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Артур Шопенгауэр
The World as Will and Idea (Vol. 2 of 3)

Chapter VII.¹⁹ On The Relation of the Concrete Knowledge of Perception to Abstract Knowledge

It has been shown that conceptions derive their material from knowledge of perception, and therefore the entire structure of our world of thought rests upon the world of perception. We must therefore be able to go back from every conception, even if only indirectly through intermediate conceptions, to the perceptions from which it is either itself directly derived or those conceptions are derived of which it is again an abstraction. That is to say, we must be able to support it with perceptions which stand to the abstractions in the relation of examples. These perceptions thus afford the real content of all our thought, and whenever they are wanting we have not had conceptions but mere words in our heads. In this respect our intellect is like a bank, which, if it is to be sound, must have cash in its safe, so as to be able to meet all the notes it has issued, in case of demand; the perceptions are the cash, the conceptions are the notes. In this sense the perceptions might very appropriately be called primary, and the conceptions, on the other hand, secondary ideas. Not quite so aptly, the Schoolmen, following the example of Aristotle (Metaph., vi. 11, xi. 1), called real things substantiæ primæ, and the conceptions substantiæ secundæ. Books impart only secondary ideas. Mere conceptions of a thing without perception give only a general knowledge of it. We only have a thorough understanding of things and their relations so far as we are able to represent them to ourselves in pure, distinct perceptions, without the aid of words. To explain words by words, to compare concepts with concepts, in which most philosophising consists, is a trivial shifting about of the concept-spheres in order to see which goes into the other and which does not. At the best we can in this way only arrive at conclusions; but even conclusions give no really new knowledge, but only show us all that lay in the knowledge we already possessed, and what part of it perhaps might be applicable to the particular case. On the other hand, to perceive, to allow the things themselves to speak to us, to apprehend new relations of them, and then to take up and deposit all this in conceptions, in order to possess it with certainty – that gives new knowledge. But, while almost every one is capable of comparing conceptions with conceptions, to compare conceptions with perceptions is a gift of the select few. It is the condition, according to the degree of its perfection, of wit, judgment, ingenuity, genius. The former faculty, on the contrary, results in little more than possibly rational reflections. The inmost kernel of all genuine and actual knowledge is a perception; and every new truth is the profit or gain yielded by a perception. All original thinking takes place in images, and this is why imagination is so necessary an instrument of thought, and minds that lack imagination will never accomplish much, unless it be in mathematics. On the other hand, merely abstract thoughts, which have no kernel of perception, are like cloud-structures, without reality. Even writing and speaking, whether didactic or poetical, has for its final aim to guide the reader to the same concrete knowledge from which the author started; if it has not this aim it is bad. This is why the contemplation and observing of every real thing, as soon as it presents something new to the observer, is more instructive than any reading or hearing. For indeed, if we go to the bottom of the matter, all truth and wisdom, nay, the ultimate secret of things, is contained in each real object, yet certainly only in concreto, just as gold lies hidden in the ore; the difficulty is to extract it. From a book, on the contrary, at the best we only receive the truth at second hand, and oftener not at all.

In most books, putting out of account those that are thoroughly bad, the author, when their content is not altogether empirical, has certainly thought but not perceived; he has written from reflection, not from intuition, and it is this that makes them commonplace and tedious. For what the author has thought could always have been thought by the reader also, if he had taken the same trouble; indeed it consists simply of intelligent thought, full exposition of what is implicite contained in the theme. But no actually new knowledge comes in this way into the world; this is only created in the moment of perception, of direct comprehension of a new side of the thing. When, therefore, on the contrary, sight has formed the foundation of an author's thought, it is as if he wrote from a land where the reader has never been, for all is fresh and new, because it is drawn directly from the original source of all knowledge. Let me illustrate the distinction here touched upon by a perfectly easy and simple example. Any commonplace writer might easily describe profound contemplation or petrifying astonishment by saying: “He stood like a statue;” but Cervantes says: “Like a clothed statue, for the wind moved his garments” (Don Quixote, book vi. ch. 19). It is thus that all great minds have ever thought in presence of the perception, and kept their gaze steadfastly upon it in their thought. We recognise this from this fact, among others, that even the most opposite of them so often agree and coincide in some particular; because they all speak of the same thing which they all had before their eyes, the world, the perceived reality; indeed in a certain degree they all say the same thing, and others never believe them. We recognise it further in the appropriateness and originality of the expression, which is always perfectly adapted to the subject because it has been inspired by perception, in the naivete of the language, the freshness of the imagery, and the impressiveness of the similes, all of which qualities, without exception, distinguish the works of great minds, and, on the contrary, are always wanting in the works of others. Accordingly only commonplace forms of expression and trite figures are at the service of the latter, and they never dare to allow themselves to be natural, under penalty of displaying their vulgarity in all its dreary barrenness; instead of this they are affected mannerists. Hence Buffon says: “Le style est l'homme même.” If men of commonplace mind write poetry they have certain traditional conventional opinions, passions, noble sentiments, &c., which they have received in the abstract, and attribute to the heroes of their poems, who are in this way reduced to mere personifications of those opinions, and are thus themselves to a certain extent abstractions, and therefore insipid and tiresome. If they philosophise, they have taken in a few wide abstract conceptions, which they turn about in all directions, as if they had to do with algebraical equations, and hope that something will come of it; at the most we see that they have all read the same things. Such a tossing to and fro of abstract conceptions, after the manner of algebraical equations, which is now-a-days called dialectic, does not, like real algebra, afford certain results; for here the conception which is represented by the word is not a fixed and perfectly definite quality, such as are symbolised by the letters in algebra, but is wavering and ambiguous, and capable of extension and contraction. Strictly speaking, all thinking, i. e., combining of abstract conceptions, has at the most the recollections of earlier perceptions for its material, and this only indirectly, so far as it constitutes the foundation of all conceptions. Real knowledge, on the contrary, that is, immediate knowledge, is perception alone, new, fresh perception itself. Now the concepts which the reason has framed and the memory has preserved cannot all be present to consciousness at once, but only a very small number of them at a time. On the other hand, the energy with which we apprehend what is present in perception, in which really all that is essential in all things generally is virtually contained and represented, is apprehended, fills the consciousness in one moment with its whole power. Upon this depends the infinite superiority of genius to learning; they stand to each other as the text of an ancient classic to its commentary. All truth and all wisdom really lies ultimately in perception. But this unfortunately can neither be retained nor communicated. The objective conditions of such communication can certainly be presented to others purified and illustrated through plastic and pictorial art, and even much more directly through poetry; but it depends so much upon subjective conditions, which are not at the command of every one, and of no one at all times, nay, indeed in the higher degrees of perfection, are only the gift of the favoured few. Only the worst knowledge, abstract, secondary knowledge, the conception, the mere shadow of true knowledge, is unconditionally communicable. If perceptions were communicable, that would be a communication worth the trouble; but at last every one must remain in his own skin and skull, and no one can help another. To enrich the conception from perception is the unceasing endeavour of poetry and philosophy. However, the aims of man are essentially practical; and for these it is sufficient that what he has apprehended through perception should leave traces in him, by virtue of which he will recognise it in the next similar case; thus he becomes possessed of worldly wisdom. Thus, as a rule, the man of the world cannot teach his accumulated truth and wisdom, but only make use of it; he rightly comprehends each event as it happens, and determines what is in conformity with it. That books will not take the place of experience nor learning of genius are two kindred phenomena. Their common ground is that the abstract can never take the place of the concrete. Books therefore do not take the place of experience, because conceptions always remain general, and consequently do not get down to the particular, which, however, is just what has to be dealt with in life; and, besides this, all conceptions are abstracted from what is particular and perceived in experience, and therefore one must have come to know these in order adequately to understand even the general conceptions which the books communicate. Learning cannot take the place of genius, because it also affords merely conceptions, but the knowledge of genius consists in the apprehension of the (Platonic) Ideas of things, and therefore is essentially intuitive. Thus in the first of these phenomena the objective condition of perceptive or intuitive knowledge is wanting; in the second the subjective; the former may be attained, the latter cannot.

Wisdom and genius, these two summits of the Parnassus of human knowledge, have their foundation not in the abstract and discursive, but in the perceptive faculty. Wisdom proper is something intuitive, not something abstract. It does not consist in principles and thoughts, which one can carry about ready in his mind, as results of his own research or that of others; but it is the whole manner in which the world presents itself in his mind. This varies so much that on account of it the wise man lives in another world from the fool, and the genius sees another world from the blockhead. That the works of the man of genius immeasurably surpass those of all others arises simply from the fact that the world which he sees, and from which he takes his utterances, is so much clearer, as it were more profoundly worked out, than that in the minds of others, which certainly contains the same objects, but is to the world of the man of genius as the Chinese picture without shading and perspective is to the finished oil-painting. The material is in all minds the same; but the difference lies in the perfection of the form which it assumes in each, upon which the numerous grades of intelligence ultimately depend. These grades thus exist in the root, in the perceptive or intuitive apprehension, and do not first appear in the abstract. Hence original mental superiority shows itself so easily when the occasion arises, and is at once felt and hated by others.

In practical life the intuitive knowledge of the understanding is able to guide our action and behaviour directly, while the abstract knowledge of the reason can only do so by means of the memory. Hence arises the superiority of intuitive knowledge in all cases which admit of no time for reflection; thus for daily intercourse, in which, just on this account, women excel. Only those who intuitively know the nature of men as they are as a rule, and thus comprehend the individuality of the person before them, will understand how to manage him with certainty and rightly. Another may know by heart all the three hundred maxims of Gracian, but this will not save him from stupid mistakes and misconceptions if he lacks that intuitive knowledge. For all abstract knowledge affords us primarily mere general principles and rules; but the particular case is almost never to be carried out exactly according to the rule; then the rule itself has to be presented to us at the right time by the memory, which seldom punctually happens; then the propositio minor has to be formed out of the present case, and finally the conclusion drawn. Before all this is done the opportunity has generally turned its back upon us, and then those excellent principles and rules serve at the most to enable us to measure the magnitude of the error we have committed. Certainly with time we gain in this way experience and practice, which slowly grows to knowledge of the world, and thus, in connection with this, the abstract rules may certainly become fruitful. On the other hand, the intuitive knowledge, which always apprehends only the particular, stands in immediate relation to the present case. Rule, case, and application are for it one, and action follows immediately upon it. This explains why in real life the scholar, whose pre-eminence lies in the province of abstract knowledge, is so far surpassed by the man of the world, whose pre-eminence consists in perfect intuitive knowledge, which original disposition conferred on him, and a rich experience has developed. The two kinds of knowledge always stand to each other in the relation of paper money and hard cash; and as there are many cases and circumstances in which the former is to be preferred to the latter, so there are also things and situations for which abstract knowledge is more useful than intuitive. If, for example, it is a conception that in some case guides our action, when it is once grasped it has the advantage of being unalterable, and therefore under its guidance we go to work with perfect certainty and consistency. But this certainty which the conception confers on the subjective side is outweighed by the uncertainty which accompanies it on the objective side. The whole conception may be false and groundless, or the object to be dealt with may not come under it, for it may be either not at all or not altogether of the kind which belongs to it. Now if in the particular case we suddenly become conscious of something of this sort, we are put out altogether; if we do not become conscious of it, the result brings it to light. Therefore Vauvenargue says: “Personne n'est sujet à plus de fautes, que ceux qui n'agissent que par réflexion.” If, on the contrary, it is direct perception of the objects to be dealt with and their relations that guides our action, we easily hesitate at every step, for the perception is always modifiable, is ambiguous, has inexhaustible details in itself, and shows many sides in succession; we act therefore without full confidence. But the subjective uncertainty is compensated by the objective certainty, for here there is no conception between the object and us, we never lose sight of it; if therefore we only see correctly what we have before us and what we do, we shall hit the mark. Our action then is perfectly sure only when it is guided by a conception the right ground of which, its completeness, and applicability to the given cause is perfectly certain. Action in accordance with conceptions may pass into pedantry, action in accordance with the perceived impression into levity and folly.

Perception is not only the source of all knowledge, but is itself knowledge κατ᾽ εξοχην, is the only unconditionally true, genuine knowledge completely worthy of the name. For it alone imparts insight properly so called, it alone is actually assimilated by man, passes into his nature, and can with full reason be called his; while the conceptions merely cling to him. In the fourth book we see indeed that true virtue proceeds from knowledge of perception or intuitive knowledge; for only those actions which are directly called forth by this, and therefore are performed purely from the impulse of our own nature, are properly symptoms of our true and unalterable character; not so those which, resulting from reflection and its dogmas, are often extorted from the character, and therefore have no unalterable ground in us. But wisdom also, the true view of life, the correct eye, and the searching judgment, proceeds from the way in which the man apprehends the perceptible world, but not from his mere abstract knowledge, i. e., not from abstract conceptions. The basis or ultimate content of every science consists, not in proofs, nor in what is proved, but in the unproved foundation of the proofs, which can finally be apprehended only through perception. So also the basis of the true wisdom and real insight of each man does not consist in conceptions and in abstract rational knowledge, but in what is perceived, and in the degree of acuteness, accuracy, and profundity with which he has apprehended it. He who excels here knows the (Platonic) Ideas of the world and life; every case he has seen represents for him innumerable cases; he always apprehends each being according to its true nature, and his action, like his judgment, corresponds to his insight. By degrees also his countenance assumes the expression of penetration, of true intelligence, and, if it goes far enough, of wisdom. For it is pre-eminence in knowledge of perception alone that stamps its impression upon the features also; while pre-eminence in abstract knowledge cannot do this. In accordance with what has been said, we find in all classes men of intellectual superiority, and often quite without learning. Natural understanding can take the place of almost every degree of culture, but no culture can take the place of natural understanding. The scholar has the advantage of such men in the possession of a wealth of cases and facts (historical knowledge) and of causal determinations (natural science), all in well-ordered connection, easily surveyed; but yet with all this he has not a more accurate and profound insight into what is truly essential in all these cases, facts, and causations. The unlearned man of acuteness and penetration knows how to dispense with this wealth; we can make use of much; we can do with little. One case in his own experience teaches him more than many a scholar is taught by a thousand cases which he knows, but does not, properly speaking, understand. For the little knowledge of that unlearned man is living, because every fact that is known to him is supported by accurate and well-apprehended perception, and thus represents for him a thousand similar facts. On the contrary, the much knowledge of the ordinary scholar is dead, because even if it does not consist, as is often the case, in mere words, it consists entirely in abstract knowledge. This, however, receives its value only through the perceptive knowledge of the individual with which it must connect itself, and which must ultimately realise all the conceptions. If now this perceptive knowledge is very scanty, such a mind is like a bank with liabilities tenfold in excess of its cash reserve, whereby in the end it becomes bankrupt. Therefore, while the right apprehension of the perceptible world has impressed the stamp of insight and wisdom on the brow of many an unlearned man, the face of many a scholar bears no other trace of his much study than that of exhaustion and weariness from excessive and forced straining of the memory in the unnatural accumulation of dead conceptions. Moreover, the insight of such a man is often so puerile, so weak and silly, that we must suppose that the excessive strain upon the faculty of indirect knowledge, which is concerned with abstractions, directly weakens the power of immediate perceptive knowledge, and the natural and clear vision is more and more blinded by the light of books. At any rate the constant streaming in of the thoughts of others must confine and suppress our own, and indeed in the long run paralyse the power of thought if it has not that high degree of elasticity which is able to withstand that unnatural stream. Therefore ceaseless reading and study directly injures the mind – the more so that completeness and constant connection of the system of our own thought and knowledge must pay the penalty if we so often arbitrarily interrupt it in order to gain room for a line of thought entirely strange to us. To banish my own thought in order to make room for that of a book would seem to me like what Shakespeare censures in the tourists of his time, that they sold their own land to see that of others. Yet the inclination for reading of most scholars is a kind of fuga vacui, from the poverty of their own minds, which forcibly draws in the thoughts of others. In order to have thoughts they must read something; just as lifeless bodies are only moved from without; while the man who thinks for himself is like a living body that moves of itself. Indeed it is dangerous to read about a subject before we have thought about it ourselves. For along with the new material the old point of view and treatment of it creeps into the mind, all the more so as laziness and apathy counsel us to accept what has already been thought, and allow it to pass for truth. This now insinuates itself, and henceforward our thought on the subject always takes the accustomed path, like brooks that are guided by ditches; to find a thought of our own, a new thought, is then doubly difficult. This contributes much to the want of originality on the part of scholars. Add to this that they suppose that, like other people, they must divide their time between pleasure and work. Now they regard reading as their work and special calling, and therefore they gorge themselves with it, beyond what they can digest. Then reading no longer plays the part of the mere initiator of thought, but takes its place altogether; for they think of the subject just as long as they are reading about it, thus with the mind of another, not with their own. But when the book is laid aside entirely different things make much more lively claims upon their interest; their private affairs, and then the theatre, card-playing, skittles, the news of the day, and gossip. The man of thought is so because such things have no interest for him. He is interested only in his problems, with which therefore he is always occupied, by himself and without a book. To give ourselves this interest, if we have not got it, is impossible. This is the crucial point. And upon this also depends the fact that the former always speak only of what they have read, while the latter, on the contrary, speaks of what he has thought, and that they are, as Pope says:

“For ever reading, never to be read.”

The mind is naturally free, not a slave; only what it does willingly, of its own accord, succeeds. On the other hand, the compulsory exertion of a mind in studies for which it is not qualified, or when it has become tired, or in general too continuously and invita Minerva, dulls the brain, just as reading by moonlight dulls the eyes. This is especially the case with the straining of the immature brain in the earlier years of childhood. I believe that the learning of Latin and Greek grammar from the sixth to the twelfth year lays the foundation of the subsequent stupidity of most scholars. At any rate the mind requires the nourishment of materials from without. All that we eat is not at once incorporated in the organism, but only so much of it as is digested; so that only a small part of it is assimilated, and the remainder passes away; and thus to eat more than we can assimilate is useless and injurious. It is precisely the same with what we read. Only so far as it gives food for thought does it increase our insight and true knowledge. Therefore Heracleitus says: “πολυμαθια νουν ου διδασκει” (multiscitia non dat intellectum). It seems, however, to me that learning may be compared to a heavy suit of armour, which certainly makes the strong man quite invincible, but to the weak man is a burden under which he sinks altogether.

The exposition given in our third book of the knowledge of the (Platonic) Ideas, as the highest attainable by man, and at the same time entirely perceptive or intuitive knowledge, is a proof that the source of true wisdom does not lie in abstract rational knowledge, but in the clear and profound apprehension of the world in perception. Therefore wise men may live in any age, and those of the past remain wise men for all succeeding generations. Learning, on the contrary, is relative; the learned men of the past are for the most part children as compared with us, and require indulgence.

But to him who studies in order to gain insight books and studies are only steps of the ladder by which he climbs to the summit of knowledge. As soon as a round of the ladder has raised him a step, he leaves it behind him. The many, on the other hand, who study in order to fill their memory do not use the rounds of the ladder to mount by, but take them off, and load themselves with them to carry them away, rejoicing at the increasing weight of the burden. They remain always below, because they bear what ought to have borne them.

Upon the truth set forth here, that the kernel of all knowledge is the perceptive or intuitive apprehension, depends the true and profound remark of Helvetius, that the really characteristic and original views of which a gifted individual is capable, and the working up, development, and manifold application of which is the material of all his works, even if written much later, can arise in him only up to the thirty-fifth or at the latest the fortieth year of his life, and are really the result of combinations he has made in his early youth. For they are not mere connections of abstract conceptions, but his own intuitive comprehension of the objective world and the nature of things. Now, that this intuitive apprehension must have completed its work by the age mentioned above depends partly on the fact that by that time the ectypes of all (Platonic) Ideas must have presented themselves to the man, and therefore cannot appear later with the strength of the first impression; partly on this, that the highest energy of brain activity is demanded for this quintessence of all knowledge, for this proof before the letter of the apprehension, and this highest energy of the brain is dependent on the freshness and flexibility of its fibres and the rapidity with which the arterial blood flows to the brain. But this again is at its strongest only as long as the arterial system has a decided predominance over the venous system, which begins to decline after the thirtieth year, until at last, after the forty-second year, the venous system obtains the upper hand, as Cabanis has admirably and instructively explained. Therefore the years between twenty and thirty and the first few years after thirty are for the intellect what May is for the trees; only then do the blossoms appear of which all the later fruits are the development. The world of perception has made its impression, and thereby laid the foundation of all the subsequent thoughts of the individual. He may by reflection make clearer what he has apprehended; he may yet acquire much knowledge as nourishment for the fruit which has once set; he may extend his views, correct his conceptions and judgments, it may be only through endless combinations that he becomes completely master of the materials he has gained; indeed he will generally produce his best works much later, as the greatest heat begins with the decline of the day, but he can no longer hope for new original knowledge from the one living fountain of perception. It is this that Byron feels when he breaks forth into his wonderfully beautiful lament:

 
“No more – no more – oh! never more on me
The freshness of the heart can fall like dew,
Which out of all the lovely things we see
Extracts emotions beautiful and new,
Hived in our bosoms like the bag o' the bee:
Think'st thou the honey with those objects grew?
Alas! 'twas not in them, but in thy power
To double even the sweetness of a flower.”
 

Through all that I have said hitherto I hope I have placed in a clear light the important truth that since all abstract knowledge springs from knowledge of perception, it obtains its whole value from its relation to the latter, thus from the fact that its conceptions, or the abstractions which they denote, can be realised, i. e., proved, through perceptions; and, moreover, that most depends upon the quality of these perceptions. Conceptions and abstractions which do not ultimately refer to perceptions are like paths in the wood that end without leading out of it. The great value of conceptions lies in the fact that by means of them the original material of knowledge is more easily handled, surveyed, and arranged. But although many kinds of logical and dialectical operations are possible with them, yet no entirely original and new knowledge will result from these; that is to say, no knowledge whose material neither lay already in perception nor was drawn from self-consciousness. This is the true meaning of the doctrine attributed to Aristotle: Nihil est in intellectu, nisi quod antea fuerit in sensu. It is also the meaning of the Lockeian philosophy, which made for ever an epoch in philosophy, because it commenced at last the serious discussion of the question as to the origin of our knowledge. It is also principally what the “Critique of Pure Reason” teaches. It also desires that we should not remain at the conceptions, but go back to their source, thus to perception; only with the true and important addition that what holds good of the perception also extends to its subjective conditions, thus to the forms which lie predisposed in the perceiving and thinking brain as its natural functions; although these at least virtualiter precede the actual sense-perception, i. e., are a priori, and therefore do not depend upon sense-perception, but it upon them. For these forms themselves have indeed no other end, nor service, than to produce the empirical perception on the nerves of sense being excited, as other forms are determined afterwards to construct thoughts in the abstract from the material of perception. The “Critique of Pure Reason” is therefore related to the Lockeian philosophy as the analysis of the infinite to elementary geometry, but is yet throughout to be regarded as the continuation of the Lockeian philosophy. The given material of every philosophy is accordingly nothing else than the empirical consciousness, which divides itself into the consciousness of one's own self (self-consciousness) and the consciousness of other things (external perception). For this alone is what is immediately and actually given. Every philosophy which, instead of starting from this, takes for its starting-point arbitrarily chosen abstract conceptions, such as, for example, absolute, absolute substance, God, infinity, finitude, absolute identity, being, essence, &c., &c., moves in the air without support, and can therefore never lead to a real result. Yet in all ages philosophers have attempted it with such materials; and hence even Kant sometimes, according to the common usage, and more from custom than consistency, defines philosophy as a science of mere conceptions. But such a science would really undertake to extract from the partial ideas (for that is what the abstractions are) what is not to be found in the complete ideas (the perceptions), from which the former were drawn by abstraction. The possibility of the syllogism leads to this mistake, because here the combination of the judgments gives a new result, although more apparent than real, for the syllogism only brings out what already lay in the given judgments; for it is true the conclusion cannot contain more than the premisses. Conceptions are certainly the material of philosophy, but only as marble is the material of the sculptor. It is not to work out of them but in them; that is to say, it is to deposit its results in them, but not to start from them as what is given. Whoever wishes to see a glaring example of such a false procedure from mere conceptions may look at the “Institutio Theologica” of Proclus in order to convince himself of the vanity of that whole method. There abstractions such as “ἑν, πληθος, αγαθον, παραγον και παραγομενον, αυταρκες, αιτιον, κρειττον, κινητον, ακινητον, κινουμενον” (unum, multa, bonum, producens et productum, sibi sufficiens, causa, melius, mobile, immobile, motum), &c., are indiscriminately collected, but the perceptions to which alone they owe their origin and content ignored and contemptuously disregarded. A theology is then constructed from these conceptions, but its goal, the θεος, is kept concealed; thus the whole procedure is apparently unprejudiced, as if the reader did not know at the first page, just as well as the author, what it is all to end in. I have already quoted a fragment of this above. This production of Proclus is really quite peculiarly adapted to make clear how utterly useless and illusory such combinations of abstract conceptions are, for we can make of them whatever we will, especially if we further take advantage of the ambiguity of many words, such, for example, as κρειττον. If such an architect of conceptions were present in person we would only have to ask naively where all the things are of which he has so much to tell us, and whence he knows the laws from which he draws his conclusions concerning them. He would then soon be obliged to turn to empirical perception, in which alone the real world exhibits itself, from which those conceptions are drawn. Then we would only have to ask further why he did not honestly start from the given perception of such a world, so that at every step his assertions could be proved by it, instead of operating with conceptions, which are yet drawn from perception alone, and therefore can have no further validity than that which it imparts to them. But of course this is just his trick. Through such conceptions, in which, by virtue of abstraction, what is inseparable is thought as separate, and what cannot be united as united, he goes far beyond the perception which was their source, and thus beyond the limits of their applicability, to an entirely different world from that which supplied the material for building, but just on this account to a world of chimeras. I have here referred to Proclus because in him this procedure becomes specially clear through the frank audacity with which he carries it out. But in Plato also we find some examples of this kind, though not so glaring; and in general the philosophical literature of all ages affords a multitude of instances of the same thing. That of our own time is rich in them. Consider, for example, the writings of the school of Schelling, and observe the constructions that are built up out of abstractions like finite and infinite – being, non-being, other being – activity, hindrance, product – determining, being determined, determinateness – limit, limiting, being limited – unity, plurality, multiplicity – identity, diversity, indifference – thinking, being, essence, &c. Not only does all that has been said above hold good of constructions out of such materials, but because an infinite amount can be thought through such wide abstractions, only very little indeed can be thought in them; they are empty husks. But thus the matter of the whole philosophising becomes astonishingly trifling and paltry, and hence arises that unutterable and excruciating tediousness which is characteristic of all such writings. If indeed I now chose to call to mind the way in which Hegel and his companions have abused such wide and empty abstractions, I should have to fear that both the reader and I myself would be ill; for the most nauseous tediousness hangs over the empty word-juggling of this loathsome philophaster.