PROPOSITION I.
THE PRIMARY LAW OR CONDITION OF ALL KNOWLEDGE.
Along with whatever any intelligence knows, it must, as the ground or condition of its knowledge, have some cognisance of itself.
OBSERVATIONS AND EXPLANATIONS.
1. Self or the "me" is the common centre, the continually known rallying-point, in which all our cognitions meet and agree. It is the ens unum, et semper cognitum, in omnibus notitiis. Its apprehension is essential to the existence of our, and of all, knowledge. And thus Proposition I. forms an explicit answer to the question laid down in the Introduction (§ 85) as the first question of philosophy: What is the one feature present in all our knowledge,—the common point in which all our cognitions unite and agree,—the element in which they are identical? The ego is this feature, point, or element: it is the common centre which is at all
