tinguish myself as the representing from the represented, do I then distinguish myself from other persons, and not rather from all object of representation as such? But take even the case of these same much lauded philosophers, who do not, like Kant and like the Science of Knowledge, presuppose the Ego in advance of the manifold of representation, but rather heap it together, out of that manifold; do they, then, hold their one thinking in the manifold thinking to be only the thinking of the individual, and not rather of the intelligence generally? In one word: is there any philosopher of repute, who before them has ventured to discover that the Ego signifies only the individual, and that if the individuality is abstracted from, only an object in general remains?
Or do they mean ordinary use of language? To prove this use, I am compelled to cite instances from common life. If you call to anybody in the darkness “Who is there?” and he, presupposing that his voice is well-known to you, replies, “It is I,” then it is clear that he speaks of himself as this particular person, and wishes to be understood: “It is I, who am named thus or thus, and it is not any one of all the others, named otherwise;” and he so desires to be understood, because your question, “Who is there?” presupposes already that it is a rational being who is there, and expresses only that you wish to know which particular one amongst all the rational beings it may be.
But if you should, for instance—permit me this example, which I find particularly applicable—sew or cut at the clothing of some person, and should unawares cut the person himself, then he would probably cry out: “Look here, this is I; you are cutting me!” Now, what does he mean to express thereby? Not that he is this particular person, named thus or thus, and none other; for that you know very well; but that that which was cut was not his dead and senseless clothing, but his living and sensitive self, which you did not know before. By this “It is I,” the person does not distinguish himself from other persons, but from things. This distinction occurs continually in life; and we cannot take a step or move our hand without making it.
In short, Egoness and Individuality are very different conceptions, and the synthesis of the latter is clearly to be observed. Through the former conception, we distinguish ourselves from all that is external to us—not merely from all persons that are external to us—and hence we embrace by it not our particular personality, but our general spirituality. It is in this sense that the word is used, both in philosophical and in common language. The above objection testifies, therefore, not only to an unusual want of thought, but also to great ignorance in philosophical literature.
But our opponents insist on their incapability to think the required conception, and we must place faith in their assertions. Not that they lack the general conception of the pure Ego, for if they did, they would be obliged to desist from raising objections, just as a piece of log must desist. But it is the conception of this conception which they lack, and which they cannot attain. They have that conception in themselves, but do not know that they have it. The ground of this their incapability does not lie in any particular weakness of their thinking faculties, but in a weakness of their whole character. Their Ego, in the sense in which they take the word—i.e. their individual person—is the last object of their acting, and hence also the limit of their explicit thinking. It is to them, therefore, the only true substance, and reason is only an accident thereof. Their person does not exist as a particular expression of reason; but reason exists to help their person through the world; and if the person could get along just as well without reason, we might discharge reason from service, and there would be no reason at all. This, indeed, lurks in the whole system of their conceptions, and through all their assertions, and many of them are honest enough not to conceal it. Now, they are quite correct as far as they assert this incapacity in respect to their own persons—they only must not state as objective that which has merely subjective
