menu_book Chapter 3

section three of dreams of a spirit seer by immanuel kant translated by immanuel gerwitz this librivox recording is in the public domain third chapter anti kabbalah a fragment of common philosophy aiming to abolish communion with the spirit world aristotle says somewhere when we are awake we have a common world but when we dream everybody has his own it seems to me that it ought to be possible to reverse this latter proposition and say if among different human beings every one has his own world it may be supposed that they dream with this understanding we will view the various imaginary worlds of these air architects which each one inhabits quietly to the exclusion of others behold for example him who inhabits the order of things as it was framed by wolf out of but little building material obtained from experience but many conceptions gotten on the sly or we will view those who inhabit the world produced by cruzius out of nothing by means of a few magical sayings about the thinkable and the unthinkable and as we find that their visions are contradictory we will patiently wait until the gentlemen have finished dreaming

For if at some time by the will of God they wake up, that is, open their eyes to such a view as does not exclude conformity with other people's common sense, then none of them will see anything that does not appear evident and certain in the light of their proofs to others also, and the philosophers will then inhabit a common world of the kind which mathematicians have already occupied for a long time. And this event cannot be delayed much longer if certain signs and predictions, which for some time have appeared over the horizon of science, can be trusted. Reason dreamers have a certain relation with sensation dreamers, among whom are usually counted those who occasionally deal with spirits. The reason is that they too, like the former,

see something which no other healthy man sees, and have a communication of their own with beings which reveal themselves to nobody else, however keen the other's senses may be. If one supposes that the above-named apparitions rest upon mere fancies,

the term dreams then becomes appropriate to them, insofar as both are self-created pictures, which nevertheless deceive the senses as if they were true objects. But if one imagines both kinds of deception to be so similar in their origin that the source of the one will be found sufficient for the other,

he is greatly deceived. The man who, while awake, becomes so absorbed in the fancies and chimeras created by his ever-active imagination as to pay little attention to the sensations of the senses, with which he is mostly concerned at that moment,

is justly called a waking dreamer. for the sensations of the senses need decrease only a little more in their intensity and he will be asleep and his chimeras will then be true dreams the reason why there are no dreams while the dreamer pursues them awake

is because he then perceives the dreams as in himself but other objects as outside of himself consequently he considers the dreams as effects of his own activity but the perception of objects as part of his received impressions from the outside for in this situation everything depends upon the relation

which man assumes the objects to have to himself as a man, and consequently also to his body. Thus the same pictures can indeed occupy him very much in his waking state, but they cannot deceive him, however clear they may be. For although he has then, too, in his brain

a fictitious impression of himself and his body, which he puts in relation to his fantastic pictures, nevertheless the real sensation of his body, by means of the external senses, establishes a contrast with those chimeras,

or distinction from them, which goes to show the ones as self-created, the other as perceived. If he falls asleep, the idea of his body derived from impressions disappears and only the fictitious idea remains. In relation to this latter idea, the other chimeras are now assumed to be outside of himself

and they are found to deceive the dreamer as long as he sleeps because there is no sensation present which would furnish a basis for a comparison of the two whereby the original could be distinguished from the phantasm, that is, the outside from the inside. The spirit-seers, therefore, are entirely different from the waking dreamers, not only in degree, but in kind.

For while they are waking, and often while they are experiencing other sensations with great vividness, the spirit-seers place some imagined things among the external objects which they really perceive. The only question is how it is possible that they place the phantoms of their imagination outside of themselves, and even put them in relation to their body, which they sense through their external senses. the great clearness of the fantasy cannot be the cause for the point at issue is the place where

an object is put and therefore i demand that it be shown how the soul places such an image as it should perceive to be contained in itself into an entirely different relation namely into a place outside of itself and among those objects which are offered to its real perception i shall not be satisfied with the quotation of other cases which bear some resemblance with this deception such as perhaps occur in the state of fever

for be the deceived well or sick we do not want to know if such a thing happens also elsewhere but how this deception is possible we find however in using our external senses that besides the clearness with which the objects are seen

we perceive at the same time their location perhaps not always with the same accuracy still as a necessary condition of sensation without which it would be impossible to perceive things as being outside of ourselves Here it becomes quite probable that our soul locates the perceived object

at that point where the different lines, indicating the direction of the impression, meet. That is why we see a radiating point at the meeting place of those lines which we draw from the eye back in the direction of the rays. This point, which we call the point of vision, is, in its effect, the scattering point, but in the way it is perceived, it is the point which collects the lines of direction

determining the sensation, focus imaginarios. Thus we locate a visible object even with one eye alone. In the same way as by means of a concave mirror, the image of an object is seen in the air just in that spot where the rays radiating from one point of the object meet before entering the eye.

Footnote. This is the way in which optics usually represent the process of locating an object, and it agrees very well with experience. But the same rays which diverge from a point are, on account of the refraction in the moistures of the eye,

not thrown on the retina as divergent rays but are there united into one point if the sensation occurs only in this nerve the focus imaginarius would, in consequence have to be placed not outside of the body

but in the background of the eye itself this creates a difficulty which I cannot solve at present and which seems incompatible with the above-named propositions as well as with experience end of footnote

the same theory perhaps can be applied to the impressions of sound because its shocks too are transmitted in straight lines. Then we should say that the sensation of sound is accompanied by the perception of a focus imaginarius and that this is placed in that point where the straight lines meet

which are drawn to the outside from the vibrating nerve structure inside of the brain. For the place and distance of a sounding object is perceived to some extent even if the sound is low and comes from the back

and although the lines drawn from such a position do not strike the opening of the ear but other places of the head. This makes one believe that the soul continues the lines of vibration externally in imagination and places the sounding object in their meeting point.

The same can, in my opinion, be predicated of the other three senses, differing from sight and hearing in this respect, that the object of sensation is in immediate contact with the organs of these other senses, and the lines indicating the place of the organic stimulus find in the organs themselves their meeting point.

In applying this to the pictures of imagination, permit me to take as basis the hypothesis of Cartesius, approved of by most of the philosophers after him, that all representations of the imagination are accompanied by certain movements in the nerve tissue

or nerve spirit of the brain, which movements are called ideae materiales. That is, these representations are, perhaps, accompanied by the concussional vibration of the fine element secreted by these nerve tissues.

This vibration is similar to the movements which the sense impression might produce, and of which the nerve vibration is a copy. But now I must ask that if it be granted that the principal difference between the nerve movements in fantasies and in sensations

consists in the fact that, with fantasies, the lines indicating the direction of the movement meet inside of the brain while in sensation they meet outside. Then, since the focus imaginarius in which the objects are perceived in the clear sensations of the waking state is placed outside of myself,

but the focus imaginarius of the fantasies entertained during the same state is placed inside of myself, I cannot fail, as long as I am awake, to distinguish from the sense impressions these imaginations as fantasies. If so much is admitted, it seems to me that I can adduce some reasonable cause

for that kind of mind disturbance called insanity, and in its higher degree, trance. The peculiarity of this disease is that the confused individual places mere objects of his imagination outside of himself and considers them to be real and present objects.

Now I have stated that according to the common order of things the lines indicating the direction of the movement and accompanying the fantasies in the brain as their material auxiliaries must meet inside the brain and that consequently the location of the picture in the subject's consciousness

in the waking state must be placed inside of himself. If therefore I suppose that by any accident or disease certain organs of the brain are distorted or thrown out of their equilibrium in such a manner that the nerve movements vibrating harmoniously with certain fantasies

occur according to such lines of direction as, continued, would meet outside of the brain, then the focus imaginarius would be placed outside of the thinking subject, and the image produced by mere imagination would be perceived as an object present to the external senses.

Footnote on outside of the thinking subject. Remotely resembling the above-mentioned accident is the state of drunken people who see things double because the swelling of the blood vessels prevents the axes of the eyes from being adjusted

so that their continuation may meet in the point where the object is. Similarly, a distortion of brain fibres, perhaps only temporary, and, while it lasts, affecting only a few nerves, may occasion certain fantasies of imagination to appear to be outside of ourselves even in the waking state.

A very common experience may be compared with this deception. After having slept, we often regard, with drowsy and half-opened eyes, the variegated threads of the bed curtains or of the covering, or the small spots of the nearest wall, and easily form out of them figures of human faces and similar things.

The delusion ceases at will, and as soon as attention is aroused. In this case the transfer of the focus imaginarius of the fantasies is, to some extent, subject to our discretion, while in the trance it cannot be controlled by any willpower. End of footnote.

Though such a phantom be only weak at the beginning, the consternation at the appearance of a thing which ought not to be there according to the natural order of things will soon arouse attention, and will give to the phantom sensation such a vividness that the deluded person cannot doubt its reality. This delusion can affect any one of the external senses,

for of each we have copied images in imagination, and the contortion of nerve tissue can cause the focus imaginarius to be placed in that spot, whence the organic impression of a really existing bodily object would come. It is not astonishing then if the visionary believes to see or hear many a thing which nobody perceives besides him, or if these fancies appear to him and disappear suddenly,

or if they beguile the sense of vision, for example, and can be apprehended by no other sense, if they cannot be felt, for instance, and thus seem to him intangible. The common ghost stories depend so much on such indications as these

that they easily justify the suspicion of hailing from such a source. In the same way, the current conception of spiritual beings which we evolved out of common phraseology is very much of the nature of this delusion and does not belie its origin,

since the quality of an intangible presence in space is said to constitute the essential characteristic of this conception. It is further very probable that the idea of spectres, imbibed from education, furnishes the head of a diseased person with materials for deluding apparitions,

and that a brain free from all such prejudices would not so soon hatch out fantasms of this kind, even though some aberration might befall it. Furthermore, as the disease of the visionary concerns not so much the reason as a deception of the senses it will be easily recognized that the unfortunate subject cannot remove the delusion by any reasoning

for a true or apparent impression of the senses precedes all the judgments of the reason and carries with it immediate evidence, far excelling all other persuasion The consequence resulting from all these considerations is insofar inconvenient as it renders entirely superfluous the deep conjectures of the preceding chapter and the reader, though he was ready to receive with some approval its idealistic notions,

will nevertheless prefer that conception which allows of more comfort and brevity in judging and which promises to find the more general approval. For, aside from the fact that it seems to conform more with a reasonable frame of mind to find the means of explanation in the material furnished by experience than to lose oneself in the dizzy conceptions of a reason,

partly inventing, partly jumping at conclusions, there is always found in such speculations occasion for scoffing, than which, whether justifiable or not, there is no stronger means of keeping back idle investigation. For it creates at once grave suspicion for one to attempt seriously

to expound the fancies of a visionary, and the kind of philosophy which is found in such bad company is open to question. It is true, I have, in the preceding, not contested the insanity of such apparitions. Rather, while I have not made insanity to be the cause

of an imagined communion with spirits. I have yet connected the two by considering insanity as the natural consequence of such communion. But what foolishness is there which could not be harmonized with the bottomless philosophy? Therefore I do not at all blame the reader, if, instead of regarding the spirit seers as half-dwellers in another world, he, without further ceremony, dispatches them as candidates for the hospital, and thereby spares himself any further investigation. But if

everything then is to be treated on such a basis, the manner of handling such adepts of the spirit world must be very different from that based upon the ideas given above. And if formally it was found necessary at times to burn some of them, it now will suffice to give them a purgative. Indeed, from this point of view, there was no need of going so far back as to metaphysics, for hunting up secrets in the deluded brain of dreamers. The keen Houdibras could alone have sold for us the

riddle, for he thinks that visions and holy inspirations are simply caused by a disordered stomach. Fourth chapter. Theoretical conclusion from the whole of the considerations of the first part. The inaccuracy of scales used for commercial measurements, according to civil law, is discovered if we let the merchandise and the weights exchange pans. So the partiality of the scales of reason is revealed by the same trick, without which, in philosophical judgments, no harmonious result can

be obtained from the compared weighings. I have purified my soul from prejudices. I have destroyed any blind affection which ever crept in to procure in me an entrance for much fancied knowledge. I now have nothing at heart. Nothing is venerable to me but what enters by the path of sincerity into a quiet mind open to all reasons. Be thereby my former judgment confirmed or abolished, be I convinced or left in doubt. Wherever I meet with something instructive I appropriate it.

The judgment of him who refutes my reasons is my judgment after I first have weighed it against the scale of self-love and afterwards in that scale against my presumed reasons and have found it to have a higher intrinsic value. Formerly, I viewed human common sense only from the standpoint of my own.

Now I put myself into the position of a foreign reason, outside of myself, and observe my judgments together with their most secret causes from the point of view of others. it is true the comparison of both observations results in pronounced parallaxes but it is the only means of preventing the optical delusion and of putting conceptions in regard to the power of

knowledge in human nature into their true places you may say that this is very serious talk in connection with so trifling a problem as that under consideration which deserves to be called a plaything rather than a serious occupation and you are not exactly wrong in thus judging but although one ought not to make a greater do about a small matter yet one may perhaps be allowed to make use of such occasions

and unnecessary circumspection in small matters may furnish useful example in important matters I find no attachment nor any other inclination to have crept in before examination so as to deprive my mind of a readiness to be guided by any kind of reason pro or con except one the scale of reason after all is not quite impartial

and one of its arms bearing the inscription Hope of the Future has a constructive advantage causing even those light reasons which fall into its scale

to outweigh the speculations of greater weight on the other side. This is the only inaccuracy which I cannot easily remove and which in fact I never want to remove.

I confess that all stories about apparitions of departed souls or about influences from spirits and all theories about the presumptive nature of spirits and their connection with us

seem to have appreciable weight only in the scale of hope while in the scale of speculation they seem to consist of nothing but air. If the answer to the problem in question were not in sympathy with a prior inclination what reasonable man would be doubtful as to whether it were more plausible

to assume the existence of a kind of beings which have no similarity whatever with anything taught him by his senses or to attribute certain alleged experiences to a kind of self-deception and invention which, under certain circumstances, is by no means uncommon. In fact, this seems to be in general the main reason for crediting the ghost stories so widely accepted.

Even the first delusions about presumed apparitions of deceased people have probably arisen from the fond hope that we still exist in some way after death. And then at the time of the shadows of night, this illusion has probably deluded the senses and created out of doubtful forms phantoms corresponding to preconceived ideas. From these, finally, the philosophers have taken occasion to devise the rational idea of spirits

and to bring it into a system. You probably will recognize also in my own assumed doctrine of the communion of spirits this trend to which people commonly incline, for its propositions evidently unite only to give an idea

how man's spirit leaves this world, that is, of the state after death. Footnote on how man's spirit leaves this world. The old Egyptians had as symbol for the soul a butterfly, and the Greek name signifies the same.

One can easily see that the hope, which makes death to be only a transformation, has caused such an idea, together with its symbol. But this does not at all invalidate the confidence that the conceptions thence evolved are right.

Our inner perception and the conclusions drawn from it, being like reason, bring us, if they remain uncorrupted, to that point to which reason itself would lead us, if it were more enlightened and of a greater scope. End of footnote.

But how it enters, that is of procreation and propagation, I make no mention. Nay, I do not even mention how it is present in this world, that is, how an immaterial nature can be in an immaterial body and act by means of it. The very good reason for all this is that I do not understand a single thing about the whole matter,

and consequently might as well have been content to remain just as ignorant as before in regard to the future state, had not the partiality of a pet notion recommended the reasons which offered themselves, however weak they were. The same ignorance makes me so bold as to absolutely deny the truth of the various ghost stories. and yet with the common although queer reservation that while I doubt any one of them still I have a certain faith in the whole of them taken together. The reader is free to judge as far as I'm concerned.

The scales are tipped far enough on the side containing the reasons of the second chapter to make me serious and undecided when listening to the many strange tales of this kind. But as reasons to justify oneself are never lacking when the mind is prejudiced I do not want to bother the reader with any further defense of such a way of thinking. As I am now at the conclusion of the theory of spirits, I am bold enough to say that this study, if properly used

by the reader, exhausts all philosophical knowledge about such beings, and that in future, perhaps, many things may be thought about it but never more known. This assumption sounds rather vainglorious, for of such multifariousness are the problems offered by nature, in its smallest parts, to a reason so limited as the human that there is certainly no object of nature known to the senses,

be it only a drop of water or a grain of sand, whichever could be said to be exhausted by observation or reason. But the case is entirely different with the philosophical conception of spiritual beings. It may be complete, but in the negative sense,

by fixing with assurance the limits of our knowledge and convincing us that all that is granted to us is to know the diverse manifestations of life in nature and its laws, but that the principle of this life that is the unknown and only assumed spiritual nature

can never be thought of in a positive way because for this purpose no data can be found in the whole of our sensations that therefore we have to resort to negations for the sake of thinking something so entirely different

from everything sensuous but that the possibility of such negations rests likewise neither upon experience nor upon conclusions but upon invention

to which a reason deprived of all other expedience finally resorts With this understanding, pneumatology may be called a doctrinal conception of man's necessary ignorance in regard to a supposed kind of beings, and as such it can easily be adequate to its task. And now I lay aside this whole matter of spirits, a remote part of metaphysics,

since I have finished and am done with it. In future it does not concern me any more. By thus making the plan of my investigation more concentrated and sparing myself some entirely useless inquiries, I hope to be able to apply to better advantage my small reasoning power upon other subjects.

It is generally vain to try to extend the little strength one has over a wide range of undertakings. It is therefore a matter of policy, in this as other cases, to fit the pattern of one's plans to one's powers, and if one cannot obtain the great, to restrict oneself to the mediocre. End of section 3