The method of considering the intellect which is opposed to this is the _objective_, which starts from _without_, takes as its object not our own consciousness, but the beings given in outward experience, conscious of themselves and of the world, and now investigates the relation of their intellect to their other qualities, how it has become possible, how it has become necessary, and what it accomplishes for them. The standpoint of this method of consideration is the empirical. It takes the world and the animal existences present in it as absolutely given, in that it starts from them. It is accordingly primarily zoological, anatomical, physiological, and only becomes philosophical by connection with that first method of consideration, and from the higher point of view thereby attained. The only foundations of this which as yet have been given we owe to zootomists and physiologists, for the most part French. Here Cabanis is specially to be named, whose excellent work, “_Des rapports du physique au moral_,” is initiatory of this method of consideration on the path of physiology. The famous Bichat was his contemporary, but his theme was a much more comprehensive one. Even Gall may be named here, although his chief aim was missed. Ignorance and prejudice have raised against this method of consideration the accusation of materialism, because, adhering simply to experience, it does not know the immaterial substance, soul. The most recent advances in the physiology of the nervous system, through Sir Charles Bell, Magendie, Marshall Hall, and others, have also enriched and corrected the material of this method of consideration. A philosophy which, like the Kantian, entirely ignores this point of view for the intellect is one‐sided, and consequently inadequate. It leaves an impassable gulf between our philosophical and our physiological knowledge, with which we can never find satisfaction. Although what I have said in the two preceding chapters concerning the life and the activity of the brain belongs to this method of consideration, and in the same way all the discussions to be found under the heading, “_Pflanzenphysiologie_,” in the essay, “_Ueber den Willen in der Natur_,” and also a portion of those under the heading “_Vergleichende Anatomie_,” are devoted to it, the following exposition of its results in general will be by no means superfluous.