History of Modern Philosophy Part 11
If there are no soulless bodies, there are also no bodiless souls; the soul is always joined with an aggregate of subordinate monads, though not always with the same ones. Single monads are constantly pa.s.sing into its body, or into its service, while others are pa.s.sing out; it is involved in a continuous process of bodily transformation. Usually the change goes on slowly and with a constant replacement of the parts thrown off. If it takes place quickly men call it birth or death. Actual death there is as little as there is an actual genesis; not the soul only, but every living thing is imperishable. Death is decrease and involution, birth increase and evolution. The dying creature loses only a portion of its bodily machine and so returns to the slumberous or germinal condition of "involution", in which it existed before birth, and from which it was aroused through conception to development. Pre-existence as well as post-existence must be conceded both to animals and to men. Leuwenhoek's discovery of the spermatozoa furnished a welcome confirmation for this doctrine, that all individuals have existed since the beginning of the world, at least as preformed germs. The immortality of man, conformably to his superior dignity, differs from the continued existence of all monads, in that after his death he retains memory and the consciousness of his moral personality.
3. Man: Cognition and Volition.
In reason man possesses reflection or self-consciousness as well as the knowledge of G.o.d, of the universal, and of the eternal truths or a priori knowledge, while the animal is limited in its perception to experience, and in its reasoning to the connection of perceptions in accordance with memory. Man differs from higher beings in that the majority of his ideas are confused. Under confused ideas Leibnitz includes both sense-perceptions-anyone who has distinct ideas alone, as G.o.d, has no sense-perceptions-and the feelings which mediate between the former and the perfectly distinct ideas of rational thought. The delight of music depends, in his opinion, on an unconscious numbering and measuring of the harmonic and rhythmic relations of tones, aesthetic enjoyment of the beautiful in general, and even sensuous pleasure, on the confused perception of a perfection, order, or harmony.
The application of the lex continui to the inner life has a very wide range. The princ.i.p.al results are: (1) the mind always thinks; (2) every present idea postulates a previous one from which it has arisen; (3) sensation and thought differ only in degree; (4) in the order of time, the ideas of sense precede those of reason. We are never wholly without ideas, only we are often not conscious of them. If thought ceased in deep sleep, we could have no ideas on awakening, since every representation proceeds from a preceding one, even though it be unconscious.
In the thoughtful New Essays concerning the Human Understanding Leibnitz develops his theory of knowledge in the form of a polemical commentary to Locke's chief work.[1] According to Descartes some ideas (the pure concepts) are innate, according to Locke none, according to Leibnitz all. Or: according to Descartes some ideas (sensuous perceptions) come from without, according to Locke all do so, according to Leibnitz none. Leibnitz agrees with Descartes against Locke in the position that the mind originally possesses ideas; he agrees with Locke against Descartes, that thought is later than sensation and the knowledge of universals later than that of particulars. The originality which Leibnitz attributes to intellectual ideas is different from that which Descartes had ascribed and Locke denied to them. They are original in that they do not come into the soul and are not impressed upon it from without; they are not original in that they can develop only from previously given sense-ideas; again, they are original in that they can be developed from confused ideas only because they are contained in them implicite or as pre-dispositions. Thus Leibnitz is able to agree with both his predecessors up to a certain point: with the one, that the pure concepts have their origin within the mind; with the other, that they are not the earliest knowledge, but are conditioned by sensations. This synthesis, however, was possible only because Leibnitz looked on sensation differently from both the others. If sensation is to be the mother of thought, and the latter at the same time to preserve its character as original, i.e., as something not obtained from without, sensation must, first, include an unconscious thinking in itself, and, secondly, must itself receive a t.i.tle to originality and spontaneity. As the Catholic dogma added the immaculate conception of the mother to that of the Son, so Leibnitz transfers the (virginal) origin of rational concepts, independent of external influence, to sensations. The monad has no windows. It bears germinally in itself all that it is to experience, and nothing is impressed on it from without. The intellect should not be compared to a blank tablet, but to a block of marble in whose veins the outlines of the statue are prefigured. Ideas can only arise from ideas, never from external impressions or movements of corporeal parts. Thus all ideas are innate in the sense that they grow from inner germs; we possess them from the beginning, not developed (explicite), but potentially, that is, we have the capacity to produce them. The old Scholastic principle that "there is nothing in the understanding which was not previously in sense" is entirely correct, only one must add, except the understanding itself, that is, the faculty of developing our knowledge out of ourselves. Thought lies already dormant in perception. With the mechanical position (sensuous representation precedes and conditions rational thought) is joined the teleological position (sensuous representations exist, in order to render the origin of thoughts possible), and with this purposive determination, sensation attains a higher dignity: it is more than has been seen in it before, for it includes in itself the future concept of the understanding in an unconscious form, nay, it is itself an imperfect thought, a thought in process of becoming. Sensation and thought are not different in kind, and if the former is called a pa.s.sive state, still pa.s.sivity is nothing other than diminished activity. Both are spontaneous; thought is merely spontaneous in a higher degree.
[Footnote 1: A careful comparison of Locke's theory of knowledge with that of Leibnitz is given by G. Hartenstein, Abhandlungen der k. sachs. Gesellschaft der Wissenschaften, Leipsic, 1865, included in Hartenstein's Historisch-philosophische Abhandlungen, 1870.]
By making sensation and feeling the preliminary step to thought, Leibnitz became the founder of that intellectualism which, in the system of Hegel, extended itself far beyond the psychological into the cosmical field, and endeavored to conceive not only all psychical phenomena but all reality whatsoever as a development of the Idea toward itself. This conception, which may be characterized as intellectualistic in its content, presents itself on its formal side as a quant.i.tative way of looking at the world, which sacrifices all qualitative ant.i.theses in order to arrange the totality of being and becoming in a single series with no distinctions but those of degree. If Leibnitz here appears as the representative of a view of the world which found in Kant a powerful and victorious opponent, yet, on the other hand, he prepared the way by his conception of innate ideas for the Critique of Reason. By his theory of knowledge he forms the transition link between Descartes and Kant, since he interprets necessary truths not as dwelling in the mind complete and explicit from the start, but as produced or raised into consciousness only on the occasion of sensuous experience. It must be admitted, moreover, that this in reality was only a restoration of Descartes's original position, i.e., a deliverance of it from the misinterpretations and perversions which it had suffered at the hands of adherents and opponents alike, but which Descartes, it is true, had failed to render impossible from the start by conclusive explanations. The author of the theory of innate ideas certainly did not mean what Locke foists upon him, that the child in the cradle already possesses the ideas of G.o.d, of thought, and of extension in full clearness. But whether Leibnitz improved or only restored Descartes, it was in any case an important advance when experience and thought were brought into more definite relation, and the productive force in rational concepts was secured to the latter and the occasion of their production to the former.
The unconscious or minute ideas, which in noetics had served to break the force of Locke's objections against the innateness of the principles of reason, are in ethics brought into the field against indeterminism. They are involved whenever we believe ourselves to act without cause, from pure choice, or contrary to the motives present. In this last case, a motive which is very strong in itself is overcome by the united power of many in themselves weaken The will is always determined, and that by an idea (of ends), which generally is of a very complex nature, and in which the stronger side decides the issue. An absolute equilibrium of motives is impossible: the world cannot be divided into two entirely similar parts (this in opposition to "Buridan's a.s.s"). A spirit capable of looking us through and through would be able to calculate all our volitions and actions beforehand.
In spite of this admitted inevitableness of our resolutions and actions, the predicate of freedom really belongs to them, and this on two grounds. First, they are only physically or morally, not metaphysically, necessary; as a matter of fact, it is true, they cannot happen otherwise, but their opposite involves no logical contradiction and remains conceivable. To express this thought the formula, often repeated since, that our motives only impel, incite, or stimulate the will, but do not compel it (inclinant, non necessitant), was chosen, but not very happily. Secondly, the determination of the will is an inner necessitation, grounded in the being's own nature, not an external compulsion. The agent determines himself in accordance with his own nature, and for this each bears the responsibility himself, for G.o.d, when he brought the monads out of possibility into actuality, left their natures as they had existed before the creation in the form of eternal ideas in His understanding. Though Leibnitz thus draws a distinction between his deterministic doctrine and the "fatalism" of Spinoza, he recognizes a second concept of freedom, which completely corresponds to Spinoza's. A decision is the more free the more distinct the ideas which determine it, and a man the more free the more he withdraws his will from the influence of the pa.s.sions, i.e., confused ideas, and subordinates it to that of reason. G.o.d alone is absolutely free, because he has no ideas which are not distinct. The bridge between the two conceptions of freedom is established by the principle that reason const.i.tutes the peculiar nature of man in a higher degree than the sum of his ideas; for it is reason which distinguishes him from the lower beings. According to the first meaning of freedom man is free, according to the second, which coincides with activity, perfection, and morality, he should become free.
Morality is the result of the natural development of the individual. Every being strives after perfection or increased activity, i.e., after more distinct ideas. Parallel to this theoretical advance runs a practical advance in a twofold form: the increasing distinctness of ideas, or enlightenment, or wisdom, raises the impulse to transitory, sensuous pleasure into an impulse to permanent delight in our spiritual perfection, or toward happiness, while, further, it opens up an insight into the connection of all beings and the harmony of the world, in virtue of which the virtuous man will seek to promote the perfection and happiness of others as well as his own, i.e., will love them, for to love is to find pleasure in the happiness of others. To promote the good of all, again, is the same as to contribute one's share to the world-harmony and to co-operate in the fulfillment of G.o.d's purposes. Probity and piety are the same. They form the highest of the three grades of natural right, which Leibnitz distinguishes as jus strictum (mere right, with the principle: Injure no one), aequitas (equity or charity, with the maxim: To each his due), and probitas sive pietas (honorableness joined with religion, according to the command: Lead an upright and morally pure life). They may also be designated as commutative, distributive, and universal justice. Belief in G.o.d and immortality is a condition of the last.
4. Theology and Theodicy.
G.o.d is the ground and the end of the world. All beings strive toward him, as all came out from him. In man the general striving toward the most perfect Being rises into conscious love to G.o.d, which is conditioned by the knowledge of G.o.d and produces virtuous action as its effect. Enlightenment and virtue are the essential const.i.tuents of religion; all else, as cultus and dogma, have only a derivative value. Religious ceremonies are an imperfect expression of the practical element in piety, as the doctrines of faith are a weak imitation of the theoretical. It is a direct contradiction of the intention of the Divine Teacher when occult formulas and ceremonies, which have no connection with virtue, are made the chief thing. The points in which the creeds agree are more important than those by which they are differentiated. Natural religion has found its most perfect expression in Christianity, although paganism and Judaism had also grasped portions of the truth. Salvation is not denied to the heathen, for moral purity is sufficient to make one a partaker of the grace of G.o.d. The religion of the Jews elevated monotheism, which, it is true, made its appearance among the heathen in isolated philosophers, but was never the popular religion, into a law; but it lacked the belief in immortality. Christianity made the religion of the sage the religion of the people.
Whatever of positive doctrine revelation has added to natural religion transcends the reason, it is true, but does not contradict it. It contains no principles contrary to reason (whose opposite can be proved), but, no doubt, principles above reason, i.e., such as the reason could not have found without help from without, and which it cannot fully comprehend, though it is able approximately to understand them and to defend them against objections. Hence Leibnitz defended the Trinity, which he interpreted as G.o.d's power, understanding, and will, the eternity of the torments of h.e.l.l (which brought him the commendation of Lessing), and other dogmas. Miracles also belong among the things the how and why of which we are not in a position to comprehend, but only the that and what. Since the laws of nature are only physically or conditionally necessary, i.e. have been enacted only because of their fitness for the purposes of G.o.d, they may be suspended in special cases when a higher end requires it.
While the positive doctrines of faith cannot be proved-as, on the other hand, they cannot be refuted-the principles of natural religion admit of strict demonstration. The usual arguments for the existence of G.o.d are useful, but need amendment. The ontological argument of Descartes, that from the concept of a most perfect Being his existence follows, is correct so soon as the idea of G.o.d is shown to be possible or free from contradiction. The cosmological proof runs: Contingent beings point to a necessary, self-existent Being, the eternal truths especially presuppose an eternal intelligence in which they exist. If we ask why anything whatever, or why just this world exists, this ultimate ground of things cannot be found within the world. Every contingent thing or event has its cause in another. However far we follow out the series of conditions, we never reach an ultimate, unconditioned cause. Consequently the sufficient reason for the series must be situated without the world, and, as is evident from the harmony of things, can only be an infinitely wise and good Being. Here the teleological proof comes in: From the finality of the world we reason to the existence of a Being, as the author of the world, who works in view of ends and who wills and carries out that which is best,-to the supreme intelligence, goodness, and power of the Creator. A special inferential value accrues to this position from the system of pre-established harmony-it is manifest that the complete correspondence of the manifold substances in the world, which are not connected with one another by any direct interaction, can proceed only from a common cause endowed with infinite intelligence and power.
The possibility of proving the existence of one omnipotent and all-beneficent G.o.d, and the impossibility of refuting the positive dogmas, save the harmony of faith and reason, which Bayle had denied. The conclusion of the New Essays and the opening of the Theodicy are devoted to this theme. The second part gives, also against Bayle, the justification of G.o.d in view of the evil in the world. Si Deus est, unde malum? Optimism has to reckon with the facts of experience, and to show that this world, in spite of its undeniable imperfections, is still the best world. G.o.d could certainly have brought into actuality a world in which there would have been less imperfection than in ours, but it would at the same time have contained fewer perfections. No world whatever can exist entirely free from evil, entirely without limitation-whoever forbids G.o.d to create imperfect beings forbids him to create a world at all. Certain evils-in general terms, the evil of finitude-are entirely inseparable from the concept of created beings; imperfection attaches to every created thing as such. Other evils G.o.d has permitted because it was only through them that certain higher goods, which ought not to be renounced, could be brought to pa.s.s. Think of the lofty feelings, n.o.ble resolves, and great deeds which war occasions, think of national enthusiasm, readiness for sacrifice, and defiance of death-all these would be given over, if war should be taken out of the world on account of the suffering which it also brings in its train.
If we turn from the general principles to their application in detail, we find a separate proof for the inevitableness or salutary nature of each of the three kinds of evil-the metaphysical evil of created existence, the physical evil of suffering (and punishment), and the moral evil of sin. Metaphysical evil is absolutely unavoidable, if a world is to exist at all; created beings without imperfection, finiteness, limitation, are entirely inconceivable-something besides G.o.ds must exist. The physical evil of misery finds its justification in that it makes for good. First of all, the amount of suffering is not so great as it appears to discontented spirits to be. Life is usually quite tolerable, and vouchsafes more joy and pleasure than grief and hardship; in balancing the good and the evil we must especially remember to reckon on the positive side the goods of activity, of health, and all that which affords us, perchance, no perceptible pleasure, but the removal of which would be felt as an evil (Theodicy, ii. -- 251). Most evils serve to secure us a much greater good, or to ward off a still greater evil. Would a brave general, if given the choice of leaving the battle unwounded, but also without the victory, or of winning the victory at the cost of a wound, hesitate an instant to choose the latter? Other troubles, again, must be regarded as punishment for sins and as means of reformation; the man who is resigned to G.o.d's will may be certain that the sufferings which come to him will turn out for his good.
Especially if we consider the world as a whole, it is evident that the sum of evil vanishes before the sum of good. It is wrong to look upon the happiness of man as the end of the world. Certainly G.o.d had the happiness of rational beings in mind, but not this exclusively, for they form only a part of the world, even if it be the highest part. G.o.d's purpose has reference rather to the perfection of the whole system of the universe. Now the harmony of the universe requires that all possible grades of reality be represented, that there should be indistinct ideas, sense, and corporeality, not merely a realm of spirits, and with these, conditions of imperfection, feelings of pain, and theoretical and moral errors are inevitably given. The connection and the order of the world demands a material element in the monad, but happiness without alloy can never be the lot of a spirit joined to a body. Thirdly, in regard to moral evil also we receive the a.s.surance that the sum of the bad is much less than that of the good. Then, moral evil is connected with metaphysical evil: created beings cannot be absolutely perfect, hence, also, not morally perfect or sinless. But, in return for this, there is no being that is absolutely imperfect, none only and entirely evil. With this is joined the well-known principle of the earlier thinkers, that evil is nothing actual, but merely deprivation, absence of good, lack of clear reason and force of will. That which is real in the evil action, the power to act, is perfect and good, and, as force, comes from G.o.d-the negative or evil element in it comes from the agent himself; just as in the case of two ships of the same size, but unequally laden, which drift with the current, the speed comes from the stream and the r.e.t.a.r.dation from the load of the vessels themselves. G.o.d is not responsible for sin, for he has only permitted it, not willed it directly, and man was already evil before he was created. The fact that G.o.d foresaw that man would sin does not constrain the latter to commit the evil deed, but this follows from his own (eternal) being, which G.o.d left unaltered when he granted him existence. The guilt and the responsibility fall wholly on the sinner himself. The permission of evil is explained by the predominantly good results which follow from it (not, as in physical evil, for the sufferer himself, but for others)-from the crime of s.e.xtus Tarquinius sprang a great kingdom with great men (of. the beautiful myth in connection with a dialogue of Laurentius Valla, Theodicy, iii. 413-416). Finally, reference is made again to the contribution which evil makes to the perfection of the whole. Evil has the same function in the world as the discords in a piece of music, or the shadows in a painting-the beauty is heightened by the contrast. The good needs a foil in order to come out distinctly and to be felt in all its excellence.
In the Leibnitzian theodicy the least satisfactory part is the justification of moral evil. We miss the view defended in such grand outlines by Hegel, and so ingeniously by Fechner, that the good is not the flower of a quiet, unmolested development, but the fruit of energetic labor; that it has need of its opposite; that it not merely must approve itself in the battle against evil without and within the acting subject, but that it is only through this conflict that it is attainable at all. Virtue implies force of will as well as purity, and force develops only by resistance. Although he does not appreciate the full depth of the significance of pain, Leibnitz's view of suffering deserves more approval than his questionable application to the ethical sphere of the quant.i.tative view of the world, with its interpretation of evil as merely undeveloped good. But, in any case, the compa.s.sionate contempt of the pessimism of the day for the "shallow" Leibnitz is most unjustifiable.
CHAPTER VIII.
THE GERMAN ILLUMINATION.
1. The Contemporaries of Leibnitz.
The period between Kepler and Leibnitz in Germany was very poor in noteworthy philosophical phenomena. The physicist, Christoph Sturm[1] of Altdorf (died 1703), was a follower of Descartes, Joachim Jungius[2] (died 1657) a follower of Bacon, though not denying with the latter the value of the mathematical method in natural science. Hieronymus Hirnhaym, Abbot at Prague (The Plague of the Human Race, or the Vanity of Human Learning, 1676), declared the thirst for knowledge of his age a dangerous disease, knowledge uncertain, since no reliance can be placed on sense-perception and the principles of thought contradict the doctrines of faith, and harmful, since it contributes nothing to salvation, but makes its possessors proud and draws them away from piety. He maintained, further, that divine authority is the only refuge for man, and moral life the true science. Side by side with such skepticism Hirnhaym's contemporary, the poet Angelus Silesius (Joh. Scheffler, died 1667), defended mysticism. The teacher of natural law, Samuel Pufendorf[3] (1632-94, professor in Heidelberg and Lund, died in Berlin), aimed to mediate between Grotius and Hobbes. Natural law is demonstrable, its real ground is the will of G.o.d, its noetical ground (not revelation, but) reason and observation of the (social) nature of man, and the fundamental law the promotion of universal good. The individual must not violate the interests of society in satisfying his impulse to self-preservation, because his own interests require social existence, and, consequently, respect for its conditions.
[Footnote 1: Chr. Sturm: Physica Conciliatrix, 1687; Physica Electiva, vol. i. 1697, vol. ii. with preface by Chr. Wolff, 1722; Compendium Universalium seu Metaphysica Euclidea.]
[Footnote 2: J. Jung Logica Hamburgiensis, 1638; cf. Guhrauer, 1859.]
[Footnote 3: Pufendorf: Elementa Juris Universalis, 1660; De Statu Imperii Germanici, 1667, under the pseudonym Monzambano; De Jure Natures et Gentium 1672, and an abstract of this, De Officio Hominis et Civis, 1673.]
Pufendorf was followed by Christian Thomasius[1] (1655-1728; professor of law at the University of Halle from its foundation in 1694). He was the first instructor who ventured to deliver lectures in the German language-in Leipsic from 1687-and at the same time was the editor of the first learned journal in German (Teutsche Monate, Geschichte der Weisheit und Thorheit). In Thomasius the characteristic features of the German Illumination first came out in full distinctness, namely, the avoidance of scholasticism in expression and argument, the direct relation of knowledge to life, sober rationality in thinking, heedless eclecticism, and the demand for religious tolerance. Philosophy must be generally intelligible, and practically useful, knowledge of the world (not of G.o.d); its form, free and tasteful ratiocination; its object, man and morals; its first duty, culture, not learning; its highest aim, happiness; its organ and the criterion of every truth, common sense. He alone gains true knowledge who frees his understanding from prejudice and judges only after examining for himself; the joy of mental peace is given to no one who does not free his heart from foolish desires and vehement pa.s.sions, and devote it to virtue, to "rational love." The positive doctrines of Thomasius have less interest than this general standpoint, which prefigured the succeeding period. He divides practical philosophy into natural law which treats of the justum, politics which treats of the decorum, and ethics which treats of the honestum. Justice bids us, Do not to others what you would not that others should do to you; decorum, Do to others as you would that they should do to you; and morality, Do to yourself as you would that others should do to themselves. The first two laws relate to external, the third to internal, peace; legal duties may be enforced by compulsion, moral duties not.
[Footnote 1: Thomasius: Inst.i.tutionum Jurisprudentiae Divinae Libri Tres, 1688; Fundamenta Juris Naturae et Gentium, 1705, both in Latin; in German, appeared in 1691-96 the Introduction and Application of Rational and Moral Philosophy.]
If Thomasius was the leader of those popular philosophers who, unconcerned about systematic continuity, discussed every question separately before the tribunal of common sense, and found in their lack of allegiance to any philosophical sect a sufficient guarantee of the unprejudicedness and impartiality of their reflections, Count Walter von Tschirnhausen (1651-1708; Medecina Mentis sive Artis Inveniendi Praecepta Generalia, 1687), a friend of Spinoza and Leibnitz, became the prototype of another group of the philosophers of the Illumination. This group favored eclecticism of a more scientific kind, by starting from considerations of method and seeking to overcome the ant.i.thesis between rationalism and empiricism. While fully persuaded of the validity and necessity of the mathematical method in philosophical investigations, as well as elsewhere, Tschirnhausen still holds it indispensable that the deductions, on the one hand, start from empirical facts, and, on the other, that they be confirmed by experiments. Inner experience gives us four primal facts, of which the chief is the certainty of self-consciousness. The second, that many things affect us agreeably and many disagreeably, is the basis of morals; the third, that some things are comprehensible to us and others not, the basis of logic; the fourth, that through the senses we pa.s.sively receive impressions from without, the basis of the empirical sciences, in particular, of physics. Consequently consciousness, will, understanding, and sensuous representation (imaginatio), together with corporeality, are our fundamental concepts. Not perception (perceptio), but conception (conceptio) alone gives science; that which we can "conceive" is true; the understanding as such cannot err, but undoubtedly the imagination can lead us to confuse the merely perceived with that which is conceived. The method of science is geometrical demonstration, which starts from (genetic) definitions, and from their a.n.a.lysis obtains axioms, from their combination, theorems. That which is thus proved a priori must, as already remarked, be confirmed a posteriori. The highest of all sciences is natural philosophy, since it considers not sense-objects only, not (like mathematics) the objects of reason only, but the actual itself in its true character. Hence it is the divine science, while the human sciences busy themselves only with our ideas or the relations of things to us.
2. Christian Wolff.
Christian Wolff was born at Breslau in 1679, studied theology at Jena, and in addition mathematics and philosophy, habilitated at Leipsic in 1703, and obtained, through the instrumentality of Leibnitz, a professorship of mathematics at Halle, in 1706. His lectures, which soon extended themselves over all philosophical disciplines, met with great success. This popularity, as well as the rationalistic tendency of his thinking, aroused the disfavor of the pietists, Francke and Lange, who succeeded, in 1723, in securing from King Frederick William I. his removal from his chair and his expulsion from the kingdom. Finding a refuge in Marburg, he was called back to Halle by Frederick the Great a short time after the latter's ascension of the throne. Here he taught and wrote zealously until his death in 1754. In his lectures, as well as in half of his writings,[1] he followed the example of Thomasius in using the German language, which he prepared in a most praiseworthy manner for the expression of philosophical ideas and furnished with a large part of the technical terms current to-day. Thus the terms Verhaltniss (relation), Vorstellung (representation, idea), Bewusstsein (consciousness), stetig (continuus), come from Wolff, as well as the distinction between Kraft (power) and Vermogen (faculty), and between Grund (ground) and Ursache (cause),[2] Another great service consisted in the reduction of the philosophy of Leibnitz to a systematic form, by which he secured a dissemination for it which otherwise it would scarcely have obtained. But he did not possess sufficient originality to contribute anything remarkable of his own, and it showed little self-knowledge when he became indignant at the designation Leibnitzio-Wolffian philosophy, which was first used by his pupil, Bilfinger. The alterations which he made in the doctrines of Leibnitz are far from being improvements, and the parts which he rejected are just the most characteristic and thoughtful of all. Such at least is the opinion of thinkers to-day, though this mutilation and leveling down of the most daring of Leibnitz's hypotheses was perhaps entirely advantageous for Wolff's impression on his contemporaries; what appeared questionable to him would no doubt have repelled them also. Leibnitz's two leading ideas, the theory of monads and the pre-established harmony, were most of all affected by this process of toning down. Wolff weakens the former by attributing a representative power only to actual souls, which are capable of consciousness, although he holds that bodies are compounded of simple beings and that the latter are endowed with (a not further defined) force. He limits the application of the pre-established harmony to the relation of body and soul, which to Leibnitz was only a case especially favorable for the ill.u.s.tration of the hypothesis. By such trifling the real meaning of both these ideas is sacrificed and their bloom rubbed off.-While depth is lacking in Wolff's thinking, he is remarkable for his power of systematization, his persevering diligence, and his logical earnestness, so that the praise bestowed on him by Kant, that he was the author of the spirit of thoroughness in Germany, was well deserved. He, too, finds the end of philosophy in the enlightenment of the understanding, the improvement of the heart, and, ultimately, in the promotion of the happiness of mankind. But while Thomasius demanded as a condition of such universal intelligibility and usefulness that, discarding the scholastic garb, philosophy should appear in the form of easy ratiocination, Wolff, on the other hand, regards methodical procedure and certainty in results as indispensable to its usefulness, and, in order to this certainty, insists on distinctness of conception and cogency of proof. He demands a philosophia et certa et utilis. If, finally, his methodical deliberateness, especially in his later works, leads him into wearisome diffuseness, this pedantry is made good by his genuinely German, honest spirit, which manifests itself agreeably in his judgment on practical questions.
[Footnote 1: Reasonable Thoughts on the Powers of the Human Understanding, 1712; Reasonable Thoughts on G.o.d, the World, and the Soul of Man, also on All Things in General, 1719 (Notes to this 1724); Reasonable Thoughts on the Conduct of Man, 1720; Reasonable Thoughts on the Social Life of Man, 1721; Reasonable Thoughts on the Operations of Nature, 1723; Reasonable Thoughts on the Purposes of Natural Things, 1724; Reasonable Thoughts on the Parts of Man, Animals, and Plants, 1725, all in German. Besides these there are extensive Latin treatises (1728-53) on Logic, Ontology, Cosmology, Empirical and Rational Psychology, Natural Theology, and all branches of Practical Philosophy. Detailed extracts may be found in Erdmann's Versuch einer wissenschaftlichen Darstellung, ii. 2. The best account of the Wolffian philosophy has been given by Zeller (pp. 211-273).]
[Footnote 2: Eucken, Geschichte der Terminologie^ pp. 133-134.]
Wolff reaches his division of the sciences by combining the two psychological ant.i.theses-the higher (rational) and lower (sensuous) faculties of cognition and appet.i.tion. On the first is based the distinction between the rational and the empirical or historical method of treatment. The latter concerns itself with the actual, the former with the possible and necessary, or the grounds of the actual; the one observes and describes, the other deduces. The ant.i.thesis of cognition and appet.i.tion gives the basis for the division into theoretical and practical philosophy. The former, called metaphysics, is divided into a general part, which treats of being in general whether it be of a corporeal or a spiritual nature, and three special parts, according to their princ.i.p.al subjects, the world, the soul, and G.o.d,-hence into ontology, cosmology, psychology, and theology. The science which establishes rules for action and regards man as an individual being, as a citizen, and as the head or member of a family, is divided (after Aristotle) into ethics, politics, and economics, which are preceded by practical philosophy in general, and by natural law. The introduction to the two princ.i.p.al parts is furnished by formal logic.
Philosophy is the science of the possible, i.e., of that which contains no contradiction; it is science from concepts, its principle, the law of ident.i.ty, its form, demonstration, and its instrument, a.n.a.lysis, which in the predicate explicates the determinations contained in the concept of the subject. In order to confirm that which has been deduced from pure concepts by the facts of experience, psychologia rationalis is supplemented by psychologia empirica, rational cosmology by empirical physics, and speculative theology by an experimental doctrine of G.o.d (teleology). Wolff gives no explanation how it comes about that the deliverances of the reason agree so beautifully with the facts of experience; in his nave, unquestioning belief in the infallibility of the reason he is a typical dogmatist.
A closer examination of the Wolffian philosophy seems unnecessary, since its most essential portions have already been discussed under Leibnitz and since it will be necessary to recur to certain points in our chapter on Kant. Therefore, referring the reader to the detailed accounts in Erdmann and Zeller, we shall only note that Wolff's ethics opposes the principle of perfection to the English principle of happiness (that is good which perfects man's condition, and this is life in conformity with nature or reason, with which happiness is necessarily connected); that he makes the will determined by the understanding, and a.s.signs ignorance as the cause of sin; that his philosophy of religion, which argues for a natural religion in addition to revealed religion (experiential and rational proofs for the existence of G.o.d, and a deduction of his attributes), and sets up certain tests for the genuineness of revelation, favors a rationalism which was flexible enough to allow his pupils either to take part in orthodox movements or to advance to a deism hostile to the Church.
Among the followers of Wolff, Alexander Baumgarten (1714-62) deserves the first place, as the founder of German aesthetics (Aesthetica, 1750 seq.). He perceives a gap in the system of the philosophical sciences. This contains in ethics a guide to right volition, and in logic a guide to correct thinking, but there are no directions for correct feeling, no aesthetic. The beautiful would form the subject of this discipline. For the perfection (the harmonious unity of a manifold, which is pleasant to the spectator), which manifests itself to the will as the good and to the clear thinking of the understanding as the true, appears-according to Leibnitz-to confused sensuous perception as beauty. From this on the name aesthetics was established for the theory of the beautiful, though in Kant's great work it is used in its literal meaning as the doctrine of sense, of the faculty of sensations or intuitions. Baumgarten's pupils and followers, the aesthetic writer G.F. Meier at Halle, Baumeister, and others, contributed like himself to the dissemination of the Wolffian system by their manuals on different branches of philosophy. To this school belong also the following: Thummig (Inst.i.tutiones Philosophia Wolfianae, 1725-26); the theologian Siegmund Baumgarten at Halle, the elder brother of the aesthete; the mathematician Martin Knutzen, Kant's teacher;[1] the literary historian Gottsched [2] at Leipsic; and G. Ploucquet, who in his Methodus Calculandi in Logicis, with a Commentatio de Arte Characteristica Universali appended to his Principia de Substantiis et Phaenomenis, 1753, took up again Leibnitz's cherished plan for a logical calculus and a universal symbolic language. The psychologist Kasimir von Creuz (Essay on the Soul, in two parts, 1753-54), and J.H. Lambert,[3] whom Kant deemed worthy of a detailed correspondence, take up a more independent position, both demanding that the Wolffian rationalism be supplemented by the empiricism of Locke, and the latter, moreover, in antic.i.p.ation of the Critique of Reason, pointing very definitely to the distinction between content and form as the salient point in the theory of knowledge.
[Footnote 1: Benno Erdmann, M. Knutzen und seine Zeit, 1876.]
[Footnote 2: Th. W. Danzel, Gottsched und seine Zeit, 1848.]
[Footnote 3: Lambert: Cosmological Letters, 1761; New Organon, 1764; Groundwork of Architectonics, 1771. Bernoulli edited some of Lambert's papers and his correspondence.]
Among the opponents of the Wolffian philosophy, all of whom favor eclecticism, A. Rudiger[1] and Chr. Aug. Crusius,[2] who was influenced by Rudiger, and, like him, a professor at Leipsic, are the most important. Rudiger divides philosophy according to its objects, "wisdom, justice, prudence," into three parts-the science of nature (which must avoid one-sided mechanical views, and employ ether, air, and spirit as principles of explanation); the science of duty (which, as metaphysics, treats of duties toward G.o.d, as natural law, of duties to our neighbor, and deduces both from the primary duty of obedience to the will of G.o.d); and the science of the good (in which Rudiger follows the treatise of the Spaniard, Gracian, on practical wisdom). Crusius agrees with Rudiger that mathematics is the science of the possible, and philosophy the science of the actual, and that the latter, instead of imitating to its own disadvantage the deductive-a.n.a.lytical method of geometry, must, with the aid of experience and with attention to the probability of its conclusions, rise to the highest principles synthetically. Besides its deduction the determinism of the Wolffian philosophy gave offense, for it was believed to endanger morals, justice, and religion. The will, the special fundamental power of the soul (consisting of the impulses to perfection, love, and knowledge), is far from being determined by ideas; it is rather they which depend on the will. The application of the principle of sufficient reason, which is wrongly held to admit of no exception, must be restricted in favor of freedom. For the rest, we may note concerning Crusius that he derives the principle of sufficient reason (everything which is now, and before was not, has a cause) and the principle of contingency from the principles of contradiction, inseparability, and incompatibility, and these latter from the principle of conceivability; that he rejects the ontological argument, and makes the ground of obligation in morality consist in obedience toward G.o.d, and its content in perfection. Among the other opponents of the Wolffian philosophy, we may mention the theologian Budde(us)[3] (Inst.i.tutiones Philosophiae Eclecticae, 1705); Darjes (who taught in Jena and Frankfort-on-the-Oder; The Way to Truth, 1755); and Crousaz (1744).
[Footnote 1: Rudiger: Disputatio de eo quod Omnes Idea Oriantur a Sensione, 1704; Philosophia Synthetica, 1707; Physica Divina, 1716; Philosophia Pragmatica, 1723.]
[Footnote 2: Crusius: De Usu et Limitibus Principii Rationis, 1743; Directions how to Live a Rational Life (theory of the will and of ethics), 1744; A Sketch of the Necessary Truths of Reason, 1745; Way to the Certainty and Trustworthiness of Human Knowledge, 1747.]
[Footnote 3: J.J. Brucker (Historia Critica Philosophiae, 5 vols., 1742-44; 2d ed., 6 vols., 1766-67) was a pupil of Budde.]
3. The Illumination as Scientific and as Popular Philosophy.
After a demand for the union of Leibnitz and Locke, of rationalism and empiricism, had been raised within the Wolffian school itself, and still more directly in the camp of its opponents, under the increasing influence of the empirical philosophy of England,[1] eclecticism in the spirit of Thomasius took full possession of the stage in the Illumination period. There was the less hesitation in combining principles derived from entirely different postulates without regard to their systematic connection, as the interest in scholastic investigation gave place more and more to the interest in practical and rea.s.suring results. Metaphysics, noetics, and natural philosophy were laid aside as useless subtleties, and, as in the period succeeding Aristotle, man as an individual and whatever directly relates to his welfare-the const.i.tution of his inner nature, his duties, the immortality of the soul, and the existence of G.o.d-became the exclusive subjects of reflection. The fact that, besides ethics and religion, psychology was chosen as a favorite field, is in complete harmony with the general temper of an age for which self-observation and the enjoyment of tender and elevated feelings in long, delightfully friendly letters and sentimental diaries had become a favorite habit. Hand in hand with this narrowing of the content of philosophy went a change in the form of presentation. As thinkers now addressed themselves to all cultivated people, intelligibility and agreeableness were made the prime requisites; the style became light and flowing, the method of treatment facile and often superficial. This is true not only of the popular philosophers proper-who, as Windelband pertinently remarks (vol. i. p. 563), did not seek after the truth, but believed that they already possessed it, and desired only to disseminate it; who did not aim at the promotion of investigation, but the instruction of the public-but to a certain extent, also, of those who were conscious of laboring in the service of science. Among the representatives of the more polite tendency belong, Moses Mendelssohn[2] (1729-86); Thomas Abbt (On Death for the Fatherland, 1761; On Merit, 1765); J.J. Engel (The philosopher for the World, 1775); G.S. Steinbart (The Christian Doctrine of Happiness, 1778); Ernst Platner (Philosophical Aphorisms, 1776, 1782; on Platner cf. M. Heinze, 1880); G.C. Lichtenberg (died 1799; Miscellaneous Writings, 1800 seq.; a selection is given in Reclam's Bibliothek); Christian Garve (died 1798; Essays, 1792 seq.; Translations from the Ethical Works of Aristotle, Cicero, and Ferguson); and Friedrich Nicolai[3] (died 1811). Eberhard, Feder, and Meiners will be mentioned later among the opponents of the Kantian philosophy.
[Footnote 1: The influence of the English philosophers on the German philosophy of the eighteenth century is discussed by Gustav Zart, 1881.]
[Footnote 2: Mendelssohn: Letters on the Sensations, 1755; On Evidence in the Metaphysical Sciences, a prize essay crowned by the Academy, 1764; Phaedo, or on Immortality, 1767; Jerusalem, 1783; Morning Hours, or on the Existence of G.o.d, 1785; To the Friends of Lessing (against Jacobi), 1786; Works, 1843-44. Cf. on Mendelssohn, Kayserling, 1856, 1862, 1883.]
[Footnote 3: Nicolai: Library of Belles Lettres, from 1757; Letters on the Most Recent German Literature, from 1759; Universal German Library, from 1765; New Universal German Library, 1793-1805.]
Among the psychologists J.N. Tetens, whose Philosophical Essays on Human Nature, 1776-77, show a remarkable similarity to the views of Kant,[1] takes the first rank. The two thinkers evidently influenced each other. The three fold division of the activities of the soul, "knowing, feeling, and willing," which has now become popular and which appears to us self-evident, is to be referred to Tetens, from whom Kant took it; in opposition to the twofold division of Aristotle and Wolff into "cognition and appet.i.tion," he established the equal rights of the faculty of feeling-which had previously been defended by Sulzer (1751), the aesthetic writer, and by Mendelssohn (1755, 1763, 1785). Besides Tetens, the following should be mentioned among the psychologists: Tetens's opponent, Johann Lossius (1775), an adherent of Bonnet; D. Tiedemann (Inquiries concerning Man, from 1777), who was estimable also as a historian of philosophy (Spirit of Speculative Philosophy, 1791-97); Von Irwing (1772 seq.; 2d ed., 1777); and K. Ph. Moriz (Magazin zur Erfahrungsseelenlehre, from 1785). Basedow (died 1790), Campe (died 1818), and J.H. Pestalozzi (1745-1827) did valuable work in pedagogics.
[Footnote 1: Sensation gives the content, and the understanding spontaneously produces the form, of knowledge. The only objectivity of knowledge which we can attain consists in the subjective necessity of the forms of thought or the ideas of relation. Perception enables us to cognize phenomena only, not the true essence of things and of ourselves, etc.]