Tetens’s Writings on Method, Language, and Anthropology 9781350081444, 9781350081475, 9781350081451

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TETENS’S WRITINGS ON METHOD, LANGUAGE, AND ANTHROPOLOGY

Bloomsbury Studies in Modern German Philosophy Series Editors: Courtney D. Fugate, American University of Beirut, Lebanon Anne Pollok, University of South Carolina, USA Editorial Board: Desmond Hogan (Princeton University, USA) Ursula Goldenbaum (Emory University, USA) Robert Clewis (Gwynedd Mercy University, USA) Paul Guyer (Brown University, USA) Brandon Look (University of Kentucky, USA) Eric Watkins (University of California, San Diego, USA) Corey W. Dyck (University of Western Ontario, Canada) Stefanie Buchenau (University of Paris, France) Paola Rumore (University of Turin, Italy) Heiner Klemme (Martin-Luther-Universität Halle-Wittenberg, Germany) Central and previously overlooked ideas and thinkers from the German Enlightenment Era are showcased in this series. Expanding research into areas that have been neglected, particularly in English-language scholarship, it covers the work of lesserknown authors, previously untranslated texts, and issues that have suffered an undeserved life on the margins of current philosophical–historical discussion about 18th-century German thought. By opening itself to a broad range of subjects and placing the role of women during this period centre-stage, the series not only advances our understanding of the German Enlightenment and its connection with the pan-European debates, but also contributes to debates about the reception of Newtonian science and the impact of Leibnizian, Kantian, and Wolffian philosophies. Featuring edited collections and single-authored works, and overseen by an esteemed Editorial Board, the goal is to enrich current debates in the history of philosophy and to correct common misconceptions.

TETENS’S WRITINGS ON METHOD, LANGUAGE, AND ANTHROPOLOGY

Edited and Translated by Courtney D. Fugate, Curtis Sommerlatte, and Scott Stapleford

BLOOMSBURY ACADEMIC Bloomsbury Publishing Plc 50 Bedford Square, London, WC1B 3DP, UK 1385 Broadway, New York NY 10018, USA 29 Earlsfort Terrace, Dublin 2, Ireland BLOOMSBURY, BLOOMSBURY ACADEMIC and the Diana logo are trademarks of Bloomsbury Publishing Plc First published in Great Britain 2022 Copyright © Courtney D. Fugate, Curtis Sommerlatte, and Scott Stapleford, 2022 Courtney D. Fugate, Curtis Sommerlatte, and Scott Stapleford have asserted their right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as Editors of this work. For legal purposes the Acknowledgments on p. vi constitute an extension of this copyright page. Cover design by Louise Dugdale Cover image: Royal Danish Library (Public Domain) All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or any information storage or retrieval system, without prior permission in writing from the publishers. Bloomsbury Publishing Plc does not have any control over, or responsibility for, any third-party websites referred to or in this book. All internet addresses given in this book were correct at the time of going to press. The author and publisher regret any inconvenience caused if addresses have changed or sites have ceased to exist, but can accept no responsibility for any such changes. A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. A catalog record for this book is available from the Library of Congress. ISBN: HB: 978-1-3500-8144-4 ePDF: 978-1-3500-8145-1 eBook: 978-1-3500-8146-8 Series: Bloomsbury Studies in Modern German Philosophy Typeset by Integra Software Services Pvt. Ltd. To find out more about our authors and books visit www.bloomsbury.com and sign up for our newsletters.

CONTENTS

A cknowledgments A bbreviations

vi vii

Part I  Introduction to the Translation Courtney D. Fugate, in collaboration with Curtis Sommerlatte Introduction

3

Part II  The Translations 1

2

3

4

5 6 7 8 9

Thoughts on the Influence of the Climate on the Manner of Human Thought (1759) Translated by Courtney D. Fugate Thoughts on Some Reasons Why There Are So Few Settled Truths in Metaphysics (1760) Translated by Scott Stapleford Letter to … on the Question: Whether the Difference in the Cognitive Abilities and Inclinations of Human Beings Has Its Ground in an Innate Difference or in External Circumstances (1761) Translated by Curtis Sommerlatte On the Difference of Human Beings with Respect to Their Chief Inclinations (1762–3) Translated by Curtis Sommerlatte On the Principles and Benefit of Etymology (1765) Translated by Courtney D. Fugate On the Various Benefits of the Domains of Human Knowledge (1765) Translated by Courtney D. Fugate On the Origin of the Desire for Honor (1766) Translated by Courtney D. Fugate On the Origin of Languages and Writing (1772) Translated by Courtney D. Fugate On the General Speculative Philosophy (1775)  Translated by Courtney D. Fugate

39

47

83

93 109 131 139 153 195

Part III  Ancillary Materials G lossaries  B ibliography  I ndex 

245 263 293

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

In the long course of a project like this, one inevitably falls into great debt to many parties, the only repayment for which is the partial compensation provided by expressions of gratitude. In this spirit, Courtney D. Fugate would like to thank the following: his co-translators, Scott Stapleford and Curtis Sommerlatte, for all their encouragement and hard work; his co-editor on this Bloomsbury series, Anne Pollok, for her unflagging commitment; Robert Clewis, Hanno Birken-Bertsch, Ken Westphal, Andree Hahmann, and Michael Sellhoff, for providing invaluable, expert feedback on the contents of this volume, much of which helped the translators avoid more than a few blunders; John Hymers, for his advice on issues related to Latin; Bloomsbury Academic, and especially their philosophy editor, Colleen Coalter, for supporting this project; and finally his colleagues at the American University of Beirut. Special thanks are owed to Stephanie Kapusta, who gave him permission to make use of her draft translation, “On Universal Speculative Philosophy.” Although the version contained in this volume is in many respects entirely new, he would like to acknowledge that it is still greatly indebted to her translation in ways that may not be apparent. Nevertheless, Courtney Fugate takes full responsibility for any defects in the current translation. Curtis Sommerlatte would like to thank above all his co-translators, Courtney D. Fugate and Scott Stapleford, for their meticulous work and support throughout the project. Likewise, he would also like to thank Corey W. Dyck (for encouraging him to work on Tetens), Ashley J. Inglehart (for her support in talking through various issues), and Charlie McVicker (for help in working through early versions of translations). Scott Stapleford would like to thank his co-translators, Courtney D. Fugate and Curtis Sommerlatte, for heroic efforts, and Lorne Falkenstein for planting thoughts of Tetens in his head many years ago. Let us take this moment to say a few words on how we regard some of the views expressed in this volume. Tetens, from what we can tell, resisted many of the worst prejudices of his age, embraced a remarkably complex view of human nature, and was cognizant of at least some of the dangers of generalizing based upon racial and national types. At the same time, like many of his age, he also occasionally employs language and examples, or expresses views, that are no longer defensible and which we certainly do not condone.

ABBREVIATIONS

TETENS’S WRITINGS AbBD

AbhEU AbMK AsPh AusN

BeyGT

ComPM CorrKlop

GedEC

GedUM

gGZS

GrNE MetIC

Abhandlung von den vorzüglichsten Beweisen des Daseins Gottes/Treatise on the Most Prominent Proofs of God’s Existence (1761) “Von der Abhängigkeit des Endlichen von dem Unendlichen”/“On the Dependency of the Finite on the Infinite” (1783) “Abhandlung von dem Maaß der lebendigen Kräfte”/“Treatise on the Measure of Living Powers” (1761) Über die allgemeine speculativische Philosophie/On the General Speculative Philosophy (1775) Ausführliche Nachricht von der Einrichtung des Herzoglichen Paedagogium zu Bützow/Detailed Report on the Institution of the Ducal School at Bützow (1767) “Beytrag zur Geschichte der Toleranz in protestantischen Ländern”/“Contribution Toward the History of Tolerance in Protestant Countries” (1786) Commentatio de principio minimi/Commentary on the Principle of the Minimum (1769) “Klopstocks Correspondenz mit Professor Tetens in Kiel, die deutsche Orthographie betreffend”/“Klopstock’s Correspondence with Professor Tetens in Kiel, Concerning German Orthography” (1805) “Gedanken von dem Einfluß des Climatis in die Denkungsart des Menschen”/“Thoughts on the Influence of the Climate on the Manner of Human Thought” (1759) Gedancken über einige Ursachen, warum in der Metaphysik nur wenige ausgemachte Wahrheiten sind/Thoughts on Some Reasons Why There Are So Few Settled Truths in Metaphysics (1760) “Über die göttliche Gerechtigkeit, den Zweck der göttlichen Strafen”/“On Divine Justice, the Purpose of Divine Punishment” (1783) “Über die Grundsätze und den Nutzen der Etymologie”/“On the Principles and Benefit of Etymology” (1765–6) “Methodus Inveniendi Curvas, Maximum vel Minimum efficientes universaliter, et ex analyticis principiis demonstrata”/“A General

viii

M PhV

ReBG78

ReBG83

RezBe80

RezBe81

RezEber

RezLos75

RezLos80

UrsE UrsSS VerEF

ABBREVIATIONS

Method for Discovering Curves Producing a Maximum or Minimum, Demonstrated from the Principles of Analysis” (1764) Metaphysik/Metaphysics (2015) Philosophische Versuche über die menschliche Natur und ihre Entwickelung/Philosophical Essays on Human Nature and Its Development (1777) “Über die Realität unsers Begriffs von der Gottheit. Erste Abtheilung über die Realität unsers Begriffs von dem Unendlichen”/“On the Reality of Our Concept of the Divinity. First Division, on the Reality of Our Concept of the Infinite” (1778) “Über die Realität unsers Begriffs von der Gottheit. Zwote Abtheilung. Über den Verstand in der Gottheit gegen Hume.”/“On the Reality of Our Concept of the Divinity. Second Division. On the Intellect in the Divinity Contra Hume” (1783) “Jakob Beattie’s, Professor der Moral und Logik in Aberdeen, neue philosophische Versuche. Erster Band. Aus dem Englischen übersetzt.”/“Jakob Beattie’s, Professor of Moral Philosophy and Logic in Aberdeen, New Philosophical Essays. First Volume. Translated from the English” (1780) “Jakob Beattie’s, Professor der Moral und Logik in Aberdeen, neue philosophische Versuche. Zweiter Band. Aus dem Englischen übersetzt.”/“Jakob Beattie’s, Professor of Moral Philosophy and Logic in Aberdeen, New Philosophical Essays. Second Volume. Translated from the English” (1781) “Von dem Begriffe der Philosophie und ihren Theilen. Ein Versuch, womit beym Antritt … Amts eines öffentlichen Lehrers der Philosophie zu Halle seine Vorlesungen ankündigt Joh. Aug. Eberhard”/“On the Concept of Philosophy and Its Parts. An Essay, at the Start of Which … the Office of a Public Teacher of Philosophy in Halle Announces His Lectures, Joh. Aug. Eberhard” (1779) “Physische Ursachen des Wahren. Von Johann Christian Lossius, der Weltweisheit ordentlicher Professor zu Erfurt”/“The Physical Causes of What Is True. By Johann Christian Lossius, Professor Ordinarius of Philosophy at Erfurt” (1775) “Neue philosophische Litteratur, herausgegeben von Johann Christian Lossius. Zweytes Stück”/“New Philosophical Literature, Edited by Johann Christian Lossius. Second Part” (1780) “Über den Uhrsprung der Ehrbegierde”/“On the Origin of the Desire for Honor” (1766) Über den Ursprung der Sprachen und der Schrift/On the Origin of Languages and Writing (1772) “Schreiben an … über die Frage: Ob die Verschiedenheit der Erkenntniß-Fähigkeiten und Neigungen der Menschen in einer angebohrnen Verschiedenheit, oder in den äusserlichen Umständen

ABBREVIATIONS

VerHN

VerNE

ViaFC ZAN

ix

seinen Grund habe?”/“Letter to … on the Question: Whether the Difference in the Cognitive Capacities and Inclinations of Human Beings Has Its Ground in an Innate Difference, or in External Circumstances” (1761) “Von der Verschiedenheit der Menschen nach ihren HauptNeigungen”/“On the Difference of Human Beings with Respect to Their Chief Inclinations” (1762–3) “Über den verschiedenen Nuzen der menschlichen Erkentnissen”/“On the Various Benefits of the Domains of Human Knowledge” (1765) “De via facillima in motu corporum”/“Concerning the Easiest Path in the Motion of Bodies” (1769) “Über die Zeichen der Aufklärung einer Nation. Eine Vorlesung”/“On the Signs of the Enlightenment of a Nation. A Lecture” (1783)

OTHER WORKS AA (vol.:p.) Gesammelte Schriften (Kant 1900–) A/B The first (A) and second (B) editions of Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason Adelung Grammatisch-kritisches Wörterbuch der hochdeutschen Mundart, by Johann Christoph Adelung (1774–86), available online at the Münchener Digitalisierungs Zentrum, https://lexika.digitalesammlungen.de/adelung/online/angebot Ebers The New and Complete Dictionary of the German and English Languages Composed Chiefly after the German Dictionaries of Mr. Adelung and of Mr. Schwan, 3 vols., enlarged by John Ebers (Leipzig, 1796–9) Grimm Deutsches Wörterbuch von Jacob Grimm und Wilhelm Grimm (Leipzig, 1854–1961), available online from the Universität Trier, http://dwb.uni-trier.de/de/ Heyse Allgemeines Wörterbuch zur Verdeutschung und Erklärung der in unserer Sprache gebräuchlichen fremden Wörter und Redensarten, 2 vols., by J. C. A. Heyse (Oldenburg, 1804)

PART ONE

Introduction to the Translation

2

Introduction This volume is the first in a projected collected edition of the philosophical writings of the German–Danish philosopher, mathematician, and engineer, Johann Nicolaus Tetens (1736–1807), translated for the first time into English. Further volumes will contain his Philosophical Essays on Human Nature and Its Development, Theological Writings, and Metaphysics. Collected here are the shorter essays and books treating topics in anthropology and the philosophy of language, as well as two early programmatic works, which prepared the way for Tetens’s magnum opus, the Philosophical Essays. Taken as a whole, the writings in this volume provide a nearly comprehensive picture of his philosophical development from the start of his career up until the publication of that mature work. The only exception to this is an early survey of the extant demonstrations of God’s existence and a series of shorter works on the mathematical principles of dynamics. The present translations are based upon original editions as printed in facsimile in Die philosophische Werke, vols. 3 and 4 (Hildesheim/Zürich/New York: Olms Verlag, 2005), which have been meticulously compared with any existing modern editions. All significant variations have been noted, while the texts have been supplemented throughout with numerous historical notes and references, nearly all original, which aim at providing the reader with a deeper understanding of Tetens’s engagement with his intellectual milieu. To this same end, we have also often included in the notes extensive portions of any passages that might be helpful in understanding the text or argument at hand. In such cases, the translations provided are always our own unless otherwise indicated. Johann Nicolaus Tetens is universally recognized as one of the leading lights of German philosophy in the second half of the eighteenth century.1 Perhaps best described as eclectic,2 he draws inspiration from many different traditions. Like most of his generation, Tetens was intimately familiar with and had great reverence for the school of thought built by Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz (1646–1716) and Christian Wolff (1679–1754), showing particular familiarity with the formulation of it found in Alexander Gottlieb Baumgarten (1714–62). Yet he was educated at the University of Rostock under Johann Christian Eschenbach, another eclectic

An essential reference for the period, which also contains a long entry on Tetens, is this: The Bloomsbury Dictionary of Eighteenth-Century German Philosophers, edited by Heiner F. Klemme and Manfred Kuehn (Bloomsbury 2016). 2 Tetens’s professor Johann Christian Eschenbach (1719–58), himself an eclectic, defined this term as describing one who does not follow a famous scholar in all respects but is instead willing to accept truths as such no matter where they are found (Eschenbach 1756, §17, p. 27). 1

4

TETENS’S WRITINGS ON METHOD, LANGUAGE, AND ANTHROPOLOGY

philosopher who was influenced by the important critic of Wolff at the University of Jena, Joachim Georg Darjes (1714–91). Presumably, it was Eschenbach’s antirationalism that at least partially inspired Tetens to become more acquainted with the British philosophy of John Locke (1632–1704), David Hume (1711–76), Thomas Reid (1710–96), and others, an influence that perhaps most distinguishes his writings from those of his contemporaries and is responsible for his being termed the “German Locke” by at least some of them.3 Beyond these broad influences, there are many other particular ones besides: the Lockean Étienne Bonnot de Condillac (1714–80); the naturalists Charles Bonnet (1720–93) and Johann Gottlob Krüger (1715–59); the Newtonian Willem Jacob ’s Gravesande (1688–1742); the German eclectic Johann Georg Heinrich Feder (1740–1821); and, later in his career, also Immanuel Kant (1724–1804). Tetens’s writings are well known for their influence on Kant and, through him, on all later German philosophy. However, his works also provide us with a unique and powerful synthesis of nearly all the trends in eighteenth-century thinking, which, precisely because it so deeply explored—and perhaps also got lost in—the rich details of language, psychology, and the nature of the human being, is still able to provide us with an abundant source of inspiration for contemporary research.

JOHANN NICOLAUS TETENS (1736–1807): AN HISTORICAL SKETCH4 “Of our own person,” writes Bacon, “we will say nothing. But as to the subject matter at hand … we ask that men think of it not as an opinion but as a work; and … as the foundation of human utility and dignity.”5 There are perhaps no words more fitting to describe the life and career of Johann Nicolaus Tetens. Although one of the most influential thinkers of the eighteenth century, little is known of the man aside from the barest outlines of a biography. Not even the place and date of his birth are completely settled. According to the most reliable source, he was born September 16, 1736, in Tetenbüll (Danish: Tetenbøl), while another gives November 5, 1738, in Tönning (Tønning), a town 10 kilometers southeast. Both towns are in Eiderstedt, a peninsula once situated in the Danish duchy of Schleswig, created by the diking of three islands sometime during the thirteenth century. His father was possibly an innkeeper named Jakob Tetens and his mother, a woman named Martha née Claßen or Clausen. Tetens studied at the University of Rostock between 1755 and 1758, spent a year or less at the University of Copenhagen, and then returned to Rostock to receive his Magister degree in 1759. His focus at the time was mathematics, physics,

Evidence for this famous fact, however, seems to be based solely on a comment by Karl Rosenkranz, the editor of an early edition of Kant’s writings. See Kant 1840, p. 65. 4 The facts in the following are largely from Uebele 1911 and Tetens 2009, although most of the details have been confirmed through an examination of the original sources. 5 This quotation, of course, is from the same passage in the Preface to Bacon’s Instauratio Magna that Kant quotes as the motto for the second edition of his Critique of Pure Reason (Bii). We have made use of the elegant translation in Kant 1998, p. 91. 3

INTRODUCTION

5

and philosophy. In philosophy, in particular, he studied under Johann Christian Anton Eschenbach (1719–59) and perhaps also Angelius Johann Daniel Aepinus (1718–84). According to Uebele, Aepinus taught in accordance with Wolff and Baumgarten (which seems correct) but was an otherwise unremarkable figure (1911, p. 6). Eschenbach, however, was an important eclectic philosopher, who began his career more as a theologian and linguist, and only turned fully to philosophy in the early 1740s as a result of the brilliant lectures of Joachim Georg Darjes (1714– 91), which he witnessed in Jena. His works also display a deep influence by Wolff and Baumgarten,6 particularly in terms of terminology, but attest equally to the influence of the anti-Wolffian Christian August Crusius (1715–75) and, most of all, the eclecticism of Darjes. Eschenbach’s sometimes fierce independence from Wolff is particularly clear in two works, one devoted to a thorough criticism of Wolff’s attempts to prove the principle of sufficient reason, the other aimed at refuting the Wolffian claim that the universe is a machine.7 On the other hand, he also wrote a book demonstrating the reality of physical monads and employed some of Wolff’s ideas in another devoted to the refutation of idealism.8 It was this last work, however, which led to what was perhaps Eschenbach’s most significant contribution, namely his translation and attempted refutation of George Berkeley’s (1685–1753) Three Dialogues (1713) and Arthur Collier’s (1680–1732) A New Inquiry after Truth (1713), both being defenses of idealism.9 At the end of his career, Eschenbach also published a metaphysics in which, as Mendelssohn states, “the Wolffian system is dismantled wholly without reprieve” (Mendelssohn 1759, p. 271), and a logic textbook of some interest.10 Contrary to a few accounts,11 Eschenbach shows little influence of Locke,12 nor is he an opponent of modern philosophy,13 though he does believe that all philosophy must be based on experience and,14 as a result, much

To be sure, this influence in respect to philosophical doctrines is largely negative. De probationibus atque usu principii rationis sufficientis (1753) and Universum non esse machinam evincens (1752). 8 Idealismus fundamento destitutus dissertatio philosophica (1752). 9 This translation is based not on the English original but instead on the French Dialogues entre hylas et philonous (1750). 10 Metaphisic oder Hauptwissenschaft (1757), Logic oder Denkungswissenschaft (1756). 11 See, e.g., Beck 1993, p. 24. 12 The only significant mention of whom is this remark: “The truths that are clear in themselves are known to us always through the assistance of experience. Locke, the famous Englishman, has sought to show this in his book on the human understanding. Hence, this is an eternal truth, namely that all human knowledge begins with sensory sensations, i.e. experiences, and grounds itself thereupon. Nihil est in intellectu quod non antea fuerit in sensu” (Eschenbach 1756, §4, remark, pp. 10). 13 E.g., Eschenbach 1757, §2, pp. 8–9. 14 See, e.g., Eschenbach 1756, §4, p. 10: “Philosophy is therefore ultimately grounded on infallible experiences and truths that are undeniably clear in themselves. And the genuine strength of a philosopher is shown in the fact that he takes nothing as the foundation in his treatises besides such experiences as are either undeniable empirical-propositions and propositions that are clear in themselves (to which belong also correct and indisputable definitions, which are ultimately grounded on experience, as well as correct divisions and the like); or those that yet follow from empirical propositions or propositions that are clear in themselves.” Here by “propositions that are clear in themselves” Eschenbach means self-evident or what Wolff would call empty propositions, namely those one recognizes as true as soon as the words are understood. 6 7

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TETENS’S WRITINGS ON METHOD, LANGUAGE, AND ANTHROPOLOGY

of the modern, rationalist philosophy is either pointless or lacking foundation. He also criticizes the mechanistic natural philosophy and the primary–secondary quality distinction in a way that is reminiscent of philosophers in the Thomasian school. If anything in Eschenbach inspired Tetens’s interest in British philosophy, it could only have been his generally anti-rationalist, empirical bent, with its mixed but largely Aristotelian origins. Throughout his career, Tetens was drawn as much to mathematics and physics as he was to philosophy. His dissertation, De caussa caerulei coeli coloris (On the Cause of the Blue Color of the Sky), which he defended in 1760, shows a very wide range of sources in natural science for its time, citing various works by Newton, ’s Gravesande, Euler, Wolff, Kästner, and van Musschenbroek, among others. In the sixteen theses appended to it, Tetens also cites Baumgarten positively and defends a number of notable philosophical claims, among which are these: the Leibnizian and Cartesian measures of living force are not opposed but apply in limited cases; we can only pay attention to one object at a time, and when it appears otherwise, it will be found on closer inspection that we actually attend to them successively; the faculty of abstraction really consists in the faculty to direct our attention to one or another thing rather than to others, in which case these latter necessarily become obscure; no notions can serve as principles in philosophy unless their possibility has been proven, but proving such possibility greatly differs from proving that they do not contain a contradiction; in practical philosophy Baumgarten’s principle “do what is good for you or perfect yourself” plays the same role as the principle of contradiction in metaphysics, as both are first and indemonstrable from any other principle, but in many cases another principle derived from its conjunction with other truths is rather to be followed, namely “direct your actions toward the maximum felicity to be obtained in the world”; the controversy about whether there is only a single virtue or many is a logomachy; in the optimal world every possible substance must exist; the difference in temperaments of the body depends on the difference in the constitution of the nerves and sensory organs; definitions are not always better known than the things defined, nor can they be. Upon the defense of this work, and in the midst of the Seven Years’ War, Tetens was called to teach at the newly established Friedrichs-University Bützow. Duke Friedrich of Mecklenburg had recently been rebuffed in his attempts to turn the University of Rostock into a center of Pietism through the installation of Christian Albrecht Döderlein as head of the theology faculty. In protest, the Duke set up the University of Bützow as a competing institution under the rectorship of Döderlein. A number of professors joined Döderlein, including the young Tetens, but the university was never particularly large or successful and eventually merged back with Rostock in 1789, not long after the Duke’s death in 1785. Tetens lectured at Bützow until 1776, becoming professor ordinarius of physics in 1763 and twice serving briefly as rector of the university. His initial lectures were devoted to logic, metaphysics, natural right, moral philosophy, and physics.15 In logic, Tetens first employed a textbook by a little15

The following account is based on the much fuller record found in Tetens 2017, pp. 115–35.

INTRODUCTION

7

known author, Christian Anton Corvinus.16 Its contents are basically Wolffian, but the arrangement is not; in line with Tetens’s own philosophical outlook, it begins with a prefatory chapter covering the most fundamental ontological and psychological principles and is tightly structured throughout as a series of experiences, definitions, and consectaria or inferences drawn from them. From about 1765, he switched to the textbook by Hermann Samuel Reimarus, which is essentially a standard Wolffian work, though a particularly clear and well-written one.17 He then briefly experimented with the logic of the Dutch Newtonian philosopher and physicist, Willem Jacob ’s Gravesande, before reverting back to Reimarus.18 From 1770 until 1776 he returned to his eclectic roots by adopting Johann Georg Heinrich Feder’s Logik und Metaphysik im Grundriss (1769) (Logic and Metaphysics in Outline) for both his logic and metaphysics lectures. This was no doubt an important text for Tetens’s development. Somewhat similar to Covinus, Feder’s logic is thoroughly psychological and reads much less like a logic than a textbook on empirical psychology. Though it shows a few Wolffian elements, the range of sources cited by Feder is not only incredibly extensive and various but also closely resembles those drawn upon by Tetens in his own works. The logic portion itself begins with a quotation from Johann Heinrich Lambert and frequently cites John Locke, Abraham Tucker (under the pseudonym Edward Search), Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz, David Hume, Charles Bonnet, Christian August Crusius, Étienne Bonnot de Condillac, René Descartes, Nicolas Malebranche, Joachim Georg Darjes, Andreas Rüdiger, and Ernst Plattner, among many others. Wolff and his followers are almost entirely absent from the logic and receive far less attention than one would expect in the part on metaphysics. Upon his move to the University of Kiel in 1776, Tetens again reverted to Reimarus’s textbook for his logic lectures—sticking with it from that point on, except for a brief experiment with a textbook by Johann August Heinrich Ulrich,19 one which is very similar in spirit to that of Feder. In metaphysics, Tetens followed a slightly different course. He began with the popular Leibnizian–Wolffian textbook of Alexander Gottlieb Baumgarten (1760– 5),20 then taught for a number of years from his own notes and once or twice from ’s Gravesande’s textbook, switched to the above-mentioned text by Feder for a number of years (1770–6), followed briefly by that of Ulrich, before spending the last decade of his teaching career lecturing again from his own notes.21 He taught practical philosophy only occasionally and in the early part of his career, using a mix of books by Darjes, Baumgarten, and Feder.22 Finally, while at Bützow, Tetens Institutiones philosophiae rationalis methodo scientifica conscriptae (1756). Hermann Samuel Reimarus, Die Vernunftlehre, als eine Anweisung zum richtigen Gebrauch der Vernunft in Erkenntniß der Wahrheit (1756). 18 Willem Jacob ’s Gravesande, Einleitung in die Weltweisheit, translated from the second Leiden edition (1755). 19 Erster Umriß einer Anleitung zu den philosophischen Wissenschaften zum Gebrauch der Vorlesungen, vol. 1 (1772). 20 Metaphysica (1739). 21 A transcription of his 1789 lecture course is found in Tetens 2015. 22 Alexander Gottlieb Baumgaren, Ethica philosophica (1740); Joachim Georg Darjes, Erste Gründe der philosophischen Sitten-Lehre (1750); Johann Georg Heinrich Feder, Lehrbuch der praktischen Philosophie (1770). 16

17

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lectured on theoretical and experimental physics, always using the Einleitung in die Natur-Lehre (1754) of Johann Andreas Segner. After moving to Kiel in 1770, his lecturing activities in the natural sciences greatly expanded and clearly became the focus of his teaching. Over the years he repeatedly lectured from a large variety of books on mechanics, pure and applied mathematics, optics, astronomy, analysis, trigonometry and perspective, on various topics in engineering, and, in particular, the construction of dikes, a field he essentially invented. On topics like the history of philosophy, the philosophical encyclopedia, and the theology of reason, he only ever lectured once, although the last was seemingly well-attended. With his move to the University of Kiel in 1776, Tetens had been appointed professor ordinarius of philosophy. This continued until 1789 when he answered the call of the King of Denmark to join his council, while also serving as assessor in the Royal College of Finance and as the Director of Finance in Copenhagen. The change seems to have been the natural consequence of trends in Tetens’s intellectual development going back at least to the 1760s; for even while building a reputation in philosophy that would nearly rival Kant’s, he had continuously published on mathematics, meteorology, insurance, and, later, the construction of dikes. The PhV of 1777 was thus perhaps the high-water mark of his philosophical interest, although afterward he would continue to publish the occasional review and a series of long essays on natural theology, some of which engaged at points with Kant’s Critical philosophy. The works after 1789, some of which are quite important in their own right, largely concern issues of finance, insurance, the theory of polynomials, and various topics relating to the administration of the Danish state and its affairs. Just like his birth, Tetens’s death is marked by uncertainty; he died on either 15 or 19 August 1807, depending on whether one follows the Danish or the German newspapers. As for his personal life and character, almost the only sources for this are the few obituaries written by former students and colleagues. By all accounts he was a pious, industrious, and eminently helpful human being. Despite his evident brilliance, he was humble and understanding toward others, and, even in the last days of his life, extraordinarily generous with his time in the instruction of young scholars.23

TETENS AND KANT While scholars working in other languages have long been aware of the depth and complexity of German philosophy in the period between Leibniz and Hegel, English-language scholarship has been well satisfied, at least until recently, with a two-word summary—Immanuel Kant. To read, for example, Lewis White Beck’s otherwise magisterial history of German philosophy is to pass through a series of ports on the long voyage to the Critique of Pure Reason and to learn that Tetens, in particular, “missed the boat” at the precise moment he decided to write his

23

Obituaries of Tetens include “Nekrolog” 1807, “Todesfälle” 1808, Lübker 1834.

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greatest work, the PhV (Beck 1969, p. 415). Even today, research into other, supposedly lesser philosophers—Wolff, Baumgarten, Mendelssohn, Lambert, and, yes, Tetens—is difficult to publish without an explanation as to how it might shed light on the development and thought of Kant. But this, like all things, is changing. Still, the link between Tetens and Kant is not only an important part of the former’s legacy but also remains a topic of important research and debate. And while a fuller, critical examination of the current scholarship on this relationship— indeed of the entire status quaestionis regarding Tetens’s place within the epoch— is highly desirable, we will be satisfied here to review its well known factual basis. In 1779, Johann Georg Hamann, who was a friend of Kant and lived alongside him in Königsberg, wrote to Kant’s former student Johann Gottfried Herder that “Kant confidently works on his moral theory of pure reason and Tetens lies always in front of him” (Hamann 1873, p. 417). It has always been assumed that Hamann was referring to the Critique of Pure Reason, which was eventually published in 1781, although it is unclear why he would describe it as a work in moral philosophy. The book before Kant was undoubtedly the PhV, a copy of which was found in his library at the time of his death and bears at least a few notes in Kant’s own hand.24 The comment by Hamann is confirmed by a contemporaneous letter Kant sent to his close friend Marcus Herz in which he says: Tetens, in his diffuse work on human nature, made some penetrating points; but it certainly looks as if for the most part he let his work be published just as he wrote it down, without corrections. When he wrote his long essay on freedom in the second volume, he must have kept hoping that he would find his way out of this labyrinth by means of certain ideas that he had hastily sketched for himself, or so it seems to me. After exhausting himself and his reader, he left the matter just as he had found it, advising his reader to consult his own feelings. (AA 10:232; Kant 1999, p. 167) Although Kant’s assessment of Tetens’s style and of the success of his treatment of freedom is not particularly positive, two things must be borne in mind. First, in his private letters Kant rarely praises anyone, least of all those by whom he is influenced most. The impact of Tetens on the Critique of Pure Reason is thus best judged by study of the works themselves, and perhaps in part by the estimation of Kant’s contemporaries like Hamann, who wrote in 1777 that Kant was said at the time to be “very full of Tetens” (Hamann 1873, p. 323). Second, this very quotation

24 This was on the eve of the Critique of Pure Reason. But Kant knew of Tetens and read his work much earlier, although how early is unclear. Some have speculated that Kant may have known GedUM, since it at least in part inspired the prize question for which Kant submitted an entry in 1764. The earliest evidence is found in a letter to Carl Daniel Reusch, written in May or June of 1774, in which Kant refers in familiar terms to Tetens and notes that he is sending a work by him along with the letter (AA 10:168–9). Given Reusch’s interests, the work in question was almost certainly one of Tetens’s writings on weatherproofing against thunderstorms.

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shows that Kant read Tetens for more than just his theory of imagination, or of the poetic power, or any of the other individual topics so far discussed in the secondary literature. Even if Kant did not see a solution to the problem of freedom in the PhV, this does not mean that he may not have found insight or inspiration in one of Tetens’s “penetrating” remarks on this and other topics. Other evidence of Kant’s views on Tetens and his work are found in Kant’s Nachlass and later letters. Two personal notes from the late 1770s read: I occupy myself not with the evolution of concepts, like Tetens, (all actions through which concepts are generated), nor with the analysis of them, like Lambert, but rather purely with their objective validity. I stand in no competition with these men. (Refl. 4900, AA 18:23) Tetens investigates the concepts of pure reason purely subjectively (human nature), I objectively. The former analysis is empirical, the latter is transcendental. (Refl. 4901, AA 18:23) In neither of these notes does Kant suggest that Tetens somehow “missed the boat” of the Critical philosophy. Instead, what he recognizes is that the essential aim of Tetens’s project is different from his own, at least as regards the Critical writings (Kant’s own anthropological research is another matter). Kant’s claim is not that the only philosophical problem is that of objective validity, but that it was this problem that his own work at the time intended to resolve. Of course, this does imply that Kant believes Tetens’s method, since it is empirical and not transcendental, is incapable of solving that particular problem. And about this, Kant is undoubtedly correct. The question remains whether that is the sole or even the main intention of Tetens’s own philosophical project. What is more, it does not seem to have occurred to commentators such as Beck that Tetens himself may even have later recognized Kant’s turn to the transcendental and agreed with it, or perhaps disagreed with it, but on reasonable philosophical grounds. After all, while there exist few metaphysicians today who would defend a Kantian transcendental deduction of the causal principle or anything like it, there are plenty of cognitive and developmental psychologists who see in Tetens a significant, and still relevant, predecessor (cf. Muller-Brettel and Dixon 1990; Lindenberger and Baltes 1999; Lindenberger 2007). Letters written by Kant after the publication of the Critique of Pure Reason in 1781 further indicate how much he respected Tetens’s work and saw it as having significant connections with his own. In a letter to Marcus Herz in 1781, Kant laments Moses Mendelssohn’s refusal to comment on the work, adding that he— Kant—counted most on him, Tetens, and Herz “to explain this theory to the world” (AA 10:270, Kant 1999, p. 181). Then in 1783, in a letter to Christian Garve, Kant writes that “Garve, Mendelssohn, and Tetens are the only men I know through whose cooperation this subject [i.e., the question of synthetic knowledge a priori] could have been brought to a successful conclusion before too long, even though centuries before this one have not yet seen it done” (AA 10:341, Kant 1999, p. 199).

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Tetens is again mentioned, much in the same positive vein, in a letter of the same year to Moses Mendelssohn (AA 10:346). Kant’s reasons for mentioning Tetens in this connection are perhaps illuminated by an intriguing statement found in his preparatory notes for the Prolegomena. Here Kant complains that a reviewer of the Critique of Pure Reason (likely he means Feder) had never pondered the possibility of knowledge a priori, although “Herr Tetens could have induced him to do so” (AA 23:57).

RESUMÉ OF THE WORKS Thoughts on the Influence of the Climate on the Manner of Human Thought (1759) In this, his first surviving publication, Tetens intervenes in a discussion, tracing back to at least Plato’s Laws, concerning the causal relationship between the climate of a nation and the character of its people. The motivation for this discussion lies in the assumption that the laws of a nation must in some sense conform to the character of the people. If, as Montesquieu argued, the Germanic people are strongly inclined to drunkenness, then it would be futile to create a law forbidding it. Thus, as legislators must know the character of the people, the question naturally arose: What then is the cause from which this can be known? Countless authors between Plato and Tetens located the chief cause of the character of a people in its climate, which was understood to include not only weather and land, but also often the constellations visible in its skies. As noted by Tetens, the immediate occasion for his essay was a paper by Gottfried Schütze (1719–84), who—punning on his own unusual last name—styled himself the “protector” (Beschützer) of ancient German and Nordic culture. Schütze’s aim was simply to oppose some recent French authors who had called into question the intelligence (Witz) of the ancient Germans. After explaining the great support this view finds in ancient authors (and providing Tetens with background for his own paper), Schütze humorously counters the view, which he compares to astrology, by offering the physiognomic argument that intelligence is positively associated with blue eyes. He then offers the more serious objections that the ancient theories are internally inconsistent and make unfounded inferences from a few individuals to an entire people, and ends by stating that the heart of all peoples is essentially the same, being far more influenced by religion than anything else. Tetens approaches the question in an original manner. It is perfectly certain that the climate affects the manner of human thought, according to Tetens; for it has been established that human thought is determined by the structure of the brain and nerves and that the structure of the brain and nerves is affected by the climate. The causal connection is thus unquestionable in Tetens’s mind, although it does not extend beyond actual physical interaction to other elements like the constellations. Despite this, however, the exact causal relationship is nearly impossible to establish due to the many other contributing factors, such as culture, technology, history, and so on. To do such would require precise empirical investigation, and ultimately

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a kind of experimentation carried out on the human being under ideal, and hence nearly impossible, circumstances. Although its result is partially aporetic, this early essay clearly displays Tetens’s inductive-experimental approach to long-standing philosophical questions and his resultant opposition to the use of general racial types in the explanation of human behavior. And by comparison with other writers of the period, it shows a deeper understanding of the challenges posed by applying the scientific method to problems of anthropology.

Thoughts on Some Reasons Why There Are So Few Settled Truths in Metaphysics (1760) This, Tetens’s first major work, was published when he was only twenty-four, and as an advertisement for his first lectures at Bützow. Such announcements, of course, were intended to highlight the originality of the lecturer’s approach to certain topics and as such were often polemical in nature, particularly among those of a more eclectic bent. Nevertheless, GedUM is strikingly unique in a couple of ways. First, unlike other eclectics—Darjes, for example—Tetens does not attack Wolff, or indeed any specific camp of philosophers. Instead, it is metaphysics itself, its current status and its method that he calls into question; and the terms in which he does so are more extreme than those of any of his contemporaries until, perhaps, Kant’s Prize Essay, which appeared four years later and was possibly influenced by Tetens.25 Another striking feature of the work is its attempt to achieve a synthesis of Wolffian and Lockean elements within a larger framework derived from an examination of the structure and success of the natural sciences. While the very idea of metaphysics and its synthetic procedure (the need for definitions, precise demonstrations, etc.) has its proximate cause in Wolff’s writings, Tetens asserts that it must be preceded by a form of analysis clearly inspired by Locke. However, the idea of synthesis here is not purely Wolffian, nor is that of analysis purely Lockean. The move from ontology to, e.g., cosmology, is not simply a matter of syllogistic deduction for Tetens, as it was for Wolff, but is instead understood to be a completely generalized form of the procedure by which Euler employed mathematics in conjunction with empirical data to calculate the trajectories of certain comets. Tetens also departs from Locke from the moment when he states that concepts, like those of “something” and “nothing,” arise from abstraction and that there are hence simple ideas of abstraction. Furthermore, Tetens’s understanding of the process of tracing concepts back to the empirical experiences from which they arose may be generally Lockean, but his understanding of its specific procedure is much rather modeled after examples found in physics and natural science, e.g., in Maupertuis’s analysis of the concept of force in his Essai de cosmologie (1751).

The full title is Untersuchung über die Deutlichkeit der Grundsätze der natürlichen Theologie und der Moral (Inquiry Concerning the Distinctness of the Principles of Natural Theology and Moral Philosophy).

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A third and final feature of the work worth mentioning is how closely it is echoed in Kant’s later writings, both before and after the Critical turn. In this essay, Tetens clearly states that the most urgent problem of metaphysics is one of analysis, that metaphysics is harder than mathematics because the former, unlike the latter, lacks suitable sensible signs, has very many (indeed, perhaps an innumerable number) of fundamental concepts, must pursue its analysis as far as humanly possible, and requires an extensive empirical foundation. These are precisely the main points of Kant’s Prize Essay. Even the example Kant provides for how to trace concepts back to their empirical foundation is basically the same as that cited by his predecessor.26 Tetens also anticipates Kant, both in the Prize Essay and in the Prolegomena, in framing the problem of metaphysics in terms of its failure to progress alongside the other sciences and in suggesting that a solution to this problem should be sought by first answering these two questions: How is mathematics possible? How is natural science possible?27 At the start of the essay, Tetens appears to adopt, or at least not to dispute, the Wolffian definition of metaphysics as a collection of four sciences, namely ontology, psychology, cosmology, and natural theology. But this is somewhat deceptive, since he understands the nature and relation of these parts in a completely different manner. Drawing on his knowledge of natural science, Tetens conceives of ontology as relating to the other metaphysical disciplines in the same way that pure, theoretical mathematics relates to physical sciences such as optics and astronomy. The former provides a general instrument, which, when applied to empirical data, allows one to derive more specific, but still general truths. As Tetens states, “cosmology, the theory of the soul, natural theology … must be constructed through the connecting of ontological truths with principles of experience, just as applied mathematics and natural science are constructed through the connecting of theoretical mathematics with experiments” (p. 51). Although Newton is mentioned only briefly, his analytical method, which proceeds through mathematical principles to empirical data, is clearly what Tetens has in mind.28 This means that the problem of the essay, namely why there are so few settled truths in metaphysics, falls naturally into two parts of unequal significance. Since ontology provides the general theory to be applied elsewhere, the lack of settled truths in ontology largely explains the lack of such in psychology, cosmology, and

Tetens cites Maupertuis’s analysis of force in terms of what we feel with our hand when we apply a force to a body, while Kant traces the concept of contact back to the sense of touch (AA 2:188). 27 The similarity between Kant’s framing and Tetens’s earlier work is perhaps intentional, since the former’s correspondence reveals that Tetens was one of only three philosophers to whom Kant wanted to appeal for examination of his new system. See p. 10–11 above. Of course, what Kant intends with these questions is far more complex than what Tetens has in mind in GedUM. The following passage from the B-edition of the Critique of Pure Reason also indicates the influence of Tetens’s general approach: “I should think that the examples of mathematics and natural science, which have become what they now are through a revolution brought about all at once, were remarkable enough that we might reflect on the essential element in the change in the ways of thinking that has been so advantageous to them, and, at least as an experiment, imitate it insofar as their analogy with metaphysics, as rational cognition, might permit” (Kant 1989, Bxv–xvi). 28 For a summary of Newton’s complex analytical method, see Fugate 2021. 26

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natural theology. However, at the end of the essay, Tetens also discusses a few difficulties arising particularly from the empirical foundation of the latter three sciences. So why then has metaphysics failed to progress? Tetens’s proposal for how to answer this question is entirely original when seen within the context of his generation. We should not look to the rules of logic or any other organon of method, he claims, but instead examine directly and freshly the procedures of the two sciences that have most succeeded so far, namely mathematics and natural science. Of course, Wolff too had famously looked to mathematics for instruction regarding the proper method of metaphysics. But by this he meant something much more limited. Mathematics, in his view, provided merely a simplified example of the formal procedure of definition and syllogistic demonstration, while its practice offered a convenient manner for training the budding metaphysician in the art of thinking precisely and logically. The rules of mathematics, and indeed of logic, are first demonstrated within metaphysics itself. Tetens, however, looks to these other sciences for genuine insight about how metaphysics should seek to reform itself. The first point of comparison has to do with concepts. As Wolff had stressed, the certainty of principles and their proofs ultimately rests on the distinctness of concepts, that is, on a clear account of the simplest components and the ways in which the complex concepts are compounded from them. Such distinctness obviously presupposes a knowledge of how to discover, verify, and compound all perfectly simple concepts required for a certain cognition. Mathematics is constituted in the same way but has a much easier time because it does not require perfect distinctness, but instead only a certain degree of it. Tetens’s idea here derives from Wolff; mathematics deals with concepts, like those of space and time, which are clear and distinct to the point that whatever confusion is left has no effect on the proofs in which they are employed. Ontology, however, must analyze concepts until they are either perfectly distinct, or at least no further distinction is possible for the human mind. The discovery and verification of such concepts, Tetens contends, is still an open question, although the examples of Locke, Maupertuis, Tönnies, and others provide some illustration of what the correct method might be like. Another difficulty for metaphysics arises from the use of language. The seriousness with which Tetens approaches this problem is one of the distinctive and long-standing features of his philosophical project. He is cognizant of the essential role that common language plays not only in communicating ideas, but moreover in their precise formation and analysis. He is also sensitive to the fact that theory itself has a rebounding effect on language, such that there is, so to say, no royal road to the reform of our philosophical vocabulary. Since mathematical concepts are relatively easy to delineate, at least sufficiently for the purposes of mathematics, its language is truly arbitrary or conventional and has no significant effect on its progress. Metaphysicians have sought to solve the problems of language in several ways. Descartes, Hobbes, Locke, and others proposed a radical solution by which one would first directly examine and establish distinct concepts and then carefully name them with the appropriate terms. Leibniz and later Wolff complicated this picture by suggesting that scientific terminology should be a refined version of

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common language, and indeed, that common languages—particularly living ones like German—contain within them a natural ontology that can be rendered clear and distinct by analysis and then fashioned into a truly scientific, demonstrated theory. Particularly in his later writings, but also already here, Tetens sees the interconnection between language and thought to be far more problematic and hence to require much deeper investigation. Some philosophers, like Wolff and Crusius, stated that philosophical terminology should follow the usage of the common person. But this, according to Tetens, is clearly not a viable solution. Common usage reflects the complex process through which specific human beings and communities come to represent their world. Their words do not name objective things, but instead subjective experiences had in the presence of things. To the philosopher, who seeks a consistent use of terms in accordance with objective concepts and principles, such usage can only appear confused and nonsensical. However, the usage of philosophers is no more reliable either; for although many claim to follow the rule of not departing from established usage, they still always find sufficient reasons to do so. After making some suggestions about how a better language for philosophy might be formed by rather moderate means, Tetens turns to a more technical problem touching the foundation of metaphysics. Before a concept or principle is employed in metaphysics, he says, its possibility must be proven. In particular, in the composition of concepts, one must be able to establish that a determination to be added to the concept of a thing creates no contradiction with any of the other determinations belonging to that thing. Most philosophers have recognized this rule but have not fully grasped the difficulties it involves. Many have acted as if the lack of an evident contradiction is sufficient to establish that there is no contradiction in the thing itself, which it is not. If ontology were eventually perfected—and Tetens commits himself to this possibility—then there is no telling what could be achieved. And yet, even in this case, not all problems would be resolved. There would still remain the need for assembling sufficient empirical data as a foundation for the further parts of metaphysics, a project that Tetens believes is both extensive and still in need of being carried out. But even with this, there will always remain things that are beyond the sphere of the human mind, such as the inner nature of substances, although here the precise boundary is uncertain and the full extent of the mind’s powers has yet to be fully revealed. Finally, there remain the prejudices arising from religion and various other sources, although these are not so serious and would naturally disappear if the previous problems were solved.

Letter to … on the Question: Whether the Difference in the Cognitive Abilities and Inclinations of Human Beings Has Its Ground in an Innate Difference, or in External Circumstances (1761) In this letter to Pastor Volquarts of Lunden, Tetens considers the perennial question of whether human characteristics are ultimately due to something innate or are acquired from external circumstances. In particular, Tetens is concerned with how human beings differ from one another, both with respect to their cognition

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(e.g., the ability to pay attention) as well as their volition (e.g., inclinations for one pursuit rather than another). Against Helvétius’s view that external circumstances alone suffice to explain differences between human beings, Tetens argues that these differences are caused by differences in both human beings’ external circumstances and innate conditions. Yet Tetens’s more noteworthy contribution is to provide a framework or method for answering the question of whether differences in cognitive abilities and inclinations are grounded upon something innate, upon external circumstances, or both. He clarifies the question by distinguishing two ways in which human beings have a difference in cognitive abilities or inclinations. On the one hand, such a difference could be an “inequality” insofar as there is a difference in the magnitude or strength of cognitive abilities taken as a whole; on the other hand, such a difference could be a “dissimilarity” insofar as there is a difference in the proportional magnitudes of specific cognitive abilities. Thus, in determining the source of differences between human beings, it is necessary to distinguish between the causes of such inequality and dissimilarity. Furthermore, Tetens provides a methodological principle for investigating the causes of empirical phenomena: any specified cause must be both based on experience as well as assessed for its sufficiency in explaining the phenomenon. A specified cause is shown to be insufficient either when the effect/phenomenon is not equal to it or when another cause is shown to be operative. Tetens applies this methodological principle by providing arguments showing that external circumstances alone are insufficient for explaining the differences between human beings. These include merely probable arguments based on experience, as well as certain demonstrations based on the principle of denied total similitude. Hence, Tetens’s overall approach shows his eclecticism with respect to philosophical methodology.

On the Difference of Human Beings with Respect to Their Chief Inclinations (1762–3) This essay has two main aims: (1) to explain differences in human beings’ chief inclinations, i.e., human beings’ tendencies to pursue some types of objects rather than others; and (2) to devise a means for classifying those chief inclinations. In attempting to accomplish the former aim, Tetens implicitly assumes what he argued for in “Letter to …,” namely that some differences in cognitive abilities and inclinations are innate. In this essay, he further argues that a human being’s “temperament” (the proportional magnitudes of all his inclinations) is grounded in the constitution of his “mentality” (the overall magnitude of his cognitive abilities as well as the proportional magnitudes of specific cognitive abilities). Hence, Tetens’s project here perhaps takes up Georg Friedrich Meier’s suggestion that “[i]t thus would be a very beneficial investigation if the diversity of human hearts”—i.e., the diversity of what Tetens calls “temperaments”—“were derived in greater detail from the diversity of human mentalities” (Meier 1757, §721, p. 403). In other words, volitional differences between human beings, and hence differences between

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their chief inclinations, are ultimately explicable in terms of cognitive differences between them. Tetens arrives at this view by explicating a Leibnizian account of the human soul's fundamental drive: the soul is a thinking, operative power that constantly endeavors to alter itself (by producing ideas) and to become conscious of those alterations. This drive, furthermore, ultimately aims at both perfecting itself by producing more ideas and attaining a feeling of that perfection. This aim can be achieved in different ways by different human beings, since each human being’s particular mentality contains one cognitive ability that is most able to produce ideas and consciousness of those ideas. Accordingly, a particular human being’s chief inclination will be to operate with its chief cognitive ability, i.e., the one whose magnitude is proportionately greater than others. With his first aim accomplished, Tetens has a method for classifying human beings’ chief inclinations. His preferred classification largely agrees with the traditional classification in terms of the four temperaments (choleric, melancholic, sanguine, and phlegmatic). Earlier philosophers associated each temperament with a particular object that is desired (honor, wealth, pleasure, and rest, respectively). Tetens’s method, in contrast, grounds the classification upon a difference in cognitive abilities, and primarily upon two dimensions: (1) whether the soul aims at applying itself to a small number of ideas at one time (intensive clarity) or to a large number of ideas (extensive clarity), and (2) whether the soul’s power of representation is strong or weak (i.e., more or less apt to exert itself). The four possible combinations of these attributes yield the four traditional character types of the temperaments. Tetens concludes the essay by reflecting on how this preliminary method of classifying chief inclinations is to be applied and augmented.

On the Principles and Benefit of Etymology (1765–6) Nearly all modern philosophers follow Bacon in recognizing the so-called idol of the marketplace as posing one of the greatest challenges to scientific progress. Tetens too sees language as posing such a challenge, generally to all science, but most particularly to philosophy. As explained in his earlier work, GedUM, the reason for this lies in the high bar that philosophy sets for itself insofar as it aims to be the most fundamental and hence the most general science of real things or objects, that is, insofar as it aims to be metaphysics. Unlike mathematics, it cannot rest satisfied with only a certain degree of distinctness in its concepts and principles but rather must pursue their analysis as far as is humanly possible. And unlike some discourse on imaginary things, metaphysics cannot simply create its own concepts and principles but rather must extract them from the experience of real things themselves. However, Tetens entertains no hope of solving the problem posed by language through the discovery of a simple method by which we may directly attain and verify the first concepts and principles. Written language does not signify things directly, but instead by following and replicating in another medium the pattern of spoken language. Moreover, as will become even clearer later in UrsSS, Tetens sees spoken language as being the instrument in accordance with which one’s system of thought

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also develops. For this reason, metaphysics, anthropology, and the philosophy of language, all intersect for Tetens in the single problem of analysis. The present essay approaches this and related problems by showing how etymology is to be properly conducted and how much it can reveal. Etymology is among the most important tools for investigating languages and history, but it also provides pleasure and instruction to the philosopher. Still, it is easily subject to abuse, as demonstrated by many previous attempts at etymology. To produce anything solid and useful, it must follow a regimented method, which however, can only be abstracted from an examination of how words develop and change. The goal of etymology is to trace words back to their common roots. The underlying principle is that the chain of sounds and written words is connected in the same way as the chain of meanings leading back to the meanings of the root sounds. Such a project requires one to collect all possible forms of written evidence, noting that different languages and different forms of one general language may retain and so provide different types of evidence. The parallel between sounds and meanings, which is presupposed by etymology, is supported by both the most likely theory about the development of language as well as the linguistic evidence found in German and related languages. “[T]he first principle of etymology, and of the philosophical doctrine of language [is], namely, that the first and oldest words were simple natural tones.” And since these tones in part depend upon accidental circumstances, such as the character of a given people, they are not necessarily the same for all languages. And even if they were, the further development of language would easily lead to a difference in denominations. This is because the “core” of language is affected by all kinds of more or less general contingent circumstances. Still, there is an analogy not only between languages that are akin, but also between the ways such languages use words figuratively. Languages are as different as are people, and like the latter, they are continuously changing such that no attempt to arrest them can long succeed. Nevertheless, not all words are equally subject to change. Some are used too often to change much. The precepts of etymology are based on the way language develops, in the same way that logic is based on the nature of thought. These in particular are the following: one must first locate the language to which a word belongs, then distinguish simple from complex words, separate off the proper names as a separate class, group simple words according to their dominant sound, identify these main sounds and discard any where it has been lost, collect all reports of the history of the words, regard as belonging to the same family all words (from whatever language) that agree both in main sound and in meaning, place these in the first class of probable meanings, evaluate the probability of derivations according to the strength of the agreement in both sound and meaning, conjecture (though with caution) kinship of words based on this evaluation, regard as less probable those genealogies where the agreement is further removed, regard words designating things brought from foreign countries as also brought from the language of that place, in composite words evaluate the connections according to the same analogy, regard proper names as the least probable and difficult of all to determine.

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Once all of this is completed, one can form hypotheses regarding the very first sounds of the language, but these must be open to testing and refinement, just like all other forms of human knowledge. The benefits of etymology in history and related areas are manifest and require no comment. The great benefit to philosophy, however, stems from the fact that language and its history contains the history of the development of human thought. By analyzing the former we simultaneously analyze the latter. Etymology promises to reveal the first concepts that human beings formed of their world; and hence, since these concepts are in part dependent on the subjective aspect of thought itself, it promises also to reveal the nature and history of the human mind in its many forms. Etymologies therefore provide the first, imperfect definitions of things as these are formed by the human mind. Despite these defects, these definitions provide a rich material for the philosopher. Although knowing things themselves and knowing how human beings first conceived of them are very different, the latter is of much use in the investigation of things as well, and hence so is etymology. Beyond this, the creation of a standard philosophical language will be impossible without etymology, and all agree that this is desirable. Two things are to be noted here. First, since the true philosophy is only ever a developed and corrected version of the common philosophy that is hidden within common language and its history, a finished dictionary of common language, which is only possible through etymology, would also provide a good part of the true philosophy. Still, philosophical language is not the same as common language and is in many ways inconsistent with it. But, since philosophical usage is still unsettled, there is no other way than through etymology to bring about unanimity in usage.

On the Various Benefits of the Domains of Human Knowledge (1765) This brief, occasional piece provides some insight into Tetens’s broad-minded and complex appreciation of the special, but also limited, place of the arts and sciences in the hierarchy of human values. In one sense, it can be regarded as an extension of thoughts Tetens would have encountered in Eschenbach’s logic, concerning the specific place and benefits of philosophy with respect to the state and to other sciences (Eschenbach 1756, §§10–13, pp. 18–25). The overall lesson is that every human activity aiming at knowledge, truth, and the ennoblement of truth makes its own unique contribution to human good and human happiness. Each such activity strengthens the mental powers, brings pleasure to those engaged in it, but also provides instruments for other beneficial endeavors. The value of a science cannot be immediately judged by reference to its object, because that science may not be necessary in order to attain the object. External value, in particular, is not timeless and universal but instead depends on the effects of the art or science on the particular character of people who undertake it and experience it. Furthermore, since every human activity draws from the limited power of the individual and the community, the actual contribution it makes must be judged on the balance of the entire economy of human activities to which it not only contributes but also subtracts. Ultimately, however, morality is the central point which all other human activities depend on

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and must in turn support, and hence the establishment of a true hierarchy of the sciences will require a perfected moral science. Until then, the arts and sciences can be drawn into a preliminary classification according to their order of importance, namely into (1) those that teach virtue; (2) those that discover and display the truths necessary for human welfare; (3) those that provide the instruments for the second class; and (4) those that adorn and keep in repair those of the first two classes.

On the Origin of the Desire for Honor (1766) The aim is to discover the origin of the desire for honor, which is one branch on the common tree of human inclinations. It must be distinguished properly from the desire for external honor, with which it is often confused, and also from the drive for eminence over others and inner pride. The most general inclination and fundamental drive is for complete harmony of the internal and the external. If we are inwardly active, then we seek external activity; if we are inwardly inactive, external work is a burden. No human being is entirely active. From this arise two chief classes of human being, namely the phlegmatic, who tends toward inactivity, and all others, in whom there is a notable striving to be active. The phlegmatic make up the greater part of mankind and are not restricted to or associated with any specific race or nation. Although a desire for honor is found even among the phlegmatic, it can never be more than a passing whim. The remaining differences among human beings depend on the specific constitution and proportions of their abilities. There is “absolutely no doubt that all human beings possess the same kinds of abilities.” Still, according to their differing magnitudes and proportions, which depend in turn on their exercise, there arise different mentalities and characters. Operative powers can come in two forms, those that have a broad range of activity but lack intensity, and those that are intense but have a narrow range. The first further class is the sanguine, which strives for a harmonious disposition of the body. Such people are characterized more by an extensive strength of the soul, rather than an intensive one. They are pleased by changes in objects and prospects. The desire for honor can only properly grow where the intensive power is dominant. Two classes are found here; those that entirely expend their power when they encounter an object and then are freed from it, and those that gradually begin to exert their power on an object and become ever more tightly bound to it. The former yields the choleric, the latter the melancholic temperament. Given these divisions, it must be noted that they are only fictional pure types and that in individuals they are found in every shade and degree and are influenced by innumerable causes and circumstances. Only in a few are they found in an exceptional and hence noticeable degree. The choleric and the melancholic are the soil in which the desire for honor grows strongest. The choleric, for example, finds its gratification in a harmony between the inner and the outer, which remains with it even when the outer is removed. This stimulates reflection, as well as an intensification of what is internal so that it may be better felt. From this arises several related inclinations: the drive for inner

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worth, the desire for honor, the drive for eminence over others, and the drive for inner pride. In particular, reflection on one’s own powers, when accompanied by comparison with others, generates inner pride and contempt and is the source also of national pride. The choleric focuses intensely on the extension and perfection of his own powers. From this arises the drive for self-perfection, but not yet the desire for honor. In the choleric, this most often leads to the desire to gain honor in vain and imagined advantages, whereas in the melancholic it leads rather to the desire for such in true and enduring ones. But, in the meantime, this same temperament, but only when accompanied by the comparison of ourselves with others close to us in ability, leads to the drive for eminence over others and hence to competition. Usually, competition and the desire for honor are found together, but one is not the cause of the other, but possibly the occasional cause. Even great geniuses need external stimulants, challenges, and competition to achieve anything truly great. The drive for posthumous fame is just the desire for external honor extended to the future. The desire for external honor springs from the drive to perfect oneself when one is in society. The desire for physical pleasure can provide an occasional cause for the desire for honor but can never be transformed into it. The drive for inner worth is a drive to delight in one’s own power and abilities, and if this is confirmed by external things, then it leads one to pursue the latter as well. The question remains whether there is anywhere found a love of honor for its own sake, or rather for the sake of only satisfying other drives. But it must be noted that many drives can act in conjunction, such that there may still be present a desire for honor for its own sake even when the same objects also appear to satisfy other drives. Flattery by others is a powerful stimulant to the desire for honor, which can give rise to fantastic and vain satisfaction, but also is in some degree required by genuine and great souls. Indeed, geniuses are more perceptive and more sensitive, and hence can be more influenced by flattery. Though the drive for honor be powerful in great individuals, not all their achievements are to be attributed to it. Ultimately, the true desire for honor is this: “the desire to be convinced by the approval of others that one is not mistaken in one’s feeling regarding oneself.” To what extent this is found in individuals is impossible to determine. To answer it one would have to determine if a person would choose to be upright and great even if no one should ever recognize it, or rather to appear, but not to be such. The precise laws and limits of the desire for honor are a matter for the moralist; what was to be proven here, namely whether and how the desire for honor is innate, is all that has been achieved in this essay.

On the Origin of Languages and Writing (1772) The question of the origin of language—whether it is natural or rather divine, and if the former, then what other human powers it presupposes and what path it actually took—exercised some of the most brilliant writers of the period, including Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712–78), Étienne Bonnot de Condillac (1714–80), Adam Ferguson (1723–1816), Johann Georg Hamann (1730–88), and Johann Gottfried

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Herder (1744–1803). But it also drew the attention of many lesser-known figures including Johann Peter Süßmilch (1707–67),29 Johann Georg Sulzer (1720–79), and Dietrich Tiedemann (1748–1803). Few accepted the theory of its divine origin, and hence the most disputed aspects concerned two matters, namely the relationship between language and reason, and the precise motive or mechanism behind the formation and development of the first linguistic signs. Tetens begins by contending that reason cannot be employed without language, and hence language must be as old as the use of reason. This raises the question as to whether one may have initially developed from the other or perhaps they grew in tandem. This, for Tetens, is an experimental question, just as is the case with so many aspects of human nature and psychology. As such, one must take into account all the innumerable complexities and influences that might taint any experiment, particularly those that were conducted in the past, while precisely determining what the proper conditions for such an experiment might be. After recounting some of the supposed empirical evidence, Tetens concludes that the only way the question could be settled is through an experiment in which a group of children were separated entirely from society, placed in nature alongside animals, and provided with the most basic means for survival. To carry the matter further, one must more precisely determine the natural abilities that belong to a human being simply as such. But this is not a simple matter, as is shown by the mistakes of those, like Ferguson, who have failed to distinguish human nature in its most basic form from human nature as developed and influenced by society and culture. Still, we can assume that those abilities that human beings have developed, can be developed by them in a state of nature. And hence the more general abilities presupposed by their current determinate abilities can be ascribed to human nature as such. These include bodily instincts, sensibility and excitability, the ability to feel one’s own activity, the ability to imitate, and the faculty to form new representations and concepts. But even these are insufficient to capture the “kernel” of the human being, if reason is not among them. For, whatever else might be said about it, reason is that element which distinguishes human representation and cognition from the same things in animals. According to Tetens, this special element expresses itself in the fact that human beings not only have representations and mental operations, but, in addition, they also have concepts of these. An animal differentiates, but a human being judges things are different in thought; an animal perceives similarities, the human being has a concept of similarity, and so forth. But to answer the question at hand, there is no need to side with one philosophical sect over another regarding whether this is a distinction in kind or merely in degree. It is sufficient if we recognize two things, namely that all thoughts trace back to some original internal or external

29 Süßmilch significantly served as the foil for many others in the German tradition, since he was the main, if not the sole, proponent of the divine origin theory. See his Versuch eines Beweises, daß die erste Sprache ihren Ursprung nicht vom Menschen, sondern allein vom Schöpfer erhalten habe (1766) (An Attempt to Prove that the First Language Did Not Have Its Origin in the Human Being, but Rather in the Creator Alone).

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sensations and that the ability to reason and the differentiation of our sensations go hand in hand. With these abilities established, Tetens turns to a consideration of what a human being can achieve by means of them in three different conditions, namely totally alone, in society with animals, and in society with other human beings. In the first condition, little to nothing will be achieved. The human being will have nothing to imitate that is analogous to himself, nor any objects for his natural drives aside from food and sleep. Tetens denies that the human being possesses sufficient spontaneity to develop without external stimulants and models. Among animals, however, the human being finds many things to imitate and will naturally do so. This is shown by historical examples of feral children discovered in North America and remote regions of Europe. Such children do not prove that human beings are naturally wild, but rather that they are driven to imitate whatever is around them that is in any way analogous to themselves. Here Tetens reveals one of the most basic and persistent assumptions of his anthropology, namely that human nature consists in various faculties that do not initially possess specific objects. Hence, natural humans are not selfish, as Hobbes contended, nor are they timid, as Rousseau held; rather, among the wild, human beings will be wild, and among the tame, they will be tame. In fact, due to the supreme flexibility afforded by the mimetic drive, the human being can become both the wildest and cleverest of the beasts, but at the same time the tamest of all the animals. This flexibility is uniquely human. Animals have drives that are determined to a specific mode of activity, but humans do not. A human’s character only becomes rigidified once it has been formed and reinforced over time. In society with animals only, the human being will imitate animals and, in this way, will develop many bodily abilities, but none relating to reason or reflection. Here, at most, one will rely on an obscure feeling of self, which is expressed, if at all, through sounds similar to those of animals. This, however, is not yet language in a properly human sense of the word. And should the human being somehow momentarily produce something original, it will be immediately lost, since there are no others to learn and repeat it, and the model of lower, animal nature always instead stimulates the mimetic drive. In society with other human beings, however, inventions—made possible by the poetic power—can be passed on and preserved. But the greatest initial difference is that now is the first time that all the properly human bodily drives find their proper objects, and this in turn stimulates the invention of further devices and means to their fulfillment, along with the maintenance of their products, e.g., children. Still, it is not so clear how strong these drives really are, and since there exist no leaders among human beings at this stage, animals remain their models even alongside these otherwise new inventions. Initially, the language of such a people will only be an animal language, consisting in the signification of their own sensations and desires through three kinds of natural, “mechanical” sounds, namely: (1) those determined by the body; (2) animal sounds, which are instinctual and are imitated though imperfectly; and (3) the sounds of inanimate objects in the environment, which are also imitated. This state of language

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is, again, purely animal in nature in the sense that it represents only one’s own sensations, acting, desiring, and suffering and does not in any way represent objects themselves. All the excitations provided by, and all the inventions required for, a sustained human society will be further increased and compounded by conflict, interaction, and mutual imitation. The sensations and vocal organs of human beings are capable of greater flexibility and differentiation than those found in animals. As soon as society drives the differentiation of sensations far enough that it becomes noticeable, and there arises a clear inner feeling of this difference, so too arises reason. With this comes the faculty to compare and contrast sensations and not only to differentiate them but also to become conscious of their similarities and differences. This new faculty produces what is called “clarity in sensations, apperception or being conscious.” Through this sensation is turned into concept, and animal sound into the human word. To be more precise about this transition, Wolff is not right to think that distinction in representations and apperception are one and the same. No amount of distinctness would produce a thought if reason—and the awareness that goes with it—was not added. This subjective distinctness is reflected in the objective distinctness in sounds. Distinct words facilitate distinct memories and representations of things, and the need to signal more precisely what one feels within oneself and to express this difference gave rise to the thought of oneself. That this is a possible way for thought to have first been stimulated into action is shown by the education of our own children. In the first to think, the differentiation of both sensations and tones had to occur at the same time, but in those that learned from this person the difference in tones could be what stimulated them to differentiate sensations and thus to reflection. The choice of vocal language is in a sense arbitrary, based purely on convenience, since other gestures or signs could have served reason just as well. The first general words arose not to mark abstractions of the understanding, but instead sensible abstractions, i.e., groups of sensations that have not yet been distinguished. General terms arising from the understanding, by contrast, presuppose a set of sensations that are already distinguished, which the word serves to tie together and render memorable. This important distinction is too often ignored. This is a very probable explanation of the progress and origin of both language and thought, and according to it, it is not impossible, but still very unlikely that any group of people has failed to attain a spark of both. By bringing into operation one’s sensory abilities, imagination, and memory, language provides indispensable support to the development of reflection and thought. Natural tones now provide the material for naming concepts. At first, only the simplest ones did so, which perhaps led to the origin of the sounds associated with individual letters, which themselves seem to signify certain basic ideas and sensations. Many circumstances, including the character of specific peoples, affected how this precisely occurred in each language. Another source of the earliest words was the sounds made by inanimate objects, which are analogous to and also stimulate similar sensations within us. Unlike the previous, these new words arise from a

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sensed similarity between an object and what is within us, and so are not possible without reflection and an effort to signal things through the voice. Hence, from the human being’s instinctual sounds—those that arose from the imitation of animals and objects—arose all the derived words, either by transfer of name, derivations in which the root sound becomes modified, or through composition. It is important to note that the transferal of names occurs not according to objective similarities, but instead in accordance with the subjective lack of distinction and the prominence of some features. The need to name sensations of things, as well as doings and sufferings, was the origin of the first of parts of speech, namely nouns and verbs. Still, great differences were found even in circumstances in which the same prominent feature was evident, and so such were signified by the addition of further words or by modifying the main tone. From this there arose moods, tenses, persons, numbers, cases, as well as pronouns, propositions, and adjectives. More generally speaking, since the precise formation of languages is a result of both the nature of the human being and a specific group’s circumstances, there will be some features of language that are universal and necessary for all human beings as such, some that are general but contingent due to general but contingent circumstances, and some that differ between groups of people depending on differences in their circumstances. The first, which can be called “metaphysical,” contains very little and is found mostly in grammar. Still, the contingent features extend to nearly all the natural and imitated signs, and as the languages of the Americas confirms, even to important aspects of grammar. Different languages exhibit different economies by which they are able to signify many of the same things. Most languages agree in having synonyms for major distinctions corresponding to things easily and necessarily distinguished, but most words only distinguish things when they are seen or thought of from a certain point of view. Hence, to learn a language is to learn a foreign system of thought. Although it is a common complaint that foreign or supposedly less developed languages lack articulation, this is the result only of the hearer’s lack of familiarity with them. All languages and indeed all the natural sounds are more or less articulated. And with the development of spoken language, noting these articulations became increasingly important and useful. This articulation provided the occasion for the truly ingenious invention of writing, the key feature of which was that the written signs would follow the spoken signs but would not indicate them, but instead the things those spoken signs signified. In the formation of written words, the main sounds were represented by the main letter in the syllable, which afterward was its essential part. The development of alphabets must have been slow and subject to chance, and mainly driven by the aim of more precisely representing all spoken sounds. It also appears that this device of creating written language in accordance with spoken language was much more successful than would have been any attempt to create a written language that directly signified objects themselves. The preceding is only one way in which language could have arisen, but it is in fact a possible one. There could be others. The only remaining objection to a natural origin of language is perhaps the remarkable inertia of the human being. It seems

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that most of the human being’s abilities are not drives but mere potentialities to become something. They appear to require stimulation and necessity to force them into operation. Hence, to decide the matter we must investigate further whether there exist certain inner drives to development in the human being. Still, what has been proven is only that it is possible for language to have developed in this way; and hence, should language one day disappear, it is possible for it to develop again, although surely in a different specific form. It is entirely consistent with the foregoing that peoples have existed that never developed a language. The so-called experiments with children were not properly conducted and so prove nothing. Another objection that has been made is that the development of language requires prior reflection and planning. However, the languages of the Americas prove otherwise; presumably their language arose after they lost their previous one, and it came to develop a new economy without the least planning. Examination of the history of human inventions shows the same ability to produce new things accidentally and without prior reflection.

On the General Speculative Philosophy (1775) This essay was originally intended to form the first part of the PhV, but the author decided after writing it that it would be better to publish it in advance. The purpose is to explain the aim and use of general speculative philosophy as well as the means to its perfection. All knowledge of objects takes place by means of our ideas, but these ideas can be considered in two ways, namely as if they are in fact the objects, thus objectively, or insofar as they are modifications of ourselves, thus subjectively. When we investigate them in the last way, seeking their origin, meaning, and scope, then we are observing our representations and undertaking a physics of the understanding rather than a philosophy of objects. Objects are known to us only by means of representations of them within us. Thus, it is natural for us to ask to what extent these ideas represent those objects truly. Since there is no way to compare the representations directly with the objects, the only means for judging this correspondence is analogous to how we would judge the truth of paintings in a gallery, namely by judging their harmony, consistency, and coherence in a system of representations. From this we will determine which are originals and judge the remainder by reference to them. The common understanding has already undertaken a similar investigation, although almost unconsciously and without any deliberate plan or effort. It has already learned how, guided by a vague feeling, it is able to reach a great stock of correct representations. It has also discovered how to avoid deceptive appearances and has developed, simply based upon experience, a certain proficiency for successfully assessing its representations of things. But remove this proficiency from its usual circumstances, and the common human understanding falls into perplexity until it also has a theory to explain how its sensations arise from external objects. Beyond judging just its sensations, the common understanding is able to assemble a range of fundamental concepts and principles, which allow it to reach certainty

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in some of the most important parts of philosophy. All scientists indeed draw from the stock of metaphysical concepts and principles in forming their own theories, without, however, ever undertaking the kind of fundamental investigation into the origin of concepts and principles as is proposed here. A scientist would need such only if they wanted an overview of how all the sciences relate to one another. The philosopher employs such a metaphysics and follows a feeling for what is true in order to investigate God, the world, and ourselves, accepting as certain whatever agrees with this and also generates no sense of doubt. But it is simply unbelievable that such an approach would always hit upon truth. Moreover, the general reliability of such a metaphysics of common understanding is no reason to despise the higher speculative philosophy. Speculative philosophy is the ally of the common understanding, and it consists merely in a more elaborate “scholastic” formulation of the latter’s own common metaphysics. Indeed, such a philosophy should cultivate and arise from the common metaphysics but also exceed it in certainty, articulation, and stability. It should relate to that metaphysics in the way that modern astronomy relates to the ancient knowledge of the heavens. The need for a general speculative philosophy arises from two causes: first, the objects of metaphysics are so far removed from what is empirical, and hence from what can be verified and grasped sensibly, that the mind requires a theory about how to extend its knowledge; second, even when things can be known by sensation, theory is also required to understand or have an insight into why something is true, and whether it is necessarily true. Again, the relationship between general speculative philosophy and the rest of metaphysics is analogous to that between pure mathematics and fields like optics and physics. “All our knowledge of actual things is provided by observation and reasoning.” But reasoning and, in particular, reasoning based on a fundamental theory, is what allows us to “bridge the chasm” between the sensible and the non-sensible. Fundamental philosophy alone provides the equipment and instruction for navigating the path from the sensible to the nonsensible. Is fundamental science or general speculative philosophy possible for us? That is an open question, but it must be noted that the possibility of the whole of metaphysics depends on it. Speculative philosophy or metaphysics is divided as follows: General transcendent philosophy or fundamental science is a special science that constitutes the common and more general root of two other sciences, namely the science of corporeal things and the science of immaterial, incorporeal, or intellectual philosophy. Formally, the last two are the same and share with the theology of reason the fact that they consist in the application of transcendent philosophy to experiences. Transcendent philosophy is distinctive in that it has no object, just as pure mathematics has no real object. It occupies itself “with what is possible or necessary in all kinds of things in general.” All branches of metaphysics consist in the application of this general science to different objects, and hence the reality of these sciences depends on the reality of the transcendent science. The requirements of fundamental science are essentially the same as those of mathematics. This does not mean that mathematical form is required; that is only the external clothing. The essential aspect that makes mathematics successful is that

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it has determinate and real fundamental concepts and evident principles, that it has a set of signs to note and work with these, and, finally, that it compares and combines these principles in order to know their connections. For concepts to be real they must “correspond to objects outside of the understanding.” To establish this, everything subjective must be removed from a concept so that what is objective, which corresponds to things outside of the understanding, is left. This is what we call the “reality” of concepts. Is fundamental science really necessary? Some knowledge, like that found in mathematics, is so clear and determinate that no further investigation of its possibility is required. Here the discovery and presentation of knowledge equal the proof of its reality. But even on the most generous interpretation, little of this kind is found in metaphysics, as even a casual glance at its history and the textbooks shows. Bacon was correct that here certain idols—in the form of concepts passed down to us and never properly examined—block the way to further progress. The realization of concepts, which is the main goal of fundamental theory, can only be carried out in the way suggested by Locke. We must examine the understanding itself and discover the origin of these concepts within it. Formal principles concern only the form of knowledge, while material principles concern the way it is naturally necessary for the understanding to connect concepts. The first, most general material principles and concepts can be regarded in two ways: objectively, in which case the latter are the real objects within us, or subjectively, in which case both are initially regarded as empirical truths about the way we seem to be forced to think objects when we understand and judge them. The question then arises whether this empirical fact that what we feel a necessity to think in this way is either contingent or rather necessary and grounded in the nature of the understanding itself. If, for example, it can be shown that any understanding as such—even the divine understanding—would have to think in such a way, then this would show the reality of these concepts. Deciding this question is what it means to realize concepts and principles. Aristotle also did something like this when he considered the principle of contradiction. Metaphysicians have so far avoided such investigations by claiming that their principles are derivable from the principle of contradiction. This principle is truly incontestable, and so if their claim were true, the matter would be settled. But so far no one has succeeded in deriving all fundamental principles from this one. What is found in the principle of contradiction shows us how far psychological observations can go. But the proofs of metaphysical principles never get so far and hence their universality has been questioned. How is one to otherwise prove that one must admit these principles and think according to them even while another denies them? One possibility remains, namely that it be shown that this truth hangs together and harmonizes with the rest of the known truths. This can possibly provide adequate certainty of its universality. Not only have metaphysicians failed to prove their principles from the principle of contradiction, such is—in the author’s view—not even possible. What is said to this point relates to common principles. These are certain necessary modes of thought that do not depend on the special constitution of the

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concepts involved. Every judgment is the effect of two things, namely the power of understanding and the concepts it contains and is applied to. But there are certain formal principles, which do not depend on the constitution of those concepts. They are true of everything that can become an object. Examples of this are every thing is identical with itself and nothing comes to be from nothing. This is just like the principle of contradiction, although some philosophers do not agree. Instead, they think that other principles can be derived from the principle of contradiction, and yet that these also contain concepts that make it look like they are different principles, although they really are not. The author does not believe these are properly derived from the principle of contradiction or that their truth can be shown through an analysis of the concepts. Instead, they are indemonstrable principles. Their certainty must therefore be contained within them as they stand. The principles of transcendent philosophy are the bulk of those found in the second rank. Here the principles of the first rank provide the form of combination, and what is distinctive here are the concepts that get combined in this way. Realizing principles of the second rank amounts to realizing these concepts or ideas. The concept of space is a prime example. This means showing that they correspond to things outside of the understanding and presenting them distinctly. That this is a complicated matter is shown by Leibniz’s failed proposal that the reality of concepts and their determinate meanings could be established by attempting to translate them into the vernacular. Reducing such principles to those of the common human understanding makes no sense, since the point of fundamental philosophy is precisely to perfect and correct that understanding and its metaphysics. Realizing concepts means verifying their objective content, if they have any, and purifying them of what is subjective. The key here is to follow the path offered by Hume and others, namely to trace general concepts back to the sensations from which they arise. Unfortunately, this method is still indeterminate and it is not so simple as that “concepts are resolved sensations.” Sensations are indeed the stuff of our true concepts, but also of our empty ones. What is more important to consider is the manner in which the mind forms and reforms its concepts out of sensations. The realization of concepts concerns primarily an examination of the modes of this processing. The first thing this requires is the separation of the transcendent common concepts from those that belong to branches concerning corporeal and immaterial things. Thereby we are provided with a first test as to whether a concept belongs to transcendent philosophy, namely if it can be drawn from both inner and outer sensations. If, however, it can be found only in outer sensations, or only in inner sensations, then it is not a properly transcendent concept. If space can only be abstracted from touch and sight, then it cannot be a transcendent concept. No concepts are purely innate, so there is no question of transcendent or any other concepts that need not be abstracted from sensations. Transcendent concepts therefore possess a characteristic independence from the sensations from which they are drawn. They are the true pinnacle in the ladder of ideas, standing above those that belong only to either inner or outer sense. If only philosophers had properly separated out all concepts of the senses and of the

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intellect from those that are transcendent, then we would know what is limited only to each of these and whether there are such transcendent concepts. The properly sensible ideas consist of these classes. The first are pure ideas of sensation and are all those sensations to which the mind adds nothing aside from consciousness of them. These are constant and so well-connected to their objects that they can be considered real. The second class consists of those that have been modified or added to by the spontaneous poetic power, either purely based on fantasy or also under the guidance of reflection and reason. Those that are primarily invented are called inventions, whereas those that are primarily made up of real sensations are call representations of sensation. Most of our concepts, those in physics, psychology, and even in what seems to be purely observed, arise in this way. Those made purely by fantasy are fictional representations; those made by reflection and reason are ideas of reflection. The latter consist of what we call general concepts. These first arise as general pictures due to the fact that certain similar features of individual objects strike us in sensation. Reflection then intervenes and separates and notices these similarities and signifies them by means of words. This is the origin of extracted common concepts or representations of general things. But there is a further, important difference. Some of these are abstractions from pure sensations and hence are closely connected to experiences. These are generally real and provide material for philosophy. Other general concepts, however, are abstracted more based on those invented features we add to the sensations, and to this extent they are less reliable. Such general concepts abstracted from self-made concepts can be resolved into their simple components and thereby yield ideas of reasoning or concepts of demonstration. In essence, these general concepts are those that are added by thought to our sensations, although they are indeed true abstractions. Some basically deny this last group of common concepts and instead regard all concepts as abstractions from individual things. This, however, in no way diminishes the need to undertake the examination here described; for the reality also of those concepts needs to be established. This, then, provides the method for establishing general speculative philosophy. It is basically the method of Locke and Hume, although their actual attempts are still faulty and far too simplistic. Such is evident particularly in Hume’s treatment of causality. Although the realization of concepts in general speculative philosophy is the most pressing job of metaphysics, it will not solve all the latter’s problems. We will still have to deal with imprecisions of method and prejudices arising from both laziness and the personal significance of many metaphysical truths. Still, the time of philosophical systems will not arrive until the path of observational philosophy has been fully tread. Those who think that all that is needed is the application of mathematical method are just as wrong as those who believe that all that is needed is proper analysis. Lambert’s supreme analysis, combined with the fact that it has not settled the problems of metaphysics, is proof of the latter. Nevertheless, in the meantime, there are many good parts of metaphysics that can stand and need not be overturned. Such hastiness to overturn everything until a proper foundation has been laid is also a source of difficulties for metaphysics.

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VOCABULARY AND STYLE Translating the writings of Tetens presents many challenges, some of which are common to other similar writers like Kant, but others of which are unique to his style and use of vocabulary. Indeed, it could be argued that in many cases, Tetens’s writing is simply untranslatable. We think it will be useful to explain some of these issues here, so that the reader will be more fully aware of the difficult choices we have had to make. Our general philosophy of translation is rather standard for scholarly works of this period. We aim to achieve a balanced combination of three desiderata: accuracy and strict consistency in rendering technical passages and terms, natural readability in those passages that are less technical, and faithfulness to the author’s style as far as is reasonable and consistent with both of the former. But Tetens complicates this task considerably by seemingly adopting two maxims of writing: (1) If something can be said simply and elegantly, then instead integrate it with other thoughts into a long, unorthodox construction; (2) until philosophical usage is standardized, employ as many synonyms as possible, drawing freely from foreign languages to do so. In this way, Tetens sometimes achieves a vigorous, rhythmic, and effective style full “of foreign technical words and of native colloquial speech-phrases” and thus not unlike that cultivated by Thomasius and his school (see Blackall 1978, p. 23). It is tempting, for this reason, to see in Tetens’s style yet another symbol of his independence from Wolff and the broader Wolffian tradition, which is famous for its regular, simple, and hence often monotonous style. But at other times, the result is difficult to follow in German and impossible to replicate in English. This is particularly true of the many synonyms Tetens employs. In almost any philosopher, one would like to render distinct words in German with distinct words in English, so as to preserve any subtle differences of usage that might be of philosophical significance. Indeed, if a philosopher such as Wolff or Kant uses two different but related words in close proximity, one would normally take this as indicating that the two are not in fact synonyms. Exactly the opposite seems to be true of Tetens. He appears to be a philosopher in search of a vocabulary, who, until it is found, is willing to experiment with many different synonyms and their differing associations and shades of meaning, while still employing them more or less interchangeably. One could even argue that this practice in a certain sense follows from his philosophical views on the intertwinement of language and thought. All this being said, we have avoided as far as possible the practice of cutting up Tetens’s long sentences or filling in too many elliptical expressions, and we have tried to preserve distinctions in terminology when this made sense. With an author such as Tetens it is always tempting to rewrite what one should instead translate. In this respect, we believe it always important for the translator to recognize when an author intentionally avoids a more natural way to say the same thing in his original language and to replicate this decision as naturally as possible in the target language. The reader will discover most of our terminological choices in the glossary to this volume. Below are a few cases in which we thought a longer explanation would be instructive.

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dichten, erdichten, Erdichtung, Dichtkraft || to invent, to invent, invention, the poetic power. These are all important terms in Tetens and have very specific meanings deriving from his philosophical heritage. Wolff and, following him, Baumgarten also speak of a facultas fingendi or, as the latter defines it, a faculty for “separating and combining images” (Baumgarten 2013, §589, p. 219). Since this was thought of as related to the ancient conception of poesis and to be closely related to the productive faculty which makes poetry possible, Baumgarten also calls it “POETICAM” or the poetic faculty. For fingo and fictiones Baumgarten suggests the German translations dichte ich and etwas erdichtetes, and such became the standard through his student Meier and others. This turns out to be one of those cases where the translator is spoiled for choice, but yet none work well in all forms. Dichten, like poesis, is closely connected to poetry, but at the same time it is much broader in significance. “To poeticize” gives a sense too narrow and calling its product a “poem” is often just plain wrong. “To create” is too broad and “to fabricate” is too physical in connotation, not to mention that “fabrications” has a negative connotation that “fictiones” does not. After much consideration, we have chosen to keep the link to poesis, particularly as it is attested to in Baumgarten, by translating Dichtkraft as “poetic power.” Otherwise, dichten and all of its cognates are rendered by “to invent” and its own cognates. deutlich, Deutlichkeit; klar, Klarheit; dunkel, Dunkelheit; verworren, Verworrenheit || distinct, distinctness; clear, clarity; obscure, obscurity; confused, confusion. In regular German, deutlich und klar are essentially synonyms. Indeed, deutlich is employed more often where English would use “clear” than is klar. If there is any distinction in connotation, then it lies in that deutlich indicates more ease of understanding or grasping, whereas klar indicates the property of being bright, fully visible, or fully perceptible. However, in the wake of Descartes’s and Leibniz’s use of the terminology of clear and distinct concepts, Wolff and his followers defined these words by stipulation such that a concept is said to be clear (as opposed to obscure) when it suffices to reidentify its object (Log §9), whereas a clear concept is also said to be distinct (as opposed to confused) when it allows us to represent the specific marks by which we reidentify the object (Log §13). Sometimes this is simplified to the claim that a distinct concept is a clear concept, whose component concepts or marks are also clear. On this view, a concept can be clear, although confused, such as a sharp pain, and the mark of one’s possessing a truly distinct concept is the ability to provide it with a real definition, which enumerates and expresses its component marks. Notwithstanding the influence of the Wolffians on this matter, Tetens was also influenced by figures who were often critical of Wolff and refused to entirely adopt his terminology. Christian August Crusius (1715–75), for instance, instead distinguishes between three kinds of Deutlichkeit, namely the common sort, which is equivalent to Wolff’s notion of clarity or Klarheit, that of the essential content, which is equivalent to Wolff’s distinctness or Deutlichkeit, and finally logical Deutlichkeit, which arises by means of abstraction (Crusius [1745] 1766, §8). The distaste for even this terminology is evident in Tetens’s teacher Johann Christian Eschenbach in passages such as the following: “Some, who take pleasure

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in new terminology, express the previous like this; in the ontological words there is found only a common Deutlichkeit (idea clara), rarely a Deutlichkeit of essential content (idea complete distincta s. definitio) or logical Deutlichkeit (idea adaequata)” (1757, §9, p. 30). In place of this, Eschenbach proposes something closer to the Wolffian conception: clear (klar) concepts, as opposed to obscure ones, are those sufficient for reidentifying an object. These are either completely clear, if they are sufficient to distinguish the object from all similar objects in all cases and circumstances, or they are incompletely clear, if they are sufficient to distinguish them only from some. Ideas are called distinct (deutlich, idea distincta), when “we can state either the attributes [Eigenschaften] or marks through which we distinguish them from those that belong to the same genus or kind.” When this is not the case, they are indistinct. Distinctness, again, can be either complete or incomplete, depending on whether “we can state all the marks through which we distinguish the matter from all others and under all circumstances,” or rather only some such marks (Eschenbach 1756, §35, pp. 55–6). Finally, if the marks within a distinct concept are also distinct, then the concept is adequate (einen ausführlichen Begrif, idea adaequata), and if this is true all the way down, then it is completely adequate (Eschenbach 1756, §39, p. 59). This complex picture is well represented in the usage of Tetens, who in technical contexts, such as in speaking of ontology or real definitions, often employs either Wolff’s or Eschenbach’s terminology; while in other, more relaxed contexts he tends to employ Deutlichkeit in a way that is inconsistent with these. To deal with this issue, we have chosen to translate this term depending on context, but to employ “distinct” as our standard while indicating by glosses where we have departed from it. Eigenschaft || attribute, property, feature. In the little glossary Wolff appended to his German Metaphysics, this term is equated with the Latin attributum, or with something “uniquely and solely grounded in the essence of a thing” (Wolff 1747b, §44, p. 23), in other words, with a necessary determination or property of it. To this he, and later Baumgarten, opposed “modus,” a mode, or a contingent property, which is not fully determined by the essence of a thing or its attributes, and hence requires something outside of the thing as a principle of its actuality. As with most Wolffian terminology, this distinction was almost universally adopted and Tetens would surely have been familiar with it. And yet matters are not so simple. In Tetens’s professor Eschenbach we find: Namely, the Eigenschaften of a thing are either those that belong to it insofar as it possesses its essences (competent enti, qua tali, quatenus hane habet essentiam), and these one calls essential Eigenschaften (essentialia); and indeed those one takes to be the very first among these and which constitute the essence itself are the fundamentally essential (essentialia constitutiva s. primaria, qualitates primitivae Wolff. Ont. L. §461); those, however, such as flow from the fundamentally essential and which one takes to be the secondary, are called the consequent essential (essentialia consecutive s. secundaria, attributa, qualitates derivativae necessariae). Or they are those that belong to it not as this thing that has this

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essence and thus can be absent from the thing, without its ceasing to be this thing; and these one calls these the extra-essential Eigenschaften (extraessentialia, modi, accidentia praedicabilia, qualitates derivativae contingentes). (Eschenbach 1757, §14, pp. 41–2; cf. Eschenbach 1756, §33–4, pp. 51–3) Not only is this division far more complex than what is found in Wolff, but it consciously disregards his express definitions of these terms. As in other cases, we have taken Wolff’s usage as the default but have sought not to force it on the text when this clearly seemed to give a wrong sense, with such exceptions always being glossed in the footnotes. Erklärung || definition, explanation, declaration. Early German lacked a specific term corresponding to the Latin definitio or definition. Wolff chose the common word Erklärung to play this role, although it already served a useful purpose of signifying the act of making clear or evident, and thus of both explaining something and declaring something to be the case. This technical usage was universally followed (cf. Eschenbach 1756, §62, pp. 98–9) in logic textbooks, but in less technical contexts the common usage remained in force. This is also true in Tetens, and hence we have had to judge what is appropriate based on context. As always, we have noted any borderline cases through a gloss. Gemüt(h), Gemüt(h)sart, Kopf, Genie || mind, character, mentality, genius. Gemüt is among the most famous untranslatable words. Its range of meanings includes mind, heart, and soul. According to Zedler, it served for translating the Latin animus (which can mean mind, heart, understanding, point of view, resolve, or even intention), whereas Geist was reserved for anima (which more strictly means “soul”) (see Zedler 1731–54, vol. 2, pp. 138–9). The main difficulty is that Gemüt generally has a broader sense than related words in English and gains its specific sense from its contrast with other German terms, like Geist, which is also often translated as “mind” but frequently also as “spirit.” Our choice of “mind” to translate Gemüt is simply a matter of convention. Of course, Gemütsart refers more specifically to the kind or species (Art) of mind that one has. Hence, “character” seems appropriate. By contrast with both of these terms, Kopf and Genie take on clearly defined meanings in Tetens’s writings. Kopf he borrows from Baumgarten and Baumgarten’s student Meier, who employ it to refer to the specific makeup or condition of one’s mind at a specific moment in terms of its various proficiencies. The Kopf, in other words, consists of the set of one’s mental proficiencies along with their determinate magnitudes and proportions to one another. One may, for instance, have a mathematical Kopf as a child but a poetic Kopf as an adult, due to the fact that over time one’s abilities have changed. Such a “mentality,” as we have chosen to translate it, may seem similar to “character” (Gemütsart), but there is a clear difference between them; different mentalities describe different mental or cognitive makeups, whereas different characters more generally correspond to different kinds of persons, for instance, the choleric, melancholic, sanguine, or phlegmatic. Although the basis for this difference is unclear, it may be that character has more to do with the abilities related to willing, and mentality with those related to cognition. Yet mentalities seem to differ from characters in that the former

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can change over time, whereas the latter are more like the innate basis for one’s development. Genie, or “genius,” finally is employed by Tetens as it is defined by Du Bos, namely as an extraordinary fitness of one’s Kopf for undertaking a certain kind of activity. See notes 10 and 12, on pp. 85. Satz, Grundsatz, Lehrsatz || proposition, principle, theorem. The first and third have their meanings fixed essentially by Wolff, who equates Satz with propositio and Lehrsatz with theorema in the first register to his German Logic. The second, however, provides an interesting case where Wolff’s attempt to establish technical usage failed. In the German Logic, it is equated with axioma, which is defined as a proposition whose truth is evident immediately upon comprehension of the words it contains. Following him, this remained the terminology of mathematicians in Germany, but in philosophy it created a problem for how to translate principium, which Wolff himself struggled with as well, switching at times between Grund, Satz, and Quelle. A nice example of this is again Eschenbach, who lists for his students as among the “technical terms of the mathematicians”: “II. Grundsatz (axioma). By this they mean an indemonstrable theoretical proposition (propositionem theoreticam indemonstrabilem), that is, a theoretical proposition that, considered in and by itself, is understood to be true by every person, and thus need not be proven, even if it can be proven, e.g., The whole is greater than the part. This world exists, and so forth” (Eschenbach 1756, §96, p. 183). And yet Eschenbach continues to use Grundsatz to mean “principle” throughout all his works. The failure of Wolff’s proposal is also evident in the language of Kant: “Of Axioms [Axiomen]. These are synthetic principles a priori, insofar as they are immediately certain. … Now, since philosophy is purely rational cognition according to concepts, in it there is to be encountered no Grundsatz deserving of the name of an axiom. Mathematics, by contrast, is capable of axioms” (A732/B760). In our examination of Tetens writings, we have found all the evidence to suggest that he disregarded Wolff’s terminology in this case, at least outside the context of mathematics. Scharfsinnigkeit || acumen. This term is ubiquitous in Tetens’s writings and does not require much discussion, except to note that it does indeed have a technical and well-defined meaning in writers of the period. Following Wolff, Baumgarten states the following: “Proficiency in observing the differences of things is ACUMEN” (Baumgarten 2013, §573, p. 215). The Latin word here is indeed “ACUMEN.” This is later translated by Meier: “The proficiency to note the differences of things is Scharfsinnigkeit (acumen)” (Baumgarten 1766, §426). Baumgarten further explains: “This is the law of the faculty of representing the differences of things, and hence of acumen (§573): If a characteristic of A is represented as repugnant to B, A and B are perceived as different (§38)” (Baumgarten 2013, §574, pp. 215–16). Eschenbach follows suit stating that one is Scharfsinnig when one knows how to distinguish things that are to be distinguished, adding that, since distinct concepts allow one to distinguish objects, “[t]he proficiency to make distinct concepts brings with it an acumen, and testifies to one’s acumen” (Eschenbach 1756, §37, p. 58). As is often the case, the Latin here is closer to English and so easier to translate into it than is the German directly. Hence, we have gone with “acumen,” instead of a calque like “sharp mindedness.” See also the entry on Witz below.

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Fähigkeit, Fertigkeit, Vermögen, Kraft || ability, proficiency, faculty, power. In the Wolffian tradition and in Kant a sharp distinction is made between these terms in accordance, respectively, with the corresponding Latin terms capacitas, habitus, facultas, and vis. The first indicates the possibility of being acted upon, the second an acquired ability or proficiency for doing something, the third a possibility of being active, and the fourth an actual exercise of this last kind of possibility. However, neither Eschenbach nor Tetens seems to observe such distinctions, except in the respect in which the first and second indicate a possibility, whereas the second and fourth indicate something actual or an acquired state. Indeed, in the PhV, Tetens even speaks of Fähigkeiten as consisting of various sorts of Vermögen. One might suggest that Fähigkeit is perhaps better translated as “capacity” than as “ability,” since the former seems perhaps to indicate something more naturally inborn, rather than acquired. But in UrsSS and elsewhere Tetens clearly suggests that Fähigkeiten too may be acquired. The key point that needs to be retained in translation is that although these may be acquired, they are still not a kind of readiness for a certain kind of activity, which is what is definitive of a Fertigkeit. Witz || wit, intelligence. Again, not a controversial term, but one worth noting here because of the specificity of its meaning in this period. Baumgarten defines wit or ingenium: “Proficiency in observing the correspondences of things,” adding that “[t]his is the law of the faculty of perceiving perspicaciously the correspondences of things, and hence of wit (§572): If a characteristic of A is represented as a characteristic of B, A and B are represented as the same (§38)” (Baumgarten 2013, §572, §574, p. 215). Eschenbach writes similarly: “The capacity for perceiving the similarities of things is called wit (Ingenium)” (Eschenbach 1756, §44, p. 67). Hence, wit makes a pair with acumen, as the twin proficiencies for observing the correspondences and differences of things.

PART TWO

The Translations

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1

Thoughts on the Influence of the Climate on the Manner of Human Thought (1759)1 §1. The influence of the climate on the manner of human thought is incontestably 454 a matter that deserves attention. The ancients have all but universally maintained it,2 and the moderns, especially a few ingenious Frenchmen,3 have gone so far as to derive from it every difference of human beings with respect to their genius and their inclinations; and seldom does this occur without the German and Nordic climates being depicted in a way that renders them odious. This last has moved the equally learned and famous defender of our ancestors, Herrn Consistory Counsellor

[The first six paragraphs of this essay appeared in twenty-ninth installment of the Schleswig-Hollsteinische Anzeigen von politischen, gelehrten, und andern Sachen, Monday, July 16, 1759.] 2 [See, among many others, Plato’s Laws V, 747d: “Some localities have a more marked tendency than others to produce better or worse men, and we are not to legislate in the face of the facts. Some, I conceive, owe their propitious or ill-omened character to variations in wind and sunshine, others to their waters, and yet others to the products of the soul, which not only provide the body with better or worse sustenance, but equally affect the mind for good or bad” (Plato 1961, p. 1331). Also, Aristotle, Politics VII.7.] 3 [The two principals are the political philosophers Jean Bodin (1530–96) and Charles-Louis de Secondat, Baron de La Brède et de Montesquieu (1689–1755). Bodin ascribes a great many features of human character to climate, although he also stresses the transformative role of culture and civilization. In particular, he describes Germans in a generally negative way, e.g., as being cruel and not very clever due to the coldness of their climate. See his Les Six Livres de la République (1576), esp. bk. 5, ch. 1. Montesquieu devotes all of book 14 of his De l’esprit des lois (1748) to a consideration of the idea that “[i]f it is true that the character of the spirit and the passions of the heart are extremely different in the various climates, laws should be relative to the differences in these passions and to the differences in these characters” (Montesquieu 1989, p. 231). Among other things, Montesquieu describes Germans as particularly inclined toward drunkenness due to their cold climate (see note 15, p. 46 below). Interestingly, the entry on climate in the Encyclopédie, ou dictionnaire raisonné des sciences, des arts et des métiers (1751–66) praises Montesquieu but is also skeptical of there being any strong relationship between climate and moral character. For Tetens’s reference to the ancients, see the next note.] 1

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455 Schütze,4 to show, in a few remarks printed in the first three parts of this year’s edition of the present publication, that such bold assertions have their ground more in the prejudices of the ancients, and in the imagination, than in experience. But as well grounded as the remarks of this most-worthy author certainly are, it hardly follows from them, in my opinion, that one could deny all influence of climate on the mind of human beings. In the investigation into this matter, these two questions are to be distinguished: (1) Does climate affect the manner of human thought? (2) What does this influence consist in? There is ground to affirm the former; but the latter can be determined with less certainty, perhaps even with next to none at all. This is what I hope to show. 456 §2. The climate of a country and its air are very nearly one and the same. What one really names thereby is a certain attribute that constantly clings to the air of a region, or at least has the upper hand in it. Thus, a region is given the label of being a cold one, a humid one, a warm one, a dry one, and so forth, accordingly as in that place cold, moisture, warmth, or humidity mostly predominates. This attribute of the air, however, has its greatest cause in the constitution of the land, and it was for this reason also that the ancients derived from both equally whatever they wanted to attribute to the climate; and thus both can be accounted to it with justification. Therefore, those countries in which one and the same determinate constitution of the air particularly predominates have a general climate, which in turn can be divided up into other particular climates, according to which either this general attribute of the air is found in one region in a weaker degree than in another; or another difference is found that markedly distinguishes the atmosphere of one province from that of another. Hence, the temperate zones can be distinguished into different climates, if greater heat, or greater cold, are accepted as the distinguishing mark; or if the general temperate air in one country has more moisture, in another it is drier, then this can again constitute a difference of climates. I need not remind the reader that the definition given here is different from the meaning in which the astronomers take this word.5 §3. Let us now see whether the climate has an influence on the manner of human thought. To open a path forward for answering this question, I want to let another

[Gottfried Schütze (1719–84), Tetens 2014a incorrectly has this as “Schürze”—a German evangelical theologian, pedagogue and self-proclaimed guardian or protector (Beschützer) of ancient German and Nordic culture. The piece referred to by Tetens has proven impossible to locate in its original printing but has been reprinted in Schütze’s collected writings Schutzschiften für die alten Deutschen und Nordischen Völker (2 vols., 1773) (Protective Writings for the Ancient German and Nordic Peoples), vol. 2, pp. 538– 610. In §4, Schütze cites as supports of the influence of the climate on thought and character the ancient authors Porphyry, Cicero, Seneca, Justinus, Curtius, Livy, Tacitus, Aristotle, Pliny the older, and Vegetius.] 5 [See, e.g., Eberhard Christian Kindermann’s (1715–?) Collegium Astronomicum, als der Andere Teil, oder Erklärung seiner Teutschen Astronomie (1747): “The climates [Climata] are certain stretches or bands of the earth between two parallels, within the polar circles [circulis polaribus], and the line, in which the day distinguishes itself noticeably either by plus or by minus one half-hour; now, where the day increases by half an hour by the apparent course of the sun, there is a different climate [clima]” (p. 31).] 4

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proposition lead the way, namely this: The climate affects the human body and its nerves. The doctors of medicine teach us how differently cold and warmth, moist cold and dry cold, humid and dry warmth, exercise their effects on the body and 457 particularly on its nerves. It is not necessary that I explain all of this precisely at this moment, since here I only take this proposition as a foundational truth borrowed from physiology, and whoever does not want to dig up the proof for it in Herrn Prof. Krüger’s physiology6 can be convinced of it through the slightest attention to his own experience. Attend only to oneself; how does one appear when one remains in the bitterest frost for a long time under an open sky? How when, in the heat of summer, one exposes oneself to the rays of the sun for a long while? Do not the nerves and fibers of the body contract together in the cold and does not every vessel expand and the blood flow freely when the human being is strongly heated?7 The vapors arising from a marshy and fertile land produce other changes in us than do those released by a pure, dry, and unfertile ground; all of which in other words means nothing but this; the climate affects the body of the human being, and especially its sensory vessels. I do not conclude from this that every difference of human beings, in regard to the body, depends upon the climate; not even that the difference of such must necessarily be noticeable in all, that necessarily, e.g., the inhabitants of the icy north must be endowed with stiff and strong nerves; those under the equator, by contrast, with slack, soft, and tender ones. There are many other causes that contribute something of themselves to the difference of the body; also many means through which the effects of the air are altered, or at least are rendered unnoticeable. This alone follows: The climate, in accordance with its own difference, affects the body of the human being in a distinct way, even if it may not be determined, due to the confluence of many other causes, how far this influence extends. Two human beings who were perfectly alike in every way, in bodily constitution, in manner of 458 life and in nourishment, would nevertheless, through the mere difference of skies, soon possess many distinguishing marks. §4. At this point I have achieved so much that, should I wish to take the general consensus of philosophers as assistance, I could prove in the strictest manner, from what has been premised, the influence of the climate on the manner of human thought. However, I do not require such a general proof. I must only presuppose one principle whose truth is defended by both psychology and physiology; and indeed this one: The different manners in which human beings think conform to the different constructions of the brain, and of the nerves, of the organs of sensation. It does not presently concern me how far extends this dependence of the effects of the soul on the arrangement of the nerves. Those who maintain that the difference in this arrangement is the single ground of the difference between a Newton and

[Johann Gottlob Krüger (1715–59), German doctor and natural scientist, author of the 4 vol. Naturlehre (1740), the second volume of which bears the subtitle Physiologie, oder Lehre von dem Leben und der Gesundheit der Menschen (Physiology, or Theory of the Life and Health of the Human Being).] 7 [The same idea is found in Montesquieu 1989, p. 231.] 6

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a Sancho Panza may defend this view themselves. Enough, reason and experience confirm said truth. This being presupposed, what is easier than this conclusion? If the manner of thought of a human being is determined by his sensations; and these by the arrangement of the nerves; and, further, the climate manifests its effects on the nerves; then its influence on the manner of thought is undeniable. §5. Just the experience that I presented in the third section, of the effects of the climate on our body, is already a proof of its influence on our mind. How often does dull weather not make us sullen and sad? Whereas, by contrast, serene air stimulates in us a certain manner of liveliness. A stronger degree of cold as well as of heat makes us unable to reflect, not to mention various experiences, which each 459 person can bring forth within themselves that much more frequently the less he shies away from exposing himself in the open air to weather conditions of such kind. I readily admit that acclimatization to a certain kind of weather causes us to sense its effects less. The Icelander is far from being as severely seized by the cold as is the inhabitant of France. But this does not in the least nullify what has been said; heat, by contrast, is more taxing to the former than to the latter. For this reason, from the preceding observations it remains certain that the difference of the weather and of the air also produces different effects in the soul. Now, if one only recalls what I said above regarding the climate, namely that it is a certain8 constitution of the air; then nothing further is required in order to draw from this the conclusion that the distinction which is found among the climates of certain countries is also responsible for the difference of minds. §6. The influence of the climate on the manner of human thought is thus, in my opinion, placed beyond doubt. The cold of the north belongs therefore among the causes that make the inhabitants of Greenland think differently than do the Moors in the countries near the equator. I do not maintain that this difference is the effect of climate alone; one must only recall what I presented in the third paragraph regarding the influence of climate on the body of the human being. Nevertheless, it makes its own contribution. Indeed, it is not difficult to prove that even in the general character through which a nation distinguishes itself from others, there must be found something that has its ground in the climate. The influence of the air and of the exhalations of the land extend to all who breathe them in, and all inhabitants of a climate sense exactly the same, albeit some in a stronger degree than another, accordingly as the former has less and the latter more means for withstanding the 460 open air. Now, must the effects of this general cause not also be general? Ought history not teach us that certain peoples, despite otherwise being subjected to the greatest changes with respect to their ways of understanding things, their actions, way of life, and intercourse with others, nevertheless have always possessed, throughout this alteration, something within them that is similar? I believe that if one were to compare what was general in the performances of a nation a thousand

[bestimmte.]

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years ago, in its wars, in its commerce, and in its care for life, with its current conduct, then one would notice something inalterably attached to it. The depiction that Caesar, Tacitus, and Claudius left behind of the ancient Gauls still fairly well suits the French of today; and, according to the reports of the recent travel-writers, the inhabitants of the northern coast of Africa are still very similar to the ancient Carthaginians and the Numidians. I know well that sciences, commerce, intercourse with others, and a change in the manner of life can entirely recast a people and make the grandchild unrecognizable to its grandparents: however, from this it does not follow that nothing at all still shows in the descendants that belonged to the character of the ancestors. Just consider that the ground9 of the mind does not always change with the objects of its occupations; that the drives and inclinations in its internal determinations can remain exactly the same, even when externally it presents itself in a wholly different manner. Be that as it may, from the demonstrated influence of the climate on the manner of human thought, one can draw the conclusion that something depending on this influence must be notable in the mental constitution of a nation.10 §7. One should now be able to properly determine this general element in which 470 consists the influence of the climate; one should be able to state which condition of the mind arises from the cold of the pole and which from the heat of the equator. But it is precisely this which I believe may still not be determined at all presently. Here one appeals especially to the distinctions that are found among the various nations today and wants to foist these upon us as effects of the air and land. One explains 471 roughly like this: The English are thoroughly astute, generous, and dissolute; the French in general are quick, good humored, and witty; the Spanish have a serious and cavalier temperament. These general effects must have a general cause; and, consequently, they are attributed to the nature of the sky and the constitution of the land. So concluded the ancients, and the moderns conclude just as ingeniously. These thoughts would be correct, if (1) the difference of climate were the single cause upon which depended the difference in the manner of the thought of peoples. Should this be the case, then history must confirm that the constitution of the mind changes no 472 otherwise than with the climate, and that we could not possibly, in one and the same region and under the same sky, discover astute and enlightened inhabitants at one time, and at another time ignorant barbarians. How could the ancient inhabitants of

9 [Grund des Gemüths. Ultimately derived from “Grund der Seele” as commonly used in the German mystical tradition, but also adopted by both Alexander Gottlieb Baumgarten (1706–57) and Georg Friedrich Meier (1718–77): “There are obscure perceptions in the soul (§510). The collection of these perceptions is called the FOUNDATION OF THE SOUL [fundus animae]” (Baumgarten 2013, §510, p. 199). Starting in the fourth edition of his Metaphysics (1757), Baumgarten gave “der Grund der Seele” as the German equivalent for fundus animae. In the third volume of his own Metaphysics, Meier further explains that this “constitutes the foundation [Grundlage] of the whole of human knowledge,” while likening the turn of phrase to the German expression “jemanden von Grunde seines Herzens lieben” (to “love someone from the bottom [or ground] of one’s heart.”). See Meier 1765, vol. 3, §485, p. 26.] 10 [Here begins the second and final part of the essay, which appeared in the thirtieth installment of the same publication on Monday, July 23, 1759.]

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Greece, Italy, and Germany be so very different from those of today, if the land and the air alone covered their heads? The difference of the climate alone is nowhere near encapsulating the ground of the difference that one notices in the human body, and thus still much less of that which is found in the effects of the soul. Education, knowledge, way of life, nourishment, and many other things touched upon above work in common with the climate so that the influence of the latter can be rendered wholly hidden and unnoticeable among the effects of the rest. If (2) art could not change or diminish the effects of the climate. Let the air be cold, harsh, and wet; will one who sits in a warm and dry room, or covers themselves in furs, then also sense its entire impact?11 I need to add here nothing more in order to show that the same leap is made when some of the modern French deny wit to the Germans on the ground that the latter breathe a somewhat harsher air than they do. §8. Yet I will concede one way that would reveal to us the effects of the climate on the mind of the human being; namely if we were capable of following its every step.12 But the difficulties immediately encountered in such will confirm my verdict that at present nothing yet may be settled with certainty in this matter, either through rational arguments or through observations. In the solution to this problem, let us 473 proceed as do the mathematicians, who, if they want to discover the particular effects of a certain cause, separate off all other concurring causes and place the matter in such circumstances that none except the given causes can have an effect therein. We would assume two peoples, or what is now equivalent, two human beings, one of which is located on the North Cape, and the other of which is located on the Cape of Good Hope. We would suppose such as are as close as possible to their natural condition and are reasonably close to the human being of Herrn Rousseau.13 Let them initially be perfectly alike in bodily constitution, in ignorance, in way of life, and in all other determinations, so that we separate everything that could cause a difference in them and allow only the climate to affect them. It is incontestable that all changes that would manifest themselves after some time in this case would have their ground only in the air and the land. But which are these changes? We cannot take our refuge in observation, since the conditions here presupposed do not occur in nature, and how would we then settle this through rational arguments? I will indicate what would be required for this: (1) Suppose, namely, an entirely

[Eindruck, also meaning “impression.”] [verfolgen. Lit. to pursue or shadow, but it can also mean to prosecute or persecute. Grammatically, the sentence is ambiguous; the final ihn (translated here as “its”) could refer to either “way” or “human being.” The former is perhaps the likelier.] 13 [Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712–78), Genevan philosopher, composer, novelist. Tetens is referring to Rousseau’s conception of natural or savage man (whom he also compares to the so-called “Hottentots” of the Cape of Good Hope), as depicted in the first part of his Discours sur l’origine et les fondements de l’inégalité parmi les hommes (1755) (Discourse on the Origin and Foundation of Inequality among Human Beings). In contrast to Hobbes, Rousseau’s natural man is timid, slothful, healthy, and empathetic toward other beings, and possesses especially acute senses. And as for his mental abilities: “To will and to not will, to desire and to fear, will be the first and almost the only operations of his soul until new circumstances cause new developments in it” (Rousseau 1997, p. 142).] 11 12

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exact knowledge of both of these different regions; one would have to know every respect in which the air and the land of the Cape Verde differ from the air and the land of the North Cape. But this is still not sufficient. We must (2) also be able to exactly determine which changes these now known attributes of the climate produce in the human body; especially in its nerves, that, e.g., the cold in the north makes the nerves to stiffen and contract; the heat in the other place, however, makes the vessels extend and slacken. And even if we produced this through observations conducted on ourselves and others, it would have to (3) still be known to us which 474 powers of souls provide evidence of themselves particularly effectively in this or that composition of the body, in this or that arrangement of the sensory nerves and of the brain. If we could suppose these three aforementioned issues to be settled, then we can easily see that it would not be so very difficult to determine the influence of the climate on the manner of human thought; but without my reminding them, my reader also sees, at the same time, that this theory is just as predictive as the system regarding the changes of the weather. §9. I arrive at experience. Should this not reveal to us what we are seeking? So much is certain, namely that the stated observations of the ancients as well as the moderns regarding the influence of climate on the manner of human thought are far too unreliable for us to be able to conclude anything from them with certainty. What I said in the previous paragraph provides us with a few rules according to which we can judge these observations. I will adduce several, and one need then only to compare the experiences brought forward with these rules in order to see that it would be unnecessarily expansive to investigate the incorrectness of each particularly. If we want observations that will teach us the effects of the air and the land on the souls of human beings, then it is (1) more useful to conduct these observations on the uncivilized than on the civilized nations. The huts of the Samoyedic peoples and the Kalmyks teach us more in this matter than do the palaces of Paris. There the air and the land exercise, with greater freedom, their power on the formation of minds, and it is far more marked than here, where a thousand other things suppress the effects of this power and render it unrecognizable. From the eighth paragraph, it is clear that the closer a people is to its natural condition, the fewer are the causes that affect it along with the climate, and thus the easier it is to know the influence 475 of the latter in particular. (2) It is undeniable that the observations of an entire nation inhabiting a climate must not, however, be conducted regarding only one or another of its members. Surely, we want to pick out something that has its ground in a general cause, namely the constitution of the air and the land; what is less rational than to impose the individual attributes of a few on the entire people?14 It is in this that so often err those ingenious minds who possess the drive to freely trot out general statements, and to plaster over, using their creative power of imagination, what is missing from a complete and correct experience. My readers may judge whether the proportion of the drunkenness of peoples to the degree of latitude of

[The same point is made in Schütze 1773, p. 600.]

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countries, which is presented by Herrn Montesquieu in his Spirit of the Laws,15 is not much rather a conceit of a great spirit, than it is a truth grounded upon a complete deduction. (3) One must beware of blaming the climate for something for which it is not responsible. The previously cited remarks of Herrn Consistory Counsellor Schütze show that the ancients as well as the moderns have given too much offense to the German air and land. I have already more than once reminded the reader that far from all attributes of a people, even the general attributes, are to be ascribed to its skies. If one has an exact knowledge of the general manner of thought of a nation, then, firstly, the effects of all of the causes already touched upon above must be separated from it, and what then remains that is distinctive of all inhabitants of a region, under all circumstances and through all changes, can justifiably be attributed to the climate. As long as observations of this kind cannot be adduced as ground, I 476 will always still find more wit than rigor in the audacious statements of the ancients and the moderns, and especially those of the French.

[Montesquieu, De l’esprit des lois (1748), pt. 3, bk. 14: “Such a law [prohibiting alcohol] would not be good in cold countries, where the climate seems to force a certain drunkenness of the nation quite different from drunkenness of the person. Drunkenness is found established around the world in proportion to the cold and dampness of the climate. As you go from the equator to the pole, you will see drunkenness increase with the degree of latitude. As you go from the same equator to the opposite pole, you will find drunkenness to the south, as on our side to the north” (Montesquieu 1989, p. 239). See note 3 on p. 39 above.]

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Thoughts on Some Reasons Why There Are So Few Settled Truths in Metaphysics (1760)1 §1. In our country, metaphysics has found a great many admirers—particularly in this 3 century—and it finds them still today. Of all the philosophical sciences, it occupies the most minds, and the acutest, to such an extent that the name “philosophers” is applied almost exclusively to metaphysicians. But already amongst the ancients the theorems that today belong to metaphysics constituted the greatest part of philosophy. It deserves this attention and the industry expended on it, at least when one imagines it as it should be, and as it should be described, though it has not quite attained that completeness that it must possess according to its purposes. I know full well that not everyone thinks of it this way, but I also know that not everyone conceives of it as, in my opinion, they should. It always appears to me as a science which is to philosophy what dogmatics is to theology. It is a science which, along 4 with a general theory of all possible and actual things, encompasses the general and necessary attributes of the world, the theory of the soul, and of God—a science which teaches us, in other words, the most general principles of human knowledge,2 and the other theoretical truths of reason that are necessary for our happiness.3 The aim of the whole of theoretical philosophy is to obtain insight into the connection of things, and to come to know God, oneself, and the world. But the theorems concerning God, concerning our soul, are so tightly connected with happiness that the latter necessarily presupposes the former. Many truths concerning the infinite

[Published as a lecture announcement in Bützow and Wismar by Berger and Boedner, 1760.] [Cf. Alexander Gottlieb Baumgarten’s (1714–62) Metaphysica (1739): “§1. METAPHYSICS is the science of the first principles in human knowledge” (2013, p. 99).] 3 [This association of metaphysics with principles that are necessary for happiness is less typical of the Leibnizian tradition represented by Christian Wolff (1679–1754) and Alexander Gottlieb Baumgarten, and more typical of the tradition initiated by German philosopher and jurist Christian Thomasius (1655– 1728), which placed the ultimate criterion of wisdom in its practical import.] 1 2

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being could not, however, be proven, or not adequately proven, if certain general truths concerning the world were not settled. But all of this presupposes a general theory of all possible and actual things, if our knowledge is to attain to the greatest certainty and distinctness. These various pieces mentioned were therefore brought together into one single science—labelled the “chief science” or “metaphysics.” It was established in this way by the Baron von Wolff,4 who, according to the prediction of a great man, will still be mentioned with the highest esteem when most 5 of his despisers are long forgotten; and I see no sufficient reason to deviate from his practice, to separate the experimental theory of the soul from metaphysics, and to turn the latter into a science which comprises only the necessary, general theorems— derived from self-made concepts—about every possible thing, and their chief kinds.5 But I don’t want to argue with anyone about this. In any case, it is not my ultimate goal to explicate the concept of metaphysics, to establish what its divisions are, and to determine its boundaries and relations with other sciences. Every author of a new system establishes it according to his pleasure. I just want to mention that6 anyone who knows the connection of truths, and conceives of metaphysics according to the concept I have given here, will understand its necessity for persuasive knowledge in practical philosophy, and its significant influence in revealed theology, and will agree to what I said above, namely, that it deserves to be cultivated with all industry by the acutest of men. §2. Now, experience teaches that even the greatest people have actually applied their efforts to the extension of metaphysics. But how far have we gotten in this? From the definition of metaphysics given in the previous section one sees what 6 would have to be found therein, if it were afforded the completeness that is totally indispensable to it when justice is to be done to the purpose for which it is mastered. The general theory of all possible and actual things, which, according to the division of most, will be treated in ontology, would have to contain universal, fruitful, and settled truths, and indeed so many of these that, in the ensuing sciences of the world, of the soul, and of God, one would be able, through the connecting of this theory with the experiences taken here as foundation, to make out with certainty those

4 [Wolff indeed defines metaphysics loosely as such a collection of disciplines in his Discursus præliminaris de philosophia in genere (1728): “Ontology, general cosmology, and pneumatics are designated by the common name ‘metaphysics.’ Hence metaphysics is the science of being, of the world in general, and of spirits” (1963, §79, p. 42). The Institutiones philosophiæ rationalis (1756; first published 1739) of Christian Johann Anton Corvinus, which Tetens used as a textbook, also defined metaphysics as the “collection” (complexus) of ontology, empirical psychology, cosmology, rational psychology, and natural theology. See the attached Tabula.] 5 [This is a response to the anti-Wolffian Christian August Crusius (1715–75), whose philosophy was particularly fashionable at the time. Crusius defines metaphysics as the theoretical science of the necessary truths of reason and argues that, therefore, the only parts of psychology that belong properly to metaphysics are those most general a priori truths, which are absolutely necessary. Traditional experimental psychology, which however consists of contingent truths, is assigned by Crusius to various other parts of his system, namely, to logic, telematology or the theory of willing, and natural science. See Crusius [1745] 1766, §§4–5, pp. 6–9.] 6 [Tetens 2012 has das instead of daß.]

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elements, in the constitution of such objects, a convincing knowledge of which is necessary for our happiness. In that case, one could not in truth deny it the stately title of being queen of the human sciences. But I must confess that I have not as yet encountered this necessary completeness therein. As for ontology, it contains only a few fruitful theorems that are at the same time settled truths. If one subtracts those theorems whose truth is still disputed, then how many theorems really remain that are important and at the same time something more than common mother wit when they are expressed in something besides technical terminology?7 How many new settled truths has metaphysics been enriched with since the time of Aristotle? Without having looked around extensively in the history of philosophy, one need 7 only compare one of the newest texts in metaphysics with an old one to be convinced that the growth of this science in terms of settled, useful truths is extremely small. In the theories of God, of the soul, and of the world we are also not much further along than previously. What in earlier times were hypotheses or conjectures are still such now; the ancient doubts are still unresolved; and the formerly controversial theorems are still today accepted by some, repudiated by others. One can counter me neither with the new discoveries of a Descartes, Leibniz, Wolff, or others, who have supposedly extended the boundaries of metaphysics, nor with the systems of today’s philosophers, in which all important truths concerning God, the soul, and the world—truths necessary for happiness—appear to have been proven with mathematical strictness. I have spoken only of the lack of settled truths, that is, of certain truths that are also simultaneously accepted by all. But that neither the theorems invented by those great people, nor those demonstrated from the latter, belong to such truths is proven by the disputes regarding them, which are carried on to this very hour. It is indisputable that the principles of sufficient reason and of denied total similitude8—two defining principles of the Wolffian system—are important and fruitful propositions, as is evident from the host of other theorems

[See Tetens’s similar remarks, but also criticism of this recommendation, as well as his references to Leibniz and Locke with respect to this point in AsPh on pp. 219–21 below.] 8 [On the principle of sufficient reason see note 20 to this essay and note 31 to AsPh on p. 211 below. In Alexander Gottlieb Baumgarten’s Metaphysica (1739), the principle of denied total similitude is stated and proven as follows: “§271. It is impossible for many actual things mutually outside of one another to be totally similar. For, either they would be totally equal, or not. If the first, they would be totally congruent (§70, 267), which is absurd (§270). If they were not totally equal, then there would be a quantity in one that was not in the other (§70, 38). This would have a sufficient ground (§22). Hence, there would be a quality in one of the totally similar beings that was not in the other (§69, 14), which is absurd (§70, 267). This proposition is the principle (of identity) of indiscernibles in the strict sense, or, of denied total similitude” (Baumgarten 2013, pp. 149–50). As can be seen from its proof, this principle concerns similarity in terms of qualities, not of quantities; this concept of similarity derives from the mathematical practice (e.g., the definition of similar triangles) and vocabulary of Christian Wolff (1679–1754). See Wolff 1747, §§18–20. The closest we find to this principle in Wolff’s works is the following: “There cannot be two simple things in this world that are similar to one another. For, since similar things agree with respect to everything by which they are to be known and distinguished; nothing can be found within them that provides the reason why one would be much rather in this place, and the other much rather in another. But nothing can exist without a sufficient ground; and hence it does not happen that two similar things are simultaneously in different places. Precisely the same remains true with respect to time” (Wolff 1747b, §586, p. 361).] 7

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8 that are proven through them; but, among propositions, there is no less likely candidate for being a settled truth than either of these. The history of philosophy shows in abundance that there is no single proposition of importance in metaphysics whose truth or falsity acute men have not endeavored to demonstrate, and for the most part still endeavor to demonstrate, each one of whom marvels at the fact that his opponent does not understand the persuasiveness of his proof. No one will regard as a considerable extension of metaphysics the host of concepts and lexical definitions that have been introduced into it, if one knows its true purpose and usefulness. §3. In mathematics and natural science one makes daily progress. As to the former, the writings of the new mathematicians make such evident when compared to the old. Newton and Leibniz would now be amazed at the height to which analysis has been brought since their deaths. In so-called applied mathematics, new sciences have been invented, for example, the theory of music, and recently the measurement of the strength of light by the profound Lambert;9 the ancient parts of the same— statics, optics, astronomy—have almost achieved the highest perfection of which they appear to be capable. As regards natural science, however, one must admit 9 that here our knowledge is still obscure and doubtful in very many of its parts. Even the great discoveries in the theory of light, fire, sound, electricity, color, and so on, consist more in the invention of rules according to which appearances in nature proceed, than in one’s having produced the causes of these effects with certainty. But this does not prevent the number of settled truths in natural science from having all the while greatly increased. Ever more unknown causes are discovered, doubts removed, probable propositions transformed into certainties, and what was previously only a conjecture becomes an established theorem. Natural science before Descartes’s times, and this science as it stands now, relate to one another almost like twilight and midday. Metaphysics, by contrast, has the fate that the domain of hypotheses and fantasies within it is very well increased, but not the domain of evident truths. It fares as well currently as natural science did at the time of Pythagoras. This philosopher had some felicitous conceits that are now settled truths; but, at the time, they were mere conjectures lacking proof. For this reason, his successors believed themselves to have a better handle on matters and rejected his principles. Thus, some truths may perhaps also lie hidden among the many hypotheses that are put forth in metaphysics. Perhaps there actually are four different kinds of simple substances; perhaps even only two. But who is going to 10 settle this matter? One must admire the intellect with which these possibilities are thought up and connected; it is only to be regretted that they persist no longer than until the moment another brings new ones into play.

[Johann Heinrich Lambert (1728–77), Swiss philosopher and natural scientist, author of several works on optics, including the important one to which Tetens here refers, Photometeria sive de mensura et gradibus luminis, colorem et umbrae (1760) (Photometry, or Concerning the Measurement and Degrees of Light, Colors and Shadows).]

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§4. When one ponders the above, nothing is more natural than to inquire about its reasons. From whence does it come that there are so few settled truths in metaphysics? What is the source of the controversies over its first and most important principles? And why does the evidence found in mathematics not prevail here as well? The cause of this latter is also the cause of the former; for if the theorems in metaphysics were as obviously correct as those mathematical ones, then it would be just as impossible to doubt them as it is impossible to dispute the correctness of the Pythagorean theorem in geometry. And if such evidence is impossible for certain theorems, why then do they not attain the highest moral certainty, or the greatest probability, as is found in natural science, and which would reassure us just as well as apodictic conviction? Ontology, like theoretical mathematics, is a science in which the attributes of things are deduced from concepts determined by choice. What sort of a difference is there between these two such that in the one all the 11 truths are settled, while in the other the majority, and the most important ones, are doubtful and contentious? The remaining parts of metaphysics—cosmology, the theory of the soul, natural theology—must be constructed through the connecting of ontological truths with principles of experience, just as applied mathematics and natural science are constructed through the connecting of theoretical mathematics with experiments; why then do we arrive at certainty in the former less often than in the latter? §5. It is possible to think of three causes that are to blame for this. One can look for them in the prejudices of the philosophers. One can ascribe our lack of the certainty proper to knowledge to the nature of the truths that occur in this science. One can also blame the manner of philosophizing itself for not rendering our knowledge convincing. A certain great mathematician in Germany finds it unbelievable that our knowledge of magnitudes alone could be so clear, but not that of other things, and appears to attribute the quarrels of philosophers to the neglect of the mathematical method.10 The following will show that this thought has more foundation than it at first appears, although after Wolff’s time all proofs have been outfitted in the form of mathematical demonstrations. Nevertheless, one cannot fully say that all the 12 defects of metaphysics arise from the want of correctness in method. The remaining causes contribute something of their own. This can be determined most correctly in the following way: One must examine the procedure of mathematicians and natural scientists exactly and take note of what brings the great distinctness and convincing certainty to the theorems of mathematics, and of how in natural science the truths are so secured that they are no longer subjected to any reasonable doubt. At the same time, one can attend to the reasons why so much is still unknown, obscure, and doubtful. If one compares with this the essential elements of the procedure of metaphysicians in ontology, as well as in the remaining parts regarding the world, the soul, and God, then one will discover to what extent deviation from the

[It is unclear to whom Tetens is referring. The two most likely individuals are Johann Andreas Segner (1704–77) and Leonhard Euler (1707–83). Though Euler was Swiss, he lived near Berlin at the time.]

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method that alone leads to certainty plays a part in the mistakes of metaphysics. If the method is perfect, and yet several theorems remain doubtful, then it must be either the constitution of the objects or else the prejudices about them that are to blame, the former of which can again be settled through a precise examination of the concepts. In ontology, the shortage of settled truths stems primarily from neglect of the essential elements of the mathematical method; in the remaining parts, the last two items mentioned—which are significant obstacles themselves— 13 add further to the reasons on account of which11 our knowledge is still so confused and uncertain. I cannot and do not want to cite here all the reasons why metaphysics is defective, and which the proposed comparison of mathematics and natural science with metaphysics displays. I wish to reveal my thoughts only about some, but about those which—if I am not greatly mistaken—are to be counted amongst the most prominent, and which deserve full attention. This I must point out once more in advance: A logician12 might hit upon the idea that one could discover exactly the same errors by examining metaphysics according to the rules of logic, and so without it being necessary to attend specifically to the procedure of mathematics and natural science. Entirely right! All logicians from Locke up to Corvin13 chart the path to certainty and truth. But whether the general rules will teach the method of mathematicians and natural scientists as precisely as these sciences themselves, and whether they will place us in just as good of a position to discover the mistakes of the metaphysicians through the comparison of the method of these sciences with that of the latter; this is much to be doubted. §6. One reason why there are so few settled truths in metaphysics is the confusion and obscurity in the concepts from which the principles are composed, and which 14 have an influence on their proofs. This occurs especially in ontology. The concepts in theoretical mathematics, by contrast, possess a distinctness, which in this respect is perfect; and this—though not this alone—makes it such that its truths are so clear to the understanding and so settled. Consideration of this latter will make the former clearer.14 If one goes through all the concepts of arithmetic and geometry, one will find that they can all be resolved into the simple ideas of extension, magnitude, part, line, point, boundary, and so on. One frames for oneself a concept of a cylinder, or of a hectogon. As soon as one generates it, one comes upon the representation of physical space, of surface, and of a line. The cylinder is the physical space that is enclosed between two equal circular surfaces. A hectogon is a figure, or bounded surface, whose extent is made up of one hundred straight lines. Admittedly, much [daß] [Logikus] 13 [Little is known of Christian Johann Anton Corvinus (latinized to Christiano Io. Antonio Corvino) or his life, except for his authorship of a number of books in philosophy, among which is his logic, Institutiones philosophiae rationalis methodo scientifica conscriptae (1756; first published 1739). Like many logic textbooks of the time, it contains far more than would usually be accounted to the subject, such as a preliminary section on the principles of psychology and ontology. In many respects, it bears the stamp of Christian Wolff. It served as Tetens’s preferred logic text during the early 1760s.] 14 [deutlicher] 11 12

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can be found in these simple ideas that is yet very confused; but they are extremely clear, and this is enough for the purpose at hand. We have an intuitive knowledge of these things in that we represent them to ourselves with the greatest clarity using the imagination. For that reason, the comparison of these concepts is so easy, and it is just as impossible for the understanding to think their relations other than they are, as it is for the imagination to represent that which it represents as round as being at the same time square. For the same reason, everything is also as undoubtedly correct, as it would not be, if our understanding discovered in the concepts something still 15 obscure and confused that had influenced the proof. As long as the concept of the infinitely small had not yet been made perfectly distinct in higher mathematics, and as long as it had not been shown that it is a15 nothing, which is assumed for a time to be a small magnitude; many had reservations about accepting the calculations built upon this concept; now all doubt is lifted. It is not necessary for such distinctness that nothing at all confused be found in the simple ideas. Distinctness cannot be carried so far, and it is not even carried so far in mathematics. It is sufficient, if only the confusion in the concepts does not prevent us from being able to represent their reciprocal relations with the greatest clarity. It can be proven with the same evidence that two sides of a triangle are greater than the third, no matter whether one imagines the line to be the boundary of the surface or, instead, to be the path traced by the motion of a point. Nothing more is required for this proof than a clear concept of the line. Nothing turns here on how it is to be thought distinctly. One does not, at this point, wish to know the inner nature of a line and the manner of its generation, things for which a still more distinct concept would incontestably be indispensable. The famous author of the art of thinking16 very well understood that the evidence of mathematical truths does not yet provide the understanding with a satisfying insight into this matter; but he was mistaken when he regarded this as a defect of the mathematical method. Here it can be noted in passing: When 16 mathematicians themselves ascribe the greatest distinctness to their concepts, and seek in them the purest understanding, this must be understood only relatively,

[Tetens 2012 has sein instead of ein.] [Tetens here refers to La Logique ou l’art de penser (1662) (Logic or the Art of Thinking), more famously known as the Port-Royal Logic, a Cartesian logic text composed by Antoine Arnauld (1612–94) and Pierre Nicole (1625–95). Tetens appears to have in mind pt. 4, chs. 9 and 10 of this work, which contain various criticisms of the geometrical method. The claim of Arnauld and Nicole is that although geometry surpasses nearly all other sciences in perfection and is able to convincingly prove a great many truths, its methods do not always provide an insight into why these truths are true. The main reason for this, they claim, is that geometers do not prove things in accordance with the order of nature: “[W]ithout worrying about the rules of the true method, which is always to start with the simplest and most general things, to proceed next to the more composite and particular, they mix everything together and treat pell-mell lines and surfaces, triangles and squares. They prove the properties of simple lines by figures, and make countless other reversals that deform this beautiful science” (Arnauld and Nicole 1996, p. 256). In light of this, Tetens’s point is essentially that while it is true that mathematics does not provide perfect insight due to the fact that it does not fully resolve its concepts and prove their properties in a fully synthetic or deductive manner, this is not actually a task for mathematics or mathematicians, but for metaphysics. In this, Tetens follows Wolff; see the latter’s Latin essay De differentia notionem metaphysicarum & mathematicarum published in his Horæ subsecivæ marburgenses anni mdccxxx, trimester brumale (1731), pp. 385–479.]

15 16

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namely, with respect to the proofs of the propositions; since for this its fundamental concepts are as distinct as they can be. But their claim is not to be taken to mean that in the development of their concepts of such things there would not eventually be found something confused that cannot be developed further; for this contradicts experience. §7. It is not like this in metaphysics. In concepts we still encounter much that we represent only confusedly, and yet must think distinctly, if the theorems are not to be proven incorrectly, or thought equivocally and confusedly. Since the mathematical method became fashionable in metaphysics, metaphysicians have especially taken care to follow the rule of logic which commands one not to employ any word that has not been defined beforehand, if moreover its meaning is subject to the least ambiguity or other difficulties.17 One must also admire the understanding with which some acute philosophers explain the first concepts in ontology. They start 17 from the simplest, from the thinkable,18 and construct the more complex concepts, according to the rules for determining them; or they assume the latter and regress to the former through resolution. This notwithstanding, experience teaches that the required degree of distinctness has not yet been achieved. There is no better way to see19 this than from those proofs in which the strength of the conclusion depends on concepts that are still not sufficiently distinct; and commonly these are the proofs of the contentious propositions. I want to cite just one. The theorem of sufficient reason or ground20 is usually demonstrated in the following way: Every possible thing either has a ground or has no ground. If it has none, then nothing is its ground; but if it has a ground, then its ground is something; consequently, the ground of each possible thing is either nothing or something. Were nothing the ground of a possible thing, then nothing would be something, since a ground must be something. This is contradictory; consequently, the opposite proposition is

17 [The Port-Royal Logic, cited above, provides these two rules: “1. Leave no term even slightly obscure or equivocal without defining it. 2. In definitions use only terms that are perfectly known or have already been explained” (Arnauld and Nicole 1996, p. 259). In the German tradition, these rules were most emphasized and taught by Christian Wolff, and through his writings became commonplace.] 18 [Cogitabile. Typical of the Wolffian tradition is to start with the first concepts of something and nothing, understood respectively as the non-contradictory and the contradictory. Opponents of Wolff, such as Christian August Crusius, also start with something and nothing but instead identify these more broadly with that of which a thinking being does or does not have a concept ([1745] 1766, §11).] 19 [erkennen] 20 [Lehrsatz des zureichenden Grundes. One would expect Grundsatz (principle) instead of Lehrsatz (theorem), but Tetens may be indicating that he takes it as something requiring more proof, or a different kind of proof, than would a proper principle. On the other hand, he could also be using Lehrsatz in place of Grundsatz, which latter seems to occur infrequently in Tetens’s vocabulary. Wolff often uses only Satz (propositio, proposition) in this case, but stipulates in the first register to his German Metaphysics that Satz des zureichenden Grundes is equivalent to principium rationis sufficientis (Wolff 1747b). Furthermore, Grund (ground) is often the German equivalent of the Latin ratio (reason), though it is sometimes distinguished in writers of the period who take the notion of a reason to be merely formal and thus insufficient for expressing the real connection contained in the notion of a ground. Because of this, we have kept the language of ground while also indicating the obvious connection to the Leibnizian principle.]

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true, namely that everything possible has a sufficient ground.21 Various objections have been raised against this proof—some with reason, some without. The incorrect part of this argument lies only in the confused concepts of nothing and something. Nothing can be the contradictory nothing, but also the mere nothing.22 If you just settle on one—whichever you want—and assume something to be its opposite, and maintain the very same concepts throughout the proof, then you will easily find the mistake, which great people have here overlooked due to a lack of distinctness in 18 concepts. One often believes oneself to have a right to employ undefined words, based on the presupposition that their meaning is generally known. Something confused, however, can still very easily remain hidden in these words, something which another unpacks, and then unavoidable disputes arise, which for the most part become logomachies; since the one connects a different representation with

[The proof offered by Wolff in his German Metaphysics is this: “Where something is present from which one can comprehend why something exists, it has a sufficient ground (§29). For this reason, where none is present, there is nothing from which one can comprehend why something exists, in other words, why it can become actual, and thus it must arise from nothing. Accordingly, what cannot arise from nothing, must have a sufficient ground, why it is, as it must be possible in itself and have a cause that can bring it into actuality, if we are speaking of things that are not necessary. Now, since it is impossible for something to come to be from nothing (§28); everything that exists must also have its sufficient ground for why it exists, that is, there must always be something from which one can understand why it can become actual (§29). This principle we will call the principle of sufficient ground” (Wolff 1747b, §30, pp. 16–17). His Latin Ontology proves it somewhat differently like this: “If nothing is assumed to be, it must not for this reason be admitted to be something. Thus suppose that something is, because of the reason that nothing is. Then it would be admitted that either nothing is made into something or that nothing has brought about something. But both are absurd. Therefore, for this reason there is not something, because nothing is” (Wolff 1736, §69, p. 46). “The principle of sufficient ground is proven. Nothing is without a sufficient ground why it is rather than is not; i.e., if something is posited as being, there will also be posited something from which it is understood why this thing is rather than is not. Indeed, either nothing is without sufficient ground why it is rather than is not, or something can be without sufficient ground why it is rather than is not. We suppose that A is without sufficient ground as to why it is rather than is not. Therefore, nothing will be posited from which it is understood why A is. Hence, it will be admitted that A is, because nothing has been assumed: Since this is absurd, nothing is without sufficient ground, or, if something is posited as being, it is also admitted that something is from which it is understood why it is” (Wolff 1736, §70, p. 47). Baumgarten’s proof, which was perhaps the most influential, is broken into two parts: “§20. Everything possible either has a ground or does not (§10). If it has a ground, something is its ground (§8). If it does not have one, nothing is its ground (§7). Therefore, the ground of every possible thing is either nothing or something (§10). If nothing were the ground of some possible thing, it would be knowable from nothing why that thing is (§14), and hence the nothing itself would be representable and something (§8), and nothing would be something (§14, 8). Hence something possible would be impossible (§7, 8), which is absurd (§9). Therefore, something is the ground of every possible thing, which is to say everything possible is a consequence , which is to say that nothing is without ground, or when something is posited, something is posited as its ground. This proposition is called the principle of ground, which you may also gather from §265 and §279, partially by abstraction, partially by avoiding a vicious circle” (Baumgarten 2013, p. 104). “§22. Nothing is without a sufficient ground, or, if something is posited, then some sufficient ground is posited for it as well. Each and every thing in every possible thing has a ground (§20); hence, every possible thing has a sufficient ground (§21). This proposition is called the principle of sufficient ground (principle of appropriateness)” (Baumgarten 2013, p. 105). See also Fugate 2014.] 22 [Perhaps Wolff, but certainly Baumgarten, identified the nothing as such with the contradictory (see Baumgarten 2013, §7, p. 100). Like Tetens, Kant would later distinguish other kinds of nothing (see, e.g., Hymers 2018).] 21

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these words than the other does. Some describe a ground as that which makes it such that something is so and not otherwise. Here the word “make” is still very confused. Is the idea connected with it indeed so simple and clear that it requires no further definition?23 The Wolffians say no,24 and that they are correct about this becomes apparent when one attends to how this concept arises within us. We represent A, we represent B, and we recognize that when the one is posited the other is comprehensible; and then we say that A has made B, or the reverse. §8. One should not be surprised that even with the great industry that metaphysicians have applied to the development of first ontological concepts, the complaints about a lack of distinctness are still well-founded. It is true, the philosophers make such a great 19 effort to be exact and distinct with first concepts that others, who acknowledge this effort only insofar as it is pointless, regard their entire science as a matter of linguistic nitpicking;25 and notwithstanding this, such a great number of philosophers have not brought the matter as far as perhaps a single person would have in mathematics. However, the surprise disappears when one considers, (1) that in the science that teaches the first and most general principles of human knowledge the concepts must be far purer and more distinct than is required in mathematics. I have already mentioned in the previous section that, in the analysis of mathematical concepts, one ultimately arrives at concepts that are not distinct, and which need not be made more so in order to understand the correctness of the propositions. But the ideas that are the simplest in mathematics still belong among the compound in ontology. One can get by with such in mathematics, because one deals only with one species of the determinations of things, namely with magnitudes, and in geometry only with extended magnitudes, and investigates26 its relations. But these relations are, moreover, very few, namely, only two: equality and inequality, with their subspecies. By contrast, much more extensive and manifold are the objects of ontology in which are to be sought all possible types of determination of things and all their possible relations. Therefore, everything that was allowed to remain indistinct in the concepts 20 in connection with magnitudes must be explicated in metaphysics just as exactly as that on the basis of which magnitude is to be judged in mathematics. One of the first concepts in geometry is the concept of continuous magnitude. This is described as a magnitude whose parts all hold together such that where the one ends the other immediately begins, and between the end of the one and the beginning of the other there is nothing that does not belong to this magnitude. Herein are many words for which a distinct definition can well be omitted in mathematics, though not in

[Erklärung, which can also mean explanation.] [It is unclear whether Tetens has a specific Wolffian statement in mind, or rather is just generally mentioning the fact that Wolff and his followers provide a definition of power. As for those who consider “make” to be a simple idea and as such do not regard it as capable of definition, this would include John Locke (1632–1704), who regards “power” as a simple idea in his An Essay Concerning Human Understanding (1689). See bk. II, ch. xxi. In the German translation of this work published in 1757, “power” is translated by Macht, and the action of a power is rendered as machen or to make.] 25 [Wortklauberei] 26 [Tetens 2012 has untersucher instead of untersuchet.] 23 24

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metaphysics. (2) In metaphysics there are far more concepts that one must make distinct than in mathematics. A comparison of the textbooks of both sciences makes this clear. It is thus natural that something can be more easily overlooked among a greater number of concepts than with a small number. When you add the fact that no one wishes to be satisfied with the former concepts, but rather makes new concepts for himself as he sees fit (and therein often consists the greatest novelty of a new system); then it is easy to comprehend why the required distinctness of the concepts is still missing. Whether it is necessary or useful to flood metaphysics with such a quantity of words, and how, if necessary, their increase could occur without any detriment to the greatest distinctness—such questions do not belong here, and their answers can be known from what I will say in the sequel about first concepts. 21 Thirdly, the mathematicians understand the art of representing general concepts as present—even those that are most removed from the senses—with the help of suitable signs of the imagination. The metaphysicians still lack this aid. The simple concepts of point, line, and angle have their particular signs, and in every concept that is compounded from these, the signs of the simple concepts are compounded in the sign of the compound concept. This is the reason why a square is so easy to think distinctly, where sense and imagination come to the aid of the understanding. It is much more difficult for the understanding to distinctly represent to itself the concept of substance in metaphysics, because such signs are lacking. §9. Nevertheless, the necessity of bringing all concepts—especially in ontology—to the highest possible distinctness is not lifted by the difficulties that present themselves here. Anyone wishing to regard this as unnecessary nitpicking27 betrays that he does not know the ultimate purpose of the science of the general properties of things. Anyone who thinks through what was said in the seventh section will admit that the lack of proper distinctness is the mother of so many confused theorems and hence of the resulting disputes; and consequently, that it is the reason why so few settled 22 truths are encountered in metaphysics. §10. But here arises an extremely important question, the answering of which must yet occupy me somewhat. How far should the explication of the concepts in metaphysics go? Or, in other words, which are the simple ideas, at which one can and must finally stop, of which the compound concepts are composed? One can generally answer the question by saying that one must continue until the very simplest concepts, which can be explicated absolutely no further by us and made no more distinct. For the ultimate aim of ontology requires this. In this discipline, one should present the most general, very simplest, and most distinct principles upon which human knowledge rests. It is not possible for the principles to become evident thereby, if the concepts do [eine unnöthige Mükkensäugerei, which derives from the biblical saying “to strain out a gnat and swallow a camel whole.” If you strain out a gnat while swallowing a camel whole, you are making a difficulty about accepting something trivial while at the same time overlooking and allowing something major. The context is a curse on the Pharisees, who sift flies out of their wine but swallow a camel whole. Seihen, to filter or strain, somehow got mixed up with säugen, and became to “suckle flies.” In Luther it reads: “Ihr verblendeten Führer, die ihr Mükken aussiebt, aber Kamele verschluckt!” (Matthew 23:24).]

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not acquire the highest possible distinctness. The propositions will lack just as much in distinctness as there is confusion remaining in the concepts upon which they are constructed. To demonstrate this, if one wishes to represent the effect of substances in the world on each other and to do so in a merely confused way, then it is enough to define force as what contains within itself the ground of the actuality of a thing, and to define a ground as what makes it such that something is so and not otherwise. 23 But if one wants to penetrate further into the constitution of this community of substances, then this confused concept, which is coupled to the word “make,” must first be brought to distinctness. Only then can it be investigated whether, when one substance acts on the other, this is to say anything more than that the effects of one can be comprehended based on the other. §11. In order to determine more precisely the distinctness to which the concepts must be brought, one must investigate the nature of the simple concepts from which the compound concepts are composed. Here one must distinguish a species of simple ideas, which are nothing but simple sensations (either inner or outer), from another species of simple ideas, which are acquired through abstraction. The former are representations of changes in which nothing mutually distinguishable is consciously noticed; the change in itself may be effected by one or several causes and may actually be compound or not. Thus, the representation of red is such a simple concept, and further the representation of a simple sound, of bitterness and others, which Locke, in his excellent book on human understanding,28 investigates acutely, although he equally includes there ideas which, after more precise investigation, consist of noticeably different sensations. The hallmark of such a simple concept is 24 this: after more precise observation of the change, which occurs within us, it must be impossible to mutually distinguish anything through specific marks, just as happens with the ideas of this or that color, or of a simple sound. The experiential concepts in psychology must all be resolved into such simple sensations, if they are to have the proper distinctness. But it is also at the same time clear that something confused always remains behind in these, however simple they are, since they are still always sensations. And this last is the cause of the important truth that our knowledge of actual things, whose concepts experience must teach us, is only capable of a certain degree of distinctness, in which there is always much remaining that we cannot represent otherwise than as confused and indistinct. The distinctness of knowledge is always determined by the distinctness of concepts. It is to be wished that the experiential concepts in metaphysics had only been made as distinct as they can become; there would then be fewer disputes and more settled truths. It is not possible to determine the number of the simple ideas described, because there are as many of them as there are modifications that take place in us in which we are incapable of distinguishing anything.

28 [John Locke (1632–1704), An Essay Concerning Human Understanding (1689). The reference is to bk. III, chs. iii-iv, “Of the Ideas of One Sense” and “Of Simple Ideas of Divers Senses,” which list among such ideas those of light, specific colors (along with their shades and mixtures), noises, sounds, tones, tastes, smells, heat, cold, solidity, smooth, rough, hard, soft, tough, brittle, space, extension, figure, rest, and motion.]

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§12. The other species of simple ideas is formed through abstraction. These also ultimately arise from sensations, as Locke clearly29 proves in the place cited, in that 25 even in the simplest sensations the soul separates certain determinations from others, until ultimately it is no longer aware of anything in the object that could be further analyzed. It proceeds in this way until it retains nothing more of the object30 than the representation that it is a something. Now this idea does not admit of further explication, but instead, if it is taken away, nothing remains behind. Through this there then arises the idea of nothing. And these two concepts are indisputably simple. If one compounds the two ideas of nothing and something together in one concept, then this same concept cannot be thought, and we get the representation of the impossible, which is already compound. But, besides these two, there are still others that cannot be further resolved. Thus, in the ideas of existing next to one another and existing after one another31 nothing can be distinguished. Regarding these last two, one could dispute their simplicity by saying: One must first think A, then B, and then connect them; accordingly, there would be different, still simpler ideas to distinguish within the idea of contiguity.32 But the objection falls away upon closer consideration; for neither the representation of A, nor the representation of B, belongs to the idea of contiguity,33 but rather only the idea of the connection, and indeed of connection next to one another, which is distinct from the connection 26 after one another; but, because the idea is simple, we cannot state these differently. §13. The philosophers are not agreed about the number of these simple concepts in our knowledge. The number of simple empirical concepts cannot be determined, as I already mentioned above; but it is also very doubtful whether the list of those concepts that are made simple through abstraction can be specified precisely. Some suggest seven: the idea of subsistence, of location;34 of existing outside of one another,35 of succession,36 of causality or of making, of unity, and of negation. The famous Herr Professor Tönnies37 in Kiel cites others in his first Disput. de organica generali, in which he investigates the nature of the first ontological ideas with much care. He includes

[deutlich] [Object] 31 [bei einander sein, Nach einandersein] 32 [Beieinanderseins] 33 [Tetens now switches to Nebeneinandersein.] 34 [Irgendwosein] 35 [Auseinandersein] 36 [Aufeinanderfolgen] 37 [Johann Heinrich Tönnies (1725–84) lectured in Kiel until 1769. He was mainly known for his attempts at creating a universal characteristic, which were noted here by Tetens and later by Johann Heinrich Lambert (1728– 77) in the preface to his Anlage zur Architectonic, oder Theorie des Einfachen und des Ersten in der philosophischen und mathematischen Erkenntnis (2 vols. 1771) (Framework for an Architectonic, or Theory of the Simple and the First in Philosophical and Mathematical Knowledge). The work referred to by Tetens cannot be located and indeed there are no signs of its existence in the literature aside from those stemming from Tetens himself. Related works that do survive are: Tetamen academicum de logicæ scientiæ ad exemplar arithmetices instituenda ratione (1752), Conspectus encyclopædiæ, litterarum naturalem ordinem exponens, relatus præcipue ad francisci baconis de verulamio (Kiliæ/Kiel: 1753), and Grammatica universalis (1768). See Sellhoff 2015, p. LIII.] 29 30

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here the very highest genus, the Quod,38 with its two species, the something and the nothing, further ground,39 matter and form, which he calls names,40 and four others, which are called degrees41 by him, namely, possibility, existence, actuality, and act;42 but in his 4th Disput., on matter, he adds another ten relations, amongst which are found simultaneity, succession, negation, positing,43 connectedness,44 separateness,45 27 and so on. It does not belong to my present purpose to investigate these further. The Wolffian, of course, will have difficulty letting causality and location stand here. I also do not understand why thinking is not met with here just as well as existing after one another.46 For the former is just as much a concept abstracted47 from sensations as the latter and can be distinguished in it as little as in the latter. §14. The concepts in ontology must be reduced to such simple ideas, if all indistinctness is—so far as is possible—to be avoided; and the compound must be so formed from these simple ideas that it is possible to know which of these latter are within them. As long as this is not the case, we have no cause to be surprised at indistinctness and the disputes arising therefrom. But there appears to be yet little hope that one will see it brought to that point. Even the philosophers are still not in agreement about the simple concepts; and how many disputes have not arisen over the concepts of causality, of space, and of time, which are regarded by some as being simple, but by others as not. If the disputes that have arisen over this are to be settled, then it is best to trace one’s way back to the sensations from which the disputed concept has arisen, and to observe exactly what one represents to oneself when one becomes 28 aware of this idea in the objects.48 I want to take an example that has an influence in important controversies. Someone throws a ball at the wall with their hand. One says that the person makes it such that the ball goes there. But what does one sense in this case? Gaius’s49 arm is moved in a certain way; the ball goes that way. To which

[Meaning “what.”] [Ratio] 40 [Nahmen] 41 [Grade] 42 [Actus] 43 [sezen] 44 [mit einander verknüpft sein] 45 [getrennt sein] 46 [Nacheinandersein] 47 [abgesonderter] 48 [See Hume’s An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding (1748), sect. II: “When we entertain, therefore, any suspicion that a philosophical term is employed without any meaning or idea (as is but too frequent), we need but enquire, from what impression is that supposed idea derived? And if it be impossible to assign any, this will serve to confirm our suspicion. By bringing ideas into so clear a light we may reasonably hope to remove all dispute, which may arise, concerning their nature and reality.” Hume states the same in An Abstract (1740).] 49 [Perhaps a subtle homage to his erstwhile teacher at Rostock, Johann Christian Eschenbach (1719–58), who gives the example of Gaius throwing a stone at Titio’s head in his Metaphisic oder Hauptwissenschaft (1757), §28, remark 3, p. 91. Alternatively, this could be a borrowing from the work by Profe mentioned in note 56 on p. 64 below. See p. 30 where an example involving a wall is followed by one in which Cajus smashes a window with a stone for Titius.] 38 39

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is added: When I represent the different movements of the arm, I understand—or at least I believe that I understand—how it is possible that the ball gets to the wall. I do not think more, but also not less. For as soon as I do not understand how one can be known from the other; I also do not say that the latter made the former, as experience teaches us in many cases. If others insist that for making still something more is required, it behooves them to state it. If one investigates the precise manner in which we attain the idea of space, of place, and of time through sensation; then one will be able to judge whether the Wolffian concepts of these things are to be rejected or not. In general, it is not sufficiently commended when, in the judging of concepts, one investigates and explicates the sensations that one has when the concept to be investigated occurs in experience. For then the true constitution of the concept is most distinctly discovered. Maupertuis explicated in an excellent way the concept of power in his essay on cosmology50 by indicating how it arises in us 29 from sensations, which procedure can serve as a model in similar cases. §15. Another reason why so few truths are settled in metaphysics is the difference in the concepts that are connected with exactly the same words by different philosophers. The logicians have long since remarked that a countless number of disputes are nothing but logomachies, which arise by one person connecting a different concept with exactly the same words as another. This is so exceedingly easy to grasp, that one would believe that this mistake—whose mode of originating is known so exactly—could be avoided from the very beginning. One need do nothing further than to notice whether another, who has opinions that are opposed to our own, does not connect somewhat different concepts with words than we do. But the habit of having this or that thought with a particular word makes it such that it sometimes does not even occur to us that the opponent could well have had different representations when he employed exactly the same words. It is natural that contradictions and disputes arise where each party is right. If one could subtract from the scholarly controversies those that are logomachies, and which arise from this source, then the number of those remaining would be quite small. 30 This holds especially in metaphysics and most of all in ontology. The concepts that are connected with the most terms of art are compounded from simple ones. But in a given representation, had in conjunction with a particular word, not everyone connects the same number of ideas from among the collection; the one

[Pierre Louis Moreau de Maupertuis (1698–1759), French mathematician, philosopher and important Newtonian voice in the Prussian Academy, and author of, among other works, Essai de cosmologie (1751), in which is found the following: “The word force in its proper sense expresses a certain feeling that we experience when we wish to move a body that was a rest; or to change or arrest a body in motion. The perception that we then experience is so constantly accompanied by a change in the rest or motion of a body that we cannot but help believing that it is the cause. Therefore, when we see some change take place in the rest or motion of a body, we always say that it is the effect of some force. And, when we sense no effort contributed by us, and we see nothing aside from other bodies to which this phenomenon can be attributed, then we place in them the power as something of their own. From this, we see how obscure the idea is that we wish to form for ourselves of the power of bodies, if one can even call a concept something that originates only as a confused idea” (pp. 75–7).]

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person thinks more determinations, another fewer: or the one introduces into his representation simple ideas that are quite different from those out of which another makes the compound concept, and yet the name remains exactly the same. For this reason, it is unavoidable that the predicates of such fundamentally different objects—which are expressed with one and the same words—will be different; and then disputes arise, which ensure that not one of the disputed propositions is accepted by all and is able to be regarded as a settled truth. It is not difficult to find examples. Many cannot represent to themselves the proposition that bodies can arise out of immaterial and simple substances. They therefore deny the existence of monads, and it is surely known how many disputes arise about this. I do not believe that anyone would have called into doubt the possibility of the emergence of bodies out of immaterial parts or unextended simple things, as conceived by the 31 champion of monads51—just as little as one doubts that a plurality can be generated out of unities—if they had cared to attend more precisely to the concepts which that philosopher connects with the words immaterial, simple, unextended. These words denote nothing further than a thing in which there are not to be found any parts situated outside of one another, each of which individually could exist on its own. Now, it is just as easily comprehensible to me how compounds, bodies, and matter can arise from such things, which themselves, each taken by itself, are not compound, not body, and not matter, as it is to understand how a heap can arise from individual peas, each of which by itself composes no collection. So it goes in many other cases as well. §16. In mathematics every word has its determinate meaning, and everyone takes it in this sense. Everyone thinks the concept which Euclid connected with the word “triangle,” “square,” and so on, in connection with exactly the same sign, and in it, exactly the same parts and exactly as many. This makes all merely verbal disagreement impossible. And because in all proofs of mathematical propositions no concepts exert an influence aside from those that are determined in a single manner by everyone, one sees the cause of the great consensus amongst mathematicians. Of course, controversies are found amongst them, and some, who do not well consider 32 the foregoing, have employed examples of such to counter those who characterize mathematics as a peaceable science. The otherwise great mathematician Stevin52 [Obviously a reference to Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz (1646–1716) and his so-called La Monadologie (1714).] 52 [Simon Stevin (c. 1548–1620), an important Flemish mathematician and physicist, author, among other works, of L’arithmetique (1685). In the section on definitions, Stevin rejects the standard view that unity is not a number but rather merely the principle of number (just as a point is not a line but nevertheless is a principle for lines). As noted by the editor of Stevin 1958, this standard view stems from Euclid’s Elements XII, def. 2, which states “Number is a multitude made up of units,” from which it seems to follow that unity is not a number. Against this, Stevin argues as follows: “The part is of the same matter as the whole, Unity is part of a multitude of unities, Hence unity is of the same matter as the multitude of unities; But the matter of a multitude of unities is number. Hence the matter of unity is number. Who denies this behaves like one who denies that a piece of bread is bread. We can also say: ‘If we subtract no number from a given number, then the given number remains, If three is the given number, and if from this we subtract one, which - as you claim - is no number, Then the given number remains, that is, three remains, which is absurd’” (Stevin 1958, pp. 40–1). Stevin’s argument continues, but this is sufficient to give a sense of the whole.] 51

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quibbled quite enough about whether unity is a number. Clavius and Peletarius53 quarreled about whether the region that the tangent forms with the circle is an angle. Several more such examples exist. But one also easily sees that this concerns merely some denominations and no theorems; for everything that is said of the region enclosed by the tangent and the periphery holds of it whether it is called an “angle” or not: and, for this reason, the much-celebrated advantage of mathematics—that in it there are no disputes over truths—does not yet vanish as a result. It should be like this in metaphysics as well, and it could be like this as well, especially in ontology. For it is impossible to conceive how controversies could be carried on in a theoretical science whose propositions are derived and proven purely from determinate underlying concepts—such as is ontology—if everyone distinguished exactly the same and equally many simple ideas in those concepts that are expressed in exactly the same words. The propositions incorrectly derived from concepts could be nothing besides a mere matter of oversight, of which the guilty party would be just as easily convicted as an accountant when he commits errors in arithmetical operations. In the disputes occasioned by a great mathematician’s criticism of 33 Wolff’s Anfangsgründe,54 the question is not so much about the correctness of the propositions as it is about whether or not Wolff must be explained in such a way that the error can be attributed to him. It is therefore easy to conclude that not just some, but rather all controversies in such sciences are nothing but logomachies. But in the remaining sciences in which the objects of concepts are real things, I do not see how a dispute could arise which were not a logomachy, if it were not about whether the concepts agree with the objects or contain within themselves too much or too little. §17. The disputes in metaphysics must necessarily be abolished if this science is to be enriched with settled truths. As a result, the mistake mentioned above must either be eliminated altogether, so that each word is taken by everyone in one sense, or an aid must be deployed through which all squabbling over words is eliminated. The [German mathematician and astronomer Christopher Clavius (1538–1612), latinized to Christophoro Clavio, and French humanist and mathematician Jacques Pelletier du Mans (1517–82), latinized to Iacobus Peletarius Cenomani, engaged in an extensive and later quite famous debate on this point. It began when Pelletier claimed in his In euclidis elementa geometrica demonstrationum libri sex (1557) that an angle is a finite quantity, that the space enclosed between a circle and its tangent is not a finite quantity but rather can be made as large as one likes, and hence that the said space is not an angle (see bk. 5, def. 5, p. 113). Clavius rejected this argument in his Euclidis elementorum libri xv (1607; first published 1574). See bk. 3, prop. 16, pp. 258ff. This led to further works by Pelletier, including In C. Clavium de contactu linearum apologia (1579). For a full account of this debate, see Maierù 1990.] 54 [“Criticism” here renders the Latin-derived word Crisis, which is a reference to German mathematician Johann Andreas Segner’s (1704–77) Defensio adversus censuram berolinensem. Probationis loco est crisis perpetua in duo capita geometriae illustris wolfii (1741). The controversy arose when Segner publicly announced that in his lectures he would correct many errors made by Christian Wolff (1679–1754) in his otherwise much lauded and used Anfangs-Gründe aller Mathematischen Wissenschaften (4 vols., 1710) (Elements of all the Mathematical Sciences), later translated into Latin and published in five volumes as Elementa matheseos universae (1713–15). This quickly led to trouble with the censor in Berlin, to which the Defensio mentioned above is a response. In essence, Segner argues that famous mathematicians should not be shielded from criticism and then follows this with a continuous series of passages from Wolff’s textbook, each of which is followed by a “Crisis,” which means criticism or judgment.] 53

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latter is sooner possible than the former. Consider both more closely. If one wanted to bring about the former in metaphysics, then it would be necessary for one and the same concept to be consistently assigned to exactly the same word. This would happen if definitions all contained the same within them, or if the meanings of the 34 words were fixed at some point and no one were to deviate from this meaning once it has been determined, and neither change anything in it through omission, nor through addition, nor through both simultaneously. But this is currently impossible and it will remain impossible so long as there is disagreement about what the standard should be according to which the meaning of words is determined and verified. §18. But a greater difficulty becomes apparent here than is imagined by some logicians who prescribe the rule that one should never depart from linguistic usage.55 Suppose one wanted to determine the words in ontology anew, and to fix their meaning. Then the question arises as to which is the standard one ought to employ in gauging the concepts that one connects with the words. One should follow linguistic usage; but which? Should one follow common usage by abstracting concepts from the cases in which the words to which they are connected occur in common life? Or the scholarly, by leaving words with the meanings with which they were already combined in this science? Both are difficult to put into practice, as one can already recognize from the fact that all philosophers in modern times believe themselves to have followed linguistic usage and yet depart from each other in the determination of concepts. This arises from the following. Most words in common life with 35 which a particular concept is connected are used incorrectly. Often an attribute is encountered in conjunction with certain things, when we consider just what the senses teach us; whereas it is absent when reason investigates these same objects. But in this case, they still acquire the name that only belongs to those that really possess this property. In his Philosophische Gedanken von Sprachfehlern, published this year, the famous Herr Professor Profe56 in Altona remarked very acutely that the rule according to which the common man uses words is not this: Objects that have within them certain properties when they are viewed philosophically, should be assigned the names which express these properties, but rather: Objects in which one becomes aware of these properties through historical or sensory knowledge should be named as if they really possessed these properties. The use of certain words in common life teaches this. As proof: The sun loses its light, rises and sets, the moon is a light,57 and many others. How is one to follow linguistic usage in these cases? If, in the use of words, one wishes to retain precisely those concepts had by the common man, then one is evidently compelled to deny many things the names that are given to them by the rest of mankind. One would have to assert that it is false that the sun

[Redegebrauch] [Gottfried Profe (1712–70), German philosopher and author of, among other works, Philosophische Gedanken von Sprachfehlern (1760) (Philosophical Thoughts on Linguistic Errors). Profe never makes these exact statements but does explain that common usage is based upon features that strike us in sensation. Tetens seems to draw on Profe’s ideas also in his later essays on etymology and language.] 57 [The same example is found in Profe 1760, p. 29.] 55 56

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darkens,58 and that the moon is a light.59 I will take an example from ontology. If 36 one attends to the use of the word “contingent,” one will find connected with it the idea60 that a contingent thing has no sufficient ground in what precedes it, and one ascribes a contingency61 to those things in which one is not aware of the existence of a sufficient ground in the preceding. If the Wolffian wishes to retain this concept in the word contingent, then he would have to deny that a contingent thing is to be found in the world, he would have to make no use of this word at all, deeming it one with which no true thought is connected; and how many words would not become unusable, if one wished to proceed just like this in all similar cases. In this manner, one would think with the common man, but not speak with him. Or if one wishes to preserve the names of objects, then he is compelled to connect different concepts with them. If Wolff wants to attribute a contingency to the events of the world according to his system, then he must think something completely different with this word than does the common man. If the astronomer wants to say the sun darkens, it rises, then he must have completely different concepts in mind with these words than occurs in common life.62 Then, one will follow the general rule: Think with the learned, speak with the vulgar.63 Which of these two should occur, when suchlike cases, which are abundant, come up? That the rule just cited will not be 37 adopted generally by the philosophers is evident from the fact that very many make

[The same example is found in Profe 1760, p. 27, and refers to the Greek word for eclipse (ἔκλειψις), which means to darken.] 59 [This point is made extensively in Profe 1760, pp. 30ff. In one example, he notes that if matter is impenetrable, as experience teaches, and one followed this in speech, then one could not say that a horse falls into the water but would instead have to say that the horse displaces a volume of water equal to the volume of its body.] 60 [Vorstellung] 61 [Zufälligkeit] 62 [Again, the example of Copernican astronomical theory is borrowed from Profe 1760, pp. 29–30.] 63 [sentimus cum doctis, loquimur cum vulgo. Sometimes written in the opposite order, this is a very old maxim that occurs frequently in both religious and logical works. Luce and Jessop attribute it to the Italian commentator on Aristotle, Agostino Nifo (c. 1473–c. 1538), latinized to Augustinus Niphus, who provides a slightly different formulation, although of equivalent meaning, in his In libros aristotelis de generatione & corruptione interpretationes & commentaria (1657), p. 29: “Loquendum est ut plures, sentiendum ut pauci” (“One must speak with the many and think with the few”). See Berkeley 1949, p. 62, note 2. Interestingly, Leibniz employs its second half in his correspondence with Des Bosses, where he also associates it with the two examples given by Tetens here: “I certainly acknowledge that which is forced, and I do not think we should depart from customary ways of speaking, which are related to appearances in much the same way as Copernicans speak with the vulgar about the motion of the sun. We speak in a similar way about chance and destiny” (Leibniz 2007, pp. 21–3). In the English-speaking world, the same maxim is frequently attributed to the Irish philosopher George Berkeley (1685–1753), who gives a translation of it in Principle 51 of his A Treatise Concerning the Principles of Human Knowledge (1710): “Would not a man be deservedly laughed at, who should talk in this manner [i.e., that spirit heats]? I answer, he would so; in such things we ought to think with the learned, and speak with the vulgar. They who to demonstration are convinced of the truth of the Copernican system, do nevertheless say the sun rises, the sun sets, or comes to the meridian: and if they affected a contrary style in common talk, it would without doubt appear very ridiculous” (Berkeley 1949, p. 62). As Luce and Jessop note in the same place, Berkeley also states the maxim in Alciphron (2 vols., 1732), I.12. However, the maxim was employed earlier in English by Francis Bacon in his Of the Proficience and Advancement of Learning (1605), V.iv. The Latin translation of this work has: “Loquendum esse, ut vulgus, sentiendum, ut sapientes.”] 58

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bitter complaints against Wolff for abandoning linguistic usage, precisely because he follows this rule. And, for various reasons, the former cannot always be observed either, as will be clear from the following. §19. Still less can one say that the philosophers are in agreement on account of scholarly linguistic usage. In all logics there is the rule: “We must by no means deviate from the established signification of terms”;64 but one adds, without necessity,65 and this necessity turns up often, according to their thinking. Which philosopher should be the model after which we fix the meaning of technical terms? When Aristotle was still preeminently named “the philosopher,” most others appeared to be in agreement about retaining his propositions and thus his concepts as well. Those who constructed another system always also changed the concepts. In the current state of metaphysics it is just as impossible to introduce uniform concepts as it is to unite all philosophers with each other. One is far too stubborn to let a currently living metaphysician dictate how one should speak, and if one of the already dead metaphysicians were to be taken as setting the standard, then one would be just as 38 little in agreement about this. For who should it be? Aristotle, Descartes, Leibniz, or Wolff? The opponents of the Wolffian system will never bring themselves to accept its concepts. They make so many complaints about these that one is almost advised to think that they depart from them merely with respect to the meanings of certain words; and the former party, the disciples of Wolff, would be very reluctant to again adopt the words of Aristotelian philosophy, which they have already unlearned. And they also could not do this for specific reasons. For although they surrender nothing of their system when they adopt the concepts of their opponents; they would still have to affirm propositions that sound very paradoxical and could very easily give rise to all kinds of accusations. Supposing they called “contingent” what others call such, namely, what has no sufficient ground in things preceding. What would that matter? But then they would have to claim that no contingency occurs in the world. If they were to define freedom just as other famous philosophers do, namely as a faculty to determine oneself according to distinct understanding even though no motives to this determination are present, or no more and no stronger than to the opposite, then their theory would not be upset thereby, but they would be forced to say that there is no freedom in the world; a proposition which could very easily be used by their opponents to make them appear suspicious and to saddle them with dangerous 39 propositions. For their own peace of mind66 it is safest that they speak like others, and argue about whether one must also think that way. The opponent in fact gains nothing besides when one submits to linking words with precisely the same concepts

[a recepto terminorum significatu haud est recedendum. This is actually an imperfect quotation from Wolff’s Preliminary Discourse: “In philosophia igitur a recepto verbroum significatur non est recedendum, hoc est, verbis res aliae a nobis denotandae sunt, quam que iisdem vulgo significantur” (142). This translates as: “In philosophy we must not deviate from the established signification of words, that is, words must not designate things other than that which they commonly signify” (Wolff 1963, p. 79).] 65 [sine necessitate] 66 [Ruhe] 64

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that he connects with them: for then one denies his propositions. Assume that the concept Spinoza connects with the word “substance” is the correct one, and call a substance just what he labels as such. Is anything conceded to him by this? Not in the least. It is most wrong to believe that his God-denying system is established upon the false concept of substance.67 It could be that he fell into his abhorrent delusion through this false concept; but the mistake does not really consist in that. The current reverend Bishop in Drontheim, Herr Gunner,68 quite rightly remarked in his theodicy that the mistake of Spinoza is properly to be sought in the faulty conclusions that he draws from his concepts by applying the propositions about substances and accidents that occur in other philosophers to his substances and accidents, which are, however, radically different from the former. The remark of Bayle69 on the Spinozist system is perfectly right: Its foundation is such a miserable sophistry that it would hardly escape a beginner in logic. 40 §20. From this it is easily seen that all hope is lost of introducing unanimity into the concepts that are linked to the very same words. Since the diverse usage of words cannot be eliminated, one should therefore try whether one cannot forestall the logomachies arising therefrom in a different way. An attempt was made to achieve this through definitions, and these helped considerably. For as I already pointed out above, it does not matter much in which sense this or that person takes a word, if only he indicates how he wants it to be understood. If merely one attends to the concept had by an author, and has this before one’s eyes in the judgment of every proposition, then all his arguments can be judged just as well—and all verbal disputes avoided—as if he used the word as we do. But notwithstanding this, experience teaches that all verbal dispute has not yet been eliminated. There are two obstacles here, which make this applied means ineffectual. For one,

[This position was maintained by Christian Wolff and Alexander Gottlieb Baumgarten. E.g., see Baumgarten 2013, p. 85: “With descriptions of substance like these, everything that Spinoza had deduced from his own definition can be deduced through the right amount of interconnected syllogisms more inevitably than a river flowing downhill, such as when, in his Ethics, definition III (from his rare Posthumous Works, (1) he called ‘substance that whose concept does not require the concept of something else from which it must be formed. If we could agree to uphold the greater part of Descartes’s definition, then substance would be a thing requiring no other thing, for instance a subject, to exist. Created substances could then be introduced as well, and the entire construction of Spinoza would fall apart.”] 68 [Johan Ernst Gunnerus (1718–73), a Norwegian priest, philosopher, and botanist. Tetens seems to confuse Gunnerus’s theodicy, Dissertatio philosophica continens caussam dei vulgo theodiceam ratione originis et permissionis mali in mundo habita (1754), which does not mention Spinoza, with another work, Tractatus philosophicus de libertate scientifice adornatus (1747), which makes the very point in question (p. 5).] 69 [Baile. The reference is to French philosopher Pierre Bayle (1647–1706) and the remark is found in the entry “Spinoza” in his Dictionnaire historique et critique (1697; republished and extended multiple times). Tetens appears to have lifted the citation directly from Gunnerus’s Tractatus philosophicus, p. 5, where it is quoted in the original French: “‘It is impossible that two or more substances of the same nature or attribute should exist.’ This is the Achilles argument of Spinoza and the firmest foundation he builds upon; but at the same time, it is such a wretched sophism, that no school boy, who has read what is called ‘parva logicalia’ or the five ‘predicabilia porphyrii,’ could be perplexed with it” (Bayle 1826, vol. 3, p. 308; translation emended).] 67

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the definitions are not always constituted in such a way that the various simple concepts out of which the concept defined is compounded are properly separated from each other. It often happens that the various ideas that make up a concept are in turn compound, and the resolution of concepts is not pursued until these 41 latter, so that one would be able to arrive at the first ground of the deviation of the concepts of another person from our own. The nature of our language does not allow every simple idea to have its own peculiar sign70 and for these signs of simple ideas to be linked in the sign of a compound concept in such a way that they could be known from the latter; and so the resolution of the concepts of another is often so difficult that one frequently mistakes the true opinion of a profound philosopher. Secondly, on top of that, thanks to the frequent use of certain words, their meaning becomes so familiar that, in our awareness of this word, it would hardly occur to us that someone should attach to it meaning different from our own. If I am not mistaken, then this is the reason why few of those who ridicule the Leibnizian representational power of monads get to the true opinion of this philosopher, but rather attribute to him I know not what fantasies. His opinion was this. By virtue of their general connectedness with all other parts of the world, every monad had particular relations that differed from the relations of every other; therefore, from any one of such simple substances all other parts of the world could be known, albeit only by an infinite understanding, that is, as he put it, every monad represents the entire world, depicts it, is a mirror of it. In addition, according to 42 the system of the pre-established harmony, every monad makes actual all of its changes,71 and consequently all of its different relations, through its own power. But a thing that produces the depictions or representations present in it through its own power represents something to itself.72 What was more proper according to these principles than that the monads must have represented the world and so, to that end, also possessed a representational power? Its representational power was thus nothing other than the inner power of each substance to itself bring about all of its changes and consequently its relations to all other parts of the world, from which those other parts could be known. But the words “representational power” make it such that many view these thoughts as laughable, although there is nothing in them that does not follow necessarily from the theory of general connectedness and of pre-established harmony. The appellations representational force,73 mirror of the world,74 microcosm75 were children of wit, to which also belong in analysis the kissing of lines, and in psychology the impregnation of the present by the past, from which the future will be born.76

[Cf. John Locke, An Essay Concerning Human Understanding (1689), III.iii.1–3.] [Tetens 2012 has Veräuderungen instead of Veränderungen.] 72 [These opinions are expressed in The Monadology (1714) and elsewhere in Leibniz’s work.] 73 [vis repraesentativa] 74 [speculum mundi] 75 [microcosmus] 76 [See note 107 on p. 78 below.] 70 71

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§21. Nothing could better plug up this fruitful source of verbal disputes and introduce an equivalence of concepts with one sign more easily than the sort of 43 universal language that the immortal Leibniz thought about inventing.77 And it is certainly indisputable that the frequent confusions, which arise from the diverse use of words in our ordinary language, induced this great man to contemplate it. Now, admittedly, it does not yet exist, and so we cannot assess its utility completely; but this much one does know, namely, that if it were discovered, it would dispose of all logomachies at once. Every simple idea would have to be labeled with a certain sign, but the compound concepts with a compound sign, which contains as many simple signs in itself as simple ideas make up the concept. The linking of simple signs would have to happen78 according to certain general rules, and these—also called signa primitiva—should only be few. A concept expressed in this way could be known both distinctly and precisely at once. One would instantly recognize in the sign any change that was made to a concept, and since the primitive signs would be general, it would become clear at once whether a concept contains within itself more or less, or something else, than another. If there occurred in a compound sign very many simple signs, then a single, different sign could be used in place of these. Doing so would cause no ambiguity, since, if required, one could always again adopt those simple ideas that the compound idea previously replaced. Mathematicians have such 44 a language in the discipline of analysis; only with this distinction, that the primitive signs of a concept are not always the same. In higher geometry, one normally labels the ordinate with y,79 the abscissa with x, and the subtangents with ydx: dy; but not consistently. They often replace compound quantities, which make the calculation difficult, with a simpler one, which they then swap out for those they replaced after the operation is performed, and by this means a great series of inferences can be made confidently and correctly in a short time. §22. On account of its significant utility, philosophers have wished that this language might be invented and introduced into metaphysics; but until now so many difficulties have been encountered therein that it not only remains undone but is even held by many to be impossible. Seeing that Leibniz passed away in the midst of this task, the Baron80 von Wolff promised81 to think about it at some point, but it is unknown whether he accomplished anything. Leibniz’s design went so far that I do not know whether it is possible or impossible. He wanted to introduce such a universal language, which should be understood immediately by all men. To that end, not only was the above-mentioned necessary, namely that all simple ideas of

[Leibniz imagined a universal characteristic—a formal language capable of expressing metaphysical, mathematical, and scientific concepts with precision. The first whiff of a plan for the universal characteristic and a logical calculus is found in his Dissertatio de arte combinatoria (1666) (Dissertation on the Art of Combinations).] 78 [Tetens 2012 has gescheben instead of geschehen.] 79 [Reading ‘y’ for ‘7.’] 80 [Tetens 2012 has Freiheit instead of Freiherr.] 81 [Reading versprach for verstrach.] 77

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45 a language be expressed with particular simple signs, and that others be composed from these according to specific rules; but moreover this: the simple signs must be so constituted that the matter signified could be recognized immediately by everyone from the mere sight of them, or they would have to be essential signs, as some call them. Whether this last-mentioned property82 of signs is possible or not, I cannot judge. So far, the efforts of those who endeavor to find signs of this sort appear to be futile. We also cannot say that the language of the mathematicians is an example83 of this, for their signs do not have the property that one immediately recognizes their meaning without further instruction; no one who has not been told knows that x signifies the abscissa, y the ordinate: the signs are also not constant, as already mentioned previously, and can just as little be counted amongst the essential signs described earlier as can the barbara, celarent,84 and so forth, of the logicians. But if one omits this and requires nothing more than a language that would be understood as soon as one knew the few simple ideas that were connected to the primitive signs, and the rules according to which the compounding would occur: then the question is only whether, in a complete language, the simple concepts would not be too numerous. For if they were, then the number of simple signs would be too great 46 for the desired convenience to be obtained. But it appears that this number is actually not very great. Leibniz had the so-called root words or base words collected together from the dictionaries; however, the number of simple ideas cannot be as great as the number of these words; for it is far from true that all root words denote simple ideas. The majority of the concepts linked to them are compound. Furthermore, the greatest difficulties would emerge if general rules were to be devised according to which the primitive signs would have to be combined, and if not only the simple ideas in themselves, but also all of their different relations were to be denoted. §23. But even if a language of this kind, which would at once be complete and range over all concepts, were impossible; then perhaps still a philosophical language could be produced that would be useful in metaphysics, especially in ontology. The already cited Herr Prof. Tönnies85 wished to provide the elements of such a philosophical language in his third Disput. de organica generali. His first and simple concepts, recounted above in the 13th section, were each labeled with a particular sign. To these simple concepts he added yet several others, in order to express the different moments. In this way, there arise some thirty first signs or letters of this language, with which the Herr Professor wishes to express all ontological 47 concepts. The order in which the compounding of these simple signs should occur is determined through a few rules; and the signs themselves are consonants of the Greek and Latin language, which are intermixed with vowels. It cannot be denied that this arrangement is acutely thought out. Also, not much more effort would be

[Eigenschaft] [Perhaps an allusion to Johann Heinrich Tönnies’s Tetamen academicum de logicæ scientiæ ad exemplar arithmetices instituenda ratione (1752). See note 37 on p. 59 above.] 84 [‘Barbara’ and ‘celarent’ are names traditionally given to two forms of syllogism in Aristotelian logic.] 85 [See note 37 on p. 59 above.] 82 83

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required to learn this language than for getting to know the A B C’s; and the benefit would be that, at least in ontology, one could express one’s concepts so precisely that all simple ideas in them would be recognized immediately. I cannot at present allow myself to get involved in an exact investigation of this ontological language, but I doubt that it will become common. I just want to mention the following. The number of simple signs is still too great, and could also be reduced, if many of the given simple concepts, which are yet compound, were decomposed. It must first be settled which and how many are signs of simple ideas. Also, if one is to express concepts that are still more compound than those stated as specimens by the Herrn Professor, then ambiguities seem to be unavoidable due to the similarity of signs. §24. But one can still obtain, in an easier manner, the advantage that such a procedure would afford, if one does like the mathematicians. It is not necessary to give every simple concept its own determinate sign, but rather one or another 48 can be adopted as convenient, providing only that the person who does this should indicate it beforehand. These signs, which would be the primitive ones as it were, could be linked with one another by conjunctions taken from our language, because, after all, in most particles of our language the same thing is thought by everyone. In this way, one would be able to determine the concepts just as precisely as in that previously cited, and the advantage of this present method would be that we would be tied to neither particular symbols nor to particular rules of compounding. Concepts that are already compound could even be viewed as simple, and in order to express them one would not need to first figure out which signs were assigned to their component simple ideas. One would thus be freed of mastering an ontological language, about which many would otherwise be irked, although perhaps without reason. The metaphysicians have even already partly begun to employ specific letters as signs of concepts. If only one carried this so far as to label with a sign each of the different ideas from which a concept is composed, then what I demand would be attained. Those who wish to have a specimen of this in order to see how greatly the use of such letters will promote distinctness, I refer to the Entwurf der nothwendigen Vernunftwahrheiten wiefern sie den zufälligen entgegengesetzt werden, §471, of Herrn Professor Crusius,86 for the passage is too long to transcribe here. One has 49 [Christian August Crusius, Entwurf der nothwendigen Vernunftwahrheiten wiefern sie den zufälligen entgegengesetzt werden (1766; first published 1745) (Sketch of the Necessary Truths of Reason, insofar as They are Opposed to the Contingent). In the passage referred to, Crusius puts the letters A, B, C, D, and E to work in an effort to establish that mind and matter are not only ‘opposites,’ but ‘disparates.’ “We will elucidate the essence of matter and of finite spirits by comparing them with one another by means of a few letters. If the passive capacity for motion is A, the active, when it arises from no act of willing, B, and when it arises from an act of willing, C, the collection of thinking powers, D, and the collection of willing powers, E: Then the essence of matter is A, or A†B, with the addition that neither C nor D nor E may be present. The essence of a soul, however, or another in the world operative through active motion is A†C†D†E. But their having A in common with one another is unavoidable, since it follows from finitude and thus belongs to the possibility of a finite substance in general. Consequently, the essential distinction is evident, and since D and E are fundamental powers, but C is a consequence of such, and hence C, D, and E cannot arise naturally in a subject in which only A or A†B was present at some point: Spirit and matter are not only opposita, but rather disparata” (Crusius 1766, §471, pp. 974–5).]

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only to be a little familiar beforehand with this manner of expressing oneself, and this is an easy matter. In general, the use of specific, determinate, general signs, instead of the words of our language, has its great utility. We would certainly be able to dispense with a host of rules in logic, especially in the theory of propositions and their conversion,87 if we sought to express the subject and predicate along with their quantities through general signs. §27.88 I come to a third cause, which hinders the enlargement of our knowledge in metaphysics. It is this: Concepts are taken as a foundation, conclusions are derived from them, without it having been properly demonstrated that these concepts contain nothing impossible. The consequences that arise from this must be known to everyone who understands logic, so it is not necessary for me to set them out here. I wish only to show that these mistakes are committed more frequently by metaphysicians than many believe. §28. To this end, I must presuppose something about possibility. It is agreed that the concept89 of a thing, if the latter is to be possible, must contain nothing contradictory; that consequently all determinations that one posits in this concept 50 must agree with each other; and if the concept of a thing has this property, then this thing is at least possible in and by itself—a possibility that is, however, yet distinguished from the hypothetical possibility of a thing in that the latter requires more besides. From this it follows immediately that the simple ideas that make up the compound concept are not required to agree with each other, say, in one or another respect,90 but rather in all respects, so that nothing is present in all the internal and external determinations of the one that creates a contradiction with something in the determinations of the other. To represent the possibility of the infinite divisibility of bodies it is not sufficient merely to represent that the concept of infinite divisibility cannot in the least contradict91 the concept of extension; there is yet more in the concept of body than extension, where one does not accept the Cartesian system.92 One must combine the representation that it can be resolved into

[Umkehrung, the German term for logical conversion. See, e.g., one textbook employed by Tetens, Hermann Sammuel Reimarus’s Die Vernunftlehre (1766; first published 1756): “A proposition is converted [umgekehrt], when the predicate is made to be the subject and the subject is made to be the predicate. E.g., the proposition ‘every motion is a change of place’ is converted to say: ‘All change of place is a motion.’ There is 1) a pure conversion of propositions, (Conversio simplex), that is, without change of quality or quantity; as in the example provided. There is 2) a conversion with change of quality: (Conversio per contrapositionem), e.g., when I convert the proposition ‘every motion is a change of place’ like this: ‘Everything that is not a change of place is not a motion. There is 3) a conversion with changed quantity (Conversio per accidens), e.g., when I convert the above-mentioned proposition: ‘Some change of place is a motion’” (sect. 166, p. 165).] 88 [The section numbering jumps from 24 to 27. There is no indication that anything is missing.] 89 [Reading ‘der Begriff’ for ‘die Begriffe’.] 90 [Absicht] 91 [Reading widersprechen for bestehen.] 92 [The essence of body consists entirely in extension according to Descartes. See Principles of Philosophy, pt. II, no. 4. (1644).] 87

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yet smaller parts ad infinitum with all determinations of body and then, if there is no contradiction there, the concept of the infinite divisibility of body is true, or the object of this concept is possible. §29. This possibility of a thing can be proven in a twofold manner. Its possibility can be inferred a posteriori (as one usually says) from the reality of the thing or backward from its effects. In that case, we recognize only the possibility of some matter,93 but do not yet understand it,94 which are different things. It is not necessary for this 51 purpose that the possible thing exists in just the way that we think it to be possible. For when experience teaches that different attributes are together in a thing, then we can correctly draw the conclusion that a concept in which we link only some of these properties with each other can contain nothing impossible. What logic says about the proof of the truth of concepts through experience belongs to this. But I need not dwell on it here. Secondly, the possibility of some matter can be demonstrated a priori, as one says, or from the concept of the thing itself, and when this happens we learn to understand the possibility of this thing. And it is this proof that one does not properly carry out in metaphysics; when one properly considers what was adduced in the previous section, then one will easily see what is required to prove the possibility of a thing in such a way that the understanding comprehends this possibility. To such requirements belong a complete distinctness of the concept, one’s being able to recognize all the simple ideas constituting it in all their determinations and to compare them to each other, and that nothing contradictory be discovered therein. If one knows this, then one knows everything that is required for the matter that is the object of the concept; as well as what would have to happen if this thing were to be brought into actuality, provided it is the sort of thing that does not necessarily 52 exist. And if, in addition to this, we also represent to ourselves the efficient causes95 required by all of the parts of the matter in order for it to become actual, as well as the manner in which the cause must act in order to make it actual; then we know completely the manner in which a thing arises.96 But this last is not necessary and, for things that exist necessarily, it is not even possible. Some draw a distinction between mere possibility and the manner in which something is possible. This distinction is justified if the question about the manner in which something is possible is to be answered by citing either the efficient causes and their manner of operating, or the latter alone; if, however, this is not considered, then one who understands the possibility of a thing that does not necessarily exist also simultaneously understands97 how matters must go, if the thing is to be produced. §30. One can illustrate what has been said with many examples from mathematics, since in it no concept is taken as a foundation whose possibility is not either [Sache] [wir sehen sie noch nicht ein] 95 [wirckende Ursachen] 96 [die Entstehungsart des Dinges] 97 [Reading sieht … ein for sucht … ein.] 93 94

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evident in itself or proven with the utmost precision. One may wish, for instance, to demonstrate the possibility of a square. For this a distinct concept is needed, one must know what a square is. The nominal definition of it teaches this; it is a figure of four sides that are equal to each other and compounded orthogonally.98 As soon as one explicates this concept and represents to oneself what is compounded 53 orthogonally, equal sides, and figure means to say; then one also knows what must occur if a square is to become actual. But because the square as well as all mathematical figures do not exist necessarily, and consequently can be made actual through a certain procedure, one seeks it out. One presupposes the efficient causes and shows that, in such case, a square is produced when two equilateral triangles are compounded so that one side is common to both; and then the manner of its arising is settled. It is clear that this latter is not necessary in order to understand that the square is possible. When the understanding knows the manner of the arising of a thing, it comprehends that much more certainly that it is not deceived regarding possibility; and, for this reason, when dealing with things that can arise, it constantly strives to understand the way in which they are possible; and it is also not content until it has made this very thing manifest. This is also the reason why we can no longer doubt a thing’s possibility when we understand the manner of its arising, namely, because the latter necessarily presupposes the former. §31. Now let us herewith compare the procedure of philosophers in metaphysics. Have they proceeded as is required by the aforementioned? I will request that one take a couple metaphysics textbooks for oneself and examine the concepts 54 that are formed through determination or through abstraction. It will indeed be found that no contradiction is immediately evident, and even that none can be demonstrated; but that this contradiction is impossible, or that possibility has been properly established, for this one will very often look in vain. In most cases, only undetermined or negative possibility is present, as it is called by some, which occurs when a concept is regarded as possible only because we can show no contradiction between the things we think therein. If a certain philosopher divides substances into two chief species through determination, into fire- and water-substances—of which the former are such that their power is essentially determined to motion, the latter such that their power is essentially determined to rest—then I ask on what basis these divisions are understood to be possible. It is answered that there is no contradiction here, for otherwise one could show it; but one is unable to become aware of any. This is demonstrated by asking whether being essentially determined to rest or motion conflicts with the concept of substance or with the concept of power. Now, if neither can be proven, then one believes oneself justified in holding these manufactured concepts to be perfectly possible. The possibilities of different species of thinking beings, which one determines a priori in the theory of mind, are accepted 55 as correct for the very same reason. This would all be fine if the impossibility of the presence of contradiction could be inferred from the inability to become aware of

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it.99 If a concept were resolved into all its simple ideas; if all of these, along with all the determinations that are present in each, were compared with one another, and they contain no contradiction within them, then in that case one would have to acknowledge genuine100 possibility. But do we then possess such completely distinct concepts of substances and of power as are required for this? What we know of them is perhaps the bare minimum, and we are able to correctly infer the possibility of substances essentially determined to rest as little as he who believed in the possibility of an airship and a lunar mail service101 because he found no difficulties in such. If someone were to say, as is the custom, that it is nevertheless possible in abstracto and one demanded nothing more, then this would mean just as much as to say: to the extent that substance has nothing more in it than what I think there is, and there are no more determinations in power than those I represent as within it, these two things can agree with each other. But of what use would this be in metaphysics? One can also say that if nothing more is considered in physical body than extension, then it is possible that it is infinitely divisible; but can one on that account establish the proposition that physical body is infinitely divisible? When one draws conclusions from such possible concepts and constructs entire theories about the different species of monads and minds, is it any surprise that they find so little approval, and are 56 regarded by many as at best rational novels? §32. One need not be surprised by this at all, for (1) it is extremely difficult to demonstrate the possibility of things in metaphysics on account of the many determinations that are to be found in them, and which in the evaluation of their possibility must be taken into consideration, as mentioned already above. In mathematics, it is different; there one observes merely one species of property, extension, which one abstracts from the others: hence, everything that can appertain to them under the condition that bodies are merely extended is possible; but in metaphysics, that which is supposed to be possible must agree with all the determinations of the things. (2) It is simply impossible for us to understand from the things themselves, or a priori, the possibility of those of which we have only a symbolic, but no intuitive concept. As long as we have only a symbolic concept of a matter, we do not think the thing itself or its positive inner determinations, but rather we represent to ourselves some relations of a thing to others, or some possibilities of effecting or suffering something, and link them together so that we obtain a concept of the thing through which we indeed distinguish it from others with respect to these determinations but cannot come to know its true inner constitution. Thus the 57 inner nature of our soul is in fact unknown to us, and what we cognize of it is this, that we know102 that there is something in it that produces representations. How, then, would one understand the possibility of such things a priori from concepts? As one actually has no representation of them—and as one knows nothing more about [Nichtgewahrwerden] [wahre] 101 [eine Mondpost] 102 [wissen] 99

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the thing that is able to think than this, that it can think—how can one nevertheless form different species of thinking things from concepts? And on what basis does one know that the features added through determination, or left out by abstraction, do not contradict the attributes that are unknown to us? We do indeed infer correctly, when we take a determination to be impossible in a thing as soon as it causes a contradiction with some properties of the thing, however many properties unknown to us it may otherwise have; but no inference may be drawn from an agreement with some properties that are known to us, to an agreement with the entire thing. An exception must be made with respect to a single symbolic concept, namely, that which we have of the infinite being; since we can demonstrate its possibility from the concept itself. But the reason is that we know that no matter how many properties there are in God, nevertheless not a single one can be present that negates anything. Hence, there may yet be very many that are unknown to us, but they are 58 pure realities, and indeed such as have nothing at all linked with them that negates anything, consequently such as could not possibly create a contradiction with those that are known to us. In all remaining cases we are not certain of this. §33. The three mistakes that I have treated thus far are principal reasons why we have so few settled truths in metaphysics. Theoretical mathematics is free of them and this is a proof that they could also be avoided in ontology, or in the theory of the general properties of all possible and actual things. If this were to happen, if all concepts had the greatest distinctness, if every word had its determinate meaning, accepted by all, if we admitted no concept whose possibility were not demonstrated—then, at least, we would be able to extend the first principles of human knowledge and to make them as evident as the theorems of geometry. And how much would we not then have gained? I do not doubt at all that we would be just as fortunate in the theory of the world, of the soul, and of God, and that we would bring the truths to the same degree of certainty as natural science is brought through the help of mathematics. And, by contrast, it is impossible to bring forth something rigorous in the sciences mentioned, something that would be anything more than a beautiful speculation,103 as long as ontology is not put into a better and 59 more perfect state. We can sit ourselves down like Descartes and with his head and diligence conduct our meditations on the self, the world, and God; we will run into the same confusion and obscurity into which he fell, and settle just as little. This great man discovered much that was new in mathematics, and in metaphysics he got little further than the Ancients already had. But was this any surprise, since in the former science he could take an excellent theory as foundation, and in the latter had only a couple of general principles familiar to every person? What a complete theory can accomplish when one links experiences with it is seen in the great inventions of Newton in natural science; and by what means are the sciences that one accounts to applied mathematics—mechanics, optics, astronomy—brought to that perfection in which they do honor to human understanding, if not through the perfection of

[Raisonniren, perhaps more literally “piece of reasoning.”]

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the theoretical mathematics that one applies to experiences? Never would an Euler have determined the course of comets from three observations—an operation which almost appears to exceed the limits of human understanding—if his great knowledge of the profoundest and most precise theory were not of assistance to him. Who knows what would be discovered in metaphysics if ontology were brought to the 60 perfection that one encounters in the analysis of the mathematicians? §34. Meanwhile, it is still certain that even the greatest perfection of the theory would not yet remove all obscurity of knowledge in metaphysics. Even in natural science, much still remains unknown and unsettled, notwithstanding the aid provided it by mathematics. For that reason, one also cannot say that the mistakes cited are the only reasons why there are so few settled truths in metaphysics. The entire theory of the soul and theology, and in part cosmology, are sciences of actual things, whose effects only we experience, and to whose inner constitution we must infer backward with the help of general principles. Now, if we do not yet know the effects precisely, and if we lack the proper and complete experiences: or if these are there but the causes of these effects are too far removed from us for them to ever be reached through our reflection; then, even with our best theory, we will settle little in such matters. Both occur in metaphysics. We do not yet have sufficient experiences: Sometimes one commits the error of subreption,104 and this is thus the fifth reason that metaphysical truths are doubtful. 61

[Erschleichungsfehler, the German equivalent to a vitium subreptionis or error of subreption. See, e.g., Baumgarten’s Metaphysica (1739): “§545. DECEPTIONS OF THE SENSES are false representations that depend on the senses, and these are either sensations themselves, or they are the reasoning for which sensation is a premise, or they are perceptions held to be sensations through the fault of subreption (§30, 35)” (Baumgarten 2013, §545, p. 208). As explained in Baumgarten 2013: “This term has a long history of juridical and philosophical use. In Roman law subreptionis describes a fraud perpetrated through the concealment of key facts and is contrasted with one that is obreptionis, which does so through the presentation of false information. In his Logica, Wolff defines subreption: ‘We call the fault of subreption the error committed in the act of experiencing when we seem to experience for ourselves what we experience least of all. Those who seem to experience for themselves the physical influence of the soul on the body, the attractive force of a magnet, and love and hate belonging to inanimate things commit this fault. The very same fault introduced many chimeras into scholastic physics’ (WLL §668). In his Ethica, he explicitly connects subreption to erroneous intuitive judgments that are not guided by the understanding but instead are hasty generalizations based on insufficient experience: ‘To be sure, although experience is of single things (WLL §665), when we indeed express in words those same things that we experience, we use signs that denote universal beings, unless either there is some proper noun, or some appellative is turned into a proper noun when a demonstrative pronoun is added, and intuitive judgments are formed based on those things that we experience (WLL §55). And in the act of experiencing, the fault or error of subreption is easily committed when we seem to experience for ourselves what we experience least of all (WLL §668); however, universal notions cannot be formed apart from a second and third mental operation (WLL §55). Intuitive judgments are formed through the intellect, which guards against the error of subreption (WLL §669 ff.); the interior faculties must be guided in experience by the correct use of the intellect’ (Ethica §133). Kant employs the term in his pre-Critical writings, especially in On the Form and Principles of the Sensible and the Intelligible World of 1770, and afterwards throughout the critical works, where he describes transcendental, moral and even aesthetic errors of subreption (see, for instance, AA 2:412, A 643/B 671, AA 5:116, and AA 5:116)” (p. 208, note a). For a thorough history of this concept, including its use by Kant, see Birken-Bertsch 2006.]

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§35. One can convince oneself of this if one looks at the empirical theory of the soul.105 Although, of all parts of metaphysics, it contains the greatest number of undoubted propositions, it has many shortcomings nevertheless. How many phenomena do not yet arise within the soul that the laws of psychology are insufficient to explain? The theory106 of sleepwalking, for example, or that of the faculty of foresight107—these have not yet been agreed upon108 simply due to a lack of adequate experiences. Thus, we indeed know generally that changes in the soul are linked with some changes in the body; but much is lacking that would allow us to state in every case exactly which changes in the soul, and to what extent they are linked with the changes in the body. Philosophers commonly ignore the latter and leave them to the physiologists, since it is indisputable that as long as we do not simultaneously attend to the constitution of the body—following the example of Herr Prof. Krüger109—we will never get to the secret operations of the soul in the empirical theory of it. We also often commit an error of subreption. Many imagine that their experience teaches them that they can decide to do something without the least impelling causes, that the 62 soul operates in the body through physical influence; that one can have more than a single representation at exactly the same moment; that one can have a representation and, at the same time as this representation, have again another representation, or think and in exactly that moment represent that one thinks, all of which I have not been able to experience, even with all the attention I can possibly summon directed at myself.110 To the empirical theory of the soul also belongs the proposition that we have obscure representations, which, however, is yet denied by many. Even the sensation of thinking itself is still indistinct. Now, it is impossible that we should be able to know the nature of efficient causes without a complete historical knowledge of effects: Thus, as long as we lack the relevant experiences of the effects of our soul, it is no surprise that we cannot settle whether it is a simple or a composite thing, if we do not wish to supplement our knowledge with hypotheses. Meanwhile, one can understand the importance of the empirical theory of the soul on this basis,

[Erfahrungs-Seelenlehre] [Reading Theorie for Thorie.] 107 [This seems to be an invention of Alexander Gottlieb Baumgarten (1714–62), although based perhaps on §22 of Leibniz’s Monadology (1714): “Since every present state of a simple substance is a natural consequence of its preceding state, in such a way that the present is great with future” (Leibniz 1956, vol. 2, p. 1047). Cf. Theodicy (1710), §360. See Baumgarten’s empirical psychology in his Metaphysica (1739): “I am conscious of my future state, and hence of the future state of the world (§369). The representation of the future state of the world, and hence mine, is FORESIGHT (PRAEVISIO) … The law of foresight is: If a sensation and an imagination having a common partial perception are perceived, a total perception of a future state emerges in which the different parts of the sensation and imagination are joined together: i.e., the future is born from the present impregnated by the past” (Baumgarten 2013, §§595–6, p. 221).] 108 [zur Richtigkeit gebracht, which means agreed upon or brought into order, according to Grimm and Adelung.] 109 [Johann Gottlob Krüger (1715–59), German philosopher, natural scientist, and doctor. The reference is to his Versuch einer Experimental-Seelenlehre (1756) (Attempt at an Experimental Theory of the Soul), in which Krüger emphasizes the need for close cooperation between the fields of medicine and philosophical psychology.] 110 [A thesis Tetens defended as part of his dissertation. See our Introduction, p. 6.] 105 106

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and pass judgment on the procedure of some philosophers who either leave it out of metaphysics entirely, or borrow only a few empirical propositions from it and yet want to demonstrate the most important truths in the deductive theory of the soul.111 If someone is not uncommonly lucky in the invention of hypotheses, or, more properly, at guessing, then I do not see how he could produce anything in this way. §36. Sixthly, the truths that we seek in metaphysics may well be placed beyond the 63 sphere of human understanding such that we cannot attain to a certain knowledge of them. This cannot be said with certainty. For who knows what will be settled when the theory is brought to perfection and nothing more is lacking with respect to experiences. Who would not have thought it impossible in Aristotle’s time that the course of the comets could be calculated, and yet it has reached this point. What never appeared possible, wit has yet conceived.112

For this reason, one cannot hold it to be totally impossible that we should come to know as much about our soul as is required to prove its simplicity or compositeness, its immortality, its condition after death, and more things of this kind; and, if perfect certainty cannot be obtained in such matters, then perhaps the theorems can be brought to the greatest probability, with which we could content ourselves. There is no correct inference made when St. Évremond113 writes to a friend that it is futile for him to reflect on the future condition of his soul, arguing that since the ancient philosophers before him had already thought so much about it and yet settled nothing, he will not get further. But it may well be that, even with the most 64 perfect ontology and all possible experiences, we will still have to say with the great poet: How thinking first began And beings of a foreign kind Are the instrument of the soul -------This I should not understand.114

[schliessenden Seelenlehre] [Was niemals möglich schien, hat doch der Wiz erdacht. An either intentional or unintentional misquotation from Swiss poet, scientist, and philosopher Albrecht von Haller’s (1708–77) “Gedanken über Vernunft, Aberglauben und Unglauben” (“Thoughts on Reason, Superstition, and Unbelief”), which first appeared in his Versuch Schweizerischer Gedichten (1732). The original lines read: “Was nimmer möglich schien, hat doch sein Witz vollbracht,” which translates roughly as “what never appeared possible, his wit has indeed accomplished.” 113 [Charles de Marguetel de Saint-Denis, seigneur de Saint-Évremond (1613–1703), French essayist and literary critic who spent the latter half of his life in exile. Tetens is likely referring to a letter to an anonymous gentleman, which bears the title “Man, who is desirous to know all Things, knows not himself” (1728, vol. 1, pp. 26–31). The thrust of the letter is that those of the past have failed to prove the immortality of the soul, and so as much as the letter’s recipient may try, he will finally have to accept that reason must submit to religion on this point.] 114 [Again from Albrecht von Haller’s “Gedanken über Vernunft, Aberglauben und Unglauben” (1732).] 111 112

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§37. So much is certain, namely, that we can never attain to an intuitive knowledge of the nature of a single substance until cognitive powers are placed in us that differ from those we now possess. All that we know of substances are certain possibilities115 of effecting something, or of their allowing themselves to be affected, or of something that is in them and proves itself to be active, which things are called faculties, abilities, powers, but of whose positive inner constitution one has no concepts. Hence, I do not know whether we can say, along with certain philosophers, that we have penetrated to the core of the nature of substances,116 simply because we know something or other that is, or can be, produced by them, and some changes that they suffer when other substances are conjoined with them. Nevertheless, it does not yet follow from this that we must relinquish the hope of ever attaining through reason 65 a certain knowledge of the attributes of the world, of our soul, and of God, which we necessarily have to know for the sake of our happiness; for this knowledge does not necessarily require the sort of intuitive knowledge of things that I previously said to be impossible. §38. But do not prejudices also hinder the progress of metaphysics? Indisputably. Metaphysics is a science that stands in too close a connection with theology for its propositions to be a matter of indifference to someone who is devoted to a particular system in religion. The obligatory carefulness117 in philosophy to permit no theorems that are opposed to revelation ensures that even great philosophers already look to revelation in regard to first principles and arrange them such that their entire system has necessarily to align with the doctrine of the church. In ontology, the Roman Catholics therefore deny the proposition that accidents cannot exist outside of substances. And some of our own assume certain possibilities without proof merely for the purpose of demonstrating through reason one or another proposition of dogmatics. The inclination against revelation, however, manifests itself at the worst times. Does this not mean taking religion as the foundation of philosophy and thereafter wanting to defend the truths of religion against the deists with the 66 help of philosophy? Will a deist who can think be converted by such a philosophy? He will always object that we make inferences from prejudices, and he is correct. In this way, one makes philosophy along with theology suspicious, and does so without necessity. There is not the least need to be worried on account of revelation: continue to philosophize; accept no principles except only those that are correctly proven and guard oneself against mistakes in arguing, without looking to see if the conclusions are also in agreement with the doctrine of the church. They will be such of themselves, because truth and truth can never come into a genuine contradiction with one another.

[Möglichkeiten] [das innerste der Natur der Substanzen] 117 [schuldige Sorgfalt. Here the former word is being used in its more original sense of what is owed, as in Schuldigkeit or “obligation.”] 115 116

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§39. Aside from these prejudices, issuing from an accepted religious system, there are still others. Indeed, there is no species of such, as are taught in logic,118 which does not contribute to the diversity of opinions in philosophy and especially in metaphysics; the prejudice in favor of the reputation of Aristotle caused there to be not a single step forward in metaphysics for the whole of centuries. But one must also not attribute too much to the prejudices. They cannot be the only cause of the deficiency of evidence in metaphysical truths. This has been shown in the example of Descartes, who tossed out all preconceived opinions, and yet introduced few truths into metaphysics that have come to be settled. And in modern times, many 67 philosophers have exercised great freedom in setting aside the theorems of religion, as well as their teachers in philosophy, and have sought truth for themselves, and yet brought little or nothing to certainty. Furthermore, preconceived opinions would disappear on their own, if only the previously mentioned causes of the shortage of settled truths in metaphysics were to be eliminated. My most esteemed fellow citizens I have not put down these thoughts in order to belittle metaphysics, and to represent it as a science in which most propositions are uncertain, and which is thus not worth the effort to be spent on it. This would be to act foolishly, since I myself am of a mind to teach it. My intent is much more to encourage you, my most esteemed fellow citizens, so that you will apply all attention to this sublime and indispensable science, and seek to extend it. The knowledge of error, one says quite rightly, is half the way to improvement. By having thus discovered the causes of uncertainty in metaphysics, I have led the way for your efforts to eliminate them. This could not have happened on a more convenient occasion than the present, since I must indicate which lectures I intend to read at this new academy,119 graciously founded 68 by our most Serene Prince. There is no better way to show your thankfulness for the great mercy by which the sublime patron120 envelops the muses, than if you strive to do justice to the wisest aim of this merciful sovereign through your redoubled industry in the learning of truth and wisdom. I will endeavor to provide you with the opportunity for this, my most esteemed gentlemen, through reading of the following lectures. I will read logic this winter, by the grace of God,121 using Korvin’s122 well known textbook; in the future I am willing to take as foundation the excellent logic of

[Of course, the theory of prejudices was almost a universal feature of modern philosophy from the socalled idols of Francis Bacon (1617–21) forward. In the German tradition it is especially prominent in the logical writings of Christian Thomasius (1655–1728) (see esp. his Ausübung der Vernunftlehre of 1691) and Georg Friedrich Meier (1718–77) (see his Vernunftlehre of 1752).] 119 [The newly founded University of Bützow in Rostock.] 120 [Mäcenat] 121 [Reading “g.G.” as “von Gottes Gnaden.” This is usually indicated by “G.G.,” but we have located examples also with the lower case. “g.G.” could also mean “gut Geld” thus indicating that the lectures were given for a cash fee, which is not unthinkable in the context.] 122 [See note 13 on p. 52 above.] 118

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Professor Reimarus;123 metaphysics using the textbook of Professor Baumgarten,124 natural right using Councillor Darjes’s instit. jurispr. univ.,125 moral philosophy using the Sittenlehre126 of the same. Natural science. In this the excellent Einleitung in die Naturlehre of Privy Councillor Segner127 should serve as guide. But in the first half year I will only go through the first seven sections of it. The three last sections presuppose an audience that is more practiced in mathematics; I will thus offer to explain them in every half year to those who have a taste for the mathematical knowledge of nature. As for hours, I will accommodate the gentlemen whom I will have the honor of teaching. Bützow, the 11th of October,128 1760.129

[See note 87 on p. 72 above.] [Alexander Gottlieb Baumgarten’s Metaphysica (1739). See Baumgarten 2013.] 125 [Joachim Georg Darjes (1714–91), German philosopher and author, among other works, of Institutiones jurisprudentiae universalis, in quibus omnia juris naturae socialis et gentium capita in usum auditorii sui methodo scientifica explanantur (1740).] 126 [Erste Gründe der philosophischen Sitten-Lehre auf Verlangen und zum Gebräuche seiner Zuhörer entworfen (1750).] 127 [Johann Andreas von Segner (1704–77), German philosopher and mathematician, author of Einleitung in die Natur-Lehre (4 vols., 1746).] 128 [Weinmonats, German for Vendémiaire, the first month of the French Republican calendar, named after the period of the grape harvest, which ran from what is late September until the third week of October.] 129 [Courtney D. Fugate provided extensive comments on an earlier draft of this translation. It is immensely improved as a result.] 123 124

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Letter to … on the Question: Whether the Difference in the Cognitive Abilities and Inclinations of Human Beings Has Its Ground in an Innate Difference or in External Circumstances1 (1761)2 S. T.3 MY GENTLEMAN!

In response to the question you have put to me—whether the difference of human beings with respect to their cognitive abilities and inclinations necessarily

This letter was sent from an expert lecturer at the University of Bützow to Hrn. Pastor Volquarts of Lunden in Northern Dithmarschen, and the latter submitted it to our pages in order to benefit the public. [Further background of Tetens’s relationship with Pastor Georg Volquarts (1721–84), and likewise Volquarts’s reasons for posing the question at hand to Tetens, are not readily available. But Volquarts’s 1752 book Entdeckung einiger Hauptursachen, warum so sehr wenige dasjenige Vergnügen in der Ehe antreffen (Discovery of Some Chief Causes for Why So Very Few Find Gratification in Marriage) displays some interest in questions concerning the causes of differences in cognitive abilities and inclinations, as well as their relationship to differences in external circumstances. Namely, he asserts that strife and disunity in marriage can be caused by something cognitive (the understanding’s ignorance) or by something volitional (wicked chief inclinations, particularly the thirst for honor, sensuality, and avarice), and these in turn are explained by something innate (original sin) or by external circumstances (improper parenting).] 2 [The first part of this letter appeared in the thirty-fifth installment of the Hamburgische Nachrichten aus dem Reiche der Gelehrsamkeit auf das Jahr 1761, May 8, pp. 276–80.] 3 [salvo titulo, a generic honorific employed when the addressee’s title is unknown.] 1

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277 presupposes an innate distinction, or whether one could with Helvétius4 explain them based only on the difference of the external circumstances in which human beings find themselves—I have already replied to you that in the investigation of this matter I have made out nothing with certainty other than what I believed you would likewise have thought of.5 You are not, however, satisfied with that. I should indicate what I take to be true and cite the grounds for my opinion. The matter is important, you say, and philosophers, as on all major theorems, disagree. It is important; that is true. More depends on the answer to the aforementioned question than many believe. For if it turns out that nothing but external circumstances are to blame for why an idiot cannot reason in the way that Leibniz does, and why Catilina does not have the mental disposition6 of Cicero,7 then those are correct who impute it to nurture alone that so many are simple-minded and the majority are vicious. And woe unto those scholars who are so proud of their natural advantages, like unto a squire of his ancestors when denied the prerogatives of his birth. Not to consider even the one who behaves in the exact opposite way, should birth alone determine the distinction between human beings with respect to their souls’ abilities. I will therefore comply to what I am anyhow obliged for many other reasons, and share with you my thoughts. But I must be very brief in this, even if some points should have to be read twice, and examples, together with other elucidations of my propositions, should have to be left for you to supply. Remark. Helvétius is the author of the infamous book called l’Espirit. It is known that when he experienced the severity with which this writing was persecuted, he openly recanted the dangerous opinions propounded in it. He speaks like a materialist and a naturalist. Nevertheless, I am not greatly concerned about the resulting scandal. For certainly the system of Helvétius as a whole is so shallowly supported that the reader would betray little reflection if he should let himself be persuaded by that author’s alleged grounds, whose nullity— particularly for the proof of the soul’s materiality—is immediately visible to anyone who is even a little acquainted with the consciousness of themselves. Yet, in spite of that, this book is full of the most excellent propositions, which are proof of a great and broad knowledge of the driving springs and vanities of the human heart, and therefore are very worthy of being granted the moralist’s attention.

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[French philosopher Claude-Adrien Helvétius (1715–71) devoted the Third Discourse of his book De l’esprit (1758) to the question of whether differences in minds—especially the difference between genius and ordinary minds—are the effect of either nature or education. He argues that all human minds are naturally equal and that all differences in abilities are attributable to differences in circumstances, especially education. In PhV, Tetens again considers this question, as well as Helvétius’s view, in the fourth section of the fourteenth essay, “On the Difference of Human Beings with Respect to their Development.”] 5 [Tetens’s earlier reply to Volquarts does not appear to have been published.] 6 [Gesinnung] 7 [In his Catiline Orations of 63 BCE, Cicero (106–43 BCE) argued that his fellow senator Lucius Sergius Catilina (108–62 BCE) was leading a conspiracy to overthrow the Roman Senate by murdering Cicero and other senators. Helvétius compares Cicero with both Catiline and Pliny in ch. xxix of the Third Discourse of De l’esprit (1758, p. 462).] 4

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1. For the sake of brevity, I will name the collection of all cognitive abilities determined in an existing human being his “Kopf” or mentality.8 The innate mentality, which is to be distinguished from the one obtained through use, should in particular be called mother wit.9 The Baumgartenish explanation of the word “Kopf” basically agrees with the one given.10 However, the word genius11 has another meaning, as Sulzer has shown.12 Remark. Properly, the soul has only a single fundamental ability, which receives different names according to the difference of objects and manners of operating. I will follow the customary mode of instruction and speak of several cognitive abilities. 2. Mentalities are unequal when the sum of all cognitive abilities, each calculated according to its magnitude, is different; dissimilar when the proportion of these to each other is not the same; and generally different when one or both take place. 279 3. The cognitive abilities are strengthened by exercise; for this reason, naturally equal and similar mentalities must become unequal and dissimilar through the differing exertion of abilities. 4. The constitution of a certain mentality that one discerns in a human being only after his abilities have already shown themselves to be operative for some time is no

[The original has only Kopf, which we leave in the German and follow with “or mentality” to indicate how it will be translated below when Tetens is not explicitly commenting on the usage of the German word itself.] 9 [In the German translation of Helvétius’s De l’esprit, “Mutterwitz” is given as a synonym for “Genius” (1760, p. 475). But given Helvétius’s views (see note 4 on p. 84 above), the notion is understood in a sense different from Tetens. See also Tetens’s later characterization of mother wit in Essay 14, ch. 2, §5 of his PhV (2014, p. 602).] 10 [The philosophical use of the term “Kopf” stems from the Empirical Psychology of the fourth edition of Alexander Baumgarten’s (1714–62) Metaphysica in which Baumgarten provides “Kopf” and “GemüthsFähigkeit” as German glosses for the notion of wit (ingenium) in the broader sense: “Since each cognitive faculty within me is limited, and hence has a certain and determinable limit (§248, 354), the cognitive faculties of the soul, when compared to another, admit of some determined relation and proportion to one another (§572), according to which one is either greater or less than the other (§160). The determined proportion of someone’s cognitive faculties to one another is their WIT, IN THE BROADER SENSE” (1757, §648, p. 239; cf. Baumgarten 2013, p. 235). Georg Friedrich Meier (1718–77) followed this convention in both the third volume of his own Metaphysik (1757, §643, p. 273) and in his German translation of Baumgarten’s work, Metaphysik (1766, §475, p. 217). A human being’s mentality consists in the relation or proportion that his cognitive faculty’s various parts have in comparison with one another, specifically with respect to their varying degrees of magnitude. Since this proportion differs from one human being to another, so too do their mentalities.] 11 [Reading Genie for Geine.] 12 [Swiss philosopher Johann Georg Sulzer (1720–79). In his Analyse du Genie (1759), Sulzer asserts that “Wit [ingenium] belongs to genius, as we have just seen; yet it is not genius itself, but only that whereby genius begins to show itself” (1759, p. 395). Sulzer claims that the proper meaning of genius was given by French diplomat, historian, theologist, and aesthetician Jean-Baptiste Du Bos (1670–1742), whom he quotes: “an aptitude that a man has received from nature to do well & easily certain things, which others can do only very poorly even when taking a lot of trouble” (Sulzer 1759, p. 393; cf. Du Bos 1719, p. 6). For comparison, see Baumgarten’s characterization of “ingenia superiora” or “höhere Geister oder Genies” (1757, §469, p. 240; cf. Baumgarten 2013, p. 235).] 8

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longer mere mother wit. For the sake of brevity, one can call it acquired mother wit or acquired ability. 5. Acquired ability, determined in a human being, establishes at the same time a certain way of thinking about objects, or the manner of thinking. In it and in the objects themselves lies the ground of all inclinations and drives, the ground of the differences of the latter, and consequently of the entire mind of the human being. 6. Now I assume the following lemma: If there is a cause of a phenomenon, then one needs to make use of no other whose existence is unproven, until the former has been proven insufficient to explain the phenomenon. But if the actuality of another cause, besides the one recognized, can be proven, then this is also proof either that the phenomenon cannot be known sufficiently from the previously recognized cause alone and its supposed sufficiency stems only from an incomplete cognition of the given phenomenon, or that the recognized cause did not operate in the phenomenon in accordance with its entire magnitude. The proof is easy to understand from the rules of logic which say that one ought to philosophize on the basis of experience. 7. From this it follows that in the present case, what matters is (1) whether a cause of a difference of cognitive abilities and inclinations in the human being can 280 be specified based on experience; (2) whether its sufficiency or insufficiency can be proven; or (3) whether the existence of another cause besides the one specified can be proven. For, if this last occurs, then, in the present case, the insufficiency of the first cause will be proven simultaneously. 8. Among the external circumstances of a human being, I reckon all the different relations in which the human being finds himself from his birth onward. Examples of things having their ground in external circumstances are one’s way of life, education, occupations, contracted illnesses, and so forth, and everything that has its ground in these—among which, however, is not to be included any innate faulty constitution of the body that has an influence on the power of representation. The internal determinations of the soul and body that the human being brings into the world—e.g., the determinate constitution of his brain, the determinate quality of the sensory vessels, and so forth—belong to his innate internal condition; and every 286 difference resulting from these is an innate difference.13 9. The difference of external circumstances is a cause of the difference in acquired abilities and in the objects upon which they are determined, and consequently in inclinations. For if two children of perfectly equal and similar mother wit are imagined as being under different external circumstances, then it is necessary (a) that they represent different objects;14 (b) that these objects are represented from different standpoints; which (c) are connected with more or less agreeable or disagreeable sensations; whereby (d) different though weak inclinations and drives arise at once; which (e) then in turn effect, according to what is required by the constitution of the objects, a stronger or weaker application of the cognitive

[Here begins the second part of the letter, which appeared in the thirty-sixth installment of the Hamburgische Nachrichten aus dem Reiche der Gelehrsamkeit auf das Jahr 1761, May 15, pp. 286–8.] 14 [Objecte] 13

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abilities generally, and of some more than others; and hence (f) the already existing though weak inclinations either strengthen or weaken according to the difference in opportunities and obstacles; and therefore once again15 produce a difference in the exertion of the cognitive abilities, and so forth, alternately; through which, then, (g) the acquired mentalities or proficiencies must necessarily be unequal and dissimilar, all of which is easy to see from empirical psychology. Remark. The common theory of the moral inclinations of human beings, and their division into choleric, sanguine, melancholic, and phlegmatic, is like the theory of temperaments: if not entirely useless, still incomplete.16 From the difference in the representations of happiness—that is, of a condition in which one is freed 287 from the disagreeable consciousness of imperfections—which extends as far as the difference between human beings themselves, it follows that some represent certain things as most necessary and most important, while others represent other things as such; that is why, then, the inclination for that certain thing is the prevailing or dominant in him. Hence, if one wanted to construct the chief classes of dominant inclinations, then the ground of the classification would have to be derived from the difference in true or putative perfections, the possession of which, above all else, is supposed to constitute happiness according to the human being’s representation of it. So, for example, someone can place his happiness principally in the perfections of his cognitive power; in which case, his dominant inclination aims at the augmentation of his cognitions. If one now wanted to make this person either choleric or sanguine, and so forth, and to seek therein the ground of his actions according to the customary rules of moral theory, then one would err greatly. 10. This difference in external circumstances yet exists, even when two identical twins have had the same instruction, education, and way of life. For this reason, the difference in cognitive abilities and inclinations that is encountered in such can be known from this cause. 11. But with that said, the sufficiency of this given cause is not yet settled. For, according to logic, if it were sufficient, then the effect would have to be equal to the cause; and as long as the last is unsettled, it cannot be determined with certainty [Reading von neuem for von neuen]. [The theory of four psychological temperaments extends as far back as Galen (c. 130–200), who enumerated four personality types: choleric, melancholic, sanguine, and phlegmatic. The four temperaments correspond to Hippocrates’ (c. 460–377 BCE) account of the four bodily humors (yellow bile, black bile, blood, and phlegm), which in turn correspond to Empedocles’ (c. 495–435 BCE) account of the four elements (fire, earth, air, and water). Traditionally, the choleric is understood to have a highly sensitive & reactive character; the melancholic, a gloomy & fearful character; the sanguine, a cheerful & outgoing character; and the phlegmatic, a slow & non-reactive character. In early-modern German philosophy, the theory of the temperaments was developed by, among others, Georg Ernst Stahl (1659–1734) in his Disputationem Inauguralem De Passionibus Animi Corpus Humanum Varie Alterantibus (1695), Christian Thomasius (1655–1728) in his Von Der Artzeney Wider die unvernünftige Liebe und der zuvorher nöthigen Erkäntnüß Sein Selbst. Oder: Ausübung der SittenLehre (1696), and Johann Georg Walch (1693–1775) in his Gedancken vom Philosophischen Naturell als eine Einleitung zu seinen Philosophischen Collegiis aufgesetzet (1723).]

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whether the given or specified cause alone suffices, or presupposes still another one alongside it. Whence it is easy to see that, due to a lack of the complete mathematical knowledge demanded for this—namely, of the difference between human beings 288 with respect to the abilities of their souls, as well as with respect to the difference in their relations—the second item (§7) cannot be determined with certainty in this manner. 12. What cannot be posited with certainty can, nevertheless, be assumed as probable. But it is probable that the cause of the difference in human beings with respect to their souls’ abilities, as stated in §9, is not sufficient; or the effect seems to be greater than the cause. For: (1) In the case of children, in whom one notices nothing further besides sensible representations, there is already apparent a distinction in attention and liveliness, not only of this or that kind, but rather of all representations generally; which is easier to explain when, in addition to the difference in external circumstances, an internal innate difference is introduced to assist, than when the former alone is supposed to be the cause. (2) Supposing the faculty of reflection and reason become noticeable in a child earlier or later and grows more quickly or more slowly in them than in another child, even though the power of representation of the one has had, as far as one knows, just as frequent opportunities for operating, as well as just as few obstacles, as the other, such that an existing difference is unnoticeable. This again makes it probable that here something else in addition, besides the difference in external relations, is the cause. (3) The entire theory of temperaments, inasmuch as it accords with experience, makes precisely the same thing probable. (4) The great advantages of some great people who, in almost everything they conduct observations upon—even in those sciences that are not especially objects of their diligence—penetrate further than others, others who nonetheless possess more and better means than them and have even exerted their powers on precisely the same objects: these great advantages once again make probable what has been 293 supposed.17 (5) If the faculty for forming representations, or the representing power of souls, were equal in two human beings from birth onward; and if these were placed merely in different external circumstances; then that power, under the condition that the souls of both human beings are occupied for an equal length of time, would still have to be of one magnitude or equal in both. For, since both equal powers are greatly exercised, there would be no reason why the one has acquired a greater strength than the other. Though in these two a dissimilarity could nevertheless very well occur. It is also easy to see that, even if the duration of exercise were not of perfectly equal length in both, the resulting difference in the magnitudes of the powers would still have to be barely noticeable. Now suppose that two children (or

[Here begins the third and final part of the letter, which appeared in the thirty-seventh installment of the Hamburgische Nachrichten aus dem Reiche der Gelehrsamkeit auf das Jahr 1761, May 19, pp. 293–6.]

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two human beings in general), who have had up to now few or no distinct general representations, were instructed in a science, and were simultaneously taught distinct general representations by a teacher; then the progress made by both would have to be equal, if the inclination for that science and their diligence were equal; and if they were unequal, this progress would have to be proportional to them. But does not experience often seem to demonstrate that a human being with an equal, or indeed a greater, drive than another nevertheless falls far short of the latter in a science— even though both are of the same age, or even if the former has an advantage in this respect, and the latter previously had just as few concepts of this kind (or similar to them) as the first, and on top of all this18 the latter exerts his powers carelessly 294 and with little zeal? Admittedly, I cannot maintain with total certainty that I have experienced anything of this sort; only that I have had experiences which, by all appearances, went very much as described; and for this reason I take it only as a probable proof; for, were it certain, then it would demonstrate, if not fully, nevertheless almost certainly, the innate difference in the powers of representation of human beings. I say perhaps not fully, since the question still always remains whether the power of representation of one of them might not have encountered more obstacles than the other, and as a consequence merely of this, either became not as strong or presently could not operate with its entire strength. (6) The frequent great similarity of the cognitive abilities in children with those in their parents makes it probable that these are innate. This includes the confusions of the understanding that sometimes arise, which derive in all probability, just like certain properties of bodies, from an innate constitution of the brain. 13. Hence, the difference in general inclinations probably also cannot be perfectly explained by the difference in external circumstances alone, according to the fifth proposition. I am not speaking here of the particular inclinations for this or that thing (rather than for this or that kind of thing), since these certainly depend on objects. 14. But what up to now was only probable now becomes certain, if from other grounds it can be proven, in accordance with the thesis assumed in the sixth paragraph, that the difference of mentalities is grounded in an innate difference. I prove this in the following way. Psychology teaches that representations are connected both with each other purely within the soul and at all times with movements in some parts of the body (which is of no consequence here), such that if these movements are 295 stimulated by outer objects, the soul receives ideas—more quickly or more slowly, in a livelier manner or more weakly, according to that stimulated movement, and according to whether the soul is more or less hindered—by means of its power to form ideas in conformity with this movement. And conversely, if the soul produces representations within itself, there arises a movement of certain parts of the body, which is quicker or slower, stronger or weaker, according to whether the power of

[Here, the original text includes a line that presumably was not meant to be part of Tetens’s piece, and hence it has been omitted from this translation.]

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the soul19 proves to be more or less operative, and according to whether the parts to be moved are more or less suited for accepting movements of that kind. Hence, the difference in the constitution of those aforementioned parts of the body will cause a difference both in the reception of ideas coming from outside, as well as in the formation of them within the soul itself. But that these parts, which are compound things, should have the same constitution in two human beings, contradicts the principle of denied total similitude,20 which in the case of composite actual things cannot possibly be doubted with any justification, not even by those who dispute its universality with respect to all actual things. From this the difference in mother wit is clear. 15. Apart from that, however, souls themselves are also different from one another with respect to their powers of representation. If I were permitted to assume the truth of the proposition of denied total inner equality and similitude in its universality,21 then no further proof would be necessary; but if the system of preestablished harmony were true, then what has been set forth would also be settled. Since, however, I would not like to assume presently something that can be disputed with any justification, and since I must refrain, for the sake of brevity, from proofs different from those already mentioned, I will also view the current proposition as a merely probable one, which, however, will easily be known to true by anyone 296 who attentively reflects on what was said in the previous paragraph; even without mention of other easily discovered grounds. 16. Thus, the cause of the difference in the cognitive abilities of human beings, consequently in their manners of thinking, and consequently in their inclinations, is located neither merely in the difference in external circumstances, nor merely in the different arrangement of the brain (as some modern writers are persuaded),22 nor merely in the difference of souls; rather in fact all three causes—or, if the latter two are reduced to one, innate difference, then these two causes—cooperate in making human beings as different as they actually are.

[Reading Seele for Seelen.] [On the principle of denied total similitude, see the note 8 to GedUM on p. 49 above.] 21 [The principle of denied total equality is stated by Baumgarten as follows: “§ 272. It is impossible for many actual things mutually outside of one another to be totally equal. Either they will be totally similar, or only partially (§265). If the first, they would be totally congruent (§70, p. 267), which is absurd (§270). If they were only partially similar, there would be a quality in one that would not be in the other (§267, p. 70), and hence there would not be totally the same degree of reality in both (§248), and in fact there would be some quantity of one that would not be the quantity of the other (§246). Therefore, they would not be totally equal (§267, p. 70). This proposition shall be the principle of denied total equality” (Baumgarten 2013, p. 150). Unlike the principle of denied total similitude, this one concerns quantities, which Wolff defined as “the internal distinction of similar things” (Wolff 1747b, §21). Again in reference to mathematics, Wolff—and following him Baumgarten—understands quantity, a species of which is size, to be the sort of thing that can distinguish similar things, without detriment to their similarity (“salva similitudine”).] 22 [Tetens might have had in mind specifically Genevan naturalist philosopher Charles Bonnet (1720–93). In both his Essai de psychologie (1755) and his Essai analytique sur les facultés de l’âme (1760), Bonnet explains differences in mental faculties and inclinations in terms of differences in the arrangements of fibers in the brain (1755, pp. 205–12; 1760, pp. 230–1).] 19

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17. However, the fact that the difference in external circumstances—in the way of life, guidance, examples, and such things—is the greatest among these causes and produces the largest part of the effect, makes it very probable that human beings will undergo great change when placed in different circumstances; that, when healthy, tender children will exhibit almost (though not totally) equal cheerfulness; that what was said in the ninth paragraph, as compared to the twelfth, is true; as well as the other grounds supplied by Helvétius in order to confirm his aforementioned opinion. These are, in short, my thoughts on the question placed before me. You see what I consider settled, and what I consider as being only probable. I did not see the use of fleshing out my propositions with examples and clarifications; otherwise I would have done so and could have said in sixty-four pages what is contained in only eight.23 But it would have been just as annoying for you to read extensively about well known things as it would have been for me to make them extensive. In any case, the space granted to me at present is already too limited for me to be able to put down something more than this: That I remain your perfectly humble and obedient servant, and so forth.

[was vier Blätter enthalten in vier Bogen sagen können. Blätter are physical pages, thus consisting of two printed sides each, while a Bogen is a full sheet of paper as purchased by the printer from a mill, which is then cut to make eight physical pages or sixteen printed sides.]

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On the Difference of Human Beings with Respect to Their Chief Inclinations (1762–3)1 §1. If we had before us such portraits of various human beings’ souls as we have of 305 their bodies—if each presented his soul’s abilities with different colors according to their differences, with stronger or weaker brushstrokes according to their magnitude, and additionally in a similar proportion as they have in the soul—then we would be as certain of finding no two among these depictions that would be perfectly similar and equal, as we would among the faces of human beings. Perhaps, if this difference were still greater, we would very well discover monstrosities more frequently. Should the heads of the acute de la Condamine and of one of the astonishingly dumb savages near the Amazon river not come closer to one another than their reason?2 Would not the fantasy of a great poet, compared to the power of the soul in a stupid person, be like a fire to a glowing spark: where yet the body of the one compared to the body of the other is no Lilliputian compared to a giant?3 Nevertheless only 306 “perhaps,” since one must not confuse the difference between the effects of a power with the difference between powers themselves. §2. We do not have such a gallery, but my readers invent one in their minds, and then compare a little the different paintings of souls to one another. The objects with which these souls are occupied and their endless differences4 should not bother

1 [The first four paragraphs of this essay appeared in the thirty-sixth installment of the Mecklenburgische Nachrichten, Fragen und Anzeigen. Sunday, October 23, 1762, pp. 305–8.] 2 [Charles Marie de La Condamine (1701–74), French scientist and explorer who carried out the first scientific exploration of the Amazon River, as recounted in Relation abrégée d’un voyage fait dans l’intérieur de l’Amérique méridionale (1745) and other works.] 3 [In Jonathan Swift’s (1667–1745) Travels into Several Remote Nations of the World in Four Parts. By Lemuel Gulliver. First a Surgeon, and then a Captain of Several Ships (1726), Gulliver is taken prisoner by the inhabitants of Lilliput, who are shorter than six inches.] 4 [Verschiedenheit]

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us. We want to extract them in our thoughts from any combination and to consider only the soul with its inclinations, just as they are. But we must beforehand examine a little the cognitive powers. The human being’s soul is a thinking power, which at one moment can direct its force upon an object and at the next moment withdraw it and steer it somewhere else. Whether the soul’s endeavor to think is as natural as burning is to fire, need never be admitted.5 It suffices that this is the fundamental feature in the pictures of souls, which is common to them all; and the mind of the Hottentot has these aforesaid aspects as much as the mind of the most enlightened human being.6 Yet this thinking power has an entirely different appearance in the one from what it does in the other. It processes the ideas, the objects of its operation, in a different manner, and this is why different abilities are ascribed to it. It notices their changes and gathers up ideas and the stuff for concepts; it senses; it separates these ideas, it combines them again, puts them aside, revives them again, and amuses itself now and then by lightly leaping from one sequence of them over to another. One therefore ascribes to it a fantasy, which at one moment is a poetic faculty, at another wit, and at another memory. At times it exerts its power on a matter for a long time, considers it from all sides and with respect to all its parts; analyzes7 it, compares and distinguishes it from others, investigates its arrangement and interconnection with others. One says that it pays attention to a matter, it reflects on it, it displays understanding and reason, etc. For each of these performances, it is more or less well suited, i.e., it has greater or lesser abilities for them. These abilities are not only different in magnitude for different human beings; they are infinitely more so with respect to the proportion in which they stand to one another. In the one, reason is very weak; and the soul appears to be entirely a faculty of sensation; it is, so to speak, fastened to the external objects, in such a way that it is only by them that it is drawn from one to another. In the other, fantasy has the upper hand. This faculty takes ideas from external things that it senses, and from such ideas it prepares for itself, through its manifold processing, its own atmosphere of thoughts through which the soul is in some respect separated from the objects8 outside it; and in which there is rarely calm, but more often the most intense storm winds rage. In a third, sober reason rules and is stronger than the other abilities. This human being is better suited to pursue persistently and deeply

[This is presumably a reference to Johann Georg Sulzer’s (see note 12 on p. 85 above) Theorie der angenehmen und unangenehmen Empfindungen (1762), originally published in French as Recherches sur l’origine des sentimens agréables et désagréables (1751–2). Sulzer claims that thinking is essential to us just like burning is essential to fire (1751, p. 63; 1762, p. 15).] 6 [“Hottentot” was a term used by the seventeenth-century Dutch settlers of the Cape of Good Hope to refer to inhabitants of that region. Tetens’s point here echoes what Locke says in bk. I, ch. iv, §12 of his An Essay Concerning Human Understanding (1689). Locke asserts that, although some human beings’ mental faculties might not be as developed as others’, this difference is not to be explained by any intrinsic difference between them but rather by a difference in how they exercise their mental faculties in accordance with the customs of their societies. Also see note 13 on p. 44 above.] 7 [zerlegt] 8 [Objecten] 5

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the interconnection of things than to the performances of the heroic poet, who is supposed to pile mountains of representations upon one another. But yet there is almost no human being in whom there is not be encountered a few traces of every kind of ability. Even in the most savage barbarians there exists a spark of reason, and the very stupidest of all still has a power of imagination, albeit a weak one. Now, if one collects together all these abilities as they are found in a human being—in their magnitudes and in their resulting reciprocal proportions to each other—then one has what, in connection with psychology, is usually called the “Kopf” or mentality of the human being,9 which is a genius if its abilities, some or all, are stronger than 307 is common, whereby it is eminently suited for a certain kind of performance or for all thinking.10 §3. Without inquiring into the source of this difference of mentalities, I presuppose only that it exists. In some, the dominant ability is easily known, since it stands out very noticeably above others. The soul has here a naturally strong impulse to work upon its representations in this determinate manner; and it betrays this in all its performances. Geniuses soon reveal themselves. With others there is a greater equality between the powers, which, although never perfect, nevertheless is often so great that a human being himself does not know which is the strongest. In this forest, the trees are almost of such equal height that it is not easy to cognize which is the very tallest of all. It is possible for mentalities to become reworked and altered. The more one uses an ability, the stronger it becomes; it weakens, by contrast, when it lies quiet. The power that has the upper hand can therefore become weakened and smaller than another. Reason can decay when one exerts merely memory, and commonly the latter loses something when the former is constantly exercised. In that case, the mentality is recast. Experience teaches, however, that this change possible through exercise does not extend far at all. It has been noted for the longest time and correctly that poets and generally eminent mentalities must be born; from which one sees that the common ability cannot be brought to the rank of extraordinary even through the strongest exercise, nor an eminent one degraded to the rank of the mediocre. Ovid’s poetic faculty could not be suppressed; a strong natural drive toward a matter usually surmounts every obstacle. If such a great change had ever occurred in a human being—had a very simple-minded boy ever become a great, rational man, or had an excellent mother wit ever been put to sleep and changed into extraordinary stupidity—then there would be examples of this; and so it must be ascribed to other causes. This much is certain: the more an ability dominates, the more difficult it becomes to weaken it; and the smaller it is, the more difficult it becomes to strengthen it. Thus, the mentality becomes all the more easy to alter, the more the powers of the soul are equal to one another with respect to strength.

[See note 8 on p. 85.] [See note 12 on p. 85.]

9

10

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§4. Let us now return to our portraits and look at the part upon which the inclinations of human beings are imprinted. Here, too, we still want to set aside the difference in objects and, in addition, to find no difference of inclinations in cases where one seeks “honor in frenzied turmoil” and another “is gladly the leader of a peasants’ revolt out of his thirst for honor,” but rather to observe the inner tendencies in the soul or its inclinations themselves.11 How great are the difference here,12 and on what do they depend? Into how many classes can human beings be divided with respect to their chief inclinations?13 The ancients named four temperaments in the body and four different characters, and also established their rules for investigating human beings according to this theory.14 However, the following will teach that this division is deficient, although more so with regard to the ground from which it is derived than in the number of species formed. But still with regard to the latter: for all human beings can be brought under the four species—which most highly esteem 308 honor, pleasure, temporal goods,15 and rest 16—just as little as all curved lines can be

[The former quotation is a loose rendering of the last line of Ewald Christian von Kleist’s (1715–59) 1757 poem “Ode an die preußische Armee” (“Ode to the Prussian Army”). The latter quotation is a loose rendering of some lines from Christian Fürchtegott Gellert’s (1715–69) 1755 poem “Der Informator” (“The Informant”).] 12 [Verschiedenheit] 13 [In his Theoretische Lehre von den Gemüthsbewegungen überhaupt, philosopher Georg Friedrich Meier (1718–77) defines chief inclination (Hauptneigung) as the power of desire or aversion that is the strongest within a human being’s temperament, and so dominates over all the rest (1744, §121, p. 185). He furthermore identifies it with the notions of Hang and passio dominans.] 14 [For the temperaments, see note 16 on p. 87 above. Tetens’s use of the notion of “character” (Gemüthsart) seems to stem from theologian and lexicographer Johann Georg Walch (1693–1775). In his Gedancken vom Philosophischen Naturell als eine Einleitung zu seinen Philosophischen Collegiis aufgesetzet (1723), Walch distinguishes between temperaments of the body and temperaments of the soul, the latter of which are further differentiated into temperaments of the understanding and those of the will (pp. 3–11). Walch uses the term “Gemüthsart”—which we have translated here as “character”— to denote a particular temperament of the will, and this temperament is constituted by the mixture of one’s chief inclinations (p. 10). In the third volume of his Metaphysik, Meier also uses the terms “Gemüthsart” and “Herz” to denote the constitution of a particular human being’s faculty of willing or desiring, whereas he uses the term “Kopf” to denote the constitution of the faculty of understanding (1757, §721, pp. 403–6).] 15 [zeitliche Vermögen] 16 [These four species appear to be inherited from philosopher and jurist Christian Thomasius’s (1655– 1728) presentation of four chief passions, affects, or inclinations in chs. 7–12 of his Von der Artzeney wider die unvernünftige Liebe und der zuvorher nöthigen Erkäntnüß Sein Selbst. Oder: Ausübung der Sitten-Lehre (1696). These are the thirst for honor (Ehrgeitz), sensuality (Wollust), avarice (Geldgeitz), and rational love (vernünfftige Liebe). For Thomasius, the first three of these are irrational affects or inclinations that pursue the vicious ends of honor, pleasure, and wealth, respectively. The fourth, by contrast, is a rational affect or inclination that seeks virtue, and the soul of the one who possesses it also enjoys rest or tranquility (Ruhe or Gemüths-Ruhe). Thomasius further associated each of these to the four humors or temperaments: the ambitious human being is choleric, the lustful is sanguine, the greedy is melancholic, and the rational/restful is phlegmatic (cf. pp. 170–1).   Tetens would have been more directly familiar with this schema from pastor, philosopher, jurist, and economist Joachim Georg Darjes’s (1714–91) Erste Gründe der philosophischen Sitten-Lehre (1750), 11

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brought under the four conic sections.17 In order to make the classification properly, one must climb up to the fundamental drives of the soul in order to survey fully—in addition to what is universal and constant—the mutable, through the more precise determination of which the species arise. When Hr. Pr. Sulzer, the acute observer of the human soul, has delivered the complete investigation of its fundamental drives that he promised, then perhaps this will better illuminate the genealogy of the human being’s inclinations.18 In the meantime, I wish to submit for the judgment of others an outline of the attempt I have made in this matter up to this point. 318 §5.19 “The soul is an operative being, which constantly endeavors to alter itself.”20 It has this in common with all substances. No one is simply so unfamiliar with it that he does not perceive this. If some doubt remains due to the thought that, on the contrary, the soul is not at all operative in its deepest sleep, then here under “soul” one is only ever imagining a waking or dreaming soul. In this condition it is still certainly never entirely inactive. Its abilities are more than mere possibilities. They are drives for being operative in one way or another. It is impossible to imagine it as a powerless atom; and if one wants to compare it with corporeal things, then the picture of it must be a fire, an elastic taut spring, a heavy body, or something operative of that sort.

which Tetens used as the textbook for his lectures in moral philosophy in the early 1760s. In that work, Darjes surveys the four primary inclinations or characters (Gemüther) as follows: “[W]e are convinced that in general only four particular grounds are possible, according to which human beings can judge the agreement of things with their perfections. The pleasure of the senses, the attainment of honor, the acquisition of temporal goods, and the liberation from occupations. Whoever is accustomed to judge the good from whether it can please his senses, he is called sanguine; whoever is accustomed to judge the good from whether it can increase his temporal goods, he is called melancholic; whoever is accustomed to judge the good from whether it can promote his honor, he is called choleric; and finally whoever is accustomed to judge the good from whether it can liberate him from occupations, he is called phlegmatic” (§146, pp. 108–9). Whereas Thomasius associates the phlegmatic character type with virtue, Darjes views it as susceptible to laziness (Faulheit) (§153, p. 112). Accordingly, he states that “a phlegmatic human being is held back by his particular inclination from entering the path toward virtue” (§149, p. 110). Tetens adopts this assessment of the phlegmatic (see p. 106).   In his Logic oder Denkungswissenschaft, Tetens’s teacher Johann Christian Eschenbach (1719–58) describes only three of these as chief inclinations: sensuality, the thirst for honor, and avarice (1756, §66, p. 117). He describes them more fully in his Metaphisic oder Hauptwissenschaft (1757, §56, pp. 193–5).] 17 [The four conic sections are the four curved figures (circle, ellipse, parabola, and hyperbola) that can be constructed by a plane’s slicing through two cones stacked apex to apex.] 18 [See note 12 on p. 85 above.] 19 [Here begins the second part of the essay, which appeared in the thirty-seventh installment of the Mecklenburgische Nachrichten, Fragen und Anzeigen. Sunday, October 30, 1762, pp. 318–19.] 20 [Here and following, Tetens appears to use quotation marks to indicate his own philosophical theses, which are Wolffian in character. Many of these resemble the claims made by Sulzer, who explicitly follows Wolff in his account of the nature of the soul (1751, p. 61; 1762, p. 11).]

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The object at which its drive and at the same time its free inclinations aim21 319 are its inner changes, of which it is conscious. Although it may actually operate outside itself in the body, it never intentionally determines itself to do so without either being conscious that a change it seeks thereby arises in it at the same time, or having already seen from afar that it will undergo future changes of which it will be conscious. Even when it operates unintentionally, it always effects inner changes at the same time as it does outer ones. Does anything other than this happen when we want a thing,22 or have an inclination for it?—namely, the soul determines itself to operate, and its nearest or remote aim is that it wants to feel this or that anticipated change. We do not intentionally move our limbs so far as we are conscious of ourselves, or we have the aim to place our body and the things outside of us in such 325 a position that they produce in us a sensation or a representation.

Drives and inclinations are not one and the same matter, if the latter are ascribed to the willing power of the soul. The former are not free, but the latter are. In what follows, the expressions I use will not be indeterminate if one remembers this remark. In my view, the soul is a thinking power. Its power is a constant endeavor, or a constant drive to operate; and all its abilities for thinking are likewise drives to think, or to 319 speak more exactly: each determinate ability is the power of the soul itself, insofar as it endeavors to act in this determinate manner. But this thinking power, as well as each of its drives, has moreover this attribute: it can as it pleases, entirely freely determine itself to an object and also can refrain from the same; it can turn itself to the right and also to the left; and indeed in just that moment and in just those circumstances in which it does the former, it can also perform the latter. Most call this ability to be able to determine itself the faculty of desire, or the willing faculty, or the will in a broader sense; and one locates its freedom in the fact that, when it thus determines itself, it also can refrain and determine itself otherwise. An elastic spring that is flexed together endeavors to extend itself and to push away the body that wants to compress it; but what it lacks is that, in these circumstances, it can neither apply and steer itself to another body, nor reduce or increase its pressure; it has therefore no freedom. Now, if the power of the soul applies itself to an idea of some matter, then it determines itself first, and also at the same time already begins to operate, or its drive shows itself immediately. Now that drive, when the soul’s power has freely determined itself, although not without ground or by accident, is a free inclination; if it has not freely acted, or if it was not possible for it to determine itself differently in all circumstances, then its inclination was not free—as when there is a strong affect—at least not immediately, although this lack of freedom can perhaps have its ground in freedom of a remote sort. If the drive for thinking is determined to the idea, then this drive operates and is a thinking ability; but while transitioning from idea to idea, that ability determines itself in each transition, and this again can happen freely. But if the representation of the object is completely ready, and the actuality of the object outside it seems possible and good to the soul, then it determines itself once again to produce this object or, to speak psychologically, to produce the idea of its actuality. Some properly call this last act of determining some matter the will of said matter; previously, when the soul determined itself merely to the idea of that matter, it applied, according to some people’s way of speaking, its spontaneity [Wilkürlichkeit], or as others say, it wanted, it desired the representation of the matter. The soul is able not only to steer a drive from one matter to another, but also to prevent a determinate drive from operating and to employ another. It can apply itself to anything from trivialities to important truths; it can let its fantasy rest and exert the understanding; but both presuppose representations entering it from outside. But left to itself, it will constantly, and generally as much as is possible, determine itself, such that it need not force itself; that is, its inclinations will be in accordance with its drives.   [Drives and inclinations were treated as one and the same by both Darjes (1750, §147, p. 109) and Eschenbach (1757, §52, pp. 183–4). The “some people” Tetens refers to seems to be Eschenbach, who identifies Willkürlichkeit with spontaneitatem (1757, §36, p. 122).] 22 [Sache] 21

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§6.23 “The soul wants to be conscious of this inner alteration.” If the monads of the great Leibniz, which are supposed to be the elements of bodies, are actual, then these representing powers of our thinking substance are indeed distinguished in this respect; some feel that they are changed; others do not.24 With respect to the soul’s pleasure or displeasure, what it does not feel may just as well not exist. If, on the other hand, the soul knows or feels that it is in possession of certain goods, and if these likewise are only chimeras of its power of imagination, then it is pleased and soothed by those that are imagined just as much as by those that are real, but only so long as it does not become aware that it is deceived. One can therefore say: “The fundamental drive and the natural inclination of the soul have as their object the consciousness of changes, which, precisely because it wants itself to become aware of them, must exist within its very self.”25 The soul wants to possess them. And if one wishes to follow the philosophers in calling these changes representations and in calling the representations that are connected with consciousness thoughts, then one 326 can say in short: “the drive and the inclination of the soul aim at thoughts,” at that for which its power is naturally disposed. “Sensations” can and must, in such case, be numbered among thoughts. Some wish to find an essential distinction between these two species of changes. They can explain why their opinion is correct in the following manner: If thoughts, in a restricted sense, are opposed to sensations, then they are nothing but separated, connected, and—in a word—processed inner or outer sensations.26 The soul occupies itself with both, and both are changes that it seeks; only in sensing is it effective in a variety of ways with less effort; in thoughts it has somewhat more work to perform. Hence, one does well to distinguish the drive for sensations from the drive for thoughts proper, which are different from sensations. This distinction is noteworthy in the inquiry into the reason27 why the soul occasionally prefers thoughts to sensations; but I do not need it here. The inclination which lies at the foundation of both of the above is this: “The soul wants to be conscious of the effects of its power, of its changes, or of its ideas.” §7. In order to clarify somewhat further this representation of the fundamental drive of the soul, I wish to add the following. The changes that occur in the soul are of two kinds. To these belong: first, its very actions, which it undertakes when it processes ideas; next, the objects of its operations. It compares the square of the hypotenuse of a right-angled rectilinear triangle with the sum of the squares of the sides, until it understands their equality. We find within the soul pictures of the magnitudes of which it is conscious; these are in fact its ideas; it compares them, arranges them,28 and is conscious that it does this. Its operations consist in those things. Likewise, when

[Here begins the third part of the essay, which appeared in the thirty-eighth installment of the Mecklenburgische Nachrichten, Fragen und Anzeigen. Sunday, November 6, 1762, pp. 325–7.] 24 [See Leibniz’s Monadology (1720, §14, pp. 7–8).] 25 [Closing quotation mark missing in the original.] 26 [Sensationen] 27 [Ursache] 28 [setzet sie herum] 23

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it produces the idea of a pentagon, the picture—or whatever one wants to call it—is properly the change through which the soul distinguishes this figure from others; the object of its operation is properly the idea; paying attention, the reflection; and comparing, the operation. The words representation and idea or thought are taken here in such a broad sense that all these changes are comprehended under them. Thus, the drive toward thoughts, or toward representations of which the soul is conscious, encompasses everything. However, two parts can be distinguished in this drive: (1) The drive toward changes, and (2) the inclination toward consciousness of them. The soul is a fire that not only burns but also wants to know and feel that it burns. Without the latter neither pleasure nor happiness would take place. Both of these attributes are inseparable in the human soul; but nevertheless different such that the one is not necessarily found in a strength equal to the other. Human souls can be imagined whose natural ability for changes is very great but associated with a weak consciousness. On the other hand, the feeling of its own self may well be strong when the first power is weak, and as a result of this, as much pleasure could accrue to such a spirit as it would have to otherwise lack due to the weakness of the first ability. If one looks a little more precisely at what the drive of the human soul aims at, then one will become aware that what it seeks is its perfection and the feeling of such.29 A thinking being is indisputably more perfect, the more ideas it can form, the 327 faster it can think, and the longer it can continue operating. Now, if it is conscious that it is changed and thinks, then it is conscious of the perfection of which it is capable. Its natural drive therefore aims at the consciousness of its well-being in general, but this drive does not direct the soul to the objects30 in which to find it.31 Without reason, this drive would lead it randomly to the first, best footpath, without inquiring whether this path leads to the swamp or to the desired location. The objects in which the soul finds nourishment for this drive—where there is diversity in unity, and the soul can therefore survey many things all at once—are found by it to be agreeable and beautiful. By contrast, everything is repugnant, in both sensations as well as in thoughts, within which the soul cannot orient itself due to disorder, or which gives the soul little to ponder due to its fruitlessness. In my opinion, the aforementioned Hr. Pr. Sulzer has demonstrated this clearly in his incomparable Treatise on Sensations,32 and it agrees with experience in such a way that the more one pays attention to the aims and judgments of human beings and inquires into their grounds, the more one recognizes the correctness of these 337 thoughts.

29 [Cf. Leibniz’s claim in the Theodicy that the will strives for perfection and that pleasure is a sensation of perfection (1744, §33, p. 185).] 30 [Objecte] 31 [Cf. pp. 43 and 86.] 32 [There is no work by Sulzer with this exact title. It is likely that Tetens meant Sulzer’s Theorie der angenehmen und unangenehmen Empfindungen, in particular the second section (1762, pp. 35–48). Also see note 5 on p. 94 above.]

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§8.33 If after this consideration we return to our portraits, then we find in all depictions of the human being’s inclinations this essential feature: The soul wants to have ideas and to be conscious of them. It has different abilities, which are nothing other than drives; it freely determines itself to work with each. If one among them is especially strong, and if the soul works in this or that way more easily and more quickly, then the application of this ability provides multiple and easier changes, as well as more consciousness of the soul’s perfection. Hence, it will want to operate with this drive over others. The inclination for working with this drive will be the most intense. If one calls the collection of all one’s inclinations taken in their proportional magnitudes—without regard to the particular objects with which they are occupied—the temperament of the soul,34 then that is what one knows when one knows the mentality of a human being. A certain number of particular abilities; a certain number of inclinations, determinations, or tendencies of these abilities; those with a certain magnitude, the others with another. “The chief inclination, or the 338 dominant determination of the soul’s power, is for these to work in tandem with the chief ability.” If the mentality of the human being were imprinted on the front side, and its inclinations on the back side, then to each feature in the former there would stand opposite a proportional feature in the latter. Out of all human beings, let us take notice of only the one for whom the faculty of reflection is the strongest. Whatever species of things he tends toward, in whatever way of life he thrives, he will always seek most, from among all the forms of work available to him, those in which he can most employ his ability. If he is a farmer, he will take more pleasure in the calculation of his expenses and income; he will rather think over expected profits and losses than perform the manual labor itself; and generally he will most prefer to occupy himself with all those things for which there is much to reflect on; and then when perchance these do not present themselves, he will also undertake others. Suppose he is a statesman or scholar, and he becomes acquainted with the different kinds of objects with which he can occupy himself in this condition, and he chooses freely. It is soon clear where his choice will fall. “In general, the objects of his inclination, when chosen from among those that are equally well known to him, will always be those whereby he can best put into effect his chief ability.” It is possible, and it often happens, that he mistakenly tends toward things in which he does not find as much what he is looking for as he would in other things, had he chosen them. He can even subsequently remain with the former, although he comes to know those that are actually more suitable for him. But the cause that moved him to determine his power toward these things was the delusion that he would be able to find in them the best nourishment for35 his drive, to operate most

[Here begins the fourth part of the essay, which appeared in the thirty-ninth installment of the Mecklenburgische Nachrichten, Fragen und Anzeigen. Sunday, November 13, 1762, pp. 337–9.] 34 [Meier characterizes the temperament of the soul as follows: “Insofar now each human being is inclined to a certain kind of object for our faculty of desire, one accordingly calls this character (Gemüthsart) the temperament of the soul, or the mixture of the mind’s inclinations (Gemüthsneigungen)” (1757, §722, p. 405).] 35 [Reading für for vor.] 33

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strongly, to receive the most and clearest ideas, and to feel his own efficacy most vividly. For that very reason, he sticks with them; he is now simply accustomed to these kinds of ideas; he thinks them easily and swiftly, and now avoids the trouble of dealing with yet new ones. It is not properly the objects that a human being seeks; rather it is that attribute in them through which they most and most easily put one’s soul into effect. That is also why there is almost no kind of trade in which not every soul—were it led to this trade and knew of no better one suited to it—would find its occupation and pleasure. The exception is when there exists an extraordinary genius, for whom everything else is too arid or too narrow, for whom everything becomes disgusting and tired, and who then wanders and searches until he discovers the point around which there is sufficient space for his sphere of operation. §9. Hence, one would have to divide up human beings first according to their abilities if one wanted then to bring them into classes according to their inclinations. The former are endlessly various36 in both their magnitudes and their proportions. That is why the classification can be made on different grounds. Above all, it would be necessary for the cognitive abilities to be subordinated to one another more exactly than is commonly done.37 The power of imagination, the poetic faculty, and memory diverge less from one another than they do from wit and the ability to distinguish; that is why not everything can be viewed as an immediate species of a genus, to use an abbreviated formula common in logic. First, the chief boughs38 must be sought out, then the subsidiary boughs, and so forth, and in this way the genealogy of inclinations would be similar to the genealogical tree39 of abilities. One customarily classifies the cognitive power into 339 superior and inferior.40 If this classification were fully in accordance with nature, then we would have two species of minds or chief inclinations; and this division has also been assumed where one apportions minds into the noble, elevated,41 and lower sensible.42 I wish presently to pursue none of the possible divisions

[unendlich verschieden] [Reading geschieht for geschicht.] 38 [Tetens often employs the classic image of a genealogical tree, with its root (Wurzel), trunk (Stamm), chief or main boughs (Haupt-Aeste), subsidiary boughs (Neben-Aeste), and branches (Zweige). See pp. 117 and 184.] 39 [Stammbaum] 40 [See Baumgarten’s Metaphysics (2013, §520, p. 202 and §624, p. 228).] 41 [erhabene. This could be translated as “sublime,” but given Gottsched’s usage (see the next note), we have decided to stay with the more literal “elevated,” which leaves its identity with the sublime up to interpretation.] 42 [This seems to be a reference to the classification made by the German philosopher and critic Johann Christoph Gottsched (1700–66), who was generally a follower of the Wolffian philosophy. In his Versuch einer Critischen Dichtkunst vor die Deutschen (1730) (Attempt at a Critical Poetics for Germans), Gottsched writes: “Now, once we know what the poetic manner of writing consists in, we must afterward also divide it into its classes. But here, I will be permitted to remain with the three manners that I already presented in my Rhetoric: namely, one is the natural or low; the second is the ingenious, high, acute or inspired; and the third is the pathetic, fiery, affective or intense manner of writing” (p. 289). According to Gottsched, these three manners of writing arise from three different sorts of minds. As he further explains, the lower form 36

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of this kind but rather to supply another, which agrees most with those that are customary and well known. 91 §8.43 If, after the previous remarks, one returns to the inclinations of human beings, then this general inclination will be found among them without exception. The soul wants to have representations and to be conscious of them. One can more exactly determine which kind of representations it is that the human being seeks. The soul has still more attributes than those belonging to every representing being as such; it is a human soul. It has reason; it has a lower faculty of knowledge; it is also united with a body, whose well-being it views as its own, and whose alterations it can sense. As spirit, it strives for representations of perfection; as a sensibly thinking being, for representations of beauty; and as a being that is united with the body, for agreeable corporeal sensations. Yet at present I do not make use of this classification. My aim permits me to stop at the general inclination. §9. If one combines with this the proposition mentioned previously—that the different abilities of the soul are nothing but drives for this or that manner of operating—then one will easily hit upon these conclusions: (a) As many particular drives can be thought to exist in the soul as there are different abilities within it, and the former will be as great as the latter. (b) If a certain ability is the strongest of all, then the soul will endeavor to apply it the most. Its strongest inclination will be to work with this dominant ability; and the application of this ability will afford the strongest consciousness of the soul’s perfections. (c) Hence, when the human being is left alone, the objects toward which his chief inclination tends will always be the ones, chosen from among those familiar to him, that best put into effect his chief ability. For it is not properly the objects that are of

is a natural style satisfied with moderate charms and pleasant phrases; the second is “ingenious, elevated [erhabene], and splendid” and “consists purely of allusions, original thoughts, peculiar metaphors, similes, acute expressions brief in compass; all of which, however, withstand the test of reason” (p. 293); and, finally, the third “arises from all motions of the mind and is, as it were, their language” is “full of figures of speech, and venturesome expressions … but contains nothing of ingenious conceits, similes or other devices,” and “appears more to thunder and lightning, than to speak” (p. 299). Somewhat unexpectedly given the association of the elevated (erhabene, often translated as “sublime”) with the second, it is in the third that the sublime most resides, according to Gottsched. In a footnote to later editions (e.g., 1751), Gottsched claims his division is the same as that drawn by the French Jesuit rhetorician, Blaise Gisbert (1657–1731) between “la Simplicité, l’agrement, & l’elevation,” and thus between “le simple, l’agreable, le sublime,” and that drawn by Cicero and Quintilian between “docere, delectare and movere” (p. 357). This division is slightly different from that offered later by the German philosopher and follower of Leibniz and Wolff, Alexander Gottlieb Baumgarten (1714–62), who in his Aesthetica (1750), distinguishes between three sorts of minds, or the tenue, medium, and sublime cogitandi genus (i.e., the plain or thin, the medium, and the sublime) (§§230–311), based upon a comment found in the ancient author and poet Decimius Magnus Ausonius (c. 310–c. 395): “trinum dicendi genus est: sublime, modestum / et tenui filo” (lines 66–67), which occurs in the latter’s poem Graphus ternarii numeri (Riddle of the Number Three).] 43 [Here begins the fifth part of the essay, which appeared in the twenty-third installment of the Gelehrte Beyträge zu den Mecklenburg-Schwerinschen Nachrichten. Sunday, June 4, 1763, pp. 91–2. The section numbers of the original repeat 8 & 9.]

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any concern to the human being, but rather that attribute in them that most easily occupies his power of representation. §10. One must therefore first divide up human beings according to the difference of their abilities for thinking, if one wants to then bring them into classes according to the difference of their minds. That can be done in a variety of ways, and besides the already customary divisions many others can be produced; but I pass over all of these and turn myself toward the one that I prefer above the rest, for the reason that the classes of human beings that arise from it agree most with the customary manner of dividing up human beings according to their temperaments. §11. The soul’s power of representation is of a determinate magnitude. Now, either it is determined by nature to apply its entire force upon one or a few ideas more than to dissipate its force all at once upon many ideas, or it has a stronger drive to 92 strive to produce several ideas all at once, than to process only one or a few. In other words, it is suited either more for intensive than extensive clarity or, conversely, more for the latter than the former.44 When it is very notable, the first attribute could be called a species of stiffness and the latter a slipperiness, if one wanted to employ such corporeal expressions, which one has already become accustomed to in psychology. An intermediate genus does not occur. In each species, however, there are infinitely many different degrees of these attributes. Each of these species can in turn be divided up into two subspecies. The soul’s power of representation is, namely, either notably great or notably weak in its arrangement. Thus arise four classes that can be further divided, which, however, I pass over. I have still to mention only the chief characters of each species. §12. The first class of human beings distinguishes itself by the fact that the soul’s power of representation is remarkably strong, and according to its nature, more determined to apply itself to one or a few objects, than to spread itself over several. It is easy to foresee how plants produced from such a seed will be constituted. In the manner of thinking of such people, there must necessarily be found a sort of intensity; this will often break out into a storm, which, however, at once seizes the soul more intensely, the sooner it breaks. Ideas will be deeply imprinted on such a power of imagination, and consequently it is difficult for them to be extinguished; not without effort will they be renewed, but when this occurs, they come forth again with a great liveliness. Hence the drive for fury, for the thirst for revenge, and indeed for one that is lasting; hence the steadfastness in opinions and decisions, which so often is stubbornness and willfulness. The strong power of imagination vividly feels its own operation, hence the imagination of oneself, and the passions flowing therefrom. The inclination must naturally tend more toward those objects through the representation of which one’s attention is strongly seized and the mind

44 [In his Metaphysics, Baumgarten explains that a thought’s extensive clarity depends on the quantity of marks in the thought, whereas a thought’s intensive clarity depends on the quality of the clarity of the marks contained in the thought (§531, p. 204).]

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is agitated and so to speak enchained, than toward those objects that distract it. This is the reason why the great, sublime, and dreadful ideas of cliffs and abysses, of the war of thunder and lightning, of towering oceans, and so forth, are, as it were, the pet representations of such people, wherein they find more appeal than in the gentler and lighter representations of hills and plains, of zephyrs and trickling streams. If these natural inclinations turn into proficiencies through exercise— which, however, can be promoted or preserved by many contingent causes—then the characters of such human beings will be those that the ancients ascribed to the choleric temperament. If, however, the power of imagination is a little more flexible, and if dreadful and sad representations have the upper hand in the soul, then one has the character that the ancients called a melancholic. If the soul’s power of representation is weak and its previously determined constitution remains the same, then its drives and inclinations will also be only weak and barely notable. Here belongs the kind of people that one did not know where to place according to the old classification, the kind who possess very slight abilities, but which when they tend toward an object, work at it with great patience and persistence, and through the stubbornness of their diligence often overcome 93 difficulties that would have to overwhelm much stronger powers. §13.45 The second class is opposed to the first. Its power of representation is more determined to spread itself over many things simultaneously, than to occupy itself with one or a few above others. It is like a stream that stretches across a plain and hence has less depth than breadth. People of this kind are more suited to those performances that require an attentiveness directed at several objects, than to others where one must penetrate more deeply into the nature of the matter in order to obtain one’s aim. Ideas arise in them quickly in great abundance yet do not take hold for long but rather are obscured and displaced by others. Hence comes their usual fickleness, changeability, and swiftness in decisions, which is greater than their steadfastness in the execution of them. Their inclination tends above all toward agreeable objects, which allow the soul to survey many things simultaneously but without much effort, as well as toward pleasure more than toward honor. In short, such a human being has the character that the ancients ascribe to those of sanguine temperament. If the representing power is weaker than average with respect to this constitution, then this is the predisposition of those minds that desire to occupy themselves with nothing but things that afford them lively and agreeable alterations without the slightest effort. For the most part, they tend toward merely sensible pleasures, and among them most of all toward that genus in whose enjoyment the soul can behave most passively. If to this is added, as commonly occurs,46 a body so constituted 94 that it cannot be strongly roused without some adverse sensation, then this is the

[Here begins the sixth and final part of the essay, which appeared in the twenty-fourth installment of the Gelehrte Beyträge zu den Mecklenburg-Schwerinschen Nachrichten. Sunday, June 11, 1763, pp. 93–5.] 46 [Reading geschieht for geschicht.] 45

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phlegmatic, for whom the lack of appropriately strong drives for activity constitutes the drive toward rest. §14. The following should also be noted about this classification: (1) If one wishes to determine to which species any particular human being must be accounted, then what matters is not so much whether his power of representation produces such effects and in such a manner as was mentioned in the preceding, but much rather whether the soul endeavors more strongly to operate in this manner than in the opposite. Every human being possesses a drive partly for extensive and partly for intensive clarity of ideas. The latter can be as strong as it commonly is in those for whom this drive rules, and yet the former can nevertheless still have the upper hand; and this is what matters if its species is to be determined. A lake has a greater breadth than depth, and nevertheless its depth is still as great as the depth of rivers, although for the lake the breadth is the greatest and for the river the depth. (2) A human being, who belongs to a certain species, does not in every case choose the objects that are most in accordance with his fundamental drive. Ignorance of whether there are better things for47 him and necessity often bring him to things that do not best agree with his manner of thinking and his drives. If afterward he becomes accustomed to them, then he does not abandon them so easily. Only in the case where the ability for a kind of performance is overwhelmingly great, as with extraordinary mentalities, is the human being not so easily contented until he encounters the objects appropriate to him; the genius wanders around, and goes from one object to another, until he comes to the point at which he locates the proper place for48 his efficacy. (3) The innate constitution of the power of representation does not easily change, especially when it strongly outweighs opposing things. The dominant inclination can manifest itself more or less; ultimately it always retains the upper hand. Follow the human being from childhood up to old age, from the lowest rank to the greatest position of honor: one will not, to be sure, always find him as at variance with himself as the outer differences make him appear to be. He may believe as a youth that to enjoy sensible pleasures is life, as a man that honor is the greatest good, and in old age that the greatest happiness consists in wealth. Although the difference is indeed great, it is only apparent. The youth was already intense, steadfast, and wanted to shine in his pleasure. In the man, the drives found their proper domain, and in old age they fell upon money as the best means to provide security for his acquired reputation. §15. In order to elucidate further the classification here constructed, it would still be necessary to investigate the customary ones, which have been derived from the different constitutions of the body and from the differences in objects toward which human beings’ inclinations tend, and to show how they could best be combined

[Reading für for vor.] [Reading für for vor.]

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with this classification, so that the division would be more complete. The charm that investigations of this kind afford would entice me to get involved, and the importance of the matter would only guarantee that it would not be done without benefit. After all, what matters to us more? A correct classification of human minds, which lets us survey distinctly their general similarities together with their differences and 95 variations? Which gives us the opportunity to discover the first sources of both their foolish as well as their laudable sentiments49 and efforts! Or a correct and systematic classification of insects, snails, plants, and kinds of ore? Great efforts are applied to the latter; and this is certainly not futile; but should the former be less deserving of our diligence? Yet since I have already far exceeded the limits prescribed by the purpose of these pages, I must here break off and leave the further elaboration of the whole matter to another opportunity.

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On the Principles and Benefit of Etymology (1765)1 §1. Research into words is an occupation that inspires wit and imagination; sets the 53 understanding into a gentle motion; requires no sustained exertion in any single matter; pleasantly distracts the mind; and, because it deals with probabilities and with conjectures, also accustoms us to the approval of truths other than those that can be demonstrated geometrically. It guides us in history and is very nearly our sole source of light when we search history’s most remote and obscure regions for the first origin and kinship of nations, for the genesis and childhood of human languages and knowledge; for this reason, it also presents the philosophical eye—whose gaze is directed not only to individual human beings, but also to the entire species and its fate—with a multitude of instructive and pleasant prospects. Among foreigners, it furnishes the adornment and reputation of the language and nation to which it is applied. Hence, I know not whether there is an occupation better fit to fill the leisure time of those whose chief business keeps the understanding shackled to the chain of interlinked general sciences. §2. But research into words is not becanizing.2 To collect together from dictionaries, geographies, and histories the general denominations of things, as well as the proper names of cities, rivers, mountains, countries, human beings, and so forth; to add, throw out, append, and transpose syllables and letters, to invent metonyms, synecdoches, and metaphors; to tear and break apart the word until one finally finds the root words in this or that language, or the simple syllables, from which it could

[The first six sections of this article first appeared in the fourteenth volume of the Gelehrte Beyträge zu den Mecklenburg-Schwerinschen Nachrichten on Sunday, April 6, 1765.] 2 [beckanisieren, meaning etymological quackery and in some cases chauvinism. After Jan van Gorp van der Beke (1519–73), Latinized to Johannes Goropius Becanus, a Dutch doctor and humanist scholar. Tetens is imitating Leibniz’s similar coinage in the New Essays (1765): “THEO. … In general, one should put no trust in etymologies unless there is a great deal of concurrent evidence; to do otherwise is to goropize. PHIL. Goropize? What does that mean? THEO. The strange and often ridiculous etymologies of the learned sixteenth-century physician, Goropius Becanus, have become proverbial; although, on the other hand, he was not far wrong in claiming that the Germanic language which he called the Cambric has even more marks of the primitive than Hebrew” (Leibniz 1996, III.ii.1, p. 285).] 1

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have been derived or composed; that means seeing the words as wax from which one can form whatever one wants. In such a way, it is easy—with Goropius Becanus, a doctor in the sixteenth century—to derive everything in ancient mythology and 54 the history of the Greeks, Romans, Orientals, and all words of all languages in the world from the Gothic and Cimbrian, or with Rudbeck,3 Stiernhielm4 and others, from the Swedish language. Hermann von der Hardt,5 who conjured the whole of Hebrew out of Greek; Prasch,6 who conjured Latin from German; Erich,7 a German by birth and a professor at Padua, who conjured all European languages from Egyptian and Greek; and a multitude of others did not do much better. In such a way, one can make quidvis ex quovis.8 Even in the best etymologists there are found, here and there, equally peculiar derivations; but a great distinction must be made between the bold flight of fancy that occasionally strays from the path, and the common wit, which entirely loses itself in such chimeras, feeds upon them, and, with a serious mien, foists upon us conceits as if they are important discoveries. However, one must be fair and remember that even among the tares there is yet wheat to be found.9

[Olof (or Olf or Olaus) Rudbeck, Latinized to Olaus Rudbeckius (1630–1702), Swedish natural scientist and philologist, famous for his 4 vol. Atland eller Manheim/Atlantica sive manheim (1675–98), which argued from supposed linguistic evidence that, among other things, Sweden was the original Atlantis and the cradle of civilization.] 4 [Georg Stiernhielm (more correctly, Stjernhjelm; 1598–1672), Swedish poet, philosopher, mathematician and philologist. His philological writings are scattered and rare, and thus were probably known to Tetens only second-hand, except for the important edition and translation of the Codex argenteus, titled D. n. jesu christi ss. evangelia ab ulfila (1671). Stiernhielm lays out many of his characteristic views on the subordination of languages in the preface to this volume.] 5 [German historian and orientalist, friend of the evangelical theologian August Hermann Franke (1663– 1727), who lived from 1660 to 1746. His main work in linguistics is Hebrææ linguæ fundamenta (1694).] 6 [Johann Ludwig Prasch (1637–90), German poet, linguist, and legal scholar, who spent the greater part of his energies trying to establish German linguistic chauvinism. In his Dissertatio, de orgine germanica latinæ linguæ (1686) (Dissertation on the Germanic Origin of the Latin Language) and Dissertatio altera, de origine germanica latinæ linguæ (1689), he attempts to establish that Latin, and therefore Italian, French, and Spanish originate from German. In a short tract titled Unvorgreifflicher Entwurff der höchstrühmlichen Teutschliebenden Gesellschaft (1680) (Non-binding Plan of the Most Honorable Society of the Lovers of the German Language), Prasch extends this claim to include Greek as well, based in part on the work of Rudbeck.] 7 [Johann Peter Erich, Latinized to Johannes Petrus Ericus (1641–1706), German etymologist, also a friend and correspondent of Leibniz (see Carhart 2019, pp. 17–18; also, Schulenburg 1973). His main work in linguistics is AN𝛩P𝛺𝛱O𝛤𝛬𝛺TTO𝛤ONIA sive humanæ linguæ genesis (1697). He also authored Renatum è mysterio principium philologicum (1686).] 8 [I.e., whatever one wants from whatever one wants. The phrase was used somewhat regularly by Leibniz, and Tetens’s use of it here is a subtle allusion to Leibniz’s comments on a letter by Paul-Yves Pezron (1639–1706) in Collectanea etymologica (1717), pp. 69–75, but esp. p. 71. Tetens refers directly to this work in On the Origin of Languages and Writing; see note 14, p. 113, in this volume. Curiously, the same phrase is used in a well-known letter, first published in 1713, by the English philologist and theologian Richard Bentley (1662–1742), which concerns in part the etymological practices of Jan van Gorp van der Beke, someone referred to in similar terms by both Leibniz and Tetens; see The Classical Journal: For March and June, 1817, vol. XV, pp. 171–4.] 9 [An allusion to the so-called Parable of the Tares found in Matthew 13:24-30.] 3

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§3. Etymology must have its logic and its secure general precepts taken from the nature of the matter itself. What is its aim? It seeks out the kinship and genealogy of the words in the language. All its tasks with respect to simple words can generally be reduced to this: When a word is given along with the thing that it indicates, to find the branch of words to which it belongs, and when this is determined, to find the distant stem, and from this the root, from which it sprouted. With respect to composite words, it is necessary to find the simples of which it consists; for then these simples are regarded as the elements beyond which one generally demands nothing further. The chief point here is this, that there is one and the same ancestral tree for the words, considered as external signs or as tones, as there is for their meanings: In the same way that the tones relate to other tones, so ought the ideas that are assigned to them depend upon and flow from one another. This investigation can limit itself to one language alone, or extend itself to several related languages, e.g., to the European, or in the superior part of etymology, even to all. To perfectly attain this aim, it would be necessary to be furnished with complete dictionaries. In these, not only would the meanings of the words still in use need to be precisely determined, but they would also have to be organized according to the root words that are extant. For this, there yet must be glossaries at hand, in which one finds the words that have already died out, alongside their meanings, which latter have already been lost or from which the words have partially strayed; to which must be added the idiotica,10 which have still retained many a root word, or even otherwise extinguished traces of them. Moreover, if we then had in addition dictionaries of languages of those nations that were drawn to certain corners of the earth and endured few changes, and so have for the most part retained the ancient root words in their language (such as those of the Irish, Finnish, the Lapps, the inhabitants of Wales, and the Scots Gaels), then the ancient languages and their changes could be better known, and one would be able to come quite close to the first elements of languages and to the natural tones, which are the seeds of all words. For, nothing hinders the etymologist more than that so very few ruins of 55 the ancient languages remain. Except for Latin and Greek, one possesses no book in a European language that would be older than the famous Codex argenteus of Ulfilas,11 although now and again there are a few runestones in the north to which one can probably ascribe a still greater antiquity.

[Idiotica, pl. form of idioticon, meaning a word belonging exclusively to a particular dialect. “Idioticon” can also refer to a dictionary of idiotica, and the plural of such a dictionary is, somewhat confusingly, thus also “idiotica.” It is unclear to which Tetens is referring, but probably to the dictionary as a whole. Two examples of such dictionaries Tetens might have had in mind are Johann Georg Bock’s (1698– 1762) Idioticon prussicum oder Entwurf eines Preußischen Wörterbuches (1759) and Michael Richey’s (1678–1761) Idioticon hamburgense oder Wörter-Buch, zur Erklärung der eigenen, in und üm Hamburg gebräuchlichen, Nieder-Sächsischen Mund-Art (1755).] 11 [The Codex argenteus, or “Silver Book,” was created in the sixth century CE and remains the earliest known book in the Gothic language. Half the original, consisting of a fourth-century translation of the Gospels, was rediscovered and published in the sixteenth century and has since been attributed to the Gothic theologian and bishop Ulfilas (c. 311–383 CE) or his assistants. Leibniz describes this book at length in the New Essays (Leibniz 1996, III.ii.1, p. 280.)] 10

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§4. Etymology presupposes an analogy within languages between tones and their meanings, such that the former depends on a fundamental tone in the same way that the latter depends on a few fundamental ideas; and where the former ends, the latter has its boundaries. The question is, thus, whether such an analogy may be supposed in words, and how far it may be supposed; since, otherwise, it is to be feared that the etymologist is seeking a square circle. Nothing is more probable than that in the formation of a language a certain natural characteristic was followed, one that would still now be distinctly recognized in languages, if the infinite blendings and changes of peoples and tongues had not broken the original order. A nation that was previously dumb, and now at once attained the use of its tongue along with the use of reason, but was left alone, would in all probability take the following steps in language. They would initially only denote their sensations and objects that most abundantly and forcefully struck the senses; and whose indication through marks is most indispensable to the satisfaction of their natural drives and needs. For this purpose, they would use simple tones, which either, like the tones of animals, would be consequences of the sensations of things; or those whose production required motions and expressions, which to some extent depicted the most striking qualities of objects, and thus stood in a natural connection to these. This would be the first fundamental material of language. With more needs and more knowledge, new objects in which one perceived the same and similar attributes would be assigned the same and similar tones, and differences would be noted with small modifications of the syllables. This is the natural path to language, by which even, in part, the Dutch seafarers arrived at the names of the thirty-two winds.12 §5. Traces and proofs of this are found in actual languages. We still have such words left in ours, which to some extent are pictures of objects, such as rinnen, rieseln, wehen, donnern, flehen, klingen, quaken, brüllen,13 and almost all those with which the sounds of animals are denoted.

[Tetens here refers to the compass rose with thirty-two points or “winds,” each of which has a distinct name. The thirty-two names are built from eight principal names in the following manner: Between every adjacent pair of principal winds, e.g., Greco and Levante, there are evenly spaced three others with names built from those of the principal winds, in this case, Quarto di Greco verso Levante, Greco-Levante, and Quarto di Levante verso Greco. As the Dutch, like most of Europe, employed the Italian names, it appears that Tetens is in error.]

12

[Since Tetens is speaking about the German words as such, it makes sense to leave them untranslated. “Rinnen,” is a very old word, which, according to Adelung, is found already in Ulfilas. Its meaning is roughly to flow continuously and in a way that is unstoppable, like tears or blood, thus somewhere between running and gushing or streaming. Presumably these qualities are expressed in the sudden, rolling and continuous sound of the word. Leibniz also mentions “rinnen” in the New Essays in support of his claims regarding the letter R (Leibniz 1996, III.ii.1, p. 282; see below, note 16 on p. 113). “Rieseln” means roughly to trickle and, like the latter word in English, it indicates an unsteady thin stream. “Wehen” means to blow, like the wind, and has a breathy sound in German. It is also mentioned by Leibniz in the New Essays: “The Teutons and other Celts, in order to indicate motion better, prefixed W to both of them [i.e., A and Ah], so that Wehen and Wind (wind) indicate the movement of air” (Leibniz 1996, III.ii.1, p. 284). “Donnern” is of the same origin as the English “thunder,” with the same qualities. “Flehen,” meaning to supplicate, had an earlier meaning to bend, twist, move about, thus roughly to squirm or flail. It seems to be

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What is more, the stem words in all languages are the simplest, and when a language is richly furnished with such simple words, then this is no small ground for its antiquity, and for its having the honor of being the mother of many others. And this ground has been employed by many who attribute to our German language, or properly to the Celtic from which our German is an unalloyed descendent, an antiquity that extends beyond the Babylonian confusion. Thus also is the opinion not so absurd of those who, with Clauberg, Westhoff, Gerhard Meier, Leibniz, and Eccard,14 located a natural meaning in the letters and 56 demonstrated this with innumerable examples from the German language, just as Neumann and Löscher believed the same of the Hebrew language.15 Accordingly, R is to represent a vigorous motion;16 W or V a gentle one; L a slower one;17 H something high; K T D something that is not straight, but crooked,18 something violent; N a low object; Qv and dv an object that is pulled at or twisted; O and U an obscure, or as I believe, an unpleasant matter in general; but a, e, i will be a sign

based on a similar set of associations as the English “flatter,” but is clearly of a different origin. “Klingen,” meaning to ring, is of the same origin as the English “clink.” “Quacken,” means to quack or croak, and is mentioned by Leibniz as well. In regard to it he states: “It would seem that the noise these animals [i.e., frogs] make is the primordial root of other words in the Germanic language” (Leibniz 1996, III. ii.1, p. 282). He goes on to argue that the vigorousness with which frogs croak is the origin of the further German words for living (quek), to revive (erquicken), quickly spreading weeds (Quäken), and the English “quickly.” This etymology appears, however, to be spurious. “Brüllen” is roughly bellowing.] 14 See Leibnitii Collect. Etymol. P. II excerpta Meieriana. [Many of the following ideas are discussed by Leibniz and the German theologian, pedagogue, and etymologist Gerhard Meier (1616–95) in their correspondence (the so-called Meieriana) published in Leibniz’s Collectanea etymologica (1717), esp. pp. 238–315. Johannes Clauberg (1622–65), German theologian and prominent Cartesian philosopher. The work in question is Ars etymologica teutonum e phlosophia fontibus derivate (1663).   Johann Georg von Eckhart (or Johann Georg Eccard) (1674–1730), German historian and secretary to Leibniz, author of the relevant works Studii etymologici linguæ germanicæ (1711), De origine germanorum (1750) and De usu et præstantia studii etymologici in historia (1707).] 15 [Caspar Neumann (1648–1715), latinized to Casparis Neumanni, German evangelical minister, professor, composer of hymns, who made important contributions to the statistics of mortality rates. His main works on Hebrew etymology are ‫ עבר בּית מפתח‬hoc est clavis domus heber (1711) and ‫ ספר תולדות‬hoc est genesis linguæ sanctæ (1696).   Valentin Ernst Löscher (1673–1749), German Orthodox Lutheran theologian, composer of hymns, and opponent of Pietism. His work on the Hebrew language is De cavis linguae ebraeae (1706).] 16 [This association no doubt originates with Plato’s Cratylus: “Well, the letter rho, as I was saying, appeared to be a fine instrument expressive of motion to the name-giver who wished to imitate rapidity, and he often applies it to motion. In the first place, in the words ῥεῖν (flow) and ῥοή (current) he imitates their rapidity by this letter, then in τρόμος (trembling) and in τρέχειν (run), and also in such words as κρούειν (strike), θραύειν (break), ἐρείκειν (rend), θρύπτειν (crush), κερματίζειν (crumble), ῥυμβεῖν (whirl), he expresses the action of them all chiefly by means of the letter rho; for he observed, I suppose, that the tongue is least at rest and most agitated in pronouncing this letter, and that is probably the reason why he employed it for these words” (Plato, 1921, 426d-e). In the New Essays, Leibniz writes similarly: “It seems that by a natural instinct the ancient Germanic peoples, Celts, and other related peoples have used the letter R to signify violent motion and a noise like the sound of this letter” (Leibniz 1996, III.ii.1, p. 282).] 17 [Again, the New Essays: “Now, just as the letter R signifies a violent motion, the letter L signifies a gentler one” (Leibniz 1996, III.ii.1, p. 283).] 18 [gekrümmt, also meaning bent or winding.]

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of light, or of a bright object, which I prefer to extend to the pleasant in general.19 The motions that are required for the pronunciation of these letters have, namely, the qualities mentioned. And in fact, even if one must admit that these general rules can be countered with many at least apparent exceptions, and also that often cryptic metaphors20 must be permitted in the derivation of words from these primitive or initial signs, still the multitude of examples that one has cited as proof appears to demonstrate this much, namely, that there is neither as much, by far, that is purely arbitrary in our language, nor are the words as free21 with respect to the meanings they bear, as one is commonly convinced. Yet it is notable that the majority of words beginning with the letter R express things with respect to which a somewhat strong motion at once strikes the senses, just like the sound that the pronunciation of this word requires. In my opinion, one must attend not so much to the letters, as much rather to the governing or main tone of the syllable or word, since the sound of a letter is often weakened or strengthened by the sound of the one following. The natural depiction of things must be sought in these root tones, for this indeed often would depend on the consonant alone, or even on the vowel alone, but also frequently on both taken together. I hold this, nevertheless, to be the first principle of etymology,22 and of the philosophical doctrine of language, namely, that the first and oldest words were simple natural tones. §6. For this reason, however, one need not assert that these natural tones must be identical in all nations. The effects of the climate penetrate so deeply into the human being that they make the manner of sensing and of expressing sensations as different as are the strings of different instruments. One nation has a full mouth;23 another speaks more clearly; the Oriental aspirates more strongly than the Occidental; the hard inhabitant of the north can tolerate a combination of more consonants than the softer southern peoples. The Sclavonian,24 Hungarian,25 Pole, and Cossack, sibilate [This association is discussed by Gerhard Meier in a letter to Leibniz; see Leibniz’s Collectanea etymologica (1717), p. 264.] 20 [harte Metaphern, lit. “hard metaphors.” There is no equivalent phrase in English. A contemporary source explains: “A metaphor is called hard, when the image hardly fits the counter-image. Homer ascribes to the cicada an ὄπα λειριόεσσαν [lily-like voice], a lily-like tone (Illiad, 3.152). This appears hard to us, because it is difficult to discover the connection between the image and the counter-image. However, the one who was familiar with the word λειριόεσσαν in the metaphorical meaning of lovely, found no hardness in the Homeric metaphor” (Sulzer 1771–4, vol. 1, p. 520). It is worth noting that scholars are still divided on whether lily-like should be taken in the sense of lovely and sweet, or rather feeble and weak (somewhat as in the English phrase “lily-livered”). Lattimore splits the difference with “delicate voice.”] 21 [gleichgültig, “indifferent.”] 22 [Wortforschung] 23 [nimmt den Mund voll, lit. “takes the mouth full,” which has the same range of possible meanings as “to speak with one’s mouth full” in English.] 24 [Sclavonier, meaning a person from Sclavonia, a region of what is now Croatia but was formerly within the Kingdom of Hungary. Generally, with this list Tetens seems to be referring to speakers of the Slavic languages. Tetens 1971 transcribes this incorrectly as “Selavonier” (p. 9).] 25 [Tetens 1971 transcribes this as “Unger,” which is not a German word (p. 9). The original is unclear and may be a misprint. Correct surely is “Ungar,” or Hungarian.] 19

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more strongly than does the German, just as the Upper Saxon moves the tongue more briskly than the Lower Saxon. Hence, a tone could have been more difficult and unpleasant to this or that nation, which was easier and pleasant to another; and from this could have arisen a difference of languages that extends all the way to the first elements. Therefore, the conceit of those who want to find the essential signs in the Hebrew language, which however are distinct from those that one seeks in German, can consistently coexist with the latter. Were this the case, then it would be a proof that the Oriental languages differ from the Celtic with respect to of their first essence and could not have flowed from a common source.26 57 §7. The languages of different peoples, which have the same natural tones and elements, could nevertheless depart far from one another in the denominations of things. Names followed the impressions that the objects made, and whatever stood out most prominently in the matter was its characteristic and provided it with a title. Here one can suppose a penetrating investigation of the nature of the objects just as little as one can believe that everything has been arrived at purely by chance, or that names have been placed on things as if by the drawing of lots. Based on the analogy with how this now happens with new names—both those that are employed in the arts and sciences and those that occur in common life—we can infer what happened in the beginning: at times accident ruled, for example when the famous Desaguliers assigned the name “Orrery” to the artificial system of the heavens after the eminent connoisseur Mylord Orrery:27 but against one there are a hundred cases in which a prominent, illuminating quality is the ground of denomination. The words already touched upon above, which still possess the original tone itself, are a proof of this. Also to these are to be counted the words ἄω, aer, aura, haugh, haleine, ἀτμός, athmen, Odem, just like the word Luft, and so on.28 One can easily conjecture that a natural rhetoric came along and created synecdoches and metonyms. Yet the natural was contingent and was governed by [Here begins the second part, published in the fifteenth volume on Sunday, April 13, 1764.] [John Theophilus Desaguliers (1683–1744), a French-British natural philosopher and experimental assistant to Newton. Tetens’s understanding of the story is slightly in error, as Desaguliers himself reports in A Course of Experimental Philosophy (1734): “This machine being in the Hands of an Instrumentmaker, to be sent with some of his own Instruments to Prince Eugene, he copied it, and made the first for the late Earl of Orrery, and then several others, with Additions of his own. Sir Richard Steele, who knew nothing of Mr. Graham’s Machine, in one of his Lucubrations, thinking to do justice to the first Encourager, as well as to the Inventor, of such a curious Instrument, call’d it an Orrery, and gave Mr. J. Rowley the Praise do to Mr. Graham” (vol. 1, p. 431).] 28 [The words in this list meant the following: ἄω (Greek, “to blow”), aer (Latin, “air”), aura (Latin, “a breeze”), haugh (probably a mistake, and should be “hough,” an earlier spelling of the English “huff,” “to breathe heavily”) haleine (French, “to breathe”), ἀτμός (Greek, “vapor” or “smoke”), athmen (German, “to breathe,” Odem (German, “breath”), Luft (German, “air”). The list is basically lifted from Leibniz’s New Essays: “A—the first letter of the alphabet—followed by a little aspiration makes Ah, and since this is an emission of air making a sound which begins fairly loudly and then fades away, this sound naturally signifies a mild breath (spiritus lenis) when a and h are not very forceful. This is the origin of ἄω, aer, aura, haugh, halare, haleine, ἀτμός, athem, odem (German)” (Leibniz 1996, III.ii.1, p. 284). We have slightly altered the translation here so that the list of words exactly reflects Leibniz 1765 and can thus be compared to the list in Tetens, which differs in the omission of “halare” and in the changing of “athem” to “athmen.”] 26 27

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infinitely many, and, in part, minor accessory circumstances. Many things had more than one quality that made a claim to the honor of being the main characteristic. One may only marvel at how the same matters carry such different names in peoples of different countries, despite how closely they may be otherwise related, and at how much wit would often be required in order to again trace back the thread 58 of similarity according to which this is carried over from one thing to another—a thread which has been drawn out by fantasy—and thereby to discover the origin of denomination. Now and then, it tips its hand. O depicted a round pronounced thing, hence Oge, Auge, Oculus, Oeil,29 Ochio, Oge, Oeland,30 an island, and from this in turn the Augen,31 or small spheres that oil makes when it floats dispersed on the surface of water. One even used metaphors in giving names to objects that had similar attributes. We still do so today, and almost all the denominations of incorporeal things and their changes are borrowed from the external senses, and from the corporeal world. Such meanings were initially what our Nomina impropria translatitia32 are, but

[The original has “Oiel,” which is silently corrected in Tetens 1971 (p. 10).] [The words in this list mean the following: Oge (Old Dutch, “eye”), Auge (German, “eye”; perhaps should be Auga, which would be Icelandic), Oculus (Latin, “eye”), Oeil (Old French, “eye”), Ochio (Italian, “eye”), Oge (?), Oeland (Swedish, Öland or Oland, an island and province of Sweden).The transcription into a modern typeface has obscured these differences in Tetens 1971 (p. 10). In the New Essays, Leibniz writes: “This [i.e., the relating of the word Auge to water or places that flood, and hence to islands] must have occurred with many Teutonic and Celtic peoples, so that anything which stands isolated in a plain, so to speak, is called Auge or Ouge, oculus. This is what blobs of oil on water are called in German. For the Spaniards Ojo is a hole. But Auge, ooge, oculus, occhio etc. have been applied more especially to the eye, which makes that brilliant, isolated hole in the face; there is no doubt that the French oeil has the same ancestry, but its origin is quite unrecognizable unless one traces it through the successive steps which I have just set out. It appears that the Greek ὄμμα and ὄψις come from the same source. Oe or Oeland is an island among the Northern peoples, and there is some trace of it in Hebrew in which ‫ יא‬Ai is an island” (Leibniz 1996, III.ii.1, pp. 284–5). Again, we have adjusted the translation to reflect the exact printing in Leibniz 1765.] 31 [German, lit. “eyes.”] 32 [Improper or carried-over names. “Translatitia” is from translatio, to transfer, carry over or translate but is usually translated in this context as “metaphorical” or “figurative,” as opposed to “propria,” i.e., literal. Tetens’s source here is unclear. The terminology seems to originate with Augustine’s De doctrina christiana: “Signs are either proper or figurative [vel propria vel translata]. They are called proper when they are used to point out the objects they were designed to point out, as we say bos when we mean an ox, because all men who with us use the Latin tongue call it by this name. Signs are figurative [translata] when the things themselves which we indicate by the proper names are used to signify something else, as we say bos, and understand by that syllable the ox, which is ordinarily called by that name; but then further by that ox understand a preacher of the gospel, as Scripture signifies, according to the apostle’s explanation, when it says: ‘Thou shalt not muzzle the ox that treadeth out the corn’” (Augustine 1887, II.10.15, p. 539). The last lines of Tetens’s paragraph, however, recall Locke’s An Essay Concerning Human Understanding: “It may also lead us a little towards the original of all our notions and knowledge, if we remark, how great a dependence our words have on common sensible ideas; and how those, which are made use of to stand for actions and notions quite removed from sense, have their rise from thence, and from obvious sensible ideas are transferred to more abstruse significations, and made to stand for ideas that come not under the cognizance of our senses; v.g. to imagine, apprehend, comprehend […], etc. are all words taken from the operations of sensible things, and applied to certain modes of thinking. […] and I doubt not, but if we could trace them to their sources, we should find, in all languages, the names, which stand for things that fall not under our senses, to have had their first rise from sensible ideas” (III.i.§5).] 29

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through time and usage they became proper to the things or propria and have been relocated among the innate (nativa). §8. There is a certain similarity in languages with respect to the use of words in an improper meaning. Thus, we can use the majority of words improperly in just the same phrases as the Latins, Greeks, French, and English use them. There is some difference, however, examples of which one can collect from the dictionaries and grammars. If one could reduce it to general rules, then this departure would perhaps lead us further toward the ground of the difference of stem words in languages, the first stuff of which are one and the same natural tones. §9. Languages that have in common with one another yet more stem words beyond the first elements, and in particular the simple ones, stand in a still closer kinship. But in how many different branches can a bough not extend itself? The causes, previously entertained, of the modification of languages, namely, the region of the sky, the constitution of the state, the way of life, customs, nourishment, trade, these penetrate all the way to the core of language, and can even modify the stem words in such a way that the same words become as dissimilar as the human being in its fortieth year is from the newborn. Plato testifies33 that the Greek words πῦρ, ὕδωρ, κύων, κίειν34 stemmed from the ancient inhabitants of Greece, that is, from the Celts. And those who maintain, with much probability, that the Greek, Roman, and German languages are three sisters, all mothered by the Celtic language, conclude that these words mentioned by Plato are fundamentally the same as the Latin ignis, aqua, canis, ire, and the German Feuer, Für, Wasser, Hund, gehen; regardless of the fact that, if one leaves out πῦρ, Feuer, Für, κύων, canis,35 then one no longer finds even a single common root sign among them. §10. Generally, languages are subject to just as many changes as are peoples. The current of time washes away syllables, letters, connections, words, meanings, while also washing up new ones; and this without the people ever leaving their country or being allowed to mix with others. Already by the time of Cicero, the language of

In his Cratylo.   [The reference is to Plato’s Cratylus: “Well, this word πῦρ [i.e., fire] is probably foreign; for it is difficult to connect it with the Greek language, and besides, the Phrygians have the same word, only slightly altered. The same is the case with ὕδωρ (water), κύων (dog), and many other words” (Plato 1921, 410a).] 34 [The original text here is illegible, but this is likely correct. Tetens 1971 has instead κίην. Plato explains in the Cratylus: “First, then, the letter rho seems to me to be an instrument expressing all motion. We have not as yet said why motion has the name κίνησις; but it evidently should be ἴεσις, for in old times we did not employ eta, but epsilon. And the beginning of κίνησις is from κίειν, a foreign word equivalent to ἰέναι (go). So we should find that the ancient word corresponding to our modern form would be ἴεσις; but now by the employment of the foreign word κίειν, change of epsilon to eta, and the insertion of nu it has become κίνησις, though it ought to be κιείνεσις or εἶσις” (Plato 1921, 426c).] 35 [The words in this sentence are of the following significance: ignis, aqua, canis, and ire are Latin, respectively, for “fire,” “water,” “dog,” and “to go,” while Feuer (Für?) Wasser, Hund, and gehen mean the same in German.] 33

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the Twelve Tables36 was largely unintelligible, and who of us understands Otfried, and the still younger language of the middle ages?37 Words no longer have the 59 same sense; today Geduld no longer means Waffenstillstand.38 Bescheiden39 no longer means rational,40 nor bescheidene Jahre,41 age of majority, of which the Glossarium medii aevi Haltausianum42 is full. Even the pronunciation has changed. Thus, Dass sie mich nicht umstossen, Du kannst massen no longer rhymes,43 along with a hundred others that appear in the old hymns. We no longer attribute to a and o, like we once did, a sound mixed of both, as is now still the case among the English and the Danes. Such changes are going on before our eyes. Our writings in the mother tongue can somewhat arrest this course of changes, as it did for the Greek language, and as perhaps also would have happened in the Latin language, if such great changes in the state had not intervened. Good dictionaries and grammars can contribute much to furnishing the language with a kind of proficiency. But never will any of these means make it eternal. §11. There are indeed a few words that offer more resistance to change, and these are the denominations of the most common things, which the human being says too often—and hence which the child learns to repeat too well—for them to be able to be easily lost. Hence, we find that the root tone of every such word has been retained in the majority of the European languages, some even from the ancient Celtic. For example, Essen, eten, ede , ead, edo, ἔδω; Acker, ager, ἀγρός; δαμάω, domo, zähmen, tämen,

[The so-called Lex duodecim tabularum (451–450 BCE), or “[t]he earliest Roman codification or rather collection of the fundamental rules of customary law,” which served as the foundation for later Roman law (Berger 1953, p. 551).] 37 [The reference is presumably to Otfrid of Weissenburg (c. 790–875 CE), the first German poet known by name and the author of the so-called Evangelienbuch, which still survives.] 38 [German, armistice or ceasefire. As today, Geduld meant simply forbearance or patience in Tetens’s time, whereas according to Haltaus (1758, vol. 1, p. 604; see below, note 42) it once meant “dilatio, intermissio belli, induciae,” thus Waffenstillstand.] 39 [German, meaning modest or sensible in Tetens’s time, but having the underlying sense of decide, determine, or distinguish.] 40 [vernünftig, rational, reasonable, sensible, having good judgment.] 41 [According to Haltaus, bescheiden once meant “sapiens, intelligens, discernendi peritus, olim discretus” and bescheidene Jahre, “anni rationis et intelligentiae, quibus iam incipimus sapere i.e. discrimen habere ac delectum rerum” (Haltaus 1758, vol. 1, p. 140; see next note). “Age of discretion” (anni discretus), which is of the same origin as bescheidene Jahre, still exists in English.] 42 [Tetens here refers to the Glossarium germanicum medii aevi (1758, 2 vols.) by the German historian and grammarian Christian Gottlob Haltaus (1702–58).] 43 [These lines come from the Lutheran hymn Ich ruf zu dir, Herr Jesu Christ! (I call to You, Lord Jesus Christ!) attributed to the Protestant Reformer Johannes Agricola (1494–1566), which became a standard in the Evangelischen Gesangbuch. It is remembered in part because it is the text of Bach’s cantata BWV 177, composed in 1732. The lines in question, translate roughly as this: “From casting me down. / You can judge,” (Dürr 1992, p. 423). In the current version of the Evangelischen Gesangbuch, where this hymn is listed as nr. 343, the lines have been altered to rhyme with modern pronunciation.] 36

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tammen,44 and so forth. The collection of these words constitutes the blood of the language, and those in which one finds them abundantly common belong to one and the same family; wherever they are all still together, the language is still the same. §12. The precepts of etymology are grounded on these and similar principles, just as the rules of rational thinking are grounded on the nature of thoughts. If the word and its meaning are provided, then (1) at the start it must be seen whether the word expresses a matter of which one has report that it has been brought to us by other peoples, no matter whether it occurs in common life, or belongs to an art, science, or trade. In this case, the word is a foreign one that was merely grafted onto our language. (2) The composite words that contain more than one stem word are to be distinguished from those that are simple. This can be known from the different dialects, Glossariis, idioticis,45 and from the way in which it is written in several related languages. Gerhard Meier asserts with reason that the word Welt is composite, since Otfried writes it Werold, saeculum, diu durans.46 Leibniz, by contrast, regarded it as a simple word.47 (3) The Nomina propria48 require a consideration of their own. (4) If it is a simple common word, then one must search for all words that have an equal and similar tone, or which even have in common the letters that dominate the sound of the word: further, all of exactly the same, or of similar meaning. In order to get to the first stem word, the neighboring and related languages must also be consulted. Without an extensive knowledge of several languages and an expanded imagination, even a man with the greatest reason will be no etymologist. And yet no one would be able to follow this rule, if all the languages were to be learned that one 60 wished to employ in this regard; if dictionaries and grammars did not fill the place of memory, and in most cases reduce our searching about. (5) In many words, the root letters or tones betray themselves as soon as one compares it with others bearing the very same root. They are like weapons in heraldry. One cannot assert, of course, that they have been retained in every word, since the those that are hard and difficult to pronounce could have been interchanged with other letters, or even cast aside. There are perhaps none at all, or yet very few consonants that were not carelessly interchanged with others, and just as few unchangeable vowels; hence, as I already reminded the reader above, one has to look more at the main tone, than at the letters. If this main tone has been lost, then the word is to be regarded as a recast coin, one on which no trace of its [The words in this list are of the following significance: the first list is German, Dutch, unknown Germanic language, unknown Latin language, Latin, and Greek for “to eat” or “I eat”; the second is German, Latin, and Greek for “field”; the third is Greek, Latin, German, Old English, unknown Germanic language for “to tame.”] 45 [See note 10, on p. 111 above.] 46 [See Meier’s letter to Leibniz in Collectanea etymologica (1717), pp. 249–52. See note 14, on p. 113 above.] 47 [See Leibniz’s response, Collectanea etymologica (1717), p. 255. See note 14, on p. 113 above.] 48 [proper names] 44

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first minting has remained, and which hence cannot be further investigated by itself alone, where no other historical grounds are forthcoming. Hence, one has to consult (6) all the reports that are provided in the history of the word’s fortunes and those of the matter in question; but one must invent none to the very end. These can often furnish a certain probability to derivations that, by themselves, are most unbelievable. Due to the above-mentioned testimony of Plato, some etymologists hold the words κύων, canis, Hund to be one and the same word. The derivation of the name Danubius from don ubel is supported by Eccard based on the testimony of Eustathius.49 Just as what is most probable is often false, so too what is most improbable is often true; and yet it is more rational to follow probability and to err, than to conjecture something absurd, supposing even that one gets it right. (7) All words that agree in both the main tone and in meaning are either the same or belong to the same family, no matter whether they are present in one or in several languages, and the simplest of them is the root. Of such kind are Kopf, Caput, κεφαλή; Huhr, κόρη; Gut, ἀγαθός; Pforte, Poort, Porta, Porte, Port, Door, Düre, Thüre, θύρα; Tochter, θυγατρός, Dotter;50 and innumerable others. (8) One would do well to separate these examples from the rest, and place them, with respect to the probability of their derivation, in the first class. It is based on these that the analogy in the interchange of the letters must be discovered. Not a single derivation can be left to the conceits of unbridled fantasy; each must have a ground that makes it more or less probable.51 (9) The magnitude in the agreement of the tone and the meaning determines the 61 magnitude of the probability of the derivation. The similarity in the objects provides the ground of denomination. If this is farfetched, and thus almost nothing, then the probability of the derivation remains infinitely small: just as when, despite the greatest agreement in meaning, no derivation or agreement of words occurs, where the tones entirely depart from one another and one cannot provide it with a ground based on other grounds. (10) As long as there is still considerable agreement in both the root tone and in the meaning, one can infer the kinship of the words with considerable probability. But this is the boundary at which bold conjectures begin, and that point, where sense and dulness meet.52

[De origine Germanorum, pp. 22–3. See note 14, on p. 113 above.] [The words in these lists have the following meaning: the first is German, Latin, and Greek for “head”; the second is Old German and Greek for “girl” or probably, more accurately, “prostitute”; the third is German and Greek for “good”; the fourth is German, Dutch, Latin, French, English (?), English, Old German, German, and Greek for “gate” or “door”; and the fifth is German, Greek, and Swedish for “daughter.”] 51 [Here begins the third and final part, published in the sixteenth volume on April 20, 1765.] 52 [These lines are in English and come from Alexander Pope’s (1688–1744) Essay on Criticism (1711). The fuller passage reads: “But you seek to give and merit fame, / And justly bear a critic’s noble name, / Be sure yourself and your own reach to know, / How far your genius, taste, and learning go; / Launch not beyond your depth, but be discreet, / And mark that point where sense and dulness meet. / Nature to all things fix’d the limits fit, / And wisely curb’d proud man’s pretending wit” (lines 46–53).] 49

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Everything here is doubtful where the etymologist is not supported by external grounds. Eccard held Danubius, Danaster, Danaper, and Tanais53 to be the same word, differing only in their endings. Likewise, when this same scholar derived Titanes, which is present in the fables of the Greeks, from Theut, Tid, populus, which stems from tyd, tiz, thiot, thiud, dux, rex.54 Hence, also teut, or king in the legibus salicis,55 and in Ulphilas, Thiudinassus, regnum, thiudans, rex, from which also Tuisch, Duitsch, Teuto, Tuisco, which latter word is Tuisto in Tacitus.56 If the similarity in the words and in their meanings must be farfetched, and at the same time lack other grounds, then we arrive at the uncertain and in part comical derivations, to which belong the greatest part of those who make all Greek and Latin words into German ones, or would recast Greek into Hebrew, which derivations very frequently remind us of the risum teneatis amici.57 (11) The farther fetched the ground of denomination is, the more improbable is the genealogy. For brevity’s sake, I abstain from giving many examples. Hence, 62 Berenheuter, Berenhuder, Berenheder58 are better derived from Ber, Eber, which word is still used here in Mecklenburg, and from heden, hüten, since then it means as much as our current Schwin-Driver,59 than from Bären, and Haut, whence it is to indicate a lazy human being, who does nothing but lie on Bärenhäuten, that is, the beds of the ancients.

[De origine germanorum, p. 21. See note 14, on p. 113 above.] [De origine germanorum, p. 13. See note 14, on p. 113 above.] 55 [Better known as the Lex Salica, or Salic Law, an ancient Salian Frankish code of law of the early sixth century, put together at the order of Frankish king Clovis I (c. 466–511 CE). Although composed in Latin, copies of this law provide important etymological evidence relevant to early German.] 56 [De origine germanorum, p. 58. See note 14, on p. 113 above.] 57 [A well-known line from the Ars poetica of Horace (Quintus Horatius Flaccus, 65–8 BCE), which translates as “Could you hold back your laughter, friends?” It is the final line of the following passage: “If a painter chose to join a human head to the neck of a horse, and to spread feathers of many a hue over limbs picked up now here now there, so that what at top is a lovely woman ends below in a black and ugly fish, could you, my friends, if favored with a private view, refrain from laughing?” (Horace 1926, p. 451)] 58 [Tetens’s example is once again lifted from Leibniz, although spellings are somewhat changed (see Leibniz 1717, pp. 308–12). The general point is that the word Berenheuter (a word obsolete already in Leibniz’s time, which eventually would survive only as Bärenhäuter, i.e., “bear skins”), meaning a lazy and cowardly man, is better derived as a compound of the words for boar (Ber or Eber) and for herding or tending (heden or hüten), thus boar or swineherd, than as a compound of the words for bears (Bären) and skin or hide (Haut). Adelung agrees that this latter derivation is strained but then goes on to explain that as laziness and cowardice were the two greatest vices for the ancients, it would be a natural insult to say that one spends their time lying on bearskins, a typical bed of the time. Despite, or perhaps because of, the unlikeliness of this derivation, the German writer Hans Jakob Christoffel von Grimmelshausen (1622–76), composed Der erste Beernhäuter (1670), which pretends to explain the origin of this word in a different manner. As the story goes, a young knight finds himself lost in life, with no master, no war, no money, and no profession, and ends up making a deal with the devil. If he survives for seven years while entirely neglecting his personal hygiene and wearing only the skin of the bear he has just killed, then he will be free and rich. This knight thus becomes known as Beernhäuter, or “bear skins.” A very similar but much more famous version of the tale, under the title “Bärenhäuter,” was later published by the Grimm brothers. Almost none of these words are recognizable in modern German, and even the association between the old German words for boar (Ber and Eber) as well as their association with the word for bear (Bär), all appear to be spurious.] 59 [Leibniz has instead “Suindryver,” analogous to the English swine-driver, or swineherd. See previous note.] 53 54

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(12) If the matter in question came from foreign countries, then it is probable that the names were brought along with it at the same time, and thus stem from the foreign language. Still, everything here again depends upon the agreement previously entertained, which sometimes substitutes for the lack of historical testimony. Engel, Teufel, Düvel, Creuz, Fenster, and so forth, obviously stem from ἄγγελος, διάβολος, Crux, Fenestra, and so forth.60 (13) In composite words, the analogy of the connections is to be taken into consideration. (14) With Nominibus propriis61 the difficulties are greater, since the bare name is known without its proper meaning, or at least this is not determinate enough. If the languages from which it has been taken are known, then much has been achieved. However, if, as happens in most countries, different peoples and languages have mixed with one another; and one can discover the ground of denomination neither from the analogy in the way words are composited, nor from history, then one must have lucky thoughts indeed, if anything but empty and chimerical conceits are to result. §13. If, in this way, one has brought all the words belonging to one class under a single head, and if one has arrived at the simplest stem words, then there is still the remaining step to the first elements or to the natural tones. One can take refuge in hypotheses that are initially assumed to be correct; but afterward, when they cannot fully withstand testing, are changed through addition or subtraction; which is the path that must have been taken in the most rigorous sciences. In the end, etymology is like the other pieces of human knowledge. All are fragments. We know the rules for how they must be collected and put together and for how the gaps must be filled, but lacking is the power to follow them. §14. To these thoughts, so hastily set down, I would like to add a defense of etymological endeavors, and to say something about the advantages we can expect from them in history, particularly in ancient history, and even in philosophy, much of which excellent work Eccard62 has already referenced. At the moment, however, this article has already become far too long and so I must reserve this defense for the future. A personal circumstance has provided me with the opportunity for this essay. A good friend regards this field of scholarship as a casual stroll for the scholar, where one merely dallies, and he thinks of these endeavors with contempt, as one in my opinion must think of any guild or corporation of the scholarly republic. I did not wish thereby to suggest that I would be an assistant in constructing the edifice of etymology; I am only a spectator, as a rational person can and must be in regard to

60 [The words in this list are of the following significance: ἄγγελος (Greek, “angel”), διάβολος (Greek, “devil”), Crux (Latin, “cross”), Fenestra (Latin, “window”).] 61 [proper names. Same as above, but Tetens here shows off his Latin by conjugating it in accordance with the dative German preposition bei (in or with), a common practice of the period.] 62 in s. oratione de usu & praesant. studii etymol. in historia.   [Studii etymologici linguæ germanicæ (1711). See note 14 on Eckhart on p. 113 above.]

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many things, without putting his own hand to it. Hence, I have also only properly spoken of this to those who do not yet know its constitution; for, I am as little able as I am willing to instruct those who make etymology into a business.

ON THE BENEFIT OF ETYMOLOGY63 In the sixteenth part of this learned journal of the year 1765, I promised the readers 139 of these pages that I would add to my thoughts on the principles of Etymology something more about the benefit that one can expect from this kind of scholarly endeavor. This promise I will presently fulfill. The benefits of etymology in ancient history have been placed in such a light by Eccard and others—as much through general propositions,64 as through the use that 140 they have made of it—that I can almost pass over these entirely. However, precisely this science also has a certain relationship with philosophy, and it is from this side of things that I will now primarily endeavor to display its benefit. Etymology leads us to the first and original meanings of the words in language and lays before our eyes the entire thread that one has followed when carrying over the first denominations from one matter to another, or when forming other names through derivation from the first fundamental words. It thus teaches us the grounds of denomination, that is, the ideas that were created initially when one gave a proper name to objects that were known for the first time and until then still had not been given names. For it is properly these ideas that are expressed through names, and which one discovers, if one can arrive at the first and original meanings of words. It can thus be said, truthfully, that etymology gives us the history of the discoveries that an entire nation, in the first origin of language, has made regarding the objects to which they give names: These discoveries lie in the language, which one can regard as a great anthology65 in which everyone who first cultivated the language recorded their new ideas and knowledge, and to which each later contributed something who enlarged it either with a new word or with a new connection. The words—and this holds at least for all derivations—were not initially bare signs of objects, considered in and by themselves, but rather signs of ideas, under which an object has been thought, that is, signs of matters as they look when considered from a certain point of view: or abbreviated, but for the most part defective, definitions. Thus, even the connections of the words are expressions of the order in which a nation is accustomed to place the representations of the objects. For just as there is a harmony between the manner of thought and the language in individual persons, so there is in an entire nation;

[Here begins a continuation of the previous article in the same journal, but under a shortened title. It appeared in the 35th volume on August 30, 1766.] 64 Eccard de usu & praestantia studii etymologici in historia. If one wished to cite all those who have made use of etymology in history, then one would have to name almost every historian that has either dealt with the origin of peoples in particular, or even has otherwise touched upon the very earliest history of a nation.   [See note 14, on p. 113 above.] 65 [Kollektaneen-Buch, meaning a collectanea or anthology. This might be a subtle reference to Leibniz 1717.] 63

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and this makes it so that the mastery of a language has the advantage that one at the same time becomes somewhat acquainted with the manner of thought of the people who speak it.66 Now, obviously, the words were not always instituted in accordance with the 141 true constitution of the matter in question; there was no such rational maker of words, as postulated by Plato.67 Indeed, the common person takes greater part in the language than does the sage, at least in those languages that are now being spoken in the world. As for the first language, if it was taught by God himself to Adam, as various interpreters of the holy scripture68 believe, then it necessarily must have possessed greater perfections in this respect. Hence, the collection of things known that is contained in the language of a people is also a mixture of truth and errors, of intelligence and of blind adventure, of the acute and the confused, just as reason left to itself, which always followed appearance, could provide in the first, sensible consideration of things. And yet such a compilation of concepts, which the uncultivated understanding created at the start, nevertheless remains, in many respects, also richly instructive for the philosopher. These ideas of the matters denoted lie even in whole phrases; when they are not expressed through individual words, but through several, then they may be found through the mere analysis of such phrases, which is something that must always be in our power if we are to comprehend their proper sense. It is not sufficient, for example, to know generally that what we call eines natürlichen Todes sterben would be expressed by the Latins as sua morte defungi, or sua morte mori, and in Greek ἰδίῳ θανάτῳ θνήσκειν.69 In these first phrases there is indicated a way of representing a natural death, which departs from that which lies in the German expression, and 142 which one must also recognize. In individual words or names, however, this ground of denomination is discovered no otherwise than through the investigation of the stem word from which the name is derived. These grounds of denomination are of different kinds, of which I will have occasion to say something more below. Some are grounded in the contingent and changeable qualities of the matter in question, others in those that are constant; some in internal, others in external historical circumstances; and some have their ground more in the contingent condition of those who have first denominated the objects, than in the objects themselves. Hence, their usefulness is also different. Sometimes they teach us nothing more than what each thinks at the same time that they think about the matter in question. The word Vater or Fader, for example, comes from the old word fähden or föden, which stems further from fodan in Ulfilas (which [Here begins the second installment of this second, shorter essay, which appeared in the thirty-sixth volume on Sunday, September 6, 1766]. 67 In the Cratylus.   [Throughout the Cratylus, Plato makes use of a mythical maker or legislator of words as a device for explaining the seeming design of language (389f.). In a couple of places, he even jokes that this person must have been a philosopher (see, e.g., 401 & 411).] 68 [heil. Schrift, a common abbreviation for “heilige Schrift.” The editors of Tetens 1971 silently change “heil.” (“holy”) to “Heil.” (“salvation”) (p. 20).] 69 [In order, “to die a natural death” (German), “to be done with one’s own death” (Latin), “to die one’s own death” (Latin), and “to die one’s own death” (Greek).] 66

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means the same as Zeugen, and accordingly also received the meaning of Ernährens), from which also stems the word Futter.70 This derivation teaches us nothing of the matter in question, except something common, which has readily occurred to each. However, if one looks for the origin of the word Fus, Foot, with which πούς and pes are related, then one arrives at the old stem word falten, to hold fast, from which also the words fassen, fest, and the like arise.71 The first one to denominate has thus considered the feet to be the supports of the human body, upon which one holds himself fast before a fall. This is a quality of the foot that is surely known to everyone, but yet it is not the first idea under which most think of the foot. More instructive is the etymology of the word Ehe, which, with regard to its origin, indicates a bond72 that is in accordance with laws, just like the Greek word νόμος. That is to say, it comes from the ancient word Eh, or Ehe Echt, a law, a right, and therefore contains an essential and very noteworthy distinguishing aspect of this society from others that have somewhat similar aims, although there is provided no complete definition. It has a quality similar to all the derived words or at least to the majority of them.73

[As usual, Tetens provides no citations. The ultimate sources for this etymology seem to be Stiernhielm and perhaps Rudbeck. The basic idea is that the German and old Swedish words for father (Vater and Fader, respectively) are to be traced back to the Gothic fodan (and some other related words like Fadrein or “parents”), which has the sense of to generate (Zeugen) and nourish (Ernährens), and thus is the root also of the German word for feed (Futter). This relationship is perhaps even more evident in the English words “father,” “feed,” “food,” and “fodder.” See the important Glossarium ulphila-gothicum (pp. 37 & 46–7) at the end of Stiernhielm 1671; also, Rudbeck 1675, vol. 1, p. 692. Interestingly, Adelung supports this etymology over the derivation from the Latin Pater.] 71 [Fus, Foot, πούς and pes are German, English, Greek and Latin for “foot,” whereas fassen and fest are German for “to grasp or hold onto” and “firm or solid,” respectively.] 72 [Verbindung, usually translated as “combination” or, sometimes, “obligation.” Here, in the case of marriage, “bond” is far more idiomatic and indeed better reflects the intended sense.] 73 See especially the examples found in the prize essay of privy counselor Michaelis, L’influence des opinions sur le langage.   [Johann David Michaelis (1717–91), German theologian, biblical scholar, orientalist, pioneer in the study of Hebrew. The preceding example comes directly from Michaelis’s Beantwortung der Frage von dem Einfluss der Meinungen in the Sprache und der Sprache in die Meinungen: welche von der konigl. Academie der Wissenschaften für das Jahr, gesetzten Preis erhalten hat (1760), which Tetens here cites in its French translation, De L’influence des opinions sur le langage, et du langage sur les opinions (1762). To understand Tetens’s point, we need to be familiar with Michaelis’s somewhat subtle argument. The aim of the relevant passage is to demonstrate how etymologies can be fruitful for recovering the true, but now corrupted, meanings of certain things. Marriage, he argues, is now understood in most cultures to be a kind of “contract for life, with bodily commerce and the breeding of children as its object” and that may or may not be sanctioned by law (Michaelis 1769, p. 15). In legal theory of the time, a contract, in the sense Michaelis employs, is by itself simply an agreement, whereas a law, by its very definition, is something enforceable. On this definition of marriage, it may or may not be lawful, may thus be annulled by civil laws and would not be enforceable in a state of nature. However, if marriage is by its nature not a contract but law (presided over by God), then it cannot be rightly annulled by civil laws and need not be sanctioned by them in order to be binding. According to Michaelis, the common view is an incorrect definition of marriage, and instead: “In a state of nature, as being without [civil] laws, marriage is a contract, in the support and maintenance of which force may be justly used,” which is to say, it is itself already a natural law (Michaelis 1769, p. 16). Against this background, Michaelis notes that in Greek the correct definition of marriage was found in a single word, such that “to be married to one, and to be joined to him by law, were synonymous expressions” (Michaelis 1769, p. 17). The same is true, he notes, in German: “The 70

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One can opine that this benefit of etymology does not make up for the efforts that one must devote to it; that it is far more reasonable to follow the advice of Plato, and to seek the attributes of things from an immediate consideration of them, and not, however, to take the detour through their names, where one so rarely arrives at something noteworthy that could not have been found in a direct investigation. However, this benefit is also not the only one provided by etymology. Still more important to be mentioned is this: It is, moreover, one thing to know the things themselves, and to know how they are, and it is another to know how the human being first represented that same things, when his understanding, left to itself and without precept or art, began to think about them. Etymology teaches the latter immediately, and it is indisputable that there is much in this that can be used beneficially, at least as a guiding theme, in the investigation of things. The idea of the world need not be retrieved from the word. But is it, for this reason, of no benefit to know that the Greeks and the Latins gave it the name of order and beauty, that the 143 Icelander names it home—that is, the fatherland, the house, the dwelling—and the Goth names it manaseth (for such is it called in Ulfilas), that is, Mannsätt, or the dwelling place of the human being?74 I only mentioned this benefit in the first place, because it can be obtained even from those occupations that are perhaps initially subject to contempt. To this I account research into idiomatic words, provincial phrases, and sayings, in which many remains of the lost ancient languages are found, which are either still the stem words of our denominations themselves, or put us on the track to discover them. If one wishes to call such things the contemptible scraps of Parnassus,75 as they have in fact been called by some: for the imagined importance of one’s own occupations is found more generally in the scholarly republic than in the civil one; then I will admit, for my part, that I harbor deep respect for those scholars who take the same trouble over this debris as a few nuns in Rome did (according to the report of

like happy idiom is found in our language, and not improbably from the like cause. In old German, law was called Ee or Eh, that very word which now signifies marriage” (Michaelis 1769, p. 17). The Greek provided by Tetens is also found in Michaelis, but the addition of the German Echt is not, and thus probably comes from some other source. The last part of Tetens’s previous sentence, which initially seems obscure, simply repeats a claim made by Michaelis, namely, that the definition of marriage found in other cultures and reflected in their languages, which had become the common view mentioned above, is not a complete definition, although it has similarities with, or has a similar aim as, the true or complete definition expressed in the Greek and German words. Michaelis’s entire book contains many important ideas on the uses of etymology, which Tetens no doubt also absorbed. It was also very popular, being translated into English as: A Dissertation on the Influence of Opinions on Language and of Language on Opinions which Gained the prussian Royal Academy’s Prize on that Subject (1769). For more on Michaelis and the context and influence of his Prize Essay, see Smith 1976.] 74 [maneseth is found in the Glossarium ulphila-gothicum of Stiernhielm, as is the form mansäte, both of which are equated with “world” (mundus) or “seat of man” (sedes hominum) (Stiernhielm 1671, p. 111). Tetens’s Mannsätt seemingly corresponds to no language ancient or modern, although it is closest to the Icelandic “mans sæti,” also meaning “man’s seat.”] 75 [A mountain in Greece, near Delphi, traditionally known as the seat of the muses and thus of learning in general.]

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Winckelmann76) over some earth found in the catacombs, and which consisted in their searching through it and carefully picking out the remaining relics still within. Just as the first proper meanings of names cannot be found without the help of etymology, I also hold it to be impossible to standardize the current linguistic usage (without loquendi77)—that is, to distinctly and determinately state those ideas that are combined with the words in common life—especially with regard to general expressions, without consulting the origin and derivation of words: And that the former is a beneficial and sometimes necessary thing is a settled matter among all philosophers. A critical philosophical lexicon of common language, in which the proper and figurative, the restricted and the general meanings, which are given to words in common life, would be distinctly developed and completely provided, this in my opinion is a treasure that one would very much wish to have for our German language. If such a book were ever accepted by a nation, or at least by that part of it which sets the tone in language and writing, then one will have erected a dam before the changes of the language, and there could be hope of a more enduring constancy in it than may be expected from its present condition. But, in addition, one would have an entire corpus of common philosophy, and a large part of the true philosophy. For, in most of its doctrines, the latter distinguishes itself from the former only in regard to distinctness. It is for the most part nothing but educated and developed mother wit: and its remaining merits, its greater scope, its order and certainty are mere consequences of the merit first mentioned, namely, of distinctness. Such a book would be a place where all controversies over the meanings of words, which are otherwise always drawn into the philosophy of objects, would have to be decided. Here the first and highest rule of definition would properly be this: that linguistic usage be followed, that is, the ideas under which denominated objects are thought in common life, be they mistaken or true, would have to be maintained with complete precision. In the philosophy about objects one must define things78 as they are—just as the astronomers do with the solar eclipses—and not as they

[Again, no citation is provided. Tetens’s esoteric reference is to a report published in the Göttingische Anzeigen vor gelehrten Sachen, ninth part, January 20, 1755. On p. 67, Winckelmann describes receiving the head of a statue from a Cardinal Albani, who in turn received it from a group of Carthusian nuns that had the obligation of taking the dirt excavated from the catacombs and searched in situ, back to their monastery in order to search it a second time so as not to miss even the smallest holy relics.] 77 [The exact significance of this Latin word in this context is unclear. It likely refers to either “usus loquendi” (i.e., “usage of speech”) or “modus loquendi” (i.e., “mode of speech”), which are two traditional terms used to discuss the various ways in which language may be used or taken. The usus loquendi is the received way in which a word or expression is understood in speech, whereas modus loquendi refers to one particular way such is used. Often these terms were employed to explain that the biblical or sacramental use of words differs in meaning from other uses, particularly that of everyday life. In any case, Tetens is likely just saying that if we do not consult the origin and derivation of words it will be impossible to standardize current usage without employing this device of modus or usus loquendi, and thus without allowing words to have different meanings when used in different contexts or by different people.] 78 [In der Philosophie der Sachen muß man die Dinge erklären, lit. “In the philosophy of matters one must define the things.” This doesn’t make for great English. By “Philosophie der Sachen” Tetens means the philosophy not about how we represent things, but rather about the things themselves. Thus, the selective translation here of “Sachen” by “objects” seems to accord with Tetens’s meaning.] 76

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are mistakenly represented. The definitions in this latter would agree with those nominal definitions only in the cases where a general idea of the matter in question is also at the same time correct, or where the name in common life is only a mere sign of the objects in general, without its expressing their proper qualities, like sun, moon, pot, and so forth, which words, to be sure, were originally signs of certain 144 qualities or operations, as the reader was reminded above; however, by this point the first ideas have been lost and cannot be discovered again except through research into the stem words. Now, I would like to know how such a proposal is to be carried forward without the aid of etymology, unless perhaps in such cases where a word has only a single determinate meaning. But how many such words are there in language? The rules that one commonly prescribes for determining linguistic usage, from which it flows that one ought to compare every case in which the word is present and to search for what is similar and general—these, in my opinion, are so insufficient that, if one wanted to follow them so absolutely, without distinguishing the first and proper meanings from those that are carried over and improper, then most definitions would end up stating that the defined thing is an Ens, that is, a thing in general. Since this is absurd, everything then depends on the distinction between different meanings, and on insight into the connection between them and how one arose from the other, but it is incomprehensible to me how this could be known without etymology. I find it astonishing that some have judged the use of etymology in these matters so negatively, on the frivolous ground that, since the first original meanings have already been transformed into others now customary, the former are of no service to us, and so one has but to trouble oneself with the latter. It seems to me that the eternal squabbles of the philosophers regarding the definitions of words, where each will have observed linguistic usage, and yet one party must necessarily have erred, ought to have already brought them to the suspicion that, without etymology, the standardization of linguistic usage may not be as easily attained through common means as had been believed. And whoever wishes to be persuaded of this by his own attempts, to them I propose this as a problem: to determine the meaning found in common life of two words, namely gegenwärtig and vollkommen.79 For here there is too little space to go through these examples and to make evident the correctness of the remarks above.80 As for the benefit which the etymology of language affords us in the elucidation of more ancient writings, this I wish to pass over entirely. It is a matter familiar to every philologist. As far as concerns the German language, look only at the glossaries. Some examples are found even in the Bützowschen Ruhestunden.81

[Meaning “present” and “perfect,” respectively. The example of determining the meaning of “perfection” is found in Eschenbach 1756, §64, note 1, p. 110).] 80 [Here begins the second installment of this second, shorter essay, which appeared in the thirty-seventh volume on Sunday, September 13, 1766]. 81 I name this publication here only because I have neglected to cite it when I was speaking of idiomatic words, and when it will have occurred to the reader of these pages on his own that I have refrained from mentioning it. I would not even have thought of it here, had I not an obligation to its author to publicly 79

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The benefit of etymology in philosophy mentioned until now is only indirect. It 145 improves and explains language, and this instructs the philosopher. But next to this, it also serves him immediately. Of this, I wish to add something still further: but first only in the sequel, in order not to rob the reader of these pages of the pleasure that comes from the variety of the material.

testify to my deep respect for his scholarly endeavors, particularly in regard to the vernacular, as well as to my most obedient thanks for the pleasant gift of sending me copies. I am going to read the last piece with just the same pleasure as the first, even if their number amounts to more than 100, which is my wish.   [The publication’s title in full is: Bützowsche Ruhestunden, gesucht, in Mecklenburgschen, vielentheils, bisher noch ungedruckten, zur Geschichte und Rechtsgelahrtheit vornehmlich gehörigen Sachen. It appeared frequently but irregularly from 1761 until 1766 and focused on the local history and culture of the town of Bützow in Mecklenberg. The author to whom Tetens gives thanks is the editor of the publication, Enrst Johann Friedrich Mantzel (1699–1768), a German theologian and jurist. Mantzel was also rector of the University of Bützow, where Tetens then worked, which probably explains the fawning respect paid to him in this footnote. An amateur etymologist himself, Mantzel’s writings on this topic were featured in almost every issue of the Bützowsche Ruhestunden, starting from the very first, under the running title Idiotici Mecklenburgensis, juridico-pragmatici, and they often included long lists and explanations of idiomatic words, phrases, and sayings local to Mecklenburg.]

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On the Various Benefits of the Domains of Human Knowledge1 (1765)2 §1. A Swiss philosopher who has translated d’Alembert’s Treatise on the Connection 605 between the Arts and Sciences3 into German and enriched it with acute remarks, has also thought to establish a kind of hierarchy among the sciences. I thought it worth the effort to reflect on this matter further, since various indeterminacies are notable in the principles upon which he based his ordering; and this has given me occasion for the following remarks, which can perhaps contribute something to the preservation of the general love of scholarship. Maybe, apart from that, they may 606 also be of some use, since one cannot tread near the comparison of the sciences with respect to their benefits without falling into the usual partisanship, which attaches less value to foreign occupations than to our own. §2. This inclination to attribute an exaggerated value to one’s pet science and to scorn other endeavors is found nowhere more plentifully than among scholars; and 607 most plentifully in those who push the domain of study in fashion. In the previous century, one who invented a new and better reading of a text demanded as reward the admiration of the scholarly world; and now, if someone discovers a new insect, or finds a species of grass that no one before him had noticed: Then it is not

[Erkentnissen, often translated “cognitions,” because English lacks a natural plural for “knowledge.” Here it clearly refers to different domains or fields of human knowledge such as history, philosophy, etc. We have chosen to go with “domain” because of the way in which Tetens describes each science as claiming ownership over certain cognitions.] 2 [The first seven paragraphs of this article were published in the thirty-eighth part of the SchleswigHollsteinische Anzeigen von politischen, gelehrten, und andern Sachen for the year 1765, published on Monday, September 23]. 3 [Tetens misspells d’Alembert’s name (“Dalambert”) and provides an incorrect title for the work. The Swiss philosopher, historian and theologian in question is Jakob Daniel Wegelin (1721–91) and the work’s true title is: Herrn d’Alembert Abhandlung von dem Ursprung, Fortgang und Verbindung der Künste und Wissenschaften (1761) (Treatise on the Origin, Progress and Connection of the Arts and Sciences). Wegelin’s name is not found in the book, but his authorship of the notes and appendix is confirmed in Meusel 1815 (p. 443). Wegelin’s book is a translation of Jean la Rond d’Alembert’s (1717–83) Preliminary Discourse to the Encyclopedia of Diderot (Discours préliminaire de l’Encyclopédie, 1751).] 1

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infrequently announced in such a tone as to make it sound as if the welfare of the human race depended upon it entirely. The cameralist over there says that whoever has not studied economics, knows essentially nothing. A philosopher answers that there is no rigorous knowledge without an understanding of ontology, and how meager, how tenuous is the relation of the other sciences to the sublime provider of all things when one hears some mathematicians speak of the matter. This is basically pedantry, the essence of which consists in prizing things beyond their value. If the former had said, “one does well when one studies economics, it is a beneficial science,” and the philosopher, “you will be able to facilitate distinctness and rigor in all the other sciences, if you apply yourselves to ontology,” who would reasonably find something blameworthy in that? But to each appears larger that which lies closest to his eyes. §3. All truths are beneficial and usable for the welfare of the human being; it is error alone that brings harm all by itself and is salutary only by accident. Those who so often speak of useless speculations, consider not how manifold the needs of the human being are, nor how manifold are his connections with the objects and the goods that appertain to him. The human being is not purely spirit, but also not 608 purely an animal; he lives not for his own person alone, he is also a citizen; he is not only healthy, he is also ill. The understanding has it needs, sense and the imagination have others; the body also has its needs, some in wellness, others again in weakness. The happiness of the human being is a great whole. And if it is to be perfect, then not a single one of the minor goods of which the human being is capable, when considered on all sides, may be missing from it. §4. All sciences and arts are means to this happiness, and each that promotes, improves, and instructs, is a gear in the machine that works upon the welfare of humanity. From the endeavors of the sage, Who by night and silent oil, [searches for] The body’s inner power, the essence of his soul4 to anacreontic poems; to the occupations of the researcher of antiquities, who reads through whole authors in order to determine either the true shape of the shoes of the ancients, or their art of cookery—each of these is useful. Each domain of knowledge procures one part of the goods that the human being needs, and this is its immediate benefit; but it is also a means that aids in another, like languages, which constitutes its external and mediate benefit; and properly there is not a single one that does not serve more or less in both respects. One must not overlook the immediate benefit, as often happens with those who inquire in every matter about

[Der bei Nacht und stillem Oele, / Der Körper innre Kraft, das Wesen seiner Sele. These lines are from the second book of the poem Über den Ursprung des Übels (1734; On the Origin of Evil) by the Swiss poet, botanist, doctor, and anatomist Albrecht von Haller (1708–77). Tetens’s quotation is quite imperfect. Originally the two lines read: “Hier sucht ein weiser Mann bey Nacht und stillem Oele, / Des Cörpers inn’re Kraft, das Wesen seiner Seele.”]

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how much is gained for practice thereby—of which latter they have an all too narrow concept—or with those who also appraise anything according to its more immediate influence on moral theory,5 which they quite justifiably regard as the midpoint of all other sciences. In this way, the sum expressing the value of knowledge would be too small. However, when one reflects upon everything precisely, and is also mindful of the distant connections between the sciences, then the external benefit is everywhere 609 proportionate to the internal; insights themselves, the occupations of understanding and of reason, of the senses, of imagination and of all the other powers of the soul, like those of the body, which are sensed in each domain of knowledge—all these are agreeable, and the feeling of them is part of the welfare of the human being. If geometry were purely a game of human reason that had no relation to moral theory whatsoever, one could not, simply on this basis, declare it to be without benefit, since it affords the geometer a pure and rapturous pleasure, which is tied to the feeling of certainty and to the insight into general truths and their interconnection. This pleasure, to be sure, is less stunning,6 but for spirits with a taste for it, it is infinitely more exciting and poignant,7 and penetrates more deeply into our inner being than the intoxicating8 amusements of the senses, which only touch our surface, and then either flee at once, or else become loathsome. Even languages considered in themselves—whose greatest value depends upon the necessity of their use in the sciences—and their mastery, are neither disagreeable, nor unfruitful, when viewed in terms of their immediate good effects on the human being, most of all on the youth, if only a pedantic method does not render such matters adverse to them. §5. The happiness of the human being is a great whole, which has innumerable parts; but not all of these parts are of equal magnitude or are equally indispensable, and, consequently, they are also not of the same importance; although all goods are indeed connected with one another, and one is a means for furthering the other. To the greatest perfection of the body belongs complete nails, just as much as a healthy breast; but what a contrast there is between the consumptive and someone who is otherwise healthy but is missing half a nail on his finger. There are goods that one 610 cannot exclude from the class of all goods, but which are differential magnitudes when contrasted with others, and in every reasonable system of moral theory it is a settled matter that wisdom and virtue, along with whatever is indispensable to these, when weighed against all the rest, are like the weight of the mountains to that of a grain of sand, or as the stoics rightly said, like something to nothing. One can expect from a complete moral theory that it indicate every part of the welfare of which the human being is capable in various circumstances and relations, that it show their connections and dependencies, and that it establish their order of importance. And before the latter has occurred, one endeavors in vain concerning a hierarchy of the sciences.

[Moral. As noted by Timmermann, this term was used in the eighteenth century to refer to the “systematic study of morality,” not to morality itself. See Kant 2011, pp. 161–2.] 6 [betäubend, also means to deafen or to numb.] 7 [anzüglicher, in a sense now obsolete, which has no sexual connotations.] 8 [rauschende, in a sense now obsolete; currently berauschende.] 5

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§6. It is one thing to say that a particular truth is very important, and it is another thing entirely to say that the science, for which this truth serves as a principle, is also very important. It is of the highest necessity that one know how to turn the products of nature into serviceable food; but can one infer from this that the art of cookery is necessary? Each science has its own midpoint; all its parts aim at this, support it or adorn it. These parts do not already have the value that the main truth does. No truth is more indispensable than this: There is a God. But is this reason enough to hold that metaphysical demonstrations, and likewise the subtle investigations regarding God’s attributes and operations, are of just the same necessity? Theorems that are not to be separated from one another at all; and cannot be thought without all being taken together—these make up one single theorem and have the same benefit and the same necessity. But where one only supports another, or improves it, here there is a question 611 whether rigorousness and precision in knowledge is just as important as is the unrefined knowledge itself.9 In the sciences, the parts of the whole are more precisely unified with one another than in history, languages, and the remaining domains of knowledge. Hence, one would be able to order the former with considerable precision according to their fundamental truth, but the latter would have to be put in various places. §7. The difficulties that must attend the mastery and practice of some sciences, when considered in themselves, bring more repute to the connoisseurs of the latter, than they bring value to the sciences. There are even difficles nugæ10 and errors that require great understanding and effort. Nevertheless, in this regard one can also get 612 ahead of oneself: The more and the greater the proficiencies of the soul required for a science, the more is the mind11 strengthened through the acquisition of it, and so the mind benefits from the investigation even if the results do not meet one’s expectation. The poet’s fiery imagination in an epic poem illuminates and warms the soul of the reader, and the profundity of an Archimedes in one long series of arguments in the solution of involved and difficult problems, imprints itself in us unnoticed; the spirit of investigation imparts something of his strength, when one follows him along his path.12 621 §8. “Beneficial” and “indispensable” are concepts that enclose a relation and can befit one matter only with respect to another. If the benefits of the sciences and arts are to be judged: Then the question to be determined beforehand is always, benefit whom? The entire human race? This state or another? Or one individual person? Or this citizen, or rather another, who has devoted himself to a determinate 622 occupation? It is easy to comprehend that not every kind of scholarship is equally important to all states, due to the differing relationships that the former have to the latter. How much did not depend on oratory in Greece and Rome? In Athens,

[The original sentence ends with a question mark.] [difficult trifles. Martial, Epigrams, II.86.] 11 [Kopf] 12 [Here begins the second and final part of the article, which was published on Monday, September 30, 1765.] 9

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the beautiful sciences and arts were indispensable in order to accustom the fancy of the lively, rich, and voluptuous citizens to finer sensations, and to hold them back from crude debauchery. In Sparta, these gentle muses would have tempered toughness, 623 contrary to the intention of the laws, and corrupted the citizens, even if they would have improved them as human beings. More can be said about the relationship of the sciences and the arts to the state. As it stands with states, so too it stands with individual human beings, each of whom constitutes a small state, differing in needs; and in this way also differs the connection in which each stands to the sciences. This is a matter extremely well known, about which I will make only the following remark. Upon hearing a few scholars speak of the benefit of their pet science, I have often wondered to myself, how they are able to find within it—so that it is generally apt to be employed—a sufficient, and in their opinion, compelling motive to urge all who study to acquire a mastery of it. When the jurist applies himself to natural history and physics: Then, from pearl fishery, he will understand a certain law in the Pandects13 better than if he were inexperienced in those sciences. If the physician could compute the branches of curved lines, and understood higher hydraulics, how much more would he not comprehend in the writings of the Iatro-mathematicians14

[Tetens provides no citations, but he is surely alluding to an article by the German mathematician and poet Abraham Gotthelf Kästner (1719–1800), titled “Einige Proben von dem Einflusse der Naturlehre in die Rechtsgelehrsamkeit,” (“Some Specimens of the Influence of the Doctrine of Nature on Legal Scholarship”), which appeared in 1749 in the Hamburgisches Magazin, oder gesammelte Schriften, zum Unterricht und Vergnügen, aus der Naturfoschung und dem angenehmen Wissenschaften überhaupt, bk. 4, pt. 1, pp. 27–45. After stating that the knowledge of nature is itself intrinsically valuable and so need not first receive its value from the use that can be made of it in the other sciences, Kästner proceeds to provide several examples of how it is indispensable to legal theory. Among these examples, he refers (p. 33) to the elevenvolume Meditationes ad pandectas (1713–48) of the German jurist Augustin von Leyser (1683–1752), and in particular to his commentary on XXXIV.II.19.18 of the Pandects, which latter reads: “Sabinus also says that pearls should neither be classed as jewels nor as precious stones, which has frequently been established, because the shell on which they are found is formed and grows near the Red Sea” (Scott 1973, vol. 7). The Pandectae or Digesta iustiniani, published December 16, 0533 CE, by the order of Eastern Roman Emperor Justinian I (c. 482–565 CE), is an enormous compilation, in fifty books, of juristic literature from the classical period (see Berger 1953, p. 436). The Pandects were not merely for reference but moreover constituted an authoritative source of the law. Von Leyser shows that this particular statement that pearls are not to be considered jewels or stones (and so should be dealt with differently in law) probably derives from observations made by pearl fishers, which are collected in writings on natural history (von Leyser 1741, spec. 392, vols. 5–6, pp. 925–7). Finally, it should be noted that although Tetens here criticizes Kästner, he would likely have taken seriously Kästner’s extended remarks about the value of the sciences found in his piece in the Hamburgisches Magazin. Throughout his career, Tetens frequently lectured from a number of Kästner’s mathematical textbooks (see Tetens 2017, pp. 128–9).] 14 [As the Lexicon medicum of 1848 explains: “IATRO-MATHEMATICUS. (From ἰατρός, a physician, and μαθηματικός, mathematician.) An Iatro-mathematician, or mathematical physician. The Iatro-mathematicians were a sect of which Borelli may be considered as the chief. They attempted to explain the actions of the living body, and the operations of remedies, on mechanical principles. The Iatro-mathematical school owed its modern origin to the atomic philosophy of Descartes; but the principle of a mechanical system of medicine is of high antiquity: the pores and atoms of Asclepiades constitute him a true Iatro-mathematician. The mathematical doctrine was supported by many distinguished physicians, as Bellini, Baglivi, J. Bernoulli, Keill, the Robinsons, Wintringham, Mead and Pitcairn. It was, notwithstanding, the most absurd of all the doctrines that had any extensive influence on medicine” (Hooper 1848, p. 746). The ninth edition of Brockhaus’s Conversations-Lexikon, vol. 7, lists the famous German physician Friedrich Hoffmann (1660–1742) and the Dutch physician Herman Boerhaave (1668–1738) as partially advancing this line of thought (p. 389).] 13

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regarding the motion of the blood and of the fluids in the human body, than he would without this knowledge? And how many advantages could a philosopher not draw from the Arabic language? Is this already sufficient, should no other reasons be added, to move the philosopher to master Arabic, the physician to immerse himself in algebra, and the jurist to apply himself to natural history? If one could comprehend everything possible, attain and possess everything that is good; if the time and powers that are applied in the acquisition of one science did not have to be 624 withdrawn from the other, then this consequence would hold. However, as it now stands, where time is short and powers small, where their application must be spared as much as possible, and not even taking laziness into consideration: Then in regard to every advantage that can be promised from a science or discipline, the question is still always necessary whether the costs are not greater still. We would have even fewer political and economic projects, if their inventor always had it in mind that no design is worthwhile, if the aim does not replace the costs that must be applied to the means; otherwise, dry fields of sand can be converted into meadows, heaths into gardens, and gold can be made, if one wants to sow more than one reaps. §9. I wish to add one thing more. One cannot use the contingent benefit of one science, at the moment at which it is perceived to be greater than that of another science, to elevate the former and to diminish the latter. There is no science that touches the general affairs of the human being that does not leave behind traces of its fruitfulness in all areas to which it extends. Now, if it has the good fortune to be in fashion: Then it naturally produces many goods and affects people, where another, due to a lack of use, accomplishes none of this. But could not the latter, for this reason, achieve just the same if equal attention were applied to it? In the conquest of the human heart, the beautiful sciences are the light troops of the serious and rigorous doctrine of moral science. The former penetrate, at least in the present age, and make capture, where the latter does not reach. They are excellent, because 625 they open the path for wisdom and virtue: But they only scare the passions, and frighten off coarser inhumanity, and are not rarely driven back again by desires just as easily as they themselves have given attack. Can one accredit everything to the beautiful sciences, and elevate them at the expense of rigorous moral science, which, wherever it does arrive, like heavy troops, attacks with greater vigor, conquers, and fortifies itself within the heart? §10. From this one can already comprehend that it is difficult if not impossible to precisely appraise the benefit and the necessity of each science and to determine their value. They become so intricately entangled in their boundaries with one another that it is always controversial to say what belongs to one or the other; and in each there is a long register of good fruits, which they produce. Who even understands them all so precisely that he can appraise their smallest influences on the human being? Who is to judge thus? The one who is ignorant in algebra does not grasp how much depends on the painstaking calculus of an Euler. And those who are masters in a science have far too vivid a conception of all the minor advantages of their own endeavors, and a far too obscure one of the benefit of the others, for them to be

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able to make the comparison correctly. As a matter of fact, it is no mishap that this hierarchy has yet failed to materialize. §11. Nonetheless, investigation into the human being can teach us this much, namely, that the supreme and most important domains of knowledge are those that immediately show us, - - - - - what is virtue, what boasting, what is false good, what true, what God and each is, - - - for these are still the things that alone make us righteous, and first make us 626 into human beings. Haller.15 Next after this come the sciences that elevate the human being, and which give magnitude, emphasis, clarity, correctness, and scope to the truths that are most indispensable to his welfare. To this belong all the sciences of the nature of the human being (and here the body must not be forgotten) and of the world, of the connections in the corporeal world, in the great and small, which teach us to think more decently of the work that God has performed; and the science of those still finer, but yet more firm assemblages and dependencies in the moral world. The history that lays before our eyes the past fate of the human race, and the economy of divine providence. In the third class belong all those endeavors that again have an influence in those last mentioned. For the importance of each truth increases in proportion to the good that it immediately brings, and the greater the good to which it contributes something, the more it contributes, and the more indispensable it is in the understanding of it.16 To the fourth class must be assigned those that serve for the adornment and tidying of truth and virtue. Poets, orators, and artists can be compared to the painter in the temple of truth, and the critic to those who are charged with wiping away the accumulated filth, with indicating the remaining defects and what is unfinished, and with repairing the new defects that creep in.

[- - - - - was Tugend, Pralerei, was falsches Gut, was echt, was Gott und jeder sei, - - - den dis sind doch die Sachen, die uns alien gerecht, und erst zu Menschen machen. Tetens here inaccurately quotes four lines from Albrecht von Haller’s poem “Gedanken über Vernunft, Aberglauben und Unglauben” (“Thoughts on Reason, Superstition and Unbelief”), which first appeared in his Versuch Schweizerischer Gedichten (1732). In the first edition, the lines in question read: “Allein was Wahr und Falsch / was Tugend/Prahlerey/Was states Gut / was bös / was Gott und jeder sey? Da denket keiner dran/und dis sind doch die Sachen / Die uns allein begükt / und erst zu Menschen machen” (p. 49). By the eighth edition, the last two lines have been entirely replaced and this has become: “Allein was wahr und falsch, was Tugend, Pralerey, / Was falsches Gut, was echt, was Gott und jeder sey? / Das überlegt ihr nicht, ihr dreht die feigen Blicke / Vom wahren Gute weg, und sucht ein täumend Glücke.” At no point was the version given by Tetens found in Haller’s poem. Particularly noticeable is Tetens’s replacement of “beglükt” (“blessed”) with “gerecht” (“righteous” or “just”).] 16 [in dessen Einsicht. Possibly an error and should instead be “in dessen Hinsicht,” or “in respect of it.”] 15

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On the Origin of the Desire for Honor1 (1766)2 I. The desire for honor is a branch on the genealogical tree of human inclinations, 689 all of which possess a common root from which they receive nourishment and growth. But is this branch grafted on from elsewhere or is it natural to the root? 690 This question will be decided when one compares the drive for honor with the first and most general fundamental drive of the human being, and attends to the external relations, which, like earth and weather for a tree, must be added for this 691 branch belonging to the desire for honor to sprout forth. This shall be the matter with which I occupy myself presently. The effects of this passion are infinitely

A few years ago there appeared various writings in France concerning the question: Whether the desire to immortalize oneself is in accordance with nature and reason? The academy of Besancon set the prize for the year 1761 on the answer to this question. One piece, which answered in the affirmative, obtained the prize, and another, which was printed alongside it and gave a negative answer, found more approval with the authors of the Mémoires de Trévoux. The latter opinion has been supported with further grounds in a discourse that has appeared from The Hague: von dem Uhrsprung und den Wirkungen des so allgemeinen und so alten Triebes seinen Nahmen auf die Nachkommen zu bringen. Yet another treatise was printed in exactly the same place in octavo, bearing a similar title, but in which the opposite view is maintained, and the drive for honor is derived from the human being’s natural needs. Reports and extracts from these and still a few others, containing the same kind of material, are found in the Mémoires de Trévoux, particularly in the months of February and March of 1762. I can assure the reader that these writings—of which I, in any case, know nothing further than from the aforementioned Mémoires de Trévoux—were not the occasion for sketching this present essay, which, with respect to its content, was part of a more extensive piece of writing on the fundamental drives of human beings long before those reports came into my hands; but those writings mentioned have moved me to extract this part from the rest, and to format it particularly so that it could be printed in a periodical that accepts only short articles. This assurance is only to safeguard me, as a German, from the objection that I have imitated the French.   [The main work mentioned here is Jesuit intellectual, Giuseppe Antonio Giachimo Cerutti’s (1738–92) Discours sur l’origine et les effets de ce desir si général & si ancien de transmettre son nom à la postérité (1761) (On the Origin and Effects of the So General and So Ancient Drive to Transmit One’s Name to Posterity). Although not also issued in The Hague, the other work to which Tetens refers may be Pierre Louis Jacquet’s (1688–1763) Le pour et le contre sure cette question proposée par l’académie de besançon, pur le prix de m. dcc. lxi. le desir de perpétuer son nom et ses actions dans la mémoire des hommes, estil conforme a la nature et a la raison? (1761). Both of these works, in addition to several others, were reviewed, as Tetens indicates, in the Journal des sçavans, combiné avec les mémoires de trévoux, vol. 65, pp. 473–89, and vol. 66, pp. 20–31.] 2 [This article appeared as a series in the 43th, 44th, 46th, and 47th parts of the Schleswig-Hollsteinische Anzeigen von politischen, gelehrten, und andern Sachen of 1766. The first part appeared Monday, October 27.] 1

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manifold, always hidden, and provide poets, moralists, and philosophers with inexhaustible material for great and beautiful thoughts; many of its effects are still overlooked; but also, some are attributed to it that belong to another cause. The desire for external honor, that is, for the flattering conviction that others think favorably of us; the desire for internal ability3 and worth, or the drive for internal honor, are two inclinations, which are comprehended under the single common name of the desire for honor, and hence have been provided with an occasion for being confused. This is the most serious mistake that has been made in this theory. 692 The one is commonly the companion of the other, like shadows of the body. But what a disorder in our concepts would it be to hold the shadow and the body to be one and the same thing, and to judge accordingly? And this confusion becomes still greater when the drive for eminence over others,4 and conceit, or inner pride, are sometimes confounded with the above, of which the first is indeed a descendent, the last, however, a relative only on one side. Through this the desire for honor is made into a Proteus, which is something that, in its outbursts, it already sufficiently is even apart from this confusion. Since the language of common life already makes a distinction between the inclinations previously named, the difficulty of discovering such must not match the necessity of doing so in any healthy moral science, which requires thoroughly distinct ideas. Qui bene distinguit, bene docet.5 The most general inclination of all human beings, and the fundamental drive, proceeds toward this: to be in a condition in which everything within us and without us harmonizes in the best possible way. This harmony, coming together,6 agreement, perfection, of the action with the powers, of the internal and the external, whatever 693 one wants to call it, is the best, or the greatest that we seek on all sides, and never perfectly obtain: This is the middle point to which we are drawn, but never fully reach, which we often only unstably orbit around, at times moving ourselves away from it; and when we do encounter it, we hold on for no longer than the blink of an eye, and then immediately fly off from it on the other side. If the powers are awake and operative,7 then doing nothing makes for boredom, and is unbearable, and being less busy than one can be makes for restlessness: if one is tired and languid, then a longing for rest is felt; and work and exertion is a torment. Never has a human soul been found that showed itself to be nothing besides an operative being and revealed only drives to occupation. But just as there are infinitely many stages of powers, there are also infinitely many degrees of zest for work. The more strongly the mainsprings of the human being are tensed, the greater is their power, and the longer they hold out before becoming fatigued. [Geschicklichkeit] [Vorzugs-Trieb] 5 [“He who distinguishes well, teaches well.” A saying of unknown origin, common in books on law. Although it appears in many earlier sources, the saying is usually referred to the second part of Sir Edward Coke’s (1551–1634) Institutes of the Lawes of England (1642), where it is already referred to as “the old Rule” (p. 470).] 6 [Convenienz, from the Latin convenientia, in turn from the verb convenio, meaning to be appropriate, to harmonize, or to assemble.] 7 [Wirksam] 3 4

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This provides a ground for bringing the entire human race directly under two chief classes according to their chief inclinations, that is, those inclinations that are commonly seen operative and that are dominant. One part is made up of the uncommonly slack souls, who are called phlegmatics, for which even the majority of the most common occupations are already a burden, and who, because they are constantly languid and tired, constantly incline toward rest and inactivity, like our indolent Orgons8 on their couches, and the lazy Indians in Guinea in their hammocks, who can smoke throughout the whole day without conversation and almost without making a movement. After all, this disposition of the soul is very common in mild and uncultivated nations and human beings; and this is comprehensible based on the causes by which it is generated. In the fewest cases it is innate weakness, 694 although this provides the initial inducement: neglect of exertion contributes more to it: where there are few needs, there are few desires: and where there are few desires, there is lethargy. In some, it is an effect of a preceding exertion and overpressing that is all too intense. This has weakened the powers themselves; the rest that follows afterward, of soul as of the body, is made all too sweet, and by this the propensity for these sensations of rest are engraved deeply in the soul. In others, and in the majority of our opulent sleepers, its source is a soft sensuality, which is too much accustomed to the comfortable and restful feeling of the body. And because it brings with itself a certain feebleness of the body, which makes mildness and gentleness always increasingly necessary: the more they satisfy themselves, the more they also stimulate themselves. Sensuous pleasure taken in gentle bodily feeling relaxes the strings of the soul and makes them slack and indolent. L’espirit se perd enfin chez les Sardanapales.9

[The original is difficult to read. However, based on clues in the surrounding text (e.g., the reference to couches as “Kanapeen,” from the French “canapé”) and a lack of reasonable alternatives, this appears to be an allusion to the rich, retired dupe named Orgon in Molière’s (1622–73) famous play Le Tartuffe ou l’Imposteur, which was first performed under the title Le Tartuffe ou l’Hypocrite in 1664. This suggestion is strongly supported by several sections in German philosopher and natural scientist Johann Gottlob Krüger’s Versuch einer Experimental-Seelenlehre (1756), a book Tetens would have known well. In these sections, Krüger presents the four temperaments in a dialogue between four characters, Epicurus (sanguine), Alexander (choleric), Harpagon (melancholic), and Orgon (phlegmatic) (see pp. 302–11).] 9 [The text incorrectly has “pend” instead of “perd.” The line comes from a poem by Frederick the Great, King of Prussia (1712–86) titled “Épitre II. A Hermothime. Sur l’avantage des Lettres,” which is found in his Poësies diverses (1760). The full stanza reads: “L’espirt se perd enfin chez les Sardanapales, / Il est pareil au feu qu’atisaient les Vestales; / Il faut l’entretenir, l étude le nourrit, / S’il ne s’accroît sans cesse, il s’éteint & périt” (p. 78). This translates roughly as this: “The spirit is lost finally among the Sardanapaluses, / It is like the fire that is fanned by the Vestals; / It must be maintained, study feeds it, / If it does not constantly grow, it dies out and perishes.” Little is known of the supposed Assyrian king Sardanapalus aside from what is recorded by Diodorus of Sicily (1st century BCE), part of which reads: “Sardanapallus, the thirtieth in succession from Ninus, who founded the empire, and the last king of the Assyrians, outdid all his predecessors in luxury and sluggishness. For not to mention the fact that he was not seen by any man residing outside the palace, he lived the life of a woman, and spending his days in the company of his concubines and spinning purple garments and working the softest of wool, he had assumed the feminine garb and so covered his face and indeed his entire body with whitening cosmetics and the other unguents used by courtesans, that he rendered it more delicate than that of any luxury-loving woman” (1967, vol. 1, bk. II, 23., pp. 425–27). For more on Diodorus and Tetens’s use of his work, see note 39, p. 172.] 8

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This is the largest class of human beings, and it would be larger still—bearing in mind the innate constitution and weakness of our nature and the small number of operative souls—if necessity and needs did not continuously stimulate to busyness those powers that are still reasonably active. No desire for honor grows out of this soil of lethargy; of course, it is not entirely missing in people of this kind, praise and regard are agreeable to even the Indian. But it is far too weak to become desire, and when it is desire, it is not dominant. 695 And in all cases, it is a daughter of the still remaining residue of the drive to activity, traces of whom are still found in all human beings. The second class comprises under itself all those in which a marked drive for occupation and action betrays itself. Here we also find the desire for honor above all: although it does not indeed rule in the entire kind, but instead only in one special line.10 713 II. All differences of those who belong to this class depend in turn on magnitudes and degrees. For the comparisons of the wild nations with the civilized ones, which one can always make more precisely based on the recent reports regarding the former, leave absolutely no doubt that all human beings possess the same kinds of abilities. The different degrees of abilities result in different proportions: these in the differences of mentalities, and so in turn also of characters.11 The magnitudes are changeable and, depending on exercise or neglect, they either strengthen or weaken. Speaking precisely, as any ability can be raised to any magnitude, and from any child any man can be formed: one must often be astonished at the effects of stubborn hard work. Only where nature has left someone far behind are more time, work, and effort necessary in order to catch up, than are provided by the present life of human beings. The operative powers can be attuned in two ways. Either their greatest strength consists in the quantity of their operations, and their greatest weakness in that they work at each of these only weakly and fleetingly. In a word: that they perform much, but nothing with great effort: or else the chief strength rests in the intensity of the effort in each thing, and the ultimate weakness rests in a rigidity, which prevents it from letting go of an object that has been seized upon. These latter thus are as inflexible, as the former are slippery. The first disposition of the soul to be mentioned here, which always associates itself with a harmonious disposition of the body, is the foundation of the so-called 714 sanguine temperament, and it certainly degenerates if the strength of the soul, taken as a whole, is only middle-rate: in which case such people also become phlegmatics with age. Sensual pleasures are more agreeable to those of such nature than delight of the imagination; and among them the easy ideas, in which there is more diversity than strength, which maintain the attention easily through alternation, without its being tied to one and the same object. The delicate, the beautiful, the gentle images of zephyrs, hills, plains, rippling streams, and so forth, more than the

[This second section first appeared in November in the forty-fourth part of the journal.] [See notes 14 and 16 on pp. 96–7, note 34 on p. 101, and the discussion of this term on pp. 34–5.]

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shattering  great depths, sublime ideas, of cliffs, towering waves, chasms, thunder storms, and than penetrating speculative investigations. The desire for honor is not the dominant passion in people of this kind, and when it is it arises not from their distinguishing attribute, namely, from the extensive strength of the soul, but instead from the intensive magnitude that can be combined with it to a considerable degree. In middle-rate mentalities of this class, sensuality is by far dominant over the drive for honor, as long as the natural inclination has not taken a different direction. We find the proper soil for thirst for honor,12 where the intensive power of the soul is dominant. To be sure, another difference can still be noticed that occurs in the classification of temperaments. Either the power is shed, so to speak, right at the beginning of the action, like the living13 power of a hard body, when it strikes another. This is the ground of the intensity in those affects that quickly well up, but also again quickly calm down. Or, in others, the power gets involved with the object 715 only gradually: initially it binds14 itself solely through easy and gentle ties, which, however, become always tighter, until the power is completely bound; and these ties are not broken, or reflection freed from the object, before fatigue overtakes it. The first gives the choleric, the last the melancholic temperament, which after carefully conducted comparisons will be found to be more similar to the sanguine temperament. When searching for examples in actual human beings, one must select those in which the distinguishing mark shines forth prominently. The intermingling of these 716 mental constitutions and their degenerate forms are as diverse as colors. The proper boundaries, where one class ends and the other begins, are sometimes difficult to determine, and often cannot be determined at all. Also, the character of nature must be distinguished from the additions and modifications introduced by art and education. And the former remains recognizable almost only where it is expressed 729 with exceptional strength and sharpness.15 III.16 This, I say, is the most proper soil for the desire for honor. Since the changes, which enter the most inward part of the power of representation from the outside, impress themselves deeply, the feeling of self naturally becomes more attentive to these internal changes. With the sanguine, everything touches17 only the surface of the soul. What is agreeable in this act of being touched by many external objects is felt most vividly, and thus first becomes the aim that one desires in new ties with objects. With the choleric, the power feels the gratification, which is provided by the agreement of actions with the powers, more in the internal part of the soul itself, and 12 [Ehrgeiz, a term clearly related to honor (Ehre), which could be understood as a kind of grasping for honor.] 13 [The language of “living power” was common in the age, meaning simply that a power is active or operative.] 14 [Reading einbindet for entbindet.] 15 [This third section first appeared in November in the forty-fifth part of the journal.] 16 [The heading, as printed, is “IV.” Presumably, the numbered headings refer to the placement of the piece within the journal and are not those of Tetens.] 17 [Reading berühret for beruhet.]

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more in the imagination, where it still remains when the object that produced it has been withdrawn from the senses. For this reason, reflection is more drawn to what is internal, and develops a propensity to attend to itself18 and to discover within itself19 an agreement of powers and actions. The happiness that the human being seeks consists generally in the feeling of his perfections, and for the choleric, in the feeling of his internal strength, the magnitude of the powers, and their effects. This is the seed of the drive for inner worth, the desire for honor, the drive for eminence over others, and inner pride, which also germinate in people of other temperaments, since within them lies a similar cause, but never such abundant and suitable nourishment. And for this reason, such things never grow as high and strong in them, as they do in those of the choleric and melancholic characters. The acuity of consciousness that is directed to itself next sires conceit; this great 730 source of comfort for a lack of true merit brought us a means of rest when kept within its limits: but degenerated into a bed of laziness: Each want of Happiness by Hope supply’d, And each Vacuity of Sense by Pride. —Pope20 As soon as a comparison is made between oneself and others, there arises inner pride and contempt of others. These are always greater the more vividly the human being looks within himself, when he perceives abilities that operate differently, and the less attention he applies to others. This last shortsightedness is, however, very common, and extends far wider than the desire for honor, such that even the American Indian says to the Moor: I anciote,21 I sugar, I money; you knife, you pruning knife, you glass beads22: and with this placed himself far above the other, indeed even above the European. Ignorance is such a significant ingredient in this passion that a strong portion of regard for one’s own worth is not even required: Just as a great dose of the latter can also produce it, when only a small part is taken

[sich mit sich selbst zu unterhalten] [Reading in seinem Innern for in seiner innern.] 20 [In English. From Alexander Pope’s (1688–1744) Essay on Man (1733–4), Epistle II: 263–64, p. 36. However, the quotation, as printed, is full of errors: “Each wart of happiness by Hope supplyd, And each vacuity of sense by prode. Pope.”] 21 [Roucou, another name for the achiote tree, native to south America, from which is derived the orangered pigment called annatto.] 22 [Tetens is here silently quoting from a German translation of Pierre Barrere’s Nouvelle relation de la France equinoxiale (1743), which relates a supposed conversation between a black person and one of native American origin. The point of the story is to show that although the native Americans held the blacks to be inferior, both because of their skin color and their being born into slavery, the black slave nevertheless held himself to be superior to the native American. The reason he gave was that if they were both slaves, then the items used to purchase him would be superior to those typically used to purchase one of native American descent. The translation of Barrere’s book is found in the second volume of the series Sammlung neuer und merkwürdiger Reisen zu Wasser und zu Lande, aus verschiedenen Sprachen übersezt under the title “Neue Beschreibung von Guiana” (1751). See esp. p. 94. In both the original and the translation, it is the black person who is speaking to the Native American, which Tetens turns around, presumably by mistake.] 18 19

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from the former. This is the source of national pride, and should it be so difficult to understand the reasons why the Germans are consistently so much less subject to this mistake, than are their neighbors, the English and the French? And this inner pride is found even without the desire for honor, and the drive for eminence over others, as experience confirms in the lazy nations. For these latter drives require still something else besides. The powers of the soul must have obtained a higher degree of effectiveness either by nature, or through art. We estimate and measure this degree, which stands somewhat above the common middle rate, with a confusedly known standard for 731 unextended things: which measure is the most common in practice, more than the measure of bodies, and which is yet far more difficult to reduce to simple elements and principles, when it is not wholly impossible. The sanguine disposition seeks to distract these higher drives with sensations or easy alternations, and to employ them on the basis of such comforts, for it can almost be said that the sanguine person does not love himself as much as he loves his changes; although, of course, in another sense, these also constitute a part of himself; the choleric temperament, 732 however, channels the greater impulses23 to himself, and to his own enhancement, and makes this into the final and foremost aim. In every case he calculates, so to speak, how much he himself, his abilities, and the domain of his powers will be extended through this or another occupation: the distinction between the first and the last consists in the subordination24 of the aim and the means, and in the more or less: the single difference that one can seek in beings of the same race, as human 737 beings are.25 IV.26 There we thus find the drive for inner worthiness or for the perfecting of oneself: but not yet the desire for honor. This is the drive about which we can speak with our great instructive poets. Its fire fills the greatest spirits, It teaches art and makes the master. Through it virtue is saved. —Haller27 Only that, this fire burns only too dimly by nature, and would not long survive if air and oil were not added from without. Greater abilities are required, but likewise 738 a depth within, or an intensive strength, since, with mere breadth without depth

[Regungen] [Reading Unterordnung for Unterredung.] 25 [This section first appeared in November in the forty-sixth part of the journal on Monday, November 17.] 26 [The heading, as printed, is “I.”] 27 [From the Swiss poet Albrecht von Haller’s “Ueber die Ehre” (“On Honor”) within his collection Versuch Schweizerischer Gedichten (1732). The original reads: “Dein Feuer füllt die grösten Geister, / Du lehrest Künst und machest Meister. / Durch dich erhält die Tugend sich:”] 23 24

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an extended employment can indeed be found, but not the feeling of inner efficacy, nor a notable aspiration to enhance this. The intensive magnitude of the power of representation can still express itself, as was shown above, in two ways: either initially with intensity and dullness that quickly follows, like a tensed bow; or28 only slowly, but initially with weak 739 and afterward strengthened vigor, like the magnet when it draws iron to itself. This provided the distinction between the choleric and the so-called melancholic temperaments, and if these are pursued further, there will readily be found in them the traces: in the first, of the desire for honor in vain and imagined advantages; in the last, of the noble desire to seek one’s honor in true and persistently enduring advantages. But I can disregard this difference here. This drive to operate, and this liking for one’s own actions and for those powers that are appropriate to them, is so natural that it would develop itself even apart from society, if only the burden of other hindrances did not suppress such. But there is still no drive for eminence over others or emulation.29 It first passes over into these after comparisons are made between oneself and others who are either equal to us, or are at least not too far above or below us. Too great of a distance does not arouse competition. If one is too far ahead, then one is all too satisfied with oneself, arouses the drive for comforts, stands still, and awaits posterity; if one is too far behind, then the impossibility of the competitor’s catching up dashes all hope: and without hope there is no drive or desire. Thus, with respect to its various marks, competition is the work of society: it is the oil that must be poured into the drive for inner worth in order for this lamp to furnish a bright flame. Competition can exist without the desire for honor, but this is rare, since the 740 drive to inner worth is seldomly entirely pure. The desire for honor sometimes exists without competition, but only the sort that either is also separated from all to which it can compare itself and that finds itself alone on a certain track, or else is a desire for honor of the very lowest kind. Both inclinations are sisters; however, the one is not the mother of the other, although frequently the occasional cause of it. So many confusions have been introduced into the pathology of the soul by one’s mistaking for the source or cause of an inclination another inclination that serves only to induce it. A passion rarely has more than one cause, but the occasions are infinitely many. In the sequel, I will comment especially on this in regard to the desire for honor. Place a person of great spirit, in which the drive to inner worth is fully matured, on an uninhabited island like Tinian.30 He has all needs fulfilled whose pursuit

[Reading oder for der.] [Reading Ämulation for Annulation. Heyse gives for the former “der Wetteifer, die Nacheiferung.”] 30 This is known from the Ansonian travel report, and just as would be required for this experiment.   [Tinian is part of the Northern Mariana Islands in the west Pacific. It was visited by English Royal Navy officer George Anson (1697–1762) during his famous circumnavigation of the globe (1740–4) and is described in his book A Voyage to the South Seas, and to many other Parts of the World, Performed from September 1740, to June 1744 (1745). Tetens possibly read about it in the German translation, Des Herrn Admirals, Lord Ansons Reise um die Welt (1749).] 28 29

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could prevent him from abandoning himself, without limitation, to his predominant inclination: for the production of works, let him be provided with every means which insight, art, and genius require, and admiration merits: nothing is lacking except for human beings and the hope that the great value of his labor will ever be recognized or used by them. What do we expect from his inner drives? I expect great projects, expressions of his genius just as vigorous (if perhaps less useful) as if he were at the center of the world stage, and a beginning of their execution for his own sake, like an artist who squanders his genius on works through which he cannot hope to ever be recognized, and perhaps a gradual fatigue and indolence. Here the desire for honor is not a mainspring. All of this can be produced by the 741 feeling of one’s own self, gratification over inner worth, and the drive to enhance oneself. The drive for posthumous fame is either a desire to be honored by one’s contemporaries that is also extended to the future and is in that case indisputably more intense than the former alone. A passion based upon of the gratification of the present combined with a hope for the future is naturally stronger than what the first by itself would have produced. But if the love of honor in regard to the posterity is detached from honor among one’s contemporaries, or even accompanied by disgrace in the eyes of those now living, then it is in all cases weaker than the desire for honor proper, which has regard for present fame; that is, if one otherwise assumes as equal on both sides the remaining circumstances, the persons from which the esteem stems, their number, their qualities, the degree of esteem, its duration, and other such things, which strengthen the inclination. Things foreseen are weaker than sensations; but just as hope triumphs over misery and gratification over what lies in the future can beat down pain over the present, the love of posthumous fame can, in some circumstances, provide stronger encouragement than the love for present honor. If the desire for posthumous fame were found more frequently by itself than it actually is, then the violence with which it takes control of the human being would already suffice to overthrow the system of Helvétius and others, which derives all desire for honor from sensuality or the desire for sensuous delights,31 although its incorrectness will be made clear easily on other grounds. The drive for external honor is the daughter of the drive to perfect oneself in one’s powers and abilities. In society, however, this latter must already have 742 received from us a certain direction toward the good opinion of others, before it passes over into the desire for honor. And here the question is this: What properly gives it this direction, and makes it so that we are excited by other people’s good opinion of us? The desire for sensual pleasure never becomes the desire for honor, if one does not wish here again, as so often happens, to follow indistinct concepts, such as to conflate both with the general desire for well-being. Honor can be sought as a means to gratification, namely, for the sake of that sensual gratification that we

[See Chapter 11 of the Third Discourse of Helvétius’s De l’esprit (1758).]

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expect from the help of others under whose direction we stand; and the drive for the means can obscure and weaken the drive for the final end, and the means can become the aim, which is so customary to the human being and is the sole cause of avarice. However, whenever such happens, the dominant inclination for sensual pleasure must have summoned the drive to inner worth—both of these being present, in their weak beginnings, in almost all human beings—and ordered the latter, like a subordinate, to furnish the means to its own satisfaction; and in such cases it often happens that in the person in which the drive to inner worth is used in this way, it then gains dominance over the former. For the desire for sensual pleasure is indeed a modification of one and the same fundamental power of the soul in which the drive for honor is found; for this reason, one could say in a certain sense that one passes over into the other: however, since one must think and speak here without rhetorical flourishes, if these concepts are to be distinct, one must say that when the sensual person becomes covetous of honor,32 the first disposition of the soul becomes suppressed, and the latter more vigorously cultivated. One will 743 not instill even the most fantastical thirst for honor in a human being that lacks all depth of the power of representation; no sooner than the sensual fellow begins to give himself over to this sentiment, does his conceitedness and amusement with his own fantasy materialize. If he pretends to sport the best coiffed head of hair, then he is already standing before the mirror admiring the imaginary worth he sees it as having. Sensual pleasure can excite the drive to inner33 worth, and direct it to external honor, but such pleasure cannot satisfy it. Every inclination seeks its own good: it can be dragged along by another, but it does not go on its own, still less does it run, and least of all does it fly, if it does not have its own goal attracting it. In the love of honor, this goal is not sensible gratification; and what is it then? One must look for it in the nature of the drive for inner worth itself and in society. The drive for inner worth has as its aim the delight in oneself, in one’s greatness, in one’s power, and in one’s abilities. This delight consists in a feeling and presupposes a certain imagining or a conviction that one possesses or will gain that in the possession of which one would rejoice. If external honor, fame, and reputation in regard to others excites and confirms this conviction or imagining, and raises it to the vividness of sensation, then there is indeed nothing more natural than that the drive to inner worth hastens toward objects in which it finds nourishment and 744 satiation. If possibly a doubt remains whether this stimulation or raising of our conviction regarding our own excellence is sufficiently powerful to produce such an intense excitement of our drives as is provided by esteem and honor, then consider only the following, which mostly consists in the experiences that almost everyone can gather without effort from within himself. For where is there a well-educated human being without a love of honor?

[ehrgeizig] [Reading innerer for einer.]

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Cases must be considered where honor is sought for its own sake, that is, as the kind of good in possession of which one immediately rejoices, without its relating to any other. But every good allures in several ways; honor generally has wealth and gratification as companions. Whoever would not attend to honor alone, esteems it for the sake of these latter. This does not at all conflict with the preceding, where I denied that sensual pleasure could satiate the desire for honor. It is one thing to say that the human is satisfied and another to say that it is the drive, which operates, that is satisfied. If the inclination that is dominant is satiated, then it does not matter so much that an ancillary inclination misses out. We are accustomed to skip small deficiencies in the calculation of our well-being and gladly accept when fate only provides us with the greater part of the uncertain sum.34 753 V.35 If the accolades of others provide us with a conviction that we did not have before, then it presents us with the image of a good. People of weak understanding eagerly accept every praise, no matter who it comes from or how it comes, and those who are more perspicuous, also allow themselves to be easily persuaded. The power of flattery, lies in this: Who among us does not easily approve, when inclination corrupts us? The heart attributes an importance to false grounds, it falsifies the clarity of sense, and the lie that pleases is more beautiful than the truth.36 Does not a thing 754 stimulate us that puts us in possession of a new good that we wish for, knowing not that we had it all along? Sometimes it merely raises conviction. The scholar may know that he is a person of great spirit: now he hears it from others. This removes his doubt. Such confirmation is more powerful the more it is necessary: and in those with understanding, it is indeed necessary. A person of great understanding has much trust in himself: but also much distrust toward himself. He feels his weakness, since there indeed exists 755 the desire to elevate himself, but he also feels his defect: he becomes doubtful of his worth the more he thinks about himself. Now, since worth and worthlessness, strength and weakness, capacity and incapacity, greatness and baseness are combined in the feeling of himself, when he places both on the scales and finds an approximate balance (which brings with it a balance also between gratification and vexation);

[This concluding section first appeared in November in the forty-seventh part of the journal on Monday, November 24.] 35 [The heading, as printed, is “I.”] 36 [Darin liegt die Macht der Schmeichelei, wer giebt nicht leicht Beifall, wo Neigung uns besticht. Das Herz legt ein Gewicht den falschen Gründen bei, es fälscht der Sinn Klarheit, und Lüge die gefällt, ist schöner als die Wahrheit. This is an uncited quotation from the Swiss poet and philosopher Albrecht von Haller’s poem “Gedanken über Vernunft, Aberglauben und Unglauben” (“Thoughts on Reason, Superstition and Unbelief”), which first appeared in his Versuch Schweizerischer Gedichten (1732). The original does not speak of flattery but instead reads: “Wie leicht verfehlst du doch, wenn Neigung dich besticht? / Man glaubet, was man wünscht, das Herz legt ein Gewicht / Den leichtern Gründen bey; Es fälscht der Sinnen Klarheit / Und Lüge die gefällt, ist schöner als die Wahrheit.” This translates roughly as this: “How easily do you not fall short when inclination corrupts you? / One believes what one wishes, the heart attributes a weight / To lighter grounds; it falsifies the clarity of sense / And the lie that pleases is more beautiful than the truth.”] 34

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because of this, external honor comes to the aid, cuts free the pan containing his incapacity, whence the other one drops and makes gratification predominate. That is what the human being wants. Must37 one have tasted this more than once in order for the desire to be stimulated afterward as a consequence, if the drive to this sensation is not otherwise suppressed by an inclination standing opposed to it? A lady of perfect beauty, with the intense desire to shine, steps in full finery before a mirror in which she has not yet seen herself, and now the previous imagination of the exquisiteness of her form turns into sensation and stimulates the longing to view herself more frequently. The human being who sees himself honored, senses the reflected light, which passes from him to others and back; and which brings with it his own picture, and allows him to see in it the original, that is to say, himself. What the mirror does there, praise does here. In great geniuses there is found the great desire for honor that can only first be called the thirst for honors when it becomes inordinate; but the greater the understanding, the more delicate it is. Praise that is to move great people must be true and specific and come from persons that the former know are able to judge. Otherwise, their motto is: haud capto gloriam vulgi.38 Descartes was an example of such. But the heart, as previously noted, is easily bribed. The desire for honor is made out to be far too powerful, when one ascribes to it 756 all great acts that are an effect of great powers. One can look past this confusion in the poet, since that drive, of which he says: Through you is virtue saved, he also calls The enchanting absurdity, lust of the ears, Delusion’s daughter, wish of fools.39 But the moralist must precisely distinguish the desire to operate and to internally elevate oneself; the desire to feel that one operates and strengthens oneself; and the desire to be convinced by the approval of others that one is not mistaken in one’s feeling regarding oneself, which are always different and separable, and allow of various degrees, although they are generally combined with one another. Only this latter is the love of honor. Who, aside from the omnipotent, knows the human being so precisely that he could say what belongs to each of these sources taken by themselves? Perhaps even Cicero was not as vain as some took him to be on the basis of his statements. If one wants to know whether the desire for honor is fully dominant, then one advances this question: When allowed to choose from either [Reading Bedarf for Darf.] [“I do not long for the fame of the common herd.” Possibly an allusion to the well-known line “procul absit gloria vulgi” found in Elegies, 3.19.7, by the Latin poet Albius Tibullus (c. 55–19 BCE).] 39 [Again a quotation from Haller’s “On Honor,” and again misquoted. Instead of “Lust” (also “Lust” in German), Haller has “Speiß” in the first two editions and “Kost” in the remaining, both of which roughly translate as “food.” However, the change may be intentional, or at least not without ground, since “lust of the ears” is found in the writings of John Calvin (1509–64) and others as an extension of “lust of the eyes” (“der Augen Lust” in Luther), which is found in 1 John 2:16. See 27, on p. 145 above.] 37 38

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being upright and great and being held to be such by no one, neither now nor in the future, and knowing this with confidence, or appearing to be upright and great, now and in the future, and yet not to be such40: which would one seize? I continue to think that many who are blamed for being covetous of honor41 would take as their motto the expression of Taubmann: malo esse, quam videri.42 This is an attempt at an analysis of the love for honor, as it exists in human beings. The question, whether and to what extent this inclination is innate has been answered. I will leave it to the moralists to prescribe its laws and limits, and to seek the means by which it can be brought within them. For, as one perceives in regard to the youth, it is frequently necessary to provoke them.

[Cf. Glaucon’s recapitulation of the argument of Thrasymachus in Plato’s Republic 360e–361d.] [ehrgeizig] 42 [Friedrich Taubmann (1565–1613), famous German philologist and poet laureate under Holy Roman Emperor Rudolf II (1552–1612). An immensely popular account of his life and sayings continued to be published up through the nineteenth century: TAUBMANIANA, Oder Des Sinnreichen Poetens, Friedrich Taubmanns Nachdenckliches Leben, Scharffsinnige Sprüche, Kluge Hof- und schertzhaffte Studenten-Reden, wie auch Dessen Denkwürdige Gedichte, artige Begebenheiten, Und was dem allen gleichförmig (1703). Among this material is found the following entry: “Catholic. When Taubmann was in the church in Prague, a Jesuit said to him: Tu mihi non videris Catholicus [You do not look Catholic to me]; sure enough, he answered: Malo esse, quam videri [I prefer to be than to appear]” (p. 110).] 40

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8

On the Origin of Languages and Writing (1772)1 I

3

A More Precise Determination of the Problem Whether human beings, left with only their natural abilities, would be in a position to spontaneously invent a language? This question would be answered easily if one were permitted to assume that, under these circumstances, human beings had already developed their powers of understanding, had grasped rational thoughts, and had signified these latter—prior even to their having arrived at a language—through other signs, perhaps through facial expressions and gestures. In this manner, the invention of a language would be regarded merely as the invention of the most convenient and perfect signs, and hence would be just as natural as every other invention that the natural intelligence of the human being has hit upon, without foreign instruction, excited by needs or by desire and guided by particular and contingent circumstances. 4 However, herein lies a unique difficulty with respect to the invention of language. Not much reflection, and indeed really no rational reflection, may be assumed where there is as yet no language. Language must be as old as the use of reason. Indeed, can even only the first step in the transition from the purely animal to the rational condition be thought as possible without a language having already been invented, or at least without its being invented at the same time? Thus, the question of the self-invention of a language leads to yet another investigation, namely to this: Can the human being, left with only his naturally inborn abilities, without instruction and without possessing a language, spontaneously begin to develop his higher powers of knowledge? Can he proceed from this beginning, and now also invent a language? Or can he arrive at a language without reason, and, in this case, construct the latter upon the former? Or can he fashion both at the same time, language and reason in conjunction with one another? Our own newborn children teach us what we human beings at a minimum are when we come into the world. There have been a few cases in which individual [First published as a book in Bützow and Wismar.]

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children were nourished and raised among animals, separated from all human 5 society.2 These teach us what becomes of the human being when he grows up in the company of animals without being among his equals. Experiments have been conducted with several children, who were left together among themselves but removed from all contact with other human beings, and without being given the least direction, until they were nourished to a certain age.3 I have had in mind particularly the feral boy found in Poland and raised among bears, and the feral girl found in 1731 in Chalons in Champagne, who was afterwards called le Blanc (Histoire d’une jeune fille sauvage, Paris 1755). The stories of the merfolk in Telliamed, and in other writers, are too fabulous to be taken as a basis in the philosophical consideration of human beings. And when what is perhaps true in them is separated out (Pontoppidan’s Natürliche Geschichte von Norwegen, ch. 8. §2 f.), they no longer belong to the natural history of the human being, but to that of sea animals.   [Tetens here refers to the supposed discovery in 1694 of a feral boy who was raised by bears in the forests of Lithuania. The likely source is Bernard Connor’s Evangelium medici: seu medicina mystica (1699).   The story of the famous feral child, Marie-Angélique Memmie Le Blanc (1712–75), is found in Histoire d’une jeune fille sauvage (1755), composed by Marie-Catherine Homassel-Hecquet (1686–1764) and edited by the natural scientist Charles-Marie de la Condamine (1701–74). The book appeared in English translation as An Account of a Savage Girl, Caught Wild in the Woods of Champagne in 1768.   Telliamed ou Entretiens d’un philosophe indien avec un missionnaire français sur la diminution de la mer, la formation de la terre, l’origine de l’homme (1748) is the title of a book by Benoît de Maillet (1656– 1738), a French naturalist known for his work in Egypt and the Levant. “Telliamed” is an anagram of “de Maillet.” Divided into six days, the work explains the origin of all things on earth from the seas, with the sixth day in particular containing many detailed stories of merfolk.   Erik Pontoppidan (1698–1764) was a prolific Danish–Norwegian naturalist, theologian, and historian and author of Det første Forsøg paa Norges naturlige Historie (2 vols., 1752) (The First Essay on Norway’s Natural History), here referred to by Tetens in the German translation, Versuch einer natürlichen Historie von Norwegen, translated by Johann Adolph Scheiben (2 vols., 1754). Tetens’s reference, however, is incomplete, as the chapter 8 in question is that of the second volume. Pontoppidan’s general view is that the tales of merfolk cannot be rejected a priori; indeed, based on analogy with other cases (e.g., sea-cows, sea-horses, and so on), it is highly probable, he believes, that there is an element of truth in them. Still, in many of the cases he examines, he argues that the creature described in such tales is a kind of whale or other rare sea creature.] 3 On the Egyptian King Psammetichus’s experiments, see the report in Herodotus, bk. 2. p. 40. Quintilian, bk. X, ch. 1. speaks of several similar cases. Mogul Akbar the Great, grandson of the famous Tamerlane, was to have allowed twelve children to be provided for by mute people in a separate room until twelve years of age, without their being provided any instruction. Koenig Schediasm. De hominum inter feras educatorum statu naturali solitario.   [Psammetichus, or Psamtik I (664–610 BCE), was an Egyptian King of the twenty-sixth dynasty. His experiment on children, which aimed to determine whether the Phrygian or the Egyptian language was the first to be spoken by mankind, is described by Herodotus in bk. 2.2 of The Histories as follows: “He took at random, from an ordinary family, two newly born infants and gave them to a shepherd to be brought up amongst his flocks, under strict orders that no one should utter a word in their presence. They were to be kept by themselves in a lonely cottage, and the shepherd was to bring in goats from time to time, to see if the babies had enough milk to drink, and to look after them in any other way that was necessary. All these arrangements were made by Psammetichus because he wished to find out what word the children would first utter, once they had grown out of their meaningless baby-talk. The plan succeeded; two years later the shepherd, who during that time had done everything he had been told to do, happened one day to open the door of the cottage and go in, when both children, running up to him with hands outstretched, pronounced the word ‘becos’. The first time this occurred the shepherd made no mention of it; but when he found that every time he visited the children to attend to their needs the same word was constantly repeated by them, he informed his master. Psammetichus ordered the children to be brought to him, and when he himself heard them say ‘becos’ he determined to find out to what language the word belonged. 2

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In none of these experiments have such children mastered a human language; rather, at most, they adopted only certain indistinct tones from such animals as they had heard the calls of. There is no reason to doubt the correctness of these reports. Were the design of these experiments and their results described more precisely, then they would show us more distinctly what, at the moment, is only known generally from them, namely: What could arise from the human being who was indeed in society with his equals, but left to himself, and deprived of all instruction 6 and all direction. In South America, peoples have been found that are of such ignorance and savageness as is worthy of admiration.4 These teach us at how low a level of his development the human being can remain. And, on the other hand, our Leibnizes and our Newtons show us the wondrous height to which human beings can rise under favorable circumstances. The experiences just adduced present to our eyes distinct modifications of human nature that are also are spread very distantly apart. Is it not presently possible to search out and abstract from this what is universal and necessary in such, namely,

His inquiries revealed that it was the Phrygian for ‘bread’, and in consideration of this the Egyptians yielded their claims and admitted the superior antiquity of the Phrygians” (Herodotus 1954, pp. 86–7). Another version recounted by Herodotus has it that women put in charge of the children had their tongues cut out.   Quintilian, or Marcus Fabius Quintilianus (first century CE), wrote on education and particularly on the teaching of rhetoric. Tetens refers to his main work, the Institutio oratoria (c. 95 CE) in twelve books, without, however, providing a title. In the place cited by Tetens, Quintilian likely has in mind the story of Psammetichus from Herodotus but writes as if this experiment had been conducted on multiple occasions: “Hence infants brought up, at the command of princes, by dumb nurses and in solitude, were destitute of the faculty of speech, though they are said to have uttered some unconnected words” (Quintilian 1856, vol. 2, ch. 2.10).   The reference to Akbar the Great is presumably to Abu’l-Fath Jalal-ud-din Muhammad Akbar (1542– 1605), the third Mughal emperor, who according to one source available to Tetens “has allowed 30 selected boys to be raised in a desert, in order to learn by experience [erfahren], what kind of a language they would speak together or learn: however, nothing came from this that one would have called language; hence the conclusion was reached that speaking must be learned only by ear” (Storch 1751, p. 333).   The last line of the footnote refers to a book by Heinrich Konrad König (latinized to Henrici Conradi Koenig), about whom little is known except for his authorship of the little offhand (hence “schediasma”) work, Schediasma de hominum inter feras educatorum status naturali solitario. Existentia status indubitatis exemplis probatur, indoles eiusdem explicatur, illustratur, denique usus in iurisprudentia naturali ostenditur (1730). As the title indicates, the book is a critical discussion and defense of the idea of an original state of nature for use in discussions of natural law. Section XVI, in particular, briefly recounts the stories of Psammetichus and Akbar the Great mentioned by Tetens.] 4 To these belong the Caaigua and the Lulles. Charlevoix, Geschichte von Paraguay, vol. 1 bk. 4 yrs. 1589– 90, and vol. 2, bk. 8, yrs. 1630–1.   [The Caaigua and Lulles were both indigenous tribes of South America described by the French Jesuit Pierre François Xavier de Charlevoix (1682–1761) in his Histoire du Paraguay (4 vols., 1756). The Caaigua, named such because they lived only in the forests, are described in detail by Charlevoix and judged to have no characteristic which distinguished them from wild animals (vol. 2, ch. 8). The Lulles are likewise described as the most “barbarous” of the new world (vol. 1, ch. 4). Tetens may have read this recently in the German translation, Geschichte von Paraguay und dem Mißionswerke der Jesuiten in diesem Lande (2 vols., 1768).]

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what is properly called nature? And is it not possible thereupon to gain insight into what the human being could be, would be, and must be, even under still other circumstances than those under which it has been found in the previously mentioned cases, and particularly under such circumstances as must be assumed in this investigation concerning the invention of language? I imagine namely a number of children that, from their birth forward, have been entirely separated from all intercourse and from all society with other human beings, without even the slightest instruction, having all the while been nourished, until they have acquired the powers to collect their nourishment themselves, and can subsist 7 without foreign help. If the earth were occupied by such a race of human beings and were furnished with the means of nourishment that would be necessary and most suitable for them, then would these creatures, left henceforth only to themselves and their faculties, be in a position to educate themselves, to develop their higher rational powers, and to invent a language? This is how I understand the problem. Human beings should have before their eyes (a) their equals and (b) their fellow residents on this earth, namely the animals. They should be provided with a source— if nothing else, then at least the fruits of the trees—in order to be able to satisfy their thirst and hunger, and supplied with all the instruments of the senses. The external circumstances in which human nature should be situated must at least be determined beforehand generally, if one wants to investigate what could become of it. The newborn child that is immediately abandoned must perish. Some nurturing is indispensable to it even just in order to live and subsist. However, were it to enjoy all the guidance that we provide to our own children, then it would be our equal; except perhaps for something minor, which need not be regarded here.5 Even in the question: 8 What can become of the seed of a plant [?], it is assumed as already understood that one presupposes the conditions; when it is placed into this or that soil. The experiences mentioned appear to teach how uncommonly flexible human nature is, and how very subject it is to the influence of external circumstances. Properly, such a being can exist at no time and in no place in a purely natural condition (statu mere naturali), that is, never and nowhere can innate nature operate entirely by itself in such a way that no other external causes, by which it is modified, should have an influence on and determine its manner of operating.

II The Natural Abilities of Human Beings The Englishman Ferguson answered the question—where is the human being found in its natural condition?—as follows: Here, he said, where I am; I write this on the

The children of the Indians in Paraguay master all arts in which they are instructed. Charlevoix’s History of Paraguay, vol. 1 bk. 5. And even if the child of a savage should have within him a still more innate predisposition to savagery, or a somewhat greater inability for our fine sciences, as Mr. Paw of the Americas claims, it would nevertheless master at least our language, our common art, and it would adopt the skills necessary for the pursuit of civilized living, as well as our own children.

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Cape, or in the middle of England.6 In a similar, but also just as unsatisfying way, the question: Which are the natural abilities of the human being? can be answered, They are those that I possess; I say this as a Caaigua7 or as a German philosopher, namely, when one wants to hide behind the ambiguity of the word natural.8 What the human being becomes, he also can become. And this ability to become such lies in his 9 nature. Philosophers have sought out the various kinds of modifications that may be perceived in our souls and have ascribed to the latter as many abilities and faculties, to do or to suffer, as there are noticeable differences that appear both in what we accept from outside as well as in what is effected through our internal spontaneity. But these abilities do not all exist within us in the same way. Some are innate, others are acquired. Some are drives, already actual endeavors to carry something out; others are only abilities or faculties for being able to carry something out; still others are only mere abilities or predispositions to become something. Such abilities as may be perceived in the human being who is ready to be able to maintain himself in every condition in which he finds himself, which erupt in every modification of his nature, and become active, still may not always be the first fundamental determinations of human nature, and still less of the human soul; but they are nevertheless the first shoots, which nature drives forth as soon only as it is strengthened to the point that it can maintain itself and subsist. Whatever must or can occur in the human being through these first and general activities, under the previously determined circumstances, is necessary or possible in him when he is left by himself and with his natural abilities.

[Adam Ferguson (1723–1816) was a philosopher of the Scottish Enlightenment. Tetens here paraphrases a passage from Ferguson’s Essay on the History of Civil Society (1767): “If we are asked therefore, Where the state of nature is to be found? we may answer, It is here; and it matters not whether we are understood to speak in the island of Great Britain, at the Cape of Good Hope, or on the Straits of Magellan. While this active being is in the train of employing his talents, and of operating on the subjects around him, all situations are equally natural” (pp. 11–12). Ferguson’s theories on the state of nature, on the origins of language and reason, and more generally on questions of methodology no doubt served as key opponents throughout Tetens’s career. In the chapter from which this quotation is taken, Ferguson argues that it is useless to investigate the state of nature, not only because there remains no record of it, but also because it has little bearing on the essential question, which is what human beings should do now. “He is, in short, a man in every condition,” Ferguson writes, “and we can learn nothing of his nature from the analogy of other animals. If we would know him, we must attend to himself, to the course of his life, and the tenor of his conduct. With him society appears to be as old as the individual, and the use of the tongue as universal as that of the hand or the foot. If there was a time in which he had his acquaintance with his own species to make, and his faculties to acquire, it is a time of which we have no record, and in relation to which our opinions can serve no purpose, and are supported by no evidence” (p. 8). Early in the chapter, Ferguson proposes the same experiment as Tetens does above in this essay, namely that of a small group of children left to itself and without instruction, and concludes it to be almost trivially true that they would quickly develop all the common linguistic and intellectual faculties found in any other existing group (p. 6). Tetens likely read Ferguson in the German translation, Versuch über die Geschichte der bürgerlichen Gesellschaft (1768).] 7 [See note 4 on p. 155 above.] 8 [Another allusion to Ferguson: “Of all the terms we employ in treating of human affairs, those of natural and unnatural are the least determinate in their meaning” (1767, p. 14). Earlier in the chapter, Ferguson suggests that, when it comes to the human being, there is little sense in distinguishing the natural from the unnatural, since art and invention are characteristics of this being (1767, pp. 11–12).] 6

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To these belong: (1) The bodily mechanical instincts. (2) The faculty for receiving through feeling the impressions of external objects, and for becoming determined to activity according to these sensed impressions, that is, sensibility and excitability.9 (3) The feeling of one’s own internal efficacy. (4) The mimetic faculty; and (5) the poetic faculty. The mechanical instincts to eat and drink, to move, to increase the species, and others, consist in drives or endeavors of the active power to prove itself effective in a certain fashion. One is not compelled to accept that precisely these together should be determined to particular objects already through their nature. The objects10 are made known through sensation. Hunger excites one to a certain motion of the mouth. The child bites a stone but again soon throws it away, since it is not the appropriate object in which the activity of that drive can be continued. Internal necessity11 constrains one to try out everything until the instinct has found the object12 that can satisfy it. This is perceived likewise in animals. Indeed, these are determined more and more strongly to certain kinds of activities than the human being is; and for the exploration of appropriate objects several abilities are also effective in them concurrently. Hunger also excites the dog to look around for something that satisfies its stomach, but its smell provides it with an almost infallible sign as to whether or not the object is one that is appropriate for it. The craving for a determinate object arises in the human being in this way. The 11 internal instinct wants to operate in a certain manner. Does the first impression, the beginning of the sensation, that one receives of a thing when the object for this effectiveness is pursued, already teach whether it is appropriate for this purpose or not? If the former, then there arises the further and genuine craving for this thing, and this is determined still further as soon as one makes an experiment and has found satisfaction of the drive in the enjoyment of the object. When the philosophers say that we only crave what presents itself to us as something good and that pleases us, they are not so far incorrect. But why is something a good to us, and why does it please us? The reason is that it occupies one of our drives in a way that accords with the latter’s internal efficacy, or appears at least able to occupy it. And this drive agitates us internally as long as it is held back and is not satisfied, and it causes that unpleasant sensation that Locke calls “uneasiness,”13 and which according to its various degrees may as soon be sensed as a discomfort, or as a painful agitation, or as oppression and anxiety. 10

[Reitzbarkeit] [Objekte] 11 [Noth] 12 [Objekt] 13 [In English. In his An Essay Concerning Human Understanding (1689), John Locke defines “uneasiness” as the simple idea of sensation that is opposite to delight (bk. II, ch. vii, §§1–2). Then, in bk. II, ch. xxi, §§31–47, he goes on to put this idea at the foundation of his theory of volition by arguing, among other things, that it is not the perceived good, but rather uneasiness that alone determines the will (§31, §§34–5), that “desire is a state of uneasiness” (§32), namely one caused by an absent good.] 9

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The mimetic faculty or the faculty to imitate something, belongs to the first abilities that prove themselves operative. Even animals have attained it in some degree. The ape also imitates other kinds of beings. Yet the predisposition to such is not as great in any other kind of animal as it is in the human being, which Aristotle14 has already titled a ζῴων μιμητικώτατόν, the animal that is most disposed to imitation. What 12 we first master, we master through imitation. Our children hear only the sound of our words. They are provided with no instruction as to how they must move the muscles of the vocal organ. Now, lacking the faculty of imitation, they would indeed sense the tones uttered in their presence, and would be able to retain them in their imagination, but never would they be in a position to imitate them, and to master speech. Copying or imitating is not purely an effect of imagination alone. It is much rather a consequence that presupposes the whole of one’s animal nature. Imitation requires (1) a lively impression of a motion that originates externally, or in general a lively representation of what one imitates. The animal is fit for such through sensibility and imagination. It requires (2) a transition or a transfer to a condition similar to the one sensed in the object. This presupposes a certain malleability in the nature doing the copying; it must allow of being formed into various shapes. And (3) to this belongs an endeavor to be active according to this internally adopted condition, and to express it externally so far as the mechanism of the body permits. As Home15 has noted, even from lifeless things does the human being adopt motions or modifications, which have a similarity with those that are found in such things. We sympathize with living beings in proportion as they are similar to ourselves, and most strongly with the human being. Through external sensation there arises 13 within us similar modifications and conditions; and these spread themselves over our power of representation, attune the heart to similar desires, and the muscles of our bodies to similar actions, similar customs,16 similar manners and habits. The power of examples and of intercourse is based on this, our natural predisposition— even involuntarily and unwittingly—to become formed according to others. The faculty to change something through our own activity in our representations and the modifications that arise in us either through external sensations, or through other causes, to resolve them into parts, to abstract these from one another, and thereupon to combine and compound them with one another in a new way; here

Von der Poesie, ch. 4. [Poetics, 4:1148b5–10.] Grundsätze der Critic, vol. 1, ch. 2, pt. 6. [Henry Home, Lord Kames (1696–1782), philosopher and judge of the Scottish Enlightenment and author of, among other works, Elements of Criticism (3 vols., 1762). In the part referred to by Tetens, titled “The Resemblance of Emotions to Their Causes,” Home writes: “That many emotions have some resemblance to their causes, is a truth that can be made clear by induction; tho’, as far as I know, the observation has not been made by any writer. … A fall of water through rocks, raises in the mind a tumultuous confused agitation, extremely similar to its cause. When force is exerted with any effort, the spectator feels a similar effort, as of force exerted within his mind. A large object swells the heart. An elevated object makes the spectator stand erect” (1762, pp. 217–18). Among other inanimate objects that produce effects similar to themselves in the mind, Home also mentions the architectural features of walls and columns.] 16 [Sitten] 14 15

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I comprehend this faculty under the name of the formative poetic faculty. It is the seed of the genius that creates new inventions, and appears to allow of being wholly and completely extinguished under no condition of the human being, no matter how weak its spark may glow. In the most sensual, in the purely animal condition, it would have made the human being, like the young girl le Blanc,17 into the craftiest of animals. It betrays itself in the smallest children and in the stupidest barbarians when a need compels them to become clever. That it has even been imparted to some animals is demonstrated in their behavior and in their actions, through which various philosophers have been moved to attribute to them a degree of human understanding. With this ability the human being can transcend the boundaries of mere imitation. 14 The mimetic faculty is inactive if it is presented with no model that pleases; however, once the representational power is brought into motion, it can go further than the example. There is indeed no human being who is not in some respects an inventor himself, and in some degree an original. But precisely this poetic faculty in which the representational power proves itself to be more spontaneous, is also by nature weaker than sensibility and imagination; and even if this were not the case, still it encounters more obstacles, which hold it back, than do those. For, in addition to the natural inertia that stands against the development of all our abilities, there is here also the propensity to what is habitual, and the satisfaction with this as long as no new need makes new rules of conduct18 necessary. Therefore, if the first clamoring drives of nature are at some point quieted, and no new and strong needs arise; the first invention, should it perchance be produced from an internal and particularly lively activity, without being compelled by a constant need, will not be accompanied immediately by an agreeable outcome, and will not, simply by means of this gratification combined with the feeling of efficacy, sustain the efficacy of this faculty, and excite it to recurrent application: in short, if new desires are not awakened through a new need, or through a new sensual pleasure, then—in both individual persons and in entire peoples—love for the way of life and the institutions to which they have become habituated will be too overwhelmingly strong for one to think of a progression or improvement, and for 15 them to make an effort to employ the faculty of invention. The abilities mentioned to this point belong undoubtedly to the animal nature of the human being and are excitable to such a high degree in this being, that, just as they have proven themselves active in every one of its conditions, they not only can prove themselves active even under those in which I assume the human being here but also will and must prove themselves such. Nonetheless, these alone do not constitute the kernel of the rational human being, if one does not also understand as among them the faculty of reason, or the ability to become rational, regardless of where one locates this. Even through the best instruction, a dog will be influenced by no reflections, no logical arguments,

[See note 2 on p. 154 above.] [Maaßregeln]

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no inferences, and in general by none of the kinds of thoughts that the human soul produces. The animal has within it a sensation, a modification, or a picture of an object; the human being grasps an idea. The animal combines together two pictures or two sensations; the human being thinks a judgment; he thinks the relation between things; not merely similar objects;19 but rather their similarity. In the animal, sensations indeed unite into a third, like two oblique motions in a body unite into a third diagonal motion; but the human being infers, and reasons. The operations of the animal power of representation lack in all of their representations that spiritual and active element, which in us is a consequence of reason. And this is correct, no matter whether, along with some philosophers, one places the entire difference between the human being and the animal in the more and the less; and regards the analagon in the latter as weaker and lower stages of genuine understanding, and 16 our own higher powers as nothing other than extensions and elevations of lower abilities that belong even to animals: or whether, with others, one regards reason as a faculty that is distinct in both essence and kind from the abilities of the animal power of representation.20 For, according to the former system, reason still consists in an innate special disposition or strength of the human power of thought, which makes it possible for this to be able to become elevated to a level of rational insight that is unreachable by representational powers of other animals, even if these latter are otherwise furnished with the lower capacities previously mentioned. The faculty of reason must therefore be among the human being’s natural abilities if one wants

[Objekte] Reimarus, von dem Triebe der Thiere, ch. 2. [Herman Samuel Reimarus (1694–1768), important German philosopher of the Enlightenment and follower of Christian Wolff, remembered mainly for his authorship of the so-called Wolfenbüttel Fragments, the posthumous publication of which initiated a controversy between Gotthold Ephriam Lessing (1694–1768) and Johann Melchior Goeze (1717–1806). The full title of the work cited by Tetens is Allgemeine Betrachtungen über die Triebe der Thiere, hauptsächlich über ihre Kunst-Triebe: zum Erkenntniß des Zusammenhanges der Welt, des Schöpfers und unser selbst (1760) (General Considerations Concerning the Drives of Animals, Chiefly Concerning Their Art-Drive: Toward a Knowledge of the Interconnection of the World, the Creator and Ourselves). In ch. 2 of this work, Reimarus rejects the view, defended by Leibniz, Wolff, and Baumgarten, that the analogue of reason found in other animals differs only in degree, not in kind, from reason as it exists in humans. This Leibnizian view, sometimes referred to as the “continuity thesis,” remained the dominant view of the period until it was famously rejected by Immanuel Kant. Reimarus’s main contention seems to be that animals lack a reflective awareness or recognition of their own mental states, and consequently do not have properly conceptual thought. They, for instance, have memories but do not, like human beings, recognize these memories as representations of things once experienced, but now no longer present. For animals, he claims, a memory of the past is always experienced as something immediately present. Similarly, although animals certainly distinguish things through their behavior, they do not reflect on these differences and create classes or concepts of different kinds of objects. In order to articulate this view, Reimarus develops an alternative account of analogy: “I understand by analogy the similarity of things of different kinds, in one distant ground; as in one general genus of qualities, powers, operations or intentions. Thus, a plant and an animal are indeed different kinds and essences; but there is still an analogy or distant similarity between both in bodily construction, mechanical drives, nourishment, and propagation. The soul is certainly not of one kind and one essence with a machine; and, nevertheless, there is an analogy or distant similarity in the changes in both in that the changes in every power and condition must have a sufficient ground” (1760, vol. 1, §15). His main evidence is drawn from the experience of children and observations of animal behavior.]

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to comprehend how the human being can attain to reflection and to the use of language. In order to make the present treatment independent of all systems, I will here take as a foundation the following two empirical propositions, which recent investigations into the operations of the human understanding have placed beyond doubt. (1) Every thought, every general concept, as well as every idea of an individual object, every judgment and every argument allows of being reduced to an external or an internal sensation, that is, in each of these activities of our power of thought there is present within us a sensation that is developed and abstracted from others; the object of which we represent to ourselves with clear consciousness precisely for the reason 17 that it is sensed by us as so abstracted from others. Now, it may be that this abstracted sensation itself is the thought, as Hume and others before and after him have said, or that it is only the material for a thought and is transformed into a thought through a special activity of our power of thought. Even in that case, when we intuitively represent the relations of things, e.g., similarity, difference, coexistence, and causal connection, etc., there is always found in our power of thought a certain modification that we sense; and the sensation of it either itself constitutes the thought of these relations of objects, or yet is combined with these and induces them. (2) The expression of our ability to reason requires a certain differentiation of our sensations; and likewise conversely, if reason is to remain so far behind as it actually has in the wholly feral human being, then sensations and images must likewise remain undeveloped. Should these become separated from one another, more finely resolved, and abstracted from one another, each by itself held before the feeling of the human being; through whatever causes this may happen, without the assistance of instruction, or with its help; then the higher faculty of understanding also can, 18 will, and must become stimulated and put into operation.

III The Human Being without Any Society. The Human Being in Society with Animals. The Human Being in Society with His Equals If a human being with his mere natural abilities were placed in a region where he hears neither a bird nor an animal in the forest, and does not see himself surrounded by his equals, he would then be an animal that senses hunger and thirst, eats and drinks, perhaps sleeps the rest of the time, and soon perishes. How should he become an Augustus21 of his kind? His mimetic drive is presented with no models except for inanimate beings. The drive to increase the species could stir him. But since an appropriate object to which to apply it is lacking, its impulse will soon be

[ein Mehrers. According to Adelung, a term of ancient origin employed as a Germanic translation of the name of Caesar Augustus (63 BCE–14 CE), from augere, to increase, augment or spread. It is meant in this instance to indicate one who both leads and culturally advances his nation or kind.]

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lost once again. Still less should any mention be made here of an employment of the higher abilities. These require still further inducements from outside and become far less excited by internal inducements alone than does the former natural drive. In society with plants and trees, the mimetic faculty, to the extent that it is operative, can make the human being into nothing other than a vegetative animal.22 It is a beautiful fiction if one allows a human being, placed under these circumstances, to progress further in his development all by himself, to gradually learn to feel and to get to know himself, to increase his needs, to find new means to remedy these, to devise arts, and finally even to philosophize. Purely possible effects, 19 the causes of which are also possible, but here are not actually present, since the most splendid seed lies on a naked rock. The Polish boy raised among bears walked on all fours, looked for honey in the forest, ran, stole, defended himself and growled like the animal after which he was formed.23 It is a natural consequence of the mimetic faculty that among wild animals the human being will grow wild. It does not follow from this that by nature the human being is a wild animal. Reared among the tame he will be tame. By nature, he is neither the one nor the other. The internal strength of his abilities disposes him to ferocity and wildness; in contrast, the pliability of his character makes him still far more adept to be the tamest animal in the world. The boy in Ireland who was nourished by sheep, bleated like a sheep, fled from the hunters, ate grass and hay, and drank water, and troubled himself with nothing further.24 Apart from the instinct to eat and drink, no instinct is found in the human being that is as strongly determined and so unchangeable as in animals: he possesses several and diverse, but less determinate abilities. For this reason, no form is natural to him in the degree that it is to the animal: but he can assume so many more and various forms. In such a purely animal condition, the human being can surpass his model in a few proficiencies; namely, in those to which he possesses a better disposition by nature. 20 In others he must remain behind, where the perfect imitation is impossible owing to the difference in the mechanism of the body. The wild girl le Blanc appeared to have been formed according to more than one species of animal; she climbed trees like a cat, ran faster on all fours than a horse, and intrepidly attacked and killed a large dog that had been loosed upon her. There lies a greater store of mechanical abilities in our nerve-filled and richly pliable body than of mental abilities in the soul. In a wild condition, many of the latter, and in our civilized condition, many of the former, remain unused or still undeveloped.25

[Thier-Pflanze] [See above, note 2 on p. 154.] 24 The report of this boy is found in Tulpius observ. Med. bk. 4, ch. IX. [This incorrect reference should be to bk. 4, ch. X of Observationes medicæ (1652) by Nicolaes Tulp (1593–1674), a Dutch surgeon still remembered because of Rembrandt’s The Anatomy Lesson of Dr. Nicolaes Tulp (1632).] 25 Several historical reports and observations support this, see Kraft’s Sitten der Wilden, pt. 1, §§18 and 19. [Jens Kraft (1720–56), a Danish philosopher and mathematician educated in the Wolffian tradition. Originally written in Danish, the work cited by Tetens appeared in German translation under the title Die Sitten der Wilden, zur Aufklärung des Ursprungs und Aufnahme der Menschheit (1766) (Customs of the Wild, toward the Explanation of the Origin and Inception of Humanity).] 22 23

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In such a feral and fully sensuous condition, there is no perceivable trace of reason or reflection. All thinking consists in an obscure and confused feeling of self, like it did in the girl mentioned above. Such an obscure feeling of self appears to be inseparable even from the most sensuous application of our power of representation. Thus, also here there can be no thought of an invention of language. If the human being has learned tones, these are only crude expressions of his obscure sensations; if this is to be called a language, then it is only an animal language. Once such a purely animal condition has become habit and thus second nature, it is difficult to change oneself. Nature solidifies in the wild form. The faculty to accept rational form is still there, but suppressed and shackled, and cannot become freed without 21 being preceded by a great change. Neither of the wild people mentioned many times above had the appetite or the impulse to become civilized; much rather the strongest inclination against it. The Polish boy was far more pleased with a young bear than with a young child. They suffered severe illnesses before their bodies became accustomed to cooked foods and suffered discontentment and melancholy before their souls became accustomed to the milder representations of rational human beings. Only in society with his equal can the human being become a human being. Among the animals he only imitated. And even when his natural wit introduced something new, a new way to search for his food, or invented a new stratagem, or directed him upwards and he began to walk on his legs, and so on; still, those in his society were unable, due to their fully determined and hardly modifiable nature, to accept his invention, and to follow him therein. And so, it was extinguished like a spark that falls on a rock. It could not be maintained even in him. He was more strongly formed by others than by himself. In society with human beings circumstances are different. Here every individual member can learn from another and at the same time be a teacher. And so each can reciprocally form the others. This can occur. Here the mechanical drives find an object with which to occupy themselves, strengthen themselves through this application, and can be changed into desires for determinate objects. Next to the drives for eating and drinking, the drive to propagate also stirs, 22 and just as hunger drives one to explore until something is found that satisfies the stomach, the former, albeit with less intensity, will also not long fail to discover, from among the great mass of people composed of both sexes, the way to its satisfaction. However, as soon as this drive is put into operation, a host of other social inclinations have been stimulated along with it. The animal affection for the fruit of the body26 stirs within. The needs of children cause a new kind of necessity and excite and guide the natural wit to contemplate the means to their remedy. But if they have discovered this, then they have reached the condition of subsistence; there exists a species that can preserve and propagate itself, and thus can subsist.

[A biblical expression for offspring.]

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In this advancement to the first social condition, however, there is still found one difficulty, which it would be good to consider. If we assume that children, which are reared at such distance from others, have seen no other human being until the time they are brought together with other of their equals into one mass and then left to themselves, then here we have beings of which each knows nothing beyond eating and drinking. They possess a faculty to imitate and to invent. But where is that original, which leads the others by his example; where and in which, then, is the development of their drives to begin? Suppose also that the drive to increase the species is satisfied, and progeny are born: How many new and diverse devices will not now be necessary for the preservation of children, devices of which such human beings as we here assume still have no concept at all? Is the mother’s crude unexercised power of representation straightaway in a position to hit upon the fact that she must offer 23 the child her breast and nourish it in a way different from herself? The child of such parents may have a thousand fewer needs than one of our own,27 but to it some nurturing is nevertheless unavoidably necessary. Would not the species of these human beings much sooner perish, than the parents would become aware of the most necessary nurturing of the children? If, on the one hand, necessity makes one clever,28 then also, on the other, the human being’s inertia is astoundingly great in regard to everything that he is not driven toward by the feeling of his own need. The love of children in the human being is also not as insurmountably strong as it is in animals. Various nations have exposed their children. Whatever the reason for this, it is a proof that maternal love can be suppressed. Can it therefore be assumed, notwithstanding their utter ignorance in the art of nurturing and maintaining children and the daily feeling of their own needs, that the drive in those uncivilized29 human beings operates with such intensity as would be required in order for it to break forth? Perhaps, in this objection, one views the natural wit of the human being as all-tooweak, and amplifies the effect that must be expected from him? The crafty schemes of even the lowest nations in hunting and in other respects, and even the deviousness of some animals, makes it possible to conjecture that the power of invention is not so 24 weak when necessity excites. However, if the effect be too great for the cause, and if some guidance be indispensable to the human being just for it to reach a subsisting society; he will find such in the example that animals provide him. He sees how they procure nourishment, how they come together with their equals to suckle, shelter, protect, and defend their young. Thus, here he has a teacher. And these are instructed by nature solely through fully determinate instincts.

Among the savages, mothers trouble far less over their children than we do. They bathe and wash them, offer them the breast, lay them aside, and go about their work. The child must soon begin to crawl, and even learn to endure the foods eaten by the parents. 28 [Following Tetens 1971, which has Macht instead of Wachet.] 29 [rohen] 27

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IV Possible Beginnings of a Language When human beings were unified into a society that held together, propagated the species, and reared its children, then the use of the voice for indicating to others one’s sensations and one’s cravings30 was entirely natural. Abilities and predispositions were present in the body. Cries, whimpers, and other tones are mechanical expressions of pain, of desires, and of activities. Needs and inducements to call to one’s equals by means of tones are found plentifully in the human being, just as they are in every other kind of animal. Moreover, our own natural mechanical tones are similar to those sounded by other animals. Thus, if one imitated the latter, then the use of our 25 own tones could be promoted by this. The beginning of a language could arise in this way, namely, as a use of the voice to signify sensations and desires through natural tones. This is still a mere animal language, and its words, to give these tones a different name, were unarticulated, only indications of sensations and desires, only mere natural tones. There are three kinds of natural tones. There are (1) mechanical tones, which are determined by the mechanism of the human body, and with which it, like every other animal, exhibits its hunger and thirst, its pain, its anger, its sympathy, its melancholy and joy, and so forth. (2) There are exactly those mechanical tones in non-rational animals that are stronger and more pronounced in them, as is the case with everything belonging to the instincts, than in human beings. Yet even the mechanical tones in human beings are neither of the same noise nor equally lively. Just as a naturally greater talkativeness is found in one people than in another, the climate alone of the completely uncivilized human being can already be a cause of why mechanical noises issue from him in a livelier or in a fainter way. The human being need not learn to master his own tones. But he imitated the tones of animals and this was easier the more these were similar to his own. These are undoubtedly the very oldest and first tones. (3) Very many inanimate bodies in nature also sound31: or their movements 26 are also connected with a sound. Thunder thunders, the wind whooshes, the stone falls, the sea roars, the stream ripples, the tree rustles, and so on. Even the quick movements of our very own limbs are accompanied by a noise and by a kind of sound, which they make sensible to the ears just as to the eyes. These are also natural tones. The human being, in the condition in which we have here assumed him to be, still knows nothing besides sensing, desiring, and acting. Everything he signifies through tones is suffering and doing. He expresses these through his own mechanical tones, and through those mechanical tones that are similar to those of animals. His first

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purely animal language therefore consists in crying, howling, whistling, grating, and similar things. Still, no ideas of external objects are present, at least none that he signals through tones. Thus, he will not yet employ the natural tones of the last kind, and so also will not employ the mechanical tones of animals with the aim of thereby denoting these beings. In non-rational animals, which lack reason, this is the highest stage in language. One does not perceive that the dog immediately signals its master, its food, a house, or any other external matter through tones; it signifies only its own sensations 27 through barking, crying, and howling.

V Possible Beginnings of a Human Language When in connection with his equal, not only can the human being go further, but it will even be difficult for him to remain at this animal stage. He is in society with human beings. Every impression, every form that his flexible nature has accepted, and which his faculty to imitate again expresses externally, as well as every change that his poetic faculty makes therein, and every activity that it adds, finds in his associates entry, reception, and emulation. No ray falls from one onto the other that does not penetrate and then get reflected back again. The nature that is disposed to so many kinds of sensations, desires, and actions develops gradually, and must develop, since it cannot lack causes for it to do so, namely needs and obstacles, from which the desires must begin, branch out, and be sent off in separate directions, just as do fluid bodies when they meet with solid ones. Should not two such purely animalistic human beings simultaneously grabbing for an acorn be drawn by this into quarrel and dispute with one another, just as well as two dogs that tug at the same bone? Cases of this kind must occur more frequently in a mass of human beings than among other animals, since their causes, namely desires kindled by needs, are present in greater numbers. At least, it is a consequence of human nature that they can be more frequent in such. And these are the things that excite32 the power of 28 invention. Not only can human sensations be modified in several and in diverse ways, but they can also be differentiated from one another more than in other animals. The vocal organ is likewise more modifiable in the human being. For this reason, then, even the purely animal tones through which sensations are expressed take on several variations, become more diverse, and can be just as distinctly differentiated from one another as the things they denote are themselves distinguished. As soon as the sensations are developed to a noticeable degree, the faculty of reason stirs. There arises an abstract and striking feeling of one sensation prior to another, and reflection, or the faculty to hold one sensation up to another, to

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compare them, and to perceive their difference, becomes active. The effect of this is what we afterward call clarity in sensations, apperception or being conscious.33 Through this, whatever was otherwise only sensation, only a change, only an impression, a modification or a mere representation, is made into an idea and into a thought, just as the animal tone, through which the former is indicated, is henceforth transformed into a word of a human language, if perhaps one will not deny to it the title of a word because it is still not yet vocalized in an articulated way. This is a chief point in the present investigation: one must discern the individual steps in this transition to thought. Hunger, for example, is a sensation that is different from thirst. A dog is not in a 29 position to express these distinct sensations through its tones in a distinct manner. But the supple tongue of the human being can and will do so. And if at some moment even a single person has begun to modify a tone that indicates desire generally, by either raising or lowering the pitch or whatever, and through this it is made into a special sign of hunger; then a second will already imitate this modification and add to it something of his own, namely, one further degree of difference. When just the same happens with the tone for thirst, there arise two tones that are noticeably distinguished from one another, one of which signifies the sensation of hunger, or the desire to eat, and the other of which signifies thirst. If the faculty of reason is lacking, then, no matter how far one assumes this development and separation in sensations and difference in tones to go, this would nonetheless produce no consciousness, no feeling of this difference, no thought and no idea. A tree and a human being are distinguished noticeably enough. If their imprints or their representations in the soul of a dog differ just as much, then the awareness of this, and the consciousness of it, the subjective clarity and distinctness, would indeed still be entirely absent. But if in the human being the representations are separated in exactly the same degree, and additionally the distinction is made still more discernible through various audible signs, this objective distinctness provides not merely an occasion in 30 which reflection and reason can emerge, but rather it elicits their application, and excites them to signify one of these separated representations in particular as soon as a desire supervenes. The ability to signal distinct sensations also in distinct ways is nothing but a consequence of the purely animal nature of the human being, which is yet pliable and disposed to diverse determinations. This is why I take its application to be something that precedes the use of reason. The animal is modified in one way when it is hungry; in another way, when it thirsts. It possesses a drive to express its desires through the voice, and the organ follows the endeavor of the soul. Now, this endeavor in the one case is distinguished from the endeavor in the other case. This difference in the cause has its consequences in the effect. The organ is tuned a little differently in hunger than in thirst, and both of these tones are each produced

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in somewhat distinct ways. Thereby reflection is excited into operation. Two distinct sensations, which are indicated through distinct tones, have their internal and external characteristics. As often as it was important to signify that one wanted just to eat and not to drink, one made an effort to produce the expression for hunger quite discernably. This heightened the liveliness of the distinction, directed inner feeling toward it, and excited the faculty for perceiving it, and, as the faculty of imagination also now and then recalled the sensation of thirst, which has something 31 in common with the sensation of hunger but yet is distinguished from it, reflection or the ability to hold one of these sensations against the other, and to compare both, was set into motion by force, as it were. And so arose this effect of our power of thought that we denote when we say: I’m hungry; there arose a thought. The one who heard this sign of hunger, likewise directed his power of representation to this sensation, and through this it was also abstracted from the others within him and was noticeable in its distinction. That this is a possible way for the first thoughts to arise is most illuminatingly demonstrated by the fact that it is exactly the same as the way in which we elicit the first applications of reason from our own children, whom we instruct through language. We speak distinct tones to them in order to make noticeable to them the distinction between things. We do not penetrate into their souls and directly attune their reflection. One only affects their external senses. But by having objects34 made discernible to them through various external impressions on their sense of sound, these are presented to the faculty of the soul, and try to excite this faculty into operation. Our instruction has the advantage that the same exercise is often immediately repeated again and altered in many ways. Thus, if the activity will not follow the first time, then it follows the second or third time. The human being in a society that is left to itself will have fewer opportunities leading to the goal and the path will be less direct. Nevertheless, such opportunities will not be entirely absent. As soon as the presupposed objective distinctness is already present in the 32 mechanical tones, he encounters daily the mentioned inducements of his reflection. However, it is understandable that it will be slower to become a proficiency and will lag behind. In our children there appears to be a certain inertia with respect to the first use of the faculty of reflection and the ability to speak, which is so considerable that it could provide ground for an objection against the possibility of attaining this use without verbal instruction. One speaks to them as soon as they come into the world, and it sometimes takes longer than a year before concepts and language are present in them. However, this often occurs because one begins instruction far too early. The power of representation has still not been strengthened enough through sensing and fantasizing, and the sensations themselves are also still too weak, the images still too unsteady, and flow too much into one another, for the faculty of reflection, which requires some constancy in the representations, to already be able to operate. By contrast, if nature is prepared for a job, then what was only a faculty

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will often become a proficiency through a single lively application. One cannot but be astonished at how easily, in children as well as in animals, habits tend to form in these or in other matters, which they hit upon without being compelled. This is the transition to a human language. Sensations become differentiated, and with them tones. Both happened in the one who, as αὐτοδίδακτος,35 learned by himself and afterward was the teacher for others, prior to the distinguishing of 33 reason. However, in the one who learned from another, the difference in the tones that he heard could come earlier, and provide occasion for the differentiating of sensations, and this differentiation of sensations could awaken reflection. Tones were not so indispensable that reason or reflection, as it is usually called when considered in its first operations, could not have preempted such. The distinguished sensations were noticeable in themselves, in their causes and effects in the body, and in many other accompanying motions that affect the external senses, in facial expressions and gestures. Many of these could take the place of those audible signs; and so a beginning of thought was possible without tones and without spoken language. But this last aid appears to have been the most convenient and easiest, and hence has been employed universally. In general, however, external sensible signs were indispensable. If hunger and thirst were always indicated through the same tone, then their internal distinction would be felt far too weakly to be consistently discerned; in this case the external tone would present such to the imagination always in the same way, and they would have been confused together. What has been said of sensations can be applied to every other kind of modification. They became thoughts as soon as one perceived their distinction from others. But the clarity that thereby arose in a representation was still not immediately extended to all of its parts. The greater part of these must still remain in obscurity, and the 34 whole unresolved and indistinct. The representation of a mountain, of a house, of a tree, and so forth, is often repeated. The similar features in these individual pictures fall upon one another in the power of representation; and thus imprint themselves more vividly and more deeply into it. The differences, by contrast, lie next to and between one another, and confuse and obscure themselves like the colored rays in white light. So arises a general picture of a human being, for example, which is composed from individual pictures of various human beings that have been piled up. This sensible abstraction is merely an effect of imagination and of wit. Now suppose that present hunger were to be signified through a certain tone, then, when this sensation returns, exactly the same tone will be employed as its sign. Even if the organ adapts itself to the individual distinction of sensations and makes the tone somewhat more strongly or weakly according to the degree of hunger, still these differences of the individual signs would be just as indiscernible as in the individual things signaled by them.

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The first signs of hunger, of a tree, and so forth, are thus likewise general signs, and the words are general words, that is, they are expressions for any hunger in any case. And in the same way the first ideas are crude, unfinished, not fully determined, that is, confused, and hence general concepts, since that in them which frequently recurs and is distinguished with consciousness is only something common to several things. This sensible abstraction precedes the logical abstraction of the understanding, and supports it. Difficulties have been encountered in the origin of general concepts, 35 since the influence of the former has been overlooked. The abstraction of the understanding, as many have imagined it, presupposes that individual actual things are already distinguished from one another with complete clarity. In that case, these ideas of individual objects must be held against one another and compared by the power of thought, what is common in them collected, abstracted, and grasped together, and now, so that it will be maintained together in the same combination, it is made more noticeable with a tone, or in general with a sensible sign. It is true that these workings of the higher power of cognition are necessary, if we want to precisely determine our general concepts, make them distinct, and clothe them in logical definitions. It is also true that in innumerable cases the representation that contains what is common to several things would again fall apart, dissolve, and melt into its parts, if the word were not to serve as the knot that holds it together in the soul.36 This would hence occur most where the similarity of actual objects can be perceived in them exclusively from a certain artificial vantage point. But where nature itself, so to say, has made the classes, as in trees, human beings, mountains, and similar things, there it is just as possible that the common features in the general pictures of the imagination attain a fixed and steady combination, without the aid of tones, although the latter still always further promote that unification; as it is possible that daily we perfectly distinguish from one another a thousand external 36 individual objects37 without having assigned particular names to them. The stated emergence of general concepts, I believe, may be distinctly perceived in small children. In the act of signifying to a child its father, one says to it the word: Papa, and in the case of its mother the tone: Mama. But in the beginning the child calls every male person papa, and every female person without distinction mama. And for what reason? Obviously because in the beginning it notices in its father only what he has in common with other male persons and does not discover his individual distinguishing marks before further reflection and comparison of this man with others.

[cf. Locke, An Essay Concerning Human Understanding (1689), bk. III, ch. v, §10: “The near relation that there is between species, essences and their general name, at least in mixed modes, will further appear, when we consider, that it is the name that seems to preserve those essences, and give them their lasting duration. For the connexion between the loose parts of those complex ideas, being made by the mind, this union, which has no particular foundation in nature, would cease again, were there not something that did, as it were, hold it together, and keep the parts from scattering. Though therefore it be the mind that makes the collection, ’tis the name which is, as it were, the knot that ties them fast together.” It is notable that the first German translation translates “knot” with the German “Band,” meaning band or strap, the same word used by Tetens. It is to preserve this connection that we here translate this word back into English as “knot.”] 37 [Objecte] 36

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Inducements to the awakening and eliciting of the ability to reason, and to the denoting of concepts by tones, are found in a society of human beings, no matter where on earth we place them, in such diversity and abundance that it would be more astounding should any people not attain this beginning of human language, than that so far they have all arrived at it. Nonetheless, it is indeed also possible in itself that the human being remain at any, even at the lowest, stage of his development; and if a certain condition becomes fixed in him, then already extraordinary coincidences will be required in order to raise him higher. As history tells us, the first teachers of peoples have for the most part been foreigners: only very few have discovered among themselves their Manco Cápac.38 Hence, it is also not impossible that a people separated from every other 37 would be found in a purely animal condition. Nevertheless, it is doubtful whether one such as this has ever actually existed. Accounts of peoples39 of such kind can easily be either somewhat exaggerated or flawed. A weak spark of reason can easily escape the observer’s eye. The ancient historians40 talk of completely dumb

[The reference is to Manqu Qhapaq (thirteenth century), said to be the first king and founder of the Inca. In Quechua, his name means “the royal founder.” Tetens’s likely source here is some version of the popular account Comentarios Reales de los Incas (1609) by Inca Garcilaso de la Vega (1539–1616), which credits Manqu Qhapaq with a complete renovation of Incan religion, politics and morals (see bk. 1, ch. 10–14).] 39 Besides the people of Aswan in Africa, and a few wild tribes in Peru—reports of which Herr Iselin has already described in Geschichte der Menschheit (vol. 1, bk. 2, sect. 4)—the languageless people described by Diodorus Siculus, Rer. Ant. lib 4. c. 3. can also be counted here. The Caaigua and the Lulles prove their advantages over animals, and as far as I know there was found no people in America that was purely animalistic.   [Isaak Iselin (1728–82) was a Swiss philosopher and historian of the Enlightenment period. His Über die Geschichte der Menschheit (1764) (On the History of Humanity), cited here by Tetens, constitutes one of the first works of its kind in the German language. In the place indicated by Tetens, Iselin briefly mentions the twelfth-century story by the Jewish traveler Benjamin of Tudela (1130–73) of a group of people living in Aswan, Egypt, who, on his account, “like animals, eat of the herbs that grow on the banks of the Nile and in the fields. They go about naked and have not the intelligence of ordinary men. They cohabit with their sisters and any one they find” (Benjamin of Tudela 1907, p. 68). Tetens exactly follows Iselin in suggesting that this story is likely “exaggerated” (übertrieben).   In his monumental Ἱστορικὴ Βιβλιοθήκη, or Historical Library, Diodorus Siculus (first century BCE) tells of a nation of “insensible” Ethiopians who are subject to no emotions or passions, do not interact with other peoples, and “[c]onsequently, they say, they speak no language, but by movements of the hands which describe each object they point out everything they need” (1967, vol. 2, 3.18, p. 135).   For the Caaigua and Lulles, see note 4 on p. 155 above.] 40 Diodorus Siculus, ibid. Mela, bk. 3., Aeth. Pliny, Geschichte der Natur, bk. 6, ch. 30.   [The second reference is to De chorographia libri tres (c. 43 CE) written by the first Roman geographer, Pomponius Mela (first century CE). In the section on the Ethiopians (i.e., “Aeth.”) in bk. 3, Mela describes one group of people as follows: “There are, then, on the other side of what we have just called wastelands, mute peoples for whom nodding their heads is a substitute for speaking. Some make no sound with their tongue. Others have no tongues” (Mela 1998, p. 127). As noted by Romer, it has been speculated that this group was in fact a pack of gorillas or other such animals, the earliest meaning of the term “gorilla” in fact being “savage people.” In his Naturalis historia (c. 77 CE), Pliny the Elder (c. 23–79 CE) similarly writes in a section on Ethiopia: “Indeed, it is reported that in the interior, on the eastern side, there is a people that have no noses, the whole face presenting a plane surface; that others again are destitute of the upper lip, and others are without tongues. Others again, have the mouth grown together, and being destitute of nostrils, breathe through one passage only, imbibing their drink through it by means of the hollow stalk of the oat, which there grows spontaneously and supplies them with its grain for food. Some of these nations have to employ gestures by nodding the head and moving the limbs, instead of speech” (Pliny 1885, bk. 6, ch. 35).] 38

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and languageless peoples, who revealed their cravings to one another by means of facial expressions, nods, and gestures rather than tones. Mela and Pliny allege such exist among the unknown Ethiopian peoples, but in association with many other fables, which detracts from the credibility of their stories. Diodorus places his dumb nation in the neighborhood of the fish-eaters among the eastern Ethiopians, and his report appears to deserve somewhat more attention. A people that lived in the sandy desserts, or amongst naked cliffs on the edge of the sea, where there is no other animal seen around them, except dumb fish, could—at least it is not absolutely impossible—remain languageless, just as much as did the children with whom that Mughal41 was allowed to conduct his experiments. And once it was habituated to signaling through facial expressions and nods, it sensed the lack of speech far too 38 little for its natural wit to be excited sufficiently to hit upon verbal expression. If, nevertheless, these Ichthyophages of Diodorus have indeed employed visible nods for indicating something to one another, then even these in fact were an indication of a few ideas of individual objects; and, thus, at the same time proof that they had attained to thoughts without audible signs, that is, without spoken language. Without language, therefore, those abilities of the human being can at least bud, and begin their development, which in their further blossoming prove to be understanding and reason, and which afterward we also call such.

VI Further Progress in Language. Increase in Tones and Concepts. The Manner of Origin of the Parts of Speech. The Differences of Languages, in Words as well as in Grammar There exist peoples in America whose language is so poor that with it one is not in a position to express anything further than a few objects that strike the senses and the commonest actions of their wild and simple lives.42 However, just as from [See above, note 3 on pp. 154–5.] There is no justification for doubting all of these travelers’ reports, even though often it may well have been due to a lack of familiarity with the economy of languages so far removed from our own that the missionaries found no words in them with which to express general concepts, and especially those belonging to religion. Lafitau cites a remarkable example of this in the Geschichte von America, ch. 14. Other wild languages are lauded by Charlevoix due to their richness and elegance, and esteemed equal to the European.   [For Charlevoix, see note 4 above on p. 155. French Jesuit missionary Joseph-François Lafitau (1681– 1746), one of the first ethnographers of North America, published Mœurs des Sauvages Ameriquains, Comparées aux Mœurs des Premiers Temps (1724). In the chapter on language, Lafitau discusses the difficulties faced by missionaries in learning, and thus in properly assessing, the languages of the Wyandot or Huron and Iroquois. His main point is that the missionaries may not understand what he calls “l’œconomie de ces Langages” and thus incorrectly judge them to lack something that is found in European languages. As an example, he notes that their reported lack of words for religious concepts—most all of which are nouns or adjectives—does not take into account that these languages are built almost exclusively from verbs, and thus are structured in a way that is not analogous to any known European language. See Lafitau 1724, vol. 2, ch. 9. Tetens’s reference appears not to be to the original book, but instead to the partial German translation found in chapter 14 of the first volume of Siegmund Jacob Baumgarten’s Algemeine Geschichte der Länder und Völker von America, Nebst einer Vorrede (1752).] 41 42

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39 this nothing further follows than what I have already often recalled, namely, that the human being can remain at any stage of his development, and need not necessarily go further; so also, it is evidently clear from the fate shared by all the arts and sciences that, wherever natural abilities can open up a path, the difficulties facing the further pursuit of this path are even more minor. Nevertheless, almost every new step requires an excellent mind and favorable circumstances. The differentiation of sensations and the dexterity of the organs were the cause of the diverse animal tones, and reason the cause of the words. But the effect reacts upon its cause. The one who endeavored to express two distinguished concepts by two distinguished tones naturally gave some effort and strove to make this distinction quite noticeable;43 and in doing so, he perceived it that much more vividly. Thought was fully born in that moment, since it was to be expressed through a sign. Such an advancement in abilities pleased and encouraged44 wit to prove itself active in a similar manner in other cases. 40 Once the tones were bound to the thoughts, and the latter, so to say, incorporated into the former, this was a new incentive45 for reflection to distinguish things still more sharply. And from this in turn new thoughts grew. The tone is something sensible, and in most cases it is easier to grasp, easier to retain; especially at the start, when the words were still unarticulated and simple; and easier to produce again than the matters signified and the thoughts themselves. By means of this, the manifold in general concepts, which otherwise may have easily dispersed itself again, was held together, and a notion of the understanding was stored in the imagination as easily as a sensible picture. To this is added one of the most excellent conveniences of language, namely, that the comparing of concepts, the separating and combining of them, and whatever else the understanding must henceforth perform with them, if it is not made into a mere business of the imagination and the brain, was nevertheless divided between these abilities of sensibility and reflection in such a way that the former always work, while the latter is allowed, as it were, but to observe, direct the former’s operations, and press it further. In this way language awakens, supports, and strengthens the understanding for the increasing and clarifying of concepts; and the strengthened understanding expands and refines language. Both grow with one another, like the soul with the body. Hence, in all nations the language and the knowledge shared in common are either deficient or perfect in equal degree. 41 Natural tones provided sufficient material for the naming of all the concepts that were gradually added. All that mattered was that they came to be further developed and variously modified. The first that came into use are in all probability the mechanical natural tones, as produced by the human being itself through the mechanism of his own body, and as he received them from animals in his surroundings.

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By these tones one signals sensations and cravings; at the start only the most intense and most lively, like pain, which wrings from one a cry by force; afterward, also the weaker more differentiated ones. For, once the organ of the voice was brought into motion, and the human being was excited to its employment, it was natural to him to bind a noise to each sensation, even to a weaker one. He whistled, sang, grumbled, grunted, grated, howled, and made all sorts of motions with throat and mouth, depending on the condition in which he found himself. From this arose a new class of mechanical tones, which were in every case natural, but more accidental, and can be distinguished under the name of derivative, or further-developed mechanical tones. Meier,46 who esteemed Leibniz as a philosophical etymologist, accepted the hypothesis that the first three vowels A, E, I, had been natural signs of an agreeable and gentle sensation, of the sort caused by light and brightness; in contrast, both of the latter O, and U, the pronunciation of which is somewhat duller, and closes the mouth more, should have signified the disagreeable and unfriendly, which is 42 induced by the darkness in the soul.47 Perhaps this presupposition is already far too determinate for it to be found correct in its full extent. But ought it not contain something true? Ought it not be possible to count these vowel tones, prior to others, to the above-mentioned class of mechanical expressions of sensations? If the organ of the voice was at some point set into operation, then every sensation poured forth from the muscles of the palate, the throat, the tongue, and the lips, just as naturally as in the eyes and in the face. If they were agreeable, gentle, and mild, then they produced a noise that would be formed by easy and soft motions: Melancholy, discouragement, annoyance, anger, and the like strained the muscles in a different way, and the tones, through which they were signified, were just as dull, tedious, annoying, or intense as the emotions from which they arose. These tones were not, properly speaking, learned through imitation but instead were effects of the mechanical instinct and drive to signify externally through the voice what one sensed internally. But I have already mentioned that the imitation of the voices of animals must have had a great influence on this. The human vocal organ is not as strongly and as unchangeably attuned by nature as it is in animals; it is also formed through imitation. Now, if the instinct to employ it is stimulated, then a tone arises, but such as can be produced from an organ attuned not through instinct 43 alone, but also through the sensation of foreign tones. The troglodytes hissed like the snakes that lodged among them; the Polish boy growled like the bears; and the wild Irish child bleated like a sheep. Properly, both of the latter cases do not belong here; however, they still appear to me, like the example of the troglodytes, to be experiences that confirm my last remark. Not only do some individual people have by nature a tongue that is easier to move than others, but this difference has been perceived even in entire peoples, as

[Gerhard Meier (1616–95), German theologian, pedagogue, and etymologist. The ideas to which Tetens’s here refers are found in his correspondence with Leibniz (the so-called Meieriana) published in the latter’s Collectanea etymologica (1717), esp. pp. 238–315.] 47 See Leibniz, Collect. Etymol. p. 264. [G. W. Leibniz, Collectanea etymologica (1717).]

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in the case of the taciturn Indians in San Domingo, and the talkative Moors that are found among them and brought there from Africa. This is undoubtedly an effect of the mechanism of the body, just as the latter is modified in turn by other external causes, and, in uncultivated peoples especially, by the climate. A lively people was thus more disposed to produce mechanical tones of such a kind, than was another; it could be more disposed to this genus of natural tones, than to the rest, which it must receive and imitate from sounding bodies, and hence also fill their language more with the former than with the latter. But even this last effect can arise, as so often occurs in things of this kind, from an entirely opposite cause, namely from inertia, and from the rigidity of the tongue. For if one nation employs more mechanical tones because they are even more easily 44 invented than copied, another could likewise employ them most abundantly because it was too unpliable to copy. The latter must be contented with what nature and necessity forced it to do. It is to be conjectured that the vowel-rich languages contain an exceptional number of this genus of natural tones. But it is not the languages of the lively Orientals alone that are rich in vowels but so is that of the cold Huron.48 The natural sounds49 and tones of bodies and of physical movements were, for the sensing and copying human being, a new source of words. In many languages one finds a number of words that either themselves are nothing but such copied tones, or the first root tone of which was such. Clauberg, Leibniz, and others have sought these in German, Borrichius50 in Danish, and others in other languages. To be sure, I do not believe that all words were originally such copied tones; besides this one could well call them imitated in another sense, but I conjecture that in all languages that received their form under a colder region of the sky, such tones have been present. To this is now added yet a third kind of tone, which indeed cannot be accounted to the first natural ones, since they already presuppose a use of the vocal organ, and the craving to speak, but do belong to such as depend more on the nature of the human being than on accidental external circumstances. These are the imitations, 45 not of tones, but instead of the objects themselves and their qualities, by means of the tongue. Plato51 has already made note of them. The objects are signaled with the voice through a kind of imitation, which happens as follows. The impressions, which the representing power receives from the objects outside of us, the emotions that arise from the same, and, one can say more generally, the modifications in general, which are caused in us by the sensation and representation of the objects,52 possess certain qualities, which agree with those found in the Lafitau, Geschischte von America, ch. 14. [See note 42, on p. 173 above.] [Schallarten] 50 Diss. de caussis diversitatis linguarum. [Olai Borrichii, De caussis diversitatis linguarum dissertatio (1675). Ole Borch (1626–90) was a Danish scientist and philologist.] 51 In the Cratylus. He calls them μιμήσεις τῶν πραγμάτων, and the words μιμήματα τῶν πραγμάτων even τῶν ὄντων! [These exact phrases are not found in the Cratylus, but Tetens is surely referring to the discussion starting at 423b and following. As he indicates, Plato refers to the motions of the tongue and mouth as imitations of things and the sounds as imitations or copies of them, and indeed, of actual things and their proper natures.] 52 [Objekte] 48 49

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external objects as in the cause, and correspond to them. The sensation of an intense and quick motion brings about a kind of surge within us; at the sight of a slower and crawling thing, the course of our representations is always imprinted with something calm and sluggish. The idea of a tangled, a tugged, and torn thing tangles, tugs, and tears in a similar way the thread of what follows within us. These modifications of our sensations react on the body, and where the sensations externally replicate themselves in the muscles of the vocal organ as in the eyes, these qualities, so to say, are transmitted. Now if the sensation is to be signified through a sound, one entirely naturally resolves upon a tone whose pronunciation accords with those qualities, and which goes over the tongue quickly or slowly, hard or soft, gently and in one continuous motion, 46 or coarsely and haltingly, high or low, drawn or rolling, depending on how the thing that one represents is constituted, and on the impression that one has received of it. This happens in a similar way in the case of inanimate beings as it does in that of animated ones. And how easily does the uncultivated imagination not transform the former into the latter, and view fire as a ravenous animal? Plato discovered such a harmony of tones and of things in many words of the Greek language. As it so often happens that what one sees best is all that one in fact sees, he held this way for words to originate to be the only one by which they all together are to be invented. The pronunciation of the letter R carries with it a somewhat strong and violent motion. This was milder and gentler in the letter L; and in fact the words in which the sound of these consonants was the dominant tone also signaled objects in which like motions were discovered. Meier and Leibniz, and still others, noted exactly the same in the German language.53 The former went still further in his hypothesis than did the latter. It is 47 certain that the examples cited by Leibniz are exceptionally illuminating and make it more than probable that our language still contains uncommonly many traces of this kind of natural tone. I do not hereby wish to justify the individual conceits of the etymologists who wanted to determine precisely which were the first, and as they say, the essential meanings of the letters. They have followed an idea which has often led them to empty conjectures and fictions.54 However, if one considers that the sound with which the individual letters are pronounced undoubtedly at first made up an entire syllable and an entire word, it is conceivable that a portion of them also initially arose through the imitation of objects55 as explained here,

In the Latin language there was exactly the same cause; the tone of the letter R was combined with a stronger outward-flowing motion; and one found in the words Radio, Rapio, Ruo, Rumpo, and others, also the same effect. But if this is not noted in so many other words, where one could yet conjecture it to be found according to principle, such can be explained. One must distinguish the syllables in which a letter is dominant from those in which it belongs only as an accessory. I will cite an example below that clarifies this distinction. 54 [Einbildungen] 55 [Objekte] 53

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and thus must have had a natural meaning of this kind, which afterward they either lost entirely, or has at least become unrecognizable. Languages, and most of all those that have been written already for many centuries, had, by the time one began to philosophize about them, departed so far from the first natural tones as our present civilized way of life has from the first simplicity of nature. But initially, since one still more sang than spoke, the words also must have had greater similarity with the song tones of music. These tones, which were induced by the imitation of things, are similar to the above-mentioned derivative mechanical tones in that they depend mostly on the mechanism of the vocal organ. However, in this respect they distinctly distinguish themselves: The former were expressions of sensations and desires, which the organ, once 48 excited, pushed out; they could precede all reflection56 and reason; the latter already presuppose a few ideas of objects, which one could not obtain without the application of reflection,57 and require an endeavor combined with the aim to signify things through a signal with the voice. Such an art of signs, which would represent through pronounced tones the qualities of the objects that one named, was in itself not capable of any great perfection. As soon as the language ceased to be an expression of mere sensations, and was to also signal concepts of the understanding, this art of signaling was found to be defective. This alone is sufficient cause, on the one hand, why one cannot make do with this kind of procedure, and on the other, why this kind of tone is now so difficult to rediscover. Moreover, not all peoples have made an equally frequent use of this method, or perhaps even could not make such, or even did not need such in equal degree, if they could hit upon the other genera of tones more frequently and easily. Meanwhile, the Greek and still more the German language is a sufficient proof that this path for arriving at words is one of those assigned to the human being by nature. Mechanical expressions of sensations can adopt just as various of modifications as the sensations themselves. If one takes the amount and diversity of the imitated natural sounds, and now in addition the number of tones that could arise from the 49 voice’s imitation of things, then one already has the natural names for a great number of objects, and for the rest all the root words from which their denominations could be derived. This derivation was possible in a threefold way, and perhaps in still more. (1) Through the transferal of the name that was imposed on a thing to another, with or without a modification in the tone itself. (2) Through derivation (derivatio), to which also belongs inflection. One retained namely the same fundamental tone, since precisely the same fundamental idea was to be signaled, but one gave it some additions, and inserted accessory tones in order to signify the accessory ideas that constitute the marks of the different conjugation. (3) Through composition, where one made a new word through the combination of several fundamental tones, which

[Überlegung] [Reflexion]

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not only indicate the thing as a whole but rather also signify some of its qualities in particular. Without involving myself in a more precise consideration of various methods, I want merely to add a couple general remarks, which make comprehensible what kind of imagination and wit they employ, and what consequences can arise from such in languages. Since first the human being had only acquainted himself with as many objects as he could designate with natural tones, his imagination at this moment did not easily encounter others that, considered from one side or the other, did not possess a certain similarity with those already familiar. Such a similarity is found everywhere. Even the intellectual, that which occurs within ourselves, that which can only be sensed through the internal sense, has with the alterations of bodily things a 50 similarity that can be felt and a connection; this similarity, I say, is not only actually present, but indeed the uncultivated imagination was disposed above all to discover this even before the things had been distinguished through their designations. A child had been presented several times with a stick, such that at the same moment one hit the nob of the stick with a hand one also said to him the word “stick.” A time afterward, this child demanded a “stick”; but one noticed that he did not have a stick in mind and drew out from the child that he understood a “stickpin.” This similarity probably would not have occurred to him, if he had been familiar with the world “stickpin” as he was with the word “stick.” The various names direct attention more to the difference than to the similarity of things, and this prevents their unification in the respect that they are similar to one another. Hence, the first language must necessarily be a language of pictures, that is, a language that signals everything through pictures of things that struck the senses. The original meanings of words, which, beyond their added figurative meaning, they later lost, were sensible, and must have been so in all words that were not already derived from others of this kind. The rule that similar things are denominated by similar tones is grounded in the nature of the imagination. However, the similarity that brought about the name of things was only that which was perceived by the imagination—which sees the thing more one-sidedly the less cultivated it is—the first time that it wanted to signify such things. A single feature, which stands out more than others in the representation of the 51 object,58 could be the cause of the denomination. And later this mark was connected to the thing itself just as contingently as it was that exactly this feature would be the first one perceived in the thing. It must have had the same quality as the ground of the denomination (pars potior a qua fit denominatio),59 when the first natural names were attributed to the objects though imitation.

[Objekts] [More often seen as “a parte potiori fit denominatio” or simply “a potiori fit denominatio,” this is an old maxim of unknown origin that is often invoked in medicine, anatomy, law, biblical exegesis, and other areas to say that a thing is rightly named for its most important or principal part. It is thus synecdoche in an extended sense.]

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All rhetorical figures are also figures of thought, and none is perhaps more common than synecdoche. Each has been used in the transferal of names from one object to another. Not only similarity with a thing already denominated, but also every other relation, the combination that arises from coexistence, and the causal connections with this or that, provided a ground for denominating it after something that had already been signaled. In the writings of the etymologists there is found a multitude of examples, which illuminate this, and I will refer merely to those that Leibniz has adduced in his essay on human understanding.60 In individual things, such as cities, mountains, rivers and such, the ground of denomination can be taken merely from an individual circumstance of the first designation. But if one signals general objects with a tone, then whatever was the cause of why one tone was hit upon rather than 52 another, it surely must have been a quality in the thing that could be sensed in it by several human beings. Hence, investigation of the first ground of designation of general things is much more frequently possible than in individual names. The similarity in the objects was the cause of why they were combined under a concept, and under a common name. Nevertheless, the similarity because of which one thing was denominated after another could be different from the identity that one perceived between the second object and a new third one, and which brought about the name of both the first and also this third object. This induced a special quality in many of our general words. For example, is a logical definition of an animal in general possible? Herr Bonnet has61 demonstrated, and was amazed by the fact, that no single quality is to be found that is the distinguishing mark between animals, on the one hand, and plants and minerals, on the other, and which at the same time, without exception, also belongs to all the kinds of beings that we encompass under the name of animals. From which marks ought the definition of the animal consist, which sufficiently distinguish the animal from other beings, and which at the same time apply to all kinds of animals? The denomination “animal” was, namely, always transferred from one kind of thing to the other due to the similarity of those that they conceived with those that they already had. But this common thing, this similar thing, this Tertium 53 comparationis,62 was not in all comparisons exactly the same. There are still more such general names in language. If a general definition of an animal is to be constructed, then it must be set up disjunctively. An animal is every being in which the qualities of the more perfect animals (and these must be specified) are—either all together, or still in part— perceivable as its evident distinguishing signs.

Oeuvres philos. p. 239, 241. [See Leibniz 1996, p. 288.] Betrachtungen über die Natur. [Charles Bonnet (1720–93), Genevan naturalist and philosopher and author of, among other works, the multivolumed Œuvres d’histoire naturelle et de philosophie (Neuchâtel 1779–83). Tetens seems to be referring inaccurately to the German translation of his Contemplation de la nature (2 vols., 1764) published under the title Betrachtung über die Natur (1766). On p. 38 we read: “It is not so easy to say what it is that properly distinguishes these classes [i.e., plants and animals]. For one does not exactly see where plants end, and where animals begin.”] 62 [The common or third element in two similar things.] 60 61

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It appears that the first things that the human being distinguished from one another and noted with tones were his sensations, his cravings, his doings and sufferings. Through these he came to know the external objects that impinge upon the senses and to assign them names. Thereby, language received two parts of speech, namely verbs and nouns. These two parts alone were sufficient to signify their thoughts to one another if necessary. The way of expressing oneself noted in children, in people who have been half deaf from youth, in those that are still barely familiar with the language in which they want to talk, and in common people that seldom survey the combinations of their thoughts, makes comprehensible how broken, how scattered, how detached, with how little connection of merely individual and successive ideas, the human being could talk in the beginning and still make himself understandable to his peers, especially when the tone of voice, facial expressions, and gestures came to his aid. Just as the understanding grew with the language, so too one also began to distinguish the accessory circumstances of a thing from the main thing itself, and to perceive the references, relations, and connections in them and to make these 54 noticeable with special signs. Necessity was the instructor even here. He “bit” and he “was bitten” were vastly distinct things, regardless of the fact that the concept of biting occurred in both cases and must be stated in both. If one now endeavored to signify such accessory ideas of a main idea also through tones, one hit upon either certain modifications of the main tone, or on special signs for these accessory parts, which one appended to the main tone. From the former arose the moods, tenses, persons, numbers, case; from the latter the pronouns, prepositions, and adjectives. These tones, or these additions to the tones, which have afterward become the signs of persons, of tenses, and so forth, and which make up some special parts of speech, could have initially been natural tones as well, which craving had invented for expressing itself through the voice. The understanding of a people must not only be situated on the path to its raising itself up but rather must also have already progressed a certain distance along this path before the completeness of language with respect to grammar could be attained. Nigidius in Gellius63 made an attempt to

Noct. Att. Lib. X. c. IV. [Aulus Gellius (c. 125–80 CE), Roman author, whose only surviving work is the Noctes Atticae (Attic Nights), a kind of miscellany containing many otherwise lost fragments of earlier authors. One such is Publius Nigidius Figulus (c. 100–45 BCE), a Roman scholar and politician. In Attic Nights, bk. X.iv.1, Gellius reports: “How Publius Nigidius with great cleverness showed that words are not arbitrary, but natural. PUBLIUS NIGIDIUS in his Grammatical Notes shows that nouns and verbs were formed, not by chance use, but by a certain power and design of nature, a subject very popular in the discussions of the philosophers; for they used to inquire whether words originate by ‘nature’ or are man-made. Nigidius employs many arguments to this end, to show that words appear to be natural rather than arbitrary. Among these the following seems particularly neat and ingenious: ‘When we say vos, or “you,”’ says Nigidius, ‘we make a movement of the mouth suitable to the meaning of the word; for we gradually protrude the tips of our lips and direct the impulse of the breath towards those with whom we are speaking. But on the other hand, when we say nos, or “us,” we do not pronounce the word with a powerful forward impulse of the voice, nor with the lips protruded, but we restrain our breath and our lips, so to speak, within ourselves. The same thing happens in the words tu or “thou,” ego or “I,” tibi “to thee,” and mihi “to me.” For just as when we assent or dissent, a movement of the head or eyes corresponds with the nature of the expression, so too in the pronunciation of these words there is a kind of natural gesture made with the mouth and breath. The same principle that we have noted in our own speech applies also to Greek words’” (Gellius 1927, vol. 2, p. 229).]

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render comprehensible this natural origin of a few pronouns in the Latin language. However, it is in itself too slippery, and here too far afield, to embark upon the discussion of particular cases. The main idea remained still always just the same in the various modifications one 55 introduced. Hence, the fundamental tone was retained. One notices in all known languages that in the additions, abbreviations, and modifications that inflection brings with it, nevertheless the word’s main tone is either entirely retained or still a notable part of it is. There are anomalies in which the stem tone has been lost in the derivation, for example, “aller,” in “je m’en vrais.”64 But these are either an effect of particular coincidences, or even proofs that such conjugations have been composed by the grammarians out of the scattered parts of other independently distinct ones, which had never been completed, or of which some parts had again been lost. The tones were simple and natural in the beginning. Thus, as soon as they were discovered, they were easily copied and easily retained. The inventor sensed with liveliness the thing that he wanted to signify; the tone itself was an effect of an effort, and its production a cause of gratification. Now, if one adds to this, that the first society had but a small compass, it is comprehensible how a tone, once employed, got spread quickly through the entire society, and could become incorporated into the common language. Words must be said to our children several times, before their memory takes hold of them and their tongues copy them. But one cannot, however, conclude from this that the spreading of the new tones in the first languages must have met with just as many difficulties as does their mastery by our tender youth, 56 though this is not to say that it happens still more quickly in adults. If languages are effects of the human wit and circumstances by which one’s linguistic ability has been modified and conducted, then they must also correspond to these, their causes. Hence, one will encounter in them some qualities that depend upon the nature of the human being and on the necessary laws of the operation one’s bodily and spiritual capacities, and these qualities will be as general in all the languages in the world as is the fundamental constitution of the human being. There will be other attributes, which are indeed not as necessary as those but are common to all languages due to the similarity of some external circumstances under which the human being finds himself in all regions of the world. There must be others that are as different in the distinct languages as are the peoples themselves in different lands and under different circumstances. The universal and the necessary, which some will call the metaphysical aspect in language, is slightest of all. It is almost to be doubted whether there is a single word that is indicated in the same way in all the languages of the world, and if there is, then it must be something like a simple interjection. In grammar, which determines the form of language, this necessary aspect must yet be found most abundantly. Nevertheless, a grammar that included only completely universal rules would in

[Tetens here points out that the French verb “aller” is unrecognizable in the first person present singular “vrais.” A similar case in English would be “to go” in the form “went.”]

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fact be of a very small compass. Everything else is contingent and changeable, and different in the different languages. And this difference began already in the first fundamental features and increased the further the language became cultivated. The first natural mechanical tones were already not exactly the same in all 57 geographical regions. The oriental aspirated more strongly than the northerner. The natural sounds of bodies as such are not in every case completely similar to one another; the croaking of frogs is not always the same outcry; the crack of thunder has not always entirely the same tone, and the whoosh of the wind may be heard now one way, now another. Additionally, the copying of these tones by different human beings, which was no more than imperfect, must have necessarily turned out differently as well.65 What diversity does not occur in the remaining kinds of natural tones, which are produced through the imitation of things? And now, to this diversity in the first elements of language there yet belongs that which is far greater than the previous, which has occurred in the transferal of names from one thing to another. The imagination could refer every particular object to innumerable different things, discover with each another similarity, and denominate it in just as manifold ways. Just so arose naturally the distinction in the economy or the form of languages. One nation possessed a livelier imagination capable of comprehending much all at once. This represented a thing with its accessory circumstances together all at once and expressed this whole also in such a way as to signify the accessory ideas, the 58 acting person, the tense, the number, and similar things, and to do so with a few modifications of the main tone. Such a language attained brevity, fire, and emphasis. Another people thought more slowly, but also more distinctly, and with a better differentiation of its concepts. The accessory ideas of a main concept were further separated from one another, and, in order to indicate them, one employed special tones, which were added to the fundamental tone. Compare an Oriental paradigm with a German one. The American languages depart further from the languages of the ancient world almost more than one would hold to be possible; not only in the words, which would not be very surprising, but also in their economy or in grammar. Although all languages possess two main parts of speech, namely nouns and verbs, and it also

Examples that illuminate and support this are found in Borrichius in diatr. de caussis divers. linguar, p. 18f. and in the Histoire de l’Acad. Royale de Berlin 1769. in the Memoire of Herr Sulzer sur l’influence reciproque de la raison sur le langage & du langage sur la raison.   [Ole Borch (1626–90), latinized to Olaus Borrichius, a Danish chemist, poet and doctor, and author of a book on the reasons for the diversity of languages: De caussis diversitatis linguarum (1704). Most of the examples he provides are comparisons of the sounds and names of things like crying, the cuckoo of birds, and silence in Greek, Latin, German and Danish.   Johann Georg Sulzer, a Swiss philosopher and theologian, follower of Christian Wolff, particularly remembered for his Allgemeine Theorie der Schönen Künste (1771–4). Here Tetens refers to a piece Sulzer published in the periodical for the Royal Academy: Histoire l’Académie Royale des Sciences et BellesLettres 1767 (1769). Its full title is Observations sur l’influence réciproque de la raison sur le langage & du langage sur la raison (pp. 413–38) (Observations on the Reciprocal Influence of Reason on Language and of Language on Reason) and the examples mentioned, which include the sounds and names of dogs, ducks, thunder and the like, are found on p. 419.] 65

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otherwise appears as if it would be impossible for one of these classes of words to be missing in any language, Lafitau66 nevertheless attests regarding the Huron and Iroquois languages, that they contain verbs, but no nouns, and that everything in them must be conjugated, but nothing can be declined. This initially confounded the missionaries, when they wanted to explain to these peoples matters that they did not know how to state without nouns. They did not realize what Lafitau later recognized, namely that with the verbs and conjugations in these languages, if such are handled in accordance with their nature, one is capable of doing almost as 59 much as in other languages with nouns. Some have regarded this attribute of the languages mentioned to be a proof of their great antiquity. I would rather draw from this that they are indigenous languages of the new world, which arose in the land itself, at least to such an extent that nothing more than perhaps the first and most rudimentary beginnings of a language were brought over to them from the ancient world, or that nothing more than this has been retained from what was brought over. The very first words in language are the expressions of sensations, of doing and of suffering. The distinction of nouns from verbs presupposes that one has already taken a further step in language. Now, it was not only possible for the human being to signify external objects and their qualities, and everything that we express with nouns, through his sensations, through his doing and suffering, but also for all the associated ideas in the objects, which other languages signal through the inflection of nouns, to be noticeable likewise through modifications of the verbs. And as soon as one could get by with this procedure as needed, one troubled himself with no other. Verbs and nouns are the two principal boughs of language. It was possible for one of them to remain undeveloped, or to wither, the other, however, to sprout forth that many more branches and leaves by comparison. Nevertheless, at all places on earth, the power of invention is always the human 60 power of invention operating according to the same general laws. Therefore, despite the diversity of languages, there must still exist a certain agreement between Geschischte von America, ch. 14. [Again, Tetens is apparently referring not to the original, but to the partial German translation of Lafitau contained the collection by Baumgarten. In the passage in question, Lafitau relates a number of stories from missionaries explaining their extraordinary difficulties in learning the languages of the Native Americans, in particular the Iroquois and Huron. One of the complaints he relates, was that these languages are deficient in abstract terms. Lafitau argues, by contrast, that the Europeans’ difficulties stem from their assumption that the economy of these languages is the same as European languages, and in particular, their assumption that all languages have a distinction between nouns and verbs. His claim is that the languages of the Iroquois and Huron do not have this same distinction, and consist almost entirely of verbs. See Algemeine Geschichte der Länder und Völker von America, Nebst einer Vorrede (1752), p. 503. See note 42, on p. 173 above. A work cited previously by Tetens in GedUM, namely Gottfried Profe’s Philosophische Gedanken von Sprachfehlern (1760) (Philosophical Thoughts on Linguistic Errors), contains the following quotation from this book in German, ascribing it to de la Condamine: “All languages that I have come to know in the southern parts of America are very poor; they lack all words expressing abstract and general concepts; which is an evident proof of how little progress of the human spirit is found in these lands. Time, duration, space, existence, essence, stuff, body, all these words and many others have no words in these languages that means exactly the same. Not only names of metaphysical things, but rather even of moral ones are found in them only imperfectly and with great circuity. They have no proper words that precisely agree with what we call virtue, probity, freedom, gratitude, thankfulness, and so forth” (p. 35).]

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them, not only in the tones, but much rather also in their form, in the way to inflect or decline67 words, to derive them from one another, and to combine them, to mark them. Words in languages are called chosen68 signs of objects. Properly, they are contingent, that is, such as are determined though no necessity to signify one thing or another but instead were employed for this purpose due to certain natural but contingent inducements. The natural tones are somewhat less contingent than the rest, and yet it was just as possible for these as for others, that another kind of natural tone could have been picked to express an idea different from the one that one was actually used. Now, words are indeed chosen signs to the extent that everything that is an effect of a contingent action of the human being depends upon a determination of his will, and thus on his selection, at least where the action is undertaken with a clear consciousness; however, the epithet “chosen,” aside from being incorrect in many regards, also contains this accessory idea, namely, that there had to be some certain act of selection in the first invention of words, and thus also an active reflection according to a known intention. Yet something like this can be presupposed only in rare cases; in such, for example, where one already had a language, and perhaps from special intentions agreed with others to signify one’s thoughts to them in a 61 different and unique way. The so-called Rotwelsch of the thieves, and the language employed in trade and only intended for trade, in Canada and on the American islands, provide examples of this.69 I shall add this further remark regarding the diversity of languages. It appears to me to be of some relevance in philosophy. Through general words we divide up the actual objects of our knowledge into certain kinds and classes. Some of these divisions have, so to say, been made by nature itself; and these are presumably exactly the same in all languages. For example, the concepts of a human being, of a tree, of water, animal, etc., have a sphere that is sufficiently distinctly determined through sensations, so that these words easily find in every language synonyms that perfectly agree with them with respect to meaning. Other concepts, by contrast— and these make up perhaps the majority—comprehend similarities of objects that can only be perceived when wit regards them from a particular point of view. This point of view was, however, not always the same in one nation as in another. Thus,

[“to inflect or decline” here translates zu beugen, meaning to bend, which has exactly the grammatical sense as to inflect. However, Tetens seems to include under this term both inflection and declination.] 68 [willkürliche Zeichen. A natural translation here would be “arbitrary sign,” if the English word “arbitrary” still carried the original sense of the Latin arbitrarius (chosen), from arbitrium (choice). As can be seen below, Tetens uses the term as a synonym for the Latin word, and thus it never indicates something purely at random, but instead what is deliberately chosen. Another way for Tetens to have said this, perhaps, was that signs are to some extent conventional. But whereas “arbitrary” lacks the connotation of deliberate in modern English, which Tetens notes below is associated with “willkürliche” in the German of his day, “conventional” adds a social dimension that it does not possess. Hence, “chosen” seems like the best translation in context.] 69 [Rotwelsch, similar to the French argot and the English cant, was a language, not entirely extinct, used by beggars, criminals, and traders for the purpose of separating themselves from the general public.] 67

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the divisions of objects have turned out differently, since the grounds of division and the characters of the classes were different. Hence the multitude of words that exist in one cultivated language, which cannot be translated into another with a synonym that fully corresponds to it. There are concepts that are thought in a 62 lively way by one people, and which in another are either entirely missing, or are only encountered as partially scattered in other words. The language that aids the understanding also limits the latter in turn, when it has broadened the understanding to have a certain extension. One who masters a cultivated language, masters also at the same time a foreign system of thought.

VII The Articulation of Words. The Invention of Alphabetic Writing The articulation of words consists in the fact that their smaller parts, which we denote through individual letters, are able to be heard and distinguished specifically in pronunciation. This has two causes. The smaller parts of a word do not flow into one another like musical tones but instead follow one another at a certain distance. For this, each part requires its own modification of the vocal organ. The pronunciation of a syllable is not merely a sustained continuation of one and the same opening of the mouth, or one and the same tuning of the throat. Each succeeding letter makes necessary a new determination of the organ that is different from the preceding. The first of these causes does not apply to the simple syllables. The syllables 63 themselves follow at a distance from one another; but the letters in the syllables make up only one continuous tone. If the letters of which the syllables consist were not distinguished, then its tone would scarcely be distinguishable from a somewhat extended song tone, for example, if ooo, uuu, aaa, were to be pronounced. The tones in music, which we call unarticulated, have likewise their small parts, and these are different. But not so noticeably as in the words. The distinction between being articulated and being unarticulated rests on a more and a less, like the distinction between hard and soft, between solid and fluid. The exceptional flexibility of the human vocal organ makes possible such a diversity in the quickly succeeding modifications of the tones. But the natural sounds of bodies, which one copies, provided the first inducement for making use of this ability. The crack, rustle, whistle, whoosh, thunder, hiss, trickle, and so forth, already has its distinct articulations,70 and could not be copied without the contrasting parts in it being heard distinctly in the pronunciation through the effort to precisely enunciate them. To this was added, among other causes, the composing of words from several simple tones. Thus arose the articulation of tones in language. It is missing in music because its causes are missing.

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According to the report of Charlevoix and others, many of the American languages are supposed to consist for the most part of unarticulated tones, and the talk of such 64 peoples is supposed to strike the ear like a cry, a wail, a cackle, a whistle, and similar things. In like manner did the language of the Cimbri and the Teutons appear to the Romans. There is no doubt that there is something exaggerated in these reports. Every unknown language appears unarticulated to the one who first hears it spoken, especially when this is done by the common man and quickly. The cause of this is not in the tones themselves, but properly in him and in his initial incapacity to readily make distinct concepts of them. Nevertheless, many have repeated the complaints about the lack of distinct pronunciation among the savages, even after they had become familiar with these languages. It is also in and of itself not only probable, but even almost necessary, that the uncultivated languages of cruder peoples are far less articulated than the cultivated. The former must, according to its nature, come closer to song. Articulation grows with reason, like the remaining perfections of language. The more clearly and distinctly one is conscious of concepts and the more one differentiates, changes, combines, the more vividly is reason also drawn to the tones that denote these and the more carefully one endeavors to express more distinctly their parts and elements. In the majority of individual syllables, there is one letter that is heard most noticeably and above71 the others in pronunciation. The tone of this latter is then the dominant, or the most prominent tone in the syllable. People that cannot spell and write precisely, first notice this dominant tone, and often so vividly, that they 65 entirely overlook the rest of the letters.72 In etymology, special consideration must be given to these dominant tones. Often, it is not a single letter alone that determines it, but rather others also contribute to it. Individual letters otherwise easily change into one another, and the etymologists may assume this kind of exchange without the derivation and kinship of words becoming less probable thereby. However, if they presuppose this without seeing whether the letter in whose place they put another does or does not make up the most primary character of the syllable, and if they change it to the point where the previous dominant tone has disappeared, then, to the extent that no particular historical circumstances support such derivations, they are in danger of goropising.73 These thoughts lead to a principle from which the invention of alphabetic 66 writing appears to become reasonably comprehensible, to say the very least. An

[vor] The following experience illuminates this, and merits being mentioned: In an assembly of farmers there arose the question, to whom might belong a tool found in the field, on which the letter R was carved. The real owner, whose name was Riedel, answered. However, the farmers rejected his claim on the ground that in the first syllable Rie—which was pronounced by them in such a way that the vowel ie stood out most— no R appeared, but rather an I. The tool was given to another, who was named Jürgen. They awarded the found instrument to this person, because, in their opinion, the characteristic R was obviously present in his name in the syllable Jür. 73 [goropisieren, meaning etymological quackery and in some cases chauvinism. After Jan van Gorp van der Beke (1519–73), latinized to Johannes Goropius Becanus. See note 2, p. 109, to On the Principles and Benefit of Etymology, printed in this volume.] 71 72

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invention, which is indisputably what Galileo74 held it to be, namely, a masterpiece of human wit; which has been held by various authors to be entirely inexplicable in terms of the powers of human understanding, and in the closer consideration of which it is in fact difficult to not be carried away by admiration. To represent things that either do not strike the senses at all, or at least are not present, through visible and present signs, and, among other things, also through certain features on a flat area, through pictures and figures—this is a conceit that various human beings have had, and even those that still lacked proper alphabetic writing. The hieroglyphics of the Egyptians, the wampum, the quipu of the Peruvians,75 and the pictographic writing of the savages are proofs of this. The human being found many inducements to this, and many means to achieving his aim. Among others, and to the greatest good fortune of humanity, this means was hit upon: In regard to the features through which things were to be signaled, one would follow the tones with which such things were signified in the words of the language. One would, namely, allow as many and as diverse visible signs or features to follow 67 one another, as individual tones were distinguishable in the names of the things. These individual tones, which are the elements of words, were the syllables, and the dominant letter characterized the syllable. This writing was not to indicate the words, but rather the things themselves, only in a way similar for the eye, as language presented them for the ear. And only through this sought-after agreement with the tones, did it happen that these signs now became just as much signs of words as of the things themselves. I cannot convince myself that the first inventor of alphabetic writing had foreseen that the words consisted of syllables, and the syllables in turn of still finer elements, namely letters; that he had already comprehended beforehand that the diversity of these latter elements is much less than in the syllables, and that they extend just far enough to allow of all being denoted with twenty-one different characters. This is how various authors have presented this invention. But why presuppose such a great insight? Suppose only that one had wanted to write syllables: these were the same as the distinct tones to be distinguished in the words; or rather, one wanted to write something, and in doing so imitated the series of tones in the words. I wish to put forward a few remarks in order to facilitate the explanation of the invention mentioned based on these principles. The diversity of syllables is indeed still very great, above all in those languages 68 in which they contain many consonants; nevertheless, a syllabary would always require a far smaller number of simple signs than that which was necessary for the

De System. Mund. Dial. 1. p. 73. [Galileo Galilei (1564–1642). The passage in question occurs at the end of the first day of his Dialogo sopra i due massimi sistemi (1632) (Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems): “But surpassing all stupendous inventions, what sublimity of mind was his who dreamed of finding means to communicate his deepest thoughts to any other person, though distant by mighty intervals of place and time! Of talking with those who are in India; of speaking to those who are not yet born and will not be born for a thousand or ten thousand years; and with what facility, by the different arrangements of twenty characters upon a page!” (Galileo 1967, p. 105).] 75 [See note 86, on p. 191 below.] 74

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tachygraphy of the ancients, in which entire words were to be printed with particular signs. If one inspects more closely the notas Tyronis and Senecae in Gruter,76 one sees immediately that, if one combined into this system of signs,77 along with the aim of writing quickly, also this, namely the aim to write as simply and with as few signs as would be possible, then this logography would have become a syllabary, and through this one would already have gone more than half the way to alphabetic writing. History derives the invention of letters from the Orient. The Oriental languages are rich in vowels and have a number of simple syllables, that is, such as consist of only one vowel, or of one vowel and one consonant. This circumstance decreases the diversity of syllables, and facilitates the invention of letters, and provides it with an inducement that it would not have found in another language that contained many syllables composed of several consonants. With the Greeks and the Latins, the alphabet did not reach completeness all at once.78 In the beginning, one experimented with a few letters. It is always the 69 similar, not the different, that the imagination first perceives in things. But, since one found the first letters insufficient for the necessary distinction of tones, one had to add others, until there were so many that in the majority of cases one could make do with them. Those tones that still remained without a sign did not hinder the understandability of writing, and afterward they were partly lost even in pronunciation. Cannot any alphabet, and also the very first, be invented in this way only gradually? Much is lacking in order for all the tones that are heard in speech to be written with letters. Every nation, whose language is written, has its tones that would require new letters, if they were to be represented distinctly in writing. For this reason, the emperor Claudius wanted to expand the Roman alphabet. This extension is probably possible in any other language; but exactitude taken too far rarely rewards the effort that it requires. In the barbarian languages, which have never as yet been written, one can in fact conjecture the existence of tones that cannot be written with the signs so far known. At the introduction of Christianity into Germany, the monks complained that the German language was not capable of being written. Exactly the same is said by the missionaries regarding the American languages. A people that writes its 70 language, and in part again masters it afterward through writing, as we do, alters pronunciation gradually in accordance with writing. Hence, many of the unwritten

Tom. II. Inscript. antiqu. Rom. [Tetens here refers the reader to the so-called Tyronian and Senecan notes, a system of shorthand consisting of approximately 5000 compound characters invented by Cicero’s servant Tiro (first century BCE) and later developed by Seneca, among others. Jan Gruter (1560–1627), a Dutch philologist, compiled the table of such notes to which Tetens refers us and had it printed at the end of his two-volume collection of Roman inscriptions, Inscriptiones antiquae totius orbis Romani (1603).] 77 [Characteristik] 78 Pliny Lib. VII. c. 56. Tacit. Annal. XI. 13. 14. [See Pliny’s The Natural History, bk. 7, ch. 57(56) where he recounts some of the possible changes made to the Greek alphabet over time as hypothesized by other authors. Publius Cornelius Tacitus (c. 56–120 CE), in his Annales (Annals), bk. 11, ch. 13–14, extends the same claim from Greek to Egyptian and finally to Latin.] 76

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tones are lost in the pronunciation of the civilized part of the nation, and only still remain in the mouth of the common man. Some of these are undoubtedly still maintained in all languages, and they are generally the shibboleth of the foreigner. The number of simple syllables—that is, those that consist of one vowel,79 or of one vowel and one consonant that are put together—is roughly two hundred in our language; and if one separates out those changes that are caused by the vowels, then their number is not greater than the number of simple letters. The isolation of the vowel80 could face impossibly many difficulties. These tones appeared often enough, perhaps initially one distinguished not more than two or three of them; they could thus either be left out of writing entirely, as being something that the reader himself was able to supply; or it was but necessary to indicate them with special signs in those cases where the vowel alone made up the entire syllable, or at least the primary part of it. There thus remained nothing left except to denote the consonants, which made up the character of the syllable. Initially, one could easily regard all syllables as simple, especially in a language in 71 which the greater part actually were such. Nevertheless, one had still subsequently to encounter composite syllables as well. These were of two kinds. Either the vowel stands in the middle between two consonants,81 as in tur and rit, to select only one perfectly simple example; or it follows after several consonants82 that immediately follow one another, for example, as in tha and ste. These difficulties, of the sort that accompany the execution of every project, and which one tries to alleviate gradually but rarely foresees at the start, made it necessary to find yet a few special features for such from among the tones compounded from several succeeding consonants, and to add these to the letters already invented, or, for cases of the first kind, one had to take the syllables apart. According to the tradition, which Pliny83 cites, before the Trojan war the letters Ζ, Η, Θ, Φ, Χ, Ψ, Ω were still missing from the Greek alphabet, and thus were added only afterward. This confirms the first kind of process. Our children, as is known, can master reading without previously spelling. The objection has been made to this method that correct spelling must be more difficult for the children instructed according to it: but a man who has conducted the 72 experiment more than once assures me that he has never perceived this negative84 consequence. This proves that the resolution of a syllable into its letters, where

[Selbstlauter] [Vokale] 81 [Konsonanten] 82 [Mitlauter] 83 Lib. 7. c. 56. [See his The Natural History, bk. 7, ch. 57(56): “I have always been of opinion, that letters were of Assyrian origin, but other writers, Gellius, for instance, suppose that they were invented in Egypt by Mercury: others, again, will have it that they were discovered by the Syrians; and that Cadmus brought from Phœnicia sixteen letters into Greece. To these, Palamedes, it is said, at the time of the Trojan war, added these four, θ, ξ, φ, and χ. Simonides, the lyric poet, afterwards added a like number, ζ, η, ψ, and ω; the sounds denoted by all of which are now received into our alphabet” (Pliny 1885).] 84 [üble] 79 80

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these are very evidently distinguished, is not such a difficult matter, if the letters are known individually beforehand, although women not used to writing commit a sufficient number of mistakes in spelling. One who thus examined syllables such as Tur and Rit, and, in order to denote them with letters already known and otherwise employed—such as T, R, u, i—frequently pronounced such to themselves, went over their differences, and tried to take notice; this person, I say, almost could not fail to remark that the first and last part of these syllables agree with the simple tones for which he has previously employed the letters R and T. In this way, as I imagine it, alphabetic writing can arise, and gradually be brought to its present completeness. The resolution to denote things in conformity with words was a far happier conceit than that of the thought to establish signs immediately according to the things themselves, and according to their qualities, as occurs in hieroglyphs.85 But in which of these two conceits has human wit and the power of invention proven themselves strongest? In the start of alphabetic writing, or in the invention of the wampum of the Peruvians?86 Probably in the first; yet is this not as easy to decide as is which of the two has been most important subsequently for the human race? 73 Nevertheless, in what has been said, I wish to have claimed nothing more than that alphabetic writing could have arisen in the way explained here; and also that it is possible, like other inventions, for it to be produced by human beings. I do not claim that it was actually invented in exactly this and in no other way, although the cited historical remains make this probable. Some have believed that the signs of numbers were hit upon earlier, and that the these provided the inducement to the invention of letters. The poetic faculty of the human being is one of the actual powers in nature. Our reason cannot devise as many ways to operate, by which a [In Tetens’s time, before the discovery of the Rosetta Stone, it was still believed that hieroglyphs were purely a form of pictographic writing.] 86 [Porcelaine-Schnuren der Peruaner. Tetens seems to confuse two matters described by Lafitau in vol. 3, ch. 3, esp. p. 211, of his Mœurs des Sauvages Ameriquains, Comparées aux Mœurs des Premiers Temps (1724). The first is quipu, a recording system devised by the Incas of Peru, which consists of knots tried in cotton strings of various colors. Its main purpose was mathematical, but some reported that it could serve almost as a kind of writing. The second is wampum, a symbolic system devised by the Eastern American Indians (thus not by the Incas), which consists of colored shells (thus Tetens’s “porcelaine,” it being derived from the old Italian word for mussel shell, “porcella”) carved often into cylinders and arranged into pictures on strings and sometimes fashioned into large mats or belts. It served chiefly to symbolize social standing or relations between tribes, but also as a currency. The exact term used by Tetens is of course not found in Lafitau’s French (he has “colliers de porcelaine”), but it is found in ch. 8 of the German edition by Baumgarten, Algemeine Geschichte der Länder und Völker von America, Nebst einer Vorrede (1752). A fuller account of quipu is found in de la Vega (1609, chs. 7–8). A modern description is given by Struik: “The simplest quipo has a main cord of colored cotton or sometimes wool, from which knotted cords are suspended with the knots formed into clusters at some distance from each other. Each cluster has a number of knots from 1 to 9, and a cluster of, say, 4 followed by one of 2 and one of 8 knots represents 428. This is therefore a position system, in which our zero is indicated by a greater distance between the knots. The colors of the cords represent things: sheep, soldiers, etc.; and the position of the cords, as well as additional cords suspended from the cords, could tell a very complicated statistical story to the scribes who could ‘read’ the quipos” (1987, p.16). Whatever Tetens has in mind, it is safe to assume that he here follows Lafitau in regarding both devices to be essentially hieroglyphic or pictorial. For more on Lafitau, see above, note 42, on p. 173 above; on de la Vega, see above, note 38, p. 172 above.] 85

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certain end is achieved, as those actually made capable of being followed by the creator. A remark, which is just as appropriate87 in psychology as in the doctrine of 74 nature.

CONCLUSION Thus, so much I believe has been demonstrated, it is possible for the human being to create a language through his natural abilities, and such is possible in the manner explained. It has not been demonstrated that he necessarily must invent one when left to himself, in whatever circumstances he may exist. Some philosophers have maintained that a human being is by nature just as necessarily determined to language as is the bird to flying, and the dog to barking.88 I find no sufficient grounds for this opinion. This is not even to mention that it is itself still a question in regard to animals, one to be decided by experiments, whether the natural tones through which they signify their sensations break forth exclusively through an internal and innate efficacy of their vocal organ, or whether in some there must not also be added the example of their equals, that is, a kind of instruction, in order to convert the innate vocal ability into a proficiency. In such a manner, could not a dog, for example, be so abundantly fed that it knew nothing of barking? Meanwhile, I still also believe that if all human beings on earth were at once robbed of their language, and were reduced again, with respect to their powers 75 of understanding, to the incapacity of first childhood; then it would not only be possible, but rather it would also actually happen, that one or another of this mass, by himself, if not in the first, then certainly in the following generations, will chance upon a language and, without any foreign human instruction, begin to make a use of his rational ability spontaneously. This appears more probable to me than the opposite, because a human being in intercourse with human beings is not only surrounded by far too many inducements that press him to exit a merely animal condition, but also with far too many causes that compel him to exit it. It is more probable that at least one or another of these causes would affect the natural powers of the human being, so that their development ensues, than that all of them together would miss this aim. The latter would be a greater coincidence than the former. Among all the difficulties that have been found in this hypothesis of the selfsufficiency of the human being’s linguistic ability for actually acquiring a language, the one that appears the weightiest to me is that which is grounded in part on the magnitude of the natural incapacity, in part on the inertia of human beings that are left to themselves. It is true that our nature possesses many and great abilities for reaching a rational condition, but those are just faculties, and in part only remote [richtig] [Tetens possibly has in mind here the French Lockean, Étienne Bonnot de Condillac (1714–80), author of Essai sur l’origine des connaissances humaines (2 vols., 1746) (Essay on the Origin of Human Knowledge). In pt. 2, sect. 1 of this book, Condillac describes how two children left on their own would automatically develop a language as a natural extension of their animalistic cries.]

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faculties. Which much rather are certain dispositions and facilities89 to become 76 something than actual drives and endeavors to such. The entire weight of this difficulty would be better known, if it were within one’s power to determine with greater precision the magnitude of the drive to development that is found in the innate abilities, and what the constitution of the derivative abilities is: in what form90 are the same found in the soul of a newborn child? But in this investigation, what is general is not even sorted out. This matter merits its own investigation, which I evaded above in another way. Nevertheless, this is the difficulty with which I believed I had to be most concerned. Of the experiments, proposed by some acute men, which are to be conducted with children, I do not believe that they actually could be performed in the way that the projects for them were designed. But even if this could happen, then, while I do expect from them many fruitful elucidations of our concept of human nature, I do not expect a decision regarding the present question that is more determinate than the one already provided by the ancient experiments in Egypt, and the modern ones in India. One would then have to arrange such a number of experiments of this kind, that even an otherwise none-too-tender mindset would have to begin to worry whether this inherently beneficial satisfaction of our curiosity would not be purchased at a price that is far too high. In all probability, however, the children would remain dumb who had been excluded entirely from all society with every living being ever since birth, just as 77 those who have been left among the animals have mastered the tones of these, their associates. And yet this would not cancel that possibility of spontaneously inventing a language, which I have established above. It is indeed entirely consistent with this for there to have once existed nations entirely bereft of language. That, however, a further advancement in language would be possible through the natural wit of the human being, and through the inducements that guide him, without any instruction, if only at some point beforehand the linguistic ability has begun to operate—of this the difference alone of actual languages provides an illuminating historical proof. The Huron and Iroquois, as I cited above from Lafitau, have a language that departs from the languages of the ancient world in one of the most essential characteristics. Namely, it has no nouns, but only verbs, in which latter is found a perfection of its own, through which the lack of the former is compensated for to a good degree. How did these languages become what they are? Were they invented by human beings, who did not yet talk other languages? Or has this departure been a consequence of an immediate confusion of languages? If both of these cases must correctly be rejected as improbable, then nothing is left but to assume that a transformation had occurred, and thereupon the people in whom this happened must have demonstrated its linguistic ability to be operative to 78 a strong degree. A part of the previous language was destroyed, and into its place, gradually or all at once, a new part was introduced according to a plan entirely of its

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own. From the language that it had spoken originally, nothing more has been passed on to this, its new work, than the first predisposition to a language, almost nothing more than the drive to talk, so that natural wit must add everything else. Precisely this departure of the American languages also clears out of the way another difficulty, which some illustrious men wanted to find in the purely human invention of languages, namely, that such could not have come about without a preceding reflection, without an intention and plan; and thus in no other way than if there were already present causes that are entirely lacking in human beings who do not yet speak at all, and consequently cannot apply their reason. Did then the Huron work according to a plan when they taught that particular economy of their language? Did they have to see in advance what the missionaries could not discover, that it succeeds in denoting with the inflection of verbs those objects for which nouns are required in other languages? I wish to omit the rest of what can be cited in opposition to this doubt. The history of inventions fully removes it. For, what was the greatest and most important 79 part of discoveries in their first beginnings other than an aimless new effect of a power of thought that was set into lively operation, or even only an advancement of its preceding efficacy, which was combined with pleasure? Gratification in the consequence initially excited one, like another animal feeling, to the repetition of exactly the same kind of operation; if afterward reflection combines with it, then this gratification is sought as an intention, and the initially animal endeavor is elevated to a rational act of willing.91

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On the General Speculative Philosophy (1775) Si quis universam velit vituperare, secundo id populo facere posset.1 —Cic

PROLOGUE The intention of this essay—if the title attached to it does not already specify this sufficiently—is to present, based on the nature of human knowledge,2 the motivation for general speculative philosophy, its genesis and the course of reason within it, its final end, its advantages and its relative indispensability, its relations to the knowledge of common human understanding, what it lacks and what it stands in need of, the way to emend its fundamental concepts and principles, as well as its connection to observational philosophy.3 When I look to the turn that philosophy

[“If one wishes to cast reproach upon philosophy as a whole, he can do so with the approval of the people.” From bk. II.1.4 of Marcus Tullius Cicero’s (106–43 BCE) Tusculanae disputationes (45 BCE). The fuller passage reads: “For philosophy is content with the judgment of the few, purposely shunning the multitude, by which it is in its turn both suspected and hated,—so that if one wishes to cast reproach upon philosophy as a whole, he can do so with the approval of the people; while if he attempts to assail the philosophical doctrines which I specially advocate, he can derive great assistance from the teachings of other schools of philosophy” (Cicero 1886, pp. 90–1).] 2 [Kenntnisse] 3 [beobachtende Philosophie. The exact source of this terminology is unclear and may be an invention of Tetens himself. Although Tetens nearly always associates this kind of philosophy, or at least its origins, with Locke and Hume, no such language is found in their writings or in period translations of them. The only example in German we have been able to locate is in Johann Caspar Lavater’s (1741–1801) preface to his German translation of a book by Charles Bonnet: Philosophische Palingenesie. Oder Gedanken über den vergangenen und künftigen Zustand lebender Wesen (2 vols., 1770). On p. IV, Lavater refers to “the true philosophy, I mean, the observational. ”   In the PhV, Tetens states the following of observational philosophy: “It [i.e., the method used in the work] is the observational one, which Locke has followed with respect to the understanding, and our psychologists have followed with respect to the empirical theory of soul. To accept modifications of the soul as they are known through the feeling of self; to carefully and repeatedly perceive them with variations in the circumstances, to observe, to note the way they originate and the operational laws of the powers that produce them; and then to compare and resolve the observations, and to find out from them the 1

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has taken among us during the last several years, and seems to be taking still further; I find it not an inopportune moment to remind the reader of what I have said here. 4 Those who, beyond the British observational and the French reasoning4 philosophy, are familiar also with the geometrical spirit of the Leibnizian–Wolffian5 philosophy, may perhaps find little in this essay that they have not have already thought through by themselves. Initially, this essay was meant to be the first in a collection of several belonging to observational philosophy,6 which would deal with some of the most important essential features of human nature, namely, with the principle of sensing and of thinking, with spontaneity and freedom, and with the nature of the human soul and its perfectibility and development. Being a consideration of certain aspects of the understanding, the present essay could find a place among those others and draw our attention to some of them. However, its inner relation to the greater part of the same 5 made it advisable, afterward, that it be separated out and published before them.

THE COURSE OF COMMON HUMAN UNDERSTANDING IN THE EMENDATION OF SENSORY KNOWLEDGE Since we know nothing of the objects outside of the understanding, except solely by means of those of our representations of them that we have collected within

simplest faculties and manners of operation and their connections to one another; these are the essential tasks in the psychological analysis of the soul based on experience. This method is the method in natural science [Naturlehre]; and it is the single method that first shows us the operations of the soul and their combinations with one another as they actually are, and allows us the hope of discovering the principles from which to infer reliably their causes, and then, to establish something certain, which is more than pure conjecture, regarding the nature of the soul, understood as the subject of the observed expressions of its powers” (p. IV). And a bit later: “One of the primary operations of the observational method consists in the generalization of particular propositions of experience, which are drawn from individual cases. It is upon this that the strength of the method depends. By itself, observation has only to do with what is individual” (p. XIX). Compare this with what Bonnet writes in his Essai analytique sur les facultés de l’âme (1760): “The spirit of observation is not limited to a single genus: It is the universal spirit of the sciences and the arts. It is always from sensory ideas that we deduce the most abstract notions, and sensory ideas represent sensory objects. And it is therefore by observations that we manage to generalize. […] Hence, physics is to a certain extent the mother of metaphysics, and the art of observation is the art of the metaphysician just as much as it is of the natural scientist” (pp. I–II). For more on Bonnet, see note 22 on p. 90 and note 61 on p. 180 above. Despite all of this, Tetens strongly associates the method of observational philosophy with astronomical practice as on pp. 203, 207 below. He also distinguishes his method partly from that of Bonnet in the PhV: “Hr. Bonnet took the path of hypothesis. He chose to assume his principles and explained from them the observations and analyzed representations. I have chosen the path of observation; which is indeed more certain, although somewhat longer” (p. 28).] 4 [Likely a reference to the philosophy of René Descartes (1596–1650) and possibly also Nicolas Malebranche (1638–1715).] 5 [geometrischen Genius. Likely a reference to the mathematical method (in imitation of geometrical practice regarding definitions, axioms, theorems, and proofs) so much emphasized in the works of Christian Wolff (1679–1754), an epitome of which he published under the title Kurzer Unterricht, Von der Mathematischen Methode, which is found in Der Anfangs-Gründe Aller Mathematischen Wissenschafften (4 vols., 1710), pp. 5–27.] 6 [In other words, this essay was initially intended as an introduction to the later PhV.]

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ourselves; any investigation concerning the qualities of external objects is nothing but a certain treatment of the ideas present in us that refer to them. Even so, there are two ways of dealing with these, which are distinct in many respects: to study the objects by means of representations of them; and to subject these very representations within us to investigation, to examine them, and to judge their value or lack thereof, their truth or falsity. We sense bodies and their qualities; we compare, distinguish, and know one from another; and we refer them to one another through and in those sensations and representations as through pictures of them within us. In doing so, we presuppose, out of a natural propensity to identify ideas and things with one 6 another, that what we have immediately before us, and what occupies us, are the things and not their imprints and representations.7 In this way we investigate the objects. However, if at some point an uneasiness, stemming from the confusion into which these representations lead us, or from some other cause, excites us to want to consider more closely how things stand with our representations, and we thus become concerned with reaching certainty regarding their correctness or incorrectness, their reliability or deceptiveness; then at that point, we consider our ideas from a different perspective. Then they are no longer something objective, not matters outside of the understanding; they are something subjective, modifications of ourselves.8 The series of ideas appear to us as a scene within us, and not as a series of things outside of us. We endeavor to know their origin within us, their inner content and scope. This latter investigation is an observation of representations and belongs to the physics of the understanding.9 The former belongs to the philosophy of objects. This distinction also comes up when the understanding itself is the object of its own representations. Nevertheless, the objects outside of the understanding are nothing for it except for what they are through the representations10 of them found within

[This propensity was identified clearly by David Hume (1711–76): “It seems also evident, that, when men follow this blind and powerful instinct of nature, they always suppose the very images, presented by the senses, to be the external objects, and never entertain any suspicion, that the one are nothing but representations of the other.” An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding (1748, sect. 12.8, p. 201).] 8 [Hume also notes this shift in perspective: “But this universal and primary opinion of all men is soon destroyed by the slightest philosophy, which teaches us, that nothing can ever be present to the mind but an image or perception, and that the senses are only the inlets, through which these images are conveyed, without being able to produce any immediate intercourse between the mind and the object” (1748, sect. 12.9, p. 201).] 9 [Cf. Kant’s reference to “a certain physiology of the human understanding (by the famous Locke)” (Aix). For Kant, physiology is the general term for knowledge of the nature of the objects of the senses. The physiology of outer sense is physics, that of inner sense, psychology. Perhaps in part to distinguish his work from that of Tetens, Kant further divides physiology into the empirical and the transcendental. The empirical physiology of inner sense is hence what Kant calls “empirical psychology” or the “empirical theory of the soul,” or what Tetens here terms a “physics” of the understanding. E.g., see AA 28:221–3. It should be noted that this terminology, both for Kant and for Tetens, is meant in no way to imply materialism (cf. Wolfe 2016).] 10 [Tetens seems to criticize a Wolffian definition of a representation as a modification of us “from which another matter can be immediately known by us” (PhV, 11) because of a supposed lack of clarity on the difference between what is immediate and what is mediated. Tetens offers instead the following: “Our representations are constituted by such traces as are left behind in us by our modifications and are again drawn forth or unfolded by a faculty that is in us” (PhV, 16). However, it is not clear that the definition given in PhV, i.e., a modification from which “another matter can be known immediately by us” (PhV, 11) is in fact the same as Wolff’s.] 7

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it. Thus, at some point we ask ourselves: Are our representations true and real 7 representations—do they correspond to their objects to the extent as is necessary in order to be able to compare and judge those objects by means of them—or are they an empty appearance,11 which misleads us? For we cannot go beyond our own representations, cannot consider the objects by themselves apart from and without the representations, cannot hold the things themselves up to their ideas and thereby settle whether and to what extent the latter agree or disagree with the former. Our understanding finds itself among its representations like the eye in a gallery of paintings of things and people that it has never seen for itself nor will ever see. Therefore, the only possible way to settle whether the representations correspond to what they represent would be one similar to, and employing similar aids as, that through which it would be possible, in such a situation, to judge the similarity of paintings to their objects. All that reflection can do in this regard amounts in the end to this, namely, to its comparing representations with representations, and ideas that it receives from objects in one way with ideas that come to it in another way and by another channel; to its attending to the greater or lesser harmony of the ideas among themselves and of these with other matters that fall within the scope of its thought; and, ultimately and most importantly, to its separating out some mutually connected, fixed, and constant ideas—those 8 that it attains through a naturally necessary employment of its powers and is constrained to declare as true copies corresponding to objects, and which it thus accepts as the reliable originals among its paintings—and finally to its judging the remaining ideas according to their relation to these originals. These are the means through which the power of reflection figures out, from the various kinds of appearance, which is reliable and complete, which is not an empty appearance, which agrees with itself and among its parts, and which presents matters and presents them as they are and not only as they are on one side or how they may perhaps appear under certain contingent circumstances or when considered from one’s own special standpoint. The common human understanding has collected together a great number of correct representations of external corporeal, and primarily visible, things, and has acquired a proficiency for judging objects correctly in accordance with such representations, all without ever having encountered a pressing occasion for conducting a deliberate investigation into the nature of these ideas and their origination from sensations. Undoubtedly, in the beginning some appearances disconcerted common understanding, as one sees happen in children. This necessitated comparisons of one representation with others, and this was an

[leerer Schein. Tetens uses the term “Schein” seemingly in the same way as Johann Heinrich Lambert (1728–77) in his Neues Organon oder Gedanken über die Erforschung und Bezeichnung des Wahren und dessen Unterscheidung vom Irrtum und Schein (2 vols., 1764). See esp. vol. 2, pp. 217–19. The operative analogy here is the way objects look as distinguished from what they may truly be and as they can be known to be through the science of perspective, or in the case of the apparent motions of the planets, through astronomical theories. See note 96 on p. 237 below.]

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investigation of ideas. However, such happened so casually, and with so little effort, that one did not feel it when it was undertaken, and afterward no longer knew that it had taken place. A deliberate investigation, conducted with a distinct consciousness 9 of the kind of method employed, was not necessary for the common proficiency for employing the senses, although, in the end, the reflections that occurred to reason during this development did indeed contain the entire seed of what, when further articulated, constitutes the philosophical investigation of the understanding and its modes of thinking. Sensory impressions of all kinds, and especially those that we receive through the sense of sight, fall into discordance as soon as the collection of them is only slightly increased. The power of judgment faces a dilemma when, if it wants to follow certain impressions, it ought to consider those very objects as being the same thing, but, if it wants to follow others, must declare them to be distinct. But in such cases, at least most of the time, natural wit knew how to reach a favorable resolution.12 Sometimes there was more strength, more light, or still some other unique circumstance present in one of the appearances that presented itself, or perhaps a certain suitability for the power of representation, or a certain ease with which the imagination took it up, which then conferred upon it a preferential status. At other times, one appearance was better supported by other concurrent sensations, especially by the sensations of touch. At still other times, one appearance was more compatible with other representations and thereby attracted the assent of the understanding. Subsequently, such judgments took hold within us, and, when a new confusion arose, provided one did not decide too hastily, a 10 certain internal feeling instructed one to proceed in every case in the same way as one had done already in previous cases. The judgment thereby recovered its correct determination, and the manner of thinking that was employed in it became customary. From such common experiences one no doubt learned that, generally, there existed a deceptive sensible appearance by which one could be misled. Yet, at the same time, through attention to feeling and caution in judging, one also acquired the skillfulness to guard oneself against being misled, and did so without finding it necessary to further seek out the cause of the disharmony of the appearances. In this way, human beings arrive at the customary use of their senses. Neither the hunter nor the sailor requires any further psychology or any other perspective than this in order to judge distances and sizes, by means of visual sensations, readily and with such great accuracy that the unpracticed, who so often falter in these matters and so often palpably err, must stand in admiration. But now instill in the reflective human being the curiosity to comprehend how it happens that his representations so often become untrustworthy to him, even those on which he had relied under different circumstances and by which he had then been correctly guided. Or, since he is accustomed to taking counsel from another sense, and in most cases from that of touch,13 when a contradiction arises among

[Auskunft, in the now obsolete sense of “outcome” listed by Adelung, which makes most sense here.] [Gefühl]

12 13

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11 his visual ideas, lead him to those objects with respect to which he must do without this aid. One might introduce him, for instance, to astronomical knowledge and oppose its grounds and arguments to his sensory representations. How does the common understanding now behave? The understanding that is too weak to grasp the persuasive force of the arguments will never be brought to a true, inner certainty that the sun exceeds the moon in size by many times, as the astronomers claim, or that the earth revolves around the sun, and so on. However, the understanding that grasps these reasonings would nonetheless still have to harbor doubts about these truths, no matter how true they may be, if it were not at the same time instructed regarding the nature of visual sensations. Lacking this, there is no complete conviction. Certain doubts would still prevent the assent that proofs could coerce from us, until it is made completely comprehensible how matters stand in us with respect to these mutually conflicting ways of representing the arrangement of the heavens, the one consisting in inferential knowledge, and the other in sensory knowledge. The least that is required for one to be convinced of the truth of the theory is a general insight into how sensory representations of matters within us can arise from sensations, without their external objects corresponding to them and without these objects being able to be judged according to them in the same way as 12 has happened in other cases.

ON THE METAPHYSICS OF THE COMMON HUMAN UNDERSTANDING Does the human understanding not proceed in the same way with respect to its common concepts and principles as it does with respect to its sensory representations? It furnishes itself with the former in the same way that it receives the latter, employs them, and applies them correctly and usefully in common life and in the sciences without concerning itself with their nature or origin. The common human understanding knows what a cause and an effect are, what an action and a passion are, what a thing and a quality are, what necessary and contingent are, what order, time, and space are, and so forth. It follows these concepts and thinks according to the general axioms of reason. And if at some point these become confused or run up against each other, then for the most part, the understanding is guided to the correct decision by a more precise consideration of the particular objects that occupy it. The physicist, doctor, jurist, historian, artist, linguist, and even the practical philosopher continually helps himself to ontological concepts and theorems without, however, having further developed them. Each inquires after his particular objects, assembles the principles proper to his science, and can even connect his knowledge scientifically. The dispute among natural scientists over the change of water into earth can and 13 will be decided, just as that other dispute which erupted twenty years ago regarding the transmutation of grains, was decided, namely, without it being necessary to enter into a discussion of the metaphysical canon, of the immutability of natures and species of things, which some quite unfittingly included among the grounds of

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dispute.14 Fundamental science is required for such investigations just as little as is the science of perspective for the ordinary use of our eyes. An exception is only to be made when the reflective individual wishes to extend his curiosity beyond what is internal to his particular science. If, namely, he would like not merely to know his own field but also to acquire an overview of how his field is related to, and situated in comparison with, the remaining parts of the intellectual world, to the extent that human understanding has gained knowledge of them; then his end requires that he occupy a higher standpoint, one which lies only within the region of transcendent philosophy. The common understanding can attain a host of theoretical rational cognitions concerning God, the human soul, and the world, as well as of the relationship of the creator to his creation and to the human being, without being furnished with a developed, general theory of reason. There exist cognitions of these objects that are easily found and accepted with hardly any subtle reasoning. There exists a theology 14 of reason, which is independent from all systems of metaphysics. The concepts and principles of the understanding are employed without being determined precisely, separated from one another distinctly, or integrated into a system. Through their reasonings and submitted examinations, Reid, Home, Beattie, Oswald,15 as well as various German philosophers, have established this beyond doubt without undertaking any prior general speculations about substance, space and time, and the like. In fact, this end could have been reached without the use of as many declamations as are employed especially by Beattie and Oswald. Why should it not be possible to single out the common cognitions of the understanding and to separate them from those that require a developed metaphysics and logic? But the greatest merit of these philosophers consists in the attempt, which some of them made, to carry out their proposal; for it is in the course of doing so that it is easiest to see how far their proposal itself suffices, where it falls short, and what one must otherwise determine more extensively on the basis of grounds. In short,

[The debate about the transmutation of water into earth stemmed from experiments conducted by the Dutch chemist Jan Baptist van Helmont (1580–1644), who reported growing a tree that increased by hundreds of pounds, while the earth in which it was planted barely changed weight. His conclusion was that most of the plant matter resulted from the transmutation of water. See his Aufgang der Artzney-Kunst (1683), p. 148. This view was developed by the Irish chemist and natural philosopher, Robert Boyle (1627–91), who reported van Helmont’s experiment in his own The Sceptical Chymist (1661), pp. 112– 15. According to Tetens 2017, pp. 54–5, note 32, the main opponent of this view as the Dutch physicist, mathematician and astronomer Peter von Musschenbroek (1692–1761).] 15 [Thomas Reid (1710–96), Scottish philosopher often said to belong to the “School of Common Sense,” author in particular of An Inquiry into the Human Mind, On the Principles of Common Sense (1764). For Home, see note 15 on p. 159 above; also author of Essays on the Principles of Morality and Natural Religion (1751). James Beattie (1735–1803), Scottish poet and philosopher, critic and opponent of Hume, and author of the hugely successful, but now largely forgotten, An Essay on the Nature and Immutability of Truth; In Opposition to Sophistry and Scepticism (1770). James Oswald (1703–93), Scottish theologian who employed the commonsense philosophy to bolster religion, author of An Appeal to Common Sense in Behalf of Religion (2 vols., 1766/1772).] 14

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the logic for such a philosopher is the following: One collects knowledge of the corporeal world and of the soul, which either itself consists of experiences, or is not far removed from them. One sharpens the natural faculty for reflection through a number of exercises in geometry. This enriched and strengthened understanding 15 casts its observing eye over the entire world, and over the situation of the human being within it, and inquires into the creator of things. One can also consult what others have thought about such matters. The feeling for what is true,16 that is, the inner sensation of what harmonizes in our thoughts, of what does or does not suit our power of comprehension, and of what easily passes into the understanding or of what the latter resists—this inner sensation, this feeling, is the guide. Then, whatever presents itself as true and correct to sound human understanding during calm reflection (for the desire for knowledge must operate like a calm passion, at the furthest possible remove from prejudice), without its being stirred to doubts by a secret feeling, this one accepts as truth, and places in the list of rational cognitions that are certain. One can combine and compare these, and one will assemble a host of true and most important cognitions, without allowing oneself to enter into a deeper investigation concerning the nature of the understanding, and the source and reality of first fundamental concepts and principles.

THE RELATION OF SPECULATIVE PHILOSOPHY TO POPULAR PHILOSOPHY If such philosophical reasonings, which constitute the true popular philosophy, were 16 guided by such good fortune as to accept nothing but pure truths—and to anyone who has cast even a side-long glance at the history of philosophy this will seem a lot to ask—assuming this improbability: does one then have good grounds to declare the acroamatic speculative philosophy useless or to declaim utterly against it like Beattie and Oswald do? It is and remains a weakness to become enraged against a good thing on account of its misuse, no matter where one encounters this fault. Was it anything but this when the aforementioned British philosophers were misled by the misuse of speculations in skepticism to set up speculative philosophy as an enemy of the human understanding from which it stems (of which it is in fact the best friend), and from which it is distinct, only by more or less, only by degrees? Why not attack the particular principles of Berkeley,17 Hume, and that heroic skeptic, the

[As noted in Tetens 2017, p. 58, note 41, this language is found in Johann Christian Lossius’s (1743– 1813) Physische Ursachen des Wahren (1775, p. 140f.) (although his theory is materialist, unlike Tetens’s) and Johann Georg Heinrich Feder’s (1740–1821) Logik und Metaphysik (1769), which Tetens often used as a textbook in his courses. Feder describes this feeling as follows: “Under the feeling of truth (sensus veri, sensus communis, common sense) is commonly understood the faculty to perceive truth or falsity, immediately, without reasoning, and hence often only indistinctly” (p. 32). Lambert also speaks of a sensation by which we sense the harmony of propositions and thereby discover truths. See his Neues Organon (1764), vol. 1, Alethiologie, §§179–90; vol. 2, Dianoiologie, §§619–21. See note 11 on p. 198 above.] 17 [George Berkeley (1685–1753), Irish philosopher, author of, among other works, A Treatise Concerning the Principles of Human Knowledge (1710) and Three Dialogues between Hylas and Philonous (1713).] 16

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author of the Essay Concerning Human Nature,18 who drove skeptical doubt to its non plus ultra? Why not allow reason itself to render judgment over the aberrations particular to them? But this, of course, requires that the nature of human knowledge be pursued back to its first beginnings, and moreover, that the procedure of thinking in the attainment of knowledge be explicated more precisely and carefully than 17 either Reid, Beattie, or Oswald, despite their otherwise eminent acumen, appear to have done. What, then, is this speculative philosophy, and what should it be? It is undoubtedly something more than those sound reflections of common understanding, which it ought not to nullify, but rather secure and explain. It should be a developed rational knowledge, that is, a rational knowledge that is brought into order and coherence, that is precisely determined and purified of all false associated ideas, that is extended, elevated and more fortified. It should carry a stronger conviction with it than the reflections of common understanding, a conviction, namely, that originates from the distinct consciousness of certainty within us. This is the true spirit of philosophy, and this is its end, which is recognized, even amidst the errant steps of individual philosophers, as the goal pursued by those systematic ones who wish to distinguish themselves from mere philosophical reasoners. The knowledge of the common understanding is the soil that one has to cultivate in speculative philosophy. Should this culture succeed according to the wish of the mathematical metaphysician, just as it has already succeeded rather well in some parts, then such cultivation and—this title contains no true reproach—scholastically crafted rational knowledge should distinguish itself from the undeveloped knowledge of the common understanding just as much as contemporary astronomy does from that ancient knowledge of the 18 heavens that one still finds in Seneca’s writings.19

THE NECESSITY OF A GENERAL FUNDAMENTAL SCIENCE With such an intention in mind, a thoroughly elaborated fundamental science becomes not only useful, but in many respects indispensable to philosophers who contemplate God, the human soul, and the whole of actual things, just as indispensable, in fact, as geometry and arithmetic were to Kepler and Newton. All our knowledge of actual things is provided by observation and reasoning. These two can substitute for one another to a certain degree, like observation and calculation in astronomy. Where objects lie before our senses and can be approached by them

[The reference is mysterious, since the only book with this precise title is a German translation of Lawrence Stern’s A Sentimental Journey, and one would expect the heroic skeptic in question to be David Hume. Tetens 2017, p. 60, n. 49, takes this to be the case and offers two explanations: Either Tetens was unaware that the anonymous A Treatise of Human Nature (1739) was by Hume, or the text is corrupt and should instead read “Hume, that heroic sceptic,” etc. However, neither explain the incorrect title.] 19 [Lucius Annaeus Seneca (c. 4 BCE–65 CE), Roman stoic philosopher, playwright, politician, author of, among other works, Naturales quaestiones (62–4 CE), the first book of which is on astronomical phenomena.] 18

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from several points of view and in various circumstances, there an empirical insight into the nature of things and into their connections to one another is possible, an insight which stands, not indeed without any reasoning, but nevertheless without attaining to developed speculation based on general concepts. By contrast, the less the objects are sensible to us, the more we must make do with one-sided impressions of them; the less their similarity with sensed objects: that much more indispensable do general theories become, at least to the extent that such things can 19 ever become objects of our knowledge by some other means. Even the most casual attention to the investigations conducted in this science shows to which of these classes metaphysical objects belong. Among these are the attributes of the infinite being, which is elevated above all the senses; its spiritual nature and its relations to creatures; the inner natural power of the soul and the soul’s connections to the other parts of creation; the first elements of bodies, which cannot be made sensible through any analysis; the concatenation of the parts of the entire world-system; pure objects, most of which lie further outside the domain of the observable than the remotest fixed stars do from the earth; and yet inquiring reason wants to know something about them. When reason collects together all the experiences to which it has access and takes these as the standpoint, as it were, from which it proceeds; then the distance between it and the objects that it wants to reach is infinite. It is incomprehensible how there could possibly be a means by which to bridge this chasm, if the selfsame reason that has constructed a path through the galaxy by means of its mathematical theories cannot furnish itself with a similar aid. One can certainly point to some fundamental items of knowledge regarding intellectual objects that are illuminating beyond all measure. The great truth: There is a God 20 contains within it a light, which, like the sun through the entirety of immeasurable space, strikes each and every intellectual being as soon as its reflection is but prepared to receive even the slightest insight. But how many more instances are there of such knowledge, when reason removed from earthly concepts, Dares to sail into the wide ocean of the Divine?20

[entfernt von irdischen Begriffen / Im weiten Ocean der Gottheit wagt zu schiffen. From the Swiss poet and anatomist Albrecht von Haller’s (1708–77) poem “Gedanken über Vernunft, Aberglauben und Unglauben” (“Thoughts on Reason, Superstition and Unbelief”), which first appeared in his Versuch Schweizerischer Gedichten (1732). The stanza from which this is taken describes a sage who seeks to flee superstition and prejudice with the guidance of reason and by removing himself from all merely human things, but who upon entering the “wide ocean of the divine” finds that reason fails and he has been left blind and directionless. The use of the image of sailing in relation to science and metaphysics, found most notably also in Kant, is discussed in Poggi 2015. The main source is, of course, Francis Bacon (1561–1626), not only because the image is featured in the frontispiece of his Instauratio magna (1620), but also because of his extensive development of it throughout his writings, e.g.: “After coasting by the ancient arts, we will next equip the human understanding to set out on the ocean” (Bacon 2000, p. 15; cf. also pp. 10–11). Sailing and the ocean feature in the Introduction to Locke’s (1632–1704) An Essay Concerning Human Understanding (1689) as well (bk. I, ch. i, §§6–7). However, none of these sources contain the specific comparison mentioned by Tetens in the next lines.]

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and when it seeks everywhere a certainty for which it can give account? The procedure of the understanding in physics has been compared with the voyage of a ship, which, as the ancients did with theirs, keeps steadily to the coast. One reasons in physics; and if it is supposed to be philosophy and not merely a natural history; then one must reason all the more therein. But one always keeps an eye on experiences and looks out for these as one does for shorelines and lighthouses, and also turns back to them as soon as they have been lost from view. If one wishes to continue this comparison; then metaphysics is an ocean voyage around the world during which one encounters here and there a number of islands and shorelines—in the guise of a few general propositions of experience—by which one can become informed of the direction one has taken. The passions are the sea-storms, the prejudices are the cliffs, which toss reason back or cause her to run aground. Indeed, how many good reasons are there not, more than elsewhere, to equip oneself before departure with good compasses, maps, and telescopes, and to 21 verse oneself well in the art of navigation? How many reasons there are to study logic and fundamental philosophy! I wish to add just this further reflection. May we not hope that in the future our empirical knowledge will suffice and render general theory dispensable? We have only just begun to look around ourselves, and how much have we not already seen? Observations concerning the nature and origin of animals, of the invisible animal kingdom, of plants, of the mutual connections of organized and animated beings with one another and with the remaining concretions of the corporeal world— these have placed a stock of information at our disposal, which, though it be taken from individual and nearby objects, nevertheless opens up a general outlook for the understanding that infers according to analogy, one that may extend to the entire collection of beings and allow something to be seen of even the most distant parts of the system and of their connections and relations with one another. I am fairly confident in our current spirit of observation21 and hope that it will be able to provide itself with a kind of physical metaphysics, as Robinet’s system of nature22 or Bonnet’s palingenesis23 were to have been, works which, I am convinced, also contain some wonderful fragments of such a metaphysics. The more we draw general 22 considerations of this kind from observation, the more data we will possess, which to

[See note 3, on p. 195–6 above, where Bonnet is quoted as speaking of the spirit of observation.] [Jean-Baptiste-René Robinet (1735–1820), French naturalist and early theorist of evolution and the transmutation of species. His works are also full of philosophical speculations. In his De la Nature (1761), Robinet speaks of a “physics of spirits”: “Consider the spirit in the preexisting germ, in the second germ or the fetus, in the germ’s development or the perfectly organized body: to follow the course of the two substances united in the progress of their mutual development: and, without confounding them, to explain the operations of the one by the play and movements of the other; this is the plan of the physics of spirits” (p. XI). Again: “I mean by spirits thinking beings, whatever their essence and origin; and regarding these I will hazard only one or two reflections. The theory of the operations of these beings, subject to principles as constant, as invariable as the rules of optics and acoustics, is what I call the physics of spirits, which will complete this work” (p. 5). The entire fourth part of his work is devoted to developing this topic.] 23 [Charles Bonnet (1720–93), Genevan philosopher and naturalist, author of, among other works, La Palingénésie Philosophique (4 vols., 1769).] 21 22

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the metaphysician are what individual experiences are to the physicist. But even with the greatest good fortune that I hope human industry to encounter on this path, I do not believe that it will ever be possible for general philosophy to become completely dispensable, at least, not as long as knowledge is understood as consisting in distinct insight. Nor do I think this likely to happen, even if this condition is abandoned and nothing more than a lower degree of reliability and certainty is demanded. Should we well expect that there will ever come a time when we are in a position to see and feel that the sun is as large, and as distant from the earth, as our astronomers currently ascertain with the help of their trigonometric theories? At least, until we have arrived at this fortunate epoch of human knowledge, reason will always need a general fundamental science for its most pressing cognitions. But is such an evident metaphysics—one that relates to the philosophy of the common understanding as insight and conviction relate to mere opinion and persuasion—a humanly possible science? Does it properly lie within the limits of our understanding? Or will it, finally, like the philosopher’s stone, disappoint our hopes after having been sought with the same zeal in our own times? This 23 is a question that I leave unanswered, not because it is now fashionable call into question the status of this once queen of the sciences. The answer to this question with respect to the whole of metaphysics depends on the extent to which it can be answered regarding the fundamental science. What in Germany we call metaphysics or, indeed, speculative philosophy, is an assemblage of several sciences.24 General transcendent philosophy, which is called fundamental science or ontology, is a distinct science in itself, which admits only those principles that are higher and more general than the concepts of corporeal things, on the one hand, and than the concepts of immaterial objects that affect us solely through inner sense, on the other. It is the common stem of the two great branches of theoretical philosophy, one of which comprises the philosophy of the souls and spirits and of God. The objects of this branch are the incorporeal and immaterial beings, for which reason I like to call it philosophy of the incorporeal, or intellectual philosophy. This is opposed to the second branch, which deals with corporeal things and their constitutions, for the most part physics and mathematics. With respect to form,

[The followers of Christian Wolff (1679–1754) typically divided metaphysics into ontology or general metaphysics, and the special metaphysics of cosmology, psychology, and natural theology. Typical is Alexander Gottlieb Baumgarten (1714–62) in whose Metaphysica (1739) we find the following definitions: “Metaphysics is the science of the first principles in human knowledge” (§1, p. 99). “To metaphysics belong ontology, cosmology, psychology and natural theology” (§2, p. 99). “ONTOLOGY (ontosophia, metaphysics (cf. §1), universal metaphysics, architectonics, first philosophy) is the science of the more general predicates of a being” (§4, p. 100). “GENERAL COSMOLOGY is the science of the predicates of the world, and this science is either based upon experience that is nearest to hand, in which case it is EMPIRICAL COSMOLOGY, or it is based upon the concept of the world, in which case it is RATIONAL COSMOLOGY” (§351, p. 166). “PSYCHOLOGY is the science of the general predicates of the soul” (§501, p. 198). “Psychology (1) deduces its assertions based upon experience that is nearest to hand, in which case it is EMPIRICAL PSYCHOLOGY, and (2) deduces its assertions based upon the concept of the soul through a longer series of arguments, in which case it is RATIONAL PSYCHOLOGY” (§503 , p. 198). “NATURAL THEOLOGY is the science of God, insofar as he can be known without faith” (§800 p. 280). See Baumgarten 2013.] 24

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there is no distinction between the intellectual philosophy and the philosophy of the corporeal. Both rest on experience and become philosophical sciences through 24 the combination of general theory with experience. The theology of reason shares the same feature. These sciences are of the exact same nature as astronomy and other fields of applied mathematics, fields in which the essential feature consists in the application of general theory to actual objects observed either directly or through their effects. By contrast, transcendent philosophy is nothing other than a general theory that, by itself, has no actual thing as its object, as little as does the analysis of the mathematicians. Transcendent philosophy is of the same nature as mathematical analysis and, by comparison with it, could very well be called a higher analysis of things, if, without this, it did not already have sufficient names and titles. It has nothing to do with actually existing objects and occupies itself only with what is possible or necessary25 in all kinds of things in general. However, once it is applied to experience; there then arises through it a philosophical insight into the constitution of actually existing things. Were one to take into account merely the inner connection of fundamental science to intellectual philosophy and to the physics of bodies, then it could just as easily be combined with either, as precede both. It seems to me that the reason why it is customary to combine it with the sciences of immaterial objects, and to codify both under the title of 25 metaphysics, is that the theorems from psychology, which together with natural theology constitute the ground of a practical religion of reason, depend less on observations, and more on general, ontological reasoning. Hence, fundamental science is employed more here than in physics or mathematics. The physics of bodies, on the other hand, interests us far more insofar as it is an empirical science, than with respect to its general, speculative parts. The reason why the totality of metaphysics depends so strongly on transcendent philosophy is that its reality either stands or falls with that of the latter. A real speculative philosophy is within our power if it is the case that a fundamental science is in our power, one that can bear the name of a true and solid science of things; and if we have not the latter, then we will lack the former. For this purpose, the same thing that made theoretical mathematics into such a science is also required in fundamental philosophy. The external garb is irrelevant. In philosophy, geometrical form is out of fashion, and it is, at least for the time being, without importance whether it is ever introduced again. And, besides, in

[Wolff famously defined philosophy as the “science of the possibles insofar as they can be” (Wolff 1963, §29, p. 17) in his Discursus præliminaris de philosophia in genere (1728), which was printed in his Latin logic. The German philosopher, theologian and opponent of Wolff, Christian August Crusius (1715–75) instead defined metaphysics as “the science of those theoretical truths of reason that are necessary, that is, that do not belong to the contingent arrangement of this world, and consist in something besides the consideration of the genera, proportions and measurement of extended magnitudes: or more briefly: Metaphysics is the science of those necessary truths of reason that are different from the determinations of extended magnitudes.” See his Entwurf nothwendigen Vernunft-Wahrheiten wiefern sie den zufälligen entgegen gesezet werden (1766), §4. In the very next section, Crusius equates this with what can be explained a priori.]

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26 textbooks it still maintains its most suitable place. But the essential qualities of a true, real science, upon which the inner strength, reliability, and evidence of mathematics depends, are for every other science the following: First, determinate and real fundamental concepts, along with evident principles. Then, a type of notation that presents the original meaning of these concepts and principles unchanged and undistorted to the mind whenever it applies them. And finally, their reciprocal comparison and combination for the purpose of knowing their connections. Now it is true that in general philosophy each of these requirements encounters its own obstacles; but the first obstacle encountered concerning the fundamental concepts is also the principal one and the remaining ones can be subsumed under it. If the fundamental concepts are real concepts, that is, such as correspond to objects outside of the understanding, then the cornerstones are laid; and if, in addition, the first axioms are evident, then the whole foundation is drawn. I admit that, with this, the building itself is not yet complete; but so much work is already done, that I would venture to maintain against those who begin to despair over general metaphysics, and whose number is now greatest amongst the independently minded philosophers: Were principally only this one thing lacking, then the remaining defects would soon subside. This is the most essential requirement, which systematic philosophers seldomly feel with sufficient strength, 27 and which the skeptical philosophers regard as impossible to remedy. Real fundamental concepts are required. It is not sufficient that they be precisely determined, nor even that they be distinctly explicated in some aspect. For despite this they could, in whole or in part, still be a play of words empty of content. We must carefully separate out everything that is subjective in our general notions, whatever our own power of thought contributes, from what is the actually objective, that is, that which corresponds to matters outside the understanding. The latter constitutes the reality of concepts. It is this that makes them into the clear air through which we see objects. But if the subjective is mixed in with the objective, then mists and fog arise; objects are removed from their genuine locations and become unstable, and sometimes one sees what is not there, just as one overlooks what is actually present.

THE REALITY OF GENERAL FUNDAMENTAL CONCEPTS AND PRINCIPLES There are concepts and principles found within our understanding, and there is a genus of these that possess, by themselves, such a prominent and striking evidence that their discovery and presentation amount exactly to proving their reality and truth. Regarding such concepts and principles, we can be spared an examination of, and research into, their origin in the understanding. At the same 28 time, their extension, boundaries, and inner content are, in themselves, so exactly and so obviously determined, that it would be a superfluous task to examine them beforehand with respect to all their special applications, for the purpose of making them visible in this, their complete determinacy. Among such, it is arithmetical,

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and—inasmuch as the reality of our concept of geometrical space is presupposed26— also the geometrical concepts, postulates, and axioms that distinguish themselves 29 pre-eminently. It was Euclid who said: This is a triangle, and this is a circle. He said: A straight line can be drawn from every point to every other point; the sum of two equal magnitudes is equally large. He said this; and the understanding that grasps these words can neither doubt nor deny such propositions. It can, at most, and at the cost of great effort to itself, quibble with them, as Sextus Empiricus did.27 Were the geometer to support every one of his principles with a plinth, instead of stating without ceremony: it is so; were he, for example, to first lay down the empirical proposition I represent to myself, and in no other way, that a line can be drawn from every point to every other point, and I can represent it in no other way; were he to maintain, further, that this way of representing is the one that belongs to human understanding; and, furthermore, that this is grounded not in contingent custom, nor in conventional forms, nor even in the limitations that are necessary for him as a finite understanding, but instead in the nature of the understanding itself; that, consequently, the understanding qua understanding, inasmuch as it is a power of thinking and judging, therefore judges in this way, and that even an unlimited understanding must think the same as soon as it possesses such ideas, and 30 combines such ideas, indeed, thinks this way necessarily, just as fire burns due to an inner necessity of its nature and a tensed elastic spring stretches itself; and were he, finally, to posit upon this basis the postulate that his affirmation corresponds to objects outside of the understanding, indeed, necessarily so, and, therefore, can and must be accepted as an objectively true principle—were the geometer to creep forward at a snail’s pace with such anxiety: would such useless precision have

This condition is not to be ignored. Geometrical theorems, as Kant (in §15. C disp. de mundi sensibilis atque intell. forma et principiis) has most insightfully noted, belong to the principles of intuitive knowledge, or, properly, to the knowledge limited to corporeal objects; not to the transcendent common propositions of reason. The predicates just as much as the subjects in these propositions have a limited meaning, which is determined through the nature of the concept of space that is taken as a foundation. This concept comes from tactile and visual sensations; regardless of whether one explains it as Kant has done, or in the way that I will mention below. Often enough, this concept and those connected to it have been applied outside their proper philosophical sphere, even to souls and spirits, as real representations of objects and their qualities, where indeed—seeing as to their origin—they are to be employed for nothing else than for a sensory appearance of these things, and even only to an appearance of a certain determinate kind, or for representations of things in appearance (rerum phaenomenorum). This by itself is a very important use. The same can be said of arithmetical propositions referring to corporeal magnitudes, the ideas of which arise from external sensations of pressure, movement and extension, of light, and so forth. But more on this elsewhere.   [Tetens here refers to Kant’s inaugural dissertation, On the Form and Principles of the Sensible and Intelligible World, sect. 3, §15, corollary (AA 2:405–6). Earlier in this same section, Kant explains that “The concept of space is not abstracted from outer sensations” (AA 2:402).] 27 [Sextus Empiricus (c. 160–c. 210 CE), a famous Pyrrhonian philosopher and author of, among other works, Πρὸς γεωμετρικούς (Against the Geometers) in which he explains, for example, how nonsensical the definition of a point is since it is to have no dimension and yet compose the line. See Empiricus 2018, p. 161: “So, the point, which they say is a dimensionless sign, is conceived either as a body or as incorporeal. And it cannot be a body according to them; for things that have no dimension are not bodies. It remains, then, for it to be incorporeal, which is again unpersuasive. For what is incorporeal, as intangible in its constitution, is conceived as not capable of generating anything, but the point is conceived as capable of generating a line; so the point is not a dimensionless sign.”] 26

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convinced his readers better than if he had just said directly: I demand that the matter be conceded to me?28 It would have annoyed and only confused them, since one sees just as poorly when something is held too close to the eyes, as when it is too distant. Undoubtedly, he acted more fittingly when, without further ado, he simply presented his first concepts and propositions as cornerstones. The understanding embraced them readily with its approval, found in them a secure standpoint, wrapped around them its scientific web, and drew therefrom its unyielding threads as far as it had strength to progress along the path of demonstration. But, apart from mathematics, when it comes to things and qualities, to substance, to power, to necessity, to space and so forth; do we also possess such distinct and 31 determinate, and indeed such strikingly distinct and sharply delimited concepts of these matters? Discounting the principle of contradiction29 and a few others, do we possess equally evident principles, ones which comprise the mutual relations and connections of things? I doubt not that we may possess principles of the sort that possess such features in themselves, and which are just as determinate, just as real, just as reliable, and reliable in their generality, as those geometrical ones. But are they evident to the point that the philosophers to whom their own principles appear such would have no motive toward others—others to whom these principles do not appear this way, and who put different ones in their place—to conform themselves to proofs or at least to methods through which the inner certainty of their fundamental truths could be made evident to them as well? To instantly side with a person of independent mind simply because they say that they follow only healthy reason, while their opponents do not—for this, the standing of the latter, who judge differently concerning their principles, is already too great, since it has well been proven in other cases that, in their dissent, they lack neither acuteness nor love of truth. The great Bacon severely reproached human understanding. The heap of concepts and common principles that we call human reason, he said, is nothing but a mixture made partly of childish notions that we imbibed with our mother’s 32 milk and—as is evident—received modeled in the same way that our teachers had received them; partly of ideas taught to us by chance, and partly of self-creations of fantasy that we worship as concepts of reason (idola intellectus).30 I will not

[Cf. Baumgarten 2013, p. 78: “You demand a proof [of the PSR], or rather a demonstration? Which one? What if I counted the principle of ground among the indemonstrable propositions, i.e., those propositions of which you would become completely certain as soon as the mere terms are understood? … What if I said that ‘every possible thing has a ground’ is an identical proposition? If only these sorts of claims were never made about things that are less evident! But let it be a demonstrative proposition.”] 29 [Wolff’s German Metaphysics has this principle as: “Something cannot both be and not be at the same time” (Wolff 1720, §10, p. 5). Baumgarten has: “Nothing … is both A and not-A. Or, there is no subject of contradictory predicates, or nothing both is and is not. … This proposition is called the principle of contradiction, and it is absolutely primary” (Baumgarten 2013, §7, p. 100).] 30 Nemo adhuc tanta metnis constantia et rigore inventus est, ut decreverit et sibi imposuerit, Theorias et Notiones communes penitus abolere, et Intellectum abrasum et æquum ad particularia de integro applicare. Itaque illa Ratio humana quam habemus, ex multa fide, et multo etiam casu, nec non ex puerilibus, quas primo hausimus, Notionibus, farrago quædam est, et congeries. Nov. Org. Libr. I. axiom. XCVII. There are more passages in this work in which Bacon speaks of the idolis intellectus. 28

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corroborate, nor at any point take it upon myself to prove this accusation, at least not in its full scope. I have already adduced geometrical propositions as an example of those that are beyond such reproach. All the same, this reminder deserved to be taken to heart more than it has been by the systematic metaphysicians at whom it struck most closely and directly. It is precisely these who have taken the least trouble to justify the reality of the concepts of understanding subjected to censure. All the work that has been done with this aim in mind can be accredited to Locke, Hume, and a few others, who had no wish to set out an ontological system. Was the lack of engagement with this charge perhaps due to the fact that the inner evidence of the fundamental concepts and principles was too distinct and vivid for there to have been any need to defend them from skeptical attacks? Mathematicians 33 may think this way in similar cases. But one has only to delve into the chapters of philosophical textbooks concerning the principle of sufficient reason,31 necessity and contingency, substance, and space and time, as well as other things, and to look back over disputes about these, for one to doubt that everything having to do with these concepts is so easily set right or could have been set right long ago. Even those who, in the spirit of philosophical syncretism, are so equitable as to subtract from the disagreements between philosophers those that originated merely from one and the same object’s being regarded from different points of view (which can therefore be nullified as soon as different outlooks are no longer confounded with different objects themselves, instances of which are not rare)—even these have enough left over to see that, as Bacon stated, certain idols must exist in the understanding of one or another of the disagreeing parties, that is to say, concepts and modes of thought, which are regarded as the true models of objects and as necessary objective principles, and which yet at bottom are nothing further than psychological appearances, selfwrought fictions, a concoction of the imagination, rather than a production of the understanding. 34

  [The reference is to Bacon’s Novum organum (1620) or New Organon. The Cambridge translation by Jardine and Silverthorne of this passage reads: “There is no one yet found of such constancy and rigor that he has deliberately set himself up to do completely without common theories and common notions, and apply afresh to particulars a scoured and level intellect. And thus the human reason which we now have is a heap or jumble built up from many beliefs and many stray events as well as from childish notions we absorbed in our earliest years” (p. 79). Tetens’s quotation omits the “et” before “multo.”] 31 [Despite the familiarity of this principle, its precise formulation was never a settled matter as Crusius documented in the footnotes to his Dissertatio philosophica de usu et limitibus principii rationis determinantis, vulgo sufficientis (1743). Cf. Dyck 2019, pp. 197–225, as well as notes 20 and 21 on p. 54 and p. 55, respectively. In his correspondence with Clarke, Leibniz put it this way: “nothing happens without a reason why it should be so rather than otherwise” (Leibniz 1956, Second Letter, 1, vol. 2, p. 1100). Wolff 1720 has “everything that is must have its sufficient ground why it is, that is, there must always be something from which one can understand why it can be actual” (§30, p. 17). Baumgarten complicates matters to determine precisely the meaning of “sufficient”: “The ground of each and every thing that is in something is its SUFFICIENT GROUND (complete, total) … Nothing is without a sufficient ground, or, if something is posited, then some sufficient ground is posited for it as well. Each and every thing in every possible thing has a ground; hence, every possible thing has a sufficient ground. This proposition is called the principle of sufficient ground” (Baumgarten 2013, §§21–2, p. 105).]

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And so, we must strike out on some path that leads out of these confusions and obscurities. To throw out once and for all the general concepts and principles contained in human reason in its present state, as Bacon advised in the above-quoted text, and to again gather new, more correct, and more determinate ones through abstraction from the pure ideas of sensation—this is to venture upon an undertaking as heroic as Cartesian doubt, but such as should succeed for the very first time. The introduction of new definitions into fundamental science has been tried so often, and with such paltry gains for knowledge, that, in the end, such system-making has become wearisome. If there still exist original geniuses who proceed in this way and communicate to us their own perspectives, discoveries of an acute and far-reaching vision; then this is as pleasant as it is beneficial. Perhaps it is also more necessary to the advancement of knowledge in metaphysics than it is to such in any other science; for, geometry aside, there is hardly any kind of knowledge which at an earlier stage did not perforce consist of opinions, conjectures, and hypotheses before it became insight, and achieved certainty and evidence. Least of all is it to be expected of the lofty flight of reason in speculative philosophy that it should be able 35 to hit suddenly upon the appropriate direction. I will thus gladly hold as worthy of attention those ontologies that acute philosophers may perhaps still add to those we currently possess. But even supposing these would be more than hypotheses, that they would contain pure real rational theory, that they would be as true and correct as was that chance idea of the ancient Pythagoreans concerning the arrangement of the planetary system, which was transformed into solid truth for us by Copernicus; supposing all of this, what can secure those ontologies from being regarded as exactly what their predecessors were held to be as long as their fundamental concepts and principles—excluding those few which are completely evident—are not supplied with proofs from which their reality and correctness incontestably shine forth?

ON THE FIRST COMMON PRINCIPLES AND THEIR REALIZATION The realization of concepts and principles can provide such proofs, and this alone can provide them. To discover the hallmarks32 by which the real representations corresponding to objects can be distinguished from those that are only appearances and so are only one-sided, one must turn back to the path already taken by Locke, namely, to the investigation of the understanding, its mode of operation, and its general concepts. How should this realization 36 be performed? The so-called first most general principles are certain general judgments concerning the mutual connections33 and qualities of things. The first most general concepts are our representations of things or objects34 themselves as such; they are the ideal objects within us. Although regarded as objective

[Kennzeichen] [Beziehungen] 34 [Objecten] 32

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within metaphysics, that is, as the objects themselves, such principles and ideas are, however, only subjective modes of representation and thought that can be observed within us, just like other modifications and activities of our power of thought. Regarded in the respect in which it states something about objects, the axiom: Nothing comes to be from nothing35 is a material, objective principle of fundamental theory. But when we regard this proposition as an utterance of our reason, which latter produces it instinctively concerning objects when judging about things that originate; then we accept as an empirical proposition the fact that reason can in no case conceive the thought A transient36 thing comes into being without also simultaneously thinking There exists an efficient cause by which it is produced. This rule then specifies a way of judging objects, which belong to a general genus. The material principles37 are distinguished from the logical or formal principles by the fact that the latter provide rather the way we combine concepts when we judge and combine judgments when we infer and 37 draw conclusions, and so determine only in general the form of judgments. By contrast, the former, material principles state the particular manners of thinking and judging that are natural and necessary for the understanding in certain general genera of representations—or of objects. Inasmuch, therefore, as the philosopher maintains that something is a universal principle of reason, he feels within himself, at least in the moment he maintains this, a certain necessity to therefore combine the ideas, and hence to judge, as he does. This feeling guides the power of thought when it passes from ideas to objects. We presuppose, without thinking about it, that the very things possess such qualities in themselves, and such mutual relations, and that they must possess them in the way that we must confer them. Thus, what we become aware of as being a natural manner of understanding, which we can think in such a way and in no other, we regard as something that must also exist in this way outside of the understanding, and then from this observation we form an objective principle. Now, if such a procedure is to be justified, all needless obsession with inquiry set aside, and such

35 [The German form of the Latin ex nihilo nihil fit, generally ascribed to Aristotle’s Physics, I.VIII.191a30–31, where the view, but not the phrase, is attributed to Parmenides. In the German Metaphysics, Wolff writes: “What neither exists, nor is possible, is called nothing. Now, since the impossible cannot exist (§12), and consequently cannot become something; nothing also cannot become something, or something cannot come to be from nothing” (Wolff 1747b, §28, p. 15). In his Ontologia, by contrast, Wolff criticizes this formula for being obscure, replacing it with “However many times nothing is posited, what is posited is nothing, not something” (Wolff 2005, §61, pp. 135–9). Like other such principles, he holds it to be a consequence of the principle of contradiction.] 36 [werdendes] 37 [The distinction between formal and material principles, not in name but nevertheless in concept, was introduced by Crusius in his attempt to show that the Wolffian philosophy, resting as it does on the principle of contradiction alone, was defective, and could provide no principles regarding the content of knowledge (see, e.g., Crusius 1747, §§259–63, pp. 467–77). This view was generally accepted and subsequently developed in different ways by all three of the main philosophers of the period, namely, Tetens, Lambert, and Kant. In his prize essay, Inquiry Concerning the Distinctness of the Principles of Natural Theology and Morality (1764), Kant gives credit to Crusius for this distinction and explains it is central to his own revised method for metaphysics (AA 2:293–6).]

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a principle defended against other philosophers who have, according to their own opinion, discovered a different fundamental truth in the same manner; then it is easy to see38 that one must be prepared to answer the following questions: Is the manner of judging that is presently necessary for the understanding of one person, 38 also the general way that human understanding judges? Does every other human being think in precisely this way about the same ideas? Or is it purely contingent, having its ground in certain previously accepted forms? Is it only the reason of a one-sided system, which judges thusly? Furthermore: Is the stated mode of thought general? Does it then perhaps have its ground in an incapacity, which is purely the consequence of finitude and of the necessary ignorance of the human understanding? Or does it have its ground in a general sensibility39 that clings to it everywhere? There was once indeed a time when no human being could avoid believing that the sun orbited the earth daily, because sensation unavoidably implied as much. So is it perhaps a purely human manner of thought located in the present condition of our mind? Or is it rather so profoundly, so generally, so inwardly grounded in the nature of the understanding, inasmuch as the latter is a power of thought and judgment, that an understanding that wished to doubt and contest it would not be able to do so without following it in its very act of doubting, and so presuppose its correctness? If this is the case, then the power of understanding—as a power of understanding in other beings as well, even in the infinite understanding to the extent that we can have a concept of it—judges in the very same manner. Such investigations constitute the realization of principles. But how can and ought they be conducted without observing our understanding within us and its modes 39 of thinking, without comparing them with each other, and thus, without returning to the source of general judgments so far as is possible? Aristotle proceeded in this way to a certain extent when he accepted the principle of contradiction as a fundamental truth.40 For the most part, metaphysicians have sought to avoid such examinations. They have assumed one principle to be the first, namely the principle of contradiction, whose inner evidence justified them in assuming that it possessed in itself all the requirements of a fundamental truth, and they endeavored to derive all others from this one principle.41 If this could be accomplished in the way they believe it has been, then with respect to principles matters would be completely settled. In the impossibility to think a four-cornered circle and to regard it as a thing

[begreifen] [Sinnlichkeit] 40 [See Metaphysics, 1005b10–34. Here Aristotle explains that a principle must be most certain if it cannot be thought to be false and if its acceptance is a condition of understanding anything at all. These features, he claims, belong to the principle of contradiction. He also observes that it is impossible to believe something and its opposite are true of a thing, because one would then be holding these opinions and their contradictories.] 41 [See note 29 on p. 210 above. Wolff writes: “It is hence clear from this that the principle of contradiction is the source of all certainty, through the positing of which all certainty in human knowledge is posited; through the cancellation of which, all certainty is cancelled” (Wolff 2005, §55, p. 126).] 38 39

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that could exist somewhere or be made outside of our power of representation, we would have the understanding’s first and naturally most necessary intellectual law of the understanding, which would at the same time comprehend the entire nature of the understanding considered from this point of view and would thus have to be the source of all the remaining necessary laws of thought. Deriving other principles of reason from this principle would amount to making it evident that the understanding also follows the other laws of thought, for example, that it must necessarily declare the “something from nothing”42 to be a non-being, precisely because it is naturally necessary for it, as a power of thought, to declare the contradictory to be such.43 Then the objective principle: Nothing comes to be 40 from nothing, would be a consequence of the first objective proposition, namely, that a contradictory thing is a non-being outside the understanding. All that would be required for the most perfect realization of principles would thus be achieved, and their indubitability would become evident to the understanding in the greatest possible degree of distinctness, and even more intimately and more strongly than one could expect from the psychological investigation into the modes of thinking. In the end, the latter indeed leads no further than here. The mode of thinking under examination is actually general in all human beings; it is, as far as one researches, independent of contingent circumstances, and neither an effect of sensibility, nor a consequence of the limitation of the thinking being. The propensity for it is natural; the understanding judges in no other way and, indeed, can judge in no other way. All this is unquestionably found together in the principle of contradiction, and it would be evident that such must also be found in all the remaining principles, if their necessary dependency on this principle could be made evident. This is the furthest that psychological observation can reach. In actual fact, however, it seldom gets this far. It commonly falls short with respect to the last characteristic, namely, that the understanding is capable44 of thinking in no other manner than that indicated. Some philosophers have contested the dignity of the principle of sufficient cause, Leibniz’s principle of sufficient reason,45 and other principles; their universality46 has been denied.47 How is one to make it evident 41 to these opponents that they follow such principles thanks to a natural necessity

42 [The text here is “Nichts aus Nichts,” which seems obviously to be an error, since “nothing comes from nothing” is not only not contradictory but is necessarily true according to Tetens. See note 35, on p. 213 above.] 43 [Unding, also meaning an “absurdity.” However, in this case it corresponds to the Latin non Ens or a non-being. The kind of argument Tetens has in mind is found in Wolff’s Ontologia: “A non-being is said to be what cannot exist and consequently that to which existence is repugnant. … Because what is impossible cannot exist, what is impossible is a non-being” (Wolff 1736, §§137–8, p. 116).] 44 [vermögend] 45 [Grunde] 46 [Allgemeinheit] 47 [E.g., Crusius in his Dissertatio philosophica de usu et limitibus principii rationis determinantis, vulgo sufficientis (1743), among other works. For Kant’s assertion of this in the pre-Critical period, see Fugate 2014.]

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in thinking itself and that they must assume them as principles, if they do not sense this necessity? Now, surely, one may not abandon the task of justification in such cases. Even if a gap remains in that direct demonstration, one possesses the means for filling it, at least to reason’s satisfaction. Namely, the principle under examination is compared with others that are beyond doubt. Then, if it is compatible with these, fits with them, both by itself and in its general consequences, so far as one can trace such in the domain of truths; this harmony of principles dispels any potentially residual doubt regarding their reliability.48 This harmony of truths operates in the understanding like the attraction in bodies. Without one resting upon the other, like a surface upon its foundation, they constitute a tightly cohering system through their mutual attraction. Such an inner fitness of truths to one another is alone sufficient to provide human knowledge with its inner bearing and reliability, which is requisite to put reason at peace. Nevertheless, my previous claim remains true. If philosophers were able to derive all remaining principles from the principle of contradiction, then everything would 42 be completed in one fell swoop. If evidence—which otherwise in a certain respect admits of no degrees—is nevertheless assumed to have such according to an analogy with the bright light of midday, then the evidence found in the first principle of contradiction is a maximum in comparison with the evidence of the other principles. Here I speak not of empirical propositions, to which the Cartesian “I think, I am” belongs. That principle [i.e., of contradiction] is a principle of the first order. Only this is the question: Have the systematic philosophers actually demonstrated their other general principles from the principle49 of contradiction? Here is not the place to say more on this topic. I am so unconvinced that this has been done that I cannot even comprehend how such is possible, and when surveying the nature of our inferences and arguments, I am forced to declare it impossible. Nevertheless, as soon as the acuteness of some philosopher has achieved this, I will withdraw my demands, which I placed earlier on those who would want their principles to be accepted as principles of pure reason. What has been said so far touches only the common principles, whose evidence rests not on the constitution50 of the concepts that are combined or contrasted within in them, but rather on the necessity and naturalness of the mode of thinking 43 with which the concepts are thus affirmed or denied of one another. Every judgment is a work of the understanding, which latter is modified by the ideas that—stated technically—constitute the material of the judgment. It is a certain activity, or rather the effect of that activity on the concepts, which are the object, just as ignition is

[This central view of Lambert is found in his Neues Organon (1764); see vol. 1, Alethiologie, §§179–90; vol. 2, Dianoiologie, §§619–21. In particular, §§185–8: “This completeness of harmony appertains to truth. … Since this complete harmony is an absolute unity, and consequently is the measure of truth, if this can be determined from its consequences, then it is clear that a proposition must be found by us to be that much more correct the more harmony with [other] truths we find in it.”] 49 [Satz] 50 [Beschaffenheit] 48

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an effect of the power of fire when it is applied to combustible material. Thus, every judgment is also an effect having its complete ground in two things, namely, in the nature of an understanding active a certain way and according to determinate laws, and in the concepts present within the understanding, which modify the power of thought, draw its activity toward them, and simultaneously determine its activity in some particular way. However, in the most general principles, which one can call principles of the first rank in view of their universality, there is nothing unique that depends on the ideas and makes it necessary to consider the subject or the predicate. These are the properly formal principles, productions of reason in which nothing more is taken into consideration than the form or the mode of its procedure. Their subject is each and every thing, or matter, as such, no matter whether this be an object51 outside of the understanding, or the idea of an object within us. In short, whatever is and can become an object52 of reflection. The judgments: Every thing is identical with itself and Nothing comes to be from nothing, are pure modes of thinking, of compounding ideas, or of denying them of one another, without regard to the unique properties of the ideas under comparison. Things 44 stand the same with the principle of contradiction; although those who present it as the unique source of all other principles, see the matter somewhat differently. According to their view, the derived principles are formally no different from that first principle; and yet they are supposed to contain something distinctive that lends them the appearance of being unique principles by themselves. This uniqueness supposedly lies in the ideas, in the concepts of the subject and the predicate, that is, in the matter. I am not of this opinion and instead regard them as indemonstrable principles. Hence, I also cannot believe that their necessary correctness can be or permits of being demonstrated through the explication of concepts, even if such could even be performed (which, due to their simplicity, it cannot). This certainty must be present within them, just as they stand.

COMMON CONCEPTS AND THEIR REALIZATION By far the largest part of the principles belonging to the second class are those which constitute transcendent philosophy. The form or mode of combination in these is always one of those that are expressed in the most general principles of the first order, or at least lies at the foundation therein. The rest of what is unique to them, as well as their generality, depends on the concepts themselves. To realize these means as much as realizing the general ideas that make up their subjects and 45 predicates. Here again, psychological investigations are made necessary by the obscurity and confusion that is found in so many notions and in the most fertile of these; investigations which should not be abandoned even once the examination has been completed with respect to the previous principles. The theory of space can

[Object] [Gegenstand]

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serve here as a paradigmatic example.53 This is how one party speaks: We have a concept of space, and this concept is profoundly and everywhere embedded in the human understanding. Let us look into this idea; it is an idea of reason, a work of its natural power. We build upon it a theory of space, of space beyond the world, and of space before the world. The qualities of this thing lie within its concept. It is something uncreated, necessary, and infinite. Another party adds: It is the infinite being itself.54 Yet another declares space to be an attribute of the Highest Being,55 or, with Clarke, to be a consequence of this being’s attributes, especially of its immeasurability;56 whilst a third remains uncertain as to which general genus of things space should be assigned and ends up getting lost in the obscurity of concepts. Leibniz and Wolff, on the other hand, declare this whole concept to be a mere psychological appearance,57 despite its splendid utility. For them, space is a nothing58 as soon as one imagines it, in abstraction, to be a thing on its own without 46 actual physical body; like the images in a dream, it is nothing but an empty picture

[This entire discussion should be referred to, though not limited to, the famous exchange of letters between Leibniz and the English philosopher and adherent of Newton, Samuel Clarke (1675–1729). One strand of this exchange began with Leibniz’s objection to Newton’s reference to space as the sensorium of God in the last passages of his Opticks (1704). While Clarke defended this view, Leibniz proceeded to articulate a view of space as consisting in relations and as abstracted from actual things. However, his view was far more complex as can be seen from note 59, on p. 219 below.   Another key text here is Wolff’s Latin essay De differentia notionem metaphysicarum & mathematicarum published in his Horæ subsecivæ marburgenses anni mdccxxx, trimester brumale (1731, pp. 385–479). It summarizes and clarifies his view that space consists in the representation of the relations of things, which, when it is abstracted from those real things and is thought of as a being on its own, becomes an imaginary being. Here Wolff also defends the Leibnizian view that space is an intrinsically confused concept, meaning that its full comprehension requires its resolution into more basic ontological and psychological concepts. A final key text is Réflexions sur l’espace et le tem[p]s (1750) by the Swiss mathematician, physicist, and philosopher Leonhard Euler (1707–83). Euler attempts to refute the view that space is imaginary by arguing that if it is necessarily mentioned in certain laws of physics, which govern reality, then space must be real too no matter what the metaphysicians argue. Euler’s view influenced Kant’s position that space is something real in his Concerning the Ultimate Ground of the Differentiation of Directions in Space (1768).] 54 [This view is sometimes (see, e.g., Wolff 1731a, p. 400) ascribed to the English philosopher of the Cambridge Platonist school, Henry More (1614–87), who argued that space was one, simple, immobile, eternal, complete, independent and existing from itself, infinite, uncircumscribed, incomprehensible, uncreated, omnipresent, incorporeal, permeated every thing, essential being, actual being, pure act (More 1995, ch. VIII.9–12, pp. 58–9). However, he instead held space to be “a certain rough representation of the divine essence” (More 1995, ch. VIII.15, p. 60).] 55 [Perhaps Tetens has Spinoza in mind, who writes in his Ethica (1677): “Extension is an attribute of God; i.e., God is an extended thing” (2p2). He could also be thinking of the English mathematician and philosopher Joseph Raphson (c. 1648– c. 1715), who published a short but famous essay De spatio reali seu ente infinito conamen mathematico-metaphysicum (1702). Like More, Raphson attempts to demonstrate that space “by its nature” (sua natura) is absolutely indivisible, absolutely immobile, actually infinite, pure act, all-containing and all-penetrating, incorporeal, immutable, a unity in itself (unum in se), eternal, incomprehensible, the highest perfection in its genus, and is indeed an “attribute (namely, the immensity) of the first cause” (see ch. V, 1a–13a, pp. 73–9). Wolff 1731a, however, ascribes this view to Clarke (p. 400).] 56 [As Clarke writes in his Third Reply: “Space is not a being, an eternal and infinite being, but a property, or the consequence of the existence of a being infinite and eternal. Infinite space is immensity, but immensity is not God, and therefore infinite space is not God” (Leibniz 1956, p. 1113).] 57 [Schein] 58 [ein Nichts] 53

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that owes its entire reality to fantasy.59 And so when reason mistakes its nature, the former is either led into a swamp like a traveler by a Will-o’-the-Wisp, or distracted by speculations that are as empty of content as the declamations of that orator concerning the perfections of Nobody.60 I will not even mention the unique opinion of Kant,61 which nevertheless comes closest to that of Leibniz. Such difference of opinion does not arise out of a difference in the manner in which the understanding looks into the concepts of things, the things themselves, and their qualities. The syllogistic, at least, is the same on both sides, even if not the entire logic. Therefore, the ground or lack of ground, of the theories that are affirmed and contested, rests on the reality of the concept in the understanding that one regards as a true representation of an object outside of it. Realizing concepts means investigating whether the common concepts are of this kind, as well as understanding and presenting their characteristic marks with a distinct consciousness. But in such cases this business is not such an easily accomplished task. Leibniz recommended that in cases where it is doubtful whether the technical terms of metaphysics possess a real, complete, and fruitful sense, they ought to be translated into the vernacular,62 and especially into German.63 Thereupon, he thought, it would become clear whether they have any meaning at all, and 47 then how much, or whether they are rather an empty play of words. But in this, the great man displayed too much confidence in our mother-tongue, just as he did, in other cases, in the understanding and in the love of truth of those who

59 [This is an exaggeration, as is clear from this passage in Leibniz’s New Essays: “It [i.e., space] is a relationship: an order, not only among existents, but also among possible as though they existed. But its truth and reality are grounded in God, like all eternal truths” (Leibniz 1996, p. 150). The imaginary character of space is particularly emphasized in Wolff 1731a, among other writings: “If we represent space as a uniform extension, or, if one prefers, a homogeneous continuum that is indivisible and immobile, and is penetrable by existing things; then this is an imaginary notion of space, as I have long ago shown” (pp. 400–1).] 60 [Tetens’s allusion is unclear. However, he could well be referring to No-Body and Some-Body: With the true chronicle historie of Elydure, who was fortunately three several times crowned King of England, a Renaissance comedy of unknown authorship first documented in 1606. Early in the play Somebody asks Servant “But is it true the fame of Nobody, / For vertue, almes-deedes, and for charitie, / Is so renownd and famous in the Country?,” to which the servant responds in a long speech on the many great qualities and acts of Nobody.] 61 [In Concerning the Ultimate Ground of the Differentiation of Directions in Space (1768), Kant argues that: “Absolute space, independently of the existence of all matter and as itself the ultimate foundation of the possibility of the compound character of matter, has a reality of its own” (AA 2:378), and furthermore, it “is not an object of outer sensation; it is rather a fundamental concept which first of all makes possible all such outer sensation” (AA 2:383). In his On the Form and Principles (1770), Kant argues that the concept of space is not an abstracted concept, it is a singular representation, it is a pure intuition, not something objective and real, though it is true and “the foundation of all truth in outer sensibility” (AA 2:402–5). See note 26 on p. 209 above.] 62 [die gewöhnliche Sprache des Lebens, lit. “the customary language of life.”] 63 [See Leibniz’s Unvorgreiffliche Gedancken, betreffend die Ausübung und Verbesserung der Teutschen Sprache, §11f., first printed in Collectanea etymologica (1717, pp. 255–314); also, his “Preface to an Edition of Nizolius,” translated in Loemker 1956, vol. 1. In the latter, Leibniz writes: “But I venture to say that no European language is better suited than German for this testing and examination of philosophical doctrines by a living tongue. For German is very rich and complete in real-terms, to the envy of all other languages” (p. 193).]

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philosophize.  There can be no doubt—since one can convince oneself of this as often as one likes in reflection through one’s own experience—that in many cases a substitution of popular expressions for technical ones should not be a means for testing the true content of the latter, which are just as often depreciated below their true value by some, as they have been overly extolled by others. An understanding that is too weak or too untrained to attend to the general outlook provided by the common principles of reason is surely incapable of discovering as much to prize in technical terms as others can; for to such an understanding they are no armature64 of the natural power of thought. However that may be, experience has long since established that Leibniz’s recommended means for determining the value of terms is insufficient for distinguishing what is real and objective from what is invented and purely subjective. Nonsense and empty plays of words are found just as well in German writing and in popular language, as in the technical language of Latin. Besides, I do not see how anything could be obtained thereby beyond a reduction of system concepts to the concepts of common human understanding, 48 which I here assume to be within our power. But how then are we to remove the obscurity and confusion that are already found in the concepts of common human understanding? How are we, in other words, to remove from them the previous comingling of what is purely pictorial and added by fantasy, with the real and with what is abstracted from pure sensations? All general concepts have their origin in sensations. One must therefore trace the former back to the latter, that is, seek out the sensations from which the power of thought has drawn its general concepts. Then what is real in them will automatically separate itself from what is imaginary. This precept of modern philosophers is the one that Hume, and others after him, worked in accordance with in his essays concerning several general notions;65 and I am convinced that it is a correct one to follow. This precept is as true, and true in precisely the same sense, as the empirical proposition upon which it rests, namely, that all concepts of the understanding take their stuff from sensations. But this is all it says. The precept to reduce metaphysical concepts to sensation is, in fact, very indeterminate. It states little more than the general rule that one should realize them or show that they are in accordance with objects. But how is such a reduction undertaken, and to what extent does it prove 49 the reality of concepts? These are exactly the questions that remain unanswered, and whose practical answering runs into so many difficulties that have repeatedly derailed the whole task. In his essays concerning the origination of concepts such as those of necessity and contingency, power, and several others, that acute Briton mentioned before66 overlooked many things and failed to adequately specify the

[Armatur, from the Latin armatura, meaning “armor,” but also generally any rigid instrument employed for the purposes of offense or defense.] 65 [See Hume’s An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding (1748), sect. II: “When we entertain, therefore, any suspicion that a philosophical term is employed without any meaning or idea (as is but too frequent), we need but enquire, from what impression is that supposed idea derived? And if it be impossible to assign any, this will serve to confirm our suspicion. By bringing ideas into so clear a light we may reasonably hope to remove all dispute, which may arise, concerning their nature and reality.” Hume states the same in An Abstract (1740).] 66 [i.e., John Locke] 64

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inner content of those concepts. I believe the reasons for this can be found in his method. Although he indeed felt it necessary to be attentive not only to the matter of concepts, but also to the manner in which the understanding works when it reworks67 sensations into representations; still the indeterminate assumption that concepts are resolved sensations misled him into believing that all the required work would be completed, and the entire content of concepts uncovered, if only the sensations from which they are drawn were specified.

ON TRANSCENDENT CONCEPTS Our concepts originate from sensations. In the future, I will present a separate investigation on the sense in which this proposition must be taken inasmuch as it is a consequence of observations, a sense which is not suitably expressed through the metaphor that calls sensations a fountain68 of concepts. Nothing more is stated by it—at least, nothing more can be stated by it, if one will state nothing more than what 50 observation permits—than that sensations are the first fundamental stuff, which reason has for our representations, for thoughts, and for concepts, the material from which these are made by the activity of the power of thought. This proposition thus teaches us nothing more precise about the nature of our knowledge69 than what we know of the corporeal products of nature and art, when we merely comprehend that fire, water, air, and earth belong to the first fundamental stuff from which they are made. This is certainly a fertile piece of knowledge; but when it is a question of a particular individual body, of its solidity and possible employment, and when this is to be judged from its inner nature, so to speak, a priori; then one grasps that it is less important to know the stuff from which it is made, than it is the manner in which this stuff is worked upon, through which it is modified, compounded, and mixed. It is no different with the works of the understanding. Our sensations are the stuff of dreams as much as of our truest thoughts. Therefore, the reason why some concepts correspond to objects while others are empty pictures cannot reside in this common reference of all concepts to sensations. This distinction arises from the manner and way that the power 51 of thought processes sensations into representations of objects.70

[Bearbeitungsart … umarbeitet] [Quelle. Although usually translated as “source,” the underlying metaphor is one of water flowing from a spring. In the Latin of Wolff and others the corresponding word is fons, hence “fountain.”] 69 [Kenntnisse] 70 [The idea that distinguishing the objective from the subjective is analogous to finding the distinguishing mark between truth and dream runs throughout the period from Descartes’s Mediations (1641) onward, particularly in German philosophy. A signal instance is found in Wolff, who locates this distinguishing mark in the principle of sufficient ground or reason: “It can be enough of a demonstration [of the PSR], if we show below (§143) that through this principle arises the distinction between truth and dream, indeed, between the true world and the Land of Cockaigne” (Wolff 1747b, §30, p. 17). Again: “While here truth is defined through the order in the alterations of things, one understands that truth that the philosophers have named veritatem transcendentalem, and have given to be an attribute of a thing in general: Thus this kind of truth is opposed to dream. The ground of truth is the principle of sufficient ground” (Wolff 1724, §43, p. 73). In the Critique of Pure Reason, by contrast, Kant suggests that without the unity of the categories, which is enacted in principles like that of the second analogy or the causal law, not even a dream would be possible (A112; cf. B247).] 67 68

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The fundamental science should contain the general principles according to which we judge and draw inferences concerning all things in general, all genera of actual beings, spirits and bodies, what is immaterial and what is material, the infinite and the finite. It thus follows immediately that the common concepts in these propositions, both of the subjects and the predicates, must possess the required universality, that is, they must be transcendent concepts, or notions, properly so-called. The concepts that extend no further than the sphere of spiritual and immaterial things, and that represent only the similarities of this genus of beings, these concepts of intellectual things are ideas that are already more determinate and richer in content, and thus are to be confused with transcendent concepts just as little as are concepts of corporeal objects. The former present the qualities of immaterial things, the latter the qualities of corporeal objects; but the transcendent concepts present what is shared by both of these species and, indeed, nothing more than this: Hence, the first operation, which is required, in order to arrive at the transcendent common concepts is the separation of the immaterial and the material from their shared transcendent element. Leibniz and Wolff sometimes had this in mind when they demanded that the sensory and 52 pictorial be distinguished from the intellectual;71 and when Hr. Kant insists so much upon the distinction between pure concepts of the understanding and the concepts of sensory knowledge,72 it seems to me that this is ultimately the same requirement I make here that the properly transcendent be separated off. At least, his aim will be achieved through this very same means. We possess a characteristic mark, which, at least in the majority of cases, will allow us to see distinctly whether the separation of the transcendent from the more determinate has been accomplished, and complete generality has been provided to concepts. General concepts originate from sensations. Now there are two genera of sensations: outer sensations of bodies and corporeal qualities, and inner sensations of ourselves, our thinking, willing, and so forth. Grasped in their entirety, both of these genera are so heterogeneous in nature that they appear to be less comparable with one another than any particular species of a genus is with another species of the same genus. Extension and movement are not comparable with thinking, feeling, and willing, at least to the same degree as are colors with odors or impressions of touch. Nevertheless, reflection has discovered something common in them, and has abstracted this higher similarity, which, however, presents them in their fullness as little as the more general concept of an animal is the more determinate idea 53 of a horse. Thus we possess three sufficiently strongly prominent characteristic marks for the three named classes of common concepts, which are provided by the sensations from which these concepts are abstracted. Namely, if it is from the inner sensations alone that a concept, e.g., the concept of a feeling being, can be drawn; if this concept presents such qualities in the objects as can be perceived only in the inner sensations of self found within the soul, its changes, its actions and [Verständlichen] [See Kant’s On the Form and Principles (1770): “Every method employed by metaphysics in dealing with what is sensitive and what belongs to the understanding, amounts, in particular, to this prescription: great care must be taken lest the principles which are native to sensitive cognition transgress their limits, and affect what belongs to the understanding” (sect. 5, §24).] 71

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passions: then this is a concept of an intellectual object. If the stuff from which the concept is formed belongs to the other class of sensations, namely the outer, which are aroused by the impressions of corporeal objects, and if it is found only here: then one has a concept whose sphere reaches no further than corporeal or material objects. In many cases, it is easy to discover this difference in the material of our ideas; but in some we encounter difficulties. From where do we get the concept of extension and our common concept of space? Are these not drawn from visual and tactile sensations? If our thinking could be robbed of only these two but left with all its other kinds of outer and inner sensations of self, would it really still have the stuff left over for making the concept of extension? I only ask, and I do so under 54 the assumption that there are no innate concepts such as would be present within us without a previous occupation of the power of thought with sensations. If it could be demonstrated that, absent sight and touch, the idea of space and extension would not and could not be a concept of the human understanding, at least not such as is actually and currently found in common human understanding; then, at that same moment, it has also been decided that this concept can have no place among the 55 transcendent concepts in a fundamental theory.73 73 To the inner sensations belong also the feelings of our activities and modes of thinking, from which the concepts of thought and the understanding originate. Hence, the limitation that Leibniz introduced into the proposition Nil est in intellectu, quod non ante fuerit in sensu, namely excepto intellectu, is unnecessary (Nouveaux Essais sur l’ent. hum. L.2. C.I. §2.). As far as the concept of space is concerned, we certainly do not possess it by abstraction from outer sensations, if by these we understand individual changes and impressions aroused in the soul by external objects. But do we not obtain this concept from the act of sensing several things next to each other, and particularly from the act of touching [Aktus des Fühlens] and seeing? The concept of a space as such is a general concept formed from individual actions of sight and touch through abstraction and invention. The concept of space, that is, of the whole of space, is an individual idea, made from the entire collection of sensations drawn from sight and touch taken together. In a similar way, the concept of time is connected to the act of sensation, only that this finds its stuff in every species of sensation, even in those that are inner. This is how I see the matter, and I would call on experiences as support; for if this were the place to go further into this matter, then ultimately experiences would have to decide the issue. Does that penetrating philosopher, Hr. Kant, who makes such incisive observations regarding the understanding, wish to say anything different from this when he maintains that space is an intuitive idea of the manner in which the representing power of the senses coordinates sensations—I limit these to the sensations of sight and of external feeling, when, as in this case, it is a question of the common image of space—according to certain laws that are naturally necessary for it? I do not think so. Hrn. Kant’s manner of representing the origin of the concepts of the understanding and the expressions he uses appear to me to present the matter in a somewhat murkier way than was necessary, and more so than those I have employed here, which accord better with the customary discourse among modern philosophers. Perhaps this is also the innocent cause that has occasioned some to believe that the Kantian observations contain several instances of metaphysical hairsplitting on such matters, whereas, in actuality, these constitute real and fertile distinctions between things, the mixing-up of which has been a continual source of many obscurities and confusions within speculative philosophy.   [In the New Essays (completed 1704, first published 1765), Leibniz denies that the soul is a tabula rasa or like wax, and then writes (bk. II, ch. i, §2): “Someone will confront me with this accepted philosophical axiom, that there is nothing in the soul which does not come from the senses. But an exception must be made for the soul itself and its states. Nihil est in intellectu quod non fuerit in sensu, excipe: nisi ipse intellectus. Now the soul includes being, substance, one, same, cause, perception, reasoning, and many other notions which the senses cannot provide” (Leibniz 1996, pp. 110–11). The reference is again to Kant’s On the Form and Principles (1770): Such concepts “are given by the very nature of the understanding; they contain no form of sensitive cognition and they have been abstracted from no use of the senses,” “not as innate concepts but as abstracted from the laws inherent in the mind (by attending to its actions on the occasion of an experience), and therefore as acquired concepts” (§6 & §8, AA 2: 394–5).]

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For the genuinely transcendent concepts—for example, of actuality, of a substance, of cause and effect, of changes, and the like—we are thus left with the following characteristic. To the extent that the understanding needs a stuff in this 56 case, both inner as well as outer sensations can play this role. They constitute the highest common pinnacle of the edifice of our thought, which can be reached on one side by the stepladder of the ideas of corporeal things, or, on the other, by the ladder of intellectual concepts; for transcendent concepts contain only what is common to both. Even if one genus of sensations were withdrawn from the power of thought, but the capacities of comparing, judging, and inferring were left it in their full strength along with the other genus of sensations; then furnishing itself with transcendent concepts would still be within its power; although on the usual path taken by the ascending understanding one of these idea-ladders is employed more often than the other. Because of the way they originate, transcendent notions possess their own proper independence from the particular species of sensations from which they are abstracted. Take, for example, the concepts of actuality and of substance; as soon as they have become transcendent, they are no longer concepts of actual souls or of actual bodies. Once everything particular is separated off that may be added by our fantasy, then the universal within these concepts, which is their object, contains nothing that depends upon the unique features of inner or outer sensations, regardless of which may have provided the first stuff for such concepts; nothing that they would not have within them if they had been abstracted from any other species 57 of sensations and representations of individual things. Transcendent concepts are a universal spirit that is contained in both genera of sensations and in both species of representations, namely of what is material and immaterial. Everything proper to what is material or immaterial must be divorced from it to the extent that the understanding is to possess this spirit in the purity in which it would employ it in transcendent philosophy. Here we have the first investigation required for the correction and establishment our general fundamental concepts. Mistaking what is indeed general, but only with respect to material objects, for what is completely universal or transcendent, which we also represent, under the guidance of our concepts, as within corporeal beings, causes a leap from things of one species to those of another (μετάβασις εἰς ἄλλο γένος).74 This is a mistake that has its ground in a sudden swing of speculative reason [The phrase is of wide use in rhetoric to indicate a change in subject, although it originated in logic, namely, in Aristotle’s Posterior Analytics: “One cannot, therefore, prove anything by crossing from another genus—e.g., something geometrical by arithmetic. For there are three things in demonstrations: one, what is being demonstrated, the conclusion (this is what belongs to some genus in itself); second, the axioms (axioms are the things on which the demonstration depends); third, the underlying genus of which the demonstration makes clear the attributes and what is accidental to itself” (I.7.75a38–75b2). Hence, a metabasis is roughly what would be termed a category-mistake today, following Gilbert Ryle’s coinage in The Concept of Mind (1949, p. 16). The term is also frequent in Kant; see, e.g., FM 20:293, where talks about a metabasis from natural to moral philosophy, and R4306, where he states in a way remarkably reminiscent of Tetens: “The inference of alterability from contingency is a metabasis eis allo genos, which infers from something sensory [sensitivum] to something intellectual [intellectuale].” However, it should be noted that in this last case, by “intellectual” Kant means something transcendent in Tetens’s sense, not something regarding inner or mental objects.]

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of the kind we again find in the crude reflection of a savage who regards fire as an animal, and ships as animated beings. It consists in an assimilation of two things that is carried too far, which is the consequence of the limited concepts one follows even where they cannot and should not lead us. We encounter this error so frequently in the current and previous systems—I speak according to my own understanding, wishing not to impose my view on anyone nor to provide copious proof here—that one would have to be amazed, if 58 one did not grasp how easily we are liable to fall into it due to a vigorous propensity to extend our knowledge and bestow universality on our concepts. Mosheim75 and Brucker76 have maintained that the ancient philosophers entirely lacked the concept of an incorporeal being. The incorporeal—the ἀσώματον in Greek philosophy and the incorporeum in Roman philosophy—supposedly expressed only the idea of something fine and compounded from homogeneous parts, but still corporeal and extended, which was contrasted with what consisted of heterogeneous parts. A completely incorporeal being, without all corporeal boundary, without actually distinct parts, without extension, like the monads, the souls, and the sprits according to Leibniz’s conception of them—supposedly the ancient concept had none of these features. To be sure, I am not certain that one can maintain this without exception. Several statements found in writings of the ancients appear to contradict this.77 However, I gladly admit that it was only after the time of 59

[Johann Lorenz von Mosheim (1693—1755), German Lutheran theologian and church historian. As noted in Tetens 2017, p. 72, n. 124, Mosheim famously translated Ralph Cudworth’s (1617–88) The True Intellectual System of the Universe (vol. 1, 1678) into Latin, adding a commentary throughout in which he often took issue with Cudworth’s interpretations of the ancients. Whereas Cudworth sought support in Plato and others for his own views, Mosheim claimed that even Plato had no clear conception of the distinction between the corporeal and the incorporeal in a modern sense. Instead, the ancients often thought of the incorporeal as a fine and invisible sort of matter.] 76 [Mosheim’s view as adopted by Johann Jakob Brucker (1696–1770), the great German historian of philosophy, author of Kurze Fragen aus der philosophischen Historie (7 vols., 1731–6) and Historia critica philosophiae a mundi incunabulis ad nostram usque aetatem deducta (5 vols., 1742–4). Tetens 2017 gives Brucker’s Neue Zusätze verschiedener Vermehrungen, Erläuterungen und Verbesserungen zu den kurtzen Fragen aus der philosophischen Historie (1737), pp. 221 and 290f. (but cf. also p. 163) as the likely source for Tetens’s comment. However, the most likely location seems this: “[I]t is indeed to be noted that these and other ancient philosophers did not always place under the little word incorporeal [uncörperlich] the same idea that we have, but instead attributed to incorporeal being also matter to a certain degree, which they called simplicem, incorporealem & incompositam. … compare Herrn D. Moshemii ad Cudworthum c. I. §26. p. 36. sq.” (pp. 274–5).] 77 How was Epicurus (in Diogenes Laertius B. 10. Reg. 67. 68.) able to object to those who explained that the soul was incorporeal that, if this were the case, then it would not be able to do or suffer anything, or to affect other things, or be able to receive anything from them? This objection seems to require that Epicurus attributed to his opponents a conception of the incorporeal that implied that it had no surfaces or parts on which it could be touched, whether homogeneous or heterogeneous. Of course, it is undoubtedly the case that when the ancients attempted to represent their concept of an incorporeal object with positive qualities, the same happened to them as does to us, namely, fantasy held before them a certain confused picture of an extended, determinately circumscribed, and figured thing, which was drawn from visual sensations. This was then so intimately joined with the concept a self-subsistent being that it was only with effort that the two could be separated in representation. As a result, they were thought to be a single representation of the understanding. The same still daily befalls persons of reflection who are unfamiliar with the unified cooperation of fantasy and understanding. If they are to represent the soul as a thing without extension, 75

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Descartes that one first found distinctly presented in the writings of philosophers the concept, abstracted from the inner sensations of ourselves, of an active, feeling, self-representing, and thinking substance, without extension, without separate parts, 60 without figure, shape, or color—qualities which the feeling of self within the soul neither knows nor encounters. The ancients have spoken only obscurely about the incorporeal, and never contrasted it to what is extended in terms of its being an entirely incomparable genus of things. As concerns the nature of transcendent concepts, Leibniz seems to have been the first to note their characteristic universality, to distinguish them through this universality from the more determinate concepts of what is material, and to insist on this distinction within metaphysics. The question is, however, whether in his cosmological theorems even this philosopher did not once more mistake, or, at least, give his successors a proximate occasion to mistake, the immaterial for the transcendent, something that is nothing less than a constriction and narrowing of our concepts, although in a different respect. I believe it would not be difficult to

they do not know what to make of it, and frequently arrive at the dilemma that it is either extended or nothing at all. This is an inference having indeed no better ground than the argument of that blind man: If the color red is not a drumbeat, or some other kind of sound, then it is a nothing [Unding]. Having said all this, however, I do not intend to pronounce judgment over the so-called ideal extension of the soul. Presently, I am investigating only methods and approve of this incorporeal extension itself as a useful sensory concept.   [Diogenes Laertius (third century CE), Greek philosopher and doxographer, author of the famous collection called the Lives of Eminent Philosophers. The relevant passage reads: “There is the further point to be considered, what the incorporeal can be, if, I mean, according to current usage the term is applied to what can be conceived as self-existent. But it is impossible to conceive anything that is incorporeal as selfexistent except empty space. And empty space cannot itself either act or be acted upon but simply allows body to move through it. Hence those who call soul incorporeal speak foolishly. For if it were so, it could neither act nor be acted upon. But, as it is, both these properties, you see, plainly belong to soul” (Laertius 1925, vol. 2, ch. X, 67).   Considering the license Tetens usually takes with his sources, the blind man referred to here is perhaps the one mentioned by Locke in An Essay Concerning Human Understanding (1689): “A studious blind man, who had mightily beat his head about visible objects, and made use of the explications of his books and friends, to understand those names of light, and colors, which often came his way; bragged one day, that he now understood what scarlet signified. Upon which his friend demanding, what scarlet was? the blind man answered, it was like the sound of a trumpet” (bk. I, ch. iv, §11). A similar blind man is mentioned by Tetens in the eighth of the Philosophical Essays (§2). In his Traité des systêms (2 vols., 1749), pp. 46–7, Condillac writes: “Someone born blind, after much questioning and thinking about colors, concluded that he perceived the idea of scarlet in the sound of a trumpet. No doubt he needed only to be given eyes to make him realize how ill-founded his certainty was. If we want to investigate his way of reasoning, we will recognize that of philosophers. I suppose that someone told him that scarlet was a brilliant, vivid color, and he reasoned like this: I have the idea of something brilliant and vivid in the sound of a trumpet; scarlet is a brilliant and vivid thing; thus I have the idea of scarlet in the sound of a trumpet” (Condillac 1982, p. 50). See note 99 on p. 238 below. This could well be the arguing blind man Tetens has in mind, since Condillac’s point is to show the problems that arise from attempts at systematic thinking that are based on an incomplete understanding of the fundamental concepts, and the argument in question relies on the suppressed premise mentioned.]

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answer this question in the affirmative based on examples. One has only to read his cosmological definitions of motion, motive force, and the like.78 If, with respect to these requirements regarding general concepts of the understanding, philosophers had only performed what the nature of the matter and their own purpose demanded, then a large and essential part of what is needed for the realization of such concepts would have already taken place. If the transcendent 61 were precisely separated from whatever is merely general from outer sensations, and from what is merely immaterial; then we would know what we do and do not have in our general principles. It would be known when they are to be applied only to the sphere of corporeal objects, to what can be sensed externally, when they are limited only to non-material objects, and when they extend further, and are directive common concepts for all things in general.79 This is precisely the means for removing the confusion in so many transcendent concepts, a confusion which arises out of the admixture of the particular, which can only serve as a vehicle for the transcendent. Incidentally, I do not wish at this moment to go into the other errors that have indeed been committed often enough in fundamental definitions, but which arise out of mere oversight. Every logic warns against such oversights, although this warning is more often ineffective in fundamental science than in any other. For this reason, I pass over what could perhaps be said regarding the sound determinateness of concepts. This provides enough material for many reminders. Determinations are overlooked or duplicated (both errors of equal gravity), accessory ideas slip in, other characteristic marks are left out, which were initially thought together; and insofar as the understanding now combines  these  fine

[Tetens may be thinking of Leibniz’s Specimen dynamicum, which appeared in the Acta eruditorum for the year 1695, pp. 145–57, but more likely seems to be De ipsa natura, sive de vi insta, actionibusque creaturarum, which appeared in that same journal in 1698, pp. 427–40. Although in neither of these works does Leibniz provide a clear definition of motion, in the latter he does say about motive force: “[I]t can be concluded that there must be found in corporeal substance a primary entelechy or first recipient of activity, that is, a primitive motive force, which superadded to extension, or what is merely geometrical, and mass, or what is merely material, always acts indeed and yet is modified in various ways by the concourse of bodies, through a conatus or impetus. It is this substantial principle itself which is called the soul in living beings and substantial form in other beings, and inasmuch as it truly constitutes one substance with matter, or a unit in itself, it makes up what I call a monad” (Leibniz 1956, p. 818).] 79 [The concept of a directive notion (notio directrix) traces to Wolff’s essay De Notionibus directricibus & genuino usu philosophiæ primæ, published in his Horæ subsecivæ marburgenses, trimestre vernale (1729, pp. 310–50). In the second and third sections of this essay, Wolff explains that since the fundamental science contains an understanding of all the basic concepts and principles of things, it should also be supremely useful for discovering the truth. That this use had not yet been realized, and indeed, that fundamental science had lost its standing in the sciences, was due to a lack of distinctness and evidence in its concepts and principles. Wolff then explains that he terms the concepts of fundamental science “directive notions” because they indicate the path or at least illuminate the path one must take in order to discover a particular truth. One example of a directive notion provided by Wolff is that of a being in general (notio entis in genere): This concept serves as a basis for demonstrating the rules of logic, and since the latter in turn provide rules for discovering truth, the concept of an object in general is also a directive notion for all further science.] 78

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concepts—which Malebranche quite accurately called needle points80—and forms 62 demonstrations by linking them together, they transform themselves during our work, often without our awareness of the fact. Thereupon, one sure enough finds them pliant enough to make from them whatever one pleases. But the series of thoughts made in such a way then fall apart by themselves, or else they allow themselves to be effortlessly ripped apart by anyone audacious enough to go through them. It lies within the power of philosophers to avoid such errors, even though a degree of caution one notch greater than in mathematics may be necessary here. The philosopher, especially the speculative philosopher, must allow it to be said of his science—but more often and in an even stronger sense—that which the famous ancient geometer said of geometry: There is no royal road to it.81

THE DIFFERENT WAYS COMMON CONCEPTS ORIGINATE FROM SENSATIONS Only some—in fact, the smallest number—of the ideas we obtain from individual objects are pure ideas of sensation. By these I mean representations, pictures, and signs of objects we receive exclusively from sensations of them—such as the paper that presently lies before me—without any additions or changes, without any admixture 63 of images from other sources, despite the fact that a full and lively imagination is otherwise immediately at hand. These representations are true representations, and correspond to their objects as signs of them, at least in the present circumstances of sensation. All the power of thought has to do with respect to this species of idea is to enwrap in consciousness what would otherwise merely be an unperceived picture of the object82 in the soul, so as to form the latter into an idea, and then to employ it as a separate representation or sign of an object.83 Now, to be sure, experience teaches that even these representations of sensation have something about them that does not depend on the constitution of the object; likewise, that they are always only one-sided representations, and imprint the objects in us only insofar as they are sensed through certain sensory instruments, under certain normal circumstances, on a particular side, from a determinate point of view, by such a representing being as our soul happens to be. At times, still other contingent circumstances accompanying only the present sensation give the picture its own

[Nicolas Malebranche (1638–1715), French Cartesian philosopher and priest of the Oratorian congregation, author of, among other works, De la recherche de la vérité. Où l’on traite de la Nature de l’Esprit de l’homme, & de l’usage qu’il en doit faire pour éviter l’erreur dans les Sciences (2 vols., 1674–5). In his Résponse du P. Malebranche, prestre de l’oratoire, à M. Regis (1693), he writes: “And when we discover in the idea of immensity a boundless expanse, we must believe what we see, which is to say, that this intelligible expanse is infinite, although the impression it makes on our mind is not only finite, but much lighter than that which the idea of the point of a needle could make” (p. 33).] 81 [As reported in turn by Proclus: “It is also reported that Ptolemy once asked Euclid if there was not a shorter road to geometry than through the Elements, and Euclid replied that there was no royal road to geometry” (Proclus 1970, pp. 56–7).] 82 [Objecte] 83 [Gegenstande] 80

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coloring, so to say, which it loses in altered circumstances. All this is true indeed; but none of it generally prevents every idea of sensation in which fantasy plays no part from being a real representation, which corresponds to an actual object.84 At the very least, they will be such in all cases in which the sensation is accompanied by the very same external circumstances as those present. However, especially those 64 ideas of sensation will be real that do not depend upon any other circumstances or qualities and on nothing else besides what is constant in our sensations and is always found when we employ them as representations. Such pictures are constant enough in their connection to their objects for them to be made into corresponding signs, into genuine and constant imprints of objects, and for comparing and distinguishing objects by means of them. These deserve to be called pure ideas of sensation in a preeminent sense; because they are not only free from foreign additions supplied by us and by the imagination, but rather also from still other additions, which do not belong among our usual sensations. The second class of our ideas of individual objects encompasses all those which are, to a greater or lesser extent, creations of our fantasy, although made from a stuff that has been introduced into ideas of sensation. Some are such in their essential parts, and in a striking way, and are called inventions;85 others, in their greatest part, their foundation, and according to their foremost features, are representations of sensation. But they are colored in and shaded by the mind’s spontaneous poetic power.86 Indeed, how many are there, even among those that we regard as ideas of observations, that have not received some accessory feature from fantasy? How 65 many in physics and how many in the psychology of our recent observational philosophers? How fruitful our present observations would be for philosophy in the future, if only so many things suggested by the poetic power were not inserted among sensations and regarded as experiences! Some of these self-made representations are worked out by fantasy alone, according to the law of the association of ideas; others, more under the guidance of higher power of thought, and in a direction dictated to fantasy by the faculty of reflection and by reasoning. This difference provides the occasion for the further division of self-made ideas into two distinct classes; one of which comprises fictional representations; the other, ideas of reflection. I would not have mentioned this well known difference of individual representations here, if not for a similar distinction also found in general concepts, and even in our transcendent concepts; and if a more precise regard for this important distinction between concepts with respect to the manner of their origination in the understanding were not the foremost consideration that, partly, convinces us of the necessity of being attentive to their realization prior to accepting them as grounds of knowledge and, partly, also clarifies the nature of this occupation. Some of the general concepts are extracted or abstracted. They arise from a perceived similarity 66 of other, more determinate ideas. The first such concepts that we acquire are taken

[Objecten. We have switched to the singular as a matter of style and logical precision.] [Erdichtungen] 86 [Dichtungskraft, see our note on this word on p. 32.] 84 85

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from the ideas of individual things and are initially nothing but similar features that repeatedly recur in similar individual representations and distinguish themselves more profoundly and vigorously in fantasy due to their frequent occurrence. At this point they are sensory abstracta, general pictures. Now reflection becomes involved, notes these similarities more precisely, separates them more carefully from the differences, and signifies them by means of words. Then they are extracted common concepts or representations of general things. Amongst general concepts, this genus is the largest. But, here again, there is found a difference that must be noted. Abstraction can contain what is general in pure ideas of sensation, such as the general ideas of the genera and species of animals, plants, and other actual bodies that we have sensed. Undoubtedly, these are real concepts, which present us with objects that are actually present or, strictly speaking, with resemblances of existing things. They are to the conceptual system of philosophy, what nutritional juices are to the body. However, since the greater part of our individual ideas are already mixed 67 with additions from pictorial fantasy, most abstractions are no longer abstractions from pure ideas of sensation. For this reason, then, the commonalities they present to us no longer consist of similarities between actual and sensed objects, but rather between self-invented objects. It is self-evident that the reality of such a species of abstractions is no greater or more reliable than the reality of the individual ideas from which they have been taken. The second genus of general ideas encompasses all self-made concepts that have arisen through the resolution of abstractions into their simpler parts and the modified combination of the latter. They are creations of our own power of thinking in the same respect as are sensory fictions. There are manifold ways in which they are compounded. Some found under the title of ideas of reasoning or concepts of demonstration are made according to the laws of reasoning. Most, however, are sketches of the spontaneous imagination, which takes general concepts, just like the images of individual things, and processes them, severs them from one another, then unifies them again and compounds from them a separate, new, and whole representation. These are the self-invented or spontaneously contrived general representations. Assuming more classes are not to be formed, then one must include in same class all those concepts that are, to be sure, mostly pure abstractions but 68 contain additions, further determinations, and modifications, which considered as individual elements by themselves are indeed true abstractions but have been brought into combination with the former only through invention, or through reasoning. Examples of this last genus are found in geometrical notions when these are taken in their geometrical exactness. Some logicians seem to consider all common concepts without exception to be abstractions from other representations, and ultimately from individual representations. They are such only with respect to their elements, however. Is not the number of pure abstractions from ideas of sensation indeed small? But let us for the moment call all of them abstractions; this removes not a single one of the consequences I base on the aforementioned classification. The necessity of distinguishing one class from the others remains exactly the same when it is a question of its reality, and the difficulties in this examination are not diminished. Nor is anything gained, for

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example, by putting aside this difference between common concepts and trying to reduce it completely to the similar difference between individual ideas. This works in one way. Every common concept that we have within us is individualized by fantasy whenever we try to maintain its presence within us for intuition. Fantasy paints what is general, as the prominent features to which we attend, so that it becomes a full picture whose boundaries shift and change with each moment. Frequently, it makes 69 several such pictures. These pictures can be regarded as the individual ideas of which the common concept is the abstractum. The latter relates to the former in this same way no matter whether the pictures were added to the abstraction or were already there prior to it. The mind of the inventor individualizes its common concepts, which it has previously compounded, like the painter his design in paintings. Now, the order is different for the one who extracts the design back out of the paintings, and the abstractions back out from their clothing; but the connection between both is the same. The simple geometrical concepts of lines and of the simpler figures are abstractions in us; but the concept of a thousand-sided figure, as an abstraction, must first be made through rational compounding before fantasy can make an individual picture out of it. What, ultimately, follows from this? If all common concepts are abstractions from individual ideas; then the question that the entire difficulty now poses will be this: Are the individual ideas, whose similarities are presented by common concepts, themselves inventions, dreams, or representations of actual things? Are they pictures of chimeras, square circles, whose inner absurdity is only hidden, or of true possibilities? 70 Should it be surprising, then, that so many theories are nothing more than ill-conceived projects, seeing that they are built upon general concepts of the understanding that have been taken—just as they are encountered within us and without consideration of this great difference—to be fundamental concepts? Which may be reasonable enough in themselves but rest on presuppositions that have not yet been properly examined? One cannot but find it strange that when the geometer encounters an even slightly compound concept, whose inner possibility is not immediately87 evident, he carefully, and sometimes with an almost exaggerated precision, attempts to demonstrate its possibility with the greatest exactness from other fundamental possibilities; whereas the philosophers are found to be immeasurably negligent on this point, as if Bacon’s reproach, namely that the common concepts could well be partly childish images, were so obviously groundless as to be unworthy of any attention. The reason for such great confidence in the reality of general notions may perhaps largely reside in one’s regarding them as pure abstractions that represent what is common to the objects that we sense and that therefore can contain nothing within them except what is actually together in actual things, and consequently can exist together. It is uncontestable that if we are dealing with abstractions from pure ideas of sensation, then they possess this advantage. But that the individual ideas themselves, from which the notions of substance, of 71 space, of power, of cause, and so on were abstracted could perhaps be inventions,

[für sich]

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or sensations modified with additions by the poetic power, which are only meteors in the understanding; this is a thought to which little attention has been paid. The understanding that is accustomed to general speculations easily acquires a certain incapacity for observing the individual elements of sensations sufficiently sharply to separate out what is pure sensation. One was thus too eager to count as pure sensations the individual ideas in which one found common concepts, and to count the latter as genuine abstractions. But to me it seems more than apparent from the history of this part of philosophy that such cannot be so straightforwardly assumed. They may or may not be pure abstractions; I will pass judgment on none. But if so, then they are still not such in a manner that is so evident, and to everyone, that they do not require a special examination to secure their reality against the doubts of those who think otherwise. Finally, what I have said about the diversity of ideas and common concepts holds also for our ideas of instruction, which we obtain through instruction by others. If it is to become one’s own insight, then knowledge gained in this way must surely be examined just as much as that which is furnished by our own reflection. Here lies the goal of these considerations. I have gone as far as it was my intention 72 to go. By considering the connection of speculative knowledge to our understanding, I wanted to show what the former lacks so as to achieve the reliability for which philosophers have eagerly endeavored.

HOW TO PERFECT GENERAL PHILOSOPHY Without further dwelling on the exact prescriptions that one discovers for oneself through sober reflection, I add only the general result of what has been said: Before it can be made into a general rational science concerning objects outside of the understanding, transcendent philosophy (or fundamental science) must, first and foremost, be treated as a part of the observational philosophy concerning the human understanding and its modes of thinking, its concepts, and their manner of origination. One must follow the path onto which Locke first led us with the torch of observation in his hand, namely, the path of seeking out the sensations from which general notions have been drawn; and of distinguishing these more precisely than Locke did from the effects of our creative poetic power. Should not all obscurities and controversies in general philosophy be able, ultimately, to be dispelled through 73 experience? This is my own view, assuming that it will ever be in our power to dispel them. Just like the different modes of thinking concerning practical and sensory objects, the difference of opinions in the most abstract domains of knowledge88 have their ultimate roots in the difference of sensations and in the way the understanding transforms the latter into fundamental propositions. I will just add one further remark concerning the realization of common concepts prompted by Hume’s abovementioned oversight in his philosophical essays.

[Kenntnissen]

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Through precise observation, the sensations from which a concept is separated out—I assume here that it is an abstraction—must be precisely indicated and distinguished from others that accompany them, occasion them, and frequently get mixed with them unnoticed. And, to obtain the entire inner content of the concept, not a single one of the qualities in the sensation may be overlooked that has provided a feature or characteristic mark of the abstracted concept. The reason for this latter requirement is, by itself, illuminating; for, without the application of the necessary attention hereto, the abstraction would only be known in part for what it actually is in its full extent for the understanding. Nevertheless, many difficulties have been encountered in this, which were not always overcome by Locke or Hume. The common concept of cause may serve as an example. Hume thought he had discovered that when we regard something as a cause of an effect, for example, the 74 billiard ball that moves toward another at rest as the cause of the motion in the second after impact; then this happens purely because a combination of two such ideas has become established based upon several previous sensations within us.89 These are, namely, the ideas of a body that moves toward another, and of a motion in the latter, and indeed, in such an order that the idea of the impact precedes and the idea of the motion in the impacted body succeeds it. As soon as the idea of impact is again aroused, the idea of the succeeding movement of the impacted body is likewise brought forth according to the law of association. Reflection transitions from the former to the latter and expects the latter whenever it perceives the former. And it is through just such a judgment as this that what precedes is defined to be the cause of what follows.90 Leaving aside all other objections one could call up in opposition to Hume’s definition, are we to suppose this observation complete?91 Is it then a mere association, nothing more than the succession of one idea upon the other, that moves us to the judgment that the object of the preceding idea is the cause, and the objective element in the subsequent idea is the effect? Is there not perhaps something more to be found in this connection of ideas within us, something which is perhaps the real distinguishing ground present in the understanding when it makes 75 the judgment: Here there is a cause and an effect? Is there not a certain necessity combined with the association of ideas, regardless of whence it arises? Perhaps it

[The example of the billiard ball is featured in both An Abstract (1740) and An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding (1748), sect. IV, V and—most relevant here—VII. Hume himself may have adapted the example from Malebranche (1674): “The motor force of bodies is therefore not in the bodies that are moved, for this motor force is nothing other than the will of God. Thus, bodies have no action; and when a ball that is moved collides with and moves another, it communicates to it nothing of its own, for it does not itself have the force it communicates to it” (1997, p. 448).] 90 [Tetens seems to be referring, again somewhat inaccurately, to An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding: “We may, therefore, suitably to this experience, form another definition of cause, and call it, an object followed by another, and whose appearance always conveys the thought to that other” (sect. VII, pt. II).] 91 [Strangely, Tetens seems to imply that Hume himself identified causality with only the previous ideas and did not ascribe to it also a subjective feeling of necessity, as he clearly does in sect. VII of An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding (1748). This would be consistent, however, with his reliance on An Abstract (1740), which does not mention such a feeling.] 89

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is nothing but a consequence of habit, but perhaps it instead has a deeper origin in a natural and necessary mode of thinking. Suffice it to say there is nevertheless a species of necessity or compulsion present in the understanding with which it must think the effect when it thinks the cause. And this, the physical cause of our judgment, is what is foremost, not the sheer succession of ideas, no matter how easy the latter is for us. We feel this necessity; and is it not from this inner feeling that the notion of the combination of cause and effect was abstracted? And if this is the case, then we will surely want to attribute something more than mere succession to the objects among which we ascribe a causal92 connection. Still further, there ought to be present within them something objective, which corresponds to the subjective necessity in the association of ideas, and, in other cases, to the comprehensibility of the one from the other. Whether we apply this concept correctly when using it regarding corporeal things outside of us is another question; but in speaking of the concept itself, one cannot say that nothing else is understood by it than a constant succession of one after another, and also not that one finds nothing further that is 76 objective, since a felt compulsion is added in our inner succession over and above the succession itself. But that is enough on this subject. Without further pointing out the many difficulties encountered in the analysis of the human concepts of the understanding, one can already sufficiently recognize their abundance from what has been said. We learn the correct method of observation no otherwise than through observation itself. Thus, even in the physics of the understanding, we must first conduct several trial experiments.93 From the errors and defects that a more exact examination reveals therein, one learns the necessary precautions for what follows. Locke and Hume, and several others, have gone before; but they have not yet brought us even close to the goal. One must go still further, no matter whether it is arduous or easy. The soil of general philosophy must be purified and planted with firm fundamental concepts. As a consolation to the philosophers engaged in this task, one can add that, even if a complete clearing up can never be accomplished, and even if enough illumination for the unstopped and clear-sighted eye can never be introduced into the obscure regions of metaphysics; still, from these observations there are to be expected many other discoveries regarding the nature of the understanding, discoveries which would richly reward their effort. The knowledge of body has gained ever since the general notions of Aristotelian physics were set aside, 77 and in some parts new general concepts of corporeal qualities have been collected from observations, while in others the ancient concepts have been improved.

THE EVIDENCE OF SPECULATIVE PHILOSOPHY Had speculative philosophers moved successfully beyond the realization of fundamental concepts and principles; then it would no longer be necessary to

[wirkende] [Probe-Versuche. Heyse indicates that the loan word Probe most often indicates an example or sample of something, such as a swatch of cloth being an example of the bolt from which it was taken.]

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ask for the reasons why speculative philosophy94 is not characterized by the same degree of evidence as is encountered in mathematics, a discipline which seems to possess a similar nature. Nor why the former has not been expanded at the same pace as the latter. In this case, the reasons for this lagging behind would have to either disappear or become manifest in their complete distinctness. Is it any wonder that things have not gone as well with fundamental theory as it has with geometry? Or that the one has still not gotten as far in the former, as Euclid had already by his second page, where he set down his definitions, his axioms, and his postulates? Here the soil was firm and level, and the materials that constitute the foundation of geometry lay ready for every pondering mind who would want to assemble them. But such is not the case in speculative philosophy. Confusion and obscurity in the fundamental concepts make necessary a precise preliminary investigation and testing of the stuff of the foundation. Several causes have been given that stand in the way of geometrical evidence in philosophy. And there are 78 certainly enough of them: The prejudices of an incorrect instruction, the passions of the heart, the lack of determinate signs, mistakes in scientific architecture— which last, although it more closely resembled its geometrical counterpart immediately after Wolff’s times, and has even been actualized in some respects, still does not come close to possessing the determinacy and distinctness of the latter. I do not deny the influence of any of these causes. Leibniz said nothing more correctly than this: If geometrical truths had a close connection to our hearts and to our prejudices, then there would have been just as much quibbling about Euclid’s demonstrations as about the proofs of philosophers.95 A similar remark could be made of each of the other obstacles. If they were found in mathematics, then one would see just how much it would suffer from them. What would all of these taken together not be able to achieve? It seems to me that their combined force is of such strength that, if it is a question of relative evidence of metaphysics, that is, of its noticeable distinctness and certainty to all persons of independent mind who work on it, and of the harmony of philosophers arising therefrom, then I forever relinquish hope of it. And I would relinquish this even if nothing were lacking in its inner and absolute evidence. Those obstacles mentioned do not merely work on their own in opposition to such an effect as 79 the general agreement of philosophers would be, but, in addition, each of them is itself strengthened through the by now customary prejudice of the unreliability of metaphysical knowledge. Whenever I cannot properly understand a proof in mathematical texts, or when it seems to me that a proposition is even incorrect—

[ihr. Grammatically, the referent of this should be “the realization,” but given the former-latter formulation that follows, “speculative philosophy” makes more sense.] 95 [As noted in Tetens 2017, n. 45, p. 78, this is a reference to the New Essays (completed 1704, first published 1765): “If geometry conflicted with our passions and our present concerns as much as morality does, we would dispute it and transgress it almost as much—in spite of Euclid’s and Archimedes’ demonstrations, which would be treated as fantasies and deemed to be full of fallacies—and Joseph Scalinger, Hobbes and others who have written against Euclid and Archimedes would not find so few supporters as they do in fact” (Leibniz 1996, p. 95). 94

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not a rare occurrence when one delves into higher mathematics; then trust in the inner correctness of the matter presented and in the demonstration prevents one from hastily accusing the author of an error. The prejudice is in favor of the matter and against my opinion. Before I should declare the assertions of a great mathematician to be incorrect in regard to matters that belong to mathematics; I would first have to survey his oversight in its entire extent, from the beginning, and from its first sources. Otherwise, I would always believe that the error lies with me, in some obscurity or some disarrangement of my ideas, which does not allow me to see the object in a proper light. Due solely to this prejudice, I have frequently withheld my judgment in matters that seemed strange and incorrect, and repeated my meditation. And lo and behold, I found that everything was just as coherent as my teacher had stated. In philosophy, by contrast, the prejudice of 80 the independent thinker in such cases is for himself as opposed to others. Here one is only too easily inclined to follow the first wrong path, and to hold one’s own reasoning to be just as secure as others hold theirs to be. From this reversal in the direction of prejudice, it is easy to grasp why in philosophy, far more so than among the mathematicians, there must be found the kinds of contradictions that would have disappeared by themselves if only one had pondered the matter a little less hastily and from several sides. How often has not the true strength of proofs been misunderstood, because one has not fully thought them through? Furthermore, in philosophy the understanding is more trained in acumen, in noting the manifold within objects and their connections, than it is in profundity, in the deep penetration into extensive series of cohering truths and in thinking through long-continued chains of argumentation. Supposing, then, that philosophers were to agree with one another on their principles and fundamental concepts; how far would they advance in their far-flung speculations, before becoming prematurely dispersed onto distinct paths? When speaking of the relative evidence of fundamental science, I wish to take back what I said above, namely, that the greatest obstacles to evidence would be overcome as soon as the fundamental concepts were realized. I wanted to say only that its internal and absolute evidence consists in a determinacy and certainty, which is clear enough for those who think it through with acumen, with diligence, with 81 precision, and, most of all, with the cold-bloodedness of the geometer. But if it be brought only this far; then, although it may be impossible to make this inner solidity equally visible in all parts and to every eye—for this is found not even in the more refined and higher theories of the mathematical sciences—yet the relative evidence of fundamental science will be expanded, and diversity in the opinions of the original minds will decrease. Some have regarded the neglect of the true geometrical method as the most important factor holding back general speculative philosophy. It has also contributed. This is hard to deny. It is their belief that if one were only to collect the simple fundamental concepts, determine them precisely, then add to them the first and simplest common propositions, and finally combine and apply these with the precision customary among geometers; then one would see what sort of a solid edifice of general fundamental theories could be erected. Were this the crux of the matter, then

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I would point to Lambert’s Architectonic96 and say: Look!, the matter is resolved, the preparatory work is finished and the difficulties removed. Here the essential 82 element of geometrical precision is entirely complete. It is difficult for anyone to be more precise in method, more refined in analysis, more determinate in definitions, more fruitful and acute in making divisions, and more careful in constructing links, than this philosopher was with respect to common concepts. And yet this is not the entire merit of his work, which has become a classic in metaphysics. Every chapter within it contains a model of method, showing how the true content and sphere of transcendent notions is to be determined from their application to particular cases. A procedure, which is a law for97 others, when the intention is to become precisely acquainted with the treasure of general concepts and propositions, which our understanding has already collected, and our language already fixed. And this is still not everything that can be said in praise of this architectonic of the great man. But, regardless of all this, I must follow my conviction and admit that, as correct as the rules and as beautiful as the examples in some parts are, by its means science itself has achieved no notable clarification in the essential topics. Just as before, the leveling of the ground and the emendation of the materials is still lacking. Hr. Lambert has 83 analyzed many concepts of lesser importance, wherein the work was less necessary and less fruitful. In some passages, there is even an excess of distinctness, which blinds the eyes of the understanding. In the most interesting theories, however, I miss the clarifying light that is still required. The superabundance of distinctness and explication is, in itself, only a small error, although it will strike most readers before the greater defects do. A German philosopher, admittedly, should not normally turn back from subtleties. But when I go through Lambert’s theories of space and time, of necessity and contingency, of substance, of powers, of causes and effects, and similar things, where distinctness is most lacking and yet most necessary; I certainly find much that has been acutely conceived, the very stamp of Lambert’s genius, only not what satisfies me and what I most wished to find; not what decides between Leibniz and Clarke, and which would make evident what and how much the understanding genuinely possesses regarding the above-mentioned concepts. Hr. Lambert takes 84 the same notions to be simple that Locke did. Are they such? Do others see them that way? Is it already decided—that they are something more than confused appearances of the understanding, something like the sensory pictures of colors in sensations?—that they are real ideas corresponding to objects? Has it already been made evident from the nature of understanding to what extent they are such? And to what extent the axioms and postulates which are based on them, and the theory which, in turn, is based on those same axioms and postulates, are transcendent and

[Johann Heinrich Lambert (1728–77), a Swiss mathematician, natural scientist, and along with Tetens, Kant, and Mendelssohn, one of the greatest German speaking philosophers of the period. The book referred to is his Anlage zur Architectonic, oder Theorie des Einfachen und des Ersten in der philosophischen und mathematischen Erkenntniß (2 vols., 1771) (Framework for an Architectonic, or the Theory of the Simple and First in Philosophical and Mathematical Knowledge).] 97 [Reading für instead of vor. If the latter is retained, then the sentence should read “a law before others.” The interchanging of these two little words is an extremely common mistake in the period.] 96

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also applicable—when we reason about beings that lie beyond the sphere of the sensations from which those concepts are drawn?—when reason takes them as the compass of its reflections on the divinity, the preeminent and final end of the whole of general philosophy? Seeing that this is how matters still stand in speculative philosophy; can our more recent philosophers be harshly reproached for being averse to the geometrical method in metaphysics, for being mistrustful toward synthetic speculations based on general concepts, and for fearing such speculations as they would a new scholasticism, which 85 may once more involve us in exactly the same tired, materially empty, and hairsplitting investigations as the old scholasticism did? Has the era of systems already arrived? Can one be anything more than an observational philosophical reasoner? I wish only that one not overstep the true measure in such delicate remarks regarding the worth or worthlessness of intellectual endeavors, either out of haste or because of one-sided ideas, and that with respect to speculative philosophy as well one would not and had not done so. The spirit98 of fashion always maintains its enthusiasm and exaggerates. Our spirit, which is more favorable to shallow but clever reasoning than to deeply penetrating but dry thoroughness, always goes beyond the boundaries in this matter. I believe one has spoken out against the scholastics, whom Leibniz esteemed, more energetically than is currently necessary in enlightened countries—now that we are no longer at the beginning, when inquiring reason had to be courageously torn away from the yoke of slavish word-mongering—and indeed more strongly than the truth allowed. First let the fundamental theory be worked upon as a physics of the human understanding, and its real concepts and principles discovered and collected 86 through observation—this is the analytic method, according to which Locke, Hume, Condillac99 and others, even among the German philosophers, have worked—then it will be shown that only one part of the work, although the most important and most difficult, still survives, and that yet another remains left for speculations based on general grounds. Perhaps with respect to the latter, it will be discovered that there is something still to be learned from the scholastics; or at least that they possess some merit for advancing philosophy. Even now, there is already to be found in our metaphysics many individual speculative theories based on general concepts, which, as they stand, furnish for the understanding that knows how to use them suitably, large, broad, and fertile perspectives without the need for a further prior realization of their fundamental concepts. This is either because there is no confusion in these concepts, or because they indeed have no influence on what follows, or because their emendation is automatically supplied, as far as is needed, along with their application. To such belongs principally the theory concerning the general connection between effects 87 and their causes, which consists in analogy. If Hume had not been so neglectful in

[Genius] [Étienne Bonnot de Condillac (1714–80), French philosopher, writer, and economist, proponent of Lockean empiricism and author of, among other works, Essai sur l’origine des connaissances humaines (1746) (Essay on the Origin of Human Knowledge) and Traité des sensations (2 vols., 1754) (Treatise on Sensations).]

98 99

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the inspection of the interconnection of rational truths; then I would marvel at how, in investigations concerning the rational knowledge of the creator of the world, someone of his acumen so frequently misses the point of the matter or goes around it, penetrating no further than the outer surface. But the despised fundamental science got its revenge on him. It now looks as if metaphysics, considered as a science, is a possession of the German philosophers, ever more of whom renounce it, although not without an evident debilitating effect on our otherwise good German national propensity to thoroughness. Must not our philosophers thereby lose as much strength and breadth of reason on the one hand, as they have gained, on the other, in the elevation of the spirit through the refinement of taste? The British philosophers may be a model for us in observation; but they should not be such in speculative philosophy. They regard it as of no importance. This fact seems strange, since they think within a nation that, more than any other, is accustomed to the vivid depiction of the influence of general mathematical theories on the 88 knowledge of actual objects, and since, in addition, they have had a Newton among them, whose greatness displayed itself less in his observations, as important as they otherwise were, than it did in his deep general theoretical insights. Why, then, has it so little occurred to these philosophers that in speculative philosophy there is likewise a general rational theory, which relates in the same manner to knowledge of the actual world? The history of philosophy appears to explain this. Their modern philosophy was first formed by Bacon, and afterward by Locke. Neither was a mathematician or an astronomer, at least not to the extent that the course of human reason within these fields could have been present to them vividly enough while they abstracted the precepts for philosophizing. Considered as a set of instructions concerning observation and the augmentation of empirical knowledge, the Organon of Bacon is a masterpiece, which is so complete that nothing considerable could be added to it in this regard by subsequent logicians. Locke’s books on human 89 understanding contain an excellent model of how to use the same method with respect to the knowledge of our soul and its operations. But, in another respect, both these treatises on logic are deficient. For as concerns general theories, the manner in which they originate, and the wide-ranging and deeply penetrating power they exhibit when applied to observations, one certainly finds several general remarks about them in these works, and Bacon has mentioned first philosophy with honor.100 But that is much too little and much too vague to attract the philosophical

[See Bacon’s Of the Proficience and Advancement of Learning, Divine and Human (1605), later published as De dignitate et augmentis scientiarum (1623), bk. III, ch. I: “But since the divisions of knowledge are not like several lines that meet in one angle; but are rather like branches of a tree that meet in one stem … it is necessary before we enter into the branches of the former division, to erect and constitute one universal science, to be the mother of the rest, and to be regarded in the progress of knowledge as portion of the main and common way, before we come where the ways part and divide themselves. This science I distinguish by the name of Philosophia Prima, primitive or summary philosophy; or Sapience, which was formerly defined as the knowledge of things divine and human. To this no other is opposed; for it differs from the rest rather in the limits within which it ranges than in the subject matter; treating only the highest stages of things” (Bacon 1881, pp. 471–2). However, Bacon distinguishes first philosophy from metaphysics (Bacon 1881, bk. III, ch. IV, p. 484; cf. also Bacon 1881, ch. IV, pp. 506–8).]

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spirit to the speculative side of things. From the time the old scholasticism lost its renown, British philosophy became almost exclusively an observational philosophy, an empirical physics of the human being. Modern German philosophy, on the other hand, received its impetus—from which it has still not entirely recovered—from the precepts and procedure of Wolff. But Wolff was familiar with the genius of the mathematical sciences, and it was constantly before his mind as he established his methods and his plan. From Tschirnhausen101 he knew, in addition, the path 90 of speculation. This is why a general fundamental science seemed indispensable to him. Leaving in place the correct and advantageous, the defective, the false, and, if one prefers, the damaging features that some believe Wolff has engraved upon our philosophy; it was nonetheless a consequence of Wolff’s method that all German philosophers after him, no matter how far they departed from him within the system, still assumed that there is such a science, and that it must be worked upon and established. I close with this reminder. Given that general speculative philosophy cannot attain its evidence until its fundamental concepts have been realized through the observation of the understanding, must then every concept that has not yet been subjected to such an examination be rejected as mistaken, false, and unusable? Should the definitions given by observational and analytic philosophers be preferred immediately and exactly as presented over those of others who have either entirely omitted such an examination, or have undertaken it, but without constant consideration of the manner of their procedure? Far from either! The first would 91 obviously be a premature decision. I admit to being far less skeptical and to finding in many philosophical theories in our possession more solidity and reliability than I might appear to wish to concede. What I demand here is simply that one inspect and test their first grounds afresh. The second would be no less of a prejudice. This would be like requiring those who set off on the correct path to remain constantly upon it all the way to the goal even in regions where confusion is so easily possible. In my opinion, our Leibniz has attained a much deeper, more acute, and more correct insight into the nature of the human understanding, its modes of thinking, and, in particular, into transcendent rational knowledge, than did the more assiduously observant Locke. He saw further than the otherwise perceptive Hume, further than Reid, Condillac, Beattie, Search,102 and Home. An excellent eye and a strong reflective power often grasp visible objects more correctly, and judge them more correctly, even without a theory of perspective, than do a weaker eye and a duller power of reflection when provided complete knowledge of this science. When examining the manner in which some of Leibniz’s own principles originate in

[Ehrenfried Walther von Tschirnhaus (1651–1708), German scientist, mathematician, and philosopher, influenced by Descartes, correspondent of both Leibniz and Spinoza, author of, among other works, Medicina mentis, sive tentamen genuinæ Logicæ, in quâ disseritur de method detegendi incognitas veritates (1687) (Medicine of the Mind, or an Attempt at a Genuine Logic in which Is Explained the Method of Discovering Unknown Truths).] 102 [Abraham Tucker (1705–74), English philosopher who published under the pseudonym Edward Search, author of The Light of Nature Pursued (1768–77).] 101

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fundamental science and in cosmology; it seems to me that I here discover products 92 of a strong understanding, which has been guided in its work by a refined and vivid, although inexplicit, feeling for its own modes of thinking. Here is an understanding that has taken its sensations as the stuff of common concepts and principles and has worked upon them in exactly the manner that it should, thus creating real knowledge, even though he often found himself at a loss when he was to provide an account of his method to himself or others. In order to enter into the details of a refined self-feeling of the operations of the understanding, and to take note of them individually, requires a certain impetus of genius and a forbearance that is not so easily combined with such great vivaciousness as was found in Leibniz. The effective power of representation always prefers to press toward general statements. This weakness of the spirit of observation in Leibniz—for a weakness it remains, even if a weakness in Leibniz—was the reason why he was more able to form true and real concepts than he was able to prove their reality. When Clarke demanded from him a proof of his proposition of sufficient reason, he answered nothing further than that 93 it is an axiom of reason, which no instance opposes, but knew of nothing more to say to support this last assertion.103 But was then every single flight of Leibnizian spirit equally successful? And was it then any wonder when those who were unable to follow him, and who had no criterion by which to distinguish whether he remained on the correct track, or had departed from it, regarded Leibniz’s discoveries as unreliable conceits, or as empty fantasies? The analysis of the understanding conducted according to Locke’s method must make it evident how many or how few of Leibniz’s fruitful views are, or are not, genuinely real rational knowledge. In general philosophy, the realization of concepts is exactly what exegesis is for theologians. Those who hold it necessary to take up exegesis anew with the modern aids offered by the knowledge of languages, philology, and history, so as to lay solid grounds for faith or to test those already laid by this means, undoubtedly make a very reasonable claim. Nevertheless, I would rather not take their side, when they 94 hold themselves to be justified in declaring the previous principles to be poorly grounded, and show a contemptuous prejudice against them, all for the reason that interpreters of earlier times had not proceeded in precisely the same manner, and probably also took missteps in particular cases. This, again, is nothing but one of the usual effects of a vivacious but one-sided manner of representation, the universal source of all hastiness and excessive activity.

[This point was perhaps made most famous by Wolff, who writes in his German Metaphysics: “He [i.e., Leibniz] accepted it as a principle grounded in experience, against which no example can be produced, and hence gave no demonstration of it, even though Clarke demanded one” (Wolff 1747b, §30, p. 17). The relevant text is Leibniz’s Fifth Paper it his correspondence with Clarke, §§125–30.]

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PART THREE

Ancillary Materials

244

GLOSSARIES

Below, we include words commonly used by Tetens in the translated essays. For significant words used less frequently, we have indicated the German in footnotes to the main text. English verbs are listed in the infinitive with “to” appended in parentheses. For German words, we have maintained Tetens’s no longer orthographic spellings.

German–English Glossary Abänderung

modification

abbilden

depict (to)

Abbildung

depiction

Absicht

aim, intention; respect

absondern

separate (to), abstract (to)

Absonderung

abstraction

Abstammung

descendant

abtheilen

divide up (to)

Abtheilung

division

ähnlich

similar

Ähnlichkeit

similarity, resemblance

allgemein

general, universal, common

angeben

indicate (to), state (to), make (to)

angebohren

innate

angenehm

agreeable, pleasant

Anlage

predisposition

anmerken

remark (to)

Anmerkung

remark

anreizen

stimulate (to), excite (to)

Anreizung

incentive, inducement

Anstrengung

effort, exertion

Antrieb

impulse

246

GLOSSARIES

anwenden

apply (to)

Anzeige

indication

anzeigen

indicate (to)

Art

kind, species; way

Ast

bough

aufgelegt

suited, disposed

auflösen

resolve (to), analyze (to), dissolve (to)

Aufmerksamkeit

attention

auseinandersetzen

differentiate (to), separate (to); explain (to), explicate (to)

Auseinandersetzung

differentiation

Äußerung

expression

auswickeln

develop (to)

Auswicklung

development

bearbeiten

process (to), work at (to)

Bedeutung

meaning, sense

Bedürfniss

need

Begierde

desire

bemercklich

noticeable

bemerken

note (to), take note (to), notice (to)

Bemühung

endeavor

benennen

designate (to), denominate (to)

Bennenung

denomination, naming, designation

Beschaffenheit

constitution, nature, quality

besonders

particular, special

beständig

constant(ly)

bestehen

subsist (to), consist (to)

bestimmt

determinate, certain, specific

bestreben

endeavor (to)

Bestrebung

endeavor

beweisen

prove (to), demonstrate (to)

bezeichnen

signal (to), signify (to)

Bezeichnung

signal, notation

Beziehung

relation, reference, connection

Bild

picture, image

bilden

form (to), construct (to)

GLOSSARIES

247

Bildung

formation

Denkungsart

manner of thought, manner of thinking, mindset

deutlich

distinct, clear

dichten

invent (to)

Dichtkraft

poetic power

Dichtungsvermögen

poetic faculty

Ding

thing

Disposition

disposition

edel

noble

Ehre

honor

Ehrgeiz

thirst for honor

Eingenommenheit von sich selbst

conceit

Eigenschaft

attribute, property, feature

eigentlich

proper(ly)

Einbildung

image, imagining, imagination

Einbildungskraft

imagination

einerlei

identical, one and the same

Einrichtung

constitution, institution

einsehen

have insight (to), understand (to)

Eintheilung

classification

empfinden

sense (to)

Empfindung

sensation

entwickeln

develop (to)

erdichten

invent (to)

Erdichtung

invention, fiction

Erfahrung

experience

Erfahrungssatz

empirical proposition

erfinden

invent (to)

Erfindung

invention

erkennen

know (to), recognize (to), cognize (to)

erkennen zu geben

signify (to)

erklärung

explanation, definition, elucidation, declaration

erlangt

acquired

erlernen

master (to), learn (to)

248

GLOSSARIES

erregen

stimulate (to)

erweisen

prove (to), demonstrate (to)

fähig

able, capable

Fähigkeit

ability, capacity

Fertigkeit

proficiency

Folgerung

conclusion, inference, consequence

Ganz

entire, whole

Gattung

genus

Gebrauch

use, employment

Gedächtniß

memory

Gefühl

feeling, touch

Gegenstand

object

Geiz

thirst

Geldgeiz

avarice

Gelegenheit

opportunity, occasion

Gelehrter

scholar

Gemüth

mind

Gemüthsart

character

Geschicklichkeit

skill, skillfulness, dexterity

Geschlechtsregister

genealogy

geschmeidig

flexible, malleable

Gesellschaft

society

Gesetz

law

Gewahrwerden

awareness

gleich

equal, same

Grad

degree

Grenze

limit, boundary

groß

magnitude

Grund

ground, reason, foundation

Grundlage

foundation

gründlich

rigorous

Grundsatz

principle

Grundtrieb

fundamental drive

Grundzug

essential feature

Handlung

action

GLOSSARIES

249

Hang

propensity

heftig

intense, ferocious

herrschen

dominate (to)

hervorbringen

produce (to)

Hochachtung

esteem

Inbegrif

collection

kennen

know (to)

kenntlich zu machen

signify (to)

Kennzeichen

characteristic mark

klar

clear

Kopf

mentality

Kraft

power

lebendig

lively, vivacious

Lebensart

way of life

Lehnsatz

lemma

Lehre

theory, doctrine

Lehrsatz

theorem

Leidenschaft

passion

Lust

zest, lust, appetite, pleasure, desire

mannigfaltig

manifold, various, diverse

Mannigfaltigkeit

diversity, manifold, variety

Mensch

human being

merkbar

evident, notable

merklich

marked, evident

Merkmal

mark, characteristic

merkwürdig

noteworthy

Moral

moral science

Mutterwitz

mother wit

nachahmen

imitate (to)

Nachahmungsvermögen

mimetic faculty

nachmachen

copy (to)

Neigung

inclination

nennen

name (to), call (to), entitle (to)

Not

need, necessity

Nutzen

benefit

250

GLOSSARIES

Object

object

Phantasie

fantasy, fancy

Quelle

source

radikal

root

Regung

impulse

Reiz

excitement, allure

reizen

excite (to), stimulate (to)

richten

direct (to)

richten (sich nach)

conform (to)

Richtung

tendency, direction

rohe

crude, uncivilized, uncultivated

rühren

move (to), rouse (to), strike (to)

Sache

matter

Satz

proposition

Schall

sound

Scharfsinnigkeit

acumen

schlüpfrig

slippery

Schranke

limit, boundary

Seele

soul

Seelenlehre

psychology

selbsttätig

spontaneous

Selbsttätigkeit

spontaneity

sinnlich

sensory, sensible, sensuous

Sitten

customs

Sittenlehre

moral theory

Stamm

stem

Stammbaum

genealogical tree

stillschweigend

tacit

Stolz

pride

thätig

active

Ton

tone

Trägheit

slowness, inertia

traurig

sad

Traurigkeit

melancholy

Trieb

drive

GLOSSARIES

251

Triebfeder

incentive

üben

exercise (to)

Überlegung

reflection

Übung

exercise

Umstand

circumstance

unterscheiden

distinguish (to)

Unterscheidungszeichen

distinguishing mark

Unterschied

distinction, difference

Untersuchung

investigation

Unvermögen

incapacity

Ursache

cause, reason

Veränderung

change, alteration

veranlassen

induce (to)

Veranlassung

inducement

Verbindung

combination, connection, conjunction

verfallen

tend (to), hit upon (to)

vergnügen

gratification, pleasure

Verhältnis

relation, proportion, relationship

Verlangen

craving, wanting, longing

Vermögen

faculty

Vernunft

reason

Verrichtung

performance

verschieden

different, various, distinct

Verschiedenheit

difference, diversity

verstehen

understand (to)

verstehen zu geben

signify (to)

versuchen

try (to), experiment (to)

Verwirrung

confusion

Vollkommenheit

perfection

Vorsatz

intention

vorstellen (sich)

represent (to), imagine (to)

Vorstellung

representation

Werth

worth, value

wesentlich

essential

wild

savage, wild

252

GLOSSARIES

wirken

operate (to), effect (to), affect (to), produce (to)

Wirken

operating

wirklich

actual, real

Wirklichkeit

actuality, reality

wirksam

effective

Wirksamkeit

efficacy

Wirkung

operation, effect

Witz

wit, intelligence

Wohl

welfare, well-being

Wollust

sensuality

Wortforschung

etymology

Würde

worth

Würzel

root

Zeichen

sign

zeigen

show (to), signify (to)

zergliedern

analyze (to)

Zergliederung

analysis

zerlegen

resolve (to), analyze (to)

zu erkennen geben

signify (to)

Zufriedenheit

satisfaction

zureichend

sufficient

zusammengesetzt

complex, composite, compound

zusammensetzen

compose (to)

Zustand

condition, circumstance

Zweig

branch

English–German Glossary ability

Fähigkeit

able

fähig

abstract (to)

absondern

abstraction

Absonderung

acquired

erlangt

action

Handlung

active

thätig

GLOSSARIES

253

actual

wirklich

actuality

Wirklichkeit

acumen

Scharfsinnigkeit

affect (to)

wirken

agreeable

angenehm

aim

Absicht

allure

Reiz

alteration

Veränderung

analysis

Zergliederung

analyze (to)

auflösen, zergliedern, zerlegen

appetite

Lust

apply (to)

anwenden

attention

Aufmerksamkeit

attribute

Eigenschaft

avarice

Geldgeiz

awareness

Gewahrwerden

benefit

Nutzen

bough

Ast

boundary

Grenze, Schranke

branch

Zweig

call (to)

nennen

capable

fähig

capacity

Fähigkeit

cause

Ursache

certain

bestimmt

change

Veränderung

character

Gemüthsart

characteristic

Merkmal

characteristic mark

Kennzeichen

circumstance

Umstand, Zustand

classification

Eintheilung

clear

klar, deutlich

cognize (to)

erkennen

collection

Inbegrif

combination

Verbindung

254

GLOSSARIES

common

allgemein

complex

zusammengesetzt

compose (to)

zusammensetzen

composite

zusammengesetzt

compound

zusammengesetzt

conceit

Eingenommenheit von sich selbst

conclusion

Folgerung

condition

Zustand

conform (to)

richten (sich nach)

confusion

Verwirrung

conjunction

Verbindung

connection

Verknüpfung, Verbindung, Beziehung

consequence

Folgerung

consist (to)

bestehen

constant(ly)

beständig

constitution

Einrichtung, Beschaffenheit

construct (to)

bilden

copy (to)

nachmachen

craving

Verlangen

crude

rohe

customs

Sitten

declaration

Erklärung

definition

Erfahrung

degree

Grad

demonstrate (to)

beweisen, erweisen

denominate (to)

bennenen

denomination

Bennenung

depict (to)

abbilden

depiction

Abbildung

descendant

Abstammung

designate (to)

benennen

designation

Bennenung

desire

Begierde, Lust

determinate

bestimmt

develop (to)

entwickeln, auswickeln

development

Auswicklung

GLOSSARIES

255

dexterity

Geschicklichkeit

difference

Verschiedenheit, Unterschied

different

verschieden, anders

differentiate (to)

auseinandersetzen

differentiation

Auseinandersetzung

direct (to)

richten

direction

Richtung

disposed

aufgelegt

disposition

Disposition

dissolve (to)

auflösen

distinct

deutlich, verschieden

distinction

Unterschied

distinguish (to)

unterscheiden

distinguishing mark

Unterscheidungszeichen

diverse

mannigfaltig, verschieden

diversity

Mannigfaltigkeit, Verschiedenheit

divide up (to)

abtheilen

division

Abtheilung

doctrine

Lehre

dominate (to)

herrschen

drive

Trieb

effect

Wirkung

effect (to)

wirken

effective

wirksam

efficacy

Wirksamkeit

effort

Anstrengung

exertion

Anstrengung

elucidation

Erklärung

empirical proposition

Erfahrungssatz

employment

Gebrauch

endeavor

Bemühung, Bestrebung

endeavor (to)

bestreben

entire

ganz

entitle (to)

nennen

equal

gleich

essential

wesentlich

256

GLOSSARIES

essential feature

Grundzug

esteem

Hochachtung

etymology

Wortforschung

evident

merkbar, merklich

excite (to)

reizen, anreizen

excitement

Reiz

exercise

Übung

exercise (to)

üben

experience

Erfahrung

experiment (to)

versuchen

explain (to)

erklären, auseinandersetzen

explanation

Erklärung

explicate (to)

auseinandersetzen

expression

Äußerung

faculty

Vermögen

fancy

Phantasie

fantasy

Phantasie

feature

Eigenschaft

feeling

Gefühl

ferocious

heftig

fiction

Erdichtung

flexible

geschmeidig

form (to)

bilden

formation

Bildung

foundation

Grundlage, Grund

fundamental drive

Grundtrieb

genealogical tree

Stammbaum

genealogy

Geschlechtsregister

general

allgemein

genus

Gattung

gratification

Vergnügen

ground

Grund

hit upon (to)

verfallen

honor

Ehre

human being

Mensch

GLOSSARIES

257

identical

einerlei

image

Bild, Einbildung

imagination

Einbildung, Einbildungskraft

imagine (to)

einbilden, vorstellen (sich)

imitate (to)

nachahmen

impulse

Antrieb, Regung

incapacity

Unvermögen

incentive

Triebfeder, Anreizung

inclination

Neigung

indicate (to)

anzeigen, angeben

indication

Anzeige

induce (to)

veranlassen

inducement

Veranlassung, Anreizung

inertia

Trägheit

inference

Folgerung

innate

angebohren

insight

einsehen, Einsicht

institution

Einrichtung

intelligence

Witz

intense

heftig

intention

Absicht, Vorsatz

invent (to)

dichten, erdichten, erfinden

invention

Erdichtung, Erfindung

investigation

Untersuchung

kind

Art

know (to)

kennen, erkennen

law

Gesetz

learn (to)

erlernen

lemma

Lehnsatz

limit

Grenze, Schranke

lively

lebendig

longing

Verlangen

lust

Lust

magnitude

Groß

make (to)

angeben, machen

258

GLOSSARIES

malleable

geschmeidig

manifold

mannigfaltig, Mannigfaltigkeit

manner of thought, manner of thinking

Denkungsart

mark

Merkmal

marked

merklich

master (to)

erlernen

matter

Sache

meaning

Bedeutung

melancholy

Traurigkeit

memory

Gedächtniß

mentality

Kopf

mimetic faculty

Nachahmungsvermögen

mind

Gemüth

mindset

Denkungsart

modification

Abänderung

moral science

Moral

moral theory

Sittenlehre

mother wit

Mutterwitz

move (to)

rühren

name (to)

nennen

naming

Nennung

nature

Beschaffenheit

necessity

Not

need

Bedürfniss, Not

noble

edel

notable

merkbar

notation

Bezeichnung

note (to), take note (to), notice bemerken (to) noteworthy

merkwürdig

noticeable

bemercklich

object

Gegenstand, Object

occasion

Gelegenheit

one and the same

einerlei

operate (to)

wirken

GLOSSARIES

259

operating

Wirken

operation

Wirkung

opportunity

Gelegenheit

particular

besonders

passion

Leidenschaft

perfection

Vollkommenheit

performance

Verrichtung

picture

Bild

pleasant

angenehm

pleasure

Vergnügen, Lust

poetic faculty

Dichtungsvermögen

poetic power

Dichtkraft

power

Kraft

predisposition

Anlage

pride

Stolz

principle

Grundsatz

process (to)

bearbeiten

produce (to)

hervorbringen, wirken

proficiency

Fertigkeit

propensity

Hang

proper(ly)

eigentlich

property

Eigenschaft

proportion

Verhältnis

proposition

Satz

prove (to)

beweisen, erweisen

psychology

Seelenlehre

quality

Beschaffenheit

real

wirklich

reality

Wirklichkeit

reason

Grund, Ursache, Vernunft

recognize (to)

erkennen

reference

Beziehung

reflection

Überlegung

relation

Verhältnis, Beziehung

relationship

Verhältnis

260

GLOSSARIES

remark

Anmerkung

remark (to)

anmerken

represent (to)

vorstellen (sich)

representation

Vorstellung

resemblance

Ähnlichkeit

resolve (to)

zerlegen, auflösen

respect

Absicht, Hinsicht

rigorous

gründlich

root

radikal, Würzel

rouse (to)

rühren

sad

traurig

same

gleich

satisfaction

Zufriedenheit

savage

wild

scholar

Gelehrter

sensation

Empfindung

sense

Bedeutung

sense (to)

empfinden

sensible

sinnlich

sensory

sinnlich

sensuality

Wollust

sensuous

sinnlich

separate (to)

absondern, auseinandersetzen

show (to)

zeigen

sign

Zeichen

signal

Bezeichnung

signify (to)

bezeichnen, erkennen zu geben, verstehen zu geben, kenntlich zu geben, zeigen

similar

ähnlich

similarity

Ähnlichkeit

skill, skillfulness

Geschicklichkeit

slippery

schlüpfrig

slowness

Trägheit

society

Gesellschaft

soul

Seele

GLOSSARIES

261

sound

Schall

source

Quelle

special

besonders

species

Art

specific

bestimmt

spontaneity

Selbsttätigkeit

spontaneous

selbsttätig

state (to)

angeben

stem

Stamm

stimulate (to)

anreizen, erregen, reizen

strike (to)

rühren

subsist (to)

bestehen

sufficient

zureichend

suited

aufgelegt

tacit

stillschweigend

tend (to)

verfallen

tendency

Richtung

theorem

Lehrsatz

theory

Lehre

thing

Ding

thirst

Geiz

thirst for honor

Ehrgeiz

tone

Ton

touch

Gefühl

try (to)

versuchen

uncivilized, uncultivated

rohe

understand (to)

verstehen einsehen

universal

allgemein

use

Gebrauch

value

Werth

variety

Mannigfaltigkeit

various

mannigfaltig, verschieden

vivacious

lebendig

wanting

Verlangen

way

Art

262

GLOSSARIES

way of life

Lebensart

welfare, well-being

Wohl

whole

ganz

wild

wild

wit

Witz

work at (to)

bearbeiten

worth

Würde, Werth

zest

Lust

BIBLIOGRAPHY

TETENS’S WORKS The bibliography below of Tetens’s works draws upon the following sources: Hamberger 1800, pp. 26–30; Kordes 1775, pp. 325–32; Krouglov 2008, pp. 355–69; Leinsle 1996; Tetens 1971, pp. 227–33; Tetens 2014, pp. 903–11; and, Tetens 2017, pp. xxix–xli.

Original Works with Significant Philosophical Content (1757), “Gedanken über die Wirkungen des Klima auf die Denkungsart des Menschen,” Glückstädtische Intelligenzblätter [Reported by Kordes 1797, p. 326]. (1759), “Gedanken von dem Einfluß des Climatis in die Denkungsart des Menschen,” Schleswig-Hollsteinische Anzeigen von politischen, gelehrten, und andern Sachen, 29 (July 16): 454–60; 30 (July 23): 470–6. (1760), Dissertatio physica de caussa caerulei coeli coloris, quam consentiente amplissimo philosophorum ordine Rostochii in auditorio academico anno MDCCLX. Die XXVI. ivlii ab hora nona ad meridiem publice defendent, Rostochii [Rostock]: Ioannis Iacobi Adleri. (1760), Gedancken über einige Ursachen, warum in der Metaphysik nur wenige ausgemachte Wahrheiten sind, als eine Einladungs-Schrift zu seinen den 13ten October auf der neuen Bützowschen Academie anzufangenden Vorlesungen, entworfen von Johann Nicolaus Tetens, Bützow und Wismar: Berger und Boedner. (1761), “Abhandlung von dem Maaß der lebendigen Kräfte,” in Wenceslaw Johann Gustav Karsten (ed.), Beyträge zur Aufnahme der Theoretischen Mathematik. Das vierte und letzte Stük. 320–72, Rostok: Anton Ferdinand Röse. (1761), Abhandlung von den vorzüglichsten Beweisen des Daseins Gottes, Bützow und Wismar: Berger und Boedner. (1761), “Schreiben an … über die Frage: Ob die Verschiedenheit der ErkenntnißFähigkeiten und Neigungen der Menschen in einer angebohrnen Verscheidenheit, oder in den äusserlichen Umständen seinen Grund habe?,” Hamburgische Nachrichten aus dem Reiche der Gelehrsamkeit, 35 (May 8): 276–80, 36 (May 15): 286–8, 37 (May 19): 293–6. (1762), “Von der Verschiedenheit der Menschen nach ihren Haupt-Neigungen,” Mecklenburgische Nachrichten, Fragen und Anzeigen, 36 (October 23): 305–8; 37 (October 30): 318–19; 38 (November 6): 325–7; 39 (November 13): 337–9. (1763), “Fortsetzung und Beschluß der im 39sten Stücke der Anzeigen voriges Jahrs abgebrochenen Abhandlung von der Verschiedenheit der Menschen nach ihren Hauptneigungen,” Gelehrte Beyträge zu den Mecklenburg-Schwerinschen Nachrichten, 23 (June 4): 91–2; 24 (June 11): 93–5.

264

BIBLIOGRAPHY

(1764), “Methodus Inveniendi Curvas, Maximum vel Minimum efficientes, universaliter, et ex analyticis principiis demonstrata,” Nova Acta Eruditorum Anno MDCCLXIII, 8 (October): 502–15. (1764), “Über die Rangordnung der Wissenschaften,” Glückstädtische Intelligenzblätter [Reported by Kordes 1797, p. 327]. (1765), “Ueber den verschiedenen Nuzen der menschlichen Erkentnissen,” SchleswigHollsteinische Anzeigen von politischen, gelehrten, und andern Sachen, 38 (September 23): 605–12; 39 (September 30): 621–6. (1765), “Ueber die Grundsätze und den Nutzen der Etymologie,” Gelehrte Beyträge zu den Mecklenburg-Schwerinschen Nachrichten, 14 (April 6): 53–6; 15 (April 13): 57–60; 16 (April 20): 61–2. (1766), “Ueber den Nutzen der Etymologie,” Gelehrte Beyträge zu den MecklenburgSchwerinschen Nachrichten, 35 (August 30): 139–40; 36 (September 6): 141–4; 37 (September 13): 145. (1766), “Ueber den Uhrsprung der Ehrbegierde,” Schleswig-Hollsteinische Anzeigen von politischen, gelehrten, und andern Sachen, 43 (October 27): 689–96; 44 (November 3): 713–16; 45 (November 10): 729–32; 46 (November 17): 737–44; 47 (November 24): 753–6. (1767), Ausführliche Nachricht von der Einrichtung des Herzoglichen Paedagogium zu Bützow, Auf gnädigstem Befehl durch öffentlichen Druck bekannt gemacht. Auf Kosten des Paedagogium, Bützow: Johann Gotthelf Fritze. (1769), Commentatio de principio minimi, Buezzovii & Wismariae [Bützow & Wismar]: Bergerum et Boederum. (1769), “De via facillima in motu corporum,” Nova Acta Eruditorum Anno MDCCLXVIII, 11 (November): 481–503. (1769), Zur Feyer des höchsten Geburts-Tages des Durchlauchtigsten Herzogs und Herrn Herrn [sic] Friederich Regierenden Herzogs zu Mecklenburg, Fürsten zu Wenden, Schwerin und Ratzeburg auch Grafen zu Schwerin, der Lande Rostock und Stargard Herrn, Unsers gnädigsten Herzogs und Herrn, auf dem hiesigen Herzoglichen Paedagogium am 9. November ladet die Gönner und Freunde dieses Instituts geziemend ein, Bützow: Johann Gotthelf Fritze. (1772), Ueber den Ursprung der Sprachen und der Schrift, Bützow und Wismar: Berger und Boedner. (1775), “[Review of] Physische Ursachen des Wahren. Von Johann Christian Lossius, der Weltweisheit ordentlicher Professor zu Erfurt. Gotha, bey Ettingern, 1775. 280 S.,” Kielische Gelehrte Zeitung: 85–94. (1775), Ueber die allgemeine speculativische Philosophie, Bützow und Wismar: Berger- & Boednerschen Buchhandlung. (1777), “Ergänzende Notiz zur anonymen Anzeige der Philosophischen Versuche,” Kielische Gelehrte Zeitung, 7 (81): 675–6. (1777), Philosophische Versuche über die menschliche Natur und ihre Entwickelung, 2 vols., Leipzig: M. G. Weidmanns Erben und Reich. (1778), “[Review of] Dietrich Tiedemann, Untersuchungen über den Menschen” [Reported by Uebele 1911: 169–70].

BIBLIOGRAPHY

265

(1778), “Ueber die Realität unsers Begriffs von der Gottheit. Erste Abtheilung über die Realität unsers Begriffs von dem Unendlichen,” in Johann Andreas Cramer (ed.), Beyträge zur Beförderung theologischer und andrer wichtigen Kenntnisse von Kielischen und auswärtigen Gelehrten: Teil 2: 137–204, Kiel und Hamburg: Carl Ernst Bohn. (1779), “[Review of] Von dem Begriffe der Philosophie und ihren Theilen. Ein Versuch, womit beym Antritt … Amts eines öffentlichen Lehrers der Philosophie zu Halle seine Vorlesungen ankündigt Joh. Aug. Eberhard, Mag. der Philosophie, Berlin, bey Voß. 1778. (62 S. gr. 8),” Kielisches Litteratur-Journal, 1: 390–4. (1780), “[Review of] Jakob Beattie’s, Professor der Moral und Logik in Aberdeen, neue philosophische Versuche. Erster Band. Aus dem Englischen übersetzt. Mit einer Vorrede vom Herrn Professor Meiners. Leipzig, in der Weygandischen Buchhandlung. 1779. 8. 552 S,” Kielisches Litteratur-Journal, 1: 449–58. (1780), “[Review of] Neue philosophische Litteratur, herausgegeben von Johann Christian Lossius. Zweytes Stück. Halle, bey Gebauer 1779. In gr. 8, 11 Bogen. Drittes Stück. Ebendaselbst. 12 Bogen 1779,” Kielisches Litteratur-Journal, 1 (3): 236–42. (1781), “[Review of] Jakob Beattie’s, Professor der Moral und Logik in Aberdeen, neue philosophische Versuche. Zweiter Band. Aus dem Englischen übersetzt. Herausgegeben vom Hrn. Professor Meiners. Leipzig, in der Weygandischen Buchhandlung. 1779. Kl. 8. S. 305,” Kielisches Litteratur-Journal, 1: 152–8. (1783), “[Review of] Über die Zeichen der Aufklärung einer Nation. Eine Vorlesung, gehalten vor Sr. Herzogl. Durchlaucht, dem regierenden Herzog von Würtemberg, als Reichsgrafen von Urach, zu Halle den 11. Febr. 1783 von Johann August Eberhard, ordentl. Professor der Philosophie. Halle bey Gebauer 1783. 44 Seit. gr. 8,” Kielisches Litteratur-Journal: 68–74. (1783), “Ueber die göttliche Gerechtigkeit, den Zweck der göttlichen Strafen,” in Johann Andreas Cramer (ed.), Beyträge zur Beförderung theologischer und andrer wichtigen Kenntnisse von Kielischen und auswärtigen Gelehrten: Teil 4: 249–90, Kiel und Hamburg: Carl Ernst Bohn. (1783), “Ueber die Realität unsers Begriffs von der Gottheit. Zwote Abtheilung. Ueber den Verstand in der Gottheit gegen Hume,” in Johann Andreas Cramer (ed.), Beyträge zur Beförderung theologischer und andrer wichtigen Kenntnisse von Kielischen und auswärtigen Gelehrten: Teil 4: 4–96, Kiel und Hamburg: Carl Ernst Bohn. (1783), “Von der Abhängigkeit des Endlichen von dem Unendlichen. Philepistemon und Aleth,” in Johann Andreas Cramer (ed.), Beyträge zur Beförderung theologischer und andrer wichtigen Kenntnisse von Kielischen und auswärtigen Gelehrten: Teil 4, Kiel und Hamburg: Carl Ernst Bohn. (1786), “Beytrag zur Geschichte der Toleranz in protestantischen Ländern. (Aus einem Briefe aus dem Mecklenburgischen.),” Neues Kielisches Magazin vor die Geschichte, Statsklugheit und Statenkunde, 1 (1 [April 17, 1786]): 161–74. (1787), “[Review of] Johann Albert Hinrich Reimarus, Ueber die Gründe der menschlichen Erkentniß und der natürlichen Religion, Hamburg 1787,” [Reported in Uebele 1911: 173]. (1787), “Ueber den eingedeichten Zustand der Marschländer, und die demselben anklebende Gefahr vor Überschwemmungen—eine Vorlesung, gehalten in

266

BIBLIOGRAPHY

der Versammlung der schleswig-holsteinischen patriotischen Gesellschaft den 31sten October 1787 von Johann Nikolaus Tetens,” Schleswig-Holsteinische Provinzialberichte, 2 (Viertes bis sechstes Heft): 641–65. (1788), “[Review of] Heinrich Corrodi, Verusch über Gott, die Welt und die menschliche Seele durch die gegenwärtigen philosophischen Streitigkeiten veranlaßt, Berlin 1788” [Reported by Uebele 1911: 175]. (1788), Reisen in die Marschländer an der Nordsee zur Beobachtung des Deichbaus in Briefen, vol. 1, Leipzig: Weidmannische Buchhandlung. (1805), “Klopstocks Correspondenz mit Professor Tetens in Kiel, die deutsche Orthographie betreffend,” Hamburg und Altona: Ein Journal zur Geschichte der Zeit, der Sitten und des Geschmaks, 4 (1): 181–92, 257–65.

Other Original Works (1760), “Viro praenobilissimo, doctissimo, doctorando Stielero, amico suo semper colendo,” Disputatio medica inauguralis de chorea s. viti, Rostock. (1762), Vim cohaesionis explicandis phaenomenis, quae vulgo vi attrahenti tribuuntur, haud sufficere ostendit et ad praelectiones suas in Academia Fridericiana Buezzoviensi sequenti semestri hyemali b.cD. instituendas officissime invitat, Buezzovii [Bützow]: J. G. Fritz. (1763), “Beschreibung des heiligen Dammes bey Dobberan und Rehdewisch, und eine Muthmaßung über den Ursprung desselben,” Gelehrte Beyträge zu den MecklenburgSchwerinschen Nachrichten: 183–94. (1763), Dissertatio physica de caussa fluxus siphonis bicruralis in vacuo continuati. Quam annuente deo T.O.M. consensu amplissimae facultatis philosophicae in Academia Fridericiana Buezoviensie anno MDCCLXIII. Die XVI julii H. L. Q. C., Buezzovii [Bützow]. (1764), “Beschreibung des heiligen Dammes bey Dobberan und Rehdewisch, und eine Muthmaßung über den Ursprung desselben,” Neue Sammlung verschiedener in die Cameralwissenschaften einschlagender Abhandlungen und Urkunden, auch anderer Nachrichten, Bützow & Wismar (Reprint): 491–512. (1764), “Ob eine Gegend oder ein Ort gesunder sey, als ein anderer?,” Gelehrte Beyträge zu den Mecklenburg-Schwerinschen Nachrichten: 74–80. (1764), “Von dem Mecklenburgischen magnetischen Sande,” Gelehrte Beyträge zu den Mecklenburg-Schwerinschen Nachrichten: 165–72. (1764), “Von dem Ursprung der Romanen,” Gelehrte Beyträge zu den MecklenburgSchwerinschen Nachrichten: 142–8. (1765), “Ein Schreiben über die Eigenschaften der Zahl neun,” Nachrichten vom baltischen Meere aus dem Reiche der Gelehrsamkeit, der Sittenlehre, der Haushaltungskunde der schönen Wissenschaften und Künste, den gemeinen Nutzen zu befördern [Reported by Kordes 1797, p. 327]. (1765), Natalem Friderici ducis regnantis Mecklenburgici serenissimi ducis et domini nostri clementissimi die IX. novembris MDCCLXV. Fauste redeuntem in schola provinciali huius loci pie celebrandum indicit, Buezzovii [Bützow]: J. G. Fritz. (1765), “Vom Zugwinde,” Gelehrte Beyträge zu den Mecklenburg-Schwerinschen Nachrichten: 149–56.

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(1766), Beschreibung der auf dem Pädagogio zu Bützow eingeführten Lebart, und übrigen Einrichtung, Bützow. (1766), “Meteorologische Beobachtungen,” Gelehrte Beyträge zu den MecklenburgSchwerinschen Nachrichten [Reported by Kordes 1797, p. 327]. (1766), Programma de ratione in scholis publice docendi, sic quidem, ut quamquam discipuli adsunt numero plures ingenio et provectibus diversi, ab uno magistro simul instituendi, non minus tamen singuli proficiant, quam si quisque privatim edoceatur, Bützow [Reported by Hamberger 1800, p. 27]. (1766), Quum natalis Friderici serenissimi ducis regnantis Meckleburgici principis vandaliae suerini ac raceburg comitis suerinensis terrarum rostochii atque star-gardiae domini ducis ac domini nostri clementissimi v. iduum novembris MDCCLXVI. Fauste redibat hunc diem in Paedagogio ducali huius loci pie celebrandum indicebat, Buezzovii [Bützow]. (1766), “Sammlung einiger Erfahrungen über die Beschaffenheit der Winde,” Gelehrte Beyträge zu den Mecklenburg-Schwerinschen Nachrichten: 33–8. (1766), “Sammlung einiger Erfahrungen über die Beschaffenheit der Winde,” SchleswigHollsteinische Anzeigen von politischen, gelehrten, und andern Sachen (Reprint): 387–92, 401–8, 417–24. (1766), “Von der Einpfropfung der Blattern,” Gelehrte Beyträge zu den MecklenburgSchwerinschen Nachrichten [Reported by Kordes 1797, p. 327]. (1767), “Auszug aus meteorologischen Beobachtungen, von dem Monath März des vorigen Jahrs 1766 an,” Gelehrte Beyträge zu den Mecklenburg-Schwerinschen Nachrichten: 129–35. (1767), Natalem Friderici serenissimi ducis regnantis Mecklenburgici principis vandaliae suerini ac raceburgi comitis suerinensis, terrarum rostochii atque star-gardiae domini, ducis ac domini nostri clementissimi V. iduum novembris CIↃ IↃ CC LXVII. Quinquagesima vice B. C. D. Fauste redeuntem in Paedagogio ducali huius loci pie celebrandum indicit, Buezzovii [Bützow]. (1767), Programma in natalem Ducis, Buezzovii [Bützow]. (1768), “Nachricht von einem eingeschlagenen Gewitter,” Gelehrte Beyträge zu den Mecklenburg-Schwerinschen Nachrichten: 187–95. (1768), “Wetter-Betrachtungen zu Bützow, vom May 1766 bis ans Ende des Februars 1767,” Gelehrte Beyträge zu den Mecklenburg-Schwerinschen Nachrichten: 101–8. (1768), Zur Feyer des höchsten Geburts-Tages Sr. Herzoglichen Durchlaucht. Herrn Friederichs, Regierenden Herzogs zu Mecklenburg, Fürsten zu Wenden, Schwerin und Ratzeburg, auch Grafen zu Schwerin, der Lande Rostock und Stargard Herrn, unsers gnädigsten Herzog und Herrn auf dem Herzogl. Paedagogium zu Bützow ladet alle Gönner und Freunde dieser Schule geziemend ein, Bützow: Johann Gotthelf Fritze. (1769), “Von einigen neuen Vorschlägen zur Beschützung für das Einschlagen des Gewitters,” Gelehrte Beyträge zu den Mecklenburg-Schwerinschen Nachrichten: 153–64. (1770), “Über die neuern Vorschläge zur Beschützung für das Einschlagen des Blitzes. Zweyter Aufsatz,” Gelehrte Beyträge zu den Mecklenburg-Schwerinschen Nachrichten: 121–38. (1771), “Über die neuern Vorschläge zur Beschützung vor dem Einschlagen des Blitzes. Dritter Aufsatz,” Gelehrte Beyträge zu den Mecklenburg-Schwerinschen Nachrichten: 187–202.

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(1772), “Über die neuern Vorschläge zur Beschützung vor dem Einschlagen des Blitzes. Vierter Aufsatz,” Gelehrte Beyträge zu den Mecklenburg-Schwerinschen Nachrichten: 4–23. (1773), “Additamentum ad praelectionem decimam quintam, continens elementa dynamices,” in Iensenii Kraftii potentissimo daniae regi quondam a consiliis iustitiae et professoris matheseos in Academia Equestri Sorana mechanica latine reddita et avcta CVM TABULIS AENEIS, trans. Johann Nicolaus Tetens: 325–91, Buezzovii & Wismariae [Bützow & Wismar]: Bergerum et Boederum. (1773), [trans. by Tetens] Iensenii Kraftii potentissimo daniae regi quondam a consiliis iustitiae et professoris matheseos in Academia Equestri Sorana mechanica latine reddita et avcta CVM TABVLIS AENEIS, Buezzovii & Wismariae [Bützow & Wismar]: Bergerum et Boederum. (1773), “Praemonitum ad lectorem,” in Iensenii Kraftii potentissimo daniae regi quondam a consiliis iustitiae et professoris matheseos in Academia Equestri Sorana mechanica latine reddita et avcta CVM TABULIS AENEIS, trans. Johann Nicolaus Tetens: 22–31, Buezzovii & Wismariae [Bützow & Wismar]: Bergerum et Boederum. (1773), “Über den Einfluß des Mondes in die Witterung,” Gelehrte Beyträge zu den Mecklenburg-Schwerinschen Nachrichten: 179–98. (1773), “Von der Sicherung seiner Person bey einem Gewitter. Als der fünfte und letzte Aufsatz über die neuern Vorschläge zur Beschützung vor dem Einschlagen des Blitzes,” Gelehrte Beyträge zu den Mecklenburg-Schwerinschen Nachrichten: 21–36. (1774), Rede, an dem höchsten Vermählungs-Tage Ihro Königlichen Hoheiten, des Durchlauchtigsten Fürsten und Herrn, Herrn Friederichs, Erbprinzen zu Dännemark und Norwegen, der Wenden und Gothen, Herzogs zu Schleswig, HOlstein, Storman und der Ditmarsen, Grafen zu Oldenburg und Delmenhorst, mit der Durchlauchtigsten Prinzessin Sophia Friederica, gebohrner Herzoginn zu Mecklenburg, Fürstinn zu Wenden, Schwerin und Ratzeburg, auch Gräfinn zu Schwerin, der Lande Rostock und Stargard Frauen, am 11ten des Weinmonaths 1774, auf der Friederichs-Universität zu Bützow gehalten, Bützow. (1774), Ueber die beste Sicherung seiner Person bey einem Gewitter, Bützow & Wismar: Berger & Boedner. (1775), “Einige Bemerkungen über den Gebrauch der Wettergläser, besonders auf dem Lande,” Gelehrte Beyträge zu den Mecklenburg-Schwerinschen Nachrichten: 169–76. (1775), Schreiben eines Naturforschers über die Magnetcuren [Reported by Kordes 1797, p. 328]. (1780), “Auflösung des Problems, betreffend die Friction auf der geneigten Fläche,” Kielisches Litteratur-Journal [Reported by Kordes 1797, p. 329]. (1780), “[Review of] Die Freyheit der Schiffahrt und Handlung neutraler Völker im Kriege, nach dem allgemeinen und dem europäischen Völkerrechte, so wie nach den Verträgen betrachtet. Ein historischer und rechtlicher Versuch zur Aufklärung der Streitigkeiten zwischen den kriegsführenden Mächten und neutralen Staaten, wegen des freyen Seehandels. Aus dem Französischen. Leipzig im Schwickertschen Verlage 1780, 206 Seiten in 8.,” Kielisches Litteratur-Journal, 1: 532–9. (1780), “[Review of Christian Carl Lous:] Zuverlässiger Bericht von der bey Anlegung einer neuen Allgemeinen Witwen-Casse für die Königl. Dänische Staaten

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Mechanik, aus der lateinischen mit Zusätzen vermehrten Übersetzung des Herrn Prof. Tetens ins Deutsche übersetzt und hin und wieder verbessert von Johann Christian August Steingrüber, trans. Johann Nicolaus Tetens: xxxi–xlv, Dresden: Walther. (1787), “Zusatz. zur funfzehnten Vorlesung. Anfangsgründe der Dynamik,” in Jens Krafts, vormaligen Königl. Dänischen Justizraths und öffentlichen Lehrers der Mathematik auf der Ritterakademie zu Soroe, Mechanik, aus der lateinischen mit Zusätzen vermehrten Übersetzung des Herrn Prof. Tetens ins Deutsche übersetzt und hin und wieder verbessert von Johann Christian August Steingrüber, trans. Johann Nicolaus Tetens: 657–803, Dresden: Walther. (1788), “Bemerkungen über die einländischen Marschen über das Eigene ihrer verschiedenen Bezirke und den Karakter ihrer Bewohner,” Schleswig-Holsteinische Provinzialberichte, 2 (2): 350–75. (1788), “Formula polynomiorum. En almindelig Formel for Coefficienterne udi Polynomier,” Nye Samling af det Kongelige Danske Videnskabers Selskabs Skrivter, 4: 253–86. (1788), “Integration af logarithmiske Differentialer af den Form ezdx, hvor z er en Function af x,” Nye Samling af det Kongelige Danske Videnskabers Selskabs Skrivter, 3: 498–516. (1788), “Über den jezigen dänischen Geldcours und die Münzveränderung in den Herzogthümern Schleswig und Holstein,” Schleswig-Holsteinische Provinzialberichte, 2 (1): 196–276. (1789), “Anmerkungen zu der vorstehenden Abhandlung des Herrn D. Price vom öffentlichen Credit und Nationalschulden,” in Valentin August Heinze (ed.), Sammlungen zur Geschichte und Statswissenschaft, vol. 1: 203–60, Göttingen. (1790), “Nogle Anmærkninger over Anvendelsen af den synkende Fond,” Minerva, et Maanedsskrivt, 1: 346–66. (1790), “Om Indretningen af en regelmæssig Gields-Afbetaling ved Communer,” Minerva, et Maanedsskrivt, 4: 346–66. (1791), “Af et Brev til Udiveren af den Slesvig-Holsteenske Special-Calender fra 1791,” Minerva, et Maanedsskrivt, 1: 266–71. (1791), “Einige Bemerkungen über die Anwendung des sinkenden Fonds. Vorgelesen in der Gesellschaft der Wissenschaften zu Kopenhagen den 5ten März 1790,” in Valentin August Heinze (ed.), Sammlungen zur Geschichte und Staatswissenschaft, vol. 2: 203–60, Göttingen: Vandenhoek & Ruprecht. (1791), “Freiheitsgeschichte Dänemarks,” Neues Deutsches Museum, 4 (3): 229–70. (1793), “Arithmetisk Problem, angaaende Anvandelse af de synkende Fonds,” Nye Samling af det Kongelige Danske Videnskabers Selskabs Skrivter, 4: 310–46. (1793), “Hvorledes det mindre Antal kann udgiøre fleste Stemmer? tilligemed nogle Anmærkninger over Rousseaus Contract social, of over den nyere franske Statsret,” Minerva, et Maanedsskrivt, 2: 64–109, 332–76; 3: 1–41. (1793), Ueber die letzten Veränderungen mit der Bank und dem Geldwesen in Dännemark. Nebst einigen allgemeinen Untersuchungen betreffend wesentliche Punkte bey Leihbanken an dern Herrn Matthias von Drateln, Kopenhagen: C. G. Proft. (1795), [Lous, Christian Carl, trans. by Tetens] Einige Versuche und Vorschläge betreffend die Theorie der Navigation um sie vollkommener und ihre Anwendung auf der See

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sicherer zu machen. Uebersetzt aus dem Dänischen, trans. Johann Nicolaus Tetens [anonymously], Kiel: Verlag der Köngichlen Schulbuchhandlung. (1795), “Preisaufgabe. Was wird erfordert zu einer völlig zweckmäßigen Brand-Anstalt in größeren Städten?,” Intelligenzblatt der allgemeinen Literatur-Zeitung vom Jahre 1795, 106 (September 23): 854–6. (1795), “Was wird erfordert zu einer völlig zweckmäßigen Brandanstalt in grösseren Städten? (Eine Preisfrage.),” Schleswig-Holsteinische Provinzialberichte, 9 (2): 224–7. (1796), Der polynomische Lehrsatz, das wichtigste Theorem der ganzen Analysis, Neu bearbeitet und hergestellt von Tetens, Klügel, Kramp, Pfaff und Hindenburg. Zum Druck befördert und mit Anmerkungen […] versehen von Carl Friedrich Hindenburg, Leipzig: G. Fleischer. (1796), “FORMULA POLYNOMIORUM. Eine allgemeine Formel für die Potenzen mertheiliger Größen,” in Der polynomische Lehrsatz das wichtigste Theorem der ganzen Analysis nebst einigen verwandten und andern Sätzen. Neu bearbeitet und dargestellt von Tetens, Klügel, Kramp, Pfaff und Hindenburg, Zum Druck befördert und mit Anmerkungen, auch einem kurzen Abrisse der combinatorischen Methode und ihrer Anwendung auf die Analzysis versehen von Carl Friedrich Hindenburg: 1–47, Leipzig: Gerhard Fleischer dem Jüngern. (1796), Plan einer algemeinen Versorgungs-Anstalt zu Copenhagen unter Sr. Königl. Majestät allerhöchster Garantie, Kopenhagen: Hofbuchdrucken N. Moller und Sohn. (1796), Plan til en almindelig Forsørgelses Anstalt, oprettet i Kjøbenhavn under Hans Kongel. Majestæts allerhøieste garantie, Kiøbenhavn [Copenhagen]: N. Møller. (1798), “Formula Polynomiorum. Eine allgemeine Formel für die Coefficienten der Polynomien,” in Physikalishe, chemische, naturhistorische und mathematische Abhandlungen aus der neuen Sammlung der Schriften der kgl. dänischen Gesellschaft der Wissenschaften, trans. Paul Scheel and Carl Ferdinand Degen: 1 (1): 111–52. (1799), “Astronomische Bestimmung der Lage der meisten Kirchen in den schleswigholsteinischen und einigen angrenzenden Städten und Örtern, nach den von der Kopenhagener Gesellschaft der Wissenschaften veranstalteten Beobachtungen,” Schleswig-Holsteinische Blätter für Polizei und Kultur, 1: supplement to 305. (1799), “Formula polynomiorum. En almindelig Formel for Coefficienterne udi Polynomier,” Nye Samling af det Kongelige Danske Videnskabers Selskabs Skrivter, 5: 253–86. (1799), “Om Fleerheden af collective Stemmer, og Probabiliteten af samme,” Nye Samling af det Kongelige Danske Videnskabers Selskabs Skrivter, 5: 116–43. (1800), Plan til en Tontine, eller et Livrente-societet, oprettet i København. Under Hs. Kgl. Maj.s allerhøieste Garantie, [June 28, 1800], Kiøbenhavn [Copenhagen]: Schulz. (1800), Plan zu einer Tontine, oder Leibrenten-societet, zu Copenhagen. Unter Sr. Kön. Maj. allerhöchsten Garantie, [June 28, 1800], Kopenhagen: Schulz. (1802), Betrachtungen über die gegenseitigen Befugnisse der kriegführenden Mächte und der Neutralen auf der See, Kiel: Neue academische Buchhandlung. (1802), Efterretning om Tilstanden af den almindelige Enke-Kasse i Kjøbenhavn ved Slutningen af Aaret 1797, samt almindelige Anmærkninger over Forsikkrings-Anstalter i Livs- og Døds-Tilfælde i Almindelighed. Oversat af Niels Søndergaard, Kjøbenhavn [Copenhagen]: C. G. Proft.

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(1803), Nachricht von dem Zustande der allgemeinen Wittwen-Casse zu Copenhagenam Schlusz des Jahrs 1797, mit einigen Bemerkungen über Versicherungs-Anstalten auf Lebens- und Sterbens-Fälle, und die Art zu prüffen, Copenhagen: Proft. (1805), Considérations sur les droits réciproques des puissances belligérantes et des puissances neutres sur mer: avec les principes du droit de guerre en général, Copenhague [Copenhagen]: Brummer. (1823), “Almindelige Bemærkninger over Papiirpengenes Natur, over den Grund, hvorpaa deres Værdi beroer, isærdeleshed med Hensyn paa Pengevæsenet i Danmark (Skrevne i 1803),” Det Skandinaviske Literaturselskabs Skrifter, 19: 303–38.

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Selected Secondary Literature The following list includes some recent scholarship on Tetens’s philosophy, as well as older works of special significance. For additional bibliographies of the secondary literature on Tetens, consult Krouglov 2008, pp. 369–88; Tetens 1971, pp. 238–45; Tetens 2005, vol. 2, pp. 658–61; Tetens 2014, pp. 911–21; Tetens 2015, pp. cxxxiii– cxlviii; and, Tetens 2017, pp. xlii–xlvi. Allison, Henry E. (2015), Kant’s Transcendental Deduction: An Analytical-Historical Commentary, Oxford: Oxford University Press. Anderson, Abraham (2020), Kant, Hume, and the Interruption of Dogmatic Slumber, Oxford: Oxford University Press. Araujo, Saulo de Freitas and Monalisa Lauro (2018), “A natureza da psicologia nos Ensaios filosóficos (1777) de Johann Nicolaus Tetens,” Revista de Psicología, 27 (1): 1–12. Barnouw, Jeffrey (1979), “The Philosophical Achievement and Historical Significance of Johann Nicolas Tetens,” Studies in Eighteenth-Century Culture, 9: 301–35. Barnouw, Jeffrey (1983), “Psychologie empirique et épistémologie dans les ‘Philosophische Versuche’ de Tetens,” Archives de Philosophie, 46 (2): 271–89. Barth, Roderich (2014), “Psychologie der ersten Ursache: Tetens’ rationaltheologischer Umgang mit der Krise des Theismus,” in Gideon Stiening and Udo Thiel (eds.), Johann Nikolaus Tetens (1736–1807): Philosophie in der Tradition des europäischen Empirismus: 63–76, Berlin: De Gruyter. Baumanns, Peter (1997), Kants Philosophie der Erkenntnis: Durchgehender Kommentar zu den Hauptkapiteln der “Kritik der reinen Vernunft,” Würzberg: Königshausen & Neumann. Baumgarten, Hans-Ulrich (1992), Kant und Tetens: Untersuchungen zum Problem von Vorstellung und Gegenstand, Stuttgart: M und P, Verlag für Wissenchaft und Forschung. Beck, Lewis White (1969), Early German Philosophy: Kant and His Predecessors, Cambridge, MA: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press. Beck, Lewis White (1993), “From Leibniz to Kant,” in Robert C. Solomon and Kathleen Marie Higgins (eds.), The Age of German Idealism: 5–39, London and New York: Routledge. Blomme, Henny (2018), “Sur la voie de la formulation du problème de l’objectivité: Concepts premiers et réforme de la métaphysique chez Tetens et Kant,” Astérion, 18. https://doi.org/10.4000/asterion.3126. Accessed on February 5, 2021. Boer, Karin de (2011), “Transformations of Transcendental Philosophy: Wolff, Kant, and Hegel,” Bulletin of the Hegel Society of Great Britain, 63: 50–79. Carl, Wolfgang (1989), Der schweigende Kant: Die Entwürfe zu einer Deduktion der Kategorien vor 1781, Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht. Carl, Wolfgang (1992), Die Transzendentale Deduktion der Kategorien in der ersten Auflage der Kritik der reinen Vernunft: Ein Kommentar, Frankfurt am Main: Vittorio Klostermann. Chance, Brian A. (2013), “Causal Powers, Hume’s Early German Critics, and Kant’s Response to Hume,” Kant-Studien, 104 (2): 213–36.

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INDEX

ability 15–26, 34, 36, 80, 83–91, 93–107, 140, 142, 144–5, 147–8, 153, 156–63, 166, 168–9, 172, 173–4, 182, 186, 192–3 abstraction 6, 12, 32, 58, 59, 74, 76, 212, 218, 223, 230–2, 233 of the understanding vs. sensible 24, 30, 170–1 agreeable 100, 103, 105, 133, 175 Agricola, Johannes 118 Akbar the Great (Abu’l-Fath Jalal-ud-din Muhammad Akbar) 155 d’Alembert, Jean la Rond 131 Anson, George 146 apperception 24, 168 Archimedes 134, 235 Aristotle 28, 39, 40, 65–6, 79, 81, 159, 213–14, 224 Arnauld, Antoine 53, 54 astronomy 8, 13, 27, 40, 50, 65, 76, 127, 198, 200, 203, 206, 207, 239 attention 6, 88, 94, 100, 104, 105, 142, 179, 233 Augustine 116 Ausonius, Decimius Magnus 103 avarice 83, 96, 97, 148 Bacon, Francis 4, 17, 28, 59, 204, 210–12, 231, 239 Barrere, Pierre 144 Baumgarten, Alexander Gottlieb 3, 5–7, 9, 32–6, 43, 47, 49, 55, 67, 77–8, 82, 85, 90, 102–4, 161, 184, 191, 206, 210–11 Bayle, Pierre 67 Beattie, James 201–3, 240 beauty 103, 126 benefit (use) 19, 132–6 Bentley, Richard 110 Berkeley, George 5, 65, 202

Bodin, Jean 39 Bonnet, Charles 4, 7, 90, 180, 195–6, 205 Boyle, Robert 201 Brucker, Johann Jakob 225 causality 30, 59, 60, 73, 200, 213, 215, 224, 213, 233–4, 238 Cerutti, Giuseppe Antonio Giachimo 139 character 11, 17, 18, 19, 20, 23, 34–5, 39, 40, 43, 87, 96–7, 101, 104–5, 142, 144, 163 Charlevoix, Pierre François Xavier de 155 children 22, 24, 26, 86–9, 118, 142, 153–4, 156–7, 158, 159, 164, 165, 169–70, 171–2, 179, 181, 182, 190–1, 192, 193, 198 feral 23, 154–5, 160, 173, 175 choleric temperament See temperament Cicero 40, 84, 103, 117, 150, 189, 195 circumstance, external 15–16, 18, 20, 24–5, 33, 46, 83–91, 98, 116, 124, 133, 147, 153, 155–7, 163–4, 174–6, 181–3, 187, 192, 198–9, 204, 215, 228–9 clarity 17, 24, 32, 53, 168, 170 intensive, extensive 17, 104, 106 Clarke, Samuel 211, 218, 237, 241 Clauberg, Johannes 113, 176 Clavius, Christopher 63 Codex argenteus (Silver Book) 110, 111 Collier, Arthur 5 concept 10, 13, 14, 15, 17, 22, 26–30, 32–3, 52–76, 162, 183, 185, 216–17 common (general) 12, 171, 173, 174, 200, 204, 212, 217–21, 228–32, 237, 238 fundamental 28, 54, 195, 202, 208–12, 219, 224, 231, 234, 236, 240, 241 realization of 28–30, 212–21, 234, 238, 241

294

transcendent 29–30, 221–8, 237 Condamine, Charles Marie de La 93, 154, 184 Condillac, Étienne Bonnot de 4, 7, 21, 192, 226, 238, 240 consciousness 17, 24, 30, 58, 87, 98–103, 144, 162, 168, 171, 185, 187, 199, 203, 219, 228 self-consciousness 24, 84, 98–103, 168, 241 contradiction, principle of 6, 28–9, 210, 213–17 Corvinus, Christian Johann Anton (Korvin) 7, 48, 52, 81 cosmology 12, 13, 48, 51, 61, 77, 206, 241 Crusius, Christian August 5, 7, 15, 32, 48, 54, 71, 207, 211, 213, 215 Cudworth, Ralph 225 Darjes, Joachim Georg 4–5, 7, 12, 82, 96–8 denied total equality, principle of 90 denied total similitude, principle of 16, 49, 90 Desaguliers, John Theophilus 115 Descartes, René 7, 14, 32, 49–50, 66–7, 72, 76, 81, 135, 150, 196, 221, 226, 240 desire, faculty of 17, 20–1, 23, 96, 98, 101, 136, 139–51, 160, 164, 166–8, 178, 202 difference (in human beings) 6, 15–17, 20, 24, 25, 34, 35, 36, 39–44, 83–91, 93–107, 142, 143, 145 Diodorus of Sicily 141, 172–3 Diogenes Laertius 225, 226 disposition 84, 141, 142–3, 145, 148, 163, 193 distinctness 14, 17, 24, 32–3, 52–8, 60, 71, 73, 76, 127, 168, 169, 213, 215, 235, 237 drive 103–4, 157–8, 164–5, 193 for honor 20–1, 139–51 for external honor 20, 140, 147–8, 150 fundamental 17, 20, 97, 99, 106, 139–40 vs. inclination 98–101 for inner worth 21, 144–8 for sensual pleasure 142, 147–9 Du Bos, Jean-Baptiste 35, 85

INDEX

Eckhard, Johann Georg von (Eccard) 113, 120–3 Empiricus, Sextus 209 Epicurus 141, 225 Erich, Johann Peter 110 Eschenbach, Johann Christian 3–6, 19, 32–6, 60, 97–8, 128 Euclid 62–3, 209, 228, 235 Euler, Leonhard 6, 12, 51, 77, 136, 218 excitability 22, 158, 160 extension 52, 58, 72, 75, 209, 218–19, 222–3, 225–7 fantasy 30, 50, 68, 93–4, 98, 116, 120, 148, 169, 210, 219–20, 224–5, 229–31, 235, 241 Feder, Johann Georg Heinrich 4, 7, 11, 202 Ferguson, Adam 156–7 Franke, August Hermann 110 Frederick The Great 141 freedom 9–10, 66, 98, 184, 196 Galen 87 Galilei, Galileo 188 Garve, Christian 10 Gellert, Christian Fürchtegott 96 genius 34, 35, 39, 84, 85, 95, 102, 106, 120, 147, 160, 241 geometry See mathematics Gisbert, Blaise 103 God 3, 27, 47, 48–9, 51, 67, 76, 80, 124, 125, 134, 137, 201, 203, 204, 206, 218, 219, 233 Gorp van der Beke, Jan van 109, 110, 187 Gottsched, Johann Christoph 102–3 Grimmelshausen, Hans Jakob Christoffel von 121 ground 54–5, 56, 58, 60, 210 of denomination 115, 120, 121, 122, 123, 124, 179, 180 of the mind (Grund des Gemüths) 43 Gruter, Jan 189 Gunnerus, Johan Ernst 67 Haller, Albrecht von 79, 132, 137, 145, 149–50, 204 Haltaus, Christian Gottlob 118 Hamann, Johann Georg 9, 21

INDEX

happiness 19, 47, 49, 80, 87, 100, 106, 132, 133, 144 Hardt, Hermann von der 110 Hegel, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich 8 Helvétius 16, 84–5, 91, 147 Herder, Johann Gottfried 9 Herodotus 154–5 Herz, Marcus 9–10 Hippocrates 87 Hobbes, Thomas 14, 23, 44 Home, Henry Lord Kames 159, 201, 240 Homer 114 honor 17, 20–1, 83, 96–7, 105, 106, 139–51 Horace 121 Hottentot 94 Hume, David 4, 7, 29–30, 60, 162, 195, 197, 201–3, 211, 220, 232–4, 238, 240 humors 87, 96 idea(s) 17, 26, 29, 33, 89, 90, 94, 98–100, 104, 105, 106, 116, 123, 140, 161, 162, 168, 171, 196, 197, 198, 209, 213, 217, 223, 226, 229, 231–2, 233 association of 229, 234 of instruction 232 pure, of sensation 30, 212, 228, 229, 230, 231 of reason(ing) 30, 218, 230 of reflection 30, 229 simple vs. compound 52–3, 56, 57, 58–63, 68–71, 158 imagination 10, 24, 40, 45, 53, 57, 78, 95, 99, 102, 104–5, 109, 119, 132–4, 142, 144, 150, 159–60, 169–71, 174, 177, 179, 183, 189, 199, 211, 218–20, 228–30 imitation 23–4, 113, 159–63, 165, 166, 168, 175–6, 178, 183 inclination 16–17, 20–1, 39, 43, 83–91, 93–107, 139–41, 143, 146–51 chief or dominant 16–17, 83, 87, 93–107, 141, 147–8 vs. drive 98–101 infinite divisibility 53, 72–3, 75 innate 15–16, 21, 29, 35, 83–91, 106, 117, 141, 142, 151, 156–7, 161, 192–3, 223

295

instincts 158, 163, 175 invention 23–6, 30, 32, 50, 76, 79, 153, 156, 160, 164, 165, 167, 184, 185, 186–91, 194, 229, 230, 231 Jacquet, Pierre Louis 139 Kant, Immanuel 4, 8–13, 31, 35–6, 55, 77, 87, 133, 161, 197, 204, 209, 213, 215, 218–19, 221–4, 237 Kindermann, Eberhard Christian 40 Kleist, Ewald Christian von 96 Kraft, Jens 163 Krüger, Johann Gottlob 4, 41, 78, 141 Lambert, Johann Heinrich 7, 9–10, 30, 50, 59, 198, 202, 213, 216, 237 Leibniz, Gottfried Wilhelm 3, 6–8, 14, 17, 29, 32, 47, 49–50, 54, 62, 65–6, 68–70, 78, 84, 99–100, 103, 109–16, 119, 121, 123, 155, 161, 175–7, 180, 196, 211, 215, 218–20, 222–3, 225–7, 235, 237–8, 240–1 Locke, John 4–5, 7, 12, 14, 28, 30, 49, 52, 56, 58–9, 68, 94, 116, 158, 171, 195, 197, 204, 211–12, 220, 226, 232–4, 237–41 logomachy 6, 55, 61, 63, 67, 69 Löscher, Valentin Ernst 113 magnitude 16–17, 20, 34, 51, 52–3, 56, 85, 86, 88, 93–5, 99, 101–4, 120, 133, 142–4, 192–3, 207, 209 intensive 143, 146 Malebranche, Nicolas 7, 196, 228, 233 Mantzel, Johann Friedrich 129 mathematics 6, 12–14, 27, 30, 35, 44, 50–7, 62–3, 69, 70, 73–7, 82, 133, 135, 196, 202–4, 206–8, 224, 235–6, 239, 240 Maupertuis, Pierre Louis Moreau de 14, 61 Meier, Georg Friedrich 16, 32, 34–5, 43, 81, 85, 96, 101 Meier, Gerhard 113–14, 119, 175, 177 melancholic temperament See temperament memory 94, 102 Mendelssohn, Moses 5, 9–11, 237 mentality 16–17, 34–5, 85, 95, 101

296

metaphysics 5, 6–8, 12–15, 17–18, 25, 27–30, 47–82, 134, 182, 196, 200–28, 234–41 Michaelis, Johann David 125–6 mimetic faculty See imitation Molière (Jean-Baptiste Poquelin) 141 monads 5, 62, 68, 75, 99, 225, 227 Montesquieu 11, 39, 41, 46 moral science 20, 87, 133, 136, 140 More, Henry 218 Mosheim, Johann Lorenz von 225 mother wit See wit names, proper vs. improper 18, 116, 119, 122 natural state See state of nature Neumann, Caspar 113 Newton, Isaac 6, 13, 41, 50, 76, 115, 155, 203, 218, 239 Nicole, Pierre 53–4 Nifo, Agostino 65 nothing 12, 29, 54–5, 59, 60, 210, 211, 213, 215, 217, 218 operation, mental 22, 24, 78, 94, 97, 99–100, 104, 142, 161, 162, 164, 169, 174, 182, 194, 195–6, 212, 239, 241 optics 8, 13, 27, 50, 76, 205 orrery 115 Oswald, James 201–3 Ovid 95 Pelletier, Jacques 63 perfection 6, 17, 21, 26, 41, 50, 76–7, 79, 87, 97, 100–1, 103, 124, 128, 133, 140, 144, 145, 147, 196, 218, 232 Pezron, Paul-Yves 110 philosophy common 19, 127 corporeal vs. intellectual 27, 206–7 observational 30, 195, 196, 229, 232, 238, 240 speculative 195, 202–3, 206, 207, 228, 234–40 transcendent 27, 29, 201, 206, 207, 217, 232, 240 phlegmatic temperament See temperament pictures 100, 112, 150, 161, 170, 174, 179, 188, 197, 218, 221, 225, 228–31, 237

INDEX

general 30, 170–1, 230 Plato 11, 39, 113, 117, 120, 124, 126, 151, 176–7, 225 Plattner, Ernst 7 poetic faculty, power 10, 23, 30, 32, 94, 95, 102, 158–60, 167, 191, 229, 232 Pontoppidan, Erik 154 Pope, Alexander 120, 144, 199 Port Royal Logic 53, 54 possibility vs. impossibility 6, 15, 28, 59, 60, 72–6, 214–15, 231 power 56, 61, 68, 74–5, 80, 95–6, 161, 210, 217, 231, 237 cognitive or of the soul 36, 71, 80, 87–9, 93, 95–6, 98, 99, 101, 133, 140–8, 153, 161, 192, 195–6, 198, 204, 217 of imagination (see imagination) of invention 165, 167, 184, 191 of judgment (see thinking power) of thought (see thinking power) Prasch, Johann Ludwig 110 predisposition 105, 156, 157, 159, 166, 194 pre-established harmony 68, 90 principle, formal vs. material 28, 213 Proclus 228 Profe, Gottfried 60, 64–5, 184 proficiency 26, 34–6, 87, 105, 118, 134, 163, 169–70, 192, 198–9 proportion, of mental abilities 16, 17, 20, 34, 85, 89, 93, 94, 95, 101, 102, 142 Psamtik I (Psammetichus) 154–5 psychology 7, 13, 22, 30, 41, 48, 52, 58, 68, 78, 85, 87, 89, 95, 104, 192, 197, 199, 206, 207, 229 Pythagoras 50 Quintilian 103, 154–5 quipu 188, 191 Raphson, Joseph 218 reality 5, 27–8, 29, 30, 60, 73, 90, 202, 207, 208–12, 218–19, 220, 230, 231–2, 241 reason 22–3, 24, 27, 30, 54, 80, 88, 93, 94–5, 100, 103, 124, 133, 153, 160–2, 164, 167, 168–70, 172, 173, 178, 187, 194, 200, 201, 203–5, 210, 212, 213, 216, 224–5, 230, 238 Reid, Thomas 4, 109, 201, 203, 240

INDEX

reflection 20, 23–6, 30, 77, 88, 100, 101, 143–4, 153, 160, 162, 167, 168–70, 171, 174, 178, 185, 194, 198–9, 202, 203, 204, 205, 217, 220, 222, 225, 229, 230, 232, 233, 240 Reimarus, Hermann Samuel 7, 72, 82, 161 representation, power of 17, 68, 75, 86, 88–90, 100, 103–4, 105–6, 112, 143, 146, 148, 159–61, 164, 165, 169, 170, 215, 241 revelation 48, 80 Rousseau, Jean-Jacques 21, 23, 44 Rudbeck, Olof 110, 125 Saint-Denis, Charles de Marguetel de (St Évremond) 79 sanguine temperament See temperament Schütze, Gottfried 11, 40, 45, 46 Segner, Johann Andreas 8, 51, 63, 82 Seneca 40, 189, 203 sensation 29–30, 58–61, 77–8, 94, 98–100, 103, 147, 158, 161, 166, 167–70, 198–200, 202, 209, 212, 220–34, 237–8, 241 inner vs. outer 29, 159–62 simple 58–9 sensuality 83, 96, 97, 141, 143, 147 soul 17, 34, 47, 71, 75, 78–9, 84, 85, 89–90, 93–5, 97–101, 103, 132, 145, 148, 157, 161, 195–6, 206, 223–5 ground of 43 space 29, 52, 60, 61, 200, 201, 209, 210, 211, 217–19, 223, 226, 231 Spinoza, Baruch 67, 218, 240 spontaneity 23, 30, 98, 153, 157, 160, 172, 192, 193, 196, 229, 230 Stahl, Georg Ernst 87 state of nature 156–7 Stevin, Simon 62 Stiernhielm, Georg 110, 125, 126 Süßmilch, Johann Peter 22 substance 6, 15, 50, 57, 58, 62, 67, 68, 71, 74–5, 78, 80, 97, 224, 226, 227, 231 sufficient reason, principle of 5, 49, 54–5, 211, 215, 221, 241 Sulzer, Johann Georg 22, 85, 94, 97, 100, 114, 183 Swift, Jonathan 93

297

Tacitus, Publius Cornelius 40, 43, 121, 189 Tartuffe 141 Taubmann, Friedrich 151 Telliamed 154 temperament 6, 16–17, 20–1, 34, 87–8, 96–7, 101, 104–6, 141–6 theology 8, 13–14, 27, 48, 77, 80, 201, 206, 207 thinking power 71, 94, 98, 161–2, 169, 171, 194, 199, 208, 213, 214–17, 220, 221–4, 228, 229 Thomasius, Christian 31, 47, 81, 87, 96–7 Tibullus, Albius 150 Tiedemann, Dietrich 22 Tönnies, Johann Heinrich 14, 59, 70 Tschirnhaus, Ehrenfried Walther von 240 Tucker, Abraham (Edward Search) 7, 240 Tulp, Nicolaes 163 Tyronian notes 189 Ulfilas 111, 112, 124, 126 unity 59, 62–3, 100, 218 universal characteristic 59, 69 virtue 6, 20, 96, 97, 133, 136, 137, 145, 150 Volquarts, George 15, 83–4 Walch, Johann Georg 87, 96 Wegelin, Jakob Daniel 131 Weissenburg, Otfrid of 118 will 71, 98, 159 Winckelmann, Johann Joachim 127 wit 36, 44, 46, 68, 79, 94, 102, 109, 110, 116, 164, 165, 170, 173, 174, 179, 182, 185, 188, 191, 193, 194, 199 mother 49, 85–6, 90, 95, 127 Wolff, Christian 3–7, 9, 12–15, 24, 31–6, 47–9, 51–6, 60–1, 63, 65–7, 69, 77, 90, 97, 102–3, 161, 183, 196–7, 206–7, 210–11, 213–15, 218–19, 221–2, 227, 235, 240–1 world 6, 47–8, 65, 66, 68, 78, 126, 137, 201, 206, 218 writing, alphabetic 186–92

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