the same respect,—as an act, utterly unconditioned and hence absolute for him; and he will thus further understand that the above problematical presupposition, and this thinking of the Ego as originally posited through itself, are again quite identical; and that hence transcendental Idealism, if it proceeds systematically, can proceed in no other manner than it does in the Science of Knowledge.
This contemplation of himself, which is required of the philosopher in his realization of the act through which the Ego arises for him, I call intellectual contemplation. It is the immediate consciousness that I act and what I act; it is that through which I know something because I do it. That there is such a power of intellectual contemplation cannot be demonstrated by conceptions, nor can conception show what it is. Every one must find it immediately in himself, or he will never learn to know it. The requirement that we ought to show it what it is by argumentation, is more marvellous than would be the requirement of a blind person to explain to him, without his needing to use sight, what colors are.
But it can be certainly proven to every one in his own confessed experience that this intellectual contemplation does occur in every moment of his consciousness. I can take no step, cannot move hand or foot, without the intellectual contemplation of my self-consciousness in these acts; only through this contemplation do I know that I do it, only through it do I distinguish my acting and in it myself from the given object of my acting. Every one who ascribes an activity to himself appeals to this contemplation. In it is the source of life, and without it is death.
But this contemplation never occurs alone as a complete act of consciousness, as indeed sensuous contemplation also never occurs alone, nor completes consciousness; both contemplations must be comprehended. Not only this, but the intellectual contemplation is also always connected with a sensuous contemplation. I cannot find myself acting without finding an object upon which I act, and this object in a sensuous contemplation which I comprehend; nor without sketching an image of what I intend to produce by my act, which image I also comprehend. Now, then, how do I know and how can I know what I intend to produce, if I do not immediately contemplate myself in this sketching of the image which I intend to produce, i.e. in this sketching of the conception of my purpose, which sketching is certainly an act. Only the totality of this condition in uniting a given manifold completes consciousness. I become conscious only of the conceptions, both of the object upon which I act, and of the purpose I intend to accomplish; but I do not become conscious of the contemplations which are at the bottom of both conceptions.
Perhaps it is only this which the zealous opponents of intellectual contemplation wish to insist upon, namely, that that contemplation is only possible in connection with a sensuous contemplation; and surely the Science of Knowledge is not going to deny it. But this is no reason why they should deny intellectual contemplation. For with the same right we might deny sensuous contemplation, since it also is possible only in connection with intellectual contemplation; for whatsoever is to become my representation must be related to me, and the consciousness (1) occurs only through intellectual contemplation. (It is a remarkable fact of our modern history of philosophy, that it has not been noticed as yet how all that may be objected to intellectual contemplation can also be objected to sensuous contemplation, and that thus the arguments of its opponents turn against themselves.)
But if it must be admitted that there is no immediate, isolated consciousness of intellectual contemplation, how does the philosopher arrive at a knowledge and isolated representation thereof? I answer, doubtless in the same manner in which he arrives at the isolated representation of sensuous contemplation, by
