§ 13. Forming of the Conception
The word, the idea, and the conception of Encyclopedia are genetically related. Hence in Encyclopedia also the old feud can be renewed, whether the conception lies at the beginning or at the end of the development of the encyclopedic thought. To prevent misunderstanding, let it be stated that this paragraph takes “conception” in the last-mentioned sense. It is not difficult to account for this choice in the use of the word. The process of thought that takes place in the human spirit consists by no means merely in the linking together of those series of thoughts which you have willed to think, and by thinking have produced. This is but the labor which as an arboriculturist you have performed in the garden of your thoughts. But as the work of the gardener is only possible because of the fertility of the garden, and because this growth in his garden impels him to work, which work he himself directs, so also in the human mind there lives a world of thought, in which is growth and luxuriance of life independently of the human will and disposition; and from this living world of thought one receives the impulse to think himself, and by this impulse mental effort is directed and defined. When this is lost from sight, we may have persons who think, but there is no development of thought in the human mind. The common element is then wanting from our thinking, by which alone the understanding of each other becomes possible. In this way all thought becomes aphoristical dilettantism and human language inconceivable. If we now apply this to the “conception,” it follows that the conception also is no form of thought which we ourselves cast, but that it germinates, grows, and ripens independently of us, and is only plucked by us. As the flower was already present in the seed, and unfolded itself from it by a lawful development, so does the clear conception spring slowly from a process in our world of thought, which primarily at least went on altogether outside our consciousness. And yet this unconscious working produces its effect upon our act. The infant seeks the mother-breast and drinks without having the least impression of what the breast is, or the mother, or the milk. From that unconscious substrata of our life germinates first of all impression. This impression is first defined by the word by which it is expressed. The idea which impels us springs from it but gradually. And only when this idea inspires us, and has impelled us to act, does the bud set itself and by degrees unfold; till at length as fruit of empirical knowledge our insight becomes possible into the structure of the flower, and our conception forms itself.
Speaking, therefore, in the organic sense, this “conception” was already present in its germ in the first impulse that worked in us from the unconscious world of thought; this conception germinated in the impression; it matured into the idea; it directed us in our practical actions; and finally objectified itself in our forming of the conception. If, on the other hand, you take the “conception” as you grasped it in its completed form, then of course it became observable only at the end of this process of thought, and to you it had its birth at that moment only in which you plucked it.
Applying this to Encyclopedia, we find that the conception of Encyclopedia also was not cast by us arbitrarily, but that it germinated of necessity and defined itself. This conception is no product of our imagination, but it compelled our thought to take it up into itself. As such the germ was already prepared, when the first impulse began to work in the human mind, from which sprang all Encyclopedic study. But if you take this conception, as here it must be taken, in distinction from the idea, the word, and the impression, then it only began to exist for you at that moment when with a clear insight you grasped the thought that impelled you. Genetically, therefore, we stand before this process: that originally in the human mind there worked the need of bringing a certain order into the chaos of its knowledge, not arbitrarily, but agreeably to a distinguishing principle that forced itself upon it. Further, that this need quickened the impression that there is a certain order in what presented itself to it as chaos, and that for this impression also it sought a representation in the figure and activity of the cyclos, and that in this way it formed the word Encyclopedia. That under the impulse of this impression clarified by the word, it performed Encyclopedical labor. That first with less and then with greater clearness the Encyclopedic idea led it in this work. And that only after this the Encyclopedical thought in turn was thought out by it, till at length it was able to give itself an account of what it accomplished and aimed at in this Encyclopedical labor. In this way only it grasped the Encyclopedic thought with entire clearness of consciousness, and thus formed its conception.