particular Being which afterwards, in consequence of exercising it, becomes "I," then we answer, that in this case it is altogether a mistake to suppose that this particular Being exercises the power. The power is, truly speaking, exercised by the Being which infused it, and which itself here becomes "I;" while the particular Being supposed to become "I" in consequence of the endowment, remains precisely what it was, and does not, by any conceivability, become "I." One Being may, indeed, divide and sunder another Being from other objects; but this does not make the latter Being "I." In order to become "I" it must sunder itself from other things by its own act. Finally, this act of negation, or, in other words, consciousness, is either derived or underived. If it is derived, then it is the consciousness of the Being from whom it is derived, and not mine. But I am supposing it, and it is admitted to be, mine, and not another Being's, therefore it must be underived; that is to say, self-originated and free.
A particular Being becomes "I" in consequence of exercising this act of negation. But this act must be that Being's own; otherwise, supposing it to be the act of another Being, it would be that other Being which would become I, and not the particular Being spoken of. But it was this particular Being, and no other, which was supposed to become I, and therefore the act by which it became so must have been its own; that is, it must have been an act of pure and absolute freedom.
In this self-originated act there is no passivity. Now every pure and underived act, of course, implies and involves the presence of will of the agent. If the act were evolved without his will it would be the act of another Being. In this act of negation, then, or, in other words, in perception and consciousness, Will has place. Thus, though man is a sentient and passionate creature, without his will, he is not a conscious, or percipient being, not an ego, even in the slightest degree, without the concurrence and energy of his volition. Thus early does human will come into play—thus profoundly down in the lowest foundations of the ego is its presence and operation to be found.
It is curious to observe how completely these views, in which we identify perception with a primary act of negation, are borne out by certain philological coincidences, which are, assuredly, not accidental, but based upon deeper reflection than we well know how to fathom. Thus, in Greek, there is the verb, εω, I am: then, anterior to this, in the order of thought, there is νο-εω. (primary meaning), I am—with a negation. (Secondary meaning) I perceive; showing how sensible the founders of the Greek language were, that all perception is ultimately founded on negation and identical with it; that an act of negation is, in fact, the very condition upon which perception depends, Our own word "know" also clearly betokens this—it is nothing but "no," and knowledge, from lowest to highest, is merely the constant alleging "no" of things, or, in other words, a continual process of denying them, first of ourselves, and then of one another:—of course we mean not only in word, but also in thought and in deed. Besides γινωσκω in Greek, there is, in Latin, nosco, or nonsco—all words denoting knowledge, and all carrying negative signs upon their very fronts.
