On the Fourfold Root of the Principle of Sufficient Reason, and On the Will in Nature · Arthur Schopenhauer
THE UNDERSTANDING.
They may even be observed to make experiments for a time with their sight and touch, in order to complete their apprehension of objects by different lights, in different directions and at different distances: thus pursuing a silent, but serious course of study, till they have succeeded in mastering all the intellectual operations in seeing which have been described. The fact of this schooling can be ascertained still more clearly through those who, being born blind, have been operated upon late in life, since they are able to give an account of their impressions. Cheselden's blind man[82] was not an isolated instance, and we find in all similar cases the fact corroborated, that those who obtain their sight late in life, no doubt, see light, outlines, and colours, as soon as the operation is over, but that they have no objective perception of objects until their Understanding has learnt to apply its causal law to data and to changes which are new to it. On first beholding his room and the various objects in it, Cheselden's blind man did not distinguish one thing from another; he simply received the general impression of a totality all in one piece, which he took for a smooth, variegated surface.
"A definite idea of distance, as well as of form and size, is only obtained by sight and touch, and by reflecting on the impressions made on both senses; but for this purpose we must take into account the muscular motion and voluntary locomotion of the individual.--Caspar Hauser, in a detailed account of his own experience in this respect, states, that upon his first liberation from confinement, whenever he looked through the window upon external objects, such as the street, garden, &c., it appeared to him as if there were a shutter quite close to his eye, and covered with confused colours of all kinds, in which he could recognise or distinguish nothing singly. He says farther, that he did not convince himself till after some time during his walks out of doors, that what had at first appeared to him as a shutter of various colours, as well as many other objects, were in reality very different things; and that at length the shutter disappeared, and he saw and recognised all things in their just proportions.
Persons born blind who obtain their sight by an operation in later years only, sometimes imagine that all objects touch their eyes, and lie so near to them that they are afraid of stumbling against them; sometimes they leap towards the moon, supposing that they can lay hold of it; at other times they run after the clouds moving along the sky, in order to catch them, or commit other such extravagancies. Since ideas are gained by reflection upon sensation, it is further necessary in all cases, in order that an accurate idea of objects may be formed from the sense of sight, that the powers of the mind should be unimpaired, and undisturbed in their exercise. A proof of this is afforded in the instance related by Haslam,[84] of a boy who had no defect of sight, but was weak in understanding, and who in his seventh year was unable to estimate the distances of objects, especially as to height; he would extend his hand frequently towards a nail on the ceiling, or towards the moon, to catch it. It is therefore the judgment which corrects and makes clear this idea, or perception of visible objects." [82] See the original report in vol. 35 of the "Philosophical Transactions" as to this case. [83] Franz, "The Eye, a treatise on preserving this organ in a healthy state and improving the sight." London, Churchill, 1839, pp. 34-36.
Nor is there, indeed, any difference, beyond that of degree, between this lowest Understanding and that of man, which we however distinctly separate from his Reason. The intermediate gradations are occupied by the various series of animals, among which the highest, such as the monkey, the elephant, the dog, astonish us often by their intelligence. But in every case the business of the Understanding is invariably to apprehend directly causal relations: first, as we have seen, those between our own body and other bodies, whence proceeds objective perception; then those between these objectively perceived bodies among themselves, and here, as has been shown in § 20, the causal relation manifests itself in three forms--as cause, as stimulus, and as motive. All movement in the world takes place according to these three forms of the causal relation, and through them alone does the intellect comprehend it. Now, if, of these three, _causes_, in the narrowest sense of the word, happen to be the object of investigation for the Understanding, it will produce Astronomy, Mechanics, Physics, Chemistry, and will invent machines for good and for evil; but in all cases a direct, intuitive apprehension of the causal connection will in the last resort lie at the bottom of all its discoveries.
For the sole form and function of the Understanding is this apprehension, and not by any means the complicated machinery of Kant's twelve Categories, the nullity of which I have proved.--(All comprehension is a direct, consequently intuitive, apprehension of the causal connection; although this has to be reduced at once to abstract conceptions in order to be fixed. To calculate therefore, is not to understand, and, in itself, calculation conveys no comprehension of things. Calculation deals exclusively with abstract conceptions of magnitudes, whose mutual relations it determines. By it we never attain the slightest comprehension of a physical process, for this requires _intuitive_ comprehension of space-relations, by means of which causes take effect. Calculations have merely practical, not theoretical, value. It may even be said that _where calculation begins, comprehension ceases_; for a brain occupied with numbers is, as long as it calculates, entirely estranged from the causal connection in physical processes, being engrossed in purely abstract, numerical conceptions. The result, however, only shows us _how much_, never _what_. "_L'expérience et le calcul_," those watchwords of French physicists, are not therefore by any means adequate [for thorough insight].)--If, again, _stimuli_ are the guides of the Understanding, it will produce Physiology of Plants and Animals, Therapeutics, and Toxicology.
Finally, if it devotes itself to the study of _motives_, the Understanding will use them, on the one hand, theoretically, to guide it in producing works on Morality, Jurisprudence, History, Politics, and even Dramatic and Epic Poetry; on the other hand, practically, either merely to train animals, or for the higher purpose of making human beings dance to its music, when once it has succeeded in discovering which particular wire has to be pulled in order to move each puppet at its pleasure. Now, with reference to the function which effects this, it is quite immaterial whether the intellect turns gravitation ingeniously to account, and makes it serve its purpose by stepping in just at the right time, or whether it brings the collective or the individual propensities of men into play for its own ends. In its practical application we call the Understanding _shrewdness_ or, when used to outwit others, _cunning_; when its aims are very insignificant, it is called _slyness_ and, if combined with injury to others, _craftiness_.
In its purely theoretical application, we call it simply _Understanding_, the higher degrees of which are named _acumen_, _sagacity_, _discernment_, _penetration_, while its lower degrees are termed _dulness_, _stupidity_, _silliness_, &c. &c. These widely differing degrees of sharpness are innate, and cannot be acquired; although, as I have already shown, even in the earliest stages of the application of the Understanding, _i.e._ in empirical perception, practice and knowledge of the material to which it is applied, are needed. Every simpleton has Reason--give him the premisses, and he will draw the conclusion; whereas _primary_, consequently intuitive, knowledge is supplied by the Understanding: herein lies the difference. The pith of every great discovery, of every plan having universal historical importance, is accordingly the product of a happy moment in which, by a favourable coincidence of outer and inner circumstances, some complicated causal series, some hidden causes of phenomena which had been seen thousands of times before, or some obscure, untrodden paths, suddenly reveal themselves to the intellect.--
By the preceding explanations of the processes in seeing and feeling, I have incontestably shown that empirical perception is essentially the work of _the Understanding_, for which the material only is supplied by the senses in sensation--and a poor material it is, on the whole; so that _the Understanding_ is, in fact, the artist, while the senses are but the under-workmen who hand it the materials. But the process consists throughout in referring from given effects to their causes, which by this process are enabled to present themselves as objects in Space. The very fact that we presuppose Causality in this process, proves precisely that this law must have been supplied by the Understanding itself; for it could never have found its way into the intellect from outside. It is indeed the first condition of all empirical perception; but this again is the form in which all external experience presents itself to us; how then can this law of Causality be derived from experience, when it is itself essentially presupposed by experience?--It was just because of the utter impossibility of this, and because Locke's philosophy had put an end to all _à priority_, that Hume denied the whole reality of the conception of Causality. He had besides already mentioned two false hypotheses in the seventh section of his "Inquiry concerning the Human Understanding," which recently have again been advanced: the one, that the effect of the will upon the members of our body; the other, that the resistance opposed to our pressure by outward objects, is the origin and prototype of the conception of Causality. Hume refutes both in his own way and according to his own order of ideas. I argue as follows.
There is no causal connection whatever between acts of the will and actions of the body; on the contrary, both are immediately one and the same thing, only perceived in a double aspect--that is, on the one hand, in our self-consciousness, or inner sense, as acts of the will; on the other, simultaneously in exterior, spacial brain-perception, as actions of the body.[91] The second hypothesis is false, first because, as I have already shown at length, a mere sensation of touch does not yet give any objective perception whatever, let alone the conception of Causality, which never can arise from the feeling of an impeded muscular effort: besides impediments of this kind often occur without any external cause; secondly, because our pressing against an external object necessarily has a motive, and this already presupposes apprehension of that object, which again presupposes knowledge of Causality.--But the only means of radically proving the conception of Causality to be independent of all experience was by showing, as I have done, that the whole possibility of experience is conditioned by the conception of Causality. In § 23 I intend to show that Kant's proof, propounded with a similar intent, is false. [91] Compare "Die Welt a. W. u. V." 3rd edition, vol. ii. p. 41. [The 3rd edition of "Die Welt a. W. u. V." contains at this place a supplement which is wanting in the 2nd edition, vol. ii. p. 38.--Note by the Editor of the 3rd edition.]
This is also the proper place for drawing attention to the fact, that Kant either did not clearly recognise in empirical perception the mediation of the causal law--which law is known to us before all experience--or that he intentionally evaded mentioning it, because it did not suit his purpose. In the "Critique of Pure Reason," for instance, the relation between causality and perception is not treated in the "Doctrine of Elements," but in the chapter on the "Paralogisms of Pure Reason," where one would hardly expect to find it; moreover it appears in his "Critique of the Fourth Paralogism of Transcendental Psychology," and only in the first edition.[92] The very fact that this place should have been assigned to it, shows that in considering this relation, he always had the transition from the phenomenon to the thing in itself exclusively in view, but not the genesis of perception itself. Here accordingly he says that the existence of a real external object is not given directly in perception, but can be added to it in thought and thus inferred. In Kant's eyes, however, he who does this is a Transcendental Realist, and consequently on a wrong road. For by his "outward object" Kant here means the thing in itself.
The Transcendental Idealist, on the contrary, stops short at the perception of something empirically real--that is, of something existing outside us in Space--without needing the inference of a cause to give it reality. For _perception_, according to Kant, is quite directly accomplished without any assistance from the causal nexus, and consequently from the Understanding: he simply identifies perception with sensation. This we find confirmed in the passage which begins, "With reference to the reality of external objects, I need as little trust to inference," &c. &c.[93] and again in the sentence commencing with "Now we may well admit," &c. &c.[94] It is quite clear from these passages that perception of external things in Space, according to Kant, precedes all application of the causal law, therefore that the causal law does not belong to perception as an element and condition of it: for him, mere sensation is identical with perception. Only in as far as we ask what may, in a _transcendental_ sense, exist _outside of us_: that is, when we ask for the thing in itself, is Causality mentioned as connected with perception.
Moreover Kant admits the existence, nay, the mere possibility, of causality only in reflection: that is, in abstract, distinct knowledge by means of conceptions; therefore he has no suspicion that its application is _anterior to all reflection_, which is nevertheless evidently the case, especially in empirical, sensuous perception which, as I have proved irrefragably in the preceding analysis, could never take place otherwise. Kant is therefore obliged to leave the genesis of empirical perception unexplained. With him it is a mere matter of the senses, given as it were in a miraculous way: that is, it coincides with sensation. I should very much like my reflective readers to refer to the passages I have indicated in Kant's work, in order to convince themselves of the far greater accuracy of my view of the whole process and connection. Kant's extremely erroneous view has held its ground till now in philosophical literature, simply because no one ventured to attack it; therefore I have found it necessary to clear the way in order to throw light upon the mechanism of our knowledge. [92] Kant, "Krit. d. r. V." 1st edition, p. 367 _sqq._ (English translation by M. Müller, p. 318 _sqq._) [93] Kant, "Krit. d. r. Vern." 1st edition, p. 371. (English translation, by M. Müller, p. 322.) [94] Kant, "Krit. d. r. Vern." 1st edition, p. 372. (English translation, p. 323.)
Kant's fundamental idealistic position loses nothing whatever, nay, it even gains by this rectification of mine, in as far as, with me, the necessity of the causal law is absorbed and extinguished in empirical perception as its product and cannot therefore be invoked in behalf of an entirely transcendent question as to the thing in itself. On referring to my theory above concerning empirical perception, we find that its first datum, sensation, is absolutely subjective, being a process within the organism, because it takes place beneath the skin. Locke has completely and exhaustively proved, that the feelings of our senses, even admitting them to be roused by external causes, cannot have any resemblance whatever to the qualities of those causes. Sugar, for instance, bears no resemblance at all to sweetness, nor a rose to redness. But that they should need an external cause at all, is based upon a law whose origin lies demonstrably within us, in our brain; therefore this necessity is not less subjective than the sensations themselves.
Nay, even _Time_--that primary condition of every possible _change_, therefore also of the change which first permits the application of the causal law--and not less _Space_--which alone renders the externalisation of causes possible, after which they present themselves to us as objects--even Time and Space, we say, are subjective forms of the intellect, as Kant has conclusively proved. Accordingly we find all the elements of empirical perception lying within us, and nothing contained in them which can give us reliable indications as to anything differing absolutely from ourselves, anything in itself.--But this is not all. What we think under the conception _matter_, is the residue which remains over after bodies have been divested of their shape and of all their specific qualities: a residue, which precisely on that account must be identical in all bodies. Now these shapes and qualities which have been abstracted by us, are nothing but the peculiar, specially defined _way in which these bodies act_, which constitutes precisely their difference.
If therefore we leave these shapes and qualities out of consideration, there remains nothing but _mere activity in general_, pure action as such, Causality itself, objectively thought--that is, the reflection of our own Understanding, the externalised image of its sole function; and Matter is throughout pure Causality, its essence is Action in general.[95] This is why pure Matter cannot be perceived, but can only be thought: it is a something we add to every reality, as its basis, in thinking it. For pure Causality, mere action, without any defined mode of action, cannot become perceptible, therefore it cannot come within any experience.--Thus Matter is only the objective correlate to pure Understanding; for it is Causality in general, and nothing else: just as the Understanding itself is direct knowledge of cause and effect, and nothing else. Now this again is precisely why the law of causality is not applicable to Matter itself: that is to say, Matter has neither beginning nor end, but is and remains permanent.
For as, on the one hand, Causality is the indispensable condition of all alternation in the accidents (forms and qualities) of Matter, _i.e._ of all passage in and out of being; but as, on the other hand, Matter is pure Causality itself, as such, objectively viewed: it is unable to exercise its own power upon itself, just as the eye can see everything but itself. "Substance" and Matter being moreover identical, we may call _Substance_, _action_ viewed _in abstracto_: _Accidents_, particular modes of action, action _in concreto_.--Now these are the results to which true, _i.e._ transcendental, Idealism leads. In my chief work I have shown that the thing in itself--_i.e._ whatever, on the whole, exists independently of our representation--cannot be got at by way of representation, but that, to reach it, we must follow quite a different path, leading through the inside of things, which lets us into the citadel, as it were, by treachery.-- [95] Compare "Die Welt a. W. u. V." 2nd edition; vol. i. sect. 4, p. 9; and vol. ii. pp. 48, 49 (3rd edition, vol. i. p. 10; vol. ii. p. 52). English translation, vol. i. pp. 9-10; vol. ii. p. 218.
But it would be downright chicanery, nothing else, to try and compare, let alone identify, such an honest, deep, thorough analysis of empirical perception as the one I have just given, which proves all the elements of perception to be subjective, with Fichte's algebraic equations of the _Ego_ and the _Non-Ego_; with his sophistical pseudo-demonstrations, which in order to be able to deceive his readers had to be clothed in the obscure, not to say absurd, language adopted by him; with his explanations of the way in which the _Ego_ spins the _Non-Ego_ out of itself; in short, with all the buffoonery of scientific emptiness.[96] Besides, I protest altogether against any community with this Fichte, as Kant publicly and emphatically did in a notice _ad hoc_ in the "Jenaer Litteratur Zeitung."[97] Hegelians and similar ignoramuses may continue to hold forth to their heart's content upon Kant-Fichteian philosophy: there exists a Kantian philosophy and a Fichteian hocus-pocus,--this is the true state of the case, and will remain so, in spite of those who delight in extolling what is bad and in decrying what is good, and of these Germany possesses a larger number than any other country. [96] _Wissenschaftsleere_ (literally, _emptiness of science_), a pun of Schopenhauer's on the title of Fichte's _Wissenschaftslehre_ (_doctrine of science_), which cannot be rendered in English. (Tr.'s Note.)
According to this, the order in which changes succeed each other in real objects becomes known to us as objective only by their causality. This assertion Kant repeats and explains in the "Critique of Pure Reason," especially in his "Second Analogy of Experience,"[99] and again at the conclusion of his "Third Analogy," and I request every one who desires to understand what I am now about to say, to read these passages. In them he affirms everywhere that _the objectivity of the succession of representations_--which he defines as their correspondence with the succession of real objects--is only known through the rule by which they follow upon one another: that is, through the law of causality; that my mere apprehension consequently leaves the objective relation between phenomena following one another quite undetermined: since I merely apprehend the succession of my own representations, but the succession in my apprehension does not authorize me to form any judgment whatever as to the succession in the object, unless that judgment be based upon causality; and since, besides, I might invert the order in which these perceptions follow each other in my apprehension, there being nothing which determines them as objective.
To illustrate this assertion, Kant brings forward the instance of a house, whose parts we may consider in any order we like, from top to bottom, or from bottom to top; the determination of succession being in this case purely subjective and not founded upon an object, because it depends upon our pleasure. In opposition to this instance, he brings forward the perception of a ship sailing down a river, which we see successively lower and lower down the stream, which perception of the successively varying positions of the ship cannot be changed by the looker-on. In this latter case, therefore, he derives the subjective following in his own apprehension from the objective following in the phenomenon, and on this account he calls it an _event_. Now I maintain, on the contrary, that _there is no difference at all between these two cases, that both are events_, and that our knowledge of both is objective: that is to say, it is knowledge of changes in real objects recognized as such by the Subject. _Both are changes of relative position in two bodies._ In the first case, one of these bodies is a part of the observer's own organism, the eye, and the other is the house, with respect to the different parts of which the eye successively alters its position.
In the second, it is the ship which alters its position towards the stream; therefore the change occurs between two bodies. Both are events, the only difference being that, in the first, the change has its starting-point in the observer's own body, from whose sensations undoubtedly all his perceptions originally proceed, but which is nevertheless an object among objects, and in consequence obeys the laws of the objective, material world. For the observer, as a purely cognising individual, any movement of his body is simply an empirically perceived fact. It would be just as possible in the second as in the first instance, to invert the order of succession in the change, were it as easy for the observer to move the ship up the stream as to alter the direction of his own eyes. For Kant infers the successive perception of different parts of the house to be neither objective nor an event, because it depends upon his own will. But the movement of his eyes in the direction from roof to basement is one event, and in the direction from basement to roof another event, just as much as the sailing of the ship.
Text from Project Gutenberg, public domain in the United States.