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