4. HERBART’S REALS.—From this point Herbart reaches his “reals” (_Realen_) as follows: To discover the contradictions, he says, in all our conceptions of experience, might lead us to absolute scepticism, and to despair of the truth. But here we remember that if the existence of every thing real be denied, then the appearance, sensation, representation, and thought itself would be destroyed. We perceive, therefore, just as strong an indication of being as of appearance. We cannot, indeed, ascribe to the given any true and essential being _per se_, it is not _per se_ alone, but only on, or in, or through something other. _The truly being_ is an absolute being, which as such excludes every thing relative and dependent; it is _absolute position_, which it is not for us first to posit, but only to recognize. In so far as this being is attributed to any thing, this latter possesses reality. The truly being is, therefore, ever a _quale_, a something which is considered as being. In order now that this posited may correspond to the conditions which lie in the conception of absolute position, the _what_ of the real must be thought (_a_) as absolutely positive or affirmative, _i. e._ without any negation or limitation, which might destroy again the absoluteness; (_b_) as absolutely simple, _i. e._ in no way, as a multiplicity or admitting of inner antitheses; (_c_) as indeterminate by any conceptions of greatness, _i. e._ not as a quantum which may be divided and extended in time and space; hence, also, not as a constant greatness or continuity. But we must never forget that this being or this absolute reality is not simply something thought, but is something independent and resting on itself, and hence it is simply to be recognized by the thinking. The conception of this thinking lies at the basis of all Herbart’s metaphysics. Take an example of this. The first problem to be solved in metaphysics is the problem of inherence, or the thing with its characteristics. Every perceptible thing represents itself to the senses as a complex of several characteristics. But all the attributes of a thing which are given in perception are relative. We say _e. g._ that sound is a property of a certain body. It sounds—but it cannot-do this without air; what now becomes of this property in a space without air? Again, we say that a body is heavy, but it is only so on the earth. Or again, that a body is colored, but light is necessary for this; what now becomes of such a property in darkness? Still farther, a multiplicity of properties is incompatible with the unity of an object. If you ask _what_ is this thing, you are answered with the sum of its characteristics; it is soft, white, full-sounding, heavy,—but your question was of one, not of many. The answer only affirms what the thing has, not what it is. Moreover, the list of characteristics is always incomplete. The what of a thing can therefore lie neither in the individual given properties, nor in their unity. In determining what a thing is, we have only this answer remaining, viz., the thing is that unknown, which we must posit before we can posit any thing as lying in the given properties; in a word, it is the substance. For if, in order to see what the thing purely and essentially is, we take away the characteristics which it may have, we find that nothing more remains, and we perceive that what we considered as the real thing was only a complex of characteristics, and the union of these in one whole. But since every appearance indicates a definite reality, and thus since there must be as much reality as there is appearance, we have to consider the reality, which lies at the basis of the thing, with its characteristics, as a complex of many simple substances or monads, and whose quality is different in different instances. When our experience has led us to a repeated grouping together of these monads, we call the group a thing. Let us now briefly look at the formation of those fundamental conceptions of metaphysics, which involve the same thoughts through the fundamental conception of being. First, there is the conception of causality, which cannot be maintained in its ordinary form. All that we can perceive in the act is succession in time, and not the necessary connection of cause with effect. The cause in itself can be neither transcendent nor immanent; it cannot be transcendent, because a real influence of one real thing upon another, contradicts the conception of the absolute reality; nor immanent, for then the substance must be thought as one with its characteristics, which contradicts the investigations concerning a thing with its characteristics.