Page:Vocation of Man (1848).djvu/99

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KNOWLEDGE.
99

I. By no means.

Spirit. Between that state of simple sensation, and this space which is spread out before thee, there is not the smallest connexion except that they are both present in thy consciousness. Or dost thou perceive any other connexion between them?

I. I see none.

Spirit. But thou art a thinking, as well as a sensitive and intuitive, being; and yet neither dost thou know anything more of this matter, than that so thou art. Thou dost not merely feel thy sensible state,—thou canst also conceive of it in thought; but it affords thee no complete thought; thou art compelled to add something to it, an external foundation, a foreign power. Or dost thou know more of it than that thou dost so think, and that thou art compelled so to think?

I. I can know nothing more respecting it. I cannot proceed beyond my thought; for simply because I think it, does it become my thought, and fall under the inevitable laws of my being.

Spirit. Through this thought of thine, there first arises a connexion between thy own state which thou feelest, and the space which thou dost intuitively contemplate; thou supposest that the latter contains the foundation of the former. Is it not so?

I. It is so. Thou hast clearly proved that I produce this connexion in my consciousness by my own thought only, and that such a connexion is neither directly felt, nor intuitively perceived. But of any connexion beyond the limits of my consciousness I cannot speak; I cannot even describe such a connexion in any manner of way; for even in speaking of it I must be conscious of it; and, since this consciousness