The Philosophy of Spiritual Activity
GA 4
VIII. The Factors of Life
[ 1 ] Let us recapitulate the results arrived at in the previous chapters. The world confronts man as a multiplicity, as a sum of separate entities. Man himself is one of these separate entities, a being among other beings. This aspect of the world we characterized simply as that which is given, and inasmuch as we do not evolve it by conscious activity, but find it present, we called it perception. Within the world of perceptions we perceive ourself. This self-perception would remain merely one among the many other perceptions, did not something arise from the midst of this self-perception which proves capable of connecting perceptions in general and therefore also the sum of all other perceptions with that of ourself. This something which emerges is no longer mere perception, neither is it, like perceptions, simply given. It is brought about by our activity. To begin with, it appears united with what we perceive as ourself. But in accordance with its inner significance it reaches out beyond the self. It bestows on the separate perceptions ideal definitions, and these relate themselves to one another and stem from a unity. What is attained by self-perception, it defines ideally in the same way as it defines all other perceptions, placing this as subject, or “I,” over against the objects. This something is thinking, and the ideal definitions are the concepts and ideas. Thinking, therefore, first manifests itself in the perception of the self, but it is not merely subjective, for the self characterizes itself as subject only with the help of thinking. This relationship to oneself by means of thoughts is a life-definition of our personality. Through it we lead a purely ideal existence. Through it we feel ourselves to be thinking beings. This life-definition would remain a purely conceptual (logical) one if no other definitions of our self were added to it. We should then be beings whose life would be exhausted in establishing purely ideal relations between perceptions themselves, and between them and ourself. If we call the establishing of such a thought connection, an act of cognition, and the resulting condition of our self knowledge, then according to the above mentioned presupposition, we should have to consider ourselves as beings who merely cognize or know.
[ 2 ] However, the presupposition does not correspond to the facts. We relate perceptions to ourselves not merely ideally, through concepts, but also, as we have seen, through feeling. Therefore we are not beings with a merely conceptual life-content. The naive realist even sees in the life of feeling a more genuine life of the personality than in the purely ideal element of knowledge. And from his standpoint he is right in interpreting the matter in this way. For feeling on the subjective side to begin with, is exactly the same as perception on the objective side. From the basic principle of naive realism, that everything that can be perceived is real, it follows that feeling is the guarantee of the reality of one's own personality. Monism, however, as understood here, must confer upon feeling the same supplement that it considers necessary for all perceptions if these are to be present as a complete reality. For monism, feeling is an incomplete reality which, in the form it is first given to us, does not as yet contain its second factor, the concept or idea. This is why in actual life, feelings, like perceptions, appear before cognition has occurred. At first we have merely a feeling of existence, and it is only in the course of gradual development that we reach the point where the concept of our self dawns within the dim feeling of our existence. But what for us appears only later is fundamentally and indivisibly bound up with feeling. This fact leads the naive man to the belief that in feeling, existence is present directly, in knowledge only indirectly. Therefore the development of the feeling-life appears to him more important than anything else. He will believe that he has grasped the connection of things only when he has felt it. He attempts to make feelings rather than knowing the means of cognition. But as feeling is something quite individual, something equivalent to perception, a philosopher of feeling makes into the universal principle, a principle which has significance only within his personality. He tries 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 by means of feeling, and considers this relationship with objects to be the one that is most direct.
[ 3 ] The view just characterized, the philosophy of feeling, is often called mysticism. The error in mysticism based on feeling alone is that the mystic wants to experience 43Note by Translator: The reader's attention is drawn to the fact that the word experience, in relation to the kind of mysticism and philosophy of will referred to in this chapter, is translated from the word erleben (as distinct from Erfahrung, see note 40, above) Therefore, what the mystic experiences in feeling and the philosopher of will in the will-element, are experiences which have not been formed into clear representations by the activity of thinking. in feeling what should be attained as knowledge; he wants to develop something which is individual, into something universal.
[ 4 ] Feeling is purely individual, it is the relation of the external world to our subject, insofar as this relation comes to expression in merely subjective experience.
[ 5 ] There is yet another expression of the human personality. The I, through its thinking, lives within the universal life of the world; through thinking the “I” relates purely ideally (conceptually) the perception to itself, and itself to the perception. In feeling, it experiences a relation of the object to its own subject. In the will, the opposite is the case. In will, we are again confronted with a perception, namely that of the individual relation of our own self to the object. Everything in the will which is not a purely ideal factor is just as much a merely perceived object as any object in the external world.
[ 6 ] Nevertheless, here again the naive realist believes that he has before him something far more real than can be reached by thinking. He sees in the will an element in which he is directly aware of a process, a causation, in contrast to thinking, which must first grasp the process in concepts. What the I brings about by its will represents to such a view, a process which is experienced directly. An adherent of this philosophy believes that in the will he has really got hold of a corner of the universal process. Whereas all other events he can follow only by perceiving them from outside, he believes that in his will he is experiencing a real process quite directly. The form of existence in which the will appears to him within the self becomes for him a direct principle of reality. His own will appears to him as a special case of the universal process, and he therefore considers the latter to be universal will. The will becomes the universal principle just as in mysticism of feeling, feeling becomes the principle of knowledge. This view is a Philosophy of the Will (Thelism).44Thelism—Voluntarism, i.e., any theory which conceives will to be the dominant factor in experience or in the constitution of the world. Here something which can be experienced only individually is made into the constituent factor of the world.
[ 7 ] The philosophy of will can be called a science as little as can mysticism of feeling. For both maintain that to permeate things with concepts is insufficient. Both demand, side by side with an ideal-principle of existence, a real principle also. And this with a certain justification. But since for this so-called real principle, perceiving is our only means of comprehension, it follows that mysticism of feeling and philosophy of will are both of the opinion that we have two sources of knowledge: thinking and perceiving, perceiving being mediated through feeling and will as individual experience. According to mysticism of feeling and philosophy of will, what flows from the source of experience 44aGer. Erlebnisse.—Tr. cannot be taken up directly into what flows from the source of thinking; therefore the two forms of knowledge, perceiving and thinking, remain standing side by side without a higher mediation. Besides the ideal principle attainable through knowledge, there is also supposed to exist a real principle which, although it can be experienced cannot be grasped by thinking. In other words: mysticism of feeling and philosophy of will are both forms of naive realism; they both adhere to the principle: What is directly perceived is real. Compared with naive realism in its original form, they are guilty of the further inconsistency of making one definite kind of perceiving (feeling or will) into the one and only means of knowing existence; and this they should not do when they adhere in general to the principle: What is perceived is real. According to this, for cognition, external perceptions should have equal value with inner perceptions of feeling or will.
[ 8 ] Philosophy of will becomes metaphysical realism when it considers will also to be present in those spheres of existence where a direct experience of it, as in one's own subject, is not possible. It hypothetically assumes a principle outside the subject, for which subjective experience is the sole criterion of reality. The philosophy of will as a form of metaphysical realism is open to the criticism indicated in the preceding chapter; it has to overcome the contradictory element inherent in every form of metaphysical realism, and acknowledge that the will is a universal world process only insofar as it relates itself ideally to the rest of the world.
[ 9 ] Addition to the Revised Version, (1918): The reason it is so difficult to observe and grasp the nature of thinking lies in the fact that its nature all too easily eludes the contemplating soul, as soon as one tries to focus attention on it. What then is left is something lifeless, abstract, the corpse of living thinking. If this abstract alone is considered, then it is easy, by contrast, to be drawn into the “living” element in mysticism of feeling, or into the metaphysics of the will, and to find it strange that anyone should expect to grasp the nature of reality in “mere thought.” But one who really penetrates to the life within thinking will reach the insight that to experience existence merely in feeling or in will cannot in any way be compared with the inner richness, the inwardly at rest yet at the same time alive experience, of the life within thinking, and no longer will he say that the other could be ranked above this. It is just because of this richness, because of this inner fullness of living experience, that its reflection in the ordinary life of soul appears lifeless and abstract. No other human soul-activity is so easily underestimated as thinking. Will and feeling warm the human soul even when experienced only in recollection. Thinking all too easily leaves the soul cold in recollection; the soul-life then appears to have dried out. But this is only the strong shadow cast by its warm luminous reality, which dives down into the phenomena of the world. This diving down is done by a power that flows within the thinking activity itself, the power of spiritual love. The objection should not be made that to see love in active thinking is to transfer into thinking a feeling, namely love. This objection is in truth a confirmation of what is said here. For he who turns toward the living essence of thinking will find in it both feeling and will, and both of these in their deepest reality; whereas for someone who turns away from thinking and instead turns toward “mere” feeling or will, for him these will lose their true reality. One who is willing to experience intuitively in thinking, will also be able to do justice to what is experienced in the realm of feeling and in the element of will, whereas mysticism of feeling and metaphysics of will are incapable of doing justice to the activity of permeating existence with intuitive thinking. They all too easily come to the conclusion that they have found reality, whereas the intuitive thinker produces in abstract thoughts without feeling, and far removed from reality, a shadowy, chilling 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.