On the Fourfold Root of the Principle of Sufficient Reason, and On the Will in Nature · Arthur Schopenhauer
CHAPTER IV.
ON THE FIRST CLASS OF OBJECTS FOR THE SUBJECT, AND THAT FORM OF THE PRINCIPLE OF SUFFICIENT REASON WHICH PREDOMINATES IN IT. § 17. _General Account of this Class of Objects._ The first class of objects possible to our representative faculty, is that of _intuitive, complete, empirical_ representations. They are _intuitive_ as opposed to mere thoughts, _i.e._ abstract conceptions; they are _complete_, inasmuch as, according to Kant's distinction, they not only contain the formal, but also the material part of phenomena; and they are _empirical_, partly as proceeding, not from a mere connection of thoughts, but from an excitation of feeling in our sensitive organism, as their origin, to which they constantly refer for evidence as to their reality: partly also because they are linked together, according to the united laws of Space, Time and Causality, in that complex without beginning or end which forms our _Empirical Reality_. As, nevertheless, according to the result of Kant's teaching, this _Empirical Reality_ does not annul their _Transcendental Ideality_, we shall consider them here, where we have only to do with the formal elements of knowledge, merely as representations. § 18. _Outline of a Transcendental Analysis of Empirical Reality._
The forms of these representations are those of the inner and outer sense; namely, _Time_ and _Space_. But these are only _perceptible_ when _filled_. Their _perceptibility_ is _Matter_, to which I shall return further on, and again in § 21. _If Time were the only form_ of these representations, there could be no _coexistence_, therefore nothing _permanent_ and no _duration_. For _Time_ is only perceived when filled, and its course is only perceived by the _changes_ which take place in that which fills it. The _permanence_ of an object is therefore only recognized by contrast with the _changes_ going on in other objects _coexistent_ with it. But the representation of _coexistence_ is impossible in Time alone; it depends, for its completion, upon the representation of _Space_; because, in mere Time, all things _follow one another_, and in mere Space all things are _side by side_; it is accordingly only by the combination of Time and Space that the representation of coexistence arises. _On the other hand, were Space the sole form_ of this class of representations, there would be no _change_; for change or alteration is _succession_ of states, and _succession_ is only possible in _Time_. We may therefore define Time as the possibility of opposite states in one and the same thing.
Thus we see, that although infinite divisibility and infinite extension are common to both Time and Space, these two forms of empirical representations differ fundamentally, inasmuch as what is essential to the _one_ is without any meaning at all for the _other_: juxtaposition having no meaning in Time, succession no meaning in Space. The empirical representations which belong to the orderly complex of reality, appear notwithstanding in both forms together; nay, the _intimate union_ of both is the condition of reality which, in a sense, grows out of them, as a product grows out of its factors. Now it is the Understanding which, by means of its own peculiar function, brings about this _union_ and connects these heterogeneous forms in such a manner, that _empirical reality_--albeit only for that Understanding--arises out of their mutual interpenetration, and arises as a collective representation, forming a complex, held together by the forms of the principle of sufficient reason, but whose limits are problematical. Each single representation belonging to this class is a part of this complex, each one taking its place in it according to laws known to us _à priori_; in it therefore countless objects _coexist_, because Substance, _i.e._ Matter, remains permanent in spite of the ceaseless flow of Time, and because its states change in spite of the rigid immobility of Space. In this complex, in short, the whole objective, real world exists for us. The reader who may be interested in this, will find the present rough sketch of the analysis of empirical reality further worked out in § 4 of the first volume of "Die Welt als Wille und Vorstellung,"[55] where a closer explanation is given of the way in which the Understanding effects this union and thus creates for itself the empirical world. He will also find a very important help in the table, "_Prædicabilia à priori_ of Time, Space, and Matter," which is added to the fourth chapter of the second volume of the same work, and which I recommend to his attention, as it especially shows how the contrasts of Time and Space are equally balanced in Matter, as their product, under the form of Causality.
The necessary condition mentioned in the preceding paragraph for the immediate presence of a representation of this class, is its causal action upon our senses and consequently upon our organism, which itself belongs to this class of objects, and is therefore subject to the causal law which predominates in it and which we are now about to examine. Now as therefore, on the one hand, according to the laws of the inner and outer world, the Subject cannot stop short at that one representation; but as, on the other hand, there is no coexistence in Time alone: that single representation must always vanish and be superseded by others, in virtue of a law which we cannot determine _à priori_, but which depends upon circumstances soon to be mentioned. It is moreover a well-known fact, that the imagination and dreams reproduce the immediate presence of representations; the investigation of that fact, however, belongs to empirical Psychology.
Now as, notwithstanding the transitory, isolated nature of our representations with respect to their immediate presence in our consciousness, the Subject nevertheless retains the representation of an all-comprehensive complex of reality, as described above, by means of the function of the Understanding; representations have, on the strength of this antithesis, been viewed, as something quite different when considered as belonging to that complex than when considered with reference to their immediate presence in our consciousness. From the former point of view they were called _real things_; from the latter only, representations κατ' ἐξοχήν. This view of the matter, which is the ordinary one, is known under the name of _Realism_. On the appearance of modern philosophy, _Idealism_ opposed itself to this _Realism_ and has since been steadily gaining ground. Malebranche and Berkeley were its earliest representatives, and Kant enhanced it to the power of Transcendental Idealism, by which the co-existence of the Empirical Reality of things with their Transcendental Ideality becomes conceivable, and according to which Kant expresses himself as follows:[57] "_Transcendental Idealism_ teaches that all phenomena are representations only, not things by themselves." And again:[58] "Space itself is nothing but mere representation, and whatever is in it must therefore be contained in that representation.
There is nothing whatever in Space, except so far as it is really represented in it." Finally he says:[59] "If we take away the thinking Subject, the whole material world must vanish; because it is nothing but a phenomenon in the sensibility of our own subject and a certain class of its representations." In India, Idealism is even a doctrine of popular religion, not only of Brahminism, but of Buddhism; in Europe alone is it a paradox, in consequence of the essentially and unavoidably realistic principle of Judaism. But Realism quite overlooks the fact, that the so-called existence of these real things is _absolutely nothing but their being represented_ (_ein Vorgestellt-werden_), or--if it be insisted, that only the immediate presence in the consciousness of the Subject can be called being represented κατ' ἐντελέχειαν--it is even only a possibility of being represented κατὰ δύναμιν. The realist forgets that the Object ceases to be Object apart from its reference to the Subject, and that if we take away that reference, or think it away, we at once do away with all objective existence.
Leibnitz, while he clearly felt the Subject to be the necessary condition for the Object, was nevertheless unable to get rid of the thought that objects exist by themselves and independently of all reference whatsoever to the Subject, _i.e._ independently of being represented. He therefore assumed in the first place a world of objects exactly like the world of representations and running parallel with it, having no direct, but only an outward connection with it by means of a _harmonia præstabilita_;--obviously the most superfluous thing possible, for it never comes within perception, and the precisely similar world of representations which does come within perception, goes its own way regardless of it. When, however, he wanted to determine more closely the essence of these things existing objectively in themselves, he found himself obliged to declare the Objects in themselves to be Subjects (_monades_), and by doing so he furnished the most striking proof of the inability of our consciousness, in as far as it is merely cognitive, to find within the limits of the intellect--_i.e._ of the apparatus by means of which we represent the world--anything beyond Subject and Object; the representer and the represented. Therefore, if we abstract from the objectivity of an Object, or in other words, from its being represented (_Vorgestellt-werden_), if we annul it in its quality as an Object, yet still wish to retain something, we can meet with nothing but _the Subject_. Conversely, if we desire to abstract from the subjectivity of the Subject, yet to have something over, the contrary takes place, and this leads to Materialism.
In the Class of Objects for the Subject just described, the principle of sufficient reason figures as the _Law of Causality_, and, as such, I call it the _Principle of Sufficient Reason of Becoming, principium rationis sufficientis fiendi_. By it, all objects presenting themselves within the entire range of our representation are linked together, as far as the appearance and disappearance of their states is concerned, _i.e._ in the movement of the current of Time, to form the complex of empirical reality. The law of causality is as follows. When one or several real objects pass into any new state, some other state must have preceded this one, upon which the new state regularly follows, _i.e._ as often as that preceding one occurs. This sort of following we call _resulting_; the first of the states being named a _cause_, the second an _effect_. When a substance takes fire, for instance, this state of ignition must have been preceded by a state, 1^o, of affinity to oxygen; 2^o, of contact with oxygen; 3^o, of a given temperature. Now, as ignition must necessarily follow immediately upon this state, and as it has only just taken place, that state cannot always have been there, but must, on the contrary, have only just supervened. This supervening is called a _change_.
It is on this account that the law of causality stands in exclusive relation to _changes_ and has to do with them alone. Every effect, at the time it takes place, is a _change_ and, precisely by not having occurred sooner, infallibly indicates some other _change_ by which it has been preceded. That other _change_ takes the name of _cause_, when referred to the following one--of _effect_, when referred to a third necessarily preceding _change_. This is the chain of causality. It is necessarily without a beginning. By it, each supervening state must have resulted from a preceding change: in the case just mentioned, for instance, from the substance being brought into contact with free heat, from which necessarily resulted the heightened temperature; this contact again depended upon a preceding change, for instance the sun's rays falling upon a burning-glass; this again upon the removal of a cloud from before the sun; this upon the wind; the wind upon the unequal density of the atmosphere; this upon other conditions, and so forth _in infinitum_.
When a state contains all the requisite conditions for bringing about a new state excepting _one, this one_, when at last it arrives, is, in a sense, rightly called the cause κατ' ἐξοχήν, inasmuch as we here have the final--in this case the decisive--change especially in view; but if we leave out this consideration, no single condition of the causal state has any advantage over the rest with reference to the determination of the causal connection in general, merely because it happens to be the last. Thus the removal of the cloud in the above example, is in so far the cause of the igniting, as it took place later than the direction of the burning-glass towards the object; but this might have taken place after the removal of the cloud and the addition of oxygen might have occurred later still: in this respect therefore it is the accidental order of things that determines which is the cause. On closer inspection, however, we find that it is _the entire state_ which is the cause of the ensuing one, so that the chronological order in which its single conditions were brought about, is in all essential respects indifferent.
With reference to a given case therefore, the last occurring condition of a state may be called the cause κατ' ἐξοχήν, because it completes the measure of the necessary conditions, and its appearance thus becomes the decisive change. For purposes of general consideration, however, it is only the _entire_ state which, by bringing about its successor, can be regarded as the cause. The single requisites which, added together, complete and constitute the cause may be called causal elements (_ursächliche Momente_) or even _conditions_, and into these accordingly the cause may be subdivided. On the other hand, it is quite wrong to call the objects themselves causes, instead of the states: some would, for instance, call the burning-glass in the above example the cause of the ignition; while others, again, would call the cloud the cause; others the sun or the oxygen, and so on arbitrarily and without order. But it is absurd to call an object the cause of another object; first of all, because objects not only contain form and quality, but _Matter_ also, which has neither beginning or end; secondly, because the law of causality refers exclusively to _changes_, _i.e._ to the entrance and exit of states in Time, wherein it regulates that special relation, in reference to which the earlier state is called _cause_, the later _effect_, and the necessary connection between both, the _resulting_ of the one from the other.
I here refer the thoughtful reader to the explanations I have given in my chief work.[60] For it is of the highest importance that our conception of the true and proper meaning of the law of causality and the sphere of its validity should be perfectly clear and definite: before all things, that we should recognize, that this law refers solely and exclusively to _changes_ of material states and to nothing else whatever; consequently, that it ought not to be brought in when _these_ are not in question. The law of causality is the regulator of the _changes_ undergone in Time by objects of our outer _experience_; but these objects are all material. Each change can only be brought about by another having preceded it, which is determined by a rule, and then the new change takes place as being necessarily induced by the preceding one. This necessity is the causal nexus. [60] "Die Welt a. W. u. V." vol. ii. chap. 4, especially p. 42 and _seq._ of the 2nd edition; p. 46 _seq._ of the 3rd edition.
However simple therefore the law of causality is, we nevertheless find it expressed quite differently in all philosophical manuals, from the earliest down to the latest ages: namely, in a broader, more abstract, therefore less definite way. We are, for instance, informed, now, that it is that by which something else comes into being; now, that it is what produces another thing or gives it reality, &c. &c. Wolf says: _Causa est principium, a quo existentia, sive actualitas, entis alterius dependet_; whereas it is obvious that in causality we have only to do with changes in the form of uncreated, indestructible Matter, and that a springing into existence of what did not previously exist is an impossibility. Want of clearness of thought may, no doubt, in most cases have led to these views of the causal relation; but surely sometimes an _arrière-pensée_ lurks in the background--a theological intention coqueting with the Cosmological Proof, for whose sake it is ready to falsify even transcendental, _à priori_ truths, the mother's milk of human understanding.
We find the clearest instance of this in Thomas Brown's book, "On the Relation of Cause and Effect," a work of 460 pages, which, in 1835, had already reached its fourth edition, and has probably since gone through several more, and which, in spite of its wearisome, pedantic, rambling prolixity, does not handle the subject badly. Now this Englishman rightly recognises, that it is invariably with _changes_ that the causal law has to do, and that every effect is accordingly a _change_. Yet, although it can hardly have escaped him, he is unwilling to admit that every cause is likewise a _change_, and that the whole process is therefore nothing but the uninterrupted nexus of _changes_ succeeding one another in Time. On the contrary, he persists in clumsily calling the cause an _object_ or _substance_, which precedes the change, and in tormenting himself throughout his tedious book with this entirely false expression, which spoils all his explanations, notwithstanding his own better knowledge and against his conscience, simply in order that his definition may on no account stand in the way of the Cosmological Proof, which others might hereafter state elsewhere.--But what can a truth be worth which needs devices such as these to prepare its way?
And what have our own worthy, honest German professors of philosophy been doing in behalf of their dearly beloved Cosmological Proof, since Kant dealt it the death-blow in his Critique of Pure Reason?--they, who prize truth above everything. They were, indeed, at their wits' ends, for--as these worthies well know, though they do not say so--_causa prima_ is, just as well as _causa sui_, a _contradictio in adjecto_, albeit the former expression is more generally used than the latter. It is besides usually pronounced with a very serious, not to say solemn, air; nay, many people, especially English Reverends, turn up their eyes in a truly edifying way when they impressively and emphatically mention that _contradictio in adjecto_: 'the first cause.' They know that a first cause is just as inconceivable as the point at which Space ends or the moment when Time first began. For every cause is a _change_, which necessarily obliges us to ask for the preceding change that brought it about, and so on _in infinitum, in infinitum_! Even a first state of Matter, from which, as it has ceased to be, all following states could have proceeded, is inconceivable.
For if this state had in itself been the cause of the following ones, they must likewise have existed from all eternity, and the actual state existing at the present moment could not have only just now come into being. If, on the other hand, that first state only began to be causal at some given period, something or other must have _changed_ it, for its inactivity to have ceased; but then something must have occurred, some change must have taken place; and this again obliges us to ask for its cause--_i.e._ a change which preceded it; and here we are once more on the causal ladder, up which we are whipped step by step, higher and higher, _in infinitum, in infinitum_! (These gentlemen will surely not have the face to talk to me of Matter itself arising out of nothing! If so, they will find corollaries at their service further on.)
The causal law therefore is not so accommodating as to let itself be used like a hired cab, which we dismiss when we have reached our destination; rather does it resemble the broom brought to life by the apprentice-wizard in Göthe's poem,[61] which, when once set in motion, does not leave off running and fetching water until the old master-wizard himself stops it, which he alone has the power to do. These gentlemen, however, have no master-wizards among them. So what did they do, these noble, genuine lovers of truth, ever on the alert, of course, to proclaim the advent of real merit to the world as soon as it shows itself in their profession, who far from wishing to divert attention from the works of those who are really what _they_ only seem to be, by craftily ignoring and meanly keeping them dark, are naturally foremost to acknowledge their worth--aye, surely, as surely as folly loves wisdom above everything? What did they do, I say, to help their old friend, the sorely distressed Cosmological Proof, now at its last gasp? Oh, they hit upon a shrewd device.
"Friend," they said, "you are in sorry plight since your fatal encounter with that stubborn old man in Königsberg, and indeed your brethren, the Ontological and Physico-theological Proofs are in no better condition. Never mind, you shall not be abandoned by us (that is what we are paid for, you know); only you must alter your dress and your name--there is no help for it--for if we call you by your right name, everyone will take to his heels. Now _incognito_, on the contrary, we can take you by the arm, and once more lead you into society; only, as we have just said, it must be _incognito_! That is sure to answer! First of all, your argument must henceforth be called _The Absolute_. This has a foreign, dignified, aristocratic ring; and no one knows better than we do all that can be done with Germans by assuming airs of importance. Of course all know what the real meaning is, and pique themselves upon that knowledge. But you yourself must come forward disguised, in the form of an enthymeme. Be sure and leave behind you all those prosyllogisms and premisses, by which you used to drag us wearily up the long climax, for everyone knows how utterly useless they are.
Come forward with a bold face and a self-sufficient, supercilious air, like a man of few words, and at one bound you will reach the goal. Exclaim (and we will chime in), '_The Absolute_, confound it! _that_ must _exist_, or there would be nothing at all!' Here, strike the table with your fist. Whence does the Absolute come? 'What a silly question! Did not I tell you it was the Absolute?'--That will do, forsooth! That will do! Germans are accustomed to content themselves with words instead of thoughts. Do we not train them to it from their cradle? Only look at Hegelianism! What is it but empty, hollow, nauseous twaddle! Yet how brilliant a career was that of this philosophical time-server! A few mercenary individuals had only to strike up a laudation of this stuff, and they at once found an echo to their voices in the empty hollow of a thousand numskulls--an echo which still continues to resound, and to extend--and behold! an ordinary intellect, a common impostor soon became a sublime thinker. Take heart, therefore! Besides, our friend and patron, we will also second you in other ways, for how, indeed, are we to get a living without you? So that carping old faultfinder, Kant, has been criticizing Reason, and clipping her wings, has he?
Well, then, we will invent a _new_ sort of Reason, such as has never been heard of--a Reason that does not think, but which has direct intuition--a Reason which sees Ideas (a high-flown word, made to mystify), sees them bodily; or which apprehends directly that which you and others seek to prove; or, again, a Reason which has forebodings of all this--this last for the benefit of those who do not care to make large concessions, but also are satisfied with very little. Let us thus pass off early inculcated, popular conceptions for direct revelations of this new kind of Reason, _i.e._ for inspirations from above. As for that old-fashioned Reason, which criticism has criticized away, let us degrade it, call it Understanding, and send it about its business. Well, and what is to become of real, true Understanding?--What in the world have we to do with real, true Understanding?--You smile incredulously; but we know our listeners, and the _harum_, _horum_ we see on the students' benches before us. Bacon of Verulam already in his time said: 'Young men learn to believe at Universities.' Of this they can learn as much as they wish from us; we have a good stock of articles of faith on hand.
Text from Project Gutenberg, public domain in the United States.