/. It must be a two-fold consciousness. Sensation is itself an immediate consciousness; for I am sensible ^of my own sensation. But from this there arises no knowledge of outward existence, but only the feeling of my own state. I am however, originally, not merely a sensitive, but also an intuitive being; not merely a practical being, but also an intelligence. I intuitively contemplate my sensation itself, and thus there arises from myself and my own nature, the cognition of an existence. Sensation becomes transformed into its own object; my affections, as red, smooth, and the like, into a something red, smooth, &c. out of myself; and this something, and my relative sensation, I intuitively contemplate in space, because the intuition itself is space. Thus does it become clear why I believe that I see or feel surfaces, which, in fact, I neither see nor feel. I intuitively regard my own sensation of sight or touch, as the sight or touch of a surface.
Spirit. Thou hast well understood me, or rather thyself.
/. But now it is not at all by means of an inference, either recognised or unrecognised, from the principle of causality, that the thing is originated for me; it floats immediately before me, and is presented to my consciousness without any process of reasoning. I cannot say as I have formerly done, that perception becomes transformed into a something perceivable, for the perceivable, as such, has precedence in conscious ness. It is not with an affection of myself, as red, smooth, or the like, that consciousness begins, but with a red, smooth object out of myself.
Spirit. If, however, thou wert obliged to explain what is red, smooth, and the like, couldst thou possibly make any other reply than that it was that by which thou wert affected in a certain manner, that thou namest red, smooth, &c.?
/. Certainly not, — if you were to ask me, and I were to enter upon the question and attempt an explanation. But originally no one asks me the question, nor do I ask it of myself. I forget myself entirely, and lose myself in my intuition of the object; become conscious, not of my own state, but only of an existence out of myself. Red, green, and the like, are properties of the thing; it is red or green, and this is all. There can be no farther explanation, any more than there can be a farther explanation of these affections in me, on which we have already agreed. This is most obvious in the sensation of sight. Colour appears as something out of myself, and the common understanding of man, if left to itself, and without farther reflection, would scarcely be persuaded to describe red, green, &c. as that which excited within him a specific affection.
Spirit. But, doubtless, it would if asked regarding sweet or sour. It is not our business at present to inquire whether the impression made by means of sight be a pure sensation, or whether it may not rather be a middle term between sensation and intuition, and the bond by which they are united in our minds. But I admit thy assertion, and it is extremely welcome to me. Thou canst, indeed, lose thyself in the intuition; and unless thou directest particular attention to thy self, or takest an interest in some external action, thou dost so, naturally and necessarily. This is the remark to which the defenders of a groundless consciousness of external things appeal, when it is shown that the principle of causality, by which the existence of such things might be inferred, exists only in ourselves; they deny that any such inference is made, and, in so far as they refer to actual consciousness in particular cases, this cannot be disputed. These same defenders, when the nature of intuition is explained to them from the laws of intelligence itself, themselves draw this infer ence anew, and never weary of repeating that there must be something external to us which compels us to this belief.
/. Do not trouble thyself about them at present, but instruct me. I have no preconceived opinion, and seek for truth only.
Spirit. Nevertheless, intuition necessarily proceeds from the perception of thine own state, although thou art not always clearly conscious of this perception, as thou hast already seen. Even in that consciousness in which thou losest thyself in the object, there is al ways something which is only possible by means of an unrecognised reference to thyself, and close observation of thine own state.
/. Consequently, at all times and places the con sciousness of existence out of myself must be accom panied by an unobserved consciousness of myself?
Spirit. Just so.
/. The former being determined through the latter, — as it actually is?
Spirit. This is my meaning.
I. Prove this to me, and I shall be satisfied.
Spirit. Dost thou imagine only things in general as placed in space, or each of them individually as occu pying a certain portion of space?
I. The latter, — each thing has its determinate size.
Spirit. And do different things occupy the same part of space?
I. By no means; they exclude each other. They are beside, over or under, behind or before, each other; — nearer to me, or further from me.
Spirit. And how dost thou come to this measure ment and arrangement of them in space? Is it by sensation?
/. How could that be, since space itself is no sen sation?
Spirit. Or intuition?
/. This cannot be. Intuition is immediate and in fallible. What is contained in it does not appear as produced, and cannot deceive. But I concern myself to estimate, measure and deliberate upon the size of an object, its distance, its position with respect to other objects; and it is a truth known to every be ginner, that we originally see all objects in the same line; that we learn to estimate their greater or lesser distances; that the child attempts to grasp distant ob jects as if they lay immediately before his eyes; and that one born blind who should suddenly receive sight would do the same. This conception of distances is therefore a judgment; — no intuition, but an ar rangement of my different intuitions by means of the understanding. I may err in my estimate of the size, distance, &c. of an object; and the so-called optical deceptions are not deceptions of sight, but erroneous judgments formed concerning the size of the object, concerning the size of its different parts in relation to each other, and consequently concerning its true figure and its distance from rne and from other objects. But it does really exist in space, as I contemplate it, and the colours which I see in it are likewise really seen by me; — and here there is no deception.
Spirit. And what then is the principle of this judg ment, — to take the most distinct and easy case, — thy judgment of the proximity or distance of objects, — how dost thou estimate this distance?
/. Doubtless by the greater strength or feebleness of impressions otherwise equal. I see before me two objects of the same red colour. The one whose colour I see more vividly, I regard as the nearer; that whose colour seems to me fainter, as the more distant, and as so much the more distant as the colour seems fainter.
Spirit. Thus thou dost estimate the distance ac cording to the degree of strength or weakness in the sensation; and this strength or weakness itself, — dost thou also estimate it?
/. Obviously only in so far as I take note of my own affections, and even of very slight differences in these. — Thou hast conquered! All consciousness of objects out of myself is determined by the clearness and exactitude R r -150 THE VOCATION OF MAN.
of my consciousness of my own states, and in this con sciousness there is always a conclusion drawn from the effect in myself to a cause out of myself.
Spirit. Thou art quickly vanquished; and I must now myself carry forward, in thy place, the controversy against myself. My argument can only apply to those cases in which an actual and deliberate estimate of the size, distance, and position of objects takes place, and in which thou art conscious of making such an estimate. Thou wilt however admit that this is by no means the common case, and that for the most part thou rather becomest conscious of the size, distance, &c. of an ob ject at the very same undivided moment in which thou becomest conscious of the object itself.
7. When once we learn to estimate the distances of objects by the strength of the impression, the rapidity of this judgment is merely the consequence of its fre quent exercise. I have learnt, by a lifelong experience, rapidly to observe the strength of the impression and thereby to estimate the distance. My present concep tion is founded upon a combination, formerly made, of sensation, intuition, and previous judgments; al though at the moment I am conscious only of the present conception. I no longer apprehend generally red, green, or the like, out of myself, but a red or a green at this, that, or the other distance; but this last addition is merely a renewal of a judgment formerly arrived at by deliberate reflection.
Spirit. Has it not then, at length, become clear to thee whether thou discoverest the existence of things out of thyself by intuition, or by reasoning, or both, — and in how far by each of these?
/. Perfectly; and I believe that I have now attained the fullest insight into the origin of my conceptions of objects out of myself.
1. I am absolutely, because I am conscious of this /, — myself; and that partly as a practical being, partly as an intelligence. The first consciousness is Sensation, the second Intui tion — unlimited space.
2. I cannot comprehend the unlimited, for I am finite. I therefore set apart, in thought, a certain portion of universal space, and place the former in a certain relation to the latter.
3. The measure of this limited portion of space is the extent of my own sensibility, according to a principle which may be thus expressed: — Whatever affects me in such or such a manner is to be placed, in space, in such or such rela tions to the other things which affect me. The properties or attributes of the object proceed from the perception of my own internal state; the space which it fills, from intuitive contemplation. By a process of thought, both are conjoined; the former being added to the latter. It is, assuredly, as we have stated above; — that which is merely a state or affection of myself, by being transferred or projected into space becomes an attribute of the object; but it is so projected into space, not by intuition, but by thought, by measuring, regulating thought. Not that this act is to be regarded as an intellectual discovery or creation; but only as a more exact definition, by means of thought, of something which is already given in sensation and intuition, independent of all thought. Spirit. Whatever affects me in such or such a man ner is to be placed in such or such relations: — thus dost thou reason in defining and arranging objects in space. But does not the declaration that a thing affects thee in a certain manner, include the assumption that it affects thee generally?
/. Undoubtedly.
Spirit. And is any presentation of an external object possible, which is not in this manner limited and de fined in space?
/. No; for no object exists in space generally, but each one in a determinate portion of space.
Spirit. So that in fact, whether thou art conscious of it or not, every external object is assumed by thee as affecting thyself, as certainly as it is assumed as filling a determinate portion of space?
/. That follows, certainly.
Spirit. And what kind of presentation is that of an object affecting thyself?
/. Evidently a thought; and indeed a thought found ed on the principle of causality already mentioned. I see now, still more clearly, that the consciousness of the object is engrafted on my self-consciousness in two ways, — partly by intuition, and partly by thought founded on the principle of causality. The object, however strange it may seem, is at once the immediate object of my consciousness, and the result of delibe rate thought.
Spirit. In different respects, however. Thou must be capable of being conscious of this thought of the object?
/. Doubtless; although usually I am not so.
Spirit. Therefore to thy passive state, thy affection, thou dost assume in thought an activity out of thy self, such as thou hast above described in the case of thy thought according to the principle of causality?
/. Yes.
Spirit. And with the same meaning and the same validity as thou didst describe it above. Thou thinkest so once for all, and must think so; thou canst not alter it, and canst know nothing more than that thou dost think so?
/. Nothing more. We have already investigated all this thoroughly.
Spirit. I said, thou dost assume an object: — in so far as it is so assumed, it is a product of thy own thought only?
/. Certainly, for this follows from the former.
Spirit. And what now is this object which is thus assumed according to the principle of causality?
/. A power out of myself.
Spirit. Which is neither revealed to thee by sen sation nor by intuition?
/. No; I always remain perfectly conscious that I do not perceive it immediately, but only by means of its manifestations; although I ascribe to it an exist ence independent of myself. I am affected, there must therefore be something that affects me, — such is my thought.
Spirit. The object which is revealed to thee in in tuition, and that which thou assuinest by reasoning, are thus very different things. That which is actually and immediately present before thee, spread out in space, is the object of intuition; the internal force within it, which is not present before thee, but whose existence thou art only led to assert by a process of reasoning, is the object of the understanding.
/. The internal force within it, saidst thou; — and now I bethink me, thou art right. I place this force u r 2 also in space, and superadd it to the mass by which I regard space as filled.
Spirit. And what then, according to thy view, is the nature of the relation subsisting between this force and the mass?
/. The mass, with its properties, is itself the result and manifestation of the inward force. This force has two modes of operation: — one whereby it maintains itself, and assumes this particular form in which it appears; another upon me, by which it affects me in a particular manner.
Spirit. Thou hast formerly sought for another sub stratum for sensible attributes or qualities than the space which contains them; something permanent amid the vicissitudes of perpetual change besides this space.
/. Yes, and this permanent substratum is found. It is force itself. This remains for ever the same amid all change, and it is this which assumes and supports all sensible attributes or qualities.
Spirit. Let us cast a glance back on all that we have now established. Thou feelest thyself in a certain state, affected in a certain manner, which thou callest red, smooth, sweet, and so on. Of this thou knowest nothing, but simply that thou feelest, and feelest in this particular manner. Or dost thou know more than this? Is there in mere sensation anything more than mere sensation?
I. No.
Spirit. Further, it is by thine own nature as an intelligence, that there is a space spread out before thee; — or dost thou know anything more than this concerning space?
/. By no means.
Spirit. Between that state of simple sensation, and this space which is spread out before thee, there is not the smallest connexion except that they are both present in thy consciousness. Or dost thou perceive any other connexion between them?
/. I see none.
Spirit. But thou art a thinking, as well as a sensi tive and intuitive, being; and yet neither dost thou know anything more of this matter, than that so thou art. Thou dost not merely feel thy sensible state, — thou canst also conceive of it in thought; but it affords thee no complete thought; thou art compelled to add something to it, an external foundation, a foreign power. Or dost thou know more of it than that thou dost so think, and that thou art compelled so to think?
/. I can know nothing more respecting it. I cannot proceed beyond my thought; for simply because I think it, does it become my thought, and fall under the inevitable laws of my being.
Spirit. Through this thought of thine, there first arises a connexion between thy own state which thou feclest, and the space which thou dost intuitively con template; thou supposest that the latter contains the foundation of the former. Is it not so?
/. It is so. Thou hast clearly proved that I pro duce this connexion in my consciousness by my own thought only, and that such a connexion is neither directly felt, nor intuitively perceived. But of any connexion beyond the limits of my consciousness I cannot speak; I cannot even describe such a connexion in any manner of way; for even in speaking of it I must be conscious of it; and, since this consciousness can only be a thought, the connexion itself could be nothing more than a thought; and this is precisely the same connexion which occurs in my ordinary natural consciousness, and no other. I cannot proceed a hair'sbreadth beyond this consciousness, any more than I can spring out of myself. All attempts to conceive of an absolute connexion between things in themselves, and the / in itself, are but attempts to ignore our own thought, — a strange forgetfulness of the undeniable fact that we can have no thought without having — thought it. A thing in itself is a thought; — this, namely, that there is a great thought, which yet no man has ever comprehended.
Spirit. From thee then I need fear no objection to the principle now established: — that our consciousness of things out of ourselves is absolutely nothing more than the product of our own presentative faculty, and that, with regard to external things, we can produce in this way nothing more than simply what we know, i. e. what is established, by means of our consciousness itself, as the result of our being possessed of conscious ness generally, and of this particular determinate con sciousness subject to such and such laws.
7. I cannot refute this. It is so.
Spirit. Thou canst not then object to the bolder statement of the same proposition; that in that which we call knowledge and observation of outward things, we at all times recognise and observe ourselves only; and that in all our consciousness we know of nothing whatever but of ourselves, and of our own determi nate states.
I say, thou wilt not be able to advance aught against this proposition; for if the external world generally arises for us only through our own consciousness, what is particular and multiform in this external world can arise in no other way; and if the connexion between what is external to us and ourselves is merely a con nexion in our own thought, then is the connexion of the multifarious objects of the external world among themselves undoubtedly this and no other. As clearly as I have now pointed out to thee the origin of this system of objects beyond thyself and their relation to thce, could I also show thee the law according to which there arises an infinite multiplicity of such ob jects, mutually connected, reciprocally determining each other with rigid necessity, and thus forming a com plete world-system, as thou thyself hast well described it; and I only spare myself this task because I find that thou hast already admitted the conclusions for the sake of which alone I should have undertaken it.
/. I see it all, and must assent to it.
Spirit. And with this insight, mortal, be free, and for ever released from the fear which has degraded and tormented thee! Thou wilt no longer tremble at a necessity which exists only in thine own thought; no longer fear to be crushed by things which are the product of thine own mind; no longer place thyself, the thinking being, in the same class with the thoughts which proceed from thee. As long as thou couldst believe that a system of things, such as thou hast described, really existed out of, and independently of, thee, and that thou thyself mightst be but a link in this chain, such a fear was well grounded. Now when thou hast seen that all this exists only in and through thyself, thou wilt doubtless no longer fear that which thou dost now recognise as thine own creation.
It was from this fear only that I wished to set thee free. Thou art delivered from it, and I now leave thee to thyself.
/. Stay, deceitful Spirit! Is this all the wisdom towards which thou hast directed my hopes, and dost thou boast that thou hast set me free? Thou hast set me free, it is true: — thou hast absolved me from all dependence; for thou hast transformed myself, and everything around me on which I could possibly be dependent, into nothing. Thou hast abolished neces sity by annihilating all existence.
Spirit. Is the danger so great?
/. And thou canst jest! — According to thy system.
Spirit. My system? Whatever we have agreed upon, we have produced in common; we have laboured to gether, and thou hast understood everything as well as myself; — but it would be difficult for thee at pre sent even to guess- at my true and perfect mode of thought.
/. Call thy thoughts by what name thou wilt; by all that thou hast hitherto said, there is nothing, ab solutely nothing but presentations, — modes of con sciousness, and of consciousness only. But a presenta tion is to me only the picture, the shadow of a reality; in itself it cannot satisfy me, and has not the smallest worth. I might be content that this material world without me should vanish into a mere picture, or be dissolved into a shadow; — I am not dependent on it: but according to thy previous reasoning, I myself disappear no less than it; I myself am transformed into a mere presentation, without meaning and without purpose. Or tell me, is it otherwise?
Spirit. I say nothing in my own name. Examine, — help thyself!
/. I appear to myself as a body existing in space, with organs of sense and of action, as a physical force governed by a will. Of all this thou wilt say, as thou hast before said of objects out of myself, the thinking being, that it is a product of sensation, intuition, and thought combined.
Spirit. Undoubtedly. I will even show thee, step by step, if thou desirest it, the laws according to which thou appearest to thyself in consciousness as an organic body, with such and such senses, — as a physical force, &c., and thou wilt be compelled to admit the truth of what I show thee.
I. I foresee that result. As I have been compelled to admit that what I call sweet, red, hard, and so on, is nothing more than my own affection; and that only by intuition and thought it is transposed into space out of myself, and regarded as the property of something existing independently of me; so shall I also be com pelled to admit that this body, with all its organs, is nothing but a sensible manifestation, in a determinate portion of space, of myself the inward thinking being; — that /, the spiritual entity, the pure intelligence, and /, the bodily frame in the physical world, are one and the same, merely viewed from two different sides, and conceived of by two different faculties; — the first by pure thought, the second by external intuition.
Spirit. This would certainly be the result of any inquiry that might be instituted.
/. And this thinking, spiritual entity, this intelli gence which by intuition is transformed into an earthly body, — what can even it be, according to these principles, but a product of my own thought, something which is so conceived of by me only because I am compelled to imagine its existence by virtue of a law to me wholly inconceivable, proceeding from nothing and tending to nothing.
Spirit. It is possible.
/. Thou becomest timid and wavering. It is not possible only: it is necessary, according to these prin ciples.
This perceiving, thinking, willing, intelligent entity, or whatever else thou mayest name that which pos sesses the faculties of perception, thought, and so forth; — that in which these faculties inhere, or in whatever other way thou mayest express this thought; — how do I attain a knowledge of it? Am I immediately con scious of it? How can I be? It is only of actual and specific acts of perception, thought, will, &c., as of particular occurrences, that I am immediately con scious; not of the 'capacities through which they are performed, and still less of a being in whom these capacities inhere. I perceive, directly and intuitively, this specific thought which occupies me during the present moment, and other specific thoughts in other moments; and here this inward intellectual intuition, this immediate consciousness, ends. This inward, intuitive thought, now becomes itself an object of thought; but according to the laws under which alone I can think, it seems to me imperfect and incomplete, just as formerly the thought of my sensible states was but an imper fect thought. As formerly to mere passivity I un consciously superadded in thought an active element, so here to my determinate state (my actual thought or will) I superadd a determinable element (an infinite, BOOK II. KNOWLEDGE. 4G1 possible thought or mill) simply because / must do so, and for the same reason, but without being conscious of this mental apposition. This manifold possible thought I further comprehend as one definite whole; — once more because I must do so, since I am unable to comprehend anything indefinite, — and thus I obtain the idea of a finite capacity of thought, and — since this idea carries with it the notion of a something indepen dent of the thought itself — of a being or entity which possesses this capacity.
But, on higher principles, it may be made still more conceivable how this thinking being is produced by its own thought. Thought in general is genetic, as suming the previous creation of an object immediately revealed, and occupying itself with the description of this object. Intuition gives the naked fact, and nothing more. Thought explains this fact, and unites it to another, not found in intuition, but produced purely by thought itself, from which it, the fact, proceeds. So here. I am conscious of a determinate thought; thus far, and no farther, does intuitive consciousness carry me. I think this determinate thought, that is, I bring it forth from an indeterminate, but determinable, possibility of thought. In this way I proceed with everything determinate which is presented in immediate consciousness, and thus arise for me all those series of capacities, and of beings possessing these capacities, whose existence I assume.
Spirit. Even with respect to thyself, therefore, thou art conscious only that thou feelest, perceivest, or thinkest, in this or that determinate manner?
/. That /feel, / perceive, / think? — that I, as the efficient principle, produce the sensation, the intuition, s s the thought'/ By no means! Not even HO much M this have thy principles loft inc.
tyiri/. I'otsibly.
/. Necessarily; — for HCC: All thnt 1 know is my consciousness itself. AH consciousness in either mi immediate or u mediate consciousness. The first is sclfconsciousncfla; (he second, consciousness of that which in not myself. What I cull /, is therefore absolutely nothing more than a certuin modification of consciousii- •.. which in called /, just because, it in immediate, returning into itself, and not directed outward. Since all other COnfciouinoM is pottiblo only under the con dition of tin. immediate consciousness, it in obvious that tin. con§oioutn6M which is ctdled 1 must ac company.ill my other conception!, he ncceMHarily con tained in them, although not always clearly perceived hy me, and that in each moment of my connciousness I must refer everything to this /, and not to the par ticular thing out of myself thought of at the moment, in this way the / would at every moment vanish, and n-iippcar; and lor every new conception a new / would arise, and this / would never signify anything more than ii«f iln tliimj.
This scattered self-consciousness is now comhincd hy thought, — hy mere thought, 1 say — and presented in the unity of a supposed capacity of thought. Ac cording to this supposition, all conceptions which anaccompanied hy the immediate consciousness already spoken of, must proceed from one and the same capa city, which niln iv. in one and the same entity; and thus there arises for me the notion of the identity and personality of my 7, anil of an ellicient and real power in this person, - necessarily u mere fiction, since this HOOK II. KNOWl.KmJK. 4(W capacity and this entity are themselves only supposi tions.
Spirit. Thou roasonest correctly.
/. And tlum hast pleasure in this! 1 may then indeed say " it is thought," — and yet 1 can scarcely say even this; — rather, strictly speaking, 1 ought to say " the thought appears that I feel, perceive, think." —but by no moans that " 1 fed, perceive, think." The first only is fact; the second is an imaginary addition to the fact.
Spirit. It is well expressed.
/. There is nothing enduring, either out of me. or in me, but only a ceaseless change. 1 know of no being, not even of my own. There is no being. I myself ab solutely know not, and am not. Pictures are: — they are the only things which exist, and they know of them selves after the fashion of pictures: — pictures which float, past without there being anything past which they tloat; which, by means of like pictures, are connected with each other: — pictures without anything which is pictured in them, without significance and without aim. 1 myself am one of these pictures; — nay, I am not even this, but merely a, confused picture of the pictures. All reality is transformed into a strange dream, without a life which is dreamed of, and with out, a mind which dreams it; — into a dream which is woven together in a dream of itself. Intuition is the dream; thought, — the source of all the being and all the reality which 1 imagine, of my own being, my own powers, and my own purposes, — is the dream of that dream.
Spirit. Thou hast well understood it all. Kmploy the sharpest expressions to make this result hateful, if thou must submit to it. And this thou must do. Thou hast clearly seen that it cannot be otherwise. Or wilt thou retract thy admissions, and justify thy retracta tion on principle?
/. By no means. I have seen, and now see clearly, that it is so; yet I cannot believe it.
Spirit. Thou seest it clearly, and yet canst not be lieve it? That is a different matter.
7. Thou art a profligate spirit: thy knowledge itself is profligacy, and springs from profligacy; and I can not thank thee for having led me on this path!
Spirit. Short-sighted mortal! When men venture to look into being, and see as far as themselves, and a little further, — such as thou art call it profligacy. I have allowed thee to deduce the results of our inquiry in thine own way, to analyze them, and to clothe them in hateful expressions. Didst thou then think that these results were less known to me than to thyself, that I did not understand, as well as thou, how by these principles all reality was thoroughly annihilated, and transformed into a dream? Didst thou then take me for a blind admirer and advocate of this system, as a complete system of the human mind?
Thou didst desire to know, and thou hadst taken a wrong road. Thou didst seek knowledge where no knowledge can reach, and hadst even persuaded thy self that thou hadst obtained an insight into something which is opposed to the very nature of all insight. I found thee in this condition. I wished to free thee from thy false knowledge; but by no means to bring thee the true.
Thou didst desire to know of thy knowledge. Art thou surprised that in this way thou didst discover no thing more than that of which thou desiredst to know, — thy knowledge itself; and wouldst thou have had it otherwise? What has its origin in and through know ledge, is merely knowledge. All knowledge, however, is but pictures, representations; and there is always something awanting in it, — that which corresponds to the representation. This want cannot be supplied by knowledge; a system of mere knowledge is ne cessarily a system of mere pictures, wholly without reality, significance, or aim. Didst thou expect any thing else? AVouldst thou change the very nature of thy mind, and desire thy knowledge to be something more than knowledge?
The reality, in the perception of which thou didst formerly believe, — a material world already existing independently of thee, of which thou didst fear to be come the slave, — has vanished; for this whole material world arises only through knowledge, and is itself our knowledge; — but knowledge is not reality, just because it is knowledge. Thou hast seen through the illusion; and, without belying thy better insight, thou canst never again give thyself up to it. This is the sole merit which I claim for the system which we have to gether discovered; — it destroys and annihilates error. It cannot give us truth, for it is in itself absolutely empty. Thou dost now seek, and with good right, as I well know, something real lying beyond mere ap- S S 2 pearance, another reality than that which is thus an nihilated. But in vain wouldst thou labour to create this reality by means of thy knowledge, or out of thy knowledge; or to embrace it by thy understanding. If thou hast no other organ by which to apprehend it, it will never be found by thee.
But thou hast such an organ. Arouse and animate it, and thou wilt attain to perfect tranquillity. I leave thee alone with thyself.
BOOK THIRD FAITH.
(469) BOOK III. FAITH.
TERRIBLE Spirit, thy discourse has smitten me to the ground. But thou referrest me to myself, and what were I, could anything out of myself irrecoverably cast me down? I will, — yes, surely I will follow thy counsel.