THEORY OF KNOWING.
101
PROP. II.————
lowing the ordinary ciphering, we should count them and ourselves as 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5; we should, following the speculative ciphering, count them and ourselves as l+5, 2+5, 3+5, 4+5. And the result in each case equals me-in-union-with-the-thing, whatever it may be. Me-in-union-with-it—this synthesis is always the total datum or object which I know. This 5 (illustrative of the ego) is the standard factor in every reckoning, is always part of the object apprehended, and is the necessary condition of its apprehension. If we consider the things 1, 2, 3, 4, as forming one complexus in that case, it is still 1 + 5 = me-in-union-with-things.
Second counter-proposition.5. The second counter-proposition, embodying the inconsiderate result of ordinary thinking, and brightening, by contrast, the truth of Proposition II., may be laid down as follows: Second counter-proposition.—"The object of knowledge is not, or, at any rate, need not be anything more than what is usually regarded as the object. It may be the object without the mind's self, a thing (or a thought) sine me." The inadvertency of ordinary thinking here pointed out, and corrected by Proposition II., is, that it overlooks a part of the object of knowledge, and gives out a part as the whole; just as, in counter-proposition I., it overlooks the condition of knowledge, and entertains an obscure notion that