Our self-consciousness has not space as its form, but only time; therefore our thinking does not, like our perceiving, take place in three dimensions, but merely in one, that is, in a line, without breadth and depth. From this fact springs the greatest of our intellect's essential imperfections. We can know everything only successively, and are conscious of only one thing at a time, and even of that one thing only on condition that for the time being we forget, and so are absolutely unconscious of, everything else; with the consequence that, for so long, all else ceases to exist for us. In this quality, our intellect can be compared to a telescope with a very narrow field of vision, just because our consciousness is not stationary but fleeting. The intellect apprehends only successively, and to grasp one thing it must give up another, retaining nothing of it but traces which become weaker and weaker. The idea that is now vividly engrossing my attention is bound after a little while to have slipped entirely from my memory. Now if a good night's sleep intervenes, it may be that I shall never find the thought again, unless it is tied up with my personal interest, in other words, with my will, which is always in command of the field.
On this imperfection of the intellect depends the rhapsodical and often fragmentary nature of the course of our thoughts, which I already touched on at the end of the previous chapter, and from this arises the inevitable distraction of our thinking. Sometimes external impressions of sense throng in on it, disturbing and interrupting it, and forcing the strangest and oddest things on it at every moment; sometimes one idea draws in another by the bond of association, and is itself displaced by it; finally, even the intellect itself is not capable of sticking very long and continuously to one idea. On the contrary, just as the eye, when it gazes for a long time at one object, is soon not able to see it distinctly any longer, because the outlines run into one another, become confused, and finally everything becomes obscure, so also through long-continued rumination on one thing our thinking gradually becomes confused and dull, and ends in complete stupor. Therefore after a certain time, varying with the individual, we must for the time being give up every meditation or deliberation, which has fortunately remained undisturbed, but has not yet been brought to an end, even when it concerns a matter of the greatest importance and interest to us. We must dismiss from our consciousness the subject of the deliberation that interests us so much, however heavily our concern about it may weigh upon us, in order to be occupied with unimportant and indifferent matters. During this time, that important subject no longer exists for us; like the heat in cold water, it is latent. If we take it up again at another time, we approach it as we approach a new thing with which we become acquainted afresh, although more quickly; and its agreeable or disagreeable impression on our will also appears afresh. But we ourselves do not come back entirely unchanged. For with the physical composition of the humours and the tension of the nerves, constantly varying according to the hour, day, and season, our mood and point of view also change. Moreover, the different kinds of representations that have been there in the meantime, have left behind an echo whose tone has an influence on those that follow. Therefore the same thing often appears very different to us at different times, in the morning, in the evening, at midday, or on another day; opposing views jostle one another and increase our doubt. Therefore we speak of sleeping on a matter, and great decisions demand a long time for deliberation. Now although this quality of our intellect, as springing from its weakness, has its obvious disadvantages, nevertheless it offers the advantage that, after the distraction and physical change of mood, we return to our business as comparatively different beings, fresh and strange, and so are able to view it several times in a very varied light. From all this it is evident that human consciousness and thinking are by their nature necessarily fragmentary, and that therefore the theoretical or practical results obtained by putting such fragments together often turn out to be defective. In this our thinking consciousness is like a magic lantern, in the focus of which only one picture can appear at a time; and every picture, even when it depicts the noblest thing, must nevertheless soon vanish to make way for the most different and even most vulgar thing. In practical affairs, the most important plans and resolutions are settled in general, and others are subordinated to these as means to an end, and others in turn to these, and so on down to the individual thing to be carried out in concreto. But they are not put into execution in their order of dignity; on the contrary, while we are concerned with plans on a large and general scale, we have to contend with the most trifling details and with the cares of the moment. In this way our consciousness becomes still more desultory. In general, theoretical mental occupations make us unfit for practical affairs, and vice versa.
In consequence of the inevitably scattered and fragmentary nature of all our thinking, which has been mentioned, and of the mixing together of the most heterogeneous representations thus brought about and inherent even in the noblest human mind, we really possess only half a consciousness. With this we grope about in the labyrinth of our life and in the obscurity of our investigations; bright moments illuminate our path like flashes of lightning. But what is to be expected generally from heads of which even the wisest is every night the playground of the strangest and most senseless dreams, and has to take up its meditations again on emerging from these dreams? Obviously a consciousness subject to such great limitations is little fitted to explore and fathom the riddle of the world; and to beings of a higher order, whose intellect did not have time as its form, and whose thinking therefore had true completeness and unity, such an endeavour would necessarily appear strange and pitiable. In fact, it is a wonder that we are not completely confused by the extremely heterogeneous mixture of fragments of representations and of ideas of every kind which are constantly crossing one another in our heads, but that we are always able to find our way again, and to adapt and adjust everything. Obviously there must exist a simple thread on which everything is arranged side by side: but what is this? Memory alone is not enough, since it has essential limitations of which I shall shortly speak; moreover, it is extremely imperfect and treacherous. The logical ego, or even the transcendental synthetic unity of apperception, are expressions and explanations that will not readily serve to make the matter comprehensible; on the contrary, it will occur to many that
"Your words are deftly wrought, but drive no bolts asunder." [1]
Kant's proposition: "The I think must accompany all our representations," is insufficient; for the "I" is an unknown quantity, in other words, it is itself a mystery and a secret. What gives unity and sequence to consciousness, since, by pervading all the representations of consciousness, it is its substratum, its permanent supporter, cannot itself be conditioned by consciousness, and therefore cannot be a representation. On the contrary, it must be the prius of consciousness, and the root of the tree of which consciousness is the fruit. This, I say, is the will; it alone is unalterable and absolutely identical, and has brought forth consciousness for its own ends. It is therefore the will that gives it unity and holds all its representations and ideas together, accompanying them, as it were, like a continuous ground-bass. Without it the intellect would have no more unity of consciousness than has a mirror, in which now one thing now another presents itself in succession, or at most only as much as a convex mirror has, whose rays converge at an imaginary point behind its surface. But it is the will alone that is permanent and unchangeable in consciousness. It is the will that holds all ideas and representations together as means to its ends, tinges them with the colour of its character, its mood, and its interest, commands the attention. and holds the thread of motives in its hand. The influence of these motives ultimately puts into action memory and the association of ideas. Fundamentally it is the will that is spoken of whenever "I" occurs in a judgement. Therefore the will is the true and ultimate point of unity of consciousness, and the bond of all its functions and acts. It does not, however, itself belong to the intellect. but is only its root, origin, and controller.
From the form of time and of the single dimension of the series of representations, on account of which the intellect, in order to take up one thing, must drop everything else, there follows not only the intellect's distraction, but also its forgetfulness. Most of what it has dropped it never takes up again, especially as the taking up again is bound to the principle of sufficient reason, and thus requires an occasion which the association of ideas and motivation have first to provide. Yet this occasion may be the remoter and the smaller, the more our susceptibility to it is enhanced by interest in the subject. But, as I have already shown in the essay On the Principle of Sufficient Reason, memory is not a receptacle, but a mere faculty, acquired by practice, of bringing forth any representations at random, so that these have always to be kept in practice by repetition, otherwise they are gradually lost. Accordingly, the knowledge even of the scholarly head exists only virtualiter as an acquired practice in producing certain representations. Actualiter, on the other hand, it is restricted to one particular representation, and for the moment is conscious of this one alone. Hence there results a strange contrast between what a man knows potentia and what he knows actu, in other words, between his knowledge and his thinking at any moment. The former is an immense and always somewhat chaotic mass, the latter a single, distinct thought. The relation is like that between the innumerable stars of the heavens and the telescope's narrow field of vision; it stands out remarkably when, on some occasion, a man wishes to bring to distinct recollection some isolated fact from his knowledge, and time and trouble are required to look for it and pick it out of that chaos. Rapidity in doing this is a special gift, but depends very much on the day and the hour; therefore sometimes memory refuses its service, even in things which, at another time, it has ready at hand. This consideration requires us in our studies to strive after the attainment of correct insight rather than an increase of learning, and to take to heart the fact that the quality of knowledge is more important than its quantity. Quantity gives books only thickness; quality imparts thoroughness as well as style; for it is an intensive dimension, whereas the other is merely extensive. It consists in the distinctness and completeness of the concepts, together with the purity and accuracy of the knowledge of perception that forms their foundation. Therefore the whole of knowledge in all its parts is permeated by it, and is valuable or trifling accordingly. With a small quantity but good quality of knowledge we achieve more than with a very great quantity but bad quality.
The most perfect and satisfactory knowledge is that of perception, but this is limited to the absolutely particular, to the individual. The comprehension of the many and the various into one representation is possible only through the concept, in other words, by omitting the differences; consequently the concept is a very imperfect way of representing things. The particular, of course, can also be apprehended immediately as a universal, namely when it is raised to the (Platonic) Idea; but in this process, which I have analysed in the third book, the intellect passes beyond the limits of individuality and therefore of time; moreover, this is only an exception.
These inner and essential imperfections of the intellect are further increased by a disturbance to some extent external to it but yet inevitable, namely, the influence that the will exerts on all its operations, as soon as that will is in any way concerned in their result. Every passion, in fact every inclination or disinclination, tinges the objects of knowledge with its colour. Most common of occurrence is the falsification of knowledge brought about by desire and hope, since they show us the scarcely possible in dazzling colours as probable and well-nigh certain, and render us almost incapable of comprehending what is opposed to it. Fear acts in a similar way; every preconceived opinion, every partiality, and, as I have said, every interest, every emotion, and every predilection of the will act in an analogous manner.
Finally, to all these imperfections of the intellect we must also add the fact that it grows old with the brain; in other words, like all physiological functions, it loses its energy in later years; in this way all its imperfections are then greatly increased.
The defective nature of the intellect here described will not surprise us, however, if we look back at its origin and its destiny, as I have pointed it out in the second book. Nature has produced it for the service of an individual will; therefore it is destined to know things only in so far as they serve as the motives of such a will, not to fathom them or to comprehend their true inner essence. Human intellect is only a higher degree of the animal intellect, and just as this animal intellect is limited entirely to the present, so also does our intellect bear strong traces of this limitation. Therefore our memory and recollection are a very imperfect thing. How little -are we able to recall of what we have done, experienced, learnt, or read! and even this little often only laboriously and imperfectly. For the same reason, it is very difficult for us to keep ourselves free from the impression of the present moment. Unconsciousness is the original and natural condition of all things, and therefore is also the basis from which, in particular species of beings, consciousness appears as their highest efflorescence; and for this reason, even then unconsciousness still always predominates. Accordingly, most beings are without consciousness; but yet they act according to the laws of their nature, in other words, of their will. Plants have at most an extremely feeble analogue of consciousness, the lowest animals merely a faint gleam of it. But even after it has ascended through the whole series of animals up to man and his faculty of reason, the unconsciousness of the plant, from which it started, still always remains the foundation, and this is to be observed in the necessity for sleep as well as in all the essential and great imperfections, here described, of every intellect produced through physiological functions. And of any other intellect we have no conception.
But the essential imperfections of the intellect here demonstrated are also always increased in the individual case by inessential imperfections. The intellect is never in every respect what it might be; the perfections possible to it are so opposed that they exclude one another. No one, therefore, can be simultaneously Plato and Aristotle, or Shakespeare and Newton, or Kant and Goethe. On the other hand, the imperfections of the intellect agree together very well, and therefore it often remains in reality far below what it might be. Its functions depend on so very many conditions which we can comprehend only as anatomical and physiological in the phenomenon in which alone they are given to us, that an intellect that positively excels even in one single direction is among the rarest of natural phenomena. Therefore the very productions of such an intellect are preserved for thousands of years; in fact, every relic of such a favoured individual becomes the most precious of possessions. From such an intellect down to that which approaches imbecility the gradations are innumerable. Now according to these gradations, the mental horizon of each of us primarily proves to be very different. It varies from the mere apprehension of the present, which even the animal has, to the horizon embracing the next hour, the day, the following day also, the week, the year, life, the centuries, thousands of years, up to the horizon of a consciousness that has almost always present, although dimly dawning, the horizon of the infinite. Therefore the thoughts and ideas of such a consciousness assume a character in keeping therewith. Further, this difference between intelligences shows itself in the rapidity of their thinking, which is very important, and may be as different and as finely graduated as the speed of the points in the radius of a revolving disc. The remoteness of the consequents and grounds to which anyone's thinking can reach seems to stand in a certain relation to the rapidity of the thinking, since the greatest exertion of thinking in general can last only quite a short time, yet only while it lasts could an idea be well thought out in its complete unity. It is then a question of how far the intellect can pursue the idea in such a short time, and thus what distance it can cover in that time. On the other hand, in the case of some people the rapidity may be offset by the longer duration of that time of perfectly consistent and uniform thinking. Probably slow and continuous thinking makes the mathematical mind, while rapidity of thinking makes the genius. The latter is a flight, the former a sure and certain advance step by step on firm ground. Yet even in the sciences, as soon as it is no longer a question of mere quantities but of understanding the real nature of phenomena, slow and continuous thinking is inadequate. This is proved, for example, by Newton's theory of colours, and later by Biot's drivel about colour-rings. Yet this nonsense is connected with the whole atomistic method of considering light among the French, with their molecules de lumiere, [2] and in general with their fixed idea of wanting to reduce everything in nature to merely mechanical effects. Finally, the great individual difference between intelligences, of which we are speaking, shows itself pre-eminently in the degree of clearness of understanding, and accordingly in the distinctness of the whole thinking. What to one man is comprehension or understanding, to another is only observation to some extent; the former is already finished and at the goal while the latter is only at the beginning; what is the solution to the former is only the problem to the latter. This rests on the quality of the thinking and of knowledge which has been previously mentioned. Just as the degree of brightness varies in rooms, so it does in minds. We notice this quality of the whole thinking as soon as we have read only a few pages of an author; for then we have had to comprehend directly with his understanding and in his sense. Therefore, before we know what he has thought, we already see how he thinks, and so what the formal nature, the texture, of his thinking is. This texture is always the same in everything he thinks about, and the train of thought and the style are its impression. In this we at once feel the pace, the step, the flexibility and lightness, indeed even the acceleration of his mind, or, on the contrary, its heaviness, dulness, stiffness, lameness, and leadenness. For just as a nation's language is the counterpart of its mind, so is style the immediate expression, the physiognomy, of an author's mind. Let us throwaway a book when we observe that in it we enter a region that is more obscure than our own, unless we have to get from it merely facts and not ideas. Apart from this, only that author will be profitable whose understanding is keener and clearer than our own, and who advances our thinking instead of hindering it. It is hindered by the dull mind that wants to compel us to share in the toad-like pace of its own thinking. Thus we shall find that author profitable the occasional use of whose mind when we think affords us sensible relief, and by whom we feel ourselves borne whither we could not attain alone. Goethe once said to me that, when he read a page of Kant, he felt as if he were entering a bright room. Inferior minds are such not merely by their being distorted and thus judging falsely, but above all through the indistinctness of their whole thinking. This can be compared to seeing through a bad telescope, in which all the outlines appear indistinct and as if obliterated, and the different objects run into one another. The feeble understanding of such minds shrinks from the demand for distinctness of concepts; and so they themselves do not make this demand on it, but put up with haziness. To satisfy themselves with this, they gladly grasp at words, especially those which denote indefinite, very abstract, and unusual concepts difficult to explain, such, for example, as infinite and finite, sensuous and supersensuous, the Idea of being, Ideas of reason, the Absolute, the Idea of the good, the divine, moral freedom, power of self-generation, the absolute Idea, subject-object, and so on. They confidently make lavish use of such things, actually imagine that they express ideas, and expect everyone to be content with them. For the highest pinnacle of wisdom they can see is to have such ready-made words at hand for every possible question. The inexpressible satisfaction in words is thoroughly characteristic of inferior minds; it rests simply on their incapacity for distinct concepts, whenever these are to go beyond the most trivial and simple relations; consequently, it rests on the weakness and indolence of their intellect, indeed on their secret awareness thereof. In the case of scholars, this awareness is bound up with a hard necessity, early recognized, of passing themselves off as thinking beings; and to meet this demand in all cases they keep such a suitable store of readymade words. It must be really amusing to see in the chair a professor of philosophy of this kind, who bona fide delivers such a display of words devoid of ideas, quite honestly under the delusion that these really are thoughts and ideas, and to see the students in front of him who, just as bona fide, that is to say, under the same delusion, are listening attentively and taking notes, while neither professor nor students really go beyond the words. Indeed these words, together with the audible scratching of pens, are the only realities in the whole business. This peculiar satisfaction in words contributes more than anything else to the perpetuation of errors. For, relying on the words and phrases received from his predecessors, each one confidently passes over obscurities or problems; and thus these are unnoticed and are propagated through the centuries from one book to another. The thinking mind, especially in youth, begins to doubt whether it is incapable of understanding these things; or whether there is really nothing intelligible in them; and similarly, whether the problem which they all slink past with such comic gravity and earnestness on the same footpath is for others no problem at all; or whether it is merely that they do not want to see it. Many truths remain undiscovered merely because no one has the courage to look the problem in the face and tackle it. In contrast to this, the distinctness of thought and clearness of concepts peculiar to eminent minds produce the effect that even well-known truths, when enunciated by them, acquire new light, or at any rate a fresh stimulus. If we hear or read them, it is as though we had exchanged a bad telescope for a good one. For example, let us read simply in Euler's Briefe an eine Prinzessin his exposition of the fundamental truths of mechanics and optics. On this is based Diderot's remark in Le Neveu de Rameau, that only perfect masters are capable of lecturing really well on the elements of a science, for the very reason that they alone really understand the questions, and words for them never take the place of ideas.
But we ought to know that inferior minds are the rule, good minds the exception, eminent minds extremely rare, and genius a portent. Otherwise, how could a human race consisting of some eight hundred million individuals have left so much still to be discovered, invented, thought out, and expressed after six thousand years? The intellect is calculated for the maintenance of the individual alone, and, as a rule, is barely sufficient even for this. But nature has wisely been very sparing in granting a larger measure; for the mind of limited capacity can survey the few and simple relations that lie within the range of its narrow sphere of action, and can handle the levers of these with much greater ease than the eminent mind could. Such a mind takes in an incomparably greater and richer sphere and works with long levers. Thus the insect sees everything on its little stem and leaf with the most minute accuracy and better than we can; but it is not aware of a man who stands three yards from it. On this rests the slyness of the dull and stupid, and this paradox: Il y a un mystere dans l'esprit des gens qui n'en ont pas. [3] For practical life genius is about as useful as an astronomer's telescope is in a theatre. Accordingly, in regard to the intellect nature is extremely aristocratic. The differences she has established in this respect are greater than those made in any country by birth, rank, wealth, and caste distinction. However, in nature's aristocracy as in others, there are many thousands of plebeians to one nobleman, many millions to one prince, and the great multitude are mere populace, mob, rabble, la canaille. There is, of course, a glaring contrast between nature's list of ranks and that of convention, and the adjustment of this difference could be hoped for only in a golden age. However, those who stand very high in the one list of ranks and those in the other have in common the fact that they generally live in exalted isolation, to which Byron refers when he says:
To feel me in the solitude of kings,
Without the power that makes them bear a crown.
-- (The Prophecy of Dante, canto i, 1. 166)
For the intellect is a differentiating, and consequently separating, principle. Its different gradations, much more even than those of mere culture, give everyone different concepts, in consequence of which everyone lives to a certain extent in a different world, in which he meets directly only his equals in rank, but can attempt to call to the rest and make himself intelligible to them only from a distance. Great differences in the degree, and thus the development, of the understanding open a wide gulf between one man and another, which can be crossed only by kindness of heart. This, on the other hand, is the unifying principle that identifies everyone else with one's own self. The connexion, however, remains a moral one; it cannot become intellectual. Even in the event of a fairly equal degree of culture, the conversation between a great mind and an ordinary one is like the common journey of two men, of whom one is mounted on a mettlesome horse while the other is on foot. It soon becomes extremely irksome for both of them, and in the long run impossible. It is true that for a short distance the rider can dismount, in order to walk with the other, though even then his horse's impatience will give him a great deal of trouble.
The public, however, could not be benefited by anything so much as by the recognition of this intellectual aristocracy of nature. By virtue of such recognition it would comprehend that the normal mind is certainly sufficient where it is a question of facts, as where a report is to be made from experiments, travels, old manuscripts, historical works, and chronicles. On the other hand, where it is a case merely of thoughts and ideas, especially of those whose material or data are within everyone's reach, and so where it is really only a question of thinking before others, the public would see that decided superiority, innate eminence, bestowed only by nature and then extremely rarely, is inevitably demanded, and that no one deserves a hearing who does not give immediate proofs of this. If the public could be brought to see this for itself, it would no longer waste the time sparingly meted out to it for its culture on the productions of ordinary minds, on the innumerable bunglings in poetry and philosophy that are concocted every day. It would no longer always rush after what is newest, in the childish delusion that books, like eggs, must be enjoyed while they are fresh. On the contrary, it would stick to the achievements of the few select and celebrated minds of all ages and nations, endeavour to get to know and understand them, and thus might gradually attain to genuine culture. Then those thousands of uncalled-for productions that, like tares. impede the growth of good wheat, would soon disappear.
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Notes:
1. Goethe's Faust, Bayard Taylor's translation. [Tr.]
2. "Molecules of light." [Tr.]
3. "There is a mystery in the minds of those men who have none." [Tr.]