But I have a presentiment. Sensations, as affections of myself, have no extension whatever, but are simple states; in their differences they are not contiguous to 424 THE VOCATION OF MAN.
each other in space, but successive to each other in time. Nevertheless, I do extend them in space. May it not be by means of this extension, and simultaneously with it, that what is properly only my own feeling or sensation becomes changed for me into a perceptible something out of myself; and may not this be the precise point at which there arises within me a con sciousness of the external object?
Spirit. This conjecture may be confirmed. But could we raise it immediately to a conviction, we should thereby attain to no complete insight, for this higher question would still remain to be answered, — How dost thou first come to extend sensation through space? Let us then proceed at once to this question; and let us propound it more generally — I have my reasons for doing so — in the following manner: — How is it, that, with thy consciousness, which is but an immediate consciousness of thyself, thou proceedest out of thyself; and to the sensation which thou dost perceive, super- addest an object perceived and perceptible, which yet thou dost not perceive?
/. Sweet or bitter, fragrant or ill-scented, rough or smooth, cold or warm, — these qualities, when ap plied to things, signify whatever excites in me this or that taste, smell, or other sensation. It is the same with respect to sounds. A relation to myself is al ways indicated, and it never occurs to me that the sweet or bitter taste, the pleasant or unpleasant smell, lies in the thing itself; — it lies in me, and it only appears to be excited by the object. It seems indeed to be otherwise with the sensations of sight. — with BOOK II. KNOWLEDGE. 425 colours, for example, which may not be pure sensa tions, but a sort of intermediate affections; yet when we consider it strictly, red, and the others, means nothing more than what produces in me a certain sensation of sight. This leads me to understand how it is that I attain to a knowledge of things out of myself. I am affected in a particular manner — this I know absolutely; — this affection must have a founda tion; this foundation is not in myself, and therefore must be out of myself; — thus I reason rapidly and unconsciously, and forthwith assume the existence of such a foundation, — namely, the object. This founda tion must be one by which the particular affection in question may be explained; — I am affected in the manner which I call a sweet taste, the object must therefore be of a kind to excite a sweet taste, or more briefly, must itself be sweet. In this way I determine the character of the object.
Spirit. There may be some truth in what thou say- est, although it is not the whole truth which might be said upon the subject. How this stands we shall undoubtedly discover in due time. Since, however, it cannot be denied that in other cases thou dost discover some truth by means of this principle of causality, — so I term the doctrine which thou hast just asserted, that everything (in this case thy affection) must have a foundation or cause, — since this, I say, cannot be denied, it may not be superfluous to learn strictly to understand this procedure, and to make it perfectly clear to ourselves what it is thou really dost when thou adoptest it. Let us suppose, in the meantime, that thy statement is perfectly correct, that it is by an un conscious act of reasoning, from the effect to the cause, * p p 426 THE VOCATION OF MAN.
that thou first comest to assume the existence of an outward object; — what then was it which thou wert here conscious of perceiving?
/. That I was affected in a certain manner.
Spirit. But of an object, affecting thee in a certain manner, thou wert not conscious, at least not as a perception?
/. By no means. I have already admitted this.
Spirit. Then, by the principle of causality, thou addest to a knowledge which thou hast, another which thou hast not?
/. Thy words are strange.
Spirit. Perhaps I may succeed in removing this strangeness. But let my words appear to thee as they may. They ought only to lead thee to produce in thine own mind the same thought that I have produced in mine; not serve thee as a text-book which thou hast only to repeat. Once thou hast the thought itself firmly and clearly in thy grasp, then express it as thou wilt, and with as much variety as thou wilt, and be sure that thou wilt always express it well.
How, and by what means, knowest thou of this affection of thyself?
/. It would be difficult to answer thee in words: — Because my consciousness, as a subjective attribute, as the determination of my being in so far as I am an intelligence, proceeds directly upon the existence of this affection as its object, as that of which I am con scious, and is inseparably united with it; — because I am only possessed of consciousness at all in so far as I am cognisant of such an affection; — cognisant of it absolutely as I am cognisant of my own existence.
Spirit. Thou hast therefore an organ, namely, con- BOOK II. KNOWLEDGE. 427 sciousness itself, whereby thou perceivest such an affec tion of thyself?
/. Yes.
Spirit. But an organ whereby thou perceivest the object itself thou hast not?
/. Since thou hast convinced me that I neither see nor feel the object itself, nor apprehend it by any ex ternal sense, I find myself compelled to confess that I have no such organ.
Spirit. Bethink thee well of this. It may be turned against thee that thou hast made me this admission. What then is an external sense at all, and how canst thou call it external, if it have no reference to any external object, and be not the organ whereby thou hast any knowledge of such?
/. I desire truth, and trouble myself Little about what may be turned against me. I distinguish abso lutely because I do distinguish them, green, sweet, red, smooth, bitter, fragrant, rough, ill-scented, the sound of a violin and of a trumpet. Among these sensations I place some in a certain relation of likeness to each other, although in other respects I distinguish them from each other; thus I find green and red, sweet and bitter, rough and smooth, &c., to have a certain relation of similarity to each other, and this similarity I feel to be respectively one of sight, taste, touch, &c. Sight, taste, and so forth, are not indeed in themselves actual sensations, for I never see or feel absolutely, as thou hast previously remarked, but always see red or green, taste sweet or bitter, &c. Sight, taste, and the like, are only higher definitions of actual sensations; they are classes to which I refer these latter, not by arbitrary arrangement, but guided by the immediate 428 THE VOCATION OF MAN.
sensation itself. I see in them therefore not external senses, but only particular definitions of the objects of the inward sense, of my own states or affections. How they become external senses, or, more strictly speaking, how I come to regard them as such and so to name them, is now the question. I do not take back my admission that I have no organ for the object itself.
Spirit. Yet thou speakest of objects as if thou didst really know of their existence, and hadst an organ for such knowledge?
I. Yes.
Spirit. And this thou dost, according to thy.pre vious assumption, in consequence of the knowledge which thou really dost possess, and for which thou hast an organ, and on account of this knowledge?
/. It is so.
Spirit. Thy real knowledge, that of thy sensations or affections, is to thee like an imperfect knowledge, which, as thou sayest, requires to be completed by an other. This other new knowledge thou conceivest and describest to thyself, — not as something which thou hast, for thou hast it not, — but as something which thou shouldst have, over and above thy actual know ledge, if thou hadst an organ wherewith to apprehend it. " I know nothing indeed," thou seemest to say, " of things in themselves, but such things there must be; if I could but find them, they are to be found." Thou supposest another organ, which indeed is not thine, and this thou employest upon them, and thereby ap- prehendest them, — of course in thought only. Strictly speaking, thou hast no consciousness of things, but only a consciousness (produced by a procession out of BOOK II. KNOWLEDGE. 429 thy actual consciousness by means of the principle of causality) of a consciousness of things (such as ought to be, such as of necessity must be, although not accessible to thee); and now thou wilt perceive that, in the sup position thou hast made, thou hast added to a know ledge which thou hast, another which thou hast not.
/. I must admit this.
Spirit. Henceforward let us call this second know ledge, obtained by means of another, mediate, and the first immediate knowledge. A certain school has called this procedure which we have to some extent described above, a synthesis; by which we are to un derstand not a con-nexion established between two ele ments previously existing, but an an-nexion, and an addition of a wholly new element arising through this an-nexion, to another element previously existing in dependently of such addition.
Thus thou findest the first consciousness as soon as thou findest thy own existence, and thou dost not find the latter without the former; the second consciousness is produced in thee by means of the first.
/. But not successive to it in time; for I am con scious of external things at the very same undivided moment in which I become conscious of myself.
Spirit. I did not speak of such a succession in time at all; but I think that when thou reflectest upon that undivided consciousness of thyself and of the external object, distinguishest between them, and inquirest into their connexion, thou dost find that the latter can only be conceived of as conditioned by the former, and p p 2 430 THE VOCATION OF MAN.
as only possible on the supposition of its existence; but not vice versa.
I. So I find it to be; and if that be all thou wouldst say, I admit thy assertion, and have already admitted it.
Spirit. Thou engenderest, I say, this second con sciousness; producest it by a real act of thy mind. Or dost thou find it otherwise?
/. I have surely admitted this already. I add to the consciousness which is simultaneous with that of my existence, another which I do not find in myself; I thus complete and double my actual consciousness, and this is certainly an act. But I am tempted to take back either my admission, or else the whole sup position. I am perfectly conscious of the act of my mind when I form a general conception, or when in cases of doubt I choose one of the many possible modes of action which lie before me; but of the act through which, according to thy assertion, I must produce the representation of an object out of myself, I am not conscious at all.
Spirit. Do not be deceived. Of the act of thy mind thou canst become conscious only in so far as thou dost pass through a state of indetermination and indecision, of which thou wert likewise conscious, and to which this act puts an end. There is no such state of inde cision in the case we have supposed; the mind has no need to deliberate what object it shall superadd to its particular sensations, — it is done at once. We even find this distinction in philosophical phraseology. An act of the mind, of which we are conscious as such, is called freedom. An act, without consciousness of action, is called spontaneity. Remember that I by no BOOK II. KNOWLEDGE. 431 means demand of tbee an immediate consciousness of the act as such, but only that on subsequent reflection thou shouldst discover that there must have been an act. The higher question, what it is that prevents any such state of indecision, or any consciousness of our act, will undoubtedly be afterwards solved.
This act of the mind is called thought; a word which I have hitherto employed with thy concurrence; and it is said that thought takes place with spontaneity, in opposition to sensation which is mere receptivity. How is it then, that, in thy previous statement, thou addcst in thought to the sensation which thou certainly hast, an object of which thou knowest nothing?
/. I assume that my sensation must have a cause, and then proceed further, — Spirit. Wilt thou not, in the first place, explain to me what is a cause?
/. I find a thing determined this way or that. I cannot rest satisfied with knowing that so it is; — it has become so, and that not by itself, but by means of a foreign power. This foreign power, that made it what it is, contains the cause, and the manifestation of that power, which did actually make it so, is the cause of this particular determination of the thing. That my sensation must have a cause, means that it is pro duced within me by a foreign power.
Spirit. This foreign power thou now addest in thought to the sensation of which thou art immediately conscious, and thus there arises in thee the presenta tion of an object? Well, — let it be so.
Now observe; if sensation must have a cause, then I admit the correctness of thy inference; and I see with what perfect right thou assumest the existence of 432 THE VOCATION OF MAN.
objects out of thyself, notwithstanding that thou neither knowest nor canst know aught of them. But how then dost thou know, and how dost thou propose to prove, that sensation must have a cause? Or, in the general manner in which thou hast stated the proposition, why canst thou not rest satisfied to know that something is? why must thou assume that it has become so, or that it has become so by means of a foreign power? I remark that thou hast always only assumed this.
/. I confess it. But I cannot do otherwise than think so. It seems as if I knew it immediately.
Spirit. What this answer, " thou knowest it im mediately," may signify, we shall see should we be brought back to it as the only possible one. We will however first try all other possible methods of ascer taining the grounds of the assertion that everything must have a cause.
Dost thou know this by immediate perception?
/. How could I? since perception only declares that in me something is, according as my nature is deter mined; but never that it has become so; still less that it has become so by means of a foreign power lying beyond ah1 perception.
Spirit. Or dost thou obtain this principle by gene ralisation of thy observation of external things, the cause of which thou hast always discovered out of themselves; an observation which thou now appliest to thyself and to thine own condition?
7. Do not treat me like a child, and ascribe to me palpable absurdities. By the principle of causality I first arrive at a knowledge of things out of myself; how then can I again, by observation of these things, arrive at this principle itself. Shah1 the earth rest on BOOK II. KNOWLEDGE. 433 the great elephant, and the great elephant again upon the earth?
Spirit. Or is this principle a deduction from some other general truth?
/. Which again could be founded neither on im mediate perception, nor in the observation of external things, and concerning the origin of which thou wouldst still raise other questions! I might only possess this previous fundamental truth by immediate knowledge. Better to say this at once of the principle of causality, and let thy conjectures rest.
Spirit. Let it be so; — we then obtain, besides the first immediate knowledge, through sensible perception, of our own states, a second immediate knowledge con cerning a general truth?
/. So it appears.
Spirit. The particular knowledge now in question, namely, that thy affections or states must have a cause, is entirely independent of the knowledge of things?
/. Certainly, for the latter is obtained only by means of it.
Spirit. And thou hast it absolutely in thyself?
/. Absolutely, for only by means of it do I first proceed out of myself.
Spirit. Out of thyself therefore, and through thy self, and through thine own immediate knowledge, thou prescribest laws to being and its relations?
/. Rightly considered, I prescribe laws only to my own presentations of being and its relations, and it will be more correct to make use of this expression.
Spirit. Be it so. Art thou then conscious of these laws in any other way than as thou dost act in ac cordance with them?
434 THE VOCATION OF MAN.
/. My consciousness begins with the perception of my own state; I connect directly therewith the presenta tion of an object according to the principle of causality; — both of these, the consciousness of my own state, and the presentation of an object, are inseparably united, there is no intervening consciousness between them, and this one undivided consciousness is preceded by no other. No, it is impossible that I should be conscious of this law before acting in accordance with it, or in any other way than by so acting.
Spirit. Thou actest upon this law therefore without being conscious of it; thou actest upon it immediately and absolutely. Yet thou didst but now declare thyself conscious of it, and didst express it as a general propo sition. How hast thou arrived at this latter conscious ness?
7. Doubtless thus. I observe myself subsequently, and perceive that I have thus acted, and comprehend this ordinary course of procedure in a general law.
Spirit. Thou canst therefore become conscious of this course of procedure?
/. Unquestionably. — I guess the object of these ques tions. This is the above-mentioned second kind of immediate consciousness, that of my activity; as the first is sensation, or the consciousness of my passivity.
Spirit. Right. Thou rnayest subsequently become conscious of thine own acts, by free observation of thyself and by reflection; but it is not necessary that thou shouldst become so; — thou dost not become im mediately conscious of them at the moment of thy internal act.
I. Yet I must be originally conscious of them, for I am immediately conscious of my presentation of the BOOK II. KNOWLEDGE. 435 object at the same moment that I am conscious of the sensation. — I have found the solution; I am imme diately conscious of my act, only not as such; but it moves before me as an objective reality. This con sciousness is a consciousness of the object. Subse quently by free reflection I may also become conscious of it as an act of my own mind.
My immediate consciousness is composed of two ele ments: — the consciousness of my passivity, i. e. sensa tion, and of my activity in the production of an object according to the law of causality; the latter conscious ness connecting itself immediately with the former. My consciousness of the object is only a yet unrecog nised consciousness of my production of a presentation of an object. I am only cognisant of this production because I myself am the producer. And thus all con sciousness is immediate, is but a consciousness of my self, and therefore perfectly comprehensible. Am I in the right?
Spirit. Perfectly so; but whence then the necessity and universality thou hast ascribed to thy principles; — in this case to the principle of causality?
/. From the immediate feeling that I cannot act otherwise, as surely as I have reason; and that no other reasonable being can act otherwise, as surely as it is a reasonable being. My proposition, — " All that is contingent, such as in this case my sensation, must have a cause," — means the following: " / have at all times pre-supposed a cause, and every one who thinks will likewise be constrained to pre-suppose a cause."
Spirit. Thou perceivest then that all knowledge is merely a knowledge of thyself; that thy consciousness never goes beyond thyself; and that what thou as- 436 THE VOCATION OF MAN.
sumest to be a consciousness of the object is nothing but a consciousness of thine own supposition of an object, which, according to an inward law of thought, thou dost necessarily make simultaneously with the sensation itself.
7. Proceed boldly with thy inferences; — I have not interrupted thee, I have even helped thee in the de velopment of these conclusions. But now, seriously, I retract my whole previous position, that by means of the principle of causality I arrive at the knowledge of external things; and I did indeed inwardly retract it as soon as it led us into serious error.
In this way I could become conscious only of a mere power out of myself, and of this only as a conception of' my own mind, just as for the explanation of mag netic phenomena, I suppose a magnetic — or for the explanation of electrical phenomena, an electrical — power in Nature.
The world to me does not appear such a mere thought, — the thought of a mere power. It is some thing extended, something which is thoroughly tangi ble, not, like a mere power, through its manifestations, but in itself; — it does not, like this, merely produce, it has qualities; — I am inwardly conscious of my ap prehension of it, in a manner quite different from my consciousness of mere thought; — it appears to me as perception, although it has been proved that it cannot be such; and it would be difficult for me to describe this kind of consciousness, and to distinguish it from the other kinds of which we have spoken.
Spirit. Thou must nevertheless attempt such a de- BOOK II. KNOWLEDGE. 437 scription, otherwise I shall not understand thee, and we shall never arrive at clearness.
I. I will attempt to open a way towards it. I be seech thee, O Spirit! if thy organ of sight be like mine, to fix thine eye on the red object before us, to surrender thyself unreservedly to the impression pro duced by it, and to forget meanwhile thy previous con clusions; — and now tell me candidly what takes place in thy mind.
Spirit. I can completely place myself in thy posi tion; and it is no purpose of mine to disown any impression which has an actual existence. But tell me, what is the effect you anticipate?
I. Dost thou not perceive and apprehend at a single glance, the surface? — I say the surface, — does it not stand there present before thee, entire and at once? — art thou conscious, even in the most distant and obscure way, of this extension of a simple red point to a line, and of this line to a surface, of which thou hast spoken? It is an after-thought to divide this surface, and con ceive of its points and lines. Wouldst thou not, and would not every one who impartially observes himself, maintain and insist, notwithstanding thy former con clusions, that he really saw a surface of such or such a colour?
Spirit. I admit all this; and on examining myself, I find that it is exactly so as thou hast described.
But, in the first place, hast thou forgotten that it is not our object to relate to each other what presents itself in consciousness, as in a journal of the human mind, but to consider its various phenomena in their connexion, and to explain them by, and deduce them 438 THE VOCATION OF MAN.
from, each other; and that consequently none of thine observations, which certainly cannot be denied, but which must be explained, can overturn any one of my just conclusions.
/. I shall never lose sight of this.
Spirit. Then do not, in the remarkable resemblance of this consciousness of bodies out of thyself, which yet thou canst not describe, to real perception, overlook the great difference nevertheless existing between them.
7. I was about to mention this difference. Each indeed appears as an immediate, not as an acquired or produced consciousness. But sensation is conscious ness of my own state. Not so the consciousness of the object itself, which has absolutely no reference to me. I know that it is, and this is all; it does not concern me. If, in the first case, I seem like a soft strain of music which is modulated now in this way now in that, in the other, I appear like a mirror before which objects pass by without causing the slightest change in it.
This distinction however is in my favour. Just so much the more do I seem to have a distinct conscious ness of an existence out of myself entirely independent of the sense of my own state of being; — of an existence out of myself, I say — for this differs altogether in kind from the consciousness of my own internal states.
Spirit. Thou observest well; — but do not rush too hastily to a conclusion. If that whereon we have al ready agreed remain true, and thou canst be imme diately conscious of thyself only; if the consciousness now in question be not a consciousness of thine own passivity, and still less a consciousness of thine own activity; — may it not then be an unrecognised con- BOOK II. KNOWLEDGE. 439 sciousness of thine own being? — of thy being in so far as thou art a knowing being, — an Intelligence?
/. I do not understand thee; but help me once more, for I wished to understand thee.
Spirit. I must then demand thy whole attention, for I am here compelled to go deeper, and expatiate more widely, than ever. What art thou?
/. To answer thy question in the most general way, — I am I, myself.
Spirit. I am well satisfied with this answer. What dost thou mean when thou sayest " I "; — what lies in this conception, — and how dost thou attain it?
/. On this point I can only make myself understood by contrast. External existence — the thing, is some thing out of me, the cognitive being. In my own case. I am myself this cognitive being, one with the object of my cognition. As to my consciousness of the for mer, there arises the question, — Since the thing cannot know itself, how can a knowledge of it arise? — how can a consciousness of the thing arise in me, since I myself am not the thing, nor any of its modes or forms, and all these modes and forms lie within the circle of its own being, and by no means in mine?- How does the thing reach me? AVhat is the tie be tween me, the subject, and the thing which is the object of my knowledge? But as to my consciousness of myself, there can be no such question. In this case, I have my knowledge within myself, for I am intelli gence. What I am, I know because I am it; and that whereof I know immediately that I am it, that I am because I immediately know it. There is here no need of any tie between subject and object; my own na ture is this tie. I am subject and object: — and this 440 THE VOCATION OF MAN.
subject-object-ivity, this return of knowledge upon itself, is what I mean by the term " I, " when I deliberately attach a definite meaning to it.
Spirit. Thus it is in the identity of subject and object that thy nature as an intelligence consists?
I. Yes.
Spirit. Canst thou then comprehend the possibility of thy becoming conscious of this identity, which is neither subject nor object, but which lies at the foun dation of both, and out of which both arise?
7. By no means. It is the condition of all my con sciousness, that the conscious being, and what he is conscious of, appear distinct and separate. I cannot even conceive of any other consciousness. In the very act of recognising myself, I recognise myself as subject and object, both however being immediately bound up with each other.
Spirit. Canst thou become conscious of the moment in which this incomprehensible one separated itself into these two?
/. How can I, since my consciousness first becomes possible in and through their separation, — since it is my consciousness itself that thus separates them? Be yond consciousness itself there is no consciousness.