Facts of Consciousness/Part 3

by Johann Gottlieb Fichte

Chapter 1

The Moral Tie Between Individuals

We have asserted this thinking of being able to do something—which yet we are prohibited from doing—precisely as we have previously asserted the thinking of the power represented in external contemplation; and as we posited the latter as a fixed world of nature, so we posited the former as the product of the freedom of free beings outside of the contemplating individual. We have shown how that thinking of a prohibition occurs internally, and how, precisely on that account, the appearance of such a product of freedom occurs externally. We have further shown how that limitation of freedom through the law does not need to enter into clear consciousness, and that it does not enter consciousness in original construction any more than the power of life did in the original construction of nature, being merely the invisible ground of determination of such a limitation of the productive power of imagination, through which there arises for us the appearance of a product of freedom of a free being.

But I say still more. We have actually deduced fixed nature from an inner and higher principle; the existing power of life is the ground of its existence and its determination. Have we deduced in the same way the system of Egos and their organized bodies? As a fact, we have established it also; and we have, furthermore, added the general deduction that, in this representation of life, its unity, which was broken off in the individuality, is restored. After that we closed with the general reflection that this sum of Egos is infinite in its possibility, but ended and determined in actuality. This last expression shows us what is lacking: the determining ground of this objective contemplation of a system of Egos outside of us, and the principle, which limits the infinity of such an image, have not yet been pointed out. The just discovered thinking of a prohibition has furnished us this lacking principle. Whenever a prohibition makes itself felt within user would make itself felt if we were to make the feeling clear to our consciousness—not to act, because an expression of freedom outside of us is to be expected, there we posit a free being; and wherever, together with the prohibition, that expression itself appears to us, we posit a product of that free being.

We have discovered that the use of freedom (the actual development of the existing power of life) is subordinated to a higher law addressed to inner freedom itself, in consequence of which the latter is to determine itself through itself; Whether this law appears in that unity and universality in which we have announced it just at present, or whether it is, perhaps, in this its formal unity, merely a conception produced by ourselves, does not concern us here at all. We speak here merely of its single, tactically occurring utterances of the single, determined prohibitions.

Concerning these we have found the following: The one life, which is qualitatively one and the same, is separated into many numerically different repetitions, each of which is possessed of the entire One power of life. Let us assume that one of these repetitions should exercise a part of that one common power of life; then there arises—immediately, absolutely, and as a new creation—a prohibition, within all the other numerical repetitions, to work against that exercise of power; a prohibition which, although it does not necessarily enter consciousness, can, nevertheless, be always raised into consciousness by reflection, and which, moreover, at any rate, exists in the inwardness of life and manifests itself as principle in an external contemplation (of course, only for him who attends, who transplants himself from out of his own individuality into the sphere of unity). I say it is a prohibition, not impotence. The individual can well enough, but he shall not, must not do it. He can do it physically, but he cannot do it morally. Hence we certainly do maintain that the freedom of the one individual does determine and form immediately the freedom of all; not immediately in a physical way, however, but mediately, through the uprising prohibition, in a moral way. Thus, then, the numerical separation has been canceled, as was required, and the gulf, which remained between the many sensuously, has been filled up morally, not by a physical, but by a moral connection.

Nevertheless, it is necessary, in order to throw full clearness on the preceding, that we should first definitely establish the distinction between the physical and the moral nexus.

A physical nexus exists where a cause, immediately through its effect upon itself, is also effect upon another, where self-determination, therefore, is at the same time determination of another, and where this effect upon self, or self-determination, and effect upon another, or determination of another, are in their nature one and the same. A material body, for instance, moving in space, moves itself, of course, first of all; and is, in so far, only self-determination. But immediately through that self-movement it propels everything, which resists it with less power, out of that space, which it enters. Its self-movement and its movement of another are absolutely one and the same, and there is no mediating link. (In the same manner we regard our own free action upon the material world. Our hand, for instance, propels something immediately in accordance with a law, by moving itself according to a law.)

A moral nexus, however, is one where another middle link enters between the self-determination of the cause and the determination of another, which middle link, since it cannot be a Being—whereby all nexus would be canceled—must be a consciousness; an immediate consciousness of that self-determination of the cause in the other. Now, this consciousness of the self-determination, and by no means the self-determination immediately, as in the physical nexus, is to determine and limit the other. How can this be possible? Is not consciousness freedom, and determined consciousness freedom from that of which we are conscious? As sure, therefore, as the other is conscious of the self-determination of the cause, he himself must soar freely and indifferently above it. He is limited by it must mean, therefore, that he is called upon, on account of that consciousness, to limit his undoubtedly existing freedom by his own freedom.

Now, such a moral nexus is the one which we have asserted—one individual act which is a self-determination and remains as such altogether and wholly in him. But immediately united with this self-determination there arises an altogether general consciousness for all individuals, which is accompanied immediately by a limiting prohibition; and thus, then, as we intended, moral connection has been established between them all. Although their separation in the physical world remains, nay, is rather only now really confirmed, they are nevertheless all within the moral One, and encircled by the law, which prohibits to all the same exercise of freedom.

To speak popularly, this is the nexus—evident to all, and manifesting itself in the lowest consciousness—between free and rational beings. In their physical nexus they are not to tread on each other, treat each other as matter by pushing, knocking, or beating each other. They are not to place themselves in immediate continuity, but to put consciousness and thought between them and thus act upon each other. As representatives of this reciprocal action we point out in the sensuous world light and air,^[1] which separate the immediate continuity, and make possible mutual visibility and communication of thoughts through words. Both are half-spiritual elements in comparison with solid matter, which our body has not at all for other individuals, but solely for the solid matter outside of us.

I said that the multiplicity of individuals are one through the moral nexus, however separate they may remain in the sensuous world. Nevertheless, an important question remains unanswered here which we shall by no means conceal. Our statement was, that when one of the numerical repetitions of the one life acts free, there arises absolutely a consciousness for all others, which prohibits them to use their freedom adversely to that act. If this transition is admitted, everything else that we have said follows of itself according to our previous principles. But how is it with the transition itself? How can the free self-determination of the one effect and cause a consciousness in all the others? This surely is the real point of the question. The present standpoint of our investigation, therefore, is this: It is true that we have taken life from out of the sensuous into the moral world, and we have also indicated the characteristic point of distinction between both; but we still lack their connecting link.

Chapter 2

Fuller Exposition of Individuality

1. Let us posit in advance of all possible utterance of freedom an objective contemplation of the power of life generally, as a manifestation in the contemplation of the world. That objective contemplation must be in all regards one. There is no subject in it at all, for that contemplation does not reflect itself, but is a mere objective existence of such a contemplation, a mere pouring out and a pure externality, without any inner essence.

Let us assume that an actual utterance of the power thus expressed in contemplation is to be arrived at; how would this be possible? Contemplation is scattered over the manifold and opposite; its very essence consists in this. But the actual activity of freedom is conditioned, according to what we said above, by beginning in a simple point and moving onward from it, according to the law of particular conditionedness. If an activity is to be attained, therefore, the one life must first contract itself from out that universality and scatteredness into a single point; and this it must do, of course, with absolute freedom.

Now, if such a contraction were to take place, what would be the contracting factor? Evidently the one life; for nothing exists outside of it. But what would be the result of the contraction? It would be a limitation to the one point in the universal, with abstraction from all other points; it would be that which contracts itself precisely in this point; which did not exist in the general contemplation, but first arose into being through the absolute act of contraction, and which is thus enabled to become a subject of reflection. It would be the possibility to reflect upon the point thus given through the contraction, and to calculate, according to the law of conditionedness, the causality which may now emanate from it. In short, the result of such a contraction would be that it would only make possible another contemplation, based upon the first original fact of freedom, which contemplation is the same we described above as internal, and as the property of the individual. Hence, it originates the individual itself, and the self-contraction of the One is the original actus individuationis.

What is it, then, which makes and produces the individual? Evidently the one life, by the contraction of itself. And what is it, really, in the contemplation conditioned by and presupposing the determined contraction, which contemplates and is contemplated; or, what is the Ego which occurs in it? It is the one life, now entered into this form, however, and abandoning the general form of externally gazing contemplation. Can the one life return immediately from out of this form of contraction to the general one of scatteredness? Undoubtedly. The individual, therefore, is not at all a special Being of Life, but a mere form of it—and a. form, moreover, of its absolute freedom. The forms exclude each other mutually; the life cannot be in one form and in the same undivided act in another form; but it can pass from one into the other with the same one freedom, and remain one and the same by means of that freedom. The one absolute life changes itself into an individual without thereby losing its freedom.

The individual is not a particular being, but an accidental form. Hence the main proposition which we are trying to solve—that the individuals, either as such, or, at least, as in their form of existence separate numerical repetitions of the one life, represent just so many separated worlds, and that thus there is a gulf between them which we must try to fill up; this proposition is now done away with altogether, and hence the whole difficulty is removed. The immediate tie between individuality and universality is absolute, and remains always in the freedom of the life to form itself either into the one or the other.

I add here, at once, the highly important general proposition, that it is conditionedly necessary that the life should assume individual form, the condition being—if it is to act. No acting except in the individual form, since only thus does life concentrate itself into the point of unity, from which all acting must proceed. It is only in the individual form that the life is a practical principle. But it is never necessary—I mean physically necessary—that it should act, since it always acts with absolute freedom; and hence I say that the necessity is conditioned. It may be different under the moral legislation, and it may there become necessary to attribute to the individual form another than the merely conditioned necessity.

2. We have hitherto described the life in the individual form as limited to the one point only in contemplation, and as sketching an image of its acting from out of this point. Let us assume, now, that it determines itself to act, and acts really; in virtue of which of its two forms does it do this? The life has power only in its unity; hence, as we have already remarked in the proper place, it acts only as unity and only in this form. Again, a real exercise of the power occurs only from out of a point of unity, and by passing through a series of conditions. Life can comprehend both only in its form of individuality. Life, therefore, acts in virtue of both of its forms, both being intimately united. The universal form furnishes the power in general; the individual form furnishes its determinateness, without which a factical utterance of the power could never take place. The individual form is, in reality, only the power of the conception and of a contemplation in accordance with the conception; in itself, it is not at all really active. But since the spiritual life can be active only in accordance with a conception—for this is involved in the contraction into the one point, as the last decisive proof—the individual form is that form through which it must necessarily pass in order to arrive from the all-encircling contemplation at a real act. The one which is not absorbed in the various and opposite forms of itself, but remains the same in all changes, is the really, for itself, existing element of life. Whether it is, on that account, absolute, I do not propose to say. For us it is at present only the absolute element of Life, in opposition to life's mere appearances.

It itself is unchangeable in this its being; for itself is absorbed in none of these changes. These, its changes, certainly exclude each other mutually in time, and time itself is nothing but the form of contemplation of those changes themselves as nevertheless belonging to One. But the unchangeable itself is absolutely beyond all time; for, although it changes in time, these changes do not affect its real being. If these modifications are, furthermore, put into a fixed and permanent form, which form they have, of course, only for the connecting contemplation, then this occurs in the form of contemplation of space. Since life itself thus soars over its modifications, it soars all the more over the fixed determining contemplation of them; it is even less in space than it is in time. It is a mere power—a pure power without substrate, a power which does not at all appear immediately, and hence is not contemplated, and which, therefore, is also not contemplated in any of the possible forms of contemplation. Here, therefore, we hit upon a thinking, which by its very content excludes all contemplability, and hence every form of possible contemplation. Its thought involves positively no appearance but that which is at the basis of all possible appearance. Wherever an appearance is, there itself is no longer; but there it is one of its appearances. I say only one, for it is not totally absorbed in any of its appearances; and, in order to substantiate this, it appears in many forms, remaining one and the same in the transition. That which is altogether no object of contemplation is called, not sensuous, supersensuous, spiritual, all of these terms being negative modes of determination taken from our contemplation. Spiritual, however, signifies that, the content itself of which precludes sensuous interference, as is the case here.

It is easier to comprehend in a certain case—as, for instance, in the present one—that we ought to act in accordance with this insight, than do so really, and to keep sensuous interference actually aloof. This happens, because all of us have first developed our consciousness within the sphere of sensuous contemplation, and have passed a good part of our life in it, and because sensuous contemplation has thus become, through habit, almost a second nature with us. Even if any one succeeds so far as to be able to keep that sensuous admixture aloof so long as he is attentive to himself, he still is, nevertheless, very easily surprised by the old habit whenever he has to reason, and when he can, therefore, no longer keep his attention fixed upon himself. Without being conscious of it, his reasoning assumes a sensuous form. It is thus in our case. We have said, that it is the one life, which assumes the form of individuality, because it can appear as a practical faculty only in that form; in all individual forms the same one life, and in all those forms in its totality. Now, if somebody were to find it difficult to comprehend this, what could possibly be the reason? Perhaps, without being quite conscious of it, he argues as follows: The one life is, therefore, in me in all its totality; at the same time, it is in my neighbor; at the same time, perhaps, also in America; perhaps even in Sirius; but how can it be at the same time in so many places? Such a man would, therefore, have conceived the spiritual life in the form of external contemplation, and tied it to conditions of space—which is precisely what he should not have done.

According to the above, the self-determination of the one life to engage in real activity—which determination can never occur otherwise than in individual form—results necessarily in a consciousness of this its activity on the part of life, which consciousness is universal, and hence must occur in the same manner in each individual form, which life has assumed. What kind of consciousness is this? The general contemplation of the power, simply as such power, remains; for it is an unchangeable, fundamental form of life; the view of the fixed and unchangeable nature, which is expressed in that contemplation, remains also, and life can always resume its place therein, through an exercise of its freedom. But the individual form gives rise to a consciousness of a determined activity, which no longer exists as a merely pure and formal power, but is used up as such, and which must therefore be subtracted from the sum of the original power given in general contemplation; which subtraction, and by its means the whole required consciousness, would not be possible if the first fixed contemplation did not remain unaltered. The former is the contemplation of an unchangeable; but this contemplation views a sphere perpetually changeable by new creations, and in no manner following fixed laws in its changes. The former deals with a world, which, being unchangeable, obeys a law; the latter deals with facts as such, facts that have no connection at all, at least none through a physical law. It is evident that the latter is conditioned by the former, that freedom can be regarded only as a further modification of the universal power and of its opposite image, nature; and that it can be measured only by the degree in which it modifies nature. We comprehend a product of freedom only as the cancellation of a development of nature, and we measure it only by ascertaining how far the power of nature has been annihilated by it; consequently, by restoring nature in thought to its previous condition. We must, therefore, be able to restore it, and hence possess it in our universal contemplation. The contemplation of freedom is, therefore, conditioned by the contemplation of fixed nature, and is possible only by presupposing the latter.

Thus far in regard to the external form of this consciousness; and now let us consider its inner content. By acting in individual form the one life has used up and canceled a certain portion of its power as mere power. Hence, after the act there arises the physical impossibility of a certain manifestation of freedom, which was quite possible before the act. This is the first, immediate effect of that manifestation of freedom upon the one and universal life. It must, consequently, enter all the individual forms of that life, since they all have the same consciousness. Each individual form must become conscious that it absolutely cannot do now what it could well have done before that act: namely, that it cannot put to use the power which has been already used up and canceled in the universal life. Whatever is done is done, and cannot again be made undone, either by its author or by anybody else; for, if it were possible to undo it, nature would have to be restored to its previous condition, which, however, has been absolutely canceled by the manifestation of freedom. We can destroy; but that does not cancel the deed or act, since we do not restore the life of nature to its former condition, but produce dead ruins.

Hence this immediate consciousness of not having the power to do something because a certain tactical manifestation of freedom has gone before, this necessary recognition of factical Being, is the link in consciousness, with which the contemplation of the products of all freedom, whether our own or that of others, connects; and only now our problem has been completely solved.

3. We have seen that, if the one life is to realize actually a manifestation of its power, it must concentrate itself from out of the general contemplation into a single point of that power. This concentration gives rise to the individual form, and must itself be thought as actus individuationis primariae et originariae. This is, as I believe, evident; but it remains useless for application, unless we view and accompany the further determination of the individual form by this actus primarius.

That concentration within a point of unity—although we regard it at present merely as ideal, just as we established it at first—has caused something to occur in life, which cannot be made undone. That point has appeared in the conception, and has given rise to an infinitely continuable line of freedom and action, which was not possible before the occurrence of the concentration. The life has been changed in its original condition, and an altogether new and permanent faculty—namely, of continuing that line of freedom—has entered it.

Now, it is true, that the life can drop and need not reassume that form, by means of the absolute freedom, with which it soars between the two fundamental forms of general contemplation and individuality; in which case that individual form, which was once one of the series of life's appearances, disappears altogether. But by means of that same form it can also connect again with that point, since the point is a fixed determination of life itself, and can further determine its determinedness in that individual form which it first assumed.

Let us suppose, now, that it does this, and continues the individuality once begun; in what manner will it proceed to do so? Let me explain here, in order to increase intelligibility by opposition, that in the original actus concentrationis, which is precisely the actus individuationis, there is absolutely no self-consciousness, neither of the universal life—which, although it concentrates itself, does not reflect upon its concentration, as it would have to do in order to think itself as the cause thereof—nor still less of the individual, for by this act individuality comes to exist.

(In immediate facticity this is manifested by the circumstance that we all are brought into life without knowing about it, not finding ourselves till we are in the middle of it.)

But I say, further, that, in the continuance of the individual form, self-consciousness arises necessarily. For a new point of unity = B has been taken hold of by the conception, and the problem now is to find, how its realization from out of A is possible and possible under the condition, that A has been realized. Hence, in the conception of B, according to this rule, A is presupposed as already conceived, as conceived in the same life which immediately contemplates itself and remains accessible to itself; hence by the same one principle, the Ego. The necessary union and relation of these two conceptions to each other necessarily produce self-consciousness.

What is this Ego? It is a comprehending principle, the unity of different acts of comprehension; hence, it bears the individual form, and is the individual as such. And what is the final and the true element in this comprehending? Evidently the one life itself. Can we, therefore, say strictly that the individual becomes conscious of itself? By no means, for the individual is not at all; how, then, can it become anything? We must say, rather: life becomes conscious of itself in the individual form, and as individual. I say as an individual, for the consciousness deduced by us expresses nothing further. To make this individual conscious of itself, and at the same time, in this individual form, conscious of itself as one life, is precisely what we endeavor to accomplish by our philosophy, and it costs some exertion to bring this about; a sure proof that it is not involved in the original fact of consciousness, which, on the contrary, leads every individual to consider himself an absolute in itself.

We append here a consequence. Life, in the form of universal contemplation, is not at all capable of self-consciousness. It is only in the individual form, and, let it be observed, only in the continuation of that form, that it can become self-conscious; just as, according to the above, it can be a practical principle only in this form. Hence, it is natural that life, in so far as it is self-consciousness and practical principle, represents itself not at all in its unity, but as a world of individuals.

This explains also why those persons who, when they hear knowledge spoken of as independent life, cannot understand it otherwise than as self-consciousness and can never penetrate, owing to the necessary laws of thinking itself, beyond individuality to the thinking of life in its unity. From the concentration of life in one point onward, which itself is an absolute fact, everything is factical. But the natural man is merely a historical intelligence, who can very well take hold of facts, re-image them in his reproductive power of imagination, substitute and exchange one for the other, but has also in this the limit of his range of vision. Whenever the problem is no longer merely to exchange facts for facts, but to rise beyond all facticity in its absolute form to its absolute ground by pure thinking, the faculty of the natural man is at an end; he must die, and a new one must be born in his place. This limit is here, where the problem is to rise beyond individuality as the absolute seat of facticity, and to comprehend the one spiritual life as merely appearing in it.

Now, such an individual form can be continued infinitely by the life, but must always be so continued according to the same rule, so that in the new unity-conception C the conception B is already presupposed, the one individual Ego always remaining as the last basis of consciousness. Hence, the one life can either remain in its universality and undeterminedness, or form new individuals, or continue individual series already begun. The latter are determined in it by the previous, with which the connection must be made; hence there is no fear that life might make a mistake some time in this business.

Now, if life in this way continues an individual series, where does it take the new point from? Evidently from the universal as yet untouched power; it is something new, never yet manifested in life, for otherwise it would not be included in the universal power. By what rule, then, does it choose the point, or what law determines it in making its choice? So far as we know, as yet no law at all; it takes that point with absolute freedom from out of the universal, absolutely creating it into the sphere of actuality. It is only at its realization that Life becomes subject to conditionedness through the former; this, however, does not in any way limit the purpose, but merely indicates the manner of its execution.

Hence, the continuation of the individual series is just like the absolute actus individuationis, an absolute creation from out of the one life. The life creates the individual anew in every point, or—if we will speak somewhat loosely of the permanent form of the life in this individual as a logical subject—the individual creates itself anew with absolute freedom at every moment. It is true that its former being, now deposited in the region of facts, determines its accomplishment of a purpose, but by no means the purpose itself, which it determines with absolute freedom. Since this purpose is necessarily within the sphere of the universal power, it is attainable. Again, since this universal power is an absolutely connected whole, wherein there is a line of conditions from each point to every other, that purpose is also attainable by every individual—provided, let it be understood, that the individual takes time enough to pass through the middle links of the conditions. Whatever is possible, or whatever lies within the power of the universal power, is also absolutely possible for every individual. The series of conditions are, of course, very different for different individuals.

4. Life has power, and develops it through concentration into an individual form and by virtue of that form. For what purpose? According to the preceding, we cannot answer otherwise than thus: For no purpose except to manifest that power; the end of the development of the power is that development itself.

Now let us suppose, which is at present an arbitrary assumption, that life did not develop its power generally, merely for the sake of developing it, but that it developed it for a definite end, in order to realize by the development a purpose assigned to life; then it is clear, firstly, that, as it can be a practical principle generally only in the individual form, it can also be a practical principle acting for a specific purpose only in that form.

All the factors hitherto considered, the concentration into the unity of the point, the formation of a conception of the activity, and the self-determination, according to the rule of that conception, made activity completely possible. Freedom of action was realized complete and wholly. Now, if that freedom, which had no purpose outside of itself, is to have a further determination to effect a specific end, then this would be clearly a limitation of freedom, as such—of physical ability, which here is able to do everything that is contained in the conception of a purpose—to the more limited sphere of that part of it which lies within the conception of the externally assigned purpose. It would, therefore, be a purpose of the kind which we have called above moral, and the requirement addressed to the free activity to realize that end would be a moral law, and in this instance a positive law—a commandment, namely, to realize the end. This is the second point.

The commandment is, therefore, accepted as part of the end to be attained, with absolute freedom, and, furthermore, of the higher freedom, of freedom within and above freedom. Hence consciousness of its having been accepted is possible only within the immediate contemplation of freedom itself, which is the inner contemplation. The external, universal contemplation of all life receives, according to the above, the product of such a conception of an end to be attained immediately through the consciousness of an inability to do something; but on no account does the mere inner consciousness of freedom itself receive it. The question, therefore, is, whether that product shows in any way, and whether that immediate consciousness involves any determination to indicate that the moral law has or has not been accepted and influenced by it. In a general way the question cannot be properly answered as yet; but we can indicate here already a particular instance in which the product does not show it: namely, in cases where this product itself is only a conditioning middle link to arrive at the moral purpose, which as yet is merely thought in the consciousness of its originator. In this case the product certainly does not immediately express anything moral, since the moral conception has not been immediately influenced by it. It remains possible, of course, that the product has not been even thought as a means for a moral purpose, but is the result of a blind and purposeless outbreak of the mere power as such. The mere external consciousness does not indicate which of these is true, but remains dubious until perhaps some future and continued manifestations of that individual form occur.

The fact, therefore, whether the moral law has determined the conception of an end or not, appears immediately and categorically only in the immediate, inner contemplation, and hence only in the individual form of life, in which alone, indeed, the moral law can be gathered up in the conception of an end, so as to influence it; but it never appears immediately in external contemplation.

5. I have inserted this proposition, which will not find its general application till hereafter, in this place in order to explain thereby a former link and to connect with it.

A moral consciousness of not being permitted to do something—namely, to destroy the product of freedom—connects immediately, and is synthetically united with the consciousness through which an utterance of freedom, that has occurred in any individual form of life, arises in the consciousness of all other individual forms—a consciousness of physical inability to do something which is absolutely universal for the originator as well as for all others. The question arises whether that moral consciousness is just as much the same for all individuals as the former was found to be? I say it is the same for all individuals except the originator. We meet here the distinction in the relation, which was pointed out in the previous links of the contemplation of the world.

For the originator the following cases are possible:

1. He may not have reflected at all upon the moral law in relation to his act, and may not reflect upon it in this relation hereafter, in which case a commandment of the moral law concerning the product of that act does not occur for him at all; and whether he will create that product or not depends altogether upon his arbitrariness—that is, upon his blind and aimless utterance of power.

2. He may not have reflected upon the moral law in advance of the act, but may reflect upon it in that relation afterward, and discover that the product of his act is a hindrance to and contradictory of the moral purposes commanded of him; in which case he not only may, but is bound to destroy it.

3. He may really have allowed the moral law to influence his conception of a purpose, and the product may be a link on his path to a moral end; in which case the same prohibition, not to destroy it, is addressed to him that is addressed to all the others, but from a different reason.

Whence, now, this distinction? The originator can know whether he acts morally or not; the others cannot know it. Hence the prohibition addressed to the others presupposes that the moral end is the end of all development of freedom, and that for the sake of this end no development of freedom must be disturbed, of which it may be presupposed that that end has inspired it.

Chapter 3

General Review of all the Preceding

Life, as One, is simply because it is; and in this its Being it is altogether not an object of contemplation, but an object of thinking; and, moreover, of pure thinking, or intellectualizing.

It cannot be contemplated, for contemplation is a being of immediate freedom. But life in its pure being is not free at all to tear itself loose from that being; it is absolutely tied down to that its formal being. It is, therefore, absolutely impossible that life should have an immediate contemplation of its being.

Nevertheless, it is thinkable. It has freedom to manifest itself in its being, and in this manifestation it certainly contemplates itself; but in none of its manifestations is it altogether absorbed. Hence its fundamental manifestation is a double one; it can rise above them and comprehend itself as that which remains unchangeable in the change. This comprehension of itself is a going beyond the contemplation, and hence, according to the above established conception, a thinking generally. But it is, furthermore, as distinct from the thinking treated of here, a pure thinking. For, although the going beyond a form of contemplation (as in the above mentioned external perception there is a going beyond the inner form of contemplation) is a thinking, the entering into another form of contemplation (the external form, in the above case) is not a pure but a sensuous thinking. Here we are face to face with the original manifestation of life, and, therefore, at the source of all contemplation. We go beyond it, and hence beyond all contemplation. This thinking is, therefore, a pure thinking, or an intellectualizing.

The fundamental manifestation of life is, as I have said, a double one. This it is necessarily; for if it were merely simple, and if life were thus absorbed in it, the thinking of a something, which remained unchangeable in every change, would be impossible. Hence there must be, at least, a change of forms, a duplicity of the form. The change itself is posited by that thinkability, and is, in its fundamental element, nothing else than that thinkability. Hence duplicity suffices for it; and hence nothing more than duplicity is needed for it.

It is of a double character. First, an absolute self-alienation, a general contemplation; as yet, however, not contemplating that power as power, but merely contemplating its object, the sensuous world. Second, an absolute return into itself through concentration into one point of that general contemplation, and a consequent assumption of individual form, and self-consciousness and free activity in that form.

It is well known, but does not concern us here, that while the first fundamental form remains always unchangeably one, life can represent itself in this second fundamental form of individuality in an infinite repetition of that form. But it always remains the same one fundamental form; and this formal unity alone is at present considered by us.

In the first form life generally (vita) is viewed as a permanent power; a view which certainly does not immediately follow from the contemplation, but which we comprehend here as following from the general connection.

In the second view the same life is contemplated as a real living (taking the word as a verb, vivere), and hence as an immediate moving and being active. We therefore have in both views an immediate contemplation of the living of the life. The whole is a contemplation of life, and nothing else.

Why this contemplation of life should dirempt into a duplicity of form we have already stated; the reason given being, that it is thinkable, as it must be, only in this manner. But it cannot be thinkable without being contemplated, since it is thinkable only under the condition of being an object of contemplation, the tact of thinking being merely a going beyond contemplation, and being, therefore, conditioned by it. Adding thinking to contemplation, the whole would be a revelation of life unto itself.

It can also be shown why the contemplation of life must have separated into that duplicity of form in the exact manner in which it did so separate. In the universal form, life is contemplated only as a possible living. This is as yet no true living; and hence the second form, in which the contemplation of actual living and moving becomes possible, must supply the deficiency of content of the first. In this second form, again, life is never contemplated in its totality and in its completed being, but only in beginnings, which point to an infinite further development. Hence the first form must supply the deficiency of extent of this second contemplation. Neither of the forms of contemplation by itself, but only both in their union, furnish an expressive contemplation of life.

The whole system of facts of consciousness, therefore, which we have hitherto established, has really been deduced from one ground, and comprehended as a necessary in itself connected totality. If there is life, and if life reveals itself to itself, then there must be precisely such a consciousness as we have described; for only in this form can life reveal itself to itself.

It is well known to us that the first form results in a permanent sensuous world with all the determinations pointed out in it; and also that the second form results in a system of individuals, with necessary determinations; but we know at the same time that the whole is nothing but the necessary form of the self-contemplation of life. We know that this contemplation necessary separates into such images, and that, indeed, it dirempts originally in order to be able alone to think itself beyond all contemplation. Hence we are far from arresting our investigation at those images, as in themselves essences.

But how did we arrive at that result? Positively in no other way than by following the purely scientific principle to regard consciousness as a phenomenon existing for itself, and to explain it out of itself. What, then, is the hitherto described consciousness? It is an exhibition of free activity, and utterance of power, merely and solely for the purpose of making power manifest and cause freedom to be visible as freedom—an exhibition which has no other end than to make the freedom appearing in it to be really freedom.

I should not be at all annoyed if any one were to consider such a consciousness a very empty and insignificant exhibition; or if he were to suspect any description of it to be not very profound and thorough, and hence to be incorrect.

But we have often before hinted already that such a view is not to be our final result. Hitherto we have regarded life merely as life, as absolute freedom and self-activity, and from this presupposition we have correctly enough arrived at all our previous conclusions.

But supposing the presupposition of our immediately preceding paragraph should prove true, and that a new law should assign to absolute freedom a definite aim and end. Supposing that freedom should no longer exist for its own sake, but as the means and instrument of this higher law, of the moral law, which is to be realized through freedom in the sphere of external contemplation, and which, therefore, must be contemplated itself! What would be the result then?

Precisely as the whole system of consciousness, hitherto deduced, was a contemplation of life, so life itself, in its just discovered spiritual unity, would become a contemplation of the moral law. It would, therefore, be contemplated no longer merely for the sake of being contemplated, and for the sake of giving rise to an exhibition of freedom. The exhibition would obtain a unity, a significance, an end: morality. We should have to say that the one life of freedom is, in truth, nothing but the form of contemplating morality. It might be that, in our investigation of this moral law, it would turn out that here also we should be driven to ask: What is it? for what purpose? and whence its origin? and that then we should discover again that the moral law is also nothing but the form of contemplating a higher principle, arriving at which, no further questions could be asked. In this way absolutely everything would change into contemplations and forms of contemplation and nothing would remain as a true Being but the One absolute principle. Everything within the region of contemplation would change into conditioned and conditioning forms of contemplation except the absolute contemplation of the One absolute principle, which alone would remain as the absolute contemplation, having its being for its own sake.

Life must be contemplated in order that the moral law may be contemplated; and the moral law must be contemplated in order that the absolute may be contemplated: this will be the ascending series of our meditations.

Chapter 4

The Moral Law as the Principle of Life,
and the Latter as the Visibility of the Former

A.

Life, it is true, is out of itself, of itself, and through itself in form—i.e., in its activity. This is an immediate result of its conception, since otherwise it would not be life. But it is quite a different question whether its conceived existence, beyond all activity, is also based in itself and absolute. If this question is answered in the affirmative, then life and its manifestation, exist only for the purpose of existing, and for no other purpose.

We have already before, in the course of our investigation, met some facts of consciousness according to which this question can not be answered in the affirmative. Indeed, the natural aversion of every uncorrupted man to consider formal freedom as its own end and aim is the most general and telling fact of this kind.

We have gathered together these facts, and expressed them by the supposition that there exists some definite or final purpose, which is to be attained by the activity of this life; and that, consequently, life is not merely for its own sake, or for the sake of manifesting itself, but for the sake of that definite or final end; in short, that it is merely a tool and means of realizing that end. Let us now further analyze that supposition.

If Life does not exist for its own sake, then it also does not exist through itself; that is, the ground of its existence is not in itself, but in another, namely, in that final end. Life, indeed, is only thought, as we have seen. Now, if this thinking of life examines itself in order to discover whether it has its ground in itself or not, it most certainly finds that it cannot constitute a fact the ground of the thought life, since life is thought as in itself the ground of all facts, and the only ground of facts. If, therefore, life cannot be thought as being its own ground, a final end can and must be thought as such ground.

That final end, therefore, which also can only be thought, and which must be presupposed as existing—and for the present as, at least relatively, absolutely existing—is the ground of the formal existence of life as well as of its qualitative character. All this is involved in our presupposition.

How this final end can be thought by us as existing—for the present such a thinking is absolutely demanded, and we know that it is possible. Should any one say that such a thinking were impossible for him, we should simply have to decline his participating in our investigation; and what an entirely different sphere of being it opens to us we shall mention afterward, and by that very means ascend higher. But, factically, within the sphere of appearances, that final end has not actual existence, but is to, shall, have actual existence through life. The final end is, where it is, only through life. Again: life itself, in its own existence, is only through the Being of the final end. It is evident that in these two propositions the word is must have a different meaning, since otherwise they would contradict and cancel each other.

The Being of life, therefore, is positively nothing absolute itself. We have discovered its ground: it is the final end which creates and determines it.

Why does the final end need to create a Life outside of itself? Since our investigation doubtless seeks the Absolute, and since we have now discovered a higher somewhat, which, in comparison with life, at least, is absolute—why should we now again proceed from this new discovered Absolute toward life? Does the conception of a final end itself, perhaps, involve such a going beyond itself again? Undoubtedly. It needs a somewhat of which it is the final end. It wants to be realized, and needs a means for that purpose; and this purpose it furnishes itself, so far as we can now perceive, in life.

It wants to be realized; but the real and actual can be contemplated. It is to be contemplated; and hence it needs life. Life, therefore, is, in its real essence, the contemplatability or the appearance of the final end.

B.

Having obtained this new and higher view of life, it will now be our duty to further determine the hitherto final results of our investigation; and this further determination will henceforth be our business.

Firstly, the content of our previous absolute thinking was this: Life is. This content has now been changed into this expression: The visibility of an absolute final end is—which is the substantial part of the expression; and this visibility is absolutely active, pure, and altogether creative—which is its formal part. Every one will here perceive a duplicity. The absolute final end is altogether and throughout determined by itself. It is what it is simply through itself, and this is a determined Somewhat. It is ; it does not grow to be; and nothing in it grows to be. Hence it is also beyond all life, and as the ground of the being of that life. Now, this final end assumes here, moreover, the form of an absolute life and of a freedom, which is an absolute creating out of nothingness, as we have described it heretofore.

Now, what can this life create out of nothingness? Its inner content and core, perhaps, and the inner content and core of its product? If we take up the former view, where we regarded it as purely formal life and freedom, unquestionably. But, according to the present view, which does not concede that it is an absolutely being and complete final end, in which there is no growth and becoming, we can no longer say so. Hence it could create only the form; that is, it creates the final end, which was previously merely in the spiritual and altogether invisible world, in the visible world, wherein that final end did not previously have existence. It is, therefore, an absolute creator, but only of the form, and not of the content, of the final end. It no more creates the latter than it is created by it.

We furthermore came across the basis of all contemplation—namely: the utterance, or manifestation, of that life. And this we met in a double form: the universal form, which represents the one total life in its mere possibility; and the individual form, which represents it as actually active, but only from out of specific points. The duplicity of that form was necessary in order to make life something more than merely thinkable. The contemplation was contemplation of the life just as it is, as a mere free activity and nothing else. But at present we perceive that life is not to be contemplated merely for the sake of being contemplated, but in order that the final end may be contemplated in life. Previously we deduced contemplation from the conception of the contemplatability of mere life. This, now, is no longer sufficient. Life is to be contemplated as at the same time the means and the tool of the final end. Thus the contemplatability of the final end itself must enter through life at the same time in our a priori determination of the general system of contemplation. By means of this fundamental law we must now further determine the determination of contemplation so far as we have discovered it at present; and to do so will be our business now.

C.

The duplicity of the fundamental form was the condition of the thinkability of life; but this thinking itself is again, as has appeared in the course of our investigation, a condition of the thinkability of the final end, and hence of its appearance in the form of thinking. Hence this disjunction remains, as well in regard to the contemplatability of the final end as of that of life. Presupposing it to be valid, we have, therefore, to determine only its two single fundamental forms.

I. The General Form, This is, firstly, contemplation of the Power of Life, which comprises an infinite manifold. Now, what must be, according to our previous view, the determining ground of this manifold—that is to say, as a manifold in its seeming inner content, in so far as this is a particular content? The activity, in its pure unity, is not contemplatable, but only thinkable; if it is to become contemplatable, it must dirempt itself; and, since it is to be infinitely contemplatable, it must dirempt itself infinitely. The ground of the seeming diversity of the particular is, therefore, contained altogether in the absolute contemplatability; and this is diverse, because otherwise it would not exist at all; but the true basis is the mere empty freedom, wherein there is nothing distinguishable. Thus, then, the manifoldness is a mere semblance; an appearance simply in order to be an appearance; and it is nothing else.

According to our present view, the Power exists not only in order to cause the appearance of activity, but also in order that it may appear as the tool of the final end. Through the command of this final end the free activity is limited, within general possibility, to a fixed sphere. Not all that is possible, but only a part of the possible, is to occur. Now let us ask: Does this part, which is to occur, occur merely for the sake of making freedom visible? By no means; but in order to make the final end visible. This final end, taken as real, would be this part of the power—of the real power, or of the power of the real. Now, how is that, which is not to occur, related to it? This opens to us a double view: the final end is to be made visible through life, and hence through freedom. But freedom in the individual form, which alone admits of acting, comprises self-limitation. Hence, the visibility of a command of a final end involves expressly that there shall be a play-ground, as it were, or a more extended sphere, wherein something prohibited can be found. So much, for the present, concerning the matter of the visibility of the command; its formal part we shall meet in proper time.

Hence, the visibility of the final end most certainly involves that, besides the sphere of the acts commanded, there shall also be another sphere of mere possibility; but the final end can involve no determination as to what are to be the contents of this other sphere, since it is fully exhausted by the sphere of the commanded. Thus that inner sphere of mere possibility falls under the rule of the above determining law—the law of the contemplatability of purely empty and nugatory freedom. All this is no power to create the Real, but merely the power to create an Appearance.

From this it follows, firstly, that it is possible to represent the final end through the means of life; that freedom can absolutely do whatever it is bid to do, and that there is no possibility of a dispute about these matters. The original power of life is nothing else than the power to achieve the final end; nothing else than the original self-manifestation of this final end in freedom. The totality of the power expresses the final end wholly and completely; nay, it comprises far more; that is, also, the power not to obey; and the other expression of the final end comprises only the narrower sphere.

Let me add this: We know, from our investigation, that the general contemplation must be described as a contemplation of power; in immediate contemplation, we behold only the object of that power—nature. Now, just as life has thus lost its independence and absoluteness, so nature, the mere image of that life, also, and to a still greater degree, loses its independence and absoluteness by that result. Just as the power is in all its determinations only the product of the final end, so nature, the mere contemplatability of that power, is such a product to a still greater degree. Nature is the image of our real power, and hence absolutely conformable to an end; we can achieve in and upon nature all that the final end commands us to achieve. The principle of nature is absolutely a moral principle, and by no means a natural principle; for, if it were the latter, nature would be absolute. Nature is heteronymous, and by no means autonomous. Nature is to be explained, partly from its ends, and partly from the visibility of those ends; from both, indeed, as we have shown in the case of the power, whose image nature is. If we forget the latter point, we shall fall into absurdities.

Morality, therefore, appears here as the absolute determining principle of nature. Nor ought this to surprise us, since it has appeared as the principle of life, which again is the principle of nature.

II. In the general unity form of life, as such, we discovered not only a contemplation, but also a real power—namely, the power to concentrate into a unity-point of the general power, and to create individual forms by that contraction.

Now, since life, in its truly real acting, is, without exception, the expression of the final end, the same applies to those actibus individuationis. Our previous assumption, that life were herein utterly free and lawless, now drops entirely to the ground. Life, in this production of individual forms, is determined altogether by the final end. Each individual, therefore, who comes into existence does so come into existence through the final end, and solely for the sake of the final end. Nevertheless, he comes into existence as an individual; that is, just as individuation appeared formerly as the concentration into a unity-point of a possibility of acting, and a connection of a fixed series of possibilities of acting from this unity-point, so now it appears as the concentration to a unity-point of the Shall, and as the connection of a series of Shalls from this unity-point. Just as above the general sphere of a power of doing separated into several individual faculties, so here the general problem given to the one life separates into several problems; into parts, through the realization of all of which, if it were at all possible in time, the universal final end would be realized, each individual having, through his mere existence within the sphere of universal life, such a specific problem. Each one is to do that which he alone is called to do (or shall do), and which he alone can do—since the concentration upon the unity-point of the Shall is also a concentration upon the unity-point of the Can—which only he, and positively no one else, is called to do and can do, and which, if he does not do it, will be done by no one else, at least of this community of individuals. Precisely as we discovered above, that in a physical aspect the individual comes into existence without any action or consciousness of his own, and cannot change this his Being—this concentration upon or into a unity-point—although having the power to determine himself from that point with absolute freedom, so now, in the world of his moral destination, he is to find himself as he is, without any action or consciousness of his own, and without any power to change this his moral being. But neither must (shall) he, in this his moral world, even desire to change it, but must further voluntarily develop and determine himself in accordance with that found fundamental law of his moral determination. The individual does not assign to himself his moral task, for that is assigned to him simultaneously with his existence; but he does, at some time of his life, assign it to himself consciously. This, however, he can do only because it has been originally assigned to him, without his consciousness, through his mere existence. The coming into existence of an individual is a particular and altogether determined decree of the moral law in general, which expresses itself in full only by its decrees to all individuals.

The one and universal life, in its assumption of individual form, is altogether determined through the final end. In what manner? It is true that life is activity, and, moreover, absolute, creative activity. But in this, its universal form, it is not conscious of itself, and hence it is not free in the strict sense of the word. That is to say, there is no impulse in it which it may follow or not follow. Hence, it is not determined through the final end, as the individual is determined through the command of the final end, with a freedom to obey or disobey. The final end operates upon life in its universal form as a law of nature, and life in this form is only the appearance in nature of the final end. In and through it such and such individuals must result, and they do result.

In this way, therefore, we have been led to a fixed and real nature, which, in so far as we ascribe reality to the final end alone, is not merely the visibility of another, but visibility for itself. What is this nature, firstly, in regard to its form? Not a substrate, or anything of that kind, but pure and absolute life and power, which creates the merely possible into an actual, the immediate fundamental principle of all actuality. The ground of its being, as well as the ground which irresistibly and, like a law of nature, determines the manifestation of its power, is the final end itself. Here we find the absolute union and the true connecting link of both worlds, the visible and the invisible.

Now, which are those original determinations, and the absolute creatures of nature? The world of individuals. The individuals, therefore, in consequence of their moral destinations, are the only true and actual in nature, and their creation completes nature in general.

Whatsoever exists otherwise, or appears as existing, is product of the particular life, or of particular life in individual form; as, for instance, contemplation of nature in the individual itself as also a part of nature, a further modification of nature, since in its unity-point it is a power of nature.

This removes all difficulties—which beset other systems, that assume an in itself absolute, hence immoral, nature—of explaining freedom and consciousness in the individual. The individual is simply moral; and this morality posits absolutely consciousness and freedom, since morality is possible only on condition of their existence.

We add here the following: In the individual form, as such, the real power of life to create individuals is completed and exhausted. The individual, when once he exists, is absolutely an individual, and can neither annihilate himself nor change into other individuals, and thus create individuals outside of himself. If, therefore, universal life were to come to an end in the production of one or a certain fixed number of individuals, this coming to an end would exhaust and annihilate the real power of the one life, and life in its universal creative power would become invisible. This can never occur, for life must absolutely appear in its totality, because the final end must become visible in it. Hence, within the sphere of appearances, the world of individuals is never completed; new ones must always arise; and it is not only necessary that there should be many individuals—which we had not proved before—but that there should be a continuous, increasing, and, in the appearance, never-to-be-completed series of individuals.

We might say that, according to the above, the final end in its totality must be divided among the sum of individuals, and that hence, if the final end is a determined and complete Whole, the sum of individuals must also be a complete Whole; and this remark furnishes us opportunity for an additional statement, which opens a wide prospect. For, in so far as the final end is to become visible, it must be apportioned among a determined and fixed sum of individuals, since it is visible only in the form of individuals. And thus the just now demonstrated continuous creation of new moral individuals presupposes that a part of the final end is still invisible; namely, the part which is to be made visible by the new creation. In this regard, therefore, the appearance of every new-world citizen—and there is no other world than the moral world—is a revelation of the moral final end from a new and previously altogether invisible point of view. It is possible that this progressiveness of the manifestation of the final end may be conditioned by the fulfillment of the problem, which became visible previously; and that, until such fulfillment takes place, time will pass on void and empty, merely repeating the unfulfilled problem in other individuals. Thus, in the moral order of the final end, one age of the world would be conditioned by another age, and the sequence of ages would be the gradual unfolding to greater clearness of the final end.

D.

Let us now proceed to determine the second fundamental form of the manifestation of life—the individual form—by applying the same principle.

I. The contemplation of the one and universal power exists in the individuals as such. The totality of the power, or nature, is contemplated through them as the focus of knowledge; and by each of them, of course, in the same manner, for in regard to the contents of that contemplation they are not individual, but are the one and universal life itself.

In order to remove all occasion for misapprehension or confusion, I will here add the following: The one universal life—or nature—has already, on a previous occasion, been separated into two main views: firstly, as real life, in its creation of individuals; and, secondly, as ideal life, in its self-contemplation. It can assume the latter form, as factical, only in the form of the individual, since it contemplates itself and becomes conscious of itself only in that form—though as one contemplation, and hence, as in all individual forms, the same one content. This contemplation must comprise all that is comprised in actuality. But actuality extends as far as individuation. Hence universal contemplation must comprise the contemplation of as many individuals as the one life has created; and the immediate universal contemplation must extend just so far: namely, to the universal contemplation of all individuals from the standpoint of every single individual.

And here let me make a remark, which I trust will remove many a misapprehension of previous propositions of the Science of Knowledge. No individual contemplates, or beholds, beings of his own kind in himself and in his self-contemplation, but in the immediate contemplation of the one life. Whatsoever else there is in nature—physical force, etc., down to coarse matter—is contemplated, of course, by each individual in himself, in the immediate contemplation of his universal power. But precisely because this is its universal and not its particularly limited power, it is compelled to transfer this contemplation to other beings of its own kind, which have already appeared to it in the first contemplation.

Now, the one life, as nature, is absolutely determined by the final end in the production of individuals. It can produce no individuals, except with specific moral determinations. This, as an absolute determination of that life, must also appear in the universal contemplation thereof, and, moreover, in its immediate contemplation, wherein the individuals appear according to their existence, altogether independent of the reflection of the contemplating individual upon his own morality. It must appear in the same universality which it has in the one life. What is this universality, and where is its limit? It is this: that all individuals, without an exception, have a special moral destination of their own; and whatever this destination is for every particular individual, lies beyond the limit. The universal contemplation merely shows that all individuals have a moral destination, for the sake of which their being, and the products of their freedom, must not be treated like things of nature, but must be respected; in short, this contemplation involves all that we have previously established factically as the source of the conception of the relation of free beings to each other—the conception of Law. These conceptions we have found—and this is an important matter—to be independent of the morality of the individual himself who entertains them; nay, independent even of the fact of the reflection concerning his own morality. They are the real mediating and connecting link between the natural and the moral conceptions, as well as of their ground—the determination of the one life through the final end. The real central link is found between the two worlds.

This appears also in actual life. Even the man, who is himself unjust, and who cannot look upon his act in the form of that contemplation, being moved by passionate desire, will judge that act to be unjust when committed by another, because he is then calm and open to the impressions of his spiritual nature; just as we often find the very men demand most of others who are least inclined to help those others when necessary. In their lowest form we find these conceptions, not so much as things, which anybody is to do, as something, which ought to be.

We here obtain, therefore, a new determination of universal contemplation, the basis of the Legal Conception, whereby freedom is turned into nature, as it were, and called upon to operate and produce a fixed and permanent Being like an irresistible and compulsory law of nature.

II. The particular, moral determination of each individual, which is his in consequence of his origination from out the universal life, does not arise into consciousness in the described universal contemplation, but only in the separate and altogether internal self-contemplation of the individual as such, since this determination is his exclusively own Being. The question is, How and in what manner?

In order to answer this question thoroughly and clearly, let us investigate more closely the condition of moral freedom and its contemplatability. We saw above that the mere sensuous individuality, even without any appearance of the moral law in consciousness, makes actual acting completely possible, and real freedom, the possibility of determining one's self to do a specific act, in every way perfectible. If the moral law is added, there arises a limitation of that determined possibility; at first, of course, merely in the conception. It is conceived that the possible freedom of acting must be limited to a determined, limited sphere. Now, in consequence of this conception, the free individual, confined to the described condition, is to limit himself by a free act, and this free act is to be visible as such, since the law, as determining the life, is to be visible. But the free act, according to a previously demonstrated proposition, is visible only when a resistance occurs; hence the visibility of the moral determination as such posits, first of all, a resistance. The resistance must, therefore, be manifested—just as the visibility manifests itself—absolutely. And since it is the one life, as nature, which is determined by the formal visibility of the moral law, it must be that one life which produces such a resistance.

But, again, where must this resistance appear? Evidently in physical freedom itself, for it is this freedom which is to be determined, and, moreover, in its individual form, since here we speak only of this kind of form. This resistance is not itself an acting. For freedom is to be limited in advance of this acting. Hence, it must be necessarily a principle, which, without the moral limitation, would be an acting. In other words, it must be an impulse, for by that word we have characterized such a principle before. It must be, moreover, a positive impulse, and by no means a mere indifference to act without any moral determination; an impulse which, in resisting this determination, must be overcome by it, and in the very overcoming of which the moral free deed must become visible. It is a necessary consequence of individuation that such an impulse should appear in the individual; for it belongs to the individual form, as a form wherein the actual causality of the moral law is to become visible.

It is a positive impulse to act, for the present, without any moral law. But for that very reason it aspires to perfect its whole form, and thus to be absolute, even though it be against the moral law. It wants to abrogate the moral law altogether. In our consciousness it will thus appear as a natural will, given to us through our mere sensuous existence. Hence the law, against which it rebels, and which, on its account, rebels against it, as a shall, as the negation of the will in its function, as a ground of determination. Hence this peculiar form of the law, which for that very reason is valid also only for this opposition. In determining the one life, the final end has not at all the form of the shall, but only the form of the must. It rules as a law of nature. The impulse itself is its product in so far as it is a law of nature, and exists only for the sake of its visibility and in its mere form; the same impulse which, through the same law, as a determining law of freedom, is to be annihilated, not so far as its being is concerned, which would be a contradiction, but as a determining ground of acting.

Remark.

This impulse is a natural impulse, and, if we follow it, it produces an acting according to the law of nature. Hence, in following the impulse, the individual is not at all free, but subservient to an irrevocable law; and in this region life, in its mere form as pure life, has no causality whatever.

But what, then, is the content of this acting in general, and generally, of the manyfold in its seeming manifestation of freedom? We have seen it before: the mere contemplatability of life as such, without any real core; a mere picturing in order to be a picturing; a Nothing, forever to be further formed. The individual who acts in obedience to the impulse acts under the law of this further evolution of the Nothing.

Again, if, on the other hand, the individual determines himself through the moral law, he also is not free, and life again has no causality; for this is what freedom means. Has he, then, no freedom at all? Yes, certainly: in the transition, in rising from the condition of nature to that of morality.

This enables us to offer a ready reply to the question propounded. Consciousness is the freedom of a Being; determined consciousness, freedom of a determined being. Whatsoever is to be the immediate consciousness of a subject must be immediately the actual being of that same subject. If the subject is absorbed by the natural impulse, his moral determinatedness still remains, of course; his being; but only in the background, as it were. His immediate, actual being, is that impulse. Hence the impulse alone is manifested in consciousness, and it is absolutely impossible that the moral determinedness should manifest itself in consciousness—at least so far as its contents are concerned; for, in regard to the form, and in so far as that form is contained in the general conception of law, as a part of the universal contemplation, it may be otherwise. Now, what is the ground of this impossibility? The absorption by the impulse. Hence the individual must, first of all, get rid of the impulse. Can he do this? Or, in order to give another form to the question: Since such a self-ridding of the law of nature on the part of the individual, without having determined himself as yet by the moral law, would be the just described freedom, the causality of the life through itself, is the individual really and in point of fact free?

Since such a freedom conditions the determinability through the moral law, and hence its absolute visibility, does not this actual and real freedom belong to the absolute determinations of the individual, as such, which it receives immediately from nature under the determination of the final end?

Three things, therefore, constitute the essence of the individual: 1. The natural impulse; 2. The moral determination or destination; and 3. Absolute freedom as the mediating link between the two former.

Hence the individual must annihilate the impulse, as its immediately actual being, through this freedom. Does any Being, then, still adhere to it? Of course; that is, its moral destination; and this is now its immediate, actual Being. For the present, however, it is still free in regard to it, since it has not yet determined itself in accordance with the laws of that destination. Hence it now enters the emptied consciousness necessarily, in consequence of the law of consciousness.

Now, what sort of a consciousness is this? As the immediate expression of Being, it is necessarily an immediate contemplation, which forms itself under this condition precisely as it is, without any freedom on the part of the knowing—such as we meet in thinking, which is a going beyond contemplation—and accompanied, as all contemplation is, by immediate evidence. Its content has no external ground, and cannot be made a subject of argument, like a series of thinking. It simply is, and is what it is; that is, it is a consciousness that I am called upon to do this very particular thing.

Result.—The determinatedness of moral consciousness is not produced by the freedom of thinking, but absolutely creates itself. It is true that freedom co-operates in the process, but somewhat differently. By killing the impulse, it puts itself into the condition wherein it can realize itself that determined contemplation propounds a problem, which the individual can freely make his own, and which he ought to and most certainly, according to the above, can solve. But the acting of the individual is an infinite line, and, by virtue of that infinity, stands under the moral law. Hence, after accomplishing the first problem, a second problem will arise for the individual—conditioned by the first one—and so on ad infinitum. The moral destination of the individual, which is altogether completed by his going beyond universal life, as a Being, can thus arise to consciousness only in an infinite, never-to-be-finished series of separate, determined contemplations, which series is connected and remains the same through the law of conditionedness; and the determined act, we are called upon and actually can do, is valid only for the determined time-moment.

The impulse, as an essential component part of the individual, remains eternal; hence freedom also remains eternal. If, therefore, the individual had determined himself to realize his determined moral problem, he nevertheless would be able to repeal, or cancel, this his moral task at any time; or, even if he did undertake the next task, he still might refuse obedience to the following, etc., etc. In this condition his infinite life would therefore remain an everlasting self-determination, a continuous creation of free resolves, which, however, might just as well be moral as immoral. But in that case the moral law would also not be a determinedness of Being, of the fixed, unchangeable unit of individual life, as it proposes to be; but it would exist merely accidentally, and as a determining ground of some manifestations of life without any rule or law whatever.

These accidental manifestations would be moral, to be sure, but the life itself, in its root and basis, would remain immoral.

That accomplished problem was in contemplation; hence life must be determined by contemplation. But it is to be determined by the absolutely invisible and eternal unity of the law. How can this determination, as the only true morality of the individual, manifest itself?

Evidently only by the absolute annihilation and canceling of the impulse as well as of freedom, since the described opposite condition is founded on the latter. Now, neither of them can be annihilated as faculties. They must, therefore, be annihilated as facts. The individual must have the power to determine himself for all eternity never to admit any more as a fact the freedom which nevertheless continues as a possibility forever.

Determination through freedom is called a free Willing—not the previously described natural Willing. That determination would, therefore, be a resolve henceforth and forever to obey—without flinching or considering, and without any separate resolve of freedom—the moral law, in whatever form it may present itself in our infinite contemplation.

Of course, freedom would remain as a faculty—a possibility; and hence such a will—for in its continuance we must call it will, and not, as in the moment of its origination, resolve—must uphold itself eternally through itself, which upholding is precisely the continuous annihilation of the always possible real freedom, and will manifest itself as such an upholding. But continuous self-determination, to be moral, is now no longer possible, since this self-determination has been achieved for all eternity. Now let the moral law develop itself internally hereafter in the infinitely continued series of contemplations, and you may be sure that its eternal life will develop itself precisely in the same manner, since the Will, as the mediating agency, is always present.

The act of the creation of an eternal and holy Will in itself is the act by which the individual creates itself into being, the immediate visibility of the final end, and by which it, therefore, completes its own peculiar internal life. Henceforth the individual no longer lives himself, but within him lives, as ought to live, the final end. The final end, I say, and not the command (Categorical Imperative), for only in relation to the impulse and freedom is the final end a Shall and a Command; not for the Will, since the will wills nothing but the final end, and is, in truth, the Will of that final end. If we therefore still choose to look upon that final end as a law, it must be as actually through the mediating Will, a law of nature for real life, since a law of nature can now, that we have presupposed the existence of the Will, be nothing else than a manifestation of the final end. After the annihilation of freedom, even individual life changes into nature, i.e., the higher and supersensuous nature.

E.

Determination of the Universal and Individual Forms in their Union through the Final End.

I. The determination through the final end involves immediately, not the universal operating power of life, or the sensuous world, but only the sum of free individuals. It involves that power of life only in form; that is, in so far as there must be generally a play-ground, or a larger sphere, wherein to make visible moral freedom in its distinction from natural freedom.

But the final end itself marks out within that absolutely given sphere a narrower field—he field of the productions of morality—and this field is divided off among the several individuals. Now, whatever we may think in regard to that general world as to its infinity or finity, this, at least, is immediately clear: the moral problem within it, describing, as it does, a narrower circle, must be a finite problem, which can be realized, and will be realized at some time by the totality of all the individuals to whom the problem is allotted. But, whenever this problem is realized, the reason for the existence of the sensuous world, which reason alone keeps it in existence, disappears, and hence the sensuous world itself vanishes.

II. But in so far as the final end itself is not, as here, an accidental manifestation, but determined in its absolute Being, it is necessarily infinite, just as life itself is, in this respect, infinite. Hence, after the annihilation of this first world, it must produce through life itself as nature—i.e., as universal and eternal nature—a second world, altogether in the same form, in which alone it can become visible; that is, in individuals with natural impulses, freedom, and moral determination.

Of this second world we would have to say the same that we said of the first world; namely: the problem assigned to it will be solved at some time; and thus the second world also will perish. But, in order to represent the infinity of the final end, the same absolute and fundamental law will necessitate the creation of a third world, etc., etc., ad infinitum. The final end can make itself visible in life only as an infinite series of consecutive worlds.

III. Nevertheless, there is in this infinite consecutiveness of worlds only one life and only one determining final end. But how does it remain a unity and connected, and how does it thus become visible as a unity? The product of the absolute immediate determination of life through the final end we have in the individuals. It is only within the individuals, and through the self-contemplation of their power, that sensuous worlds arise. Those individuals are created through life as absolutely one and the same eternal nature, and the sensuous worlds are created only by the transit through the principle of the visibility of life. Hence, the individuals, being produced by the final itself, and not by any special manifestation thereof, remain the same. Their individual unity extends beyond the infinite series of all worlds; of course, in so far as they have determined their existence in actuality by the final end, or in so far as they have engendered the will in themselves. By means of this will, which is the immediate Being of the final end in them, and which creates worlds only for them and for their eternal end, they survive the destruction of all worlds. For the real and last appearance of the final end occurs only in the form of the individual, and the will alone is the proper medium of this appearance, the worlds being merely the spheres for the visibility of the individual wills. Those individuals who have not engendered that will in themselves will discontinue to exist. They are mere appearances in this first world, according to the laws thereof, and perish along with that world.

Hence, the unity of life reposes for all eternity in the unity of the self-consciousness of the individuals, which began in this world, and in the unity of its contemplations of all its worlds, which, on that account, must also remain connected.

IV. This is the fundamental unity. But how does it connect the different worlds and make their series appear as one series? The answer is ready at hand: In regard to its existence, every preceding series is the condition of the possibility of the following series. Life can progress only by means of its complete development from the first step to the second step, etc., etc. In regard to the internal connection, the ideal ground, the determination through the final end, each preceding step exists simply because the next step is to follow it. The second step, for instance, is the expression of the final end, determined in its particular way, because the final end is determined in its particular way; but this second step cannot be taken until the first step, as the means and condition of that expression, has been taken.

Now, what, then, is that world which is to exist absolutely, and which, therefore, is the absolute expression of the final end, and after the realization of which the final end will have been altogether achieved and made visible? Evidently that world which exists for its own sake, and not for the sake of another world. Hence the last or final world. But there is no such final world, seeing that the series is infinite. Hence the absolute final end itself never becomes visible-; only conditions of it become everlastingly visible. We can, therefore, never achieve the final end in its absolute contents, and must abandon our endeavor to reach in this series an absolute, which will become visible as such.

Remarks and Deductions.

1. The second world, and, to a still higher degree, the infinite series of subsequent worlds, give admittance only to those individuals who have in the first world cut themselves off from immoral nature and engendered a holy will within themselves. Whatsoever remains in this life a mere manifestation of nature, perishes with that nature. But as no individuals, even not the perishing ones, are without a moral destination, and as the moral end of this world must be realized in its totality, nature, being governed by the determination of the final end, is bound to create other individuals in place of those who do not realize their destination, and to give to those new individuals the same task which the perished failed to achieve,

2. Only those individuals, in whom the will has become a fixed and unchangeable Being, progress into future worlds. Now, although the will will have to exert and uphold itself forever also in those future worlds, since in those worlds also freedom and impulse must continue to exist as their absolutely formal conditions, it nevertheless may be assumed that individuals, once admitted into that series of future worlds, will be able to uphold their will. Hence no further perishing of individuals is possible in those worlds, though the worlds themselves will perish after the lapse of their time, and bring forth new worlds.

3. Hence in those future worlds we shall always have tasks and labors as we have here; but we shall always have a holy and good will; never a sensuous will.

Let me add the following general remarks: All individual life is, at its beginning, immoral, not in regard to its destination and what it ought to achieve, but in actuality. Morality is the product simply of absolute freedom. No individual is engendered a moral being, but each must make himself a moral being.

Again: The sphere for this self making itself moral on the part of life is the present world; it is the place for the culture of the will for all future worlds. Hence our present world is absolutely the first of the whole series of worlds; and neither it, nor the individuals appearing on it, have ever existed before.

And, finally, in all the future worlds there will appear only old individuals, who have existed previously in this present world of ours, and in it have arisen to a holy will. Hence no future world will produce new individuals. (Not to mention that, being new individuals, they would necessarily be immoral.)

It is true that we have previously established the proposition that the one life must become visible in its unity as life; that is, as causality, and that thus we have proved that life must produce individuals, at least in its primary determination. Now, has this our proposition—deduced, as it is, from the eternal law of visibility—validity for all eternity? And if it has, must not the one life in its causality become visible as a Unit in all future worlds? Unquestionably. But in that case it has made itself visible as the factical principle of the production of a new world, and, accordingly, of infinite new future worlds, in which character it is not at all visible here.

Chapter 5

The Contemplation of God as the Principal of the Moral Law^[2]

We have seen that life, in its form, as a mere inner self-determination and self-activity, is by no means absolute, but exists for the sake of something else, namely, in order that the final end may be contemplated. In its essence it is not life in this its mere form, but visibility of the final end. As such it appears in two simultaneously existing and mutually each-other-conditioning forms: in the general form as a nature determined by the final end, which as an eternal nature creates by virtue of that same determination an infinite series of worlds; and second, in the individual form as absolute freedom determined by the same final end. Hence we find in each individual natural impulses, moral determinateness, and—floating between both—absolute freedom, which can arise by its own actual annihilation into a Holy Will, through means of which Will the individual form in its determinateness—that is, the sum of all individuals—survives the destruction of all possible worlds.

Now, we have above expressed a doubt which very readily assails any attentive thinking, that this final end itself, which we have constituted our supreme principle for the present, may also not be absolute. Should this suspicion be confirmed, we should have to consider factical Being also—in analogy with the previous—as being itself only the visibility of another and higher Being, of which Being formal life would now also become the visibility, namely, mediately and through it as the connecting link.

Let us, therefore, proceed to investigate whether the final end is absolute, or, if it is not absolute, what may be its ground, and what may become visible through it. I am inclined to think that it will be found to be the Being of formal life itself, and shall first explain here the conception of Being as taken here for the first time in all its strictness. I call being that which never becomes and never has become, and of which one can absolutely say nothing else than, It is.

Now, I speak here of the Being of Life, that is, of an absolute Becoming, a Being which in its formal essence is only a Becoming, and never real Being. To connect real Being with such an absolute Becoming signifies: this Being itself is in all this infinite Becoming. It is, and does not become; it takes no part at all in the change. It is, therefore, that which remains one and the same throughout all the change. This unity and immovable permanence is not its characteristic, in point of fact, as Being, but only as the opposite of Change.

Let it be well noted: I do not say that as Being it carries within itself non-permanence and Change, which would be nonsense, but simply that without this opposite of a Change the predicates of permanent being and non-change would not at all be possible—an infinite and on no account a negative proposition. It is not Being which follows from the unity, but the unity follows, in opposition to the Becoming as a Change, from Being.

Let us examine this relation of contemplation quite closely. Formal life, we have said, is an absolute Becoming. Now, if you try to think such an absolute Becoming, you must give to this Becoming a certain time of duration, however short, in order to give to contemplation its absolutely necessary fixity; for otherwise the Becoming will dissolve before you into nothingness, and you will have thought nothing.

But this is already against our agreement and a contradiction; for you were called upon to think an absolute Becoming. But duration is a stopping of the Becoming, and hence its negation. Let us, however, release you from this task, since otherwise the thought required would never be reached.

Now, this Becoming, to which you, in violation of our agreement, have allowed a moment's duration, is pushed aside and annihilated by a new absolute Becoming, emerging altogether out of nothingness, and hence having no connection with the former Becoming. Under these conditions, however, there is no internal unity at all in the presupposed life, and we do not think the Life, but infinitely different lives. That which alone brings unity and duration into Being is its life; audit appears clearly how, without this presupposition, life cannot be contemplated at all, either in general or as the Life.

Result: The presupposition of an absolute Being in Life, as we have just now described this Being, is condition of the contemplatability of life.

Now, this just described Being is the same which we have heretofore called the final end.

All Becoming, all manifestation of life, has the duration necessary for its mere contemplatability only in so far as it is a Becoming of the Being, whether immediately, or through mediation, and hence, whether in the moral or in the mere sensuous form, makes no difference here. This Being is, therefore, the real substance of the Becoming, or of the deed in the Acting. But now life is in its form an absolute Becoming. Hence this Being in its manifestation exists for all eternity only in the Becoming and never in factical Being. In factical Being it could appear only at the end of all life. But life desires to manifest its Being in every one of its manifestations. The fact that this becomes no actual Being is explained by the infinitely continuing Becoming, which is required by the form of actuality. Being, therefore, as a real being, is the purpose and intention of the appearance, and the only, unconditioned, and infinite purpose: hence the final end.

Result: The Being of Life, which must be posited as its ground, becomes the final end only in its synthesis with the Becoming, as the form of life. Outside of this synthesis and beyond that form, we cannot even speak of a final end, but only of a Being. The final end is, therefore, the manifestation of Being in the Becoming—in order to make that Being visible; hence it is mediately visibility of the Being of Life—precisely what we supposed it to be.

Remark: Being of Freedom and Morality are altogether one and the same. (We may also say: Being of Life, provided we take the word in its most pregnant sense, as signifying absolute Being, beyond all Becoming, and provided we do not make it signify the mere factical being of the appearance.)

But the further question is: What is this Being of life, and can it be further determined? I say: Yes! and in the following manner: The formal part of life is the mere self-determination to he a Becoming. This self-determination, therefore, adds nothing more to Being than that which follows from this form: the perishability of the particular, and the infinite progress. But that which really is permanent in the manifestation, and remains permanent throughout the whole infinite series, is based not on it, but on Being itself. Now, it is the faculty of contemplation which remains permanent in every manifestation, makes it enduring and actually endures throughout the whole infinite series. Hence this contemplation, in its absolute form, does not become, but is; and by its form it keeps up the infinite becoming. The fundamental Being of life, therefore, is, in its form, a contemplation, which has not become, but which is, eternally and unchangeably, the same. All activity, which belongs after all only to formal life, is to be eliminated from it in thought. The word contemplation seems to involve this activity in itself. Let us, therefore, substitute for it the other expression: the Being of Life is a permanent, fixed image, or appearance, an in itself completed Being, which, on that account, is not again immediately contemplated. This, I say, is the absolute Being of Life; hence Life is completed by that Being, and is nothing but that Being.

Absolutely united with this contemplation we discover formal life; or, the contemplation has formal life, is formal life, etc. Through this formal life it manifests itself, when it manifests itself in the eternal form of the Becoming.

That which we have hitherto regarded as Life is, in its absolute Being, Contemplation, Image, Appearance. But, Contemplation is freedom in regard to a Being; is related to a Being, which is contemplated in contemplation; Imaged in the Image, and which appears in the Appearance.

What sort of a Being is this? Not the Being of Life itself, for life is merely an image, and ends with being an image; and, moreover, it is the image of another, of an opposite. Evidently it is, therefore, a being beyond all Becoming as the image itself is. But now the contemplation is its contemplation, and is therefore dependent upon it as well in regard to its Being as in regard to its contents. Hence that Being must be the ground as well of the formal as of the qualitative existence of the contemplation. Hence, although the contemplation is absolutely and does not become, it is not of itself, out of itself, and through itself, but is through that being. It is, therefore, absolute only as a fact, a fact of that Being. But that Being is absolutely out of itself, of itself, and through itself. It is God.

Now, nothing else can be said of this Being in this its mere conception—this God—than that it is the absolute, and that it is not contemplation, or anything else involved in contemplation. But this is the mere form of its Being, and merely in opposition to the Being of the Appearance. That which God is really and in Himself appears in the contemplation. That contemplation expresses Him wholly, and He is in it the same as He is internally in Himself. But this contemplation is not again contemplated; but manifests itself only by the freedom connected with it. Hence, this essence, as it is in Himself, manifests itself throughout all eternity primarily and immediately in the contemplation of the eternal final end. Hence Life in its real Being is the image of God, as He is absolutely in Himself. But as formal life, as really living and active, it is the infinite desire actually to become this image of God; a desire, however, which for the very reason of its being infinite it can never achieve. In real activity, if it is at all true and does not merely seem to be, this formal life is always the primary condition of the Becoming of this image at a certain time moment.

And thus we have obtained the final and complete solution of the problem of our investigation: Life or Knowledge. (We shall see directly how perfectly synonymous those two expressions are.) Knowledge is most certainly not a knowledge of itself—in which case it would dissolve into nothingness, having no stay or support—but it is a knowledge of a Being ; that is, of the only true Being, God. On no account, however, of a Being outside of God—the like of which, apart from the Being of Knowledge itself or of the contemplation of God, is not at all possible, and the assumption of which is sheer nonsense. But that only possible object of knowledge does never arise in actual knowledge in its purity; it is always broken by the necessary forms of knowledge, which can be shown to be thus necessary. It is the showing up of these forms of knowledge which constitutes philosophy, or the Science of Knowledge.

Chapter 6

Conclusion

Resumé.

I. Whatsoever is outside of God dissolves itself into mere contemplation, image or knowledge—as, indeed, being outside of God signifies contemplating God and can signify nothing else. There is in this contemplation not a trace or spark of the real formal Being, which remains altogether in God. Hence the theory of the Comprehensible—God being incomprehensible—can be only the theory of Knowledge, or the Science of Knowledge; for outside of God nothing exists but knowledge.

II. It is true that this Knowledge (this appearance) is not a dead but an absolutely in itself living Knowledge. As such a Life it again has no Being, no Materiality, no Quality, but is simply a Principle. A Principle not of the contemplation (knowledge) or of its object, God, for that contemplation is originally, but simply of a further determination of that contemplation, and thereby of its entrance into the form of Becoming.

III. Now, this life or principle of the contemplation is an absolute faculty to image or schematize everything that constitutes its essence. Originally it is the image of God. Place the principle first on this stand-point. Evidently two cases are possible, which exclude each other. Either the principle, in being such principle, remains what it is, the image, and then its product becomes an infinite series of contemplation. I say, contemplation. Contemplation is everywhere, where the principle, in being a principle, involves a Being, that is, a Being which has not been dissolved into a scheme by freedom, an unconscious Being.

Or, take the second case. The principle remains not this Being a principle, but changes it also into a conception, which here is a conception of God; a conception which, if the principle has proceeded systematically, as we do here, becomes the conception of God as the absolute object of contemplation. This is the genealogy of all conceptions, and here, especially, of the conception of God: Religion, which completes the life of knowledge and is its highest summit.

IV. Let us now return to the contemplation, in which the principle is unconsciously the image of God. Here again there are two possible cases. Either freedom is presupposed in the contemplation, and the product of contemplation is viewed in its transit through it as the second Unconscious element of the principle; and then there arises the infinite contemplation of the final end. This is the view of the moral world.

Or, freedom is not presupposed in the contemplation, and hence the product of contemplation is not determined by a transit through that contemplation; and then there arises the contemplation of infinite nature, which nature here itself dissolves into contemplation and appears as a form thereof.

V. Finally, freedom itself, the principle as such, which in the former fundamental contemplation remained concealed—may be schematized through freedom itself and elevated into consciousness; and then there arises the contemplation of the Ego, as free, and free, moreover, in regard to the final end which now becomes its law. This results in a double view of the Ego: first, as the principle of a moral world; and, second, as the principle in a not moral and hence purely sensuous world.

VI. These five fundamental forms exhaust all possible forms of consciousness for all eternity. The Science of Knowledge treats of the necessary forms of consciousness, and hence what we have just now said is the fundamental scheme of that science, as the necessary conclusion of a complete representation of the Facts of Consciousness.

Final Remarks.

It would be beneficial to every scientific representation, if it were once in a while compelled to strip off the terminology wherein it wraps itself—perhaps necessarily—and were requested to speak for once in the words of common language and of common sense, whatever new things it has to say. We now propose to extend this service to our own representation.

Speaking in the ordinary language of life we maintain, and have maintained in all soberness, the following:

1. A knowledge exists actually, in fact, and independent; for this knowledge is a free and independent life.

This must be conceded to us and accepted by all who desire to occupy the same stand-point with us of a philosophy which proceeds from knowledge as a phenomenon in itself. At the same time it is necessary that they must have developed already that thinking, and their own faculty of thinking, sufficiently to be able to think that knowledge, were it only problematically. Thus, no one thinks at all our problem if he thinks, for instance, that knowledge is a quality, say, of a presupposed substantial human being. We never have said, man possesses knowledge; and whoever cannot bring himself to think something else than this in listening to our words loses altogether their sense and meaning, and excludes himself from the sphere wherein alone they have a meaning. We need no bearer of knowledge. Knowledge must be considered, at least for the present, as bearing itself. How we are going to dispose of man, who certainly does not on any account possess knowledge, but whom, with the help of God, knowledge is going to possess, will appear in due time. For the present, the abstraction of our science requires us to forget him, just as the geometrician requires us to forget matter.

2. This life begins in a certain confinedness of its freedom.

3. Its progress or course of life consists in this, that it must liberate itself from this confinedness, probably thereby dropping into another, but minor, confinedness, from which again it must liberate itself, etc. In short, its course of life is a perpetual elevation of its life into a higher freedom.

4. This continuous development of life is likely enough governed by fixed and determined laws. An exposition of the Fact of Consciousness would therefore be, as it were, a natural history of the development of life.

5. Such a history, being a history of the development of life, must begin from the lowest point; from that point wherein life is given to itself without any previous development. This point, the terminus a quo of that history, is external perception.

I have said, Knowledge is simply because it is; it has an independent existence, and the only independent existence known to us. But that knowledge, in its essence being freedom, it must really be freedom, which is independent. I have said further, that you must think, at any rate, this, just as I think, and have expressed it—though you think it is so merely problematically for the present—since such a thinking is the stand-point of philosophy; and that any one, who cannot by any means think knowledge otherwise than as a mere accidence of the substrate, man, is quite as incapable of forming a philosophical thought as a man would be to form a geometrical thought who could not arise above the notion of matter.

But it is furthermore clear that such a presupposition of a bearer, or substrate, of knowledge, is in itself an absolute contradiction. We are investigating here the totality of consciousness. Now, such a bearer of consciousness can surely not be brought near to us except through some consciousness, and his credentials will be received only upon the affirmation of that consciousness. Hence, if we presuppose him simply, we exclude the consciousness which introduces him from our investigation, which thus remains imperfect, lacking one of the most essential elements.

Indeed, it has been already sufficiently established how philosophy is absolutely annihilated by this impotency of thinking. Kant, it is true, has not expressed this truth so concisely and unconditionally as we have expressed it; but without a presupposition of this truth he has, in fact, said nothing at all, and his writings remain a mass of contradictions. The philosophizing public generally has not made this presupposition, and hence has really found nothing, or else only a mass of contradictions in his writings.

(How, nevertheless, some of them—with their thinking faculty in such a condition—can find wisdom in that doctrine, and make themselves its expounders and apostles, is, of course, a riddle.)

It is true that the printed Science of Knowledge has told it to them, but they never believed that it was meant seriously; and this is the sole reason why that science has remained a closed book to them. In attempting now to lead you to an understanding of the Science of Knowledge, I must pray you above all, and as the condition of all my other prayers, that you will believe me when I say that I am quite serious in making that assertion in the very words in which it is couched; and that you will dare to think that thought along with me, though it be only problematically. Surely the attempt can do no harm. If in the course of our investigation you are not convinced by the grounds adduced of the truth of that presupposition, why, you can continue to think just as you have been accustomed to think before. And without that presupposition you cannot, indeed, understand what I have said to you in the course of these lectures, and would give it an utterly false meaning.

I have asserted that that life of knowledge changes itself. In my view it, being itself thoroughly in earnest, produces a Beings which is also actual and remains in fact, and which, after beings cannot be canceled again; a Being in itself, since Life is in itself. Now this Being expresses itself immediately in a knowledge, since such a Being is itself knowledge. How can any one, who entertains such a view seriously, have a doubt as to the reality of such a knowledge, which is, after all, nothing but that Being itself? True, if, whenever the word knowledge is spoken, we can think of nothing but our idle dreams, and if we can think no other reality but that which we can grasp with our hands, then such a doubt might be in place. Those who misunderstood the Science of Knowledge fell into this error.

[The End]

Notes

1. Compare Fichte's "Science of Rights" with this and all the preceding deduction of individuality.
2. This article completes the translation of Fichte's "Facts of Consciousness," long since begun in this Journal. It includes the lectures given by Fichte at the University of Berlin during the winter semester of 1810-11. The entire work is now to be found in the "Journal of Speculative Philosophy": Vol. V, pp. 53, 130, 226, 338; Vol. VI, pp. 42, 120, 332; Vol. VII, January, p. 36; Vol. XVII, pp. 130, 263; Vol. XVIII, [p. 47].