Chapter IV (3)

The purely formal part of empirical perception--that is, Space, Time, and the law of Causality--is contained _à priori_ in the intellect; but this is not the case with the application of this formal part to empirical data, which has to be acquired by the Understanding through practice and experience. Therefore new-born infants, though they no doubt receive impressions of light and of colour, still do not apprehend or indeed, strictly speaking, see objects. The first weeks of their existence are rather passed in a kind of stupor, from which they awaken by degrees when their Understanding begins to apply its function to the data supplied by the senses, especially those of touch and of sight, whereby they gradually gain consciousness of the objective world. This newly-arising consciousness may be clearly recognised by the look of growing intelligence in their eyes and a degree of intention in their movements, especially in the smile with which they show for the first time recognition of those who take care of them. They may even be observed to make experiments for a time with their sight and touch, in order to complete their apprehension of objects by different lights, in different directions and at different distances: thus pursuing a silent, but serious course of study, till they have succeeded in mastering all the intellectual operations in seeing which have been described. The fact of this schooling can be ascertained still more clearly through those who, being born blind, have been operated upon late in life, since they are able to give an account of their impressions. Cheselden's blind man[82] was not an isolated instance, and we find in all similar cases the fact corroborated, that those who obtain their sight late in life, no doubt, see light, outlines, and colours, as soon as the operation is over, but that they have no objective perception of objects until their Understanding has learnt to apply its causal law to data and to changes which are new to it. On first beholding his room and the various objects in it, Cheselden's blind man did not distinguish one thing from another; he simply received the general impression of a totality all in one piece, which he took for a smooth, variegated surface. It never occurred to him to recognise a number of detached objects, lying one behind the other at different distances. With blind people of this sort, it is by the sense of touch, to which objects are already known, that they have to be introduced to the sense of sight. In the beginning, the patient has no appreciation whatever of distances and tries to lay hold of everything. One, when he first saw his own house from outside, could not conceive how so small a thing could contain so many rooms. Another was highly delighted to find, some weeks after the operation, that the engravings hanging on the walls of his room represented a variety of objects. The "Morgenblatt" of October 23rd, 1817, contains an account of a youth who was born blind, and obtained his sight at the age of seventeen. He had to learn intelligent perception, for at first sight he did not even recognise objects previously known to him through the sense of touch. Every object had to be introduced to the sense of sight by means of the sense of touch. As for the distances of the objects he saw, he had no appreciation whatever of them, and tried to lay hold indiscriminately of everything, far or near.--Franz expresses himself as follows:[83]--

"A definite idea of distance, as well as of form and size, is
only obtained by sight and touch, and by reflecting on the
impressions made on both senses; but for this purpose we must
take into account the muscular motion and voluntary locomotion
of the individual.--Caspar Hauser, in a detailed account of his
own experience in this respect, states, that upon his first
liberation from confinement, whenever he looked through the
window upon external objects, such as the street, garden, &c.,
it appeared to him as if there were a shutter quite close to his
eye, and covered with confused colours of all kinds, in which he
could recognise or distinguish nothing singly. He says farther,
that he did not convince himself till after some time during his
walks out of doors, that what had at first appeared to him as a
shutter of various colours, as well as many other objects, were
in reality very different things; and that at length the shutter
disappeared, and he saw and recognised all things in their just
proportions. Persons born blind who obtain their sight by an
operation in later years only, sometimes imagine that all objects
touch their eyes, and lie so near to them that they are afraid
of stumbling against them; sometimes they leap towards the moon,
supposing that they can lay hold of it; at other times they run
after the clouds moving along the sky, in order to catch them,
or commit other such extravagancies. Since ideas are gained by
reflection upon sensation, it is further necessary in all cases,
in order that an accurate idea of objects may be formed from the
sense of sight, that the powers of the mind should be unimpaired,
and undisturbed in their exercise. A proof of this is afforded in
the instance related by Haslam,[84] of a boy who had no defect of
sight, but was weak in understanding, and who in his seventh year
was unable to estimate the distances of objects, especially as to
height; he would extend his hand frequently towards a nail on the
ceiling, or towards the moon, to catch it. It is therefore the
judgment which corrects and makes clear this idea, or perception
of visible objects."

[82] See the original report in vol. 35 of the "Philosophical
Transactions" as to this case.

[83] Franz, "The Eye, a treatise on preserving this organ in a
healthy state and improving the sight." London, Churchill, 1839,
pp. 34-36.

[84] Haslam's "Observations on Madness and Melancholy," 2nd ed. p.
192.

The intellectual nature of perception as I have shown it, is corroborated physiologically by Flourens[85] as follows:

"Il faut faire une grand distinction entre les sens et
l'intelligence. L'ablation d'un tubercule détermine la perte
de la _sensation_, du _sens_ de la vue; la rétine devient
insensible, l'iris devient immobile. L'ablation d'un lobe
cérébral laisse la _sensation_, le _sens_, la _sensibilité_
de la rétine, la _mobilité_ de l'iris; elle ne détruit que la
_perception_ seule. Dans un cas, c'est un fait _sensorial_; et,
dans l'autre, un fait _cérébral_; dans un cas, c'est la perte
du _sens_; dans l'autre, c'est la perte de la _perception_. La
distinction des perceptions et des sensations est encore un grand
résultat; et it est démontré aux yeux. Il y a deux moyens de
faire perdre la vision par l'encéphale: 1° par les tubercules,
c'est la perte du sens, de la sensation; 2° par les lobes, c'est
la perte de la perception, de l'intelligence. La sensibilité
n'est donc pas l'intelligence; penser n'est donc pas sentir; et
voilà toute une philosophie renversée. L'idée n'est donc pas
la sensation; et voilà encore une autre preuve du vice radical
de cette philosophie." And again, p. 77, under the heading:
Séparation de la Sensibilité et de la Perception:--"Il y a une
de mes expériences qui sépare nettement la _sensibilité_ de
la _perception_. Quand on enlève le _cerveau proprement dit_
(_lobes_ ou _hémisphères cérébraux_) à un animal, l'animal
perd la vue. Mais, par rapport a l'œil, rien n'est changé: les
objets continuent à se peindre sur la rétine; l'_iris_ reste
contractile, le _nerf optique_ sensible, parfaitement sensible.
Et cependant l'animal ne voit plus; il n'y a plus _vision_,
quoique tout ce qui est _sensation_ subsiste; il n'y a plus
_vision_, parce qu'il n'y a plus _perception_. Le _percevoir_, et
non le _sentir_, est donc le premier élément de l'_intelligence_.
La _perception_ est partie de l'_intelligence_, car elle se
perd avec l'_intelligence_, et par l'ablation du même organe,
les _lobes_ ou _hémisphères cérébraux_; et la _sensibilité_
n'en est point partie, puisqu'elle subsiste après la perte de
l'_intelligence_ et l'ablation des _lobes_ ou _hémisphères_."

[85] Flourens, "De la vie et de l'Intelligence," 2nd edition,
Paris, Garnier Frères, 1852, p. 49.

The following famous verse of the ancient philosopher Epicharmus, proves that the ancients in general recognized the intellectual nature of perception: Νοῦς ὁρῇ καὶ νοῦς ἀκούει· τἆλλα κωφὰ καὶ τυφλά. (_Mens videt, mens audit; cætera surda et cœca._)[86] Plutarch in quoting this verse, adds:[87] ὡς τοῦ περὶ τὰ ὄμματα καὶ ὦτα πάθους, ἂν μὴ παρῇ τὸ φρονοῦν, αἴσθησιν οὐ ποιοῦντος (_quia affectio oculorum et aurium nullum affert sensum, intelligentia absente_). Shortly before too he says: Στράτωνος τοῦ φυσικοῦ λόγος ἐστίν, ἀποδεικνύων ὡς οὐδ' αἰσθάνεσθαι τοπαράπαν ἄνευ τοῦ νοεῖν ὑπάρχει. (_Stratonis physici exstat ratiocinatio, qua "sine intelligentia sentiri omnino nihil posse" demonstrat._)[88] Again shortly after he says: ὅθεν ἀνάγκη, πᾶσιν, οἷς τὸ αἰσθάνεσθαι, καὶ τὸ νοεῖν ὑπάρχειν, εἰ τῷ νοεῖν αἰσθάνεσθαι πεφύκαμεν (_quare necesse est, omnia, quæ sentiunt, etiam intelligere, siquidem intelligendo demum sentiamus_).[89] A second verse of Epicharmus might be connected with this, which is quoted by Diogenes Laertes (iii. 16):

Εὔμαιε, τὸ σοφόν ἐστιν οὐ καθ' ἓν μόνον,
ἀλλ' ὅσα περ ζῇ, πάντα καὶ γνώμαν ἔχει.

[86] "It is the mind that sees and hears; all besides is deaf and
blind." (Tr. Ad.)

[87] Plutarch, "De solert. animal." c. 3. "For the affection of
our eyes and ears does not produce any perception, unless it be
accompanied by thought." (Tr. Ad.)

[88] "Straton, the physicist, has proved that 'without thinking it
is quite impossible to perceive.'" (Tr. Ad.)

[89] "Therefore it is necessary that all who perceive should also
think, since we are so constituted as to perceive by means of
thinking." (Tr. Ad.)

(_Eumaee, sapientia non uni tantum competit, sed quæcunque vivunt etiam intellectum habent._) Porphyry likewise endeavours to show at length that all animals have understanding.[90]

[90] Porph. "De abstinentia," iii. 21.

Now, that it should be so, follows necessarily from the intellectual character of perception. All animals, even down to the very lowest, must have Understanding--that is, knowledge of the causal law, although they have it in very different degrees of delicacy and of clearness; at any rate they must have as much of it as is required for perception by their senses; for sensation without Understanding would be not only a useless, but a cruel gift of Nature. No one, who has himself any intelligence, can doubt the existence of it in the higher animals. But at times it even becomes undeniably evident that their knowledge of causality is actually _à priori_, and that it does not arise from the habit of seeing one thing follow upon another. A very young puppy will not, for instance, jump off a table, because he foresees what would be the consequence. Not long ago I had some large curtains put up at my bed-room window, which reached down to the floor, and were drawn aside from the centre by means of a string. The first morning they were opened I was surprised to see my dog, a very intelligent poodle, standing quite perplexed, and looking upwards and sidewards for the cause of the phenomenon: that is, he was seeking for the change which he knew _à priori_ must have taken place. Next day the same thing happened again.--But even the lowest animals have perception--consequently Understanding--down to the aquatic polypus, which has no distinct organs of sensation, yet wanders from leaf to leaf on its waterplant, while clinging to it with its feelers, in search of more light.

Nor is there, indeed, any difference, beyond that of degree, between this lowest Understanding and that of man, which we however distinctly separate from his Reason. The intermediate gradations are occupied by the various series of animals, among which the highest, such as the monkey, the elephant, the dog, astonish us often by their intelligence. But in every case the business of the Understanding is invariably to apprehend directly causal relations: first, as we have seen, those between our own body and other bodies, whence proceeds objective perception; then those between these objectively perceived bodies among themselves, and here, as has been shown in § 20, the causal relation manifests itself in three forms--as cause, as stimulus, and as motive. All movement in the world takes place according to these three forms of the causal relation, and through them alone does the intellect comprehend it. Now, if, of these three, _causes_, in the narrowest sense of the word, happen to be the object of investigation for the Understanding, it will produce Astronomy, Mechanics, Physics, Chemistry, and will invent machines for good and for evil; but in all cases a direct, intuitive apprehension of the causal connection will in the last resort lie at the bottom of all its discoveries. For the sole form and function of the Understanding is this apprehension, and not by any means the complicated machinery of Kant's twelve Categories, the nullity of which I have proved.--(All comprehension is a direct, consequently intuitive, apprehension of the causal connection; although this has to be reduced at once to abstract conceptions in order to be fixed. To calculate therefore, is not to understand, and, in itself, calculation conveys no comprehension of things. Calculation deals exclusively with abstract conceptions of magnitudes, whose mutual relations it determines. By it we never attain the slightest comprehension of a physical process, for this requires _intuitive_ comprehension of space-relations, by means of which causes take effect. Calculations have merely practical, not theoretical, value. It may even be said that _where calculation begins, comprehension ceases_; for a brain occupied with numbers is, as long as it calculates, entirely estranged from the causal connection in physical processes, being engrossed in purely abstract, numerical conceptions. The result, however, only shows us _how much_, never _what_. "_L'expérience et le calcul_," those watchwords of French physicists, are not therefore by any means adequate [for thorough insight].)--If, again, _stimuli_ are the guides of the Understanding, it will produce Physiology of Plants and Animals, Therapeutics, and Toxicology. Finally, if it devotes itself to the study of _motives_, the Understanding will use them, on the one hand, theoretically, to guide it in producing works on Morality, Jurisprudence, History, Politics, and even Dramatic and Epic Poetry; on the other hand, practically, either merely to train animals, or for the higher purpose of making human beings dance to its music, when once it has succeeded in discovering which particular wire has to be pulled in order to move each puppet at its pleasure. Now, with reference to the function which effects this, it is quite immaterial whether the intellect turns gravitation ingeniously to account, and makes it serve its purpose by stepping in just at the right time, or whether it brings the collective or the individual propensities of men into play for its own ends. In its practical application we call the Understanding _shrewdness_ or, when used to outwit others, _cunning_; when its aims are very insignificant, it is called _slyness_ and, if combined with injury to others, _craftiness_. In its purely theoretical application, we call it simply _Understanding_, the higher degrees of which are named _acumen_, _sagacity_, _discernment_, _penetration_, while its lower degrees are termed _dulness_, _stupidity_, _silliness_, &c. &c. These widely differing degrees of sharpness are innate, and cannot be acquired; although, as I have already shown, even in the earliest stages of the application of the Understanding, _i.e._ in empirical perception, practice and knowledge of the material to which it is applied, are needed. Every simpleton has Reason--give him the premisses, and he will draw the conclusion; whereas _primary_, consequently intuitive, knowledge is supplied by the Understanding: herein lies the difference. The pith of every great discovery, of every plan having universal historical importance, is accordingly the product of a happy moment in which, by a favourable coincidence of outer and inner circumstances, some complicated causal series, some hidden causes of phenomena which had been seen thousands of times before, or some obscure, untrodden paths, suddenly reveal themselves to the intellect.--

By the preceding explanations of the processes in seeing and feeling, I have incontestably shown that empirical perception is essentially the work of _the Understanding_, for which the material only is supplied by the senses in sensation--and a poor material it is, on the whole; so that _the Understanding_ is, in fact, the artist, while the senses are but the under-workmen who hand it the materials. But the process consists throughout in referring from given effects to their causes, which by this process are enabled to present themselves as objects in Space. The very fact that we presuppose Causality in this process, proves precisely that this law must have been supplied by the Understanding itself; for it could never have found its way into the intellect from outside. It is indeed the first condition of all empirical perception; but this again is the form in which all external experience presents itself to us; how then can this law of Causality be derived from experience, when it is itself essentially presupposed by experience?--It was just because of the utter impossibility of this, and because Locke's philosophy had put an end to all _à priority_, that Hume denied the whole reality of the conception of Causality. He had besides already mentioned two false hypotheses in the seventh section of his "Inquiry concerning the Human Understanding," which recently have again been advanced: the one, that the effect of the will upon the members of our body; the other, that the resistance opposed to our pressure by outward objects, is the origin and prototype of the conception of Causality. Hume refutes both in his own way and according to his own order of ideas. I argue as follows. There is no causal connection whatever between acts of the will and actions of the body; on the contrary, both are immediately one and the same thing, only perceived in a double aspect--that is, on the one hand, in our self-consciousness, or inner sense, as acts of the will; on the other, simultaneously in exterior, spacial brain-perception, as actions of the body.[91] The second hypothesis is false, first because, as I have already shown at length, a mere sensation of touch does not yet give any objective perception whatever, let alone the conception of Causality, which never can arise from the feeling of an impeded muscular effort: besides impediments of this kind often occur without any external cause; secondly, because our pressing against an external object necessarily has a motive, and this already presupposes apprehension of that object, which again presupposes knowledge of Causality.--But the only means of radically proving the conception of Causality to be independent of all experience was by showing, as I have done, that the whole possibility of experience is conditioned by the conception of Causality. In § 23 I intend to show that Kant's proof, propounded with a similar intent, is false.

[91] Compare "Die Welt a. W. u. V." 3rd edition, vol. ii. p. 41.
[The 3rd edition of "Die Welt a. W. u. V." contains at this place
a supplement which is wanting in the 2nd edition, vol. ii. p.
38.--Note by the Editor of the 3rd edition.]

This is also the proper place for drawing attention to the fact, that Kant either did not clearly recognise in empirical perception the mediation of the causal law--which law is known to us before all experience--or that he intentionally evaded mentioning it, because it did not suit his purpose. In the "Critique of Pure Reason," for instance, the relation between causality and perception is not treated in the "Doctrine of Elements," but in the chapter on the "Paralogisms of Pure Reason," where one would hardly expect to find it; moreover it appears in his "Critique of the Fourth Paralogism of Transcendental Psychology," and only in the first edition.[92] The very fact that this place should have been assigned to it, shows that in considering this relation, he always had the transition from the phenomenon to the thing in itself exclusively in view, but not the genesis of perception itself. Here accordingly he says that the existence of a real external object is not given directly in perception, but can be added to it in thought and thus inferred. In Kant's eyes, however, he who does this is a Transcendental Realist, and consequently on a wrong road. For by his "outward object" Kant here means the thing in itself. The Transcendental Idealist, on the contrary, stops short at the perception of something empirically real--that is, of something existing outside us in Space--without needing the inference of a cause to give it reality. For _perception_, according to Kant, is quite directly accomplished without any assistance from the causal nexus, and consequently from the Understanding: he simply identifies perception with sensation. This we find confirmed in the passage which begins, "With reference to the reality of external objects, I need as little trust to inference," &c. &c.[93] and again in the sentence commencing with "Now we may well admit," &c. &c.[94] It is quite clear from these passages that perception of external things in Space, according to Kant, precedes all application of the causal law, therefore that the causal law does not belong to perception as an element and condition of it: for him, mere sensation is identical with perception. Only in as far as we ask what may, in a _transcendental_ sense, exist _outside of us_: that is, when we ask for the thing in itself, is Causality mentioned as connected with perception. Moreover Kant admits the existence, nay, the mere possibility, of causality only in reflection: that is, in abstract, distinct knowledge by means of conceptions; therefore he has no suspicion that its application is _anterior to all reflection_, which is nevertheless evidently the case, especially in empirical, sensuous perception which, as I have proved irrefragably in the preceding analysis, could never take place otherwise. Kant is therefore obliged to leave the genesis of empirical perception unexplained. With him it is a mere matter of the senses, given as it were in a miraculous way: that is, it coincides with sensation. I should very much like my reflective readers to refer to the passages I have indicated in Kant's work, in order to convince themselves of the far greater accuracy of my view of the whole process and connection. Kant's extremely erroneous view has held its ground till now in philosophical literature, simply because no one ventured to attack it; therefore I have found it necessary to clear the way in order to throw light upon the mechanism of our knowledge.

[92] Kant, "Krit. d. r. V." 1st edition, p. 367 _sqq._ (English
translation by M. Müller, p. 318 _sqq._)

[93] Kant, "Krit. d. r. Vern." 1st edition, p. 371. (English
translation, by M. Müller, p. 322.)

[94] Kant, "Krit. d. r. Vern." 1st edition, p. 372. (English
translation, p. 323.)

Kant's fundamental idealistic position loses nothing whatever, nay, it even gains by this rectification of mine, in as far as, with me, the necessity of the causal law is absorbed and extinguished in empirical perception as its product and cannot therefore be invoked in behalf of an entirely transcendent question as to the thing in itself. On referring to my theory above concerning empirical perception, we find that its first datum, sensation, is absolutely subjective, being a process within the organism, because it takes place beneath the skin. Locke has completely and exhaustively proved, that the feelings of our senses, even admitting them to be roused by external causes, cannot have any resemblance whatever to the qualities of those causes. Sugar, for instance, bears no resemblance at all to sweetness, nor a rose to redness. But that they should need an external cause at all, is based upon a law whose origin lies demonstrably within us, in our brain; therefore this necessity is not less subjective than the sensations themselves. Nay, even _Time_--that primary condition of every possible _change_, therefore also of the change which first permits the application of the causal law--and not less _Space_--which alone renders the externalisation of causes possible, after which they present themselves to us as objects--even Time and Space, we say, are subjective forms of the intellect, as Kant has conclusively proved. Accordingly we find all the elements of empirical perception lying within us, and nothing contained in them which can give us reliable indications as to anything differing absolutely from ourselves, anything in itself.--But this is not all. What we think under the conception _matter_, is the residue which remains over after bodies have been divested of their shape and of all their specific qualities: a residue, which precisely on that account must be identical in all bodies. Now these shapes and qualities which have been abstracted by us, are nothing but the peculiar, specially defined _way in which these bodies act_, which constitutes precisely their difference. If therefore we leave these shapes and qualities out of consideration, there remains nothing but _mere activity in general_, pure action as such, Causality itself, objectively thought--that is, the reflection of our own Understanding, the externalised image of its sole function; and Matter is throughout pure Causality, its essence is Action in general.[95] This is why pure Matter cannot be perceived, but can only be thought: it is a something we add to every reality, as its basis, in thinking it. For pure Causality, mere action, without any defined mode of action, cannot become perceptible, therefore it cannot come within any experience.--Thus Matter is only the objective correlate to pure Understanding; for it is Causality in general, and nothing else: just as the Understanding itself is direct knowledge of cause and effect, and nothing else. Now this again is precisely why the law of causality is not applicable to Matter itself: that is to say, Matter has neither beginning nor end, but is and remains permanent. For as, on the one hand, Causality is the indispensable condition of all alternation in the accidents (forms and qualities) of Matter, _i.e._ of all passage in and out of being; but as, on the other hand, Matter is pure Causality itself, as such, objectively viewed: it is unable to exercise its own power upon itself, just as the eye can see everything but itself. "Substance" and Matter being moreover identical, we may call _Substance_, _action_ viewed _in abstracto_: _Accidents_, particular modes of action, action _in concreto_.--Now these are the results to which true, _i.e._ transcendental, Idealism leads. In my chief work I have shown that the thing in itself--_i.e._ whatever, on the whole, exists independently of our representation--cannot be got at by way of representation, but that, to reach it, we must follow quite a different path, leading through the inside of things, which lets us into the citadel, as it were, by treachery.--

[95] Compare "Die Welt a. W. u. V." 2nd edition; vol. i. sect. 4,
p. 9; and vol. ii. pp. 48, 49 (3rd edition, vol. i. p. 10; vol. ii.
p. 52). English translation, vol. i. pp. 9-10; vol. ii. p. 218.

But it would be downright chicanery, nothing else, to try and compare, let alone identify, such an honest, deep, thorough analysis of empirical perception as the one I have just given, which proves all the elements of perception to be subjective, with Fichte's algebraic equations of the _Ego_ and the _Non-Ego_; with his sophistical pseudo-demonstrations, which in order to be able to deceive his readers had to be clothed in the obscure, not to say absurd, language adopted by him; with his explanations of the way in which the _Ego_ spins the _Non-Ego_ out of itself; in short, with all the buffoonery of scientific emptiness.[96] Besides, I protest altogether against any community with this Fichte, as Kant publicly and emphatically did in a notice _ad hoc_ in the "Jenaer Litteratur Zeitung."[97] Hegelians and similar ignoramuses may continue to hold forth to their heart's content upon Kant-Fichteian philosophy: there exists a Kantian philosophy and a Fichteian hocus-pocus,--this is the true state of the case, and will remain so, in spite of those who delight in extolling what is bad and in decrying what is good, and of these Germany possesses a larger number than any other country.

[96] _Wissenschaftsleere_ (literally, _emptiness of science_), a
pun of Schopenhauer's on the title of Fichte's _Wissenschaftslehre_
(_doctrine of science_), which cannot be rendered in English.
(Tr.'s Note.)

[97] Kant, "Erklärung über Fichte's Wissenschaftslehre." See the
"Intelligenzblatt" of the Jena Literary Gazette (1799), No. 109.

§ 22. _Of the Immediate Object._

Thus it is from the sensations of our body that we receive the data for the very first application of the causal law, and it is precisely by that application that the perception of this class of objects arises. They therefore have their essence and existence solely in virtue of the intellectual function thus coming into play, and of its exercise.

Now, as far as it is the starting-point, _i.e._ the mediator, for our perception of all other objects, I have called the bodily organism, in the first edition of the present work, the _Immediate Object_; this, however, must not be taken in a strictly literal sense. For although our bodily sensations are all apprehended directly, still this immediate apprehension does not yet make our body itself perceptible to us as an object; on the contrary, up to this point all remains subjective, that is to say, sensation. From this sensation certainly proceeds the perception of all other objects as the causes of such sensations, and these causes then present themselves to us as objects; but it is not so with the body itself, which only supplies sensations to consciousness. It is only _indirectly_ that we know even this body objectively, _i.e._ as an object, by its presenting itself, like all other objects, as the recognised cause of a subjectively given effect--and precisely on this account _objectively_--in our Understanding, or brain (which is the same). Now this can only take place when its own senses are acted upon by its parts: for instance, when the body is seen by the eye, or felt by the hand, &c., upon which data the brain (or understanding) forthwith constructs it as to shape and quality in space.--The immediate presence in our consciousness of representations belonging to this class, depends therefore upon the position assigned to them in the causal chain--by which all things are _connected_--relatively to the body (for the time being) of the Subject--by which (the Subject) all things are _known_.

§ 23. _Arguments against Kant's Proof of the_ à priority _of the conception of Causality_.

One of the chief objects of the "Critique of Pure Reason" is to show the universal validity, for all experience, of the causal law, its _à priority_, and, as a necessary consequence of this, its restriction to possible experience. Nevertheless, I cannot assent to the proof there given of the _à priority_ of the principle, which is substantially this:--"The _synthesis_ of the manifold by the imagination, which is necessary for all empirical knowledge, gives succession, but not yet determinate succession: that is, it leaves undetermined which of two states perceived was the first, not only in my imagination, but in the object itself. But definite order in this succession--through which alone what we perceive becomes experience, or, in other words, authorizes us to form objectively valid judgments--is first brought into it by the purely intellectual conception of cause and effect. Thus the principle of causal relation is the condition which renders experience possible, and, as such, it is given us _à priori_."[98]

[98] Kant, "Krit. d. r. Vern." 1st edition, p. 201; 5th edition, p.
246. (English translation by M. Müller, p. 176.) This is, however,
not a literal quotation. (Tr.'s note.)

According to this, the order in which changes succeed each other in real objects becomes known to us as objective only by their causality. This assertion Kant repeats and explains in the "Critique of Pure Reason," especially in his "Second Analogy of Experience,"[99] and again at the conclusion of his "Third Analogy," and I request every one who desires to understand what I am now about to say, to read these passages. In them he affirms everywhere that _the objectivity of the succession of representations_--which he defines as their correspondence with the succession of real objects--is only known through the rule by which they follow upon one another: that is, through the law of causality; that my mere apprehension consequently leaves the objective relation between phenomena following one another quite undetermined: since I merely apprehend the succession of my own representations, but the succession in my apprehension does not authorize me to form any judgment whatever as to the succession in the object, unless that judgment be based upon causality; and since, besides, I might invert the order in which these perceptions follow each other in my apprehension, there being nothing which determines them as objective. To illustrate this assertion, Kant brings forward the instance of a house, whose parts we may consider in any order we like, from top to bottom, or from bottom to top; the determination of succession being in this case purely subjective and not founded upon an object, because it depends upon our pleasure. In opposition to this instance, he brings forward the perception of a ship sailing down a river, which we see successively lower and lower down the stream, which perception of the successively varying positions of the ship cannot be changed by the looker-on. In this latter case, therefore, he derives the subjective following in his own apprehension from the objective following in the phenomenon, and on this account he calls it an _event_. Now I maintain, on the contrary, that _there is no difference at all between these two cases, that both are events_, and that our knowledge of both is objective: that is to say, it is knowledge of changes in real objects recognized as such by the Subject. _Both are changes of relative position in two bodies._ In the first case, one of these bodies is a part of the observer's own organism, the eye, and the other is the house, with respect to the different parts of which the eye successively alters its position. In the second, it is the ship which alters its position towards the stream; therefore the change occurs between two bodies. Both are events, the only difference being that, in the first, the change has its starting-point in the observer's own body, from whose sensations undoubtedly all his perceptions originally proceed, but which is nevertheless an object among objects, and in consequence obeys the laws of the objective, material world. For the observer, as a purely cognising individual, any movement of his body is simply an empirically perceived fact. It would be just as possible in the second as in the first instance, to invert the order of succession in the change, were it as easy for the observer to move the ship up the stream as to alter the direction of his own eyes. For Kant infers the successive perception of different parts of the house to be neither objective nor an event, because it depends upon his own will. But the movement of his eyes in the direction from roof to basement is one event, and in the direction from basement to roof another event, just as much as the sailing of the ship. There is no difference whatever here, nor is there any difference either, as to their being or not being events, between my passing a troop of soldiers and their passing me. If we fix our eyes on a ship sailing close by the shore on which we are standing, it soon seems as if it were the ship that stood still and the shore that moved. Now, in this instance we are mistaken, it is true, as to the cause of the relative change of position, since we attribute it to a wrong cause; the real succession in the relative positions of our body towards the ship is nevertheless quite rightly and objectively recognised by us. Even Kant himself would not have believed that there was any difference, had he borne in mind that his own body was an object among objects, and that the succession in his empirical perceptions depended upon the succession of the impressions received from other objects by his body, and was therefore an objective succession: that is to say, one which takes place among objects _directly_ (if not indirectly) and independently of the will of the Subject, and which may therefore be quite well recognised without any causal connection between the objects acting successively on his body.

[99] _Ibid._ p. 189 of the 1st edition; more fully, p. 232 of the
5th edition. (English translation by M. Müller, p. 166.)

Kant says, Time cannot be perceived; therefore no succession of representations can be empirically perceived as objective: _i.e._ can be distinguished as changes in phenomena from the changes of mere subjective representations. The causal law, being a rule according to which states follow one another, is the only means by which the objectivity of a change can be known. Now, the result of his assertion would be, that no succession in Time could be perceived by us as objective, excepting that of cause and effect, and that every other succession of phenomena we perceive, would only be determined so, and not otherwise, by our own will. In contradiction to all this I must adduce the fact, that it is quite possible for phenomena to _follow upon_ one another without _following from_ one another. Nor is the law of causality by any means prejudiced by this; for it remains certain that each change is the effect of another change, this being firmly established _à priori_; only each change not only follows upon the single one which is its cause, but upon all the other changes which occur simultaneously with that cause, and with which that cause stands in no causal connection whatever. It is not perceived by me exactly in the regular order of causal succession, but in quite a different order, which is, however, no less objective on that account, and which differs widely from any subjective succession depending on my caprice, such as, for instance, the pictures of my imagination. The succession, in Time, of events which stand in no causal connection with each other is precisely what we call _contingency_.[100] Just as I am leaving my house, a tile happens to fall from the roof which strikes me; now, there is no causal connection whatever between my going out and the falling of the tile; yet the order of their succession--that is, that my going out preceded the falling of the tile--is objectively determined in my apprehension, not subjectively by my will, by which that order would otherwise have most likely been inverted. The order in which tones follow each other in a musical composition is likewise objectively determined, not subjectively by me, the listener; yet who would think of asserting that musical tones follow one another according to the law of cause and effect? Even the succession of day and night is undoubtedly known to us as an objective one, but we as certainly do not look upon them as causes and effects of one another; and as to their common cause, the whole world was in error till Copernicus came; yet the correct knowledge of their succession was not in the least disturbed by that error. Hume's hypothesis, by the way, also finds its refutation through this; since the following of day and night upon each other--the most ancient of all successions and the one least liable to exception--has never yet misled anyone into taking them for cause and effect of each other.

[100] In German _Zufall_, a word derived from the _Zusammenfallen_
(falling together), _Zusammentreffen_ (meeting together), or
coinciding of what is unconnected, just as τὸ συμβεβηκός from
συμβαίνειν. (Compare Aristotle, "Anal. post.," i. 4.)

Elsewhere Kant asserts, that a representation only shows reality (which, I conclude, means that it is distinguished from a mere mental image) by our recognising its necessary connection with other representations subject to rule (the causal law) and its place in a determined order of the time-relations of our representations. But of how few representations are we able to know the place assigned to them by the law of causality in the chain of causes and effects! Yet we are never embarrassed to distinguish objective from subjective representations: real, from imaginary objects. When asleep, we are unable to make this distinction, for our brain is then isolated from the peripherical nervous system, and thereby from external influences. In our dreams therefore, we take imaginary for real things, and it is only when we awaken: that is, when our nervous sensibility, and through this the outer world, once more comes within our consciousness, that we become aware of our mistake; still, even in our dreams, so long as they last, the causal law holds good, only an impossible material is often substituted for the usual one. We might almost think that Kant was influenced by Leibnitz in writing the passage we have quoted, however much he differs from him in all the rest of his philosophy; especially if we consider that Leibnitz expresses precisely similar views, when, for instance, he says: "La vérité des choses sensibles ne consiste que dans la liaison des phénomènes, qui doit avoir sa raison, et c'est ce qui les distingue des songes. ---- Le vrai Critérion, en matière des objets des sens, est la liaison des phénomènes, qui garantit les vérités de fait, à l'egard des choses sensibles hors de nous."[101]

[101] Leibnitz, "Nouveaux Essais sur l'Entendement," lib. iv. ch.
ii. sect. 14.

It is clear that in proving the _à priority_ and the necessity of the causal law by the fact that the objective succession of changes is known to us only by means of that law, and that, in so far, causality is a condition for all experience, Kant fell into a very singular error, and one which is indeed so palpable, that the only way we can account for it is, by supposing him to have become so absorbed in the _à priori_ part of our knowledge, that he lost sight of what would have been evident to anyone else. The only correct demonstration of the _à priority_ of the causal law is given by me in § 21 of the present work. That _à priority_ finds its confirmation every moment in the infallible security with which we expect experience to tally with the causal law: that is to say, in the apodeictic certainty we ascribe to it, a certainty which differs from every other founded on induction--the certainty, for instance, of empirically known laws of Nature--in that we can conceive no exception to the causal law anywhere within the world of experience. We can, for instance, _conceive_ that in an exceptional case the law of gravitation might cease to act, but not that this could happen without a cause.

Kant and Hume have fallen into opposite errors in their proofs. Hume asserts that all _consequence_ is mere _sequence_; whereas Kant affirms that all _sequence_ must necessarily be _consequence_. Pure Understanding, it is true, can only conceive _consequence_ (causal result), and is no more able to conceive mere _sequence_ than to conceive the difference between right and left, which, like sequence, is only to be grasped by means of pure Sensibility. Empirical knowledge of the following of events in Time is, indeed, just as possible as empirical knowledge of juxtaposition of things in Space (this Kant denies elsewhere), but _the way in which_ things follow _upon_ one another in general in Time can no more be explained, than the way in which one thing follows _from_ another (as the effect of a cause): the former knowledge is given and conditioned by pure Sensibility; the latter, by pure Understanding. But in asserting that knowledge of the objective succession of phenomena can only be attained by means of the causal law, Kant commits the same error with which he reproaches Leibnitz:[102] that of "intellectualising the forms of Sensibility."--My view of succession is the following one. We derive our knowledge of the bare _possibility_ of succession from the form of Time, which belongs to pure Sensibility. The succession of real objects, whose form is precisely Time, we know empirically, consequently as _actual_. But it is through the Understanding alone, by means of Causality, that we gain knowledge of the _necessity_ of a succession of two states: that is, of a change; and even the fact that we are able to conceive the necessity of a succession at all, proves already that the causal law is not known to us empirically, but given us _à priori_. The Principle of Sufficient Reason is the general expression for the fundamental form of the necessary connection between all our objects, _i.e._ representations, which lies in the innermost depths of our cognitive faculty: it is the form common to all representations, and the only source of the conception of _necessity_, which contains absolutely nothing else in it and no other import, than that of the following of the consequence, when its reason has been established. Now, the reason why this principle determines the order of succession in Time in the class of representations we are now investigating, in which it figures as the law of causality, is, that Time is the form of these representations, therefore the necessary connection appears here as the rule of succession. In other forms of the principle of sufficient reason, the necessary connection it always demands will appear under quite different forms from that of Time, therefore not as succession; still it always retains the character of a necessary connection, by which the identity of the principle under all its forms, or rather the unity of the root of all the laws of which that principle is the common expression, reveals itself.

[102] Kant, "Kritik d. r. Vern." 1st edition, p. 275; 5th edition,
p. 331. (English translation by M. Müller, p. 236.)

If Kant's assertion were correct, which I dispute, our only way of knowing the reality of succession would be through its necessity; but this would presuppose an Understanding that embraced all the series of causes and effects at once, consequently an omniscient Understanding. Kant has burdened the Understanding with an impossibility, merely in order to have less need of Sensibility.

How can we reconcile Kant's assertion that our only means of knowing the objective reality of succession is by the necessity with which effect follows cause, with his other assertion[103] that succession in Time is our only empirical criterion for determining which of two states is cause, and which effect. Who does not see the most obvious circle here?

[103] Kant, "Krit. d. r. Vern." vol. i. p. 203 of the 1st edition;
p. 249 of the 5th edition. (English translation by M. Müller, p.
178.)

If we knew objectiveness of succession through Causality, we should never be able to think it otherwise than as Causality, and then it would be nothing else than Causality. For, if it were anything else, it would have other distinctive signs by which to be recognised; now this is just what Kant denies. Accordingly, if Kant were right, we could not say: "This state is the effect of that one, wherefore it follows it;" for following and being an effect, would be one and the same thing, and this proposition a tautology. Besides, if we do away with all distinction between following _upon_ and following _from_, we once more yield the point to Hume, who declared all consequence to be mere sequence and therefore denied that distinction likewise.

Kant's proof would, consequently, be reduced to this: that, empirically, we only know _actuality_ of succession; but as besides we recognise _necessity_ of succession in certain series of occurrences, and even know before all experience that every possible occurrence must have a fixed place in some one of these series, the reality and the _à priority_ of the causal law follow as a matter of course, the only correct proof of the latter being the one I have given in § 21 of this work.

Parallel with the Kantian theory: that the causal nexus alone renders objective succession and our knowledge of it possible, there runs another: that coexistence and our knowledge of it are only possible through reciprocity. In the "Critique of Pure Reason" they are presented under the title: "Third Analogy of Experience." Here Kant goes so far as to say that "the co-existence of phenomena, which exercise no reciprocal action on one another, but are separated by a perfectly empty space, could never become an object of possible perception"[104] (which, by the way, would be a proof _à priori_ that there is no empty space between the fixed stars), and that "the light which _plays between_ our eyes and celestial bodies"--an expression conveying surreptitiously the thought, that this starlight not only acts upon our eyes, but is acted upon by them also--"produces an intercommunity between us and them, and proves the co-existence of the latter." Now, even empirically, this last assertion is false; since the sight of a fixed star by no means proves its coexistence simultaneously with its spectator, but, at most, its existence some years, nay even some centuries before. Besides, this second Kantian theory stands and falls with the first, only it is far more easily detected; and the nullity of the whole conception of reciprocity has been shown in § 20.

[104] Kant, "Krit. d. r. Vern." pp. 212 and 213 of the 1st edition.
(English translation, pp. 185 and 186.)

The arguments I have brought forward against Kant's proof may be compared with two previous attacks made on it by Feder,[105] and by G. E. Schulze.[106]

[105] Feder, "Ueber Raum und Causalität." sect. 29.

[106] G. E. Schulze, "Kritik der theoretischen Philosophie," vol.
ii. p. 422 _sqq._

Not without considerable hesitation did I thus venture (in 1813) to attack a theory which had been universally received as a demonstrated truth, is repeated even now in the latest publications,[107] and forms a chief point in the doctrine of one for whose profound wisdom I have the greatest reverence and admiration; one to whom, indeed, I owe so much, that his spirit might truly say to me, in the words of Homer:

Ἀχλὺν δ' αὖ τοι ἀπ' ὀφθαλμῶν ἕλον, ἣ πρὶν ἐπῆεν.[108]

[107] For instance, in Fries' "Kritik der Vernunft," vol. ii. p. 85.

[108] I lifted from thine eyes the darkness which covered them
before. (Tr.'s Ad.)

§ 24. _Of the Misapplication of the Law of Causality._

From the foregoing exposition it follows, that the application of the causal law to anything but _changes_ in the material, empirically given world, is an abuse of it. For instance, it is a misapplication to make use of it with reference to physical forces, without which no changes could take place; or to Matter, _on_ which they take place; or to the world, to which we must in that case attribute an absolutely objective existence independently of our intellect; indeed in many other cases besides. I refer the reader to what I have said on this subject in my chief work.[109] Such misapplications always arise, partly, through our taking the conception of cause, like many other metaphysical and ethical conceptions, in far _too wide_ a sense; partly, through our forgetting that the causal law is certainly a presupposition which we bring with us into the world, by which the perception of things outside us becomes possible; but that, just on that account, we are not authorized in extending beyond the range and independently of our cognitive faculty a principle, which has its origin in the equipment of that faculty, nor in assuming it to hold good as the everlasting order of the universe and of all that exists.

[109] "Die Welt a. W. u. V." 2nd edition, vol. ii. ch. iv. p. 42
_et seqq._; 3rd edition, vol. ii. p. 46 _et seqq._

§ 25. _The Time in which a Change takes place._

As the Principle of Sufficient Reason of Becoming is exclusively applicable to _changes_, we must not omit to mention here, that the ancient philosophers had already raised the question as to the time in which a change takes place, there being no possibility of it taking place during the existence of the preceding state nor after the new one has supervened. Yet, if we assign a special time to it between both states, a body would, during this time, be neither in the first nor in the second state: a dying man, for instance, would be neither alive nor dead; a body neither at rest nor in movement: which would be absurd. The scruples and sophistic subtleties which this question has evoked, may be found collected together in Sextus Empiricus "Adv. Mathem." lib. ix. 267-271, and "Hypat." iii. c. 14; the subject is likewise dealt with by Gellius, l. vi. c. 13--Plato[110] had disposed somewhat cavalierly of this knotty point, by maintaining that changes take place _suddenly_ and occupy _no time at all_; they occur, he says, in the ἐξαίφνης (_in repentino_), which he calls an ἄτοπος φύσις, ἐν χρόνῳ οὐδὲν οὖσα; a strange, timeless existence (which nevertheless comes within Time).

[110] Plato, "Parmenides," p. 138, ed. Bip.