Facts of Consciousness/Part 2

by Johann Gottlieb Fichte

Chapter 1

The Causality of the Ego being checked by a non-Ego is posited as Impulse—the Check of the non-Ego as a Material World, and from the positing of both a Tendency of the Ego to overcome that check is posited.

In Book First we have considered immediate external perception as a causality of the presupposed absolute life through its immediate being. How far this view will prevail in our Second Book will shortly appear. Nevertheless it is evident that we must commence our investigation with such a causality, and hence we do so now, though in another manner. It is, however, to be remembered, that the word Being is here taken strictly to signify an absolutely upon-itself reposing being.

1. Let us then assume that such a causality of life through its immediate being is checked: what will then arise in the checked life? That causality, in so far as it is in the life, can surely not be annihilated itself; only its manifestation can be checked; that causality or determined activity and freedom remains in the life, but in a manner as a causality which has no causality. How do we term this in language? I believe, an Impulse. Hence through the checking of the causality there arises in life an impulse; and this is the first place where we have deduced, in its proper connection and from its possibility, an independent being of mere and separate freedom, which in our first book we merely postulated. If we ascribe to life an actual causality, freedom always must immediately and inseparably dissolve in the being produced by it, and can have no separate being of its own at all.

2. An independent being of freedom is, according to our previous results, consciousness. Hence there must arise in life, under the above condition, a consciousness of the impulse by virtue of a limitation. Now, an immediate and self-made consciousness of an actual limitation is called Feeling, and the general faculty of such a consciousness is called Sensuousness: and since in the present instance consciousness is directed upon the actual condition of life itself, this feeling is a feeling of self, and this sensuousness an inner sensuousness.

I add this remark: that which thus limits life can be held to be, firstly, a force, and a force stronger than the life, and which, as opposing itself to life, must then be posited outside of it as an independent being; which assumption is the basis of an objective dogmatism, a transcending beyond free life. But it may, perhaps, also be held to be a limitation within that life itself, not however in so far as that life is free, but in a higher being of that life, in relation to which that being of the life whereof we have hitherto spoken would then be only a lower and subordinated being; an assertion, which, if proved, would cancel the above dogmatism and found an immanent idealism.

3. Life has now been elevated above its stage of immediate causality into the region of consciousness. Hence if there really is an impulse in the life it must have immediate causality in that same region of consciousness. But how will consciousness be able to connect with this feeling of an impulse, and what manner of consciousness will it be when it thus connects? Let us investigate this.

First of all, life contains absolutely through its being freedom a determined faculty; and this faculty has arrived at an independent existence only through the being checked of its immediate causality, since in its unchecked causality it was always evaporating into and flowing together with being. Now since every independent being of freedom results in consciousness, the check produces immediately, together with the consciousness of the impulse, a consciousness of the faculty; with this distinction, that the latter, as not expressing an actual condition but merely a possible activity of life, is called by us, not feeling, as we call the impulse, but contemplation.

Now let us stop at this contemplation of the real faculty to have causality within the sphere of being. It is, as we have seen, a faculty to progress within time through a series of conditions to the intended end. It is this faculty which is to arise on the occasion of an impulse to exercise real causality, and which is to enter contemplation immediately when it thus arises.

The matter stands thus: in this state of affairs, immediately free life is absolutely checked, and cannot progress a single step within the sphere of being. Let us call this limit, which at the same time expresses the intended causality, D. Now this D it cannot immediately attain, being checked. But there may be a point, A, which life is able to produce through immediate causality, and if this point A is produced life may be able to produce another point, B—A being the condition of the realization of B; and again, B being produced, life may be able to realize C, and thus, finally, the originally intended D. If a contemplation or conception of this series arises in life, it must therein behold its own faculty to produce D.

Now this faculty to produce D lay undoubtedly concealed in life and in its absolute being originally; but that it has now become an actual faculty of life, completely within its free power, and that having thus gotten the faculty within its power, life can at once proceed to realize it, is effected solely by means of the conception life has now attained of it. Only through the conception has life gotten possession of this faculty, for before the conception it had not got it; and we here obtain an insight into the very important proposition, that the conception liberates and can become the ground of an actual faculty. Nay, the very superiority of consciousness over unconscious nature consists in this, that the latter always works blindly whatever it can produce, whereas the former can moderate its work by conceptions and can regulate them according to a rule.

4. As soon as the impulse to have causality exists and continues, there arises in consciousness a desire to form the just described conception of a possible causality to produce a certain end from the contemplation of the faculty in general. The question now is, through what is this forming of such a conception conditioned? I maintain that, besides the already described contemplation of the faculty in general, it is conditioned also by an image of the checking power, or resistance; for if the conception of that possible causality is to arise in the mind—which it does by means of quiet reflection and consideration—the faculty as well as the resistance must be taken hold of by the mind, compared with each other and calculated, until it is found that a certain direction of the faculty will necessarily conquer the resistance. But how does such an image of the resistance arise? Evidently it is not a matter of feeling, for feeling involves only the impulse, which can lead at the utmost to the conception of a limitation; nor of contemplation, for contemplation is directed only upon the faculty. We know this image as the condition of the conception of our possible causality; but this conception is a product of free imagination, which is here—supposing a knowledge of the faculty as well as of the resistance—altogether production, and consciously and considerately productive, since it proceeds in accordance with the rule given it by both premises. Thus it appears that the image of the resistance must also be created by productive imagination, not consciously however—since itself is not intended to be created, but only that the creation thereof is conditioned by it—but blindly, and absolutely in consequence of the impulse which craves its satisfaction. In short, in producing this image of a resistance, the productive power of imagination must have causality absolutely through its being, i.e. as a productive power of imagination.

5. How, then, will such an image result? Firstly, as that of an absolute resistance, and hence as posited outside of the Ego into the sphere of Being itself, since Being itself is opposited to life or to the Ego. This positing outside is precisely what we have characterized in Book First as objective thinking. Secondly, as the image of a resistance in an image; for it is resistance only in an image and its other relations, whereof hereafter, belong to feeling and cannot enter the image from that feeling; hence as resisting that very imaging and annulling its freedom.

For let us consider, that here, where imaging first begins, we have still the whole infinite freedom of imaging or absolute positing. This freedom is limited in its infinity and this limitation is imaged. Hence there are in this image two elements in reciprocal relation and opposition with each other:

1. The infinite faculty of positing, grasped in the unity of the image, and which we have above described as Extension—an empty extension, which, as the image of the faculty itself, is everywhere penetrable by, and transparent to, the Ego;

2. The opposition to this infinite faculty of positing, namely, Just the same kind of an infinite positing on the part of the resistance, whereby that transparency and penetrability are canceled. The whole, which arises from these two components, is the image of matter.

But again, the image of the resistance is most certainly posited. Hence there must be pictured also an opposition to this positing; otherwise that image would not be the image of a resistance. It is posited, through the positing of the Ego generally, as being; but now the resistance must, moreover, posit itself with this its being ; and this its own being which the resistance posits together with that being, which it derives from the general positing of the Ego, results in a further determined being, or a quality.

Let us make clear this latter fact by a further and profounder consideration of the external sense. The external sense is, according to the above, a limitation of productive imagination through the self-positing of a resistance generally. Thus the collective sense, feeling or the sense of touch, is nothing but the power of imagination to extend, in a state of limitedness. Through this sense we perceive matter as impenetrable. Now we say at present nothing about this sense as furnishing, besides this impenetrability, still other qualities of matter: warmth, coldness, &c. The easiest to be comprehended sense for quality is sight, which is distinguished from feeling as a collective sense, that the latter expresses only the positing in the act, whereas seeing is the image of the positedness, and of a positedness which is transparent to itself as such. "I see an object" signifies: "The positing of it is completed and I am limited to its positedness." But I do not see through the object signified: the inner condition of the object has not been posited through me, hence is also not known to me, but is posited through the object itself. The limit of this my positing and of the itself-positing of the object is then characterized by a further determination of my seeing, which is ascribed to the object; that is, my seeing is no longer a pure seeing, but the seeing of a color, as the further determination of pure seeing.

These three components form an organic whole amongst themselves, as has already been proved in the first book; and hence it is absolutely impossible that an external objective being should be formed without having sensuous qualities and being immaterial. Hence it is also impossible that matter can be without quality, or that a quality can be otherwise than adherent to a material body.

6. With this investigation our whole view is changed and expanded. In our first book we considered what we then called external perception, in its own triplicity as a for-itself existing and separate affair. But now we have found it to be a mere link of a greater organic whole, consciousness. For the synthetic period, which we have described, consists of the following three chief components: 1. A feeling—namely, of an impulse; 2. A contemplation—namely, of the real faculty to have causality within the sphere of being; and 3. An image of the resistance. And since this latter image is produced by the free and absolutely productive power of imagination, without consciousness of freedom, we may very properly call the whole labor in this imaging a thinking, since this new view brings even that which formerly we called sensuous affection and contemplation into the one general sphere of thinking.

7. Now let us ask: wherein lies the focus of external perception when we consider it as a separate matter; that is to say, in what condition of it doth life manifest itself? Evidently in the creating of the image. Not the contemplation of extension, which occurs in it, is the focus and central point of its condition; this extension is merely imaged and objectively posited, and when thus posited, an opposition is given to it. Again: not sensuousness is that focus and central point; for sensuousness is only the real point of conflict of the opposites, and as such it also is not immediate, but is objectively posited. Finally: the third component of external perception, the positing, is certainly immediate, since it is the act of imaging or the creating of an image; but it is also posited in the same undivided moment as objective, thus becoming the particular sense for quality, as has been illustrated in the above example of seeing. Hence the whole external perception is not a consciousness at all, but simply an object of consciousness, created by the absolute production of the power of imagination for consciousness. Thus it appears that the thinking which occurs in it is a double thinking, being firstly an actual thinking, as the creating of an image, and secondly a thought thinking, as the objectivated sense for quality; and the contemplation which occurs in it is likewise double, being firstly an actual contemplation, in the creation of extension, and secondly a contemplated contemplation, in that the freedom of it finds a resistance in matter.

Thus, then, the external sense is not an actual sense, but merely the image of the only true sense which remains, of the internal sense. All this might, in fact, have been discovered in mere observation from the circumstance that space as well as the external sense generally is posited outside of the real internal essence of the Ego, the external sense being even embodied into a tool of the senses.

8. Thus the matter stands, therefore. That act of the productive power of imagination cannot, however, arise to consciousness, "but melts together immediately with its product. Hence external perception appears to be not an object of consciousness, such as we have shown it to be, but as a true consciousness, and moreover as an immediate and unconditioned consciousness; and thus it happens that the external world is made to appear to ordinary consciousness as an immediate object of consciousness. Now, how have we proceeded that we should have arrived at an insight of the opposite as the truth? We have through means of thinking gathered up external perception into a higher connection, and thus have brought the connecting link, which remains hidden to common consciousness, before our artificially created consciousness. Only thus, indeed, could that insight have been arrived at. Hence whosoever does not undertake this thinking together with us, or, though trying to do so, is not penetrated by its evidence because he does not proceed in the right manner, simply does not get that insight; and all his asserting, getting angry, and averring that he cannot do better, helps him nought. We know it right well, and moreover can prove to him, which he cannot do, that he really cannot look at the matter other than in the way he does, simply because he does not fulfill the conditions of the other view. Should some one, however, interpret our proposition as asserting that we merely imagine things—as indeed some pretended philosophers have actually interpreted it—he would thereby simply exhibit his infinite lack of understanding, his absolute incapacity to be taught, and to enter into other ideas than those he already possesses, and to take hold of two thoughts in such a manner as not to have forgotten the first when he gets to the second. We imagine in the higher regions of freedom, where we can also leave off imagining. But that imaging, whereof we have spoken, we cannot leave off at all under the presupposition of an impulse which we shall likely find to belong absolutely to the life of consciousness. Such an imaging is absolutely necessary, and for that very reason its result forces itself upon us. And thus, I think, we have deduced also external perception.

9. The clear result is this: that which has been suggested by the relation of life has here been under consideration, and which may perhaps remain as the only true, namely, a limitation of life, is not at all touched in the object of external perception. That object is a mere opposition to the power of imagination, and is not at all anything by itself, as indeed it does not pretend to be; it is simply the product of a relation to another, to the power of imagination. For surely that through which the thing really exists, and hence can alone enter into connection with us, and which therefore must surely constitute its essence, is its force or power; but power is nothing material, nor manifests itself, to any external sense; it is simply thought. Hence this power, something altogether unsensuous and supersensuous, were the real thing. What, then, can this space-filling matter claim to be, with its qualities, and how can it ever pass for the real thing?

10. Nevertheless the preliminary question arises here, requiring however, also, only a preliminary answer at present: how is such an image of a resistance usually connected in its general form with the conception of the desired causality? Evidently thus: the whole resistance, to which the impulse relates in its totality and which we seek to get at in parts by proceeding through its various conditions, must be together, and in this, its being together, it is posited in space. In it is, at the same time and as one, that which afterwards in time becomes a many-fold and a succession. Hence the problem is to hunt up in space a point—corresponding to the A described in 3—wherein the causality may commence. For instance: in matter, this resisting power to be overcome is the connection of the parts, and this connection is to be broken first in one point, and from that one to the next.

11. The image of the immediate causality of the Ego is a straight line; hence also all such immediate causality appears as occurring in lines—pressure, impact, &c. If an unsurmountable resistance occurs, the causality moves off in another straight line, and the result is a straight-lined angle. Causality in curved lines occurs only mediately and with considerateness, according to a rule: for instance, around a given centre; whereas the straight line breaks out immediately and without any considerateness, being indeed the very outbreak of free construction. Curvedness is the exact opposite of freedom, or its limitation; for which reason, indeed, universal space is necessarily figured as a globe.

People have inquired after the ground of the three dimensions, of space. Now, firstly, all that is needed is to get at the correct conception of dimension, which will show itself as soon as we shall exhibit its ground. Secondly, it is simply needed to know where to look for this ground; namely, not in the region of conceptions, but of contemplations; for here is a mere contemplation, and the problem is a limitation of contemplation. "Show me the ground of the three dimensions" signifies nothing but: "Put me on a stand-point where this contemplation will necessarily occur to me." This stand-point is, for instance, not that of the point; for from me as a centre an infinite number of lines are possible, and if these were called dimensions space would have an infinite number of dimensions. The stand-point of the required contemplation is rather that of the line as the image of freedom, and hence also of time. This line (freedom), having but one dimension, must be limited by the above resistance in all possible ways. But there are three such ways: it is limited in length at both ends, in breadth again at both ends, whereby space changes from the line into a plane, and finally in height and depth, whereby space changes from a plane to a geometrical body. These are the three possible directions in which to reconstruct original space, that is, if we start from and presuppose the line. Hence, in true opposition to the image of the Ego's causality, space has dimensions, and three of them.

12. We have called external perception generally a thinking ; previously we said that it was a production of an absolute power of imaging. Hence in so far as we hold both propositions seriously, which we do, we consider all thinking as producing through an absolute power of imaging, and vice versa. Thinking is, therefore, nothing passive, receptive, or anything like that.—If former philosophers had made the conception of thinking clear in this way, they would have necessarily ere this put Philosophy on the right track.—Above, we described thinking as a going out of an inner and immediate consciousness. But this inner is feeling and contemplation, both as the immediate being of freedom, and is thus immediate consciousness. Now we say thinking goes out of it. In what manner? Certainly not in the way of Being, which indeed does not occur here at all, but in the manner of consciousness, which does occur here. But since this is a going out of immediate consciousness, it must be an imaging, and moreover an absolute imaging, a pure creating of a new consciousness. To be sure, a creating according to a rule, and by no means blind and lawless, as those assume who understand us to say that we merely imagine things.

This established conception of thinking will be found to confirm itself altogether. Here we particularly think a resistance of the productive power of imagination, or thinking itself in its most universal form; hence we have here the absolutely first thinking. Productive imagination produces itself—of course, in an image—and images a resistance to this thus produced itself. This is, in short, the here-occurring function of thinking, or of the absolute power of imaging; which power is here immanent, transcendent, remaining in and going out of itself.

With another kind of thinking, of which we shall speak hereafter, it will be different. In it the power of imaging will image not itself, but another faculty given to it before in contemplation, and will image an opposition to this faculty, in which latter function alone it is pure thinking.

13. We also in philosophizing, simply as such, must think; that is, produce absolutely through the power of imaging.

What we have just said may be divided into two chief parts. Firstly, we had to note: under such and such a presupposition (of an impulse, &c.), a picture of a resistance must be created. This "must" expresses that another thinking will connect with the first one, as the presupposed thinking, immediately and as inseparable from it; hence this "must" expresses that through the immediate causality of thinking itself the second thinking will grow out of the first one without any action on the part of freedom; and thus the second link must have arisen—if our assertion is correct—in every one of our readers who has thought the first link correctly, and must so have arisen without any act of his own freedom. The desired evidence must have taken hold of him immediately. It is quite otherwise with the second part of what has been said, namely, with the question: what will this image of a resistance result in?

Chapter 2

The Tendency of the Ego to overcome the Check of the non-Ego is posited as a material Body.

A.

We have seen how the Ego, limited to a mere impulse and without any immediate causality, through its mere Being contemplated its power to arrive in time at an end through conditional states; calculating that power, at the same time, the resistance that was also contemplated in the image, and thus completing a plan of its causality. It appears immediately that it can fix this manifold of conditions and of time in no other unity-conception than the conception of itself, and that hence it must in this connection necessarily think itself here, moreover, as a real principle—and not merely, as in the previous book, as the principle of a reproduction through the power of imagination—and furthermore absolutely a priori, without any real causality having preceded, since the whole synthetical period starts from a complete annihilation of such causality.

Now that which offers the resistance is matter, and the purpose is to separate this matter, get it out of its place, or remove it. But matter can be moved out of its place in space only through other matter; and thus it appears that the Ego, as a working power in a material world, must itself be matter, hence an immediately given, determined, and in-space-limited body. Moreover, in this body it must be possible that the conception can become immediately the cause of a motion of its matter, in order that by this designedly moved matter the dead external matter may be moved. Such a mobility of matter through the mere conception may very properly be called organization, by means whereof one body becomes an organ to work upon the rest of the material world. The Ego, in its image of a causality upon matter, would thus turn into an organized body.

A causality executed by means of this organization upon the material world, must be accompanied always by the above described external sense in order to judge to what extent the intended plan has been executed, and what still remains to be done. Hence this sense must be thoroughly united and constitute one with that organ, and must therefore be represented in matter in the same way. From this there results a material Ego with an external sense and organ.

Thus, I say, the Ego must appear absolutely a priori. We do not learn by experience that we act; we have no perception of it as we have of our passive states. That causality of ours presupposes a free conception created through absolute self-activity. This conception, and our possible causality in accordance with it, are internally contemplated—for thus we have described and accomplished it in the above—as a mere faculty, even in advance of the actual accomplishment of the intended causality; and it is already in this executed and completed prototype of such a causality that the Ego appears necessarily as a material organ.

Through what then, and through what faculty, is the Ego formed into a material body? Evidently through the productive power of imagination, precisely like the image of the resistance itself, and at the same occasion, and in virtue of the same law. The conception of the intended causality, the determined prototype of this causality, was to be sketched. To do this made necessary an image of the check or resistance, in order to calculate the effect of the power on it; so again an image of the power is necessary in order to calculate the effect of the resistance on it. But the resistance is placed in matter, and hence the power of the Ego must be placed in the same medium of matter in order to make such a calculation possible. From this it follows that just as the image of the resistance, external perception, was not consciousness, but an object of consciousness, so also the image of the Ego as a material body is not consciousness, but an object of consciousness; or, expressing it more strictly: materiality is the absolute a priori form of self-consciousness in its causality upon the original check, the form of the Ego's self-contemplation through its external sense, just as time is the Ego's form of self-contemplation through its internal sense. Now the causality of the Ego upon that original check may either be merely prototyped, to which region we have hitherto confined ourselves, or it may be actually executed, and contemplated in the actual realization. But in both cases the form, there of free imaging and here of contemplation, remains the materiality of the Ego.

B.

Now let us assume the Ego to be completely ready with this conception of its desired causality and all the constructions that condition this conception, and let us ask: has the actual causality now real existence or not? I say, it has by no means existence as yet even through the completest conception, but is only now possible. The Ego, which at first was enchained and deprived of all its power to have causality, has now, through the mere conception, completely freed itself in such a manner that it can begin the proposed causality at the conceived point of beginning—as soon as it does begin it—needing only itself for this causality.

But if this perfect possibility is to be changed into actuality, what must occur, what is the real point of transition, the requisite complementum possibilitatis? This question is very important, partly because it has hitherto never been thoroughly investigated by philosophers, and partly on account of its vast consequences for our whole system.

This transition to actual causality is doubtless a change of its present condition. Let us, then, make this present condition very clear to ourselves, in order to see wherein it can be changed. At present, it has its causality in the conception only. True, that causality is thoroughly determined and completed; but this its being is only in thought, and vanishes as soon as the act of thinking vanishes, since with it the thought itself vanishes. The being of this causality is held in this present state only through the continuing freedom of thinking, and falls down as soon as this freedom withdraws its hand. Probably it is this relation that is to be changed in such a manner that the being of that causality becomes independent of the thinking, in which case it would be called actual. But how is such a change to occur? Let us explain the whole matter to ourselves in the following way: There is a double relation to immediate consciousness. Wherever any immediate consciousness occurs, not excepting feeling and contemplation, an absolutely free and undetermined power of imaging is to be posited as the summum modificabile. This power is always being limited when a determined consciousness is to occur; but it can be so limited in a twofold way. Firstly, by the immediate activity of the Ego itself, which manifests itself as activity to create a certain product, an image. In this case the summum modificabile is immediately directed upon that activity, and it beholds the product only through this activity; hence if that determined activity leaves, the product also leaves consciousness, and its being in consciousness is canceled. This is the case with all mere thoughts, and hence also with the described image of that possible causality. Secondly, the summum modificabile is absolutely and immediately limited, and not by any free activity conditioning this limitation, as is the case in the above described limitation of the absolute productive power of imagination.

Now, since such a limitation is altogether unconditioned, the Being, which enters into our consciousness, is represented also as an unconditioned Being, which no withdrawal of that freedom can possibly cancel, since it is not conditioned by it.

Hence to say that the Ego must realize the conception of its causality in an act, is to say that the Ego must move from the region of a Being, which can be annihilated at any moment by the withdrawal of freedom, or the region of conception, into the region of the immediately confined power of imagination, wherein everything assumes a fixed, permanent, and on-itself-reposing Being.

Now, into this region it is transposed already by its material body. Hence it must make itself an actually working material body in order to enter the form of actuality; and since in this region everything remains permanent, the products of its freedom thus accomplished will certainly also stay permanent.

The transition of the Ego from the mere thinking of a possible causality to the actual realization of that causality consists, therefore, in this, that the Ego frees itself in its whole personality from the freedom of mere conception, and surrenders itself to its original existence as a principle in the region of the absolutely limited power of imagination. But this transition occurs with absolute freedom.

This is the reason why in thought we can take back every resolve, but cannot think a deed as not done, since the deed irrevocably binds our own contemplation of Being. A deed we can take back only by another actual deed, through which we destroy the product of the first deed and put a new one in its place.

Remarks.

1. The transition of the Ego from the mere conception to an actual causality can be described as a confining of its previously (in the region of conception) unchained freedom; but it can also be regarded—when we consider that conceptions are mere pictures, but causality the true actual—as a liberation from emptiness and the acquiring of a higher freedom; and thus we have regarded it above. In either case it is necessary, according to the above established principles, that an immediate consciousness of this transition should occur, which consciousness will appear as a consciousness of self-determination, since it is the transition of the Ego from one form of its power into the opposite form through another higher power of its own, which higher power soars between both.

2. Whatsoever falls into the region of the absolutely limited power of imagination, receives an unconditioned and permanent Being. In this form the Ego appears as a material body, and hence this is its permanent Being. As a Thinking essence, for instance, the Ego appears to itself only when thinking, but the Ego may also not think at all. Its bodily existence, however, it always retains, even in deepest sleep or in swoons. Thus, also, the products of the Ego in the material world retain their existence as long as the matter, which they have modified, remains, and may survive their originator centuries in the material world.

Chapter 3

The Tendency of the Ego to overcome the Check is posited us a Multiplicity of material Bodies, or as a System of Individuals.

That which I actually—that is, in the region of my self-confined power of imaging—produce through my causality is to confine my own external causality, so that no retraction of my thinking can retract its being. Nay, what is more, even the contemplation of other beings like myself is to be bound by it, as likewise by my own bodily existence.

This is here simply my assertion, and presented simply as a mere pure fact of consciousness. Now this assertion involves the following:

1. There do exist outside of myself beings like myself.

2. These beings are bound to recognize me, by virtue of my bodily existence, as a being like themselves.

3. They are also bound to perceive the products of my activity in the material world.

The latter two propositions I may safely take for granted after having assumed the first one. The whole is here represented simply as a fact of consciousness without any deduction or (what our deductions here are) junction with a higher link, since we have here as yet no higher link wherewith we could bring this fact into conjunction, being as yet busy in the endeavor to get at such a higher link by ascending from our present point. Hence we have at present to see simply what this fact involves; that is, to connect it with what is already known to us, and to comprehend it from that standpoint.

First of all: how do I get at all at that presupposition? How does the picture and the thought of such beings like me outside of myself arise in me? It is not only wonderful but contradictory to all our previous supposition. The life of freedom and of consciousness has hitherto been represented as one; all our deductions have been made from the oneness, and only by its means have we proved and explained. But now this one life evidently dirempts into many lives, which in their essence are to be like each other; hence this one life is here repeated in many forms, and repeated. How does this repetition occur? Don't let us, by any means, ask as yet from what ground it occurs, for that question can probably be answered only in another place; but, through what fact does this positing of other beings outside of us occur?

A.

In order to prepare our investigation, let us once more answer in all possible clearness the oft-answered question: how do I make myself a real principle? As an imaging principle I already have myself, and contemplate myself as such through the immediate internal contemplation of freedom. But, apart from this internal contemplation, I have another form of immediate consciousness, namely, my immediately through-itself-limited productive power of imaging. I attempt to apply also this second form to the Ego contemplated in the first described manner, and I find that this my productive power of imaging is limited by this Ego also immediately and in a two-fold manner, namely, 1st, by that Ego as a material body; and 2d, by the products of that Ego as a material body in a material world.

Have I now, then, completely externalized the Ego, and placed it, through thinking, out of the region of immediate internal contemplation, in the region of external perception? Yes and no. The bodily presentation of the Ego and its causality in the material world are externalized; but the self-determining of this causality, the conception and plan that precede it, remain as yet mere objects of internal contemplation, and in so far the Ego has not yet been externalized. But that causality, as the external, is conditioned by that self-determining, or by that conception, as the internal, and without an internal we shall never get an external. Hence this Ego gets completely externalized neither by the mere external contemplation or productive thinking, nor by the mere internal contemplation, but only by an absolutely inseparable synthesis of both.

B.

I try still further whether I cannot set this Ego—even beyond this synthesis and precisely as it occurs in this synthesis, namely, as composed of internal and external self-contemplation—by means of productive thinking from the now completed inner contemplation; that is, whether I cannot get hold of it in that purely original thinking, whereby it would—as an absolute giving out of the internal—get utterly cut off from this given internal contemplation, and would receive for the Ego of this internal contemplation an altogether peculiar on-itself-reposing Being; becoming for this Ego a true non-Ego, just as happened in the case of the first product of free thinking, the merely material object of external perception, only in a much higher degree. I say, for the Ego of this hitherto described internal contemplation, although in-and-for-itself it may well be an Ego, since it has been thought as such.

I try and I find that I not only can but must do so. The productive power of imagination in attempting to realize such a thinking finds itself compelled to realize it, that is, finds itself limited by the existence of such external Egos, and moreover—as results from the original form of the power of imaging—by an infinite number of possible Egos. The Ego must be externalized through thinking, and can be so externalized infinitely. Now, in what particular case this conception must be applied and realized we shall have to specify hereafter.

C.

Let us, firstly, consider the form of this original thinking of the Ego, that is, of externalizing. To be sure, the inner Ego is also thought and received into the form of independent Being; it is not thought, however, through the absolute original thinking, but by means of the inner contemplation. Now that previously described thinking of the mere material object of external perception appeared—at least in our first investigation—as grounded and conditioned through another, through the necessity to draft a conception of the activity which the impulse desires to achieve. Now we have no condition given for the thinking of an Ego beyond the Ego of immediate internal contemplation; we have posited it as an absolute fact. Hence this thinking is, at least here, an altogether unconditioned determination of pure and absolute thinking, and is therefore thought simply because it is thought, and thinking, itself, involves this particular thinking. We cannot say, I think—produce—other Egos; but rather, universal and absolute thinking thinks—or thinkingly produces—those other Egos, and my own Ego amongst them. Hereafter we shall, perhaps, find a ground even of this thinking; but it is already evident here that that ground cannot be of the same nature as the grounds and conditions heretofore.

D.

Let us now proceed to ascertain the contents of this absolute thought. The Ego is thought absolute—precisely as it was generated above through the absolute synthesis of internal and external contemplation, and as the uniting central point of both. Hence the thought Ego receives internally its immediate self-contemplation—its faculty of conception, of self-determination, &c.; and externally a materially organized body and a possible causality in the material world, precisely as pertains to the first Ego, from which we started in our internal investigation.

Now, the significant part here is this: the immediately internal contemplation is repeated, for the present at least, twice. But these two internal contemplations are separated by an absolute gulf, and neither of them can look into the other, since each one is not contemplated but thought by the other. What is this gulf?

Evidently it is upon this distinction that I base my assertion, this is my Ego; and that I admit of my neighbor’s Ego, although it is just like mine: this is not mine but his Ego; words that he, speaking of me, repeats in the same manner. Now, what does this duplication of the Ego into my Ego signify here? Evidently it is the basis of the fundamental character of the individual as such. What, then, is this character?

Just remember how we arrived at all at an Ego. Knowledge reflected itself, and found and seized itself in the act, which act may thus be well called an altogether immediate (and if we have named this internal an external) contemplation. But it was this contemplation which, gathered into the fixed form of thinking, first gave rise to an Ego, first as a knowing intelligence, and next as a principle: and this indeed was the origin of the first and in all our previous investigations single, Ego: nor would any Ego have arisen without that reflection and self-contemplation of knowledge. Hence it follows that the actual existence of an Ego is grounded upon an absolute fact of immediate self-contemplation, namely, the self-contemplation of knowledge.

At present this Ego is to be multiplied; there are to be many Egos. This immediate self-contemplation must, therefore, occur many times: that is, its fact must be multiplied, since every such fact is the ground of an Ego. Vice versa, to say that many Egos are posited, is to say that the fact of inner contemplation is posited as having occurred many times. That knowledge, which is internally contemplated in this fact, may well remain one and the same; for we have neither said, nor does it result from our deduction, that this knowledge is repeated and posited many times. It is simply the altogether seemingly accidental fact of contemplation, or of the reflection of that knowledge, which is posited many times; and it is only thus that a manifold Ego of internal contemplation has first arisen. Now, with this original fact of inner contemplation as its essential birth-place, there connects another Ego, which develops itself as a power of other internal contemplations, of an impulse, of a faculty, of freely-created conceptions. All that further occurs in internal contemplation is gathered into the unity of the Ego thought in virtue of that fact. Thus the Ego of each individual is that Ego which he has thought in virtue of that absolutely primary and original self-contemplation of knowledge which first gave him existence, and to which he now relates all that may occur in the same internal contemplation. Hence the expression, my Ego. The Ego which involves the my, and whereof "my" is the adjective, is the absolutely original Ego which has arisen through the immediate fact of self-contemplation. The second Ego, alluded to here, is the progression of the first original Ego in time; and this progression occurring with freedom, and thus remaining under the control of the first original Ego, the original Ego appropriates it as its own and calls it its Ego. Hence that which we have described is the essential character of the individual as such, and through which the spheres of internal contemplation, as based upon separate facts, separate from and mutually exclude each other.

Result: the individuals as such are absolutely separate in themselves, complete single worlds, without any connection whatever.

E.

Now, if we stopped here, life in the background as the matter of the manifold facts of reflection might well remain one and the same, as we have just now maintained; but it could certainly never arrive at a unity, at least in consciousness, since all consciousness would be altogether individual. Indeed it would even remain inexplicable how we, who confess ourselves to be individuals, could think such a unity, though it were simply problematically, and how we could possibly make ourselves understood about the matter. Hence if consciousness is to remain consciousness of the one life, as we have maintained from the first it must, that unity which was canceled by individuality must be restored in that same consciousness. This must be restored of course; firstly, since the inner contemplation is precisely the medium of canceling the unity by going beyond this medium, by its opposite, which is thinking; and which, since it is a representation of the original and absolute unity, must be an original thinking; and secondly, it must be restored just in so far as it is canceled: that is, those individuals that have been separated into many lives in inner contemplation, must again be united in thinking as such and as remaining such; in other words, they must all occur in the one same thinking.

F.

Consider well what has been said. That thinking, which has as yet been described only factically in its relative form as the opposite of inner contemplation, and hence as a going beyond that contemplation, obtains here, where its peculiar and inner essence is made apparent, an altogether different and higher significance. It becomes an immediate self-representation of life, as a one and in its unity. Hence it can be only a single thinking, corresponding, and agreeing with itself.

This thinking is the representation or consciousness of life. Hence this thinking must occur everywhere where life enters the form of consciousness. This form it has entered in the individuals. Hence it must occur in these individuals, and, moreover, in all of them. It is in itself one, and must therefore occur in all in the same manner.

I say, the one life represents itself in this thinking in its unity. But the individual as such is not at all life in its unity, but merely a fragment of it. We cannot, therefore, say at all that the individual as such thinks that thinking; or, if we do say so, we must add that it thinks that thinking not as an individual, but as the one and same life. It is in this thinking no longer a particular separate Ego, but the one and universal Ego. After a while we shall arrive at very remarkable applications of this proposition.

If this thinking does occur in the individual, it will appear of course under the condition of free reflection, and not otherwise, in inner contemplation; not as a product of the Ego, however, but simply as the expression of an absolute fact.

Remarks.—The Science of Knowledge has generally been understood as ascribing effects to the individual—for instance, the production of the whole material world, &c.—which cannot at all be ascribed to it. Now, how is the Science of Knowledge, in truth, related to this objection? Thus: those who raised that objection fell into their misunderstanding precisely because they themselves ascribed to the individual far more than appertains to it, and thus committed the very error which they imputed to the Science of Knowledge. Hence, having once misunderstood the first principles of that science, they find that error in it even to a further extent than they themselves are inclined to grant to it. But they are altogether mistaken; it is not the individual, but the one immediate spiritual life, which is the creator of all appearances, and hence also of the appearing individuals. Hence the Science of Knowledge holds so very strictly, that this one life be thought purely and without any substrate; for the individual serves precisely as such substrate, and hence arise all their errors. Reason—or universal thinking, or knowledge simply—is higher and more than the individual. To be unable to think any other reason than one which an individual possesses as his accidence is to be unable to think reason at all. Happy the individual whom reason possesses!

Result: the described absolute thinking represents a community of individuals.

G.

This thinking is expression of life generally, and therefore occurs necessarily wherever life arrives at consciousness. But life arrives at consciousness, as we have said above, in the individuals. It follows, therefore, that all actually existing individuals—all points wherein knowledge has arrived at a contemplation of itself—must be necessarily thought from the stand-point of each individual. Just as I, individual, think the others, so the others again think me; and as many as I think, so many think me. Thus all think the same community or system of individuals, with this only difference, that each has another starting-point, another sphere of inner contemplation from which he starts. Each one thinks all the others through absolutely original thinking, but he does not think himself so; himself he produces through the described synthesis of both contemplations.

H.

An Ego is necessarily thought as in an organized body. Hence each individual thinks necessarily all the others thus; for Egohoods and organized materiality are absolutely united in original thinking, or in the law of thinking, and hence they are so likewise in actual thinking, or in the following out of that thinking.

Thus the previously first question, as to where the conception of the Ego is applicable in actuality, is here answered as follows: wherever an organized body appears to the external sense, or—as we know better now—to the absolute thinking of a material world. It is not to be understood as if we concluded from the form of the body to the Ego,—neither immediately, for how could such a conclusion from one world to its direct opposite be possible? nor mediately, because I, individual, have such a body, for how can I know that this body is not merely accidental, but belongs essentially and absolutely to my Ego? But the matter stands thus: both, the thought of the Ego and this bodily representation, are united in the original thinking which expresses life in its unity.

Chapter 4

Recapitulation.—Let us recapitulate all we have said hitherto.

I. The one fundamental life presupposed by us represents itself in its unity. It represents itself, places itself before itself in a sketch or scheme.

II. This representation is contradistinguished from another self-representation—which in the same way is not a unity, but merely a partial representation—a thinking; and, since it is an absolute self-representation of life, an absolute thinking.

III. Thus we have reduced the whole consciousness, in so far as we can survey it now, to two fundamental facts: immediate contemplation, which we have characterized through opposition as internal, and absolute thinking, which, in regard to the former, is externalizing.

IV. But it is by no means to be understood as if the individual thinks by means of himself and his own power. He thinks only as one and with the annihilation of his individuality. Hence we shall do well, in describing the content of this thinking, to place ourselves at once on the stand-point of that oneness by asking, not how does the individual think? but rather, how does the one and universal thinking think?

A.

It thinks wherever it is, and thinks a community of individuals possible ad infinitum, but actually limited and altogether determined both as a whole and in its parts.

But together with this universal thinking there is united always individuality, for only in individuality does life break out into self-representation and consciousness. In individuality it thus arrives at a self-representation of its form generally; in thinking, at an express genetically attained and thus visible unity. If we look at this point, we must say that this thinking is to be numerically repeated in all individuals, and occurs as often as there are individuals, though always remaining in its content the same in all these repetitions.

Nevertheless there is a difference in this thinking from the stand-point of the individual; not, however, in regard to the content, but only in regard to the relation. For each individual thinks one of the whole series of Egos as its own particular Ego, and each one thinks another one as this its particular Ego. It has been clearly shown above that the ground of determination in this separation lies in the particular sphere of immediate internal contemplation.

Now this thinking is not at all based upon any perception, but is an absolutely a priori thinking, that prescribes laws to perception.

(According to Kant, there is an absolutely a priori knowledge by virtue of an inner contemplation of our faculties, as, for instance, Space, Time, &c., The external world Kant did not touch at all. We proceeded in the same manner in our first part. But now the whole view changes. We now posit an absolutely a priori knowledge for the external world; and it will soon appear that, from this view, the whole external world will change into an a priori.)

It is a priori, I say; that is, through this thinking there is posited externally and absolutely a conception—of the Ego—which can be formed only in inner contemplation, and which contradicts all external perception. This conception is realized as a mere pure faculty and law; not as any perceivable activity, but as the future ground and rule of such. For we do not think the external Ego by virtue of its manifestation, but we think it absolutely. It is only in consequence of this conception that we expect and assume it to manifest itself as an Ego if it does manifest itself; the activity expected from it is anticipated by us, and its law prescribed by us in advance.

B.

An individual, as a sense and organ for the material world, is necessarily thought as represented in this material world by a material body. This absolute synthesis and inseparability of an Ego of internal contemplation from a material body is not made by a new act of thinking, is not inferred—neither immediately, inferring from a body shaped in a certain manner by some principle of a syllogism to the presence of an Ego, for how could such a principle be proved? nor mediately, concluding from the fact that I as individual have such a body, for how do I as individual get at such a body, or how can I know that this body is not merely accidental, and belongs to me not as this particular individual but as Ego generally?—but is to be conceived thus: In the absolute and original thinking there is the synthesis of an Ego, as principle, and in so far pure noumen, which is perceptible alone in its acts, and firstly in internal contemplation but secondly as a bodily organ, but which in all these forms is absolutely one and the same Ego.

Let us dwell a while upon this important point, and make it clear to us by its consequences. We, therefore, utterly repudiate the separation of the individual into body and soul, and the composition of the individual out of these two pieces; a doctrine which perhaps even asserts that the soul alone will continue to exist after the decease of the body. The Ego is in itself principle, and as such a pure thought altogether unsensuous and supersensuous. Now, as an image of this Ego we form necessarily, through free—here poetizing—productive imagination, because we have no other creative faculty, a soul, and this soul necessarily assumes an extended shape, no matter how we twist around, simply because extension is the form of contemplation for the productive power of imagination. But this forming was a very superfluous piece of business, throwing an unnecessary and uncomfortable burden upon original thinking. The Ego, as a pure noumen, ought to have no image at all; it makes itself perceptible by its manifestations of inner contemplation. In so far as it is to be imaged, it is already imaged, without any cooperation of our wisdom, by the absolute productive power itself, and this image is the body. This body is the very soul you are searching for, whilst you always have it; it is the Ego in the form of contemplation.

Matters, therefore, stand thus: the Ego, or the individual—for as yet we know no other Ego—occurs in the three ground-forms of consciousness: pure thinking, internal contemplation, and external contemplation. In all these forms it is the same one, and in each it is whole. There is no separation.

The existence of a soul is, therefore, absolutely denied, and the whole conception of a soul repudiated as a miserable poetical invention. Nor is this an unessential matter, but it is a very essential criterion of our system. With the presupposition of such a soul, you can neither enter nor remain in this system.

This body of the Ego—at least that of the Ego outside of us; how it stands with our own Ego we shall see hereafter—is as posited, as all bodily matter is posited, by the absolute productive power of imagination attempting its own free construction, and finding itself limited therein. Now, what is that which really limits the power of imagination? This question, which heretofore we could not answer, is answerable here, because the power of imagination itself has been comprehended under a higher connection.

It is thinking itself which limits it. Simply because thinking is limited to posit precisely such a number of individuals, the power of imagination is limited to contemplate the very same number of organized bodies in the material world.

In short, that which represents itself is the One Life. This life represents itself as it is; its representation, therefore, corresponds altogether with itself. But it thus represents or manifests itself in two forms: firstly, through thinking, in so far as absolute principles are posited; and secondly, through contemplation, in so far as organized bodies are posited. But in both forms the one and the same self-representation manifests itself. Hence both forms must correspond in their contents. This part of universal thinking may, therefore, be thus expressed from the stand-point of unity:

1. It involves a self-same external contemplation of a fixed sum of organized bodies which altogether corresponds with the thought sum of Egos.

2. Since this general self-representation in actuality occurs only in connection with individuality, and since individuality is repeatable, contemplation also must be repeatable; but contemplation can be repeatable, so far as its content is concerned, only in the same one manner. It is the same sum of organized bodies and the same relation of them to other matter in space for all individuals.

3. Nevertheless there is a difference in regard to relation. For just as each individual thinks only one of the series of Egos as its own and all the others as foreign to it, so it also takes only one of the series of organized bodies as its own and all the others as foreign to it. Now we know from what has been said above, that it ascribes to itself that body upon which it can exercise immediate causality through the conception. Nevertheless there is another mark very important. It is this: the foreign body is to each individual a mere object of external contemplation, as all other material bodies are; whereas his own body is not at all an object of contemplation whether internal or external, but altogether of thinking. Not of internal contemplation, for we have no internal feeling of the totality of our body, though we have such a feeling of the parts—for instance, in pain; nor of external contemplation, for we never see ourselves as a whole, though we do see parts of ourselves. (We certainly do see our whole body in the mirror, but therein we see really not our body, but simply an image of it, and think it as such image only in so far as we know already that we have a body.) Nor do we perceive ourselves by means of the external sense of touch as a whole, though we do perceive parts of our body by means of touch; in which case, however, some parts themselves of that body are always the touching organ, and hence the sense itself, but not the object of that sense. Hence we merely think our body, and think it thus as the organ of our conception. Thus our whole body is very evidently a conception purely a priori just as the whole contemplation here spoken of is altogether a priori in so far as it has foreign bodies for its object, since the altogether a priori thinking is the determination of this contemplation.

C.

The material world of mere objects has been deduced above as the absolute limitation of the productive power of imagination; but it has not yet been stated clearly and expressly whether the power of imagination in this its function is the self-representation of the one life as such, or whether it is merely the representation of individual life; and hence, whether a material world is posited by the one life or by the individual as such. True, the former may be immediately inferred; for individuality is only in the sphere of internal contemplation, whereas that contemplation of the world is external. But we can also prove it mediately.

The contemplation of a sum of organized bodies is the immediate expression of the one life. These bodies altogether are represented as having the material world for the sphere of their external causality, and as contemplating each other mutually by means of the one contemplation originating from the one life. Hence the contemplation of the world of merely material objects is synthetically united with the contemplation of organized bodies and lies altogether in connection with the same one contemplation; hence it also is the immediate expression of life in its unity. The objects of the material world, therefore, are contemplated not by the individual as such, but by the one life.

At present, we can express this also in this manner:

1. An altogether determined material world is thought through universal thinking, and through the external contemplation connected with, that thinking. This thinking, moreover, is, in regard to its content, altogether the same.

2. If we take this thinking as connected with individuality, it is repeatable as many times as there are individuals, and is actually repeated so many times; but the content remains unchanged in all these repetitions.

3. Nevertheless there is a difference according to relation. For as each individual ascribes to itself a particular body, it necessarily posits this body in a particular location in space and in a location not occupied by other organized bodies. Now this its location becomes for it necessarily the central point of its comprehension of the other objects in space, and of their order and position as related to itself. Hence there is for each individual a peculiar series of the existing objects of the universe.

Chapter 5

Nature and the individual^[1]

At this insight, that the material world is merely absolute limitation of the productive power of the imagination, one question still remains in part unanswered, namely: What is that which limits in this limitation?

The question might be put: 1. What is the ground why life limits itself at all? To this the answer is, Because it represents itself in an image, and an image is always limited and determined.

Or, 2. Why is life limited in this particular manner? This question has already been answered, in part, as follows: Because the original and absolute power of imagination is limited; and hence originates extension, quality generally, and externality outside of the Ego, all of which constitute the mere empty form of external contemplation, which has no inner significance at all. But we have already shown that the real Inner Essence of the world, as a resistance to the power of free life, must be something quite different, must be, in fact, itself a power—a pure noumenon, which no external contemplation can reach. This power or force is indeed the world, and, as such, the world is posited and altogether determined.

Whence does this determination or limitation arise as the only genuine, true, and original limitation? Evidently through original thinking itself, and in the following way:

The world, even in its inner character, as a force, and as a resisting force, is to be object of the causality of the one common Ego; and the force or power of this world is to be overcome by the power of that one common life. In this subjugation a certain determined power of life, peculiarly and essentially belonging to it, will, no doubt, make itself visible to universal contemplation. Now, since by the law of our science we never start from a presumptive world in itself, but always from life alone, how would it be if that resistance, the real inner power or force of the world, were originally posited and thought only as pure resistance and as nothing else, hence as that wherein the power of life and in opposition to which the power of life made itself visible?

The matter now stands thus:

Life represents itself in its unity. Being life, it is a power—a determined, peculiar power; and, moreover—since we know it to be a principle—an infinite power within its determinedness. We did not say that life represented itself in its unity internally, in the thinking heretofore described—indeed, our whole previous internal representation was not one of unity, but merely a partial one—but that life represented itself externally and in external contemplation. Hence, it cannot represent its power—in its essence, of course, for its formal condition we have already discovered in an internal but individual contemplation—as something altogether internal in this form; and the power remains in the described thinking, precisely because it is a self-externalizing, utterly unseen and invisible. Hence, if this power must nevertheless be represented in such a thinking—and, since it is a life which is to be represented, it cannot well be represented otherwise—it can be represented only in a resisting object—that is, we must add and think together with it a somewhat, which would be fully annihilated if the power of life were completely developed. Now, if such a somewhat is added and posited—and such a somewhat is, according to us, that very internal world, which we may now, having properly raised it to its rank as a noumenon, call Nature—the inner power of life, although kept invisible, would yet be its real determining master, since this nature would contain only that which the power of life itself contained, but in its very opposite. And if we called the thinking of such an opposite limited—i.e., limited to precisely such a thinking, the invisible limiting part of this thinking—the hidden premise of its contents would be the very being of the power of life itself. Now, suppose that the power of life developed itself actually within this thinking, then this same power, which was at first and without this thinking of a resistance altogether invisible, would become visible in this its being developed through contact with the resistance for a form of contemplation, which contemplates only in opposition, and hence beholds everything only as limited by its opposite. The power, thus developing itself, would henceforth always appear as limited by the resistance posited in advance by thinking, and would be visible only in a form of contemplation, thus constituted.

Remarks.—The Science of Knowledge holds Nature to be nothing else than the opposite, which absolute thinking has formed, to the absolute power of free and spiritual life, and which that thinking has thus formed necessarily in order to make that power visible, it being in itself invisible.

Now, when you tell this to a "Natural Philosopher," and say to him that Nature is merely a limit, merely a negative, and nothing positive at all, he gets angry, and cries out aloud about the outrage committed on Nature. But that is all he does. For to enter upon the arguments of the Science of Knowledge, and to refute them by proving the opposite of what has just been advanced, would require a faculty of acute and logical thinking, of following a very extensive series of thoughts, and of employing a more than usual degree of dialectical art.

But what dim feeling is it, really, which so excites their wrath, and which certainly must have some weighty ground? It is scarcely to be expected that we shall ever learn it from them; hence we must try to put speech into their mouths. The matter is this:

The conception of an Absolute Being, altogether of itself, through itself and in itself, is ineradicably impressed upon consciousness; and just as ineradicably there is impressed upon consciousness the impossibility of transferring this conception to itself (to the Ego) and of positing itself in any way as the Absolute. Now, those philosophers, together with all their contemporaries, have believed the Science of Knowledge to make the Ego that Absolute, in violation of the ineradicable consciousness before mentioned. Believing this, they, of course, were forced to improve on such a system. But this improvement turned out to be an unhappy one, since they made Nature the Absolute, after it had resulted, of course, that the Ego could not well be the Absolute. They argued: Either the Ego or Nature; there is no third; for their range of vision reached only these two. Their wrath is excited, really, because they think that, since we will not let Nature pass for the Absolute, we must necessarily make the Ego the Absolute. But in this they are mistaken; we draw no such consequence; for our more extensive range of vision embraces something more than those two factors.

Nature remains for us a mere limit, subordinated to the Ego, its pure product, namely, as one life. An Absolute outside of the Ego and of Nature, extending to the former, and by its means also to the latter, their proper point of support, we shall learn to obtain in another way.

Let no one here hasten to put in the mediation of those ever-ready peacemakers, who would say that the whole matter is probably a mere word- dispute. True, we know, as cannot well be otherwise, and we are sorry for it, that, in thus making Nature the Absolute, they, at the same time, constitute Nature their God; and we know also very well that they do not really represent the separate objects of Nature as being such God, but transfer this their conception of God to a common World-soul or internal Force of Nature underlying all phenomena of Nature, which Force of Nature, indeed, if matters turn out well, and if a proper height of sublimity is attained, is said to project itself in some phenomena of Nature as self -consciousness. (If they were at all habituated to thinking closely whatever they think instead of indulging in superficial phantasies, they would comprehend, at this very place in their system, that there is no thinkable transition whatever from a force of Nature, simply manifesting itself, to a return of such force into itself in a duality and form of reflection!) But we see clearly that every principle, which is to be realiter a principle of sensuous appearance, is itself sensuous, and cannot be at all thought as supersensuous and spiritual; not even as an Ego, much less as God; and that hence only two ways are open to them. Either they should confess that they lack insight into the unity and connection of the appearance, seizing it only separately and scattered about as it presents itself, and that hence they are no philosophers; or, if they will lay claim to this title, and thus admit a supersensuous and spiritual as real, they must utterly drop their reality of the sensuous, since it is absolutely impossible to connect the two; and they must learn to comprehend the whole sensuousness as mere form of contemplation of the supersensuous, even as the Science of Knowledge comprehends it.

According to all that we have said before, the sensuous world is no more an object of experience than the previously established parts of the self-representation of life in its unity, but is altogether a something a priori. It is not a foreign something, which enters into contemplation and thinking, but is necessarily grounded in them. Its universal, external form, materiality and quality in general, originates in the peculiar form of the power of imagination; hence it does not belong to itself, but to the latter, and is formed in opposition to it. As we said before: The limitation of the power of imagination makes an object visible—so now we may say: The object makes visible the power of imagination, and its internal determinedness—for instance, of infinity. Moreover, since consciousness must begin somewhere, and must begin precisely at this point, the power of imagination here becomes first partially visible; and this its form here first enters the range of vision. It is true that, in order to recognize this form as form of the power of imagination, and as an absolute form, we need something else—namely, free reflection, which itself, however, is possible only under the condition of that immediate contemplation of the object. Thus matters stand in regard to the external form. But the internal part of the sensuous world is, as we have described it just now, the expression of the real, final, and original power of life by its opposite. It is, therefore, formed through the real power, just as matter, etc., is formed through the power of imagination. This inner sensuous world is determined by that power of life and nothing can arise in it except its opposite and annihilating power be in that power of life. The sensuous world is thus nothing but an image by means of the opposite of the power of life according to the two chief forms of the latter, imaginative and real power; it is, therefore, absolutely determined a priori, and not accidental. (There is positively nothing in it but the component parts of this image; take them away, and nothing remains, no residuum, no unknown something = x.)

We have shown above that the sensuous world is not posited by the individual as such, but as one life; and this also appears from the mere analysis of the thinking of a sensuous object. That which is individual is perceived simply because the Ego in its inner contemplation perceives itself as the principle of that individual; hence, it is visible, and exists only as the result of that principle, as we have seen above in the instances of the freely produced conception of a purpose of reproduction, etc. But, as such, it ceases the moment that the Ego ceases to hold it fixed by immediate production. Hence, a fixed, independent existence, independent of free representation, does not pertain to it. Now, if we produced objects in this manner we should regard them as representations, which would drop away as soon as we should cease to represent them. (Idealism is often described as assuming this to be the case, but it is a complete misapprehension.) But we ascribe to them an independent being, as a sign that we give them an image of a being, which we, as individuals, cannot take away from them again, and which does not depend upon our inner contemplable freedom: namely, an image of the One. They are not representations; hence, they are things themselves immediately. We do not have and possess these things in our immediate contemplation through representatives, but we possess themselves in their immediate essence, since, in reality, they are, after all, nothing but appearances, and the appearances which we (the universal Ego) possess ourselves. This extremely important and altogether misapprehended point of our Idealism must be stringently insisted upon. There are systems, for instance, according to which things do not appear as they are in themselves, but are changed in a manifold manner by our representations. The fundamental error lies here, in the circumstance that another being than the being of their appearance is attributed to them. According to us, the things appear absolutely as they are, for they are nothing else than their appearance. They are throughout and throughout appearance, to use an expression which was formed, as it seems, to terrify us, but which we quietly appropriate to our own advantage.

Besides—to prove our proposition by another side of the analysis—the objects of the sensuous world are posited immediately as absolutely valid for others as soon as we reflect upon such objects and gather them up in the act of objective thinking, a sure proof that all we have now described is a single synthetical thinking period, through which the whole external world arises for us.

Chapter 6

General remarks

We review all the preceding in order to attach to it some general remarks.

Result of the Whole.—The presupposed life of consciousness represents itself in its unity immediately through itself. The objective views of the world hitherto established are those representations. It is true that that life of consciousness is broken, which means that it is repeatable many times as the same life—for, as yet, we have not noticed any real inner distinctions of the individuals, but have considered them all as the same.

1. Now, how did we arrive at this result? Evidently without any argumentation and proof, and merely by the free maxim of our science to regard consciousness as a particular phenomenon of itself, without any foreign mixture; hence, by mere scientific form. In this, therefore, all philosophy, which claims to be a science for itself, ought to agree with us. But the philosophers opposed to us in this have not even allowed consciousness to pass for an appearance standing on its own feet. Our treatment finds its first discoverer in Kant. Such a treatment of consciousness is justly called Idealism, and all philosophy must, therefore, according to us, be Idealism from the first start and in its beginning. It might become something else by an exposition of the ground of consciousness. But this question is not raised until we have completed the list of facts, and meanwhile we explain the phenomenon out of itself, so long as we can do it at all.

2. We see here, clearly, the distinction of our system from that which assumes sensuous things existing in themselves and makes them the basis of consciousness—a system which we will not call by the ambiguous name dogmatism, but plainly materialism, to which name it can raise no objection if it is logical. This system says: In all hitherto established objective views of the world, the sensuous world represents itself; but our system says: It is the life of consciousness which represents itself in them. We agree, however, in this, that it represents itself in the same form of an altogether determined and necessary thinking. The difference between both expressions is apparent; the only question is, What is the real point of the dispute? It is this: Materialism posits the things as the ground of the life of consciousness. Now, this we contradict. At least, in the described consciousness it is life that represents, and life represents itself in it. Another and higher question is: Does it not also represent a something else, outside of itself, while it thus represents itself and in its self-representation? It is possible, and it will turn out to be so. This is the inquiry after the ground. But materialism makes use of this proposition from the very start, without any necessity, and in an altogether unsatisfactory manner. According to materialism, consciousness represents the sensuous world in itself. The materialist says: Things exist. This we also say, and say it as emphatically as he may desire. But he also says: Hence, the things are at the same time the ground of our representations of them. Here we perceive a whole tissue of fictions. Of course, they exist; but how do you know that they are at the same time such ground? You furthermore assert that we have only representations of them, which is in direct contradiction to an accurate observation of self-consciousness. Finally, you connect these two fictions by a relation, which is also purely fictitious, in making one of them the ground of the other—a fiction which is, moreover, completely unintelligible, for you have never yet uttered, nor will you ever be able to utter, a sensible word concerning the manner in which a thing can change into an image essentially different from the thing, and in another power separated from the thing and also essentially different.

3. We also remark the difference between our system and every kind of speculative Individualism, but especially idealistic Individualism. Every philosophical system intends to explain consciousness; which is perfectly right. But all previous philosophical systems, without exception, rose no higher in this undertaking than to explain the consciousness of a single individual subject, which naturally meant the individual subject just then philosophizing. The consciousness that was to be explained has never been thought as the consciousness of one life, embracing and canceling all individuality. The Science of Knowledge is the first system that has done this, and has done it in such a manner that no one has observed it, but imagined that Science to be also an individualism. One good result, however, was the consequence: people began to perceive that it ought not to be thus.

It is true that the materialist, by silently presupposing a number of Egos—for otherwise he cannot arrive at them—can explain the harmony in their representations of the sensuous world by basing himself on the thing in itself and the impressions which it makes in accordance with its being. But—apart from his inability to explain himself as a representing being—he can never explain the representation—his own, for instance—of other rational creatures outside of himself. For I should like to know what sort of an impression of a sensuous object that would be by means of which the image of an altogether supersensuous Ego would arise, and what sort of an activity that would be through which the image of an inactive and altogether in itself locked-up and separated principle would be produced.

Idealistic individualism, indeed, loses its deduction at the very first point. Space is the form of my contemplation; hence, whatever is in space will easily follow as being also my contemplation. But who, then, is this Ego? I do not desire the answer, which you would like to give me, impelled thereto by a dim feeling, but I want the answer, which you must give me logically. How do you know, then, that space is the form of contemplation? Surely, only through immediate inner self-contemplation, which is individual. Now, unless you have higher principles in your Speculation, this self-contemplation can have validity only for itself, for the individual. Space is form of your individual contemplation; this is what your self-contemplation states. But how are you now going to draw the consequence, in violation of all rules of reasoning, that space is also the form of contemplation of other individuals (if you, indeed, are able to posit them), since you ought rather to conclude the opposite?

Remark.—Kant, it is true, answers the problem just proposed in a different manner. He says: For us men, space is the form of contemplation. But let us ask, first, what is the word men to signify here, and what can it signify at all? If it signifies the opposite to irrationality, then it is equivalent to rational beings, and the expression ought always to have been so understood. But if it is intended to signify more, then an opposition between rational beings themselves ought to have been indicated; a classification in their general sphere between rational and irrational men. In which case I ask: So far as thinking is concerned, can you think other rational beings than those that are contained in the general form of reason of the Ego? The question is not merely whether you can think otherwise, but whether such another thinking would not be an absolute contradiction, and whether that form of reason is not the only possible one. Hence, on the field of thinking, no such opposition is possible. Or do you, perhaps, behold such other rational beings, in which case the opposition would be transferred to the sphere of contemplation? You will not be able to prove such contemplation, however much you may imagine other bodily forms of rational beings. But, on the field of contemplation, you are limited to the reality of contemplation, and your imaginations are phantasms which you would do wisely to avoid. I should like to know whether Kant would seriously state that any kind of rational beings might not have the contemplation of space, but something else in its place.

Kant, therefore, ought to have said, and intended to say, that Space is the form of contemplation for all rational beings. But where is there any trace of a proof of this in his system? He has not demonstrated that the evidence, which, in point of fact, emanates evidently from his own individuality, has universal validity for all subjects, although, in point of fact, he applies it, and does not even mention that he does so. But does he not speak of the validity of the categorical imperative for all men? True, but not otherwise than he has spoken already in the Introduction to the "Critique of Pure Reason" of Extension as the form of contemplation for us men. If it were his speculative system which spoke thus, he would have to show up this categorical imperative as the determining ground of some particular consciousness (as we have pointed out, the power of life as the determining ground of the Internal of nature), and, moreover, of that consciousness through which many and all are posited. He would have to show up the many and the all as the form of contemplation of a categorical imperative, precisely as we have represented the sensuous world as the form of contemplation of the development of the living power, and as will probably, indeed, appear to be the fact. Hence, he has neither deduced that consciousness of the unity of life in the many—though we have, also, not done this as yet—nor has he expressly stated it to be a fact of consciousness—which we have done in the preceding—but he has simply presupposed it, quietly, driven thereto by common sense. Hence, if the tendency of his mind, his common sense, was not individualistic, his system was at any rate; but then common sense, from time to time, corrected his system.

4. This insight into the self-representation of the unity is also the only means by which to explain the validity of everything a priori for every rational subject, as well as the claim of each such being to this validity. The universal validity for the whole sphere of objects, of which we have spoken just now, and which must carefully be distinguished from the former, has already been explained. If I see that the object is produced through me, as the principle, and that I am limited by my faculty to produce it only in this particular manner, then I comprehend clearly that the object cannot be produced by me differently in all eternity, and that, hence, it also cannot be differently for me. The question is now, what this principle is. For if it is my Ego as individual, then that objective validity holds good only for me the individual, and we cannot understand how any one else can be presumed to acknowledge it. But if that principle is absolutely the one and universal life of reason, and if it is immediately posited as such unmistakable, then it becomes evident that the universal validity must hold good for this life of reason, and for every one in whom it manifests itself, and that each one who comprehends this is entitled to presume that every one else will admit it.

Remark.—But, in order that such a universally valid somewhat should be actually valid for a given individual, it is necessary, firstly, that the individual should give attention. This attention is an act by which the individual makes itself the One Life, with abstraction from its own inner imaging and contemplating.

Now, since that universally valid somewhat is valid for the One Life, it is evident that every individual for whom it is to be valid must make himself that One Life. But this attention presupposes, secondly, that it should be possible in the way required by the character of that valid somewhat. For instance, to see a visible somewhat we must look—that is, attend; but this can be required only from those who have eyes. It is the same with the inner insight. For although we cannot presuppose absolute blindness on this field, the faculty of thinking, after all, develops itself only gradually and by exercise to its higher degrees, and thus it may well happen that a universally valid truth may not be valid for somebody, in spite of all his attempted attention and goodwill to comprehend it, simply because his faculty of thinking has not yet been developed in the region wherein that truth lies.

Chapter 7

Communication between free individuals as such.—the moral law.

We have elaborated three main parts of the objective representation of the world: a system of Egos, a system of organized bodies of these Egos, and a sensuous world. But our previous assertions involved still another, fourth, point. We have stated that not only the body of a rational being, but also the product of its activity, must be perceivable, and perceivable as such, by all other rational beings; and this absolute perception of the products of free beings, as such, belongs to the objective representations of the world. This perceptibility of the products, etc., we have established as a mere naked fact of consciousness.

We have, thus, the problem left us: to explain the possibility of this fact from the totality of consciousness, and thereby to make it a part of the system of that consciousness, since we do not conceive consciousness as a mere collection of separate phenomena, but as one in itself connected phenomenon.

1. Let us first determine the fact still closer.

The individual does not, in point of fact, act as an individual, but as the one life; his self-determination to act is, as we have seen, a renunciation of his individuality, which rests upon the mere free conception, and a self-abandonment to the objective external power, which is the power of the one Life. Hence it is not the individual, but the one life, which acts.

If this activity, or one of its products, is to be perceived, the attention of the perceiving individual is requisite. But this attention is also a renunciation of the individual as such and a surrendering of itself to the objective thinking, as the one life. Hence, it is also not the individual, but the one life, which perceives.

In the above established fact, therefore, the one life acts upon itself; and thus it seems fully explained and made comprehensible how it, as the life of consciousness, not only can but must be conscious of itself in its activity; precisely as individual life becomes conscious of its individual freedom. The problem seems solved,

2. Strict as this argumentation appears to be, and although not every one might be able to point out its defect, I still hope that no one will be satisfied with it. Indeed, I have made use of it only to make the real point in issue more prominent. The defect in it is this: It is quite true that the individuality is altogether pushed back into the inner sphere of contemplation, and that it does not occur at all on the field of objective world-contemplation, where only the unity occurs. But what sort of a unity is this? It is simply Sameness, but by no means a numerical unity. It is true that the many are altogether the same, without any qualitative distinction; but they are not one in point of number. On the contrary, rather, that Sameness is repeated many times, and this manifoldness rather constitutes a separation. From this it follows that the established fact involves the following assertion: One of those many individuals is to suspend the original Sameness by absolute freedom; it is to determine itself by actual activity beyond that Sameness, which inner further determination will probably image itself also upon a material product. But this change is not only to effect the one individual, which actually acts, but likewise at the same time all the repetitions of that individual, separated as they are by numbers. That change, since it is to be perceived by them all, is to alter the world-contemplation of them all in the same manner as it has changed that of the free originator of the change, in whom the change might be explained from the contemplation of his inner freedom. The matter to be made clear, therefore, is, how the inner absolute freedom of one individual can change and bind the contemplation of all. It appears at once that the question is important; and it can lie seen why the question can be solved only by showing up a connecting link here, through which the numerical separation would be suspended in the same way as the objective self-representation of life suspended the qualitative separation, and by means of which the life would be comprehended as numerically one, precisely as it has been comprehended previously as qualitatively one. Not until that link has been shown up can we justly say what we prematurely attempted to say before—namely: that it is the one life of consciousness, which acts upon itself, and that hence it must necessarily be conscious of itself in this its activity. It is therefore our next task to find that link, since it alone can solve the problem placed before us in the established fact.

This link will, of course, show itself to be a new fact of consciousness, to which we must assign its place in the comprehension of the totality of our phenomenon.

3. In order to fix the real point in dispute still more concisely, and thereby, of course, to bring the clearness of the solution nearer to us, we shall compare it with the preceding point as follows: We cannot proceed here as we did previously, nor can we hope to deduce the link required here from the foregoing. Previously thinking represented the reposing and dead power of life; the mere fixed being of that power; and the image of that power in contemplation was nature. Hence, nature is as unchangeable as its prototype; and not only is it not involved in, but it is downright contradictory to, the conception of nature to think in it a change, a deviation from its eternal law, a new creation. Anything like this is altogether excluded by that thinking of a nature, and is impossible. If, nevertheless, it should occur, it would be possible only through a completely new principle of thinking, utterly opposed to all previous thinking.

But this is precisely what our fact involves. Absolute freedom of life is to make something real even down in the sensuous world. Hence, something utterly new is certainly to be created in that world. This follows neither from nature itself, nor from its contemplation; indeed, it is downright contradictory to nature. Hence, the contemplation of this new creature must also be a new creature by an absolute hiatus, without any gradual transition of the fixed contemplation of nature; not only not corresponding to and not explainable from the development of this contemplation of nature, but in direct contradiction to it.

Still, in so far as this product is nevertheless to be visible within the sphere of sensuous contemplation, this sphere itself will dirempt into an unchangeable sphere, as the expression of the first thinking, and into a sphere changeable through freedom.

(This, though in itself important and to be well pondered, is for our present investigation merely collateral.)

4. Now, where do we propose to connect this altogether new contemplation?

We are well aware that we cannot proceed here as the materialist does, who is ready with the reply: "Why, these products of freedom are simply in themselves"—how difficult he would find it to defend this if he considered what he were saying!—"and make impressions upon us, therefore, according to what they are! "The way of the materialist proceeds from the outward to the inward; ours proceeds from the inward. We must show up an inward, which is contemplated in those products. Now, this inward does not lie concealed, as we have seen just now, in the thinking of the power, but in a new and higher, though perhaps not really actual thinking, which enters consciousness. We shall call it for the present X. This X is, in this series, the absolute first, and it is, like the previously pointed out thinking of the power in general represented in a sensuous world, and in contemplation represented in a product of this sensuous world, as a new creation within it.

5. What kind of a thinking is this? This product of the rational being outside of us is to appear as one of absolute origin, as a new creation within fixed and established nature. Hence the thinking which lies at its basis is also to appear as a new thinking, not proceeding from the series of preceding thinking, as the sequence proceeds from the ground, but as a thinking which is absolute in comparison with all previous thinking. Furthermore, that product is not to appear as product of my freedom—of mine, the thinking individual. But now there is no immediate object of inner contemplation at all except freedom; hence it must be freedom, which is determined by that required thinking = X. And, since it is not my own determination of freedom, it must be a foreign determination; hence a limitation of freedom.

Thus far we are clear; the only question is. What kind of a limitation of freedom is this? The power in general is altogether determined; it is One; it is altogether a totality, and the same in every repetition; and as such it is posited as existing already through the previous thinking, and engrafted upon unchangeable nature. But so far as that power extends, so far the freedom of every repetition extends. The new thinking = X cannot be in contradiction to this flunking; it cannot cancel a freedom posited by the latter, in so far as it is thus posited through the latter. Hence the thinking X is certainly not a limitation of freedom, in so far as it can do something—in which respect alone freedom is posited through the first thinking. Each repetition can do everything involved in the power by virtue of the first thinking. Hence there remains for the thinking X only a limitation of freedom through freedom itself; X must renounce that freedom. The thinking X would thus be a law addressed to freedom to limit itself through itself. Although freedom can do something by virtue of the first thinking, it shall not (must not, ought not to) do what it can. X is a prohibition of the use of a certain, undoubtedly existing, freedom. This absolute prohibition, as an inwardness—and made manifest in the external contemplation precisely as the one power of life was manifested previously—would produce in that contemplation a product of the freedom of a rational being outside of me, just as that power of life produced in contemplation a nature without any freedom at all.

6. Let us first express clearly the new discovery we have made. Previously we said: Life, as one, has its determined power, and can develop that power altogether and without any drawback in every numerical repetition of itself. Now, however, we say: That is true; but, nevertheless, there occur in the absolute thinking of that life prohibitions to make use of that freedom in certain cases. I add these words purposely, since I do not speak at all, as yet, of the law in its unity, but merely of its single, transitory, and, as it were, psychological utterances.

This prohibition occurs in the one life, and hence in all its numerical repetitions.

We said above that the explanation of the fact under discussion would force upon us the assumption of another fact. This new fact has just been found. It is the appearance of a moral law—though for the present manifested only in the form of prohibitions of certain utterances of freedom. This at the same time leads us at once into a new chief division of our whole subject. We may properly characterize the contents of that division as a higher faculty, in relation to which the faculty treated of in our two first divisions, both in its theoretical and in its practical form, is a lower faculty.

Notes

1. Various reasons have compelled us to discontinue, for a time, the publication of Fichte's "Facts of Consciousness." We shall now take it up again and continue it to the end. The work deserves careful study, as the first part of it constitutes an admirable introduction to the Science of Knowledge, while the second part is a clear exposition of the religious aspect of the Science of Knowledge, as developed by Fichte in the later period of his life. For convenience of reference to the former portion of this book, the reader may note that the parts already published are to be found in the following places: Vol. v, "Jour. Spec. Phil.", pp. 53, 130, 226, 338; vol. vi, pp. 42, 120, 332; vol. vii, Jan., p. 36.— Ed.