Rudolf Hermann Lotze

“ Over and over again were we made to see that no ‘law’ and no ‘truth’ can exist within the World, before, outside, between or above the ‘Things,’ concerning which it is assumed to hold good: law or truth is, and acts, only in so far as it is realized as a ‘state’ or ‘activity’ of, or within, the living Existent. ”

“ For the aforesaid ‘action’ of Fichte we substitute the morally Good, for which the action is simply the indispensable form of actualization; we besides conceive of the ‘beautiful,’ too, and the ‘happy’ or ‘blessedness,’ as united with this Good into one complex of all that has Value. And now we affirm: Genuine Reality in the world (to wit, in the sense that all else is, in relation to It, subordinate, deduced, mere semblance or means to an end) consists alone in this Highest-Good personal, which is at the same time the highest-good Thing. ”

“ The objectivity of our cognition consists, therefore, in this, that it is not a meaningless play of mere seeming; but it brings before us a World whose coherency is ordered in pursuance of the injunction of the Sole Reality in the world,—to wit, of the Good. ”

“ Rather, the absolute living and creative Spirit alone is; and He is the first principle of all in such manner that even the truth, according to which he seems to create, is only extant after his creative act. ”

“ If now the question is raised, precisely in what does that good consist which would be actualized by means of such a reality to ‘Things,’ and which the world would lack, in case only actions of the Absolute existed in its stead?—then it would easily be discovered that the bare objective existence, maintenance, and actual self-motion of ‘Things,’ and their actual but blind action on each other, would not have, of itself, in the least degree more value than the perfectly corresponding relations between the actions of the Absolute. ”

“ Quite the reverse, however, must we admit that to be spirit is the only conceivable reality: that is to say, only in the idea of spiritual life do we understand with a perfect clearness what ‘real Being’ means; and, on the contrary, every as yet non-spiritual but ‘Thing-like’ reality is conceived of by us only through the instrumentality of a collection of abstract conceptions that make upon us the demand for somewhat more, of which we do not know precisely in what way it is to be fulfilled. ”

“ This ‘Being for self’ is the essential factor in that which we, in a formally unsatisfactory way, designate as ‘Being outside the Infinite.’ On the contrary, what we are accustomed to call ‘Things’ and ‘events between things,’ is the sum of those other actions which the highest Principle variously executes in all spirits so uniformly and in such coherency according to law, that to these spirits there must appear to be one world of substantial and efficient ‘Things’ existing in space outside themselves. ”

“ The above-mentioned Idealism, nevertheless, has failed to get rooted, not barely in the common mode of conception,—for which it is quite too much of a foreign growth,—but also in philosophy. It has been objected to it, that its so-called ‘actions of the Absolute’ could serve as a substitute for ‘Things,’ but still are not actual Things. That there must be Things, however, is firmly adhered to, from a motive very obscure and little analyzed. We want to possess in that Nature which we immediately perceive, something really self-existent and not barely a somewhat apparent to us. ”

“ The above considerations lead at once to the view of ‘subjective Idealism’;—to the view, namely, that all which we call ‘cognition’ is only a play of our own activity. The perception of the world is then a product of our creative faculty of imagination; the elaboration of perception by means of theoretical conceptions, and its interpretation by reference to a Kingdom of ‘Things,’ only a further carrying out of this activity, which still further articulates its product after it has constructed it. ”

“ Only the thinking of spiritual beings, however, apprehends ideas as ideas. In thinking, accordingly, does that first become actualized which Things only in themselves—that is to say, in this connection, Things according to their plan—really are. It is not our cognition, therefore, that is unsuitable to reproduce the nature of Things; but Things are unsuitable to produce their own nature, that is to say, that for which they are intended. It is thought which first makes them ready, as it were. ”

“ In case we characterize—as was just done—an action of the Infinite as a ‘consequence’ of another nature, or of its own nature; and, in general, as often as we make that which is highest of all the object of investigation, there always arises the appearance of positing a ‘kingdom of absolutely valid truth’ previous even to the ‘supreme Source of all actuality’: in accordance with this truth would the decision be, what property b must, even in the Infinite, succeed the other property a. ”

“ If we say, ‘sweet,’ ‘blue,’ ‘warm,’ then the entire work performed by thinking consists in designating by the adjective form of the name, as though it were an independent property inhering in another subject, a content which is wholly and merely an experience in the form of immediate sensation, but which can be neither produced nor imparted by the medium of thinking. ”

“ Of course, the world cosmographically and historically determined, with which we see ourselves surrounded, is not to be deduced for human cognition as somewhat necessary to this final purpose, but must be barely assumed as a given matter of fact. Of those metaphysical principles, on the other hand, in accordance with which we trace out an inner coherency within this phenomenal world, it can be shown that they are natural to our spirit on account of this,—and only on account of this,—because the spirit is intended for action. ”

“ Idealism, therefore, would accord with the common view in this respect, that our perception of the World must have some reason outside ourselves; but not in this respect, that such reason must be sought in a multiplicity of ‘Things’ acting upon us. ”

“ That is to say, the entire coherency of natural phenomena according to law, for which we are wont to believe the existence of certain unalterable individual elements or atoms to be necessary as subjects of the events, is also possible, in case the ‘actions of an individual Absolute,’ constantly maintained or interchanged in accordance with fixed law, are regarded as substituted for such ‘Things’; and as constituting a system of reasons—with manifold members and effective simply in us, but not extant outside us—that determine the content and vicissitudes of our perceptions. ”

“ It becomes at this point a matter for inquiry, whether simply the aforesaid most abstract and fundamental conceptions which we frame of ‘things’ and ‘events’ contain any truth whatever; and whether they, too, are not merely subjective habits of our own activity, by means of which a non-existent external world is mirrored before us. ”

“ The problem of the spirit, he held, does not lie in the cognition of a blind ‘Being’ (the conception of which appeared to him as impossible as it appears to us) , but in action. The aforesaid world external is not, but appears to us in order to serve as material of our duty, as inducement or object of our action. ”

“ Herein lies the truth, that the essence and Being of Things cannot be opposed to the essence and Being of Spirit, as though the former were a second principal division of the world and a perfect stranger to the latter. ”

“ The supreme principles and the original forms of their activity never admit of being ‘explained,’ ‘constructed,’ or ‘deduced.’ Our cognition, in the most favorable case, masters only the interior order of that manifold which depends upon these principles. But how the principles themselves have power to ‘be’ or to ‘act,’ is an unanswerable, idle inquiry. ”

“ But since all the Value of what is valuable has existence only in the spirit that enjoys it, therefore all apparent actuality is only a system of contrivances, by means of which this determinate world of phenomena, as well as these determinate metaphysical habitudes for considering the world of phenomena, are called forth, in order that the aforesaid Highest Good may become for the spirit an object of enjoyment in all the multiplicity of forms possible to it. ”

“ Therefore, although we apprehend the Highest Good as the one Real Principle on which the validity of the metaphysical axioms in the world depends, still we cannot regard it as a principle of cognition that can be profitably converted into a major premise from which to deduce the sum of metaphysical truth. ”

“ Precisely what we want is this,—that the ‘Things’ really enjoy these states of their own, and not merely be thought of by us as existing in them. That is to say, ‘Reality’ is ‘Being for self’;—an expression, by which we designate that most general characteristic of self-apprehension, which is common to all forms of spiritual life, to feeling, to representation, to effort, and to volition. ”

“ If by the ‘Being of Things’ we designate that by means of which the Thing is distinguished from our idea of the thing, then it is quite certain that this ‘Being’ is not identical with being thought. Or, conversely, thought is in no condition to comprehend precisely wherein the ‘Being’ consists with whose manifold formal relations it is itself employed. ”

“ In fact, such is the meaning of Hegel, who not without significance calls that Logic which is elsewhere styled Metaphysic. If, therefore, things exist and events happen simply in order that the formal relations of Identity and Opposition, Unity and Multiplicity, Indifference and Polarity, of Universal, Particular and Singular, etc., may be actualized in the most manifold manner possible, and set forth in Phenomenon;—then, of course, the essence of ‘Things’ is so pitiful and insignificant that our thinking succeeds perfectly well in adequately comprehending it. ”

“ But since those metaphysical suppositions, which we conceive of as dependent on the Good, are once for all the unavoidable habitudes of our spiritual organization, they are in themselves much more clear to our view, and certain, and, on account of their manifold application to the innumerable contents of experience, much more easy of accurate description, than is that ‘Highest Good’ which we conceive of as their source. ”

“ Now all inner states of all other things are unattainable by us; of only our own souls, which we hold to be one of these real beings, have we an immediate experience. Hence there arises the hope of learning from this example just what positively constitutes, in other things as well, their essential ‘Being.’ On this account the last Division of the Metaphysic could perhaps be called—as of old—‘Psychology.’ But in this connection the soul is of essential interest to us only so far as it is the subject of cognition. ”

“ For ‘Things’ considered as fixed points in the course of phenomena, alteration of these things according to law, and reciprocal determinateness of them by causality, and so forth,—all these are forms of the inner coherency which a spirit, that wills to act, must inevitably assume in that world on which its action is directed. ”

“ The view last approved—namely, that all metaphysical truth consists only in the forms which must be assumed by a world that depends upon the principle of the Good—can avail only as a consideration to fix the limits of Metaphysic, by whose instrumentality we assign to the totality of the principles treated of, their correct position in our total view of the world. ”

“ In the cosmological, we have taken it for granted that the world of phenomena as it appears to our intuition proceeds from these unknown reciprocal actions of ‘Things.’ Finally, at the conclusion of the Cosmology, demands of the mind were stirred that are to be prospectively satisfied only by means of an insight into that actual nature of things which constitutes what corresponds to the formal conditions of Ontology and Cosmology. ”

“ The assertion that the World is the creation of his own faculty of imagination could not possibly be accomplished with complete freedom from obscurity by anyone except some lone individual indulging in philosophic speculation. ”

“ But the products of this action, as affections of our being, can receive their form from our nature alone. And, as it is easy to persuade ourselves, even in case ‘Things’ do actually exist, all parts of our cognition will have the very same ‘subjectivity’ as that from which it might be hastily concluded that ‘Things’ do not exist. ”

“ Since God unfolds the infinite activities, which become for Him and for finite spirits the object of knowledge, therefore, this knowledge can, on comparison of those manifold actions, comprehend the meaning common to them all in universal propositions. ”

“ It is these propositions which, in the first place, because they hold good throughout the whole created world, admit of being considered with reference to every particular of the world, even when yet unobserved or still future, as rules by anticipation. ”

“ Obviously, the reason for such a noteworthy correspondence between the imaginations of the individual beings cannot lie in them as individuals, but must lie in some one individual and yet universal Power which is equally effective in all the individuals; and this Power—instead of first creating actual ‘Things’ outside these beings, in order afterward to produce in them the ‘appearance of Things’ by the circuitous way of an influence from these ‘Things’ upon the aforesaid beings—directly causes this same ‘appearance’ to arise in every one of them. ”

“ The above-mentioned thought is not quite satisfactory, because it makes all actuality exist merely in the service of human action; this action itself however is only considered from its formal side, as activity and self-determination, while that content whose actualization were alone worth the trouble of action is, on the contrary, neglected. ”

“ The association of these three propositions yields the result, that the substantial ‘Ground’ of the world is a Spirit, whose essence our cognition were able to designate only as the living and existent Good. All that is finite is action of this Infinite. ‘Real beings’ are those of his actions which the Infinite permanently maintains as centres of out-and-in-going effects that are susceptible of acting and of being affected ”

“ Still less, therefore, can a collection of laws already valid be thought of as existing in a perfectly void Nothing, before the World and God was, in accordance with which God directed himself in creating this world;—and every other God would be compelled also to direct himself when creating another world! ”

“ Every sensation—as for example, color—is therefore only the subjective form in which an excitation of our peculiar Being, sustained through the instrumentality of external influence, comes to consciousness in us,
(2) Although no single sensation is a copy of the reality, yet definite relations with one another of the single real ‘Things’ seem to come to our perception in the very forms of combination in which different sensations are brought to us in juxtaposition or succession ”

“ They, therefore, designate a content which is known only if it is experienced.
(3) The same thing is true of our metaphysical conceptions. What ‘Being’ signifies, no ‘thinking’ makes obvious to one who does not from self-feeling understand his own being. ‘Action and affection’ only that being comprehends who has in itself had experience of both. Even the abstract conception of conditionating were without significance for us, if we did not know from our own experience, from our own volition and effort, what it means for one element to have, or to have desired, a power over some other. ”

“ The meaning, however, of the general laws, according to which the Infinite Spirit proceeds in the creation, preservation, and government of the apparent world of Things, is to be found in their being consequences of that Idea of the Good, which is its own nature. ”