which I cannot go without at the same time overstepping the limits of my own existence? It is so, absolutely.
Spirit. Thus, then, does a particular act of thy consciousness appear to thee. But what shape then is assumed, not by thy produced, but by thy inherited, knowledge, of which all specific thought is but the revival and farther definition?—how does this present itself to thee? Under what image does it appear?
I. Evidently as something in which one may draw lines and make points in all directions, namely, as space.
Spirit. Now then, it will be entirely clear to thee, how that, which really proceeds from thyself, may nevertheless appear to thee as an existence external to thyself,—nay, must necessarily appear so.
Thou hast penetrated to the true source of the presentation of things out of thyself. This presentation is not perception, for thou perceivest only thyself;—as little is it thought, for things do not appear to thee as mere results of thought. It is an actual, and indeed absolute and immediate consciousness of an existence out of thyself, just as perception is an immediate consciousness of thine own condition. Do not permit thyself to be perplexed by sophists and half-philosophers; things do not appear to thee through any representation;—of the thing that exists, and that can exist, thou art immediately conscious;—and there is no other thing than that of which thou art conscious. Thou thyself art the thing; thou thyself, by virtue of thy finitude—the innermost law of thy being—art thus presented before thyself, and projected out of thyself; and all that thou perceivest out of thyself is still—thyself only.
