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

realism remained in undisputed acceptance, spiritualism was set up, that is, the assumption of a second substance outside of and along with matter, an immaterial substance. This dualism and spiritualism, equally unsupported by experience and destitute of proof and comprehensibility, was denied by Spinoza, and was proved to be false by Kant, who dared to do so because at the same time he established idealism in its rights.

For with realism materialism, as the counterpoise of which spiritualism had been devised, falls to the ground of its own accord, because then matter and the course of nature become mere phenomena, which are conditioned by the intellect, as they have their existence only in its idea.

Accordingly spiritualism is the delusive and false safeguard against materialism, while the real and true safeguard is idealism, which, by making the objective world dependent upon us, gives the needed counterpoise to the position of dependence upon the objective world, in which we are placed by the course of nature. The world from which I part at death is, in another aspect, only my idea.

The centre of gravity of existence falls back into the subject. What is proved is not, as in spiritualism, that the knower is independent of matter, but that all matter is dependent on him. Certainly this is not so easy to comprehend or so convenient to handle as spiritualism, with its two substances; but "Xfikeira ra icaXa.

In opposition to the subjective starting-point, " the world is my idea," there certainly stands provisionally with equal justification the objective starting-point, " the world is matter," or " matter alone is absolute " (since it alone is not subject to becoming and passing away), or " all that exists is matter." This is the starting-point of Democritus, Leucippus, and Epicurus. But, more closely considered, the departure from the subject retains a real advantage ; it has the start by one perfectly justified step. For con - sciousness alone is the immediate : but we pass over this if we go at once to matter and make it our starting-pointvol. n. M

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On the other hand, it would certainly be possible to construct the world from matter and its properties if these were correctly, completely, and exhaustively known to us (which is far from being the case as yet). For all that has come to be has become actual through causes, which could operate and come together only by virtue of the fundamental forces of matter.

But these must be perfectly capable of demonstration at least objectively, even if subjectively we never attain to a knowledge of them.

But such an explanation and construction of the world would not only have at its foundation the assumption of an existence in itself of matter (while in truth it is conditioned by the subject), but it would also be obliged to allow all the original qualities in this matter to pass current and remain absolutely inexplicable, thus as gualitates occulta. (Cf. § 26, 27 of the first volume.) For matter is only the vehicle of these forces, just as the law of causality is only the arranger of their manifestations.

Therefore such an explanation of the world would always remain merely relative and conditioned, properly the work of a physical science, which at every step longed for a metaphysic.

On the other hand, there is also something inadequate about the subjective starting-point and first principle, " the world is my idea," partly because it is one-sided, since the world is far more than that (the thing in itself, will), and indeed its existence as idea is to a certain extent only accidental to it ; but partly also because it merely expresses the fact that the object is conditioned by the subject, without at the same time saying that the subject, as such, is also conditioned by the object.

For the assertion, " the subject would still remain a knowing being if it had no object, ie., if it had absolutely no idea," is just as false as the assertion of the crude understanding, " the world, the object, would still exist, even if there were no subject. A consciousness without an object is no consciousness.

A thinking subject has conceptions for its object; a subject of sense perception has objects with the qualities correspondTHE STANDPOINT OF IDEALISM. 179