Boehme turns this round in many ways in order to grasp the something [Ichts], the Separator, as it “rises”[143] from the Father. The qualities rise in the great Salitter, stir, raise, and move [rügen] themselves.
Boehme has there the quality of astringency in the Father, and he then represents the process of the something [Ichts] as a sharpness, a drawing together, as a flash of lightning that breaks forth. This light is Lucifer. The Being-for-self, the self-perception, is by Boehme called the drawing together into a point. That is astringency, sharpness, penetration, fierceness; to this pertains the wrath of God, and here Boehme in this manner grasps the “other” of God in God Himself. “This source can be kindled through great motion or elevation. Through the contraction the creaturely Being is formed so that a heavenly _Corpus_ may be” intelligibly “formed. But if it”—the sharpness—“be kindled through elevation, which those creatures only can do which are created out of the divine Salitter, then it is a burning source-vein of the wrath of God. The flash is the mother of light; for the flash generates the light, and is the Father of the fierceness; for the fierceness abides in the flash as a seed in the father, and that flash generates also the tone or sound”—the flash is, speaking generally, the absolute generator. The flash is still connected with pain; light is what brings intelligence.
The divine birth is the going forth of the flash, of the life of all qualities.[144] This is all from the Aurora.
In the _Quæstionibus theosophicis_ Boehme makes particular use of the form of Yes and No for the separator, for this opposition. He says: “The reader must know that in Yes and No all things consist, whether divine, devilish, earthly, or what they may be called. The One as the Yes is pure power and life, and it is the truth of God or God Himself.
He would be unknowable in Himself, and in Him there would be no joy nor elevation, nor feeling”—life—“without the No. The No is a counterstroke of the Yes, or of the truth” (this negativity is the principle of all knowledge, comprehension), “that the truth may be manifest and be a something wherein there is a _contrarium_ in which there is the eternal love, moving, feeling, and willing, and demanding to be loved. And yet we cannot say that the Yes is separated from the No, and that they are two things in proximity; for they are only one thing, but they separate themselves into two beginnings and make two _centra_, where each works and wills in itself. Without those two, which are continually in strife, all things would be a nothing, and would stand still without movement.
If the eternal will did not itself flow from itself and introduce itself into receptibility, there would be no form nor distinction, for all powers would” then “be one power. Neither could there be understanding in that case, for the understanding arises” (has its substance) “in the differentiation of the manifold, where one property sees, proves and wills the others. The will which has flowed out wills dissimilarity, so that it may be distinguished from similarity and be its own something—and that something may exist, that the eternal seeing may see and feel.
And from the individual will arises the No, for it brings itself into ownness, _i.e._ receptivity of self. It desires to be something and does not make itself in accordance with unity; for unity is a Yes which flows forth, which ever stands thus in the breathing forth of itself, being imperceptible; for it has nothing in which it can find itself excepting in the receptivity of the dissentient will, as in the No which is counterstroke to the Yes, in which the Yes is indeed revealed, and in which it possesses something which it can will. And the No is therefore called a No, because it is a desire turned inwards on itself, as if it were a shutting up into negativity. The emanated seeking will is absorbent and comprehends itself within itself, from it come forms and qualities: (1) Sharpness, (2) Motion, (3) Feeling. (4) The fourth property is Fire as the flash of light; this rises in the bringing together of the great and terrible sharpness and the unity. Thus in the contact a _Flagrat_ [Schrack] results, and in this _Flagrat_ [Schrack] unity is apprehended as being a Flash or Gleam, an exulting joy.” That is the bursting forth of the unity. “For thus the light arises in the midst of the darkness, for the unity becomes a light, and the receptivity of the carnal will in the qualities becomes a Spirit-fire which has its source and origin out of the sharp, cold astringency. And according to that, God is an angry” and “jealous God,” and in this we have evil.
“(_a_) The first quality of the absorption is the No; (_b_) Sharpness; (_c_) Hardness; (_d_) Feeling; (_e_) the source of fire, hell or hollowness, Hiddenness. (5) The fifth quality, Love, makes in the fire, as in pain, another _Principium_ as a great fire of love.”[145] These are the main points under the second head. In such depths Boehme keeps struggling on, for to him conceptions are lacking, and there are only religious and chemical forms to be found; and because he uses these in a forced sense in order to express his ideas, not only does barbarism of expression result, but incomprehensibility as well.
c. “From this eternal operation of the sensation the visible world sprang; the world is the Word which has flowed forth and has disposed itself into qualities, since in qualities the particular will has arisen. The _Separator_ has made it a will of its own after such a fashion.”[146] The world is none other than the essence of God made creaturely.[147] Hence “If thou beholdest the Deep” of the heavens, “the Stars, the Elements and the Earth,” and what they have brought forth, “then thou” certainly “comprehendest not with thy eyes the bright and clear Deity, though indeed it is” likewise “there and in them.” Thou seest only their creaturely manifestation. “But if thou raisest thy thoughts and considerest...God who rules in holiness in this government or dominion, then thou breakest through the heaven of heavens and apprehendest God at His holy heart. The powers of heaven ever operate in images, growths and colours, in order to reveal the holy God, so that He may be in all things known.”[148] 3. Finally what comes third in these three-fold forms is the unity of the light, of the separator and power: this is the spirit, which is already partially implied in what has preceded. “All the stars signify the power of the Father, and from them issues the sun” (they make themselves a counterstroke to unity). “And from all the stars there goes forth the power which is in every star, into the Deep, and the power, heat and shining of the sun goes likewise into the Deep”—back to the stars, into the power of the Father. “And in the Deep the power of all stars, together with the heat and lustre of the sun, are all but one thing, a moving, boiling Hovering, like a spirit or matter. Now in the whole deep of the Father, externally without the Son, there is nothing but the manifold and unmeasurable or unsearchable power of the Father and the Light of the Son. The Light of the Son is in the Deep of the Father a all-tasting, all-feeling Spirit, wherein is all power, splendour, and wisdom, as in the Father and the Son.”[149] That is Love, the softener of all powers through the light of the Son. We see that the sensuous element thus pertains to this.
Boehme really has the idea that “God’s essence” (which has proceeded from the eternal deep as world) “is thus not something far away which possesses a particular position or place, for” essence, “the abyss of nature and creation, is God Himself. Thou must not think that in heaven there was some manner of _Corpus_”—the seven spirits generate this _Corpus_ or heart—“which above all other things is called God. No; but the whole divine power which itself is heaven and the heaven of all heavens, is so generated, and that is called God the Father; of whom all the holy angels are generated, in like manner also the spirit of all men.
Thou canst name no place, either in heaven or in this world, where the divine birth is not. The birth of the divine Trinity likewise takes place in thine own heart; all three persons are generated in thy heart, God the Father, Son and Holy Ghost. In the divine power everywhere we find the fountain spring of the divine birth; and there already are all the seven qualifying or fountain spirits of God, as if thou wouldst make a spacious creaturely circumscribed circle and hadst the deity therein.”[150] In every spirit all are contained.
To Boehme this trinity is the complete universal life in each individual, it is absolute substance. He says: “All things in this world are according to the similitude of this ternary. Ye blind Jews, Turks, and Heathens, open wide the eyes of your mind: I will show you, in your body, and in every natural thing, in men, beasts, fowls, and worms, also in wood, stone, leaves, and grass, the likeness of the holy ternary in God. You say, there is but one Being in God, and that God has no Son.
Open your eyes and consider your selves: man is made according to the similitude and out of the power of God in his ternary. Behold thy inward man, and then thou wilt see it most plainly and clearly, if thou art not a fool and an irrational beast. Therefore observe, in thy heart, in thy veins, and in thy brain, thou hast thy spirit; and all the powers which move in thy heart, in thy veins, and in thy brain, wherein thy life consists, signify God the Father. From that power springs up [gebaret] thy light, so that thou seest, understandest, and knowest in the same power what thou art to do; for that light glimmers in thy whole body; and the whole body moves in the power and knowledge of the light; this is the Son which is born in thee.” This light, this seeing and understanding, is the second determination; it is the relationship to itself. “Out of thy light goes forth into the same power, reason, understanding, skill, and wisdom, to govern the whole body, and to distinguish all whatsoever is externally without the body. And both these are but one in the government of thy mind, viz. thy spirit, which signifies God the Holy Ghost. And the Holy Ghost from God rules in this spirit in thee, if thou art a child of light and not of darkness. Now observe: in either wood, stone, or herbs there are three things contained, neither can anything be generated or grow, if but one of the three should be left out. First, there is the power, from which a body comes to be, whether wood, stone, or herbs; after that there is in that” thing “a sap which is the heart of the thing. And thirdly there is in it a springing, flowing power, smell, or taste, which is the spirit of the thing whereby it grows and increases.
Now if any of these three fail, the thing cannot subsist.”[151] Thus Boehme regards everything as this ternary.
When he comes into particulars we see that he is obscure; from his detailed explanations there is therefore not much to be derived. As showing his manner of apprehending natural things I shall give one more example of the manner in which, in the further working out of the existence of nature as a counterstroke to the divine knowledge, he makes use of what we call things as Notions (_supra_, p. 192).
The creaturely, he says, has “three kinds of powers or _Spiritus_ in different _Centris_, but in one _Corpore_. (α) The first and external _Spiritus_ is the coarse sulphur, salt and _Mercurius_, which is a substance of four elements” (fire, water, earth, air) “or of the stars.
It forms the visible _Corpus_ according to the constellation of the stars or property of the planets and now enkindled elements—the greatest power of the _Spiritus mundi_. The _Separator_ makes the signature or sign”—the self. The salt, the salitter, is approximately the neutral: mercury [Merk or Mark] the operating, unrest as against nourishment; the coarse sulphur, the negative unity. (β) “The other _Spiritus_ is found in the oil of sulphur, the fifth essence, viz. a root of the four elements. That is the softening and joy of the coarse, painful spirit of sulphur and salt; the real cause of growing life, a joy of nature as is the sun in the elements”—the direct principle of life. “In the inward ground of that coarse spirit we see a beautiful, clear _Corpus_ in which the ideal light of nature shines from the divine efflux.” The outward separator signs what is taken up with the shape and form of the plant which receives into itself this coarse nourishment. (γ) “What comes third is the tincture, a spiritual fire and light; the highest reason for which the first separation of qualities takes place in the existence of this world. _Fiat_ is the Word of each thing and belongs according to its peculiar quality to eternity. Its origin is the holy power of God. Smell [Ruch] is the sensation of this tincture. The elements are only a mansion and counterstroke of the inward power, a cause of the movement of the tincture.”[152] Sensuous things entirely lose the force of sensuous conceptions. Boehme uses them, though not as such, as thought determinations, that constitutes the hard and barbarous element in Boehme’s representations, yet at the same time this unity with actuality and this present of infinite existence.
Boehme describes the opposition in creation in the following way. If nature is the first efflux of the _Separator_, two kinds of life must yet be understood as in the counterstroke of the divine essence, beyond that temporal one there is an eternal, to which the divine understanding is given. It stands at the basis of the eternal, spiritual world, in the _Mysterium Magnum_ of the divine counterstroke (personality)—a mansion of divine will through which it reveals itself and is revealed to no peculiarity of personal will. In this _centrum_ man has both lives in himself, he belongs to time and eternity. He is (α) universal in the “eternal understanding of the one good will which is a temperament; (β) the original will of nature, viz. the comprehensibility of the _Centra_, where each _centrum_ in the divisibility shuts itself in one place to egotism and self-will as a personal _Mysterium_ or mind. The former only requires a counterstroke to its similarity; this latter, the self-generated natural will also requires in the place of the egotism of the dark impression a likeness, that is a counterstroke through its own comprehensibility, through which comprehension it requires nothing but its corporality as a natural ground.” Now it is this “I,” the dark, pain, fire, the wrath of God, implicitude, self-comprehension, which is broken up in regeneration; the I is shattered, painfulness brought into true rest—just as the dark fire breaks into light.[153] Now these are the principal ideas found in Boehme; those most profound are (α) the generating of Light as the Son of God from qualities, through the most living dialectic; (β) God’s diremption of Himself. Barbarism in the working out of his system can no more fail to be recognized than can the great depths into which he has plunged by the union of the most absolute opposites. Boehme grasps the opposites in the crudest, harshest way, but he does not allow himself through their unworkableness to be prevented from asserting the unity. This rude and barbarous depth which is devoid of Notion, is always a present, something which speaks from itself, which has and knows everything in itself. We have still to mention Boehme’s piety, the element of edification, the way in which the soul is guided in his writings. This is in the highest degree deep and inward, and if one is familiar with his form these depths and this inwardness will be found. But it is a form with which we cannot reconcile ourselves, and which permits no definite conception of details, although we cannot fail to see the profound craving for speculation which existed within this man.
SECTION TWO PERIOD OF THE THINKING UNDERSTANDING After Neo-Platonism and all that is associated with it is left behind, it is not until Descartes is arrived at that we really enter upon a philosophy which is, properly speaking, independent, which knows that it comes forth from reason as independent, and that self-consciousness is an essential moment in the truth. Philosophy in its own proper soil separates itself entirely from the philosophizing theology, in accordance with its principle, and places it on quite another side. Here, we may say, we are at home, and like the mariner after a long voyage in a tempestuous sea, we may now hail the sight of land; with Descartes the culture of modern times, the thought of modern Philosophy, really begins to appear, after a long and tedious journey on the way which has led so far. It is specially characteristic of the German that the more servile he on the one hand is, the more uncontrolled is he on the other; restraint and want of restraint—originality, is the angel of darkness that buffets us. In this new period the universal principle by means of which everything in the world is regulated, is the thought that proceeds from itself; it is a certain inwardness, which is above all evidenced in respect to Christianity, and which is the Protestant principle in accordance with which thought has come to the consciousness of the world at large as that to which every man has a claim. Thus because the independently existent thought, this culminating point of inwardness, is now set forth and firmly grasped as such, the dead externality of authority is set aside and regarded as out of place. It is only through my own free thought within that thought can however be recognized and ratified by me. This likewise signifies that such free thought is the universal business of the world and of individuals; it is indeed the duty of every man, since everything is based upon it; thus what claims to rank as established in the world man must scrutinize in his own thoughts.
Philosophy is thus become a matter of universal interest, and one respecting which each can judge for himself; for everyone is a thinker from the beginning.
On account of this new beginning to Philosophy we find in the old histories of Philosophy of the seventeenth century—_e.g._ that of Stanley—the philosophy of the Greeks and Romans only, and Christianity forms the conclusion. The idea was that neither in Christianity nor subsequently any philosophy was to be found, because there was no longer a necessity for it, seeing that the philosophic theology of the Middle Ages had not free, spontaneous thought as its principle (Vol. I. pp. 111, 112). But though it is true that this has now become the philosophic principle, we must not expect that it should be at once methodically developed out of thought. The old assumption is made, that man only attains to the truth through reflection; this plainly is the principle.
But the determination and definition of God, the world of the manifold as it appears, is not yet revealed as necessarily proceeding from thought; for we have only reached the thought of a content which is given through ordinary conception, observation, and experience.
On the one hand we see a metaphysic, and, on the other, the particular sciences: on the one hand abstract thought as such, on the other its content taken from experience; these two lines in the abstract stand opposed to one another, and yet they do not separate themselves so sharply. We shall indeed come to an opposition, viz. to that between _a priori_ thought—that the determinations which are to hold good for thought must be taken from thought itself—and the determination that we must commence, conclude and think from experience. This is the opposition between rationalism and empiricism; but it is really a subordinate one, because even the metaphysical mode in philosophy, which only allows validity to immanent thought, does not take what is methodically developed from the necessity of thought, but in the old way derives its content from inward or outward experience, and through reflection and meditation renders it abstract. The form of philosophy which is first reached through thought is metaphysics, the form of the thinking understanding; this period has, as its outstanding figures, Descartes and Spinoza, likewise Malebranche and Locke, Leibnitz and Wolff. The second form is Scepticism and Criticism with regard to the thinking understanding, to metaphysics as such, and to the universal of empiricism; here we shall go on to speak of representatives of the Scottish, German, and French philosophies; the French materialists again turn back to metaphysics.
CHAPTER I THE METAPHYSICS OF THE UNDERSTANDING Metaphysics is what reaches after substance, and this implies that one unity, one thought is maintained in opposition to dualism, just as Being was amongst the ancients. In metaphysics itself we have, however, the opposition between substantiality and individuality. What comes first is the spontaneous, but likewise uncritical, metaphysics, and it is represented by Descartes and Spinoza, who assert the unity of Being and thought. The second stage is found in Locke, who treats of the opposition itself inasmuch as he considers the metaphysical Idea of experience, that is the origin of thoughts and their justification, not yet entering on the question of whether they are absolutely true. In the third place we have Leibnitz’s monad—the world viewed as a totality.
A. FIRST DIVISION.
We here encounter the innate ideas of Descartes. The philosophy of Spinoza, in the second place, is related to the philosophy of Descartes as its necessary development only; the method is an important part of it. A method which stands alongside of Spinozism and which is also a perfected development of Cartesianism, is, in the third place, that by which Malebranche has represented this philosophy.
1. DESCARTES.
René Descartes is a bold spirit who re-commenced the whole subject from the very beginning and constituted afresh the ground-work on which Philosophy is based, and to which, after a thousand years had passed, it once more returned. The extent of the influence which this man exercised upon his times and the culture of Philosophy generally, cannot be sufficiently expressed; it rests mainly in his setting aside all former presuppositions and beginning in a free, simple, and likewise popular way, with popular modes of thought and quite simple propositions, in his leading the content to thought and extension or Being, and so to speak setting up this before thought as its opposite. This simple thought appeared in the form of the determinate, clear understanding, and it cannot thus be called speculative thought or speculative reason. There are fixed determinations from which Descartes proceeds, but only of thought; this is the method of his time. What the French called exact science, science of the determinate understanding, made its appearance at this time. Philosophy and exact science were not yet separated, and it was only later on that this separation first took place.
To come to the life of Descartes—he was born in 1596, at La Haye in Touraine, of an ancient and noble race. He received an education of the usual kind in a Jesuit school, and made great progress; his disposition was lively and restless; he extended his insatiable zeal in all directions, pursued his researches into all systems and forms; his studies, in addition to ancient literature, embraced such subjects as philosophy, mathematics, chemistry, physics, and astronomy. But the studies of his youth in the Jesuit school, and those studies which he afterwards prosecuted with the same diligence and strenuous zeal, resulted in giving him a strong disinclination for learning derived from books; he quitted the school where he had been educated, and yet his eagerness for learning was only made the keener through this perplexity and unsatisfied yearning. He went as a young man of eighteen to Paris, and there lived in the great world. But as he here found no satisfaction, he soon left society and returned to his studies. He retired to a suburb of Paris and there occupied himself principally with mathematics, remaining quite concealed from all his former friends. At last, after the lapse of two years, he was discovered by them, drawn forth from his retirement, and again introduced to the great world. He now once more renounced the study of books and threw himself into the affairs of actual life. Thereafter he went to Holland and entered the military service; soon afterwards, in 1619, and in the first year of the Thirty Years’ War, he went as a volunteer with the Bavarian troops, and took part in several campaigns under Tilly. Many have found learning unsatisfying; Descartes became a soldier—not because he found in the sciences too little, but because they were too much, too high for him. Here in his winter quarters he studied diligently, and in Ulm, for instance, he made acquaintance with a citizen who was deeply versed in mathematics. He was able to carry out his studies even better in winter quarters at Neuberg on the Danube, where once more, and now most profoundly, the desire awoke in him to strike out a new departure in Philosophy and entirely reconstruct it; he solemnly promised the Mother of God to make a pilgrimage to Loretto if she would prosper him in this design, and if he should now at last come to himself and attain to peace. He was also in the battle at Prague in which Frederick the Elector-Palatine lost the Bohemian crown. Yet since the sight of these wild scenes could not satisfy him, he gave up military service in 1621. He made several other journeys through the rest of Germany, and then proceeded to Poland, Prussia, Switzerland, Italy and France. On account of its greater freedom he withdrew to Holland, in order there to pursue his projects; here he lived in peace from 1629 to 1644—a period in which he composed and issued most of his works, and also defended them against the manifold attacks from which they suffered, and which more especially proceeded from the clergy. Queen Christina of Sweden finally called him to her court at Stockholm, which was the rendezvous for all the most celebrated men of learning of the time, and there he died in 1650.[154] As regards his philosophic works, those which contain his first principles have in particular something very popular about their method of presentation, which makes them highly to be recommended to those commencing the study of philosophy. Descartes sets to work in a quite simple and childlike manner, with a narration of his reflections as they came to him. Professor Cousin of Paris has brought out a new edition of Descartes in eleven octavo volumes; the greater part consists of letters on natural phenomena. Descartes gave a new impetus to mathematics as well as to philosophy. Several important methods were discovered by him, upon which the most brilliant results in higher mathematics were afterwards built. His method is even now an essential in mathematics, for Descartes is the inventor of analytic geometry, and consequently the first to point out the way in this field of science to modern mathematics. He likewise cultivated physics, optics, and astronomy, and made the most important discoveries in these; we have not, however, to deal with such matters.
The application of metaphysics to ecclesiastical affairs, investigations, etc., has likewise no special interest for us.
1. In Philosophy Descartes struck out quite original lines; with him the new epoch in Philosophy begins, whereby it was permitted to culture to grasp in the form of universality the principle of its higher spirit in thought, just as Boehme grasped it in sensuous perceptions and forms.
Descartes started by saying that thought must necessarily commence from itself; all the philosophy which came before this, and specially what proceeded from the authority of the Church, was for ever after set aside.
But since here thought has properly speaking grasped itself as abstract understanding only, in relation to which the more concrete content still stands over on the other side, the determinate conceptions were not yet deduced from the understanding, but taken up only empirically. In Descartes’ philosophy we have thus to distinguish what has, and what has not universal interest for us: the former is the process of his thoughts themselves, and the latter the mode in which these thoughts are presented and deduced. Yet we must not consider the process as a method of consistent proof; it is indeed a deep and inward progress, but it comes to us in an ingenuous and naïve form. In order to do justice to Descartes’ thoughts it is necessary for us to be assured of the necessity for his appearance; the spirit of his philosophy is simply knowledge as the unity of Thought and Being. And yet on the whole there is little to say about his philosophy.
a. Descartes expresses the fact that we must begin from thought as such alone, by saying that we must doubt everything (_De omnibus dubitandum est_); and that is an absolute beginning. He thus makes the abolition of all determinations the first condition of Philosophy. This first proposition has not, however, the same signification as Scepticism, which sets before it no other aim than doubt itself, and requires that we should remain in this indecision of mind, an indecision wherein mind finds its freedom. It rather signifies that we should renounce all prepossessions—that is, all hypotheses which are accepted as true in their immediacy—and commence from thought, so that from it we should in the first place attain to some fixed and settled basis, and make a true beginning. In Scepticism this is not the case, for with the sceptics doubt is the end at which they rest.[155] But the doubting of Descartes, his making no hypotheses, because nothing is fixed or secure, does not occur in the interests of freedom as such, in order that nothing should have value except freedom itself, and nothing exist in the quality of an external objective. To him everything is unstable indeed, in so far as the Ego can abstract from it or can think, for pure thought is abstraction from everything. But in consciousness the end is predominant, and it is to arrive at something fixed and objective—and not the moment of subjectivity, or the fact of being set forth, known and proved by me.
Yet this last comes along with the other, for it is from the starting point of my thought that I would attain my object; the impulse of freedom is thus likewise fundamental.
In the propositions in which Descartes gives in his own way the ground of this great and most important principle, there is found a naïve and empirical system of reasoning. This is an example: “Because we were born as children, and formed all manner of judgments respecting sensuous things before we had the perfect use of our reason, we are through many preconceived ideas hindered from the knowledge of the truth. From these we appear not to be able to free ourselves in any other way but by once in our lives striving to doubt that respecting which we have the very slightest suspicion of an uncertainty. Indeed it is really desirable to hold as false everything in respect to which we have any doubt, so that we may find more clearly what is most certain and most knowable. Yet this doubt has to be limited to the contemplation of the truth, for in the conduct of our life we are compelled to choose the probable, since there the opportunity for action would often pass away before we could solve our doubts. But here, where we have only to deal with the search for truth, we may very reasonably doubt whether any thing sensuous and perceptible exists—in the first place because we find that the senses often deceive us and it is prudent not to trust in what has even once deceived us, and then because every day in dreaming we think we feel or see before ourselves innumerable things which never were, and to the doubter no signs are given by which he can safely distinguish sleeping from waking. We shall hereby likewise doubt everything else, even mathematical propositions, partly because we have seen that some err even in what we hold most certain, and ascribe value to what to us seems false, and partly because we have heard that a God exists who has created us, and who can do everything, so that He may have created us liable to err. But if we conceive ourselves not to derive our existence from God, but from some other source, perhaps from ourselves, we are all the more liable, in that we are thus imperfect, to err. But we have so far the experience of freedom within us that we can always refrain from what is not perfectly certain and well founded.”[156] The demand which rests at the basis of Descartes’ reasonings thus is that what is recognized as true should be able to maintain the position of having the thought therein at home with itself. The so-called immediate intuition and inward revelation, which in modern times is so highly regarded, has its place here. But because in the Cartesian form the principle of freedom as such is not brought into view, the grounds which are here advanced are for the most part popular.
b. Descartes sought something in itself certain and true, which should neither be only true like the object of faith without knowledge, nor the sensuous and also sceptical certainty which is without truth. The whole of Philosophy as it had been carried on up to this time was vitiated by the constant presupposition of something as true, and in some measure, as in the Neo-Platonic philosophy, by not giving the form of scientific knowledge to its matter, or by not separating its moments. But to Descartes nothing is true which does not possess an inward evidence in consciousness, or which reason does not recognize so clearly and conclusively that any doubt regarding it is absolutely impossible.
“Because we thus reject or declare to be false everything regarding which we can have any doubt at all, it is easy for us to suppose that there is no God, no heaven, no body—but we cannot therefore say that we do not exist, who think this. For it is contradictory to say that what thinks does not exist. Hence the knowledge that ‘I think, therefore I am,’ is what we arrive at first of all, and it is the most certain fact that offers itself to everyone who follows after philosophy in an orderly fashion. This is the best way of becoming acquainted with the nature of spirit and its diversity from body. For if we inquire who we are who can set forth as untrue everything which is different from ourselves, we clearly see that no extension, figure, change of position, nor any such thing which can be ascribed to body, constitutes our nature, but only