Biographia Literaria
presumption, THAT THERE EXIST THINGS WITHOUT US. As this on the one hand
originates, neither in grounds nor arguments, and yet on the other hand
remains proof against all attempts to remove it by grounds or arguments
(naturam furca expellas tamen usque redibit;) on the one hand lays
claim to IMMEDIATE certainty as a position at once indemonstrable
and irresistible, and yet on the other hand, inasmuch as it refers to
something essentially different from ourselves, nay even in opposition
to ourselves, leaves it inconceivable how it could possibly become a
part of our immediate consciousness; (in other words how that, which
ex hypothesi is and continues to be extrinsic and alien to our being,
should become a modification of our being) the philosopher therefore
compels himself to treat this faith as nothing more than a prejudice,
innate indeed and connatural, but still a prejudice.
The other position, which not only claims but necessitates the admission
of its immediate certainty, equally for the scientific reason of the
philosopher as for the common sense of mankind at large, namely, I AM,
cannot so properly be entitled a prejudice. It is groundless indeed; but
then in the very idea it precludes all ground, and separated from
the immediate consciousness loses its whole sense and import. It is
groundless; but only because it is itself the ground of all other
certainty. Now the apparent contradiction, that the former position,
namely, the existence of things without us, which from its nature
cannot be immediately certain, should be received as blindly and as
independently of all grounds as the existence of our own being, the
Transcendental philosopher can solve only by the supposition, that the
former is unconsciously involved in the latter; that it is not only
coherent but identical, and one and the same thing with our own
immediate self consciousness. To demonstrate this identity is the office
and object of his philosophy.
If it be said, that this is idealism, let it be remembered that it
is only so far idealism, as it is at the same time, and on that very
account, the truest and most binding realism. For wherein does the
realism of mankind properly consist? In the assertion that there exists
a something without them, what, or how, or where they know not, which
occasions the objects of their perception? Oh no! This is neither
connatural nor universal. It is what a few have taught and learned
in the schools, and which the many repeat without asking themselves
concerning their own meaning. The realism common to all mankind is far
elder and lies infinitely deeper than this hypothetical explanation
of the origin of our perceptions, an explanation skimmed from the mere
surface of mechanical philosophy. It is the table itself, which the man
of common sense believes himself to see, not the phantom of a table,
from which he may argumentatively deduce the reality of a table, which
he does not see. If to destroy the reality of all, that we actually
behold, be idealism, what can be more egregiously so, than the system of
modern metaphysics, which banishes us to a land of shadows, surrounds
us with apparitions, and distinguishes truth from illusion only by the
majority of those who dream the same dream? “I asserted that the world
was mad,” exclaimed poor Lee, “and the world said, that I was mad, and
confound them, they outvoted me.”
It is to the true and original realism, that I would direct the
attention. This believes and requires neither more nor less, than the
object which it beholds or presents to itself, is the real and very
object. In this sense, however much we may strive against it, we are all
collectively born idealists, and therefore and only therefore are we at
the same time realists. But of this the philosophers of the schools know
nothing, or despise the faith as the prejudice of the ignorant vulgar,
because they live and move in a crowd of phrases and notions from which
human nature has long ago vanished. Oh, ye that reverence yourselves,
and walk humbly with the divinity in your own hearts, ye are worthy of a
better philosophy! Let the dead bury the dead, but do you preserve your
human nature, the depth of which was never yet fathomed by a philosophy
made up of notions and mere logical entities.
In the third treatise of my Logosophia, announced at the end of this
volume, I shall give (Deo volente) the demonstrations and constructions
of the Dynamic Philosophy scientifically arranged. It is, according
to my conviction, no other than the system of Pythagoras and of Plato
revived and purified from impure mixtures. Doctrina per tot manus
tradita tandem in vappam desiit! The science of arithmetic furnishes
instances, that a rule may be useful in practical application, and for
the particular purpose may be sufficiently authenticated by the result,
before it has itself been fully demonstrated. It is enough, if only it
be rendered intelligible. This will, I trust, have been effected in the
following Theses for those of my readers, who are willing to accompany
me through the following chapter, in which the results will be applied
to the deduction of the Imagination, and with it the principles of
production and of genial criticism in the fine arts.
THESIS I
Truth is correlative to being. Knowledge without a correspondent reality
is no knowledge; if we know, there must be somewhat known by us. To know
is in its very essence a verb active.
THESIS II
All truth is either mediate, that is, derived from some other truth
or truths; or immediate and original. The latter is absolute, and its
formula A. A.; the former is of dependent or conditional certainty, and
represented in the formula B. A. The certainty, which adheres in A, is
attributable to B.
SCHOLIUM. A chain without a staple, from which all the links derived
their stability, or a series without a first, has been not inaptly
allegorized, as a string of blind men, each holding the skirt of the man
before him, reaching far out of sight, but all moving without the least
deviation in one straight line. It would be naturally taken for
granted, that there was a guide at the head of the file: what if it were
answered, No! Sir, the men are without number, and infinite blindness
supplies the place of sight?
Equally inconceivable is a cycle of equal truths without a common and
central principle, which prescribes to each its proper sphere in the
system of science. That the absurdity does not so immediately strike us,
that it does not seem equally unimaginable, is owing to a surreptitious
act of the imagination, which, instinctively and without our noticing
the same, not only fills up the intervening spaces, and contemplates the
cycle (of B. C. D. E. F. etc.) as a continuous circle (A.) giving to all
collectively the unity of their common orbit; but likewise supplies,
by a sort of subintelligitur, the one central power, which renders the
movement harmonious and cyclical.
THESIS III
We are to seek therefore for some absolute truth capable of
communicating to other positions a certainty, which it has not itself
borrowed; a truth self-grounded, unconditional and known by its own
light. In short, we have to find a somewhat which is, simply because it
is. In order to be such, it must be one which is its own predicate,
so far at least that all other nominal predicates must be modes and
repetitions of itself. Its existence too must be such, as to preclude
the possibility of requiring a cause or antecedent without an absurdity.
THESIS IV
That there can be but one such principle, may be proved a priori; for
were there two or more, each must refer to some other, by which its
equality is affirmed; consequently neither would be self-established,
as the hypothesis demands. And a posteriori, it will be proved by
the principle itself when it is discovered, as involving universal
antecedence in its very conception.
SCHOLIUM. If we affirm of a board that it is blue, the predicate (blue)
is accidental, and not implied in the subject, board. If we affirm of
a circle that it is equi-radial, the predicate indeed is implied in the
definition of the subject; but the existence of the subject itself
is contingent, and supposes both a cause and a percipient. The same
reasoning will apply to the indefinite number of supposed indemonstrable
truths exempted from the profane approach of philosophic investigation
by the amiable Beattie, and other less eloquent and not more profound
inaugurators of common sense on the throne of philosophy; a fruitless
attempt, were it only that it is the two-fold function of philosophy
to reconcile reason with common sense, and to elevate common sense into
reason.
THESIS V
Such a principle cannot be any THING or OBJECT. Each thing is what it is
in consequence of some other thing. An infinite, independent [52]
thing, is no less a contradiction, than an infinite circle or a sideless
triangle. Besides a thing is that, which is capable of being an object
which itself is not the sole percipient. But an object is inconceivable
without a subject as its antithesis. Omne perceptum percipientem
supponit.
But neither can the principle be found in a subject as a subject,
contra-distinguished from an object: for unicuique percipienti aliquid
objicitur perceptum. It is to be found therefore neither in object
nor subject taken separately, and consequently, as no other third is
conceivable, it must be found in that which is neither subject nor
object exclusively, but which is the identity of both.
THESIS VI
This principle, and so characterised manifests itself in the SUM or
I AM; which I shall hereafter indiscriminately express by the words
spirit, self, and self-consciousness. In this, and in this alone,
object and subject, being and knowing, are identical, each involving
and supposing the other. In other words, it is a subject which becomes
a subject by the act of constructing itself objectively to itself; but
which never is an object except for itself, and only so far as by the
very same act it becomes a subject. It may be described therefore as
a perpetual self-duplication of one and the same power into object and
subject, which presuppose each other, and can exist only as antitheses.
SCHOLIUM. If a man be asked how he knows that he is? he can only answer,
sum quia sum. But if (the absoluteness of this certainty having been
admitted) he be again asked, how he, the individual person, came to be,
then in relation to the ground of his existence, not to the ground of
his knowledge of that existence, he might reply, sum quia Deus est, or
still more philosophically, sum quia in Deo sum.
But if we elevate our conception to the absolute self, the great eternal
I AM, then the principle of being, and of knowledge, of idea, and of
reality; the ground of existence, and the ground of the knowledge of
existence, are absolutely identical, Sum quia sum [53]; I am, because I
affirm myself to be; I affirm myself to be, because I am.
THESIS VII
If then I know myself only through myself, it is contradictory to
require any other predicate of self, but that of self-consciousness.
Only in the self-consciousness of a spirit is there the required
identity of object and of representation; for herein consists the
essence of a spirit, that it is self-representative. If therefore this
be the one only immediate truth, in the certainty of which the reality
of our collective knowledge is grounded, it must follow that the spirit
in all the objects which it views, views only itself. If this could
be proved, the immediate reality of all intuitive knowledge would be
assured. It has been shown, that a spirit is that, which is its own
object, yet not originally an object, but an absolute subject for which