Sun-Clear Statement. Johann Gottlieb Fichte
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itself another system, claiming utterly to refute this pretension of a knowledge obtainable only through argument, but inaccessible to common sense, and to show in the most convincing manner that we have no Truth and Reality except the experience which is accessible to all; that there is nothing for life except the above described system of common sense; that life can be learned only through life itself, but on no account through speculation; and that men do not argue themselves wise or good, but live themselves wise and good—would you, as the representative of common sense, consider this latter system your enemy or your friend, and would you believe its tendency to be to wrap new chains around you, or rather to liberate you from those wherein you have been enwrapped?
Again: If this latter system were attacked, and charged with being hostile to you and threatening your ruin, and if this charge emanated from persons who had all the appearance of belonging to the party of the philosophers of the class first described, what opinion would you hold of the honesty of such persons, or, to use the mildest expression, of their acquaintance with the true position of things?
IV.
You are astonished, my reader. You ask whether these are really the facts of the case in the charges raised against the newest philosophy?
I am forced here to throw aside my character as author, and to assume my individual personality. Whatever people may think and say of me, I am at least known to be not a mere copyist; and, so far as I know, the public is unanimous on this point—nay, many confer upon me the oft repudiated honor of holding me up as the originator of an utterly new system, unknown before me; and the man who would seem to be the most competent judge in this matter—Kant—has publicly renounced all participation in my system. Let this be as it may, at any rate I have not learned from any one else what I teach; have not found it in any book before I taught it; and hence it is, at least in its form, altogether my property. I ought, therefore, to know best my own teachings. Doubtless I also desire to state them; for of what use could it be to me here publicly to declare something whereof any one might prove the contrary from my other writings?
I therefore publicly declare it to be the innermost spirit and soul of my philosophy, that man has nothing but experience, and that he arrives at everything at which he does arrive, only through experience, only through life itself. All his thinking, be it loose or systematic, ordinary or transcendental, proceeds from experience, and has again experience for its object. Nothing except life has unconditioned value and significance; all other thinking, imagining, and knowing, has value only in so far as it relates itself in some manner to life, proceeds from life, and tends to return back into life.
Such is the tendency of my philosophy. Such, also, is the tendency of Kant's philosophy, which will not separate from me, at least on this point; and such, also, is the tendency of the philosophy of a contemporary of Kant—Jacobi—who would have little to complain of about my system if he would understand me on this one point. Hence, it is the tendency of all newer philosophy which understands itself and knows what it wants.
I have not to defend any of the others here; I speak only of my own, of the so-called newest. The standpoint, the method, the whole form of this philosophy, involves statements which may induce the belief that it does not tend towards the result just described, but towards its very opposite, namely: if its peculiar standpoint is lost sight of, and if that which is valid for it is held as valid for everyday life and common sense. Hence, I need only to describe this standpoint accurately, and to distinguish it carefully from the standpoint of common sense, in order to make it appear clearly that my philosophy has no other tendency than the one just announced. If you, therefore, dear reader, should resolve to remain upon the standpoint of common sense, this work will give you full security on that standpoint against my own and all other philosophy; or should you desire to rise to the standpoint of philosophy, it will furnish you with the most comprehensible introduction to it.
I am desirous to be, for once, clearly understood in regard to the points which I have to treat of here, for I am tired of continually repeating what I have stated so often.
Nevertheless, I must ask the patience of the reader for a continuous argument, wherein I can assist his memory only by repeating propositions before proven, whenever new consequences are to be drawn from them.
First Conversation
Don't be alarmed, my reader, if I seem to take a somewhat long route. I am anxious to make very clear to you certain conceptions which will be of importance in future, not for the sake of these conceptions themselves, which are but common and trivial, but for the sake of the results I propose to derive from them. Nor shall I analyze these conceptions further than is absolutely necessary for my purpose, as you may tell the book critic, who will perhaps expect here an analytical art work.
To begin, you surely know how to distinguish the really actual, that which is the true fact of your present experience and life, or that which you actually live and experience, from the non-actual, the merely imagined. For instance, you at this moment sit in your room, hold this book in your hand, see its letters, and read its words. This is doubtless the actual event and determinedness of your present life-moment. In thus sitting and continuing to hold this book, you doubtless can remember yesterday's conversation with a friend, can represent this friend to yourself as if he actually stood before you, can hear him speak, can make him repeat what he said yesterday, &c, &c. Tell me, is this latter, this appearance of your friend, equally the actual and true event of your present life-moment, with your sitting in your room and holding this book?
The Reader. By no means.
The Author. But I should think something at least, even in this latter state, is an actual and real event of your life; for tell me, do you not in the meanwhile continue to live—does not your life pass away in the meanwhile—is it not filled up with something?
R. I see; you are right. The true event of my life in the latter state is precisely my placing my friend before me, my making him speak, not his actual being with me. This placing him before me is that wherewith I fill up the time which I live in the meanwhile.
A. Hence, there must be a common somewhat in your sitting there and holding the book and in your placing your friend before you, recalling his conversation, &c, by means of which common character you judge of both cases, that they are actually real events of your life. On the other hand, that yesterday's actual conversation and presence of your friend must also not have this common character—which would warrant you to consider it as actually occurring—in the connection of time wherein you place it to-day by recalling it. Nay, it has, probably, an opposite to this common character, which causes you to-day to declare it to be not actually occurring.
R. It certainly must be so. My judgment must have a ground; a similar judgment must have a similar ground; an opposite judgment an opposite ground, or the absence of the former ground.
A. What may this ground be?
R. I do not know.
A. But you judge every moment of your life concerning actuality and non-actuality, and judge correctly, in conformity with other rational beings. Hence, the ground of those judgments must be always present to you; you only do not become clearly conscious of it in your judgment. As for the rest, your answer, "I do not know," signifies only: "Nobody has yet told me." But even if it were told you, it would avail you nothing; you must find it yourself.
R. However much I revolve the matter in my mind, I cannot get at it.
A. Nor is it the right way to be guessing at it and looking around for it. It is in this way that those systems arise which are purely imaginary. Neither can you get at it by drawing conclusions. But try to become thoroughly conscious of your procedure in this judgment concerning actuality and non actuality; look into yourself, and you will at once become conscious