CHAPTER IV.. P. 80, § 38. the Verses (forming Part of the Advice Which

P. 80, § 38. The verses (forming part of the advice which Mephistopheles, personating Faust, gives to the recently-arrived pupil) stand in the original in a different order: beginning "Dann hat er die Theile in seiner Hand," &c. The meaning of these and the two preceding lines is somewhat as follows, in versification even laxer than Goethe's:--

If you want to describe life and gather its meaning, To drive out its spirit most be your beginning, Then though fast in your hand lie the parts one by one The spirit that linked them, alas! is gone. And 'Nature's Laboratory' is only a name That the chemist bestows on't to hide his own shame.

One may compare Wilhelm Meister's Wanderjahre, iii. 3, where it is remarked, in reference to some anatomical exercises: 'You will learn ere long that building-up is more instructive than tearing-down, combining more than separating, animating the dead more than killing again what was killed already.... Combining means more than separating: reconstructing more than onlooking.' The first part of Faust appeared 1808: the Wanderjahre, 1828-9.

P. 82, § 39. The article on the 'Relation of scepticism to philosophy, an exposition of its various modifications, and comparison of the latest with the ancient'--in form a review of G. E. Schulze's Criticism of Theoretical Philosophy'--was republished in vol. xvi. of Hegel's Werke (vol. i. of the Vermischte Schriften).

P. 87, § 42. In an earlier review of Kant's work (Werke, i. 83) on Glauben und Wissen (an article in Sendling and Hegel's Journal) Hegel attaches more weight to a factor in the critical theory of knowledge, here neglected. Kant, he says, has--within the limits allowed by his psychological terms of thought--'put (in an excellent way) the à priori of sensibility into the original identity and multiplicity, and that as transcendental imagination in the "higher power" of an immersion of unity in multiplicity: whilst Understanding (Verstand) he makes to consist in the elevation to universality of this à priori synthetic unity of sensibility,--whereby this identity is invested with a comparative antithesis to the sensibility: and Reason (Vernunft) is presented as a still higher power over the preceding comparative antithesis, without however this universality and infinity being allowed to go beyond the stereotyped formal pure infinity. This genuinely rational construction by which, though the bad name "faculties" is left, there is in truth presented a single identity of them all, is transformed by Jacobi into a series of faculties, resting one upon another.'

P. 87, § 42. Fichte: cf. Werke, i. 420: 'I have said before, and say it here again, that my system is no other than the Kantian. That means: it contains the same view of facts, but in its method is quite independent of the Kantian exposition.' 'Kant, up to now, is a closed book.'--i. 442. There are two ways of critical idealism. 'Either' (as Fichte) 'it actually deduces from the fundamental laws of intelligence, that system of necessary modes of action, and with it, at the same time, the objective conceptions thus arising, and thus lets the whole compass of our conceptions gradually arise under the eyes of the reader or hearer; or' (like Kant and his unprogressive disciples) 'it gets hold of these laws from anywhere and anyhow, as they are immediately applied to objects, therefore on their lowest grade (--on this grade they are called categories), and then asseverates that it is by these that objects are determined and arranged.' And i. 478: 'I know that the categories which Kant laid down are in no way proved by him to be conditions of self-consciousness, but only said to be so: I know that space and time and what in the original consciousness is inseparable from them and fills them both, are still less deduced as such conditions, for of them it is not even said expressly--as of the categories--that they are so, but only inferentially. But I believe quite as surely that I know that Kant had the thought of such a system: that everything he actually propounds are fragments and results of this system; and that his statements have meaning and coherence only on this presupposition.' Cf. viii. 362.

P. 89, § 42. Transcendental unity of self-consciousness. Kant's Kritik der reinen Vernunft, § 16: 'The I think must be able to accompany all my ideas.... This idea is an act of spontaneity. ... I name it pure apperception ... or original apperception ... because it is that self-consciousness which can be accompanied by none further. The unity of it I also call the transcendental unity of self-consciousness, in order to denote the possibility of cognition à priori from it.'

P. 92, § 44. Caput mortuum: a term of the Alchemists to denote the non-volatile precipitate left in the retort after the spirit had been extracted: the fixed or dead remains, 'quando spiritus animam sursum vexit.'

P. 92, § 45. Reason and Understanding. In the Wolfian School (e.g. in Baumgarten's Metaphysik, § 468) the term intellect (Verstand) is used of the general faculty of higher cognition, while ratio (Vernunft) specially denotes the power of seeing distinctly the connexions of things. So Wolff (Vernünftige Gedanken von Gott, &c. § 277) defines Verstand as 'the faculty of distinctly representing the possible,' and Vernunft (§ 368) as 'the faculty of seeing into the connexion of truths.' It is on this use of Reason as the faculty of inference that Kant's use of the term is founded: though it soon widely departs from its origin. For upon the 'formal' use of reason as the faculty of syllogising, Kant superinduces a transcendental use as a 'faculty of principles,' while the understanding is only 'a faculty of rules.' 'Reason,' in other words, 'itself begets conceptions,' and 'maxims, which it borrows neither from the senses nor from the understanding.' (Kritik d. r. Vern., Dialektik, Einleit. ii. A.) And the essential aim of Reason is to give unity to the various cognitions of understanding. While the unity given by understanding is 'unity of a possible experience,' that sought by reason is the discovery of an unconditioned which will complete the unity of the former (Dial. Einleit. iv), or of 'the totality of the conditions to a given conditioned.' (Dial, vii.)

It is this distinction of the terms which is dominant in Fichte and Hegel, where Verstand is the more practical intellect which seeks definite and restricted results and knowledges, while Vernunft is a deeper and higher power which aims at completeness. In Goethe's more reflective prose we see illustrations of this usage: e.g. Wilh. Meister's Wanderjahre, i. it is said to be the object of the 'reasonable' man 'das entgegengesetzte zu überschauen und in Uebereinstimmung zu bringen': or Bk. ii. Reasonable men when they have devised something verständig to get this or that difficulty out of the way, &c. Goethe, in his Sprüche in Prosa (896), Werke, iii. 281, says 'Reason has for its province the thing in process (das Werdende), understanding the thing completed (das Gewordene): the former does not trouble itself about the purpose, the latter asks not whence. Reason takes delight in developing; understanding wishes to keep everything as it is, so as to use it.' (Similarly in Eckermann's Convers. Feb. 13, 1829.) Cf. Oken, Naturphilosophie, § 2914. Verstand ist Microcosmus, Vernunft Macrocosmus.

Kant's use of the term Reason, coupled with his special view of Practical Reason and his use of the term Faith (Glaube), leads on to the terminology of Jacobi. In earlier writings Jacobi had insisted on the contrast between the superior authority of feeling and faith (which are in touch with truth) and the mechanical method of intelligence and reasoning (Verstand and Vernunft). At a later period however he changed and fixed the nomenclature of his distinction. What he had first called Glaube he latterly called Vernunft,--which is in brief a 'sense for the supersensible'--an intuition giving higher and complete or total knowledge--an immediate apprehension of the real and the true. As contrasted with this reasonable faith or feeling, he regards Verstand as a mere faculty of inference or derivative knowledge, referring one thing to another by the rule of identity.

This distinction which is substantially reproduced by Coleridge (though with certain clauses that show traces of Schellingian influence) has connexions--like so much else in Jacobi--with the usage of Schopenhauer, 'Nobody,' says Jacobi, 'has ever spoken of an animal Vernunft: a mere animal Verstand however we all know and speak of.' (Jacobi's Werke, iii. 8.) Schopenhauer repeats and enforces the remark. All animals possess, says Schopenhauer, the power of apprehending causality, of cognising objects: a power of immediate and intuitive knowledge of real things: this is Verstand. But Vernunft, which is peculiar to man, is the cognition of truth (not of reality): it is an abstract judgment with a sufficient reason (Welt als W. i. § 6).

One is tempted to connect the modern distinction with an older one which goes back in its origin to Plato and Aristotle, but takes form in the Neo-Platonist School, and enters the Latin world through Boëthius. Consol. Phil. iv. 6: Igitur uti est ad intellectum ratiocinatio, ad id quod est id quod gignitur, ad aeternitatem tempus, and in v. 4 there is a full distinction of sensus, imaginatio, ratio and intelligentia in ascending order. Ratio is the discursive knowledge of the idea (universali consideratione perpendit): intelligentia apprehends it at once, and as a simple forma (pura mentis acie contuetur): [cf. Stob. Ed. i. 826-832: Porphyr. Sentent.15]. Reasoning belongs to the human species, just as intelligence to the divine alone. Yet it is assumed--in an attempt to explain divine foreknowledge and defend freedom--that man may in some measure place himself on the divine standpoint (v. 5).

This contrast between a higher mental faculty (mens) and a lower (ratio) which even Aquinas adopts from the interpretation of Aristotle (Summa Theol. i. 79, 9) is the favourite weapon in the hands of mysticism. After the example of Dionysius Areop., Nicolaus of Cusa, Reuchlin, and other thinkers of the Renaissance depreciate mere discursive thought and logical reasoning. It is the inner mens--like a simple ray of light--penetrating by an immediate and indivisible act to the divine--which gives us access to the supreme science. This simplex intelligentia,-- superior to imagination or reasoning--as Gerson says, Consid. de Th. 10, is sometimes named mens, sometimes Spiritus, the light of intelligence, the shadow of the angelical intellect, the divine light. From Scotus Erigena to Nicolas of Cusa one tradition is handed down: it is taken up by men like Everard Digby (in his Theoria Analytica) and the group of Cambridge Platonists and by Spinoza in the seventeenth century, and it reappears, profoundly modified, in the German idealism between 1790 and 1820.

P. 99, § 48. 'Science of Logic'; Hegel's large work on the subject, published between 1812-16. The discussions on the Antinomies belong chiefly to the first part of it.

P. 102, § 50. 'Natural Theology,' here to be taken in a narrower sense than in p. 73, where it is equivalent to Rational Theology in general. Here it means 'Physico-theology'--the argument from design in nature.

P. 103, § 50. Spinoza--defining God as 'the union of thought with extension.' This is not verbally accurate; for according to Ethica, i. pr. 11, God, or the substance, consists of infinite attributes, each of which expresses the eternal and infinite essence. But Spinoza mentions of 'attributes' only two: Ethica, ii. pr. 1. I Thought is an attribute of God: pr. 2, Extension is an attribute of God. And he adds, Ethica, i. pr. 10, Schol. 'All the attributes substance has were always in it together, nor can one be produced by another.' And in Ethica, ii. 7. Sch. it is said: 'Thinking substance and extended substance is one and the same substance which is comprehended now under this, now under that attribute.'

P. 110, § 54. 'Practical in the true sense of the word.' Cf. Kant, Werke, Ros. and Sch. i. 581: 'A great misunderstanding, exerting an injurious influence on scientific methods, prevails with regard to what should be considered "practical" in such sense as to justify its place in practical philosophy. Diplomacy and finance, rules of economy no less than rules of social intercourse, precepts of health and dietetic of the soul no less than the body, have been classed as practical philosophy on the mere ground that they all contain a collection of practical propositions. Hut although such practical propositions differ in mode of statement from the theoretical propositions which have for import the possibility of things and the exposition of their nature, they have the same content. "Practical," properly so called, are only those propositions which relate to Liberty under laws. All others whatever are nothing but the theory of what pertains to the nature of things--only that theory is brought to bear on the way in which the things may be produced by us in conformity with a principle; i.e. the possibility of the things is presented as the result of a voluntary action which itself too may be counted among physical causes.' And Kant, Werke, iv. 10. 'Hence a sum of practical precepts given by philosophy does not form a special part of it (co-ordinate with the theoretical) merely because they are practical. Practical they might be, even though their principle were wholly derived from the theoretical knowledge of nature,--as technico-practical rules. They are practical in the true sense, when and because their principle is not borrowed from the nature-conception (which is always sensuously conditioned) and rests therefore on the supersensible, which the conception of liberty alone makes knowable by formal laws. They are therefore ethico-practical, i.e. not merely precepts and rules with this or that intention, but laws without antecedent reference to ends and intentions.'

P. 111, § 54. Eudaemonism. But there is Eudaemonism and Eudaemonism; as Cf. Hegel, Werke, i. 8. 4 The time had come when the infinite longing away beyond the body and the world had reconciled itself with the reality of existence. Yet the reality which the soul was reconciled to--the objective which the subjectivity recognised--was actually only empirical existence, common world and actuality.... And though the reconciliation was in its heart and ground sure and fast, it still needed an objective form for this ground: the very necessity of nature made the blind certitude of immersion in the reality of empirical existence seek to provide itself with a justification and a good conscience. This reconciliation for consciousness was found in the Happiness-doctrine: the fixed point it started from being the empirical subject, and what it was reconciled to, the vulgar actuality, whereon it might now confide, and to which it might surrender itself without sin. The profound coarseness and utter vulgarity, which is at the basis of this happiness-doctrine, has its only elevation in its striving after justification and a good conscience, which however can get no further than the objectivity of mere intellectualism.

'The dogmatism of eudaemonism and of popular philosophy (Aufklärung) therefore did not consist in the fact that it made happiness and enjoyment the supreme good. For if Happiness be comprehended as an Idea, it ceases to be something empirical and casual--as also to be anything sensuous. In the supreme existence, reasonable act (Thun) and supreme enjoyment are one. So long as supreme blessedness is supreme Idea it matters not whether we try to apprehend the supreme existence on the side of its ideality,--which, as isolated may be first called reasonable act--or on the side of its reality--which as isolated may be first called enjoyment and feeling. For reasonable act and supreme enjoyment, ideality and reality are both alike in it and identical. Every philosophy has only one problem--to construe supreme blessedness as supreme Idea. So long as it is by reason that supreme enjoyment is ascertained, the distinguishability of the two at once disappears: for this comprehension and the infinity which is dominant in act, and the reality and finitude which is dominant in enjoyment, are taken up into one another. The controversy with happiness becomes a meaningless chatter, when happiness is known as the blessed enjoyment of the eternal intuition. But what was called eudaemonism meant--it must be said--an empirical happiness, an enjoyment of sensation, not the eternal intuition and blessedness.'

P. 112, § 55. Schiller. Ueber die aesthetische Erziehung des Menschen(1795), 18th letter. 'Through beauty the sensuous man is led to form and to thought; through beauty the intellectual man is led back to matter and restored to the sense-world. Beauty combines two states which are opposed to one another.' Letter 25. 'We need not then have any difficulty about finding a way from sensuous dependence to moral liberty, after beauty has given a case where liberty can completely co-exist with dependence, and where man in order to show himself an intelligence need not make his escape from matter. If--as the fact of beauty teaches--man is free even in association with the senses, and if--as the conception necessarily involves--liberty is something absolute and supersensible, there can no longer be any question how he comes to elevate himself from limitations to the absolute: for in beauty this has already come to pass.' Cf. Ueber Anmuth und Würde(1793). 'It is in a beautiful soul, then, that sense and reason, duty and inclination harmonize; and grace is their expression in the appearance. Only in the service of a beautiful soul can nature at the same time possess liberty.' (See Bosanquet's History of Aesthetic.)

P. 115, § 60. The quotation in the note comes from § 87 of the Kritik der Urtheilskraft (Werke, ed. Ros. and Sch. iv. 357).

P. 120, § 60. Fichte, Werke, i. 279. 'The principle of life and consciousness, the ground of its possibility, is (as has been shown) certainly contained in the Ego: yet by this means there arises no actual life, no empirical life in time--and another life is for us utterly unthinkable. If such an actual life is to be possible, there is still needed for that a special impulse (Aufstoss) striking the Ego from the Non-ego. According to my system, therefore, the ultimate ground of all actuality for the Ego is an original action and re-action between the Ego and something outside it, of which all that can be said is that it must be completely opposed to the Ego. In this reciprocal action nothing is brought into the Ego, nothing foreign imported; everything that is developed from it ad infinitum is developed from it solely according to its own laws. The Ego is merely put in motion by that opposite, so as to act; and without such a first mover it would never have acted; and, as its existence consists merely in action, it would not even have existed. But the source of motion has no further attributes than to set in motion, to be an opposing force which as such is only felt.

'My philosophy therefore is realistic. It shows that the consciousness of finite natures cannot at all be explained, unless we assume a force existing independently of them, and completely opposed to them;--on which as regards their empirical existence they are dependent. But it asserts nothing further than such an opposed force, which is merely felt, but not cognised, by finite beings. All possible specifications of this force or non-ego, which may present themselves ad infinitum in our consciousness, my system engages to deduce from the specifying faculty of the Ego....

'That the finite mind must necessarily assume outside it something absolute (a Ding:an:sich), and yet must on the other hand acknowledge that this something only exists for the mind (is a necessary noümenon): this is the circle which may be infinitely expanded, but from which the finite mind can never issue.' Cf. Fichte's Werke, i. 248, ii. 478.