On the one hand we see a metaphysic, and, on the other, the particular sciences: on the one hand abstract thought as such, on the other its content taken from experience; these two lines in the abstract stand opposed to one another, and yet they do not separate themselves so sharply. We shall indeed come to an opposition, viz. to that between a priori thought - that the determinations which are to hold good for thought must, be taken from thought itself - and the determination that we must commence, conclude and think from experience. This is the opposition between rationalism and empiricism; but it is really a subordinate one, because even the metaphysical mode in philosophy, which only allows validity to immanent thought, does not take what is methodically developed from the necessity of thought, but in the old way derives its content from inward or outward experience, and through reflection and meditation renders it abstract. The form of philosophy which is first reached through thought is metaphysics, the form of the thinking understanding; this period has, as its outstanding figures, Descartes and Spinoza, likewise Malebranche and Locke, Leibnitz and Wolff. The second form is Scepticism and Criticism with regard to the thinking understanding, to metaphysics as such, and to the universal of empiricism; here we shall go on to speak of representatives of the Scottish, German, and French philosophies; the French materialists again turn back to metaphysics.
Chapter I. - The Metaphysics of the Understanding METAPHYSICS is what reaches after substance, and this implies that one unity, one thought is maintained in opposition to dualism, just as Being was amongst the ancients. In metaphysics itself we have, however, the opposition between substantiality and individuality. What comes first is the spontaneous, but likewise uncritical, metaphysics, and it is represented by Descartes and Spinoza, who assert the unity of Being and thought. The second stage is found in Locke, who treats of the opposition itself inasmuch as he considers the metaphysical Idea of experience, that is the origin of thoughts and their justification, not yet entering on the question of whether they are absolutely true. In the third place we have Leibnitz's monad - the world viewed as a totality.
A. First Division We here encounter the innate ideas of Descartes. The philosophy of Spinoza, in the second place, is related to the philosophy of Descartes as its necessary development only; the method is an important part of it.
A method which stands alongside of Spinozism and which is also a perfected development of Cartesianism, is, in the third place, that by which Malebranche has represented this philosophy.
1. Descartes 2. Spinoza 3. Malebranche B. Second Division It was Locke who became the instrument of setting forth this entire manner of thinking in a systematic way, for he worked out Bacon's position more fully. And if Bacon made sensuous Being to be the truth, Locke demonstrated the universal, Thought, to be present in sensuous Being, or showed that we obtained the universal, the true, from experience. From Locke a wide culture proceeds, influencing English philosophers more especially; the forms adopted by this school were various, but the principle was the same; it became a general method of regarding things in a popular way, and calls itself Philosophy, although the object of Philosophy is not to be met with here.
1. Locke 2. Hugo Grotius 3. Thomas Hobbes 4. Cudworth, Clarke, Wollaston 5. Puffendorf 6. Newton C. Third Division The third development of the philosophy of the understanding is that represented by Leibnitz and Wolff. If Wolff's metaphysics is divested of its rigid form, we have as a result the later popular philosophy.
1. Leibnitz 2. Wolff 3. German Popular Philosophy Chapter II. - Transition Period THE decadence which we find in thought until the philosophy of Kant is reached, is manifested in what was at this time advocated in opposition to the metaphysic of the understanding, and which may be called a general popular philosophy, a reflecting empiricism, which to a greater or less extent becomes itself a metaphysic; just as, on the other hand, that metaphysic, in as far as it extended to particular sciences, becomes empiricism. As against these metaphysical contradictions, as against the artificialities of the metaphysical synthesis, as against the assistance of God, the preestablished harmony, the best possible world, &c., as against this merely artificial understanding, we now find that fixed principles, immanent in mind, have been asserted or maintained respecting what is felt, intuitively perceived and honoured in the cultured human breast. And in distinction to the assertion that we only find the solution in the principles of a fixed and permanent content form a reconciliation here and now, they adopt a position of independence, and assume an intellectual standing-ground which they find in what has generally been termed the healthy human understanding. Such determinations may indeed be found to be perfectly good and valid if the feelings, intuitions, heart and understanding of man be morally and intellectually fashioned; for in that case better and more noble feelings and desires may rule in men and a more universal content, may be expressed in these principles. But when men make what we call sound reason - that which is by nature implanted in man's breast - into the content and the principle, the healthy human understanding discovers itself to be identical with a feeling and knowledge belonging to nature. The Indians who worship a cow, and who expose or slay newborn children, and commit all sorts of barbarous deeds, the Egyptians who pray to a bird, the apis, &c., and the Turks as well, all possess a healthy human understanding similar in nature.
