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Philosophical Letters of Frederich Schiller by Johann Christoph Friedrich von Schiller
page 48 of 79 (60%)
[some] sensation; no sensation without an antecedent idea (for along with
the body we excluded bodily sensations), therefore no idea without an
idea.

Let us consider now the case of a child; that is, according to our
hypothesis, a spirit conscious in itself of the power to form ideas, but
which for the first time is about to exercise this power. What will
determine him to think, unless it be the pleasant sensation thereby
arising, and what can have procured for him the experience of this
pleasurable sensation? We have just seen that this, again, could be
nothing but thinking, and he is now for the first time to think.
Further, what shall invite him to a consideration of the [external]
world? Nothing but the experience of its perfection in so far as it
satisfies his instinct of activity, and as this satisfaction affords him
pleasure. What, then, can determine him to an exercise of his powers?
Nothing but the experience of their existence; and all these experiences
are now to be made for the first time. He must therefore have been
active from all eternity--which is contrary to the case as stated--or he
will to all eternity be inactive, just as the machine without a touch
from without remains idle and motionless.



S 9.--The Soul viewed in connection with the Body.


Now let the animal be added to the spirit. Weave these two natures so
closely together as they really are closely woven, and cause an unknown
something, born of the economy of the animal body, to be assailed by the
power of sensation,--let the soul be placed in the condition of physical
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