The Vocation of the Scholar

Preface

PREFACE.

These Lectures were delivered last Summer before a considerable number of the young men studying at this University. They form the introduction to a whole which the Author intends to complete, and, when time permits, to lay before the public. A motive—which to mention here would contribute neither to a just estimation of these pages, nor to a right understanding of them—induced him to allow these first five Lectures to be published by themselves. Their being printed just as they were delivered, without the alteration of a single word, must be his excuse for many inaccuracies of expression. In consequence of other occupations, he was unable, even at first, to give to these discourses the polish which he desired. Declamation is a valuable auxiliary in oral communication. To alter them for the press was for a similar reason impossible.

There are in these Lectures many assertions which may not please all classes of readers. But for this the Author is not to blame;—in all his inquiries he has troubled himself very little as to what was likely to please his hearers or be disagreeable to them: Truth alone has been his object,—and what he, according to his best knowledge, held to be true, that he has boldly declared, so far as he was able.

But besides that class of readers who have reasons for their dissatisfaction with what I advance in these Lectures, there are others who hold such speculations as at best useless, because they cannot be carried out into practice, and because they find nothing in the actual world, as it is now constituted, at all corresponding thereto;—indeed it is to be feared that the greater number of otherwise honest, respectable, well-behaved, sober-minded people, will thus judge of them. For although, in all ages, those who have been capable of raising themselves to ideas, have always found themselves in a minority,—yet, for reasons which I may well be excused for withholding here, their number has never been less than at the present time. Whilst, within the circle which common experience has drawn around us, men take larger and more general views, and pass more accurate judgments on the phenomena presented to them, than perhaps at any former period; the majority are completely misled and dazzled, so soon as they take a single step beyond this limit. If it be impossible to re-kindle in such minds the once-extinguished sparks of higher genius, we must let them remain without disturbance within that circle; and in so far as they are there useful and necessary, we must not derogate from their value in and for such a sphere. But when they desire to draw down to their own level all to which they cannot raise themselves;—when, for example, they would insist that everything which is printed should be made as practically useful as a cookery-book, or a ready-reckoner, or a service-regulation, and decry everything which cannot so be used,—then indeed do they perpetrate a great wrong.

That the Ideal cannot be manifested in the Actual world, we know as well as they do,—perhaps better. All we maintain is, that the Actual must be judged by the Ideal, and modified in accordance with it by those who feel themselves capable of such a task. Be it granted that they cannot convince themselves of this;—being what they are, they lose very little thereby, and Humanity loses nothing. This alone becomes clear, that they have not been reckoned on in the great plan for the ennoblement of Humanity. This will assuredly proceed on its glorious way;—over them will kindly Nature watch, vouchsafing them, in proper season, rain and sunshine, fitting nourishment and undisturbed digestion, and therewithal comfortable thoughts.

Jena, Michaelmas 1794.

Lecture I. The Absolute Vocation of Man

LECTURE I.

THE ABSOLUTE VOCATION OF MAN.

The purpose of the Lectures which I commence to-day is in part known to you. I would answer, or rather I would prompt you to answer for yourselves, the following questions: What is the vocation of the Scholar?—what is his relation to Humanity as a whole, as well as to particular classes of men?—by what means can he most surely fulfil his high vocation?

The Scholar is invested with a special character only in so far as he is distinguished from other men; the idea of his calling arises from comparison, from his relation to Society at large, by which we understand not the State merely, but generally that aggregate of reasonable men who exist near each other in space, and are thus placed in mutual relations with each other.

Hence the vocation of the Scholar, considered as such, is only conceivable in society; and thus the answer to the question, “What is the vocation of the Scholar?” presupposes the answer to another question, “What is the vocation of man in Society?”

Again: the answer to this question presupposes the answer to another still higher; namely this, “What is the absolute vocation of Man?”—i.e. of Man considered simply as man, according to the mere abstract idea of Humanity; isolated and without any relation which is not necessarily included in the idea of himself?

I may be permitted to say to you at present without proof, what is doubtless already known to many among you, and what is obscurely, but not the less strongly, felt by others, that all philosophy, all human thought and teaching, all your studies, especially all that I shall address to you, can tend to nothing else than to the answering of these questions, and particularly of the last and highest of them, What is the absolute vocation of Man? and what are the means by which he may most surely fulfil it?

Philosophy is not essentially necessary to the mere feeling of this vocation; but the whole of philosophy, and indeed a fundamental and all-embracing philosophy, is implied in a distinct, clear, and complete insight into it. Yet this absolute vocation of Man is the subject of to-day’s lecture. You will consequently perceive that what I have to say on this subject on the present occasion cannot be traced down from its first principles unless I were now to treat of all philosophy. But I can appeal to your own inward sense of truth, and establish it thereon. You perceive likewise, that as the question which I shall answer in my public lectures,—What is the vocation of the Scholar? or what is the same thing, as will appear in due time, the vocation of the highest, truest man? is the ultimate object of all philosophical inquiries; so this question, What is the absolute vocation of Man? the answer to which I intend to investigate fundamentally in my private lectures, but only to point out very briefly to-day, is the primary object of such investigations. I now proceed to the answer to this question.

What the properly Spiritual in man—the pure Ego, considered absolutely in itself,—isolated and apart from all relation to anything out of itself,—would be?—this question is unanswerable, and strictly taken is self-contradictory. It is not indeed true that the pure Ego is a product of the Non-Ego—(so I denominate everything which is conceived of as existing external to the Ego, distinguished from, and opposed to it:)—it is not true, I say, that the pure Ego is a product of the Non-Ego; such a doctrine would indicate a transcendental materialism which is entirely opposed to reason; but it is certainly true, and will be fully proved in its proper place, that the Ego is not, and can never become, conscious of itself except under its empirical determinations; and that these empirical determinations necessarily imply something external to the Ego. Even the body of man, that which he calls his body, is something external to the Ego. Without this relation he would be no longer a man, but something absolutely inconceivable by us, if we can call that something which is to us inconceivable. Thus to consider man absolutely and by himself, does not mean, either here or elsewhere in these lectures, to consider him as a pure Ego, without relation to anything external to the Ego; but only to think of him apart from all relation to reasonable beings like himself.

And, so considered,—What is his vocation?—what belongs to him as Man, that does not belong to those known existences which are not men?—in what respects does he differ from all we do not call man amongst the beings with which we are acquainted?

Since I must set out from something positive, and as I cannot here proceed from the absolute postulate—the axiom “I am,”—I must lay down, hypothetically in the meantime, a principle which exists indestructibly in the feelings of all men, which is the result of all philosophy, which may be clearly proved, as I will prove it in my private lectures; the principle, that as surely as man is a rational being, he is the end of his own existence; i.e. he does not exist to the end that something else may be, but he exists absolutely because he himself is to be—his being is its own ultimate object;—or, what is the same thing, man cannot, without contradiction to himself, demand an object of his existence. He is, because he is. This character of absolute being—of existence for his own sake alone,—is his characteristic or vocation, in so far as he is considered solely as a rational being.

But there belongs to man not only absolute being, being for itself, but also particular determinations of this being: he not only is, but he is something definite; he does not merely say—“I am,” but he adds—“I am this or that.” So far as his absolute existence is concerned, he is a reasonable being; in so far as he is something beyond this, What is he? This question we must answer.

That which he is in this respect, he is, not primarily because he himself exists, but because something other than himself exists. The empirical self-consciousness, that is, the consciousness of a determinate vocation, is not possible except on the supposition of a Non-Ego, as we have already said, and in the proper place will prove. This Non-Ego must approach and influence him through his passive capacity, which we call sense. Thus in so far as man possesses a determinate existence, he is a sensuous being. But still, as we have already said, he is also a reasonable being; and his Reason must not be superseded by Sense, but both must exist in harmony with each other. In this connexion the principle propounded above,—Man is because he is,—is changed into the following,—Whatever Man is, that he should be solely because he is;—i.e. all that he is should proceed from his pure Ego,—from his own simple personality; he should be all that he is, absolutely because he is an Ego, and whatever he cannot be solely upon that ground, he should absolutely not be. This as yet obscure formula we shall proceed to illustrate.

The pure Ego can only be conceived of negatively, as the opposite of the Non-Ego, the character of which is multiplicity, consequently as perfect and absolute unity; it is thus always one and the same, always identical with itself. Hence the above formula may also be expressed thus; Man should always be at one with himself,—he should never contradict his own being. The pure Ego can never stand in opposition to itself, for there is in it no possible diversity, it constantly remains one and the same; but the empirical Ego, determined and determinable by outward things, may contradict itself; and as often as it does so, the contradiction is a sure sign that it is not determined according to the form of the pure Ego, not by itself, but by something external to itself. It should not be so; for man is his own end, he should determine himself, and never allow himself to be determined by anything foreign to himself; he should be what he is, because he wills it, and ought to will it. The determination of the empirical Ego should be such as may endure for ever. I may here, in passing, and for the sake of illustration merely, express the fundamental principle of morality in the following formula: “So act that thou mayest look upon the dictate of thy will as an eternal law to thyself.”

The ultimate vocation of every finite, rational being is thus absolute unity, constant identity, perfect harmony with himself. This absolute identity is the form of the pure Ego, and the one true form of it; or rather, by the possibility to conceive of this identity is the expression of that form recognised. Whatever determination can be conceived of as enduring eternally, is in conformity with the pure form of the Ego. Let not this be understood partially or from one side. Not the Will alone should be always at one with itself, this belongs to morality only; but all the powers of man, which are essentially but one power, and only become distinguished in their application to different objects, should all accord in perfect unity and harmony with each other.

The empirical determinations of our Ego depend, however, for the most part, not upon ourselves but upon something external to us. The Will is, indeed, within its own circle—i.e. in the compass of the objects to which it can be applied after they have become known to man perfectly free;—as will be strictly proved at the proper time. But sense, and the conceptions in which it is presupposed, are not free; they depend upon things external to the Ego, the character of which is multiplicity, not identity. If the Ego is to be constantly at one with itself in this respect also, it must strive to operate directly upon the things themselves on which the sensations and perceptions of man depend; man must endeavour to modify these, and to bring them into harmony with the pure form of his Ego, so that his conceptions of them likewise, so far as these (his conceptions) depend upon the nature of their objects, may harmonize with that form. This modification of things according to our necessary ideas of what they should be, is not however possible by mere Will, but requires also a certain skill which is acquired and improved by practice.

Further, what is still more important, our empirical determinable Ego receives, from that unrestricted influence of external things upon it to which we subject ourselves without reservation so long as our Reason is still undeveloped, certain tendencies which cannot possibly harmonize with the form of our pure Ego, since they proceed from things external to us. In order to eradicate these tendencies, and restore the pure original form, Will is not sufficient of itself, but we need, besides, that skill which is acquired and improved by practice.

The acquisition of this skill,—partly to subdue and eradicate the improper tendencies which have arisen within us prior to the awakening of Reason and the consciousness of our own independence,—partly to modify external things, and alter them in accordance with our ideas,—the acquisition of this skill, I say, is called Culture; and any particular degree of it, when acquired, is likewise so denominated. Culture differs only in degree, but it is capable of infinite gradations. It is the last and highest means to the attainment of the great end of man, when he is considered as of a composite nature, rational and sensuous; complete harmony with himself: it is in itself his ultimate end when he is considered only as a sensuous being. Sense should be cultivated: that is the highest and ultimate purpose which can be entertained with respect to it.

The final result of all we have said is as follows: The perfect harmony of man with himself, and that this may be practicable, the harmony of all external things with his necessary practical ideas of them, the ideas which determine what these things should be; this is the ultimate and highest purpose of human existence. This harmony is, to use the language of the critical philosophy, the Highest Good; which Highest Good, considered absolutely, as follows from what we have already said, has no parts, but is perfectly simple and indivisible, it is the complete harmony of a rational being with himself. But in reference to a rational being who is dependent on external things, it may be considered two-fold; as the harmony of the Will with the idea of an Eternal Will, or, moral goodness; and as the harmony of external things with our Will (our rational will, of course), or happiness. It is thus, let it be remembered in passing, so far from being true that man is determined to moral goodness by the desire for happiness, that the idea of happiness itself and the desire for it, rather arise in the first place out of the moral nature of man. Not, That which produces happiness is good;—but, That only which is good produces happiness. Without morality happiness is impossible. Agreeable sensations may indeed exist without it, or even in opposition to it, and in the proper place we shall see why this is the case; but these are not happiness: frequently they are much opposed to it.

To subject all irrational nature to himself, to rule over it unreservedly and according to his own laws, is the ultimate end of man; which ultimate end is perfectly unattainable, and must continue to be so, unless he were to cease to be man, and become God. It is a part of the idea of man that his ultimate end must be unattainable; the way to it endless. Hence it is not the vocation of man to attain this end. But he may and should constantly approach nearer to it; and thus the unceasing approximation to this end is his true vocation as man; i.e. as a rational but finite, as a sensuous but free being. If, as we are surely entitled to do, we call this complete harmony with one’s self perfection, in the highest meaning of the word; then perfection is the highest unattainable end of man, whilst eternal perfecting is his vocation. He exists, that he may become ever morally better himself, and make all around him physically, and, if he be considered as a member of society, morally better also, and thus augment his own happiness without limit.

This is the vocation of man considered as isolated, i.e. apart from all relation to reasonable beings like himself. We however are not thus isolated, and although I cannot now direct your attention to the general inter-union of all rational beings with each other, yet must I cast a glance upon the relation with you, into which I enter to-day. It is this noble vocation which I have now briefly pointed out, that I would elevate into perfect clearness in the minds of many aspiring young men—that I desire to make the preëminent object, and constant guide of your lives; young men who are destined on their part again to operate most powerfully on humanity, in narrower or wider circles, by teaching or action, or both, to extend one day to others the culture they have themselves received, and everywhere to raise our common brotherhood to a higher stage of culture; young men, in teaching whom I in all probability teach yet unborn millions of our race. If some among you have kindly believed that I feel the dignity of this my peculiar vocation, that in all my thought and teaching I shall make it my highest aim to contribute to the culture and elevation of humanity in you, and in all with whom you may ever have a common point of contact, that I hold all philosophy and all knowledge which does not tend towards this object, as vain and worthless; if you have so thought of me, I may perhaps venture to say that you have judged rightly of my desire. How far my ability may correspond to this wish, rests not altogether on me;—it depends in part upon circumstances which are beyond our control. It depends in part also on you;—on your attention, which I solicit; on your private diligence, on which I reckon with trustful assurance; on your confidence, to which I commend myself, and which I shall strive to justify by deeds.

Lecture II. The Vocation of Man in Society

LECTURE II.

THE VOCATION OF MAN IN SOCIETY.

There are many questions which philosophy must answer before she can assume the character of knowledge and science: questions which are shunned by the dogmatist, and which the sceptic only ventures to point out at the risk of being charged with irrationality or wickedness, or both.

If I would not treat in a shallow and superficial manner a subject respecting which I believe that I possess some fundamental knowledge,—if I would not conceal, and pass over in silence, difficulties which I see right well,—it will be my fate in these public Lectures to touch upon many of those hitherto almost undisturbed questions without, however, being able to exhaust them completely; and, at the risk of being misunderstood or misinterpreted, to give mere hints towards more extended thought, mere directions towards more perfect knowledge, where I would rather have probed the subject to the bottom. If I supposed that there were among you many of those popular philosophers, who easily solve all difficulties without labour or reflection, by the aid of what they call sound Common Sense, I would not often occupy this chair without anxiety.

Among these questions may be classed the two following, which must be answered, with others, before any natural right is so much as possible;—first, By what authority does man call a particular portion of the physical world his body? how does he come to consider this body as belonging to his Ego, whereas it is altogether opposed to it?—and second, On what grounds does man assume and admit the existence around him of rational beings like himself, whereas such beings are by no means directly revealed to him in his own consciousness?

I have to-day to establish the Vocation of Man in Society; and the accomplishment of this task presupposes the solution of the latter question. By Society I mean the relation of reasonable beings to each other. The idea of Society is not possible without the supposition that rational beings do really exist around us, and without some characteristic marks whereby we may distinguish them from all other beings that are not rational, and consequently do not belong to Society. How do we arrive at this supposition? what are these distinctive marks? This is the question which I must answer in the first place.

“We have acquired both from experience: we know from experience that rational beings like ourselves exist around us, and also the marks by which they are distinguishable from irrational creatures.” This might be the answer of those who are unaccustomed to strict philosophical inquiry. But such an answer would be superficial and unsatisfactory; it would indeed be no answer to our question, but to an entirely different one. The experience which is here appealed to is also felt by the Egoists, who nevertheless are not thoroughly refuted by it. Experience only teaches us that the conception of reasonable beings around us is a part of our empirical consciousness; and about that there is no dispute, no Egoist has ever denied it. The question is, whether there is anything beyond this conception which corresponds to the conception itself; whether reasonable beings exist around us independently of our conceptions of them, and even if we had no such conceptions; and on this matter experience has nothing whatever to teach us so surely as it is only experience; that is to say, the body of our own conceptions.

Experience can at most teach us that there are phenomena which appear to be the results of rational causes; but it can never teach us that these causes actually exist as rational beings in themselves, for being in itself is no object of experience.

We ourselves first introduce such a being into experience; it is only we ourselves who explain our own experience by assuming the existence of rational beings around us. But by what right do we furnish this explanation? This right must be strictly proved before it is made use of, for its validity can only be grounded on its evidence, and not upon its actual use: and thus we have not advanced a single step, but return again to the question with which we set out: How do we come to assume and admit the existence of rational beings around us?

The theoretical domain of philosophy is unquestionably exhausted by the fundamental researches of the Critical School: all questions which still remain unanswered, must be answered upon practical principles. We must try whether the proposed question can be answered on such principles.

The highest impulse in man is, according to our last lecture, the impulse towards Identity, towards perfect harmony with himself; and, in order that he may be in constant harmony with himself, towards the harmony of all external things with his necessary ideas of them. There must not merely be nothing contradictory to his ideas, so that the existence or non-existence of an external representative of these ideas might be a matter of indifference to him, but there must actually be something corresponding to his ideas. Every idea which exists in the Ego must have a representative, an antitype, in the Non-Ego:—so is his impulse determined.

There is in man the idea not only of Reason, but also of reasonable acts and thoughts, and his nature demands the realization of this idea not only within himself but also without himself. It is thus one of his wants that there should be around him reasonable beings like himself.

He cannot create such beings; but he lays the idea of them at the foundation of his observation of the Non-Ego, and expects to find something there corresponding to it. The first mark of rationality which presents itself is of a merely negative character, efficiency founded on ideas, activity towards an end. Whatever bears the marks of design may have a reasonable author; that to which the notion of design cannot be applied has certainly no reasonable author. But this characteristic is ambiguous; the agreement of many things in one end is the mark of design, but there are many kinds of agreement which may be explained by mere natural laws, if not by mechanical, then by organic laws; hence we still require a distinctive mark whereby we may confidently infer from a particular phenomenon the existence of a reasonable cause. Nature proceeds, even in the fulfilment of her designs, by necessary laws;—Reason always proceeds with freedom. Hence the agreement of many things in one end, freely fulfilled, is the sure and infallible characteristic of rationality as manifested in its results. We now inquire, How can we distinguish a phenomenon in our experience produced by necessity, from a phenomenon produced by freedom?

I can by no means be immediately conscious of a freedom which exists out of myself, I cannot even be conscious of a freedom which exists within myself, that is, of my own freedom; for essential freedom is the first condition of consciousness, and hence cannot lie within its sphere of observation. But I may be conscious of this, that I am not conscious of any other cause for a particular determination of my empirical Ego through my will, than this will itself; and this non-consciousness of constraining cause may be called a consciousness of freedom, if this be clearly understood beforehand; and we shall call it so here. In this sense then, man may be conscious of his own free activity.

If through our own free activity, of which we are conscious in the sense above indicated, the character of the activity apparent in the phenomena which experience presents to us is so changed that this activity is no longer to be explained according to the law by which we formerly judged it, but according to that on which we have based our own free action, and which is quite opposed to the former; then we cannot explain this altered view of the activity apparent in experience otherwise than by the supposition that the cause to which we refer it is likewise reasonable and free. Hence arises,—to use the Kantian terminology,—a free reciprocal activity founded on ideas,—a community pervaded by design;—and it is this which I call Society. The idea of Society is thus sufficiently defined.

It is one of the fundamental impulses of man to feel that he must assume the existence around him of reasonable beings like himself; and he can only assume their existence under the condition of entering into Society with them, according to the meaning of that word as above explained. The social impulse thus belongs to the fundamental impulses of man. It is man’s vocation to live in Society—he must live in Society;—he is no complete man, but contradicts his own being, if he live in a state of isolation.

You see how important it is not to confound the abstract idea of Society with that particular empirically-conditioned form of Society which we call the State. Political Society is not a part of the absolute purpose of human life (whatever a great man may have said to the contrary); but it is, under certain conditions, a possible means towards the formation of a perfect Society. Like all human institutions, which are merely means to an end, the State constantly tends towards its own extinction; the ultimate aim of all government is to make government superfluous. Of a surety that time is not now present with us,—and I know not how many myriads, or perhaps myriads of myriads, of years may elapse before it arrive,—(and it must be understood that we have not now to deal with a practical condition of life, but with the vindication of a speculative principle); that time is not now, but it is certain that in the a priori fore-ordered course of the human race such a period does exist when all political combinations shall have become unnecessary. That is the time when, in place of strength or cunning, Reason alone shall be acknowledged as the supreme judge of all; acknowledged I say; for although men may even then go astray, and by their errors do hurt to their fellow-men, yet they will then be open to conviction of their error, and, when convinced of it, will be willing to turn back and make amends for their fault. Until that time shall come, mankind, as a race, cannot be true men.