that every object, whatever its origin may be, is as object already conditioned by the subject, is in fact merely its idea. The aim of realism is indeed the object without subject; but it is impossible even to conceive such an object distinctly.
From this whole inquiry it follows with certainty and distinctness that it is absolutely impossible to attain to the comprehension of the inner nature of things upon the path of mere knowledge and perception. For knowledge always comes to things from without, and therefore must for ever remain outside them. This end would only be reached if we could find ourselves in the inside of things, so that their inner nature would be known to us directly. Now, how far this is actually the case is considered in my second book. But so long as we are concerned, as in this first book, with objective comprehension, that is, with knowledge, the world is, and remains for us, a mere idea, for here there is no possible path by which we can cross over to it.
But, besides this, a firm grasp of the point of view of idealism is a necessary counterpoise to that of materialism. The controversy concerning the real and the ideal may also be regarded as a controversy concerning the existence of matter. For it is the reality or ideality of this that is ultimately in question. Does matter, as such, exist only in our idea, or does it also exist independently of it? In the latter case it would be the thing in itself; and whoever assumes a self-existent matter must also, consistently, be a materialist, i.e., he must make matter the principle of explanation of all things. Whoever, on the contrary, denies its existence as a thing in itself is eo ipso an idealist. Among the moderns only Locke has definitely and without ambiguity asserted the reality of matter; and therefore his teaching led, in the hands of Condillac, to the sensualism and materialism of the French. Only Berkeley directly and without modifications denies matter. The complete antithesis is thus that of idealism and materialism, represented in its extremes by Berkeley and the
