CHAPTER VIII

.

GENERAL OBSERVATIONS AND RESULTS.

§ 46. _The Systematic Order._

The order of succession in which I have stated the various forms of the Principle of Sufficient Reason in this treatise, is not systematic; it has been chosen for the sake of greater clearness, in order first to present what is better known and least presupposes the rest. In this I have followed Aristotle's rule: καὶ μαθήσεως οὐκ ἀπὸ τοῦ πρώτου, καὶ τῆς τοῦ πράγματος ἀρχῆς ἐνίοτε ἀρκτέον, ἀλλ' ὅθεν ῥᾷστ' ἂν μάθοι (_et doctrina non a primo, ac rei principio aliquando inchoanda est, sed unde quis facilius discat_).[156] But the systematic order in which the different classes of reasons ought to follow one another is the following. First of all should come The Principle of Sufficient Reason of Being; and in this again first its application to Time, as being the simple schema containing only what is essential in all the other forms of the Principle of Sufficient Reason, nay, as being the prototype of all finitude. The Reason of Being in Space having next been stated, the Law of Causality would then follow; after which would come the Law of Motives, and last of all the Principle of Sufficient Reason of Knowing; for the other classes of reasons refer to immediate representations, whereas this last class refers to representations derived from other representations.

[156] Aristot. "Metaph." iv. 1. "Sometimes too, learning must start, not from what is really first and with the actual beginning of the thing concerned, but from where it is easiest to learn." [Tr.'s add.]

The truth expressed above, that Time is the simple schema which merely contains the essential part of all the forms of the Principle of Sufficient Reason, explains the absolutely perfect clearness and precision of Arithmetic, a point in which no other science can compete with it. For all sciences, being throughout combinations of reasons and consequences, are based upon the Principle of Sufficient Reason. Now, the series of numbers is the simple and only series of reasons and consequences of Being in Time; on account of this perfect simplicity--nothing being omitted, no indefinite relations left--this series leaves nothing to be desired as regards accuracy, apodeictic certainty and clearness. All the other sciences yield precedence in this respect to Arithmetic; even Geometry: because so many relations arise out of the three dimensions of Space, that a comprehensive synopsis of them becomes too difficult, not only for pure, but even for empirical intuition; complicated geometrical problems are therefore only solved by calculation; that is, Geometry is quick to resolve itself into Arithmetic. It is not necessary to point out the existence of sundry elements of obscurity in the other sciences.

§ 47. _Relation in Time between Reason and Consequence._

According to the laws of causality and of motivation, a reason must precede its consequence in Time. That this is absolutely essential, I have shown in my chief work, to which I here refer my readers[157] in order to avoid repeating myself. Therefore, if we only bear in mind that it is not one thing which is the cause of another thing, but one state which is the cause of another state, we shall not allow ourselves to be misled by examples like that given by Kant,[158] that the stove, which is the cause of the warmth of the room, is simultaneous with its effect. The state of the stove: that is, its being warmer than its surrounding medium, must precede the communication of its surplus caloric to that medium; now, as each layer of air on becoming warm makes way for a cooler layer rushing in, the first state, the cause, and consequently also the second, the effect, are renewed until at last the temperature of stove and room become equalized. Here therefore we have no permanent cause (the stove) and permanent effect (the warmth of the room) as simultaneous things, but a chain of changes; that is, a constant renewing of two states, one of which is the effect of the other. From this example, however, it is obvious that even Kant's conception of Causality was far from clear.

[157] See "Die Welt a. W. u. V.," vol. ii. ch. iv. p. 41, 42 of the 2nd edition, and p. 44 of the 3rd.

[158] Kant, "Krit. d. r. Vern.," 1st edition, p. 202; 5th edition, p. 248 (English translation by M. Müller, p. 177.)

On the other hand, the Principle of Sufficient Reason of Knowing conveys with it no relation in Time, but merely a relation for our Reason: here therefore, _before_ and _after_ have no meaning.

In the Principle of Sufficient Reason of Being, so far as it is valid in Geometry, there is likewise no relation in Time, but only a relation in Space, of which we might say that all things were co-existent, if here the words co-existence and succession had any meaning. In Arithmetic, on the contrary, the Reason of Being is nothing else but precisely the relation of Time itself.

§ 48. _Reciprocity of Reasons._

Hypothetical judgments may be founded upon the Principle of Sufficient Reason in each of its significations, as indeed every hypothetical judgment is ultimately based upon that principle, and here the laws of hypothetical conclusions always hold good: that is to say, it is right to infer the existence of the consequence from the existence of the reason, and the non-existence of the reason from the non-existence of the consequence; but it is wrong to infer the non-existence of the consequence from the non-existence of the reason, and the existence of the reason from the existence of the consequence. Now it is singular that in Geometry we are nevertheless nearly always able to infer the existence of the reason from the existence of the consequence, and the non-existence of the consequence from the non-existence of the reason. This proceeds, as I have shown in § 37, from the fact that, as each line determines the position of the rest, it is quite indifferent which we begin at: that is, which we consider as the reason, and which as the consequence. We may easily convince ourselves of this by going through the whole of the geometrical theorems. It is only where we have to do not only with figures, _i.e._, with the positions of lines, but with planes independently of figures, that we find it in most cases impossible to infer the existence of the reason from the existence of the consequence, or, in other words, to convert the propositions by making the condition the conditioned. The following theorem gives an instance of this: Triangles whose lengths and bases are equal, include equal areas. This cannot be converted as follows: Triangles whose areas are equal, have likewise equal bases and lengths; for the lengths may stand in inverse proportion to the bases.

In § 20 it has already been shown, that the law of causality does not admit of reciprocity, since the effect never can be the cause of its cause; therefore the conception of reciprocity is, in its right sense, inadmissible. Reciprocity, according to the Principle of Sufficient Reason of knowing, would only be possible between equivalent conceptions, since the spheres of these alone cover each other mutually. Apart from these, it only gives rise to a vicious circle.

§ 49. _Necessity._

The Principle of Sufficient Reason in all its forms is the sole principle and the sole support of all necessity. For _necessity_ has no other true and distinct meaning than that of the infallibility of the consequence when the reason is posited. Accordingly every necessity is _conditioned_: absolute, _i.e._, unconditioned, necessity therefore is a _contradicto in adjecto_. For _to be necessary_ can never mean anything but to result from a given reason. By defining it as "what cannot not be," on the other hand, we give a mere verbal definition, and screen ourselves behind an extremely abstract conception to avoid giving a definition of the thing. But it is not difficult to drive us from this refuge by inquiring how the non-existence of anything can be possible or even conceivable, since all existence is only given empirically. It then comes out, that it is only possible so far as some _reason_ or other is posited or present, from which it follows. To be necessary and to follow from a given reason, are thus convertible conceptions, and may always, as such, be substituted one for the other. The conception of an "ABSOLUTELY _necessary Being_" which finds so much favour with pseudo-philosophers, contains therefore a contradiction: it annuls by the predicate "_absolute_" (_i.e._, "unconditioned by anything else") the only determination which makes the "_necessary_" conceivable. Here again we have an instance of the _improper use of abstract conceptions_ to play off a metaphysical artifice such as those I have already pointed out in the conceptions "_immaterial substance_," "_cause in general_," "_absolute reason_," &c. &c.[159] I can never insist too much upon all abstract conceptions being checked by _perception_.

[159] Compare "Die Welt a. W. u. V.," vol. i. p. 551 _et seq._ of the 2nd edition (i. p. 582 _et seq._ of 3rd edition) as to "immaterial substance," and § 52 of the present work as to "reason in general." (Editor's note.)

There exists accordingly a _fourfold_ necessity, in conformity with the _four_ forms of the Principle of Sufficient Reason:--

1^o. _Logical necessity_, according to the principle of sufficient reason of knowing, in virtue of which, when once we have admitted the premisses, we must absolutely admit the conclusion.

2^o. _Physical necessity_, according to the law of causality, in virtue of which, as soon as the cause presents itself, the effect must infallibly follow.

3^o. _Mathematical necessity_, according to the principle of sufficient reason of being, in virtue of which, every relation which is stated in a true geometrical theorem, is as that theorem affirms it to be, and every correct calculation remains irrefutable.

4^o. _Moral necessity_, in virtue of which, every human being, every animal even, is _compelled_, as soon as a motive presents itself, to do that which alone is in accordance with the inborn and immutable character of the individual. This action now follows its cause therefore as infallibly as every other effect, though it is less easy here to predict what that effect will be than in other cases, because of the difficulty we have in fathoming and completely knowing the individual empirical character and its allotted sphere of knowledge, which is indeed a very different thing from ascertaining the chemical properties of a neutral salt and predicting its reaction. I must repeat this again and again on account of the dunces and blockheads who, in defiance of the unanimous authority of so many great thinkers, still persist in audaciously maintaining the contrary, for the benefit of their old woman's philosophy. I am not a professor of philosophy, forsooth, that I need bow to the folly of others.

§ 50. _Series of Reasons and Consequences._

According to the law of causality, the condition is itself always conditioned, and, moreover, conditioned in the same way; therefore, there arises a series _in infinitum a parte ante_. It is just the same with the Reason of Being in Space: each relative space is a figure; it has its limits, by which it is connected with another relative space, and which themselves condition the figure of this other, and so on throughout all dimensions _in infinitum_. But when we examine a single figure in itself, the series of reasons of being has an end, because we start from a given relation, just as the series of causes comes to an end if we stop at pleasure at any particular cause. In Time, the series of reasons of being has infinite extension both _a parte ante_, and _a parte post_, since each moment is conditioned by a preceding one, and necessarily gives rise to the following. Time has therefore neither beginning nor end. On the other hand, the series of reasons of knowledge--that is, a series of judgments, each of which gives logical truth to the other--always ends somewhere, _i.e._, either in an empirical, a transcendental, or a metalogical truth. If the reason of the major to which we have been led is an empirical truth, and we still continue asking _why_, it is no longer a reason of knowledge that is asked for, but a cause--in other words, the series of reasons of knowing passes over into the series of reasons of becoming. But if we do the contrary, that is, if we allow the series of reasons of becoming to pass over into the series of reasons of knowing, in order to bring it to an end, this is never brought about by the nature of the thing, but always by a special purpose: it is therefore a trick, and this is the sophism known by the name of the Ontological Proof. For when a cause, at which it seems desirable to stop short in order to make it the _first_ cause, has been reached by means of the Cosmological Proof, we find out that the law of causality is not so easily brought to a standstill, and still persists in asking _why_: so it is simply set aside and the principle of sufficient reason of knowing, which from a distance resembles it, is substituted in its stead; and thus a reason of knowledge is given in the place of the cause which had been asked for--a reason of knowledge derived from the conception itself which has to be demonstrated, the reality of which is therefore still problematical: and this reason, as after all it is one, now has to figure as a cause. Of course the conception itself has been previously arranged for this purpose, and reality slightly covered with a few husks just for decency's sake has been placed within it, so as to give the delightful surprise of finding it there--as has been shown in Section 7. On the other hand, if a chain of judgments ultimately rests upon a principle of transcendental or of metalogical truth, and we still continue to ask _why_, we receive no answer at all, because the question has no meaning, _i.e._, it does not know what kind of reason it is asking for.

For the Principle of Sufficient Reason is the _principle of all explanation: to explain a thing_ means, to reduce its given existence or connection to some form or other of the Principle of Sufficient Reason, in accordance with which form that existence or connection necessarily is that which it is. The Principle of Sufficient Reason itself, _i.e._, the connection expressed by it in any of its forms, cannot therefore be further explained; because there exists no principle by which to explain the source of all explanation: just as the eye is unable to see itself, though it sees everything else. There are of course series of motives, since the resolve to attain an end becomes the motive for the resolve to use a whole series of means; still this series invariably ends _à parte priori_ in a representation belonging to one of our two first classes, in which lies the motive which originally had the power to set this individual will in motion. The fact that it was able to do this, is a datum for knowing the empirical character here given, but it is impossible to answer the question why that particular motive acts upon that particular character; because the intelligible character lies outside Time and never becomes an Object. Therefore the series of motives, as such, finds its termination in some such final motive and, according to the nature of its last link, passes into the series of causes, or that of reasons of knowledge: that is to say, into the former, when that last link is a real object; into the latter, when it is a mere conception.

§ 51. _Each Science has for its Guiding Thread one of the Forms of the Principle of Sufficient Reason in preference to the others._

As the question _why_ always demands a sufficient reason, and as it is the connection of its notions according to the principle of sufficient reason which distinguishes science from a mere aggregate of notions, we have called that _why_ the parent of all science (§ 4). In each science, moreover, we find one of the forms of that principle predominating over the others as its guiding-thread. Thus in pure Mathematics the reason of being is the chief guiding-thread (although the exposition of the proofs proceeds according to the reason of knowing only); in applied Mathematics the law of causality appears together with it, but in Physics, Chemistry, Geology, &c., that law entirely predominates. The principle of sufficient reason in knowing finds vigorous application throughout all the sciences, for in all of them the particular is known through the general; but in Botany, Zoology, Mineralogy, and other classifying sciences, it is the chief guide and predominates absolutely. The law of motives (_motivation_) is the chief guide in History, Politics, Pragmatic Psychology, &c. &c., when we consider all motives and maxims, whatever they may be, as data for explaining actions--but when we make those motives and maxims the object-matter of investigation from the point of view of their value and origin, the law of motives becomes the guide to Ethics. In my chief work will be found the highest classification of the sciences according to this principle.[160]

[160] "Die Welt a. W. u. V.," vol. ii. ch. 12, p. 126 of the 2nd edition (p. 139 of the 3rd edition).

§ 52. _Two principal Results._

I have endeavoured in this treatise to show that the Principle of Sufficient Reason is a common expression for four completely different relations, each of which is founded upon a particular law given _à priori_ (the principle of sufficient reason being a synthetical _à priori_ principle). Now, according to the principle of _homogeneity_, we are compelled to assume that these four laws, discovered according to the principle of specification, as they agree in being expressed by one and the same term, must necessarily spring from one and the same original quality of our whole cognitive faculty as their common root, which we should accordingly have to look upon as the innermost germ of all dependence, relativeness, instability and limitation of the objects of our consciousness--itself limited to Sensibility, Understanding, Reason, Subject and Object--or of that world, which the divine Plato repeatedly degrades to the ἀεὶ γιγνόμενον μὲν καὶ ἀπολλύμενον, ὄντως δὲ οὐδέποτε ὄν (ever arising and perishing, but in fact never existing), the knowledge of which is merely a δόξα μετ' αἰσθήσεως ἀλόγου, and which Christendom, with a correct instinct, calls _temporal_, after that form of our principle (Time) which I have defined as its simplest schema and the prototype of all limitation. The general meaning of the Principle of Sufficient Reason may, in the main, be brought back to this: that every thing existing no matter when or where, exists _by reason of something else_. Now, the Principle of Sufficient Reason is nevertheless _à priori_ in all its forms: that is, it has its root in our intellect, therefore it must not be applied to the totality of existent things, the Universe, including that intellect in which it presents itself. For a world like this, which presents itself in virtue of _à priori_ forms, is just on that account mere phenomenon; consequently that which holds good with reference to it as the result of these forms, cannot be applied to the world itself, _i.e._ to the thing in itself, representing itself in that world. Therefore we cannot say, "the world and all things in it exist by reason of something else;" and this proposition is precisely the Cosmological Proof.

If, by the present treatise, I have succeeded in deducing the result just expressed, it seems to me that every speculative philosopher who founds a conclusion upon the Principle of Sufficient Reason or indeed talks of a reason at all, is bound to specify which kind of reason he means. One might suppose that wherever there was any question of a reason, this would be done as a matter of course, and that all confusion would thus be impossible. Only too often, however, do we still find either the terms reason and cause confounded in indiscriminate use; or do we hear basis and what is based, condition and what is conditioned, _principia_ and _principiata_ talked about in quite a _general_ way without any nearer determination, perhaps because there is a secret consciousness that these conceptions are being used in an unauthorized way. Thus even Kant speaks of the thing in itself as the _reason_[161] of the phenomenon, and also of a _ground_ of the _possibility_ of all phenomena,[162] of an _intelligible cause_ of phenomena, of an _unknown ground_ of the possibility of the sensuous series in general, of a _transcendental object_[163] as the _ground_ of all phenomena and of the _reason_ why our sensibility should have this rather than all other supreme conditions, and so on in several places. Now all this does not seem to me to tally with those weighty, profound, nay immortal words of his,[164] "the contingency[165] of things is itself mere phenomenon, and can lead to no other than the empirical regressus which determines phenomena."

[161] Or _ground_.

[162] Kant, "Krit. d. r. Vern.," 1st edition, pp. 561, 562, 564; p. 590 of the 5th edition. (Pp. 483 to 486 of the English translation by M. Müller.)

[163] _Ibid._ p. 540 of 1st edition, and 641 of 5th edition. (P. 466 of English translation.)

[164] _Ibid._ p. 563 of the 1st and 591 of the 5th edition. (P. 485 of English translation.)

[165] Empirical contingency is meant, which, with Kant, signifies as much as dependence upon other things. As to this, I refer my readers to my censure in my "Critique of Kantian Philosophy," p. 524 of the 2nd, and p. 552 of the 3rd edition.

That since Kant the conceptions reason and consequence, _principium_ and _principiatum_, &c. &c., have been and still are used in a yet more indefinite and even quite transcendent sense, everyone must know who is acquainted with the more recent works on philosophy.

The following is my objection against this promiscuous employment of the word _ground_ (reason) and, with it, of the Principle of Sufficient Reason in general; it is likewise the second result, intimately connected with the first, which the present treatise gives concerning its subject-matter proper. The four laws of our cognitive faculty, of which the Principle of Sufficient Reason is the common expression, by their common character as well as by the fact that all Objects for the Subject are divided amongst them, proclaim themselves to be posited by one and the same primary quality and inner peculiarity of our knowing faculty, which faculty manifests itself as Sensibility, Understanding, and Reason. Therefore, even if we imagined it to be possible for a new Fifth Class of Objects to come about, we should in that case likewise have to assume that the Principle of Sufficient Reason would appear in this class also under a different form. Notwithstanding all this, we still have no right to talk of an _absolute reason_ (ground), nor does a _reason in general_, any more than a _triangle in general_, exist otherwise than as a conception derived by means of discursive reflection, nor is this conception, as a representation drawn from other representations, anything more than a means of thinking several things in one. Now, just as every triangle must be either acute-angled, right-angled, or obtuse-angled, and either equilateral, isosceles or scalene, so also must every reason belong to one or other of the four possible kinds of reasons I have pointed out. Moreover, since we have only four well-distinguished Classes of Objects, every reason must also belong to one or other of these four, and no further Class being possible, Reason itself is forced to rank it within them; for as soon as we employ a reason, we presuppose the Four Classes as well as the faculty of representing (_i.e._ the whole world), and must hold ourselves within these bounds, never transcending them. Should others, however, see this in a different light and opine that a _reason in general_ is anything but a conception, derived from the four kinds of reasons, which expresses what they all have in common, we might revive the controversy of the Realists and Nominalists, and then I should side with the latter.

ON THE WILL IN NATURE.

AN ACCOUNT OF THE CORROBORATIONS RECEIVED BY THE AUTHOR'S PHILOSOPHY

SINCE ITS FIRST APPEARANCE

FROM THE EMPIRICAL SCIENCES.

BY

ARTHUR SCHOPENHAUER.

_Translated from the Fourth Edition published by_ JULIUS FRAUENSTÄDT.

Τοιαῦτ' ἐμοῦ λόγοισιν ἐξηγουμένου, Οὐκ ἠξίωσαν οὐδὲ προσβλέψαι τὸ πᾶν· Ἀλλ' ἐκδιδάσκει πάνθ' ὁ γηράσκων χρόνος. ÆSCH.

PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION.

To my great joy I have lived to revise even this little work, after a lapse of nineteen years, and that joy is enhanced by the special importance of this treatise for my philosophy. For, starting from the purely empirical, from the observations of unbiassed physical investigators--themselves following the clue of their own special sciences--I here immediately arrive at the very kernel of my Metaphysic; I establish its points of contact with the physical sciences and thus corroborate my fundamental dogma, in a sense, as the arithmetician proves a sum: for by this I not only confirm it more closely and specially, but even make it more clearly, easily, and rightly understood than anywhere else.

The improvements in this new edition are confined almost entirely to the Additions; for scarcely anything that is worth mentioning in the First Edition has been left out, while I have inserted many and, in some cases, important new passages.

But, even in a general sense, it may be looked upon as a good sign, that a new edition of the present treatise should have been found necessary; since it shows that there is an interest in serious philosophy and confirms the fact that the necessity for real progress in this direction is now more strongly felt than ever. This is based upon two circumstances. The first is the unparalleled zeal and

## activity displayed in every branch of Natural Science which, as this

pursuit is mostly in the hands of people who have learned nothing else, threatens to lead to a gross, stupid Materialism, the _more immediately_ offensive side of which is less the moral bestiality of its ultimate results, than the incredible absurdity of its first principles; for by it even vital force is denied, and organic Nature is degraded to a mere chance play of chemical forces.[166] These knights of the crucible and retort should be made to understand, that the mere study of Chemistry qualifies a man to become an apothecary, but not a philosopher. Certain other like-minded investigators of Nature, too, must be taught, that a man may be an accomplished zoologist and have the sixty species of monkeys at his fingers' ends, yet on the whole be an ignoramus to be classed with the vulgar, if he has learnt nothing else, save perhaps his school-catechism. But in our time this frequently happens. Men set themselves up for enlighteners of mankind, who have studied Chemistry, or Physics, or Mineralogy and nothing else under the sun; to this they add their only knowledge of any other kind, that is to say, the little they may remember of the doctrines of the school-catechism, and when they find that these two elements will not harmonize, they straightway turn scoffers at religion and soon become shallow and absurd materialists.[167] They may perhaps have heard at college of the existence of a Plato and an Aristotle, of a Locke, and especially of a Kant; but as these folk never handled crucibles and retorts or even stuffed a monkey, they do not esteem them worthy of further acquaintance. They prefer calmly to toss out of the window the intellectual labour of two thousand years and treat the public to a philosophy concocted out of their own rich mental resources, on the basis of the catechism on the one hand, and on that of crucibles and retorts or the catalogue of monkeys on the other. They ought to be told in plain language that they are ignoramuses, who have much to learn before they can be allowed to have any voice in the matter. Everyone, in fact, who dogmatizes at random, with the _naïve_ realism of a child on such arguments as God, the soul, the world's origin, atoms, &c. &c. &c., as if the Critique of Pure Reason had been written in the moon and no copy had found its way to our planet--is simply one of the vulgar. Send him into the servants' hall, where his wisdom will best find a market.[168]

[166] And this infatuation has reached such a point, that people seriously imagine themselves to have found the key to the mystery of the essence and existence of this wonderful and mysterious world in wretched _chemical affinities_! Compared with this illusion of our physiological chemists, that of the alchymists who sought after the philosopher's stone, and only hoped to find out the secret of making gold, was indeed a mere trifle. [Add. to 3rd ed.]

[167] "_Aut catechismus, aut materialismus_," is their watchword. [Add. to 3rd ed.]

[168] There too he will meet with people who fling about words of foreign origin, which they have caught up without understanding them, just as readily as he does himself, when he talks about "_Idealism_" without knowing what it means, mostly therefore using the word instead of Spiritualism (which being Realism, is the opposite to Idealism). Hundreds of examples of this kind besides other _quid pro quos_ are to be found in books, and critical periodicals. [Add. to 3rd ed.]

The other circumstance which calls for a real progress in philosophy, is the steady growth of unbelief in the face of all the hypocritical dissembling and the outward conformity to the Church. This unbelief necessarily and unavoidably goes hand in hand with the growing expansion of empirical and historical knowledge. It threatens to destroy not only the form, but even the spirit of Christianity (a spirit which has a much wider reach than Christianity itself), and to deliver up mankind to _moral_ materialism--a thing even more dangerous than the chemical materialism already mentioned. And nothing plays more into the hands of this unbelief, than the Tartuffianism _de rigueur_ impudently flaunting itself everywhere just now, whose clumsy disciples, fee in hand, hold forth with such unction and emphasis, that their voices penetrate even into learned, critical reviews issued by Academies and Universities, and into physiological as well as philosophical books, where however, being quite in their wrong place, they only damage their own cause by rousing indignation.[169] Under such circumstances as these, it is gratifying to see the public betray an interest in philosophy.

[169] They ought everywhere to be shown that their belief is not believed in. [Add. to 3rd ed.]

I have nevertheless one sad piece of news to communicate to our professors of philosophy. Their Caspar Hauser (according to Dorguth) whom they had so carefully secreted, so securely walled up for nearly forty years, that no sound could betray his existence to the world--their Caspar Hauser--I say, has escaped! He has escaped and is running about in the world;--some even say he is a prince. In plain language, the misfortune they feared more than anything has come to pass after all. In spite of their having done their best to prevent it for more than a generation by acting with united force, with rare constancy, secreting and ignoring to a degree that is without example, my books are beginning and henceforth will continue to be read. _Legor et legar_: there is no help for it. This is really dreadful and most inopportune; nay, it is a positive fatality, not to say calamity. Is this the recompense for all their faithful, snug secrecy; for having held so firmly and unitedly together? Poor time-servers! What becomes of Horace's assurance:--

"Est et fideli tuta silentio Merces,----?"

For verily they have not been deficient in faithful reticence; rather do they excel in this quality wherever they scent merit. And, after all, it is no doubt the cleverest artifice; for what no one knows, is as though it did not exist. Whether the _merces_ will remain quite so _tuta_, seems rather doubtful--unless we are to take _merces_ in a _bad_ sense; and for this the support of many a classical authority might certainly be found. These gentlemen had seen quite rightly that the only means to be used against my writings, was to secrete them from the public by maintaining profound silence concerning them, while they kept up a loud noise at the birth of every misshapen offspring of professorial philosophy; as the voice of the new-born Zeus was drowned in days of yore by the clashing of the cymbals of the Corybantes. But this expedient is now used up; the secret is out--the public has discovered me. The rage of our professors of philosophy at this is great, but powerless; for their only effective resource, so long successfully employed, being exhausted, no snarling can avail any longer against my influence, and in vain do they now take this, or that, or the other attitude. They have certainly succeeded, so far as the generation which was properly speaking contemporaneous with my philosophy, went to the grave in ignorance of it. But this was a mere postponement, and Time has kept its word, as it always does.

Now there are two reasons why these gentlemen "in the philosophical trade"--as they call themselves with incredible _naïveté_--hate my philosophy. The first of them is, that my writings spoil the taste of the public for tissues of empty phrases, for accumulations of unmeaning words piled one upon another, for hollow, superficial, brain-racking twaddle, for Christian dogmatics under the disguise of the most wearisome Metaphysics, for systematized Philistinism of the flattest kind made to represent Ethics and even accompanied by instructions for card-playing and dancing--in short, they unfit my readers for the whole method of philosophising _à la vieille femme_, which has scared so many for ever from the pursuit of philosophy.

The second reason is, that our gentlemen "in the trade" are absolutely bound in conscience not to let my philosophy pass and are therefore debarred from using it for the benefit of "the trade;"--and this they even heartily regret; for my abundance might have been admirably turned to account for the benefit of their own needy poverty. But even if it contained the greatest hoards of human wisdom ever unearthed, my doctrine could never find favour with them either now or in the future; for it is absolutely wanting in all Speculative Theology and Rational Psychology, and these, just these, are the very breath of life to these gentlemen, the _sine qua non_ of their existence. For they are anxious before all things in heaven and on earth, to hold their official appointments, and these appointments demand before all things in heaven and on earth a Speculative Theology and a Rational Psychology: _extra hæc non datur salus_. Theology there must and shall be, no matter whence it come; Moses and the Prophets must be made out to be in the right: this is the highest principle in philosophy; and there must be Rational Psychology to boot, as is proper. Now there is nothing of the sort to be found either in Kant's philosophy or in mine. For, as we all know, the most cogent theological argumentation shivers to atoms like a glass thrown at a wall, when it is brought into contact with Kant's Critique of all Speculative Theology, and under his hands not a shred remains entire of the whole tissue of Rational Psychology! As to myself, being the bold continuer of Kant's philosophy, I have entirely done away with all Speculative Theology and all Rational Psychology, as is only consistent and honest.[170] On the other hand, the task incumbent upon University Philosophy is at bottom this: to set forth the chief fundamental truths belonging to the Catechism under the veil of some very abstract, abstruse and difficult, therefore painfully wearisome formulas and sentences; wherefore, however confused, intricate, strange and eccentric the matter may seem at first sight, these truths invariably reveal themselves as its kernel. This proceeding may be useful, though to me it is unknown. All I know is, that philosophy, _i.e._ the search after truth--I mean the truth κατ' ἐξοχήν, by which the most sublime and important disclosures, more precious than anything else to the human race, are understood--will never advance a step, nay, an inch, by means of such manœuvring, by which its course is on the contrary impeded; therefore I found out long ago that University philosophy is the enemy of all genuine philosophy. Now, this being the state of the case, when a really honest philosophy arises, which seriously has truth for its sole aim, must not these gentlemen "of the philosophical trade" feel as might stage-knights in paste-board armour, were a knight suddenly to appear in the midst of them clad in real armour, who made the stage-floor creak under his ponderous tread? Such philosophy as this _must_ therefore be bad and false and consequently places these gentlemen "of the trade" under the painful obligation of playing the part of him who, in order to appear what he is not, cannot allow others to pass for what they really are. Out of all this however there unrolls itself the amusing spectacle we enjoy, when these gentlemen, now that ignoring has unfortunately come to an end, after forty years, at last begin to measure me by their own puny standard and pass judgment upon me from the heights of their wisdom, as though they were amply qualified to do so by their office; but they are most amusing of all when they assume airs of superiority towards me.

[170] For revelation goes for nothing in philosophy; therefore a philosopher must before all things be an unbeliever. [Add. to 3rd ed.].

Their abhorrence of Kant, though less openly expressed, is scarcely less great than their hatred of me; precisely because all speculative Theology and all Rational Psychology--the bread-winners of these gentlemen--have been undermined, not to say irrevocably ruined, by him in the eyes of all serious thinkers. What! Not hate him? him, who has made their "trade in philosophy" so difficult to them, that they hardly see how to pull through honourably! So Kant and I are accordingly both bad, and these gentlemen quite overlook us. For nearly forty years they have not deigned to cast a glance upon me, and now they look down condescendingly upon Kant from the heights of their wisdom, smiling in pity at his errors. This policy is both very wise and very profitable; since they are thus able to hold forth at their ease volume after volume upon God and the soul, as if these were personalities with whom they were intimately acquainted, and to discourse upon the relation in which the former stands to the world and the latter to the body, just as if there had never been such a thing as a Critique of Pure Reason. When once the Critique of Pure Reason is done away with, all will go on splendidly! Now it is for this end that they have been endeavouring for many years quietly and gradually to set Kant aside, to make him obsolete, nay, to turn up their noses at him, and one being encouraged by the other in this, they are becoming bolder every day.[171] They have no opposition to fear from their own colleagues, since they all have the same aims and the same mission and all together form a numerous _coterie_, the brilliant members of which, _coram populo_, bow and scrape to each other on all sides. Thus by degrees things have come to such a point, that the wretchedest compilers of manuals have the presumption to treat Kant's grand, immortal discoveries as antiquated errors, nay, calmly to set them aside with the most ludicrous arrogance and most impudent dicta of their own, which they nevertheless lay down under the disguise of argumentation, because they know they may count upon a credulous public, to whom Kant's writings are not known.[172] And this is what happens to Kant on the part of writers, whose total incapacity strikes us in every page, not to say every line, we read of their unmeaning, stupefying verbiage! Were this to go on much longer, Kant would present the spectacle of the dead lion being kicked by the donkey. Even in France there is no lack of fellow-workers inspired by a similar orthodoxy, who are labouring towards the same end. A certain M. Barthélemy de St. Hilaire, for instance, in a lecture delivered in the _Académie des Sciences Morales_ in April, 1850, has presumed to criticize Kant with an air of condescension and to use most improper language in speaking of him; luckily however in such a way, that no one could fail to see the underlying purpose.[173]

[171] One always says the other is right, so that the public in its simplicity at last imagines them really to be right. [Add. to 3rd ed.]

[172] Here it is especially Ernst Reinhold's "System of Metaphysics" (3rd edition, 1854) that I have in my eye. In my "Parerga" I have explained how it comes, that brain-perverting books like this go through several editions. See "Parerga," vol. i. p. 171 (2nd edition, vol. i. p. 194).

[173] Nevertheless, by Zeus, all such gentlemen, in France as well as Germany, should be taught that Philosophy has a different mission from that of playing into the hands of the clergy. We must let them clearly see before all things that we have no faith in their faith--from this follows what we think of them. [Add. to 3rd ed.]

Now others among our German "traders in philosophy" again try to get rid of the obnoxious Kant in a different way: instead of attacking his philosophy point-blank, they rather seek to undermine the foundations on which it is built. These people however are so utterly forsaken by all the gods and by all power of judgment, that they attack _à priori_ truths: that is to say, truths as old as the human understanding, nay, which constitute that understanding itself, and which it is therefore impossible to contradict without declaring war against that understanding also. So great however is the courage of these gentlemen. I am sorry to say I know of three,[174] and I am afraid there are a good many more at work at this undermining process, who have the incredible presumption to maintain the _à posteriori_ origin of Space as a consequence, a mere relation, of the objects _within it_; for they assert that Space and Time are of empirical origin and attached to those bodies, so that [according to them] Space first arises through our perception of the juxtaposition of bodies and Time likewise through our perception of the succession of changes (_sancta simplicitas!_ as if the words "collateral" and "successive" would have any sense for us without the antecedent intuitions of Space and of Time to give them a meaning); consequently, that if there were no bodies, there would be no Space, therefore if they disappeared Space also must lapse, and that if all changes were to stop, Time also would stop.[175]

[174] (_a_) Rosenkranz, "Meine Reform der Hegelschen Philosophie," 1852, especially p. 41, in a pompous, dictatorial tone: "I have explicitly said, that Space and Time would not exist if Matter did not exist. Æther spread out within itself first constitutes real Space, and the movement of this æther and consequent real genesis of everything individual and separate, constitutes real Time." (_b_) L. Noack, "Die Theologie als Religionsphilosophie," 1853, pp. 8, 9. (_c_) V. Reuchlin-Meldegg, Two reviews of Oersted's "Geist in der Natur" in the Heidelberg Annals, Nov.-Dec., 1850, and May-June, 1854.

[175] Time is the condition of the _possibility_ of succession, which could neither take place, nor be understood by us and expressed in words, without Time. And Space is likewise the condition of the _possibility_ of juxtaposition, and Transcendental Æsthetic is the proof that these conditions have their seat in the constitution of our head. [Add. to 3rd ed.]

And such stuff as this is gravely taught fifty years after Kant's death! The aim of it is, as we know, to undermine Kantian philosophy, and certainly if these propositions were true, _one_ stroke would suffice to overthrow it. Fortunately however these assertions are of a kind which is met by derision rather than by serious refutation. For, in them, the question is one of heresy, not so much against Kantian philosophy, as against common sense; and they are not so much an attack upon any particular philosophical dogma, as upon an _à priori_ truth which, as such, constitutes human understanding itself, and therefore must be instantaneously evident to every one who is in his senses, just as much as that 2 × 2 = 4. Fetch me a peasant from the plough; make the question intelligible to him; and he will tell you, that even if all things in Heaven and on Earth were to vanish, Space would nevertheless remain, and that if all changes in Heaven and on Earth were to cease, Time would nevertheless flow on. Compared with German pseudo-philosophers like these, how estimable does a man like the French physicist Pouillet appear, who, though he never troubles his head about Metaphysics, is careful to incorporate two long paragraphs, one on _l'Espace_, the other on _le Temps_, in the first chapter of his well-known Manual, on which public instruction in France is based, where he shows that if all Matter were annihilated, Space would still remain, and that Space is infinite; and that if all changes ceased, Time would still pursue its course without end. Now here he does not appeal, as in all other cases, to experience, because in this case experience is not possible; yet he speaks with apodeictic certainty. For, as a physicist, professing a science which is absolutely immanent--_i.e._ limited to the reality that is empirically given--it never comes into his head to inquire whence he knows all this. It _did_ come into Kant's head, and it was this very problem, clothed by him in the severe form of an inquiry as to the possibility of synthetical _à priori_ judgments, that became the starting-point and the corner-stone of his immortal discoveries, or in other words, of Transcendental Philosophy which, precisely by answering this question and others related to it, shows what is the nature of that empirical reality itself.[176]

[176] In the Scholium to the eighth of the definitions he has placed at the top of his "Principia," Newton quite rightly distinguishes _absolute_, that is, _empty_, from relative, or filled Time, and likewise absolute from relative Space. He says, p. 11: _Tempus, spatium, locum, motum, ut omnibus notissima, non definio. Notandum tamen quod_ VULGUS (that is, professors like those I have been mentioning) _quantitates hasce non aliter quam ex relatione ad sensibilia concipiat. Et inde oriuntur præjudicia quædam, quibus tollendis convenit easdem in absolutas et relativas, veras et apparentes, mathematicas et vulgares distingui._ And again (p. 12):

I. _Tempus absolutum, verum et mathematicum, in se et natura sua sine relatione ad externum quodvis, æquabiliter fluit, alioque nomine dicitur Duratio: relativum, apparens et vulgare est sensibilis et externa quævis Durationis per motum mensura (seu accurata seu inæquabilis) quâ vulgus vice veri temporis utitur; ut Hora, Dies, Mensis, Annus._

II. _Spatiam absolutum, natura sua sine relatione ad externum quodvis, semper manet similare et immobile: relativum est spatii hujus mensura seu dimensio quælibet mobilis, quæ a sensibus nostris per situm suum ad corpora definitur, et a vulgo pro spatio immobili usurpatur: uti dimensio spatii subterranei, ærei vel coelestis definita per situm suum ad terram._

But even Newton never dreamt of asking how we know these two infinite entities, Space and Time; since, as he here impresses on us, they do not fall within the range of the senses; and how we know them moreover so intimately, that we are able to indicate their whole nature and rule down to the minutest detail. [Add. to 3rd ed.]

And seventy years after the Critique of Pure Reason had appeared and filled the world with its fame, these gentlemen dare to serve up such gross absurdities, which were done away with long ago, and to return to former barbarism. If Kant were to come back and see all this mischief, he would feel like Moses on returning from Mount Sinai, when he found his people worshipping the golden calf, and dashed the Tables to pieces in his anger. But if Kant were to take things as tragically as Moses, I should console him with the words of Jesus Sirach:[177] "He that telleth a tale to a fool speaketh to one in a slumber; when he hath told his tale, he will say, 'What is the matter?'" For that diamond in Kant's crown, Transcendental Æsthetic, never has existed for these gentlemen--it is tacitly set aside, as _non-avenue_. I wonder what they think Nature means by producing the rarest of all her works, a great mind, one among so many hundreds of millions, if the worshipful company of numskulls are to be able at their pleasure and by their mere counter-assertion to annul the weightiest doctrines emanating from that mind, let alone to treat them with disregard and do as if they did not exist.

[177] Ecclesiasticus xxii. 8.

But this degenerate, barbarous state of philosophy which, in the present day, emboldens every tyro to hold forth at random upon subjects that have puzzled the greatest minds, is precisely a consequence still remaining of the impunity with which--thanks to the connivance of our professors of philosophy--that audacious scribbler, Hegel, has been allowed to flood the market with his monstrous vagaries and so to pass for the greatest of all philosophers for the last thirty years in Germany. Every one of course now thinks himself entitled to serve up confidently anything that may happen to come into his sparrow's brain.

Therefore, as I have said, the gentlemen of the 'philosophical trade' are anxious before all things to obliterate Kant's philosophy, in order to be able to return to the muddy canal of the old dogmatism and to talk at random to their heart's content upon the favourite subjects which are specially recommended to them: just as if nothing had happened and neither a Kant nor a Critical Philosophy had ever come into the world.[178] The affected veneration for, and laudation of, Leibnitz too, which has been showing itself everywhere for some years, proceed from the same source. They like to place him in a line with, nay above, Kant, having at times the assurance to call him the greatest of all German philosophers. Now, compared with Kant, Leibnitz is a poor rushlight. Kant is a master-mind, to whom mankind is indebted for the discovery of never-to-be-forgotten truths. One of his chief merits is precisely, to have delivered us from Leibnitz and his subtleties: from pre-established harmonies, monads and _identitas indiscernibilium_. Kant has made philosophy serious and I am keeping it so. That these gentlemen should think differently is easily explained; for has not Leibnitz a central Monad and a _Theodicée_ also, with which to deck it out? Now this is quite to the taste of my gentlemen 'of the philosophical trade.' It does not stand in the way of earning a honest livelihood; it allows one to subsist; whereas such a thing as Kant's "Critique of all Speculative Theology," makes one's hair stand on end. Kant is consequently a wrong-headed man and one to be set aside. Vivat Leibnitz! Vivat the 'philosophical trade!' Vivat old woman's philosophy! These gentlemen really imagine that, according to the standard of their own petty aims, they can obscure what is good, disparage what is great, and accredit what is false. They may perhaps succeed in doing so for a time, but certainly not in the long run, nor with impunity. Notwithstanding all their machinations and spiteful ignoring of me for forty years, have not even I at last made my way? During those forty years however I have learnt to appreciate Chamfort's words: "_En examinant la ligue des sots contre les gens d'esprit, on croirait voir une conspiration de valets pour écarter les maîtres._"

[178] For Kant has disclosed the dreadful truth, that philosophy must be quite a different thing from Jewish mythology. [Add. to 3rd ed.]

We do not care to have much to do with those whom we dislike. One of the consequences of this antipathy for Kant, therefore, has been an incredible ignorance of his doctrines. I can scarcely believe my eyes at times, when I see certain proofs of this ignorance, and must here support my assertion by a few examples. First let me present a very singular specimen, though it is now some years old. In Professor Michelet's "Anthropology and Psychology" (p. 444), he states Kant's Categorical Imperative in the following words: "thou must, for thou canst" (_du sollst, denn du kannst_). This cannot be a _lapsus calami_, for he again states it in the same words in his "History of the Development of Modern German Philosophy" (p. 38),[179] published three years later. Letting alone the fact that he appears to have studied Kantian philosophy in Schiller's epigrams, he has thus turned the thing upside down, and expressed exactly the opposite of Kant's argument; evidently without having the slightest inkling of what Kant meant by that postulate of Freedom on the basis of his Categorical Imperative. None of Professor Michelet's colleagues, to my knowledge, have pointed out this mistake, but "_hanc veniam damus, petimusque vicissim_."--Another more recent instance. The above mentioned reviewer of Oersted's book (see note 1 (_c_), p. 202), to whose title the present treatise unfortunately had to stand godfather, comes in that work on the sentence that "bodies are spaces filled with force" (_krafterfüllte Räume_). This is new to him; so without the faintest suspicion that he has to do with a far-famed Kantian dogma, and taking this for a paradoxical opinion of Oersted's, he attacks it and argues against it bravely, persistently and repeatedly in both his reviews, which appeared at an interval of three years from one another, using arguments like these: "Force cannot fill Space without something substantial, Matter;" then again three years later: "Force in Space does not yet constitute any thing. For Force to fill Space, there must be Substance, Matter. A mere force can never fill. Matter must be there for it to fill."--Bravo! my cobbler would use just such arguments as these.[180]--When I see _specimina eruditionis_ of this sort, I begin to have my misgivings whether I did not do the man injustice by naming him among those who endeavour to undermine Kant; but in this, to be sure, I had in view his assertions that "Space is but the relation, the juxtaposition of things,"[181] and that "Space is a relation in which things stand, a juxtaposition of things. This juxtaposition ceases to be a conception as soon as the conception of Matter ceases."[182] For he might possibly have penned these sentences in sheer innocence, since he may have known no more of the "Transcendental Æsthetic" than of the "Metaphysical First Principles of Natural Science;" though to be sure, this would be rather extraordinary for a professor of philosophy. Now-a-days however we must not be surprised at anything. For all knowledge of Critical Philosophy has died out, in spite of its being the latest true philosophy that has appeared, and a doctrine withal, that has made a revolution and epoch in human knowledge and thought. Now therefore, since it has overthrown all previous systems, and since the knowledge of it has died out, philosophising no longer proceeds on the basis of any of the doctrines propounded by the great minds of the past, but becomes a mere random untutored process, having an ordinary education and the catechism for its foundation. Now that I have startled them however, our professors may perhaps take to studying Kant's works again. Still Lichtenberg says: "Past a certain age, I think it as impossible to learn Kantian Philosophy as to learn rope-dancing."

[179] Another instance of Michelet's ignorance is to be found in Schopenhauer's posthumous writings, see "Aus Arthur Schopenhauer's handschriftlichem Nachlass," Leipzig, A. Brockhaus, 1864, p. 327. [Editor's note.]

[180] The same reviewer (Von Reuchlin-Meldegg) when be expounds the doctrines of the philosophers concerning God in the August number of the Heidelberg Annals (1855), p. 579, says: "In Kant, God is a thing in itself which cannot be known." In his review of Frauenstädt's "Letters" in the Heidelberg Annals of May and June (1855) he says that there is no knowledge _à priori_. [Add. to 3rd ed.]

[181] C. 1. p. 899.

[182] p. 908.

I should certainly not have condescended to record the sins of these sinners had not the interests of truth required that I should do so, in order to show the state of degradation at which German Philosophy has arrived fifty years after Kant's death in consequence of the machinations of the gentlemen 'of the trade,' and also to show what would result, if these puny minds, who know nothing but their own ends, were to be suffered without hindrance to check the influence of the great geniuses who have illumined the world. I cannot look on at this in silence; it is rather a case to which Göthe's exhortation applies:

"Du Kräftiger, sei nicht so still, Wenn auch sich Andre scheuen: Wer den Teufel erschrecken will, Der muss laut schreien."

Dr. Martin Luther thought so also.

Hatred against Kant, hatred against me, hatred against truth, all however _in majorem Dei gloriam_, is what inspires these worthies who live on philosophy. Who can be so blind as not to see that University philosophy is the enemy of all true, serious philosophy, whose progress it feels bound to withstand? For a philosophy which deserves the name, is pure service of truth, therefore the most sublime of all human endeavours; but, as such, it is not adapted for a trade. Least of all can it have its seat in Universities, where a theological Faculty predominates and things are irrevocably decided beforehand ere philosophy comes to them. With Scholasticism, from which University philosophy descends, it was quite a different thing. Scholasticism was avowedly the _ancilla theologiæ_, so that here the name corresponded to the thing. Our University philosophy of to-day, on the contrary, disclaims the connection, and professes independent research; yet in reality it is only the _ancilla_ disguised, and it is intended no less than its predecessor to be the servant of Theology. Thus genuine, sincerely meant philosophy has an adversary under the guise of an ally in University philosophy. Therefore I said long ago, that nothing would be of greater benefit to philosophy than for it to cease altogether to be taught at Universities; and if at that time I still admitted the propriety of a brief, quite succinct course of History of Philosophy accompanying Logic--which undoubtedly ought to be taught at Universities--I have since withdrawn that hasty concession in consequence of the following disclosure made to us in the _Göttingischen Gelehrten Anzeigen_ of the 1st January, 1853, p. 8, by the _Ordinarius loci_ (one who writes History of Philosophy in thick volumes): "It could not be mistaken that Kant's doctrine is ordinary Theism, and that it has contributed little or nothing towards transforming the current views on God and his relation to the world."--If this is the state of the case, Universities are in my opinion no longer the right place even for teaching History of Philosophy. There designs and intentions reign paramount. I had indeed long ago begun to suspect, that History of Philosophy was taught at our Universities in the same spirit and with the same _granum salis_ as Philosophy itself, and it needed but very little to make my suspicions certainty. Accordingly it is my wish to see both Philosophy and its History disappear from the lecture-list, because I desire to rescue them from the tender mercies of our court-councillors.[183] But far be it from me, to wish to see our professors of philosophy removed from their thriving business at our Universities. On the contrary, what I should like would be, to see them promoted three degrees higher in dignity and raised to the highest faculty, as professors of Theology. For at the bottom they have really been this for some time already, and have served quite long enough as volunteers.

[183] _Hofräthe._ A title of honour often given for literary and scientific merit in Germany, and common among University professors. [Tr.'s note.]

Meanwhile my honest and kindly advice to the young generation is, not to waste any time with University philosophy, but to study Kant's works and my own instead. I promise them that there they will learn something substantial, that will bring light and order into their brains: so far at least as they may be capable of receiving them. It is not good to crowd round a wretched farthing rushlight when brilliant torches are close by; still less to run after will o' the wisps. Above all, my truth-seeking young friends, beware of letting our professors tell you what is contained in the Critique of Pure Reason. Read it yourselves, and you will find in it something very different from what they deem it advisable for you to know.--In our time a great deal too much study is generally devoted to the History of Philosophy; for this study, being adapted by its very nature to substitute knowledge for reflection, is just now cultivated downright with a view to making philosophy consist in its own history. It is not only of doubtful necessity, but even of questionable profit, to acquire a superficial half-knowledge of the opinions and systems of all the philosophers who have taught for 2,500 years; yet what more does the most honest history of philosophy give? A real knowledge of philosophers can only be acquired from their own works, and not from the distorted image of their doctrines as it is found in the commonplace head.[184] But it is really urgent that order should be brought into our heads by some sort of philosophy, and that we should at the same time learn to look at the world with a really unbiassed eye. Now no philosophy is so near to us, both as regards time and language, as that of Kant, and it is at the same time a philosophy, compared with which all those which went before are superficial. On this account it is unhesitatingly to be preferred to all others.

[184] "_Potius de rebus ipsis judicare debemus, quam pro magno habere, de hominibus quid quisque senserit scire_," says St. Augustine ("_De civ. Dei_," l. 19, c. 3). Under the present mode of proceeding, however, the philosophical lecture-room becomes a sort of rag-fair for old worn out, cast-off opinions, which are brought there every six months to be aired and beaten. [Add. to 3rd ed.]

But I perceive that the news of Caspar Hauser's escape has already spread among our professors of philosophy; for I see that some of them have already given vent to their feelings in bitter and venomous abuse of me in various periodicals, making up by falsehoods for their deficiency of wit.[185] Nevertheless I do not complain of all this, because I am rejoiced at the cause and amused by the effect of it, as illustrative of Göthe's verse:

"Es will der Spitz aus unserm Stall Uns immerfort begleiten: Doch seines Bellens lauter Schall Beweist nur, dass wir reiten."

ARTHUR SCHOPENHAUER.

FRANKFURT AM MEIN, _August, 1854_.

[185] I take this opportunity urgently to request that the public will not believe unconditionally any accounts of what I am supposed to have said, even when they are given as quotations; but will first verify the existence of these quotations in my works. In this way many a falsehood will be detected, which can however only be stamped as a direct forgery when accompanied by quotation marks (""). [Add. to 3rd ed.]

EDITOR'S PREFACE TO THE THIRD EDITION.

Schopenhauer has left an interleaved copy of his work "On the Will in Nature," as well as of his other writings, and has inserted in it those Corrections and Additions which he intended to use for the Third Edition. I have therefore included them in this Third Edition.

The Corrections chiefly concern the style, here and there an expression being changed, and a word inserted or omitted. The Additions, on the contrary, concern the _matter_ of the book; they amplify it more or less considerably, and are tolerably numerous.

The Corrections are incorporated by Schopenhauer with the text; whereas the Additions are designated by him as "Notes" (_Anmerkungen_) to be placed at the foot of the pages with the words, "added to the third edition." They will therefore be found at the places indicated by him for them, as foot-notes; and thus the reader will be enabled easily to discern how much has been added in this edition.

As to the value of the present work, Schopenhauer has expressed himself as follows in the "World as Will and Representation:"

"It would be a great mistake to consider the foreign deliverances with which I have connected my own exposition there (in the work "On the Will in Nature") as the real substance and argument of that work which, though small in size, is weighty in import. They are rather a mere occasion which I take as my starting-point in order to expound the fundamental truth of my doctrine more clearly there than has been done anywhere else, and to apply it all the way down even to the empirical knowledge of Nature. This I have done most exhaustively and stringently under the heading "Physical Astronomy," nor can I ever hope to find a more correct or accurate expression for the kernel of my doctrine than the one given there."[186]

[186] "Die Welt a. W. u. V.," vol. ii., c. 18, p. 213.

I have nothing to add to testimony thus given by Schopenhauer himself.

JULIUS FRAUENSTÄDT.

Berlin, _March, 1867_.

EDITOR'S PREFACE TO THE FOURTH EDITION.

The present Fourth Edition is an identical reprint of the Third: it therefore contains the same Corrections and Additions which I had already inserted in the Third Edition from Schopenhauer's own manuscript.

JULIUS FRAUENSTÄDT.

Berlin, _September, 1877_.

THE WILL IN NATURE.

INTRODUCTION.

I break silence after seventeen years,[187] in order to point out to the few who, in advance of the age, may have given their attention to my philosophy, sundry corroborations which have been contributed to it by unbiassed empiricists, unacquainted with my writings, who, in pursuing their own road in search of merely empirical knowledge, discovered at its extreme end what my doctrine has propounded as the Metaphysical (_das Metaphysische_), from which the explanation of experience as a whole must come. This circumstance is the more encouraging, as it confers upon my system a distinction over all hitherto existing ones; for all the other systems, even the latest--that of Kant--still leave a wide gap between their results and experience, and are far from coming down directly to, and into contact with, experience. By this my Metaphysic proves itself to be the only one having an extreme point in common with the physical sciences: a point up to which these sciences come to meet it by their own paths, so as really to connect themselves and to harmonize with it. Moreover this is not brought about by twisting and straining the empirical sciences in order to adapt them to Metaphysic, nor by Metaphysic having been secretly abstracted from them beforehand and then, _à la_ Schelling, finding _à priori_ what it had learnt _à posteriori_. On the contrary, both meet at the same point of their own accord, yet without collusion. My system therefore, far from soaring above all reality and all experience, descends to the firm ground of actuality, where its lessons are continued by the Physical Sciences.

[187] So had I written in 1835, when the present treatise was first composed, having published nothing since 1818, before the close of which year "Die Welt als Wille und Vorstellung" had appeared. For a Latin version, which I had added to the third volume of "_Scriptores ophthalmologici minores_," _edente_ J. Radio, in 1830, for the benefit of my foreign readers, of my treatise "On Vision and Colours" (published in 1816), can hardly be said to break the silence of that pause.

Now the extraneous and empirical corroborations I am about to bring forward, all concern the kernel and chief point of my doctrine, its Metaphysic proper. They concern, that is, the paradoxical fundamental truth,

_that_ what Kant opposed as _thing in itself_ to mere _phenomenon_--called more decidedly by me _representation_--and what he held to be absolutely unknowable, that this _thing in itself_, this substratum of all phenomena, and therefore of the whole of Nature, is nothing but what we know directly and intimately and find within ourselves as _the will_;[188]

[188] As will be seen by the following detailed exposition, Schopenhauer attaches a far wider meaning to the word than is usually given, and regards the _will_, not merely as _conscious volition_ enlightened by Reason and determined by motives, but as the fundamental essence of all that occurs, even where there is no choice. [Tr.]

_that_ accordingly, this _will_, far from being inseparable from, and even a mere result of, _knowledge_, differs radically and entirely from, and is quite independent of, knowledge, which is secondary and of later origin; and can consequently subsist and manifest itself without knowledge: a thing which actually takes place throughout the whole of Nature, from the animal kingdom downwards;

_that_ this _will_, being the one and only thing in itself, the sole truly real, primary, metaphysical thing in a world in which everything else is only phenomenon--_i.e._ mere representation--gives all things, whatever they may be, the power to exist and to act;

_that_ accordingly, not only the voluntary actions of animals, but the organic mechanism, nay even the shape and quality of their living body, the vegetation of plants and finally, even in inorganic Nature, crystallization, and in general every primary force which manifests itself in physical and chemical phenomena, not excepting Gravity,--that all this, I say, in itself, _i.e._ independently of phenomenon (which only means, independently of our brain and its representations), is absolutely identical with the _will_ we find within us and know as intimately as we can know anything;

_that_ further, the individual manifestations of the will are set in motion by _motives_ in beings gifted with an intellect, but no less by _stimuli_ in the organic life of animals and of plants, and finally in all inorganic Nature, by _causes_ in the narrowest sense of the word--these distinctions applying exclusively to phenomena;

_that_, on the other hand, knowledge with its substratum, the intellect, is a merely secondary phenomenon, differing completely from the will, only accompanying its higher degrees of objectification and not essential to it; which, as it depends upon the manifestations of the will in the animal organism, is therefore physical, and not, like the will, metaphysical;

_that_ we are never able therefore to infer absence of will from absence of knowledge; for the will may be pointed out even in all phenomena of unconscious Nature, whether in plants or in inorganic bodies; in short,

_that_ the will is not conditioned by knowledge, as has hitherto been universally assumed, although knowledge _is_ conditioned by the will.

Now this fundamental truth, which even to-day sounds so like a paradox, is the part of my doctrine to which, in all its chief points, the empirical sciences--themselves ever eager to steer clear of all Metaphysic--have contributed just as many confirmations forcibly elicited by the irresistible cogency of truth, but which are most surprising on account of the quarter whence they proceed; and although they have certainly come to light since the publication of my chief work, it has been quite independently of it and as the years went on. Now, that it should be precisely this fundamental doctrine of mine which has thus met with confirmation, is advantageous in two respects. First, because it is the main thought upon which my system is founded; secondly, because it is the only part of my philosophy that admits of confirmation through sciences which are alien to, and independent of, it. For although the last seventeen years, during which I have been constantly occupied with this subject, have, it is true, brought me many corroborations as to other parts, such as Ethics, Æsthetics, Dianoiology; still these, by their very nature, pass at once from the sphere of actuality, whence they arise, to that of philosophy itself: so they cannot claim to be extraneous evidence, nor can they, as collected by me, have the same irrefragable, unequivocal cogency as those concerning _Metaphysics_ proper which are given by its correlate _Physics_ (in the wide sense of the word which the Ancients gave it). For, in pursuing its own road, Physics, _i.e._, Natural Science as a whole, must in all its branches finally come to a point where physical explanation ceases. Now this is precisely the _Metaphysical_, which Natural Science only apprehends as the impassable barrier at which it stops short and henceforth abandons its subject to Metaphysics. Kant therefore was quite right in saying: "It is evident, that the primary sources of Nature's agency must absolutely belong to the sphere of Metaphysics."[189] Physical science is wont to designate this unknown, inaccessible something, at which its investigations stop short and which is taken for granted in all its explanations, by such terms as physical force, vital force, formative principle, &c. &c., which in fact mean no more than _x, y, z_. Now if nevertheless, in single, propitious instances, specially acute and observant investigators succeed in casting as it were a furtive glance behind the curtain which bounds off the domain of Natural Science, and are able not only to feel it is a barrier but, in a sense, to obtain a view of its nature and thus to peep into the metaphysical region beyond; if moreover, having acquired this privilege, they explicitly designate the limit thus explored downright as that which is stated to be the true inner essence and final principle of all things by a system of Metaphysics unknown to them, which takes its reasons from a totally different sphere and, in every other respect, recognises all things merely as phenomena, _i.e._, as representation--then indeed the two bodies of investigators must feel like two mining engineers driving a gallery, who, having started from two points far apart and worked for some time in subterranean darkness, trusting exclusively to compass and spirit-level, suddenly to their great joy catch the sound of each other's hammers. For now indeed these investigators know, that the point so long vainly sought for has at last been reached at which Metaphysics and Physics meet--they, who were as hard to bring together as Heaven and Earth--that a reconciliation has been initiated and a connection found between these two sciences. But the philosophical system which has witnessed this triumph receives by it the strongest and most satisfactory proof possible of its own truth and accuracy. Compared with such a confirmation as this, which may, in fact, be looked upon as equivalent to proving a sum in arithmetic, the regard or disregard of a given period of time loses all importance, especially when we consider what has been the subject of interest meanwhile and find it to be--the sort of philosophy we have been treated to since Kant. The eyes of the public are gradually opening to the mystification by which it has been duped for the last forty years under the name of philosophy, and this will be more and more the case. The day of reckoning is at hand, when it will see whether all this endless scribbling and quibbling since Kant has brought to light a single truth of any kind. I may thus be dispensed from the obligation of entering here into subjects so unworthy; the more so, as I can accomplish my purpose more briefly and agreeably by narrating the following anecdote. During the carnival, Dante having lost himself in a crowd of masks, the Duke of Medici ordered him to be sought for. Those commissioned to look for him, being doubtful whether they would be able to find him, as he was himself masked, the Duke gave them a question to put to every mask they might meet who resembled Dante. It was this: "Who knows what is good?" After receiving several foolish answers, they finally met with a mask who replied: "He that knows what is bad," by which Dante was immediately recognised.[190] What is meant by this here is, that I have seen no reason to be disheartened on account of the want of sympathy of my contemporaries, since I had at the same time before my eyes the objects of their sympathy. What those authors were, posterity will see by their works; what the contemporaries were, will be seen by the reception they gave to those works. My doctrine lays no claim whatever to the name "Philosophy of the present time" which was disputed to the amusing adepts of Hegel's mystification; but it certainly does claim the title of "Philosophy of time to come:" that is, of a time when people will no longer content themselves with a mere jingle of words without meaning, with empty phrases and trivial parallelisms, but will exact real contents and serious disclosures from philosophy, while, on the other hand, they will exempt it from the unjust and preposterous obligation of paraphrasing the national religion for the time being. "For it is an extremely absurd thing," says Kant,[191] "to expect to be enlightened by Reason and yet to prescribe to her beforehand on which side she must incline."--It is indeed sad to live in an age so degenerate, that it should be necessary to appeal to the authority of a great man to attest so obvious a truth. But it is absurd to expect marvels from a philosophy that is chained up, and particularly amusing to watch the solemn gravity with which it sets to work to accomplish great things, when we all know beforehand "the short meaning of the long speech."[192] However the keen-sighted assert that under the cloak of philosophy they can mostly detect theology holding forth for the edification of students thirsting after truth, and instructing them after its own fashion;--and this again reminds us forcibly of a certain favourite scene in Faust. Others, who think that they see still further into the matter, maintain that what is thus disguised is neither theology nor philosophy, but simply a poor devil who, while solemnly protesting that he has lofty, sublime truth for his aim, is in fact only striving to get bread for himself and for his future young family. This he might no doubt obtain by other means with less labour and more dignity; meanwhile however for this price he is ready to do anything he is asked to do, even to deduce _à priori_, nay, should it come to the worst, to perceive, the 'Devil and his dam,' by intellectual intuition--and here indeed the exceedingly comical effect is brought to a climax by the contrast between the sublimity of the ostensible, and the lowliness of the real, aim. It remains nevertheless desirable, that the pure, sacred precincts of philosophy should be cleansed of all such traders, as was the temple of Jerusalem in former times of the buyers and sellers.--Biding such better times therefore, may our philosophical public bestow its attention and interest as it has done hitherto. May it continue as before invariably naming Fichte as an obligato accompaniment to, and in the same breath with, Kant--that great mind, produced but once by Nature, which has illumined its own depth--as if forsooth they were of the same kind; and this without a single voice being heard to exclaim in protest Ἡρακλῆς καὶ πίθηκος! May Hegel's philosophy of absolute nonsense--three-fourths cash and one-fourth crazy fancies--continue to pass for unfathomable wisdom without anyone suggesting as an appropriate motto for his writings Shakespeare's words: "Such stuff as madmen tongue and brain not," or, as an emblematical vignette, the cuttle-fish with its ink-bag, creating a cloud of darkness around it to prevent people from seeing what it is, with the device: _mea caligine tutus_.--May each day bring us, as hitherto, new systems adapted for University purposes, entirely made up of words and phrases and in a learned jargon besides, which allows people to talk whole days without saying anything; and may these delights never be disturbed by the Arabian proverb: "I hear the clappering of the mill, but I see no flour."--For all this is in accordance with the age and must have its course. In all times some such thing occupies the contemporary public more or less noisily; then it dies off so completely, vanishes so entirely, without leaving a trace behind, that the next generation no longer knows what it was. Truth can bide its time, for it has a long life before it. Whatever is genuine and seriously meant, is always slow to make its way and certainly attains its end almost miraculously; for on its first appearance it as a rule meets with a cool, if not ungracious, reception: and this for exactly the same reason that, when once it is fully recognised and has passed on to posterity, the immense majority of men take it on credit, in order to avoid compromising themselves, whereas the number of genuine appreciators remains nearly as small as it was at first. These few nevertheless suffice to make the truth respected, for they are themselves respected. And thus it is passed from hand to hand through centuries over the heads of the inept multitude: so hard is the existence of mankind's best inheritance!--On the other hand, if truth had to crave permission to be true from such as have quite different aims at heart, its cause might indeed be given up for lost; for then it might often be dismissed with the witches' watch-word: "fair is foul, and foul is fair." Luckily however this is not the case. Truth depends upon no one's favour or disfavour, nor does it ask anyone's leave: it stands upon its own feet, and has Time for its ally; its power is irresistible, its life indestructible.

[189] Kant, "Von der wahren Schätzung der lebendigen Kräfte," § 51.

[190] Baltazar Gracian, "_El Criticon_," iii. 90, to whom I leave the responsibility for the anachronism.

[191] Kant, "Krit. d. r. V." 5th edition, p. 755. (English translation by M. Müller, p. 640.)

[192] Schiller, "der langen Rede kurzer Sinn." [Tr.]

PHYSIOLOGY AND PATHOLOGY.

In classifying the above-mentioned empirical corroborations of my doctrine according to the sciences from which they come, while I take the graduated order of Nature from the highest to the lowest degree as a guiding-thread to my expositions, I must first mention a very striking confirmation lately received by my chief dogma in the physiological and pathological views of Dr. J. D. Brandis, private physician to the King of Denmark, a veteran in science, whose "Essay on Vital Force" (1795) had received Reil's hearty commendation. In his two latest writings: "Experiences in the Application of Cold in Disease" (Berlin, 1833), and "Nosology and Therapeutics of Cachexiæ" (1834), we find him in the most emphatic and striking manner stating the primary source of all vital functions to be an _unconscious will_, from which he derives all processes in the machinery of the organism, in health as well as in disease, and which he represents as the _primum mobile_ of life. I must support this by literal quotations from these essays, since few save medical readers are likely to have them at hand.

In the first of them, p. viii., we find: "The essence of every living organism consists in the will to maintain its own existence as much as possible over against the macrocosm;"--p. x.: "Only _one_ living entity, _one_ will can be in an organ at the same time; therefore if there is a diseased _will_ in disagreement with the rest of the body in the organ of the skin, we may hold it in check by applying cold as long as the generation of warmth, a normal _will_, can be induced by it." P. 1: "If we are forced to the conviction that there must be a _determining principle_--a _will_, in every vital action, by which the development suited to the whole organism is occasioned, and each metamorphosis of the parts conditioned, in harmony with the whole individuality, and likewise that there is a something capable of being determined and developed," &c. &c.--P. 11: "With respect to individual life, the element which determines, the organic _will_, if it is to rest satisfied, must be able to attain what it wants from that which has to be determined. This occurs even when the vital movements are over-excited, as in inflammation: something new is formed, the noxious element is expelled; new plastic materials are meanwhile conveyed through the arteries, more venous blood is carried off, until the process of inflammation is finished and the organic _will_ satisfied. It is however possible to excite this _will_ to such a degree, as to make satisfaction impossible. This exciting cause (or stimulus) either acts directly upon the particular organ (poison, contagion) or it affects the whole life; and this life then begins to make the most strenuous efforts to rid itself of the noxious element or to modify the disposition of the organic _will_, and provokes critical vital activity in particular parts (inflammations) or yields to the unappeased _will_."--P. 12: "The insatiable _will_ acts destructively upon the organism unless either (_a_) the whole life, in its efforts to attain unity (tendency to adapt means to end), produces other activities requiring satisfaction (_crises et lyses_) which hold that _will_ in check--called decisive (_crises completæ_) when quite successful; _crises incompletæ_, when only partially so--or (_b_) some other stimulus (medicine) produces another _will_ which represses the diseased one. If we place this in one and the same category with the _will_ of which we have become conscious through our own representations, and bear in mind that here there can be no question of more or less distant resemblance, we gain the conviction that we have grasped the fundamental conception of the _one_ unlimited, therefore indivisible, life which, according to its different manifestations in various more or less endowed and exercised organs, is just as able to make hair grow on the human body as to combine the most sublime representations. We see that the most violent passion--unsatisfied _will_--may be checked by more or less strong excitement," &c. &c.--P. 18: "The determining element--_this organic will without representation_, this tendency to preserve the organism as a unity--is induced by outward temperature to modify its

## activity now in the same, now in a remoter organ. Every manifestation

of life, however, whether in health or in disease, is a manifestation of the _organic will: this will determines vegetation:_ in a healthy condition, in harmony with the unity of the whole; in an unhealthy one ... it is induced _not to will_ in harmony with that unity" ...--P. 23: "Cold suddenly applied to the skin suppresses its function (chill); cold drinks check the _organic will_ in the digestive organs and thereby intensify that of the skin and produce perspiration; just so with the diseased _organic will_: cold checks cutaneous eruptions," &c. &c.--P. 33: "Fever is the complete participation of the whole vital process in a diseased _will_, _i.e._ it is to the entire vital process what inflammation is to particular organs--the effort of our vitality to form something definite, in order to content the diseased _will_ and remove the noxious element.--We call this process of formation _crisis_ or _lysis_ (turning-point or release). The first perception of the pernicious element which causes the diseased _will_, affects the individuality just in the same way as a noxious element apprehended by our senses, before we have brought to clear representation the entire relation in which it stands to our individuality and the means of removing it. It creates terror and its consequences, a standstill of the vital process in the _parenchyma_, especially in the parts directed towards the outer world; in the skin, and in all the motor muscles belonging to the entire individuality (outer body): shuddering, chills, trembling, pains in the limbs, &c. &c. The difference between them is, that in the latter case the noxious element, either at once or gradually, becomes clear representation, because it is compared with the individuality by means of all the senses, so that its relation to that individuality can be determined, and the means of protection against it (disregard, flight, warding off, defence, &c.) be brought to a _conscious will_; whereas, in the former case, we remain unconscious of that noxious element, and it is life alone (or Nature's curative power) which is striving to remove the noxious element and thereby to content the diseased _will_. Nor must this be taken for a simile; it is, on the contrary, a true description of the manifestation of life."--P. 58: "We must however always bear in mind, that cold acts here as a powerful stimulus to check or moderate the diseased _will_ and to rouse in its place a natural _will_, accompanied by general warmth."--

In almost every page of this book similar expressions are to be found. In the second of the Essays I have named, Brandis no longer combines the explanation by the will so universally with each separate analysis, probably in consideration that this explanation is properly speaking, a metaphysical one. Nevertheless he maintains it entirely and completely, giving it even all the more distinct and decided expression, wherever he states it. Thus, for instance, in § 68 _et seq._ he speaks of an "_unconscious will_, which cannot be separated from the conscious one," and is the _primum mobile_ of all life, as well in plants as in animals; for, in these, it is a desire and aversion manifesting itself in all the organs which determines all their vital processes, secretions, &c. &c.--§. 71: "All convulsions prove that the manifestation of the will can take place without distinct power of representation."--§. 72: "Everywhere do we meet with a spontaneous, uncommunicated activity, now determined by the sublimest human free will, now by animal desire and aversion, now again by simple, more vegetative requirements; which activity, in order to maintain itself, calls forth several other kinds of activity in the unity of the individual."--P. 96: "A creative, spontaneous, uncommunicated activity shows itself in every vital manifestation." ...--"The third factor in this individual creation is the _will, the individual's life itself_." ...--"The nerves are the conductors of this individual creation: by their means form and mixture are varied according to desire and aversion."--P. 97: "Assimilation of foreign substance ... makes the blood.... It is not an absorption or an exudation of organic matter; ... on the contrary, here the sole factor of the phenomenon is in all cases _the creative will_, a life which cannot be brought back to any sort of imparted movement."--

* * * * *

When I wrote this (1835) I was still _naïf_ enough seriously to believe that Brandis was unacquainted with my work, or I should not allude here to his writings; for they would then be merely a repetition, application and carrying out of my own doctrine on this point, not a corroboration of it. But I thought I might safely assume that he did not know me, because he has not mentioned me anywhere and because if he had known me, literary honesty would have made it his imperative duty not to remain silent concerning the man from whom he had borrowed his chief fundamental thought, the more so as he saw that man then enduring unmerited neglect, by his writings being generally ignored--a circumstance which might be construed as favourable to fraud. Add to this, that it lay in Brandis' own interest as a writer, and would therefore have shown sagacity on his part, to have appealed to me as an authority. For the fundamental doctrine propounded by him is so striking and paradoxical, that even his Göttingen reviewer is amazed and hardly knows what to think of it; yet such a doctrine as this was left without foundation either through proof or induction, nor did Dr. Brandis establish its relation to the whole of our knowledge of Nature: he simply asserted it. I imagined therefore that it was by the peculiar gift of divination, which enables eminent physicians to see and do the right thing in cases of illness, that he had been led to this view, without being able to give a strict and methodical account of the grounds of this really metaphysical truth, although he must have seen how greatly it is opposed to the generally received views. Had he, thought I, been acquainted with my philosophy, which gives far greater extension to this truth, makes it valid for the whole of Nature and founds it both by proof and induction in close connection with Kant's teaching, from which it proceeds as a final result of excogitation--how gladly must he have availed himself of such confirmation and support, rather than to stand alone by an unheard-of assertion which was never further carried out and, with him, never went beyond bare assertion. Such were the reasons that led me to believe myself entitled to take for granted Dr. Brandis' ignorance of my book.

Since then however I have become better acquainted with German scientists and Copenhagen Academicians, to which body Dr. Brandis belonged, and have gained the conviction that he knew me very well indeed. I stated my reasons for arriving at this conviction already in 1844 in the 2nd vol. of "Die Welt als Wille und Vorstellung,"[193] so that, as the subject is by no means edifying, it is needless to repeat them here; I will merely add that I have since been assured on trustworthy authority that Dr. Brandis not only knew my work but even possessed it, as it was found among his property after his death.--The unmerited obscurity to which writers like myself are long condemned, encourages such people to appropriate their thoughts without so much as naming them.

[193]