Christian August Crusius: Draft of necessary truths of reason, in so far as they are set opposite to contingent ones - What is spirit like?

If in the previous chapter Crusius intended to explain the essence of spirit, in this chapter he wants to outline the basic features of a spirit. In effect, he has to describe in more detail the two basic capacities that distinguish spirit from mere matter, that is, understanding and will.

Starting with understanding, Crusius says that every idea a spirit has cannot be something passive. If there was a passive idea, he justifies his statement, it would have to be caused either by an external or by an internal activity. If an idea was caused by an external activity it would have to be either movement or caused by movement, because external interaction occurs only via movement. Both possibilities, of course, contradict the very immateriality of a spirit, Crusius notes. On the other hand, if an idea was caused by an internal activity, it would again be caused by movement or by some other activity belonging to the spirit. The former possibility is again an impossibility for Crusius, while the latter possibility he rejects, because ultimately all spiritual activities presuppose ideas.

Although ideas are always activities, Crusius continues, they can be directly generated by God, who supposedly does not act through movement. Furthermore, he adds, ideas can be modified by other activities of spirit and their generation, forcefulness and duration can be connected to external conditions.

Furthermore, Crusius notes that while all spirits have understanding or capacity for thinking ideas, only some spirits have reason, that is, an understanding so developed it is able to consciously know what is true. To have a reason, it is not enough that a spirit can have ideas, but these ideas must also be able to continue for a while. In addition, a spirit with a reason must be conscious of itself and it must be able to make abstractions. Finally, Crusius concludes, a finite spirit cannot have reason, unless God has given it the capacity to think, distinguish and combine ideas in a manner that it can recognise signs of truth in them by imitating divine understanding.

Crusius emphasises that if a finite spirit is capable of reasoning, its capacity of understanding is not derived from a unique force, but from a sum of many fundamental forces. The only other option, he points out, would be that the fundamental force would be the general force for thinking or knowing truth. Crusius rejects this possibility, because our ideas are so multiform that they cannot all have the same source. He especially points out that it is a very different matter to have an idea and to be conscious of this idea, because one can e.g. be angry without being aware of being angry.

If Crusius defined understanding as a capacity to have ideas, he defines will as a capacity to act according to one’s ideas. Every spirit must have a will, he adds, or otherwise its understanding would have no purpose. Every act of will presupposes an idea and therefore, Crusius insists, will as such is called a blind force.

Crusius is adamant that will requires fundamental forces distinct from those required for understanding, because otherwise will would be just a modification of understanding, which he has already denied. He especially objects to the idea that will could be understood as deriving from a representation of goodness, because good wouldn’t even be a meaningful concept without will. He does admit that the representation of goodness can awaken our will, but he doesn’t think this would yet reveal what will is. Crusius doesn’t even accept the Wolffian idea that the representation of goodness together with conatus or innate striving toward goodness would be enough to define will, simply because Crusius regards conatus as an unfamiliar manner of referring to will.

Every will must will something, Crusius points out, that is, it must be directed by specific ideas, which the will then strives to achieve by action. When such striving continues for a longer period of time, Crusius calls it a drive. Will must then have drives, and even, Crusius says, some fundamental drives, from which other drives are derived. Actions caused by the same fundamental drive can have various grades and directions, thus, Crusius concludes, only few fundamental drives are required for manifold variations in actions. Since a state of a spirit can be in accordance with a fundamental drive, in opposition to it or neither, we can speak of pleasant, unpleasant and indifferent states of mind or feelings. A reasoning spirit, Crusius adds, is also conscious of its state being pleasant and unpleasant, which makes it possible to speak of pleasure and pain. For animals, on the other hand pleasant and unpleasant sensations act then as mere physical causes.

Crusius notes that all animals should control their body and so they must have drives concerning the body and therefore also an idea of their body. Reasoning spirits, he continues, should also have fundamental drives that serve their moral perfection. Such fundamental drives include a drive for perfecting one’s essence, a drive to love other spirits and a drive to fulfil obligations toward God or conscience.

In addition to fundamental drives, Crusius insists, at least reasoning spirits must also have freedom. Even freedom, Crusius admits, does not do things completely without any reason, but it has to be guided by motives. These motives just do not determine the free will to do anything, but just make it inclined to something, leaving the will the final choice whether to pursue these inclinations. Free will can also boost smaller inclinations against stronger inclinations. Yet, Crusius notes, free will of finite spirits must also be finite and can thus be overcome by strong motives.

Activities of a spirit form a clear hierarchy, Crusius says. For instance, movement is the lowest kind of activity, which serves both understanding and will: Crusius again emphasises that the spirit should be able to move its own substance. Of the two other activities, on the other hand, understanding is subservient to will. This does not mean that e.g. laws of truth should be dependent on arbitrary choices of the will. Instead, it means that understanding ultimately does what the will wants, and indeed, for this reason we can speak of the moral perfection of understanding: e.g. a failure to develop one’s understanding could be taken as morally evil. With free spirits, Crusius concludes, freedom is the highest activity, which the fundamental drives should serve.

Crusius notes that there is a certain ambiguity in the concept of a purpose, which he defines as something that a spirit wills. He explains that we might be speaking of a subjective purpose or our own activity of desiring something, of an objective purpose or the object which we specifically desire, and finally, of a formal purpose, by which he means a relation between the subjective and the objective purpose. Purposes form a hierarchy, Crusius explains, since one purpose could be desired because of another purpose. He is convinced that such a series of purposes cannot continue indefinitely, but there must be one or several final purposes, which are desired for their own sake and not to fulfil another desire.

It is common knowledge that we often cannot directly achieve our purposes and so have to use some means to do this. Crusius notes that actually means is an ambiguous concept: it might refer to material means or the mediating cause used for furthering the purpose, but it could also refer to formal means or the activity of using the material means. Crusius also remarks that means can be divided into means in the proper sense, which are active causes that have in itself the power to further the purpose, and mere conditions, which do not have the power to further the purpose, but are still required by other causes to further the purpose. In order to be a proper means, Crusius adds, means must, firstly, make something happen to further the purpose, when so directed by a spirit, secondly, bring about something that the spirit wants before wanting to use the means, and finally, be used by spirit because of desiring the purpose. Thus, if a spirit doesn’t intend to use something because of a purpose, but for a completely different purpose, and this something happens to further the purpose, spirit hasn’t used it as a means for the purpose, but it has been a mere accidental intermediary cause for the purpose.

The notion of spirit is closely connected to that of life. Crusius defines life as a capacity of substance which enables it to be active from an internal ground in many, qualitatively different ways. The seemingly innocuous demand that activities enabled by life should come in many different forms actually implies that these activities cannot be distinguished by mere quantitative means, like spatiotemporal terms or grades of strength. Thus, these activities, and so also life, cannot be based on mere motion and can therefore belong only to spirits. Crusius notes that his concept of life excludes plants, which do not have spirit or soul. In fact, he adds, only spirits really have life, while animal bodies have life only in the sense of being connected to a spirit or a soul.

Crusius also notes that life is more of a continuum, with some substances being more alive than others. Thus, while one substance is alive in the sense that it has all the capacities required for living, another would be alive in a stronger sense, if its capacities of life are truly active. This higher phase of life begins, Crusius suggests, when the will of the spirit becomes active. Depending on the perfection of the will, life can then be also more or less perfect, and the highest type of life is the life of a free spirit.

While God can be alive and still have only one fundamental force, a finite living being must have several, in order to create a qualitative manifold of activities, Crusius insists. These fundamental forces must then be interconnected in the sense that one force is a condition or an object of an activity based on another force. Such an interconnection of forces then modifies the activities enabled by these forces and thus creates the manifold of activities required of a living being. These interconnections are then, Crusius concludes, controlled by laws, some of which describe interactions of spiritual activities, while others describe their interactions with the body and the material world.

Crusius goes through several of these interconnections of spiritual activities. Thus, he notes that force of will is dependent on the force of understanding, and especially, free will requires an ability of abstraction and consciousness of oneself. Other examples include when a drive for some purpose awakens a drive for the corresponding means or when thinking a certain idea activates also some other ideas through association.

An important type of interconnection connects the higher powers of the spirit to its capacity to move. These connections enable external sensations, in which ideas are not literally caused e.g. by our substance moving because of external objects, Crusius notes, but they still are conditioned by the presence of such a movement. Such an external sensation can even be an occasion for a substance becoming alive in the stronger sense, that is, for the substance activating its powers of life. The connections with the capacity of movement also explain why movements of the body can hinder our thinking and why spirits can finally return to the same inactive state in which they were, before having the first sensation. Although such interconnections are then possible, Crusius points out that a finite spirit can also be independent of the movement of its substance, which means that it would be constantly alive.

As an important instance of interaction with external things, Crusius points out that in order to interact with one another, spirits should be able to communicate with one another. With mere animals, this communication can happen through expressions, while spirits with reason are also capable of languages using words that express abstract thoughts. Both kinds of communication use the material world and its movement, but Crusius thinks that God is capable of a more direct sort of communication, in which thoughts are awakened straightaway in the other spirit.

Although activity of one power of spirit would be a condition for another power becoming active, it is still not necessary that when the first power stops its activity, the second should also stop: in some cases it might do this, in others not. This distinction between the behaviour of the powers is important for Crusius especially in cases where external sensations are a condition for the spirit becoming alive in the stronger sense. Some spirits might be passive in the sense that their activities both begin when certain sensations occur and end when these sensations stop. Other spirits, on the other hand, might be capable of independent activity in the sense that while their activities are awakened by sensations, these activities can still continue even after the corresponding sensations have stopped.

With a spirit capable of independent activities, these activities can then continue for a long period of time. Crusius emphasises that such continuing activities are not free choices, which always endure only for an instant. An enduring activity can then be strengthened by new sensations awakening similar activities and this strengthening makes it more probable that the activities lead to effects. In effect, Crusius says, such repetition of activities makes them habits. With human beings, some of these habits might have even been generated, when the human was still a foetus, and could thus be called inborn habits.

Crusius notes that spirits of the world can now be divided into four different classes. The two first classes consist of passive and independently active spirits, that is, firstly, a) spirits that live in the proper sense of the words only while they have sensations, and secondly, b) spirits that are awakened by sensation, but continue to live even after the sensations have stopped because of their inner activities. Both of these classes consist of spirits that do not always live, but must be awakened to life. The two other classes consist then of spirits that do live, even without the help of external sensations. These two classes are then distinguished from one another by c) one still having external sensations, d) the other class not.

Whatever the class a spirit belongs to, Crusius says, it is always a simple substance and thus immaterial. Crusius does admit that God could give a partless element of matter capacities to think and will. This wouldn’t still mean that God would have created a material spirit, but only a transformation of matter to spirit.

Christian August Crusius: Draft of necessary truths of reason, in so far as they are set opposite to contingent ones - What is a spirit?

The final part of Crusius’ metaphysics consists of what he calls pneumatology, that is, a study of finite substances that can not just move, but also think and will. Crusius notes that no matter what the world is like, it must contain such substances - they are supposed to be the purpose of the world - thus, pneumatology should be included in a metaphysical cosmology. Once again, pneumatology should study only the necessary properties of these substances, not those dependent on the contingent features of the world.

Despite emphasising the apriority of pneumatology, Crusius begins with an empirical study of activities we find in our mind. We perceive in us thoughts, he starts. Some thoughts we have while we are awake and they represent what is immediately present to us: these are what is in German called Empfindung - a word that could be translated, depending on the context, as sensation or as feeling. Whatever the translation, Crusius classifies these sensations or feelings into external - those representing a thing outside us with the help of sense organs - and internal - those representing the thing that thinks in us. Through the inner sensation or feeling, Crusius states, we are conscious of ourselves, of our thoughts and of our state of mind.

Crusius goes on describing further capacities of thinking we have. These include memory – a capacity to return to thoughts we once had and thus represent things we sensed, although they are now absent – imagination – capacity to move from one thought to another – abstraction – capacity to divide thoughts into their constituents, for instance, to think of a subject without its properties – capacity to make propositions, that is, to note relations between thoughts, and a capacity to make deductions. These capacities, Crusius notes, are all explained in terms of thoughts or representations, which is a fundamental concept that cannot be explained further.

In addition to thinking, Crusius continues, we find in ourselves something else. We are pleased when we achieve something we want, and we feel pain when we face something we wanted to avoid. We also note that we can control our thoughts, our body and even our desires. All of these, Crusius says, show that we have will, that is, a force of acting according to our representations. Willing presupposes thinking, since we need to have representations, before we can will, Crusius adds, but mere thinking is still not enough for willing. Willing is hence something more than thinking, but this something more cannot be defined.

In addition to thinking and willing, we also have a notion of moving, Crusius says, since we can both see things outside us move and we can move ourselves and our body. Furthermore, he at once adds, we immediately know that movement is something different from thinking and willing and cannot be even their cause. This basic fact, guaranteed by very clear inner feeling, Crusius insists, is the only proof we need against materialism: thinking and willing are not mere movement of matter. No matter how fine the matter is, Crusius states, it can never think or will anything.

Crusius suggests that the central confusion that makes one believe in materialism is that the word “representation” suggests that a thought is like a concrete picture in the brain. He notes that the same confusion can be found also with anyone endorsing Leibnizian pre-established harmony, which states that any representation in the soul corresponds to a material idea in the brain. Crusius argues that a machine could not change pictures as rapidly as we change from one thought to another. Furthermore, he notes that no machine could store pictures for as long a time as our memory does. Indeed, he adds, the brain would soon be filled, if we had to insert pictures in it any time we have thoughts. Abstract ideas especially appear to be such that could never be represented materially. And if no other argument works, Crusius concludes, we can always note that materialism would destroy the freedom of our will and thus make morality and religion impossible.

In addition to this fundamental confusion, Crusius considers other arguments of materialists that he considers fallacious. Most of these involve the obvious fact that the body appears to affect our state of mind, for instance, that a physical sickness makes it difficult to think. Crusius’ answer is that these effects can as well be explained by the close interaction of the spirit and the body.

Crusius notes further that materialists apply arguments involving biology: they state that supposedly thinking and willing beings (e.g. worms) can come out of rotting meat and that parts of worms can still continue their movement when cut apart. The first argument Crusius deals very quickly: worms are not spontaneously generated by the rotting meat, but very small eggs of worms just grow faster, when coming in contact with the warmth and moisture of rot meat. In the case of the second argument, Crusius just points out our ignorance on why the worms can do this - perhaps the movement of a dissected worm is just a mechanical reflex that does not require free will.

In addition to speaking so fervently against materialism, Crusius is eager to state that it is not materialistic to assume that thinking and willing substances can move things. Thinking and willing substance can be spatial and impenetrable, because these characteristics do not form the essence of material things. Some things in the world - like stones - have only a capacity to move, while we humans can move, but also think and will.

Thinking and willing are characteristic not just of humans, Crusius says, but other organic bodies appear also to move as guided by a thinking and willing substance. These organic bodies must also have such a guiding substance or soul, Crusius insists. Together, the soul and the body form an animal, and we humans are then the most perfect animals. Crusius is certain that thinking substances, both those of humans and those of other animals, can exist without being connected to a body. Then these substances just shouldn’t be called souls, but spirits (Geist). Even God could be called spirit, since God can think and will, although not move.

We have already noted that a willing substance must think, but must every thinking substance also have a will? Crusius admits that this is technically a possibility. Yet, from a wider perspective, such merely thinking substances cannot exist. God does nothing without purpose, and what purpose would such a non-willing thinker have? In other words, Crusius appears to say, thinking is done in order to help willing – for instance, in choosing the right means for achieving what we want – and mere thinking by itself would not be enough.