Download (PDF, 23.58MB) - Plurality Press

36 THE FOURFOLD ROOT. [CHAP. IV.
and what
"
Space itself is nothing but mere representation,
ever is in it must therefore be contained in that represen
tation. There is nothing whatever in Space, except so far
as it is really represented in it." Finally he says :
x
"If we
take away the thinking Subject, the whole material world
must vanish ; because it is nothing but a phenomenon in the
sensibility of our own subject and a certain class of its repre
sentations." In India, Idealism is even a doctrine of popular
religion, not only of Brahminism, but of Buddhism ; in
Europe alone is it a paradox, in consequence of the essen
tially and unavoidably realistic principle of Judaism. But
Realism quite overlooks the fact, that the so-called exis
tence of these real things is absolutely nothing but their
being represented (ein Vorgestellt-werderi), or if it be in
sisted, that only the immediate presence in the conscious
ness of the Subject can be called being represented icar*
it is even only a possibility of being represented
The realist forgets that the Object ceases to
be Object apart from its reference to the Subject, and that
if we take away that reference, or think it away, we at
once do away with all objective existence. Leibnitz, while
he clearly felt the Subject to be the necessary condition for
the Object, was nevertheless unable to get rid of the
thought that objects exist by themselves and independently
of all reference whatsoever to the Subject, i.e. indepen
dently of being represented. He therefore assumed in the
first place a world of objects exactly like the world of
representations and running parallel with it, having no
direct, but only an outward connection with it by means
of a harmonia prcestdbilita ; obviously the most super
fluous thing possible, for it never comes within perception,
and the precisely similar world of representations which
does come within perception, goes its own way regardless
1
"
Kant, Krit. d. r. V."
of 1st edition. (Engl. Transl. p. 331.)
"
Betrachtung iiber die Summe," &c., p. 383