of ordinary thinking, and had no less an object in view than to extend the sphere thereof, and to pro duce new objects of their ordinary thinking by the power of their syllogisms.
Now, to this system ours is absolutely opposed in this very matter, that ours utterly denies the pos sibility of producing, by mere thinking, an object valid for life and for (material) science; and that ours permits nothing to pass for real ivliich is not grounded in an internal or external perception. And in this respect, that is, in so far as metaphysics are to be the system of some real knowledge pro duced by mere thinking, Kant and I utterly deny the possibility of a science of metaphysics. Kant boasts of having utterly eradicated metaphysics; and since as yet not one sensible and comprehensi ble word has been uttered to save that science, it doubtless has been annihilated for all times to come.
Our system is equally explicit in repudiating all extension of knowledge through mere thinking; and for its part merely proposes to exhaustively represent and comprehend that thinking. In thus thinking that ordinary and only real thinking, which it proposes to comprehend, our philosophical think ing signifies nothing, and has no content whatever; it is only the thinking, which is thought in it, which signifies and has content. Our philosophical think ing is merely the instrument wherewith we con struct our work. When the work is finished, the instrument is thrown aside as useless.
THE SCIENCE OF KNOWLEDGE. 343 We compose before the eyes of our spectators the model of a body from the models of its several parts. You interrupt us in the midst of our labors, and cry out: " Look at that skeleton! Is that a body?" No, my good people, it is not a body, nor is it intended to be one; it is merely to be a skele ton! It is simply because our teaching can be made comprehensible to others alone by thus join ing part to part, that we have undertaken the work. If you wait a little, we shall clothe this skeleton with veins, muscles, and skin.
Then, when we are done, you cry again: " Why don't you let your body move, speak, and its blood circulate? Why don't you let it live?" You are again in the wrong. We have never pretended to possess this power. Only nature gives life, not art. This we know very well, and believe our system favorably distinguished from other philosophies by knowing it If we shape any part otherwise than it is in nature, or if we add or leave out any part, then you have a right to complain. It is to this you must see, if you desire understandingly to applaud or reprove.
The living body, which we artistically recon struct, is common, real consciousness. The gradual composition of its parts are our deductions, which can only proceed step by step. Before the whole system is completed, all our work is but a part of it. Of course, the parts to which the last part is joined must already be completed, or there would be no method in our art; but it is not necessary 344 TJfE SCIENCE OF KNOWLEDGE.
that they should always be repeated, that we should put them into every book we write. We very pro perly presuppose a knowledge of those first parts from our former writings, for we can not say every thing at once. You have only to wait for what may follow after this our last part; unless, indeed, you know how to discover it yourself But even when we shall have completed our whole work, and thus shall have advanced it to a complete representation of all real and common thinking, (we have done this in many regions of consciousness — in law, morality, etc.;* but not yet in the region of religion,) it will still be, in the manner in which it occurs in our philosophy, not itself a real thinking, but simply a description and representation of real thinking.
All reality arises for us only through not-philoso phizing, that is, when either men have never ele vated themselves to philosophical abstraction, or when men have again suffered themselves to de scend from its height to the mechanism of life, and •vice versa, this reality vanishes necessarily as soon as men rise to pure speculation, because then they have torn themselves loose from that mechanism of thinking which reality is based upon. Now, life is object; and speculation is only the means. It is not even means to cultivate life, for speculation lies in an altogether different world, and life can only be * Fichte had already completed a science of rights and science of morality; a science of religion [Philosophy of Religion] he pur posely abstained from for years. — Translator's Note, THE SCIENCE OF KNOWLEDGE, 345 influenced by what arises from out of life..Specu lation is only means to know life.
That wherein we are bound up, or which we our selves are, can not be known. To know it, we must go beyond it, take up a stand-point outside of it This going beyond real life, this outside stand-point is speculation. Only in so far as these two stand points are possible, it is possible for man to know himself! You may live, and perhaps live very rationally, without speculating, for you can live without knowing life; but you can not know life without speculating.
In short: the duplicity which extends through out the whole system of reason, and which is grounded in the original duplicity of subject and object, is here seized in its highest form. Life is the totality of the objective rational being; and speculation is the totality of the subjective rational being. One is not possible without the other. Life, as an active surrendering to a mechanism, is not possible without the activity and freedom (other wise speculation) which surrenders itself; though the latter may not arise to the clear consciousness of every individual; and speculation is not possible without the life froin which it abstracts. Both life and speculation are determinable only through each other. Life is most properly not-p]iilf>sop]iizing; and philosophizing is most properly not-life. This is a complete antithesis, and a point of union is here quite as impossible as it is to point out the X, which is the ground of the subject-object of the THE SCIENCE OF KNOWLEDGE.
Ego. The only union is in the consciousnes of the true philosopher, that both stand-points do exist for him.
No proposition, therefore, of a philosophy which knows itself, is, in that form, ^proposition, for real life. It is either a step in the system, to proceed from it to other propositions; or, if it is the final proposition of speculation concerning some particu lar branch of knowledge, it is a proposition to which perception and sensation must first be add ed, as comprehended in it, in order to be fit for use in real life. Even the completed system of philo sophy can not give you sensation, nor replace it Sensation is the only true inner principle of life. Kant already has stated this often enough, and it is the innermost soul of his philosophy. Jacobi, quite independent of Kant, nay, believing himself at variance with Kant in this, has also stated it often enough. So has Mendelssohn. I also have said it often enough, and as energetically as possible, ever since the first statements of my system were made public.
My opponents can not, therefore, but have heard it; but they can not get accustomed to it. They may have gotten hold of it as a historical proposi tion, but not as a rule of their judgments; for in all their judgments they seem to have forgotten it They are the students of a philosophy which gets hold of new truths by reasonings; and hence, when ever they hear a philosophical proposition, they at THE SCIENCE OF KNOWLEDGE. 347 once look to see what new truth may have been reasoned out by it What, then, is the use of philosophy, and what need is there of all the subtle preparations of that science, when it is confessed that philosophy can say nothing new for life, nay, can not even cultivate and develop life; that philosophy is only a science of knowledge, not a school for wisdom?
It might be sufficient to say, it is at least a pos sible branch of mental culture which should be developed, even though it had no other use. Being possible, it should also be realized, for man should realize all the possibilities of reason.
But the chief use of philosophy, as has been fre quently stated, is negative and critical What is usually called world-wisdom labors not under the difficulty of containing too little, but too much. The just mentioned seasoned out truths of former metaphysics have been carried into that general culture and mode of thinking; whereas they ought to have been separated therefrom. Transcendental philosophers propose to separate all those reasoned out truths from general culture, and to bring back that culture to its truly human, and hence, neces sary and ineradicable basis. This was also all KANT proposed to do.
But indirectly, that is, in so far as its knowledge unites with the knowledge.. p£ lifer it has also a positive use. Philosophy is pedagogical in the widest significance of this word, for the immediate practical life. Because this science has to teach AA 348 THE SCIENCE OF KNOWLEDGE.
us to comprehend the whole man, it shows from the highest grounds how men should be cultured, in order to make permanent in them moral and religious sentiments, and gradually to universalize these sentiments.
For theoretical observation, for the knowledge of the sensuous world, that is to say, for natural sci ences, philosophy is regulative, showing what we must inquire of nature, and how we have to ques tion her. But its influence on the sentiments of mankind in general consists chiefly in this, that it brings power, courage, and self-confidence in man, by showing him that he and his whole fate depend solely upon himself, or by placing him on his own feet.
And thus a philosophy of religion is by no means the doctrine of religion, still less is it to replace religious sentiment; it is simply the theory of reli gion, and its object here is also both critical and pedagogical It proposes to abolish incomprehensi ble, useless,and confusing doctrines about God, which by those very qualities afford a target for irreligi- ousness. These it abolishes by showing that they are nothing, and that none of them fit the human mind. It likewise shows how in the human heart religiousness is generated and developed, and thus how mankind can be educated to be religious; not by means of philosophy, which does not influence life, but only teaches a knowledge of it, but by awak ening the true supersensual motive-powers of life.
The tendency of a philosophical system of reli- THE SCIENCE OF KNOWLEDGE. 349 gion can, therefore, not be correctly apprehended until it is completed, until it is an exhaustive pic ture of the whole sphere of human reason. Only then can it begin to be pedagogical I have begun a philosophy of religion* in the above meaning of the word, and in no other. But I have not completed that philosophy, having only laid down its basis. To thus complete it will now be my earnest labor, and I hope soon to be able to satisfy the public concerning it.
I said above: Transcendental philosophy proposes to systematically represent the real general know ledge, but it admits as valid only knowledge found ed upon perception — rejecting all knowledge pro duced by argumentation. The reality of its know ledge that philosophy, therefore, always derives from perception; but in so far as it must compre hend the necessity and show the deductions of this knowledge, it does not appeal to facts; for, if it did, it would cease to be transcendental philosophy.
Hence, that philosophy can never come into dis pute with common, natural consciousness, since it does not touch that consciousness at all, but moves in an utterly different world It is only at variance with a new philosophy which pretends to think out new facts; and hence, whatsoever transcendental philosophy may contradict, belongs, since it is not to be found in a system of universal reason, to that new philosophy.
* Alluding to the article: " Concerning the Ground of our Faith in a Divine World-Government" 3 SO THE SCIENCE OF KNOWLEDGE, Now, my philosophy of religion is at variance •with that new philosophy, partly concerning the origin of religion, which the former holds to be in a sentiment, the latter to be produced by argument; partly concerning the extent and content of reli gion, which the latter holds to consist of know ledges and doctrines, whilst I hold no such thing.
A great portion of our tJuology is such very phi losophy, and a great portion of our religious educa tional books (catechisms, hymn-books, etc) is theology. Hence, I am in conflict with these books, as far as they are theology — not so far as they are religion; in other words, so far as their theoretical content is concerned; the deduction whereof those books happily rarely attempt. My philosophy of religion can, therefore, also enter into no conflict with the religious feelings of man in common life, occupying, as it does, an utterly different sphere. Still, the pedagogical results of my philosophy might lead to such a conflict; but in that case they must first appear, and as yet they have not been estab lished by me.
It is, therefore, absolutely irrational to judge of my system as a system of world-wisdom, and to attack it with world-wisdom. And yet most of my opponents have done this.
Amongst this may be classified all that has been said concerning a Fichteian God, a Jacobian God, a Spinoza God, etc, Fichte, Jacobi, and Spinoza are something different from their philosophy. The philosopher has no God at all, and can have none; THE SCIENCE OP KNOWLEDGE. 3$ I he can only have a conception of the conception or of the idea of God. God and religion are only in life; but the philosopher as such is not the whole complete man> but is man in a condition of abstrac tion; and it is impossible that any one should be only philosopher. Whatsoever is posited through reason is absolutely the same for all rational beings. Religion and belief in God is thus posited through reason, and hence is posited in the same manner for all rational beings. In this respect there are absolutely no many religions, no many Gods; but there is simply one God. Only that in the concep tion of God, which all must admit and agree to, is the true; but that in their conception of God, (not the conception of the conception of God,) respect ing which they disagree, is necessarily false. All are wrong in regard to those points, for the very reason that the points can be disputed. That which can thus be controverted has been derived through argumentation by a false philosophy, or has been memorized from a catechism based on a false phi losophy. True religiousness says nothing about it Amongst this may also be classified the attempt to oppose my philosophy to Christianity, and to refute the one by the other. True, it has hereto fore always been customary for the philosopher to make Christianity harmonize with his philosophy, and for the Christian to make his faith agree with his philosophical thinking; but this only proves that the men who undertook to do this knew neither philosophy nor Christianity. Our philosophy does 352 THE SCIENCE OF KNOWLEDGE.
not dream of such a thing. Christianity is wisdom of life, is popular philosophy in the true and highest sense of the word; and can not be any thing else without losing its rank and sinking down into the sphere of argumentation, and thereby admitting the validity of demonstration, and hence exposing itself to the dispute of philosophical systems. With Christianity as such original wisdom of life, our philosophy can not enter into a conflict; for our philosophy is only theory of that wisdom. Only the results of our philosophy might come into con flict -with the results of Christianity; but let me ask, where are these results, and, I might add, where is true Christianity? Has it not in all cases, where it reaches us, passed through the crucible of that argumentative understanding?
Again, it is charged that, according to my system, God is not to be the Creator and Governor of the world, that my system discards a divine Providence! Why, you dear, good unphilosophers! For you the whole distinction, the whole opposition whereby one philosophical system asserts this and another denies it, does not at all exist. If you are really good and religious, continue to take it in the sense in which it is true. I was not addressing you at all, but was speaking to philosophers, who may be as sumed to know that distinction, and who yet take those dogmas in the sense in which they are not true. I only wanted to contradict them; and they, at least, ought to have understood me. Wait yet awhile, and I shall get to the other side, and show the THE SCIENCE OF KNOWLEDGE. 353 purely religious significance of these doctrines. And then I shall show that you are correct, and that I never was quarreling with you.
In short: my philosophy of religion can only be judged, disputed, or confirmed from a transcenden tal point of view. Let that reader who does not even yet know what the transcendental point of view is be convinced, at least, that he ought not to take part in the dispute.
Most assuredly is religion a proper concern for all men, and every one may properly speak and argue about it It is the destination of man to come to an agreement on this, the final object of reason. But a philosophy of religion is not reli gion, and is not written for all men, and for the criticisms of all men. Religion itself is living and powerful; the theory of religion is dead in itsel£ Religion fills us with feelings and sentiments; the theory of religion only speaks of them; it neither destroys them nor seeks to create new ones.
The true seat of the misunderstanding of my philosophy, and of its controversy with opposite doctrines, which are more or less conscious of this opposition, is concerning the relation of cognition to actual life. The opposite systems make cogni tion the principle of life; and believe that by a free, arbitrary thinking they can generate certain know ledges and conceptions, and implant them in men by argumentation, by which conceptions they be lieve feelings may be produced, desires excited, and thus the activity of man determined. Hence, 354 THE SCIENCE. OF KNOWLEDGE.
they hold cognition to be the higher, and life the lower, utterly dependent upon cognition. But my phDosophy holds precisely the reverse. It makes life, the system of feelings and of desire, the high est, and allows to cognition only a looking on of their working. This system of feelings is through out determined in consciousness, and involves an immediate cognition, not derived from conclusions or from a free argumentation. Only this immediate cognition has reality, and is, therefore, alone the moving principle of life, being itself generated in life. Hence, when the reality of a cognition is to be proven through philosophy or through argumen tation, a feeling must first be shown up — I shall call it feeling for the present, until I more definitely account for the use of this word — with which this cognition immediately connects. Free argumenta tion can only penetrate and sift the contents of this feeling, separate and connect the manifold of it, and thus facilitate the use of it, and bring it under the power of consciousness; but argumentation can not increase that content, ran not extend or change its sphere. Our cognition is given us at once, for all eternity; and hence we can in all eter nity only develop it as it is. Only the immediate is true; the mediated is only true in so far as it is grounded in the immediate; beyond it lies the sphere of chimeras and dreams.
Now, one of the latest defenders of that opposite system, Mr. Eberhard, asks me: " Are not moral feelings dependent upon the culture of reason?"
THE SCIENCE OF KNOWLEDGE, 355 As if there were but oiu answer to his question, and as if I could not but admit it! It would need more space than I can spare now to show up all the errors which are involved in that simple and plau sibly sounding sentence. But let me ask: What does it mean to make feelings dependent upon the culture of reason? It means that you want to pro duce the above immediate through argumentation, to force upon others and yourself through syllo gisms what neither you nor the others originally feel or possess. Well, try and make yourself and others weep and laugh through syllogisms as much as you please.
I, therefore, reply to his question, and adopt ing his meaning of the word "reason," by no means! That reason of which you speak is theo retical reason, is the power of cognition! But this reason says only that and how something be; but says nothing of an activity, and of a sJiall, which determines that activity. (Nothing of a conscience which tells you: You sliall do this or that! — TRANS LATOR.)
Mr. E. proceeds: "Why are moral feelings coarse in the uncultured man, and in the cultured and educated man correct, fine, and extensive? Is it not because the former is empty of conceptions, and the latter rich in correct, clear, and effective conceptions?"
Tell me, what does this mean — coarse* feelings? Mr. E. will please pardon me. But according to * Original: Rau, (raw.)
35<> THE SCIENCE OF KNOWLEDGE.
my conceptions of feeling, the adjective coarse can not be applied to feeling in any manner; and until I have the connection explained, I can not well dis cuss this part of the subject " They are correct in the cultured man!" Here I can at least suppose what Mr. E. means. The judg ment concerning an object of morality may be cor rect or incorrect, but by no means the moral feeling itself, which as a feeling is an absolute simple, and expresses no relation whatever. But what, then, is the criterion of the correctness of a judgment? Perhaps a logical criterion, derived from former premises? It may be that Mr. E. so conceives it. But what, then, is the original premise? Also a logical one? I have not time here to point out all the absurdities.
His feeling is, moreover, " fine," Now, in popu lar language, one may well say of a man: His moral tact is fine, that is, he has acquired a facility of quickly and correctly judging moral matters; but it can never be used as signifying: The original and true moral feeling (which, being absolute, can not be increased nor diminished, and which only says, this shall be, or this shall not be!) may be raised to a higher degree of perfection. But this facility of judgment, is it acquired from life or from idle speculation, and is its criterion a theoretical principle, discovered through argumentation? I suppose Mr. E. will say yes; but I do not say yes, from reasons which every one will find in my Science of Morality.
THE SCIENCE OF KNOWLEDGE. 357 Feeling is, moreover, to be extensive. Now, moral feeling extends to all men equally, and is directed upon all objects of free activity. The man of theoretical culture — for we only speak of such a culture, and not of practical culture through the cultivation of virtue — differs in this respect from the uncultured man only in the extent of his sphere of action, but not as such, not in intensity of moral feeling or strength of moral will, unless, indeed, Mr. E. should prove that theoretical culture can pro duce and increase moral will It is true this would be the result of his premises, but we hesitate to hold hira responsible for such an assertion, until he confesses it expressly.
Mr. E. proceeds: " Why have the horrors of su perstition disfigured the doctrine of morality?" If he really means what he says, his question implies: Why do wrong conclusions follow from wrong pre mises? But if he means to say: Why have those horrors disfigured morality? then I ask him again: Why has superstition darkened and sullied the con ception of God, which sullied conception could not but influence moral judgment, not morality itself? And I answer: Undoubtedly by virtue of a false theoretical argument concerning that conception of God!
Hence, if a weak-minded, superstitious, religious fanatic should assist in burning a heretic, and ap peal to his moral feelings for justification, ought we not to restore those moral feelings, or those original conceptions, and free them from the wrong 358 THE SCIENCE OF KNOWLEDGE.
direction given to them by false argumentation? Moral feeling (conscience) is correct, and can never be otherwise than correct, if not led astray by ar gumentation. Or does Mr. E. seriously mean to say that there is a variety of moral feelings for dif ferent individuals, and that amongst these there is, for instance, one which incites to the burning of heretics?
Now, what is that feeling upon which our faith in a Divinity is grounded and shown up as real?
Let me first make a distinction of the word feel ing. Feeling is either sensuous — feeling of a bitter, red, hard, cold, etc. — or it is intellectual, Mr. E., and all the philosophers of his school, seem utterly to ignore the latter class, and to be unaware that without the latter class consciousness can not be made comprehensible.
Now, in these pages I am not speaking of sen suous, but of intellectual feeling. It is the imme diate feeling of the certainty and necessity of a thinking. Truth is certainty. Now, how do the philosophers of the opposite school believe, to know that they are certain in a particular case? By the general, theoretical insight that their thinking agrees with the laws of logic? But this theoreti cal insight is itself only a certainty of a higher de gree; how can they be certain that they do not err in their certainty of that agreeing? By another still higher theoretical insight? But whence do they get that? And so on ad infinitum. It is just as impossible to obtain certainty in this manner, as it TJtF SCIENCE OF KNOWLEDGE, 359 is impossible to explain the feeling of certainty. Moreover, is that certainty an objective or a sub jective condition? And how can I perceive such a condition except through an absolutely primary immediate feeling?
But what is this feeling? It is clear that this feeling only accompanies my thinking, and does not enter without a thinking and without a particular content of that thinking. How could it have, in deed, such a content or a truth in itself?
It is, therefore, evident that, if the feeling of cer tainty is inseparable from a thinking and from the content thereof, and if this thinking contains in itself the condition of all mediated certainty or rationality, all men must agree as to this feeling. It is to be presupposed in every human being, though you might, perhaps, only make a person conscious of it, and not make him acknowledge it theoretically; as, indeed, is impossible, seeing that it is an immediate.
This feeling is, therefore, not only intellectual feeling in general, but it is the first and most ori ginal intellectual feeling and ground of all certainty, of all reality, and of all objectivity.
It accompanies the thinking, that in the realiza tion of the absolute object proposed for us by our moral nature, namely, absolute self-determination of reason, there is a steady progress possible; and that the condition of this progress is the absolute fulfillment of our duty in every position of life, solely for duty's sake. (The absolute obedience to 360 THE SCIENCE OF KNOWLEDGE.
the voice of conscience, or to the voice of absolute reason, or to the voice of God. — TRANSLATOR.) And this feeling of certainty accompanies such thinking necessarily, being itself an integral part of that object proposed for us; it is, moreover, inse parable from the consciousness that we must pro pose that object to ourselves; in fact, it is in truth only the immediate expression of this conscious ness.