Literary and Philosophical Essays: French, German and Italian — Kant — John Shaqi
Literary and Philosophical Essays: French, German and Italian
Kant · en
Since the world is developed in time, or change, the perfection of
the faculty that places men in relation with the world will
necessarily be the greatest possible mutability and extensiveness.
Since personality is permanence in change, the perfection of this
faculty, which must be opposed to change, will be the greatest
possible freedom of action (autonomy) and intensity. The more the
receptivity is developed under manifold aspects, the more it is
movable and offers surfaces to phaenomena, the larger is the part of
the world seized upon by man, and the more virtualities he develops
in himself. Again, in proportion as man gains strength and depth,
and depth and reason gain in freedom, in that proportion man TAKES
IN a larger share of the world, and throws out forms outside
himself. Therefore his culture will consist, first, in placing his
receptivity on contact with the world in the greatest number of
points possible, and is raising passivity to the highest exponent on
the side of feeling; secondly, in procuring for the determining
faculty the greatest possible amount of independence, in relation to
the receptive power, and in raising activity to the highest degree
on the side of reason. By the union of these two qualities man will
associate the highest degree of self-spontaneity (autonomy) and of
freedom with the fullest plenitude of existence, and instead of
abandoning himself to the world so as to get lost in it, he will
rather absorb it in himself, with all the infinitude of its
phenomena, and subject it to the unity of his reason.
But man can invert this relation, and thus fail in attaining his
destination in two ways. He can hand over to the passive force the
intensity demanded by the active force; he can encroach by material
impulsion on the formal impulsion, and convert the receptive into
the determining power. He can attribute to the active force the
extensiveness belonging to the passive force, he can encroach by the
formal impulsion on the material impulsion, and substitute the
determining for the receptive power. In the former case, he will
never be an Ego, a personality; in the second case, he will never be
a Non-Ego, and hence in both cases he will be NEITHER ONE NOR THE
OTHER, consequently he will nothing.