  In the Critique of Practical Reason it runs “Act so that the maxim of your will could on each occasion be valid as a universal legislative principle,” i.e. as Kant himself explains, in such a way that the maxim, when raised to a universal law, does not lead to contradictions and consequent self-abrogation. The consciousness of this fundamental law was, for Kant, a fact of pure reason, The Categorical Imperative has at the same time another and not less serious defect, i.e. that even when admitted, it leads to no ethical conclusions. Kant fails, as Mill (Utilitarianism, chap. i.) rightly says “in an almost grotesque fashion” to deduce what he seeks. His favourite example of a deduction, by which he illustrates his manner of procedure not only in his Grundlegung zur Metaphysik der Sitten but also in the Critique of Practical Reason is as follows: May a person, he asks, retain for himself a possession which has been entrusted to him without a receipt or other acknowledgment? He answers, No. For he thinks, were the opposite maxim to be raised to a law, nobody, under such circumstances, would entrust anything to anybody. The law would then be without possibility of application, therefore impracticable and so self-abrogated. It may easily be seen that Kant’s argumentation is false, indeed absurd. If, in consequence of the law, certain actions ceased to be practised, the law exercises an influence; it therefore still exists and has in no way annulled itself. How ridiculous would it appear if the following question were treated after an analogous fashion: “May I yield to a person who desires to bribe me?” Yes, since, were I to think of the opposite maxim as raised to a universal law, then nobody would seek any longer to bribe another; therefore the law would be without application, therefore, impracticable, and so self-abrogated. Strangely enough this clear passage has not prevented Windelband (Strassb. philos. Abhandl. p. 171) from ascribing to Descartes the view that the judgment is an act of volition. What led him astray is a discussion in the fourth Meditation on the influence of the will in the formation of judgment. Even scholastics like Suarez had ascribed too much to this influence, and Descartes goes so far in exaggeration of this dependence that he considers every judgment (even the self-evident judgments) as the work of the will. But to “produce the judgment” and “to be the judgment” are yet manifestly not one and the same. More illusive are a couple of passages in his later writings, i.e. in his Principia Philosophiae (i. 32), published three years after the Meditations, and in a work also written three years later: Notae in Programma quoddam, sub finem Anni 1647 in Belgio editum, cum hoc Titulo: Explicatio mentis humanae sive animae rationalis, ubi explicatur quid sit, et quid esse possit.” Particularly might the passage in the Principles lead to the opinion that Descartes must have changed his view, and it is astonishing that Windelband has not appealed to this passage rather than to that in the Meditations. We read here:—Ordines modi cognitandi quos in nobis experimur, ad duos generales referri possunt; quorum unus est, perceptio sive operatio intellectus; alius vero volitio sive operatio voluntatis. Nam sentire, imaginari, et pure intellegere, sunt tantum diversi modi percipiendi; ut et cupere, aversari, affirmare, negare, dubitare, sunt diversi modi volendi. At first sight this passage appears to be so clearly in contradiction to the one in the third Meditation that, as we have said, it is scarcely possible to avoid the supposition that Descartes had meantime rejected his thesis as to the three fundamental classes of psychical phenomena, so shunning Scylla only to plunge into Charybdis; avoiding the old mistake of confusing the judgment with the idea (Vorstellung), he would now seem to confound it with the will. But a more attentive examination of all the circumstances will suffice to exonerate Descartes from such a charge, and this on the following grounds: (1) There is not the slightest sign that Descartes was ever conscious of having become untrue to the view expressed in the Meditations. (2) Further, in the year 1647 (three years after the publication of the Meditations and shortly before writing the Notae to his Programma) the Meditations appeared in a translation revised by Descartes himself, where, remarkably enough, not the slightest alteration is to be found in the decisive passage in the third Meditation. As to Descartes’ real view, therefore, there can be no doubt; his doctrine has not in this respect suffered the slightest change. It only remains, therefore, to come to an understanding of his obviously variable modes of expression, and this is, I believe, solved incontrovertibly in the following manner. Descartes, while regarding will and judgment as two classes differing fundamentally, none the less finds that in contradistinction to the first fundamental class—that of ideas—these have something in common. In the third Meditation he designates (cf. the above passage) as the common element the fact that although essentially based upon an idea, in both alike there is contained a further special form. In the fourth Meditation a further common character appears, i.e. that the will decides concerning them; not only can it determine and suspend its own acts, but also those of the judgment. It is this common character which he was bound to regard as especially, indeed all important, in the first part of the Principles, xxix.-xlii. Accordingly, he classes them, in opposition to the ideas (which he calls operationes intellectus) under the term operationes voluntatis. In the Notae to the Programma he calls them distinctly in the same sense, “determinationes voluntatis.” “Ego enim, cum viderem, praeter In further support of this explanation we may compare the scholastic terminology into which Descartes as a young man was initiated. It was customary to denote under the term actus voluntatis not merely the movement of the will itself but also the act performed in obedience to the will. In accordance with this custom, the actus voluntatis fell into two classes; the actus elicitus voluntatis and the actus imperatus voluntatis. In a similar manner Descartes groups the class which, according to him, was only possible as an actus imperatus of the will along with his actus elicitus. There is here, therefore, no question of a common fundamental character of the intentional relation. Clear as all this is to those who carefully attach due weight to the various moments, it would yet appear that Spinoza (probably misled rather by the passage in the Principles than by that cited by Windelband), anticipates Windelband in this misunderstanding of the Cartesian doctrine. In his Ethics, ii. prop. 49, he actually, and in the most real sense, regards the affirmatio and negatio as “volitiones mentis,” and by a further confusion, comes finally to obliterate the distinction between the two classes ideae and voluntates. “Voluntas et intellectus unum et idem sunt” his thesis now reads, so overthrowing not only the three-fold classification of Descartes, but also the old Aristotelian dual classification. Spinoza has here, as usual, done nothing else than corrupt the teaching of his great master. Some, as for instance, Windelband—while giving up the attempt at including judgment and idea (Vorstellung) in one fundamental class, on the other hand believe it possible to subsume judgment under feeling, thus falling back into the error which Hume committed earlier in his inquiry into the nature of belief. According to these writers, to affirm implies an act of approval, an appreciation on the part of the feelings, while denial is an act of disapproval, a feeling of repugnance. Despite a certain analogy the confusion is hard to understand. There are people who recognize both the goodness of God and the wickedness of the devil, the being of Ormuzd and the being of Ahriman, with an equal degree of conviction, and yet, while prizing the nature of the one above all else, they feel themselves absolutely repelled by that of the other. Since we love knowledge and hate error it is, of course, proper that those judgments we hold to be right (and this is true of all those judgments which we ourselves make) are for this very reason dear to us, i.e. we estimate them in some way or other through feeling. But who on this account would be misled into regarding the judgments themselves which are loved as acts of loving?. The confusion would be almost as gross as if we should fail to distinguish wife and child, money and possessions, from the activity which is directed towards these, inasmuch they are the objects of affection. Cf. also what has been said (note 21) with regard to Windelband, where, misunderstanding Descartes, he ascribes to him the same teaching; further, note 26 (on the unity of the idea of the good) as well as what is urged by Sigwart in the note (in part much to the point) on Windelband (Logic, vol. i. chap. ii. p. 156 seq.). To those who, despite all that has been said, still wish further arguments for the distinction between the second and third fundamental classes, I may, perhaps, be allowed to refer them, by anticipation, to my Descriptive Psychology, which I have alluded to in the preface as an almost completed work, and which As against Windelband, I here add the following observations: 1. It is false and a serious oversight, as he himself will be convinced on reading again in my Psychology, vol. i. p. 262, when he (p. 172) makes me assert, and that too as a quotation from my own work, that “love and hate” is not an appropriate term for the third fundamental class. 2. It is false, and a quite unjustifiable supposition when (p. 178) he ascribes to me the opinion that the classification of judgments according to quality is the only essential classification belonging to the act of judgment itself. I believe exactly the contrary. I regard, for example (of course in opposition to Windelband), the distinction between assertorical and apodictic judgments (cf. here note 27, p. 83), as also the distinction between self-evident and blind judgments as belonging and highly essential, to the act of judgment itself. Other differences, again, especially the distinction between simple and compound acts of judgment, I might mention. For it is not every compound judgment that can be resolved into quite simple elements, and something similar takes place also in the case of certain notions, a fact known to Aristotle. What is red?—Red colour. What is colour?—The quality of colour. The difference, it is seen, contains in both cases the notion of the genus. The separating of the one logical element from the other is only possible from the one side. A similar one-sided capacity to separate appears also in certain compound judgments. J. S. Mill is, therefore, quite wrong when he (Deductive and Inductive Logic, vol. i. chap. iv. section 3), regards as ridiculous the old classification of judgments into simple and compound, and thinks that the procedure in such a case is exactly as if one should wish to divide horses into single horses and teams of horses; otherwise the same argument would hold good against the classification of conceptions into simple and compound. 3. It is false, though an error which finds almost universal acceptance, and one from which I myself at the time of writing the first volume of my Psychology was not yet free, that the so-called degree of conviction consists in a degree of intensity If the degree of conviction of my belief that 2 + 1 = 3 were one of intensity how powerful would this be! And if the said belief were to be identified, as by Windelband (p. 186), with feeling, not merely regarded as analogous to feeling, how destructive to our nervous system would the violence of such a shock to the feelings prove! Every physician would be compelled to warn the public against the study of mathematics as calculated to destroy health. (Cf. with regard to this so-called degree of conviction the view of Henry Newman in his interesting work: An Essay in Aid of a Grammar of Assent—a work scarcely noticed in Germany.) 4. When Windelband (p. 183) wonders how I can regard the word “is” in such propositions as “God is,” “A man is” (ein Mensch ist), “A lack is” (ein Mangel ist), “A possibility is,” “A truth is,” (i.e. There is a truth), etc., as having the same meaning and finds it extraordinary (184, note 1) in the author of Von der mannigfachen Bedeutung des Seienden nach Aristoteles that he should fail to recognize the manifold significance of “to be,” I can only reply that he who in this view does not perceive the simple consequence of my theory of the judgment can hardly have understood this doctrine. With regard to Aristotle it never occurs to him, while dividing the “??” in the sense of reality into various categories, and into an “ ?? ??e??e?a and ?? d???e?”, to do the same with the “?st??” transforming what is the expression of an idea into that of a judgment and the “?? ?? ??????” as he calls it. This could only be done by those who, like Herbart and many others after him, did not know how to hold apart the notion 5. I have just said that there exist simple and compound judgments, and that many a compound judgment is not, without a residue, resolvable into simple judgments. Special attention must be paid to this in seeking to convert judgments otherwise expressed into the existential form. It is self-evident that only simple judgments, i.e. such as are, strictly speaking, without parts, are so convertible. I may therefore be excused for not thinking it necessary to emphasize this expressly in my Psychology. If this restriction hold good universally it is, of course, valid also of the categorical form. In the propositions categorical in form, which the formal logicians have denoted by the signs A.E.I. and O. they wish to express strictly simple judgments. These are therefore one and all convertible into the existential form (cf. my Psychology, vol. i. p. 283). The same, however, will not hold good when propositions categorical in form contain in consequence of an ambiguity of expression (cf. p. 120, note to Appendix) a plurality of judgments. In such a case the existential form may certainly be the expression of a simple judgment equivalent to the compound one, but cannot be the expression of the judgment itself. This is a point which Windelband ought to have considered in examining (p. 184) the proposition: “The rose is a flower” with respect to its convertibility into an existential proposition. He is quite right in protesting against its conversion into the proposition: “There is no rose which is not a flower,” but he is not equally right in ascribing this conversion to me. Neither in the passage cited by him nor elsewhere have I made such a conversion, and I consider it just as false as that attempted by Windelband and all such as may be attempted by anybody else. The judgment here expressed in the proposition is made up of two judgments of which one is the recognition of the subject (whether it be that thereby is meant “rose” in the ordinary sense, or “what is called rose,” “what is understood by rose”), and this, as we have just said, is not always the case where a proposition is given of the form: All A is B. Unfortunately Land also has overlooked this, the only one I conclude with a curiosity recently furnished by Steinthal in his Zeitschrift fÜr VÖlkerpsychologie (chap. xviii. p. 175). I there read with astonishment: “Brentano’s confusion in completely severing judgments from idea and thoughts (!) and grouping the judgments as acts of recognition or rejection, with love and hate (!!) is instantly removed if such (?) a judgment, as an aesthetic judgment is termed “Beurteilen” (!). Probably Steinthal has never once glanced into my Psychology, and has only read Windelband’s statement concerning it; this, however, so hastily that I hope he will not be ungrateful at my sending his lines to Windelband for correction. In order to make the reader familiar with the contents of this valuable little book a notice written at the time for the Vienna Evening Post may prove useful. Through an oversight it was printed as a feuilleton in the Vienna newspaper. As no one certainly would look for it there, I will include it here by way of an appendix. Meantime, Sigwart’s monograph, The Impersonalia has appeared, in which he opposes Miklosich. Marty has submitted this, as well as (shortly before) the corresponding section in Sigwart’s Logic to a telling criticism in the Vierteljahrsschrift fÜr wissenschaftliche Philosopie, with regard to which criticism Sigwart, though without any reasonable ground, has shown himself highly indignant. “Il se fache,” the French say, “donc il a tort.” That Sigwart’s theory in its essential points has not succeeded, even Steinthal really allows, though in his Zeitschrift (chap. xviii. p. 172 seq.) he burns thick clouds of incense to the writer of the monograph, and even in his preface to the fourth edition of his Origin of Language applauds a form I The psychological theory of Sigwart shows itself in all its weakness when he seeks to give an account of the notion of “existence.” It has been already recognized by Aristotle, that this notion is gained by reflection upon the affirmative judgment. But Sigwart, like most modern logicians, neglects to make use of this hint. Instead of saying that to the existent belongs everything of which the affirmative judgment is true, he becomes repeatedly, and once more in the second edition of his logic (pp. 88-95) involved in diffuse discussions upon the notion of being and upon existential propositions, which cannot in any way conduce to clearness, seeing that they move in false directions. “To be,” according to Sigwart, expresses a relation (pp. 88, 95); if it be asked: What kind of a relation? the answer would, at first sight (92), appear to be, a relation to me as thinking. But no; the existential proposition asserts just this: “that the existing also exists, apart from its relation to me and to another thinking being.” It cannot, therefore, be “a relation to me as thinking.” But what other relation can be meant? Not until p. 94 is this brought out more clearly. The relation Now it will be immediately recognized that this notion of existence is too narrow; for it might very well be asserted that much exists which it is not possible to perceive, e.g. a past and a future, an empty space, and any sort of deficiency, a possibility or impossibility, etc., etc. It is therefore not surprising that Sigwart himself seeks to widen the notion. But he does this in a manner which I find it difficult to understand. At first sight he appears to say in order that something may exist it is not necessary that it can be perceived by me; it is enough if it can be perceived by anybody. Or what else can be meant when Sigwart, after what has just been said, that existence was the agreement of the thing represented with a possible impression, thus continues: “That which exists stands not merely in this relation to me but to all other existing beings?” It cannot surely mean that Sigwart is inclined to ascribe to every existing being the capacity to receive every impression. It may be he only wishes to say that everything which exists stands to every other existing being in the relation of existence, and then it might be concluded from what immediately follows that this rather meaningless definition is intended to express that existence is the capacity to act or to be acted upon. (“What exists ... stands in causal relations to the rest of the world”; similar also is p. 91, note: the existent is something which “can exercise effects upon me and others.”) Finally, however, there is some ground for thinking Sigwart would say: what exists is that which can be perceived or can be inferred as perceivable, for he adds: “hence (on account of this causal relation) from what is perceivable also an existence which is merely inferred may be asserted.” That all this is equally to be rejected it is not difficult to recognize. For (1) To “infer” the existence of something does not mean so much as “to infer that it is capable of being perceived.” If, for example, the existence of atoms and of empty spaces 2. From this point of view it would be absurd for any one to say: “I am convinced that there is much the existence of which can neither be perceived at any time or even inferred by anybody.” For that would mean: “I am convinced that much can be perceived or can be inferred to be capable of perception which yet can never be perceived or inferred.” Who does not recognize here how far Sigwart has strayed from the true notion of existence! 3. Should Sigwart wish in this passage to widen the notion of existence to such a degree as to think that existence is that which can either be perceived or inferred from some perceivable object, or again, stands in some sort of causal relation to what is perceivable, it might be replied—if indeed such a monstrous notion of existence still require refutation—that even this notion is still too narrow. If, for example, I say: It may be that an empty space exists but this can never with certainty be known by any one, I thereby confess that existence may perhaps belong to empty space; but I deny most definitely that it is perceptible, or that it is to be inferred from that which is perceptible. In regard to relations of cause and effect on the other hand, it is of course impossible that empty space (which is certainly no thing) can stand in such a relation to anything perceivable. We should thus once again arrive at an absurd meaning in interpretation of an assertion in no way absurd. How wrongly Sigwart has analysed the notion of existence is also proved very simply by means of the following proposition: A real centaur does not exist; a centaur in idea, however, certainly exists, and that as often as I imagine it. Whoever does not clearly recognize here the distinction of the “?? ?? ?????? i.e. in the sense of existing, from ?? in the sense of real (wesenhaft) will I fear hardly be brought to recognize it by the fullest II. As Sigwart has failed to grasp the nature of judgment in general he is not, of course, able to understand that of the negative judgment in particular. He has gone so far in error as to deny to it an equal right as species along with the positive judgment; In this assertion Sigwart is opposed to some important psychological views which I have made good in my lecture. It would therefore seem fitting to resist his attack. For this purpose I shall show: (1) that Sigwart’s doctrine is badly founded; (2) that it leads to an irremediable confusion, as in that case Sigwart’s affirmative judgment is a negative judgment, while his negative judgment if indeed a judgment at all, and not rather the absence of one, is a positive judgment, and that moreover his positive judgment really involves a negative one, along with other similar confusions. (3) Finally I think it will be possible—thanks to Sigwart’s detailed explanations—to show the genesis of his error. 1. The first inquiry in the case of an assertion so novel and so widely diverging from the general view, will be as to its foundation. With regard to this, he insists above all (p. 150) that the negative judgment would have no meaning if the thought of the positive attribution of a predicate had not preceded. But what can this mean? Either there is here a clear petitio principii, or it cannot mean anything more than that a connection of ideas must have preceded. Now granting this for a moment (although I have in my Psychology shown its falsity) this would by no means prove his proposition, since Sigwart himself recognizes (p. 89 note, and elsewhere) that such a “subjective connexion of ideas” would still not be a judgment; that there needs rather to be added to it a certain feeling of constraint. An argument follows later (p. 151) the logical connexion of which I understand just as little. It is rightly observed that in and for itself we have the right to deny of anything an infinite number of predicates, and it is with equal right added that in spite of this, we do not really pass all these negative judgments. And now what conclusion is drawn from these premisses? Perhaps this, that the fact that a certain negative judgment is warranted is not sufficient in itself to explain the entrance of the judgment. This we may without hesitation admit. But Sigwart concludes quite otherwise; he permits himself to assert, It is also a curious error (Marty has already called attention to it), when Sigwart asserts that in contradistinction to what holds good of the negative judgment “every subject admits only of a limited number of predicates being affirmed.” But why? Can we not, for example, say a whole hour is greater than half an hour, greater than a third, greater than a fourth and so on ad infin.?... If then, notwithstanding, I do not really make all these judgments, there are evidently good reasons for this; above all that the “narrowness of consciousness” forbids it. But then this might also be applied most successfully in regard to negative judgments. Somewhat later we meet a third argument which, as I have already by anticipation refuted it in my Psychology (book ii. chap. 7, section v.), will be treated quite shortly here. If the negative judgment were a direct one, co-ordinated with the affirmative judgment as species then, thinks Sigwart (p. 155 seq.), whoever in an affirmative categorical proposition regards the affirmation of the subject as involved must, to be consistent, regard the denial of the subject as involved in the negative proposition, which is not the case. The latter observation is correct, the It only remains now to consider a point of language by which Sigwart believes himself able to support his view. A testimony for it is, he thinks, to be found in the fact that the symbol for the negative judgment is formed in every case by means of a combination with the symbol of affirmation, the word “not” being added to the copula. In order to judge what is here actually the fact, we will glance for a moment at the sphere of feeling. Sigwart agrees, I think, with me and everybody else that pleasing and displeasing, rejoicing and sorrowing, loving and hating, etc., are co-ordinate with each other. Yet a complete series of expressions denoting a disinclination of feeling are found in dependence upon the expression for the corresponding inclination. For example, inclination, disinclination; pleasure, displeasure; ease, disease; Wille, Widerwille; froh, unfroh; happy, unhappy; beautiful, unbeautiful; pleasant, unpleasant;—even “ungut” is used. The explanation of this is, I believe, not difficult for the psychologist, notwithstanding the equally primordial character of these opposite modes of feeling. Ought then the explanation of the phenomenon lying before us in the expression of the negative judgment, closely related as it is to the before mentioned phenomenon, to be really so very difficult, even assuming the primordial character? As a matter of fact the case must be very bad when thinkers like Sigwart in making statements so important in principle, and at the same time so unusual, have to resort to arguments so weak. 2. The grounds on which Sigwart’s doctrine concerning the negative judgment rest have, therefore, each and all proved untenable. This must be so; for how could the truth of any doctrine be shown which would plunge everything into the greatest confusion? Sigwart finds himself compelled to distinguish between the positive and the affirmative judgment, and the affirmative judgment—one hears and wonders at the new terminology— Not only is the affirmation—as set forth—according to Sigwart really a negation but also, paradoxical as it may seem, the negation, on close consideration, proves to be a positive judgment. It is true, Sigwart protests against those who, like Hobbes, would regard all negatives as affirmative judgments with negative predicates. But, following Sigwart, if this is not so, then these must be affirmative judgments with affirmative predicates, since he teaches that the subject is in every case a judgment, the predicate being the notion of invalidity. On p. 160 he says in the note the negation does away with a supposition, denies the validity, and this expression, considered in itself, might be taken to mean that Sigwart assumes here a special function of denial (absprechen) the contrary of that of affirmation (zusprechen). But no; a negative copula (cf. p. 153) according to him there is not. Now what in the world is one to understand by “denial” (absprechen)? Does it mean the simple suppression (AufhÖrenlassen) of the positive judgment upon the given subject matter, that is, according to Sigwart, the falling away of the feeling of compulsion previously given in a connexion between ideas? This is impossible, since the removal of this would bring about a condition in which the connexion of ideas remains, without being either affirmed or denied. How often does something of which we were previously certain become uncertain without But here a third factor enters which completes the confusion. If we examine Sigwart’s view as to the nature of judgment in general, it may be shown in the clearest manner possible that the simple positive judgment itself involves in turn, a negative judgment. That is to say, following Sigwart, every judgment involves besides a certain combination of ideas, a consciousness 3. Finally, we have still to show the genesis of the error in which this able logician has involved himself in a relatively In a note (p. 159) he gives us, as a result of such attempts, a remarkable description of the process by which we arrive at the negative judgment—a result in which he believes himself finally able to rest satisfied. In this account the false steps which he successively makes become, each in turn, evident to the attentive observer. Long before the point is reached where he believes himself to have come upon the negative judgment, he has as a matter of fact already anticipated it. He sets out with the correct observation that the first judgments which we make are all positive in character. These judgments are evident and made with full confidence. “Now, however,” he continues, “our thought goes out beyond the given; by the aid of recollections and associations, judgments arise which are at first also formed in the belief that they express reality” (which means, according to other expressions of Sigwart, Sigwart himself, as his language frequently betrays (cf. e.g. pp. 152 and 150) recognizes at bottom, as he is bound to recognize, in spite of his attack upon the negative copula, that negation and denial are just as much a special function of the judgment as affirmation and recognition. If this be granted, then the range of their application is by no means so limited as he erroneously asserts. It is false that in every case where a denial takes place the predicate denied is the notion “valid.” Even of a judgment we may deny now its validity, now its certainty, now its À priori character. And just in the same way the subject of the judgment can change most frequently. Of a judgment we may deny certainty, and validity; of a request, modesty; and so in every case, universally expressed, we may deny B of A. Sigwart himself, of course, does this just like any one else. Indeed he sometimes speaks unintentionally far more correctly than his theory would admit, and witnesses, as it were, instinctively to the truth; as, e.g. p. 151, where he declares not—as he elsewhere teaches—that the subject of a negative proposition is always a judgment, and its predicate In ordinary life, however, the expressions “joy” and “sadness,” “pleasure” and “pain” are only used when the pleasure and displeasure have attained a certain degree of liveliness. A sharp boundary in this unscientific division there is not; we may, however, be allowed to make use of it as it stands. It is enough that the expressions, “pleasure” and “displeasure” are not narrowed down by any such limit. Of truth in its proper sense it has often been said that it is the agreement of the judgment with the object (adequatio rei et intellectus, as the scholastics said). This expression, true in a certain sense, is yet in the highest degree open to misunderstanding, and has led to serious errors. The agreement is regarded as a kind of identity between something contained in the judgment, or in the idea lying at the root of the judgment The conceptions of existence and non-existence are the correlates of the conceptions of the truth of the (simple) affirmative and negative judgments. Just as to judgment belongs what is judged, to the affirmative judgment what is judged of affirmatively, to the negative judgment, what is judged of negatively, so to the rightness of the affirmative judgment belongs the existence of what is judged of affirmatively, to the rightness of the negative judgment the non-existence of what is judged of negatively; and whether I say an affirmative judgment is true, or, its object is existent; whether I say a negative judgment is true, or its object is non-existent; in both cases I am saying one and the same thing. In the same way, it is essentially one and the same logical principle whether I say, in each case either the (simple) affirmative or negative judgment is true, or, each is either existent or non-existent. Thus, for example, the assertion of the truth of the judgment, “a man is learned,” is the correlate of the assertion of the existence of the object, “a learned man”; and the assertion of the truth of the judgment, “no stone is alive,” is the correlate Of all the expressions quoted, it seems to me (and philologists also, whose advice I have asked, are of the same opinion), that the expression “schlecht,” like the Latin “malum,” is most applicable as the opposite of the good in its full universality, and in this way I shall allow myself to use this expression in what follows. The fact that I adhere to the view of a certain common character regarding the intentional relation of love and hate does not debar my recognizing along with this view, special forms for particular cases. If, therefore, “bad” is a truly universal simple class conception, there may yet be distinguished special classes within its domain of which one may be suitably termed “bÖse,” another “Übel,” etc. But to observe a fact does not mean to set forth its nature clearly and distinctly. As the nature of the judgment has, until recent times, been almost universally misunderstood, how could it be possible rightly to understand its self-evidence? It is just here that even Descartes’ discernment fails him. How very closely the phenomenon occupied him a passage in the Meditations bears witness: “Cum hic dico me ita doctum esse a natura (he is speaking of the so-called external impressions) intelligo tantum spontaneo quodam impetu me ferri ad hoc credendum non lumine aliquo naturali mihi ostendi esse verum, quae duo multum discrepant. Nam quaecunque lumine naturali mihi ostenduntur (ut quod ex eo quo dubitem sequatur me esse et similia) nullo modo dubia esse possunt quia nulla alia facultas esse potest, cui aeque fidam ac lumini isti, quaeque illa non vera esse possit docere; sed quantum ad impetus naturales jam saepe olim judicavi me ab illis in deteriorem partem fuisse impulsum cum de bono eligendo ageretur, nec video cur iisdem in ulla alia re magis fidam.”—(Medit. iii.). That Descartes did not mark the fact of self-evidence, that he did not observe the distinction between intuition and blind judgment certainly cannot be affirmed from the above. But, while separating the judgment as a class from the idea, he still leaves behind in the class of ideas the character of self-evidence which distinguishes the judgments of intuition. It consists, according to him, in a special mark of the perception, that is, of the idea lying at the root of the judgment. Descartes even goes so far as actually to call this act of perception a “cognoscere,” a “knowing.” A “knowing,” that is, and still not an act of judgment! These are rudimentary organs which after the progress made, owing to Descartes, in the doctrine of judgment, remind us of a stage of life in Psychology which has been It is true that some who have sought here have yet failed to find. We saw (cf. note 23) how Sigwart conceives the nature of the judgment. To this, he teaches, there belongs a relation of ideas to one another, and along with this a feeling of obligation respecting this connexion. (Cf. sections 14 and 31, espec. 4 and 5.) Such a feeling therefore, always exists even in the case of the blindest prejudice. It is then abnormal, but is held (as Sigwart expressly explains) to be normal and of universal validity. And what now in contrast to this case, is given in the case of insight? Sigwart replies that its evidence consists in the same feeling (cf. e.g. section 3) which now, however, is not merely held to be normal and universally valid, but is really normal and universally valid. It seems to me that the weakness of this theory is at once apparent; and it is on many grounds to be rejected. 1. The peculiar nature of insight, the clearness and evidence of certain judgments from which their truth is inseparable has little or nothing to do with any feeling of compulsion. It may well happen that at a given moment I cannot refrain from so judging, yet none the less the essence of its clearness does not consist in the feeling of compulsion, and no consciousness of an obligation so to judge could, as such, afford security as to its truth. He who disbelieves in every form of indeterminism in respect of judging, regards all judgments under the circumstances in which they were passed as necessary, but he does not 2. Sigwart, in seeking the consciousness of insight in a feeling of necessity so to think, asserts that the consciousness of one’s being compelled is, at the same time, a consciousness of a necessity for all thinking beings whenever the same grounds are present. If he means, however, that the one conviction is doubtless connected with the other, this is an error. Why, when a person feels bound to pass a judgment upon certain data, should the same compulsion hold good in respect of every other thinking being to whom the same data are also given? It is obvious that only an appeal to the law of causality which, under like conditions demands like results, could be the ground of the logical connexion. Its application, however, to the present case would be entirely erroneous, since this would involve the ignoring of the special psychical dispositions, which, although they do not directly enter into consciousness at all, must yet be regarded, along with the conscious data, as pre-determining conditions, and these are very different in the case of different persons. Hegel and his school, misled by paralogisms, have denied the principle of contradiction; Trendelenburg, who opposed Hegel, has at least restricted its validity (cf. his Abhandlungen Über Herbarts Metaphysik). The universal impossibility of inwardly denying the principle which Aristotle asserted cannot therefore, to-day, be any longer defended; Aristotle himself, however, for whom the principle was self-evident, assuredly found its denial impossible. Whatever is evident to any one is of course certain not only for him, but also for every one else who, in the same way, sees its evidence. The judgment, moreover, which is seen to be evident by any one has also universal validity, i.e. the contradictory of what is seen to be evident by one person, cannot be seen to be evident by another person, and every one who believes in its contradictory is in error. Further, since what is here said belongs to the essence of truth, whoever has evidence of the truth of anything may perceive that he is justified in regarding it as true for all. But he would be guilty of a flagrant confusion of ideas who should regard such a consciousness that a 3. Sigwart involves himself in a multitude of contradictions. He asserts and must assert—if he is not to yield to the sceptics and relinquish his entire logical system—that evident judgments are not merely different from non-evident judgments, but that they are also distinguishable in consciousness. The one class must therefore appear as normal and of universal validity, the other class as not so. But if evident and non-evident judgments alike carry with them the consciousness of universal validity, then the two classes would at first sight exactly agree in the manner in which they present themselves, and only as it were, afterwards (or at the same time, though as a mere concomitant), and by reflection upon some sort of criterion which is applied to them as a standard could the distinction be discovered. And passages are actually to be found in Sigwart where he speaks of a consciousness of agreement with the universal rules which accompany the fully evident judgment. (Cf. e.g. Logic, 2nd ed., 39, p. 311.) But apart from the fact that this contradicts experience—for long before the discovery of the syllogism, conclusions were reached syllogistically and with complete evidence—it is also to be rejected inasmuch as, seeing that the rule itself must be assured, it would lead either to an infinite regress, or to a circulus vitiosus. 4. Another contradiction with which I have to charge Sigwart (though in my opinion it might have been avoided even after his erroneous view as to the nature of the judgment and as to the nature of self-evidence), we meet with in his doctrine of self-consciousness. The knowledge that I am contains only self-evidence, and this exists independent of any consciousness of an obligation so to think and of a necessity which is common to all alike. (At least I am not able otherwise to understand the passage, Logic, 2nd ed., p. 310: “The certainty that I am and think is the absolutely last and fundamental one—the condition of all thinking and certainty at all; here, only immediate evidence can be given; one cannot even say that this thought is necessary, since it is previous to all necessity, and just as immediate and evident is the conscious certainty that I think 5. Further contradictions appear in Sigwart’s very peculiar and doubtful doctrine concerning the postulates, which he opposes to the axioms. The latter are to be regarded as certain on the ground of their real intellectual necessity; the former, not on the ground of purely intellectual motives, but on psychological motives of another kind, on the ground of practical needs. (Logic, 2nd ed. p. 412 seq.) The law of causality: e.g. is, according to him, not an axiom, but a mere postulate; we regard it as certain, since we find that without affirming it we should not be able to investigate nature. Sigwart, by this mode of accepting the law of causality, that is, affirming, out of mere good-will, that in nature under like conditions, the same results would constantly be forthcoming, manifestly takes it for granted without being conscious of its intellectual necessity. But, if all “taking-as-true” (FÜrwahrhalten) is an act of judgment, this is quite incompatible with his views as to the nature of the judgment. Sigwart has here, as far as I can see, but one way of escape, i.e. to confess that he does not believe in what, as a postulate, he accepts as certain (as e.g. the law of causality); then, however, he will be hardly serious in hoping for it. 6. This point becomes still more doubtful on reflection upon what (2) has been previously discussed. The consciousness of a universal necessity of thought does not, according to Sigwart, belong to the postulates, but rather to the axioms. (Cf. 5.) But Sigwart could only with any plausibility exhibit the consciousness of this universal necessity of thinking as operating in the consciousness of one’s personal necessity of thinking by making use of the universal law of causation. But this causal law is itself merely a postulate; it is destitute of self-evidence. It is therefore obvious that the universal thought-necessity in the case of the axioms is also a postulate, and consequently they lose what, according to Sigwart, is their most essential distinction from the postulates. It may perhaps be in accordance with this that Sigwart calls the belief in the trustworthiness of 7. Sigwart denies (31) the distinction between assertorical and apodictic judgments, since in every judgment the sense of necessity in respect of its function is essential. Consequently this assertion likewise hangs together with his erroneous fundamental view of the judgment; he would appear to identify the feeling which he sometimes calls the feeling of evidence with the apodictic character of a judgment. But it would be quite unjustifiable to overlook the modal peculiarity of certain judgments, as for example, the law of contradiction in distinction from other forms of judgment like that of the consciousness that I am. In the first instance, we have to do with what is “necessarily true or false,” in the second instance only with what is “true or false as a matter of fact,” though both are in the same sense evident and do not differ in respect of their certainty. Only in the case of judgments like the former, not, however, from such as the latter do we draw the notions of impossibility and necessity. That Sigwart, in opposing the view which regards the apodictic judgment as a special class, also occasionally bears witness against himself is clear from what has been already said (4). The knowledge that I am, he calls, in opposition to the knowledge of an axiom, the knowledge of a simple actual truth (p. 312). Here he speaks more soundly than his general statements would really allow. Sigwart’s theory of self-evidence is, therefore, essentially false. As in the case of Descartes, so here it cannot be said that Sigwart was not conscious of the phenomenon; indeed, we must rather say in his praise, that with the greatest zeal he has sought to analyze it, but as is the case with many in psychological analysis, it would seem that in the eagerness of analyzing he did not stop at the right point, and has sought to resolve into one another phenomena very distinct in nature. It is obvious that an error respecting the nature of evidence is fraught with the gravest consequence for the logician. It might well be said that we have here touched upon the deep-seated organic disease in Sigwart’s logic, if this may not rather be said For the rest, many another celebrated logician in recent times can claim no superiority over Sigwart here. As a further example we need only observe how the doctrine of evidence fares at the hands of the admirable J. S. Mill. Cf. note 69, p. 99. Owing to the great unclearness as to the nature of evidence, almost universal, it becomes conceivable why, as often happens, we meet with the expression “more or less self-evident.” Even Descartes and Pascal use such expressions, although it is clearly quite unsuitable. Whatever is self-evident is certain, and certainty in the real sense knows no distinctions of degree. Even quite recently we find the opinion expressed in the Vierteljahrsschrift fÜr wissenschaftliche Philosophie (and the writer is manifestly quite serious), that there exist self-evident suppositions which, in spite of their self-evidence, may quite well be false. It is unnecessary to add that I hold this to be opposed to reason. I may here, however, express regret that lectures delivered by me at a time when I still regarded degrees of conviction as intensities of judgment, seem to have given an occasion for such confusions. Those thinkers who have completely overlooked the distinction between pleasure with the character of rightness and pleasure which is not so qualified, are in danger of falling into opposite errors. The one class view the matter as though all pleasure had the character of rightness, the other class as though no pleasure were so qualified. By the one class the notion of the good as that which rightly pleases, is entirely given up; “worthy of desire” (begehrenswert) in distinction from “desirable” (begehrbar), is an unmeaning expression. For the other class, “worthy of desire” (begehrenswert) remains as a separate notion, so that there is no tautology in their saying nothing is in itself desirable except in so far as it is in itself worthy of desire, is good in itself. Manifestly they must, to be consistent, assert this, and this they have really taught. The extreme hedonists all belong to this class; but, along with them, many others; in the Middle Ages, for example, the teaching is found in Thomas Aquinas, whose greatness receives fresh appreciation from Ihering (cf. Summ. theol. I.a. qu. 80, qu. 82, art. 2 ad. 1, etc.). But even then such a view cannot be maintained in the light of the facts without exposing the nature of good and bad to a falsification which involves a form of subjectivism similar to that formerly committed by Protagoras respecting the notions of truth and falsehood. Just as, according to this subjectivist in the sphere of the judgment, man is the measure of all things, and often what is true for one, may at the same time be false for another—so the advocates of the view that only the good can be loved, only the bad hated, are really compelled to assume that, in this sphere, each is himself the measure of all things; for the good, in that it is good; for the bad, that it is bad; so that often something is, in itself and at the same time, both good and bad: good in itself, in the case of all who love it for its own sake; bad in itself, in the case of all who hate it for its own sake. This is absurd, and the subjectivistic falsification Of the celebrated controversy between Bossuet and Fenelon it may be said that the great bishop of Meaux advocated a kind of subjectivism. Fenelon’s theses, though he advocated a system of morality neither ignoble nor unchristian, were finally condemned by the Church of Rome, though it did not go so far as to reject his teaching as heretical. Otherwise one would really be compelled to condemn also those fine glowing lines attributed by many to St. Theresa, that in a very imperfect Latin translation have found their way into many Catholic prayer-books which is much more than their escaping the ecclesiastical censor. I give them translated directly from the Spanish: Nicht Hoffnung auf des Himmels sel’ge Freuden Hat Dir, mein Gott, zum Dienste mich verbunden. Nicht Furcht, die ich vor ew’gem Graus empfunden, Hat mich bewegt der SÜnder Pfad zu meiden. Du Herr bewegst mich, mich bewegt Dein Leiden. Dein Anblick in den letzten, bangen Stunden. Der Geisseln Wuth. Dein Haupt von Dorn umwunden. Dein schweres Kreuz und—ach!—Dein bittres Scheiden. Herr, Du bewegest mich mit solchem Triebe, Das ich Dich liebte, wÄr’ kein Himmel offen. Dich fÜrchtete, wenn auch kein Abgrund schreckte; Nichts kannst Du geben, was mir Liebe weckte; Denn wÜrd’ ich auch nicht, wie ich hoffe, hoffen, Ich wÜrde dennoch lieben, wie ich liebe.” The teaching of Thomas Aquinas has often been so represented as though it were pure subjectivism. It is true that much of his teaching sounds quite subjectivistic (cf. e.g. Summ. theol. 1a. q. 80, art. 1, especially the objections and replies as well as the passages in which he declares that the happiness of each is the highest and final end, asserting even of the saints in heaven that each rightly desires more his own blessedness than the blessedness of all others). Along with these, however, are to be found statements in which he soars above this subjectivistic view as, for example, when he declares (as Plato and Aristotle before him and Descartes and Leibnitz after) that everything which exists is good as such, not good merely as a means but also—a point which pure subjectivists (as recently Sigwart, Vorfr. d. Ethik, p. 6) expressly deny—good in itself, and again, when he affirms that in case any one—an impossible case—had at any time to choose between his own eternal ruin and an injury to the Divine love, the right course would be to prefer his own eternal unhappiness. There the moral feeling of western Christendom touches the feeling of the heathen Hindu, as is shown in a somewhat strange story of a maiden who renounces her own everlasting blessedness for the salvation of the rest of the world; as also that of a positivist thinker like Mill when he declares sooner than bow in prayer before a being not truly good, “to hell he will go.” I knew a Catholic priest who, on account of this utterance of Mill’s, voted for him at the parliamentary election. Whoever, as I have said, has once accepted the view that nothing can please except in so far as it is really good, nothing displease, except in so far as it is really bad, is on a way which, if consistently followed, must lead him to subjectivism. This is evident as soon as it is admitted (and at first sight, it is true, it may be denied) that opposite tastes, here desire, there dislike, may be associated with the same sense phenomenon. One might, in defence, argue that here, in spite of the similarity of the external stimulus the corresponding subjective idea may have an essentially different content. But such a view refutes itself in those cases where we ourselves repeatedly experience the same phenomenon, and, in consequence of a further development in age or by reason of a changed habit (cf. text 25, p. 16) thereby experience a different feeling, dislike for desire, or desire for dislike. There remains, then, no doubt, that as a fact the feelings may take an opposed attitude towards the same phenomenon: and again, in the case where ideas instinctively repel us, while at the same time arousing within us a pleasure Finally, we should expect from one who thinks that every act of simple pleasure is right, and that one act never contradicts another, a similar doctrine in respect of the act of choosing. But the reverse is here so obvious that the advocates of this view have in striking contrast always asserted in the most definite manner that different individuals have preferences opposite in character, and that one is right, the other wrong. Glancing back from the disciples of Aristotle in the Middle Ages to the master himself, we find his teaching appears to be a different one. Aristotle recognizes a right and a wrong kind of desire (??e??? ???? ?a? ??? ??? ????) and that what is desired (??e?t??) is not always the good. (De Anima, iii. 10.) In the same way he affirms in respect of pleasure (?d???) in the Nicomachian Ethics that not every pleasure is good; there is a pleasure in the bad, which is itself bad (Nic. Eth. x. 2). In his Metaphysics he distinguishes between a lower and a higher kind of desire (?p???a and ????s??); whatever is desired by the higher kind for its own sake is truly good (Metaph. ? 7, p. 1072 a. 28). A certain approach to the right view seems already to have been reached here. It is of special interest (a point I have only discovered later) that Aristotle has suggested an analogy between ethical subjectivism and the logical subjectivism of Protagoras, and equally repudiates both (Metaph. ? 6, p. 1062 b. 16, and 1063 a. 5). On the other hand it would appear from the lines immediately following as though Aristotle had fallen into the very obvious temptation of believing that we can know the good as good, independent of the excitation of the emotions. (Metaph. 29; cf. De Anima, iii. 9 and 10.) In close connection with this appears to be the passage (Nic. Eth. i. 4) where he denies that there is any uniform notion of the good (understanding, of course, the good in itself, cf. respecting this, note 26, p. 77), thinking rather that only by way of analogy does there exist a unity in the case of the good of rational thinking and seeing, joy, etc., and when, in another passage (Metaph. ? 4, p. 1027 b. 25), he says that the true and the false Considered in this aspect, the moralist of sentiment (GefÜhls-moralist), Hume, has here the advantage of him, for Hume rightly urges, how is any one to recognize that anything is to be loved without experiencing the love? I have said that the temptation into which Aristotle has fallen appears quite conceivable. It arises from the fact that, along with the experience of an emotion qualified as right there is given at the same time the knowledge that the object itself is good. Thus it may easily happen that the relation is then perverted and the love is thought to follow as a consequence of the knowledge, and recognized as right by reason of its agreement with this its rule. It is not without interest to compare the error here made by Aristotle in respect of emotion qualified as right with that which we have seen was committed by Descartes in respect of the similarly qualified judgment (cf. note 27, p. 78). The cases are essentially analogous; in both cases the distinguishing mark is sought in the special character of the idea which forms the basis of the act rather than in the act itself qualified as right. In fact it seems to me evident from various passages in his treatise Des Passions, that Descartes himself has treated the matter in a way quite similar to that of Aristotle, and in a At the present time many approach very near to Descartes’ error in respect of the marks of self-evidence (if we are not rather to say that the error is really implicitly contained in their statements) when they regard the matter as though in the case of every self-evident judgment a criterion were referred to. In this case it must have been previously given somewhere, either as recognized—and this would lead to infinity—or (and this is the only alternative), it is given in the idea. It may be said that here also the temptation to such a misconception lies ready to hand and this may well have exercised a misleading influence upon Descartes. Aristotle’s error is less general, though only because the phenomenon of the emotion qualified as right has, generally speaking, come less frequently under consideration than that of the similarly qualified judgment. If the nature of the former has been misunderstood, the latter has often been so overlooked as not even to admit of its essential nature being misinterpreted. The case is similar when we inquire if a similarly qualified displeasure in the bad is good, as e.g. where a noble heart feels pain on seeing the innocent oppressed, or where some one, looking back upon his past life, feels remorse at the consciousness of a bad action. Here the case is in every respect the reverse of the one preceding. Such a feeling arouses a state in which pleasure preponderates, but this pleasure is not pure; it cannot be called a pure good like the joy which would have arisen were the opposite of that over which we now mourn a fact, hence Descartes’ advice (cf. 24, p. 75)—to turn the attention and feeling in an equal degree rather to the good—would really not lose its significance. We recognize all this clearly, and have therefore, once more a preference with the character of rightness as the source of our knowledge of what is worthy of preference. In order not to introduce too many complications, I omitted in my lecture when discussing preferences to mention these cases. And this seemed to me the more admissible, because it would practically lead to the same result, if (like Aristotle in the case of disgraceful pleasure) one were to treat hate qualified as right on the one hand and love qualified as right on the other, as phenomena of simple disinclination and inclination. It may be easily seen that from these special cases of a possible determination of a quantitative relation between good and bad pleasure and displeasure, on the one hand, and of rightness and unrightness on the other hand (cf. for these also Note 31, p. 91) there is no hope of filling in the great gaps referred to in the lecture in a way valid for all cases. But similar expressions are also heard from others. And it might really appear doubtful whether the sublime command which bids us to subordinate all our actions to the highest practical good is really the right ethical principle. For, putting aside cases of want of reflection, which do not, of course, enter here into consideration, the demand for such complete self-devotion still seems too stringent, since there is no one, however carefully he may conduct himself, who, looking sincerely into his heart, will not frequently be compelled to say with Horace:— “Nunc in Aristippi furtim praecepta relabor, Et mihi res, non me rebus subjungere conor.” And yet the doubt is unfounded, and a comparison may serve to make this clear. It is certain that no one can entirely avoid error; still, avoidable or unavoidable, every error remains a judgment, which is what it should not be, and is opposed to the indispensable demands of logic. What applies to logic in respect of weakness of thought applies to ethics on the ground of weakness of will. Ethics cannot cease to demand from a man that he should love the acknowledged good and prefer that which is recognized to be better, not putting anything else before the highest practical good. Even were it proved (which is not J. S. Mill fears that this would lead to endless self-reproaches and that these constant reproaches would embitter the life of each individual. This, however, is so little implied by the rule that it is easily demonstrable that such a result is excluded. Goethe well understood this,— “Nichts taugt Ungeduld” i.e. impatience in respect of one’s own imperfections, he says in one of his by no means lax sayings,— “Noch weniger Reue,” —giving way to the stings of conscience, when fresh joyous resolve is alone available,— “Jene vermehrt die Schuld, Diese schafft neue.” “Impatience naught avails Nor more availeth rue, One addeth to the fault, The other maketh new.”—Tr. In an album I once found in the hand of the pious Abbot Haneberg, afterwards Bishop of Spires, the following lines, written to the same effect:— “Sonne dich mit Lust an Gottes Huld, Hab’ mit allen—auch mit dir, Geduld.” “Bathe thyself with delight in the sunshine of heavenly grace, Let patience toward all men abound—e’en with thyself find a place.”—Tr. It is in this connexion that the injunction to take thought in the first instance for oneself, a precept to be found in every system of morality, is justifiable: “????? sa?t??,” “Sweep before your own doorstep,” etc. The demand to seek first of all the welfare of wife and child, home and fatherland, is also universal. The command: “Take no thought for the morrow,” in the sense in which it really offers wise counsel, also flows as a result from the same source. That my future happiness ought not to be so dear to me as my present happiness is not here implied. So regarded, the communistic doctrines which illogical impetuosity would seek to derive from the lofty principle of universal brotherhood are shown to be unjustifiable. But even this thought will not discourage us if we love the universal good. It may be said of all results which are unrecognizable in an exactly equal degree, that one has just as many chances in its favour as the others. According to the law of great numbers a compensation will on the whole result, and so whatever calculable good we create will stand as a plus on the one side and, just as though it stood alone, will justify our choice. From the same point of view, as I have already suggested in the lecture (p. 22), the doubt is removed which in a similar manner might arise through uncertainty as to whether everything that is good draws from us a love having the qualification of rightness, and whether, therefore, we are able to recognize it as good and to take due account of it. As however these legal authorities have concentrated their attention exclusively upon legal duties, and do not touch upon the problem as to the way in which the individual will has to rule in its legal sphere, Ihering has interpreted them as meaning that they considered the true and highest good, and the most intrinsic and final end, towards which the legal code strives, to be the exercise of the will as will, the joy of the individual in his volitional activity; “the final end of all law is, for them, willing” (pp. 320, 325); “the end of law (according to them) consists once for all in the power of the will, in its supremacy” (p. 326). One can well understand how he comes to condemn a theory so interpreted (p. 327), and even that he succeeds in making it appear ridiculous. “According to this view,” he says, (p. 320) “all private right is nothing less than an arena in which the will moves and exercises itself; the will is the organ by which the individual enjoys his right, the profit obtained from legal right consists in feeling the joy and glory of power, in the satisfaction of having realized an act of will, e.g. of having effected a mortgage, transferred a title, and so proved oneself to be a legal personality. What a poor thing would the will be if the bare and low regions of law were the proper “sphere of its activity!” Certainly the heaviest charges of absurdity and ridiculousness would be well deserved if those scholars who regard the immediate aim of law as consisting in a limitation of the spheres at the disposal of the will had intended in so doing to disavow all regard for the final ethical end, i.e. the advancement of the highest practical good. There is, however, absolutely nothing to justify this insinuation, and therefore one could perhaps with more right smile at the zeal of an attack which is really levelled merely against windmills. Moreover, what Ihering proposes to set in its place is certainly a bad substitute. For, in regarding the sphere ascribed by the legal authority to the individual simply as a sphere consigned to their egoism (a view which, as the author of Der Zweck im Recht, he perhaps no longer holds), he is thus led to his definition: “Law (Recht) is legal security for enjoyment,” whereas he would have been more correct in saying: “Law is legal security for the undisturbed disposal of individual power in the advancement of the highest good.” Is then injustice something which exhausts bad conduct? By no means; legal duties have limits; duty in general governs all our actions, and this our popular religion expressly emphasizes, as, for instance, when it asserts that for every idle word the individual must render an account. Besides this first objection, which rests upon a simple misunderstanding of the intention, Ihering has also raised several others which are essentially due to imperfections in the use of language. If the legal code essentially consists in setting certain limits to the activity of the individual will in order that one person may not disturb the other in striving after the good, it follows that he who has, or had, or will have no will has also no legal sphere. I say, “has, or had, or will have,” for obviously regard must be paid to the past and to the future. A dead man often exercises an influence extending into the far distant future, so that Comte well says: the living are more and more dominated by the dead. In like manner, the situation will entail that, in respect of many problems, we leave the decision to the future, i.e. renounce the sovereignty in favour of a future will. This consideration resolves many a paradox urged by Ihering (pp. 320-325); not however, all. In the case of one who from birth has been an incurable imbecile, it is obvious that no power of will whatever can be found, to which regard for the highest practical good might allow a sphere; there remains therefore to him, according to our view, really no legal sphere, and yet on every hand we hear of a right which he possesses in his own life; even under some circumstances, we refer to him as the owner of a great estate, or ascribe to him the right of a crown or kingly rule. On examining the relations closely, we find that we are never concerned here with a true legal sphere respecting a subject incapable of being held responsible, but rather with the legal spheres of other individuals, as, for example, that of a father who, in providing for his imbecile child, gives instructions in his will concerning his property, the dominion of whose will is safeguarded after his death by the law of the land; or (as, for example, the case where the imbecile’s life is held to be sacred), quite apart from the injury done to the simple duty of affection which this would involve, there is also in question the State’s legal sphere, which permits no one else to commit a fatal attack, and accordingly often imposes a punishment, even in the case of an attempt at suicide. A third objection of Ihering’s, i.e. that by a limitation of rights as affecting spheres of will, even the most senseless dispositions of will must be allowed legal validity (p. 325), this offers, after what has been said, hardly any further difficulty. Certainly many a foolish disposition of will must be allowed. Were the State not to admit this, then it alone would possess a definitive right of disposal; all private right would be at an end. So long as not merely subjects, but also governments, are liable to commit acts of foolishness, such an extension of the power of the State cannot be recommended. For the rest, just as secondary ethical rules in general suffer exceptions, and in particular expropriations in the case of private owners are frequently necessary, so also it is clear and to be admitted without contradiction, that senseless dispositions or dispositions which have evidently lost all meaning and reference to the highest practical good can be annulled by the State. Regard for the highest practical good is here, as is the case of every other so-called collision of duties, decisive. It may be added that errors respecting the laws of positive morality (a point shortly to be discussed in the lecture) in a similar way demand, under certain circumstances, to be taken into account. It dare not, on the other hand, be overlooked that there are here limits, and that the saying: “We ought to obey God rather than man,” may not, in its free and sublime range, be allowed to suffer injury. In the desire after immortality also, the influence of the principle of summation is manifest. Thus Helmholtz, (Über die Entstehung des Planetensystems, lecture delivered at Heidelberg and Cologne, 1871), in seeking to offer a hopeful prospect to those who cherish this desire, says: “The individual (if that which we achieve can ennoble the lives of those who succeed us) may face fearlessly the thought that the thread of his own consciousness will one day be broken. But to the thought of a final annihilation of the race of living mortals, and with them, the fruits of the striving of all past generations, even men of minds so unfettered and great as Lessing and David Strauss could scarcely reconcile themselves.” When it is scientifically shown that the earth will one day be incapable of supporting living beings, then, he thinks, the need of immortality will irresistibly return, and we shall feel bound to cast about for something which will afford us the possibility of assuming it. Even in the case of Mill, it sometimes appears as if an inkling of the immense difference had begun to dawn upon him, as when, in a note to his Analysis of the Phenomena of the Human Mind (vol. i., chap. xi. p. 407), in criticizing his father’s theory, he says: “If belief is only an inseparable association, belief is a matter of habit and accident and not of reason. Assuredly an association, however close, between two ideas is not a sufficient ground (the italics are his own) of belief; it is not evidence that the corresponding facts are united in external nature. The theory seems to annihilate all distinction between the belief of the wise, which is regulated by evidence and conforms to the real successions and co-existences of the facts of the universe, and the belief of fools which is mechanically produced by any accidental association that suggests the idea of a succession or co-existence to the mind; a belief aptly characterized by the popular expression, believing a thing because they have taken it into their heads.” This is all excellent. But it is robbed of its most essential worth, when, in a later note (vol. i. p. 438. note 110) we hear J. S. Mill say: “It must be conceded to him (the author of the Analysis) that an association sufficiently strong to exclude all ideas that would exclude itself, produces a kind of mechanical belief, and that the processes by which the belief is corrected, or reduced to rational bounds, all consist in the growth of a counter-association tending to raise the idea of a disappointment of the first expectation, and as the one or the other prevails in the particular case, the belief or expectation exists or does not exist exactly as if the belief were the same thing with the association,” and so on. There is much here that calls for criticism. When ideas are mentioned which mutually exclude one another it may well be asked what kind of ideas these are? According to another utterance of Mill’s (vol. i. p. 98 seq. note 30 and elsewhere), he knows “no case of absolute incompatibility of thought except between the thought of the presence of something and that of its absence.” But are even these incompatible? Mill himself teaches elsewhere the very opposite when he thinks that along with the idea of existence there is always given at the same time the idea of non-existence (p. 126, note 39; “we are only conscious,” he says, “of the presence of an object by comparison with its absence”). Apart, however, from all this, how strange is it that Mill here overlooks the fact that he abandons entirely the distinctive character of self-evidence, and retains only that blind and mechanical formation of judgment, which he rightly treats with contempt. The sceptic Hume stands in this respect far higher, since he at least sees that such an empirical (empiristisch) view of the process of induction does not satisfy the requirements of our reason. Sigwart’s criticism of Mill’s theory of Induction (Logic, vol. ii. p. 371) contains here much that is true, though in appealing to his postulates he has certainly not substituted anything truly satisfactory in the place of what is defective in Mill. |
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