VIII. The Factors of Life

The philosophy of will can be called a science as little as can mysticism of feeling. For both maintain that to permeate things with concepts is insufficient. Both demand, side by side with an ideal-principle of existence, a real principle also. And this with a certain justification. But since for this so-called real principle, perceiving is our only means of comprehension, it follows that mysticism of feeling and philosophy of will are both of the opinion that we have two sources of knowledge: thinking and perceiving, perceiving being mediated through feeling and will as individual experience. According to mysticism of feeling and philosophy of will, what flows from the source of experience[^3] cannot be taken up directly into what flows from the source of thinking; therefore the two forms of knowledge, perceiving and thinking, remain standing side by side without a higher mediation. Besides the ideal principle attainable through knowledge, there is also supposed to exist a real principle which, although it can be experienced cannot be grasped by thinking. In other words: mysticism of feeling and philosophy of will are both forms of naive realism; they both adhere to the principle: What is directly perceived is real. Compared with naive realism in its original form, they are guilty of the further inconsistency of making one definite kind of perceiving (feeling or will) into the one and only means of knowing existence; and this they should not do when they adhere in general to the principle: What is perceived is real. According to this, for cognition, external perceptions should have equal value with inner perceptions of feeling or will.