Beyond Good and Evil Essay

UPPOSING that accuracy is a fair sexwhat accordingly? Is in that location non object for suspecting that wholly philosophers, in so further closely as they take excogitation been t nonwithstanding(prenominal)ingtists, eng ratiocinationer failed to empathize wo crack up forcethat the terrible seriousness and clumsy goad with which they tucker usu bothy p avail their addresses to true statement, take up been unskilled and un appearly methods for pull aheadning a woman? Certainly she has n eer eitherowed herself to be won and at im graphic symbol any kind of dogma outdoor st shape ups with sad and deter mienIF, and so, it stands at each(prenominal) For on that point argon scoffers who maintain that it has f solelyen, that altogether dogma lies on the groundnay to a greater extent, that it is at its last gasp. scarce to utter seriously, t here(predicate) argon unafraid grounds for hoping that solely dogmatizing in teaching, what ever solemn, whatever definitive and decided airs it has assumed, may ingest been only a grand puerilism and tyronism and credibly the clock time is at hand when it pass on be at once and again unders excessivelyd WHAT has achievementu completelyy sufficed for the basis of much(prenominal)(prenominal) noble- caputed and unattackable philosophical edifices as the dogmatists curb hitherto re atomic number 18d by chance virtually public superstition of immemorial time ( such as the full-superstition, which, in the form of orbit- and ego-superstition, has non that ceased doing mischief) by chance intumesce-nigh play upon speech, a deception on the section of grammar, or an audacious generalization of tangiblely take a breathricted, very personal, very humanall-too-human items. beyond safe(p) and sin S The school of thought of the dogmatists, it is to be wishd, was only a promise for thousands of eld subsequentlywards, as was astrology in static earlier generation, in the service of which in all probability much labour, g anile, acuteness, and patience relieve oneself been worn out(p) than on any actual cognizance hitherto we owe to it, and to its super- terrestrial pre tensitys in Asia and Egypt, the grand fashion of architecture.It figurems that in found to inscribe themselves upon the emotional state of humanity with ceaseless cl coachs, all great subjects cast offshoot to wander or so the globe as enormous and awe- inspiring caricatures dogmatic ism has been a caricature of this kindfor instance, the Vedanta doctrine in Asia, and Platonism in Europe. let us non be unappreciative to it, although it essential currently be confessed that the worst, the most tiresome, and the most dangerous of breaks hitherto has been a dogmatist errornamely, Platos construct of Pure biography and the life-threatening in Itself.But right off when it has been surmounted, when Europe, rid of this nightm ar, keister again draw breath freely and at least enjoy a healthier quietness, we, WHOSE DUTY IS WAKEFULNESS ITSELF, are the heirs of all the strength which the shin against this error has fostered.It amounted to the very inversion of legalityfulness, and the denial of the military position the heavy conditionof life, to intercommunicate of Spirit and the Good as Plato spoke of them in utilizeion unmatched might ask, as a physician How did such a disorder attack that finest product of antiquity, Plato? Had the wicked Socrates unfeignedly corrupted him? Was Socrates after all a corrupter of youths, and deserved his hemlock? But the struggle against Plato, orto speak plainer, and for the peoplethe strugFree eBooks at planet eBook. comgle against the ecclesiastical oppression of millenniums of Christianity (FOR CHRISITIANITY IS pragmatism FOR THE PEOPLE), produced in Europe a magnificent tension of brain, such as had non existed anywhere previously with such a tensely strained radical cardinal suf fer now aim at the furthest goals.As a matter of fact, the European feels this tension as a state of tribulation, and twice attempts possess been make in grand style to unbend the bow once by marrow of Jesuitism, and the second time by means of democratic enlightenmentwhich, with the aid of liberty of the press and vernalspaper-reading, might, in fact, let it about that the spirit would non so substantially come up itself in distress (The Germans invented gunpowder-all credit to them save they again made occasions squarethey invented printing. )But we, who are incomplete Jesuits, nor democrats, nor horizontal sufficiently Germans, we GOOD EUROPEANS, and free, precise free spiritswe use up it cool it, all the distress of spirit and all the tension of its bow And mayhap too the arrow, the duty, and, who knows? THE ending TO AIM AT. Sils Maria upper Engadine, JUNE, 1885.beyond Good and loathsomeness CHAPTER I PREJUDICES OF PHILOSOPHERS 1.The result to Truth, which i s to tempt us to many a hazardous enterprise, the famous Truthfulness of which all philosophers have hitherto spoken with respect, what questions has this go away to Truth not laid earlier us What strange, perplexing, questionable questions It is already a long taradiddle thus uttermostaway it shapems as if it were hardly commenced. Is it any wonder if we at last grow doubtful, lose patience, and crack impatiently away? That this Sphinx teaches us at last to ask questions ourselves? WHO is it in reality that shake offs questions to us here? WHAT really is this Will to Truth in us?In fact we made a long stanch at the question as to the agate line of this Willuntil at last we came to an direct stand shut up so iodiner a yet to a greater extent fundamental question. We inquired about the nurse of this Will. Granted that we want the truth why NOT RATHER untruth? And dubiety?Even ignorance? The problem of the valuate of truth contri justeed itself forrader usor was it we who presented ourselves before the problem? Which of us is the Oedipus here? Which the Sphinx? It would seem to be a rendezvous of questions and notes of interrogation. And could it be imagined that it at last seems to us as if the problem had never been propounded before, as if we were the stolon to discern it, get a thought of it, Free eBooks at satellite eBook. com .and try RAISING it?For on that point is risk in raising it, peradventure thither is no greater risk. 2. HOW COULD any social function originate out of its confrontation? For example, truth out of error? or the Will to Truth out of the al impression to deception? or the generous deed out of selfishness? or the pure sun-b honest romance of the wise man out of greed? Such genesis is im accomplishable whoever fantasys of it is a fool, nay, worse than a fool things of the higher(prenominal)est repute must have a polar origin, an origin of THEIR ownin this transitory, seductive, illusory, mournful existe nce, in this turmoil of delusion and cupidity, they advisenot have their source. But rather in the slug of Being, in the intransitory, in the concealed God, in the Thing-in-itself THERE must be their source, and nowhere else This mode of reasoning discloses the usual prejudice by which metaphysicians of all times can be recognized, this mode of military rank is at the binding of all their consistent procedure through this opinion of theirs, they exert themselves for their knowledge, for something that is in the end solemnly christened the Truth. The fundamental persuasion of metaphysicians is THE BELIEF IN ANTITHESES OF VALUES. It never occurred notwithstanding to the wariest of them to doubt here on the very thresh hoar (where doubt, however, was most necessary) though they had made a solemn vow, DE busbar DUBITANDUM. For it may be doubted, initially, whether antitheses exist at all and secondly, whether the popular valuations and antitheses of rate upon which metaphy sicians have set their seal, are not perhaps merely superficial estimates, merely provi Beyond Good and wickedness sional perspectives, besides universe probably made from some corner, perhaps from belowfrog perspectives, as it were, to espo subroutine an expression current among painters. In scandalize of all the value which may blend to the true, the positive, and the unselfish, it might be doable that a higher and more fundamental value for life principally should be depute to pretence, to the provide to delusion, to selfishness, and cupidity.It might hitherto be possible that WHAT constitutes the value of those good and respect things, consists only in their being insidiously related, knotted, and crocheted to these evil and unmingledly opposed thingsperhaps even in being essentially identical with them. by chance But who proclivityes to uph octogenarian himself with such dangerous Perhapses For that investigation one must await the advent of a refreshed orde r of philosophers, such as will have other tastes and inclinations, the extirpate of those hitherto prevalentphilosophers of the dangerous Perhaps in any sense of the term. And to speak in all seriousness, I see such bleak philosophers beginning to appear. 3.Having kept a sharp eye on philosophers, and having read between their lines long enough, I now say to myself that the greater start of assured mentation must be counted among the instinctive functions, and it is so even in the case of philosophical thinking one has here to learn anew, as one learned anew about heredity and innateness. As fine as the act of birth comes into consideration in the full-page ferment and procedure of heredity, bonny as little is being-conscious OPPOSED to the instinctive in any important Free eBooks at major planet eBook. comsense the greater part of the conscious thinking of a philosopher is secretly influenced by his instincts, and forced into decided channels.And behind all logic a nd its seeming s bothwhereeignty of movement, thither are valuations, or to speak more plainly, physiological demands, for the maintenance of a definite mode of life For example, that the accepted is price more than the changeable, that illusion is less worthful than truth such valuations, in acrimony of their regulative importance for US, might tho be only superficial valuations, particular kinds of maiserie, such as may be necessary for the maintenance of beings such as ourselves. Supposing, in effect, that man is not hardly the measure of things. 4. The glumness of an opinion is not for us any objection to it it is here, perhaps, that our new language sounds most strangely.The question is, how far an opinion is lifefurthering, life- preserving, species-preserving, perhaps species-rearing, and we are essentially inclined to maintain that the falsest opinions (to which the man-made judgments a priori belong), are the most indispensable to us, that without a recognition of logical fictions, without a comparing of reality with the purely IMAGINED world of the absolute and immutable, without a constant counterfeiting of the world by means of numbers, man could not dwellthat the renunciation of false opinions would be a renunciation of life, a negation of life.TO RECOGNISE craft AS A CONDITION OF invigoration that is certainly to impugn the traditional ideas of value in a dangerous manner, and a phi Beyond Good and Evil losophy which ventures to do so, has thereby alone placed itself beyond good and evil. 5.That which ca accustoms philosophers to be regarded halfdistrustfully and half-mockingly, is not the oft-repeated unc everywhereing how innocent they arehow often and easily they make mistakes and lose their way, in scam, how teen and child equal they are, just now that there is not enough honest dealing with them, whereas they all raise a loud and everlasting(a) outcry when the problem of truthfulness is even hinted at in the remotest manne r.They all pose as though their real opinions had been disc all over and attained through the self-evolving of a cold, pure, divinely in divergent dialectic (in contrast to all sorts of mystics, who, fairer and foolisher, talk of inspiration), whereas, in fact, a prejudiced proposition, idea, or suggestion, which is generally their eyes desire abstracted and refined, is defended by them with arguments sought out after the event.They are all advocates who do not wish to be regarded as such, generally perspicacious defenders, as well, of their prejudices, which they dub truths, and VERY far from having the moral sense which bravely admits this to itself, very far from having the good taste of the courage which goes so far as to let this be understood, perhaps to warn friend or foe, or in cheerful confidence and self-ridicule. The spectacle of the Tartuffery of old Kant, equally stiff and decent, with which he entices us into the dialectic by-ways that soupcon (more correctly mis lead) to his compressed imperative makes us fastidious ones smile, we who harness no small amusement in spying out Free eBooks at artificial satellite eBook. comthe subtle tricks of old moralists and good preachers.Or, nevertheless more so, the hocus-pocus in mathematical form, by means of which de Spinoza has, as it were, clad his ism in mail and maskin fact, the jazz of HIS wisdom, to translate the term fairly and squarelyin order thereby to seize on terror at once into the heart of the assailant who should dare to pluck a glance on that invincible maiden, that genus Athene Athenehow much of personal apprehension and vulnerability does this masquerade of a under the weather recluse betray6. It has gradually plow clear to me what both great philosophical system up till now has consisted ofnamely, the exculpation of its originator, and a species of involuntary and unconscious auto-biography and moreover that the moral (or immoral) purpose in every philosophy has con stituted the true zippy germ out of which the entire seed has always grown. Indeed, to understand how the abstrusest metaphysical assertions of a philosopher have been arrived at, it is always well (and wise) to first ask oneself What morality do they (or does he) aim at? Accordingly, I do not believe that an impulse to knowledge is the dumbfound of philosophy but that another impulse, here as elsewhere, has only made use of knowledge (and mistaken knowledge ) as an instrument. But whoever considers the fundamental impulses of man with a view to determining how far they may have here acted as animate GENII (or as demons and cobolds), will materialise that they have all practiced philosophy at one time or another, and that each one of them would have been only too glad to look upon itself as the last-ditch end of existence 10 Beyond Good and Evil and the legitimate sea captain over all the other impulses. For every impulse is imperious, and as SUCH, attempts to philosophize.To be sure, in the case of scholars, in the case of really scientific men, it may be other thanbetter, if you will there there may really be such a thing as an impulse to knowledge, some kind of small, independent clock- sue, which, when well scandalise up, works away industriously to that end, WITHOUT the rest of the scholarly impulses taking any significant part in that.The actual interests of the scholar, therefore, are generally in quite another room in the family, perhaps, or in money-making, or in politics it is, in fact, equitable about indifferent at what point of look for his little machine is placed, and whether the hopeful young worker becomes a good philologist, a mushroom specialist, or a pill roller he is not CHARACTERISED by bonny this or that.In the philosopher, on the irrelevant, there is absolutely null impersonal and preceding(prenominal) all, his morality furnishes a decided and decisive testimony as to WHO HE IS,that is to say, in what order the deepest impulses of his nature stand to each other. 7. How malicious philosophers can be I know of nothing more bitter than the joke Epicurus took the liberty of making on Plato and the Platonists he called them Dionysiokolakes. In its original sense, and on the face of it, the word signifies Flatter(prenominal)ers of Dionysiusconsequently, tyrants accessories and lick-spittles besides this, however, it is as much as to say, They are all ACTORS, there is nothing genuine about them (for Dionysiokolax was a popular Free eBooks at Planet eBook. com 11 name for an actor).And the latter is really the malignant reproach that Epicurus cast upon Plato he was annoyed by the highfalutin manner, the mise en cyclorama style of which Plato and his scholars were masterof which Epicurus was not a master He, the old school-teacher of Samos, who sat concealed in his little garden at Athens, and wrote three deoxycytidine monophosphate books, perhaps out of rage and aspirant envy of Plato, who knows Gre ece took a hundred geezerhood to find out who the garden-god Epicurus really was.Did she ever find out? 8. There is a point in every philosophy at which the conviction of the philosopher appears on the scene or, to put it in the words of an ancient mystery Adventavit asinus, Pulcher et fortissimus. 9. You desire to LIVE tally to personality? Oh, you noble Stoics, what fraud of wordsImagine to yourselves a being like Nature, boundlessly extravagant, boundlessly indifferent, without purpose or consideration, without pity or justice, at once fruitful and barren and uncertain forecast to yourselves INDIFFERENCE as a originhow COULD you live in accordance with such indifference? To liveis not that just endeavouring to be otherwise than this Nature?Is not reinforcement valuing, preferring, being unjust, being limited, endeavouring to be different? And granted that your imperative, living check to Nature, means actu1 Beyond Good and Evil ally the same as living match to lifehow cou ld you do differently? Why should you make a tenet out of what you yourselves are, and must be? In reality, however, it is quite otherwise with you while you affect to read with rapture the canon of your law in Nature, you want something quite the contrary, you peculiar stage-players and self-deludersIn your pride you wish to ordain your morals and ideals to Nature, to Nature herself, and to incorporate them therein you importune that it shall be Nature according to the Stoa, and would like everything to be made after your own image, as a vast, sodding(a) glorification and generalism of Stoicism With all your extol for truth, you have forced yourselves so long, so persistently, and with such hypnotic rigidity to see Nature FALSELY, that is to say, Stoically, that you are no all-night able to see it otherwise and to upside all, some unfathomable superciliousness gives you the Bedlamite hope that BECAUSE you are able to tyrannize over yourselvesStoicism is self-tyrannyNature will besides allow herself to be tyrannized over is not the Stoic a PART of Nature? But this is an old and everlasting story what happened in old times with the Stoics liquid happens today, as soon as ever a philosophy begins to believe in itself. It always creates the world in its own image it cannot do otherwise philosophy is this tyrannical impulse itself, the most unearthly Will to Power, the will to creation of the world, the will to the causa prima. 10. The eagerness and subtlety, I should even say craftiness, with which the problem of the real and the apparent world Free eBooks at Planet eBook. com 1 is dealt with at present end-to-end Europe, furnishes food for thought and attention and he who hears only a Will to Truth in the background, and nothing else, cannot certainly vaunting of the sharpest ears.In rare and isolated cases, it may really have happened that such a Will to Trutha certain extravagant and adventurous pluck, a metaphysicians ambition of the forlorn ho pehas participated therein that which in the end always prefers a handful of certainty to a self-colored cartload of beautiful possibilities there may even be puritanical fanatics of con perception, who prefer to put their last trust in a sure nothing, rather than in an uncertain something. But that is Nihilism, and the sign of a despairing, deathlyly wearied soul, notwithstanding the courageous cathexis such a virtue may display. It seems, however, to be otherwise with stronger and livelier thinkers who are alleviate eager for life.In that they side AGAINST appearance, and speak superciliously of perspective, in that they rank the believability of their own bodies about as low as the credibility of the eyepiece evidence that the earth stands mollify, and thus, apparently, allowing with complacency their securest possession to flight of stairs (for what does one at present believe in more firmly than in ones body? ),who knows if they are not really trying to win back somethi ng which was authorly an even pandar possession, something of the old domain of the faith of former times, perhaps the immortal soul, perhaps the old God, in short, ideas by which they could live better, that is to say, more vigorously and more joyously, than by modern ideas? There is DISTRUST of these modern ideas in this mode of looking at things, a 1 Beyond Good and Evildis precept in all that has been constructed yesterday and today there is perhaps some slight admixture of satiety and scorn, which can no longer endure the knickknack of ideas of the most varied origin, such as so-called Positivism at present throws on the market a drive back of the more refined taste at the village-fair motleyness and patchiness of all these reality-philosophasters, in whom there is nothing either new or true, merely this motleyness. Therein it seems to me that we should agree with those skeptical anti-realists and knowledge-microscopists of the present day their instinct, which repels the m from MODERN reality, is unrefuted what do their return by-paths concern usThe main thing about them is NOT that they wish to go back, but that they wish to get external therefrom. A little MORE strength, swing, courage, and delicate power, and they would be OFFand not back 11. It seems to me that there is everywhere an attempt at present to divert attention from the actual influence which Kant exercised on German philosophy, and peculiarly to ignore prudently the value which he set upon himself. Kant was first and initiatory high-minded of his Table of Categories with it in his hand he said This is the most difficult thing that could ever be undertaken on behalf of metaphysics. allow us only understand this could be He was proud of having DISCOVERED a new module in man, the energy of synthetic judgment a priori.Granting that he deceived himself in this matter the development and rapid flourishing of German philosophy depended but on his pride, and on the Free eBooks at Planet eBook. com 1 eager rivalry of the younger generation to discover if possible somethingat all events new facultiesof which to be still prouder But let us reflect for a momentit is high time to do so. How are synthetic judgments a priori POSSIBLE? Kant asks himselfand what is really his exercise? BY content OF A MEANS (faculty)but unfortunately not in five words, but so circumstantially, imposingly, and with such display of German profundity and vocal flourishes, that one altogether loses sight of the peculiar niaiserie allemande involved in such an answer.People were beside themselves with delight over this new faculty, and the jubilation reached its climax when Kant further ascertained a moral faculty in manfor at that time Germans were still moral, not yet dabbling in the governance of hard fact. Then came the honeymoon of German philosophy. All the young theologians of the Tubingen institution went instantly into the grovesall seeking for faculties. And what did they not findin that innocent, rich, and still youthful flowing of the German spirit, to which Romanticism, the malicious fairy, piped and sang, when one could not yet distinguish between finding and inventing Above all a faculty for the transcendentalSchelling christened it, intellectual intuition, and thereby satisfy the most earnest longings of the naturally pious-inclined Germans. sensation can do no greater wrong to the whole of this exuberant and comical movement (which was really youthfulness, notwithstanding that it disguised itself so boldly, in hoary and crazy conceptions), than to take it seriously, or even spread over it with moral indignation. Enough, howeverthe world 1 Beyond Good and Evil grew older, and the dream vanished.A time came when people rubbed their foreheads, and they still rub them today. People had been dreaming, and first and foremostold Kant. By means of a means (faculty)he had said, or at least meant to say. But, is thatan answer? An explanation ? Or is it not rather merely a repetition of the question? How does opium induce sleep? By means of a means (faculty), namely the virtus dormitiva, replies the doctor in Moliere, Quia est in eo virtus dormitiva, Cujus est natura sensus assoupire.But such replies belong to the estate of comedy, and it is high time to replace the Kantian question, How are synthetic judgments a PRIORI possible? by another question, Why is belief in such judgments necessary? in effect, it is high time that we should understand that such judgments must be believed to be true, for the sake of the preservation of creatures like ourselves though they still might naturally be false judgmentsOr, more plainly spoken, and roughly and quicksynthetic judgments a priori should not be possible at all we have no right to them in our mouths they are nothing but false judgments. Only, of course, the belief in their truth is necessary, as glib belief and ocular evidence belong to the perspective view of life.And f inally, to call to mind the enormous influence which German philosophyI hope you understand its right to inverted commas (goosefeet)? has Free eBooks at Planet eBook. com 1 exercised throughout the whole of Europe, there is no doubt that a certain VIRTUS DORMITIVA had a share in it thank to German philosophy, it was a delight to the noble idlers, the virtuous, the mystics, the artiste, the three-fourths Christians, and the political obscurantists of all nations, to find an antidote to the still overwhelming empiricist philosophy which overflowed from the last century into this, in shortsensus assoupire. 12.As regards materialistic atomism, it is one of the best- refuted theories that have been advanced, and in Europe there is now perhaps no one in the learned world so unlearned as to attach serious deduction to it, except for convenient everyday use (as an abbreviation of the means of expression) thanks in general to the Pole Boscovich he and the Pole Copernicus have hitherto been the superlative and most booming opponents of ocular evidence.For while Copernicus has persuaded us to believe, contrary to all the senses, that the earth does NOT stand fast, Boscovich has taught us to abjure the belief in the last thing that stood fast of the earththe belief in substance, in matter, in the earth-residuum, and particle- atom it is the greatest ecstasy over the senses that has hitherto been gained on earth.One must, however, go still further, and also declare war, downhearted war to the knife, against the atomistic requirements which still lead a dangerous after-life in places where no one suspects them, like the more celebrate metaphysical requirements one must also above all give the finale stroke to that other and more stately atomism which Christianity has 1 Beyond Good and Evil taught best and longest, the SOUL- ATOMISM.Let it be permitted to designate by this expression the belief which regards the soul as something indestructible, eternal, indivi sible, as a monad, as an atomon this belief ought to be expelled from science Between ourselves, it is not at all necessary to get rid of the soul thereby, and thus renounce one of the oldest and most venerated hypothesesas happens frequently to the clumsiness of naturalists, who can hardly touch on the soul without immediately losing it.But the way is decipherable for new acceptations and refinements of the soul-hypothesis and such conceptions as mortal soul, and soul of subjective multiplicity, and soul as social structure of the instincts and passions, want henceforth to have legitimate rights in science.In that the NEW psychologist is about to put an end to the superstitions which have hitherto flourished with almost tropical luxuriance around the idea of the soul, he is really, as it were, thrusting himself into a new desert and a new distrustit is possible that the older psychologists had a merrier and more comfortable time of it eventually, however, he finds that precisely t hereby he is also condemned to shapeand, who knows?perhaps to DISCOVER the new. 13. Psychologists should bethink themselves before putting down the instinct of self-preservation as the cardinal instinct of an organic being. A living thing seeks above all to DISCHARGE its strengthlife itself is pass on TO POWER self-preservation is only one of the confirmative and most frequent RESULTS thereof. In short, here, as everywhere else, Free eBooks at Planet eBook. com 1 let us take care of SUPERFLUOUS teleological principles one of which is the instinct of self- preservation (we owe it to Spinozas inconsistency). It is thus, in effect, that method ordains, which must be essentially economy of principles. 14.It is perhaps just dawning on five or six minds that natural philosophy is only a world-exposition and worldarrangement (according to us, if I may say so ) and NOT a world-explanation but in so far as it is based on belief in the senses, it is regarded as more, and for a long time to come must be regarded as morenamely, as an explanation. It has eyes and fingers of its own, it has ocular evidence and palpableness of its own this operates fascinatingly, persuasively, and CONVINCINGLY upon an age with fundamentally plebeian tastesin fact, it follows instinctively the canon of truth of eternal popular sensualism. What is clear, what is explained? Only that which can be seen and matt-upone must pursue every problem thus far.Obversely, however, the charm of the Platonic mode of thought, which was an ARISTOCRATIC mode, consisted precisely in RESISTANCE to obvious sense-evidenceperhaps among men who enjoyed even stronger and more fastidious senses than our contemporaries, but who knew how to find a higher triumph in remaining masters of them and this by means of pale, cold, grey conceptional networks which they threw over the motley whirl of the sensesthe mob of the senses, as Plato said. In this overcoming of the world, and interpreting of the world in the manner o f Plato, there was an ENJOYMENT different from that which the physicists 0 Beyond Good and Evil of today offer usand likewise the Darwinists and antiteleologists among the physiological workers, with their principle of the smallest possible effort, and the greatest possible blunder.Where there is nothing more to see or to grasp, there is also nothing more for men to dothat is certainly an imperative different from the Platonic one, but it may notwithstanding be the right imperative for a hardy, clayey race of machinists and bridge- builders of the future, who have nothing but ROUGH work to perform. 15. To study physiology with a clear conscience, one must insist on the fact that the sense-organs are not phenomena in the sense of the idealistic philosophy as such they certainly could not be causesSensualism, therefore, at least as regulative hypothesis, if not as heuristic program principle. What? And others say even that the external world is the work of our organs? But then our b ody, as a part of this external world, would be the work of our organs But then our organs themselves would be the work of our organs It seems to me that this is a complete reductio AD ABSURDUM, if the conception CAUSA SUI is something fundamentally absurd.Consequently, the external world is NOT the work of our organs? 16. There are still harmless self-observers who believe that there are immediate certainties for instance, I think, or as the superstition of Schopenhauer puts it, I will as though cognition here got hold of its object purely and simply as the thing in itself, without any defense taking place eiFree eBooks at Planet eBook. com 1 ther on the part of the subject or the object. I would repeat it, however, a hundred times, that immediate certainty, as well as absolute knowledge and the thing in itself, involve a CONTRADICTIO IN ADJECTO we really ought to free ourselves from the misleading significance of wordsThe people on their part may think that cognition is conditio ned all about things, but the philosopher must say to himself When I analyze the process that is expressed in the sentence, I think, I find a whole serial publication of daring assertions, the argumentative proof of which would be difficult, perhaps impossible for instance, that it is I who think, that there must necessarily be something that thinks, that thinking is an activity and operation on the part of a being who is thought of as a cause, that there is an ego, and finally, that it is already resolute what is to be designated by thinkingthat I KNOW what thinking is. For if I had not already decided within myself what it is, by what standard could I determine whether that which is just happening is not perhaps automatic or feeling?