The World as Will and Idea, Vol. I — Arthur Schopenhauer, trans. Haldane & Kemp

§ 7. With reference to our exposition up to this point.

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THE WORLD AS IDEA.

it must be observed that we did not start either from the object or the subject, but from the idea, which contains and presupposes them both ; for the antithesis of object and subject is its primary, universal and essential form. We have therefore first considered this form as such;- then (though in this respect reference has for the most part been made to the introductory essay) the subordinate forms of time, space and causality. The latter belong exclusively to the object, and yet, as they are essential to the object as such, and as the object again is essential to the subject as such, they may be discovered from the subject, i.e., they may be known a jprron, and so far they are to be regarded as the common limits of both. But all these forms may be referred to one general expression, the principle of sufficient reason, as we have explained in the introductory essay.

This procedure distinguishes our philosophical method from that of all former systems. For they all start either from the object or from the subject, and therefore seek to explain the one from the other, and this according to the principle of sufficient reason. We, on the contrary, deny the validity of this principle with reference to the relation of subject and object, and confine it to the object. It may be thought that the philosophy of identity, which has appeared and become generally known in our own day, does not come under either of the alternatives we have named, for it does not start either from the subject or from the object, but from the absolute, known through “ intellectuaUntuitipji,” vyliich is neither object nor subject, ^t the identity of the two. I will not venture to speak of this revered identity, and this absolute, for I find myself entirely devoid of all “ intellectual intuition.” But as 1 take my stand mer^y on those' mahilestoes of the “ intellectual intuiter ” which are open to all, even to profane persons like myself, I must yet observe that this philosophy is not to be excepted from the alternative errors mentioned above For it does rot escape these

THE WORLD -,45 IDEA.

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two opposite errors in spite of its identity of subject and object, which is not thinkable, but only " intellectually intuitable," or to be experienced by a losing of oneself in it.

On the*~contrary, it combines them both in itself; for it is divided into two parts, firstly, transcendental idealism, which is just Fichte’s doctrine oFIthe eyo, and therefore teaches that the object is produced by the subject, or evolved out of it in accordance with the principle of sufficient reason ; secondly, the philosophy of nature, which teaches that the subject is produced little by little from the object, by means of a method called construction, about which I understand very little, yet enough to know that it is a process according to various forms of the principle of sufficient reason.

The deep wisdom itself which that construction contains, I renounce; ibr as I entirely lack “ intellectual intuition,” all those expositions which presuppose it must for me remain as a book sealed with seven seals. This is so truly the case that, strange tcTsay, I have always been unable to find anything at all in this doctrine of profound wisdom but atrocious and wearisome bombast.