The groundwork of theoretical knowledgeadvances through an uninterrupted series of antitheses and syntheses. The fundamental synthesis of the theoretical Theory of Science is the proposition:the Ego posits itself as determined(limited)by the non-Ego. If we analyze this sentence, we find in it two subordinate sentences which are reciprocally opposite. (1) The non-Ego as active determines the Ego, which thus far is passive; but since all activity must start from the Ego, so (2) the Ego determines itself through an absolute activity. Herein is a contradiction, that the Ego should be at the same time active and passive. Since this contradiction would destroy the above proposition, and also suppress the unity of consciousness, we are forced to seek some point, some new synthesis, in which these given antitheses may be united. This synthesis is attained when we find that the conceptions of action and passion, which are contained under the categories of reality and negation, find their compensation and due adjustment in the conception of divisibility. The propositions: “the Ego determines,” and “the Ego is determined,” are reconciled in the proposition: “the Ego determines itself in part, and is determined in part.” Both, however, should be considered as one and the same. Hence more accurately: as many parts of reality as the Ego posits in itself, so many parts of negation does it posit in the non-Ego; and as many parts of realityas the Ego posits in the non-Ego, so many parts of negation does it posit in itself. This determination isreciprocal determination, orreciprocal action. Thus Fichte deduces the last of the three categories under Kant’s general category of relation. In a similar way (viz., by finding a synthesis for apparent contradictions), he deduces the two other categories of this class, viz., that of cause, and that of substance. The process is thus: So far as the Ego is determined, and therefore passive, has the non-Ego reality. The category of reciprocal determination, to which we may ascribe indifferently either of the two sides, reality or negation, may, more strictly taken, imply that the Ego is passive, and the non-Ego active. The notion which expresses this relation is that ofcausality. That, to which activity is ascribed, is calledcause(primal reality), and that to which passiveness is ascribed, is calledeffect; both, conceived in connection, may be termed aworking. On the other side, the Ego determines itself. Herein is a contradiction; (1) the Ego determines itself; it is therefore that which determines, and is thus active; (2) it determines itself; it is therefore that which becomes determined, and is thus passive. Thus in one respect and in one action both reality and negation are ascribed to it. To resolve this contradiction, we must find a mode of action which is activity and passiveness in one; the Ego must determine its passiveness through activity, and its activity through passiveness. This solution is attained by aid of the conception of quantity. In the Ego all reality is first of all posited as absolute quantum, as absolute totality, and thus far the Ego may be compared to a greatest circle which contains all the rest. A definite quantum of activity, or a limited sphere within this greatest circle of activity, is indeed areality; but when compared with the totality of activity, is it also anegationof the totality or passiveness. Here we have found the mediation sought for; it lies in the notion ofsubstance. In so far as the Ego is considered as the whole circle, embracing the totality of all realities, is it substance; but so far as it becomes posited in a determinate sphere of this circle, is it accidental. No accidence is conceivable without substance; for, in order to knowthat any thing is a definite reality, it must first be referred to reality in general, or to substance. In every change we think of substance in the universal; accidence is something specific (determinate), which changes with every changing cause.There is originally but one substance, the Ego; in this one substance all possible accidents, and therefore all possible realities, are posited. The Ego alone is the absolutely infinite. The Ego, as thinking and as acting, indicates a limitation. The Fichtian theory is accordingly Spinozism, only (as Jacobi strikingly called it) a reversed and idealistic Spinozism.
Let us look back a moment. The objectivity which Kant had allowed to exist Fichte has destroyed. There isonlythe Ego. But the Ego presupposes a non-Ego, and therefore a kind of object. How the Ego comes to posit such an object, must the theoretical Theory of Science now proceed to show.
There are two extreme views respecting the relation of the Ego to the non-Ego, according as we start from the conception of cause, or that of substance. (1) Starting from the conception of cause, we have posited through the passiveness of the Ego an activity of the non-Ego. This passiveness of the Ego must have some ground. This cannot lie in the Ego, which in itself posits only activity. Consequently it lies in the non-Ego. Here the distinction between action and passion is apprehended, not simply as quantitative (i. e., viewing the passiveness as a diminished activity), but the passion is in quality opposed to the action; a presupposed activity of the non-Ego is, therefore, a real ground of the passiveness in the Ego. (2) Starting from the conception of substance, we have posited a passiveness of the Ego through its own activity. Here the passiveness in respect of quality is the same as activity, it being only a diminished activity. While, therefore, according to the first view, the passive Ego has a ground distinct in quality from the Ego, and thus a real ground, yet here its ground is only a diminished activity of the Ego, distinct only in quantity from the Ego, and is thus an ideal ground. The former view is dogmatic realism, the latter is dogmatic idealism. The latter affirms: all reality of the non-Egois only a reality given it from the Ego; the former declares: nothing can be given, unless there be something to receive, unless an independent reality of the non-Ego, as thing in itself, be presupposed. Both views present thus a contradiction, which can only be removed by a new synthesis. Fichte attempted this synthesis of idealism and realism, by bringing out a mediating system of critical idealism. For this purpose he sought to show that the ideal ground and the real ground are one and the same. Neither is the simple activity of the Ego a ground for the reality of the non-Ego, nor is the simple activity of the non-Ego a ground for the passiveness in the Ego. Both must be conceived together in this way, viz., the activity of the Ego meets ahindrance, which is set up against it, not without some assistance of the Ego, and which circumscribes and reflects in itself this activity of the Ego. The hindrance is found when the subjective can be no farther extended, and the expanding activity of the Ego is driven back into itself, producing as its result self-limitation. What we call objects are nothing other than the different impinging of the activity of the Ego on some inconceivable hindrance, and these determinations of the Ego, we carry over to something external to ourselves, and represent them to ourselves as space filling matter. That which Fichte calls a hindrance through the non-Ego, is thus in fact the same as Kant calls thing essentially, the only difference being that with Fichte it is made subjective. From this point Fichte then deduces the subjective activities of the Ego, which mediate, or seek to mediate, theoretically, the Ego with the non-Ego—as imagination, representation (sensation, intuition, feeling), understanding, faculty of judgment, reason; and in connection with this he brought out the subjective projections of the intuition, space, and time.
We have now reached the third part of the Theory of Science, via.,the foundation of the practical. We have seen that the Ego represents. But that it may represent does not depend upon the Ego alone, but is determined by something external to it. We could in no way conceive of a representation, except through the presupposition that the Ego finds some hindrance toits undetermined and unlimited activity. Accordingly the Ego, as intelligence, is universally dependent upon an indefinite, and hitherto wholly indefinable non-Ego, and only through and by means of such non-Ego, is it intelligence. A finite being is only finite as intelligence. These limits, however, we shall break through. The practical law which unites the finite Ego with the infinite, can depend upon nothing external to ourselves. The Ego, according to all its determinations, should be posited absolutely through itself, and hence should be wholly independent of every possible non-Ego. Consequently, the absolute Ego and the intelligent Ego, both of which should constitute but one, are opposed to each other. This contradiction is obviated, when we see that because the absolute Ego is capable of no passiveness, but is absolute activity, therefore the Ego determines, through itself, that hitherto unknown non-Ego, to which the hindrance has been ascribed. The limits which the Ego, as theoretic, has set over against itself in the non-Ego, it must, as practical, seek to destroy, and absorb again the non-Ego in itself (or conceive it as the self-limitation of the Ego). The Kantian primacy of the practical reason is here made a truth. The transition of the theoretical part into the practical, the necessity of advancing from the one to the other, Fichte represents more closely thus:—The theoretical Theory of Science had to do with the mediation of the Ego, and the non-Ego. For this end it introduced one connecting link after another, without ever attaining its end. Then enters the reason with the absolute and decisive word: “there ought to be no non-Ego, since the non-Ego can in no way be united with the Ego;” and with this the knot is cut, though not untied. Thus it is the incongruity between the absolute (practical) Ego, and the finite (intelligent) Ego, which is carried over beyond the theoretical province into the practical. True, this incongruity does not wholly disappear, even in the practical province, where the act is only an infinite striving to surpass the limits of the non-Ego. The Ego, so far as it is practical, has, indeed, the tendency to pass beyond the actual world, and establish an ideal world, as it would be were every reality posited bythe absolute Ego; but this striving is always confined to the finite partly through itself, because it goes out towards objects, and objects are finite, and partly through the resistance of the sensible world. We ought to seek to reach the infinite, but we cannot do it; this striving and inability is the impress of our destiny for eternity.
Thus—and in these words Fichte brings together the result of the Theory of Science—the whole being of finite rational natures is comprehended and exhausted: an original idea of our absolute being; an effort to reflect upon ourselves, in order to gain this idea; a limitation, not of this striving, but of our own existence, which first becomes actual through this limitation, or through an opposite principle, a non-Ego, or our finiteness; a self-consciousness, and especially a consciousness of our practical strivings; a determination accordingly of our representations, and through these of our actions; a constant widening of our limits into the infinite.
2.Fichte’s Practical Philosophy.—The principles which Fichte had developed in his Theory of Science he applied to practical life, especially to the theory of rights and morals. He sought to deduce here every thing with methodical rigidness, without admitting any thing which could not be proved from experience. Thus, in the theory of rights and of morals, he will not presuppose a plurality of persons, but first deduces this: even that the man has a body is first demonstrated, though, to be sure, not stringently.
The Theory of Rights(the rights of nature) Fichte founds upon the conception of the individual. First, he deduces the conception of rights, and as follows:—A finite rational being cannot posit itself without ascribing to itself a free activity. Through this positing of its faculties to a free activity, this rational being posits an external world of sense, for it can ascribe to itself no activity till it has posited an object towards which this activity may be directed. Still farther, this free activity of a rational being presupposes other rational beings, for without these it would never be conscious that it was free. We have therefore a pluralityof free individuals, each one of whom has a sphere of free activity. This co-existence of free individuals is not possible without a relation of rights. Since no one with freedom passes beyond his sphere, and each one therefore limits himself, they recognize each other as rational and free. This relation of a reciprocal acting through intelligence and freedom between rational beings, according to which each one has his freedom limited by the conception of the possibility of the other’s freedom, under the condition also that this other limits his own freedom also through that of the first, is called arelation of rights. The supreme maxim of a theory of rights is therefore this: limit thy freedom through the conception of the freedom of every other person with whom thou canst be connected. After Fichte has attempted the application of this conception of rights, and for this end has deduced the corporeity, the anthropological side of man, he passes over to a propertheory of rights. The theory of rights may be divided into three parts. (1) Rights which belong to the simple conception of person are calledoriginal rights. The original right is the absolute right of the person to be only a cause in the sensible world, though he may be absolutely (in other relations than to the sense) an effect. In this are contained, (a) the right of personal (bodily) freedom, and (b) the right of property. But every relation of rights between individual persons is conditioned through each one’s recognition of the rights of the other. Each one must limit the quantum of his free acts for the sake of the freedom of the other, and only so far as the other has respect to my freedom need I have regard to his. In case, therefore, the other does not respect my original rights, some mechanical necessity must be sought in order to secure the rights of person, and this involves (2) theRight of Coercion. The laws of punishment have their end in securing that the opposite of that which is intended shall follow every unrighteous aim, that every vicious purpose shall be destroyed, and the right in its integrity be established. To establish such a law of coercion, and to secure a universal coercive power, the free individuals must enter into covenant among themselves. Such a covenant is only possible on theground of a common nature. Natural right,i. e.the rightful relation between man and man, presupposes thus (3) acivil right, viz., (a) a free covenant, a compact of citizens by which the free individuals guarantee to each other their reciprocal rights; (b) positive laws, a civil legislation, through which the common will of all becomes law; (c) an executive force, a civil power which executes the common will, and in which, therefore, the private will and the common will are synthetically united. The particular view of Fichte’s theory of rights is this: on the one side there is the state as reason demands (philosophical theory of rights), and on the other side the state as it actually is (theory of positive rights and of the state). But now comes up the problem, to make the actual state ever more and more conformable to the state of reason. The science which has this approximation for its aim, is polity. We can demand of no actual state a perfect conformity to the idea of a state. Every state constitution is according to right, if it only leaves possible an advancement to a better state, and the only constitution wholly contrary to right is that whose end is to hold every thing just as it is.
The absolute Ego of the Theory of Science is separated in the Theory of Rights into an infinite number of persons with rights: to bring it out again in its unity is the problem ofEthics. Right and morals are essentially different. Right is the external necessity to omit or to do something in order not to infringe upon the freedom of another; the inner necessity to do or omit something wholly independent of external ends, constitutes the moral nature of man. And as the theory of rights arose from the conflict of the impulse of freedom in one subject with the impulse of freedom in another subject, so does the theory of morals or ethics arise from such a conflict, which, in the present case, is not external but internal, between two impulses in one and the same person. (1) The rational being is impelled towards absolute independence, and strives after freedom for the sake of freedom. This fundamental impulse may be called the pure impulse, and it furnishes the formal principle of ethics, the principle of absolute autonomy, of absolute indeterminableness through anything external to the Ego.But (2) as the rational being is actually empirical and finite, as it by nature posits over against itself a non-Ego and posits itself as corporeal, so there is found beside the pure impulse another, the impulse of nature, which makes for its end not freedom but enjoyment. This impulse of nature furnishes the material, utilitarian (eudœmoniacal) principle of striving after a connected enjoyment. Both impulses, which from a transcendental standpoint are one and the same original impulse of the human being, strive after unity, and furnish a third impulse which is a mingling of the two. The pure impulse gives the form, and the natural impulse the content of an action. It is true that sensuous objects will be chosen, but by virtue of the pure impulse these are modified so as to conform to the absolute Ego. This mingled impulse is now the moral impulse. It mediates the pure and the natural impulse. But since these two lie infinitely apart, the approximation of the natural to the pure impulse is an infinite progression. The intent in an action is directed towards a complete freeing from nature, and it is only the result of our limitation that the act should remain still conformable to the natural impulse. Since the Ego can never be independent so long as it is Ego, the final aim of the rational being lies in infinity. There must be a course in whose progress the Ego can conceive itself as approximating towards absolute independence. This course is determined in infinity in the idea; there is, therefore, no possible case in which it is not determined what the pure impulse should demand. We might name this course the moral determination (destiny) of the finite rational being.The principle of ethics is, therefore: Always fulfil thy destiny!That which is in every moment conformable to our moral destiny, is at the same time demanded by our natural impulse, though it does not follow that every thing which the latter demands agrees therefore with the former. I ought to act only when conscious that something is duty, and I ought to discharge the duty for its own sake. The blind motives of sympathy, love of mankind, &c., have not, as mere impulses of nature, morality. The moral impulse has causality as having none, for it demands be free! Through the conception of the absolute ought, is therational being absolutely independent, and is represented thus only when acting from duty. The formal condition of the morality of our actions, is: act always according to the best conviction of thy duty; or, act according to thy conscience. The absolute criterion of the correctness of our conviction of duty is a feeling of truth and certainty. This immediate feeling never deceives, for it only exists with the perfect harmony of our empirical Ego with that which is pure and original. From this point Fichte developes his particular ethics, or theory of duties, which, however, we must here pass by.
Fichte’stheory of religionis developed in the above mentioned treatise: “On the ground of our faith in a divine government of the world,” and in the writings which he subsequently put forth in its defence. The moral government of the world, says Fichte, we assume to be the divine. This divine government becomes living and actual in us through right-doing: it is presupposed in every one of our actions which are only performed in the presupposition that the moral end is attainable in the world of sense. The faith in such an order of the world comprises the whole of faith, for this living and active moral order is God; we need no other God, and can comprehend no other. There is no ground in the reason to go out of this moral order of the world, and by concluding from design to a designer, affirm a separate being as its cause. Is, then, this order an accidental one? It is the absolute First of all objective knowledge. But now if you should be allowed to draw the conclusion that there is a God as a separate being, what have you gained by this? This being should be distinct from you and the world, it should work in the latter according to conceptions; it should, therefore, be capable of conceptions, and possess personality and consciousness. But what do you call personality and consciousness? Certainly that which you have found in yourself, which you have learned to know in yourself, and which you have characterized with such a name. But that you cannot conceive of this without limitation and finiteness, you might see by the slightest attention to the construction of this conception. By attaching, therefore, such a predicate to this being,you bring it down to a finite, and make it a being like yourself; you have not conceived God as you intended to do, but have only multiplied yourself in thought. The conception of God, as a separate substance, is impossible and contradictory. God has essential existence only as such a moral order of the world. Every belief in a divine being, which contains any thing more than the conception of the moral order of the world, is an abomination to me, and in the highest degree unworthy of a rational being.—Religion and morality are, on this standpoint, as on that of Kant, naturally one; both are an apprehending of the supersensible, the former through action and the latter through faith. This “Religion of joyous right-doing,” Fichte farther carried out in the writings which he put forth to rebut the charge of atheism. He affirms that nothing but the principles of the new philosophy could restore the degenerate religious sense among men, and bring to light the inner essence of the Christian doctrine. Especially he seeks to show this in his “Appeal” to the public. In this he says: to furnish an answer to the questions: what is good? what is true? is the aim of my philosophical system. We must start with the affirmation that there is something absolutely true and good; that there is something which can hold and bind the free flight of thought. There is a voice in man which cannot be silenced, which affirms that there is a duty, and that it must be done simply for its own sake. Resting on this basis, there is opened to us an entirely new world in our being; we attain a higher existence, which is independent of all nature, and is grounded simply in ourselves. I would call this absolute self-satisfaction of the reason, this perfect freedom from all dependence, blessedness. As the single but unerring means of blessedness, my conscience points me to the fulfilment of duty. I am, therefore, impressed by the unshaken conviction, that there is a rule and fixed order, according to which the purely moral disposition necessarily makes blessed. It is absolutely necessary, and it is the essential element in religion, that the man who maintains the dignity of his reason, will repose on the faith in this order of a moral world, will regard each one of his duties as an enactment of thisorder, and will joyfully submit himself to, and find bliss in, every consequence of his duty. Thou shalt know God if I can only beget in thee a dutiful character, and though to others of us thou mayest seem to be still in the world of sense, yet for thyself art thou already a partaker of eternal life.
II.The later form of Fichte’s Philosophy.—Every thing of importance which Fichte accomplished as a speculative philosopher, is contained in the Theory of Science as above considered. Subsequently, after his departure from Jena, his system gradually became modified, and from different causes. Partly, because it was difficult to maintain the rigid idealism of the Theory of Science; partly, because Schelling’s natural philosophy, which now appeared, was not without an influence upon Fichte’s thinking, though the latter denied this and became involved in a bitter controversy with Schelling; and, partly, his outward relations, which were far from being happy, contributed to modify his view of the world. Fichte’s writings, in this second period, are for the most part popular, and intended for a mixed class of readers. They all bear the impress of his acute mind, and of his exalted manly character, but lack the originality and the scientific sequence of his earlier productions. Those of them which are scientific do not satisfy the demands which he himself had previously laid down with so much strictness, both for himself and others, in respect of genetic construction and philosophical method. His doctrine at this time seems rather as a web, of his old subjective idealistic conceptions and the newly added objective idealism, so loosely connected that Schelling might call it the completest syncretism and eclecticism. His new standpoint is chiefly distinguished from his old by his attempt to merge his subjective idealism into an objective pantheism (in accordance with the new Platonism), to transmute the Ego of his earlier philosophy into the absolute, or the thought of God. God, whose conception he had formerly placed only at the end of his system, in the doubtful form of a moral order of the world, becomes to him now the absolute beginning, and single element of his philosophy. This gave to his philosophy an entirely new color. The moral severitygives place to a religious mildness; instead of the Ego and the Ought, life and love are now the chief features of his philosophy; in place of the exact dialectic of the Theory of Science, he now makes choice of mystical and metaphorical modes of expression.
This second period of Fichte’s philosophy is especially characterized by its inclination to religion and Christianity, as exhibited most prominently in the essay “Direction to a Blessed Life.” Fichte here affirms that his new doctrine is exactly that of Christianity, and especially of the Gospel according to John. He would make this gospel alone the clear foundation of Christian truth, since the other apostles remained half Jews after their conversion, and adhered to the fundamental error of Judaism, that the world had a creation in time. Fichte lays great weight upon the first part of John’s prologue, where the formation of the world out of nothing is confuted, and a true view laid down of a revelation co-eternal with God, and necessarily given with his being. That which this prologue says of the incarnation of the Logos in the person of Jesus, has, according to Fichte, only a historic validity. The absolute and eternally true standpoint is, that at all times, and in every one, without exception, who is vitally sensible of his union with God, and who actually and in fact yields up his whole individual life to the divine life within him,—the eternal word becomes flesh in the same way as in Jesus Christ and holds a personal, sensible, and human existence. The whole communion of believers, the first-born alike with the later born, coincides in the Godhead, the common source of life for all. And so then, Christianity having gained its end, disappears again in the eternal truth, and affirms that every man should come to a union with God. So long as man desires to be himself any thing whatsoever, God does not come to him, for no man can become God. But just so soon as he purely, wholly, and radically gives up himself, God alone remains, and is all and in all. The man himself can beget no God, but he can give up himself as a proper negation, and thus he disappears in God.
The result of his advanced philosophizing, Fichte has brieflyand clearly comprehended in the following lines, which we extract from two posthumous sonnets:
The Eternal OneLives in my life and sees in my beholding.Nought is but God, and God is nought but life.Clearly the vail of things rises before thee;It is thyself, what though the mortal dieAnd hence there lives but God in thine endeavors,If thou wilt look through that which lives beyond this death,The vail of things shall seem to thee as vail,And unveiled thou shalt look upon the life divine.
The Eternal OneLives in my life and sees in my beholding.Nought is but God, and God is nought but life.Clearly the vail of things rises before thee;It is thyself, what though the mortal dieAnd hence there lives but God in thine endeavors,If thou wilt look through that which lives beyond this death,The vail of things shall seem to thee as vail,And unveiled thou shalt look upon the life divine.
The Eternal OneLives in my life and sees in my beholding.Nought is but God, and God is nought but life.Clearly the vail of things rises before thee;It is thyself, what though the mortal dieAnd hence there lives but God in thine endeavors,If thou wilt look through that which lives beyond this death,The vail of things shall seem to thee as vail,And unveiled thou shalt look upon the life divine.
The Eternal One
Lives in my life and sees in my beholding.
Nought is but God, and God is nought but life.
Clearly the vail of things rises before thee;
It is thyself, what though the mortal die
And hence there lives but God in thine endeavors,
If thou wilt look through that which lives beyond this death,
The vail of things shall seem to thee as vail,
And unveiled thou shalt look upon the life divine.
A peculiar, and in many respects noticeable, carrying out of the Kantian philosophy, was attempted byJohann Friedrich Herbart, who was born at Oldenburg in 1776, chosen professor of philosophy in Göttingen in 1805; made Kant’s successor at Königsberg in 1808, and recalled to Göttingen in 1833, where he died in 1841. His philosophy, instead of making, like most other systems, for its principle, an idea of the reason, followed the direction of Kant, and expended itself mainly in a critical examination of the subjective experience. It is essentially a criticism, but with results which are peculiar, and which differ wholly from those of Kant. Its fundamental position in the history of philosophy is an isolated one; instead of regarding antecedent systems as elements of a true philosophy, it looks upon almost all of them as failures. It is especially hostile to the post-Kantian German philosophy, and most of all to Schelling’s philosophy of nature, in which it could only behold a phantom and a delusion; sooner than come in contact with this, it would join Hegelianism, of which it is the opposite pole. We will give a brief exposition of its prominent thoughts.
1.The Basis and Starting-point of Philosophyis, according to Herbart, the common view of things, or a knowledge which shall accord with experience. A philosophical system is in reality nothing but an attempt by which a thinker strives to solve certain questions which present themselves before him. Every question brought up in philosophy should refer itself singly and solely to that which is given, and must arise from this source alone, because there is no other original field of certainty, for men, than experience alone. Every philosophy should begin with it. The thinking should yield itself to experience, which should lead it, and not be led by it. Experience, therefore, is the only object and basis of philosophy; that which is not given cannot be an object of thought, and it is impossible to establish any knowledge which transcends the limits of experience.
2.The first act of Philosophy.—Though the material furnished by experience is the basis of philosophy, yet, since it is furnished, it stands outside of philosophy. The question arises, what is the first act or beginning of philosophy? The thinking should first separate itself from experience, that it may clearly see the difficulties of its undertaking.The beginning of philosophy, where the thinking rises above that which is given, is accordingly doubt orscepticism. Scepticism is twofold, a lower and a higher. The lower scepticism simply doubts that things are so constituted as they appear to us to be; the higher scepticism passes beyond the form of the phenomenon, and inquires whether in reality any thing there exists. It doubtse. g.the succession in time; it asks in reference to the forms of the objects of nature which exhibit design, whether the design is perceived, or only attached to them in the thought, &c. Thus the problems which form the content of metaphysics, are gradually brought out. The result of scepticism is therefore not negative, but positive. Doubt is nothing but the thinking upon those conceptions of experience which are the material of philosophy. Through this reflection, scepticism leads us to the knowledge that these conceptions of experience, though they refer to something given, yet contain no conceivable content free from logical incongruities.
3.Remodelling of the Conceptions of Experience.—Metaphysics, according to Herbart, is the science of that which is conceivable in experience. Our view thus far has been a twofold one. On the one side we hold fast to the opinion that the single basis of philosophy is experience, and on the other side, scepticism has shaken the credibility of experience. The point now is to transform this scepticism into a definite knowledge of metaphysical problems. Conceptions from experience crowd upon us, which cannot be thoughts,i. e.they may indeed be thought by the ordinary understanding, but this thinking is obscure and confused, and does not separate nor compare opposing characteristics. But an acute process of thought, a logical analysis, will find in the conceptions of experience (e. g.space, time, becoming, motion, &c.) contradictions and characteristics, which are totally inconsistent with each other. What now is to be done? We may not reject these conceptions, for they are given, and beyond the given we cannot step; we cannot retain them, for they are inconceivable and cannot logically be established. The only way of escape which remains to us is to remodel them.To remodel the conceptions of experience, to eliminate their contradictions, is the proper act of speculation. Scepticism has brought to light the more definite problems which involve a contradiction, and whose solution it therefore belongs to metaphysics to attempt; the most important of these are the problems of inherence, change, and the Ego.
The relation between Herbart and Hegel is very clear at this point. Both are agreed respecting the contradictory nature of the determinations of thought, and the conceptions of experience. But from this point they separate. It is the nature of these conceptions as of every thing, says Hegel, to be an inner contradiction; becoming, for instance, is essentially the unity of being, and not being, &c. This is impossible, says Herbart, on the other side, so long as the principle of contradiction is valid; if the conceptions of experience contain inner contradictions, this is not the fault of the objective world, but of the representing subject who must rectify his false apprehension by remodelling these conceptions, and eliminating the contradiction. Herbart thus charges thephilosophy of Hegel with empiricism, because it receives from experience these contradictory conceptions unchanged, and not only regards these as established, but even goes so far as to metamorphose logic on their account, and this simply because they are given in experience, though their contradictory nature is clearly seen. Hegel and Herbart stand related to each other as Heraclitus and Parmenides (cf.§ § VI. and VII.)
4.Herbart’s Reals.—From this point Herbart reaches his “reals” (Realen) as follows: To discover the contradictions, he says, in all our conceptions of experience, might lead us to absolute scepticism, and to despair of the truth. But here we remember that if the existence of every thing real be denied, then the appearance, sensation, representation, and thought itself would be destroyed. We perceive, therefore, just as strong an indication of being as of appearance. We cannot, indeed, ascribe to the given any true and essential beingper se, it is notper sealone, but only on, or in, or through something other.The truly beingis an absolute being, which as such excludes every thing relative and dependent; it isabsolute position, which it is not for us first to posit, but only to recognize. In so far as this being is attributed to any thing, this latter possesses reality. The truly being is, therefore, ever aquale, a something which is considered as being. In order now that this posited may correspond to the conditions which lie in the conception of absolute position, thewhatof the real must be thought (a) as absolutely positive or affirmative,i. e.without any negation or limitation, which might destroy again the absoluteness; (b) as absolutely simple,i. e.in no way, as a multiplicity or admitting of inner antitheses; (c) as indeterminate by any conceptions of greatness,i. e.not as a quantum which may be divided and extended in time and space; hence, also, not as a constant greatness or continuity. But we must never forget that this being or this absolute reality is not simply something thought, but is something independent and resting on itself, and hence it is simply to be recognized by the thinking. The conception of this thinking lies at the basis of all Herbart’s metaphysics. Take an example of this.The first problem to be solved in metaphysics is the problem of inherence, or the thing with its characteristics. Every perceptible thing represents itself to the senses as a complex of several characteristics. But all the attributes of a thing which are given in perception are relative. We saye. g.that sound is a property of a certain body. It sounds—but it cannot-do this without air; what now becomes of this property in a space without air? Again, we say that a body is heavy, but it is only so on the earth. Or again, that a body is colored, but light is necessary for this; what now becomes of such a property in darkness? Still farther, a multiplicity of properties is incompatible with the unity of an object. If you askwhatis this thing, you are answered with the sum of its characteristics; it is soft, white, full-sounding, heavy,—but your question was of one, not of many. The answer only affirms what the thing has, not what it is. Moreover, the list of characteristics is always incomplete. The what of a thing can therefore lie neither in the individual given properties, nor in their unity. In determining what a thing is, we have only this answer remaining, viz., the thing is that unknown, which we must posit before we can posit any thing as lying in the given properties; in a word, it is the substance. For if, in order to see what the thing purely and essentially is, we take away the characteristics which it may have, we find that nothing more remains, and we perceive that what we considered as the real thing was only a complex of characteristics, and the union of these in one whole. But since every appearance indicates a definite reality, and thus since there must be as much reality as there is appearance, we have to consider the reality, which lies at the basis of the thing, with its characteristics, as a complex of many simple substances or monads, and whose quality is different in different instances. When our experience has led us to a repeated grouping together of these monads, we call the group a thing. Let us now briefly look at the formation of those fundamental conceptions of metaphysics, which involve the same thoughts through the fundamental conception of being. First, there is the conception of causality, which cannot be maintainedin its ordinary form. All that we can perceive in the act is succession in time, and not the necessary connection of cause with effect. The cause in itself can be neither transcendent nor immanent; it cannot be transcendent, because a real influence of one real thing upon another, contradicts the conception of the absolute reality; nor immanent, for then the substance must be thought as one with its characteristics, which contradicts the investigations concerning a thing with its characteristics. We can just as little find in the conception of the real an answer to the question, how one determinate being can be brought into contact with another, for the real is the absolute unchangeable. We can therefore only explain the conception of causality on the ground that the different reals which lie at the basis of the characteristics are conceived, each one for itself, as cause of the phenomenon, there being just as many causes as there are phenomena. The problem of change, is intimately connected with the conception of cause. Since, however, according to Herbart, there is no inner change, no self-determination, no becoming and no life; since the monads are, and remain in themselves unchangeable, they do not thereforebecomedifferent in respect of quality, but theyareoriginally different one from another, and each one exhibits its equality without ever any change. The problem of change can thus only be solved through the theory of the disturbance and self-preservation of these essences. But if that which we call not simply an apparent but an actual event, in the essence of the monads, may be reduced to a “self-preservation,” as the last gleam of an activity and life, still we have the question ever remaining, how to explain the appearance of change. For this it is necessary to bring in two auxiliary conceptions; first, that of accidental views, and second, that of intellectual spaces. The accidental views, an expression taken from mathematics, signify, in reference to the problem before us this much, viz., one and the same conception may often be considered in very different relations to some other essence, without the slightest change in its own essence,e. g.a straight line may be considered as radius or as tangent, and a tone as harmonious or discordant. By help ofthese accidental views, we may now regard that which actually results in the monad, when other monads, opposite in quality, come in contact with it, as on the one side an actual occurrence, though on the other side, no actual change can be imputed to the original condition of the monads (a gray color,e. g.seems comparatively white by the side of black, and comparatively black by the side of white, without changing at all its quality). A further auxiliary conception is that of intellectual space, which, arises when we must consider these essences as at the same time together and not together. By means of this conception we can eliminate the contradictions from the conception of movement. Lastly, it can be seen that the conception of matter and that of the Ego (in psychologically explaining which, the rest of the metaphysics is occupied) are, like the preceding ones, no less contradictory in themselves than they are irreconcilable with the fundamental conception of the real; for neither can an extended being, like matter, be formed out of spaceless monads—and with matter, therefore, fall also the ordinary conceptions of space and time—nor can we admit, without transformation, the conception of the Ego, since it exhibits the contradictory conception of a thing with many and changing characteristics (conditions, powers, faculties, &c.)
We are reminded by Herbart’s “reals” of the atomic theory of the atomists (cf.§ IX. 2), of the Eleatic theory of the one being (cf.§ VI.), and of Leibnitz’s monadology. His reals however are distinguished from the atoms by not possessing impenetrability. The monads of Herbart may be just as well represented in the same space as a mathematical point may be conceived as accurately coexisting with another in the same place. In this respect the “real” of Herbart has a far greater similarity to the “one” of the Eleatics. Both are simple, and to be conceived in intellectual spaces, but the essential difference is, that Herbart’s substances exist in numbers distinct from one another, and even from opposites among themselves. Herbart’s simple quantities have already been compared to the monads of Leibnitz, but these latter have essentially a power of representation; they are essences with inner circumstances,while, according to Herbart, representation, just as little as every other circumstance, belongs to the essence itself.
5.Psychologyis connected with metaphysics. The Ego is primarily a metaphysical problem, and comes in this respect under the category of the thing with its characteristics. It is a real with many properties changing circumstances, powers, faculties, activities, &c., and thus is not without contradictions. But then the Ego is a psychological principle, and here those contradictions may be considered which lie in the ideality of subject and object. The subject posits itself and is therefore itself object. But this posited object is nothing other than the positing subject. Thus the Ego is, as Fichte says, subject-object, and, as such, full of the hardest contradictions, for subject and object will never be affirmed as one and the same without contradiction. But now if the Ego is given it cannot be thrown away, but must be purified from its contradictions. This occurs whenever the Ego is conceived as that which represents, and the different sensations, thoughts, &c. are embraced under the common conception of changing appearance. The solution of this problem is similar to that of inherence. As in the latter problem the thing was apprehended as a complex of as many reals as it has characteristics, just so here the Ego; but with the Ego inner circumstances and representations correspond to the characteristics. Thus that which we are accustomed to name Ego is nothing other than the soul. The soul as a monad, as absolutely being, is therefore simple, eternal, indissoluble, from which we may conclude its eternal existence. From this standpoint Herbart combats the ordinary course of psychology which ascribes certain powers and faculties to the soul. That which stands out in the soul is nothing other than self-preservation, which can only be manifold and changing in opposition to other reals. The causes of changing circumstances are therefore these other reals, which come variously in conflict with the soul-monad, and thus produce that apparently infinite manifoldness of sensations, representations, and affections. This theory of self-preservation lies at the basis of all Herbart’s psychology. That which psychology ordinarily calls feeling, thinking, representing,&c., are only specific differences in the self-preservation of the soul; they indicate no proper condition of the inner real essence itself, but only relations between the reals, relations, which, coming up together at the same time from different sides, are partly suppressed, partly forwarded, and partly modified. Consciousness is the sum of those relations in which the soul stands to other essences. But the relations to the objects, and hence to the representations corresponding to these, are not all equally strong; one presses, restricts, and obscures another, a relation of equilibrium which can be calculated according to the doctrine of statics. But the suppressed representations do not wholly disappear, but waiting on the threshold of consciousness for the favorable moment when they shall be permitted again to arise, they join themselves with kindred representations, and press forward with united energies. This movement of the representations (sketched in a masterly manner by Herbart) may be calculated according to the rules of mathematics, and this is Herbart’s well known application of mathematics to the empirical theory of the soul. The representations which were pressed back, which wait on the threshold of consciousness and only work in the darkness, and of which we are only half conscious, are feelings. They express themselves as desires, according as their struggle forward is more or less successful. Desire becomes will when united with the hope of success. The will is no separate faculty of the mind, but consists only in the relation of the dominant representations to the others. The power of deciding and the character of a man, prominently depend upon the constant presence in the consciousness of a certain number of representations, while other representations are weakened, or denied an entrance over the threshold of consciousness.
6.The Importance of Herbart’s Philosophy.—Herbart’s philosophy is important mainly for its metaphysics and psychology. In the other spheres and activities of the human mind,e. g.rights, morality, the state, art, religion, his philosophy is mostly barren of results, and though there are not wanting here striking observations, yet these have no connection with the speculative principles of the system. Herbart fundamentally isolates the different philosophicalsciences, distinguishing especially and in the strictest manner between theoretical and practical philosophy. He charges the effort after unity in philosophy, with occasioning the greatest errors; for logical, metaphysical, and æsthetic forms are entirely diverse. Ethics and æsthetics have to do with objects in which an immediate evidence appears, but this is foreign to the whole nature of metaphysics, which can only gain its knowledge as errors have been removed. Æsthetic judgments on which practical philosophy rests, are independent of the reality of any object, and appear with immediate certainty in the midst of the strongest metaphysical doubts. Moral elements, says Herbart, are pleasing and displeasing relations of the will. He thus grounds the whole practical philosophy upon æsthetic judgments. The æsthetic judgment is an involuntary and immediate judgment, which attaches to certain objects, without proof, the predicates of goodness and badness.—Here is seen the greatest difference between Herbart and Kant.
We may characterize, on the whole, the philosophy of Herbart as a carrying out of the monadology of Leibnitz, full of enduring acuteness, but without any inner fruitfulness or capacity of development.
Schellingsprang fromFichte. We may pass on to an exposition of his philosophy without any farther introduction, since that which it contains from Fichte forms a part of its historical development, and will therefore be treated of as this is unfolded.
Friedrich Wilhelm JosephSchellingwas born at Leonberg, in Würtemberg, January 27th, 1775. With a very precocious development, he entered the theological seminary at Tübingen inhis fifteenth year, and devoted himself partly to philology and mythology, but especially to Kant’s philosophy. During his course as a student, he was in personal connection with Hölderlin and Hegel. Schelling came before the world as an author very early. In 1792 appeared his graduating treatise on the third chapter of Genesis, in which he gave an interesting philosophical signification to the Mosaic account of the fall. In the following year, 1793, he published inPaulus’Memorabilia an essay of a kindred nature “On the Myths and Philosophemes of the Ancient World.” To the last year of his abode at Tübingen belong the two philosophical writings: “On the Possibility of a Form for Philosophy” and “On the Ego as a Principle of Philosophy, or on the Unconditioned in Human Knowledge.” After completing his university studies, Schelling went to Leipsic as tutor to the Baron von Riedesel, but soon afterwards repaired to Jena, where he became the pupil and co-laborer of Fichte. After Fichte’s departure from Jena, he became himself, 1798, teacher of philosophy there, and now began, removing himself from Fichte’s standpoint, to develope more and more his own peculiar views. He published in Jena theJournal of Speculative Physics, and also in company with Hegel,the Critical Journal. In the year 1803 he went to Würzburg as professorordinariusof philosophy. In 1807 he repaired to Munich as memberordinariusof the newly established academy of sciences there. The year after he became general secretary of the Academy of the plastic arts, and subsequently, when the university professorship was established at Munich, he became its incumbent. After the death of Jacobi, he was chosen president of the Munich Academy. In 1841 he removed to Berlin, where he has sometimes held lectures. For the last ten years Schelling has written nothing of importance, although he has repeatedly promised an exposition of his present system. By far the greater portion of his writings belongs to his early life. Schelling’s philosophy is no completed system of which his separate works are the constituent elements; but, like Plato’s, it has a historical development, a course of formative steps which the philosopher has passed through in hisown life. Instead of systematically elaborating the separate sciences from the standpoint of his principle, Schelling has gone back repeatedly to the beginning again, seeking ever for new foundations and new standpoints, connecting these for the most part (like Plato) with some antecedent philosophemes, (Fichte, Spinoza, New Platonism, Leibnitz, Jacob Bœhme, Gnosticism,) which in their order he attempted to interweave with his system. We must modify accordingly our exposition of Schelling’s Philosophy, and take up its different periods, separated according to the different groups of his writings.[4]
I.First Period. Schelling’s Procession from Fichte.
Schelling’s starting point was Fichte, whom he decidedly followed in his earliest writings. In his essay, “On the Possibility of a Form of Philosophy” he shows the necessity of that supreme principle which Fichte had first propounded. In his essay, “On the Ego” Schelling shows that the ultimate ground of our knowledge can only lie in the Ego, and hence that every true philosophy must be idealism. If our knowledge shall possess reality, there must be one point in which ideality and reality, thought and being, can identically coincide; and if outside of our knowledge, there were something higher which conditioned it, if itself were not the highest, then it could not be absolute. Fichte regarded this essay as a commentary on hisTheory of Science; yet it contains already indications of Schelling’s subsequent standpoint, in its expressly affirming the unity of all knowledge, the necessity that in the end all the different sciences shall become merged into one. In the “Letters on Dogmatism and Criticism,” 1795, Schelling combatted the notions of those Kantians who had left the critical and idealistic standpoint of their master, and fallen back again into the old dogmatism. It was also on the standpoint of Fichte that Schelling published in Niethammer’s and Fichte’s Journal, 1797-98, a series of articles, in which he gave a survey of the recent philosophical literature. Here he beginsto turn his attention towards a philosophical deduction of nature, though he still remains on the standpoint of Fichte when he deduces nature wholly from the essence of the Ego. In the essay which was composed soon after, and entitled “Ideas for a philosophy of Nature,” 1797, and the one “On the World-soul,” 1798, he gradually unfolded more clearly his views. The chief points which are brought out in the two last named essays are the following: The first origin of the conception of matter springs from nature and the intuition of the human mind. The mind is the union of an unlimited and a limiting energy. If there were no limit to the mind, consciousness would be just as impossible as if the mind were totally and absolutely limited. Feeling, perception and knowledge are only conceivable, as the energy which strives for the unlimited becomes limited through its opposite, and as this latter becomes itself freed from its limitations. The actual mind or heart consists only in the antagonism of these two energies, and hence only in their ever approximate or relative unity. Just so is it in nature. Matter as such is not the first, for the forces of which it is the unity are before it. Matter is only to be apprehended as the ever becoming product of attraction and repulsion; it is not, therefore, a mere inert grossness, as we are apt to represent it, but these forces are its original. But force in the material is like something immaterial. Force in nature is that which we may compare to mind. Since now the mind or heart exhibits precisely the same conflict, as matter, of opposite forces, we must unite the two in a higher identity. But the organ of the mind for apprehending nature is the intuition which takes, as object of the external sense, the space which has been filled and limited by the attracting and repelling forces. Thus Schelling was led to the conclusion thatthe same absoluteappears in nature as in mind, and that the harmony of these is something more than a thought in reference to them. “Or if you affirm that we onlycarry oversuch an idea to nature, then have you utterly failed to apprehend the only nature which there can be to us. For our view of nature is not that it accidentally meets the laws of our mind—(perhaps through the mediation of a third)—but that itnecessarily and originally not only expresses, but itself realizes, the laws of our mind, and that it is nature, and is called such only in so far as it does this.” “Nature should be the visible mind, and mind invisible nature. Here, therefore, in the absolute ideality of the mindwithinus, and naturewithoutus, must we solve the problem how it is possible for a nature outside of us to be.” This thought, that nature or matter is just as much the actual unity of an attracting and a repelling force, as the mind or heart is the unity of an unlimited and a limiting tendency, and that the repelling force in matter corresponds to the positive or unlimited activity of the mind, while the attracting force corresponds to the mind’s negative or limiting activity—this identical deduction of matter from the essence of the Ego, is very prominent in all that Schelling wrote upon natural philosophy during this period. Nature thus appears as a copy (Doppelbild) of the mind, which the mind itself produces, in order to return, by its means, to pure self-intuition, to self-consciousness. Hence we have the successive stages of nature, in which all the stations of the mind in its way to self-consciousness are externally established. It is especially in the organic world that the mind can behold its own self-production. Hence, in every thing organic, there is something symbolical, every plant bears some feature of the soul. The chief characteristics of an organic formation,—the self-forming process from within outwards, the conformity to some end, the change of interpenetration of form and matter—are equally chief features of the mind. Since now there exists in our mind an endless striving to organize itself, so there must also be manifested in the external world a universal tendency to organization. The whole universe may thus be called a kind of organization which has formed itself from a centre, rising ever from a lower to a higher stage. From such a point of view, the natural philosopher will make it his chief effort to bring to a unity in his contemplations that life of nature, which by many researches into physical science had been separated into numberless different powers. “It is a needless trouble which many have given themselves, to show how very different is the working of fire and electricity, for everyone knows this who has ever seen or heard of the two. But our mind strives after unity in the system of its knowledge; it will not endure that there should be pressed upon it a separate principle for every single phenomenon, and it will only believe that it sees nature where it can discover the greatest simplicity of laws in the greatest multiplicity of phenomena, and the highest frugality of means in the highest prodigality of effects. Therefore, every thought, even that which is now rough and crude, merits attention so soon as it tends towards the simplifying of principles, and if it serves no other end, it at least strengthens the impulse to investigate and trace out the hidden process of nature.” The special tendency of the scientific investigation of nature which prevailed at that time, was to make a duality of forces the predominant element in the life of nature. In mechanics, the Kantian theory of the opposition of attraction and repulsion was adopted; in chemistry, by apprehending electricity as positive and negative, its phenomenon was brought near that of magnetism; in physiology there was the opposition of irritability and sensibility, &c. In opposition to these dualities, Schelling now insisted upon the unity of every thing opposite, the unity of all dualities, and this not simply as an abstract unity, but as a concrete identity, as the harmonious co-working of the heterogeneous. The world is the actual unity of a positive and a negative principle, “and these two conflicting forces taken together, or represented in their conflict, lead to the idea of an organizing principle which makes of the world a system, in other words, to the idea of a world-soul.”
In his above-cited essay on “the world-soul,” Schelling took the great step forward of apprehending nature as entirely autonomic. In the world-soul nature has a peculiar principle which dwells within it, and works according to conception. In this way the objective world was recognized as the independent life of nature in a manner which the logical idealism of Fichte would not permit. Schelling proceeded still farther in this direction, and distinguished definitely, as the two sides of philosophy, the philosophy of nature and a transcendental philosophy. By placing a philosophy of nature by the side of idealism, Schelling passed decidedlybeyond the standpoint of science, and we thus enter a second stadium of his philosophizing, though his method still remained that of Fichte, and he continued to believe that he was speculating in the spirit of theTheory of Science.
II.Second Period. Standpoint of the distinguishing between the Philosophy of Nature and of Mind.
This standpoint of Schelling is chiefly carried out in the following works:—“First Draft of a System of Natural Philosophy,” 1799; an introduction to this, 1799; articles in the “Journal of Speculative Physics,” 1800, 1801; “System of Transcendental Idealism,” 1800. Schelling thus distinguishes the two sides of philosophy. All knowledge rests upon the harmony of a subject with an object. That which is simply objective is natural, and that which is simply subjective is the Ego or intelligence. There are two possible ways of uniting these two sides: we may either make nature first, and inquire how it is that intelligence is associated with it (natural philosophy); or we may make the subject first, and inquire how do objects proceed from the subject (transcendental philosophy). The end of all philosophy must be to make either an intelligence out of nature, or a nature out of intelligence. As the transcendental philosophy has to subject the real to the ideal, so must natural philosophy attempt to explain the ideal from the real. Both, however, are only the two poles of one and the same knowledge which reciprocally attract each other; hence, if we start from either pole, we are necessarily drawn towards the other.
1.Natural Philosophy.—To philosophize concerning nature is, in a certain sense, to create nature—to raise it from the dead mechanism in which it had seemed confined, to inspire it with freedom, and transpose it into a properly free development. And what, then, is matter, other than mind which has become extinct? According to this view, since nature is only the visible organism of our understanding, it can produce nothing but what is conformable to a rule and an end. But you radically destroy every idea of nature just so soon as you allow its design to have come to it from without, by passing over from the understanding of anybeing. The complete exhibition of the intellectual world in the laws and forms of the phenomenal world, and, on the other hand, the complete conception of these laws and forms from the intellectual world, and therefore the exhibition of the ideality of nature with the ideal world, is the work of natural philosophy. Immediate experience is indeed its starting point; we know originally nothing except through experience; but just as soon as I gain an insight into the inner necessity of a principle of experience, it becomes a principle apriori. Natural philosophy is empiricism extended until it becomes absolute.
Schelling expresses himself as follows, concerning the chief principles of a philosophy of nature. Nature is a suspension (Schweben) between productivity and product, which is always passing over into definite forms and products, just as it is always productively passing beyond these. This suspension indicates a duality of principles, through which nature is held in a constant activity, and hindered from exhausting itself in its products. A universal duality is thus the principle of every explanation of nature; it is the first principle of a philosophic theory of nature, to end in all nature with polarity and dualism. On the other hand, the final cause of all our contemplation of nature is to know that absolute unity which comprehends the whole, and which suffers only one side of itself to be known in nature. Nature is, as it were, the instrument of this absolute unity, through which it eternally executes and actualizes that which is prefigured in the absolute understanding. The whole absolute is therefore cognizable in nature, though phenomenal nature only exhibits in a succession, and produces in an endless development, that which the true or real nature eternally possesses. Schelling treats of natural philosophy in three sections: (1) the proof that nature, in its original products, isorganic; (2) the conditions of aninorganicnature; (3) the reciprocal determination of organic and inorganic nature.
(1.)Organic natureSchelling thus deduces: Nature absolutely apprehended is nothing other than infinite activity, infinite productivity. If this were unhindered in expressing itself, itwould at once, with infinite celerity, produce an absolute product, which would allow no explanation for empirical nature. If this latter may be explained—if there may be finite products, we must consider the productive activity of nature as restrained by an opposite, a retarding activity, which lies in nature itself. Thus arises a series of finite products. But since the absolute productivity of nature tends towards an absolute product, these individual products are only apparent ones, beyond each one of which nature herself advances, in order to satisfy the absoluteness of her inner productivity through an infinite series of individual products. In this eternal producing of finite products, nature shows itself as a living antagonism of two opposite forces, a productive and a retarding tendency. And, indeed, the working of this latter is infinitely manifold; the original productive impulse of nature has not only to combat a simple restraint, but it must struggle with an infinity of reactions, which may be called original qualities. Hence every organic being is the permanent expression for a conflict of reciprocally destroying and limiting actions of nature. And from this, viz., from the original limitation and infinite restraint of the formative impulse of nature, we see the reason why every organization, instead of attaining to an absolute product, only reproduces itselfad infinitum. Upon this rests the special significance for the organic world, of the distinction of sex. The distinction of sex fixes the organic products of nature, it restrains them within their own processes of development, and suffers them only to produce the same again. But in this production nature has no regard for the individual, but only for the species. The individual is contrary to nature; nature desires the absolute, and its constant effort is to represent this. Individual products, therefore, in which the activity of nature is brought to a stand, can only be regarded as abortive attempts to represent the absolute. Hence the individual must be the means, and the species the end of nature. Just so soon as the species is secured, nature abandons the individuals and labors for their destruction. Schelling divides the dynamic scale of organic nature according to the three grand functions of the organic world:(a) Formative impulse (reproductive energy); (b) Irritability; (c) Sensibility. Highest in rank are those organisms in which sensibility has the preponderance over irritability; a lower rank is held by those where irritability preponderates, and lower still are those where reproduction first comes out in its entire perfection, while sensibility and irritability are almost extinct. Yet these three powers are interwoven together in all nature, and hence there is but one organization, descending through all nature from man to the plant.
(2.)Inorganic natureoffers the antithesis to organic. The existence and essence of inorganic nature are conditioned through the existence and essence of organic nature. While the powers of organic nature are productive, those of inorganic nature are not productive. While organic nature aims only to establish the species, inorganic nature regards only the individual, and offers no reproduction of the species through the individual. It possesses a great multitude of materials, but can only use these materials in the way of conjoining or separating. In a word, inorganic nature is simply a mass held together by some external cause as gravity. Yet it, like organic nature, has its gradations. The power of reproduction in the latter has its counterpart in the chemical process in the former; that which in the one case is irritability, in the other is electricity; and sensibility, which is the highest stage of organic life, corresponds to the universal magnetism, the highest stage of the inorganic.
(3.)The reciprocal determination of the organic and inorganic world, is made clear by what has already been said. The result to which every genuine philosophy of nature must come, is that the distinction between organic and inorganic nature is only in nature as object, and that nature, as originally productive, waves over both. If the functions of an organism are only possible on the condition that there is a definite external world, and an organic world, then must the external world and the organic world have a common origin. This can only be explained on the ground that inorganic nature presupposes in order to its existence a higher dynamical order of things, to which it is subject. Theremust be a third, which can unite again organic and inorganic nature; which can be a medium, holding the continuity between the two. Both must be identified in some ultimate cause, through which, as through one common soul of nature (world-soul), both the organic and inorganic,i. e.universal nature, is inspired; in some common principle, which, fluctuating between inorganic and organic nature, and maintaining the continuity of the two, contains the first cause of all changes in the one, and the ultimate ground of all activity in the other. We have here the idea of a universal organism. That it is one and the same organization which unites in one the organic and inorganic world, would appear from what has already been said of the parallel gradations of the two worlds. That which in universal nature is the cause of magnetism, is in organic nature the cause of sensibility, and the latter is only a higher potency of the former. Just as in the organic world through sensibility, so in universal nature through magnetism, there arises a duality from the ideality. In this way organic nature appears only as a higher stage of the inorganic; the very same dualism which is seen in magnetic polarity, electrical phenomena, and chemical differences, displays itself also in the organic world.
2.Transcendental Philosophy.—Transcendental philosophy is the philosophy of nature become subjective. The whole succession of objects thus far described, becomes now repeated as a successive development of the beholding subject. It is the peculiarity of transcendental idealism, that so soon as it is once admitted, it requires that the origin of all knowledge shall be sought for anew; that the truth which has long been considered as established, should be subjected to a new examination, and that this examination should proceed under at least an entirely new form. All parts of philosophy must be exhibited in one continuity, and the whole of philosophy must be regarded as that which it is, viz., the advancing history of consciousness, which can use only as monuments or documents that which is laid down in experience. (Schelling’s transcendental idealism is, in this respect, the forerunner to Hegel’sPhœnomenology, which pursues a similarcourse). The exhibition of this connection is properly a succession of intuitions through which the Ego raises itself to consciousness in the highest potency. Neither transcendental philosophy nor the philosophy of nature, can alone represent the parallelism between nature and intelligence; but, in order to this, both sciences must be united, the former being considered as a necessary counterpart to the other. The division of transcendental philosophy follows from its problem, to seek anew the origin of all knowledge, and to subject to a new examination every previous judgment which had been held to be established truth. The pre-judgments of the common understanding are principally two: (1) That a world of objects exist independent of, and outside of, ourselves, and are represented to us just as they are. To explain this pre-judgment, is the problem of the first part of the transcendental philosophy (theoretical philosophy). (2) That we can produce an effect upon the objective world according to representations which arise freely within us. The solution of this problem ispractical philosophy. But, with these two problems we find ourselves entangled, (3) in a contradiction. How is it possible that our thought should ever rule over the world of sense, if the representation is conditional in its origin by the objective? The solution of this problem, which is the highest of transcendental philosophy, is the answer to the question: how can the representations be conceived as directing themselves according to the objects, and at the same time the objects be conceived as directing themselves according to the representations? This is only conceivable on the ground that the activity through which the objective world is produced, is originally identical with that which utters itself in the will. To show this identity of conscious and unconscious activity, is the problem of the third part of transcendental philosophy, or the science of ends in nature and of art. The three parts of the transcendental philosophy correspond thus entirely to the three criticks of Kant.