mine the second case also. In this case there can be nothing more in the immediate perception than what belongs to sensation, — that whereby thou thyself, and here in particular thy hand, is conceived of as the sub- ject tasting in the act of taste, feeling in the act of touch. Now, either thy sensation is single; in which case I cannot see why thou shouldst extend this single sensation over a sentient surface, and not content thy- self with a single sentient point; — or thy sensation is varied; and in this case, since the differences must succeed each other, I again do not see why thou shouldst not conceive of these feelings as succeeding each other in the same point. That thy hand should appear to thee as a surface, is just as inexplicable as thy notion of a surface in general. Do not make use of the first in order to explain the second, until thou hast explained the first itself. The second case, in wihich thy hand, or whatever other member of thy body thou wilt, is itself the object of a sensation, may easily be explained by means of the first. Thou perceivest this member by means of another, which is then the sentient one. I ask the same question concerning this latter member that I asked concerning thy hand, and thou art as little able to answer it as before.
So it is with the surface of thy eyes, and with every other surface of thy body. It may very well be that the consciousness of an extension out of thyself, pro- ceeds from the consciousness of thine own extension as a material body, and is conditioned by it. But then thou must, in the first place, explain this extension of thy material body.
/. It is enough. I now perceive clearly that I neither see nor feel the superficial extension of the properties of bodies, nor apprehend it by any other BOOK IL KNOWLEDGE. 47 sense. I see that it is my habitual practice to extend over a surface, what nevertheless in sensation is but one point; to represent as adjacent and simultaneous, what I ought to represent as only successive, since in mere sensation there is nothing simultaneous, but all is successive. I discover that I proceed in fact exactly as the geometer does in the construction of his figures, extending points to lines, and lines to surfaces. I am astonished how I should have done this.
Spirit. Thou dost more than this, and what is yet more strange. This surface which thou attributest to bodies, thou canst indeed neither see nor feel, nor per- ceive by any organ; but it may be said, in a certain sense, that thou canst see the red colour upon it, or feel the smoothness. But thou addest something more even to this surface: — thou extendest it to a solid mathematical figure; as by thy previous admission thou hast extended the line to a surface. Thou as- sumest a substantial interior existence of the body be- hind its surface. Tell me, canst thou then see, feel, or recognize by any sense, the actual presence of any thing behind this surface?
7. By no means: — the space behind the surface is impenetrable to my sight, touch, or any of my senses.
Spirit. And yet thou dost assume the existence of such an interior substance, which, nevertheless, thou canst not perceive?
/. I confess it, and my astonishment increases.
Spirit. What then is this something which thou imaginest to be behind the surface?
7. Well — I suppose something similar to the sur- face,— something tangible.
Spirit. We must ascertain this more distinctly.
48 THE VOCATION OF MAN.
Canst thou divide the mass of which thou imaginest the body to consist?
/. I can divide it to infinity; — I do not mean with instruments, but in thought. No possible part is the smallest, so that it cannot again be divided.
Spirit. And in this division dost thou ever arrive at a portion of which thou canst suppose that it is no longer perceptible in itself to sight, touch, &c.; — in itself I say, besides being imperceptible to thy own particular organs of sense?
7. By no means.
Spirit. Visible, perceptible, absolutely? — or with certain properties of colour, smoothness, roughness, and the like?
/. In the latter way. Nothing is visible or per- ceptible absolutely, because there is no absolute sense of sight or touch.
Spirit. Then thou dost but spread through the whole mass thy own sensibility, that which is already familiar to thee, — visibility as coloured, tangibility as rough, smooth, or the like; and after all it is this sensi- bility itself of which alone thou art sensible? Or dost thou find it otherwise?
/. By no means: what thou sayest follows from what I have already understood and admitted.
Spirit. And yet thou dost perceive nothing behind the surface, and hast perceived nothing there?
/. Were I to break through it, I should perceive something.
Spirit. So much therefore thou knowest before- hand. And this infinite divisibility, in which, as thou maintainest, thou canst never arrive at anything abso- lutely imperceptible, thou hast never carried it out, nor canst thou do so?
BOOK II. KNOWLEDGE. 49 /. I cannot carry it out.
Spirit. To a sensation, therefore, which thou hast really had, thou addest in imagination another which thou hast not had?
I. I am sensible only of that which I attribute to the surface; I am not sensible of what lies behind it, and yet I assume the existence of something there which might be perceived. Yes, I must admit what thou sayest.
Spirit. And the actual sensation is in part found to correspond with what thou hast thus pre-supposed?
I. When I break through the surface of a body, I do indeed find beneath it something perceptible, as I pre-supposed. Yes, I must admit this also.
Spirit. Partly, however, thou hast maintained that there is something beyond sensation, which cannot be- come apparent to any actual perception.
/. I maintain, that were I to divide a corporeal mass to infinity, I could never come to any part which is in itself imperceptible; although I admit that I can never make the experiment, — can never practically carry out the division of a corporeal mass to infinity. Yes, I must agree with thee in this also.
Spirit. Thus there is nothing remaining of the object but what is perceptible, — what is a property or attribute; — this perceptibility thou extendest through a continuous space which is divisible to infinity; and the true substratum or supporter of the attributes of things which thou hast sought is, therefore, only the space which is thus filled?
/. Although I cannot be satisfied with this, but feel that I must still suppose in the object something more than this perceptibility and the space which it fills, yet I cannot point out this something, and I must there- SO THE VOCATION OF MAN.
fore confess that I have hitherto been unable to dis- cover any substratum but space itself.
Spirit. Always confess whatever thou perceivest to be true. The present obscurities will gradually be- come clear, and the unknown will be made known. Space itself, however, is not perceived; and thou canst not understand how thou hast obtained this conception, or why thou extendest throughout it this property of perceptibility?
/. It is so.
Spirit. As little dost thou understand how thou hast obtained even this conception of a perceptibility out of thyself, since thou really perceivest only thine own sensation in thyself, not as the property of an external thing, but as an affection of thine own being.
/. So it is. I see clearly that I really perceive only my own state, and not the object; that I neither see, feel, nor hear this object; but that, on the contrary, precisely there where the object should be, all seeing, feeling, and so forth, comes to an end.
But I have a presentiment. Sensations, as affec- tions of myself, have no extension whatever, but are simple states; in their differences they are not contigu- ous to 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 simul- taneously 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 consciousness 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 BOOK II. KNOWLEDGE. 51 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 thy- self; and to the sensation which thou dost perceive, superaddest 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 applied 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 always in- dicated 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 other- wise with the sensations of sight, — with colours, for example, which may not be pure sensations, 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 foundation; this foundation is not in myself and therefore must be out of myself; — thus I reason rapidly and unconsciously, and forth- with assume the existence of such a foundation, — namely, the object. This foundation must be one by 52 THE VOCATION OF MAN.
which the particular affection in question may be ex- plained;— 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 un- doubtedly 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 uncon- scious act of reasoning, from the effect to the cause, 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 per- ception?
/. By no means. I have already admitted this.
Spirit. Then, by this 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 BOOK II. KNOWLEDGE. 53 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. When 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 af- fection 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 in- telligence, proceeds directly upon the existence of this affection as its. object, as that of which I am conscious, and is inseparable from it; — because I am possessed of consciousness at all only in so far as I am cognisant of such an affection — cognisant of it absolutely, just as I am cognisant of my own existence.
Spirit. Thou hast therefore an organ, — conscious- ness itself, — whereby thou perceivest such an affection 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 thy external sense at all, and how canst thou call it external, if it have no reference to any ex- 54 THE VOCATION OF MAN.
ternal 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 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 speak- ing, 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?
/. Yes.
Spirit. And this thou dost, according to thy previ- ous assumption, in consequence of the knowledge BOOK II. KNOWLEDGE. 55 which thou dost really possess, and for which thou hast an organ, and on account of this knowledge?
/. It is so.
/. 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 another. 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 knowledge, if thou hadst an organ wherewith to ap- prehend 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 apprehendest them, — of course in thought only. Strictly speaking, thou hast no consciousness of things, but only a consciousness (produced by a pro- cession out of thy actual consciousness by means of the principal of casualty) 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 supposition thou hast made, thou hast added to a knowledge which thou hast, another which thou hast not.
/. I must admit this.
Spirit. Henceforward let us call this second knowl- edge, 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-ne.vion established between two elements previously existing, but an an-nexion, and 56 THE VOCATION OF MAN.
an addition of a wholly new element, arising through this an-nexion, to another element previously existing independently of such addition.
Thus the first consciousness appears as soon as thou discoverest thy own existence, and the latter is not discovered without the former; the second conscious- ness 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 wilt find that the latter can be conceived of only as conditioned by the former, and 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 admit- ted 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?
7. 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 supposi- tion. I am perfectly conscious of the act of my mind when I form a general conception, or when in cases of BOOK II. KNOWLEDGE. 57 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 presentation of an object out of myself, I am not con- scious at all.
Spirit. Do not be deceived. Of an act of thy mind thou canst become conscious only in so far as thou dost pass through a state of indetermination and inde- cision, of which thou wert likewise conscious, and to which this act puts an end. There is no such state of indecision 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 ac- tion, is called spontaneity. Remember that I by no means demand of thee 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 addest in thought to the sensation which thou certainly hast, an object of which thou knowest nothing?
I. 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?
58 THE VOCATION OF MAN.
L 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 produced 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 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 isf why must thou assume that it has become so, or that it has become so by means of a foreign power? I note 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 imme- diately," 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.
BOOK II. KNOWLEDGE. 59 Dost thou know this by immediate perception?
/. How could I? since perception only declares that in me something is, according as I am determined this way or that, but never that it has become so; still less that it has become so by means of a foreign power lying beyond all perception.
Spirit. Or dost thou obtain this principle by gen- eralisation 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?
/. 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. Shall the earth rest on 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 imme- diate perception, nor on the observation of external things, and concerning the origin of which thou wouldst still raise other questions! I might only pos- sess 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 of our own states through sensible perception 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, 60 THE VOCATION OF MAN.
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 accord- ance with them?
/. My consciousness begins with the perception of my own state; I connect directly therewith the pres- entation 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 in- separably 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 ac- cordance with it, or in any other way than by so act- ing.
Spirit. Thou actest upon this law therefore with- out being conscious of it; thou actest upon it imme- diately and absolutely. Yet thou didst but now de- clare thyself conscious of it, and didst express it as a general proposition. How hast thou arrived at this latter consciousness?
I- Doubtless thus. I observe myself subsequently, BOOK II. KNOWLEDGE. 61 and perceive that I have thus acted, and combine this ordinary course of procedure into a general law.
Spirit. Thou canst therefore become conscious of this course of procedure?
/. Unquestionably, — I guess the object of these questions. 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 mayest 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.
/. Yet I must be originally conscious of them, for I am immediately conscious of my presentation of the object at the same moment that I am conscious of the sensation. — I have found the solution; I am immedi- ately 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 creation 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 creation of a presentation of an object. I am cognisant of this creation only be- cause I myself am the creator. And thus all con- sciousness is immediate, is but a consciousness of my- 62 THE VOCATION OF MAN.
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: " I have at all times rpre-sup posed 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- 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 thy 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 devel- opment 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 con- ception of my own mind, just as for the explanation of magentic phenomena, I suppose a magnetic — or for BOOK II. KNOWLEDGE. 63 the explanation of electrical phenomena, an electrical — power in Nature.
But the world does not appear to me 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- scription, otherwise I shall not understand thee, and we shall never arrive at clearness.
/. 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 conclusions; — and now tell me candidly what takes place in thy mind.