This sentence says, in complement of the pre vious result, that the excluded objective need not have this existence; it will suffice if zcJuxk has exis tence for the Ego, that is to say, if there is a ground — unknown — but not contained in this activity of the Ego — why it must limit itself, and thus op pose an objective to a subjective. In other words, the presupposition of such a system — realistic as il 1/6 THE SCIENCE OF KNOWLEDGE.
is, but more abstract than all previous realistic sys tems — is, tJiat the Ego is merely dcterminablc, (or, has in itself the problem to determine itself.) This realism, therefore, does not posit a determination (like the quantitative realism) as its presupposition, but leaves it to the active Ego to posit this deter mination. (The determinability which it posits in the Ego we shall hereafter learn to know as feeling. For, though feeling is a determination of the Ego, it is not one of the Ego as intelligence, that is, of the Ego, which posits itself as determined by the Non-Ego, of which we speak here.)
This system has the defect of every realism, that it views the Ego as a Non-Ego; and hence does not explain the transition from the one to the other. The determinability, or the requirement that the Ego shall determine itself, is posited, that is true; but it is posited without any activity of the Ego. Hence it is clear enough Jiow the Ego coiild be cUtcnninablc for something outside of the Ego, but not how the Ego can be dctcrminablc through and for itself. For the Ego is only determinable in so far as it posits itself as determinable; and how it can posit itself as determinable, or as being re quired by its very nature to determine itself, this has not yet been explained, 3. Both results are to be synthetically united; the activity and the reciprocity are mutually to deter mine each other.
We found that we could not assume that the mere reciprocity, or a mere check, existing with- THE SCIENCE OF KNOWLEDGE, 177 out any action of the positing Ego, could propose to the Ego the task of limiting itself; for the ground of explanation did not contain what was to be explained.
We shall, therefore, have to show that that check does not exist without the action of the Ego, but that it is, on the contrary, directed upon the activity of the Ego in positing itself; that this activity, ever, as it were, proceeding outwardly, is thereby driven back (reflected) into itself; and from this reflection we shall then show easily how self-limitation, and every thing else resulting there from, follows naturally. This will give us a true synthesis of the reciprocity and the activity. The check — not posited by the positing Ego— occurs only in so far as the Ego is active, and is therefore only a check, in so far as the Ego is active; the activity of the Ego is the condition of the check. No activity of the Ego, no check. On the other hand, the self-determining of the Ego will be con ditioned by the check. No check, no self-determi nation of the Ego. Again, no self-determination, no object and subject, etc. Let us make clearer this very important and final result.
The activity of the Ego in gathering together opposites, and the in itself independent joining together of these opposites are to be one and the same. The chief distinction lies evidently in the gathering together and the joining together. How the latter is conditioned by the former is easily seen. For joining they are only in so far as a limit 1/3 THE SCIENCE OF KNOWLEDGE.
is posited between them, for they are complete op- posites, and this limit is not posited by either of them, but by an independent positing. But the limit is only that which both have in common; to posit their limits, therefore, is to gather them toge ther, and to gather them together is only possible by positing their limits. They join only on condi tion of a gathering together, for and through that which gathers them together.
But, again, the gathering together, or the positing of a limit, is only to be possible on condition of a joining together; or — since that which is active in this limit-positing is to be one of the joining links, and only as active — on condition of a check upon the activity of this active link. The activity must, -therefore, extend into the unlimited, infinite, undeter minable. If it did not, its limitation would not in volve at all that its activity had been checked; for the limitation might be involved in its own concep tion, (as is the case in every system which holds that the Ego is finite.) In other words, the opposites here held together are essential opposites, without any point of union. All finite things, however, are not essential opposites; they are equal in the con ception of determinability. And all infinites, in so far as there can be a plurality, are thus equal in the conception of undeterminability. Hence, the only two essential opposites are: the infinite and the finite, of which we have spoken here.
Both are to be one and the same; that is, no infi nite, no limitation, and vice -versa; both arc united in THE SCIENCE OF KNOWLEDGE. 179 one and the same synthetic unity. If the activity of the Ego were not infinite, it could not limit this acti vity itself. The activity of the Ego consists in un- liraitedly positing itself- This activity is checked. If the activity of the Ego were thrown back by this check, that activity which lies beyond the line of the check would be completely annihilated and can celed; and the Ego in so far would not posit at alL But it is to posit even beyond this line. It is to limit itself, that is, it is in so far to posit itself as not positing; it is to place in this sphere the undeter mined, unlimited, infinite limit = B, and hence it must be infinite.
Again, if the Ego did not limit itself, it would not be infinite. The Ego is only what it posits itself as being. It is infinite signifies: it posits itself as infinite; determines itself by the predicate of the infinite; or it limits itself as substrate of the infinite; or it distinguishes itself from its infi nite activity, which, nevertheless, is also to be its own activity, and must, therefore, be in one and the same act distinguished and taken back as its own. (A + B must be determined by A.) By thus taking it back into itself, it determines the ac tivity, and hence makes it not infinite; at the same time it is to be infinite, and hence it must be posit ed outside of the Ego.
This interchange of the Ego with itself, in posit ing itself at the same time as finite and infinite — an interchange which is, as it were, a self-contradic tion, and which reproduces itself constantly, since 180 THE SCIENCE OF KNOWLEDGE, the Ego seeks to unite what is not unitable, now trying to take the infinite into the form of the finite, and now again driven back to posit it outside of that form, but in the same moment attempting again to- seize it in the form of the finite — this interchange is the power of Imagination.
By this power the gathering together and the joining is completely united. The joining of oppo- sites, or the limit, is itself a production of the gath ering power, for the sake of gathering it (Abso lute thesis of the imagination, which in so far is absolutely productive.) In so far as the Ego and this production of its activity are opposed, the join ing members themselves are opposed, and in the limit neither of them are posited. (Antithesis of imagination.) But in so far as both are again united, as that productive activity is to be ascribed to the Ego, the limiting links themselves are gath ered together in the limit (Synthesis of imagina tion, which in this its antithetical and synthetical activity, is reproductive, as we shall see hereafter.)
The opposites are to be gathered together in the conception of mere detcrminability, not of determi nation. If the limit between the opposites (the Ego and the object) were fixed and unchangeable, then the union would be through determination, and the totality would not be complete; for A + B would be determined only through the determined A, and not through the undetermined B. Hence, that limit is not fixed. The power of imagination oosits, therefore, an infinite limit, the product of its- THE SCIENCE OF KNOWLEDGE. l8l infinitely extending activity. This positing activity it tries to ascribe to itself, (to determine A 4- B by A.) If it succeeded, the activity would no longer be infinite, but determined, because posited in a determined subject Hence, the imagination is driven back into the infinite, that is, is called upon to determine A + B by B. Hence, also, only de- terminability occurs here, but not -determination it self Indeed, the imaginative power posits no fixed limit at all, for it has no fixed stand-point; only reason posits something as fixed by first fixing the power of imagination. Imagination is a power which floats between determination and undetermi- nation, between the finite and the infinite; and hence, A 4- B is in it always determined at the same time by the determined A and the undeter mined B, which is indeed the above synthesis of imagination. This floating imagination character izes through its product; it produces it, as it were, while it floats, and through its floating.
This floating of imagination between irreconcilable links, this its self-contradiction is, as we shall here after show, that which extends the condition of the Ego to a //7/zr-moment. (For pure reason every thing is at once; only for imagination is there a time.) Imagination can not stand this floating long, that is, not longer than a moment, (except in the feeling of the sublime, where astonishment, a halt of the interchange in time, arises.) Reason steps in, (and thus there arises a reflection,) and 1 82 THE SCIENCE OF KNOWLEDGE.
determines imagination to take B up in the deter mined A, the subject; but as soon as this is accom plished, the determined A must again be limited by an infinite B, etc. etc., until it has arrived at a com plete determination of the (here theoretical) reason, which needs no- other limiting B outside of reason in imagination, that is, until it has arrived at the representation of the representing. In the practical sphere the power of imagination continues in an infinite direction to the absolutely undeterminable idea of the highest unity, to determine which would be possible only after a completed infinity, which is itself impossible in time.
FINAL REMARKS.
FINAL REMARKS.
The fundamental principle of our theoretical part, tJic Ego posits itself as determined through tlu Non-Ego, has now been exhausted. The Ego can not posit itself, can not be subject, without positing itself as determined through the Non-Ego. (No object, no subject.) At the same time, the Non- Ego being its own product, it also posits itself as determining. (No subject, no object) The problem how two opposites, the Ego and the Non-Ego, could be posited together as deter mining each other, is not only shown up as possible, but it has been shown that without it the funda mental requirement, the self-positing of the Ego, is not possible. Hence, what was at first problemati cal has now apodictical certainty; and this part of THE SCIENCE OF KNOWLEDGE. 183 the science is exhausted, since we have returned to our first starting-point and proved it.
Again, if our result has shown itself as the truth, it must appear as an original fact in our conscious ness, that is, not — like the other thoughts which arose during our investigation, (for instance, like the real istic conception of an absolute substance of the Non-Ego) — an artificially created fact, not a fact of our reflective consciousness.
The science of knowledge shows up facts, and thereby distinguishes itself from an empty formula- philosophy; but it does not postulate facts; it proves tliat something must be a fact If this fact is to be a fact in the consciousness of an Ego, the Ego must posit it as in its conscious ness; or, in other words, must try to explain it to itself. This it does, of course, according to the laws of its own being. Hereafter we shall there fore observe how the Ego proceeds to modify, de termine, and work out that fact which was the result of our investigation..
It is clear that thus we shall obtain a second dis tinct series of reflection. In the first, we had a series wherein, by pure spontaneity of thought, we produced the object as well as the form of our re flection, and finally arrived at the only possible result, as moreover a fact to be found in conscious ness. Now, we have to reflect upon this fact, as a fact already in this consciousness, which, therefore, is not produced, but merely raised to consciousness. Hence, while formerly we had to wade through a 1 84 THE SCIENCE OF KNOWLEDGE.
number of hypotheses in order to reach the final truth, now these hypotheses vanish, and we have only to deal with realities.
Both modes of reflection take opposite directions. The first one started from the proposition: The Ego posits itself as determined through the Non-Ego, and proceeded to the fact; the second one starts from the fact and goes back to the first sentence, which it then shows up to be a fact; that is, it pro ceeds until it has established as a fact that the Ego posits itself, as positing itself determined through the Non-Ego.
Now, since the fact is the point of union of both reflections, and since the fact is a synthesis of two opposites, it seems that the same opposites which the fact had for the first reflection must appear to the second reflection, and that the second reflection will only be a repetition of the first. Hence, if both are, nevertheless, to be distinct, the two series of reflections must receive a distinct characteristic in this very last synthesis of the fact. What is this character?
In the first reflection both opposites are merely opposites — a mere relation; the one is what the other is not; purely negative character — nothing positive. Pure thoughts, without reality. Each annihilates the other; and as neither can appear without its opposite, which annihilates it, neither appears. Our consciousness is empty; neither can fill it It is true, our first series of reflection would, THE SCIENCE OF KNOWLEDGE. 185 therefore, have been in itself impossible, but for a certain deception of imagination, which always made us put a substrate under these mere oppo sites. This deception we did not and could not wish to remove; all that was necessary was to de duct it at the conclusion from the final result of our calculation as we now do.
But in the second reflection, after the synthesis, they have changed to something tangible, which con sciousness can seize. TJicy become for the reflection. (Precisely as light and darkness did, which did not annihilate each other in our illustration, but became something tangible in the line D, through the power of imagination.)
We have already seen how this change is effect ed in the synthesis by productive imagination. Both opposites are to be thought as one. This they can not be, and in the endeavor so to think them they receive in their mutual relation to each other a certain extension and content which will appear hereafter as the manifold in time and space. The condition of this endeavor is called contemplation. The power active in it, productive imagination, as we have already said.
Thus it appears how the absolute contradiction, which threatened to destroy a theory of human knowledge, here becomes the only condition which makes it possible. We could not see how it would ever be possible for us to unite absolute opposites; now we see that an explanation of the occurrences in our mind would not at all be possible without absolute opposites, since that power of imagination lS6 THT. SCIENCE OF KNOWLEDGE.
upon which all these occurrences are based would not be possible at all, unless absolute opposites, not unitable and completely contradictory to the Ego, did occur. And this serves at once as the clearest illustration that our system is correct, and that the explanation has been exhaustive. The presupposed can only be explained by the discovered, and vice versa. From the absolute opposition results the whole mechanism of the human mind; and this whole mechanism can only be explained through an absolute opposition.
At the same time, we now see clearly how idea lity and reality can be one and the same; and lead the one to the other, and are only different when regarded as different. The absolute opposites (the finite subjective and the infinite objective) are in advance of the synthesis mere thoughts, and hence Ideal, in the sense in which we have always used the word. As soon as they are to be united in thinking, but can not be so united, they receive — through the floating of thinking, which in this its function is called imagination-— reality, because through this floating they become capable of being contemplated. In other words, they receive there by reality generally, for there is and can be no other reality than by means of contemplation. Now, by abstracting again from this contemplation — as can be done for mere thinking, though not for consci ousness generally — that reality changes again into ideality; that is, its being is solely derived from the ..aws of the power of representation.
THE SCIENCE OF KNOWLEDGE. l8; We therefore teach here that all reality— of course, for us — is solely produced through imagi nation. One of the greatest thinkers of our age, Kant, who otherwise teaches the same system, so far as I have knowledge thereof, calls this a decep tion through imagination. But every deception can be avoided. Now, if it is shown, as our system is to show, that that so-called deception of imagina tion is the ground of the possibility of our consci ousness, of our life, and of our being for us, that is, of our being as Ego, then it can not be removed, unless we desire to abstract from the Ego, which is a contradiction, since the abstracting can not ab stract from itself. Hence, the deception does not deceive, but gives us truth, and the only possible truth. To assume that it deceives is to establish a skepticism which teaches to doubt one's own being.
III.
SECOND PART or THI THEORETICAL PART or TKI SCIENCE OF KNOWLEDGE.
THEORETICAL PART SCIENCE OF KNOWLEDGE, INTRODUCTORY REMARKS.
THE result of the first part of the theoretical part of the science of knowledge, and which we have postulated as necessarily occurring in conscious ness, was this: By means of an as yet incompre hensible check upon the absolute activity of the Ego, the power of imagination produces out of the two directions thereby occasioned, namely, the ori ginal and the reflected directions of the activity, a composite of both directions.
We have said that this fact, since it is to be in the Ego, must be posited, that is, originally deter mined and grounded in and by the Ego; and that this positing of it would give us a second part of the theoretical part. For, whereas the first part only proceeds to show up the fact, the second part involves a system of all the facts which occur in consciousness in its original explanation of that 192 THE SCIENCE OF KNOWLEDGE.
one fact Original explanation, for it is not, as the links of the first part were, created by us, but is originally -within us, and we only make ourselves conscious of its shape in us by this explanation.
KANT proceeded from the assumption of a mani fold which was to be collected in the unity of con sciousness; he proceeded from the particular to the general He thus attained a general, but only a collective general, not an infinite general For finity opens no path to infinity, whereas there is a path from undetermined and undeterminable in finity to finity, by means of the determining power. (Hence, all finite is product of that power.) We, therefore, take the opposite way, and prove that there is given a manifold for empirical conscious ness, which proof runs in this wise: the given must be something. As such there must be an other, which is also something. When this proof shall be possible, we enter upon the sphere of the particular.
The mctJiod of the theoretical science of know ledge has been described before, and is simple and easy. The thread of our argument is carried along in accordance with the principle: Nothing apper tains to the Ego but wJiat it posits in itself. We make the deduced fact our starting-point, and see how the Ego may proceed to posit it in itself This positing of the fact is again a fact, and must also be. posited by the Ego in itself, and in this manner we continue until we have arrived at the highest theoretical fact, namely, the fact by wiiich THE SCIENCE OF KNOWLEDGE. 193 the Ego posits itself consciously as determined through the Non-Ego. Thus, the theoretical sci ence of knowledge closes with its fundamental prin ciple, returns into itself, and is completed through itsel£ DEDUCTION OF SENSATION.
The conflict of opposite directions of the activity of the Ego, which have been described in the first part, is something distinguishable in the Ego. As sure as this conflict is in the Ego, it must be posit ed by the Ego in the Ego, and hence must be dis tinguished. The Ego posits this conflict signifies, firstly: The Ego opposits itself to this conflict.
Hitherto, that is, on this stand-point of reflection, nothing has been posited in the Ego; nothing is in it but what originally pertains to it, pure activity. The Ego opposite something to itself can, therefore, here signify nothing but: it posits something as not pure activity.
And thus the condition of the Ego in the conflict of opposite directions is posited as the opposite of the pure activity of the Ego. Hence, it is posited as mixed, as itself resisting and self-annihilating activity. (This act of the Ego here shown up, whereby it posits that condition of a conflict as the opposite of its free activity, is purely antithetical) We do not investigate at all here, how, in what manner, and through what power the Ego can posit any thing; since in this whole theory we only speak of the products of its activity. But we have sug- 194 THE SCIENCE OF KNOWLEDGE.
gested already in the first part, that, if the conflict is ever to be posited in the Ego, and if ever any thing further is to result from it, then, through the mere positing of the conflict, the conflict as such, that is, the floating of imagination between the opposites, must stop, and only the trace of the con flict must remain as a something, as a possible sub stance. How this may be done we can see here already, although we do not yet see the power through which it is done. For: The Ego must posit that conflict of opposite di rections, or opposite powers; must, therefore, posit both powers, and both in conflict, in opposite, but mutually each other balancing activity. But oppo site activity, which balances itself, cancels itself, and nothing remains. Yet something is to remain and to be posited. Hence, there remains ^perma nent substance, a something which lias power, but can not actively utter it on account of the opposite activity — a substrate of the power. Any one may convince himself of this at any moment by an ex periment. And this substrate, which is the impor tant point here, remains not as ^preposiUd, but as mere product of the union of opposite activities. This is the ground of all substance, and of all possibly remaining substrate in the Ego, (and nothing is outside of the Ego,) as will be always more clearly seen.
The Ego is to posit that conflict of directions in itself. Hence, there must be in the Ego not only a ground of distinction, but also a ground of rela- THE SCIENCE OF KNOWLEDGE. 195 tion with this condition; and since the Ego is as yet nothing but pure activity, this ground of re lation must lie in the pure activity. In other words, the conflict of opposite directions must also contain pure activity; or, rather, pure activity must be posited — synthetically transferred into it The conflicting activity of the Ego has just been posited as not pure. Now, it is to be posited z&pure, in order to be related to the Ego. It is to be pure, and to be not pure. Hence, it is to be opposed to itself. But this is a contradiction, and can only be if there is a third synthetical link of union, where in this contradiction is made possible. This third link must therefore be posited. Such a third link is an activity (of the Non-Ego) opposed to all activity of the Ego generally.
For the conflict of opposite directions can now, by means of this third link, be posited as pure ac tivity, when the opposite activity of the Non-Ego is abstracted from; and is not pure activity, but objective activity, when the activity of the Non- Ego is placed in relation to it Hence, it is pure, and is not pure, under condition; and this condi tion makes the contradiction possible.
The act shown up here is thetical, antithetical, and synthetical, aD at once. Thetical, in so far as it absolutely posits an unperceivable opposite acti vity of the Non-Ego. (How this can be done will be shown hereafter; we only show now tJiat it must be done.) Antithetical, in so far as, by the positing or not positing of a condition, it posits one and the 196 THE SCIENCE OF KNOWLEDGE.
same activity of the Ego in opposition to itsel£ Synthetical, in so far as it posits this activity as one and the same, by positing the activity of the Non-Ego as an accidental condition.
We now see clearly how the Ego can posit the condition of a conflict of contradictory direc tions in itself. It can do so, because that condition may also be considered as pure activity of the Ego, that is, when we abstract from the influence of the activity of the Non-Ego; and becomes objective activity only through that utterly foreign influence of the Non-Ego.
It is to be remembered that this condition of contradictory directions is posited in the Ego to gether with all its synthetical content heretofore dis- ccn'cred; although the ground of relation is only the pure activity of that condition.
Now, in thus relating itself to (positing within itself) the condition of contradictory directions, by means of an activity altogether opposed to the Ego, the Ego invariably excludes that activity from itself, no matter whether it regards its own activity as pure or as objective. For in either case the Ego posits that opposite activity as the condition of the relation; in the first case, as the condition from which it must abstract; in the second case, as the condition it must reflect upon. Here we have the highest ground of all externalization of the Ego; the ground why the Ego goes beyond itself and posits something as external to itself. Here we see for the first time clearly how something, as it were, THE SCIENCE Of KNOWLEDGE. 1 97 loosens itself from the Ego, which will probably change gradually by further determination into an external universe. It is because the Ego in either case excludes, posits outside, externalizes that acti vity of the Non-Ego.
This relation of the condition of contradictory direction to the Ego is called sensation; a discover ing, a finding of a foreign other. It is the can celed, repressed activity of the Ego which is felt in sensation. It is felt, found as something foreign, because it is canceled, limited; whereas, the origi nal activity of the Ego is pure and absolute. Hence, it is externalized. But it is also felt in sensation, in the Ego, because it is only canceled activity on condition of an opposite activity, without which it would not be canceled but pure activity.
DEDUCTION OF CONTEMPLATION.
We have deduced sensation as an act of the Ego, whereby it relates a foreign something in itself to itself, and posits it as its own. The act, sensation, we now know, and also its object, that which enters sensation. But we do not yet know the scnsating, that is, the Ego, active in that relation; nor do we know yet the opposite activity of the Non-Ego which was excluded in the sensation. Let us now seek to know of them.
Sensation occurs in the Ego; hence, the Ego must posit it originally in itself. How does the Ego posit sensation in itself; or how does it posit igS THE SCIENCE OF KNOWLEDGE, itself as the sensating? To do this it must first be able to distinguish between its activity in the sen sation and the object of the sensation. The object of sensation is activity of the Ego, in so far as it is considered as in opposition to another equal acti vity; as not-activity -which would be activity, if the opposite activity were removed; as latent activity, substance, or substrate of power.
The activity of the Ego in sensation, to be dis tinguished from this latent activity, must, therefore, be posited as not suppressed, not checked; hence, as real activity.