opinion that each one of the individual and disconnected aphorisms which make up the Upanishads may be deduced as a consequence from the thought I am going to impart; though the converse- that my thought is to be found in the Upanishads— is by no means the case.

"The world is my idea." This is a truth which holds good for everything that lives and knows, though man alone can bring it into reflective and abstract consciousness. If he really does this, he has attained to philosophical wisdom. It then becomes clear and certain to him that what he knows is not a sun and an earth, but only an eye that sees a sun, a hand that feels an earth; that the world which surrounds him is there only as idea,—i. e., only in relation to something else, the consciousness which is in himself. If any truth can be asserted a priori, it is this, for it is the expression of the most general form of all possible and thinkable experience, a form which is more general than time, or space, or causality, for they all presuppose it; and each of these, which we have seen to be just so many modes of the principle of sufficient reason, is valid only for a particular class of ideas: whereas the antithesis of object and subject is the common form of all these classes; is that form under which alone any idea, of whatever kind it may be,-abstract or intuitive, pure or empirical,- is possible and thinkable.

No truth therefore is more certain, more independent of all others, and less in need of proof, than this: that all that exists for knowledge, and therefore this whole world, is only object in relation to subject, perception of a perceiver,-in a word, idea. This is obviously true of the past and the future, as well as of the present; of what is farthest off, as of what is near: for it is true of time and space themselves, in which alone these distinctions arise. All that in any way belongs or can belong to the world is inevitably thus conditioned through the subject, and exists only for the subject. The world is idea.

Of all systems of philosophy which start from the object, the most consistent, and that which may be carried furthest, is simple materialism. It regards matter-and with it time and spaceas existing absolutely; and ignores the relation to the subject in which alone all this really exists. It then lays hold of the law of causality as a guiding principle or clue, regarding it as a selfexistent order or arrangement of things, veritas æterna; and so fails to take account of the understanding, in which and for which XXII-809

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alone causality is. It seeks the primary and most simple state of matter, and then tries to develop all the others from it; ascending from mere mechanism to chemism, to polarity, to the vegetable and to the animal kingdom. And if we suppose this to have been done, the last link in the chain would be animal sensibility, - that is, knowledge,- which would consequently now appear as a mere modification or state of matter produced by causality. Now if we had followed materialism thus far with clear ideas, when we reached its highest point we should suddenly be seized with a fit of the inextinguishable laughter of the Olympians. As if waking from a dream, we should all at once become aware that its final result-knowledge, which it reached so laboriously—was presupposed as the indispensable condition of its very startingpoint, mere matter: and when we imagine that we thought matter, we really thought only the subject that perceives matter; the eye that sees it, the hand that feels it, the understanding that knows it. Thus the tremendous petitio principii reveals itself unexpect edly: for suddenly the last link is seen to be the starting-point, the chain a circle; and the materialist is like Baron Munchausen, who, when swimming in water on horseback, drew the horse into the air with his legs, and himself also by his cue.

As from the direct light of the sun to the borrowed light of the moon, we pass from the immediate idea of perceptionwhich stands by itself and is its own warrant — to reflection; to the abstract, discursive concepts of the reason, which obtain their whole content from knowledge of perception, and in relation to it. As long as we continue simply to perceive, all is clear, firm, and certain. There are neither questions nor doubts nor errors; we desire to go no further, can go no further; we find rest in perceiving, and satisfaction in the present. Perception suffices for itself: and therefore what springs purely from it, and remains true to it, for example, a genuine work of art,- can never be false; nor can it be discredited through the lapse of time, for it does not present an opinion, but the thing itself. But with abstract knowledge, with reason, doubt and error appear in the theoretical, care and sorrow in the practical. In the idea of perception, illusion may at moments take the place of the real; but in the sphere of abstract thought, error may reign for a thousand years, impose its yoke upon whole nations, extend to the noblest impulses of humanity, and by the help of its slaves and its dupes may chain and fetter those whom it cannot deceive. It is the

enemy against which the wisest men of all times have waged unequal war, and only what they have won from it has become the possession of mankind. Therefore it is well to draw attention to it at once, as we already tread the ground to which its. province belongs. It has often been said that we ought to follow truth, even although no utility can be seen in it, because it may have indirect utility which may appear when it is least expected; and I would add to this, that we ought to be just as anxious to discover and to root out all error, even when no harm is anticipated from it, because its mischief may be very indirect, and may suddenly appear when we do not expect i,- for all error has poison at its heart. If it is mind, if it is knowledge, that makes man the lord of creation, there can be no such thing as harmless error; still less venerable and holy error. And for the consolation of those who in any way and at any time may have devoted strength and life to the noble and hard battle against error, I cannot refrain from adding that so long as truth is absent, error will have free play,-as owls and bats in the night; but sooner would we expect to see the owls and the bats drive back the sun in the eastern heavens, than that any truth which has once been known, and distinctly and fully expressed, can ever again be so utterly vanquished and overcome that the old error shall once more reign undisturbed over its wide kingdom. This is the power of truth: its conquest is slow and laborious, but if once the victory be gained it can never be wrested back again.

To him who has thoroughly grasped this, and can distinguish between the will and the Idea, and between the Idea and its manifestation, the events of the world will have significance only so far as they are the letters out of which we may read the Idea of man, but not in and for themselves. He will not believe with the vulgar that time may produce something actually new and significant; that through it, or in it, something absolutely real may attain to existence, or indeed that it itself as a whole has beginning and end, plan and development, and in some way has for its final aim the highest perfection (according to their conception) of the last generation of man, whose life is a brief thirty years. Therefore he will just as little, with Homer, people a whole Olympus with gods to guide the events of time, as with Ossian he will take the forms of the clouds for individual beings; for as we have said, both have just as much meaning as regards

the Idea which appears in them. In the manifold forms of human life, and in the unceasing change of events, he will regard the Idea only as the abiding and essential, in which the will to live has its fullest objectivity, and which shows its different sides in the capacities, the passions, the errors, and the excellences, of the human race; in self-interest, hatred, love, fear, boldness, frivolity, stupidity, slyness, wit,, genius, and so forth,all of which, crowding together and combining in thousands of forms (individuals), continually create the history of the great and the little world, in which it is all the same whether they are set in motion by nuts or by crowns. Finally he will find that in the world it is the same as in the dramas of Gozzi, in all of which the same persons appear, with like intention and with a like fate: the motives and incidents are certainly different in each piece, but the spirit of the incidents is the same; the actors in one piece know nothing of the incidents of another, although they performed in it themselves: therefore after all experience of former pieces, Pantaloon has become no more agile or generous, Tartaglia no more conscientious, Brighella no more courageous, and Columbine no more modest.

Suppose we were allowed for once a clearer glance into the kingdom of the possible, and over the whole chain of causes and effects: if the earth-spirit appeared and showed us in a picture all the greatest men, enlighteners of the world, and heroes, that chance destroyed before they were ripe for their work; then the great events that would have changed the history of the world and brought in periods of the highest culture and enlightenment, but which the blindest chance-the most insignificant accidenthindered at the outset; lastly the splendid powers of great men, that would have enriched whole ages of the world, but which, either misled by error or fashion, or compelled by necessity, they squandered uselessly on unworthy or unfruitful objects, or even wasted in play. If we saw all this, we should shudder and lament at the thought of the lost treasures of whole periods of the world. But the earth-spirit would smile and say, "The source from which the individuals and their powers proceed is inexhaustible and unending as time and space; for like these forms of all phenomena, they also are only phenomena,- visibility of the will. No finite measure can exhaust that infinite source; therefore an undiminished eternity is always open for the return of any event or work that was nipped in the bud. In this

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world of phenomena, true loss is just as little possible as true gain. The will alone is: it is the thing in-itself, and the source of all these phenomena. Its self-knowledge and its assertion or denial, which is then decided upon, is the only event in-itself.

All willing arises from want; therefore from deficiency, and therefore from suffering. The satisfaction of a wish ends it; yet for one wish that is satisfied there remain at least ten which are denied. Further, the desire lasts long, the demands are infinite: the satisfaction is short and scantily measured out. But even the final satisfaction is itself only apparent; every satisfied wish at once makes room for a new one: both are illusions; the one is known to be so, the other not yet. No attained object of desire can give lasting satisfaction, but merely a fleeting gratification: it is like the alms thrown to the beggar, that keeps him alive to-day that his misery may be prolonged till the morrow. Therefore so long as our consciousness is filled by our will, so long as we are given up to the throng of desires with their constant hopes and fears, so long as we are the subject of willing,—we can never have lasting happiness nor peace. It is essentially all the same whether we pursue or flee, fear injury or seek enjoyment: the care for the constant demands of the will, in whatever form it may be, continually occupies and sways the consciousness; but without peace no true well-being is possible. The subject of willing is thus constantly stretched on the revolving wheel of Ixion, pours water into the sieve of the Danaids, is the ever-longing Tantalus.

But when some external cause or inward disposition lifts us suddenly out of the endless stream of willing,- delivers knowledge from the slavery of the will,- the attention is no longer directed to the motives of willing, but comprehends things free from their relation to the will; and thus observes them without personal interest, without subjectivity, purely objectively,- gives itself entirely up to them so far as they are ideas, but not in so far as they are motives. Then all at once the peace which we were always seeking, but which always fled from us on the former path of the desires, comes to us of its own accord; and it is well with us. It is the painless state which Epicurus prized as the highest good and as the state of the gods: for we are for the moment set free from the miserable striving of the will; we keep the Sabbath of the penal servitude of willing; the wheel of Ixion stands still.

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