There did exist a philosophy which claimed that it could increase the above described collection by a mere drawing of conclusions, and which held that thinking was not only what we have just described it to be—a mere analyzingand recomposingof the given—but, at the same time, a producingand creating of something altogether new. According to this system, the philosopher was exclusively possessed of certain cognitions which common sense could not attain. According to it, the philosopher could produce through argument, a God, and an immortality for himself, and could argue himself wise and good. If such philosophers are logical, they must declare common sense to be insufficient for the purposes of daily life—since, otherwise, their expanding system would become superfluous—and must invite all who bear a human face to become as great philosophers as they are themselves, so that all may likewise become as good and virtuous as these philosophers.
My reader, does a philosophical system, such as I have just now described, appear to you to be honorable to common sense and its interests—a system which insists of common sense that it should be cured of its inborn blindness in the school of the philosopher, and should there get an artificial light to replace its own natural light?
Now, if to this system there should oppose 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?
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 learnedfrom any one else what I teach; have not foundit in any book before I taught it; and hence it is, at least in its form, altogether my property. I ought, therefore, to knowbest my own teachings. Doubtless I also desireto 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 newerphilosophy 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.