a. Kant divides will into lower and higher faculties of desire; this

expression is not inapt. The lower faculties of desire are impulses,

inclinations, etc.; the higher faculty is the will as such, which has

not external, individual aims, but universal. To the question what the

principle of will that should determine man in his actions is, all

sorts of answers have been given; for instance, self-love, benevolence,

happiness, etc. Such material principles of action, Kant now says, are

all reducible to impulses, to happiness; but the rational in itself

is purely formal, and consists in the maxim that what is to hold good

as law, must be capable of being thought of as a law of universal

application, without destroying itself. All morality of action now rests

upon the conviction that the act is done with consciousness of the law,

for the sake of the law and out of respect for the law and for itself,

without any regard to what makes for happiness. As a moral Being man has

the moral law in himself, the principle of which is freedom and autonomy

of the will; for the will is absolute spontaneity. Determinations which

are taken from the inclinations are heterogeneous principles as regards

the will; or the will is heteronomy if it takes such determinations

as its end and aim; for in that case it takes its determinations from

something else than itself. But the essence of the will is to determine

itself from itself; for practical Reason gives itself laws. But the

empirical will is heteronomous, for it is determined by desires; and they

belong to our nature, not to the realm of freedom.[355]

It is a highly important point in the Kantian philosophy that what

self-consciousness esteems reality, law, and implicit Being, is brought

back within itself. While a man is striving after this aim and that,

according as he judges the world or history in one way or the other,

what is he to take as his ultimate aim? For the will, however, there is

no other aim than that derived from itself, the aim of its freedom. It

is a great advance when the principle is established that freedom is the

last hinge on which man turns, a highest possible pinnacle, which allows

nothing further to be imposed upon it; thus man bows to no authority, and

acknowledges no obligations, where his freedom is not respected. Great

popularity has from one point of view been won for Kantian philosophy by

the teaching that man finds in himself an absolutely firm, unwavering

centre-point; but with this last principle it has come to a standstill.

While the highest pinnacle of the theoretic Reason is abstract

identity, because it can furnish only a canon, a rule for abstract

classifications,[356] practical Reason, as law-giving, is immediately

regarded as concrete; the law which it gives to itself is the moral law.

But even if it is stated that it is concrete in itself, there is the

further consideration that this freedom is at first only the negative of

everything else; no bond, nothing external, lays me under an obligation.

It is to this extent indeterminate; it is the identity of the will with

itself, its at-homeness with itself. But what is the content of this

law? Here we at once come back to the lack of content. For the sole form

of this principle is nothing more or less than agreement with itself,

universality; the formal principle of legislation in this internal

solitude comes to no determination, or this is abstraction only. The

universal, the non-contradiction of self, is without content, something

which comes to be reality in the practical sphere just as little as in

the theoretical. The universal moral law Kant therefore expresses thus

(and the setting up of such a universal form was at all times the demand

of the abstract understanding): “Act from maxims” (the law is also to be

my particular law), “which are capable of becoming universal laws.”[357]

Thus for the determination of duty (for the question which meets us is,

what is duty for the free will) Kant has contributed nothing but the

form of identity, which is the law of abstract Understanding. To defend

one’s fatherland, to promote the happiness of another, is a duty, not

because of the content, but because it is duty; as with the Stoics, what

was thought was true for the very reason that, and in so far as it was

thought (Vol. II., pp. 254, 260, 263). The content as such is indeed not

what holds good universally in the moral law, because it contradicts

itself. For benevolence, for instance, enjoins: “Give your possessions to

the poor,” but if all give away what they have, beneficence is done away

with (Vol. I., pp. 417, 418). Even with abstract identity, however, we do

not get a step further, for every content which is put into this form is

by being so put freed from self-contradiction. But nothing would be lost

if it were not put into this form at all. With regard to property, for

instance, the law of my actions is this: Property ought to be respected,

for the opposite of this cannot be universal law. That is correct, but

it is quite a formal determination: If property is, then it is. Property

is here presupposed, but this determination may also in the same way be

omitted, and then there is no contradiction involved in theft: If there

is no such thing as property, then it is not respected. This is the

defect in the principle of Kant and Fichte, that it is really formal;

chill duty is the final undigested lump left within the stomach, the

revelation given to Reason.

The first postulate in practical Reason is thus free, independent will

which determines itself, but this concrete is still abstract. The second

and third are forms which remind us that the will is concrete in a higher

sense.

b. The second point is the connection of the Notion of the will with the

particular will of the individual; the concrete is here the fact that

my particular will and the universal will are identical, or that I am a

moral human being. The unity, that man should be moral, is postulated;

but beyond the “should” and this talk of morality, no advance is made.

It is not said what is moral; and no thought is given to a system of the

self-realizing spirit. For really, as theoretic Reason stands opposed to

the objective of the senses, so practical Reason stands opposed to the

practical sensuousness, to impulses and inclinations. Perfected morality

must remain a Beyond; for morality presupposes the difference of the

particular and universal will. It is a struggle, the determination of

the sensuous by the universal; the struggle can only take place when

the sensuous will is not yet in conformity with the universal. The

result is, therefore, that the aim of the moral will is to be attained

in infinite progress only; on this Kant founds (Kritik der prakt.

Vernunft, pp. 219-223) the postulate of the immortality of the soul, as

the endless progress of the subject in his morality, because morality

itself is incomplete, and must advance into infinitude. The particular

will is certainly something other than the universal will; but it is not

ultimate or really permanent.

c. The third point is the highest concrete, the Notion of the freedom

of all men, or the natural world has to be in harmony with the Notion

of freedom. That is the postulate of the existence of God, whom Reason,

however, does not recognize. Will has the whole world, the whole of the

sensuous, in opposition to it, and yet Reason insists on the unity of

Nature or the moral law, as the Idea of the Good, which is the ultimate

end of the world. Since, however, it is formal, and therefore has no

content on its own account, it stands opposed to the impulses and

inclinations of a subjective and an external independent Nature. Kant

reconciles the contradiction of the two (Kritik der prakt. Vernunft,

pp. 198-200) in the thought of the highest Good, in which Nature is

conformed to rational will, and happiness to virtue;—a harmony which does

not enter into the question at all, although practical reality consists

therein. For happiness is only one’s own sensuous consciousness, or the

actuality of a particular individual, not universal reality in itself.

The unification spoken of itself therefore remains only a Beyond, a

thought, which is not actually in existence, but only ought to be. Kant

(Kritik der prakt. Vernunft, pp. 205-209) thus agrees entirely with

the talk which alleges that in this world it often fares ill with the

good, and well with the wicked, and so on; and he postulates further the

existence of God as the Being, the causality, through whom this harmony

comes to pass, on behalf both of the sanctity of the moral law, and of

the rational end to be attained in Nature, but only in infinite progress;

which postulate, like that of the immortality of the soul, allows the

contradiction to remain as it is all the time, and expresses only in

the abstract that the reconciliation ought to come about. The postulate

itself is always there, because the Good is a Beyond with respect to

Nature; the law of necessity and the law of liberty are different from

one another, and placed in this dualism. Nature would remain Nature no

longer, if it were to become conformed to the Notion of the Good; and

thus there remains an utter opposition between the two sides, because

they cannot unite. It is likewise necessary to establish the unity of

the two; but this is never actual, for their separation is exactly what

is presupposed. Kant employs popular language thus: evil ought to be

overcome, but yet must not have been overcome. God is to him, therefore,

only a faith, an opinion, which is only subjectively, and not absolutely

true.[358] This result is also of a very popular character.

These postulates express nothing but the synthesis, devoid of thought, of

the different moments which contradict each other on every hand; they are

therefore a “nest”[359] of contradictions. For instance, the immortality

of the soul is postulated on account of imperfect morality, _i.e._

because it is infected with sensuousness. But the sensuous is implied in

moral self-consciousness; the end, perfection, is what really destroys

morality as such. Similarly the other aim, the harmony of the sensuous

and the rational, to an equal extent abrogates morality; for that

consists in this very opposition of Reason to the sensuous. The actuality

of the God who produces harmony is of such a character that it does not

enter into consciousness at all; it is accepted by consciousness for the

sake of harmony, just as children make some kind of scarecrow, and then

agree with each other to pretend to be afraid of it. The ground on which

God is accepted—that by the conception of a holy law-giver the moral

law may acquire additional reverence—contradicts the fact that morality

really consists in reverence for the law simply for its own sake.[360]

In Practical Reason self-consciousness esteems itself to be implicit

Being, as contrasted with theoretic Reason, which assigns implicitude to

objective existence, but the one, we see, attains just as little as the

other to unity and actuality in itself. It is hard for man to believe

that Reason actually exists: but there is nothing real except Reason; it

is the absolute power. The vanity of man aspires to have an ideal before

him, in order to be able to find fault with everything alike. We possess

all wisdom, it is within us, but is not forthcoming. That is the ultimate

standpoint; it is a high standpoint, no doubt, but in it the truth is

never reached. The absolute Good remains “what ought to be,” or without

objectivity; and there it has to remain.

3. There is still left for us to consider the third side in Kant’s

philosophy, the Critique of the Faculty of Judgment, in which the demand

for the concrete comes in, the demand that the Idea of unity spoken of

before should be established not as a Beyond, but as present; and this

side is of special importance. Kant says that the understanding no doubt

regulates in the theoretic sphere and produces categories; but these

remain mere general determinations, beyond which lies the particular

(the other element which belongs to every item of knowledge). The two

are distinguished from one another for the understanding; for its

distinctions remain in universality. In the practical sphere Reason is

certainly the implicit, but its free independence, its law-giving freedom

in higher form, is opposed to Nature in its freedom or to Nature’s own

laws. “In the theoretic sphere Reason can draw conclusions from given

laws through syllogisms, only by means of the understanding, and these

conclusions never get beyond Nature; it is only in the practical sphere

that Reason itself gives laws. Understanding and” (practical) “Reason

have two different regulative systems on one and the same ground of

experience, without the one being detrimental to the other. For if the

Notion of Nature has but little influence on the giving of laws by the

Notion of Freedom, just as little does the latter interfere with the

legislation of Nature. The possibility of the existence side by side

of the two regulative systems and of the powers belonging to them was

proved in the Critique of pure Reason.” (!?) “Now if a unity is not

constituted by these two different spheres, which certainly do not put

a limit on each other in their regulative action, but do so incessantly

in their operations in the sensuous world” (_i.e._ where they encounter

each other), “the reason is this, that the Notion of Nature represents

its objects in perception, not as things in themselves, but as mere

phenomena, while the Notion of Freedom, on the other hand, represents

in its object a thing in itself, no doubt, but not in perception.

Consequently neither of them can attain to a theoretic knowledge of its

object (and even of the thinking subject) as a thing-in-itself, which

last would be the supersensuous, an unlimited and inaccessible realm

for our whole faculty of knowledge. Now truly there is fixed a gulf

over which the eye cannot reach, between the realm of the Notion of

Nature, as the sensuous, and the realm of the Notion of Freedom, as the

supersensuous, so that it is not possible to pass from the one to the

other, since it is just as if there were two different worlds, the first

of which could have no influence on the second. Nevertheless the latter

is conceived as having an influence on the former, or, in other words,

freedom is conceived as having for its mission the realization in the

sensuous world of the end indicated by the laws of freedom. Consequently

Nature must be so conceived that, while in form it realizes its own laws,

there may yet be a possibility of ends being realized in it according

to the laws of freedom. Therefore there must surely be some ground for

the unity of the supersensuous which lies at the foundation of Nature

with that which the Notion of Freedom practically contains, the Notion

of which ground of unity, although it attains neither theoretically nor

practically to a knowledge of the same, and consequently has no peculiar

province, yet makes possible the transition from the mode of thought in

accordance with the principles of the one, to the mode of thought in

accordance with the principles of the other. Between Understanding and

Reason there now comes the Faculty of Judgment, as between the powers

of knowledge and desire there come pleasure and its opposite; in this

faculty must therefore lie the transition from the province of the

Notions of Nature to the province of the Notion of Freedom.”[361]

Adaptation to ends has its place here, _i.e._ a particular reality, which

is determined only through the universal, the end. The understanding

is the ground of this unity of the manifold; the sensuous is therefore

here determined by means of the supersensuous. This idea of a universal

which implicitly contains the particular is according to Kant the

precise object of the faculty of judgment, which he divides as

follows:—“If the universal (the rule, principle, law) is given, the

faculty of judgment which subsumes the particular under that universal,

is determinative,”—the immediate faculty of judgment. But here there

is also a particular which is not determined by species. “If, however,

only the particular is given, for which the faculty of judgment has to

find the universal, it is reflective.” The reflective judgment has as

its principle the unity of particularity and the abstract universal of

the understanding, the idea of a legal necessity which is at the same

time free, or of a freedom which is directly one with its content.

“This principle can be no other but the fact that since universal laws

of Nature have their foundation in our understanding, which prescribes

them to nature, although only according to their general conception,

the particular, empirical laws, in so far as they are undetermined by

universal laws, must be viewed as containing that unity which they

would contain if they had been given by some intelligence—other, it may

be, than our own—with express reference to our cognitive faculties, in

order to render possible a system of experience according to particular

natural laws. It is not as if such an intelligence must be assumed (for

it is only the reflective faculty of judgment to which this idea serves

as principle): this faculty gives a law only to itself, not to Nature

in addition. Now the conception of an object (if it at the same time

contains the ground of the reality of this object), the end, and the

harmony of a thing with that quality of things which is only possible

in conformity with ends, are termed the adaptation to purpose of the

form; therefore the principle of the faculty of judgment in respect to

the form of the things of Nature under empirical laws in general is the

adaptability to purpose of Nature in its multiplicity. That is to say,

Nature is represented by this Notion as if an intelligence contained the

ground of the unity in multiplicity of Nature’s empirical laws.”[362]

Aristotle already regarded Nature as in itself showing this adaptation

to end, and as having in itself νοῦς, intelligence, the Universal, so

that in undivided unity one element is moment of another (_v._ Vol.

II. pp. 156-162). Purpose is the Notion, and immanent; not external

form and abstraction as distinguished from a fundamental material,

but penetrating, so that all that is particular is determined by this

universal itself. According to Kant this is Understanding: no doubt the

laws of the Understanding, which it implicitly has in knowledge, leave

the objective still undetermined, but because this manifold itself

must have a connection in itself, which is yet contingent for human

intelligence, “the faculty of judgment must assume as a principle for

its own use that what is contingent for us contains a unity, which

for us indeed is not knowable, but yet thinkable, in the connection

of the manifold with an implicitly possible experience.”[363] This

principle hereby at once falls back again into the subjectivity of a

thought, and is only a maxim of our reflection, by which nothing is to

be expressed regarding the objective nature of the object,[364] because

Being-in-itself is once for all fixed outside of self-consciousness, and

the Understanding is conceived only in the form of the self-conscious,

not in its becoming another.

Now this principle of the reflective faculty of judgment is in itself a

two-fold adaptation to end, the formal and the material; the faculty of

judgment is thus either æsthetic or teleological: of these the former has

to do with subjective, the latter with objective, logical adaptation to

end. There are thus two objects of the faculty of judgment—the beautiful

in works of art and the natural products of organic life—which make known

to us the unity of the Notion of Nature and the Notion of Freedom.[365]

The consideration of these works involves the fact, that we see a unity

of the Understanding and the particular. But as this consideration is

only a subjective manner of representing such products, and does not

contain the truth of the same, such things are regarded only according to

this unity, and they are not in themselves of this nature; what they are

in themselves lies beyond.

a. The Beautiful of the æsthetic faculty of judgment consists in the

following: “Pleasure and displeasure are something subjective, which

can in no way become a part of knowledge. The object has adaptation

to end only to the extent that its conception is directly bound up

with the feeling of pleasure; and this is an æsthetic conception.

The taking up of forms into the imaginative faculty can never occur

without the reflecting faculty of judgment at least comparing them,

even unintentionally, by means of its power of relating perceptions

to Notions.” Now if in this comparison the imaginative faculty (as

a faculty of perceptions _a priori_?) “is, by means of a conception

given”—something beautiful,—“unintentionally placed in agreement with

the Understanding, as the faculty of Notions, and thereby a feeling of

pleasure is awakened, the object must then be looked on as in conformity

with end for the reflecting faculty of judgment. Such a judgment

regarding the adaptability to end of the object, a judgment which is

grounded on no previous Notion of the object, and furnishes no Notion

of it, is an æsthetic judgment. An object whose form (not the material

of its conception as sensation) is judged to be a cause of the pleasure

which springs from the conception of such an object, is beautiful,”—the

first reasonable thing said about beauty. The sensuous is one moment

of the Beautiful, but it must also express the spiritual, a Notion.

“The Beautiful is what is conceived without” subjective “interest,” but

similarly also “without Notions” (_i.e._ determinations of reflection,

laws) “as object of a universal pleasure. It is related to no

inclination, therefore the subject feels itself quite free therein. It is

not beautiful _for me_. The end is the object of a Notion, so far as the

latter is looked on as the cause of the former” (the object); “and the

causality of a Notion in respect to its object is adaptation to end.” To

the ideal belongs “the Idea of reason, which makes the aims of humanity,

as far as they cannot be sensuously conceived, the principle of judgment

of a form through which these aims reveal themselves as their effect in

the phenomenon. The ideal we may expect to find revealed only in human

form.”

The sublime is the effort to give sensuous expression to an Idea in

which the inconceivability of the Idea, and the impossibility of finding

an adequate expression of it by means of the sensuous, are clearly

evidenced.[366] Here in the æsthetic faculty of judgment we see the

immediate unity of the universal and the particular; for the Beautiful

is this very unity, without Notion and immediate. Because Kant, however,

places it in the subject, it is limited, and as æsthetic it also ranks

lower, inasmuch as it is not the unity as Notion.

b. The other manner of bringing harmony to pass is the teleological

way of regarding Nature, which is found in the objective and material

adaptation to end. Here the immediate unity of the Notion and reality is

looked upon as objective in the organic products of Nature—this being

the purpose of Nature, containing in its universality the particular,

in its particularity the species. But such a mode of consideration

must be practised not externally, but in conformity with internal

teleology. In external adaptation to end one thing has its end in

another: “Snow protects the sown crops in cold lands from frost, and

facilitates the intercourse of men by permitting of sleighing.”[367]

Internal adaptation to end signifies, on the contrary, that a thing is

in itself end and means, its end is not therefore beyond itself. In the

contemplation of the living creature we do not remain at the point of

having something sensuous before us, which according to the categories of

the Understanding is only brought into relation to something other than

itself; for we regard it as cause of itself, as producing itself. This

is the self-preservation of the living creature; as an individual it is

no doubt perishable, but in living it produces itself, although for that

purpose certain conditions are requisite. The end or purpose of Nature

is therefore to be sought for in matter, to the extent that matter is an

inwardly organized product of nature, “in which all is end, and all in

turn is means;”[368] because all the members of the organism are at the

same time means and end, it is an end in itself. That is the Aristotelian

Notion—the infinite that returns into itself, the Idea.

Kant at this point calls to mind the following: “We should find no

difference between natural mechanism and the technique of Nature, _i.e._

the connection of ends in the same, were our Understanding not of such

a kind that it must pass from the universal to the particular, and the

faculty of judgment can therefore pronounce no determining sentences,

without having a universal law under which it may subsume the particular.

Now the particular as such contains a contingent element in regard to the

universal, but nevertheless Reason also demands unity in the connection

of particular laws of Nature, and consequently a regulative character,

which character when found in the contingent is termed adaptation to end:

and the derivation of particular laws from universal is, in regard to the

element of contingency which those particular laws contain, _a priori_

impossible through the determination of the Notion of the object; the

Notion of the adaptation to end of Nature in its products becomes thus

a Notion necessary for the human faculty of judgment, but not affecting

the determination of the objects themselves, and therefore a subjective

principle.”[369] An organic Being is therefore, according to Kant (Kritik

der Urtheilskraft, p. 354) one in which natural mechanism and end are

identical. We regard it as if there dwelt in the sensuous a Notion

which brings the particular into conformity with itself. In the organic

products of Nature we perceive this immediate unity of the Notion and

reality; for in a living creature there is perceived in one unity the

soul, or the universal, and existence or particularity, which is not the

case with inorganic Nature. Thus there enters into the Kantian philosophy

the conception of the concrete, as that the universal Notion determines

the particular. But Kant took these Ideas again in a subjective sense

only, as guiding thoughts for the faculty of judgment, by which no

Being-in-itself can be expressed; and thus, although he expresses the

unity of the Notion and reality, he yet lays fresh emphasis on the side

of the Notion. He will not therefore throw off his limitations in the

moment in which he assumes them as limitations. This is the perpetual

contradiction in Kant’s philosophy: Kant exhibited the extremes of

opposition in their one-sidedness, and expressed also the reconciliation

of the contradiction; Reason postulates unity, and this we have also in

the faculty of judgment. Kant, however, says (Kritik der Urtheilskraft,

pp. 355-363): This is only a mode of our reflecting faculty of judgment,

life itself is not so; we are merely accustomed so to regard it. In art

it is thus certainly the sensuous mode which gives us the conception of

the Idea; reality and ideality are here directly in one. But at this

point also Kant says that we must remain at what is one-sided, at the

very moment when he is passing out beyond it. The wealth of thought

therefore still unfolds itself with Kant in subjective form alone; all

fulness, all content, concentrates in conceiving, thinking, postulating.

The objective, according to Kant, is only what is in itself; and we know

not what Things-in-themselves are. But Being-in-itself is only the _caput

mortuum_, the dead abstraction of the “other,” the empty, undetermined

Beyond.

The reason why that true Idea should not be the truth is therefore that

the empty abstractions of an understanding which keeps itself in the

abstract universal, and of a sensuous material of individuality standing

in opposition to the same, are presupposed as the truth. Kant no doubt

expressly advances to the conception of an intuitive or perceiving

understanding, which, while it gives universal laws, at the same time

determines the particular; and the determination thus given is deep; it

is the true concrete, reality determined by the indwelling Notion, or,

as Spinoza says, the adequate Idea. For “to knowledge there also belongs

intuitive perception, and the possession of a perfect spontaneity of

intuition would be a faculty of knowledge” specifically “distinct from

the sensuous, and quite independent thereof, and therefore it would be

understanding in the most universal sense. Consequently it is possible

to think of an intuitive understanding which does not pass from the

universal to the particular, and thus proceed through conceptions to the

individual—an understanding in which we do not meet with the contingency

of the harmony of Nature in her products, according to particular

laws, with the understanding, a contingency which makes it so hard for

our understanding to bring” together “into the unity of knowledge the

manifold of Nature.” But that this “_intellectus archetypus_” is the

true Idea of the understanding, is a thought which does not strike Kant.

Strange to say, he certainly has this idea of the intuitive; and he does

not know why it should have no truth—except because our understanding is

otherwise constituted, namely such “that it proceeds from the analytic

universal to the particular.”[370] But absolute Reason and Understanding

in itself, as we have already seen (pp. 432, 461), are, in Kant’s

view, of such a nature that they have no reality in themselves: the

Understanding requires material to work upon, theoretic Reason spins

cobwebs of the brain, practical Reason has to allow its reality to come

to an end with its postulates. In spite of their directly and definitely

expressed non-absoluteness, they are yet looked on as true knowledge; and

intuitive Understanding, which holds Notion and sensuous perception in

one unity, is looked on as a mere thought which we make for ourselves.

c. The highest form in which the conception of the concrete comes

into Kant’s philosophy is this, that the end is grasped in its entire

universality; and thus it is the Good. This Good is an Idea; it is my

thought; but there exists the absolute demand that it should be realized

also in the world, that the necessity of Nature should correspond with

the laws of freedom, not as the necessity of an external Nature, but

through what is right and moral in human life, through life in the

State,—or in other words that the world in general should be good. This

identity of the Good and reality is the demand of practical Reason; but

subjective Reason cannot realize this. In every good action a man no

doubt accomplishes something good, but this is only limited; universal

Good, as the final object of the world, can be attained to only through

a third. And this power over the world, which has as its final object

the Good in the world, is God.[371] Thus the Critique of the Faculty

of Judgment also ends with the postulate of God. Now, although the

particular laws of Nature, as independent individual relations, have no

relation to the Good, Reason consists in having and desiring unity as the

essential or substantial in itself. The opposition of these two, the Good

and the world, is contrary to that identity; Reason must therefore demand

that this contradiction should be abrogated, that there should be a power

which is good on its own account, and is a Power over Nature. This is the

position which God assumes in Kant’s philosophy: no proof is possible,

he says, of God’s existence, but the demand is there. The deficiency

here is the impossibility of proving God’s existence, and it consists in

this, that if we admit Kant’s dualism, it cannot be shown how the Good

as abstract Idea in itself is the abrogating of its Idea as abstract; and

how the world in itself is the abrogating of itself in its externality,

and in its diversity from the Good—this being done in order that both may

reveal themselves to be their truth, which in respect to them appears

as the Third, but is at the same time determined as the First. Thus,

therefore, according to Kant (Kritik der Urtheilskraft, pp. 460, 461),

God can only be believed in. We associate the faith of Jacobi with this;

for in this point Kant agrees with Jacobi.[372]

If now, in accordance with this standpoint of Kant and Jacobi, God is

believed in, and we admit this standpoint for an instant, there is

certainly a return to the Absolute. But the question remains: What is

God? To define Him as supersensuous is not much, nor is it more to say

He is universal, abstract, absolute. What then is His determination?

Were we here, however, to pass over to determinations of the Absolute,

the evil result would follow, as far as this standpoint is concerned,

that we should pass over to knowledge; for this signifies knowledge of

an object which is in itself concrete, _i.e._ determined. But here the

furthest point reached is the general statement that God exists with the

determination of being infinite, universal, indeterminate. God cannot be

known in this way; for in order to be known He must as concrete possess

at least two determinations. In this way mediation would be established,

for a knowledge of the concrete is at once a mediate knowledge. But

this standpoint lacks mediation, and thus remains at the immediate.

Paul, in speaking to the Athenians, appeals to the altar which they had

dedicated to the Unknown God, and declares to them what God is; but the

standpoint indicated here takes us back to the Unknown God. All the life

of Nature, as of Spirit, is mediation in itself; and to this mediation

the philosophy of Schelling now passed on.

If we sum up the Kantian philosophy, we find on all hands the Idea of

Thought, which is in itself the absolute Notion, and has in itself

difference, reality. In the theoretic and practical Reason it has only

abstract difference, but in the Faculty of Judgment, as the unity of

the two, Kant goes so far as to establish the difference as actual,

establishing not only particularity, but also individuality. But, to

be sure, this Philistine conception proceeds from our human faculty of

knowledge, which is valid for him in its empirical form, notwithstanding

his statement that it does not know the truth, and his further

description of the true idea of the same as being merely a thought which

we possess. Therefore actuality counts as something sensuous, empirical,

for the comprehension of which Kant takes the categories of the

Understanding, giving them the same validity as they have in every-day

life. This is a complete philosophy of the Understanding, which renounces

Reason: the reason why it became so popular was the negative one, that

men were once for all free from the old metaphysic. According to Kant

something sensuous is produced, having thought-determinations, which,

however, is not the thing, for if a man, for instance, feels something

hard, Kant says: “I feel hardness, but I do not feel Something.”

Kant’s philosophy thus ends with a dualism, with the relation which is

a plainly essential “ought,” with the unreconciled contradiction. It

is otherwise with Jacobi’s faith; he finds the conception of God as

immediate existence, and all mediation is untrue for him. With Kant,

therefore, the result is: “We know only phenomena;” with Jacobi, on the

other hand, it is: “We know only the finite and conditioned.” Over these

two results there has been unmingled joy among men, because the sloth of

Reason (Heaven be praised!) considered itself liberated from every call

to reflect, and now, being saved the trouble of penetrating to its own

inward meaning and exploring the depths of Nature and Spirit, it could

very well leave itself alone. The further result attending this is the

autocracy of the subjective Reason, which, seeing that it is abstract and

without knowledge, has only subjective certainty and not objective truth.

The second cause of rejoicing was the concession to freedom of a perfect

right, which I can neither understand nor justify, and need not do so; my

subjective liberty of conviction and certainty holds good all round. The

third cause of joy was added by Jacobi, who said that it amounted even to

a crime to seek to know the truth, because the infinite was thereby only

rendered finite. Truth is in a bad way, when all metaphysic is done away

with, and the only philosophy acknowledged is not a philosophy at all!

But besides the general idea of synthetic judgments _a priori_, a

universal which has difference in itself, Kant’s instinct carried this

out in accordance with the scheme of triplicity, unspiritual though

that was, in the whole system into which for him the entire universe

was divided. This he not only practised in the three critiques, but he

also followed it out in most of the sub-divisions under the categories,

the ideas of Reason, &c. Kant has therefore set forth as a universal

scheme the rhythm of knowledge, of scientific movement; and has

exhibited on all sides thesis, antithesis and synthesis, modes of the

mind by means of which it is mind, as thus consciously distinguishing

itself. The first is existence, but in the form of Other-Being for

consciousness; for what is only existence is object. The second is

Being-for-self, genuine actuality; here the reverse relation enters in,

for self-consciousness, as the negative of Being-in-itself, is itself

reality. The third is the unity of the two; the absolute, self-conscious

actuality is the sum of true actuality, into which are re-absorbed both

the objective and the independently existent subjective. Kant has

thus made an historical statement of the moments of the whole, and has

correctly determined and distinguished them: it is a good introduction

to Philosophy. The defect of Kant’s philosophy consists in the falling

asunder of the moments of the absolute form; or, regarded from the

other side, our understanding, our knowledge, forms an antithesis to

Being-in-itself: there is lacking the negative, the abrogation of the

“ought,” which is not laid hold of. But thought and thinking had become

once for all an absolute requisite that could no longer be set aside.

It was consequently in the first place demanded by consistency that

particular thoughts should appear as if produced of necessity from

the original unity of the ego, and in that way justified. But, in the

second place, thought had spread itself over the world, had attached

itself to everything, investigated everything, introduced its forms

into everything, and systematized everything, so that on every hand

thought-determinations had to be followed, instead of any mere feeling

or routine or practical common-sense, or what is evidenced in the

extraordinary lack of understanding on the part of so-called practical

men. And therefore in theology, in governments and their legislation,

in the object aimed at by the state, in trades and in mechanics, it

is said that men ought to act according to universal determinations,

_i.e._ rationally: and men even talk of a rational brewery, a rational

brick-kiln, etc. This is the requisite of concrete thought; while in the

Kantian result, which is that of phenomenon, an empty thought was alone

present. It is verily also the essence of revealed religion to know what

God is. There was, therefore, to be found a yearning desire for content,

for truth, since man could not possibly return to the condition of a

brute, nor yet sink to the form of sensation, so that this yearning

was for him the only thing that held good with regard to the higher

life. The first requirement—consistency—Fichte sought to satisfy; the

other—content—Schelling strove to fulfil.

C. FICHTE.

Fichte created a great sensation in his time; his philosophy is the

Kantian philosophy in its completion, and, as we must specially notice,

it is set forth in a more logical way. He does not pass beyond the

fundamentals of Kant’s philosophy, and at first regarded his own

philosophy as no more than a systematic working out of the other.[373]

In addition to these systems of philosophies, and that of Schelling,

there are none. Any that pretend to be such merely pick out something

from these, and over this they fight and wrangle among themselves. _Ils

se sont battus les flancs, pour être de grands hommes._ For in those

times there were in Germany many systems of philosophy, such as those of

Reinhold, Krug, Bouterweck, Fries, Schulze, &c.; but in them there is

only an extremely limited point of view, combined with boastfulness—a

strange medley of stray thoughts and conceptions or facts which I find

within me. But their thoughts are all derived from Fichte, Kant, or

Schelling—that is in so far as there are thoughts there present at all.

Or else some slight modification is added, and this for the most part

merely consists in making the great principles barren, what points in

them were living are destroyed, or else subordinate forms are changed,

whereby another principle is said to be set forth, though when we

look closer we find that these principles are but the principles of

one of those philosophies that have gone before. This may serve as a

justification for my not speaking further of all these philosophies;

any exposition of them would be no more than a demonstration that

everything in them is taken from Kant, Fichte, or Schelling, and that the

modification in form is only the semblance of a change, while really it

indicates a deterioration in the principles of those philosophies.

Johann Gottlieb Fichte was born on the 19th of May, 1762, at Rammenau,

near Bischoffswerda, in Upper Lusatia. He studied at Jena, and for some

time was a private tutor in Switzerland. He wrote a treatise on Religion,

termed a “Critique of all Revelation,” where the Kantian phraseology is

employed throughout—so much so that it was thought to be the work of

Kant. After this he was in 1793 summoned to Jena by Goethe as Professor

of Philosophy, which appointment he, however, resigned in the year 1799,

on account of an unpleasantness which had arisen through his essay “On

the ground of our Belief in a Divine Government of the World.” For Fichte

published a journal in Jena, and a paper in it which was by someone else

was regarded as atheistical. Fichte might have kept silence, but he

published the above-mentioned essay as an introduction to the article.

The authorities wished an investigation to be made into the matter. Then

Fichte wrote a letter which contained threats, and respecting it Goethe

said that a Government ought not to allow itself to be threatened. Fichte

now taught privately for some time in Berlin; in 1805 he became professor

at Erlangen, and in 1809 at Berlin, at which place he died on the 27th

January, 1814.[374] We cannot here deal more particularly with the

details of his life.

In what is termed the philosophy of Fichte a distinction must be made

between his properly-speaking speculative philosophy, in which the

argument is most consistently worked out, and which is less well known,

and his popular philosophy, to which belong the lectures delivered

in Berlin before a mixed audience, and, for example, the work termed

a “Guidance to a Blessed Life.” These last have much in them that is

affecting and edifying—many who call themselves the disciples of Fichte

know this side alone—and they are expressed in language most impressive

to a cultured, religious temperament. In the history of Philosophy,

however, such cannot be taken into consideration, although through their

matter they may have the highest possible value; the content has to be

speculatively developed, and that is done in Fichte’s earlier philosophic

works alone.[375]

1. THE FIRST PRINCIPLES OF FICHTE’S PHILOSOPHY.

As we mentioned above (p. 478), the shortcoming in the Kantian philosophy

was its unthinking inconsistency, through which speculative unity was

lacking to the whole system; and this shortcoming was removed by Fichte.

It is the absolute form which Fichte laid hold of, or in other words, the

absolute form is just the absolute Being-for-self, absolute negativity,

not individuality, but the Notion of individuality, and thereby the

Notion of actuality; Fichte’s philosophy is thus the development of form

in itself. He maintained the ego to be the absolute principle, so that

from it, the direct and immediate certainty of self, all the matter

in the universe must be represented as produced; hence, according to

Fichte, reason is in itself a synthesis of Notion and actuality. But this

principle he once more in an equally one-sided manner set aside; it is

from the very beginning subjective, conditioned by an opposite, and its

realization is a continual rushing onward in finitude, a looking back

at what has gone before. The form in which it is presented has also the

disadvantage, and indeed, the real drawback of bringing the empiric ego

ever before one’s eyes, which is absurd, and quite distracting to one’s

point of view.

The claims of Philosophy have advanced so far that in the first place

self-consciousness refuses any longer to regard absolute essence as

immediate substance which does not in itself possess difference, reality,

and actuality. Against this substance self-consciousness ever struggled,

for it does not find its explicit Being there, and consequently feels

the lack of freedom. But besides this it demanded that this essence,

objectively presented, should be personal, living, self-conscious,

actual, and not shut up in abstract metaphysical thoughts alone. On the

other hand consciousness, for which the other is, demanded the moment of

external actuality, Being as such, into which thought must pass, truth

in objective existence; and this is what we more especially noticed in

connection with the English. This Notion, which is immediately actuality,

and this actuality which is immediately its Notion, and that indeed in

such a way that there neither is a third thought above this unity, nor

is it an immediate unity which does not possess difference, separation,

within it, is the ego; it is the self-distinction of opposites within

itself. That whereby it distinguishes itself from the simplicity of

thought, and distinguishes this other, is likewise immediately for it; it

is identical with, or not distinguished from it.[376] Hence it is pure

thought, or the ego is the true synthetic judgment _a priori_, as Kant

called it. This principle is apprehended actuality, for the taking back

of the other-Being into self-consciousness is just apprehension. The

Notion of the Notion is from this point of view found in the fact that in

what is apprehended self-consciousness has the certainty of itself; what

is not apprehended is something foreign to it. This absolute Notion or

this absolutely existent infinitude it is which has to be developed in

knowledge, and its distinction as the whole distinction of the universe

has to be represented from itself, and this has in its distinction to

remain reflected within itself in equal absoluteness. Nothing other than

the ego anywhere exists, and the ego is there because it is there; what

is there is only in the ego and for the ego.[377]

Now Fichte merely set forth this Notion; he did not bring it to a

scientific realization from itself. For to him this Notion maintains

and asserts itself as this Notion; it has absoluteness for him in so

far as it is merely the unrealized Notion, and thus indeed comes once

more into opposition with reality. The Fichtian philosophy has the great

advantage of having set forth the fact that Philosophy must be a science

derived from one supreme principle, from which all determinations are

necessarily derived. The important point is this unity of principle and

the attempt to develop from it in a scientifically consistent way the

whole content of consciousness, or, as has been said, to construct the

whole world.[378] Beyond this no progress was made.[379] But the great

necessity in Philosophy is to possess one living Idea; the world is a

flower which is eternally produced from one grain of seed. Thus Fichte

does not, like Kant, throw his work into narrative form because he begins

with the ego; but he has proceeded further, inasmuch as he sought to

bring about a construction of determinations of knowledge from the ego.

The whole extent of knowledge in all the world must be developed, and

further this knowledge must be the consequence of the development of

determinations; but because Fichte says that what is not for us does not

concern us, he has not grasped this principle of the ego as Idea, but

solely in the consciousness of the activity which we exercise in knowing,

and consequently it is still laid hold of in the form of subjectivity.

Thus as Kant treats of cognition [Erkennen], so Fichte sets forth real

knowledge [Wissen]. Fichte states that the task of Philosophy is to

find a theory of knowledge; universal knowledge is both the object

and the starting-point of Philosophy. Consciousness knows, that is

its nature; the end of philosophic learning is the knowledge of this

knowledge. Hence Fichte called his philosophy the Theory of Knowledge

(Begriff der Wissenschaftslehre, p. 18), the science of knowledge.

That is to say ordinary consciousness as the active ego finds this and

that, occupies itself, not with itself, but with other objects and

interests, but the necessity that I bring forth determinations, and

which determinations—cause and effect, for example,—lies beyond my

consciousness: I bring them forth instinctively and cannot get behind my

consciousness. But when I philosophize, I make my ordinary consciousness

itself my object, because I make a pure category my consciousness: I know

what my ego is doing, and thus I get behind my ordinary consciousness.

Fichte thus defines Philosophy as the artificial consciousness, as the

consciousness of consciousness.[380]

a. Where Fichte in his system has attained the highest degree of

determinateness, he begins, as we saw Kant did before (pp. 437, 438),

from the transcendental unity of self-consciousness; in it I—as this—am

one, this unity is to Fichte the same and the original. Ego is there

a fact, says Fichte, but not yet a proposition. As proposition, as

principle, the ego must not remain barren, nor be accepted as one,

for to a proposition pertains a synthesis. Now Fichte proceeds in his

system from the fact that Philosophy must begin with an absolutely

unconditioned, certain principle, with something indubitably certain in

ordinary knowledge. “It cannot be proved or defined, because it must

be absolutely the first principle.”[381] According to Wendt’s account

(Tennemann’s Grundriss, § 393, pp. 494, 495) Fichte gives an exposition

of the necessity of such a principle as follows: “Scientific knowledge

is a system of cognition obtained through a supreme principle which

expresses the content and form of knowledge. The theory of knowledge is

the science of knowledge which sets forth the possibility and validity of

all knowledge, and proves the possibility of principles in reference to

form and content, the principles themselves, and thereby the connection

existing in all human knowledge. It must have a principle which can

neither be proved from it nor from another science; for it is supreme.

If there is a theory of knowledge there also is a system; if there is

a system there is also a theory of knowledge and an absolute first

principle—and so on through an inevitable circle.”[382]

The simple principle of this knowledge is certainty of myself, which is

the relation of me to myself; what is in me, that I know. The supreme

principle, as immediate and not derived, must be certain on its own

account; that is, a determination of the ego only, for it is only from

the ego that I cannot abstract.[383] Fichte thus begins, like Descartes,

with ‘I think, therefore I am,’ and he expressly brings this proposition

to mind. The Being of the ego is not a dead, but a concrete Being;

but the highest Being is thought. Ego, as an explicitly self-existent

activity of thought, is thus knowledge, even if it is only abstract

knowledge, as in the beginning at least it cannot help being. At the

same time Fichte begins from this absolute certainty with quite other

necessities and demands; for from this ego not only Being but also the

larger system of thought has to be derived (_supra_, p. 230). According

to Fichte, the ego is the source of the categories and ideas, but all

conceptions and thoughts are a manifold reduced to a synthesis through

Thought. Thus while with Descartes in connection with the ego other

thoughts appear which we simply find already in us, such as God, nature,

&c., Fichte sought for a philosophy entirely of a piece, in which nothing

empiric was to be admitted from without. With this reflection a false

point of view was at once introduced, namely that contained in the old

conception of knowledge, of commencing with principles in this form and

proceeding from them; so that the reality which is derived from such

a principle is brought into opposition with it, and hence in truth is

something different, _i.e._ it is not derived: or that principle for this

same reason expresses only the absolute certainty of itself and not the

truth. The ego is certain, it cannot be doubted; but Philosophy desires

to reach the truth. The certainty is subjective, and because it is made

to remain the basis, all else remains subjective also without there being

any possibility of this form being removed. Fichte now analyzes the ego,

reducing it to three principles from which the whole of knowledge has to

be evolved.

α. The first proposition must be simple, in it predicate and subject must

be alike; for were they unlike, their connection—since in accordance

with their diversity the determinations are not directly one—would have

to be first of all proved by means of a third. The first principle

must thus be identical. Fichte now proceeds further to distinguish in

this first principle the form and content; but in order that this same

may be immediately true through itself, form and content must be again

the same, and the principle conditioned by neither. It signifies

A = A, the abstract undetermined identity; that is the proposition of

contradiction, wherein A is an indifferent content. Fichte says, “Thought

is by no means essence, but only a particular determination of Being;

there are outside of it many other determinations of our Being. I merely

remark this, that when ‘I am’ is overstepped, Spinozism is necessarily

reached. Its unity is something which ought to be produced through

us, but which cannot be so; it is not anything that is.” The first

proposition is then that I am identical with myself, Ego = Ego;[384] that

undoubtedly is the definition of the ego. The subject and the predicate

are the content; and this content of the two sides is likewise their

relation, _i.e._ form. Relation requires two sides; the relating and the

related are here, however, the same; for on account of the simplicity of

the ego, there is nothing but a relation of the ego to the ego. I have

knowledge of myself; but in so far as I am consciousness, I know of an

object which is different from me, and which is then likewise _mine_.

But the ego is in such a way identical with its difference that what is

different is immediately the same, and what is identical is likewise

different; we have a difference without a difference. Self-consciousness

is not dead identity, or non-Being, but the object which is identical

with me. This is immediately certain; all else must be as certain to

me, inasmuch as it must be my relation to myself. The content must

be transformed into the ego, so that in it I have _my_ determination

alone. This principle is at first abstract and deficient, because in

it no difference, or a formal difference only is expressed; whereas

the principle should possess a content: a subject and a predicate are

indeed distinguished in it, but only for us who reflect upon it, _i.e._

in itself there is no difference, and consequently no true content. In

the second place, this principle is indeed the immediate certainty of

self-consciousness, but self-consciousness is likewise consciousness,

and in it there is likewise the certainty that other things exist to

which it stands in an attitude of opposition. In the third place, that

principle has not the truth in it, for the very reason that the certainty

of itself possessed by the ego has no objectivity; it has not the form of

the differentiated content within it—or it stands in opposition to the

consciousness of an “other”.

β. Now in order that determination should come to pass, _i.e._ a content

and difference, it is essential for Fichte that a second principle should

be established, which in regard to form is unconditioned, but the content

of which is conditioned, because it does not belong to the ego. This

second principle, set forth under the first, is, “I assert a non-ego

in opposition to the ego,” and in this something other than absolute

self-consciousness is set forth.[385] To this pertains the form therein

present, relation; but the content is the non-ego, another content

from the ego. We might say that through this content the proposition

is independent, since the negative therein is an absolute, as truly as

the reverse—that it is independent through the form of opposition which

cannot be derived from the original. Here, then, we have no more to do

with derivation, although this derivation of opposition from the first

proposition was all the same demanded. Inasmuch as I posit another in

opposition to the ego, I posit myself as not posited; this non-ego is

the object generally, _i.e._ that which is opposed to me. This other is

the negative of the ego; thus when Fichte called it the non-ego he was

expressing himself in a very happy, suitable, and consistent manner.

There has been a good deal of ridicule cast on the ego and non-ego;

the expression is new, and therefore to us Germans it seems strange at

first. But the French say _Moi_ and _Non-moi_, without finding anything

laughable in it. In this principle the positing belongs, however, to

the ego; but because the non-ego is independent of the ego, we have two

sides, and self-consciousness relates itself to another. This second

proposition thus signifies that I posit myself as limited, as non-ego;

but non-ego is something quite new to be added. On the one side we thus

have before us a field which is merely appropriated from the ego; and in

this way we have before us the non-ego as our object.

γ. To these is added yet a third proposition, in which I now make this

division into ego and non-ego: it is the synthetic principle, the

proposition of ground, which in content is unconditioned, just as in the

second was the case in regard to form. This third proposition is the

determination of the first two through one another, in such a way that

the ego limits the non-ego. “In and through the ego both the ego and the

non-ego are posited as capable of being mutually limited by means of

one another, _i.e._ in such a way that the reality of the one abrogates

the reality of the other.” In limitation both are negated, but “only

in part”; only thus are synthesis and deduction possible. I posit the

non-ego, which is for me, in myself, in my identity with myself; thus I

take it from its non-identity, its not-being-I, that is to say I limit

it. This limitation of the non-ego Fichte expresses thus: “I place in

opposition to the ego,” and indeed “to the divisible ego, a divisible

non-ego.” The non-ego I destroy as a complete sphere, which it was

according to the second principle, and posit it as divisible; I likewise

posit the ego as divisible in so far as the non-ego is present in it. The

whole sphere which I have before me is supposed indeed to be the ego,

but in it I have not one but two. The proposition of ground is thus the

relation of reality and negation, _i.e._ it is limitation; it contains

the ego limited by the non-ego, and the non-ego limited by the ego.[386]

Of this synthesis there is nothing, properly speaking, contained in the

two earlier propositions. Even this first presentation of the three

principles does away with the immanence of real knowledge. Thus the

presentation is here also subject to an opposite from the first, as it is

with Kant, even if these are two acts of the ego merely, and we remain

entirely in the ego.

Now that limitation may take place for me in two different ways: at

one time the one is passive, at another time the other is so. In this

limitation the ego may posit the non-ego as limiting and itself as

limited, in such a way that the ego posits itself as requiring to have

an object; I know myself indeed as ego, but determined by the non-ego;

non-ego is here active and ego passive. Or, on the other hand, the ego,

as abrogating other-being, is that which limits, and non-ego is the

limited. I know myself then as clearly determining the non-ego, as the

absolute cause of the non-ego as such, for I can think. The first is

the proposition of the theoretic reason, of intelligence: the second

the proposition of practical reason, of will.[387] The will is this,

that I am conscious of myself as limiting the object; thus I make myself

exercise activity upon the object and maintain myself. The theoretic

proposition is that the object is before me and it determines me. The ego

is, since I perceive, a content, and I have this content in me, which is

thus outside of me. This is on the whole the same thing as we meet with

in the experience of Kant: it comes to the same thing whether it is by

matter or the non-ego that the ego is here determined.

b. In the theoretic consciousness the ego, although the assertive

generally, finds itself limited by the non-ego. But it is identical

with itself; hence its infinite activity ever sets itself to abrogate

the non-ego and to bring forth itself. Now the different methods whereby

the ego sets forth itself are the different methods of its activity;

these we have to understand in their necessity. But since philosophic

knowledge is the consideration of consciousness itself (_supra_, p. 483),

I can only know knowledge, the act of the ego. Fichte thus appeals to

consciousness, postulates ego and non-ego in their abstraction, and since

philosophic knowledge is the consciousness of consciousness, it is not

sufficient that I should find its determinations in consciousness, for I

produce them with consciousness. Common consciousness, indeed, likewise

brings forth all the determinations of the ordinary conception and of

thought, but without—on the theoretic side at least—having any knowledge

of it; for it is the fact of being limited alone that is present to it.

Thus, when I see a large square object, such as a wall, my ordinary

consciousness accepts these determinations as they are given to it; the

object _is_. In so doing I do not think of seeing, but of the object;

seeing, however, is my activity, the determinations of my faculty of

sensation are thus posited through me.[388] The ego as theoretic is,

indeed, aware in philosophic consciousness that it is the ego which

posits; but here it posits that the non-ego posits somewhat in me. The

ego thus posits itself as that which is limited by the non-ego. I make

this limitation mine; thus is it for me in me, this passivity of the ego

is itself the activity of the ego. As a matter of fact, all reality which

appears in the object for the ego is a determination of the ego,[389]

just as the categories and other determinations were in Kant’s case. Thus

it is here more especially that we should expect Fichte to demonstrate

the return of other-Being into absolute consciousness. However, because

after all the other-Being was regarded as unconditioned, as implicit,

this return does not come to pass. The ego determines the ‘other,’

indeed, but this unity is an altogether finite unity; non-ego has thus

immediately escaped from determination once more and gone forth from this

unity. What we find is merely an alternation between self-consciousness

and the consciousness of another, and the constant progression of this

alternation, which never reaches any end.[390]

The development of theoretic reason is the following-out of the manifold

relationships between the ego and non-ego; the forms of this limitation

which Fichte now goes through are the determinations of the object.

These particular thought-determinations he calls categories, and he

seeks to demonstrate them in their necessity; from the time of Aristotle

onwards no one had thought of so doing. The first of these forms is the

determination of reciprocity, which we already met with in the third

proposition: “By the determination of the reality or negation of the

ego, the negation or reality of the non-ego is equally determined;” the

two in one is reciprocal action. In the second place, “Causality is the

same degree of activity in the one as of passivity in the other.” In so

far as something is considered as the reality of the non-ego, the ego is

considered as passive, and, on the other hand, in so far as ‘I’ am real,

the object is passive; this relation, that the passivity of the object is

my activity or reality, and the opposite, is the conception of Causality.

“As many parts of negation as the ego posits in itself, so many parts

of reality it posits in the non-ego; it therefore posits itself as

self-determining in so far as it is determined, and as suffering

determination in so far as it determines itself. In so far,” in the

third place, “as the ego is regarded as embracing the whole absolutely

determined realm of all reality, it is substance; on the other hand when

it is posited in a not absolutely determined sphere of this realm, in so

far there is an accidence in the ego.”[391] That is the first rational

attempt that has ever been made to deduce the categories; this progress

from one determination to another is, however, only an analysis from the

standpoint of consciousness, and is not in and for itself.

The ego is so far the ideal ground of all conceptions of the object;

all determination of this object is a determination of the ego. But in

order that it may be object, it must be placed in opposition to the ego,

_i.e._ the determinations set forth through the ego are another, the

non-ego; this placing of the object in opposition is the real ground

of conceptions. The ego is, however, likewise the real ground of the

object; for it is likewise a determination of the ego that the non-ego

as object is set in opposition to the ego. Both, the real ground and the

ideal ground of the conception, are thus one and the same.[392] Regarding

the ego as ideal principle and the non-ego as real principle, Krug has

likewise talked a great deal of nonsense. Regarded from the one point

of view, the ego is active and the non-ego purely passive; while from

the other side the ego is passive and the object active and operative.

But since the ego in the non-philosophic consciousness does not have

the consciousness of its activity in the conception of the object, it

represents to itself its own activity as foreign, _i.e._ as belonging to

the non-ego.

We here see the opposition adopting various forms: ego, non-ego;

positing, setting in opposition; two sorts of activity of the ego, &c.

The fact that I represent is undoubtedly my activity, but the matter

of main importance is the content of the positing and its necessary

connection through itself. If one occupies oneself only with this

content, that form of subjectivity which is dominant with Fichte, and

which remains in his opposition, disappears. As the ego is affirmative

and determining, there now is in this determination a negative likewise

present; I find myself determined and at the same time the ego is like

itself, infinite, _i.e._ identical with itself. This is a contradiction

which Fichte indeed endeavours to reconcile, but in spite of it all he

leaves the false basis of dualism undisturbed. The ultimate, beyond

which Fichte does not get, is only an ‘ought,’ which does not solve

the contradiction; for while the ego should be absolutely at home with

itself, _i.e._ free, it should at the same time be associated with

another. To Fichte the demand for the solution of this contradiction thus

adopts the attitude of being a demanded solution only, of signifying that

I ever have to destroy the barriers, that I ever have to reach beyond

the limitation into utter infinitude, and that I ever find a new limit;

a continual alternation takes place between negation and affirmation,

an identity with self which again falls into negation, and from this

negation is ever again restored. To speak of the bounds of human reason

is, however, an unmeaning form of words. That the reason of the subject

is limited is comprehensible from the nature of the case, but when we

speak of Thought, infinitude is none other than one’s own relation to

self, and not to one’s limit; and the place in which man is infinite is

Thought. Infinitude may then be likewise very abstract, and in this way

it is also once more finite; but true infinitude remains in itself.

Fichte further deduces the ordinary conception thus: the fact that the

ego in going forth at once finds its activity checked by a limitation,

and returns once more into itself, brings about two opposite tendencies

in me, between which I waver, and which I try to unite in the faculty

of imagination. In order that a fixed determination may exist between

the two, I have to make the limit a permanent one, and we have that in

the understanding. All further determinations of the object are, as

categories of the understanding, modes of synthesis; but each synthesis

is a new contradiction. New mediations are thus once more necessary, and

these are new determinations. Thus Fichte says: I can always continue to

determine the non-ego, to make it my conception, _i.e._ to take from it

its negation as regards me. I have to deal with my activity alone; but

there is always an externality therein present which still remains, and

which is not explained by my activity. This Beyond which alone remains

to the undetermined ego Fichte calls the infinite check upon the ego,

with which it ever has to deal, and beyond which it cannot get; thus the

activity which proceeds into infinitude finds itself checked and driven

back by this repulsive force, and then it reacts upon itself. “The ego

in its self-determination has been considered both as determining and

determined; if we reflect on the fact that the absolutely determined

determining power must be an absolutely indeterminate, and further, that

ego and non-ego are absolutely opposed to one another, in the one case

ego is the indeterminate and in the other case non-ego.”[393]

Inasmuch as the ego here makes the object its conception and negates it,

this philosophy is Idealism, in which philosophy all the determinations

of the object are ideal. Everything determinate which the ego possesses

it has through its own positing; I even make a coat or a boot because I

put them on. There remains only the empty repulsive force, and that is

the Kantian Thing-in-itself, beyond which even Fichte cannot get, even

though the theoretic reason continues its determination into infinitude.

“The ego as intelligence” ever “remains dependent on an undetermined

non-ego; it is only through this that it is intelligence.”[394] The

theoretic side is thus dependent. In it we have not therefore to deal

with the truth in and for itself, but with a contingent, because ego

is limited, not absolute, as its Notion demands: intelligence is not

here considered as spirit which is free. This is Fichte’s standpoint as

regards the theoretic side.

c. Practical reason comes next; the point of view from which it starts

is that “The ego posits itself as determining the non-ego.” Now the

contradiction has thus to be solved of ego being at home with itself,

since it determines its Beyond. The ego is thus infinite activity, and,

as ego = ego, the absolute ego, it is undoubtedly abstract. But in order

to have a determination, a non-ego must exist; ego is thus activity,

causality, the positing of the non-ego. But as with Kant sensuousness and

reason remain opposed, the same contradiction is present here, only in a

more abstract form, and not in the rude empiricism of Kant. Fichte here

turns and twists in all sorts of ways, or he gives the opposition many

different forms; the crudest form is that ego is posited as causality,

for in it another is necessitated on which it exercises its activity.

“The absolute ego has accordingly to be” now “the cause of the non-ego,

_i.e._ only of that in the non-ego which remains when we abstract from

all demonstrable forms of representation or conception—of that to

which is ascribed the check given to the infinitely operative activity

of the ego; for the fact that the intelligent ego is, in accordance

with the necessary laws of the conception, the cause of the particular

determinations of that which is conceived as such, is demonstrated in

the theoretic science of knowledge.”[395] The limits of intelligence

must be broken through, the ego must alone be active; the other side,

the infinite repulsion, must be removed, in order that the ego may be

liberated.

“According to our hypothesis the ego must now posit a non-ego absolutely,

and without any ground, _i.e._ absolutely and without any ground it must

limit or in part not posit itself.” This, indeed, it already does as

intelligent. “It must therefore have the ground of not positing itself”

only “in itself.” The ego is, however, just the ego, it posits itself,

“it must” therefore “have the principle of positing itself within it,

and also the principle of not positing itself. Hence the ego in its

essence would be contradictory and self-repellent; there would be in it a

two-fold or contradictory principle, which assumption contradicts itself,

for in that case there would be no principle within it. The ego would”

consequently “not exist, for it would abrogate itself. All contradictions

are reconciled through the further determination of contradictory

propositions. The ego must be posited in one sense as infinite, and in

another as finite. Were it to be posited as infinite and finite in one

and the same sense, the contradiction would be insoluble; the ego would

not be one but two. In so far as the ego posits itself as infinite, its

activity is directed upon itself and on nothing else but itself. In so

far as the ego posits limits, and itself in these limits, its activity is

not exercised directly on itself, but on a non-ego which has to be placed

in opposition,” upon another and again upon another, and so on into

infinitude; that is the object, and the activity of the ego “is objective

activity.”[396] In this way Fichte in the practical sphere also remains

at opposition, only this opposition now has the form of two tendencies in

the ego, both of which are said to be one and the same activity of the

ego. I am called upon to proceed to determine the other in relation to

which I am negative, the non-ego, in accordance with my freedom; it has

indeed all determinations through the activity of the ego, but beyond my

determination the same non-ego ever continues to appear. The ego clearly

posits an object, a point of limitation, but where the limitation is, is

undetermined. I may transfer the sphere of my determination, and extend

it to an infinite degree, but there always remains a pure Beyond, and the

non-ego has no positive self-existent determination.

The last point in respect of the practical sphere is hence this, that

the activity of the ego is a yearning or striving[397]—like the Kantian

“ought”; Fichte treats this with great prolixity. The Fichtian philosophy

consequently has the same standpoint as the Kantian; the ultimate is

always subjectivity, as existent in and for itself. Yearning, according

to Fichte, is divine; in yearning I have not forgotten myself, I have

not forgotten that I possess a superiority in myself; and therefore it

is a condition of happiness and satisfaction. This infinite yearning

and desire has then been regarded as what is highest and most excellent

in the Beautiful, and in religious feelings likewise; and with it

is connected the irony of which we have spoken before (Vol. I. pp.

400, 401). In this return the ego is merely an effort, on its side

it is fixed, and it cannot realize its endeavours. Striving is thus

an imperfect or implicitly limited action. The ultimate result is

consequently a “circle” which cannot be broken through, so that “the

finite spirit must necessarily posit an absolute outside itself (a

thing-in-itself), and yet on the other hand it must recognize that

this same is only there for it (a necessary noumenon).”[398] To put it

otherwise, we see the ego absolutely determined in opposition only, we

see it only as consciousness and self-consciousness which does not get

beyond this, and which does not reach so far as to Spirit. The ego is the

absolute Notion in so far as it does not yet reach the unity of thought,

or in this simplicity does not reach difference, and in motion does not

have rest; that is to say, in so far as positing, or the pure activity

of the ego, and setting in opposition, are not by it comprehended as the

same. Or the ego does not comprehend the infinite repulsion, the non-ego;

self-consciousness determines the non-ego, but does not know how to make

this Beyond its own.

The deficiency in the Fichtian philosophy is thus firstly that the ego

retains the significance of the individual, actual self-consciousness,

as opposed to that which is universal or absolute, or to the spirit in

which it is itself a moment merely; for the individual self-consciousness

simply signifies standing apart as far as another is concerned. Hence,

if the ego was ever called absolute existence, the most terrible offence

was given, because really the ego only came before us as signifying the

individual subject as opposed to the universal.

In the second place, Fichte does not attain to the idea of Reason as the

perfected, real unity of subject and object, or of ego and non-ego; it is

only, as with Kant, represented as the thought of a union in a belief or

faith, and with this Fichte likewise concludes (Grundlage der gesammten

Wissenschaftslehre, p. 301). This he worked out in his popular writings.

For because the ego is fixed in its opposition to the non-ego, and _is_

only as being opposed, it becomes lost in that unity. The attainment of

this aim is hence sent further and further back into the false, sensuous

infinitude: it is a progression implying just the same contradiction as

that found in Kant, and having no present actuality in itself; for the

ego has all actuality in its opposition only. The Fichtian philosophy

recognizes the finite spirit alone, and not the infinite; it does not

recognize spirit as universal thought, as the Kantian philosophy does not

recognize the not-true; or it is formal. The knowledge of absolute unity

is apprehended as faith in a moral disposition of the world, an absolute

hypothesis in accordance with which we have the belief that every moral

action that we perform will have a good result.[399] As in Kant’s case,

this Idea belongs to universal thought. “In a word, when anything is

apprehended it ceases to be God; and every conception of God that is set

up is necessarily that of a false God. Religion is a practical faith

in the moral government of the world; faith in a supersensuous world

belongs, according to our philosophy, to the immediate verities.”[400]

Fichte thus concludes with the highest Idea, with the union of freedom

and nature, but a union of such a nature that, immediately regarded,

it is not known; the opposition alone falls within consciousness. This

union of faith he likewise finds in the Love of God. As believed and

experienced, this form pertains to Religion, and not to Philosophy,

and our only possible interest is to know this in Philosophy. But with

Fichte it is still associated with a most unsatisfying externality of

which the basis is the non-Idea, for the one determination is essential

only because the other is so, and so on into infinitude. “The theory

of knowledge is realistic—it shows that the consciousness of finite

beings can only be explained by presupposing an independent and wholly

opposite power, on which, in accordance with their empirical existence,

they themselves are dependent. But it asserts nothing more than this

opposed power, which by finite beings can merely be _felt_ and not known.

All possible determinations of this power or of this non-ego which can

come forth into infinity in our consciousness, it pledges itself to

deduce from the determining faculties of the ego, and it must actually

be able to deduce these, so certainly as it is a theory of knowledge.

This knowledge, however, is not transcendent but transcendental. It

undoubtedly explains all consciousness from something independent of all

consciousness, but it does not forget that this independent somewhat is

again a product of its own power of thought, and consequently something

dependent on the ego, in so far as it has to be there for the ego. Every

thing is, in its ideality, dependent upon the ego; but in its reality

even the ego is dependent. The fact that the finite spirit must posit

for itself somewhat outside of itself, which last exists only for it, is

that circle which it may infinitely extend but never break through.” The

further logical determination of the object is that which in subject and

object is identical, the true connection is that in which the objective

is the possession of the ego; as thought, the ego in itself determines

the object. But Fichte’s theory of knowledge regards the struggle of the

ego with the object as that of the continuous process of determining the

object through the ego as subject of consciousness, without the identity

of the restfully self-developing Notion.[401]

Thirdly, because the ego is thus fixed in its one-sidedness, there

proceeds from it, as representing one extreme, the whole of the progress

that is made in the content of knowledge; and the deduction of the

philosophy of Fichte, cognition in its content and form, is a progression

from certain determinations to others which do not turn back into

unity, or through a succession of finitenesses which do not have the

Absolute in them at all. The absolute point of view, like an absolute

content, is wanting. Thus the contemplation of nature, for instance, is

a contemplation of it as of pure finitenesses from the point of view of

another, as though the organic body were regarded thus: “Consciousness

requires a sphere entirely its own for its activity. This sphere is

posited through an original, necessary activity of the ego, in which

it does not know itself as free. It is a sensuous perception, a drawing

of lines; the sphere of activity thereby becomes something extended in

space. As quiescent, continuous, and yet unceasingly changing, this

sphere is matter, which, as body, has a number of parts which in relation

to one another are called limbs. The person can ascribe to himself no

body without positing it as being under the influence of another person.

But it is likewise essential that I should be able to check this same

influence, and external matter is also posited as resisting my influences

on it, _i.e._ as a tough, compact matter.”[402] These tough matters must

further be separated from one another—the different persons cannot hold

together like one mass of dough. For “my body is my body and not that of

another; it must further operate and be active without my working through

it. It is only through the operation of another that I can myself be

active and represent myself as a rational being who can be respected by

him. But the other being should treat me immediately as a rational being,

I should be for him a rational being even before my activity begins.

Or my form must produce an effect through its mere existence in space,

without my activity, _i.e._ it must be visible. The reciprocal operation

of rational beings must take place without activity; thus a subtle matter

must be assumed in order that it may be modified by means of the merely

quiescent form. In this way are deduced first Light and then Air.”[403]

This constitutes a very external manner of passing from one step to

another, resembling the method of the ordinary teleology, which makes

out, for instance, that plants and animals are given for the nourishment

of mankind. This is how it is put: Man must eat, and thus there must be

something edible—consequently plants and animals are at once deduced;

plants must have their root in something, and consequently the earth is

forthwith deduced. What is altogether lacking is any consideration of the

object as what it is in itself; it is plainly considered only in relation

to another. In this way the animal organism appears as a tough, tenacious

matter which is “articulated” and can be modified; light is a subtle

matter which is the medium of communication of mere existence, &c.—just

as in the other case plants and animals are merely edible. As regards a

philosophic consideration of the content there is nothing at all to be

found.

Fichte likewise wrote both a Science of Morals and of Natural Rights,

but he treats them as sciences pertaining to the understanding only, and

his method of procedure is destitute of ideas and carried on by means of

a limited understanding. The Fichtian deduction of the conceptions of

justice and morality thus remains within the limitations and rigidity of

self-consciousness, as against which Fichte’s popular presentations of

religion and morality present inconsistencies. The treatise on Natural

Rights is a special failure, _e.g._ where he, as we have just seen (p.

502), deduces even nature just as far as he requires it. The organization

of the state which is described in Fichte’s Science of Rights is

furthermore as unspiritual as was the deduction of natural objects just

mentioned, and as were many of the French constitutions which have

appeared in modern times—a formal, external uniting and connecting, in

which the individuals as such are held to be absolute, or in which Right

is the highest principle. Kant began to ground Right upon Freedom, and

Fichte likewise makes freedom the principle in the Rights of Nature; but,

as was the case with Rousseau, it is freedom in the form of the isolated

individual. This is a great commencement, but in order to arrive at the

particular, they have to accept certain hypotheses. The universal is

not the spirit, the substance of the whole, but an external, negative

power of the finite understanding directed against individuals. The

state is not apprehended in its essence, but only as representing a

condition of justice and law, _i.e._ as an external relation of finite

to finite. There are various individuals; the whole constitution of the

state is thus in the main characterized by the fact that the freedom of

individuals must be limited by means of the freedom of the whole.[404]

The individuals always maintain a cold attitude of negativity as regards

one another, the confinement becomes closer and the bonds more stringent

as time goes on, instead of the state being regarded as representing the

realization of freedom.

This philosophy contains nothing speculative, but it demands the presence

of the speculative element. As the philosophy of Kant seeks in unity its

Idea of the Supreme Good, wherein the opposites have to be united, so

the Fichtian philosophy demands union in the ego and in the implicitude

of faith; in this self-consciousness in all its actions makes its

starting-point conviction, so that in themselves its actions may bring

forth the highest end and realize the good. In the Fichtian philosophy

nothing can be seen beyond the moment of self-consciousness, of

self-conscious Being-within-self, as in the philosophy of England we find

expressed—in just as one-sided a way—the moment of Being-for-another, or

of consciousness, and that not as a moment simply, but as the principle

of the truth; in neither of the two is there the unity of both—or spirit.

Fichte’s philosophy constitutes a significant epoch in Philosophy

regarded in its outward form. It is from him and from his methods that

abstract thought proceeds, deduction and construction. Hence with the

Fichtian philosophy a revolution took place in Germany. The public had

penetrated as far as the philosophy of Kant, and until the Kantian

philosophy was reached the interest awakened by Philosophy was general;

it was accessible, and men were curious to know about it, it pertained to

the ordinary knowledge of a man of culture (_supra_, p. 218). Formerly

men of business, statesmen, occupied themselves with Philosophy; now,

however, with the intricate idealism of the philosophy of Kant, their

wings droop helpless to the ground. Hence it is with Kant that we first

begin to find a line of separation which parts us from the common modes

of consciousness; but the result, that the Absolute cannot be known, has

become one generally acknowledged. With Fichte the common consciousness

has still further separated itself from Philosophy, and it has utterly

departed from the speculative element therein present. For Fichte’s

ego is not merely the ego of the empiric consciousness, since general

determinations of thought such as do not fall within the ordinary

consciousness have likewise to be known and brought to consciousness;

in this way since Fichte’s time few men have occupied themselves with

speculation. Fichte, it is true, in his later works especially, wrote

with a view to meeting the popular ear as we may see in the “Attempt to

force the reader into comprehension,” but this end was not accomplished.

The public was through the philosophy of Kant and Jacobi strengthened in

its opinion—one which it accepted _utiliter_—that the knowledge of God is

immediate, and that we know it from the beginning and without requiring

to study, and hence that Philosophy is quite superfluous.

2. FICHTE’S SYSTEM IN A RE-CONSTITUTED FORM.

The times called for life, for spirit. Now since mind has thus retreated

within self-consciousness, but within self-consciousness as a barren ego,

which merely gives itself a content or a realization through finitenesses

and individualities which in and for themselves are nothing, the next

stage is found in knowing this realization of self-consciousness in

itself, in knowing the content in itself as a content which, penetrated

throughout by spirit, is self-conscious and spiritual, or a spirit full

of content. In his later popular works Fichte thus set forth faith, love,

hope, religion, treating them without philosophic interest, and as for

a general public: it was a philosophy calculated to suit enlightened

Jews and Jewesses, councillors and Kotzebues. He places the matter in a

popular form: “It is not the finite ego that is, but the divine Idea is

the foundation of all Philosophy; everything that man does of himself

is null and void. All existence is living and active in itself, and

there is no other life than Being, and no other Being than God; God is

thus absolute Being and Life. The divine essence likewise comes forth,

revealing and manifesting itself—the world.”[405] This immediate unity

of the self-conscious ego and its content, or spirit, which merely

has an intuition of its self-conscious life and knows it as the truth

immediately, manifested itself subsequently in poetic and prophetic

tendencies, in vehement aspirations, in excrescences which grew out of

the Fichtian philosophy.

3. THE MORE IMPORTANT OF THE FOLLOWERS OF FICHTE.

On the one hand, in respect of the content which the ego reaches in

the philosophy of Fichte, the complete absence of spirituality, the

woodenness, and, to put it plainly, the utter foolishness therein

evidenced, strike us too forcibly to allow us to remain at his

standpoint; our philosophic perception likewise tells us of the

one-sidedness and deficiencies of the principle, as also of the

evident necessity that the content should prove to be what it is. But

on the other hand self-consciousness was therein posited as reality

or essence—not as a foreign, alien self-consciousness, but as ego—a

signification which all possess, and which finds an answer in the

actuality of all. The Fichtian standpoint of subjectivity has thus

retained its character of being unphilosophically worked out, and arrived

at its completion in forms pertaining to sensation which in part remained

within the Fichtian principle, while they were in part the effort—futile

though it was—to get beyond the subjectivity of the ego.

a. FRIEDRICH VON SCHLEGEL.