CHAPTER VIII.

KANT'S DOCTRINE OF THE INTELLIGIBLE[1] AND EMPIRICAL CHARACTER. THEORY OF FREEDOM.

The attack I have made, in the cause of truth, on Kant's system of Morals, does not, like those of my predecessors, touch the surface only, but penetrates to its deepest roots. It seems, therefore, only just that, before I leave this part of my subject, I should bring to remembrance the brilliant and conspicuous service which he nevertheless rendered to ethical science. I allude to his doctrine of the co-existence of Freedom and Necessity. We find it first in the _Kritik der Reinen Vernunft_ (pp. 533-554 of the first, and pp. 561-582 of the fifth, edition); but it is still more clearly expounded in the _Kritik der Praktischen Vernunft_ (fourth edition, pp. 169-179; R., pp. 224-231).

The strict and absolute necessity of the acts of Will, determined by motives as they arise, was first shown by Hobbes, then by Spinoza, and Hume, and also by Dietrich von Holbach in his _Système de la Nature_; and lastly by Priestley it was most completely and precisely demonstrated. This point, indeed, has been so clearly proved, and placed beyond all doubt, that it must be reckoned among the number of perfectly established truths, and only crass ignorance could continue to speak of a freedom, of a _liberum arbitrium indifferentiae_ (a free and indifferent choice) in the individual acts of men. Nor did Kant, owing to the irrefutable reasoning of his predecessors, hesitate to consider the Will as fast bound in the chains of Necessity, the matter admitting, as he thought, of no further dispute or doubt. This is proved by all the passages in which he speaks of freedom only from the =theoretical= standpoint. Nevertheless, it is true that our actions are attended with a consciousness of independence and original initiative, which makes us recognise them as our own work, and every one with ineradicable certainty feels that he is the real author of his conduct, and morally =responsible= for it. But since responsibility implies the possibility of having acted otherwise, which possibility means freedom in some sort or manner; therefore in the consciousness of responsibility is indirectly involved also the consciousness of freedom. The key to resolve the contradiction, that thus arises out of the nature of the case, was at last found by Kant through the distinction he drew with profound acumen, between phaenomena and the Thing in itself (_das Ding an sich_). This distinction is the very core of his whole philosophy, and its greatest merit.

The individual, with his immutable, innate character strictly determined in all his modes of expression by the law of Causality, which, as acting through the medium of the intellect, is here called by the name of Motivation,--the individual so constituted is only the =phaenomenon= (_Erscheinung_). The =Thing= in itself which underlies this phaenomenon is outside of Time and Space, consequently free from all succession and plurality, one, and changeless. Its constitution in itself is the =intelligible character=, which is equally present in all the acts of the individual, and stamped on every one of them, like the impress of a signet on a thousand seals. The empirical character of the phaenomenon--the character which manifests itself in time, and in succession of acts--is thus determined by the intelligible character; and consequently, the individual, as phaenomenon, in all his modes of expression, which are called forth by motives, must show the invariableness of a natural law. Whence it results that all his actions are governed by strict necessity. Now it used to be commonly maintained that the character of a man may be transformed by moral admonitions and remonstrances appealing to reason; but when the distinction between the intelligible and empirical character had once been drawn, it followed that the unchangeableness, the inflexible rigidity of the empirical character, which thinking people had always observed, was explained and traced to a rational basis, and consequently accepted as an established fact by Philosophy. Thus the latter was so far harmonised with experience, and ceased to stand abashed, before popular wisdom, which long before had spoken the words of truth in the Spanish proverb: _Lo que entra con el capillo, sale con la mortaja_ (that which comes in with the child's cap, goes out with the winding-sheet); or: _Lo que en la leche se mama, en la mortaja se derrama_ (what is imbibed with the milk, is poured out again in the winding-sheet).

This doctrine of the co-existence of Freedom and Necessity I regard as the greatest of all the achievements of human sagacity. With the Transcendental Aesthetics it forms the two great diamonds in the crown of Kant's fame, which will never pass away. In his Treatise on Freedom, Schelling obviously served up the Kantian teaching in a paraphrase, which by reason of its lively colouring and graphic delineation, is for many people more comprehensible. The work would deserve praise if its author had had the honesty to say that he is drawing on Kant's wisdom, not on his own. As it is, a certain part of the philosophic public still credits him with the entire performance.

The theory itself, and the whole question regarding the nature of Freedom, can be better understood if we view them in connection with a general truth, which I think, is most concisely expressed by a formula frequently occurring in the scholastic writings: _Operari sequitur esse_.[2] In other words, everything in the world operates in accordance with what it is, in accordance with its inherent nature, in which, consequently, all its modes of expression are already contained potentially, while actually they are manifested when elicited by external causes; so that external causes are the means whereby the essential constitution of the thing is revealed. And the modes of expression so resulting form the =empirical= character; whereas its hidden, ultimate basis, which is inaccessible to experience, is the =intelligible= character, that is, the real nature _per se_ of the particular thing in question. Man forms no exception to the rest of nature; he too has a changeless character, which, however, is strictly individual and different in each case. This character is of course =empirical= as far as we can grasp it, and therefore only =phaenomenal=; while the =intelligible= character is whatever may be the real nature in itself of the person. His actions one and all, being, as regards their external constitution, determined by motives, can never be shaped otherwise than in accordance with the unchangeable individual character. As a man is, so he his bound to act. Hence for a given person in every single case, there is absolutely only one way of acting possible: _Operari sequitur esse_[3] Freedom belongs only to the intelligible character, not to the empirical. The _operari_ (conduct) of a given individual is necessarily determined externally by motives, internally by his character; therefore everything that he does necessarily takes place. But in his _esse_ (_i.e._, in what he is), =there=, we find Freedom. He =might have been= something different; and guilt or merit attaches to that which he is. All that he does follows from what he is, as a mere corollary. Through Kant's doctrine we are freed from the primary error of connecting Necessity with _esse_ (what one is), and Freedom with _operari_ (what one does); we become aware that this is a misplacement of terms, and that exactly the inverse arrangement is the true one. Hence it is clear that the moral responsibility of a man, while it, first of all, and obviously, of course, touches what he does, yet at bottom touches what he is; because, what he is being the original =datum=, his conduct, as motives arise, could never take any other course than that which it actually does take. But, however strict be the necessity, whereby, in the individual, acts are elicited by motives, it yet never occurs to anybody--not even to him who is convinced of this necessity--to exonerate himself on that account, and cast the blame on the motives; for he knows well enough that, objectively considered, any given circumstance, and its causes, perfectly admitted quite a different, indeed, a directly opposite course of action; nay, that such a course would actually have taken place, =if only he had been a different person=. That he is precisely such a one as his conduct proclaims him to be, and no other--this it is for which he feels himself responsible; in his _esse_ (what he is) lies the vulnerable place, where the sting of conscience penetrates. For Conscience is nothing but acquaintance with one's own self--an acquaintance that arises out of one's actual mode of conduct, and which becomes ever more intimate. So that it is the _esse_ (what one is) which in reality is accused by conscience, while the _operari_ (what one does) supplies the incriminating evidence. Since we are only conscious of =Freedom= through the sense of =responsibility=; therefore where the latter lies the former must also be; in the _esse_ (in one's being). It is the _operari_ (what one does) that is subject to necessity. But we can only get to know ourselves, as well as others =empirically=; we have no _a priori_ knowledge of our character. Certainly our natural tendency is to cherish a very high opinion of it, because the maxim: _Quisque praesumitur bonus, donec probetur contrarium_ (every one is presumed to be good, until the contrary is proved), is perhaps even more true of the inner court of justice than of the world's tribunals.

NOTE.

He who is capable of recognising the essential part of a thought, though clothed in a dress very different from what he is familiar with, will see, as I do, that this Kantian doctrine of the intelligible and empirical character is a piece of insight already possessed by Plato. The difference is, that with Kant it is sublimated to an abstract clearness; with Plato it is treated mythically, and connected with metempsychosis, because, as he did not perceive the ideality of Time, he could only represent it under a temporal form. The identity of the one doctrine with the other becomes exceedingly plain, if we read the explanation and illustration of the Platonic myth, which Porphyrius has given with such clear exactitude, that its agreement with the abstract language of Kant comes out unmistakably. In the second book of his Eclogues, chap. 8, §§ 37-40,[4] Stobaeus has preserved for us _in extenso_ that part of one of Porphyrius' lost writings which specially comments on the myth in question, as Plato gives it in the second half of the tenth book of the Republic.[5] The whole section is eminently worth reading. As a specimen I shall quote the short § 39, in the hope of inducing any one who cares for these things to study Stobaeus for himself. It will then immediately become apparent that this Platonic myth is nothing less than an allegory of the profound truth which Kant stated in its abstract purity, as the doctrine of the intelligible and empirical character, and consequently that the latter had been reached, in its essentials, by Plato thousands of years ago. Indeed, this view seems to go back much further still, for Porphyrins is of opinion that Plato took it from the Egyptians. Certainly we already find the same theory in the Brahmanical doctrine of metempsychosis, and it is from this Indian source that the Egyptian priests, in all probability, derived their wisdom. § 39 is as follows:--

_Τὸ γὰρ ὅλον βούλημα τοιοῡτ' ἔοικεν εἶναι τὸ τοῡ Πλάτωνος ἔχειν μὲν τὸ αὐτεξουσιον τὰς ψυχὰς, πρὶν εἰς σώματα καὶ βίους διαϕέρους ἐμπεσεῖν, εἰς τὸ ἢ τοῡτoν τὸν βίον ἕλεσθαι, ἢ ἄλλον, ὅν, μετὰ ποιᾱς ζωῆς καὶ σώματος οἰκείον τῇ ζωῇ, κτέλεσειν μέλλει (καὶ γὰρ λέοντος βίον ἐπ' αὐτῇ εἶνai ἔλεσθαι, καὶ ἀνδρὸς). Kakeῑνο μέντοι τὸ αὐτeξoύσιον, ἅμα τῇ πρός τινα τῶν τοιούτων βίων πτώσει, ἐμπεπόδισται. Κατελθοῡσαι γὰρ εἰς τὰ σώματα, καὶ ἀντὶ ψυχῶν aπολυτῶν γεγονῑυαι ψυχαὶ ζώων, τὸ αὐτεξούσιον ϕέρουσιν οἰκείον τῇ τοῡ ζώον κατασκευῇ, καὶ ἐϕ' ὧν μὲν εἶνai πολύνουν καὶ πολυκίνητον, ὡς ἐπ' ἀνθρώπον, ἐϕ' ὡν δὲ λυγοκίνηττον καὶ μονότροπον, ὡς ἐπὶ τῶν ἄλλον σχεδὸν πάντων ζώων. Ήρτῆσθαι δὲ τὸ αὐτeξoύσιον τοῡτo ἀπὸ τῆς κατασκετῆς, κινούμενον μὲν ἐξ αὐτοῡ, ϕερόμενον δὲ κατὰ τὰς ἐκ τῆς κατασκευῇς γυγνομένας προθυμίας._[6]

[1] _V_. Note on "intelligible" in Chapter I. of this Part.--(_Translator_)

[2] _I.e._, what is done is a consequence of that which is.

[3] _I.e._, his acts are a consequence of what he is.

[4] _V_. Joannes Stobaeus. _Eclogae Physicae et Ethicae_, edit. Curtius Wachsmuth et Otto Hense; Weidmann, Berlin, 1884. Vol. II., pp. 163-168.--(_Translator._)

[5] _V_. Plat., _Rep_., edit. Stallbaum, 614 sqq. It is the _ἀπόλoγos Ήρὸς τοῡ Άρμενίον_.--(_translator._)

[6] To sum up. What Plato meant seems to be this. Souls (he said) have free power, before passing into bodies and different modes of being, to choose this or that form of life, which they will pass through in a certain kind of existence, and in a body adapted thereto. (For a soul may choose a lion's, equally with a man's, mode of being.) But this free power of choice is removed simultaneously with entrance into one or other of such forms of life. For when once they have descended into bodies, and instead of unfettered souls have become the souls of living things, then they take that measure of free power which belongs in each case to the organism of the living thing. In some forms this power is very intelligent and full of movement, as in man; in some it has but little energy, and is of a simple nature, as in almost all other creatures. Moreover, this free power depends on the organism in such a way that while its capability of action is caused by itself alone, its impulses are determined by the desires which have their origin in the organism.--(_Translator._)