Fundamental Philosophy, Vol. I (of 2)

If we suppose the progress of natural science to lead to the discovery of a single, simple law, which presides over the development of all others, and the application of which, varied according to circumstances, is a sufficient reason of all the phenomena now referred to many and very complicated laws; this would, without doubt, be an immense progress in sciences the object of which is the visible world; but what would it give us to know of the world of intelligences? What of the world of possibility?(6) (#litres_trial_promo)

CHAPTER VII.

THE PHILOSOPHY OF THE ME CANNOT PRODUCE TRANSCENDENTAL SCIENCE

70. The testimony of consciousness is sure and irresistible, but it has no connection with that of evidence. The object of the one is a particular and contingent fact; that of the other, a necessary truth. That I now think, is to me absolutely certain; but this thought of mine is not a necessary but a decidedly contingent truth; for I might never have thought, or even existed: it is a purely individual fact, is confined to me, and its existence or non-existence in nowise affects universal truths.

Consciousness is an anchor, not a beacon: it saves the understanding from shipwreck, but does not light it on its way; in the assaults of universal doubt, consciousness is at hand to shield it from destruction; but if asked to direct us, it gives us only particular facts.

These facts have no scientific value, except when made objective, or rather, when the mind, reflecting upon them, bathes them in the light of necessary truths.

We think, we feel, we are free; these are facts; but of themselves they are barren. If we would fecundate them, we must take them as a kind of material of universal truths. Thought becomes immovable, it congeals, if deprived of the impulse of these ideas; sensation is common to us and the brutes; and liberty, without combination of motives presented by reason, has no object, no life.

71. Here we discover the cause of the obscurity and sterility of German philosophy since Fichte. Kant fixed himself upon the subject, without, however, destroying objectivity in the internal world; and therefore his philosophy, although containing many errors, offers to the mind some luminous points: but Fichte went farther, planted himself upon the me, and made no use of objectivity, save when it was necessary to the more solid establishment of a fact of consciousness; and so he found only realms of darkness and contradiction.

Men of gifted minds have labored in vain to make some ray of light emanate from a point condemned to obscurity. The soul sees itself in its own acts; and that it presents immediately to itself facts conducing to its own cognition is the only title it has, more than other beings distinct from it, to be conceived by itself. What would it know were it not to perceive its own thought, its will, and the exercise of all its faculties? How is it to discuss its own nature, if not from data furnished by the testimony of its own acts? The me then does not see itself intuitively; is offered to itself only mediately, by its acts; that is, so far as it is known, it is in the same category as all other external beings, which are all known by their effects upon us.

The me in itself considered, is not a luminous point; it supports the fabric of reason, but is not the rule according to which it is to be constructed. The true light is found in objectivity, for it is properly the object of knowledge. The me can neither be known nor thought, save inasmuch as it makes itself its own object, and consequently places itself on a level with other beings subject to intellectual activity, which operates only by virtue of objective truths.

72. Intelligence cannot be conceived without at least internal objects; but if the understanding do not conceive relations and consequently truths in them, they will be sterile. These truths will have no connection, will be isolated facts, if they involve no necessity; and even those relations which refer to particular facts furnished by experience will not be susceptible of any combination if they do not, at least conditionally, involve some necessity. The brilliancy of the light in the room where I now write is in itself a particular, contingent fact, and science, as such, cannot make it its object except by subjecting the movement of the light to geometrical laws, that is, to necessary truths.

Science then may find a resting-point in the me itself as subject, but no point of departure. The individual is of no service to the universal, nor the contingent to the necessary. Assuredly there would be no such thing as the individual A's science, if the individual A himself did not exist; but the science which stands in need of the individual subject is not science properly so called, but the collection of individual acts by which the individual perceives science. This collection of acts is not the science perceived, which is something common to all intellects, and does not need this or that individual: the fund of truths constituting science does not spring from this collection of individual acts, particular facts, which are lost like minutest drops in the ocean of intelligence.

How then can science be based solely upon the subjective me? How can the object be made to spring from this subject? Consciousness has no connection with science, except in so far as it furnishes facts to which we may apply objective, universal, and necessary principles, independent of all finite individuality, constituting the patrimony of human reason, but not requiring the existence of any man.

73. No analysis of the facts of consciousness will produce the origin of the lights of science. Such an act would be either direct or reflex. If direct, its value is objective not subjective, the act does not found science, but the truth perceived, not the subject but the object, not the me, but that which is seen by the me. If reflex, it supposes another previous act, to wit, the object of reflection, which is primitive, and not the act.

Neither is the combination of the direct with the reflex act of any service to science, except as connected with necessary and objective truths, which are independent of the subject. An act individually considered, is an internal phenomenon, which, apart from objective truths, teaches us nothing. It has, indeed, a scientific value, if considered under the general ideas of being, cause, effect, principle or product of activity, modification, or its relations with its subject, which is the substratum of other similar acts; that is, if it be considered as a particular case, comprised in the general ideas as a contingent phenomenon, to be appreciated by the help of necessary truths, as an experimental fact to which a theory may be applied.

The reflex act is only a cognition of a cognition, feeling, or some other internal phenomenon; and therefore all reflection upon consciousness presupposes a prior direct act. The object of this direct act is not the me; the fundamental principle of the cognition therefore is not the me, as the object known, but only as the necessary condition, since there cannot be thought without a thinking subject.

74. These considerations destroy the very foundations of the system of Fichte, and that of all who take the human me as their point of departure on the voyage of science. The me, in itself, is not presented to us; we know it only by its acts; and herein it participates of a quality of other objects, the essence of which is not immediately offered to us, but only what emanates from it by the exercise of their activity upon us.

Thus guided by objective and necessary truths, which are the laws of our understanding, the type of the relations of beings, and consequently a sure standard of them, we ascend by reasoning to the cognition of things themselves. We know that our mind is simple, because it thinks, whereas the composite, the multiplex cannot think. It is thus we know the me. We are conscious of its thinking activity, and this is the material furnished by the fact, but then comes the principle, the objective truth to illumine the fact, and show the repugnance between thought and composition, and the necessary connection between simplicity and consciousness.

Upon examination, this reasoning will be found to apply not only to the me, but to every thinking being; and this is why we can extend our demonstration to all such beings: the me, therefore, which applies this truth, does not create, it only knows it, and knows itself to be a particular case comprised in the general rule.

75. To pretend that truth has its source in the subjective me, is to begin by supposing the me to be an absolute, infinite being, the origin of all truths, and the reason of all beings; which is equivalent to making philosophy commence by deifying the human understanding. But as one individual has no more right to this deification than another, to admit it is to establish a rational pantheism, which, as we shall hereafter see, is nearly, if not quite, identical with absolute pantheism.

If we suppose individual reason to be only a phenomenon of the one absolute reason, and consequently what we call spirits not to be true substances, but modifications of a single spirit, and each particular consciousness to be only a manifestation of the universal consciousness, we can then conceive why the source of all truth is sought in the me, and why we interrogate our own consciousness as a kind of oracle through which the universal consciousness speaks. But the difficulty is that such a supposition is gratuitous, and that they who thus seek the reason of all truths, begin by establishing the most incomprehensible and absurd of propositions. Who will persuade us that our consciousness is only the modification of another? Who will make us believe that what we call the me is common to all men, to all intelligent beings, and that the only difference between them is the difference of the modifications of one absolute being? Why, then, is not this absolute being conscious of every consciousness which it comprises? Why does it not know that which it contains, and by which it is modified? Why does it believe itself multiplex, if indeed it be one? Where is the bond of this multiplicity? If each particular consciousness were only a modification, would it preserve its unity, and a connected series of all that happens to it, when this series, this unity is wanting to the substance which it modifies?

76. However this may be, not even by supposing pantheism, can the friends of subjective philosophy at all advance their pretensions. With pantheism they legitimate, so to speak, their pretension, but do not realize it. They call themselves gods, and as such, have a reason for the source of truth being in them; but as there is in their consciousness only one apparition of their divinity only one phase of the orb of light, they can only see in it what it presents to them; and their divinity finds itself subjected to certain laws which make it impossible for it to give the light demanded by philosophy.

77. If we interrogate our consciousness upon necessary truths, we shall perceive that, far from pretending to found or to create them, it both knows and confesses them to be independent of itself. If, thinking of this proposition: "It is impossible for a thing to be, and not be at the same time;" we ask ourselves if the truth of this originates in our thought, consciousness at once answers that it does not. The proposition was true before our consciousness existed; and should it now cease to exist, the proposition would still be true; true, also, when we do not think of it: the soul is as an eye which contemplates the sun, but is not, therefore, necessary to the existence of the sun.

78. Another consideration demonstrates the sterility of all philosophy which seeks in the me alone the sole and universal origin of human knowledge. Every cognition requires an object; purely subjective cognition is inconceivable; although we suppose the subject and object to be identified, duality of relation, real or conceived, is still necessary; that is, the subject as known must stand in a certain opposition, – opposition at least conceived, – with itself as subject knowing. Now, what is the object sought in the primitive act? Is it something not the subject? Then the philosophy of the subject falls into the current of other philosophies, since in this something which is not the subject are objective truths. Is it the subject itself? Then we ask, is it the subject in itself or in its acts; if the subject in its acts, then the philosophy is reduced to ideological analysis, and has no special characteristic; if the subject in itself, we say it is not known intuitively, and least of all can they who call it the absolute pretend to this cognition; it is for them even more than for others a dark abyss. In vain will you stoop over this abyss, and shout for truth; the dull rumbling which reaches your ears is only the echo of your own voice; the profound cavern rolls back to you only your own words still more hollow and mysterious.

79. Eminent among the philosophers most given to empty cavils is the author of the Doctrine of Science, Fichte, of whose system Madame de Staël ingenuously remarked, that it very much resembled the awakening of Pygmalion's statue from sleep, which, turning alternately to itself and to its pedestal said, I am, I am not.

Fichte says, in the beginning of his work entitled Doctrine of Science, that he proposes to seek the most absolute principle, the absolutely unconditioned principle of all human knowledge. This his method is erroneous: he begins by supposing what is unknown, and does not even suspect that there may be a true multiplicity in the basis of human cognitions. We believe that there may be, and that there really is such a multiplicity, that the sources of our knowledge are various, and of different orders, and that we cannot reduce them to unity without leaving man and ascending to God. We repeat it, this equivocation has become exceedingly general, and its only result has been uselessly to fatigue inquiring minds or to drive them to extravagant systems.

Few philosophers have toiled harder than Fichte after this absolute principle; and yet, to speak plainly, he accomplishes nothing; he either repeats Descartes' principle, or amuses himself with a play upon words. We feel pity at seeing him labor so earnestly to so little purpose. We beg the reader to follow us with patience in our examination of the German philosopher's doctrine, not with the hope of finding a thread to serve as a clue to the Dædalus of philosophy, but in order to judge, with a knowledge of the cause, doctrines which have made so much noise in the world.

"If this principle," says Fichte, "is absolutely the first, it can neither be defined nor demonstrated. It must express the act, which neither is nor can be presented among the empirical determinations of our consciousness, but rather lies at the bottom of all consciousness, and alone makes consciousness possible."[4 - Wissenschaftslehre, Th. 1, § 1]

Without any antecedent, or any reason, without even taking the trouble to show on what he bases it, Fichte assures us that the first principle must express an act. Why may it not be an objective truth? This, at least, would have deserved some attention, for all preceding schools, the Cartesian included, located the first principle among objective truths, not among acts. Descartes himself needed an objective truth in order to establish the fact of thought and existence. "Whoever thinks exists," or, in other words, "whoever does not exist cannot think."

80. This last remark shows one of the radical vices affecting the doctrine of Fichte and other Germans, who attribute an altogether unmerited importance to subjective philosophy. They accuse others of too easily making the transition from the subject to the object, but forget that they, at the same time pass, unauthorised by any reason or title, from objective thought to the pure subject. Confining ourselves to the passage of Fichte just cited, what, we ask, will an act be which neither is nor can be presented among the empirical determinations of our consciousness? The principle in question is not exempted from being known because it is absolute; for if we do not know it, we cannot assert that it is absolute; and if it is not, and cannot be presented among the empirical determinations of our consciousness, it neither is nor can be known. Man knows not that which is not present in his consciousness.

The absolute principle upon which all consciousness rests, and which makes it possible, either does or does not belong to consciousness. If the former, it is liable to all the difficulties affecting the other acts of consciousness; if the latter, it cannot be the object of observation, and therefore we can know nothing of it.

Fichte confesses that in order to arrive at the primitive act, and separate from it all that does not really belong to it, we must suppose the rules of all reflection to be valid, and start with some one of the many universally admitted propositions. "Conceding us," he says, "this proposition, you must, at the same time, concede as act that which we desire to place as the principle of the whole Doctrine of Science; and the result of the reflection must be that this act is conceded to us as the principle together with the proposition. We take any fact of empirical consciousness, and strip it one after another of all its empirical determinations, until reduced to all its purity it contains that only which thought cannot absolutely exclude, and from which nothing further can be taken."[5 - Ibid.]

These words show that the German philosopher proposed ascending to a perfectly pure and wholly indeterminate act of consciousness, which, however, is impossible. Either he takes the act in a very broad sense, and understands by it the substratum of all consciousness, in which case he only expresses in other words the idea of substance; or else he speaks of an act properly so called, that is, of some exercise of that activity, that spontaneity which we feel within ourselves; and in this sense the act of consciousness cannot be separated from all determination without destroying its individuality and existence. Man cannot think without thinking something, desire without desiring something, feel without feeling something, or reflect upon internal acts without fixing his reflection upon something. There is some determination in every act of consciousness: an act perfectly pure, abstracted from every thing, and wholly indeterminate, is impossible, absolutely impossible; subjectively, because the act of consciousness, although considered in the subject, requires some determination; objectively, because such an act is inconceivable as individual, and consequently as existing, since it offers nothing determinate to the mind.

81. Fichte's indeterminate act is only the idea of act in general. He imagined he had made a great discovery when he conceived nothing in the groundwork but the principle of act, that is, the idea of substance applied to that active being whose existence consciousness itself makes known to us.

If we may be allowed to say candidly what we think, our opinion is, that Fichte, with all his analytical investigations, has not advanced philosophy one step towards the discovery of the first principle. We see from what has already been said how easy it is to stop him by simply demanding an account of the suppositions made on the first page of his book. Still, wishing, as we do, to oppose him with all fairness, we will not take up his ideas without allowing him to explain them himself.

"Every one admits the proposition: A is A; just as that A = A, because such is the meaning of the logical copula; and indeed without the least deliberation we perceive and affirm its complete certainty. Should any one ask a demonstration of it, we should by no means give any, but should maintain that the proposition is absolutely certain, that is, without any further foundation. Thus incontestibly proceeding with general consent, we claim the right to suppose something absolutely.

"We do not, in affirming the preceding proposition to be certain in itself, suppose that A is. The proposition A is A, is not equivalent to this: A is, or, there is an A. (To be placed without a predicate has an entirely different meaning from to be with a predicate, whereof more hereafter.) If we make A denote a space contained between two straight lines, the proposition remains exact, although the proposition, A is, be evidently false. But, we assert: if A is, A is thus. The question is in no wise whether A is in general or not. The question is not of the contents of the proposition, but only of its form; not whereof we know something, but what we know of any object whatever.

"Consequently, by the above assertion, that the proposition is absolutely certain, this is established, that between the if and the thus there is a necessary connection; and it is this necessary connection between both which is supposed absolutely and without other foundation. I call this necessary connection provisionally = X."

All this show of analysis amounts only to what every logical student knows, that in every proposition the copula, or the verb to be, denotes not the existence of the subject, but its relation to the predicate. There was no need of so many words to tell us so simple a thing, nor of such affected efforts of the understanding in treating of an identical proposition. But let us arm ourselves with patience, and continue to listen to the German philosopher:

"But to return to A itself, whether A is or not; nothing is as yet affirmed thereon. The question then occurs: under what condition is A?

"X at least is supposed in and by the me, for it is the me which judges in the above proposition, and indeed judges by X as by a law, which consequently being given to the me, and by it established absolutely and without other foundation, must therefore be given to the me by the me itself."

82. What does all this Sanscrit mean? We will translate it into English: in identical or equivalent propositions there is a relation which the mind knows, judges, and according to which it decides upon the rest: this relation is given to our mind; identical propositions need no proof in order to obtain assent. All this is very true, very clear, and very simple; but, when Fichte adds that this relation must be given to the me by the me itself, he asserts what he neither does nor can know. Who told him that objective truths come to us from ourselves? Is one of the principal philosophical questions, such as is that of the origin of truth, to be thus easily solved with a dash of the pen? Has he, perchance, defined his me, or given us any idea of it? Either his words mean nothing, or they mean this: I judge of a relation; this judgment is in me; this relation, as known and abstracted from real existence, is in me; all which may be reduced to Descartes' more natural and simple expression: "I think, therefore I exist."

83. Upon carefully examining Fichte's words, we clearly see that he made no more progress than the French philosopher. He goes on: "Whether and how A in general is supposed, we know not; but as X must mark a relation between an unknown supposition of A and an absolute supposition of A under the condition of this supposition, in so far at least as that relation is supposed, A exists in the me, and is supposed by the me, just as X. X is possible only in relation to an A: but X is really supposed in the me, therefore A also must be supposed in the me in so far as X is referred to it."

What confusion and mystery in the expression of the commonest things! How great Descartes appears beside Fichte! Each makes the fact of consciousness revealing existence the beginning of his philosophy. The one expresses his thoughts clearly, with simplicity and in a language which all the world does or may understand; the other, in order to seem an inventor, and to show that he has no master, envelops himself in a cloud of mystery, with darkness all around, whence in a hollow voice he pronounces his oracles. Descartes says: "I think, I cannot doubt it, it is a fact attested to me by my internal sense; no one can think without existing; therefore I exist." This is clear, simple, and ingenuous; it manifests a true philosopher, one without affectation or pretension. Fichte says: "Take any proposition whatever; for example, A is A: " and then goes on to explain how the verb to be in propositions does not express the absolute existence of the subject, but its relation with the predicate; the whole with a show of doctrine, wearisome in its form, and ridiculous in its sterility; and this too when he only wants to inform us that A is in the me, because the relation of the predicate with the subject, that is, X, is possible only in a being, since A denotes some being or other. Let us compare the two syllogisms. Descartes says: "No one can think without existing; but I think; therefore I exist." Fichte says literally what follows: "X is only possible in relation to an A; but X is really supposed in the me; therefore A must also be supposed in the me." There is at bottom no difference at all, and the only difference in form is that which exists between the language of a vain man and that of a sensible man.

At bottom the syllogisms are not different, we repeat it. Descartes' major proposition is: "Whatever thinks exists." He does not prove it, and admits that it cannot be proved. Fichte's major is: "X is possible only in relation to an A," or, in other words, no relation of a predicate with a subject, in so far as it is known, is possible without a being which knows. "X must mark a relation between an unknown supposition of A and an absolute supposition of the same A, at least in so far as that relation is supposed," that is, inasmuch as it is known. And how does Fichte prove a relative supposition to suppose an absolute supposition, that is, a subject in which it is supposed? Like Descartes, he does not prove it at all. There is no relative A without an absolute A; what does not exist cannot think. This is clear and evident; farther than this neither Fichte nor Descartes goes.

Descartes' minor is: "I think;" this he does not prove, but refers to consciousness beyond which he confesses that he cannot pass. Fichte's minor is this: "X is really asserted in the me;" which is equivalent to saying: the relation of the predicate with the subject is really known by the me; and as, according to Fichte himself, the proposition may be selected at pleasure, to say that the relation of the predicate with the subject is known by the me, is the same as to say that any relation whatever is known by the me; which in clearer terms may be expressed thus, I think.

84. Here we would remark, that the difference, if any there be, is altogether in favor of the French philosopher, who understands by thought every internal phenomenon of which we are conscious. In order to establish this fact, he has no need of analyzing propositions, and confusing the understanding upon those very points where it most requires clearness and precision. Fichte, to arrive at the same point, takes a roundabout way. Descartes points his finger to it, and says: this is it. The one acts like a sophist, the other like a true man of genius.

Had the German philosopher confined his forms, little calculated as they are to illustrate science, to what we have thus far examined, their greatest inconvenience would have been to weary both the author and his readers; but unfortunately his mysterious me, which makes its appearance at the very vestibule of science, and which, in the eyes of sound reason, can only be what it was to Descartes, – the human mind, knowing its existence by its own thought, – goes on dilating in Fichte's hands, like a gigantic spectre, which, beginning in a single point, ends by hiding its head in the heavens and its feet in the abyss. This me, absolute subject, is then a being which exists because it supposed itself: it is a being which creates its own self, absorbs every thing, is every thing, and is revealed in the human mind as in one of the infinite phases of its infinite existence.

What we have thus far said, suffices to show the tendencies of Fichte's system. We are here treating of certainty and its foundations; this, then, is not the place to anticipate what we propose to say more at length upon this system when we come to explain the idea of substance and refute pantheism: for this is one of the gravest errors of modern philosophy; everywhere, and under all aspects, it must be combatted, but to do this we must attack it in its roots. This is why we have examined at such length Fichte's fundamental reflection in his Doctrine of Science, and stripped it of the importance which he claimed for it, so as to make it the basis of a transcendental science; for he flattered himself with being able to determine the absolutely unconditioned principle of all human knowledge.(7) (#litres_trial_promo)

CHAPTER VIII.