I am perfectly
conscious of the act of my mind when I form a general con-
ception, or when in cases of doubt I choose one of the many
possible modes of action which lie before me; but of the act
through which, according to thy assertion, I must produce
the presentation of an object out of myself, I am not con-
scious at all.
conscious of the act of my mind when I form a general con-
ception, or when in cases of doubt I choose one of the many
possible modes of action which lie before me; but of the act
through which, according to thy assertion, I must produce
the presentation of an object out of myself, I am not con-
scious at all.
Fichte - Nature of the Scholar
|
Spirit. Then thou dost but spread through the whole
mass thy own sensibility, that which is already familiar to
thee,--visibility as coloured, tangibility as rough, smooth,
or the like; and after all it is this sensibility itself of which
alone thou art sensible? Or dost thou find it otherwise?
I. By no means: what thou sayest follows from what I
have already understood and admitted.
Spirit. And yet thou dost perceive nothing behind the
surface, and hast perceived nothing there?
I. Were I to break through it, I should perceive some-
thing.
Spirit. So much therefore thou knowest beforehand
.
And this infinite divisibility, in which, as thou maintainest,
thou canst never arrive at anything absolutely impercept-
ible, thou hast never carried it out, nor canst thou do so?
I. I cannot carry it out
.
Spirit. To a sensation, therefore, which thou hast really
had, thou addest in imagination another which thou hast
not had? . .
I. I am sensible only of that which I attribute to the
surface; I am not sensible of what lies behind it, and yet I
assume the existence of something there which might be
perceived. Yes, I must admit what thou sayest.
Spirit. And the actual sensation is in part found to cor-
respond with what thou hast thus pre-supposed 1
I. When I break through the surface of a body, I do in-
deed find beneath it something perceptible, as I prc-sup-
po3ed. Yes, I must admit this also.
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? BOOK II. KNOWLEDGE.
277
Spirit. Partly, however, thou hast maintained thatjthere
is something beyond sensation, which cannot become appa-
rent to any actual perception.
I. I maintain, that were I to divide a corporeal mass to
infinity, I could never come to any part which is in itself
imperceptible; although I admit that I can never make the
experiment,--can never practically carry out the division of
a corporeal mass to infinity. Yes, I must agree with thee
in this also.
Spirit. Thus there is nothing remaining of the object
but what is perceptible,--what is a property or attribute;--
this perceptibility thou extendest through a continuous
space which is divisible to infinity; and the true substratum
or supporter of the attributes of things which thou hast
sought, is, therefore, only the space which is thus filled 1
I. Although I cannot be satisfied with this, but feel that
I must still suppose in the object something more than this
perceptibility and the space which it fills, yet I cannot point
out this something, and I must therefore confess that I have
hitherto been unable to discover any substratum but space
itself.
Spirit. Always confess whatever thou perceivest to be
true. The present obscurities will gradually become clear,
and the unknown will be made known. Space itself, how-
ever, is not perceived; and thou canst not understand how
thou hast obtained this conception, or why thou extendest
throughout it this property of perceptibility?
I. It is so.
Spirit. As little dost thou understand how thou hast ob-
tained even this conception of a perceptibility out of thyself,
since thou really perceivest only thine own sensation in thy-
self, not as the property of an external thing, but as an af-
fection of thine own being.
I. So it is. I see clearly that I really perceive only my
own state, and not the object; that I neither see, feel, nor
hear this object; but that, on the contrary, precisely there
where the object should be, all seeing, feeling, and so forth,
comes to an end.
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? 278
THE VOCATION OF MAN.
But I have a presentiment. Sensations, as affections of
myself, have no extension whatever, but . *xe simple states;
in their differences they are not contiguous to each other in
space, but successive to each other in time. Nevertheless,
I do extend them in space. May it not be by means of this
extension, and simultaneously with it, that what is properly
only my own feeling or sensation becomes changed for me
into a perceptible something out of myself; and may not
this be the precise point at which there arises within me a
consciousness of the external object?
Spirit. This conjecture may be confirmed. But could we
raise it immediately to a conviction, we should thereby at-
tain to no complete insight, for this higher question would
still remain to be answered,--How dost thou first come to
extend sensation through space? Let us then proceed at
once to this question; and let us propound it more gene-
rally--I have my reasons for doing so--in the following
manner:--How is it, that, with thy consciousness, which is
but an immediate consciousness of thyself, thou proceedest out of thyself; and to the sensation which thou dost per-
ceive, superaddest an object perceived and perceptible,
which yet thou dost not perceive?
L Sweet or bitter, fragrant or ill-scented, rough or
smooth, cold or warm,--these qualities, when applied to
things, signify whatever excites in me this or that taste,
smell, or other sensation. It is the same with respect to
sounds. A relation to myself is always indicated, and it
never occurs to me that the sweet or bitter taste, the pleas-
ant or unpleasant smell, lies in the thing itself;--it lies in
me, and it only appears to be excited by the object . It
seems indeed to be otherwise with the sensations of sight,--
with colours, for example, which may not be pure sensations,
but a sort of intermediate affections; yet when we consider
it strictly, red, and the others, means nothing more than
what produces in me a certain sensation of sight . This
leads me to understand how it is that I attain to a know-
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? BOOK II. KNOWLEDGE.
279
ledge of things out of myself. I am affected in a particular
manner--this I know absolutely;--this affection must have
a foundation; this foundation is not in myself, and therefore
must be out of myself;--thus I reason rapidly and uncon-
sciously, and forthwith assume the existence of such a foun-
dation,--namely, the object . This foundation must be one
by which the particular affection in~question may be ex-
plained ;--I am affected in the manner which I call a sweet
ta*lc, the object must therefore be of a kind to excite a
sweet taste, or more briefly, must itself be sweet. In this
way I determine the character of the object
.
Spin! . There may be some truth in what thou sayest,
although it is not the whole truth which might be said
upon the subject . How this stands we shall undoubtedly
discover in due time. Since, however, it cannot be denied
that in other cases thou dost discover some truth by means
of this principle of causality,--so I term the doctrine which
thou hast just asserted, that everything (in this case thy af-
fection) must have a foundation or cause,--since this, I say,
cannot be denied, it may not be superfluous to learn strictly
to understand this procedure, and to make it perfectly clear
to ourselves what it is thou really dost when thou adoptest
it. Let us suppose, in the meantime, that thy statement is
perfectly correct, that it is by an unconscious act of reason-
ing, from the effect to the cause, that thou first comest to
assume the existence of an outward object;--what then was
it which thou wert here conscious of perceiving 1
L That I was affected in a certain manner.
Spirit. But of an object, affecting thee in a certain man-
ner, thou wert not conscious, at least not as a perception 1
I. By no meaus. I have already admitted this.
Spirit. Then, by this principle of causality, thou addest to
a knowledge which thou hast, another which thou hast not 1
I. Thy words are strange.
Spirit. Perhaps I may succeed in removing this strange-
ness. But let my words appear to thee as they may. They
ought only to lead thee to produce in thine own mind the
same thought that I have produced in mine; not serve thee
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? 280
THE VOCATION OF MAN.
as a text-book which thou hast only to repeat . When thou
hast the thought itself firmly and clearly in thy grasp, then
express it as thou wilt, and with as much variety as thou
wilt, and be sure that thou wilt always express it well.
How, and by what means, knowest thou of this affection
of thyself?
I. It would be difficult to answer thee in words:--Be-
cause my consciousness, as a subjective attribute, as the
determination of my being in so far as I am an intelligence,
proceeds directly upon the existence of this affection as its
object, as that of which I am conscious, and is inseparable
from it;--because I am possessed of consciousness at all
only in so far as I am cognisant of such an affection--cog-
nisant of it absolutely, just as I am cognisant of my own
existence.
Spirit. Thou hast therefore an organ,--consciousness it-
self,--whereby thou perceivest such an affection of thyself?
Z Ye&
Spirit. But an organ whereby thou perceivest the object
itself, thou hast not?
I. Since thou hast convinced me that I neither see nor
feel the object itself, nor apprehend it by any external sense,
I find myself compelled to confess that I have no such or-
gan.
Spirit. Bethink thee well of this. It may be turned
against thee that thou hast made me this admission. What
then is thy external sense at all, and how canst thou call it
external, if it have no reference to any external object, and
be not the organ whereby thou hast any knowledge of such?
I. I desire truth, and trouble myself little about what
may be turned against me. I distinguish absolutely because
I do distinguish them, green, sweet, red, smooth, bitter, fra-
grant, rough, ill-scented, the sound of a violin and of a trum-
pet. Among these sensations I place some in a certain rela-
tion of likeness to each other, although in other respects I
distinguish them from each other; thus I find green and
red, sweet and bitter, rough and smooth, &c. , to have a cer-
tain relation of similarity to each other, and this similarity I
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? BOOK II. KNOWLEDGE.
281
feel to be respectively one of sight, taste, touch, &c. Sight,
taste, and so forth, are not indeed in themselves actual sen-
sations, for I never see or feel absolutely, as thou hast pre-
viously remarked, but always see red or green, taste sweet or
bitter, &c. Sight, taste, and the like, are only higher defini-
tions of actual sensations; they are classes to which I refer
these latter, not by arbitrary arrangement, but guided by the
immediate sensation itself. I see in them therefore not ex-
ternal senses, but only particular definitions of the objects of
the inward sense, of my own states or affections. How they
become external senses, or, more strictly speaking, how I
come to regard them as such, and so to name them, is now
the question. I do not take back my admission that I have
no organ for the object itself.
Spirit. Yet thou speakest of objects as if thou didst
really know of their existence, and hadst an organ for such
knowledge 1
1. Yes.
Spirit. And this thou dost, according to thy previous as-
sumption, in consequence of the knowledge which thou dost
really possess, and for which thou hast an organ, and on
account of this knowledge?
I. It is so.
Spirit. Thy real knowledge, that of thy sensations or af-
fections, is to thee like an imperfect knowledge, which, as
thou sayest, requires to be completed by another. This
other new knowledge thou conceivest and describest to thy-
self,--not as something which thou hast, for thou hast it
not,--but as something which thou shouldst have, over and
above thy actual knowledge, if thou hadst an organ where
with to apprehend it. "I know nothing indeed," thou seem-
est to say, "of things in themselves, but such things there
must be; if I could but find them, they are to be found. "
Thou supposest another organ, which indeed is not thine,
and this thou employest upon them, and thereby appre-
hendest them,--of course in thought only. Strictly speaking,
thou hast no consciousness of things, but only a consciousness
(produced by a procession out of thy actual consciousness by
0a
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? L>82
THE VOCATION OF MAN.
means of the principle of causality) of a consciousness of
things (such as ought to be, such as of necessity must be, al-
though not accessible to thee); and now thou wilt perceive
that, in the supposition thou hast made, thou hast added to
a knowledge which thou hast, another which thou hast not.
/. I must admit this.
Spirit. Henceforward let us call this second knowledge,
obtained by means of another, mediate, and the first immedi-
ate knowledge. A certain school has called this procedure
which we have to some extent described above, a synthesis;
by which we are to understand not a con-nexion established
between two elements previously existing, but an an-nexion,
and an addition of a wholly new element, arising through
this an-nexion, to another element previously existing inde-
pendently of such addition.
Thus the first consciousness appears as soon as thou dis-
coverest thy own existence, and the latter is not discovered
without the former; the second consciousness is produced in
thee by means of the first.
/. But not successive to it in time; for I am conscious of
external things at the very same undivided moment in
which I become conscious of myself.
Spirit. I did not speak of such a succession in time at
all; but I think that when thou reflectest upon that undi-
vided consciousness of thyself and of the external object,
distinguish est between them, and inquirest into their con-
nexion, thou wilt find that the latter can be conceived of
only as conditioned by the former, and as only possible on
the supposition of its existence; but not vice versa.
I. So I find it to be; and if that be all thou wouldst say,
I admit thy assertion, and have already admitted it.
Spirit. Thou engenderest, I say, this second conscious-
ness; producest it by a real act of thy mind. Or dost thou
find it otherwise?
/ I have surely admitted this already. I add to the
consciousness which is simultaneous with that of my exist-
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? BOOK II. KNOWLEDGE.
288
ence, another which I do not find in myself; I thus com-
plete and double my actual consciousness, and this is cer-
tainly an act. But I am tempted to take back either my
admission, or else the whole supposition.
I am perfectly
conscious of the act of my mind when I form a general con-
ception, or when in cases of doubt I choose one of the many
possible modes of action which lie before me; but of the act
through which, according to thy assertion, I must produce
the presentation of an object out of myself, I am not con-
scious at all.
Spirit. Do not be deceived. Of an act of thy mind thou
canst become conscious only in so far as thou dost pass
through a state of indetermination and indecision, of which
thou wert likewise conscious, and to which this act puts an
end. There is no such state of indecision in the case we
have supposed; the mind has no need to deliberate what
object it shall superadd to its particular sensations,--it is
done at once. We even find this distinction in philosophi-
cal phraseology. An act of the mind, of which we are con- I jscious as such, is caJledJreedom. An act without conscious-
ness of action, is called spontaneity. Remember that I by
no means demand of thee an immediate consciousness of the
act as such, but only that on subsequent reflection thou
shouldst discover that there must have been an act. The
higher question, what it is that prevents any such state of
indecision, or any consciousness of our act, will undoubted-
ly be afterwards solved.
This act of the mind is called thought; a word which I
have hitherto employed with thy concurrence; and it is said
that thought takes place with spontaneity, in opposition to
sensation which is mere receptivity. How is it then, that,
in thy previous statement, thou addest in thought to the
sensation which thou certainly hast, an object of which thou
knowest nothing?
I. I assume that my sensation must have a cause, and
then proceed further,--
Spirit. Wilt thou not, in the first place, explain to me
what is a cause?
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? 284.
THE VOCATION OF MAN.
I. I find a thing determined this way or that. I cannot
rest satisfied with knowing that so it is;--it has become so,
and that not by itself, but by means of a foreign power.
This foreign power, that made it what it is, contains the
cause, and the manifestation of that power, which did actu-
ally make it so, is the cause of this particular determination
of the thing. That my sensation must have a cause, means
that it is produced within me by a foreign power.
Spirit. This foreign power thou now addest in thought to
the sensation of which thou art immediately conscious, and
thus there arises in thee the presentation of an object?
Well,--let it be so.
Now observe; if sensation must have a cause, then I ad-
mit the correctness of thy inference; and I see with what
perfect right thou assumest the existence of objects out of
thyself, notwithstanding that thou neither knowest nor
canst know aught of them. But how then dost thou know,
and how dost thou propose to prove, that sensationmust
have a cause? Or, in the general manner in which thou
"hast stated the proposition, why canst thou not rest satisfied
to know that something is? why must thou assume that it
has become so, or that it has become so by means of a foreign
power? I note that thou hast always only assumed this.
I. I confess it. But I cannot do otherwise than think so.
It seems as if I knew it immediately.
Spirit. What this answer, "thou knowest it immediately,"
may signify, we shall see should we be brought back to it as
the only possible one. We will however first try all other
possible methods of ascertaining the grounds of the asser-
tion that everything must have a cause.
Dost thou know this by immediate perception?
I. How could I? since perception only declares that in
me something is, according as I am determined this way or
that, but never that it has become so; still less that it has
become so by means of a foreign power lying beyond all
perception.
Spirit. Or dost thou obtain this principle by generalisa-
tion of thy observation of external things, the cause of which
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? BOOK II. KNOWLEDGE.
285
thou hast always discovered out of themselves; an observa-
tion which thou now appliest to thyself and to thine own
condition 1
I. Do not treat me like a child, and ascribe to me pal-
pable absurdities. By the principle of causality I first arrive
at a knowledge of things out of myself; how then can I
again, by observation of these things, arrive at this principle
itself. Shall the earth rest on the great elephant, and the
great elephant again upon the earth?
Spirit. Or is this principle a deduction from some other
general truth?
I. Which again could be founded neither on immediate
perception, nor on the observation of external things, and
concerning the origin of which thou wouldst still raise other
questions! I might only possess this previous fundamental
truth by immediate knowledge. Better to say this at once
of the principle of causality and let thy conjectures rest.
Spirit. Let it be so;--we then obtain, besides the first
immediate knowledge of our own states, through sensible
perception, a second immediate knowledge concerning a
general truth 1
I. So it appears.
Spirit. The particular knowledge now in question, name-
ly, that thy affections or states must have a cause, is entirely
independent of the knowledge of things?
I. Certainly, for the latter is obtained only by means of
it.
Spirit. And thou hast it absolutely in thyself?
I. Absolutely, for only by means of it do I first proceed
out of myself.
Spirit. Out of thyself therefore, and through thyself, and
through thine own immediate knowledge, thou prescribest
laws to being and its relations?
I. Rightly considered, I prescribe laws only to my own
presentations of being and its relations, and it will be more
correct to make use of this expression
.
Spirit. Be it so. Art thou then conscious of these laws
in any other way than as thou dost act in accordance with
them?
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? 280
THE VOCATION OF MAN.
/. My consciousness begins with the perception of my
own state; I connect directly therewith the presentation of
an object according to the principle of causality;--both of
these, the consciousness of my own state, and the presenta-
Jtion of an object, are inseparably united, there is no inter-
vening consciousness between them, and this one undivided
consciousness is preceded by no other. No, it is impossible
that I should be conscious of this law before acting in ac-
cordance with it, or in any other way than by so acting.
Spirit. Thou actest upon this law therefore without be-
ing conscious of it; thou actest upon it immediately and
absolutely. Yet thou didst but now declare thyself conscious
of it, and didst express it as a general proposition. How
hast thou arrived at this latter consciousness 1
I. Doubtless thus. I observe myself subsequently, and
perceive that I have thus acted, and combine this ordinary
course of procedure into a general law.
Spirit. Thou canst therefore become conscious of this
course of procedure?
/. Unquestionably,--I guess the object of these ques-
tions. This is the above-mentioned second kind of im-
mediate consciousness, that of my activity; as the first is
sensation, or the consciousness of my passivity.
Spirit. Right. Thou mayest subsequently become con-
scious of thine own acts, by free observation of thyself and
by reflection; but it is not necessary that thou shouldst be-
come so;--thou dost not become immediately conscious of
them at the moment of thy internal act.
I. Yet I must be originally conscious of them, for I am
immediately conscious of my presentation of the object at
the same moment that I am conscious of the sensation. --I
have found the solution; I am immediately conscious of my
act, only not as such; but it moves before me as an objective
reality. This consciousness is a consciousnesss of the object.
Subsequently by free reflection I may also become conscious
of it as an act of my own mind.
My immediate consciousness is composed of two ele-
ments:--the consciousness of my passivity, i. e. sensation;--
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? BOOK II. KNOWLEDGE.
287
and of my activity, in the creation of an object according to
the law of causality;--the latter consciousness connecting
itself immediately with the former. My consciousness of the
object is only a yet unrecognised consciousness of my creation
of a presentation of an object. I am cognisant of this creation
only because I myself am the creator. And thus all con-
sciousness is immediate, is but a consciousness of myself, and
therefore perfectly comprehensible. Am I in the right?
Spirit. Perfectly so; but whence then the necessity and
universality thou hast ascribed to thy principles;--in this
case to the principle of causality?
/. From the immediate feeling that I cannot act other-
wise, as surely as I have reason; and that no other reason-
able being can act otherwise, as surely as it is a reasonable
being. My proposition,--"All that is contingent, such as in
this case my sensation, must have a cause,"--means the fol-
lowing: "I have at all times presupposed a cause, and every
one who thinks will likewise be constrained to presuppose a
cause. " - - -~-
Spirit. Thou perceivest then that all knowledge is merely
a knowledge of thyself; that thy consciousnes never goes
beyond thyself; and that what thou assumest to be a con-
sciousness of the object is nothing but a consciousness of
thine own supposition of an object, which, according to
an inward law of thy thought, thou dost necessarily make
simultaneously with the sensation itself.
I. Proceed boldly with thy inferences;--I have not inter-
rupted thee, I have even helped thee in the development of
these conclusions. But now, seriously, I retract my whole
previous position, that by means of the principle of causality
I arrive at the knowledge of external things; and I did in-
deed inwardly retract it as soon as it led us into serious
error.
In this way I could become conscious only of a mere
power out of myself, and of this only as a conception of my
own mind, just as for the explanation of magnetic pheno-
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? 288
THE VOCATION OF MAN.
mena, I suppose a magnetic--or for the explanation of elec-
trical phenomena, an electrical--power in Nature.
But the world does not appear to me such a mere
thought,--the thought of a mere power. It is something
extended, something which is thoroughly tangible, not, like
a mere power, through its manifestations, but in itself;--it
does not, like this, merely produce, it has qualities;--I am
inwardly conscious of my apprehension of it, in a manner
quite different from my consciousness of mere thought;--it
appears to me as perception, although it has been proved
that it cannot be such; and it would be difficult for me to
describe this kind of consciousness, and to distinguish it
from the other kinds of which we have spoken.
Spirit. Thou must nevertheless attempt such a descrip-
tion, otherwise I shall not understand thee, and we shall
never arrive at clearness
.
I. I will attempt to open a way towards it . I beseech
thee, O Spirit! if thy organ of sight be like mine, to fix
thine eye on the red object before us, to surrender thyself
unreservedly to the impression produced by it, and to forget
meanwhile thy previous conclusions;--and now tell me can-
didly what takes place in thy mind.
Spirit. I can completely place myself in thy position; and
it is no purpose of mine to disown any impression which has .
V-an actual existence. But tell me, what is the effect you an-
ticipate?
I. Dost thou not perceive and apprehend at a single
glance, the surface ? --I say the surface,--does it not stand
there present before thee, entire and at once ? --art thou
conscious, even in the most distant and obscure way, of this
extension of a simple red point to a line, and of this line to
a surface, of which thou hast spoken? It is an after-thought
to divide this surface, and conceive of its points and lines.
Wouldst thou not, and would not every one who impartially
observes himself, maintain and insist, nothwithstanding thy
former conclusions, that he really saw a surface of such or
such a colour 1
Spirit. I admit all this; and on examining myself, I find
that it is exactly so as thou hast described.
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? BOOK II. KNOWLEDGE.
289
But, in the first place, hast thou forgotten that it is not
our object to relate to each other what presents itself in
consciousness, as in a journal of the human mind, but to
consider its various phenomena in their connexion, and to
explain them by, and deduce them from, each other; and
that consequently none of thy observations, which certain-
ly cannot be denied, but which must be explained, can over-
turn any one of my just conclusions.
I. I shall never lose sight of this.
Spirit. Then do not, in the remarkable resemblance of this consciousness of bodies out of thyself, which yet thou
canst not describe, to real perception, overlook the great dif-
ference nevertheless existing between them.
I. I was about to mention this difference. Each indeed
appears as an immediate, not as an acquired or produced
consciousness. But sensation is consciousness of my own
state. Not so the consciousness of the object itself, which
has absolutely no reference to me. I know that it is, and
this is all; it does not concern me. If, in the first case, I
seem like a soft strain of music which is modulated now in
this way now in that, in the other, I appear like a mirror
before which objects pass without producing the slightest
change in it.
This distinction however is in my favour. Just so much
the more do I seem to have a distinct consciousness of an
existence out of myself, entirely independent of the sense of
my own state of being;--of an existence out of myself, I
say--for this differs altogether in kind from the conscious-
ness of my own internal states.
Spirit. Thou observest well--but do not rush too
hastily to a conclusion.
Spirit. Then thou dost but spread through the whole
mass thy own sensibility, that which is already familiar to
thee,--visibility as coloured, tangibility as rough, smooth,
or the like; and after all it is this sensibility itself of which
alone thou art sensible? Or dost thou find it otherwise?
I. By no means: what thou sayest follows from what I
have already understood and admitted.
Spirit. And yet thou dost perceive nothing behind the
surface, and hast perceived nothing there?
I. Were I to break through it, I should perceive some-
thing.
Spirit. So much therefore thou knowest beforehand
.
And this infinite divisibility, in which, as thou maintainest,
thou canst never arrive at anything absolutely impercept-
ible, thou hast never carried it out, nor canst thou do so?
I. I cannot carry it out
.
Spirit. To a sensation, therefore, which thou hast really
had, thou addest in imagination another which thou hast
not had? . .
I. I am sensible only of that which I attribute to the
surface; I am not sensible of what lies behind it, and yet I
assume the existence of something there which might be
perceived. Yes, I must admit what thou sayest.
Spirit. And the actual sensation is in part found to cor-
respond with what thou hast thus pre-supposed 1
I. When I break through the surface of a body, I do in-
deed find beneath it something perceptible, as I prc-sup-
po3ed. Yes, I must admit this also.
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? BOOK II. KNOWLEDGE.
277
Spirit. Partly, however, thou hast maintained thatjthere
is something beyond sensation, which cannot become appa-
rent to any actual perception.
I. I maintain, that were I to divide a corporeal mass to
infinity, I could never come to any part which is in itself
imperceptible; although I admit that I can never make the
experiment,--can never practically carry out the division of
a corporeal mass to infinity. Yes, I must agree with thee
in this also.
Spirit. Thus there is nothing remaining of the object
but what is perceptible,--what is a property or attribute;--
this perceptibility thou extendest through a continuous
space which is divisible to infinity; and the true substratum
or supporter of the attributes of things which thou hast
sought, is, therefore, only the space which is thus filled 1
I. Although I cannot be satisfied with this, but feel that
I must still suppose in the object something more than this
perceptibility and the space which it fills, yet I cannot point
out this something, and I must therefore confess that I have
hitherto been unable to discover any substratum but space
itself.
Spirit. Always confess whatever thou perceivest to be
true. The present obscurities will gradually become clear,
and the unknown will be made known. Space itself, how-
ever, is not perceived; and thou canst not understand how
thou hast obtained this conception, or why thou extendest
throughout it this property of perceptibility?
I. It is so.
Spirit. As little dost thou understand how thou hast ob-
tained even this conception of a perceptibility out of thyself,
since thou really perceivest only thine own sensation in thy-
self, not as the property of an external thing, but as an af-
fection of thine own being.
I. So it is. I see clearly that I really perceive only my
own state, and not the object; that I neither see, feel, nor
hear this object; but that, on the contrary, precisely there
where the object should be, all seeing, feeling, and so forth,
comes to an end.
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? 278
THE VOCATION OF MAN.
But I have a presentiment. Sensations, as affections of
myself, have no extension whatever, but . *xe simple states;
in their differences they are not contiguous to each other in
space, but successive to each other in time. Nevertheless,
I do extend them in space. May it not be by means of this
extension, and simultaneously with it, that what is properly
only my own feeling or sensation becomes changed for me
into a perceptible something out of myself; and may not
this be the precise point at which there arises within me a
consciousness of the external object?
Spirit. This conjecture may be confirmed. But could we
raise it immediately to a conviction, we should thereby at-
tain to no complete insight, for this higher question would
still remain to be answered,--How dost thou first come to
extend sensation through space? Let us then proceed at
once to this question; and let us propound it more gene-
rally--I have my reasons for doing so--in the following
manner:--How is it, that, with thy consciousness, which is
but an immediate consciousness of thyself, thou proceedest out of thyself; and to the sensation which thou dost per-
ceive, superaddest an object perceived and perceptible,
which yet thou dost not perceive?
L Sweet or bitter, fragrant or ill-scented, rough or
smooth, cold or warm,--these qualities, when applied to
things, signify whatever excites in me this or that taste,
smell, or other sensation. It is the same with respect to
sounds. A relation to myself is always indicated, and it
never occurs to me that the sweet or bitter taste, the pleas-
ant or unpleasant smell, lies in the thing itself;--it lies in
me, and it only appears to be excited by the object . It
seems indeed to be otherwise with the sensations of sight,--
with colours, for example, which may not be pure sensations,
but a sort of intermediate affections; yet when we consider
it strictly, red, and the others, means nothing more than
what produces in me a certain sensation of sight . This
leads me to understand how it is that I attain to a know-
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? BOOK II. KNOWLEDGE.
279
ledge of things out of myself. I am affected in a particular
manner--this I know absolutely;--this affection must have
a foundation; this foundation is not in myself, and therefore
must be out of myself;--thus I reason rapidly and uncon-
sciously, and forthwith assume the existence of such a foun-
dation,--namely, the object . This foundation must be one
by which the particular affection in~question may be ex-
plained ;--I am affected in the manner which I call a sweet
ta*lc, the object must therefore be of a kind to excite a
sweet taste, or more briefly, must itself be sweet. In this
way I determine the character of the object
.
Spin! . There may be some truth in what thou sayest,
although it is not the whole truth which might be said
upon the subject . How this stands we shall undoubtedly
discover in due time. Since, however, it cannot be denied
that in other cases thou dost discover some truth by means
of this principle of causality,--so I term the doctrine which
thou hast just asserted, that everything (in this case thy af-
fection) must have a foundation or cause,--since this, I say,
cannot be denied, it may not be superfluous to learn strictly
to understand this procedure, and to make it perfectly clear
to ourselves what it is thou really dost when thou adoptest
it. Let us suppose, in the meantime, that thy statement is
perfectly correct, that it is by an unconscious act of reason-
ing, from the effect to the cause, that thou first comest to
assume the existence of an outward object;--what then was
it which thou wert here conscious of perceiving 1
L That I was affected in a certain manner.
Spirit. But of an object, affecting thee in a certain man-
ner, thou wert not conscious, at least not as a perception 1
I. By no meaus. I have already admitted this.
Spirit. Then, by this principle of causality, thou addest to
a knowledge which thou hast, another which thou hast not 1
I. Thy words are strange.
Spirit. Perhaps I may succeed in removing this strange-
ness. But let my words appear to thee as they may. They
ought only to lead thee to produce in thine own mind the
same thought that I have produced in mine; not serve thee
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? 280
THE VOCATION OF MAN.
as a text-book which thou hast only to repeat . When thou
hast the thought itself firmly and clearly in thy grasp, then
express it as thou wilt, and with as much variety as thou
wilt, and be sure that thou wilt always express it well.
How, and by what means, knowest thou of this affection
of thyself?
I. It would be difficult to answer thee in words:--Be-
cause my consciousness, as a subjective attribute, as the
determination of my being in so far as I am an intelligence,
proceeds directly upon the existence of this affection as its
object, as that of which I am conscious, and is inseparable
from it;--because I am possessed of consciousness at all
only in so far as I am cognisant of such an affection--cog-
nisant of it absolutely, just as I am cognisant of my own
existence.
Spirit. Thou hast therefore an organ,--consciousness it-
self,--whereby thou perceivest such an affection of thyself?
Z Ye&
Spirit. But an organ whereby thou perceivest the object
itself, thou hast not?
I. Since thou hast convinced me that I neither see nor
feel the object itself, nor apprehend it by any external sense,
I find myself compelled to confess that I have no such or-
gan.
Spirit. Bethink thee well of this. It may be turned
against thee that thou hast made me this admission. What
then is thy external sense at all, and how canst thou call it
external, if it have no reference to any external object, and
be not the organ whereby thou hast any knowledge of such?
I. I desire truth, and trouble myself little about what
may be turned against me. I distinguish absolutely because
I do distinguish them, green, sweet, red, smooth, bitter, fra-
grant, rough, ill-scented, the sound of a violin and of a trum-
pet. Among these sensations I place some in a certain rela-
tion of likeness to each other, although in other respects I
distinguish them from each other; thus I find green and
red, sweet and bitter, rough and smooth, &c. , to have a cer-
tain relation of similarity to each other, and this similarity I
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? BOOK II. KNOWLEDGE.
281
feel to be respectively one of sight, taste, touch, &c. Sight,
taste, and so forth, are not indeed in themselves actual sen-
sations, for I never see or feel absolutely, as thou hast pre-
viously remarked, but always see red or green, taste sweet or
bitter, &c. Sight, taste, and the like, are only higher defini-
tions of actual sensations; they are classes to which I refer
these latter, not by arbitrary arrangement, but guided by the
immediate sensation itself. I see in them therefore not ex-
ternal senses, but only particular definitions of the objects of
the inward sense, of my own states or affections. How they
become external senses, or, more strictly speaking, how I
come to regard them as such, and so to name them, is now
the question. I do not take back my admission that I have
no organ for the object itself.
Spirit. Yet thou speakest of objects as if thou didst
really know of their existence, and hadst an organ for such
knowledge 1
1. Yes.
Spirit. And this thou dost, according to thy previous as-
sumption, in consequence of the knowledge which thou dost
really possess, and for which thou hast an organ, and on
account of this knowledge?
I. It is so.
Spirit. Thy real knowledge, that of thy sensations or af-
fections, is to thee like an imperfect knowledge, which, as
thou sayest, requires to be completed by another. This
other new knowledge thou conceivest and describest to thy-
self,--not as something which thou hast, for thou hast it
not,--but as something which thou shouldst have, over and
above thy actual knowledge, if thou hadst an organ where
with to apprehend it. "I know nothing indeed," thou seem-
est to say, "of things in themselves, but such things there
must be; if I could but find them, they are to be found. "
Thou supposest another organ, which indeed is not thine,
and this thou employest upon them, and thereby appre-
hendest them,--of course in thought only. Strictly speaking,
thou hast no consciousness of things, but only a consciousness
(produced by a procession out of thy actual consciousness by
0a
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? L>82
THE VOCATION OF MAN.
means of the principle of causality) of a consciousness of
things (such as ought to be, such as of necessity must be, al-
though not accessible to thee); and now thou wilt perceive
that, in the supposition thou hast made, thou hast added to
a knowledge which thou hast, another which thou hast not.
/. I must admit this.
Spirit. Henceforward let us call this second knowledge,
obtained by means of another, mediate, and the first immedi-
ate knowledge. A certain school has called this procedure
which we have to some extent described above, a synthesis;
by which we are to understand not a con-nexion established
between two elements previously existing, but an an-nexion,
and an addition of a wholly new element, arising through
this an-nexion, to another element previously existing inde-
pendently of such addition.
Thus the first consciousness appears as soon as thou dis-
coverest thy own existence, and the latter is not discovered
without the former; the second consciousness is produced in
thee by means of the first.
/. But not successive to it in time; for I am conscious of
external things at the very same undivided moment in
which I become conscious of myself.
Spirit. I did not speak of such a succession in time at
all; but I think that when thou reflectest upon that undi-
vided consciousness of thyself and of the external object,
distinguish est between them, and inquirest into their con-
nexion, thou wilt find that the latter can be conceived of
only as conditioned by the former, and as only possible on
the supposition of its existence; but not vice versa.
I. So I find it to be; and if that be all thou wouldst say,
I admit thy assertion, and have already admitted it.
Spirit. Thou engenderest, I say, this second conscious-
ness; producest it by a real act of thy mind. Or dost thou
find it otherwise?
/ I have surely admitted this already. I add to the
consciousness which is simultaneous with that of my exist-
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? BOOK II. KNOWLEDGE.
288
ence, another which I do not find in myself; I thus com-
plete and double my actual consciousness, and this is cer-
tainly an act. But I am tempted to take back either my
admission, or else the whole supposition.
I am perfectly
conscious of the act of my mind when I form a general con-
ception, or when in cases of doubt I choose one of the many
possible modes of action which lie before me; but of the act
through which, according to thy assertion, I must produce
the presentation of an object out of myself, I am not con-
scious at all.
Spirit. Do not be deceived. Of an act of thy mind thou
canst become conscious only in so far as thou dost pass
through a state of indetermination and indecision, of which
thou wert likewise conscious, and to which this act puts an
end. There is no such state of indecision in the case we
have supposed; the mind has no need to deliberate what
object it shall superadd to its particular sensations,--it is
done at once. We even find this distinction in philosophi-
cal phraseology. An act of the mind, of which we are con- I jscious as such, is caJledJreedom. An act without conscious-
ness of action, is called spontaneity. Remember that I by
no means demand of thee an immediate consciousness of the
act as such, but only that on subsequent reflection thou
shouldst discover that there must have been an act. The
higher question, what it is that prevents any such state of
indecision, or any consciousness of our act, will undoubted-
ly be afterwards solved.
This act of the mind is called thought; a word which I
have hitherto employed with thy concurrence; and it is said
that thought takes place with spontaneity, in opposition to
sensation which is mere receptivity. How is it then, that,
in thy previous statement, thou addest in thought to the
sensation which thou certainly hast, an object of which thou
knowest nothing?
I. I assume that my sensation must have a cause, and
then proceed further,--
Spirit. Wilt thou not, in the first place, explain to me
what is a cause?
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? 284.
THE VOCATION OF MAN.
I. I find a thing determined this way or that. I cannot
rest satisfied with knowing that so it is;--it has become so,
and that not by itself, but by means of a foreign power.
This foreign power, that made it what it is, contains the
cause, and the manifestation of that power, which did actu-
ally make it so, is the cause of this particular determination
of the thing. That my sensation must have a cause, means
that it is produced within me by a foreign power.
Spirit. This foreign power thou now addest in thought to
the sensation of which thou art immediately conscious, and
thus there arises in thee the presentation of an object?
Well,--let it be so.
Now observe; if sensation must have a cause, then I ad-
mit the correctness of thy inference; and I see with what
perfect right thou assumest the existence of objects out of
thyself, notwithstanding that thou neither knowest nor
canst know aught of them. But how then dost thou know,
and how dost thou propose to prove, that sensationmust
have a cause? Or, in the general manner in which thou
"hast stated the proposition, why canst thou not rest satisfied
to know that something is? why must thou assume that it
has become so, or that it has become so by means of a foreign
power? I note that thou hast always only assumed this.
I. I confess it. But I cannot do otherwise than think so.
It seems as if I knew it immediately.
Spirit. What this answer, "thou knowest it immediately,"
may signify, we shall see should we be brought back to it as
the only possible one. We will however first try all other
possible methods of ascertaining the grounds of the asser-
tion that everything must have a cause.
Dost thou know this by immediate perception?
I. How could I? since perception only declares that in
me something is, according as I am determined this way or
that, but never that it has become so; still less that it has
become so by means of a foreign power lying beyond all
perception.
Spirit. Or dost thou obtain this principle by generalisa-
tion of thy observation of external things, the cause of which
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? BOOK II. KNOWLEDGE.
285
thou hast always discovered out of themselves; an observa-
tion which thou now appliest to thyself and to thine own
condition 1
I. Do not treat me like a child, and ascribe to me pal-
pable absurdities. By the principle of causality I first arrive
at a knowledge of things out of myself; how then can I
again, by observation of these things, arrive at this principle
itself. Shall the earth rest on the great elephant, and the
great elephant again upon the earth?
Spirit. Or is this principle a deduction from some other
general truth?
I. Which again could be founded neither on immediate
perception, nor on the observation of external things, and
concerning the origin of which thou wouldst still raise other
questions! I might only possess this previous fundamental
truth by immediate knowledge. Better to say this at once
of the principle of causality and let thy conjectures rest.
Spirit. Let it be so;--we then obtain, besides the first
immediate knowledge of our own states, through sensible
perception, a second immediate knowledge concerning a
general truth 1
I. So it appears.
Spirit. The particular knowledge now in question, name-
ly, that thy affections or states must have a cause, is entirely
independent of the knowledge of things?
I. Certainly, for the latter is obtained only by means of
it.
Spirit. And thou hast it absolutely in thyself?
I. Absolutely, for only by means of it do I first proceed
out of myself.
Spirit. Out of thyself therefore, and through thyself, and
through thine own immediate knowledge, thou prescribest
laws to being and its relations?
I. Rightly considered, I prescribe laws only to my own
presentations of being and its relations, and it will be more
correct to make use of this expression
.
Spirit. Be it so. Art thou then conscious of these laws
in any other way than as thou dost act in accordance with
them?
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? 280
THE VOCATION OF MAN.
/. My consciousness begins with the perception of my
own state; I connect directly therewith the presentation of
an object according to the principle of causality;--both of
these, the consciousness of my own state, and the presenta-
Jtion of an object, are inseparably united, there is no inter-
vening consciousness between them, and this one undivided
consciousness is preceded by no other. No, it is impossible
that I should be conscious of this law before acting in ac-
cordance with it, or in any other way than by so acting.
Spirit. Thou actest upon this law therefore without be-
ing conscious of it; thou actest upon it immediately and
absolutely. Yet thou didst but now declare thyself conscious
of it, and didst express it as a general proposition. How
hast thou arrived at this latter consciousness 1
I. Doubtless thus. I observe myself subsequently, and
perceive that I have thus acted, and combine this ordinary
course of procedure into a general law.
Spirit. Thou canst therefore become conscious of this
course of procedure?
/. Unquestionably,--I guess the object of these ques-
tions. This is the above-mentioned second kind of im-
mediate consciousness, that of my activity; as the first is
sensation, or the consciousness of my passivity.
Spirit. Right. Thou mayest subsequently become con-
scious of thine own acts, by free observation of thyself and
by reflection; but it is not necessary that thou shouldst be-
come so;--thou dost not become immediately conscious of
them at the moment of thy internal act.
I. Yet I must be originally conscious of them, for I am
immediately conscious of my presentation of the object at
the same moment that I am conscious of the sensation. --I
have found the solution; I am immediately conscious of my
act, only not as such; but it moves before me as an objective
reality. This consciousness is a consciousnesss of the object.
Subsequently by free reflection I may also become conscious
of it as an act of my own mind.
My immediate consciousness is composed of two ele-
ments:--the consciousness of my passivity, i. e. sensation;--
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? BOOK II. KNOWLEDGE.
287
and of my activity, in the creation of an object according to
the law of causality;--the latter consciousness connecting
itself immediately with the former. My consciousness of the
object is only a yet unrecognised consciousness of my creation
of a presentation of an object. I am cognisant of this creation
only because I myself am the creator. And thus all con-
sciousness is immediate, is but a consciousness of myself, and
therefore perfectly comprehensible. Am I in the right?
Spirit. Perfectly so; but whence then the necessity and
universality thou hast ascribed to thy principles;--in this
case to the principle of causality?
/. From the immediate feeling that I cannot act other-
wise, as surely as I have reason; and that no other reason-
able being can act otherwise, as surely as it is a reasonable
being. My proposition,--"All that is contingent, such as in
this case my sensation, must have a cause,"--means the fol-
lowing: "I have at all times presupposed a cause, and every
one who thinks will likewise be constrained to presuppose a
cause. " - - -~-
Spirit. Thou perceivest then that all knowledge is merely
a knowledge of thyself; that thy consciousnes never goes
beyond thyself; and that what thou assumest to be a con-
sciousness of the object is nothing but a consciousness of
thine own supposition of an object, which, according to
an inward law of thy thought, thou dost necessarily make
simultaneously with the sensation itself.
I. Proceed boldly with thy inferences;--I have not inter-
rupted thee, I have even helped thee in the development of
these conclusions. But now, seriously, I retract my whole
previous position, that by means of the principle of causality
I arrive at the knowledge of external things; and I did in-
deed inwardly retract it as soon as it led us into serious
error.
In this way I could become conscious only of a mere
power out of myself, and of this only as a conception of my
own mind, just as for the explanation of magnetic pheno-
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? 288
THE VOCATION OF MAN.
mena, I suppose a magnetic--or for the explanation of elec-
trical phenomena, an electrical--power in Nature.
But the world does not appear to me such a mere
thought,--the thought of a mere power. It is something
extended, something which is thoroughly tangible, not, like
a mere power, through its manifestations, but in itself;--it
does not, like this, merely produce, it has qualities;--I am
inwardly conscious of my apprehension of it, in a manner
quite different from my consciousness of mere thought;--it
appears to me as perception, although it has been proved
that it cannot be such; and it would be difficult for me to
describe this kind of consciousness, and to distinguish it
from the other kinds of which we have spoken.
Spirit. Thou must nevertheless attempt such a descrip-
tion, otherwise I shall not understand thee, and we shall
never arrive at clearness
.
I. I will attempt to open a way towards it . I beseech
thee, O Spirit! if thy organ of sight be like mine, to fix
thine eye on the red object before us, to surrender thyself
unreservedly to the impression produced by it, and to forget
meanwhile thy previous conclusions;--and now tell me can-
didly what takes place in thy mind.
Spirit. I can completely place myself in thy position; and
it is no purpose of mine to disown any impression which has .
V-an actual existence. But tell me, what is the effect you an-
ticipate?
I. Dost thou not perceive and apprehend at a single
glance, the surface ? --I say the surface,--does it not stand
there present before thee, entire and at once ? --art thou
conscious, even in the most distant and obscure way, of this
extension of a simple red point to a line, and of this line to
a surface, of which thou hast spoken? It is an after-thought
to divide this surface, and conceive of its points and lines.
Wouldst thou not, and would not every one who impartially
observes himself, maintain and insist, nothwithstanding thy
former conclusions, that he really saw a surface of such or
such a colour 1
Spirit. I admit all this; and on examining myself, I find
that it is exactly so as thou hast described.
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? BOOK II. KNOWLEDGE.
289
But, in the first place, hast thou forgotten that it is not
our object to relate to each other what presents itself in
consciousness, as in a journal of the human mind, but to
consider its various phenomena in their connexion, and to
explain them by, and deduce them from, each other; and
that consequently none of thy observations, which certain-
ly cannot be denied, but which must be explained, can over-
turn any one of my just conclusions.
I. I shall never lose sight of this.
Spirit. Then do not, in the remarkable resemblance of this consciousness of bodies out of thyself, which yet thou
canst not describe, to real perception, overlook the great dif-
ference nevertheless existing between them.
I. I was about to mention this difference. Each indeed
appears as an immediate, not as an acquired or produced
consciousness. But sensation is consciousness of my own
state. Not so the consciousness of the object itself, which
has absolutely no reference to me. I know that it is, and
this is all; it does not concern me. If, in the first case, I
seem like a soft strain of music which is modulated now in
this way now in that, in the other, I appear like a mirror
before which objects pass without producing the slightest
change in it.
This distinction however is in my favour. Just so much
the more do I seem to have a distinct consciousness of an
existence out of myself, entirely independent of the sense of
my own state of being;--of an existence out of myself, I
say--for this differs altogether in kind from the conscious-
ness of my own internal states.
Spirit. Thou observest well--but do not rush too
hastily to a conclusion.
