120 THE INTELLECTUALIST CRITERION 



ancy supposed to exist between relations and ele 

 ments related. In each case there is the ideal of 

 a final unity in which relations and elements as 

 such disappear, while in every case the nature of 

 relation is such as to prevent the desired con 

 summation. In at least one place, it is expressly 

 declared that it is the knowledge function which is 

 responsible for the degradation of reality to ap 

 pearance. &quot; We do not suggest that the thing 

 always itself is an appearance. We mean its 

 character is such that it becomes one as soon as 

 we judge it. And this character we have seen 

 throughout our work, is ideality. Appearance 

 consists in the looseness of content from existence. 

 . . . And we have found that everywhere 

 throughout the world such ideality prevails &quot; 

 (ibid., p. 486, italics not in the original). It 

 is not then strictly true that the divorce of mean 

 ing and existence instigates thought; rather 

 thought is the unruly member that creates the 

 divorce and then engages in the task (in which it 

 is self-condemned to failure) of trying to establish 

 the unity which it has gratuitously destroyed. 

 Thinking, self-consciousness, is disease of the nai ve 

 unity of thoughtless experience. 



On the one hand there is a systematic discredit 

 ing of the ultimate claims of the knowledge func 

 tion, and this not from external physiological or 

 psychological reasons such as are sometimes alleged 



