MASTER NEGATIVE NO. 93-81239- MICROFILMED 1993 COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY LIBRARIES/NEW YORK as part of the "Foundations of Western Civilization Preservation Project" Funded by the NATIONAL ENDOWMENT FOR THE HUMANITIES Reproductions may not be made without permission from Columbia University Library COPYRIGHT STATEMENT The copyright law of the United States - Title 17, United States Code - concerns the making of photocopies or other reproductions of copyrighted material. Under certain conditions specified in the law, libraries and archives are authorized to furnish a photocopy or other reproduction. One of these specified conditions is that the photocopy or other reproduction is not to be "used for any purpose other than private study, scholarship, or research." If a user makes a request for, or later uses, a photocopy or reproduction for purposes in excess of "fair use," that user may be liable for copyright infringement. This institution reserves the right to refuse to accept a copy order if, in its judgement, fulfillment of the order would involve violation of the copyright law. A UTHOR: DEUSSEN, PAUL TITLE: THE ELEMENTS OF METAPHYSICS ... PLACE* LONDON, NEW YORK DATE: 1894 COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY LIBRARIES PRESERVATION DEPARTMENT Master Negative it Restrictions on Use: BIBLIOGRAPHIC MICROFORM TARGFT Original Material as Filmed - Existing Bibliographic Record T D48 — ■ - " I ■ «—»^ . .^. r, :} I ! Deussen, Paul, 1845- 1919 • The elements of metRphy.iics, being a guide for lectures and private uso... tr. from the 2d Ger- mn ed. rdth the pernoroi collaboration of the author, by^C. t. IXiff, rdth an appendix containing the author*:; addro-,- before the Boi.nnay branch of the Roynl Asiatic socioty. On the philoriophy of the Vedanta in its relations to occidental meta- phynicn. reprinted from the original ed. Bombay, 1??3. London, LlacmiUan, 1904. On cover: Maouillair's Llunuals for students. I \ TECHNICAL MICROFORM DATA REDUCTION RATIO: LL^. FILM SIZE: iy_^_T IMAGE PLACEMENT: IaTiIAJ IB IIB DATE FILMED:_J_~Jjj^jil INITIALS__/?:2^_/?7^._ HLMEDBY: RESEARCH PUBLICATIONS. INC WOODÜRIDGE. c f c Association for information and Image iManagement 1100 Wayne Avenue, Suite 1100 Silver Spring. Maryland 20910 301/587-8202 Centimeter 123456789 10 llllMlllllllllllllillMlllllilllllllllllllllllllllillllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllMllllllJ T III llllllllllll llllllllllllllllllllll^^ Inches 1 2 3 1.0 I.I 1.25 156 mil 3.2 163 3.6 Itt lUUU 40 1.4 TTT n J 2.5 2.2 2.0 1.8 1.6 12 13 14 15 mm liiiiliiiiliiiiliiiiliiiilm ]lmil TTI 1 MRNUFflCTURED TO flllM STfiNOnRDS BY fiPPLIED IMRGEi INC. /^> wf^^ i Columbia ^ntberättp in tfte Citp of jFJeto gorfe THE LIBRARIES LIBRARY OF PHILOSOPHY ELEMENTS OF METAPHYSICS \ \ / THE ELE]\^EI^TS OF METAPHYSICS BEING A GUIDE FOR LECTURES AND PRIVATE USE Samam sarveshu bhCiteshu lishlhantam parame^varain Vina9yatsiravina9yantam yah pa9yati, sa pa^yati ! Samani pa9yan hi sarvatra sam avast hi tarn i9varam Na hinastfatmanälitmänam. Tato yati param g£rtiin. Qui videt, ut cundis animantihus insidet idem Rex et, dum pereunt, hand perlt— ille videtl Met enim, sese dum cemit in omnibus ipsum. Ipse nocere sibi : quo via summa patet. <^ri-Bhagavad-Gltasu, xiii. 27, 28. II BY Dr. PAUL DEUSSEN PROFESSOR ORDINARIUS OF PHILOSOPHY AT THE UNIVERSITY OF KIEL, GERMANY TRANSLATED FROM THE SECOND GERMAN EDITION WITH THE PERSONAL COLLABORATION OF THE AUTHOR By C. M. duff with an appendix, containing the author's address p.efore the bombay branch of the royal asiatic society ON THE PHILOSOPHY OF THE VEDÄNTA IN ITS RELATIONS TO OCCIDENTAL ME'JAPHYSICS REPRINTED FROM THE ORIGINAL EDITION, BOMBAY 1893 MACMILLAN AND CO., LIMITED ST. MARTIN'S STREET, LONDON 1909 %.^ U «L, /irr/ Edition 1894 Reprinted 1909 ID 1 1 1) ( PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION (1877) The nature of things — as it reveals itself to the searching eye, immeasurable around, and unfathomable within, us — is one and at harmony with itself. Therefore truth also, as the reflection of that which is in the mirror of the human mind, must be for all times and countries one and the same ; and whatever the great teachers of mankind in ancient and modern time have gathered from the im- mediate contemplation of nature and revealed in the form either of religion or philosophy, that must (apart from errors, which as a rule touch only what is specific and incidental) be essentially concordant, however varied may be the outward hues and forms it has received VI ELEMENTS OF METAPHYSICS from the civilisations and traditions of dif- ferent ages. If, therefore, we but succeed in gaining the* point of view from which the essence of things is dissolved without residuum in understanding, we may expect that, regarded from this point, all revelations of the past also will inwardly harmonise and be reconciled. This STANDPOINT OF THE RECONCILIATION OF ALL CONTRADICTIONS has been attained in the main, we believe, by mankind in the I Idealism founded by Kant and wrought out to perfection by his disciple Schopenhauer. For the truth of this Idealism is the more indubit- ably confirmed, the more deeply we penetrate into it, by the threefold harmony which we meet in it, — harmony with itself, harmony with nature, and harmony with the thoughts of the wisest of all times. Moreover it is the Kantian distinction between phenomena and the thing-in-itself, and this distinction alone, which makes it possible to give full freedom PREFACE Vll of action to the natural sciences in their tendency to complete materialism, and yet, by way of the most convincing proofs, to attain to a philosophical view of things in which all essential saving truths of religion are obtained from the mere analysis of the facts of inner experience, and which will in course of time be acknowledged for what it actually is — a regenerated and purified Christ- ianity, constructed on an indisputably scientific foundation. From the above standpoint and with the closest possible adherence to the thoughts of those immortal teachers, though without in any respect renouncing independence of judgment, the present book aims at separating the im- perishable substance of this teaching from its temporal and individual husk, and at exhibiting it, for use in school and life, as systematically, clearly, and shortly as the profundity of the subject will allow. At the same time it seeks to point out the inner harmony of this doctrine 1 __... Vlll ELEMENTS OF METAPHYSICS PREFACE IX with the most important thought - systems of the past, in particular with the Brahmavidyä of the Indians, with Plato's doctrine of Ideas, and with the theology of Christianity. The justification of the historical views on which these parallels are based, must be reserved for another occasion. The book, having originated in connection with lectures and being in the first instance intended for these, is adapted to the horizon of students ; hence its encyclopaedic character ; hence also the interspersed quotations, which are meant to incite to the study of the original languages, without which a full understanding of Indian, Biblical, and Greek metaphysics is scarcely possible. Apart from these the work contains nothing but what might be accessible, by a little effort of thought, to every educated mind, more especially after the whole has been read through a second time, when, what has hitherto been obscure will become perfectly clear, and indeed the whole will first appear in its true light. The table of contents, forming a series of questions on all the chief points of philosophy, is designed to facilitate repeti- tion and meditation, which should be un- remittingly practised. P. D. The first edition appeared 1877, the second, with a few additions, 1890. The appendix, "On the Philosophy of the Vedanta in its relations to Occidental Metaphysics " reprinted here from the original edition (Bombay, 1893) in order to elucidate the parallels of Indian Philosophy scattered through the work, is in the main an abstract of the author's larger book : " Das System des Vedanta, nach den Brahma-sütra's des Bädaräyana und dem Commentare des fankara über dieselben, als ein Compendium der Dogmatik des Brahmanismus vom Standpunkte des fankara aus" (Leipzig, 1883). 6 CONTENTS PRELIMINARY REMARKS Physics and Metaphysics Two standpoints (§ i). Common source (§ 2). Method and result of the physical method (§ 3). Method and result of the metaphysical method (§ 4). Synopsis of all the general sciences {§ 5). Historical (§ 6). PAGE I A. THE EMPIRICAL STANDPOINT System of Physics 1. On Space Its infinity (§ 7). Everything in space (§ 8). 2. On Time Its infinity (§ 9). Everything in time (§ 10). 3. On Matter Everything is material ; two proofs (§ il ). Matter is uncreatable and indestructible (§ 12). The world is either infinitely great or infinitely small (§ 13). 4. On Causality Persistence and change (§ 14). The law of causality (§ IS)- 7 8 XU ELEMENTS OF METAPHYSICS CONTENTS xiu Cause and causal constituents (§ i6). Arguing from effect to cause, from cause to effect ; hypo- thesis and experiment (§ 17). Two corojlaries of the law of causality (§ 18). The net of causality is without beginning and end (§ 19). Three forms of causation : cause, irritation, motive (§ 20). 5. On Natural Forces Laws of nature a priori and a posteriori (§21). Groups of phenomena and natural forces (§ 22). Empirically speaking, natural forces do not exist (§ 23). Causality is no bridge between force-manifestations and force (§ 24). Threefold object of the empirical sciences in the region of nature and history (§ 25). 6. Materialism as the Consequence of the Empirical View of Things Everything, also the intellect, is modification of matter (§ 26). Complete dependence of thinking on the brain (§ 27). Rejection of spiritualism (§ 28). 7. Comfortlessness of the Empirical View of Nature . The right and the wrong of materialism (§§ 29, 30). PAGB B. THE TRANSCENDENTAL STANDPOINT System of Metaphysics THE SYSTEM OF METAPHYSICS PART I. THE THEORY OF UNDERSTANDING I. Preliminary Survey Perceptual and abstract representations : Understanding and Reason (§§ 31-33). 12 14 16 18 Difference between human and animal Understanding (§ 34). Physiological organ of the Understanding and of the Reason (§ 35). Significance and danger of rational knowledge for meta- physics (§ 36). 2. The Problem of Perceptual Knowledge . How is perception by the senses possible ? (§ yj). 3. The World is my Representation .... The one indubitable truth. The Cartesian form of it (§ 38). Significance of this truth (§ 39). Repugnance to it (§ 40). (rt 4. Whether Things in themselves are the same as I represent them? Voices from Indian, Greek, and Christian antiquity deny- ing this (§ 41). 5. Elements of Representation a priori and a pos- teriori No subject without an object, no object without a subject (§ 42). The immediate and the mediate object (§ 43). To what the data of a posteriori knowledge are restricted (§§ 44, 45). \ 6. Clues to the Discrimination of the a priori Elements IN Representations The six criteria of the a priori elements (§ 46). ^ 7. The a priori Elements are : Time, Space, and Cau- sality Witnesses from Indian, Platonic, and Biblical metaphysics (§ 47). PAGE 21 22 24 25 27 30 M XIV ELEMENTS OF METAPHYSICS CONTENTS XV 8. Space is an a prior/ Form of Perception Explanation of this truth (§ 48). Six proofs : ex antecessiom (§ 49), ex adhaesione (§ 50), e necessitate (§ 51), ^r mathematicis (§ 52), ^ continuitalc (§ 53). ex infinitate (§ 54). 9. TlMK IS AN A PRIORI FORM OF PERCEPTION Explanation of this truth (§ 55). Six proofs : ex antecessione (§ 56), ex adhaesione (§ 57), e necessitate (§ 58), e mathematicis (§ 59), e contimiitate (§ 60), ex infinitate (§61). 10. (^j||ygj|f,f|*f IS AN A PRIORI FORM OF PERCEPTION . Explanation of this truth (§ 62). ' Six proofs : ex antecessione (§ 63), ex adhaesione (§ 64), e necessitate, Hume and Kant (§ 65), e mathematicis (§ 66), e continuitate (§ 67), ex infinitate (§ 68). 11. The Empirical and the Transcendental Stand- points Recapitulation of the alx)ve (§ 69). Three possible standpoints as regards it (§ 70) : the empirical (§71), the transcendent (§ 72), and the tran- scendental (§ 73). 12. Transcendental Analysis of Empirical Reality Origin of perception through the threefold reaction of the Understanding (§§ 74, 7S). The nature of empirical reality (§ 76). The fundamental doctrine of Idealism (§77)' Sense-perception impossible without the Understanding (§§ 78, 79). 13. On the Immediate and Mediate Application of the Understanding The faculty of immediate (receptive) and that of mediate (spontaneous) reaction is one and the same (§§ 80, 81). PAGE 32 35 39 46 SI 56 PAGE 14. Whether THERE ARE Innate Ideas? . . . • 5« No innate ideas, but only three innate functions of the brain (§§ 82, 83). 59 62 64 15. The Theory of Dreaming System of the conscious will. Its action in a waking state, in sleep (§ 84). Origin of dreams (§ 85). 16. Transcendental Analysis OF Matter Decomposition of bodies into force and space (§ 86). Matter as the objective correlative of the Understanding ; Plato's view (§§ 87, 88). 17. The Double World of the Half-Philosophers The evasion of Ideal-Realism (§§ 89, 90). Its inadmissi- bility (§90- 18. Kant and the Philosophy after him .... Kantism before Kant ; Kant's fundamental dogma (§ 92). Division of all philosophers present and future into four classes (§§ 93, 94)- APPENDIX TO THE FIRST PART OF METAPHYSICS 66 Reason and its Content 19. Survey The Content of Reason (§ 95)- Concepts and words (§§ 96-98). 20. Origin and Nature of Concepts . . . • The property of nature on which depends the possibility of forming concepts (§ 99). Example of the ascent from percepts to specific concepts (§§ 100-102), from specific to generic (§ 103). Cate- gories (§ 104). Pyramids of the system of concepts • (§105). 68 70 XVI ELEMENTS OF METAPHYSICS CONTENTS xvii 21. On Combinations of Conceits Judgments (§ io6). Synthetic judgments a priori (§ 107). The nature of the proposition (§ 108) ; of the conclusion (§ 109)^ ; of the proof (§ no). Source of all concepts and judgments (§ in). Miscon- ception of this (§112). 22. Whether the Reason is a Particular Physiological Organ ? . . The organ of perceiving and thinking is one and the same. Four reasons (§§ 11 3- 11 5). Unity of function in understanding and judgment. Memory (§ 116). 23. Retrospective View of the Human Mind in General The intellect is physical, not metaphysical (§ 117). Organisation of the intellectual faculties (§ 118). 24. Man and Brute . . , . . . . . Difference between animal and human understanding {§§119,120). All superiority of man due to it (§§ 121-124). Value of abstract knowledge in practical life ; its limits (§ 125). 25. On the Nature and Origin of Language . Twofold task of language. Derivation from it of three classes of language (§§ 126-128). A hypothesis as to the origin of language (§§ 129, 130). The instinct of speech (§ 131). THE SYSTEM OF METAPHYSICS PART H. THE METAPHYSICS OF NATURE PAGB 74 79 83 84 88 I. The Problem Fundamental question of all philosophy ; its meaning (§ 132). 93 t Fundamental error of all philosophy previous to Kant (§§ 133, 134). Identity of force, principle, and thing-in-itself (§§ 135, 136). How Kant closed to us the inner being of nature, and how Schopenhauer found the key to it (§§ 137-140). 2. Nature, viewed from the Standpoint of Pure Intellect, that is, from without Gradual obscuration of nature in proportion as one passes from the a priori to the a posteriori in it ; sudden light (§§ 141-145)- 3. The Way into the Interior of Nature The intellect in face of external and of internal experience (§§ 146, 147). Inner identity of bodily movement, volition. Will (§ 148). Inner identity of body and Will. What is Will ? (§ 149). 4. Conscious and Unconscious Will Two kinds of organic functions (§ 150). Both are manifestations of the same force ; three reasons (§ 151). Identity of vital force, soul. Will (§ 152). Man his own work (§ 153). 5. On the Soul and its Relation to the Body The soul is not intellect, but Will ; five reasons (§ 154). The immortality of the soul proved (§§ 155-157). The marvel of the organism explained (§ 158). 6. The Will in Nature . The ego from without, representation ; from within. Will (§ 159). Extension of this truth to other men (§ 160). The Will as brute (§161). Two fundamental impulses of all organic beings (§ 162). Nature of sleep (§ 163). Nature of instinct, its occurrence in nature (§ 164). PAGE 98 103 107 112 116 xviu ELEMENTS OF METAPHYSICS CONTENTS XIX The principle of vegetable life is an unconscious willing (§ I6S). The diflferences between organic and inorganic forces derived from the principles of the phenomenal world (§i66). 7. Transcendent Reflections on Will as the Thing- IN-ITSELF Three determinations of Will as thing-in-itself (§§ 167, 168). Preliminary remark on the affirmation and denial of the Will (§ 169). 8. Mythical Representation of the World-Process An attempt to portray in the forms of our intellect what in its nature transcends these (§§ 170-174). , 9. God and World The metaphysical truth as one and the same for all ^ ^(§175)- Outlines of Indian metaphysics (§ 176). Development of the Biblical view of things (§ 177). Chief points of Greek metaphysics up to the time of Plato (§ 178). 10. The Will and the Ideas of Plato .... The Ideas as the adaptation of the Will to the forms of the phenomenal world (§§ 179- 181). Contradictory character and inadequacy of the Ideas (§ 182). 11. The Objectification of the Will in Nature by means of the Ideas Enumeration of the physical, chemical, and organic forces J (§ 183). The Will and the Brahman of the Indians (§ 184). Relation of the physical and chemical forces to matter. Generation of inorganic bodies. On the atomic theory (§§ 185-187). Organic forces ; their difference from the inorganic PAGE 125 129 132 140 144 PAGE Two fundamental impulses of all organic beings ; why ? First origin of organisms. The Right and the Wrong of Darwinism. Three grades of organisms (§§ 188-190). 12. On the Teleological View of Nature and its Limits 156 Adaptation, internal, external ; whence? (§§ 191, 192). Struggle of individuals ; moral and aesthetic consequences (§§ I93> 194)- THE SYSTEM OF METAPHYSICS PART III. THE METAPHYSICS OF THE BEAUTIFUL 1. Historical On the inner nature of Platonism. Plato's attitude towards art (§ 195). Aristotle's view as to the aim and action of art (§ 196). Kant's definition of the feeling for the beautiful (§ 197). 2. The Esthetic Phenomenon considered from the Empirical Standpoint A disinterested delight is empirically inexplicable (§§ 198, 199). 3. Individual and ^Esthetic Contemplation . Two standpoints of thinking, two of perceiving (§§ 200, w/ 201). ^Esthetic mode of contemplation: the change which it occasions in the subject (§ 202), and in the object (§§ 203, 204). 4. Subjective Conditions of the Esthetic Phenomenon Escape from self, how possible by increase of Under- standing (§§ 205, 206). Second way thither (§ 207) ; Indian voices (§ 208). Not willing, but individual willing, vanishes {§ 209). 161 167 169 173 ELEMENTS OF METAPHYSICS CONTENTS XXI 6. On the Beautiful and the Sublime .... Definition of beauty (§ 216). ^> - I .^ One-sidedness of our view of nature (§ 217). t V ' ^ ./f< The sublime as key to the beautiful. ■^ ij* Two kinds of the sublime. / Two contrasts to it (§ 218). 7. On the Beautiful in Nature Three subjective aids to the contemplation of' nature (§ 219). Beauty of inorganic nature (§§ 220, 221). Beauty of organisms (§ 222). Grace (§ 223). Beauty of artificial products, wherein consisting (§ 224). 8. Some Remarks on the Beautiful in Art . On the inner nature of art. Spurious and genuine art (§ 225). Architecture : Symmetry, adaptation ; which Ideas are the object of architecture. Classic and Gothic architecture (§ 226). Imitating and interpreting arts (§ 227). Chief object of art (§ 228). The beautiful and the characteristic (§ 229). Sculpture : Significance. Advantages. Limits. Tendency (§ 230). Painting : Restriction and freedom. Its strength, wherein con- sisting (§ 231). External and internal significance ; historical painting (§ 232). PAGE 5. Objective Conditions of the ^Esthetic Phenomenon 177 1/ Escape from self through the nature of objects (§§ 210- 212). How explicable (§ 213). Change in the object when contemplated (§ 214). Origin of art (§ 215). 183 188 194 Poetry: Material. Artifices. Allegory. Metre and rhyme (§ 233). Chief subject of poetry. The idealisation of reality. Poetry more philosophical than history (§ 234). The lyric. The epic. The drama. Tragedy and comedy (§ 235). Music : its subject. Direct nature of its language. Significance of melody, rhythm, harmony. Music and text (§ 236). Parting glance at art : how far one may find in it, in spite of its speaking only of this world, the promise of another (§ 237). THE SYSTEM OF METAPHYSICS PART IV. THE METAPHYSICS OF MORALITY 1. Preliminary Twofold standpoint of thinking, perceiving, acting (§§ 238-242). Whether morality is a special kind of knowledge (§ 243). Order of procedure : Immortality, freedom, affirmation and denial (§ 244). 2. On the Immortality of the Soul Kant's idealism and the immortality of the soul stand and fall together (§§ 245-247). Life is assured to the Will and the present assured to life (§ 248). Indestructibility without continuance conceived as trans- migration of the soul. Half-mythical conception of the continuance of the indi- viduality (§§ 249, 250). 3. On the Freedom of the Will The question of the freedom of the Will as a prelude to the Kantian philosophy (§ 251). Necessity, chance, freedom (§§ 252, 253). PACK 221 229 236 XXll ELEMENTS OF METAPHYSICS CONTENTS xxiu ^ I I I Physical determinism, metaphysical freedom of the Will (§§ 254, 255). Three great transcendental truths (§ 256). Identity of the metaphysical and the moral dualism (§ 257). 4. The Pagan and the Christian Standpoints, or the Affirmation and the Denial of the Will to Life . Exoteric and esoteric Christianity (§ 258). Why must theology inevitably be founded on Kant (§ 259). The deeds of morality are miracles (§ 260). Division of all human actions into four classes (§ 261). 5. Egoism as the General and Necessary Phenomenal Form of the Affirmation of the Will to L/fe Proof of this truth ; two important conclusions (§ 262). All nature lies under the curse of egoism (§ 263). Derivation of malice from ^oism (§ 264). Seeming egoism of moral actions (§ 265). 6. The Egoism of Affirmation as the Source of the Bad Moral illustration of the fundamental impulses, nourish- ment and generation (§ 266). Restriction of the concepts wrong, right, and duty (§ 267). The sphere of egoism (§ 268) ; in man threefold (§ 269). Wrong: three kinds. How far conventional? Two means (§ 270). The root of badness ; testimony of Hol)^ Scripture (§ 271). 7. The Egoism of Affirmation as the Source of Evil Suffering is not the cause of denial (§ 272). Existence is empty, hopeless, aimless, without peace (§273). Three kinds of suffering according to the Sänkhya System (§ 274). Outlook over experience ; a consoling voice (§ 275). PAGE PAGE 8. Temporal Measures against the Badness and Evil springing from Egoism ...... 273 Concept of right {§ 276) ; of the state, threefold task ofit(§277). Education : two aims, limits (§ 278). Politeness (§ 279). 244 250 255 265 9. Legality and Morality Worthlessness of good works (§ 280). Form of this doctrine in Biblical and Indian theology (§ 281). Four fundamental truths of Christian teaching and our own ; how far moral improvement is independent of ourselves, and how far it is yet our own work (§ 282). 10. On the Nature of the Denial of the Will to Life ^ Why the nature of morality is called denial (§ 283). Proof that the essence of every moral action is an act of denial of the Will to life (§§ 284, 285). 11. The Two Ways to Denial y Two ways ; common characteristics, differences (§ 286). The peculiar way in which the inconceivable deeds of denial clothe themselves in the forms of our knowledge (§§ 287, 288). y I. The Way of Virtue (§ 289). First step : Justice. Two kinds (§ 290). Second step: Love. Three kinds (§ 291). Third step : Asceticism. When only genuine ? Its de- rivation from* compassion. The real significance of asceticism. On the Christian doctrine of salvation (§ 292). 2. The Way of Suffering. Suffering as an element of affirmation. Suffering in the light of denial (§ 293). On the ultimate root of morality (§ 294). On suicide : proof that it is affirmation (§ 295). The significance of death {§ 296). 278 286 291 B»"' ' i »'"I* .a-jgat-a." XXIV ELEMENTS OF METAPHYSICS \ 12. On the Principle of Denial Freedom, faith, knowledge, as principles of denial (§ 297); ^ ^ How the principle of denial may be aptly named, and what it is in its innermost nature. A glance at the Biblical conception (§ 298). Twofold trace of the divine in experience (§ 299). PAGE 3" Conclusion (§ 300) 317 APPENDIX ON THE PHILOSOPHY OF THE VEDÄNTA IN ITS RELATIONS TO OCCIDENTAL METAPHYSICS Introduction 3^3 I. Theology, the doctrine of God or of the philosophical principle 3^6 II. Kosmology, the doctrine of the world . . . 328 III. Psychology, the doctrine of the soul . . . 332 IV. Eschatology, the doctrine of the last things, the things after death 334 PRELIMINARY REMARKS PHYSIOS AND METAPHYSICS § I . There are two standpoints, and two only, from which we can investigate the nature of things : the empirical and the transcendental. We are restricted to the empirical standpoint so long as we regard things in the form in which they appear to us, that is, as they are reflected in human consciousness ; the result is physics (in its broader or ancient sense). From the transcendental standpoint we try to discover what things are in themselves, that is independent of, and apart from, our consciousness, in which they are represented ; the result is metaphysics. § 2. All our knowledge begins with perception, which is partly external, partly internal. Out of both these is built up that sum total of our representations of things which we call experience. The empirical and the transcendental methods % B ELEMENTS OF METAPHYSICS both proceed from experience, but they do so in different directions. « § 3. The empirical or physical method takes the entire material of experience as given, and by investigating and systematically arranging it, arrives at a system of physics which embraces all sciences, whether they have their source in outer or inner experience. All that we know through outer experience is body, that is, matter in time and space. The relations of time and space are investigated by mathematics, whilst the pursuit of matter in its transformations is the object of the natural sciences, which, as morphology (mineralogy, botany, zoo- logy), deal with the forms of matter, as aetiology (physics, chemistry, physiology) with its changes and their causes. The science of inner experience is psychology (in the empirical sense). As it has for its subject the entire phenomena of inner perception, and accordingly embraces the whole domain of knowing, feeling, and willing, we may include under it logic (with grammar), aesthetics, and ethics, whilst side by side with these, as instances of the same, we may place the history of sciences, arts, and peoples. S 4. The transcendental or metaphysical method proceeds from the fact that the sum total PRELIMINARY REMARKS of experience and of the empirical knowledge derived from it which forms the system of physics, is in reality neither more nor less than a series of representations in our consciousness. Accordingly its fundamental question has at all times been, what are things in themselves (a^xÄ KaO' a^rd, dtman\ that is, apart from the form which they assume in our mind? To ascertain this, we have first to analyse the experience filling our intellect, and decide what part of it is a priori, that is, inherent in ourselves previous to all perception whether external or internal, and therefore belonging to the innate functions of the intellect itself; and what part we appropriate a posteriori, that is, by means of internal and external perception, and consequently have to regard as partaking of the nature of things in themselves. The results obtained by this method, together with their bearing on nature, art, and thJ action of man, form a system of metaphysics, which, supplementing the system of physics, gives us the utmost attainable interpretations of the nature of ourselves and the worid. Remark.— The term philosophy, the meaning of A^hich has m course of time undergone considerable change and is even to-day disputed, denotes in its most limited sense meta- physics ; m a wider sense metaphysics together with the sciences of inner experience, which are closely related to it • m its widest sense the general results of all sciences from thJ most universal point of view. PRELIMINARY REMARKS en U C (U m 1-1 4) c o •X3 o en 'm Ok O e c/) § 6. Historical. — Religion and Philosophy are the two forms in which from time immemorial metaphysics has manifested itself, bringing to light, especially in the Indian, Greek, and Christian world, an abundance of imperishable truths. Until, how- ever, a century ago, there was no clear under- standing of the difference between physical and metaphysical knowledge, and as metaphysics attempted to vindicate its truths from the empirical standpoint natural to man, these necessarily assumed a more or less allegorical form and fell into seeming contradiction with each other and with the physical sciences. At last came Kant (i 724-1 804) and by his "Critique of Pure Reason" laid the founda- tions of thoroughly scientific metaphysics. On this basis Schopenhauer (1788 -i860) has reared a metaphysical structure without equal, which, though it may in course of time be modified in details through the never-ending progress of the empirical sciences, will yet, as a whole, at no future time become antiquated, but must remain an inalienable possession of mankind. If, guided by this doctrine, we seek to penetrate into the inner meaning of the various systems, religious and philosophical, we shall come to the ELEMENTS OF METAPHYSICS conviction that the essential differences between natural science, philosophy, and religion originate after all in a misunderstanding which can be removed, and which will give way to a mutual recognition of their right of existence. A. THE EMPIRICAL STANDPOINT SYSTEM OF PHYSICS I. On Space §7. Proposition. — Space is infinite in every direction. Demonstration. — If it were not so, it would have a limit. This would be either a body or a void, therefore again in both cases space. (Compare the instance of the javelin in Lucretius, de natura rerum, i. 968-983.) § 8. Corollary. — Whatever exists, exists neces- sarily in space ; otherwise it would be nowhere and consequently not at all. n. On Time § 9. Proposition. — Time is infinite in both directions. Demonstration. — If it were not so, it would have a beginning or an end. Both would be points s ELEMENTS OF METAPHYSICS of time (" now "), would have as such a before and an after, and would consequently be within time and not outside of it. § lO. Corollary. — Whatever happens, happens necessarily in time ; otherwise it would happen at no time, and consequently not at all. m On Matter 5 II. Proposition. — In space and time exists nothing but matter alone. Demonstration. — (i) That which operates in space and time we call matter. To exist is to operate in space and time. Consequently all that exists is material. (2) We call possible that which can be represented by us as existing. Only mate- rial objects can be represented by us as existing. Consequently there can be nothing but material objects. 812. Proposition. — Matter is uncreatable and indestructible. This is proved not so much from the experiments ot scientists, for, even if it were possible to pursue matter, scale in hand, in its transformations, such experiments would only demonstrate that until now we have not succeeded either in augmenting or diminishing the quantity of matter. The proof of THE EMPIRICAL STANDPOINT our assertion lies rather, apart from all perception (a priori), in the fact that it is impossible to imagine the creation or the annihilation of matter. And that which is not possible, cannot, in fact, really be at all. S 13. The quantity of matter in the world is either unlimited and consequently infinitely great, corresponding to infinite space, or limited, and then, compared with infinite space, infinitely small. IV. On Causality § 14. Substance persists, but it perpetually changes its qualities, forms, and conditions (iravTa pet). All these changes, without exception, are governed by the following law. § 15. The law of Causality. — Every change in matter is called effect and takes place only after another change, called cause, has preceded it, from which the effect regularly and inevitably, that is necessarily, follows. § 16. Inasmuch as an effect is only possible through some foregoing change (called cause) hap- pening under a particular condition of things, which condition itself is but a result of changes, we include, in a wider sense, this condition together with lO ELEMENTS OF METAPHYSICS the intervening change under the head of cause, and distinguish in it the different causal constitu- ents or conditions. The sequence of these may in many cases vary. § 17. The same cause has always the same effect, while on the contrary the same effect may arise from different causes. Hence follows, that arguing from effect to cause is problematical, while arguing from cause to effect is certain. The former is the way of hypothesis, the latter that of experiment. § 18. Immediate corollaries of the law of causality are: (l) the law of inertia, for, where there is no cause, there can be no effect ; (2) the law of the persistence of substance, for the law of causality applies only to conditions of matter but not to the substratum of all conditions, forms, and qualities. § 19. As space (§ 7) and time (§ 9) are without limits, so also the net of causality is necessarily without beginning or end. Demonstration. — (a) If it were not without beginning, we should have to assume a first state of things. In order that this state might develop, a change would have to occur in it or to it, which change would itself again be the effect of a foregoing change, etc. THE EMPIRICAL STANDPOINT II Remark. — This is the rock on which splits the cosmo- logical argument, which confounds the metaphysical principle of salvation (God) with the physical principle of creation. (b) The chain of causality is without end, inasmuch as no change can take place at any time without proceeding as an effect from its sufficient cause. § 20. There are three forms of causation, one general and two specific, since an effect may pro- ceed from a cause in its narrower sense, from irritation or from motive. 1. All changes except the organic proceed from causes in the narrower sense. Increase of the cause here always produces increase of the effect. The causal agent undergoes a change equal to that which it communicates to the effect (equality of action and reaction). 2. Irritation (or stimulus) is the form of causation governing the changes in vegetable life (plants and the vegetable part of animal life). In order to operate, this form requires contact and duration, frequently intussusception. By aug- mentation of the cause here the effect often turns into its contrary (over-irritation). 3. Motives (determinants) produce all changes in the life of animals and men, so far as these changes belong to the domain of the animal functions, that is, all voluntary movements. The 12 ELEMENTS OF METAPHYSICS cause in this form requires neither immediate contact nor a more than momentary duration. As the intellect of the brute is limited to per- ceptual representations, its action is throughout confined to perceptible and immediately present motives. The action of man, on the other hand, can proceed from abstract representations, acting as motives, in consequence of which his deeds are often enigmatical and inscrutable, but never free from that necessity with which the law of causality sways all that is finite (empirical de- terminism). V. On Natural Forces § 21. The laws of space and time, the ascer- tainment of which belongs to the province of mathematics, and the law of causality are, as we shall show later, laws of nature a priori. On the other hand, there are natural laws gained from perception by induction and so a posteriori^ which are nothing more than an expression re- duced to rule for the invariable manifestation of the forces of nature. § 22. All that we learn and know by the study of nature are phenomena (that is states and changes of matter) in space and time, linked together by the chain of causality. All natural THE EMPIRICAL STANDPOINT «3 phenomena are divided into groups, each of which is formed by a series of phenomena bearing a common character, and therefore declaring them- selves as varied manifestations of an inner unity. This inner unity is termed force, natural force, an expression borrowed from the observation of our inner self (instances : Gravity, Impenetrability, Electricity, Crystallisation, and all Species of plants and animals). Every state in nature is a tension of conflicting forces, every change is a temporary subjugation of cer- tain forces by others, which, by the aid of causality, have become the stronger (TrcJXey^o? Trar^ TT^i^To,,,— instances : a building, a chemical union, the human body in the states of health, disease and death). § 23. To nature as a whole belong all mani- festations of natural forces, but not the forces themselves. Empirically speaking they do not exist at all, and while the scientist cannot get rid of them, and yet will never be able to explain anything but their manifestations, he indicates the necessity of a method which supplements his own and belongs to the province of meta- physics. § 24. Thus every event, whether cause or effect, IS the manifestation of a force, and the law u ELEMENTS OF METAPHYSICS THE EMPIRICAL STANDPOINT '5 Of causality merely declares that no manifestation of force can take place without another manifesta- tion of force preceding it as cause. It is therefore inaccurate and reprehensible to speak of a force itself as the cause of a particular effect (as for instance in speaking of gravity as the cause of falling). § 25. The object of the empirical sciences is therefore threefold : — 1. The determining and describing of pheno- mena. 2. The ascertaining of their particular causes. 3. The determining of the forces manifested in them. . . t_ . 1 This is the task not only of the scientist but also of the historian, in so far as he has (i) to investigate and relate facts ; (2) to find out the motive of each action ; and (3) to portray the human characters which by motives are manifested in these actions. VI. MateriaUsm as the Consequence of the Empirical View of Things § 26. Since from the empirical standpoint nothing exists but matter in its various states (§§ il. 14), all that exists must be conceived as modification of matter To this the human intellect is no ex- ception, the more so, as the study of it is in- separable from that of the brute intellect. Now the intellect of the brute is an organ rendered extremely sensitive by the accumulation of nervous matter, which in consequence of the external irritation of its offshoots, the senses, produces a reaction, from which, as we shall see later, the perception of the outer world arises. The function of this organ is called Understanding. Now the human intellect is nothing more than an augmentation of that of the brute to such a degree of intellectual clearness, that we are able to decompose our perceptions into their elements, and to retain these in a changed order, whence arises, as we shall show hereafter, the apparatus of the Reason with its concepts and judgments. § 27. It is the object of anatomy and physi- ology not so much to demonstrate the materiality of all intellectual processes (which is a truth a priori) as to establish it in single cases. If these sciences, owing to the inaccessibility of the thinking organ, have hitherto only partially succeeded in doing this, they nevertheless have at command a series of facts which place beyond question the absolute dependence of thinking on the brain. Such facts are the symptoms observable in childhood and old age, in abnormal development or mal- formation of the brain (mikrokephali, cretins), in cerebral affections through external injuries or i6 ELEMENTS OF METAPHYSICS internal morbid influences, causing insanity. In this last case the brain may occasionally have periods of release {lucida intervalld), and it may even happen that, in consequence of general ex- haustion at the approach of death, the morbid tendencies disappear and the brain resumes for a short time its normal functions (Don Quijote). 8 28. The philosophical spiritualism or doctrine of the dualism of man (established by Descartes, modified, transformed, combated by his successors and finally refuted by Kant, though even now pre- valent as a popular opinion), according to which there are two substances, an extended and a think- ing, blended in man as soul and body and separated by death, is a fundamental error, equally unsup- ported by experience, comprehensibility, and proof, and bars the way to any genuine philosophical view. Remark. — Kant's refutations are based chiefly on the fact that existence is only the general form of objects, under which, therefore, we cannot comprehend that which in all our repre- sentations is the subject only, without ever becoming the object. Vn. Oomfortlessness of the Empirical View of Nature § 29. So surely as materialism scorns all that is highest and deepest in philosophy and religion, THE EMPIRICAL STANDPOINT 17 so surely as its results in the sphere of- art are flat and vulgar, in that of morality hopeless, desolate, and perverting, so sure is it that, from* the empirical standpoint, it is the only true and consistent view of things, and so the «ideal» at which the empirical sciences aim, and to which m time they will more and more attain. It is therefore lost labour to endeavour to refute material- ism. But we may well ask if it is not possible to supplement it by a higher view of things, which removes it without, however, contradicting it. § 30. Heavy lies on our heart the burden of a worid in which for God, freedom, and immortality there ,s no place. Thanks therefore, in all future time, to those men who succeeded in unhinging this whole^ empirical world, after having found the 009 ixoi TTov o-Tü) in our own intellect. However strictly the empirical sciences deal with matters of fact, they yet, according to their nature overiook one fact which of all facts is the first and the most certain. Of this we have now to treat. B. THE TRANSCENDENTAL STANDPOINT SYSTEM OF METAPHYSICS The System of Metaphysics PART I THE THEORY OP UNDERSTANDING I. Preliminary Survey S 3 1 The theory of understanding is properly a part of psychology, and as such deals with the origin, essence, and connection of all our re- presentations. These fall into two classes, as being partly primary, partly derivative. The first are called (by denominatio a potiori) " anschauliche, that is, perceptual, the latter abstract representations. S 3 2 The faculty of perceptual representations is Understanding {yov,. mens, Verstand^ entendementy, the science of which might be called noetics. It has to show how the mind, by means of its innate THE THEORY OF UNDERSTANDING 19 functions, after external irritation acting on its offshoots, the senses, (i) produces perceptual repre- sentations, and (2) establishes the connection between them. § 33. The faculty of abstract representations is Reason (X0709, ratio, Vernunft, raison). The science which teaches how reason manufactures the materials supplied to it by perception into concepts, and then combines these as judgments and conclusions, is logic. The operating with concepts is called thinking. The external vibrations of the air by which we communicate our thoughts to each other, are the words of language, heard also by the brute, but comprehended only by man (hence the German word Vernunft, from vernehmen, to comprehend). § 34. The faculty of Understanding is common to us with the brutes. No animal is without Under- standing, although those (lowest in the scale) in which the nervous matter is not yet centralised into a brain, have only a very faint trace of it. Starting from these, the Understanding increases gradually with the development of the brain, till it reaches its perfection in man. At this its highest point, the functions of the Understanding attain a degree of penetration which not only suffices, as in the case of the brutes, to produce the perception of the outside 20 ELEMENTS OF METAPHYSICS THE THEORY OF UNDERSTANDING 21 ■■* world, but is at the same time capable of pursuing the spatial, temporal, and causal connection of the latter to its farthest ramifications. The only faculty which distinguishes man from the brute, is Reason. Simple as are its functions, they are yet sufficient to explain all the grandeur and beauty which distinguishes human life from that of the lower animals. § 35. The same organ which, viewed from within or psychologically, appears as Understanding, manifests itself, when considered from without or physiologically, as brain (represented in the lowest animals by knots or rings of nerves). This stretches out, as it were, its feelers, terminating in the organs of sense, towards external objects. Reason, on the other hand, as it seems, is not a separate physiological organ. We regard it rather (for reasons to be given later) merely as a particular aPEl^cationj^e^^ man, of that uniform faculty of reaction which we call Understanding or brain. S 36. Reason, as will be shown later, receives its entire content from perception, and its activity is restricted to giving to the materials supplied as perceptual knowledge such a form as shall make them easier of survey and so more convenient to handle. In reality, therefore, reason teaches us nothing new, and it is a condition of all true pro- gress, whether in physics or metaphysics, that, before all, we go back from abstract representations to the perceptual world underlying them. And so meta- physics might indeed relegate the study of reason and its abstract contents to logic, and abstain from all inquiry in this sphere, had not the insufficient knowledge of this very faculty and its bearing been the source, both in times ancient and modern, of the most grievous errors in the province of metaphysics. To guard against these, we shall, by way of appendix, take into consideration reason and its abstract repre- sentations. At present, however, let us set aside this secondary faculty of knowledge and turn to the world of perceptual representations, which alone are original and embrace all that is real. In this sphere lies the difficult problem the solution of which will remain the starting-point and the basis of all scien- tific metaphysics. n. The Problem of Perceptual Knowledge § 37. How is it possible to perceive by the senses objects of the external world ? The empirical explanation, according to which objects, either directly or indirectly, by means of rays of light, waves of sound, etc., affect the nerves and through them the brain, would perhaps suffice, if the fact to be explained were my having, whilst perceiving, certain specific sensations within my ELEMENTS OF METAPHYSICS organism. But in normal perception this is gener- ally not the case. It is not subjective impressions which enter into my consciousness, for I perceive directly and without being aware of a medium, the objects and incidents lying outside of me themselves. In seeing, for instance, I do not perceive the inverted likeness of the object on the retina, but I see the thing itself and yet outside of me. It is not rays of light, not subjective reflections which enter into my consciousness, but the objects themselves? directly, which yet are distant from me. This is the fact, and it involves a contradiction. — No empirical explanation can remove it. m. The World is my Representation § 38. If, to escape from this perplexity, I ask what part of all my knowledge is in reality abso- lutely and incontestably certain, it is best to begin, as did Descartes, by doubting everything. If now I not only doubt all theory and tradition, but even raise the question, if this world which visibly and palpably surrounds me, really exists, if it is not perhaps a mere dream of my imagination, an illusive phantom of my senses, — there is one truth which I cannot doubt ; it is : The world is my representation. Descartes went too far when he by his famous " Cogüo, ergo sum " restricted (as it seems) that which is THE THEORY OF UNDERSTANDING 23 indubitably certain to abstract representations. For, that the world, whatever it be in itself, is given me as a series of perceptual representations, is a primary fact of which I can never get rid, and which therefore also I cannot seriously doubt. § 39. To this fact alone however is restricted all indubitable certitude, and our ripeness for the philo- sophical view of things depends upon our being able to arrive by self- reflection at a real and sincere understanding of the great truth : this whole material world, extended in time and space, is, as such, known to me only through my intel- lect. Now my intellect, according to its nature, can never furnish me with anything but representations. Consequently this whole world and with it my own body, in so far as I regard it through my intellect, that is, as cor- poreal in time and space, is nothing more than my representation. § 40. Though this truth is irrefutable, we yet feel a strong repugnance to it. This repugnance will increase when we consider that even the most painful injuries to our own bodies are, for our intellect, nothing more than representations, just as much as are the pains and injuries with which we see others tormented. If our relation towards external objects were that of pure bodiless intelligences, the ELEMENTS OF METAPHYSICS above truth would not offend us in the least. The whole world would pass before us as a series of empty, meaningless phantoms, resembling the ap- paritions of a dream in which we are spectators only, not actors. But here the case is different.)^ For our relation to the world is twofold, on the one hand mediate, so far as we perceive the world through^ the medium of our intellect, on the other hand immediate, so far as we are ourselves, in virtue of our corporeal existence, a part of it. What we and the things of this world are in the latter sense, will be taken into consideration later on. At present this question does not concern us, as we have now to analyse the world as material in space and time ; for in this form the world is known to us only through our intellect and is consequently only our representation. IV. Whether Things in themselves are the same as I represent them ? § 41. The world is my representation. As such it is, in the first place, only the form in which things appear to me. Now the question is, whether things in themselves are the same as I represent them, namely, material in space and time, or if they exist in this form merely for[ my intellect, which perhaps, by its nature, is not able to reveal the real and true essence of things l^ THE THEORY OF UNDERSTANDING 25 The former is maintained by materialism, the latter is preached to us by certain mysterious voices of the past. Indian sages teach that the root, out of which springs the varied world, is ignorance {avidyd\ nay, they conceive this whole world as* an illusive phantom {mäyä). Greek philosophers (Parmenides, Plato, etc.) accuse the senses of deceiving us, whilst Christianity teaches that from the moral depravity of mankind comes a darkening of the intellect {ia-Korio-fievoi rfj Sea-, vola 6vT€^, Eph. iv. 18; one should read in particular i Cor. ii.). In all these fanciful sayings, is expressed the conviction that things in them^ selves are other than they appear to us. 1 An analysis of our intellectual faculties cari alone give us the means of deciding this question. ' V. Elements of Representation a priori and a posteriori 8 42. Every representation contains as such two supplementary halves, a representing subject and a represented object. These two make with the representation not three (as a sneering epigram of Schiller has it) but one. No repre- sentation is without a subject, none without an \ object. Now nothing exists for me but representa- • tions (§ 39), therefore also no subject without 26 ELEMENTS OF METAPHYSICS an object, no object without a subject — a truth which Plato (Theaetet. p. 1 60 AB) has already expressed in his way. § 43. All objects of my subject are such either immediately or mediately. As immediate objects I can never have anything else but affec- tions of my ego, that is, sensations within me (represented physiologically as certain specific irrita- tions of the sensory nerves extended in the organs of sense). All other objects, the whole external f world and even my own body, as far as I regard it from without, are known to me only as mediate objects : it is only through the medium of those nerve-irritations that I come in contact with them. § 44. Thus all data by which I attain to a knowledge of the external world, are restricted to these affections of the nerves which are given as immediate objects. They are the only thing which comes to my intellect from without, that is inde- pendent of itself. Consequently all else, all that distinguishes wide - spreading nature with its im- measurable riches from those scanty affections of the nerves, must come from within, that is, must originate in my intellect itself. § 45. If we compare the perceptual world which is our representation, to a textile fabric in which THE THEORY OF UNDERSTANDING 27 subjective and objective threads intersect as warp and woof, then all that is objective, independent of myself, given a posteriori, is limited to those affections of the nerves and may be compared to the thin, isolated threads of the shuttle. The warp, on the contrary, which is previously, that is a priori^ stretched out to receive little by little these interweaving threads and work them into a fabric, is the natural, innate forms of the subject, the totality of which forms just that which we call Understanding or brain. VI. Clues to the Discrimination of the a priori Elements in Representations § 46. The task of metaphysics consists in finding out what things are in themselves, that is, inde- pendent of our intellect (§ 4). We must, therefore, first of all, deduct from things that which our intellect contributes to them, namely those forms which inhere in it originally, that is a priori, and in which it ranges all materials furnished from without so as to weave them into experience. The following six criteria may serve to distinguish these a priori elements of knowledge or innate functions of the Understanding from those which come to it a posteriori or through perception. They are to us what reagents are to the chemist ^mm 38 ELEMENTS OF METAPHYSICS THE THEORY OF UNDERSTANDING 29 They may also be regarded as six magnets, by means of which we extract the iron of our a priori knowledge from the mixed ore of ex- perience. 1. Whatever is necessary to transform percep- tion, given as affection, into perceptual representation, and consequently precedes all experience as a condition of its possibility, cannot originate in ex- perience but only within ourselves {argumentum ex antecessione), 2. Whatever comes to the intellect from with- out, has the character of contingency, it might be otherwise, or it might even not be at all ; that is, I can imagine it as non-existent. Now, in my representations there are certain elements which cannot be thought away like everything else, from which it follows that they do not belong to that which exists independently of myself, but must adhere to the intellect itself (argumentum ex ad- haesione). 3. For the same reason all data given from without merely suffice to state what is there, but not that something is necessarily so and not otherwise. Perception has no tongue for the word r necessity, consequently all determinations of things, ' with which is associated the c^rLg^cjousness of neces- sity, must originate, not in perception, but within myse lf {argumentum e necessitate). 4. From this it follows that sciences the doctrines of which have apodictic certainty, cannot have obtained it from perception, and that consequently that part of the perceptual world to which they refer must belong to the elements originally inherent in my intellect {argumentum e matkematicis), 5. Perception can only furnish me with sensa- tions. These are, as such, isolated and fragmentary, for, difficult as it is to grasp at first, the materials of sensation given from without contain only the sensa- tions themselves, but not any connection between them, for such a connection is merely the link between the different sensations and therefore not itself sensation. Consequently that faculty which makes of the variety of perception a unity and so creates coherence between my representations, must belong to me a priori. Therefore whatever serves to establish the continuity of nature, belongs to the innate functions of my intellect {argumentum e contimntate). 6. Perception can never embrace infinity. If, now, I find in my representations of things elements of which I am conscious as being infinite, it follows with certainty, that I have not taken them from perception, but must possess them as forms of my intellect, wherefore, however far I proceed in re- presenting, I can never get beyond them, in which precisely consists their infinity {argumentum ex infinitate). 30 ELEMENTS OF METAPHYSICS I I Vn. The a priori Elements are : Time, Space, and Causality 8 47. Three constituent elements of the sur- rounding perceptual world, neither more nor less, are proved by these six touchstones to be forms belonging originally to our intellect, in which we range the material of perception, to transform it into representations. These, therefore, must be withdrawn from nature in order to retain as re- mainder things in themselves. They are : — - 1. Space, 2. Time, 3. Causality. That it is these three which distinguish the sur- rounding phenomenal world from that of being-in- itself (an -sich -Seiend), is the fundamental truth of all metaphysics, therefore it appears again and again, pronounced at least indirectly and as in- ference, in all the various stages of metaphysical development, as the following instances will show. In the Vedänta, the most profound metaphysical system of India, the thing-in -itself appears as t he Brahman, of which it is said, that it is not split by time and space {de^a-kdla-anavacchinna) and that it is free from all change {sarva-vikriyd-rahita), (Cankara ad Brihad-Aranyaka-upanishad, i. 3,j p. 79,1 THE THEORY OF UNDERSTANDING -ad Brahma-s/itrdm, i. i „ p. 64,,.) Now where there / IS no change, there is also no causality. ^ The exemption from causality of things-in- themselves is also the fundamental dogma of Plato's philosophy. Again and again he recurs to the dis- tmction between the ehenomenal world, ruled by ^^ausahty, which he calls « the Becoming and Perish- ing, but never really Being " (aa^^^ Kara rairä ^^ec Koi oiSiTrore oi^Sa^fj ovBaf.a>, dXXol. toavv oiBefiiav eV^erat, Phaedon, 78 D) Like causality, he also restricts to the phenomenal world and expressly excludes from Being-in-itself, SpacJ (7r/)09 h 8^ Ka\ opecpo7roXovf.epßXi'rropTe,^ald>auep Karexov x<^pav rcvd, Tim. 52 B) and Time (raOra 8k yeyovora ^8,^ k 8^ ^ipovre, Xa.Odvo^ev £ ^, albLov ovaiav o{,k 6p0co^, Tim. 37 e). Biblical metaphysics conceives Being-in-itself \ as a personality, but retracts the limitation implied in this Idea, when it maintains as attributes of God fn alr'^%''f "' timelessness (me'öläm 'ad-'6lL attah el, Psalm xc. 2); (2) omnipresence, that is, pacelessness (et-haschschämajim v^et-häärez ^nf abiHt^If''^^^^ ^™ " ^^^^ (^) --- tab,hty,that IS, exemption from causality (h^m-/ mäh [heaven and earth] jöbedü Vattäh ta'>mod, Psalm cii. 27). ' As dreaming is opposed to waking, so these witnesses of the past are opposed to the arguments for the a-priority of Time, Space, and Causality, which Kant first established, and Schopenhauer has freed from false additions and completed. For both is reserved, as reward, the veneration of many future ^^^If, however, we try in the following to establish these proofs, in part more completely and system- atically, in part more comprehensibly than has been done by these immortal teachers, we commit no act of impiety : for here as everywhere we have the right to look at things with our own eyes. Vra. Space is an a priori form of Perception V. .- - — ■ S 48 Space is that constituent element of the perceptual world by means of which all objects are determined in position towards each other. It is, as such, not something independent of myself, but an a priori form of perceiving. First Proof: ex antecessiom S 49 I have the representation of space. This representation must come either from experience or from myself. Now it cannot be drawn from ex- THE THEORY OF UNDERSTANDING 33 perience, because every experience presupposes it, for what makes experience is my referring certain sensations to something outside of me and their diversity to different places outside of each other. This presupposes, in every experience, the represen- tation of space. Consequently it must spring not from experience, but from my intellect itself. Second Proof: ex adhaesione § 50. In my representation of the outer world I can think away everything except space. I cannot imagine that there is no space, whilst I can easily imagine that there are no objects in space. I can, for instance, think away everything in the universe but not the space which fills it, for to think away space is absolutely impossible. Hence follows that space belongs not to the represented objects, but to my representing faculty, for from this and this alone I can make no abstraction when I am representing. Third Proof: e necessitate § 51. All particular determinations of space are necessary and whatever contradicts them is im- possible. It is necessary, in order to reach a thing, to traverse all parts of space which separate me from it ; it is impossible to be nowhere or in two places at the same time, etc. Every one feels that the D ' •' I ! ELEMENTS OF METAPHYSICS 34 certainty of this and similar determinations is of quite a different kind from that which comes to us through often-repeated experience. For experience can only tell me that until now something has never been otherwise than so and so ; but not that some- thing is necessarily so and not otherwise. Hence space the determinations of which arc throughout necessary, cannot originate in experience, but must come from myself. Fourth Proof: « mathematicis S 52. Geometry pronounces all its propositions aptxlictically, that is, with the consciousness of necessity. This is the reason why this science knows properly neither controversies nor hypotheses, with which the empirical sciences teem in all de- partments. Hence follows with certainty, that the do-mas of geometry cannot be gathered from per- ception, that consequently the subject of this science is not empirical. Now the subject of geometry is space, and it is only in order to investigate the laws of space that geometry imagines its points, lines surfaces, and bodies. For in these the nature of space is manifested in the same way, as the nature of characters which the dramatist wishes to depict, is revealed in the actions which he invents for the purpose. Space therefore is an a priori representa- tion. il THE THEORY OF UNDERSTANDING 35 Fifth Proof: e continuitate § 53. Every external perception (whether of a body or of its image on the retina of the eye) con- sists of an infinite multitude of parts which, as mere affections of my ego, have no relation whatever to each other but only a relation to me. That, there- fore, which links these into a connected perception, must lie not without, but within me. Now the tie which connects the infinite multitude of external affections (whether given by one sense or by several) into the unity of external perception, is space. Con- sequently space must lie within, not without me. Sixth Proof: ex hifinitate § 54. Space is (as shown, § 7) infinite. I know with the utmost certainty, that beyond all solar systems, in regions where no telescope can pene- trate, no experience reach, space still continues. From experience I cannot know this. It follows, therefore, that I know it a priori, IX. Time is an a priori form of Perception § 55. Time is that constituent element of the perceptual world by means of which all conditions and changes, whether belonging to outer or inner experience, are determined in their sequence to each 36 ELEMENTS OF METAPHYSICS Other. As such, it does not exist independently of me but is a representation a priori. First Proof: ex antecessione § 56. The representation of time cannot be obtained from experience, because every experience, in order to be made, presupposes time. For to make an experience, it is necessary to have certain sensations either simultaneously or successively. Now this simultaneity, this succession, does not belong to the sensations as such ; consequently it belongs to me and is just that which constitutes the nature of time. Second Proof: ex adhaesione S 57. Let us suppose the world were to stand still, all motion being checked, all change suspended. There would indeed, in consequence of the stoppage of all clocks, as well as that of the great world clock (the earth revolving round the sun), be no means of measuring time. But time itself would continue its course undisturbed, and one moment follow cease- lessly on another as before. If in this way I were to extinguish all inner and outer perception (which is nothing but a kind of change), there would still remain to me the representation of (absolutely empty) time, and this would be extinguished only THE THEORY OF UNDERSTANDING 37 with my intellect itself; from which follows with certainty, that time does not belong to the things existing independently of me, but to my own intel- lectual faculties, to which it adheres as their indis- pensable form. Third Proof: e necessitate § 58. All particular determinations of time are necessary, and whatever contradicts them is im- possible. It is necessary, for instance, in order to reach any period of the future, to live through ex- actly the amount of time which separates it from the present, neither more nor less. It is impossible to recall any single moment of the past ; the cer- tainty of this and similar determinations can never be attained through experience, however universal and invariable it may be. One may doubt, for example, whether Plato's birth took place according to Apollodorus in B.c. 427, or according to Athenaeus m B.C. 429 ; but if any one were to maintain that both authors were right, and that Plato was born twice successively, we should not be likely to observe that such a case had never occurred and was there- fore extremely improbable, but we should simply declare such a person deranged, an expression sig- nifying that something in the mechanism of his head must have become displaced, which would, in the present case, be the cerebral function of time. 38 ELEMENTS OF METAPHYSICS il Fourth Proof: e mathematicis § 59. Theaxiomsof arithmetic (the generalised form of which is algebra) have, like those of geometry, apodictic certainty. The subject of this science can- not therefore spring from experience. Now as geo- metry is the science of space, so is arithmetic the science of time, as will be clear from the following. All arithmetic, with its most complicated formulae and operations, may be regarded as a methodically abridged counting (hence the name apt^/i7;Tt/c»/, that is, art of counting). In counting, I abstract from everything except from time. For counting consists in the repeated marking of unity, for which I employ each time a different conventional term (one, two, three, etc.), merely to know how often I have marked unity. Now all repetition depends on succession, and in succession alone consists the nature of time. So all counting, and consequently arithmetic is the science of time ; and from the apodicticity of arithmetical propositions follows the a-priority of time. Fifth Proof: e continuitate S 60. Every perception is only possible through my being affected either outwardly or inwardly for a certain period of time. This period, however short it may be, consists of an infinite number of parts THE THEORY OF UNDERSTANDING 39 which are filled by an infinite multitude of corre- sponding affections in the subject (whether the object affecting me is at rest or in motion). All these affections of my ego have, as such, no relation to each other, but only a relation to me. The thread, therefore, on which they are strung together to the unity of perception, is not in the affections them- selves, that is outside of me, but only within me. This thread, on which I string all affections coming to me from without as from within, is time. It must consequently be given a priori as a condition of the synthesis of perceptions. Sixth Proof : ex infinitate § 61. Time is (according to § 9) infinite in both directions. I know with certainty that in the most hoary past, to which no knowledge reaches, in the most distant future, which no prophet's eye can pierce, time was and will be. From experience I cannot know it ; it follows therefore, without con- tradiction, that I know it independently of ex- perience, that is, a priori. X. Causality is an a p riori f orm of Perception § 62. As space is the order of things according to their position, time the order of things accord- ing to their sequence, so causality is the order of ELEMENTS OF METAPHYSICS THE THEORY OF UNDERSTANDING 41 II things according to their action. Now as every single place and every single period of time is empirically determined, while, on the other hand, space and time themselves, as the general possibility of the empirical occupation of time and space, are a priori representations, so also is each single effect empirically determined, but causality, as the general possibility of action, precedes them a priori. It is the net which binds together, in the way laid down by the law of causality (§ 15), all effects, that is, all force manifestations (§ 24), and connects them, in various ways, as effects of preceding and causes of succeeding force manifestations. As such, causality is in no way an abstract concept, but, like space and time, a constituent element of the totality of empirical reality ; though we are not able to isolate it (for the purpose of considering it separately) so completely from effects, as we may isolate space from bodies and time from events. That causality, however, is an integral part of the perceptual world, becomes clear if we repre- sent it as filling space and persisting in time, for then it appears as that which remains after all manifestations of force have been separated from things, and which, in contrast to force, is called matter or substance. This, however, can only be explained later on (Chap. XVI.). Here we have merely to prove that causality, like time and space, is an a priori faculty of our understanding. First Proof: ex antecessione § 63. The relation in the perceptual world of every effect to its preceding cause, which we call causality (that is, the being- caused), cannot be learned from experience but must belong a priori to our understanding as an innate faculty, compelling us to regard each manifestation of force as an effect and to refer it immediately and unreflectingly to its cause. This surprising and important truth of the a priority of causality follows with perfect certainty from the fact that every experience, in order to be made, presupposes an application of causality. All namely, that can come to me from without, is (as has been shown in § 44) affections of my sensory nerves, and I should never get beyond these, never attain to a perception of the outside world, if I did not bear within me a priori the means of conceiving these affections as effects and of passing from them to something else, namely to their causes, which I project as bodies in space (likewise given a priori). This impossibility of explaining, without the aid of causality, the gene- sis of the perception of the external worid, shows cleariy and incontestably that causality itself can not be gathered from the impressions of the external worid, but must belong a priori to the intellect. 42 ELEMENTS OF METAPHYSICS THE THEORY OF UNDERSTANDING 43 Corollary. — It is exactly the same, as will become clear hereafter, whether I say : no sensation can be conceived as body without the help of causality ; or, no force can affect me except through the medium of matter. Second Proof : ex adhaesione § 64. Causality in itself is not representable (§ 62) ; it becomes so, when, after its union with space and time, it is called matter. Now, since the proof ex adhaesione is based on the inextinguishable nature of certain elements of knowledge (§ 46,2), it is applicable only to objectively perceived causality, that is, to matter. It can only, therefore, like every- thing in the present chapter which presupposes the identity of causality and matter, be fully understood after studying the theory of matter (Chap. XVI.). Matter has the peculiarity of being at the same time contingent and necessary. I can certainly think away matter (which with space and time is impos- sible), but I cannot imagine existing matter as non-existent. On this depends its uncreatability and indestructibility which (as already remarked in § 1 2) is a truth a priori, previous to all experience. The impossibility, namely, of imagining either the creation or annihilation of matter proves that I cannot sever my intellectual faculties from its exist- ence, from which follows, that it has not, like the forces borne by it, an existence independent of my intellect, but inheres in the latter as an original form of perception. Third Proof: e necessitate § 65. All determinations of causality (enumerated §§ 14-20) have the character of necessity ; whatever contradicts these determinations is impossible. We may often, for instance, doubt to what cause a particular effect is to be referred, but, that it must have some cause, we are all firmly convinced. As little, therefore, as a judge would believe an accused, who, called upon to prove an alibi, should maintain that, at the moment in question, he had been nowhere, just as little would he, when a crime has been committed, allow the possibility of this effect being without a cause. If the law of causality were an a posteriori law of nature (§21), our experience, however general, could not guarantee that it might not occasionally admit of an exception. That experience carries with it no. necessity was a truth of which David Hume was as much convinced as Kant, But compare the conclusions which the two drew from the same premisses. Hume argued : — Experience has no necessity. The law of causality springs from experience. Therefore it has no necessity. 44 ELEMENTS OF METAPHYSICS Kant argued : — Experience has no necessity. The law of causality has necessity. Therefore it does not spring from experience. Fourth Proof: e mathematicis S 66. Besides geometry and arithmetic, there is still a third science the propositions of which have apodictic certainty. It forms that element of the natural sciences which remains, when we eliminate all a posteriori laws of nature, these being merely the expression for the invariable operating of the forces of nature (§ 21), and which Kant, in his «Meta- physische Anfangsgründe der Naturwissen- schaft," subjected to a separate inquiry. If we take away from our knowledge whatever has been gained empirically by induction, there remains no real action, but only the general possibility of action (that is, causality), which, viewed as filling space and persisting in time, constitutes matter (as will be proved further on). The science of matter at rest and in motion has apodictic certainty; con- sequently its subject is given to us not empirically, but a priori. Fifth Proof: e continuitate § 67. If the affections, to which all perception is restricted, are not even capable of giving me any THE THEORY OF UNDERSTANDING 45 coherence in time and space, still less are they capable of communicating the connection often so remote between cause and effect. If therefore this connection cannot be drawn from perception, it follows, that it is furnished by my mind, which, in the same way as it projects bodies in space and events in time, arranges all perceived force manifesta- tions as causes and effects in its a priori form of causality. This, of course, does not exclude the fact that, in making this arrangement, it is guided in all particulars by former experience. Sixth Proof: exinfinitate § 68. The net of causality is (as shown, § 19) without beginning or end, that is, it is infinite in time. Whether it is also infinite in space, we do not know, because we are ignorant as to whether the store of matter, to which all effects and consequently all applications of causality are confined (S 13), is limited or unlimited. So much, however, we know positively, that in the most distant star, in the earliest past as in the latest future, there can never be an effect without a cause. No experience reaches to these times and regions; it follows, therefore, that we know it independently of experience, that is, a priori. Corollary. — From this proof also (as from S 64) 46 ELEMENTS OF METAPHYSICS may be deduced the axiom, that matter, which is causality objectively perceived, can never be created and never annihilated. XL The Empirical and the Transcendental Standpoint. § 69. Recapitulation. — The result of our inquiries so far may be summed up as follows : — 1. The world is a purely material structure, ^l which, interwoven by causality, exists in in- finite space, through infinite time (§§ 7-30)- 2. This same material world is through and through merely ajre^presentation of^ my intellect, and its.jnateriality is only the form in which things appear to me (§§^ 38- 40). ""™~ 3. In itself, that is, independently of my intellect, there exists nothing but that which we have called sensations or affections of the ego (§§ 42-45). These are, as regards their real nature, absolutely unknown to us ; for though physiology, in which the intellect appears as brain, recognises its affections as irritations of the sensory nerves, in so doing, it already regards these as they appear to us, but not as they are in themselves. 4. Three constituent elements of the external world, forming the very framework of nature, THE THEORY OF UNDERSTANDING 47 namely, time, space, and the causal nexus, are, as we have shown by three times six proofs, the innate forms the totality of which constftutes the essence of the intellect. They are, physiologically speaking, cerebral functions, and consequently not something existing independently of my mind (appear- - ing as brain). No one can think of evading the conclusions which we shall presently draw from these facts, so long as he has not succeeded in refuting the whole series ot proofs brought forward by us. That this should ever happen, that any one should succeed in undermining singly each of the six proofs adduced for the a priority of time, space, and causality, and thereby overthrow the whole structure resting on them, is, in our estimation, for ever impossible. , That there will be, however, hereafter as before, those who fancy they have refuted what they have never really understood, is not only possible but highly probable. § 70. Regarding the facts established by us, three standpoints are possible : the empirical, which ignores them ; the transcendent, which defies them; and the transcendental, which utilises them. §71. The empirical standpoint is that on which all men stand by nature, and on which most stand 48 ELEMENTS OF METAPHYSICS all their life long. It is that which is alone val.d for all sciences save metaphysics, and for all practical life, with the exception of purely moral, that is, self-denying deeds, which for that very - reason, as will be shown later, bear a supernatural | . character and are opposed to all actions natural^ ^ to man. From this standpoint no notice is taken ^ of the facts resulting from the analysis of intellect, for it has to deal only with things as they exist for us, and not as they may be in themselves. Whether the wonderful consistency we meet every- where in nature, and on which we confidently build our plans, rests on an objective order of things or on subjective laws of the intellect, is of no con- sequence to practical life and to the empirical sciences serving it. /For, though time, space, and causality are only innate forms of the intellect, they yet govern all that is earthly with inexorable necessity, as if they were eternal determinations of things themselves, because (i) the intellect is every-' where identical, and (2) is inseparable from existence.. (I) On the one hand, namely, the intellectual faculties in all living beings differ only in energy, that is, in degree, but, as regards their real nature, they are everywhere the same, so that all mmds must produce from the same affections essentially the same representations, just as the digestive organs in all men draw from the same food essentially the same materials for the building up of the body. THE THEORY OF UNDERSTANDING 49 \\ (2) On the other hand, the intellect is the ever- present pre -requisite of existence; it is, as the Indians call it, «the witness" {säkshin\ which accompanies the whole changeful drama of life from birth to death as its indispensable condition, and there is (as follows from § 42) as little a world without intellect as an intellect without world. Let it not be objected that many revolu- tions of our planet must have taken place, before living and intelligent beings could come into existence, for all these preceding world periods of which geology tells, are neither more nor less than the most immediate present, merely the form in which things appear to our space -and -time- bound mind ; m reality there is no time, and so no past, present, or future. / § 72. The transcendent standpoint transcends, as its name implies, the limits of knowledge attain- able by experience. For, whatever we have learned through the accumulated experience of ages, and whatever may yet be added to it, is. like a small island on the immeasurable ocean. Unsatisfied in its longings and conscious of a higher origin, the human mind has at all times sought to pasJ the boundaries of knowledge, which have been fixed'? once for all by the nature of our intellectual faculties, and, for the sake of purity of moral action, have been fixed wisely. But already a thoroughgoing 50 ELEMENTS OF METAPHYSICS THE THEORY OF UNDERSTANDING 51 empirical view of nature, the outlines of which have been sketched in the "System of Physics," cuts off the way to all such attempts to fly beyond the atmosphere of experience. For, however far on I all sides we would penetrate infinity, we remain for ever in the desolate cage of empirical reality. Kant, in his " Critique of Pure Reason," undertook on a large scale such a relegation and confinement of transcending reason to the limits of experience. Yet in so doing he appears to us like Saul, the son of Kish, who, being sent out by his father {David Hume) to seek the asses, found a royal crown. For Kant, in analysing the intellectual faculties, to discover their bearing, came through this inquiry, directed against transcending reason! and therefore transcendental, to the greatest dis- covery ever made in any department of science, the discovery of the a priori forms of the intellect, which is and will be for ever the basis of all scientific , metaphysics. § 73. The transcendental standpoint, the name of which we owe to the memory of Kant, does not presume, as does the transcendent, to pass beyond the limits of experience, but contents itself with understanding thoroughly the world as it is given to us. For this purpose it investigates it, in taking away from things everywhere that which is imposed on them only by the forms of our intellect To Kant's unexampled acumen is due the discovery of these forms ; Scho penhauer's immeasurably wide .^"^ profound genius was called to make this dis- covery fruitful by spreading its light from the centre of the inner self to the periphery of the worid, thus gaining scientifically what for ages past the pro- phetic voices of the wisest among men were able to express only by images. To both these men posterity will raise one monu- ment, representing the first, as he sits, self-absorbed and sunk in profound thought, the other, leaning on him, with upraised open glance, as if to embrace the world. We and many after us tread the path which these mighty heroes have cleared for all after ages, but_we must tread^ jDurselves and independently. Not words, not individual opinions of the immortal masters must guide us, but _naturejtsdi;jidi^^ being they have disclosed to us. Our standpoint is neither empirical nor transcendent, but transcen- dental, we touch the boundaries and we do not transcend them. XII. Transcendental Analysis of Empirical Reality § 74. The first fruit of the transcendental stand- point is the solution of the problem of perceptual knowledge (raised in § 37), which, being from the S3 ELEMENTS OF METAPHYSICS THE THEORY OF UNDERSTANDING 53 II If empirical standpoint impossible, pointed, for that very reason, beyond it. The organ of Understanding, on which, as we know, the world depends, appears in physiology as the brain. This, in sending to the sense organs five differently formed offshoots, stretches itself, as it were, towards the five states of aggregation of things (which in the main are the hhütäni, cToix^la, dementa of the ancients), the solid, fluid, gaseous, permanently elastic, and the imponderable, and adapts itself, so to say, to them ; a thought which permeates all Indian philosophy, while amongst the Greeks we find only uncertain traces of it (compare Aristotle de sensu 2). In what way, however, the brain manufactures its sensa- tions into representations, physiology is unable to read in the furrows and convolutions of this curiously constructed organ. Here psychology comes to its aid. To its inner view, the brain appears as the Understanding, which it conceives as a structure, framed of time, space, and causality— that is, as a power of reacting upon the incoming affection in a threefold direction, whereby the per- ception of the external world arises as follows. S 75. It is the Understanding which first ranges on its innate thread of time all sense affec- tions it receives, into a coherent series. Secondly, it takes, by means of its inherent causality, each external affection as an effect, which it refers (not intentionally nor reflectingly, but through the im- mediate impulse of its own nature) to its condition- ing cause. This cause, in tJie third place, it projects in space (likewise inherent in it by nature), where it appears as the material object. § ^6. The product, arising from the continually exerted reaction of the intellectual forms upon the thronging affections, is actually {Kar ivepyeiav) in each moment a limited and narrow circle of ideas ; but potentially (/tara Uvafiiv) it constitutes the whole aggregate of empirical reality, this itself being nothing more than the consciousness (accompanying all my representations) of that which can be repre- sented, beside that which actually is represented. Remark.— To exist or to be real, accordingly, means nothing else than to be able to be represented by the senses; while, on the contrary, possible is that the reality of which (that is, its representability by the senses) can be represented. \ 77. Cleariy and incontestably appears, as the result of our inquiries so far, the great doctrine of Idealism, this very root of all religion and philo- sophy: The whole Of nature, immeasurably extended in space and time, exists only under the presup- position of the forms of our intellect and has, apart from them, that is in a metaphysical sense, no reality; for it is nothing more than the un- ELEMENTS OF METAPHYSICS THE THEORY OF UNDERSTANDING 55 I I' il ll! ceasingly generated product of the sensuous afifections and the mental foms.— The repugnance \ to this truth, arising from the physical cast of our j intellect, will be lessened, when we consider that | the material world in space and time is only the form in which the nature of things -in -themselves appears to us ; it will disappear, when (in the second part) we penetrate, by the only possible way, to the knowledge of Being-in-itself; and then pursue in detail j how this Being, distorted through the medium of time, space, and causality, appears as that which wej call nature. S 78. Never would the senses accomplish the wonderful work of perception, if the action ex- erted by external objects on the thin nerve threads, expanded in our sense organs, were not met from within by the reaction of the nervous matter of the massive and so ingeniously constructed brain ; and that, as the Indians have already justly under- stood : " cakshur - Mnäm manah - samyogam vind vyäpära-akshamatväd, because the eye, etc., without union with the mind, is unable to perform its function " (Wilson, Sänkhya-K., p. 1 00 n.). It is not the senses, therefore, which see, hear, feel, smell, and taste, but the Understanding (repre- sented as brain) ; as even Epicharmos (B.C. 500) saw and admirably expressed in the verse (Plut. mor. p. 96 1 a) : — Noi/9 opy KObi vov^ cLKoveiy raWa Koa^a koX TV^\d — What in us hears, what in us sees, is mind, ^ And all its organs are but dumb and blind. /\ § 79. Nobody should deny himself the pleasure of examining by the light of this truth, — so simple and yet so important (in which Physics and Metaphysics join hands), sensuous perception in detail, and convincing himself how, for instance, the phenomena of vision (physically inexplicable, see § 37) become clear, if only we keep to the fact, that for the Understanding the image on the retina serves as a mere datum from which as effect it passes to its external cause, which, by the aid of touch and of previous experience, it construes in size, position, and distance, accurately in space. A whole series of the most difficult optical phenomena are hereby easily explained ; such are : the upright appearance of the inverted image in the eye ; the single vision with two eyes ; the double vision when the optical angle is not closed ; the appearance as body of the flat image in the eye ; the perception of the nearness and smallness or the distance and largeness of an object at equal visual angle ; the increasing and diminishing of the physiological colour spectrum according as one looks at a distant or a near plane ; the illusion of the microscope and the tele- scope, etc. 56 ELEMENTS OF METAPHYSICS THE THEORY OF UNDERSTANDING 57 Xni Of the Immediate and Mediate Appli- cation of the Understanding § 80. The passing from the effect within me to its external cause is the immediate applica- tion of the Understanding. But the objects of the external world stand (empirically speaking) not only to me, but also to each other in various relations of space, time, and causality. Now the same organ which builds a bridge between the immediate objects (appearing, § 43, as nerve irrita- tions) and the mediate objects, serves further to trace out the spatial, temporal, and causal relations of the mediate objects to each other, that is, from the metaphysical standpoint, to create them. (The strangeness of this expression will disappear later.) This is the mediate application of the Under- standing. Its higher degrees are called in practical life quick -wittedness, in science acumen; the want of it is stupidity, at times associated with great scholarship. Remark. — Every great discovery depends on the passing from a well-known effect to its hidden cause (discovery of America, of oxygen, of Neptune) ; each invention is the establishing of a cause which produces as effect some in- tended result (invention of the alphabet, of printing, of the steam engine, of a manageable balloon, etc.). Accordingly the Understanding is the instrument on the energy of which depends intellectual superiority ; far more than Reason, which (apart from the faculty of judgment) is closely allied to memory and scarcely more than a repositoiy. § 81. In the immediate application of the Under- standing the intellect remains in that state which has been called receptivity, in the mediate it passes into spontaneity. It is of great impor- tance to understand that both depend on that same reaction on the sensuous affections which we recognised as the nature of the Understanding, and that both differ from each other only in degree. In perceiving, the reacting Understanding is, so to say, on the defensive. It contents itself with re- pelling the attacks of the affections by projecting them in time, space, and causality. As a result of the increase of the brain and its power of reaction in the higher animals and man, the Understanding passes, as it were, from the defensive to the offensive. It not only repels the attacks of the affections, but pursues the aggressor to its farthest retreats, that is, it apprehends things not merely in relation to itself, but in the most distant relations of their spatial, temporal, and causal connection with each other. On a similar reaction of the Understanding, raised to the offensive, de- pends, as we shall see later, that function of the latter, peculiar to man alone, which is called Reason. For it is, in the main, as will appear, one and the same faculty which, as Understand- 5» ELEMENTS OF METAPHYSICS ing, establishes the connection between cause and effect, and as Reason, that between the perceptual world and the predicates abstracted from it. Remark.— An act of the Understanding can, of course, appear in the form of a logical conclusion (of which later). In itself, however, it is by no means such, but only the in- tuitive and, so to say, instinctive passing from one relation of the perceptual world to another connected with it. There- fore it belongs, in a certain degree, to the brutes also, which by means of their innate functions of time, space, and causality, practise quite correctly the immediate, and in part even the mediate application of the Understanding. XIV. Whether there are Innate Ideas ? § 82. Here is cleared up the old controversy about innate ideas, the existence of which was maintained by Descartes and his school, while Locke disputed it. In the words ''no innate ideas'' lies the real pith of his philosophy. We saw already (§ 65) how this tenet in Hume's hands culminated in a conclusion the untenability of which was obvious. It was this conclusion which roused Kant from "dogmatic slumber" and drove him to his great discoveries. § 83. All abstract representations, as we shall show farther on, spring from concrete perception. There are therefore, indeed, no innate ideas, but there are three innate functions of the brain, — space, time, and causality, which constitute the very nature THE THEORY OF UNDERSTANDING 59 of intellect. They are as innate in the brain as walking in the leg or grasping in the hand. The child brings them ready made with it into the world, though it has not from the beginning the representa- tion of space, etc. For it is only upon the stimulus of external affection that the understanding awakes and its functions become active. Through constant use these are hereafter exerted so spontaneously, that we are not at all conscious of them, so much so, that mankind had to seek some thousands of years before it became aware of that which lay nearest it, and which for that very reason was so difficult to discover. But if children could tell us what goes on in their minds during the first months of their existence, they would lisp Kantian philosophy. XV. The Theory of Dreaming § 84. The nature of sleep might be defined as a periodical separation of will and intellect, which causes a temporary suspension of the con- scious will (of which more in the second part). The system of this conscious will in our organism (the eleven indriydni^ of Indian psychology) em- braces three parts : — ^ The ifidriy&ni (originally '« the powerful ") are therefore fre- quently not our senses, but the organs of relation; and vijita- tndrtya^^ samyafa-indriya, etc., is not so- much "whose senses are T- wk' "''^n'''' ^'^^ '' ^^"''^'" °'' ^' ^^"" ^^' 98) paraphrases « . Whose will IS not excited by the perceptions of the senses." 6o ELEMENTS OF METAPHYSICS THE THEORY OF UNDERSTANDING 61 1. The sensory nerves of the organs of sense ibuddhi-indriyäni), which transmit the affec- tions to the brain. 2. The brain, which moulds these affections into percepts and stamps them to resolutions (in this double function corresponding to the Indian manas), 3. The motor nerves, which, starting from the brain, terminate in the organs of action {karma-indriyAni, tongue, hand, foot, etc.) in order to regulate through these the execution of the resolutions. In a waking state these three parts are held in close unity by the conscious will. In sleep the conscious will becomes latent, and its organs are isolated from each other ; therefore Homer gives sleep the unequalled epithet of " the limb-loosening " (Xuo-A/tieXT??). This isolation of the brain from the motor and sensory nerves is the cause of our having in sleep neither voluntary movement nor perception. With the ceasing of the external affection is extinguished also the reaction of the Understanding, after the representations still occu- pying it, being no longer fed from without, come to a standstill, in which falling asleep consists. Because this cessation of the conscious will is an indispensable condition of sleep, it is impossible to obtain sleep, like so much else, by force of will. § 85. But when external affection and the thoughts and fancies dependent on it are silenced, whence come dreams — these dramas with such plastic scenery, such lifelike characters, of which we are the spectators and creators in sleep ? Nothing happens without cause. There is no perception without affection: so also in dreaming. The affection during sleep cannot come from with- out, for in that case the isolation would be broken and a half-waking state be the result. It follows con- sequently, that the affections by which dreams are caused, arise from the interior of our organism. We can with great probability assume the following. As nature uses (or rather causes) the stoppage of the machine, in order to repair it, so it may happen that, through her busy working to and fro, certain gentle shocks penetrate to those parts of the brain which, when affected in a waking state, would pro- duce the perception of the external worid. Now when these (like the strings of a piano when dusted) are during sleep affected from within to and fro irregularly and without connection, the Understand- ing at once performs its accustomed functions (the strings sound) and creates out of these sporadic affections, always of course aided by the memory of previous experience, the perceptions of the dream, so disordered and yet so distinct, so strangely confused and yet so consistently connected. 62 ELEMENTS OF METAPHYSICS THE THEORY OF UNDERSTANDING 63 XVI Transcendental Analysis of Matter S 86. The perception of the material world, and so the material world itself (§§ 38-40), arises, as we have seen, through the Understanding projecting its affections, by means of causality, in space and time (§ 7S)' Th"^ bodies are through and through nothing more than affection, that is, force, repre- sented as filling space. Material objects are, accord- ing to Kant's excellent expression, force-filled spaces. If now I take away force, if I deduct from bodies all that by which they affect me, there remains nothing but empty space. Some minds will be per- fectly satisfied with this decomposition of matter into force and space. It will be those in whom abstract has a decided preponderance over perceptual know- ledge. § 87. Others again, with whom the contrary is the case, will, even after thinking away all force, imagine that they still retain something besides space, namely the representation of a dark, confused mass, which, indeed, owing to the total absence of force and consequently of all affection, is neither visible nor tangible nor in any way perceptible, and yet persists as a certain something before their in- tellect. It is properly this something which, as it remains after the removal of all force from bodies, is opposed to force as matter or substance devoid of all quality. Now, since with the removal of force all reality, that is, all that exists independently of my intellect, falls away, the remaining matter can only be a subjective phenomenon, springing from the forms of our intellect. This phenomenon arises as follows. § 88. In perceiving, the Understanding is un- ceasingly occupied in projecting the most diverse effects, given it as affections, in space and time (§75). Now, if I try to efface from my consciousness (what, strictly speaking is, of course, impossible) every single real effect, there remains to me nothing but the general form of effecting, that is causality. Now just as the Understanding continually projects all concrete effects (all effecting ivepyela 6v) as causes in space, so it continues, even when I set these aside, to perceive the general possibility of effecting (the effect hvvdfieL 6v\ that is, causality itself (§ 62), as filling space and persisting in time, where it then appears as that dark phantom of matter or substance. Matter therefore has no proper reality, as even Aristotle recognised, when he defined it as merely hwdfiec 6v, It is only the possibility of corporeity conceived as corporeal, that is causality, perceived in space and time. Consequently it is the combined totality of causality, space, and time perceived objectively, II 64 ELEMENTS OF METAPHYSICS whereas the same totality perceived subjectively (as we saw § 74) constitutes the Understanding. Matter is therefore the objective reflex of the Understanding itself and is to it what space is to the space-function, time' to the time -function. It is therefore in the main the same, only viewed on the one side from the empirical, on the other from the transcendental standpoint Remark—Thus matter originates in the abstraction from aU concrete effect, just as each concept originates ^n abstrac- tion from the individual representations underlymg it. Curi- ously enough, however, matter is not an abstract concept bu an element of the perceptual world. This, I beheve, must have been in Plato's mind when he defined matter as /xcra- Xaf^ßdvov d^oprard Try roO vo.rov and as aTrro. Aoyccr/xy r.v7v6e^ {T\m, 51 A, 52 b). Abstracting is an act of the reason, which, however, in this case leads exceptionally not to a concept but to a perceptual representation, for which cause Plato pronounced it spurious, .0Ö09. (Compare on this obscure passage and the various unsatisfactory attempts to explam 1 myCommenlatio de Piatonis Sophista, Bonn, 1869, PP. 32-34.) XVn. The Double World of the Half-Phüosophers S 89. Kant had proved that the three main pillars of nature,— time, space, and causality, are nothing but the subjective forms of our intellect: whence follows inevitably, that the material world, presented in them, is merely the form in which things appear to me, but not what they are in themselves. THE THEORY OF UNDERSTANDING 65 § 90. Admitting the irrefutability of the Kantian arguments, without however adopting their inevitable conclusions, a series of thinkers since Kant have sought refuge in a certain Ideal-Realism, as they call it. According to them, space, time, and causality are on the one hand subjective functions of the intellect, in which we conceive and manufacture into representations the affections coming from things, and on the other hand they are the objective forms of existence of things themselves, so that between the being of things and our representing of them there would be a complete parallelism. § 91. The absurdity of this assertion is obvious, since it is nothing but the assumption that every- thing which is, exists doubly, so that we should have before us not one, but two worlds, resembling each other to a hair's breadth, without however having the least contact with, or relation to, each other. The first of these two worlds is this real, perceptual world which I see with my eyes and touch with my hands. This world is, as we have seen, the product of a priori consciousness and a posteriori sensa- tions. Behind this world, according to the above assumption, lies another, of which we can never obtain the slightest knowledge, and which there- fore probably exists nowhere, — unless perhaps in the imagination of those thinkers, whose names we omit F 66 ELEMENTS OF METAPHYSICS XVni. Kant and the Phüosophy after him S 92 The distinction between phenomena and things-in-themselves is as old as philosophy itself, nay all philosophy (so far as empirical science is not concealed under the name) expresses the conscious- ness of this great contrast. It was Kant, however, who first gave it a scientific basis, by showing that it is the forms of the Understanding, inherent in our intellect, by means of which Being-in-itself becomes visible to us as the material world extended in space and time. The appearance of Kant therefore will remain for all time the turning-point in the history of philosophy, and whoever in the future means to philosophise, must first of all come to an understand- ing with his teaching. The pith of Kant's doctrine is the transcendental dogma of the a priority ot time, space, and causality ; each must decide whether to accept or reject it. There are but two grounds on which it can be rejected ; there are but two ways open to those who accept it. Accordingly the philosophers after Kant fall into four classes, which include all thinkers, present and future. ■ S 93 Those who reject Kant's teaching can have only two reasons for doing so : either, they are unable to convince themselves of the validity of his arguments,— in this case our exposition of these THE THEORY OF UNDERSTANDING 67 invites to a renewed examination of them ; or they go their own way, ignoring Kant's discovery, they will allow us to do the same with them. § 94. Amongst those who admit Kant's doctrine, we distinguish such as accept it, but evade its conse- quences, — of these we spoke in the foregoing chapter ; and such as have the courage to adopt not only the transcendental dogma but also the conclusions which necessarily follow from it. This was the way taken by Schopenhauer. He stands in many remarkable respects to Kant as Plato to Sokrates. All the rest are at best like the so-called " imperfect Sokratists." I For an Aristotle wait not ! Thousands of busy hands are stirring in all corners of the empirical sciences. But a little while, and the whole world ä pipilikäbhyas — will perceive the day that has dawned. Let us hope that under the impending salutary revolution which Schopenhauer's doctrine will cause in the domain of empirical science, the depth of Schopenhauer's thought may not be so overwhelmed as was that of Plato by Aristotle. I APPENDIX TO THE FIRST PART OF METAPHYSICS REASON AND ITS CONTENT XIX. Survey § 95. Reason is an intellectual faculty, peculiar to man, of forming from perceptual representations (by dropping what is different in them and retainmg what is identical) "abstract" representations or con- cept s further, of combining concepts in to j u d g m e n t s and judgments into syllogisms. In contradistinc- tion to perceptual knowledge the operating with con- cepts is called thinking. § 96. Since concepts, as vibrations of the brain cells or whatever they may be, are not perceptible, we need for their communication an external vehicle. This we have in the words of language, which con- sist of certain specific vibrations of the air, produced by the sound of the voice and variously modified brthe organs of the mouth (throat, palate, tongue, teeth, lips). Thus language, by the manifold com- REASON AND ITS CONTENT 69 bination of a few primary elements, produces an astonishing wealth of material, sufficient to portray in a perceptible form and to communicate to others not only concepts but also the relations of these to each other even to the finest shades of distinction. § 97. Speaking is therefore so to say the visibility of thinking. Now thinking among all nations is essentially the same, whereas language shows with different peoples the greatest variety— a fact which is surprising and not easily explained. Logic ex- hibits everywhere the same problems ; the question^ how these are to be solved in different languages, led necessarily to comparative grammar. This has started by going back from the corrupted forms of the historical languages to the primitive languages preceding them, whereby the problem is not solved but only cleariy stated. § 98. A thorough discussion of these topics belongs to Logic and Grammar. We shall con- fine ourselves in the following, (i) to showing how concepts, upon which the whole content of logic depends, spring from perception ; (2) to explaining how the functions of Reason have their root in the one and simple reactive faculty of the Under- standing ; (3) to deriving the difference between man and brute from the faculty of concepts which alone distinguishes them ; (4) to hazarding a few conjectures as to the origin of language. 70 ELEMENTS OF METAPHYSICS [. Origin and Nature of Concepts § 99. It is very remarkable that nature is neither thoroughly alike nor yet in all parts thoroughly unlike, but shows a variegated blending of identical and non- identical elements. Here I see a red, there a blue flower ; I meet the same blue again in the sky, in the bird's wing, or in the stone, which yet have nothing whatever to do with the flower, while again all these objects have much in common with others from which, for the rest, they are quite diff-erent. Thus I often notice identical phenomena in different places and at different times. Must these not have some secret affinity to each other, for how else come they to be identical? This thought is the gate by which Plato entered the realm of metaphysics. But of this later. At present we are concerned with nature as an aggregate of identical and non-identical elements only in so far, as it is on this peculiarity that the formation of concepts depends. § 100. The brutes also perceive the similarity and dissimilarity of things, often even more perfectly than man. The dog which rambles with the hunter through the woods, distinguishes more sharply than does his master the deer from its like-hued shelter- REASON AND ITS CONTENT 71 ing surroundings. There can be no doubt also, thai a dog distinguishes perfectly between an oak and a fir-tree. But its less developed brain does not react powerfully enough, its understanding is not sufficiently independent of things, to see in them anything more than those relations in which, for the moment, its will is interested. Not so man. When in an oak forest he notices how the trees around, in spite of all difference in detail, have yet something identical in them, he proceeds to decompose this perception into its identical and non-identical elements ; and in ab- stracting from what is non-identical and retaining what is identical in the representation, he passes from the various individual perceptions of oak-trees to the concept of oak. §101. Such is the process in the formation of a concept. But this destruction of perception which must take place to obtain a concept (similar to our destruction of the marvellous organisms of animals, for the purpose of eating their flesh), is in reality due to the fact, that it is the natural destiny of the intellect to be an instrument of the will. For what is of interest to the will is not things, but the relations of things to itself. From this stand- point the wonderful continuity of the perceptual world is dissolved into a number of possible relations, which in logic are called predicates, or more characteristically marks {noiae). They 71 ELEMENTS OF MEtAPHYSlCS are the provisions which the will lays up in the storehouse of reason for future use. If our intellect were not a servant of the will, in all probability we should form no concepts. 8 1 02. The sum of the predicates of a concrete object is infinite. The predicates, however, which are common to it with other objects, are generally, at least for our apprehension, very limited in number. Since the space which every object fills, is always different, and perceptibility depends on space- occupation, all concepts, being abstractions from all that is different, must lose their individual form. They are not to be confounded with images of fancy, which are in fact individual, and for that very reason only single representatives of concepts, containing much which is not common to all objects of the same kind. § 103. The concepts of the oak, the beech, the fir, each consist of a number of marks or predicates which are partly different, partly in all three the same. If now, again, of these predicates we drop the non-identical and retain the identical, we obtain the concept of tree, richer in extent but poorer in content of predicates, which comprehends oak, fir, and beech, just as each of these includes the single objects of its kind. By the same process I pass from the concept of tree to that of plant, from REASON AND ITS CONTENT 73 this to that of organism, from this to that of body, and so at last to the concept of Substance or Being. This concept has an extremely wide extent, for it comprehends under it all that is ; the poorer, however, is its content, for it is re- stricted to a single predicate. But for that very reason it can have no more general concept above it. In a similar way I can rise from the per- ceptions of red, round, cold, bitter, fragrant, etc. to the general concepts of colour, form, taste, etc., and from these to the most general concept of quality, which as such is restricted to a single pre- dicate. § 104. These concepts of highest generality are, according to Aristotle, called Categories, of which he enumerates ten : ovGia, irocrovy ttolov, irpo^ tl, TTOVy 7roT€, KelaOai, ex^tv, woielv, iratrx^iv (Substance, Quantity, Quality, Relation, Space, Time, Position, Possession, Action, Passion), while in India Kanada undertook a classification of things under six Cate- gories, which he called pada-arthas (word -things, essences or concepts corresponding to words). They are : dravya, guna, karman, sämänya, viqesha, samaväya (Substance, Quality, Action, Community, Difference, Inherency). It might be possible to do with three Categories: (i) Substance {ovaia — dravyd)\ (2) Quality (jroaovy ttolov — guna)\ (3) Relation (tt/so? tl — sämänya, viqesha, samaväya) \ 74 ELEMENTS OF METAPHYSICS for TTov and Trore, as Kant observed, arc not con- ceptual but perceptual, and the verbal Categories (K€L4T6aiy €X€t'i'> TTOtelv, 7ra9f) I04 ELEMENTS OF METAPHYSICS THE METAPHYSICS OF NATURE 105 given to the external senses, through which process my Self, just like everything else, appears in my perception as a through and through material body. Now, on the other hand, I do not conceive the affec- tions coming from within, like those from without, as effects which I project as causes in space and I time. On the contrary, my ego, as object of inner experience, is free from space and causality, and there remains only the form of time in which expanded inner experience is reflected in the in- tellect. Thus time is the only barrier which hinders me from knowing by the inner view, what I am as thing-in-itself. The question is, whether it may not be surmounted. Remark. — The outer world and the inner world both lie as feelings in our consciousness and are both for the in- tellectual ego something foreign, something else, a non-ego. And yet we treat them both differently. For we consider the external impressions, given by the senses, as aliens and expel them from us by means of causality. The internal or subjective feelings of volition, pleasure, and pain on the contrary receive from us the rights of citizenship and remain, as belonging to our ego, untransformed. This is explicable only by the fact, that the intellectual ego is not the final point of unity in our- selves, but recognises above itself another and a still higher ego, from which these internal sensations spring. We are about to disclose this higher ego in us as the willing ego. § 148. When I move any limb of my body (ex. hand or foot), this process, regarded from without, appears as a bodily change in space, time. and causality ; regarded from within, as a vol it ioni that is, as Will, expanded in time. We distinguish/ here three things: the bodily movement, the volition accompanying it, and the Will manifestea in it. But these three are not different in them- selves but only so for our intellect, because their difference springs only from a different relation to our intellect, (i) Bodily movement lies always in time, space, and causality. (2) The volition, corresponding to it, does not lie in space ; it lies in causality, so far as every volition is determined by a motive, and again it does not lie in causality, in so far as I do not conceive inner like outer affection (§ 75) as an effect, which I refer to its external cause. Finally, every volition fills a certain time and consequently appears certainly and necessarily in the form of time. (3) Will itself, however, which appears to the external senses as bodily movement and to the internal sense as the single acts of volition, lies neither in space, nor in causality, nor in time. It lies therefore beyond the reach of our intellect and remains thus in itself absolutely unknowable. We know it only in so far as it is mirrored in the in- tellectual form of time, in which it appears extended as volition. § 149. That which appears to our intellect as bodily movement, is in itself Will. But just as not only the changes in matter, but also material io6 ELEMENTS OF METAPHYSICS V objects themselves are nothing but sensation which we construe as bodies in space, time, and causality, so also, as will appear in the following, not only the movements of my limbs, but also the limbs them- selves of which my body is composed, are intrin- sically and in themselves Will. The understanding of this truth is somewhat difficult, because in a normal state I am little or not at all conscious of my body. I become conscious of it however, the moment some outward influence affects it, which inwardly makes itself directly felt as sensation. This sensation is (with the exception of normal sense -affections) either pleasure or pain, that is, a willing or a non-willing imposed on us by the corresponding impression. From this it appears, that not only the movement of the body, but also the body itself, as far as I am at all conscious of it, enters into my consciousness as Will. Remark. — Let it be said here once for all, that by Will we do not mean, as one might expect, the acquired sovereignty of the reason over the claims of desire, nor mere intentions, resolutions, or decisions, which are nothing but calculations of motives concluded in the intellect and provisionally and revocably approved by the Will. But Will here and through- out is for us that which is better known to us than anything else and therefore inexplicable by anything else, that which indeed underlies all inner emotions, all desiring, striving, wish- ing, longing, craving, hoping, loving, rejoicing, grieving, etc., but of which we first become fully conscious in performing . externally any movement of our limbs, or in experiencing any ] influence on our body (hunger, thirst, pleasure, pain, etc.). ) THE METAPHYSICS OF NATURE 107 IV. Conscious and Unconscious Will § 150. All changes by which the life of my organism is sustained, are either voluntary (animal, conscious) and result from motives, or involuntary (vegetative, unconscious) and produced by irritation. The first are all, as we saw, manifestations of Will. The question is, whether we must assume for those involuntary functions which serve for the nutrition of the body, a different principle from Will, or if in both cases it is the phenomenal form alone that varies, while that which appears in it remains the same. § 151. The following reasons lead us to the highly important conclusion, that it is one and the same force which appears, on the one hand in the voluntary movements of the limbs, on the other, in the involuntary vital processes of digestion, circula- tion of the blood, breathing, etc. I. The fundamental character of every natural force is the striving to take possession of matter, by driving back or subduing those other forces, which till then had the mastery of it. Hence arises that hostile behaviour towards each other of natural forces striving for manifestation by reason of which nature everywhere and always presents the spectacle of a struggle of opposing forces. Also in the service of our organism a whole series of physical and I io8 ELEMENTS OF METAPHYSICS THE METAPHYSICS OF NATURE 109 chemical forces are continually active. But all these are, in a state of health, kept down and governed by a higher central force which manifests itself in the unity of the whole notwithstanding the diversity of the parts, in the unity of the aims notwithstanding the variety of the efforts. For the unity of these aims we see voluntary and involuntary vital functions co-operating in perfect harmony. They are not, therefore, like the physical and chemical agencies in their service, the manifestations of opposed forces, held temporarily in reluctant subjection, but it can be only one force which manifests itself in both in different ways. 2. As in the whole, so in all its parts this unity of conscious and unconscious life is apparent. Thus, for instance, the use of the hand belongs to the voluntary manifestations of life, but its form is the work of those involuntary functions to which the nutrition of the body is due, together with its forma- tion, renewal, and healing. Now the function of the hand is predetermined in its whole structure. There- fore that which uses the hand, cannot be only accidentally related to that which forms and nourishes it This would, however, be the case, if the forming power and the employing power were fundamentally different. 3. Every organic movement, whether voluntary or involuntary, is, physiologically speaking, the con- traction of a particular muscle. No muscle can I contract without being irritated by the nerves ending in it. This nerve-irritation springs, in the case of the muscles of voluntary movement, from the cerebral system, in that of the muscles of involuntary move- ment, from the sympathetic system. Now that which is essential in every movement, is the effect, appear- ing as contraction ot the muscle; that which is accidental (and therefore capable of being replaced by other influences, for instance, by electricity), consists in the conditioning cause, appearing as nerve - irritation. Accordingly voluntary and in- voluntary movements differ not in what is essential but in what is accidental, not in the effect but in the kind of causation which provoVes it. We must therefore conceive them as manifestations of one and the same force which appears in two different forms. Remark.— It is of great importance to understand, that the difference between the voluntary and involuntary functions appears so considerable only to us, that is, to our know- ing intellect, because in the case of voluntary movements the intellect by chance forms itself a link in the chain irritating the muscles (§ 84), while it is absolutely excluded from any participation in the involuntary movements. But in itself it is only a secondary and unimportant difference, that the nerves, stimulating the muscles to contraction, should take their way in the one case through the brain, in the other through the ganglia. § 152. It is therefore one and the same force I no ELEMENTS OF METAPHYSICS which- is manifested through two diverse but har- moniously co-operating phenomenal forms in the voluntary and involuntary processes of life. It is this force which has been called by physiology and I psychology (in their best moments) jritaMorce and poul respectively. Yet these two n^ii^^T^ify as much as x and j/, that is, a something perfectly unknown, and therefore do not further our under- standing. Now this force, as far as it appears in voluntary, that is, conscious movements, is not only known to us, but even better known than anything else in the world, under the name of Will Again we have shown that the being accompanied by con- sciousness concerns only the causality of will-pheno- mena, that is, what is accidental and belonging only to the forms in which Will appears, and that, apart from the kind of causation, it is one and the same force which produces on the one hand, by means of motives, the conscious and voluntary phenomena of life, and on the other by irritation the unconscious and involuntary. Accordingly philosophy here makes use of its right to give to the popular significations of words the sense, resulting from a more accurate conception of nature, and so requires that we ac- custom ourselves to recognise Will even there where it is not, as in voluntary movements, accompanied by consciousness. We call that, therefore, which operates in the vegetative functions of the organism, the unconscious Will. ) THE METAPHYSICS OF NATURE III § 153- Thus that of whir^h T h^r^jy»^ p^^^^r- (in t hat part of the phe nomena of liT^ i^|^ pe accessib le to in ner experience) in each movement of my bod y (§ I4^> in eacITsensation of pleasure and pain (§^^9) a ^Will, e ven Jhis^ entity, more familiar to me t han anvthing^se^it is whirh, wifVin^jt- fh^ r^id nf Jnjcl lect, accomplishes as uncnngrinn^ ^ ^^jH, namely _^as unkn owing impujs e^^blirid instinrt, determined by i rritation, all the involu ntary pr^rPQg^^g in mr^y u\^'^x\ Jsm ; on which processes depend through digestion, circulation of the blood, breathing, secretion, etc. not only the nutrition, but also the whole growth and development of the body. From that, therefore, which immediately enters into our consciousness as Will, we need only deduct the share of the intellect, to retain that which, as the inner impelling principle of our whole life, not only perpetually sustains, by the assimilation of new and the elimination of waste materials, the integrity of our body, heals its wounds, combats foreign forces intruding as diseases, and (if not overcome by these in death) subdues them, but which also produces all growth of the body from birth and its original formation before birth, after it has burst into existence (in generation) with that impetuosity, characterising the manifestation of all forces of nature. Thus every man is, in the deepest sense, his own work : for each is through and through the objectity of his own Will, which, originally and essentially unconscious, accomplishes as sexual im- 112 ELEMENTS OF METAPHYSICS pulse, generation ; as plasticity, formation in the womb and growth after birth ; which in unconscious wisdom — unattainable by any consciousness — shapes from the beginning all organs of the bidy in con- formity to its original aims ; and amongst viiese, as a regulator of its relations to the external world, the brain, that is, the intellect, through which at last it emerges, in the full light of knowledge, as that which it essentially and originally is, namely as Will. V. On the Soul and its Relation to the Body § 154. The human organism with all its different parts and functions forms throughout a perfect unity. Yet men have always distinguished two elements in it: firstly, the material body, given as an object of external experience; secondly, the immaterial soul, accessible only to the inly-directed conscious- ness. In remarkable coincidence, explicable only by the fundamental tendencies of human nature, we see in Indian, Greek, and modern philosophy the error arise, that the soul is essentially and in the first place a knowing being, whereas on the contrary all facts of psychic life unmistakably prove, that the centre of man is to be sought not in the head, but in the heart, not in knowing, but in willing. To this in particular the following facts bear witness : I. The intellect drvf^lons— lilffr-r» 41 nrrran«; nf l-h<> ) THE METAPHYSICS OF NATURE ^^3 b9dyi in cjiildhoorj, and decays, with these in old agCj as is well and truly described by Lucretius (III, ^5-458). Will alone in ma n d oes not age : for as/ already the Mahäbhäratam (xiii, i^j) has it : jtryanti jiryatah keqA, dantd jtryanti jiryatah, cakshuh-£rotre ca jtryete, trishtpd ekd na tu jiryate ; " Of him who grows old, the hair grows old, The teeth grow old of him who grows old, The eyes grow old, the ears grow old, Desire alone does not grow old." 2. The intellect suspends its activity periodically in sleep, the Will, as unconscious Will, is, like the heart, unwearying. 3- The intellect is, like all organs o f the body, an instal ment ot the Will. a<; th^ cnKr^jcc^fy^ servant of which^throughout_appcars,^hile the dominant factor is the Will ; a truth which, if noi- p ^rhapQ apparent in the studyjs_seen^verywhere in practical life._;. " 4. Descerhdiii^Ja_JthfiL..animaL~«€ale,-^^ the ^ intellect more_a ad m o re di mi ftish nig, while Will, as we shall show, animates everywhere with the <^^p^ I vehemencej;^en the lnwpc;f anima| "5. Excellences and defects of intellect are not taken into account at all, when it is a question of determining the real, that is the moral worth of Man. I II 4 ELEMENTS OF METAPHYSICS THE METAPHYSICS OF NATURE r^^^ But to the deeds of a man, and to them alone, as manifestations of the quah'ty of his Will, we attribute a significance reaching beyond the tomb. Thus is shown everywher e, th^^ what ig pWmary and r adical in man, is t he Will, whjl p all that is con- j nected with the i ntellect, belongs on ly to the physical ^and perishable form in which our S elf ^dtman) /appears, hut n^t to th^ rn^faphygir^j ^nH ^^prnal J^ substratum of it^ that is. the soul. I § 155. So long as we place the essence of the soul in intelligence, we shall, notwithstanding all the proofs for immortality adduced by a Platonic Phaedon, be ever driven back by consideration of the facts to the conclusion of the candid Lucretius (III, 462): quare participem leti quoque convenit esse ; for nothing is more certain than the annihilation of the intellect by death. Only when we resolve to break with tradition, and, in accordance with the facts of inner consciousness, to place the essence of the soul not in the intellect, but in the originally and essentially unconscious Will, shall we succeed in establishing, in spite of all attacks of materialism, the immortality of the soul ; and that not by artificial and easily misleading arguments, but as a simple and inevitable conclusion, drawn from the tenets of Kantian philosophy here set forth by us. H5 \ » § 156. Like everything else in nature, I myself am on the one hand phenomenon and on the other thing-in-itself. As phenomenon, viewed through the forms of my intellect, my being appears as body, which, like all that exists, is through and through material. Now the same entity which, viewed ex- ternally, appears as the body, moving in time, space, and causality, when viewed from within, apart from space and causality, enters my consciousness as volition, or, when I strip off the form of time, as Will. We have shown that Will is the principle not only of the voluntary movements, but also of the in- voluntary nutritive functions, on which the nourish- ment, growth, and origin, and consequently the whole existence of the body, depend. Accordingly my body is nothing but Will itself, objectified in space and time through causality, and all its members hand, foot, brain, stomach, genitals, etc. are the objec^ty of the various tendencies of Will. § 157. Hence follows, that that which as thing- in-itself, and so independent of time, space, and causality, is my soul, that is, my Will, appears in phenomenal form as my body, extended in space, existing in time, and subject in all its manifestations to causality. Now all becoming and perishing, all being born and dying is possible only in time by causality. Consequently as body I had a begin- ning and shall have an end, as Soul, that is as ii6 ELEMENTS OF METAPHYSICS THE METAPHYSICS OF NATURE 117 Will, I am on the contrary uncreated and i immortal. Ta)9 y€V€aL<: fiev dTritrßearac Kai äiri^TO^ oXeOpo^, § 158. My organism appears as a variety of material parts which co-operate for the maintenance of the whole harmoniously and in conformity to its original aims. This unity in plurality remains for empirical science an absolutely inconceivable miracle. Even the conception of the body after the analogy of human works of art, as the planned work of an all -wise Creator, does not explain the facts. For apart from its being objectionable on moral grounds, this extremely bold hypothesis would only suffice to explain a mechanism but not an organism. The solution of the riddle from our standpoint is ex- tremely simple. \The Will as thing -in -itself is a pe r fect unity. Our body is just this undivided Will, as it appears viewed through the forms of our intel- lect. These cannot make any change in its essence, and therefore the phenomenon, though appearing extended in space as body, and in time as life, shows the same unity which it possesses as thing-in-itself or Will.^ I VL The Will in Nature § I 5 9. My own ego alone is accessible to me in two ways : firstly, from without as representation, i that is as body ; secondly, from within as Will, that is as soul. All the rest of nature is given me from one side only, namely as representation. The question is, whether it is merely this, and consequently a phantom without reality, an empty semblance, an illusive apparition, or whether, being externally like myself appearance, it may be also internally the same as I am, namely Will. § 160. No one will seriously doubt that all human beings, like himself, are inwardly conscious of themselves as willing, and that consequently their bodies, like his own, are objectifications of Will, even though no actual proof of this can be adduced, since all proof leads from one point of the represented world to another, but never beyond representation in which alone the external world is given to me. But we meet here a case where analogy is more convincing than any proof could be. § 161. After admitting that all men, just like ourselves, are objectifications of the Will, we shall find it impossible to deny the same in the case of the brutes. For what distinguishes man from the brute, is the organisation of the intellect (§§ 1 1 9- 125). Now intellect belongs to the form of appear- ing, but not to that which appears through this form (§§ 154. 155). Consequently Being-in -itself (das An-sich-Seiende) in man and brute is the same, thus here as there, Will. \ Ii8 ELEMENTS OF METAPHYSICS § 162. Diverse as are the different animal species as regards their external appearance, they are yet identical as regards that which they will. All animals, from the highest to the lowest, are embodi- ments of the Will to life, which in all stages strives equally to conserve itself Hence all exertions of the brute are concentrated in the two tendencies, to preserve the individual by nourishment and protection, and the species by propagation and care of the young. This is the everywhere identical problem. The consideration of how it has been solved by nature in the endless variety of animal species, ever differently and yet ever in like per- fection, forms an inexhaustible source of entertain- ment. From this point of view zoology gains an interest which no other could give it. § 163. The Will as the objectification of which every man and every animal appears, is originally and essentially unconscious. It is only in a limited sphere of animal life, becoming narrower as we descend the scale, that it furnishes itself with consciousness. Nothing proves more clearly the secondary and so to say borrowed nature of all conscious life, than the necessity of sleep. In sleep, owing to the isolation of the brain from the motor and sensory nerves, consciousness is periodically extinguished, that is, the union between will and intellect is suspended, and the latter, for the sake THE METAPHYSICS OF NATURE 119 i of its (that is the brain's) nourishment, is merged completely in unconscious life, which, as the central and essential entity, unwearyingly exercises its func- tions, whether we sleep or wake. This is already taught by a passage of the Veda in the Qatapatha- brdhrnanam x. 3, 3, 6 : Yadd vai purushah svapiti^ prdnam tarhi vdg api-eti^ prAnam cakshuh^ pr&nam manahy pr&nam crotratn. Sa yadd prabudhyate, prdndd eva adhi- punar jdyante. (When a man sleeps, speech is merged in life, eye in life, mind in life, ear in life. And when he awakes they are reborn from life.) § 164. The intellect is nothing but a material \ organ with which the Will provides itself for the sake of regulating its relations with the outer world. Hence it is, that all productions of the conscious Will bear the stamp of outwardness, artificiality, mechanism as opposed to the inwardness, natural- ness, organisation which distinguishes the creations of unconscious Will. Therefore with these no work of human skill can be even remotely compared. The unconscious Will operates in the vegetative functions of the organism throughout with adapta- tion, yet without consciousness, and thus without knowledge of the end to be attained. But marvellous indeed is the encroachment of this un- conscious Will with its blind and yet adaptive activity on the sphere of conscious Will which is t I20 ELEMENTS OF METAPHYSICS ill manifested in Instinct and the artistic impulses of animals. That which operates in the bird building its nest, is obviously Will. And yet the year-old bird can have no consciousness of the purpose for which the nest is built. Consequently it must be unconscious, not conscious Will, Will working by irritation, not by motives, which appears in these instinctive operations, though the details of execution may be regulated by motives. Thus the same unconsciously - purposive action which prevails in the nutritive functions as the rule, trenches excep- tionally as instinct on the domain of conscious life, and that always in such cases where the intellect is insufficient for the purposes of nature. Hence in man, owing to the perfection of his intellect, it shows itself but rarely (for instance, in sexual love). In animals it appears more frequently, and most strongly where the intellect is least perfect, while at the same time the vital operations remain complicated. Accordingly it reaches its climax in the social instincts of the insects. In proportion as the cerebral and sympathetic nervous systems in these coincide in the ganglia, their voluntary actions are regulated throughout by instinct and consequently stand under the same guidance as the involuntary functions of nutrition. Accordingly we might go so far as to consider a swarm of bees as an organism resolved into its component parts. Like the unconscious life of a single organism, the whole . THE METAPHYSICS OF NATURE 121 social life of bees and ants is dependent on irritation, with this exception, that in details it is replaced by slight motives, because the contact is removed by which the operating of irritation is conditioned. Remark. — The distribution of the different organic func- tions (nourishment, propagation) amongst different individuals, whether co-existing (queen bee, drones, and workers) or suc- ceeding each other (caterpillar, butterfly), differs only in degree from the separation of the sexes among the higher animals and men, and operates, like the latter, under the guidance of instinct. § 165. Descending in the scale of organic beings we see conscious voluntary life ever retreating before the unconscious operation of the Will, until the former utterly disappears. The point where the last remnant of consciousness and voluntary movement is extinguished, marks the transition (difficult to determine empirically) from the animal to the vege- table kingdom. In the plant unconscious life, serving the purposes of nourishment and propagation, fills therefore the whole sphere of its existence. Now, as we have seen, unconscious no less than conscious life is the manifestation of Will. Consequently the life of the plant must be conceived as an uncon- scious, involuntary willing, and every plant, like animal and man, is an objectification of the Will to life. This is difficult to grasp only for the reason, that the sphere in which we immediately know Will, has here utterly disappeared, and that 122 ELEMENTS OF METAPHYSICS sphere alone remains in which we can approach it only mediately and by inference. Meanwhile not only are the exertions which fill up the life of every plant, obviously the same as those of animals, namely, nourishment and propaga- tion, but also their bodily organs show a striking analogy, since, for instance, the digestive organs reappear as roots, the respiratory organs as leaves, the genitals as blossoms. Further, a number of the manifestations of vegetable life, as, for instance, the striving of the root after good soil and moisture, that of the branches after light and air, as well as many single facts are inexplicable, unless we assume, as the inner principle of vegetable life, a desiring, a craving, a striving, in short a willing, albeit an unconscious one. § 1 66. No sharper boundary line is drawn in the whole of Nature than that between organic forces, appearing as living organisms, and inorganic forces, variously manifested in the physical and chemical processes of inanimate nature. Neverthe- less considerations like the following show that the great difference between organic and inorganic forces after all concerns the form of appearance alone, but not that which appears in these entirely different forms, (i) In all effects, whether belonging to the sphere of animate or inanimate nature, that which manifests itself is force. Now force is related to its THE METAPHYSICS OF NATURE 123 manifestations not merely as a general concept to its different underlying perceptions (§ 1 00), but as the thing-in-itself to the phenomenal world (§ 136). Consequently the identity, denoted by the word force, is not an abstract but a concrete identity, and the diversity of operating forces springs not from the nature of force in itself, but from the forms of its appearance. (2) Accordingly the great diversity in the action of organic and inorganic forces is to be explained for the most part by their relation to the forms of appearance, that is, by circumstances of time, space, and causality. It is first of all causality which, as cause in its narrower sense, occasions inorganic, as irritation and motives, organic change (§§ 142-145), and thereby draws between both a boundary, admitting of no inter- mediate links. After causality it is time and space out of which arise the profound differences between organic and inorganic phenomena. While namely every organic force (plant or animal) suc- ceeds in giving full expression to its being only in a variety of spatial parts (as organism) and in a succession of temporal conditions (as life), every inorganic force on the contrary reveals its whole inner being in an undivided and everywhere identical manifestation, admitting only of differences in degree. (The only exception is crystallisation, which may be regarded as a first attempt at organic life seized by rigidity in the very process of formation.) Hence • 124 ELEMENTS OF METAPHYSICS THE METAPHYSICS OF NATURE is clear that the essential differences between organic and inorganic forces find their explanation in rela- tions of time, space, and causality, from which follows, that they do not originate in Being-in-itself, but only in the forms through which it appears to us. We have only therefore to take that force-mani- festation in which alone the being of force becomes accessible to our inner apprehension as Will, namely, our own self, and to strip from it all its appearance- forms, to which not only consciousness, but also life, and organisation belong, and we shall retain in the unconscious, inanimate, inorganic Will that which is manifested as inner impelling principle in all forces of inorganic nature. Even clearer than by proof will this truth become, when we observe in detail the action of inorganic forces : when we see the eagerness with which substances enter into chemical combination, the vehemence with which the electric poles strive after union, the impetuosity with which the dammed-up water everywhere seeks an outlet, or when, in lifting a heavy weight or pressing against a solid body, we immediately feel how our striving is resisted by a contrary striving which fundamentally must be identical with the striving in ourselves and thus, like that, — Will, even though as gravity and impenetra- bility it shows the greatest possible distance in its form of appearance from our own Will. 125 VII. Transcendent Reflections on the Will as Thing-in-itself § 167. All is matter. Such is the final con- clusion from the standpoint of physical science (§ 26). Kant's doctrine alone leads beyond this, when proving that the essential conditions of cor- poreal existence, space, time, and causality, are only subjective faculties of our intellect, and that consequently the materiality of things is only the form in which the being of the thing-in-itself appears to our eyes. What that Being-in-itself is, was found in the only possible way by Schopenhauer. It is nothing but Will which, as physical, chemical, and organic force, intrudes into time, space, and causality, thereby appearing in all changes of bodies and in bodies themselves. To him who has understood Schopenhauer's teaching aright, every phenomenon of the universe, wherever we may look, is resolved into Will. Hence the final conclusion of meta- physical science is : All is Will. § 168. That which makes Will appear to us as world, is the innate forms of our intellect. As we cannot get rid of them, and Will as thing-in-itself lies beyond them, only negative assertions about Will are possible to us. I. The Will as thing-in-itself is not in space (/ i 126 ELEMENTS OF METAPHYSICS THE METAPHYSICS OF NATURE 127 and time. Now all plurality is conditioned by a spatial CO -existence or a temporal succession of parts. Although therefore the Will is manifested as a plurality of phenomena in space and time, in itself plurality is unknown to it. This truth has at all times been felt (h koX irav. One and All), but the proof of it is only possible by Kant's philosophy. 2. Like plurality, divisibility is also condi- tioned by space and time. The Will as thing-in- itself is therefore indivisible. We must not think of it as divided amongst its phenomena ; for each of these contains it entire, every being in nature is a manifestation of the whole and undivided Will to life, just as each of the thousand images of the sun in the water reflects the entire sun. When therefore ^»^^'^ ^^^T* P- ^31 E) asks: tIv olv rpoirov ruyv elhoyv rk äX\a /leTaKi^erac, fiijre Kara ^iprf fiT^re tcara oka fierdKafißdvetv Bvvdfieva ; — the Bhagavad- gttdk (xiii, 1 6) may answer : avibhaktam ca bhüteshu, vibhaktam iva ca sthitam j (undivided he dwells in beings, and yet, as it were, Mivided); and Kant may furnish the key to this' enigma by his doctrine that space and time do indeed separate the manifestations but not the manifested, so that every one finds and feels him- self to be the entire, limitless Will to \\{^, the totality of all that is real. Hence it is, that the natural man {ävdpa>iro<; 'fvxcK6^)y as his deeds show, restricts all reality to his ego; he knows everything in him- self. And hence it is, that the regenerate (in the Christian sense) extends his ego to all reality ; he knows himself in everything. He celebrates solemnly (in the Communion) his unification with all creatures as a member of the body of Christ, rov rä wdvTa iv iracn wXrjpovfihov (Ephes. i. 23), and ig| Nature thousand-tongued greets him with the " great t word," which we shall have later on to consider: " Tat tvam asV (That art thou), while from his inmost being re-echoes the consciousness: '' Aham brahma asmi" (I am Brahman). 3. All phenomena of the Will to life are subject ^ to causality, and therefore, in all their manifestations, -' to necessity. On the contrary the Will, as thing-in- itself, does not lie in causality and is consequently uncaused and free. Here is the meeting-point of two great truths, that of the freedom of the Will, and that of the necessity of all its manifestations. \t is true that our deeds are the necessary and inevitable results of our innate character (expressed in corpori- sation) : and yet we cannot get rid of the con- sciousness of responsibility for our actions which is called conscience : and rightly so : for this innate character is after all our own work (§ 153), and our whole life is only the empirical and therefore neces- sary development of our in itself free willing. This ) 128 ELEMENTS OF METAPHYSICS THE METAPHYSICS OF NATURE 129 i 1 truth finds its mythical expression in the Indian doctrine, that all deeds and destinies of our existence are the inevitable, though not immediate {apürva\ consequence of our own actions in a previous life, and so dependent on ourselves. And the same truth seems to be in Plato's mind, when he describes (Rep. X, p. 617 D sq.) how the soul before its birth chooses w ith freedom from the lap of Lachesis the lot which predestines with necessity its fate and, with its fate (618 D, E), its actions in the future life. § 169. Will as such has two possible modes and two alone: willing and not-willing. In reference to earthly existence willing appears (as we shall show in the metaphysics of morality) as the affirma- tion of the Will to life, of which this whole world is the manifestation ; not -willing as the denial of ithe Will to life, the manifestation of which has been called by religions in their figurative language bliss, unio mystica. Kingdom of God, Kingdom of Heaven, etc., but which, apart from its breaking through in every moral action, remains completely unknown to the intellect, nay is absolutely inconceivable by it. To the intellect therefore it appears as the negation, the extinction {nirvdnam) of all existence. Yet it is well to notice that it is only to our understanding, bound to the finite and its limits, that this world of affirmation appears as the existing, and negation as the non-existing. On the contrary, viewed from the highest standpoint, the world of denial, unknown to us, yet transparent in every moral deed, is that which really and truly is {to 6V), while on the other hand this whole world of affirmation metaphysically speaking is that which is not {rh fi^ 6V), and in a moral sense that which shouldnotbe. ' VIII. Mythical Representation of the World- Process § 170. There where there is no longer a Where, —therefore here, everywhere and again nowhere- then when there is no longer a When,— therefore now, in all eternity and again at no time,— was is and will be the Will (the Deity, the Brahman, th J Thing-in-itself), and besides it nothing. Each of us is this Will, and again each of us is not this Will : for we are all estranged from its original nature, which is Denial— without sin, without sorrow, without existence. § 171. Now there was formed,— not at any time but before all eternity, to-day and for ever,— like an mexplicable clouding of the clearness of the heavens in the pure, painless, and will-less bliss of denial a morbid propensity, a sinful bent: the affirmation of the Will to life. In it and with it is given the myriad host of all the sins and woes of which this immeasurable world is the revealer. K I I I30 ELEMENTS OF METAPHYSICS § 172. When in the life of our body some serious disorder has taken place, nature by a violent augmen- tation of the vital processes summons all her powers for the purpose of curing it. Thus arises fever, which is at the same time the symptom of disease and an attempt at cure. What fever is to disease, that is this whole world to the self-affirming Will. It is the visibility of affirmation ; and in giving to all sin and its train of evils the most full and terrible expression, it holds up to the erring Will a mirror of its own striving, guilty of all the woe of existence, if haply it might attain to a full understanding of itself, and thereby come to a turn, to a return, to salvation. § 173. Salvation springs from knowledge {jMndd muktih, Kapila 3, 23). Now the full knowledge of the world is only possible by means of the human intellect. Therefore all nature up to man is but the way which the affirming Will travels in gradual development, in order to attain to the human intellect and by it to saving self-knowledge. But also as man it passes through long series of generations, furnishing itself in every womb with a new intellect, in order to approach by progressive purification the realm of denial (§ 250). § 1 74. Long periods in the life of nature had to elapse before an intellect could arise. On the other hand all these past world-epochs are only possible THE METAPHYSICS OF NATURE 131 through time, and this again through intellect. Herein lies a contradiction only for our imperfect understanding, because of its being bound to tem- porality. This, however, in the process of the worid has no significance. Therefore the fall of the spirits took place from^time immemorial, and again it takes place now and at each moment. But saving denial also is ever present, and in denying, the individual saves himself and in himself all creatures, even because he is in himself the entire Will to life. When therefore it stands in the Veda {CJidndogya- upanisluzd 5, 24, 5) : YathA iha kshudhitd bdld mdtaram pari-updsate evam sarvdni bhutdni agnihotram updsate, "as here below hungry children sit round their mother, so sit all beings round the fire -sacrifice (brought by him, who has the knowledge of Brahman)," — we might perhaps add as explana- tion in the language of the Bible (Rom. viii. 1 9) : 17 7a/) aTTOKapaSo/CLa rr}^ /CTLcrem rrjv airoKokvy^Lv twv vlcov Tov Oeov äTreKSixerac. Thus the regenerate saves himself and the groaning creation: and yet affirmation still continues, even after he has found the way out of its circle. Also this world for ever and aye will exist, will affirm, will suffer,— but again all time in the light of denial is nothing, and all that it contains fades away as the shadow-play on the wall for the Will, when it has turned. / ija ELEMENTS OF METAPHYSICS THE METAPHYSICS OF NATURE 133 Thus contradictory appears metaphysical truth, when we attempt to clothe it in the words and con- ceptions of empirical thought. Nt- - \ IX. God and World § 175. There is nothing but Will ; its true state is denial (as is proved by the approbation we give to every moral, that is denying action). An aberration of the Will is affirmation, of which this whole world is the manifestation and the purifying process. In these words, which can only be thoroughly understood later, lies the metaphysical truth, which for all times and countries is one and the same. Accordingly we see it springing up wherever the human mind penetrates to the depths, even though the form in which it appears, shows the greatest varieties. To exhibit this identical content and to derive its various forms from the influence of the respective civilisations, is the subject of the history of meta- physics. Here we must content ourselves with pointing out some of the most important of these forms. § 176. In India we can trace metaphysics back almost to its first beginnings. The forces, appearing in the manifestations of nature and more especially in the striking phenomena of fire, thunderstorm, the firmament, etc., are presented in the hymns of the Rigveda in transparent personification as the gods Agm\ Indra, Varuna, etc. Nay, to a certain extent we see the forces of nature even in the hands of the poets crystallising into personal gods. This primitive view of the world is true, so far as man recognises in all action of nature his own being (Will) ; it is untrue, so far as he transfers not only his own being, but also its form of appearance (personality) to the forces of nature. We know that these forces from the lowest to the highest are only the original forms in which the Will to life variously appears. This truth came to light in the second period of Indian life in the conception, that there is but one Being, the (impersonal) Brahman, and that all gods, men, animals, plants, and inanimate beings are the diverse manifestations of it. The relation between phenomena and the thing-in-itself is conceived figuratively as an emanation of the world from Brahman, compared to the coming forth of the web from the spider, the plants from the earth, the hair from the body. But at the same time the eternity of the souls, for ever circulating in the Sanisära (that is in the phenomenal world) is main- tained ; from which follows clearly, that their relation to Brahman is to be conceived not as the temporal relation of the effect to its cause, but as the relation of the time -conditioned to the timeless, that \s, of m 134 ELEMENTS OF METAPHYSICS V phenomena to the thing-in-itself. With this meta- physical antithesis between the undivided Brahman and the manifold world, as which it appears, is imme- diately connected the ethical between denial and affirmation in the sense of the celebrated " Tat tvam asV (That art Thou), a sentence which ex- presses in three words at once the deepest mystery of metaphysics (the %v koI irav) and the highest aim of morality (the a/^airrjceL^ tov irKyjaiov aov cw? aeavTov). As an interpretation of this great truth we may consider, as in a wider sense our whole work, so already the motto prefixed to it, which we here translate : " The Lord of all things dwells In ev'ry living being, Not dying when it dies. — He who sees him, is seeing. "Such will not, when in all This highest Lord he knows, Wrong through himself himself, And to perfection goes." § 177. In the Bible we have before our eyes the grand spectacle of the real and eternal truth breaking its way forcibly as Christianity through the dia- metrically opposed teaching of the Old Testament. The fundamental dogma of primitive Judaism is Theism, according to which the world is created by THE METAPHYSICS OF NATURE 135 a personal Being, similar to ourselves (Gen. i. 26, 27), — a hypothesis at the boldness of which we are not surprised only because we are accustomed to hear it from our youth up. The first consequence of Theism is Optimism. If the world is created by God, it must be good, and this is expressly asserted (Gen. I. 31). A further consequence is complete Annihil- ation by death: only what is uncreated can be immortal ; if the soul has arisen from nothing, it must return to nothing : to firjhev ek ovBev phrei (what is nothing turns to nothing). Accordingly the Old Testament (with the exception of the latest books) does not admit the immortality of the soul. Now, if our existence is limited to this life of affirm- ation, our aims can be only immanent and conse- quently egoistic. Therefore the Law appeals solely to egoism, in making its incentives fear of punish- ment and hope of reward (one may read Lev. xxvi. Deut. xxviii.), on which account it was rejected by the deeper conception of Christianity (Rom. iii. 28). This view of the world, in which Theism, Optim- ism, Nihilism, and Eudaemonism cohere with admir- able consistency, seems to have been not so much a result of natural development, as rather the inspiration of a single man, — perhaps of Moses, — whose great- ness it is not easy to overrate, — who found in it the means of disciplining a race corrupted by slavery. With the people it never became very popular, as the frequent, and otherwise rather inexplicable at- 13^ ELEMENTS OF METAPHYSICS THE METAPHYSICS OF NATURE 137 tempts at apostasy seem to prove. But also the thinkers of Hebraism struggle against it in many- passages of the Old Testament. So already in the narrative of the Fall, which cannot be reconciled with the creation of the world by an all-wise and good Being. Still less could the human mind acquiesce in the doctrine of the punishment of the evil and the reward of the good in this life, a theory contradicted by experience at every step (compare Job and Psalms xxxvii. Ixxiii). A fundamental change took place in Hebrew metaphysics during and after the Babylonian Cap- tivity through Persian and Greek influence, which prepared the ground for Christianity. To Theism was added the doctrine of Satan (that is Anhro- mainyu\ which made it possible to exonerate God from the authorship of evil (still ascribed to him for instance in Isa. xlv. 7, 2 Sam. xxiv. i, but no longer in the post-exilic parallel passage in i Chron. xxi. [xxii.] i), and to maintain him as the principle of denial, that is morality. At the same time the belief in the immortality of the soul and with it a transcendent morality, not founded on egoism, broke way, while Optimism, in consequence of bitter ex- perience, gradually gave place to Pessimism, which is the basis of every real religion. ? In this intellectual atmosphere we see the eternal and everywhere identical truth as Christianity struggling painfully upwards, like a plant through 'V* 7 rock and rubble, towards the light. Adapting its theory to the Old Testament and to the historical traditions of the life of its founder, Christianity per- sonifies (Rom. V. 12-21) the affirmation of the Will to life in Adam, the denial of it in Christ. We \' are all (according to the theory of original sin) Adam, and we all sh all become Christ through his being formed in us (Gal. iv. 19). This cannot be effected by the Law (not so much, because, according to the Pauline theory, it cannot be fulfilled, but rather because it is founded on egoism, and there- fore, even if fulfilled, does not lead beyond this). To Christianity therefore the springing up of meta- pjiysical knowledge, independently of our Will while in the state of affirmation, appears as Grace^ which accomplishes in us regeneration, that is the returning of the Will to denial. Thus the t ruth as C hristi- anity burst the hardened bark of the contradictory and in jtself untrue Mosaic teaching, the conscious- ness of which inspired the fourth Evangelist (chap. i. 17, 18), with the words : o 1/0/^09 lia Mö)i;cr€a)9 lloOt), V %"P^? i^f^f' V ^^V^^f'^ ^''^ Tt/ctou ^pLOTOv iyevero (thus not by Moses). Sebv ovSeU icopaKC irddirore (thus not even Moses, as is maintained. Num. xii. 8, Deut. xxxiv. i o), fiovoyevrj^; vlo^, 6 o)v eU top koXttov Tov Trarpof;, iK€ivo<; i^rjy7]