Philosophy of Spiritual Activity
GA 4
VIII. The Factors of Life
[ 1 ] Let us recapitulate the results gained in the previous chapters. The world faces man as a multiplicity, as an aggregate of detailed parts. He himself is one of these entities, a being among beings. Of this configuration of the world we say simply that it is given, and inasmuch as we do not evolve it by conscious activity, but simply find it, we say that it consists of percepts. Within this world of percepts we perceive ourselves. This percept of Self would remain merely one among many other percepts, did not something arise from the midst of this percept of Self which proves capable of connecting all percepts one with another and, therefore, the sum of all other; percepts with the percept of Self. This something which emerges is no longer a mere percept; neither is it, like percepts, simply given. It is produced by our activity. It appears, in the first instance, bound up with what each of us perceives as his Self. In its inner significance, however, it transcends the Self. It adds to the separate percepts ideally determined elements, which, however, are related to one another, and which are grounded in a whole. What self-perception yields is ideally determined by this something in the same way as all other percepts, and placed as subject, or “I,” over against the objects. This something is thinking, and the ideally determined elements are the concepts and Ideas. Thinking, therefore, first manifests itself in the percept of Self. But it is not merely subjective, for the Self characterizes itself as subject only with the help of thinking. This relation of the Self to itself by means of thinking is a determination of our personality in life. Through it we lead a purely ideal existence. Through it we feel ourselves to be thinking beings. This determination of our lives would remain a purely conceptual (logical) one, if it were not supplemented by other determinations of our Selves. Our lives would then exhaust themselves in establishing purely ideal connections between percepts themselves, and between them and ourselves. If we call this establishment of an ideal relation an “act of cognition,” and the resulting condition of ourself “knowledge,” then, assuming the above supposition to be true, we should have to consider ourselves as beings who merely cognize or know.
[ 2 ] The supposition is, however, untrue. We relate percepts to ourselves not merely ideally, through concepts, but also, as we have already seen, through feeling. We are, therefore, not beings with a merely conceptual content. The Naive Realist holds that the personality actually lives more genuinely in the life of feeling than in the purely ideal element of knowledge. From his point of view he is quite right in interpreting the matter in this way. Feeling signifies on the subjective side exactly the same as percepts signify on the objective side. From the principle of Naive Realism, that everything is real which can be perceived, it follows that feeling is the guarantee of the reality of one's own personality. Monism, however, as here understood, must bestow on feeling the same supplementation which it considers necessary for percepts, if these are to stand before us as complete reality. For this Monism, feeling is an incomplete reality, which, in the form in, which it first appears to us, does not contain as yet its second factor, the concept or Idea. This is why, in actual life, feelings, like percepts, appear prior to knowledge. At first, we have merely a feeling of existence; and it is only in the course of our gradual development, that we attain to the point at which the concept of Self emerges from within the faint feeling of our own existence. However, what for us does not appear until later, is from the first indissolubly bound up with our feeling. This is how the naive man comes to believe that in feeling he grasps existence immediately, in knowledge only mediately. The development of the life of feeling, therefore, appears to him more important than anything else. He will not believe the nexus of the world to have been grasped until he has received it into his feeling. He attempts to make feeling the instrument of knowledge rather than knowing. Now a feeling is entirely individual, something equivalent to a percept. Hence a Philosopher of Feeling makes a world-principle out of something which has significance only within his own personality. He attempts to permeate the whole world with his own Self. What the Monist, in the sense we have described, strives to grasp by means of concepts the Philosopher of Feeling tries to attain through feeling, and he looks on this community of his with the objects as more immediate than knowledge.
[ 3 ] The tendency just described, the Philosophy of Feeling, is often called Mysticism. The error in such a mystical conception based upon feeling is that it seeks to experience immediately what must be known, that it tries to elevate feeling, which is individual, into a universal principle.
[ 4 ] Feeling is a purely individual activity. It is the relation of the external world to the subject, in so far as this relation finds expression in a purely subjective experience.
[ 5 ] There is yet another expression of human personality. The Self, through thinking, takes part in the universal world-life. Through thinking it relates purely ideally (conceptually) the percepts to itself, and itself to the percepts. In feeling, it has immediate experience of the relation of objects to itself as subject. In will, the opposite is the case. In volition, we are concerned once more with a percept, viz., that of the individual relation of the Self to what is objective. Whatever in the act of will is not an ideal factor, is just as much mere object of perception as is any object in the external world.
[ 6 ] Nevertheless, the Naive Realist believes here again that he has before him something far more real than can be attained by thinking. He sees in the will an element in which he is immediately aware of an occurrence, a causation, in contrast with thinking which afterwards grasps the event in conceptual form. What the I achieves by its will is, on this view, a process which is experienced immediately. The adherent of this philosophy believes that in the will he has really got hold of one “bit” of reality (cf. Chapter III, p. 30 Ed.). Whereas he can follow other occurrences only from the outside by means of perception, he is confident that in his will he experiences a real process quite immediately. The mode of existence presented to him by the will within the Self becomes for him the principle of reality in the universe. His own will appears to him as a special case of the general world-process; hence the latter is conceived as a universal will. The will becomes the world-principle of reality just as, in Mysticism, feeling becomes the principle of knowledge. This kind of theory is called Voluntarism (Thelism). It makes something which can be experienced only individually the fundamental factor of the world.
[ 7 ] Voluntarism can as little be called scientific as can Mysticism. For both assert that the conceptual interpretation of the world is inadequate. Both demand, with a certain amount of justice, in addition to a principle of being which is ideal, also a principle which is real. But as perception is our only means of apprehending these so-called real principles, the assertion of Mysticism and Voluntarism coincides with the view that we have two sources of knowledge, viz., thinking and perception, the latter presenting itself as an individual experience in feeling and will. Since the immediate experiences which flow from the one source cannot be directly absorbed into the experiences of thinking which flow from the other, both experiences—perception and thinking—remain side by side, without any higher form of mediation between them. Besides the conceptual (ideal) principle to which we attain by means of knowledge, there is said to be a real principle which must be experienced. In other words, Mysticism and Voluntarism are both forms of Naive Realism, because they subscribe to the doctrine that the immediately perceived (experienced) is real. Compared with Naive Realism in its primitive form, they are guilty of the yet further inconsistency of accepting one definite form of perception (feeling, will) as the exclusive means of knowing reality. Yet they can do this only so long as they cling to the general principle that everything that is perceived is real. They ought, therefore, to attach an equal value to external perception for purposes of knowledge.
[ 8 ] Voluntarism turns into Metaphysical Realism when it asserts the existence of will also in those spheres of reality in which will can no longer, as in the individual subject, be immediately experienced. It assumes hypothetically that a principle holds good outside the subject, for the existence of which, nevertheless, subjective experience is the sole criterion of reality. As a form of Metaphysical Realism, Voluntarism is open to the criticism developed in the preceding chapter, a criticism which makes it necessary to overcome the contradictory element in every form of Metaphysical Realism, and to acknowledge that the will is a universal world-process only in so far as it is ideally related to the rest of the world.
Addition to the Revised Edition, 1918
[ 9 ] The difficulty of seizing the essential nature of thinking by observation lies in this, that it has eluded the introspecting soul all too easily by the time that the soul tries to bring it into the focus of attention. Nothing but the lifeless abstract, the corpse of living thought, then remains for inspection. When we consider only this abstract, we find it hard, by contrast, to resist entering into the mysticism of feeling, or, again, into the metaphysics of will, both of which are “full of life.” We are tempted to regard it as odd that anyone should want to seize the essence of reality in “mere thoughts.” But if we once succeed in really finding the true life in thinking, we learn to understand that the self-abandonment to feelings, or the intuiting of the will, cannot even be compared with the inward wealth of this life of thinking, which we experience as within itself, ever self-supporting, yet at the same time ever in movement. Still less is it possible to rank will and feeling above thinking. It is owing precisely to this wealth, to this inward abundance of experience, that the counter-image of thinking which presents itself to our ordinary attitude of soul, should appear lifeless and abstract. No other activity of the human soul is so easily misapprehended as thinking. Will and feeling still fill the soul with warmth even when we live through them again in memory. Thinking all too readily leaves us cold in recollection; it is as if the life of the soul had dried out. But this is really nothing but the strongly marked shadow thrown by its luminous warm nature penetrating deeply into the phenomena of the world. This penetration is effected by a power contained in the activity of thinking itself which is the power of love—spiritual love. There is no room here for the objection that thus to perceive love in the activity of thinking is to project into thinking a feeling, viz., love. This objection is, in truth, a confirmation of the view here advocated. If we turn towards the essential nature of thinking, we find in it both feeling and will, and both these in the depth of their reality. If we turn away from thinking towards “mere” feeling and will, these lose for us their genuine reality. If we are willing to make of thinking an intuitive experience, we can do justice, also, to experiences of the type of feeling and will. But the mysticism of feeling and the metaphysics of will are not able to do justice to the penetration of reality by intuitive thinking. They conclude all too readily that they themselves are rooted in reality, but that the intuitive thinker, untouched by feeling, blind to reality, forms out of “abstract thoughts” a shadowy, chilly picture of the world.
VIII. Die Faktoren des Lebens
[ 1 ] Rekapitulieren wir das in den vorangehenden Kapiteln Gewonnene. Die Welt tritt dem Menschen als eine Vielheit gegenüber, als eine Summe von Einzelheiten. Eine von diesen Einzelheiten, ein Wesen unter Wesen, ist er selbst. Diese Gestalt der Welt bezeichnen wir schlechthin als gegeben, und insofern wir sie nicht durch bewußte Tätigkeit entwickeln, sondern vorfinden, als Wahrnehmung. Innerhalb der Welt der Wahrnehmungen nehmen wir uns selbst wahr. Diese Selbstwahrnehmung bliebe einfach als eine unter den vielen anderen Wahrnehmungen stehen, wenn nicht aus der Mitte dieser Selbstwahrnehmung etwas auftauchte, das sich geeignet erweist, die Wahrnehmungen überhaupt, also auch die Summe aller anderen Wahrnehmungen mit der unseres Selbst zu verbinden. Dieses auftauchende Etwas ist nicht mehr bloße Wahrnehmung; es wird auch nicht gleich den Wahrnehmungen einfach vorgefunden. Es wird durch Tätigkeit hervorgebracht. Es erscheint zunächst an das gebunden, was wir als unser Selbst wahrnehmen. Seiner inneren Bedeutung nach greift es aber über das Selbst hinaus. Es fügt den einzelnen Wahrnehmungen ideelle Bestimmtheiten bei, die sich aber aufeinander beziehen, die in einem Ganzen gegründet sind. Das durch Selbstwahrnehmung Gewonnene bestimmt es auf gleiche Weise ideell wie alle andern Wahrnehmungen und stellt es als Subjekt oder «Ich» den Objekten gegenüber. Dieses Etwas ist das Denken, und die ideellen Bestimmtheiten sind die Begriffe und Ideen. Das Denken äußert sich daher zunächst an der Wahrnehmung des Selbst; ist aber nicht bloß subjektiv; denn das Selbst bezeichnet sich erst mit Hilfe des Denkens als Subjekt. Diese gedankliche Beziehung auf sich selbst ist eine Lebensbestimmung unserer Persönlichkeit. Durch sie führen wir ein rein ideelles Dasein. Wir fühlen uns durch sie als denkende Wesen. Diese Lebensbestimmung bliebe eine rein begriffliche (logische), wenn keine anderen Bestimmungen unseres Selbst hinzuträten. Wir wären dann Wesen, deren Leben sich in der Herstellung rein ideeller Beziehungen zwischen den Wahrnehmungen untereinander und den letztem und uns selbst erschöpfte. Nennt man die Herstellung eines solchen gedanklichen Verhältnisses ein Erkennen, und den durch dieselbe gewonnenen Zustand unseres Selbst Wissen, so müßten wir uns beim Eintreffen der obigen Voraussetzung als bloß erkennende oder wissende Wesen ansehen.
[ 2 ] Die Voraussetzung trifft aber nicht zu. Wir beziehen die Wahrnehmungen nicht bloß ideell auf uns, durch den Begriff, sondern auch noch durch das Gefühl, wie wir gesehen haben. Wir sind also nicht Wesen mit bloß begrifflichem Lebensinhalt. Der naive Realist sieht sogar in dem Gefühlsleben ein wirklicheres Leben der Persönlichkeit als in dem rein ideellen Element des Wissens. Und er hat von seinem Standpunkte aus ganz recht, wenn er in dieser Weise sich die Sache zurechtlegt. Das Gefühl ist auf subjektiver Seite zunächst genau dasselbe, was die Wahrnehmung auf objektiver Seite ist. Nach dem Grundsatz des naiven Realismus: Alles ist wirklich, was wahrgenommen werden kann, ist daher das Gefühl die Bürgschaft der Realität der eigenen Persönlichkeit. Der hier gemeinte Monismus muß aber dem Gefühle die gleiche Ergänzung angedeihen lassen, die er für die Wahrnehmung notwendig erachtet, wenn sie als vollkommeneWirklichkeit sich darstellen soll. Für diesen Monismus ist das Gefühl ein unvollständiges Wirkliches, das in der ersten Form, in der es uns gegeben ist, seinen zweiten Faktor, den Begriff oder die Idee, noch nicht mitenthält. Deshalb tritt im Leben auch überall das Fühlen gleichwie das Wahrnehmen vor dem Erkennen auf. Wir fühlen uns zuerst als Daseiende; und im Laufe der allmählichen Entwickelung ringen wir uns erst zu dem Punkte durch, wo uns in dem dumpf gefühlten eigenen Dasein der Begriff unseres Selbst aufgeht. Was für uns erst später hervortritt, ist aber ursprünglich mit dem Gefühle unzertrennlich verbunden. Der naive Mensch gerät durch diesen Umstand auf den Glauben: in dem Fühlen stelle sich ihm das Dasein unmittelbar, in dem Wissen nur mittelbar dar. Die Ausbildung des Gefühlslebens wird ihm daher vor allen andern Dingen wichtig erscheinen. Er wird den Zusammenhang der Welt erst erfaßt zu haben glauben, wenn er ihn in sein Fühlen aufgenommen hat. Er sucht nicht das Wissen, sondern das Fühlen zum Mittel der Erkenntnis zu machen. Da das Gefühl etwas ganz Individuelles ist, etwas der Wahrnehmung gleichkommendes, so macht der Gefühlsphilosoph ein Prinzip, das nur innerhalb seiner Persönlichkeit eine Bedeutung hat, zum Weltprinzipe. Er sucht die ganze Welt mit seinem eigenen Selbst zu durchdringen. Was der hier gemeinte Monismus im Begriffe zu erfassen strebt, das sucht der Gefühlsphilosoph mit dem Gefühle zu erreichen, und sieht dieses sein Zusammensein mit den Objekten als das unmittelbarere an.
[ 3 ] Die hiermit gekennzeichnete Richtung, die Philosophie des Gefühls, wird oft als Mystik bezeichnet. Der Irrtum einer bloß auf das Gefühl gebauten mystischen Anschauungsweise besteht darinnen, daß sie erleben will, was sie wissen soll, daß sie ein Individuelles, das Gefühl, zu einem Universellen erziehen will.
[ 4 ] Das Fühlen ist ein rein individueller Akt, die Beziehung der Außenwelt auf unser Subjekt, insofern diese Beziehung ihren Ausdruck findet in einem bloß subjektiven Erleben.
[ 5 ] Es gibt noch eine andere Äußerung der menschlichen Persönlichkeit. Das Ich lebt durch sein Denken das allgemeine Weltleben mit; es bezieht durch dasselbe rein ideell (begrifflich) die Wahrnehmungen auf sich, sich auf die Wahrnehmungen. Im Gefühl erlebt es einen Bezug der Objekte auf sein Subjekt; im Willen ist das Umgekehrte der Fall. Im Wollen haben wir ebenfalls eine Wahrnehmung vor uns, nämlich die des individuellen Bezugs unseres Selbstes auf das Objektive. Was am Wollen nicht rein ideeller Faktor ist, das ist ebenso bloß Gegenstand des Wahrnehmens wie das bei irgendeinem Dinge der Außenwelt der Fall ist.
[ 6 ] Dennoch wird der naive Realismus auch hier wieder ein weit wirklicheres Sein vor sich zu haben glauben, als durch das Denken erlangt werden kann. Er wird in dem Willen ein Element erblicken, in dem er ein Geschehen, ein Verursachen unmittelbar gewahr wird, im Gegensatz zum Denken, das das Geschehen erst in Begriffe faßt. Was das Ich durch seinen Willen vollbringt, stellt für eine solche Anschauungsweise einen Prozeß dar, der unmittelbar erlebt wird. In dem Wollen glaubt der Bekenner dieser Philosophie das Weltgeschehen wirklich an einem Zipfel erfaßt zu haben. Während er die anderen Geschehnisse nur durch Wahrnehmen von außen verfolgen kann, glaubt er in seinem Wollen ein reales Geschehen ganz unmittelbar zu erleben. Die Seinsform, in der ihm der Wille innerhalb des Selbst erscheint, wird für ihn zu einem Realprinzip der Wirklichkeit. Sein eigenes Wollen erscheint ihm als Spezialfall des allgemeinen Weltgeschehens; dieses letztere somit als allgemeines Wollen. Der Wille wird zum Weltprinzip wie in der Gefühlsmystik das Gefühl zum Erkenntnisprinzip. Diese Anschauungsweise ist Willensphilosophie (Thelismus). Was sich nur individuell erleben läßt, das wird durch sie zum konstituierenden Faktor der Welt gemacht.
[ 7 ] So wenig die Gefühlsmystik Wissenschaft genannt werden kann, so wenig kann es die Willensphilosophie. Denn beide behaupten mit dem begrifflichen Durchdringen der Welt nicht auskommen zu können. Beide fordern neben dem Idealprinzip des Seins noch ein Realprinzip. Das mit einem gewissen Recht. Da wir aber für diese sogenannten Realprinzipien nur das Wahrnehmen als Auffassungsmittel haben, so ist die Behauptung der Gefühlsmystik und der Willensphilosophie identisch mit der Ansicht: Wir haben zwei Quellen der Erkenntnis: die des Denkens und die des Wahrnehmens, welches letztere sich im Gefühl und Willen als individuelles Erleben darstellt. Da die Ausflüsse der einen Quelle, die Erlebnisse, von diesen Weltanschauungen nicht direkt in die der andern, des Denkens, aufgenommen werden können, so bleiben die beiden Erkenntnisweisen, Wahrnehmen und Denken ohne höhere Vermittlung nebeneinander bestehen. Neben dem durch das Wissen erreichbaren Idealprinzip soll es noch ein zu erlebendes nicht im Denken erfaßbares Realprinzip der Welt geben. Mit andern Worten: die Gefühlsmystik und Willensphilosophie sind naiver Realismus, weil sie dem Satz huldigen: Das unmittelbar Wahrgenommene ist wirklich. Sie begehen dem ursprünglichen naiven Realismus gegenüber nur noch die Inkonsequenz, daß sie eine bestimmte Form des Wahrnehmens (das Fühlen, beziehungsweise Wollen) zum alleinigen Erkenntnismittel des Seins machen, während sie das doch nur können, wenn sie im allgemeinen dem Grundsatz huldigen: Das Wahrgenommene ist wirklich. Sie müßten somit auch dem äußeren Wahrnehmen einen gleichen Erkenntniswert zuschreiben.
[ 8 ] Die Willensphilosophie wird zum metaphysischen Realismus, wenn sie den Willen auch in die Daseinssphären verlegt, in denen ein unmittelbares Erleben desselben nicht wie in dem eigenen Subjekt möglich ist. Sie nimmt ein Prinzip außer dem Subjekt hypothetisch an, für das das subjektive Erleben das einzige Wirklichkeitskriterium ist. Als metaphysischer Realismus verfällt die Willensphilosophie der im vorhergehenden Kapitel angegebenen Kritik, welche das widerspruchsvolle Moment jedes metaphysischen Realismus überwinden und anerkennen muß, daß der Wille nur insofern ein allgemeines Weltgeschehen ist, als er sich ideell auf die übrige Welt bezieht.
Zusatz zur Neuausgabe (1918)
[ 9 ] Die Schwierigkeit, das Denken in seinem Wesen beobachtend zu erfassen, liegt darin, daß dieses Wesen der betrachtenden Seele nur allzu leicht schon entschlüpft ist, wenn diese es in die Richtung ihrer Aufmerksamkeit bringen will. Dann bleibt ihr nur das tote Abstrakte, die Leichname des lebendigen Denkens. Sieht man nur auf dieses Abstrakte, so wird man leicht ihm gegenüber sich gedrängt finden, in das «lebensvolle» Element der Gefühlsmystik, oder auch der Willensmetaphysik einzutreten. Man wird es absonderlich finden, wenn jemand in «bloßen Gedanken» das Wesen der Wirklichkeit ergreifen will. Aber wer sich dazu bringt, das Leben im Denken wahrhaft zu haben, der gelangt zur Einsicht, daß dem inneren Reichtum und der in sich ruhenden, aber zugleich in sich bewegten Erfahrung innerhalb dieses Lebens das Weben in bloßen Gefühlen oder das Anschauen des Willenselementes nicht einmal verglichen werden kann, geschweige denn, daß diese über jenes gesetzt werden dürften. Gerade von diesem Reichtum, von dieser inneren Fülle des Erlebens rührt es her, daß sein Gegenbild in der gewöhnlichen Seeleneinstellung tot, abstrakt aussieht. Keine andere menschliche Seelenbetätigung wird so leicht zu verkennen sein wie das Denken. Das Wollen, das Fühlen, sie erwarmen die Menschenseele auch noch im Nacherleben ihres Ursprungszustandes. Das Denken läßt nur allzuleicht in diesem Nacherleben kalt; es scheint das Seelenleben auszutrocknen. Doch dies ist eben nur der stark sich geltend machende Schatten seiner lichtdurchwobenen, warm in die Welterscheinungen untertauchenden Wirklichkeit. Dieses Untertauchen geschieht mit einer in der Denkbetätigung selbst dahinfließenden Kraft, welche Kraft der Liebe in geistiger Art ist. Man darf nicht einwendend sagen, wer so Liebe im tätigen Denken sieht, der verlegt ein Gefühl, die Liebe, in dasselbe. Denn dieser Einwand ist in Wahrheit eine Bestätigung des hier geltend Gemachten. Wer nämlich zum wesenhaften Denken sich hinwendet, der findet in demselben sowohl Gefühl wie Willen, die letztern auch in den Tiefen ihrer Wirklichkeit; wer von dem Denken sich ab, und nur dem «bloßen» Fühlen und Wollen zuwendet, der verliert aus diesen die wahre Wirklichkeit. Wer im Denken intuitiv erleben will, der wird auch dem gefühlsmäßigen und willensartigen Erleben gerecht; nicht aber kann gerecht sein gegen die intuitiv-denkerische Durchdringung des Daseins die Gefühlsmystik und die Willensmetaphysik. Die letztem werden nur allzuleicht zu dem Urteil kommen, daß sie im Wirklichen stehen; der intuitiv Denkende aber gefühllos und wirklichkeitsfremd in «abstrakten Gedanken» ein schattenhaftes, kaltes Weltbild formt.
VIII. The factors of life
[ 1 ] Let us recapitulate what we have gained in the previous chapters. The world confronts man as a multiplicity, as a sum of particulars. One of these details, a being among beings, is himself. We describe this form of the world as given, and insofar as we do not develop it through conscious activity, but find it, as perception. Within the world of perceptions we perceive ourselves. This self-perception would simply remain as one among the many other perceptions if something did not emerge from the middle of this self-perception that proves to be suitable for connecting the perceptions in general, i.e. also the sum of all other perceptions, with that of our self. This emerging something is no longer mere perception; nor is it simply found in the same way as the perceptions. It is produced through activity. It initially appears bound to what we perceive as our self. In terms of its inner meaning, however, it reaches beyond the self. It adds ideal determinants to the individual perceptions, but these relate to each other and are founded in a whole. It determines what it has gained through self-perception in the same ideal way as all other perceptions and contrasts it with the objects as a subject or "I". This something is thinking, and the ideal determinations are the concepts and ideas. Thought therefore expresses itself first of all in the perception of the self; but it is not merely subjective, for the self only designates itself as a subject with the help of thought. This mental relationship to oneself is a life determination of our personality. Through it we lead a purely ideal existence. It makes us feel like thinking beings. This determination of life would remain a purely conceptual (logical) one if no other determinations of our self were added. We would then be beings whose life would be exhausted in the establishment of purely ideal relationships between the perceptions among each other and between the latter and ourselves. If one calls the establishment of such a mental relationship a cognition, and the state of our self gained through it knowledge, then we would have to regard ourselves as merely cognizing or knowing beings if the above premise were fulfilled.
[ 2 ] But the presupposition is not true. We relate perceptions to ourselves not only in an ideal sense, through the concept, but also through the feeling of how we have seen. We are therefore not beings with a purely conceptual purpose in life. The naive realist even sees in the life of feeling a more real life of personality than in the purely ideal element of knowledge. And he is quite right from his point of view when he puts the matter in this way. Feeling is initially exactly the same on the subjective side as perception is on the objective side. According to the principle of naive realism: everything is real that can be perceived, feeling is therefore the guarantee of the reality of one's own personality. The monism meant here, however, must give feeling the same complement that it considers necessary for perception if it is to present itself as perfect reality. For this monism, feeling is an incomplete reality which, in the first form in which it is given to us, does not yet contain its second factor, the concept or idea. This is why feeling, like perception, occurs everywhere in life before cognition. We first feel ourselves as being; and in the course of gradual development we only struggle through to the point where the concept of our self emerges for us in our own dimly felt existence. What for us only emerges later, however, is originally inseparably connected with feeling. This circumstance leads the naïve person to believe that existence presents itself to him directly in feeling and only indirectly in knowledge. The development of the emotional life will therefore appear important to him above all other things. He will only believe that he has grasped the context of the world when he has absorbed it into his feelings. He does not seek to make knowledge, but feeling, the means of cognition. Since feeling is something quite individual, something equivalent to perception, the emotional philosopher turns a principle that only has meaning within his personality into a world principle. He seeks to permeate the whole world with his own self. What the monism meant here strives to grasp in the concept, the emotional philosopher seeks to achieve with the feeling, and regards this as the more immediate aspect of his being together with the objects.
[ 3 ] The direction characterized here, the philosophy of feeling, is often referred to as mysticism. The error of a mystical approach based solely on feeling is that it wants to experience what it is supposed to know, that it wants to educate an individual, the feeling, to a universal.
[ 4 ] Feeling is a purely individual act, the relationship of the external world to our subject, insofar as this relationship finds its expression in a merely subjective experience.
[ 5 ] There is another expression of the human personality. Through its thinking, the ego participates in the general life of the world; through it, it relates perceptions to itself in a purely ideal (conceptual) way, relates itself to perceptions. In feeling it experiences a relation of the objects to its subject; in will the reverse is the case. In volition we also have a perception before us, namely that of the individual reference of our self to the objective. What is not a purely ideal factor in volition is just as much an object of perception as is the case with any thing in the external world.
[ 6 ] However, naïve realism will again believe itself to have a far more real being before it than can be attained through thinking. It will see in the will an element in which it becomes aware of an event, a causation immediately, in contrast to thinking, which first grasps the event in concepts. What the ego accomplishes through its will represents a process that is directly experienced for such a way of looking at things. In the will, the confessor of this philosophy believes that he has really grasped a corner of world events. While he can only follow other events by perceiving them from the outside, he believes that in his volition he experiences a real event quite directly. The form of being in which the will appears to him within the self becomes for him a real principle of reality. His own volition appears to him as a special case of general world events; the latter thus as general volition. Will becomes the world principle, just as feeling becomes the principle of cognition in emotional mysticism. This way of looking at things is philosophy of will (thelism). What can only be experienced individually is made the constituent factor of the world through it.
[ 7 ] As little as emotional mysticism can be called science, so little can the philosophy of will. For both claim to be unable to get by with the conceptual penetration of the world. Both demand a real principle in addition to the ideal principle of being. And with some justification. But since we only have perception as a means of comprehension for these so-called real principles, the assertion of emotional mysticism and the philosophy of will is identical with the view that we have two sources of knowledge: that of thought and that of perception, which the latter presents itself in feeling and will as individual experience. Since the outflows of the one source, the experiences, cannot be directly absorbed by these world views into those of the other, thinking, the two modes of cognition, perception and thinking, remain side by side without higher mediation. In addition to the ideal principle that can be attained through knowledge, there should also be a real principle of the world that cannot be grasped through thinking. In other words, emotional mysticism and the philosophy of will are naive realism because they pay homage to the proposition: That which is directly perceived is real. They are inconsistent with the original naïve realism only in that they make a certain form of perception (feeling or volition) the sole means of cognition of being, whereas they can only do so if they generally pay homage to the principle: That which is perceived is real. They would therefore also have to ascribe an equal cognitive value to external perception.
[ 8 ] The philosophy of will becomes metaphysical realism if it also transfers the will into the spheres of existence in which a direct experience of it is not possible as in the subject itself. It hypothetically assumes a principle outside the subject for which subjective experience is the only criterion of reality. As metaphysical realism, the philosophy of will falls prey to the criticism stated in the previous chapter, which must overcome the contradictory moment of every metaphysical realism and recognize that the will is only a general world event insofar as it relates ideally to the rest of the world.
Addition to the new edition (1918)
[ 9 ] The difficulty of grasping thinking in its essence through observation lies in the fact that this essence has all too easily slipped away from the observing soul when it wants to bring it into the direction of its attention. Then all that remains is the dead abstract, the corpse of living thinking. If one looks only at this abstract, one will easily find oneself compelled to enter into the "vital" element of emotional mysticism, or also of the metaphysics of the will. One will find it strange if someone wants to grasp the essence of reality in "mere thoughts". But whoever brings himself to truly have life in thought will come to the realization that the weaving in mere feelings or the contemplation of the element of will cannot even be compared to the inner richness and the experience within this life, which is at rest in itself but at the same time moved within itself, let alone that these should be placed above the latter. It is precisely from this richness, from this inner fullness of experience, that its counter-image in the ordinary attitude of the soul looks dead, abstract. No other human activity of the soul can be so easily misjudged as thinking. Willing, feeling, they warm the human soul even in the after-experience of its original state. Thinking all too easily leaves us cold in this after-experience; it seems to dry up the life of the soul. But this is only the strongly assertive shadow of its light-permeated reality, warmly immersed in world phenomena. This submersion takes place with a force flowing in the activity of thought itself, which is the force of love of a spiritual kind. One must not object that anyone who sees love in active thinking in this way is transferring a feeling, love, into it. For this objection is in truth a confirmation of what has been asserted here. For he who turns into thinking finds in it both feeling and will, the latter also in the depths of its reality; he who turns away from thinking and turns only to "mere" feeling and willing loses the true reality from these. Whoever wants to experience intuitively in thinking will also do justice to the emotional and volitional experience; but emotional mysticism and the metaphysics of will cannot do justice to the intuitive and intellectual penetration of existence. The latter will all too easily come to the conclusion that they stand in the real; the intuitive thinker, however, forms a shadowy, cold world view in "abstract thoughts" without feeling and alien to reality.