V. The Light of Cognition

Where is light to be got from? Moses brought it down from Mount Sinai; but after his people had been praying for more than three thousand years: Thou shalt not steal, they steal like ravens to this very day. That means that the Revelation proved futile. Then came the philosophers and wanted to extract light from the innermost of their heads, a priori knowledge as they call it. But what had been established by one to-day was upset by the other the next day. Natural science chose a third path, the inductive path, and drew its wisdom from observation. This discipline has finally obtained true, real, durable knowledge which is accepted by everybody and is not disputed – and cannot be disputed by anybody. Hence it clearly and unmistakably follows that we must seek enlightenment along the road entered upon by natural science.

Still there are a good number of people – even among the “higher” circles and equipped with the best of knowledge, who declare themselves not satisfied with this light. They speak of the metaphysical craving, they build up a literature of their own and try incessantly to prove that all interpretation and knowledge of natural science, however fertile in individual branches, is, on the whole, inadequate. “The nature of matter,” they say, “is in the last resort inconceivable; all mechanical interpretation of Nature refers only to changes of the enigmatic substance and leaves our craving for causation in the last instance unsatisfied.”

Julius Frauenst�dt says: “The need for metaphysics has been compared by Schopenhauer to the need of a man for further information when finding himself in a totally unknown company whose members are introducing themselves to him one after another as friends and uncles. Where the deuce do I come to such a company of friends? This is the specifically philosophical question. Where natural science ends, there philosophy be gins.” ... “Though the subject of both is the same,” says Frauenst�dt further, “the whole world, the Cosmos, nevertheless natural science studies its subject from the point of view of its law-determined manifestation, whilst philosophy studies it in its inner essence.” Only, thus, we must at once add, such philosophical contemplation has not borne any fruit and has not discovered anything of the inner essence of Nature.

Nature, as is known, gives us only phenomena, transformations. Everything flows, everything is in the making, in emerging and submerging. The philosophers, however, want something substantial, essential, what D�hring calls “unchangeable truths.” As nothing of this kind can be found, the majority have desisted from further searching and turned, after the example of Kant, from philosophy to “critical philosophy,” that is, they shift the blame for not finding the substantial, unchangeable spectre, on to the wretchedness of our faculty of cognition which, being incapable of anything higher, creeps about the treasures which rust and moths destroy.

And thus, as thousands of years ago, we hang between heaven and earth. Many have succeeded in extricating themselves from that position; but only in practice. Since religion and metaphysics could not yield anything positive, the materialists of the old school content themselves with jumping over the supernatural snares and tricks and passing over to the scientific order of the day. Stiebeling says:

“A bridge can only be built from that bank where natural science has pitched its camp. It will be a pontoon-bridge. All new facts, observations and discoveries will be joined one with the other in a regular order till they reach the other bank lying in the misty distance. It is only then and not be fore that the true system will be arrived at.”

But now other competent scientists come and show that this method not only postpones the solution of the problem to a far too distant future, but has really no prospect of success whatsoever: all pontoons which natural science successively joins bring us no nearer to the opposite bank. “And even,” says Schopenhauer, “if one were to visit all the planets of all the fixed stars, one would not proceed a single step in metaphysics.” And not only the older generation of philosophers speaks thus, but more or less modern scientists. Dubois-Reymond speaks about the “limits of cognition of Nature,” and shows that there are natural things which we cannot reach with our cognition, conception, interpretation, etc. In the 271 volume of the Collection of Popular Lectures by Virchow and Holzendorf, a Dr. T�pfer declares:

“We, of course, know that with the assumption of atoms the nature of matter is not defined. But the scientist does not consider it his business to define the nature of matter. He adheres to facts and humbly acknowledges that the human mind has limits set to it which it can never overstep.”

One could quote any number of passages from contemporary literature stating what an absolute gulf there is between ordinary cognition of Nature and the metaphysical craving. This means that the confusion on the question: Where is Light to be got from? is endless. But a truly classical piece of confusion is given to us by F.A. Lange in his History of Materialism. Apart from the numerous secondary beauties and excellent qualities of the work, apart also from the democratic kinship of the author with Social-Democracy, – things which we gladly acknowledge – the philosophic standpoint of Lange is the most pitiful exhibition of convulsive struggling in the metaphysical noose that has ever been seen. Indeed, it is precisely that continual swinging to and fro which lends the work its chief importance, since though no problem is solved and nothing is decided, it places the problem in such a clear light as to bring the final solution unavoidably near.

And now come opponents like Dr. Gideon Spieker (On the relation between natural science and philosophy) and point to those convulsions and abuse their justified criticism in order to discredit with Lange at the same time the conception of materialism. Thus, not only the eternal, the metaphysical craving, but the real need of the present day demands that we should advance beyond the practical materialists. These people simply dismiss the question of the nature, the substance and the limits of cognition, and go on with their building of scientific pontoons, not seeing or not wishing to see, that one may, of course, be carried away by the stream, but that it is impossible to arrive at the opposite bank, where the metaphysical infatuation dwells.

Materialism, which has learned to practice the knowledge and interpretation of the most varied scientific matters, has failed up till now to explain the matter of cognition, and therefore, even its sympathetic historian was unable to gain from it a decisive preponderance over the idealistic ruins. The faculty of cognition or interpretation is the only force which is still being defied. It is of the world, and yet must not be worldly, physical, mechanical. What, then, is it? Metaphysical! And none is able to explain what that means. All the definitions which we get are negative. The metaphysical is not physical, not palpable, not conceivable. What else can it be but an emotion which the happy idealists carry about with them without knowing where it is?

Man wants to know everything, and yet there is something which cannot be known, or explained, or conceived. Then one resigns himself to one s fate and points out the limitation of the human understanding.

“There are two points,” says Lange, “where the human mind fails. We are not able to understand the atoms and we cannot explain out of the atoms and their movement even the slightest manifestation of consciousness ... One may turn and twist the idea of matter and its forces as one likes, – one invariably reaches a residuum which is inconceivable ... Not without justification, therefore, Dubois-Reymond ventured to assert that our entire knowledge of Nature is in reality not knowledge, but a substitute of an interpretation ... This is the point which the systematisers and apostles of a mechanical view of the world pass by heedlessly, the question of the limits of the cognition of Nature.” (A. Lange, Geschichte des Materialismus, 2 vol., pp.148-150.)

This, with its exact reference to chapter and verse was, properly speaking, superfluous, since the phrase is thoroughly well known. It is not only Lange who speaks thus, but also J�rgen Bona Meyer and von Sybel. Also Schaffle and Samter would speak in a similar strain were they to render an opinion. In fact, the whole ruling world speaks thus, – so far as it has advanced beyond the Capucines. The Social-Democrats, however, were known to Lange insufficiently, – else he would have known that in regard to this point, too, the mechanical view of the world had been completed by them.

The reader may well stop and consider where it would lead if our knowledge and cognition, if the mental instrument which during the last few centuries has been applied with so much success by science should be a mere “surrogate.” Where is, then, the honest John? And if we were to look through all the big folios of philosophy, we should still not find any positive answer to it, since it were precisely the philosophers who have so far destroyed the belief in a personal ruler of heaven and earth. The unphilosophical, the religious world really had somewhere in excelsis a true fund of Reason which had lent some slight breath to a piece of dirty clay. These people were, therefore, justified in distinguishing the holy mind from the profane, the genuine from its surrogate. But how can such distinctions be upheld by those who had left the great spirit-in-chief way up in the clouds to the ignorant back-woodsmen, passes my comprehension.

“The great step backwards, made by Hegel, as compared with Kant,” says Lange, “consists in that he entirely lost the idea of a more general way of knowing things than the human one.” Thus Lange deplores that Hegel did not speculate about any superhuman knowledge, and we reply to it by saying that the reactionary cry: “Back to Kant!” which at present is heard every where, arises from the monstrous tendency to put back the clock of science and to subordinate the human knowledge to a “more general way of knowing.” One would like to abolish the dominion over Nature which mankind has so far won and to get for the old bogey-man the crown and sceptre out of the lumber-room to re-establish the reign of superstition. The philosophic current of our time is a conscious or unconscious reaction against the visibly growing freedom of the people.

The metaphysical idea of the “limits of cognition,” which runs through all the chapters of Lange’s famous book and which is accepted wholesale by the learned men of the age, need only to be examined a little closer so far as its contents go in order to reveal itself immediately as a conglomerate of empty phrases. “The atoms cannot be understood, nor is consciousness to be explained.” But the whole world consists of atoms and consciousness, of matter and mind. If the two are unintelligible, then what is there left for the human reason to understand and to explain? Lange is right, – properly speaking, nothing. Our ideas are in reality not ideas, but substitutes. Perhaps, the grey beasts, commonly called asses, are mere asinine substitutes and the genuine asininity is to be looked for among the higher organized creatures. I have already characterized elsewhere philosophy as a science which seeks a cracked and crazy sort of truth. When one starts to mistrust the language and charge it with giving things perverted names, then it is a sure sign that something has begun to crack. Listen to the following passage from the History of Materialism:

“Shall we define the idea of the true, the good, the real, etc., in a sense that we call that true, good or real which is so to mankind or shall we imagine that what man regards as such is also and to the same extent valid for all thinking beings that are and may be?”

We reply to this definitely and simply: As truly as that is true folly which language calls folly, so it is a perversion to imagine that the true, good, real or thinking being can elsewhere be constituted differently from the one which our language terms as true, good, real or thinking being. And the metaphysical water, too, must be thoroughly wet, since what is not wet cannot be called water. We certainly do not know how many strange kinds of trees may yet be found in Central Africa, but so much we do know with the apodictical certainty of Kant that the boards which are cut out of trees, may the latter grow on the planet Mars or Jupiter, cannot look, cannot make themselves felt to the touch, cannot taste the same as beef. The reader will forgive the drastic comparison, – but whenever the metaphysical craving begins to confuse the language, patience comes to an end.

Our experiences, observations or “phenomena” are classified by our faculty of cognition and by our language and designated by names. So long as the future changes are not essential, that is, so long as the movement of Nature keeps within the limits as fixed by conception and language, everything remains as before. But if and as soon as the future changes overstep those limits, so that the true, the good, the thinking beings, boards or beef or knowledge appear substantially different, then they have become different things and we require new names for their designation.

The light of knowledge makes man the master of Nature. With its assistance he is able to produce in the summer the ice of winter and in the winter the fruits and flowers of summer. But withal the mastery over Nature remains limited. Everything that is possible to do is only possible with the assistance of natural forces and given material. To desire to rule over Nature in an unlimited way by means of a mere “let there be,” can only be conceived by a dreamer. Just as children and savages wish to rule unlimitedly, so do our childish scientists wish to know unlimitedly. “The system of satisfying oneself with the given world,” says Lange, “ is opposed to the tendencies of unification inherent in Reason, it is also opposed to art, poetry and religion, which are possessed of the impulse to outrun the limits of experience.” Well, art and poetry are known as fancies, though beautiful and adorable ones; and if religion and the metaphysical impulse do not wish to be more than to subsist and to belong to the same category, no reasonable man will object. Man is quite entitled to his metaphysical impulse to outrun all limits if he only recognises that it is not a scientific impulse. The light of Reason has certainly its limits, the same as everything else, like wood and straw, like mechanics and understanding, – that is, rational limits which every part of the Universe must have if it does not want to be a piece of folly.

As man can do everything, so can he know everything – within rational limits. We cannot create like God who made the world out of nothing. We must keep to the given, to the forces and matter extant and reckon with their properties. To direct and to guide them, to shape them – that is what we call creating. To arrange and to order the existing material, to generalise or to classify, to abstract mathematical formulas from the natural phenomena – that is what we call knowing, understanding, explaining.

Our entire mental illumination is accordingly a formal procedure, a mechanical process. Just as in technical production the natural phenomena are bodily transformed, so should in science the transformation be done mentally. Just as production leaves the exaggerated craving for creation unsatisfied, so in the last instance science or “knowledge of Nature” leaves the exaggerated craving for causation unsatisfied. But as little as a reasonable man will deplore the circumstance that we need material in order to produce and that out of nothing and of pious wishes nothing can be made, so little will anybody who has grasped the nature of knowledge wish to outrun the limits of experience. We want material both in order to know and to explain as well as in order to produce. Therefore no cognition can enlighten us as to where the material comes from or begins. That is: material is antecedent to thought. The phenomenal world or the mate rial is the primary thing, the substance which has neither a beginning nor an end, nor an origin. The material exists and the existence is material (in the wider sense of the word), and the human faculty of knowledge or consciousness is a part of that material existence, which like all other parts can only exercise a definite, limited function, the cognition of Nature.

When Schopenhauer wanted to have “introduced” to him the “whole company,” he did not consider that the introduction is merely a ceremony and that every ceremony of introduction presupposes an unknown company. Just as “introduction” can only take place in the world of men, so is cognition only possible in the world of experience. The metaphysical impulse wishes to reverse that order, it wants to proceed with its knowledge beyond the nature of knowledge – to leave its own skin or to pull itself by its own hair out of the mire, like M�nchhausen. It is only those whose ears still resound with the eternal music of religious flutes and who have, there fore, no taste for the vicissitudes of the world, that can think of such a desperate undertaking.

Lange has aptly remarked that the relation between names and things, the definitions have caused the philosophers an immense amount of trouble, but he does not notice that he himself is continually struggling in the same noose. Words or names denote always a whole genus of varieties. Blacks and Whites, Russians and Turks, Chinese and Laplanders are all included in the name of men. But as soon as a variety leaves its genus, as soon as it becomes more than formally different, its genus-name ceases. That is why no thing can proceed beyond its general nature, beyond its definition. Why should it be otherwise with the intellect? Does it, or does knowledge no longer belong to the phenomena, to the mundane things? It is only where there are two worlds, one a perceptible world and the other a higher, a religious or metaphysical world, that one can believe in the higher nature or origin of consciousness. But in that case there is no reason why the impulse of the higher nonsense should be limited at all. Why should not tin, board and beef also be deified, along with cognition? It is the business of Socialists to show that also the last and the most subtle metaphysical residuum of “something higher “ is only fit, together with the most antiquated ridiculous superstition, for the lumber-room.

The world offers nothing but forms, changes or transformations. Those to whom that is not sufficient, should seek the eternal beyond the stars, as religion does, or beyond the phenomena, as philosophy does. The “critical” philosophers, however, have faintly felt that what is thus being sought is a crazy notion which instruction has to remove from the head of man. They have, therefore, given up the inquiry after the substance and turned their attention to the organ of inquiry, to the faculty of cognition. There they have worked quite critically. If formerly there dwelt something higher behind every bush and tree, it has now – at least in authoritative circles – been driven to its last privacy, beyond the unknowable atoms, beyond the still less knowable consciousness.

It is there you find “the limits of cognition,” and there is also the crazy notion. To emancipate oneself from it is the more difficult since the demands of the working class have driven our official scientists to pursue a conservative, a reactionary policy. Now they show them selves obdurate, they want to perpetuate the evil and go back beyond Kant. The late Lange might have landed in this company through error; but many of his successors are mere scamps who use the words of their predecessor as a good weapon against the new generation and thus compel us to carry the critique of Reason right to the very roots.

Everything that one perceives, say the Neo-Kantians, can only be perceived through the spectacles of consciousness. Everything which we see, hear or feel, must come to us through the medium of sensation, that is, through our soul. Consequently, we cannot perceive the things in their purity, in their complete truth, but only in so far as they appear to us subjectively. According to Lange, “the sensations are the material from which the real eternal world is being built up ... The point in question can easily be defined. It is, to the successors of Kant, like the apple in the original sin, viz., The relation between the subject and the object in cognition” (Vol.II, p.98.)

Thus they shift their own sin to the shoulders of the post-Kantian philosophy. Let Lange speak for himself:

“According to Kant, he says, our knowledge originates in the interaction of the two (subject and object), – a proposition infinitely simple, and yet invariably misinterpreted. It follows from this view that our phenomenal world is not merely the product of our conception, but a result of objective actions and their subjective formation. It is therefore not what an individual may perceive thus or otherwise according to his accidental mood or faulty organisation, but what mankind as a whole must perceive through its senses and Reason, that Kant calls in a certain sense objective. He called it objective in so far as we only speak of our experience; but it is transcendental, or to use another word, false, if we apply such knowledge to things in themselves, that is, to things which exist absolutely, independently of our knowledge.”

Here we have some of the brew stewed over again. It would still be tasty if it really were as homemade as it is apparently being served. If I did not know that be hind the belief in transcendental objects there is hidden the source of all superstition I would not waste much time in drawing over-nice distinctions between the ordinary subjectivity as “it must be perceived by mankind through its senses and reason,” and the higher objectivity of “things in themselves,” I would simply leave “the things which exist independently of our knowledge” till they become perceptible to it. Now, however, when I know that the above lines conceal the desire to proceed beyond the ordinary objects in order to arrive at the belief in transcendental objects, I smell distinctly that this brew has for its basis the old distinction between sacred and profane truth. At the back of the phenomena of the world there is, forsooth, something higher or mysterious which our reason is too small, our intellect is too low to grasp, which we are unable to know even “formally,” which, therefore, if we are not addicted to religious belief, we must crave at least philosophically, transcendentally.

Of course, the materialists have failed up to now to take account of the subjective element of knowledge and have accepted uncritically the perceptible objects as current coin. This error, forsooth, is now mended.

Let us take the world as it is according to Kant, that is, as a mixture of subject and object; but let us keep to the fact that the whole world is one mixture, i.e., a unity; let us also keep to the fact that this unity is dialectical, i.e., such as is made up of its opposite, of mixture or manifoldness. Well, there are in this manifoldness of the world things such as wood, stones, trees, clods of clay, etc., which are unquestionably called objects – I say “called” without as yet stating that they really are such. There are also things such as colors, odors, heat, light, etc., the objectivity of which is more questionable. Then there are others which recede still further, such as pains in the stomach, love and spring sensations, which are decidedly subjective. Finally there are things still more and by far the most subjective which are such in a super lative degree, like moods, dreams, hallucinations, etc. Here we are at the salient point of the whole matter. Materialism has won its case if it has to be acknowledged that dreaming, though called subjective, is an actual, real thing. We are then ready to grant our critical philosophers that wood and stones, – in short, all things which are decidedly called objects, are likewise perceived through the senses of vision and touch, that, consequently, they are not pure objects, but subjective things. We readily acknowledge that even the idea of a pure object or “thing in itself” is a squint-eyed idea which sees distortedly into another week of another world.

The distinction between subject and object is a relative one. Both are of the same kind. They are two forms of one being, two individuals of one species. The subject of all predicates is called the natural process, actuality, empirical reality or existence. Who is there to deny that his accidental mood has the same true existence as the Mont Blanc, i.e., the quality of the existence of the two is the same, though the existence of the Mont Blanc is more universally accessible than that of the mood which only exists for the individual consciousness. It is enough that it is and that it belongs with all existence to the same category. Whoever wants a more detailed proof of the objective existence of his subjectivity has only to turn to Descartes who, as is well known, ascribed the most solid existence to cogito, to thinking, to consciousness. Idealism, the entire modern philosophy, which makes a special study of the subject-matter of cognition, lives and moves in the opinion that the intellect or the conscious, thinking being is the most evident of all evidences. “Sense of Self, self-consciousness,” says Lazarus in his Life of the Soul, – “that most difficult idea for physiologists, is as a matter of fact for every single individual, through his inner experience, the most certain, the most firm.” Well, whether it is through the inner or external experience, it is sufficient for us, if it has to be admitted that the mind is an object of experience.

“The unification-tendencies of our Reason” require from the theologians and philosophers that they should recognise “something higher” or inconceivable. The same tendencies require from us that we should conceive heaven and earth, body and soul, atoms and consciousness as the manifold manifestations of one entity, as the manifold forms of one species, as the various predicates of one subject. The obscure inconceivableness or the inconceivable obscurity of philosophy finds its complete elucidation in the linguistical relationship between the subject and the predicate. The philologists have long since emphasised the unity of mind and speech. Of every predicate speech makes a subject and vice versa. The color is attached to the leaf, that means, is its predicate, the leaf is attached to the tree, the tree is attached to the earth, the earth to the sun, the sun, to the world and the world finally is the last entity or subject, the only substance which is attached to itself only, is no longer a predicate and has no thing above it. That which in the terminology of the grammar is called subject and predicate is elsewhere called matter and form. Stone is a matter; basalt or flint or marble are forms. But the stone-matter, too, is but a form of the inorganic, and the latter is a form of existence. The world is the entity, the matter, the “thing in itself”; in relation to it everything else, thinking or knowing included, are predicates, phenomena or subjectivities. Thus the conceptions of subject and predicate, of matter and form, of entity and phenomenon interchange up to the largest and down to the smallest. Whatever we grasp with our faculty of cognition we grasp as part of a whole and a whole part. The understanding of this dialectics illuminates and explains to perfection the mystical impulse to seek the truth beyond the outward appearance, that is, the subject behind every predicate. It is only through ignorance of the dialectical working of the mind that this impulse can proceed so far as to crave for a subject outside of the predicates, for a truth outside the phenomenon. A critical epistemology must recognise the instrument of experience itself as experience, in consequence of which any excursion beyond experience cannot even be discussed.

When now the modern philosophers with the historian of Materialism at their head come to us and say that the world offers but phenomena and these are the objects of cognition of Nature and the latter has only to do with transformations, and desire to find a higher knowledge, an eternal, essential object, then it is clear that they are either knaves or fools who do not want to be satisfied with all grains of sand of the sand-heap, but look behind all the grains for an extra sand-heap without grains. Those who have to such an extent fallen out with the vale of tears of our phenomenal world, may with their immortal soul put themselves in a fiery chariot and go up to Heaven. But those who wish to remain in this world and believe in the salvation of the scientific knowledge of Nature, should study the materialist logic. Here it is stated:

But here comes the man with the metaphysical impulse who is not satisfied with the “formal cognition,” and wants to know in a different way which cannot at all be defined by him. It is not enough for him to classify the experienced phenomena with the assistance of the understanding. What natural science calls science is to him but a surrogate, a poor, limited knowledge. He strives after an unlimited spiritualisation so that the things shall be resolved into pure intellect. Why cannot that dear impulse see that it puts forward an exaggerated demand The world does not proceed from the spirit, but quite the reverse. Being is not a variety of intellect, but on the contrary, the intellect is a variety of the empirical existence. Existence is the absolute, which is everywhere and eternal; thinking is merely a special and limited form of it.

If the philosopher perverts this simple fact, then it is no wonder that the world is to him a riddle. After having so perverted the relation between thinking and being that it contradicts reality, he naturally has to rake his brain over this “contradiction of thinking.” But those who regard Reason as one of the natural things, as a phenomenon among and along with, other phenomena, will not require over and above “formal” science yet some higher foolish sort of knowledge; they will make the essence of things not knowledge, but life, the empirical material life of which knowledge constitutes only a part. Science or knowledge must not take the place of life; life must not and cannot dissolve in science, since it is more comprehensive. That is why no single thing can be exhaustively mastered by knowledge or interpretation. No single thing is knowable entirely, a cherry no more than a sensation. Even when I have studied the cherry in accordance with all the demands of science, botanically, chemically, biologically, etc., I only know it truthfully after I have gone through its history, after I have touched it, seen it and swallowed it. The reader must understand that the distinction I draw here between knowledge and true knowledge is quite different from that which the metaphysicians draw. We may very well distinguish between knowledge separated from life, such as is given in school, and the living knowledge which grows with and out of the material of experience. Science pre-supposes life and is conditioned on experience. This is what may be called rational. And if one seeks the rational in a different way, if one wishes to get pure, unconditioned Knowledge, then he may just as well look out for square circles, or iron wood, or other similar nonsense. Whenever a person wishes to proceed beyond the natural limits of things – and the thing termed cognition is no exception – he proceeds beyond the limits of language and reason, and black becomes white and reason unreasonable.

The wretched philosophical criticism which prevails today represents the human mind as a poor beggar which can only explain the superficial phenomena of things. True knowledge is closed to it, the essence of things is considered inscrutable. In reply to that we may ask whether each thing has its special essence, whether there is an endless number of essences, or whether the whole world is but one single unity. Then it will be seen that our mind possesses the faculty to connect all things, to sum up all parts and to divide all sums. All the phenomena are constituted by the intellect as an entity, and all entities are recognised by it as phenomena of the great general entity of Nature. The contradiction between phenomena and entity is not a contradiction, but a logical procedure, a dialectical formality. The essence of the Universe consists of phenomena and its phenomena are essential.

From this point of view the metaphysical craving or the impulse to seek an entity behind every phenomenon may live and flourish so long as it recognizes the “formal cognition of Nature” as the only rational practice of science. The impulse to go beyond the appearance towards Truth and Essence is an excellent and scientific impulse. But it must not exaggerate; it must know its limits. It must look for the sublime and divine amidst the earthly transiency; it must not separate its truth and essences from the phenomenon; it must only search after subjective objects, after relative truth.

On that the old- and neo-Kantians are also agreed; we only disagree with the melancholy resignation, with the sad squint at a higher world with which they accompany their teaching. We do not agree that the “limits of cognition” should again become limitless by sending belief in search of an unlimited Reason. Their reason says: “Where there are phenomena, there must also be something transcendental which appears.” And our critique says, The Something which appears is itself a phenomenon, the subject and the predicate are of the same species.

With the light of cognition man illuminates all things of the world. In order that he may use it properly and avoid jugglery, it is necessary to know that the light of cognition is a thing like other things. Darwin’s theory of the origin of species, which shows the gradual descent of one from the other, must also be applied here. The monistic conception of the world of the naturalists – the latter in the narrower sense of the word – is insufficient. And even if Haeckel should prove the “Perigenesis of the Plastidule” up to the hilt, even if the rise of the organisms from the inorganic should be demonstrated in the most evident manner, there will still remain the metaphysical loophole: the great opposition between mind and Nature. It is only through the dialectic-materialist theory of cognition that our conception becomes monistic. As soon as we only grasp the relation between subject and predicate in general, we cannot fail to see that our intellect is but a variety of form of the empirical reality. Materialism, it is true, has long since put forward that cardinal proposition, but it has remained a mere assertion, a mere anticipation. To establish it on a sure basis it is necessary to gain the general conviction that science altogether does not want and cannot want to accomplish more than the classification of the perceptible things according to species and varieties; its entire desire and ability is confined to the mental reconstruction of the different parts of a differentiated unity.

No doubt, in case of other objects not much is said of them when it is proved that something belongs to the general order of things. One wishes to know something more specific than that, as for instance, whether it is organic or inorganic, whether matter or force, plant or animal, etc.: that it is natural, is here beyond dispute, but in the case of the mind, which for thousands of years has been the object of edification, of which people do not know how transcendentally they should extol it, a great deal is said when it is stated that it is but a variety, a form, a predicate of Nature, that it must be such since the linguistic unity of word and meaning admit of but one Nature. Just as necessarily as water is wet so necessarily has each thing which has a nature – and how can one conceive of anything which has no nature of some kind – the very same natural nature. The word and its meaning allow of no other nature.

The savage makes a fetish of the sun, the moon and other things. The civilized nations have made a God of the mind, a fetish of the faculty of thinking. This must cease in the new society. There the individuals live in dialectical community: the many in unity; and the light of cognition will also have to moderate itself and be content with being a force among other forces, a tool among other tools. At the same time, however, it must claim that it is truly what it is. Human cognition has no cause to feel that disgracefully humble modesty which the Professors Nageli and Virchow wanted to ascribe to it, They have cunningly spoken of the limits of cognition, because the will-o’wisp of a “higher” unlimited cognition has been playing pranks with them in the metaphysical darkness.