No More Learning

Spirit. And what is this determinate sensation of sight
with respect to that object there?
I. That of red colour.
Spirit. And this red is something positive, a simple sen-
sation, a specific state of thyself?
I. This I have understood.
Spirit. Thou shouldst therefore see the red in itself as
simple, as a mathematical point, and thou dost see it only
as such. In thee at least, as an affection of thyself, it is ob-
viously a simple, determinate state, without connexion with
anything else,--which we can only describe as a mathemati-
cal point. Or dost thou find it otherwise?
I. I must admit that such is the case.
Spirit. But now thou spreadest this simple red over a
broad surface, which thou assuredly dost not see, since thou
seest only a simple red. How dost thou obtain this surface?
I. It is certainly strange. --Yet, I believe that I have
found the explanation. I do not indeed see the surface, but
I feel it when I pass my hand over it. My sensation of
sight remains the same during this process of feeling, and
hence I extend the red colour over the whole surface which
I feel while I continue to see the same red.
Spirit. This might be so, didst thou really feel such a
surface. But let us see whether that be possible. Thou
dost not feel absolutely; thou feelest only thy feelings, and
art only conscious of these 1
I. Certainly, j Each sensation is a determinate something. I never merely see, or hear, or feel, in general, but my sen-
sations are always definite;--red, green, blue colours, cold,
warmth, smoothness, roughness, the sound of the violin, the
voice of man, and the like,--are seen, felt, or heard. Let
that be settled between us.
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? BOOK II. KNOWLEDGE.
273
Spirit Willingly. --Thus, when thou saidst that thou
didst feel a surface, thou hadst only an immediate conscious-
ness of feeling smooth, rough, or the like?
I. Certainly.
Spirit. This smooth or rough is, like the red colour, a
simple sensation,--a point in thee, the subject in which it
abides? And with the same right with which I formerly
asked why thou didst spread a simple sensation of sight
over an imaginary surface, do I now ask why thou shouldst
do the same with a simple sensation of touch?
I. This smooth surface is perhaps not equally smooth in
all points, but possesses in each a different degree of smooth-
ness, only that I want the capacity of strictly distinguishing
these degrees from each other, and language whereby to re-
tain and express their differences. Yet I do distinguish
them, unconsciously, and place them side by side; and thus
I form the conception of a surface.
Spirit. But canst thou, in the same undivided moment of
time, have sensations of opposite kinds, or be affected at the
same time in different ways?
I. By no means.
Spirit. Those different degrees of smoothness, which thou
wouldst assume in order to explain what thou canst not ex-
plain, are nevertheless, in so far as they are different from
each other, mere opposite sensations which succeed each
other in thee?
I. I cannot deny this.
Spirit. Thou shouldst therefore describe them as thou
really findest them,--as successive changes of the same ma-
thematical point, such as thou perceivest in other cases; and
not as adjacent and simultaneous qualities of several points
in one surface.
/. I see this, and I find that nothing is explained by my
assumption. But my hand, with which I touch the object
and cover it, is itself a surface; and by it I perceive the ob-
ject to be a surface, and a greater one than my hand, since I
can extend my hand several times upon it.
Spirit. Thy hand is a surface? How dost thou know that?
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? 274
THE VOCATION OF MAN.
How dost thou attain a consciousness of thy hand at all? Is
there any other way than either that thou by means of it
feelest something else, in which case it is an instrument; or
that thou feelest itself by means of some other part of thy
body, in which case it is an object?
I. No, there is no other. With my band I feel some other
definite object, or I feel my hand itself by means of some
other pail of my body. I have no immediate, absolute con-
sciousness of my hand, any more than of my sight or touch.
Spirit. Let us, at present, consider only the case in which
thy hand is an instrument, for this will determine the
second case also. In this case there can be nothing more in
the immediate perception than what belongs to sensation,--
that whereby thou thyself, and here in particular thy hand,
is conceived of as the subject tasting in the act of taste, feel-
ing in the act of touch. Now, oithev. thy sensation is single;
in which case I cannot see why thou shouldst extend this
single sensation over a sentient surface, and not content
thyself with a single sentient point;--or thy sensation is
varied; and in this case, since the differences must succeed
each other, I again do not see why thou shouldst not
conceive of these feelings as succeeding each other in the
same point. That thy hand should appear to thee as a sur-
face, is just as inexplicable as thy notion of a surface in
general. Do not make use of the first in order to explain
the second, until thou hast explained the first itself. The
second case, in which thy hand, or whatever other member
of thy body thou wilt, is itself the object of a sensation, may
easily be explained by means of the first. Thou perceivest
this member by means of another, which is then the sen-
tient one. I ask the same question concerning this latter
member that I asked concerning thy hand, and thou art as
little able to answer it as before.
So it is with the surface of thy eyes, and with every other
surface of thy body. It may very well be that the conscious-
ness of an extension out of thyself, proceeds from the con-
sciousness of thine own extension as a material body, and is
conditioned by it. But then thou must, in the first place,
explain this extension of thy material body.
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? BOOK II. KNOWLEDGE.
275
/. It is enough. I now perceive clearly that I neither see
nor feel the superficial extension of the properties of bodies,
nor apprehend it by any other sense. I see that it is my
habitual practice to extend over a surface, what nevertheless
in sensation is but one point; to represent as adjacent and
simultaneous, what I ought to represent as only successive,
since in mere sensation there is nothing simultaneous, but
all is successive. I discover that I proceed in fact exactly as
the geometer does in the construction of his figures, extend-
ing points to lines, and lines to surfaces. I am astonished
how I should have done this.
Spirit. Thou dost more than this, and what is yet more
strange. This surface which thou attributest to bodies, thou
canst indeed neither see nor feel, nor perceive by any organ;
but it may be said, in a certain sense, that thou canst see the
red colour upon it, or feel the smoothness. But thou oddest
something more even to this surface:--thou extendest it to a
solid mathematical figure; as by thy previous admission
thou hast extended the line to a surface. Thou assumest a
substantial interior existence of the body behind its surface.
Tell me, canst thou then see, feel, or recognise by any sense,
the actual presence of anything behind this surface?
/ By no means:--the space behind the surface is im-
penetrable to my sight, touch, or any of my senses.
Spirit And yet thou dost assume the existence of such
an interior substance, which, nevertheless, thou canst not
perceive 1
I. I confess it, and my astonishment increases.
Spirit. What then is this something which thou ima-
ginest to be behind the surface?
I. Well--I suppose something similar to the surface,--
something tangible.
Spirit. We must ascertain this more distinctly. Canst
thou divide the mass of which thou imaginest the body to
consist?
7. I can divide it to infinity;--I do not mean with in-
struments, but in thought. No possible part is the smallest,
so that it cannot be again divided.
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? 27G
THE VOCATION OF MAN.
Spirit. And in this division dost thou ever arrive at a
portion of which thou canst suppose that it is no longer
perceptible in itself to sight, touch, &c. ;--in itself I say, be-
sides being imperceptible to thy own particular organs of
sense?
I. By no means.
Spirit Visible, perceptible absolutely ? --or with certain
properties of colour, smoothness, roughness, and the like?
/. In the latter way. Nothing is visible or perceptible
absolutely, because there is no absolute sense of sight or
touch. |
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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