The World as Will and Idea: Complete One Volume Edition. Arthur Schopenhauer

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СКАЧАТЬ But Euclid investigated space according to this first method. He set about it, indeed, under the correct assumption that nature must everywhere be consistent, and that therefore it must also be so in space, its fundamental form. Since then the parts of space stand to each other in a relation of reason and consequent, no single property of space can be different from what it is without being in contradiction with all the others. But this is a very troublesome, unsatisfactory, and roundabout way to follow. It prefers indirect knowledge to direct, which is just as certain, and it separates the knowledge that a thing is from the knowledge why it is, to the great disadvantage of the science; and lastly, it entirely withholds from the beginner insight into the laws of space, and indeed renders him unaccustomed to the special investigation of the ground and inner connection of things, inclining him to be satisfied with a mere historical knowledge that a thing is as it is. The exercise of acuteness which this method is unceasingly extolled as affording consists merely in this, that the pupil practises drawing conclusions, i.e., he practises applying the principle of contradiction, but specially he exerts his memory to retain all those data whose agreement is to be tested.

      Moreover, it is worth noticing that this method of proof was applied only to geometry and not to arithmetic. In arithmetic the truth is really allowed to come home to us through perception alone, which in it consists simply in counting. As the perception of numbers is in time alone, and therefore cannot be represented by a sensuous schema like the geometrical figure, the suspicion that perception is merely empirical, and possibly illusive, disappeared in arithmetic, and the introduction of the logical method of proof into geometry was entirely due to this suspicion. As time has only one dimension, counting is the only arithmetical operation, to which all others may be reduced; and yet counting is just intuition or perception a priori, to which there is no hesitation in appealing here, and through which alone everything else, every sum and every equation, is ultimately proved. We prove, for example, not that (7 + 9 × 8 - 2)/3 = 42; but we refer to the pure perception in time, counting thus makes each individual problem an axiom. Instead of the demonstrations that fill geometry, the whole content of arithmetic and algebra is thus simply a method of abbreviating counting. We mentioned above that our immediate perception of numbers in time extends only to about ten. Beyond this an abstract concept of the numbers, fixed by a word, must take the place of the perception; which does not therefore actually occur any longer, but is only indicated in a thoroughly definite manner. Yet even so, by the important assistance of the system of figures which enables us to represent all larger numbers by the same small ones, intuitive or perceptive evidence of every sum is made possible, even where we make such use of abstraction that not only the numbers, but indefinite quantities and whole operations are thought only in the abstract and indicated as so thought, as √rb so that we do not perform them, but merely symbolise them.

      We might establish truth in geometry also, through pure a priori perception, with the same right and certainty as in arithmetic. It is in fact always this necessity, known through perception in accordance with the principle of sufficient reason of being, which gives to geometry its principal evidence, and upon which in the consciousness of every one, the certainty of its propositions rests. The stilted logical demonstration is always foreign to the matter, and is generally soon forgotten, without weakening our conviction. It might indeed be dispensed with altogether without diminishing the evidence of geometry, for this is always quite independent of such demonstration, which never proves anything we are not convinced of already, through another kind of knowledge. So far then it is like a cowardly soldier, who adds a wound to an enemy slain by another, and then boasts that he slew him himself.{22}

      After all this we hope there will be no doubt that the evidence of mathematics, which has become the pattern and symbol of all evidence, rests essentially not upon demonstration, but upon immediate perception, which is thus here, as everywhere else, the ultimate ground and source of truth. Yet the perception which lies at the basis of mathematics has a great advantage over all other perception, and therefore over empirical perception. It is a priori, and therefore independent of experience, which is always given only in successive parts; therefore everything is equally near to it, and we can start either from the reason or from the consequent, as we please. Now this makes it absolutely reliable, for in it the consequent is known from the reason, and this is the only kind of knowledge that has necessity; for example, the equality of the sides is known as established by the equality of the angles. All empirical perception, on the other hand, and the greater part of experience, proceeds conversely from the consequent to the reason, and this kind of knowledge is not infallible, for necessity only attaches to the consequent on account of the reason being given, and no necessity attaches to the knowledge of the reason from the consequent, for the same consequent may follow from different reasons. The latter kind of knowledge is simply induction, i.e., from many consequents which point to one reason, the reason is accepted as certain; but as the cases can never be all before us, the truth here is not unconditionally certain. But all knowledge through sense-perception, and the great bulk of experience, has only this kind of truth. The affection of one of the senses induces the understanding to infer a cause of the effect, but, as a conclusion from the consequent to the reason is never certain, illusion, which is deception of the senses, is possible, and indeed often occurs, as was pointed out above. Only when several of the senses, or it may be all the five, receive impressions which point to the same cause, the possibility of illusion is reduced to a minimum; but yet it still exists, for there are cases, for example, the case of counterfeit money, in which all the senses are deceived. All empirical knowledge, and consequently the whole of natural science, is in the same position, except only the pure, or as Kant calls it, metaphysical part of it. Here also the causes are known from the effects, consequently all natural philosophy rests upon hypotheses, which are often false, and must then gradually give place to more correct ones. Only in the case of purposely arranged experiments, knowledge proceeds from the cause to the effect, that is, it follows the method that affords certainty; but these experiments themselves are undertaken in consequence of hypotheses. Therefore, no branch of natural science, such as physics, or astronomy, or physiology could be discovered all at once, as was the case with mathematics and logic, but required and requires the collected and compared experiences of many centuries. In the first place, repeated confirmation in experience brings the induction, upon which the hypothesis rests, so near completeness that in practice it takes the place of certainty, and is regarded as diminishing the value of the hypothesis, its source, just as little as the incommensurability of straight and curved lines diminishes the value of the application of geometry, or that perfect exactness of the logarithm, which is not attainable, diminishes the value of arithmetic. For as the logarithm, or the squaring of the circle, approaches infinitely near to correctness through infinite fractions, so, through manifold experience, the induction, i.e., the knowledge of the cause from the effects, approaches, not infinitely indeed, but yet so near mathematical evidence, i.e., knowledge of the effects from the cause, that the possibility of mistake is small enough to be neglected, but yet the possibility exists; for example, a conclusion from an indefinite number of cases to all cases, i.e., to the unknown ground on which all depend, is an induction. What conclusion of this kind seems more certain than that all men have the heart on the left side? Yet there are extremely rare and quite isolated exceptions of men who have the heart upon the right side. Sense-perception and empirical science have, therefore, the same kind of evidence. The advantage which mathematics, pure natural science, and logic have over them, as a priori knowledge, rests merely upon this, that the formal element in knowledge upon which all that is a priori is based, is given as a whole and at once, and therefore in it we can always proceed from the cause to the effect, while in the former kind of knowledge we are generally obliged to proceed from the effect to the cause. In other respects, the law of causality, or the principle of sufficient reason of change, which guides empirical knowledge, is in itself just as certain as the other forms of the principle of sufficient reason which are followed by the a priori sciences referred to above. Logical demonstrations from concepts or syllogisms have the advantage of proceeding from the reason to the consequent, just as much as knowledge through perception a priori, and therefore in themselves, i.e., according to their form, they are infallible. This has greatly assisted to bring demonstration in general into such esteem. But this infallibility is merely relative; the demonstration merely subsumes under the first principles of the science, and it is these which contain the whole material truth of science, and they must not themselves СКАЧАТЬ