S.
Na►ec, 143 (1W1)
236 IDEALISTIC STUDIES
subjunctive mood, lies at the very heart of the hypothesizing activity. If
scientific knowledge constitutes a system of coherent truths, then theorizing
within a system so conceived is difficult to justify. This is to say that a
coherent system of scientific claims as conceived by Rescher limits the
flexibility of theorizing as ordinarily understood. For to suggest a scientific
hypothesis as something to be tested places all relevant scientific truths on
a tentative footing until the said hypothesis has been proven true. Hence
one could argue that there is at least the suspension of the truth of knowledge
claims surrounding the counterfactual until the requisite verification has
taken place, which is antithetic to Rescher's thesis.
All of this is not to deny the valuable work Professor Rescher has done
in indicating a way by which hypotheticals can be handled within a system
of knowledge claims. However, the remedy he proposes cannot cure the
problem in all of its manifestations. Somehow, natural discourse seems to
demand that there be an openness of connotation which resists specification
in terms of a possible world model. From this perspective much remains
unsaid concerning the role of the subjunctive, in which mode Rescher presents
a great number of his illustrations.
Cleveland State University
Notes
'Herbert Feigl and Wilfrid Sellars, eds., Readings in Philosophical Analysis, "The Contrary-
to-Fact Conditional," by R. M. Chisholm (New York: Appleton-Century-Crofts, Inc., 1949),
p. 485.
'Nicholas Rescher, Hypothetical Reasoning (Amsterdam, 1964).
'Nicholas Rescher, The Coherence Theory of Truth (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1973).
'Rescher, 1973, p. 265.
'Rescher, 1973, p. 272.
Rescher, 1973, pp. 280-81.
'Rescher, 1973, pp. 284-87.
8 Rescher, 1973, pp. 275, 278, and 286.
9 Rescher, 1973, pp. 84-85.
"'Robert Stalnaker, "Formal Semantics and Philosophical Problems," paper presented at
the American Philosophical Association meeting, New York City, 1979.
"Stalnaker, pp. 6-8.
''Alan R. White, Truth (New York: Anchor Books, 1970), p. 16.
SCHELLING'S APHORISMS OF 1805
Translated by Fritz Marti
Introductory Note by the Translator. (Translator's insertions are in brackets.)
In the second part of these aphorisms, starting at about Aphorism 121,
Schelling sketches the traits of his Naturphilosophie. (I shall retain that word
because it is more convenient than any awkward and possibly misleading
translation.) The total of the two hundred and twenty-four aphorisms (VII,
140-89) can rightly bear the title of an Introduction to Naturphilosophie.
But when I here present a translation of only the first eighty, I ought to
warn the reader that she or he will not find Schelling's Naturphilosophie,
but rather an emphatic introduction to the method of philosophizing and
more especially a short "negative theology," that is, an instruction in what
not to do when theologizing. I hope that theologians unfamiliar with the
German original will find my translation useful, and that it will challenge
philosophers to revise a still current notion that Fichte provides one half of
philosophy and Schelling the other.
The notion goes back to the different Critiques of Kant. The basic question
of the Critique of Pure Reason was: How is objective knowledge possible?
The problem of the Critique of Practical Reason was: How is unconditional
obligation possible? And the Critique of Judgment raised the question
regarding the systematic unity of "theoretical" (i.e., objective) and "practical"
(moral) truth. The climax of this third Critique is found at the end of section
II of the Introduction:
There must be a ground of the unity of the supersensible which lies at
the basis of nature, with that supersensible which the concept of freedom
contains practically [that is, not as a mere fact but in a sheer act]; and
the concept (Begriff) of this ground, although it does not attain either
theoretically or practically to a knowledge (Erkenntnis) of the ground,
and hence has no jurisdiction (Gebiet) of its own, nevertheless makes
possible (or ought to make possible) the transition from the mode of
thought (Denkungsart) according to the principle of the one to that
according to the principle of the other. (J. H. Bernard's translation,
here slightly amended.)
It may look as if Fichte had tried to extend the jurisdiction of practical
reason so as to cover the theoretical. And, in line with Kant' s "primacy of
238 IDEALISTIC STUDIES SCHELLING'S APHORISMS OF 1805 239
practical reason," one can point out that scientific objectivity is one of our
moral duties. "Yet," says A. R. Caponigri (Philosophy from the Renaissance
to the Romantic Age, University of Notre Dame Press, 1963, p. 510), "it
was obviously no part of Fichte's intention to negate the order of nature,
or with it the possibility of a philosophy of nature." Now if the "ground of
unity" postulated by Kant could be attained by the practical "mode of
thought," then indeed the conventional label of "subjective idealism" would
stick to Fichte. And then one could say with Caponigri that "the development
of the system of reason which was undertaken by Schelling appears as the
complement of Fichte's efforts and their completion." As Capaigri adds:
"This complementariness led presently to the characterization of their respec-
tive systems as subjective and objective idealism." Compare what Schelling
himself said in 1801:
Fichte, for instance, could have conceived of idealism in an entirely
subjective and I, in contrast, in an objective sense.... idealism in the
subjective sense would have to claim that the I is everything, idealism
in the objective sense on the contrary that everything equals [is equal
to the] I, and that there exists nothing but what equals I. No doubt
these are different views, although one cannot deny that both are idealis-
tic. I do not say this is the real case. I merely posit it as possible. But
supposing it were the case, then the reader could not learn from the
word idealism anything about the proper content of a system advanced
under that name. (IV, 109)
The word complement might induce the reader to believe that Schelling
simply added the half of philosophy missing in Fichte. And that would lead
to two isms, or to two philosophies. Yet in 1802 Schelling himself declared
emphatically that
there is only One philosophy and One science of philosophy; what you
call different philosophical sciences are only representations of the one
and indivisible whole of philosophy under different aspects (unter ver-
schiedenen ideellen Bestimmungen) or, if I may immediately use the
familiar term, representations in different potencies. (On the Relation
of Naturphilosophie to Philosophy as Such, I, 106)
Nowadays the word potency is no longer familiar. What does it mean?
In a vulgar expression, it means what one "can do," but not what one actually
"is doing." If we want to talk philosophy, we can and must start from
somewhere, as Kant says, in some "mode of thought." The mode Schelling
calls dogmatism starts from the assumption of some thing, and as Kant had
shown, things are conditional entities. Criticism starts from the unconditional
conviction we all have or could and should have of being each what goes
by the name of "I." Following the clues in Kant, Fichte, and, at first
independently from Fichte, young Schelling grasped that unconditionality.
"Unconditional is that which cannot at all be turned into a thing, cannot
become a thing" (I, 166). "The principle of dogmatism is some not-I posited
as antecedent to all I; the principle of criticism is an I posited before every
not-I and excluding every not-I" (I, 170).
In Kant's language the not-I in the strictest sense is called a thing-in-itself
(Ding an sich). In 1795, in his Grundlage (I, 286), Fichte wrote: "If the
Wissenschaftslehre were asked 'how are things constituted in themselves?'
it could answer only saying 'the way we ought to make them. Fichte may
—
have had in mind the last section of §84 in Kant's Critique of Judgment
which states that man's "existence involves the highest purpose to which,
as far as is in his power, he can subject the whole of nature, contrary to
which at least he cannot regard himself as subject to any influence of nature"
(J. H. Bernard's translation, p. 285f.). Although Fichte's sentence sounds
like an intransigent ethicism that would reject the very study of the objective
constitution of things by physical science, in the same Grundlage the sentence
that "the not-I is itself the product of the self-determining I and is nothing
absolute posited outside the I," is followed by the sentence, "an I that posits
itself as positing itself, or a subject is not possible without an object, or:
the determination of the I, that is, the I's reflection on itself as this specific
.
I is possible only under the condition that it set its own limit in an opposite,"
that is in an object (I, 218).
This interdependence of subject and object led to Schelling's emphasis
in his Philosophical Letters on Dogmatism and Criticism of 1795 where he
stressed the fact that dogmatists can be as serious thinkers as criticists. (See,
for instance, the sixth and seventh letters, I, 307-16, and my introduction
to the Letters in The Unconditional in Human Knowledge, Bucknell Univer-
sity Press, 1980, pp. 151-55.)
In 1801 Schelling started the Presentation of My System of Philosophy
with the following statement.
Having for several years tried to present one and the same philosophy
from two quite different sides, as Naturphilosophie and as Transcen-
dental Philosophy, the present situation of the science now, earlier than
I myself wanted, drives me to establish publicly the system itself which
in my mind underlies those different presentations, and to place within
reach of all who are interested what until now I possessed only for
myself or shared with but a few. There are those who now first under-
stand the system as I here present it and who therefore care to and are
capable to compare it with those earlier presentations. Furthermore there
240 IDEALISTIC STUDIES
are those who realize how many preparations were necessary for the
complete and evident presentation which I am convinced I can now
make. They all will judge it natural and not at all faulty that I first
made these preparations and that, from those quite different sides, I
tried to prepare the complete knowledge of this philosophy (which I
audaciously and really take for the real one) before I would dare to
present it in its totality. None of those who realize all this will be able
to imagine that I have changed my own system of philosophy. (True,
there were some who actually imagined this after my lectures of last
winter.) [In the winter 1800/1801 Schelling gave three lectufe courses:
on philosophy of art, Naturphilosophie, and transcendental philosophy.
See Kuno Fischer, Schellings Leben, Werke and Lehre, 4th ed. , 1923;
p. 35.]....Never have I taken what I call transcendental philosophy and
Naturphilosophie for being each by itself the system of philosophy...I
always took them for opposite poles of philosophizing. With the present
presentation I am standing at the point of their indifference. (IV, 107f.)
If, after this exceedingly solemn declaration, one looks at the content of
the Presentation of 1801, I for one find two distinct and very different parts.
First comes a methodical though very formal inquiry into the concept of
being, winding up with theorem §51: "The first relative totality is matter"
(IV, 142). After these thirty pages there follow seventy pages of what to
me looks like the often repeated, though equally often reformulated, Natur-
philosophie. Now, since Schelling declares that, for his manner of presen-
tation, he chose "Spinoza as a model" (IV, 113), let the reader who is not
allergic to German do what one can do so profitably with Spinoza's Ethics:
skim the content by reading only the theorems. The main thesis is Schelling's
Declaration (Erklarung) § 147: "Matter, insofar as it is not raised to the form
of absolute identity, we call dead or inorganic matter. Matter which is [sic!]
the form of being of absolute identity is living (belebt)" (IV, 206).
Ever since my years of studying physics in 1915-1922 (a now very dated
physics indeed) I have tried at least once a decade to understand Natur-
philosophie. Though I could no longer pass an examination in physics, the
gist of what I once learned sticks to my mind and completely blocks my
vision when I read such a statement as theorem §152: "With regard to the
whole, the plant represents carbon, the animal nitrogen. Therefore the animal
is septentrional, the plant meridional. The latter pole, with regard to the
particular, is designated by the male, the former by the female sex" (IV,
207). Schelling calls this a Corollary of § 151: "The organization [of an
organism], in the particular as well as in the whole, must be conceived as
engendered by metamorphosis." This outright evolutionism, a generation
SCHELLING'S APHORISMS OF 1805 241
before Darwin (1809-1882), tallies with the anti-Newtonian or anti-
mechanistic view that nature is alive and that the very study of the inorganic
is relatively abstract, a view I heartily share. I also share Schelling's view
that the empirical sciences borrow their methodical concepts from
philosophical insights, necessarily though often unintentionally and without
knowing their source. This view leads to Schelling's distinction between
empirical natural science and Naturphilosophie. It does not justify nor excuse
for us the romantic roamings of Schelling (and of Hegel) based on the
romantic though sincere guesses of the incipient sciences around 1800.
In his Berlin lectures of 1804 on the Basic Traits of the Present Age,
Fichte spoke of the hunches of a physicist who "starts from phenomena and
seeks the unifying law." Following his hunch he will return to the observable
phenomena in order to test his thought, willing to give it up if not confirmed
by experiment. Thus his hunch is "a gift of genius, and not fantastication
(Schwdrmerei). A fantasticator (Schwiirmer) "demands that nature adjust to
his thoughts" (VII, 117). It is well known that Schelling's hunch expressed
in the first clause of §89 (IV, 161), that "the process of an electric conduit
occurs under the form of magnetism," led Schelling's pupil H. Chr. Oersted
a score of years later to the experimental proof of electromagnetic induction
(1820; see Kuno Fischer, loc. cit. , 336).
After all this I should answer the question of this introductory note: What
is the significance of the Aphorisms in Schelling's development? This is not
the place to review all his writings up to 1805. Below I simply list them.
Here I merely point out two things. First, the structure of the Aphorisms of
1805 as a whole is the same as that of the System of 1801, that is, a
philosophical methodology precedes a sketch of the Naturphilosophie. Sec-
ond, the methodology of 1801 is restricted to the concept of being while
that of 1805 is a methodology of the philosophy of religion, for us still
indispensable. Schelling furnished a methodology of Naturphilosophie in
the "first or general part" (VII, 198-220) of his Aphorisms on Natur-
philosophie which, in the Yearbooks on Medicine as Science (1806), follow
our Aphorisms as an Introduction to Naturphilosophie, and which give still
another presentation of Naturphilosophie. The identical bipartition of the
treatises of 1801 and 1805 justifies our separate printing of the methodology
of 1805.
242 IDEALISTIC STUDIES SCHELLING'S APHORISMS OF 1805 243
Schelling's Works 1792-1805
All titles here are put into English which, to be sure, may lead to some
confusion.
Date Title Reference in Werke
1792 On the origin of human evil. Latin thesis for
the Master's degree in philosophy. German
translation by Reinhold Mokrosch in the first
volume of the Historico-Critical Edition brought
out by the Bavarian Academy of Sciences
(Stuttgart: Frommann-Holzboog, 1976). I, 1-40
1793 On myths, historical legends, and philoso-
phemes of the oldest world. 41-83
1794 On the possibility of a form of philosophy as
such.* 85-112
1795 On Marcion as emendator of the Pauline letters.
Theological dissertation in Latin. German trans-
lation by JOrg Jantzen in the second volume of the
Hist. Crit. Ed. (Stuttgart, 1980). 113-48
1795 Of the I as principle of philosophy
or on the
unconditional in human knowledge. * 149-244
1795 Philosophical letters on dogmatism 281-341
and criticism. *
1796 New deduction of natural right. * 245-80
1796 Treatises as explanation of the idealism of Wissen-
schaftslehre. 343-452
1796 (Seven short papers). 453-87
1797 Ideas for a philosophy of nature. II, 1-343
1798 Of the world soul, a hypothesis of higher physics. 345-583
1799 First sketch of a system of Naturphilosophie. III, 1-268
1799 Introduction to the sketch of a system of Natur-
philosophie. 269-326
1800 System of transcendental idealism. English trans-
lation by Peter Heath (University of Virginia
Press, 1978). 327-634
1800 On the General Literary Journal of Jena. 635-68
1800 General deduction of the dynamic process or of
the categories of physics. IV, 1-78
1801 On the true concept of Naturphilosophie. 79-103
1801 Presentation of my system of philosophy. 105-212
1802 Bruno, or on the divine and natural principle of
things. Dialogue. 213-332
1802 Further presentations from the system of phi-
losophy. 511-23
1802 Miscellaneous (the poem Heinz Widerporst:
546-48). 525-65
1802 On the nature of philosophical critique in general
and its relation to the present stage of philosophy in
particular. V, 3-17
1802 On the absolute identity system and its relation to
the newest (Reinholdian) dualism. A dialogue be-
tween the author and a friend. 18-77
1802 Rtickert and Weiss, or the philosophy that needs no
thinking and knowing. 78-105
1802 On the relation of Naturphilosophie to philosophy
as such. 106-24
On construction in philosophy. 125-51
On Dante in philosophical regard. 152-63
Miscellaneous notes. 164-206
1803 LectUres on the method of university study. English
translation by Norbert Guterman (Ohio University
Press, 1966); has a few flaws. 207-352
1803 Philosophy of art (Jena lectures 1802/1803, Wiirz-
burg lectures 1804/1805). 353-736
1804 Immanuel Kant. VI, 1-10
1804 Philosophy and religion. 11-70
1804 Propaedeutic of philosophy. 71-130
1804 System of the entire philosophy and of Naturphil-
osophie in particular. 131-576
1805 Preface to the Yearbooks of Medicine as a Science. VII, 132-39
1805 Aphorisms as introduction to Naturphilosophie. 140-97
1805 Aphorisms on Naturphilosophie. 198-244
*English translation by Fritz Marti in The Unconditional in Human Knowl-
edge (Bucknell University Press, 1980).
1869 Riverside Drive, South Bend, IN 46616
244 IDEALISTIC STUDIES
APHORISMS AS AN INTRODUCTION TO NATURPHILOSOPHIE
Friedrich W. J. Schelling
1. Be it in science, in religion or in art, there is no higher revelation than
that of the divinity of the All, and in fact those three start from this revelation
and have significance only through it.
2. Wherever that revelation occurred, even when transitory, there was
rapture, repudiation of finite forms, cessation of all conflict, concord and
wondrous agreement, often across long gaps of time, notwithstanding the
greatest individual originality, and as the fruit of it a universal coalition of
the arts and sciences.
3. Wherever the light of that revelation got dim and men perceived things
not from the All but as separated, not in their union but in disunion, and
likewise tried to conceive of themselves in isolation and as separated from
the All, there you see science desolated in vast spaces, in spite of great
efforts only slight advances in the growth of insight, grains of sand added
to other grains in order to build the universe. You also see the beauty of
life vanished, and a widely diffused wild war of opinions regarding the first
and most important things, everything gone to pieces, in isolation.
4. In its very nature all conflict in science can have but one source, the
disregard of that which, being all-blessed, can contain no discord. Those
who take a stand against the idea of unity are fighting for nothing else than
the very discord on which their existence depends. If all false systems, all
artistic degenerations, all aberrations of religion are only the consequence
of that disregard and abstraction, then the rebirth of all sciences and all
aspects of culture can start only with the renewed acknowledgment of the
All and its eternal unity.
5. This insight is no light that shines from without but it arouses us
inwardly and moves the entire bulk of human culture. This insight works
in everything, be it ever so great or ever so trifling. And as it urges and
works in the whole tree of knowledge so also in its every branch and twig.
6. Yet not only the separations of the sciences from each other are abstrac-
tions, but likewise the separation of science from religion and art.
7. Just as all elements and things of nature, being mere abstractions from
the All, ultimately enter into the all-life of nature whose image is the earth
and the stars, each of which divinely embodies all forms and kinds of being,
so also must all elements and creations of the spirit ultimately enter a common
life which is higher than the life of each separately.
SCHELLING'S APHORISMS OF 1805 245
8. This composite life of science, religion and art would be that state
which is shaped in conformity with the divine model, in mankind as a whole.
Furthermore the relation which reason has to the structure of the universe
is the same as the relation of philosophy to that perfect state, that is, only
in such a state can philosophy find its own image manifest and alive.
9. Science is the knowledge of the laws of the whole and thus of what
is universal [and common]. Religion however is the contemplation of the
particular in its ties to the whole. It is religion that ordains the natural
scientist as a priest of nature, owing to the devotion with which he cares
for the particular. Religion assigns the God-set limits to our bent for the
universal, and thus, as a sacred tie, it mediates science with art. Art shapes
the universal and the particular into one.
10. The state legislation amounts to nothing without the heroism of pres-
ervation and the religion of compliance in the particular. Similarly the full
beauty of public life can be born only from the combination of the universality
of legislation with the particularity of all and every one, a combination due
to the spirit which rules the whole, not mechanically but artfully, as an
animating and governing spirit. There is a third similar dependence:
philosophy can attain a divinity in line with the idea of philosophy only by
means of an actual permeation of science with religion and art.
11. The eye alone never sees enough, nor does the ear ever hear its fill,
reason too is never satiated with contemplation. In its seclusion, science
furnishes an analogy: nobody can think the thought of the All to its end,
nor talk it through. Though in its search for laws science insists on conclus-
iveness, it has another side on which it is open and unlimited. The acknowl-
edgment of that side is the religion in science.
12. Religion, however, in its devotion to the particular, in case it does
not also return to the absolutely universal, will necessarily lose itself in
superstition. And I ask everyone who is not biased whether he knows another
name for the representations of individual things and phenomena whiCh a
pious zeal brings forth without any knowledge of the laws of the All.
13. To see the finite dissolved in the nonfinite is the spirit of science in
its seclusion. To see the nonfinite in the finite, in the comprehensibility of
the finite, is the spirit of art.
14. To present with the seriousness of science those laws in which, as
an ancient put it, the immortal God lives, yet to grasp with the same love
the particular, even the most singular, and thus to identify in a nonfinite
way the universal and the particular is the spirit of true philosophy.
15. The material in which the spirit finds its form is infinite. Provided
this material is drawn from the All, it matters neither for that infinity nor
for philosophy in what form the spirit reveals itself, be it the lyrical outpouring
of a harmonious individual, as an echo of the harmony of the universe, or
246 IDEALISTIC STUDIES SCHELLING'S APHORISMS OF 1805 247
be it the epic spread and fullness of the history of the universe poetically
condensed, or finally revealed in strictly plastic delimitation, either in the
still tart style to which any system gives birth in science and in art, or in
the more moderate style of an art already unshackled by gracefulness, or in
the last perfection full of dramatic life, with sublime mastery over the matter,
where the profoundest seriousness and the freest play reciprocally illuminate
and elevate each other. These forms merely designate different levels of
culture and of artistic maturity.
16. Winkelmann said the still tart and severe style of the oldest sculpture
had to precede the creations of later art beautified by grace. Like wise only
-
those states which begin with strict legislation are gifted for greatness. And
similarly the seriousness and strictness of scientific discipline must have
overcome the ignorance of minds before the sweeter fruits of philosophy
can ripen. The Platonic word, let none enter who is not initiated into
geometry, is valid in a much wider sense.
17. The true infinite is not formlessness but is delimited in itself, is
finished by itself and is thus perfect. This inner perfection of the infinite
which is imprinted on the greatest and the smallest furnishes a fit type of
looking at the particular and a system of knowing a whole.
18. Yet not only the whole as whole is divine. For so is also the part and
the particular by itself. Even if the scientific form were only a band around
the full sheaf, and if I gave you only a single ear as a growth of divine
kind, you would have to thank me. All the more, since scientific form is
an inner organic connection where every part is of the nature of the whole
and lives in itself just as much as it lives in the whole.
19. What do I boast of?—Of the one that was given to me, of this that
I have proclaimed the divinity even of the particular, the potential sameness
of all knowledge no matter of what topic, and thus the infinity of philosophy.'
20. I first gave a new presentation of my doctrine of nature and of the
All in 1801, in short sentences and in as simple strokes as then seemed
possible. [Representation of My System of Philosophy, IV, 105-212.] In
the part where that representation enters into particulars, I have since found
cause to improve or to change my view of many a thing and in general to
expand it. The general foundations, however, as they are established there
(§§1-50 of that Representation) have wonderfully held good in every sub-
sequent investigation, even in views that sprang still from divination rather
than from conscious knowledge. In my best insight, the anger of the vo-
ciferous multitude that considered my doctrine of the All as a bone of
contention tossed to them could not cast doubts upon a single one of my
sentences, much less cancel one. Here my only intention is to affirm afresh
the whole and the still valid in that representation and bring it into every
possible new light.
21. Herewith I give thanks for all improvements known to me which have
been made with regard to the matter and form of that representation, be
they well meant or born from ill will.
22. In the first place, only what I have already said here and am yet to
say can answer the question whether religion can be higher than philosophy,
and whether philosophical insight can be enhanced by religion. To be sure,
religion is not philosophy. Yet a philosophy that would not unite religion
and science in sacred harmony would not be philosophy. The religion of
the philosopher, however, has the complexion of nature; it is the robust
complexion of him who with bold courage descends into the depths of
nature, and not the pale color of one who like a hermit indulges in idle
self-contemplation. The latter can in no way be connected with our
philosophy which rests on the wholeness of nature's All.
23. Philosophy is also poetry. Yet let it not be a forward poetry which
voices nothing but the subject, but the inward poetry implanted in the object
like the music of the spheres. First let the matter be poetic, before the word
is so,
24. What I deprecate most are rhetorical trimmings with which some have
tried to improve this simple doctrine. In many writings of such authors, to
me their well-known vintage tasted like a wine turned sour in their hands
so that, like bad innkeepers, they tried to recure it with honey or sugar.
25. Of course I acknowledge something higher than science, and what
you say when you talk about it is not your own wisdom. Still, does anyone
attain that higher simply because he bungles in science? That would be like
declaring someone is a first-rate poet simply because he writes bad prose.
26. Those who are condemned by their own frame of mind to remain
pupils are the very ones who vociferate the loudest about the restrictions of
school. And all kinds of competitors for a prize plant themselves in Natur-
philosophie just like the arrogant gluttons in the house of Odysseus. No
wonder when at last brazen beggars who are poorer in spirit than Irus in
goods issue a pugilistic challenge to him from whose table they still devour
the leftovers.
27. Yet even many of the better ones have too narrow a view of my cause
when they do not see that it is not only a concern of our time and that, on
my part, I have done nothing but furnish the element for endlessly possible
insights. Unless our whole time changes, philosophy can never again exclude
its eternal relation to nature, nor can it desire to comprehend the whole by
means of the one-sided abstraction of the intelligent world.
248 IDEALISTIC STUDIES
28. Do I want a school?—Yes, but the way there were once schools of
poetry. That way those of joint inspiration may continue in a common key
to compose this eternal poem. Give me a few of this kind, such as I have
found, and see to it that inspired ones will not be wanting in the future, and
I promise you yet the 611,ripos (the unifying principle) even for science.
This requires no pupils nor any head or master. No one teaches another,
nor is bound to another, but each only to the God who speaks out of all.
29. I have long set up in front of opponents and of others the iron and
the bow. Can they shoot through the hole? The sequel will show whether
they were capable of bending the bow.
30. In line with the specific program of this journal, I wanted to start
with those principles which are needed for the specific pursuit of Natur-
philosophie and to present them not in a doctrinaire way nor by always
giving strict proofs, but more historically, in testimony of the matter itself.
And it seemed to me it would be most expedient to proceed in the following
order.
a) Of unity and totality. (Von der Ein-und Allheit.)
31. It is impossible to furnish anybody with a description of reason.
Reason must describe itself in each one and by means of each one.
32. Sense is divine in the following respect. Though it is bent upon the
particular, sense grasps each particular by itself as if it were a world by
itself and as if nothing existed beside this particular. Not knowing what it
is doing, sense beholds a present infinity; thus, in each particular, it beholds
totality, yet without resolving it in unity. —Hence the unfathomableness in
everything sensuous, the chaos, the confused plenitude. Sense can be equated
with religion.
33. Ratiocination, however, discerns the empty unity without fullness or
totality. The nature of ratiocination is clearness without depth. By means
of forming general concepts, ratiocination compares things and, mirroring
one thing in another, but not comprehending it in itself, ratiocination does
away with the divineness of all things and of each in particular. At the same
time, ratiocination posits the very distinguishability and manifoldness of
things. And insofar as ratiocination comprehends the general in the particular,
at the expense of the particular's infinity, it can be equated with science in
its isolation.
34. It is the imagination (Einbildungskraft) which unites clearness with
depth, the fullness of sense with the comprehension of ratiocination. Imag-
ination as such is only sense aware of its infinity, or ratiocination as simul-
SCHELLING'S APHORISMS OF 1805 249
taneously intuitive (der Verstand, der zugleich anschauet).
35. Reason, however, contains sense, ratiocination and imagination as
three finite restrictions, without being itself one of the three in particular.
Reason discerns not merely the confused infinite (without the unity) as sense
does, nor the empty unity (without the infinity) like ratiocination; but unity
and infinity, clearness and fullness themselves are one in reason, yet not
merely in the particular manner of the imagination, but absolutely
(schlechthin) and in a nonfinite manner.
36. Reason cannot affirm anything that would have reality only in some
relation or comparison, for if it did it would be the same as ratiocination
and could posit only finiteness. Therefore, in the first place, it cannot affirm
any [mere] distinctions, no matter of what kind, and, secondly, it cannot
discern or posit anything that could exist only owing to another, but only
that which is from and by itself absolutely and in every respect, or that
which is the nonfinite positing of itself. This is the idea of absoluteness.
37. Reason, therefore, can be satisfied only by that which is equal to
itself, not only in the particular but absolutely and quite universally
(schlechthin and durchaus allgemein) in everything and in each one, in a
nonfinite manner. That which is thus equal to itself and self-affirmative is,
therefore, as the self-equal, or as the oneness, also simultaneously infinity
or totality. This is only God. For he is affirmation of himself, that is, the
indissoluble identity of predicating and predicated. Since this identity alone
is the existence and essence of all things, God is the positing (Position) of
all things, that which in all things is equal to itself.
38. The affirmation of the infinite oneness and totality is no mere accident
in reason, it is its entire essence itself, which is also expressed in that law
which alone admittedly takes unconditional affirmation into account, the
law of identity (A = A).
39. You have been considering this law as merely formal and subjective;
thus you could find in it only the empty repetition of your own thinking.
Yet it has no reference to your thinking but is a universal, a nonfinite law
which states that in the universe there exists nothing as merely predicating
or predicated, but that eternally and in everything there is only One, which
affirms itself and is affirmed by itself, which manifests itself and is manifest
by itself, in a word, that nothing truly exists which is not absolute (36), not
divine.
40. Contemplate that law as such, recognize its content, and you shall
see God.
41. The infinite clearness in ineffable fullness, and the ineffable fullness
in infinite clearness is God—infinite affirmation and equally infinite being
250 IDEALISTIC STUDIES
affirmed by itself, in an absolutely simple invisible manner.
b) About reason as knowledge of the Absolute.
42. Not we, neither you nor I, know about God. For insofar as reason
affirms God it cannot affirm anything else and thus at once annihilates itself
as something particular, as something outside of God.
43. In truth and as such there is no subject at all, and no I and therefore
also no object or non-I, but only One, God or the All, and nothing else. If,
therefore, there is any knowing at all and any being known, then whatever
is in either is still only the One as One, that is, God.
44. The "I think, I am" is ever since Descartes the fundamental error in
all knowledge. Thinking is not my thinking, and being not my being, for
everything is only God's or the All's.
45. Reason is the one kind of knowing in which it is not the subject but
the absolutely universal (therefore the One) that knows (43) and in which,
on that very account, the absolutely universal alone is the known (39).
46. Reason is not a faculty, not a tool, nor can it be used. Anyhow there
is no reason at all which we could have, but only a reason which has us.
To search in oneself and to count or weigh the faculties which afford a
knowledge of God is the utmost limit of confusion and of inward eclipse
of the mind.
47. Even reason is not an affirmation of the One, which could be outside
the One, but a knowledge of God which is itself in God. Since nothing is
outside of God, the very knowledge of God is simply the nonfinite knowledge
which God has of himself in the eternal self-affirmation (36), that is, it is
itself the being of God and is in this being.
48. Reason does not have the idea of God, it is this idea and nothing
else.... With regard to reason one cannot ask whence the idea of God comes
to it, since reason itself is this idea....As everyone sees light shining in
nature, so he must acknowledge the idea of God as shining in reason and
in those who speak about it, not by any power of their own but by the power
of God, since without divine inspiration (Begeisterung) nobody can know
God nor speak of God.
49. This idea is not an object of dispute or of discord. All particularity,
which alone can be disputed, vanishes in this idea. The inane one who
would deny it voices it without knowing it; he cannot rationally connect
two concepts except in this idea.
50. God is not the highest, he is the One as such. He is not to be imagined
as the highest or as the end, but as the center though not as in contrast to
SCHELLING'S APHORISMS OF 1805 251
a periphery, but as all in all. Even the highest is highest only in relation to
something lower. God, however, is without any relation at all, that which
is affirmable only from itself and by itself.
51. Therefore there is no ascent of knowledge to God, but only an
immediate recognition, yet not immediate on the part of man, but of the
divine by the divine.
52. In no kind of knowledge can God occur as the known (the object).
As known he ceases to be God. We are never outside of God so that we
could set him in front of us as an object. Just as the feeling of gravity is
our being in gravity, so is the knowledge of God itself the being in God.
Here there is nothing subjective and nothing objective, because there are no
two distinct entities, one which knows and another that is known, but only
one and the same (51), God.
53. Every kind of view in which the subject subsists as subject is inherently
reprehensible. You speak of an inkling (Ahnung) of what is divine, of a
faith which you place higher than knowledge (Erkenntnis). But the divine
has no inkling of the divine. Also there is no faith in God that would be a
mere disposition in the subject. What you wanted to save was merely the
• subject. You did not at all want to glorify the divine.
54. There is a restraint of will which, in no merely human, physiological,
or psychological but in a divine manner, forces human beings to act the
right way. And so there is a way of acting in which the individual forgets
itself. Likewise there is a divine restraint of knowledge which does not
originate in human beings themselves and in which the knowing one as such
disappears, just as in that kind of acting, the acting one disappears as an
agent. Yet along with the vanishing knower there also disappears the known
as known. 2
c) About the indivisibility of knowledge by reason or the
impossibility of abstracting anything from the idea
of the Absolute or deriving anything from it.
55. As soon as the idea of God is born from the fullness of reason
(Vernunft) ratiocination (Verstand) steps in, in order to take part in this
good. Ratiocination wants to inspect separately what is posited in that idea
as eternally and absolutely one, and to bestow reality outside of unity upon
what has reality only in the unity. Every such abstraction immediately man-
ifests its nullity thrugh the contradiction that accompanies it necessarily.
252 IDEALISTIC STUDIES SCHELLING'S APHORISMS OF 1805 253
56. As soon as one does away with the indivisible unity of it, this idea
dissolves into contradictions. You were of the opinion that with these con-
tradictions you could argue against the idea itself, but in fact you merely
revealed the idea's inner essence. By that very fact it became, and always
becomes, evident that ratiocination cannot affirm any one of the possible
antitheses by itself without contradiction, and that to every such thesis its
antithesis can be affirmed with the same right, also that the indivisible unity
of the idea contains truth only in its indivisibility.
57. The reasonable idea (Vernunftidee) of God states that he is the infinite
affirmation of himself. Right away ratiocination would separate from the
idea what is affirmative and likewise what is affirmed, and would conceive
of God as either the one or the other. However, precisely through the idea
itself, it can be shown that each of the two ostensible separables into which
the idea seems to be dissolved is contradictory.
58. The idea that God is the infinite affirmation of himself seems to be
dissoluble into two conclusions: God affirms himself infinitely, and God is
being affirmed by himself. If you consider the first one by itself, it is
impossible that God affirm himself, for the affirmative (the concept) is
greater than the affirmed (the thing). Yet God as affirming himself is abso-
lutely identical with God as the affirmed, or with what is being affirmed of
God. (The two are one and the same.) God does not grasp himself because
he cannot be greater than he is. Therefore the proposition: God affirms
himself, taken by itself, is impossible by virtue of the idea itself. The same
is true with regard to the opposite proposition. For likewise God cannot be
what is affirmed of him. He is incomprehensible for himself and cannot be
grasped because he cannot be inferior (kleiner) than he is, because he is
nothing different, but only one and the same.
59. In the same manner every possible reasonable affirmation (Ver-
nunftbejahung), no matter what its expression, can be dissolved in a con-
tradiction, provided you lift out only one of the members of the identity
which the affirmation expresses. The result is that what you so abstract can
be neither posited nor not posited. For instance, by virtue of the idea of the
Absolute which defines it as that whose essence is also its existence (das
Sein), one cannot attribute existence to God, since existence as such is only
in contrast to essence, while in God it is absolutely identical with essence.
Yet neither can existence be denied of God, for the same reason that in God
existence is precisely the same as essence.
60. Given the proposition that God is unity and totality (Einheit and
Allheit), one cannot posit unity by itself. God is not what is simply One,
for the One is only in contrast to the Many, while there are no Many that
can be contrasted with the absolute One (das schlechthin Eine). Thus the
idea does away with itself, and God is also not One. Nevertheless he is also
not not-One, that is, not Many.
61. All knowing is nothing else than affirming From time immemorial
science has looked for the point where being (das Sein) includes knowing,
and knowing includes being. But how could they be more completely one
than in the idea of the universal substance, the idea of God, whose being
is the infinite affirmation of himself, and whose being therefore includes
the knowledge, but in an infinite way, and vice versa knowledge includes
being. Yet for that very reason it is not possible to attribute being or knowl-
edge separately. For the self-affirmation of God is an infinite affirmation,
and therefore in God the knowing and the known are one and the same,
and in that respect there is no knowing in God. Nevertheless God is also
not a negation of all knowing, a completely blind Absolute, a mere being
(Sein). For, being as such is only in contrast to knowing; the being of God,
however, is the infinite affirmation of himself, and is therefore not the
negation of knowing.
62. The same can be said, in a more general sense, of the contrast between
being and acting. In God there is neither an acting nor a negation of acting.
Not an acting, for the infinite self-affirmation of God fuses with the being
of God and is itself this being (61). Nevertheless the acting in God is not
negated, because in being he is the infinite affirmation of himself. Thus the
circularity of the argument (der Umkreis des Cirkels) can be regarded as a
being, yet as a being it includes an acting, namely the absolute self-recog-
nition of the unity as totality.
63. This short inspection (55-63) suffices as a proof that the idea of the
Absolute resists every abstraction, that it is absolutely indivisible, therefore
that it is also impossible to derive anything from it by analysis or abstraction.'
64. The proposition that the Absolute has no predicates is quite correct
insofar as the predicate itself is possible only in contrast to the subject (a
contrast that is unthinkable in God), and insofar as every possible predicate
can be contrasted with another. But nothing which stands in a relation,
therefore nothing which stands in a contrast, can be affirmed by reason (ist
affirmabel durch die Vernunft) (36) and affirmed of God.'
65. Therefore eternally the Absolute can be expressed only as absolute
and absolutely indivisible identity of the subjective and objective, an expres-
sion which is the same and designates the same as the infinite self-affirmation
of God (36).
66. In this idea reason posits neither the negation of contrasts nor any
actual contrasts in it. Not the negation, for then the unity would he a merely

254 IDEALISTIC STUDIES
negating and therefore conditioned unity. As for contrasts, they are effaced
in that idea not in a negative but in a positive way; what the idea negates
is not the disparity in every contrast, and what it affirms is the absolute
identity in a given contrast. Yet there is no validity in the opposite assumption
that the contrasts were posited as real in the idea. They are not [real] for
their positive identity is posited, and they are also not not real, for their
negation is not posited.
67. Absolute identity of the subjective and objective cannot be a mere
equilibriums or synthesis but only an entire being one.
68. I will try to clarify by some illustrations this distinction [of 67] which
is clear enough in itself yet is not clear for most. The fulcrum of a lever
represents the equilibrium of two opposite forces; it is what unites both, but
it is not their absolute identity. It is what it is, namely a point of rest, but
only in relation to the two forces, not by itself. The forces annul each other
in that point, but the point as point is not the positive nullity of the two.
69. The whole nature and all sciences offer plenty of examples of the
absolute unity of opposites. He who would comprehend matter even in the
simplest manner by contraction and expansion would never arrive at a real
matter as long as he would assume those two as if they were opposites like
the forces of a lever, and if he would not conceive of matter in each of its
points as both, expansive and attractive, in an indivisible manner.
70. Or think of any sense organ, for instance an organ of sight. In each
point of its nature (Wesen) it is both, a being and a seeing, and yet only
one. The seeing and the being do not stand to each other like factors which
annul each other. Yet the organ is not mere being, in abstraction from the
seeing (else it would be mere matter) nor is it mere seeing, in abstraction
from being (else it would not be an organ); it is entirely being and entirely
seeing. In the being there is also a seeing and in the seeing a being.
71. The idea of the circle is an absolutely simple and indivisible idea.
—Although in the concrete circle the center and the circumference are
spatially outside of each other, yet in the idea of the circle they are one.
One cannot abstract from the circle, for the center by itself without the
circumference is not center, and the circumference by itself, abstracted from
the center and therefore from the entire circle, is not a circumference. Truly,
therefore, in the idea of the circle neither the center nor the periphery is
posited separately, but in each there is already by necessity the entire circle,
that is, the absolute unity. The center is the circle in its affirmativity or the
ideal circle. For what is a point anyway but a circle of infinitely small
diameter, or a circle whose periphery coincides with the center? On the
other hand, the periphery is only the circle regarded in its being affirmed
SCHELLING'S APHORISMS OF 1805 255
or in the totality. Here the unity as such is equal to the totality, the center
as such equal to the periphery (since the size of the periphery is of no
importance, it is equal to the point). The being one, on the part of the two,
is not the unity of two parts which only together make a whole; center and
periphery are not factors of the circle; the circle is neither the product nor
the synthesis of the two; it is their absolute identity.
72. The whole of nature is at variance with every kind of abstraction, for
instance with the notion of matter as something wherein all subjective inner
life and all perception is negated. Although in the deeper spheres of nature
the perceptions are dimmer and hazy, they are unmistakable in the animals,
which we nevertheless regard as sheer material beings. In their case, how
can perception be superadded to matter, if matter as such and as being is
not yet perceptive? The action of animals is completely blind. We think of
them not as acting on their own, but we assume something else, an objective
ground as acting in them. Nevertheless we recognize with irrefutable cer-
tainty, forced on us by the meaningfulness of those actions and especially
by their artfulness, that this ground or principle, though as such objective
in regard to the animals, is yet similar to a conscious principle, in spite of
the lack of consciousness. And as we recognize this we are not positing any
dualism. Even the most obstinate habit of seeing mere objectivity in nature
could long have been subdued by the phenomena of extraordinary states in
man, in which even according to common opinion the soul has no share,
for instance any sure actions of the sleepwalker which occur as distinctly
without consciousness and yet reveal as much expediency as the actions of
animals, those incessant somnabulists. 6
73. It is not at all my opinion that the absolute identity of the subjective
and objective is only the particular essence of God (for the essence of God
is nothing particular). I hold that it is the essence of all things, the absolutely
universal (das schlechthin Allgemeine), and that nothing can be affirmed or
can be, that would not be simultaneously affirmative and affirmed, without
any dualism. For just as it is no real opposition if one and the same being
has two different names, A and B, and just as in this case the being A and
the being B are not two different beings but only one being, so everything
that is affirmable by reason is only one being, and as one is entirely and
throughout affirmed, entirely ideal and entirelyreal.
74. The ground, however, for this absolute identity of the subjective and
objective, as the same in everything, lies in God alone who is the infinite
affirmation of himself, and through whom, as the universal substance, all
substance is likewise in itself oneness of the affirmative and affirmed.
75. It follows (from aphorisms 55 to 74) that just as abstraction has no

256 IDEALISTIC STUDIES
power over the idea of God and can neither bend it to its purposes nor lift
out of it anything particular to be set up by itself, so it is impossible to
derive anything from that idea, in the manner of becoming or of issuing forth.
76. In God everything is without origin, eternal. For whatever can be,
owing to the idea of God, is necessarily and is eternal, and whatever cannot
be in this manner cannot be at all. Therefore nothing can truly come about
in God or evolve from God.
77. God inclines toward nothing, neither in him nor outside of him, for
he is all bliss (allselig). He does not bring about anything, for he is everything.
The infinite affirmation of himself is not an act to which God could have
the relation of agent; it is the very being of God. God does not come to be
by the fact that he affirms himself or knows himself, but he is an infinite
self-knowledge in the infinite being, not outside of it nor as a separate act.
78. In itself this idea of the infinite self-affirmation of the nonfinite being,
which is by and from itself, is as simple as it is difficult for ratiocination,
which moves only in contrasts. For ratiocination the idea means one of two
things, either a self-division of God by which, for instance, he would posit
a part of himself as objective (as world) and keep the other for himself, that
is, he would posit himself as subject and also posit himself as negated in
the object, a hypothesis which contradicts the very first idea of God as
infinite position of himself. Or it means a self-differentiation in God whereas,
if there were any action in God, it would have to be his self-identification.
Yet that cannot be since God does not identify himself, but is the absolute
identity.
79. Equally worthless, entirely contradictory is the notion of an Absolute
which goes forth from itself. If God could go forth from himself, then on
that very account, he would not be God, not absolute. On the contrary,
absoluteness or infinite self-affirmation is the eternal return, not as an act,
but as the eternal being and persisting of God in himself.
80. This consideration (75 to 79, as well as the earlier one 55 to 74)
shows that ratiocination can have no part in the idea of the Absolute, and
if methodic knowledge (Wissenschaft) found only two ways open, the one
of analysis or abstraction and the other of synthetic deduction (a twofold
assumption which is indeed quite current), then we would have to deny all
knowledge of the Absolute. Nothing can be detached from God, for he is
absolute precisely because nothing can be abstracted from him. Nothing can
be derived from God as becoming or coming into existence, for he is God
precisely because he is everything. —Speculation is all [the knowledge we
have], that is, seeing, contemplating that which is in God. Methodical
knowledge (Wissenschaft) has value only insofar as it is speculative, that
SCHELLING'S APHORISMS OF 1805 257
is, contemplation of God as he is.'
The explanations given so far contain the mere beginnings of philosophy.
It is entirely useless to quarrel about these beginnings. Likewise it would
be useless to try to give further explanations to those who, judging from
their own repeated utterances, are not able to fashion any other notion of
the Absolute but that of a Thing and, more specifically, of a thing in which
the identity of subject and object inheres as a property.'
Notes
'[Translator's note] In the Logic (III, 151) Hegel wrote: "If the infinite is set up in contrast
to the finite as qualitatively different from that other, then it must be called the bad infinite,
the infinite of ratiocination, for which it is the highest, absolute truth....Then there are two
worlds, an infinite and a finite one, and in their relationship the infinite is only a boundary
of the finite and is thus itself only a specific infinite which is itself finite." Hegel calls it "das
Nicht-endliche" (i.b. 150). The word "das Unendliche" retains a touch of potential Aufhebung,
a promise for Vernunft but tantalizing for Verstand (ratiocination).
2 [Schelling's note] These sentences point at the value of the so far best known endeavor
[by Jacobi?-----as one might surmise, reading Xavier Tilliette's Schelling, I, 313] though
indubitably also the last endeavor to turn the knowledge of the Absolute into a subjectivity.
To be sure this endeavor was not unforeseen by the author who, in the Lectures on the Method
of Academic Study (V, 207-352) [fluently but not flawlessly translated by Norbert Guterman,
Ohio University Press, 1966], had foretold it so definitely that he could not now write about
it more definitely. Our age asks for knowledge as knowledge of the subject, and for a morality
decreed by the individual itself. In this sense, to be sure, I exclude knowledge and morality
from the system of reason, and I do it in a very positive way. Also I am pleased in finding
that one has begun to see it.
[Gerbrand Dekker speaks of Jacobi's "irrational knowledge by faith" (Glaubenswissen) on
page 131 of Die Rackwendung zum Mythos. Schellings letzte Wandlung, Oldenbourg Verlag,
1930.]
'[Translator's note] In the Introduction to his lectures on the history of philosophy, first
delivered in 1805-1806, Hegel said: "Philosophy is most inimical to the abstract and leads
back to the concrete" (XIII, 37}.
4 [Translator's note] Relation in the sense of contrast. In his
Presentation of Philosophical
Empiricism, last presented at Munich in 1836, Schelling stated: "One could well say that
God is really nothing in itself; he is nothing but relation and pure relation, for he is only the
Lord" (X, 360). Compare the penultimate page of the very latest and unfinished writing (see
XI, v) by Schelling: God "shows his reality which is independent of the idea...and thus
reveals himself as the real Lord of being" (XI, 571).
'[Schelling's note] An equilibrium of opposites is the highest one can reach in terms of
258 IDEALISTIC STUDIES
relations. Hence such a misunderstanding of the idea on the part of those who comprehend
nothing but relations. Most have at least disputed this product of their incomprehension. But
what judgment must be given on those who want to argue against me, not in opposition to
the misunderstanding but in agreement with it?
6 [Translator' s note] The reader may wonder why a Naturphilosoph should insist on denying
consciousness in animals. Schelling surely is no objectivist.
7 [Schelling' s note] Schelling himself refers to a passage in the Neue Zeitschriftfiir speculative
Physik, 1802 (Fernere Darstellungen aus dem System der Philosophie, IV, 391) whose gist
is: "As reason is summoned to think the Absolute, neither as thinking nor being, still to think
it a contradiction arises for reflection, for which everything is either thinking or being. But
-
in this very contradiction intellectual intuition manifests itself (trio die intellektuelle
Anschauung ein) and produces the Absolute."
'[Translator's note] Schelling then quotes a passage taken from Leibniz who says that, in
order to give men the attention necessary for the first and basic and most simple concepts,
one must call them back from their dissipations and to themselves. The theologians who
spoke of eternity needed many discourses, comparisons and examples to make eternity known,
although there is nothing simpler than the concept (notion) of eternity.
EXTENDING THE DARWINIAN MODEL:
JAMES'S STRUGGLE WITH ROYCE AND SPENCER
Charlene Haddock Seigfried
In the nineteenth century there were as many formulations of Darwinian
evolution as there were Darwinians. Consequently, Michael Ruse defines a
"Darwinian" as "someone who identified with Darwin, but not necessarily
someone who accepted all of Darwin's ideas."' Therefore, the only way to
determine what William James meant by Darwinian evolutionary science is
by checking his references to it and his adoption of recognizably Darwinian
theory and methods. By "Darwinian evolution" he sometimes refers to a
reductionist interpretation according to which consciousness is nothing but
brain processes, and survival of the fittest is applied to reality mechanisti-
cally. 2 He excepted himself from this interpretation, however, and his own
evolutionary Darwinism was a merging of idealist philosophical and empir-
ical scientific commitments. James was confident that his reading of Darwin
and particular application of it were consistent with the Darwinian texts and
that the reductionist Darwinians who understood the survival of the fittest
as a justification for a Hobbesian, state of nature were misreading Darwin.
There is certainly adequate support in Darwin for James's position, but
the particular slant he gave it was peculiarly pragmatic and was held in
common, with variations, with C. S. Peirce and Chauncey Wright, who
influenced him, and with John Dewey, whom he influenced. As John Herman
Randall, Jr., pointed out, James was also greatly influenced by Josiah Royce
during the eighties and early nineties, the same time he was writing the
Principles of Psychology.' Royce differed from the pragmatists in styling
himself an idealist. Since Royce and James both considered the doctrine of
evolution central to their philosophic outlook, but disagreed on its meaning,
a comparison of their treatment of it should throw light on an important
idealist source of James's Darwinism. I will first explicate Royce's and then
James's early formulations of Darwinian evolution to show both how much
James was indebted to contemporary formulations of American idealism,
which in turn can illuminate his reading of European sources, and how much
he diverged from Royce's idealism in his own evolutionism.