festations, which nevertheless I ascribe to them. How do they come within my world, or I within theirs,—since the principle by which the consciousness of ourselves, of our operations, and of their sensuous conditions, is unfolded from ourselves,—i.e. that each individual must undoubtedly know what he himself does,—is here wholly inapplicable? How have free spirits knowledge of free spirits, since we know that free spirits are the only reality, and that an independent world of sense, through which they might act on each other, is no longer to be thought of. Or shall it be said, I perceive reasonable beings like myself by the changes which they produce in the world of sense? Then I ask again,—How dost thou perceive these changes? I comprehend very well how thou canst perceive changes which are brought about by the mere mechanism of nature; for the law of this mechanism is no other than the law of thy own thought, according to which, this world being once assumed, thou continuest to develope it. But the changes of which we now speak are not brought about by the mechanism of nature, but by a free will elevated above all nature; and only in so far as thou canst regard them in this character, canst thou infer from them the existence of free beings like thyself. Where then is the law within thyself, according to which thou canst unfold the determinations of other wills absolutely independent of thee? In short, this mutual recognition and reciprocal action of free beings in this world, is perfectly inexplicable by the laws of nature or of thought, and can only be explained through the One in whom they are united, although to each other they are separate; through the Infinite Will who sustains and embraces them all in His own
