetics_, 1846-58; _Critical Excursions_, 1844 +_seq_.; several _Hefte "Altes and Neues_". The diary in the second part of +the novel _Auch Einer_ develops an original pantheistic view of the world.] + +[Footnote 2: Zeller: _The Philosophy of the Greeks in its Historical +Development_, 5 vols., 3d ed., vol. i. 5th ed. (English translation, 1868 +_seq_.); three collections of _Addresses and Essays_, 1865, 1877, 1884.] + +[Footnote 3: Volkelt: _The Phantasy in Dreams_, 1875; _Kant's Theory of +Knowledge_, 1879; _On the Possibility of Metaphysics_, inaugural address at +Basle, 1884; _Experience and Thought, Critical Foundation of the Theory of +Knowledge_, 1886; _Lectures Introductory to the Philosophy of the Present +Time_ (delivered in Frankfort on the Main), 1892.] + +The leaders of the Hegelian left require more detailed consideration. In +David Friedrich Strauss[1] (1808-74, born and died at Ludwigsburg) the +philosophy of religion becomes a historical criticism of the Bible and of +dogmatics. The biblical narratives are, in great part, not history (this +has been the common error alike of the super-naturalistic and of the +rationalistic interpreters), but myths, that is, suprasensible facts +presented in the form of history and in symbolic language. It is evident +from the contradictions in the narratives and the impossibility of miracles +that we are not here concerned with actual events. The myths possess +(speculative, absolute) truth, but no (historical) reality. They are +unintentional creations of the popular imagination; the spirit of the +community speaks in the authors of the Gospels, using the historical factor +(the life-history of Jesus) with mythical embellishments as an investiture +for a supra-historical, eternal truth (the speculative Idea of +incarnation). The God become man, in which the infinite and the finite, the +divine nature and the human, are united, is the human race. The Idea of +incarnation manifests itself in a multitude of examples which supplement +one another, instead of pouring forth its whole fullness in a single one. +The (real) Idea of the race is to be substituted for a single individual +as the subject of the predicates (resurrection, ascension, etc.) which the +Church ascribes to Christ. The Son of God is _Humanity_. + +[Footnote 1: Strauss: _The Life of Jesus_, 1835-36, 4th ed., 1840 [English +translation by George Eliot, 2d. ed., 1893]; the same "for the German +People," 1864 [English translation, 1865]; _Christian Dogmatics_, 1840-41; +_Voltaire_, 1870; _Collected Writings_, 12 vols., edited by Zeller, +1876-78. On Strauss cf. Zeller, 1874 [English, 1874], and Hausrath, +1876-78.] + +In his second principal work Strauss criticises the dogmas of Christianity +as sharply as he had criticised the Gospel narrative in the first one. The +historical development of these has of itself effected their destruction: +the history of dogma is the objective criticism of dogma. Christianity and +philosophy, theism and pantheism, dualism and immanence, are irreconcilable +opposites. To be able to know we must cease to believe. Dogma is the +product of the unphilosophical, uncultured consciousness; belief in +revelation, only for those who have not yet risen to reason. In the +transformation of religious representations into philosophical Ideas +nothing specifically representative is left; the form of representation +must be actually overcome. The Christian contraposition of the present +world and that which is beyond is explained by the fact that the +sensuo-rational spirit of man, so long as it does not philosophically know +itself as the unity of the infinite and the finite, but only feels itself +as finite, sensuo-empirical consciousness, projects the infinite, which +it has in itself, as though this were something foreign, looks on it +as something beyond the world. This separation of faith is entirely +unphilosophical; it is the mission of the philosopher to reduce all that is +beyond the world to the present. Thus for him immortality is not something +to come, but the spirit's own power to rise above the finite to the Idea. +And like future existence, so the transcendent God also disappears. The +absolute is the universal unity of the world, which posits and sublates the +individual as its modes. God is the being in all existence, the life in +all that lives, the thought in all that think: he does not stand as an +individual person beside and above other persons, but is the infinite which +personifies itself and attains to consciousness in human spirits, and this +from eternity; before there was a humanity of earth there were spirits on +other stars, in whom God reflected himself. + +Three decades later Strauss again created a sensation by his confession +of materialism and atheism, _The Old Faith and the New_, 1872 (since the +second edition, "With a Postscript as Preface"),[1] in which he continues +the conflict against religious dualism. The question "Are we"--the +cultured men of the day--"still Christians?" is answered in the negative. +Christianity is a cult of poverty, despising the world, and antagonistic to +labor and culture; but we have learned to esteem science and art, riches +and acquisition, as the chief levers of culture and of human progress. +Christianity dualistically tears apart body and soul, time and eternity, +the world and God; we need no Creator, for the life-process has neither +beginning nor end. The world is framed for the highest reason, it is true, +but it has not been framed by a highest reason. Our highest Idea is the +All, which is conformed to law, and instinct with life and reason, and +our feeling toward the universe--the consciousness of dependence on its +laws--exercises no less of ethical influence, is no less full of reverence, +and no less exposed to injury from an irreverent pessimism, than the +feeling of the devout of the old type toward their God. Hence the answer +to the second question "Have we still a religion?" maybe couched in the +affirmative. The new faith does not need a _cultus_ and a Church. Since the +dry services of the free congregations offer nothing for the fancy and the +spirit, the edification of the heart must be accomplished in other ways--by +participation in the interests of humanity, in the national life, and, +not last, by aesthetic enjoyment. Thus in his last work, which in two +appendices reaches a discussion of the great German poets and musicians, +the old man returns to a thought to which he had given earlier expression, +that the religious _cultus_ should be replaced by the _cultus_ of genius. + +[Footnote 1: English translation by Mathilde Blind, 1873.] + +As Strauss went over from Hegelianism to pantheism, so Ludwig Feuerbach[1] +(1804-72), a son of the great jurist, Anselm Feuerbach, after he had for +a short time moved in the same direction, took the opposite, the +individualistic course, only, like Strauss, to end at last in materialism. +"My first thought," as he himself describes the course of his development, +"was God; my second, reason; my third and last, man." As theology has been +overcome by Hegel's philosophy of reason, so this in turn must give place +to the philosophy of man. "The new philosophy makes man, including nature +as his basis, the highest and sole subject of philosophy, and, +consequently, anthropology the universal science." Only that which is +immediately self-evident is true and divine. But only that which is +sensible is evident (_sonnenklar)_; it is only where sensibility begins +that all doubt and conflict cease. Sensible beings alone are true, real +beings; existence in space and time is alone existence; truth, reality, +and sensibility are identical. While the old philosophy took for its +starting point the principle, "I am an abstract, a merely thinking being; +the body does not belong to my essence," the new philosophy, on the other +hand, begins with the principle, "I am a real, a sensible being; the body +in its totality is my ego, my essence itself." Feuerbach, however, uses +the concept of sensibility in so wide and vague a sense that, +supported--or deceived--by the ambiguity of the word sensation, he +includes under it even the most elevated and sacred feelings. Even the +objects of art are seen, heard, and felt; even the souls of other men are +sensed. In the sensations the deepest and highest truths are concealed. Not +only the external, but the internal also, not only flesh, but spirit, not +only the thing, but the ego, not only the finite, the phenomenal, but also +the true divine essence is an object of the senses. Sensation proves the +existence of objects outside our head--there is no other proof of being +than love, than sensation in general. Everything is perceivable by the +senses, if not directly, yet indirectly, if not with the vulgar, untrained +senses, yet with the "cultivated senses," if not with the eye of the +anatomist or chemist, yet with that of the philosopher. All our ideas +spring from the senses, but their production requires communication and +converse between man and man. The higher concepts cannot be derived from +the individual Ego without a sensuously given Thou; the highest object of +sense is man; man does not reach concepts and reason in general by himself, +but only as one of two. The nature of man is contained in community alone; +only in life with others and for others does he attain his destiny and +happiness. The conscience is the ego putting itself in the place of another +who has been injured. Man with man, the unity of I and Thou, is God, and +God is love. + +[Footnote 1: Feuerbach was born at Landshut, studied at Heidelberg and +Berlin, habilitated, 1828, at Erlangen, and lived, 1836-60, in the village +of Bruckberg, not far from Bayreuth, and from 1860 until his death in +Rechenberg, a suburb of Nuremberg. _Collected Works_ in 10 vols., 1846-66. +The chief works are entitled: _P. Bayle_, 1838, 2d ed., 1844; _Philosophy +and Christianity_, 1839; _The Essence of Christianity_, 1841, 4th ed., 1883 +[English translation by George Eliot, 1854]; _Principles of the Philosophy +of the Future_, 1843; _The Essence of Religion_, 1845; _Theogony_, 1857; +_God, Freedom, and Immortality_, 1866. Karl Gruen, 1874, C.N. Starcke, 1885, +and W. Bolin, 1891, treat of Feuerbach.] + +To the philosophy of religion Feuerbach assigns the task of giving a +psychological explanation of the genesis of religion, instead of showing +reason in religion. In bidding us believe in miracles dogma is a +prohibition to think. Hence the philosopher is not to justify it, but to +uncover the illusion to which it owes its origin. Speculative theology is +an intoxicated philosophy; it is time to become sober, and to recognize +that philosophy and religion are diametrically opposed to each other, +that they are related to each other as health to disease, as thought to +phantasy. Religion arises from the fact that man objectifies his own true +essence, and opposes it to himself as a personal being, without coming to a +consciousness of this divestment of self, of the identity of the divine +and human nature. Hence the Hegelian principles, that the absolute is +self-consciousness, that in man God knows himself, must be reversed: +self-consciousness is the absolute; in his God man knows himself only. The +Godhead is our own universal nature, freed from its individual limitations, +intuited and worshiped as another, independent being, distinct from us. +God is self objectified, the inner nature of man expressed; man is +the beginning, the middle, and the end of religion. All theology is +anthropology, for all religion is a self-deification of man. In religion +man makes a division in his own nature, posits himself as double, first as +limited (as a human individual), then as unlimited, raised to infinity (as +God); and this deified self he worships in order to obtain from it the +satisfaction of his needs, which the course of the world leaves unmet. Thus +religion grows out of egoism: its basis is the difference between our will +and our power; its aim, to set us free from the dependence which we feel +before nature. (Like culture, religion seeks to make nature an intelligible +and compliant being, only that in this it makes use of the supernatural +instruments faith, prayer, and magic; it is only gradually that men learn +to attack the evils by natural means.) That which man himself is not, but +wishes to be, that he represents to himself in his gods as existing; they +are the wishes of man's heart transformed into real beings, his longing +after happiness satisfied by the fancy. The same holds true of all dogmas: +as God is the affirmation of our wishes, so the world beyond is the present +embellished and idealized by the fancy. Instead of "God is merciful, is +love, is omnipotent, he performs miracles and hears prayers," the statement +must be reversed: mercy, love, omnipotence, to perform miracles, and to +hear prayers, is divine. In the sacraments of baptism and the Lord's supper +Feuerbach sees the truth that water and food are indispensable and divine. +As Feuerbach, following out this naturalistic tendency, reached the extreme +of materialism, the influence of his philosophy--whose different phases +there is no occasion to trace out in detail--had already passed its +culmination. From his later writings little more has found its way into +public notice than the pun, that man is (_ist_) what he eats (_isst_). + +The remaining members of the Hegelian left may be treated more briefly. +Bruno Bauer[1] (died in 1882; his principal work is the _Critique of the +Synoptics_, in three volumes, 1841-42, which had been preceded, in 1840, by +a _Critique of the Evangelical History of John_) at first belonged on the +right of the school, but soon went over to the extreme left. He explains +the Gospel narratives as creations with a purpose (_Tendenzdichtungen_), +as intentional, but not deceitful, inventions, from which, despite their +unreality, history may well be learned, inasmuch as they reflect the spirit +of the time in which they were constructed. His own publications and those +of his brother Edgar are much more radical after the year 1844. In these +the brothers advocate the standpoint of "pure or absolute criticism," which +extends itself to all things and events for or against which sides are +taken from any quarter, and calmly watches how everything destroys +itself. As soon as anything is admitted, it is no longer true. Nothing is +absolutely valid, all is vain; it is only the criticising, all-destroying +ego, free from all ethical ties, that possesses truth. + +[Footnote 1: Not to be confused with the head of the Tuebingen School, +Ferdinand Christian Baur (died 1860).] + +One further step was possible beyond Feuerbach and Bruno Bauer, that from +the community to the particular, selfish individual, from the criticising, +therefore thinking, ego, to the ego of sensuous enjoyment. This step was +taken in that curious book _The Individual and his Property_, which Kaspar +Schmidt, who died in 1856 at Berlin, published in 1845 (2d ed., 1882), +under the pseudonym of Max Stirner. The Individual of whom the title speaks +is the egoist. For me nothing is higher than myself; I use men and use up +the world for my own pleasure. I seek to be and have all that I can be +and have; I have a right to all that is within my power. Morality is a +delusion, justice, like all Ideas, a phantom. Those who believe in ideals, +and worship such generalities as self-consciousness, man, society, are +still deep in the mire of prejudice and superstition, and have banished the +old orthodox phantom of the Deity only to replace it by a new one. Nothing +whatever is to be respected. + + * * * * * + +Among the opponents of the Hegelian philosophy the members of the "theistic +school," who have above been designated as semi-Hegelians, approximate it +most closely. These endeavor, in part retaining the dialectic method, to +blend the immanence of the absolute, which philosophy cannot give up and +concerning which Hegel had erred only by way of over-emphasis, with the +transcendence of God demanded by Christian consciousness, to establish a +theism which shall contain pantheism as a moment in itself. God is present +in all creatures, yet distinct from them; he is intramundane as well as +extramundane; he is self-conscious personality, free creative spirit, +is this from all eternity, and does not first become such through the +world-development. He does not need the world for his perfection, but out +of his goodness creates it. Philosophy must begin with the living Godhead +instead of beginning, like Hegel's Logic, with the empty concept of being. +For the categories--as Schelling had already objected--express necessary +forms or general laws only, to which all reality must conform, but which +are never capable of generating reality; the content which appears in them +and which obeys them, can only be created by a Deity, and only empirically +cognized. This is the standpoint of Christian Hermann Weisse[1] in Leipsic +(1801-66), Karl Philipp Fischer[2] in Erlangen (1807-85), Immanuel Hermann +Fichte[3] (1797-1879; 1842-65 professor in Tuebingen), and the follower of +Schleiermacher, Julius Braniss in Breslau (1792-1873). The following hold +similar views, influenced, like Weisse and K. Ph. Fischer, by Schelling: +Jacob Sengler of Freiburg (1799-1878; _The Idea of God_, 1845 _seq_.), +Leopold Schmid of Giessen (1808-69; cf. p. 516, note), Johannes Huber +(died 1879), Moritz Carriere[4] (born 1817), both in Munich, K. Steffensen +of Basle (1816-88; _Collected Essays_, 1890), and Karl Heyder in Erlangen +(1812-86; _The Doctrine of Ideas_, vol. i. 1874). Chalybaeus at Kiel (died +1862), and Friedrich Harms at Berlin (died 1880; _Metaphysics_, +posthumously edited by H. Wiese, 1885), who, like Fortlage and I.H. Fichte, +start from the system of the elder Fichte, should also be mentioned as +sympathizing with the opinions of those who have been named. + +[Footnote 1: Weisse: _System of Aesthetics_, 1830; _The Idea of the +Godhead_, 1833; _Philosophical Dogmatics_, 1855. His pupil Rudolf Seydel +has published several of his posthumous works; H. Lotze also acknowledges +that he owes much to Weisse. Rud. Seydel in Leipsic (born 1835), _Logic_, +1866; _Ethics_, 1874; cf. p. 17.] + +[Footnote 2: K. Ph. Fischer: _The Idea of the Godhead_, 1839; _Outlines of +the System of Philosophy_, 1848 _seq_.; _The Untruth of Sensationalism and +Materialism_, 1853.] + +[Footnote 3: I.H. Fichte: _System of Ethics_, 1850-53, the first volume of +which gives a history of moral philosophy since 1750; _Anthropology_, 1856, +3d ed., 1876; _Psychology_, 1864.] + +[Footnote 4: Carriere: _Aesthetics_, 1859, 3d ed., 1885; _The Moral Order +of the World_, 1877, 2d ed., 1891; _Art in connection with the Development +of Culture_, 5 vols., 1863-73.] + +The same may be said, further, of Hermann Ulrici[1] of Halle (1806-84), +for many years the editor of the _Zeitschrift fuer Philosophie und +philosophische Kritik_, founded in 1837 by the younger Fichte and now +edited by the author of this _History_, which, as the organ of the theistic +school, opposed, first, the pantheism of the Young Hegelians, and then the +revived materialism so loudly proclaimed after the middle of the +century. This _Zeitschrift_ of Fichte and Ulrici, following the altered +circumstances of the time, has experienced a change of aim, so that it now +seeks to serve idealistic efforts of every shade; while the _Philosophische +Monatshefte_ (founded by Bergmann in 1868, edited subsequently by +Schaarschmidt, and now) edited by P. Natorp of Marburg, favors +neo-Kantianism, and the _Vierteljahrsschrift fuer wissenschaftliche +Philosophie_ (begun in 1877, and) edited by R. Avenarius of Zurich, +especially cultivates those parts of philosophy which are open to exact +treatment. + +[Footnote 1: Ulrici: _On Shakespeare's Dramatic Art_, 1839, 3d ed., 1868 +[English, 1876]; _Faith and Knowledge_, 1858; _God and Nature_, 1861, 2d +ed., 1866; _God and Man_, in two volumes, _Body and Soul_, 1866, 2d ed., +1874, and _Natural Law_, 1872; various treatises on Logic--in which +consciousness is based on the distinguishing activity, and the categories +conceived as functional modes of this--on Spiritualism, etc.] + +The appearance of _materialism_ was the consequence of the flagging of +the philosophic spirit, on the one hand, and, on the other, of the +dissatisfaction of the representatives of natural science with the +constructions of the Schelling-Hegelian school. If the German naturalist is +especially exposed to the danger of judging all reality from the section +of it with which he is familiar, from the world of material substances and +mechanical motions, the reason lies in the fact that he does not find it +easy, like the Englishman for example, to let the scientific and the +philosophico-religious views of the world go on side by side as two +entirely heterogeneous modes of looking at things. The metaphysical impulse +to generalization and unification spurs him on to break down the boundary +between the two spheres, and, since the physical view of things has become +part of his flesh and blood, psychical phenomena are for him nothing but +brain-vibrations, and the freedom of the will and all religious ideas, +nothing but illusions. The materialistic controversy broke out most +actively at the convention of naturalists at Goettingen in 1854, when +Rudolph Wagner in his address "On the Creation of Man and the Substance +of the Soul" declared, in opposition to Karl Vogt, that there is no +physiological reason for denying the descent of man from one pair and an +immaterial immortal soul. Vogt's answer was entitled "Collier Faith and +Science." Among others Schaller (_Body and Soul_, 1855), J.B. Meyer in a +treatise with the same title, 1856, and the Jena physicist, Karl Snell,[1] +took part in the controversy by way of criticism and mediation. A much +finer nature than the famous leaders of materialism--Moleschott (_The +Circle of Life_, 1852, in answer to Liebig's _Chemical Letters_), and Louis +Buechner, with whose _Force and Matter_ (1855, 16th ed., 1888; English +translation by Collingwood, 4th ed., 1884) the gymnasiast of to-day still +satisfies his freethinking needs--is H. Czolbe (1819-73; _New Exposition of +Sensationalism_, 1855; _The Limits and Origin of Human Knowledge_, 1865), +who, on ethical grounds, demands the exclusion of everything suprasensible +and contentment with the given world of phenomena, but holds that, besides +matter and motion, eternal, purposive forms and original sensations in a +world-soul are necessary to explain organic and psychical phenomena. + +[Footnote 1: Snell (1806-86): _The Materialistic Question_, 1858; _The +Creation of Man_, 1863. R. Seydel has edited _Lectures on the Descent of +Man_, 1888, from Snell's posthumous writings.] + + +%2. New Systems: Trendelenburg, Fechner, Lotze, and Hartmann%. + +The speculative impulse, especially in the soul of the German people, +is ineradicable. It has neither allowed itself to be discouraged by the +collapse of the Hegelian edifice, nor to be led astray by the clamor of the +apostles of empiricism, nor to be intimidated by the papal proclamation of +the infallibility of Thomas Aquinas.[1] Manifold attempts have been made +at a new conception of the world, and with varying success. Of the earlier +theories[2] only two have been able to gather a circle of adherents--the +dualistic theism of Guenther (1783-1863), and the organic view of the world +of Trendelenburg (1802-72). + +[Footnote 2: In 1879 a summons was sent forth from Rome for the revival and +dissemination of the Thomistic system as the only true philosophy (cf. R. +Eucken, _Die Philosophic des Thomas von Aquino und die Kultur der +Neuzeit_, 1886). This movement is supported by the journals, _Jahrbuch fuer +Philosophie und spekulative Theologie_, edited by Professor E. Commer +of Muenster, 1886 _seq_., and _Philosophisches Jahrbuch_, edited, at the +instance and with the support of the Goerres Society, by Professor Const. +Gutberlet of Fulda, 1888 _seq_. While the text-books of Hagemann, Stoeckl, +Gutberlet, Pesch, Commer, C.M. Schneider, and others also follow Scholastic +lines, B. Bolzano (died 1848), M. Deutinger (died 1864) and his pupil +Neudecker, Oischinger, Michelis, and W. Rosenkrantz (1821-74; _Science of +Knowledge_, 1866-68), who was influenced by Schelling, have taken a freer +course.] + +[Footnote 2: Trahndorff, gymnasial professor in Berlin (1782-1863), +_Aesthetics_, 1827 (cf. E. von Hartmann in the _Philosophische +Monatshefte_, vol. xxii. 1886, p. 59 _seq_., and J. von Billewicz, in the +same, vol. xxi. 1885, p. 561 _seq_.); J.F. Reiff in Tuebingen: _System of +the Determinations of the Will_, 1842; K. Chr. Planck (died 1880): _The +Ages of the World_, 1850 _seq_.; _Testament of a German_, edited by Karl +Koestlin, 1881; F. Roese (1815-59), _On the Method of the Knowledge of +the Absolute_, 1841; _Psychology as Introduction to the Philosophy of +Individuality_, 1856. Emanuel Sharer follows Roese. Friedrich Rohmer +(died 1856): _Science of God, Science of Man_, in _Friedrich Rohmer's +Wissenschaft und Leben_, edited by Bluntschli and Rud. Seele, 6 vols., +1871-92.] + +Anton Guenther (engaged in authorship from 1827; _Collected Writings_, 1881; +_Anti-Savarese_, edited with an appendix by P. Knoodt), who in 1857 +was compelled to retract his views, invokes the spirit of Descartes in +opposition to the Hegelian pantheism. In agreement with Descartes, +Guenther starts from self-consciousness (in the ego being and thought are +identical), and brings not only the Creator and the created world, but also +nature (to which the soul is to be regarded as belonging) and spirit into +a relation of exclusive opposition, yet holds that in man nature (body and +soul) and spirit are united, and that they interact without prejudice to +their qualitative difference. J.H. Pabst (died in 1838 in Vienna), Theodor +Weber of Breslau, Knoodt of Bonn (died 1889), V. Knauer of Vienna and +others are Guentherians. + +Adolf Trendelenburg[1] of Berlin, the acute critic of Hegel and Herbart, +in his own thinking goes back to the philosophy of the past, especially to +that of Aristotle. Motion and purpose are for him fundamental facts, which +are common to both being and thinking, which mediate between the two, and +make the agreement of knowledge and reality possible. The ethical is a +higher stage of the organic. Space, time, and the categories are forms of +thought as well as of being; the logical form must not be separated from +the content, nor the concept from intuition. We must not fail to mention +that Trendelenburg introduced a peculiar and fruitful method of treating +the history of philosophy, viz., the historical investigation of particular +concepts, in which Teichmueller of Dorpat (1832-88; _Studies in the History +of Concepts_, 1874; _New Studies in the History of Concepts_, 1876-79; +_The Immortality of the Soul_, 2d ed., 1879; _The Nature of Love_, 1880; +_Literary Quarrels in the Fourth Century before Christ_, 1881 and 1884), +and Eucken of Jena (cf. pp. 17 and 623) have followed his example. Kym in +Zurich (born 1822; _Metaphysical Investigations_, 1875; _The Problem of +Evil_, 1878) is a pupil of Trendelenburg. + +[Footnote 1: Trendelenburg: _Logical Investigations_, 1840, 3d ed., 1870; +_Historical Contributions to Philosophy_, 3 vols., 1846, 1855, 1867; +_Natural Law on the Basis of Ethics_, 1860, 2d ed., 1868. On Trendelenburg +cf. Eucken in the _Philosophische Monatshefte_, 1884.] + +Of more recent systematic attempts the following appear worthy of +mention: Von Kirchmann (1802-84; from 1868 editor of the _Philosophische +Bibliothek_), _The Philosophy of Knowledge_, 1865; _Aesthetics_, 1868; _On +the Principles of Realism_, 1875; _Catechism of Philosophy_ 2d ed., 1881; +E. Duehring (born 1833), _Natural Dialectic_, 1865; _The Value of Life_, +1865, 3d ed, 1881; _Critical History of the Principles of Mechanics_, +1873, 2d ed., 1877; _Course of Philosophy_, 1875 (cf. on Duehring, Helene +Druskowitz, 1889); J. Baumann of Goettingen (born 1837), _Philosophy as +Orientation concerning the World_, 1872; _Handbook of Ethics_, 1879; +_Elements of Philosophy_, 1891; L. Noire, _The Monistic Idea_, 1875, and +many other works; Frohschammer of Munich (born 1821), _The Phantasy as +the Fundamental Principle of the World-process_, 1877; _On the Genesis +of Humanity, and its Spiritual Development in Religion, Morality and +Language_, 1883; _On the Organization and Culture of Human Society_, 1885. + +In the first rank of the thinkers who have made their appearance since +Hegel and Herbart stand Fechner and Lotze, both masters in the use of exact +methods, yet at the same time with their whole souls devoted to the highest +questions, and superior to their contemporaries in breadth of view as in +the importance and range of their leading ideas--Fechner a dreamer and +sober investigator by turns, Lotze with gentle hand reconciling the +antitheses in life and science. + +Gustav Theodor Fechner[1] (1801-87; professor at Leipsic) opposes the +abstract separation of God and the world, which has found a place in +natural inquiry and in theology alike, and brings the two into the same +relation of correspondence and reciprocal reference as the soul and the +body. The spirit gives cohesion to the manifold of material parts, and +needs them as a basis and material for its unifying activity. As our +ego connects the manifold of our activities and states in the unity of +consciousness, so the divine spirit is the supreme unity of consciousness +for all being and becoming. In the spirit of God everything is as in ours, +only expanded and enhanced. Our sensations and feelings, our thoughts and +resolutions are His also, only that He, whose body all nature is, and to +whom not only that which takes place in spirits is open, but also that +which goes on between them, perceives more, feels deeper, thinks higher, +and wills better things than we. According to the analogy of the human +organism, both the heavenly bodies and plants are to be conceived as beings +endowed with souls, although they lack nerves, a brain, and voluntary +motion. How could the earth bring forth living beings, if it were itself +dead? Shall not the flower itself rejoice in the color and fragrance which +it produces, and with which it refreshes us? Though its psychical life may +not exceed that of an infant, its sensations, at all events, since they do +not form the basis of a higher activity, are superior in force and richness +to those of the animal. Thus the human soul stands intermediate in the +scale of psychical life: beneath and about us are the souls of plants and +animals, above us the spirits of the earth and stars, which, sharing in and +encompassing the deeds and destinies of their inhabitants, are in +their turn embraced by the consciousness of the universal spirit. The +omnipresence of the divine spirit affords at the same time the means of +escaping from the desolate "night view" of modern science, which looks upon +the world outside the perceiving individual as dark and silent. No, light +and sound are not merely subjective phenomena within us, but extend around +us with objective reality--as sensations of the divine spirit, to which +everything that vibrates resounds and shines. + +[Footnote 1: _Nanna, or on the Psychical Life of Plants_, 1848; +_Zend-Avesta, or on the Things of Heaven and the World Beyond_, 1851; +_Physical and Philosophical Atomism_, 1855; _The Three Motives and Grounds +of Belief_, 1863; _The Day View_, 1879; _Elements of Aesthetics_, 1876; +_Elements of Psycho-physics_, 1860; _In the Cause of Psycho-physics_, 1877; +_Review of the Chief Points in Psycho-physics_, 1882; _Book of the Life +after Death_, 1836, 3d ed., 1887; _On the Highest Good_, 1846; _Four +Paradoxes_, 1846; _On the Question of the. Soul_, 1861; _Minor Works by Dr. +Mises_ (Fechner's pseudonym), 1875. On Fechner cf. J. E. Kuntze, Leipsic, +1892.] + +The door of the world beyond also opens to the key of analogy. Similar +laws unite the here with the hereafter. As intuition prepares the way for +memory, and lives on in it, so the life of earth merges in the future life, +and continues active in it, elevated to a higher plane. Fechner treats the +problem of evil in a way peculiar to himself. We must not consider the +fact of evil apart from the effort to remove it. It is the spur to all +activity--without evil, no labor and no progress. + +Fechner's "psycho-physics," a science which was founded by him in +continuation of the investigations of Bernoulli, Euler, and especially +of E.H. Weber, wears an entirely different aspect from that of his +metaphysics (the "day view," moreover does not claim to be knowledge, +but belief--though a belief which is historically, practically, and +theoretically well-grounded). This aims to be an exact science of the +relations between body and mind, and to reach indirectly what Herbart +failed to reach by direct methods, that is, a measurement of psychical +magnitudes, using in this attempt the least observable differences in +sensations as the unit of measure. Weber's law of the dependence of the +intensity of the sensation on the strength of the stimulus--the increase +in the intensity of the sensation remains the same when the relative +increase of the stimulus (or the relation of the stimuli) remains +constant;[1] so that, _e.g._, in the case of light, an increase from a +stimulus of intensity 1 to one of intensity 100, gives just the same +increase in the intensity of the sensation as an increase from a stimulus +of intensity 2 (or 3) to a stimulus of 200 (or 300)--is much more generally +valid than its discoverer supposed; it holds good for all the senses. In +the case of the pressure sense of the skin, with an original weight of 15 +grams (laid upon the hand when at rest and supported), in order to produce +a sensation perceptibly greater we must add not 1 gram, but 5, and with an +original weight of 30 grams, not 5, but 10. Equal additions to the weights +are not enough to produce a sensation of pressure whose intensity shall +render it capable of being distinguished with certainty, but the greater +the original weights the larger the increments must be; while the +intensities of the sensations form an arithmetical, those of the stimuli +form a geometrical, series; the change in sensation is proportional to the +relative change of the stimulus. Sensations of tone show the same +proportion (3:4) as those of pressure; the sensibility of the muscle sense +is finer (when weights are raised the proportion is 15:16), as also that +of vision (the relative brightness of two lights whose difference of +intensity is just perceptible is 100:101). In addition to the +investigations on the threshold of difference there are others on the +threshold of stimulation (the point at which a sensation becomes just +perceptible), on attention, on methods of measurement, on errors, etc. +Moreover, Fechner does not fail to connect his psycho-physics, the +presuppositions and results of which have recently been questioned in +several quarters,[2] with his metaphysical conclusions. Both are pervaded +by the fundamental view that body and spirit belong together (consequently +that everything is endowed with a soul, and that nothing is without a +material basis), nay, that they are the same essence, only seen from +different sides. Body is the (manifold) phenomenon for others, while spirit +is the (unitary) self-phenomenon, in which, however, the inner aspect is +the truer one. That which appears to us as the external world of matter, +is nothing but a universal consciousness which overlaps and influences our +individual consciousness. This is Spinozism idealistically interpreted. In +aesthetics Fechner shows himself an extreme representative of the principle +of association. + +[Footnote 1: Fechner teaches: The sensation increases and diminishes in +proportion to the logarithm of the stimulus and of the psycho-physical +nervous activity, the latter being directly proportional to the external +stimulus. Others, on the contrary, find a direct dependence between nervous +activity and sensation, and a logarithmic proportion between the external +stimulus and the nervous activity.] + +[Footnote 2: So by Helmholtz; Hering _(Fechners psychophysisches Gesetz_, +1875); P. Langer _(Grundlagen der Psychophysik_, 1876); G.E. Mueller in +Goettingen _(Zur Grundlegung der Psychophysik_, 1878); F.A. Mueller _(Das +Axiom der Psychophysik_, 1882); A. Elsas _(Ueber die Psychophysik_, 1886); +O. Liebmann _(Aphorismen zur Psychologie, Zeitschrift fuer Philosophie_, +vol. ci.--Wundt has published a number of papers from his psycho-physical +laboratory in his _Philosophische Studien_, 1881 _seq_. Cf. also Hugo +Muensterberg, _Neue Grundlegung der Psychophysik_ in _Heft_ iii. of his +_Beitraege zur experimentellen Psychologie_, 1889 _seq_). [Further, +Delboeuf, in French, and a growing literature in English as A. Seth, +_Encyclopedia Britannica_, vol. xxiv. 469-471; Ladd, _Elements of +Physiological Psychology_, part ii. chap, v.; James, _Principles of +Psychology_, vol. i. p. 533 _seq_.; and numerous articles as Ward, +_Mind_, vol. i.; Jastrow, _American Journal of Psychology_, vols. i. and +iii.--TR.]] + +The most important of the thinkers mentioned in the title of this section +is Rudolph Hermann Lotze (1817-81: born at Bautzen; a student of medicine, +and of philosophy under Weisse, in Leipsic; 1844-81 professor in Goettingen; +died in Berlin). Like Fechner, gifted rather with a talent for the fine and +the suggestive than for the large and the rigorous, with a greater reserve +than the former before the mystical and peculiar, as acute, cautious, and +thorough as he was full of taste and loftiness of spirit, Lotze has proved +that the classic philosophers did not die out with Hegel and Herbart. His +_Microcosmus_ (3 vols., 1856-64, 4th ed., 1884 _seq_; English translation +by Hamilton and Jones, 3d ed., 1888), which is more than an anthropology, +as it is modestly entitled, and _History of Aesthetics in Germany_, 1868, +which also gives more than the title betrays, enjoy a deserved popularity. +These works were preceded by the _Medical Psychology_, 1852, and a polemic +treatise against I.H. Fichte, 1857, as well as by a _Pathology_ and a +_Physiology_, and followed by the _System of Philosophy_, which remained +incomplete (part i. _Logic_, 1874, 2d ed., 1881, English translation +edited by Bosanquet, 2d ed., 1888; part ii. _Metaphysics_, 1879, English +translation edited by Bosanquet, 2d ed., 1887). Lotze's _Minor Treatises_ +have been published by Peipers in three volumes (1885-91); and Rehnisch has +edited eight sets of dictata from his lectures, 1871-84.[1] Since these +"Outlines," all of which we now have in new editions, make a convenient +introduction to the Lotzean system, and are, or should be, in the +possession of all, a brief survey may here suffice. + +[Footnote 1: _Outlines of Psychology, Practical Philosophy, Philosophy of +Religion, Philosophy of Nature, Logic and the Encyclopedia of Philosophy, +Metaphysics, Aesthetics_, and the _History of Philosophy since Kant_, all +of which may be emphatically commended to students, especially the one +first mentioned, and, in spite of its subjective position, the last. +[English translations of these _Outlines_ except the fourth and the +last, by Ladd, 1884 _seq_.] On Lotze cf. the obituaries by J. Baumann +(_Philosophische Monatshefte_, vol. xvii.), H. Sommer (_Im Neuen Reich_), +A. Krohn (_Zeitschrift fuer Philosophie_, vol. lxxxi. pp. 56-93), R. +Falckenberg (Augsburg _Allgemeine Zeitung_, 1881, No. 233), and Rehnisch +(_National Zeitung_ and the _Revue Philosophique_, vol. xii.). The last of +these was reprinted in the appendix to the _Grundzuege der Aesthetik_, 1884, +which contains, further, a chronological table of Lotze's works, essays, +and critiques, as well as of his lectures. Hugo Sommer has zealously +devoted himself to the popularization of the Lotzean system. Cf., further, +Fritz Koegel, _Lotzes Aesthetik_, Goettingen, 1886, and the article by +Koppelmann referred to above, p. 330.] + +The subject of metaphysics is reality. Things which are, events which +happen, relations which exist, representative contents and truths which +are valid, are real. Events happening and relations existing presuppose +existing things as the subjects in and between which they happen and exist. +The being of things is neither their being perceived (for when we say that +a thing is we mean that it continues to be, even when we do not perceive +it), nor a pure, unrelated position, its position in general, but _to be is +to stand in relations_. Further, the _what_ or essence of the things which +enter into these relations cannot be conceived as passive quality, but +only abstractly, as a rule or a law which determines the connection and +succession of a series of qualities. The nature of water, for example, is +the unintuitable somewhat which contains the ground of the change of ice, +first into the liquid condition, and then into steam, when the temperature +increases, and conversely, of the possibility of changing steam back +into water and ice under opposite conditions. And when we speak of an +unchangeable identity of the thing with itself, as a result of which it +remains the same essence amid the change of its phenomena, we mean only the +consistency with which it keeps within the closed series of forms a1, a2, +a3, without ever going over into the series b1, b2. The relations, however, +in which things stand, cannot pass to and fro between things like threads +or little spirits, but are states in things themselves, and the change +of the former always implies a change in these inner states. To stand in +relations means to _exchange actions_. In order to experience such effects +from others and to exercise them upon others, things must neither be wholly +incomparable (as red, hard, sweet) and mutually indifferent, nor yet +absolutely independent; if the independence of individual beings were +complete the process of action would be entirely inconceivable. The +difficulty in the concept of causality--how does being _a_ come to produce +in itself a different state _a_ because another being _b_ enters into the +state [Greek: _b_]?--is removed only when we look on the things as +modes, states, parts of a single comprehensive being, of an infinite, +unconditioned substance, in so far as there is then only an action of +the absolute on itself. Nevertheless the assumption that, in virtue of +the unity and consistency of the absolute or of its impulse to +self-preservation, state [Greek: _b_] in being _b_ follows state +[Greek: _a_] in being _a_ as an accommodation or compensation follows a +disturbance, is not a full explanation of the process of action, does +not remove the difficulty as to how one state can give rise to another. +Metaphysics is, in general, unable to show how reality is made, but only to +remove certain contradictions which stand in the way of the conceivability +of these notions. The so far empty concept of an absolute looks to the +philosophy of religion for its content; the conception of the Godhead as +infinite personality (it is a person in a far higher sense than we) is +first produced when we add to the ontological postulate of a comprehensive +substance the ethical postulate of a supreme good or a universal +world-Idea. + +By "thing" we understand the permanent unit-subject of changing states. But +the fact of consciousness furnishes the only guaranty that the different +states _a, [Greek: b], y_, are in reality states of one being, and not so +many different things alternating with one another. Only a conscious +being, which itself effects the distinction between itself and the states +occurring in it, and in memory and recollection feels and knows itself as +their identical subject, is actually a subject which has states. Hence, +if things are to be real, we must attribute to them a nature in essence +related to that of our soul. Reality is existence for self. All beings +are spiritual, and only spiritual beings possess true reality. Thus Lotze +combines the monadology of Leibnitz with the pantheism of Spinoza, just +as he understands how to reconcile the mechanical view of natural science +(which is valid also for the explanation of organic life) with the +teleology and the ethical idealism of Fichte. The sole mission of the +world of forms is to aid in the realization of the ideal purposes of the +absolute, of the world of values. + +The ideality of space, which Kant had based on insufficient grounds, is +maintained by Lotze also, only that he makes things stand in "intellectual" +relations, which the knowing subject translates into spatial language. The +same character of subjectivity belongs not only to our sensations, but +also to our ideas concerning the connection of things. Representations are +results, not copies, of the external stimuli; cognition comes under the +general concept of the interaction of real elements, and depends, like +every effect, as much upon the nature of the being that experiences the +effect as upon the nature of the one which exerts it, or rather, more upon +the former than upon the latter. If, nevertheless, it claims objective +reality, truth must not be interpreted as the correspondence of thought and +its object (the cognitive image can never be like the thing itself), nor +the mission of cognition, made to consist in copying a world already +finished and closed apart from the realm of spirits, to which mental +representation is added as something accessory. Light and sound are not +therefore illusions because they are not true copies of the waves of ether +and of air from which they spring, but they are the end which nature has +sought to attain through these motions, an end, however, which it cannot +attain alone, but only by acting upon spiritual subjects; the beauty and +splendor of colors and tones are that which of right ought to be in the +world; without the new world of representations awakened in spirits by the +action of external stimuli, the world would lack its essential culmination. +The purpose of things is to be known, experienced, and enjoyed by spirits. +The truth of cognition consists in the fact that it opens up the meaning +and destination of the world. That which ought to be is the ground of that +which is; that which is exists in order to the realization of values in +it; the good is the only real. It is true that we are not permitted to +penetrate farther than to the general conviction that the Idea of the good +is the ground and end of the world; the question, how the world has arisen +from this supreme Idea as from the absolute and why just this world with +its determinate forms and laws has arisen, is unanswerable. We understand +the meaning of the play, but we do not see the machinery by which it is +produced at work behind the stage. In ethics Lotze emphasizes with Fechner +the inseparability of the good and pleasure: it is impossible to state in +what the worth or goodness of a good is to consist, if it be conceived out +of all relation to a spirit capable of finding enjoyment in it. + +If Lotze's philosophy harmoniously combines Herbartian and Fichteo-Hegelian +elements, Eduard von Hartmann (born 1842; until 1864 a soldier, now a man +of letters in Berlin) aims at a synthesis of Schopenhauer and Hegel; with +the pessimism of the former he unites the evolutionism of the latter, and +while the one conceives the nature of the world-ground as irrational will, +and the other as the logical Idea, he follows the example of Schelling +in his later days by making will and representation equally legitimate +attributes of his absolute, the Unconscious. His principal theoretical +work, _The Philosophy of the Unconscious_, 1869 (10th ed., 1891; English +translation by Coupland, 1884), was followed in 1879 by his chief ethical +one, _The Moral Consciousness_ (2d ed., 1886, in the _Selected Works_); the +two works on the philosophy of religion, _The Religious Consciousness of +Humanity in the Stages of its Development_, 1881, and _The Religion of +Spirit_, 1882, together form the third chief work (_The Self-Disintegration +of Christianity and the Religion of the Future_, 1874, and _The Crisis of +Christianity in Modern Theology_, 1880, are to be regarded as forerunners +of this); the fourth is the _Aesthetics_ (part i. _German Aesthetics since +Kant_, 1886; part ii. _Philosophy of the Beautiful_, 1887). The _Collected +Studies and Essays_, 1876, were preceded by two treatises on the philosophy +of nature, _Truth and Error in Darwinism_, 1875, and _The Unconscious +from the Standpoint of Physiology and the Theory of Descent_, published +anonymously in 1872, in the latter of which, disguised as a Darwinian, +he criticises his own philosophy. Of his more recent publications we may +mention the _Philosophical Questions of the Day_, 1885; _Modern Problems_, +1886; and the controversial treatise _Lotzes Philosophy_, 1888.[1] + +[Footnote 1: On Hartmann cf. Volkelt in _Nord und Sued_, July, 1881; the +same, _Das Unbewusste und der Pessimismus_, 1873; Vaihinger, _Hartmann_, +_Duehring und Lange_, 1876; R. Koeber, _Das philosophische System Ed. +v, Hartmann_, 1884; O. Pfleiderer, critique of the _Phaenomenologie des +sittlichen Bewusstseins (Im neuen Reich)_, 1879; L. von Golther, _Der +moderne Pessimismus_, 1878; J. Huber, _Der Pessimismus_, 1876; Weygoldt, +_Kritik des philosophischen Pessimismus der neuesten Zeit_, 1875; M. +Venetianer, _Der Allgeist_, 1874; A Taubert (Hartmann's first wife), +_Der Pessimismus und seine Gegner_, 1873; O. Pluemacher, _Der Kampf ums +Unbewusste_ (with a chronological table of Hartmann literature appended), +1881; the same, _Der Pessimismus in Vergangenheit und Gegenwart_, 1884; +Krohn, _Streifzuege_ (see above); Seydel (see above). During the year +1882 four publications appeared under the title _Der Pessimismus und die +Sittenlehre_, by Bacmeister, Christ, Rehmke, and H. Sommer (2d ed., 1883). +[English translation of _Truth and Error in Darwinism_ in the _Journal +of Speculative Philosophy_, vols. xi.-xiii., and of _The Religion of the +Future_, by Dare, 1886; cf. also Sully's _Pessimism_, chap. v.--TR.]] + +In polemical relation, on the one hand, to the naive realism of life, +and, on the other, to the subjective idealism of Kant, or rather of +the neo-Kantians, the logical conclusion of which would be absolute +illusionism, Hartmann founds his "transcendental realism," which mediates +between these two points of view (the existence and true nature of the +world outside our representations is knowable, if only indirectly; the +forms of knowledge, in spite of their subjective origin, have a more +than subjective, a transcendental, significance) by pointing out that +sense-impressions, which are accompanied by the feeling of compulsion and +are different from one another, cannot be explained from the ego, but only +by the action of things in themselves external to us, _i.e._, independent +of consciousness, and themselves distinct from one another. The causality +of things in themselves is the bridge which enables us to cross the gulf +between the immanent world of representations and the transcendent world of +being. The causality of things in themselves proves their reality, their +difference at different times, their changeability and their temporal +character; change, however, demands something permanent, existence, an +existing, unchangeable, supra-temporal, and non-spatial substance (whether +a special substance for each thing in itself or a common one for all, is +left for the present undetermined). My action upon the thing in itself +assures me of its causal conditionality or necessity; the various +affections of the same sense, that there are many things in themselves; the +peculiar form of change shown by some bodies, that these, like my body, are +united with a soul. Thus it is evident that, besides the concept of cause, +a series of other categories must be applied to the thing in itself, hence +applied transcendentally. + +The "speculative results" obtained by Hartmann on an "inductive" basis +are as follows: The _per se (Ansich)_ of the empirical world is the +Unconscious. The two attributes of this absolute are the active, +groundless, alogical, infinite will, and the passive, finite representation +(Idea); the former is the ground of the _that_ of the world, the latter +the ground of its purposive _what_ and _how_. Without the will the +representation, which in itself is without energy, could not become real, +and without the representation (of an end) the will, which in itself is +without reason, could not become a definite willing (relative or immanent +dualism of the attributes, a necessary moment in absolute monism). The +empirical preponderance of pain over pleasure, which can be shown by +calculation,[1] proves that the world is evil, that its non-existence were +better than its existence; the purposiveness everywhere perceptible in +nature and the progress of history toward a final goal (it is true, a +negative one) proves, nevertheless, that it is the best world that was +possible (reconciliation of eudemonistic pessimism with evolutionistic +optimism). The creation of the world begins when the blind will to live +groundlessly and fortuitously passes over from essence to phenomenon, from +potency to act, from supra-existence to existence, and, in irrational +striving after existence, draws to itself the only content which is capable +of realization, the logical Idea. This latter seeks to make good the +error committed by the will by bringing consciousness into the field as +a combatant against the insatiable, ever yearning, never satisfied will, +which one day will force the will back into latency, into the (antemundane) +blessed state of not-willing. The goal of the world-development is +deliverance from the misery of existence, the peace of non-existence, the +return from the will and representation, become spatial and temporal, to +the original, harmonious equilibrium of the two functions, which has been +disturbed by the origin of the world or to the antemundane identity of the +absolute. The task of the logical element is to teach consciousness more +and more to penetrate the illusion of the will--in its three stages of +childlike (Greek) expectation of happiness to be attained here, youthful +(Christian) expectation of happiness to be attained hereafter, and +adult expectation of happiness to be attained in the future of the +world-development--and, finally, to teach it to know, in senile longing +after rest, that only the doing away with this miserable willing, and, +consequently, with earthly existence (through the resolve of the majority +of mankind) can give the sole attainable blessedness, freedom from pain. +The world-process is the incarnation, the suffering, and the redemption +of the absolute; the moral task of man is not personal renunciation and +cowardly retirement, but to make the purposes of the Unconscious his own, +with complete resignation to life and its sufferings to labor energetically +in the world-process, and, by the vigorous promotion of consciousness, to +hasten the fulfillment of the redemptive purpose; the condition of morality +is insight into the fruitlessness of all striving after pleasure and into +the essential unity of all individual beings with one another and with the +universal spirit, which exists in the individuals, but at the same time +subsists above them. "To know one's self as of divine nature, this does +away with all divergence between selfwill and universal will, with all +estrangement between man and God, with all undivine, that is, merely +natural, conduct." + +[Footnote 1: Cf. Volkelt, _Ueber die Lust als hoechsten Werthmassstab_ +(in the _Zeitschrift fuer Philosophie_, vol. lxxxviii.), 1886, and O. +Pfleiderer, _Philosophy of Religion_, vol. ii. p. 249 _seq_.] + +Religion, which, in common with philosophy, has for its basis the +metaphysical need for, or the mystical feeling of, the unity of the human +individual and the world-ground, needs transformation, since in its +traditional forms it is opposed to modern culture, and the merging of +religion (as a need of the heart) in metaphysics is impossible. The +religion of the future, for which the way has already been prepared by the +speculative Protestantism of the present, is _concrete monism_ (the divine +unity is transcendent as well as immanent in the plurality of the beings of +earth, every moral man a God-man), which includes in itself the abstract +monism (pantheism) of the Indian religions and the Judeo-Christian (mono-) +theism as subordinate moments. (The original henotheism and its decline +into polytheism, demonism, and fetichism was followed by--Egyptian and +Persian, as well as Greek, Roman, and German--naturalism, and then by +supernaturalism in its monistic and its theistic form. The chief defect of +the Christian religion is the transcendental-eudemonistic heteronomy of its +ethics.) The _Religion of Spirit_ divides into three parts. The psychology +of religion considers the religious function in its subjective aspect, +faith as a combined act of representation, feeling, and will, in which one +of these three elements may predominate--though feeling forms the inmost +kernel of the theoretical and practical activities as well--and, as +the objective correlate of faith, grace (revealing, redeeming, and +sanctifying), which elevates man above peripheral and phenomenal dependence +on the world, and frees him from it, through his becoming conscious of his +central and metaphysical dependence upon God. The metaphysics of religion +(in theological, anthropological, and cosmological sections) proves +by induction from the facts of religion the existence, omnipotence, +spirituality, omniscience, righteousness, and holiness of the All-one, +which coincides with the moral order of the world. Further, it proves the +need and the capacity of man for redemption from guilt and evil--here three +spheres of the individual will are distinguished, one beneath God, one +contrary to God, and one conformable to God, or a natural, an evil, and a +moral sphere--and, preserving alike the absoluteness of God and the reality +of the world, shows that it is not so much man as God himself, who, as the +bearer of all the suffering of the world, is the subject of redemption. +The ethics of religion discusses the subjective and objective processes of +redemption, namely, repentance and amendment on the part of the individual +and the ecclesiastical _cultus_ of the future, which is to despise symbols +and art. + +It is to Hartmann's credit, though the fact has not been sufficiently +appreciated by professional thinkers, that in a time averse to speculation +he has devoted his energies to the highest problems of metaphysics, and in +their elaboration has approached his task with scientific earnestness and +a comprehensive and thorough consideration of previous results. Thus +the critique of ethical standpoints in the historical part of the +_Phenomenology of the Moral Consciousness_, especially, contains much that +is worthy of consideration; and his fundamental metaphysical idea, that the +absolute is to be conceived as the unity of will and reason, also deserves +in general a more lively assent than has been accorded to it, while his +rejection of an infinite consciousness has justly met with contradiction. +It has been impossible here to go into his discussions in the philosophy of +nature--they cannot be described in brief--on matter (atomic forces), on +the mechanical and teleological views of life and its development, on +instinct, on sexual love, etc., which he very skillfully uses in support of +his metaphysical principle. + + +%3. From the Revival of the Kantian Philosophy to the Present Time.% + +%(a) Neo-Kantianism, Positivism, and Kindred Phenomena.%--The Kantian +philosophy has created two epochs: one at the time of its appearance, and +a second two generations after the death of its author. The new Kantian +movement, which is one of the most prominent characteristics of the +philosophy of the present time, took its beginning a quarter of a century +ago. It is true that even before 1865 individual thinkers like Ernst +Reinhold of Jena (died 1855), the admirer of Fries, J.B. Meyer of Bonn, +K.A. von Reichlin-Meldegg, and others had sought a point of departure for +their views in Kant; that K. Fischer's work on Kant (1860) had given a +lively impulse to the renewed study of the critical philosophy; nay, that +the cry "Back to Kant" had been expressly raised by Fortlage (as early as +1832 in his treatise _The Gaps in the Hegelian System_), and by Zeller +(p. 589). But the movement first became general after F.A. Lange in his +_History of Materialism_ had energetically advocated the Kantian doctrine +according to his special conception of it, after Helmholtz[1] (born 1821) +had called attention to the agreement of the results of physiology with +those of the Critique of Reason, and at the same time Liebmann's youthful +work, _Kant and the Epigones_, in which every chapter ended with the +inexorable refrain, "therefore we must go back to Kant," had given the +strongest expression to the longing of the time. + +[Footnote 1: Helmholtz: _On Human Vision_, 1855; _Physiological Optics_, +1867; _Sensations of Tone_, 1863, 4th ed., 1877 [English translation by +Ellis, 2d ed., 1885].] + +Otto Liebmann (cf. also the chapter on "The Metamorphoses of the A Priori" +in his _Analysis of Reality_) sees the fundamental truth of criticism in +the irrefutable proof that, space, time, and the categories are functions +of the intellect, and that subject and object are necessary correlates, +inseparable factors of the empirical world, and finds Kant's fundamental +error, which the Epigones have not corrected, but made still worse, in the +non-concept of the thing in itself, which must be expelled from the Kantian +philosophy as a remnant of dogmatism, as a drop of alien blood, and as an +illegitimate invader which has debased it. + +According to Friedrich Albert Lange[1] (1828-75; during the last years +of his life professor at Marburg), materialism, which is unfruitful and +untenable as a principle, a system, and a view of the world, but useful +and indispensable as a method and a maxim of investigation, must be +supplemented by formal idealism, which, rejecting all science from mere +reason limits knowledge to the sensuous, to that which can be experienced, +yet at the same time conceives the formal element in the sense world as the +product of the organization of man, and hence makes objects conform to our +representations. Above the sensuous world of experience and of mechanical +becoming, however, the speculative impulse to construction, rounding off +the fragmentary truth of the sciences into a unified picture of the whole +truth, rears the ideal world of that which ought to be. Notwithstanding +their indefeasible certitude, the Ideas possess no scientific truth, though +they have a moral value which makes them more than mere fabrics of the +brain: man is framed not merely for the knowledge of truth, but also for +the realization of values. But since the significance of the Ideas is +only practical, and since determinations of value are not grounds +of explanation, science and metaphysics or "concept poetry" +(_Begriffsdichtung_) must be kept strictly separate. + +[Footnote 1: F.A. Lange: _Logical Studies_, 1877. Cf. M. Heinze in the +_Vierteljahrsschrift fuer wissenschaftliche Philosophic_, 1877, and +Vaihinger in the work cited above, p. 610 note.] + +Friedrich Paulsen of Berlin (born in 1846; cf. pp. 330, 332, note) sees in +the Kantian philosophy the foundation for the philosophy of the future. A +profounder Wolff (the self-dominion of the reason), a Prussian Hume (the +categories of the understanding are not world-categories; rejection of +anthropomorphic metaphysics), and a German Rousseau (the primacy of the +will, consideration of the demands of the heart; the good will alone, not +deeds nor culture, constitutes the worth of man; freedom, the rights of +man) in one person, Kant has withdrawn from scientific discussion the +question concerning the dependence of reality on values or the good, +which is theoretically insoluble but practically to be answered in the +affirmative, and given it over to faith. Kant is in so far a positivist +that he limits the mission of knowledge to the reduction of the +temporo-spatial relations of phenomena to rules, and declares the +teleological power of values to be undemonstrable. But science is able +to prove this much, that the belief in a suprasensible world, in the +indestructibility of that which alone has worth, and in the freedom of +the intelligible character, which the will demands, is not scientifically +impossible. Since, according to formal rationalism, the whole order of +nature is a creation of the understanding, and hence atomism and mechanism +are only forms of representation, valid, no doubt, for our peripheral point +of view, but not absolutely valid, since, further, the empirical view of +the world apart from the Idea of the divine unity of the world (which, it +is true, is incapable of theoretical realization) would lack completion, +the immediate conviction of the heart in regard to the power of the good is +in no danger of attack from the side of science, although this can do no +further service for faith than to remove the obstacles which oppose it. The +will, not the intellect, determines the view of the world; but this is only +a belief, and in the world of representation, the intelligible world, with +which the will brings us into relation, can come before us only in the form +of symbols.--While Albrecht Krause (_The Laws of the Human Heart, a Formal +Logic of Pure Feeling_, 1876) and A. Classen (_Physiology of the Sense of +Sight_, 1877) are strict followers of Kant, J. Volkelt (_Analysis of the +Fundamental Principles of Kant's Theory of Knowledge_, 1879) has traced the +often deplored inconsistencies and contradictions in Kant down to their +roots, and has shown that in Kant's thinking, which has hitherto been +conceived as too simple and transparent, but which, in fact, is extremely +complicated and struggling in the dark, a number of entirely heterogeneous +principles of thought (skeptical, subjectivistic, metaphysico-work, +rationalistic, _a priori_, and practical motives) are at which, conflicting +with and crippling one another, make the attainment of harmonious results +impossible. Benno Erdmann (p. 330) and Hans Vaihinger (pp. 323 note, 331) +have given Kant's principal works careful philological interpretation. + +Among the various differences of opinion which exist within the neo-Kantian +ranks, the most important relates to the question, whether the individual +ego or a transcendental consciousness is to be looked upon as the executor +of the _a priori_ functions. In agreement with Schopenhauer and with Lotze, +who makes the subjectivity of space, time, and the pure concepts parallel +with that of the sense qualities, Lange teaches that the human individual +is so organized that he must apprehend that which is sensuously given under +these forms. Others, on the contrary, urge that the individual soul with +its organization is itself a phenomenon, and consequently cannot be the +bearer of that which precedes phenomena--space, time, and the categories +as "conditions" of experience are functions of a pure consciousness to be +presupposed. The antithesis of subject and object, the soul and the world, +first arises in the sphere of phenomena. The empirical subject, like the +world of objects, is itself a product of the _a priori_ forms, hence not +that which produces them. To the transcendental group belong Hermann +Cohen[1] in Marburg, A. Stadler[2], Natorp, Lasswitz (p.17), E. Koenig (p. +17), Koppelmann (p. 330), Staudinger (p. 331). Fritz Schultze of Dresden is +also to be counted among the neo-Kantians (_Philosophy of Natural Science_, +1882; _Kant and Darwin_, 1875; _The Fundamental Thoughts of Materialism_, +1881; _The Fundamental Thoughts of Spiritualism_, 1883; _Comparative +Psychology_, i. 1, 1892). + +[Footnote 1: Cohen: _Kant's Theory of Experience_, 1871, 2d ed., 1886; +_Kant's Foundation of Ethics_, 1877; _Kant's Foundation of Aesthetics_, +1889.] + +[Footnote 2: Stadler: _Kant's Teleology_, 1874; _The Principles of the Pure +Theory of Knowledge in the Kantian Philosophy_, 1876; _Kant's Theory of +Matter_, 1883.] + +The German positivists[1]:--E. Laas of Strasburg (1837-85), A. Riehl +of Freiburg in Baden (born 1844), and R. Avenarius of Zurich (born +1843)--develop their sensationalistic theory of knowledge in critical +connection with Kant. Ernst Laas defines positivism (founded by Protagoras, +advocated in modern times by Hume and J.S. Mill, and hostile to Platonic +idealism) as that philosophy which recognizes no other foundations than +positive facts (_i.e._, perceptions), and requires every opinion to exhibit +the experiences on which it rests. Its basis is constituted by three +articles of belief: (1) The correlative facts, subject and object, exist +and arise only in connection (objects are directly known only as the +contents of a consciousness, _cui objecta sunt_, subjects only as centers +of relation, as the scene or foundation of a representative content, _cui +subjecta sunt_: outside my thoughts body does not exist as body, nor I +myself as soul). (2) The variability of the objects of perception. (3) +Sensationalism--all specific differences in consciousness must be conceived +as differences in degree, all higher mental processes and states, including +thought, as the perceptions and experiences, transformed according to +law, of beings which feel, have wants, possess memory, and are capable of +spontaneous motion. The subject coincides with its feeling of pleasure and +pain, from which sensation is distinguished by its objective content. The +illusions of metaphysics are scientifically untenable and practically +unnecessary. Various yearnings, wants, presentiments, hopes, and fancies, +it is true, lead beyond the sphere of that which can be checked by sense +and experience, but for none of their positions can any sufficient proof be +adduced. As physics has discarded transcendent causes and learned how to +get along with immanent causes, so ethics also must endeavor to establish +the worth of moral good without excursions into the suprasensible. The +ethical obligations arise naturally from human relations, from earthly +needs. The third volume of Laas's work differs from the earlier ones by +conceding the rank of facts to the principles of logic as well as to +perception. Aloys Riehl opposes the theory of knowledge (which starts from +the fundamental fact of sensation) as scientific philosophy to metaphysics +as unscientific, and banishes the doctrine of the practical ideals from the +realm of science into the region of religion and art. Richard Avenarius +defends the principle of "pure experience." Sensation, which is all that is +left as objectively given after the removal of the subjective additions, +constitutes the content, and motion the form of being. + +[Footnote 1: Laas: _Idealism and Positivism_, 1879-84. Riehl: +_Philosophical Criticism_, 1876-87; Address _On Scientific and Unscientific +Philosophy_, 1883. Avenarius (p. 598): _Philosophy as Thought concerning +the World according to the Principle of Least Work_, 1876; _Critique of +Pure Experience_, vol. i. 1888, vol. ii. 1890; _Man's Concept of the +World_, 1891. C. Goering (died 1879; _System of Critical Philosophy_, 1875) +may also be placed here.] + +With the neo-Kantians and the positivists there is associated, thirdly, a +coherent group of noetical thinkers, who, rejecting extramental elements of +every kind, look on all conceivable being as merely a conscious content. +This monism of consciousness is advocated by W. Schuppe of Greifswald (born +1836; _Noetical Logic_, 1878), J. Rehmke, also of Greifswald (_The World as +Percept and Concept_, 1880; "The Question of the Soul" in vol. ii. of the +_Zeitschrift fuer Psychologie_, 1891), A. von Leclair (_Contributions to +a_ _Monistic Theory of Knowledge_, 1882), and R. von Schubert-Soldern +(_Foundations of a Theory of Knowledge_, 1884; _On the Transcendence +of Object and Subject_, 1882; _Foundations for an Ethics_, 1887). J. +Bergmann[1] in Marburg (born 1840) occupies a kindred position. + +[Footnote 1: Bergmann: _Outlines of a Theory of Consciousness_, 1870; _Pure +Logic_, 1879; _Being and Knowing_, 1880; _The Fundamental Problems of +Logic_, 1882; _On the Right_, 1883; _Lectures on Metaphysics_, 1886; _On +the Beautiful_, 1887; _History of Philosophy_, vol. i., _Pre-Kantian +Philosophy_, 1892.] + +It is the same scientific spirit of the time, which in the fifties led many +who were weary of the idealistic speculations over to materialism, that now +secures such wide dissemination and so widespread favor for the endeavors +of the neo-Kantians and the positivists or neo-Baconians, who desire to see +metaphysics stricken from the list of the sciences and replaced by noetics, +and the theory of the world relegated to faith. The philosophy of the +present, like the pre-Socratic philosophy and the philosophy of the early +modern period, wears the badge of physics. The world is conceived from the +standpoint of nature, psychical phenomena are in part neglected, in part +see their inconvenient claims reduced to a minimum, while it is but rarely +that we find an appreciation of their independence and co-ordinate value, +not to speak of their superior position. The power which natural science +has gained over philosophy dates essentially from a series of famous +discoveries and theories, by which science has opened up entirely new and +wide outlooks, and whose title to be considered in the formation of a +general view of reality is incontestable. To mention only the most +prominent, the following have all posited important and far-reaching +problems for philosophy as well as for science: Johannes Mueller's (Mueller +died 1858) theory of the specific energies of the senses, which Helmholtz +made use of as an empirical confirmation of the Kantian apriorism; the law +of the conservation of energy discovered by Robert Mayer (1842, 1850; +Helmholtz, 1847, 1862), and, in particular, the law of the transformation +of heat into motion, which invited an examination of all the forces active +in the world to test their mutual convertibility; the extension of +mechanism to the vital processes, favored even by Lotze; the renewed +conflict between atomism and dynamism; further, the Darwinian theory[1] +(1859), which makes organic species develop from one another by natural +selection in the struggle for existence (through inheritance and +adaptation); finally, the meta-geometrical speculations[2] of Gauss (1828), +Riemann (_On the Hypotheses which lie at the Basis of Geometry_, 1854, +published in 1867), Helmholtz (1868), B. Erdmann (_The Axioms of Geometry_, +1877). G. Cantor, and others, which look on our Euclidean space of three +dimensions as a special case of the unintuitable yet thinkable analytic +concept of a space of _n_ dimensions. The circumstance that these theories +are still largely hypothetical in their own field appears to have stirred +up rather than moderated the zeal for carrying them over into other +departments and for applying them to the world as a whole. Thus, +especially, the Darwinians[3] have undauntedly attempted to utilize the +biological hypothesis of the master as a philosophical principle of the +world, and to bring the mental sciences under the point of view of the +mechanical theory of development, though thus far with more daring and +noise than success. The finely conceived ethics of Hoeffding (p. 585) is an +exception to the rule which is the object of this remark. + +[Footnote 1: A critical exposition of the modern doctrine of development +and of the causes used to explain it is given by Otto Hamann, +_Entwickelungslehre und Darwinismus_, Jena, 1892. Cf. also, O. Liebmann, +_Analysis der Wirklichkeit_; and Ed. von Hartmann (above, p. 610). [Among +the numerous works in English the reader may be referred to the article +"Evolution," by Huxley and Sully, _Encyclopedia Britannica_, 9th ed., vol. +viii.; Wallace's _Darwinism_, 1889; Romanes, _Darwin and after Darwin_, +i. _The Darwinian Theory_, 1892; and Conn's _Evolution of To-day_, +1886.--TR.]] + +[Footnote 2: Cf. Liebmann, _Analysis der Wirklichkeit_, 2d ed., pp. 53-59. +G. Frege (_Begriffsschrift_, 1879; _The Foundations of Arithmetic_, 1884; +_Function and Concept_, 1891; "On Sense and Meaning" in the _Zeitschrift +fuer Philosophie,_ vol. c. 1892) has also chosen the region intermediate +between mathematics and philosophy for his field of work. We note, further, +E.G. Husserl, _Philosophy of Arithmetic_, vol. i., 1891.] + +[Footnote 3: Ernst Haeckel of Jena (born 1834; _General Morphology_, 1866; +_Natural History of Creation_, 1868 [English, 1875] I _Anthropogeny_, 1874; +_Aims and Methods of the Development History of To-day_, 1875; _Popular +Lectures_, 1878 _seq_.--English, 1883), G. Jaeger, A. Schleicher _(The +Darwinian Theory and the Science of Language_, 1865), Ernst Krause +(Carus Sterne, the editor of _Kosmos_) O. Caspari, Carneri (_Morals and +Darwinism_, 1871), O. Schmidt, Du Prel, Paul Ree (_The Origin of the Moral +Feelings_, 1877; _The Genesis of Conscience_, 1885; _The Illusion of Free +Will_, 1885); G.H. Schneider (_The Animal Will_, 1880; _The Human Will_, +1882; _The Good and III of the Human Race_, 1883).] + +Besides the theory of knowledge, in the elaboration of which the most +eminent naturalists[1] participate with acuteness and success, psychology +and the practical disciplines also betray the influence of the scientific +spirit. While sociology and ethics, following the English model, seek an +empirical basis and begin to make philosophical use of statistical results +(E.F. Schaeffle, _Frame and Life of the Social Body_, new ed., 1885; A. von +Oettingen, _Moral Statistic in its Significance for a Social Ethics_, 3d +ed., 1882), psychology endeavors to attain exact results in regard to +psychical life and its relation to its physical basis--besides Fechner and +the Herbartians, W. Wundt and A. Horwicz should be mentioned here. Wundt +and, of late, Haeckel go back to the Spinozistic parallelism of material +and psychical existence, only that the latter emphasizes merely the +inseparability _(Nichtohneeinander)_ of the two sides (the cell-body and +the cell-soul) with a real difference between them and a metaphysical +preponderance of the material side, while the former emphasizes the +essential unity of body and soul, and the higher reality of the spiritual +side. + +[Footnote 1: Helmholtz, Virchow (born 1821), Zoellner (1834-82; _On the +Nature of Comets_, 1872), and Du Bois-Reymond (born 1818), who, in his +lectures _On the Limits of the Knowledge of Nature_, 1872, and _The Seven +World-riddles_, 1880 (both together in 1882, and reprinted in the first +series of his _Addresses_, 1886), looks on the origin of life, the +purposive order of nature, and thought as problems soluble in the future, +but declares, on the other hand, that the nature of matter (atoms) +and force _(actio in distant)_, the origin of motion, the genesis of +consciousness (of sensation, together with pleasure and pain) from the +knowable conditions of psychical life, and the freedom of the will, are +absolute limits to our knowledge of nature.] + +%(b) Idealistic Reaction against the Scientific Spirit.%--In opposition to +the preponderance of natural science and the empirico-skeptical tendency of +the philosophy of the day conditioned by it, an idealistic counter-movement +is making itself increasingly felt as the years go on. Wilhelm Dilthey[1] +abandons metaphysics as a basis, it is true, but (with the assent of +Gierke, _Preussische Jahrbuecher_, vol. liii. 1884) declares against the +transfer of the method of natural science to the mental sciences, which +require a special foundation. In spite of his critical rejection of +metaphysics, Wilhelm Windelband in Strasburg (born 1848; _Preludes_, 1884) +is, like Dilthey, to be counted among the idealists. In opposition to the +individualism of the positivists, the folk-psychologists--at their head +Steinthal and Lazarus (p. 536); Gustav Glogau[2] in Kiel (born 1844) is +an adherent of the same movement--defend the power of the universal over +individual spirits. The spirit of the people is not a phrase, an empty +name, but a real force, not the sum of the individuals belonging to the +people, but an encompassing and controlling power, which brings forth +in the whole body processes (_e.g._, language) which could not occur in +individuals as such. It is only as a member of society that anyone becomes +truly man; the community is the subject of the higher life of spirit. + +[Footnote 1: Dilthey: _Introduction to the Mental Sciences_, part i., +1883; _Poetic Creation_ in the Zeller _Aufsaetze_, 1887; "Contributions to +the Solution of the Question of the Origin of our Belief in the Reality of +the External World, and its Validity," _Sitzungsberichte_ of the Berlin +Academy of Sciences, 1890; "Conception and Analysis of Man in the +Fifteenth and Sixteenth Centuries" in the _Archiv fuer Geschichte der +Philosophie_, vols. iv., v., 1891-92.] + +[Footnote 2: Glogau: _Sketch of the Fundamental Philosophical Sciences_ +(part i., _The Form and the Laws of Motion of the Spirit_, 1880; part +ii., _The Nature and the Fundamental Forms of Conscious Spirit_, 1888); +_Outlines of Psychology_; 1884.] + +If folk-psychology, whose title but imperfectly expresses the comprehensive +endeavor to construct a psychology of society or of the universal spirit, +is, as it were, an empirical confirmation of Hegel's theory of Objective +Spirit, Rudolf Eucken[1] (born 1846), pressing on in the Fichtean manner +from the secondary facts of consciousness to an original real-life, +endeavors to solve the question of a universal becoming, of an +all-pervasive force, of a supporting unity ("totality") in the life of +spirit (neither in a purely noetical nor a purely metaphysical, but) in a +nooelogical way, and demands that the fundamental science or doctrine of +principles direct its attention not to cognition by itself, but to the +activity of psychical life as a whole. + +[Footnote 1: Eucken: _The Unity of Spiritual Life in the Consciousness and +Deeds of Humanity_, 1888; _Prolegomena_ to this, 1885. A detailed analysis +of the latter by Falckenberg is given in the _Zeitschrift fuer Philosophie_, +vol. xc, 1887; cf. above, pp. 17 and 610.] + +We have elsewhere discussed the more recent attempts to establish a +metaphysic which shall be empirically well grounded and shall cautiously +rise from facts.[1] In regard to the possibility of metaphysics three +parties are to be distinguished: On the left, the positivists, the +neo-Kantians, and the monists of consciousness, who deny it out of hand. On +the right, a series of philosophers--e.g., adherents of Hegel, Herbart, and +Schopenhauer--who, without making any concessions to the modern theory of +knowledge, hold fast to the possibility of a speculative metaphysics of the +old type. In the center, a group of thinkers who are willing to renounce +neither a solid noetical foundation nor the attainment of metaphysical +conclusions--so Eduard von Hartmann, Wundt,[2] Eucken, Volkelt (pp. 590, +617). Otto Liebmann (born 1840; _On the Analysis of Reality_, 1876, 2d +ed., 1880; _Thoughts and Facts_, Heft i. 1882) demands a sharp separation +between the certain and the uncertain and an exact estimation of the degree +of probability which theories possess; puts the principles of metaphysics +under the rubric of logical hypothesis; and, in his _Climax of the +Theories_, 1884, calls attention to the fact that experiential science, in +addition to axioms necessarily or apodictically certain and empeiremes +possessing actual or assertory certainty, needs, further, a number of +"interpolation maxims," which form an attribute of our type of intellectual +organization _(i.e._, principles, according to the standard of which we +supplement the fragmentary and discrete series of single perceptions and +isolated observations by the interpolation of the needed intermediate +links, so that they form a connected experience). The most important of +these maxims are the principles of real identity, of the continuity of +existence, of causality, and of the continuity of becoming. Experience is +a gift of the understanding; the premises, as a rule, latent in ordinary +consciousness, on whose anticipatory application our experience is based +throughout, assert something absolutely incapable of being experienced. +If, in order to the production of a "pure experience," we eliminate all +subjective additions of the understanding contained in experiential thought +(all that cannot be present at the moment or locally at hand, in short, all +that cannot be the direct object and content of actual observation), +this breaks up into an unordered, unconnected aggregate of discontinuous +perceptual fragments; in order that a complete and articulated condition +of experience may result, these fragments (the purely factual content of +observation, the incoherent matter of perception) must be supplemented and +connected by very much that is not observed. + +[Footnote 1: R. Falckenberg, _Ueber die gegenwaertige Lage der deutschen +Philosophie_, inaugural address at Erlangen, Leipsic, 1890.] + +[Footnote 2: Wundt: _Essays_, 1885, including "Philosophy and Science"; +_System of Philosophy_, 1889. On the latter cf. Volkelt's paper in the +_Philosophische Monatshefte_, vol. xxvii. 1891; and on the _Essays_ a +notice by the same author in the same review, vol. xxiii. 1887.] + +Further, a reaction against crude naturalism is observable in the practical +field, though political economists (Roscher) and jurists take a more active +part in it than the philosophers. Personally R. von Jhering (1818-92; +_Purpose in Law_, 2 vols., 1877-83, 2d ed., 1884-86) stands on idealistic +ground, although, rejecting the nativistic and formalistic theory, he is in +principle an adherent of "realism," of the principle of interest and social +utility (the moral is that Which is permanently useful to society). + +Finally, similar motives underlie the growing interest in the history +of philosophy. The idealistic impulse seeks the nourishment which the +un-metaphysical present denies to it from the great works of the past, and +hopes, by keeping alive the classical achievements of previous times, to +enhance the consciousness of the urgency and irrepressibleness of the +highest questions, and to awaken courage for renewed attempts at their +solution. Thus the study of history enters the service of systematic +philosophy. + +%(c) The Special Philosophical Sciences.%--The more the courage to attack +the central problems of philosophy has been paralyzed by the neo-Kantian +theory of knowledge and the coming-in of the positivistic spirit, the more +lively has been the work of the last decades in the special departments: +the transfer of the center of gravity from metaphysics to the particular +sciences is the most prominent characteristic of the philosophy of the +time. Logic sees century-old convictions shattered and new foundations +arising. Psychology has entered into competition with physiology in regard +to the discovery of the laws of the psychical functions which depend +on bodily processes, while metaphysical questions are forced into the +background and there is a growing distrust of the reliability of inner +observation. The philosophy of religion is favored with undiminished +interest and aesthetics, after long neglect, with a renewal of attention; +the philosophy of history is about to reconquer its former rights. +There is, moreover, an especially lively interest in ethics; and the +investigation of the history of philosophy is more widely extended than +ever before. We will close our sketch with a short survey of the particular +disciplines. + +In the department of _logic_ the following should be mentioned as classical +achievements: the works of Christoph Sigwart of Tuebingen (vol. i. 1873, +2d ed., 1889; vol. ii. 1878), of Lotze (p. 605), and of Wundt (vol. i. +_Erkenntnisslehre_, 1880; vol. ii. _Methodenlehre_, 1883). Besides these, +Bergmann (p. 620), Schuppe (p. 619), and Benno Erdmann (_Logik_, vol. i. +1892) deserve notice. + +In _psychology_ the following writers have made themselves prominent: +Wilhelm Wundt at Leipsic (born 1832), _Grundzuege der physiologischen +Psychologie_, 1874, 3d ed., 1887; A. Horwicz, _Psychologische Analysen auf +physiologischer Grundlage_, 1872 _seq_.; Franz Brentano in Vienna (born +1838), _Psychologie vom empirischen Standpunkte_, vol. i. 1874; Carl +Stumpf of Munich (born 1848), _Ueber den psychologischen Ursprung der +Raumvorstellung_, 1873, _Tonpsychologie_, vol. i. 1883, vol. ii. 1890; +Theodor Lipps of Breslau (born 1851), _Grundthatsachen des Seelenlebens_, +1883. The following may be mentioned in the same connection: J.H. Witte, +_Das Wesen der Seele_, 1888; H. Muensterberg, _Die Willenshandlung_, 1888, +_Beitraege zur experimentellen Psychologie_, 1889 _seq_,; Goswin K. Uphues +at Halle, _Wahrnehmung und Empfindung_, 1888, _Ueber die Erinnerung_, 1889; +H. Schmidkunz, _Psychologie der Suggestion_, 1892; H. Ebbinghaus, the +co-editor of the _Zeitschrift fuer Psychologie una Physiologie der +Sinnesorgane_, 1890 _seq_.; H. Spitta; Max Dessoir, _Der Hautsinn_, in +the _Archiv fuer Anatomie una Physiologie_, 1892. The following works are +psychological contributions to the theory of knowledge: E.L. Fischer, +_Theorie der Gesichtswahrnehmung_, 1891; Hermann Schwarz, _Das +Wahrnehmungsproblem_, 1892. Finally we may add A. Dorner in Koenigsberg, +_Das menschliche Erkennen_, 1887; and E.L. Fischer, _Die Grundfragen der +Erkenntnisstheorie_, 1887. + +The literature of _moral philosophy_ has been substantially enriched by +Wundt, _Ethik_, 1886, 2d ed., 1892; and Friedrich Paulsen, _System der +Ethik_, 1889, 2d ed., 1891. We may mention, further, Baumann (p. 601); +Schuppe, _Grundzuege der Ethik und Rechtsphilosophie_, 1882; Witte, +_Freiheit des Willens_, 1882; G. Class in Erlangen, _Ideale und Gueter_, +1886; Richard Wallaschek, _Ideen zur praktischen Philosophic_, 1886; +F. Toennies in Kiel, _Gemeinschaft und Gesellschaft_, 1887; A. Doering, +_Philosophische Gueterlehre_, 1888; Th. Ziegler, _Sittliches Sein und +Werden_, 2d ed., 1890; G. Simmel, _Einleitung in die Moralwissenschaft_, +vol. i. 1892. + +Of the newer works in the field of _aesthetics_, in addition to A. +Zeising's _Aesthetische Forschungen_, 1855, C. Hermann's _Aesthetik_, +1875, and Hartmann's _Philosophie des Schoenen_, 1887, we may mention the +_Einleitung in die Aesthetik_ of Karl Groos, 1892, and the following by +Lipps: _Der Streit ueber die Tragoedie_, 1890; _Aesthetische Faktoren der +Raumanschauung_, 1891; the essay _Psychologie der Komik (Philosophische +Monatshefte_, vols. xxiv.-xxv. 1888-89), and _Aesthetische +Litteraturberichte_, (in the same review, vol. xxvi. 1890 _seq_.). + +Among the writers and works on the _philosophy of history_ we may note +Conrad Hermann in Leipsic (born 1819), _Philosophie der Geschichte_, 1870; +Bernheim, _Geschichtsforschung und Geschichtsphilosophie_, 1880; Karl +Fischer, _Ist eine Philosophie der Geschichte wissenschaftlich erforderlich +bezw. moeglich?_ Dillenburg Programme, 1889; Hinneberg, _Die philosophischen +Grundlagen der Geschichtswissenschaft_ in Sybel's _Historische +Zeitschrift_, vol. lxiii. 1889; A. Dippe, _Das Geschichtsstudium mit +seinen Zielen und Fragen_, 1891; Georg Simmel, _Die Probleme der +Geschichtsphilosophie_, 1892. + +In the _philosophy of religion_, which is discussed especially by the +theologians, a neo-Kantian and a neo-Hegelian tendency confront each other. +The former, dividing in its turn, is represented, on the one hand, by +the Ritschlian school--W. Herrmann in Marburg (_Die Metaphysik in der +Theologie_, 1876, _Die Religion im Verhaeltniss zum Welterkennen und zur +Sittlichkeit_, 1889), J. Kaftan in Berlin (_Das Wesen der christlichen +Religion_, 1881)--and, on the other, by R.A. Lipsius in Jena (born 1830; +_Dogmatik_, 1876, 2d ed., 1879; _Philosophie und Religion_, 1885). The +latter is represented by A.E. Biedermann of Zurich (1819-85; _Christliche +Dogmatik_, 1868; 2d ed., 1884-85), a pupil of W. Vatke, and by Otto +Pfleiderer of Berlin (born 1839; _Religionsphilosophie_, 1879; 2d ed., +1883-4). The neo-Kantians base religion exclusively on the practical side +of human nature, especially on the moral law, derive it from the contrast +between external dependence on nature and the inner freedom or supernatural +destination of the spirit, and wish it preserved from all intermixture +with metaphysics. According to the neo-Hegelians, on the contrary, the +theoretical element in religion is no less essential; and is capable of +being purified, of being elevated from the form of representation, which is +full of contradictions, into the adequate form of pure thought, capable, +therefore, of reconciliation with philosophy. Hugo Delff (_Ueber den Weg +zum Wissen und zur Gewissheit zu gelangen_, 1882; _Die Hauptprobleme der +Philosophie und Religion_, 1886) follows Jacobi's course. + +Among the numerous works on the _history of philosophy_, besides the +masterpieces of Zeller, J.E. Erdmann, and Kuno Fischer, the following are +especially worthy of attention: + +Cl. Baeumker in Breslau, _Das Problem der Materie in der griechischen +Philosophie_, 1890; H. Bonitz, _Platonische Studien_, 3d ed., 1886, +_Aristotelische Studien_, 1862 _seq., Index Aristotelicus_, 1870, _Kleine +Schriften_; P. Deussen (born 1845), _Das System der Vedanta_, 1883, H. +Diels in Berlin, _Doxographi Graeci_, 1879; Eucken in Jena (p. 17), _Die +Methode der aristotelischen Forschung_, 1872, Address _Ueber den Werth der +Geschichte der Philosophie_, 1874; J. Freudenthal in Breslau (born 1839, +pp. 63, 118), _Hellenistische Studien, 3 Hefte_, 1879, _Ueber die Theologie +des Xenophanes_, 1886; M. Heinze in Leipsic, _Die Lehre vom Logos in der +griechischen Philosophie_, 1872; G. Freiherr von Hertling in Munich (born +1843), _Materie und Form und die Definition der Seele bei Aristoteles_, +1871, _Albertus Magnus_, 1880; H. Heussler in Basle (p. 65 note), +_Der Rationalismus des XVII. Jahrhunderts in seinen Beziehungen zur +Eniwickelungslehre_, 1885; Fr. Jodl in Prague (born 1849; pp. 16, 221 +note); A. Krohn (1840-89), _Sokrates und Xenophon_, 1874, _Der platonische +Staat_, 1876, _Die platonische Frage_, 1878--on Krohn, an obituary by +Falckenberg in the _Biographisches Jahrbuch fuer Alterthumskunde, Jahrg_. +12, 1889; P. Natorp (pp. 88 note, 598), _Forschungen zur Geschichte des +Erkenntnissproblems im Alterthum_, 1884; Edmund Pfleiderer in Tuebingen +(born 1842; p. 113 note[1]), _Empirismus und Skepsis im D. Humes +Philosophie_, 1874, _Die Philosophie des Heraklit im Lichte der +Mysterienidee_, 1886; K. von Prantl (1820-88), _Geschichte der Logik im +Abendlande_, 4 vols., 1855-70; Carl Schaarschmidt (pp. 88 note, 117-118); +_Johannes Sarisberiensis_, 1862, _Die Sammlung der platonischen Schriften_, +1866; L. Schmidt in Marburg (born 1824), _Die Ethik der alten Griechen_, +1881; Gustav Schneider, _Die platonische Metaphysik_, 1884; H. Siebeck in +Giessen, _Untersuchungen zur Philosophie der Griechen_, 1873, 2d ed., 1888, +_Geschichte der Psychologie_, part i. 1880-84; Chr. von Sigwart (born 1830; +pp. 17, 118); Heinrich von Stein in Rostock (born 1833), _Sieben Buecher zur +Geschichte des Platonismus_, 1862-75; Ludwig Stein in Berne, editor of the +_Archiv fuer Geschichte der Philosophie_, founded in 1877, _Die Psychologie +der Stoa_, I. _Metaphysisch-Anthropologischer Theil_, 1886, II. +_Erkenntnisstheorie_, 1888, _Leibniz und Spinoza_, 1890; L. Struempell, +_Geschichte der griechischen Philosophie_, 1854, 1861; Susemihl in +Greifswald, _Die Politik des Aristoteles_, Greek and German with notes, +1879, further, a series of essays on Plato and Aristotle; Teichmueller (p. +601); Trendelenburg (pp. 600-601), _Aristotelis de Anima_, 2d ed., by +Belger. 1887; Th. Waitz, _Aristotelis Organon_, 1844-46; J. Walter in +Koenigsberg, _Die Lehre von der praktischen Vernunft in der griechischen +Philosophie_, 1874, _Geschichte der Aesthetik im Alterthum_, 1892; Tob. +Wildauer in Innsbruck, _Die Psychologie des Willens bei Sokrates, Platon, +und Aristoteles_, 1877, 1879; W. Windelbund in Strasburg (pp. 15-16), +_Geschichte der alten Philosophie_, 1888; Theob. Ziegler in Strasburg, +_Geschichte der christlichen Ethik_, 1886, 2d ed., with index, 1892; Rob. +Zimmermann (pp. 19 note, 331, 536), _Studien und Kritiken_, 1870. + + +%4. Retrospect.% + +In order to avoid the appearance of arbitrary construction we have been +sparing with references of a philosophico-historical character. In +conclusion, looking back at the period passed over, we may give expression +to some convictions concerning the guiding threads in the development of +modern philosophy, though these here claim only the rights of subjective +opinion. + +A mirror of modern culture, and conscious of its sharp antithesis to +Scholasticism, modern philosophy in its pre-Kantian period is pre-eminently +characterized by naturalism. Nature, as a system of masses moved according +to law, forms not only the favorite object of investigation, but also +the standard by which psychical reality is judged and explained. The two +directions in which this naturalism expresses itself, the mechanical +view of the world, which endeavors to understand the universe from the +standpoint of nature and all becoming from the standpoint of motion,[1] and +the intellectualistic view, which seeks to understand the mind from the +standpoint of knowledge, are most intimately connected. Where the general +view of the All takes form and color from nature, a content and a mission +can come to the mind from no other source than the external world; whether +we (empirically) make it take up the material of representation from +without or (rationalistically) make it create an ideal reproduction of +the content of external reality from within, it is always the function of +knowledge, conceived as the reproduction of a completed reality, which, +since it brings us into contact with nature, advances into the foreground +and determines the nature of psychical activity. As is conceivable, along +with dogmatic faith in the power of the reason to possess itself of the +reality before it and to reconstrue it in the system of science, and with +triumphant references to the mathematical method as a guaranty for the +absolute certainty of philosophical knowledge, the noetical question +emerges as to the means by which, and the limits within which, human +knowledge is able to do justice to this great problem. Descartes gave out +the programme for all these various tendencies--the mechanical explanation +of nature, the absolute separation of body and soul (despiritualization of +matter), thought the essence of the mind, the demand for certain knowledge, +armed against every doubt, and the question as to the origin of ideas. Its +execution by his successors shows not only a lateral extension in the +most various directions (the dualistic view of the world held by the +occasionalists, the monistic or pantheistic view of Spinoza, the +pluralistic or individualistic view of Leibnitz; similarly the antithesis +between the sensationalism of Locke and Condillac and the rationalism +of Spinoza and Leibnitz), but also a progressive deepening of problems, +mediated by party strife which puts every energy to the strain. What a +tremendous step from the empiricism of Bacon to the skepticism of Hume, +from the innate ideas of Descartes to the potential _a priori_ of Leibnitz! +From the moment when the negative and positive culminations of the +pre-Kantian movement in thought--Hume and Leibnitz--came together in +one mind, the conditions of the Kantian reform were given, just as the +preparation for the Socratic reform had been given in the skepticism of the +Sophists and the [Greek: nous] principle of Anaxagoras. + +[Footnote 1: Even for Leibnitz the mind is a machine (_automaton +spirituale_), and psychical action a movement of ideas.] + +Kant, who dominates the second period of modern philosophy down to the +present time, is related to his predecessors in a twofold way. In his +criticism he completes the noetical tendency, and at the same time +overcomes naturalism, by limiting the mechanical explanation (and with +it certain knowledge, it is true) to phenomena and opposing moralism to +intellectualism. Nature must be conceived from the standpoint of the spirit +(as its product, for all conformity to law takes its origin in the spirit), +the spirit from the standpoint of the will. Metaphysics, as the theory of +the _a priori_ conditions of experience, is raised to the rank of a +science, while the suprasensible is removed from the region of proof and +refutation and based upon the rock of moral will. In the positive side of +the Kantian philosophy--the spirit the law-giver of nature, the will the +essence of spirit and the key to true reality--we find its kernel, that +in it which is forever valid. The conclusions on the absolute worth of +the moral disposition, on the ultimate moral aim of the world, on the +intelligible character, and on radical evil, reveal the energy with which +Kant took up the mission of furnishing the life-forces opened up by +Christianity--which the Middle Ages had hidden rather than conserved under +the crust of Aristotelian conceptions entirely alien to them, and the +pre-Kantian period of modern times had almost wholly ignored--an entrance +into philosophy, and of transforming and enriching the modern view of the +world from this standpoint. Kant's position is as opposite and superior to +the specifically modern, to the naturalistic temper of the new period, as +Plato stands out, a stranger and a prophet of the future, above the level +of Greek modes of thought. More fortunate, however, than Plato, he found +disciples who followed further in the direction pointed out by that face of +the Janus-head of his philosophy which looked toward the future: the +ethelism of Fichte and the historicism of Hegel have their roots in Kant's +doctrine of the practical reason. These are acquisitions which must never +be given up, which must ever be reconquered in face of attack from forces +hostile to spirit and to morals. In life, as in science, we must ever anew +"win" ethical idealism "in order to possess it." As yet the reconciliation +of the historical and the scientific, the Christian and the modern spirit +is not effected. For the inbred naturalism of the modern period has not +only asserted itself, amalgamated with Kantian elements, in the realistic +metaphysics and mechanical psychology of Herbart and in the system of +Schopenhauer, as a lateral current by the side of Fichte, Schelling, and +Hegel, but, under the influence of the new and powerful development of the +natural sciences, has once more confidently risen against the traditions of +the idealistic school, although now it is tempered by criticism and +concedes to the practical ideals at least a refuge in faith. The conviction +that the rule of neo-Kantianism is provisional does not rest merely on the +mutability of human affairs. The widespread active study of the philosophy +of the great Koenigsberger gives ground for the hope that also those +elements in it from which the systems of the idealists have proceeded as +necessary consequences will again find attention and appreciation. The +perception of the fact that the naturalistico-mechanical view represents +only a part, a subordinate part, of the truth will lead to the further +truth, that the lower can only be explained by the higher. We shall also +learn more and more to distinguish between the permanent import of the +position of fundamental idealism and the particular form which the +constructive thinkers have given it; the latter may fall before legitimate +assaults, but the former will not be affected by them. _The revival of the +Fichteo-Hegelian idealism by means of a method which shall do justice to +the demands of the time by a closer adherence to experience, by making +general use of both the natural and the mental sciences, and by an exact +and cautious mode of argument--this seems to us to be the task of the +future_. The most important of the post-Hegelian systems, the system of +Lotze, shows that the scientific spirit does not resist reconciliation with +idealistic convictions in regard to the highest questions, and the +consideration which it on all sides enjoys, that there exists a strong +yearning in this direction. But when a deeply founded need of the time +becomes active, it also rouses forces which dedicate themselves to its +service and which are equal to the work. + + +THE END. + + + * * * * * + + +INDEX. + +Abbt +Absolute, the + Fichte on + Schelling on + F. Krause on + Schleiermacher on + Hegel on + Fortlage on + Spencer on + Boestrom on + Strauss on + Feuerbach on + the theistic school on + Lotze on + Hartmann on + See also + God + the Unconditioned +Achillini +Adamson, R. +Aesthetics + of Home (Lord Kames) + of Burke + of Baumgarten + of Herder + of Kant + of Schiller + of Schelling + of Hegel + of J.F. Fries + of Herbart + of Schopenhauer +Agnosticism, of Spencer +Agricola, R. +Agrippa of Nettesheim +Ahrens, H. +Alexandrists +Allihn +Althusius +Anderson +Angiulli, A. +Annet, P. +Antal, G. von +Antinomies, the + of Kant + his antinomy of aesthetic judgment + and of teleological judgment +Apelt, E.F. +_A priori_, the + in Kant + in Kant and the post-Kantians + nature, in Schelling + in J.F. Fries + Beneke on + Herbart on + J.S. Mill on + Spencer's doctrine of the racial origin of + Opzoomer on + _Cf_. Ideas +Aquinas, Thomas +Ardigo, R. +Aristotelians, the + opponents of +Arnauld +Arnoldt, E. +Associationalism + of Hartley and Priestley + of Hume + of the Mills + of Bain +Ast, G.A.F. +Atomism + in modern physics + in Gassendi and Descartes + in Boyle + Leibnitz on +Attributes + in Descartes + Spinoza's doctrine of +Auerbach +Augustine +Avenarius, R. +Averroists + +Baader, F. (von), + and Schelling + system of +Bach, J. +Bacmeister +Bacon, Francis + a beginner of modern philosophy, + doctrine of, + in relation to Locke + +Bacon, Roger +Bahnsen, J. +Bain, Alexander +Baku +Barclay +Bardili +Bartholomaei +Barzellotti, G. +Basedow +Bauer, Bruno +Bauer, Edgar +Baumann, J. +Baumeister +Baumgarten, Alex. +Baumgarten, Siegmund +Baeumker, Cl. +Baur, F.C. +Bayle, P., + doctrine of, + and Leibnitz +Beattie, J. +Beck, Sigismund +Beckers, H., +Bekker, Balthasar, III +Belger +Bellarmin +Beneke, F.E. +Benoit, G. von +Bentham, J. +Bentley, Richard +Berger, J.E. von +Bergmann, J. +Berkeley, George, + position in modern philosophy, + view of mind and matter, + relation to Locke on perception, + on knowledge, + his system, + relation to Hume, + relation to Scottish School, + relation to Condillac, + his idealism criticised by Kant, + referred to +Bernard, Claude +Bernheim +Bessarion +Bezold, F. von, +Biberg +Biedermann, A.E. +Biedermann, Fr. K. +Bilfinger +Billewicz, J. von, +Biran, Maine de +Blignieres +Bluntschli +Bodin(us) +Body and Mind, _see_ Mind and Body +Boethius, D. +Boehme, Jacob, + system of, + and Schelling +Boehmer +Boehringer, A. +Bolin, W. +Bolingbroke +Bolzano, B. +Bonald, Victor de +Bonatelli, F. +Bonitz, H. +Bonnet +Bontekoe +Boole, G. +Borelius, J. +Borelli +Borgeaud +Bosanquet, B. +Boestrom, C.J. +Botta, V. +Bouillier +Bourdin +Bourignon, Antoinette +Bowen, F. +Bowne, B.P. +Boyle, R. +Bradley, F.H. +Brahe, Tycho +Brandes, G. +Brandis, C.A. +Braniss, J. +Brasch, M. +Brentano, F. +Broechner, H. +Brockerhoff +Brown, Thomas +Browne, Peter +Browne, Sir Thomas +Brucker +Bruder +Brunnhofer +Bruno, Giordano + system of + and Spinoza, + and Schelling +Bruett, M. +Buchanan, George +Buechner, L. +Buckle +Budde +Buffon +Burckhardt +Burdach, K.F. +Burgersdijck +Burke, Edmund +Burt, B.C. +Busch, O. +Butler, Joseph +Butler, N.M. + +Cabanis +Caesalpin +Caird, Edward +Caird, John +Cairns +Calker, F.V. +Camerer +Campanella, Thomas + system of +Campe +Cantoni +Cantor, G. +Caporali, E. +Cardanus, Hieronymus +Carlyle, Thomas +Carneri +Caro, E. +Carpenter, W.B. +Carriere, M. +Cartesians, the + Locke's relation to + Leibnitz's relation to +Carus, F.A. +Carus, K.G. +Carus, P. +Caspari, O. +Categories, the, Kant on + Hegel's doctrine of +Caterus +Causation + Spinoza's view of + Locke on + Hume's skeptical analysis of + Kant on + Schopenhauer on + Lotze on + Hartmann on + _See also_ Sufficient Reason, Teleology +Cesca, Giovanni +Chalybaeus +Chandler, Samuel +Channing, W.E. +Character, the Intelligible + in Kant + in Schelling + in Schopenhauer +Charron, Pierre +Christ, P. +Chubb, Thomas +Cieszkowski, A. von +Clarke, Samuel + ethics of +Class, G. +Classen, A. +Clauberg +_Cogito ergo sum_ + the Cartesian +Cohen, H. +Colecchi, A. +Coleridge, S.T. +Collard, Royer +Collier, Arthur +Collins, Anthony +Collins, F.H. +Collins, W.L. +Combachius +Comenius +Commer, E. +Common Sense, Scottish doctrine of +Comte, Auguste +Condillac + doctrine of +Condorcet +Conn, H.W. +Conybeare, J. +Copernicus, N. +Cordemoy +Cosmological Argument, the + in Locke + in Rousseau + in Leibnitz + in Kant +Cotes, Roger +Cousin, Victor +Cremonini +Crescas, Chasdai +Creuz, K. von +Critique of Reason, the + meaning of + the neo-Kantians on + its central position in modern thought +Crousaz +Crusius, C.A. +Cudworth, Ralph + ethics of +Cumberland, Richard +Czolbe, H. + +D'Alembert +Damiron +Danzel +Darjes +Darwin, Charles +Darwin, Erasmus +Daub, K. +Da Vinci, Leonardo +Deism + naturalism of + in Herbert + in English thinkers of XVIII. century + in Hume + in Rousseau + of Reimarus + in Lessing + Kant's relation to + _See also_ Faith, Faith and Reason, Religion, Theology +Delboeuf +Delff, H. +De Morgan, A. + +Denifle +Des Bosses +Descartes, Rene + system of + and occasionalism + and Spinoza + and Locke + and Leibnitz + _See also_ Spinoza +Desdouits +Dessoir, M. +Deter +Determinism + in Hobbes + in Spinoza + of the early associationalists + of Hume + in Leibnitz + of Schleiermacher + of Herbart + of Schopenhauer + of J.S. Mill + of Jonathan Edwards + _See also_ Character, the Intelligible; Freedom of the Will +Deussen, P. +Deutinger, M. +De Wette +Dewey, J. +Diderot, Denis +Diels, H. +Dieterich, K. +Digby, Everard +Dillman +Dilthey, W. + doctrine of, +Dippe, A. +Doering, A. +Dorner, A. +Doubt + the Cartesian + in Bayle + Rousseau's reverential +Drobisch, M.W. +Droz +Druskowitz, Helene +Du Bois-Reymond, E +Duehring, E. +Dumont, E. +Duncan, G.M. +Durdik + +Ebbinghaus, H. +Eberhard, J.A. +Echtermeyer +Eckhart +Eclecticism, of the German Illumination + of Schleiermacher + of Cousin and his School +Edfeldt, H. +Education + Locke on + Rousseau on +Edwards, Jonathan +Ego, the + certain knowledge of, in Campanella, and Descartes + the individual, and the transcendental consciousness in Kant + Fichte's doctrine of + a complex of representations in Beneke + Fortlage on + Herbart's doctrine of + the neo-Kantians on the individual, and the transcendental consciousness + _See also_ Soul +Ellis +Emerson, R.W. +Empiricism + founded by Bacon + in Hobbes + and rationalism + of Locke + of J.S. Mill + of Opzoomer + Liebmann on + _See also_ Experience, Sensationalism +Encyclopedists, the +Engel, J.J. +Ennemoser +Erasmus, Desiderius +Erdmann, Benno + works by +Erdmann, J.E. + works by + philosophy of +Erhardt, F. +Eschenmayer, K.A. +Ethelism + in Crusius + of Fichte + of Schopenhauer + in Hartmann + _See also_ Panthelism. +Ethics + Bacon on + Hobbes's political theory of + Descartes on + Geulincx on + Spinoza on + Pascal on + Malebranche on + Locke on + English, of XVIII. century + Hume's empirical and mechanical + of French sensationalists + of French materialists + of Rousseau + of Leibnitz + of Herder + of Kant + of Fichte + of Schleiermacher + of Hegel + of J.F. Fries + of Beneke + of Herbart + of Schopenhauer + of Comte + of Bentham + of J.S. Mill, + of Spencer + of T.H. Green + of Lotze + of Hartmann + recent German interest in +Eucken, R. + works by + philosophy of +Everett, C.C. +Evil + Weigel on the origin of + Boehme on the origin of + Spinoza's doctrine of + Leibnitz's doctrine of + Schelling's theory of + Baader's theory of + Fechner's view of + _See also_ Optimism, Pessimism +Evolution + in the sense of explication in Nicolas of Cusa + and involution in Leibnitz + cosmical, of Spencer + biological, of Darwin + _Cf_. also the systems of Schelling, Hegel, Hartmann +Exner, F. +Experience + the basis of science in Bacon + Kant on + Green on + Liebmann's view of + _See also_ Empiricism, Sensationalism +External World, the + reality of, in Descartes + knowledge and reality of, in Locke + Berkeley on + Kant on the reality of + the "material of duty in the form of sense" in Fichte + +Faber Stapulensis (Lefevre of Etaples) +Faith + the reformers' view of + Deistic view of + Kant on + Kant on moral or practical + Paulsen on practical + _See also_ Deism +Faith and Reason, + the relation of, in modern philosophy + Bayle on + Locke on + Deistic view of + in Rousseau + Leibnitz on + Lessing on + Baader on + Schleiermacher on + _See also_ Deism +Faith Philosophy, the + of Hamann + of Herder + of Jacobi + elements of, in J.F. Fries +Falckenberg, R. + works by +Farrer, J.A. +Fechner, G.T. + system of +Fechner, H.A. +Feder, J.G.H. +Feeling + the basis of knowledge in Pascal + the central doctrine of Rousseau + central to religion in Schleiermacher + _See also_ The Faith Philosophy +Ferguson, Adam +Ferrari, Giuseppe +Ferraz +Ferri, L. +Ferrier, D. +Ferrier, J.F. +Fester, R. +Feuerbach, L. + philosophy of +Fichte, I.H. +Fichte, J.G. + and Kant + system of + and Schelling + and Hegel + and Herbart + and Lotze + _See also_ Idealism, Jacobi, Kant +Ficinus +Filmer +Final Causes, _see_ Teleology +Fiorentino, F. +Fischer, E.L. +Fischer, K. Ph. +Fischer, Karl +Fischer, Kuno + works by + on Spinoza + on Kant + his philosophy + and neo-Kantianism +Fiske, John +Flint, K. +Fludd, R. +Fluegel +Forberg +Forge, L. de la +Fortlage, Karl + works by + system of +Fouillee, A. +Fowler, Thos. +Fox Bourne +Franchi, A. +Franck, A. +Franck, Sebastian +Francke +Frantz, K. +Eraser, A.C. +Frauenstaedt, J. +Frederichs, F. +Frederick the Great +Freedom of the Will, Hobbes's denial of + Descartes's unlimited affirmation of + denied by Spinoza + Locke on + denied by Hume + in Rousseau + Leibnitz on + Herder on + Kant on + Fichte on + Schelling on + Herbart on + Schopenhauer on + J-S. Mill on + _See also_ Character, the Intelligible; Determinism +Frege, G. +Freudenthal, J. +Fries, A. de +Fries, J.F., and Kant + an opponent of constructive idealism + his system + and Herbart +Froschammer +Fullerton, G.S. + +Gabler +Gale +Galileo (Galileo Galilei) + his work as a foundation for modern physics + his system +Galluppi, P. +Galton, Francis +Garve, C. +Gassendi, P. +Gauss +Gay +Geijer, E.G. +Geil +Genovesi, A. +Gentilis, Albericus +George, L. +George of Trebizond +Georgius Scholarius (Gennadius) +Gerdil, S. +Gerhardt +Gerson +Gersonides +Geulincx, Arnold +Gichtel +Gierke, O. +Gilbert, William +Gioberti, V. +Gioja, M. +Gizycki, G. von +Glanvil +Glisson, Francis +Glogau, G. +God, doctrine of, in Nicolas of Cusa + in Taurellus + in Bruno + Campanella's argument for the existence of + Weigel's doctrine of + Boehme's doctrine of + Descartes's arguments for the existence of + Spinoza's doctrine of + Malebranche's view of + Locke's doctrine of + Berkeley ascribes ideas of sense-world to + Hume's doctrine of + Voltaire's doctrine of + Holbach's discussion of + Leibnitz's doctrine of + Reimarus's doctrine of + Lessing's doctrine of + Herder's doctrine of + Jacobi's doctrine of + Kant on the arguments for the existence of + Fichte's doctrine of + Schelling's doctrine of + F. Krause's doctrine of + Baader's doctrine of + Schleiermacher's doctrine of + Beneke's doctrine of + Herbart's doctrine of + Boestrom's doctrine of + the doctrine of, in Hegel's School + Strauss's doctrine of + Feuerbach's doctrine of + the doctrine of, in the Theistic School + Fechner on the relation of God and the world + Lotze's doctrine of + Hartmann's doctrine of + See also: + Cosmological Argument + Deism + Ontological Argument + Religion + Teleological Argument + Theology +Goehring, C. +Golther, L. von +Goeschel +Goethe +Gottsched +Gracian, B. +Grazia, V. de +Green, T.H., works by + doctrine of +Grimm, E. +Grimm, F.M., Baron von +Groos, K. +Grot, N. von +Grote, John +Grotius, Hugo +Grubbe, S. +Gruber, H. +Gruen, K. +Guhrauer +Guenther, A. +Gutberlet, C. +Guthrie, M. +Guettler, C. +Guyau, J.M. +Gwinner, W. + +Haeckel, E. +Haeghen, V. van der +Hagemann +Hall, G.S. +Hallier +Hamann, J.G. +Hamann, O. +Hamberger +Hamilton, Sir William +Harless, A. von +Harmony + Leibnitz's pre-established + Wolff's development of Leibnitz's, pre-established +Harms, F. +Harris, W.T. +Harrison, Frederic +Hartenstein, G. +Hartley, David +Hartmann, E. von + works by + system of +Harvey +Hase, K.A. +Hassbach +Hausegger +Hausrath +Havet +Haym, R. +Hazard, R.G. +Heath +Hebler, C. +Heereboord +Hegel, G.W.F. + and Schelling + system of + opponents of + influence and followers of + _See also_ J.G. Fichte, Kant, Schelling +Hegelians, the Old + the Young + _See also_ Semi-Hegelians +Hegler, A. +Heiland, K. +Heinze, M. +Helmholtz, H. +Helmont, F.M. van +Helmont, J.B. van +Helvetius, C.A. +Hemming +Hemsterhuis, F. +Herbart, J.F. + system of + _See also_ J.G. Fichte +Herbert, Lord, of Cherbury +Herder, J.G. + system of + Schelling and +Hering +Hermann, C. +Hermann, W. +Hermes, G. +Herz, M. +Heusde, P.W. van +Heussler, H. +Heyder, Karl +Hinneberg +Hinrichs +Hirnhaym +History + Machiavelli on + Herder's philosophy of + Kant's view of + Fichte's view of + Schelling's view of + F. Krause's philosophy of + Hegel's philosophy of + Vico's philosophy of +History of Philosophy, the + importance of + method in + Hegel's view of + recent development of +Hobbes, Thomas + his system + and Descartes + and Spinoza + and Locke + and Hume + and Pufendorf +Hoeffding, H. +Hoffmann, Franz +Hoeijer, B. +Holbach, Baron von +Hoelder, A. + +Hoelderlin +Home, Henry, (Lord Kames) +Horvath +Horwicz, A. +Hotho +Huber, J. +Huber, U. +Huet(ius), P.D. +Hufeland +Hume, David + system of + and Scottish School + and Kant + _See also_ Berkeley, Locke +Hunt, J. +Husserl, E.G. +Hutcheson, Francis +Huxley, T.H. + +Ibbot +Idealism + phenomenal or individual of Berkeley + in Leibnitz + critical or transcendental, of Kant + post-Kantian, of Beck + subjective, of Fichte + objective, of Schelling + absolute or logical, of Hegel + the opposition to constructive + in Schopenhauer + German, in Great Britain + of Green + in America + ethical or ideological, of Lotze + idealistic reaction in Germany against the scientific spirit + Falckenberg on (ethical) idealism and the future +Ideas, + innate, in Descartes, Locke, Leibnitz, the rationalists and the empiricists + origin of, in Descartes, Locke, Berkeley, Hume, the rationalists and + empiricists, and Herbart + impressions and, in Hume + unconscious ideas or representations in Leibnitz + Ideas of reason in Kant + the logical Idea the subject of the world-process in Hegel +Identity, Locke on + Spinozism a system of + Schelling's philosophy or system of + the philosophy of, among Schelling's followers + Hegel's doctrine a system of + Fortlage's system of + philosophy of, in Schopenhauer +Immortality + Hume on + Voltaire on + Rousseau on + Leibnitz on + Kant on + Schleiermacher on + Beneke on + Herbart on + Hegel's followers on + Strauss on + Fechner on +Imperative, the Categorical + in Kant + in Fichte + in Beneke +Induction + Kepler on + Galileo on + used before Bacon + Bacon's theory of + in Hobbes + J.S. Mill's theory of +Irwing, Von + +Jacobi, F.H. + system of + and Fichte + and the anti-idealists +Jacobson, J. +Jaeger, G. +James, William +Janet, Paul +Jansenists +Jastrow, J. +Jesuits +Jevons, W.S. +Jhering, R. von +Jodl, F. +Joel, M. +Jouffroy, T. +Judgment + Descartes on + rationalists and empiricists both mistake nature of + Kant on synthetic judgments _a priori_ + the categories and, in Kant + judgments of perception and of experience in Kant + Kant on aesthetic and teleological +Jungius + +Kaatz, H. +Kaftan, J. +Kaltenborn, C. von +Kant, I. + + position in modern philosophy + and Locke + and the Illumination + system of + the development to Fichte + and Fichte + and Schelling + and Hegel + and Schopenhauer + his influence, followers, and opponents + _See also_ Berkeley, Critique of Reason, J.G. Fichte, Hume, Leibnitz, + Locke, + Schopenhauer, Wolff +Kayserling +Kedney, J.S. +Kent, G. +Kepler, J. + philosophy of +Kielmeyer +Kierkegaard, S. +Kieser +King, Lord +Kirchmann, J.H. von +Kirchner +Klein, G.M. +Knauer, V. +Knight, W. +Knoodt, P. +Knowledge + theory of, in modern thought + doctrine of, in Nicolas of Cusa + declared deceptive by Montaigne + mathematical basis of, in Kepler and Galileo + in Bacon + in Hobbes + in Herbart + the two views of + Geulincx on + Descartes on + Spinoza on + Malebranche on ("we see all things in God") + Locke's doctrine of + Berkeley on + Hume's skeptical doctrine of + Scottish doctrine of + sensationalistic doctrine of, in France + Leibnitz's theory of + Kant on + Fichte's Science of + Schelling's philosophy of + Baader on + Schleiermacher's doctrine of + Hegel on philosophical + J.F. Fries's doctrine of + Beneke on speculative + Schopenhauer's doctrine of + Comte's doctrine of + Sir Wm. Hamilton's doctrine of + J.S. Mill's doctrine of + Spencer's doctrine of + T.H. Green's doctrine of + Feuerbach's doctrine of + Lotze's doctrine of + Hartmann's doctrine of + the neo-Kantians on + the German positivists on + influence of recent science on the theory of + Liebmann's doctrine of + _See also_ Agnosticism, Critique of Reason, Empiricism, Faith, + Faith and Reason, Nominalism, Positivism, Rationalism and Empiricism, + Relativity, Sensationalism, Skepticism +Knutzen, M. +Koch, A. +Koeber, R. von +Koegel, F. +Koenig, E. +Koppelmann +Koestlin, Karl +Krause, A. +Krause, E. +Krause, F. +Krauth, C.P. +Krohn, A. +Kroman, K. +Krug, W.T. +Kuhn +Kuntze, J.E. +Kvacsala +Kym, A.L. + +Laas, E. +Laban, F. +Labriola, +La Bruyere +Ladd, G.T. +Laffitte, P. +Lagrange +Lambert, J.H. +Lamennais, F. de +La Mettrie, J.O. de +La Mothe la Vayer +Land, J.P.N. +Lange, F.A. +Lange, J.J. +La Rochefoucauld +Lasson, A. +Lasswitz, K. +Last, E. +Lavater +Law (or Right) + early philosophy of + Montesquieu on + Pufendorf on + C. Thomasius on + Kant's theory of legal right + Fichte's theory of right + Schelling's view of + F. Krause's philosophy of right + Hegel's philosophy of right +Lazarus, M. +Lechler +Leclair, A. von +Leibnitz, Friedrich (the father) +Leibnitz, G.W. + position in modern thought + and occasionalism + system of + and the Illumination (Wolff, Lessing) + and Kant + _See also_ Descartes, Locke, Spinoza +Leonhardi, H.K. von +Leopold +Lessing, G.E. + system of +Lewes, G.H. +Liard, L. +Liberatore, M. +Lichtenberg +Liebig +Liebmann, O. +Linde, A. van der +Lindemann +Lipps, T. +Lipsius, Justus +Lipsius, R.A. +Littre, E. +Locke, J. + position in modern philosophy + system of + and Berkeley + and Hume + and the French Illumination (and Rousseau) + and Leibnitz + and Kant + _See also_ Bacon, Berkeley, Descartes, Empiricism, Kant +Lohmeyer +Lombroso, C. +Lossius +Lott, F.C. +Lotze, R.H. + system of +Loewe, J.H. +Lubbock, J. +Luelmann, C. +Luther +Lutterbeck +Lyng, G.V. + +Macaulay, T.B. +Machiavelli, N. +Mackie +Mackintosh, J. +Mahaffy, J.P. +Maimon, S. +Maimonides +Mainlaender, P. +Mainzer, J. +Maistre, J, de +Malebranche, Nicolas + system of +Mamiani, T. +Mandeville, Bernard de +Mansel, H.L. +Marcus +Marheineke +Mariana, Juan +Mariano +Marion, H. +Marsh, James +Marsilius of Padua +Martin, B. +Martineau, Harriet +Martineau, James +Martini, Jacob +Masson, David +Materialism + in Hobbes + Spinoza's tendency toward + in the early associationalists + in France in XVIII. century + Kant on + in Schopenhauer + and Spencer's philosophy + in Strauss + of Feuerbach + the controversy over, in Germany + Lange on +Mathematics + the philosophical use of, advocated by Nicolas of Cusa + by Kepler + scientific use of, ignored by Bacon + Hobbes's recognition of + method of, adopted by Spinoza + Kant on philosophy and + Kant on science and + applied to psychology by Herbart + and by Fechner + recent, and philosophy +Maudsley, Henry +Maupertuis +Mayer, F. +Mayer, R. +McCosh, J. +Mechanism + in modern thought + in modern physical science + the central doctrine of Hobbes + fundamental in Spinoza + applied to mind by the associationalists + of J.F. Fries + of ideas in Herbart + in Lotze + in recent physical science + _See also_ Naturalism, Physical Science, Teleology +Meier, G.F. +Meiners +Melancthon +Mellin +Melville, Andrew +Mendelssohn +Mersenne +Merz, J.T. +Metaphysics + Bacon on + of Descartes + of Spinoza + of Leibnitz + the Wolffian division of + Kant on + Hegel on + of Fortlage + of Herbart + Comte on + of Fechner + of Lotze + of Hartmann + recent German views on +Meyer, J.B. +Meyer, Ludwig +Michelet, C.L. +Michelis, +Mill, James +Mill, J.S. +Milton, John +Mind and Body + Descartes on + occasionalistic view of, in Geulincx + Spinoza on + Hartley and Priestley on + Leibnitz on + J.F. Fries on +Modern Philosophy + value of history of + characteristics of + relation to the church + relation to nationality + beginnings of + bibliography of + two main schools of + future of +Modes (of Substance) + in Descartes + in Spinoza + in Locke +Moleschott +Monads + Giordano Bruno's doctrine of + Leibnitz's doctrine of + Wolff's development of Leibnitz's doctrine of +Monchamp, G. +Monck, W.H.S. +Monrad, M.J. +Montaigne, M. de +Montesquieu +More, H. +More, Thomas +Moreau +Morelly +Morgan, C.L. +Morgan, Thomas +Moriz +Morley, J. +Morris, G.S. +Morselli +Mueller, W. +Mueller, F.A. +Mueller, G.E. +Mueller, H. +Mueller, Johannes +Mueller, Max +Muensterberg, H. +Muenz, W. + +Nahlowsky +Naigeon +Natge +Natorp, P. +Naturalism + characteristic of modern philosophy + _See also_ Mechanism, Physical Science, Teleology +Nature, Philosophy of + early Italian + Schelling's + among Schelling's followers + Hegel's + J.F. Fries's + Herbart's + _See also_ Physical Science +Nedich +Nees von Esenbeck +Nemes, E. +Neo-Kantians +Nettleship, R.L. +Neudecker +Newton, Isaac +Nichol +Nicolai, F. +Nicolas of Cusa +Nicole +Nielsen, R. +Niethammer +Nietzsche, F. +Niphus +Nippold +Nizolius, Marius +Noack, L. +Noire, L. +Nolen +Nominalism + in Hobbes + in Locke + of Berkeley + of Hume +Noumena + _See also_ Phenomena, Things in themselves +Novalis +Nyblaeus, A. + +Occam +Occasionalists +Oischinger +Oken, L. +Oldendorp +Ontological argument, the + in Descartes + in Spinoza + in Leibnitz + in Kant +Opel, J.O. +Opposites + the unity of, in Nicolas of Cusa + in Schelling + the reconciliation and identity of, in Hegel +Optimism + in Voltaire + of Leibnitz + of Schleiermacher +Opzoomer, C.W. +Oratorians +Oersted, H.C. +Oswald, James +Oettingen, A. von + +Pabst, J.H. +Paley, W. +Pantheism + of Nicolas of Cusa + of Spinoza + Malebranche's "Christian" + in Toland + Berkeley's tendency to + of Holbach + in Fichte + in Schelling + in Schleiermacher + Fortlage's transcendent + of Strauss + the theistic school on + _See also_ Hegel, Panthelism +Panthelism + of Fichte + in Schelling + of Schopenhauer + _See also_ Ethelism +Pappenheim +Paracelsus +Parker +Pascal, Blaise +Patritius, Franciscus +Paulsen, F. +Paulus +Pertz +Pessimism + of Schopenhauer + of Hartmann +Pesch +Pestalozzi, J.H. +Peters, K. +Pfleiderer, E. +Pfleiderer, O. +Phenomena + and things in themselves in Kant + and representation in Kant + and things in themselves in Herbart + in Schopenhauer + in Lotze + _See also_ Noumena, Things in themselves +Physical Science + concepts of modern + Newton's development of + its influence on philosophy in XIX century +Pico, Francis, of Mirandola +Pico, John, of Mirandola +Pierson +Pietsch, T. +Planck, A. +Planck, K.C. +Platner +Platonists +Pletho, G.G. +Plitt +Ploucquet +Pluemacher, O. +Poiret, P. +Pollock, F. +Pomponatius, Petrus +Porter, N. +Positivism + in Italy + of Comte + of Comte's followers + in England + in Sweden, Brazil, and Chili + in Germany +Prantl +Prel, K. du +Price, Richard +Priestley, J. +Prowe, L. +Psychology + the associational + the sensationalistic + of Leibnitz + of Wolff + of Tetens + Kant on rational + constructive + the basis of philosophy in J.F. Fries + and Beneke + of Beneke + of Fortlage + of Herbart + of Comte + physiological + folk-psychology + + of Spencer + _See also_ Ego, Mind and Body, Soul +Pufendorf, Samuel +Puenjer, B., works by + +Quaebicker, R. +Qualities + Primary and Secondary, so termed by Boyle + Locke's doctrine of + Kant's relation to + Berkeley's co-ordination of +Quesnay + +Rabus, L. +Ragnisco +Ramus (Pierre de la Ramee) +Rationalism and Empiricism + in Locke + in Leibnitz + in Tschirnhausen + in others of the German Illuminati + in relation to Kant +Rauwenhoff +Ravaisson, F. +Realism + of Herbart + the "transfigured," of Spencer + the "transcendental realism" of Hartmann +Ree, P. +Regius +Regulative and constitutive principles, in Kant +Rehmke, J. +Rehnisch +Reichlin-Meldegg, K.A. von +Reicke, R +Reid, Thomas +Reiff, J.F. +Reimarus +Reinhold, E. +Reinhold, K.L. +Relativity of Knowledge + in Comte + of Sir Wm. Hamilton + of Mansel + of Spencer +Religion + Bacon's view of + Hobbes on + Lord Herbert's doctrine of natural + Pascal on + deistic view of + Hume on + Voltaire on + Holbach on + Rousseau's view of + Leibnitz on + Reimarus on + Lessing's developmental theory of + Kant on + Fichte on + Schelling on + Schleiermacher's philosophy of + Hegel's philosophy of + Beneke on + Herbart's doctrine of + Schopenhauer's doctrine of + Comte's religion of humanity + Spencer's view of + Hegel's followers on + Strauss on + Feuerbach's doctrine of + Hartmann's philosophy of + _See also_ Deism, Faith, Faith and Reason, God, Theology +Remusat, C. de +Renan, E. +Renery +Renouvier, C. +Reuchlin, H. +Reuchlin, J. +Reuter, H. +Reynaud, J. +Ribbing, S. +Ribot, Th. +Riedel, O. +Riehl, A. +Riemann +Riezler, S. +Right, _see_ Law +Rio, J.S. del +Ritschl, A. +Ritter, H. +Rixner +Robertson, G.C. +Robinet +Robinet, J.B. +Rocholl +Roeder +Rohmer, F. +Romagnosi, G. +Romanes, G.J. +Romanticists, the +Romundt, H. +Roscher +Roese, F. +Rosenkrantz, W. +Rosenkranz, K. +Rosmini, A. +Rothe, R. +Rousseau, J.J. + system of +Royce, J. +Ruediger +Ruge, A. +Ruge, S. +Ruysbroek + +Sahlin +St. Martin, L.C. +Saint Simon, H. de +Saisset, E. +Sanchez, Francis +Schaarschmidt, C. +Schaeffle, E.F. +Schaller +Schaerer, E. +Schasler, M. +Scheffler +Scheibler +Schelling, F.W.J. (von) + system of + immediate followers of + and Hegel + _See also_ J.G. Fichte, Hegel, Kant, Spinoza +Schelver +Schematism, Kant's +Schiller +Schindler, C. +Schlegel, F. +Schleicher, A. +Schleiden +Schleiermacher, F.D.E. + system of +Schmid, E. +Schmid, Leopold +Schmidkunz, H. +Schmid-Schwarzenberg +Schmidt, K. +Schmidt, L. +Schmidt, O. +Schneider, C.M. +Schneider, G. +Schneider, G.H. +Schneider, O. +Schoenlank +Schopenhauer, A. + and Kant + system of + followers of +Schoppe (Scioppius) +Schubert, F.W. +Schubert, G.H. +Schubert-Soldern, R. von +Schuller, H. +Schultze, Fritz +Schulz, J. +Schulze, G.E. (Aenesidemus-Schulze) +Schuppe, W. +Schurman, J.G. +Schuetz +Schwarz, H. +Schwarz, G.E. +Schwegler, A. +Schwenckfeld +Scottish School, the +Selby-Bigge +Semi-Hegelians, the +Semi-Kantians, the +Semler +Sengler, J. +Sennert, D. +Sensation + a source of knowledge in Locke + and in Hume + the sole source of knowledge in Condillac + Leibnitz's view of + _See also_ Rationalism and Empiricism, Sensationalism +Sensationalism + in Hobbes + in modern thought in general + of Locke + of Condillac + of Bonnet + of Helvetius + of La Mettrie + of Holbach + in Italy + of Feuerbach + of the German positivists + _See also_ Empiricism, Experience, Sensation +Sergi, G. +Seth, A. +Seydel, R. +Seyfarth +Shaftesbury +Sherlock, T. +Sibbern, F.C. +Siber +Siciliani, P. +Sidgwick, H. +Sidney, Algernon +Siebeck +Sigwart, Chr. von +Sigwart, Chr. W. +Silesius +Sime, J. +Simmel, G. +Simon, J. +Skepticism, in Montaigne + in Charron + in F. Sanchez + in Bayle + of Hume + of Diderot, + of D'Alembert + the anti-Critical, of Schulze + the Critical, of Maimon +Smith, Adam +Snell, K. +Social Contract, the theory of, in Hobbes + Hume on + in Rousseau + Kant on +Solger, K.F. +Sommer, H. +Sommer, R. +Soul, the, thought the essence of, in Descartes + a congeries of ideas in Spinoza + thought the essence of, in Malebranche, + thought merely an activity of, in Locke + a sum of inner states in Hume + Leibnitz's monadological view of + Kant on + Herbart on + _See also_ Ego, Immortality, Mind and Body +Space (and Time), Hobbes on + in Leibnitz + in Kant + in Herbart + in Schopenhauer + in Spencer + in Lotze +Spaventa +Spedding +Spencer, H. + system of +Spicker, G. +Spinoza, B. de + position in modern philosophy + and Descartes + system of + and Leibnitz + and Schelling + _See also_ Descartes +Spirit, Schilling's philosophy of + Hegel's phenomenology of + his doctrine of subjective + of objective + of absolute + recent German philosophy of +Spitta, H. +Stadler, A. +Stahl, F.J. +Starcke, C.N. +State, the, early theories of + Hobbes on + Spinoza on + Locke on + Montesquieu on + Rousseau's theory of + Kant's view of + Fichte on + Schelling on + Hegel on + Spencer on + _See also_ Social Contract +Staudinger, F. +Steckelmacher, M. +Steffens, H. +Steffensen, K. +Steinbart +Stein, H. von +Stein, L. +Steinthal +Stephen, Leslie +Stern, A. +Stewart, Dugald +Stirling, J.H. +Stirner, Max (pseudonym, cf. K. Schmidt) +Stoeckl, A. +Stoehr, A. +Stout, G.F. +Strauss, D.F. +Struempell, L. +Stumpf, C. +Stumpf, T. +Sturm, Christoph +Stutzmann +Suabedissen +Suarez, Francis +Substance + Descartes on + Spinoza on + Locke on + Berkeley on (material) + Hume's skeptical analysis of + Leibnitz's doctrine of + Kant on + Schopenhauer on + Hartmann on +Sufficient Reason, the Principle of + in Leibnitz + in Schopenhauer +Sully, James +Sulzer +Susemihl +Suso + +Taine, H. +Tappan, H.P. +Taubert, A. +Tauler +Taurellus +Taute +Teichmueller +Teleological Argument, the + in Boyle + Hume on + Reimarus on + Leibnitz on + Kant on + Herbart on +Teleology + minimized by modern thought + rejected by modern physics + in Boyle + Bacon on + Hobbes's denial of + Descartes on + Spinoza's denial of + Newton on + Leibnitz on + Kant on + in Fichte + Schelling on + in Hegel + in Trendelenburg + in Hartmann + _See also_ Mechanism, Naturalism, Sufficient Reason, Teleological + Argument +Telesius +Temple, Sir William +Testa +Tetens, J.N. +Thaulow +Theology + relation of, to philosophy in Taurellus + in Campanella + and science in Bacon + in Leibnitz + Lessing's speculative + + Kant's view of + Schelling on + Schleiermacher's view of + Comte on the theological stage of thought + Strauss on + Feuerbach on + _See also_ Deism, Faith, Faith and Reason, God, Religion +Thiele, G. +Things in themselves + in Kant's critics and immediate successors + in Fichte + Liebmann on + _See also_ Phenomena, Noumena +Thomas a Kempis +Thilo +Thomasius, Christian +Thomasius, Jacob (Father of Christian) +Thomson, W. +Thorild, T. +Thuemmig +Tieck +Tiedemann +Tillotson, J. +Time, Kant on objective determinations of + _See also_ Space and Time +Tindal, Matthew +Toland, John +Toennies, F. +Torrey, H.A.P. +Toscanelli +Tracy, Destutt de +Trahndorff +Transcendental and Transcendent, meaning of, in Kant +Trendelenburg, A. +Treschow, N. +Tschirnhausen +Turgot +Twardowski, K. + +Ueberhorst +Ueberweg, F. +Uebinger, J. +Ulrici, H. +Unconditioned, the + in Kant + in Sir Wm. Hamilton + in Mansel + in Spencer + _See also_ the Absolute +Unconscious, the, Hartmann's philosophy of +Uphues, G.K. + +Vacherot, E. +Vaihinger, H. +Valla, L. +Vanini +Vatke, W. +Veitch, J. +Venetianer, M. +Venn, J. +Vera +Vico +Villers +Virchow, R. +Vischer, F.T. +Vives +Vloten, J. van +Voetius +Vogel +Vogt, Karl +Volkelt, J. + works by + position of +Volkmann von Volkmar +Volney (Chasseboeuf) +Voltaire +Vorlaender, F. + +Waddington +Wagner, J.J. +Wagner, Richard +Wagner, Rudolph +Waitz, Theodor +Wallace, A.R. +Wallace, William +Wallaschek, R. +Walter, J. +Warburton, W. +Ward, J. +Watson, John +Weber, E.H. +Weber, Theodor +Weigel, E. +Weigel, Valentin +Weiss, Bruno +Weisse, C.H. +Weissenborn +Werner, K. +Weston, S. Burns +Weygoldt +Whately, Richard +Whedon, D.D. +Whewell, W. +Whiston, W. +Wildauer, T. +Willmann, O. +Windelband, W. +Winkler, B. +Witte, J.H. +Wohlrabe +Wolff, Christian + system of + and Kant +Wollaston, William +Woolston, T. +Wundt, W. +Wyck, Van der +Wyttenbach, D. + +Zabarella +Zart, G. +Zeising, A. +Zeller, E. + works of + position of +Ziegler, T. +Ziller, T. +Zimmer, F. +Zimmermann, R. +Zimmern, Helen +Zoellner + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of History Of Modern Philosophy +by Richard Falckenberg + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK HISTORY OF MODERN PHILOSOPHY *** + +***** This file should be named 11100.txt or 11100.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/1/1/1/0/11100/ + +Produced by Juliet Sutherland, Lazar Liveanu and PG Distributed +Proofreaders + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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