Appendix: Critique of Kantian Philosophy

8 of 8 books in The World as Will and Representation, Volume I by Arthur Schopenhauer

Original German

Kritik der Kantischen Philosophie.

C’est le privilège du vrai génie, et surtout du génie qui ouvre une carrière, de faire impunément de grandes fautes.

Voltaire.

Es ist viel leichter in dem Werke eines großen Geistes die Fehler und Irrthümer nachzuweisen, als von dem Werthe desselben eine deutliche und vollständige Entwickelung zu geben. Denn die Fehler sind ein Einzelnes und Endliches, das sich daher vollkommen überblicken läßt. Hingegen ist eben das der Stämpel, welchen der Genius seinen Werken aufdrückt, daß dieser ihre Trefflichkeit unergründlich und unerschöpflich ist: daher sie auch die nicht alternden Lehrmeister vieler Jahrhunderte nacheinander werden. Das vollendete Meisterstück eines wahrhaft großen Geistes wird allemal von tiefer und durchgreifender Wirkung auf das gesammte Menschengeschlecht seyn, so sehr, daß nicht zu berechnen ist, zu wie fernen Jahrhunderten und Ländern sein erhellender Einfluß reichen kann. Es wird dieses allemal: weil, so gebildet und reich auch immer die Zeit wäre, in welcher es selbst entstanden, doch immer der Genius, gleich einem Palmbaum, sich über den Boden erhebt, auf welchem er wurzelt.

Aber eine tiefeingreifende und weitverbreitete Wirkung dieser Art kann nicht plötzlich eintreten, wegen des weiten Abstandes zwischen dem Genius und der gewöhnlichen Menschheit. Die Erkenntniß, welche jener Eine in einem Menschenalter unmittelbar aus dem Leben und der Welt schöpfte, gewann und Andern gewonnen und bereitet darlegte, kann dennoch nicht sofort das Eigenthum der Menschheit werden; weil diese nicht einmal so viel Kraft zum Empfangen hat, wie jener zum Geben. Sondern, selbst nach überstandenem Kampf mit unwürdigen Gegnern, die der Unsterblichen schon bei der Geburt das Leben streitig machen und das Heil der Menschheit im Keime ersticken möchten (der Schlange an der Wiege des Herkules zu vergleichen), muß jene Erkenntniß sodann erst die Umwege unzähliger falscher Auslegungen und schiefer Anwendungen durchwandern, muß die Versuche der Vereinigung mit alten Irrthümern überstehen und so im Kampfe leben, bis ein neues, unbefangenes Geschlecht ihr entgegenwächst, welches allmälig, aus tausend abgeleiteten Kanälen, den Inhalt jener Quelle, schon in der Jugend, theilweise empfängt, nach und nach assimilirt und so der Wohlthat theilhaft wird, welche, von jenem großen Geiste aus, der Menschheit zufließen sollte. So langsam geht die Erziehung des Menschengeschlechts, des schwachen und zugleich widerspänstigen Zöglings des Genius. — So wird auch von Kants Lehre allererst durch die Zeit die ganze Kraft und Wichtigkeit offenbar werden, wann einst der Zeitgeist selbst, durch den Einfluß jener Lehre nach und nach umgestaltet, im Wichtigsten und Innersten verändert, von der Gewalt jenes Riesengeistes lebendiges Zeugniß ablegen wird. Ich hier will aber keineswegs, ihm vermessen vorgreifend, die undankbare Rolle des Kalchas und der Kassandra übernehmen. Nur sei es mir, in Folge des Gesagten, vergönnt, Kants Werke als noch sehr neu zu betrachten, während heut zu Tage Viele sie als schon veraltet ansehen, ja, als abgethan bei Seite gelegt, oder, wie sie sich ausdrücken, hinter sich haben, und Andere, dadurch dreist gemacht, sie gar ignoriren und, mit eiserner Stirn, unter den Voraussetzungen des alten realistischen Dogmatismus und seiner Scholastik, von Gott und der Seele weiterphilosophiren; — welches ist, wie wenn man in der neuern Chemie die Lehren der Alchemisten geltend machen wollte. — Uebrigens bedürfen Kants Werke nicht meiner schwachen Lobrede, sondern werden selbst ewig ihren Meister loben und, wenn vielleicht auch nicht in seinem Buchstaben, doch in seinem Geiste, stets auf Erden leben.

Freilich aber, wenn wir zurückblicken auf den nächsten Erfolg seiner Lehren, also auf die Versuche und Hergänge im Gebiete der Philosophie, während des seitdem verflossenen Zeitraums; so bestätigt sich uns ein sehr niederschlagender Ausspruch Goethe’s: „wie das Wasser, das durch ein Schiff verdrängt wird, gleich hinter ihm wieder zusammenstürzt; so schließt sich auch der Irrthum, wenn vorzügliche Geister ihn bei Seite gedrängt und sich Platz gemacht haben, hinter ihnen sehr geschwind wieder naturgemäß zusammen.“ (Dichtung und Wahrheit, Theil 3, S. 521.) Jedoch ist dieser Zeitraum nur eine Episode gewesen, die, den oben erwähnten Schicksalen jeder neuen und großen Erkenntniß beizuzählen, jetzt unverkennbar ihrem Ende nahe ist, indem die so anhaltend aufgetriebene Seifenblase doch endlich platzt. Man fängt allgemein an, inne zu werden; daß die wirkliche und ernstliche Philosophie noch da steht, wo Kant sie gelassen hat. Jedenfalls erkenne ich nicht an, daß zwischen ihm und mir irgend etwas in derselben geschehen sei; daher ich unmittelbar an ihn anknüpfe.

Was ich in diesem Anhange zu meinem Werke beabsichtige, ist eigentlich nur eine Rechtfertigung der von mir in demselben dargestellten Lehre, insofern sie in vielen Punkten mit der Kantischen Philosophie nicht übereinstimmt, ja ihr widerspricht. Eine Diskussion hierüber ist aber nothwendig, da offenbar meine Gedankenreihe, so verschieden ihr Inhalt auch von der Kantischen ist, doch durchaus unter dem Einfluß dieser steht, sie nothwendig voraussetzt, von ihr ausgeht, und ich bekenne, das Beste meiner eigenen Entwickelung, nächst dem Eindrucke der anschaulichen Welt, sowohl dem der Werke Kants, als dem der heiligen Schriften der Hindu und dem Platon zu verdanken. — Meine des ungeachtet vorhandenen Widersprüche gegen Kant aber rechtfertigen, kann ich durchaus nur dadurch, daß ich ihn in denselben Punkten des Irrthums zeihe und Fehler, die er begangen, aufdecke. Daher muß ich in diesem Anhange durchaus polemisch gegen Kant verfahren und zwar mit Ernst und mit aller Anstrengung: denn nur so kann es geschehen, daß der Irrthum, welcher Kants Lehre anklebt, sich abschleife, und die Wahrheit derselben desto heller scheine und sicherer bestehe. Man hat daher nicht zu erwarten, daß meine gewiß innig gefühlte Ehrerbietung gegen Kant sich auch auf seine Schwächen und Fehler erstrecke, und daß ich daher diese nicht anders, als mit der behutsamsten Schonung aufdecken sollte, wobei mein Vortrag durch die Umschweife schwach und matt werden müßte. Gegen einen Lebenden bedarf es solcher Schonung, weil die menschliche Schwäche auch die gerechteste Widerlegung eines Irrthums nur unter Besänftigungen und Schmeicheleien und selbst so schwer erträgt, und ein Lehrer der Jahrhunderte und Wohlthäter der Menschheit doch zum wenigsten verdient, daß man auch seine menschliche Schwäche schone, um ihm keinen Schmerz zu verursachen. Der Todte aber hat diese Schwäche abgeworfen: sein Verdienst steht fest: von jeder Ueberschätzung und Herabwürdigung wird die Zeit es mehr und mehr reinigen. Seine Fehler müssen davon gesondert, unschädlich gemacht und dann der Vergessenheit hingegeben werden. Daher habe ich bei der hier anzustimmenden Polemik gegen Kant ganz allein seine Fehler und Schwächen im Auge, stehe ihnen feindlich gegenüber und führe einen schonungslosen Vertilgungskrieg gegen sie, stets darauf bedacht, nicht sie schonend zu bedecken, sondern sie vielmehr in das hellste Licht zu stellen, um sie desto sicherer zu vernichten. Ich bin mir, aus den oben angeführten Gründen, hiebei weder einer Ungerechtigkeit, noch einer Undankbarkeit gegen Kant bewußt. Um indessen auch in den Augen Anderer jeden Schein von Malignität abzuwenden, will ich meine tiefgefühlte Ehrfurcht und Dankbarkeit gegen Kant zuvor noch dadurch an den Tag legen, daß ich sein Hauptverdienst, wie es in meinen Augen erscheint, kurz ausspreche, und zwar von so allgemeinen Gesichtspunkten aus, daß ich nicht genöthigt werde, die Punkte mitzuberühren, in welchen ich ihm nachher zu widersprechen habe.

Kants größtes Verdienst ist die Unterscheidung der Erscheinung vom Dinge an sich, — auf Grund der Nachweisung, daß zwischen den Dingen und uns immer noch der Intellekt steht, weshalb sie nicht nach dem, was sie an sich selbst seyn mögen, erkannt werden können. Auf diesen Weg geführt wurde er durch Locke (siehe Prolegomena zu jeder Metaph., §. 13, Anm. 2). Dieser hatte nachgewiesen, daß die sekundären Eigenschaften der Dinge, wie Klang, Geruch, Farbe, Härte, Weiche, Glätte u. dgl., als auf die Affektionen der Sinne gegründet, dem objektiven Körper, dem Dinge an sich selbst, nicht angehörten, welchem er vielmehr nur die primären Eigenschaften, d. h. solche, welche bloß den Raum und die Undurchdringlichkeit voraussetzen, also Ausdehnung, Gestalt, Solidität, Zahl, Beweglichkeit, beilegte. Allein diese leicht zu findende Locke’sche Unterscheidung, welche sich auf der Oberfläche der Dinge hält, war gleichsam nur ein jugendliches Vorspiel der Kantischen. Diese nämlich, von einem ungleich höhern Standpunkt ausgehend, erklärt alles Das, was Locke als qualitates primarias, d. h. Eigenschaften des Dinges an sich selbst, gelten gelassen hatte, für ebenfalls nur der Erscheinung desselben in unserm Auffassungsvermögen angehörig, und zwar gerade deshalb, weil die Bedingungen desselben, Raum, Zeit und Kausalität, von uns a priori erkannt werden. Also hatte Locke vom Dinge an sich den Antheil, welchen die Sinnesorgane an der Erscheinung desselben haben, abgezogen; Kant aber zog nun noch den Antheil der Gehirnfunktionen (wiewohl nicht unter diesem Namen) ab; wodurch jetzt die Unterscheidung der Erscheinung vom Dinge an sich eine unendlich größere Bedeutung und einen sehr viel tiefern Sinn erhielt. Zu diesem Zwecke mußte er die große Sonderung unserer Erkenntniß a priori von der a posteriori vornehmen, welches vor ihm noch nie in gehöriger Strenge und Vollständigkeit, noch mit deutlichem Bewußtseyn geschehen war: demnach ward nun Dieses der Hauptstoff seiner tiefsinnigen Untersuchungen. — Hier nun wollen wir gleich bemerken, daß Kants Philosophie zu der seiner Vorgänger eine dreifache Beziehung hat: erstens, eine bestätigende und erweiternde zu der Locke’s, wie wir soeben gesehen haben; zweitens, eine berichtigende und benutzende zu der Hume's, welche man am deutlichsten ausgesprochen findet in der Vorrede zu den „Prolegomena“ (dieser schönsten und faßlichsten aller Kantischen Hauptschriften, welche viel zu wenig gelesen wird, da sie doch das Studium seiner Philosophie außerordentlich erleichtert); drittens, eine entschieden polemische und zerstörende zur Leibniz-Wolffischen Philosophie. Alle drei Lehren soll man kennen, ehe man zum Studium der Kantischen Philosophie schreitet. — Ist nun, laut Obigem, die Unterscheidung der Erscheinung vom Dinge an sich, also die Lehre von der gänzlichen Diversität des Idealen und Realen, der Grundzug der Kantischen Philosophie; so giebt die bald nachher auftretende Behauptung der absoluten Identität dieser Beiden einen traurigen Beleg zu dem früher erwähnten Ausspruche Goethe's; um so mehr, als sie sich auf nichts stützte, als auf die Windbeutelei intellektualer Anschauung, und demgemäß nur eine, unter dem Imponiren durch vornehme Miene, Bombast und Gallimathias maskirte Rückkehr zur Rohheit der gemeinen Ansicht war. Sie wurde der würdige Ausgangspunkt für den noch gröbern Unsinn des plumpen und geistlosen Hegel. — Wie uun also Kants, auf die oben dargelegte Weise gefaßte Sonderung der Erscheinung vom Dinge an sich in ihrer Begründung an Tiefsinn und Besonnenheit Alles, was je dagewesen, weit übertraf; so war sie auch in ihren Ergebnissen unendlich folgenreich. Denn ganz aus sich selbst, auf eine völlig neue Weise, vou einer neuen Seite und auf einem neuen Wege gefunden stellte er hierin dieselbe Wahrheit dar, die schon Platon unermüdlich wiederholt und in seiner Sprache meistens so ausdrückt: diese, den Sinnen erscheinende Welt habe kein wahres Seyn, sondern nur ein unaufhörliches Werden, sie sei, und sei auch niht, und ihre Auffassung sei nicht sowohl eine Erkenntniß, als ein Wahn. Dies ist es auch, was er in der schon im dritten Buch gegenwärtiger Schrift erwähnten wichtigsten Stelle aller seiner Werke, dem Anfange des siebenten Buches der Republik mythisch ausspricht, indem er sagt, die Menschen, in einer finstern Höhle festgekettet, sähen weder das ächte ursprüngliche Licht, noch die wirklichen Dinge, sondern nur das dürftige Licht des Feuers in der Höhle und die Schatten wirklicher Dinge, die hinter ihrem Rücken an diesem Feuer vorüberziehen: sie meinten jedoch, die Schatten seien die Realität, und die Bestimmung der Succession dieser Schatten sei die wahre Weisheit. — Die selbe Wahrheit, wieder ganz anders dargestellt, ist auch eine Hauptlehre der Veden und Puranas, die Lehre von der Maja, worunter eben auch nichts Anderes verstanden wird, als was Kant die Erscheinung, im Gegensatze des Dinges au sich nennt: denn das Werk der Maja wird eben angegeben als diese sichtbare Welt, in der wir sind, ein hervorgerufener Zauber, ein bestandloser, an sich wesenloser Schein, der optischen Illusion und dem Traume zu vergleichen, ein Schleier, der das menschliche Bewußtseyn umfängt, ein Etwas, davon es gleich falsch und gleich. wahr ist, zu sagen daß es sei, als daß es nicht sei. — Kant nun aber drückte nicht allein die selbe Lehre auf eine völlig neue und originelle Weise aus, sondern machte sie, mittelst der ruhigsten und nüchternsten Darstellung, zur erwiesenen und unstreitigen Wahrheit; während sowohl Platon, als die Inder, ihre Behauptungen bloß auf eine allgemeine Anschauung der Welt gegründet hatten, sie als unmittelbaren Ausspruch ihres Bewußtseyns vorbrachten, und sie mehr mythisch und poetisch, als philosophisch und deutlich darstellten. In dieser Hinsicht verhalten sie sich zu Kant, wie die Pythagoreer Hiketas, Philolaos und Aristarch, welche schon die Bewegung der Erde um die ruhende Sonne behaupteten, zum Kopernikus. Solche deutliche Erkenntniß und ruhige, besonnene Darstellung dieser traumartigen Beschaffenheit der ganzen Welt ist eigentlich die Basis der ganzen Kantischen Philosophie, ist ihre Seele und ihr allergrößtes Verdienst. Er brachte dieselbe dadurch zu Stande, daß er die ganze Maschinerie unsers Erkenntnißvermögens, mittelst welcher die Phantasmagorie der objektiven Welt zu Staude kommt, auseinanderlegte und stückweise vorzeigte, mit bewunderungswerther Besonnenheit und Geschicklichkeit. Alle vorhergehende occidentalische Philosophie, gegen die Kantische als unsäglich plump erscheinend, hatte jene Wahrheit verkannt, und eben daher eigentlich immer wie im Traume geredet. Erst Kant weckte sie plötzlich aus diesem; daher auch nannten die letzten Schläfer (Mendelssohn) ihn den Alleszermalmer. Er zeigte, daß die Gesetze, welche im Daseyn, d. h. in der Erfahrung überhaupt, mit unverbrüchlicher Nothwendigkeit herrschen, nicht anzuwenden find, um das Daseyn selbst abzuleiten und zu erklären, daß also die Gültigkeit derselben doch nur eine relative ist, d. h. erst anhebt, nachdem das Daseyn, die Erfahrungswelt überhaupt, schon gesetzt und vorhanden ist; daß folglich diese Gesetze niht unser Leitfaden seyn können, wann wir an die Erklärung des Daseyns der Welt und unserer selbst gehen. Alle früheren occidentalischen Philosophen hatten gewähnt, diese Gesetze, nach welchen die Erscheinungen aneinander geknüpft sind und welche alle, Zeit und Raum sowohl als Kausalität und Schlußfolge, ich unter den Ausdruck des Satzes vom Grunde zusammenfasse, wären absolute und durch gar nichts bedingte Gesetze, aeternae veritates, die Welt selbst wäre nur in Folge und Gemäßheit derselben, und daher müsse nach ihrem Leitfaden das ganze Räthsel der Welt sich lösen lassen. Die zu diesem Behuf gemachten Annahmen, welche Kant unter dem Namen der Ideen der Vernunft kritisirt, dienten eigentlich nur, die bloße Erscheinung, das Werk der Maja, die Schattenwelt des Platon, zur einzigen und höchsten Realität zu erheben, sie an die Stelle des innersten und wahren Wesens der Dinge zu setzen, und die wirkliche Erkenntniß von diesem dadurch unmöglich zu machen: d. h., mit einem Wort, die Träumer noch fester einzuschläfern. Kant zeigte jene Gesetze, und folglich die Welt selbst, als durch die Erkenntnißweise des Subjekts bedingt; woraus folgte, daß, soweit man auch am Leitfaden jener weiter forschte und weiter schlösse, man in der Hauptsache, d. h. in der Erkenntniß des Wesens der Welt an sich und außer der Vorstellung, keinen Schritt vorwärts käme, sondern nur sich so bewegte, wie das Eichhörnchen im Rade. Man kann daher auch sämmtliche Dogmatiker mit Leuten vergleichen, welche meinten, daß wenn sie nur recht lange geradeaus giengen, sie zu der Welt Ende gelangen würden; Kant aber hätte dann die Welt umsegelt und gezeigt, daß, weil sie rund ist, man durch horizontale Bewegung nicht hinauskann, daß es jedoch durch perpendikulare vielleicht nicht unmöglich sei. Auch kann man sagen, Kants Lehre gebe die Einsicht, daß der Welt Ende und Anfang nicht außer, sondern in uns zu suchen sei.

Dies Alles nun aber beruht auf dem fundamentalen Unterschiede zwischen dogmatischer und kritischer, oder Transscendental-Philosophie. Wer sich diesen deutlich machen und an einem Beispiel vergegenwärtigen will, kann es in aller Kürze, wenn er, als Specimen der dogmatischen Philosophie einen Aufsatz von Leibniz durchliest, welcher den Titel „De rerum originatione radicali“ führt und zum ersten Male gedruckt ist in der Ausgabe der philosophischen Werke Leibnitzens von Erdmann, Bd. 1, S. 147. Hier wird nun so recht in realistisch-dogmatischer Weise, unter Benutzung des ontologischen und des kosmologischen Beweises, der Ursprung und die vortreffliche Beschaffenheit der Welt a priori dargethan, auf Grund der veritatum aeternarum. — Nebenher wird auch ein Mal eingestanden, daß die Erfahrung das gerade Gegentheil der hier demonstrirten Vortrefflichkeit der Welt aufweise, darauf aber der Erfahrung bedeutet, sie verstehe nichts davon und solle das Maulhalten, wenn Philosophie a priori geredet hat. — Als Widersacher dieser ganzen Methode nun ist mit Kant die kritische

Philosophie aufgetreten, welche gerade die, allem solchem dogmatischen Bau zur Unterlage dienenden veritates aeternas zu ihrem Problem macht, dem Ursprunge derselben nachforscht und ihn sodann findet im menschlichen Kopf, woselbst nämlich sie aus den diesem eigenthümlich angehörenden Formen, welche er zum Behuf der Auffassung einer objektiven Welt in sich trägt, erwachsen. Hier also, im Gehirn, ist der Steinbruch, welcher das Material zu jenem stolzen dogmatischen Baue liefert. Dadurch nun aber, daß die kritische Philosophie, um zu diesem Resultate zu gelangen, über die veritates aeternas, auf welche aller bisheriger Dogmatismus sich gründete, hinausgehen mußte, um diese selbst zum Gegenstande der Untersuchung zu machen, ist sie Transscendental-Philosophie geworden. Aus dieser ergiebt sich dann ferner, daß die objektive Welt, wie wir sie erkennen, nicht dem Wesen der Dinge an sich selbst angehört, sondern bloße Erscheinung desselben ist, bedingt durch eben jene Formen, die a priori im menschlichen Intellekt (d. h. Gehirn) liegen, daher sie auch nichts als Erscheinungen enthalten kann.

Kant gelangte zwar nicht zu der Erkenntniß, daß die Erscheinung die Welt als Vorstellung und das Ding an sich der Wille sei. Aber er zeigte, daß die erscheinende Welt ebenso sehr durch das Subjekt, wie durch das Objekt bedingt sei, und indem er die allgemeinsten Formen ihrer Erscheinung, d. i. der Vorstellung, isolirte, that er dar, daß man diese Formen nicht nur vom Objekt, sondern ebenso wohl auch vom Subjekt ausgehend erkenne und ihrer ganzen Gesetzmäßigkeit nach übersehe, weil sie eigentlich zwischen Objekt und Subjekt die beiden gemeinsame Gränze sind, und er schloß, daß man durch das Verfolgen dieser Gränze weder ins Innere des Objekts noch des Subjekts eindringe, folglich nie das Wesen der Welt, das Ding an sich erkenne.

Er leitete das Ding an sich nicht auf die rechte Art ab, wie ich bald zeigen werde, sondern mittelst einer Inkonsequenz, die er durch häufige und unwiderstehliche Angriffe auf diesen Haupttheil seiner Lehre büßen mußte. Er erkannte nicht direkt im Willen das Ding an sich; allein er that einen großen, bahnbrechenden Schritt zu dieser Erkenntniß, indem er die unleugbare moralische Bedeutung des menschlichen Handelns als ganz verschieden und nicht abhängig von den Gesetzen der Erscheinung, noch diesen gemäß je erklärbar, sondern als etwas, welches das Ding an sich unmittelbar berühre, darstellte: dieses ist der zweite Hauptgesichtspunkt für sein Verdienst.

Als den dritten können wir ansehen den völligen Umsturz der Scholastischen Philosophie, mit welchem Namen ich hier im Allgemeinen die ganze vom Kirchenvater Augustinus anfangende und dicht vor Kant schließende Periode bezeichnen möchte. Denn der Hauptcharakter der Scholastik ist doch wohl der von Tennemann sehr richtig angegebene, die Vormundschaft der herrschenden Landesreligion über die Philosophie, welcher eigentlich nichts übrig blieb, als die ihr von jener vorgeschriebenen Hauptdogmen zu beweisen und auszuschmücken: die eigentlichen Scholastiker, bis Suarez, gestehen dies unverholen: die folgenden Philosophen thun es mehr unbewußt, oder doch nicht eingeständlich. Man läßt die Scholastische Philosophie nur bis etwan hundert Jahre vor Cartesius gehen und dann mit diesem eine ganz neue Epoche des freien, von aller positiven Glaubenslehre unabhängigen Forschens anfangen; allein ein solches ist in der That dem Cartesius und seinen Nachfolgern [1] nicht beizulegen, sondern nur ein Schein [2] Bruno und Spinoza sind hier ganz auszunehmen. Sie stehen jeder für sich und allein, und gehören weder ihrem Jahrhundert noch ihrem Welttheil an, welche dem einen mit dem Tode, dem andern mit Verfolgung und Schimpf lohnten. Ihr kümmerliches Daseyn und Sterben in diesem Occident gleicht dem einer tropischen Pflanze in Europa. Ihre wahre Geistesheimath waren die Ufer der heiligen Ganga: dort hätten sie ein ruhiges und geehrtes Leben geführt, unter ähnlich Gesinnten. — Bruno drückt in folgenden Versen, mit denen er das Buch della causa principio ed uno, für welches ihm der Scheiterhaufen ward, eröffnet, deutlich und schön aus, wie einsam er sich in seinem Jahrhundert fühlte, und zeigt zugleich eine Ahnung seines Schicksals, welche ihn zaudern ließ seine Sache vorzutragen, bis jener in edlen Geistern so starke Trieb zur Mittheilung des für wahr Erkannten überwand:

Ad partum properare tuum, mens aegra, quid obstat; Seclo haec indigno sint tribuenda licet? Umbrarum fluctu terras mergente, cacumen Adtolle in clarum, noster Olympe, Jovem.

Wer diese seine Hauptschrift, wie auch seine übrigen, früher so seltenen, jetzt, durch eine Deutsche Ausgabe, Jedem zugänglichen Italiänischen Schriften davon und allenfalls ein Streben danach. Cartesius war ein höchst ausgezeichneter Geist, und hat, wenn man seine Zeit berücksichtigt, sehr viel geleistet. Setzt man aber diese Rücksicht bei Seite, und mißt ihn nach der ihm nachgerühmten Befreiung des Denkens von allen Fesseln und Anhebung einer neuen Periode des unbefangenen eigenen Forschens; so muß man finden, daß er mit seiner des rechten Ernstes noch entbehrenden und daher so schnell und so schlecht sich wieder gebenden Skepsis, zwar die Miene macht, als ob er alle Fesseln früh eingeimpfter, der Zeit und der Nation angehörender Meinungen, mit einem Male abwerfen wollte, es aber bloß zum Schein auf einen Augenblick thut, um sie sogleich wieder aufzunehmen und desto fester zu halten; und ebenso alle seine Nachfolger bis auf Kant. Sehr anwendbar auf einen freien Selbstdenker dieses Schlages ist daher Goethe's Vers:

„Er scheint mir, mit Verlaub von Ewr Gnaden, Wie eine der langbeinigen Cikaden, Die immer fliegt und fliegend springt — Und gleich im Gras ihr altes Liedchen singt.“ —

Kant hatte Gründe, die Miene zu machen, als ob er es auch nur so meinte. Aber aus dem vorgeblichen Sprunge, der zugestanden war, weil man schon wußte, daß er ins Gras zurückführt, ward diesmal ein Flug, und jetzt haben, die unten stehen, nur das Nachsehen und können nicht mehr ihn wieder einfangen.

Kant also wagte es, aus seiner Lehre die Unbeweisbarkeit aller jener vorgeblich so oft bewiesenen Dogmen darzuthun. Die spekulative Theologie und die mit ihr zusammenhängende rationale Psychologie empfingen von ihm den Todesstreich. Seitdem sind sie aus der Deutschen Philosophie verschwunden, und man darf liest, wird mit mir finden, daß unter allen Philosophen er allein dem Platon in etwas sich nähert, in Hinsicht auf die starke Beigabe poetischer Kraft und Richtung neben der philosophischen, und solche eben auch besonders dramatisch zeigt. Das zarte, geistige, denkende Wesen, als welches er uns aus dieser seiner Schrift entgegentritt, denke man sich unter den Händen roher, wüthender Pfaffen als seiner Richter und Henker, und danke der Zeit, die ein helleres und milderes Jahrhundert herbeiführte, so daß die Nachwelt, deren Fluch jene teuflischen Fanatiker treffen sollte, jetzt schon die Mitwelt ist. sich nicht dadurch irre machen lassen, daß hie und da das Wort beibehalten wird, nachdem man die Sache aufgegeben, oder daß irgend ein armsäliger Philosophieprofessor die Furcht seines Herrn vor Augen hat und Wahrheit Wahrheit seyn läßt. Die Größe dieses Verdienstes Kants kann nur Der ermessen, welcher den nachtheiligen Einfluß jener Begriffe auf Naturwissenschaft, wie auf Philosophie, in allen, selbst den besten Schriftstellern des 17. und 18. Jahrhunderts beachtet hat. In den Deutschen naturwissenschaftlichen Schriften ist die seit Kant eingetretene Veränderung des Tones und des metaphysischen Hintergrundes auffallend: vor ihm stand es damit, wie noch jetzt in England. — Dieses Verdienst Kants hängt damit zusammen, daß das besinnungslose Nachgehen den Gesetzen der Erscheinung, das Erheben derselben zu ewigen Wahrheiten und dadurch der flüchtigen Erscheinung zum eigentlichen Wesen der Welt, kurz, der in seinem Wahn durch keine Besinnung gestörte Realismus in aller vorhergegangenen Philosophie der alten, der mittleren und der neueren Zeit durchaus herrschend gewesen war. Berkeley, der, wie vor ihm auch schon Malebranche, das Einseitige, ja Falsche desselben erkannt hatte, vermochte nicht ihn umzustoßen, weil sein Angriff sich auf einen Punkt beschränkte. Kanten also war es vorbehalten, der idealistischen Grundansicht, welche im ganzen nicht islamisirten Asien, und zwar wesentlich, sogar die der Religion ist, in Europa wenigstens in der Philosophie zur Herrschaft zu verhelfen. Vor Kant also waren wir in der Zeit; jetzt ist die Zeit in uns, u. s. f.

Auch die Ethik war von jener realistischen Philosophie nach den Gesetzen der Erscheinung, die sie für absolute, auch vom Dinge an sich geltende hielt, behandelt worden, und daher bald auf Glücksäligkeitslehre, bald auf den Willen des Weltschöpfers, zuletzt auf den Begriff der Vollkommenheit gegründet, welcher an und für sich ganz leer und inhaltlos ist, da er eine bloße Relation bezeichnet, die erst von den Dingen, auf welche sie angewandt wird, Bedeutung erhält, indem „vollkommen seyn“ nichts weiter heißt als „irgend einem dabei vorausgesetzten und gegebenen Begriff entsprechen“, der also vorher aufgestellt seyn muß, und ohne welchen die Vollkommenheit eine unbenannte Zahl ist und folglich allein ausgesprochen gar nichts sagt. Will man nun aber etwan dabei den Begriff der „Menschheit“ zur stillschweigenden Voraussetzung machen und demnach zum Moralprincip setzen nach vollkommener Menschheit zu streben; so sagt man damit eben nur: „Die Menschen sollen seyn wie sie seyn sollen“ — und ist so klug wie zuvor. „Vollkommen“ nämlich ist beinahe nur das Synonym von „vollzählig“, indem es besagt, daß in einem gegebenen Fall, oder Individuo, alle die Prädikate, welche im Begriff seiner Gattung liegen, vertreten, also wirklich vorhanden sind. Daher ist der Begriff der „Vollkommenheit“, wenn schlechthin und in abstracto gebraucht, ein gedankenleeres Wort, und ebenso das Gerede vom „allervollkommensten Wesen“ u. dgl. m. Das Alles ist bloßer Wortkram. Nichtsdestoweniger war im vorigen Jahrhundert dieser Begriff von Vollkommenheit und Unvollkommenheit eine kurrente Münze geworden; ja, er war die Angel, um welche sich fast alles Moralisiren und selbst Theologisiren drehte. Jeder führte ihn im Munde, so daß zuletzt ein wahrer Unfug damit getrieben wurde. Selbst die besten Schriftsteller der Zeit, z. B. Lessingen, sehen wir auf das Beklagenswertheste in den Vollkommenheiten und Unvollkommenheiten verstrickt und sich damit herumschlagen. Dabei mußte doch jeder irgend denkende Kopf wenigstens dunkel fühlen, daß dieser Begriff ohne allen positiven Gehalt ist, indem er, wie ein algebraisches Zeichen, ein bloßes Verhältniß in abstracto andeutet. — Kant, wie schon gesagt, sonderte die unleugbare große ethische Bedeutsamkeit der Handlungen ganz ab von der Erscheinung und deren Gesetzen, und zeigte jene als unmittelbar das Ding an sich, das innerste Wesen der Welt betreffend, wogegen diese, d. h. Zeit und Raum, und Alles, was sie erfüllt und in ihnen nach dem Kausalgesetz sich ordnet, als bestand- und wesenloser Traum anzusehen sind.

Dieses Wenige und keineswegs den Gegenstand Erschöpfende mag hinreichen als Zeugniß meiner Anerkennung der großen Verdienste Kants, hier abgelegt zu meiner eigenen Befriedigung, und weil die Gerechtigkeit forderte jene Verdienste Jedem ins Gedächtniß zurückzurufen, der mir in der nachsichtslosen Aufdeckung seiner Fehler, zu welcher ich jetzt schreite, folgen will.

Daß Kants große Leistungen auch von großen Fehlern begleitet seyn mußten, läßt sich schon bloß historisch ermessen, daraus, daß, obwohl er die größte Revolution in der Philosophie bewirkte, und der Scholastik, die, im angegebenen weitern Sinn verstanden, vierzehn Jahrhunderte gedauert hatte, ein Ende machte, um nun wirklich eine ganz neue dritte Weltepoche der Philosophie zu beginnen; doch der unmittelbare Erfolg seines Auftretens fast nur negativ, nicht positiv war, indem, weil er nicht ein vollständiges neues System aufstellte, an welches seine Anhänger nur irgend einen Zeitraum hindurch sich hätten halten können, Alle zwar merkten, es sei etwas sehr Großes geschehen, aber doch keiner recht wußte was. Sie sahen wohl ein, daß die ganze bisherige Philosophie ein fruchtloses Träumen gewesen, aus dem jetzt die neue Zeit erwachte; aber woran sie sich nun halten sollten, wußten sie nicht. Eine große Leere, ein großes Bedürfniß war eingetreten: die allgemeine Aufmerksamkeit, selbst des größern Publikums, war erregt. Hiedurch veranlaßt, nicht aber vom innern Triebe und Gefühl der Kraft (die sich auch im ungünstigsten Zeitpunkt äußern, wie bei Spinoza) gedrungen, machten Männer ohne alle auszeichnende Talente mannigfaltige, schwache, ungereimte, ja mitunter tolle Versuche, denen das nun einmal aufgeregte Publikum doch seine Aufmerksamkeit schenkte und mit großer Geduld, wie sie nur in Deutschland zu finden, lange sein Ohr lieh.

Wie hier, muß es einst in der Natur hergegangen seyn, als eine große Revolution die ganze Oberfläche der Erde geändert, Meer und Land ihre Stellen gewechselt hatten und der Plan zu einer neuen Schöpfung geebnet war. Da währte es lange, ehe die Natur eine neue Reihe dauernder, jede mit sich und mit den übrigen harmonirender Formen herausbringen konnte: seltsame monströse Organisationen traten hervor, die mit sich selbst und untereinander disharmonirend, nicht lange bestehen konnten, aber deren noch jetzt vorhandene Reste es eben sind, die das Andenken jenes Schwankens und Versuchens der sich neu gestaltenden Natur auf uns gebracht haben. — Daß nun in der Philosophie eine jener ganz ähnliche Krisis und ein Zeitalter der ungeheuren Ausgeburten durch Kant herbeigeführt wurde, wie wir Alle wissen, läßt schon schließen, daß sein Verdienst nicht vollkommen, sondern mit großen Mängeln behaftet, negativ und einseitig gewesen seyn müsse. Diesen Mängeln wollen wir jetzt nachspüren.

Zuvörderst wollen wir den Grundgedanken, in welchem die Absicht der ganzen Kritik der reinen Vernunft liegt, uns deutlich machen und ihn prüfen. — Kant stellte sich auf den Standpunkt seiner Vorgänger, der dogmatischen Philosophen, und gieng demgemäß mit ihnen von folgenden Voraussetzungen aus. 1) Metaphysik ist Wissenschaft von Demjenigen, was jenseit der Möglichkeit aller Erfahrung liegt. — 2) Ein solches kann nimmermehr gefunden werden nach Grundsätzen, die selbst erst aus der Erfahrung geschöpft sind (Prolegomena, §. 1); sondern nur Das, was wir vor, also unabhängig von aller Erfahrung wissen, kann weiter reichen, als mögliche Erfahrung. — 3) In unserer Vernunft sind wirklich einige Grundsätze der Art anzutreffen: man begreift sie unter dem Namen Erkenntnisse aus reiner Vernunft. — Soweit geht Kant mit seinen Vorgängern zusammen; hier aber trennt er sich von ihnen. Sie sagen: „Diese Grundsätze, oder Erkenntnisse aus reiner Vernunft. sind Ausdrücke der absoluten Möglichkeit der Dinge, aeternae veritates, Quellen der Ontologie: sie stehen über der Weltordnung, wie das Fatum über den Göttern der Alten stand.“ Kant sagt: es sind bloße Formen unsers Intellekts, Gesetze, nicht des Daseyns der Dinge, sondern unserer Vorstellungen von ihnen, gelten daher bloß für unsere Auffassung der Dinge, und können demnach nicht über die Möglichkeit der Erfahrung, worauf es, laut Art. 1, abgesehen war, hinausreichen. Denn gerade die Apriorität dieser Erkenntnißformen, da sie nur auf dem subjektiven Ursprung derselben beruhen kann, schneidet uns die Erkenntniß des Wesens an sich der Dinge auf immer ab und beschränkt uns auf eine Welt von bloßen Erscheinungen, so daß wir nicht ein Mal a posteriori, geschweige a priori, die Dinge erkennen können, wie sie an sich selbst seyn mögen. Demnach ist Metaphysik unmöglich, und an ihre Stelle tritt Kritik der reinen Vernunft. Dem alten Dogmatismus gegenüber ist hier Kant völlig siegreich; daher haben alle seitdem aufgetretenen dogmatischen Versuche ganz andere Wege einschlagen müssen, als die früheren: auf die Berechtigung des meinigen werde ich, der ausgesprochenen Absicht gegenwärtiger Kritik gemäß, jetzt hinleiten. Nämlich bei genauerer Prüfung obiger Argumentation wird man eingestehen müssen, daß die allererste Grundannahme derselben eine petitio principii ist; sie liegt in dem (besonders Prolegomena, §. 1, deutlich aufgestellten) Satz: „Die Quelle der Metaphysik darf durchaus nicht empirisch seyn, ihre Grundsätze und Grundbegriffe dürfen nie aus der Erfahrung, weder innerer noch äußerer, genommen seyn.“ Zur Begründung dieser Kardinal-Behauptung wird jedoch gar nichts angeführt, als das etymologische Argument aus dem Worte Metaphysik. In Wahrheit aber verhält sich die Sache so: Die Welt und unser eigenes Daseyn stellt sich uns nothwendig als ein Räthsel dar. Nun wird ohne Weiteres angenommen, daß die Lösung dieses Räthsels nicht aus dem gründlichen Verständniß der Welt selbst hervorgehen könne, sondern gesucht werden müsse in etwas von der Welt gänzlich Verschiedenem (denn das heißt „über die Möglichkeit aller Erfahrung hinaus“); und daß von jener Lösung Alles ausgeschlossen werden müsse, wovon wir irgendwie unmittelbare Kenntniß (denn das heißt mögliche Erfahrung, sowohl innere, wie äußere) haben können; dieselbe vielmehr nur in Dem gesucht werden müsse, wozu wir bloß mittelbar, nämlich mittelst Schlüssen aus allgemeinen Sätzen a priori, gelangen können. Nachdem man auf diese Art die Hauptquelle aller Erkenntniß ausgeschlossen und den geraden Weg zur Wahrheit sich versperrt hatte, darf man sich nicht wundern, daß die dogmatischen Versuche mißglückten und Kant die Nothwendigkeit dieses Mißglückens darthun konnte: denn man hatte zum voraus Metaphysik und Erkenntniß a priori als identisch angenommen. Dazu hätte man aber vorher beweisen müssen, daß der Stoff zur Lösung des Räthsels der Welt schlechterdings nicht in ihr selbst enthalten seyn könne, sondern nur außerhalb der Welt zu suchen sei, in etwas, dahin man nur am Leitfaden jener uns a priori bewußten Formen gelangen könne. So lange aber Dies nicht bewiesen ist, haben wir keinen Grund, uns, bei der wichtigsten und schwierigsten aller Aufgaben, die inhaltsreichsten aller Erkenntnißquellen, innere und äußere Erfahrung, zu verstopfen, um allein mit inhaltsleeren Formen zu operiren. Ich sage daher, daß die Lösung des Räthsels der Welt aus dem Verständniß der Welt selbst hervorgehen muß; daß also die Aufgabe der Metaphysik nicht ist, die Erfahrung, in der die Welt dasteht, zu überfliegen, sondern sie von Grund aus zu verstehen, indem Erfahrung, äußere und innere, allerdings die Hauptquelle aller Erkenntniß ist; daß daher nur durch die gehörige und am rechten Punkt vollzogene Anknüpfung der äußern Erfahrung an die innere, und dadurch zu Stande gebrachte Verbindung dieser zwei so heterogenen Erkenntnißquellen, die Lösung des Räthsels der Welt möglich ist; wiewohl auch so nur innerhalb gewisser Schranken, die von unserer endlichen Natur unzertrennlich sind, mithin so, daß wir zum richtigen Verständniß der Welt selbst gelangen, ohne jedoch eine abgeschlossene und alle ferneren Probleme aufhebende Erklärung ihres Daseyns zu erreichen. Mithin est quadam prodire tenus, und mein Weg liegt in der Mitte zwischen der Allwissenheitslehre der frühern Dogmatik und der Verzweiflung der Kantischen Kritik. Die von Kant entdeckten, wichtigen Wahrheiten aber, durch welche die früheren metaphysischen Systeme umgestoßen wurden, haben dem meinigen Data und Material geliefert. Man vergleiche was ich Kap. 17 des zweiten Bandes über meine Methode gesagt habe. — Soviel über den Kantischen Grundgedanken: jetzt wollen wir die Ausführung und das Einzelne betrachten.

Kants Stil trägt durchweg das Gepräge eines überlegenen Geistes, ächter, fester Eigenthümlichkeit und ganz ungewöhnlicher Denkkraft; der Charakter desselben läßt sich vielleicht treffend bezeichnen als eine glänzende Trockenheit, vermöge welcher er die Begriffe mit großer Sicherheit fest zu fassen und herauszugreifen, dann sie mit größter Freiheit hin- und herzuwerfen vermag, zum Erstaunen des Lesers. Dieselbe glänzende Trockenheit finde ich im Stil des Aristoteles wieder, obwohl dieser viel einfacher ist. — Dennoch ist Kants Vortrag oft undeutlich, unbestimmt, ungenügend und bisweilen dunkel. Allerdings ist dieses Letztere zum Theil durch die Schwierigkeit des Gegenstandes und die Tiefe der Gedanken zu entschuldigen; aber wer sich selber bis auf den Grund klar ist und ganz deutlich weiß, was er denkt und will, der wird nie undeutlich schreiben, wird nie schwankende, unbestimmte Begriffe aufstellen und zur Bezeichnung derselben aus fremden Sprachen höchst schwierige komplicirte Ausdrücke zusammensuchen, um solche nachher fortwährend zu gebrauchen, wie Kant aus der ältern, sogar scholastischen Philosophie Worte und Formeln nahm, die er zu seinen Zwecken miteinander verband, wie z. B. „transscendentale synthetische Einheit der Apperception“, und überhaupt „Einheit der Synthesis“ allemal gesetzt, wo „Vereinigung“ ganz allein ausreichte. Ein Solcher wird ferner nicht das schon einmal Erklärte immer wieder von Neuem erklären, wie Kant es z. B. macht mit dem Verstande, den Kategorien, der Erfahrung und anderen Hauptbegriffen. Ein Solcher wird überhaupt nicht sich unablässig wiederholen und dabei doch, in jeder neuen Darstellung des hundert Mal dagewesenen Gedankens, ihm wieder gerade dieselben dunkeln Stellen lassen; sondern er wird einmal deutlich, gründlich, erschöpfend seine Meinung sagen, und dabei es bewenden lassen. Quo enim melius rem aliquam concipimus, eo magis determinati sumus ad eam unico modo exprimendam, sagt Kartesius in seinem fünften Briefe. Aber der größte Nachtheil, den Kants stellenweise dunkler Vortrag gehabt hat, ist, daß er als exemplar vitiis imitabile wirkte, ja, zu verderblicher Autorisation mißdeutet wurde. Das Publikum war genöthigt worden einzusehen, daß das Dunkle nicht immer sinnlos ist: sogleich flüchtete sich das Sinnlose hinter den dunkeln Vortrag. Fichte war der Erste, der dies neue Privilegium ergriff und stark benutzte; Schelling that es ihm darin wenigstens gleich, und ein Heer hungeriger Skribenten ohne Geist und ohne Redlichkeit überbot bald Beide. Jedoch die größte Frechheit im Auftischen baren Unsinns, im Zusammenschmieren sinnleerer, rasender Wortgeflechte, wie man sie bis dahin nur in Tollhäusern vernommen hatte, trat endlich im Hegel auf und wurde das Werkzeug der plumpesten allgemeinen Mystifikation, die je gewesen, mit einem Erfolg, welcher der Nachwelt fabelhaft erscheinen und ein Denkmal Deutscher Niaiserie bleiben wird. Vergeblich schrieb unterdessen Jean Paul seinen schönen Paragraphen „höhere Würdigung des philosophischen Tollseyns auf dem Katheder und des dichterischen auf dem Theater“ (ästhetische Nachschule); denn vergeblich hatte schon Goethe gesagt:

„So schwätzt und lehrt man ungestört, Wer mag sich mit den Narr’n befassen? Gewöhnlich glaubt der Mensch, wenn er nur Worte hört, Es müsse sich dabei doch auch was denken lassen.“

Doch kehren wir zu Kant zurück. Man kann nicht umhin einzugestehen, daß ihm die antike, grandiose Einfalt, daß ihm Naivetät, ingénuité, candeur, gänzlich abgeht. Seine Philosophie hat keine Analogie mit der Griechischen Baukunst, welche große, einfache, dem Blick sich auf einmal offenbarende Verhältnisse darbietet: vielmehr erinnert sie sehr stark an die Gothische Bauart. Denn eine ganz individuelle Eigenthümlichkeit des Geistes Kants ist ein sonderbares Wohlgefallen an der Symmetrie, welche die bunte Vielheit liebt, um sie zu ordnen und die Ordnung in Unterordnungen zu wiederholen, und so immerfort, gerade wie an den Gothischen Kirchen. Ja er treibt dies bisweilen bis zur Spielerei, wobei er, jener Neigung zu Liebe, so weit geht, der Wahrheit offenbare Gewalt anzuthun und mit ihr zu verfahren, wie mit der Natur die altfränkischen Gärtner, deren Werk symmetrische Alleen, Quadrate und Triangel, pyramidalische und kugelförmige Bäume und zu regelmäßigen Kurven gewundene Hecken sind. Ich will dies mit Thatsachen belegen.

Nachdem er Raum und Zeit isolirt abgehandelt, dann diese ganze, Raum und Zeit füllende Welt der Anschauung, in der wir leben und sind, abgefertigt hat mit den nichtssagenden Worten „der empirische Inhalt der Anschauung wird uns gegeben“, — gelangt er sofort, mit einem Sprunge, zur logischen Grundlage seiner ganzen Philosophie, zur Tafel der Urtheile. Aus dieser deducirt er ein richtiges Dutzend Kategorien, symmetrisch unter vier Titeln abgesteckt, welche späterhin das furchtbare Bett des Prokrustes werden, in welches er alle Dinge der Welt und Alles was im Menschen vorgeht gewaltsam hineinzwängt, keine Gewaltthätigkeit scheuend und kein Sophisma verschmähend, um nur die Symmetrie jener Tafel überall wiederholen zu können. Das Erste, was aus ihr symmetrisch abgeleitet wird, ist die reine physiologische Tafel allgemeiner Grundsätze der Naturwissenschaft: nämlich Axiome der Anschauung, Anticipationen der Wahrnehmung, Analogien der Erfahrung und Postulate des empirischen Denkens überhaupt. Von diesen Grundsätzen sind die beiden ersten einfach; die beiden letzteren aber treiben symmetrisch jeder drei Sprößlinge. Die bloßen Kategorien waren was er Begriffe nennt; diese Grundsätze der Naturwissenschaft sind aber Urtheile. Zufolge seines obersten Leitfadens zu aller Weisheit, nämlich der Symmetrie, ist jetzt an den Schlüssen die Reihe sich fruchtbar zu erweisen, und zwar thun sie dies wieder symmetrisch und taktmäßig. Denn, wie durch Anwendung der Kategorien auf die Sinnlichkeit, für den Verstand die Erfahrung, sammt ihren Grundsätzen a priori, erwuchs; ebenso entstehen durch Anwendung der Schlüsse auf die Kategorien, welches Geschäft die Vernunft, nach ihrem angeblichen Princip das Unbedingte zu suchen, verrichtet, die Ideen der Vernunft. Dieses geht nun so vor sich: die drei Kategorien der Relation geben drei allein mögliche Arten von Obersätzen zu Schlüssen, welche letztere demgemäß ebenfalls in drei Arten zerfallen, jede von welchen als ein Ei anzusehen ist, aus dem die Vernunft eine Idee brütet: nämlich aus der kategorischen Schlußart die Idee der Seele, aus der hypothetischen die Idee der Welt, und aus der disjunktiven die Idee von Gott. In der mittelsten, der Idee der Welt, wiederholt sich nun noch einmal die Symmetrie der Kategorientafel, indem ihre vier Titel vier Thesen hervorbringen, von denen jede ihre Antithese zum symmetrischen Pendant hat.

Wir zollen zwar der wirklich höchst scharfsinnigen Kombination, welche dies zierliche Gebäude hervorrief, unsere Bewunderung; werden aber weiterhin dasselbe in seinem Fundament und in seinen Theilen gründlich untersuchen. — Doch müssen folgende Betrachtungen vorangeschickt werden.

Es ist zum Erstaunen, wie Kant, ohne sich weiter zu besinnen, seinen Weg verfolgt, seiner Symmetrie nachgehend, nach ihr Alles ordnend, ohne jemals einen der so behandelten Gegenstände für sich in Betracht zu nehmen. Ich will mich näher erklären. Nachdem er die intuitive Erkenntniß bloß in der Mathematik in Betrachtung nimmt, vernachlässigt er die übrige anschauliche Erkenntniß, in der die Welt vor uns liegt, gänzlich, und hält sich allein an das abstrakte Denken, welches doch alle Bedeutung und Werth erst von der anschaulichen Welt empfängt, die unendlich bedeutsamer, allgemeiner, gehaltreicher ist, als der abstrakte Theil unserer Erkenntniß. Ja, er hat, und dies ist ein Hauptpunkt, nirgends die anschauliche und die abstrakte Erkenntniß deutlich unterschieden, und eben dadurch, wie wir hernach sehen werden, sich in unauflösliche Widersprüche mit sich selbst verwickelt. — Nachdem er die ganze Sinnenwelt abgefertigt hat mit dem Nichtssagenden „sie ist gegeben“, macht er nun, wie gesagt, die logische Tafel der Urtheile zum Grundstein seines Gebäudes. Aber hier besinnt er sich auch nicht einen Augenblick über Das, was jetzt eigentlich vor ihm liegt. Diese Formen der Urtheile sind ja Worte und Wortverbindungen. Es sollte doch zuerst gefragt werden, was diese unmittelbar bezeichnen: es hätte sich gefunden, daß dies Begriffe sind. Die nächste Frage wäre dann gewesen nach dem Wesen der Begriffe. Aus ihrer Beantwortung hätte sich ergeben, welches Verhältniß diese zu den anschaulichen Vorstellungen, in denen die Welt dasteht, haben: da wäre Anschanung und Reflexion auseinandergetreten. Nicht bloß wie die reine und nur formale Anschanung a priori, sondern auch wie ihr Gehalt, die empirische Anschanung, ins Bewußtseyn kommt, hätte nun untersucht werden müssen. Dann aber hätte sich gezeigt, welchen Antheil hieran der Verstand hat, also auch überhaupt was der Verstand und was dagegen eigentlich die Vernunft sei, deren Kritik hier geschrieben wird. Es ist höchst auffallend, daß er dieses Letztere auch nicht ein einziges Mal ordentlich und genügend bestimmt; sondern er giebt nur gelegentlich und wie der jedesmalige Zusammenhang es fordert, unvollständige und unrichtige Erklärungen von ihr; ganz im Widerspruch mit der oben beigebrachten Regel des Kartesius [3].

4 Hier sei bemerkt, daß ich die „Kritik der reinen Vernunft“ überall nach der Seitenzahl der ersten Auflage citire, da in der Rosenkranzischen Ausgabe der gesammten Werke diese Seitenzahl durchgängig beigegeben ist: außerdem füge ich, mit vorgesetzter V, die Seitenzahl der fünften Auflage hinzu; dieser sind alle übrigen, von der zweiten an, gleichlautend, also auch wohl in der Seitenzahl.

Z. B. S. 11; V, 24, der „Kritik der reinen Vernunft“ ist sie das Vermögen der Principien a priori; S. 299; V, 356, heißt es abermals, die Vernunft sei das Vermögen der Principien und sie wird dem Verstande entgegengesetzt, als welcher das Vermögen der Regeln sei! Nun sollte man denken, zwischen Principien und Regeln müsse ein himmelweiter Unterschied seyn, da er berechtigt, für jede derselben ein besonderes Erkenntnißvermögen anzunehmen. Allein dieser große Unterschied soll bloß darin liegen, daß was aus der reinen Anschauung, oder durch die Formen des Verstandes, a priori erkannt wird, eine Regel sei, und nur was aus bloßen Begriffen a priori hervorgeht, ein Princip. Auf diese willkürliche und unstatthafte Unterscheidung werden wir nachher bei der Dialektik zurückkommen. S. 330; V, 386, ist die Vernunft das Vermögen zu schließen: das bloße Urtheilen erklärt er öfter (S. 69; V, 94) für das Geschäft des Verstandes. Damit sagt er nun aber eigentlich: Urtheilen ist das Geschäft des Verstandes, so lange der Grund des Urtheils empirisch, transscendental, oder metalogisch ist (Abhandlung über den Satz vom Grund, §. 31, 32, 33); ist er aber logisch, als worin der Schluß besteht, so agirt hier ein ganz besonderes, viel vorzüglicheres Erkenntnißvermögen, die Vernunft. Ja, was noch mehr ist, S. 303; V, 360, wird auseinandergesetzt, daß die unmittelbaren Folgerungen aus einem Satze noch Sache des Verstandes wären, und nur die, wo ein vermittelnder Begriff gebraucht wird, von der Vernunft verrichtet würden; und als Beispiel wird angeführt, aus dem Satz: „Alle Menschen sind sterblich“, sei die Folgerung: „Einige Sterbliche sind Menschen“ noch durch den bloßen Verstand gezogen; hingegen diese: „Alle Gelehrte sind sterblich“ erfordere ein ganz anderes und viel vorzüglicheres Vermögen, die Vernunft. Wie war es möglich, daß ein großer Denker so etwas vorbringen konnte! S. 553; V, 581, ist mit einem Male die Vernunft die beharrliche Bedingung aller willkürlichen Handlungen. S. 614; V, 642, besteht sie darin, daß wir von unseren Behauptungen Rechenschaft geben können: S. 643, 644; V, 671, 672, darin, daß sie die Begriffe des Verstandes zu Ideen vereinigt, wie der Verstand das Mannigfaltige der Objekte zu Begriffen. S. 646; V, 674, ist sie nichts Anderes, als das Vermögen das Besondere aus dem Allgemeinen abzuleiten.

Der Verstand wird ebenfalls immer wieder von Neuem erklärt: an sieben Stellen der „Kritik der reinen Vernunft“, S. 51; V, 75, ist er das Vermögen, Vorstellungen selbst hervorzubringen. S. 69; V, 94, das Vermögen zu urtheilen, d. h. zu denken, d. h. durch Begriffe zu erkennen. S. 137, fünfte Auflage, im Allgemeinen das Vermögen der Erkenntnisse. S. 132; V, 171, das Vermögen der Regeln. S. 158; V, 197, aber wird gesagt: „er ist nicht nur das Vermögen der Regeln, sondern der Quell der Grundsätze, nach welchem alles unter Regeln steht“; und dennoch ward er oben der Vernunft entgegengesetzt, weil diese allein das Vermögen der Principien wäre. S. 160; V, 199, ist der Verstand das Vermögen der Begriffe: S. 302; V, 359, aber das Vermögen der Einheit der Erscheinungen vermittelst der Regeln.

Die von mir aufgestellten, festen, scharfen, bestimmten, einfachen und mit dem Sprachgebrauch aller Völker und Zeiten stets übereinkommenden Erklärungen jener zwei Erkenntnißvermögen werde ich nicht nöthig haben gegen solche (obwohl sie von Kant ausgehen) wahrhaft konfuse und grundlose Reden darüber zu vertheidigen. Ich habe diese nur angeführt als Belege meines Vorwurfs, daß Kant sein symmetrisches, logisches System verfolgt, ohne sich über den Gegenstand, den er so behandelt, genugsam zu besinnen.

Hätte nun Kant, wie ich oben sagte, ernstlich untersucht, inwiefern zwei solche verschiedene Erkenntnißvermögen, davon eines das Unterscheidende der Menschheit ist, sich zu erkennen geben, und was, gemäß dem Sprachgebrauch aller Völker und aller Philosophen, Vernunft und Verstand heiße; so hätte er auch nie, ohne weitere Autorität, als den in ganz anderem Sinne gebrauchten intellectus theoreticus und practicus der Scholastiker, die Vernunft in eine theoretische und praktische zerfällt, und letztere zur Quelle des tugendhaften Handelns gemacht. Ebenso, bevor Kant Verstandesbegriffe (worunter er theils seine Kategorien, theils alle Gemeinbegriffe versteht) und Vernunftbegriffe (seine sogenannten Ideen) so sorgfältig sonderte und beide zum Material seiner Philosophie machte, die größtentheils nur von der Gültigkeit, Anwendung, Ursprung aller dieser Begriffe handelt; — zuvor, sage ich, hätte er doch wahrlich untersuchen sollen, was denn überhaupt ein Begriff sei. Allein auch diese so nothwendige Untersuchung ist leider ganz unterblieben; was viel beigetragen hat zu der heillosen Vermischung intuitiver und abstrakter Erkenntniß, die ich bald nachweisen werde. — Der selbe Mangel an hinlänglichem Besinnen, mit welchem er die Fragen übergieng: was ist Anschauung? was ist Reflexion? was Begriff? was Vernunft? was Verstand? — ließ ihn auch folgende ebenso unumgänglich nöthige Untersuchungen übergehen: was nenne ich den Gegenstand, den ich von der Vorstellung unterscheide? was ist Daseyn? was Objekt? was Subjekt? was Wahrheit, Schein, Irrthum? — Aber er verfolgt, ohne sich zu besinnen oder umzusehen, sein logisches Schema und seine Symmetrie. Die Tafel der Urtheile soll und muß der Schlüssel zu aller Weisheit seyn.

Ich habe es oben als das Hauptverdienst Kants aufgestellt, daß er die Erscheinung vom Dinge an sich unterschied, diese ganze sichtbare Welt für Erscheinung erklärte und daher den Gesetzen derselben alle Gültigkeit über die Erscheinung hinaus absprach. Es ist allerdings auffallend, daß er jene bloß relative Existenz der Erscheinung nicht aus der einfachen, so nahe liegenden, unleugbaren Wahrheit „Kein Objekt ohne Subjekt“ ableitete, um so, schon an der Wurzel, das Objekt, weil es durchaus immer nur in Beziehung auf ein Subjekt da ist, als von diesem abhängig, durch dieses bedingt und daher als bloße Erscheinung, die nicht an sich, nicht unbedingt existirt, darzustellen. Jenen wichtigen Satz hatte bereits Berkeley, gegen dessen Verdienst Kant nicht gerecht ist, zum Grundstein seiner Philosophie gemacht und dadurch sich ein unsterbliches Andenken gestiftet, obwohl er selbst nicht die gehörigen Folgerungen aus jenem Satze zog und sodann theils nicht verstanden, theils nicht genugsam beachtet wurde. Ich hatte, in meiner ersten Auflage, Kants Umgehen dieses Berkeleyschen Satzes aus einer sichtbaren Scheu vor dem entschiedenen Idealismus erklärt; während ich diesen andererseits in vielen Stellen der „Kritik der reinen Vernunft“ deutlich ausgesprochen fand; und hatte demnach Kanten des Widerspruchs mit sich selbst geziehen. Auch war dieser Vorwurf gegründet, sofern man, wie es damals mein Fall war, die „Kritik der reinen Vernunft“ bloß in der zweiten, oder den nach ihr abgedruckten fünf folgenden Auflagen kennt. Als ich nun aber später Kants Hauptwerk in der bereits selten gewordenen ersten Auflage las, sah ich, zu meiner großen Freude, alle jene Widersprüche verschwinden, und fand, daß Kant, wenn er gleich nicht die Formel „kein Objekt ohne Subjekt“ gebraucht, doch, mit eben der Entschiedenheit wie Berkeley und ich, die im Raum und Zeit vorliegende Außenwelt für bloße Vorstellung des sie erkennenden Subjekts erklärt; daher er z. B. S. 383 daselbst ohne Rückhalt sagt: „Wenn ich das denkende Subjekt wegnehme, muß die ganze Körperwelt wegfallen, als die nichts ist, als die Erscheinung in der Sinnlichkeit unseres Subjekts und eine Art Vorstellungen desselben.“ Aber die ganze Stelle von S. 348–392, in welcher Kant seinen entschiedenen Idealismus überaus schön und deutlich darlegt, wurde von ihm in der zweiten Auflage supprimirt und dagegen eine Menge ihr widerstreitender Aeußerungen hineingebracht. Dadurch ist denn der Text der „Kritik der reinen Vernunft“, wie er vom Jahr 1787 an bis zum Jahr 1838 cirkulirt hat, ein verunstalteter und verdorbener geworden, und dieselbe ein sich selbst widersprechendes Buch gewesen, dessen Sinn eben deshalb Niemanden ganz klar und verständlich seyn konnte. Das Nähere hierüber, wie auch meine Vermuthungen über die Gründe und Schwächen, welche Kanten zu einer solchen Verunstaltung seines unsterblichen Werkes haben bewegen können, habe ich dargelegt in einem Briefe an Herrn Professor Rosenkranz, dessen Hauptstelle derselbe in seine Vorrede zum zweiten Bande der von ihm besorgten Ausgabe der sämmtlichen Werke Kants aufgenommen hat, wohin ich also hier verweise. In Folge meiner Vorstellungen nämlich hat im Jahre 1838 Herr Professor Rosenkranz sich bewogen gefunden, die „Kritik der reinen Vernunft“ in ihrer ursprünglichen Gestalt wieder herzustellen, indem er sie, in besagtem zweiten Bande, nach der ersten Auflage von 1781 abdrucken ließ, wodurch er sich um die Philosophie ein unschätzbares Verdienst erworben, ja das wichtigste Werk der Deutschen Litteratur vielleicht vom Untergange gerettet hat; und dies soll man ihm nie vergessen. Aber Keiner bilde sich ein, die „Kritik der reinen Vernunft“ zu kennen und einen deutlichen Begriff von Kants Lehre zu haben, wenn er jene nur in der zweiten, oder einer der folgenden Auflagen gelesen hat; das ist schlechterdings unmöglich: denn er hat nur einen verstümmelten, verdorbenen, gewissermaaßen unächten Text gelesen. Es ist meine Pflicht, Dies hier entschieden und zu Jedermanns Warnung auszusprechen.

Mit der in der ersten Auflage der „Kritik der reinen Vernunft“ so deutlich ausgesprochenen, entschieden idealistischen Grundansicht steht jedoch die Art, wie Kant das Ding an sich einführt, in unleugbarem Widerspruch, und ohne Zweifel ist dies der Hauptgrund, warum er in der zweiten Auflage die angegebene idealistische Hauptstelle supprimirte, und sich geradezu gegen den Berkeleyschen Idealismus erklärte, wodurch er jedoch nur Inkonsequenzen in sein Werk brachte, ohne dem Hauptgebrechen desselben abhelfen zu können. Dieses ist bekanntlich die Einführung des Dinges an sich, auf die von ihm gewählte Weise, deren Unstatthaftigkeit von G. E. Schulze im „Aenesidemus“ weitläufig dargethan und bald als der unhaltbare Punkt seines Systems anerkannt wurde. Die Sache läßt sich mit sehr Wenigem deutlich machen. Kant gründet die Voraussetzung des Dinges an sich, wiewohl unter mancherlei Wendungen verdeckt, auf einen Schluß nach dem Kausalitätsgesetz, daß nämlich die empirische Anschauung, richtiger die Empfindung in unsern Sinnesorganen, von der sie ausgeht, eine äußere Ursache haben müsse. Nun aber ist, nach seiner eigenen und richtigen Entdeckung, das Gesetz der Kausalität uns a priori bekannt, folglich eine Funktion unseres Intellekts, also subjektiven Ursprungs; ferner ist die Sinnesempfindung selbst, auf welche wir hier das Kausalitätsgesetz anwenden, unleugbar subjektiv; und endlich sogar der Raum, in welchen wir mittelst dieser Anwendung die Ursache der Empfindung als Objekt versetzen, ist eine a priori gegebene, folglich subjektive Form unseres Intellekts. Mithin bleibt die ganze empirische Anschauung durchweg auf subjektivem Grund und Boden, als ein bloßer Vorgang in uns, und nichts von ihr gänzlich Verschiedenes, von ihr Unabhängiges, läßt sich als ein Ding an sich hineinbringen, oder als nothwendige Voraussetzung darthun. Wirklich ist und bleibt die empirische Anschauung unsere bloße Vorstellung: es ist die Welt als Vorstellung. Zum Wesen an sich dieser können wir nur auf dem ganz anderartigen, von mir eingeschlagenen Wege, mittelst Hinzuziehung des Selbstbewußtseyns, welches den Willen als das Ansich unserer eigenen Erscheinung kund giebt, gelangen: dann aber wird das Ding an sich ein von der Vorstellung und ihren Elementen toto genere Verschiedenes; wie ich dies ausgeführt habe.

Das, wie gesagt, früh nachgewiesene, große Gebrechen des Kantischen Systems in diesem Punkt ist ein Beleg zu dem schönen Indischen Sprichwort: „Kein Lotus ohne Stengel.“ Die fehlerhafte Ableitung des Dinges an sich ist hier der Stengel: jedoch auch nur die Art der Ableitung, nicht die Anerkennung eines Dinges an sich zur gegebenen Erscheinung. Auf diese letztere Weise aber mißverstand es Fichte; was er nur konnte, weil es ihm nicht um die Wahrheit zu thun war, sondern um Aufsehen, zur Beförderung seiner persönlichen Zwecke. Demnach war er dreist und gedankenlos genug, das Ding an sich ganz abzuleugnen und ein System aufzustellen, in welchem nicht, wie bei Kant, das bloß Formale der Vorstellung, sondern auch das Materiale, der gesammte Inhalt derselben, vorgeblich a priori aus dem Subjekt abgeleitet wurde. Er rechnete dabei ganz richtig auf die Urtheilslosigkeit und Niaiserie des Publikums, welches schlechte Sophismen, bloßen Hokuspokus und unsinniges Wischiwaschi für Beweise hinnahm; so daß es ihm glückte, die Aufmerksamkeit desselben von Kant auf sich zu lenken und der Deutschen Philosophie die Richtung zu geben, in welcher sie nachher von Schelling weiter geführt wurde und endlich in der unsinnigen Hegelschen Afterweisheit ihr Ziel erreichte.

Ich komme jetzt auf den schon oben berührten großen Fehler Kants zurück, daß er die anschauliche und die abstrakte Erkenntniß nicht gehörig gesondert hat, woraus eine heillose Konfusion entstanden ist, die wir jetzt näher zu betrachten haben. Hätte er die anschaulichen Vorstellungen von den bloß in abstracto gedachten Begriffen scharf getrennt, so würde er diese beiden auseinander gehalten und jedesmal gewußt haben, mit welchen von beiden er es zu thun hätte. Dies ist nun leider nicht der Fall gewesen, obgleich der Vorwurf darüber noch nicht laut geworden, also vielleicht unerwartet ist. Sein „Objekt der Erfahrung“ davon er beständig redet, der eigentliche Gegenstand der Kategorien, ist nicht die anschauliche Vorstellung, ist aber auch nicht der abstrakte Begriff, sondern von beiden verschieden, und doch beides zugleich, und ein völliges Unding. Denn es hat ihm, so unglaublich dies scheint, an Besonnenheit, oder aber an gutem Willen gefehlt, um hierüber mit sich selbst ins Reine zu kommen und sich und Anderen deutlich zu erklären, ob sein „Gegenstand der Erfahrung, d. h. der durch Anwendung der Kategorien zu Stande kommenden Erkenntniß“, die anschauliche Vorstellung in Raum und Zeit (meine erste Klasse der Vorstellungen) ist, oder bloß der abstrakte Begriff. Ihm schwebt, so seltsam es auch ist, beständig ein Mittelding von beiden vor, und daher kommt die unsälige Verwirrung, die ich jetzt ans Licht ziehen muß: zu welchem Zweck ich die ganze Elementarlehre im Allgemeinen durchzugehen habe.

Die transscendentale Aesthetik ist ein so überaus verdienstvolles Werk, daß es allein hinreichen könnte, Kants Namen zu verewigen. Ihre Beweise haben so volle Ueberzeugungskraft, daß ich die Lehrsätze derselben den unumstößlichen Wahrheiten beizähle, wie sie ohne Zweifel auch zu den folgenreichsten gehören, mithin als das Seltenste auf der Welt, nämlich eine wirkliche, große Entdeckung in der Metaphysik, zu betrachten sind. Die von ihm streng bewiesene Thatsache, daß ein Theil unserer Erkenntnisse uns a priori bewußt ist, läßt gar keine andere Erklärung zu, als daß diese die Formen unseres Intellekts ausmachen: ja, dies ist weniger eine Erklärung, als eben nur der deutliche Ausdruck der Thatsache selbst. Denn a priori bedeutet nichts Anderes, als „nicht auf dem Wege der Erfahrung gewonnen, also nicht von Außen in uns gekommen“. Was nun aber, ohne von Außen gekommen zu seyn, im Intellekt vorhanden ist, ist eben das ihm selbst ursprünglich Angehörige, sein eigenes Wesen. Besteht nun dies so in ihm selbst Vorhandene in der allgemeinen Art und Weise, wie alle seine Gegenstände ihm sich darstellen müssen; nun, so ist damit gesagt, daß es die Formen seines Erkennens sind, d. h. die ein für alle Mal festgestellte Art und Weise, wie er diese seine Funktion vollzieht. Demnach sind „Erkenntnisse a priori“ und „selbsteigene Formen des Intellekts“ im Grunde nur zwei Ausdrücke für die selbe Sache, also gewissermaaßen Synonyma.

Von den Lehren der transscendentalen Aesthetik wüßte ich daher nichts hinwegzunehmen, nur Einiges hinzuzusetzen. Besonders nämlich ist Kant mit seinen Gedanken nicht zu Ende gekommen darin, daß er nicht die ganze Eukleidische Demonstrirmethode verwarf, nachdem er doch S. 87; V, 120, gesagt hatte, alle geometrische Erkenntniß habe aus der Anschauung unmittelbare Evidenz. Es ist höchst merkwürdig, daß sogar einer seiner Gegner, und zwar der scharfsinnigste derselben, G. E. Schulze (Kritik der theoretischen Philosophie, II, 241), den Schluß macht, daß aus Kants Lehre eine ganz andere Behandlung der Geometrie hervorgehen würde, als die wirklich übliche ist; wodurch er einen apagogischen Beweis gegen Kant zu führen vermeint, in der That aber gegen die Eukleidische Methode den Krieg anfängt, ohne es zu wissen. Ich berufe mich auf §. 15 im ersten Buch gegenwärtiger Schrift.

Nach der in der transscendentalen Aesthetik gegebenen, ausführlichen Erörterung der allgemeinen Formen aller Anschauung muß man erwarten, doch einige Aufklärung zu erhalten über den Inhalt derselben, über die Art wie die empirische Anschauung in unser Bewußtseyn kommt, wie die Erkenntniß dieser ganzen, für uns so realen und so wichtigen Welt in uns entsteht. Allein darüber enthält die ganze Lehre Kants eigentlich nichts weiter, als den oft wiederholten, nichtssagenden Ausdruck: „Das Empirische der Anschauung wird von Außen gegeben.“ — Dieserhalb gelangt Kant denn auch hier von den reinen Formen der Anschauung, durch einen Sprung, zum Denken, zur transscendentalen Logik. Gleich am Eingange derselben (Kritik der reinen Vernunft, S. 50; V, 74), wo Kant den materialen Gehalt der empirischen Anschauung zu berühren nicht umhin kann, thut er den ersten falschen Schritt, begeht das πρωτον ψευδος. „Unsere Erkenntniß“, sagt er, „hat zwei Quellen, nämlich Receptivität der Eindrücke und Spontaneität der Begriffe: die erste ist die Fähigkeit Vorstellungen zu empfangen, die zweite die, einen Gegenstand durch diese Vorstellungen zu erkennen: durch die erste wird uns ein Gegenstand gegeben, durch die zweite wird er gedacht.“ — Das ist falsch: denn danach wäre der Eindruck, für den allein wir bloße Receptivität haben, der also von Außen kommt und allein eigentlich „gegeben“ ist, schon eine Vorstellung, ja sogar schon ein Gegenstand. Er ist aber nichts weiter, als eine bloße Empfindung im Sinnesorgan, und erst durch Anwendung des Verstandes (d. i. des Gesetzes der Kausalität) und der Anschauungsformen des Raumes und der Zeit wandelt unser Intellekt diese bloße Empfindung in eine Vorstellung um, welche nunmehr als Gegenstand in Raum und Zeit dasteht und von letzterem (dem Gegenstand) nicht anders unterschieden werden kann, als sofern man nach dem Dinge an sich frägt, außerdem aber mit ihm identisch ist. Diesen Hergang habe ich ausführlich dargelegt in der Abhandlung über den Satz vom Grunde, §. 21. Damit ist aber das Geschäft des Verstandes und der anschauenden Erkenntniß vollbracht, und es bedarf dazu keiner Begriffe und keines Denkens; daher diese Vorstellungen auch das Thier hat. Kommen Begriffe, kommt Denken hinzu, welchem allerdings Spontaneität beigelegt werden kann; so wird die anschauende Erkenntniß gänzlich verlassen, und eine völlig andere Klasse von Vorstellungen, nämlich nichtanschauliche, abstrakte Begriffe, tritt ins Bewußtseyn: dies ist die Thätigkeit der Vernunft, welche jedoch den ganzen Inhalt ihres Denkens allein aus der diesem vorhergegangenen Anschauung und Vergleichung desselben mit anderen Anschauungen und Begriffen hat. So aber bringt Kant das Denken schon in die Anschauung und legt den Grund zu der heillosen Vermischung der intuitiven und abstrakten Erkenntniß, welche zu rügen ich hier beschäftigt bin. Er läßt die Anschauung, für sich genommen, verstandlos, rein sinnlich, also ganz passiv seyn, und erst durch das Denken (Verstandeskategorie) einen Gegenstand aufgefaßt werden: so bringt er das Denken in die Anschauung. Dann ist aber wiederum der Gegenstand des Denkens ein einzelnes, reales Objekt; wodurch das Denken seinen wesentlichen Charakter der Allgemeinheit und Abstraktion einbüßt und statt allgemeiner Begriffe einzelne Dinge zum Objekt erhält, wodurch er wieder das Anschauen in das Denken bringt. Daraus entspringt die besagte heillose Vermischung, und die Folgen dieses ersten falschen Schrittes erstrecken sich über seine ganze Theorie des Erkennens.

Durch das Ganze derselben zieht sich die gänzliche Vermischung der anschaulichen Vorstellung mit der abstrakten zu einem Mittelding von beiden, welches er als den Gegenstand der Erkenntniß durch den Verstand und dessen Kategorien darstellt und diese Erkenntniß Erfahrung nennt. Es ist schwer zu glauben, daß Kant selbst sich etwas völlig Bestimmtes und eigentlich Deutliches bei diesem Gegenstand des Verstandes gedacht habe: dieses werde ich jetzt beweisen, durch den ungeheuern Widerspruch, der durch die ganze transscendentale Logik geht und die eigentliche Quelle der Dunkelheit ist, die sie umhüllt.

Nämlich in der „Kritik der reinen Vernunft“, S. 67–69; V, 92—94; S. 89, 90; V, 122, 123; ferner V, 135, 139, 153, wiederholt er und schärft ein: der Verstand sei kein Vermögen der Anschauung, seine Erkenntniß sei nicht intuitiv, sondern diskursiv; der Verstand sei das Vermögen zu urtheilen (S. 69; V, 94), und ein Urtheil sei mittelbare Erkenntniß, Vorstellung einer Vorstellung (S. 68; V, 93); der Verstand sei das Vermögen zu denken, und denken sei die Erkenntniß durch Begriffe (S. 69; V, 94); die Kategorien des Verstandes seien keineswegs die Bedingungen, unter denen Gegenstände in der Anschauung gegeben werden (S. 89; V, 122), und die Anschauung bedürfe der Funktionen des Denkens auf keine Weise (S. 91; V, 123); unser Verstand könne nur denken, nicht anschauen (V, S. 135, 139). Ferner in den Prolegomenen, §. 20: Anschauung, Wahrnehmung, perceptio, gehöre bloß den Sinnen an; das Urtheilen komme allein dem Verstande zu; und §. 22: die Sache der Sinne sei anzuschauen, die des Verstandes zu denken, d. i. zu urtheilen. — Endlich noch in der „Kritik der praktischen Vernunft“, vierte Auflage, S. 247: Rosenkranzische Ausgabe S. 281: der Verstand ist diskursiv, seine Vorstellungen sind Gedanken, nicht Anschauungen. — Alles dieses sind Kants eigene Worte.

Hieraus folgt, daß diese anschauliche Welt für uns da wäre, auch wenn wir gar keinen Verstand hätten, daß sie auf eine ganz unerklärliche Weise in unsern Kopf kommt, welches er eben durch seinen wunderlichen Ausdruck, die Anschauung wäre gegeben, häufig bezeichnet, ohne diesen unbestimmten und bildlichen Ausdruck je weiter zu erklären.

Aber nun widerspricht allem Angeführten auf das schreiendeste seine ganze übrige Lehre vom Verstande, von dessen Kategorien und von der Möglichkeit der Erfahrung, wie er solche in der transscendentalen Logik vorträgt. Nämlich: „Kritik der reinen Vernunft“, S. 79; V, 105, bringt der Verstand durch seine Kategorien Einheit in das Mannigfaltige der Anschauung, und die reinen Verstandesbegriffe gehen a priori auf Gegenstände der Anschauung. S. 94; V, 126, sind „die Kategorien Bedingung der Erfahrung, es sei der Anschauung oder des Denkens das in ihr angetroffen wird“. V, S. 127, ist der Verstand Urheber der Erfahrung. V, S. 128, bestimmen die Kategorien die Anschauung der Gegenstände. V, S. 130, ist Alles, was wir uns im Objekt (das doch wohl ein Anschauliches und kein Abstraktum ist) als verbunden vorstellen, erst durch eine Verstandeshandlung verbunden worden. V, S. 135, wird der Verstand von Neuem erklärt, als das Vermögen a priori zu verbinden und das Mannigfaltige gegebener Vorstellungen unter die Einheit der Apperception zu bringen: aber, nach allem Sprachgebrauch, ist die Apperception nicht das Denken eines Begriffs, sondern ist Anschauung. V, S. 136, finden wir gar einen obersten Grundsatz der Möglichkeit aller Anschauung in Beziehung auf den Verstand. V, S. 143, steht sogar als Ueberschrift, daß alle sinnliche Anschauung durch die Kategorien bedingt sei. Ebendaselbst bringt die logische Funktion der Urtheile auch das Mannigfaltige gegebener Anschauungen unter eine Apperception überhaupt, und das Mannigfaltige einer gegebenen Anschauung steht nothwendig unter den Kategorien. V, S. 144, kommt Einheit in die Anschauung, mittelst der Kategorien, durch den Verstand. V, S. 145, wird das Denken des Verstandes sehr seltsam dadurch erklärt, daß er das Mannigfaltige der Anschauung synthesirt, verbindet und ordnet. V, S. 161, ist Erfahrung nur durch die Kategorien möglich und besteht in der Verknüpfung der Wahrnehmungen, die denn doch wohl Anschauungen sind. V, S. 159, sind die Kategorien Erkenntnisse a priori von Gegenständen der Anschauung überhaupt. — Ferner wird hier und V, S. 163 und 165, eine Hauptlehre Kants vorgetragen, diese: daß der Verstand die Natur allererst möglich mache, indem er ihr Gesetze a priori vorschreibe und sie sich nach seiner Gesetzmäßigkeit richte u. s. w. Nun ist aber die Natur doch wohl ein Anschauliches und kein Abstraktum; der Verstand müßte demnach ein Vermögen der Anschauung seyn. V, S. 168, wird gesagt, die Verstandesbegriffe seien die Principien der Möglichkeit der Erfahrung, und diese sei die Bestimmung der Erscheinungen in Raum und Zeit überhaupt; welche Erscheinungen denn doch wohl in der Anschauung dasind. Endlich, S. 189–211; V, 232–265, steht der lange Beweis (dessen Unrichtigkeit in meiner Abhandlung über den Satz vom Grunde, §. 23, ausführlich gezeigt ist), daß die objektive Succession und auch das Zugleichseyn der Gegenstände der Erfahrung nicht sinnlich wahrgenommen, sondern allein durch den Verstand in die Natur gebracht werden, welche selbst dadurch erst möglich wird. Gewiß ist aber doch die Natur, die Folge der Begebenheiten und das Zugleichseyn der Zustände lauter Anschauliches und kein bloß abstrakt Gedachtes.

Ich fordere Jeden, der mit mir die Verehrung gegen Kant theilt, auf, diese Widersprüche zu vereinigen, und zu zeigen, daß Kant bei seiner Lehre vom Objekt der Erfahrung und der Art, wie es durch die Thätigkeit des Verstandes und seiner zwölf Funktionen bestimmt wird, etwas ganz Deutliches und Bestimmtes gedacht habe. Ich bin überzeugt, daß der nachgewiesene Widerspruch, der sich durch die ganze transscendentale Logik zieht, der eigentliche Grund der großen Dunkelheit des Vortrags in derselben ist. Kant war sich nämlich des Widerspruchs dunkel bewußt, kämpfte innerlich damit, wollte oder konnte ihn dennoch nicht zum deutlichen Bewußtseyn bringen, verschleierte ihn daher für sich und für Andere, und umgieng ihn auf allerlei Schleichwegen. Davon ist es vielleicht auch abzuleiten, daß er aus dem Erkenntnißvermögen eine so seltsame, komplicirte Maschine machte, mit so vielen Rädern, als da sind die zwölf Kategorien, die transscendentale Synthesis der Einbildungskraft, des innern Sinnes, der transscendentalen Einheit der Apperception, ferner der Schematismus der reinen Verstandesbegriffe u. s. w. Und ungeachtet dieses großen Apparats wird zur Erklärung der Anschauung der Außenwelt, die denn doch wohl die Hauptsache in unserer Erkenntniß ist, auch nicht einmal ein Versuch gemacht; sondern diese sich aufdringende Anforderung wird recht ärmlich immer durch den nämlichen, nichtssagenden, bildlichen Ausdruck abgelehnt: „Die empirische Anschauung wird uns gegeben.“ S. 145 der fünften Auflage erfahren wir noch, daß dieselbe durch das Objekt gegeben wird: mithin muß dieses etwas von der Anschauung Verschiedenes seyn.

Wenn wir nun Kants innerste, von ihm selbst nicht deutlich ausgesprochene Meinung zu erforschen uns bemühen; so finden wir, daß wirklich ein solches, von der Anschauung verschiedenes Objekt, das aber auch keineswegs ein Begriff ist, ihm der eigentliche Gegenstand für den Verstand ist, ja, daß die sonderbare Voraussetzung eines solchen unvorstellbaren Gegenstandes es eigentlich seyn soll, wodurch allererst die Anschauung zur Erfahrung wird. Ich glaube, daß ein altes, eingewurzeltes, aller Untersuchung abgestorbenes Vorurtheil in Kant der letzte Grund ist von der Annahme eines solchen absoluten Objekts, welches an sich, d. h. auch ohne Subjekt, Objekt ist. Es ist durchaus nicht das angeschaute Objekt, sondern es wird durch den Begriff zur Anschauung hinzugedacht, als etwas derselben Entsprechendes, und nunmehr ist die Anschauung Erfahrung und hat Werth und Wahrheit, die sie folglich erst durchh die Beziehung auf einen Begriff erhält (im diametralen Gegensatz gegen unsere Darstellung, nach welcher der Begriff allein von der Anschauung Werth und Wahrheit erhält). Das Hinzudenken dieses direkt nicht vorstellbaren Objekts zur Anschauung ist dann die eigentliche Funktion der Kategorien. „Nur durch Anschauung wird der Gegenstand gegeben, der hernach der Kategorie gemäß gedacht wird.“ (Kritik der reinen Vernunft, erste Auflage, S. 399.) Besonders deutlich wird dies aus einer Stelle, S. 125 der fünften Auflage: „Nun frägt es sich, ob nicht auch Begriffe a priori vorausgehen, als Bedingungen, unter denen allein etwas, wenn gleich nicht angeschaut, dennoch als Gegenstand überhaupt gedacht wird“, welches er bejaht. Hier zeigt sich deutlich die Quelle des Irrthums und der ihn umhüllenden Konfusion. Denn der Gegenstand als solcher ist allemal nur für die Anschauung und in ihr da: sie mag nun durch die Sinne, oder, bei seiner Abwesenheit, durch die Einbildungskraft vollzogen werden. Was hingegen gedacht wird, ist allemal ein allgemeiner, nicht anschaulicher Begriff, der allenfalls der Begriff von einem Gegenstande überhaupt seyn kann: aber nur mittelbar, mittelst der Begriffe, bezieht sich das Denken auf Gegenstände, als welche selbst allezeit anschaulich sind und bleiben. Denn unser Denken dient nicht dazu, den Anschauungen Realität zu verleihen: diese haben sie, soweit sie ihrer fähig sind (empirische Realität) durch sich selbst; sondern es dient, das Gemeinsame und die Resultate der Anschauungen zusammenzufassen, um sie aufbewahren und leichter handhaben zu können. Kant aber schreibt die Gegenstände selbst dem Denken zu, um dadurch die Erfahrung und die objektive Welt vom Verstande abhängig zu machen, ohne jedoch diesem ein Vermögen der Anschauung seyn zu lassen. In dieser Beziehung unterscheidet er allerdings das Anschauen vom Denken, macht aber die einzelnen Dinge zum Gegenstande theils der Anschauung, theils des Denkens. Wirklich aber sind sie nur Ersteres: unsere empirische Anschauung ist sofort objektiv; eben weil sie vom Kausalnexus ausgeht. Ihr Gegenstand sind unmittelbar die Dinge, nicht von diesen verschiedene Vorstellungen. Die einzelnen Dinge werden als solche angeschaut im Verstande und durch die Sinne: der einseitige Eindruck auf diese wird dabei sofort durch die Einbildungskraft ergänzt. Sobald wir hingegen zum Denken übergehen, verlassen wir die einzelnen Dinge und haben es mit allgemeinen Begriffen ohne Anschaulichkeit zu thun; wenn wir gleich die Resultate unseres Denkens nachher auf die einzelnen Dinge anwenden. Wenn wir Dieses festhalten, so erhellt die Unzulässigkeit der Annahme, daß die Anschauung der Dinge erst durch das die zwölf Kategorien anwendende Denken eben dieser Dinge Realität erhalte und zur Erfahrung werde. Vielmehr ist in der Anschauung selbst schon die empirische Realität, mithin die Erfahrung, gegeben: allein die Anschauung kann auch nur zu Stande kommen mittelst Anwendung der Erkenntniß vom Kausalnexus, welche die einzige Funktion des Verstandes ist, auf die Sinnesempfindung. Die Anschauung ist demnach wirklich intellektual, was gerade Kant leugnet.

Die hier kritisirte Annahme Kants findet man, außer der angeführten Stelle, auch noch vorzüglich deutlich ausgesprochen in der „Kritik der Urtheilskraft“, §. 36, gleich Anfangs; desgleichen in den „Metaphysischen Anfangsgründen der Naturwissenschaft“, in der Anmerkung zur ersten Erklärung der „Phänomenologie“. Aber mit einer Naivetät, deren Kant bei diesem mißlichen Punkte sich am wenigsten getraute, findet man sie aufs Deutlichste dargelegt im Buche eines Kantianers, nämlich in Kiesewetters „Grundriß einer allgemeinen Logik“, dritte Auflage, Th. I, S. 434 der Auseinandersetzung, und Th. II, §. 52 und 53 der Auseinandersetzung; desgleichen in Tieftrunks „Denklehre in rein Deutschem Gewande“ (1825). Da zeigt sich so recht, wie jedem Denker seine nicht selbstdenkenden Schüler zum Vergrößerungsspiegel seiner Fehler werden. Kant ist bei dieser Darstellung seiner einmal beschlossenen Kategorienlehre durchgängig leise aufgetreten, die Schüler hingegen ganz dreist, wodurch sie das Falsche der Sache bloßlegen.

Dem Gesagten zufolge ist bei Kant der Gegenstand der Kategorien zwar nicht das Ding an sich, aber doch dessen nächster Anverwandter: es ist das Objekt an sich, ist ein Objekt, das keines Subjekts bedarf, ist ein einzelnes Ding, und doch nicht in Zeit und Raum, weil nicht anschaulich, ist Gegenstand des Denkens, und doch nicht abstrakter Begriff. Demnach unterscheidet Kant eigentlich dreierlei: 1) die Vorstellung; 2) den Gegenstand der Vorstellung; 3) das Ding an sichh. Erstere ist Sache der Sinnlichkeit, welche bei ihm, neben der Empfindung, auch die reinen Anschauungsformen Raum und Zeit begreift. Das Zweite ist Sache des Verstandes, der es durch seine zwölf Kategorien hinzudenkt. Das Dritte liegt jenseit aller Erkennbarkeit. (Als Beleg hiezu sehe man S. 108 und 109 der ersten Auflage der „Kritik der reinen Vernunft“.) Nun ist aber die Unterscheidung der Vorstellung und des Gegenstandes der Vorstellung ungegründet: dies hatte schon Berkeley bewiesen, und es geht hervor aus meiner ganzen Darstellung im ersten Buche, besonders Kapitel 1 der Ergänzungen, ja aus Kants eigener völlig idealistischer Grundansicht in der ersten Auflage. Wollte man aber nicht den Gegenstand der Vorstellung zur Vorstellung rechnen und mit ihr identifiziren, so müßte man ihn zum Dinge an sich ziehen: dies hängt am Ende von dem Sinne ab, den man dem Worte Gegenstand beilegt. Immer aber steht Dies fest, daß, bei deutlicher Besinnung, nichts weiter zu finden ist, als Vorstellung und Ding an sichh. Das unberechtigte Einschieben jenes Zwitters, Gegenstand der Vorstellung, ist die Quelle der Irrthümer Kants: mit dessen Wegnahme fällt aber auch die Lehre von den Kategorien als Begriffen a priori dahin; da sie zur Anschauung nichts beitragen und vom Dinge an sich nicht gelten sollen, sondern wir mittelst ihrer nur jene „Gegenstände der Vorstellungen“ denken und dadurch die Vorstellung in Erfahrung umwandeln. Denn jede empirische Anschauung ist schon Erfahrung: empirisch aber ist jede Anschauung, welche von Sinnesempfindung ausgeht: diese Empfindung bezieht der Verstand, mittelst seiner alleinigen Funktion (Erkenntniß a priori des Kausalitätsgesetzes) auf ihre Ursache, welche eben dadurch in Raum und Zeit (Formen der reinen Anschauung) sich darstellt als Gegenstand der Erfahrung, materielles Objekt, im Raum durch alle Zeit beharrend, dennoch aber auch als solches immer noch Vorstellung bleibt, wie eben Raum und Zeit selbst. Wollen wir über diese Vorstellung hinaus, so stehen wir bei der Frage nach dem Ding an sich, welche zu beantworten das Thema meines ganzen Werkes, wie aller Metaphysik überhaupt ist. Mit dem hier dargelegten Irrthume Kants steht in Verbindung sein früher gerügter Fehler, daß er keine Theorie der Entstehung der empirischen Anschauung giebt, sondern diese ohne Weiteres gegeben seyn läßt, sie identifizirend mit der bloßen Sinnesempfindung, der er nur noch die Anschauungsformen Raum und Zeit beigiebt, beide unter dem Namen Sinnlichkeit begreifend. Aber aus diesen Materialien entsteht noch keine objektive Vorstellung: vielmehr erfordert diese schlechterdings Beziehung der Empfindung auf ihre Ursache, also Anwendung des Kausalitätsgesetzes, also Verstand; da ohne Dieses die Empfindung immer noch subjektiv bleibt und kein Objekt in den Raum versetzt, auch wenn ihr dieser beigegeben ist. Aber bei Kant durfte der Verstand nicht zur Anschauung verwendet werden: er sollte bloß denken, um innerhalb der transscendentalen Logik zu bleiben. Hiemit hängt wieder ein anderer Fehler Kants zusammen: daß er für die richtig erkannte Apriorität des Kausalitätsgesetzes den allein gültigen Beweis, nämlich den aus der Möglichkeit der objektiven empirischen Anschauung selbst, zu führen mir überlassen hat, und statt dessen einen offenbar falschen giebt, wie ich dies schon in meiner Abhandlung über den Satz vom Grunde, §. 23, dargethan habe. —

Aus Obigem ist klar, daß Kants „Gegenstand der Vorstellung“ (2) zusammengesetzt ist aus Dem, was er theils der Vorstellung (1), theils dem Ding an sich (3) geraubt hat. Wenn wirklich die Erfahrung nur dadurch zu Stande käme, daß unser Verstand zwölf verschiedene Funktionen anwendete, um durch ebenso viele Begriffe a priori die Gegenstände, welche vorher bloß angeschaut wurden, zu denken; so müßte jedes wirkliche Ding als solches eine Menge Bestimmungen haben, welche als a priori gegeben, sich, eben wie Raum und Zeit, schlechterdings nicht wegdenken ließen, sondern ganz wesentlich zum Daseyn des Dinges gehörten, jedoch nicht abzuleiten wären aus den Eigenschaften des Raumes und der Zeit. Aber nur eine einzige dergleichen Bestimmung ist anzutreffen: die der Kausalität. Auf dieser beruht die Materialität, da das Wesen der Materie im Wirken besteht und sie durch und durch Kausalität ist (siehe Bd. II, Kap. 4). Materialität aber ist es allein, die das reale Ding vom Phantasiebilde, welches denn doch nur Vorstellung ist, unterscheidet. Denn die Materie, als beharrend, giebt dem Dinge die Beharrlichkeit durch alle Zeit, seiner Materie nach, während die Formen wechseln, in Gemäßheit der Kausalität. Alles Uebrige am Dinge sind entweder Bestimmungen des Raumes, oder der Zeit, oder seine empirischen Eigenschaften, die alle zurücklaufen auf seine Wirksamkeit, also nähere Bestimmungen der Kausalität sind. Die Kausalität aber geht schon als Bedingung in die empirische Anschauung ein, welche demnach Sache des Verstandes ist, der schon die Anschauung möglich macht, außer dem Kausalitätsgesetze aber zur Erfahrung und ihrer Möglichkeit nichts beiträgt. Was die alten Ontologien füllt, ist, außer dem hier Angegebenen, nichts weiter als Verhältnisse der Dinge zu einander, oder zu unserer Reflexion, und zusammengeraffte farrago.

Ein Merkmal der Grundlosigkeit der Kategorienlehre giebt schon der Vortrag derselben. Welch ein Abstand, in dieser Hinsicht, zwischen der transscendentalen Aesthetik und der transscendentalen Analytik! Dort, welche Klarheit, Bestimmtheit, Sicherheit, feste Ueberzeugung, die sich unverhohlen ausspricht und unfehlbar mittheilt! Alles ist lichtvoll, keine finstern Schlupfwinkel sind gelassen: Kant weiß was er will, und weiß daß er Recht hat. Hier hingegen ist Alles dunkel, verworren, unbestimmt, schwankend, unsicher, der Vortrag ängstlich, voll Entschuldigungen und Berufungen auf Kommendes, oder gar Zurückbehaltenes. Auch ist der ganze zweite und dritte Abschnitt der Deduktion der reinen Verstandesbegriffe in der zweiten Auflage völlig geändert, weil er Kanten selbst nicht genügte, und ist ein ganz anderer, als in der ersten, jedoch nicht klarer geworden. Man sieht wirklich Kanten im Kampfe mit der Wahrheit, um seine einmal beschlossene Lehrmeinung durchzusetzen. In der transscendentalen Aesthetik sind alle seine Lehrsätze wirklich bewiesen, aus unleugbaren Thatsachen des Bewußtseyns; in der transscendentalen Analytik hingegen finden wir, wenn wir es beim Lichte betrachten, bloße Behauptungen, daß es so sei und seyn müsse. Also hier, wie überall, trägt der Vortrag das Gepräge des Denkens, aus dem er hervorgegangen: denn der Stil ist die Physiognomie des Geistes. — Noch ist zu bemerken, daß Kant, so oft er, zur näheren Erörterung, ein Beispiel geben will, fast jedes Mal die Kategorie der Kausalität dazu nimmt, wo das Gesagte dann richtig ausfällt, — weil eben das Kausalitätsgesetz die wirkliche, aber auch alleinige Form des Verstandes ist, und die übrigen elf Kategorien nur blinde Fenster sind. Die Deduktion der Kategorien ist in der ersten Auflage einfacher und unumwundener, als in der zweiten. Er bemüht sich darzulegen, wie nach der von der Sinnlichkeit gegebenen Anschauung, der Verstand, mittelst des Denkens der Kategorien, die Erfahrung zu Stande bringt. Dabei werden die Ausdrücke Rekognition, Reproduktion, Association, Apprehension, transscendentale Einheit der Apperception, bis zur Ermüdung wiederholt und doch keine Deutlichkeit erreicht. Höchst beachtenswerth ist es aber, daß er bei dieser Auseinandersetzung nicht ein einziges Mal berührt, was doch Jedem zuerst einfallen muß, das Beziehen der Sinnesempfindung auf ihre äußere Ursache. Wollte er dasselbe nicht gelten lassen, so mußte er es ausdrücklich leugnen; aber auch dies thut er nicht. Er schleicht also darum herum, und alle Kantianer sind ihm eben so nachgeschlichen. Das geheime Motiv hiezu ist, daß er den Kausalnexus unter dem Namen „Grund der Erscheinung“ für seine falsche Ableitung des Dinges an sich aufspart; und nächstdem, daß durch die Beziehung auf die Ursache die Anschauung intellektual würde, was er nicht zugeben darf. Ueberdies scheint er gefürchtet zu haben, daß wenn man den Kausalnexus zwischen Sinnesempfindung und Objekt gelten läßt, letzteres sofort zum Ding an sich werden und den Locke’schen Empirismus einführen würde. Diese Schwierigkeit aber wird beseitigt durch die Besonnenheit, welche uns vorhält, daß das Kausalitätsgesetz subjektiven Ursprungs ist, so gut wie die Sinnesempfindung selbst, überdies auch der eigene Leib, sofern er im Raum erscheint, bereits zu den Vorstellungen gehört. Aber Dies einzugestehen verhinderte Kanten seine Furcht vor dem Berkeleyschen Idealismus.

Als die wesentliche Operation des Verstandes mittelst seiner zwölf Kategorien wird wiederholentlich angegeben „die Verbindung des Mannigfaltigen der Anschauung“: jedoch wird Dies nie gehörig erläutert, noch gezeigt, was denn dieses Mannigfaltige der Anschauung vor der Verbindung durch den Verstand sei. Nun aber sind die Zeit und der Raum, dieser in allen seinen drei Dimensionen, Continua, d. h. alle ihre Theile sind ursprünglich nicht getrennt, sondern verbunden. Sie aber sind die durchgängigen Formen unserer Anschauung: also erscheint auch Alles, was in ihnen sich darstellt (gegeben wird), schon ursprünglich als Continuum, d. h. seine Theile treten schon als verbunden auf und bedürfen keiner hinzukommenden Verbindung des Mannigfaltigen. Wollte man aber jene Vereinigung des Mannigfaltigen der Anschauung etwan dahin auslegen, daß ich die verschiedenen Sinneseindrücke von einem Objekt doch nur auf dieses eine beziehe, also z. B. eine Glocke anschauend, erkenne, daß Das, was mein Auge als gelb, meine Hände als glatt und hart, mein Ohr als tönend afficirt, doch nur ein und derselbe Körper sei; so ist dies vielmehr eine Folge der Erkenntniß a priori vom Kausalnexus (dieser wirklichen und alleinigen Funktion des Verstandes), vermöge welcher alle jene verschiedenen Einwirkungen auf meine verschiedenen Sinnesorgane mich doch nur auf eine gemeinsame Ursache derselben, nämlich die Beschaffenheit des vor mir stehenden Körpers, hinleiten, so daß mein Verstand, ungeachtet der Verschiedenheit und Vielheit der Wirkungen, doch die Einheit der Ursache als ein einziges, sich eben dadurch anschaulich darstellendes Objekt apprehendirt. — In der schönen Rekapitulation seiner Lehre, welche Kant in der „Kritik der reinen Vernunft“, S. 719—726, oder V, 747–754 giebt, erklärt er die Kategorien vielleicht deutlicher als irgendwo, nämlich als „die bloße Regel der Synthesis Desjenigen, was die Wahrnehmung a posteriori gegeben hat.“ Ihm scheint dabei so etwas vorzuschweben, wie daß, bei der Konstruktion des Triangels, die Winkel die Regel der Zusammensetzung der Linien geben: wenigstens kann man an diesem Bilde sich was er von der Funktion der Kategorien sagt am besten erläutern. Die Vorrede zu den „Metaphysischen Anfangsgründen der Naturwissenschaft“ enthält eine lange Anmerkung, welche ebenfalls eine Erklärung der Kategorien liefert und besagt, daß sie „von den formalen Verstandeshandlungen im Urtheilen in nichts unterschieden seien“, als darin, daß in letzteren Subjekt und Prädikat allenfalls ihre Stelle vertauschen können; sodann wird daselbst das Urtheil überhaupt definirt als „eine Handlung, durch die gegebene Vorstellungen zuerst Erkenntnisse eines Objekts werden.“ Hienach müßten die Thiere, da sie nicht urtheilen, auch gar keine Objekte erkennen. Ueberhaupt giebt es, nach Kant, von den Objekten bloß Begriffe, keine Anschauungen. Ich hingegen sage: Objekte sind zunächst nur für die Anschauung da, und Begriffe sind allemal Abstraktionen aus dieser Anschauung. Daher muß das abstrakte Denken sich genau nach der in der Anschauung vorhandenen Welt richten, da bloß die Beziehung auf diese den Begriffen Inhalt giebt, und wir dürfen für die Begriffe keine andere a priori bestimmte Form annehmen, als die Fähigkeit zur Reflexion überhaupt, deren Wesen die Bildung der Begriffe, d. i. abstrakter, nichtanschaulicher Vorstellungen ist, welche die einzige Funktion der Vernunft ausmacht, wie ich im ersten Buch gezeigt habe. Ich verlange demnach, daß wir von den Kategorien elf zum Fenster hinauswerfen und allein die der Kausalität behalten, jedoch einsehen, daß ihre Thätigkeit schon die Bedingung der empirischen Anschauung ist, welche sonach nicht bloß sensual, sondern intellektual ist, und daß der so angeschaute Gegenstand, das Objekt der Erfahrung, Eins sei mit der Vorstellung, von welcher nur noch das Ding an sichh zu unterscheiden ist.

Nach in verschiedenen Lebensaltern wiederholtem Studium der „Kritik der reinen Vernunft“ hat sich mir über die Entstehung der transscendentalen Logik eine Ueberzeugung aufgedrängt, die ich, als zum Verständniß derselben sehr förderlich, hier mittheile. Auf objektive Auffassung und höchste menschliche Besonnenheit gegründete Entdeckung ist ganz allein das Apperçu, daß Zeit und Raum a priori von uns erkannt werden. Durch diesen glücklichen Fund erfreut, wollte Kant die Ader desselben noch weiter verfolgen, und seine Liebe zur architektonischen Symmetrie gab ihm den Leitfaden. Wie er nämlich der empirischen Anschauung eine reine Anschauung a priori als Bedingung untergelegt gefunden hatte; ebenso, meinte er, würden auch wohl den empirisch erworbenen Begriffen gewisse reine Begriffe als Voraussetzung in unserem Erkenntnißvermögen zum Grunde liegen, und das empirische wirkliche Denken allererst durch ein reines Denken a priori, welches an sich aber gar keine Gegenstände hätte, sondern sie aus der Anschauung nehmen müßte, möglich seyn; so daß, wie die transscendentale Aesthetik eine Grundlage a priori der Mathematik nachweist, es auch für die Logik eine solche geben müßte; wodurch alsdann jene erstere an einer transscendentalen Logik symmetrisch einen Pendant erhielte. Von jetzt an war Kant nicht mehr unbefangen, nicht mehr im Zustande des reinen Forschens und Beobachtens des im Bewußtseyn Vorhandenen; sondern er war durch eine Voraussetzung geleitet, und verfolgte eine Absicht, nämlich die, zu finden was er voraussetzte, um auf die so glücklich entdeckte transscendentale Aesthetik eine ihr analoge, also ihr symmetrisch entsprechende, transscendentale Logik als zweites Stockwerk aufzusetzen. Hiezu nun verfiel er auf die Tafel der Urtheile. aus welcher er, so gut es gehen wollte, die Kategorientafel bildete, als die Lehre von zwölf reinen Begriffen a priori, welche die Bedingung unseres Denkens eben der Dinge seyn sollten, deren Anschauung durch die zwei Formen der Sinnlichkeit a priori bedingt ist: symmetrisch entsprach also jetzt der reinen Sinnlichkeit ein reiner Verstand. Danach nun gerieth er auf noch eine Betrachtung, die ichm ein Mittel darbot, die Plausibilität der Sache zu erhöhen, mittelst der Annahme des Schematismus der reinen Verstandesbegriffe, wodurch aber gerade der ihm selbst unbewußte Hergang seines Verfahrens sich am deutlichsten verräth. Indem er nämlich darauf ausgieng, für jede empirische Funktion des Erkenntnißvermögens eine analoge apriorische zu finden, bemerkte er, daß zwischen unserem empirischen Anschauen und unserem empirischen, in abstrakten nichtanschaulichen Begriffen vollzogenem Denken noch eine Vermittelung, wenn auch nicht immer, doch sehr häufig Statt findet, indem wir nämlich dann und wann vom abstrakten Denken auf das Anschauen zurückzugehen versuchen; aber bloß versuchen, eigentlich um uns zu überzeugen, daß unser abstraktes Denken sich von dem sichern Boden der Anschauung nicht weit entfernt habe, und etwan überfliegend, oder auch zu bloßem Wortkram geworden sei; ungefähr so, wie wir, im Finstern gehend, dann und wann nach der leitenden Wand greifen. Wir gehen alsdann, eben auch nur versuchsweise und momentan, auf das Anschauen zurück, indem wir eine dem uns gerade beschäftigenden Begriffe entsprechende Anschauung in der Phantasie hervorrufen, welche jedoch dem Begriffe nie ganz adäquat seyn kann, sondern ein bloßer einstweiliger Repräsentant desselben ist: über diesen habe ich das Nöthige schon in meiner Abhandlung „Ueber den Satz vom Grunde“, §. 28, beigebracht. Kant benennt ein flüchtiges Phantasma dieser Art, im Gegensatz des vollendeten Bildes der Phantasie, ein Schema, sagt, es sei gleichsam ein Monogramm der Einbildungskraft, und behauptet nun, daß, so wie ein solches zwischen unserem abstrakten Denken empirisch erworbener Begriffe und unserer klaren, durch die Sinne geschehenden Anschauung in der Mitte steht, auch zwischen dem Anschauungsvermögen a priori der reinen Sinnlichkeit und dem Denkvermögen a priori des reinen Verstandes (also den Kategorien) dergleichen Schemata der reinen Verstandesbegriffe a priori vorhanden seien, welche Schemata er, als Monogramme der reinen Einbildungskraft a priori, stückweise beschreibt und jedes derselben der ihm entsprechenden Kategorie zutheilt, in dem wunderlichen „Hauptstück vom Schematismus der reinen Verstandesbegriffe“, welches als höchst dunkel berühmt ist, weil kein Mensch je hat daraus klug werden können; dessen Dunkelheit jedoch sich aufhellt, wenn man es von dem hier gegebenen Standpunkt aus betrachtet, wo denn aber auch mehr, als irgendwo, die Absichtlichkeit seines Verfahrens und der zum voraus gefaßte Entschluß, zu finden was der Analogie entspräche und der architektonischen Symmetrie dienen könnte, an den Tag tritt: ja, dies ist hier in einem Grade der Fall, der die Sache an das Komische heranführt. Denn indem er den empirischen Schematen (oder Repräsentanten unserer wirklichen Begriffe durch die Phantasie) analoge Schemata der reinen (inhaltslosen) Verstandesbegriffe a priori (Kategorien) annimmt, übersieht er, daß der Zweck solcher Schemata hier ganz wegfällt. Denn der Zweck der Schemata beim empirischen (wirklichen) Denken bezieht sich ganz allein auf den materiellen Inhalt solcher Begriffe: da nämlich diese aus der empirischen Anschauung abgezogen sind, helfen und orientiren wir uns dadurch, daß wir beim abstrakten Denken zwischendurch ein Mal auf die Anschauung, daraus die Begriffe entnommen sind, einen flüchtigen Rückblick werfen, uns zu versichern, daß unser Denken noch realen Gehalt habe. Dies setzt aber nothwendig voraus, daß die uns beschäftigenden Begriffe aus der Anschauung entsprungen seien, und ist ein bloßes Zurücksehen auf ihren materialen Inhalt, ja ein bloßes Hülfsmittel unserer Schwäche. Aber bei Begriffen a priori, als welche noch gar keinen Inhalt haben, fällt offenbar dergleichen nothwendig weg: denn diese sind nicht aus der Anschauung entsprungen, sondern kommen ihr von innen entgegen, um aus ihr einen Inhalt erst zu empfangen, haben also noch nichts, worauf sie zurücksehen könnten. Ich bin hiebei weitläufig, weil gerade Dieses auf den geheimen Hergang des Kantischen Philosophirens Licht wirft, der demnach darin besteht, daß Kant, nach der glücklichen Entdeckung der beiden Anschauungsformen a priori, nunmehr, am Leitfaden der Analogie, für jede Bestimmung unserer empirischen Erkenntniß ein Analogon a priori darzuthun sich bestrebt, und Dies zuletzt, in den Schematen, sogar auf eine bloß psychologische Thatsache ausdehnt, wobei der anscheinende Tiefsinn und die Schwierigkeit der Darstellung gerade dienen, dem Leser zu verbergen, daß der Inhalt derselben eine ganz unerweisliche und bloß willkürliche Annahme bleibt: Der aber, welcher in den Sinn solcher Darstellung endlich eindringt, wird dann leicht verleitet, dies mühsam erlangte Verständniß für Ueberzeugung von der Wahrheit der Sache zu halten. Hätte hingegen Kant, wie bei der Entdeckung der Anschauungen a priori, auch hier sich unbefangen und rein beobachtend verhalten; so müßte er gefunden haben, daß was zur reinen Anschauung des Raumes und der Zeit hinzukommt, wenn aus ihr eine empirische wird, einerseits die Empfindung und andererseits die Erkenntniß der Kausalität ist, welche die bloße Empfindung in objektive empirische Anschauung verwandelt, eben deshalb aber nicht erst aus dieser entlehnt und erlernt, sondern a priori vorhanden und eben die Form und Funktion des reinen Verstandes ist, aber auch seine einzige, jedoch eine so folgenreiche, daß alle unsere empirische Erkenntniß auf ihr beruht. — Wenn, wie oft gesagt worden, die Widerlegung eines Irrthums erst dadurch vollständig wird, daß man seine Entstehungsart psychologisch nachweist; so glaube ich Dieses im Obigen, in Hinsicht auf Kants Lehre von den Kategorien und ihren Schematen, geleistet zu haben.

Nachdem nun Kant in die ersten einfachen Grundzüge einer Theorie des Vorstellungsvermögens so große Fehler gebracht hatte, gerieth er auf vielfältige, sehr zusammengesetzte Annahmen. Dahin gehört zuvörderst die synthetische Einheit der Apperception: ein sehr wunderliches Ding, sehr wunderlich dargestellt. „Das Ich denke muß alle meine Vorstellungen begleiten können.“ Muß — können: dies ist eine problematisch-apodiktische Enuntiation; zu Deutsch, ein Satz der mit der einen Hand nimmt, was er mit der andern giebt. Und was ist der Sinn dieses so auf der Spitze balancirenden Satzes? — Daß alles Vorstellen ein Denken sei? — Das ist nicht: und es wäre heillos; es gäbe sodann nichts als abstrakte Begriffe, am wenigsten aber eine reine reflexions- und willensfreie Anschauung, dergleichen die des Schönen ist, die tiefste Erfassung des wahren Wesens der Dinge, d. h. ihrer Platonischen Ideen. Auch müßten dann wieder die Thiere entweder auch denken, oder nicht einmal vorstellen. — Oder soll etwan der Satz heißen: kein Objekt ohne Subjekt? Das wäre sehr schlecht dadurch ausgedrückt und käme zu spät. Wenn wir Kants Aeußerungen zusammenfassen, werden wir finden, daß was er unter der synthetischen Einheit der Apperception versteht, gleichsam das ausdehnungslose Centrum der Sphäre aller unserer Vorstellungen ist, deren Radien zu ihm konvergiren. Es ist was ich das Subjekt des Erkennens, das Korrelat aller Vorstellungen nenne, und ist zugleich Das, was ich, im Kapitel 22 des zweiten Bandes, als den Brennpunkt, in welchen die Strahlen der Gehirnthätigkeit konvergiren, ausführlich beschrieben und erörtert habe. Dahin also verweise ich hier, um mich nicht zu wiederholen.

Daß ich die ganze Lehre von den Kategorien verwerfe und sie den grundlosen Annahmen, mit denen Kant die Theorie des Erkennens belastete, beizähle, geht aus der oben gegebenen Kritik derselben hervor; imgleichen aus der Nachweisung der Widersprüche in der transscendentalen Logik, welche ihren Grund hatten in der Vermischung der anschaulichen und abstrakten Erkenntniß; ferner auch aus der Nachweisung des Mangels an einem deutlichen und bestimmten Begriff vom Wesen des Verstandes und der Vernunft, statt dessen wir in Kants Schriften nur unzusammenhängende, nicht übereinstimmende, dürftige und unrichtige Aussprüche über jene beiden Geistesvermögen fanden. Es geht endlich hervor aus den Erklärungen, die ich selbst, im ersten Buch und dessen Ergänzungen, noch ausführlicher in der Abhandlung „Ueber den Satz vom Grunde“, §. 21, 26 und 34, von denselben Geistesvermögen gegeben habe, welche Erklärungen sehr bestimmt, deutlich, aus der Betrachtung des Wesens unserer Erkenntniß offenbar sich ergebend, und mit den im Sprachgebrauch und den Schriften aller Zeiten und Völker sich kundgebenden, nur nicht zur Deutlichkeit gebrachten Begriffen von jenen beiden Erkenntnißkräften völlig übereinstimmend sind. Ihre Vertheidigung gegen die davon sehr verschiedene Kantische Darstellung ist zum großen Theil schon mit der Aufdeckung der Fehler jener Darstellung gegeben. — Da nun aber doch die Tafel der Urtheile, welche Kant seiner Theorie des Denkens, ja seiner ganzen Philosophie zum Grunde legt, an sich, im Ganzen ihre Richtigkeit hat; so liegt mir noch ob, nachzuweisen, wie diese allgemeinen Formen aller Urtheile in unserem Erkenntnißvermögen entspringen, und sie mit meiner Darstellung desselben in Uebereinstimmung zu setzen. — Ich werde bei dieser Erörterung mit den Begriffen Verstand und Vernunft immer den Sinn verbinden, welchen ihnen meine Erklärung gegeben hat, die ich daher als dem Leser geläufig voraussetze.

Ein wesentlicher Unterschied zwischen Kants Methode und der, welche ich befolge, liegt darin, daß er von der mittelbaren, der reflektirten Erkenntniß ausgeht, ich dagegen von der unmittelbaren, der intuitiven. Er ist demjenigen zu vergleichen, der die Höhe eines Thurmes aus dessen Schatten mißt, ich aber dem, welcher den Maaßstab unmittelbar anlegt. Daher ist ihm die Philosophie eine Wissenschaft aus Begriffen, mir eine Wissenschaft in Begriffe, aus der anschaulichen Erkenntniß, der alleinigen Quelle aller Evidenz, geschöpft und in allgemeine Begriffe gefaßt und fixirt. Diese ganze, uns umgebende, anschauliche, vielgestaltete, bedeutungsreiche Welt überspringt er und hält sich an die Formen des abstrakten Denkens; wobei, obschon von ihm nie ausgesprochen, die Voraussetzung zum Grunde liegt, daß die Reflexion der Ektypos aller Anschauung sei, daher alles Wesentliche der Anschauung in der Reflexion ausgedrückt seyn müsse, und zwar in sehr zusammengezogenen, daher leicht übersehbaren Formen und Grundzügen. Demnach gäbe das Wesentliche und Gesetzmäßige des abstrakten Erkennens alle Fäden an die Hand, welche das bunte Puppenspiel der anschaulichen Welt vor unseren Augen in Bewegung setzen. — Hätte nur Kant diesen obersten Grundsatz seiner Methode deutlich ausgesprochen, und ihn dann konsequent befolgt, wenigstens hätte er dann das Intuitive vom Abstrakten rein sondern müssen, und wir hätten nicht mit unauflöslichen Widersprüchen und Konfusionen zu kämpfen. Aus der Art aber, wie er seine Aufgabe gelöst, sieht man, daß ihm jener Grundsatz seiner Methode nur sehr undeutlich vorgeschwebt hat, daher man, nach einem gründlichen Studium seiner Philosophie, denselben doch noch erst zu errathen hat.

Was nun die angegebene Methode und Grundmaxime selbst betrifft, so hat sie viel für sich und ist ein glänzender Gedanke. Schon das Wesen aller Wissenschaft besteht darin, daß wir das endlos Mannigfaltige der anschaulichen Erscheinungen unter komparativ wenige abstrakte Begriffe zusammenfassen, aus denen wir ein System ordnen, von welchem aus wir alle jene Erscheinungen völlig in der Gewalt unserer Erkenntniß haben, das Geschehene erklären und das Künftige bestimmen können. Die Wissenschaften theilen aber unter sich das weitläufige Gebiet der Erscheinungen, nach den besonderen, mannigfaltigen Arten dieser letzteren.

Nun war es ein kühner und glücklicher Gedanke, das den Begriffen als solchen und abgesehen von ihrem Inhalt durchaus Wesentliche zu isoliren, um aus den so gefundenen Formen alles Denkens zu ersehen, was auch allem intuitiven Erkennen, folglich der Welt als Erscheinung überhaupt, wesentlich sei: und weil nun dieses a priori, wegen der Nothwendigkeit jener Formen des Denkens, gefunden wäre; so wäre es subjektiven Ursprungs, und führte eben zu Kants Zwecken. — Nun hätte aber hiebei, ehe man weiter gieng, untersucht werden müssen, welches das Verhältniß der Reflexion zur anschaulichen Erkenntniß sei (was freilich die von Kant vernachlässigte reine Sonderung beider voraussetzt), auf welche Weise eigentlich jene diese wiedergebe und vertrete, ob ganz rein, oder schon durch Aufnahme in ihre (der Reflexion) eigene Formen umgeändert und zum Theil unkenntlich gemacht; ob die Form der abstrakten, reflektiven Erkenntniß mehr bestimmt werde durch die Form der anschaulichen, oder durch die ihr selbst, der reflektiven, unabänderlich anhängende Beschaffenheit, so daß auch Das, was in der intuitiven Erkenntniß sehr heterogen ist, sobald es in die reflektive eingegangen, nicht mehr zu unterscheiden ist, und umgekehrt manche Unterschiede, die wir in der reflektiven Erkenntnißart wahrnehmen, auch aus dieser selber entsprungen sind und keineswegs auf ihnen entsprechende Verschiedenheiten in der intuitiven Erkenntniß deuten. Als Resultat dieser Forschung hätte sich aber ergeben, daß die anschauliche Erkenntniß bei ihrer Aufnahme in die Reflexion beinahe so viel Veränderung erleidet, wie die Nahrungsmittel bei ihrer Aufnahme in den thierischen Organismus, dessen Formen und Mischungen durch ihn selbst bestimmt werden und aus deren Zusammensetzung gar nicht mehr die Beschaffenheit der Nahrungsmittel zu erkennen ist; — oder (weil dieses ein wenig zu viel gesagt ist) wenigstens hätte sich ergeben, daß die Reflexion sich zur anschaulichen Erkenntniß keineswegs verhält, wie der Spiegel im Wasser zu den abgespiegelten Gegenständen, sondern kaum nur noch so, wie der Schatten dieser Gegenstände zu ihnen selbst, welcher Schatten nur einige äußere Umrisse wiedergiebt, aber auch das Mannigfaltigste in dieselbe Gestalt vereinigt und das Verschiedenste durch den nämlichen Umriß darstellt; so daß keineswegs von ihm ausgehend sich die Gestalten der Dinge vollständig und sicher konstruiren ließen.

Die ganze reflektive Erkenntniß, oder die Vernunft, hat nur eine Hauptform, und diese ist der abstrakte Begriff: sie ist der Vernunft selbst eigen und hat unmittelbar keinen nothwendigen Zusammenhang mit der anschaulichen Welt, welche daher auch ganz ohne jene für die Thiere dasteht, und auch eine ganz andere seyn könnte, dennoch aber jene Form der Reflexion ebenso wohl zu ihr passen würde. Die Vereinigung der Begriffe zu Urtheilen hat aber gewisse bestimmte und gesetzliche Formen, welche, durch Induktion gefunden, die Tafel der Urtheile ausmachen. Diese Formen sind größtentheils abzuleiten aus der reflektiven Erkenntnißart selbst, also unmittelbar aus der Vernunft, namentlich sofern sie durch die vier Denkgesetze (von mir metalogische Wahrheiten genannt) und durch das dictum de omni et nullo entstehen. Andere von diesen Formen haben aber ihren Grund in der anschauenden Erkenntnißart, also im Verstande, geben aber deshalb keineswegs Anweisung auf ebenso viele besondere Formen des Verstandes; sondern sind ganz und gar aus der einzigen Funktion die der Verstand hat, nämlich der unmittelbaren Erkenntniß von Ursach und Wirkung, abzuleiten. Noch andere von jenen Formen endlich sind entstanden aus dem Zusammentreffen und der Verbindung der reflektiven und der intuitiven Erkenntnißart, oder eigentlich aus der Aufnahme dieser in jene. Ich werde nunmehr die Momente des Urtheils einzeln durchgehen und den Ursprung eines jeden aus den besagten Quellen nachweisen; woraus von selbst folgt, daß eine Deduktion von Kategorien aus ihnen wegfällt und die Annahme dieser ebenso grundlos ist, als ihre Darstellung verworren und sich selbst widerstreitend befunden worden.

1) Die sogenannte Quantität der Urtheile entspringt aus dem Wesen der Begriffe als solcher, hat ihren Grund also lediglich in der Vernunft, und hat mit dem Verstande und der anschaulichen Erkenntniß gar keinen unmittelbaren Zusammenhang. — Es ist nämlich, wie im ersten Buche ausgeführt, den Begriffen als solchen wesentlich, daß sie einen Umfang, eine Sphäre haben, und der weitere, unbestimmtere den engeren, bestimmteren einschließt, welcher letztere daher auch ausgeschieden werden kann; und zwar kann dieses entweder so geschehen, daß man ihn nur als unbestimmten Theil des weitern Begriffes überhaupt bezeichnet, oder auch so, daß man ihn bestimmt und völlig aussondert, mittelst Beilegung eines besondern Namens. Das Urtheil, welches die Vollziehung dieser Operation ist, heißt im ersten Fall ein besonderes, im zweiten ein allgemeines; z. B. ein und derselbe Theil der Sphäre des Begriffes Baum kann durch ein besonderes und durch ein allgemeines Urtheil isolirt werden, nämlich: „Einige Bäume tragen Galläpfel“; oder so: „Alle Eichen tragen Galläpfel“. — Man sieht, daß die Verschiedenheit beider Operationen sehr gering ist, ja, daß die Möglichkeit derselben vom Wortreichthum der Sprache abhängt. Desungeachtet hat Kant erklärt, diese Verschiedenheit entschleiere zwei grundverschiedene Handlungen, Funktionen, Kategorien des reinen Verstandes, der eben durch dieselben a priori die Erfahrung bestimme.

Man kann endlich auch einen Begriff gebrauchen, um mittelst desselben zu einer bestimmten, einzelnen, anschaulichen Vorstellung, aus welcher, und zugleich aus vielen anderen, er selbst abgezogen ist, zu gelangen: welches durch das einzelne Urtheil geschieht. Ein solches Urtheil bezeichnet nur die Gränze der abstrakten Erkenntniß zur anschaulichen, zu welcher unmittelbar von ihm übergegangen wird: „Dieser Baum hier trägt Galläpfel.“ — Kant hat denn auch daraus eine besondere Kategorie gemacht.

Nach allem Vorhergehenden bedarf es hier weiter keiner Polemik.

2) Auf gleiche Weise liegt die Qualität der Urtheile ganz innerhalb des Gebietes der Vernunft, und ist nicht eine Abschattung irgend eines Gesetzes des die Anschauung möglich machenden Verstandes, d. h. giebt nicht Anweisung darauf. Die Natur der abstrakten Begriffe, welche eben das objektiv aufgefaßte Wesen der Vernunft selbst ist, bringt, wie ebenfalls im ersten Buche ausgeführt, die Möglichkeit mit sich, ihre Sphären zu vereinigen und zu trennen, und auf dieser Möglichkeit, als ihrer Voraussetzung, beruhen die allgemeinen Denkgesetze der Identität und des Widerspruchs, welchen, weil sie rein aus der Vernunft entspringen und nicht ferner zu erklären sind, metalogische Wahrheit von mir beigelegt ist. Sie bestimmen, daß das Vereinigte vereinigt, das Getrennte getrennt bleiben muß, also das Gesetzte nicht zugleich wieder aufgehoben werden kann, setzen also die Möglichkeit des Verbindens und Trennens der Sphären, d. i. eben das Urtheilen, voraus. Dieses aber liegt, der Form nach, einzig und allein in der Vernunft, und diese Form ist nicht, so wie der Inhalt der Urtheile, aus der anschaulichen Erkenntniß des Verstandes mit hinübergenommen, in welcher daher auch kein Korrelat oder Analogon für sie zu suchen ist. Nachdem die Anschauung durch den Verstand und für den Verstand entstanden ist, steht sie vollendet da, keinem Zweifel noch Irrthum unterworfen, kennt demnach weder Bejahung noch Verneinung: denn sie spricht sich selbst aus, und hat nicht, wie die abstrakte Erkenntniß der Vernunft, ihren Werth und Gehalt in der bloßen Beziehung auf etwas außer ihr, nach dem Satz vom Grunde des Erkennens. Sie ist daher lauter Realität, alle Negation ist ihrem Wesen fremd: diese kann allein durch Reflexion hinzugedacht werden, bleibt aber eben deshalb immer auf dem Gebiet des abstrakten Denkens.

Zu den bejahenden und verneinenden Urtheilen fügt Kant, eine Grille der alten Scholastiker benutzend, noch die unendlichen, einen spitzfindig erdachten Lückenbüßer, was nicht einmal einer Auseinandersetzung bedarf, ein blindes Fenster, wie er zu Gunsten seiner symmetrischen Architektonik deren viele angebracht hat.

3) Unter den sehr weiten Begriff der Relation hat Kant drei ganz verschiedene Beschaffenheiten der Urtheile zusammengebracht, die wir daher, um ihren Ursprung zu erkennen, einzeln beleuchten müssen. a) Das hypothetische Urtheil überhaupt ist der abstrakte Ausdruck jener allgemeinsten Form aller unserer Erkenntnisse, des Satzes vom Grunde. Daß dieser vier ganz verschiedene Bedeutungen habe, und in jeder von diesen aus einer andern Erkenntnißkraft urständet, wie auch eine andere Klasse von Vorstellungen betrifft, habe ich schon 1813 in meiner Abhandlung über denselben dargethan. Daraus ergiebt sich hinlänglich, daß der Ursprung des hypothetischen Urtheils überhaupt, dieser allgemeinen Denkform, nicht bloß, wie Kant will, der Verstand und dessen Kategorie der Kausalität seyn könne; sondern daß das Gesetz der Kausalität, welches, meiner Darstellung zufolge, die einzige Erkenntnißform des reinen Verstandes ist, nur eine der Gestaltungen des alle reine oder apriorische Erkenntniß umfassenden Satzes vom Grunde ist, welcher hingegen in jeder seiner Bedeutungen diese hypothetische Form des Urtheils zum Ausdruck hat. — Wir sehen hier nun aber recht deutlich, wie Erkenntnisse, die ihrem Ursprung und ihrer Bedeutung nach ganz verschieden sind, doch, wenn von der Vernunft in abstracto gedacht, in einer und derselben Form von Verbindung der Begriffe und Urtheile erscheinen, und dann in dieser gar nicht mehr zu unterscheiden sind, sondern man, um sie zu unterscheiden, auf die anschauliche Erkenntniß zurückgehen muß, die abstrakte ganz verlassend. Daher war der von Kant eingeschlagene Weg, vom Standpunkt der abstrakten Erkenntniß aus, die Elemente und das innerste Getriebe auch der intuitiven Erkenntniß zu finden, durchaus verkehrt. Uebrigens ist gewissermaaßen meine ganze einleitende Abhandlung „Ueber den Satz vom Grunde“, nur als eine gründliche Erörterung der Bedeutung der hypothetischen Urtheilsform anzusehen; daher ich hier nicht weiter dabei verweile. b) Die Form des kategorischen Urtheils ist nichts Anderes, als die Form des Urtheils überhaupt im eigentlichsten Sinn. Denn, streng genommen, heißt Urtheilen nur die Verbindung, oder die Unvereinbarkeit der Sphären der Begriffe denken: daher sind die hypothetische und die disjunktive Verbindung eigentlich keine besondere Formen des Urtheils: denn sie werden nur auf schon fertige Urtheile angewandt, in denen die Verbindung der Begriffe unverändert die kategorische bleibt; sie aber verknüpfen wieder diese Urtheile, indem die hypothetische Form deren Abhängigkeit von einander, die disjunktive deren Unvereinbarkeit ausdrückt. Bloße Begriffe aber haben nur eine Art von Verhältnissen zu einander, nämlich die, welche im kategorischen Urtheil ausgedrückt werden. Die nähere Bestimmung, oder die Unterarten dieses Verhältnisses sind das Ineinandergreifen und das völlige Getrenntseyn der Begriffssphären, d. i. also die Bejahung und Verneinung; woraus Kant besondere Kategorien, unter einem ganz andern Titel gemacht hat, dem der Qualität. Das Ineinandergreifen und Getrenntseyn hat wieder Unterarten, nämlich je nachdem die Sphären ganz, oder nur zum Theil ineinandergreifen, welche Bestimmung die Quantität der Urtheile ausmacht; woraus Kant wieder einen ganz besondern Kategorientitel gemacht hat. So trennte er das ganz nahe Verwandte, ja Identische, die leicht übersehbaren Modifikationen der einzig möglichen Verhältnisse von bloßen Begriffen zu einander, und vereinigte dagegen das sehr Verschiedene unter diesem Titel der Relation.

Kategorische Urtheile haben zum metalogischen Princip die Denkgesetze der Identität und des Widerspruchs. Aber der Grund zur Verknüpfung von Begriffssphären, welcher dem Urtheil, das eben nur diese Verknüpfung ist, die Wahrheit verleiht, kann sehr verschiedener Art seyn, und dieser zufolge ist dann die Wahrheit des Urtheils entweder logisch, oder empirisch, oder metaphysisch, oder metalogisch, wie solches in der einleitenden Abhandlung, §. 30—33, ausgeführt ist und hier nicht wiederholt zu werden braucht. Es ergiebt sich aber daraus, wie sehr verschieden die unmittelbaren Erkenntnisse seyn können, welche alle in abstracto sich durch die Verbindung der Sphären zweier Begriffe als Subjekt und Prädikat darstellen, und daß man keineswegs eine einzige Funktion des Verstandes, als ihr entsprechend und sie hervorbringend, aufstellen kann. Z. B. die Urtheile: „das Wasser kocht; der Sinus mißt den Winkel; der Wille beschließt; Beschäftigung zerstreut; die Unterscheidung ist schwierig“; drücken durch die selbe logische Form die verschiedenartigsten Verhältnisse aus: woraus wir abermals die Bestätigung erhalten, wie verkehrt das Beginnen sei, um die unmittelbare, intuitive Erkenntniß zu analysiren, sich auf den Standpunkt der abstrakten zu stellen. — Aus einer eigentlichen Verstandeserkenntniß, in meinem Sinn, entspringt übrigens das kategorische Urtheil nur da, wo eine Kausalität durch dasselbe ausgedrückt wird; dies ist aber der Fall auch bei allen Urtheilen, die eine physische Qualität bezeichnen. Denn, wenn ich sage: „dieser Körper ist schwer, hart, flüssig, grün, sauer, alkalisch, organisch u. s. w.“; so bezeichnet dies immer sein Wirken, also eine Erkenntniß, die nur durch den reinen Verstand möglich ist. Nachdem nun diese, eben wie viele von ihr ganz verschiedene (z. B. die Unterordnung höchst abstrakter Begriffe), in abstracto durch Subjekt und Prädikat ausgedrückt worden, hat man diese bloßen Begriffsverhältnisse wieder auf die anschauliche Erkenntniß zurück übertragen, und gemeint, das Subjekt und Prädikat des Urtheils müsse in der Anschauung ein eigenes, besonderes Korrelat haben, Substanz und Accidenz. Aber ich werde weiter unten deutlich machen, daß der Begriff Substanz keinen andern wahren Inhalt hat, als den des Begriffs Materie. Accidenzen aber sind ganz gleichbedeutend mit Wirkungsarten, so daß die vermeinte Erkenntniß von Substanz und Accidenz noch immer die des reinen Verstandes von Ursach und Wirkung ist. Wie aber eigentlich die Vorstellung der Materie entsteht, ist theils in unserem ersten Buch, §. 4, und noch faßlicher in der Abhandlung „Ueber den Satz vom Grunde“, am Schluß des §. 21, S. 77, erörtert; theils werden wir es noch näher sehen, bei der Untersuchung des Grundsatzes, daß die Substanz beharrt. c) Die disjunktiven Urtheile entspringen aus dem Denkgesetz des ausgeschlossenen Dritten, welches eine metalogische Wahrheit ist: sie sind daher ganz das Eigenthum der reinen Vernunft, und haben nicht im Verstande ihren Ursprung. Die Ableitung der Kategorie der Gemeinschaft oder Wechselwirkung aus ihnen ist nun aber ein recht grelles Beispiel von den Gewaltthätigkeiten, welche sich Kant bisweilen gegen die Wahrheit erlaubt, bloß um seine Lust an architektonischer Symmetrie zu befriedigen. Das Unstatthafte jener Ableitung ist schon öfter mit Recht gerügt und aus mehreren Gründen dargethan worden, besonders von G. E. Schulze in seiner „Kritik der theoretischen Philosophie“ und von Berg in seiner „Epikritik der Philosophie“. — Welche wirkliche Analogie ist wohl zwischen der offengelassenen Bestimmung eines Begriffs durch einander ausschließende Prädikate, und dem Gedanken der Wechselwirkung? Beide sind sich sogar ganz entgegengesetzt, da im disjunktiven Urtheil das wirkliche Setzen des einen der beiden Eintheilungsglieder zugleich ein nothwendiges Aufheben des andern ist; hingegen wenn man sich zwei Dinge im Verhältniß der Wechselwirkung denkt, das Setzen des einen eben ein nothwendiges Setzen auch des andern ist, und vice versa. Daher ist unstreitig das wirkliche logische Analogon der Wechselwirkung der circulus vitiosus, als in welchem, eben wie angeblich bei der Wechselwirkung, das Begründete auch wieder der Grund ist, und umgekehrt. Und ebenso wie die Logik den circulus vitiosus verwirft, ist auch aus der Metaphysik der Begriff der Wechselwirkung zu verbannen. Denn ich bin ganz ernstlich gesonnen jetzt darzuthun, daß es gar keine Wechselwirkung im eigentlichen Sinne giebt, und dieser Begriff, so höchst beliebt auch, eben wegen der Unbestimmtheit des Gedankens, sein Gebrauch ist, doch näher, betrachtet, sich als leer, falsch und nichtig zeigt. Zuvörderst besinne man sich, was überhaupt Kausalität sei, und sehe zur Beihülfe meine Darstellung davon in der einleitenden Abhandlung, §. 20, wie auch in meiner Preisschrift über die Freiheit des Willens, Kap. 3, S. 27 fg., endlich im vierten Kapitel unsers zweiten Bandes nach. Kausalität ist das Gesetz, nach welchem die eintretenden Zustände der Materie sich ihre Stelle in der Zeit bestimmen. Bloß von Zuständen, ja eigentlich bloß von Veränderungen ist bei der Kausalität die Rede, und weder von der Materie als solcher, noch vom Beharren ohne Veränderung. Die Materie als solche steht nicht unter dem Gesetz der Kausalität; da sie weder wird, noch vergeht: also auch nicht das ganze Ding, wie man gemeinhin spricht; sondern allein die Zustände der Materie. Ferner hat das Gesetz der Kausalität es nicht mit dem Beharren zu thun: denn wo sich nichts verändert, ist kein Wirken und keine Kausalität, sondern ein bleibender ruhender Zustand. Wird nun ein solcher verändert, so ist entweder der neu entstandene wieder beharrlich, oder er ist es nicht, sondern führt sogleich einen dritten Zustand herbei, und die Nothwendigkeit, mit der dies geschieht, ist eben das Gesetz der Kausalität, welches eine Gestaltung des Satzes vom Grunde ist und daher nicht weiter zu erklären; weil eben der Satz vom Grunde das Princip aller Erklärung und aller Nothwendigkeit ist. Hieraus ist klar, daß das Ursach- und Wirkungseyn in genauer Verbindung und nothwendiger Beziehung auf die Zeitfolge steht. Nur sofern der Zustand A in der Zeit dem Zustande B vorhergeht, ihre Succession aber eine nothwendige und keine zufällige, d. h. kein bloßes Folgen, sondern ein Erfolgen ist; — nur insofern ist der Zustand A Ursache und der Zustand B Wirkung. Der Begriff Wechselwirkung enthält aber Dies, daß beide Ursache und beide Wirkung von einander sind: dies heißt aber eben soviel, als daß jeder von beiden der frühere und aber auch der spätere ist: also ein Ungedanke. Denn daß beide Zustände zugleich seien, und zwar nothwendig zugleich, läßt sich nicht annehmen: weil sie als nothwendig zusammengehörend und zugleich seiend, nur einen Zustand ausmachen, zu dessen Beharren zwar die bleibende Anwesenheit aller seiner Bestimmungen erfordert wird, wo denn aber gar nicht mehr von Veränderung und Kausalität, sondern von Dauer und Ruhe die Rede ist und weiter nichts gesagt wird, als daß wenn eine Bestimmung des ganzen Zustandes geändert wird, der hiedurch entstandene neue Zustand nicht von Bestand seyn kann, sondern Ursache der Aenderung auch aller übrigen Bestimmungen des ersten Zustandes wird, wodurch eben wieder ein neuer, dritter Zustand eintritt; welches alles nur gemäß dem einfachen Gesetz der Kausalität geschieht und nicht ein neues, das der Wechselwirkung, begründet.

Auch behaupte ich schlechthin, daß der Begriff Wechselwirkung durch kein einziges Beispiel zu belegen ist. Alles was man dafür ausgeben möchte, ist entweder ein ruhender Zustand, auf den der Begriff der Kausalität, welcher nur bei Veränderungen Bedeutung hat, gar keine Anwendung findet, oder es ist eine abwechselnde Succession gleichnamiger, sich bedingender Zustände, zu deren Erklärung die einfache Kausalität vollkommen ausreicht. Ein Beispiel der erstern Art giebt die durch gleiche Gewichte in Ruhe gebrachte Waagschale: hier ist gar kein Wirken, denn hier ist keine Veränderung: es ist ruhender Zustand: die Schwere strebt, gleichmäßig vertheilt, wie in jedem im Schwerpunkt unterstützten Körper, kann aber ihre Kraft durch keine Wirkung äußern. Daß die Wegnahme des einen Gewichtes einen zweiten Zustand giebt, der sogleich Ursache des dritten, des Sinkens der andern Schale, wird, geschieht nach dem einfachen Gesetz der Ursache und Wirkung und bedarf keiner besondern Kategorie des Verstandes, auch nicht einmal einer besondern Benennung. Ein Beispiel der andern Art ist das Fortbrennen eines Feuers. Die Verbindung des Oxygens mit dem brennbaren Körper ist Ursache der Wärme, und diese ist wieder Ursache des erneuerten Eintritts jener chemischen Verbindung. Aber dieses ist nichts Anderes, als eine Kette von Ursachen und Wirkungen, deren Glieder jedoch abwechselnd gleichnamig sind: das Brennen A bewirkt freie Wärme B, diese ein neues Brennen C (d. h. eine neue Wirkung, die mit der Ursache A gleichnamig, nicht aber individuell dieselbe ist), dies eine neue Wärme D (welche mit der Wirkung B nicht real identisch, sondern nur dem Begriffe nach die selbe, d. h. mit ihr gleichnamig ist) und so immer fort. Ein artiges Beispiel Dessen, was man im gemeinen Leben Wechselwirkung nennt, liefert eine von Humboldt (Ansichten der Natur, zweite Auflage, Bd. 2, S. 79) gegebene Theorie der Wüsten. Nämlich in Sandwüsten regnet es nicht, wohl aber auf den sie begrenzenden waldigen Bergen. Nicht die Anziehung der Berge auf die Wolken ist Ursache; sondern die von der Sandebene aufsteigende Säule erhitzter Luft hindert die Dunstbläschen sich zu zersetzen und treibt die Wolken in die Höhe.

Auf dem Gebirge ist der senkrecht steigende Luftstrom schwächer, die Wolken senken sich und der Niederschlag erfolgt in der kühlern Luft. So stehen Mangel an Regen und Pflanzenlosigkeit der Wüste in Wechselwirkung: es regnet nicht, weil die erhitzte Sandfläche mehr Wärme ausstrahlt; die Wüste wird nicht zur Steppe oder Grasflur, weil es nicht regnet. Aber offenbar haben wir hier wieder nur, wie im obigen Beispiel, eine Succession gleichnamiger Ursachen und Wirkungen, und durchaus nichts von der einfachen Kausalität wesentlich Verschiedenes. Eben so verhält es sich mit dem Schwingen des Pendels, ja, auch mit der Selbsterhaltung des organischen Körpers, bei welcher ebenfalls jeder Zustand einen neuen herbeiführt, der mit dem, von welchem er selbst bewirkt wurde, der Art nach derselbe, individuell aber ein neuer ist: nur ist hier die Sache komplicirter, indem die Kette nicht mehr aus Gliedern von zwei, sondern aus Gliedern von vielen Arten besteht, so daß ein gleichnamiges Glied, erst nachdem mehrere andere dazwischengetreten, wiederkehrt. Aber immer sehen wir nur eine Anwendung des einzigen und einfachen Gesetzes der Kausalität vor uns, welches der Folge der Zustände die Regel giebt, nicht aber irgend etwas, das durch eine neue und besondere Funktion des Verstandes gefaßt werden müßte.

Oder wollte man etwan gar als Beleg des Begriffs der Wechselwirkung anführen, daß Wirkung und Gegenwirkung sich gleich sind? Dies liegt aber eben in Dem, was ich so sehr urgire und in der Abhandlung über den Satz vom Grunde ausführlich dargethan habe, daß die Ursache und die Wirkung nicht zwei Körper, sondern zwei sich succedirende Zustände von Körpern sind, folglich jeder der beiden Zustände auch alle betheiligten Körper implicirt, die Wirkung also, d. i. der neu eintretende Zustand, z. B. beim Stoß, sich auf beide Körper in gleichem Verhältniß erstreckt: so sehr daher der gestoßene Körper verändert wird, eben so sehr wird es der stoßende (jeder im Verhältniß seiner Masse und Geschwindigkeit). Beliebt es, dieses Wechselwirkung zu nennen; so ist eben durchaus jede Wirkung Wechselwirkung, und es tritt deswegen kein neuer Begriff und noch weniger eine neue Funktion des Verstandes dafür ein, sondern wir haben nur ein überflüssiges Synonym der Kausalität. Diese Ansicht aber spricht Kant unbedachtsamer Weise geradezu aus, in den „Metaphysischen Anfangsgründen der Naturwissenschaft“, wo der Beweis des vierten Lehrsatzes der Mechanik anhebt: „alle äußere Wirkung in der Welt ist Wechselwirkung“. Wie sollen dann für einfache Kausalität und für Wechselwirkung verschiedene Funktionen a priori im Verstande liegen, ja, sogar die reale Succession der Dinge nur mittelst der erstern, und das Zugleichseyn derselben nur mittelst der letzteren möglich und erkennbar seyn? Danach wäre, wenn alle Wirkung Wechselwirkung ist, auch Succession und Simultaneität das Selbe, mithin Alles in der Welt zugleich. — Gäbe es wahre Wechselwirkung, dann wäre auch das perpetuum mobile möglich und sogar a priori gewiß: vielmehr aber liegt der Behauptung, daß es unmöglich sei, die Ueberzeugung a priori zum Grunde, daß es keine wahre Wechselwirkung und keine Verstandesform für eine solche giebt.

Auch Aristoteles leugnet die Wechselwirkung im eigentlichen Sinn: denn er bemerkt, daß zwar zwei Dinge wechselseitig Ursache von einander seyn können, aber nur so, daß man es von jedem in einem andern Sinne versteht, z. B. das eine auf das andere als Motiv, dieses auf jenes aber als Ursache seiner Bewegung wirkt. Nämlich wir finden an zwei Stellen die selben Worte: Physic., Lib. II, c. 3, und Metaph., Lib. V, c. 2. Εστι δε τινα και αλληλων αιτια· οιον το πονειν αιτιον της ευεξιας, και αυτη του πονειν· αλλ' ου τον αυτον τροπον, αλλα το μεν ως τελος, το δε ως αρχη κινησεως. (Sunt praeterea quae sibi sunt mutuo causae, ut exercitium bonae habitudinis, et haec exercitii: at non eodem modo, sed haec ut finis, illud ut principium motus.) Nähme er noch außerdem eine eigentliche Wechselwirkung an, so würde er sie hier aufführen, da er an beiden Stellen beschäftigt ist, sämmtliche mögliche Arten von Ursachen aufzuzählen. In den Analyt. pnst., Lib. II, c. 11, spricht er von einem Kreislauf der Ursachen und Wirkungen, aber nicht von einer Wechselwirkung.

4) Die Kategorien der Modalität haben vor allen übrigen den Vorzug, daß Das, was durch jede derselben ausgedrückt wird, der Urtheilsform, von der es abgeleitet ist, doch wirklich entspricht; was bei den anderen Kategorien fast gar nicht der Fall ist, indem sie meistens mit dem willkürlichsten Zwange aus den Urtheilsformen herausdeducirt sind.

Daß also die Begriffe des Möglichen, Wirklichen und Nothwendigen es sind, welche die problematische, assertorische und apodiktische Form des Urtheils veranlassen, ist vollkommen wahr. Daß aber jene Begriffe besondere, ursprüngliche und nicht weiter abzuleitende Erkenntnißformen des Verstandes wären, ist nicht wahr. Vielmehr stammen sie aus der einzigen ursprünglichen und daher a priori uns bewußten Form alles Erkennens her, aus dem Satze vom Grunde, und zwar unmittelbar aus diesem die Erkenntniß der Nothwendigkeit; hingegen erst indem auf diese die Reflexion angewandt wird, entstehen die Begriffe von Zufälligkeit, Möglichkeit, Unmöglichkeit, Wirklichkeit. Alle diese urständen daher keineswegs aus einer Geisteskraft, dem Verstande, sondern entstehen durch den Konflikt des abstrakten Erkennens mit dem intuitiven, wie man sogleich sehen wird.

Ich behaupte, daß Nothwendigseyn und Folge aus einem gegebenen Grunde seyn, durchaus Wechselbegriffe und völlig identisch sind. Als nothwendig können wir nimmermehr etwas erkennen, ja nur denken, als sofern wir es als Folge eines gegebenen Grundes ansehen: und weiter als diese Abhängigkeit, dieses Gesetztseyn durch ein Anderes und dieses unausbleibliche Folgen aus ihm, enthält der Begriff der Nothwendigkeit schlechthin nichts. Er entsteht und besteht also einzig und allein durch Anwendung des Satzes vom Grunde. Daher giebt es, gemäß den verschiedenen Gestaltungen dieses Satzes, ein physisch Nothwendiges (der Wirkung aus der Ursache), ein logisch (durch den Erkenntnißgrund, in analytischen Urtheilen, Schlüssen u. s. w.), ein mathematisch (nach dem Seynsgrunde in Raum und Zeit), und endlich ein praktisch Nothwendiges, womit wir nicht etwan das Bestimmtseyn durch einen angeblichen kategorischen Imperativ, tiv, sondern die, bei gegebenem empirischen Charakter, nach vorliegenden Motiven nothwendig eintretende Handlung bezeichnen wollen. — Alles Nothwendige ist es aber nur relativ, nämlich unter der Voraussetzung des Grundes, aus dem es folgt: daher ist absolute Nothwendigkeit ein Widerspruch. — Im Uebrigen verweise ich auf §. 49 der Abhandlung über den Satz vom Grunde.

Das kontradiktorische Gegentheil, d. h. die Verneinung der Nothwendigkeit ist die Zufälligkeit. Der Inhalt dieses Begriffs ist daher negativ, nämlich weiter nichts als dieses: Mangel der durch den Satz vom Grunde ausgedrückten Verbindung. Folglich ist auch das Zufällige immer nur relativ: nämlich in Beziehung auf etwas, das nicht sein Grund ist, ist es ein solches. Jedes Objekt, von welcher Art es auch sei, z. B. jede Begebenheit in der wirklichen Welt, ist allemal nothwendig und zufällig zugleich: nothwendig in Beziehung auf das Eine, das ihre Ursache ist; zufällig in Beziehung auf alles Uebrige. Denn ihre Berührung in Zeit und Raum mit allem Uebrigen ist ein bloßes Zusammentreffen, ohne nothwendige Verbindung: daher auch die Wörter Zufall, συμπτωμα, contingens. So wenig daher, wie ein absolut Nothwendiges, ist ein absolut Zufälliges denkbar. Denn dieses Letztere wäre eben ein Objekt, welches zu keinem andern im Verhältniß der Folge zum Grunde stände. Die Unvorstellbarkeit eines solchen ist aber gerade der negativ ausgedrückte Inhalt des Satzes vom Grunde, welcher also erst umgestoßen werden müßte, um ein absolut Zufälliges zu denken: dieses selbst hätte aber alsdann auch alle Bedeutung verloren, da der Begriff des Zufälligen solche nur in Beziehung auf jenen Satz hat, und bedeutet, daß zwei Objekte nicht im Verhältniß von Grund und Folge zu einander stehen.

In der Natur, sofern sie anschauliche Vorstellung ist, ist Alles was geschieht nothwendig: denn es geht aus seiner Ursache hervor. Betrachten wir aber dieses Einzelne in Beziehung auf das Uebrige, welches nicht seine Ursache ist; so erkennen wir es als zufällig: dies ist aber schon eine abstrakte Reflexion. Abstrahiren wir nun ferner, bei einem Objekt der Natur, ganz von seinem Kausalverhältniß zu dem Uebrigen, also von seiner Nothwendigkeit und Zufälligkeit; so befaßt diese Art von Erkenntniß der Begriff des Wirklichen, bei welchem man nur die Wirkung betrachtet, ohne sich nach der Ursache umzusehen, in Beziehung auf welche man sie sonst nothwendig, in Beziehung auf alles Uebrige zufällig nennen müßte. Dieses Alles beruht zuletzt darauf, daß die Modalität des Urtheils nicht sowohl die objektive Beschaffenheit der Dinge, als das Verhältniß unserer Erkenntniß zu derselben bezeichnet. Da aber in der Natur Jedes aus einer Ursache hervorgeht; so ist jedes Wirkliche auch nothwendig: aber wieder auch nur sofern es zu dieser Zeit, an diesem Ort ist: denn allein darauf erstreckt sich die Bestimmung durch das Gesetz der Kausalität. Verlassen wir aber die anschauliche Natur und gehen über zum abstrakten Denken; so können wir, in der Reflexion, alle Naturgesetze, die uns theils a priori, theils erst a posteriori bekannt sind, uns vorstellen, und diese abstrakte Vorstellung enthält Alles, was in der Natur zu irgend einer Zeit, an irgend einem Ort ist, aber mit Abstraktion von jedem bestimmten Ort und Zeit: und damit eben, durch solche Reflexion, sind wir ins weite Reich der Möglichkeit getreten. Was aber sogar auch hier keine Stelle findet, ist das Unmögliche. Es ist offenbar, daß Möglichkeit und Unmöglichkeit nur für die Reflexion, für die abstrakte Erkenntniß der Vernunft, nicht für die anschauliche Erkenntniß dasind; obgleich die reinen Formen dieser es sind, welche der Vernunft die Bestimmung des Möglichen und Unmöglichen an die Hand geben. Je nachdem die Naturgesetze, von denen wir beim Denken des Möglichen und Unmöglichen ausgehen, a priori oder a posteriori erkannt sind, ist die Möglichkeit oder Unmöglichkeit eine metaphysische, oder nur physische.

Aus dieser Darstellung, die keines Beweises bedarf, weil sie sich unmittelbar auf die Erkenntniß des Satzes vom Grunde und auf die Entwickelung der Begriffe des Nothwendigen, Wirklichen und Möglichen stützt, geht genugsam hervor, wie ganz grundlos Kants Annahme dreier besonderer Funktionen des Verstandes für jene drei Begriffe ist, und daß er hier abermals durch kein Bedenken sich hat stören lassen in der Durchführung seiner architektonischen Symmetrie.

Hiezu kommt nun aber noch der sehr große Fehler, daß er, freilich nach dem Vorgang der frühern Philosophie, die Begriffe des Nothwendigen und Zufälligen mit einander verwechselt hat.

Jene frühere Philosophie nämlich hat die Abstraktion zu folgendem Mißbrauch benutzt. Es war offenbar, daß Das, dessen Grund gesetzt ist, unausbleiblich folgt, d. h. nicht nichtseyn kann, also nothwendig ist. An diese letzte Bestimmung aber hielt man sich ganz allein und sagte: nothwendig ist, was nicht anders seyn kann, oder dessen Gegentheil unmöglich. Man ließ aber den Grund und die Wurzel solcher Nothwendigkeit aus der Acht, übersah die daraus sich ergebende Relativität aller Nothwendigkeit und machte dadurch die ganz undenkbare Fiktion von einem absolut Nothwendigen, d. h. von einem Etwas, dessen Daseyn so unausbleiblich wäre, wie die Folge aus dem Grunde, das aber doch nicht Folge aus einem Grunde wäre und daher von nichts abhienge; welcher Beisatz eben eine absurde Petition ist, weil sie dem Satz vom Grunde widerstreitet. Von dieser Fiktion nun ausgehend erklärte man, der Wahrheit diametral entgegen, gerade Alles was durch einen Grund gesetzt ist, für das Zufällige, indem man nämlich auf das Relative seiner Nothwendigkeit sah und diese verglich mit jener ganz aus der Luft gegriffenen, in ihrem Begriff sich widersprechenden absoluten Nothwendigkeit [5]. Diese grundverkehrte Bestimmung des Zufälligen behält nun auch Kant bei und giebt sie als Erklärung: „Kritik der reinen Vernunft“, V, S. 289–291; 243. V, 301; 419. V, 447, 486, 488. Er geräth dabei sogar in den augenfälligsten Widerspruch mit sich selbst, indem er S. 301 sagt: „Alles Zufällige hat eine Ursache“, und hinzufügt: „Zufällig ist, dessen Nichtseyn möglich.“ Was aber eine Ursache hat, dessen [6] Man sehe Christian Wolf’s „Vernünftige Gedanken von Gott, Welt und Seele“, §. 577–579. — Sonderbar ist es, daß er nur das nach dem Satz vom Grunde des Werdens Nothwendige, d. h. aus Ursachen Geschehende, für zufällig erklärt, hingegen das nach den übrigen Gestaltungen des Satzes vom Grunde Nothwendige, auch dafür anerkennt, z. B. was aus der essentia (Definition) folgt, also die analytischen Urtheile, ferner auch die mathematischen Wahrheiten. Als Grund hievon giebt er an, daß nur das Gesetz der Kausalität endlose Reihen gebe, die anderen Arten von Gründen aber endliche. Dies ist jedoch bei den Gestaltungen des Satzes vom Grunde im reinen Raum und Zeit gar nicht der Fall, sondern gilt nur vom logischen Erkenntnißgrund: für einen solchen hielt er aber die mathematische Nothwendigkeit. — Vergleiche: Abhandlung über den Satz vom Grunde, §. 50.

Nichtseyn ist durchaus unmöglich: also ist es nothwendig. — Uebrigens ist der Ursprung dieser ganzen falschen Erklärung des Nothwendigen und Zufälligen schon bei Aristoteles zu finden und zwar „De generatione et corruptione“, Lib. II, c. 9 et 11, wo nämlich das Nothwendige erklärt wird als Das, dessen Nichtseyn unmöglich ist: ihm steht gegenüber Das, dessen Seyn unmöglich ist; und zwischen diesen Beiden liegt nun Das, was seyn und auch nichtseyn kann, — also das Entstehende und Vergehende, und dieses wäre denn das Zufällige. Nach dem oben Gesagten ist es klar, daß diese Erklärung, wie so viele des Aristoteles, entstanden ist aus dem Stehenbleiben bei abstrakten Begriffen, ohne auf das Konkrete und Anschauliche zurückzugehen, in welchem doch die Quelle aller abstrakten Begriffe liegt, durch welches sie daher stets kontrolirt werden müssen. „Etwas, dessen Nichtseyn unmöglich ist“ — läßt sich allenfalls in abstracto denken: aber gehen wir damit zum Konkreten, Realen, Anschaulichen, so finden wir nichts, den Gedanken, auch nur als ein Mögliches, zu belegen, — als eben nur die besagte Folge eines gegebenen Grundes, deren Nothwendigkeit jedoch eine relative und bedingte ist.

Ich füge bei dieser Gelegenheit noch einige Bemerkungen über jene Begriffe der Modalität hinzu. — Da alle Nothwendigkeit auf dem Satze vom Grunde beruht, und eben deshalb relativ ist; so sind alle apodiktischen Urtheile ursprünglich und ihrer letzten Bedeutung nach hypothetisch. Sie werden kategorisch nur durch den Zutritt einer assertorischen Minor, also im Schlußsatz. Ist diese Minor noch unentschieden, und wird diese Unentschiedenheit ausgedrückt; so giebt dieses das problematische Urtheil.

Was im Allgemeinen (als Regel) apodiktisch ist (ein Naturgesetz), ist in Bezug auf einen einzelnen Fall immer nur problematisch, weil erst die Bedingung wirklich eintreten muß, die den Fall unter die Regel setzt. Und umgekehrt, was im Einzelnen als solches nothwendig (apodiktisch) ist (jede einzelne Veränderung, nothwendig durch ihre Ursache), ist überhaupt und allgemein ausgesprochen wieder nur problematisch; weil die eingetretene Ursache nur den einzelnen Fall traf, und das apodiktische, immer hypothetische Urtheil stets nur allgemeine Gesetze aussagt, nicht unmittelbar einzelne Fälle. — Dieses Alles hat seinen Grund darin, daß die Möglichkeit nur im Gebiet der Reflexion und für die Vernunft da ist, das Wirkliche im Gebiet der Anschauung und für den Verstand; das Nothwendige für beide. Sogar ist eigentlich der Unterschied zwischen nothwendig, wirklich und möglich nur in abstracto und dem Begriffe nach vorhanden; in der realen Welt hingegen fallen alle Drei in Eins zusammen. Denn Alles, was geschieht, geschieht nothwendig; weil es aus Ursachen geschieht, diese aber selbst wieder Ursachen haben; so daß sämmtliche Hergänge der Welt, große wie kleine, eine strenge Verkettung des nothwendig Eintretenden sind. Demgemäß ist alles Wirkliche zugleich ein Nothwendiges, und in der Realität zwischen Wirklichkeit und Nothwendigkeit kein Unterschied; und eben so keiner zwischen Wirklichkeit und Möglichkeit: denn was nicht geschehen, d. h. nicht wirklich geworden ist, war auch nicht möglich; weil die Ursachen, ohne welche es nimmermehr eintreten konnte, selbst nicht eingetreten sind, noch eintreten konnten, in der großen Verkettung der Ursachen: es war also ein Unmögliches. Jeder Vorgang ist demnach entweder nothwendig, oder unmöglich. Dieses Alles gilt bloß von der empirisch realen Welt, d. h. dem Komplex der einzelnen Dinge, also vom ganz Einzelnen als solchem. Betrachten wir hingegen, mittelst der Vernunft, die Dinge im Allgemeinen, sie in abstracto auffassend; so treten Nothwendigkeit, Wirklichkeit und Möglichkeit wieder auseinander: wir erkennen dann alles den unserem Intellekt angehörenden Gesetzen a priori Gemäße als überhaupt möglich; das den empirischen Naturgesetzen Entsprechende als in dieser Welt möglich, auch wenn es nie wirklich geworden, unterscheiden also deutlich das Mögliche vom Wirklichen. Das Wirkliche ist an sich selbst zwar stets auch ein Nothwendiges, wird aber als solches nur von Dem aufgefaßt, der seine Ursache kennt: abgesehen von dieser ist und heißt es zufällig. Diese Betrachtung giebt uns auch den Schlüssel zu jener contentio περι δυνατων zwischen dem Megariker Diodoros und Chrysippos dem Stoiker, welche Cicero vorträgt im Buche de fato. Diodoros sagt: „Nur was wirklich wird, ist möglich gewesen: und alles Wirkliche ist auch nothwendig.“ — Chrysippos dagegen: „Es ist Vieles möglich, das nie wirklich wird: denn nur das Nothwendige wird wirklich.“ — Wir können uns dies so erläutern. Die Wirklichkeit ist die Konklusion eines Schlusses, zu dem die Möglichkeit die Prämissen giebt. Doch ist hiezu nicht allein die Major, sondern auch die Minor erfordert: erst Beide geben die volle Möglichkeit. Die Major nämlich giebt eine bloß theoretische, allgemeine Möglichkeit in abstracto: diese macht an sich aber noch gar nichts möglich, d. h. fähig wirklich zu werden. Dazu gehört noch die Minor, als welche die Möglichkeit für den einzelnen Fall giebt, indem sie ihn unter die Regel bringt. Dieser wird eben dadurch sofort zur Wirklichkeit. Z. B.:

Maj. Alle Häuser (folglich auch mein Haus) können abbrennen. Min. Mein Haus geräth in Brand. Konkl. Mein Haus brennt ab.

Denn jeder allgemeine Satz, also jede Major, bestimmt, in Hinsicht auf die Wirklichkeit, die Dinge stets nur unter einer Voraussetzung, mithin hypothetisch: z. B. das Abbrennenkönnen hat zur Voraussetzung das Inbrandgerathen. Diese Voraussetzung wird in der Minor beigebracht. Allemal ladet die Major die Kanone: allein erst wenn die Minor die Lunte hinzubringt, erfolgt der Schuß, die Konklusio. Das gilt durchweg vom Verhältniß der Möglichkeit zur Wirklichkeit. Da nun die Konklusio, welche die Aussage der Wirklichkeit ist, stets nothwendig erfolgt; so geht hieraus hervor, daß Alles, was wirklich ist, auch nothwendig ist; welches auch daraus einzusehen, daß Nothwendigseyn nur heißt, Folge eines gegebenen Grundes seyn: dieser ist beim Wirklichen eine Ursache: also ist alles Wirkliche nothwendig. Demnach sehen wir hier die Begriffe des Möglichen, Wirklichen und Nothwendigen zusammenfallen und nicht bloß den letzteren den ersteren voraussetzen, sondern auch umgekehrt. Was sie auseinanderhält, ist die Beschränkung unseres Intellekts durch die Form der Zeit: denn die Zeit ist das Vermittelnde zwischen Möglichkeit und Wirklichkeit. Die Nothwendigkeit der einzelnen Begebenheit läßt sich durch die Erkenntniß ihrer sämmtlichen Ursachen vollkommen einsehen: aber das Zusammentreffen dieser sämmtlichen, verschiedenen und von einander unabhängigen Ursachen erscheint für uns als zufällig, ja die Unabhängigkeit derselben von einander ist eben der Begriff der Zufälligkeit. Da aber doch jede von ihnen die nothwendige Folge ihrer Ursache war, deren Kette anfangslos ist; so zeigt sich, daß die Zufälligkeit eine bloß subjektive Erscheinung ist, entstehend aus der Begränzung des Horizonts unseres Verstandes, und so subjektiv, wie der optische Horizont, in welchem der Himmel die Erde berührt.

Da Nothwendigkeit einerlei ist mit Folge aus gegebenem Grunde, so muß sie auch bei jeder Gestaltung des Satzes vom Grunde als eine besondere erscheinen und auch ihren Gegensatz haben an der Möglichkeit und Unmöglichkeit, welcher immer erst durch Anwendung der abstrakten Betrachtung der Vernunft auf den Gegenstand entsteht. Daher stehen den oben erwähnten vier Arten von Nothwendigkeiten eben so viele Arten von Unmöglichkeiten gegenüber: also physische, logische, mathematische, praktische. Dazu mag noch bemerkt werden, daß wenn man ganz innerhalb des Gebietes abstrakter Begriffe sich hält, die Möglichkeit immer dem allgemeinern, die Nothwendigkeit dem engern Begriff anhängt: z. B. „ein Thier kann seyn ein Vogel, Fisch, Amphibie u. s. w.“ — „eine Nachtigall muß seyn ein Vogel, dieser ein Thier, dieses ein Organismus, dieser ein Körper“. — Eigentlich weil die logische Nothwendigkeit, deren Ausdruck der Syllogismus ist, vom Allgemeinen auf das Besondere geht und nie umgekehrt. — Dagegen ist in der anschaulichen Natur (den Vorstellungen der ersten Klasse) eigentlich alles nothwendig, durch das Gesetz der Kausalität: bloß die hinzutretende Reflexion kann es zugleich als zufällig auffassen, es vergleichend mit dem was nicht dessen Ursache ist, und auch als bloß und rein wirklich, durch Absehen von aller Kausalverknüpfung: nur bei dieser Klasse von Vorstellungen hat eigentlich der Begriff des Wirklichen Statt, wie auch schon die Abstammung des Worts vom Kausalitätsbegriffe anzeigt. — In der dritten Klasse der Vorstellungen, der reinen mathematischen Anschauung, ist, wenn man ganz innerhalb derselben sich hält, lauter Nothwendigkeit: Möglichkeit entsteht auch hier bloß durch Beziehung auf die Begriffe der Reflexion: z. B. „ein Dreieck kann seyn recht-, stumpf-, gleichwinklicht; muß seyn mit drei Winkeln, die zwei rechte betragen“. Also zum Möglichen kommt man hier nur durch Uebergang vom Anschaulichen zum Abstrakten.

Nach dieser Darstellung, welche die Erinnerung, sowohl an das in der Abhandlung über den Satz vom Grunde, als im ersten Buch gegenwärtiger Schrift Gesagte voraussetzt, wird hoffentlich über den wahren und sehr verschiedenartigen Ursprung jener Formen der Urtheile, welche die Tafel vor Augen legt, weiter kein Zweifel seyn, wie auch nicht über die Unzulässigkeit und gänzliche Grundlosigkeit der Annahme von zwölf besonderen Funktionen des Verstandes zur Erklärung derselben. Von dieser letztern geben auch schon manche einzelne und sehr leicht zu machende Bemerkungen Anzeige. So gehört z. B. große Liebe zur Symmetrie und viel Vertrauen zu einem von ihr genommenen Leitfaden dazu, um anzunehmen, ein bejahendes, ein kategorisches und ein assertorisches Urtheil seien drei so grundverschiedene Dinge, daß sie berechtigten, zu jedem derselben eine ganz eigenthümliche Funktion des Verstandes anzunehmen.

Das Bewußtseyn der Unhaltbarkeit seiner Kategorienlehre verräth Kant selbst dadurch, daß er im dritten Hauptstück der Analysis der Grundsätze (phaenomena et noumena) aus der ersten Auflage mehrere lange Stellen (nämlich S. 241, 242, 244—246, 248—253) in der zweiten Auflage weggelassen hat, welche die Schwäche jener Lehre zu unverhohlen an den Tag legten. So z. B. sagt er daselbst, S. 241, er habe die einzelnen Kategorien nicht definirt, weil er sie nicht definiren konnte, auch wenn er es gewollt hätte, indem sie keiner Definition fähig seien: — er hatte hiebei vergessen, daß er S. 82 derselben ersten Auflage gesagt hatte: „Der Definition der Kategorien überhebe ich mich geflissentlich, ob ich gleich im Besitz derselben seyn möchte.“ — Dies war also — sit venia verbo — Wind. Diese letztere Stelle hat er aber stehen lassen. Und so verrathen alle jene nachher weislich weggelassenen Stellen, daß sich bei den Kategorien nichts Deutliches denken läßt und diese ganze Lehre auf schwachen Füßen steht.

Diese Kategorientafel soll nun der Leitfaden seyn, nach welchem jede metaphysische, ja, jede wissenschaftliche Betrachtung anzustellen ist. (Prolegomena, §. 39.) Und in der That ist sie nicht nur die Grundlage der ganzen Kantischen Philosophie und der Typus, nach welchem deren Symmetrie überall durchgeführt wird, wie ich bereits oben gezeigt habe; sondern sie ist auch recht eigentlich das Bett des Prokrustes geworden, in welches Kant jede mögliche Betrachtung hineinzwängt, durch eine Gewaltthätigkeit, die ich jetzt noch etwas näher betrachten werde. Was mußten aber bei einer solchen Gelegenheit nicht erst die imitatores, servum pecus thun! Man hat es gesehen. Jene Gewaltthätigkeit also wird dadurch ausgeübt, daß man die Bedeutung der Ausdrücke, welche die Titel, Formen der Urtheile und Kategorien bezeichnen, ganz bei Seite setzt und vergißt, und sich allein an diese Ausdrücke selbst hält. Diese haben zum Theil ihren Ursprung aus des Aristoteles Analyt. priora, I, 23 (περι ποιοτητος και ποσοτητος των του συλλογισμου ὁρων: de qualitate et quantitate terminorum syllogismi), sind aber willkürlich gewählt: denn den Umfang der Begriffe hätte man auch wohl noch anders, als durch das Wort Quantität, bezeichnen können, obwohl gerade dieses noch besser, als die übrigen Titel der Kategorien, zu seinem Gegenstande paßt. Schon das Wort Qualität hat man offenbar nur gewählt aus der Gewohnheit, der Quantität die Qualität gegenüber zu stellen: denn für Bejahung und Verneinung ist der Name Qualität doch wohl willkürlich genug ergriffen. Nun aber wird von Kant, bei jeder Betrachtung, die er anstellt, jede Quantität in Zeit und Raum, und jede mögliche Qualität von Dingen, physische, moralische u. s. w. unter jene Kategorientitel gebracht, obgleich zwischen diesen Dingen und jenen Titeln der Formen des Urtheilens und Denkens nicht das mindeste Gemeinsame ist, außer der zufälligen, willkürlichen Benennung. Man muß alle Hochachtung, die man Kanten übrigens schuldig ist, sich gegenwärtig halten, um nicht seinen Unwillen über dieses Verfahren in harten Ausdrücken zu äußern. — Das nächste Beispiel liefert uns gleich die reine physiologische Tafel allgemeiner Grundsätze der Naturwissenschaft. Was, in aller Welt, hat die Quantität der Urtheile damit zu thun, daß jede Anschauung eine extensive Größe hat? was die Qualität der Urtheile damit, daß jede Empfindung einen Grad hat? — Ersteres beruht vielmehr darauf, daß der Raum die Form unserer äußern Anschauung ist, und Letzteres ist nichts weiter, als eine empirische und noch dazu ganz subjektive Wahrnehmung, bloß aus der Betrachtung der Beschaffenheit unserer Sinnesorgane geschöpft. — Ferner auf der Tafel, welche den Grund zur rationalen Psychologie legt (Kritik der reinen Vernunft, S. 344; V, 402), wird unter der Qualität die Einfachheit der Seele angeführt: diese ist aber gerade eine quantitative Eigenschaft, und zur Bejahung oder Verneinung im Urtheil hat sie gar keine Beziehung. Allein die Quantität sollte ausgefüllt werden durch die Einheit der Seele, die doch in der Einfachheit schon begriffen ist. Dann ist die Modalität auf eine lächerliche Weise hineingezwängt: die Seele stehe nämlich im Verhältniß zu möglichen Gegenständen; Verhältniß gehört aber zur Relation; allein diese ist bereits durch Substanz eingenommen. Sodann werden die vier kosmologischen Ideen, welche der Stoff der Antinomien sind, auf die Titel der Kategorien zurückgeführt; worüber das Nähere weiter unten, bei der Prüfung dieser Antinomien. Mehrere wo möglich noch grellere Beispiele liefert die Tafel der Kategorien der Freiheit! in der „Kritik der praktischen Vernunft“; — ferner in der „Kritik der Urtheilskraft“ das erste Buch, welches das Geschmacksurtheil nach den vier Titeln der Kategorien durchgeht; endlich die Metaphysischen Anfangsgründe der Naturwissenschaft, die ganz nach der Kategorientafel zugeschnitten sind, wodurch eben vielleicht das Falsche, welches dem Wahren und Vortrefflichen dieses wichtigen Werkes hin und wieder beigemischt ist, hauptsächlich veranlaßt worden. Man sehe nur am Ende des ersten Hauptstücks, wie die Einheit, Vielheit, Allheit der Richtungen der Linien den nach der Quantität der Urtheile so benannten Kategorien entsprechen soll.

— Der Grundsatz der Beharrlichkeit der Substanz ist aus der Kategorie der Substanz und Inhärenz abgeleitet. Diese kennen wir aber nur aus der Form der kategorischen Urtheile, d. i. aus der Verbindung zweier Begriffe als Subjekt und Prädikat. Wie gewaltsam ist daher von dieser einfachen, rein logischen Form jener große metaphysische Grundsatz abhängig gemacht! Allein es ist auch nur pro forma und der Symmetrie wegen geschehen. Der Beweis, der hier für diesen Grundsatz gegeben wird, setzt dessen vermeintlichen Ursprung aus dem Verstande und aus der Kategorie ganz bei Seite, und ist aus der reinen Anschauung der Zeit geführt. Aber auch dieser Beweis ist ganz unrichtig. Es ist falsch, daß es in der bloßen Zeit eine Simultaneität und eine Dauer gebe: diese Vorstellungen gehen allererst hervor aus der Vereinigung des Raumes mit der Zeit, wie ich bereits gezeigt habe in der Abhandlung über den Satz vom Grunde, §. 18, und noch weiter ausgeführt §. 4 gegenwärtiger Schrift; beide Auseinandersetzungen muß ich zum Verständniß des Folgenden voraussetzen. Es ist falsch, daß bei allem Wechsel die Zeit selbst bleibe: vielmehr ist gerade sie selbst das fließende: eine bleibende Zeit ist ein Widerspruch. Kants Beweis ist unhaltbar, so sehr er ihn auch mit Sophismen gestützt hat: ja, er geräth dabei in den handgreiflichsten Widerspruch. Nachdem er nämlich (S. 177; V, 219) das Zugleichseyn fälschlich als einen Modus der Zeit aufgestellt hat, sagt er (S. 183; V, 226) ganz richtig: „Das Zugleichseyn ist nicht ein Modus der Zeit, als in welcher gar keine Theile zugleich sind, sondern alle nach einander.“ — In Wahrheit ist im Zugleichseyn der Raum eben so sehr implicirt, wie die Zeit. Denn, sind zwei Dinge zugleich und doch nicht Eins, so sind sie durch den Raum verschieden; sind zwei Zustände eines Dinges zugleich (z. B. das Leuchten und die Hitze des Eisens), so sind sie zwei gleichzeitige Wirkungen eines Dinges, setzen daher die Materie und diese den Raum voraus. Streng genommen ist das Zugleich eine negative Bestimmung, die bloß enthält, daß zwei Dinge, oder Zustände, nicht durch die Zeit verschieden sind, ihr Unterschied also anderweitig zu suchen ist. — Allerdings aber muß unsere Erkenntniß von der Beharrlichkeit der Substanz, d. i. der Materie, auf einer Einsicht a priori beruhen; da sie über allen Zweifel erhaben ist, daher nicht aus der Erfahrung geschöpft seyn kann. Ich leite sie davon ab, daß das Princip alles Werdens und Vergehens, das Gesetz der Kausalität, dessen wir uns a priori bewußt sind, ganz wesentlich nur die Veränderungen, d. h. die successiven Zustände der Materie betrifft, also auf die Form beschränkt ist, die Materie aber unangetastet läßt, welche daher in unserm Bewußtseyn als die keinem Werden und Vergehen unterworfene, mithin immer gewesene und immer bleibende Grundlage aller Dinge dasteht. Eine tiefere, aus der Analyse unserer anschaulichen Vorstellung der empirischen Welt überhaupt geschöpfte Begründung der Beharrlichkeit der Substanz findet man in unserem ersten Buch, §. 4, als wo gezeigt worden, daß das Wesen der Materie in der gänzlichen Vereinigung von Raum und Zeit besteht, welche Vereinigung nur mittelst der Vorstellung der Kausalität möglich ist, folglich nur für den Verstand, der nichts, als das subjektive Korrelat der Kausalität ist, daher auch die Materie nie anders als wirkend, d. h. durch und durch als Kausalität erkannt wird, Seyn und Wirken bei ihr Eins ist, welches schon das Wort Wirklichkeit andeutet. Innige Vereinigung von Raum und Zeit, — Kausalität, Materie, Wirklichkeit, — sind also Eines, und das subjektive Korrelat dieses Einen ist der Verstand. Die Materie muß die sich widerstreitenden Eigenschaften der beiden Faktoren, aus denen sie hervorgeht, an sich tragen, und die Vorstellung der Kausalität ist es, die das Widersprechende beider aufhebt und ihr Zusammenbestehen faßlich macht dem Verstande, durch den und für den allein die Materie ist und dessen ganzes Vermögen im Erkennen von Ursache und Wirkung besteht: für ihn also vereinigt sich in der Materie der bestandlose Fluß der Zeit, als Wechsel der Accidenzien auftretend, mit der starren Unbeweglichkeit des Raumes, die sich darstellt als das Beharren der Substanz. Denn vergienge, wie die Accidenzien, so auch die Substanz; so würde die Erscheinung vom Raume ganz losgerissen und gehörte nur noch der bloßen Zeit an: die Welt der Erfahrung wäre aufgelöst, durch Vernichtung der Materie, Annihilation. — Aus dem Antheil also, den der Raum an der Materie, d. i. an allen Erscheinungen der Wirklichkeit hat, — indem er der Gegensatz und das Widerspiel der Zeit ist und daher, an sich und außer dem Verein mit jener, gar keinen Wechsel kennt, — mußte jener Grundsatz von der Beharrlichkeit der Substanz, den Jeder als a priori gewiß anerkennt, abgeleitet und erklärt werden, nicht aber aus der bloßen Zeit, welcher Kant zu diesem Zweck ganz widersinnig ein Bleiben angedichtet hat.

Die Unrichtigkeit des jetzt folgenden Beweises der Apriorität und Nothwendigkeit des Gesetzes der Kausalität, aus der bloßen Zeitfolge der Begebenheiten, habe ich ausführlich dargethan in der Abhandlung über den Satz vom Grunde, §. 23; darf mich also hier nur darauf berufen [7]. Ganz eben so verhält es sich [8] Mit jener meiner Widerlegung des Kantischen Beweises kann man beliebig die frühern Angriffe auf denselben vergleichen von Feder, Ueber mit dem Beweise der Wechselwirkung, deren Begriff ich sogar oben als nichtig darstellen mußte. — Auch über die Modalität, von deren Grundsätzen nun die Ausführung folgt, ist schon das Nöthige gesagt. —

Ich hätte noch manche Einzelheiten in fernerem Verfolg der transcendentalen Analytik zu widerlegen, fürchte jedoch die Geduld des Lesers zu ermüden und überlasse dieselben daher seinem eigenen Nachdenken. Aber immer von Neuem tritt uns in der Kritik der reinen Vernunft jener Haupt- und Grundfehler Kants, welchen ich oben ausführlich gerügt habe, entgegen, die gänzliche Nichtunterscheidung der abstrakten, diskursiven Erkenntniß von der intuitiven. Diese ist es, welche eine beständige Dunkelheit über Kants ganze Theorie des Erkenntnißvermögens verbreitet, und den Leser nie wissen läßt, wovon jedesmal eigentlich die Rede ist; so daß er, statt zu verstehen, immer nur muthmaaßt, indem er das jedesmal Gesagte abwechselnd vom Denken und vom Anschauen zu verstehen versucht, und stets in der Schwebe bleibt. Jener unglaubliche Mangel an Besinnung über das Wesen der anschaulichen und der abstrakten Vorstellung bringt, wie ich sogleich näher erörtern werde, in dem Kapitel „von der Unterscheidung aller Gegenstände in Phänomena und Noumena“ Kanten zu der monströsen Behauptung, daß es ohne Denken, also ohne abstrakte Begriffe, gar keine Erkenntniß eines Gegenstandes gebe, und daß die Anschauung, weil sie kein Denken ist, auch gar kein Erkennen sei und überhaupt nichts, als eine bloße Affektion der Sinnlichkeit, bloße Empfindung! Ja noch mehr, daß Anschauung ohne Begriff ganz leer sei; Begriff ohne Anschauung aber immer noch etwas (S. 253; V. 309). Dies ist nun das gerade Gegentheil der Wahrheit: denn eben Begriffe erhalten alle Bedeutung, allen Inhalt, allein aus ihrer Beziehung auf anschauliche Vorstellungen, aus denen sie abstrahirt, abgezogen, d. h. durch Fallenlassen alles Unwesentlichen gebildet worden; daher, wenn ihnen die Unterlage der Anschauung entzogen wird, sie leer und nichtig sind. Anschauungen hingegen haben an sich selbst unmittelbare und sehr große Bedeutung (in ihnen ja objektivirt sich das Zeit, Raum und Kausalität; §. 28; und von G. E. Schulze, Kritik der theoretischen Philosophie, Bd. 2, S. 422—442.

Ding an sich): sie vertreten sich selbst, sprechen sich selbst aus, haben nicht bloß entlehnten Inhalt, wie die Begriffe. Denn über sie herrscht der Satz vom Grunde nur als Gesetz der Kausalität, und bestimmt als solches nur ihre Stelle in Raum und Zeit; nicht aber bedingt er ihren Inhalt und ihre Bedeutsamkeit, wie es bei den Begriffen der Fall ist, wo er vom Grunde des Erkennens gilt. Uebrigens sieht es aus, als ob Kant gerade hier recht eigentlich darauf ausgehen wolle, die anschauliche und die abstrakte Vorstellung zu unterscheiden: er wirft Leibnitzen und Locken vor, jener hätte alles zu abstrakten, dieser zu anschaulichen Vorstellungen gemacht. Aber es kommt doch zu keiner Unterscheidung: und wenn gleich Locke und Leibnitz wirklich jene Fehler begiengen, so fällt Kanten selbst ein dritter, jene beiden umfassender Fehler zur Last, nämlich Anschauliches und Abstraktes dermaaßen vermischt zu haben, daß ein monströser Zwitter von beiden entstand, ein Unding, von dem keine deutliche Vorstellung möglich ist und welches daher nur die Schüler verwirren, betäuben und in Streit versetzen mußte.

Allerdings nämlich treten mehr noch als irgendwo Denken und Anschauung auseinander in dem besagten Kapitel „von der Unterscheidung aller Gegenstände in Phänomena und Noumena“: allein die Art dieser Unterscheidung ist hier eine grundfalsche. Es heißt nämlich, S. 253. V, 309: „Wenn ich alles Denken (durch Kategorien) aus einer empirischen Erkenntniß wegnehme; so bleibt gar keine Erkenntniß eines Gegenstandes übrig: denn durch bloße Anschauung wird gar nichts gedacht, und daß diese Affektion der Sinnlichkeit in mir ist, macht gar keine Beziehung von dergleichen Vorstellungen auf irgend ein Objekt aus.“ — Dieser Satz enthält gewissermaaßen alle Irrthümer Kants in einer Nuß; indem dadurch an den Tag kommt, daß er das Verhältniß zwischen Empfindung, Anschauung und Denken falsch gefaßt hat und demnach die Anschauung, deren Form denn doch der Raum und zwar nach allen drei Dimensionen seyn soll, mit der bloßen, subjektiven Empfindung in den Sinnesorganen identificirt, das Erkennen eines Gegenstandes aber allererst durch das vom Anschauen verschiedene Denken hinzukommen läßt. Ich sage hingegen: Objekte sind zunächst Gegenstände der Anschauung, nicht des Denkens, und alle Erkenntniß von Gegenständen ist ursprünglich und an sich selbst Anschauung: diese aber ist keineswegs bloße Empfindung, sondern schon bei ihr erzeigt der Verstand sich thätig. Das allein beim Menschen, nicht aber bei den Thieren, hinzukommende Denken ist bloße Abstraktion aus der Anschauung, giebt keine von Grund aus neue Erkenntniß, setzt nicht allererst Gegenstände, die vorher nicht dagewesen; sondern ändert bloß die Form der durch die Anschauung bereits gewonnenen Erkenntniß, macht sie nämlich zu einer abstrakten in Begriffen, wodurch die Anschaulichkeit verloren geht, dagegen aber Kombination derselben möglich wird, welche deren Anwendbarkeit unermeßlich erweitert. Der Stoff unseres Denkens hingegen ist kein anderer, als unsere Anschauungen selbst, und nicht etwas, welches, in der Anschauung nicht enthalten, erst durch das Denken hinzugebracht würde: daher auch muß von Allem, was in unserem Denken vorkommt, der Stoff sich in unserer Anschauung nachweisen lassen; da es sonst ein leeres Denken wäre. Wiewohl dieser Stoff durch das Denken gar vielfältig bearbeitet und umgestaltet wird; so muß er doch daraus wieder hergestellt und das Denken auf ihn zurückgeführt werden können; — wie man ein Stück Gold aus allen seinen Auflösungen, Oxydationen, Sublimationen und Verbindungen zuletzt wieder reducirt und es regulinisch und unvermindert wieder vorlegt. Dem könnte nicht so seyn, wenn das Denken selbst etwas, ja gar die Hauptsache, dem Gegenstande hinzugethan hätte.

Das ganze darauf folgende Kapitel von der Amphibolie ist bloß eine Kritik der Leibnitzischen Philosophie und als solche im Ganzen richtig, obwohl der ganze Zuschnitt bloß der architektonischen Symmetrie zu Liebe gemacht ist, die auch hier den Leitfaden giebt. So wird, um die Analogie mit dem Aristotelischen Organon herauszubringen, eine transcendentale Topik aufgestellt, die darin besteht, daß man jeden Begriff nach vier Rücksichten überlegen soll, um erst auszumachen, vor welches Erkenntnißvermögen er gehöre. Jene vier Rücksichten aber sind ganz und gar beliebig angenommen, und mit gleichem Rechte ließen sich noch zehn andere hinzufügen: ihre Vierzahl entspricht aber den Kategorientiteln, daher werden unter sie die Leibnitzischen Hauptlehren vertheilt, so gut es gehen will. Auch wird durch diese Kritik gewissermaaßen zu natürlichen Irrthümern der Vernunft gestempelt, was bloß falsche Abstraktionen Leibnitzens waren, der, statt von seinen großen philosophischen Zeitgenossen, Spinoza und Locke, zu lernen, lieber seine eigenen seltsamen Erfindungen auftischte. Im Kapitel von der Amphibolie der Reflexion wird zuletzt gesagt, es könne möglicherweise eine von der unserigen ganz verschiedene Art der Anschauung geben, auf dieselbe unsere Kategorien aber doch anwendbar seyn; daher die Objekte jener supponirten Anschauung die Noumena wären, Dinge die sich von uns bloß denken ließen, aber da uns die Anschauung, welche jenem Denken Bedeutung gäbe, fehle, ja gar ganz problematisch sei, so wäre der Gegenstand jenes Denkens auch bloß eine ganz unbestimmte Möglichkeit. Ich habe oben durch angeführte Stellen gezeigt, daß Kant, im größten Widerspruch mit sich, die Kategorien bald als Bedingung der anschaulichen Vorstellung, bald als Funktion des bloß abstrakten Denkens aufstellt. Hier treten sie nun ausschließlich in letzterer Bedeutung auf, und es scheint ganz und gar, als wolle er ihnen bloß ein diskursives Denken zuschreiben. Ist aber dies wirklich seine Meinung, so hätte er doch nothwendig am Anfange der transcendentalen Logik, ehe er die verschiedenen Funktionen des Denkens so weitläuftig specificirte, das Denken überhaupt charakterisiren sollen, es folglich vom Anschauen unterscheiden, zeigen sollen, welche Erkenntniß das bloße Anschauen gebe und welche neue im Denken hinzukomme. Dann hätte man gewußt, wovon er eigentlich redet, oder vielmehr, dann würde er auch ganz anders geredet haben, nämlich einmal vom Anschauen und dann vom Denken, statt daß er jetzt es immer mit einem Mittelding von beiden zu thun hat, welches ein Unding ist. Dann wäre auch nicht jene große Lücke zwischen der transcendentalen Aesthetik und der transcendentalen Logik, wo er, nach Darstellung der bloßen Form der Anschauung, ihren Inhalt, die ganze empirische Wahrnehmung, eben nur abfertigt mit dem „sie ist gegeben“, und nicht fragt, wie sie zu Stande kommt, ob mit, oder ohne Verstand; sondern mit einem Sprunge zum abstrakten Denken übergeht und nicht einmal zum Denken überhaupt, sondern gleich zu gewissen Denkformen, und kein Wort darüber sagt, was Denken sei, was Begriff, welches das Verhältniß des Abstrakten und Diskursiven zum Konkreten und Intuitiven, welches der Unterschied zwischen der Erkenntniß des Menschen und der des Thieres, und was die Vernunft sei.

Eben jener von Kant ganz übersehene Unterschied zwischen abstrakter und anschaulicher Erkenntniß war es aber, welchen die alten Philosophen durch φαινομενα und νοουμενα bezeichneten [9] und deren Gegensatz und Inkommensurabilität ihnen so viel zu schaffen machte, in den Philosophemen der Eleaten, in Platons Lehre von den Ideen, in der Dialektik der Megariker, und später den Scholastikern, im Streit zwischen Nominalismus und Realismus, zu welchem den sich spät entwickelnden Keim schon die entgegengesetzte Geistesrichtung des Platon und des Aristoteles enthielt. Kant aber, der, auf eine unverantwortliche Weise, die Sache gänzlich vernachlässigte, zu deren Bezeichnung jene Worte φαινομενα und νοουμενα bereits eingenommen waren, bemächtigt sich nun der Worte, als wären sie noch herrenlos, um seine Dinge an sich und seine Erscheinungen damit zu bezeichnen.

— Nachdem ich Kants Lehre von den Kategorien eben so habe verwerfen müssen, wie er selbst die des Aristoteles verwarf, will ich doch hier auf einen dritten Weg zur Erreichung des Beabsichtigten vorschlagsweise hinzeigen. Was nämlich Beide unter dem Namen der Kategorien suchten, waren jedenfalls die allgemeinsten Begriffe, unter welche man alle noch so verschiedenen Dinge subsumiren müsse, durch welche daher alles Vorhandene zuletzt gedacht würde. Deshalb eben faßte sie Kant als die Formen alles Denkens auf.

Zur Logik verhält sich die Grammatik wie das Kleid zum Leibe. Sollten daher nicht diese allerobersten Begriffe, dieser Grundbaß der Vernunft, welcher die Unterlage alles speciellern Denkens ist, ohne dessen Anwendung daher gar kein Denken vor sich gehen kann, am Ende in den Begriffen liegen, welche eben wegen ihrer überschwänglichen Allgemeinheit (Transscendentalität) nicht an einzelnen Wörtern, sondern an ganzen Klassen von Wörtern ihren Ausdruck haben, indem bei jedem Worte, welches [10] Siehe Sext. Empir. Pyrrhon. hypotyp., Lib. I, c. 13, νοουμενα φαινομενοις ἀντετιθη Αναξαγορας (intelligibilia apparentibus opposuit Anaxagoras). es auch sei, einer von ihnen schon mitgedacht ist; demgemäß man ihre Bezeichnung nicht im Lexikon, sondern in der Grammatik zu suchen hätte? Sollten es also nicht zuletzt jene Unterschiede der Begriffe seyn, vermöge welcher das sie ausdrückende Wort, entweder ein Substantiv, oder ein Adjektiv, ein Verbum, oder ein Adverbium, ein Pronomen, eine Präposition, oder sonstige Partikel sei, kurz die partes orationis? Denn unstreitig bezeichnen diese die Formen, welche alles Denken zunächst annimmt und in denen es sich unmittelbar bewegt: deshalb eben sind sie die wesentlichen Sprachformen, die Grundbestandtheile jeder Sprache, so daß wir uns keine Sprache denken können, die nicht wenigstens aus Substantiven, Adjektiven und Verben bestände. Diesen Grundformen wären dann diejenigen Gedankenformen unterzuordnen, welche durch die Flexionen jener, also durch Deklination und Konjugation ausgedrückt werden, wobei es in der Hauptsache unwesentlich ist, ob man in der Bezeichnung derselben den Artikel und das Pronomen zu Hülfe nimmt. Wir wollen jedoch die Sache noch etwas näher prüfen und von Neuem die Frage aufwerfen: welches sind die Formen des Denkens?

1) Das Denken besteht durchweg aus Urtheilen: Urtheile sind die Fäden seines ganzen Gewebes. Denn ohne Gebrauch eines Verbi geht unser Denken nicht von der Stelle, und so oft wir ein Verbum gebrauchen, urtheilen wir.

2) Jedes Urtheil besteht im Erkennen des Verhältnisses zwischen Subjekt und Prädikat, die es trennt oder vereint mit mancherlei Restriktionen. Es vereint sie, vom Erkennen der wirklichen Identität Beider an, welche nur bei Wechselbegriffen Statt finden kann; dann im Erkennen, daß das Eine im Andern stets mitgedacht sei, wiewohl nicht umgekehrt, — im allgemein bejahenden Satz; bis zum Erkennen, daß das Eine bisweilen im Andern mitgedacht sei, im partikulär bejahenden Satz. Den umgekehrten Gang gehen die verneinenden Sätze. Demnach muß in jedem Urtheil Subjekt, Prädikat und Kopula, letztere affirmativ, oder negativ, zu finden seyn; wenn auch nicht Jedes von diesen durch ein eigenes Wort, wie jedoch meistens, bezeichnet ist. Oft bezeichnet ein Wort Prädikat und Kopula, wie: „Kajus altert“; bisweilen ein Wort alle Drei, wie: concurritur, d. h. „die Heere werden handgemein“. Hieraus erhellt, daß man die Formen des Denkens doch nicht so geradezu und unmittelbar in den Worten, noch selbst in den Redetheilen zu suchen hat; da das selbe Urtheil in verschiedenen, ja sogar in der selben Sprache durch verschiedene Worte und selbst durch verschiedene Redetheile ausgedrückt werden kann, der Gedanke aber dennoch der selbe bleibt, folglich auch seine Form: denn der Gedanke könnte nicht der selbe seyn, bei verschiedener Form des Denkens selbst. Wohl aber kann das Wortgebilde, bei gleichem Gedanken und gleicher Form desselben, ein verschiedenes seyn: denn es ist bloß die äußere Einkleidung des Gedankens, der hingegen von seiner Form unzertrennlich ist. Also erläutert die Grammatik nur die Einkleidung der Denkformen. Die Redetheile lassen sich daher ableiten aus den ursprünglichen, von allen Sprachen unabhängigen Denkformen selbst: diese, mit allen ihren Modifikationen, auszudrücken ist ihre Bestimmung. Sie sind das Werkzeug derselben, sind ihr Kleid, welches ihrem Gliederbau genau angepaßt seyn muß, so daß dieser darin zu erkennen ist.

3) Diese wirklichen, unveränderlichen, ursprünglichen Formen des Denkens sind allerdings die der logischen Tafel der Urtheile Kants; nur daß auf dieser sich blinde Fenster, zu Gunsten der Symmetrie und der Kategorientafel befinden, die alle wegfallen müssen; imgleichen eine falsche Ordnung. Also etwan: a) Qualität: Bejahung oder Verneinung, d. i. Verbindung oder Trennung der Begriffe: zwei Formen. Sie hängt der Kopula an. b) Quantität: der Subjektbegriff wird ganz oder zum Theil genommen: Allheit oder Vielheit. Zur ersteren gehören auch die individuellen Subjekte: Sokrates, heißt: „alle Sokrates“. Also nur zwei Formen. Sie hängt dem Subjekt an. c) Modalität: hat wirklich drei Formen. Sie bestimmt die Qualität als nothwendig, wirklich, oder zufällig. Sie hängt folglich ebenfalls der Kopula an.

Diese drei Denkformen entspringen aus den Denkgesetzen vom Widerspruch und von der Identität. Aber aus dem Satz vom Grunde und dem vom ausgeschlossenen Dritten entsteht die d) Relation. Sie tritt bloß ein, wenn über fertige Urtheile geurtheilt wird und kann nur darin bestehen, daß sie entweder die Abhängigkeit eines Urtheils von einem andern (auch in der Pluralität beider) angiebt, mithin sie verbindet, im hypothetischen Satz; oder aber angiebt, daß Urtheile einander ausschließen, mithin sie trennt, im disjunktiven Satz. Sie hängt der Kopula an, welche hier die fertigen Urtheile trennt oder verbindet.

Die Redetheile und grammatischen Formen sind Ausdrucksweisen der drei Bestandtheile des Urtheils, also des Subjekts, Prädikats und der Kopula, wie auch der möglichen Verhältnisse dieser, also der eben aufgezählten Denkformen, und der näheren Bestimmungen und Modifikationen dieser letzteren. Substantiv, Adjektiv und Verbum sind daher wesentliche Grundbestandtheile der Sprache überhaupt; weshalb sie in allen Sprachen zu finden seyn müssen. Jedoch ließe sich eine Sprache denken, in welcher Adjektiv und Verbum stets mit einander verschmolzen wären, wie sie es in allen bisweilen sind. Vorläufig ließe sich sagen: zum Ausdruck des Subjekts sind bestimmt: Substantiv, Artikel und Pronomen; — zum Ausdruck des Prädikats: Adjektiv, Adverbium, Präposition; — zum Ausdruck der Kopula: das Verbum, welches aber, mit Ausnahme von esse, schon das Prädikat mit enthält. Den genauen Mechanismus des Ausdrucks der Denkformen hat die philosophische Grammatik zu lehren; wie die Operationen mit den Denkformen selbst die Logik.

Anmerkung. Zur Warnung vor einem Abwege und zur Erläuterung des Obigen erwähne ich S. Sterns „Vorläufige Grundlage zur Sprachphilosophie“, 1835, als einen gänzlich mißlungenen Versuch, aus den grammatischen Formen die Kategorien zu konstruiren. Er hat nämlich ganz und gar das Denken mit dem Anschauen verwechselt und daher aus den grammatischen Formen, statt der Kategorien des Denkens, die angeblichen Kategorien des Anschauens deduciren wollen, mithin die grammatischen Formen in gerade Beziehung zur Anschauung gesetzt. Er steckt in dem großen Irrthum, daß die Sprache sich unmittelbar auf die Anschauung beziehe; statt daß sie unmittelbar sich bloß auf das Denken als solches, also auf die abstrakten Begriffe bezieht und allererst mittelst dieser auf die Anschauung, zu der sie nun aber ein Verhältniß haben, welches eine gänzliche Aenderung der Form herbeiführt. Was in der Anschauung daist, also auch die aus der Zeit und dem Raum entspringenden Verhältnisse, wird allerdings ein Gegenstand des Denkens; also muß es auch Sprachformen geben es auszudrücken, jedoch immer nur in abstracto, als Begriffe. Das nächste Material des Denkens sind allemal Begriffe, und nur auf solche beziehen sich die Formen der Logik, nie direkt auf die Anschauung. Diese bestimmt stets nur die materiale, nie die formale Wahrheit der Sätze, als welche sich nach den logischen Regeln allein richtet.

— Ich kehre zur Kantischen Philosophie zurück und komme zur transscendentalen Dialektik. Kant eröffnet sie mit der Erklärung der Vernunft, welches Vermögen in ihr die Hauptrolle spielen soll, da bisher nur Sinnlichkeit und Verstand auf dem Schauplatz waren. Ich habe schon oben, unter seinen verschiedenen Erklärungen der Vernunft, auch von der hier gegebenen, „daß sie das Vermögen der Principien sei“, geredet. Hier wird nun gelehrt, daß alle bisher betrachteten Erkenntnisse a priori, welche die reine Mathematik und reine Naturwissenschaft möglich machen, bloße Regeln, aber keine Principien geben; weil sie aus Anschauungen und Formen der Erkenntniß hervorgehen, nicht aber aus bloßen Begriffen, welches erfordert sei, um Princip zu heißen. Ein solches soll demnach eine Erkenntniß aus bloßen Begriffen seyn und dennoch synthetisch. Dies ist aber schlechthin unmöglich. Aus bloßen Begriffen können nie andere, als analytische Sätze hervorgehen. Sollen Begriffe synthetisch und doch a priori verbunden werden; so muß nothwendig diese Verbindung durch ein Drittes vermittelt seyn, durch eine reine Anschauung der formellen Möglichkeit der Erfahrung; so wie die synthetischen Urtheile a posteriori, durch die empirische Anschauung vermittelt sind: folglich kann ein synthetischer Satz a priori, nie aus bloßen Begriffen hervorgehen. Ueberhaupt aber ist uns a priori nichts weiter bewußt, als der Satz vom Grunde, in seinen verschiedenen Gestaltungen, und es sind daher keine andere synthetische Urtheile a priori möglich, als die, welche aus dem, was jenem Satze den Inhalt giebt, hervorgehen.

Inzwischen tritt Kant endlich mit einem seiner Forderung entsprechenden angeblichen Princip der Vernunft hervor, aber auch nur mit diesem einen, aus dem nachher andere Folgesätze fließen. Es ist nämlich der Satz, den Chr. Wolf aufstellt und erläutert in seiner „Cosmologia“, sect. 1, c. 2, §. 93, und in seiner „Ontologia“, §. 178. Wie nun oben, unter dem Titel der Amphibolie, bloße Leibnitzische Philosopheme für natürliche und nothwendige Irrwege der Vernunft genommen und als solche kritisirt wurden; gerade so geschieht das Selbe hier mit den Philosophemen Wolfs. Kant trägt dies Vernunftprincip noch durch Undeutlichkeit, Unbestimmtheit und Zerstückelung in ein Dämmerlicht gebracht vor (S. 307; V, 361, und 322; V, 379): es ist aber, deutlich ausgesprochen, folgendes: „Wenn das Bedingte gegeben ist, so muß auch die Totalität seiner Bedingungen, mithin auch das Unbedingte, dadurch jene Totalität allein vollständig wird, gegeben seyn.“ Der scheinbaren Wahrheit dieses Satzes wird man am lebhaftesten inne werden, wenn man sich die Bedingungen und die Bedingten vorstellt als die Glieder einer herabhängenden Kette, deren oberes Ende jedoch nicht sichtbar ist, daher sie ins Unendliche fortgehen könnte: da aber die Kette nicht fällt, sondern hängt, so muß oben ein Glied das erste und irgendwie befestigt seyn. Oder kürzer: die Vernunft möchte für die ins Unendliche zurückweisende Kausalkette einen Anknüpfungspunkt haben; das wäre ihr bequem. Aber wir wollen den Satz nicht an Bildern, sondern an sich selbst prüfen. Synthetisch ist derselbe allerdings: denn analytisch folgt aus dem Begriff des Bedingten nichts weiter, als der der Bedingung. Aber Wahrheit a priori hat er nicht, auch nicht a posteriori, sondern er erschleicht sich seinen Schein von Wahrheit auf eine sehr feine Weise, die ich jetzt aufdecken muß. Unmittelbar und a priori haben wir die Erkenntnisse, welche der Satz vom Grunde in seinen vier Gestaltungen ausdrückt. Von diesen unmittelbaren Erkenntnissen sind alle abstrakten Ausdrücke des Satzes vom Grunde schon entlehnt und sind also mittelbar: noch mehr aber deren Folgesätze. Ich habe schon oben erörtert, wie die abstrakte Erkenntniß oft mannigfaltige intuitive Erkenntnisse in eine Form oder einen Begriff so vereint, daß sie nun nicht mehr zu unterscheiden sind: daher sich die abstrakte Erkenntniß zur intuitiven verhält, wie der Schatten zu den wirklichen Gegenständen, deren große Mannigfaltigkeit er durch einen sie alle befassenden Umriß wiedergiebt. Diesen Schatten benutzt nun das angebliche Princip der Vernunft. Um aus dem Satz vom Grunde das Unbedingte, welches ihm geradezu widerspricht, doch zu folgern, verläßt es klüglich die unmittelbare, anschauliche Erkenntniß des Inhalts des Satzes vom Grunde in seinen einzelnen Gestalten, und bedient sich nur der abstrakten Begriffe, die aus jener abgezogen sind, und nur durch jene Werth und Bedeutung haben, um in den weiten Umfang jener Begriffe sein Unbedingtes irgendwie einzuschwärzen. Sein Verfahren wird durch dialektische Einkleidung am deutlichsten; z. B. so: „Wenn das Bedingte da ist, muß auch seine Bedingung gegeben seyn, und zwar ganz, also vollständig, also die Totalität seiner Bedingungen, folglich, wenn sie eine Reihe ausmachen, die ganze Reihe, folglich auch der erste Anfang derselben, also das Unbedingte.“ — Hiebei ist schon falsch, daß die Bedingungen zu einem Bedingten als solche eine Reihe ausmachen können. Vielmehr muß zu jedem Bedingten die Totalität seiner Bedingungen in seinem nächsten Grunde, aus dem es unmittelbar hervorgeht und der erst dadurch zureichender Grund ist, enthalten seyn. So z. B. die verschiedenen Bestimmungen des Zustandes welcher Ursache ist, als welche alle zusammengekommen seyn müssen, ehe die Wirkung eintritt. Die Reihe aber, z. B. die Kette der Ursachen, entsteht nur dadurch, daß wir Das, was soeben die Bedingung war, nun wieder als ein Bedingtes betrachten, wo dann aber sogleich die ganze Operation von vorne anfängt und der Satz vom Grunde mit seiner Forderung von Neuem auftritt. Nie aber kann es zu einem Bedingten eine eigentliche successive Reihe von Bedingungen geben, welche bloß als solche und des endlichen letzten Bedingten wegen daständen; sondern es ist immer eine abwechselnde Reihe von Bedingten und Bedingungen: bei jedem zurückgelegten Gliede aber ist die Kette unterbrochen und die Forderung des Satzes vom Grunde gänzlich getilgt; sie hebt von Neuem an, indem die Bedingung zum Bedingten wird. Also fordert der Satz vom zureichenden Grunde immer nur die Vollständigkeit der nächsten Bedingung, nie die Vollständigkeit einer Reihe. Aber eben dieser Begriff von Vollständigkeit der Bedingung läßt unbestimmt, ob solche eine simultane, oder eine successive seyn soll: und indem nun Letzteres gewählt wird, entsteht die Forderung einer vollständigen Reihe auf einander folgender Bedingungen. Bloß durch eine willkürliche Abstraktion wird eine Reihe von Ursachen und Wirkungen als eine Reihe von lauter Ursachen angesehen, die bloß der letzten Wirkung wegen da wären und daher als deren zureichender Grund gefordert würden. Bei näherer und besonnener Betrachtung und herabsteigend von der unbestimmten Allgemeinheit der Abstraktion zum einzelnen bestimmten Realen, findet sich hingegen, daß die Forderung eines zureichenden Grundes bloß auf die Vollständigkeit der Bestimmungen der nächsten Ursache geht, nicht auf die Vollständigkeit einer Reihe. Die Forderung des Satzes vom Grunde erlischt vollkommen in jedem gegebenen zureichenden Grunde. Sie hebt aber alsbald von Neuem an, indem dieser Grund wieder als Folge betrachtet wird: nie aber fordert sie unmittelbar eine Reihe von Gründen. Wenn man hingegen, statt zur Sache selbst zu gehen, sich innerhalb der abstrakten Begriffe hält, so sind jene Unterschiede verschwunden: dann wird eine Kette von abwechselnden Ursachen und Wirkungen, oder abwechselnden logischen Gründen und Folgen für eine Kette von lauter Ursachen oder Gründen zur letzten Wirkung ausgegeben, und die Vollständigkeit der Bedingungen, durch die ein Grund erst zureichend wird, erscheint als eine Vollständigkeit jener angenommenen Reihe von lauter Gründen, die nur der letzten Folge wegen da wären. Da tritt denn das abstrakte Vernunftprincip sehr keck mit seiner Forderung des Unbedingten auf. Aber um die Ungültigkeit derselben zu erkennen, bedarf es noch keiner Kritik der Vernunft, mittelst Antinomien und deren Auflösung, sondern nur einer Kritik der Vernunft, in meinem Sinne verstanden, nämlich einer Untersuchung des Verhältnisses der abstrakten Erkenntniß zur unmittelbar intuitiven, mittelst Herabsteigen von der unbestimmten Allgemeinheit jener zur festen Bestimmtheit dieser. Aus solcher ergiebt sich dann hier, daß keineswegs das Wesen der Vernunft im Fordern eines Unbedingten bestehe: denn sobald sie mit völliger Besonnenheit verfährt, muß sie selbst finden, daß ein Unbedingtes geradezu ein Unding ist. Die Vernunft, als ein Erkenntnißvermögen, kann es immer nur mit Objekten zu thun haben; alles Objekt für das Subjekt aber ist nothwendig und unwiderruflich dem Satz vom Grunde unterworfen und anheimgefallen, sowohl a parte ante als a parte post. Die Gültigkeit des Satzes vom Grunde liegt so sehr in der Form des Bewußtseyns, daß man schlechterdings sich nichts objektiv vorstellen kann, davon kein Warum weiter zu fordern wäre, also kein absolutes Absolutum, wie ein Brett vor dem Kopf. Daß Diesen oder Jenen seine Bequemlichkeit irgendwo stillstehen und ein solches Absolutum beliebig annehmen heißt, kann nichts ausrichten, gegen jene unumstößliche Gewißheit a priori, auch nicht wenn man sehr vornehme Mienen dazu macht. In der That ist das ganze Gerede vom Absoluten, dieses fast alleinige Thema der seit Kant versuchten Philosophien, nichts Anderes, als der kosmologische Beweis incognito. Dieser nämlich, in Folge des ihm von Kant gemachten Processes, aller Rechte verlustig und vogelfrei erklärt, darf sich in seiner wahren Gestalt nicht mehr zeigen, tritt daher in allerlei Verkleidungen auf, bald in vornehmen, bemäntelt durch intellektuale Anschauung, oder reines Denken, bald als verdächtiger Vagabunde, der was er erlangt halb erbettelt, halb ertrotzt, in den bescheideneren Philosophemen. Wollen die Herren absolut ein Absolutum haben; so will ich ihnen eines in die Hand geben, welches allen Anforderungen an ein Solches viel besser genügt, als ihre erfaselten Nebelgestalten: es ist die Materie. Sie ist unentstanden und unvergänglich, also wirklich unabhängig und quod per se est et per se concipitur: aus ihrem Schooß geht Alles hervor und Alles in ihn zurück: was kann man von einem Absolutum weiter verlangen? — Aber vielmehr sollte man ihnen, bei denen keine Kritik der Vernunft angeschlagen hat, zurufen:

Seid ihr nicht wie die Weiber, die beständig Zurück nur kommen auf ihr erstes Wort, Wenn man Vernunft gesprochen stundenlang?

Daß das Zurückgehen zu einer unbedingten Ursache, zu einem ersten Anfang, keineswegs im Wesen der Vernunft begründet sei, ist übrigens auch faktisch bewiesen, dadurch, daß die Urreligionen unseres Geschlechtes, welche auch noch jetzt die größte Anzahl von Bekennern auf Erden haben, also Brahmanismus und Buddhaismus, dergleichen Annahmen nicht kennen, noch zulassen, sondern die Reihe der einander bedingenden Erscheinungen ins Unendliche hinaufführen. Ich verweise hierüber auf die weiter unten, bei der Kritik der ersten Antinomie, folgende Anmerkung, wozu man, noch Uphams „Doctrine of Buddhaism“ (S. 9), und überhaupt jeden ächten Bericht über die Religionen Asiens nachsehen kann. Man soll nicht Judenthum und Vernunft identificiren. —

Kant, der sein angebliches Vernunftprincip auch keineswegs als objektiv gültig, sondern nur als subjektiv nothwendig behaupten will, deducirt es, selbst als solches, nur durch ein seichtes Sophisma, S. 307; V, 364. Nämlich, weil wir jede uns bekannte Wahrheit unter eine allgemeinere zu subsumiren suchen, so lange es geht; so soll dieses nichts Anderes seyn, als eben schon die Jagd nach dem Unbedingten, welches wir voraussetzen. In Wahrheit aber thun wir durch solches Suchen nichts Anderes, als daß wir die Vernunft, d. h. jenes Vermögen abstrakter, allgemeiner Erkenntniß, welches den besonnenen, sprachbegabten, denkenden Menschen vom Thier, dem Sklaven der Gegenwart, unterscheidet, anwenden und zweckmäßig gebrauchen zur Vereinfachung unserer Erkenntniß durch Uebersicht. Denn der Gebrauch der Vernunft besteht eben darin, daß wir das Besondere durch das Allgemeine, den Fall durch die Regel, diese durch die allgemeinere Regel erkennen, daß wir also die allgemeinsten Gesichtspunkte suchen: durch solche Uebersicht wird eben unsere Erkenntniß so sehr erleichtert und vervollkommnet, daß daraus der große Unterschied entsteht zwischen dem thierischen und dem menschlichen Lebenslauf, und wieder zwischen dem Leben des gebildeten und dem des rohen Menschen. Nun findet allerdings die Reihe der Erkenntnißgründe, welche allein auf dem Gebiet des Abstrakten, also der Vernunft, existirt, allemal ein Ende beim Unbeweisbaren, d. h. bei einer Vorstellung, die nach dieser Gestaltung des Satzes vom Grunde nicht weiter bedingt ist, also an dem, a priori oder a posteriori, unmittelbar anschaulichen Grunde des obersten Satzes der Schlußkette. Ich habe schon in der Abhandlung über den Satz vom Grunde, §. 50, gezeigt, daß hier eigentlich die Reihe der Erkenntnißgründe übergeht in die Gründe des Werdens, oder des Seyns. Diesen Umstand aber geltend machen wollen, um ein nach dem Gesetz der Kausalität Unbedingtes, sei es auch nur als Forderung, nachzuweisen; dies kann man nur, wenn man die Gestaltungen des Satzes vom Grunde noch gar nicht unterschieden hat, sondern, an den abstrakten Ausdruck sich haltend, sie alle konfundirt. Aber diese Verwechselung sucht Kant sogar durch ein bloßes Wortspiel mit Universalitas und Universitas zu begründen, S. 322; V, 379. — Es ist also grundfalsch, daß unser Aufsuchen höherer Erkenntnißgründe, allgemeiner Wahrheiten, entspringe aus der Voraussetzung eines seinem Daseyn nach unbedingten Objekts, oder nur irgend etwas hiemit gemein habe. Wie sollte es auch der Vernunft wesentlich seyn, etwas vorauszusetzen, das sie für ein Unding erkennen muß, sobald sie sich besinnt. Vielmehr ist der Ursprung jenes Begriffs vom Unbedingten nie in etwas Anderm nachzuweisen, als in der Trägheit des Individuums, das sich damit aller fremden und eigenen fernern Fragen entledigen will, wiewohl ohne alle Rechtfertigung.

Diesem angeblichen Vernunftprincip nun spricht zwar Kant selbst die objektive Gültigkeit ab, giebt es aber doch für eine nothwendige subjektive Voraussetzung und bringt so einen unauflöslichen Zwiespalt in unsere Erkenntniß, welchen er bald deutlicher hervortreten läßt. Zu diesem Zweck entfaltet er jenes Vernunftprincip weiter, S. 322; V, 379, nach der beliebten architektonisch-symmetrischen Methode. Aus den drei Kategorien der Relation entspringen drei Arten von Schlüssen, jede von welchen den Leitfaden giebt zur Aufsuchung eines besondern Unbedingten, deren es daher wieder drei giebt: Seele, Welt (als Objekt an sich und geschlossene Totalität), Gott. Hiebei ist nun sogleich ein großer Widerspruch zu bemerken, von welchem Kant aber keine Notiz nimmt, weil er der Symmetrie sehr gefährlich wäre: zwei dieser Unbedingten sind ja selbst wieder bedingt, durch das Dritte, nämlich Seele und Welt durch Gott, der ihre hervorbringende Ursache ist: jene haben also mit diesem gar nicht das Prädikat der Unbedingtheit gemein, worauf es doch hier ankommt, sondern nur das des Erschlossenseyns nach Principien der Erfahrung, über das Gebiet der Möglichkeit derselben hinaus.

Dies bei Seite gesetzt, finden wir in den drei Unbedingten, auf welche, nach Kant, jede Vernunft, ihren wesentlichen Gesetzen folgend, gerathen muß, die drei Hauptgegenstände wieder, um welche sich die ganze, unter dem Einfluß des Christenthums stehende Philosophie, von den Scholastikern an, bis auf Christian Wolf herab, gedreht hat. So zugänglich und geläufig jene Begriffe durch alle jene Philosophen auch jetzt der bloßen Vernunft geworden sind; so ist dadurch doch keineswegs ausgemacht, daß sie, auch ohne Offenbarung, aus der Entwickelung jeder Vernunft hervorgehen müßten, als ein dem Wesen dieser selbst eigenthümliches Erzeugniß. Um Dieses auszumachen, wäre die historische Untersuchung zu Hülfe zu nehmen, und zu erforschen, ob die alten und die nichteuropäischen Völker, besonders die Hindostanischen, und viele der ältesten Griechischen Philosophen auch wirklich zu jenen Begriffen gelangt seien; oder ob bloß wir, zu gutmüthig, sie ihnen zuschreiben, so wie die Griechen überall ihre Götter wiederfanden, indem wir ganz fälschlich das Brahm der Hindu und das Tien der Chinesen mit „Gott“ übersetzen; ob nicht vielmehr der eigentliche Theismus allein in der Jüdischen und den beiden aus ihr hervorgegangenen Religionen zu finden sei, deren Bekenner gerade deshalb die Anhänger aller andern Religionen auf Erden unter dem Namen Heiden zusammenfassen, — einem, beiläufig gesagt, höchst einfältigen und rohen Ausdruck, der wenigstens aus den Schriften der Gelehrten verbannt seyn sollte, weil er Brahmanisten, Buddhaisten, Aegypter, Griechen, Römer, Germanen, Gallier, Irokesen, Patagonier, Karaiben, Otaheiter, Australier u. a. m. identificirt und in Einen Sack steckt. Für Pfaffen ist ein solcher Ausdruck passend: in der gelehrten Welt aber muß ihm sogleich die Thüre gewiesen werden, er kann nach England reisen und sich in Oxford niederlassen. — Daß namentlich der Buddhaismus, diese auf Erden am zahlreichsten vertretene Religion, durchaus keinen Theismus enthält, ja, ihn perhorrescirt, ist eine ganz ausgemachte Sache. Was den Plato betrifft, so bin ich der Meinung, daß er seinen ihn periodisch anwandelnden Theismus den Juden verdankt. Numenius hat ihn deshalb (nach Clem. Alex. Strom., I, c. 22, Euseb. praep. evang., XIII, 12, und Suidas, unter Numenius) den Moses graecisans genannt: Τι γαρ εστι Πλατων, η Μωσης αττικιζων; und er wirft ihm vor, daß er seine Lehren von Gott und der Schöpfung aus den Mosaischen Schriften gestohlen (αποσυλησας) habe. Klemens kommt oft darauf zurück, daß Plato den Moses gekannt und benutzt habe, z. B. Strom. I, 25. — V, c. 14, §. 90 u. f. f. — Paedagog., II, 10, und III, 11; auch in der Cohortatio ad gentes, c. 6, woselbst, nachdem er, im vorhergehenden Kapitel, sämmtliche Griechische Philosophen kapuzinerhaft gescholten und verhöhnt hat, weil sie keine Juden gewesen sind, den Plato ausschließlich lobt und in lauten Jubel darüber ausbricht, daß derselbe, wie er seine Geometrie von den Aegyptern, seine Astronomie von den Babyloniern, Magie von den Thrakiern, auch Vieles von den Assyriern gelernt habe, so seinen Theismus von den Juden: Οιδα σου τους διδασκαλους, κἂν αποκρυπτειν εθελῃς, — — — — — δοξαν την του θεου παρ’ αυτων ωφελησαι των Εβραιων (tuos magistros novi, licet eos celare velis, — — — — — illa de Deo sententia suppeditata tibi est ab Hebraeis). Eine rührende Erkennungsscene. — Aber eine sonderbare Bestätigung der Sache entdecke ich in Folgendem. Nach Plutarch (in Mario) und besser nach Laktanz (I, 3, 19) hat Plato der Natur gedankt, daß er ein Mensch und kein Thier, ein Mann und kein Weib, ein Grieche und kein Barbar geworden sei. Nun steht in Isaak Euchels Gebeten der Juden, aus dem Hebräischen, zweite Auflage, 1799, S. 7, ein Morgengebet, worin sie Gott danken und loben, daß der Dankende ein Jude und kein Heide, ein Freier und kein Sklave, ein Mann und kein Weib geworden sei. — Eine solche historische Untersuchung würde Kanten einer schlimmen Nothwendigkeit überhoben haben, in die er jetzt geräth, indem er jene drei Begriffe aus der Natur der Vernunft nothwendig entspringen läßt, und doch darthut, daß sie unhaltbar und von der Vernunft nicht zu begründen sind, und deshalb die Vernunft selbst zum Sophisten macht, indem er S. 339; V, 397, sagt: „Es sind Sophistikationen, nicht des Menschen, sondern der reinen Vernunft selbst, von denen selbst der Weiseste sich nicht losmachen und vielleicht zwar nach vieler Bemühung den Irrthum verhüten, den Schein aber, der ihn unaufhörlich zwackt und äfft, niemals loswerden kann.“ Danach wären diese Kantischen „Ideen der Vernunft“ dem Fokus zu vergleichen, in welchen die von einem Hohlspiegel konvergirend zurückgeworfenen Strahlen, einige Zolle vor seiner Oberfläche, zusammenlaufen, in Folge wovon, durch einen unvermeidlichen Verstandesproceß, sich uns daselbst ein Gegenstand darstellt, welcher ein Ding ohne Realität ist.

Sehr unglücklich ist aber für jene drei angeblich nothwendigen Produktionen der reinen theoretischen Vernunft der Name Ideen gewählt und dem Platon entrissen, der damit die unvergänglichen Gestalten bezeichnete, welche, durch Zeit und Raum vervielfältigt, in den unzähligen, individuellen, vergänglichen Dingen unvollkommen sichtbar werden. Platons Ideen sind diesem zufolge durchaus anschaulich, wie auch das Wort, das er wählte, so bestimmt bezeichnet, welches man nur durch Anschaulichkeiten oder Sichtbarkeiten, entsprechend übersetzen könnte. Und Kant hat es sich zugeeignet, um Das zu bezeichnen, was von aller Möglichkeit der Anschauung so ferne liegt, daß sogar das abstrakte Denken nur halb dazu gelangen kann. Das Wort Idee, welches Platon zuerst einführte, hat auch seitdem, zweiundzwanzig Jahrhunderte hindurch, immer die Bedeutung behalten, in der Platon es gebrauchte: denn nicht nur alle Philosophen des Alterthums, sondern auch alle Scholastiker und sogar die Kirchenväter und die Theologen des Mittelalters brauchten es allein in jener Platonischen Bedeutung, nämlich im Sinn des lateinischen Wortes exemplar, wie Suarez ausdrücklich anführt in seiner fünfundzwanzigsten Disputation, Sect. 1. — Daß später Engländer und Franzosen die Armuth ihrer Sprachen zum Mißbrauch jenes Wortes verleitet hat, ist schlimm genug, aber nicht von Gewicht. Kants Mißbrauch des Wortes Idee, durch Unterschiebung einer neuen Bedeutung, welche am dünnen Faden des Nicht Objekt der Erfahrungseyns, die es mit Platons Ideen, aber auch mit allen möglichen Chimären gemein hat, herbeigezogen wird, ist also durchaus nicht zu rechtfertigen. Da nun der Mißbrauch weniger Jahre nicht in Betracht kommt gegen die Autorität vieler Jahrhunderte, so habe ich das Wort immer in seiner alten, ursprünglichen, Platonischen Bedeutung gebraucht.

Die Widerlegung der rationalen Psychologie ist in der ersten Auflage der „Kritik der reinen Vernunft“ sehr viel ausführlicher und gründlicher, als in der zweiten und folgenden; daher man hier schlechterdings sich jener bedienen muß. Diese Widerlegung hat im Ganzen sehr großes Verdienst und viel Wahres. Jedoch bin ich durchaus der Meinung, daß Kant bloß seiner Symmetrie zu Liebe den Begriff der Seele aus jenem Paralogismus mittelst Anwendung der Forderung des Unbedingten auf den Begriff Substanz, der die erste Kategorie der Relation ist, als nothwendig herleitet und demnach behauptet, daß auf diese Weise in jeder spekulirenden Vernunft der Begriff von einer Seele entstände. Hätte derselbe wirklich seinen Ursprung in der Voraussetzung eines letzten Subjekts aller Prädikate eines Dinges, so würde man ja nicht allein im Menschen, sondern auch in jedem leblosen Dinge ebenso nothwendig eine Seele angenommen haben, da auch ein solches ein letztes Subjekt aller seiner Prädikate verlangt. Ueberhaupt aber bedient Kant sich eines ganz unstatthaften Ausdrucks, wenn er von einem Etwas redet, das nur als Subjekt und nicht als Prädikat existiren könne (z. B. „Kritik der reinen Vernunft“, S. 323; V, 412; „Prolegomena“, §. 4 und 47); obgleich schon in des Aristoteles „Metaphysik“, IV, Kap. 8, ein Vorgang dazu zu finden ist. Als Subjekt und Prädikat existirt gar nichts: denn diese Ausdrücke gehören ausschließlich der Logik an und bezeichnen das Verhältniß abstrakter Begriffe zu einander. In der anschaulichen Welt soll nun ihr Korrelat oder Stellvertreter Substanz und Accidenz seyn. Dann aber brauchen wir Das, was stets nur als Substanz und nie als Accidenz existirt, nicht weiter zu suchen, sondern haben es unmittelbar an der Materie. Sie ist die Substanz zu allen Eigenschaften der Dinge, als welche ihre Accidenzien sind. Sie ist wirklich, wenn man Kants eben gerügten Ausdruck beibehalten will, das letzte Subjekt aller Prädikate jedes empirisch gegebenen Dinges, nämlich Das, was übrig bleibt, nach Abzug aller seiner Eigenschaften jeder Art: und dies gilt vom Menschen, wie vom Thiere, Pflanze oder Stein, und ist so evident, daß, um es nicht zu sehen, ein determinirtes Nichtsehenwollen erfordert ist. Daß sie wirklich der Prototypos des Begriffs Substanz sei, werde ich bald zeigen. — Subjekt und Prädikat aber verhält sich zu Substanz und Accidenz vielmehr wie der Satz des zureichenden Grundes in der Logik zum Gesetz der Kausalität in der Natur, und so unstatthaft die Verwechselung oder Identificirung dieser, ist es auch die jener Beiden. Letztere Verwechselung und Identifikation treibt aber Kant bis zum höchsten Grade in den „Prolegomenen“, §. 46, um den Begriff der Seele aus dem des letzten Subjekts aller Prädikate und aus der Form des kategorischen Schlusses entstehen zu lassen. Um die Sophistikation dieses Paragraphen aufzudecken, braucht man nur sich zu besinnen, daß Subjekt und Prädikat rein logische Bestimmungen sind, die einzig und allein abstrakte Begriffe, und zwar nach ihrem Verhältniß im Urtheil, betreffen: Substanz und Accidenz hingegen gehören der anschaulichen Welt und ihrer Apprehension im Verstande an, finden sich daselbst aber nur als identisch mit Materie und Form oder Qualität: davon sogleich ein Mehreres.

Der Gegensatz, welcher Anlaß zur Annahme zweier grundverschiedener Substanzen, Leib und Seele, gegeben hat, ist in Wahrheit der des Objektiven und Subjektiven. Faßt der Mensch sich in der äußeren Anschauung objektiv auf, so findet er ein räumlich ausgedehntes und überhaupt durchaus körperliches Wesen; faßt er hingegen sich im bloßen Selbstbewußtseyn, also rein subjektiv auf, so findet er ein bloß Wollendes und Vorstellendes, frei von allen Formen der Anschauung, also auch ohne irgend eine der den Körpern zukommenden Eigenschaften. Jetzt bildet er den Begriff der Seele, wie alle die transscendenten, von Kant Ideen genannten Begriffe, dadurch, daß er den Satz vom Grunde, die Form alles Objekts, auf Das anwendet, was nicht Objekt ist, und zwar hier auf das Subjekt des Erkennens und Wollens. Er betrachtet nämlich Erkennen, Denken und Wollen als Wirkungen, deren Ursache er sucht und den Leib nicht dafür annehmen kann, setzt also eine vom Leibe gänzlich verschiedene Ursache derselben. Auf diese Weise beweist der erste und der letzte Dogmatiker das Daseyn der Seele: nämlich schon Platon im Phädros und auch noch Wolf: nämlich aus dem Denken und Wollen als den Wirkungen, die auf jene Ursache leiten. Erst nachdem auf diese Weise, durch Hypostasirung einer der Wirkung entsprechenden Ursache, der Begriff von einem immateriellen, einfachen, unzerstörbaren Wesen entstanden war, entwickelte und demonstrirte diesen die Schule aus dem Begriff Substanz. Aber diesen selbst hatte sie vorher ganz eigens zu diesem Behuf gebildet, durch folgenden beachtenswerthen Kunstgriff.

Mit der ersten Klasse der Vorstellungen, d. h. der anschaulichen, realen Welt, ist auch die Vorstellung der Materie gegeben, weil das in jener herrschende Gesetz der Kausalität den Wechsel der Zustände bestimmt, welche selbst ein Beharrendes voraussetzen, dessen Wechsel sie sind. Oben, beim Satz der Beharrlichkeit der Substanz, habe ich, mit Berufung auf frühere Stellen, gezeigt, daß diese Vorstellung der Materie entsteht, indem im Verstande, für welchen allein sie da ist, durch das Gesetz der Kausalität (seine einzige Erkenntnißform) Zeit und Raum innig vereinigt werden und der Antheil des Raumes an diesem Produkt als das Beharren der Materie, der Antheil der Zeit aber als der Wechsel der Zustände derselben sich darstellen. Rein für sich kann die Materie auch nur in abstracto gedacht, nicht aber angeschaut werden; da sie der Anschauung immer schon in Form und Qualität erscheint. Von diesem Begriff der Materie ist nun Substanz wieder eine Abstraktion, folglich ein höheres Genus, und ist dadurch entstanden, daß man von dem Begriff der Materie nur das Prädikat der Beharrlichkeit stehen ließ, alle ihre übrigen, wesentlichen Eigenschaften, Ausdehnung, Undurchdringlichkeit, Theilbarkeit u. s. w. aber wegdachte. Wie jedes höhere Genus enthält also der Begriff Substanz weniger in sich als der Begriff Materie: aber er enthält nicht dafür, wie sonst immer das höhere Genus, mehr unter sich, indem er nicht mehrere niedere genera, neben der Materie, umfaßt; sondern diese bleibt die einzige wahre Unterart des Begriffes Substanz, das einzige Nachweisbare, dadurch sein Inhalt realisirt wird und einen Beleg erhält. Der Zweck also, zu welchem sonst die Vernunft durch Abstraktion einen höhern Begriff hervorbringt, nämlich um in ihm mehrere, durch Nebenbestimmungen verschiedene Unterarten zugleich zu denken, hat hier gar nicht Statt: folglich ist jene Abstraktion entweder ganz zwecklos und müßig vorgenommen, oder sie hat eine heimliche Nebenabsicht. Diese tritt nun ans Licht, indem unter den Begriff Substanz, seiner ächten Unterart Materie eine zweite koordinirt wird, nämlich die immaterielle, einfache, unzerstörbare Substanz, Seele. Die Erschleichung dieses Begriffs geschah aber dadurch, daß schon bei der Bildung des höhern Begriffes Substanz gesetzwidrig und unlogisch verfahren wurde. In ihrem gesetzmäßigen Gange bildet die Vernunft einen höhern Geschlechtsbegriff immer nur dadurch, daß sie mehrere Artbegriffe neben einander stellt, nun vergleichend, diskursiv, verfährt und, durch Weglassen ihrer Unterschiede und Beibehalten ihrer Uebereinstimmungen, den sie alle umfassenden, aber weniger enthaltenden Geschlechtsbegriff erhält: woraus folgt, daß die Artbegriffe immer dem Geschlechtsbegriff vorhergehen müssen. Im gegenwärtigen Fall ist es aber umgekehrt. Bloß der Begriff Materie war vor dem Geschlechtsbegriff Substanz da, welcher ohne Anlaß und folglich ohne Berechtigung, müßiger Weise aus jenem gebildet wurde, durch beliebige Weglassung aller Bestimmungen desselben bis auf eine. Erst nachher wurde neben den Begriff Materie die zweite unächte Unterart gestellt und so untergeschoben. Zur Bildung dieser aber bedurfte es nun weiter nichts, als einer ausdrücklichen Verneinung dessen, was man vorher stillschweigend schon im höhern Geschlechtsbegriff weggelassen hatte, nämlich Ausdehnung, Undurchdringlichkeit, Theilbarkeit. So wurde also der Begriff Substanz bloß gebildet, um das Vehikel zur Erschleichung des Begriffs der immateriellen Substanz zu seyn. Er ist folglich sehr weit davon entfernt für eine Kategorie oder nothwendige Funktion des Verstandes gelten zu können: vielmehr ist er ein höchst entbehrlicher Begriff, weil sein einziger wahrer Inhalt schon im Begriff der Materie liegt, neben welchem er nur noch eine große Leere enthält, die durch nichts ausgefüllt werden kann, als durch die erschlichene Nebenart immaterielle Substanz, welche aufzunehmen er auch allein gebildet worden: weßwegen er, der Strenge nach, gänzlich zu verwerfen und an seine Stelle überall der Begriff der Materie zu setzen ist.

— Die Kategorien waren für jedes mögliche Ding ein Bett des Prokrustes, aber die drei Arten der Schlüsse sind es nur für die drei sogenannten Ideen. Die Idee der Seele war gezwungen worden in der kategorischen Schlußform ihren Ursprung zu finden. Jetzt trifft die Reihe die dogmatischen Vorstellungen über das Weltganze, sofern es, als Objekt an sich, zwischen zwei Gränzen, der des Kleinsten (Atom) und der des Größten (Weltgränzen in Zeit und Raum) gedacht wird. Diese müssen nun aus der Form des hypothetischen Schlusses hervorgehen. Dabei ist an sich kein sonderlicher Zwang nöthig. Denn das hypothetische Urtheil hat seine Form vom Satze des Grundes, und aus der besinnungslosen, unbedingten Anwendung dieses Satzes und sodann beliebiger Beiseitelegung desselben entstehen, in der That alle jene sogenannten Ideen, nicht die kosmologischen allein: nämlich dadurch daß, jenem Satze gemäß, immer nur die Abhängigkeit eines Objekts vom andern gesucht wird, bis endlich die Ermüdung der Einbildungskraft ein Ziel der Reise schafft: wobei aus den Augen gelassen wird, daß jedes Objekt, ja die ganze Reihe derselben und der Satz vom Grunde selbst in einer viel nähern und größern Abhängigkeit steht, nämlich in der vom erkennenden Subjekt, für dessen Objekte, d. h. Vorstellungen, jener Satz allein gültig ist, indem deren bloße Stelle in Raum und Zeit durch ihn bestimmt wird. Da also die Erkenntnißform, aus welcher hier bloß die kosmologischen Ideen abgeleitet werden, nämlich der Satz vom Grunde, der Ursprung aller vernünftelnden Hypostasen ist; so bedarf es dazu diesmal keiner Sophismen; desto mehr aber, um jene Ideen nach den vier Titeln der Kategorien zu klassifiziren.

1) Die kosmologischen Ideen in Hinsicht auf Zeit und Raum, also von den Gränzen der Welt in beiden, werden kühn angesehen als bestimmt durch die Kategorie der Quantität, mit der sie offenbar nichts gemein haben, als die in der Logik zufällige Bezeichnung des Umfangs des Subjektbegriffes im Urtheil durch das Wort Quantität, einen bildlichen Ausdruck, statt dessen ebenso gut ein anderer hätte gewählt werden können. Aber für Kants Liebe zur Symmetrie ist dies genug, um den glücklichen Zufall dieser Namengebung zu benutzen und die transscendenten Dogmen von der Weltausdehnung daran zu knüpfen.

2) Noch kühner knüpft Kant an die Qualität, d. i. die Bejahung oder Verneinung in einem Urtheil, die transscendenten Ideen über die Materie, wobei nicht einmal eine zufällige Wortähnlichkeit zum Grunde liegt: denn gerade auf die Quantität und nicht auf die Qualität der Materie bezieht sich ihre mechanische (nicht chemische) Theilbarkeit. Aber, was noch mehr ist, diese ganze Idee von der Theilbarkeit gehört gar nicht unter die Folgerungen nach dem Satze vom Grunde, aus welchem, als dem Inhalt der hypothetischen Form, doch alle kosmologischen Ideen fließen sollen. Denn die Behauptung, auf welcher Kant dabei fußet, daß das Verhältniß der Theile zum Ganzen das der Bedingung zum Bedingten, also ein Verhältniß gemäß dem Satz vom Grunde sei, ist ein zwar feines, aber doch grundloses Sophisma. Jenes Verhältniß stützt sich vielmehr auf den Satz vom Widerspruch. Denn das Ganze ist nicht durch die Theile, noch diese durch jenes; sondern beide sind nothwendig zusammen, weil sie Eines sind und ihre Trennung nur ein willkürlicher Akt ist. Darauf beruht es, nach dem Satz vom Widerspruch, daß, wenn die Theile weggedacht werden, auch das Ganze weggedacht ist, und umgekehrt; keineswegs aber darauf, daß die Theile als Grund das Ganze als Folge bedingten und wir daher, nach dem Satz vom Grunde, nothwendig getrieben würden, die letzten Theile zu suchen, um daraus, als seinem Grunde, das Ganze zu verstehen. — So große Schwierigkeiten überwältigt hier die Liebe zur Symmetrie.

3) Unter den Titel der Relation würde nun ganz eigentlich die Idee von der ersten Ursache der Welt gehören. Kant muß aber diese für den vierten Titel, den der Modalität, aufbewahren, für den sonst nichts übrig bliebe und unter welchen er jene Idee dann dadurch zwängt, daß das Zufällige (d. h. nach seiner, der Wahrheit diametral entgegengesetzten Erklärung, jede Folge aus ihrem Grunde) durch die erste Ursache zum Nothwendigen wird. — Als dritte Idee tritt daher, zu Gunsten der Symmetrie, hier der Begriff der Freiheit auf, womit aber eigentlich doch nur die nun einmal allein hieher passende Idee von der Weltursache gemeint ist, wie die Anmerkung zur Thesis der dritten Widerstreits deutlich aussagt. Der dritte und vierte Widerstreit sind im Grunde tautologisch.

Ueber alles dieses aber finde und behaupte ich, daß die ganze Antinomie eine bloße Spiegelfechterei, ein Scheinkampf ist. Nur die Behauptungen der Antithesen beruhen wirklich auf den Formen unsers Erkenntnißvermögens, d. h., wenn man es objektiv ausdrückt, auf den nothwendigen, a priori gewissen, allgemeinsten Naturgesetzen. Ihre Beweise allein sind daher aus objektiven Gründen geführt. Hingegen haben die Behauptungen und Beweise der Thesen keinen andern als subjektiven Grund, beruhen ganz allein auf der Schwäche des vernünftelnden Individuums, dessen Einbildungskraft bei einem unendlichen Regressus ermüdet und daher demselben durch willkürliche Voraussetzungen, die sie bestens zu beschönigen sucht, ein Ende macht, und dessen Urtheilskraft noch überdies durch früh und fest eingeprägte Vorurtheile an dieser Stelle gelähmt ist. Dieserwegen ist der Beweis für die Thesis in allen vier Widerstreiten überall nur ein Sophisma; statt daß der für die Antithesis eine unvermeidliche Folgerung der Vernunft aus den uns a priori bewußten Gesetzen der Welt als Vorstellung ist. Auch hat Kant nur mit vieler Mühe und Kunst die Thesis aufrecht erhalten können und sie scheinbare Angriffe auf den mit ursprünglicher Kraft begabten Gegner machen lassen. Hiebei nun ist sein erster und durchgängiger Kunstgriff dieser, daß er nicht, wie man thut, wenn man sich der Wahrheit seines Satzes bewußt ist, den nervus argumentationis hervorhebt und so isolirt, nackt und deutlich, als nur immer möglich, vor die Augen bringt; sondern vielmehr führt er auf beiden Seiten denselben unter einem Schwall überflüssiger und weitläuftiger Sätze verdeckt und eingemengt ein.

Die hier nun so im Widerstreit auftretenden Thesen und Antithesen erinnern an den δικαιος und αδικος λογος, welche Sokrates in den Wolken des Aristophanes streitend auftreten läßt. Jedoch erstreckt sich diese Aehnlichkeit nur auf die Form, nicht aber auf den Inhalt, wie wohl Diejenigen gern behaupten möchten, welche diesen spekulativesten aller Fragen der theoretischen Philosophie einen Einfluß auf die Moralität zuschreiben und daher im Ernst die These für den δικαιος, die Antithese aber für den αδικος λογος halten. Auf solche beschränkte und verkehrte kleine Geister Rücksicht zu nehmen, werde ich mich hier jedoch nicht bequemen und nicht ihnen, sondern der Wahrheit die Ehre gebend, die von Kant geführten Beweise der einzelnen Thesen als Sophismen aufdecken, während die der Antithesen ganz ehrlich, richtig und aus objektiven Gründen geführt sind. — Ich setze voraus, daß man bei dieser Prüfung die Kantische Antinomie selbst immer vor sich habe.

Wollte man den Beweis der Thesis im ersten Widerstreit gelten lassen; so bewiese er zu viel, indem er eben so gut auf die Zeit selbst, als auf den Wechsel in ihr anwendbar wäre und daher beweisen würde, daß die Zeit selbst angefangen haben muß, was widersinnig ist. Uebrigens besteht das Sophisma darin, daß statt der Anfangslosigkeit der Reihe der Zustände, wovon zuerst die Rede, plötzlich die Endlosigkeit (Unendlichkeit) derselben untergeschoben und nun bewiesen wird, was Niemand bezweifelt, daß dieser das Vollendetseyn logisch widerspreche und dennoch jede Gegenwart das Ende der Vergangenheit sei. Das Ende einer anfangslosen Reihe läßt sich aber immer denken, ohne ihrer Anfangslosigkeit Abbruch zu thun: wie sich auch umgekehrt der Anfang einer endlosen Reihe denken läßt. Gegen das wirklich richtige Argument der Antithesis aber, daß die Veränderungen der Welt rückwärts eine unendliche Reihe von Veränderungen schlechthin nothwendig voraussetzen, wird gar nichts vorgebracht. Die Möglichkeit, daß die Kausalreihe dereinst in einem absoluten Stillstand endige, können wir denken; keineswegs aber die Möglichkeit eines absoluten Anfangs [11].

In Hinsicht auf die räumlichen Gränzen der Welt wird bewiesen, daß wenn sie ein gegebenes Ganzes heißen soll, sie nothwendig Gränzen haben muß: die Konsequenz ist richtig, nur war eben ihr vorderes Glied das, was zu beweisen war, aber unbewiesen bleibt. Totalität setzt Gränzen, und Gränzen setzen Totalität voraus: beide zusammen werden hier aber willkürlich vorausgesetzt. — Die Antithesis liefert für diesen zweiten Punkt jedoch keinen so befriedigenden Beweis, als für den ersten, weil das Gesetz der Kausalität bloß in Hinsicht auf die Zeit, nicht auf [12] Daß die Annahme einer Gränze der Welt in der Zeit keineswegs ein nothwendiger Gedanke der Vernunft sei, läßt sich sogar auch historisch nachweisen, indem die Hindu nicht einmal in der Volksreligion, geschweige in den Veden, eine solche lehren; sondern die Unendlichkeit dieser erscheinenden Welt, dieses bestand- und wesenlosen Gewebes der Maja, mythologisch durch eine monströse Chronologie auszusprechen suchen, indem sie zugleich das Relative aller Zeitlängen in folgendem Mythos sehr sinnreich hervorheben (Polier, Mythologie des Indous, Vol. 2, p. 585). Die vier Zeitalter, in deren letztem wir leben, umfassen zusammen 4,320,000 Jahre. Solcher Perioden von vier Zeitaltern hat jeder Tag des schaffenden Brahma 1000 und seine Nacht wieder 1000. Sein Jahr hat 365 Tage und ebenso viele Nächte. Er lebt, immer schaffend, 100 seiner Jahre: und wenn er stirbt, wird sogleich ein neuer Brahma geboren, und so von Ewigkeit zu Ewigkeit. Die selbe Relativität der Zeit drückt auch die specielle Mythe aus, welche in Poliers Werk, Bd. 2, S. 594, den Puranas nacherzählt ist, wo ein Rajah, nach einem Besuch von wenigen Augenblicken bei Wischnu in dessen Himmel, bei seiner Rückkehr auf die Erde mehrere Millionen Jahre verstrichen und ein neues Zeitalter eingetreten findet, weil jeder Tag des Wischnu gleich ist 100 Wiederkehren der vier Zeitalter. den Raum, nothwendige Bestimmungen an die Hand giebt und uns zwar a priori die Gewißheit ertheilt, daß keine erfüllte Zeit je an eine ihr vorhergegangene leere gränzen und keine Veränderung die erste seyn konnte, nicht aber darüber, daß ein erfüllter Raum keinen leeren neben sich haben kann. Insofern wäre über Letzteres keine Entscheidung a priori möglich. Jedoch liegt die Schwierigkeit, die Welt im Raume als begränzt zu denken, darin, daß der Raum selbst nothwendig unendlich ist, und daher eine begränzte endliche Welt in ihm, so groß sie auch sei, zu einer unendlich kleinen Größe wird; an welchem Mißverhältniß die Einbildungskraft einen unüberwindlichen Anstoß findet; indem ihr danach nur die Wahl bleibt, die Welt entweder unendlich groß, oder unendlich klein zu denken. Dies haben schon die alten Philosophen eingesehen: Μητροδωρος, ὁ καθηγητης Επικουρου, φησιν ατοπον ειναι εν μεγαλῳ πεδιῳ ἑνα σταχυν γεννηθηναι, και ἑνα κοσμον εν τῳ απειρῳ (Metrodorus, caput scholae Epicuri, absurdum ait, in magno campo spicam unam produci, et unum in infinito mundum). Stob. Ecl., I, c. 23. — Daher lehrten Viele von ihnen (wie gleich darauf folgt), απειρους κοσμους εν τῳ απειρῳ (infinitos mundos in infinito). Dieses ist auch der Sinn des Kantischen Arguments für die Antithese; nur hat er es durch einen scholastischen, geschrobenen Vortrag verunstaltet. Das selbe Argument könnte man auch gegen die Gränzen der Welt in der Zeit gebrauchen, wenn man nicht schon ein viel besseres am Leitfaden der Kausalität hätte. Ferner entsteht, bei der Annahme einer im Raume begränzten Welt, die unbeantwortbare Frage, welches Vorrecht denn der erfüllte Theil des Raumes vor dem unendlichen, leer gebliebenen gehabt hätte. Eine ausführliche und sehr lesenswerthe Darlegung der Argumente für und gegen die Endlichkeit der Welt giebt Jordanus Brunus im fünften Dialog seines Buches „Del infinito, universo e mondi“. Uebrigens behauptet Kant selbst im Ernst und aus objektiven Gründen die Unendlichkeit der Welt im Raum, in seiner „Naturgeschichte und Theorie des Himmels“, Theil II, Kap. 7. Zu derselben bekennt sich auch Aristoteles, „Phys.“, III, Kap. 4, welches Kapitel nebst den folgenden, in Hinsicht auf diese Antinomie sehr lesenswerth ist.

Beim zweiten Widerstreit begeht die Thesis sogleich eine gar nicht feine petitio principii, indem sie anhebt: „Jede zusammengesetzte Substanz besteht aus einfachen Theilen.“ Aus dem hier willkürlich angenommenen Zusammengesetztseyn beweist sie nachher freilich die einfachen Theile sehr leicht. Aber eben der Satz „alle Materie ist zusammengesetzt“, auf welchen es ankommt, bleibt unbewiesen, weil er eben eine grundlose Annahme ist. Dem Einfachen steht nämlich nicht das Zusammengesetzte, sondern das Extendire, das Theilehabende, das Theilbare gegenüber. Eigentlich aber wird hier stillschweigend angenommen, daß die Theile vor dem Ganzen da waren und zusammengetragen wurden, wodurch das Ganze entstanden sei: denn Dies besagt das Wort „zusammengesetzt“. Doch läßt sich Dieses so wenig behaupten, wie das Gegentheil. Die Theilbarkeit besagt bloß die Möglichkeit, das Ganze in Theile zu zerlegen; keineswegs, daß es aus Theilen zusammengesetzt und dadurch entstanden sei. Die Theilbarkeit behauptet bloß die Theile a parte post; das Zusammengesetztseyn behauptet sie a parte ante. Denn zwischen den Theilen und dem Ganzen ist wesentlich kein Zeitverhältniß: vielmehr bedingen sie sich wechselseitig und sind insofern stets zugleich: denn nur sofern Beide da sind, besteht das räumlich Ausgedehnte. Was daher Kant in der Anmerkung zur Thesis sagt: „den Raum sollte man eigentlich nicht Compositum, sondern Totum nennen u. s. w.“, dies gilt ganz und gar auch von der Materie, als welche bloß der wahrnehmbar gewordene Raum ist. — Dagegen folgt die unendliche Theilbarkeit der Materie, welche die Antithese behauptet, a priori und unwidersprechlich aus der des Raumes, den sie erfüllt. Dieser Satz hat gar nichts gegen sich: daher ihn auch Kant, S. 513; V, 541, wo er ernstlich und in eigener Person, nicht mehr als Wortführer des αδικος λογος spricht, als objektive Wahrheit darstellt: desgleichen in den „Metaphysischen Anfangsgründen der Naturwissenschaft“ (S. 108, erste Ausgabe) steht der Satz, „die Materie ist ins Unendliche theilbar“, als ausgemachte Wahrheit an der Spitze des Beweises des ersten Lehrsatzes der Mechanik, nachdem er in der Dynamik als vierter Lehrsatz aufgetreten war und bewiesen worden. Hier aber verdirbt Kant den Beweis für die Antithese, durch die größte Verworrenheit des Vortrags und unnützen Wortschwall, in der schlauen Absicht, daß die Evidenz der Antithese die Sophismen der These nicht zu sehn im Schatten ist, schein. Die Atome sind kein nothwendiger Gedanke der Vernunft, sondern blos eine Hypothese zur Erklärung der Verschiedenheit des specifischen Gewichts der Körper. Daß wir aber auch dieses anderweitig und sogar besser und einfacher, als durch Atomistik erklären können, hat Kant selbst gezeigt in der Dynamik seiner metaphysischen Anfangsgründe zur Naturwissenschaft; zwar hat ihm jedoch Priestley „On matter and spirit“ Sect. 1 schon von Aristoteles „Phys.“ IV, 9, ist der Grundgedanke davon zu finden.

Das Argument für die dritte Thesis ist ein sehr feines Sophisma und eigentlich Kants vorgebliches Princip der reinen Vernunft selbst, ganz unvermischt und unverändert. Es will die Endlichkeit der Reihe der Ursachen dadurch beweisen, daß eine Ursache, um zureichend zu seyn, die vollständige Summe der Bedingungen enthalten muß, aus denen der folgende Zustand, die Wirkung, hervorgeht. Dieser Vollständigkeit der in dem Zustand, welcher Ursache ist, zugleich vorhandenen Bestimmungen schiebt nun das Argument die Vollständigkeit der Reihe von Ursachen unter, durch die jenen Zustand selbst erst zur Wirklichkeit gekommen ist; und weil Vollständigkeit Geschlossenheit, diese aber Endlichkeit voraussetzt, so folgert das Argument hieraus eine erste, die Reihe schließende, mithin unbedingte Ursache. Aber die Taschenspielerei liegt am Tage. Um den Zustand A als zureichende Ursache des Zustandes B zu begreifen, setze ich voraus, er enthalte die Vollständigkeit der hiezu erforderlichen Bestimmungen, durch deren Beisammensein der Zustand B unausbleiblich erfolgt. Hiedurch ist nun meine Anforderung an ihn als zureichende Ursache gänzlich befriedigt, und sie hat keine unmittelbare Verbindung mit der Frage, wie der Zustand A selbst zur Wirklichkeit gekommen sei; vielmehr gehört diese einer ganz andern Betrachtung an, in der ich den nämlichen Zustand A nicht mehr als Ursache, sondern selbst wieder als Wirkung ansehe, zwar ein anderer Zustand, der sich zu ihm wieder eben so verhalten muß, wie er selbst sich zu B verhielt. Die Voraussetzung der Endlichkeit der Reihe von Ursachen und Wirkungen und demnach eines ersten Anfanges erscheint dabei aber nirgends als nothwendig, so wenig wie die Gegenwart des gegenwärtigen Augenblicks einen Anfang der Zeit selbst zur Voraussetzung hat, sondern vielmehr wird erst hinzugethan von der Trägheit des sich bewegenden Individuums. Daß jene Voraussetzung in der Annahme einer Ursache als zureichenden Grundes liege, ist also erschlichen und falsch; wie ich dieses oben, bei Betrachtung des Kantischen, mit dieser Thesis zusammenfallenden Princips der Vernunft ausführlich gezeigt habe. Zur Erläuterung der Behauptung dieser falschen Thesis entblödet sich Kant nicht, in der Anmerkung zu derselben sein Aufstehen vom Stuhl als Beispiel eines unbedingten Anfangs zu geben, als ob es ihm nicht so unmöglich wäre, ohne Motiv aufzustehen, wie der Kugel ohne Ursache zu rollen. Die Grundlosigkeit seiner vom Gefühl der Schwäche eingegebenen Berufung auf die Philosophen des Alterthums brauche ich wohl nicht erst aus dem Ocellos Lukanos, den Eleaten u. s. w. nachzuweisen, der Hinderung zu geschweigen. Gegen die Beweisführung der Antithese ist, wie bei den vorhergehenden, nichts einzuwenden.

Der vierte Widerstreit ist, wie ich schon bemerkt habe, mit dem dritten eigentlich tautologisch. Auch ist der Beweis der These im Wesentlichen wieder derselbe, wie der der vorhergehenden. Seine Behauptung, daß jedes Bedingte eine vollständige und daher mit dem Unbedingten sich endende Reihe von Bedingungen voraussetze, ist eine petitio principii, die man geradezu ableugnen muß. Jedes Bedingte setzt nichts voraus als seine Bedingung, daß diese wieder bedingt sei, hebt eine neue Betrachtung an, welche in der ersten nicht unmittelbar enthalten ist. Eine gewisse Scheinbarkeit in der Antinomie suchte ich abzuwehren.

Dennoch ist es merkwürdig, daß kein Theil der Kantischen Philosophie so wenig Widerspruch erfahren hat, so viel Anerkennung gefunden hat, wie diese so höchst paradore Lehre. Fast alle philosophische Parteien und Lehrbücher haben sie gelten gelassen und wiederholt, auch wohl bearbeitet; während beinahe alle andern Lehren Kants angefochten worden sind, ja es nie an einzelnen schiefen Köpfen gefehlt hat, welche selbst die transscendentale Aesthetik verwarfen. Der ungetheilte Beifall, den hingegen die Antinomie gefunden, mag am Ende daher kommen, daß gewisse Leute mit innerlichem Behagen den Punkt betrachten, wo es recht eigentlich der Verstand stille stehen soll, indem er auf etwas gestoßen wäre, was zugleich ist und nicht ist, und sie auch das als eine einfache Reihe von Bedingungen bestimmen demnach das sechste Kunststück des Philadelphia, in Lichtenbergs Anschlagszettel, hier wirklich vor sich hätten.

Kants nun folgende Kritische Entscheidung des kosmologischen Streites ist, wenn man ihren eigentlichen Sinn erforscht, nicht Das, wofür er sie giebt, nämlich die Auflösung des Streites durch die Eröffnung, daß beide Theile, von falschen Voraussetzungen ausgehend, im ersten und zweiten Widerstreit beide Unrecht, aber im dritten und vierten beide Recht haben; sondern sie ist in der That die Bestätigung der Antithesen durch die Erläuterung ihrer Aussage.

Zuerst behauptet Kant in dieser Auflösung, mit offenbarem Unrecht, beide Theile gingen von der Voraussetzung, als Obersatz, aus, daß mit dem Bedingten auch die vollendete (also geschlossene) Reihe seiner Bedingungen gegeben sei. Bloß die Thesis legte diesen Satz, Kants reines Vernunftprincip, ihren Behauptungen zum Grunde: die Antithesis hingegen leugnete ihn ja überall ausdrücklich, und behauptete das Gegentheil. Ferner legt Kant beiden Theilen noch diese Voraussetzung zur Last, daß die Welt an sich selbst, d. h. unabhängig von ihrem Erkanntwerden und den Formen dieses, da sei: aber auch diese Voraussetzung ist abermals bloß von der Thesis gemacht; hingegen liegt sie den Behauptungen der Antithesis so wenig zum Grunde, daß sie sogar mit ihnen durchaus unvereinbar ist. Denn dem Begriff einer unendlichen Reihe widerspricht es geradezu, daß sie ganz gegeben sei: es ist ihr daher wesentlich, daß sie immer nur in Beziehung auf das Durchgehen derselben, nicht aber unabhängig von ihm, da sei. Hingegen liegt in der Voraussetzung bestimmter Gränzen auch die eines Ganzen, welches für sich bestehend und unabhängig von dem Vollziehen seiner Ausmessung da ist. Also nur die Thesis macht die falsche Voraussetzung von einem an sich bestehenden, d. h. vor aller Erkenntniß gegebenen Weltganzen, zu welchem die Erkenntniß bloß hinzukäme. Die Antithese streitet durchaus schon ursprünglich mit dieser Voraussetzung: denn die Unendlichkeit der Reihen, welche sie bloß nach Anleitung des Satzes vom Grunde behauptete, kann nur da seyn, sofern der Regressus vollzogen wird, nicht unabhängig von diesem. Wie nämlich das Objekt überhaupt das Subjekt voraussetzt, so setzt auch das als eine endlose Kette von Bedingungen bestimmte Objekt nothwendig die diesem entsprechende Erkenntnißart, nämlich das beständige Verfolgen der Glieder jener Kette, im Subjekt voraus. Dies ist aber eben was Kant als Auflösung des Streites giebt und so oft wiederholt: „Die Unendlichkeit der Weltgröße ist nur durch den Regressus, nicht vor demselben.“ Diese seine Auflösung des Widerstreits ist also eigentlich nur die Entscheidung zu Gunsten der Antithese, in deren Behauptung jene Wahrheit schon liegt, so wie dieselbe mit den Behauptungen der These ganz unvereinbar ist. Hätte die Antithese behauptet, daß die Welt aus unendlichen Reihen von Gründen und Folgen bestehe und dabei doch unabhängig von der Vorstellung und deren regressiver Reihe, also an sich existire und daher ein gegebenes Ganzes ausmache; so hätte sie nicht nur der These, sondern auch sich selber widersprochen: denn ein Unendliches kann nie ganz gegeben seyn, noch eine endlose Reihe daseyn, als sofern sie endlos durchlaufen wird, noch ein Gränzenloses ein Ganzes ausmachen. Nur der Thesis also kommt jene Voraussetzung zu, von der Kant behauptet, daß sie beide Theile irre geführt hätte.

Es ist schon Lehre des Aristoteles, daß ein Unendliches nie actu, d. h. wirklich und gegeben seyn könne, sondern bloß potentia. Ουκ εστιν ενεργειᾳ ειναι το απειρον· — — — — — αλλ' αδυνατον το εντελεχειᾳ ον απειρον (infinitum non potest esse actu: — — — — — sed impossibile, actu esse infinitum). Metaph. K, 10. — Ferner: κατ' ενεργειαν μεν γαρ ουδεν εστιν απειρον, δυναμει δε επι την διαιρεσιν (nihil enim actu infinitum est, sed potentia tantum, nempe divisione ipsa). De generat. et corrupt., I, 3. — Dies führt er weitläuftig aus, Phys. III, 5 u. 6, woselbst er gewissermaaßen die ganz richtige Auflösung sämmtlicher antinomischer Gegensätze giebt. Er stellt, in seiner kurzen Art, die Antinomien dar und sagt dann: „eines Vermittlers (διαιτητου) bedarf es“: wonach er die Auflösung giebt, daß das Unendliche, sowohl der Welt im Raum, als in der Zeit und in der Theilung, nie vor dem Regressus, oder Progressus, sondern in demselben ist. — Also liegt diese Wahrheit schon im richtig gefaßten Begriff des Unendlichen. Man mißversteht sich also selbst, wenn man das Unendliche, welcher Art es auch sei, als ein objektiv Vorhandenes und Fertiges, und unabhängig vom Regressus zu denken vermeint.

Ja, wenn man, umgekehrt verfahrend, zum Ausgangspunkt Dasjenige nimmt, was Kant als die Auflösung des Widerstreits giebt; so folgt eben schon aus demselben geradezu die Behauptung der Antithese. Nämlich: ist die Welt kein unbedingtes Ganzes und existirt nicht an sich, sondern nur in der Vorstellung, und sind ihre Reihen von Gründen und Folgen nicht vor dem Regressus der Vorstellungen davon da, sondern erst durch diesen Regressus; so kann die Welt nicht bestimmte und endliche Reihen enthalten, weil deren Bestimmung und Begränzung unabhängig von der dann nur hinzukommenden Vorstellung, seyn müßte: sondern alle ihre Reihen müssen endlos, d. h. durch keine Vorstellung zu erschöpfen seyn.

S. 506; V, 534, will Kant aus dem Unrechthaben beider Theile die transscendentale Idealität der Erscheinung beweisen, und hebt an: „Ist die Welt ein an sich existirendes Ganzes, so ist sie entweder endlich oder unendlich.“ — Dies ist aber falsch: ein an sich existirendes Ganzes kann durchaus nicht unendlich seyn. — Vielmehr ließe sich jene Idealität aus der Unendlichkeit der Reihen in der Welt folgendermaaßen schließen: Sind die Reihen der Gründe und Folgen in der Welt durchaus ohne Ende; so kann die Welt nicht ein unabhängig von der Vorstellung gegebenes Ganzes seyn: denn ein solches setzt immer bestimmte Gränzen, so wie hingegen unendliche Reihen unendlichen Regressus voraus. Daher muß die vorausgesetzte Unendlichkeit der Reihen durch die Form von Grund und Folge, und diese durch die Erkenntnißweise des Subjekts bestimmt seyn, also die Welt, wie sie erkannt wird, nur in der Vorstellung des Subjekts daseyn.

Ob nun Kant selbst gewußt habe, oder nicht, daß seine kritische Entscheidung des Streits eigentlich ein Ausspruch zu Gunsten der Antithese ist, vermag ich nicht zu entscheiden. Denn es hängt davon ab, ob dasjenige, was Schelling irgendwo sehr treffend Kants Akkommodationssystem genannt hat, sich so weit erstrecke, oder ob Kants Geist hier schon in einer unbewußten Akkommodation zum Einfluß seiner Zeit und Umgebung befangen ist.

Die Auflösung der dritten Antinomie, deren Gegenstand die Idee der Freiheit war, verdient eine besondere Betrachtung, sofern es für uns sehr merkwürdig ist, daß Kant vom Ding an sich, das bisher nur im Hintergrunde gesehen wurde, gerade hier, bei der Idee der Freiheit, ausführlicher zu reden genöthigt wird. Dies ist uns sehr erklärlich, nachdem wir das Ding an sich als den Willen erkannt haben. Ueberhaupt liegt hier der Punkt, wo Kants Philosophie auf die meinige hinleitet, oder wo diese aus ihr als ihrem Stamm hervorgeht. Hievon wird man sich überzeugen, wenn man in der Kritik der reinen Vernunft, S. 536 und 537; V, 564 und 565, mit Aufmerksamkeit liest: mit dieser Stelle vergleiche man noch die Einleitung zur Kritik der Urtheilskraft, S. XVIII und XIX der dritten, oder S. 13 der Rosenkranzischen Ausgabe, wo es sogar heißt: „Der Freiheitsbegriff kann in seinem Objekt (das ist denn doch der Wille) ein Ding an sich, aber nicht in der Anschauung, vorstellig machen; dagegen der Naturbegriff seinen Gegenstand zwar in der Anschauung, aber nicht als Ding an sich vorstellig machen kann.“ Besonders aber lese man über die Auflösung der Antinomien den §. 53 der Prolegomena und beantworte dann aufrichtig die Frage, ob alles dort Gesagte nicht lautet wie ein Räthsel, zu welchem meine Lehre das Wort ist. Kant ist mit seinem Denken nicht zu Ende gekommen: ich habe bloß seine Sache durchgeführt. Demgemäß habe ich was Kant von der menschlichen Erscheinung allein sagt auf alle Erscheinung überhaupt, als welche von jener nur dem Grade nach verschieden ist, übertragen, nämlich daß das Wesen an sich derselben ein absolut Freies, d. h. ein Wille ist. Wie fruchtbar aber diese Einsicht im Verein mit Kants Lehre von der Idealität des Raumes, der Zeit und der Kausalität ist, ergiebt sich aus meinem Werk.

Kant hat das Ding an sich nirgends zum Gegenstand einer besondern Auseinandersetzung oder deutlichen Ableitung gemacht. Sondern, so oft er es braucht, zieht er es sogleich herbei durch den Schluß, daß die Erscheinung, also die sichtbare Welt, doch einen Grund, eine intelligibele Ursache, die nicht Erscheinung wäre und daher zu keiner möglichen Erfahrung gehöre, haben müsse. Dies thut er, nachdem er unablässig eingeschärft hat, die Kategorien, also auch die der Kausalität, hätten einen durchaus nur 38 * auf mögliche Erfahrung beschränkten Gebrauch, wären bloße Formen des Verstandes, welche dienten, die Erscheinungen der Sinnenwelt zu buchstabiren, über welche hinaus sie hingegen gar keine Bedeutung hätten u. s. w., daher er ihre Anwendung auf Dinge jenseit der Erfahrung aufs strengste verpönt und aus der Verlezung dieses Gesetzes, mit Recht, allen frühern Dogmatismus erklärt und zugleich umwirft. Die unglaubliche Inkonsequenz, welche Kant hierin begieng, wurde von seinen ersten Gegnern bald bemerkt und zu Angriffen benutzt, denen seine Philosophie keinen Widerstand leisten konnte. Denn allerdings wenden wir zwar völlig a priori und vor aller Erfahrung das Gesetz der Kausalität an auf die in unsern Sinnesorganen empfundenen Veränderungen: aber gerade darum ist dasselbe ebenso subjektiven Ursprungs, wie diese Empfindungen selbst, führt also nicht zum Dinge an sich. Die Wahrheit ist, daß man auf dem Wege der Vorstellung nie über die Vorstellung hinaus kann: sie ist ein geschlossenes Ganzes und hat in ihren eigenen Mitteln keinen Faden, der zu dem von ihr toto genere verschiedenen Wesen des Dinges an sich führt. Wären wir bloß vorstellende Wesen, so wäre der Weg zum Dinge an sich uns gänzlich abgeschlossen. Nur die andere Seite unseres eigenen Wesens kann uns Aufschluß geben über die andere Seite des Wesens an sich der Dinge. Diesen Weg habe ich eingeschlagen. Einige Beschönigung gewinnt Kants von ihm selbst verpönter Schluß auf das Ding an sich jedoch durch Folgendes. Er setzt nicht, wie es die Wahrheit verlangte, einfach und schlechthin das Objekt als bedingt durch das Subjekt, und umgekehrt; sondern nur die Art und Weise der Erscheinung des Objekts als bedingt durch die Erkenntnißformen des Subjekts, welche daher auch a priori zum Bewußtseyn kommen. Was nun aber, im Gegensatz hievon, bloß a posteriori erkannt wird, ist ihm schon unmittelbare Wirkung des Dinges an sich, welches nur im Durchgang durch jene a priori gegebenen Formen zur Erscheinung wird. Aus dieser Ansicht ist es einigermaaßen erklärlich, wie es ihm entgehen konnte, daß schon das Objektseyn überhaupt zur Form der Erscheinung gehört und durch das Subjektseyn überhaupt eben so wohl bedingt ist, als die Erscheinungsweise des Objekts durch die Erkenntnißformen des Subjekts, daß also, wenn ein Ding an sich angenommen werden soll, es durchaus auch nicht Objekt seyn kann, als welches er es jedoch immer voraussetzt, sondern ein solches Ding an sich in einem von der Vorstellung (dem Erkennen und Erkanntwerden) toto genere verschiedenen Gebiet liegen müßte, und es daher auch am wenigsten nach den Gesetzen der Verknüpfung der Objekte untereinander erschlossen werden könnte.

Mit der Nachweisung des Dinges an sich ist es Kanten gerade so gegangen, wie mit der der Apriorität des Kausalitätsgesetzes: Beide Lehren sind richtig, aber ihre Beweisführung falsch: sie gehören also zu den richtigen Konklusionen aus falschen Prämissen. Ich habe Beide beibehalten, jedoch sie auf ganz andere Weise und sicher begründet.

Das Ding an sich habe ich nicht erschlichen noch erschlossen, nach Gesetzen die es ausschließen, indem sie schon seiner Erscheinung angehören; noch bin ich überhaupt auf Umwegen dazu gelangt: vielmehr habe ich es unmittelbar nachgewiesen, da, wo es unmittelbar liegt, im Willen, der sich Jedem als das Ansich seiner eigenen Erscheinung unmittelbar offenbaret.

Und diese unmittelbare Erkenntniß des eigenen Willens ist es auch, aus der im menschlichen Bewußtseyn der Begriff von Freiheit hervorgeht; weil allerdings der Wille als Weltschaffendes, als Ding an sich, frei vom Satz des Grundes und damit von aller Nothwendigkeit, also vollkommen unabhängig, frei, ja allmächtig ist. Doch gilt dies, der Wahrheit nach, nur vom Willen an sich, nicht von seinen Erscheinungen, den Individuen, die schon, eben durch ihn selbst, als seine Erscheinungen in der Zeit, unveränderlich bestimmt sind. Im gemeinen, nicht durch Philosophie geläuterten Bewußtseyn wird aber auch sogleich der Wille mit seiner Erscheinung verwechselt und was nur ihm zukommt, dieser beigelegt: wodurch der Schein der unbedingten Freiheit des Individuums entsteht. Spinoza sagt eben deswegen mit Recht, daß auch der geworfene Stein, wenn er Bewußtseyn hätte, glauben würde freiwillig zu fliegen. Denn allerdings ist das Ansich auch des Steines der alleinige freie Wille, aber, wie in allen seinen Erscheinungen, auch hier, wo er als Stein erscheint, schon völlig bestimmt. Doch von dem Allen ist im Haupttheile dieser Schrift schon zur Genüge geredet.

Kant, indem er diese unmittelbare Entstehung des Begriffs von Freiheit in jedem menschlichen Bewußtseyn verkennt und übersieht, setzt nun, S. 533; V, 561, den Ursprung jenes Begriffs in eine sehr subtile Spekulation, durch welche nämlich das Unbedingte, auf welches die Vernunft immer ausgehen soll, die Hypostasirung des Begriffs von Freiheit veranlaßt, und auf diese transscendente Idee der Freiheit soll sich allererst auch der praktische Begriff derselben gründen. In der Kritik der praktischen Vernunft, §. 6, und S. 185 der vierten, S. 235 der Rosenkranzischen Ausgabe, leitet er diesen letztern Begriff jedoch wieder anders ab, daraus, daß der kategorische Imperativ ihn voraussetze: zum Behuf dieser Voraussetzung sei sonach jene spekulative Idee nur der erste Ursprung des Begriffs von Freiheit; hier aber erhalte er eigentlich Bedeutung und Anwendung. Beides ist jedoch nicht der Fall. Denn der Wahn einer vollkommenen Freiheit des Individuums in seinen einzelnen Handlungen ist am lebendigsten in der Ueberzeugung des rohesten Menschen, der nie nachgedacht hat, ist also auf keine Spekulation gegründet, wiewohl oft dahin hinübergenommen. Frei davon sind hingegen nur Philosophen und zwar die tiefsten, ebenfalls sind es auch die denkendesten und erleuchtetesten Schriftsteller der Kirche.

Allem Gesagten zufolge ist also der eigentliche Ursprung des Begriffs der Freiheit auf keine Weise wesentlich ein Schluß, weder aus der spekulativen Idee einer unbedingten Ursache, noch daraus, daß ihn der kategorische Imperativ voraussetze; sondern er entspringt unmittelbar aus dem Bewußtseyn, darin sich Jeder selbst, ohne Weiteres, als den Willen, d. h. als dasjenige, was als Ding an sich nicht den Satz vom Grunde zur Form hat und das selbst von nichts, von dem vielmehr alles andere abhängt, erkennt, nicht aber zugleich mit philosophischer Kritik und Besonnenheit sich, als schon in die Zeit eingetretene und bestimmte Erscheinung dieses Willens, man könnte sagen Willensakt, von jenem Willen zum Leben selbst unterscheidet, und daher, statt sein ganzes Daseyn als Akt seiner Freiheit zu erkennen, diese vielmehr in seinen einzelnen Handlungen sucht. Hierüber verweise ich auf meine Preisschrift von der Freiheit des Willens.

Hätte nun Kant, wie er hier vorgiebt und auch scheinbar bei früheren Gelegenheiten that, das Ding an sich bloß erschlossen und dazu mit der großen Inkonsequenz eines von ihm selbst durchaus verpönten Schlusses; — welch ein sonderbarer Zufall wäre es dann, daß er hier, wo er zum ersten Mal näher an das Ding an sich herangeht und es beleuchtet, in ihm sogleich den Willen erkennt, den freien, in der Welt sich nur durch zeitliche Erscheinungen kund gebenden Willen! — Ich nehme daher wirklich an, obwohl es nicht zu beweisen ist, daß Kant, so oft er vom Ding an sich redete, in der dunkelsten Tiefe seines Geistes, immer schon den Willen undeutlich dachte. Einen Beleg hiezu giebt, in der Vorrede zur zweiten Auflage der Kritik der reinen Vernunft, S. XXVII und XXVIII, in der Rosenkranzischen Ausgabe S. 677 der Supplemente.

Uebrigens ist es eben diese beabsichtigte Auflösung des vorgeblichen dritten Widerstreits, welche Kanten Gelegenheit giebt, die tiefsten Gedanken seiner ganzen Philosophie sehr schön auszusprechen. So im ganzen „sechsten Abschnitt der Antinomie der reinen Vernunft“; vor allem aber die Auseinandersetzung des Gegensatzes zwischen empirischem und intelligibelem Charakter, S. 534—550; V, 562—578, welche ich dem Vortrefflichsten beizähle, das je von Menschen gesagt worden (als ergänzende Erläuterung dieser Stelle ist anzusehen eine ihr parallele in der „Kritik der praktischen Vernunft“, S. 169—179 der vierten, oder S. 224—231 der Rosenkranzischen Ausgabe). Es ist jedoch um so mehr zu bedauern, daß solches hier nicht am rechten Orte steht, sofern nämlich, als es theils nicht auf dem Wege gefunden ist, den die Darstellung angiebt und daher auch anders, als geschieht, abzuleiten wäre, theils auch nicht den Zweck erfüllt, zu welchem es dasteht, nämlich die Auflösung der vorgeblichen Antinomie. Es wird von der Erscheinung auf ihren intelligibeln Grund, das Ding an sich, geschlossen, durch den schon genugsam gerügten inkonsequenten Gebrauch der Kategorie der Kausalität über alle Erscheinung hinaus. Als dieses Ding an sich wird für diesen Fall des Menschen Wille (den Kant höchst unstatthaft, mit unverzeihlicher Verletzung alles Sprachgebrauchs, Vernunft betitelt) aufgestellt, mit Berufung auf ein unbedingtes Sollen, den kategorischen Imperativ, der ohne Weiteres postulirt wird.

Statt alles diesen nun wäre das lautere, offene Verfahren gewesen, unmittelbar vom Willen auszugehen, diesen nachzuweisen als das ohne alle Vermittelung erkannte Ansich unserer eigenen Erscheinung, und dann jene Darstellung des empirischen und intelligibeln Charakters zu geben, darzuthun, wie alle Handlungen, obwohl durch Motive necessitirt, dennoch, sowohl von ihrem Urheber, als vom fremden Beurtheiler, jenem selbst und allein, nothwendig und schlechthin zugeschrieben werden, als lediglich von ihm abhängend, dem sonach Schuld und Verdienst ihnen gemäß zuerkannt werden. — Dieses allein war der gerade Weg zur Erkenntniß Dessen, was nicht Erscheinung ist, folglich auch nicht nach den Gesetzen der Erscheinung gefunden wird, sondern Das ist, was durch die Erscheinung sich offenbart, erkennbar wird, sich objektivirt, der Wille zum Leben. Derselbe hätte sodann, bloß nach Analogie, als das Ansich jeder Erscheinung dargestellt werden müssen. Dann hätte aber freilich nicht (S. 546; V, 574) gesagt werden können, bei der leblosen, ja der thierischen Natur, sei kein Vermögen anders als sinnlich bedingt zu denken; womit in Kants Sprache eigentlich gesagt ist, die Erklärung nach dem Gesetze der Kausalität erschöpfe auch das innerste Wesen jener Erscheinungen, wodurch sodann, sehr inkonsequent, das Ding an sich bei ihnen wegfällt. — Durch die unrechte Stelle und die ihr gemäße umgehende Ableitung, welche die Darstellung des Dinges an sich bei Kant erhalten hat, ist auch der ganze Begriff desselben verfälscht worden. Denn, durch Nachforschung einer unbedingten Ursache gefunden, tritt hier der Wille, oder das Ding an sich, zur Erscheinung in das Verhältniß der Ursache zur Wirkung. Dieses Verhältniß findet aber nur innerhalb der Erscheinung Statt, setzt diese daher schon voraus und kann nicht sie selbst mit dem verbinden, was außer ihr liegt und toto genere von ihr verschieden ist.

Ferner wird der vorgesetzte Zweck, die Auflösung der dritten Antinomie, durch die Entscheidung, daß beide Theile, jeder in einem andern Sinne, Recht haben, gar nicht erreicht. Denn sowohl Thesis als Antithesis reden keineswegs vom Dinge an sich, sondern durchaus von der Erscheinung, der objektiven Welt, der Welt als Vorstellung. Diese und durchaus nichts Anderes ist es, von der die Thesis durch das aufgezeigte Sophisma darthun will, daß sie unbedingte Ursachen enthalte, und diese auch ist es, von der die Antithesis dasselbe, mit Recht, leugnet. Daher ist die ganze zur Rechtfertigung der Thesis hier gegebene Darstellung von der transscendentalen Freiheit des Willens, sofern er Ding an sich ist, so vortrefflich an sich auch solche ist, hier doch ganz eigentlich eine μεταβασις εις αλλο γενος. Denn die dargestellte transscendentale Freiheit des Willens ist keineswegs die unbedingte Kausalität einer Ursache, welche die Thesis behauptet, weil eine Ursache wesentlich Erscheinung seyn muß, nicht ein jenseit aller Erscheinung liegendes toto genere Verschiedenes.

Wenn von Ursach und Wirkung geredet wird, darf das Verhältniß des Willens zu seiner Erscheinung (oder des intelligibeln Charakters zum empirischen) nie herbeigezogen werden, wie hier geschieht: denn es ist vom Kausalverhältniß durchaus verschieden. Inzwischen wird auch hier, in dieser Auflösung der Antinomie, der Wahrheit gemäß gesagt, daß der empirische Charakter des Menschen, wie der jeder andern Ursache in der Natur, unabänderlich bestimmt ist, und demgemäß aus ihm, nach Maaßgabe der äußeren Einwirkungen, die Handlungen nothwendig hervorgehen; daher denn auch, ohngeachtet aller transscendentalen Freiheit (d. i. Unabhängigkeit des Willens an sich von den Gesetzen des Zusammenhangs seiner Erscheinung), kein Mensch das Vermögen hat, eine Reihe von Handlungen von selbst zu beginnen: welches Letztere hingegen von der Thesis behauptet wurde. Also hat auch die Freiheit keine Kausalität: denn frei ist nur der Wille, welcher außerhalb der Natur oder Erscheinung liegt, die eben nur seine Objektivation ist, aber nicht in einem Verhältniß der Kausalität zu ihm steht, als welches Verhältniß erst innerhalb der Erscheinung angetroffen wird, also diese schon voraussetzt, nicht sie selbst einschließen und mit Dem verbinden kann, was ausdrücklich nicht Erscheinung ist. Die Welt selbst ist allein aus dem Willen (da sie eben er selbst ist, sofern er erscheint) zu erklären und nicht durch Kausalität. Aber in der Welt ist Kausalität das einzige Princip der Erklärung und geschieht Alles lediglich nach Gesetzen der Natur. Also liegt das Recht ganz auf der Seite der Antithese, welche bei Dem bleibt, wovon die Rede war, und das Princip der Erklärung gebraucht, das davon gilt, daher auch keiner Apologie bedarf; da hingegen die These durch eine Apologie aus der Sache gezogen werden soll, die erstlich zu etwas ganz anderem, als wonach die Frage war, überspringt und dann ein Princip der Erklärung hinüber nimmt, das daselbst nicht anzuwenden ist.

Der vierte Widerstreit ist, wie schon gesagt, seinem innersten Sinn nach, mit dem dritten tautologisch. In der Auflösung dazu entwickelt Kant noch mehr die Unhaltbarkeit der Thesis: für ihre Wahrheit hingegen und ihr vorgebliches Zusammenbestehen mit der Antithesis bringt er keinen Grund vor, so wie er umgekehrt keinen der Antithese entgegenzustellen vermag. Nur ganz bittweise führt er die Annahme der Thesis ein, nennt sie jedoch selbst (S. 562; V, 590) eine willkürliche Voraussetzung, deren Gegenstand an sich wohl unmöglich seyn möchte, und zeigt bloß ein ganz ohnmächtiges Bestreben, demselben vor der durchgreifenden Macht der Antithese irgendwo ein sicheres Plätzchen zu verschaffen, um nur die Nichtigkeit des ganzen ihm einmal beliebten Vorgebens der nothwendigen Antinomie in der menschlichen Vernunft nicht aufzudecken.

Es folgt das Kapitel vom transscendentalen Ideale, welches uns mit einem Mal in die starre Scholastik des Mittelalters zurückversetzt. Man glaubt den Anselmus von Kanterbury selbst zu hören. Das ens realissimum, der Inbegriff aller Realitäten, der Inhalt aller bejahenden Sätze, tritt auf und zwar mit dem Anspruch ein nothwendiger Gedanke der Vernunft zu seyn! — Ich meinerseits muß gestehen, daß meiner Vernunft ein solcher Gedanke unmöglich ist, und daß ich bei den Worten, die ihn bezeichnen, nichts Bestimmtes zu denken vermag.

Ich zweifle übrigens nicht, daß Kant zu diesem seltsamen und seiner unwürdigen Kapitel bloß durch seine Liebhaberei zur architektonischen Symmetrie genöthigt wurde. Die drei Hauptobjekte der Scholastischen Philosophie (welche man, wie gesagt, im weitern Sinn verstanden, bis auf Kant gehn lassen kann), die Seele, die Welt und Gott sollten aus den drei möglichen Obersätzen von Schlüssen abgeleitet werden; obwohl es offenbar ist, daß sie einzig und allein durch unbedingte Anwendung des Satzes vom Grunde entstanden sind und entstehen können. Nachdem nun die Seele in das kategorische Urtheil gezwängt worden, das hypothetische für die Welt verwendet war, blieb für die dritte Idee nichts übrig, als der disjunktive Obersatz. Glücklicherweise fand sich in diesem Sinn eine Vorarbeit, nämlich das ens realissimum der Scholastiker, nebst dem ontologischen Beweise des Daseyns Gottes, rudimentarisch von Anselm von Kanterbury aufgestellt und dann von Cartesius vervollkommnet. Dieses wurde von Kanten mit Freuden benutzt, auch wohl mit einiger Reminiscenz einer frühern lateinischen Jugendarbeit. Indessen ist das Opfer, welches Kant seiner Liebe zur architektonischen Symmetrie durch dieses Kapitel bringt, überaus groß. Aller Wahrheit zum Trotz wird die, man muß sagen grotteske Vorstellung eines Inbegriffs aller möglichen Realitäten zu einem der Vernunft wesentlichen und nothwendigen Gedanken gemacht. Zur Ableitung desselben ergreift Kant das falsche Vorgeben, daß unsere Erkenntniß einzelner Dinge durch eine immer weiter gehende Einschränkung allgemeiner Begriffe, folglich auch eines allerallgemeinsten, der alle Realität in sich enthielte, entstehe. Hierin steht er eben so sehr mit seiner eigenen Lehre, wie mit der Wahrheit in Widerspruch; da gerade umgekehrt unsere Erkenntniß, vom Einzelnen ausgehend, zum Allgemeinen erweitert wird, und alle allgemeinen Begriffe durch Abstraktion von realen, einzelnen, anschaulich erkannten Dingen entstehen, welche bis zum allerallgemeinsten Begriff fortgesetzt werden kann, der dann Alles unter sich, aber fast nichts in sich begreift. Kant hat also hier das Verfahren unsers Erkenntnißvermögens gerade auf den Kopf gestellt und könnte deshalb wohl gar beschuldigt werden, Anlaß gegeben zu haben zu einer in unsern Tagen berühmt gewordenen philosophischen Charlatanerie, welche, statt die Begriffe für aus den Dingen abstrahirte Gedanken zu erkennen, umgekehrt die Begriffe zum Ersten macht und in den Dingen nur konkrete Begriffe sieht, auf diese Weise die verkehrte Welt, als eine philosophische Hanswurstiade, die natürlich großen Beifall finden mußte, zu Markte bringend. —

Wenn wir auch annehmen, jede Vernunft müsse, oder wenigstens könne, auch ohne Offenbarung zum Begriff von Gott gelangen; so geschieht dies doch offenbar allein am Leitfaden der Kausalität; was so einleuchtend ist, daß es keines Beweises bedarf. Daher sagt auch Chr. Wolf (Cosmologia generalis, praef. p. 1): Sane in theologia naturali existentiam Numinis e principiis cosmologicis demonstramus. Contingentia universi et ordinis naturae, una cum impossibilitate casus, sunt scala, per quam a mundo hoc adspectabili ad Deum ascenditur. Und vor ihm sagte schon Leibnitz, in Beziehung auf das Kausalitätsgesetz: Sans ce grand principe nous ne pourrions jamais prouver l'existence de Dieu (Théod., §. 44). Und eben so in seiner Kontroverse mit Clarke, §. 126: J'ose dire que sans ce grand principe on ne saurait venir à la preuve de l'existence de Dieu. Hingegen ist der in diesem Kapitel ausgeführte Gedanke so weit davon entfernt, ein der Vernunft wesentlicher und nothwendiger zu seyn, daß er vielmehr zu betrachten ist als ein rechtes Meisterstück von den monstrosen Erzeugnissen eines durch wunderliche Umstände auf die seltsamsten Abwege und Verkehrtheiten gerathenen Zeitalters, wie das der Scholastik war, das ohne Aehnliches in der Weltgeschichte dasteht, noch je wiederkehren kann. Diese Scholastik hat allerdings, als sie zu ihrer Vollendung gediehen war, den Hauptbeweis für das Daseyn Gottes aus dem Begriffe des ens realissimum geführt und die andern Beweise nur daneben gebraucht, accessorisch: dies ist aber bloße Lehrmethode und beweist nichts über den Ursprung der Theologie im menschlichen Geist. Kant hat hier das Verfahren der Scholastik für das der Vernunft genommen, welches ihm überhaupt öfter begegnet ist. Wenn es wahr wäre, daß, nach wesentlichen Gesetzen der Vernunft, die Idee von Gott aus dem disjunktiven Schlusse hervorgienge, unter Gestalt einer Idee vom allerrealsten Wesen; so würde doch auch bei den Philosophen des Alterthums diese Idee sich eingefunden haben: aber vom ens realissimum ist nirgends eine Spur, bei keinem der alten Philosophen, obgleich einige derselben allerdings einen Weltschöpfer, aber nur als Formgeber der ohne ihn vorhandenen Materie, δημιουργος, lehren, den sie jedoch einzig und allein nach dem Gesetz der Kausalität erschließen. Zwar führt Sextus Empirikus (adv. Math., IX, §. 88) eine Argumentation des Kleanthes an, welche Einige für den ontologischen Beweis halten. Dies ist sie jedoch nicht, sondern ein bloßer Schluß aus der Analogie: weil nämlich die Erfahrung lehrt, daß auf Erden ein Wesen immer vorzüglicher, als das andere ist, und zwar der Mensch, als das vorzüglichste, die Reihe schließt, er jedoch noch viele Fehler hat; so muß es noch vorzüglichere und zuletzt ein allervorzüglichstes (κρατιστον, αριστον) geben, und dieses wäre der Gott.

Ueber die nunmehr folgende ausführliche Widerlegung der spekulativen Theologie habe ich nur in der Kürze zu bemerken, daß sie, wie überhaupt die ganze Kritik der drei sogenannten Ideen der Vernunft, also die ganze Dialektik der reinen Vernunft, zwar gewissermaaßen das Ziel und der Zweck des ganzen Werkes ist, dennoch aber dieser polemische Theil nicht eigentlich, wie der vorhergehende doktrinale, d. i. die Aesthetik und Analytik, ein ganz allgemeines, bleibendes und rein philosophisches Interesse hat; sondern mehr ein temporelles und lokales, indem derselbe in besonderer Beziehung steht zu den Hauptmomenten der bis auf Kant in Europa herrschenden Philosophie, deren völliger Umsturz durch diese Polemik jedoch Kanten zum unsterblichen Verdienst gereicht. Er hat aus der Philosophie den Theismus eliminirt, da in ihr, als einer Wissenschaft, und nicht Glaubenslehre, nur Das eine Stelle finden kann, was entweder empirisch gegeben, oder durch haltbare Beweise festgestellt ist. Natürlich ist hier bloß die wirkliche, ernstlich verstandene, auf Wahrheit und nichts Anderes gerichtete Philosophie gemeint, und keineswegs die Spaaßphilosophie der Universitäten, als in welcher, nach wie vor, die spekulative Theologie die Hauptrolle spielt; wie denn auch daselbst die Seele, als eine bekannte Person, nach wie vor, ohne Umstände auftritt. Denn sie ist die mit Gehalten und Honoraren, ja gar noch mit Hofrathstiteln ausgestattete Philosophie, welche, von ihrer Höhe stolz herabsehend, Leutchen, wie ich bin, vierzig Jahre hindurch, gar nicht gewahr wird, und den alten Kant, mit seinen Kritiken, auch herzlich gern los wäre, um den Leibnitz aus voller Brust hoch leben zu lassen. — Ferner ist hier zu bemerken, daß, wie Kant zu seiner Lehre von der Apriorität des Kausalitätsbegriffes eingeständlich veranlaßt worden ist durch Humes Skepsis in Hinsicht auf jenen Begriff, vielleicht eben so Kants Kritik aller spekulativen Theologie ihren Anlaß hat in Humes Kritik aller populären Theologie, welche dieser dargelegt hatte in seiner so lesenswerthen „Natural history of religion“, und den „Dialogues on natural religion“, ja, daß Kant diese gewissermaaßen ergänzen gewollt. Denn die zuerst genannte Schrift Humes ist eigentlich eine Kritik der populären Theologie, deren Erbärmlichkeit sie zeigen und dagegen auf die rationale oder spekulative Theologie, als die ächte, achtungsvoll hinweisen will. Kant aber deckt nun das Grundlose dieser letztern auf, läßt hingegen die populäre unangetastet und stellt sie sogar in veredelter Gestalt auf, als einen auf moralisches Gefühl gestützten Glauben. Diesen verdrehten späterhin die Philosophaster zu Vernunftvernehmungen, Gottesbewußtseynen, oder intellektuellen Anschauungen des Uebersinnlichen, der Gottheit u. dgl. m.; während vielmehr Kant, als er alte, ehrwürdige Irrthümer einriß und die Gefährlichkeit der Sache kannte, nur hatte, durch die Moraltheologie, einstweilen ein Paar schwache Stützen unterschieben wollen, damit der Einsturz nicht ihn träfe, sondern er Zeit gewönne, sich wegzubegeben.

Was nun die Ausführung betrifft, so war zur Widerlegung des ontologischen Beweises des Daseyns Gottes gar noch keine Vernunftkritik von Nöthen, indem auch ohne Voraussetzung der Aesthetik und Analytik es sehr leicht ist deutlich zu machen, daß jener ontologische Beweis nichts ist, als ein spitzfündiges Spiel mit Begriffen, ohne alle Ueberzeugungskraft. Schon im Organon des Aristoteles steht ein Kapitel, welches zur Widerlegung des ontotheologischen Beweises so vollkommen hinreicht, als ob es absichtlich dazu geschrieben wäre: es ist das siebente Kapitel des zweiten Buches der Analyt. post.: unter Anderm heißt es dort ausdrücklich: το δε ειναι ουχ ουσια ουδενι: d. h. existentia numquam ad essentiam rei pertinet.

Die Widerlegung des kosmologischen Beweises ist eine Anwendung der bis dahin vorgetragenen Lehre der Kritik auf einen gegebenen Fall, und nichts dagegen zu erinnern. — Der physikotheologische Beweis ist eine bloße Amplifikation des kosmologischen, den er voraussetzt, und findet auch seine ausführliche Widerlegung erst in der Kritik der Urtheilskraft. Meinen Leser verweise ich in dieser Hinsicht auf die Rubrik „Vergleichende Anatomie“ in meiner Schrift über den Willen in der Natur. Kant hat es, wie gesagt, bei der Kritik dieser Beweise bloß mit der spekulativen Theologie zu thun und beschränkt sich auf die Schule. Hätte er hingegen auch das Leben und die populaire Theologie im Auge gehabt, so hätte er zu den drei Beweisen noch einen vierten fügen müssen, der bei dem großen Haufen der eigentlich wirksame ist und in Kants Kunstsprache wohl am passendsten der keraunologische zu benennen wäre: es ist der, welcher sich gründet auf das Gefühl der Hülfsbedürftigkeit, Ohnmacht und Abhängigkeit des Menschen, unendlich überlegenen, unergründlichen und meistens unheildrohenden Naturmächten gegenüber; wozu sich sein natürlicher Hang Alles zu personifiziren gesellt und endlich noch die Hoffnung kommt, durch Bitten und Schmeicheln, auch wohl durch Geschenke, etwas auszurichten. Bei jeder menschlichen Unternehmung ist nämlich etwas, das nicht in unserer Macht steht und nicht in unsere Berechnung fällt: der Wunsch, dieses für sich zu gewinnen, ist der Ursprung der Götter. Primus in orbe Deos fecit timor ist ein altes Wahrwort des Petronius. Diesen Beweis hauptsächlich kritisirt Hume, der durchaus als Kants Vorläufer erscheint, in den oben erwähnten Schriften. — Wen nun aber Kant durch seine Kritik der spekulativen Theologie in dauernde Verlegenheit gesetzt hat, das sind die Philosophieprofessoren: von Christlichen Regierungen besoldet dürfen sie den Hauptglaubensartikel nicht im Stich lassen¹³. Wie helfen sich nun die Herren? — Sie behaupten eben, das Daseyn Gottes verstände sich von selbst. — So! nachdem die alte [14] Kant hat gesagt: „Es ist sehr was Ungereimtes, von der Vernunft Aufklärung zu erwarten, und ihr doch vorher vorzuschreiben, auf welche Seite sie nothwendig ausfallen müsse." (Kritik der reinen Vernunft, S. 747; V, 775.) Hingegen ist folgende Naivetät der Ausspruch eines Philosophieprofessors in unserer Zeit: „Leugnet eine Philosophie die Realität der Grundideen des Christenthums, so ist sie entweder falsch, oder, wenn auch wahr, doch unbrauchbar —" scilicet für Philosophieprofessoren. Der verstorbene Professor Bachmann ist es gewesen, welcher, in der Jena'schen Litteraturzeitung vom Juli 1840, Nr. 126, so indiskret die Maxime aller seiner Kollegen ausgeplaudert hat. Inzwischen ist es für die Charakteristik der Universitätsphilosophie bemerkenswerth, wie hier der Wahrheit, wenn sie sich nicht schicken und fügen will, so ohne Umschweife die Thüre gewiesen wird, mit: „Marsch, Wahrheit! wir können dich nicht brauchen. Sind wir dir etwas schuldig? Bezahlst du uns? — Also, Marsch!"

Welt, auf Kosten ihres Gewissens, Wunder gethan hat, es zu beweisen, und die neue Welt, auf Kosten ihres Verstandes, ontologische, kosmologische und physikotheologische Beweise ins Feld gestellt hat, — versteht es sich bei den Herren von selbst. Und aus diesem sich von selbst verstehenden Gott erklären sie sodann die Welt: das ist ihre Philosophie.

Bis auf Kant stand ein wirkliches Dilemma fest zwischen Materialismus und Theismus, d. h. zwischen der Annahme, daß ein blinder Zufall, oder daß eine von außen ordnende Intelligenz nach Zwecken und Begriffen, die Welt zu Stande gebracht hätte, neque dabatur tertium. Daher war Atheismus und Materialismus das Selbe: daher der Zweifel, ob es wohl einen Atheisten geben könne, d. h. einen Menschen, der wirklich die so überschwänglich zweckmäßige Anordnung der Natur, zumal der organischen, dem blinden Zufall zutrauen könne: man sehe z. B. Bacon's essays (sermones fideles), essay 16, on Atheism. In der Meinung des großen Haufens und der Engländer, welche in solchen Dingen gänzlich zum großen Haufen (mob) gehören, steht es noch so, sogar bei ihren berühmtesten Gelehrten: man sehe nur des R. Owen Ostéologie comparée, von 1855, préface p. 11, 12, wo er noch immer vor dem alten Dilemma steht zwischen Demokrit und Epikur einerseits und einer intelligence andererseits, in welcher la connaissance d'un être tel que l'homme a existé avant que l'homme fit son apparition. Von einer Intelligenz muß alle Zweckmäßigkeit ausgegangen seyn: daran zu zweifeln ist ihm noch nicht im Traume eingefallen. Hat er doch in der am 5. Sept. 1853 in der Académie des sciences gehaltenen Vorlesung dieser hier etwas modificirten préface, mit kindlicher Naivetät gesagt: La téléologie, ou la théologie scientifique (Comptes rendus, Sept. 1853), das ist ihm unmittelbar Eins! Ist etwas in der Natur zweckmäßig; nun so ist es ein Werk der Absicht, der Ueberlegung, der Intelligenz. Nun freilich, was geht so einen Engländer und die Académie des sciences die Kritik der Urtheilskraft an, oder gar mein Buch über den Willen in der Natur? So tief sehen die Herren nicht herab. Diese illustres confrères verachten ja die Metaphysik und die philosophie allemande: — sie halten sich an die Rockenphilosophie. Die Gültigkeit jenes disjunktiven Obersatzes, jenes Dilemmas zwischen Materialismus und Theismus, beruht aber auf der Annahme, daß die vorliegende Welt die der Dinge an sich sei, daß es folglich keine andere Ordnung der Dinge gebe, als die empirische. Nachdem aber, durch Kant, die Welt und ihre Ordnung zur bloßen Erscheinung geworden war, deren Gesetze hauptsächlich auf den Formen unseres Intellekts beruhen, brauchte das Daseyn und Wesen der Dinge und der Welt nicht mehr nach Analogie der von uns wahrgenommenen, oder bewirkten Veränderungen in der Welt erklärt zu werden, noch Das, was wir als Mittel und Zweck auffassen, auch in Folge einer solchen Erkenntniß entstanden zu seyn. Indem also Kant, durch seine wichtige Unterscheidung zwischen Erscheinung und Ding an sich, dem Theismus sein Fundament entzog, eröffnete er andererseits den Weg zu ganz anderartigen und tiefsinnigeren Erklärungen des Daseyns.

Im Kapitel von den Endabsichten der natürlichen Dialektik der Vernunft wird vorgegeben, die drei transscendenten Ideen seien als regulative Principien für die Fortschreitung der Kenntniß der Natur von Werth. Aber schwerlich kann es Kanten mit dieser Behauptung Ernst gewesen seyn. Wenigstens wird ihr Gegentheil, daß nämlich jene Voraussetzungen für alle Naturforschung hemmend und ertödtend sind, jedem Naturkundigen außer Zweifel seyn. Um dies an einem Beispiel zu erproben, überlege man, ob die Annahme einer Seele, als immaterieller, einfacher, denkender Substanz, den Wahrheiten, welche Cabanis so schön dargelegt hat, oder den Entdeckungen Flourens', Marshall Halls, und Ch. Bells hätte förderlich, oder im höchsten Grade hinderlich seyn müssen. Ja, Kant selbst sagt (Prolegomena, §. 44), „daß die Vernunftideen den Maximen der Vernunfterkenntniß der Natur entgegen und hinderlich sind". —

Es ist gewiß keines der geringsten Verdienste Friedrichs des Großen, daß unter seiner Regierung Kant sich entwickeln konnte und die „Kritik der reinen Vernunft" veröffentlichen durfte. Schwerlich würde unter irgend einer andern Regierung ein besoldeter Professor so etwas gewagt haben. Schon dem Nachfolger des großen Königs mußte Kant versprechen, nicht mehr zu schreiben.

Der Kritik des ethischen Theils der Kantischen Philosophie könnte ich mich hier entübrigt erachten, sofern ich eine solche ausführlicher und gründlicher, 22 Jahre später, als die gegenwärtige, geliefert habe, in den „beiden Grundproblemen der Ethik". Indessen kann das aus der ersten Auflage hier Beibehaltene, welches schon der Vollständigkeit wegen nicht wegfallen durfte, als zweckmäßige Prolusion zu jener spätern und viel gründlichern Kritik dienen, auf welche ich demnach, in der Hauptsache, den Leser verweise.

Gemäß der Liebe zur architektonischen Symmetrie mußte die theoretische Vernunft auch einen Pendant haben. Der intellectus practicus der Scholastik, welcher wieder abstammt vom νους πρακτικος des Aristoteles (De anima, III, 10, und Polit., VII, c. 14: ο μεν γαρ πρακτικος εστι λογος, ο δε θεωρητικος), giebt das Wort an die Hand. Jedoch wird hier etwas ganz Anderes damit bezeichnet, nicht wie dort die auf Technik gerichtete Vernunft; sondern hier tritt die praktische Vernunft auf als Quell und Ursprung der unleugbaren ethischen Bedeutsamkeit des menschlichen Handelns, so wie auch aller Tugend, alles Edelmuths und jedes erreichbaren Grades von Heiligkeit. Dieses Alles demnach käme aus bloßer Vernunft und erforderte nichts, als diese. Vernünftig handeln und tugendhaft, edel, heilig handeln wäre Eines und dasselbe: und eigennützig, boshaft, lasterhaft handeln wäre bloß unvernünftig handeln. Inzwischen haben alle Zeiten, alle Völker, alle Sprachen beides immer sehr unterschieden und gänzlich für zweierlei gehalten, wie auch noch bis auf den heutigen Tag alle Die thun, welche von der Sprache der neuern Schule nichts wissen, d. h. die ganze Welt mit Ausnahme eines kleinen Häufchens Deutscher Gelehrten: jene alle verstehen unter einem tugendhaften Wandel und einem vernünftigen Lebenslauf durchaus zwei ganz verschiedene Dinge. Daß der erhabene Urheber der Christlichen Religion, dessen Lebenslauf uns als das Vorbild aller Tugend aufgestellt wird, der allervernünftigste Mensch gewesen wäre, würde man eine sehr unwürdige, wohl gar eine blasphemirende Redensart nennen, und fast eben so auch, wenn gesagt würde, daß seine Vorschriften nur die beste Anweisung zu einem ganz vernünftigen Leben enthielten. Ferner daß, wer diesen Vorschriften gemäß, statt an sich und seine eigenen zukünftigen Bedürfnisse zum voraus zu denken, allemal nur dem größern gegenwärtigen Mangel Anderer abhilft, ohne weitere Rücksicht; ja, seine ganze Habe den Armen schenkt, um dann, aller Hülfsmittel entblößt, hinzugehen, die Tugend, welche er selbst geübt, auch Anderen zu predigen; dies verehrt Jeder mit Recht: wer aber wagt es als den Gipfel der Vernünftigkeit zu preisen? Und endlich, wer lobt es als eine überaus vernünftige That, daß Arnold von Winkelried, mit überschwänglichem Edelmuth, die feindlichen Speere zusammenfaßte, gegen seinen eigenen Leib, um seinen Landsleuten Sieg und Rettung zu verschaffen? — Hingegen, wenn wir einen Menschen sehen, der von Jugend an, mit seltener Ueberlegung darauf bedacht ist, sich die Mittel zu einem sorgenfreien Auskommen, zur Unterhaltung von Weib und Kindern, zu einem guten Namen bei den Leuten, zu äußerer Ehre und Auszeichnung zu verschaffen, und dabei sich nicht durch den Reiz gegenwärtiger Genüsse, oder den Kitzel dem Uebermuth der Mächtigen zu trotzen, oder den Wunsch erlittene Beleidigungen oder unverdiente Demüthigung zu rächen, oder die Anziehungskraft unnützer ästhetischer oder philosophischer Geistesbeschäftigung und Reisen nach sehenswerthen Ländern, — der sich durch alles Dieses und dem Aehnliches nicht irre machen, noch verleiten läßt, jemals sein Ziel aus den Augen zu verlieren; sondern mit großer Konsequenz einzig darauf hinarbeitet: wer wagt es zu leugnen, daß ein solcher Philister ganz außerordentlich vernünftig sei? sogar auch dann noch, wenn er sich einige nicht lobenswerthe, aber gefahrlose Mittel erlaubt hätte. Ja, noch mehr: wenn ein Bösewicht mit überlegter Verschmitztheit, nach einem wohldurchdachten Plane, sich zu Reichthümern, zu Ehren, ja zu Thronen und Kronen verhilft, dann mit der feinsten Arglist benachbarte Staaten umstrickt, sie einzeln überwältigt und nun zum Welteroberer wird, dabei sich nicht irre machen läßt durch irgend eine Rücksicht auf Recht, oder Menschlichkeit, sondern mit scharfer Konsequenz Alles zertritt und zermalmt, was seinem Plane entgegensteht, ohne Mitleid Millionen in Unglück jeder Art, Millionen in Blut und Tod stürzt, jedoch seine Anhänger und Helfer königlich belohnt und jederzeit schützt, nichts jemals vergessend, und dann so sein Ziel erreicht: wer sieht nicht ein, daß ein solcher überaus vernünftig zu Werk gehen mußte, daß, wie zum Entwurf der Pläne ein gewaltiger Verstand, so zu ihrer Ausführung vollkommene Herrschaft der Vernunft, ja recht eigentlich praktische Vernunft erfordert war? — Oder sind etwan auch die Vorschriften, welche der kluge und konsequente, überlegte und weitsehende Machiavelli dem Fürsten giebt, unvernünftig?¹⁵

Wie Bosheit mit Vernunft sehr gut beisammen besteht, ja erst in dieser Vereinigung recht furchtbar ist; so findet sich umgekehrt auch bisweilen Edelmuth verbunden mit Unvernunft. Dahin kann man die That des Koriolanus rechnen, der, nachdem er Jahrelang alle seine Kraft aufgewendet hatte, um sich Rache an den Römern zu verschaffen, jetzt, nachdem die Zeit endlich gekommen ist, sich durch das Flehen des Senats und das Weinen seiner Mutter und Gattin erweichen läßt, die so lange und so mühsam vorbereitete Rache aufgiebt, ja sogar, indem er dadurch den gerechten Zorn der Volsker auf sich ladet, für jene Römer stirbt, deren Undankbarkeit er kennt und mit so großer Anstrengung strafen gewollt hat. — Endlich, der Vollständigkeit wegen sei es erwähnt, kann Vernunft sehr wohl mit Unverstand sich vereinigen. Dies ist der Fall, wann eine dumme Maxime gewählt, aber mit Konsequenz durchgeführt wird. Ein Beispiel der Art gab die Prinzessin Isabella, Tochter Philipp's II., welche gelobte, so lange Ostende nicht erobert worden, kein reines Hemd anzuziehen, und Wort hielt, drei Jahre hindurch. Ueberhaupt gehören alle Gelübde hieher, deren Ursprung Mangel an [16] Beiläufig: Machiavells Problem war die Auflösung der Frage, wie sich der Fürst unbedingt auf dem Thron erhalten könne, trotz inneren und äußeren Feinden. Sein Problem war also keineswegs das ethische, ob ein Fürst als Mensch dergleichen wollen solle, oder nicht; sondern rein das politische, wie er, wenn er es will, es ausführen könne. Hiezu nun giebt er die Auflösung, wie man eine Anweisung zum Schachspielen schreibt, bei der es doch thöricht wäre, die Beantwortung der Frage zu vermissen, ob es moralisch räthlich sei, überhaupt Schach zu spielen. Dem Machiavell die Immoralität seiner Schrift vorwerfen, ist eben so angebracht, als es wäre, einem Fechtmeister vorzuwerfen, daß er nicht seinen Unterricht mit einer moralischen Vorlesung gegen Mord und Todschlag eröffnet.

Einsicht gemäß dem Gesetz der Kausalität, d. h. Unverstand ist; nichts desto weniger ist es vernünftig, sie zu erfüllen, wenn man einmal von so beschränktem Verstande ist, sie zu geloben.

Dem Angeführten entsprechend sehen wir auch die noch dicht vor Kant auftretenden Schriftsteller das Gewissen, als den Sitz der moralischen Regungen, mit der Vernunft in Gegensatz stellen: so Rousseau im vierten Buch des Emile: La raison nous trompe, mais la conscience ne trompe jamais; und etwas weiterhin: il est impossible d’expliquer par les conséquences de notre nature le principe immédiat de la conscience indépendant de la raison même. Noch weiter: Mes sentimens naturels parlent pour l’intérêt commun, ma raison rapportait tout à moi. — — — On a beau vouloir établir la vertu par la raison seule, quelle solide base peut-on lui donner? — In den Rêveries du promeneur, prom. 4ème, sagt er: Dans toutes les questions de morale difficiles je me suis toujours bien trouvé de les résoudre par le dictamen de la conscience, plutôt que par les lumières de la raison. — Ja, schon Aristoteles sagt ausdrücklich (Eth. magna, I, 5), daß die Tugenden ihren Sitz im αλογῳ μοριῳ της ψυχης (in parte irrationali animi) haben und nicht im λογον εχοντι (in parte rationali). Diesem gemäß sagt Stobäos (Ecl., II, c. 7), von den Peripatetikern redend: Την ηθικην αρετην ὑπολαμβανουσι περι το αλογον μερος γιγνεσθαι της ψυχης, επειδη διμερη προς την παρουσαν θεωριαν υπεθεντο την ψυχην, το μεν λογικον εχουσαν, το δ’ αλογον. Και περι μεν το λογικον την καλοκαγαθιαν γιγνεσθαι, και την φρονησιν, και την αγχινοιαν, και σοφιαν, και ευμαθειαν, και μνημην, και τας ὁμοιους· περι δε το αλογον, σωφροσυνην, και δικαιοσυνην, και ανδρειαν, και τας αλλας τας ηθικας καλουμενας αρετας. (Ethicam virtutem circa partem animae ratione carentem versari putant, cum duplicem, ad hanc disquisitionem, animam ponant, ratione praeditam, et ea carentem. In parte vero ratione praedita collocant ingenuitatem, prudentiam, perspicacitatem, sapientiam, docilitatem, memoriam et reliqua; in parte vero ratione destituta temperantiam, justitiam, fortitudinem, et reliquas virtutes, quas ethicas vocant.) Und Cicero setzt (De nat. Deor., III, c. 26–31) weitläuftig auseinander, daß Vernunft das nothwendige Mittel und Werkzeug zu allen Verbrechen ist.

Für das Vermögen der Begriffe habe ich die Vernunft erklärt. Diese ganz eigene Klasse allgemeiner, nicht anschaulicher, nur durch Worte symbolisirter und fixirter Vorstellungen ist es, die den Menschen vom Thiere unterscheidet und ihm die Herrschaft auf Erden giebt. Wenn das Thier der Sklave der Gegenwart ist, keine andere, als unmittelbar sinnliche Motive kennt und daher, wenn sie sich ihm darbieten, so nothwendig von ihnen gezogen oder abgestoßen wird, wie das Eisen vom Magnet; so ist dagegen im Menschen durch die Gabe der Vernunft die Besonnenheit aufgegangen. Diese läßt ihn, rückwärts und vorwärts blickend, sein Leben und den Lauf der Welt leicht im Ganzen übersehen, macht ihn unabhängig von der Gegenwart, läßt ihn überlegt, planmäßig und mit Bedacht zu Werke gehen, zum Bösen wie zum Guten. Aber was er thut, thut er mit vollkommenem Selbstbewußtseyn: er weiß genau, wie sein Wille sich entscheidet, was er jedesmal erwählt und welche andere Wahl, der Sache nach, möglich war, und aus diesem selbstbewußten Wollen lernt er sich selbst kennen und spiegelt sich an seinen Thaten. In allen diesen Beziehungen auf das Handeln des Menschen ist die Vernunft praktisch zu nennen: theoretisch ist sie nur, sofern die Gegenstände, mit denen sie sich beschäftigt, auf das Handeln des Denkenden keine Beziehung, sondern lediglich ein theoretisches Interesse haben, dessen sehr wenige Menschen fähig sind. Was in diesem Sinne praktische Vernunft heißt, wird so ziemlich durch das Lateinische Wort prudentia, welches, nach Cicero (De nat. Deor., II, 22), das zusammengezogene providentia ist, bezeichnet; da hingegen ratio, wenn von einer Geisteskraft gebraucht, meistens die eigentliche theoretische Vernunft bedeutet, wiewohl die Alten den Unterschied nicht strenge beobachteten. — In fast allen Menschen hat die Vernunft ihre beinahe ausschließlich praktische Richtung: wird nun aber auch diese verlassen, verliert das Denken die Herrschaft über das Handeln, wo es dann heißt: scio meliora, proboque, deteriora sequor, oder „le matin je fais des projets, et le soir je fais des sottises“, läßt also der Mensch sein Handeln nicht durch sein Denken geleitet werden, sondern durch den Eindruck der Gegenwart, fast nach Weise des Thieres, so nennt man ihn unvernünftig (ohne dadurch ihm moralische Schlechtigkeit vorzuwerfen), obwohl es ihm eigentlich nicht an Vernunft, sondern an Anwendung derselben auf sein Handeln fehlt, und man gewissermaaßen sagen könnte, seine Vernunft sei lediglich theoretisch, aber nicht praktisch. Er kann dabei ein recht guter Mensch seyn, wie Mancher, der keinen Unglücklichen sehen kann, ohne ihm zu helfen, selbst mit Aufopferungen, hingegen seine Schulden unbezahlt läßt. Der Ausübung großer Verbrechen ist ein solcher unvernünftiger Charakter gar nicht fähig, weil die dabei immer nöthige Planmäßigkeit, Verstellung und Selbstbeherrschung ihm unmöglich ist. Zu einem sehr hohen Grade von Tugend wird er es jedoch auch schwerlich bringen: denn, wenn er auch von Natur noch so sehr zum Guten geneigt ist; so können doch die einzelnen lasterhaften und boshaften Aufwallungen, denen jeder Mensch unterworfen ist, nicht ausbleiben und müssen, wo nicht Vernunft sich praktisch erzeigend, ihnen unveränderliche Maximen und feste Vorsätze entgegenhält, zu Thaten werden.

Als praktisch zeigt sich endlich die Vernunft ganz eigentlich in den recht vernünftigen Charaktern, die man deswegen im gemeinen Leben praktische Philosophen nennt, und die sich auszeichnen durch einen ungemeinen Gleichmuth bei unangenehmen, wie bei erfreulichen Vorfällen, gleichmäßige Stimmung und festes Beharren bei gefaßten Entschlüssen. In der That ist es das Vorwalten der Vernunft in ihnen, d. h. das mehr abstrakte, als intuitive Erkennen und daher das Ueberschauen des Lebens, mittelst der Begriffe, im Allgemeinen, Ganzen und Großen, welches sie ein für alle Mal bekannt gemacht hat mit der Täuschung des momentanen Eindrucks, mit dem Unbestand aller Dinge, der Kürze des Lebens, der Leerheit der Genüsse, dem Wechsel des Glücks und der großen und kleinen Tücken des Zufalls. Nichts kommt ihnen daher unerwartet, und was sie in abstracto wissen, überrascht sie nicht und bringt sie nicht aus der Fassung, wann es nun in der Wirklichkeit und im Einzelnen ihnen entgegentritt, wie dieses der Fall ist bei den nicht so vernünftigen Charaktern, auf welche die Gegenwart, das Anschauliche, das Wirkliche solche Gewalt ausübt, daß die kalten, farblosen Begriffe ganz in den Hintergrund des Bewußtseyns treten und sie, Vorsätze und Maximen vergessend, den Affekten und Leidenschaften jeder Art preisgegeben sind. Ich habe bereits am Ende des ersten Buches auseinandergesetzt, daß, meiner Ansicht nach, die Stoische Ethik ursprünglich nichts, als eine Anweisung zu einem eigentlich vernünftigen Leben, in diesem Sinne, war. Ein solches preiset auch Horatius wiederholentlich an sehr vielen Stellen. Dahin gehört auch sein Nil admirari und dahin ebenfalls das Delphische Μηδεν αγαν. Nil admirari mit „Nichts bewundern“ zu übersetzen ist ganz falsch. Dieser Horazische Ausspruch geht nicht sowohl auf das Theoretische, als auf das Praktische, und will eigentlich sagen: „Schätze keinen Gegenstand unbedingt; vergaffe dich in nichts, glaube nicht, daß der Besitz irgend einer Sache Glücksäligkeit verleihen könne: jede unsälige Begierde auf einen Gegenstand ist nur eine neckende Chimäre, die man eben so gut, aber viel leichter, durch verdeutlichte Erkenntniß, als durch errungenen Besitz, los werden kann.“ In diesem Sinne gebraucht das admirari auch Cicero, De divinatione, II, 2. Was Horaz meint, ist also die αθαμβια und ακαταπληξις, auch αθαυμασια, welche schon Demokritos als das höchste Gut pries (siehe Clem. Alex. Strom., II, 21, und vgl. Strabo, I, S. 98 und 105). — Von Tugend und Laster ist bei solcher Vernünftigkeit des Wandels eigentlich nicht die Rede, aber dieser praktische Gebrauch der Vernunft macht das eigentliche Vorrecht, welches der Mensch vor dem Thiere hat, geltend, und allein in dieser Rücksicht hat es einen Sinn und ist zulässig, von einer Würde des Menschen zu reden.

In allen dargestellten und in allen erdenklichen Fällen läuft der Unterschied zwischen vernünftigem und unvernünftigem Handeln darauf zurück, ob die Motive abstrakte Begriffe, oder anschauliche Vorstellungen sind. Daher eben stimmt die Erklärung, welche ich von der Vernunft gegeben, genau mit dem Sprachgebrauch aller Zeiten und Völker zusammen, welchen selbst man doch wohl nicht für etwas Zufälliges oder Beliebiges halten wird, sondern einsehen, daß er eben hervorgegangen ist aus dem jedem Menschen bewußten Unterschiede der verschiednen Geistesvermögen, welchem Bewußtseyn gemäß er redet, aber freilich es nicht zur Deutlichkeit abstrakter Definition erhebt. Unsere Vorfahren haben nicht die Worte, ohne ihnen einen bestimmten Sinn beizulegen, gemacht, etwan damit sie bereit lägen für Philosophen, die nach Jahrhunderten kommen und bestimmen möchten, was dabei zu denken seyn sollte; sondern sie bezeichneten damit ganz bestimmte Begriffe. Die Worte sind also nicht mehr herrenlos, und ihnen einen ganz andern Sinn unterlegen, als den sie bisher gehabt, heißt sie mißbrauchen, heißt eine Licenz einführen, nach der Jeder jedes Wort in beliebigem Sinn gebrauchen könnte, wodurch gränzenlose Verwirrung entstehen müßte. Schon Locke hat ausführlich dargethan, daß die meisten Uneinigkeiten in der Philosophie vom falschen Gebrauch der Worte kommen. Man werfe, der Erläuterung halber, nur einen Blick auf den schändlichen Mißbrauch, den heut zu Tage gedankenarme Philosophaster mit den Worten Substanz, Bewußtseyn, Wahrheit u. a. m. treiben. Auch die Aeußerungen und Erklärungen aller Philosophen, aus allen Zeiten, mit Ausnahme der neuesten, über die Vernunft, stimmen nicht weniger, als die unter allen Völkern herrschenden Begriffe von jenem Vorrecht des Menschen, mit meiner Erklärung davon überein. Man sehe was Platon, im vierten Buche der Republik und an unzähligen zerstreuten Stellen, das λογιμον oder λογιστικον της ψυχης nennt, was Cicero sagt, De nat. Deor., III, 26–31, was Leibnitz, Locke in den im ersten Buch bereits angeführten Stellen hierüber sagen. Es würde hier der Anführungen gar kein Ende seyn, wenn man zeigen wollte, wie alle Philosophen vor Kant von der Vernunft im Ganzen in meinem Sinn geredet haben, wenn sie gleich nicht mit vollkommner Bestimmtheit und Deutlichkeit das Wesen derselben, durch dessen Zurückführung auf einen Punkt, zu erklären wußten. Was man kurz vor Kants Auftreten unter Vernunft verstand, zeigen im Ganzen zwei Abhandlungen von Sulzer, im ersten Bande seiner vermischten philosophischen Schriften: die eine, „Zergliederung des Begriffes der Vernunft“, die andere, „Ueber den gegenseitigen Einfluß von Vernunft und Sprache“. Wenn man dagegen liest, wie in der neuesten Zeit, durch den Einfluß des Kantischen Fehlers, der sich nachher lawinenartig vergrößert hat, von der Vernunft geredet wird; so ist man genöthigt anzunehmen, daß sämmtliche Weisen des Alterthums, wie auch alle Philosophen vor Kant, ganz und gar keine Vernunft gehabt haben: denn die jetzt entdeckten unmittelbaren Wahrnehmungen, Anschauungen, Vernehmungen, Ahndungen der Vernunft sind ihnen so fremd geblieben, wie uns der sechste Sinn der Fledermäuse ist. Was übrigens mich betrifft, so muß ich bekennen, daß ich ebenfalls jene das Uebersinnliche, das Absolutum, nebst langen Geschichten, die sich mit demselben zutragen, unmittelbar wahrnehmende, oder auch vernehmende, oder intellektual anschauende Vernunft mir, in meiner Beschränktheit, nicht anders faßlich und vorstellig machen kann, als gerade so, wie den sechsten Sinn der Fledermäuse. Das aber muß man der Erfindung, oder Entdeckung, einer solchen Alles was beliebt sogleich unmittelbar wahrnehmenden Vernunft nachrühmen, daß sie ein unvergleichliches expédient ist, um allen Kanten mit ihren Vernunftkritiken zum Trotz sich und seine kürten Favoritideen auf die leichteste Weise von der Welt aus der Affäre zu ziehen. Die Erfindung und die Aufnahme, welche sie gefunden, macht dem Zeitalter Ehre.

Wenn gleich also das Wesentliche der Vernunft (το λογιμον, ἡ φρονησις, ratio, raison, reason) von allen Philosophen aller Zeiten im Ganzen und Allgemeinen richtig erkannt, obwohl nicht scharf genug bestimmt, noch auf einen Punkt zurückgeführt wurde; so ist hingegen was der Verstand (νους, διανοια, intellectus, esprit, intellect, understanding) sei, ihnen nicht so deutlich geworden; daher sie ihn oft mit der Vernunft vermischen und eben dadurch auch zu keiner ganz vollkommenen, reinen und einfachen Erklärung des Wesens dieser gelangen. Bei den Christlichen Philosophen erhielt nun der Begriff der Vernunft noch eine ganz fremdartige Nebenbedeutung, durch den Gegensatz zur Offenbarung, und hievon ausgehend behaupten dann Viele, mit Recht, daß die Erkenntniß der Verpflichtung zur Tugend auch aus bloßer Vernunft, d. h. auch ohne Offenbarung, möglich sei. Sogar auf Kants Darstellung und Wortgebrauch hat diese Rücksicht gewiß Einfluß gehabt. Allein jener Gegensatz ist eigentlich von positiver, historischer Bedeutung und daher ein der Philosophie fremdes Element, von welchem sie frei gehalten werden muß.

Man hätte erwarten dürfen, daß Kant in seinen Kritiken der theoretischen und praktischen Vernunft ausgegangen seyn würde von einer Darstellung des Wesens der Vernunft überhaupt, und, nachdem er so das Genus bestimmt hätte, zur Erklärung der beiden Species geschritten wäre, nachweisend, wie die eine und selbe Vernunft sich auf zwei so verschiedene Weisen äußert und doch, durch Beibehaltung des Hauptcharakters, sich als die selbe beurkundet. Allein von dem allen findet sich nichts. Wie ungenügend, schwankend und disharmonirend die Erklärungen sind, die er in der Kritik der reinen Vernunft von dem Vermögen, welches er kritisirt, hin und wieder beiläufig giebt, habe ich bereits nachgewiesen. Die praktische Vernunft findet sich schon in der Kritik der reinen Vernunft unangemeldet ein und steht nachher in der ihr eigens gewidmeten Kritik, als ausgemachte Sache da, ohne weitere Rechenschaft und ohne daß der mit Füßen getretene Sprachgebrauch aller Zeiten und Völker, oder die Begriffsbestimmungen der größten früheren Philosophen ihre Stimmen erheben dürfen. Im Ganzen kann man aus den einzelnen Stellen abnehmen, daß Kants Meinung dahin geht: das Erkennen von Principien a priori sei wesentlicher Charakter der Vernunft: da nun die Erkenntniß der ethischen Bedeutsamkeit des Handelns nicht empirischen Ursprungs ist; so ist auch sie ein principium a priori und stammt demnach aus der Vernunft, die dann insofern praktisch ist. — Ueber die Unrichtigkeit jener Erklärung der Vernunft habe ich schon genugsam geredet. Aber auch hievon abgesehen, wie oberflächlich und ungründlich ist es, hier das einzige Merkmal der Unabhängigkeit von der Erfahrung zu benutzen, um die heterogensten Dinge zu vereinigen, ihren übrigen, grundwesentlichen, unermeßlichen Abstand dabei übersehend. Denn auch angenommen, wiewohl nicht zugestanden, die Erkenntniß der ethischen Bedeutsamkeit des Handelns entspränge aus einem in uns liegenden Imperativ, einem unbedingten Soll; wie grundverschieden wäre doch ein solches von jenen allgemeinen Formen der Erkenntniß, welche er in der Kritik der reinen Vernunft als a priori uns bewußt nachweist, vermöge welches Bewußtseyns wir ein unbedingtes Muß zum voraus aussprechen können, gültig für alle uns mögliche Erfahrung. Der Unterschied aber zwischen diesem Muß, dieser schon im Subjekt bestimmten nothwendigen Form alles Objekts, und jenem Soll der Moralität, ist so himmelweit und so augenfällig, daß man das Zusammentreffen beider im Merkmal der nichtempirischen Erkenntnißart wohl als ein witziges Gleichniß, nicht aber als eine philosophische Berechtigung zur Identifizirung des Ursprungs beider geltend machen kann.

Uebrigens ist die Geburtsstätte dieses Kindes der praktischen Vernunft, des absoluten Solls oder kategorischen Imperativs, nicht in der Kritik der praktischen, sondern schon in der der reinen Vernunft, S. 802; V, 830. Die Geburt ist gewaltsam und gelingt nur mittelst der Geburtszange eines Daher, welches keck und kühn, ja man möchte sagen unverschämt, sich zwischen zwei einander wildfremde und keinen Zusammenhang habende Sätze stellt, um sie als Grund und Folge zu verbinden. Nämlich, daß nicht bloß anschauliche, sondern auch abstrakte Motive uns bestimmen, ist der Satz, von dem Kant ausgeht, ihn folgendermaaßen ausdrückend: „Nicht bloß was reizt, d. i. die Sinne unmittelbar afficirt, bestimmt die menschliche Willkür; sondern wir haben ein Vermögen, durch Vorstellungen von dem, was selbst auf entfernete Art nützlich oder schädlich ist, die Eindrücke auf unser sinnliches Begehrungsvermögen zu überwinden. Diese Ueberlegungen von dem, was in Hinsicht unsers ganzen Zustandes begehrungswerth, d. i. gut und nützlich, ist, beruhen auf der Vernunft.“ (Vollkommen richtig: spräche er nur immer so vernünftig von der Vernunft!) „Diese giebt daher! auch Gesetze, welche Imperativen, d. i. objektive Gesetze der Freiheit sind und sagen was geschehen soll, ob es gleich vielleicht nie geschieht.“ —! So, ohne weitere Beglaubigung, springt der kategorische Imperativ in die Welt, um daselbst das Regiment zu führen mit seinem unbedingten Soll, — einem Scepter aus hölzernem Eisen. Denn im Begriff Sollen liegt durchaus und wesentlich die Rücksicht auf angedrohte Strafe, oder versprochene Belohnung, als nothwendige Bedingung, und ist nicht von ihm zu trennen, ohne ihn selbst aufzuheben und ihm alle Bedeutung zu nehmen: daher ist ein unbedingtes Soll eine contradictio in adjecto. Dieser Fehler mußte gerügt werden, so nahe er übrigens mit Kants großem Verdienst um die Ethik verwandt ist, welche eben darin besteht, daß er die Ethik von allen Principien der Erfahrungswelt, namentlich von aller direkten oder indirekten Glücksäligkeitslehre frei gemacht und ganz eigentlich gezeigt hat, daß das Reich der Tugend nicht von dieser Welt sei. Dieses Verdienst ist um so größer, als schon alle alten Philosophen, mit Ausnahme des einzigen Platon, nämlich Peripatetiker, Stoiker, Epikureer, durch sehr verschiedene Kunstgriffe, Tugend und Glücksäligkeit bald nach dem Satz vom Grunde von einander abhängig machen, bald nach dem Satz vom Widerspruch identifiziren wollten. Nicht minder trifft derselbe Vorwurf alle Philosophen der neuen Zeit, bis auf Kant. Sein Verdienst hierin ist daher sehr groß: jedoch fordert die Gerechtigkeit auch hiebei zu erinnern, daß theils seine Darstellung und Ausführung der Tendenz und dem Geist seiner Ethik oft nicht entspricht, wie wir sogleich sehen werden, theils auch, daß er, selbst so, nicht der allererste ist, der die Tugend von allen Glücksäligkeitsprincipien gereinigt hat. Denn schon Platon, besonders in der Republik, deren Haupttendenz eben dieses ist, lehrt ausdrücklich, daß die Tugend allein ihrer selbst wegen zu wählen sei, auch wenn Unglück und Schande unausbleiblich mit ihr verknüpft wäre. Noch mehr aber predigt das Christenthum eine völlig uneigennützige Tugend, welche auch nicht wegen des Lohns in einem Leben nach dem Tode, sondern ganz unentgeltlich, aus Liebe zu Gott, geübt wird, sofern die Werke nicht rechtfertigen, sondern allein der Glaube, welchen, gleichsam als sein bloßes Symptom die Tugend begleitet und daher ganz unentgeltlich und von selbst eintritt. Man lese Luther, De libertate Christiana. Ich will gar nicht die Inder in Rechnung bringen, in deren heiligen Büchern überall das Hoffen eines Lohnes seiner Werke als der Weg der Finsterniß geschildert wird, der nie zur Säligkeit führen kann. So rein finden wir Kants Tugendlehre doch nicht: oder vielmehr die Darstellung ist hinter dem Geiste weit zurückgeblieben, ja, in Inkonsequenz verfallen. In seinem nachher abgehandelten höchsten Gut finden wir die Tugend mit der Glücksäligkeit vermählt. Das ursprünglich so unbedingte Soll postulirt sich hinterdrein doch eine Bedingung, eigentlich um den innern Widerspruch los zu werden, mit welchem behaftet es nicht leben kann. Die Glücksäligkeit im höchsten Gut soll nun zwar nicht eigentlich das Motiv zur Tugend seyn: dennoch steht sie da, wie ein geheimer Artikel, dessen Anwesenheit alles Uebrige zu einem bloßen Scheinvertrage macht: sie ist nicht eigentlich der Lohn der Tugend, aber doch eine freiwillige Gabe, zu der die Tugend, nach ausgestandener Arbeit, verstohlen die Hand offen hält. Man überzeuge sich hievon durch die „Kritik der praktischen Vernunft“ (S. 223–266 der vierten, oder S. 264–295 der Rosenkranzischen Ausgabe). Die selbe Tendenz hat auch seine ganze Moraltheologie: durch diese vernichtet eben deshalb eigentlich die Moral sich selbst. Denn, ich wiederhole es, alle Tugend, die irgendwie eines Lohnes wegen geübt wird, beruht auf einem klugen, methodischen, weitsehenden Egoismus.

Der Inhalt des absoluten Solls, das Grundgesetz der praktischen Vernunft, ist nun das Gerühmte: „Handle so, daß die Maxime deines Willens jederzeit zugleich als Princip einer allgemeinen Gesetzgebung gelten könnte.“ — Dieses Princip giebt Dem, welcher ein Regulativ für seinen eigenen Willen verlangt, die Aufgabe gar eines für den Willen Aller zu suchen. — Dann frägt sich, wie ein solches zu finden sei. Offenbar soll ich, um die Regel meines Verhaltens aufzufinden, nicht mich allein berücksichtigen, sondern die Gesammtheit aller Individuen. Alsdann wird, statt meines eigenen Wohlseyns, das Wohlseyn Aller, ohne Unterschied mein Zweck. Derselbe bleibt aber noch immer Wohlseyn. Ich finde sodann, daß Alle sich nur so gleich wohl befinden können, wenn Jeder seinem Egoismus den fremden zur Schranke setzt. Hieraus folgt freilich, daß ich Niemanden beeinträchtigen soll, weil, indem dies Princip als allgemein angenommen wird, auch ich nicht beeinträchtigt werde, welches aber der alleinige Grund ist, weshalb ich, ein Moralprincip noch nicht besitzend, sondern erst suchend, dieses zum allgemeinen Gesetz wünschen kann. Aber offenbar bleibt, auf diese Weise, Wunsch nach Wohlseyn, d. h. Egoismus, die Quelle dieses ethischen Princips. Als Basis der Staatslehre wäre es vortrefflich, als Basis der Ethik taugt es nicht. Denn zu der in jenem Moralprincip aufgegebenen Festsetzung eines Regulativs für den Willen Aller, bedarf, der es sucht, nothwendig selbst wieder eines Regulativs, sonst wäre ihm ja Alles gleichgültig. Dies Regulativ aber kann nur der eigene Egoismus seyn, da nur auf diesen das Verhalten Anderer einfließt, und daher nur mittelst desselben und in Rücksicht auf ihn, Jener einen Willen in Betreff des Handelns Anderer haben kann und es ihm nicht gleichgültig ist. Sehr naiv giebt Kant dieses selbst zu erkennen, S. 123 der „Kritik der praktischen Vernunft“ (Rosenkranzische Ausgabe, S. 192), wo er das Aufsuchen der Maxime für den Willen also ausführt: „Wenn Jeder Anderer Noth mit völliger Gleichgültigkeit ansähe, und du gehörtest mit zu einer solchen Ordnung der Dinge, würdest du darin willigen?“ — Quam temere in nosmet legem sancimus iniquam! wäre das Regulativ der nachgefragten Einwilligung. Eben so in der „Grundlegung zur Metaphysik der Sitten“, S. 56 der dritten, S. 50 der Rosenkranzischen Ausgabe: „Ein Wille, der beschlösse, Niemanden in der Noth beizustehen, würde sich widerstreiten, indem sich Fälle ereignen können, wo er Anderer Liebe und Theilnahme bedarf“ u. s. w. Dieses Princip der Ethik, welches daher, beim Licht betrachtet, nichts Anderes, als ein indirekter und verblümter Ausdruck des alten, einfachen Grundsatzes, quod tibi fieri non vis, alteri ne feceris ist, bezieht sich also zuerst und unmittelbar auf das Passive, das Leiden, und dann erst vermittelst dieses auf das Thun: daher wäre es, wie gesagt, als Leitfaden zur Errichtung des Staats, welcher auf die Verhütung des Unrechtleidens gerichtet ist, auch Allen und Jedem die größte Summe von Wohlseyn verschaffen möchte, ganz brauchbar; aber in der Ethik, wo der Gegenstand der Untersuchung das Thun als Thun und in seiner unmittelbaren Bedeutung für den Thäter ist, nicht aber seine Folge das Leiden, oder seine Beziehung auf Andere, ist jene Rücksicht durchaus nicht zulässig, indem sie im Grunde doch wieder auf ein Glücksäligkeitsprincip, also auf Egoismus, hinausläuft.

Wir können daher auch nicht Kants Freude theilen, die er daran hat, daß sein Princip der Ethik kein materiales, d. h. ein Objekt als Motiv setzendes, sondern ein bloß formales ist, wodurch es symmetrisch entspricht den formalen Gesetzen, welche die Kritik der reinen Vernunft uns kennen gelehrt hat. Es ist freilich, statt eines Gesetzes, nur die Formel zur Auffindung eines solchen: aber theils hatten wir diese Formel schon kürzer und klärer in dem: quod tibi fieri non vis, alteri ne feceris; theils zeigt die Analyse dieser Formel, daß einzig und allein die Rücksicht auf eigene Glücksäligkeit ihr Gehalt giebt, daher sie nur dem vernünftigen Egoismus dienen kann, dem auch alle gesetzliche Verfassung ihren Ursprung verdankt.

Ein anderer Fehler, der, weil er dem Gefühl eines Jeden Anstoß giebt, oft gerügt und von Schiller in einem Epigramm persiflirt ist, ist die pedantische Satzung, daß eine That, um wahrhaft gut und verdienstlich zu seyn, einzig und allein aus Achtung vor dem erkannten Gesetz und dem Begriff der Pflicht, und nach einer der Vernunft in abstracto bewußten Maxime vollbracht werden muß, nicht aber irgend aus Neigung, nicht aus gefühltem Wohlwollen gegen Andere, nicht aus weichherziger Theilnahme, Mitleid oder Herzensaufwallung, welche (laut „Kritik der praktischen Vernunft“, S. 213; Rosenkranzische Ausgabe, S. 257) wohldenkenden Personen, als ihre überlegten Maximen verwirrend, sogar sehr lästig sind; sondern die That muß ungern und mit Selbstzwang geschehen. Man erinnere sich, daß dabei dennoch Hoffnung des Lohnes nicht einfließen soll, und ermesse die große Ungereimtheit der Forderung. Aber, was mehr sagen will, dieselbe ist dem ächten Geiste der Tugend gerade entgegen: nicht die That, sondern das Gernthun derselben, die Liebe, aus der sie hervorgeht und ohne welche sie ein todtes Werk ist, macht das Verdienstliche derselben aus. Daher lehrt auch das Christenthum mit Recht, daß alle äußern Werke werthlos sind, wenn sie nicht aus jener ächten Gesinnung, welche in der wahren Gernwilligkeit und reinen Liebe besteht, hervorgehen, und daß nicht die verrichteten Werke (opera operata), sondern der Glaube, die ächte Gesinnung, welche allein der heilige Geist verleiht, nicht aber der freie und überlegte, das Gesetz allein vor Augen habende Wille gebiert, sälig mache und erlöse. — Mit jener Forderung Kants, daß jede tugendhafte Handlung aus reiner, überlegter Achtung vor dem Gesetz und nach dessen abstrakten Maximen, kalt und ohne, ja gegen alle Neigung geschehen solle, ist es gerade so, wie wenn behauptet würde, jedes ächte Kunstwerk müßte durch wohl überlegte Anwendung ästhetischer Regeln entstehen. Eines ist so verkehrt wie das Andere. Die schon von Platon und Seneka behandelte Frage, ob die Tugend sich lehren lasse, ist zu verneinen. Man wird sich endlich entschließen müssen einzusehen, was auch der Christlichen Lehre von der Gnadenwahl den Ursprung gab, daß, der Hauptsache und dem Innern nach, die Tugend gewissermaaßen wie der Genius angeboren ist, und daß eben so wenig, als alle Professoren der Aesthetik, mit vereinten Kräften, irgend Einem die Fähigkeit genialer Produktionen, d. h. ächter Kunstwerke beibringen können, eben so wenig alle Professoren der Ethik und Prediger der Tugend einen unedeln Charakter zu einem tugendhaften, edeln umzuschaffen vermögen, wovon die Unmöglichkeit sehr viel offenbarer ist, als die der Umwandlung des Bleies in Gold; und das Aufsuchen einer Ethik und eines obersten Princips derselben, die praktischen Einfluß hätten und wirklich das Menschengeschlecht umwandelten und besserten, ist ganz gleich dem Suchen des Steines der Weisen. — Von der Möglichkeit jedoch einer gänzlichen Sinnesänderung des Menschen (Wiedergeburt), nicht mittelst abstrakter (Ethik), sondern mittelst intuitiver Erkenntniß (Gnadenwirkung), ist am Ende unsers vierten Buches ausführlich geredet; der Inhalt welches Buches mich überhaupt der Nothwendigkeit überhebt, hiebei länger zu verweilen.

Daß Kant in die eigentliche Bedeutung des ethischen Gehaltes der Handlungen keineswegs eingedrungen sei, zeigt er endlich auch durch seine Lehre vom höchsten Gut als der nothwendigen Vereinigung von Tugend und Glücksäligkeit und zwar so, daß jene die Würdigkeit zu dieser wäre. Schon der logische Tadel trifft ihn hier, daß der Begriff der Würdigkeit, der hier den Maaßstab macht, bereits eine Ethik als seinen Maaßstab voraussetzt, also nicht von ihm ausgegangen werden durfte. In unserm vierten Buche hat sich ergeben, daß alle ächte Tugend, nachdem sie ihren höchsten Grad erreicht hat, zuletzt hinleitet zu einer völligen Entsagung, in der alles Wollen ein Ende findet: hingegen ist Glücksäligkeit ein befriedigtes Wollen, Beide sind also von Grund aus unvereinbar. Für Den, welchem meine Darstellung eingeleuchtet hat, bedarf es weiter keiner Auseinandersetzung der gänzlichen Verkehrtheit dieser Kantischen Ansicht vom höchsten Gut. Und unabhängig von meiner positiven Darstellung habe ich hier weiter keine negative zu geben.

Kants Liebe zur architektonischen Symmetrie tritt uns denn auch in der „Kritik der praktischen Vernunft“ entgegen, indem er dieser ganz den Zuschnitt der „Kritik der reinen Vernunft“ gegeben und die selben Titel und Formen wieder angebracht hat, mit augenscheinlicher Willkür, welche besonders sichtbar wird an der Tafel der Kategorien der Freiheit.

Die Rechtslehre ist eines der spätesten Werke Kants und ein so schwaches, daß, obgleich ich sie gänzlich mißbillige, ich eine Polemik gegen dieselbe für überflüssig halte, da sie, gleich als wäre sie nicht das Werk dieses großen Mannes, sondern das Erzeugniß eines gewöhnlichen Erdensohnes, an ihrer eigenen Schwäche natürlichen Todes sterben muß. Ich begebe mich also in Hinsicht auf die Rechtslehre des negativen Verfahrens, und beziehe mich auf das positive, also auf die kurzen Grundzüge derselben, die in unserm vierten Buche aufgestellt sind. Bloß ein Paar allgemeine Bemerkungen über Kants Rechtslehre mögen hier stehen. Die Fehler, welche ich, als Kanten überall anhängend, bei der Betrachtung der „Kritik der reinen Vernunft“ gerügt habe, finden sich in der Rechtslehre in solchem Uebermaaß, daß man oft eine satirische Parodie der Kantischen Manier zu lesen, oder doch wenigstens einen Kantianer zu hören glaubt. Zwei Hauptfehler sind aber diese. Er will (und Viele haben es seitdem gewollt) die Rechtslehre von der Ethik scharf trennen, dennoch aber erstere nicht von positiver Gesetzgebung, d. h. willkürlichem Zwange, abhängig machen, sondern den Begriff des Rechts rein und a priori für sich bestehen lassen. Allein dieses ist nicht möglich; weil das Handeln, außer seiner ethischen Bedeutsamkeit und außer der physischen Beziehung auf Andere und dadurch auf äußern Zwang, gar keine dritte Ansicht auch nur möglicherweise zuläßt. Folglich wenn er sagt: „Rechtspflicht ist die, welche erzwungen werden kann“; so ist dieses Kann entweder physisch zu verstehen: dann ist alles Recht positiv und willkürlich, und wieder auch alle Willkür, die sich durchsetzen läßt, ist Recht: oder das Kann ist ethisch zu verstehen, und wir sind wieder auf dem Gebiet der Ethik. Bei Kant schwebt folglich der Begriff des Rechts zwischen Himmel und Erde, und hat keinen Boden, auf dem er fußen kann: bei mir gehört er in die Ethik. Zweitens ist seine Bestimmung des Begriffs Recht ganz negativ und dadurch ungenügend [17]: „Recht ist das, was sich mit dem Zusammenbestehen¹⁸ Wenn gleich der Begriff Recht eigentlich ein negativer ist, im Gegensatz des Unrechts, welches der positive Ausgangspunkt ist; so darf deshalb doch die Erklärung dieser Begriffe nicht durch und durch negativ seyn. der Freiheiten der Individuen neben einander nach einem allgemeinen Gesetze verträgt.“ — Freiheit (hier die empirische, d. i. physische, nicht die moralische des Willens) bedeutet das Nichtgehindertseyn, ist also eine bloße Negation: ganz dieselbe Bedeutung hat das Zusammenbestehen wieder: wir bleiben also bei lauter Negationen und erhalten keinen positiven Begriff, ja erfahren gar nicht, wovon eigentlich die Rede ist, wenn wir es nicht schon anderweitig wissen. — In der Ausführung entwickeln sich nachher die verkehrtesten Ansichten, wie die, daß es im natürlichen Zustande, d. h. außer dem Staat, gar kein Recht auf Eigenthum gebe, welches eigentlich heißt, daß alles Recht positiv sei, und wodurch das Naturrecht auf das positive gestützt wird, statt daß der Fall umgekehrt seyn sollte; ferner die Begründung der rechtlichen Erwerbung durch Besitzergreifung; die ethische Verpflichtung zur Errichtung der bürgerlichen Verfassung; der Grund des Strafrechts u. s. w., welches alles ich, wie gesagt, gar keiner besondern Widerlegung werth achte. Inzwischen haben auch diese Kantischen Irrthümer einen sehr nachtheiligen Einfluß bewiesen, längst erkannte und ausgesprochene Wahrheiten wieder verwirrt und verdunkelt, seltsame Theorien, viel Schreibens und Streitens veranlaßt. Von Bestand kann das freilich nicht seyn, und schon sehen wir, wie Wahrheit und gesunde Vernunft sich wieder Bahn machen: von letzterer zeugt, im Gegensatz so mancher verschrobenen Theorie, besonders J. C. F. Meister’s Naturrecht, obgleich ich dieses darum nicht als Muster erreichter Vollkommenheit ansehe.

Auch über die Kritik der Urtheilskraft kann ich, nach dem Bisherigen, sehr kurz seyn. Man muß es bewundern, wie Kant, dem die Kunst wohl sehr fremd geblieben ist, und der, allem Anschein nach, wenig Empfänglichkeit für das Schöne hatte, ja der zudem wahrscheinlich nie Gelegenheit gehabt, ein bedeutendes Kunstwerk zu sehen, und der endlich sogar von seinem, sowohl im Jahrhundert als in der Nation, allein ihm an die Seite zu stellenden Riesenbruder Goethe keine Kunde gehabt zu haben scheint, — es ist, sage ich, zu bewundern, wie bei diesem Allen Kant sich um die philosophische Betrachtung der Kunst und des Schönen ein großes und bleibendes Verdienst erwerben konnte. Dieses Verdienst liegt darin, daß, so viel auch über das Schöne und die Kunst waren Betrachtungen angestellt worden, man doch eigentlich die Sache immer nur vom empirischen Standpunkt aus betrachtet hatte und auf Thatsachen gestützt untersuchte, welche Eigenschaft das schön genannte Objekt irgend einer Art von andern Objekten derselben Art unterschied. Auf diesem Wege gelangte man Anfangs zu ganz speciellen Sätzen, dann zu allgemeineren. Man suchte das ächte Kunstschöne vom unächten zu sondern und Merkmale dieser Aechtheit aufzufinden, die dann eben auch wieder als Regeln dienen konnten. Was als schön gefalle, was nicht, was daher nachzuahmen, anzustreben, was zu vermeiden sei, welche Regeln, wenigstens negativ, festzustellen, kurz, welches die Mittel zur Erregung des ästhetischen Wohlgefallens, d. h. welches die im Objekt liegenden Bedingungen hiezu seien, das war fast ausschließlich das Thema aller Betrachtungen über die Kunst. Diesen Weg hatte Aristoteles eingeschlagen, und auf demselben finden wir noch in der neuesten Zeit Home, Burke, Winkelmann, Lessing, Herder u. a. m. Zwar führte die Allgemeinheit der aufgefundenen ästhetischen Sätze zuletzt auch auf das Subjekt zurück, und man merkte, daß wenn die Wirkung in diesem gehörig bekannt wäre, man alsdann auch die im Objekt liegende Ursache derselben würde a priori bestimmen können, wodurch allein diese Betrachtung zur Sicherheit einer Wissenschaft gelangen könnte. Dieses veranlaßte hin und wieder psychologische Erörterungen, besonders aber stellte in dieser Absicht Alexander Baumgarten eine allgemeine Aesthetik alles Schönen auf, wobei er ausgieng vom Begriff der Vollkommenheit der sinnlichen, also anschaulichen Erkenntniß. Mit der Aufstellung dieses Begriffs ist bei ihm aber auch der subjektive Theil sogleich abgethan, und es wird zum objektiven und dem sich darauf beziehenden Praktischen geschritten. — Kanten aber war auch hier das Verdienst aufbehalten, die Anregung selbst, in Folge welcher wir das sie veranlassende Objekt schön nennen, ernstlich und tief zu untersuchen, um, wo möglich, die Bestandtheile und Bedingungen derselben in unserm Gemüth aufzufinden. Seine Untersuchung nahm daher ganz die subjektive Richtung. Dieser Weg war offenbar der richtige: weil, um eine in ihren Wirkungen gegebene Erscheinung zu erklären, man, um die Beschaffenheit der Ursache gründlich zu bestimmen, erst diese Wirkung selbst genau kennen muß. Viel weiter jedoch, als den rechten Weg gezeigt und durch einen einstweiligen Versuch ein Beispiel gegeben zu haben, wie man ungefähr ihn gehen müsse, erstreckt sich Kants Verdienst hierin eigentlich nicht. Denn was er gab, kann nicht als objektive Wahrheit und realer Gewinn betrachtet werden. Er gab die Methode dieser Untersuchung an, brach die Bahn, verfehlte übrigens das Ziel.

Bei der Kritik der ästhetischen Urtheilskraft wird zuvörderst sich uns die Bemerkung aufdringen, daß er die Methode, welche seiner ganzen Philosophie eigen ist und welche ich oben ausführlich betrachtet habe, beibehielt: ich meyne das Ausgehen von der abstrakten Erkenntniß, zur Ergründung der anschaulichen, so daß ihm jene gleichsam als camera obscura dient, um diese darin aufzufangen und zu übersehen. Wie, in der Kritik der reinen Vernunft, die Formen der Urtheile ihm Aufschluß geben sollten über die Erkenntniß unserer ganzen anschaulichen Welt; so geht er auch in dieser Kritik der ästhetischen Urtheilskraft nicht vom Schönen selbst, vom anschaulichen, unmittelbaren Schönen aus, sondern vom Urtheil über das Schöne, dem sehr häßlich sogenannten Geschmacksurtheil. Dieses ist ihm sein Problem. Besonders erregt seine Aufmerksamkeit der Umstand, daß ein solches Urtheil offenbar die Aussage eines Vorgangs im Subjekt ist, dabei aber doch so allgemein gültig, als beträfe es eine Eigenschaft des Objekts. Dies hat ihn frappirt, nicht das Schöne selbst. Er geht immer nur von den Aussagen Anderer aus, vom Urtheil über das Schöne, nicht vom Schönen selbst. Es ist daher, als ob er es ganz und gar nur vom Hörensagen, nicht unmittelbar kennte. Fast eben so könnte ein höchst verständiger Blinder, aus genauen Aussagen, die er über die Farben hörte, eine Theorie derselben kombiniren. Und wirklich dürfen wir Kants Philosopheme über das Schöne beinahe nur in solchem Verhältniß betrachten. Dann werden wir finden, daß seine Theorie sehr sinnreich ist, ja, daß hin und wieder treffende und wahre allgemeine Bemerkungen gemacht sind: aber seine eigentliche Auflösung des Problems ist so sehr unstatthaft, bleibt so tief unter der Würde des Gegenstandes, daß es uns nicht einfallen kann, sie für objektive Wahrheit zu halten; daher ich sogar einer Widerlegung derselben mich überhoben achte und auch hier auf den positiven Theil meiner Schrift verweise.

In Hinsicht auf die Form seines ganzen Buches ist zu bemerken, daß sie aus dem Einfall entsprungen ist, im Begriff der Zweckmäßigkeit den Schlüssel zum Problem des Schönen zu finden. Der Einfall wird deducirt, was überall nicht schwer ist, wie wir aus den Nachfolgern Kants gelernt haben. So entsteht nun die barocke Vereinigung der Erkenntniß des Schönen mit der des Zweckmäßigen der natürlichen Körper, in ein Erkenntnißvermögen, Urtheilskraft genannt, und die Abhandlung beider heterogenen Gegenstände in einem Buch. Mit diesen drei Erkenntnißkräften, Vernunft, Urtheilskraft und Verstand, werden nachher mancherlei symmetrisch-architektonische Belustigungen vorgenommen, die Liebhaberei, zu welchen überhaupt in diesem Buch sich vielfältig zeigt, schon in dem, dem Ganzen gewaltsam angepaßten Zuschnitt der Kritik der reinen Vernunft, ganz besonders aber in der bei den Haaren herbeigezogenen Antinomie der ästhetischen Urtheilskraft. Man könnte auch einen Vorwurf großer Inkonsequenz daraus nehmen, daß, nachdem in der Kritik der reinen Vernunft unablässig wiederholt ist, der Verstand sei das Vermögen zu urtheilen, und nachdem die Formen seiner Urtheile zum Grundstein aller Philosophie gemacht sind, nun noch eine ganz eigenthümliche Urtheilskraft auftritt, die von jenem völlig verschieden ist. Was übrigens ich Urtheilskraft nenne, nämlich die Fähigkeit, die anschauliche Erkenntniß in die abstrakte zu übertragen und diese wieder richtig auf jene anzuwenden, ist im positiven Theil meiner Schrift ausgeführt.

Bei weitem das Vorzüglichste in der Kritik der ästhetischen Urtheilskraft ist die Theorie des Erhabenen: sie ist ungleich besser gelungen, als die des Schönen, und giebt nicht nur, wie jene, die allgemeine Methode der Untersuchung an, sondern auch noch ein Stück des rechten Weges dazu, so sehr, daß wenn sie gleich nicht die eigentliche Auflösung des Problems giebt, sie doch sehr nahe daran streift.

In der Kritik der teleologischen Urtheilskraft kann man, wegen der Einfachheit des Stoffs, vielleicht mehr als irgendwo Kants seltsames Talent erkennen, einen Gedanken hin und her zu wenden und auf mannigfaltige Weise auszusprechen, bis daraus ein Buch geworden. Das ganze Buch will allein dieses: obgleich die organisirten Körper uns nothwendig so erscheinen, als wären sie einem ihnen vorhergegangenen Zweckbegriff gemäß zusammengesetzt; so berechtigt uns dies doch nicht, es objektiv so anzunehmen. Denn unser Intellekt, dem die Dinge von außen und mittelbar gegeben werden, der also nie das Innere derselben, wodurch sie entstehen und bestehen, sondern bloß ihre Außenseite erkennt, kann sich eine gewisse, den organischen Naturprodukten eigenthümliche Beschaffenheit nicht anders faßlich machen, als durch Analogie, indem er sie vergleicht mit den von Menschen absichtlich verfertigten Werken, deren Beschaffenheit durch einen Zweck und den Begriff von diesem bestimmt wird. Diese Analogie ist hinreichend, die Uebereinstimmung aller ihrer Theile zum Ganzen uns faßlich zu machen und dadurch sogar den Leitfaden zu ihrer Untersuchung abzugeben: aber keineswegs darf sie deshalb zum wirklichen Erklärungsgrunde des Ursprungs und Daseyns solcher Körper gemacht werden. Denn die Nothwendigkeit sie so zu begreifen ist subjektiven Ursprungs. — So etwan würde ich Kants Lehre hierüber resumiren. Der Hauptsache nach hatte er sie bereits in der Kritik der reinen Vernunft, S. 692–702; V, 720–730, dargelegt. Aber auch in der Erkenntniß dieser Wahrheit finden wir den David Hume als Kants ruhmwürdigen Vorläufer: auch er hatte jene Annahme scharf bestritten, in der zweiten Abtheilung seiner Dialogues concerning natural religion. Der Unterschied der Hume’schen Kritik jener Annahme von der Kantischen ist hauptsächlich dieser, daß Hume dieselbe als eine auf Erfahrung gestützte, Kant hingegen sie als eine apriorische kritisirt. Beide haben Recht und ihre Darstellungen ergänzen einander. Ja, das Wesentliche der Kantischen Lehre hierüber finden wir schon ausgesprochen im Kommentar des Simplicius zur Physik des Aristoteles: ἡ δε πλανη γεγονεν αυτοις απο του ἡγεισθαι, παντα τα ἑνεκα του γινομενα κατα προαιρεσιν γενεσθαι και λογισμον, τα δε φυσει μη οὑτως ὁραν γινομενα. (Error iis ortus est ex eo, quod credebant, omnia, quae propter finem aliquem fierent, ex proposito et ratiocinio fieri, dum videbant, naturae opera non ita fieri.) Schol. in Arist. ex. edit. Berol. p. 354. Kant hat in der Sache vollkommen Recht: auch war es nöthig, daß, nachdem gezeigt war, daß auf das Ganze der Natur überhaupt, ihrem Daseyn nach, der Begriff von Wirkung und Ursache nicht anzuwenden, auch gezeigt wurde, daß sie ihrer Beschaffenheit nach nicht als Wirkung einer von Motiven (Zweckbegriffen) geleiteten Ursache zu denken sei. Wenn man die große Scheinbarkeit des physikotheologischen Beweises bedenkt, den sogar Voltaire für unwiderleglich hielt; so war es von der größten Wichtigkeit, zu zeigen, daß das Subjektive in unserer Auffassung, welchem Kant Raum, Zeit und Kausalität vindicirt hat, sich auch auf unsere Beurtheilung der Naturkörper erstreckt, und demnach die Nöthigung, welche wir empfinden, sie uns als prämeditirt, nach Zweckbegriffen, also auf einem Wege, wo die Vorstellung derselben ihrem Daseyn vorangegangen wäre, entstanden zu denken, eben so subjektiven Ursprungs ist, wie die Anschauung des so objektiv sich darstellenden Raums, mithin nicht als objektive Wahrheit geltend gemacht werden darf. Kants Auseinandersetzung der Sache ist, abgesehen von der ermüdenden Weitschweifigkeit und Wiederholung, vortrefflich. Mit Recht behauptet er, daß wir nie dahin gelangen werden, die Beschaffenheit der organischen Körper aus bloß mechanischen Ursachen, worunter er die absichtslose und gesetzmäßige Wirkung aller allgemeinen Naturkräfte versteht, zu erklären. Ich finde hier jedoch noch eine Lücke. Er leugnet nämlich die Möglichkeit einer solchen Erklärung bloß in Rücksicht auf die Zweckmäßigkeit und anscheinende Absichtlichkeit der organischen Körper. Allein wir finden, daß, auch wo diese nicht Statt hat, die Erklärungsgründe aus einem Gebiet der Natur nicht in das andere hinübergezogen werden können, sondern uns, sobald wir ein neues Gebiet betreten, verlassen, und statt ihrer neue Grundgesetze auftreten, deren Erklärung aus denen des vorigen gar nicht zu hoffen ist. So herrschen im Gebiet des eigentlich Mechanischen die Gesetze der Schwere, Kohäsion, Starrheit, Flüssigkeit, Elasticität, welche an sich (abgesehen von meiner Erklärung aller Naturkräfte als niederer Stufen der Objektivation des Willens) als Aeußerungen weiter nicht zu erklärender Kräfte dastehen, selbst aber die Principien aller fernern Erklärung, welche bloß in Zurückführung auf jene besteht, ausmachen. Verlassen wir dieses Gebiet und kommen zu den Erscheinungen des Chemismus, der Elektricität, Magnetismus, Krystallisation; so sind jene Principien durchaus nicht mehr zu gebrauchen, ja, jene Gesetze gelten nicht mehr, jene Kräfte werden von anderen überwältigt und die Erscheinungen gehen in geradem Widerspruch mit ihnen vor sich, nach neuen Grundgesetzen, die, eben wie jene ersteren, ursprünglich und unerklärlich, d. h. auf keine allgemeineren zurückzuführen sind. So z. B. wird es nie gelingen, nach jenen Gesetzen des eigentlichen Mechanismus auch nur die Auflösung eines Salzes im Wasser zu erklären, geschweige die komplicirteren Erscheinungen der Chemie. Im zweiten Buch gegenwärtiger Schrift ist dieses Alles bereits ausführlicher dargestellt. Eine Erörterung dieser Art würde, wie es mir scheint, in der Kritik der teleologischen Urtheilskraft von großem Nutzen gewesen seyn und viel Licht über das dort Gesagte verbreitet haben. Besonders günstig wäre eine solche seiner vortrefflichen Andeutung gewesen, daß eine tiefere Kenntniß des Wesens an sich, dessen Erscheinung die Dinge in der Natur sind, sowohl in dem mechanischen (gesetzmäßigen) als in dem scheinbar absichtlichen Wirken der Natur, ein und dasselbe letzte Princip wiederfinden würde, welches als gemeinschaftlicher Erklärungsgrund beider dienen könnte. Ein solches hoffe ich durch Aufstellung des Willens als des eigentlichen Dinges an sich gegeben zu haben, demgemäß überhaupt, in unserm zweiten Buch und dessen Ergänzungen, zumal aber in meiner Schrift „Ueber den Willen in der Natur“, die Einsicht in das innere Wesen der anscheinenden Zweckmäßigkeit und der Harmonie und Zusammenstimmung der gesammten Natur vielleicht heller und tiefer geworden ist. Daher ich hier nichts weiter darüber zu sagen habe. —

Der Leser, welchen diese Kritik der Kantischen Philosophie interessirt, unterlasse nicht, in der zweiten Abhandlung des ersten Bandes meiner Parerga und Paralipomena die unter der Ueberschrift „Noch einige Erläuterungen zur Kantischen Philosophie“ gelieferte Ergänzung derselben zu lesen. Denn man muß erwägen, daß meine Schriften, so wenige ihrer auch sind, nicht alle zugleich, sondern successiv, im Laufe eines langen Lebens und mit weiten Zwischenräumen abgefaßt sind; demnach man nicht erwarten darf, daß Alles, was ich über einen Gegenstand gesagt habe, auch an Einem Orte zusammen stehe.

Verbesserungen.

Seite 57, Zeile 12 v. o., das Komma am Ende ist zu streichen. » 58, » 16 v. u., statt: der lies: die » 205, » 3 v. o., st.: ἁπτοσθαι, l.: ἁπτεσθαι, » 229, » 8 v. u., st.: daher l.: dabei » 329, » 17 v. u., ist nach „Worte“ einzufügen:, verstehe also nicht simile, sondern idem.

Druck von F. A. Brockhaus in Leipzig.

Musean translation

Mouseia's complete machine-assisted Musean translation of the three prefaces, the four books with paragraphs 1 to 71, and the appendix on Kant, made directly from the corrected German text of the third edition (Leipzig, F. A. Brockhaus, 1859), with the printed page consulted wherever a reading was in doubt. Footnote numbers are this edition's own, assigned in reading order, so note calls and the notes they point to can differ; a few notes the scan cut short end where the printed page ends.

Critique of the Kantian Philosophy.

C’est le privilège du vrai génie, et surtout du génie qui ouvre une carrière, de faire impunément de grandes fautes.

Voltaire.

It is much easier to point out the faults and errors in the work of a great mind than to give a clear and complete exposition of its worth. For the faults are something particular and finite, which can therefore be surveyed completely. But the very stamp that genius impresses on its works is that their excellence is unfathomable and inexhaustible: hence they become the ageless teachers of many centuries in succession. The consummate masterpiece of a truly great mind will always have a profound and far-reaching effect on the whole human race, so much so that it cannot be calculated to what distant centuries and countries its enlightening influence may reach. It will always do so: because, however cultivated and rich the age in which it came into being, genius always rises, like a palm tree, above the soil in which it is rooted.

But a profound and widespread effect of this kind cannot come about suddenly, because of the wide distance between genius and ordinary humanity. The knowledge that this one man drew, within one human lifetime, directly from life and the world, won, and laid before others already won and prepared, cannot nevertheless at once become the property of mankind; because mankind does not have even so much power to receive as he had to give. Rather, even after it has survived the struggle with unworthy opponents who contest the life of the immortal at its very birth and would stifle the salvation of mankind in the germ (comparable to the serpent at the cradle of Hercules), that knowledge must then first travel the detours of countless false interpretations and distorted applications, must withstand the attempts at union with old errors, and thus live in conflict, until a new, unprejudiced generation grows up to meet it, which gradually, from a thousand derived channels, already in youth receives in part the content of that source, assimilates it little by little, and so comes to share in the benefit that was meant to flow to mankind from that great mind. So slow is the education of the human race, the weak and at the same time refractory pupil of genius.—So too the whole power and importance of Kant’s doctrine will be revealed only by time, when some day the spirit of the age itself, gradually transformed by the influence of that doctrine, changed in what is most important and innermost, will bear living witness to the power of that giant mind. I, however, by no means wish here, presumptuously anticipating it, to take on the thankless role of Calchas and Cassandra. Only let it be permitted me, in consequence of what has been said, to regard Kant’s works as still very new, whereas nowadays many look upon them as already antiquated, and indeed lay them aside as done with, or, as they put it, have them behind them, and others, emboldened by this, even ignore them and, with brazen faces, under the presuppositions of the old realistic dogmatism and its scholasticism, go on philosophizing about God and the soul;—which is as if one wanted to assert the doctrines of the alchemists in modern chemistry.—Moreover, Kant’s works do not need my feeble eulogy, but will themselves praise their master forever and, if perhaps not in his letter, yet in his spirit, will always live on earth.

Admittedly, however, when we look back on the immediate success of his doctrines, that is, on the attempts and proceedings in the field of philosophy during the period that has passed since, a very dispiriting saying of Goethe’s is confirmed for us: “as the water that is displaced by a ship closes together again just behind it, so too error, when superior minds have thrust it aside and made room for themselves, closes up again very swiftly behind them, in the natural course.” (Poetry and Truth, Part 3, p. 521.) Yet this period has been only an episode, which, to be counted among the fates of every new and great knowledge mentioned above, is now unmistakably near its end, as the soap bubble so persistently blown up bursts at last. People are beginning generally to realize that real and serious philosophy still stands where Kant left it. At any rate, I do not acknowledge that anything has happened in it between him and me; therefore I link up with him directly.

What I intend in this appendix to my work is really only a justification of the doctrine presented in it, insofar as it disagrees with the Kantian philosophy on many points, indeed contradicts it. A discussion of this is necessary, however, since evidently my train of thought, however different its content may be from the Kantian, is nevertheless entirely under the influence of the latter, necessarily presupposes it, proceeds from it, and I confess that I owe the best of my own development, next to the impression of the intuitively perceived world, to the works of Kant as well as to the sacred writings of the Hindus and to Plato.—But my contradictions of Kant that nevertheless exist I can justify only by charging him with error on these very points and exposing the faults he committed. Therefore in this appendix I must proceed throughout polemically against Kant, and indeed in earnest and with all my strength: for only so can it happen that the error which clings to Kant’s doctrine is worn away, and its truth shines the brighter and stands the more securely. One must not expect, therefore, that my certainly heartfelt reverence for Kant should extend also to his weaknesses and faults, and that I should therefore expose these only with the most cautious forbearance, whereby my presentation would have to become weak and flat through circumlocutions. Toward a living person such forbearance is needed, because human weakness endures even the most justified refutation of an error only with soothing and flattery, and even so with difficulty, and a teacher of the centuries and benefactor of mankind deserves at the very least that one spare even his human weakness, so as to cause him no pain. But the dead man has cast off this weakness: his merit stands firm: time will purify it more and more of every overestimation and disparagement. His faults must be separated from it, rendered harmless, and then consigned to oblivion. Therefore, in the polemic against Kant to be raised here, I have my eye solely on his faults and weaknesses, stand hostile to them, and wage a merciless war of extermination against them, always intent not on covering them over with indulgence but rather on setting them in the brightest light, in order to destroy them the more surely. For the reasons stated above, I am conscious in this of neither an injustice nor an ingratitude toward Kant. In order, however, to avert every appearance of malignity in the eyes of others too, I wish first to display my deeply felt reverence and gratitude toward Kant by briefly stating his chief merit as it appears in my eyes, and from such general points of view that I am not obliged to touch on the points in which I shall later have to contradict him.

Kant’s greatest merit is the distinction of appearance from the thing in itself—on the ground of the demonstration that between things and us there always stands the intellect, on account of which they cannot be known according to what they may be in themselves. He was led onto this path by Locke (see Prolegomena to Every Metaphysics, §. 13, note 2). Locke had shown that the secondary qualities of things, such as sound, smell, color, hardness, softness, smoothness, and the like, being founded on affections of the senses, do not belong to the objective body, to the thing in itself, to which he ascribed only the primary qualities, that is, those that presuppose merely space and impenetrability, hence extension, shape, solidity, number, mobility. But this easily found Lockean distinction, which stays on the surface of things, was as it were only a youthful prelude to the Kantian. The latter, proceeding from an incomparably higher standpoint, declares all that Locke had allowed to stand as qualitates primarias, that is, qualities of the thing in itself, to belong likewise only to its appearance in our faculty of apprehension, and precisely for the reason that its conditions, space, time and causality, are known by us a priori. Thus Locke had subtracted from the thing in itself the share that the sense organs have in its appearance; Kant, however, now subtracted in addition the share of the brain functions (though not under this name); whereby the distinction of appearance from the thing in itself now acquired an infinitely greater significance and a far deeper sense. To this end he had to carry out the great separation of our knowledge a priori from that a posteriori, which before him had never been done with due rigor and completeness, nor with clear consciousness: accordingly this now became the main subject matter of his profound investigations.—Here we may remark at once that Kant’s philosophy stands in a threefold relation to that of his predecessors: first, a confirming and extending one to Locke’s, as we have just seen; second, a correcting and exploiting one to Hume’s, which is found most clearly expressed in the preface to the “Prolegomena” (that most beautiful and most comprehensible of all Kant’s principal writings, which is read far too little, though it extraordinarily facilitates the study of his philosophy); third, a decidedly polemical and destructive one to the Leibnizian-Wolffian philosophy. One should know all three doctrines before proceeding to the study of the Kantian philosophy.—If now, according to the above, the distinction of appearance from the thing in itself, thus the doctrine of the complete diversity of the ideal and the real, is the fundamental feature of the Kantian philosophy, then the assertion of the absolute identity of these two, which appeared soon afterward, gives a sad confirmation of the saying of Goethe mentioned earlier; the more so as it rested on nothing but the charlatanry of intellectual intuition, and accordingly was only a return to the crudeness of the common view, masked under imposing airs of superior distinction, bombast and gibberish. It became the worthy point of departure for the still grosser nonsense of the clumsy and spiritless Hegel.—As then Kant’s separation of appearance from the thing in itself, conceived in the manner set forth above, far surpassed in profundity and circumspection of its grounding everything that had ever existed, so too it was infinitely momentous in its results. For, found wholly out of himself, in an entirely new way, from a new side and on a new path, he presented therein the same truth which Plato had already repeated unweariedly and in his language mostly expresses thus: this world, appearing to the senses, has no true being, but only an unceasing becoming; it is, and also is not, and the apprehension of it is not so much a knowledge as a delusion. This is also what he expresses mythically in the most important passage of all his works, already mentioned in the third book of the present writing, the beginning of the seventh book of the Republic, by saying that men, chained fast in a dark cave, see neither the genuine original light nor the real things, but only the meager light of the fire in the cave and the shadows of real things that pass by behind their backs at this fire: they believed, however, that the shadows were reality, and that determining the succession of these shadows was true wisdom.—The same truth, presented again quite differently, is also a chief doctrine of the Vedas and Puranas, the doctrine of Maya, by which likewise nothing other is understood than what Kant calls appearance, in contrast to the thing in itself: for the work of Maya is declared to be precisely this visible world in which we are, a conjured-up magic, an insubstantial, in itself unessential semblance, comparable to optical illusion and to the dream, a veil enveloping human consciousness, something of which it is equally false and equally true to say that it is as that it is not.—Kant, however, not only expressed the same doctrine in an entirely new and original way, but made it, by means of the calmest and soberest presentation, into a proven and indisputable truth; whereas both Plato and the Indians had founded their assertions merely on a general view of the world, put them forward as the immediate utterance of their consciousness, and presented them more mythically and poetically than philosophically and clearly. In this respect they stand to Kant as the Pythagoreans Hicetas, Philolaus and Aristarchus, who already asserted the motion of the earth around the resting sun, stand to Copernicus. Such clear knowledge and calm, circumspect presentation of this dreamlike constitution of the whole world is really the basis of the whole Kantian philosophy, is its soul and its very greatest merit. He accomplished it by taking apart the whole machinery of our faculty of knowledge, by means of which the phantasmagoria of the objective world comes about, and displaying it piece by piece, with admirable circumspection and skill. All previous Western philosophy, appearing unspeakably crude beside the Kantian, had failed to recognize that truth, and for that very reason had really always spoken as in a dream. Kant first suddenly woke it from this; hence the last sleepers (Mendelssohn) called him the All-Crusher. He showed that the laws which rule in existence, that is, in experience in general, with inviolable necessity, are not to be applied in order to derive and explain existence itself, that therefore their validity is only a relative one, that is, begins only after existence, the world of experience in general, is already posited and present; that consequently these laws cannot be our guide when we set about explaining the existence of the world and of ourselves. All earlier Western philosophers had imagined that these laws, according to which appearances are tied together and which all, time and space as well as causality and inference, I comprehend under the expression of the principle of sufficient reason, were absolute laws conditioned by nothing at all, aeternae veritates, that the world itself existed only in consequence and conformity with them, and that therefore the whole riddle of the world must be capable of solution by their guidance. The assumptions made to this end, which Kant criticizes under the name of the Ideas of reason, served really only to raise mere appearance, the work of Maya, Plato’s world of shadows, to the sole and highest reality, to put it in the place of the innermost and true essence of things, and thereby to make real knowledge of this impossible: that is, in a word, to put the dreamers still more firmly to sleep. Kant showed those laws, and consequently the world itself, to be conditioned by the mode of knowledge of the subject; from which it followed that, however far one might investigate and infer further by their guidance, one would make no step forward in the main matter, that is, in the knowledge of the essence of the world in itself and outside representation, but would only move as the squirrel in the wheel. One can therefore also compare all dogmatists to people who thought that if only they walked straight on long enough they would reach the end of the world; Kant, however, would then have sailed round the world and shown that, because it is round, one cannot get out of it by horizontal movement, but that by perpendicular movement it is perhaps not impossible. One can also say that Kant’s doctrine gives the insight that the end and beginning of the world are to be sought not outside, but within us.

All this, however, rests on the fundamental difference between dogmatic and critical, or transcendental philosophy. Anyone who wants to make this clear to themselves and bring it vividly home through an example can do so very briefly by reading through, as a specimen of dogmatic philosophy, an essay of Leibniz bearing the title “De rerum originatione radicali,” printed for the first time in Erdmann’s edition of Leibniz’s philosophical works, vol. 1, p. 147. Here the origin and the excellent constitution of the world are demonstrated a priori, quite in the realistic-dogmatic manner, using the ontological and the cosmological proof, on the ground of the veritatum aeternarum.—Incidentally it is also admitted once that experience shows the very opposite of the excellence of the world here demonstrated, but experience is then told that it understands nothing of this and should keep its mouth shut when philosophy a priori has spoken.—As adversary of this whole method there has appeared with Kant the critical

philosophy, which makes its very problem the veritates aeternas that serve as the foundation of every such dogmatic edifice, investigates their origin, and then finds it in the human head, where, namely, they grow out of the forms peculiar to it, which it carries in itself for the purpose of apprehending an objective world. Here, then, in the brain, is the quarry that supplies the material for that proud dogmatic structure. But because the critical philosophy, in order to arrive at this result, had to go beyond the veritates aeternas on which all previous dogmatism was based, in order to make these themselves the object of investigation, it has become transcendental philosophy. From this it then further results that the objective world as we know it does not belong to the essence of things in themselves, but is merely the appearance of it, conditioned by those very forms that lie a priori in the human intellect (that is, brain), and that it therefore can contain nothing but appearances.

Kant, to be sure, did not arrive at the knowledge that the appearance is the world as representation and that the thing in itself is the will. But he showed that the world of appearance is conditioned just as much by the subject as by the object, and in isolating the most general forms of its appearance, that is, of representation, he demonstrated that these forms are known not only starting from the object but equally well starting from the subject, and are surveyable in their whole lawfulness, because they are really the boundary common to both between object and subject, and he concluded that by following this boundary one penetrates neither into the interior of the object nor of the subject, and consequently never knows the essence of the world, the thing in itself.

He did not derive the thing in itself in the right way, as I shall soon show, but by means of an inconsistency which he had to pay for through frequent and irresistible attacks on this principal part of his doctrine. He did not recognize the thing in itself directly in the will; but he took a great, path-breaking step toward this knowledge, in that he presented the undeniable moral significance of human action as wholly different from and not dependent on the laws of appearance, nor ever explicable in accordance with them, but as something that touches the thing in itself directly: this is the second chief point of view for his merit.

As the third we can regard the complete overthrow of Scholastic philosophy, by which name I should like here to designate in general the whole period beginning with the church father Augustine and closing just before Kant. For the chief character of Scholasticism is surely that very correctly stated by Tennemann: the guardianship of the dominant national religion over philosophy, which really had nothing left to do but to prove and embellish the chief dogmas prescribed to it by that religion: the true Scholastics, down to Suarez, admit this unreservedly: the philosophers who follow do it more unconsciously, or at any rate without admitting it. Scholastic philosophy is allowed to run only to about a hundred years before Descartes, and then with him a wholly new epoch of free inquiry, independent of all positive doctrine of faith, is made to begin; but such inquiry cannot in fact be attributed to Descartes and his successors [1], but only a semblance [2] Bruno and Spinoza are to be wholly excepted here. They stand each by himself and alone, and belong neither to their century nor to their part of the world, which rewarded the one with death, the other with persecution and disgrace. Their wretched existence and death in this Occident resembles that of a tropical plant in Europe. Their true spiritual home was the banks of the holy Ganga: there they would have led a quiet and honored life among those of like mind.—Bruno expresses clearly and beautifully in the following verses, with which he opens the book della causa principio ed uno, for which he got the stake, how lonely he felt in his century, and shows at the same time a presentiment of his fate, which made him hesitate to set forth his cause until that drive, so strong in noble minds, to communicate what is recognized as true, overcame it:

Ad partum properare tuum, mens aegra, quid obstat; Seclo haec indigno sint tribuenda licet? Umbrarum fluctu terras mergente, cacumen Adtolle in clarum, noster Olympe, Jovem.

Whoever reads this principal work of his, as also his other Italian writings, once so rare, now accessible to all through a German edition of it, and at most a striving after it. Descartes was a most distinguished mind, and accomplished a great deal if one takes his time into account. But if one sets this consideration aside and measures him by the liberation of thought from all fetters and the inauguration of a new period of unprejudiced independent inquiry which is credited to him, one must find that with his skepticism—which still lacks real earnestness and therefore surrenders so quickly and so badly—he indeed puts on the air as if he wanted to throw off at one stroke all the fetters of early-inoculated opinions belonging to his time and nation, but does so only in appearance for a moment, in order to take them up again at once and hold them the more firmly; and so likewise do all his successors down to Kant. Very applicable to a free self-thinker of this stamp is therefore Goethe’s verse:

“He seems to me, with Your Grace’s leave, Like one of those long-legged cicadas, That always flies and, flying, springs—And at once in the grass sings its old little song.”—

Kant had reasons for putting on the air as if he too meant it only so. But the pretended leap, which was conceded because one already knew that it leads back into the grass, became this time a flight, and now those who stand below are left only to look after it and can no longer catch it again.

Kant, then, dared to demonstrate from his doctrine the unprovability of all those dogmas so often supposedly proved. Speculative theology and the rational psychology connected with it received the deathblow from him. Since then they have vanished from German philosophy, and one must will find with me that among all philosophers he alone approaches Plato somewhat, in respect of the strong admixture of poetic power and bent alongside the philosophical, and that this too shows itself especially dramatically. The tender, spiritual, thinking being that confronts us from this writing of his, let one imagine under the hands of crude, raging priests as his judges and executioners, and thank the age which brought on a brighter and milder century, so that the posterity whose curse was to fall on those diabolical fanatics is now already the contemporary world. not let oneself be misled by the fact that here and there the word is retained after the matter has been given up, or that some wretched philosophy-professor has his master’s fear before his eyes and lets truth be truth. The magnitude of this merit of Kant can be measured only by one who has observed the detrimental influence of those concepts on natural science as on philosophy in all, even the best, writers of the 17th and 18th centuries. In German scientific writings the change of tone and of metaphysical background that has occurred since Kant is striking: before him it was with these as it still is now in England.—This merit of Kant is connected with the fact that thoughtless pursuit of the laws of appearance, the raising of them to eternal truths and thereby of fleeting appearance to the real essence of the world, in short, realism, undisturbed in its delusion by any reflection, had been utterly dominant in all earlier philosophy, ancient, medieval, and modern. Berkeley, who, as Malebranche before him, had recognized its one-sidedness, indeed falsity, was not able to overthrow it, because his attack was confined to one point. It was thus reserved for Kant to help the idealist fundamental view—which throughout non-Islamized Asia is even, and essentially so, the view of religion—to dominance in Europe, at least in philosophy. Before Kant, then, we were in time; now time is in us, and so on.

Ethics too had been treated by that realistic philosophy according to the laws of appearance, which it held to be absolute and valid also of the thing in itself, and was therefore grounded now on the doctrine of happiness, now on the will of the world’s creator, finally on the concept of perfection, which in and for itself is wholly empty and without content, since it designates a mere relation, which receives meaning only from the things to which it is applied, in that “to be perfect” means nothing more than “to correspond to some concept presupposed and given for the purpose,” which therefore must have been set up beforehand, and without which perfection is an unnamed number and consequently, pronounced alone, says nothing at all. If now, however, one should perhaps wish to make the concept of “humanity” a tacit presupposition and accordingly set up as the moral principle the striving for perfect humanity, one thereby says only: “Men ought to be as they ought to be”—and is as wise as before. “Perfect,” namely, is almost only the synonym of “complete,” in that it states that in a given case, or individual, all the predicates that lie in the concept of its species are represented, thus actually present. Hence the concept of “perfection,” when used absolutely and in the abstract, is a word empty of thought, and so too is the talk of the “most perfect being” and the like. All this is mere verbiage. Nevertheless in the last century this concept of perfection and imperfection had become current coin; indeed it was the hinge on which almost all moralizing and even theologizing turned. Everyone had it on their lips, so that at last a veritable abuse was made of it. Even the best writers of the time, e.g. Lessing, we see most lamentably entangled in perfections and imperfections and wrestling with them. Yet every head capable of any thought must at least dimly have felt that this concept is without any positive content, since, like an algebraic sign, it indicates a mere relation in the abstract.—Kant, as already said, separated the undeniable great ethical significance of actions wholly from the appearance and its laws, and showed it as concerning immediately the thing in itself, the innermost essence of the world, whereas the former, that is, time and space, and all that fills them and orders itself in them according to the causal law, are to be regarded as an insubstantial and essenceless dream.

This little, which by no means exhausts the subject, may suffice as a testimony of my recognition of Kant’s great merits, set down here for my own satisfaction, and because justice demanded that those merits be recalled to the memory of everyone who wants to follow me in the relentless exposure of his faults, to which I now proceed.

That Kant’s great achievements had to be accompanied by great faults can be gauged already merely historically, from the fact that, although he brought about the greatest revolution in philosophy, and put an end to Scholasticism, which, understood in the wider sense indicated, had lasted fourteen centuries, in order now really to begin a wholly new third world epoch of philosophy, the immediate result of his appearance was nevertheless almost only negative, not positive, in that, because he did not set up a complete new system to which his followers could have held for any period of time, all indeed noticed that something very great had happened, yet none rightly knew what. They saw well enough that all previous philosophy had been a fruitless dreaming from which the new age was now awakening; but what they were now to hold to, they did not know. A great void, a great need had set in: general attention, even that of the wider public, was aroused. Prompted by this, but not driven by inner impulse and feeling of power (which makes itself felt even at the most unfavorable moment, as with Spinoza), men without any distinguishing talents made manifold, weak, absurd, indeed at times mad attempts, to which the public, once it was aroused, nevertheless gave its attention and for a long time lent its ear with great patience, such as is to be found only in Germany.

As here, it must once have gone in nature when a great revolution had changed the whole surface of the earth, sea and land had exchanged places, and the ground had been leveled for a new creation. Then it took long before nature could bring forth a new series of lasting forms, each harmonizing with itself and with the others: strange monstrous organisms appeared, which, out of harmony with themselves and with one another, could not endure for long, but whose remains still extant today are precisely what have brought down to us the memory of that wavering and experimenting of nature newly shaping itself.—That in philosophy a crisis wholly similar to that, and an age of monstrous births, was brought on by Kant, as we all know, already allows the inference that his merit cannot have been perfect, but must have been afflicted with great defects, negative and one-sided. These defects we now wish to trace.

First of all, let us make clear to ourselves, and examine, the fundamental thought in which the intention of the whole Critique of Pure Reason lies.—Kant placed himself on the standpoint of his predecessors, the dogmatic philosophers, and accordingly started with them from the following presuppositions. 1) Metaphysics is the science of that which lies beyond the possibility of all experience.—2) Such a thing can never be found according to principles which are themselves drawn from experience (Prolegomena, §. 1); but only what we know before, hence independently of, all experience can reach farther than possible experience.—3) In our reason some principles of this kind are actually to be met with: they are comprised under the name cognitions from pure reason.—So far Kant goes along with his predecessors; here, however, he parts from them. They say: “These principles, or cognitions from pure reason, are expressions of the absolute possibility of things, aeternae veritates, sources of ontology: they stand above the order of the world, as Fate stood above the gods of the ancients.” Kant says: they are mere forms of our intellect, laws not of the existence of things but of our representations of them, hence valid only for our apprehension of things, and can accordingly not reach beyond the possibility of experience, at which, according to point 1, the aim was. For precisely the apriority of these forms of knowledge, since it can rest only on their subjective origin, cuts us off forever from knowledge of the essence in itself of things and confines us to a world of mere appearances, so that we cannot know things as they may be in themselves even a posteriori, let alone a priori. Accordingly metaphysics is impossible, and in its place steps critique of pure reason. Over against the old dogmatism Kant is here completely victorious; therefore all dogmatic attempts that have appeared since have had to take quite different paths from the earlier ones: I shall now lead up to the justification of my own, in accordance with the avowed intention of the present critique. Namely, on closer examination of the above argument one will have to admit that its very first basic assumption is a petitio principii; it lies in the proposition (stated clearly especially in the Prolegomena, §. 1): “The source of metaphysics must absolutely not be empirical, its principles and fundamental concepts must never be taken from experience, neither inner nor outer.” For the grounding of this cardinal assertion, however, nothing at all is adduced but the etymological argument from the word metaphysics. In truth, however, the matter stands thus: The world and our own existence present themselves to us necessarily as a riddle. Now it is assumed without further ado that the solution of this riddle cannot proceed from a thorough understanding of the world itself, but must be sought in something wholly different from the world (for that is what “beyond the possibility of all experience” means); and that from that solution everything must be excluded of which we can in any way have immediate acquaintance (for that is what possible experience, inner as well as outer, means); that it must rather be sought only in that to which we can attain merely mediately, namely by means of inferences from universal propositions a priori. After the chief source of all knowledge had been excluded in this way and the straight road to truth barred, one need not wonder that the dogmatic attempts miscarried and that Kant could demonstrate the necessity of this miscarriage: for one had assumed in advance that metaphysics and knowledge a priori are identical. For this, however, it would first have had to be proved that the material for the solution of the riddle of the world absolutely cannot be contained in the world itself, but is to be sought only outside the world, in something to which one can attain only by the guidance of those forms known to us a priori. So long as this is not proved, however, we have no ground, in the most important and most difficult of all tasks, to stop up the most fertile of all sources of knowledge, inner and outer experience, in order to operate solely with forms empty of content. I say, therefore, that the solution of the riddle of the world must proceed from the understanding of the world itself; that thus the task of metaphysics is not to fly over the experience in which the world stands, but to understand it thoroughly, since experience, outer and inner, is indeed the chief source of all knowledge; that therefore only through the proper linking of outer experience with inner, made at the right point, and the connection thereby brought about of these two so heterogeneous sources of knowledge, is the solution of the riddle of the world possible; though even so only within certain limits which are inseparable from our finite nature, hence so that we attain to a correct understanding of the world itself without, however, reaching a closed explanation of its existence that abolishes all further problems. Hence est quadam prodire tenus, and my path lies in the middle between the doctrine of omniscience of the earlier dogmatism and the despair of the Kantian critique. The important truths discovered by Kant, however, by which the earlier metaphysical systems were overthrown, have furnished data and material for mine. Compare what I have said about my method in chap. 17 of the second volume.—So much for the Kantian fundamental thought: now we will consider the execution and the details.

Kant’s style bears throughout the stamp of a superior mind, of genuine, firm individuality and quite uncommon power of thought; its character can perhaps be aptly designated as a brilliant dryness, by virtue of which he is able to grasp and pick out concepts with great sureness, and then to toss them to and fro with the greatest freedom, to the reader’s astonishment. The same brilliant dryness I find again in the style of Aristotle, although this is much simpler.—Nevertheless Kant’s exposition is often indistinct, indefinite, inadequate and at times obscure. This latter is, to be sure, in part excusable by the difficulty of the subject and the depth of the thoughts; but a person who is thoroughly clear in their own mind and knows quite distinctly what they think and mean will never write indistinctly, will never set up wavering, indefinite concepts and, to designate them, collect highly difficult, complicated expressions from foreign languages in order afterwards to use them continually, as Kant took from the older, even Scholastic philosophy words and formulas which he combined for his purposes, such as “transcendental synthetic unity of apperception,” and in general “unity of synthesis” put every time where “union” alone would have sufficed. Such a writer, further, will not explain again and again anew what has once been explained, as Kant does, for example, with the understanding, the categories, experience, and other chief concepts. Such a writer will altogether not repeat without end, and yet in each new presentation of the hundred-times-present thought leave in it precisely the same obscure passages; but will say their opinion once, distinctly, thoroughly, exhaustively, and leave it at that. Quo enim melius rem aliquam concipimus, eo magis determinati sumus ad eam unico modo exprimendam, says Descartes in his fifth letter. But the greatest disadvantage that Kant’s exposition, obscure in places, has had is that it acted as exemplar vitiis imitabile, indeed was misinterpreted into a pernicious authorization. The public had been forced to see that the obscure is not always senseless: at once the senseless took refuge behind obscure exposition. Fichte was the first to seize this new privilege and use it heavily; Schelling at least equaled him in it, and a host of hungry scribblers without spirit and without honesty soon outdid both. But the greatest impudence in serving up sheer nonsense, in botching together senseless, raving tissues of words, such as one had hitherto heard only in madhouses, appeared at last in Hegel and became the instrument of the clumsiest general mystification that has ever been, with a success that will appear fabulous to posterity and will remain a monument of German niaiserie. In vain did Jean Paul meanwhile write his fine paragraph “Higher Appreciation of Philosophical Madness in the Lecturer’s Chair and of Poetic Madness on the Stage” (Aesthetic After-School); for Goethe had already said in vain:

“So one chatters and teaches undisturbed, Who cares to bother with the fools? Commonly people believe, if only they hear words, That there must surely be something to think in them.”

But let us return to Kant. One cannot avoid admitting that he wholly lacks ancient, grand simplicity, that he wholly lacks naivety, ingénuité, candeur. His philosophy has no analogy with Greek architecture, which presents large, simple proportions revealing themselves to the eye all at once: rather it strongly recalls Gothic construction. For a quite individual peculiarity of Kant’s mind is a singular delight in symmetry, which loves the motley multiplicity in order to order it, and to repeat the order in subordinate orders, and so on ceaselessly, just as in Gothic churches. Indeed, he sometimes carries this to the point of trifling, in which, for love of that inclination, he goes so far as to do manifest violence to truth and to treat it as the old-fashioned gardeners treat nature, whose work is symmetrical avenues, squares and triangles, pyramidal and spherical trees, and hedges wound into regular curves. I will substantiate this with facts.

After he has dealt with space and time in isolation, then dispatched this whole world of intuition filling space and time, in which we live and are, with the empty words “the empirical content of intuition is given to us,”—he arrives at once, with a leap, at the logical foundation of his whole philosophy, the table of judgments. From this he deduces a round dozen categories, symmetrically laid out under four headings, which later become the fearful bed of Procrustes, into which he forcibly squeezes all things of the world and everything that goes on in man, shunning no violence and scorning no sophism, only to be able to repeat the symmetry of that table everywhere. The first thing that is symmetrically derived from it is the pure physiological table of general principles of natural science: namely, axioms of intuition, anticipations of perception, analogies of experience, and postulates of empirical thought in general. Of these principles the first two are simple; the two latter, however, each put forth three offshoots symmetrically. The mere categories were what he calls concepts; these principles of natural science, however, are judgments. According to his supreme guiding thread to all wisdom, namely symmetry, it is now the turn of the inferences to prove fruitful, and indeed they do so again symmetrically and in regular beat. For, as through the application of the categories to sensibility experience, together with its principles a priori, grew up for the understanding; so likewise there arise, through the application of the inferences to the categories, which business reason performs, according to its alleged principle of seeking the unconditioned, the Ideas of reason. This goes on thus: the three categories of relation give three, and only three, possible kinds of major premises for inferences, which latter accordingly likewise fall into three kinds, each of which is to be regarded as an egg out of which reason hatches an Idea: namely, from the categorical kind of inference the Idea of the soul, from the hypothetical the Idea of the world, and from the disjunctive the Idea of God. In the middle one, the Idea of the world, the symmetry of the table of categories is now repeated once more, in that its four headings bring forth four theses, each of which has its antithesis as symmetrical pendant.

We do indeed render our admiration to the really most acute combination which called forth this elegant edifice; but we shall further examine it thoroughly, in its foundation and in its parts.—First, however, the following considerations must be put forward.

It is astonishing how Kant, without pausing to reflect further, pursues his way, following his symmetry, ordering everything according to it, without ever taking any one of the subjects so treated into consideration for itself. I will explain myself more closely. After he has taken intuitive knowledge into consideration only in mathematics, he wholly neglects the rest of perceptual knowledge, in which the world lies before us, and holds solely to abstract thought, which after all receives all its significance and value only from the world of intuition, which is infinitely more significant, more universal, more rich in content than the abstract part of our knowledge. Indeed, he has nowhere—and this is a main point—clearly distinguished intuitive and abstract knowledge, and precisely thereby, as we shall see afterwards, has involved himself in irresolvable contradictions with himself.—After he has dispatched the whole world of sense with the empty “it is given,” he makes, as said, the logical table of judgments the cornerstone of his edifice. But here he does not reflect for a moment on what actually lies before him now. These forms of judgments are indeed words and combinations of words. The first question should surely have been what these immediately signify: it would have been found that these are concepts. The next question would then have been about the nature of concepts. From its answer it would have emerged what relation these have to the intuitive representations in which the world stands: then intuition and reflection would have come apart. Not merely how pure and merely formal intuition a priori, but also how its content, empirical intuition, enters consciousness, would now have had to be investigated. But then it would have shown what share the understanding has in this, and so also altogether what the understanding is, and what, on the other hand, reason really is, whose critique is written here. It is most striking that he does not once determine this latter properly and sufficiently; rather he gives only occasionally, and as the context at the moment demands, incomplete and incorrect explanations of it; wholly in contradiction with the rule of Descartes adduced above [3].

4 Let it be remarked here that I cite the “Critique of Pure Reason” throughout by the page number of the first edition, since in the Rosenkranz edition of the collected works this page number is given throughout: in addition I add, prefixed with V, the page number of the fifth edition; with this all the rest, from the second on, agree in wording, hence probably also in page number.

For example, p. 11; V, 24, of the “Critique of Pure Reason,” it is the faculty of principles a priori; p. 299; V, 356, it is said once more that reason is the faculty of principles, and it is opposed to the understanding, which is said to be the faculty of rules! Now one would think there must be a difference as wide as heaven between principles and rules, since it entitles him to assume a special faculty of knowledge for each of them. But this great difference is supposed to lie merely in this, that what is known a priori from pure intuition, or through the forms of the understanding, is a rule, and only what proceeds a priori from mere concepts is a principle. To this arbitrary and untenable distinction we shall return later in the Dialectic. On p. 330; V, 386, reason is the faculty of inferring: mere judging he often (p. 69; V, 94) declares to be the business of the understanding. In so doing he really says: judging is the business of the understanding so long as the ground of the judgment is empirical, transcendental, or metalogical (Treatise on the Principle of Sufficient Reason, §. 31, 32, 33); but if it is logical, which is what inference consists in, then a quite special, much more eminent faculty of knowledge acts here, reason. Indeed, what is more, on p. 303; V, 360, it is expounded that the immediate conclusions from a proposition are still the affair of the understanding, and only those in which a mediating concept is used would be performed by reason; and as an example it is adduced that from the proposition “All men are mortal,” the conclusion “Some mortals are men” is still drawn by mere understanding; whereas this one, “All scholars are mortal,” requires a wholly different and much more eminent faculty, reason. How was it possible that a great thinker could bring forward such a thing! On p. 553; V, 581, reason is suddenly the permanent condition of all voluntary actions. On p. 614; V, 642, it consists in our being able to give account of our assertions: on pp. 643, 644; V, 671, 672, in its uniting the concepts of the understanding into Ideas, as the understanding unites the manifold of objects into concepts. On p. 646; V, 674, it is nothing other than the faculty of deriving the particular from the universal.

The understanding too is explained again and again anew: in seven places of the “Critique of Pure Reason,” p. 51; V, 75, it is the faculty of producing representations itself. On p. 69; V, 94, the faculty of judging, that is, of thinking, that is, of knowing through concepts. On p. 137, fifth edition, in general the faculty of cognitions. On p. 132; V, 171, the faculty of rules. On p. 158; V, 197, however, it is said: “it is not only the faculty of rules, but the source of principles, according to which everything stands under rules”; and yet above it was opposed to reason, because the latter alone was the faculty of principles. On p. 160; V, 199, the understanding is the faculty of concepts: on p. 302; V, 359, however, the faculty of the unity of appearances by means of rules.

The firm, sharp, determinate, simple explanations of those two faculties of knowledge which I have set up, and which always agree with the usage of language of all peoples and times, I shall not need to defend against such truly confused and groundless talk about them (although it proceeds from Kant). I have adduced these only as proofs of my reproach that Kant pursues his symmetrical, logical system without reflecting sufficiently on the subject which he so treats.

Had Kant now, as I said above, seriously investigated in what way two such different faculties of knowledge, one of which is the distinguishing mark of mankind, make themselves known, and what, according to the usage of language of all peoples and all philosophers, reason and understanding are called, then he would also never, on no further authority than the intellectus theoreticus and practicus of the Scholastics, used in a wholly different sense, have split reason into a theoretical and a practical one, and made the latter the source of virtuous action. Likewise, before Kant so carefully separated concepts of the understanding (by which he understands partly his categories, partly all common concepts) and concepts of reason (his so-called Ideas) and made both the subject matter of his philosophy, which for the most part treats only of the validity, application, origin of all these concepts;—before that, I say, he really should have investigated what a concept in general is. But even this so necessary investigation has unfortunately been wholly omitted; which has contributed much to the disastrous confusion of intuitive and abstract knowledge that I shall soon demonstrate.—The same lack of sufficient reflection with which he passed over the questions: what is intuition? what is reflection? what concept? what reason? what understanding?—made him also pass over the following equally indispensable investigations: what do I call the object, which I distinguish from the representation? what is existence? what object? what subject? what truth, illusion, error?—But without reflecting or looking around, he pursues his logical scheme and his symmetry. The table of judgments is to be and must be the key to all wisdom.

I set forth above as Kant’s chief merit that he distinguished appearance from the thing in itself, declared this whole visible world to be appearance, and therefore denied its laws all validity beyond the appearance. It is indeed striking that he did not derive that merely relative existence of the appearance from the simple, so obvious, undeniable truth “No object without a subject,” in order thus, at the very root, to present the object, because it exists always and only in relation to a subject, as dependent on it, conditioned by it, and therefore as mere appearance, which does not exist in itself, unconditionally. That important proposition Berkeley, to whose merit Kant is not just, had already made the cornerstone of his philosophy and thereby founded an immortal memory for himself, although he himself did not draw the proper consequences from that proposition and was then partly not understood, partly not sufficiently heeded. In my first edition I had explained Kant’s bypassing of this Berkeleian proposition by a visible shyness of decided idealism; while on the other hand I found the latter clearly expressed in many passages of the “Critique of Pure Reason”; and I had accordingly charged Kant with contradicting himself. This reproach was also well founded, insofar as one knows, as was then my case, the “Critique of Pure Reason” only in the second edition, or in the five following editions printed after it. But when I later read Kant’s chief work in the first edition, already become rare, I saw, to my great joy, all those contradictions vanish, and found that Kant, though he does not use the formula “no object without a subject,” nevertheless, with the same decisiveness as Berkeley and I, declares the external world lying before us in space and time to be mere representation of the subject that knows it; hence he says, for example, on p. 383 there, without reserve: “If I take away the thinking subject, the whole corporeal world must fall away, as it is nothing but the appearance in the sensibility of our subject and a kind of representations of it.” But the whole passage from pp. 348–392, in which Kant sets forth his decided idealism exceedingly beautifully and clearly, he suppressed in the second edition, and instead inserted a quantity of statements conflicting with it. Thereby the text of the “Critique of Pure Reason,” as it circulated from the year 1787 to the year 1838, became a disfigured and corrupted one, and the work a self-contradictory book, whose sense, for that very reason, could be quite clear and intelligible to no one. The details of this, as also my conjectures on the reasons and weaknesses which can have moved Kant to such a disfigurement of his immortal work, I have set forth in a letter to Professor Rosenkranz, the chief passage of which he took up into his preface to the second volume of the edition of Kant’s collected works prepared by him, to which I therefore refer here. As a consequence of my representations, namely, Professor Rosenkranz in the year 1838 found himself moved to restore the “Critique of Pure Reason” to its original form, by having it printed in the said second volume according to the first edition of 1781, whereby he has earned an inestimable merit toward philosophy, indeed has perhaps saved the most important work of German literature from destruction; and this one should never forget. But let no one imagine that they know the “Critique of Pure Reason” and have a clear concept of Kant’s doctrine if they have read it only in the second or one of the following editions; that is absolutely impossible: for they have read only a mutilated, corrupted, in a way spurious text. It is my duty to say this here decisively and as a warning to everyone.

With the decidedly idealist fundamental view so clearly expressed in the first edition of the “Critique of Pure Reason,” however, the manner in which Kant introduces the thing in itself stands in undeniable contradiction, and without doubt this is the chief reason why in the second edition he suppressed the indicated chief idealist passage and declared himself outright against the Berkeleian idealism, whereby he brought only inconsistencies into his work, without being able to remedy its main defect. This is, as is well known, the introduction of the thing in itself in the manner chosen by him, the untenability of which was set out at length by G. E. Schulze in the “Aenesidemus” and was soon recognized as the untenable point of his system. The matter can be made clear in very few words. Kant bases the presupposition of the thing in itself, though concealed under various turns, on an inference according to the law of causality, namely that empirical intuition, or more correctly the sensation in our sense organs from which it proceeds, must have an external cause. Now, however, according to his own and correct discovery, the law of causality is known to us a priori, hence is a function of our intellect, thus of subjective origin; further, the sense sensation itself, to which we here apply the law of causality, is undeniably subjective; and finally even space, into which by means of this application we transpose the cause of the sensation as object, is a form of our intellect given a priori, hence subjective. Consequently the whole empirical intuition remains throughout on subjective ground, as a mere process in us, and nothing wholly different from it, independent of it, can be brought in as a thing in itself, or demonstrated as a necessary presupposition. In truth empirical intuition is and remains our mere representation: it is the world as representation. To the essence in itself of this we can attain only on the wholly different path taken by me, by drawing in self-consciousness, which proclaims the will as the in-itself of our own appearance: but then the thing in itself becomes something toto genere different from representation and its elements; as I have set forth.

The great defect of the Kantian system on this point, demonstrated early, as said, is a confirmation of the beautiful Indian proverb: “No lotus without a stalk.” The faulty derivation of the thing in itself is here the stalk: yet only the manner of derivation, not the acknowledgment of a thing in itself for the given appearance. In this latter way, however, Fichte misunderstood it; which he could do only because he was concerned not with truth but with making a stir, for the furtherance of his personal ends. Accordingly he was bold and thoughtless enough to deny the thing in itself altogether and to set up a system in which not, as with Kant, merely the formal element of representation, but also the material, its whole content, was supposedly derived a priori from the subject. In this he reckoned quite correctly on the lack of judgment and the niaiserie of the public, which accepted bad sophisms, mere hocus-pocus and senseless wishy-washy for proofs; so that he succeeded in turning its attention from Kant to himself and in giving German philosophy the direction in which it was afterwards carried further by Schelling and finally reached its goal in the nonsensical sham wisdom of Hegel.

I now return to Kant’s great error, already touched on above, that he did not properly separate intuitive and abstract knowledge, from which a disastrous confusion has arisen, which we have now to consider more closely. Had he sharply separated intuitive representations from concepts merely thought in abstracto, he would have kept these two apart and would each time have known which of the two he had to do with. Unfortunately this has not been the case, although the reproach on this score has not yet been voiced aloud, and so is perhaps unexpected. His “object of experience,” of which he constantly speaks, the proper object of the categories, is not the intuitive representation, but is also not the abstract concept, but different from both, and yet both at once, and a complete nonentity. For he has lacked, incredible as this seems, either circumspection or good will to come to terms with himself on this and to explain distinctly to himself and others whether his “object of experience, that is, of the knowledge brought about by application of the categories,” is the intuitive representation in space and time (my first class of representations) or merely the abstract concept. Strange as it is, there constantly floats before his mind a middle thing between the two, and from this comes the baneful confusion which I must now bring to light: to which end I have to go through the whole Doctrine of Elements in general.

The transcendental aesthetic is a work of such exceeding merit that it alone could suffice to immortalize Kant’s name. Its proofs have such full power of conviction that I count its propositions among the irrefutable truths, as they doubtless also belong among the most momentous, and are therefore to be regarded as the rarest thing in the world, namely a real, great discovery in metaphysics. The fact, strictly proved by him, that a part of our cognitions is known to us a priori admits of no other explanation than that these constitute the forms of our intellect: indeed this is less an explanation than merely the clear expression of the fact itself. For a priori means nothing other than “not gained by way of experience, hence not come into us from without.” What, however, is present in the intellect without having come from without is precisely what originally belongs to it itself, its own essence. If now what is thus present in the intellect itself consists in the general manner and way in which all its objects must present themselves to it; well, then it is thereby said that these are the forms of its knowing, that is, the manner and way, fixed once for all, in which it performs this its function. Accordingly “cognitions a priori” and “the intellect’s own forms” are at bottom only two expressions for the same thing, hence in a way synonyms.

Of the doctrines of the transcendental aesthetic I should therefore not know what to take away, only some things to add. In particular, Kant did not carry his thoughts through to the end in that he did not reject the whole Euclidean method of demonstration, after he had yet said, p. 87; V, 120, that all geometrical knowledge has immediate evidence from intuition. It is most remarkable that even one of his opponents, and indeed the most acute of them, G. E. Schulze (Critique of Theoretical Philosophy, II, 241), draws the conclusion that from Kant’s doctrine a wholly different treatment of geometry would result from the one actually customary; whereby he supposes himself to be leading an apagogical proof against Kant, but in fact opens war against the Euclidean method without knowing it. I appeal to §. 15 in the first book of the present work.

After the detailed discussion, given in the transcendental aesthetic, of the general forms of all intuition, one must expect to receive some enlightenment about the content of it, about the way the empirical intuition comes into our consciousness, how the knowledge of this whole world, so real and so important for us, arises in us. But on this Kant’s whole doctrine really contains nothing more than the oft-repeated, empty phrase: “The empirical of intuition is given from without.”—Hence Kant here passes, by a leap, from the pure forms of intuition to thinking, to transcendental logic. Right at the entrance to this (Critique of Pure Reason, p. 50; V, 74), where Kant cannot avoid touching the material content of empirical intuition, he takes the first false step, commits the πρωτον ψευδος. “Our knowledge,” he says, “has two sources, namely receptivity of impressions and spontaneity of concepts: the first is the capacity to receive representations, the second that of knowing an object through these representations: through the first an object is given to us, through the second it is thought.”—That is false: for accordingly the impression, for which alone we have mere receptivity, which therefore comes from without and alone is really “given,” would already be a representation, indeed already an object. It is, however, nothing more than a mere sensation in the sense organ, and only through the application of the understanding (that is, of the law of causality) and of the forms of intuition, space and time, does our intellect convert this mere sensation into a representation, which now stands there as an object in space and time and cannot be distinguished from the latter (the object) otherwise than insofar as one asks about the thing in itself, but otherwise is identical with it. I have set forth this process in detail in the treatise on the principle of sufficient reason, §. 21. With this, however, the business of the understanding and of intuitive knowledge is accomplished, and no concepts and no thinking are needed for it; hence the animal too has these representations. If concepts, if thinking come in, to which spontaneity may indeed be ascribed, then intuitive knowledge is wholly left behind, and a wholly different class of representations, namely non-intuitive, abstract concepts, enters consciousness: this is the activity of reason, which, however, has the whole content of its thinking solely from the intuition that preceded it and from comparison of this with other intuitions and concepts. But in this way Kant already brings thinking into intuition and lays the ground for the disastrous mixing of intuitive and abstract knowledge, which I am here occupied in censuring. He has intuition, taken by itself, be without understanding, purely sensuous, hence wholly passive, and an object be apprehended only through thinking (category of the understanding): thus he brings thinking into intuition. Then, however, the object of thinking is in turn a single, real object; whereby thinking loses its essential character of universality and abstraction and obtains single things as object instead of universal concepts, whereby he again brings intuiting into thinking. From this springs the said disastrous mixing, and the consequences of this first false step extend over his whole theory of knowing.

Through the whole of it runs the complete mixing of the intuitive representation with the abstract into a middle thing between the two, which he presents as the object of knowledge through the understanding and its categories and calls this knowledge experience. It is hard to believe that Kant himself thought anything wholly determinate and really distinct in connection with this object of the understanding: this I shall now prove by the monstrous contradiction that runs through the whole of the transcendental logic and is the real source of the obscurity enveloping it.

Namely, in the “Critique of Pure Reason,” pp. 67–69; V, 92–94; pp. 89, 90; V, 122, 123; further V, 135, 139, 153, he repeats and impresses: the understanding is no faculty of intuition, its knowledge is not intuitive but discursive; the understanding is the faculty of judging (p. 69; V, 94), and a judgment is mediate knowledge, representation of a representation (p. 68; V, 93); the understanding is the faculty of thinking, and thinking is knowledge through concepts (p. 69; V, 94); the categories of the understanding are by no means the conditions under which objects are given in intuition (p. 89; V, 122), and intuition requires the functions of thinking in no way (p. 91; V, 123); our understanding can only think, not intuit (V, pp. 135, 139). Further in the Prolegomena, §. 20: intuition, perception, perceptio, belongs merely to the senses; judging comes to the understanding alone; and §. 22: the business of the senses is to intuit, that of the understanding to think, that is, to judge.—Finally also in the “Critique of Practical Reason,” fourth edition, p. 247: Rosenkranz edition p. 281: the understanding is discursive, its representations are thoughts, not intuitions.—All this is in Kant’s own words.

From this it follows that this intuitive world would be there for us even if we had no understanding at all, that it comes into our head in a wholly inexplicable way, which he in fact often designates by his curious expression that intuition is given, without ever explaining this indeterminate and figurative expression further.

But now the whole rest of his doctrine of the understanding, of its categories and of the possibility of experience, as he sets it out in the transcendental logic, contradicts all that has been cited in the most glaring way. Namely: “Critique of Pure Reason,” p. 79; V, 105, the understanding brings by its categories unity into the manifold of intuition, and the pure concepts of the understanding relate a priori to objects of intuition. On p. 94; V, 126, “the categories are condition of experience, whether of the intuition or of the thinking which is met with in it.” V, p. 127, the understanding is the author of experience. V, p. 128, the categories determine the intuition of objects. V, p. 130, everything that we represent to ourselves as combined in the object (which is surely something intuitive and not an abstraction) has first been combined by an act of the understanding. V, p. 135, the understanding is explained anew as the faculty of combining a priori and bringing the manifold of given representations under the unity of apperception: but, according to all usage of language, apperception is not the thinking of a concept, but is intuition. V, p. 136, we find even a supreme principle of the possibility of all intuition in relation to the understanding. V, p. 143, there stands even as heading that all sensuous intuition is conditioned by the categories. In the same place the logical function of judgments brings also the manifold of given intuitions under an apperception in general, and the manifold of a given intuition stands necessarily under the categories. V, p. 144, unity comes into the intuition, by means of the categories, through the understanding. V, p. 145, the thinking of the understanding is very oddly explained by its synthesizing, combining and ordering the manifold of intuition. V, p. 161, experience is possible only through the categories and consists in the connection of perceptions, which surely are intuitions. V, p. 159, the categories are cognitions a priori of objects of intuition in general.—Further, here and V, pp. 163 and 165, a chief doctrine of Kant is set forth, this: that the understanding first makes nature possible, by prescribing laws to it a priori and nature conforming to its lawfulness, and so on. Now nature, however, is surely something intuitive and not an abstraction; the understanding would accordingly have to be a faculty of intuition. V, p. 168, it is said that the concepts of the understanding are the principles of the possibility of experience, and that this is the determination of appearances in space and time in general; which appearances are surely there in intuition. Finally, pp. 189–211; V, 232–265, stands the long proof (whose incorrectness is shown at length in my treatise on the principle of sufficient reason, §. 23) that the objective succession and also the coexistence of the objects of experience are not perceived by the senses, but brought into nature solely by the understanding, which itself is thereby first made possible. Certainly, however, nature, the sequence of events and the coexistence of states are altogether intuitive and not merely abstractly thought.

I challenge everyone who shares my reverence for Kant to reconcile these contradictions, and to show that in his doctrine of the object of experience and of the way it is determined by the activity of the understanding and its twelve functions, Kant thought something quite clear and determinate. I am convinced that the demonstrated contradiction that runs through the whole transcendental logic is the real ground of the great obscurity of its exposition. Kant, namely, was dimly conscious of the contradiction, struggled inwardly with it, yet would not or could not bring it to distinct consciousness, and therefore veiled it for himself and for others, and evaded it by all kinds of secret paths. From this it is perhaps also to be derived that he made of the faculty of knowledge so strange, complicated a machine, with so many wheels, as are the twelve categories, the transcendental synthesis of the imagination, of inner sense, of the transcendental unity of apperception, further the schematism of the pure concepts of the understanding, and so on. And in spite of this great apparatus, not even an attempt is made to explain the intuition of the external world, which is surely the main thing in our knowledge; rather this importunate demand is turned aside, quite meagerly, always by the same empty, figurative expression: “Empirical intuition is given to us.” On p. 145 of the fifth edition we learn further that it is given by the object: hence this must be something different from intuition.

If we now endeavor to explore Kant’s innermost opinion, not distinctly stated by himself, we find that such an object, different from intuition, but also by no means a concept, is really for him the proper object for the understanding, indeed that the odd presupposition of such an unrepresentable object is really supposed to be that by which intuition first becomes experience. I believe that an old, deeply rooted prejudice, dead to all investigation, is the ultimate ground in Kant of the assumption of such an absolute object, which is in itself, that is, even without a subject, object. It is by no means the intuited object, but is added in thought to the intuition through the concept, as something corresponding to it, and now the intuition is experience and has value and truth, which it consequently first receives through the relation to a concept (in diametrical opposition to our presentation, according to which the concept alone receives value and truth from intuition). This adding in thought of the directly unrepresentable object to the intuition is then the real function of the categories. “Only through intuition is the object given, which afterwards is thought in accordance with the category.” (Critique of Pure Reason, first edition, p. 399.) This becomes especially clear from a passage, p. 125 of the fifth edition: “Now the question is whether concepts a priori do not also precede, as conditions under which alone something, though not intuited, is nevertheless thought as object in general,” which he affirms. Here the source of the error and of the confusion enveloping it shows itself clearly. For the object as such is always only for intuition and in it: whether this be performed by the senses, or, in the object’s absence, by the imagination. What is thought, on the other hand, is always a universal, non-intuitive concept, which at most can be the concept of an object in general: but only mediately, by means of concepts, does thinking relate to objects, which themselves are and remain always intuitive. For our thinking does not serve to lend reality to intuitions: these have it, so far as they are capable of it (empirical reality), through themselves; but it serves to gather up what is common to intuitions and their results, so as to preserve them and handle them more easily. Kant, however, ascribes the objects themselves to thinking, in order thereby to make experience and the objective world dependent on the understanding, without, however, letting this be a faculty of intuition. In this respect he does indeed distinguish intuiting from thinking, but makes single things the object partly of intuition, partly of thinking. In reality, however, they are only the former: our empirical intuition is at once objective; just because it proceeds from the causal nexus. Its objects are immediately the things, not representations different from these. Single things are intuited as such in the understanding and through the senses: the one-sided impression on these is thereby at once completed by the imagination. As soon as we pass over to thinking, on the other hand, we leave single things and have to do with universal concepts without intuitiveness; even though we afterwards apply the results of our thinking to single things. If we hold fast to this, the inadmissibility of the assumption is evident that the intuition of things first receives reality through the thinking of these same things applying the twelve categories, and becomes experience. Rather, in the intuition itself the empirical reality, hence experience, is already given: but intuition too can come about only through application of the knowledge of the causal nexus, which is the sole function of the understanding, to the sense sensation. Intuition is accordingly really intellectual, which is precisely what Kant denies.

The assumption of Kant criticized here is found, besides the passage cited, set out with particular clarity also in the “Critique of Judgment,” §. 36, right at the beginning; likewise in the “Metaphysical Foundations of Natural Science,” in the note to the first definition of the “Phenomenology.” But with a naivety which Kant, at this awkward point, least dared, it is found set forth most plainly in the book of a Kantian, namely in Kiesewetter’s “Outline of a General Logic,” third edition, Part I, p. 434 of the Exposition, and Part II, §. 52 and 53 of the Exposition; likewise in Tieftrunk’s “Doctrine of Thought in Purely German Dress” (1825). There one sees very clearly how every thinker’s disciples, who do not think for themselves, become a magnifying mirror of his faults. In this presentation of his once-resolved doctrine of the categories Kant has everywhere stepped softly, the disciples however quite boldly, whereby they lay bare the falseness of the matter.

According to what has been said, the object of the categories in Kant is indeed not the thing in itself, yet it is its nearest kinsman: it is the object in itself, an object that needs no subject, an individual thing and yet not in time and space, because it is not intuitive; an object of thinking and yet not an abstract concept. Accordingly Kant really distinguishes three things: 1) the representation; 2) the object of the representation; 3) the thing in itself. The first belongs to sensibility, which for him includes, besides sensation, the pure forms of intuition, space and time. The second belongs to the understanding, which adds it in thought by means of its twelve categories. The third lies beyond all possibility of being known. (For proof of this, see pp. 108 and 109 of the first edition of the “Critique of Pure Reason.”) Now the distinction between the representation and the object of the representation is groundless. Berkeley had already proved this; it follows from my whole exposition in the first book, especially Chapter 1 of the Supplements, and indeed from Kant’s own thoroughly idealist fundamental view in the first edition. But if one did not want to count the object of the representation as part of the representation and identify it with it, one would have to assign it to the thing in itself; in the end this depends on the sense one attaches to the word object. One thing, however, always stands firm: on clear reflection, nothing more is to be found than representation and thing in itself. The unwarranted insertion of that hybrid, the object of the representation, is the source of Kant’s errors; but with its removal the doctrine of the categories as concepts a priori falls away too, since they contribute nothing to intuition and are not supposed to hold of the thing in itself, but serve only to let us think those “objects of representations” and thereby convert representation into experience. For every empirical intuition is already experience, and every intuition is empirical that proceeds from sensation. This sensation the understanding refers to its cause, by means of its sole function (knowledge a priori of the law of causality); and the cause, precisely thereby, presents itself in space and time (forms of pure intuition) as an object of experience, a material object, persisting in space through all time, yet even as such still remaining representation, just as space and time themselves do. If we want to go beyond this representation, we stand before the question of the thing in itself, to answer which is the theme of my whole work, as it is of all metaphysics. Connected with this error of Kant’s, here set forth, is the fault I censured earlier: that he gives no theory of the origin of empirical intuition, but simply lets it be given, identifying it with mere sensation, to which he adds only the forms of intuition, space and time, comprising both under the name of sensibility. But from these materials no objective representation yet arises. This requires, absolutely, the relating of sensation to its cause, and thus the application of the law of causality, and thus understanding; for without this the sensation remains subjective and places no object in space, even when space is added to it. But for Kant the understanding was not to be employed in intuition: it was supposed to think only, so as to stay within transcendental logic. Another fault of Kant’s is connected with this: having rightly recognized the apriority of the law of causality, he left it to me to furnish the only valid proof of it, namely the proof from the possibility of objective empirical intuition itself, and gave instead one that is evidently false, as I have already shown in my treatise on the principle of sufficient reason, §. 23.—

From the above it is clear that Kant’s “object of the representation” (2) is put together from what he has stolen partly from the representation (1), partly from the thing in itself (3). If experience really came about only because our understanding applied twelve different functions in order to think, through as many concepts a priori, the objects that had previously been merely intuited, then every real thing as such would have to have a multitude of determinations which, given as a priori, could not be thought away at all, any more than space and time, but belonged quite essentially to the existence of the thing, and yet could not be derived from the properties of space and time. But only a single determination of this kind is to be found: that of causality. On it rests materiality, since the essence of matter consists in action and it is through and through causality (see Vol. II, Ch. 4). And materiality alone is what distinguishes the real thing from the figment of imagination, which after all is only representation. For matter, being what persists, gives the thing, so far as its matter goes, persistence through all time, while the forms change in accordance with causality. Everything else in the thing consists either of determinations of space or of time, or of its empirical properties, all of which run back to its efficacy and are thus more specific determinations of causality. But causality already enters as a condition into empirical intuition, which accordingly is a matter of the understanding, since the understanding makes intuition itself possible; apart from the law of causality, however, it contributes nothing to experience and its possibility. What fills the old ontologies, besides what has been stated here, is nothing but relations of things to one another or to our reflection, and a heap of scraped-together farrago.

The very manner of presentation of the doctrine of the categories gives a mark of its groundlessness. What a distance, in this respect, between the transcendental Aesthetic and the transcendental Analytic! There, what clarity, definiteness, certainty, firm conviction, which declares itself openly and communicates itself infallibly! Everything is full of light, no dark hiding places are left: Kant knows what he wants, and knows that he is right. Here, on the contrary, everything is dark, confused, indefinite, wavering, uncertain; the presentation is anxious, full of excuses and of appeals to what is still to come, or even to what is held back. Moreover, the whole second and third section of the Deduction of the Pure Concepts of the Understanding was completely altered in the second edition because it did not satisfy Kant himself, and it is quite different from the first, yet has not become clearer. One really sees Kant struggling with the truth in order to push through the doctrine he had once decided on. In the transcendental Aesthetic all his propositions are really proved, from undeniable facts of consciousness; in the transcendental Analytic, on the other hand, if we examine it in the light, we find mere assertions that it is so and must be so. Thus here, as everywhere, the presentation bears the stamp of the thinking from which it came: for style is the physiognomy of the mind.—It is also to be remarked that whenever Kant wants to give an example for closer elucidation, he takes almost every time the category of causality, and then what he says turns out right—precisely because the law of causality is the real, but also the sole form of the understanding, and the other eleven categories are only blind windows. The deduction of the categories is simpler and more straightforward in the first edition than in the second. He labors to show how, after the intuition given by sensibility, the understanding brings about experience by means of the thinking of the categories. In doing so, the expressions recognition, reproduction, association, apprehension, transcendental unity of apperception are repeated to the point of weariness, and still no clarity is reached. But it is highly remarkable that in this whole exposition he not once touches on what must occur to everyone first: the relating of sensation to its external cause. If he did not want to let this stand, he ought to have denied it expressly; but this too he does not do. So he sneaks around it, and all Kantians have sneaked after him in just the same way. The secret motive for this is that he is saving the causal nexus, under the name “ground of appearance,” for his false derivation of the thing in itself; and next, that through the relation to the cause intuition would become intellectual, which he must not admit. Besides, he seems to have feared that if the causal nexus between sensation and object were allowed to stand, the object would at once become the thing in itself and introduce the empiricism of Locke. This difficulty, however, is removed by the clear-headed reflection which reminds us that the law of causality is of subjective origin, just as much as sensation itself, and moreover that our own body too, so far as it appears in space, already belongs to the representations. But his fear of Berkeleyan idealism kept Kant from admitting this.

As the essential operation of the understanding by means of its twelve categories, “the combination of the manifold of intuition” is stated again and again; yet this is never properly explained, nor is it shown what this manifold of intuition is before the combination by the understanding. Now time and space, the latter in all its three dimensions, are continua, that is, all their parts are originally not separate but connected. But they are the pervasive forms of our intuition; so everything that presents itself (is given) in them also appears originally as a continuum, that is, its parts already appear as connected and need no further combination of the manifold. If, however, one wanted to interpret that union of the manifold of intuition to mean, say, that I refer the various sense impressions of an object to this one object, so that, for example, in intuiting a bell, I recognize that what affects my eye as yellow, my hands as smooth and hard, my ear as sounding, is nonetheless one and the same body, then this is rather a consequence of the knowledge a priori of the causal nexus (this real and sole function of the understanding). By virtue of it all those various effects on my various sense organs lead me back only to one common cause of them, namely the constitution of the body standing before me, so that my understanding, despite the diversity and multiplicity of the effects, apprehends the unity of the cause as a single object, which presents itself in intuition precisely in this way.—In the fine recapitulation of his doctrine which Kant gives in the “Critique of Pure Reason,” pp. 719–726, or V, 747–754, he explains the categories perhaps more clearly than anywhere else, namely as “the mere rule of the synthesis of that which perception has given a posteriori.” Something seems to float before his mind here like this: that in the construction of a triangle the angles give the rule for putting the lines together; at least, what he says about the function of the categories can best be illustrated by this picture. The preface to the “Metaphysical Foundations of Natural Science” contains a long note which likewise offers an explanation of the categories and says that they “are in nothing different from the formal acts of the understanding in judging,” except that in the latter subject and predicate may at most exchange places; judgment in general is then defined there as “an act by which given representations first become cognitions of an object.” According to this, animals, since they do not judge, would also cognize no objects at all. In general, according to Kant, there are of objects only concepts, no intuitions. I, on the contrary, say: objects exist at first only for intuition, and concepts are always abstractions from this intuition. Hence abstract thinking must conform exactly to the world present in intuition, since only the relation to that world gives content to concepts, and we may assume for concepts no other form determined a priori than the capacity for reflection in general, whose essence is the forming of concepts, that is, of abstract, nonintuitive representations, which constitutes the sole function of reason, as I showed in the first book. I demand accordingly that we throw eleven of the categories out of the window and keep only that of causality, but understand that its activity is already the condition of empirical intuition, which is therefore not merely sensory but intellectual; and that the object so intuited, the object of experience, is one with the representation, from which only the thing in itself is still to be distinguished.

After studying the “Critique of Pure Reason” repeatedly at different ages, I have been forced to a conviction about the origin of the transcendental logic, which I communicate here because it is very helpful toward understanding it. The only discovery founded on objective apprehension and the highest human clarity of mind is the apperçu that time and space are known by us a priori. Delighted by this happy find, Kant wanted to follow its vein further, and his love of architectonic symmetry gave him the clue. Just as he had found empirical intuition to rest on a pure intuition a priori as its condition, so, he thought, certain pure concepts must likewise lie at the ground of the empirically acquired concepts, as a presupposition in our faculty of knowledge, and actual empirical thinking must first be made possible by a pure thinking a priori, which of itself would have no objects but would have to take them from intuition; so that, as the transcendental Aesthetic demonstrates an a priori foundation of mathematics, there would have to be such a foundation for logic as well, and the former would then find in a transcendental logic its symmetrical counterpart. From this point on Kant was no longer unprejudiced, no longer in the state of pure inquiry and observation of what is present in consciousness; he was guided by a presupposition and pursued an aim, namely to find what he presupposed, so that he could set upon the so happily discovered transcendental Aesthetic an analogous, and so symmetrically corresponding, transcendental logic as a second story. To this end he hit on the table of judgments, from which, as well as it would go, he formed the table of categories, the doctrine of twelve pure concepts a priori which were to be the condition of our thinking of just those things whose intuition is conditioned a priori by the two forms of sensibility: a pure understanding now corresponded symmetrically to pure sensibility. After this he came upon yet another consideration, which offered him a means of heightening the plausibility of the matter, by the assumption of the schematism of the pure concepts of the understanding; but it is precisely here that the course of his procedure, unconscious to himself, betrays itself most clearly. For in setting out to find an analogous a priori function for every empirical function of the faculty of knowledge, he noticed that between our empirical intuiting and our empirical thinking, carried out in abstract, nonintuitive concepts, there occurs a mediation, if not always, at least very often, namely when we now and then try to go back from abstract thinking to intuiting; but only try, really in order to convince ourselves that our abstract thinking has not strayed far from the safe ground of intuition and perhaps overshot it, or even degenerated into mere verbiage; much as, walking in the dark, we now and then reach out for the wall that guides us. We then go back to intuiting, again only tentatively and for a moment, by calling up in the imagination an intuition corresponding to the concept that happens to occupy us, which, however, can never be wholly adequate to the concept but is a mere provisional representative of it. On this I have already said what is needed in my treatise “On the Principle of Sufficient Reason,” §. 28. Kant calls a fleeting phantasm of this kind, as opposed to the finished image of the imagination, a schema, says it is as it were a monogram of the imagination, and now asserts that, just as such a schema stands midway between our abstract thinking of empirically acquired concepts and our clear intuition through the senses, so too between the a priori faculty of intuition of pure sensibility and the a priori faculty of thought of the pure understanding (that is, the categories) there exist schemata of the pure concepts of the understanding a priori. These schemata, as monograms of the pure imagination a priori, he describes one by one and assigns each to the category corresponding to it, in the strange “Chapter on the Schematism of the Pure Concepts of the Understanding,” which is famous for its extreme obscurity because no one has ever been able to make sense of it. Its obscurity, however, clears up when it is considered from the standpoint given here, and then, more than anywhere else, the deliberateness of his procedure comes to light, together with the resolve, formed beforehand, to find whatever would correspond by analogy and serve architectonic symmetry; indeed this is the case here to a degree that brings the matter close to the comic. For in assuming schemata of the pure (contentless) concepts of the understanding a priori (categories), analogous to the empirical schemata (or representatives of our real concepts through the imagination), he overlooks that the purpose of such schemata falls away entirely here. The purpose of schemata in empirical (real) thinking relates wholly to the material content of such concepts. Since these are abstracted from empirical intuition, we help and orient ourselves by casting a fleeting glance back, now and then in the midst of abstract thinking, at the intuition from which the concepts were taken, to make sure that our thinking still has real content. But this necessarily presupposes that the concepts occupying us arose from intuition; it is a mere looking back to their material content, indeed a mere aid for our weakness. With concepts a priori, which as yet have no content at all, such a thing obviously must fall away: for these did not arise from intuition, but come to meet it from within, to receive a content from it for the first time, and so have nothing yet to look back to. I dwell on this point at length because it throws light precisely on the secret course of Kant’s philosophizing, which consists in this: after the happy discovery of the two forms of intuition a priori, Kant strove henceforth, with analogy as his clue, to exhibit an a priori analogue for every determination of our empirical knowledge, and in the end, in the schemata, extended this even to a merely psychological fact. The apparent profundity and the difficulty of the exposition serve precisely to hide from the reader that its content remains a wholly unprovable and merely arbitrary assumption; and whoever at last penetrates the sense of such an exposition is easily misled into taking this laboriously won understanding for conviction of the truth of the matter. Had Kant, on the contrary, behaved here as unprejudiced and as purely observant as he did in discovering the intuitions a priori, he would have had to find that what is added to the pure intuition of space and time when it becomes an empirical one is, on the one hand, sensation, and on the other, the knowledge of causality, which transforms mere sensation into objective empirical intuition. For that very reason this knowledge is not first borrowed and learned from empirical intuition, but is present a priori, and is just the form and function of the pure understanding, though also its only one, yet one so rich in consequences that all our empirical knowledge rests on it.—If, as has often been said, the refutation of an error is completed only by showing psychologically how it arose, then I believe I have accomplished this in the above, with regard to Kant’s doctrine of the categories and their schemata.

After Kant had brought such great errors into the first simple basic outlines of a theory of the faculty of representation, he fell upon many very complicated assumptions. Among these belongs first of all the synthetic unity of apperception: a very odd thing, very oddly presented. “The I think must be able to accompany all my representations.” Must—be able: this is a problematic-apodictic enunciation; in plain words, a proposition that takes with one hand what it gives with the other. And what is the sense of this proposition, balanced so on its point?—That all representing is a thinking?—It is not; and it would be disastrous. There would then be nothing but abstract concepts, and least of all a pure intuition free of reflection and will, such as that of the beautiful, the deepest grasp of the true nature of things, that is, of their Platonic Ideas. The animals, too, would then either have to think as well, or not even represent.—Or is the proposition perhaps to mean: no object without a subject? That would be very badly expressed in this way, and would come too late. If we put Kant’s statements together, we shall find that what he understands by the synthetic unity of apperception is, as it were, the extensionless center of the sphere of all our representations, whose radii converge on it. It is what I call the subject of knowing, the correlate of all representations, and is at the same time that which I have described and discussed at length, in Chapter 22 of the second volume, as the focus in which the rays of brain activity converge. I refer to that chapter here, so as not to repeat myself.

That I reject the whole doctrine of the categories and count it among the groundless assumptions with which Kant burdened the theory of knowing follows from the critique of it given above; likewise from the demonstration of the contradictions in the transcendental logic, which had their ground in the confusion of intuitive and abstract knowledge; and further from the demonstration of the lack of a distinct and definite concept of the essence of understanding and reason, in place of which we found in Kant’s writings only disconnected, inconsistent, meager and incorrect statements about those two faculties of mind. It follows, finally, from the explanations I myself have given of these same faculties of mind, in the first book and its Supplements, and still more fully in the treatise “On the Principle of Sufficient Reason,” §. 21, 26 and 34. These explanations are very definite and distinct; they result evidently from the consideration of the nature of our knowledge; and they agree completely with the concepts of those two powers of knowledge that manifest themselves in the usage of language and in the writings of all times and peoples, though without being brought to distinctness. Their defense against the very different Kantian account is for the most part already given with the exposure of the faults of that account.—But since the table of judgments, which Kant lays at the ground of his theory of thinking, indeed of his whole philosophy, is in itself, on the whole, correct, it still falls to me to show how these universal forms of all judgments arise in our faculty of knowledge, and to bring them into agreement with my account of it.—In this discussion I shall always connect with the concepts understanding and reason the sense that my explanation has given them, which I therefore presuppose as familiar to the reader.

An essential difference between Kant’s method and the one I follow lies in this, that he starts from mediate, reflected knowledge, I from immediate, intuitive knowledge. He is to be compared to one who measures the height of a tower from its shadow, I to one who applies the measuring rod directly. Hence for him philosophy is a science from concepts, for me a science in concepts, drawn from intuitive knowledge, the sole source of all evidence, and put into universal concepts and fixed there. This whole world around us, intuitive, many-formed, rich in meaning, he skips over, and holds to the forms of abstract thinking; and at the ground of this lies the presupposition, though he never states it, that reflection is the ectype of all intuition, that therefore everything essential in intuition must be expressed in reflection, and in very condensed, and so easily surveyed, forms and basic features. Accordingly the essential and law-governed in abstract knowing would put into our hands all the threads that set in motion before our eyes the motley puppet show of the intuitive world.—If only Kant had stated this supreme principle of his method distinctly, and had then followed it consistently, he would at least have had to separate the intuitive cleanly from the abstract, and we should not have to struggle with irresolvable contradictions and confusions. But from the way he has solved his task one sees that this principle of his method hovered before him only very indistinctly, so that even after a thorough study of his philosophy one still has to guess it first.

As for the method and fundamental maxim itself that I have stated, it has much in its favor and is a brilliant thought. The essence of all science already consists in this, that we gather the endlessly manifold of intuitive appearances under comparatively few abstract concepts, out of which we order a system, from which we have all those appearances entirely in the power of our knowledge, can explain what has happened and determine what is to come. The sciences, however, divide among themselves the broad domain of appearances according to the particular, manifold kinds of the latter.

Now it was a bold and happy thought to isolate what is altogether essential to concepts as such, apart from their content, in order to see, from the forms of all thinking thus found, what is essential also to all intuitive knowing, and consequently to the world as appearance in general; and because this would then have been found a priori, owing to the necessity of those forms of thinking, it would be of subjective origin, and would lead just to Kant’s ends.—But before going further, it should have been investigated what the relation of reflection to intuitive knowledge is (which of course presupposes the pure separation of the two that Kant neglected), in what way, properly, the former reproduces and represents the latter, whether quite purely, or already altered by its reception into the forms of reflection itself and in part made unrecognizable; whether the form of abstract, reflective knowledge is determined more by the form of the intuitive, or by the constitution that inseparably attaches to the reflective itself, so that even what is very heterogeneous in intuitive knowledge can no longer be distinguished once it has entered the reflective, and conversely many differences that we perceive in the reflective mode of knowledge have also arisen from it itself and by no means point to corresponding differences in intuitive knowledge. As the result of this inquiry, however, it would have emerged that intuitive knowledge undergoes in its reception into reflection almost as much change as foodstuffs in their reception into the animal organism, whose forms and mixtures are determined by the organism itself, and from whose composition the constitution of the foodstuffs can no longer be recognized;—or (since that is saying a little too much) at least it would have emerged that reflection by no means stands to intuitive knowledge as the mirror image in the water to the objects mirrored, but hardly even as the shadow of these objects to the objects themselves. This shadow reproduces only some outer contours, but also unites the most manifold in the same shape and presents the most different by the same outline; so that the shapes of things could by no means be constructed completely and surely starting from it.

All reflective knowledge, or reason, has only one principal form, and this is the abstract concept. It is peculiar to reason itself and has immediately no necessary connection with the intuitive world, which therefore exists quite without it for the animals, and could even be an entirely different one, and yet that form of reflection would fit it just as well. The union of concepts into judgments, however, has certain definite, law-governed forms, which, found by induction, make up the table of judgments. These forms are for the most part to be derived from the reflective mode of knowledge itself, hence immediately from reason, namely so far as they arise through the four laws of thought (called by me metalogical truths) and through the dictum de omni et nullo. Others of these forms have their ground in the intuitive mode of knowledge, hence in the understanding, but give no indication of as many particular forms of the understanding; rather they are to be derived wholly and entirely from the single function the understanding has, namely the immediate knowledge of cause and effect. Still others of those forms, finally, have arisen from the meeting and combination of the reflective and the intuitive mode of knowledge, or properly from the reception of the latter into the former. I shall now go through the moments of the judgment one by one and show the origin of each from the sources named; from which it follows of itself that a deduction of categories from them drops out, and that the assumption of these is as groundless as their exposition has been found confused and self-contradictory.

1) The so-called quantity of judgments springs from the essence of concepts as such, has its ground therefore solely in reason, and has no immediate connection at all with the understanding and intuitive knowledge.—For, as set forth in the first book, it is essential to concepts as such that they have an extent, a sphere, and that the wider, less determinate concept includes the narrower, more determinate one, which can therefore also be singled out. This can be done in two ways: either by designating it merely as an indeterminate part of the wider concept in general, or by determining it and separating it out completely, by assigning it a special name. The judgment that carries out this operation is called particular in the first case, universal in the second; for example, one and the same part of the sphere of the concept tree can be isolated by a particular and by a universal judgment, namely: “Some trees bear galls”; or thus: “All oaks bear galls.”—One sees that the difference between the two operations is very slight, indeed that the possibility of it depends on the wealth of words in the language. Nevertheless Kant declared that this difference unveils two radically different acts, functions, categories of the pure understanding, which by means of just these determines experience a priori.

Finally, one can also use a concept in order to arrive by means of it at a determinate, single, intuitive representation, from which, and at the same time from many others, the concept itself was abstracted. This happens through the singular judgment. Such a judgment marks only the boundary where abstract knowledge borders on intuitive, to which it passes over immediately: “This tree here bears galls.”—Kant has accordingly made a special category of this as well.

After all that has gone before, no further polemic is needed here.

2) In the same way the quality of judgments lies wholly within the domain of reason, and is not a shadow of any law of the understanding that makes intuition possible; that is, it gives no direction toward one. The nature of abstract concepts, which is precisely the essence of reason itself objectively apprehended, carries with it, as likewise set forth in the first book, the possibility of uniting and separating their spheres. On this possibility, as their presupposition, rest the universal laws of thought, of identity and of contradiction, to which I have attributed metalogical truth because they spring purely from reason and cannot be explained further. They determine that what is united must remain united and what is separated must remain separated, and thus that what is posited cannot at the same time be canceled again; they therefore presuppose the possibility of joining and separating spheres, that is, judging itself. This, however, lies, as to its form, solely and exclusively in reason, and this form is not carried over, as the content of judgments is, from the intuitive knowledge of the understanding, in which therefore no correlate or analogue for it is to be sought. Once intuition has come about through the understanding and for the understanding, it stands there complete, subject neither to doubt nor to error, and consequently knows neither affirmation nor negation: for it speaks for itself, and does not have, like the abstract knowledge of reason, its worth and content in the mere reference to something outside it, according to the principle of sufficient reason as ground of knowing. It is therefore pure reality; all negation is foreign to its essence. Negation can be added in thought only by reflection, but for that very reason always remains within the domain of abstract thinking.

To the affirmative and negative judgments Kant adds, borrowing a whim of the old Scholastics, the infinite ones—a subtly contrived stopgap that does not even need discussing, a blind window, of which he has installed many in the interest of his symmetrical architectonic.

3) Under the very wide concept of relation Kant has brought together three quite different kinds of judgments, which we must therefore illuminate one by one in order to recognize their origin. a) The hypothetical judgment in general is the abstract expression of that most universal form of all our cognitions, the principle of sufficient reason. That this has four wholly different meanings, and in each of them is rooted in a different faculty of knowledge, as well as concerning a different class of representations, I have already shown in 1813 in my treatise on it. From this it follows sufficiently that the origin of the hypothetical judgment in general, this universal form of thought, cannot be merely, as Kant would have it, the understanding and its category of causality. Rather, the law of causality, which according to my account is the sole form of knowledge of the pure understanding, is only one of the shapes of the principle of sufficient reason, which embraces all pure or a priori knowledge, and which in each of its meanings has this hypothetical form of judgment as its expression.—Here, however, we see quite clearly how cognitions that are wholly different in origin and meaning nonetheless appear, when thought in abstracto by reason, in one and the same form of connection of concepts and judgments, and in this form can no longer be distinguished at all; to distinguish them one must go back to intuitive knowledge, leaving the abstract altogether. Hence the road Kant took, of finding from the standpoint of abstract knowledge the elements and innermost workings of intuitive knowledge as well, was thoroughly perverse. Moreover, my whole introductory treatise “On the Principle of Sufficient Reason” is in a way to be regarded as nothing but a thorough discussion of the meaning of the hypothetical form of judgment; I therefore do not dwell on it further here. b) The form of the categorical judgment is nothing other than the form of judgment in general in the most proper sense. For, strictly speaking, to judge means only to think the connection, or the incompatibility, of the spheres of concepts. Hence the hypothetical and the disjunctive connection are properly not special forms of judgment: they are applied only to judgments already finished, in which the connection of the concepts remains unchanged the categorical one; they in turn link these judgments, the hypothetical form expressing their dependence on one another, the disjunctive their incompatibility. Mere concepts, however, have only one kind of relation to one another, namely that which is expressed in the categorical judgment. The closer determination, or the subspecies, of this relation are the interlocking and the complete separateness of the concept spheres, that is, affirmation and negation; out of which Kant has made special categories under a wholly different title, that of quality. The interlocking and separateness have in turn subspecies, according as the spheres interlock wholly or only in part, a determination which makes up the quantity of judgments; out of which Kant has again made a quite special category title. Thus he separated what is very closely related, indeed identical, the easily surveyed modifications of the only possible relations of mere concepts to one another, and on the other hand united under this title of relation what is very different.

Categorical judgments have as their metalogical principle the laws of thought of identity and contradiction. But the ground for the linking of concept spheres, which gives truth to the judgment (and the judgment is just this linking), can be of very different kinds, and according to it the truth of the judgment is then either logical, or empirical, or metaphysical, or metalogical, as is set forth in the introductory treatise, §. 30–33, and need not be repeated here. From this, however, it follows how very different the immediate cognitions can be that all present themselves in abstracto through the connection of the spheres of two concepts as subject and predicate, and that one cannot at all set up a single function of the understanding as corresponding to them and producing them. For example, the judgments “The water boils; the sine measures the angle; the will resolves; occupation distracts; the distinction is difficult” express by the same logical form the most different kinds of relation. From this we obtain once more the confirmation of how perverse the undertaking is, when one sets out to analyze immediate, intuitive knowledge from the standpoint of the abstract.—Moreover, the categorical judgment arises from a proper knowledge of the understanding, in my sense, only where a causality is expressed by it; but this is the case with all judgments too that designate a physical quality. For when I say “This body is heavy, hard, fluid, green, sour, alkaline, organic, etc.,” this always designates its acting, hence a cognition possible only through the pure understanding. After this cognition, like many wholly different ones (for example the subordination of highly abstract concepts), had been expressed in abstracto through subject and predicate, people carried these mere relations of concepts back again to intuitive knowledge, and supposed that the subject and predicate of the judgment must have in intuition a particular correlate of their own: substance and accident. But I shall make clear further below that the concept substance has no other true content than that of the concept matter. Accidents, however, are wholly synonymous with modes of action, so that the supposed cognition of substance and accident is still the pure understanding’s cognition of cause and effect. How the representation of matter really arises is discussed partly in our first book, §. 4, and in a still more comprehensible way in the treatise “On the Principle of Sufficient Reason,” at the end of §. 21, p. 77; partly we shall see it more closely still in the examination of the principle that substance persists. c) The disjunctive judgments spring from the law of thought of the excluded third, which is a metalogical truth: they are therefore wholly the property of pure reason, and do not have their origin in the understanding. The derivation of the category of community or reciprocal action from them, however, is a really glaring example of the acts of violence that Kant sometimes permits himself against the truth, merely to satisfy his pleasure in architectonic symmetry. The untenability of that derivation has already often been rightly censured and demonstrated on several grounds, especially by G. E. Schulze in his “Critique of Theoretical Philosophy” and by Berg in his “Epicritique of Philosophy.”—What real analogy is there between the leaving open of the determination of a concept by mutually exclusive predicates and the thought of reciprocal action? The two are in fact quite opposed, since in the disjunctive judgment the actual positing of one of the two members of the division is at the same time a necessary cancellation of the other; whereas, when one thinks of two things in the relation of reciprocal action, the positing of the one is a necessary positing of the other as well, and vice versa. Hence the real logical analogue of reciprocal action is indisputably the circulus vitiosus, in which, just as allegedly in reciprocal action, what is grounded is also in turn the ground, and conversely. And just as logic rejects the circulus vitiosus, so the concept of reciprocal action too is to be banished from metaphysics. For I am quite seriously minded to show now that there is no reciprocal action at all in the proper sense, and that this concept, however popular its use is, precisely because of the indeterminacy of the thought, shows itself on closer view to be empty, false and void. First, recall what causality in general is, and consult for assistance my account of it in the introductory treatise, §. 20, as well as in my prize essay on the freedom of the will, Ch. 3, p. 27 ff., and finally in the fourth chapter of our second volume. Causality is the law according to which the states of matter that come about determine their place in time. Causality is concerned only with states, indeed properly only with changes, and neither with matter as such nor with persistence without change. Matter as such does not stand under the law of causality, since it neither comes into being nor passes away; therefore the whole thing does not either, as people commonly speak, but solely the states of matter. Further, the law of causality has nothing to do with persistence: for where nothing changes there is no acting and no causality, but an abiding, resting state. If such a state is changed, then either the newly arisen one is again lasting, or it is not, but at once brings about a third state; and the necessity with which this happens is just the law of causality, which is a shape of the principle of sufficient reason and therefore not to be explained further, since the principle of sufficient reason is precisely the principle of all explanation and all necessity. From this it is clear that being cause and being effect stand in exact connection and necessary relation to temporal sequence. Only in so far as state A precedes state B in time, and their succession is a necessary one and not a contingent one, that is, no mere following after but a following from—only in so far is state A cause and state B effect. The concept of reciprocal action, however, contains this: that both are cause and both effect of each other. But this means as much as that each of the two is the earlier and also the later: so it is no thought at all. For that both states are simultaneous, and indeed necessarily simultaneous, cannot be assumed: because, as necessarily belonging together and being simultaneous, they make up only one state. For the persistence of this state the abiding presence of all its determinations is indeed required, but then there is no longer any talk of change and causality, only of duration and rest, and nothing more is said than that if one determination of the whole state is altered, the new state thereby arisen cannot be lasting, but becomes the cause of the alteration of all the other determinations of the first state as well, whereby in turn a new, third state comes in; all of which takes place only according to the simple law of causality and does not found a new law, that of reciprocal action.

I also maintain flatly that the concept of reciprocal action cannot be supported by a single example. Everything that people might offer for it is either a resting state, to which the concept of causality, which has meaning only for changes, finds no application at all, or an alternating succession of like-named, mutually conditioning states, for whose explanation simple causality is entirely sufficient. An example of the first kind is given by the pan of a scale brought to rest by equal weights: here there is no acting at all, for here there is no change; it is a resting state. Gravity strives, equally distributed, as in every body supported at its center of gravity, but can manifest its force through no effect. That the removal of one weight yields a second state, which at once becomes the cause of the third, the sinking of the other pan, takes place according to the simple law of cause and effect and needs no special category of the understanding, not even a special name. An example of the other kind is the continued burning of a fire. The combination of oxygen with the combustible body is the cause of heat, and this in turn is the cause of the renewed occurrence of that chemical combination. But this is nothing other than a chain of causes and effects, whose links, however, are alternately like-named: the burning A produces free heat B, this a new burning C (that is, a new effect, which is like-named with the cause A, but not individually the same), this a new heat D (which is not really identical with the effect B, but only the same in concept, that is, like-named with it), and so on without end. A pretty example of what in common life is called reciprocal action is supplied by a theory of deserts given by Humboldt (Views of Nature, second edition, Vol. 2, p. 79). Namely, in sandy deserts it does not rain, but it does on the wooded mountains that bound them. The cause is not the attraction of the mountains on the clouds; rather, the column of heated air rising from the sandy plain prevents the vapor vesicles from breaking down and drives the clouds upward.

In the mountains the vertically rising current of air is weaker, the clouds sink, and the precipitation falls in the cooler air. So the lack of rain and the barrenness of the desert stand in reciprocal action: it does not rain because the heated sandy surface radiates more heat; the desert does not become steppe or grassland because it does not rain. But obviously we have here again, as in the example above, only a succession of like-named causes and effects, and nothing whatever essentially different from simple causality. It is just the same with the swinging of the pendulum, and also with the self-preservation of the organic body, in which likewise each state brings about a new one that is of the same kind as the one by which it was itself effected, but individually new; only here the matter is more complicated, in that the chain consists no longer of links of two kinds but of links of many kinds, so that a like-named link returns only after several others have intervened. But always we see before us nothing but an application of the single and simple law of causality, which gives the rule for the sequence of states, and not anything that would have to be grasped by a new and special function of the understanding.

Or does one perhaps even want to cite, as proof of the concept of reciprocal action, that action and reaction are equal? But this lies precisely in what I so strongly urge and have set out at length in the treatise on the principle of sufficient reason: that cause and effect are not two bodies but two successive states of bodies; consequently each of the two states also implies all the bodies involved, and the effect, that is, the newly occurring state, in an impact for example, extends to both bodies in equal proportion. The body struck is changed just as much as the striking body is (each in proportion to its mass and velocity). If one is pleased to call this reciprocal action, then every effect without exception is reciprocal action, and no new concept, still less a new function of the understanding, enters on that account; we have merely a superfluous synonym for causality. This view, however, Kant incautiously states outright in the “Metaphysical Foundations of Natural Science,” where the proof of the fourth theorem of mechanics begins: “All external action in the world is reciprocal action.” How, then, can different a priori functions for simple causality and for reciprocal action lie in the understanding, and how can even the real succession of things be possible and knowable only by means of the former, and their simultaneity only by means of the latter? According to that, if all action is reciprocal action, succession and simultaneity would be the same too, and consequently everything in the world simultaneous.—If there were true reciprocal action, then the perpetuum mobile would also be possible, and even certain a priori; rather, the assertion that it is impossible rests on the a priori conviction that there is no true reciprocal action and no form of the understanding for such.

Aristotle too denies reciprocal action in the proper sense: for he remarks that two things can indeed be causes of each other reciprocally, but only in such a way that this is understood of each in a different sense, for instance when the one acts on the other as motive, but the latter on the former as cause of its motion. For we find the same words in two places: Physic., Lib. II, c. 3, and Metaph., Lib. V, c. 2. Εστι δε τινα και αλληλων αιτια· οιον το πονειν αιτιον της ευεξιας, και αυτη του πονειν· αλλ’ ου τον αυτον τροπον, αλλα το μεν ως τελος, το δε ως αρχη κινησεως. (Sunt praeterea quae sibi sunt mutuo causae, ut exercitium bonae habitudinis, et haec exercitii: at non eodem modo, sed haec ut finis, illud ut principium motus.) If he assumed in addition a proper reciprocal action, he would list it here, since in both places he is occupied with enumerating all possible kinds of causes. In the Analyt. post., Lib. II, c. 11, he speaks of a circular course of causes and effects, but not of reciprocal action.

4) The categories of modality have the advantage over all the rest that what is expressed by each of them really does correspond to the form of judgment from which it is derived; which is hardly ever the case with the other categories, since they are for the most part deduced out of the forms of judgment by the most arbitrary compulsion.

That the concepts of the possible, the actual and the necessary are what give rise to the problematic, assertoric and apodictic forms of judgment is perfectly true. But that those concepts are special, original forms of knowledge of the understanding, not to be derived any further, is not true. They come, rather, from the single original form of all knowing, and therefore the one of which we are conscious a priori, the principle of sufficient reason; the knowledge of necessity comes immediately from it, whereas the concepts of contingency, possibility, impossibility and actuality arise only when reflection is applied to this knowledge. All of these, therefore, are rooted by no means in a power of mind, the understanding, but arise through the conflict of abstract knowing with intuitive, as will be seen at once.

I maintain that being necessary and being the consequence of a given ground are wholly convertible concepts and completely identical. We can never cognize as necessary, indeed never even think as necessary, anything except so far as we regard it as the consequence of a given ground; and beyond this dependence, this being posited by another and this inevitable following from it, the concept of necessity contains absolutely nothing. It arises and exists, then, solely and exclusively through the application of the principle of sufficient reason. Hence, according to the different shapes of this principle, there is a physically necessary (the effect from the cause), a logically necessary (through the ground of knowledge, in analytic judgments, inferences, and so on), a mathematically necessary (according to the ground of being in space and time), and finally a practically necessary, by which we mean not the being determined by an alleged categorical imperative, but the action that, given an empirical character, occurs necessarily according to the motives present.—All that is necessary, however, is so only relatively, namely under the presupposition of the ground from which it follows; hence absolute necessity is a contradiction.—For the rest I refer to §. 49 of the treatise on the principle of sufficient reason.

The contradictory opposite, that is, the negation of necessity, is contingency. The content of this concept is therefore negative, namely nothing more than this: lack of the connection expressed by the principle of sufficient reason. Consequently the contingent, too, is always only relative: it is such in relation to something that is not its ground. Every object, of whatever kind, for example every event in the real world, is always necessary and contingent at once: necessary in relation to the one thing that is its cause; contingent in relation to everything else. For its contact in time and space with everything else is a mere coincidence, without necessary connection; hence also the words chance, συμπτωμα, contingens. An absolutely contingent is therefore as little conceivable as an absolutely necessary. For the former would be an object that stood to no other in the relation of consequent to ground. But the unrepresentability of such an object is just the negatively expressed content of the principle of sufficient reason, which would therefore first have to be overturned in order to think an absolutely contingent; and then the contingent itself would have lost all meaning, since the concept of the contingent has meaning only in relation to that principle, and signifies that two objects do not stand to each other in the relation of ground and consequent.

In nature, so far as it is intuitive representation, everything that happens is necessary: for it proceeds from its cause. But if we consider this single thing in relation to the rest, which is not its cause, we cognize it as contingent; but this is already an abstract reflection. If we now abstract further, in an object of nature, entirely from its causal relation to the rest, and thus from its necessity and contingency, then this kind of knowledge is embraced by the concept of the actual, in which one considers only the effect, without looking around for the cause, in relation to which one would otherwise have to call it necessary, and in relation to everything else contingent. All this rests ultimately on the fact that the modality of judgment designates not so much the objective constitution of things as the relation of our knowledge to them. But since in nature everything proceeds from a cause, every actual thing is also necessary; yet again only so far as it exists at this time and in this place, for the determination by the law of causality extends only so far. If, however, we leave intuitive nature and pass over to abstract thinking, then in reflection we can represent to ourselves all the laws of nature, which are known to us partly a priori, partly only a posteriori, and this abstract representation contains everything that is in nature at any time, in any place, but with abstraction from every determinate place and time: and with this, through such reflection, we have entered the broad realm of possibility. But what finds no place even here is the impossible. It is evident that possibility and impossibility exist only for reflection, for the abstract knowledge of reason, not for intuitive knowledge; although it is the pure forms of the latter that supply reason with the determination of the possible and the impossible. According as the laws of nature from which we proceed in thinking the possible and the impossible are cognized a priori or a posteriori, the possibility or impossibility is a metaphysical one, or only a physical one.

From this exposition, which needs no proof because it rests directly on the knowledge of the principle of sufficient reason and on the development of the concepts of the necessary, the actual and the possible, it follows sufficiently how wholly groundless is Kant’s assumption of three special functions of the understanding for those three concepts, and that here again no scruple has disturbed him in carrying out his architectonic symmetry.

To this there is added, however, the very great fault that he, following of course the example of earlier philosophy, has confused the concepts of the necessary and the contingent with each other.

That earlier philosophy, namely, put abstraction to the following abuse. It was evident that whatever has its ground posited follows inevitably, that is, cannot not be, and is thus necessary. To this last determination alone, however, people clung, and said: necessary is what cannot be otherwise, or whose opposite is impossible. But they left out of account the ground and root of such necessity, overlooked the relativity of all necessity resulting from it, and thereby made the wholly unthinkable fiction of an absolutely necessary, that is, of a something whose existence would be as inevitable as the consequent from the ground, but which yet would not be a consequent from a ground and would therefore depend on nothing; which addition is precisely an absurd petition, because it conflicts with the principle of sufficient reason. Starting from this fiction, they then declared, diametrically opposed to the truth, everything that is posited through a ground to be precisely the contingent, by looking at the relative character of its necessity and comparing this with that entirely fabricated absolute necessity, self-contradictory in its concept [5]. This radically perverse determination of the contingent Kant too retains and gives as the explanation: “Critique of Pure Reason,” V, pp. 289–291; 243. V, 301; 419. V, 447, 486, 488. He even falls thereby into the most glaring contradiction with himself, in that on p. 301 he says: “Everything contingent has a cause,” and adds: “Contingent is that whose non-being is possible.” But what has a cause—its [6] See Christian Wolf’s “Rational Thoughts on God, the World and the Soul,” §. 577–579.—It is strange that he declares contingent only what is necessary according to the principle of sufficient reason of becoming, that is, what happens from causes, whereas what is necessary according to the other shapes of the principle of sufficient reason he recognizes as necessary, for example what follows from the essentia (definition), thus the analytic judgments, and also the mathematical truths. As the ground of this he states that only the law of causality gives endless series, whereas the other kinds of grounds give finite ones. But this is not at all the case with the shapes of the principle of sufficient reason in pure space and time, and holds only of the logical ground of knowledge; yet it was such a ground that he took mathematical necessity to be.—Compare: treatise on the principle of sufficient reason, §. 50.

non-being is absolutely impossible: therefore it is necessary.—Moreover, the origin of this whole false explanation of the necessary and the contingent is already to be found in Aristotle, namely in “De generatione et corruptione,” Lib. II, c. 9 et 11, where the necessary is explained as that whose non-being is impossible. Opposed to it is that whose being is impossible; and between these two lies that which can be and also not be—that is, what comes into being and passes away—and this would then be the contingent. From what was said above it is clear that this explanation, like so many of Aristotle’s, arose from stopping at abstract concepts without going back to the concrete and intuitive, in which, after all, lies the source of all abstract concepts, and by which they must therefore always be checked. “Something whose non-being is impossible” can at any rate be thought in abstracto; but if we go with it to the concrete, the real, the intuitive, we find nothing to support the thought, even as a possibility, except precisely the said consequence of a given ground, whose necessity, however, is a relative and conditioned one.

On this occasion I add a few more remarks on those concepts of modality.—Since all necessity rests on the principle of sufficient reason, and for that very reason is relative, all apodictic judgments are originally, and in their ultimate meaning, hypothetical. They become categorical only through the addition of an assertoric minor, thus in the conclusion. If this minor is still undecided, and this indecision is expressed, then it gives the problematic judgment.

What is apodictic in general (as a rule), a law of nature, is in relation to a single case always only problematic, because the condition that brings the case under the rule must first actually occur. And conversely, what is necessary (apodictic) as such in the particular (every single change, necessary through its cause) is, when stated in general terms, again only problematic; because the cause that has occurred affected only the single case, and the apodictic, always hypothetical judgment asserts only general laws, never directly single cases.—All this has its ground in the fact that possibility exists only in the domain of reflection and for reason, the actual in the domain of intuition and for the understanding, the necessary for both. Indeed the difference between necessary, actual and possible exists properly only in abstracto and in concept; in the real world, on the other hand, all three coincide in one. For everything that happens, happens necessarily, because it happens from causes, and these themselves again have causes; so that all the occurrences of the world, great and small, are a strict chain of what necessarily comes about. Accordingly everything actual is at the same time necessary, and in reality there is no difference between actuality and necessity; and just as little between actuality and possibility. For what has not happened, that is, has not become actual, was also not possible, because the causes without which it could never have occurred did not themselves occur, nor could they occur, in the great chain of causes; it was therefore an impossibility. Every occurrence is accordingly either necessary or impossible. All this holds only of the empirically real world, that is, the complex of single things, and thus of the wholly individual as such. If, on the other hand, we consider things in general by means of reason, apprehending them in abstracto, then necessity, actuality and possibility come apart again. We then recognize everything that conforms to the laws a priori belonging to our intellect as possible in general, and what corresponds to the empirical laws of nature as possible in this world, even if it has never become actual; we thus clearly distinguish the possible from the actual. The actual is in itself indeed always also something necessary, but it is apprehended as such only by one who knows its cause; apart from this it is, and is called, contingent. This consideration also gives us the key to that contentio περι δυνατων between the Megarian Diodorus and Chrysippus the Stoic, which Cicero relates in the book de fato. Diodorus says: “Only what becomes actual has been possible, and everything actual is also necessary.”—Chrysippus, on the other hand: “Much is possible that never becomes actual, for only the necessary becomes actual.”—We can explain this as follows. Actuality is the conclusion of an inference to which possibility gives the premises. But for this not the major alone is required, but the minor too: only the two together give full possibility. The major, namely, gives a merely theoretical, general possibility in abstracto; this in itself, however, makes nothing at all possible, that is, capable of becoming actual. For that the minor is needed as well, which gives the possibility for the single case by bringing it under the rule. By just this the case becomes at once actuality. For example:

Maj. All houses (and consequently my house too) can burn down. Min. My house catches fire. Concl. My house burns down.

For every universal proposition, and so every major, determines things, with regard to actuality, only under a presupposition, hence hypothetically; for example, the being able to burn down has as its presupposition the catching fire. This presupposition is supplied in the minor. The major always loads the cannon; but only when the minor applies the match does the shot, the conclusio, follow. This holds throughout of the relation of possibility to actuality. Since the conclusio, which is the assertion of actuality, always follows necessarily, it follows that everything actual is also necessary; which can also be seen from the fact that being necessary means only being the consequence of a given ground, and this ground in the actual is a cause: so everything actual is necessary. We see here, accordingly, the concepts of the possible, the actual and the necessary coincide, and not merely the last presuppose the first, but also conversely. What holds them apart is the limitation of our intellect by the form of time: for time is the mediator between possibility and actuality. The necessity of the single event can be fully understood through knowledge of all its causes; but the coincidence of all these various causes, independent of one another, appears to us as contingent, and indeed the independence of them from one another is precisely the concept of contingency. But since each of them was the necessary consequence of its cause, whose chain is without beginning, it appears that contingency is a merely subjective appearance, arising from the limitation of the horizon of our understanding, and as subjective as the optical horizon, where the sky touches the earth.

Since necessity is one with consequence from a given ground, it must appear as a distinct kind in each shape of the principle of sufficient reason, and must also have its opposite in possibility and impossibility, which always arises only through the application of the abstract consideration of reason to the object. Hence over against the four kinds of necessity mentioned above stand as many kinds of impossibility: physical, logical, mathematical, practical. It may further be remarked that when one keeps wholly within the domain of abstract concepts, possibility always attaches to the more general concept, necessity to the narrower: for example, “an animal can be a bird, a fish, an amphibian, and so on”—“a nightingale must be a bird, this an animal, this an organism, this a body.”—Properly because logical necessity, whose expression is the syllogism, goes from the general to the particular and never conversely.—In intuitive nature (the representations of the first class), on the other hand, everything is properly necessary, through the law of causality; only the reflection that supervenes can apprehend it at the same time as contingent, by comparing it with what is not its cause, and also as merely and purely actual, by abstracting from all causal connection. Only in this class of representations does the concept of the actual properly have place, as the derivation of the German word from the concept of causality already shows.—In the third class of representations, pure mathematical intuition, if one keeps wholly within it, there is nothing but necessity; possibility arises here too only through reference to the concepts of reflection: for example, “a triangle can be right-angled, obtuse-angled, equiangular; it must have three angles that sum to two right angles.” So here one arrives at the possible only by passing from the intuitive to the abstract.

After this exposition, which presupposes recollection of what was said both in the treatise on the principle of sufficient reason and in the first book of the present work, there will, it is to be hoped, be no further doubt about the true and very diverse origin of those forms of judgment which the table lays before our eyes, nor about the inadmissibility and complete groundlessness of the assumption of twelve special functions of the understanding to explain them. Of the latter, indeed, many single and very easily made remarks already give indication. Thus, for example, it takes great love of symmetry and much confidence in a clue taken from it to assume that an affirmative, a categorical and an assertoric judgment are three things so fundamentally different that they warrant assuming for each of them a wholly peculiar function of the understanding.

Kant himself betrays his consciousness of the untenability of his doctrine of the categories by the fact that in the third chapter of the Analysis of Principles (phaenomena et noumena) he omitted in the second edition several long passages of the first (namely pp. 241, 242, 244–246, 248–253), which laid the weakness of that doctrine too openly bare. Thus, for example, he says there, p. 241, that he has not defined the individual categories because he could not have defined them even if he had wished, since they are capable of no definition:—in this he had forgotten that on p. 82 of the same first edition he had said: “I deliberately excuse myself from the definition of the categories, although I might be in possession of it.”—This was therefore—sit venia verbo—wind. This last passage, however, he let stand. And so all those passages, afterwards prudently omitted, betray that nothing distinct can be thought in the categories and that this whole doctrine stands on weak feet.

This table of categories is now supposed to be the guiding thread by which every metaphysical, indeed every scientific, consideration is to be conducted. (Prolegomena, §. 39.) And in fact it is not only the foundation of the whole Kantian philosophy and the type according to which its symmetry is everywhere carried out, as I have already shown above; it has also become quite literally the bed of Procrustes, into which Kant forces every possible consideration, by an act of violence which I shall now examine somewhat more closely. And what must the imitatores, servum pecus, not have done on such an occasion! It has been seen. That violence, then, is exercised by setting aside and forgetting altogether the meaning of the expressions that designate the titles, forms of judgment and categories, and holding solely to these expressions themselves. These have in part their origin in Aristotle’s Analyt. priora, I, 23 (περι ποιοτητος και ποσοτητος των του συλλογισμου ὁρων: de qualitate et quantitate terminorum syllogismi), but are chosen arbitrarily: for the extent of concepts might well have been designated otherwise than by the word quantity, although this word fits its object better than the other titles of the categories fit theirs. Even the word quality was obviously chosen only from the habit of setting quality over against quantity; for the name quality has been seized upon quite arbitrarily enough for affirmation and negation. Now, however, in every consideration he conducts, Kant brings every quantity in time and space, and every possible quality of things, physical, moral, and so on, under those category titles, although between these things and those titles of the forms of judging and thinking there is not the slightest thing in common, except the accidental, arbitrary naming. One must keep in mind all the esteem one otherwise owes Kant, so as not to express one’s indignation at this procedure in harsh terms.—The next example is supplied at once by the pure physiological table of the general principles of natural science. What in all the world has the quantity of judgments to do with every intuition having an extensive magnitude? What has the quality of judgments to do with every sensation having a degree?—The former rests rather on the fact that space is the form of our outer intuition, and the latter is nothing more than an empirical and, moreover, wholly subjective perception, drawn merely from the consideration of the constitution of our sense organs.—Further, in the table that lays the ground for rational psychology (Critique of Pure Reason, p. 344; V, 402), the simplicity of the soul is listed under quality; but this is precisely a quantitative property, and has no reference at all to affirmation or negation in judgment. Quantity, moreover, was to be filled by the unity of the soul, which is yet already comprised in simplicity. Then modality is squeezed in, in a ridiculous way: the soul, namely, stands in relation to possible objects; but a relationship belongs under relation, and this is already occupied by substance. Then the four cosmological Ideas, which are the material of the antinomies, are traced back to the titles of the categories; on which more below, in the examination of these antinomies. Several examples, if possible still more glaring, are supplied by the table of the categories of freedom! in the “Critique of Practical Reason”;—further, in the “Critique of Judgment,” by the first book, which goes through the judgment of taste according to the four titles of the categories; finally by the Metaphysical Foundations of Natural Science, which are cut entirely to the table of categories, whereby perhaps the falsehood that is mixed here and there with the true and excellent in this important work was chiefly occasioned. One need only look at the end of the first chapter, to see how the unity, plurality and totality of the directions of lines are supposed to correspond to the categories so named according to the quantity of judgments.

—The principle of the persistence of substance is derived from the category of substance and inherence. We know this category, however, only from the form of categorical judgments, that is, from the connection of two concepts as subject and predicate. How violently, then, is that great metaphysical principle made dependent on this simple, purely logical form! But it was done only pro forma and for the sake of symmetry. The proof given here for this principle sets aside altogether its supposed origin in the understanding and in the category, and is conducted from the pure intuition of time. But even this proof is wholly incorrect. It is false that in mere time there is simultaneity and duration: these representations arise first of all from the union of space with time, as I have already shown in the treatise on the principle of sufficient reason, § 18, and set forth still further in § 4 of the present work; I must presuppose both expositions for the understanding of what follows. It is false that through all change time itself remains: rather, it is precisely time itself that flows; a lasting time is a contradiction. Kant’s proof is untenable, however much he has propped it up with sophisms; indeed he falls thereby into the most palpable contradiction. For after he has (p. 177; V, 219) falsely set up simultaneity as a mode of time, he says (p. 183; V, 226) quite rightly: “Simultaneity is not a mode of time, in which no parts at all are simultaneous, but all are successive.”—In truth, space is as much implied in simultaneity as time is. For if two things are simultaneous and yet not one, they are different through space; if two states of one thing are simultaneous (for example the glow and the heat of iron), they are two simultaneous effects of one thing, and therefore presuppose matter, and matter presupposes space. Strictly speaking, simultaneity is a negative determination, which contains only that two things, or states, are not different through time, so that their difference is to be sought elsewhere.—Certainly, however, our knowledge of the persistence of substance, that is, of matter, must rest on an insight a priori, since it is beyond all doubt and therefore cannot be drawn from experience. I derive it from this: that the principle of all becoming and passing away, the law of causality, of which we are conscious a priori, concerns quite essentially only the changes, that is, the successive states of matter, and is thus limited to form, but leaves matter untouched, which therefore stands in our consciousness as the foundation of all things, subject to no becoming and passing away, and thus always having been and always remaining. A deeper grounding of the persistence of substance, drawn from the analysis of our intuitive representation of the empirical world in general, is to be found in our first book, § 4, where it has been shown that the essence of matter consists in the complete union of space and time, a union possible only by means of the representation of causality, and consequently only for the understanding, which is nothing but the subjective correlate of causality. Hence matter, too, is never cognized otherwise than as acting, that is, through and through as causality; being and acting are one in it, which the very word actuality already indicates. Intimate union of space and time—causality, matter, actuality—are therefore one, and the subjective correlate of this one is the understanding. Matter must carry in itself the conflicting properties of the two factors from which it proceeds, and it is the representation of causality that cancels the contradictory element in both and makes their coexistence comprehensible to the understanding, through which and for which alone matter is, and whose whole faculty consists in the knowing of cause and effect. For the understanding, therefore, the unstable flux of time, appearing as the change of accidents, unites in matter with the rigid immobility of space, which presents itself as the persistence of substance. For if substance passed away, like the accidents, the appearance would be torn entirely loose from space and belong only to bare time: the world of experience would be dissolved, through the destruction of matter, annihilation.—From the share, then, that space has in matter, that is, in all appearances of actuality—space being the opposite and counterpart of time and therefore, in itself and apart from union with it, knowing no change at all—that principle of the persistence of substance, which everyone recognizes as certain a priori, had to be derived and explained, and not from bare time, to which Kant, for this purpose, quite absurdly attributed a remaining.

The incorrectness of the proof that now follows, the proof of the apriority and necessity of the law of causality from the mere temporal sequence of events, I have shown at length in the treatise on the principle of sufficient reason, § 23; I may therefore here only appeal to it [7]. It is exactly the same [8] With that refutation of mine of the Kantian proof one may compare at will the earlier attacks on it by Feder, On with the proof of reciprocal action, whose concept I even had to show above to be void.—On modality as well, the principles of which are now set out in detail, what is necessary has already been said.—

I should have to refute many further details in following the transcendental Analytic on, but I fear to tire the reader’s patience and therefore leave them to his own reflection. But again and again there confronts us in the Critique of Pure Reason that chief and fundamental fault of Kant’s which I have censured at length above, the complete failure to distinguish abstract, discursive knowledge from intuitive. This is what spreads a constant obscurity over Kant’s whole theory of the faculty of knowledge, and never lets the reader know what is really being spoken of in each case; so that, instead of understanding, he only ever conjectures, trying to take what is said each time alternately as about thinking and about intuiting, and remains constantly in suspense. That incredible lack of reflection on the essence of intuitive and abstract representation brings Kant, as I shall presently discuss more closely, in the chapter “On the Distinction of All Objects into Phenomena and Noumena,” to the monstrous assertion that without thinking, that is, without abstract concepts, there is no knowledge of an object at all, and that intuition, because it is not thinking, is also no knowing at all, and altogether nothing but a mere affection of sensibility, mere sensation! Indeed more: that intuition without concept is wholly empty, but concept without intuition is still something (p. 253; V, 309). This is the exact opposite of the truth: for concepts get all their meaning, all their content, solely from their relation to intuitive representations, from which they have been abstracted, drawn off, that is, formed by letting fall everything unessential; hence, if the underlayer of intuition is withdrawn from them, they are empty and void. Intuitions, on the other hand, have in themselves immediate and very great significance (for it is in them, after all, that the Time, Space and Causality; § 28; and by G. E. Schulze, Critique of Theoretical Philosophy, Vol. 2, pp. 422–442.

thing in itself is objectified): they stand for themselves, speak for themselves, do not have merely borrowed content, as concepts do. For over them the principle of sufficient reason rules only as the law of causality, and as such determines only their place in space and time; it does not condition their content and significance, as is the case with concepts, where it holds as the ground of knowing. Moreover, it looks as if Kant here really aims precisely to distinguish intuitive and abstract representation: he reproaches Leibniz and Locke, the former with having turned everything into abstract, the latter into intuitive representations. But no distinction comes of it; and even if Locke and Leibniz really committed those faults, a third fault, embracing those two, falls on Kant himself, namely to have mixed the intuitive and the abstract to such a degree that a monstrous hybrid of the two arose, a non-entity, of which no distinct representation is possible and which could therefore only confuse, stupefy and set at strife his disciples.

To be sure, thinking and intuition diverge, more than anywhere else, in the said chapter “On the Distinction of All Objects into Phenomena and Noumena”; but the manner of this distinction is here radically false. For it says, p. 253, V, 309: “If I take away all thinking (through categories) from an empirical knowledge, no knowledge of an object remains at all: for through mere intuition nothing at all is thought, and that this affection of sensibility is in me makes no relation of such representations to any object.”—This sentence contains, as it were, all Kant’s errors in a nutshell; for it comes to light thereby that he has misconceived the relation between sensation, intuition and thinking, and accordingly identifies intuition, whose form is supposed after all to be space, and indeed in all three dimensions, with the mere subjective sensation in the sense organs, but lets the knowing of an object come in only through thinking, which is different from intuiting. I say, on the contrary: objects are in the first place objects of intuition, not of thinking, and all knowledge of objects is originally and in itself intuition; this, however, is by no means mere sensation, but already in it the understanding shows itself active. The thinking that is added in man alone, not in the animals, is mere abstraction from intuition; it gives no knowledge new from the ground up, does not first posit objects that were not there before, but merely changes the form of the knowledge already gained through intuition, making it, namely, an abstract knowledge in concepts, whereby intuitiveness is lost, but on the other hand a combining of it becomes possible, which extends its applicability immeasurably. The material of our thinking, however, is no other than our intuitions themselves, and not something that, not contained in intuition, would first be brought in by thinking: hence of everything that occurs in our thinking the material must be demonstrable in our intuition; otherwise it would be an empty thinking. Although this material is worked upon and reshaped by thinking in very manifold ways, it must nevertheless be possible to restore it from them, and to lead thinking back to it;—as one reduces a piece of gold again from all its solutions, oxidations, sublimations and combinations, and lays it before us once more in metallic form, undiminished. This could not be so if thinking itself had added something to the object, indeed the chief thing.

The whole chapter on the Amphiboly that follows is merely a critique of the Leibnizian philosophy and as such correct on the whole, although the entire cut of it is made merely out of love for architectonic symmetry, which here too provides the guiding thread. Thus, to bring out the analogy with the Aristotelian Organon, a transcendental topic is set up, which consists in this, that one is to consider every concept under four aspects in order to determine first to which faculty of knowledge it belongs. Those four aspects, however, are assumed wholly arbitrarily, and with equal right ten others could be added; their fourfold number corresponds, however, to the category titles, and so the chief Leibnizian doctrines are distributed under them as well as will go. By this critique, too, what were merely false abstractions of Leibniz are in a way stamped as natural errors of reason; Leibniz, instead of learning from his great philosophical contemporaries, Spinoza and Locke, preferred to dish up his own strange inventions. In the chapter on the Amphiboly of Reflection it is said at last that there could possibly be a kind of intuition wholly different from ours, to which our categories would nevertheless be applicable; the objects of that supposed intuition would then be the noumena, things that can be merely thought by us, but since the intuition that would give that thinking meaning is lacking to us, indeed is quite problematic, the object of that thinking, too, would be merely a wholly indeterminate possibility. I have shown above, by quoted passages, that Kant, in the greatest contradiction with himself, sets up the categories now as the condition of intuitive representation, now as a function of merely abstract thinking. Here they appear exclusively in the latter meaning, and it seems altogether as if he meant to ascribe to them only a discursive thinking. If this is really his opinion, however, he should necessarily have characterized thinking in general at the beginning of the transcendental logic, before he specified the various functions of thinking so prolixly; he should consequently have distinguished it from intuiting, and shown what knowledge mere intuiting gives and what new knowledge comes in with thinking. Then one would have known what he is really talking about; or rather, then he would also have talked quite differently, namely at one time of intuiting and at another of thinking, instead of having to do now always with a mixture of the two, which is a non-entity. Then there would also not be that great gap between the transcendental Aesthetic and the transcendental Logic, where, after presenting the mere form of intuition, he dismisses its content, the whole empirical perception, merely with the “it is given,” and does not ask how it comes about, with or without understanding; but passes with a leap to abstract thinking, and not even to thinking in general, but at once to certain forms of thought, and says not a word on what thinking is, what a concept is, what the relation of the abstract and discursive to the concrete and intuitive is, what the difference is between the knowledge of man and that of the animal, and what reason is.

It was precisely that difference between abstract and intuitive knowledge, wholly overlooked by Kant, which the ancient philosophers designated by φαινομενα and νοουμενα [9], and whose opposition and incommensurability gave them so much to do, in the philosophemes of the Eleatics, in Plato’s doctrine of the Ideas, in the dialectic of the Megarians, and later, for the Scholastics, in the dispute between nominalism and realism, the germ of which, developing late, was already contained in the opposite mental tendency of Plato and Aristotle. Kant, however, who in an irresponsible way entirely neglected the very matter that those words φαινομενα and νοουμενα were already used to designate, now seizes the words as if they were still ownerless, to designate by them his things in themselves and his appearances.

—Having had to reject Kant’s doctrine of the categories just as he himself rejected Aristotle’s, I will nevertheless point here, by way of suggestion, to a third path for attaining the intended aim. What both sought under the name of categories were in any case the most universal concepts, under which all things, however different, must be subsumed, and through which, therefore, everything existing would finally be thought. For this very reason Kant conceived them as the forms of all thinking.

Grammar stands to logic as the garment to the body. Should not these supreme concepts, then, this fundamental bass of reason, which is the foundation of all more specific thinking and without whose application no thinking can take place at all, lie after all in the concepts which, precisely because of their exuberant generality (transcendentality), find their expression not in single words but in whole classes of words, since with every word, whichever [10] See Sext. Empir. Pyrrhon. hypotyp., Lib. I, c. 13, νοουμενα φαινομενοις ἀντετιθη Αναξαγορας (intelligibilia apparentibus opposuit Anaxagoras). it may be, one of them is already thought along with it; so that one would have to look for their designation not in the lexicon but in grammar? Should it not be, in the end, those differences of concepts by virtue of which the word expressing them is a noun, or an adjective, a verb, or an adverb, a pronoun, a preposition, or some other particle—in short the partes orationis? For indisputably these designate the forms which all thinking first assumes and in which it immediately moves; for just that reason they are the essential forms of language, the basic constituents of every language, so that we cannot conceive a language that did not consist at least of nouns, adjectives and verbs. Under these basic forms would then be subordinated those forms of thought which are expressed by the inflections of the former, that is, by declension and conjugation, where in the main it is immaterial whether one calls in the article and the pronoun to help in designating them. Let us, however, examine the matter somewhat more closely and raise the question anew: what are the forms of thinking?

1) Thinking consists throughout of judgments: judgments are the threads of its whole fabric. For without the use of a verb our thinking does not move from the spot, and whenever we use a verb we judge.

2) Every judgment consists in the knowing of the relation between subject and predicate, which it separates or unites with various restrictions. It unites them, beginning from the knowing of the real identity of the two, which can occur only with convertible concepts; then in the knowing that the one is always thought along in the other, though not conversely—in the universally affirmative proposition; up to the knowing that the one is sometimes thought along in the other, in the particular affirmative proposition. The negative propositions go the opposite way. Accordingly in every judgment subject, predicate and copula, the last affirmative or negative, must be found, even if not each of these is designated by a word of its own, though each mostly is. Often one word designates predicate and copula, as in “Caius grows old”; sometimes one word designates all three, as in concurritur, that is, “the armies come to close quarters.” From this it is clear that the forms of thinking are not to be sought so directly and immediately in the words, nor even in the parts of speech, since the same judgment can be expressed in different languages, indeed even in the same language, by different words and even by different parts of speech, while the thought nevertheless remains the same, and consequently its form too; for the thought could not be the same with a different form of thinking itself. But the verbal structure can very well be different with the same thought and the same form of it, for it is merely the outer dress of the thought, which on the other hand is inseparable from its form. Grammar therefore only elucidates the dress of the forms of thought. The parts of speech can accordingly be derived from the original forms of thought themselves, independent of all languages; to express these, with all their modifications, is their purpose. They are the tool of the forms of thought, their garment, which must be fitted exactly to their frame, so that the frame can be recognized in it.

3) These real, unchangeable, original forms of thinking are indeed those of Kant’s logical table of judgments; only that on this table there are blind windows, in favor of symmetry and of the table of categories, which must all drop out; likewise a false order. So, something like this: a) Quality: affirmation or negation, that is, connection or separation of the concepts: two forms. It attaches to the copula. b) Quantity: the subject concept is taken wholly or in part: totality or plurality. To the former belong also the individual subjects: Socrates means “all Socrates.” Thus only two forms. It attaches to the subject. c) Modality: really has three forms. It determines the quality as necessary, actual, or contingent. It consequently attaches likewise to the copula.

These three forms of thinking arise from the laws of thought of contradiction and of identity. But from the principle of sufficient reason and that of the excluded third arises d) Relation. It enters only when judgments are passed on finished judgments, and can consist only in this, that it either states the dependence of one judgment on another (even where both are plural), thus connects them, in the hypothetical proposition; or states that judgments exclude each other, thus separates them, in the disjunctive proposition. It attaches to the copula, which here separates or connects the finished judgments.

The parts of speech and grammatical forms are modes of expression of the three constituents of the judgment, that is, of subject, predicate and copula, as also of the possible relations of these, that is, of the forms of thought just enumerated, and of the closer determinations and modifications of the latter. Noun, adjective and verb are therefore essential basic constituents of language in general, for which reason they must be found in all languages. Yet a language could be conceived in which adjective and verb were always fused with each other, as they sometimes are in all languages. Provisionally it could be said: for the expression of the subject are destined noun, article and pronoun;—for the expression of the predicate, adjective, adverb, preposition;—for the expression of the copula, the verb, which, however, with the exception of esse, already contains the predicate. The exact mechanism of the expression of the forms of thought is to be taught by philosophical grammar, as the operations with the forms of thought themselves are by logic.

Remark. As a warning against a false path, and to elucidate the above, I mention S. Stern’s “Preliminary Foundation for the Philosophy of Language,” 1835, as a wholly failed attempt to construct the categories out of the grammatical forms. For he has entirely confused thinking with intuiting, and therefore wanted to deduce from the grammatical forms, instead of the categories of thinking, the alleged categories of intuiting, and so put the grammatical forms in direct relation to intuition. He is caught in the great error that language refers immediately to intuition; whereas it refers immediately only to thinking as such, that is, to abstract concepts, and only by means of these to intuition, to which, however, it stands in a relation that brings about a complete change of form. What is present in intuition, and so also the relations arising from time and space, does indeed become an object of thinking; so there must also be forms of language to express it, yet always only in abstracto, as concepts. The nearest material of thinking is always concepts, and only to such do the forms of logic refer, never directly to intuition. The latter determines always only the material truth of propositions, never the formal, which is governed by the logical rules alone.

—I return to the Kantian philosophy and come to the transcendental Dialectic. Kant opens it with the explanation of reason, the faculty that is to play the principal role in it, since hitherto only sensibility and understanding were on the stage. I have already spoken above, among his various explanations of reason, also of the one given here, “that it is the faculty of principles.” It is taught here that all the cognitions a priori considered so far, which make pure mathematics and pure natural science possible, give mere rules but no principles, because they proceed from intuitions and forms of knowledge, not from mere concepts, which is required in order to be called a principle. Such a principle is accordingly to be a knowledge from mere concepts and yet synthetic. This, however, is flatly impossible. From mere concepts nothing but analytic propositions can ever proceed. If concepts are to be connected synthetically and yet a priori, this connection must necessarily be mediated by a third thing, by a pure intuition of the formal possibility of experience, just as the synthetic judgments a posteriori are mediated by empirical intuition; consequently a synthetic proposition a priori can never proceed from mere concepts. In general, however, we are conscious a priori of nothing more than the principle of sufficient reason, in its various shapes, and no other synthetic judgments a priori are therefore possible than those which proceed from what gives that principle its content.

Meanwhile Kant at last comes forward with an alleged principle of reason that answers to his demand, though with only this one, from which other corollaries then flow. It is the proposition that Chr. Wolf sets up and explains in his “Cosmologia,” sect. 1, c. 2, §. 93, and in his “Ontologia,” §. 178. Just as above, under the title of the Amphiboly, mere Leibnizian philosophemes were taken for natural and necessary aberrations of reason and criticized as such, exactly the same is done here with the philosophemes of Wolf. Kant sets out this principle of reason, moreover, in a twilight produced by obscurity, vagueness and fragmentation (p. 307; V, 361, and 322; V, 379); but stated clearly it is this: “If the conditioned is given, then the totality of its conditions must also be given, and hence also the unconditioned, through which alone that totality becomes complete.” One becomes most vividly aware of the apparent truth of this proposition if one pictures the conditions and the conditioned as the links of a chain hanging downward, whose upper end, however, is not visible, so that it could run on to infinity; but since the chain does not fall but hangs, there must be at the top a link that is the first and is somehow fastened. Or more briefly: reason would like to have a point of attachment for the causal chain that points back to infinity; that would be convenient for it. But let us test the proposition not by images but in itself. Synthetic it certainly is: for analytically nothing follows from the concept of the conditioned beyond that of the condition. But it has no truth a priori, and none a posteriori either; it steals its semblance of truth in a very subtle way, which I must now uncover. Immediately and a priori we have the cognitions that the principle of sufficient reason expresses in its four forms. All the abstract expressions of the principle of sufficient reason are already borrowed from these immediate cognitions and are therefore mediate; and still more so are its corollaries. I have already explained above how abstract knowledge often unites manifold intuitive cognitions into one form or one concept in such a way that they can no longer be distinguished: so that abstract knowledge stands to intuitive knowledge as the shadow to the real objects, whose great multiplicity it reproduces through one outline that embraces them all. It is this shadow that the alleged principle of reason now exploits. In order to infer from the principle of sufficient reason the unconditioned, which flatly contradicts it, it shrewdly abandons the immediate, intuitive knowledge of the content of the principle of sufficient reason in its several forms, and makes use only of the abstract concepts, which are drawn from that knowledge and have value and meaning only through it, in order to smuggle its unconditioned somehow into the wide extent of those concepts. Its procedure becomes clearest in dialectical dress; thus, for example: “If the conditioned is there, its condition must also be given, and given entire, hence completely, hence the totality of its conditions, consequently, if they make up a series, the whole series, consequently also its first beginning, hence the unconditioned.”—Already here it is false that the conditions of a conditioned, as such, can make up a series. Rather, for every conditioned the totality of its conditions must be contained in its proximate ground, from which it proceeds immediately and which only thereby is a sufficient ground. Take, for example, the various determinations of the state that is the cause, all of which must have come together before the effect occurs. The series, however, the chain of causes for instance, arises only because we now regard as a conditioned that which was just now the condition; whereupon the whole operation at once begins anew from the start and the principle of sufficient reason appears afresh with its demand. But there can never be, for a conditioned, a proper successive series of conditions that would stand there merely as such and for the sake of the finally last conditioned; there is always rather an alternating series of conditioned and conditions: with each link traversed, however, the chain is interrupted and the demand of the principle of sufficient reason is wholly canceled; it begins again, as the condition becomes the conditioned. Thus the principle of sufficient reason always demands only the completeness of the proximate condition, never the completeness of a series. But this very concept of completeness of the condition leaves undetermined whether that completeness is to be simultaneous or successive: and as the latter is now chosen, there arises the demand for a complete series of conditions following one another. Only by an arbitrary abstraction is a series of causes and effects regarded as a series of nothing but causes, which would be there merely for the sake of the last effect and would therefore be demanded as its sufficient ground. On closer and more considered examination, descending from the indeterminate generality of abstraction to the single determinate real thing, one finds on the contrary that the demand for a sufficient ground goes only to the completeness of the determinations of the proximate cause, not to the completeness of a series. The demand of the principle of sufficient reason is wholly extinguished in every given sufficient ground. But it begins anew at once, as this ground is in turn regarded as a consequent: never, however, does it directly demand a series of grounds. If, on the other hand, instead of going to the thing itself, one stays within the abstract concepts, those differences have vanished: then a chain of alternating causes and effects, or of alternating logical grounds and consequents, is passed off as a chain of nothing but causes or grounds leading to the last effect, and the completeness of the conditions, through which a ground first becomes sufficient, appears as a completeness of that assumed series of nothing but grounds, which would be there only for the sake of the last consequent. Then the abstract principle of reason steps forth very boldly with its demand for the unconditioned. But to recognize the invalidity of this demand there is as yet no need of a critique of reason by means of antinomies and their resolution, but only of a critique of reason in my sense, namely an investigation of the relation of abstract knowledge to the immediately intuitive, by descending from the indeterminate generality of the former to the firm determinateness of the latter. From this it then follows here that the essence of reason by no means consists in demanding an unconditioned: for as soon as it proceeds with full circumspection, it must itself find that an unconditioned is simply a nonentity. Reason, as a faculty of knowledge, can only ever have to do with objects; but every object for the subject is necessarily and irrevocably subject to the principle of sufficient reason and fallen under it, both a parte ante and a parte post. The validity of the principle of sufficient reason lies so deeply in the form of consciousness that one absolutely cannot represent to oneself objectively anything of which no further Why could be demanded, and hence no absolute Absolute, like a board before the head. That this man or that is bidden by his convenience to stop somewhere and assume such an Absolute at pleasure can accomplish nothing against that unshakable certainty a priori, not even if one puts on very distinguished airs about it. In fact the whole talk of the Absolute, this almost sole theme of the philosophies attempted since Kant, is nothing other than the cosmological proof incognito. For this proof, having been stripped of all rights and declared an outlaw as a result of the trial Kant brought against it, may no longer show itself in its true shape, and therefore appears in all sorts of disguises: now in distinguished ones, cloaked in intellectual intuition or pure thinking, now as a suspicious vagabond who half begs, half extorts what he gets, in the more modest philosophemes. If the gentlemen absolutely want an Absolute, I will put one into their hands that meets all the demands made on such a thing far better than their babbled nebulous phantoms: it is matter. It is unoriginated and imperishable, hence truly independent and quod per se est et per se concipitur: from its womb everything proceeds and everything returns into it: what more can one ask of an Absolute?—But one should rather call out to those on whom no critique of reason has taken hold:

Are you not like the women, who keep coming back only to their first word, when one has spoken reason for hours?

Moreover, that the regress to an unconditioned cause, to a first beginning, is by no means grounded in the essence of reason is also proved by fact: the primal religions of our species, which even now have the greatest number of adherents on earth, that is, Brahmanism and Buddhism, neither know nor admit such assumptions, but carry the series of mutually conditioning appearances up into infinity. On this I refer to the note that follows below, in the critique of the first antinomy, where one may also consult Upham’s “Doctrine of Buddhaism” (p. 9), and in general every genuine account of the religions of Asia. One should not identify Judaism and reason.—

Kant, who also by no means wishes to maintain his alleged principle of reason as objectively valid but only as subjectively necessary, deduces it, even as such, only through a shallow sophism, p. 307; V, 364. The sophism is this: because we seek to subsume every truth known to us under a more general one as long as that is possible, this is supposed to be nothing other than the very pursuit of the unconditioned which we presuppose. In truth, however, by such seeking we do nothing other than apply reason, that is, that faculty of abstract, general knowledge which distinguishes the reflective, speech-endowed, thinking human being from the animal, the slave of the present, and use it expediently to simplify our knowledge through overview. For the use of reason consists precisely in this, that we know the particular through the general, the case through the rule, and this through the more general rule, so that we seek the most general points of view: by such overview our knowledge is so greatly facilitated and perfected that from it arises the great difference between the animal and the human course of life, and again between the life of the cultivated and that of the uncultivated human being. Now to be sure the series of grounds of knowledge, which exists solely in the domain of the abstract, hence of reason, always comes to an end in the indemonstrable, that is, in a representation which according to this form of the principle of sufficient reason is not further conditioned, hence in the ground, immediately intuitive a priori or a posteriori, of the topmost proposition of the chain of inference. I have already shown in the treatise on the principle of sufficient reason, §. 50, that here the series of grounds of knowledge actually passes over into the grounds of becoming, or of being. But to make this circumstance count in order to demonstrate something unconditioned according to the law of causality, even if only as a demand—this one can do only if one has not yet distinguished the forms of the principle of sufficient reason at all, but, clinging to the abstract expression, confounds them all. Yet this confusion Kant seeks to ground even by a mere play on words with Universalitas and Universitas, p. 322; V, 379.—It is thus utterly false that our seeking of higher grounds of knowledge, of general truths, springs from the presupposition of an object unconditioned in its existence, or has anything at all in common with it. How indeed should it be essential to reason to presuppose something that it must recognize as a nonentity as soon as it reflects? The origin of that concept of the unconditioned is rather never to be traced to anything other than the indolence of the individual, who wants thereby to be rid of all further questions, put by others or by oneself, though without any justification.

To this alleged principle of reason Kant himself, to be sure, denies objective validity, yet he gives it out as a necessary subjective presupposition, and so introduces an irresolvable discord into our knowledge, which he soon lets emerge more clearly. To this end he unfolds that principle of reason further, p. 322; V, 379, by his favorite architectonic-symmetrical method. From the three categories of relation spring three kinds of syllogisms, each of which furnishes the clue to the search for a particular unconditioned, of which there are therefore again three: soul, world (as object in itself and closed totality), God. Here a great contradiction is at once to be noticed, of which Kant however takes no notice, because it would be very dangerous to symmetry: two of these unconditioned are themselves in turn conditioned, through the third, namely soul and world through God, who is their producing cause: those two therefore have in common with this one not at all the predicate of unconditionedness, which is what matters here, but only that of being inferred according to principles of experience, beyond the domain of the possibility of experience.

Setting this aside, we find in the three unconditioned ones, on which, according to Kant, every reason must light by following its essential laws, the three chief objects around which the whole philosophy that stands under the influence of Christianity, from the Scholastics down to Christian Wolf, has turned. However accessible and familiar those concepts have now become to mere reason through all those philosophers, it is by no means thereby established that, even without revelation, they would have to emerge from the development of every reason, as a product peculiar to the essence of reason itself. To settle this, historical inquiry would have to be called to our aid, to find out whether the ancient and the non-European peoples, especially the Hindustani, and many of the oldest Greek philosophers did really arrive at those concepts; or whether it is merely we who, too good-natured, ascribe them to those peoples, just as the Greeks found their own gods everywhere, by quite falsely translating the Brahm of the Hindus and the Tien of the Chinese as “God”; whether, rather, genuine theism is not to be found only in the Jewish religion and the two religions that have issued from it, whose adherents for that very reason lump together the followers of all other religions on earth under the name of heathens—a most simple-minded and crude expression, incidentally, which should at least be banished from the writings of scholars, because it identifies Brahmanists, Buddhists, Egyptians, Greeks, Romans, Germanic peoples, Gauls, Iroquois, Patagonians, Caribs, Otaheitans, Australians and others besides, and stuffs them all into one sack. For priests such an expression is fitting: in the learned world, however, it must be shown the door at once; it can travel to England and settle in Oxford.—That Buddhism in particular, the most numerously represented religion on earth, contains absolutely no theism, indeed abhors it, is a thoroughly settled matter. As for Plato, I am of the opinion that he owes to the Jews the theism which came over him from time to time. Numenius therefore (according to Clem. Alex. Strom., I, c. 22, Euseb. praep. evang., XIII, 12, and Suidas, under Numenius) called him Moses graecisans: Τι γαρ εστι Πλατων, η Μωσης αττικιζων; and he reproaches him with having stolen (αποσυλησας) his teachings about God and creation from the Mosaic writings. Clement returns often to the point that Plato knew and used Moses, e.g., Strom. I, 25.—V, c. 14, §. 90 et seq.—Paedagog., II, 10, and III, 11; also in the Cohortatio ad gentes, c. 6, where, after having scolded and jeered at all the Greek philosophers in Capuchin fashion in the preceding chapter because they were not Jews, he praises Plato alone and breaks out into loud jubilation that Plato, just as he learned his geometry from the Egyptians, his astronomy from the Babylonians, his magic from the Thracians, and much besides from the Assyrians, so learned his theism from the Jews: Οιδα σου τους διδασκαλους, κἂν αποκρυπτειν εθελῃς,—————δοξαν την του θεου παρ’ αυτων ωφελησαι των Εβραιων (tuos magistros novi, licet eos celare velis,—————illa de Deo sententia suppeditata tibi est ab Hebraeis). A touching scene of recognition.—But I discover a curious confirmation of the matter in the following. According to Plutarch (in Mario) and better according to Lactantius (I, 3, 19), Plato thanked nature that he had been born a human being and not an animal, a man and not a woman, a Greek and not a barbarian. Now in Isaak Euchel’s Prayers of the Jews, from the Hebrew, second edition, 1799, p. 7, there stands a morning prayer in which they thank and praise God that the one giving thanks has been born a Jew and not a heathen, a free man and not a slave, a man and not a woman.—Such a historical inquiry would have spared Kant a dire necessity into which he now falls, as he lets those three concepts spring necessarily from the nature of reason and yet demonstrates that they are untenable and cannot be grounded by reason, and thereby makes reason itself a sophist, when he says, p. 339; V, 397: “They are sophistications, not of man but of pure reason itself, from which even the wisest cannot free himself and, though perhaps after much effort he may guard against the error, can never be rid of the illusion that incessantly pinches and mocks him.” According to this, these Kantian “Ideas of reason” would be comparable to the focus in which the rays thrown back convergently by a concave mirror meet a few inches in front of its surface, as a result of which, through an unavoidable process of the understanding, there presents itself to us at that spot an object which is a thing without reality.

But very unfortunate is the choice, for those three supposedly necessary productions of pure theoretical reason, of the name Ideas, which was wrested from Plato, who used it to designate the imperishable forms that, multiplied through time and space, become imperfectly visible in the countless individual, perishable things. Plato’s Ideas are accordingly thoroughly intuitive, as the word he chose also so definitely indicates, which one could translate adequately only by intuitivenesses or visibilities. And Kant has appropriated it to designate that which lies so far from all possibility of intuition that even abstract thinking can reach it only by halves. The word Idea, which Plato first introduced, has also since then, throughout twenty-two centuries, always kept the meaning in which Plato used it: for not only all the philosophers of antiquity, but also all the Scholastics and even the Church Fathers and the theologians of the Middle Ages used it solely in that Platonic meaning, namely in the sense of the Latin word exemplar, as Suarez expressly states in his twenty-fifth Disputation, Sect. 1.—That the English and the French were later seduced by the poverty of their languages into misusing that word is bad enough, but not of weight. Kant’s misuse of the word Idea, by the substitution of a new meaning, which is dragged in by the thin thread of not being an object of experience—a trait it shares with Plato’s Ideas, but also with all possible chimeras—is therefore not to be justified at all. Since the misuse of a few years does not count against the authority of many centuries, I have always used the word in its old, original, Platonic meaning.

The refutation of rational psychology is far more detailed and thorough in the first edition of the “Critique of Pure Reason” than in the second and the following ones; hence one must absolutely make use of the first here. This refutation has on the whole very great merit and much that is true. Yet I am entirely of the opinion that Kant, merely for love of his symmetry, derives the concept of the soul from that paralogism as necessary, by applying the demand for the unconditioned to the concept of substance, which is the first category of relation, and accordingly asserts that in this way the concept of a soul would arise in every speculating reason. If that concept truly had its origin in the presupposition of a last subject of all the predicates of a thing, one would surely have assumed a soul with the same necessity not only in man but in every lifeless thing, since such a thing too requires a last subject of all its predicates. In general, however, Kant uses a wholly inadmissible expression when he speaks of a something that could exist only as subject and not as predicate (e.g., “Critique of Pure Reason,” p. 323; V, 412; “Prolegomena,” §. 4 and 47); although a precedent for it is already to be found in Aristotle’s “Metaphysics,” IV, ch. 8. As subject and predicate nothing at all exists: for these expressions belong exclusively to logic and designate the relation of abstract concepts to one another. In the intuitive world their correlate or representative is supposed to be substance and accident. But then we need not seek any further for that which exists always only as substance and never as accident, but have it immediately in matter. It is the substance for all the properties of things, which are its accidents. It is really, if one wishes to keep the very expression of Kant’s that has just been censured, the last subject of all predicates of every empirically given thing, namely that which remains after subtraction of all its properties of every kind: and this holds of man as of animal, plant or stone, and is so evident that, in order not to see it, a determined unwillingness to see is required. That it really is the prototype of the concept of substance I shall soon show.—Subject and predicate, however, stand to substance and accident rather as the principle of sufficient reason in logic stands to the law of causality in nature, and as inadmissible as the confusion or identification of these latter is, so is that of the former two. This last confusion and identification Kant carries to the highest degree in the “Prolegomena,” §. 46, in order to let the concept of the soul arise from that of the last subject of all predicates and from the form of the categorical syllogism. To uncover the sophistication of this paragraph one need only reflect that subject and predicate are purely logical determinations, which concern solely and exclusively abstract concepts, and indeed in their relation within the judgment: substance and accident, on the other hand, belong to the intuitive world and its apprehension in the understanding, but are found there only as identical with matter and with form or quality: more of this presently.

The antithesis that has given occasion to the assumption of two fundamentally different substances, body and soul, is in truth that of the objective and the subjective. When a human being apprehends himself objectively in outer intuition, he finds a spatially extended and in general thoroughly corporeal being; when on the contrary he apprehends himself in mere self-consciousness, that is, purely subjectively, he finds a merely willing and representing being, free from all forms of intuition, and hence also without any of the properties that belong to bodies. Now he forms the concept of the soul, like all the transcendent concepts that Kant calls Ideas, by applying the principle of sufficient reason, the form of every object, to that which is not an object, and here to the subject of knowing and willing. For he regards knowing, thinking and willing as effects, whose cause he seeks, and being unable to take the body for that cause, he posits a cause of them wholly different from the body. In this way the first and the last dogmatist prove the existence of the soul: namely Plato already in the Phaedrus and Wolf still: namely from thinking and willing as the effects that lead to that cause. Only after the concept of an immaterial, simple, indestructible being had arisen in this way, by hypostatizing a cause corresponding to the effect, did the School develop and demonstrate it from the concept substance. But this concept itself it had formed beforehand quite specially for this purpose, by the following noteworthy device.

With the first class of representations, that is, the intuitive, real world, the representation of matter too is given, because the law of causality that rules in it determines the change of states, which themselves presuppose something persisting whose change they are. Above, in connection with the principle of the persistence of substance, I showed, with reference to earlier passages, that this representation of matter arises as time and space are intimately united in the understanding, for which alone it exists, through the law of causality (its sole form of knowledge), and the share of space in this product presents itself as the persistence of matter, the share of time as the change of its states. Purely by itself, matter can only be thought in abstracto, not intuited; since it always appears to intuition already in form and quality. Of this concept of matter, substance is now again an abstraction, hence a higher genus, and has arisen by leaving standing, of the concept of matter, only the predicate of persistence, while thinking away all its other essential properties, extension, impenetrability, divisibility, and so on. Like every higher genus, therefore, the concept substance contains less in itself than the concept matter: but in return it does not contain, as the higher genus otherwise always does, more under itself, since beside matter it embraces no several lower genera; rather matter remains the sole true subspecies of the concept substance, the sole thing demonstrable, by which its content is realized and receives a proof. The purpose, then, for which reason otherwise produces a higher concept by abstraction, namely to think in it at once several subspecies differing by further determinations, does not obtain here at all: consequently that abstraction is either undertaken wholly without purpose and idly, or it has a secret ulterior aim. This now comes to light, as under the concept substance a second subspecies is coordinated with its genuine subspecies matter, namely the immaterial, simple, indestructible substance, soul. The smuggling in of this concept was effected, however, by the procedure already in the formation of the higher concept substance being lawless and illogical. In its lawful course reason forms a higher generic concept always only by setting several specific concepts side by side, proceeding now comparatively, discursively, and obtaining, by omitting their differences and retaining their agreements, the generic concept that embraces them all but contains less: from which it follows that the specific concepts must always precede the generic concept. In the present case, however, it is the reverse. Only the concept matter existed before the generic concept substance, which was formed from it without occasion and consequently without warrant, idly, by arbitrary omission of all its determinations but one. Only afterward was the second, spurious subspecies set beside the concept matter, and so foisted in. For the formation of this, however, nothing further was needed than an express negation of what had before been tacitly omitted in the higher generic concept, namely extension, impenetrability, divisibility. Thus the concept substance was formed merely to be the vehicle for smuggling in the concept of immaterial substance. It is consequently very far from being able to pass for a category or a necessary function of the understanding: rather it is a highly dispensable concept, because its sole true content already lies in the concept of matter, beside which it contains only a great void, which can be filled by nothing except the smuggled-in side-species immaterial substance, for the reception of which alone it was formed: for which reason it is, strictly speaking, to be wholly rejected, and the concept of matter put in its place everywhere.

—The categories were a Procrustean bed for every possible thing, but the three kinds of syllogisms are one only for the three so-called Ideas. The Idea of the soul had been forced to find its origin in the categorical form of syllogism. Now it is the turn of the dogmatic representations about the world as a whole, insofar as it is thought, as object in itself, between two limits, that of the smallest (atom) and that of the largest (limits of the world in time and space). These must now emerge from the form of the hypothetical syllogism. In this no special compulsion is needed in itself. For the hypothetical judgment has its form from the principle of sufficient reason, and from the thoughtless, unconditioned application of this principle and then its arbitrary setting aside there arise, in fact, all those so-called Ideas, and not the cosmological ones alone: namely through this, that in accordance with that principle only the dependence of one object on another is ever sought, until at last the weariness of the imagination sets a goal to the journey: whereby it is lost from sight that every object, indeed the whole series of them and the principle of sufficient reason itself, stands in a much nearer and greater dependence, namely that on the knowing subject, for whose objects, that is, representations, that principle alone is valid, since their mere place in space and time is determined by it. Since, then, the form of knowledge from which the cosmological Ideas alone are here derived, namely the principle of sufficient reason, is the origin of all ratiocinating hypostases, no sophisms are needed for it this time; but all the more are needed to classify those Ideas according to the four titles of the categories.

1) The cosmological Ideas with regard to time and space, that is, of the limits of the world in both, are boldly regarded as determined by the category of quantity, with which they evidently have nothing in common except the designation, accidental in logic, of the extent of the subject-concept in the judgment by the word quantity, a figurative expression for which another could just as well have been chosen. But for Kant’s love of symmetry this is enough to seize upon the lucky accident of this naming and to attach to it the transcendent dogmas about the extension of the world.

2) Still more boldly Kant attaches to quality, that is, the affirmation or negation in a judgment, the transcendent Ideas about matter, where not even an accidental similarity of words lies at the bottom: for it is precisely to the quantity and not to the quality of matter that its mechanical (not chemical) divisibility relates. But, what is more, this whole Idea of divisibility does not belong at all among the inferences according to the principle of sufficient reason, from which, as the content of the hypothetical form, all the cosmological Ideas are nevertheless supposed to flow. For the assertion on which Kant here rests, that the relation of the parts to the whole is that of the condition to the conditioned, hence a relation according to the principle of sufficient reason, is a sophism, subtle to be sure, but groundless nonetheless. That relation rests rather on the principle of contradiction. For the whole is not through the parts, nor are these through the whole; rather both are necessarily together, because they are one and their separation is only an arbitrary act. On this it rests, according to the principle of contradiction, that if the parts are thought away the whole too is thought away, and conversely; but by no means on this, that the parts as ground conditioned the whole as consequent, and that we would therefore be necessarily driven, according to the principle of sufficient reason, to seek the last parts, in order to understand from them, as its ground, the whole.—So great are the difficulties that love of symmetry here overcomes.

3) Under the title of relation the Idea of the first cause of the world would now properly belong. But Kant must reserve this for the fourth title, that of modality, for which otherwise nothing would be left, and under which he then squeezes that Idea by this device, that the contingent (that is, by his explanation, which is diametrically opposed to the truth, every consequent from its ground) becomes necessary through the first cause.—As the third Idea, therefore, for the sake of symmetry, the concept of freedom steps in here, by which, however, properly only the Idea of the cause of the world, the one Idea that fits here, is meant, as the note to the thesis of the third conflict plainly says. The third and fourth conflicts are at bottom tautological.

Above all this, however, I find and maintain that the whole antinomy is a mere sham fight, a mock combat. Only the assertions of the antitheses really rest on the forms of our faculty of knowledge, that is, if one expresses it objectively, on the necessary, a priori certain, most general laws of nature. Their proofs alone are therefore conducted from objective grounds. The assertions and proofs of the theses, on the other hand, have no other than a subjective ground, rest solely on the weakness of the ratiocinating individual, whose imagination grows weary at an infinite regress and therefore puts an end to it by arbitrary presuppositions, which it seeks to gloss over as best it can, and whose power of judgment, besides, is at this point paralyzed by prejudices stamped upon it early and firmly. For this reason the proof of the thesis in all four conflicts is everywhere only a sophism; whereas that of the antithesis is an unavoidable inference of reason from the laws of the world as representation, which are known to us a priori. Kant too has been able to uphold the thesis only with much effort and art, and to make it deliver seeming attacks on the adversary, who is endowed with original strength. In this his first and constant device is that he does not, as one does when one is conscious of the truth of one’s proposition, bring out the nervus argumentationis and put it before the eyes as isolated, naked and distinct as ever possible; rather he introduces it on both sides concealed and mixed in under a flood of superfluous and prolix propositions.

The theses and antitheses that here appear in conflict recall the δικαιος and αδικος λογος which Socrates in the Clouds of Aristophanes lets appear contending. Yet this similarity extends only to the form, not to the content, however much those might like to maintain otherwise who ascribe to this most speculative of all questions of theoretical philosophy an influence on morality, and who therefore seriously take the thesis for the δικαιος, but the antithesis for the αδικος λογος. To take account of such narrow and perverse little minds, however, I shall not here condescend; and, giving the honor not to them but to truth, I shall expose the proofs which Kant conducts of the several theses as sophisms, while those of the antitheses are conducted quite honestly, correctly and from objective grounds.—I presuppose that in this examination one will have the Kantian antinomy itself always before one.

Were one to let the proof of the thesis in the first conflict pass, it would prove too much, being just as applicable to time itself as to change in it, and would therefore prove that time itself must have begun, which is absurd. Moreover, the sophism consists in this, that in place of the beginninglessness of the series of states, of which the discussion first treats, the endlessness (infinity) of it is suddenly foisted in, and then what no one doubts is proved, that completedness logically contradicts this, and yet every present is the end of the past. The end of a beginningless series can, however, always be thought without prejudice to its beginninglessness: just as, conversely, the beginning of an endless series can be thought. Against the really correct argument of the antithesis, however, that the changes of the world backward absolutely and necessarily presuppose an infinite series of changes, nothing at all is brought forward. The possibility that the causal series may some day end in an absolute standstill we can think; but by no means the possibility of an absolute beginning [11].

With regard to the spatial limits of the world it is proved that, if it is to be called a given whole, it must necessarily have limits: the consequence is correct, only its antecedent was precisely what had to be proved but remains unproved. Totality presupposes limits, and limits presuppose totality: both together, however, are here arbitrarily presupposed.—The antithesis, however, supplies for this second point no such satisfactory proof as for the first, because the law of causality furnishes necessary determinations only with regard to time, not with regard to [12] That the assumption of a limit of the world in time is by no means a necessary thought of reason can even be shown historically, since the Hindus teach no such thing even in their popular religion, to say nothing of the Vedas; rather they seek to express the infinity of this world of appearance, this unsubstantial and essenceless web of Maya, mythologically by a monstrous chronology, while at the same time bringing out very ingeniously the relativity of all lengths of time in the following myth (Polier, Mythologie des Indous, Vol. 2, p. 585). The four ages, in the last of which we live, comprise together 4,320,000 years. Of such periods of four ages each day of the creating Brahma has 1000 and his night again 1000. His year has 365 days and as many nights. He lives, always creating, 100 of his years: and when he dies, a new Brahma is at once born, and so from eternity to eternity. The same relativity of time is expressed also by the special myth which is retold from the Puranas in Polier’s work, vol. 2, p. 594, where a Rajah, after a visit of a few moments to Vishnu in his heaven, finds on his return to earth several million years elapsed and a new age begun, because each day of Vishnu equals 100 recurrences of the four ages. space, and gives us a priori the certainty that no filled time could ever border on an empty one preceding it and no change could have been the first, but not that a filled space cannot have an empty one beside it. In this respect no decision a priori would be possible about the latter. Yet the difficulty of thinking the world in space as bounded lies in this, that space itself is necessarily infinite, and a bounded, finite world in it, however great it may be, therefore becomes an infinitely small magnitude; at which disproportion the imagination finds an insurmountable stumbling block; since there then remains to it only the choice of thinking the world either infinitely great or infinitely small. This the ancient philosophers already saw: Μητροδωρος, ὁ καθηγητης Επικουρου, φησιν ατοπον ειναι εν μεγαλῳ πεδιῳ ἑνα σταχυν γεννηθηναι, και ἑνα κοσμον εν τῳ απειρῳ (Metrodorus, caput scholae Epicuri, absurdum ait, in magno campo spicam unam produci, et unum in infinito mundum). Stob. Ecl., I, c. 23.—Hence many of them taught (as follows immediately after), απειρους κοσμους εν τῳ απειρῳ (infinitos mundos in infinito). This is also the sense of Kant’s argument for the antithesis; only he has disfigured it by a scholastic, stilted presentation. The same argument could also be used against limits of the world in time, if one did not already have a far better one on the guiding thread of causality. Further, with the assumption of a world bounded in space, there arises the unanswerable question what privilege the filled part of space could have had over the infinite one that was left empty. A detailed and very readable exposition of the arguments for and against the finiteness of the world is given by Jordanus Brunus in the fifth dialogue of his book “Del infinito, universo e mondi.” Moreover, Kant himself maintains seriously and from objective grounds the infinity of the world in space, in his “Natural History and Theory of the Heavens,” Part II, ch. 7. Aristotle too professes the same, “Phys.,” III, ch. 4, which chapter, together with the following ones, is very readable with regard to this antinomy.

In the second conflict the thesis at once commits a not at all subtle petitio principii, as it begins: “Every composite substance consists of simple parts.” From the compositeness arbitrarily assumed here it afterward proves the simple parts, to be sure, very easily. But the very proposition “all matter is composite,” on which everything depends, remains unproved, because it is precisely a groundless assumption. For the simple is opposed not by the composite but by the extended, the part-having, the divisible. Properly, however, it is tacitly assumed here that the parts were there before the whole and were brought together, whereby the whole arose: for this is what the word “composite” says. Yet this can be asserted as little as the opposite. Divisibility says merely the possibility of dividing the whole into parts; by no means that it is composed of parts and thereby arose. Divisibility asserts the parts only a parte post; being composite asserts them a parte ante. For between the parts and the whole there is essentially no temporal relation: rather they condition each other reciprocally and are in so far always simultaneous: for only insofar as both are there does the spatially extended exist. What Kant therefore says in the note to the thesis: “Space should properly not be called a Compositum but a Totum, etc.,” this holds wholly of matter as well, which is merely space become perceptible.—On the other hand the infinite divisibility of matter, which the antithesis asserts, follows a priori and incontestably from that of the space which it fills. This proposition has nothing at all against it: hence Kant too, p. 513; V, 541, where he speaks seriously and in his own person, no longer as the mouthpiece of the αδικος λογος, presents it as objective truth: likewise in the “Metaphysical Foundations of Natural Science” (p. 108, first edition) the proposition, “matter is infinitely divisible,” stands as an established truth at the head of the proof of the first theorem of mechanics, after having appeared and been proved in dynamics as the fourth theorem. Here, however, Kant spoils the proof for the antithesis, by the greatest confusion of presentation and a useless flood of words, in the cunning intention that the evidence of the antithesis should not throw the sophisms of the thesis too much into the shade. Atoms are no necessary thought of reason, but merely a hypothesis for the explanation of the difference in the specific gravity of bodies. That we can explain this, however, in another way, and even better and more simply than by atomistics, Kant himself has shown in the Dynamics of his metaphysical foundations of natural science; to be sure, however, Priestley, “On matter and spirit,” Sect. 1, had already done so before him; in Aristotle, “Phys.,” IV, 9, the fundamental thought of it is to be found.

The argument for the third thesis is a very subtle sophism, and properly Kant’s alleged principle of pure reason itself, wholly unmixed and unaltered. It wants to prove the finiteness of the series of causes by this, that a cause, in order to be sufficient, must contain the complete sum of the conditions from which the following state, the effect, proceeds. For this completeness of the determinations simultaneously present in the state that is cause, the argument now substitutes the completeness of the series of causes through which that state itself first came to actuality; and because completeness presupposes closedness, and this finiteness, the argument infers from this a first cause closing the series, hence an unconditioned one. But the conjuring trick lies in plain sight. In order to comprehend the state A as sufficient cause of the state B, I presuppose that it contains the completeness of the determinations required for this, by whose conjunction the state B follows unfailingly. Hereby my requirement of it as sufficient cause is wholly satisfied, and it has no immediate connection with the question how the state A itself came to actuality; this belongs rather to a wholly different consideration, in which I regard that same state A no longer as cause, but itself in turn as effect, to be sure of another state, which must again stand to it just as it itself stood to B. The presupposition of the finiteness of the series of causes and effects, and accordingly of a first beginning, appears in this nowhere as necessary, as little as the presence of the present moment has a beginning of time itself for its presupposition; it is rather first added by the indolence of the individual in motion. That that presupposition lies in the assumption of a cause as sufficient ground is thus surreptitious and false; as I have shown above at length, in considering the Kantian principle of reason that coincides with this thesis. In explanation of the assertion of this false thesis Kant does not shrink, in the note to it, from giving his rising from his chair as an example of an unconditioned beginning, as if it were not just as impossible for him to rise without a motive as for the ball to roll without a cause. The groundlessness of his appeal, inspired by the feeling of weakness, to the philosophers of antiquity, I surely need not first demonstrate from Ocellus Lucanus, the Eleatics, and so on, not to speak of the Hindus. Against the proof of the antithesis, as against the preceding ones, nothing is to be objected.

The fourth conflict is, as I have already remarked, properly tautological with the third. The proof of the thesis, too, is in essentials again the same as that of the preceding one. Its assertion, that every conditioned presupposes a complete series of conditions, ending therefore with the unconditioned, is a petitio principii, which must simply be denied. Every conditioned presupposes nothing but its condition; that this in turn be conditioned begins a new consideration, which is not immediately contained in the first. A certain plausibility in the antinomy I sought to ward off.

Yet it is remarkable that no part of the Kantian philosophy has met with so little contradiction, and found so much recognition, as this so highly paradoxical doctrine. Almost all philosophical parties and textbooks have let it stand and repeated it, and indeed worked it over; while nearly all Kant’s other doctrines have been attacked, and there has never been a lack of individual crooked heads who rejected even the transcendental Aesthetic. The undivided applause which the antinomy, by contrast, has found may in the end come from this, that certain people contemplate with inward complacency the point where the understanding is supposed quite properly to stand still, having bumped into something that at once is and is not, and, determining this too as a simple series of conditions, accordingly would really have before them here the sixth feat of Philadelphia, in Lichtenberg’s playbill.

Kant’s critical decision of the cosmological dispute, which now follows, is, if one investigates its real sense, not what he gives it out to be, namely the resolution of the dispute by the disclosure that both parties, proceeding from false presuppositions, are both in the wrong in the first and second conflict, but both in the right in the third and fourth; it is rather in fact the confirmation of the antitheses by an elucidation of their statement.

First, Kant maintains in this resolution, with obvious injustice, that both parties proceeded from the presupposition, as major premise, that with the conditioned the completed (and hence closed) series of its conditions too is given. Only the thesis laid this proposition, Kant’s pure principle of reason, at the bottom of its assertions: the antithesis, on the contrary, everywhere expressly denied it, and maintained the opposite. Further, Kant charges both parties with this presupposition also, that the world exists in itself, that is, independently of its being known and of the forms of this: but this presupposition too is again made only by the thesis; on the other hand, it lies so little at the bottom of the assertions of the antithesis that it is even wholly incompatible with them. For it directly contradicts the concept of an infinite series that it should be given entire: it is therefore essential to it that it exist only in relation to the running through of it, not independently of that. On the other hand, in the presupposition of determinate limits that of a whole is also contained, which subsists for itself and exists independently of the carrying out of its measurement. Thus only the thesis makes the false presupposition of a world-whole subsisting in itself, that is, given before all knowledge, to which knowledge would merely be added. The antithesis is in conflict with this presupposition altogether from the start: for the infinity of the series, which it asserted solely under the guidance of the principle of sufficient reason, can exist only insofar as the regress is carried out, not independently of this. For as the object in general presupposes the subject, so too the object determined as an endless chain of conditions necessarily presupposes in the subject the mode of knowledge corresponding to it, namely the constant following of the links of that chain. This, however, is precisely what Kant gives as the resolution of the dispute and so often repeats: “The infinity of the magnitude of the world is only through the regress, not before it.” This resolution of the conflict is thus properly only the decision in favor of the antithesis, in whose assertion that truth already lies, just as the same is wholly incompatible with the assertions of the thesis. Had the antithesis asserted that the world consists of infinite series of grounds and consequents and yet exists independently of the representation and its regressive series, hence exists in itself and therefore constitutes a given whole, it would have contradicted not only the thesis but itself: for an infinite can never be given entire, nor can an endless series exist except insofar as it is run through endlessly, nor can a limitless constitute a whole. Only to the thesis, therefore, belongs that presupposition which Kant asserts to have led both parties astray.

It is already a doctrine of Aristotle that an infinite can never be actu, that is, real and given, but only potentia. Ουκ εστιν ενεργειᾳ ειναι το απειρον·—————αλλ’ αδυνατον το εντελεχειᾳ ον απειρον (infinitum non potest esse actu:—————sed impossibile, actu esse infinitum). Metaph. K, 10.—Further: κατ’ ενεργειαν μεν γαρ ουδεν εστιν απειρον, δυναμει δε επι την διαιρεσιν (nihil enim actu infinitum est, sed potentia tantum, nempe divisione ipsa). De generat. et corrupt., I, 3.—This he expounds at length, Phys. III, 5 and 6, where he gives, to a certain extent, the wholly correct resolution of all the antinomic oppositions. He presents the antinomies in his brief way and then says: “a mediator (διαιτητου) is needed”: whereupon he gives the resolution that the infinite, whether of the world in space, or in time, or in division, is never before the regress or progress, but in it.—Thus this truth already lies in the rightly grasped concept of the infinite. One therefore misunderstands oneself when one imagines the infinite, of whatever kind it may be, as something objectively present and finished, and independent of the regress.

Indeed, if, proceeding conversely, one takes as the starting point that which Kant gives as the resolution of the conflict, the assertion of the antithesis follows straight from it. Namely: if the world is no unconditioned whole and does not exist in itself, but only in the representation, and if its series of grounds and consequents are not there before the regress of the representations of them, but only through this regress, then the world cannot contain determinate and finite series, because their determination and limitation would have to be independent of the representation, which would then merely be added to them: rather all its series must be endless, that is, not to be exhausted by any representation.

P. 506; V, 534, Kant wants to prove the transcendental ideality of the appearance from the wrongness of both parties, and begins: “If the world is a whole existing in itself, it is either finite or infinite.”—This, however, is false: a whole existing in itself can by no means be infinite.—Rather that ideality could be inferred from the infinity of the series in the world as follows: If the series of grounds and consequents in the world are absolutely without end, then the world cannot be a whole given independently of the representation: for such a whole always presupposes determinate limits, just as infinite series, on the other hand, presuppose infinite regress. Therefore the presupposed infinity of the series must be determined by the form of ground and consequent, and this by the mode of knowledge of the subject, and hence the world, as it is known, can exist only in the representation of the subject.

Whether Kant himself knew or not that his critical decision of the dispute is properly a pronouncement in favor of the antithesis, I am unable to decide. For it depends on whether that which Schelling somewhere very aptly called Kant’s system of accommodation extends so far, or whether Kant’s mind is here already caught in an unconscious accommodation to the influence of his time and surroundings.

The resolution of the third antinomy, the subject of which was the Idea of freedom, deserves special consideration, inasmuch as it is very remarkable for us that Kant is compelled to speak at greater length of the thing in itself, which until now was seen only in the background, precisely here, at the Idea of freedom. This is very explicable to us, now that we have recognized the thing in itself as the will. In general, here lies the point where Kant’s philosophy leads on to mine, or where mine proceeds out of it as its stem. Of this one will convince oneself if one reads with attention in the Critique of Pure Reason, pp. 536 and 537; V, 564 and 565: with this passage compare also the Introduction to the Critique of Judgment, pp. XVIII and XIX of the third edition, or p. 13 of the Rosenkranz edition, where it is even said: “The concept of freedom can present in its object (that is, after all, the will) a thing in itself, but not in intuition; the concept of nature, on the other hand, can present its object indeed in intuition, but not as thing in itself.” But especially, on the resolution of the antinomies, read §. 53 of the Prolegomena and then answer honestly the question whether everything said there does not sound like a riddle to which my doctrine is the key word. Kant did not come to the end of his thinking: I have merely carried his work through. Accordingly I have transferred what Kant says only of the human appearance to all appearance in general, which differs from that only in degree, namely that the essence in itself of it is something absolutely free, that is, a will. How fruitful, however, this insight is in union with Kant’s doctrine of the ideality of space, time and causality, appears from my work.

Kant has nowhere made the thing in itself the subject of a special exposition or distinct derivation. Rather, as often as he needs it, he draws it in at once by the inference that the appearance, hence the visible world, must after all have a ground, an intelligible cause, which would not be appearance and therefore would not belong to any possible experience. This he does after having incessantly impressed upon us that the categories, hence also that of causality, have a use restricted wholly to possible experience, are mere forms of the understanding which serve to spell out the appearances of the world of sense, beyond which, on the other hand, they have no meaning at all, and so on; and so he prohibits most strictly their application to things beyond experience and from the violation of this law explains, rightly, all earlier dogmatism and at the same time overturns it. The incredible inconsistency which Kant committed in this was soon noticed by his first opponents and used for attacks which his philosophy could not resist. For certainly we apply the law of causality wholly a priori and before all experience to the changes sensed in our sense organs: but precisely for that reason it is of just as subjective an origin as these sensations themselves, and leads therefore not to the thing in itself. The truth is that on the path of representation one can never get beyond representation: it is a closed whole and has in its own means no thread leading to the essence of the thing in itself, which differs from it toto genere. Were we merely representing beings, the way to the thing in itself would be wholly closed to us. Only the other side of our own essence can give us information about the other side of the essence in itself of things. This path I have taken. Some color is lent, however, to Kant’s inference to the thing in itself, though prohibited by himself, by the following. He does not posit, as the truth demanded, simply and unreservedly the object as conditioned by the subject, and conversely; but only the manner and way of the appearance of the object as conditioned by the forms of knowledge of the subject, which therefore also come to consciousness a priori. What is known, on the contrary, merely a posteriori is to him already immediate effect of the thing in itself, which becomes appearance only in passing through those forms given a priori. From this view it is to some extent explicable how it could escape him that being-object in general already belongs to the form of appearance and is just as much conditioned by being-subject in general as the manner of appearance of the object is by the forms of knowledge of the subject; that therefore, if a thing in itself is to be assumed, it can by no means be object either, as which he nevertheless always presupposes it, but such a thing in itself would have to lie in a domain differing toto genere from the representation (knowing and being known), and could therefore least of all be inferred according to the laws of the connection of objects with one another.

Kant fared with the demonstration of the thing in itself exactly as with that of the aprioricity of the law of causality: both doctrines are correct, but their proof is false: they belong therefore among the correct conclusions from false premises. I have retained both, but grounded them in a wholly different and secure way.

The thing in itself I have neither smuggled in nor inferred, according to laws that exclude it, since they already belong to its appearance; nor have I in general reached it by roundabout ways: rather I have demonstrated it immediately, where it lies immediately, in the will, which reveals itself immediately to everyone as the in-itself of his own appearance.

And this immediate knowledge of one’s own will is also that from which, in human consciousness, the concept of freedom proceeds; because the will, as world-creating, as thing in itself, is certainly free from the principle of sufficient reason and with that from all necessity, hence wholly independent, free, indeed omnipotent. Yet this holds, in truth, only of the will in itself, not of its appearances, the individuals, who are already unalterably determined, precisely by it itself, as its appearances in time. In common consciousness, not purified by philosophy, however, the will is at once confused with its appearance and what belongs only to it is attributed to this: from which arises the semblance of unconditioned freedom of the individual. Spinoza says for this very reason, and rightly, that even the thrown stone, if it had consciousness, would believe it flew of its own free will. For certainly the in-itself of the stone too is the sole free will, but, as in all its appearances, so here too, where it appears as stone, already fully determined. Yet of all this enough has already been said in the main part of this work.

Kant, in failing to recognize and overlooking this immediate origin of the concept of freedom in every human consciousness, now places, p. 533; V, 561, the origin of that concept in a very subtle speculation, by which namely the unconditioned, toward which reason is supposed always to strive, occasions the hypostatization of the concept of freedom, and on this transcendent Idea of freedom the practical concept of it too is supposed first of all to be grounded. In the Critique of Practical Reason, §. 6, and p. 185 of the fourth, p. 235 of the Rosenkranz edition, however, he derives this latter concept again otherwise, from the fact that the categorical imperative presupposes it: for the sake of this presupposition, accordingly, that speculative Idea is only the first origin of the concept of freedom; here, however, it properly receives meaning and application. Neither, however, is the case. For the delusion of a perfect freedom of the individual in his single actions is most lively in the conviction of the crudest man, who has never reflected, and is therefore grounded on no speculation, although often carried over to it. Free from it, on the other hand, are only philosophers, and indeed the profoundest, and likewise the most thoughtful and enlightened writers of the Church.

According to all that has been said, the real origin of the concept of freedom is therefore in no way essentially an inference, neither from the speculative Idea of an unconditioned cause, nor from the fact that the categorical imperative presupposes it; it springs rather immediately from the consciousness in which each person recognizes himself, without more ado, as the will, that is, as that which, as thing in itself, has not the principle of sufficient reason for its form and itself depends on nothing, whereas everything else depends on it, but does not at the same time, with philosophical criticism and circumspection, distinguish himself, as an appearance of this will already entered into time and determined, one might say an act of will, from that will to life itself, and therefore, instead of recognizing his whole existence as an act of his freedom, seeks this freedom rather in his single actions. On this I refer to my prize essay on the freedom of the will.

Had Kant now, as he here pretends and also apparently did on earlier occasions, merely inferred the thing in itself, and that with the great inconsistency of an inference wholly prohibited by himself;—what a strange coincidence it would then be that he here, where for the first time he approaches the thing in itself more closely and illuminates it, at once recognizes in it the will, the free will, which makes itself known in the world only through temporal appearances!—I therefore really assume, though it cannot be proved, that Kant, as often as he spoke of the thing in itself, in the darkest depth of his mind always already thought indistinctly of the will. Evidence for this is given in the Preface to the second edition of the Critique of Pure Reason, pp. XXVII and XXVIII, in the Rosenkranz edition p. 677 of the Supplements.

Moreover, it is precisely this intended resolution of the supposed third conflict that gives Kant occasion to express very beautifully the profoundest thoughts of his whole philosophy. So in the whole “sixth section of the Antinomy of Pure Reason”; above all, however, in the exposition of the opposition between empirical and intelligible character, pp. 534–550; V, 562–578, which I count among the most excellent things ever said by human beings (as a supplementary elucidation of this passage a parallel one in the “Critique of Practical Reason” is to be regarded, pp. 169–179 of the fourth, or pp. 224–231 of the Rosenkranz edition). It is all the more to be regretted, however, that this stands here not in its right place, inasmuch as it was in part not found on the path that the presentation indicates and would therefore have to be derived otherwise than it is, and in part also does not fulfill the purpose for which it stands, namely the resolution of the supposed antinomy. It is inferred from the appearance to its intelligible ground, the thing in itself, by the already sufficiently censured inconsistent use of the category of causality beyond all appearance. As this thing in itself there is set up for this case the will of man (which Kant, most inadmissibly, with unpardonable violation of all linguistic usage, entitles reason), with an appeal to an unconditioned Ought, the categorical imperative, which is simply postulated.

Instead of all this, the pure, open procedure would have been to start immediately from the will, to demonstrate this as the in-itself of our own appearance, known without any mediation, and then to give that exposition of the empirical and intelligible character, to show how all actions, though necessitated by motives, are nevertheless, both by their author and by an outside judge, necessarily and unreservedly ascribed to that author himself and alone, as depending solely on him, to whom accordingly guilt and merit are assigned in keeping with them.—This alone was the straight path to the knowledge of that which is not appearance, and is therefore also not found according to the laws of appearance, but is that which reveals itself through the appearance, becomes knowable, objectifies itself: the will to life. This would then have had to be presented, merely by analogy, as the in-itself of every appearance. Then, however, it could certainly not have been said (p. 546; V, 574) that in lifeless, indeed in animal nature, no faculty is to be thought otherwise than as sensuously conditioned; which in Kant’s language properly says that the explanation according to the law of causality exhausts the innermost essence of those appearances too, whereby then, very inconsistently, the thing in itself drops out in their case.—Through the wrong place and the roundabout derivation corresponding to it which the presentation of the thing in itself has received in Kant, the whole concept of it too has been falsified. For, found by inquiry for an unconditioned cause, the will, or the thing in itself, here enters into the relation of cause to effect with the appearance. This relation, however, takes place only within the appearance, presupposes it therefore already, and cannot connect it itself with that which lies outside of it and differs from it toto genere.

Further, the proposed purpose, the resolution of the third antinomy, is not at all attained by the decision that both parties, each in a different sense, are right. For thesis and antithesis alike speak by no means of the thing in itself, but wholly of the appearance, the objective world, the world as representation. It is this and absolutely nothing else of which the thesis, through the sophism pointed out, wants to show that it contains unconditioned causes, and it is of this also that the antithesis denies the same, with right. Hence the whole exposition given here, in justification of the thesis, of the transcendental freedom of the will, insofar as it is thing in itself, however excellent it may be in itself, is here quite properly a μεταβασις εις αλλο γενος. For the transcendental freedom of the will here presented is by no means the unconditioned causality of a cause that the thesis asserts, because a cause must essentially be appearance, not something lying beyond all appearance and differing toto genere.

When cause and effect are spoken of, the relation of the will to its appearance (or of the intelligible character to the empirical) must never be drawn in, as happens here: for it is wholly different from the causal relation. Meanwhile it is also said here, in this resolution of the antinomy, in conformity with the truth, that the empirical character of man, like that of every other cause in nature, is unalterably determined, and that accordingly the actions proceed from it necessarily, in proportion to the external influences; hence also, notwithstanding all transcendental freedom (that is, independence of the will in itself of the laws of the connection of its appearance), no human being has the faculty of beginning a series of actions of himself: which latter, on the contrary, was asserted by the thesis. Freedom, then, has no causality either: for only the will is free, which lies outside nature or appearance, which is merely its objectification, but does not stand in a relation of causality to it, since this relation is first met with within appearance, presupposes it therefore already, and cannot include it itself and connect it with that which is expressly not appearance. The world itself is to be explained only from the will (since it is precisely the will itself, insofar as it appears) and not through causality. But in the world causality is the sole principle of explanation and everything happens solely according to laws of nature. Thus the right lies wholly on the side of the antithesis, which stays with that of which the discussion was, and uses the principle of explanation that holds of it, and therefore also needs no apology; whereas the thesis is to be extricated from the matter by an apology, which first leaps over to something wholly other than what the question was about and then carries over a principle of explanation that is not applicable there.

The fourth conflict is, as already said, in its innermost sense tautological with the third. In the resolution of it Kant develops still further the untenability of the thesis: for its truth, on the other hand, and its supposed coexistence with the antithesis, he offers no ground, just as conversely he is unable to set any against the antithesis. Only quite by way of request does he introduce the assumption of the thesis, yet himself calls it (p. 562; V, 590) an arbitrary presupposition, whose object in itself may well be impossible, and shows merely a wholly impotent endeavor to procure for it somewhere a safe little spot before the thoroughgoing power of the antithesis, only so as not to uncover the nullity of the whole pretense, once taken a fancy to, of the necessary antinomy in human reason.

There follows the chapter on the transcendental Ideal, which transports us all at once back into the rigid Scholasticism of the Middle Ages. One believes one hears Anselm of Canterbury himself. The ens realissimum, the sum total of all realities, the content of all affirmative propositions, steps forth, and indeed with the claim to be a necessary thought of reason!—For my part I must confess that such a thought is impossible to my reason, and that at the words that designate it I am unable to think anything definite.

I do not doubt, moreover, that Kant was constrained to this strange chapter, unworthy of him, merely by his fondness for architectonic symmetry. The three chief objects of Scholastic philosophy (which one may, as said, understood in the wider sense, let run down to Kant), soul, world and God, were to be derived from the three possible major premises of syllogisms; although it is evident that they have arisen and can arise solely and alone through unconditioned application of the principle of sufficient reason. After the soul had now been squeezed into the categorical judgment, and the hypothetical one used up for the world, nothing was left for the third Idea but the disjunctive major premise. Fortunately a preliminary work in this sense was at hand, namely the ens realissimum of the Scholastics, together with the ontological proof of the existence of God, rudimentarily set up by Anselm of Canterbury and then perfected by Descartes. This was used by Kant with joy, probably also with some reminiscence of an earlier Latin work of his youth. Meanwhile the sacrifice which Kant brings to his love of architectonic symmetry by this chapter is exceedingly great. In defiance of all truth the, one must say grotesque, representation of a sum total of all possible realities is made into a thought essential and necessary to reason. For the derivation of it Kant seizes upon the false pretense that our knowledge of individual things arises through an ever further-going limitation of general concepts, and hence also of a most general one of all, which would contain all reality in itself. In this he stands in contradiction as much with his own doctrine as with the truth; since, quite conversely, our knowledge, starting from the particular, is extended to the general, and all general concepts arise by abstraction from real, individual, intuitively known things, an abstraction which can be continued to the most general concept of all, which then comprehends everything under itself, but almost nothing in itself. Kant has thus here turned the procedure of our faculty of knowledge precisely on its head, and might therefore well even be accused of having given occasion to a philosophical charlatanry that has become famous in our days, which, instead of recognizing concepts as thoughts abstracted from things, conversely makes the concepts the first thing and sees in things only concrete concepts, thus bringing the world turned upside down to market as a philosophical buffoonery, which naturally had to find great applause.—

Even if we assume that every reason must, or at least can, arrive at the concept of God even without revelation, this happens, nevertheless, evidently solely along the guiding thread of causality; which is so obvious that it needs no proof. Hence Chr. Wolf also says (Cosmologia generalis, praef. p. 1): Sane in theologia naturali existentiam Numinis e principiis cosmologicis demonstramus. Contingentia universi et ordinis naturae, una cum impossibilitate casus, sunt scala, per quam a mundo hoc adspectabili ad Deum ascenditur. And before him Leibniz had already said, in reference to the law of causality: Sans ce grand principe nous ne pourrions jamais prouver l’existence de Dieu (Théod., §. 44). And likewise in his controversy with Clarke, §. 126: J’ose dire que sans ce grand principe on ne saurait venir à la preuve de l’existence de Dieu. By contrast, the thought carried out in this chapter is so far from being one essential and necessary to reason that it is rather to be regarded as a veritable masterpiece among the monstrous products of an age that had been led by strange circumstances into the oddest aberrations and perversities, such as that of Scholasticism was, which stands without parallel in world history and can never return. This Scholasticism, to be sure, when it had come to its perfection, conducted the chief proof for the existence of God from the concept of the ens realissimum and used the other proofs only alongside, accessorily: this, however, is mere method of teaching and proves nothing about the origin of theology in the human mind. Kant has here taken the procedure of Scholasticism for that of reason, which has happened to him more often in general. If it were true that, according to essential laws of reason, the Idea of God proceeded from the disjunctive syllogism, in the form of an Idea of the most real being, then this Idea would also have turned up among the philosophers of antiquity: but of the ens realissimum there is nowhere a trace, in none of the ancient philosophers, although some of them certainly teach a world-creator, but only as a giver of form to the matter existing without him, δημιουργος, whom however they infer solely and alone according to the law of causality. True, Sextus Empiricus (adv. Math., IX, §. 88) cites an argument of Cleanthes which some take for the ontological proof. It is not that, however, but a mere inference from analogy: namely, because experience teaches that on earth one being is always more excellent than another, and man, as the most excellent, closes the series, yet he still has many faults; there must therefore be still more excellent beings and at last a most excellent of all (κρατιστον, αριστον), and this would be God.

Concerning the detailed refutation of speculative theology that now follows I have only to remark briefly that it, like the whole critique of the three so-called Ideas of reason, hence the whole Dialectic of Pure Reason, is indeed in a way the goal and purpose of the whole work, yet that this polemical part does not properly, like the preceding doctrinal part, that is, the Aesthetic and Analytic, have an entirely general, lasting and purely philosophical interest; but rather a temporal and local one, in that it stands in special relation to the chief moments of the philosophy ruling in Europe down to Kant, the complete overthrow of which by this polemic, however, redounds to Kant’s immortal merit. He eliminated theism from philosophy, since in it, as a science, and not a doctrine of faith, only that can find a place which is either empirically given or established by tenable proofs. Naturally only real philosophy is meant here, seriously understood, directed at truth and nothing else, and by no means the farcical philosophy of the universities, in which, now as before, speculative theology plays the chief role; as there too the soul, as a known person, now as before, appears without ceremony. For it is the philosophy furnished with salaries and honoraria, indeed even with titles of Hofrath, which, looking down proudly from its height, has for forty years not been aware at all of little folk like me, and would also heartily like to be rid of old Kant with his Critiques, in order to raise a lusty cheer for Leibniz.—Further it is to be remarked here that, as Kant was, by his own admission, led to his doctrine of the aprioricity of the concept of causality by Hume’s skepticism with respect to that concept, so perhaps likewise Kant’s critique of all speculative theology has its occasion in Hume’s critique of all popular theology, which the latter had set forth in his so readable “Natural history of religion” and the “Dialogues on natural religion,” indeed that Kant wanted in a way to supplement these. For the first-named writing of Hume is really a critique of popular theology, whose wretchedness it wants to show, while pointing respectfully to rational or speculative theology as the genuine. Kant, however, now uncovers the groundlessness of this latter, but leaves the popular untouched and even sets it up in an ennobled form, as a faith supported on moral feeling. This the philosophasters afterward twisted into apprehensions of reason, God-consciousnesses, or intellectual intuitions of the supersensible, the Godhead, and the like; whereas Kant rather, when he was pulling down old, venerable errors and knew the danger of the matter, had wished only to slip in, through moral theology, a couple of weak props for the time being, so that the collapse should not strike him, but that he should gain time to get away.

As regards the execution, no critique of reason was needed at all for the refutation of the ontological proof of the existence of God, since even without presupposing the Aesthetic and Analytic it is very easy to make clear that this ontological proof is nothing but a hair-splitting game with concepts, without any power of conviction. Already in Aristotle’s Organon there stands a chapter that suffices so perfectly for the refutation of the onto-theological proof as if it had been written on purpose for it: it is the seventh chapter of the second book of the Analyt. post.: among other things it says there expressly: το δε ειναι ουχ ουσια ουδενι: that is, existentia numquam ad essentiam rei pertinet.

The refutation of the cosmological proof is an application of the doctrine of the Critique expounded up to that point to a given case, and there is nothing to be objected to it.—The physico-theological proof is a mere amplification of the cosmological, which it presupposes, and finds its detailed refutation first in the Critique of Judgment. In this respect I refer my reader to the rubric “Comparative Anatomy” in my writing on the Will in Nature. Kant, as said, has in his critique of these proofs to do merely with speculative theology and confines himself to the school. Had he, on the other hand, had life and popular theology in view as well, he would have had to add to the three proofs a fourth, which is the really effective one with the great mass and which in Kant’s technical language would most fittingly be named the keraunological: it is the one that is grounded on the feeling of man’s helplessness, powerlessness and dependence in the face of infinitely superior, unfathomable and for the most part menacing powers of nature; to which is joined his natural tendency to personify everything, and finally there comes the hope of accomplishing something by entreaties and flattery, and perhaps by gifts. For in every human undertaking there is something that does not stand in our power and does not fall within our calculation: the wish to win this over for oneself is the origin of the gods. Primus in orbe Deos fecit timor is an old true saying of Petronius. This proof it is that Hume, who appears altogether as Kant’s precursor, chiefly criticizes in the writings mentioned above.—Those whom Kant has now, however, put into permanent embarrassment by his critique of speculative theology are the philosophy-professors: salaried by Christian governments, they may not leave the chief article of faith in the lurch¹³. How do the gentlemen help themselves? They simply assert that the existence of God is a matter of course.—Indeed! after the old [14] Kant has said: “It is something very absurd to expect enlightenment from reason and yet to prescribe to it beforehand on which side it must necessarily come out.” (Critique of Pure Reason, p. 747; V, 775.) On the other hand the following naïveté is the pronouncement of a philosophy-professor of our time: “If a philosophy denies the reality of the fundamental ideas of Christianity, it is either false, or, even if true, still unusable—” scilicet for philosophy-professors. It was the late Professor Bachmann who, in the Jena Literary Gazette of July 1840, No. 126, so indiscreetly blabbed out the maxim of all his colleagues. Meanwhile it is noteworthy for the characterization of university philosophy how here truth, if it will not fit in and conform, is so unceremoniously shown the door, with: “March, Truth! we can’t use you. Do we owe you anything? Do you pay us?—So, march!”

world, at the expense of its conscience, has performed miracles to prove it, and the new world, at the expense of its understanding, has fielded ontological, cosmological and physico-theological proofs,—it is a matter of course with the gentlemen. And from this God who is a matter of course they then explain the world: that is their philosophy.

Until Kant a real dilemma stood firm between materialism and theism, that is, between the assumption that a blind chance, or that an intelligence ordering from without according to purposes and concepts, had brought the world about, neque dabatur tertium. Hence atheism and materialism were the same: hence the doubt whether there could indeed be an atheist, that is, a human being who could really ascribe the so extraordinarily purposive arrangement of nature, above all the organic, to blind chance: see, for example, Bacon’s essays (sermones fideles), essay 16, on Atheism. In the opinion of the great mass and of the English, who in such matters belong wholly to the great mass (mob), it is still so, even with their most famous scholars: see only R. Owen’s Ostéologie comparée, of 1855, préface p. 11, 12, where he still stands before the old dilemma between Democritus and Epicurus on the one hand and an intelligence on the other, in which la connaissance d’un être tel que l’homme a existé avant que l’homme fit son apparition. From an intelligence all purposiveness must have proceeded: to doubt this has not yet occurred to him even in a dream. Indeed, in the lecture of this preface, somewhat modified here, delivered on 5 Sept. 1853 at the Académie des sciences, he said with childlike naïveté: La téléologie, ou la théologie scientifique (Comptes rendus, Sept. 1853), that is to him immediately one! If something in nature is purposive, then it is a work of design, of deliberation, of intelligence. Now of course, what do the Critique of Judgment, or even my book on the Will in Nature, matter to such an Englishman and to the Académie des sciences? The gentlemen do not look down so deep. These illustres confrères despise indeed metaphysics and la philosophie allemande:—they keep to old wives’ philosophy. The validity of that disjunctive major premise, of that dilemma between materialism and theism, rests, however, on the assumption that the world before us is that of things in themselves, that consequently there is no other order of things than the empirical. After, however, through Kant, the world and its order had become mere appearance, whose laws rest chiefly on the forms of our intellect, the existence and essence of things and of the world no longer needed to be explained by analogy with the changes in the world perceived or effected by us, nor did that which we apprehend as means and end need to have come into being also as a result of such knowledge. In that Kant, therefore, by his important distinction between appearance and thing in itself, withdrew its foundation from theism, he opened on the other hand the way to wholly different and more profound explanations of existence.

In the chapter on the final aims of the natural dialectic of reason it is pretended that the three transcendent Ideas are of value as regulative principles for the advance of the knowledge of nature. But Kant can hardly have been in earnest with this assertion. At least its opposite, namely that those presuppositions are inhibiting and deadening for all investigation of nature, will be beyond doubt to every student of nature. To test this by an example, consider whether the assumption of a soul, as an immaterial, simple, thinking substance, would have had to be conducive, or in the highest degree obstructive, to the truths which Cabanis has so beautifully set forth, or to the discoveries of Flourens, Marshall Hall, and Ch. Bell. Indeed Kant himself says (Prolegomena, §. 44), “that the Ideas of reason are opposed and obstructive to the maxims of the rational knowledge of nature.”—

It is certainly not one of the least merits of Frederick the Great that under his reign Kant could develop and was permitted to publish the “Critique of Pure Reason.” Hardly under any other government would a salaried professor have ventured such a thing. Already to the successor of the great king Kant had to promise to write no more.

I could here regard myself as relieved of the critique of the ethical part of the Kantian philosophy, inasmuch as I have furnished such a critique more fully and thoroughly, 22 years later than the present one, in the “Two Fundamental Problems of Ethics.” Meanwhile what has been retained here from the first edition, which for the sake of completeness alone could not be dropped, can serve as a suitable prolusion to that later and far more thorough critique, to which I accordingly refer the reader for the main part.

In accordance with the love of architectonic symmetry, theoretical reason had to have a counterpart too. The intellectus practicus of the Scholastics, which itself descends from the νους πρακτικος of Aristotle (De anima, III, 10, and Polit., VII, c. 14: ο μεν γαρ πρακτικος εστι λογος, ο δε θεωρητικος), supplies the word. Yet something wholly different is designated by it here, not, as there, reason directed to technique; here practical reason steps forth as the source and origin of the undeniable ethical significance of human action, as of all virtue, all magnanimity, and every attainable degree of holiness. All this accordingly would come from mere reason and would require nothing but this. To act reasonably and to act virtuously, magnanimously, holily would be one and the same: and to act selfishly, maliciously, viciously would be merely to act unreasonably. Meanwhile all times, all peoples, all languages have always distinguished the two very sharply and held them wholly to be two things, as indeed to this day all do who know nothing of the language of the newer school, that is, the whole world with the exception of a small band of German scholars: all those understand by a virtuous conduct and a reasonable course of life two wholly different things. That the exalted founder of the Christian religion, whose course of life is set before us as the model of all virtue, was the most reasonable of all men would be called a very unworthy, indeed a blasphemous manner of speaking, and almost as much so if it were said that his precepts contained merely the best instruction for a wholly reasonable life. Further, that he who, in accordance with these precepts, instead of thinking of himself and his own future needs in advance, relieves always only the greater present want of others, without further regard; indeed gives his whole possessions to the poor, in order then, stripped of all resources, to go forth and preach to others also the virtue that he himself has practiced: this everyone rightly reveres: but who dares to praise it as the summit of reasonableness? And finally, who lauds it as an exceedingly reasonable deed that Arnold von Winkelried, with exuberant magnanimity, gathered the enemy spears together against his own body, to procure for his countrymen victory and deliverance?—On the other hand, when we see a human being who from youth, with rare deliberation, is intent on procuring for himself the means to a carefree livelihood, to the support of wife and children, to a good name among people, to outward honor and distinction, and who is led astray or tempted by none of this—neither the allure of present enjoyments, nor the itch to defy the arrogance of the powerful, nor the wish to avenge insults suffered or undeserved humiliation, nor the attraction of useless aesthetic or philosophical occupations of the mind and of journeys to lands worth seeing—ever to lose sight of his goal, but works with great consistency toward that alone, and is not led astray by all this and the like: who dares to deny that such a philistine is extraordinarily reasonable? even then when he might have allowed himself some means not praiseworthy, but without danger. Indeed, more: when a villain with calculated cunning, according to a well-considered plan, helps himself to riches, to honors, indeed to thrones and crowns, then with the subtlest guile ensnares neighboring states, overpowers them one by one and thus becomes a world-conqueror, and in this lets himself not be led astray by any regard for right or humanity, but with sharp consistency tramples and crushes everything that stands against his plan, plunges without pity millions into misfortune of every kind, millions into blood and death, yet royally rewards and at all times protects his adherents and helpers, forgetting nothing ever, and thus attains his goal: who does not see that such a man must have proceeded in an exceedingly reasonable way, that, as for the drafting of the plans a mighty understanding, so for their execution perfect mastery of reason, indeed quite properly practical reason, was required?—Or are perhaps the precepts too which the shrewd and consistent, deliberate and far-sighted Machiavelli gives the prince unreasonable?¹⁵

As malice coexists very well with reason, and indeed is truly fearsome only in this union, so conversely magnanimity too is sometimes found combined with unreason. To this one may reckon the deed of Coriolanus, who, after having spent all his strength for years to procure vengeance on the Romans, now, when the time has at last come, lets himself be softened by the entreaties of the Senate and the tears of his mother and wife, gives up the revenge so long and so laboriously prepared, indeed, by thereby drawing the just wrath of the Volscians upon himself, dies for those Romans whose ingratitude he knows and whom he wanted to punish with such great exertion.—Finally, for the sake of completeness let it be mentioned, reason can very well unite with want of understanding. This is the case when a foolish maxim is chosen, but carried through with consistency. An example of this kind was given by Princess Isabella, daughter of Philip II, who vowed, so long as Ostend was not taken, to put on no clean shirt, and kept her word, for three years. In general all vows belong here, whose origin is lack of [16] Incidentally: Machiavelli’s problem was the solution of the question how the prince can maintain himself unconditionally on the throne, despite enemies within and without. His problem was therefore by no means the ethical one, whether a prince as a human being should want any such thing or not; but purely the political one, how he can carry it out if he wants it. For this he gives the solution, as one writes an instruction in chess-playing, in which it would be foolish to miss the answer to the question whether it is morally advisable to play chess at all. To reproach Machiavelli with the immorality of his writing is just as much in place as it would be to reproach a fencing-master that he does not open his instruction with a moral lecture against murder and manslaughter.

insight in accordance with the law of causality, that is, want of understanding; none the less it is reasonable to fulfill them, if one is once of so limited an understanding as to vow them.

Corresponding to what has been cited, we see also the writers who appeared just before Kant set conscience, as the seat of the moral stirrings, in opposition to reason: so Rousseau in the fourth book of Emile: La raison nous trompe, mais la conscience ne trompe jamais; and somewhat further on: il est impossible d’expliquer par les conséquences de notre nature le principe immédiat de la conscience indépendant de la raison même. Still further: Mes sentimens naturels parlent pour l’intérêt commun, ma raison rapportait tout à moi.———On a beau vouloir établir la vertu par la raison seule, quelle solide base peut-on lui donner?—In the Rêveries du promeneur, prom. 4ème, he says: Dans toutes les questions de morale difficiles je me suis toujours bien trouvé de les résoudre par le dictamen de la conscience, plutôt que par les lumières de la raison.—Indeed, already Aristotle says expressly (Eth. magna, I, 5) that the virtues have their seat in the αλογῳ μοριῳ της ψυχης (in parte irrationali animi) and not in the λογον εχοντι (in parte rationali). In accordance with this Stobaeus says (Ecl., II, c. 7), speaking of the Peripatetics: Την ηθικην αρετην ὑπολαμβανουσι περι το αλογον μερος γιγνεσθαι της ψυχης, επειδη διμερη προς την παρουσαν θεωριαν υπεθεντο την ψυχην, το μεν λογικον εχουσαν, το δ’ αλογον. Και περι μεν το λογικον την καλοκαγαθιαν γιγνεσθαι, και την φρονησιν, και την αγχινοιαν, και σοφιαν, και ευμαθειαν, και μνημην, και τας ὁμοιους· περι δε το αλογον, σωφροσυνην, και δικαιοσυνην, και ανδρειαν, και τας αλλας τας ηθικας καλουμενας αρετας. (Ethicam virtutem circa partem animae ratione carentem versari putant, cum duplicem, ad hanc disquisitionem, animam ponant, ratione praeditam, et ea carentem. In parte vero ratione praedita collocant ingenuitatem, prudentiam, perspicacitatem, sapientiam, docilitatem, memoriam et reliqua; in parte vero ratione destituta temperantiam, justitiam, fortitudinem, et reliquas virtutes, quas ethicas vocant.) And Cicero sets forth at length (De nat. Deor., III, c. 26–31) that reason is the necessary means and instrument for all crimes.

I have defined reason as the faculty of concepts. It is this wholly distinct class of general, non-intuitive representations, symbolized and fixed only by words, that distinguishes man from the animal and gives him dominion on earth. The animal is the slave of the present; it knows no motives but immediately sensuous ones, and so, when these present themselves, it is drawn or repelled by them as necessarily as iron by a magnet. In man, by contrast, the gift of reason has awakened deliberateness. This lets him, looking backward and forward, survey his life and the course of the world easily as a whole; it makes him independent of the present; it lets him go to work with reflection, by plan and with forethought, for evil as for good. But whatever he does, he does with perfect self-consciousness: he knows exactly how his will decides, what he chooses each time, and what other choice, in the nature of the case, was possible; and from this self-conscious willing he comes to know himself and mirrors himself in his deeds. In all these relations to man’s action, reason is to be called practical; it is theoretical only insofar as the objects it occupies itself with have no relation to the thinker’s action, but only a theoretical interest, of which very few men are capable. What is called practical reason in this sense is pretty well designated by the Latin word prudentia, which, according to Cicero (De nat. Deor., II, 22), is a contraction of providentia; whereas ratio, when used of a power of the mind, mostly means reason properly theoretical, although the ancients did not observe the distinction strictly.—In almost all men reason has its almost exclusively practical direction. But if this too is abandoned, and thinking loses its mastery over action, so that, as the saying goes, scio meliora, proboque, deteriora sequor, or “le matin je fais des projets, et le soir je fais des sottises”; if, that is, a man lets his action be guided not by his thinking but by the impression of the present, almost in the manner of the animal, we call him unreasonable (without thereby charging him with moral badness), although what he lacks is really not reason but the application of it to his action, and one might say, in a way, that his reason is merely theoretical but not practical. He may be quite a good man all the same, like many a one who cannot see an unfortunate without helping him, even at some sacrifice, but who leaves his own debts unpaid. Such an unreasonable character is wholly incapable of committing great crimes, because the planning, the dissimulation and the self-command that these always require are impossible to him. To a very high degree of virtue, however, he will hardly attain either: for however strongly he may incline to the good by nature, the single vicious and malicious surges to which every man is subject cannot fail to come, and must, unless reason, showing itself practical, opposes to them unalterable maxims and firm resolutions, turn into deeds.

Finally, reason shows itself quite properly as practical in the truly reasonable characters, whom ordinary life therefore calls practical philosophers, and who are distinguished by an uncommon equanimity under unpleasant events as under pleasant ones, an even temper, and firm adherence to resolutions once taken. In fact it is the predominance of reason in them, that is, knowing that is more abstract than intuitive, and hence a surveying of life by means of concepts, in its generality, as a whole and on the large scale, which has made them acquainted once and for all with the deceptiveness of the momentary impression, with the instability of all things, the brevity of life, the emptiness of pleasures, the changes of fortune, and the great and small treacheries of chance. Nothing therefore comes upon them unexpected, and what they know in abstracto neither surprises them nor throws them off balance when it confronts them in reality and in the particular. It is otherwise with the less reasonable characters, over whom the present, the perceptual, the real exercises such power that the cold, colorless concepts recede wholly into the background of consciousness, and they, forgetting resolutions and maxims, are given over to affects and passions of every kind. I have already explained, at the end of the first book, that in my view Stoic ethics was originally nothing but a guide to a truly reasonable life in this sense. Horace too commends such a life repeatedly, in very many places. His Nil admirari belongs here, and so does the Delphic Μηδεν αγαν. To translate Nil admirari as “to admire nothing” is quite wrong. This saying of Horace’s bears not so much on the theoretical as on the practical, and really means: “Prize no object unconditionally; gape in wonder at nothing; do not believe that the possession of any thing can bestow happiness: every ill-starred craving for an object is only a teasing chimera, which one can shake off just as well, but far more easily, through clarified knowledge than through hard-won possession.” In this sense Cicero too uses admirari, De divinatione, II, 2. What Horace means, then, is the αθαμβια and ακαταπληξις, also αθαυμασια, which Democritus already praised as the highest good (see Clem. Alex. Strom., II, 21, and compare Strabo, I, pp. 98 and 105).—Of virtue and vice there is properly no question in such reasonableness of conduct; but this practical use of reason asserts the real prerogative that man has over the animal, and only in this respect does it make sense, and is it permissible, to speak of a dignity of man.

In all the cases set forth, and in all conceivable ones, the difference between reasonable and unreasonable action comes down to whether the motives are abstract concepts or intuitive representations. That is precisely why the definition I have given of reason agrees exactly with the usage of language in all ages and among all peoples. Surely no one will take this usage for something accidental or arbitrary; he will see that it arose from the difference among the several faculties of the mind, of which every man is conscious, and that it speaks in accordance with this consciousness, though of course without raising it to the distinctness of an abstract definition. Our forefathers did not make words without attaching a definite sense to them, say so that they might lie ready for philosophers who would come centuries later and decide what was to be thought by them; rather, they designated by them quite definite concepts. Words, then, are no longer ownerless, and to put on them a wholly different sense from the one they have had until now is to abuse them; it is to introduce a license under which anyone could use any word in any sense he pleased, and boundless confusion would have to result. Locke has already shown at length that most disagreements in philosophy come from the false use of words. By way of illustration, take only a glance at the shameful abuse which thought-poor philosophasters nowadays practice with the words substance, consciousness, truth, and others besides. The utterances and explanations of all philosophers of all times about reason, with the exception of the most recent, likewise agree with my account of it no less than the concepts of that prerogative of man which prevail among all peoples. See what Plato, in the fourth book of the Republic and in countless scattered passages, calls the λογιμον or λογιστικον της ψυχης; what Cicero says, De nat. Deor., III, 26–31; what Leibniz and Locke say about it in the passages already cited in the first book. There would be no end of citations here, if one wished to show how all philosophers before Kant have spoken of reason on the whole in my sense, even if they did not know how to explain its essence with perfect definiteness and distinctness, by tracing it back to a single point. What was understood by reason shortly before Kant’s appearance is shown, on the whole, by two treatises of Sulzer in the first volume of his Miscellaneous Philosophical Writings: the one, “Analysis of the Concept of Reason,” the other, “On the Reciprocal Influence of Reason and Language.” If, on the other hand, one reads how reason is spoken of in the most recent time, through the influence of the Kantian error, which has since swelled like an avalanche, one is forced to assume that all the sages of antiquity, and all philosophers before Kant, had no reason at all: for the immediate perceptions, intuitions, apprehensions and premonitions of reason that have now been discovered remained as foreign to them as the sixth sense of bats is to us. As for myself, I must confess that I too, in my limitation, can make that reason—which directly perceives, or else apprehends, or intellectually intuits the supersensible, the Absolute, together with the long histories that befall it—conceivable and present to my mind in no other way than precisely as the sixth sense of bats. But one must say this in praise of the invention, or discovery, of such a reason, which at once and directly perceives whatever one pleases: it is an incomparable expédient for getting oneself and one’s chosen pet ideas out of the affair in the easiest way in the world, in defiance of all Kants with their critiques of reason. The invention, and the reception it has found, do the age credit.

Although, then, the essence of reason (το λογιμον, ἡ φρονησις, ratio, raison, reason) has been rightly recognized by all philosophers of all times in general and on the whole, though not determined sharply enough nor traced back to a single point, what the understanding (νους, διανοια, intellectus, esprit, intellect, understanding) is has not become so clear to them; they therefore often confuse it with reason, and by that very fact also arrive at no perfectly complete, pure and simple account of the essence of reason. Among the Christian philosophers the concept of reason received, besides, a quite foreign secondary meaning through its opposition to revelation, and starting from this many then maintain, rightly, that the knowledge of the obligation to virtue is possible from mere reason as well, that is, even without revelation. This consideration has certainly had an influence even on Kant’s presentation and use of words. But that opposition is really of positive, historical significance, and is therefore an element foreign to philosophy, from which it must be kept free.

One might have expected that Kant, in his critiques of theoretical and practical reason, would have started from an exposition of the essence of reason in general, and, having thus determined the genus, would have gone on to explain the two species, showing how one and the same reason expresses itself in two such different ways and yet, by retaining its main character, proves itself the same. But nothing of all this is to be found. How inadequate, wavering and discordant are the explanations that he gives here and there, in passing, in the Critique of Pure Reason, of the faculty he is criticizing, I have already shown. Practical reason turns up unannounced in the Critique of Pure Reason itself, and afterwards, in the critique devoted expressly to it, stands there as a settled matter, with no further account given, and without the trampled usage of language of all times and peoples, or the definitions of the greatest earlier philosophers, being permitted to raise their voices. On the whole one can gather from the individual passages that Kant’s opinion is this: the knowing of principles a priori is the essential character of reason; now since the knowledge of the ethical significance of action is not of empirical origin, it too is a principium a priori and accordingly springs from reason, which is then so far practical.—About the incorrectness of that definition of reason I have already said enough. But even apart from this, how superficial and shallow it is to use here the single mark of independence from experience in order to unite the most heterogeneous things, overlooking in the process their other, fundamentally essential, immeasurable distance from one another. For even supposing, though not conceding, that the knowledge of the ethical significance of action sprang from an imperative lying within us, an unconditional ought, how radically different such a thing would still be from those universal forms of knowledge which he demonstrates in the Critique of Pure Reason as known to us a priori, by virtue of which consciousness we can pronounce beforehand an unconditional must, valid for all experience possible to us. But the difference between this must, this necessary form of every object, already determined in the subject, and that ought of morality, is as wide as heaven and so plain to see that one can adduce the coincidence of the two in the mark of non-empirical kind of knowledge perhaps as a witty simile, but not as a philosophical warrant for identifying the origin of both.

Incidentally, the birthplace of this child of practical reason, the absolute ought or categorical imperative, is not the Critique of Practical Reason but already the Critique of Pure Reason, p. 802; V, 830. The birth is violent and succeeds only by means of the forceps of a therefore, which, boldly and brazenly, one might even say shamelessly, plants itself between two propositions utterly strange to one another and without any connection, in order to join them as ground and consequence. For Kant’s point of departure is the proposition that not only intuitive but also abstract motives determine us, and he puts it as follows: “Not merely what stimulates, that is, what immediately affects the senses, determines human choice; we have a faculty of overcoming, by representations of what is useful or harmful even in a remote way, the impressions on our sensuous faculty of desire. These deliberations about what is desirable in regard to our whole condition, that is, good and useful, rest on reason.” (Perfectly correct: if only he always spoke so reasonably of reason!) “Therefore! reason also gives laws, which are imperatives, that is, objective laws of freedom, and which say what ought to happen, even though perhaps it never happens.”—! So, without further credentials, the categorical imperative leaps into the world, to rule there with its unconditional ought—a scepter of wooden iron. For in the concept ought there lies, thoroughly and essentially, a regard to threatened punishment or promised reward as its necessary condition, and this cannot be separated from it without canceling the concept itself and robbing it of all meaning: hence an unconditional ought is a contradictio in adjecto. This fault had to be censured, close as it is, for the rest, to Kant’s great service to ethics. That service consists precisely in his having freed ethics from all principles of the world of experience, in particular from every direct or indirect doctrine of happiness, and having shown, quite properly, that the kingdom of virtue is not of this world. The service is the greater because all the ancient philosophers, with the sole exception of Plato—Peripatetics, Stoics, Epicureans—by very different artifices, wanted to make virtue and happiness now dependent on each other according to the principle of sufficient reason, now identical according to the principle of contradiction. The same reproach applies no less to all philosophers of modern times down to Kant. His merit in this is therefore very great; yet justice requires us to recall here as well, first, that his presentation and execution often do not correspond to the tendency and spirit of his ethics, as we shall presently see, and second, that even so he is not the very first to have purified virtue of all principles of happiness. For Plato already, especially in the Republic, whose main tendency is just this, teaches expressly that virtue is to be chosen for its own sake alone, even if misfortune and disgrace were inevitably bound up with it. Christianity, however, preaches a wholly disinterested virtue still more: a virtue practiced not even for the sake of reward in a life after death, but quite gratuitously, out of love of God, inasmuch as works do not justify, but faith alone, which virtue accompanies as its mere symptom, so to speak, so that virtue appears quite gratuitously and of itself. Read Luther, De libertate Christiana. I will not even take the Indians into account, in whose sacred books the hope of a reward for one’s works is everywhere described as the path of darkness, which can never lead to blessedness. Yet Kant’s doctrine of virtue we do not find so pure: or rather, the presentation has fallen far short of the spirit, and even into inconsistency. In his highest good, treated afterwards, we find virtue wedded to happiness. The ought, so unconditional at the start, after all postulates a condition for itself later, really in order to be rid of the inner contradiction with which it is afflicted and under which it cannot live. The happiness in the highest good is indeed not really to be the motive for virtue: nevertheless it stands there like a secret article, whose presence turns all the rest into a mere sham contract: it is not really the reward of virtue, but yet a voluntary gift, to which virtue, when the labor is done, stealthily holds out an open hand. One can convince oneself of this from the “Critique of Practical Reason” (pp. 223–266 of the fourth edition, or pp. 264–295 of the Rosenkranz edition). His whole moral theology has the same tendency: by means of it morality, for this very reason, really annihilates itself. For, I repeat, all virtue that is practiced in any way for the sake of a reward rests on a prudent, methodical, far-sighted egoism.

The content of the absolute ought, the basic law of practical reason, is the much-praised: “Act so that the maxim of your will could at all times hold also as the principle of a universal legislation.”—This principle sets him who demands a regulative for his own will the task of seeking one for the will of all.—Then the question arises how such a regulative is to be found. Evidently, in order to find the rule of my conduct, I am to take into account not myself alone, but the totality of all individuals. Then, instead of my own well-being, the well-being of all without distinction becomes my end. But that end is still well-being. I then find that all can fare equally well only if each sets the egoism of others as a limit to his own. From this it follows, to be sure, that I am to wrong no one, because, when this principle is assumed as universal, I too am not wronged; but this is the sole reason why I, not yet possessing a moral principle but only seeking one, can wish it to be a universal law. Evidently, however, in this way the wish for well-being, that is, egoism, remains the source of this ethical principle. As the basis of the doctrine of the state it would be excellent; as the basis of ethics it is no good. For the establishment, demanded in that moral principle, of a regulative for the will of all requires the seeker himself, in turn, to have a regulative; otherwise everything would be indifferent to him. This regulative, however, can only be his own egoism, since only on this does the conduct of others have any bearing, and hence only by means of it and with regard to it can he have a will concerning the actions of others, and not be indifferent to them. Very naively Kant himself lets this be seen, p. 123 of the “Critique of Practical Reason” (Rosenkranz edition, p. 192), where he works out the seeking of the maxim for the will thus: “If everyone looked on the distress of others with complete indifference, and you belonged to such an order of things, would you consent to it?”—Quam temere in nosmet legem sancimus iniquam! would be the regulative of the consent inquired after. Likewise in the “Groundwork of the Metaphysic of Morals,” p. 56 of the third edition, p. 50 of the Rosenkranz edition: “A will that resolved to help no one in distress would contradict itself, since cases can occur in which it needs the love and sympathy of others,” and so on. This principle of ethics, which, looked at in the light, is therefore nothing other than an indirect and veiled expression of the old, simple maxim, quod tibi fieri non vis, alteri ne feceris, thus refers first and immediately to the passive, to suffering, and only by means of that to doing. Hence it would be, as I said, quite serviceable as a guide for establishing the state, which is directed at preventing the suffering of wrong and would also procure for all and each the greatest sum of well-being; but in ethics, where the object of inquiry is doing as doing and in its immediate significance for the doer, not its consequence, suffering, or its relation to others, that consideration is wholly inadmissible, since at bottom it again comes down to a principle of happiness, and so to egoism.

We therefore cannot share Kant’s delight in the fact that his principle of ethics is not material, that is, one that sets an object as motive, but merely formal, whereby it corresponds symmetrically to the formal laws which the Critique of Pure Reason has taught us to know. It is indeed, instead of a law, only the formula for finding one: but partly we had this formula already, shorter and clearer, in: quod tibi fieri non vis, alteri ne feceris; partly the analysis of this formula shows that solely regard for one’s own happiness gives it its content, so that it can serve only a rational egoism, to which all legal constitution also owes its origin.

Another fault, which, because it offends everyone’s feeling, has often been censured and was lampooned by Schiller in an epigram, is the pedantic stipulation that an act, in order to be truly good and meritorious, must be performed solely and alone out of respect for the recognized law and the concept of duty, and according to a maxim of which reason is conscious in abstracto; it must not come from any inclination, not from felt benevolence toward others, not from tender-hearted sympathy, compassion or stirring of the heart—which (according to the “Critique of Practical Reason,” p. 213; Rosenkranz edition, p. 257) are even very troublesome to well-thinking persons, as confusing their considered maxims; no, the act must be done unwillingly and with self-compulsion. Remember that all the while no hope of reward is to enter in, and weigh the great absurdity of the demand. But, what says more, it is directly opposed to the genuine spirit of virtue: not the deed, but the doing of it gladly, the love from which it proceeds and without which it is a dead work, constitutes its merit. Hence Christianity too rightly teaches that all outward works are worthless if they do not proceed from that genuine disposition, which consists in true willingness and pure love; and that what makes blessed and redeems is not the works performed (opera operata) but faith, the genuine disposition, which the Holy Spirit alone bestows, and which the free and deliberate will, with the law alone before its eyes, does not engender.—With that demand of Kant’s, that every virtuous action should proceed from pure, deliberate respect for the law and according to its abstract maxims, coldly and without, indeed against, all inclination, it is just as if it were asserted that every genuine work of art must arise through well-considered application of aesthetic rules. The one is as perverse as the other. The question, already treated by Plato and Seneca, whether virtue can be taught, must be answered in the negative. One will finally have to resolve to see, what also gave rise to the Christian doctrine of election by grace, that in the main and inwardly virtue is, in a way, innate like genius; and that, just as all the professors of aesthetics with united forces can impart to no one the capacity for productions of genius, that is, genuine works of art, so all the professors of ethics and preachers of virtue are just as little able to transform an ignoble character into a virtuous, noble one. The impossibility of this is far more evident than that of changing lead into gold; and the search for an ethics, and a supreme principle of it, that should have practical influence and really transform and better the human race, is quite like the search for the philosopher’s stone.—Of the possibility, however, of a total change of heart in man (rebirth), brought about not by abstract knowledge (ethics) but by intuitive knowledge (the working of grace), we have spoken at length at the end of our fourth book; the content of that book relieves me altogether of the necessity of dwelling on it longer here.

That Kant has by no means penetrated into the real meaning of the ethical content of actions he shows, finally, also by his doctrine of the highest good as the necessary union of virtue and happiness, and indeed in such a way that virtue would be the worthiness of happiness. The logical reproach already strikes him here, that the concept of worthiness, which here supplies the standard, itself presupposes an ethics as its standard, and so ought not to have been taken as the starting point. In our fourth book it emerged that all genuine virtue, once it has reached its highest degree, leads at last to a complete renunciation in which all willing comes to an end; happiness, on the other hand, is satisfied willing; the two are therefore fundamentally irreconcilable. For him to whom my exposition has become clear, no further explanation is needed of the total perversity of this Kantian view of the highest good. And independently of my positive exposition I have no further negative one to give here.

Kant’s love of architectonic symmetry confronts us also in the “Critique of Practical Reason,” in that he gave it entirely the cut of the “Critique of Pure Reason” and applied again the same titles and forms, with evident arbitrariness, which becomes especially visible in the table of the categories of freedom.

The Doctrine of Right is one of Kant’s latest works, and so weak a one that, although I wholly disapprove of it, I consider a polemic against it superfluous: as if it were not the work of this great man but the product of an ordinary son of earth, it must die a natural death of its own weakness. As regards the Doctrine of Right, then, I forgo the negative procedure and refer to the positive one, that is, to the brief outlines of it set forth in our fourth book. A couple of general remarks on Kant’s Doctrine of Right may stand here. The faults which I censured, as clinging to Kant everywhere, in considering the “Critique of Pure Reason,” are found in the Doctrine of Right in such excess that one often thinks one is reading a satirical parody of the Kantian manner, or at least listening to a Kantian. Two principal faults, however, are these. He wants (and many since have wanted) to separate the doctrine of right sharply from ethics, and yet not to make the former dependent on positive legislation, that is, on arbitrary compulsion, but to let the concept of right subsist purely and a priori on its own. But this is not possible; for action, besides its ethical significance and besides its physical relation to others, and thereby to outward compulsion, admits not even the possibility of any third view. Consequently, when he says: “A duty of right is one that can be enforced,” this can is to be understood either physically: then all right is positive and arbitrary, and conversely every arbitrary act that can be made to prevail is right; or the can is to be understood ethically, and we are back in the domain of ethics. In Kant, accordingly, the concept of right hovers between heaven and earth and has no ground on which it can stand: with me it belongs to ethics. Second, his determination of the concept of right is wholly negative and thereby insufficient [17]: “Right is that which is compatible with the coexistence¹⁸ Although the concept of right is really a negative one, in opposition to wrong, which is the positive point of departure, the definition of these concepts need not on that account be negative through and through. of the freedoms of individuals side by side according to a universal law.”—Freedom (here the empirical, that is, physical freedom, not the moral freedom of the will) means the not being hindered, and is thus a mere negation: coexistence has quite the same meaning again. We therefore remain with sheer negations and obtain no positive concept; indeed we do not learn at all what is really being spoken of unless we already know it from elsewhere.—In the execution there afterwards develop the most perverse views, such as that in the natural state, that is, outside the state, there is no right of property at all, which really means that all right is positive, and by which natural right is made to rest on positive right, when the case ought to be the reverse; further, the grounding of rightful acquisition on taking possession; the ethical obligation to establish the civil constitution; the ground of penal law, and so on; all of which, as I said, I deem worthy of no special refutation. Meanwhile these Kantian errors too have proved very detrimental in their influence: they have confused and obscured again truths long since recognized and expressed, and have occasioned strange theories and much writing and disputing. Such a thing cannot last, to be sure, and already we see truth and sound reason making their way again. Of the latter, in contrast to so many distorted theories, J. C. F. Meister’s Natural Right in particular bears witness, though I do not on that account regard it as a model of attained perfection.

On the Critique of Judgment too I can, after what has gone before, be very brief. One must marvel how Kant, to whom art has surely remained very foreign, and who, to all appearances, had little receptivity for the beautiful; who, moreover, in all probability never had occasion to see a significant work of art, and who finally seems not even to have had any knowledge of his giant brother Goethe, the only man to be set beside him both in the century and in the nation—one must marvel, I say, how with all this Kant could earn a great and lasting service to the philosophical consideration of art and the beautiful. This service lies in the following. However many reflections had been made on the beautiful and on art, the matter had really always been considered only from the empirical standpoint, and men had investigated, resting on facts, what property distinguished an object of any kind that was called beautiful from other objects of the same kind. On this path one arrived at first at quite special propositions, then at more general ones. One sought to separate genuine artistic beauty from the spurious and to find marks of this genuineness, which could then in turn serve as rules. What pleases as beautiful, what does not; what is therefore to be imitated, what to be striven after, what to be avoided; what rules, at least negative ones, are to be established; in short, what are the means of arousing aesthetic pleasure, that is, what are the conditions for it lying in the object—this was almost exclusively the theme of all reflections on art. Aristotle had taken this path, and on it in the most recent time we find Home, Burke, Winckelmann, Lessing, Herder and others. True, the generality of the aesthetic propositions found led in the end back to the subject as well, and it was noticed that if the effect in the subject were properly known, one could then determine a priori also the cause of it lying in the object, whereby alone this inquiry could attain the certainty of a science. This occasioned here and there psychological discussions; but in this intention Alexander Baumgarten in particular set up a general aesthetics of everything beautiful, starting from the concept of the perfection of sensuous, and thus intuitive, knowledge. With the setting up of this concept, however, the subjective part too is at once disposed of in his work, and he proceeds to the objective and to the practical matters relating to it.—But Kant was reserved the merit, here as well, of seriously and deeply investigating the stirring itself in consequence of which we call the object that occasions it beautiful, in order to find, if possible, its constituents and conditions in our mind. His investigation therefore took wholly the subjective direction. This path was evidently the right one: for in order to explain a phenomenon given in its effects, one must first know this effect itself exactly if one is to determine the nature of the cause thoroughly. Kant’s service in this, however, really extends no further than to having shown the right path and, by a provisional attempt, given an example of roughly how it must be traveled. For what he gave cannot be regarded as objective truth and real gain. He indicated the method of this investigation, he broke the path, but for the rest he missed the goal.

In the critique of aesthetic judgment the remark will force itself upon us first of all that he retained the method peculiar to his whole philosophy, which I have considered at length above: I mean the starting from abstract knowledge in order to fathom intuitive knowledge, so that the former serves him, as it were, as a camera obscura in which to catch the latter and survey it. As in the Critique of Pure Reason the forms of judgments were to give him information about the knowledge of our whole intuitive world, so too in this critique of aesthetic judgment he proceeds not from the beautiful itself, from the intuitive, immediate beautiful, but from the judgment on the beautiful, the judgment of taste, as it is so very ungracefully called. This is his problem. His attention is aroused especially by the circumstance that such a judgment is evidently the statement of a process in the subject, and yet is as universally valid as if it concerned a property of the object. This struck him, not the beautiful itself. He starts always only from the statements of others, from the judgment on the beautiful, not from the beautiful itself. It is therefore as if he knew it wholly and entirely by hearsay only, and not directly. Almost in the same way a most intelligent blind man might put together a theory of colors from exact statements about them that he had heard. And really we may regard Kant’s philosophemes on the beautiful almost only in such a relation. Then we shall find that his theory is very ingenious, indeed that here and there apt and true general remarks are made; but his actual solution of the problem is so untenable, remains so far beneath the dignity of the subject, that it cannot occur to us to hold it for objective truth. Hence I consider myself relieved even of a refutation of it, and here too refer to the positive part of my work.

With regard to the form of his whole book it is to be remarked that it sprang from the notion of finding in the concept of purposiveness the key to the problem of the beautiful. The notion is deduced, which is nowhere difficult, as we have learned from Kant’s successors. So arises the baroque union of the knowledge of the beautiful with that of the purposive in natural bodies, in one faculty of knowledge called judgment, and the treatment of the two heterogeneous subjects in one book. With these three powers of knowledge, reason, judgment and understanding, various symmetrical-architectonic amusements are afterwards undertaken, the fondness for which shows itself in many ways throughout this book, already in the cut of the Critique of Pure Reason, forcibly fitted to the whole, but quite especially in the far-fetched antinomy of aesthetic judgment. One might also draw from it a charge of great inconsistency, that after it has been repeated unceasingly in the Critique of Pure Reason that the understanding is the faculty of judging, and after the forms of its judgments have been made the cornerstone of all philosophy, there now appears a quite peculiar faculty of judgment, wholly different from that. What I for my part call judgment, namely the ability to transfer intuitive knowledge into abstract, and to apply the latter correctly again to the former, is set out in the positive part of my work.

By far the most excellent thing in the Critique of Aesthetic Judgment is the theory of the sublime: it has succeeded incomparably better than that of the beautiful, and gives not only, like the latter, the general method of inquiry, but also a stretch of the right path toward it, so much so that even if it does not give the actual solution of the problem, it nevertheless comes very near it.

In the critique of teleological judgment one can recognize, owing to the simplicity of the material, perhaps more than anywhere else, Kant’s singular talent for turning a thought this way and that and expressing it in manifold ways until a book has come of it. The whole book wants only this: although organized bodies necessarily appear to us as if they were put together in accordance with a concept of purpose that preceded them, this still does not entitle us to assume it objectively so. For our intellect, to which things are given from without and mediately, and which therefore never knows their inside, by which they arise and subsist, but only their outside, cannot make a certain character peculiar to organic natural products conceivable to itself otherwise than by analogy, by comparing them with works made intentionally by men, whose character is determined by a purpose and the concept of it. This analogy is sufficient to make the agreement of all their parts with the whole conceivable to us, and thereby even to furnish the clue for investigating them; but by no means may it on that account be made the real ground of explanation of the origin and existence of such bodies. For the necessity of conceiving them so is of subjective origin.—Thus, roughly, I would sum up Kant’s doctrine on this. In its main points he had already set it out in the Critique of Pure Reason, pp. 692–702; V, 720–730. But in the knowledge of this truth too we find David Hume as Kant’s praiseworthy predecessor: he too had sharply contested that assumption, in the second part of his Dialogues concerning natural religion. The difference between Hume’s critique of that assumption and Kant’s is chiefly this, that Hume criticizes it as an assumption resting on experience, Kant on the other hand as an a priori one. Both are right, and their presentations supplement each other. Indeed, the essential part of Kant’s doctrine on this we find already expressed in the commentary of Simplicius on the Physics of Aristotle: ἡ δε πλανη γεγονεν αυτοις απο του ἡγεισθαι, παντα τα ἑνεκα του γινομενα κατα προαιρεσιν γενεσθαι και λογισμον, τα δε φυσει μη οὑτως ὁραν γινομενα. (Error iis ortus est ex eo, quod credebant, omnia, quae propter finem aliquem fierent, ex proposito et ratiocinio fieri, dum videbant, naturae opera non ita fieri.) Schol. in Arist. ex. edit. Berol. p. 354. Kant is perfectly right in the matter. It was also necessary that, after it had been shown that the concept of effect and cause is not applicable to the whole of nature as regards its existence, it should likewise be shown that nature, as regards its constitution, is not to be thought of as the effect of a cause guided by motives (concepts of purpose). When one considers the great plausibility of the physico-theological proof, which even Voltaire held irrefutable, it was of the greatest importance to show that the subjective in our apprehension, to which Kant has ascribed space, time and causality, extends also to our judgment of natural bodies; and accordingly that the compulsion we feel to think of them as premeditated, as having arisen according to concepts of purpose, that is, in a way in which the representation of them would have preceded their existence, is of just as subjective an origin as the intuition of space, which presents itself so objectively, and therefore may not be put forward as objective truth. Kant’s exposition of the matter is, apart from its wearisome prolixity and repetition, excellent. Rightly he asserts that we shall never succeed in explaining the constitution of organic bodies from merely mechanical causes, by which he understands the unintentional and law-governed action of all universal natural forces. Here, however, I still find a gap. For he denies the possibility of such an explanation only with regard to the purposiveness and apparent intentionality of the organic bodies. But we find that even where these are not present, the grounds of explanation from one domain of nature cannot be carried over into the other, but forsake us as soon as we enter a new domain, and in their place new fundamental laws appear, whose explanation from those of the preceding domain is not at all to be hoped for. Thus in the domain of the properly mechanical there rule the laws of gravity, cohesion, rigidity, fluidity, elasticity, which in themselves (apart from my explanation of all natural forces as lower grades of the objectification of the will) stand there as manifestations of forces not to be explained further, but themselves constitute the principles of all further explanation, which consists merely in reduction to them. If we leave this domain and come to the phenomena of chemism, electricity, magnetism, crystallization, those principles are no longer usable at all; indeed, those laws no longer hold, those forces are overpowered by others, and the phenomena proceed in direct contradiction to them, according to new fundamental laws which, just like the former, are original and inexplicable, that is, not to be reduced to any more general ones. Thus, for example, no one will ever succeed in explaining, by those laws of the properly mechanical, even the dissolution of a salt in water, let alone the more complicated phenomena of chemistry. In the second book of the present work all this has already been set out more fully. A discussion of this kind would, it seems to me, have been of great use in the critique of teleological judgment, and would have spread much light over what is said there. It would have been especially favorable to his excellent hint that a deeper knowledge of the essence in itself, of which the things in nature are the appearance, would find again, in the mechanical (law-governed) as in the apparently intentional workings of nature, one and the same ultimate principle, which could serve as the common ground of explanation for both. Such a principle I hope to have given by setting up the will as the real thing in itself. In accordance with this, the insight into the inner essence of the apparent purposiveness, and of the harmony and concord of the whole of nature, has perhaps become clearer and deeper in our second book and its supplements, but above all in my work “On the Will in Nature.” Hence I have nothing further to say about it here.—

The reader whom this critique of the Kantian philosophy interests should not fail to read, in the second treatise of the first volume of my Parerga and Paralipomena, the supplement to it supplied under the heading “Some Further Elucidations of the Kantian Philosophy.” For one must consider that my writings, few as they are, were not composed all at once but successively, in the course of a long life and with wide intervals between; accordingly one may not expect that everything I have said on a subject also stands together in one place.

Corrections.

Page 57, line 12 from top, the comma at the end is to be deleted. Also 58, line 16 from bottom, for: der read: die; 205, line 3 from top, for: ἁπτοσθαι, read: ἁπτεσθαι; 229, line 8 from bottom, for: daher read: dabei; 329, line 17 from bottom, after “Worte” insert:, understand therefore not simile, but idem.

Printed by F. A. Brockhaus in Leipzig.

Plain English translation

Mouseia's complete machine-assisted Plain English edition, made independently and directly from the same corrected German text of the 1859 third edition, then reviewed section by section against that German base and corrected, with the printed page consulted wherever a reading was in doubt. Footnote numbers are this edition's own, assigned in reading order, so note calls and the notes they point to can differ; a few notes the scan cut short end where the printed page ends.

Critique of the Kantian Philosophy.

C’est le privilège du vrai génie, et surtout du génie qui ouvre une carrière, de faire impunément de grandes fautes.

Voltaire.

It is much easier to point out the faults and errors in the work of a great mind than to give a clear and complete account of its value. For faults are particular and finite, so they can be surveyed completely. But the stamp that genius presses on its works is precisely this: their excellence cannot be fathomed or exhausted. That is why they become the teachers of many centuries in a row, and never grow old. The finished masterpiece of a truly great mind will always have a deep and far-reaching effect on the whole human race. The effect is so great that it cannot be calculated how distant the centuries and countries are to which its enlightening influence may reach. It will always have this effect. However educated and rich the age in which the work arose, genius always rises above the soil in which it is rooted, like a palm tree.

But an effect of this kind, deep and widespread, cannot come suddenly, because of the wide distance between genius and ordinary humanity. The knowledge that this one man drew directly from life and the world in one lifetime, won, and laid out to others already won and prepared, still cannot at once become the property of humanity. For humanity does not have even as much power to receive as he had to give. Rather, the knowledge must first get through a struggle with unworthy opponents, who dispute the life of that immortal knowledge at its birth and would like to smother the welfare of humanity in the bud (compare the serpent at the cradle of Hercules). Even after that, it must still travel the detours of countless false interpretations and crooked applications. It must survive the attempts to unite it with old errors. So it lives in conflict, until a new, unprejudiced generation grows up to meet it. This generation receives part of the content of that source, already in youth, from a thousand derived channels. Little by little it assimilates it, and so comes to share in the benefit that was meant to flow to humanity from that great mind. So slowly goes the education of the human race, the weak and at the same time stubborn pupil of genius.—In the same way, the full power and importance of Kant’s teaching will become plain only through time. One day the spirit of the age itself, gradually reshaped by the influence of that teaching and changed in what is most important and innermost, will give living testimony to the power of that giant mind. I, here, do not at all want to take over the thankless role of Calchas and Cassandra by presumptuously running ahead of events. But after what I have said, let me be allowed to regard Kant’s works as still very new. Today many regard them as already out of date. They put them aside as finished with, or, as they put it, have them behind them. Others, made bold by this, simply ignore them. With brazen faces they go on philosophizing about God and the soul under the assumptions of the old realistic dogmatism and its scholasticism. That is as if someone wanted to bring the teachings of the alchemists back into modern chemistry.—Besides, Kant’s works do not need my feeble praise. They will themselves praise their master for ever. And if not in his letter, then at least in his spirit, they will always live on earth.

Of course, if we look back at the first success of his teachings, that is, at the attempts and events in the field of philosophy during the time that has passed since, a very depressing saying of Goethe is confirmed for us: “As the water that a ship pushes aside closes up again right behind it, so error too, when superior minds have pushed it aside and made room for themselves, closes up again very quickly behind them, naturally.” (Dichtung und Wahrheit, part 3, p. 521.) Yet this period has been only an episode. It belongs among the fates of every new and great piece of knowledge mentioned above, and it is now unmistakably near its end, because the soap bubble that has been blown up so long is finally bursting. People are generally beginning to realize that real and serious philosophy still stands where Kant left it. At any rate, I do not admit that anything has happened in it between him and me. So I connect directly with him.

What I intend in this Appendix to my work is really only a justification of the doctrine I have presented in it, so far as it disagrees with the Kantian philosophy on many points, indeed contradicts it. A discussion of this is necessary, because my train of thought, however different its content is from Kant’s, is plainly under his influence. It necessarily presupposes it and starts from it. I admit that, next to the impression of the intuitive world, I owe the best of my own development both to Kant’s works and to the sacred writings of the Hindus and to Plato.—I can justify my contradictions of Kant, which exist nevertheless, only by accusing him of error on those very points and by exposing mistakes that he made. So in this Appendix I must proceed polemically against Kant throughout, and with earnestness and with all my strength. For only in this way can the error that clings to Kant’s teaching be ground away, so that its truth shines the brighter and stands the more securely. So no one should expect that my reverence for Kant, which I certainly feel deeply, will extend to his weaknesses and faults too. No one should expect that I must therefore uncover these only with the most careful consideration, which would make my presentation weak and dull through roundabout wording. Toward a living person such consideration is needed. Human weakness bears even the most just refutation of an error only with soothing and flattery, and even so with difficulty. And a teacher of the centuries and benefactor of humanity at the very least deserves that we spare his human weakness too, so as not to cause him pain. But the dead man has thrown off this weakness. His merit stands firm, and time will purify it more and more of every overestimation and belittling. His faults must be separated from it, made harmless, and then given over to oblivion. So in the polemic against Kant that I am to strike up here, I have my eye entirely on his faults and weaknesses alone. I stand opposed to them as an enemy and wage a merciless war of extermination on them. I am always careful not to cover them up kindly, but rather to put them in the brightest light, so as to destroy them the more surely. For the reasons given above, I am aware of no injustice and no ingratitude toward Kant in this. Still, I also want to remove every appearance of malice in the eyes of others. So first I will show my deeply felt reverence and gratitude toward Kant by stating briefly his chief merit as it appears to me. I will do so from such general points of view that I am not forced to touch also on the points on which I shall afterward have to contradict him.

Kant’s greatest merit is the distinction of appearance from the thing in itself—on the basis of the proof that between the things and us there always stands the intellect, so that they cannot be known as they may be in themselves. He was led onto this path by Locke (see Prolegomena zu jeder Metaph., §. 13, Note 2). Locke had shown that the secondary qualities of things, such as sound, smell, color, hardness, softness, smoothness and the like, are founded on the affections of the senses and so do not belong to the objective body, the thing in itself. He assigned to it only the primary qualities, that is, those that presuppose nothing but space and impenetrability, so extension, shape, solidity, number and mobility. But this easily found distinction of Locke’s stays on the surface of things. It was, as it were, only a youthful prelude to Kant’s. For Kant starts from an incomparably higher standpoint. He declares that everything Locke had allowed to stand as qualitates primarias, that is, qualities of the thing in itself, equally belongs only to its appearance in our faculty of apprehension. And he does so precisely because the conditions of that faculty, space, time and causality, are known by us a priori. So Locke had subtracted from the thing in itself the share that the sense organs have in its appearance. Kant now subtracted in addition the share of the functions of the brain (though not under that name). As a result the distinction of appearance from the thing in itself now received an infinitely greater importance and a much deeper sense. To this end he had to make the great separation of our knowledge a priori from our knowledge a posteriori. Before him this had never been done with the proper strictness and completeness, or with clear awareness. So this became the main subject of his profound investigations.—Here let us note at once that Kant’s philosophy has a threefold relation to that of his predecessors. First, it confirms and extends Locke’s, as we have just seen. Second, it corrects and uses Hume’s. This is stated most clearly in the preface to the “Prolegomena”. That book is the most beautiful and most easily grasped of all Kant’s main writings, and it is read far too little, although it makes the study of his philosophy extraordinarily easier. Third, it is decidedly polemical and destructive toward the Leibniz-Wolffian philosophy. One should know all three of these doctrines before going on to study the Kantian philosophy.—Now, as stated above, the distinction of appearance from the thing in itself, and so the teaching of the complete difference between the ideal and the real, is the basic feature of the Kantian philosophy. The claim of the absolute identity of the two, which appeared soon afterward, therefore gives a sad proof of Goethe’s saying mentioned earlier. This is all the more so because that claim rested on nothing but the humbug of intellectual intuition. Accordingly it was only a return to the crudeness of the common view, disguised by the show of a distinguished air, bombast and gibberish. It became the worthy starting point for the still grosser nonsense of the clumsy and mindless Hegel.—Now Kant’s separation of appearance from the thing in itself, understood in the way set out above, far surpassed in profundity and sound judgment in its grounding everything that had ever existed. In the same way its results were infinitely rich in consequences. For he found it entirely out of himself, in a wholly new way, from a new side and on a new path. In doing so he presented the same truth that Plato had already repeated tirelessly, and for the most part expressed in his language like this: this world that appears to the senses has no true being, only an unceasing becoming. It is, and also is not. To grasp it is not so much knowledge as delusion. This is also what Plato expresses in myth in the most important passage of all his works, which I already mentioned in the third book of the present work. It is the beginning of the seventh book of the Republic. He says that human beings, chained fast in a dark cave, see neither the genuine original light nor the real things. They see only the poor light of the fire in the cave and the shadows of real things that pass by that fire behind their backs. Yet they think the shadows are reality, and that determining the succession of these shadows is true wisdom.—The same truth, presented again in a quite different way, is also a main doctrine of the Vedas and Puranas, the doctrine of Maya. By this too nothing else is understood than what Kant calls the appearance, as opposed to the thing in itself. For the work of Maya is given as exactly this visible world in which we are, a conjured-up magic, an unstable semblance without being in itself, comparable to optical illusion and to the dream. It is a veil that wraps human consciousness, a something of which it is equally false and equally true to say that it is as to say that it is not.—But Kant not only expressed the same doctrine in a wholly new and original way. By means of the calmest and soberest presentation he also made it a proved and indisputable truth. Plato and the Indians, on the other hand, had based their claims merely on a general intuition of the world. They put them forward as the direct utterance of their consciousness, and they presented them more in myth and poetry than in philosophy and clear terms. In this respect they stand to Kant as the Pythagoreans Hicetas, Philolaus and Aristarchus, who already asserted the motion of the earth around the resting sun, stand to Copernicus. Such clear knowledge, and such calm, considered presentation, of this dreamlike character of the whole world is really the basis of the whole Kantian philosophy. It is its soul and its very greatest merit. He accomplished it by taking apart the whole machinery of our faculty of knowledge, by means of which the phantasmagoria of the objective world comes about, and showing it piece by piece, with admirable sound judgment and skill. All earlier Western philosophy, which seems unspeakably clumsy beside the Kantian, had failed to see that truth. For that very reason it had really always talked as in a dream. Kant first woke it suddenly out of this. That is why the last sleepers (Mendelssohn) called him the all-crusher. He showed that the laws that rule in existence, that is, in experience in general, with unbreakable necessity cannot be used to derive and explain existence itself. So their validity is only relative. That is, it begins only after existence, the world of experience in general, is already posited and present. Consequently these laws cannot be our guide when we set out to explain the existence of the world and of ourselves. All earlier Western philosophers had imagined that these laws, according to which appearances are linked to one another, were absolute laws, conditioned by nothing at all, aeternae veritates. I sum all of them up under the expression of the principle of sufficient reason: time and space as well as causality and inference. These philosophers imagined that the world itself existed only as a result of those laws and in conformity with them, and that the whole riddle of the world must therefore be solvable by following them as a guide. The assumptions made for this purpose, which Kant criticizes under the name of the Ideas of reason, really served only to raise the mere appearance, the work of Maya, the shadow world of Plato, to the one and highest reality. They put it in the place of the innermost and true being of things, and so made real knowledge of that being impossible. In a word, they put the dreamers to sleep still more soundly. Kant showed those laws, and so the world itself, to be conditioned by the subject’s mode of knowledge. From this it followed that, however far one might go on inquiring and inferring with those laws as a guide, one would not advance a single step in the main matter, that is, in knowing the being in itself of the world apart from representation. One would only move like the squirrel in the wheel. So all the dogmatists can be compared to people who thought that if they only walked straight ahead long enough they would reach the end of the world. Kant, then, would be the one who sailed around the world and showed that, because it is round, one cannot get out by horizontal movement, though perhaps it is not impossible by vertical movement. One can also say that Kant’s teaching gives the insight that the end and beginning of the world are to be sought not outside us but within us.

All of this rests on the fundamental difference between dogmatic philosophy and critical, or transcendental philosophy. Anyone who wants to make this difference clear to himself, and see it in an example, can do so very briefly. He should read, as a specimen of dogmatic philosophy, an essay by Leibniz with the title “De rerum originatione radicali”. It was first printed in Erdmann’s edition of the philosophical works of Leibniz, vol. 1, p. 147. Here, entirely in the realistic-dogmatic manner, using the ontological and the cosmological proof, the origin and the excellent constitution of the world are demonstrated a priori, on the ground of the veritatum aeternarum.—Along the way it is admitted once that experience shows exactly the opposite of the excellence of the world demonstrated here. But experience is then told that it understands nothing about this and should keep its mouth shut when a priori philosophy has spoken.—Now as the opponent of this whole method there has appeared, with Kant, the critical

philosophy. It makes its problem of precisely those veritates aeternas that serve as the foundation of every such dogmatic structure. It searches for their origin, and then finds it in the human head, where they grow out of the forms that belong peculiarly to it and that it carries in itself for the purpose of apprehending an objective world. So here, in the brain, is the quarry that supplies the material for that proud dogmatic building. But to reach this result the critical philosophy had to go beyond the veritates aeternas, on which all earlier dogmatism was based, in order to make them themselves the object of investigation. That is how it became transcendental philosophy. From this it follows further that the objective world as we know it does not belong to the being of things in themselves. It is merely the appearance of that being, conditioned by just those forms that lie a priori in the human intellect (that is, the brain). So it can contain nothing but appearances.

Kant did not, of course, reach the knowledge that the appearance is the world as representation and the thing in itself is the will. But he showed that the appearing world is conditioned as much by the subject as by the object. He isolated the most general forms of its appearance, that is, of representation. In doing so he demonstrated that we can know these forms, and survey the whole of their lawfulness, starting not only from the object but equally from the subject. For they are really the boundary between object and subject, common to both. And he concluded that by following this boundary one penetrates neither into the inside of the object nor into that of the subject, and so never comes to know the being of the world, the thing in itself.

He did not derive the thing in itself in the right way, as I shall soon show. He did it by an inconsistency, and he had to pay for it through frequent and irresistible attacks on this main part of his teaching. He did not know the thing in itself directly in the will. But he took a great, path-breaking step toward this knowledge. He presented the undeniable moral significance of human action as entirely different from the laws of appearance and not dependent on them, and as never explicable in accordance with them. He presented it as something that touches the thing in itself directly. This is the second main point of view for his merit.

We can regard as the third the complete overthrow of Scholastic philosophy. By that name I would like here to mean in general the whole period beginning with the Church Father Augustine and closing just before Kant. For the main character of Scholasticism is surely the one that Tennemann gave very correctly: the guardianship of the ruling national religion over philosophy. Philosophy was really left with nothing to do but prove and decorate the main dogmas that religion prescribed to it. The Scholastics proper, up to Suarez, admit this without concealment. The philosophers who followed do it more unconsciously, or at least without admitting it. People let the Scholastic philosophy run only until about a hundred years before Descartes. Then they let a whole new epoch begin with him, of free inquiry independent of all positive creed. But such an epoch cannot in fact be attributed to Descartes and his successors [1] but only a semblance [2] Bruno and Spinoza must be wholly excepted here. Each stands for himself and alone, and belongs neither to his century nor to his part of the world, which repaid the one with death and the other with persecution and disgrace. Their miserable existence and dying in this West is like that of a tropical plant in Europe. Their true spiritual home was the banks of the holy Ganga. There they would have led a quiet and honored life among men of like mind.—Bruno, in the following verses, with which he opens the book della causa principio ed uno, for which he got the stake, expresses clearly and beautifully how lonely he felt in his century. At the same time he shows a foreboding of his fate. It made him hesitate to set out his cause, until the drive to communicate what one has recognized as true, which is so strong in noble minds, overcame it:

Ad partum properare tuum, mens aegra, quid obstat; Seclo haec indigno sint tribuenda licet? Umbrarum fluctu terras mergente, cacumen Adtolle in clarum, noster Olympe, Jovem.

Whoever this main work of his, as well as his other Italian writings, once so rare, now accessible to everyone through a German edition, of it, and at most a striving for it. Descartes was a most distinguished mind, and, if one takes his time into account, he accomplished very much. But if one sets this consideration aside and measures him by the liberation of thought from all fetters and the opening of a new period of unprejudiced, independent inquiry that is credited to him, then one must find that his skepticism lacks real earnestness and so settles down again so quickly and so badly. With it he does put on a show of wanting to throw off, all at once, all the fetters of opinions instilled early and belonging to his time and nation. But he does this only for appearance, for a moment, in order to take them up again at once and hold them all the more firmly. The same holds for all his successors down to Kant. So Goethe’s verse applies very well to a free thinker of this kind:

“He seems to me, by your Grace’s leave, like one of those long-legged grasshoppers, that always flies and, flying, jumps—and at once sings its old little song in the grass.”—

Kant had reasons for putting on the show as if he too meant it only so. But this time the pretended jump, which was granted because people already knew that it leads back into the grass, became a flight. And now those who stand below can only look after him, and can no longer catch him again.

So Kant dared to show, from his teaching, that all those dogmas, supposedly proved so often, cannot be proved. Speculative theology, and the rational psychology connected with it, received their death blow from him. Since then they have vanished from German philosophy, and one must reads, will find with me that among all philosophers he alone comes somewhat near Plato, in the strong addition of poetic power and bent beside the philosophical, and shows this too especially in a dramatic way. Think of the tender, spiritual, thinking being that he presents himself as in this writing of his, in the hands of crude, raging priests as his judges and executioners. And thank the time that brought on a brighter and milder century, so that posterity, whose curse was to fall on those devilish fanatics, is now already the contemporary world. not let oneself be misled by the fact that here and there the word is kept after the thing has been given up, or that some wretched philosophy-professor has his master’s fear before his eyes and lets truth be truth. The greatness of this merit of Kant’s can be measured only by someone who has noticed the harmful influence of those concepts on natural science as well as on philosophy, in all the writers of the 17th and 18th centuries, even the best. In German scientific writings the change in tone and in metaphysical background since Kant is striking. Before him it stood with them as it still does in England.—This merit of Kant’s is connected with the fact that thoughtless pursuit of the laws of appearance had completely ruled all earlier philosophy, ancient, medieval and modern. These laws were raised to eternal truths, and so the fleeting appearance was raised to the real being of the world. In short, realism, undisturbed in its delusion by any reflection, had ruled. Berkeley, who, like Malebranche before him, had recognized how one-sided and indeed false realism is, could not overthrow it, because his attack was limited to one point. So it was reserved for Kant to help the idealistic basic view to rule in Europe, at least in philosophy. In the whole of Asia that is not Islamized, this view is essentially even that of religion. Before Kant, then, we were in time; now time is in us, and so on.

Ethics too had been treated by that realistic philosophy according to the laws of appearance, which it held to be absolute and valid also of the thing in itself. So ethics was founded sometimes on the doctrine of happiness, sometimes on the will of the creator of the world, and finally on the concept of perfection. In and for itself this concept is wholly empty and without content. It marks a mere relation, which gets meaning only from the things to which it is applied. For “to be perfect” means nothing more than “to correspond to some concept presupposed and given for the case”. So this concept must have been set up beforehand, and without it perfection is an unnamed number and by itself says nothing at all. But suppose someone makes the concept of “humanity” a silent presupposition here, and accordingly makes striving for perfect humanity the principle of morals. Then he says only: “Human beings should be as they should be”—and is as wise as before. For “perfect” is almost only a synonym of “complete in number”. It says that in a given case, or individual, all the predicates that lie in the concept of its species are represented, and so are really present. So the concept of “perfection”, when used absolutely and in abstracto, is a word empty of thought, and so is the talk about the “most perfect being” and the like. All this is mere word-trash. Nevertheless in the last century this concept of perfection and imperfection had become current coin. Indeed it was the hinge on which almost all moralizing and even theologizing turned. Everyone had it in his mouth, so that in the end a real abuse was made of it. Even the best writers of the time, Lessing for example, we see most lamentably entangled in perfections and imperfections and struggling with them. Yet every head that thinks at all must at least dimly have felt that this concept has no positive content, since, like an algebraic sign, it indicates a mere relation in abstracto.—Kant, as already said, separated the undeniable great ethical significance of actions entirely from appearance and its laws. He showed that significance as concerning directly the thing in itself, the innermost being of the world. Appearance, that is, time and space and everything that fills them and orders itself in them according to the law of causality, is on the other hand to be regarded as an unstable dream without being.

This little, which by no means exhausts the subject, may suffice as a testimony of my recognition of Kant’s great merits. I give it here for my own satisfaction, and because justice demanded that those merits be called to mind for everyone who wants to follow me in the unsparing exposure of his faults, to which I now proceed.

That Kant’s great achievements had to be accompanied by great faults can be gauged already from history alone. He brought about the greatest revolution in philosophy. He put an end to Scholasticism, which, understood in the wider sense given, had lasted fourteen centuries, in order to begin a really new, third world epoch of philosophy. Yet the immediate result of his appearance was almost only negative, not positive. He did not set up a complete new system to which his followers could have held for any length of time. So all noticed that something very great had happened, but none rightly knew what. They saw well enough that all philosophy until then had been fruitless dreaming, from which the new age was now waking. But what they should now hold to, they did not know. A great emptiness, a great need, had set in. General attention, even that of the wider public, was aroused. Prompted by this, and not driven by inner impulse and feeling of strength (which show themselves even at the most unfavorable moment, as with Spinoza), men without any distinguishing talents made manifold, weak, absurd, even sometimes mad attempts. The public, once aroused, still gave them its attention and for a long time lent them its ear, with a great patience such as is found only in Germany.

It must have gone in nature once as it does here, when a great revolution changed the whole surface of the earth, sea and land had exchanged their places, and the ground for a new creation had been leveled. Then it took a long time before nature could bring forth a new series of lasting forms, each in harmony with itself and with the others. Strange monstrous organisms came out. In disharmony with themselves and with one another, they could not last long. But their remains, which still exist, are just what has brought down to us the memory of that wavering and trying of nature taking new shape.—That in philosophy Kant brought about a crisis quite like that, and an age of monstrous freaks, as we all know, already allows the conclusion that his merit cannot have been perfect. It must have been burdened with great defects, and have been negative and one-sided. We will now trace these defects.

First we want to make clear to ourselves the basic thought in which the aim of the whole Critique of Pure Reason lies, and to examine it.—Kant took the standpoint of his predecessors, the dogmatic philosophers, and so started with them from the following assumptions. 1) Metaphysics is the science of what lies beyond the possibility of all experience.—2) Such a thing can never be found by principles that are themselves drawn from experience (Prolegomena, §. 1). Only what we know prior to experience, and so independently of all experience, can reach further than possible experience.—3) In our reason some principles of this kind are really to be found. They are grouped under the name of knowledge from pure reason.—So far Kant goes along with his predecessors. Here, though, he parts from them. They say: “These principles, or knowledge from pure reason, are expressions of the absolute possibility of things, aeternae veritates, sources of ontology. They stand above the order of the world, as fate stood above the gods of the ancients.” Kant says: they are mere forms of our intellect. They are laws, not of the existence of things, but of our representations of them. So they hold only for our apprehension of things, and accordingly cannot reach beyond the possibility of experience, which, according to item 1, was the whole point. For the very apriority of these forms of knowledge can rest only on their subjective origin. This cuts us off for ever from knowledge of the being in itself of things, and confines us to a world of mere appearances. So we cannot know things as they may be in themselves even a posteriori, let alone a priori. Metaphysics is therefore impossible, and in its place comes the critique of pure reason. Against the old dogmatism Kant is completely victorious here. That is why all the dogmatic attempts that have appeared since have had to take quite different paths from the earlier ones. According to the declared aim of the present critique, I shall now lead up to the justification of my own path. For on closer examination of the above argument, one will have to admit that its very first basic assumption is a petitio principii. It lies in the sentence (set out clearly in Prolegomena, §. 1 especially): “The source of metaphysics must absolutely not be empirical. Its principles and basic concepts must never be taken from experience, either inner or outer.” Nothing at all is offered to support this cardinal claim except the etymological argument from the word metaphysics. In truth the matter stands like this. The world and our own existence present themselves to us necessarily as a riddle. Now it is simply assumed that the solution of this riddle cannot come out of a thorough understanding of the world itself. It must be sought in something wholly different from the world (for that is what “beyond the possibility of all experience” means). And it is assumed that everything of which we could in any way have direct acquaintance (for that is what possible experience, inner as well as outer, means) must be excluded from that solution. The solution must instead be sought only in what we can reach merely indirectly, namely by inferences from general propositions a priori. After the main source of all knowledge had been shut off in this way, and the straight road to truth blocked, it is no wonder that the dogmatic attempts failed and that Kant could show the necessity of this failure. For it had been assumed in advance that metaphysics and knowledge a priori are identical. But for that, one would first have had to prove that the material for solving the riddle of the world absolutely cannot be contained in the world itself. It would have to be proved that it can only be sought outside the world, in something that we can reach only by following those forms known to us a priori. As long as this is not proved, we have no reason, in the most important and most difficult of all tasks, to stop up the richest in content of all sources of knowledge, inner and outer experience, in order to operate only with forms empty of content. I say, therefore, that the solution of the riddle of the world must come out of the understanding of the world itself. So the task of metaphysics is not to fly over the experience in which the world stands, but to understand it from the ground up. For experience, outer and inner, is certainly the main source of all knowledge. So the solution of the riddle of the world is possible only through the proper connection of outer experience with inner at the right point, and through the union thus achieved of these two such different sources of knowledge. Even so, it is possible only within certain limits that cannot be separated from our finite nature. In other words, we reach the right understanding of the world itself, without reaching a closed explanation of its existence that would cancel all further problems. So est quadam prodire tenus, and my way lies in the middle, between the teaching of omniscience of the earlier dogmatism and the despair of the Kantian critique. The important truths discovered by Kant, though, by which the earlier metaphysical systems were overthrown, have supplied data and material to mine. Compare what I said about my method in chapter 17 of the second volume.—So much for Kant’s basic thought. Now we want to consider its execution and the particulars.

Kant’s style bears throughout the stamp of a superior mind, of genuine, firm originality and quite unusual power of thought. Its character can perhaps be aptly described as a brilliant dryness. By means of it he is able to seize and pick out concepts with great sureness, and then toss them back and forth with the greatest freedom, to the reader’s astonishment. I find the same brilliant dryness again in the style of Aristotle, although that is much simpler.—Nevertheless Kant’s presentation is often unclear, indefinite, inadequate and sometimes obscure. This last, admittedly, can be partly excused by the difficulty of the subject and the depth of the thoughts. But whoever is clear to himself to the bottom, and knows quite plainly what he thinks and wants, will never write unclearly. He will never set up wavering, indefinite concepts. He will not gather very difficult, complicated expressions from foreign languages to name them, in order afterward to use them constantly. That is how Kant took words and formulas from the older, even Scholastic philosophy and combined them for his purposes, for example “transcendental synthetic unity of apperception”. In general he always put “unity of synthesis” where “union” alone was enough. Such a person will also not keep explaining over and over what has already been explained once, as Kant does, for example, with the understanding, the categories, experience and other main concepts. Such a person will not keep repeating himself without end, and yet in each new presentation of a thought that has come up a hundred times leave in it exactly the same obscure places. Instead he will say his meaning once, clearly, thoroughly, exhaustively, and leave it at that. “Quo enim melius rem aliquam concipimus, eo magis determinati sumus ad eam unico modo exprimendam”, says Descartes in his fifth letter. But the greatest harm done by Kant’s obscure presentation in places is that it worked as an exemplar vitiis imitabile. It was even misread as a corrupting authorization. The public had been forced to see that what is obscure is not always senseless. At once the senseless took refuge behind obscure presentation. Fichte was the first to seize this new privilege and use it heavily. Schelling at least equaled him in it, and an army of hungry scribblers, without mind and without honesty, soon outdid both. But the greatest impudence in serving up bare nonsense, in smearing together senseless, raving tangles of words, such as had until then been heard only in madhouses, finally appeared in Hegel. It became the instrument of the clumsiest general mystification that ever was, with a success that will seem fabulous to posterity and will remain a monument of German niaiserie. Meanwhile Jean Paul wrote in vain his fine paragraph “higher appreciation of philosophical madness on the professor’s chair and of poetic madness on the stage” (aesthetic after-lesson). For Goethe had already said in vain:

“So people chatter and teach undisturbed. Who wants to bother with the fools? Usually a person believes, if he only hears words, that there must be something to think in them too.”

But let us return to Kant. One cannot help admitting that the ancient, grand simplicity, that naïveté, ingénuité, candeur, are entirely lacking in him. His philosophy has no analogy with Greek architecture, which offers large, simple proportions that reveal themselves to the eye all at once. It very much recalls Gothic building instead. For a quite individual peculiarity of Kant’s mind is a curious pleasure in symmetry, which loves the many-colored multiplicity in order to arrange it and repeat the arrangement in subordinate arrangements, and so on without end, just as in Gothic churches. Sometimes he even carries this to the point of playing games. Out of this inclination he goes so far as to do obvious violence to truth and to treat it as the old-fashioned gardeners treat nature. Their work is symmetrical avenues, squares and triangles, pyramid-shaped and ball-shaped trees, and hedges wound into regular curves. I will support this with facts.

He treated space and time in isolation. Then he dismissed this whole world of intuition that fills space and time, in which we live and are, with the empty words “the empirical content of intuition is given to us”. After that he arrives at once, in a single leap, at the logical foundation of his whole philosophy, the table of judgments. From this he deduces a proper dozen categories, laid out symmetrically under four headings. Later these become the terrible bed of Procrustes, into which he forces all things in the world and everything that goes on in a human being. He shrinks from no violence and scorns no sophism, if only he can repeat the symmetry of that table everywhere. The first thing derived symmetrically from it is the pure physiological table of general principles of natural science: namely axioms of intuition, anticipations of perception, analogies of experience and postulates of empirical thought in general. Of these principles the first two are simple. The last two, however, each put out three shoots, symmetrically. The bare categories were what he calls concepts. These principles of natural science, however, are judgments. By his highest guide to all wisdom, namely symmetry, it is now the turn of the inferences to prove fruitful, and they do so again symmetrically and in step, to a beat. For just as experience, together with its principles a priori, grew up for the understanding by the application of the categories to sensibility, so the Ideas of reason arise by the application of inferences to the categories. This is the business that reason performs, according to its supposed principle of seeking the unconditioned. It goes like this: the three categories of relation give three, and only three, possible kinds of major premises for inferences. These inferences accordingly also fall into three kinds, and each of them is to be regarded as an egg out of which reason hatches an Idea. From the categorical kind of inference comes the Idea of the soul, from the hypothetical the Idea of the world, and from the disjunctive the Idea of God. In the middle one, the Idea of the world, the symmetry of the table of categories is repeated once more. Its four headings bring forth four theses, each of which has its antithesis as a symmetrical counterpart.

We do pay our admiration to the really most acute combination that called forth this elegant building. But later we will examine it thoroughly in its foundation and in its parts.—First, though, the following considerations must be sent ahead.

It is astonishing how Kant follows his way without further reflection, going after his symmetry, ordering everything by it, without ever taking one of the subjects so treated into consideration for itself. I will explain myself more closely. He considers intuitive knowledge only in mathematics. The rest of intuitive knowledge, in which the world lies before us, he neglects entirely. He holds only to abstract thinking, which in fact gets all its meaning and value from the intuitive world, which is infinitely more significant, more general and richer in content than the abstract part of our knowledge. Indeed, and this is a main point, he nowhere distinguishes intuitive and abstract knowledge clearly. For that very reason, as we shall see afterward, he entangles himself in irresolvable contradictions with himself.—After he has dismissed the whole world of the senses with the empty “it is given”, he makes, as said, the logical table of judgments the cornerstone of his building. But here too he does not reflect for a moment on what is really lying before him now. These forms of judgments are in fact words and combinations of words. The first question should have been what these directly signify. It would have been found that they are concepts. The next question would then have been about the nature of concepts. From the answer it would have emerged what relation these have to the intuitive representations in which the world stands. There intuition and reflection would have come apart. It would then have had to be investigated not only how pure and merely formal intuition a priori comes into consciousness, but also how its content, empirical intuition, does. Then it would have been shown what share the understanding has in this. So it would also have been shown, in general, what the understanding is and what, by contrast, reason really is, whose critique is being written here. It is most striking that he does not once determine this last properly and sufficiently. He gives only incomplete and incorrect explanations of it, now and then, as the context of the moment requires. This is quite in conflict with the rule of Descartes cited above [3].

4 Let me remark here that I cite the “Critique of Pure Reason” throughout by the page number of the first edition, since this page number is given throughout in Rosenkranz’s edition of the collected works. In addition I add, with a V put in front, the page number of the fifth edition. All the others, from the second on, are identical with this one, and so presumably also in page number.

For example, on p. 11; V, 24, of the Critique of Pure Reason, reason is the faculty of principles a priori. On p. 299; V, 356, it is said again that reason is the faculty of principles, and it is set against the understanding, which is said to be the faculty of rules! Now you would think there must be an enormous difference between principles and rules, since it entitles him to assume a separate faculty of knowledge for each. But this great difference is supposed to lie only in this: what is known a priori from pure intuition, or through the forms of the understanding, is a rule, and only what comes a priori from mere concepts is a principle. We will come back to this arbitrary and unjustified distinction later, in the Dialectic. On p. 330; V, 386, reason is the faculty of inferring. Mere judging he often declares (p. 69; V, 94) to be the business of the understanding. What he is really saying by this is: judging is the business of the understanding as long as the ground of the judgment is empirical, transcendental, or metalogical (Treatise on the Principle of Sufficient Reason, §. 31, 32, 33). But if the ground is logical, which is what an inference consists of, then a quite special and far superior faculty of knowledge acts here, reason. What is more, on p. 303; V, 360, he explains that immediate inferences from a proposition are still the work of the understanding, and only those that use a mediating concept are carried out by reason. As an example he gives this: from the proposition “All men are mortal,” the conclusion “Some mortals are men” is still drawn by the mere understanding; but the conclusion “All scholars are mortal” requires a quite different and far superior faculty, reason. How could a great thinker put forward something like this! On p. 553; V, 581, reason suddenly becomes the lasting condition of all voluntary actions. On p. 614; V, 642, it consists in our being able to give an account of our claims; on pp. 643, 644; V, 671, 672, in its uniting the concepts of the understanding into Ideas, just as the understanding unites the manifold of objects into concepts. On p. 646; V, 674, it is nothing other than the faculty of deriving the particular from the general.

The understanding too is defined again and again. In seven places in the Critique of Pure Reason: on p. 51; V, 75, it is the faculty of producing representations itself. On p. 69; V, 94, it is the faculty of judging, that is, of thinking, that is, of knowing through concepts. On p. 137, fifth edition, it is in general the faculty of cognitions. On p. 132; V, 171, it is the faculty of rules. But on p. 158; V, 197, we are told: “it is not only the faculty of rules, but the source of principles, according to which everything stands under rules”; and yet above it was set against reason, because reason alone was supposed to be the faculty of principles. On p. 160; V, 199, the understanding is the faculty of concepts; but on p. 302; V, 359, it is the faculty of the unity of appearances by means of rules.

I have set up definitions of these two faculties of knowledge that are firm, sharp, definite, simple, and always in agreement with the usage of all peoples and all times. I will not need to defend them against such truly confused and groundless talk about the subject, even though it comes from Kant. I have cited it only as proof of my charge that Kant pursues his symmetrical, logical system without thinking enough about the subject he is treating in this way.

Now, as I said above, suppose Kant had seriously investigated how two such different faculties of knowledge, one of which is what distinguishes human beings, make themselves known, and what reason and understanding mean according to the usage of all peoples and all philosophers. Then he would never have split reason into a theoretical and a practical reason, with no further authority than the scholastics’ intellectus theoreticus and practicus, which are used in a quite different sense, and he would never have made the latter the source of virtuous action. In the same way, before Kant so carefully separated concepts of the understanding (by which he means partly his categories, partly all common concepts) from concepts of reason (his so-called Ideas), and made both the material of his philosophy, which for the most part deals only with the validity, use, and origin of all these concepts—before that, I say, he really should have investigated what a concept is in the first place. But unfortunately this necessary investigation too was left out entirely. That contributed much to the disastrous mixing up of intuitive and abstract knowledge, which I will soon point out.—The same lack of reflection with which he passed over the questions “What is intuition? What is reflection? What is a concept? What is reason? What is understanding?”—also made him skip these equally unavoidable investigations: What do I call the object that I distinguish from the representation? What is existence? What is an object? What is a subject? What are truth, illusion, error? But without stopping to think or look around, he follows his logical scheme and his symmetry. The table of judgments is supposed to be, and must be, the key to all wisdom.

Above I named it as Kant’s chief merit that he distinguished appearance from the thing in itself, declared this whole visible world to be appearance, and therefore denied that its laws have any validity beyond appearance. It is certainly striking that he did not derive that merely relative existence of appearance from the simple, obvious, undeniable truth “No object without a subject.” That would have shown, right at the root, that the object, because it is always there only in relation to a subject, depends on that subject and is conditioned by it, and so is mere appearance, which does not exist in itself or unconditionally. Berkeley, to whose merit Kant is unjust, had already made that important proposition the cornerstone of his philosophy and so earned himself an immortal memory, although he did not himself draw the proper conclusions from it, and it was then partly not understood and partly not given enough attention. In my first edition I explained Kant’s avoidance of this Berkeleyan proposition as an evident fear of outright idealism, while on the other hand I found that idealism clearly stated in many passages of the Critique of Pure Reason; and so I accused Kant of contradicting himself. This charge was also well founded, as far as one knows the Critique of Pure Reason only in the second edition, or in the five later editions printed after it, as was my case then. But when I later read Kant’s main work in the first edition, which has already become rare, I saw to my great joy all those contradictions disappear. I found that Kant, although he does not use the formula “no object without a subject,” nevertheless declares, with the same decisiveness as Berkeley and I, that the external world laid out in space and time is mere representation of the subject that knows it. So, for example, on p. 383 of that edition he says without reserve: “If I take away the thinking subject, the whole bodily world must fall away, since it is nothing but the appearance in the sensibility of our subject and a kind of representation of it.” But the whole passage from p. 348 to p. 392, in which Kant sets out his decided idealism with great beauty and clarity, he suppressed in the second edition, and in its place put a mass of statements that conflict with it. As a result, the text of the Critique of Pure Reason, as it circulated from 1787 to 1838, became disfigured and corrupted, and the book contradicted itself, so that for that very reason its meaning could be completely clear and understandable to no one. I have set out the details about this, and also my guesses about the reasons and weaknesses that may have moved Kant to disfigure his immortal work in this way, in a letter to Professor Rosenkranz. Rosenkranz took the main passage of that letter into his preface to the second volume of the edition of Kant’s complete works that he edited, and I refer the reader to it there. As a result of my urging, in 1838 Professor Rosenkranz found himself moved to restore the Critique of Pure Reason to its original form, by having it printed in that second volume from the first edition of 1781. By this he earned an inestimable merit for philosophy, and perhaps even saved the most important work of German literature from destruction; and he should never be forgotten for it. But let no one imagine that he knows the Critique of Pure Reason and has a clear concept of Kant’s teaching if he has read it only in the second or one of the later editions. That is absolutely impossible: for he has read only a mutilated, corrupted, and in a way spurious text. It is my duty to state this here emphatically, as a warning to everyone.

But the way Kant introduces the thing in itself stands in undeniable contradiction with the decidedly idealist basic view stated so clearly in the first edition of the Critique of Pure Reason. This is without doubt the main reason why in the second edition he suppressed the idealist passage I mentioned and declared himself outright against Berkeley’s idealism. But by doing so he only brought inconsistencies into his work, without being able to cure its main defect. As is well known, that defect is the introduction of the thing in itself in the way he chose. G. E. Schulze showed at length in the “Aenesidemus” that this way is untenable, and it was soon recognized as the indefensible point of his system. The matter can be made clear in very few words. Kant bases the assumption of the thing in itself, though he hides this under various turns of phrase, on an inference according to the law of causality: namely that empirical intuition, or more correctly the sensation in our sense organs from which it starts, must have an external cause. Now, according to his own correct discovery, the law of causality is known to us a priori, and is therefore a function of our intellect, hence of subjective origin. Further, the sensation of the senses itself, to which we here apply the law of causality, is undeniably subjective. And finally even space, into which by means of this application we place the cause of the sensation as an object, is a form of our intellect that is given a priori, and so subjective. Thus the whole of empirical intuition remains throughout on subjective ground, as a mere event in us, and nothing completely different from it and independent of it can be brought in as a thing in itself, or proved to be a necessary assumption. Empirical intuition really is, and remains, our mere representation: it is the world as representation. We can reach the essence in itself of this world only by the entirely different path that I have taken, by drawing in self-consciousness, which makes known the will as the in-itself of our own appearance. But then the thing in itself becomes something different toto genere from the representation and its elements, as I have shown in detail.

The great defect of the Kantian system on this point, which as I said was pointed out early, confirms the beautiful Indian proverb: “No lotus without a stem.” The faulty derivation of the thing in itself is the stem here. But only the manner of derivation is at fault, not the recognition of a thing in itself behind the given appearance. Fichte misunderstood it in this latter way. He could do that only because he cared not about truth but about making a stir, to advance his personal ends. So he was bold and thoughtless enough to deny the thing in itself altogether and to set up a system in which not only the merely formal side of representation, as with Kant, but the material side too, its whole content, was supposedly derived a priori from the subject. In doing so he counted quite correctly on the public’s lack of judgment and its niaiserie. The public accepted bad sophisms, mere hocus-pocus, and senseless drivel as proofs. So he succeeded in drawing its attention from Kant to himself and in giving German philosophy the direction in which Schelling later carried it further, and which finally reached its goal in the senseless sham wisdom of Hegel.

I now return to the great fault of Kant that I touched on above: he did not properly separate intuitive and abstract knowledge. This has produced a disastrous confusion, which we must now look at more closely. If he had sharply separated intuitive representations from concepts thought merely in abstracto, he would have kept the two apart and would have known each time which of them he was dealing with. Unfortunately this was not the case, although the charge has not yet been raised loudly, and so may come as a surprise. His “object of experience,” which he talks about constantly, the real object of the categories, is not the intuitive representation, but it is also not the abstract concept. It is different from both, and yet both at once, and a complete non-thing. For he lacked, incredible as this seems, either the reflection or the good will to settle this with himself and to explain clearly to himself and others whether his “object of experience, that is, of the knowledge produced by applying the categories,” is the intuitive representation in space and time (my first class of representations), or only the abstract concept. Strange as it is, he always has before his mind something in between the two. That is where the unhappy confusion comes from, which I must now bring to light. For that purpose I have to go through the whole doctrine of elements in general.

The Transcendental Aesthetic is such an extremely meritorious work that it alone could be enough to make Kant’s name immortal. Its proofs have such full power to convince that I count its doctrines among the irrefutable truths. They also undoubtedly belong among the most fruitful in consequences. They are therefore to be regarded as the rarest thing in the world, namely a real, great discovery in metaphysics. The fact he strictly proved, that a part of our knowledge is known to us a priori, allows no other explanation than that this knowledge makes up the forms of our intellect. Indeed this is less an explanation than just the plain statement of the fact itself. For a priori means nothing other than “not gained by way of experience, and so not come into us from outside.” But what is present in the intellect without having come from outside is just what originally belongs to the intellect itself, its own nature. Now if what is present in it in this way consists in the general manner in which all its objects must present themselves to it, then that means it is the forms of its knowing, that is, the fixed manner, settled once and for all, in which it carries out this function. So “knowledge a priori” and “the intellect’s own forms” are at bottom only two expressions for the same thing, and in a way synonyms.

I would therefore not know what to take away from the doctrines of the Transcendental Aesthetic, only a few things to add. In particular, Kant did not think his thoughts through to the end in this: he did not reject the whole Euclidean method of demonstration, although he had said on p. 87; V, 120, that all geometrical knowledge has immediate evidence from intuition. It is highly remarkable that even one of his opponents, and the sharpest of them, G. E. Schulze (Critique of Theoretical Philosophy, II, 241), draws the conclusion that a quite different treatment of geometry would follow from Kant’s teaching than the one actually in use. He thinks he is thereby giving an apagogic proof against Kant, but in fact he is starting a war against the Euclidean method without knowing it. I refer to §. 15 in the first book of the present work.

After the detailed discussion, given in the Transcendental Aesthetic, of the general forms of all intuition, one expects to get some explanation of its content as well: of how empirical intuition comes into our consciousness, and how the knowledge of this whole world, so real and so important for us, arises in us. But on this the whole of Kant’s teaching really contains nothing except the often repeated, empty phrase: “The empirical element of intuition is given from outside.”—Because of this, Kant goes on here from the pure forms of intuition, by a jump, to thinking, to transcendental logic. Right at the entrance to it (Critique of Pure Reason, p. 50; V, 74), where Kant cannot avoid touching on the material content of empirical intuition, he takes the first false step and commits the πρωτον ψευδος. “Our knowledge,” he says, “has two sources, namely receptivity of impressions and spontaneity of concepts: the first is the capacity to receive representations, the second the capacity to know an object through these representations: through the first an object is given to us, through the second it is thought.”—That is false. For according to this, the impression, for which alone we have mere receptivity, which therefore comes from outside and is alone really “given,” would already be a representation, indeed already an object. But it is nothing more than a mere sensation in the sense organ. Only by applying the understanding (that is, the law of causality) and the forms of intuition, space and time, does our intellect turn this mere sensation into a representation. This representation now stands there as an object in space and time. It can be distinguished from the object only when one asks about the thing in itself; otherwise it is identical with it. I have set out this process in detail in the Treatise on the Principle of Sufficient Reason, §. 21. With that, though, the work of the understanding and of intuitive knowledge is finished. It needs no concepts and no thinking for this; that is why animals too have these representations. If concepts and thinking are added (to which spontaneity can indeed be attributed), then intuitive knowledge is left entirely behind, and a quite different class of representations, namely non-intuitive, abstract concepts, enters consciousness. This is the activity of reason, which, however, gets the whole content of its thinking only from the intuition that came before it, and from comparing that with other intuitions and concepts. But in this way Kant already brings thinking into intuition, and lays the foundation for the disastrous mixing of intuitive and abstract knowledge that I am busy criticizing here. He has intuition, taken by itself, be without understanding, purely sensory, and so entirely passive, and has an object grasped only through thinking (the category of the understanding). So he brings thinking into intuition. But then in turn the object of thinking is an individual, real object. By this, thinking loses its essential character of generality and abstraction, and gets individual things for its object instead of general concepts. So he in turn brings intuiting into thinking. From this arises the disastrous mixing I mentioned, and the consequences of this first false step extend over his whole theory of knowledge.

Running through the whole of it is the complete blending of the intuitive representation with the abstract one into something in between the two. He presents this as the object of knowledge through the understanding and its categories, and calls this knowledge experience. It is hard to believe that Kant himself thought anything quite definite and really clear in connection with this object of the understanding. I will now prove this, by the enormous contradiction that runs through the whole of transcendental logic and is the real source of the obscurity that wraps it.

For in the Critique of Pure Reason, pp. 67–69; V, 92–94; pp. 89, 90; V, 122, 123; and further V, 135, 139, 153, he repeats and insists: the understanding is no faculty of intuition, its knowledge is not intuitive but discursive; the understanding is the faculty of judging (p. 69; V, 94), and a judgment is mediate knowledge, a representation of a representation (p. 68; V, 93); the understanding is the faculty of thinking, and thinking is knowledge through concepts (p. 69; V, 94); the categories of the understanding are by no means the conditions under which objects are given in intuition (p. 89; V, 122), and intuition needs the functions of thinking in no way (p. 91; V, 123); our understanding can only think, not intuit (V, pp. 135, 139). Further, in the Prolegomena, §. 20: intuition, perception, perceptio, belongs to the senses alone; judging belongs to the understanding alone; and §. 22: the business of the senses is to intuit, that of the understanding to think, that is, to judge.—Finally also in the Critique of Practical Reason, fourth edition, p. 247; Rosenkranz edition p. 281: the understanding is discursive, its representations are thoughts, not intuitions.—All of this is Kant’s own wording.

From this it follows that this intuitive world would be there for us even if we had no understanding at all, and that it gets into our head in a completely inexplicable way. He often indicates this by his odd expression that intuition is given, without ever explaining this vague and figurative expression any further.

But now his whole remaining teaching about the understanding, its categories, and the possibility of experience, as he presents it in transcendental logic, contradicts all that I have quoted in the most glaring way. Namely: Critique of Pure Reason, p. 79; V, 105, the understanding through its categories brings unity into the manifold of intuition, and the pure concepts of the understanding apply a priori to objects of intuition. P. 94; V, 126, “the categories are the condition of experience, whether of the intuition or of the thinking that is met with in it.” V, p. 127, the understanding is the originator of experience. V, p. 128, the categories determine the intuition of objects. V, p. 130, everything that we represent to ourselves as combined in the object (which surely is something intuitive and not an abstraction) has been combined only through an act of the understanding. V, p. 135, the understanding is defined once more, as the faculty of combining a priori and of bringing the manifold of given representations under the unity of apperception; but by all usage of language apperception is not the thinking of a concept but intuition. V, p. 136, we even find a supreme principle of the possibility of all intuition in relation to the understanding. V, p. 143, there is even a heading saying that all sensory intuition is conditioned by the categories. In the same place the logical function of judgments also brings the manifold of given intuitions under one apperception in general, and the manifold of a given intuition necessarily stands under the categories. V, p. 144, unity comes into intuition by means of the categories, through the understanding. V, p. 145, the thinking of the understanding is explained, very strangely, by saying that it synthesizes, connects, and orders the manifold of intuition. V, p. 161, experience is possible only through the categories and consists in the connection of perceptions, which surely are intuitions. V, p. 159, the categories are knowledge a priori of objects of intuition in general.—Further, here and at V, pp. 163 and 165, a main doctrine of Kant is stated, this: that the understanding first makes nature possible, by prescribing laws a priori to it, with nature conforming to its lawfulness, and so on. Now nature surely is something intuitive and not an abstraction; the understanding would then have to be a faculty of intuition. V, p. 168, it is said that the concepts of the understanding are the principles of the possibility of experience, and that experience is the determination of appearances in space and time in general; and these appearances surely are present in intuition. Finally, pp. 189–211; V, 232–265, comes the long proof (the incorrectness of which is shown in detail in my Treatise on the Principle of Sufficient Reason, §. 23) that the objective succession and also the simultaneity of the objects of experience are not perceived by the senses, but are brought into nature by the understanding alone, nature itself being first made possible by this. Yet nature, the sequence of events, and the simultaneity of states are certainly all intuitive, and not something merely thought abstractly.

I challenge everyone who shares my reverence for Kant to reconcile these contradictions, and to show that in his teaching about the object of experience, and about how it is determined by the activity of the understanding and its twelve functions, Kant thought something quite clear and definite. I am convinced that the contradiction I have pointed out, which runs through the whole of transcendental logic, is the real reason for the great obscurity of its presentation. Kant was dimly aware of the contradiction. He struggled with it inwardly, yet either would not or could not bring it to clear consciousness. So he veiled it from himself and from others, and got around it by all sorts of back roads. Perhaps this also explains why he made of the faculty of knowledge such an odd, complicated machine, with so many wheels: the twelve categories, the transcendental synthesis of the imagination, inner sense, the transcendental unity of apperception, then the schematism of the pure concepts of the understanding, and so on. And despite this great apparatus, not even an attempt is made to explain the intuition of the external world, which surely is the main thing in our knowledge. Instead this obtrusive demand is dismissed, in a really poor way, every time by the same empty, figurative expression: “Empirical intuition is given to us.” On p. 145 of the fifth edition we learn further that it is given by the object; so the object must be something different from the intuition.

Now if we try to find out Kant’s innermost view, which he did not state clearly himself, we find that it is really such an object, different from intuition and yet by no means a concept, that is for him the real object for the understanding. Indeed, it is this odd assumption of such an unrepresentable object that is supposed to be what first turns intuition into experience. I believe that an old, deep-rooted prejudice, one no longer subject to any examination, is the ultimate ground in Kant for assuming such an absolute object, which is an object in itself, that is, even without a subject. It is by no means the intuited object. It is added in thought to the intuition by means of the concept, as something corresponding to it, and only now is the intuition experience and has value and truth. The intuition then gets these only through its relation to a concept (in diametrical opposition to our account, according to which the concept gets value and truth only from intuition). This adding in thought, to the intuition, of an object that cannot be directly represented is then the real function of the categories. “Only through intuition is the object given, which is afterwards thought according to the category.” (Critique of Pure Reason, first edition, p. 399.) This becomes especially clear from a passage on p. 125 of the fifth edition: “Now the question is whether concepts a priori also come first, as conditions under which alone something, though not intuited, is still thought as an object in general,” which he answers yes. Here the source of the error and of the confusion that wraps it shows clearly. For the object as such is always there only for intuition and in it, whether that intuition is carried out through the senses or, when the object is absent, through the imagination. What is thought, on the other hand, is always a general, non-intuitive concept, which at most can be the concept of an object in general. But thinking relates to objects only indirectly, by means of concepts, and objects themselves always are and remain intuitive. For our thinking does not serve to give reality to intuitions. They have this reality (empirical reality), as far as they are capable of it, through themselves. Rather thinking serves to gather up what intuitions have in common and the results of intuitions, so as to keep them and handle them more easily. But Kant ascribes the objects themselves to thinking, in order thereby to make experience and the objective world depend on the understanding, without however letting the understanding be a faculty of intuition. In this respect he does distinguish intuiting from thinking, but he makes individual things objects partly of intuition and partly of thinking. In reality they are objects only of the former. Our empirical intuition is objective at once, precisely because it starts from the causal nexus. Its objects are directly the things, not representations different from them. Individual things as such are intuited in the understanding and through the senses. The one-sided impression on the senses is at once completed by the imagination. As soon as we pass over to thinking, on the other hand, we leave individual things and have to do with general concepts without intuitiveness, even though we afterwards apply the results of our thinking to individual things. If we hold on to this, the inadmissibility becomes clear of the assumption that the intuition of things first gets reality, and becomes experience, through the thinking of these same things that applies the twelve categories. On the contrary, empirical reality, and so experience, is already given in the intuition itself. But intuition can also come about only by applying the knowledge of the causal nexus, which is the sole function of the understanding, to the sensation of the senses. So intuition is really intellectual, which is exactly what Kant denies.

The assumption of Kant criticized here is found, besides the passage quoted, stated especially clearly also in the Critique of Judgment, §. 36, right at the beginning; likewise in the Metaphysical Foundations of Natural Science, in the note to the first definition of the “Phenomenology.” But set out most clearly, with a naivety that Kant himself would least have dared on this awkward point, it is found in the book of a Kantian, namely Kiesewetter’s Outline of a General Logic, third edition, Part I, p. 434 of the Exposition, and Part II, §. 52 and 53 of the Exposition; likewise in Tieftrunk’s Doctrine of Thinking in Purely German Dress (1825). There one sees just how every thinker’s pupils, who do not think for themselves, become a magnifying mirror of his faults. In presenting his doctrine of categories, once he had decided on it, Kant stepped quietly throughout; the pupils, however, step quite boldly, and so they expose what is false in the matter.

According to what has been said, the object of the categories in Kant is not the thing in itself, but it is the thing in itself’s nearest relative: it is the object in itself, an object that needs no subject, an individual thing, and yet not in time and space, because it is not intuitive; it is an object of thinking, and yet not an abstract concept. So Kant really distinguishes three things: 1) the representation; 2) the object of the representation; 3) the thing in itself. The first is the business of sensibility, which for him includes, besides sensation, the pure forms of intuition, space and time. The second is the business of the understanding, which adds it in thought through its twelve categories. The third lies beyond all possibility of knowledge. (As proof of this see pp. 108 and 109 of the first edition of the Critique of Pure Reason.) Now, though, the distinction between the representation and the object of the representation is unfounded. Berkeley had already proved this, and it follows from my whole account in the first book, especially chapter 1 of the Supplements, and indeed from Kant’s own fully idealist basic view in the first edition. But if one did not want to count the object of the representation as part of the representation and identify it with the representation, one would have to move it over to the thing in itself. In the end this depends on the sense one gives to the word object. But this always stands firm: when one reflects clearly, nothing more is to be found than representation and thing in itself. The unjustified insertion of that hybrid, the object of the representation, is the source of Kant’s errors. With its removal the doctrine of the categories as concepts a priori also falls away. For they contribute nothing to intuition and are not supposed to hold of the thing in itself; we are supposed to use them only to think those “objects of representations” and thereby turn the representation into experience. For every empirical intuition is already experience, and every intuition is empirical that starts from a sensation of the senses. The understanding, by its sole function (knowledge a priori of the law of causality), relates this sensation to its cause. The cause thereby presents itself in space and time (forms of pure intuition) as an object of experience, a material object, lasting through all time in space; and yet even as such it still remains representation, just as space and time themselves do. If we want to go beyond this representation, we stand at the question about the thing in itself, to answer which is the theme of my whole work, as of all metaphysics in general. Connected with Kant’s error as set out here is the fault of his that I criticized earlier: he gives no theory of how empirical intuition arises, but simply lets it be given, identifying it with mere sensation of the senses, to which he adds only the forms of intuition, space and time, comprising both under the name sensibility. But from these materials no objective representation arises yet. Rather it absolutely requires that the sensation be related to its cause, so the law of causality must be applied, so the understanding is needed. Without this the sensation remains subjective and places no object in space, even when space is added to it. But for Kant the understanding was not allowed to be used for intuition: it was supposed only to think, in order to stay within transcendental logic. Connected with this again is another fault of Kant: for the a priori character of the law of causality, which he correctly recognized, he left it to me to give the only valid proof, namely the one from the possibility of objective empirical intuition itself, and instead gives one that is obviously false, as I have already shown in my Treatise on the Principle of Sufficient Reason, §. 23.—

From the above it is clear that Kant’s “object of the representation” (2) is put together from what he has robbed partly from the representation (1) and partly from the thing in itself (3). If experience really came about only by our understanding applying twelve different functions, in order to think, through just as many concepts a priori, the objects that were previously merely intuited, then every real thing as such would have to have a number of determinations. These, as given a priori, could absolutely not be thought away, just like space and time, but would belong quite essentially to the existence of the thing, and yet could not be derived from the properties of space and time. But only a single determination of this kind is to be found: that of causality. Materiality rests on this, since the essence of matter consists in acting and it is through and through causality (see Vol. II, chap. 4). But materiality alone is what distinguishes the real thing from a figment of the imagination, which is, after all, only representation. For matter, as lasting, gives the thing its persistence through all time, as far as its matter goes, while the forms change in accordance with causality. Everything else in the thing is either determinations of space or of time, or its empirical properties, which all run back to its action, and so are closer determinations of causality. But causality already enters as a condition into empirical intuition, which is therefore the business of the understanding. The understanding already makes intuition possible, but beyond the law of causality it contributes nothing to experience and its possibility. What fills the old ontologies is, apart from what is stated here, nothing but relations of things to one another, or to our reflection, and a scraped-together farrago.

The way the doctrine of the categories is presented already gives a sign that it lacks any ground. What a distance in this respect between the transcendental Aesthetic and the transcendental Analytic! There, what clarity, definiteness, certainty, firm conviction, which speaks out openly and communicates itself infallibly! Everything is full of light; no dark hiding places are left. Kant knows what he wants, and knows that he is right. Here, on the other hand, everything is dark, confused, indefinite, wavering, uncertain; the presentation is anxious, full of excuses and of appeals to what is still to come, or even is held back. Also the whole second and third section of the Deduction of the pure concepts of the understanding was completely changed in the second edition, because it did not satisfy even Kant himself, and it is quite different from the first, but has not become clearer. One really sees Kant struggling with the truth, in order to push through his teaching, once decided on. In the transcendental Aesthetic all his doctrines are really proved, from undeniable facts of consciousness; in the transcendental Analytic, on the other hand, when we look at it in the light, we find mere assertions that it is so and must be so. So here, as everywhere, the presentation bears the stamp of the thinking from which it came: for style is the physiognomy of the mind.—It should also be noted that whenever Kant wants to give an example for closer discussion, he takes almost every time the category of causality, and then what he says turns out right—because the law of causality is the real, but also the only, form of the understanding, and the other eleven categories are only blind windows. The Deduction of the categories is simpler and more straightforward in the first edition than in the second. He takes pains to show how, after the intuition given by sensibility, the understanding brings about experience by means of the thinking of the categories. In this the expressions recognition, reproduction, association, apprehension, transcendental unity of apperception are repeated till one is tired, and still no clarity is reached. But it is most worth noting that in this exposition he does not once touch on what must occur to everyone first, the relating of the sensation of the senses to its external cause. If he did not want to admit this, he had to deny it expressly; but he does not do that either. So he sneaks around it, and all the Kantians have sneaked after him in just the same way. The secret motive for this is that he is saving the causal nexus, under the name “ground of appearance,” for his false derivation of the thing in itself; and next, that through the relation to the cause intuition would become intellectual, which he must not admit. Besides, he seems to have feared that if the causal nexus between sensation and object were allowed, the object would at once become the thing in itself and introduce Locke’s empiricism. But this difficulty is removed by the reflection that reminds us that the law of causality is of subjective origin, as much as the sensation itself, and that moreover one’s own body, insofar as it appears in space, already belongs to the representations. But his fear of Berkeley’s idealism kept Kant from admitting this.

As the essential operation of the understanding by means of its twelve categories, “the combination of the manifold of intuition” is repeatedly named. But this is never properly explained, nor is it shown what this manifold of intuition is before it is combined by the understanding. Now time and space, the latter in all its three dimensions, are continua; that is, all their parts are originally not separate but connected. They are, however, the pervasive forms of our intuition. So everything that presents itself (is given) in them also appears originally as a continuum; that is, its parts already appear as connected and need no further combining of the manifold. But suppose one wanted to interpret that unification of the manifold of intuition as meaning that I relate the different sense impressions from an object to this one object. For example, in intuiting a bell, I recognize that what affects my eye as yellow, my hands as smooth and hard, my ear as sounding, is nevertheless only one and the same body. That is rather a consequence of the knowledge a priori of the causal nexus (this real and only function of the understanding). By virtue of this, all those different effects on my different sense organs lead me nevertheless to only one common cause of them, namely the nature of the body standing before me, so that my understanding, despite the difference and multiplicity of the effects, apprehends the unity of the cause as a single object, which presents itself intuitively just by this.—In the fine recapitulation of his teaching that Kant gives in the Critique of Pure Reason, pp. 719–726, or V, 747–754, he explains the categories perhaps more clearly than anywhere, namely as “the mere rule of the synthesis of what perception has given a posteriori.” Something seems to hover before him here, like this: that in constructing a triangle, the angles give the rule for putting the lines together. At least this picture is the best way to explain what he says about the function of the categories. The preface to the Metaphysical Foundations of Natural Science contains a long note, which likewise supplies an explanation of the categories. It says that they “are not different in anything from the formal acts of the understanding in judging,” except in that in the latter subject and predicate can at most exchange places; then it defines judgment in general there as “an act by which given representations first become knowledge of an object.” According to this, animals, since they do not judge, would also not know any objects at all. In general, according to Kant, there are only concepts of objects, no intuitions. I, on the other hand, say: objects are in the first place there only for intuition, and concepts are always abstractions from this intuition. So abstract thinking must conform exactly to the world present in intuition, since only the relation to this gives concepts content. And for concepts we may assume no other form determined a priori than the capacity for reflection in general, whose essence is the forming of concepts, that is, of abstract, non-intuitive representations, which makes up the sole function of reason, as I showed in the first book. I therefore demand that we throw eleven of the categories out the window and keep only that of causality, but understand that its activity is already the condition of empirical intuition, which is accordingly not merely sensory but intellectual, and that the object intuited in this way, the object of experience, is one with the representation, from which only the thing in itself is still to be distinguished.

After studying the Critique of Pure Reason repeatedly at different ages, I have become convinced of how transcendental logic arose, and I report it here because it greatly helps one to understand it. The only discovery founded on objective observation and the highest human clearheadedness is the insight that time and space are known by us a priori. Delighted by this lucky find, Kant wanted to follow its vein further, and his love of architectonic symmetry gave him the guide. For as he had found a pure intuition a priori underlying empirical intuition as its condition, so, he thought, certain pure concepts would likewise underlie the empirically acquired concepts as a presupposition in our faculty of knowledge, and actual empirical thinking would be possible only through a pure thinking a priori. This pure thinking would have no objects of its own, but would have to take them from intuition. So just as the Transcendental Aesthetic proves an a priori foundation of mathematics, there would have to be one for logic too; and then the former would get a symmetrical counterpart in a transcendental logic. From then on Kant was no longer unbiased, no longer in the state of pure inquiring and observing what is present in consciousness. He was led by a presupposition and pursued an aim, namely to find what he presupposed, in order to set on the so happily discovered Transcendental Aesthetic, as a second story, a transcendental logic analogous to it, and so corresponding to it symmetrically. For this he hit upon the table of judgments, from which he formed, as well as it would go, the table of categories, the teaching of twelve pure concepts a priori, which were to be the condition of our thinking of those same things whose intuition is conditioned a priori by the two forms of sensibility. So now a pure understanding corresponded symmetrically to pure sensibility. After this he fell upon one more consideration, which offered him a means to increase the plausibility of the matter, by assuming the schematism of the pure concepts of the understanding. But this is exactly where the course of his procedure, of which he himself was unaware, betrays itself most clearly. For as he set out to find an analogous a priori element for every empirical function of the faculty of knowledge, he noticed that between our empirical intuiting and our empirical thinking, which is carried out in abstract, non-intuitive concepts, there often takes place (not always, but very often) a mediation. For now and then we try to go back from abstract thinking to intuiting. But we only try, really in order to convince ourselves that our abstract thinking has not moved far from the safe ground of intuition, and has not perhaps soared over it, or become mere word-mongering; roughly as we, walking in the dark, now and then reach for the guiding wall. Then we go back to intuiting, again only tentatively and for a moment, by calling up in the imagination an intuition corresponding to the concept that is occupying us just then. This intuition can never be wholly adequate to the concept, but is a mere temporary representative of it. On this I have already supplied what is needed in my treatise “On the Principle of Sufficient Reason,” §. 28. Kant calls a fleeting phantasm of this kind, as opposed to the finished image of the imagination, a schema; he says it is, as it were, a monogram of the imagination. He now claims that, just as such a schema stands in the middle between our abstract thinking of empirically acquired concepts and our clear intuition through the senses, there are likewise between the a priori faculty of intuition of pure sensibility and the a priori faculty of thinking of pure understanding (that is, the categories) such schemata of the pure concepts of the understanding a priori. These schemata, as monograms of the pure imagination a priori, he describes piece by piece and assigns each of them to its corresponding category, in the odd “chapter on the schematism of the pure concepts of the understanding.” That chapter is famous as extremely obscure, because no one has ever been able to make sense of it. Its obscurity clears up, however, when one looks at it from the standpoint given here. From this standpoint the deliberateness of his procedure, and the resolution he had formed in advance to find what would correspond by analogy and could serve architectonic symmetry, come to light more than anywhere else; indeed, this is so here to a degree that brings the matter close to the comic. For in assuming schemata of the pure (contentless) concepts of the understanding a priori (categories) analogous to the empirical schemata (or representatives of our real concepts through the imagination), he overlooks that the purpose of such schemata falls away here entirely. For the purpose of schemata in empirical (real) thinking relates solely to the material content of such concepts. Since these are abstracted from empirical intuition, we help and orient ourselves, in abstract thinking, by taking now and then a fleeting look back to the intuition from which the concepts were taken, to make sure that our thinking still has real content. But this necessarily presupposes that the concepts occupying us arose from intuition, and is a mere looking back at their material content, indeed a mere aid for our weakness. But with concepts a priori, which have no content at all yet, something like this evidently drops out necessarily. For they did not arise from intuition, but come to meet it from within, in order to receive a content from it first, so they have nothing yet to look back on. I am going on at length here because this very point throws light on the secret course of Kant’s philosophizing. That course consists in this: after the happy discovery of the two forms of intuition a priori, Kant now, guided by analogy, strives to show for every determination of our empirical knowledge an a priori analogue. At last, in the schemata, he extends this even to a merely psychological fact. In this the apparent profundity and the difficulty of the presentation serve precisely to hide from the reader that its content remains a wholly unprovable and merely arbitrary assumption. But whoever finally penetrates the sense of such a presentation is then easily led to take this hard-won understanding for conviction of the truth of the matter. If, on the other hand, Kant had here too, as in the discovery of the intuitions a priori, behaved without bias and as a pure observer, he would have found that what is added to the pure intuition of space and time, when an empirical one is made out of it, is on the one hand sensation and on the other the knowledge of causality. This knowledge turns mere sensation into objective empirical intuition, and just for that reason is not first borrowed and learned from the latter, but is present a priori and is just the form and function of the pure understanding. It is also its sole function, yet one so rich in consequences that all our empirical knowledge rests on it.—If, as has often been said, the refutation of an error is complete only when one shows psychologically how it arose, then I believe I have done this above with respect to Kant’s teaching on the categories and their schemata.

Having brought such big faults into the first simple basic outlines of a theory of the faculty of representation, Kant fell into many highly complicated assumptions. First among these is the synthetic unity of apperception: a very odd thing, very oddly presented. “The I think must be able to accompany all my representations.” Must—be able: this is a problematic-apodictic enunciation; in plain words, a proposition that takes with one hand what it gives with the other. And what is the sense of this proposition, balanced so on the tip? That all representing is a thinking?—That is not so, and it would be disastrous; there would then be nothing but abstract concepts, and least of all a pure intuition free of reflection and will, such as that of the beautiful, the deepest grasp of the true nature of things, that is, of their Platonic Ideas. The animals too would then have to either think as well, or not even represent.—Or is the proposition perhaps supposed to mean: no object without a subject? That would be very badly expressed this way and would come too late. If we put Kant’s statements together, we will find that what he understands by the synthetic unity of apperception is, as it were, the extensionless center of the sphere of all our representations, whose radii converge on it. It is what I call the subject of knowing, the correlate of all representations, and is at the same time what I described and discussed in detail, in chapter 22 of the second volume, as the focal point in which the rays of the brain’s activity converge. I therefore refer there, so as not to repeat myself.

That I reject the whole doctrine of the categories and count it among the groundless assumptions with which Kant burdened the theory of knowing follows from the criticism of it given above; likewise from the demonstration of the contradictions in transcendental logic, which had their ground in the mixing of intuitive and abstract knowledge; and further from the demonstration of the lack of a clear and definite concept of the essence of understanding and reason, in place of which we found in Kant’s writings only disconnected, inconsistent, meager and incorrect statements about those two powers of mind. Finally it follows from the explanations that I myself gave of the same powers of mind, in the first book and its Supplements, and in more detail in the treatise “On the Principle of Sufficient Reason,” §. 21, 26 and 34. Those explanations are very definite and clear, plainly result from looking at the nature of our knowledge, and agree fully with the concepts of those two powers of knowing that show themselves in the usage and writings of all times and peoples, though never brought to clarity. The defense of them against the very different Kantian account is for the most part already given by uncovering the faults of that account.—But since the table of judgments, which Kant lays at the bottom of his theory of thinking, indeed of his whole philosophy, is in itself, on the whole, correct, it remains for me to show how these general forms of all judgments arise in our faculty of knowledge, and to bring them into agreement with my account of it.—In this discussion I will always attach to the concepts understanding and reason the sense that my explanation gave them, which I therefore assume the reader is familiar with.

An essential difference between Kant’s method and the one I follow lies in this: he starts from mediate, reflected knowledge, I from immediate, intuitive knowledge. He can be compared to a person who measures the height of a tower from its shadow, and I to one who lays the measuring rod directly against it. So for him philosophy is a science from concepts, for me a science in concepts, drawn from intuitive knowledge, the only source of all evidence, and put into general concepts and fixed there. This whole intuitive, many-formed world around us, rich in meaning, he jumps over, and keeps to the forms of abstract thinking. Underlying this, though he never says it, is the assumption that reflection is the copy of all intuition, so that everything essential in intuition must be expressed in reflection, and in very compressed forms and basic features that are therefore easy to survey. According to this, what is essential and law-governed in abstract knowing would put into our hands all the strings that set the colorful puppet play of the intuitive world in motion before our eyes.—If Kant had only stated this highest principle of his method clearly, and then followed it consistently, he would at least have had to separate the intuitive from the abstract cleanly, and we would not have to struggle with insoluble contradictions and confusions. But from the way he solved his task, one sees that this principle of his method hovered before him only very indistinctly; so even after thorough study of his philosophy one still has to guess it first.

As for the method and basic maxim themselves, they have much in their favor, and the thought is a brilliant one. The essence of all science already consists in this: we gather the endlessly manifold intuitive appearances under comparatively few abstract concepts, from which we arrange a system. From this system we have all those appearances fully in the power of our knowledge, and can explain what has happened and determine what is to come. The sciences, however, divide among themselves the wide domain of appearances, according to the particular, manifold kinds of the latter.

Now it was a bold and happy thought to isolate what is absolutely essential to concepts as such, apart from their content, in order to see from the forms of all thinking found in this way what is also essential to all intuitive knowing, and so to the world as appearance in general. And because this would be found a priori, owing to the necessity of those forms of thinking, it would be of subjective origin, and would lead exactly to Kant’s aims.—But before going further, it should have been investigated what the relation of reflection to intuitive knowledge is (which of course presupposes the clean separation of the two that Kant neglected). It should have been investigated in what way reflection really reproduces and represents intuitive knowledge: whether quite purely, or already changed and partly made unrecognizable by being taken into its own (reflection’s) forms. It should also have been asked whether the form of abstract, reflective knowledge is determined more by the form of intuitive knowledge, or by the nature that inseparably clings to reflective knowledge itself. In the latter case, even what is very heterogeneous in intuitive knowledge can no longer be told apart once it has entered reflective knowledge; and conversely some differences that we notice in the reflective mode of knowledge also arose from that mode itself, and by no means point to corresponding differences in intuitive knowledge. The result of this research would have been that intuitive knowledge, on being taken into reflection, suffers almost as much change as food on being taken into the animal organism, whose forms and mixtures are determined by the organism itself, and from whose composition the nature of the food can no longer be recognized at all;—or (because that says a little too much) at least it would have turned out that reflection stands to intuitive knowledge not at all like the mirror image in water to the mirrored objects, but hardly even like the shadow of these objects to the objects themselves. This shadow reproduces only a few outer outlines, but also unites the most manifold in the same shape and represents the most different by the same outline; so that by no means could the shapes of things be constructed completely and surely starting from it.

The whole of reflective knowledge, or reason, has only one main form, and that is the abstract concept. It is peculiar to reason itself and has directly no necessary connection with the intuitive world. That world therefore exists for animals entirely without it, and could also be quite different, and yet that form of reflection would fit it just as well. The uniting of concepts into judgments, however, has certain definite and lawful forms, which, found by induction, make up the table of judgments. These forms are for the most part to be derived from the reflective mode of knowing itself, that is, directly from reason, namely insofar as they arise through the four laws of thought (called by me metalogical truths) and through the dictum de omni et nullo. Others of these forms, however, have their ground in the intuitive mode of knowing, that is, in the understanding. But they do not at all give notice of just as many special forms of the understanding; rather they are to be derived wholly from the single function the understanding has, namely the immediate knowledge of cause and effect. Still others of those forms, finally, arose from the meeting and joining of the reflective and the intuitive modes of knowing, or really from the taking up of the latter into the former. I will now go through the moments of judgment one by one and show the origin of each from the sources named. From this it follows by itself that a deduction of categories from them drops out, and that the assumption of the categories is as groundless as their presentation has been found confused and self-contradictory.

1) The so-called quantity of judgments arises from the nature of concepts as such. Its ground therefore lies solely in reason, and it has no immediate connection at all with the understanding and intuitive knowledge.—For as explained in the first book, it is essential to concepts as such that they have an extent, a sphere, and that the wider, less determinate concept includes the narrower, more determinate one. The latter can therefore also be singled out. This can happen in either of two ways: one can mark it merely as an indeterminate part of the wider concept in general, or one can determine it and set it off completely by giving it a special name. The judgment that carries out this operation is called particular in the first case, universal in the second. For example, one and the same part of the sphere of the concept tree can be isolated by a particular and by a universal judgment, namely “Some trees bear gallnuts,” or: “All oaks bear gallnuts.”—One sees that the difference between the two operations is very small, and that the possibility of it depends on the richness of the language in words. Nevertheless Kant declared that this difference reveals two fundamentally different acts, functions, categories of the pure understanding, which by just these determines experience a priori.

Finally one can also use a concept to arrive by means of it at a determinate, individual, intuitive representation, from which it was itself abstracted, along with many others. This happens through the singular judgment. Such a judgment marks only the border between abstract and intuitive knowledge, to which it passes directly: “This tree here bears gallnuts.”—Kant has made a special category out of this too.

After all that has gone before, no further polemic is needed here.

2) In the same way the quality of judgments lies entirely within the domain of reason. It is not a shadow of any law of the understanding that makes intuition possible; that is, it gives no pointer to such a law. The nature of abstract concepts, which is just the essence of reason itself grasped objectively, carries with it, as also explained in the first book, the possibility of uniting and separating their spheres. On this possibility, as their presupposition, rest the general laws of thought, of identity and of contradiction. Because they spring purely from reason and cannot be explained further, I have ascribed to them metalogical truth. They determine that what is united must stay united, what is separated must stay separated, so that what has been posited cannot at the same time be canceled again. So they presuppose the possibility of joining and separating spheres, that is, judging itself. This, however, as to its form, lies solely and only in reason, and this form is not carried over from the intuitive knowledge of the understanding, as the content of judgments is; so no correlate or analogue for it is to be sought there. After intuition has come into being through the understanding and for the understanding, it stands there complete, subject neither to doubt nor to error, and so knows neither affirmation nor negation. For it speaks for itself, and does not, like the abstract knowledge of reason, have its value and content merely in relation to something outside it, according to the principle of sufficient reason of knowing. It is therefore all reality; all negation is foreign to its nature. Negation can be added in thought only by reflection, but for that very reason always stays in the domain of abstract thinking.

To the affirmative and negative judgments Kant adds, borrowing a whim of the old scholastics, the infinite ones. This is a subtly contrived stopgap that does not even need discussing, a blind window, like the many that he has put in for the sake of his symmetrical architectonic.

3) Under the very wide concept of relation Kant has put together three quite different kinds of judgments, which we therefore must examine one by one in order to see their origin. a) The hypothetical judgment in general is the abstract expression of that most general form of all our knowledge, the principle of sufficient reason. That this has four quite different meanings, and in each of them has its root in a different power of knowledge, and also concerns a different class of representations, I showed as early as 1813, in my treatise on it. From this it follows sufficiently that the origin of the hypothetical judgment in general, this general form of thought, cannot be merely, as Kant wants, the understanding and its category of causality. Rather the law of causality, which according to my account is the only form of knowledge of the pure understanding, is only one of the shapes of the principle of sufficient reason, which embraces all pure or a priori knowledge. And the principle of sufficient reason, in each of its meanings, has this hypothetical form of judgment as its expression.—We see quite clearly here how kinds of knowledge that are entirely different in origin and meaning nevertheless appear in one and the same form of joining of concepts and judgments when thought by reason in abstracto, and then can no longer be told apart in this form. To tell them apart one has to go back to intuitive knowledge, leaving the abstract altogether. So the path Kant took, of trying to find from the standpoint of abstract knowledge the elements and innermost workings even of intuitive knowledge, was thoroughly wrong. Incidentally, my whole introductory treatise “On the Principle of Sufficient Reason” can in a way be regarded as only a thorough discussion of the meaning of the hypothetical form of judgment; so I do not dwell on it further here. b) The form of the categorical judgment is nothing other than the form of judgment in general in the strictest sense. For strictly speaking, judging means only thinking the combination, or the incompatibility, of the spheres of concepts. So the hypothetical and the disjunctive combination are not really special forms of judgment. They are applied only to judgments already finished, in which the combination of the concepts remains unchanged the categorical one; they in turn connect these judgments, the hypothetical form expressing their dependence on each other, the disjunctive their incompatibility. Mere concepts, however, have only one kind of relation to each other, namely the one expressed in the categorical judgment. The closer determination, or the subspecies, of this relation are the overlapping and the complete separation of the concept spheres, that is, affirmation and negation. From these Kant made special categories under a quite different title, that of quality. Overlapping and separation again have subspecies, depending on whether the spheres overlap wholly or only in part, which determination makes up the quantity of judgments. From this Kant again made a quite special category title. So he separated what is very closely related, indeed identical, the easily surveyed modifications of the only possible relations of mere concepts to each other, and united under the title of relation, on the other hand, what is very different.

Categorical judgments have as their metalogical principle the laws of thought of identity and of contradiction. But the ground for connecting concept spheres, which gives truth to the judgment that is just this connection, can be of very different kinds. According to it the truth of the judgment is then logical, or empirical, or metaphysical, or metalogical, as set out in the introductory treatise, §. 30–33, and need not be repeated here. From this it follows how very different the immediate cognitions can be that all present themselves in abstracto through the connection of the spheres of two concepts as subject and predicate, and that one can by no means put forward a single function of the understanding as corresponding to them and producing them. For example the judgments: “the water boils; the sine measures the angle; the will decides; occupation distracts; the distinction is difficult” express by the same logical form the most various kinds of relations. From this we get once more confirmation of how wrong it is, in order to analyze immediate, intuitive knowledge, to take one’s stand on the standpoint of the abstract.—Incidentally, the categorical judgment arises from a real knowledge of the understanding, in my sense, only where a causality is expressed by it; but this is the case also with all judgments that mark a physical quality. For when I say: “this body is heavy, hard, fluid, green, sour, alkaline, organic, and so on,” this always marks its action, and so a knowledge that is possible only through the pure understanding. Now after this knowledge, just like many quite different from it (for example the subordination of highly abstract concepts), has been expressed in abstracto by subject and predicate, people have carried these mere relations of concepts back over to intuitive knowledge, and have supposed that the subject and predicate of the judgment must have in intuition a proper, special correlate, substance and accident. But I will make clear below that the concept substance has no other true content than that of the concept matter. Accidents, however, are exactly equivalent to modes of action, so that the supposed knowledge of substance and accident is still that of the pure understanding of cause and effect. How the representation of matter actually arises is discussed partly in our first book, §. 4, and more accessibly in the treatise “On the Principle of Sufficient Reason,” at the end of §. 21, p. 77; partly we will see it still more closely in the examination of the principle that substance persists. c) Disjunctive judgments arise from the law of thought of the excluded middle, which is a metalogical truth. They are therefore entirely the property of pure reason, and do not have their origin in the understanding. The derivation of the category of community or reciprocity from them is, however, a quite glaring example of the acts of violence that Kant sometimes permits himself against the truth, merely to satisfy his pleasure in architectonic symmetry. The untenability of that derivation has often been rightly criticized and shown on several grounds, especially by G. E. Schulze in his “Critique of Theoretical Philosophy” and by Berg in his “Epicritique of Philosophy.”—What real analogy is there between the left-open determination of a concept by mutually exclusive predicates, and the thought of reciprocity? The two are even quite opposite, since in the disjunctive judgment the actual positing of one of the two members of the division is at the same time a necessary canceling of the other; whereas if one thinks two things in the relation of reciprocity, the positing of the one is a necessary positing of the other as well, and vice versa. The real logical analogue of reciprocity is therefore undeniably the circulus vitiosus, in which, just as supposedly in reciprocity, the grounded is also in turn the ground, and conversely. And just as logic rejects the circulus vitiosus, the concept of reciprocity too must be banished from metaphysics. For I am quite seriously resolved to show now that there is no reciprocity in the proper sense at all, and that this concept, however popular its use is, precisely because of the indefiniteness of the thought, shows itself on closer examination to be empty, false and void. First remember what causality is in general, and for help see my account of it in the introductory treatise, §. 20, also in my prize essay on the freedom of the will, chap. 3, p. 27 ff., and finally in the fourth chapter of our second volume. Causality is the law according to which the states of matter that occur determine their place in time. Causality is concerned only with states, indeed really only with changes, and neither with matter as such nor with persisting without change. Matter as such does not stand under the law of causality, since it neither comes to be nor passes away. So the whole thing, as people usually say, does not stand under it either, but only the states of matter. Further, the law of causality has nothing to do with persistence: for where nothing changes there is no action and no causality, but a lasting state of rest. If such a state is changed, then either the newly arisen one is again lasting, or it is not, but at once brings about a third state. The necessity with which this happens is exactly the law of causality, which is a shape of the principle of sufficient reason and so cannot be explained further, because the principle of sufficient reason is just the principle of all explanation and all necessity. From this it is clear that being cause and being effect stand in exact connection and necessary relation with the sequence of time. Only insofar as the state A precedes the state B in time, and their succession is a necessary and not a contingent one, that is, no mere following after but a following from;—only so far is the state A cause and the state B effect. The concept of reciprocity, however, contains this: that both are cause and both effect of each other. But this means just as much as that each of the two is the earlier and also the later: so a non-thought. For that both states are at the same time, and indeed necessarily at the same time, cannot be assumed: because as necessarily belonging together and being at the same time they make up only one state. For this state to persist, the lasting presence of all its determinations is indeed required. But then there is no longer any talk of change and causality, but of duration and rest, and nothing more is said than that if one determination of the whole state is changed, the new state thereby arising cannot last, but becomes the cause of change in all the other determinations of the first state too, whereby again a new, third state occurs. All this happens only according to the simple law of causality and does not found a new one, that of reciprocity.

I also assert flatly that the concept of reciprocity cannot be backed up by a single example. Everything one might offer for it is either a state of rest, to which the concept of causality, which has meaning only for changes, finds no application at all, or it is an alternating succession of like-named states that condition one another, for whose explanation simple causality is entirely enough. An example of the first kind is given by the scale brought to rest by equal weights. Here there is no action at all, for there is no change; it is a state of rest. Gravity pulls, evenly distributed, as in every body supported at its center of gravity, but cannot show its force through any effect. That the removal of one weight gives a second state, which at once becomes the cause of the third, the sinking of the other pan, happens according to the simple law of cause and effect and needs no special category of the understanding, not even a special name. An example of the other kind is the continued burning of a fire. The combination of oxygen with the combustible body is the cause of heat, and this is in turn the cause of the renewed occurrence of that chemical combination. But this is nothing other than a chain of causes and effects whose links are alternately like-named: the burning A produces free heat B, this a new burning C (that is, a new effect that is like-named with the cause A, but not individually the same), this a new heat D (which is not really identical with the effect B, but the same only in concept, that is, like-named with it), and so on forever. A neat example of what is called reciprocity in ordinary life is supplied by a theory of deserts given by Humboldt (Views of Nature, second edition, vol. 2, p. 79). It does not rain in sandy deserts, but it does on the wooded mountains bordering them. The cause is not the attraction of the mountains on the clouds; rather the column of heated air rising from the sandy plain keeps the vapor bubbles from breaking down and drives the clouds up high.

In the mountains the vertically rising air current is weaker, the clouds sink, and the precipitation falls in the cooler air. So the lack of rain and the lack of plants in the desert stand in reciprocity: it does not rain because the heated sand surface radiates more heat; the desert does not become steppe or grassland because it does not rain. But evidently here again, as in the example above, we have only a succession of like-named causes and effects, and nothing at all essentially different from simple causality. The swinging of the pendulum is just the same, and so is the self-preservation of the organic body. There too every state brings on a new one that is the same in kind as the one by which it was itself brought about, but is individually a new one. Only here the matter is more complicated, since the chain consists no longer of links of two kinds but of links of many kinds, so that a like-named link returns only after several others have come between. But always we see before us only an application of the single and simple law of causality, which gives the rule to the sequence of states, and not anything that would have to be grasped by a new and special function of the understanding.

Or perhaps someone might even cite, as proof for the concept of reciprocity, that action and reaction are equal? But that lies in just what I insist on so strongly and showed in detail in the Treatise on the Principle of Sufficient Reason: cause and effect are not two bodies but two successive states of bodies. So each of the two states also implies all the bodies involved, and the effect, that is, the newly occurring state, for example in a collision, extends to both bodies in the same proportion. As much as the body that is struck is changed, just as much is the striking body changed (each in proportion to its mass and velocity). If one likes to call this reciprocity, then absolutely every effect is reciprocity, and for that reason no new concept enters, still less a new function of the understanding, but we merely have a superfluous synonym of causality. Kant, however, states this view outright, thoughtlessly, in the Metaphysical Foundations of Natural Science, where the proof of the fourth theorem of mechanics begins: “all external action in the world is reciprocal action.” How then can different functions a priori lie in the understanding for simple causality and for reciprocity, so that even the real succession of things is possible and knowable only through the former, and their simultaneity only through the latter? According to that, if every effect is reciprocity, succession and simultaneity would also be the same, and hence everything in the world would be simultaneous.—If there were true reciprocity, then the perpetuum mobile would also be possible and even certain a priori. Rather, the assertion that it is impossible rests on the a priori conviction that there is no true reciprocity and no form of the understanding for it.

Aristotle too denies reciprocity in the proper sense. For he notes that two things can indeed be causes of each other, but only in such a way that this is understood in a different sense for each. For example, one acts on the other as a motive, but the latter acts on the former as the cause of its movement. We find the same words in two places: Physic., Lib. II, c. 3, and Metaph., Lib. V, c. 2. Εστι δε τινα και αλληλων αιτια· οιον το πονειν αιτιον της ευεξιας, και αυτη του πονειν· αλλ’ ου τον αυτον τροπον, αλλα το μεν ως τελος, το δε ως αρχη κινησεως. (Sunt praeterea quae sibi sunt mutuo causae, ut exercitium bonae habitudinis, et haec exercitii: at non eodem modo, sed haec ut finis, illud ut principium motus.) If he assumed in addition a real reciprocity, he would list it here, since in both places he is busy enumerating all possible kinds of causes. In the Analyt. post., Lib. II, c. 11, he speaks of a circle of causes and effects, but not of reciprocity.

4) The categories of modality have, over all the rest, the advantage that what is expressed by each of them really does correspond to the judgment form from which it is derived. This is almost never the case with the other categories, which are mostly deduced out of the judgment forms by the most arbitrary force.

That the concepts of the possible, the actual and the necessary are what give rise to the problematic, assertoric and apodictic form of judgment is perfectly true. But that those concepts are special, original forms of knowing of the understanding, not derivable any further, is not true. Rather they come from the one original form of all knowing, which is therefore known to us a priori: the principle of sufficient reason. And the knowledge of necessity comes directly from it; the concepts of contingency, possibility, impossibility, actuality, on the other hand, arise only when reflection is applied to this. All of these therefore by no means have their root in one power of mind, the understanding, but arise through the conflict of abstract knowing with intuitive knowing, as will be seen at once.

I claim that being necessary and following from a given ground are entirely interchangeable concepts and completely identical. We can never know something as necessary, or even think it so, except insofar as we regard it as the consequence of a given ground. The concept of necessity contains absolutely nothing beyond this dependence, this being posited by another, and this unfailing following from it. So it arises and exists solely through the application of the principle of sufficient reason. Therefore, according to the different forms of this principle, there is a physically necessary (the effect from the cause), a logically necessary (through the ground of knowing, in analytic judgments, inferences, and so on), a mathematically necessary (according to the ground of being in space and time), and finally a practically necessary. By this last we do not mean being determined by a supposed categorical imperative, but the action that necessarily occurs, given the empirical character, according to the motives present.—But everything necessary is so only relatively, namely on the presupposition of the ground from which it follows. Absolute necessity is therefore a contradiction.—For the rest I refer to §. 49 of the Treatise on the Principle of Sufficient Reason.

The contradictory opposite, that is, the negation of necessity, is contingency. The content of this concept is therefore negative, namely nothing more than this: the lack of the connection expressed by the principle of sufficient reason. Consequently the contingent too is always only relative: it is such in relation to something that is not its ground. Every object, of whatever kind, for example every event in the real world, is always necessary and contingent at once: necessary in relation to the one thing that is its cause; contingent in relation to everything else. For its contact in time and space with everything else is a mere coincidence, without necessary connection; hence also the words chance, συμπτωμα, contingens. So an absolutely contingent is no more thinkable than an absolutely necessary. For the former would be an object that stood to no other in the relation of consequent to ground. But the unrepresentability of such a thing is exactly the content, expressed negatively, of the principle of sufficient reason, which would therefore first have to be overturned in order to think an absolutely contingent. But then this itself would also have lost all meaning, since the concept of the contingent has meaning only in relation to that principle, and means that two objects do not stand to each other in the relation of ground and consequent.

In nature, insofar as it is intuitive representation, everything that happens is necessary: for it arises from its cause. But if we consider this single thing in relation to the rest, which is not its cause, then we know it as contingent. This, however, is already an abstract reflection. If we now abstract further, in an object of nature, entirely from its causal relation to the rest, and so from its necessity and contingency, then this kind of knowledge is covered by the concept of the actual. With this one considers only the effect, without looking around for the cause, in relation to which one would otherwise have to call it necessary, and in relation to everything else contingent. All this rests in the end on the fact that the modality of judgment marks not so much the objective nature of things as the relation of our knowledge to them. But since in nature everything arises from a cause, every actual thing is also necessary; but again only insofar as it is at this time, in this place: for only to that does the determination by the law of causality extend. If we leave intuitive nature, though, and pass over to abstract thinking, we can in reflection represent to ourselves all the laws of nature, known to us partly a priori, partly only a posteriori. This abstract representation contains everything that is in nature at any time, in any place, but with abstraction from every determinate place and time. And by this, by such reflection, we have entered the wide realm of possibility. But what finds no place even here is the impossible. It is evident that possibility and impossibility exist only for reflection, for the abstract knowledge of reason, not for intuitive knowledge; although it is the pure forms of the latter that supply reason with the determination of the possible and the impossible. Depending on whether the laws of nature from which we start in thinking the possible and the impossible are known a priori or a posteriori, the possibility or impossibility is a metaphysical or only a physical one.

From this account, which needs no proof because it rests directly on the knowledge of the principle of sufficient reason and on the development of the concepts of the necessary, the actual, and the possible, it is sufficiently clear how entirely groundless Kant’s assumption is of three special functions of the understanding for those three concepts, and that here again no scruple has disturbed him in carrying out his architectonic symmetry.

To this, however, is added the very great fault that he, admittedly following earlier philosophy, has confused the concepts of the necessary and the contingent with each other.

That earlier philosophy, namely, made the following misuse of abstraction. It was evident that whatever has its ground posited follows unfailingly, that is, cannot not be, and so is necessary. But people held on to this last determination alone, and said: necessary is what cannot be otherwise, or whose opposite is impossible. They neglected the ground and root of such necessity, overlooked the relativity of all necessity that results from it, and so made the quite unthinkable fiction of an absolutely necessary, that is, of a something whose existence would be as unfailing as the consequence from the ground, but which would still not be a consequence from a ground and would therefore depend on nothing. This addition is just an absurd petition, because it conflicts with the principle of sufficient reason. Starting from this fiction, people then declared, diametrically opposed to the truth, everything that is posited by a ground to be the contingent. They looked, that is, to the relative character of its necessity and compared this with that absolute necessity, taken entirely out of the air and contradicting itself in its concept [5]. Kant too keeps this thoroughly perverted determination of the contingent and gives it as the definition: Critique of Pure Reason, V, pp. 289–291; 243. V, 301; 419. V, 447, 486, 488. In this he even falls into the most striking contradiction with himself, saying on p. 301: “Everything contingent has a cause,” and adding: “Contingent is that whose non-being is possible.” But what has a cause, whose [6] See Christian Wolf’s “Rational Thoughts on God, World and Soul,” §. 577–579.—It is odd that he declares contingent only what is necessary according to the principle of sufficient reason of becoming, that is, what happens from causes, whereas he also recognizes as necessary what is necessary according to the other forms of the principle of sufficient reason, for example what follows from the essentia (definition), so the analytic judgments, and also the mathematical truths. As the ground for this he gives that only the law of causality yields endless series, whereas the other kinds of grounds yield finite ones. This, though, is not the case at all with the forms of the principle of sufficient reason in pure space and time, but holds only of the logical ground of knowing; and mathematical necessity he took to be such a one.—Compare: Treatise on the Principle of Sufficient Reason, §. 50.

non-being is absolutely impossible: so it is necessary.—Incidentally, the origin of this whole false definition of the necessary and the contingent is to be found already in Aristotle, namely in De generatione et corruptione, Lib. II, c. 9 et 11, where the necessary is defined as that whose non-being is impossible. Opposed to it is that whose being is impossible; and between these two lies that which can be and also not be—that is, what comes to be and passes away, and this would then be the contingent. After what was said above, it is clear that this definition, like so many of Aristotle’s, arose from staying with abstract concepts without going back to the concrete and intuitive, in which the source of all abstract concepts lies, and by which they must therefore always be checked. “Something whose non-being is impossible” can at any rate be thought in abstracto; but if we go with it to the concrete, the real, the intuitive, we find nothing to back the thought, even as a possible one, except just the consequence of a given ground mentioned, whose necessity, however, is relative and conditional.

On this occasion I add a few more remarks on those concepts of modality.—Since all necessity rests on the principle of sufficient reason, and for that very reason is relative, all apodictic judgments are originally and in their ultimate meaning hypothetical. They become categorical only through the addition of an assertoric minor premise, and so in the conclusion. If this minor is still undecided, and this undecidedness is expressed, that gives the problematic judgment.

What is apodictic in general (as a rule) (a law of nature) is always only problematic with regard to a single case, because first the condition must actually occur that puts the case under the rule. And conversely, what is necessary (apodictic) in the individual case as such (every single change, necessary through its cause) is, stated in general and universally, again only problematic. For the cause that occurred met only the single case, and the apodictic, always hypothetical judgment always states only general laws, not individual cases directly.—All this has its ground in the fact that possibility exists only in the domain of reflection and for reason, the actual in the domain of intuition and for the understanding, and the necessary for both. Indeed the difference between necessary, actual and possible exists really only in abstracto and in concept; in the real world, on the other hand, all three fall together into one. For everything that happens, happens necessarily; because it happens from causes, but these themselves again have causes; so that all events of the world, great and small, are a strict chain of what necessarily occurs. Accordingly everything actual is at the same time something necessary, and in reality there is no difference between actuality and necessity; and likewise none between actuality and possibility. For what has not happened, that is, has not become actual, was also not possible; because the causes without which it could never have occurred themselves did not occur, nor could they occur, in the great chain of causes. It was therefore something impossible. Every event is accordingly either necessary or impossible. All this holds only of the empirically real world, that is, the complex of individual things, so of the wholly individual as such. If, on the other hand, we consider things in general by means of reason, grasping them in abstracto, then necessity, actuality and possibility come apart again. We then recognize everything conforming to the laws a priori that belong to our intellect as possible in general; what corresponds to the empirical laws of nature as possible in this world, even if it never became actual; so we clearly distinguish the possible from the actual. The actual is indeed in itself always also something necessary, but is grasped as such only by him who knows its cause. Apart from this cause it is, and is called, contingent. This consideration also gives us the key to that contentio περι δυνατων between the Megarian Diodorus and Chrysippus the Stoic, which Cicero presents in the book de fato. Diodorus says: “Only what becomes actual was possible; and everything actual is also necessary.”—Chrysippus, on the other hand: “Much is possible that never becomes actual; for only the necessary becomes actual.”—We can explain this as follows. Actuality is the conclusion of an inference to which possibility supplies the premises. But for this not the major alone but also the minor is required: only both give full possibility. For the major gives a merely theoretical, general possibility in abstracto; but this makes nothing possible in itself, that is, capable of becoming actual. For that the minor is also needed, which gives the possibility for the individual case by bringing it under the rule. By this the case at once becomes actuality. For example:

Major. All houses (and so also my house) can burn down. Minor. My house catches fire. Conclusion. My house burns down.

For every general proposition, so every major, determines things, with regard to actuality, always only under a presupposition, and so hypothetically. For example, being able to burn down has as its presupposition catching fire. This presupposition is supplied in the minor. The major always loads the cannon; but only when the minor brings the fuse is the shot fired, the conclusion. This holds throughout of the relation of possibility to actuality. Now since the conclusion, which is the statement of actuality, always follows necessarily, it follows from this that everything that is actual is also necessary. This can also be seen from the fact that being necessary means only being the consequence of a given ground; in the case of the actual this ground is a cause; so everything actual is necessary. Here we see the concepts of the possible, the actual and the necessary coincide, and not merely the last presuppose the first, but also the reverse. What keeps them apart is the limitation of our intellect by the form of time: for time is the mediator between possibility and actuality. The necessity of the single event can be fully seen through knowledge of all its causes. But the coming together of all these different causes, independent of one another, appears to us as contingent; indeed their independence of one another is just the concept of contingency. But since each of them was the necessary consequence of its cause, whose chain has no beginning, it turns out that contingency is a merely subjective appearance, arising from the limitation of the horizon of our understanding, and as subjective as the optical horizon in which the sky touches the earth.

Since necessity is the same as following from a given ground, it must also appear as a special kind in each form of the principle of sufficient reason, and also have its opposite in possibility and impossibility, which always arises first by applying the abstract consideration of reason to the object. So the four kinds of necessity mentioned above are matched by just as many kinds of impossibility: physical, logical, mathematical, practical. It may also be noted that if one stays wholly within the domain of abstract concepts, possibility always attaches to the more general concept, necessity to the narrower: for example “an animal can be a bird, fish, amphibian, and so on”—“a nightingale must be a bird, this an animal, this an organism, this a body.”—Really because logical necessity, whose expression is the syllogism, goes from the general to the particular and never the reverse.—In intuitive nature, on the other hand (the representations of the first class), really everything is necessary, through the law of causality. Only reflection, coming in, can grasp it at the same time as contingent, by comparing it with what is not its cause, and also as merely and purely actual, by disregarding all causal connection. Only in this class of representations does the concept of the actual really apply, as the derivation of the word from the concept of causality already shows.—In the third class of representations, pure mathematical intuition, if one stays wholly within it, there is nothing but necessity. Possibility arises here too only by relation to concepts of reflection: for example “a triangle can be right-angled, obtuse-angled, equiangular; it must have three angles that add up to two right angles.” So here one arrives at the possible only by passing from the intuitive to the abstract.

After this account, which presupposes memory of what was said both in the Treatise on the Principle of Sufficient Reason and in the first book of the present work, there will hopefully be no more doubt about the true and very varied origin of those forms of judgment that the table sets before the eyes, nor about the inadmissibility and total groundlessness of the assumption of twelve special functions of the understanding to explain them. Of this latter point some individual and very easily made remarks already give notice. For example, it takes great love of symmetry and much trust in a guide taken from it to assume that an affirmative, a categorical and an assertoric judgment are three things so fundamentally different that they entitle one to assume a quite peculiar function of the understanding for each of them.

Kant himself betrays his consciousness of the untenability of his doctrine of categories by omitting, in the second edition, several long passages of the first edition (namely pp. 241, 242, 244–246, 248–253) in the third chapter of the Analysis of Principles (phaenomena et noumena). These passages laid the weakness of that doctrine bare too openly. For example he says there, p. 241, that he has not defined the individual categories because he could not define them even if he had wanted to, since they admit of no definition.—Here he had forgotten that he had said on p. 82 of the same first edition: “I deliberately spare myself the definition of the categories, although I may well be in possession of it.”—So this was, sit venia verbo, wind. He did, however, let this last passage stand. And so all those passages he wisely left out afterwards betray that nothing clear can be thought in connection with the categories and that this whole doctrine stands on weak feet.

This table of categories is now supposed to be the guide according to which every metaphysical, indeed every scientific consideration is to be carried out. (Prolegomena, §. 39.) And in fact it is not only the foundation of the whole Kantian philosophy and the type according to which its symmetry is carried out everywhere, as I have already shown above; it has also truly become the bed of Procrustes, into which Kant squeezes every possible consideration, by an act of violence that I will now examine somewhat more closely. What lengths the imitatores, servum pecus, must have gone to on such an occasion! One has seen it. That violence, then, is exercised by setting aside and forgetting entirely the meaning of the expressions that name the titles, forms of judgments and categories, and holding only to these expressions themselves. In part these have their origin in Aristotle’s Analyt. priora, I, 23 (περι ποιοτητος και ποσοτητος των του συλλογισμου ὁρων: de qualitate et quantitate terminorum syllogismi), but are chosen arbitrarily; for the extent of concepts could well have been marked otherwise than by the word quantity, although this word fits its subject better than the other titles of the categories do. Even the word quality was evidently chosen only from the habit of setting quality against quantity; for the name quality is seized on quite arbitrarily enough for affirmation and negation. Now Kant, in every consideration he makes, brings every quantity in time and space, and every possible quality of things, physical, moral and so on, under those titles of categories, although between these things and those titles of the forms of judging and thinking there is not the least thing in common except the accidental, arbitrary name. One must keep in mind all the respect one otherwise owes Kant in order not to express one’s displeasure at this procedure in harsh terms.—The next example is supplied at once by the pure physiological table of general principles of natural science. What on earth has the quantity of judgments to do with the fact that every intuition has an extensive magnitude? What has the quality of judgments to do with the fact that every sensation has a degree?—The former rests rather on the fact that space is the form of our outer intuition, and the latter is nothing more than an empirical and moreover wholly subjective perception, drawn merely from considering the nature of our sense organs.—Further, in the table that lays the ground for rational psychology (Critique of Pure Reason, p. 344; V, 402), the simplicity of the soul is listed under quality. But this is precisely a quantitative property, and has no relation at all to affirmation or negation in judgment. Yet quantity was supposed to be filled by the unity of the soul, which is already contained in simplicity. Then modality is squeezed in, in a ridiculous way: the soul stands, namely, in relation to possible objects. But relation belongs to Relation, and that is already occupied by substance. Then the four cosmological Ideas, which are the material of the antinomies, are traced back to the titles of the categories; for more on this see below, in the examination of these antinomies. Several examples, if possible still more glaring, are supplied by the table of the categories of freedom! in the Critique of Practical Reason;—further, in the Critique of Judgment, the first book, which goes through the judgment of taste according to the four titles of the categories; and finally the Metaphysical Foundations of Natural Science, which are cut entirely to the table of categories, by which perhaps the false element, mixed here and there into the true and excellent of this important work, was mainly caused. Just look at the end of the first chapter, at how the unity, plurality, totality of the directions of lines is supposed to correspond to the categories named in this way after the quantity of judgments.

—The principle of the permanence of substance is derived from the category of substance and inherence. But we know this category only from the form of categorical judgments, that is, from the joining of two concepts as subject and predicate. So this great metaphysical principle is made to depend, by sheer force, on a simple, purely logical form! But that was done only for form’s sake and for symmetry. The proof given here for the principle sets aside its supposed origin in the understanding and in the category altogether, and is drawn from the pure intuition of time. But this proof is entirely wrong too. It is false that in mere time there is simultaneity and duration. These representations arise only from the union of space with time, as I have already shown in the treatise on the principle of sufficient reason, §. 18, and as I have explained further in §. 4 of the present work. I have to assume both discussions for what follows to be understood. It is false that time itself stays through all change. On the contrary, time itself is exactly the thing that flows. A time that stays is a contradiction. Kant’s proof cannot be defended, however much he has propped it up with sophistries. In fact he falls into the most obvious contradiction in doing so. First he wrongly sets up being at the same time as a mode of time (p. 177; V, 219). Then he says, quite correctly (p. 183; V, 226): “Being at the same time is not a mode of time, since in time no parts are at the same time, but all are one after another.”—In truth space is implied in being at the same time just as much as time is. For if two things are at the same time and yet are not one thing, they differ through space. If two states of one thing are at the same time (for example the glow and the heat of iron), they are two simultaneous effects of one thing. So they presuppose matter, and matter presupposes space. Strictly speaking, being at the same time is a negative determination. It says only that two things or states are not different through time, so their difference has to be sought somewhere else.—Still, our knowledge of the permanence of substance, that is, of matter, certainly must rest on an insight a priori. It is beyond all doubt, so it cannot have been drawn from experience. I derive it from this: the principle of all becoming and passing away, the law of causality, of which we are conscious a priori, essentially concerns only the changes, that is, the successive states of matter. So it is limited to form and leaves matter untouched. In our consciousness, then, matter stands as the foundation of all things that is subject to no becoming or passing away, and so has always been there and will always remain. A deeper ground for the permanence of substance, drawn from an analysis of our intuitive representation of the empirical world as a whole, is found in our first book, §. 4. There it was shown that the essence of matter consists in the complete union of space and time. This union is possible only by means of the representation of causality, and so only for the understanding, which is nothing but the subjective correlate of causality. For this reason matter is never known except as acting, that is, through and through as causality. In matter, being and acting are one, as the German word for reality, Wirklichkeit, already indicates by its link to wirken, “to act.” The close union of space and time, causality, matter, reality: these are therefore one thing, and the subjective correlate of this one thing is the understanding. Matter has to carry the conflicting properties of the two factors it comes from. It is the representation of causality that removes the conflict between them and makes their existing together comprehensible to the understanding. Matter exists only through and for the understanding, and the understanding’s whole power consists in knowing cause and effect. So for the understanding, the unstable flow of time, appearing as the change of accidents, unites in matter with the rigid immobility of space, which presents itself as the persistence of substance. For if substance passed away as the accidents do, the appearance would be torn completely away from space and would belong to mere time alone. The world of experience would be dissolved by the destruction of matter, by annihilation.—So the principle of the permanence of substance, which everyone recognizes as certain a priori, had to be derived and explained from the share that space has in matter, that is, in all appearances of reality. Space is the opposite and counterpart of time, and so, in itself and apart from its union with time, it knows no change at all. The principle could not be derived from mere time, to which Kant quite absurdly has attributed a staying for this purpose.

The incorrectness of the proof that now follows, which tries to establish the a priori character and necessity of the law of causality from the mere temporal sequence of events, I have shown in detail in the treatise on the principle of sufficient reason, §. 23. So I need only appeal to it here [7]. The same is true [8] With that refutation of Kant’s proof by me, you can compare as you like the earlier attacks on it by Feder, Ueber of the proof of reciprocity, whose concept I even had to present above as void.—Enough has also already been said about modality, the exposition of whose principles now follows.—

I still have many details to refute as I follow the transcendental analytic further. But I fear I would tire the reader’s patience, so I leave them to the reader’s own reflection. Again and again, though, in the Critique of Pure Reason we run into Kant’s main and fundamental error, which I criticized at length above: his complete failure to distinguish abstract, discursive knowledge from intuitive knowledge. This failure spreads a constant obscurity over Kant’s whole theory of the faculty of knowledge. It never lets the reader know what is really being talked about at any given point. So the reader, instead of understanding, can only guess, trying to take what is said now as about thinking and now as about intuiting, and always staying in suspense. This incredible lack of reflection on the nature of intuitive and abstract representation leads Kant, as I will discuss more closely in a moment, to a monstrous claim in the chapter “On the Distinction of All Objects into Phenomena and Noumena.” He claims that without thinking, that is, without abstract concepts, there is no knowledge of an object at all, and that intuition, because it is not thinking, is not knowing either, and is nothing but a mere affection of sensibility, mere sensation! Even more: that intuition without concept is entirely empty, while concept without intuition is still something (p. 253; V. 309). This is exactly the opposite of the truth. Concepts get all their meaning and all their content only from their relation to intuitive representations. They have been abstracted from these, drawn off, that is, formed by letting everything unessential fall away. So when the underlying intuition is taken away from them, they are empty and void. Intuitions, on the other hand, have an immediate and very great meaning in themselves (for in them time, space and causality; § 28; and by G. E. Schulze, Critique of Theoretical Philosophy, vol. 2, pp. 422–442.

thing in itself is objectified). They stand in for themselves, they speak for themselves, and they do not have merely borrowed content, as concepts do. For the principle of sufficient reason rules over them only as the law of causality, and as such it determines only their place in space and time. It does not condition their content and significance, as it does with concepts, where it applies as the ground of knowing. Besides, here it looks as if Kant really means to draw the distinction between intuitive and abstract representation: he reproaches Leibniz and Locke, saying that Leibniz made everything into abstract representations and Locke made everything into intuitive ones. But no distinction is actually reached. Even if Locke and Leibniz really committed those errors, Kant himself is charged with a third error that includes both. He so mixed the intuitive and the abstract that a monstrous hybrid of the two came about, an absurdity of which no clear representation is possible, and which therefore could only confuse his students, stun them, and set them quarreling.

Of course, thinking and intuition come apart more than anywhere else in that chapter, “On the Distinction of All Objects into Phenomena and Noumena.” But the way the distinction is made there is wrong from the ground up. It says, p. 253, V, 309: “If I take away all thinking (through categories) from an empirical cognition, no cognition of an object remains. For through mere intuition nothing at all is thought, and the fact that this affection of sensibility is in me does not make any relation of such representations to any object.”—This sentence contains, in a way, all of Kant’s errors in a nutshell. It shows that he has misconceived the relation between sensation, intuition and thinking. As a result he identifies intuition, whose form is supposed to be space, and in all three dimensions at that, with mere subjective sensation in the sense organs. And he lets the knowing of an object come in only afterward, through thinking, which is different from intuiting. I say the opposite: objects are first of all objects of intuition, not of thinking, and all knowledge of objects is originally and in itself intuition. Intuition is by no means mere sensation. The understanding already shows itself active in it. Thinking, which is added only in human beings and not in animals, is mere abstraction from intuition. It gives no knowledge that is new from the ground up. It does not first posit objects that were not there before. It only changes the form of the knowledge already won through intuition, making it abstract, in concepts. In this way intuitiveness is lost, but combining the knowledge becomes possible, and that extends its usefulness immeasurably. The material of our thinking, on the other hand, is nothing other than our intuitions themselves. It is not something that, not contained in intuition, is first brought in by thinking. So everything that occurs in our thinking must have its material demonstrable in our intuition. Otherwise it would be empty thinking. Thinking works over this material and reshapes it in many ways. Still, it must be possible to restore the material from that work and to trace the thinking back to it. It is like a piece of gold: after all its dissolutions, oxidations, sublimations and compounds, it can finally be reduced again and presented once more as pure metal, undiminished. That could not be so if thinking itself had added something to the object, let alone the main thing.

The whole chapter on amphiboly that follows is merely a critique of Leibniz’s philosophy. As such it is correct on the whole, although its whole layout is made only for the love of architectonic symmetry, which guides Kant here too. To bring out the analogy with Aristotle’s Organon, for example, he sets up a transcendental topic. It consists in this: one should consider every concept from four points of view, in order first to settle which faculty of knowledge it belongs to. But these four points of view are chosen quite arbitrarily, and with equal right ten others could be added. Their number, four, matches the titles of the categories, and so Leibniz’s main doctrines are distributed among them as well as can be done. This critique also, in a way, stamps as natural errors of reason what were merely false abstractions of Leibniz. Instead of learning from his great philosophical contemporaries, Spinoza and Locke, he preferred to serve up his own strange inventions. At the end of the chapter on the amphiboly of reflection it is said that there could possibly be a kind of intuition entirely different from ours, to which our categories would nevertheless be applicable. The objects of that supposed intuition would then be the noumena, things that we can only think. But the intuition that would give that thinking its meaning is lacking to us, and is in fact wholly problematic. So the object of that thinking would also be only a completely indeterminate possibility. Above, by quoting passages, I showed that Kant, in the greatest contradiction with himself, presents the categories now as a condition of intuitive representation and now as a function of merely abstract thinking. Here they appear only in the latter sense, and it seems quite as if he wants to attribute to them only a discursive thinking. But if that is really his opinion, he necessarily should have characterized thinking in general at the beginning of the transcendental logic, before specifying the various functions of thinking at such length. He should have distinguished it from intuiting, and shown what knowledge mere intuiting gives and what new knowledge thinking adds. Then we would have known what he is really talking about. Or rather, then he would have spoken quite differently: first about intuiting and then about thinking, instead of dealing, as he now does, always with a hybrid of the two, which is an absurdity. Then there would also not be that great gap between the transcendental aesthetic and the transcendental logic. There, after presenting the mere form of intuition, he just dismisses its content, the whole empirical perception, with the words “it is given,” and does not ask how it comes about, with or without the understanding. Instead he jumps to abstract thinking, and not even to thinking in general but at once to certain forms of thought. He says not a word about what thinking is, what a concept is, what the relation of the abstract and discursive to the concrete and intuitive is, what the difference is between human knowledge and animal knowledge, and what reason is.

It was exactly this distinction between abstract and intuitive knowledge, which Kant overlooked completely, that the ancient philosophers marked with φαινομενα and νοουμενα [9]. Their opposition and incommensurability gave them so much trouble: in the philosophemes of the Eleatics, in Plato’s doctrine of Ideas, in the dialectic of the Megarians, and later for the Scholastics, in the dispute between nominalism and realism, whose germ, developing late, was already contained in the opposite mental orientations of Plato and Aristotle. But Kant inexcusably neglected altogether the very matter for which the words φαινομενα and νοουμενα were already taken. Now he seizes the words as if they were still ownerless, to label with them his things in themselves and his appearances.

—After I have had to reject Kant’s doctrine of the categories just as he himself rejected Aristotle’s, I still want to point out here, as a suggestion, a third way to reach the intended goal. What both of them were looking for under the name of categories were in any case the most general concepts, under which all things, however different, must be subsumed, and through which therefore everything that exists would finally be thought. For this very reason Kant took them to be the forms of all thinking.

Grammar stands to logic as the garment stands to the body. So should not these highest of all concepts, this ground bass of reason, which is the foundation of all more special thinking and without whose use no thinking can go on at all, in the end lie in concepts that, precisely because of their boundless generality (transcendentality), are expressed not in single words but in whole classes of words, since in every word, whichever [10] See Sext. Empir. Pyrrhon. hypotyp., Lib. I, c. 13, νοουμενα φαινομενοις ἀντετιθη Αναξαγορας (intelligibilia apparentibus opposuit Anaxagoras). it may be, one of them is already thought along with it; so that one would have to look for their designation not in the dictionary but in grammar? So should it not in the end be those differences among concepts by virtue of which the word expressing a concept is a noun, or an adjective, a verb, or an adverb, a pronoun, a preposition, or some other particle: in short, the partes orationis? For beyond doubt these mark the forms that all thinking first takes on and in which it moves directly. That is precisely why they are the essential forms of language, the basic components of every language, so that we cannot imagine a language that did not consist at least of nouns, adjectives and verbs. Under these basic forms we would then have to place those forms of thought that are expressed by the inflections of these, that is, by declension and conjugation. In the main it does not matter whether one takes in the article and the pronoun to help in marking them. But let us examine the matter a little more closely and raise the question anew: what are the forms of thinking?

1) Thinking consists throughout of judgments. Judgments are the threads of its whole fabric. For without using a verb our thinking does not move from the spot, and whenever we use a verb, we judge.

2) Every judgment consists in knowing the relation between subject and predicate, which it separates or unites with various restrictions. It unites them, starting from knowing the real identity of the two, which can occur only with reciprocal concepts. Then it unites them in knowing that the one is always thought along in the other, though not the reverse—in the universal affirmative proposition. It ends in knowing that the one is sometimes thought along in the other, in the particular affirmative proposition. The negative propositions go the opposite way. So in every judgment subject, predicate and copula must be found, the copula being affirmative or negative, even if each of these is not marked by a word of its own, as however is mostly the case. Often one word marks predicate and copula, as in “Caius grows old.” Sometimes one word marks all three, as in concurritur, that is, “the armies come to blows.” From this it is clear that the forms of thinking are not to be sought so directly and immediately in the words, nor even in the parts of speech. The same judgment can be expressed in different languages, and even in the same language, by different words and even by different parts of speech, and yet the thought stays the same, and so does its form. For the thought could not be the same if the form of thinking itself were different. But the verbal shape can be different while the thought and its form are the same, since the verbal shape is merely the outer dress of the thought, whereas the thought is inseparable from its form. So grammar only explains the dress of the forms of thought. The parts of speech can therefore be derived from the original forms of thought themselves, which are independent of all languages. Their purpose is to express these forms, with all their modifications. They are the instrument of the forms of thought and their garment, which must fit the frame of their limbs exactly, so that the frame can be recognized in it.

3) These real, unchangeable, original forms of thinking are indeed those of Kant’s logical table of judgments. Only, on that table there are blind windows, put there for the sake of symmetry and of the table of categories, and these must all be dropped. The order is also wrong. So, roughly: a) Quality: affirmation or negation, that is, connection or separation of concepts: two forms. It belongs to the copula. b) Quantity: the subject concept is taken wholly or in part: totality or plurality. Individual subjects belong to the former: Socrates means “all Socrates.” So there are only two forms. It belongs to the subject. c) Modality: really has three forms. It determines the quality as necessary, actual, or contingent. So it too belongs to the copula.

These three forms of thought spring from the laws of thought, of contradiction and of identity. But from the principle of sufficient reason and the principle of the excluded middle arises d) Relation. It comes in only when judgments are made about judgments already made. It can consist only in this: that it either states the dependence of one judgment on another (even in the plurality of both), and so connects them, in the hypothetical proposition; or states that judgments exclude one another, and so separates them, in the disjunctive proposition. It belongs to the copula, which here separates or connects the finished judgments.

The parts of speech and grammatical forms are ways of expressing the three components of the judgment, that is, subject, predicate and copula. They also express the possible relations of these, that is, the forms of thought just listed, and the closer determinations and modifications of these last. Noun, adjective and verb are therefore essential basic components of language in general, which is why they must be found in all languages. Yet one could imagine a language in which adjective and verb were always fused together, as they sometimes are in every language. Provisionally one could say: for the expression of the subject are meant noun, article and pronoun;—for the expression of the predicate: adjective, adverb, preposition;—for the expression of the copula: the verb, which, however, with the exception of esse, already contains the predicate. Philosophical grammar has to teach the exact mechanism of the expression of the forms of thought, as logic has to teach the operations with the forms of thought themselves.

Note. As a warning against a wrong path and as an illustration of the above, I mention S. Stern’s “Vorläufige Grundlage zur Sprachphilosophie,” 1835, as a wholly failed attempt to construct the categories from the grammatical forms. He quite confused thinking with intuiting. So instead of the categories of thinking, he wanted to deduce from the grammatical forms the supposed categories of intuiting, and thus put the grammatical forms in direct relation to intuition. He is caught in the great error that language relates immediately to intuition. In fact it relates immediately only to thinking as such, that is, to abstract concepts, and only by means of these to intuition, to which it has a relation that brings about a complete change of form. What is there in intuition, including the relations arising from time and space, does indeed become an object of thinking. So there must also be language forms to express it, but always only in abstracto, as concepts. The nearest material of thinking is always concepts, and the forms of logic relate only to these, never directly to intuition. Intuition always determines only the material truth of propositions, never the formal truth, which depends on the logical rules alone.

—I return to the Kantian philosophy and come to the transcendental dialectic. Kant opens it with the definition of reason, the faculty that is supposed to play the main role in it, since until now only sensibility and understanding were on the stage. Among his various definitions of reason, I have already spoken above also of the one given here, “that it is the faculty of principles.” Here it is taught that all the cognitions a priori considered so far, which make pure mathematics and pure natural science possible, give only rules and no principles. That is because they come from intuitions and forms of knowledge, not from mere concepts, which is required for something to be called a principle. Such a principle is therefore supposed to be a cognition from mere concepts and yet synthetic. But this is simply impossible. From mere concepts nothing but analytic propositions can ever come. If concepts are to be combined synthetically and yet a priori, this combination must necessarily be mediated by a third thing, by a pure intuition of the formal possibility of experience, just as synthetic judgments a posteriori are mediated by empirical intuition. So a synthetic proposition a priori can never come from mere concepts. In general, we are conscious a priori of nothing further than the principle of sufficient reason in its various forms. So no other synthetic judgments a priori are possible than those that come from what gives that principle its content.

Meanwhile Kant finally comes forward with a so-called principle of reason that matches his requirement, but only with this one, from which other consequent propositions then flow. It is the proposition that Chr. Wolf sets up and explains in his “Cosmologia,” sect. 1, c. 2, §. 93, and in his “Ontologia,” §. 178. Above, under the title of amphiboly, mere Leibnizian philosophemes were taken for natural and necessary wrong turns of reason and were criticized as such. In just the same way, the same thing happens here with Wolf’s philosophemes. Kant presents this principle of reason put into a twilight by obscurity, indefiniteness and fragmentation (p. 307; V, 361, and 322; V, 379). But stated clearly, it is this: “If the conditioned is given, then the totality of its conditions must also be given, and with it also the unconditioned, through which alone that totality becomes complete.” One feels the apparent truth of this proposition most vividly if one imagines the conditions and the conditioned as the links of a chain hanging down, whose upper end, however, cannot be seen, so that the chain could go on to infinity. But since the chain does not fall but hangs, there must be at the top a link that is first and fastened somehow. Or more briefly: reason would like to have a point of attachment for the causal chain that points back to infinity. That would be convenient for it. But let us test the proposition not with pictures but in itself. It is synthetic, to be sure. For analytically nothing follows from the concept of the conditioned except the concept of the condition. But it has no truth a priori, and none a posteriori either. It sneaks its appearance of truth in a very subtle way, which I must now uncover. Immediately and a priori we have the cognitions that the principle of sufficient reason expresses in its four forms. All abstract expressions of the principle of sufficient reason are already borrowed from these immediate cognitions, and so are mediate. Its consequent propositions are even more so. I have already explained above how abstract knowledge often unites many different intuitive cognitions in one form or one concept, so that they can no longer be told apart. In this way abstract knowledge stands to intuitive knowledge as the shadow stands to the real objects, whose great variety it reproduces in one outline that takes them all in. This shadow is what the so-called principle of reason now uses. It wants to infer from the principle of sufficient reason the unconditioned, which directly contradicts that principle. So it cleverly leaves the immediate, intuitive knowledge of the content of the principle of sufficient reason in its individual forms. It uses only the abstract concepts that are drawn from that knowledge and have value and meaning only through it, in order to smuggle its unconditioned somehow into the wide range of those concepts. Its procedure shows most clearly in dialectical dress, for example like this: “If the conditioned is there, its condition must also be given, and given entirely, that is, completely. So the totality of its conditions must be given, and, if they make up a series, the whole series, and so also its first beginning, that is, the unconditioned.”—Here already it is false that the conditions of a conditioned, as such, can make up a series. Rather, for each conditioned, the totality of its conditions must be contained in its nearest ground, from which it follows directly and which only through this is a sufficient ground. Take for example the various determinations of the state that is a cause, all of which must have come together before the effect occurs. The series, for example the chain of causes, arises only because we again regard what was just now the condition as a conditioned. But then the whole operation immediately starts from the beginning, and the principle of sufficient reason comes forward again with its demand. There can never be, for a conditioned, a real successive series of conditions that would be there merely as such and for the sake of the final conditioned. It is always an alternating series of conditioned and conditions. At each link left behind, though, the chain is broken and the demand of the principle of sufficient reason is wholly canceled. It begins again, as the condition becomes the conditioned. So the principle of sufficient reason always demands only the completeness of the nearest condition, never the completeness of a series. But this very concept of completeness of the condition leaves open whether it is to be simultaneous or successive. And when the latter is chosen, the demand for a complete series of conditions following one after another arises. Only by an arbitrary abstraction is a series of causes and effects regarded as a series of nothing but causes, which would be there only for the sake of the last effect, and which therefore would be demanded as its sufficient ground. On a closer and more reflective look, descending from the indefinite generality of abstraction to the individual, determinate real thing, one finds instead that the demand for a sufficient ground goes only to the completeness of the determinations of the nearest cause, not to the completeness of a series. The demand of the principle of sufficient reason is wholly extinguished in each sufficient ground that is given. But it begins again at once, as this ground is regarded as a consequence in turn. It never directly demands a series of grounds. If, on the other hand, instead of going to the thing itself, one stays within abstract concepts, those differences vanish. Then a chain of alternating causes and effects, or of alternating logical grounds and consequents, is passed off as a chain of nothing but causes or grounds for the last effect. And the completeness of the conditions, through which a ground first becomes sufficient, appears as the completeness of that assumed series of nothing but grounds, which would be there only for the sake of the last consequent. Then the abstract principle of reason comes forward very boldly with its demand for the unconditioned. But to recognize that this demand is invalid, no critique of reason by means of antinomies and their resolution is needed. All that is needed is a critique of reason in my sense: an investigation of the relation of abstract knowledge to immediately intuitive knowledge, by descending from the indefinite generality of the former to the firm determinateness of the latter. This then shows that the essence of reason by no means consists in demanding an unconditioned. For as soon as reason proceeds with full reflection, it must itself find that an unconditioned is simply an absurdity. Reason, as a faculty of knowledge, can always only have to do with objects. But every object for the subject is necessarily and irrevocably subject to the principle of sufficient reason and has fallen under it, both a parte ante and a parte post. The validity of the principle of sufficient reason lies so deep in the form of consciousness that one absolutely cannot represent anything objectively about which no further Why could be demanded, that is, no absolute Absolute, like a board in front of the head. That someone’s convenience tells them to stop somewhere and assume such an Absolute at will can accomplish nothing against that unshakable certainty a priori, not even if they put on very distinguished airs. In fact, all the talk about the Absolute, which is almost the only theme of the philosophies attempted since Kant, is nothing other than the cosmological proof incognito. After the trial Kant brought against it, this proof was declared stripped of all rights and outlawed, and may not show itself in its true form any more. So it appears in all kinds of disguises: sometimes in distinguished ones, cloaked by intellectual intuition or pure thinking, sometimes, in the more modest philosophemes, as a suspicious vagabond who half begs and half extorts what he gets. If these gentlemen absolutely want to have an Absolute, I will put one in their hands that satisfies all the demands on such a thing much better than their drivel of foggy shapes: it is matter. It is unproduced and indestructible, so really independent, and quod per se est et per se concipitur. From its womb everything comes forth and into it everything returns. What more can one ask of an Absolute?—But rather, those on whom no critique of reason has taken hold should be called out to:

Are you not like the women, who keep coming back only to their first word, when someone has spoken reason to them for hours?

That going back to an unconditioned cause, to a first beginning, is by no means grounded in the essence of reason is also proved as a matter of fact. The original religions of our species, which even now have the greatest number of followers on earth, namely Brahmanism and Buddhism, neither know nor allow such assumptions. They lead the series of appearances that condition one another up to infinity. On this I refer to the note that follows further below, in the critique of the first antinomy. One can also consult Upham’s “Doctrine of Buddhaism” (p. 9), and in general any authentic report on the religions of Asia. Judaism and reason are not to be identified.—

Kant also by no means wants to assert his so-called principle of reason as objectively valid but only as subjectively necessary. Even as such, he deduces it only by a shallow sophism, p. 307; V, 364. The sophism is this: because we try to subsume every truth known to us under a more general one as long as that is possible, this is supposed to be nothing other than already the hunt for the unconditioned, which we presuppose. In truth, though, by such seeking we do nothing but apply reason and use it purposefully to simplify our knowledge by overview. Reason is that faculty of abstract, general knowledge which distinguishes the reflective, speaking, thinking human being from the animal, the slave of the present. For the use of reason consists precisely in this: that we know the particular through the general, the case through the rule, and this rule through the more general rule, so that we look for the most general points of view. Through such overview our knowledge is made so much easier and more perfect that out of it comes the great difference between the animal and the human course of life, and again between the life of the educated and that of the uneducated person. Now the series of grounds of knowledge, which exists only in the realm of the abstract, that is, of reason, always does come to an end at the unprovable, that is, at a representation that according to this form of the principle of sufficient reason is not conditioned further. That is, it ends at the immediately intuitive ground, a priori or a posteriori, of the highest proposition of the chain of inference. I have already shown in the treatise on the principle of sufficient reason, §. 50, that here the series of grounds of knowledge really passes over into grounds of becoming or of being. But to want to use this circumstance to prove something unconditioned according to the law of causality, even if only as a demand—one can do this only if one has not yet distinguished the forms of the principle of sufficient reason at all, but holds to the abstract expression and confuses them all. Yet Kant even tries to ground this confusion by a mere play on words with Universalitas and Universitas, p. 322; V, 379.—It is therefore quite false that our search for higher grounds of knowledge, for general truths, springs from the presupposition of an object unconditioned in its existence, or has anything whatever in common with that. How could it be essential to reason to presuppose something that it must recognize as an absurdity as soon as it reflects? Rather, the origin of that concept of the unconditioned can never be traced to anything other than the laziness of the individual, who wants to be rid of all further questions, others’ and their own, though without any justification.

Kant himself denies this so-called principle of reason objective validity, but still gives it out as a necessary subjective presupposition. In this way he brings an irresolvable split into our knowledge, which he soon makes appear more clearly. For this purpose he unfolds that principle of reason further, p. 322; V, 379, by his favorite architectonic-symmetrical method. From the three categories of relation arise three kinds of inference. Each of them gives the guiding thread to the search for a particular unconditioned, and so there are again three of these: soul, world (as an object in itself and a closed totality), God. Here a great contradiction can be noticed at once, which Kant takes no notice of, because it would be very dangerous to symmetry. Two of these unconditioned are themselves conditioned again, by the third: soul and world are conditioned by God, who is their producing cause. So the first two do not share with God the predicate of unconditionedness, which is what matters here, but only that of being inferred according to principles of experience, beyond the realm of the possibility of experience.

Setting this aside, in the three unconditioned ones, which according to Kant every reason, following its essential laws, must arrive at, we find again the three main subjects around which the whole philosophy under the influence of Christianity turned, from the Scholastics down to Christian Wolf. However accessible and familiar those concepts have become to mere reason through all those philosophers, this by no means settles that, even without revelation, they must come out of the development of every reason, as a product that belongs to the essence of reason itself. To settle this, we would have to call in historical inquiry. We would have to find out whether the ancient peoples and the non-European peoples, especially the Hindustani, and many of the oldest Greek philosophers really did arrive at those concepts. Or perhaps it is merely we, too good-natured, who attribute them to those peoples, just as the Greeks found their gods everywhere, by quite wrongly translating the Brahm of the Hindus and the Tien of the Chinese as “God.” Perhaps real theism is to be found only in Judaism and the two religions that came out of it. For this very reason their adherents lump the followers of all other religions on earth together under the name of heathens. That, incidentally, is a most simple-minded and crude expression, which should at least be banished from the writings of scholars, because it identifies Brahmanists, Buddhists, Egyptians, Greeks, Romans, Germans, Gauls, Iroquois, Patagonians, Caribs, Tahitians, Australians and others, and stuffs them into one sack. For priests such an expression is fitting. In the learned world it must be shown the door at once. It can travel to England and settle in Oxford.—That Buddhism in particular, the religion most numerously represented on earth, contains no theism at all, and in fact abhors it, is a fully established fact. As for Plato, I am of the opinion that he owes to the Jews the theism that came over him from time to time. For this reason Numenius (according to Clem. Alex. Strom., I, c. 22, Euseb. praep. evang., XIII, 12, and Suidas, under Numenius) called him Moses graecisans: Τι γαρ εστι Πλατων, η Μωσης αττικιζων; and he reproaches him with having stolen (αποσυλησας) his teachings about God and creation from the Mosaic writings. Clement comes back often to the point that Plato knew and used Moses, e.g. Strom. I, 25.—V, c. 14, §. 90 ff.—Paedagog., II, 10, and III, 11; also in the Cohortatio ad gentes, c. 6. In the preceding chapter of that work he has scolded and mocked all the Greek philosophers like a Capuchin friar, because they were not Jews. Here he praises Plato alone and breaks out into loud jubilation that Plato learned his theism from the Jews, just as he learned his geometry from the Egyptians, his astronomy from the Babylonians, magic from the Thracians, and much also from the Assyrians: Οιδα σου τους διδασκαλους, κἂν αποκρυπτειν εθελῃς,—————δοξαν την του θεου παρ’ αυτων ωφελησαι των Εβραιων (tuos magistros novi, licet eos celare velis,—————illa de Deo sententia suppeditata tibi est ab Hebraeis). A touching scene of recognition.—But I discover a curious confirmation of the matter in the following. According to Plutarch (in Mario) and better according to Lactantius (I, 3, 19), Plato thanked nature that he had been born a human being and not an animal, a man and not a woman, a Greek and not a barbarian. Now in Isaak Euchel’s Gebete der Juden, aus dem Hebräischen, second edition, 1799, p. 7, there is a morning prayer in which they thank and praise God that the one praying has been made a Jew and not a heathen, a free man and not a slave, a man and not a woman.—Such a historical investigation would have spared Kant a bad necessity into which he now falls. He lets those three concepts arise necessarily from the nature of reason, and yet shows that they are untenable and cannot be grounded by reason, and so he makes reason itself a sophist. He says, p. 339; V, 397: “They are sophistications, not of man, but of pure reason itself, from which even the wisest cannot free himself, and perhaps, after much effort, can guard against the error, but can never get rid of the illusion that unceasingly pinches and mocks him.” According to this, those Kantian “Ideas of reason” would be comparable to the focus where the rays reflected convergingly from a concave mirror come together a few inches in front of its surface. As a result, by an unavoidable process of the understanding, an object presents itself to us there that is a thing without reality.

The name Ideas, however, was chosen very unluckily for those three supposedly necessary products of pure theoretical reason, and it was torn away from Plato. He used it for the imperishable forms that, multiplied by time and space, become visible imperfectly in the countless individual, perishable things. Plato’s Ideas are therefore thoroughly intuitive, as the word he chose also indicates so precisely. It could be translated fittingly only by “intuitivenesses” or “visibilities.” And Kant has appropriated it to designate something that lies so far from all possibility of intuition that even abstract thinking can reach it only halfway. The word Idea, which Plato first introduced, has also since then, throughout twenty-two centuries, always kept the meaning in which Plato used it. For not only all the philosophers of antiquity, but also all the Scholastics, and even the Church Fathers and the theologians of the Middle Ages, used it only in that Platonic meaning, namely in the sense of the Latin word exemplar, as Suarez expressly states in his twenty-fifth Disputation, Sect. 1.—That later the English and the French were led by the poverty of their languages to misuse that word is bad enough, but of no weight. Kant’s misuse of the word Idea is therefore in no way to be justified. He substitutes a new meaning, which he drags in on the thin thread of not being an object of experience, a feature that the word shares with Plato’s Ideas but also with all possible chimeras. Since the misuse of a few years does not count against the authority of many centuries, I have always used the word in its old, original, Platonic meaning.

The refutation of rational psychology is much more detailed and thorough in the first edition of the “Critique of Pure Reason” than in the second and later ones, so one absolutely has to use the first here. This refutation has on the whole very great merit and much truth. Yet I am quite of the opinion that Kant, only for love of his symmetry, derives the concept of the soul as necessary from that paralogism, by applying the demand for the unconditioned to the concept of substance, which is the first category of relation. He accordingly claims that in this way the concept of a soul would arise in every speculating reason. If that concept really had its origin in the presupposition of a last subject of all predicates of a thing, then one would have assumed a soul with equal necessity not only in man but in every lifeless thing, since such a thing too demands a last subject of all its predicates. In general, though, Kant uses a quite impermissible expression when he speaks of a something that could exist only as subject and not as predicate (e.g. “Critique of Pure Reason,” p. 323; V, 412; “Prolegomena,” §. 4 and 47), although a precedent for it can already be found in Aristotle’s “Metaphysics,” IV, ch. 8. As subject and predicate nothing at all exists, for these expressions belong exclusively to logic and designate the relation of abstract concepts to one another. In the intuitive world their correlate or stand-in is supposed to be substance and accident. But then we need not look any further for what always exists only as substance and never as accident, since we have it immediately in matter. It is the substance of all properties of things, which are its accidents. It really is, if one wants to keep the expression of Kant’s that I have just criticized, the last subject of all predicates of every empirically given thing, namely what is left over after subtracting all its properties of every kind. This holds of man as of animal, plant or stone, and it is so evident that, in order not to see it, a determined unwillingness to see is required. That matter is really the prototype of the concept of substance, I will soon show.—Subject and predicate, though, stand to substance and accident rather as the principle of sufficient reason in logic stands to the law of causality in nature. Just as impermissible as it is to confuse or identify these two, so is it to confuse or identify the other two. Kant, however, drives this latter confusion and identification to the highest degree in the “Prolegomena,” §. 46, in order to let the concept of the soul arise from that of the last subject of all predicates and from the form of the categorical syllogism. To uncover the sophistication of this paragraph one need only recall that subject and predicate are purely logical determinations that concern solely and exclusively abstract concepts, and indeed according to their relation in the judgment. Substance and accident, on the other hand, belong to the intuitive world and its apprehension in the understanding, but are found there only as identical with matter and form or quality. More on that at once.

The opposition that gave occasion to the assumption of two fundamentally different substances, body and soul, is in truth that of the objective and the subjective. If a person grasps themselves objectively in outer intuition, they find a being extended in space and altogether bodily. If instead they grasp themselves in mere self-consciousness, that is, purely subjectively, they find a mere willing and representing, free from all forms of intuition, and so without any of the properties that belong to bodies. Now they form the concept of the soul, like all the transcendent concepts that Kant called Ideas, by applying the principle of sufficient reason, the form of every object, to what is not object, here to the subject of knowing and willing. That is, they regard knowing, thinking and willing as effects, and look for their cause. They cannot accept the body as that cause, and so they posit a cause of them that is wholly different from the body. In this way the first and the last dogmatist prove the existence of the soul: Plato already in the Phaedrus, and Wolf still: namely from thinking and willing as the effects that lead to that cause. Only after the concept of an immaterial, simple, indestructible being had arisen in this way, by hypostatizing a cause corresponding to the effect, did the school develop and demonstrate it from the concept substance. But the school had previously formed this very concept expressly for this purpose, by the following remarkable trick.

With the first class of representations, that is, the intuitive, real world, the representation of matter is also given. The reason is that the law of causality that rules in that world determines the change of states, and these themselves presuppose something that persists, whose change they are. Above, at the proposition of the permanence of substance, appealing to earlier passages, I showed that this representation of matter arises because in the understanding, for which alone it exists, time and space are intimately united by the law of causality (its only form of knowledge). The share of space in this product presents itself as the persistence of matter, and the share of time as the change of its states. Purely by itself matter can be thought only in abstracto, and not intuited, since it always appears to intuition already in form and quality. Of this concept of matter, substance is in turn an abstraction, and so a higher genus. It arose by leaving standing, of the concept of matter, only the predicate of persistence, and thinking away all its other essential properties: extension, impenetrability, divisibility and so on. Like every higher genus, then, the concept substance contains less in itself than the concept matter. But it does not, in return, contain more under itself, as a higher genus otherwise always does, since it embraces no several lower genera besides matter. Matter remains the only true species of the concept substance, the only thing that can be pointed to, by which its content is realized and gets a proof. The purpose for which reason otherwise produces a higher concept by abstraction, namely to think in it at once several species that differ by additional determinations, does not occur here at all. So that abstraction was either undertaken quite purposelessly and idly, or it has a secret ulterior aim. This now comes to light as a second species, the immaterial, simple, indestructible substance, the soul, is placed under the concept substance as coordinate with its genuine species, matter. The smuggling in of this concept took place because already in forming the higher concept substance the procedure was unlawful and illogical. In its lawful course reason forms a higher generic concept only by placing several specific concepts side by side. It then proceeds comparatively, discursively, and by leaving out their differences and keeping their agreements it obtains the generic concept that embraces them all but contains less. From this it follows that the specific concepts must always precede the generic concept. In the present case it is the reverse. Only the concept matter was there before the generic concept substance, which was formed from it without occasion and so without justification, idly, by arbitrary omission of all its determinations but one. Only afterward was the second, spurious species placed next to the concept matter and thus slipped in. For forming this, nothing further was needed than an express negation of what one had previously already left out silently in the higher generic concept, namely extension, impenetrability, divisibility. So the concept substance was formed merely to be the vehicle for smuggling in the concept of immaterial substance. It is therefore very far from being able to count as a category or necessary function of the understanding. Rather it is a most dispensable concept, because its only true content already lies in the concept of matter. Beside this content it contains only a great void, which can be filled by nothing except the smuggled-in side species immaterial substance, and it was also formed solely to receive that. For this reason, strictly speaking, it is to be rejected wholly, and the concept of matter is to be put in its place everywhere.

—The categories were a bed of Procrustes for every possible thing, but the three kinds of inference are so only for the three so-called Ideas. The Idea of the soul had been forced to find its origin in the categorical form of inference. Now it is the turn of the dogmatic representations about the world as a whole, insofar as it is thought, as an object in itself, between two limits, that of the smallest (atom) and that of the largest (limits of the world in time and space). These now must come out of the form of the hypothetical inference. Here, in itself, no special force is needed. For the hypothetical judgment has its form from the principle of sufficient reason, and in fact all those so-called Ideas arise from the thoughtless, unconditioned application of this principle and then the arbitrary setting aside of it—not just the cosmological ones. This happens in that, according to that principle, only the dependence of one object on another is ever sought, until finally the weariness of the imagination puts an end to the journey. In this, one loses sight of the fact that every object, indeed the whole series of them and the principle of sufficient reason itself, stands in a much nearer and greater dependence, namely on the knowing subject. That principle is valid only for the subject’s objects, that is, representations, since it determines merely their place in space and time. The form of knowledge from which only the cosmological Ideas are here derived, namely the principle of sufficient reason, is the origin of all reasoning hypostases. So this time no sophisms are needed for deriving them. But all the more are needed to classify those Ideas under the four titles of the categories.

1) The cosmological Ideas with regard to time and space, that is, about the limits of the world in both, are boldly regarded as determined by the category of quantity. They obviously have nothing in common with it except this: logic happens to designate the extent of the subject concept in a judgment by the word quantity, a figurative expression for which another could just as well have been chosen. But for Kant’s love of symmetry this is enough to use the lucky accident of this naming and to tie the transcendent dogmas about the extent of the world to it.

2) Still more boldly Kant ties the transcendent Ideas about matter to quality, that is, to affirmation or negation in a judgment. Here not even an accidental similarity of words lies at the base. For the mechanical (not chemical) divisibility of matter relates precisely to its quantity and not to its quality. But what is more, this whole Idea of divisibility does not belong at all among the consequences according to the principle of sufficient reason, from which, as the content of the hypothetical form, all the cosmological Ideas are supposed to flow. For Kant bases himself on the claim that the relation of the parts to the whole is that of the condition to the conditioned, and so a relation according to the principle of sufficient reason. That claim is a subtle but groundless sophism. That relation rests rather on the law of contradiction. For the whole is not through the parts, nor are they through it. Both are necessarily together, because they are one, and their separation is only an arbitrary act. On this it rests, according to the law of contradiction, that if the parts are thought away, the whole is thought away too, and the reverse. It does not at all rest on the parts as ground conditioning the whole as consequence, so that according to the principle of sufficient reason we would be necessarily driven to look for the last parts in order to understand the whole from them as its ground.—Such great difficulties does the love of symmetry overcome here.

3) Under the title of relation the Idea of the first cause of the world would properly belong. But Kant has to save this Idea for the fourth title, that of modality, for which otherwise nothing would be left. He then squeezes that Idea under it by this: that the contingent (that is, according to his explanation, which is diametrically opposed to the truth, every consequent from its ground) becomes necessary through the first cause.—As the third Idea, therefore, for the sake of symmetry, the concept of freedom comes up here. But really it means only the Idea of the cause of the world, the only one that fits here now, as the note to the thesis of the third conflict says plainly. The third and fourth conflicts are at bottom tautological.

Beyond all this, however, I find and maintain that the whole antinomy is mere sham fighting, a pretended contest. Only the assertions of the antitheses really rest on the forms of our faculty of knowledge, that is, if one expresses it objectively, on the necessary, a priori certain, most general laws of nature. Their proofs alone are therefore conducted from objective grounds. By contrast the assertions and proofs of the theses have no ground other than a subjective one. They rest wholly on the weakness of the reasoning individual, whose imagination grows weary at an infinite regress and so puts an end to it by arbitrary presuppositions, which it tries its best to gloss over, and whose power of judgment is moreover paralyzed at this point by prejudices stamped in early and firmly. For this reason the proof for the thesis in all four conflicts is everywhere only a sophism. The proof for the antithesis, on the other hand, is an unavoidable inference of reason from the laws of the world as representation, of which we are conscious a priori. Kant too has been able to maintain the thesis only with much effort and art, and to have it make apparent attacks on the opponent, who is endowed with original strength. His first and constant trick in this is the following. He does not do what one does when one is aware of the truth of one’s proposition, namely bring out the nervus argumentationis and put it before the eyes as isolated, bare and clear as possible. Rather, on both sides he introduces it covered and mixed up under a flood of superfluous and long-winded sentences.

The theses and antitheses that appear here in conflict call to mind the δικαιος and αδικος λογος that Socrates lets appear in dispute in Aristophanes’ Clouds. But this resemblance extends only to the form, not to the content, however much those would like to assert it who ascribe to this most speculative of all questions of theoretical philosophy an influence on morality, and therefore seriously take the thesis for the δικαιος and the antithesis for the αδικος λογος. I will not stoop to take account of such narrow and perverse little minds. I give the honor not to them but to the truth, and I will uncover the proofs that Kant gives for the individual theses as sophisms, while those of the antitheses are conducted quite honestly, correctly and from objective grounds.—I assume that in this examination one always has the Kantian antinomy itself before one.

If one were to let the proof of the thesis in the first conflict stand, it would prove too much. It would apply just as well to time itself as to the change in it, and would therefore prove that time itself must have had a beginning, which is absurd. For the rest, the sophism consists in this. In place of the beginninglessness of the series of states, which was the topic at first, the endlessness (infinity) of it is suddenly substituted. Then it is proved, what no one doubts, that being completed logically contradicts this endlessness, and yet that every present is the end of the past. But the end of a beginningless series can always be thought without harm to its beginninglessness, just as, conversely, the beginning of an endless series can be thought. Against the really correct argument of the antithesis, however, that the changes of the world backward absolutely necessarily presuppose an infinite series of changes, nothing at all is brought forward. The possibility that the causal series might one day end in an absolute standstill we can think; but the possibility of an absolute beginning we cannot think at all [11].

With regard to the spatial limits of the world, it is proved that if the world is to be called a given whole, it must necessarily have limits. The consequence is correct; only its antecedent was exactly what was to be proved, and it remains unproved. Totality presupposes limits, and limits presuppose totality; both together are here presupposed arbitrarily.—The antithesis, however, supplies for this second point no such satisfying proof as for the first, because the law of causality gives necessary determinations only with regard to time, not to [12] That the assumption of a limit of the world in time is by no means a necessary thought of reason can even be shown historically. The Hindus do not teach such a limit even in their popular religion, let alone in the Vedas. Instead they try to express mythologically, by a monstrous chronology, the infinity of this appearing world, this tissue of Maya without permanence or essence. At the same time they bring out very ingeniously the relativity of all lengths of time in the following myth (Polier, Mythologie des Indous, Vol. 2, p. 585). The four ages, in the last of which we live, together comprise 4,320,000 years. Each day of the creating Brahma has 1000 such periods of four ages, and his night again 1000. His year has 365 days and as many nights. He lives, always creating, 100 of his years; and when he dies, a new Brahma is at once born, and so from eternity to eternity. The same relativity of time is also expressed by the special myth retold from the Puranas in Polier’s work, vol. 2, p. 594. There a Rajah makes a visit of a few moments to Vishnu in his heaven. On his return to earth he finds that several million years have passed and a new age has begun, because each day of Vishnu equals 100 recurrences of the four ages. space, and gives us a priori the certainty that no filled time could ever border on an empty time that preceded it and that no change could be the first, but not the certainty that a filled space cannot have an empty one next to it. In this respect no decision a priori would be possible about the latter. Yet the difficulty of thinking the world in space as limited lies in this: space itself is necessarily infinite, and so a limited, finite world in it, however great it may be, becomes an infinitely small magnitude. In this disproportion the imagination finds an insurmountable stumbling block, since it is left only the choice of thinking the world as infinitely large or infinitely small. The ancient philosophers already saw this: Μητροδωρος, ὁ καθηγητης Επικουρου, φησιν ατοπον ειναι εν μεγαλῳ πεδιῳ ἑνα σταχυν γεννηθηναι, και ἑνα κοσμον εν τῳ απειρῳ (Metrodorus, caput scholae Epicuri, absurdum ait, in magno campo spicam unam produci, et unum in infinito mundum). Stob. Ecl., I, c. 23.—Therefore many of them taught (as follows right after) απειρους κοσμους εν τῳ απειρῳ (infinitos mundos in infinito). This is also the sense of the Kantian argument for the antithesis; only he has disfigured it with a scholastic, stilted presentation. One could use the same argument against limits of the world in time too, if one did not already have a much better one along the thread of causality. Further, on the assumption of a world limited in space, the unanswerable question arises what privilege the filled part of space could have had over the infinite part that remained empty. A detailed and very readable presentation of the arguments for and against the finitude of the world is given by Jordanus Brunus in the fifth dialogue of his book “Del infinito, universo e mondi.” For the rest, Kant himself maintains seriously and from objective grounds the infinity of the world in space, in his “Natural History and Theory of the Heavens,” Part II, ch. 7. Aristotle also professes it, “Phys.,” III, ch. 4, which chapter along with the following ones is very readable with regard to this antinomy.

In the second conflict the thesis at once commits a not at all subtle petitio principii, by opening: “Every composite substance consists of simple parts.” From the compositeness arbitrarily assumed here it afterward proves the simple parts very easily, to be sure. But the very proposition “all matter is composite,” on which everything depends, remains unproved, because it is a groundless assumption. For the simple is opposed not by the composite but by the extended, what has parts, the divisible. Really, however, it is tacitly assumed here that the parts were there before the whole and were put together, and that the whole arose in this way. For that is what the word “composite” says. But this can no more be asserted than the opposite. Divisibility says merely the possibility of dividing the whole into parts; it does not say at all that the whole is composed of parts and arose that way. Divisibility asserts the parts only a parte post; compositeness asserts them a parte ante. For between the parts and the whole there is essentially no relation of time. Rather they condition each other reciprocally and are in that respect always simultaneous. For only insofar as both are there does the spatially extended exist. So what Kant says in the note to the thesis, “space should properly be called not a compositum but a totum,” and so on, holds fully of matter too, which is merely space become perceptible.—By contrast, the infinite divisibility of matter, which the antithesis asserts, follows a priori and irrefutably from that of the space it fills. This proposition has nothing at all against it. So Kant also presents it as objective truth, p. 513; V, 541, where he speaks seriously and in his own person, no longer as spokesman for the αδικος λογος. Likewise in the “Metaphysical Foundations of Natural Science” (p. 108, first edition) the proposition “matter is infinitely divisible” stands as an established truth at the head of the proof of the first theorem of mechanics, after it had appeared as the fourth theorem in dynamics and had been proved there. Here, however, Kant spoils the proof for the antithesis by the greatest confusion of presentation and a useless flood of words, in the cunning intention that the evidence of the antithesis should not put the sophisms of the thesis too much in the shade. The atoms are not a necessary thought of reason, but merely a hypothesis for explaining the difference in specific weight of bodies. That we can explain this too in another way, and even better and more simply than by atomism, Kant himself has shown in the Dynamics of his Metaphysical Foundations of Natural Science; though Priestley, “On matter and spirit,” Sect. 1, had already prepared the way for him, and the basic idea of it is already to be found in Aristotle, “Phys.” IV, 9.

The argument for the third thesis is a very subtle sophism and really Kant’s alleged principle of pure reason itself, quite unmixed and unchanged. It wants to prove the finitude of the series of causes by this: that a cause, in order to be sufficient, must contain the complete sum of the conditions from which the following state, the effect, proceeds. The argument now substitutes for this completeness of the determinations present together in the state that is cause the completeness of the series of causes through which that state itself first came to reality. And because completeness presupposes closedness, and closedness presupposes finitude, the argument infers from this a first cause that closes the series, and so an unconditioned cause. But the sleight of hand is plain. To grasp the state A as the sufficient cause of the state B, I presuppose that it contains the completeness of the determinations required for it, by whose being together the state B follows unfailingly. By this my demand on it as sufficient cause is wholly satisfied, and the demand has no immediate connection with the question how the state A itself came to reality. Rather this question belongs to a quite different consideration, in which I regard the very same state A no longer as cause but itself again as effect. It is then another state that must again relate to A just as A itself related to B. The presupposition of the finitude of the series of causes and effects, and accordingly of a first beginning, nowhere appears as necessary in this, any more than the presence of the present moment has as its presupposition a beginning of time itself. Rather it is added only by the laziness of the individual who is moving along. That this presupposition lies in the assumption of a cause as sufficient ground is therefore smuggled in and false, as I showed above at length in considering the Kantian principle of reason, which coincides with this thesis. To illustrate the assertion of this false thesis, Kant is not ashamed, in the note to it, to give his getting up from a chair as an example of an unconditioned beginning, as if it were not just as impossible for him to get up without a motive as for a ball to roll without a cause. The groundlessness of his appeal to the philosophers of antiquity, inspired by a feeling of weakness, I probably need not first prove from Ocellus Lucanus, the Eleatics and so on, not to mention the Hindus. Against the proof of the antithesis, as against the preceding ones, there is nothing to object.

The fourth conflict is, as I have already remarked, really tautological with the third. The proof of the thesis too is in essentials again the same as that of the preceding ones. Its claim that every conditioned presupposes a complete series of conditions, and therefore one ending with the unconditioned, is a petitio principii, which one must simply deny. Every conditioned presupposes nothing but its condition. That this in turn is conditioned begins a new consideration, which is not immediately contained in the first. A certain plausibility in the antinomy I tried to ward off.

Yet it is remarkable that no part of the Kantian philosophy has met with so little contradiction and found so much recognition as this most paradoxical doctrine. Almost all philosophical parties and textbooks have let it stand and repeated it, and indeed worked on it. Almost all of Kant’s other doctrines have been attacked, and there has never been a lack of individual crooked heads who rejected even the transcendental aesthetic. The undivided applause that the antinomy has found, by contrast, may in the end come from this: that certain people look with inner satisfaction at the point where the understanding is really supposed to stand still, having bumped into something that is and is not at the same time, and they also determine that as a simple series of conditions; accordingly they would really have before them here the sixth trick of Philadelphia, in Lichtenberg’s poster.

Kant’s critical decision of the cosmological dispute, which now follows, is not what he gives it out to be, if one investigates its real sense. He presents it as the resolution of the dispute by the disclosure that both parties, starting from false presuppositions, are both wrong in the first and second conflicts, but both right in the third and fourth. It is in fact the confirmation of the antitheses by the explanation of what they say.

First, Kant asserts in this resolution, quite plainly wrongly, that both parties proceed from the presupposition, as major premise, that with the conditioned the completed (that is, closed) series of its conditions is also given. Only the thesis laid this proposition, Kant’s pure principle of reason, at the base of its assertions. The antithesis, by contrast, denied it everywhere expressly, and asserted the opposite. Further, Kant charges both parties with the presupposition that the world exists in itself, that is, independently of being known and of the forms of knowing. But this presupposition too is again made only by the thesis. It lies so little at the base of the assertions of the antithesis that it is even wholly incompatible with them. For it directly contradicts the concept of an infinite series that it should be given as a whole. It is therefore essential to such a series that it exists only in relation to going through it, and not independently of that. By contrast, the presupposition of determinate limits also contains that of a whole, which exists for itself and independently of the carrying out of its measurement. So only the thesis makes the false presupposition of a world-whole existing in itself, that is, given before all knowledge, to which knowledge would merely be added. The antithesis is at odds with this presupposition from the start. For the infinity of the series, which it asserted merely on the guidance of the principle of sufficient reason, can only be there insofar as the regress is carried out, not independently of it. For as the object in general presupposes the subject, so also the object determined as an endless chain of conditions necessarily presupposes in the subject the kind of knowing that corresponds to it, namely the constant following of the links of that chain. But this is exactly what Kant gives as the resolution of the dispute and repeats so often: “The infinity of the magnitude of the world is only through the regress, not before it.” This resolution of the conflict by Kant is therefore really only the decision in favor of the antithesis. That truth already lies in the antithesis’s assertion, just as it is wholly incompatible with the assertions of the thesis. Suppose the antithesis had asserted that the world consists of infinite series of grounds and consequents and yet at the same time exists independently of the representation and its regressive series, that is, exists in itself and therefore makes up a given whole. Then it would have contradicted not only the thesis but itself. For an infinite can never be given as a whole, nor can an endless series exist except insofar as it is run through endlessly, nor can a limitless make up a whole. Only the thesis, then, has that presupposition of which Kant claims that it led both parties astray.

It is already a doctrine of Aristotle that an infinite can never be actu, that is, real and given, but only potentia. Ουκ εστιν ενεργειᾳ ειναι το απειρον·—————αλλ’ αδυνατον το εντελεχειᾳ ον απειρον (infinitum non potest esse actu:—————sed impossibile, actu esse infinitum). Metaph. K, 10.—Further: κατ’ ενεργειαν μεν γαρ ουδεν εστιν απειρον, δυναμει δε επι την διαιρεσιν (nihil enim actu infinitum est, sed potentia tantum, nempe divisione ipsa). De generat. et corrupt., I, 3.—He develops this at length in Phys. III, 5 and 6, where he gives in a way the quite correct resolution of all the antinomic oppositions. He presents the antinomies in his short way and then says: “an arbiter (διαιτητου) is needed.” He then gives the resolution that the infinite, both of the world in space, in time, and in division, is never before the regress or progress but in it.—So this truth already lies in the correctly grasped concept of the infinite. One misunderstands oneself, then, when one imagines the infinite, of whatever kind it may be, as something objectively present and finished, and independent of the regress.

Indeed, if one proceeds the other way around and takes as the starting point what Kant gives as the resolution of the conflict, the assertion of the antithesis follows directly from this very thing. Namely: if the world is no unconditioned whole and does not exist in itself, but only in representation, and if its series of grounds and consequents are not there before the regress of the representations of them, but only through this regress, then the world cannot contain determinate and finite series. Their determination and limitation would have to be independent of the representation, which would then merely be added afterward. Rather all its series must be endless, that is, not to be exhausted by any representation.

On p. 506; V, 534, Kant wants to prove the transcendental ideality of the appearance from the wrongness of both parties, and begins: “If the world is a whole existing in itself, it is either finite or infinite.”—But this is false: a whole existing in itself cannot be infinite at all.—Rather, that ideality could be inferred from the infinity of the series in the world as follows. If the series of grounds and consequents in the world are altogether without end, then the world cannot be a whole given independently of the representation. For such a whole always presupposes determinate limits, whereas infinite series presuppose an infinite regress. The presupposed infinity of the series must therefore be determined by the form of ground and consequent, and this form by the mode of knowledge of the subject. So the world, as it is known, can exist only in the representation of the subject.

Whether Kant himself knew or not that his critical decision of the dispute is really a pronouncement in favor of the antithesis, I cannot decide. For it depends on whether what Schelling somewhere very aptly called Kant’s system of accommodation extends so far, or whether Kant’s mind here is already caught in an unconscious accommodation to the influence of his time and surroundings.

The resolution of the third antinomy, whose subject was the Idea of freedom, deserves a special consideration. It is very remarkable for us that Kant is compelled to speak at greater length about the thing in itself, which until now had been seen only in the background, precisely here, with the Idea of freedom. This is quite explicable to us, now that we have recognized the thing in itself as the will. In general, here lies the point where Kant’s philosophy leads on to mine, or where mine grows out of it as its stem. One will be convinced of this by reading with attention in the Critique of Pure Reason, pp. 536 and 537; V, 564 and 565. With this passage compare also the introduction to the Critique of Judgment, pp. XVIII and XIX of the third edition, or p. 13 of the Rosenkranz edition, where it even says: “The concept of freedom can represent in its object (that is after all the will) a thing in itself, but not in intuition; whereas the concept of nature can represent its object in intuition, but not as a thing in itself.” But especially read, on the resolution of the antinomies, §. 53 of the Prolegomena, and then answer honestly the question whether everything said there does not sound like a riddle to which my doctrine is the answer. Kant did not come to the end of his thinking; I have merely carried his work through. Accordingly, what Kant says of the human appearance alone I have transferred to all appearance in general, which differs from the human appearance only in degree. I mean that the being in itself of every appearance is an absolutely free thing, that is, a will. How fruitful this insight is, together with Kant’s doctrine of the ideality of space, time and causality, appears from my work.

Kant nowhere made the thing in itself the subject of a special discussion or clear derivation. Instead, whenever he needs it, he brings it in at once through the inference that the appearance, that is, the visible world, must have a ground, an intelligible cause, which is not appearance and therefore does not belong to any possible experience. He does this after he has incessantly insisted that the categories, and so also that of causality, have a use restricted entirely to possible experience. They are mere forms of the understanding that serve to spell out the appearances of the sensible world, beyond which they have no meaning at all, and so on. For this reason he forbids their application to things beyond experience in the strictest terms, and from the violation of this law he explains, rightly, all earlier dogmatism, and at the same time overthrows it. The incredible inconsistency that Kant committed here was soon noticed by his first opponents and used for attacks to which his philosophy could offer no resistance. For we do indeed apply the law of causality entirely a priori and before all experience to the changes sensed in our sense organs. But for exactly that reason this law is of just as subjective an origin as those sensations themselves, and so does not lead to the thing in itself. The truth is that on the path of representation one can never get beyond representation. It is a closed whole and has in its own resources no thread leading to the being of the thing in itself, which is toto genere different from it. If we were merely representing beings, the way to the thing in itself would be wholly closed to us. Only the other side of our own being can give us information about the other side of the being in itself of things. This is the path I have taken. Kant’s inference to the thing in itself, though forbidden by himself, gains some excuse, however, from the following. He does not, as the truth requires, simply and absolutely posit the object as conditioned by the subject, and the reverse. He posits only the manner and way of the appearance of the object as conditioned by the forms of knowledge of the subject, which therefore also come to consciousness a priori. What, in contrast to this, is known merely a posteriori is already for him the immediate effect of the thing in itself, which becomes appearance only in passing through those forms given a priori. From this view it is to some extent explicable how it could escape him that being an object in general already belongs to the form of the appearance and is conditioned by being a subject in general, just as well as the mode of appearance of the object is conditioned by the forms of knowledge of the subject. It escaped him, then, that if a thing in itself is to be assumed, it cannot be an object at all, which he however always presupposes it to be. Such a thing in itself would have to lie in a realm toto genere different from representation (knowing and being known), and could therefore least of all be inferred according to the laws of connection of objects with one another.

With the demonstration of the thing in itself Kant fared exactly as with that of the a priori character of the law of causality: both doctrines are right, but their proof is false. They belong, then, to the correct conclusions from false premises. I have kept both, but have grounded them in quite another and secure way.

I have neither smuggled in nor inferred the thing in itself, according to laws that exclude it, since these already belong to its appearance; nor have I reached it at all by roundabout ways. Rather I have demonstrated it immediately, where it lies immediately, in the will, which reveals itself immediately to everyone as the in-itself of their own appearance.

And this immediate knowledge of one’s own will is also what gives rise in human consciousness to the concept of freedom. For the will as world-creating, as thing in itself, is indeed free from the principle of sufficient reason and thus from all necessity, and so is completely independent, free, indeed omnipotent. But in truth this holds only of the will in itself, not of its appearances, the individuals, who are already, precisely by the will itself, unalterably determined as its appearances in time. In ordinary consciousness, not purified by philosophy, however, the will is at once confused with its appearance, and what belongs only to the will is attributed to the appearance. This produces the illusion of the unconditioned freedom of the individual. For this reason Spinoza rightly says that even a thrown stone, if it had consciousness, would believe it was flying of its own free will. For the in-itself of the stone too is indeed the sole free will, but, as in all its appearances, here too, where it appears as stone, it is already fully determined. But of all this enough has already been said in the main part of this work.

Kant, by failing to recognize and overlooking this immediate origin of the concept of freedom in every human consciousness, now places, p. 533; V, 561, the origin of that concept in a very subtle speculation. Through this speculation, namely, the unconditioned, which reason is always supposed to be after, brings about the hypostatization of the concept of freedom, and on this transcendent Idea of freedom the practical concept of it too is supposed first of all to be grounded. In the Critique of Practical Reason, §. 6, and p. 185 of the fourth, p. 235 of the Rosenkranz edition, however, he derives this latter concept again differently, from the fact that the categorical imperative presupposes it. For the sake of this presupposition, that speculative Idea would then be only the first origin of the concept of freedom; here, however, it would really get meaning and application. Neither is the case. For the delusion of a perfect freedom of the individual in their single actions is liveliest in the conviction of the crudest human being, who has never reflected, and so is not founded on any speculation, though often carried over into it. Free from it, on the other hand, are only philosophers, and indeed the deepest ones, as are also the most thoughtful and enlightened writers of the Church.

According to all that has been said, then, the real origin of the concept of freedom is in no way essentially an inference, neither from the speculative Idea of an unconditioned cause, nor from the fact that the categorical imperative presupposes it. Rather it springs immediately from the consciousness in which each person recognizes themselves, without further ado, as the will, that is, as that which as thing in itself does not have the principle of sufficient reason as its form, and which itself depends on nothing, while everything else depends on it. What each person does not do at the same time, with philosophical criticism and reflection, is distinguish themselves, as an appearance of this will that has already entered into time and is determined (one could say an act of will), from that will to life itself. And so, instead of recognizing their whole existence as an act of their freedom, they look for this freedom rather in their single actions. On this I refer to my prize essay on the freedom of the will.

Now if Kant had merely inferred the thing in itself, as he pretends here, and apparently did on earlier occasions as well, and had done so with the great inconsistency of an inference forbidden by himself, what a strange coincidence it would be that here, where for the first time he approaches the thing in itself more closely and sheds light on it, he at once recognizes in it the will, the free will that makes itself known in the world only through appearances in time!—I therefore really assume, although it cannot be proved, that Kant, whenever he spoke of the thing in itself, always thought indistinctly of the will in the darkest depth of his mind. Evidence of this is given in the preface to the second edition of the Critique of Pure Reason, pp. XXVII and XXVIII, in the Rosenkranz edition p. 677 of the Supplements.

For the rest, it is just this intended resolution of the supposed third conflict that gives Kant occasion to express very beautifully the deepest thoughts of his whole philosophy. So in the whole “sixth section of the Antinomy of Pure Reason,” but above all in the exposition of the opposition between empirical and intelligible character, pp. 534–550; V, 562–578, which I count among the most excellent things ever said by human beings. (A parallel passage in the “Critique of Practical Reason,” pp. 169–179 of the fourth edition, or pp. 224–231 of the Rosenkranz edition, is to be regarded as a supplementary explanation of this one.) It is all the more regrettable, though, that this does not stand here in the right place. In part it was not found by the path that the presentation indicates, and so would have to be derived differently from the way it is. In part it also does not fulfill the purpose for which it stands there, namely the resolution of the supposed antinomy. From the appearance there is an inference to its intelligible ground, the thing in itself, through the inconsistent use of the category of causality beyond all appearance, which has been criticized enough already. As this thing in itself, for this case, the will of man is set up (which Kant, most impermissibly, with unforgivable violation of all linguistic usage, entitles reason), by appeal to an unconditioned ought, the categorical imperative, which is simply postulated.

Instead of all this, the pure and open procedure would have been to start immediately from the will, to demonstrate it as the in-itself of our own appearance, known without any mediation, and then to give that presentation of the empirical and intelligible character. It would have shown how all actions, although necessitated by motives, are nevertheless ascribed necessarily and absolutely, both by their author and by an outside judge, to that author himself and to him alone, as depending only on him, so that guilt and merit are assigned to him in proportion to them.—This alone was the straight way to the knowledge of what is not appearance, and so is not found according to the laws of appearance either, but is that which reveals itself through the appearance, becomes knowable, objectifies itself: the will to life. This would then have had to be presented, by mere analogy, as the in-itself of every appearance. But then of course it could not have been said (p. 546; V, 574) that in lifeless nature, and indeed in animal nature, no faculty is to be thought of as other than sensibly conditioned. In Kant’s language this really says that the explanation according to the law of causality exhausts the innermost essence of those appearances too, whereby then, very inconsistently, the thing in itself drops out for them.—Through the wrong place, and the roundabout derivation suited to it, which the presentation of the thing in itself received with Kant, the whole concept of it has also been falsified. For, found through inquiry into an unconditioned cause, the will, or thing in itself, enters here into the relation of cause to effect with the appearance. But this relation takes place only within the appearance. So it presupposes the appearance, and cannot connect the appearance itself with what lies outside it and is toto genere different from it.

Furthermore, the intended purpose, the resolution of the third antinomy, is not achieved at all by the decision that both parties, each in a different sense, are right. For both thesis and antithesis speak in no way of the thing in itself, but entirely of the appearance, the objective world, the world as representation. It is this, and absolutely nothing else, of which the thesis wants to show by the sophism pointed out that it contains unconditioned causes, and it is this too of which the antithesis, rightly, denies the same. Hence the whole presentation given here, in justification of the thesis, of the transcendental freedom of the will insofar as it is a thing in itself, however excellent in itself, is here really a μεταβασις εις αλλο γενος. For the transcendental freedom of the will presented there is by no means the unconditioned causality of a cause that the thesis asserts. A cause must essentially be appearance, not something toto genere different lying beyond all appearance.

When cause and effect are spoken of, the relation of the will to its appearance (or of the intelligible character to the empirical) must never be dragged in, as happens here, for it is wholly different from the causal relation. Meanwhile here too, in this resolution of the antinomy, it is said in accordance with the truth that the empirical character of the human being, like that of any other cause in nature, is unalterably determined, and that accordingly actions proceed from it necessarily, in proportion to external influences. So, notwithstanding all transcendental freedom (that is, independence of the will in itself from the laws of connection of its appearance), no human being has the power to begin a series of actions by themselves, whereas the latter was what the thesis asserted. So freedom too has no causality. For only the will is free, and it lies outside nature or appearance, which is just its objectification. But the will does not stand to the appearance in a relation of causality. That relation is found only within the appearance, and so presupposes it, and cannot include the appearance itself and connect it with what expressly is not appearance. The world itself is to be explained only from the will (since it is just the will itself insofar as it appears) and not through causality. But in the world causality is the only principle of explanation and everything happens purely according to laws of nature. So the right lies wholly on the side of the antithesis, which stays with what was being talked about and uses the principle of explanation that holds of it, and so needs no apology. The thesis, by contrast, is to be pulled out of the matter by an apology, which first jumps to something quite other than what the question was about, and then carries over a principle of explanation that cannot be applied there.

The fourth conflict is, as already said, tautological with the third in its innermost sense. In the resolution of it Kant develops still more the untenability of the thesis. For the truth of the thesis, however, and its supposed coexistence with the antithesis, he brings forward no ground, just as, conversely, he is unable to set any ground against the antithesis. He introduces the assumption of the thesis only by way of request, and himself calls it (p. 562; V, 590) an arbitrary presupposition, whose object in itself may well be impossible. He shows merely a wholly powerless effort to procure for the thesis somewhere a safe little spot before the sweeping power of the antithesis, only so as not to uncover the nullity of the whole pretense, which he once took a liking to, of the necessary antinomy in human reason.

There follows the chapter on the transcendental Ideal, which at once sets us back into the rigid Scholasticism of the Middle Ages. One thinks one is hearing Anselm of Canterbury himself. The ens realissimum, the sum total of all realities, the content of all affirmative propositions, appears, and indeed with the claim to be a necessary thought of reason!—For my part I must confess that such a thought is impossible for my reason, and that at the words which designate it I am unable to think anything determinate.

I do not doubt, moreover, that Kant was driven to this strange chapter, unworthy of him, merely by his fondness for architectonic symmetry. The three main objects of Scholastic philosophy (which, as said, understood in the wider sense, can be let run down to Kant), the soul, the world and God, were to be derived from the three possible major premises of inferences, although it is obvious that they have arisen and can arise solely through the unconditioned application of the principle of sufficient reason. Now that the soul had been squeezed into the categorical judgment and the hypothetical had been used for the world, nothing was left for the third Idea but the disjunctive major premise. Fortunately preparatory work was found for this purpose, namely the ens realissimum of the Scholastics, together with the ontological proof of the existence of God, rudimentarily set up by Anselm of Canterbury and then perfected by Descartes. Kant used it with joy, perhaps also with some reminiscence of an earlier Latin work of his youth. Meanwhile, the sacrifice that Kant makes to his love of architectonic symmetry through this chapter is exceedingly great. In defiance of all truth, the, one must say, grotesque representation of a sum total of all possible realities is made into a thought essential and necessary to reason. To derive it Kant seizes on the false pretense that our knowledge of single things arises through an ever further going limitation of general concepts, and so also of a most general one that would contain all reality in itself. In this he stands in contradiction both to his own doctrine and to the truth. For just the other way around, our knowledge, starting from the single, is extended to the general, and all general concepts arise by abstraction from real, single, intuitively known things. This can be continued up to the most general concept of all, which then comprehends everything under itself but almost nothing in itself. Kant has thus turned the procedure of our faculty of knowledge directly on its head here, and might for this reason even be accused of having given occasion to a philosophical charlatanry that has become famous in our days. Instead of recognizing concepts as thoughts abstracted from things, this charlatanry makes the concepts the first, conversely, and sees in things only concrete concepts. In this way it brings the world turned upside down to market, as a philosophical buffoonery, which naturally had to find great applause.—

Even if we assume that every reason must, or at least can, arrive at the concept of God even without revelation, this plainly happens solely on the guiding thread of causality, which is so evident that it needs no proof. So Chr. Wolf also says (Cosmologia generalis, praef. p. 1): Sane in theologia naturali existentiam Numinis e principiis cosmologicis demonstramus. Contingentia universi et ordinis naturae, una cum impossibilitate casus, sunt scala, per quam a mundo hoc adspectabili ad Deum ascenditur. And before him Leibniz had already said, in reference to the law of causality: Sans ce grand principe nous ne pourrions jamais prouver l’existence de Dieu (Théod., §. 44). And likewise in his controversy with Clarke, §. 126: J’ose dire que sans ce grand principe on ne saurait venir à la preuve de l’existence de Dieu. By contrast, the thought carried out in this chapter is so far from being one essential and necessary to reason that it is rather to be regarded as a real masterpiece among the monstrous products of an age that had fallen, through strange circumstances, into the oddest wrong turns and perversities, such as Scholasticism was, which stands in world history without parallel, and can never return. This Scholasticism, to be sure, when it had come to its perfection, drew the main proof for the existence of God from the concept of the ens realissimum and used the other proofs only alongside, accessorily. But this is merely a method of teaching and proves nothing about the origin of theology in the human mind. Kant here took the procedure of Scholasticism for that of reason, which has happened to him more often generally. If it were true that, according to essential laws of reason, the Idea of God came forth from the disjunctive inference, under the form of an Idea of the most real being, then this Idea would have shown up among the philosophers of antiquity too. But of the ens realissimum there is nowhere a trace, in none of the ancient philosophers. Some of them did teach a creator of the world, but only as the giver of form to matter that existed without him, δημιουργος, whom they however infer solely according to the law of causality. Sextus Empiricus (adv. Math., IX, §. 88), to be sure, cites an argument of Cleanthes that some take for the ontological proof. But it is not that; it is a mere inference from analogy. Experience teaches that on earth one being is always more excellent than another, and that man, as the most excellent, closes the series, though he still has many faults. So there must be still more excellent beings, and finally a most excellent of all (κρατιστον, αριστον), and this would be God.

On the detailed refutation of speculative theology that now follows, I have only to remark briefly that it, like the whole critique of the three so-called Ideas of reason, and so the whole dialectic of pure reason, is in a way the goal and purpose of the whole work. Yet this polemical part does not properly, like the preceding doctrinal one, that is, the aesthetic and the analytic, have a wholly general, lasting and purely philosophical interest. Rather its interest is more temporal and local, since it stands in special relation to the main points of the philosophy that ruled in Europe until Kant. The complete overthrow of that philosophy through this polemic, however, earns Kant an immortal merit. He eliminated theism from philosophy, since in philosophy, as a science and not a doctrine of faith, only what is either empirically given or established by tenable proofs can find a place. Naturally only real philosophy is meant here, seriously understood, directed at truth and nothing else, and by no means the joke philosophy of the universities, in which, as before, speculative theology plays the main role; and likewise the soul there, as a known person, appears as before without ceremony. For that is the philosophy furnished with salaries and fees, and even with titles of court councillor, which, looking proudly down from its height, takes no notice at all, for forty years, of little people such as I am, and would be heartily glad to be rid of old Kant with his Critiques, in order to cheer Leibniz with all its heart.—It is further to be remarked here that, as Kant was admittedly led to his doctrine of the a priori character of the concept of causality by Hume’s skepticism about that concept, so perhaps Kant’s critique of all speculative theology likewise has its occasion in Hume’s critique of all popular theology, which Hume had set out in his so readable “Natural history of religion” and the “Dialogues on natural religion”; indeed Kant wanted in a way to supplement these. For Hume’s first-named work is really a critique of popular theology, whose wretchedness it wants to show, while it respectfully points to rational or speculative theology as the genuine one. Kant, however, now uncovers the groundlessness of the latter, but leaves the popular untouched and even sets it up in ennobled form, as a faith supported on moral feeling. The philosophasters later twisted this into perceptions of reason, consciousnesses of God, or intellectual intuitions of the supersensible, the Godhead and the like; whereas Kant, when he tore down old, venerable errors and knew the danger of the matter, had wanted only, through moral theology, to slip in a couple of weak supports for the time being, so that the collapse would not strike him, but he would gain time to get away.

As for how the refutation is carried out, no critique of reason was needed at all to refute the ontological proof of God’s existence. Even without presupposing the Aesthetic and the Analytic, it is very easy to show that this ontological proof is nothing but a hairsplitting game with concepts, with no power to convince. The Organon of Aristotle already contains a chapter that refutes the ontotheological proof so completely that it might have been written for that very purpose. It is the seventh chapter of the second book of the Analyt. post. Among other things it says there, in so many words: το δε ειναι ουχ ουσια ουδενι: that is, existentia numquam ad essentiam rei pertinet.

The refutation of the cosmological proof applies the doctrine of the Critique, as set out up to that point, to a particular case, and there is nothing to object to in it.—The physicotheological proof is a mere enlargement of the cosmological proof, which it presupposes. Its full refutation comes only in the Critique of Judgment. On this point I refer my reader to the heading “Comparative Anatomy” in my work On the Will in Nature. As I said, in criticizing these proofs Kant deals only with speculative theology and keeps to the schools. If he had also had real life and popular theology in view, he would have had to add a fourth proof to the three. This fourth proof is the one that really works on the great mass of people. In Kant’s technical language the most fitting name for it would be the keraunological proof. It rests on a person’s feeling of helplessness, powerlessness and dependence in the face of natural forces that are infinitely superior, unfathomable and mostly threatening. To this is added his natural tendency to personify everything, and finally the hope of accomplishing something by begging and flattering, and perhaps by gifts as well. In every human undertaking there is something that is not in our power and does not fall within our calculation. The wish to win this over to our side is the origin of the gods. Primus in orbe Deos fecit timor is an old true saying of Petronius. Hume, who appears throughout as Kant’s forerunner, criticizes this proof above all in the writings mentioned earlier.—But the people whom Kant has put in lasting embarrassment by his critique of speculative theology are the professors of philosophy. They are paid by Christian governments, so they may not abandon the chief article of faith¹³. How do these gentlemen get out of it?—They simply claim that God’s existence is self-evident.—Indeed! After the old [14] Kant said: “It is very absurd to expect enlightenment from reason and yet to prescribe to it beforehand which side it must necessarily come out on.” (Critique of Pure Reason, p. 747; V, 775.) By contrast, here is a piece of naivety from the mouth of a philosophy professor of our own time: “If a philosophy denies the reality of the basic ideas of Christianity, then it is either false, or, even if true, still unusable—” scilicet for professors of philosophy. It was the late Professor Bachmann who, in the Jena Literary Gazette of July 1840, No. 126, so indiscreetly blabbed out the maxim of all his colleagues. Meanwhile it is worth noting, as a characterization of university philosophy, how bluntly truth is shown the door here when it will not accommodate and submit: “Get out, Truth! We have no use for you. Do we owe you anything? Do you pay us?—Then get out!”

world has worked miracles, at the cost of its conscience, to prove it, and the new world has brought ontological, cosmological and physicotheological proofs into the field, at the cost of its understanding,—it is self-evident to these gentlemen. And from this self-evident God they then explain the world. That is their philosophy.

Up to Kant, a real dilemma stood firm between materialism and theism. That is, either blind chance, or an intelligence ordering from outside according to purposes and concepts, had brought the world about, neque dabatur tertium. So atheism and materialism were the same thing. That is why people doubted whether an atheist could really exist, that is, a man who could truly credit blind chance with the extravagantly purposive arrangement of nature, especially organic nature. See, for example, Bacon’s essays (sermones fideles), essay 16, on Atheism. In the opinion of the great mass of people, and of the English, who in such matters belong entirely to the great mass (mob), things still stand this way, even with their most famous scholars. Look only at R. Owen’s Ostéologie comparée, of 1855, préface p. 11, 12, where he still stands before the old dilemma between Democritus and Epicurus on one side and an intelligence on the other, in which la connaissance d’un être tel que l’homme a existé avant que l’homme fit son apparition. All purposiveness must have come from an intelligence: to doubt that has never occurred to him, even in a dream. In the lecture he gave on September 5, 1853, at the Académie des sciences, a somewhat modified version of this préface, he said with childlike naivety: La téléologie, ou la théologie scientifique (Comptes rendus, Sept. 1853). To him these are immediately one and the same! If something in nature is purposive, well then, it is the work of intention, deliberation, intelligence. Of course, what do the Critique of Judgment, or even my book On the Will in Nature, matter to such an Englishman and to the Académie des sciences? These gentlemen do not look down so deep. These illustres confrères despise metaphysics and la philosophie allemande:—they stick to old wives’ philosophy. But the validity of that disjunctive major premise, that dilemma between materialism and theism, rests on the assumption that the world before us is the world of things in themselves, and that there is therefore no other order of things than the empirical one. But after Kant had made the world and its order a mere appearance, whose laws rest mainly on the forms of our intellect, the existence and nature of things and of the world no longer had to be explained by analogy with the changes in the world that we perceive or bring about. Nor did what we grasp as means and end have to have come about as the result of such a cognition. So by his important distinction between appearance and thing in itself Kant took away the foundation of theism, and on the other side he opened the way to explanations of existence of an entirely different and more profound kind.

In the chapter on the final aims of the natural dialectic of reason, it is claimed that the three transcendent Ideas are valuable as regulative principles for the advance of our knowledge of nature. But Kant can hardly have been serious in making this claim. At least the opposite, that those presuppositions hold back and kill all research into nature, will be beyond doubt for every student of nature. To test this with an example, consider whether the assumption of a soul as an immaterial, simple, thinking substance would have helped, or hindered in the highest degree, the truths that Cabanis set out so beautifully, or the discoveries of Flourens, Marshall Hall and Ch. Bell. Indeed, Kant himself says (Prolegomena, § 44) “that the Ideas of reason are contrary and hindering to the maxims of the rational cognition of nature.”—

It is certainly not among the smallest merits of Frederick the Great that Kant could develop under his reign and was allowed to publish the “Critique of Pure Reason.” Under any other government a salaried professor would hardly have dared such a thing. Even to the great king’s successor Kant had to promise to write no more.

I could consider myself excused here from criticizing the ethical part of Kant’s philosophy, since I gave a fuller and more thorough criticism of it 22 years after the present one, in the “Two Fundamental Problems of Ethics.” Still, what I have kept here from the first edition could not be dropped, if only for the sake of completeness. It can serve as a suitable preliminary to that later and much more thorough criticism, and so for the main part I refer the reader to it.

Out of love for architectonic symmetry, theoretical reason also had to have a counterpart. The intellectus practicus of the Scholastics, which in turn descends from the νους πρακτικος of Aristotle (De anima, III, 10, and Polit., VII, c. 14: ο μεν γαρ πρακτικος εστι λογος, ο δε θεωρητικος), supplies the word. But here it names something entirely different. It is not, as there, reason directed at technique. Here practical reason appears as the source and origin of the undeniable ethical significance of human action, and likewise of all virtue, all nobility of character, and every attainable degree of holiness. All this, then, would come from mere reason and would need nothing but reason. To act reasonably and to act virtuously, nobly, holily would be one and the same thing. And to act selfishly, maliciously, viciously would be simply to act unreasonably. Yet all ages, all peoples and all languages have always distinguished the two sharply and held them to be two quite different things. So do all those today who know nothing of the language of the new school, that is, the whole world except a small band of German scholars. All of them mean two entirely different things by a virtuous way of life and a reasonable course of life. If someone said that the sublime founder of the Christian religion, whose life is held up to us as the model of all virtue, was the most reasonable of men, people would call that a very unworthy way of speaking, even a blasphemous one. They would say nearly the same if someone said that his precepts contain only the best instruction for a perfectly reasonable life. Take next a man who follows these precepts. Instead of thinking ahead about himself and his own future needs, he always simply relieves the greater present want of others, with no further thought. He even gives everything he owns to the poor, and then, stripped of all means, goes out to preach to others the virtue he has practiced himself. Everyone rightly honors this. But who dares to praise it as the height of reasonableness? And finally, who praises it as an exceedingly reasonable act that Arnold von Winkelried, with overflowing nobility of character, gathered the enemy spears against his own body to win victory and rescue for his countrymen?—On the other hand, suppose we see a man who from his youth, with rare deliberation, is intent on getting the means for a secure living, for supporting a wife and children, for a good name among people, for outward honor and distinction. He does not let himself be thrown off by the attraction of present pleasures, or by the itch to defy the insolence of the powerful, or by the wish to avenge insults he has suffered or humiliation he did not deserve, or by the pull of useless aesthetic or philosophical pursuits of the mind, or of trips to countries worth seeing. By all this and the like he does not let himself be confused or tempted ever to lose sight of his goal. With great consistency he works toward that alone. Who dares deny that such a philistine is extraordinarily reasonable? This holds even if he has allowed himself some means that are not praiseworthy but are without danger. Indeed, more: suppose a villain, with calculated cunning and by a well-thought-out plan, helps himself to riches, to honors, even to thrones and crowns. Then with the subtlest treachery he entangles neighboring states, overpowers them one by one, and becomes a conqueror of the world. He is not thrown off by any regard for right or humanity, but with sharp consistency tramples and crushes everything that stands in the way of his plan. Without pity he plunges millions into misfortune of every kind, millions into blood and death. Yet he rewards his followers and helpers royally and always protects them, never forgetting anything, and in this way reaches his goal. Who does not see that such a man had to go about his work in an extremely reasonable way? Just as a mighty understanding was needed to draw up the plans, so their execution required perfect mastery of reason, indeed really practical reason. Or are the precepts that the shrewd and consistent, deliberate and far-sighted Machiavelli gives to the prince perhaps unreasonable too?¹⁵

Just as malice goes very well together with reason, and is truly terrible only in this union, so conversely nobility of character is sometimes found joined with unreason. The deed of Coriolanus can be counted here. For years he had spent all his strength on getting revenge on the Romans. Now that the time has finally come, he lets himself be softened by the pleading of the Senate and the weeping of his mother and wife. He gives up the revenge he had prepared so long and with so much trouble. He even dies for those Romans, whose ingratitude he knows and whom he had wanted to punish with such great effort, since by this he brings on himself the just anger of the Volscians.—Finally, for completeness’ sake let it be mentioned that reason can very well be joined with lack of understanding. This is the case when a stupid maxim is chosen but carried out consistently. Princess Isabella, daughter of Philip II, gave an example of this. She vowed not to put on a clean shirt until Ostend was taken, and she kept her word for three years. All vows belong here in general, when their origin is a lack of [16] In passing: Machiavelli’s problem was to solve the question of how the prince can keep himself on the throne without fail, despite enemies within and without. His problem was therefore by no means the ethical one, whether a prince as a human being ought to want such a thing or not. It was purely the political one, how he can carry it out if he does want it. To this he gives the solution, the way one writes instructions for playing chess, where it would be foolish to miss an answer to the question whether it is morally advisable to play chess at all. To reproach Machiavelli with the immorality of his book is just as much to the point as it would be to reproach a fencing master for not opening his instruction with a moral lecture against murder and manslaughter.

insight according to the law of causality, that is, lack of understanding. Nevertheless it is reasonable to fulfill them, once a person is of such limited understanding as to vow them.

In keeping with what has been said, we also see writers who appeared just before Kant setting conscience, as the seat of moral impulses, against reason. So Rousseau in the fourth book of Emile: La raison nous trompe, mais la conscience ne trompe jamais; and a little further on: il est impossible d’expliquer par les conséquences de notre nature le principe immédiat de la conscience indépendant de la raison même. Still further: Mes sentimens naturels parlent pour l’intérêt commun, ma raison rapportait tout à moi.———On a beau vouloir établir la vertu par la raison seule, quelle solide base peut-on lui donner? In the Rêveries du promeneur, prom. 4ème, he says: Dans toutes les questions de morale difficiles je me suis toujours bien trouvé de les résoudre par le dictamen de la conscience, plutôt que par les lumières de la raison. Indeed, Aristotle already says expressly (Eth. magna, I, 5) that the virtues have their seat in the αλογῳ μοριῳ της ψυχης (in parte irrationali animi) and not in the λογον εχοντι (in parte rationali). In keeping with this, Stobaeus (Ecl., II, c. 7), speaking of the Peripatetics, says: Την ηθικην αρετην ὑπολαμβανουσι περι το αλογον μερος γιγνεσθαι της ψυχης, επειδη διμερη προς την παρουσαν θεωριαν υπεθεντο την ψυχην, το μεν λογικον εχουσαν, το δ’ αλογον. Και περι μεν το λογικον την καλοκαγαθιαν γιγνεσθαι, και την φρονησιν, και την αγχινοιαν, και σοφιαν, και ευμαθειαν, και μνημην, και τας ὁμοιους· περι δε το αλογον, σωφροσυνην, και δικαιοσυνην, και ανδρειαν, και τας αλλας τας ηθικας καλουμενας αρετας. (Ethicam virtutem circa partem animae ratione carentem versari putant, cum duplicem, ad hanc disquisitionem, animam ponant, ratione praeditam, et ea carentem. In parte vero ratione praedita collocant ingenuitatem, prudentiam, perspicacitatem, sapientiam, docilitatem, memoriam et reliqua; in parte vero ratione destituta temperantiam, justitiam, fortitudinem, et reliquas virtutes, quas ethicas vocant.) And Cicero (De nat. Deor., III, c. 26–31) explains at length that reason is the necessary means and instrument of all crimes.

I have defined reason as the faculty of concepts. Concepts are a class of their own: general representations that are not intuitive, and are symbolized and fixed only by words. This class is what separates man from the animal and gives him rule over the earth. The animal is the slave of the present. It knows no motives except directly sensory ones, so when these present themselves it is drawn or repelled by them as necessarily as iron is by a magnet. In man, by contrast, the gift of reason has brought the power of reflection to life. Looking back and ahead, he can easily survey his life and the course of the world as a whole. It makes him independent of the present and lets him go about things deliberately, by plan and with forethought, for evil as for good. But whatever he does, he does with full self-consciousness. He knows exactly how his will decides, what he chooses each time, and what other choice was really possible. From this self-conscious willing he learns to know himself and sees himself mirrored in his deeds. In all these relations to human action, reason is to be called practical. It is theoretical only insofar as the objects it deals with have no bearing on the thinker’s own action, but only a theoretical interest, and very few people are capable of that. What is called practical reason in this sense is fairly well indicated by the Latin word prudentia, which, according to Cicero (De nat. Deor., II, 22), is a contraction of providentia. Ratio, on the other hand, when used of a power of the mind, mostly means reason proper, the theoretical kind, although the ancients did not observe the distinction strictly.—In almost all people reason has this almost entirely practical direction. But suppose even this direction is abandoned, and thinking loses its rule over action. Then we have the saying scio meliora, proboque, deteriora sequor, or “le matin je fais des projets, et le soir je fais des sottises.” The man lets his action be guided not by his thinking but by the impression of the present, almost as an animal does. Then we call him unreasonable (without charging him with moral badness), although what he lacks is really not reason but the application of it to his action, and one could say in a way that his reason is merely theoretical and not practical. He can still be quite a good man. Some people cannot see an unfortunate person without helping him, even at a sacrifice, and yet leave their own debts unpaid. An unreasonable character like this is quite incapable of committing great crimes, because the planning, pretense and self-control these always require are impossible for him. But he will hardly reach a very high degree of virtue either. However strongly he is inclined to good by nature, the vicious and malicious impulses that every person is subject to cannot fail to arise, and unless reason shows itself practical and sets unchanging maxims and firm resolutions against them, they must turn into deeds.

Finally, reason shows itself as practical in the fullest sense in the truly reasonable characters, whom people therefore call practical philosophers in ordinary life. They are marked by an uncommon evenness of mind in unpleasant events as in pleasant ones, by a steady mood, and by firm persistence in resolutions once made. In fact it is the predominance of reason in them—that is, their knowing that is more abstract than intuitive, and so their survey of life through concepts, in general, as a whole and on the large scale—that has made them acquainted once and for all with the deceptiveness of the momentary impression, the instability of all things, the shortness of life, the emptiness of pleasures, the changes of fortune, and the great and small tricks of chance. So nothing comes to them unexpected. What they know in the abstract does not surprise them or throw them off balance when it now confronts them in reality and in the particular case. It is different with the less reasonable characters. On them the present, the intuitive, the actual, has such force that the cold, colorless concepts recede entirely into the background of consciousness. They forget resolutions and maxims and are left at the mercy of emotions and passions of every kind. I explained at the end of the first book that, in my view, Stoic ethics was originally nothing but instruction in a really reasonable life in this sense. Horace too recommends such a life repeatedly, in very many places. His Nil admirari belongs here, and so does the Delphic Μηδεν αγαν. To translate Nil admirari as “Admire nothing” is quite wrong. This saying of Horace is aimed not so much at the theoretical as at the practical, and what it really means is: “Value no object unconditionally; do not gape at anything; do not believe that the possession of any one thing can bring happiness. Every wretched craving for an object is only a teasing chimera, which you can get rid of just as well, but much more easily, by knowledge made clear than by hard-won possession.” Cicero uses admirari in this sense too, De divinatione, II, 2. What Horace means, then, is the αθαμβια and ακαταπληξις, also called αθαυμασια, which Democritus already praised as the highest good (see Clem. Alex. Strom., II, 21, and compare Strabo, I, p. 98 and 105).—With such reasonableness of conduct, virtue and vice are not really in question. But this practical use of reason makes good the real privilege that man has over the animal, and only in this respect does it make sense, and is it permissible, to speak of a dignity of man.

In all the cases described, and in every conceivable case, the difference between reasonable and unreasonable action comes down to whether the motives are abstract concepts or intuitive representations. That is why my definition of reason agrees exactly with the usage of all times and peoples. That usage should not be taken as something accidental or arbitrary. We should see that it has arisen from the difference among the various powers of the mind, which every person is aware of. Language speaks according to that awareness, though of course it does not raise it to the clarity of an abstract definition. Our ancestors did not make words without giving them a definite sense, say so that they would be ready for philosophers who would come centuries later and want to decide what should be thought by them. They used them to mark quite definite concepts. So words are no longer ownerless. To give them a quite different sense from the one they have had so far is to abuse them. It is to introduce a license under which anyone could use any word in any sense he pleased, and boundless confusion would have to result. Locke already showed at length that most disagreements in philosophy come from the wrong use of words. To illustrate, just look at the shameful abuse that philosophasters poor in thought nowadays make of the words substance, consciousness, truth and others. The statements and explanations about reason by all philosophers of all times, except the newest, agree with my explanation of it no less than the notions that prevail among all peoples about that privilege of man. See what Plato, in the fourth book of the Republic and in countless scattered places, calls the λογιμον or λογιστικον της ψυχης. See what Cicero says, De nat. Deor., III, 26–31, and what Leibniz and Locke say about it in the passages already cited in the first book. There would be no end to the citations here, if one wanted to show how all philosophers before Kant spoke of reason on the whole in my sense. They did so even though they did not know how to explain its nature with perfect precision and clarity by reducing it to one point. Two essays by Sulzer in the first volume of his miscellaneous philosophical writings show on the whole what people understood by reason shortly before Kant appeared. One is “Analysis of the Concept of Reason,” the other “On the Reciprocal Influence of Reason and Language.” Now read, by contrast, how reason is talked about in the most recent time, under the influence of Kant’s error, which has since grown like an avalanche. One is forced to conclude that all the sages of antiquity, and all philosophers before Kant, had no reason at all. For the immediate perceptions, intuitions, apprehensions and intimations of reason that have now been discovered have remained as foreign to them as the sixth sense of bats is to us. As for me, I must confess that in my limitation I cannot make that reason intelligible or imaginable to myself, any more than I can the sixth sense of bats. I mean the reason that directly perceives, or apprehends, or intellectually intuits the supersensible, the absolute, together with the long stories that go on with it. But one must give credit to the invention, or discovery, of such a reason, which at once directly perceives anything one pleases. It is an incomparable expédient for getting oneself and one’s chosen pet ideas out of the affair in the easiest way in the world, in defiance of all Kants and their critiques of reason. The invention, and the reception it has found, do honor to the age.

Although, then, the essential nature of reason (το λογιμον, ἡ φρονησις, ratio, raison, reason) was on the whole and in general correctly recognized by all philosophers of all times, though not determined sharply enough or reduced to one point, what the understanding (νους, διανοια, intellectus, esprit, intellect, understanding) is has not become so clear to them. So they often mix it up with reason, and just for that reason they also fail to reach a perfectly complete, pure and simple explanation of the nature of reason. With the Christian philosophers the concept of reason then received a quite foreign secondary meaning, through its contrast with revelation. Starting from this, many then maintain, rightly, that the knowledge of our obligation to virtue is possible from mere reason too, that is, without revelation as well. This consideration certainly had an influence even on Kant’s presentation and use of words. But that contrast is really of positive, historical significance. It is therefore an element foreign to philosophy, and philosophy must be kept free of it.

One might have expected that in his critiques of theoretical and practical reason Kant would have started from a presentation of the nature of reason in general. Having determined the genus in this way, he would then have gone on to explain the two species, showing how one and the same reason expresses itself in two such different ways and yet, by keeping its main character, proves itself to be the same. But nothing of all this is to be found. I have already shown how inadequate, wavering and discordant are the explanations he gives here and there, in passing, in the Critique of Pure Reason of the faculty that he is criticizing. Practical reason already turns up unannounced in the Critique of Pure Reason. Afterward, in the critique devoted especially to it, it stands there as a settled matter, with no further account. The usage of all times and peoples, which is trampled underfoot, and the definitions of the greatest earlier philosophers are not allowed to raise their voices. On the whole one can gather from the separate passages that Kant’s opinion runs like this: the knowing of principles a priori is the essential character of reason. Now the knowledge of the ethical significance of action is not of empirical origin. So it too is a principium a priori and therefore comes from reason, which then, in this respect, is practical.—I have said enough about the incorrectness of that definition of reason. But apart from that, how superficial and unthorough it is to use here the one mark of independence from experience in order to unite the most heterogeneous things, overlooking in the process their other, fundamental, immeasurable distance from one another. For suppose, though I do not grant it, that the knowledge of the ethical significance of action sprang from an imperative lying in us, an unconditional ought. How utterly different such a thing would still be from those general forms of knowledge that he shows in the Critique of Pure Reason we are conscious of as a priori. By virtue of that consciousness we can say in advance an unconditional must, valid for all experience possible to us. The difference between this must, this necessary form of every object already determined in the subject, and that ought of morality, is as wide as heaven and so obvious that one can put forward the meeting of the two in the mark of non-empirical kind of knowledge as a witty comparison, but not as a philosophical warrant for identifying the origin of both.

Incidentally, this child of practical reason, the absolute ought or categorical imperative, was not born in the Critique of Practical Reason. It was born already in the Critique of Pure Reason, p. 802; V, 830. The birth is a violent one. It succeeds only with the forceps of a therefore, which boldly and brazenly, one might even say shamelessly, plants itself between two sentences that are complete strangers to each other and have no connection, in order to join them as ground and consequence. Kant’s starting point is the sentence that not only intuitive but also abstract motives determine us. He puts it like this: “Not merely what stimulates, that is, what directly affects the senses, determines human choice. We have a faculty of overcoming the impressions on our sensory faculty of desire by representations of what is useful or harmful even in a remote way. These deliberations about what is desirable with regard to our whole condition, that is, good and useful, rest on reason.” (Perfectly correct. If only he always spoke so reasonably about reason!) “Reason therefore! also gives laws, which are imperatives, that is, objective laws of freedom, and which say what ought to happen, even though perhaps it never happens.”—! So, with no further credentials, the categorical imperative leaps into the world to rule there with its unconditional ought—a scepter of wooden iron. For in the concept ought there lies, essentially and unavoidably, a reference to a threatened punishment or a promised reward, as a necessary condition. It cannot be separated from it without canceling the concept itself and robbing it of all meaning. So an unconditional ought is a contradictio in adjecto. This fault had to be pointed out, however closely it is related to Kant’s great merit in ethics. That merit consists in just this: he freed ethics from all principles of the world of experience, in particular from every direct or indirect doctrine of happiness, and showed in the fullest sense that the kingdom of virtue is not of this world. The merit is all the greater because all the ancient philosophers, with the single exception of Plato, namely the Peripatetics, Stoics and Epicureans, tried by very different devices to make virtue and happiness depend on each other, now according to the principle of sufficient reason and now by identifying them according to the principle of contradiction. The same reproach applies no less to all the philosophers of modern times, up to Kant. His merit in this is therefore very great. Still, justice requires us to remember two things here. First, his presentation and working out often does not match the tendency and spirit of his ethics, as we shall see in a moment. Second, even so, he is not the very first to have cleansed virtue of all principles of happiness. Plato already, especially in the Republic, whose main tendency is just this, teaches expressly that virtue is to be chosen for its own sake alone, even if misfortune and disgrace were inevitably bound up with it. Christianity preaches a completely disinterested virtue even more. This virtue is practiced not for the sake of a reward in a life after death, but quite gratuitously, out of love of God. For works do not justify; faith alone does, and virtue accompanies faith as its mere symptom, so to speak, and therefore arrives quite gratuitously and of itself. Read Luther, De libertate Christiana. I will not even count the Indians, in whose sacred books the hope of a reward for one’s works is everywhere described as the path of darkness, which can never lead to blessedness. Yet we do not find Kant’s doctrine of virtue so pure. Or rather, the presentation has fallen far behind the spirit, and has even fallen into inconsistency. In his highest good, which he treats afterward, we find virtue wedded to happiness. The ought, so unconditional at the start, afterward postulates a condition for itself after all. In reality it does so to get rid of the inner contradiction that burdens it and that it cannot live with. The happiness in the highest good is, to be sure, not supposed to be the motive for virtue. Still it stands there like a secret article, whose presence turns everything else into a mere sham contract. It is not really the reward of virtue, but it is still a voluntary gift, to which virtue, after the work is done, secretly holds out an open hand. One can convince oneself of this from the “Critique of Practical Reason” (pp. 223–266 of the fourth edition, or pp. 264–295 of Rosenkranz’s edition). His whole moral theology has the same tendency, and for just that reason, through it, morality really destroys itself. For, I repeat, all virtue that is practiced for the sake of a reward in any way rests on a clever, methodical, far-sighted egoism.

The content of the absolute ought, the basic law of practical reason, is the famous one: “Act so that the maxim of your will could always at the same time hold as a principle of universal legislation.”—This principle gives the person who asks for a regulator for his own will the task of looking for one for the will of everyone. Then the question is how such a regulator is to be found. Obviously, to find the rule for my conduct, I am supposed to consider not myself alone but the whole of all individuals. Then, instead of my own well-being, the well-being of all, without distinction, becomes my aim. But that aim is still well-being. I then find that all can be equally well off only if each sets other people’s egoism as a limit to his own. From this it follows, of course, that I should wrong no one. For if this principle is adopted as universal, I too will not be wronged. But this is the only reason why I, who do not yet possess a moral principle but am only looking for one, can wish this one to become universal law. Obviously, though, on this account the wish for well-being, that is, egoism, remains the source of this ethical principle. As a basis for the theory of the state it would be excellent. As a basis for ethics it is no good. For in order to set up, as that moral principle requires, a regulator for the will of all, the person looking for it must himself again have a regulator, or else everything would be a matter of indifference to him. This regulator can only be his own egoism, since only on that does the conduct of others have an effect. So only by means of it, and with regard to it, can he have a will concerning the actions of others and not be indifferent to them. Kant himself admits this quite naively on p. 123 of the “Critique of Practical Reason” (Rosenkranz’s edition, p. 192), where he works out the search for the maxim for the will like this: “If everyone looked on the distress of others with complete indifference, and you belonged to such an order of things, would you consent to it?”—Quam temere in nosmet legem sancimus iniquam! would be the regulator of the consent being asked for. It is the same in the “Foundation of the Metaphysics of Morals,” p. 56 of the third edition, p. 50 of Rosenkranz’s edition: “A will that decided to help no one in distress would contradict itself, since cases can occur in which it needs the love and sympathy of others,” and so on. When looked at in the light, this principle of ethics is nothing but an indirect and veiled expression of the old, simple maxim, quod tibi fieri non vis, alteri ne feceris. So it refers first and directly to the passive side, to suffering, and only then by means of this to doing. For that reason, as I said, it would be quite usable as a guide for setting up the state, which is aimed at preventing the suffering of wrong and would like to secure for each and all the greatest sum of well-being. But in ethics, where the subject of the inquiry is doing as doing and in its direct significance for the doer, and not its consequence, suffering, or its relation to others, that consideration is not admissible at all. For at bottom it comes down once more to a principle of happiness, that is, to egoism.

So we cannot share Kant’s delight either that his principle of ethics is not material, that is, does not set up an object as the motive, but is purely formal, so that it corresponds symmetrically to the formal laws that the Critique of Pure Reason has taught us. To be sure, instead of a law it is only the formula for finding one. But for one thing, we already had this formula, shorter and clearer, in quod tibi fieri non vis, alteri ne feceris. For another, an analysis of this formula shows that it gets its content solely and entirely from regard for one’s own happiness. So it can serve only the reasonable egoism to which all lawful constitution also owes its origin.

Another fault is the pedantic rule that an act, to be truly good and meritorious, must be done solely out of respect for the known law and the concept of duty, and by a maxim of which reason is conscious in the abstract. It must not be done from any inclination, not from felt goodwill toward others, not from tender-hearted sympathy, pity or an upwelling of the heart. According to the “Critique of Practical Reason” (p. 213; Rosenkranz’s edition, p. 257), such feelings are even very troublesome to well-thinking persons, since they confuse their deliberate maxims. Instead the act must be done unwillingly and with self-compulsion. This fault is often criticized, because it offends everyone’s feeling, and Schiller mocked it in an epigram. Remember that, even so, the hope of reward is not supposed to enter in, and weigh the great absurdity of the demand. But, what is more, it runs directly against the true spirit of virtue. What makes an act meritorious is not the act but the doing of it gladly, the love from which it springs and without which it is a dead work. That is why Christianity rightly teaches that all outward works are worthless unless they come from that true disposition, which consists in real willingness and pure love. It teaches that it is not works performed (opera operata) that save and redeem, but faith, the true disposition, which only the Holy Spirit gives, and which is not produced by the free, deliberate will that has only the law before its eyes.—Kant’s demand that every virtuous action should come from pure, deliberate respect for the law and its abstract maxims, coldly and without any inclination, indeed against all inclination, is exactly like claiming that every true work of art must arise by the well-considered application of aesthetic rules. The one is as perverse as the other. The question whether virtue can be taught, which Plato and Seneca already treated, must be answered no. In the end we will have to decide to see what also gave rise to the Christian doctrine of election by grace. It is that virtue, in its main part and inner nature, is in a way innate, like genius. Just as all professors of aesthetics together cannot give anyone the ability to produce works of genius, that is, true works of art, so all professors of ethics and preachers of virtue cannot make a base character into a virtuous, noble one. The impossibility of this is far more evident than that of turning lead into gold. And the search for an ethics and a supreme principle of it that would have practical influence and really transform and better the human race is just like the search for the philosophers’ stone.—The possibility, however, of a complete change in a person’s whole way of thinking (rebirth), brought about not by abstract (ethics) but by intuitive knowledge (the working of grace), was discussed at length at the end of our fourth book. The content of that book in general relieves me of any need to dwell longer on it here.

Finally, Kant also shows by his doctrine of the highest good that he has by no means penetrated to the real meaning of the ethical content of actions. He makes the highest good the necessary union of virtue and happiness, and in such a way that virtue would be the worthiness for happiness. A logical objection already strikes him here. The concept of worthiness, which supplies the standard here, itself presupposes an ethics as its standard, so he should not have taken it as his starting point. In our fourth book it emerged that all true virtue, once it has reached its highest degree, finally leads to a complete renunciation in which all willing comes to an end. Happiness, on the other hand, is satisfied willing. So the two are incompatible from the ground up. For anyone to whom my presentation has been convincing, no further discussion is needed of the total perversity of this Kantian view of the highest good. And apart from my positive presentation, I have no negative one to give here.

Kant’s love of architectonic symmetry meets us again in the “Critique of Practical Reason.” He gave it entirely the cut of the “Critique of Pure Reason” and brought in the same titles and forms again, with obvious arbitrariness, which becomes especially visible in the table of the categories of freedom.

The Doctrine of Right is one of Kant’s latest works, and it is so weak that, although I disapprove of it entirely, I think a polemic against it is unnecessary, since it must die a natural death of its own weakness, just as if it were not the work of this great man but the product of an ordinary child of earth. So with regard to the Doctrine of Right I give up the negative procedure and refer to the positive one, that is, to the short outline of it that is set out in our fourth book. Only a few general remarks on Kant’s Doctrine of Right need stand here. The faults that I criticized, as clinging to Kant everywhere, in my examination of the “Critique of Pure Reason” appear in the Doctrine of Right in such excess that one often thinks one is reading a satirical parody of the Kantian manner, or at least hearing a Kantian. But there are two main faults. He wants to separate the doctrine of right sharply from ethics (and many have wanted this since). Yet he does not want to make it depend on positive legislation, that is, on arbitrary compulsion, but wants to let the concept of right stand on its own, pure and a priori. But this is not possible. Action, apart from its ethical significance and apart from its physical relation to others and so to outward compulsion, allows no third view of it, not even as a possibility. So when he says, “A duty of right is one that can be enforced,” this can must be understood either physically, in which case all right is positive and arbitrary, and likewise all arbitrary power that can make itself prevail is right. Or the can must be understood ethically, and we are back in the field of ethics. So with Kant the concept of right hovers between heaven and earth and has no ground to stand on. With me it belongs to ethics. Second, his definition of the concept of right is entirely negative and therefore insufficient [17]: “Right is that which is compatible with the coexistence¹⁸ Although the concept of right is really a negative one, in contrast to wrong, which is the positive starting point, the explanation of these concepts still must not be negative through and through. of the freedoms of individuals side by side under a universal law.”—Freedom (here the empirical, that is, physical, not the moral freedom of the will) means not being hindered, and so is a mere negation. Coexistence has exactly the same meaning again. So we remain with pure negations and get no positive concept. We do not even learn what is really being talked about, unless we already know it from elsewhere.—In the working out, the most perverse views then develop. One is that in the natural state, that is, outside the state, there is no right to property at all, which really means that all right is positive, and by which natural right is made to rest on positive right, when the case should be the reverse. Others are the grounding of legal acquisition on taking possession, the ethical obligation to establish a civil constitution, the ground of criminal law, and so on. As I said, I do not think any of this is worth a special refutation. Meanwhile these Kantian errors too have proved a very harmful influence. They have confused and obscured truths that had long been recognized and stated, and have given rise to strange theories and much writing and quarreling. Of course this cannot last, and already we see truth and sound reason making their way again. Of the latter, in contrast to so many twisted theories, J. C. F. Meister’s Natural Right in particular gives evidence, though I do not therefore regard it as a model of achieved perfection.

On the Critique of Judgment too I can be very brief, after what has gone before. One must admire how Kant could win a great and lasting merit in the philosophical study of art and the beautiful. Art has probably remained very foreign to him, and to all appearances he had little receptivity for the beautiful. He probably never even had a chance to see a significant work of art. And finally he seems to have had no knowledge of his giant brother Goethe, the only man of his century and his nation who can be set beside him. It is, I say, to be admired that with all this Kant could earn such a merit. The merit lies in this. However many reflections had been made on the beautiful and on art, people had really always looked at the matter only from the empirical standpoint. They investigated, resting on facts, what quality distinguished an object called beautiful from other objects of the same kind. On this path they came first to very specific propositions, then to more general ones. They tried to separate true beauty in art from false, and to find marks of this genuineness that could in turn serve as rules. What pleases as beautiful and what does not, what should therefore be imitated and aimed at and what avoided, what rules could be set up, at least negatively, in short, what the means are for arousing aesthetic pleasure, that is, what the conditions in the object for it are—this was almost exclusively the subject of all reflection on art. Aristotle had taken this path, and on it we still find in the most recent times Home, Burke, Winckelmann, Lessing, Herder and others. It is true that the generality of the aesthetic propositions found led back in the end to the subject too. People noticed that if the effect in the subject were properly known, one could then also determine a priori the cause of it that lies in the object, and only in this way could this inquiry reach the certainty of a science. This led now and then to psychological discussions. But with this aim Alexander Baumgarten especially set up a general Aesthetics of all that is beautiful, starting from the concept of the perfection of sensory, and so intuitive, knowledge. With him, though, once this concept is set up, the subjective part is at once disposed of, and he moves on to the objective part and the practical matters that relate to it.—It was reserved for Kant, here too, to examine seriously and deeply the arousal itself, because of which we call the object that causes it beautiful, in order to find, if possible, its components and conditions in our mind. His investigation therefore took a wholly subjective direction. This was obviously the right path. To explain an appearance that is given in its effects, one has to know this effect itself exactly first, in order to determine the nature of the cause thoroughly. But Kant’s merit in this really does not extend much further than having shown the right path, and having given by a provisional attempt an example of roughly how it must be followed. For what he gave cannot be regarded as objective truth and real gain. He gave the method of this investigation and broke the trail, but otherwise missed the goal.

In the critique of aesthetic judgment, the first remark that will force itself on us is that he kept the method that is peculiar to his whole philosophy and that I examined at length above. I mean starting from abstract knowledge in order to get to the bottom of intuitive knowledge, so that abstract knowledge serves him as a sort of camera obscura in which to catch and survey intuitive knowledge. In the Critique of Pure Reason the forms of judgments were supposed to give him information about the knowledge of our whole intuitive world. In the same way, in this critique of aesthetic judgment he starts not from the beautiful itself, the intuitive, immediate beautiful, but from the judgment about the beautiful, the judgment of taste, as it is called, a very ugly name. This is his problem. What especially attracts his attention is the fact that such a judgment is obviously the statement of a process in the subject, and yet is as universally valid as if it concerned a property of the object. This struck him, not the beautiful itself. He always starts only from the statements of others, from the judgment about the beautiful, not from the beautiful itself. It is therefore as if he knew it entirely by hearsay and not directly. A highly intelligent blind man could do almost the same: from exact statements that he heard about colors, he could put together a theory of them. And in truth we may regard Kant’s philosophical theories about the beautiful almost only in this light. Then we shall find that his theory is very ingenious, and that here and there apt and true general remarks are made. But his actual solution of the problem is so untenable, and stays so far below the dignity of the subject, that it cannot occur to us to take it for objective truth. So I even consider myself spared a refutation of it, and here too I refer to the positive part of my work.

As to the form of his whole book, it is to be noted that it sprang from the whim of finding the key to the problem of the beautiful in the concept of purposiveness. The whim is then deduced, which is never hard, as we have learned from Kant’s successors. So arises the baroque union of the knowledge of the beautiful with that of the purposive in natural bodies, in one faculty of knowledge called the power of judgment, and the treatment of the two heterogeneous subjects in one book. Afterward all sorts of symmetrical-architectonic amusements are carried out with these three powers of knowledge, reason, the power of judgment and understanding. It is a fondness that shows itself many times in this book, already in the layout of the Critique of Pure Reason, forcibly fitted onto the whole, and most of all in the far-fetched antinomy of the aesthetic power of judgment. One could also make a charge of great inconsistency out of this: in the Critique of Pure Reason it is repeated without letup that the understanding is the faculty of judging, and the forms of its judgments are made the cornerstone of all philosophy. And now a quite peculiar power of judgment appears, completely different from the understanding. As for what I call the power of judgment, namely the ability to carry intuitive knowledge over into abstract and to apply the latter correctly to the former again, that is worked out in the positive part of my work.

By far the best thing in the critique of the aesthetic power of judgment is the theory of the sublime. It has succeeded incomparably better than that of the beautiful. Like that one, it gives the general method of the investigation, but it also gives a piece of the right path to it. So much so that, even if it does not give the real solution of the problem, it comes very close to it.

In the critique of the teleological power of judgment, because the material is so simple, one can perhaps see more clearly than anywhere else Kant’s strange talent for turning one thought this way and that and putting it in many different ways until a book has come out of it. The whole book wants only this. Organized bodies necessarily appear to us as if they had been put together according to a concept of purpose that came before them. Yet this does not entitle us to assume that it is so objectively. For our intellect is given things from outside and indirectly. So it never knows their inside, through which they come to be and to last, but only their outer side. It cannot make a certain feature peculiar to organic products of nature intelligible to itself except by analogy, by comparing them with works that people make on purpose, whose character is determined by a purpose and the concept of it. This analogy is enough to make the agreement of all their parts with the whole intelligible to us, and even to supply a guiding thread for investigating them. But it must never for that reason be made the real ground for explaining the origin and existence of such bodies. For the necessity of thinking of them in this way is of subjective origin.—That, roughly, is how I would sum up Kant’s doctrine on this. In its main points he had already set it out in the Critique of Pure Reason, pp. 692–702; V, 720–730. But in the knowledge of this truth too we find David Hume as Kant’s honorable forerunner. He too had sharply contested that assumption, in the second part of his Dialogues concerning natural religion. The difference between Hume’s criticism of that assumption and Kant’s is mainly this: Hume criticizes it as an assumption resting on experience, Kant as an a priori one. Both are right, and their presentations complete each other. Indeed, we find the essence of Kant’s doctrine on this already stated in the commentary of Simplicius on the Physics of Aristotle: ἡ δε πλανη γεγονεν αυτοις απο του ἡγεισθαι, παντα τα ἑνεκα του γινομενα κατα προαιρεσιν γενεσθαι και λογισμον, τα δε φυσει μη οὑτως ὁραν γινομενα. (Error iis ortus est ex eo, quod credebant, omnia, quae propter finem aliquem fierent, ex proposito et ratiocinio fieri, dum videbant, naturae opera non ita fieri.) Schol. in Arist. ex. edit. Berol. p. 354. Kant is perfectly right in the matter. It was also necessary that, once it had been shown that the concept of effect and cause cannot be applied to nature as a whole as regards its existence, it should also be shown that as regards its character nature cannot be thought of as the effect of a cause guided by motives (concepts of purpose). Consider how plausible the physicotheological proof looks, which even Voltaire held to be irrefutable. It was therefore of the greatest importance to show that the subjective element in our way of grasping things, to which Kant has assigned space, time and causality, extends to our judging of natural bodies as well. So the compulsion we feel to think of them as premeditated, as having come about according to concepts of purpose, that is, by a route on which the representation of them would have come before their existence, is of just as subjective an origin as the intuition of space, which presents itself so objectively. It therefore must not be put forward as objective truth. Kant’s exposition of the matter is excellent, apart from its tiring long-windedness and repetition. He rightly maintains that we shall never succeed in explaining the character of organic bodies from merely mechanical causes, by which he means the unintended, law-governed working of all the general forces of nature. Here, however, I still find a gap. He denies the possibility of such an explanation only with regard to the purposiveness and apparent intentionality of organic bodies. But we find that, even where these are absent, the grounds of explanation cannot be carried over from one domain of nature to another. As soon as we enter a new domain they leave us, and new basic laws appear in their place. There is no hope of explaining these from the laws of the previous domain. So in the domain of the properly mechanical the laws of gravity, cohesion, rigidity, fluidity and elasticity rule. Taken by themselves (setting aside my explanation of all forces of nature as lower stages of the objectification of the will), these stand there as manifestations of forces that cannot be explained further. But they themselves make up the principles of all further explanation, which consists only in tracing things back to them. If we leave this domain and come to the appearances of chemical action, electricity, magnetism and crystallization, then those principles can no longer be used at all. Indeed, those laws no longer hold, those forces are overpowered by others, and the appearances go on in direct contradiction to them, according to new basic laws. Like the former ones, these are original and inexplicable, that is, they cannot be traced back to any more general ones. For example, it will never be possible by those laws of the properly mechanical to explain even the dissolving of a salt in water, let alone the more complicated appearances of chemistry. All this has already been set out more fully in the second book of the present work. A discussion of this kind would, I think, have been of great use in the critique of the teleological power of judgment and would have spread much light on what is said there. It would have been especially favorable to his excellent hint that a deeper knowledge of the being in itself, of which the things in nature are the appearance, would find one and the same final principle again both in the mechanical (law-governed) and in the seemingly purposive working of nature. This principle could then serve as the common ground of explanation for both. I hope to have given such a principle by setting up the will as the real thing in itself. Accordingly, in our second book and its supplements, and especially in my work “On the Will in Nature,” insight into the inner nature of the apparent purposiveness and of the harmony and agreement of the whole of nature has perhaps become brighter and deeper. So I have nothing more to say about it here.—

The reader who is interested in this critique of the Kantian philosophy should not fail to read the supplement to it in the second essay of the first volume of my Parerga and Paralipomena, under the heading “A Few More Explanations of the Kantian Philosophy.” For one must consider that my writings, few as they are, were not all written at one time. They were written one after another over the course of a long life, with wide gaps between. So one must not expect everything I have said on a subject to stand together in one place.

Corrections.

Page 57, line 12 from the top, delete the comma at the end. Also 58, line 16 from the bottom, instead of: der read: die; 205, line 3 from the top, for: ἁπτοσθαι, read: ἁπτεσθαι; 229, line 8 from the bottom, for: daher read: dabei; 329, line 17 from the bottom, after “Worte” insert:, so understand not simile but idem.

Printed by F. A. Brockhaus in Leipzig.

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Appendix: Critique of Kantian Philosophy is part of The World as Will and Representation, Volume I by Arthur Schopenhauer. This page sets the German original beside 2 direct-source translations, so any line can be checked against the source. It is book 8 of 8 in the work, which is kept in the European tradition.

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