chiefly artistic souls, the logico-mystical sceptics are sentimental and perturbed souls. These, although they do not usually take an entirely active part in life, yet do to some extent take part in it, vibrating in sympathetic unison with it, and, according to circumstances, suffering, sometimes through taking part, and sometimes through failing so to do. Empiricists or arbitrarists are to be found, on the other hand, among those who, engaged in practical affairs, do not indulge in emotions and sentiments, but aim at producing definite results. Thus, while they are in complete agreement with the aestheticists and the mystics in denying all value to logical knowledge as an autonomous form of knowledge, they are not satisfied, like the former, with spectacles and with works of art; nor are they caught, like the latter, in the madness and sorcery of the One and Eternal. The combination which they effect, of the sestheticist's thesis concerning THE PURE CONCEPT 13 THE PURE CONCEPT 13 the value of representation, with the mystical concerning the value of action, strengthens neither, but weakens both; and in exchange for the poetry of the first and for the ecstasy of the second, it offers an eminently prosaic product countersigned with a most prosaic name, that of fiction. There is something (they say) beyond the mere representation, and this some thing is an act of will; which also satisfies the demand for the universal, not by shutting itself up in itself, but by means of a mani pulation of single representations, so concen trated and simplified as to give rise to classes or symbols, which are without reality but convenient, fictitious but useful. Ingenuous philosophers and logicians have allowed them selves to be deceived by these puppets and have taken them seriously, as Don Quixote took the Moorish puppets of Master Peter. Forgetful of the nature and character of the complete operation, they have proceeded to concentrate and to simplify where there is no material for such an undertaking, claiming to group afresh, not only this or that series of representations, but all representations, hoping thus to obtain the universal concept, that is to say, the concept which enfolds in its bosom the infinite possibilities of the PART PART Reduction to the absurd of the three forms.
14 LOGIC real. Thus they have attained the pretended new and autonomous form of knowledge which goes beyond representations; a refined, but slightly ridiculous process of thought, like that of a man who would like to make not only knives of various sizes and shapes, but a knife of knives, beyond all knives which have a definite shape and are made of iron and steel.
We shall proceed to examine in their places both the errors resulting from these modes of solving, or of cutting, the problem of knowledge, and also the partial truths mingled with them which it is necessary to exhibit in their full efficacy. But, at the point which now occupies us, i.e., the affirmation or negation of the conceptual form of knowledge, let it suffice to observe how all the ranks of those who deny the concept move to the assault armed with the concept. We need simply observe, not strive to confute, because it is a question of something which leaps to the eye at once and does not demand many words; although many would be necessary to illustrate psychologically the conditions of spirit and of culture, the natural and acquired tendencies, the habits and the prejudices, which render such marvellous blindness possible. The aestheticists affirm that truth resides in aesthetic contempla- THE PURE CONCEPT 15 tion and not in the concept. But, pray, is this affirmation of theirs perchance song, or painting, or 'music, or architecture? It certainly concerns intuition, but it is not intuition; it has art for subject-matter, but it is not art; it does not communicate a state of the soul, but communicates a thought, that is to say, an affirmation of universal character; therefore, it is a concept. And by this concept it is sought to deny the concept. It is as if one sought to leap over one's own shadow, when the leap itself throws the shadow, or, by clinging to one's own pigtail, to pull oneself into safety out of the river. The same may be said of the mystics. They proclaim the necessity of silence and of seeking the One, the Universal, the I, concentrating upon themselves and letting themselves live; during which mystical experience it may, perhaps, befall them (as in the Titan of J. P. Richter) to rediscover the I, in a somewhat materialized form, in their own person. Never theless in the case of those who recommend silence, non silent silentium, they do not pass it by in silence; rather, it has been said, they proclaim it, and go about explaining and demonstrating how efficacious their prescription is for satisfying the desire for the universal. Were they silent about it, we should not be faced with that doctrine, as 16 LOGIC PART a precise formula to combat. The doctrine of silence and of silent action and inner experience is nothing but an affirmation of absolute character and universal content, by means of which are refuted, and it is believed confuted, other affirmations of the same nature. This too, then, is a concept; as contradictory as you will, and therefore, needing elaboration, but always conceptual elaboration and not practical; which last would altogether prevent the adepts in the doctrine from talking. And who, in our day, talks as much as the mystics? Indeed, what could they do, in our day, if they did not talk? And is it not significant that mystics are now found, not in solitudes, but crowded round little tables in the cafes, where it is customary, not so much to achieve inner experiences, as, on the contrary, to chatter? Finally, the theorists of fictions and of toys, in their amiable satire of logic and of philosophy, forget to explain one small particular, which is not without importance; that is to say, whether their theory of the concepts as fiction, is in its turn fiction. Because, were it fiction, it would be useless to discuss it, since by its own admission it is without truth; and if it were not (as it is not), it would have a character of true and not fictitious universality; or, it would THE PURE CONCEPT 17 be, not at all a simplification and symbol of representations, but a concept, and would establish the true concept at the very moment that it un masks those that are fictitious. Fiction and the theory of fiction are (and it should appear evident) different things; as the delinquent and the judge who condemns him are different, or the madman and the doctor who studies madness. A fiction, which pretends to be fiction, opens, at the most, an infinite series which it is not possible to close, un less there eventually intervene an act which is not fiction, and which explains all the others, as in the unravelling of a comedy of cross-purposes. And this is the way that the empiricists or arbitrarists also come to profess the faith that they would deny. Salus ex inimicis is a great truth for philosophy not less than for the whole of life; a truth, which on this occasion finds beautiful con firmation in the hostility towards the concept, perhaps never so fierce as it is to-day, and in the efforts to choke it, never so great and never so courageously and cleverly employed. But those enemies find themselves in the unhappy condition of being unable to choke it, without in the very act suppressing the principle of their own life.
concept, then, is not representation, nor Affirmation of the concept.
is it a mixture and refinement of representation.
c i8 LOGIC PART I It springs from representations, as something implicit in them that must become explicit; a necessity whose premisses they provide, but which they are not in a position to satisfy, not even to affirm. The satisfaction is afforded by the form of knowledge which is no longer repre sentative but logical, and which occurs con tinually and at every instant in the life of the Spirit, j To deny the existence of this form, or to prove it illusory by substituting other spiritual formations in its place, is an attempt which has been and is made, but which has not succeeded and does not succeed, and which, therefore, may be considered desperate. This series of manifesta tions, this aspect of reality, this form of spiritual activity, which is the Concept, constitutes the object of Logic.
II THE CONCEPT AND THE PSEUDOCONCEPTS BY distinguishing the concept from representa- concepts and...conceptual tions, we have recognized the legitimate sphere fictions. of representation, and have assigned to it in the system of spirit the place of:an antecedent and more elementary form of knowledge. By dis tinguishing the concept from states of the soul, from efforts of the will, from action, it is intended also to recognize the legitimacy of the practical form, although we are not here able to enlarge upon its relations with the cognitive form.1 But by distinguishing the concept iroim fictions^ it would almost seem that in their case we have not explicitly admitted any legitimate province, that, indeed, we have implicitly denied it, since we have adopted for them a designation which in itself sounds almost like a condemnation. This point must be made clear; because it would be im- 1 These relations are examined in the Philosophy of the Practical, first part.
19 20 LOGIC PART possible to go further with the treatment of Logic, if we left doubtful and insecure, that is, not sufficiently distinguished, one of the terms, from which the concept must be distinguished. What , are conceptual fictions? Are they false and arbitrary concepts, morally reprehensible? Or are they spiritual products, which aid and con tribute to the life of the spirit? Are they avoid able evils, or necessary functions? The A true and proper concept, precisely because pure concept as ultra- it is not representation, cannot have for content and omnianv single representative element, or have reference to any particular representation, or group of representations; but on the other hand, precisely because it is universal in relation to the individuality of the representations, it must refer at the same time to all and to each. Take as an example any concept of universal character, be it of quality, of development, of beauty, or of final cause. Can we conceive that a piece of reality, given us in representation, however ample it may be (let it even be granted that it embraces ages and ages of history, in all the complexity of the latter, and millenniums and millenniums of cosmic life), exhausts in itself quality or development, beauty or final cause, in such a way that we can affirm an equivalence between those concepts and THE PURE CONCEPT 21 that representative content? On the other hand, if we examine the smallest fragment of repre- sentable life, can we ever conceive that, however small and atomic it be, there is lacking to it quality and development, beauty and final cause? Certainly, it may be and has been affirmed, that things are not quality, but pure quantity; that they do not develop, but remain changeless and motionless; that the criterion of beauty is the arbitrary extension which we make to cosmic reality of some of our narrow individual and his torical experiences and sentiments; and that final cause is an anthropomorphic conception, since not " end " but " cause " is the law of the real, not teleology but mechanism and determinism. Philosophy has been and is still engrossed in such disputes; and we do not here present them as definitely solved, nor do we intend to base our selves upon determinate conceptions in the choice of our examples. The point is, that if the theses which we have just mentioned as opposed to the first, were true, they would furnish, in every case, true and proper concepts, superior to every representative determination, and embracing in themselves all representations, that is to say, every possible experience; and our conception of the concept would not thereby be changed, but 22 LOGIC PART indeed confirmed. Final cause or mechanism, development or motionless being, beauty or individual pleasure, would always, in so far as they are concepts, be posited as ultrarepresentative and at the same time omnirepresentative. Even if, as often happens, both the opposed concepts were accepted for the same problem, for example, final cause and mechanism, or development and unmoved substance, it is never intended simply to apply either of them to single groups of repre sentations, but to make them elements and com ponent parts of all reality. Thus, every reality would be, on one side, end, and on the other, cause; on one side, motionless, on the other, changeable; man would have in himself some thing of the mechanical and something of the teleological; nature would be matter, but urged forward by a first cause which was non-material, that is, spiritual and final, or at least unknown — and so on. When it is demonstrated of a concept that it has been suggested by contingent facts, by this very fact we eliminate it from the series of true concepts, and substitute for it another concept, which is given as truly universal. Or again, we suppress it without substituting another for it, that is to say, we reduce the number of true and proper concepts. Such a reduction is a progress THE PURE CONCEPT 23 of thought, but it is a progress which can never be extended to the abolition of all concepts, because one, at least, will always remain ineliminable; that of thought, which thinks the abolition; and this concept will be ultra- and omnirepresentative.
Fictional concepts or conceptual fictions are conceptual something altogether different. In these, either representative •without the content is furnished by a group of representa- universality, tions, even by a single representation, so that they are not ultrarepresentative; or there is no representable content, so that they are not omni representative. Examples of the first type are afforded by the concepts of house, cat, rose; of the second, those of triangle, or of free motion. If we think of the house, we refer to an artificial structure of stone or masonry or wood, or iron or straw, where beings, whom we call men, are wont to abide for some hours, or for entire days and entire years. Now, however great may be the number of objects denoted by that concept, it is always a finite number; there was a time when man did not exist, when, therefore, neither did his house; and there was another time when man existed without his house, living in caverns and under the open sky. Of course, undoubtedly, we shall be able to extend the concept of house, so as to include also the places inhabited by 24 LOGIC PART animals; but it will never be possible to follow with absolute clearness the distinction between artificial and natural (the act of inhabiting itself makes the place more or less artificial, by changing, for instance, the temperature); or between the animals which are inhabitants and the non-animals, which nevertheless are inhabitants, such as plants, which, as well as animals, often seek a roof; admitting that certain plants and animals have other plants and animals as their houses. Hence, in view of the impossibility of a clear and universal distinctive character, it is advisable to have re course at once to enumeration and to give the name house to certain particular objects, which, however numerous they are, are also finite in number, and which, with the enumeration complete, or capable of completion, exclude other objects from themselves. If it is desired to prevent this ex clusion, no other course remains than that of understanding by house any mode of life between , different beings; but in that case, the conceptual fiction becomes changed into a universal, lacking particular representations, applicable alike to a house and to any other manifestation of the real. The same may be said of the cat and of the rose, since it is evident that cats and roses have ap peared on the earth at a definite time and will THE PURE CONCEPT 25 disappear at another, and that while they endure, they can be looked upon as something fixed and precise, only when we have regard to some par ticular group of cats and of roses, indeed to one particular cat or rose at a definite moment of its existence (a gray cat or a black cat, a cat or a kitten; a white rose or a red rose, flowering or withered, etc.), elevated into a symbol and repre sentative of the others. There is not, and there cannot be, a rigorous characteristic, which should avail to distinguish the cat from other animals, or the rose from other flowers, or indeed a cat from other cats and a rose from another rose. These and other fictional concepts are, therefore, repre sentative, but not ultrarepresentative; they con tain some objects or fragments of reality, they do not contain it all.
The conceptual fictions of the triangle and of or universal* free motion have an analogous but opposite representations defect. With them, it appears, we emerge from the difficulties of representations. The triangle and free motion are not something which begins and ends in time and of which we are not able to state exactly the character and limits. So long as thought, that is to say, thinkable reality, exists, the concept of the triangle and of free motion will have validity. The triangle is formed by 26 LOGIC PART the intersection of three straight lines enclosing a space and forming three angles, the sum of which, though they vary from triangle to triangle, is equal to that of two right angles. It is impossible to confuse the triangle with the quadrilateral or the circle. Free motion is a motion, which we think of as taking place without obstacles of any sort. It is impossible to confuse it with a motion to which there is any particular obstacle. So far so good. But if those conceptual fictions let fall the ballast of representations, they ascend to a zone without air, where life is impossible; or, to speak without metaphor, they gain universality by losing reality. There is no geometric triangle in reality because in reality there are no straight lines, nor right angles nor sums of right angles, nor sums of angles equal to that of two right angles. There is no free motion in reality, because every real motion takes place in definite con ditions and therefore among obstacles. A thought, which has as its object nothing real, is not thought; and those concepts are not concepts but conceptual fictions. critique of the Having made clear, by means of these examples, doctrine which considers them the character of concepts and of fictional concepts, to be erroneo^ls concepts, we are prepared to solve the question as to whether the second are legitimate or illegitimate THE PURE CONCEPT 27 products, and if they merit the reproach which seems to attach to their name. And certainly, a view which has had and still has force does not hesitate to consider those fictions as nothing but erroneous concepts, and declares a war of extermination against them, in the name of rigorous thought and of truth. If it follows from what we have said, that the cat or the house or the rose are not concepts, and that the geometrical triangle or free motion are not so either, the con clusion seems inevitable that we must free our selves from these errors or misconceptions, and affirm that there is neither the cat nor the rose nor the house, but a reality all compact (although it is continuously changing) which develops and is new at every instant; nor is there either the triangle or free motion, but the eternal forms of this reality, which cannot be abstracted and fixed by themselves, and deprived of the conditions which are an integral part of them. But a single fact suffices to invalidate this conclusion and to confute the premiss upon which it rests, that conceptual fictions are erroneous concepts. An error once discovered cannot reappear, at least until the discovery is forgotten, and there is a falling back into the conditions of mental obscurity similar to those antecedent to the discovery.
28 LOGIC PART or imperfect concepts preparatory to perfect concepts.
When, for example, the position has been attained that morality is not a phenomenon of egoism and that it has value in itself, or one has become certain that Hannibal was ignorant of the disaster that befell his brother Hasdrubal on the Metaurus, it is impossible to continue believing that morality is egoism, or that Hannibal has been informed of the arrival of Hasdrubal and had voluntarily allowed him to be surprised by the two Consuls. But with conceptual fictions similar to those in the example the case is otherwise. Even when we are persuaded that the triangle and free motion correspond to nothing real, and that the rose, the cat, and the house have nothing precise and universal in them, we must yet continue to make use of the fictions of triangles, of free motion; of houses, cats, and roses. We can criticise them, and we cannot renounce them; therefore, it is not true that they are, at least altogether and in every sense, errors.
This indispensability of conceptual fictions to the life of the spirit, finds acknowledgment in a more temperate form of the doctrine which con siders them as erroneous concepts; that is, in the thesis that they are erroneous, but at the same time preparatory to, and almost a first step to wards, the formation of true and proper concepts.
i THE PURE CONCEPT 29 The spirit does not issue all at once from re presentations and attain to the universal; it issues from them little by little, and prior to the rigorous universal, it constructs others less rigorous, which have the advantage of replacing the infinite re presentations with their infinite shades, through which reality presents itself in aesthetic contem plation. Conceptual fictions, then, would be sketches of concepts, and therefore, like all sketches, capable of revision and annulment, but useful. Thus it would be explained how they are errors, and errors made for a good reason. But this moderate theory also clashes noisily with the most evident facts. Above all, it is not true that the spirit issues little by little from the representations, passing through a series of grades; the procedure of the spirit, in this re gard, is altogether different, and when philoso phers have wanted to find a comparison for it, they have been obliged to come back to that very * leap ' which they wanted to avoid: " Spirit (said Schelling, for example,) is an eternal island, which is not to be reached from matter, without a leap, whatever turns and twists be made." And, for this very reason, conceptual fictions are not good passages to rigorous concepts: to