laws of thought whereby all capacities and all powers arise, we are compelled to add in imagination to the determinate element—the real action, which itself is, in like manner, only an assumption.
Is that procession, from the mere conception to an imaginary realization of it, anything more than the usual and well-known procedure of all objective thought, which always strives to be, not mere thought, but something more? By what dishonesty can this procedure be made of more value here than in any other case?—can it possess any deeper significance, when to the conception of a thought it adds a realization of this thought, than when to the conception of this table it adds an actual and present table? “The conception of a purpose, a particular determination of events in me, appears in a double shape,—partly as subjective—a Thought; partly as objective—an Action.” What reason, which would not unquestionably itself stand in need of a genetic deduction, could I adduce against this explanation?
I say that I feel this impulse:—it is therefore I myself who say so, and think so while I say it? Do I then really feel, or only think that I feel? Is not all which I call feeling only a presentation produced by my objective process of thought, and indeed the first transition point of all objectivity? And then again, do I really think, or do I merely think that I think? And do I think that I really think, or merely that I possess the idea of thinking? What can hinder speculation from raising such questions, and continuing to raise them without end? What can I answer, and where is there a point at which I can command such questionings to cease? I know, and must admit, that each definite act of consciousness may be made the subject
