Page:Journal of Speculative Philosophy Volumes 1 and 2.djvu/167

 reason because they are covertly theoretical egotists and overtly practical egotists, cannot elevate themselves into an insight into this system; if a conclusion is drawn from the system that its author has an evil heart, and if again from this evil-heartedness of the author the conclusion is drawn that the system is false; then arguments are of no avail; for those who make these assertions know very well that they are not true, and they have quite different reasons for uttering them than because they believed them. The system bothers them little enough; but the author may, perhaps, have stated on other occasions things which do not please them, and may, perhaps—God knows how or where!—be in their way. Now such persons are perfectly in conformity with their mode of thinking, and it would be an idle undertaking to attempt to rid them of their nature. But if thousands and thousands who know not a word of the Science of Knowledge, nor have occasion to know a word of it, who are neither Jews nor Pagans, neither aristocrats nor democrats, neither Kantians of the old or of the modern school, or of any school, and who even are not originals—who might have a grudge against the author of the Science of Knowledge, because he took away from them the original ideas which they have just prepared for the public—if such men hastily take hold of these charges, and repeat and repeat them again without any apparent interest, other than that they might appear well instructed regarding the secrets of the latest literature; then it may, indeed, be hoped that for their own sakes they will take our prayer into consideration, and reflect upon what they wish to say before they say it.

INTRODUCTION TO IDEALISM. [From the German of Sciielling. Translated by Tom Davidson.] I. — IDEA OF TRANSCENDENTAL PHILOSOPHY. 1. All knowing is based upon the agree- ment of an objective with a subjective. For we know only the true, and truth is 'universally held to be the agreement of representations with their objects. 2. The sum of all that is purely object- ive in our knowledge we may call Nature ; while the sum of all that is subjective may be designated the Ego, or Intelligence. These two concepts are mutually opposed. Intelligence is originally conceived as that which solely represents — Nature as that which is merely capable of representation ; the former as the conscious — the latter as the unconscious. There is, moreover, necessary in all knowledge a mutual agree- ment of the two — the conscious and the unconscious per se. The problem is to explain this agreement. 3. In knowledge itself, in my knowing, objective and subjective are so united that it is impossible to say to which of the two the priority belongs. There is here no first and no second — the two are contem- poraneous and one. In my efforts to ex- plain this identity, I must first have it un- done. In order to explain it, inasmuch as nothing else is given me as a principle of explanation beyond these two factors of knowledge, I must of necessity place the one before the other — set out from the one in order from it to arrive at the other. From which of the two I am to set out is not determined by the problem. 4. There are, therefore, only two cases possible : A. Either the objective is made the first, and the question comes to be how a subject- ive agreeing with it is superinduced. The idea of the subjective is not con- tained in the idea of the objective ; thry rather mutually exclude each other. The subjective, therefore, must be superinduced upon the objective. It forms no part of the conception of Nature that there should be something intelligent to represent it. Nature, to all appearance, would exist even were there nothing to represent it. The problem may therefore likewise be ex-