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

uldp. 387 confine himself to certain abstract conceptions ? The task of metaphysics is certainly not the observation of particular experiences, but yet it is the correct explanation of experience as a whole. Its foundation must therefore, at any rate, be of an empirical nature. Indeed the a priori nature of a part of human knowledge will be apprehended by it as a given fact, from which it will infer the subjective origin of the same. Only because the consciousness of its a priori nature accompanies it is it called by Kant transcendental as distinguished from transcendent, which signifies " passing beyond all possibility of experience," and has its opposite in immanent, i.e., remaining within the limits of experience. I gladly recall the original meaning of this expression introduced by Kant, with which, as also with that of the Categories, and many others, the apes of philosophy carry on their game at the present day. Now, besides this, the source of the knowledge of metaphysics is not outer experience alone, but also inner. Indeed, what is most peculiar to it, that by which the decisive step which alone can solve the great question becomes possible for it, consists, as I have fully and thoroughly proved in " Ueber den Willen in der Natur" under the heading, " Physische Astronomic" in this, that at the right place it combines outer experience with inner, and uses the latter as a key to the former.

The origin of metaphysics in empirical sources of knowledge, which is here set forth, and which cannot 'airly be denied, deprives it certainly of that kind of ipodictic certainty which is only possible through knowedge a priori. This remains the possession of logic and nathematics — sciences, however, which really only teach vhat every one knows already, though not distinctly. At nost the primary elements of natural science may also be (educed from knowledge a priori. By this confession aetaphysics only surrenders an ancient claim, which, ccording to what has been said above, rested upon misnderstanding, and against which the great diversity andp. 388 changeableness of metaphysical systems, and also the constantly accompanying scepticism, in eveiy age has testified Yet against the possibility of metaphysics in general this changeableness cannot be urged, for the same thing affects just as much all branches of natural science, chemistry, physics, geology, zoology, &c, and even history has not remained exempt from it. But when once, as far as the limits of human intellect allow, a true system of metaphysics shall have been found, the unchangeableness of a science which is known a priori will yet belong to it ; for its foundation can only be experience in general, and not the particular and special experiences by which, on the other hand, the natural sciences are constantly modified and new material is always being provided for history. For experience as a whole and in general will never change its character for a new one.

The next question is : How can a science drawn from experience pass beyond it and so merit the name of metaphysics ? It cannot do so perhaps in the same way as we find a fourth number from three proportionate ones, or a triangle from two sides and an angle. This was the way of the pre-Kantian dogmatism, which, according to certain laws known to us a priori, sought to reason from the given to the not given, from the consequent to the reason, thus from experience to that which could not possibly be given in any experience. Kant proved the impossibility of a metaphysic upon this path, in that he showed that although these laws were not drawn from experience, they were only valid for experience. He therefore rightly taught that in such a way we cannot transcend the possibility of all experience. But there are other paths to metaphysics. The whole of experience is like a cryptograph, and philosophy the deciphering of it, the correctness of which is proved by the connection appearing everywhere. If this whole is only profoundly enough comprehended, and the innei experience is connected with the outer, it must be capable of being interpreted, explained from itself. Since Kant

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