regarded as terminating. He seems to have reached the last possible point. Speculation, moving as we have seen under certain impulses communicated from Locke's system, has gone through the theological idealism of Berkeley to the subjective idealism of Fichte, to the absolute identity of Schelling and Hegel. 'To construct scientifically the totality of the actual out of the Absolute, and from the position of the Absolute, was a problem on whose solution Hegel wrought with amazing power and tension of thought, and thus became the creator of a system which must be regarded as the most perfect form of German idealism, as the ripest fruit of the development through which it has run since Kant. This development closes in Hegel, as the Socratic school closes in Aristotle,''

XIII. Theoretical Idealism: Schopenhauer.

I. THEORETICAL IDEALISM is the name given by Erdmann to the system of Arthur Schopenhauer (1788-1860). In this extraordinary man the Orient and the Occident combine their influences, so that he presents the anomalous appearance of a Hindoo thinker in the intellectual garb of Europe. He is the Brahmin of our modern metaphysics. This cast was given him in the study of the Indian antiquities, to which he was directed by the Orientalist Majer. He had the large culture produced by travelling in France, England, and Italy, and by a thorough acquaintance with French and English literature. He had as teachers or as friends some of the most illustrious men of his day. But the greatest mover of his intellectual life was Kant.

II. SCHOPENHAUER AND KANT: Schopenhauer had been advised by his preceptor, Schulze, to confine himself, in his earliest philosophic studies, to Plato and Kant, and not until he had mastered these to take up others, especially neither Aristotle nor Spinoza,―advice which he never regretted having strictly followed. Schopenhauer often declares that he is thankful to Kant above all other philosophers; that subsequent to Kant none but his own system had a claim to be considered really philosophical, as between himself and Kant nothing had been accomplished,

Zeller, Gesch. d. deutsch. Phil., 775.

pseudo-philosophy had been supreme, and that he had completed what Kant had begun.'

Schopenhauer and Herbart speak in the same general way of their relation to Kant, but in exactly opposite aspects. Herbart clung to the realistic element in Kant, Schopenhauer to his subjective and idealistic elements. What to the one was the weakness of Kant's system was to the other its strength."

III. SCHOPENHAUER'S ESTIMATE of Kant is a very high one: 'Kant's almost superhuman merit lies therefore in this, that he distinguishes the thing in itself from the phenomenon, and shows that the phenomenon alone is the object of cognition; so that it amounts to the same thing whether we style it object or phenomenon, that is, conception (Vorstellung). The objectionable feature in Kant is that he unnecessarily multiplies the number of the connections through which the Object is formed. This, however, is not the case with the Transcendental Esthetics, which, in its results as well as in the manner of its execution, is one of the greatest masterpieces, and in itself sufficient to immortalize the name of Kant, as its principles embrace unanswerable truth.'3 'This cannot be said, however, of the Transcendental Analytic. Among its twelve Categories there is one which is a downright absurdity, the Category of Reciprocation, which is a monster, like Spinoza's causa sui. But, beside this, the whole twelve, strictly taken, can be reduced to a solitary one,-Causality,-the only one, consequently, which Kant ever brings to exemplification.' 4

IV. GENERAL VIEWS.-The world is only my conception, my mental representation (Vorstellung). The thing in itself is Will, which presents itself in things as phenomenon. It is the essence of the phenomena. Without a subject there can be no object. Were there no one to perceive things, there could be nothing perceived. The antithesis between the ideal and the real is equivalent to the antithesis between phenomenon (mental representation-Vorstellung) and the thing in itself? 'The dividing line between the real and the ideal is so run that the whole intui

I Kritik der Kant. Philosophie, 469. Welt als Wille, 2 Th. 291.

? Erdmann, Entwickelung d. deutsch. Speculation, s. Kant, ii. 334. 3 Kritik der Kantischen Philosophie, 492.

4 Do., 501, 502.

tional world-the world presenting itself objectively, including our own bodies, together with space, time, and causality, involving, therefore, the Extended of Spinoza and the Matter of Locke, —all this, as mental representation (conception-Vorstellung), belongs to the Ideal, while nothing remains as Real but the Will.' 'After men had, for thousands of years, regarded the universe of our intuitions as real,-that is, as existing independently of the concipient subject,-Idealism brought to consciousness the fact that, boundless and massive as the universe is, it hangs on a solitary thread,-the thread of the consciousness at the time in which it exists.' 'It is a mistake to suppose that Idealism denies the empirical reality of the external world. The genuine Idealism is not the empirical, but the transcendental. In all transcendental Ideality the objective world retains empirical reality. The object is not, indeed, the thing in itself, but it is, as empirical object, real. In fact, space is only in my head; but, empirically, my head is in space.' 'The absolute Idealism, holding the objective world to be a mere phantom, a spectre of the brain, is theoretic Egoism.' 'Idealism is not to be confounded with Spiritualism, for Spiritualism, with its antithesis, Materialism, belongs to Realism, and is, consequently, opposite to Idealism.' 'What is mental representation (vorstellung-conception)? A very complicated physiological process in the brain of an animal, the result of which is the consciousness of an image there.' 'Every object is conditioned by the Subject, and exists only for the Subject, and is the Conception of the Subject. Object and Conception are not different, but are one and the same thing.' 'The being in and for itself of everything must of necessity be a subjective one.'

I

V. IDEALISM, ANCIENT.- Idealism, or the view that the world is but phenomenon, reveals itself not only in Plato's affirmation of the nullity of sensuous things, but in the fact, also, that it is the original doctrine, and that the Hindoo religion, which is worthy of the supremest regard, as it is the oldest religion and the one received by the majority of the race, avows it in its doctrine that things are but illusion, and that their existence is guilt.

1 See Schopenhauer-Lexikon, von Frauenstädt, Leipzig, 1871; art. Aussenwelt, Ding an Sich, Ideal und Real, Idealismus, Vorstellung.

With the predominance of Judaism, which is thoroughly realistic, Realism in philosophy also pervaded the Christian world, as if Judaism were Reason.''

VI. IDEALISM, MODERN, HISTORY OF ITS DEVELOPMENT.-' It was reserved for modern philosophy again to return to the true view, and here the first merit belongs to Descartes, who is with justice regarded as the founder of modern philosophy, for he began with self-consciousness, and thus gave a thoroughly subjective turn to philosophy. A very important advance was made in this direction by Locke, who vindicated for the subject, by his notion of secondary qualities, a part of that which Realism had ascribed to the object. In this tendency Berkeley went still further. His chief merit is that he gave up the undue distinction between Conception (Vorstellung) and the object of Conception. Finally, with Kant begins a new period. Not only, with Locke, did he deny as things in themselves what pertains to the senses, but he also showed that what pertains to the intuitive understanding is not things in themselves, but forms lying in the subject, and decisively established the fact that all objects are but phenomena,—that is, are Conceptions (Vorstellungen). Locke had denied that colour is in the objects, and rightly determined it to be mere sensation of the Subject, yet granted that extension belongs to the objects. Kant, whose Critique of Pure Reason is a continuation of Locke's philosophy, shows that extension—that is, space-is only in the subject, and hence enounces the proposition, thoroughly correct, that if there were no cognizing subject there would be no objects and no world. This is a proposition which, strictly taken, is tautological, as an object in itself—that is, not an object to a subject—is a contradiction.'2

VII. THE CONTEMPORARY SYSTEMS CONTRASTED. As the sensations are subjective, and the form of causality, whereby they come to be the perceived object, is subjective, it is clear that Realism, which makes the (unconceived) things the causes of the conceptions, and (Fichte's) "Doctrine of Science," which makes the subject the cause of the objects, involve a preposterous doc

Vierfache Wurzel, ? 19.

2 Welt als Wille, 2d B., 83. Vierfache Wurzel, 2d edit., ? 16.

trine. Just as preposterous, finally, is the system of Identity (Schelling and Hegel), which is a fusion of the other two.' 'The truth is, that represented (conceived) Objects—that is, Phenomena―must submit to the law of Causality, for without that law Objects are impossible. It is the condition of Object-being. It is a matter of course that what holds good of all phenomena holds equally good of our own body, which, as Kant has correctly shown, is only phenomenon, and which we may name the most immediate object.'"

VIII. CAUSALITY AND FINAL CAUSE.-Only in the case of Phenomena can we speak of Causality. In this sphere, however, we must go back from effects to causes, though an ultimate cause is not thinkable. In spite of the unanswerable proofs by which Kant has annihilated all speculative theology, there are still many who use the absurd expression 'Ultimate Cause,' and nonsensically talk of a cause which is not also effect. They think they are talking in the interest of religion, confounding Religion and Theism, whereas, in fact, Theism is merely Judaism; and in Buddhist lands, which are decidedly atheistic and pantheistic, Kant's Critique of Reason, the most serious attack ever made upon Theism, would be regarded as an edifying tract, written against the heretics, in defence of the orthodox Idealism.3

IX. MAN AND THE ANIMALS.-It is rightly acknowledged that reason distinguishes man from the animal, and this distinction is wrongly made as great as possible. The Orient has not this unamiable pride; only in the Occident, which has bleached man, and to which the old-time primal religions of his home could not follow him, only in this Occident, man no longer recognizes his brothers, but calls them beasts. All animals, even the most imperfect, have understanding; for they all know objects, and this knowledge, as motive, determines their movements. The understanding distinguishes animals from plants, as reason distinguishes men from the animals. The mark which distinguishes the animal from the plant is that its motion does not depend on mechanical, chemical, or physiological causes, but is really voluntary, produced by an object known, which is the motive of that moveVierfache Wurzel, ? 22.

Welt als Wille, ?? 5, 7. 3 Vierfache Wurzel, ? 34.

2 Do. ? 6.

4 Welt als Wille, 26.