before, we should long ago have been rid of the thing per se, for it would have been seen that we are always the Thinking, whatever we may think, and that hence nothing can occur in us which is independent of us, because it all is necessarily related to our thinking.
“But,” confess other opponents of the Science of Knowledge, “as far as our own persons are concerned, we cannot, under the conception of the Ego, think anything else than our own dear persons as opposed to other persons. Ego (I) signifies my particular person, named, for instance, Caius or Sempronius, as distinguished from other persons not so named. Now, if I should abstract, as the Science of Knowledge requires me to do, from this individual personality, there would be nothing left to me which might be characterized as I; I might just as well call the remainder It.”
Now, what is the real meaning of this objection, so boldly put forth? Does it speak of the original real synthesis of the conception of the individual (their own dear persons and other persons), and do they therefore mean to say, “there is nothing synthetized in this conception but the conception of an object generally—of the It, and of other objects (Its)—from which the first one is distinguished?” Or does that objection fly for protection to the common use of language, and do they therefore mean to say, “In language, the word I (Ego) signifies only individuality?” As far as the first is concerned, every one, who is as yet possessed of his senses, must see that by distinguishing one object from its equals, i.e. from other objects, we arrive only at a determined object, but not at a determined person. The synthesis of the conception of the personality is quite different. The Egoness (the in itself returning activity, the subject-objectivity, or whatever you choose to call it,) is originally opposed to the It, to the mere objectivity; and the positing of these conceptions is absolute, is conditioned by no other positing, is thetical, not synthetical. This conception of the Egoness, which has arisen in our Self, is now transferred to something, which in the first positing was posited as an It, as a mere object, and is synthetically united with it; and it is only through this conditional synthesis that there first arises for us a Thou. The conception of Thou arises from the union of the It and the I. The conception of the Ego in this opposition; hence, as conception of the individual, is the synthesis of the I with itself. That which posits itself in the described act, not generally, but as Ego, is I; and that which in the same act is posited as Ego, not through itself, but through me, is Thou. Now it is doubtless possible to abstract from this product of a synthesis, for what we ourselves have synthetized we doubtless can analyze again, and when we so abstract, the remainder will be the general Ego, i.e. the not-object. Taken in this interpretation, the objection would be simply absurd.
But how if our opponents cling to the use of language? Even if it is true that the word “I” has hitherto signified in language only the individual, would this make it necessary that a distinction in the original synthesis is not to be remarked and named, simply because it has never before been noticed? But is it true? Of what use of language do they speak? Of the philosophical language? I have shown already that Kant uses the conception of the pure Ego in the same meaning I attach to it. If he says, “I am the thinking in this thinking,” does he then only oppose himself to other persons, and not rather to all object of thinking generally? Kant says again, “The fundamental principle of the necessary unity of apperception is itself identical, and hence an analytical proposition.” This signifies precisely what I have just stated, i.e. that the Ego arises through no synthesis, the manifold whereof might be further analyzed, but through an absolute thesis. But this Ego is the Egoness generally; for the conception of individuality arises clearly enough through synthesis, as I have just shown; and the fundamental principle of individuality is therefore a synthetical proposition. Reinhold, it is true, speaks of the Ego simply as of the representing; but this does not affect the present case; for when I dis-
