The Catholic bulletin. [volume] (St. Paul, Minn.) 1911-1995, 1916-01-22
POPULAR APoLoeETlcs.
Adapted from the German of Rev.
Peter Mikes, S. j., by Rev.
James Watcher.
xxx. Philosophy in Dlscredit.
(continuedl.


Fichte (f1S14) went a step farther
than Kant and doubted the ego Q, or
self, resolved it into mere dream of
the ego, dream of dream. He
Iaved about the ego and the non-ego
(not-self). Schiller sarcastically says:
Il am | and produce myself, and if !
produce myself as not produced, very
well, l have produced a non-ego'
That such sham philosophy is
ridiculed is self-evident. Where is
there any support and stability if the
visible, colored, and sounding world,
this great and heavy mass, is only an
imagination, product of my senses,
as it were, and the whole world of
thought and ideas is nothing but a
phantasm of self, without any real
value and objective reality? Such raw
ings are worthy of the inmates of an
insane asylum.
Father Robert Won Nostiz-Rieneck,
S. J., writes in the "Stimmen aus
Maria Laach,' vol. Sc, p. 1877: ut is
to be considered as a mere illusion
that we imagine we see the same
planets, live in the same city, see the
same pictures. hear the same music.
Everyone lives in his own projected
(produced by the mind) city, sees and
hears his own projected beautiful
things. There is no reason to think
that our fellow men project the same
things as we or even something SINH
lar, much less that all project the
same manifold objects. How we can
imagine research and education with
this system surpasses all imagination.
The boys in school imagine they hear
the words of the teacher, but in real
ity they project the sensations of
hearing as well as all the things in
the school room. The scientist in his
study awaits impatiently new work
and then projects it's contents unto
imaginary sheets. In the social life
men are to each other nothing but
mere mental projections or magma
tions." | think it was DR.. Johnson
who sarcastically remarked to such
a philosopher: "You better not
leave us otherwise you may cease to
exist if we do not think of you any
more"
1t may be remarked that the view
of some physicists and modern phil
osophers, among whom are some Cath
olics, that eolors, sounds, ETC., are not
just so in things and hence in them
selves as we perceive them, has moth
ing to do with idealism of which we
speak here, though it may lead to it il
pushed to extremes. For a thorough
treatise of this question see Jos
Forbes, Auf der schiefen Ebene yum
Idealismus con the Inclined Plane to
Idealism). (Stimmen aus Maria
Laach, vol 70, PIP. 1873. and 2S3.. y
Schelling Ct 1850 raves in his ego
dream about the world and the abso
lutte identify of nature and spirit, but
he never awoke.
Herbart & 1S41)' tells us in the 18th
volume of his complete works, p
1874, that when Schelling was re
preached for the unintelligibility OF
his teaching he appealed to 'intui
ton intellectual intuition is moi
within the mental range of everyone
And so we have the well-known fact
that many young man takes his ref
uge in opium, spirits and ever
mercury, presumably in the hope tx
produce this intuition artificially.'
Herbart sails the philosophy of Schel
ling "a gloomy atmosphere in which
many a sound reason got choking
spells"
Let us look at few samples o.
the depth" of this idealistic philoso
ply According to Schelling "the gooC
is nothing else but the self, or ego
brought back from actuality to poten
tiality.' According to Fichte con
seriousness is "self-inspection as self
inspection, for which the self-inspect
ing must again inspect itself in The
inspection
To perform that operation Schopen
huuer Ct 1900 suggests the use o.
two mirrors. All this is as clear az
mind
OUR LADDER OF ASCENT.