No More Learning

I. Show me the passage. But I have to tell you in advance that, in the recollection of so many other passages of this very Leibniz, so many of his letters, treatises, his Theodice? e and Nouveaux essais, his philosophical career overall, I reel at the hypothesis that this man should have believed not in a supramundane but rather in an intra- mundane cause of the world.
Lessing. From this perspective, I have to concede to you. This per- spective will retain the upper hand, and I admit that I said a bit too much. Nonetheless, the passage that I am thinking of--and still a good many other things--always remains odd. But not to forget! Now, according to what ideas do you believe the opposite of Spinozism? Do you find that the Principia by Leibniz5 put an end to it?
I. How could I in view of the firm conviction that the incisive deter- minist does not differ from the fatalist? . . . The monads together with their vincula [bonds] leave extension and thinking, reality in general,
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as incomprehensible to me as before, and there I know neither right nor left. It seems to me as if, ultimately, a confidence trick were being played on me . . . For that matter, I don't know of any doctrinal edifice that would agree as much with Spinozism as that of Leibniz; and it would be difficult to say which one of these authors fooled us and himself the most; with all due respect! . . . Mendelssohn proved pub- licly that the harmonia praestabilita is in Spinoza. From this alone, it already follows that Spinoza must contain much more of Leibniz's basic doctrines, or else Leibniz and Spinoza (on the basis of whose doctrine Wolff's lessons would hardly have flourished) would not have been the striking minds [Ko? pfe] that they indisputably were. I dare to explain on the basis of Spinoza Leibniz's complete doctrine concerning the soul . . . Both have fundamentally the same doctrine of freedom as well, and only an illusion [Blendwerk] distinguishes their theories. While Spinoza (Ep. LXII, Op. Post. , p. 584) explains our feeling of freedom through the example of a stone which would think and know that it strives as much it can to continue its movement, Leibniz explains the same (Theod. ? 50) through the example of a mag- netic needle that would like to move toward North and would be of the opinion it may turn itself independently from another cause since it would not be aware of the imperceptible movement of the magnetic matter. * . . . Leibniz explains the final causes through an appetitum, a conatum immanentem (conscientia sui praeditum) [a striving, an ind- welling impetus (endowed with self-consciousness)]. This is just like
* Atque haec humana illa libertas est, quam omnes habere jactant, & quae in hoc solo consistit, quod homines sui appetitus sunt conscii, & causarum, a? quibus determinatur, ignari [And this is that human freedom, which all claim to have, and which consists solely in the fact that men are conscious of their own desire but ignore the causes by which they are determined]-- says Spinoza in the same 63rd letter.
Spinoza by no means lacks the concept of the expression with which the determinists presume they evade the fatalists. But it seemed to him of such bad philosophical character that he preferred the arbitrium indifferentiae [indifferent power/will] or the voluntas aequilibrii [will of equi- librium] even more. Among other passages, one should refer to the end of the 2nd Schol. of the 33rd Prop. in the Ist part of the Ethics. Further, to the Schol. of the 9th Prop. in the IIIrd part and, especially, to the preface to the IVth part.
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Spinoza, who, in this sense, was able to let them be completely valid, and for whom, as for Leibniz, representing the external and desire are the essence of the soul. In short, if one gets down to the heart of the matter, it turns out that, for Leibniz as for Spinoza, each and every final cause presupposes an efficient cause . . . Thinking is not the source of substance, but rather substance is the source of thinking. Thus some- thing not-thinking must be assumed before thinking as that which is first; something that must be thought as the foremost, if absolutely not in reality, then according to representation, essence and inner nature. Leibniz was therefore honest enough to call souls des automates spiritu- els [spiritual automatons]. * But how (I am speaking here according to Leibniz's deepest and most complete meaning, to the extent I under- stand it) can the principium of all souls exist for itself anywhere and be an efficient cause. . . , how can spirit [exist] before matter, and thought before object? This great knot that he would actually have had to untie to help us out of difficulty, he left just as entangled as it was. . .
Lessing. . . . I will not allow you any rest, you must bring this par- allelism into the open . . . people do indeed speak of Spinoza always asofadeaddog. . .
I. They will continue to speak of him in this way. Understanding Spinoza takes too long and stubborn an effort of the mind [des
* The same term is also to be found in Spinoza, though not in his Ethics but rather in the fragment de intellectus emendatione. The passage is worth quoting here. At ideam veram simplicem esse ostendimus, aut ex simplicibus compositam, & quae ostendit, quomodo, & cur aliquid sit, aut factum sit, & quo`d ipsius effectus objectivi in anima procedunt ad rationem formalitatis ip- sius objecti; id, quod idem est, quod veteres dixerunt, nempe veram scientiam procedere a causa ad effectus; nisi quod nunquam, quod sciam, conceperunt, uti nos hic, animam secundum certas leges agentem, & quasi aliquod automa spirituale. [As regards a true idea, we have shown that it is simple or com- posed of simple ideas; and what it shows, how and why something is or has been made; and that the effects of the object in the soul proceed according to the formal structure (ratio) of the same object; this conclusion is identi- cal with what the ancients said, that true science proceeds from cause to effect; though the ancients, so far as I know, never conceived the soul (as we do here) as acting in accordance with fixed laws and almost as some kind of spiritual automaton. ] (Op. Post. , p. 384). The derivation of the word automaton and what Bilfinger mentions at that point, is not unknown to me.
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Geistes]. And no one has understood him for whom one single line in the Ethics remains obscure or who does not grasp how this great man was able to have the firm inner conviction about his philosophy, which he exhibits so often and so emphatically. Even at the end of his days, he still wrote: . . . non praesumo, me optimam invenisse philosophiam; sed veram me intelligere scio [I do not claim to have discovered the best philosophy, but I know how to recognize the true one]. * Only a few may have tasted of such a peace of the spirit, of such a heaven in the under- standing as this bright and pure mind wrought for itself.
Lessing. And you are not a Spinozist, Jacobi!
I. No, in all honesty!
Lessing. In all honesty! Thus you must, by your philosophy, turn
your back on all philosophy.
I. Why turn my back on all philosophy?
Lessing. Well, then you are a complete skeptic.
I. On the contrary, I turn away from a philosophy that makes com-
plete skepticism necessary.
Lessing. And then turn--where to?
I. To the light, of which Spinoza says that it illuminates itself and
the darkness--I love Spinoza, because he, more than any other phi- losopher, led me to the complete conviction that certain things can- not be explained, that because of this one need not close one's eyes to them, but rather take them as one finds them. I have no concept that would be more innate than that of the final causes and no more lively conviction than that I do what I think instead of that I only should think what I do. Sure enough, I have to assume a source of thinking and acting that remains utterly inexplicable to me. But if I
* In his letter to Albert Burgh. He adds to this: "Quomodo autem id sciam, si roges, respondebo, eodem modo, ac tu scis tres angulos Trianguli aequales esse duobus rectis, & hoc sufficere negabit nemo, cui sanum est cerebrum, nec spiritus immundos somniat, qui nobis ideas falsas inspirant veris similes: est enim verum index sui & falsi. " ["And if you ask me, however, in what way I know it, I will reply: in the same way as you know that the three angles of a triangle are equal to two right angles; that this is sufficient no one will deny whose brain is sound, and who does not go dreaming of unclean spir- its inspiring us with false ideas resembling truth. For the truth is an index of itself and of what is false. "] Spinoza distinguishes greatly between "to be sure" and "not to doubt. "
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want to explain [it] fully, then I must fall back onto the second propo- sition, whose application to individual cases, and considered in its full extent, almost no human understanding can bear.
Lessing. You express yourself almost as bravely as the resolution of the Augsburg Reichstag. 6 But I remain an honest Lutheran and keep "the more bestial than humane misapprehension and blasphemy that there is no free will" in which even the bright pure mind of your Spi- noza also knew how to find itself.
I. Spinoza also had to twist himself to no small degree to hide his fatalism when applied to human conduct, especially, in his fourth and fifth part [of the Ethics--our note] where I would like to say that he every now and then degrades himself to a sophist. And this was what I was claiming: that even the greatest mind must arrive at inconsis- tencies, if he wants to explain all things absolutely, to make them con- sistent with each other according to distinct concepts, and does not want to accept anything else.
Lessing. And he who does not want to explain?
I. He who does not want to explain what is incomprehensible but rather wants to know only the border where it begins and to recog- nize that it exists, of him I believe that he reclaims the most space within himself for genuine human truth.
Lessing. Words, my dear Jacobi, words! The border that you want to establish cannot be determined. And you provide, on the other hand, a free open field for fantasy, nonsense, blindness.
I. I believe that this could be determined. I do not want to establish one but rather find the one already established and leave it. And as far as nonsense, musing, and blindness are concerned. . .
Lessing. They are at home everywhere disordered concepts rule.
I. Still more, where corrupt concepts rule. Even the blindest, most nonsensical, if not already the stupidest, belief also has its high throne there. For he who once fell in love with certain explanations adopts blindly every consequence that, according to a conclusion he cannot refute, is drawn from them and as if it were the case that he were walking on his head.
. . . According to my judgment, the greatest merit of the scientist [Forscher] is to unveil and reveal existence . . . Explanation is a means to him, a path to the end, a proximate, never final, purpose. His final purpose is what cannot be explained: the unresolvable, the immediate, the simple.
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. . . Unrestrained craving for explanation makes us seek what is uni- form so intensely that we pay no attention to what is different; we al- ways want only to join together while we would split apart often to our much greater advantage . . . As we only compose and associate that which is explainable in things, a certain appearance emerges in the soul that blinds the soul more than it illuminates it. We then sacri- fice that which Spinoza calls--profoundly and exaltedly--cognition of the supreme genus to cognition of the lower genera. We shut the eye of the soul with which it sees God and itself in order to look in a more undistracted manner with the eyes of the body only . . .
Lessing. Good, very good! I can use all of this, too, but I cannot do the same with it. In general your salto mortale pleases me not a little, and I understand how a man of intellect can put his head down in this way in order to move on from the spot. Take me with you if possible.
I. If you only will step onto the elastic spot that swings me farther, then it works as if of itself.
Lessing. This too would require a leap that I do not dare to expect of my old legs and my heavy head. 7
FRIEDRICH HEINRICH JACOBI
"On Human Freedom" (1789)8
On Human Freedom
First Part
Man Has No Freedom
I. The possibility of the existence of all things known to us is based on and related to the coexistence of other single things, and we are not in the position to form an idea of a finite being that exists for itself alone.
II. The results of the manifold relations of existence to coexistence express themselves in living natural things [lebendige Naturen] through sensations.
III. We call desire and repulsion the inner mechanical behavior of a living natural thing according to its sensations; or the sensed rela- tionship of the inner conditions of existence and persistence of a liv- ing natural thing to the external conditions of this very existence--or also only the sensed relationship of the inner conditions among themselves--is connected mechanically with a motion that we name desire or repulsion.
IV. That which forms the basis for all the different desires of a living natural thing we name its original natural drive [Trieb], and it consti- tutes the very being of this thing. Its business is to preserve and to extend the capacity-to-exist [das Vermo? gen da zu sein] of the particu- lar natural thing whose drive it is.
V. One could name this original natural drive desire a priori. The multitude of individual desires are only so many occasional applica- tions and modifications of this unchangeable general desire.
VI. One could name a desire utterly a priori that would be ascribed to every individual being without difference in genus, species, and gender to the extent that all strive in the same way generally to pre- serve their existence [sich u? berhaupt im Dasein zu erhalten].
VII. A capacity that would be absolutely undetermined is a non- thing. But every determination presupposes something that is al- ready determined and the consequence and fulfillment of a law. De- sire a priori of both the first and second kind thus also presupposes laws a priori.
VIII. The original drive of the rational being consists, like the drive of each and every other being, in the incessant striving to preserve and to extend the capacity-to-exist of the particular natural thing of which it is the drive.
IX. The existence of rational natural beings is called a personal exis- tence in opposition to all other natural beings. This consists in the consciousness of its identity that the particular being has and is the consequence of a higher degree of consciousness in general.
X. The natural drive of the rational natural being, or rational de- sire, aims thus necessarily at increasing the degree of personhood [Personalita?
t], that is, of living existence itself.
XI. We call rational desire in general, or the drive of the rational being as such, the will.
XII. The existence of each finite being is a successive existence; its personhood is based on recollection and reflection, its limited but clear cognition on concepts, consequently, on abstraction and ver- bal, written or other signs.
XIII. The law of the will is to act according to concepts of agreement and coherence, that is according to basic principles [Grundsa? tzen]. The will is the faculty [Vermo? gen] of practical principles [Prinzipien].
XIV. Whenever the rational being does not act in accordance with its basic principles it does not act according to its will, not according to a rational but rather to an irrational desire.
XV. The identity of the rational existence is disrupted by the satis- faction of each and every irrational desire; consequently the person- hood, which alone is grounded in the rational existence, is injured and, therefore, the quantity of the living existence is diminished by the same amount.
XVI. That degree of the living existence that brings forth the per- son is only one manner of the living existence in general, and not a personal particular existence or being. Thus, the person does not only impute those actions to himself that happen according to basic principles but also those that are the effects of irrational desires and blind inclinations.
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XVII. If man, blindfolded by an irrational desire, violates his basic principles, then he tends to say afterward, when he senses the bad consequences of his action: It serves me right. Since he is aware of the identity of his being he must regard himself as the originator of the awkward state in which he is situated and experience the most humil- iating discord within himself.
XVIII. The entire system of practical reason grounds itself on this experience, to the extent it is constructed on only one basic drive.
XIX. If man had only one desire he would have no concept of right and wrong at all. But he has many desires that he cannot all satisfy to the same degree, but rather the possibility of satisfaction of one de- sire abolishes the possibility of satisfaction of the others in a thou- sand cases. Since all of these different desires are only modifications of one single primary desire, the latter provides the principle accord- ing to which the different desires can be weighed against each other and through which the proportion becomes determinable according to which the desire could be satisfied, without the person falling into contradiction and antagonism with himself.
XX. Such an inner right develops imperfectly in every man in a me- chanical manner due to the identity of his consciousness. The exter- nal right that men freely agree on and adopt voluntarily when they join a civil union, is always only the reproduction of the inner right that arose among the single members. I refer to the history of all peo- ples of which we have somewhat detailed information.
XXI. The greater perfection, which the inner right achieves accord- ing to circumstances, follows only as a continuation and develop- ment of the very mechanism which brought about the lesser perfec- tion. All basic principles are based on desire and experience and presuppose, to the extent they are in fact observed, an activity al- ready determined from somewhere else; they can never be the begin- ning or the first cause of an action. The capability and readiness to de- velop or practically accept effective basic principles is the same as the capacity to receive ideas, as the capacity to turn these represen- tations into concepts, as the vivacity and energy of thought, and as the degree of rational existence.
XXII. The principle (or the a priori) of the basic principles is the original desire of the rational being in general to preserve its own par- ticular existence, that is, to preserve its person and to subdue that which wants to injure its identity.
XXIII. From precisely this drive flows a natural love and commit- ment to justice for others. The rational being cannot differentiate it- self as rational being (in abstraction) from another rational being. I and man are one, he and man are one; thus he and I are one. The love of the person thus restricts the love of the individuum, and it requires the individual not hold itself in reverence. But so that the latter would not extend in theory to the possible elimination of the individual and a mere nothing would be left in the person, more exact determina- tions--which were suggested in the foregoing, and further discussion of which does not belong to our purpose here--are necessary. It is enough for us to have come in this way to the clear realization, how these moral laws, which could be called apodictic laws of practical reason, come about, and that we are now able to decide that the sim- ple basic drive that is connected to reason shows pure mechanism and no freedom, although an appearance of freedom is achieved by the often antipodal interests of individuum and person, and by the al- ternating fortune of a sovereignty to which the person connected with clear consciousness alone has a claim.
Second Part
Man Has Freedom
XXIV. It is undeniable that the existence of all finite things is based on coexistence [Mitdasein] and that we are not able to form an idea of a being that exists utterly for itself. But it is just as undeniable that we are even less able to form an idea of an utterly dependent being. Such a being would have to be entirely passive, and yet could not be pas- sive, because what is not already something cannot merely be deter- mined to be something; for that which has no attributes none can be generated in it through relations, indeed not even a relation in regard to it is possible.
XXV. If now a completely mediated existence or being is not think- able, but rather is a non-thing, then a merely mediated--that is, an en- tirely mechanical--ACTION must likewise be a non-thing. Consequently, mechanism in itself is only something contingent, and a PURE self- activity must necessarily form the basis for mechanism everywhere.
XXVI. In so far as we recognize that every finite thing in its exis- tence, consequently also in its activity [Tun] and passivity [Leiden], is necessarily based on, and relates to, other finite things, we recog- nize at the same time the subordination of all and every individual
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being to mechanistic laws. For, to the extent their Being [Sein] and ef- fectiveness is mediated, to that extent it must be based entirely on laws of mechanics.
XXVII. The cognition of that which the existence of things mediates is called a distinct cognition and that which does not allow mediation cannot be cognized distinctly by us.
XXVIII. Absolute self-activity permits no mediation, and it is impos- sible that we somehow cognize its inner realm distinctly.
XXIX. The possibility of absolute self-activity thus cannot be cog- nized, but surely its actuality, which presents itself immediately in consciousness and proves itself through the act, can be cognized.
XXX. Self-activity is called freedom, to the extent that it can set it- self against and prevail over the mechanism which accounts for the sensory [sinnlich] existence of every individual being.
XXXI. Among living beings we know only man to be endowed with that degree of consciousness of his self-activity, which carries within itself the calling and impetus toward free acts.
XXXII. Freedom thus exists not in an inconsistent capacity to de- cide without grounds, just as little as it does in the choice of what is better among what is useful or the choice of rational desire. For such a choice, even if it happens according to the most abstract concepts, still occurs only mechanically; but rather this freedom exists, accord- ing to its essence, in the independence of the WILL from DESIRE.
XXXIII. Will is pure self-activity, raised to the degree of conscious- ness that we call reason.
XXXIV. The independence and inner omnipotence of the will, or the possible rule of the intellectual being over the sensible being, is ad- mitted de facto by all men.
XXXV. From the wise men of antiquity, mainly from the Stoics, it is known that they allowed no comparison between things of desire and things of HONOR. The objects of desire, they said, could be compared among each other according to the sensation of that which is pleas- ant and the concepts of that which is beneficial, and one desire could be sacrificed for the other. The principle of desire, however, lies out- side of all relation with the principle of honor, which has only one ob- ject: the perfection of human nature in itself, self-activity, freedom. Thus, all wrongdoings were alike for them, and it was always only the question from which of the two incommensurable principles-- that could not possibly come to a real collision with each other--the
action had occurred. They wanted quite rightly to have one called a free man who lived only the life of his soul, determined himself ac- cording to the laws of his own nature, therefore obeyed only himself and always acted on his own. They saw in contrast utter slaves in those who, determined by the things of desire, lived by following the laws of those things and subjugated themselves to them so that they might be continuously changed and put into action by them in a man- ner in accord with their desires.
XXXVI. In as much as our enlightened age now may be above the ef- fusions [Schwa? rmereien] or the mysticism of an Epictetus and Antoni- nus, we have not yet advanced in distinctness and thoroughness so that we would be unbound from all feeling of honor. But as long as a spark of this feeling still lives in man, there is in him an irrefutable tes- timonial of freedom and an invincible belief in the inner omnipotence of the will. He can deny this belief with his lips, but it remains in the conscience and sometimes erupts suddenly as in the poet's Ma- homet 9 where Mohammed, turned inward and stricken, utters the terrible words:
Il est donc des remords!
[Alas, there is remorse! ]
XXXVII. Yet, this belief cannot be denied entirely, even with the lips. For who wants to be known as one who at any time could not re- sist all temptations to a shameful action; who, then, needs to deliber- ate here, to take advantages and disadvantages into consideration, to think about degree and greatness? And, in the same way, we also make judgments in regard to other men. If we see someone preferring what is pleasant over what is useful, choosing perverse means for his ends, contradicting himself in his wishes and strivings, then we find only that he acts irrationally, foolishly. If he is careless in the fulfill- ment of his duties, even staining himself with vice, if he is unjust and carries out acts of violence, then we can hate, loathe him. But we can- not yet entirely disdain him. If he denies, however, in some sort of de- cisive manner the feeling of honor, if he shows that he cannot carry inner disgrace or cannot feel self-contempt, then we disdain him with- out mercy, he is excrement under our feet.
XXXVIII. Whence these unconditional judgments? Whence such immoderate [ungemessen] presumptions and demands that are not
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even restricted merely to actions but rather lay claim to feeling and demand its existence apodictically?
XXXIX. Should the right to these presumptions and demands be based in all likelihood on a formula, for instance, on the insight into the correct connections, on the certain truth of the results of the fol- lowing propositions: if A equals B and C is like A then B is like C? Spi- noza demonstrated in this way that man, to the extent he is a rational being, would rather sacrifice his life, even if he does not believe in the immortality of the soul, than save himself from death through a lie. * And Spinoza is right in abstracto. It is just as impossible that men of pure reason lie or deceive as that the three angles in a triangle do not equal two right ones. But will a being actually endowed with reason really allow itself to be driven into a corner in such a way by the ab- stracto of its reason, to be so entirely captured by a thing of thought through a play on words? Never! If there is reliance in honor, and man can keep his word, then another spirit than the spirit of mere syllo- gism must reside in him. ?
XL. I consider this other spirit to be the breath [Odem] of God in the work of clay [in dem Gebilde von Erde].
XLI. This spirit proves its existence first in the understanding which, without it, would truly be that miraculous mechanism that would not only make the guidance of a seeing person by a blind one possible, but rather would also prove the necessity of such an ar- rangement through conclusions of reason. Who constrains the syllo- gism here in so far as it sets out its premises? Only this spirit, through its presence in acts of freedom and in an ineradicable consciousness. ?
XLII. As this consciousness is the conviction itself: intelligence is for itself alone effective; it is the highest, indeed the sole force truly known to us. Thus it also directly teaches the belief in one primary su- preme intelligence and in an intelligent originator and lawgiver for na- ture, in one God WHO IS ONE SPIRIT.
XLIII. But this belief receives its full force and becomes religion only when the capacity of pure love develops in the heart of man.
* Eth. , P. IV, Prop. LXXII.
? The reason of man, separated from man himself and from any drive, is only
a thing of thought that neither can act [agieren] nor react, neither think nor
be practically active [handeln]. Cf. p. 423 of this text.
? Cf. S. 28 and 29 of this text [see XXXIV-XXXIX above--our note].
XLIV. Pure love? Does such a love exist? How does it prove itself, and where does one find its object?
XLV. If I answer that the principle of love is the same principle of whose existence as the principle of honor we have already assured ourselves, then one will believe oneself to have an even greater right to be insistent in regard to the object that I am supposed to present.
XLVI. Thus I answer: the object of pure love is that which a Socrates had in mind. It is the Theion [divine] in man, and the reverence for what is divine forms the basis of all virtue, all sense of honor.
XLVII. I can construct neither this drive nor its object. In order to be able to, I would have to know how substances are created and how a necessary being is possible. But the following will perhaps explain my conviction about its existence a little further.
XLVIII. If the universe is not a god but rather a creation; if it is the ef- fect of a free intelligence, then the original direction of each being must be [the] expression of a divine will. This expression in created beings is their original law in which the force to fulfill it [Kraft es zu erfu? llen] must necessarily be given as well. This principle, which is the condition of the existence of the being itself, its original drive, its OWN WILL, cannot be compared with the laws of nature, which are only results of relations and are in fact based on mediation. But now every individual being belongs to nature. It is thus subject to the laws of nature and has a double direction.
XLIX. The direction toward the finite is the sensory [sinnlich] drive or the principle of desire, and the direction toward the eternal is the intellectual drive, the principle of pure love.
L. Were one to take me to task about this double direction itself, and ask about the possibility of such a relation and of the theory of its establishment, then I would rightly dismiss such a question, be- cause it deals with the possibility and theory of creation, having as object conditions of the unconditional. It is enough if the existence of this double direction and its relation are proved through the act and recognized by reason. As all men ascribe freedom to themselves and set THEIR HONOR alone in the possession of freedom, they all ascribe to themselves a capacity for pure love and a feeling of the overwhelm- ing energy of this love on which the possibility of freedom is based. All want to be lovers of virtue itself, not of the advantages connected with it; all want to know about a beauty which is not merely pleasing, about a joy that is not mere excitation.
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LI. We name actions that actually follow from this capacity divine actions, and their source, the dispositions themselves, divine disposi- tions. They are also accompanied by a joy which cannot be compared with any other joy; it is the joy that God himself has in his existence.
LII. Joy is every enjoyment of existence, just as everything that challenges existence brings about pain and sadness. Its source is the source of life and all activity. But if its affect relates only to a transi- tory existence, then it is itself transitory: the soul of the animal. If its object is that which is permanent and eternal, then it is the force of the deity itself and its reward [Beute] immortality.
JOHANN GOTTFRIED HERDER
God.
Some Conversations
Excerpt from the Fifth Conversation:"Principle of persistency through separation of that which is opposed,through poles"1
Theophron. [. . . ] Thus, to begin with: Every being is what it is and nei- ther has a concept of nothingness nor a yearning for it. All perfection in one thing is its reality [Wirklichkeit]; the feeling of this reality is the indwelling reward of its existence, its inner joy. In the so-called moral world that is also a natural world, Spinoza sought to ascribe all pas- sions and strivings of man to this inner love toward existence and to- ward persistency in existence [zur Beharrung]; in the physical world, many, somewhat unworthy, names have been bestowed on the ap- pearances that resulted from this law of nature. Now it is called the force of inertia, because every thing remains what it is and does not change without cause: now it is called, although from a different point of view, the force of gravity [Kraft der Schwere], according to which every thing has its center of gravity [Schwerpunkt] on which it rests. Inertia and gravity, just as their opposite, motion, are only appear- ances since space and body themselves are only appearances; that which is true, that which is of essence in them is persistency, [a] con- tinuation of existence which can and may not be interrupted. Even its shape [Gestalt] shows that every thing strives only toward a state of persistency, and you, dear Theano, as a painter of nature, will be able to explain much for yourself from the form [Form] of things if you pay heed to it. We want to take the easiest example from the system of things that can tie the most sprightly mobility with the greatest ho- mogeneity and, therefore, at the same time choose a shape for them- selves. We name these fluid things. Now then, Philolaus, all fluid things
126 | PHILOSOPHICAL INVESTIGATIONS INTO THE ESSENCE OF HUMAN FREEDOM
whose parts act homogenously toward each other without obstruc- tion, what kind of shape do they take?
Philolaus. The shape of a drop.
Theophron. And why the shape of a drop? Should we assume, for instance, a drop-forming principium in nature that arbitrarily loves this shape?
Philolaus. By no means! The drop is a sphere; and within a sphere, all parts come homogenously about at one midpoint in harmony and order. The sphere rests on itself: its gravity is in the middle, its shape is therefore the most beautiful state of persistency of homogenous be- ings that assemble around this midpoint and, with equal forces, lend the [proper] counterweight to each other. In accordance with neces- sary laws of harmony and order, a world will emerge in the drop.
Theophron. Consequently, dear Philolaus, you obtain in the law according to which the drop takes shape, at the same time, the rule according to which our earth, the sun, and all heavenly systems are formed. For our earth also emerged once from fluid status and gath- ered itself together in the drop. Thus the sun and this entire system in which the sun rules by gravitational force is a larger drop. Every- thing descends in radii and is being upheld in orbit by other forces; thus the orbit of all planets must approach more or less a circle. The sun in its system forms with millions of other suns in turn a cir- cle or an ellipse, since they move around a common middle or focal point, as the Milky Way proves, and as those systems of suns, [and] the nebular stars show. Altogether they are bright drops from the deity's sea that, by means of indwelling eternal laws of harmony and order, sought and found their state of persistency in their shape and in their course of movement [Lauf]. They were able to find their state of persistency in no other way than in the shape of a sphere and in a circular course, the product of opposite forces, and not through arbitrariness but rather through inner principles of homo- geneously acting forces in fluidity, in the sphere-shape, in the ellip- tic movement of a circle. The small tear, Theano, that every morn- ing you find in the calyx of a rose, shows the principle according to which earth, suns, and all solar, indeed, all world systems, were formed. For, if we allow ourselves the enormous flight of fancy of thinking the entire universe, then no giant emerges but rather a sphere that rests on itself.
HERDER | FROM GOD. SOME CONVERSATIONS | 127
Theano. I thank you, Theophron, for this vast viewpoint concern- ing such a simple law of nature that exists in itself; but do come back to our earth or at least back to our solar system: since I do not like to fly so high. You spoke of a second law of nature according to which everything that is similar unites and everything that is opposed separ- ates; don't you want to provide examples for this?