being negative. So long as education, whether with or without clear consciousness, proposes to itself the opposite object—labors only for usefulness through others, without considering that the using principle lies also in the individual; so long as education thus eradicates in earliest youth the root of self-activity, and accustoms man not to determine himself but to await a determination through others—so long, talent for philosophy will always remain an extraordinary favor of nature, which cannot be further explained, and which may therefore be called by the indefinite expression of “philosophical genius.”
The chief ground of all the errors of our opponents may perhaps be this, that they have never yet made clear to themselves what proving means, and that hence they have never considered that there is at the bottom of all demonstration something absolutely undemonstrable.
Demonstration effects only a conditioned, mediated certainty; by virtue of it, something is certain if another thing is certain. If any doubt arises as to the certainty of this other, then this certainty must again be appended to the certainty of a third, and so on. Now, is this retrogression carried on ad infinitum, or is there anywhere a final link? I know very well that some are of the former opinion; but these men have never considered that if it were so, they would not even be capable of entertaining the idea of certainty—no, not even of hunting after certainty. For what this may mean: to be certain; they only know by being themselves certain of something; but if everything is certain only on condition, then nothing is certain, and there is even no conditioned certainty. But if there is a final link, regarding which no question can be raised, why it is certain, then, there is an undemonstrable at the base of all demonstration.
They do not appear to have considered what it means: to have proven something to somebody. It means: we have demonstrated to him that a certain other certainty is contained, by virtue of the laws of thinking, which he admits, in a certain first certainty which he assumes or admits, and that he must necessarily assume the first if he assumes the second, as he says he does. Hence all communication of a conviction by proof, presupposes that both parts are at least agreed on something. Now, how could the Science of Knowledge communicate itself to the dogmatist, since they are positively not agreed in a single point, so far as the material of knowledge is concerned, and since thus the common point is wanting from which they might jointly start.[1]
Finally, they seem not to have considered that even where there is such a common point, no one can think into the soul of the other; that each must calculate upon the self-activity of the other, and cannot furnish him the necessary thoughts, but can merely advise how to construct or think those thoughts. The relation between free beings is a reciprocal influence upon each other through freedom, but not a causality through mechanically effective power. And thus the present dispute returns to the chief point of dispute, from which all our differences arise. They presuppose everywhere the relation of causality, because they indeed know no higher relation; and it is upon this that they base their demand: we ought to graft our conviction on their souls without any activity on their own part. But we proceed from freedom, and—which is but fair—presuppose freedom in them. Moreover, in thus presupposing the universal validity of the mechanism of cause and effect, they immediately contradict themselves; what they say and
- ↑ I have repeated this frequently. I have stated that I could absolutely have no point in common with certain philosophers, and that they are not, and cannot be, where I am. This seems to have been taken rather for an hyperbole, uttered in indignation, than for real earnest; for they do not cease to repeat their demand: “Prove to us thy doctrine!” I must solemnly assure them that I was perfectly serious in that statement, that it is my deliberate and decided conviction. Dogmatism proceeds from a being as the Absolute, and hence its system never rises above being. Idealism knows no being, as something for itself existing. In other words: Dogmatism proceeds from necessity—Idealism from freedom. They are, therefore, in two utterly different worlds.
