Page:On the Fourfold Root, and On the Will in Nature.djvu/128

 entirely transcendent question as to the thing in itself. On referring to my theory above concerning empirical perception, we find that its first datum, sensation, is absolutely subjective, being a process within the organism, because it takes place beneath the skin. Locke has completely and exhaustively proved, that the feelings of our senses, even admitting them to be roused by external causes, cannot have any resemblance whatever to the qualities of those causes. Sugar, for instance, bears no resemblance at all to sweetness, nor a rose to redness. But that they should need an external cause at all, is based upon a law whose origin lies demonstrably within us, in our brain ; therefore this necessity is not less subjective than the sensations themselves. Nay, even Time—that primary condition of every possible change, therefore also of the change which first permits the application of the causal law—and not less Space—which alone renders the externalisation of causes possible, after which they present themselves to us as objects—even Time and Space, we say, are subjective forms of the intellect, as Kant has conclusively proved. Accordingly we find all the elements of empirical perception lying within us, and nothing contained in them which can give us reliable indications as to any thing differing absolutely from ourselves, anything in itself.—But this is not all. What we think under the conception matter, is the residue which remains over after bodies have been divested of their shape and of all their specific qualities : a residue, which precisely on that account must be identical in all bodies. Now these shapes and qualities which have been abstracted by us, are nothing but the peculiar, specially defined way in which these bodies act, which constitutes precisely their difference. If therefore we leave these shapes and qualities out of consideration, there remains nothing but mere activity in general, pure action as such, Causality itself, objectively thought—