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NEW EXPOSITION

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*

THE SCIENCE OF KNOWLEDGE.

BY J. G. FICHTE.

TEANSLATED FROM THE GEEMAN

BY A. E. KROEGER.

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.0000114

Published in St. Louis, Mo., 1869.

PREFACE.

The work herewith submitted to the philosophical public is, as its
title expresses, a New Exposition of the Science of Knowledge, that
science, the original and first presentation whereof — published by
Fichte in 1794— was published in a translation* by me in this coun
try last year. Both works are the same in so far as the contents are
concerned, but differ materially in respect to the presentation of
those contents and to the terminology employed in the presentation.
Thus, for instance, in the present exposition the word Freedom is
always used in place of Ego, and Being in place of Non-Ego. Fichte,
during his lifetime, elaborated quite a number of such expositions — for
each course of lectures a different one — six whereof are printed in the
German edition of his Complete Works. I selected the first one of
17194 for the introduction of Fichte's Science of Knowledge to the Eng
lish-speaking public, partly because it is, in my judgment, the easiest
and most systematic elaboration of that science, and partly because 1
wished to publish the Science of Rightsf and the Science of Morals,
both of which works connect most happily with that first represen
tation.

I have selected the present exposition — written by Fichte in 1801,
but not published till long after his death, in 1845— for the second
edition in the English language of the Science of Knowledge, partly
because it really was Fichte's second exposition, and partly because
the most important points of that science are therein stated with great
clearness and eloquence. Moreover, it was written by Fichte with
especial view to publication, whereas all his other presentations of
the Science of Knowledge were written for lecture-purposes. Exter
nal circumstances, however, prevented that publication, and hence the
manuscript was left in a somewhat unfinished shape, a fact which will
explain the abruptness of transition at various points and the crude-
ness of several sentences. Finally, I chose this work because I had

* ^Science of Knowledge. Translated from the German of J. G. Fichte, by A. E.
Kroeger. Published!)^ J. B. Lippincott & Co.. Philadelphia, 1868.

f Published this year: Science_o£ltights. Translated from the German of J. G.
Fichte, by A. E. Kroeger. PublSieT¥y J. B. Lippincott & Co., Philadelphia
1869.

iv Preface.

previously translated for the Journal of Speculative Philosophy,*
wherein this work was first published, Fichte's First and Second Intro
ductions to his Science, as well as his Sun-clear Statement respecting
that Science, three works which connect with the present exposition
in a particularly happy manner.

As for the translation itself, it is an old work — indeed, my oldest
attempt at a translation of Fichte's Science. It was begun at New
York in 1860 and finished at St. Louis in 1861. Nevertheless, I be
lieve I may conscientiously sa3r, that it is a very accurate transla
tion ; therein differing materially from my translation of the first
representation of the Science of Knowledge. For whereas in the pres
ent work only the divisions and headings are my own, in that other
translation I both omitted and added to a large extent. I omitted all
those sentences and paragraphs which 1 considered out of place in a
book-presentation — though probably very much in place in a lecture-
presentation — of the Science of Knowledge ; and I added, for instance,
the whole of the second portion of the theoretical part, which in the
German edition is published as a separate work, but which really
belongs where 1 have placed it — additions and omissions which, in my
judgment, make my English version of the Science of Knowledge of
1794 much superior to the German original.

The few students whom this work may interest I would beg not to
be discouraged by any possible failure to comprehend it at its first,
second, or even third reading. To a mind educated in the method of
our modern schools and colleges, nothing is so difficult as to find sense
in Transcendental Philosophy ; just as to a transcendental philosopher
the most commonly accepted rules, doctrines, axioms, &c., appear ut
terly absurd and beyond comprehension. The Science of Knowledge
is not a book to read, but a work to study as you would study the sci
ence of the higher mathematics, page by page, and year after year.
Five or ten years may be needed to get full possession of it; but he
who has possession of it has possession of all sciences.

The Sonnet which precedes the Science of Knowledge has generally
been considered a very happy expression of the fundamental view of
that science.

I have allowed my Essay on Kant's System of Transcendental Ideal
ism to be published as an appendix because I thought it might lead
some students to compare Kant's System with Fichte's, and to study
Kant not merely in the Critic of Pure .Reason, but in those three
great works, which in their unity alone represent the system of that

great man.

A. E. KROEGER.

ST. Louis, October, 1869.

* Journal of Speculative Philosophy. Published by W. T. Harris, St. Louis, Mo.

S O ItTICTE T.

I.

What to my eye has given such wondrous power,

That all deformity has ceased to be;
That night appears as brightest sunlight hour,

Chaos as order, death as life to me?
What through the misty clouds of time and space

Leads me unerring to the eternal flow
Of beauty, truth and goodness and of grace,

Wherein with self is lost all selfish woe?
'Tis this : since in Urania's eye, the still,

Self-luminous, blue, and transparent light,
My soul has looked, all thought of self being gone,

Since then this eye my inmost soul doth fill,
Is in my being — the perennial one —

Lives in my life, and seeth in my sight.

II.

God only is — and God is nought but life !

And yet thou knowest and I know with thee.
If such a thing as knowing then can be,

Must it not be a knowing of God's life ?
" Gladly to His iny life I would resign;

But oh ! how find it ? If 'tis ever brought
Into my knowing, it becomes a thought,

Clad with thought's garb like other thoughts of mine."
The obstacle, my friend, is very clear,

It is thy Self. Whate'er can die, .resign,
And God alone will hence breathe in thy breath.

Note well, what may survive this partial death,
Then- shall the hull to thee as hull appear,

And thou shalt see unveiled the life divine.

NEW EXPOSITION

THE SCIENCE OF KNOWLEDGE.

INTRODUCTION.

CONTENTS OF INTRODUCTION:

Part /.—DESCRIPTION OF THE SCIENCE OF KNOWLEDGE.
2 1. Preliminary Description of Knowledge by its Construction.
\ 2. Description of the Science of Knowledge as a knowledge of Knowledge.
§ 3. Deductions.

Part //.—ON ABSOLUTE KNOWLEDGE.

§ 1. Concerning the Conception of Absolute Knowledge.
\ 2. Formal and Word-Definition of Absolute Knowledge.

1 3. Real Definition of Absolute Knowledge : Description of the Absolute Sub

stance of Knowledge.

2 4. Same continued: Description of the Absolute Form of Knowledge.

2 5. Same concluded: Description of the Unity of Absolute Form and' Absolute
Substance in Knowledge.

Part ///. — ON

OF T

the

)N INTELLECTUAL CONTEMPLATION AND DEDUCTION
HE FIVEFOLDNESS IN THE FORM OF REFLECTION.

\ 1. Union of Freedom and Being in Absolute Knowledge through Thinking.
\ 2. Description of the Absolute Substance of Intellectual Contemplation as
For-itself of that Thinking.

\ 3. Description of the Absolute Form of Intellectual Contemplation as Ori final

Act of Absolute Reflection of that Thinking.
\ 4. The Absolute Ego as the Absolute Form of Knowledge.

Part I.

DESCRIPTION OF THE SCIENCE OF KNOWLEDGE.

§ 1. Preliminary Description of Knowledge ly Us Construc
tion.

This description is called preliminary, not because it will
exhaust the conception of knowledge, but merely because it
will enable us to point out those of its characteristics which
are necessary to be known for our present purpose. The

2 New Exposition of the Science of Knowledge.

question, therefore, which we might be interrupted with at the
beginning— of what knowledge are you speaking ? and what
meaning do you attach to this word?— is not hero in place.
We use the term, referred to, in no other sense than will be
explained directly, and mean no more by it than will appear
from the following :

Construct a certain angle ! we should say to the reader, if
we were conversing with him. Now close the angle, thus con
structed, with a third straight line. Do you presume that the
angle could have been closed with one or more other lines— that
is to say, longer or shorter ones, than the one you have drawn
to close it? If the reader replies, as we expect him to do, that
he presumes no such thing, we shall further ask him whether he
considers this to be merely his opinion, his temporary judg
ment on the matter, subject to a future rectification ; or whether
he believes himself to Jcnow it, to know it as quite sure and
certain. If he replies affirmatively to this question, as we also
expect him to do, we shall again ask him, whether it is his opin
ion that the case mentioned is applicable only to that particular
angle, which he happened to construct in that particular man
ner, and to those particular lines, forming the angle, which also
happened to be just such particular lines ; and whether other
possible angles, enclosed by other possible lines, might not be
formed so as to have their two sides united by more straight
lines than one ? We shall furthermore ask him, after he has an
swered the foregoing, whether he believes that this fact appeai-s
in this particular light only to him, individually, or whether lie
believes that all rational Beings, who but understand his words,
must necessarily partake of his conviction in the matter ; and
lastly, whether he simply pretends to have an opinion on
these matters, or whether he decidedly believes himself to
Jcnow them. If he replies, as we expect him to do— for if only
one of his answers should be contrary to our supposition, we
should at once be compelled to forego further discussion with
him until his state of mind had undergone a change ; why ?
he alone can understand who has answered these questions
c orrectly;— if he replies, that not one of all the infinite variety
of possible angles, formed by any of tiie infinite number of
possible lines, can be closed by more than one possible third
line— that every rational' Being must necessarily entertain the

New Exposition of the Science of Knoioledge. 3

same conviction, and that he is positive of the absolute valid
ity of this fact, both as regards the infinite variety of angles
and the infinite variety of rational Beings, we shall proceed
with him to the following reflections :

You affirm, then, to have acquired a Knowledge by the afore
mentioned representation, a firmness, and unshakable stability
of this representation, on which you can repose immutably,
and are sure that you can repose so forever. Now tell me, on
what is this knowledge really based? what is this its firm
standpoint, and what this its unchangeable object? To begin
with :

Our reader had just been constructing a certain angle, of a
certain number of degrees, by certain side lines of a certain
length. Thereupon he drew, once for all, the third line, and
in drawing it declared, once for all, that all further attempts
to draw another straight line between the two points would
always result only in reproducing the same one line.

In that instance of drawing a line, the reader must there
fore have abstained from viewing it as a present instance ; he
must have considered that it was not the present act of drawing
a line, but the drawing of a line under these particular condi
tions— i. e. for the purpose of closing this particular angle—
and in its infinite continuability, which he surveyed at one
glance ; and he must really have viewed it thus, if his asser
tion is to have any foundation. Again : the reader pretended
to know that this assertion of his did apply not only to the
present angle, which he had just constructed, but to all the
infinite number of possible angles. He must therefore have
reflected not on the drawing of a line to close this angle, but
generally on the drawing of a line to close any angle, and he
must have surveyed this act of his, in its possible and infinite
variety, at one glance, if the assertion of his knowledge in this
matter is to have any foundation. Again : this assertion of
his was to be valid, not merely for him, but for all rational
Beings who could but understand his words. He could there
fore in nowise have reflected on himself, as such a particular
person, nor on his own individual judgment ; but he must have
surveyed the judgment of all rational Beings, looking out from
his soul into the souls of all rational Beings, if his assertion of
the pretended knowledge is to have any foundation. Lastly :

4 New Exposition of the Science of Knowledge.

the reader, having joined all these facts together in his mind,
asserts to know of them, thus confessing that he will not
change his judgment of them in all eternity, and making of
this, his momentary assertion, an assertion for all time to
come as well as for the whole past — if in the past he should
ever have had occasion to judge on this matter ; — he, therefore,
does not regard his judgment on this subject as one of the
present moment, but he surveys the judgment of himself and
of all other reasoning Beings on this subject for all time, i. e.
absolutely timeless, if the assertion of his pretended know
ledge is to have any foundation. In one word : the reader
claims for himself the power of surveying at one glance all
represented ion-^of course, of the object we have applied it to.
Now, nothing prevents us from leaving unnoticed the fact,
that in the quoted example it was the representation of a line
between two points, which was surveyed at one glance ; and
we are consequently justified in asserting the result of our
investigation to be contained in the following, merely formal,
sentence : To the reader, who has answered our several ques
tions, there is a knowledge ; and this knowledge consists in
the surveying at one glance a certain power of representing —
or, as we would rather say, Reason, but this word is to have no
other meaning here than it can necessarily have in this con
nection, — in its totality. Nothing, we say, can prevent us from
making this abstraction, provided we do not thereby intend
to extend the result of our investigation, but leave it entirely
undecided whether the one case we have quoted is the only
object of knowledge, or whether there are still other such
objects.

REMARKS. — Such an absolute gathering together and taking
in at one glance of a manifold of a representing (which
manifold will most probably turn out to be at the same time
always of an infinite character), as we have described in the
above construction of knowledge, is, in the following treatise,
and in the Science of Knowledge generally, termed contem
plation. In that construction, we have found that knowledge
has its basis and consists only in contemplation.
^To this uniting consciousness is opposed the consciousness
of the particular, which in the above illustration we found
exemplified in the present drawing of a line between the two

New Exposition of the Science of Knowledge. 5

points of an angle.; This consciousness we may call percep
tion or experience. It has appeared that in knowledge mere
perception must be abstracted from.*

§ 2. Description of the Science of Knowledge as a knowledge

of Knowledge.

The Science of Knowledge is, as the term shows, a science,
a theory of knowledge, which theory is doubtless based on a
knowledge of Knowledge, generates knowledge, or in one word,
is this knowledge. [This knowledge of Knowledge is first, as
the words indicate, a knowledge in itself, a taking in of the
manifold at one glancei

It is, again, a knowledge of Knowledge. In the same man
ner as the above described knowledge of the line-drawing be
tween two points is related to the infinitely varying possible
cases of such line-drawing, is the knowledge of Knowledge
related to any particular knowledge. Knowledge, therefore,
presents, the view of a manifold, which the knowledge of
Knowledge takes in and surveys at one glance.

Or, still more clear and distinct: In all knowledge of the
drawing of a line, the relation of the sides of a triangle, or
whatever other descriptions of knowledge there may be, this
knowledge, in its absolute identity as knowledge, would be
the real seat and centre of the knowledge of line-drawing,
relation of the sides of a triangle, &c. In it and its unity we
would know of everything, however different it otherwise
might be, only in the same manner ; but of knowledge, as
such, we should know nothing, precisely because we should
know not of knowledge, but of the line-drawing, &c., in ques
tion. There would be a knowledge, and it would know be
cause it would be; but it would know nothing of itself just
because it would merely be. But in the knowledge of Knowl
edge this knowledge itself would be surveyed as such at one
glance, and, therefore, as a unity in itself; just as the line-
drawing, &c., was regarded, in our knowledge of it, as a unity

* It is therefore an evidence of boundless stupidity when some one asks to tell
him how we can know anything except through perception (experience). Through
experience we can know nothing at vall, since the merely experienced must be
thrown aside first in order that we may arrive at a knowledge.

6 New Exposition of the Science of Knowledge.

in itself. In the knowledge of Knowledge, knowledge steps
out of itself, and places itself before its own eye, in order to
"be reflected upon.

It is evident that knowledge must be able thus to s<g|je,
contemplate, examine, and comprehend itself, if a Science of
Knowledge is to"T5e possible. Now it is true, that we might
even here from the reality of the consciousness of men deduce
a proof, although an indirect one, of the reality and conse
quently of the possibility of such a knowledge. But the direct
proof of it is the reality of the Science of Knowledge, and of
this every one can become convinced by realizing it within
himself. Relying on this proof by fact, which our present
attempt will furnish, we can abstain from all other preliminary
proofs, especially as we have commenced this factical proof
already by the mere writing down of our § I.

§ 3. Deductions.

1. According to the above, all knowledge is contemplation
(§ 2). Knowledge of Knowledge, therefore, being itself know
ledge, is contemplation; and being a knowledge of Knowledge,
is a contemplation of all contemplation— the absolute uniting
of all possible contemplation into one.

2. The Science of Knowledge being this knowledge of Know
ledge, is therefore no system or collection of axioms, no plu
rality of truisms, but altogether one undivided contemplation.

3. Contemplation is itself absolute knowledge— firmness,
unwavering stability, and immutability of our representation ;
but the Science of Knowledge is an undivided survey of all
such contemplation. It is therefore itself absolute knowledge,
and, as such, firjnness, unshakableness, immutability of our
judgment (§ 1). Consequently, whatever appertains to the
Science of Knowledge cannot be disproved by any reasoning
Being ; it cannot be contradicted, it cannot be doubted ; since
no disproving, no contradiction, no doubt is possible except
through this science, and is therefore far below this science. So
far as individuals are concerned, this science can meet only
one difficulty : some men may not possess it.

4. Since the Science of Knowledge is only the contemplation
of knowledge (a knowledge of line-drawing, &c.)— which latter

New Exposition of tlie Science of Knowledge. 7

has been and must be presupposed to exist independently of
such science — it is evident that this science can open no new
and particular branch of knowledge made possible only by it,
no material knowledge (no knowledge of something). This
science can be nothing but the universal knowledge, which
has come to know of itself, and has entered a state of light,
consciousness and independence in regard to itself. This sci
ence is not an object of knowledge, but simply a for7H of the
knowledge of all possible objects. This science must on no
account be considered as an external object, but as our own
tool ; our hand, our foot, our eye ; and not even our eye, but
only the clearness of the eye. The teacher makes it objective
merely to the student, who does not yet possess it, and only
until he possesses it ; for the student's sake only is it explained
by words ; whereas whoever does possess it, speaks no more
of it, but lives and acts it in his other knowledge. Strictly
speaking, no one lias this science, but is it ; and no one has it
until he has become it.

5. The Science of Knowledge is, as we have said, a contem
plation of that general knowledge which needs not to be first
acquired, but which' must be presupposed to exist in every
Being, gifted with reason, and which, in fact, constitutes
such rational BeingJ This science is, therefore, the easiest
and plainest that possibly can be. To attain it, nothing
further is necessary than to turn our reflection upon our self,
and to cast a clear glance into our inner Being. The fact that
mankind has gone astray in search of this knowledge for so
many centuries, and that the present age, to which it has been
submitted, has not understood it, proves only that men have
heretofore paid more attention to everything else than to their
own self.

G. Now, although the Science of Knowledge is not a system
of axioms, but an undivided contemplation, it may neverthe
less be possible that the unity of this contemplation is not in
itself an absolute simplicity, a first element, atom, monad, or
whatever else 3^011 may call this first thought (perhaps because
such a thing does not exist in knowledge or anywhere else) ;
but an organic unity, a variety melted together into unity,
and this unity diffused at the same time into variety and an
undivided unity. In fact, this appears to be the case when we

8 New Exposition of tlie Science of Knowledge.

remember merely that this contemplation is to Ibe a contem
plation of all the manifold contemplations, of which latter
each one is again to contain an infinite variety of instances.

7. Now, if this should turn out to be the case, it might be pos
sible, also, that we should be unable — not in our presupposed
possession of this science, but in its demonstration to others,
who are presumed not to possess it — to present this unity to
the student in a direct manner. We might see ourselves com
pelled to cause this unity to organize itself from out of one or
the other of the various instances, and then to disorganize it
again into these, making the student a witness of this process.
It is clear that, under such circumstances, the one instance
selected from which to start the organization could not be
understood by itself, since by itself it would be nothing; being
something only as a part of an organized unity and compre
hensible only in this unity. In this manner we could, there
fore, never gain admittance into the Science of Knowledge ; or
if it were possible, and if such an isolated instance could be
made clear to the student, it could be done only if the contem
plation of this isolated instance should turn out to be accom
panied — although in an indistinct and to us unconscious
manner — by the contemplation of the whole unity; the iso
lated instance having its resting-point in this unity, and
receiving from it its distinctness and comprehensibility, while
at the same time imparting to this unity a peculiar distinctness
of its own, when connected with it. Thus it would also be
with all subsequent instances, to be taken into consideration.
Still more : the first instance would not only throw a peculiar
light on the second instance, but at the same time the second
instance would reflect back a peculiar light on the first one ;
since this receives its complete distinctness from the Whole,
of which the second instance is a part. In the same way the
third instance would not only be illuminated by the first one,
but would reflect back upon both preceding ones its own
peculiar light ; and thus on to the end. In the course of our
investigation, each part would consequently be explained by
all others, and all others by each particular instance. All
investigated parts would have to be kept in mind, since with
each step forwards we should get a new view not merely of
the new instance, but of all others and/rom all others ; and no

New Exposition of the Science of Knowledge. 9

instance would be completely explained until all the others
had been explained, and until the one clear view, by which
all the variety is united into one and the one re-diffused
into the variety, had been obtained. The Science of Know
ledge would consequently— in spite of the successive demon
stration adopted by us— remain the same one and undivided
view, which— from the zero of distinctness in which it merely
exists, but is unconscious of itself— is elevated in a successive
and straightforward manner to that point of clearness and
perspicuousness in which it is thoroughly conscious of itself
and lives in itself; thus confirming anew what has already
been seen, that the Science of Knowledge does not consist
in an acquisition or a production of something new, but in
illuminating and making perspicuous that which always has
been and always has been ourselves.

We might add historically, that the method of the Science
of Knowledge is really as we have here presumed it to be, and
that it is consequently fixed for all time to come. This science
is not a drawing of conclusions in a simple, straight line, from
some starting-point or other— a proceeding which is possible
only in a presupposed lower organism of knowledge, but of
no use whatever in Philosophy (being, on the contrary, posi
tively ruinous to it),— but a drawing of conclusions from and
to all sides at one and the same time ; from a central point to
all other points and from all other points back again to the
central point, just as in an organic body.

Part II.

ON ABSOLUTE KNOWLEDGE.

§ 1. Concerning the conception of Absolute Knowledge.
In order to pave a way for our investigation, let us first pre
mise that the very conception of Jmowledge precludes all sus
picion of its being the Absolute itself. For every second word
added to the expression, the Absolute, destroys the conception
of absoluteness, as such, and makes that word a mere adjective
of the noun to which it becomes affixed. The Absolute is not
knowledge, nor is it Being, nor is it identity or indifference of
these two terms ; it is simply and only the Absolute. But as
we can never advance in the Science of Knowledge— and per-

10 New Exposition of tlie Science of Knowledge.

haps in all other possible knowledge — beyond knowledge, this
science cannot take its starting-point from the Absolute, but
must commence with absolute knowledge. The question,
how, under these circumstances, we are nevertheless able to
assign to the Absolute its place beyond and independent of
absolute knowledge— or, at least, to tliinlc it thus— as we have
just now done, and how we could describe it, as we did, will
undoubtedly be answered in the course of our investigation.
It is possible that the Absolute enters our consciousness (is
thought by us) only in the above connection with knowledge
— or, as the form of knowledge.

The same question in regard to the possibility of thinking
the Absolute, which we have just raised, can undoubtedly be
objected to the thinking of absolute knowledge, i. e. if it
should appear that all our real and possible knowledge is
never an absolute, but, on the contrary, always a relative know
ledge, limited or determined in a particular manner, and
might be answered similarly : that this absolute knowledge
can be revealed and is revealed to our consciousness only as
the form, or, from another point of view, as the material part,
or the object of real knowledge. This is the reason why we,
having the intention of describing this absolute knowledge,
and therefore undoubtedly persuaded that we know something
about it, must for the present leave the question undecided
how we ever came into possession of this our real knowledge
of absolute knowledge. Perhaps we also view it, although as
absolute, yet at the same time as never otherwise than in a
relation, i. e. in its relation to all relative knowledge. In the
description we are about to attempt, we can trust only to the
direct contemplation of the reader, and must be content with
asking him whether this description will call up in his mind
what to him appears and forces itself upon his conviction as
absolute knowledge. Or, if even this self-contemplation
should desert him, we must wait and see whether in our suc
ceeding paragraphs a light may not break upon his mind in
regard to this first point.

§ 2. Formal and Word-definition of Absolute Knowledge.

Even if we should be compelled to content ourselves with
the fact, which everyone will admit, that all our real know-

New Exposition of the Science of Knowledge. 11

ledge is a knowledge of something — tills something, and not
that or the other something — yet every one of our readers will
undoubtedly be able to understand, that there could be no
knowledge of something if there were no knowledge pure and
simple. So far as knowledge is a knowledge of something, it
is a different knowledge in every other something of which it
knows ; but so far as it is knowledge pure, it is the same in all
knowledge of something; and always altogether the same,
although this knowledge of something might be extended into
infinity, and consequently present an infinite difference. Now
it is this knowledge, as the one and the same in all particular
knowledge, to the thinking of which the reader is invited when
we speak of absolute knowledge.

Let us make this thought, which we wish the reader to form,
still more distinct by a few additional remarks : — It is not a
knowledge of something, nor is it a knowledge of nothing
(which would make it a knowledge of something, this some
thing being nothing) ; it is not even a knowledge of itself ; it-
is altogether no knowledge of; nor is it a knowledge (quantita
tive and in shape of a relation), but it is the knowledge (abso
lutely qualitative). It is no act, no fact, no something in know
ledge, but it is simply that knowledge in which alone all acts
and facts which can take place are contained. "What use we
can, nevertheless, make of this knowledge, the reader must
wait to see. It is not opposed to the something of which is
known, for in that case it would be the knowledge of some
thing, or this particular knowledge itself ; but it is opposed to
the "knowledge of something.

Some one, however, might say that this conception of know
ledge pure and simple is after all nothing but an abstraction
from all the particular of knowledge. To such an objection
we must, of course, admit that in the course of our actual con
sciousness we are elevated to a particular consciousness of the
absolute one and the same in all particular knowledge only
by a free depression and subjection (generally called abstrac
tion) of the particular character of a particular knowledge ;
although there may be another way by which to attain this
consciousness, and although this may be the very way we
intend to lead the reader. But what we protest against is, that
this abstraction be supposed to produce from a multitude of

12 New Exposition of tlie Science of Knowledge.

particulars what is contained in no single one of these particu
lars; and that such an objection should hold, that that char
acter of knowledge, which every particular knowledge is pre
supposed to have, is on no account to be presupposed for the
possibility of each single, particular knowledge, but enters
knowledge only after a number of instances of knowledge
have taken place, making then a knowledge what was pre
viously a particular knowledge, although it never was know
ledge.

§ 3. Real definition of Absolute Knowledge— Description of
tlie Absolute Substance of Knowledge.

The real definition of absolute knowledge can be given
only by demonstrating this knowledge through immediate
contemplation. The reader must not believe that we can arrive
at the nature of this absolute knowledge by drawing conclu
sions in a logical chain of reasoning; for, since this knowledge
is to be absolute, there can be no higher, no more absolute
point from which our logical chain of reasoning could start.
We can form a conception of absolute knowledge only by a
likewise absolute contemplation.

It is also apparent that such an absolute contemplation of
absolute knowledge, and consequently the real definition of
the latter, must be possible if a Science of Knowledge is to
be possible ; for the contemplation which forms the Science of
Knowledge is to survey at one glance all reason and know
ledge. The particular knowledge, however, cannot be sur
veyed at one glance, but requires particular glances, each one
differing from the other. Knowledge must, therefore, be con
templated from that point of view in which it is one and the
same knowledge, i. e. absolute knowledge.

In the description itself we shall assist the reader by the
following introduction. Let the reader endeavor to think the
Absolute itself, as such. Now, ive affirm that he can think it
only under these two conditions : 1st, as being wliat it is—
reposing within and upon itself, without change or alteration,
firm and complete of itself; 2d, as being what it is for no
other reason than because it is— of itself, by itself, without any
foreign influence ; for everything foreign must vanish when we
speak of the Absolute.

New Exposition of tlie Science of Knowledge. 13

(It is possible that this duplicity of conditions, wherewith
we designate the Absolute, being unable to designate it in any
other manner — a fact rather curious, considering that we are
speaking of the Absolute — may be in itself a result of our
mode of thinking, as a knowledge ; but this we must leave
undecided for the present.)

The first condition we can term absolute rest, Being, a state
of repose, &c.; the second, absolute change, or Freedom. Both
expressions are to signify no more than is contained in the
contemplation of the two characteristics of the Absolute, which
we have asked the reader to undertake.

Now, knowledge is to be absolute, one and always the same
knowledge, the unity of one and the highest contemplation, a
mere absolute Quality. The two characteristics of the Abso
lute, therefore, which we have distinguished from each other
above, must unite and become one in knowledge, so as to be
no longer distinguishable ; and this absolute union of both
must constitute the real nature of knowledge, or the absolute
knowledge.

I say, the melting together and close union of both into an
indivisible unity, by which each part resigns and loses alto
gether its distinguishing characteristic, and both together form
only one and an entirely new One, consequently their real union
and true organization forms absolute knowledge ; but on no
account their mere co-existence, concerning which nobody is
able to comprehend how they can co-exist with each other,
and which would form a mere formal and negative unity ; a
non-diversity, which could after all (God knows for what rea
sons) be only postulated, but could never be proved. You
must not understand it as if Being and Freedom entered into
any particular, consequently presupposed, knowledge, and
there uniting formed absolute knowledge by their union, thus
constituting another knowledge within the first one. But be
yond all knowledge, Freedom and Being unite, mix with each
other, and this union and identity of both into a new being
alone constitutes knowledge, as knowledge, as an absolute
Tale. Everything depends on understanding this properly,
and the neglect to so understand it has caused an infinity of
errors.

But it might be asked, how we, who undoubtedly are also

14 New Exposition of tlie Science of Knowledge.

gifted only with knowledge, can undertake seemingly to go
"beyond all knowledge and construct knowledge itself out of a
non-knowledge ; or, in other words, how the contemplation of
the absolute knowledge, to which we have invited the reader
in our demonstration, and which can also be surely only a
knowledge, is at all possible — a possibility, however, which
we have shown above to be the condition of the possibility of
the Science of Knowledge ; — and again, how we could under
take to describe this contemplation, or this knowledge, as a
non-knowledge, as we have done. The answer to these ques
tions will be found as we proceed. This continual referring
to our further progress arises from the peculiar method of the
Science of Knowledge, as demonstrated before. A clearness
is wanting, which can be found only in a second link of our
argument.

It must be considered, however, that the absolute knowledge
has here been described simply so far as its substance is con
cerned, feeing and Freedom, we have said, unite together ;
they, therefore, are the active, if we can speak of anything
active in this connection ; and are active for the very reason
that they are not yet knowledge, but simply Being and Free
dom. But as they unite and give up their separate existence
in order to form a unity, a knowledge, they are mutually con
nected with each other ; for only thus do they form know
ledge ; separately they are merely Being and Freedom, and
rest now in a state of repose.J\ This is what we term the sub
stance of the absolute knowledge, or the absolute substance
of knowledge. It is possible that this absolute substance
holds the same relation towards the absolute form of the same
knowledge which Being holds to Freedom in the absolute sub
stance itself.

§ 4- Real Definition of Absolute Knowledge continued —
Description of the Absolute form of Knowledge.

Not the inactive Being is knowledge, we said above, neither
is it Freedom, but the absolute union and fusion of both into
one is knowledge.

Hence it is this union, regardless of what it is, that thus
unites, wnich constitutes the absolute form of knowledge.
Knowledge is a For-itself-and-in-itself Being, an inner life and

New Exposition of the Science of Knowledge. 15

organic acting power. This its being what it is for its self is
the light of life and the source of all appearances in the light ;
it is the substantial inner sight, as such.(^We do not wish you
to believe, that in knowing an object you draw a distinction
between your consciousness (o/this object) as the subjective,
and the object itself as the objective; but we wish you to
understand fully and be convinced in your innermost soul
that both of these are One and a mutual Uniting, and that
only after and by reason of this Uniting you are enabled to
draw a distinction between bothT] You must be convinced
that you do not tie both together, after their dissolution, by a
string, which you know not where to get, but that both are and
must be organically melted together and united before you
can_ divide them.

Or, think again the Absolute as it has been described above.
It is simply what it is, and is this simply because it is. But
this definition still leaves the Absolute without the power of
looking upon itself; and if you demand, for whom it is— a
question which will occur to you very naturally, and which
you will understand immediately when put by another per
son—you will vainly search for an eye to look upon the Abso
lute outside of the Absolute. But even should we grant you
this eye, which we cannot do, you would never be able to
explain the connection between it and the Absolute, however
loudly you might assert such connection. This eye (this being
what it is for its own self) is not outside of the Absolute but
within the Absolute, and is ,the inner life, the organic self-
penetration (-comprehension) of the Absolute itself.

Science has given to this absolute within itself moving life,
and being what it is for itself, the only appropriate name !
which seemed to express the idea : Egoliood. But if the inner
eye of any one of our readers is not gifted with the freedom
to look away from all outside objects and fix itself wholly
upon his self, all explanations and proper expressions will be
of no avail in making us understood. Such a reader will mis
interpret every new word we might add. He is blind and will
remain so.

If, as appears from the above, this l>eincj-for-itself consti
tutes the real inner nature of knowledge, as knowledge (as an
inner life of light, and inner sight), the nature of knowledge

16 New Exposition of .the Science of Knowledge.

must necessarily consist in a form (a form of Being and Free
dom, i. e. of their absolute uniting), and all knowledge must
consequently "be formal in its real nature. And that which
we have termed in the preceding section the absolute sub
stance of knowledge — and which will perhaps remain alto
gether the absolute substance, as substance — appears to us
here, where we have given to knowledge its independent exist
ence, as &form, i. e. a form of knowledge.

§ 5. Union of tlie Absolute Form and tlie Absolute Substance

in Knowledge.

A. Knowledge is absolute ; it is wliat it is, and because it is.
For it is only by the uniting and melting together of separ
ates — whatever these separates may be — but on no account
by the separates in their separateness that knowledge arises.
Being knowledge, it, of course, cannot transcend its own
sphere, for, if it did, it would cease to be knowledge ; nothing
can exist for knowledge but itself. It is, therefore, absolute
for itself, and comprehends itself, and begins as real formal
knowledge (a condition of light and inner sight) only in so far
as it is absolute.

But we have said that as knowledge it is simply the melt
ing together of separates into a unity; and — let it be well
remarked — this unity is within itself and according to its
nature — whatever other unities may be — a melting together of
separates, and no other act of unity.

Now, all knowledge begins with this thus characterized uni
ty, which constitutes, in fact, the absoluteness of knowledge,
and can never transcend it, or throw it aside, without destroy
ing itself. This unity extends, therefore, as far as knowledge
extends, and knowledge can never arrive at any other unity
than a unity of separates.

In other words, we have here deduced the assertion of § 1,
that all knowledge is the gathering together and reviewing at
one glance of a manifold; and we, moreover, have shown
the infinity of this manifoldness, the infinite divisibility of all
knowledge, about which we could learn nothing from the mere
fact developed in § l,but had to arrive at through a deduction
of the absolute ; and this infinite divisibility is deduced from
the absolute character of knowledge, which is formal.

New Exposition of the Science of Knowledge. 17

Whatever your knowledge may grasp is unity : for know
ledge exists and contemplates itself only in unity. But when
you now again endeavor to grasp (comprehend) this know
ledge, the uni^ty of it will at once dissolve itself into separates ;
and the moment you try to seize one of these separates— of
course, as a unity, since no other way is possible— this one
separate part will likewise dissolve into a manifold, and so
on, until you cease to divide. When you do cease, you have
a unity which is a unity only because you pay no further
attention to it. Now keep in mind that this infinite divisibil
ity is within yourself, owing to the absolute form of your
knowledge, which you cannot transcend, and which you con
template—though without a clear consciousness of this fact—
whenever you speak of infinite divisibility. \JLet it, then, nev
ermore be said by you that this infinite divisibility might have
its cause in a thing per se, an object of your senses— which, if
it were true, would only be confessing that you found it impos
sible to discover its cause— since this cause has been pointed
out to you as existing in your own knowledge, the only possi
ble source thereof, where you can find it whenever you turn
your eye with a clear and earnest glance upon your inner self J
But it must be well remembered that knowledge does on no
account consist in the Uniting, or in the Dividing, each by it
self, but in the union of both, in their melting together and
real identity ; for there is no unity without separates, nor are
there separates without a unity. Knowledge can never take
its start from the consciousness of first elements, which you
might possibly put together to a unity ; for all your know
ledge cannot arrive in all eternity to a consciousness of first
elements ; nor can it start from a unity, which you might per
haps divide into parts to suit your fancy, conscious that you
could pursue your dividing into infinity ; for you have no
other unity than a unity of separates. Knowledge, therefore,
balances between loth, and is destroyed if it does not balance
between both. ^ The character of knowledge is organic.

B. Knowledge is not the Absolute, but it is absolute as
knowledge. Now the Absolute, when regarded as in a state
of repose, is simply what it is. What knowledge is in this
regard, what its absolute essence, its unchanging substratum
is, we have seen in the preceding section. But the Absolute
2

18 New Exposition of the Science of Knowledge.

is, moreover, when regarded as in a state of progress or free
dom — and it must be considered thus in order to be considered
as the Absolute — what it is, simply 'because it is. The same
must hold good in regard to knowledge.

It is clear that knowledge, in so far as it is not mere know
ledge, but absolute knowledge, does not remain closed up
within itself, but rises above itself, looking down upon itself
from above. We shall not attempt at present to justify the
possibility of this new reflection, which is after all self evident,
since knowledge is an absolute For-ilself. The deduction of
this reflection, with all the consequences arising therefrom, we
shall leave to the future.

But it will perhaps be well to remarl>, in order to throw all
possible light on our subject, that this 'freedom of knowledge
to reflect upon its own nature was silently taken into our cal
culation in the preceding division, and alone made it possible
for us to demonstrate what we did. We said : "Knowledge is
a For-itself for-itself, and can, therefore, never go beyond the
unity of separates, and consequently can never go beyond the
separates." IN'ow there we had to presume, for the mere sake
of making ourselves understood, that knowledge was not con
fined within itself, but had the faculty of expanding itself into
the infinite.

But, furthermore, knowledge is as knowledge only for itself
and within itself : hence, it can be only for itself because it is :
and as knowledge it is because it is only in so far as it is this
for-itself (not for any foreign and outside object), but internal
ly for itself ; or, in other words, because it posits itself as being
because it is. Now this bei?ig because it is is not a character
istic derived from the absolute Being of knowledge (its state
of unchanging repose), like the Being described in the pre
ceding section, but is derived from the Freedom and from the
absolute Freedom of knowledge. Whatever, therefore, is un
derstood by and derived from the character of this absolute
Freedom does not result from the Being of knowledge ; this
Being might even be possible without it, if knowledge were
possible without it. This character, if it is, is simply because
it is ; and if it is not, simply because it is not ; it is the produc
tion of the absolute Freedom of knowledge, which is under no
law, rule or foreign influence, and is itself this absolute Free-

New Exposition of tlie Science of Knowledge. 19

dom. From this point of view the reader must consider what
we have just said; not*as if we had intended to deduce this
Freedom from something else— as we did in the case of the
Being of knowledge, which we composed out of the union of
the two predicates of the Absolute— but that we absolutely
posit it as the inner immanent absoluteness and Freedom of
knowledge itself. So much in regard to the formal part of
this character of Freedom in knowledge.

Now, as far as its substance is concerned : "A knowledge is
within and for itself because it is," means : an absolute act of
knowledge is taken— of knowledge, the For -itself -Being; con
sequently, an act of self-comprehension, or of the absolute
generation of the For-itself- Hood ;— and this act is regarded
as the ground (cause) of all Being in knowledge. Knowledge
is, simply, because it is, for me ; and it is not for me, if it is
not. An act it is, because it is Freedom; an act of Egoliood
of the For-itself, because it is Freedom of knowledge \ unity,
an altogether indivisible point of self-penetration in an indi
visible point, because here only the act as such is to be ex
pressed, and on no account a Being (of knowledge, of course)
which alone involves the manifold, but which here belongs to
the grounded and must therefore be carefully separated from
the ground. An inner living point, absolute stirring up of life
and light in itself and from out of itself.

Part III.

ON INTELLECTUAL CONTEMPLATION.

§ 1. Union of Freedom and Being in Absolute Knowledge

tlirougli Tliinldng.

A. We have considered absolute knowledge in regard to its
inner, immanent character— i. e. with abstraction "from the
Absolute itself— as absolute Being, and in regard to its inner,
immanent generation as absolute Freedom. But the Absolute
is neither the one nor the other, but both as a unity ; in know-
ledge, at least, does this duplicity mingle into a unity. But
even apart from this, the absoluteness of knowledge is not
absoluteness itself, as the term shows, but is the absoluteness
of knowledge ; existing therefore, since knowledge is for itself,
only for knowledge, which is not possible unless its duplicity

20 New Exposition of the Science of Knowledge.

melts together into a unity. There must consequently be
within knowledge itself, as sure as it is knowledge, a point
where the duplicity of its absolute character unites into unity.
This point of union we shall now turn our attention to, having
sufficiently described the separates.

At least one of the separates, which we have to unite with
the other in knowledge, is the inner Freedom of knowledge-
The higher point of union, which we are now to describe, is,
therefore, founded on absolute Freedom of knowledge itself,
presupposes it, and is possible only under such presupposi
tion. From this reason alone, therefore, is it already evident
that this point of union is itself a production of absolute
Freedom, and cannot be derived, but must be absolutely pos
ited ; it is, if it is, simply because it is ; and if it is not, simply
because it is not. So much in regard to its outward form.

Again : the presupposition in the absolute reflection of the
Freedom of knowledge, described in the preceding section, is,
that all knowledge emanates from it as its first source ; that,
consequently, since Freedom is unity, we must start from the
unity to arrive at a manifold. Only by this presupposition
of the self-reflection of freedom is the higher uniting reflection
(of which we speak now) made possible ; but with the first we
necessarily have the absolute possibility of the latter. Rest
ing directly upon and emanating from unity, this higher reflec
tion is therefore in its purest essence nothing but an inner
For-itself -existence of this unity, which is possible in know
ledge simply because it is possible, but possible only through
Freedom.

(This reposing in the unity and inner for-it self -life, which
has been shown to arise only from the exercise of the absolute
Freedom of knowledge, is what is usually termed thinking.
The moving in the manifoldness of the separates is, on the
contrary, a contemplation. This we mention merely to define
the meaning of these two words. But it must be remembered
that knowledge does repose neither in the unity nor in the
manifoldness, but within and between both ; for neither think
ing nor contemplation is knowledge, but both in their union
are knowledge.)

Again : This uniting reflection presupposes plainly a Being,
i. e. the Being of the separates, which are to be united ; and

New Exposition of the Science of Knowledge. 21

this Being the reflection holds and carries within itself, in so
far as it unites them ; each, of course, for itself as a unity, a
point, because the reflection emanates from thinking. In this
regard the reflection is, therefore, not a free knowledge, as
above, but a knowledge which carries its Being within itself ;
is, hence, in so far bound by the law of the Being of know
ledge, the law of contemplation : unable ever to arrive at any
other unity than a unity of separates. What the reflection
does is unity, represented by a point; what it does not, but
simply is, and carries within itself, by virtue of its nature,
without any co-operation of its own, is manifoldness ; and
the reflection itself is materialiter, in its inner essence — with
out regard to the two outer links connected by it — the union
of both. What, then, is this reflection ? As an act, unity in
knowledge, and for itself a point (a point in absolute empti
ness, wherein it seizes and penetrates itself) ; as Being, mani
foldness ; the whole, therefore, a point extended to infinite
separability, and yet remaining a point ; a separability con
centrated into a point, and yet remaining separability. Con
sequently a living and self-luminous form of line-drawing.
In a line, the point is everywhere, for the line has no breadth.
In a line, manifoldness is everywhere, for no part of the line
can be regarded as a point, but only as a line in itself, as an
infinite separability of points. I have said the form of line-
drawing, for there is no length as yet — this it gets only by
grasping and infinitely extending itself ;— nor is there even a
direction given, as we shall presently see ; it is the absolute
union of contradictory directions.

B. The uniting reflection is, in its true nature, the for-itself
existence of absolute knowledge, its inner life, and eyesight.
Let us consider this a little further.

Absolute knowledge is not Freedom alone, nor Being alone,
but both ; the uniting knowledge must consequently be based
on Being, but without detriment to its inner unity ; for it is a
self-comprehension (penetration) of knowledge; but know
ledge comprehends itself only in unity, and this unity, the
ground-form of the present uniting reflection, must be pre
served to it. Or let us represent the matter from another side
and in a more exhaustive manner. The present reflection is
the inner nature of knowledge itself, its self-penetration.

22 New Exposition of tlie Science of Knowledge.

Now knowledge is never the Absolute itself, but only the
melting together of the two attributes of the Absolute into
One. Knowledge is consequently absolute only for itself, and
in this absoluteness only secondary, but not primary. In this
One, simply as such, with total disregard of the infinite sepa
rability of contemplation, our present reflection rests and pen
etrates the same ; that is to say, penetrates the oneness and
goes beyond it to the attributes of the Absolute, which are
melted together in it. To say, therefore, this uniting know
ledge is based on, or reposes in. Being, means the same as, it
reposes in the Absolute. (This is, in reality, self-evident ; for
as this reflection is the for-itself existence of absolute know
ledge, the whole absoluteness of Jmowledge, described above,
must appear in it. It is consequently no longer a knowledge
imprisoned within itself, as we have heretofore described it,
but a knowledge seizing, encircling and penetrating its whole
self; from which fact we derive a slight glimpse of the possi
bility seemingly to go beyond all knowledge, as we did in a
previous paragraph. Our mode of doing so was founded on
the act of knowledge, whereby it penetrates its own nature,
and which we have here deduced. It is, of course, understood
that the two attributes of the Absolute are viewed as a unity.)
Now there are tAvo points of repose and turning-points in
this reflection, in Being or in the Absolute. Either this reflec
tion reposes on the character of absolute Freedom, which
becomes Freedom of knowledge only through further determ
ination, thus simply presupposing Freedom ; views only the
outward form, the act ; and in this respect the absolutely free
and, on that very account, empty basis of knowledge appears
as comprehending and penetrating itself simply because it
does so without any higher reason, and the therefrom arising
Being or Absolute (of knowledge) is inner sight, a condition
of light. The whole standpoint of this view is simply form,
or Freedom of Knowledge, Egohood, Inwardness, Light.

Or it reposes on the character of absolute Being, thus simply
presupposing an existence, but making this an existence of
Ivnowledge in and for itself; views consequently the inward
character of this act of self-penetration, and is thereby
forced to subjoin a dormant faculty of such an -act to the act
itself, a Zero in relation to the act capable of being converted

New Exposition of the Science of Knowledge. 23

into a positive fact by simply an exercise of Freedom. The
fact tliat the act takes place, in regard to the mere form, is
to have its ground in Freedom, as heretofore ; but the possi
bility that the act can take place is to have its ground in a
Being, and in a Determined feing. Knowledge is not to be,
as formerly, absolutely empty and to create light only through
an exercise of Freedom, but it is to have the light absolutely
within itself, and only to develop and seize it through Freedom.
The standpoint of this view of the matter is absolute repose.

Let us now turn our attention to the inner essence of the
reflection, as such. It is a for-itself existence of knowledge—
which is itself a for-itself existence ; — and through this view
of the subject, which we have always kept in mind, we gain a
double knowledge, one, for which the other is (in the contem
plation the upper, or subjective), and one, which is for the
other (in the contemplation the lower, or objective). Now,
neither the one nor the other, nor consequently both, would
be knowledge if both together did not unite, and thus form
only one knowledge. Let us now view this organic uniting of
the reflecting and the reflected in knowledge both in a general
way, and especially as it is connected with our present inves

tigation.

1. That which, in uniting, forms knowledge is always Free
dom and Being. Now in the reflection, spoken of above, the
upper, subjective, with its actual result within knowledge, is
a uniting, consequently an act or Freedom of knowledge, which
can change into a knowledge only by uniting with a Being of
knowledge, closely connected with it. (The line which is to
be drawn can occur as line in a knowledge only when drawn
within a something itself fixed and unchanging.)

2. Whatever is in the immediate neighborhood of and con
nected with this act of uniting, is, according to the above, the
standpoint of the uniting reflection, in the unity of the point,
which standpoint may be a twofold one. In it knowledge ap
pears as an unchangeable Being, a Being simply what it is ;
consequently, a remaining in the standpoint, on which it hap
pens to rest, without faltering or changing, but on no account
a balancing between both standpoints.

Now this uniting reflection, or thinking, must repose either in
the first described standpoint of absolute Freedom ;— and then

24 New Exposition of tlie Science of Knowledge.

the line is drawn from this standpoint to that of Being ; know
ledge is regarded as simply its own cause, and all Being of
knowledge and all Being for knowledge, i. e. as it appears in
knowledge, as having its absolute ground in Freedom. (The
material contents of the described line would be illumination^
The expression of this view of the matter would be : there is
simply no Being (of course, for knowledge, since this view is
based on the standpoint of knowledge) except through know
ledge itself. (Nothing is to which Being is not given by
knowledge.) We will call this line the ideal.

Or the reflection reposes on the last described standpoint of
the unchanging, the permanent ; — and then it describes its line
from the point of absolute Being and condition of light to the
development of the same through absolute Freedom (and the
material of the line would be .enliglitenment). We will call
this line the real.

But upon one of these standpoints the reflection would
necessarily repose; and when reposing upon the one, not
upon the other ; and one of the two directions the line would
necessarily receive, and then not the other.

REMARKS. — I. A knowledge which, through its connection
with its branch-knowledge, is posited as being simply what it
is, is a knowledge of Quality.

Such a knowledge is necessarily a Tlrinlting, for only think
ing reposes upon itself by virtue of its form of unity ; contem
plation, on the contrary, never arrives at a unity which cannot
again be dissolved into separates.

The knowledge of quality, of which we have spoken liere, is
the absolute /br-itself-existence of absolute knowledge itself.
Beyond and outside of this no knowledge can penetrate.
Now, qualities are only in knowledge ; for the quality itself
can be flxed, determined, only by knowledge. The two qual
ities here deduced, Being and Freedom, are consequently the
"highest and absolute qualities. This shows how we came to
find them above as the not-to-be-united and no-further-to-be-
.analyzed qualities of tlie Absolute. The Absolute is probably
nothing else than the union of the two first- qualities in the
formal unity of thought.

II. Let us consider the following sentences, which can be
proved by the immediate contemplation of every one :

New Exposition of the Science of Knowledge. 25

1. No absolute, immediate knowledge, except of Freedom ;
or immediate knowledge can know only of Freedom. For
knowledge is unity of separates or opposites : but separates
are united into unity only by absolute Freedom (a point which
we have proved above, but which everybody can moreover
convince himself of by immediate contemplation). Only Free
dom is the first, immediate object of a knowledge. (In other
words, knowledge starts only from self-consciousness.)

2. No immediate, absolute Freedom, except in and through
a knowledge. Immediate, I say ; a Freedom which is what it
is, simply because it is; or negatively, which has no other
ground of its determined character than itself (no such other
ground, for instance, as natural instinct would be). For only
such a Freedom can unite absolute opposites : but opposites
are united only in a knowledge. (In Being or Determinedness
of quality opposites exclude each other.)

3. Knowledge and Freedom are consequently inseparably
united. Although we draw a distinction between them — how,
why, and in what regard we can do this will appear in due
course of time — they are in reality not to be distinguished at
all, but are simply one and the same. A free and infinite life
—a For-itself, which sees its own infinity — the Being and the
Freedom of this light, melted together in the closest union :
this is absolute knowledge. The free light, which sees itself as
Being ; the Being, which sees itself as free : this is the stand
point of absolute knowledge. These propositions are decisive
for all transcendental philosophy.

4. If this has been understood, the question will arise, how
and from what standpoint has it been understood ? From
what higher truth can it be demonstrated ? Everyone who has
understood the foregoing will reply: I understand and see
that the nature of knowledge must be thus simply because I
so understand it ; this conviction expresses my original Being.

In the above we have consequently created an immediate
contemplation of absolute knowledge within us ; and in the
present moment, wherein we become conscious of this fact, we
have again created a contemplation (for-itself-existence) of
this contemplation. The latter is the point of union important
to us here.

26 New Exposition of the Science of Knowledge.

§ 2. Description of the Absolute Substance of Intellectual
Contemplation as the For-itself. of that Thinking.

We now return to the first contemplation, as tlie object of
ours. In that contemplation, a lower contemplation (view) of
knowledge and a Being of this knowledge were united. To
begin with the former :

1. No immediate knowledge except of Freedom. Here the
inner form of knowledge was presupposed, and from this form
a conclusion was drawn as to its possible exterior, its object.
The point of view was in this form, and this form placed itself
before itself as Freedom.

2. No absolute Freedom except in a knowledge. Here the
form of Freedom was presupposed ; in it the contemplation
rested and viewed itself as of necessity a knowledge.

In the first instance we had an absolute for-and-in -itself
Being of knowledge, as real unity, dividing itself into an outer
absolute multiplicity, founded on Freedom. Its reflex (For-
itself existence) lies in the centre.

At present we have an immediate self-grasping of the out
ward unity (through Freedom) in the multiplicity and melting-
together of the same to the inner and real unity of knowledge.
The uniting reflex is here also in the centre. (Inner and out
ward unity we use here merely as temporary expressions to
make ourselves better understood until we can explain them.)

Now both is to be simply one and the same : absolute Free
dom is to be knowledge, and absolute knowledge Freedom.
Both are not mewed (contemplated) as One — as we have seen?
since we always have to proceed from one of the two points of
view to the other ; — but they are to be one. The middle and
turning point, which we characterized above as the reflex of
the absolute knowledge, is this one Being / and thus it also
appears how the two possible descriptions thereof are always
merely descriptions of the same Being of absolute knowledge.
Unity of this Being and its two descriptions is consequently
the lower contemplation.

Let us now approach the real end of our investigation, and
make this contemplation again its own object; that is to say,
not, let us make an object again of this object-making; but
rather, let us ourselves be in the following this very contem-

New Exposition of the Science of Knowledge. 27

plation, which, as it is the contemplation of the absolute intel-
lectualizing, may well be called intellectual contemplation.

We are it in the following manner :— In the above described
contemplation, absolute knowledge evidently seizes (grasps)
itself, in its absolute spirit, in an absolute manner. 1. It lias
itself from itself, in its absolute nature, in the unity : it is, pre
cisely because it is knowledge, in its existence at the same
time for itself . 2. It grasps, contemplates and describes itself
in this contemplation in the above mentioned manner, as unity
of Freedom and of knowledge, which latter is here viewed in a
somewhat different manner, and no longer as absolutely being.

But for the very purpose of describing itself, it is necessary
that it should possess itself as knowledge (as realized know
ledge). Now, what sort of knowledge is this latter? We have
sufficiently described it: a firm, in- itself reposing, in and
through itself determined (presupposing, in relation to its form,
no Freedom, but itself presupposed by absolute Freedom)
thought (act of life, of thinking) of the before-mentioned abso
lute identity of Freedom and Knowledge (the last expression
used in its former and broader sense, as the pure form of the
for-itself). This living thought is it which views itself in the
intellectual contemplation, not as thought, but as knowledge ;
because the absolute form of knowledge (the for-itself exist
ence, absolute possibility, to be in every Being at the same
time the reflex thereof) which lies within it, realizes itself (in
making this reflection) because it can so realize itself by vir
tue of the absolute formal Freedom of knowledge. Thus the
thought views itself in this contemplation in an absolute
(absolutely free) manner, according to its absolute Essence.
This is sufficient so far as the substance of the intellectual
contemplation is concerned. Now in regard to its form, where
by we in a certain manner keep it no longer within us, but
make it an object of our reflection.

§ 3. Description of tlie Absolute Form of Intellectual Con
templation as Original Act of Reflection.

The thought, or knowledge, takes hold of itself with abso
lute Freedom. This presupposes a previous tearing itself away
on the part of the thought from itself, in order to take hold of

28 New Exposition of the Science of Knowledge.

itself again, and make itself its own object; presupposes an
emptiness of absolute Freedom, in order to be for itself. Free
dom creates itself, and precisely this gives us a duplic'ity of
Freedom, which must be presupposed, however, for the act of
intellectual contemplation (and generally for every reflection,
in its infinite, ever higher rising possibility), and which conse
quently belongs to the original nature of knowledge. It is this
not-being of absolute Freedom, in order to be, and to enter
Being, which we here direct attention to. In the lower (objec-
tivated) knowledge, Freedom is and Being is. Here both is
not, but is in progress of 'being.

In this act knowledge stands revealed to itself : 1st, as Free
dom ^ whereby it describes Being ; and 2d, as Being ^ which is
described. In this act both is for itself, and without the act
neither would be ; all would be blindness and death. Through
this act Freedom actually becomes Freedom, which is at once
apparent; and Thought becomes Thought, which is to be
remembered. This act brings visibility and light into both ;
creates it within them. It is the absolute reflection : and
the nature of this reflection is an ACT. (This is of infinite
importance.)

Wo reflection, therefore, as an act, without absolute Being of
knowledge ; again, no Being (state of repose) of knowledge
without reflection ; for else it would be no knowledge, and
would contain neither Freedom (wJiicli is only in an act, and
receives its Being only through this act) nor Being of know
ledge, which is only for-itself.

Thus both standpoints are united in this contemplation.
Whether you deduce Being from Freedom, or Freedom from
Being, the deduction is always the same from the same, only
viewed in a different manner ; for Freedom or Knowledge is
Being itself, and Being is Knowledge itself, and there is posi
tively no other Being. Both views are inseparably connected,
and should they nevertheless be separated — the possibility of
which we can as yet only partially comprehend — they will be
only different views of one and the same.

This is the true spirit of transcendental Idealism, All Being
is Knowledge, The foundation of the universe is not anti-
spirit , un-spirit, the relation and connection of which with
spirit we should never be able to understand, but is itself spi-

New Exposition of the Science of Knowledge. 29

rit. No death, no lifeless matter ; but everywhere life, spirit,
intelligence : a spiritual empire, absolutely nothing else.

On the other hand, all knowledge, if it be a knowledge — how
error and delusions are possible, not as substantes of know
ledge, for that is impossible, but as accidentes thereof, we shall
see in time, — is Being (posits absolute reality and objectivity).

Now to the whole of this absolute reflection there is presup
posed a Being of Thought as well as of (in this place station
ary and existing) Freedom ; and here, also, the one is not
without the other. At the same time there is in the lower
knowledge likewise, as has heen shown, Freedom and Being
(i. e. possibility of reflection, and the pure, absolute Thought),
and either is also not without the other, as above. Finally,
the two connections of the same, the upper and the lower, are
not without each other ; and we thus arrive, when conscious
ness begins, at an inseparable Fivefold, as a perfect synthe
sis. In the centre of it, i. e. in the act of reflecting, the intel
lectual contemplation has its place, and connects both, and in
both the branch-members of both.

§ 4- The Absolute Ego as Absolute Form of Knowledge.

The intellectual contemplation stands in the centre and
unites : what does this mean ? Evidently, the (lower) Being is
at the same time in and for itself, and illuminates and pene
trates itself in this for-itself-existence. The contemplation,
the free For-itself, is consequently essentially connected with
it ; and only both together are a knowledge ; and otherwise Be
ing would be blind. On the other hand, the (upper) contem
plation — the free For-itself — is received into the form of repose
and determinateness, and only in this union becomes a know
ledge ; for, in the other case, the Freedom of the For-itself
would be empty and void, and would dissolve into nothing
ness. Thus knowledge is partly illuminating its Being, partly
determining its For-itself (Light) : the absolute identity of
both is the intellectual contemplation, or the absolute form of
knowledge, the pure form of the Ego. The For is only in the
light ; but it is at the same time a for-itself — a Being placed
in the light before its own eye.

Here — which is very important — the intellectual contempla-

30 New Exposition of the Science of Knowledge.

tion dwells within itself ; it is inwardly a pure For, and noth
ing else. In order to illustrate this very abstract and in itself
incomprehensible thought through its opposite (because this
thought, as will soon be shown, is possible only with its oppo
site) : an object, as Ego (intelligence) is above, for which there
is a lower objective; but this latter is itself nothing but the
upper Ego (intelligence). In the upper the contemplation
reposes and is grounded ; in the lower, Being reposes and has
its ground : but both are connected in an Identity, so that, if
you do think a duplicity — and you cannot think otherwise—
you are forced to predicate of eacli the contemplation and the
Being. In other words, there are in reality not two members,
one upper and one lower, connected by a line, but the whole is
one self-penetrating point ; consequently, not only the being-
one of two members, and a knowledge outside of both (as, for
instance, the contemplation of an external object), but the
contemplation of their identity in the form of one Jmowledge.
This alone is real consciousness — a remark which it is neces
sary to make here not only for the sake of the pointedness
and clearness of our whole system, but which will turn up
again at a future period with a highly important consequence.

Until now we have mounted upwards, have left all the dif
ferent degrees of our reflection, by which we mounted, behind
us, and stand now on the highest point, in the absolute form
of knowledge, the pure For. This For-itself-existence is an
absolute For-itself, i. e. simply what and simply 'because it is,
not deriving its being from another object. Its contemplation
reposes, therefore, in itself for itself, which we have termed
the form of thinking. It is consequently, as an absolute form
of thinking, held within itself ; but it does not hold itself. It
is a stationary, closed, within-itself luminous eye. (There is,
as we have already shown in another way, an absolute, quali
tative, determined knowledge, which simply is, but is not
made ; and precedes all particular freedom of reflection, alone
making it possible.)

In this thus closed eye, in which nothing foreign can pene
trate, which cannot go beyond itself to something foreign, does
our system rest ; and this closedness (in-itself-completeness),
which is founded on the inner absoluteness of knowledge, is
the character of transcendental Idealism. Should it, neverthe-

New Exposition of the Science of Knowledge. 31

less, seem to go beyond itself— as we certainly have hinted—
it would have to go beyond itself by virtue of its own nature,
and this itself it would then posit as its self only in a peculiar
manner.

And now, since we have discovered the absolute form of
knowledge to be simply For-itself, the reflection of the teacher
of the Science of Knowledge, which heretofore was active and
produced something, which wa.s known only to Mm, withdraws
altogether. His reflection is henceforth only passive; and
vanishes, consequently, as something particular. Everything,
which is to be hereafter demonstrated, lies within the discov
ered intellectual contemplation, the root of which is the For-
itself of absolute Knowledge, and is but an analysis of the
same ; let it be understood, however, not in so far as it is
regarded as a simple Being or Thing, in which case there would
be nothing to analyze, but in so far as it is regarded as what
it is, as knowledge. This contemplation is our own resting-
point. Still, we do not analyze, but knowledge analyzes itself,
and can do so because it is in all its knowledge a For-itself.

From this moment, then, we stand and repose in the Science
of Knowledge— the object of the science, knowledge, having
been determined. Heretofore we sought only to gain admit
tance into the science.

PART FIRST.

Knowledge posits itself as a Power of Formal Freedom of
Quantitatiiig determined through an absolute Being.

PART FIRST.

Knowledge posits itself as a Poicer of formal Freedom of
Quantitating determined through an absolute Being!*1

CONTEXTS or PART FIRST.
§ 1. SYNTHESIS OF QUANTITY AND QUALITY IN KNOWLEDGE,

A.— Knowledge posits itself as primarily determined by its Being, and hence as
limited.

B.— But by positing itself Knowledge posits a free act of reflection as ground of its
being.

C.— Hence Knowledge must posit itself as both : an original determinedness of
Freedom, and a Freedom as the ground of its original determinedness; or, as a
formal Freedom of Quantitating.

§ 2. SYNTHESIS OF OBJECTIVITY AND SUBJECTIVITY, OR REALITY
AND IDEALITY, IN THE FORM OF KNOWLEDGE.

A.— Knowledge posits itself for itself, or thinks itself in factical knowledge as
necessarily such Power of formal Freedom, and hence as determined in its abso
lute character as a Knowledge of Quantitating: Objective condition of the Ego.

B.— But knowledge in positing itself for itself posits itself as free, and hence as de
pendent only upon its Freedom: Subjective act of the Ego.

€.— Both are one and the same: Knowledge is necessarily free if there is a know
ledge, but that there is Knowledge depends upon absolute Freedom; its think
ing itself free and its being free are one and the same ; the condition is not
without the act, nor the act without the condition.

§ 3. SYNTHESIS OF THINKING AND CONTEMPLATION, OR SUB
STANCE AND ACCIDENCE IN ACTUAL KNOWLEDGE.

A.— Knowledge posits itself for itself as a Self-originating, and hence posits a Xot-
Being of Itself, or an Absolute Pure Being (Check), as its origin and limit:
Thinking or Substance.
3

36 New Exposition of the Science of Knowledge.

B.— But Knowledge posits itself as a Self-originating1 for-itself, and hence origin
ates itself in this self-positing or preposits itself: Contemplation or Accidence.

C. — Both are one and the same: Contemplation, or the Freedom of undetermined
Quantitating, can be thought onljr us determined by the original Thinking of an
Absolute Being, and the thinking of an Absolute Being is determined by the
Contemplating of a Quantitating: neither is without the other.

D.— Results.

§ 1. SYNTHESIS OF QUANTITY AND QUALITY IN KNOWLEDGE.

A.— Knowledge posits itself as primarily determined by its Being, and hence as
limited.

Knowledge lias now been found, and stands "before us as a
closed eye, resting upon itself. It sees nothing outside of
itself, but it sees itself. This self-contemplation we have to
exhaust, and with it the system of all possible knowledge is
exhausted, and the Science of Knowledge realized and closed.

Firstly: this knowledge sees itself (in the intellectual con
templation) as absolute knowledge. This is the first conside
ration which we must make clear, for only by its means has
our investigation acquired a firm standpoint.

In so far as knowledge is absolute for itself, it reposes upon
itself, and is completed in its being and its self-contemplation.
This has been explained above. But the Absolute is at the
same time, because it is. In this respect, likewise, knowledge
must be absolute for itself, if it is to be an absolute knowledge
For-itself. This is its eye and standpoint in the intellectual
contemplation.

The absolute knowledge is for-itself because it is, signifies
therefore : the intellectual contemplation is for itself an abso
lute self-generation out of nothing ; a free self-grasping of light,
which thereby becomes a stationary glance and eye. ]Sro fact
of knowledge (no being or determinedness thereof) without
the absolute form of the For-itself, and consequently without
the possibility, freely to be reflected upon.

Bat absolute knowledge must be for itself w7iat it is. The just
described Because must melt together with the inner simple
What, and this melting together itself must be inwardly and
for itself. This can be very easily expressed in the following
exposition : Knowledge must be for itself simply icJiat it is for
thu immediate reason because it is. The determinedness of the
What has not its ground in the Because* but, on the con
trary, has its ground in the Being of knowledge ; the Because

New Exposition of tlie Science of Knowledge. 37

containing merely the naked fact as such, or the TJtat of
a knowledge, and of a knowledge of something. Or, Freedom
is here, also, purely formal ; demanding only, that a know
ledge, aFor-itself existence, be generated; and is not mate
rial, or, does not demand that sucJi a particular knowledge
"be generated. If knowledge did not find its nature to be
generative, it would not find itself at all, and would have no
existence, and of a What or a Quality of knowledge we should
find it impossible to speak. But finding itself generative, it
finds immediately, without generation, its What, and without
this What it does not find itself generative ; and this not in
consequence of its Freedom, but of its absolute Being. Having
thus discovered, at least, that we have to unite in knowledge
not simple points, but even syntheses, we now proceed to the
other links of our main synthesis.

The absolute What of Knowledge is here, as is well known,
also but a mere form, the form of thinking, or of the in-itself
confinedness of Knowledge. As this What, it is to find it
self independently of all Freedom, just as Freedom finds
itself. But all contemplation is Freedom — is, consequently,
absolutely because it is (absolute self-generation from nothing
ness, as above). If this Because were therefore to contemplate
itself, the What in its absolute character would be annihilated.
The form of this contemplation is annihilated by its sub
stance and vanishes in itself. It is indeed a knowledge, a
For-itself, which is, however, again simply not for itself' a
knowledge without self-consciousness; an altogether pure
Thinking, which vanishes as such the moment we become
conscious of it: an absolute knowledge of a What, without
the possibility to state whence it comes, which Whence would
be its genesis.

Here likewise there is a duplicity as there is everywhere : a
Being, and a free contemplation lifting itself above the Being.
But both links are not again united and melted together in the
present instance as they were in the previously deduced syn
thesis of Freedom and Being, when we found the For-itself
and the What, Contemplation and Thinking, to be melted
together in the absolute unity-point of consciousness. The
synthetical point of unity is here, therefore, not discoverable,
and is not possible; there is a hiatus in the knowledge. (Each.

38 New Exposition of the Science of Knowledge. -

one when asked whence lie knows that he does this or that,
replies : I know that I do such and such a thing 'because I do
it;— he presupposes, consequently, an immediate connection
between his doing and his knowledge, an inseparability of
"both — and since all absolute knowledge is a saltus — a continu
ity of knowledge over and beyond this saltus. But if you ask
some one : whence he knows, for instance, that everything
accidental must have the ground of its determinedness in
something else, he will reply : It is absolutely so; without pre
tending to give a reason for the connection of this his know
ledge with his other knowledge or doing. He confesses the

hiatus.)

But both (in their immediateness separate) links form only
in their unity absolute knowledge; and this absolute unity,
as such, must be for itself as surely as absolute knowledge is
for itself. But this unity — to explain the proposition by its
opposite — would be no absolute, but merely a factical unity
having its ground in Freedom, as such, if we were to express
it, for instance, in this manner: " While reflecting, my reflec
tion hit upon this"; so that it might equally as well have hit
upon something else ; or, " I found this while reflecting"; so
that it might possibly have been found also by some other
process. The proper expression, on the contrary, is : From
the What there results absolutely sucli a reflection (not the
reflection itself as a fact, for in that light it does not result at
all, and is simply a free act, as we have abundantly shown) ;
and from the reflection, after having been presupposed as a
fact, results sucli a What.

The immediate insight into this necessary consequence— for
that is what we mean by the For-itself of that unity as abso
lute unity — would thus be itself an absolute Thinking (an
absolute contemplation of the Being of knowledge), directed
upon the form of pure Thinking (as described above), as hav
ing already a for-itself existence, and upon the free reflection
as a fact, and contemplating both as being, and as being abso
lutely joined together.

In this thinking, or contemplation, the whole intellectual
contemplation, as we have described it above, as an absolute—
not Thinking or Contemplation, but real unity of both— would
be placed before its own eye as what it really is : a firm know-

New Exposition of the Science of Knowledge. 39

ledge, reposing upon the firm ground-form of knowledge alrea
dy deduced. The intellectual contemplation reflects itself;
and since this cannot be done accidentally, as if the intellect
ual contemplation could cease to do so and still be, the more
proper way to express is, not to say, it does it, but it is this re
flection of itself. Neither can it be said that the present reflec
tion throws its light on the previously described and (accord
ing to our propositions) within itself blind and in a separated
duplicity disunited contemplation ; for this reflection has no
light within itself except what is derived from the latter, in
which the For-itself of knowledge has originally realized
itself. It is, consequently, always one and the same point
of contemplation, absolutely illuminating itself from itself,
which we have been describing throughout the whole of our
investigation, although atfirst simply according to its outward
Being (when we took the light from ourselves), and only after
wards according to its inner light.

B.— But by positing itself knowledge posits a free act of reflection as ground of its
Being.

Knowledge is absolute for itself, reflects itself, and only
thus does it become a knowledge. Finally, having thus be
come knowledge— i. e. in our successive demonstration of the
subject— it is knowledge for itself, and reflects itself no longer
as Being, for as such it does not reflect itself at all, nor as a
For-itself Being, but as both in their absolute union ; and only
thus is it now absolute knowledge.

This reflection is absolutely necessary like the former one
(the original reflection, which constitutes knowledge), and is
simply a result of the former, of a For-itself-being of know
ledge, from which it is separated only by our Science.

The characteristic nature of this reflection is at once appa
rent from the fact, that, making knowledge, as such, its object,
composing and genetically describing it, itself must penetrate
beyond this knowledge, adding and adducing links, which,
although existing in the reflection— and hence for our Science
which makes this reflection a knowledge, also in knowledge-
have no existence whatever for knowledge itself, which we
have here made the object of our reflection, and which even
do not belong to absolute knowledge (for this is also em-

40 New Exposition of tlie Science of Knowledge.

braced by our present reflection). (Here the self-forgetting and
self-annihilating character of knowledge appears in a still
clearer light.) But how it is possible for us thus seemingly
to penetrate even beyond absolute knowledge, can appear
only at the close of our investigation, when our Science must
fully and completely explain its own possibility.

Let us immediately enter the innermost synthetical central
point of this reflection. The central point of the former reflec
tion was absolute knowledge, as pure thinking and contempla
tion together : Freedom of reflection determined in regard to
its What, by an absolute What. (This was expressed as fol.
lows : Knowledge must be for-itself simply wliat it is, for the
immediate reason because it is, &c.) Now, this knowledge
reflects itself as a knowledge, and as an absolute knowledge.
This does not mean on any account: it is externally for itself;
as it appeared to us in our scientific reflection of the foregoing
paragraph, with the present additional assurance that it is
absolute, although we did so express it temporarily; but it
looks through and penetrates with its glance its own nature,
according to the point of union and of division thereof, and
by reason of the knowledge of this point of union is it ab
solute, and does it know itself as absolute in our present re
flection.

In the preceding description of knowledge the act of reflect
ing was posited as independent of its material determinedness,
while on the other side its determinedness was posited as inde
pendent of the act, and it was absolutely known that these
thus separated parts did nevertheless form no twofoldness.
But since the point of union in which they unite— although
they may remain forever divided from another point of view,
which we shall not here consider — was not known, that know
ledge, did not really penetrate itself; and though it icas abso
lute knowledge, it was not absolute knowledge for itself.

The last ground of the act, which as act of free reflection
must always remain absolute, is its possibility, which lies in
the absolute form of knowledge to be for itself; the ground
of the determinedness of the reflection is the primary absolute
determinedness; the ground of the absolute unity of both is
understood, signifies : it is understood that the act of that reflec
tion would not be possible (consequently could not be) without

New Exposition of the Science of Knowledge. 41

/

that absolute determinedness, which is the first basis aiid orig
inal starting-point of all knowledge.

C. — Hence Knowledge must posit itself as both: an original determinedness of
Freedom, and a Freedom as the ground of its original determinedness; or, as
formal Freedom of Quantitating.

The centre of the present synthesis was absolute knowledge,
encircling, determining and passing beyond all real know
ledge : and we had discovered that knowledge formaliter
could only be free, could explain itself only out of itself, and
posits its ground only within itself; and that it could not be
possible in any other wa}^ But in consequence of its imme-
diateness and of the original determinedness inseparable
therefrom, which, in its infinity, can be determined, distin
guished, and at the same time related only by Thinking, know
ledge commences with a determined, necessary Thinking,
which in the present connection can be only the absolute
Thinking, and consequently malting necessary (for absolute
Thinking and necessity are one and the same) of Freedom
itself. It is considered so immediately in view of its being a
knowledge, a factical existence of Thinking. But in the higher
reflection it is recognized as generated through absolute
Freedom, through the confinedness of original Freedom to a
state of immediate determinedness ; and at the same time as a
free passing beyond this separable determinedness, in order
to relate it (by Thinking) : consequently, as unity of the fixed
state of determinedness and the free passing beyond this deter
minedness, of Being and Freedom. (The difference between
absolute Being and factical Being is to be well remembered ;
for both determinations are transferred to one object — Think
ing — and are consequently only different views of what is
really one and the same.)

But — thus we argue for the present — if all knowledge is de
termined by this absolute law, then the knowledge of this law,
as a knowledge — with which something else in knowledge is
to be connected — must also be determined by it : this know
ledge must consequently view itself as really generated or
illuminated by Freedom ; or, in other words, it must be in and
for itself.

(Every one will perceive that the knowledge which in our
former reflection seemed to have penetrated beyond itself,

42 New Exposition of tlie Science of Knowledge.

here returns again within itself; or that only a double view
of this self-encircling and self-determining knowledge is pos
sible as an inner and as an external knowledge, and that
the real focus of absolute consciousness lies probably in the
uniting point of this duplicity, in the balancing between both
views. — This will appear also from another representation of
the subject, for example: The Thinking, that the knowledge
referred to is generated by Freedom, since no knowledge can
be generated in any other manner, is, as we have represented
it, in reality itself a free Thinking, the subjecting of a particu
lar instance under a general rule. Consequently, this rule
must appear in and be accessible to that free Thinking. But
that free Thinking signifies the freely generated actual Think
ing — and this consequently presupposes itself in fixing the
rule. — Or still another example : If I transfer by my own free
act Freedom to the presupposed knowledge, I must first have
this Freedom in my own free knowledge. In short, it is the
same proposition which we have met in advancing all our re
flections. In order to direct my knowledge with freedom upon
any subject, I must know already of the subject on which I
am to direct it ; and in order to know of it, I must have direct
ed my Freedom upon it ; and thus on infinitely, which infinite
-regressus must even here be stopped by an absoluteness which
we have now to discover.)

' It is understood that this affirmation applies not only to the
centre of knowledge, but through it and from it to all its syn
theses.

"We approach now the exposition of this knowledge in its
centre. The knowledge that knowledge is formaliter free, is
to be within and for itself. To begin with the easiest point:
the first result therefore is that Freedom is in itself and repo
ses upon itself: it contemplates itself, or — which means the
same, since only the inner reposing upon itself of Freedom is
called contemplation — the contemplation rests ; which is a
balancing of knowledge between the undetermined separabil
ity (the not yet separated and distinguished infinity).

But this contemplation is not merely to ~be ; it is, moreover,
to posit itself as formaliter free ; containing the That (to posit
itself) of this Being within itself ; and this formal freedom of
the contemplation is to contemplate itself. (How could we
possibly create this contemplation without imagination 2 Our

New Exposition of the Science of Knoicledge. 43

imagination furnishes the substance of the contemplation.
But as we do not imagine idly at hap-hazard, but direct our
imagination to the special point of our investigation, Thinking
•takes also part in it.) No doubt every one will find this as the
result : Freedom, dissolved and running over into the undeter
mined separability, must, in order to become contemplation,
gather itself together and seize itself in one point — duplicate
itself — it must be even for itself. Only thus can it become a
point of light from which to distribute light over the undeter
mined separability.

I say, only in this One point does the contemplation become
light to itself; from this point, therefore, a light arises not only
upon the separable, as I said just now, but also upon the two
views of the separable. These two views are : a dissolving of
the light within itself, and a seizing and fixed taking hold of
the light; the latter from a central point, which is wanting
when the light dissolves. From this standpoint we must there
fore say: The focus of this contemplation of formal Freedom
is neither in the central point (the penetrated), nor in its two
qualitative tcr minis (the penetrating), but between loot}}. In so
far as the light has penetrated itself in such a unity point,
and contemplated such penetration, and the manifoldness
which is inseparable from this contemplation, as penetrated
from out this unity point, the light has been factically, and
the formal Freedom the That, has been immediately posited.
But in so far as the light, in order to contemplate 'itself,
penetrating the central point, now contemplates the mani
fold as an infinity without unity, it destroys and puts an
end to the fact; and this absolute balancing between cre
ating and destroying the fact (destroying it in order to be
able to create it, and creating it in order to be able to destroy
it) is, viewed from the standpoint of contemplation, the real
focus of absolute consciousness. (Both united are exemplified
in every contemplation : the contemplation of Here, for in
stance, is the annihilation of the undetermined infinity of
Space, and the contemplation of Now the annihilation of the
undetermined infinity of Time; while at the same time the
infinity of both Space and Time is contained in the con
templation of Here and of Now, and annihilates them again in
their turn. The contemplation of the determined This (=x)
separates this x (a tree, for instance) from the infinite chain

44 New Exposition of tlie Science of Knowledge.

of all the other These (trees and not-trees), and thus annihi
lates the latter; while, vice versa,&\\ these others must "be con
templated, and consequently posited as existing, if x is to be
contemplated as x — that is to say, if x is to "be distinguished
from any other object, &c.)

It is further to be remarked here, that the Quantity — even
the infinite separability — is here immediately connected with
Quality, and proved to be inseparably united with the latter,
as undoubtedly we were compelled to prove in explaining
the idea of absolute consciousness. For the formal Freedom,
which here becomes contemplation, what else can it be but the
absolute Quality of knowledge externally? and $&& contempla
tion of this formal Freedom itself, what else is it than the ab
solute but inner (For-itself) Quality of Knowledge, as a know
ledge ? And thus we have found, even in contemplation itself
— and nowhere else can we find it, since the contemplation is
absolute contemplation and absolutely nothing but contem
plation — that formal Freedom views itself only as the contrac
tion of a dissolving manifoldness of ^possible light into a central
point, and the distribution of this light from out this central
point over a manifoldness held and really illuminated only
by the central point. (The fountain of all Quantity is conse
quently only in Knowledge — that is to say, in real knowledge,
in a more contracted sense of the word — in knowledge which
comprehends itself as such. Every one can comprehend this
sentence who has but gained a clear insight into his know
ledge ; and thus new light is thrown on real transcendental
idealism and its caricatures. The absolute One exists only in
the form of Quantity. How does it come into this form? That
we see here. How does it come into knowledge itself, the
qualitative, in order thereafter to enter its form of Quantity ?
Thereof now.)

§ 2. SYNTHESIS OF OBJECTIVITY AND SUBJECTIVITY, OR REALITY
AND IDEALITY, IN THE FORM OF KNOWLEDGE.

A. — Knowledge posits itself for itself, or thinks itself in. factical knowledge as
necessarily such power of formal Freedom, and hence as determined hi its abso
lute character as a knowledge of Quantitating: Objective condition of Hie Ego.

Absolute Being is, as we know, in absolute Thinking. This
absolute Being has entered free knowledge, signifies : the con
templation, described in the preceding § 1, with its immediate

New Exposition of tlie Science of Knowledge. 4£>

facticity, and at the same time with the annihilation of that
facticity, is on that very account one and the same with think
ing ; and it is this in knowledge — that is to say, it is known to
be the same, and is thus absolutely known. Now, what sort
of a consciousness is this ? Evidently a uniting consciousness
of the absolute contemplation of formal Freedom, with an ab
solute going beyond this contemplation to a Thinking. In
short, a taking hold of itself on the part of knowledge as ter
minated here and absolutely fixed in this termination. Know
ledge thinks itself only by such a grasping of itself ; it goes
beyond itself only in thus grasping its end ; consequently, in
positing an end for itself. The manifestation of this is the
feeling of certainty, of conviction, as the absolute form of feel
ing, and arises conjointly with the self-substantialization of
knowledge — that is to say, with the knowledge that a manifold
(what this manifold is, the reader will please leave undecided)
exists.

Now this formal Freedom is the absolute ground of all
knowledge — for us, as teacher of the Science of Knowledge,
and — which forms the contents of our present synthesis — for
itself. It is absolute for itself means : this Freedom, and the
knowledge which it generates, are thought as simply all Free
dom and all knowledge : it is thought as a reposing in an
absolute unity. Knowledge encircles and completes itself in
this Thinking as the one and entire knowledge. If we con
sider thinking and contemplation as two separates, their union
is evidently immediate and absolute ; it is the absolute know
ledge, but which knows not nor can know anything about
itself; in one word, it is the immediate feeling of certainty*
(that is to say, absoluteness, immutability) of knowledge. (We
here discover once again the absolute junction of contempla
tion and Thinking, which we found to constitute the ground-
form of knowledge ; and this time explaining itself genetically
in the Being of knowledge itself.)

(In order to elucidate this proposition, which it might be dif
ficult to comprehend in this simplicity of its immediate evi
dence, let the reader consider the following : Above we said —

* It is for tliis feeling of certainty, which accompanies all true knowledge, that
Fichte uses the word Intuition as an equivalent.

46 New Exposition of the Science of Knowledge.

Freedom must direct itself upon something which is presup
posed as determined; but in order to be able to take this
direction it must knoAV beforehand of the object, which know
ledge it can have acquired only through Freedom ; and since
this knowledge presupposes again a determined object, we are
thus thrown into an infinite progress. This progress is now
done away with. Freedom requires no point outside of itself
to give it a direction ; Freedom is in and for itself the highest
Determined — hereafter the substance of knowledge — and is
posited as self-sufficient absolutely.

Or, since knowledge has been considered from the first as
the gathering together of an undetermined manifold, the
knowledge of knowledge depends on this, that we know we
have comprehended the altogether uneradicable unity-charac
ter of all particular acts of knowledge, however infinitely dif
ferent they may be in all other respects. But how can we
know this ? Not by considering and analyizing the particular,
for we should never get through with it. Consequently by, in
a manner, prescribing a law to the particular by this very
unity. Now the question is at present about absolute know
ledge ; consequently, about die unity of all particular determ
inations of knowledge — and of the objects of knowledge, which
is the same thing. A law must therefore be prescribed to
this absolute knowledge, so that it can recognize itself as one,
as always the same eternal and immutable One, and can thus
be included in its own unity. This we have done here, and in
the manner just described.)

Being is consequently united with knowledge in this
way, that knowledge comprehends itself as an absolute
and unchangeable Being (a Being what it is, wherein it finds
itself originally confined.) The difference and the connec
tion with our former argument is very apparent : it lies be
tween Freedom and not-Freedom. Freedom (i. e. always the
formal Freedom, with the material or quantitative freedom we
have nothing to do in this whole chapter) is itself not free ;
i. e. it is latent Freedom, or Freedom in form of necessity, if
there is a knowledge. Possibility of knowledge only through
Freedom, necessity of the latter for actual knowledge : this is
the connection with our former argument. The problem is
solved, and the centre of the former synthesis is itself absorbed

New Exposition of the Science of Knowledge. 47

in knowledge ; i. e. the centre of the present synthesis is fixed.
Knowledge has its end in itself ; it encircles and rests upon
itself as knowledge.

B.— But knowledge in positing itself for itself posits itself as free, and hence as
dependent only upon its Freedom: Subjective act of the Ego.

I. As we argued in C of § 1, so here. The formal Freedom
which begins all actual knowledge (because it alone can give
the latter a For, a light-point) has been thought as the abso
lute condition of the possibility of all knowledge, or as the
necessity which conditions the character of knowledge. This
thinking, by which we fuse Freedom and necessity together,
must be for itself, must become a knowledge returning back
within itself. Consequently even this knowledge, which encir
cles and penetrates all actual knowledge, goes again beyond
itself to construct itself within itself. (In the same manner
factical knowledge went beyond itself in order to arrive at the
present knowledge of it. There is a triplicity, as every one
can see now, and the present synthesis is again a synthesis of
the two last ones.)

We enter into the centre of it. It is not at all the question
and the object of our new synthesis to discover how in the
uniting knowledge anything can be known of the formal act
of Freedom, for the latter is the absolute contemplation itself,
and absolutely originates factical knowledge from itself and
by itself, but how anything can be known of necessity, and
of necessity simple and pure, independently of its application
to formal Freedom in the uniting Thinking.

Necessity is absolute fixedness of knowledge, or absolute
thinking, and therefore excludes from its character all mobil
ity and all penetrating beyond itself to ask for a Because, and
it is not what it is unless all this is excluded. Now it is to be
applied in a knowledge to contemplation ; consequently it
must nevertheless enter knowledge, assume the form of the
For-itself, contemplate itself, &c. But in contemplation it
would see itself no longer merely as simply what it is, but as
what it is because it is.

This contemplation consequently cannot comtemplate itself,
can arise to no knowledge of itself, because in doing so it
would annihilate its form by its substance. We thus obtain

48 New Exposition of the Science of Knowledge.

a knowledge, or (since we speak of forms generally) the form
of a (perhaps later to be exhibited) knowledge, which abso
lutely does not posit itself as knowledge, but as (of course,
formal) Being, and as absolute upon itself reposing Being, and
which cannot be penetrated, nor permit questions about its
Because, and which moreover does not itself go beyond itself,
nor explain itself, and which finally is not either a knowledge
for itself, nor anything of the kind that could be characterized
as knowledge.

"We have here discovered the real focus and centre of abso
lute knowledge. It is not to be found in the taking hold of
itself on the part of knowledge (by means of formal Freedom) ?
neither is it in its self-annihilation in absolute Being, but
simply between both; and neither is possible without the other.
It cannot take hold of itself as the absolute (of which we speak
here, the One always coequal, unchanging) without viewing
itself as necessary, and consequently forgetting itself in this
necessity ; and it cannot taTce liold of necessity without talcing
liold (that is to say, without creating it) for UP elf. It floats
between its Being and its not-Being, as it indeed must, since
it carries its absolute origin 'knowingly within itself.

II. The centre and turning point of absolute knowledge is
a floating between Being and not-Being of knowledge, and
consequently between the being absolute and the being not
absolute of Being ; since the Being of knowledge cancels the
absoluteness of Being, and since absolute Being cancels the
absoluteness of knowledge. Let us make our standpoint firmer
by a further vigorous investigation of the distinction between
the Being of knowledge and absolute Being.

In order to connect our remarks with one of the links in the
chain of our argument — it matters not which — let us argue
thus : Knowledge cannot take hold of itself as a knowledge (as
eternally the same and unchangeable) without viewing itself as
necessary. Bat at present knowledge, in regard to its Being
(Existence), is not at all necessary, but is grounded in absolute
formal Freedom ; and this must remain true as well as the
former.

Now what is this peculiar Being of knowledge, in regard to
which it is first necessary and not free, and at another time free
and not necessary? It is true, this necessity is no other than

New Exposition of the Science of Knowledge. 49

that of Freedom (and there can never be any other) ; but nev
ertheless it is necessity, Freedom in bondage. Hence this dif
ficulty will easily be solved in the following manner: 77 there
is a knowledge at all, it must be necessarily free (latent free
dom) ; for freedom constitutes its character. But tliat there is
a knowledge afc all, depends altogether upon absolute Free
dom, and it might therefore just as well be not. We will
assume this answer to be correct, and see how it is possible.
(In this investigation it will doubtless appear that it is both
correct and necessary.) Knowledge was posited in this answer
as that which might and might not be ; we call this accidental.
Let us describe this knowledge. It is evident that in this
knowledge Freedom (formal Freedom, with which alone we
have to do here) is thought (not contemplated) as realizing
itself; for then knowledge is. It is thought, I say, and is
thought, of course, as Freedom, as undecidedness, and indif
ference, in regard to the act ; as melting together Being and
not- Being-, as pure possibility, as such, which neither posits
the act, for it is at the same time checked— nor checks it, for
it is at the same time posited. In short, the perfect contradic
tion, as such. (We try to discover here everything in know
ledge, for we teach the Science of Knowledge. Thus absolute
Being was nothing else to us than absolute Thinking itself,
the fixedness and repose in Itself, which can never can go be
yond itself, the altogether ineradicable characteristic of know
ledge. In like manner absolute Freedom is here the absolute
unrest, mobility without a fixed point— the dissolving within
itself. Hence thinking here annihilates itself; it is the
above-mentioned absolute hiatus and saltus of knowledge
which arises absolutely with all Freedom and all originating,
and hence whenever reality originates from necessity. It is
clear that through such a positive not-Being of itself know
ledge passes to absolute Being. It is, of course, evident and
admitted that of itself it is nothing ; indeed, none of the links
of our chain of reasoning is here for itself. It is a turning-
point of absolute knowledge.

(Everything but this the logically trained Thinkers can com
prehend. They shrink back from the contradiction. But how,
then, is the proposition of that logic of theirs possible which
says that no contradiction can be thought ? They must have

50 New Exposition of the Science of Knowledge.

taken hold of or thought this contradiction in some manner or
another, since they make mention of it. If they would only
once carefully question themselves, how they come to the
Thinking of the merely possible, or the accidental (the not-
necessary), and how they manage to do it. Evidently they
jump through a not-Being, not-Thinking, &c., into the abso
lutely immediate, the free, the in-itself-originating— precisely
the above contradiction actually realized. The impossibility
to comprehend this produces in logical Thinking nothing less
than a complete denial of Freedom, the absolute fatalism, or
Spinozism.)

But this Thinking of formal Freedom is again, as we have
seen above, possible on condition that the formal Freedom in
wardly realizes itself in the manner described above. This
realizing is now also thought in the present connection ; for
the entire disposition of knowledge, as regarded here, is one
of rest and fixedness in itself. By this means, the lower con
templation becomes itself (i. e. to the reposing Thinking) a
Being (condition, state), which, although it is and remains
within itself agility, nevertheless conditions thinking, since it
takes it from its balancing between Being and not-Being, in
which it rested while a mere possibility, and fixes it down to
positive Being.— Here we begin to get a clear view of subjec
tivity and objectivity, of ideal and real activity of knowledge.
This duplicity arises from Thinking (which originates out of
mere possibility) and from contemplation, which generates
itself absolutely from itself (from realized Freedom) and is
added as a new link.

Contemplation as contemplation, as that what it is, is only
in so far as it realizes itself for itself with absolute Freedom.
But this Freedom is posited in Thinking, so that this act,
which produces the contemplation, could also be not, and only
on this supposition is it an act; and since it is nothing else
but an act, is it at all. Here, consequently, we already dis
cover, through an easy and surprising observation, Contempla
tion and Thinking inseparably united in a higher contempla
tion, and the One not possible without the other. Knowledge,
therefore (in the more limited meaning of the word, i. e. the
actual knowledge which posits itself as such), does no longer
consist in the mere contemplation, or in the mere Thinking,

New Exposition of tlie Science of Knowledge. 51

but in the melting together of both. The form and the sub
stance of Freedom is united, and so is also reality and possi
bility ; since reality (as could not be otherwise) is merely the
realization of possibility, and possibility (from this point of
view, for we may arrive at another view of it) is nothing but a
degree of reality; or, more strictly, is the reality, which is
checked, in the reflection, in its transition from its possibility
to its realization.

Let us ascend now to an adjoining link, which can receive
nowhere so much light as in this connection. We introduced
this argument by saying : Tliat a knowledge is at all is acci
dental; but if a knowledge is, it is necessarily grounded in
Freedom. The first part of this proposition we have explain
ed ; in the latter part, we evidently mention something con
cerning a knowledge which may be posited simply by means
of the If, but which otherwise has neither been posited, nor
not been posited. We go beyond this knowledge, and assert
something about it with absolute necessity. Evidently this
assertion is an absolute, unchangeable, in-itself-reposing
Thinking of knowledge according to its absolute Being and
Essence. Everyone sees that this assertion is not produced
indirectly by the mere actual knowledge that a knowledge is
(for the present instance, let us say) and has been produced
by absolute Freedom, but that it must have an entirely differ
ent source ; and here we arrive by another way to a more tho
rough and connecting reply to the question, how a knowledge
of necessity can be possible ? For as sure as the absolute
knowledge (in the infinite facticity — actual existence — of
each single knowledge) is only in the absolute form of the
For-itself, so sure each knowledge goes also beyond itself;
or, viewed from another point", is in its own Being absolutely
outside of itself, and encircles itself entire. The For-itself
Being of this encircling, as such, its inwardness and absolute
reposing -upon itself, which is of course necessary since it is
a knowledge, is the just described Thinking of the necessity
of the Freedom of all knowledge. The pure, inner necessity
consists in this very reposing upon and not being able topene-
netrate beyond itself of Thinking; its expression is absolute
essence or fundamental character (here, of knowledge) ; and
the external form of necessity, the universality, consists in
4

52 New Exposition of the Science of Knowledge.

this, that I absolutely can think every factical knowledge^
however distinct and different it be from other knowledges, as'
a factical knowledge only with this defined fundamental char
acter. Where, then, does all necessity come from ? From the
absolute comprehension of an absolute Form of Knowledge.

We have thus arrived at a new union. The contemplation
of absolute knowledge, as accidental (containing an actual
substance, determined in one way or other), is united with the
Thinking of the necessity (i. e. the necessity conditioned by
Being) of this accidentalness ; and in this absolute know
ledge reposes, and has exhausted its fundamental character
for itself.

To explain :— Some one might say, all knowledge (in its in
finite determinability, the source of which we, it is true, do not
know as yet, but which we presuppose in the meanwhile histori
cally) is comprehended and discovered as absolutely generating
itself, which is impossible for two reasons, the second of which
we have just mentioned. The real state of the matter, how
ever, is as follows :— Knowledge is the contemplation of the de
scribed absolute Thinking of the accidentalness of the (factical)
knowledge. Knowledge is not free because it is thought free,
nor is it thought /m? because it is free, for between both these
links there is no Why or Therefore, no distinction whatever ;
but the Thinking itself free and the absolutely leing free of
Knowledge is one and the same. We are speaking of a Being
of Knowledge, consequently of a For; of an absolute Being of
Knowledge, consequently of a For in Thinking (a reposing
within itself), in which it completely penetrates itself to its
very first root.

C.— Both are one and the same: Knowledge is necessarily free if there is a know
ledge, but that there is Knowledge depends upon absolute Freedom; its think
ing itself free and its being free are one and the same ; the condition is not
without the act, nor the act without the condition.

Back to the standpoint of the complete synthesis.

Through the itself realizing contemplation, the previously
free and in-freedom-reposing-thinking becomes fixed ; being no
longer a real, factical, -conditioned thinking ;— and this think
ing is thus fixed for itself. In actual thinking, as such, formal
Freedom is annihilated ; it is a contemplation, but on no ac-

New Exposition of the Science of Knowledge. 53

count is this same contemplation at the same time not. The
Not-Being, which was thought together with it in formal Free
dom, is here (i. e. in so far as the Real and not the merely Pos
sible is thought) annihilated ; and this very annihilation of
formal Freedom must be thought if the real Thinking is to com
prehend itself as real and confined— if, therefore, it is to be for
itself. (Hence the Subjective and Objective, the Upper and
Lower in knowledge ; the unchangeable Subjective, or the
ideal activity, is the formal Freedom : either to be, or not to
be : here, however, viewing itself as cancelled ; the unchange
able Objective, the Real, is the confinedness as such, through
which formal Freedom, however, as indifference of Being and
Not-Being, is cancelled. We have explained here also the
Thinking of the Accidence, or what in the Science of Know
ledge signifies the same thing, of the Accidence itself. It is a
Thinking in which formal Freedom is posited as cancelled ; a
confined Thinking, as all Thinking is, which, however, at the
same time, is thought as confined for and within itself.)

All this becomes clear and productive only when we com
pare and connect it with its nearest adjoining links. We said

above : We cannot think a fact, as such, without thinking at
the same time that it could also not be. Here again we thought
accidentalness and united formal and real Freedom, the exist
ence of the former and its cancelling through the latter, in one
thinking, just as we do here. Now, are both one and the same,
or different ? The more similarity there is between the two, the
more necessary is it to distinguish them, and the more pro
ductive of results the distinction ; for, I say, both are not the
same at all.

That previous thinking starts from the thinking of Freedom,
reposes in this Nothing and contradiction of pure undecided-
ness (B) as its focus ; and is consequently, whenever it reflects
upon and seizes itself (as it does in the above thought) in order
to get out of itself to the fact, a mere nothing, it is ephemeral,
dissolving and cancelling itself. Consequently the fact, seized
in such a moment, which is to be, although it could just as
well not be, is likewise reflected and seized only as undecided
and dissolving within itself, as the external form of a fact,
without inner reality and life ; as a point, it is true, but as a
point which is never at rest, and which strays in the infinite

54 New Exposition of the Science of knowledge.

empty space, in a pale, lifeless picture ; nothing but the mere
beginning and attempt of a real thought and determining
which never arrives at a real fact.

(It seems to us, that Philosophy might explain itself with
out difficulty on this question as something generally known
not only to not-philosophers and to the empty, purely logi
cal philosophers, but also to the public at large. For this
sort of thinking is of the very kind which they have been cul
tivating the greater part of their lives ; that empty, desultory
thinking which results when somebody sits down in order to
thitilc and reflect, and cannot tell you afterwards what he has
thought about, or wJiat thoughts have really occupied his time.
Now, how have these people existed during this time, since
they must have existed in some way ! They have floated in
the not-Being of real knowledge, in the standpoint of the abso
lute, but where from sheer absoluteness no thought was able
to form itself. It will appear, that the greater part of the sys
tem of knowledge of most men remains stuck in the Absolute •
and that to us all the whole infinite experience which we have
not yet experienced, — in short, eternity — and hence, in
deed, the objective world remains also hidden in that very
Absolute.)

The present thinking, on the contrary, stands within itself in
its own confinedness; reposes, if we may say so, as if lost in this
confinedness, in order to proceed progressively from it to the
understanding that formal Freedom has been cancelled in this
confinedness. In its root it is always factical, and proceeds
only thence to the absolute, and only to the mere negation of
it ; while the former thinking was absolute in its root, and
proceeded merely to an empty picture of a fact.

Now this confinedness is, as we know, a taking hold of itself
on the part of knowledge, and its result is contemplation or
light. To this therefore, to this state of light, thinking is con
fined by the above described cancelling and fixing of formal
Freedom ; or, to use a more common expression, by Allen-
tion, which is nothing but Freedom surrendered to the object
you pay attention to, a forgetting of self, a confinedness, fix
edness of thinking, &c., &c. It is apparent, therefore, that
formal Freedom is Indifference to Light and Attention ; it may
surrender itself to them, or it may not ; the very desultory,

New Exposition of the Science of Knowledge. 55

in-itself-dissolving thinking, mentioned above ; the floating in
the absolute.

Now, how does knowledge know that it has thus taken hold
of and holds itself? Evidently, immediately ; for the very rea
son that it knows or thinks itself as the Holding ; in short,
through the That of formal Freedom. Again, how can know
ledge obtain a sight of this That— the same formal Freedom—
except by having sight (by being a For-itself ) ? Its light is de
pendent upon its Freedom ; but since this Freedom is its own,
Freedom is again dependent upon light, is only in light.
Knowledge knows that it holds itself and is thus the absolute
source of light, and this constitutes its absoluteness ; and, vice
versa, it knows and has light only in so far as it holds itself
with absolute Freedom (is attentive), and knows that it does
so. It cannot be free without knowing, nor know without be
ing free.

Ideal and real views are altogether united and inseparable ;
the condition with the act, the act with the condition; or
rather, in absolute consciousness they are not all divided, but
are One and the same.

This absolute knowledge now makes itself its own object ;
firstly, in order to describe itself as absolute. This is done,'
according to the above, by constructing itself from out of not-
Being ; and this construction is itself internally an act of
Freedom, which is however here lost within itself.

It is evident, however, that it cannot so construct itself with
out being ; consequently without having, in some view, a fixed
existence. If, in one of these views, it starts from its condition
of Light, it will posit the act, Freedom, as the cause of Light ;
and should it reflect again upon itself in this positing, it will
become .aware that it could not see this act, unless by the pre
supposed light, immanent within itself, and then it will obtain
an idealistic view of itself. If, on the other hand, it starts
from Freedom as the act, it will view the light as the product
of this act, and will thus be led to view the original Freedom
as the real ground of Light, and view itself realistically.

But according to the true description of absolute knowledge
which we have now drawn, it views itself in the one way as
well as in the other only onesidedly. Consequently neither
the one, nor the other view, in contemplation, but both united

56 New Exposition of tlie Science of Knowledge.

in Thinking, constitute the true view, which is the basis of both
these contrary views of contemplation, and upon it alone shall
we be able to build anything.

§ 3. SYNTHESIS OF THINKING AND CONTEMPLATION, OR SUB
STANCE AND ACCIDENCE IN ACTUAL KNOWLEDGE.

A.— Knowledge posits itself for itself as a Self-originating, and hence posits a Xot-
Being of Itself, or an Absolute Pure Being (Check), as its origin and limit:
Thinking' or Substance.

The conception of absolute knowledge having been exhaust
ed in all respects, and we having found at the same time how
it could thus exhaustively comprehend itself, or how a Science
of Knowledge could be possible, we now rise to its highest
origin and ground.

Besides the conception of the Absolute, established at the
beginning, we have in our last investigations obtained a still
clearer conception of the form of the Absolute : namely, that
in relation to a possible knowledge it is a pure, altogether and
absolutely within itself confined Thinking, which never goes
beyond itself to ask the Why of its formal or material Being,
or to posit a Because of it, even though it were an absolute
Because ; in which, on the very account of this absolute nega
tion of the Because, the For-itself (knowledge) has not yet
been posited, and which, consequently, is in reality a mere
pure Being without knowledge, although we have to make
this Being discernible in our Science of Knowledge from the
standpoint of the absolute pure form of Thinking.

Knowledge therefore, as absolute and confined in its origin,
must be designated as the One (in every sense of the term, of
which indeed it receives several only in the relative), as ever
the same unchangeable, eternal, and ineradicable Being (God,
if we persist in connecting him with knowledge and leaving
him a relation to it), and in the state of this original confined-
ness as Feeling '= A.

Nevertheless, this Absolute is to be an absolute knowledge ;
it must therefore be for itself, which it can become, as we have
seen, only in a fact, through the absolute realization of Free
dom—in so far being simply because it is— by going beyond
itself, and again generating itself, £c., which ideal series we
have also completely exhausted=B.

New Exposition of the Science of Knowledge. 57

Now — which is least important, but cannot be neglected —
since as knowledge it generates B with absolute Freedom, but
within knowledge— it will probably know also of this Free
dom as the ground of this knowledge (=F— B).

Again — which is more important — this B is not to be merely
a knowledge for and of itself as the product of Freedom,—
which, even though it were possible in itself (although it can
not be so according to all former explanations, since the con
sciousness of Freedom can develop itself only in and. from out
of its own confinedness) would result in a completely new
knowledge not at all connected with A ; but B, according to
our former deductions, is to be a For-itself of A in and through
B. B must not tear itself away from and lose A.; for if it did,
there would be no absolute knowledge at all, but merely a
free, accidental, empty, unsubstantial knowledge.

From this follows, first of all, a simply immediate, and in-

itself- absolute connection of A and B, ( 4- J which, it is true,

is not without B (the realization of Freedom) ; but which, if B
is, arises altogether in an immediate manner, and arrives at a
consciousness of itself according to its character in A itself ;
which is consequently known as a feeling of dependency
and conditionedness ; and in this respect we have called A
Feeling.

Again : the knowledge B is a knowledge, a For-itself. This
signifies now not only : it is a knowledge generated through
Freedom ; but, at the same time, it is a knowledge connected
with and expressing the Absolute through the above connec
tion -f . (In the foregoing exposition A is added to F ; con
sequently, A — F — B.) We have, therefore,

1. A For -its elf existence, a reflection of "absolute knowledge,
which presupposes in itself that absoluteness (A). This reflec
tion undoubtedly obeys its own inner laws regarding tlieform
of knowledge, and with the clearer exposition of this reflection
we shall soon have to busy ourselves.

2. A appears visibly twice, partly as presupposed prior to
all knowledge, the substantial basis and original condition of
it, and partly in free knowledge (B), in which it becomes visi
ble to itself and enters into light (in accordance with the abso
lute form of the For-itself, expressed in the sign -f). Where,

58 New Exposition of tlie Science of Knowledge.

then, is the seat of absolute knowledge ? Not in A, for then it
would not be knowledge ; not in B, for then it would not be
absolute knowledge ; but between botli in -f .
From this there results the following :

1. Absolute knowledge ( 4- J is for itself (in B) just as abso
lutely because it is, as absolutely what it is. Both, though it
seems to be contradictory, must, as we have shown, be kept
together, if there is to be an absolute knowledge. The way
and mode of this remaining together is to be found in know
ledge itself, and constitutes the formal laws of knowledge,
according to which the entire B is= A— F— B. In other words,
the whole contents, A, must enter, through the realization of
Freedom, F, in the form of light, B.

2. It is For-itself (=F) simply wliat it is (=A) — which ex
presses the contradiction in the most positive manner — can
signify only : its Freedom and its For-itself or its knowledge is
(and for this very reason for itself) at an end. It discovers in
itself and through itself its absolute end and its limitation ; in
itself and through itself, I say ; it penetrates knowingly to its
absolute origin (from the not-knowledge), and arrives thus
through itself (that is to say, in consequence of its absolute
transparency and self-knowledge) at its end.

Now this is precisely the mystery which no one has been
able to perceive because it lies too openly before our eyes, and
because in it alone we see everything ! If knowledge consists
just in this, that it views its own origin ; or, still more defin
itely and with abstraction from all duplicity, if knowledge
itself signifies : For-itself Being, inner life of the origin; then it
is very clear that its end and its absolute limit must fall also
within this For-itself. Now, according to all our explanations
and the evident perception of each, knowledge does consist in
this very penetrability, in the absolute light-character, subject-
object, Ego ; consequently, it cannot view its absolute origin,
without viewing its non-Existence or its limit.

3. What then, now, is absolute Being? It is the absolute
origin of knowledge comprehended in knowledge, and conse
quently the not-Being of knowledge. It is Being-in-knowledge,
and yet not Being of knowledge; absolute Being, because the
knowledge is absolute.

New Exposition of tlie Science of Knowledge. 59

Only the beginning of knowledge is pure Being; wherever
knowledge is, there is its own being already ; and everything
else which might be taken for Being (for something objective)
is this Being and obeys its laws. The pure knowledge viewed
as origin for itself, and its opposite as not-Being of knowledge
— because otherwise it could have no origin — is pure Being.

(Or let us say, if people only will understand us correctly,
the absolute creation, as creation and by no means as the cre
ated substance, is the standpoint of absolute knowledge ; this
creates itself from its simple possibility, and this very -possi
bility is pure Being.)

That is, this is pure Being for the Science of Knowledge and
precisely because that science is a science of knowledge > and
deducing Being from knowledge as its negation and being.
It is consequently an ideal view of Being, and its highest ideal
view. Now it may well be that here this negation is itself the
absolute position (affirmation), and that our position itself is
in a certain respect a negation, and that in the Science of
Knowledge, though subordinated to it, we shall find a highest
real view, according to which knowledge also does certainly
create itself — and accordingly everything created and to be
created — but only according to the form ; according to the
substance, however, after an absolute law (into which the
Absolute Being now changes), which law negates every know
ledge and being as the highest position. A pure moralism,
which is realistically (practically) exactly the same that the
Science of Knowledge is formally and idealistically.

B. — But Knowledge posits itself as a Self-originating for-itself. and hence origin
ates itself in this self-positing or preposits itself: Contemplation or Accidence.

a. The in-itself-confined thinking in A can be viewed as
inwardly and originally (not factically, since this is denied by
its essence) in itself confined and unable to go beyond itself.
Such would indeed be its character in relation to a possible
consciousness, the origin and foundation of which would be
this very in-itself-confinedness, and at the same time the con
sciousness of this confinedness ; we have therefore called it
Feeling ; — Feeling, even of this absoluteness, unchangeable-
ness, £c., from which, it is true, we can derive nothing at pres
ent, and which is to serve us only as a connecting link. Besides,

60 New Exposition of the Science of Knowledge.

it would be a realistical view, if it were and could "be any view
at all.

I). This A, however, is known in B, though altogether inde
pendent of it inform, and is viewed in it as an absolute ori
gin, to which, in the same knowledge, a?i6>£-Being of knowledge
necessarily attaches itself from the very nature of knowledge,
which otherwise could not be a knowledge or viewing of its
own origin. Here A seems to have arisen out of B, and the
view is idealistic.

c. Now the important matter here is to us, that this know
ledge inwardly and for-itself, and, let us add, in its immediate
ness (in its form), is absolute; or, which is the same, that the
contemplated origin is absolute, or that the not-Being of know
ledge is the absolute — expressions which all mean the same,
and follow one from the other. It is this, means : it is so with
out the cooperation and independently of Freedom, conse
quently in a Feeling of confinedness ; through which the above
described feeling of absoluteness enters knowledge, and with
it together constitutes the absolute A as real and as independ
ent of Freedom. Thus the realistic and idealistic views are
thoroughly united, and a Being appears which exists in Free
dom, whilst also a Freedom is made apparent which originates
from out of Being (it is the moral Freedom, or creation which
comprehends itself as absolute creation from Nothingness) ;
and both therefore — and with them Knowledge and Being — are
united.

Let us explain : — 1. In actual knowledge this is the feeling
of certainty, which always accompanies a particular knowledge
as a principle of the possibility of all knowledge. Evidently
this feeling is absolutely immediate ; for how could I ever, in
mediated knowledge, draw the conclusion that anything is cer
tain unless I presuppose a premise which is absolutely certain
in itself? (For where is the drawing of conclusions to com
mence otherwise ? or is absolute Unreason to precede reason ?)
But what is this feeling in regard to its substance ? Evidently
a consciousness of an unchangeableness (an absolute in-itself-
determinedness of knowledge, of which the That is well known;
but by asking after its "Why or Because, we lose ourselves in
the absolute not-Being of knowledge (=to the absolute Being).
In certainty, therefore (=4he for-itselfof absoluteness of know-

New Exposition of tlie Science of Knowledge. Cl

ledge), ideal and real, absolute Freedom and absolute Being,
or necessity, unite.

2. The For-itself existence of the absolute origin is absolute
Contemplation, fountain of Light, or the absolute Subjective;
the not-Being of knowledge and the absolute Being, which
necessarily connect with the For-itself existence, are absolute
Thinking— fountain of Being within the Light ; consequently,
since it nevertheless is within knowledge, the absolute Object
ive. Both fall together (unite) in the immediate For-itself of
Absoluteness. This, therefore, is the last tie between subject
and object, and the entire synthesis here established is the
construction of the pure, absolute Ego. This tie is evidently
the fountain of all knowledge (i. e. of all certainty), from which
it follows that, in the particular case of this certainty, the sub
jective agrees with the objective, or "the representation of the
thing with the thing itself." This is only a modification of the
discovered ground-form of all knowledge. (It is therefore very
wrong to describe the Absolute as Indifference of the Subject
ive and Objective, a description which is based on the old
hereditary sin of dogmatism, which assumes that the absolute
Objective is to enter into the Subjective. This supposition I
hope to have rooted out by the foregoing. If Subjective and
Objective were originally indifferent, how in the world could
they ever become different, so as to enable any one to say,
that ~botli, from which he starts as different, are in reality
indifferent? Does, then, the absoluteness annihilate itself in
order to become a relation ? If this were so, it would become
absolutely Nothing, as it indeed is the contradiction which we
have pointed out above, only in another connection ; and this
system, instead of absolute identity-system, ought to be called
absolute nullity system. On the contrary, both are absolutely
different ; and in their being kept apart by means of their
union in absoluteness, knowledge consists. If they unite,
Knowledge and with Knowledge, they also are annihilated —
and pure Nothingness remains. )*

d. We have said the origin is an absolute one, from out
which and beyond which it is impossible to go. It seems,
therefore, to be unchangeable in this For-itself; and yet it is

* This is a polemic against Schelling. — Translator.

62 New Exposition of the Science of Knowledge.

presupposed by it. Bat the origin is not in this For-itself, ex
cept in so far it is realized through absolute formal Freedom
(as we have learned to know this Freedom as that which can
and cannot be ) • the origin is not contemplated unless it makes
itself; it does not make itself unless it is contemplated (a dif
ference of subject and object which, strictly, ought to be anni
hilated here in a unity of the subject, in fact in an inward
ness of the origin) ; and it is not contemplated except in so
far as this Freedom as such is for itself, or is viewed as in-itself-
originating (itself realizing).

If I reflect upon the latter, knowledge appears in regard to
its Being generally as accidental ; in regard to its substance,
however, which is nothing else than that knowledge is abso
lute, as necessary. From this the double result follows : that
a knowledge is at all, is accidental ; but that it, if it is, is tlms
— i. e. a knowledge reposing upon itself, For-itself existence
of the origin, and on that very account not-Being, Contempla
tion and Thinking together — is absolutely necessary.

What, now, is that Being of Knowledge (inwardly ; not ac
cording to the external characteristics, which w« have become
sufficiently acquainted with), and what is, on the contrary,
this TJms-'Being (Determination) of knowledge? The first,
like all Being, a confinedness of Thinking, but of free Think
ing ; the latter a confinedness of the not-free, but absolutely
in its own origin already confined Thinking. The Thinking is
therefore only the formal, the enlightening, but not the gene
rating of the material of the J7^^£s-Being ; the latter must be
presupposed by the former.

But now both are altogether the same, and the only distinc
tion is that in the latter Freedom is reflected upon and every
thing viewed from its standpoint, while in the former Freedom
neither is nor can be reflected upon: that here knowledge,
therefore, separates from itself, since in the higher thinking it
does not presuppose, but generates itself, and in the lower
thinking, on the contrary, presupposes itself for itself.

We have arrived at a very important point. The funda
mental principle of all reflection, which is a disjunction and a
contradiction, has been found : all knowledge presupposes in
the same manner, and from the same reason, its own Being,
that it presupposes its not-Being. For the reflection, standing

New Exposition of the Science of Knowledge. 63

as it does on the standpoint of Freedom, is a for-itself Being
of the origin as an originating ; and thus the present proposi
tion differs from the former. But the originating, as such,
presupposes a not-originating, consequently a Being ; and if
we speak of the originating of knowledge, as we must, since
only knowledge originates (Knowled.ge= Originating), a Being
of knowledge ; and if we speak of a coniinedness to originat
ing, as we have done here, an equally confined Being, or Thus-
Being of knowledge : and tills is the object of the reflection.
Knowledge cannot generate itself without being already, nor
can it be for itself and as knowledge without generating itself.
Its own Being and its Freedom are inseparable.

Visibly the reflection, therefore, reposes upon a Being ; is
formaliter a free, and, in regard to the material, a fixed Think
ing, and the result is therefore this : If the formal Freedom—
which, to be sure, in itself always remains, but can just as well
not be (not realize itself) — does realize itself, it is simply and
altogether determined by the absolute Being, and is in this
connection material Freedom. Thus the synthesis is com
pleted, in which we can now move freely, and describe it in
all directions.

C. — Both are one and the same: Contemplation, or the Freedom of undetermined
Quantitating, can be thought only as determined by the ori "final Thinking of an
Absolute Being, and the thinking of. an Absolute Being is determined by the
Contemplating of a Quantitating: neither is without the other.

Let us describe it, then, from a new point of view.

1. A (the absolute Being, pure Thinking, Feeling of depen
dence, or whatever else we choose to call it, since it really pre
sents itself in these different aspects as the reflection progresses)
is reflected with absolute formal Freedom. I have said, with;
the Freedom is added, might be and might not be. But this
Freedom is an absolute For-itself; knows, consequently, in
this its realization of itself. What it reflects, however, is the
absolute Thinking ; i. e. it thinks absolute ; or, the formal
Freedom is admitted in this absolute Thinking, and receives
therefrom its substance, since it might just as well not be as
be, but when it is, it must necessarily be thus. (Moral origin
of all Truth.)

Remark here the absolute disjunction, and in two direc
tions :

64 New Exposition of tlie Science of Knowledge.

a. Knowledge is chained down in A : again it tears itself
loose from itself in order to Ibe for itself and form a free Think
ing. Both statements are absolutely contradictory ; but both
are, if there is to be knowledge, equally original and absolute.
This contradiction therefore remains and can never be harmo
nized ; and this is an external view for knowledge, since its
focus is really in us.

b. Let us now approach the inner view by throwing the focus
into the reflection itself. The reflection knows immediately
of the absolute Freedom, with which it realizes itself, knows
free, or knows of Freedom. But now it also thinks confinedly.
Both statements are in contradiction, and remain equally
always contradictory. (The ground of all opposition, of all
manifoldness, &c., is to be found in confined Thinking.) But
both are also united in this, that the absolute Thinking is the
principal, nay, the only possible origin of all free reflection ;
and thus Freedom is subordinated to absolute Thinking.
Here is the ground of all substantiality and accidentality :
freedom as substratum of the accidence can and cannot be ;
but if it is, it is unalterably determined through absolute
Being as the substance. (Spinoza knows neither substance
nor accidence, because he knows not Freedom, which con
nects both. The absolute accidence is not that which can be
thus or otherwise ; for then it would not be absolute, but
merely that which can be at all or not be ; which, however, if
it is, is necessarily determined.)

The turning-point between both is formal Freedom, and this
turning-point is (not arbitrary, but determined) ideal and
real. My knowledge of the absolute (the substance) is determ
ined through the free reflection, and — since this is also con
fined, as we have shown — through its confinedness^accident-
ality. (We know of the substance only through the acci
dence.) Or, vice versa, placing ourselves on the standpoint of
Being, the determinedness of the accidence is explained to us
by means of the substance ; and thus the in-itself eternally
and absolutely disjoined is united by the necessity to proceed
from the one to the other.

2. Formal Freedom, as we have seen, must in this reflection
know of itself ; otherwise it would not be subordinated to ab
solute Being, but would dissolve in it. But it knows of itself,

New Exposition of the Science of Knowledge. 65

as we are aware, only through contemplation, which is an alto
gether free floating within the unconditioned separable, and
over all quantitability. (That this whole quantitability is
altogether a result of the self-contemplation of Freedom, we
have proved sufficiently ; but it must not be forgotten, since
the neglect to remember it leads to dogmatism.) It views
itself as free, means : it views itself as quantitating in the
unconditioned, expanding itself over infinity and contracting
itself in a seeming light-point. From this arises, therefore,
still another material determinedness, which here, it is true,
remains only determinability, and which arises simply from
Freedom and its absolute representation in the reflection itself.

Here is visible the disjunction between the absolute formal
Freedom (which can only be or not be) and the quantity-con
tents of it. The first is a Thinking, but a free Thinking ; the
latter a contemplation, and & formally confined contemplation.
(I say, formally ; for quantitability only, and not a determined
quantity, has been posited as yet.) Both are united by the
in-itself-dissolving form of Freedom, without which, according
to our former conclusions, neither would be at all. It is fur
ther evident that this is the groundform of all causality. The
actual Freedom is ground (cause), the quantity (no matter
what quantity), result, effect. It is clear that the Ideal and
Real thoroughly unite here. (Let no one say, that in know
ledge a conclusion is drawn from the effect to the cause,
although the cause is to be the real ground. Here effect is not
at all without immediate cause ; both fall together and unite. )

3. Now, according to 1, Freedom is to receive a material
determination, i. e. absolute Being. In its nature Freedom is
confined to a quantitating, but it has not within itself a deter
mining law for this quantitating. (If it had, the necessity for
that material determinedness would be done away with.)
That material determinedness must therefore apply in the
same manner to Freedom as to quantity. (The reader will
remark how this is proved.)— Now pay particular attention to
the following : The Ego — the immediate, real consciousness —
knows not generally, nor does it know particularly of the
determination of Freedom through the Absolute, except in so
far as it knows of Freedom, or as it posits itself quantitating.
Both (1 and 2) are mutually determined through each other.

66 New Exposition of the Science of Knowledge.

Both consequently ought to unite — if a knowledge is to be ;
the determination of Freedom through the Absolute as a ma
terial determination — not a formal one, for that is included in
the form of Knowledge — consequently as a limitation of the
quantitating— and a certain, no longer arbitrary, but through
the Absolute determined quantitating ; and of both must be
known absolutely because it is known — as is always known—
and that this is absolute knowledge must also be known in
the same immediate manner.

Thus there would occur in no knowledge the determina
tion of the throughout formal pure Freedom through abso
lute Being, nor, if Freedom be already materialized, the
consciousness of the quantitating as the product of that rela
tion; as if this consciousness would first look at that rela
tion, and then quantitate itself accordingly with Freedom;
no less would there be found in any knowledge a quantum
limited through absolute Freedom, as if knowledge could
now relate this quantum to the original determination of
Freedom through absolute Being : but a quantum is found
with the immediate consciousness that it is determined by the
absolute Being, and from this finding all knowledge commen
ces. The union of both links, as a fact, takes place outside
of (beyond) consciousness. (The result is plain : Truth can
not be seized outside of and without knowledge, and know
ledge then be arranged to suit such truth ; truth must and can
only be Jcnown. Vice versa, we cannot know without knowing
something — and if it is a knowledge and knows itself as such—
without knowing trutli. )

D. —Results.

"We contract all the preceding into a common result.

1. Knowledge, if it contemplates itself, finds itself as an
inner and for and in itself originating. If it contemplates
itself, I say ; for just as well as it might not be at all, it might
not be for itself. Its duplicity as well as its simplicity de
pend on its Freedom. The entrance into the Science of Know
ledge is Freedom ; therefore this science cannot be forced upon
any one, as if it had already an existence within everybody's
knowledge, merely requiring to be developed by analysis ; but
it rests upon an absolute act of Freedom, upon a new creation.

New Exposition of tfye Science of Knowledge. 67

Again : It contemplates itself — tliis is the second part of our
assertion — as absolutely originating; if it is. being simply
because it is, presupposing no condition whatever of its real
ity. This comprehension of the absoluteness, this knowledge
which knowledge has of itself and what is inseparable there
from, is absolute, is Reason. The mere simple knowledge,
which does not again comprehend itself as knowledge, is
Understanding. The common, also philosophical, knowledge
understands, it is true, according to the laws of reason (of
Thinking), and is forced to do so, because otherwise it would
not be knowledge at all ; it lias therefore reason, but it does
not comprehend its reason. To such philosophers their rea
son has not become something inward, something for itself ;
it is outside of them, in nature — in a curious sort of soul of
nature, which they call God. Their knowledge (understand
ing) posits therefore objects, precisely externalized reason.
All the certainty of their mere understanding presupposes in
an infinite retrogression another certainty ; they cannot go
beyond this retrogression, because they do not know the foun
tain of certainty (the absolute knowledge). Their actions
(prompted merely by the understanding) have an end, also
externalized reason from another view ; and even this separat
ing of reason into a theoretical and practical part, and of the
practical part into the opposition of object and end, arises from
neglect of reason.

2. In this contemplation of the originating, knowledge dis
covers a not-Being, which moves up, if we may say so, to the
former without any cooperation of Freedom ; and in so far as
this originating is absolute, this not-Being is also an absolute
not-Being, which can be neither explained nor deduced any
further. The not-Being is to precede the originating as a fact ;
from not-Being we are to proceed to Being, and by no means
vice versa. (This moving up of not-Being, and its position as
the primary, rests also upon immediate contemplation, and by
no means on a higher knowledge, &c. True, everybody will
say : " Why, it is natural that a not-Being should precede an
origin, if it is to be a real, absolute origin ; this I comprehend
immediately." But if you ask him for the proof, he will not
be able to give it, but will plead absolute certainty. His asser
tion is consequently our absolute contemplation, expressed in
4*

68 New Exposition of the Science of Knowledge.

words, and is derived from it, not vice versa: for our doctrine
remains one of contemplation. )

3. Now let this thus described knowledge again reflect upon
itself, or be in and for itself. This it can do necessarily, as
sure as all knowledge can do it, according to its ground-form ;
but it is not compelled to do so. If, however, only the first
and ground-view is to remain permanent and standing, and
not to vanish like a flash of light, giving place again to the
former darkness, then this reflection will follow of itself; in
deed it is nothing else than the making that fundamental view
permanent.

This reflection, or this new knowledge, comprehending the
absolute knowledge, as such, cannot penetrate beyond it, nor
wish to explain it any further ; for then knowledge would
never come to an end. It attains a firm standpoint, a repos
ing, unchangeable object. (This is very important.) So much
about its form. Let us now investigate its substance.

There is thus evidently in this reflection a double know
ledge : 1st, of the absolute originating, and, 2d, of the not-
Being accompanying it, which was above a not-Being of all
knowledge, but is here, as the reflection must know of it, mere
ly a not-Being of the originating; hence a knowledge of a
reposing absolute Being, opposed to knowledge, and from
which Knowledge, in its originating, starts.

4. Let us view the relation of this twofold in the reflection
of it. The comprehending of the absolute Being is a Think
ing, and, in so far as it is reflected upon, an inner Thinking, a
Thinking for itself. The For-itself of the originating, on the
contrary, is a contemplation. Now neither the one nor the
other alone, but both are reflected as the absolute knowledge.
Both, therefore, must be again joined together in their mutual
relation as the absolute knowledge. And firstly, since Free
dom for itself is an undetermined quantitating, but is only
through absolute Being (original Thinking, or whatever you
choose to call it), this determination in knowledge must be
that of a quantitating. (I say, expressly, in knowledge, as
such, and thereby knowledge rises above itself, comprehend
ing and separating Us own, immanent law from the absolute.)

This is comprehended as absolute knowledge, means:—
some particular quantitating is immediately comprehended as

New Exposition of the Science of Knowledge. 69

that which is demanded by absolute Being or Thinking, and
only in this falling together of both does consciousness arise.
It is to be hoped that the whole matter is clear now, and
every one can judge whether he understands it by answering
the following questions :

Ques. In what standpoint or focus does absolute know
ledge commence ? or — which is the same — where does all rela
tive knowledge stand still, where is it at an end, and where
has it encircled itself?

Ans. In the knowledge of a particular quantitating as de
termined through absolute Being= A. Not in the knowledge of
the quantitating by itself, nor of the determinedness of the same
through absolute Being ; but in the— not Indifference, but—
Identity -point of both ; in the imperceptible, consequently not
further comprehensible or explainable, unity of the absolute
Being and the For-itself Being in knowledge, beyond which
even the Science of Knowledge cannot go.

Ques. Whence then, now, the duplicity in knowledge ?

Ans. Formaliter : from the absolute For-itself of this very
knowledge, which is not chained down to, but penetrates be
yond, itself; from its absolute form of reflection, which on
that very account includes infinite reflectibility : the free tal
ent of knowledge (which can therefore be or not be) to make
each of its own states its object, and put it before itself to
reflect upon. Materialiter : Because this thus found and not
generated knowledge is a Thinking of an absolute quantita-
Mlity.

Ques. "Whence, then, now in knowledge the absolute Being
and the quant it ability f

Ans. Even from a disjunction of that higher, the Thinking
and the Contemplation in reflection. (Knowledge finds itself
and finds itself ready-made ; applied Realism of the Science
of Knowledge.)

Ques. Is then, now, the Contemplation equal to the Think
ing, or the Thinking equal to the Contemplation ?

Ans. By no means. Knowledge makes itself neither of these
two, but finds itself as both ; although, as finding itself consti
tuted by both, it indeed makes itself, since it elevates itself
by its own Freedom (free reflection) to this highest idea of
itself.

70 New Exposition of the Science of Knowledge.

Now, in this very point the knot of the absolute misunder
standing of our science is to be found. (I shall never live to
experience that this is understood, i. e. penetrated and ap
plied!) Knowledge makes itself, according to its nature, its
ground - substance : this is half, superficial Idealism. The
Being, the Objective, is the first; knowledge, the form of the
For-itself -Being follows from the nature of this Being ; this is
empty Dogmatism, which explains nothing. — Both must be
kept apart in the conception of them and both also must be
reconciled and united, as we have done here, according to their
relation and position in reality — and this is transcendental
Idealism. This discovered duplicity, however, is nothing else
than what we have heretofore termed TJiinldng and Contem
plation in their most original significance, and their relation
to each other, whereof now.

Ques. Whence then, now, the relation of both to each other
in knowledge f (I say, in knowledge, since only in knowledge
a relation is possible.)

Ans. Because Thinking is the in-itself firm and immovable —
penetrated by the real, by Being, and penetrating it — subject
ive-objective in original unity; therefore absolute cogniza-
bility, the real substantial basis of all knowledge, &c., &c. ; —
and because contemplation is mobility itself, expanding the
above substantial (of Thinking) to the infinity of knowledge ;
because, therefore, the latter is brought to rest by the former,
and thereby fixed for tlie reflection, thus becoming an absolute
and at the same time infinite substantial — not a passing-away
and in-itself-dissolving — knowledge.

This is the conception of absolute knowledge ; and at the
same time it is explained — from the absolute form of know
ledge — how knowledge (in the Science of Knowledge) can
comprehend and penetrate itself in its absolute conception.
The Science of Knowledge explains at one and the same time,
and from the same principle, itself and its object absolute
knowledge ; it is therefore itself the highest Focus, the self-
realization and self-knowledge of the absolute knowledge, as
such, and in that it bears the impress of its own completion.

PART SECOND.

Knowledge posits itself for itself as a determined Freedom
of Quantitating, or as Nature.

PART SECOND.

Knowledge posits itself for itself as a determined Freedom
of Quantitating, or as Nature.

CONTEXTS OF PART SECOND.

\ 1. Knowledge cannot posit itself for itself as a determined freedom of quan-
ti biting- without both thinking that Freedom as the ground of all quantity,
and at the same time contemplating a quantity as factically the prior.

I 2. Hence all contemplating knowledge begins with a determined quantitating
(World, Nature, &c.), which, however, it must think as accidental, or as hav
ing formal Freedom for its ground, and which it thus thinks by ascribing to
itself a power of Attention.

g 3. Results.

§ 4. Deduction of Space.

§ 5. Deduction of the Ground-form of Time.

\ G. Deduction of Matter.

I 1. Knowledge cannot posit itself for itself as a determined freedom of quan
titating without both thinking that Freedom as the ground of all quantity,
and at the same time contemplating a quantity as factically the prior.

The standpoint and the result of the last reflection, which
constituted absolute knowledge, was a determinedness of Free
dom, as a quantitating, through absolute Being or Thinking.
Let it be well understood, as a quantitating generally, but by
no means yet as the positing of a fixed quantum. Upon this
we must now reflect again, altogether in analogy with the
former reflections. As absolute knowledge went beyond itself
5

74 New Exposition of the Science of Knowledge.

and placed itself before itself, in its form of reflection, as a
reciprocity of substantiality and accidentality, so also here.

Let us first, however, observe the following:— This reflection
is, as we have seen, a multiplicity, if it views itself with respect
to its components, which, in that case, are not knowledge, but
merely the necessary components of knowledge ; but as know
ledge it is simple, and the very final point of all knowledge.
We now propose to descend from this point, in order to dis
cover standpoints of knowledge, which in themselves are again
equally manifold. Their particular character must always be
well remembered.

Now, while we said formerly, this reflection occurs ; we here
express ourselves thus : this reflection must occur. This must
is a conditional must ; it means, if a knowledge is to be, then
a reflection must have taken place. But as knowledge, from
its highest absolute point of view, is accidental, a knowledge
must°not necessarily be, and the necessity, which we have
demanded, is therefore only a conditional necessity. Yet on
that very account we must prove the conditional necessity of
this and all other reflections which we shall hereafter put forth,
i. e. we must deduce the reflection as such.
' We approach this deduction. The knowledge, spoken of, is
the knowledge of a determinedness of quantitating. But this
is not possible, unless the quantitating, in its agility and mo
bility, as it was described above, is realized, and unless the
focus 'of knowledge is concentrated in it. It must be well
remembered: the quantitating, as such, in its form; and by
no means yet a determined quantitating. The quantitating is
for-itself only as a formal act. Where, then, should the de
terminedness come from ?

This, then, would be the fundamental character of the new
reflection. Let us immediately proceed to the representation
of this reflection, and enter at once its central point. The act
is, as we have said, a free quantitatlng, which is inwardly for
itself, but at the same time reflects upon itself as confined and
determined through absolute Being. The disjunction is clearly
exposed: it is the opposition of confinedness and Freedom
(of quantitating, of course, as such) ; the former is to be de
pendent idealiter upon the latter; the latter is to be dependent
realUer upon the former. So much about this.

New Exposition of the Science of Knowledge. 75

We proceed to the union of that disjunction. Only in so
far as the freedom of quantitating is inwardly realized i. e.
as it contemplates itself, can it be taken hold of by a fixed
Thinking. The Thinking, and whatever follows therefrom,
is idealiter dependent upon contemplation. Vice versa, only in
so^far as this Freedom is subordinated to pure Being does
this Freedom and the quantitating inseparable from0 it, as
well as its contemplation, take place. In other words : only
in so far as it is not, as it is consequently the pure Being, and
presupposes its Not-Being in advance of its Being, is it an
absolute originating. Realiter therefore, the contemplation
of the quantitating, is dependent upon absolute Being and
upon the determination of Freedom through absolute Being
In this closest reciprocity, this floating between the ideal and
the real (in this thorough penetration of Contemplation and
Thinking), and in the unity of both, which is no immediate
object of knowledge, but knowledge itself, this reflection floats
like every reflection— according to its specific character of
course— as reflection of the Freedom of quantitating.
We now proceed to the adjoining links of the argument.
1. The Freedom of quantitating tJiinJcs itself. Let us facil
itate the comprehension of this proposition by calling to re
membrance the conception of causality in the upper "synthe
sis. There Freedom, as ground, was that through which the
quantum (if any quantum was supposed as posited) was per
ceived in its determinedness. It was realiter thus deter
mined in this manner, because Freedom had made it thus •
and was perceived idealiter, because Freedom was perceived'
a& holding itself over and within it. Bat this Thinking— and
this is the decisive remark-is no pure, original, but a syn
thetical uniting and reflecting Thinking, and Freedom was
posited in it always in its factical form (but only the form)
of determinedness. This Freedom is here thought pure and
absolute, signifies: it is thought, in the highest universality
as the absolute, eternal, unchangeable ground of all possible
quantity which can be thought. (The meaning of this can
easily be explained: it is expressed in the general proposition
which the Science of Knowledge has already uttered repeat
edly, but which is now Introduced into the real system of
knowledge : only Freedom (whether actual or not, is here not

76 New Exposition of the Science of Knowledge.

yet decided) is the ground of all possible quantity. But to us
it is of importance that the derivation and the connection "be
understood, and, as this point is of the most important conse
quences, we shall add a few more words in relation to it.

In the common view, the Thinking pointed out here is rela
ted to the former as the general abstract proposition is related
to the concrete : in the former, any determinedness of Freedom
is posited as the ground of some particular quantum ; in the lat
ter, Freedom is posited as (absolutely by reason of its form) the
only possible ground of all quanta. There we had an appli
cation of the conception of causality ; here we have its own
ground. Now we know well enough that this common view is
altogether a false and wrong one ; that each link presupposes
the other one, and that abstractions, as commonly understood,
have no existence. In the upper link Freedom was formal ;
could be and could not be. Here, as in the entire reflection,
it is posited positively, and is materially determined, as quan-
titating, and as the only quantitating. The ground of this
onlyness, absoluteness, and universality, is itself absolute :
the pure, on-itself-reposing, in itself unchangeable, and conse
quently an unchangeableness-asserting Thinking. Freedom
is thus substantialized, and each of its possible quantitative
states of determinedness becomes an accidence for the very
reason because the free quantitating is the connecting link of

both.

2. Now to the second link. In the same way as we argued
in the first synthesis, when representing absolute substantial
ity: Thinking is not possible unless contemplation takes
place ; so here also : The freedom of quantitating cannot be
thought unless it has been contemplated, consequently not
without the existence of a quantitating, and without this
quantitating having already been found as existing. All
Thinking of Freedom, as ground of all quantity, posits again
a quantity, of which it cannot be said that it is realized icitli
(actual) Freedom within consciousness (for here consciousness
first begins), but which lies beyond all consciousness, in the
not-being of consciousness, and which is only thought within
consciousness as having its ground in the (from that very rea
son, not actual) Freedom. Where consciousness begins, this
quantitating is not consciously produced, but is already found

New Exposition of the Science of Knowledge. 77

existing within consciousness ;— and of it we shall have to say
nothing more, than that it may be the sphere of future pos
sible acts of Freedom within consciousness, of the Freedom
which posits itself and knows itself as such, or of actual Free
dom. Only in so far as the contemplating consciousness — and
without contemplation there is no consciousness at all — goes
in itself beyond itself, thinks itself, and thinks itself as abso
lutely free, does it apply this contemplation to Freedom as its
only possible (not actually to be cognized, but thinkable)
ground. Nothing, however, is here to be said about the man
ner in which it is thus ground. This is unknown to us as yet,
and nothing else is to be thought than what we have said.

Adding, however, in order to let the reader think something
at least, what I can unhesitatingly add, that this latter view
is ground of a nature (i. e. what is called nature, the absolute,
within and before all knowledge presupposed nature), I im
mediately proceed to the following reflections.

2 2. Hence .all contemplating knowledge begins with a determined quantitating
(World, Nature, &c.), which, however, it must think as accidental, or as having
formal Freedom for its ground, and which it thus thinks by ascribing to itself
a power of Attention.

Contemplation (in its originality) is, as we have said, quan-
titability ; it has also been shown that all quantitability is
posited in absolute knowledge as accidental (as that which
can also not be— passing and changeable— not eternal) ; conse
quently, if it is, as to le connected with a ground, and, since it
is quantitability, with Freedom. Here, then, is the connecting
link, which leads us further; to the thinking of the accidental
there attaches itself the thinking of Freedom, and, in so far as
this accidentalness is thought as absolute quantitability, the
thinking of absolute Freedom. In order to comprehend this
quantitability (which in itself is only form of quantity, but
which, for the sake of a better comprehension of the following
thought, I not only permit, but even request the reader to think
as possibly determined)— in order to be but able to compre
hend it, I say, as accidental, the contemplation must describe
or reconstruct its origin within itself: must construct itself as
limiting itself from the absolute and in-itself-dissolving contem
plation to this quantitability ; thus making it a product of Free
dom within knowledge. ]STot as if this quantitability were ere-

78 New Exposition of the Science of Knowledge.

ated thereby — for we have seen that it appears together with the
first origin of knowledge, and originates before all real con
sciousness — but it thereby becomes accidental. (The case is
very simple ; in form it is the same operation which, at least,
we educated men perform every day, when we distinguish our
representation of a thing from the thing itself ; — although it
may well be presumed that, for instance, savages or children
cannot even do this, since to them, lost in wondering astonish
ment, both representation and the thing melt together, and
cannot be kept apart. Now this very same operation is to take
place here, only not in regard to a single object, but applied to
the absolute ground of all objectivity, to quantitability itself.
This is done inform, with Freedom. To him who does not per
form it, this contemplation does not become an object of his
knowledge, because he does not elevate himself above it ; it is
to him knowledge itself: he is imprisoned within it and melted
together with it, as the child is fused together with single
objects. He describes within it the other natural phenomena
as the mathematician, who reposes in the contemplation of
space, describes his figures within it. All that we have
said, the entire synthesis — with the exception of that one
link in which he reposes — has for him no existence. He is
one of those intelligences, mentioned before, who liave reason,
but are not reason, and do not elevate themselves to its con
ception.)

But what has lie attained for whom it has existence ? A new
altogether unfettered contemplation — that of formal Freedom,
which it is not necessary to describe here, since it will accom
pany us to the end ; and which resigns itself to the original
contemplation, or rather includes it, and within which, as its
sphere and its Freedom, the Thinking of Freedom, and of all
that which lies within absolute knowledge, is now alone pos
sible. (This Freedom, torn loose from the original ties of con
templation, it is which lifts itself above the found knowledge.)
The latter contemplation is to be the determining, the former
the determined ; consequently a relation of causality, but dif
ferent from the one mentioned before, from the pure causality.
The Ideal ground is the effect, the real ground the effecting.
Here, consequently, we have the secondary relation of Causal
ity, hinted at before. (To the primary we elevate ourselves

New Exposition of the Science of Knowledge. 79

only by a transcendental view ; and this has never occurred
to former philosophers.)

Let us now review the foregoing.

From the one side, contemplating knowledge begins with a
determined quantitability ; determined, at all events, in so far
as it is contemplated as quantitability within an altogether
in-itself-dissolving freedom (i. e. for him who here realizes
within himself the necessary contemplation. How it is for him
who cannot do so, we are not yet able to state : his knowledge
we do not describe at present.) This determined quantitabil
ity is the absolute, last ground of all contemplation, and, in
contemplation, cannot be transcended; it is the original deter-
minedness with which all consciousness commences and first
becomes real; the known end of all contemplation. (This
is the world, nature, objective Being, &c. There can be no
more clearly defined conception : and I am sure that this one
is sufficient and explains all ; and yet some persons foolishly
think that this last determinedness ought again to be ex
plained and deduced.)

Now, this quantitability is thought, for the very reason of
its imrnediateness, as accidental, but no knowledge can rest
in the accidental (whose knowledge rests there does not com
prehend it as accidental). We therefore penetrate necessarily
beyond it through Thinking and free intellectual (in con
traposition to the confined, sensual) contemplation. And
there we find that all quantitability, from its very form, is
simply tlie result of the in- itself -reposing, in and for-itsclf
~being Freedom, altogether as such, and has in and for itself no
connection whatever with absolute Being ; that there is conse
quently in all these representations altogether no knowledge,
no truth and certainty, not only not of absolute Being, things
per se, &c., but even not of any sort of connection with this
absolute Being. We discover, on the contrary, as the last and
highest, a material (we could not term it otherwise) determin
edness of Freedom — i. e. in such a manner that it nevertheless
remains in and for itself formal Freedom, and everything that
follows therefrom— through the absolute Being. The know
ledge of this determinedness is the real end of knowledge, and
first gives knowledge. If, therefore, the contemplating know
ledge is nevertheless to be a knowledge, it can be nothing

80 New Exposition of tlie Science of Knowledge.

else than the determination of the pure, absolutely through-
itself-existing, consequently not formal or quantitating Free
dom through absolute Being, wliicli is gathered up in the form
of knowledge as an inner formaliter free knowledge and seen
through it as through an irremovable veil, and knowledge is
realized within knowledge — i. e. absolute knowledge, or cer
tainty — enters, when this very harmony, this falling together
of the two ground-forms of knowledge, the formal and the
material, is realized.

Quantitability in contemplation, therefore, and its formal
determinedness, deduced by us, are the result of the in-
itself-existing formal Freedom. But that knowledge should
rest in this contemplation, and should find itself as resting
(for it is contradictory to rest in quantitability), results
from the, we know not how, thought determination of pure
Freedom through absolute Being. Whatever knowledge can
hold stationary, whatever does not dissolve within its grasp,
is nothing but that determination ; and again, only through
this quantitability can that determination be perceived, since
quantitability, and it only, is the eye and the focus of actual
consciousness. But let it be well remarked, that this harmony,
this falling together of the two endpoints, takes place only
beyond knowledge, because knowledge, as such, does not go
further than to absolute quantitability. That harmony is
known only in absolute Thinking ; consequently only its
That can be recognized, but its How ? cannot be contemplated.

\ 3. Results.

The results of the foregoing may now be expressed in a
generally comprehensible manner as follows ; the words must,
however, be taken very strictly.

1. The world — i. e. the sphere of quantitability, of the
changeable — is not at all absolute in knowledge, nor is it abso
lute knowledge itself, but it arises solely on the occasion of
the realization of absolute knowledge as its immediate char
acter, as its starting-point (and this whole second synthesis,
in which absolute knowledge realizes itself, contains some
thing new, grounded in that knowledge). Indeed the world is
altogether nothing else than the in-itself empty and unsub
stantial form of the beginning of consciousness itself, the firm

New Exposition of the Science of Knowledge. 81

background whereof is the eternal and unchangeable, or the
Absolute Being.

The world of the changeable is altogether not; it is the pure
Nothing. (However paradoxical this may sound to unconse-
crated ears, it is evident to him who but for a single mo-
. ment considers it thoroughly ; and I cannot use expressions
too strong. Whoever remains entangled in this form has not
yet penetrated from appearance to Being; from supposing and
guessing to knowledge. All the certainty such a person can
have is, at the utmost, a conditional certainty—-// space exists,
it must contain something limited, conditioned by space; — a
certainty which, however, he must at least comprehend in the
form of absolute, pure Thinking.)

2. The imperishable does not enter the perishable, whereby
it would cease to be the imperishable (the indifference of the
Infinite and Finite of Spinoza, which we have already refuted) ;
but the imperishable remains for itself and closed and com
pleted within itself; equal to itself, and only to itself. Nor
is the world perhaps a mirror, expression, revelation, symbol
—or whatever name has been given, from time to time, to this
half- thought— of the Eternal ; for the Eternal cannot mirror
itself in broken rays ; but this world is picture and expression
of the formal— I say, formal— Freedom, and is this for and in
itself; is the described conflict of Being and Not-Being, the
absolute, inner contradiction. Formal Freedom is altogether
separated in the very first synthesis from Being ; is for itself,
and goes its own way in the production of this synthesis.

3. But knowledge lifts itself above itself and above this
world, and only there, beyond this world, is it knowledge.
The world, which is not wanted, joins knowledge without any
cooperation on the part of knowledge. But beyond that imme-
diateness, whereupon does knowledge repose there? Again
not on absolute Being, but on a determinedness of the— not
formal, of course, for that is altogether undeterminable, but
absolutely real Freedom through absolute Being. The High
est, therefore, is a synthetical Thinking (even the seat of the
highest substantiality), in which we meet absolute Being, not
as for-itself) but as a determining, as absolute substance,
—which is already a form of knowledge, as Thinking— and as
absolute ground, which is the same. Hence even absolute
knowledge knows only mediately of this absolute Being.

82 New Exposition, of the Science of Knowledge.

Now let the reader further remark the conception of this
Freedom. It is eternally, unchangeably determined, even as
and because that which determines it is absolute Unity. Even
therefore in relation to it does the world proceed its own way.
But again : a harmony of this determinedness is to arise in
knowledge with the contemplation of quantitability. This
determinedness therefore, and only it, must enter quantita
bility, or rather must be perceivable through quantitability
in order to fill up the hiatus between two very unlike compo
nents of knowledge. Of this we shall speak in the following.

(I first insert, however, a parallel of my system with that of
Spinoza, interpreting Spinoza's as favorably as possible. He
has an absolute substance as I have ; this can be described,
like mine, by pure Thinking. That he arbitrarily separates it
into two modifications, Extension and Thinking, I shall leave
unnoticed. To him as well as to me — I interpret here to his
advantage, as he speaks not only from the standpoint of know
ledge generally, but also from that of the knowing individual ;
—finite knowledge is, in so far as it contains truth and reality,
accidence of that substance ; to him as to me it is an absolute
accidence, unalterably determined through Being itself. He
acknowledges therefore, as I do, the same highest absolute
synthesis, that of absolute substantiality, and he also deter
mines substance and accidence much as I do. But now in
this same synthesis — where indeed the difference must neces
sarily be, or we should be perfectly agreeing with each
other — comes the point where the Science of Knowledge
turns away from him, or, plainly spoken, where it can
prove to him and to all others who philosophize in the
same manner, that he has quite overlooked something ; i. e.
the point of transition from the substance to the accidence.
He does not even ask for such a transition ; hence, in reality,
there is none ; substance and accidence are in reality not sep
arated ; his substance is no substance, his accidence no acci
dence ; he only calls the same thing now the one and now the
other. In order to obtain a distinction he afterwards causes
Being, as accidence, to break into infinite modifications —
another grave defect ; for how can he, in this infinity, which
dissolves within itself, ever arrive at firm fixedness, a finished
Whole? I will consequently improve his expression and say,
into a closed or completed system of modifications. And now,

New Exposition of the Science of Knowledge. 83

leaving unnoticed everything else which might be objected, I
will ask only : Is Being necessarily broken into these modifi
cations, and does it exist in no other way? How, then, do
you arrive at a Thinking of it as a Whole, and what truth has
this your Thinking? Or is it in itself One, as you maintain?
Whence, then, the breaking of it, and the opposition of a world
of extension to a world of Thinking ? The short of the matter
is, you realize, though unconsciously, what you deny in your
whole system, formal Freedom ; Being and Not-Being : the
ground-form of knowledge, in which lies the necessity of a
separation and of an infinity for consciousness. The Science
of Knowledge, however, posits this formal Freedom at once as
the point of transition, and demonstrates the separation aris
ing from it, not as that of absolute Being, but as the accom
panying ground-form of the knowledge of absolute Being, or,
which means the same, of absolute knowledge. The Science
of Knowledge says : Absolute Being does indeed determine ;
not unconditionally, however, but under the rule just describ
ed ; and its accidence is not within it — whereby it would lose
its substantiality— but without it, in the formaliter free. Thus
only is substantiality separated from accidentally in a com
prehensible manner, and each made possible. The existence
of knowledge — and only knowledge has existence, and all ex
istence has its ground in knowledge — depends simply upon
knowledge ; not so, however, its original determinedness.
Hence the accidence of absolute Being remains simple and
unchangeable as absolute Being itself; and changeability is
assigned to quite another source, to the formal Freedom of
knowledge.

Should, therefore, the Science of Knowledge be asked as
to its character in regard to Unitism— IV -/.a} -&— and Dualism,
the answer is : That Science is Unitism from an ideal point of
view, in regard to knowledge as real knowledge — knowing
that the (determining) eternal One is the ground of all know
ledge, of course beyond all knowledge ; — and Dualism it is
from a real point of view, in relation to knowledge as actual.
Thus it has two principles, absolute Freedom and absolute
Being ; and knows that the absolute One can never be attained
— reached — in a real — actual — knowledge, but can be attained
only in pure Thinking.— In the balancing-point between these

84 New Exposition of the Science of Knowledge.

two views knowledge stands, and only thus is it knowledge ;
in the consciousness of this Unattainable — which it, never
theless, always comprehends, but as unattainable — does its
essence as knowledge consist, its eternity, infinity, and in-
completability. Only in so far as infinity is within it — which
Spinoza indeed designed — is it; but only in so far as it rests
with this infinity in the One does it not dissolve within
itself — from which Spinoza could not protect it — but is it a
world, a universe of knowledge, closed — completed — within
infinity.)

4. One point, about which I have asked the reader to remain
undecided during the progress of our investigation, is now
clear. Freedom must be thought — from a point of view which
has not yet been designated, but which will hereafter be
found — as ground of the determinedness of quantitability ;
not, it is true, in a factical manner, but the real, eternal, and
unchangeable Freedom, as determined through pure Being,
must turn out to be beyond all consciousness — ground of the
factical view of consciousness.

§ 4. Deduction of Space.

All consciousness begins with an already existing quantita
bility, to which contemplation is confined. This state of con
finedness must be in and for itself, must find itself as such,
reflect upon itself as such, &c. This is a new reflection.

First of all : it is generally clear, and a matter of course,
that this fixedness of contemplation, like that of knowledge,
must be in accordance with the groundform of knowledge, a
For-itself. In the present case, moreover, it is to be expressly
posited as a For-itself. In order to secure our teachings
against misinterpretation, let us remark the following: — A
free, empty contemplation, according to the above, resigned
itself to a state of confinedness. This, when regarded more
closely, leads to nothing and explains nothing. If the contem
plation is free, it is empty ; if it is confined, it is not for-itself.
Both must therefore be thoroughly united in such a manner,
that the contemplation is free in its very confinedness ; pass
ing over, as it does, all the points of that confinedness at once
with Freedom. Thus we receive a new, infinite quantitating
of quant if ability itself. — Nothing and not even the difficulty

New Exposition of the Science of Knowledge. 85

will, Ivthink, prevent the reader from at once strictly compre
hending this point.

The former proof was merely : If Thinking is to occur, con
templation must also take place ; and from that proof we
derived quanti lability, with which consciousness consequently
commences. Now the difficult and almost incomprehensible
point which remained, was this : shall this quantitability be a
determined quantitability or not? Indeed it can scarcely be
conceived, what, if we speak of pure quantity, a determined-
ness of quantity might mean. (If anyone thinks he under
stands it, he misconceives our entire investigation, does not
view quantitability pure, but mixes a quote with it in order to
attain a quantum. Quantitability in itself is nothing else
than the pure in itself undetermined possibility of infinite
quanta, which can receive their limitation only from the de-
terminedness of the quale.)

It is true, that afterwards, when we had applied to it an
absolutely empty Freedom, we spoke of determinedness, and
accepted it as a proved fact, but only as a limitation of Free
dom to quantitability generally. In short, quantitability is
not posited in contemplation as it is posited in Thinking — i. e.
not as a production of Freedom, but as something absolutely
found or given beyond all consciousness ; and since Thinking
is not without Contemplation, it is evident that quantitability
must present within knowledge an entirely contradictory view.
This, strictly taken, altogether only qualitative limitation to
quantitability is here now itself contemplated, and thereby an
infinite quantitating obtained. The view has indeed changed,
having become more definite.

The case stands now thus : Quantitating materialiter takes
place with Freedom, and is contemplated as taking place with
Freedom; formaliter it is tliougltt as something, to which
knowledge is confined.

After this general view, let us now enter into the branch-
syntheses, and at first into that of Contemplation. Quantitat
ing views itself as confined to itself; it quantitates, therefore,
really and with Freedom ; and if only to be able to view its own
confinedness, presupposes itself, in this free quantitating, as
its own necessary condition. Both links are altogether one.
We must first become acquainted with one of them ; let it be
the presupposed.

86 New Exposition of the Science of Knowledge.

This is the permanent :, absolute contemplation ; hence ma-
nifoldness, which holds itself in a resting light, eternally and
ineradicably the same. "What, then, is it ? It is, if knowledge
is posited, the resting, permanent Space. If we know this
space, we also know the pointed-out contemplation. Let the
reader consider the following thought, which seems to me to
light up the old darkness like a flash of lightning. Space is
to be infinitely divisible. Now, if this is to be so, how then
comes knowledge ever to take hold of space ? Where has it
finished the infinite division, and embraced the elements of
space ? Or, how does space ever attain its inner solidity, so
that it does not fall through itself, does not thin off into a
fog and vanish ? If space is therefore, nevertheless, infinitely
divisible, it is at least, from a certain point of view, also not
so, or it could not be at all, and could not be this. Its mani
fold — not that within it, for of that we know nothing yet — must
therefore mutually support itself, as it were, in order that
space can support itself and attain solidity. Again, contem
plation teaches everyone, at least, that we can perform no
construction, which is always an agility within space, unless
space rests and stands still. Whence this resting of space ?
Again : No one can construct a line without something mixing
with the line, in the course of construction, which he has not
constructed, nor ever can construct ; which he, therefore, does
not add to the line while drawing it, but which he has carried
along by means of space before ever commencing to draw the
line : it is the solidity of the line. (If the line is a running
through an infinite number of points, the line becomes impos
sible ; the points and the line itself fall to pieces. Neverthe
less they would hang together within space, and are, in their
infinite manifoldness, at the same time its continuity.)

Whence, now, this solid, resting and permanent space ? It
is the sufficiently described Contemplation (the For- and In-
itself-Being of formal Freedom, which is a quantitability),
which presupposes, however, itself as absolutely being to itself,
according to the demonstrated law of reflection of conscious
ness. It is the on-itself-reposing, firm glance of the intelli
gence ; the resting, immanent light, the eternal eye in-itself
and for-itself.

How, then, is the second link of the synthesis related to

New Exposition of the Science of Knowledge. 87

this? It is a free taking hold of itself within this contem
plation ; a constructing, remaking of the same, a loosening
and again extending of space; — but let it be well remem
bered, a taking hold of what has already presupposed itself,
since otherwise the first link would be lost, which must be
guarded against in every reflection. Hence it is clear that the
one cannot be at all without the other : no space without con
struction of the same, although not it (space), but merely the
consciousness of it, is thereby generated (ideal relation) ; no
construction without presupposing space (real relation). All
knowledge of this description rests, therefore, neither in the
one nor the other, but in both of the links, as was shown in
the instance of the line. The mere direction of the line is a
result of the last link of the freedom of construction ; its con
cretion is the result of the permanent space. The drawing
of the line is evidently synthetical.

We add the following remarks : Firstly, for this construct
ing process space is infinitely divisible ; i. e. you can make an
infinite number of points from which to construct within it.
Again, space is evidently nothing but quantitability itself.
The assumed determinedness is therefore and remains alto
gether formally a limitation to quantitability itself. We re
turn here to tlje same proposition expressed above : formal
Freedom, as such, is the only ground of quantitability and of
all the results thereof. Even space is only quantitability, and
nothing enters it which might originate from the thing per se.
Finally, the substantial, solid, and resting space, is, according
to the above, the original light, before all actual knowledge,
only thinkable and intelligible— but not visible and not to be
contemplated— as produced through Freedom. The construc
tion of space, according to the second link of the synthesis, is
a taking hold of itself on the part of light, a self-penetration
of light, ever from one point and realized within knowledge
itself; a secondary condition of light, which, for the sake of
distinguishing it, we shall term clearness, the act eriligJitening.

COROLLARIA. — This deduction and description of space is
decisive for philosophy, physics, and for all sciences. Only
the last mentioned constructed and constructive space, which
in itself is not at all possible, and would dissolve into Noth-

» •

88 New Exposition of the Science of Knowledge.

ingness were it not for the original in-itself-solid contempla
tion, lias "been held to be the only space ; especially since
Kant, whose system, in this respect, has done a bad service.
(To him whose eyes have been opened there is nothing more
funny than the ideas which modern philosophies promulgate
about space.) Followed up, this view of the matter should
have led to a formal Idealism. But people had a horror of
that ; so they went to positing matter (substance) into this
spoiled space without considering that, if they had matter
beforehand, space would have come to them without any
further exertion on their part ; or, that space without inner
solidity (and this is the very ground of the famous matter or
substance) dissolves into an infinite di visibility = Nothing.

Then they were afraid that if natural philosophy should
attempt the construction of a material body, the powers of
attraction and repulsion within it might one day lose their bal
ance, without ever beginning to think that these two ideas are
nothing more than a double view in the reflection of one and
the same balance, the firm repose, which space carries within
it.

\ 5. Deduction of the Groundform of Time.

"We now proceed to an investigation which may lead us, to
the second branch-link of our synthesis. In the eternal space
the manifold of it was lying quietly and steadily aside of each
other before and in one glance, which is a glance, and one
and the same glance only in so far as everything lies thus qui
etly and steadily together.

Reflect now upon any particular part of this contemplation.
Whereby is such part kept in its solidity and repose ? Evi
dently by all others and all others by it. No one part is in
the view unless all the others are in it ; the whole is deter
mined by the parts, the parts by the whole, every part by
every other part, and only in so far as it is thus is it the per
manent contemplation which we have described. Nothing is,
if all is not in the same standing unity of the view. It is the
most perfect inner reciprocity and organization ; and thus
organization reveals itself already in the pure contemplation
of space.

In the construction, on the contrary, we start from some one
individual point, arid the parts (for instance, the parts of the

New Exposition of tlie Science of Knowledge. 89

•bove constructed line) come to follow in a certain order of
'.accession, so that, this direction presupposed, you cannot
arrive at the point B except from A, &c. But how have we
been enabled to say what we have said just now ? Only in so
far as we posited such facts, formally at our pleasure ; conse
quently, only in so far as we merely thought, arid kept within
the standpoint of construction. In the standing space beyond
construction there are no points, no discretions, but it is the one
concrete view just particularly described. Discretion, there
fore — so we will express ourselves for the sake of the strict
ness of the investigation — has its origin in the Thinking of the
constructing, and in what results therefrom, the changing of
the constructing into a Thinking.

But wherein lies the ground of the determined law of suc
cession ? Firstly, formaliter, in the Freedom of the direction,
which is altogether undetermined and changeable, floating in
each point between infinity. This Freedom, therefore, must
be presupposed, if a succession is but to-be spoken of; and
we thus arrive at the old proposition of Freedom as the ground
of all quantitability — here, however, in a stricter, more defin
ite sense. If Freedom, however, is once presupposed, then
the succession is determined by the co-existence of the mani
fold in the standing contemplation or in space. The conscious
ness i f the succession, therefore, like the previous conscious
ness, rests neither in the point of the construction, nor in that
of the contemplation, but in both and in the union of both.

Now, while the lower, objective, Thinking or Constructing,
always presupposing a determined direction grounded by its
own Freedom within itself, is confined to the law of succession
which contemplation furnishes, how is it tlwuglit f Evidently,.
as confined originally and beyond all Thinking and knowl
edge, in regard to every possible direction which it may give-
to itself; not absolutely confined, but under the condition of
this or that particular direction which it gives to itself. Hence,,
as above, we presupposed an original necessary contemplation,,
so here an original, necessary Thinking is presupposed, andl
this itself is tfiought } for the designated point is surely a,
thought. But as the designated contemplation was and re
mained a mere quantitability, so this thought also is only
quantitability, but a quanta tability infinitely determinate
6

90 New Exposition of tlie Science of Knowledge.

through Freedom of the direction. (Think one series, a sec
ond, a third, &c., and you have thought the separate deter
mination of quantitability. But now you are to think no
separate one, but simply all its determinations, and doing so
you think a confinedness of Thinking.)

I have characterized quantitability generally above as na
ture, or as the material world. The law of succession, there
fore' of which we here speak, is evidently the law of nature;
arid it is even now clear how Freedom is confined to it. Not
only in so far as it must first be realized within itself in order
to have a succession ; but further, in so far as, after it has this
succession, none of the laws of this succession apply to Free
dom, unless Freedom has chosen itself a direction, of which
directions an infinite number are placed before it from each
point. (Space is here an altogether adequate picture.)

Even after the world is, and supposing that somebody were
tied down within the world, unable to pass beyond it— were to
remain in the second link of the synthesis, in which case his
knowledge would be the production only of the contemplation
originated beyond all knowledge— the world would still be to
him not an absolute power. For even in the world infinite
directions are possible, the choice of which depends upon him :
hence his relation to the world, and the law of the world, by
which he is bound, would always depend upon himself after all.
The complaints about human infirmity, weakness, depend
ence, &c,, can no more be refuted than the complaints about
the weakness of human understanding. Whoever asserts them,
will probably know and have experienced them ; we can trust
his assurance. Only, we may beg him not to include us.
Nevertheless it is often impossible to think ill enough about
the immediate reality. However low we may draw its picture,
experience nevertheless exceeds it. But he who thinks ill
of mankind, according to its general faculty, blasphemes rea
son and at the same time condemns himself.

One more remark, which forces itself upon us and apper
tains to the subject: The described objective Thinking— each
link of which is dependent upon another, which is not depend
ent upon tao former (while in the conception of the resting
space each link was dependent upon the other), where the
dependence is therefore only one-sided, and does not move

New Exposition of tlic Science of Knowledge. 91

retrogressively— carries at the same time the formal character
of Time within it, the movements of which, as we well know,
are related to each other in that manner. Nevertheless, I do
not wish to be understood as having already deduced time.
The succession, here pointed out, has moreover a characteristic
which seems itself contradictory, that the discrete thoughts
can nevertheless be also placed alongside of each other and
surveyed in one glance. But we lack here still the solidity, the
stoppage of the moments which we must have in time. \Ve
may, therefore, have arrived at the highest ground of time,
but on no account have we arrived at its reality itself in the
appearance. It is, however, clear that, if we are to elevate
ourselves above time and to explain it we must not be tied
down to its moments, but must survey them at one glance, as
we just now did, with our links of Thinking, according to the
law of succession.

We may, however, apprehend already what will be neces
sary to obtain this solid and real time ; i. e. that its links
must not be merely a Thinking, but, at the same time, such
an organic, self-holding and supporting contemplation as we
above described the contemplation of resting space to be.
This, however, can be attained only after a disjunction of
space from itself, after a most probably infinite multiplication
of die same ; and devolves, therefore, upon a new reflection.
This much, however, is even now clear, that time is not that
perfect correlative of space, which it has generally been consid
ered to be. Philosophers have distinguished them as outward
and inward contemplation. This is mere one-sidedness ! For
we should never get space outside of us if we had it not within
ourselves. And are we not ourselves space ? The viewing of
space as an outward contemplation originated from that curious
immateriality which was to be secured to us when degraded
matter was no longer good enough for us. (Time stands in the
same line of reflections as the true, genuine space. It is true,
however, that time, on account of its relation to Thinking and
as the form of Thinking, is carried higher, above all space ;
and this is the cause why the nature of time has been mis
understood and why it has been opposed to space.)

By the above we have made an important step toward ac
tual knowledge. Everyone knows that all actual know-

92 New Exposition of the Science of Knowledge.

ledge, or knowledge of the actual, must be a particular know
ledge within an undetermined manifold, and that its particu
lar character, its Being generally, consists in this very relation
to the manifold. But the manifold must moreover be sur-
veyable ; must remain firm before the glance and support it.
This supporting sphere we have given to Thinking by the law
of succession in the eternally standing and resting space,
which space, as we have described it, is precisely that which
remains firm to the construction, and supports it, which does
not dissolve by infinite division into nothing. But this char
acteristic does not fill space. True, it is in itself not empty
(for it is full of itself), but neither is it full of anything else ;
in that respect it is, indeed, empty. It is nothing but the
solid, same and in-itself-resting contemplation.

It is evident that our next business must be to get some
thing into this standing sphere which can be a particular
something, whereby the in-itself everywhere same space (if
anyone finds that this thought, in view of the manifoldness in
space, is contradictory, I have no objection) can be distinguish
ed from itself, and the links of one series of succession can be
excluded from each other. If anyone supposes, starting from
the idea of space, that this something will be matter, he is
right. But it is highly probable, in view of the peculiar char
acter of our system, that matter will have here quite a differ
ent signification from the usual one. For is there not also a
spirit world, quite as discrete as the other ? "We shall, there
fore, probably have to proceed from the unity of these two
worlds to their distinction, and prove that matter is necessa
rily spiritual, and spirit necessarily material ; no matter with
out life and soul — no life except in matter.

\ 6. Deduction of Matter.

"We approach the designated investigation.

Formal Freedom is posited. But altogether inseparable
from it is a quantitating, purely as such. Formal Freedom
cannot be posited, as a simple point, in and for itself, con
templating itself; for in that case it would not be posited at
all ; neither it nor anything would be. The point is merely
its one-sided view in Thinking ; but here we have contempla
tion. Necessarily, therefore, a quantitating is posited at the

New Exposition of the Science of Knowledge. 93

same time, but only in so far as it is inseparable from the
positedness of Freedom.

This quantitating, it is true, is in and for itself simple
and one and the same ; but thus it is again unreal and unat
tainable. In the reflection it is double : Concretion and Dis
cretion in succession. Hence both are absolutely posited, and
preposited to the ground-form of knowledge. We must,
therefore, answer these questions : What is involved in the
concretion generally, and especially in the form of formal
Freedom in which it appears here ? What in the discretion
to a succession, in the same respect? What, finally, in the
absolute identity of both ?

1. The concretion is, in regard to its substance, any particu
lar space, even a concreting and self-supporting of manifold
points which may be thought afterwards and arbitrarily.
Without this possible manifold it is no concretion, as is imme
diately evident. But it is, again, not merely the space which
keeps itself in equilibrium and fixes its contemplation ; for then
it would not be at the same time construction, and construc
tion through Freedom. What, then, is it ? An in-itself space
occupying manifold, in which points, penetrating eacli other
in reciprocal concretion, can be posited infinitely, wJiicli com
mence, continue, and give direction to any line with the most
unbounded freedom. Agility is distributed through the whole,
or can be so distributed ; so also is the solidity of space dis
tributed throughout the whole ; and the agility, whenever it
has determined itself or decided itself in a particular manner,
is surrendered to this solidity — but always according to its
own law and so as to remain Freedom in it, as we have shown
in the preceding section. The basis is that resting, standing,
space : but with it the Freedom of concretion is inseparably
united.

This now is matter ; and hence matter is the fixed construct-
ibility of space itself, and nothing else whatever. Matter is
not space ; for space rests eternally and unshaken, and car
ries all construction ; but it is in space ; it is the construction
which is carried. Space and matter are the inseparable view
of one and the same, of quantitability (from the standpoint of
contemplation), as standing and general, and at the same time
concrete and constructive.

94 New Exposition of the Science of Knowledge.

RESULTS. — A. Matter is necessarily a manifold ; whenever it
is taken hold of, it is taken hold of as such, and it cannot be
taken hold of otherwise.

B. It is infinitely divisible, without dissolving into nothing
ness. It is carried by the abiding space in the background,
which as such (as space) is not divided at all, but within
which division takes place.

C. It is necessarily and in itself organic. The ground of a
motion is distributed through it, for it is the constructibility
in space. It may be in rest, but it can put itself in motion
simply from itself.

2. If formal Freedom is posited in both, then a constructing
is posited. But this is, however closely we may describe it,
simply, a line-drawing; it produces a line, by no means a
point. But the line presupposes a direction, which again is
necessarily confined to an order of succession. By the posit
ing of formal Freedom, therefore, there is necessarily posited
and preposited, prior to all self-conscious Freedom, some suc
cession of the manifold.

Now, this original succession, seized in contemplation (not
in Thinking, as above), results in Time. — It is clear that the
presupposed line is infinitely divisible. True, it is completed,
and in regard to space a closed whole. But between every
two points which stand in the relation of succession, I can put
again other points which stand in the same relation. Hence,
although the contemplation, of which we here speak, is evi
dently unity of the glance, and although every time-moment
is probably a Time-Whole, discrete and separated from all
other time-moments ; yet, from another view, this time-mo
ment is again an infinitely divisible moment of the one time ;
and only through this infinity of floating does the time-mo
ment receive its solidity. The characteristic conception, which
was wanting heretofore, is now deduced.

Again : through this very solidity does the contemplation
seize itself as an objective, self-given, immanent light. For all
light consists of a floating over infinite distinguishability,
quantitability, which must be at the same time infinitely
determinable and constructible. The light is not something
simple, but the infinite reciprocity of Freedom with itself, the

New Exposition of the Science of Knowledge. 05

penetration of its unity, eternity, and primitiveness, by the
manifoldness and iniinite determinability arising therefrom.
This light must appear to itself at some point, must seize itself
in real knowledge ; and this point of self-seizing is the de
scribed contemplation in the synthesis of space, matter, and
time.

3. Both — concretion as well as discretion — are the position of
formal Freedom, in which both are altogether united. The lat
ter gives time, and hence actual knowledge ; the former, space
and matter. But the former is also the basis and condition of
the latter. Hence there is no light (no knowledge) in its es
sential form except in matter, and, vice versa, no matter is (let
it be well remarked for-itself) except in time and its light.

But let us consider each of these points more closely.

First of all, an important remark not yet dwelt upon : There
is no knowledge and no life which does not necessarily last a
time, and posit itself for itself in a time. Knowledge carries,
by its very form, time within itself and brings it along ; a
timeless knowledge — for instance, an absolutely simple point
within time — is impossible. But time is altogether only a
confined succession of matter in space. Hence no time
is comprehended^ and — since it must be comprehended if life
and knowledge is to be — no life and knowledge is, unless
matter and space are comprehended. Matter can just as well
be called a transformation of space into time, Freedom and
knowledge; and thus time and space are regarded also in
this central point as inseparably united.

Life necessarily describes itself in matter. Vice versa, mat
ter cannot be described except by the construction of a line.
But this line needs a direction ; this direction a succession of
points ; these a knowledge in which a manifold can be united,
for otherwise the line would become a point.

(If I had to do with somebody to whom I were compelled to
prove the necessity of the idealistic view by one example, I
should ask him : How can you ever attain a line except by
keeping the points asunder, for else they fall together ; and
at the same time taking them together and annulling their
being asunder, for else they never join each other? But you,
comprehend, undoubtedly, that this unity of the manifold-

96 New Exposition of tlie Science of Knowledge.

ness, this positing and annulling of a discretion, can "be
only in knowledge ; and we have just shown that it is the
ground-form of knowledge. Now you ought at the same time
to comprehend that space and matter consist, in exactly the
same way, in such a keeping asunder of the points, but in a
unity ; and that they are, hence, possible only in knowledge
and as knowledge, and that they are, indeed, the real form' of
knowledge itself.

This is now, in truth, as clear and evident as an}^thing
possibly can be ; it lies right before every one who opens his
eyes, and ought not first to be proved and acquired, but
should be known so well that one ought to feel ashamed to
have to say it. — Why, then, was it not seen ? Because every
thing lies nearer to us than the seeing itself, in which we rest ;
and because we have been stubbornly clinging to that objec-
tivating which seeks outside of itself what lies only in us.)

"We add two exhaustive remarks, casting light far around.

a. The ground of all actual Being (of the world of appear
ances) has been represented in the deepest and most exhaust
ive manner, partly in regard to its formal, partly in regard to
its material character. The former consists in this, that the
world is independent of all knowledge which is recognized by
knowledge itself as knowledge ; that it would be though the
knowledge of it were not ; again, that it is not necessarily,
but could just as well not be. — We are especially particular
about the first point, and it is a great error to suppose that
transcendental idealism denies the empirical reality of the
material world, &c.; it only points out in it the forms of know
ledge, and annihilates it therefore as for-itself-existing and
absolute. — The ground of its existence is, in one word, this :
that knowledge must necessarily presuppose itself for itself, so
as to be able to describe its origin and Freedom. Formal
Freedom posits itself as being. Now this formal Freedom, in
its positedness before all conscious use of Freedom, and nothing
else at all, is the material world. It is related as substance tc
•every knowledge reflecting itself as free which then is acci-
•dence ; hence it would be though no knowledge were. A1
least, this must necessarily be the conviction of him who re
mains in this synthesis. But everyone again who compre
.hends it, comprehends j list what we said. (Kant calls it 9

New Exposition of the Science of Knowledge. 97

deception which we cannot get rid of. Such a phrase would
merely prove that we had single light-rays, lucida intervalla,
of the transcendental view, which vanish involuntarily. But
whoever has this view in his own free power finds nowhere
deception. He knows that it is necessarily thus from this
standpoint, which is consequently correct; and that it is ne
cessarily thus from the other, higher standpoint, which is
consequently also correct ; but that the one absolute 'knowledge
consists neither in the one nor in ijie other, but only in the
knowledge of the relation of the ENTIRE system of knowledge
to absolute Being.)

b. Again : Of this resting and standing Being of the world,
the two ground-qualities, spirit and matter, have been de
duced from one central point as absolutely belonging to this
Being, and as in themselves only a duplicity of the view of
this one Being in knowledge. In so far as knowledge posits
itself as being, it posits itself as matter ; in so far as it posits
itself as bewg free, it posits itself as a succession in time, as
a standing and resting intelligence, confined to itself.

PART THIRD.

Knowledge posits itself for itself as an organic Power of
Activity, or as a system of Feelings and Impulses.

PART THIRD.

Knowledge posits itself for itself as an organic Power of
Activity, or as a system of Feelings and Impulses.

CONTENTS OF PART THIRD.

\ 1. The determinedness of quantitating Freedom determines factical Knowledge
only in part — that is, so far as it is a general determinedness; — but. in part, is
determined by it — that is, so far as factical Knowledge posits the order or se
quence of that determinedness. Hence knowledge is both infinite and deter
mined.

\ 2. Knowledge in general to become factical Knowledge gathers itself into a
concentration-point of reflection, infinitely repeatable, though everywhere the
same; and hence, as a point or determinedness of Quantitability, a determined
point of Time, Space, and Matter: a point of utterance of power.

{ 3. Knowledge posits itself for itself therefore as an acting power or a tendency,
and moreover as a system of acting powers, reciprocally determined and check
ed, and each determined or checked utterance of which is called a. feeling.

\ 4. The absolute power of Knowledge in manifesting itself as material feeling
connects this feeling in perception with matter, and attributes it to matter as
its cause.

\ 5. The absolute power of Knowledge cannot be thought as manifesting itself in
a material feeling without being contemplated therein, and hence extended
into a direction of feeling, and thus apprehended as Impulse.

INTRODUCTORY.

It is not so important to exhaust the deductions which result
from our last synthesis, as to seize the spirit of the whole by
the right word in the right place. What follows in the sys
tematic progress is clear enough to him who has the right
insight ; to others the separate propositions also will appear
dark. Hence we prepare the following by a more general re
flection.

102 New Exposition of tlie Science of Knowledge.

1. Let us posit the universe as consisting of a system of
single, for-themselves-closed Beings, thought in accordance
with our investigation = synthesis of light and matter.

2. This system is in itself organized; the Being of each
is determined "by its reciprocity with all others. Now, if I
bring into this system changeableness, I ask — admitting such
a system, and I not only admit but assert it — is not this
system, if it is to be the ultimate, a system which dissolves
itself into nothingness ? Evidently. Each single separate is
determined by the others ; where, then, does the original de-
terminedness commence ? This is an eternal circle, with which
we content ourselves only because we tire out by despair. It
will not do forever to borrow Being from another source ; we
must finally arrive at a Being which has it in its own power
to be.

3. Now, in this One all Beings have pr.rt. The immediate
knowledge of the relation of each separate is that separate's
absolute Being, its substantial root ; and this relation is not
first produced b}^ the Being of the others, but itself and all the
others become absolute being to it only through this relation.
But this relation carries an original duplicity within itself : it
is a relation to an ever-closed whole (the eternal One) — for
otherwise we would arrive at no standing, permanent relation;
and at no standing knowledge ; and, at the same time, it is a
relation to an in-all-eternity not closable whole — for otherwise
we would arrive at no free knowledge. Hence, each eye, in
the infinite light-ocean of knowledge, which has been opened
to itself, carries at the same time its closed and completed
Being, and in this Being it bears its eternity within itself. We
comprehend always tlie Absolute, for outside of it there is noth
ing comprehensible; but, at the same time, we comprehend that
we shall never comprehend it completely, for between the Abso
lute and Knowledge lies the infinite quantitability, according
to whicJi the relation of each separate to the Whole and to the
Universe is both in itself closed and completed, and infinitely
changing WITHIN that completion.

4. But now conies the highest question : how can knowledge
arrive at this view and comprehension of a relation, tie, or
order of quantitability, a view which lies beyond its whole
inner nature? Answer: The being, the actuality of know-

New Exposition of the Science of Knowledge. 103

ledge would be altogether impossible if the order were not
also absolutely posited ; knowledge cannot realize itself except
within that order and its thorough determinedness ; and this
condition is posited simply because it is posited, beyond
all factical knowledge and comprehension of the How?
-Remember the synthesis of the absolute substantiality.
According to the central point of that synthesis, formal
Freedom, and with it knowledge, quantitating, &c., could
be, and could not be, therein altogether independent of abso
lute Being ; and this result must remain. But it was shown
that if this Freedom has once come to be, it must materially
be determined by the Absolute. Determined in what ? Doubt
less in that which forms its nature, its root and substance, in
the quantitating. How then ? Even as the words say, deter
mined, i. e. confined to an original order and relation of the
manifold, in which quantitating consists. Absolute formal
Freedom is confined to this order, but on no account is this
true of any further determinedness of Freedom witJiin that
order.

Finally: To what is formal Freedom confined? To order
and relation generally ; on no account to this or that order, for
then it would again not be formal Freedom, but would be
determined in some inner respect. Knowledge seized itself in
some one single glance (an individual=C, to whom we must,
therefore, give a fixed relation to the universe). This, now, is
that C's groundpoint, giving to him Ills relation to the universe
unavoidably and unchangeably. Could — not this knowledge,
for this knowledge is only that, the groundpoint whereof is
the individual C, but — could not knowledge generally ignite
itself equally well in other points ? Evidently ; and if it did,
we should have here another order. Consequently, there is
here in respect to the matter a reciprocity between absolute
Being and knowledge, which, indeed, we had to arrive at.

5. Now this point of commencement beyond all real know
ledge—the factical, before all fact— we cannot ascribe to that
Freedom which we know in all knowledge. It falls into the
incomprehensible. But how we, being posited by this incom
prehensible reciprocity in to life and knowledge, and hence hi
an altogether determined relation, can change this relatio
very much, while it nevertheless remains the ever co-determin-

104 New Exposition of the Science of Knowledge.

ing basis, this we can see even now. The real is absolute law
only for Freedom.

To sum up, and in order to connect what we have just said
with the most general conceptions of the synthesis : Knowledge
is For -it self -Being of the originating ; this presupposes Not-
Being, and, since this must be in knowledge, necessarily Being
in knowledge as such. But this Being is nothing more than
that whereby each knowledge that finds itself, finds itself
determined through its nature. Now knowledge is again a
quantitating ; its confinedness is, therefore, a conlinedness
of the quantitating, altogether as such and altogether noth
ing else. Hence the already deduced ground-form of all
actual in knowledge : space, matter, time. But knowledge,
in seizing itself actually, is also the limitation of quan
titating. Hence, drawn down to this region, that confined-
ness is the confinedness to such a fixed limitation in the
deduced ground-forms of the actual. The determinedness of
this limitation, however, depends itself upon Freedom ; hence,
also, the determinedness of the confinedness. Absolute Being
is in knowledge law ; knowledge can never be relieved of this
law without losing itself; but how this law may appear to it,
depends in all its possible contents, in all possible views, and
degrees, upon its Freedom. The highest relation of both is,
therefore, not causality but reciprocity.

(I cannot deny myself here a continuation of the parallel of
this system with that of Spinoza, for the sake of attaining the
greatest clearness. According to Spinoza, i. e. where I inter
preted his system most favorably, knowledge was, as with me,
accidence of the absolute Being. He had really no connecting
link between substance and accidence ; both fell together. I
connected them by the conception of formal Freedom. This
Freedom is in itself equally independent; it is determined
only materialiter^ if it realizes itself. Now, in the same syn
thesis we have discovered something additional and new : even
the material determinedness is only formally unconditioned-
knowledge cannot be at all without being confined; — but on
no account materially — in regard to quantity and relation,—
for this again is the result of formal Freedom.)

6. The knowledge arising from this synthesis, after we have
considered all its links, is therefore infinite, but also abso-

New Exposition of the Science of Knowledge. 105

lutely determined; a conception which appears to be a contra
diction, but which here is easily comprehended, and which in
every-day life we realize almost every moment in spite of the
apparent contradiction. Knowledge can exist in infinite,
never-to-be-determined ways ; but in whatever way it exists,
it exists in a determined way and in the order of succession
Conditioned thereby. (The reader will please call to mind the
game of chess.)

This, now, would give us the one, eternal, infinite Knowledge,
the whole accidence of absolute Being. From Being arises
neither the possibility nor the reality of knowledge, as Spi
noza would have it ; but merely, in case of its reality, its gen
eral determinedness. Now, this thus-to-be-comprehended
knowledge is itself, in relation to the knowledge for-itself,
substance. The knowledge produced by the position of for
mal Freedom is therefore doubly accidence, partly of itself as
knowledge, partly of absolute Being. We have hence here,
in the second substantiality, explained in full the separation
into a — not infinite, which, applied to reality, would be con
tradictory—but closed system of modifications of knowledge,
which again are not modifications of knowledge in itself, but
only of knowledge according to the groundpoints and succes
sions of its seizing itself. Every such groundpoint is a for-
maliter necessary, materialiter altogether free limitation to
one point in substantial knowledge, determined by its relation
to the whole of knowledge. To the whole, I say. But how has
that now turned into a whole, which even this very moment
was a never-to-be-cornpleted infinite ? And, as we undoubtedly
are not inclined to take back our word, how does it remain,
together with its totality, infinity f (This is another import
ant, rarely remarked, much less solved difficulty, least of all
solved by Spinoza, who, without further ado, causes to pro
ceed from the eternal substance an infinite series of finite
modifications, and, consequently, loses thus the conception of
the universe, which presupposes completeness— closedness.)
A whole it evidently became by the separate knowledge seiz
ing itself even as a separate, which, as the result of a deter
mination through all others, can be only the result of a closed
sum. An Infinite it remains at the same time if this deter-
6*

106 New Exposition of the Science of Knowledge.

minedness is not one of determinedness, but of determinabil-
ity, as we have also posited it; from which again there results,
in the same respect, the infinite modiiicability of that closed
whole.

The actual universe is ever closed and complete, for other
wise no closed part and no knowledge could be realized within
it ; each would dissolve within itself. The inner substance of
the universe, however, is the posited Freedom, and this is infi
nite. The closed and completed universe carries, therefore,
an infinity within itself; and only therein is it closed, that it
carries and holds this infinity.

\ \. The determinedness of quantitating Freedom determines facticnl Knowledge
only in part — that is, so far as it is a general determinedness; — but, in part, is
determined by it— that is, so far as faetical Knowledge posits the order or se
quence of that determinedness. Hence Knowledge is both infinite and deter
mined.

Now in this knowledge, which we have learned to know in
its most comprehensive synthesis, of what is absolute Being
the ground, and what does it carry within itself? Evidently,
simply and purely the Being, the standing and reposing of
knowledge, which keeps it from not dissolving within itself
into an empty nothing : hence, the mere pure form of Being,
and nothing else whatever. This, however, originates in it
alone.

In this synthesis alone, as the highest of knowledge, does
absolute Being appear immediate; hence it is clear that noth
ing more can be deduced from it in a lower synthesis. Abso
lute Being is in knowledge only the form of Being, and remains
so forever. That wliicli is known, depends altogether upon
Freedom ; but that something is, and if it comes to this some
thing that it is known (that it completely enters and is ab
sorbed in knowledge) is grounded in absolute Being. Only the
actual form of knowledge, the determinedness of the 'known,
but not the matter of knowledge (which consists in Freedom)
results from absolute Being. From it results only that such a
matter (Freedom) is at all possible, that it can realize itself,
can become (actual) knowledge, and thus seize itself in any
particular determination. Thus Freedom as well as absolute
Being are both, in their respective positions, altogether mutu-

New Exposition of tlie Science of Knowledge. 107

ally determined and united ; the former is completely secured
in its highest significance, and all absolute incomprehen
sibility (qualitas occulta) is totally eradicated from knowl
edge.

One incomprehensible, it is true, remains, as we have men
tioned before, viz. : the absolute Freedom which precedes all
actual knowledge. But this must not be confounded with the
incomprehensible Being (the inscrutable will of God), for it is
at the same time comprehended at every moment and correct
ly, as sure as we know anything aj; all. Again : we understand
very well that it cannot be comprehended in its primitiveness,
and that we likewise do not need to comprehend it thus. For
that comprehending itself in its eternity and infinity con
sists precisely in infinitely continuing to comprehend : the
very reason why it can never comprehend its own primitive-
ness.

Thus then is it, and thus is it necessarily comprehended by
every intelligence which elevates itself in knowledge (even
without the Science of Knowledge) to this view. To prove this
in separate instances we have not time here ; all systems and
religions, and even the views of common sense, are full of pro
positions which result from it.

But at the same time it has been sufficiently shown from all
our previous reflections, that that knowledge (in the highest
synthesis of absolute Being and infinite Freedom) can begin
from out itself, can become actual knowledge, only by an
actual contemplation (the contemplation in and for itself, well
known to us already) which limits itself within the infinite con-
tern plability to a fixed quantum. That such a contemplation
must be presupposed, as originally prior to all conscious Free
dom and what its results are, has also been shown sufficiently.
As such, this contemplation is a point in the infinite sphere of
knowledge, in which knowledge seizes itself ; hence a deter-
minedness of quantitability, which in the contemplation is
changed into the one space and matter, and the one time. This
point is therefore, necessarily, altogether determined in regard
to each of these instances ; but it can be thus determined only
by its relation to the actual (no longer infinite or undetermin
ed) whole ; hence the point is for itself only in so far as the

108 New Exposition of the Science of Knowledge.

whole is for it. This contemplation, therefore, is possible
only in Thinking, in the free floating over that relation, and
in the singling out of this one particular point in the whole
from the universality of the latter. Thinking and contempla
tion penetrate each other here again ; and their basis is Feel
ing, as we called it formerly : the uniting of a determined-
ness of Freedom and of absolute Being. In this Feeling we
may, therefore, have discovered for a knowledge, with which
we are not yet acquainted, however, the principle of individu
ality.

It is one of the points of concentration for the actual being
of knowledge, and we take this point, of course, as a repre
sentative of all possible others. That it has the form of Being,
its existence, from absolute Being, is clear ; for otherwise no
permanency of contemplation could take place at all. But its
determined Being it has only from the reciprocity between its
Freedom and the whole.

What then now— this is a new question — is the character
of actual Being ? Altogether only a relation of Freedom to
Freedom according to a law. The Real (= R), which has now
been found and which carries knowledge prior to actual know
ledge, is, 1st, a concentration-point of all the time of that one
individual, and it is comprehended as that which it is only in
so far as this time is comprehended, which is, however, always
comprehended and at the same time never. It is, 2d, a con
centration-point of all actual individuals in this time-moment.
Hence, of all the time of these, and of all hereafter possible
individuals ; it is the universe of Freedom in one point and in
all points.

Only in so far as it remains such a concentration-point does
it remain a real ; otherwise it would dissolve into a simple,
i. e. into an abstract nothing.

Is R then, now, something in itself, a permanent ? How can
it be, since its ground-substance is Freedom, the nature of
which is eternal change ! How then does a knowledge, never
theless, repose on it ; for instance, that of the individual, viz., J ?
Answer : In so far as J with his immanent freedom, according
to the first synthesis— though not in it— reposes upon absolute
Being (like all other individuals), can it repose on itself and

New Exposition of the Science of Knowledge. 109

occupy a relation towards that of the other individuals, and
vice versa. How does J know that these numbers of individu
als, of which he knows, rest with their knowledge in absolute
knowledge ? Because otherwise he would not know of himself
in such a manner as to know of them, but in another manner.

The ultimate ground of each momentary condition of the
world is now discovered ; it is the being and reposing of the
totality of knowledge in the Absolute. It is true, that through
it also the not always clearly perceived condition of each in
dividual is determined, which again on its part determines the
condition of the whole. But this ground and its result could
be otherwise at every moment, and can become otherwise at
every moment of the future. The highest law of that Being
which carries laws is not a law of nature (law of a material
being), but a law of Freedom, and is expressed in this formula :
Everything is precisely as Freedom makes it, and does not
become otherwise unless Freedom makes it otherwise.

Let us remark, however, at this place, in order to prevent
possible misunderstandings, that we have here explained only
the form of the actual, empirical Being (or of the taking hold
of itself of knowledge). We have proved that a material (a
quantum and determined relation) must be within that form ;
but concerning the ground of this determinedness we have
been referred to absolute Freedom, or have said that this ori
gin was incomprehensible. Now, let no one believe that here
already we actually cause Freedom— as separated and isola
ted — to act, thus making it a real Thing per se and an alto
gether blind chance, in doing which we should again bring in
the occult qualities, the real enemies of science. For this Free
dom is in no knowledge, but is the Freedom presupposed prior
to knowledge. At present we have, however, not yet arrived
at any knowledge ; where, then, should this Freedom be ?

At some future time — and only then will our investigation
be at an end — Freedom will find itself in actual knowledge as
Freedom. It is true this Freedom, thus finding itself, will have
conditions of its own being, and amongst them a presupposed
Freedom ; but it would find the presupposed Freedom differ
ent if it found itself different. From the latter only do we
infer back to the presupposed Freedom, which is only thus
accessible to knowledge. (What you, for instance act, first
7

110 New Exposition of the Science of Knowledge.

opens to you the field of knowledge, and hence of your origi
nal character of Freedom.)

Now it may nevertheless be, that even this character, taken
unchangeably, admits of different views of darkness or clear
ness, and hence degrees of power; and that in the highest
degree each one is not limited, but limits himself with Freedom
in knowledge.

$ 2. Knowledge in general to become factical Knowledge gathers itself into a
concentration-point of reflection, infinitely repeatable, though everywhere the
same; and hence posits itself as a point ordeterminedness of Quantitability, a
determined point of Time, Space, and Matter: a point of utterance of power.

The result of the former paragraph may be expressed in
the following proposition : It is absolutely necessary that the
in-itself altogether one and the same knowledge should limit
itself and gather itself together in a point of reflection (con
centration) if it is ever to arrive at an actual knowledge ; but
this point of reflection is infinitely repeatable — everywhere,
however, the same. Now, if we remember that this knowledge
is at the same time a pure, and in all knowledge absolutely
unchangeable Thinking, the necessity results — after the pos
sibility of knowledge has been ascertained from the deter-
minedness of the standpoint — that each individual must hold
himself in this altogether unchangeable Thinking. In this
Thinking, therefore, all outward distinctions of individuals
vanish : all of them perceive the same in the same manner,
gathered up into the one fundamental contemplation of quan-
titability, with all other links involved in it, and carried by the
one unchangeable Thinking of it. Only the inner difference
remains ; and there is, perhaps, no more proper place in the
system to explain this inwardness of individuality than here.

I say, /, and thou sayest, I; both sayings mean altogether
the same as far as \hsform is concerned; from both there fol
lows altogether the same as far as the matter is concerned ;
and if thou didst not hear and think mine /, nor I thine, this
no further to be distinguished / might just as well be only
once. How does it happen that we, nevertheless, can posit it
twice, and must posit it so, and that we keep both apart as
never to be mistaken the one for the other ?

I answer, according to our former explanations, as follows :

1. In all former knowledge a subjective and an objective

New Exposition of the Science of Knowledge. Ill

were distinguishable. The reflection rested upon an object,
which it pictured only formaliter ; and we know at present
right well that this standing object originates everywhere
in pure absolute Thinking, whereas its formalizing originates
in the Thinking of the accidental, as also a Being. But in
the absolute self-comprehension of knowledge there is no
such distinction ; the subjective and objective fall immediate
ly together, and are inseparably united ; and this is not, per
haps, merely thouglit as we have thought it here, and must think
it ; but it is, is absolutely, and this very Being is knowledge, as,
vice versa, this knowledge is also again Being. It is the abso
lute in-itself-reposing of knowledge, without contemplating a
generating, a beginning, &c.; hence it is that in which and for
which all generating and all Being is : knowledge in the form
of absolute, pure Thinking, immediate feeling of existence,
which flows through all particular knowledge, and carries
the same, as itself is carried by absolute Being — the highest
and absolute synthesis of Thinking and contemplation.

But in this immediately-felt self thine / is not to appear ;
thy Ego I merely think, objectively, by loosening in Think
ing my own self from me and putting it before me. I know
very well that this signifies the same, and that thou loosenest
in the same manner mine from thee; but this immediate
ground of knowledge it never will and never can become for
me, because I must rest permanently upon my standpoint in
order to be I. It designates to me merely this form of absolute
resting, and nothing else at all ; and I cannot appropriate thy
Ego simply because I can never get rid of my resting. It is
the eternal unchangeable That of knowledge — and on no ac
count some What — by which all individuality is immediately
determined.

Hence everybody objectivates individuality, repeating it,
and only through all individualities does he view the universe
(in its one general contemplation wherein he stands) from his
own point of reflection (of individuality).

The Isolation demonstrated here, in consequence of which I
place thee outside of me, only thinking, not feeling thee, well
knowing that thou performest the same operation in the same
way, may possibly be the innermost ground of all other iso
lations and sequences of series, which we discovered above,

112 New Exposition of the Science of Knowledge.

but which here we have blotted out by the too general stand
point of our investigation.

2. The question which remained unanswered above and was
posited as incomprehensible : What is the ground of the par
ticular determinedness of the point of reflection (point of indi
viduality) ? is now answered in the following manner :

From the mere empty form of knowledge — from the possi
bility of a knowledge generally — follows the determinedness
or the limited seizing itself of knowledge in any simple point
of reflection, but only the determidedness generally and in re
gard to the form ; and from it follows also the material, as
everywhere and altogether the same. There is no particular
determinedness at all.

And thus it may, perhaps, appear that the original particu
lar determinations in space and in time, which we have never
theless discovered in contemplation, are also merely formal
and figurative, but nothing in themselves, nothing which would
hold firm to the unchangeable Thinking ; and that if, finally,
distinctions amongst these individuals should nevertheless be
discovered, they can not be grounded in an original Freedom
beyond all knowledge, but in a Freedom which is compre
hended and understood as such.

I 3. Knowledge posits itself for itself therefore as an acting power or a tendency,
and moreover as a system of acting powers, reciprocally determined and check
ed, and each determined or checked utterance of which is called a. feeling.

The last result has removed an undecidedness of our former
reflections, and at the same time we have obtained a further
progress in the whole synthesis.

The in-itself-resting original contemplation of knowledge
found itself (1) outwardly as a constructing, line-drawing, in
a construe tible space j (2) inwardly and for-itself from the one
side as one and the same living matter, everywhere penetrated
by life and liberty ; and (3) and from the other side as lasting
a certain time, as passing through a manifoldness of points
one-sidedly dependent upon each other: time. This was the
form of the actually posited inward and outward contempla
tion, its That, and was the immediate result of the positing
of formal Freedom. But we could not account for the limita
tion of the quantum in that contemplation ; the contemplation
did not, therefore, appear, as in itself confined and limited,

New Exposition of the Science of Knowledge. 113

and it was only generally asserted that the contemplation
must be confined to a necessary limitation ; this limitation we
temporarily only pictured.

Now this omission has been supplied ; through the absolute
union of Thinking and contemplation we have demonstrated
knowledge — in the individuality-points, in which alone it can
be actual — as the absolutely finished, closed and completed
result of a reciprocity within this inner manifoldness. It can
not go beyond its own limit whenever it actually seizes itself,
and hence also its contemplation is limited as necessarily its
own, and receives thus the character of empirical reality.

Again : what was designated above in the immediate For-
itself-being as Feeling, becomes now in the contemplation—
which has been united in a synthesis with Thinking, and
which is necessarily an original quantitating — Construction ;
and its point of commencement — the very representative of
the immediate point of self-seizing or feeling — becomes on that
very account absolute, immanent power. This power is the
found Freedom of constructing absolutely in one point, and
hence is for the construction its point of commencement.
Power is distinguished from mere Freedom as determined
Being from general constructing, and as the ground of another
Being from the general ground of constructing ; it is the found
(discovered) Freedom which seizes itself in such a point of
individuality or of feeling, and hence — in regard to the seizing
organ — the absolute synthesis of contemplation and feeling.

We thus have discovered another link for the characteriza
tion of empirical knowledge.

1. The Ego is not all (for itself) without ascribing power to
itself, for it is Freedom which seizes itself in a fixed point ;
but Freedom is quantitating, and this, fixed in contemplation,
is determined quantity. Hence it is impossible to posit power
in self-contemplation without a manifestation of this power
within this determined quantity, and as itself altogether deter
mined. (We have here again the old synthesis, already known
to us, of Thinking and contemplation, confinedness and de-
terminedness, within a general sphere of quantitating.)

2. This manifestation of power, whatever it may be, is alto
gether originally and immediately found, and hence does not
presuppose a prior Freedom in knowledge; nor is it at all an

114 New Exposition of the Science of Knowledge.

arbitrary Freedom. For the consciousness of the power is an
inseparable component of the absolutely existing knowledge,
from which again the contemplation of a manifestation of the
power is inseparable. Hence as soon as knowledge seizes it
self, this manifestation is already there. (Which manifesta
tion may, perhaps, be an organic one — in short, organic life
itself.) And thus again, when we (i. e. the Science of Know
ledge) elevate ourselves to Thinking, all individuals are equal-
They are all power, in form ; not this or that power. They are
the positedness of formal Freedom even as a ready-found
Being — and are nothing else at all — which Freedom can be
repeated in infinite points, and is everywhere the same.

3. The determinedness of this Being, or of this power, is now
altogether only for itself, i. e. in a knowledge existing for itself
and confined to itself. But for this determinedness the power
is determined not in itself, but only through its manifestations.
The whole determined knowledge is therefore a knowledge
not of power or powers, but of a system of manifestations of
power. But these are determined only in their reciprocity
with all others in the universe. By their relation to it, there
fore, the power is determined in the same original manner.

4. JSTow this determinedness is, even if we look only upon the
contemplation, a something divisible according to time and
space. The Ego, therefore, whenever it seizes itself as de
termined power, encircles itself necessarily as living and as
manifesting itself in a solid, lasting moment (it contemplates it
self in the time-life), and also in space, as a quantum of every
where and throughout animated and free matter (the body,
the living matter which contemplates itself and is contempla
ted as Ego in space). But this Ego, in the empirical know
ledge of which we speak here, is altogether confined to itself
and cannot go beyond itself ; hence it cannot also go beyond
this contemplation of its time and materiality. However far
perception may reach, this fundamental determinedness is its
one, immovable basis. The body, thus seized in the original
contemplation, remains the same, as sure as the Ego rests
upon itself in all perception ; and all perception, as sure as it
is carried back in contemplation to its principle, its point of
commencement, is carried back to the body ; all feeling, con
templation, perception of outwardness, is in reality only the

New Exposition of the Science of Knowledge. 115

self -feeling, self -contemplation of the change which has passed
within the body. Moreover : the Ego cannot get out of its own
time. This own time of the Ego now is it of which we speak
here — not the general time, not the life of the one universe
and the passing of events within it ; a view to which the Ego
can elevate itself only from its own time, and by abstracting
from its own time. Now, it is very clear that this own-time is
not perceived, but only thought ; it is evidently a conception.
But in it is perceived whatever is perceived. The Ego is con
fined to itself, and this absolute confinedness determines the
character of empirical knowledge : is a proposition which now
signifies, the Ego is confined to the identity of its body — I say
identity, for only from it, from the unchangeable point, can a
body be at all comprehended — and to the subjective, inner
identity of its time, or of its time life.

2 4. The absolute power of Knowledge in manifesting itself as material feeling
connects this feeling in perception with matter, and attributes it to matter ;u
its cause.

A. Now, in regard to this individual time, it is important
to explain the possibility of a single closed moment of percep
tion within it, and the real significance and contents of this
moment ; i. e. of a moment in the individual time, not of itself,
for itself is not perceived, but thought. According to the ex
planation of the system of knowledge through Thinking, the
substance of this moment is reciprocity of the manifestation
of my power with the power of the universe. But this mani
festation is, in regard to its matter, Freedom; this Freedom is
infinite, and if knowledge rested merely upon it, it would never
become actual knowledge. In order to become such, it must
tear itself away from it after the manner of Thinking, must
seize the infinite Real — picturing it, if I may say so — within
unity. This, we have seen, is the form of the law, according
to which alone we can explain the occurrence of such a
knowledge, completed (closed) within a moment. Hence, in
order to make the application at once, the point of the single
perception itself must involve a duplicity, the links of which
are related to each other as Thinking is to contemplation, and
between which, if we divide them in Thinking— this is impor
tant — the same absolute hiatus lies, which can be filled up by
no reflection, but which constitutes the ultimate, the unattain-

116 New Exposition of tlie Science of Knowledge.

able of knowledge, and which we have discovered everywhere
"between Thinking and contemplation. By the first link, the
Ego seizes itself; by the second, it goes out of itself into the
world and seizes itself in the world ; but there is no Ego with
out a world, and no world without an Ego.

Now it is clear, and needs not to be recalled, that the Ego
does not apply this law here with Freedom, since it is alto
gether confined in itself; only we, from our super-actual stand
point, explain it by that law which has been demonstrated in
its universality. In the Ego itself it is thus, and if it were not
thus there would be no knowledge ; this determinedness of
knowledge is precisely the Being of knowledge itself in this
moment, or in this, &c. Without this Being of knowledge even
our questions about it would be without sense.

This, for the present, merely to explain the possibility of
such single moments. Next, it was important to deduce from
some one point, as necessarily connected with it, others — nay,
an infinite succession of other points. If this is not done,
knowledge is never explained from itself and comprehend
ed in itself; an occult quality is always necessary, from which
to derive a new time, after having used up the present moment.

This, according to the foregoing, is easy, and explains again
what we have just said. For in every moment the contempla
tion floats over an infinite : but, in order to seize it in actual
contemplation, it must determine it, must limit it in a closed
moment ; actual contemplating and limiting is one. But this
limiting is at the same time only a determining within the
infinity. Thus Thinking is added to contemplation in an
equally primitive manner ; and this law of eternal reciprocity
between contemplating and Thinking, a limiting and a posit
ing of infinity, results in a never-to-be-completed infinity of
single time-moments, joined together in a line. The solidity
of time is derived not from limitation and closedness, but from
the infinity which has been absorbed into it.

Originally there is a series of Thinking within the one mat
ter of knowledge : within Freedom and quantitating. If this
series of Thinking itself is thought, then the entire, infinite
series is comprehended. But when it is contemplated actually,
and hence realiter and limited, then you have empirical know
ledge. The individualities also are such a line — not, however,

New Exposition of the Science of Knowledge. 117

like the former one, reposing in contemplation, and produc
tions of that original synthesis of contemplation and Thinking
— but the infinity of that synthesis, which on its part iinds its
unity and basis in absolute Being, realizes and actualizes
itself in those individualities.

2. Let us now drop that which in these thus described mo
ments of perception carries the form of contemplation, and let
us consider the form of identity. How, then, do the discrete
moments of time hang together ? Precisely in the thinking of
time generally as the law of knowledge ; but, as a flowing
infinity, one-sidedly dependent upon each other. The Ego
therefore, in its own self-contemplation, is in the same
original manner confined to their succession / this succession in
its partial determinedness can be no further explained or
demonstrated as necessary. The law says only that some
succession is necessary. (The fundamental character of em
pirical knowledge, or of pure perception in time-succession.)
In every moment a further time is appropriated by Think
ing and contemplation, and thus room is made in advance
for concrete perception and a sphere prepared for it ; but it
cannot be ascertained by deduction what will fill up this
time. This will be known only when that time shall have
come, for the progressive development of the existing Ego
extends into it. An actual perception is something alto
gether new for the perception itself, and can never be discov
ered a priori.

Hence so much is clear respecting the formal character of
this knowledge : it is the altogether immediate knowledge,
the knowledge which constitutes the time-being of him who
knows : a Being which is simply knowledge, a knowledge
which is simply Being ; which, therefore, in itself isolated and
discrete, is in every way primitively determined, and can,
therefore, be neither actually nor genetically explained ; — in
one word, that which language terms most properly the Feel
ings (in the plural and xar i£»xv-') re(i, green, &c. That these
feelings are the result of the reciprocity between each indi
vidual and the universe is what knowledge asserts when ex
plaining itself. But how the forces of nature accomplish it,
and in accordance with what rule and law they manifest them
selves precisely in this manner, this no one will ever be

118 New Exposition of the Science of Knowledge.

able to say, and this is the very absolute hiatus already de-
cribed. Nor shall any one ever desire to say it ; for, if he
did, his knowledge would have been extinguished, and hence
he would not say it. At the same time, it must not be under
stood so, as if the forces of nature manifested themselves in
these feelings ; both are nothing in themselves, and both are
simply the relation of knowledge to absolute Being, which
can never be comprehended in contemplation and facticity.

3. One other chief characteristic : The discrete within
time — the series of actual feelings — is, according to all we have
previously said, a mere absolute knowledge, altogether as
such. Again, it is an empirical unity ; it is my knowledge,
connecting for me through time, and through nothing else : I
am this my knowledge, and this my knowledge is I. There is
no other I, no general I. The significance of this knowledge
in Thinking (if thinking goes beyond it and explains it) is,
that it is the knowledge of my Being in the universe. This it
is to-day as it was yesterday, and it will be in all eternity in
the same manner. What, then, is changed by the progress of
my knowledge ? It progresses through a chain of links de
pendent on each other one-sidedly : it is only formal ; hence
it can be changed only in its form, not in its matter, which
remains the same. But the pure form of knowledge in regard
to quantitability is clearness. Hence by its progress it in
creases in clearness, which it expands over the knowledge of
the universe ; but this gradation is infinite.

Contemplation externalizes however, and transfers upon an
objective universe what lies concealed in the Ego in the
ground-form of contemplation ; this is known from what we
have said before.

B. Having described the formal character of perception,
let us now review the entire synthesis artistically. Its inner
central point, the focus of knowledge, is, in form, a material
feeling. This is in Thinking (on no account in the imme
diate perception; hence, for the present, we only know of
it, but itself knows nothing of it yet) a manifestation of the
absolute power of the Ego. This power is the substance of
the Ego, its own, inner nature, in which knowledge reposes
forever; the manifestation is accidence, but only formaliter ;
it can be, or not be ; but if it is, it is necessarily that mani-

New Exposition of the Science of Knowledge. 119

festation which it is, for it is determined by its unchange
able relation to the universe.

a. Altogether the same synthetical form appears here which
we met in the highest synthesis of substantiality : as the one
knowledge is related to absolute Being, i. e. as its formal acci
dence, thus individual knowledge is related to the Being of
individuality, which itself is, as we know well enough, nothing
but the Being of the one knowledge, finding itself actual in
an infinite number of points of concentration.

b. The power, I said, is the substance of the Ego; it is
always, whether the manifestation is or is not ; — not in itself,
however, for, unless each of these links in the synthesis is,
there is no knowledge ; but only after knowledge has devel
oped itself, and thinks itself, is this power to be presupposed
by every determined manifestation (which can and cannot be).

c. The entire synthesis is produced in Thinking; hence
only through Freedom. The actual knowledge can be, there
fore, though this Thinking is not. Knowledge itself reposes
in feeling, and this is thp first absolute point which must be
if an actual knowledge is to be.

The material feeling is for the knowledge which compresses
itself into a moment and seizes itself within it (and which,
in so far as it is quantitable, can progress infinitely in clear
ness) — a mere pure Being — of the Ego in immediate feeling, of
the universe in contemplation.

Let this latter point be noted. True, it has been sufficiently
demonstrated and explained by the foregoing, but its import
ance deserves some additional remarks. "We know that in
contemplation the contemplating intelligence loses itself:
hence, in spite of the contemplation, there is in it no Ego at
all ; and only in the feeling does it seize itself in the form of
Thinking. Now consciousness rests neither in the one nor in
the other, but in both. Hence, if the material feeling (red,
sour, &c.) is viewed from the one side as affection of the Ego,
and from the other side as quality of the Thing, this duplicity
itself is already a result of the dividing reflection. In actual
knowledge, which no reflection can reach, it is neither the
one nor the other, but both ; t>oth, however, inseparable and
still undistinguishable ; and in consequence of this absolute
identity the distinguishing reflection must also posit both as

120 New Exposition of the Science of Knowledge.

inseparable. No subjective feeling, no objective quality, and
vice versa. (To speak strictly, therefore, the internal is not
transferred upon the object, as transcendental Idealism may
have expressed itself in opposing dogmatism, nor does the
objective come into the soul; but both are thoroughly one.
The soul, taken objectively — the feelings — is nothing but the
world itself ; and the world, with which we have to deal here,
is nothing but the soul itself.)

The contemplation, which we are now discussing, is a con
structing of space=matter. Hence, the feeling, as quality, is
melted together with the matter — i. e. with a matter in the
compact, ever-reposing space — but excluded from the matter
in which I live (from my body). For, the former 1 perceive ; my
materiality, however, I do not perceive, but only think, as the
terminus a quo of all perception. (Here again it appears why
no individual can mistake anything outside of himself for him
self, since the perceived matter is always outside of him.) But
it is a constructing with a quantum of matter, since the infin
ity must be compressed by the form of thinking into a unity.
Thus matter is here the bearer of the quality, which is its
accidence.

(There are in knowledge a number of places where dogma
tism can be altogether refuted and idealism plainly proved.
This is one of them : Is matter to be altogether perceptible to
the feelings, even inwardly? I evidently assume this. How,
then, do I know it ? Not by particular perception ; hence by
the law of perception generally. I must have penetrated mat
ter in my knowledge at once with the thought of perceptibil
ity, as its continual substratum. Matter, therefore, is a con-
ception, and is based upon the Thinking of a relation.)

This as a characteristic of contemplation in regard to space
and matter ; now the same in regard to time. The power of
the Ego manifests itself only in an absolutely determined
time-succession, that is, as determined by the fundamental
character of time, namely : to admit only a succession of mo
ments which are dependent upon each other one-sidedly.
Evidently each new moment is a new, previously not known,
character of the determined power ; the power, as a determined
power, is, therefore, seized by consciousness only in the pro
gress of time, ever clearer and more and clearer. Entirely

New Exposition of the Science of Knowledge. 121

clear it would be recognized only through the completion of
the infinite time, which in reality is impossible, but can here
well be thought figuratively. The contents of all the moments
of the lifetime is, therefore, determined by the fundamental
character of this power, and their succession, by the enlight
enment which knowledge gets of this character. Such a time
lies therefore in sucli a being, which knows of itself in an im
mediate manner. Another being, if it were possible, would
give other time-contents and another time-succession. Only
in pure Thinking is Being compressed into one point ; in em
pirical knowledge it receives a time-character, which as. such
is altogether and irrevocably determined.

Hence in all possible time lies hidden the only possible true
Being, which, however, has not yet become completely clear
to itself, but has attained only a certain degree of clearness ;
and this Being bears at every moment that degree of clearness
which is possible (and hence necessary) from the character of
the time passed before it, and the time awaiting it in an infi
nite future.

\ 5. The absolute power of Knowledge cannot be thought as manifesting itself in
a material feeling without being contemplated therein, and hence extended
into a direction of feeling, and thus apprehended as Impulse.

The substance of the former reflection was, in its true sig
nificance, a manifestation of power, considered as a point in
time. Its picture is the construction of a line. From every
point an infinite number of lines are possible, according to
the infinity of possible directions, and the actual line depends
altogether upon the direction, and is itself that direction act
ualized.

1. The Ego, which takes hold of itself, is a point within the
everywhere extended space. It cannot manifest itself except
in a direction. Now, this direction is everywhere and alto
gether a determining of a point ; but the point is the picture
of the Ego. The direction, therefore, is to be considered as
necessarily grounded in the Ego, or the direction is itself the
Ego of the contemplation. The Ego is contemplated only in
it, and by means of it as its directing power. In this know
ledge of the direction lies the focus of contemplation in our
new synthesis. We must at present proceed to describe it
(a) in regard to its substance, and (b) in regard to its form.

122 New Exposition of the Science of Knowledge.

a. So far as its substance is concerned it has altogether the
form of a line within space, of the progressing from one point
and through it to another point. Freedom, however, is in the
whole line ; i. e. the possibility that in each point the direc
tion, and hence the line, may cease or change into other in
finite directions. A consciousness of infinite constructiMlity,
and, with regard to the actually constructed, of the accidental-
ity of the same.

Z>. In regard to its form, the synthesis is a curious, and in its
results, which will soon appear, very important compound of
contemplation and Thinking. For if in each point the Free
dom of direction, the taking hold of and continuing the line
(for this is the intrinsic part of this contemplation) were
thought, we should never arrive at a line. It is therefore ne
cessary to assume a forgetting of self in the contemplation
in order to be able to explain the concretion of the line ; but it is
equally necessary to assume a self-comprehension in the con
templation, a thinking within it, and a going beyond it, in
order to give it the direction, without which it also would be
no line. Hence both are necessarily united ; it is a contem
plating Thinking, and a thinking contemplation. In the re
flection it is divided, and then we have not the one if we have
the other, although the being held together of both beyond the
reflection forms the real character of that conception.

(No direction, without a permanent manifold, which is not
included in the direction at all ; and vice versa no manifold-
ness for the Ego without direction. Thus here also real and
ideal ground fall together and are one.)

2. We shall now develop the synthesis in its further con
nection. The Ego, of which we speak, is confined to itself —
is a Being. The taking hold of the direction is therefore in
the same manner immediate and actual, as we have described
the character of empirical knowledge to be. Every one calls
this Acting, i. e. altogether in a physical point of view. The
picture of it is a continued determining of the given construc
tion of matter through Freedom, i. e. here through material
force and motion. Further than this no material acting
reaches, and the ground of it is hidden here : it is a separ
ating and external reuniting of matter, but never an organiz
ing of matter from within, which latter is the character of the

New Exposition of the Science of Knowledge. 123

original construction. Let it be well understood, I do not say
that acting in itself takes place, for this is wrong, but that a
knowledge of a real acting is the condition of all knowledge,
and is in the present synthesis the lowest focus of all know
ledge.

3. The Ego is in the empirical standpoint altogether tied
down to its Being ; but its Being, its discovered and discover
able Being, is nothing else than the result of its reciprocity
with the universe, or it is itself the universe in one of its origi
nal points of penetration. A ground is posited in the Ego,
means, therefore, the same as if we said : it is posited in the
world. Indeed, only here does an Ego first enter knowledge;
but this Ego is here nothing but the thought of the mere posit-
edness of formal Freedom, of the That without any What ; it
is an objective, empirical, by no means pure Thought; it is
an altogether empty, formal Ego, without any reality as yet.
Hence, what we said just now : that contemplation and Think
ing are here united in a peculiar manner — the Ego not posit
ing itself in all points as giving the direction, but being swept
along — receives here a more extensive and highly important
significance. Its Freedom is altogether only its thought; the
direction is contained in its Being in the Universe. The exist
ing, actual Ego (as it ought to be called, since it is an empiri
cal, real acting) gives itself the direction, or this point of Being
in the universe has the direction : both statements mean alto
gether the same. Only the glance, the self-comprehension of
knowledge, is matter of absolute Freedom, as has been ex
haustively shown ; if this were not, there would be no direction
either, and no manifestation of power, and it would be impos
sible to speak any more about anything at all. But if this
glance is, then the direction is there at the same time in its
complete determinedness, and everything else which results
therefrom. The manifestation of the original power, of which
we have just spoken, unites, therefore, in an equally immedi
ate manner with that glance ; and hence that glance is — I be
lieve it is called so — the feeling of an impulse, and its sub
stance also is unchangeably determined by the Universe.
Impulse, or the substantial in relation to an accidence, it is
only in so far as from its mere formal positedness, the for-
maliter free knowledge, does not follow as yet (this may join

124 New Exposition of the Science of Knowledge.

it or not, and hence it is accidence) — bat on no account as
if it could proceed in this or in a contrary direction (to a or
to — ci), which would be contradictory, and is one of the ab
surdities which have been ascribed to transcendental Ideal
ism. Only in this opposition is it impulse ; united with the
reflection (the formal knowledge), it becomes an empirical
physical acting, as we have described it.

Result. — I act never, but in me acts the universe. But in
reality this does not act either, and there is no acting ; I merely
view as acting the doing of the universe, in the reflection of
the same, as Ego. Hence, also, there is no real, empirical Free
dom — i. e. within the limits of the empirical. If we desire to
attain Freedom, we must elevate ourselves to another region.

(How greatly has the Science of Knowledge been misunder
stood when it said, " We must start from a pure acting" a
proposition which, in our present exposition, is still of the fu
ture; and when this was supposed to mean the perishable
acting which we carry on commonly — gathering stones and
scattering them.)

4. Thus the universe, as the sphere of empirical knowledge,
is still further determined, and we will at once make the
application. This universe is a living system of impulses,
which continues to develop itself in an infinite time in all the
points, where it is seized by a knowledge according to a law
contained within its own being, and which carries within it, it
is true, the possibility of a knowledge, but on no account
knowledge itself. (Here again we find a chief point of dis
tinction, or rather a result from the one point which distin
guishes the true idealism of the Science of Knowledge from
Spinozistic* systems. In these latter systems empirical Being
is assumed to carry knowledge within itself, as a necessary
result, as a higher degree of it. But this is against the
inner character of knowledge, which is an absolute originat
ing, an originating from the substance of Freedom, not of Be
ing; and shows the want of an intellectual contemplation of
this knowledge. The same relation of knowledge to Being
which has been discovered in absolute knowledge and Being
— i. e. that the former has only an accidental Being in relation

* Alluding to Schelling's System.

New Exposition of the Science of Knowledge. 125

to the latter as yet, is its accidence, arising from the absolute
(which, therefore, might also not be) realization of Freedom ; —
must everywhere and in every form remain the same. In em
pirical knowledge, we make the material world itself absolute
Being, and with perfect justice, but the philosophical, stand
point is to be a higher one, and is to be the transcendental
standpoint.

5. We add the following remark: — The impulse expresses
the mere Being, without any knowledge as yet ; hence it is mere
nature. The latter is expressed in a material body, in the form
of space as form of body. It is organic manifestation. Only
through Thinking does the point enter, and the form of con
struction from it, the form of a line. Now it is true that this
is the only possible immediate mode of acting of the intelli
gences ; but it has its ground simply in the form of knowledge.
This is, therefore, only another view of the organizing form of
body, and both are one beyond the Factical. The mechanical
(we will call it so to distinguish it from the other) and organic
manifestations are in themselves not different, but they are
merely a duplicity of view. There is no mechanical action
except through organic (evermore organically renewing itself)
power — real ground; and again, no organization can be com
prehended except through a picturing of the mechanism —
ideal ground. Both are related like contemplation and Think
ing, and each is inseparable from the other, and is the each -
other -presupposing, double -point -of -vie wing, the so-often-
referred-to knowledge — xar iSotfv.

PART FOURTH.

Knowledge posits itself for itself as an Absolutely De
termined System of Moral Impulses, or
as a Moral World.

PART FOURTH.

Knowledge posits itself for-its elf as an absolutely determined
System of Moral Impulses ; or as a Moral World.

CONTENTS OF PART FOURTH.

\ 1. The perception of a Factical world is not possible without a further detern>-
ineduess of that world, which is known as the Moral Law.

\ 2. The perception of individual existence, and of a natural impulse, is not pos
sible without the perception of individual Freedom.

\ 3. The knowledge (not mere perception) of Freedom is not possible without a,.
contact with other free beings.

\ 4. Results.

\ 5. Harmony of the Moral world and the Factical world in sensuous perception?
in the form of an absolute immediately perceptible Being.

\ 6. Harmony of the Moral world and the Factical world in knowledge in a deter-
minedness of the system of moral impulses through the absolute form of a law.

$ 7. The Science of Knowledge as the schematic representation of the whole Ego.
and the absolute realization of its whole Freedom, in its form of absolute retlect-
ibility of all the relations of the Ego.

\ 1. The perception of a Factical world is not possible without a further determ-
inedness of that world, which is known as the Moral Law.

In the preceding part we have described and completed the
conception of the material world ; a conception which, rightly
understood and applied, must suffice everywhere. A natural
philosophy could be erected upon it without any further pre
liminaries. It is to be expected that its opposite reposes itt
8

128 New Exposition of the Science of Knowledge.

Thinking, as itself does in contemplation, and that that oppo
site will be the moral world, and that it will appear how both
worlds are altogether one and the same, and that the moral
world is the ground of the material world ; the manner in
which it is thus the ground, being however incomprehensible.
Hence we add at once an investigation into the transcendental
ground of the material world. The question is this : In order
to be able to think the moral world, we contemplate it in the
material world ; (or, the material world is the contemplation
of the thinking of the moral world ;) and this would be easily
comprehended if both worlds appeared in all knowledge. But
common experience teaches that this is is not so ; that, by far,
the fewest individuals elevate themselves to pure thinking,
and hence to the conception of a moral world, whilst never
theless every one has the sense of perception of the material
world ; and this is confirmed by the Science of Knowledge,
.since it makes Thinking dependent upon the realization of
Freedom within the already realized factical knowledge, and
hence denies its actual necessity altogether. But how, then,
do these individuals, who do not think, arrive at a knowledge
of their world ? It is evident that the answering of this ques
tion decides the whole fate of transcendental Idealism.

1. According to our doctrine, confirmed as it has been in all
our previous reflections, all possible knowledge has only itself
for an object, and no other object but itself. It has also been
shown that, as a result of the contents of the Science of Know
ledge, the entire knowledge does not always and under every
condition view itself; that, therefore, what in the Science of
Knowledge is only a part, may, in a determined actuality, view
itself as the entire knowledge, but that it may also go beyond
itself ia a lower point of reflection to a higher one, though
always remaining within itself.

2. Hence there is a manifold of reflections of knowledge
within knowledge, all of which are synthetically connected
and form a system. This rnanifoldness, its connection and
relation, has been explained from the inner laws of possibility
of a knowledge, as such ; an inner, merely formal legislation
da knowledge, based on the realizing or not-realizing itself of
a formal Freedom ; when realizing itself, doing so without any
further condition ; and when not, remaining in mere possibil-

New Exposition of the Science of Knowledge. 129

ity (the possibility to realize itself whenever it chooses) : in it
Thinking, Contemplation, Manifoldness, Time, Space — yes,
nearly everything which we have heretofore deduced — is
grounded.

3. But with this merely formal legislation, knowledge, as an
infinite quantitating, would dissolve into nothing. We should
never arrive at a knowledge, and hence never either at the
application of that legislation, if knowledge were not in some
manner checked in that infinity, and checked immediately, as
soon as knowledge is formed or realized ; on no account, how
ever, within an already formed (realized) knowledge, for with
out that primary condition also no knowledge is realized.

4. The law, j ust uttered, does therefore no longer belong to
the system of that legislation which relates to those manifold
reflections within knowledge ; for this system presupposes
already knowledge, so far as the Being thereof is concerned,
and determines it only formaliter within this Being ; whereas
the law referred to first makes this Being itself possible ; only
possible, not yet real. Hence it is in reality the result of a
reciprocity between the absolute actually becoming Being and
an absolute Being, which, according to the Science of Know
ledge, is purely thought in knowledge, and is to be presupposed
prior to every knowledge, to the real as well as to the possible
knowledge. This is to prepare the following ; for :

5. This state within quantity is in a certain respect — in
which we shall shortly see — always a determined state,
amongst other possible states. There is consequent^ a law
of determination, and the cause of it is evidently not within
knowledge, in no possible significance of the word, but within
absolute Being. This law of determination will appear in
pure thinking as the moral law. But how does it appear
where knowledge arrives at no pure thinking? This again
is the question asked before.

Now let us consider the following :

a. Knowledge never penetrates and seizes itself, because it
objectivates and dirempts itself by reflection. The diremp-
tion of the highest reflection is into an absolute thinking and
contemplation, while absolute knowledge beyond them is nei
ther contemplation nor thinking, but the identity of both.

b. In the contemplation, which is altogether inseparable

130 New Exposition of tlie Science of Knowledge.

from knowledge, the contemplation is therefore lost within it
self, and does not at all comprehend itself. True, in thinking
it comprehends itself; but then it is no longer contemplating,
"but thinking. The infinity, and with it the realism of contem
plation, which results from it, is done away with altogether,
and in its place we obtain as its representative a totalizing
picturing of the infinity. Let us, therefore, pay no attention
to this thinking.

c. The knowledge which comprehends itself, as we have just
described it under a and 6, thinks the contemplation as an
inseparable part of knowledge, and for that very reason as not
comprehending itself. That knowledge, therefore, thinks and
comprehends very well the absolute incomprehensibility and
infinity as the condition of all knowledge, the form, the That
of it. (This is important.)

d. In this thus understood incomprehensibility = the ma
terial world, viewed objectively, not formally, we cannot
speak at all about determinedness or no n- deter mined 'ness.
For all determinedness is founded on a comprehending and
thinking; but here we neither comprehend nor think; the ob
ject of this contemplation is posited as the absolute incom
prehensibility itself.

Conclusions. — a. The expression "material world" involves,
strictly taken, a contradiction. In this contemplation, there
is in reality no universe and no totality, but only a floating,
undetermined infinity, which is never comprehended. A uni
verse exists only in thinking, but then it is already a moral
universe. (This will enable us to judge certain theories re
specting nature.)

b. All questions about the best world, about the infinity of
the possible worlds, &<?., dissolve, therefore, into nothing. A
material world, in its completion and closedness, we can ob
tain only after the completion of time, which is a contradic
tion ; hence we can obtain it within no time. But the moral
world, which is before all time and which is the ground of all
time, is not the best, but is the only possible and altogether
necessary world; i.e. the simply good.

c. But there is within contemplation in every time-moment
a determinelness of quality and (since thinking applies the
infinity to it) a determinedness of quantity; let it be well

New Exposition of the Science of Knowledge. 131

remembered, for a simply objective and empirical thinking,
finding itself as such at the realization of knowledge. This is
the conception of an object of mere perception. Where is the
ground of this determinedness ? We now stand right before
our question. Evidently in an a priori, altogether incompre
hensible, and only actually in the time-moments to be com
prehended absolute law of the empirical time- thinking gene
rally.

It is an a priori incomprehensible law, we have said ; for, if
it were comprehensible by a free picturing and gathering to
gether of time, the Ego would not be limited to itself and no
knowledge would ever be realized. Hence it is an altogether
immediate determinedness through the absolute — (only form
ally thinkable) — Being itself; the law of a time-succession,
which lies altogether beyond all time. For every single mo
ment carries, as we have already shown, all future moments
conditionally within itself.

Result. — There is a law, which on no account forces a know
ledge into being, but which, if a knowledge exists, absolutely
forces its determinedness, and in consequence of which each
individual sees in each moment a material, and materially
thus constituted experience. The law is an immediate law of
knowledge, and connects immediately with knowledge. That
this is so, and that, if we are at all to attain a knowledge, this
must be so, each one can understand ; but concerning the sub
stance of the determinedness, and the manner in which know
ledge itself originates and in which that law connects with
knowledge, nothing can he comprehended, for this very non-
comprehension is the condition of the realization of know
ledge. All attempts to go beyond it are empty dreams, which
no one understands, or can demonstrate as true. The moral
significance of nature can well be understood, but not any
other and higher significance of nature; for pure nature is
nothing more and portents nothing more than what it is.

Whoever says : there is a material world altogether consti
tuted as I see, hear, feel and think it, — utters simply his per
ception, and is, so far, right. But when he says : this world
affects me as in-itself-Being, produces sensations, representa
tions, &c., within me, — he no longer gives utterance to his per
ception, but to an explanatory thought, in which there is not

132 New Exposition of the Science of Knowledge.

the least grain of sense, and says something which lies beyond
the possibility of knowledge. He can say only : if I open my
exterior senses, I find them thus determined. More he does
not know ; but every one can comprehend that, if more could
be known, there would be no knowledge at all. (These are
the immanent, strict proofs of transcendental Idealism.)

\ 2. The perception of individual existence, and of a natural impulse, is not pos
sible without the perception of individual Freedom.

As the first principle of the empirical, we have discovered :
1. A law, applicable only to absolute Being (how, we know
not yet, nor is thatthe question), connects itself immediately
with a knowledge, if a knowledge is, in order to develop a
succession of qualities, which for that knowledge is alto
gether accidental and a priori incomprehensible. (The suc
cession, as this fixed succession, does not lie within the law
but within knowledge ; in the law lies only, that, since a suc
cession must be, it must be qualitatively determined in such
and such a manner.) As this law, if a knowledge is, realizes
itself altogether in the same manner, we have taken only one
empirical knowledge and one Ego as the representative of all
empirical Egos. The Ego, therefore, which appears here, is the
mere position of formal knowledge generally, that a knowledge
is, and nothing else.

2. For this Ego the appearance of nature at each moment,
i. e. each of her conditions, regarded as a whole (for we may
discover another kind of moments), is, in accordance with our
previous reflections, impulse — of course, an organic one, an im
pulse of nature (natural impulse).

The knowledge (feeling) of this impulse is, however, not
possible without the realization of the same — activity ; and
since (especially empirical) activity is not a thing per se, but
can be only a passing condition of knowledge, we say the Ego
appears to itself immediately as acting. This acting alone —
at least, as far as we have come at present — must be regarded
as the immediate life of the Ego, from which everything else
which we have heretofore met, and especially the will-less im
pelling nature, is first understood.

3. But this acting appears, as we have often said, in the form
of aline ; not as an organizing, but as a mechanizing, as free

New Exposition of the Science of Knowledge. 133

motion, and hence within time. In so far the Ego in this act
ing remains confined within nature, and attached to it; it is
itself the highest phenomenon of nature. But in the present
nature infinite directions are possible from every point. About
these directions nature, thus viewed, can determine absolutely
nothing; because in nature, in the law of her contemplation,
there can be altogether no determination of these directions.
Hence in this point, in the giving itself a direction, the Ego
tears itself loose, by the formal primary law of its character,
from Being, or nature lets it loose, which means the same
thing. Here, the Being Free is absolute, formal law.

4. Again : Even in so far as the intelligence gives itself up
to the natural law of the concretion — as it certainly must, if it
is to arrive at a knowledge of itself — it nevertheless thinks
itself free in every point of this concretion ; and hence makes
at the same time the succession of nature its own succession of
time and motion..

But in the same manner again the intelligence connects the
single points of its freedom beyond the concretion of nature,
into a higher Thought - succession, independent of nature;
and unites the single moments of its acts in the unity of a con
ception of a DESIGN" which forms a junction with nature, but, in
its own connection, lies beyond it. From this we derive the
following important result : Even the natural impulse elevates
the Ego immediately above the given concretion of nature, in
which it finds itself as contemplating, to a totality of acting,
to a plan, &c. ; because as acting it no longer merely contem
plates itself, but also thinks. Hence the original self-contem
plation of the Ego includes not only that it contemplates
itself as free acting, giving direction, &c., but also that it
should connect this acting, and hence posit independent de
signs within nature.

a. Through this reflection, the above assertion, " Each indi
vidual Ego comprehends itself necessarily as lasting a certain
time, and as moving freely," receives its real significance and
application. The conception of acting and of positing designs
as the real contents of that individual time and motion, is here
added, and it becomes clear how the individual time and ex
perience unlooses itself from the general knowledge, and how

134 New Exposition of the Science of Knowledge.

the individual Ego originates within this general ground-form
of knowledge.

b. The proposition : Unless I elevate myself to moral Free
dom / do not act, but nature acts through me ; means now,
regarded more closely, the following : I, although an individ
ual and determining myself with free will, hence torn loose
from and elevated above nature, have nevertheless immedi
ately only a natural plan and design, which I prosecute, how
ever, in the form and according to the law of a rational Being.
The Freedom of the Ego in regard to nature is here still formal
and empty.

5. The result of the preceding may therefore be expressed
in the following propositions :

a. The Ego does not arrive at all to the perception of the
dead, will-less, in all its time-determinations unchangeably
determined nature, without finding itself as acting.

Z>. The ground-law of this acting, that it assumes a line-
direction, does not lie in nature, which does not extend so far
at all, but it is an immanent, formal law of the Ego ; and the
ground of it lies altogether in knowledge, as such.

c. But the direction is a fixed one, and the Ego which repo
ses in this standpoint necessarily ascribes to itself also the
ground of the determinedness of this direction, since it cannot
ascribe it to nature ; and since besides nature and the Ego,
there is nothing here.

d. But as there is still a something higher for us, and per
haps for all knowledge, a going beyond its actual Being, in
order to ascend to the transcendental cause of its possibility,
which we have not yet attempted from this point, we shall
not yet decide whether the Ego is also the transcendental
ground of the direction, contenting ourselves with stating
what we know. This, strictly, is only the following: The
knowledge of which we now speak is perception; the Ego,
therefore, perceives itself as ground of a fixed direction ; or,
more strictly, the Ego perceives in the perception of its real
acting, of which fixed direction it is the ground.

6. Here we obtain at once an important result, which we can
not pass by on account of the strictness of the system. On the
one side, the result of our former deduction was : The percep-

New Exposition of the Science of Knowledge. 135

tion of the material world is dependent upon the perception
(self-realization) of Freedom ; the latter is the ideal ground of
the former, for only through means of the latter do we arrive
at all at a knowledge. On the other side, we have found above :
that the perception of Freedom is dependent upon the percep
tion of the material World ; the latter is the real ground of the
former, for only the latter gives to Freedom the possibility of
a real acting. The relation is the same as in contemplation
between form of body and form of line, which also were mutu
ally dependent upon each other ; or, higher, in the original
synthesis of knowledge, as between the absolute form of con
templation and the ground-form of Thinking. Hence, percep
tion, xar iZoyjv, the absolute form and the extent of immediate
knowledge, is neither perception of the dead world nor of the
world of Freedom, but altogether of both in their inseparabil
ity and in their immediate opposition as postulated through
immediate reflection; its object, the universe, is also alto
gether in itself the One ; but is in its appearance divided
into a material and an intellectual world. (It appears how
our investigation approaches its close. The whole factical
knowledge, the material .world, has now been synthetized;
it only remains to bring this world into a complete relation
with its higher branch-member, the intellectual world, and
our work is done. For with the separate subjects and objects,
and their psychological appearances and diiferences, a Tran
scendental Philosophy has nothing to do.)

This perception of Freedom can easily be changed from an
individual into a general one by this remark : My Freedom is
to be the ground of a real acting. It has been shown, however,
that I am not real except as in reciprocity with all other
knowledges, and reposing upon the general one knowledge—
thus really actualizing one of the real possibilities of this
knowledge within itself. Hence, whatever there is perceptible
for me in me, has, in so far as it has been really actualized,
acted, done — entered into the sphere of the real (of percep
tion), of all. Thus, in accordance with our premises, it is
apparent of itself (what no former philosophy has thoroughly
explained) how free Beings know of the productions of the
Freedom of others : the actualized real Freedom is the deter
mined realization of a possibility of the general perception, in

136 New Exposition of the Science of Knowledge.

which the Egos are not divided, but are rather one — are only
one perceiving Ego.

I 3. The knowledge (not mere perception) of Freedom is not possible without a
contact with other free beings.

This connection of the general perception with Freedom and
its self-realizations, and the principle of this relation, which
we have touched upon only in passing, must be explained fur
ther. We introduce the explanation by the following consid
erations :

1. I, the individual, apply, according to a former synthesis,
the particular manifestation of my power to a general power,
which I did not at all perceive, but merely thought there, and
which I placed before me in the form of contemplation as a
something of an organized body (we select this expression
with care). This my manifestation of power is real and enters
accordingly into the general perception, means evidently : it
is traced back, with all that follows from it, to the general per
ception, to the unity of a person, partly immediately posited in
space, partly determining itself with Freedom. Now this per
son is at iirst a whole of nature, absolutely encircling a par
ticular time-moment, and thus arising in the general time, and
for the general perception, from nothing : a link of the de
scribed time-succession in nature ; but at the same time the
commencement of the appearance of a rational being in time,
of which an acting, extending necessarily beyond the nature-
succession, catches back into nature ; finally, a determined
body, at present only for the general perception of nature,
but not as above, an undetermined somewhat of an organic
body.

2. This free acting, accomplished through the medium of the
body, according to what law can it move ? Evidently accord
ing to the same law through which, in our former reflections,
knowledge of Freedom generally was produced : the law that
it must be immediately thought and comprehended in percep
tion as an acting, which can manifest itself only in the form
of a line, and which, therefore, takes its direction not from na
ture, but from out of itself. The chief point to be observed lies
in the immediateness of this self-contemplation, which excludes
everything like a deduction, comprehending from premises,

New Exposition oftlie Science of Knowledge. 137

&c., since this would destroy totally the character of the per
ception, and hence the possibility of all knowledge.

3. Let us also add the following passing remark, which is
an important hint for the future. A certain time-moment in
the general time, a space -moment of the universal matter, lies
immediately in the succession of perception as filled with a
body which can manifest itself absolutely altogether only as
Freedom. The ground-principle of the contents of this succes
sion, but on no account of its formal existence, was absolute
Being. But, viewed as a principle of nature, absolute Being
is altogether no principle of a view of Freedom ; hence it be
comes here particularly, at the same time, principle of Free
dom and thus the ground of that mixed perception of a nature
and of a rational acting posited within it at the same time,
which we have just described. This may become important.

4. But what is — on the part of the general perception and of
any representative thereof (any individual Ego) — the condi
tion of contemplating other free subjects outside of itself, of
the representative Ego? Evidently, since Freedom and its
ground-law can be perceived only in an individuality-point,
the condition is, that that Ego must lind the ground-law within
itself in order to be able to find it also outside of itself: hence,
expressed in general terms ; the condition is, that knowledge is
not merely simply confined contemplation, but likewise reflec
tion, knowledge of knowledge, i. e. of Freedom and the within-
itself generation of knowledge. In the self-contemplation of
our own Freedom, Freedom, xar ^«^v, is known (direct, be
cause it is the real substance of knowledge).

5. Again — let the nervus probandi be well noted which in
my other writings has been very elaborately described, but
which here, now that perception has been thoroughly deter
mined, can be gathered into one word : — since the individual
Ego contemplates its Freedom only within universal Freedom,
which constitutes a closed thinking, its Freedom is realiter
only real within a contemplation of infinite Freedom, and as
a particular limitation of this infinity. But Freedom as Free
dom is limited only through other Freedom; and actually
manifests Freedom only through other actually manifested
Freedom.

6. Hence it is the condition of a knowledge of knowledge,

138 New Exposition of the Science of Knowledge.

of self-perception as the principle of all other perception, that,
besides the free manifestation of the individual, other free
manifestations, and, by their means, other free substances,
should be perceived. Keciprocity through actual manifesta
tion of free acting is condition of all knowledge. Each one
knows of his acting only in so far as he knows generally (a
priori, through original thinking) of acting, of Freedom.
Again : Each one knows of the acting of others, idealiter, only
by means of his own acting from out of himself. Finally :
each one knows of his acting only in so far as he knows of the
acting of others, realiter ; for the character of his particular
acting (and generally he himself) is in knowledge result of the
knowledge of the acting of the totality.

Hence no free Being arrives at a consciousness of himself
without at the same time arriving at a consciousness of other
Beings of the same land. No one, therefore, can view himself
as the whole knowledge, but only as a single standpoint in
the sphere of knowledge. The intelligence is within itself and
in its most inner root, as existing, not One, but a manifold ; at
the same time, however, a closed manifold, a system of rational
Beings.

(Nature — thus we will call her hereafter exchisively in oppo
sition to the intelligences — is now placed before us as one and
the same, coursing through infinite time and solid space, which
she fills. If, as bearer of the free individuals and their
actions, we must not split her further — which it is not the
object of the Science of Knowledge further to do — she will
always remain this One. In this very form she is the proper
object of Speculative Physics, as a guide of Experimental
Physics — for to nothing else must the former present claims —
and must thus be received by that science. But in the world
of intelligence there is absolute manifoldness, and this mani-
foldness remains always on the standpoint of perception; for
knowledge is for itself a quantitating. Only in the sphere of
pure thinking there may also be discovered a formal — on no
account real — unity even of this world.)

I 4. Results.

1. Each individual's knowledge of the manifestations of his
Freedom is dependent upon his knowledge of the general

New Exposition of the Science of Knowledge. 139

Freedom - manifestation and upon the general knowledge
thereof. It is, as we have learned already from other exam
ples, a determined closed thinking within another— just now
discovered — thinking of a determined whole. Hence it is it
self determined thereby ; the Freedom in individual know
ledge is result of the general Freedom, and therefore necessa
rily determined by it ; there is no perceptible Freedom of a
single individual. His character as well as the character of
his acting proceeds from his reciprocity with the whole world
of Freedom.

2. In the general perception of each individual, nature does
not appear any further than follows from his reciprocity with
his perceived system of Freedom. For the Ego of each indi
vidual, as this particular one, appears to him only in this reci
procity and is determined by it; but nature he feels and
perceives and characterizes only in the impulse thus directed
towards his particular Ego. Hence, if the possibility of a
manifestation of Freedom is presupposed, nature results
without anything further from the self-contemplation of that
Freedom ; is merely another view of Freedom ; is the sphere
and the immediately at the same time posited object of Free
dom ; and there is thus no further necessity at all for another
absolute principle of the perception of nature. Hence nature,
as manifestation of the Absolute, in which* light we viewed it
above, (let no one be led astray by this remark; perhaps a
disjunction takes place here within nature, only without our
perceiving it,) is totally annihilated, and is now merely a form
of the contemplation of our Freedom, the result of a formal
law of knowledge.

3. The impulse which is idealiter determined through the
reciprocity of general Freedom and through knowledge, would
thus be the only firm object remaining in the background, ex
cept the undeterminable and in so far in-itself dissolving gene
ral Freedom. This impulse would be the substante, but only
in regard to that part of it which enters knowledge, and on no
account determined in its real contents through knowledge ;
and the manifestation of Freedom would be its accidence; but,
let it be well remarked, simply a formal, in nowise a materializ
ing accidence ; for only in so far as the impulse really impels,
acts (apart from its body-form in which it appears in con tern-

140 New Exposition of the Science of Knowledge.

plation which falls away here), does it enter knowledge;
hence, in so far as it is posited it impels necessarily. It is,
therefore, accidence simply in so far as it enters the form of
knowledge, in so far as it is a knowledge at all. Thus also
the general Freedom is not realiter free, but only formaliter ;
it acts ever according to all its empirical knowledge, and
knows only of that according to which it acts. Only this know
ledge itself seems still to be materialiter free, if there are
impulses beyond real knowledge. (Of its formal Freedom,
inner absoluteness, we do not speak now.)

4. According to a former remark, knowledge, in obedience
to a formal law, separates the plan, assigned to it by the nat
ural impulse, into a succession of mutually determined, mani
fold acts ; and only thus does it arrive at a knowledge of its
real acting, and hence of its Freedom and of knowledge gener
ally. But the links of this succession have significance only
in the succession ; the next following links annihilate them.
Hence the Ego expressly proposes to itself the perishable, as
perishable and on account of its perishability, and makes this
its object: a mere living from one moment to another without
ever thinking on what will come next. But, still more, even
every closed moment of nature itself (hence the impulse and
plan of nature) lies within an unclosed contemplation, and
thus carries within itself the ground of a future moment and
thereby its own annihilation in that moment ; and is therefore
also, an essentially perishable plan. Hence, all acts excited
by the impulses of nature are necessarily directed upon the
perishable ; for everything in nature is perishable.

5. According to what we have said previously, nature devel
ops herself according to a law which can have its ground only
in absolute Being. Now even if we intended to restore this
law to nature, in so far as nature appears in knowledge as
real, as the bearer of knowledge, it would still be, for the
standpoint of perception, merely a formaliter posited law ;
but on no account one which could explain to us the connec
tion which we can only perceive. Allowing this interpreta
tion, about which we desire not to give an opinion at present
whether it will be admitted or not, it would, to be sure, give
to nature an apparent (because time is infinite and never com
pleted) unity of plan, but of which each single plan would be

New Exposition of the Science of Knowledge. 141

merely a piece torn out, the relation of which to the whole
would remain unknown to us. We should thus, in these acts,
give ourselves up to a strange, concealed plan, unknown to
us, which we should not know ourselves, and hence knowledge
would not yet have penetrated into itself, since its origin and
root would still remain in the dark.

\ 5. Harmony of the Moral world and the Factical world in sensuous perception
in the form of an absolute immediately perceptible Being.

We have advanced to the universality of the perception of
empirical Freedom, and have deduced from it nature itself
and the universality of the perception of nature. Only one
thing remained, which we could not deduce and of which we
remained ignorant, a certain impulse directed upon Freedom,
which we, however, called impulse of nature, although we, it
is true, knew so much of it that it was not an impulse of dead
nature. It seemed to appear plainly that nothing more could
be explained from that sphere. The empirical world may have
been traced on its own ground back to its highest cause, where
it becomes lost to the empirical eye.

1. Let us, therefore, commence from the other side, and from
its highest point, which we know well enough already. Know
ledge is an absolute origin from nothing, and this within an
equally absolute For-itself. Looking at the latter, there is
hence in knowledge a pure, absolute Being ; and as soon as it
comprehends this same Being, i. e. the pure thought thereof,
as is required here, it is, in this respect, itself pure absolute
Being ; i. e. as knowledge. (By the last addition of the ab
solute self-penetration of pure thinking, the proposition
becomes a new one ; for pure thinking itself, as lost in the
positing of objects, with the entire synthesis connected there
with, has been sufficiently explained above.)

Concerning this knowledge, its substance and its form, let
the following suffice. As far as regards the substance, it is
the absolute form of knowledge, of self-grasping itself;
not as act, however, but as Being: in one word, the pure,
absolute Ego. In its form it is unchangeable, eternal, imper
ishable ; all of which, it is true, are but second-hand charac
teristics. In itself it is unapproachable ; it is the absolute
Being, the in-itself-reposing. Again, it bears, and should be

142 New Exposition of the Science of Knowledge.

thought as bearing, the here altogether predominating charac
ter of perception ; i. e. formaliter. This is to be understood
as follows : Knowledge recognizes itself as accidental. But
how then, and according to what premises? How does it
recognize the accidental, and how does it class knowledge,
let us say, as a species under that genus f Altogether accord
ing to no premises derived from experience — such an assump
tion would be an absurdity — but simply immediately, primari
ly. How does it think the absolute, in opposition to which it
recognizes as only accidental? Likewise primarily. And how
does it recognize in both these recognitions itself as absolute ?
Likewise in a primary manner. It is simply thus, and more
cannot be said about it ; knowledge cannot go beyond itself.

2. Now, this thus described thinking is not possible with
out an opposite quantitating contemplation, in accordance
with the synthesis which has become so familiar to us. In
this contemplation absolute knowledge, or the pure Ego, quan-
titates itself; i. e. it repeats itself in a (scheme) picture. This
contemplation as adjoining link of a thinking is the — neces
sarily closed — contemplation of a system of rational Beings.
Reason, therefore, in the immediate contemplation of itself
places itself necessarily also outside of itself; the pure Ego is
repeated in a closed number, and this results altogether from
the thinking of its formal absoluteness. (Let it be well un
derstood : it is no contradiction of the above that this system,
as it enters sensuous perception, is infinite, i. e. actually unat
tainable for this perception and not to be completed ; for be
tween thinking and perception there enters here one of the
ground-forms of quantitating — infinite time. But it does fol
low that in every moment wherein perception is to take place
the Ego must be posited as closed for perception, although
the infinite continuation of perception carries it in each future
moment beyond its present. It does not,however,/0Zfow from
any empirical premises, but is absolutely so, that the Ego—
the Egos — beyond all perception, and as ground of the same,
are closed in the pure idea of reason, or in God.)

This is the ground-point of the intelligible world. Now to
that of the opposite, the sensuous world. From the manifold-
ness of the Egos contained in the contemplation of reason,
we select one as a representative. This, in perception, is alto-

New Exposition of the Science of Knowledge. 143

gether confined to itself as individual, and cannot, as in think
ing, go beyond to the contemplation of a pure reason-world.
But this confinedness is the ground of all perception, which,
as being itself absolute contemplation, is the condition of the
possibility of absolute thinking. As an individual, however,
it is the thus or thus determined individual in the whole suc
cession of individuals ; but since this succession and its total
ity exists only in thinking, how is it then, or rather its result,
before all thinking? And if, in the whole reason-world, no
individual were to elevate himself to thinking — which is pos
sible since thinking depends upon Freedom — how will it then
be in perception ? According to the above, in its form, even as
an empirically absolute and only perceptible, but no further
explainable Being (which is thus, because it is thus and finds
itself thus). We touch here again, only in another form, the
impulse, which remains in the dark.

But how, now, does this relation, which in pure thinking is
recognized as determined through absolute Being, become
here, where it is not recognized and can therefore not be the
result of a recognition, nevertheless an immediately percepti
ble Being ?

Important as the question is, the answer is quite as simple.
This question is the highest and most important which a phi
losophy can propose to itself. It is the question after a har
mony, and since the question concerning the harmony of
things and knowledge (which presupposes a dualism), and
the question concerning the harmony of the several free Be
ings, which is based upon the idea of automatic Egos, have van
ished into empty air — because it was shown that those sepa
rates could not but harmonize since they were in reality one
and the same ; in the one direction, the same in the general
perception ; and in the other direction, the same in the One ab
solute Being, which posits itself in determined points of reflec
tion within an infinite time-succession, according to the abso
lutely quantitating ground-form of knowledge — it is the ques
tion after a harmony between the intelligible world and the
world of appearances — the material world ; — (that is, where
this exists, in the immediate-itself-grasping, factical ground-
form of knowledge, which therefore appears even prior to the
realization of Freedom — of thinking — of which it is the pre-
9

144 JVew Exposition of the Science of Knowledge.

supposition, and where there is, on that account, not yet true
individuality.) The answer is easy and immediately appa
rent :

The universal perception has for its ground-substance noth
ing else than the relation of the perceiving individual to other
individuals in a purely intelligible world; for only thus is
that perception, and is a knowledge at all. Without this that
perception would nowhere come to itself, but would dissolve
in the infinite emptiness — if, in that case, there would be any
human understanding at all, to posit it for the mere sake of
letting it dissolve. And this is so in consequence of its rela
tion to absolute Being, which relation is in perception itself
never recognized, but remains concealed to it for all eternity.
This relation, considered in the previous paragraphs in the
form of impulse, is the immanent root of the world of appear
ances to every one who appears to himself. Now this percep
tion brings its time, its space, its acting, its knowledge of the
acting of others, and hence its knowledge of nature along with
itself, and can therefore not go beyond its really egotistical
and idealistical standpoint; its world, therefore, and — since
this applies to the universal perception — the whole world of
appearances is purely the mere formal law of an individual
knowledge, hence the mere, pure Nothing; and instead of
receiving from the region of pure thinking perhaps a sort of
Being, the material world is, on the contrary, from that very
region decisively and eternally buried in its Nothingness.

\ 6. Harmon}?- of the Moral world and the Tactical world in knowledge in a deter-
minedness of the system of moral impulses through the absolute form of a law.

Now to the union of the groundpoints of both worlds witliin
knowledge, for outside of knowledge they are united through
the absolute Being.

Empirical Being was to signify a particular, positive rela
tion of the perceiving individual to an in so far perceived num
ber of other individuals, according to a law of the intellectual
world, which other individuals are, therefore, presupposed as
differing in their primary Being. But in the contemplation of
reason they do not (at present) differ at all in their essence, but
are merely numerically different. Hence it would be necessary,
for the possibility of perception, to presuppose another differ-

New Exposition of the Science of Knowledge. 145

ence of the individuals, not merely a numerical, but a real dif
ference, lying beyond perception ; and this difference must ap
pear in knowledge when it is to elevate itself to the thinking
of perception, as having its ground in the intellectual world.
It would be, what we are seeking for, our last problem, a con
necting link between absolute thinking and absolute contem
plation. This, now, is easily found, and has, indeed, already
discovered itself to us, if the principle of perception is tlwuglit
in the very same manner as we have just now thought it, i. e. as
the result of my relation to the absolute sum of all individuals,
but in such a manner that it appear at the same time in per
ception. This last clause is decisive, and I wish to be under
stood in respect to it. In point of fact, as we well know, think
ing and contemplation never join together, not even in their
highest point. Only through thinking are they understood as
one and the same ; but in contemplation they remain divided
by the infinite gulf of time. The true state is this : It is always
only perception which is thought by that intellectual concep
tion ; this perception is, it is true, beyond and imperceivably
altogether one, and embraces in this oneness the relation of
all individuals' to each other; but I have never perceived tlie
whole of my relation, awaiting, as I do, from the future further
enlightenment. Hence the world of reason is never surveyed
entire as a fact; its unity is only, but is not perceivable ; and
it is not known except in Thinking ; in actuality it expects
from that Being infinite enlightenment and progress.

Formaliter there results from this, firstly, that it is per
ception and the principle thereof which is thought. The in
separable ground-form of perception as inner contemplation
is time. With this contemplation there enters a something of
discovered time, and if the real substance of the perception is
an acting, there enters also a plan of this acting— dividing
itself into mediating acts— and with the thought of this plan
an infinite time, for each moment of that time falls within an
infinite contemplation which demands future moments.

Secondly, there results this, that a thinking takes place,
and that it is the Ego which is thought as principle of the per
ception. The character of the Ego in relation to knowledge—
and in that relation the Ego is to be thought here ; let this be
well understood— is absolute starting and causing to originate

146 New Exposition of the Science of Knowledge.

from nothingness; hence free manifestation in a time-suc
cession ; and thns the Ego thinks itself whenever it elevates
itself to the thinking of itself. There arises for the sphere
of perception a succession of absolute creating from Nothing
ness, realiter recognizable for each moment of perception. (I
express a comprehensive statement in few words ; these words,
however, are not to "be understood metaphorically, but lit
erally.)

Let us now gather together this infinite time with its deter
minations into one through a conception ; we cannot abstract,
in doing so, altogether from time ; for, if we did, we should lose
the relation to perception, the determinedness of the individ
ual, and we should again return to the merely numerical differ
ence of the Egos in the pure contemplation of reason. The
contents of that time is the determinedness of an acting of
an individual — as principle of perception — independent of and
preceding all perception.

But what, moreover, is the ground-principle of this determ
inedness ? In the idea, the absolutely closed sum of intelli
gences; in perception, the sum of those intelligences that
have entered knowledge and been recognized at a particular
time. But the intelligences are posited in the contempla
tion of reason as altogether harmonizing in their absolute self
and world knowledge ; hence, also, as harmonizing in the per
ception which is determined through this contemplation of
reason through the uniting thinking. What everyone thinks
absolutely of himself, he must be able to think that all who
elevate themselves to absolute thinking, think likewise of him.
The outward form of the described acting is, therefore, that
everyone should do (I will express myself in this manner for
brevity's sake), what all the intelligences embraced in the
same system of perception, absolutely thinking, must think
that he does, and what he must think, that they think it. It
is an acting according to the system of the absolute harmony
of all thinking, of its pure identity. (I believe we term this
moral acting.)

Finally, what was the ground of this idea of a closed system
of mutually determined intelligences in the pure thinking of
the contemplation of reason, and the thinking of perception
determined thereby ? Absolute Being itself, constituting and

New Exposition of the Science of Knowledge. 147

carrying knowledge : hence an absolute mutual penetration
of both. The deepest root of all knowledge is, therefore, the
unattainable unity of pure thinking, and the above described
thinking of the Ego as absolute principle within perception =
the moral law as highest representative of all contemplation.
Now, this is on no account this or that knowledge, but simply
absolute knowledge as such. How this or that knowledge is
attained within it, we shall soon explain from one point. Now,
this absolute knowledge is attained only on condition of the
absolute Being entering even knowledge itself; and as sure as
this knowledge is, the absolute Being is within it. And thus
absolute Being and knowledge are united ; the former enters
the latter and is absorbed in the form of knowledge, by that
very means making it absolute. Whoever has comprehended
this, has mastered all truth, and to him there exists no longer
an incomprehensible.

Thus in ascending from the one side ; now let us determine
the adjoining link of perception. The ground and central
point of both links, of the material world and of the world of
reason, is nothing else than the individual, determined through
his reciprocity with the world of reason, as absolute principle
of all perception. This individual &, for the eye of the merely
sensual perception, firm and standing ; but it is also a devel
opment of the absolute creative power of perception in a
higher (reason-) time, starting from an absolute point of
~b eg inning.

(Only this point, as an apparently new addition, seems to
require a proof, and this proof is easy. The knowledge of
that power generally is dependent upon an absolute free
thinking; hence appearing itself in consciousness as free.
But this thinking again is dependent upon a contemplation,
also appearing within consciousness (empirical knowledge
generally) within an already ignited knowledge. Its begin
ning, therefore, as an absolute point falls within an already
progressing succession of the knowledge of time generally.
And it is necessary that this higher determinedness should
be perceived, if any particular moment within it is to be per
ceived, which latter moment becomes then for the perceiving
individual the beginning-point of a higher life.)

The Ego, therefore, is for this thinking, not reposing and

148 New Exposition of the Science of Knowledge.

stationary, but absolutely progressing according to an eternal
plan, which, in our thinking of God, is altogether closed, and
recognized as such, though never perfectly perceived. But the
Ego is also, in the same determinedness, absolute principle of
general perception. Hence, by its progression, perception
in its principle progresses also. That higher divine power in
reason and Freedom (in absolute knowledge) is the eternal
creative power of the material world. More expressive : The
individual starts always from the perception of mere Being,
for thereupon depends his knowledge generally, and particu
larly the thinking of his moral determination ; and thus it is
altogether a production of the often described reciprocity, but
nothing at all in itself. But as he elevates himself to the
thinking of his determination and becomes a something high
er than all the world, an Eternal Being, — what, then, does the
world become to him ? A somewhat, in and upon which he
elevates and erects what lies not in nature, but in the idea,
and in the eternal, unchangeable idea which the closed sys
tem of all reason realizes in the (now free and thinking)
Egos, and which it must possess in each moment of an infinite
perception.

Let us take care not to carry the coarse materialistic ideas
of a mechanical acting like those of an objective thing in it
self, which we have already annihilated in the sphere of the
empirical, over into the pure world of reason ! The individual
develops in thinking his individual determination : but he
appears to himself as principle of sensuous perception, in the
existence of which he also always rests ; hence the determina
tion of his power appears to himself here, according to our
former conclusions, as actual acting. His pure thinking, there
fore, becomes in perception, truly enough, an actual acting ;
but here only for himself and his individual consciousness. To
be sure, it thus becomes a material appearance and enters the
sphere of the universal perception, also according to our
former deductions. But the intellectual character of his act
ing can be recognized only by those who by their thinking
have elevated themselves into that system of reason, who con
template themselves and the world in God. To the others it
remains a mere material moving and acting, just as they act
also. (It is the same with that intellectual character as with

New Exposition of the Science of Knowledge. 149

the theory of the eternal which we teach here. Those other
persons also hear our words, formulas, chains of ideas, &c.
But no one, whose inner life is not awakened, discovers their
meaning.)

What, then, is now — and with this I give the promised last
solution — the mere, pure perception in its reality, without any
thinking of the intellectual determinedness ? We have alrea
dy said it above : simply the condition on the part of the ab
solute, that knowledge is to appear at all in its empty, naked
form. In thinking, the principle becomes principle of an alto
gether new and progressive knowledge ; in the perception it
is merely the connecting knowledge ; hence — if it were not in
regard to a possible progress of enlightenment altogether a
mere nullity— the darkest, most imperfect knowledge which
can be, if a knowledge is at all to remain and not to vanish
into nothingness. In this lowest and darkest point the know
ledge of perception remains forever, and all its apparent work
is nothing but an unwinding and eternal repetition of the
same pure nothing according to the mere law of a formal
knowledge. They who remain in such a standpoint and such
a root have indeed no existence at all ; hence, also, do nothing,
and are, therefore, in sum and substance, only appearances.
The only thing, let it be well remarked, that still supports
these appearances, relates them to and keeps them within
God, is the mere possibility which lies beyond their know
ledge, that they still CAN elevate themselves to the intellectual
standpoint. The only thing, therefore, which may be said to
—I do not say the vicious, the evil, the bad, but— the very best
of men, as long as they remain in their immediateness — for
viewed from the standpoint of truth they are equally null — to
those who remain wrapped in sensuality, and do not elevate
themselves to the ideas, is this : "It must not be quite impossi
ble for you as yet to elevate yourselves to ideas, since God still
tolerates you in the system of appearances." In short, this
decree of God of the continuing possibility of a Being is the
only and true ground of the continuation of the appearance
of an intelligence ; if that is recalled, they vanish. It is the
true moral ground of the whole world of appearances.

If the question, therefore, is put: why does perception stand
just in that point in which it stands, and in no other? This

150 New Exposition of the Science of Knowledge.

is the answer : materialiter perception stands in no point what
ever ; it stands in its own point as required by its formal Be
ing and remains standing in it forever. The real time has not
yet at all commenced within it, and its own time never pro
duces anything new and solid (as the circular course of na
ture sufficiently demonstrates empirically) ; it is therefore, in
reality, also no time at all, but a mere formal appearance
(=0) awaiting a future filling up. Experience is never this
or that experience, in an accidental and single manner, but
always that experience which it must be according to that
immanent law and the connection resulting therefrom. If per
sons speak about the best world and the traces of the kind
ness of God in this world, the reply is : The world is the very
worst which can be, so far as it is in itself perfectly nothing.
But on that very account the whole and only possible goodness
of God is distributed over it, since from it and all its condi
tions the intelligence can elevate itself to the resolve to make
it better. Anything further even God cannot grant us ; for,
even if he would, he cannot make us understand it unless we
draw it from him ourselves. But that we can do infinitely.
Glorification of pure truth within us ; and whoever wants any
thing else and better knows not the Good, and will be filled
with Badness in all his desires.

\ 7. The Science of Knowledge as the schematic representation of the whole Ego
and the absolute realization of its whole Freedom, in its form of absolute reflect-
ibility of all the relations of the Ego.

Knowledge has been regarded in its highest sphere as pure
originating from nothing. But in that it was regarded as pos
itive, as real originating, not as non-originating. That was
the form. But in the substance of originating it is already
expressed that it might also not be ; and hence the being of
knowledge, when related to absolute Being, becomes acciden
tal, a being which might also not be, an act of absolute Free
dom. This accidentally of knowledge is yet to be described.

It evidently is the last remaining problem which we have to
realize in actual knowledge. The realization of the idea of
Being and Not-Being at the same time, which was advanced
in our first synthesis, is a thinking by means of a picturing
of the form of Being itself. Like all thinking, this also is

New Exposition of the Science of Knowledge. 151

not without contemplation ; here, not without the contempla
tion of knowledge, as having already realized itself. Now,
this existence of knowledge, in its reality, is cancelled "by
the thinking ; but, in order that it may be but cancelled, it
must first be posited in thinking. (This is the highest pictur
ing which has so often been mentioned, and the form of all
other. Yet the thing is easy enough : only it has gone out of
use by the common mode of thinking. Whoever says : A is
not ; to him A is on that very account in his thinking. Now,
in the above, knowledge is not negated generally, that it can
not be ; but it is negated in regard to absolute Being ; i. e. it
is thought, in its Being, as that which might also not be.)
Now, this is Freedom, and here absolute Freedom, indifference
in regard to the absolute, whole (not this or that) knowledge
itself.

a. Freedom, xar iSo/jv, is therefore only a thought, and only
within him, of course, who is himself the result of Freedom.

1). It is, negatively considered, nothing but the thought of
the accidentality of absolute knowledge. Remark well the
seeming contradiction : Knowledge is the absolute accidental
or the accidental absolute, because it reaches into the quan
tity and the absolute ground-form of the same, the infinite
time-succession. Positively considered : that Freedom is the
thought of the absoluteness of knowledge, of the self-creation
of knowledge through the self-realizing of Freedom. The
union of both views is the conception of Freedom in its ideal
and real existence.

c. This thought of the Freedom of knowledge is not without
its Being, just as there is no thinking without contemplation;
it is the same thorough connection as in all our former synthe
ses. Now, this is Freedom, xar tfoxyv, and all other Freedom is
merely a subordinate species ; hence there is no Freedom with
out Being (limitation, necessity), and vice versa. Time is under
the rule of this necessity ; only thinking is free. The intelli
gence would be altogether free after time had run out ; but then
it would be nothing — would be an unreal (beingless) abstrac
tion. Hence it remains true that knowledge in its substance
is Freedom, but always Freedom limited in a determined
manner (in determined points of reflection).

2. The absolute formal character of knowledge is, that it is

1 52 New Exposition of tlie Science of Knowledge.

real originating; hence whenever knowledge is realized, it
always arrives at a knowledge of Freedom. The lowest point
in the principle of perception is feeling — the mere anal
ogy of thinking. (It would become a thought if that princi
ple were to attain the described possibility of the higher
Freedom.) Every individual at least feels himself free. (This
feeling may be disputed by wrong thinking ; it may even be
denied, though no sensible man has yet done so ; but still it
remains ineradicable, and can be demonstrated also to every
thinker who is not totally enwrapped in his particular sys
tem.)

But this feeling of freedom is not without a feeling of
limitation.

Hence, all Freedom is an abstraction from some particular
reality — a mere picturing of the same.

3. In every lower degree of Freedom there is consequently
contained for the individual a higher real Freedom, which he
does not recognize himself, but which another individual can
require him to recognize, and which for him is a limitation,
concretion of himself. For instance, that lower degree of
Freedom we have learned to know as the conception of some
arbitrary sensuous end or purpose. Generally expressed, it
is that Freedom which permits you to reflect or not to reflect
upon the material object to which that end or design applies.
(Here necessity and Freedom unite in one point.) Here
knowledge posits itself as free, indifferent only in regard to
this particular object; but it is confined in perception gen
erally, though without remarking it. This is the condition of
the sensual man. Everyone who stands higher can tell him
that he has the power to elevate himself also above that state
of bondage ; but he does not know it himself.

But he also who knows of this other world may still ab
stract from that world ; may not want to know at present, nor
to consider, what this point in the succession of appearances
signifies in its intelligible character. Such a person stands in
the Freedom of reciprocal conditionedness ; he is kept in bond
age and imprisoned by his laziness. It is impossible, how
ever, that a person who has reflected to the end should not act
in accordance with those reflections ; impossible that he should
allow himself to be restrained from this acting by indolence.

New Exposition of tlie Science of Knowledge. 153

But even in this state of mind and in this spirit a person may
be theoretically enchained, though he be practically free ; and
this is the case when he does not explain his own state of
mind to himself, when he allows it to remain an occult quality
within him. (This is the condition of all mystics, saints, and
religious persons, who are not enlightened in regard to their
true principles ; who do what is right, but do not understand
themselves in doing so. Even to these, a theory like the pres
ent one can tell that they are not yet perfectly free, for even
God, the Eternal, must not keep Freedom in subjection.)

In the total abstraction from all material objects of know
ledge, from the entire contemplation with all its laws, hence,
in the absolute realization of Freedom and in the indifference
of knowledge with regard to contemplation, nevertheless also
in the limitation to the one, immanent, formal law of know
ledge, and its succession and consequence, does logic consist
and everything that calls itself philosophy, but is in reality
only logic ; that which cannot go beyond the result of that
standpoint : namely, finite human understanding. Its charac
ter is, like that of logic, its highest product, always to remain
within the conditioned, and never to elevate itself to an uncon
ditioned, to an Absolute of Knowledge and of Being.

In the abstraction from even this law, and from quantity in
its primary form, hence also from all particular knowledge,
does the Science of Knowledge consist. (It might be said,
from another point of view, that this science consists and
arises from a transcendentalizing of logic itself; for, if a logi
cian were to ask himself, as I have frequently exemplified in
the foregoing : how do I arrive at my assertions ? he would
necessarily get into the Science of Knowledge, and, in this
manner the science has really been found by Kant, the true
discoverer of its principle.) The standpoint of the Science of
Knowledge is in the elevation above all knowledge, in the
pure thinking of absolute Being, and in the accidentally of
knowledge; it, therefore, consists in the thinking of this
thinking itself; it is a mere pure thinking of the pure think
ing, or of reason, the immanence, the For-itself of this pure
thinking. Hence its standpoint is the same as that which I
described above as the standpoint of absolute Freedom.

But this thinking (according to all our former reflections)

154 New Exposition of the Science of Knowledge.

is not possible, unless knowledge is nevertheless within the
contemplation wherein it is only figuratively annihilated.
And thus the last question which I have promised to answer
is solved, and with that our investigation concluded: the
question, how the Science of Knowledge, being forced to go
beyond all knowledge, could do so ; whether, it being itself
a knowledge, it did not always remain within knowledge and
tied down to knowledge ; how, therefore, it could go beyond
itself as knowledge ? It carries knowledge forever along in
contemplation. Only in thinking it annihilates knowledge
in order to reproduce it in the same.

And thus the Science of Knowledge is distinguished from
life. It generates the real life of contemplation figuratively
(schematically) in thinking. It retains the character of
thinking, the schematic paleness and emptiness ; and life re
tains its own, the concrete fullness of contemplation. Nev
ertheless both are altogether one, since only the unity of
thinking and contemplation is the true knowledge — which in
reality is indeed unapproachable and separates into those two
links, each of which excludes the other ; — it is the highest
central-point of the intelligence.

The Science of Knowledge is absolutely factical from the
standpoint of contemplation : the highest fact, that of know
ledge (because it might also not be), is its basis ; and the Sci
ence of Knowledge is deduction from the standpoint of think
ing, which explains the highest fact from absolute Being and
Freedom ; but it is both in necessary-union, connecting with
the actuality, and going beyond it in Thinking to its abso
lute ground. But what it thinks is in contemplation, though
only immediate ; in Thinking this is linked together as neces
sary. And it thinks that which is, for Being is necessary ;
and that which it thinks is, because it thinks it ; for its think
ing itself becomes the Being of knowledge. (The Science of
Knowledge is no going beyond and explaining of knowledge
from outside, hypothetical premises — for whence should these
premises be taken for the universal ?)

The Science of Knowledge is theoretical and practical at
the same time. Theoretical: in itself an empty, merely sche
matic knowledge, without all body, substance, charm, &c.
(And let it be well understood, all this it should despise.)

New Exposition of the Science of Knowledge. 155

Practical : knowledge is to become free in actuality ; this is
part of its intellectual determination. Hence the Science of
Knowledge is a duty to all those intelligences who in the suc
cession of conditions have arrived at its possibility. But to
this succession of conditions we arrive only through inner
honesty, truthfulness, and uprightness.

Hence the honest endeavor to distribute this science is itself
the carrying out of an eternal and imperishable design ; for
reason and its once acquired clear insight into itself is eter
nal. But it must be distributed in that spirit which an eternal
purpose demands, with absolute denial of all finite and per
ishable ends. Not with the view that to-day or to-morrow this
one or that one may comprehend it, for in that case only an
egotistical object would be derived ; but let it be unreflect
ingly thrown into the stream of time, merely in order that it be
there. Let him who can, grasp and understand it ; let who
ever does not comprehend it, mistake and abuse it ; all this,
as nothing, must be indifferent to him who has grasped and
been grasped by it.

KANT'S SYSTEM

TRANSCENDENTALISM

10

KANT'S SYSTEM OF TRANSCENDENTALISM.

I.

In our days the word Philosophy has ceased to have the
meaning attached to it in the last century, as the name of an
in-itself absolutely closed Science of Pure Reason, or Science
of Knowledge. It is now again held to signify merely a more
or less connected argumentation on any kind of matters and
things, and embraces almost any class of writings wherein but
the shadow of argument presents itself. Philosophy is no
longer conceived to be a science of a priori universal princi
ples ; but the crudest individual reflections of men like Herbert
Spencer and Stuart Mill are classified under its name. Any
author who collects the notions that may chance to run
through his brain, or even those that have run through the
brains of others, is now-a-days called a Philosopher. The
sacred importance connected with that word in the times of
Descartes, Spinoza, Leibnitz, Kant, and Fichte, has been lost
to the present generation, which cannot conceive anything
higher than infinite "fine reflections" and "beautiful thoughts,"
and stands aghast at the possibility of a science which pro
poses to cut off all those infinite reflections and thoughts in
their very root, by establishing a universally valid system of
all reason.

By the student of Kant, however, it must be borne in mind,
that in his days the word Philosophy did stand for such a
closed science, and not for infinite reflections. The neglect to
remember this has been one of the reasons why Kant has been
so woefully misunderstood. He does not intend to be a mere
arguer and setter forth of opinions — at least, not in his works
of pure philosophy — but the teacher of a specific science ; in
deed, of the Science of all Sciences. There are two other rea
sons why Kant has been so lamentably misrepresented, more
particularly in English literature ; the first one being, that the
English translations of his Critic of Pure Reason suffer from
serious defects; and the second one, that only this Critic

154 KanVs System of Transcendentalism.

has been translated, whereas the other two Critics constitute
equally important parts of Kant's system. Concerning the
latter subject, however, Kant himself may deserve some cen
sure in that he named his first Critic " The Critic of Pure
Reason," thereby suggesting it to constitute the whole of his
system, whereas he should have published his whole system
under the general title: Critic of Pure Reason ; with the three
subdivisions— Critic of Theoretical Reason, Critic of Practical
Reason, and Critic of the Power of Judgment. That he did
not do this happened probably because the full conception of
his system was not in Kant's mind when he set out upon his
work; or because the word Reason was not taken by him at
first as involving all the faculties of the Ego. For the Ego is
not merely a power of theoretical cognition, which power
alone is treated of in the Critic of Pure Reason ; it is also a
power of practical acting or willing, and finally a power of
relating its cognitions to its willing, or a power of judgment.
But if the full conception of his work was not thus clear in
Kant's mind at the outset, it certainly became so at the end,
when he wrote his Preface to the Critic of the Power of Judg
ment, wherein he not only develops thisj^iplicityjiijhe Ego,
but moreover assigns its ground ; which ground is-, that every
synthetic science must necessarily treat, 1st, of the Condition ;
2d, of the Conditioned ; and 3d, of the Conception which re
sults from the union of the Conditioned with its Condition.

It is, however, to be remembered, that the latter part as con
necting with the first two parts, need not be separately treated
in an artistic representation of the whole Science of Reason,
but may — and perhaps with better effect — be treated along
with those first two parts. Kant, indeed, suggests this course
to the future completor of his system, and Fichte, in dividing
his Science of Knowledge, followed Kant's advice. In the Sci
ence of Knowledge there are only two parts : the theoretical |
(Critic of Pure Reason), and the practical (Critic of Practical \
Reason) ; the Critic of the Power of Judgment being divided, J
in its fundamental principles, between the two parts.

The great discovery which led Kant to undertake the im
mense labor of gathering all the material for a complete sys
tem of reason, and which initiates one of the most momen
tous epochs in the development of our race, was this : that a

Kant's System of Transcendentalism. 155

Science of Philosophy could not be possible as a Science of
so-called Metaphysics, but only as a Science of Reason or
Knowledge ; and that hence the Science of Metaphysics, in so
far as it pretended to furnish theoretical cognitions of super-
sensuous objects, dwelt in an utter illusion ; the only super-
sensuous cognitions possible be.ing cognitions of cognition
itself. Hence his two problems were :

1. To prove an absolute Science of Reason possible.

2. To prove a Science of Metaphysics impossible.

It was owing to this twofold, and, at first glance, apparently
contradictory object of his labors, that Kant was so generally
charged with doublesidedness and contradiction. His critics
could not understand how the same man could be so zealous
in pleading the a priori absoluteness of the categories, and so
earnest in overthrowing all theoretical proofs of God, Free
dom, and Immortality. The theological arguers grew wrathful
becase he destroyed their proofs of those three principles ;
while materialistic arguers were equally indignant because he
demonstrated, that knowledge would not be at all possible
unless we had absolute a priori knowledge.

Probably every reader of the Critic of Pure Reason has, at
the first reading, been struck by a difference even of tone
between the first two books and the third book of that work.
The cause of that difference arises precisely from the reason
stated. In the first two books, wherein the two questions-
How is a science of pure mathematics possible ? and, How is
a science of pure physics possible? — are investigated, the
answer runs : they are absolutely possible ; for if we had not
a priori contemplations of time and space wherein to place
our sensations, and a priori conceptions of the forms of rela
tions whereby to relate and connect those sensations, expe
rience would be impossible. In forcibly insisting upon the
absolute character of those contemplations, as well as of the
forms of relation or categories, Kant appears as an unwaver
ing idealist, who bases all knowledge upon the Ego, and shows
that, unless it were so based, knowledge itself would be im
possible. The very character of the proof required, namely, a
positive character, gives to Kant's language, throughout these
two books, an energy and vehemence of conviction which is
strikingly in contrast with the style of the third book.

156 Kant's System of Transcendentalism.

In that third Ibook Kant answers the third of the three ques
tions whereinto the fundamental question of a Science of Rea
son — How are synthetical cognitions a priori possible ? — had
"been shown to separate. That third question was : How is a
Science of Metaphysics possible ? Now, as a Science of Meta
physics meant, in Kant's time, a science of supersensuous
objects — that is, of God, Freedom, and Immortality — and not
a Science of Knowledge, Kant's proof in this book had to be
negative, and moreover partly qualified, which naturally gave
a less decided character to the style. That answer, it will be
remembered, runs : precisely because we could have no expe
rience (empirical knowledge) unless we had a priori absolute
contemplations of time and space, and a priori absolute forms
of relation whereby to connect the objects in those contem
plations, can we have no experience of any objects not deter
mined by those contemplations and categories. Hence theo
retical cognition of God, Freedom, and Immortality, is a
contradiction and impossible. In uncompromisingly insisting
on this impossibility — though suggesting another mode of
cognition for those objects — Kant appeared to many a rooted
realist, if not materialist, 'who denied the possibility of any
cognition not grounded in sensation. Now, it must be con
fessed, that in so far as Kant, in his Critic of Pure Reason,
had never touched upon the origin of the sensations in the
Ego, the Ego throughout that Critic appeared to that extent
dependent upon a foreign Other, which gave it the sensations ;
which foreign Other the last named class of Kant's opponents
concluded to be Matter ; but as Kant had been careful not to
touch that question at all, as not belonging to the Critic of
Theoretical Reason, there was no warrant for such an infer
ence.

The ground for the mistake has already been mentioned.
The J>itic of Pm^ -"Reason . iTiYPstigfl-tftS mar^ly jjhft_jp^ywf>r of
theoretical reason, or of cognition through the intellect. Hence
the question where the intellect gets the sensations which it
casts outside of itself, and objectivates in time and space, is
not considered in it. These sensations are assumed as given ;
and an investigation of theoretical reason shows merely that
reason furnishes out of itself the forms under which it knows
of these sensations. In short, the theoretical faculty appears

KanVs System of Transcendentalism. 157

to be legislative and absolute only in so far as it prescribes to
itself the rules under which alone it can take knowledge of the j
manifold in time and space ; that is, it is only formally abso
lute ; but in so far as that manifold is not shown to be pro
duced by the intelligence, the theoretical faculty appears
dependent upon a Given, a foreign Other, a Non-Ego. In the
merely theoretical part of a Science of Reason the Ego posits
itself as only formally self-determined, and as actually lim
ited by a Non-Ego.

It is one of the most difficult problems in philosophy to
make the full significance of this result clear to the student, or
to show that the merely theoretical intellect cannot do other
wise than posit itself as limited. It seems so contradictory
that the intellect should posit itself (by an absolute free act)
and yet posit itself as dependent. The solution is, that we call
the theoretical faculty of the Ego that faculty which cognizes
under the forms of time and space and the categories. Hence
it comprehends only by means of the causality-relation ; and
on that very account it can never rise to the conception of any
first cause or origin, becoming self-contradictory and absurd
when trying to do so.*

Hence, even when thinking itself, the theoretical faculty can
not think itself otherwise than as already determined ; and
applying the causality relation to this determinedness, it ne
cessarily posits an Other, a Non-Ego, as the ground thereof.
At the same time the Ego can know of this its necessary pro
cedure, can know that it does so and why it must do so, and
through this knowledge, therefore, can rid itself of that depen
dency. This, however, is only an ideal riddance, and furnishes
only the conception of negative Freedom; while practically
the Ego remains dependent. Every system, indeed, which
views the Ego as merely a theoretical faculty, as merely a
thinking power, must necessarily teach the dependency of the

* It is astonishing th.it sensible men should still continue to search for the origin
of the world, the origin of man, and the origin of language, as if those problems
were not by their very nature removed from search; and it is still more astonish
ing that this search should be kept up chiefly by men who scoff at transcendental
philosophy. Transcendental philosophy has never been guilty of such a transcend
ing of the limits of reason; nor, indeed, of such unwarranted metaphysical specu
lations as crowd the writings of men like Comte, Mill, Herbert Spencer, Huxley,
Yogt, Moleschott, and Bueclmer.

158 Kant's System of Transcendentalism.

Ego. Spinoza's system* is the most illustrious example, and
is, indeed, the offspring of that view. Kant's Critic of Pure
Keason, although it also shows that the Ego must think itself
as dependent upon a Non-Ego, partly removes that dependen
cy, as we have seen, by showing it to be simply the result of
the Ego's own laws of thinking. Partly, but not wholly ; nor
could the difficulty ever be wholly removed were the Ego a
mere power of thinking.

But the Ego is not only a power of theoretical cognition ; it
is moreover a power of practical acting, and in so far an actual
determining of the Non-Ego, provided this acting may be
viewed as simply the self-determination of the Ego. Upon
this question hinges, indeed, the whole sanctity and absolute
ness of reason, and the possibility of a Science of Practical
Reason. Should this question be answered in the affirmative,
the Ego would no longer determine the Non-Ego merely ide
ally, but likewise really — although it might appear that the
latter determining could never be completed in any time.

As the Critic of Pure Reason had for its chief problem the
question : How are synthetical cognitions a priori possible ? so
the Critic of Practical Reason must propose to itself the ques
tion : How are synthetical principles a priori possible ? Or,
since practical principles involve in Kant's terminology two
classes of rules, whereof he calls the one that announces a de
termination of the will, which is valid only for the will of the
subject, Maxims, and the other, which are recognized as valid
for the will of all rational beings, Laws — How are synthetical
practical laws a priori possible ?

Now it is clear that no practical law of rational activity can

* Spinoza's system is merely the Theoretical Part of the Science of Knowledge ;
and it is because his system lacks the Practical Part that it is one-sided. In his
system the Ego, therefore, posi's itself as dependent upon an unknown Non-Ego,
which Spinoza sometimes calls God, and at other times Nature or Substance. His
system is the most logical development of that view, as Ficlite already observed;
and every system which holds the Ego to be merely a power of thinking must lapse
into Spinozism. There is in his system neither positive freedom, nor free design ;
his Ethics is, indeed, the saddest book ever written; blind fatality rules every
where. Jacobi, in his famous writings on Spinoza, took particular pains to show
that all speculative reasoning must lead to Spinoza's results; and, in so far as he
understood reason to signify merely the power of thinking, he was correct enough ;
but Kant first, and Fichte after him, showed that the practical power of the Ego is
even superior to the ground of its theoretical function.

KanVs System of Transcendentalism. 159

be objectively valid, i. e. valid for all rational beings, and can
therefore be known to be the result of absolute self-determina
tion, unless it is in the form of an Imperative (of a SJiall) ; that
is, unless it is not the product of self-conscious reason as a
general rule of action ; for such a rule applies merely to the
subject which produces it in so far as it suits its own subjec
tive inclinations : whereas Imperatives are characterized by an
objective compulsion, and signify that the reason which utters
them would without fail act them out if reason alone deter
mined the will. But to be objectively valid, practical laws
must be not only in the form of an Imperative ; this Impera
tive must, moreover, be unconditioned or categorical. For if
the Imperative addressed itself to the will not simply as
will, but conditionally, or subject to the possibility whether
the will can execute the Imperative or not : they would not
be necessarily valid, bolt made dependent upon pathological
facts.

All those practical principles, therefore, which presuppose
an object of desire as determining the will, can never rise to the
dignity of objectively valid laws, being firstly empirical, and
secondly valid only for the subject; and since ALL material
practical principles do presuppose an object of desire as
determining the will, or since they all rest upon self-love or
pursuit of happiness, it is evident that practical laws or cate
gorical Imperatives, if at all possible, must be purely formal
laws ; that is, that they can involve only in form the ground
of determination of the will.

At this result Kant in his Critic of Practical Reason, pauses
a while to demonstrate at length that all material practical
rules of action presuppose an object of desire so determining
the will, and hence are all based on selfishness ; and to indulge
in a polemic against those who think that they can arrive at
moral laws by discriminating in the character of the desire
which determines the will in such cases. Kant shows, that •
whether this desire arises from an enjoyment which we expect
to derive through the senses, or from one which we expect to
obtain through the understanding, does not at all change (lie
fact, that in all such cases we are merely impelled by a desire
for pleasure. We may justly enough call some pleasures
coarser and some finer; "but on that account to say that the

160 KanVs System of Transcendentalism.*

latter constitute a mode of determining the will otherwise than
through the senses, when they presuppose for their possibility
a capacity for such pleasures in us, is just as absurd as when
ignoramuses, who like to dabble in metaphysics, think of mat
ter so fine, so superfine, that they get dizzy in their poor heads,
and then believe that so doing they have thought a spiritual,
and yet also extended Being."

The problem, therefore, is to discover a will which may be
determinate by the mere form of a law. Now such a form
of a law is clearly a pure thought of reason, and in no manner
whatever an object of the senses or an appearance. Hence it
is also not thought to be subject to any of the categories that
apply to the world of appearances, and can in no manner
be thought as determining the will in the same way as the
law of causality is thought as determining objects in the world
of nature. For under the law of causality the determining
ground is always itself again thought as determined by a pre
vious determining ground, and so on ad inftnitum. It is evi
dent, therefore, that the will, which is to be discovered, must
be thought— if it is to be thought as determined solely by this
form of a law — as altogether independent of the world of
causality which rules in nature. Such independence is called
freedom, and a will which is determinable only by the form
of a law will therefore show itself to be, if we succeed in find
ing it, a free will. Can we, then, find a free will determined
solely by the form of a law ?

Now the important point here is to confess that the answer
to this question cannot be demonstrated theoretically, just as
little as you can demonstrate to anyone that he is an intelli
gent being : each one must look into himself and find whether
or not he discovers such a will there. Meanwhile Kant asserts
that it is in every rational being, and that its determination
through the form of a law is known in language as the Moral
Law. But this can be shown: that if there does occur in
rational consciousness such a fact as Moral Law, then that
Moral Law is identical with freedom, i. e. with positive free
dom, and in fact is nothing but the Absoluteness and Self-
determination of Reason in general or of the Ego. For we can
not obtain knowledge of positive freedom— as distinguished
from that negative freedom which is merely an independence

Kant's System of Transcendentalism. 161

of determinations of nature, and which certainly arises in
immediate consciousness — in any immediate manner, such
immediate consciousness being able to express only negative
freedom ; nor through external cognitions, since these are all
subsumable under the conception of causality and mechanism ;
and hence we should have no way of arriving at the concep
tion of a positive freedom did there not occur within our con
sciousness the phenomenon of a command— Thou shalt?—
utterly opposed to and overthrowing the determinations of
our nature. It is, therefore, only through the occurring of this
phenomenon that human reason has ever been impelled to
consider the conception of positive freedom ; and he who has
but once experienced that the command, Thou shalt, or Thou
shalt not, does utterly override all the impulses of his nature,
has thereby become conscious of absolute freedom, and proved
to himself that there does occur in the Ego a power of deter
mining the Non-Ego, and hence has proved to himself the
absoluteness and self-sufficiency of the Ego. Moral Law,
therefore, or conscience, or the inner voice of God — whatever
it may be called— is nothing but the manifestating and realiz
ing itself of the absolute self-determination of the Ego ; and
that absolute self-determination or self-sufficiency is nothing
but the Moral Law or positive freedom.

The first section of the Analytic of Practical Reason having
thus shown that pure reason is practical, or can absolutely
determine the will— which proof it has furnished by the fact
of the occurrence of the Moral Law in us, which is inseparable
from, nay, identical with the consciousness of freedom— that
section seems utterly to overthrow the result of the Critic of
Pure Reason, that we can have knowledge only of a world of
internal perception, and that we are, in all our knowledge of
it, determined by it. Hence this fact, which everyone can
verify for himself, furnishes us the strange manifestation of a
world determined by reason alone, existing together with a
world determining reason : a moral world and a world of na
ture ; a world of freedom and a world of mechanism ; a natura
arclictypa and a natura ectypa !

Now this is certainly calculated to shock one at the first
glance ; for what are we to place trust in ? The fact which
asserts a Moral Law, but confesses the impossibility theoreti-

162 Kant's System of Transcendentalism.

cally to explain it, or the theoretical faculty which we accept
as our guide in all other matters, but which declares itself im
potent to explain a fact which forces itself upon us every
moment of the day.

This duplicity in human reason is developed quite at length
by Kant in two appendices to the first section of the Analytic,
headed " Concerning the Deduction of the Principles of Prac
tical Reason" and "Concerning the right of Pure Reason
in its practical function to an extension which is not permitted
in its speculative function."

The grounds of this duplicity we have already shown as in
its very root the impossibility of the Ego in its theoretical
function to do otherwise than apply the laws of that function
(and hence the causality-relation) ; from which impossibility
it results that the Ego cannot in reflection posit even itself
free. The Ego can only be free ; but the moment it reflects
upon its freedom, its freedom is again thought under the laws
of reflection— that is, under the causality-relation— and hence
as not freedom.

By this insight the great difficulty in the way of demonstrat
ing real freedom is removed. For when it has been shown,
that the fact of an absolute impulse in reason to determine
itself cannot be theoretically proved from the very nature of
the case, no one can require anything more than to experience
the fact in himself, and cannot ask for a theoretical proof
without stultifying himself. The impulse would not be an
absolute impulse, and hence the freedom would not be true
freedom if it could be demonstrated.

Thus the very impossibility of a theoretical proof turns out
to be, after all, merely the result of the supremacy of the prac
tical power. The Ego in its fundamental essence is not a
thinking, but an acting power ; not theoretical, but moral ; not
limited, but absolute ; and all its limitedness is simply the
result of the theoretical faculty of the Ego, which requires that
this acting shall become visible to itself. All limitedness is
the result of reflection, of a making-clear-unto- itself. Original
ly the whole activity of the Ego extends into the Infinite ; but
because this activity is not to be a mere appearing of the Ego,
but is to be such an appearing of the Ego for the Ego itself,
it is reflected back, checked, and is a Non-Ego posited as the

Kant's System of Transcendentalism. 163

ground of that check. To ask that this duplicity of reason
should be removed, is to ask that reason should cease to be
reason ; for it cannot be reason unless it is an acting, and it
cannot be an acting for itself unless its acting is checked and
the check ascribed to something not itself.

By showing, therefore, in consciousness the fact of a Moral
Law, we obtain the practical certainty of freedom ; as by de
monstrating that the Ego posits the causality-relation between
itself and the Non-Ego, and thus mak^s itself dependent upon
the latter merely by virtue of its own laws of thinking, we rise
to the comprehension of its ideal freedom.

The result of the investigation undertaken in the first
section of the Critic of Practical Reason may, therefore, be
popularly summed up as follows : — There appears in all finite
reason an impulse to act in a certain manner altogether inde
pendent of any external purpose or motive, and merely for the
sake of such acting, and this impulse is called the Moral Law.
It is a determinedness of freedom : freedom determined by its
own absoluteness, and may be put in a formula as follows :

Act in such a manner that the maxim of your will can ~be
valid always as the principle of a universal legislation.

For this formula expresses the form of a law, and the only
possible form of a law which can be thought as determining
the will of all rational beings absolutely, and which has there
fore the same validity for practical reason as the categories
have for theoretical reason ; since to act so that the maxim of
my will can be always valid as principle of a universal legis
lation, means simply to act in obedience to an absolute form
of a law, or an absolute impulse.

In the second section of the Analytic of Practical Reason,
"Concerning the Conception of an Object of Practical Reason,"
Kant renews the proof of the absolute fact of the Moral Law
in all rational beings by showing that the conceptions of the
only two possible objects of practical reason— namely, the
Good and the Bad*— far from determining in our mind the
Moral Law, rather are determined by it, and could not possi
bly arise in our mind except through the conception of that

* The German words das Gute and das Boese express much more unambigu
ously the purely moral character of the two conceptions for which they stand.

164 Rani's System of Transcendentalism.

Law. For if the conception of Good, for instance, were not
determined by the absolutely a priori Moral Law, it could
arise only through comparison with a feeling (of pleasure or
pain) in us, and hence the conception of Good could not "be in
the nature of a universally valid law, but merely of a practi
cal rule to promote our happiness ; a rule which would differ
in every individual and change according to external circum
stances, so that it could never be foreknown.

The fact, therefore, that there are such conceptions as those
of Good and Bad as distinctively moral conceptions, which
have no reference to empirical feelings of pleasure and pain,
gives additional proof to the a priori character of the Moral
Law ; and these conceptions having been established as the
only possible objects of practical reason, there remains merely
the question : how the Moral Law as a law of freedom can
possibly become applicable in a world which stands under the
law of causality and mechanism. It will be noticed that the
difficulty is of the same nature as one that occurrs in the
Critic of Pure Reason, where we have pure a priori concep
tions, and cannot at first see how they, as altogether super-
sensuous can possibly become relatable to a manifold of em
pirical objects ; a difficulty which is removed by showing that
all sensations of empirical objects are after all given to reason
(as schemes) in the two likewise a priori forms of contempla
tion : time and space.

But, in the present case, the objects of practical reason, the
Good and the Bad, cannot be made relatable to the supersens-
uous will by means of contemplation, since they do not enter
the form of contemplation. Nevertheless— precisely because,
in the present case, it is a relation to a will and not to a
power of cognition — the application can be made possible.
Not, however, by means of a scheme of sensuousness, but by
a law. In short : the supersensuous will can apply the Moral
Law in a world of mechanism by subsuming the conception of
that law under that of the law of causality, which rules in the
sensuous world, and thus by changing the formula of the
Moral Law into the following :

Act in such a manner tliat if that act should occur through
a laid of nature you could look upon it as possible through
your will.

Kant's System of Transcendentalism. 165

This formula Kant calls the Typus of the Moral Law — the
universality and absoluteness of the law of causality in the
natural world typifying the universality and absoluteness of
the Moral Law in the supersensuous world ; — and this Typus
is quite proper so long as we transfer merely the form of law
fulness, and not its sensuous contemplations, from the world
of nature to the Moral World.

Having thus established in the first section of the Analytic
the general principle of the Moral Law, in the second section
the objects of that principle, and in the third the possibility of
applying that principle to those objects in a sensuous world,
Kant in the concluding section treats of the relation of prac
tical reason to sensuousness, and of its necessary, a priori
cognizable influence upon it. The beauty of Kant's style—
which has so unjustly been condemned as rough, intricate,
heavy and unartistic, whereas it is generally of wonderful
clearness and finish — finds here occasion to develop his most
heartfelt convictions, highest emotions, and noblest aspira
tions ; giving proof, if any were needed, that the Critic of Prac
tical Reason was written by him not as a concession to popu
lar prejudice, but rather with more enthusiasm and interest
than the Critic of Pure Reason. Characterizing the nature of
that influence as reverence, Kant thus speaks of it: — "Rev
erence always relates to persons, never to things. The latter
may inspire affection; and in the case of animals, as horses,
dogs, &c., even love\ or fear, as in the sea, volcanoes, &c. ; but

never reverence A man also may be the object of love, of

fear, or of admiration, even to a high degree, and yet he may

not be to me an object of reverence Fontenelle says : ; I

bow down before a noble, but my spirit does not bow down';
and I add : but my spirit does bow down before a common
citizen in whom I perceive honesty of character to a greater
degree than I am conscious of possessing myself; and my
spirit does so bow down whether I will or not, and however
high I carry my head in order to show him my superior rank."

"Far from being a feeling of enjoyment, reverence is rather
a feeling to which we submit very unwillingly in respect to
another person. We always try to discover something which
might diminish this feeling in us, some kind of fault to hold
us harmless against the humiliation which such an example

166 Kant's System of Transcendentalism.

inflicts upon us. Even the dead, particularly if their example
appears to be beyond our reach, are not always secure against
this criticism. Nay, the very Moral Law itself, in its solemn
majesty, is exposed to this tendency in man to escape the
reverence it compels. Or, why that constant desire to drag it
down to the level of an ordinary inclination, and that persist
ent endeavor to make it a favorite prescription for our own
advantage and enjoyment, unless it is to escape that terrifying
reverence which holds up to us so severely our own unworthi-
ness? Yet again there is so little of disagreeableness in
the feeling, that, if we have once thrown aside our self-merit
and have admitted that reverence to practical influence upon
us, we can never get satiated with the glory of this law ; and
our soul seems to elevate itself in the same degree as it sees
this holy law elevated above itself and its sinful nature."

That this feeling of reverence is a priori cognizable Kant
establishes by showing that the Moral Law is a restriction
upon all our inclinations, our self-esteem included, by the con
dition of obedience to that law ; and that hence it would be
merely of a negative nature and humiliating for our sensu
ous character were it not at the same time elevating for our
moral nature. As such a positive influence, Kant calls rev
erence the incentive of pure practical reason, which incen
tive awakens gradually a moral interest, and finally leads to
the establishing of moral maxims.

The act which that Moral Law prompts Kant calls Duty.
Being prompted purely by that law, exclusive of all motives
of inclination, this Duty involves in its conception practical
compulsion ; that is, a determination to act, however dis
agreeable it may be to us. The feeling which arises from
this consciousness of compulsion is not pathological, but alto
gether practical, and hence as submission under a compulsory
law, far from being accompanied by pleasure, is rather accom
panied by aversion ; but at the same time, precisely because
it is a compulsion of our own reason, independent of all ex
ternal motives and incentives, does it also elevate us in our
feeling, in which shape we call that feeling self-approval or
self-reverence ; and it is of the greatest importance to remem
ber that in finite rational beings the Moral Law always must
assume this shape of compulsion, and that the Holiness of

Kant's System of Transcendentalism. 167

Will, which implies a perfect harmony between the Moral "Law
and the Will, and hence no compulsion, can never be reached
by us. Kant loses no occasion to insist that this conception
of Duty must be held in its strict purity as an absolute com
pulsion, and that it is both absurd and harmful, as leading to
ScJiwaermerei* to teach that morality ought to be practised
for the love of it. It is absurd to require love for a command,
and it is harmful to mix up a pathological affection with the
highest manifestation of reason, with that which has its ground
in absolute freedom and independence from the mechanism of
nature: duty for the mere sake of duty! "The venerable
character of duty has nothing to do with the enjoyment of life ;
it has its own peculiar law and its own peculiar tribunal. Nay,
even if we should try ever so much to mix both together like
medicines, in order to give the draught thus mixed to the sick
soul, they yet will immediately separate of themselves ; and if
they do not separate, then the former will not operate at all.
But even if physical life should gain some strength by this
mixture, moral life would die out beyond redemption."

The second book of the Critic of Practical Reason treats of
the Dialectic of Practical Reason, the first book, or the Ana
lytic, having developed the principle of Practical Reason as
well as the application of that principle in the empirical world.
That application, or the object of that principle, was there
shown to be the promotion of the Good. The dialectical princi
ple of theoretical reason, therefore, which persists in connect
ing the conception of the unconditioned to an object of reason
raises this conception of the Good to that of the Highest Good.
The Highest Good, however, is a conception which involves
two distinct determinations, namely, that of virtue, or Doing
the Good, and that of happiness, or Enjoying the Good, and
hence a dialectical conflict of opposites. Now if the conception
of the Highest Good were an analytical one— that is to say, if
the above two determinations were joined in it by a merely
logical connection, then the dialectic in that conception could
be easily solved by showing it to be a mere word-dispute ;
and the famous opposition of the Epicureans and Stoics,
whereof the former said, " To be conscious that our principles
lead to happiness is virtue"; whereas the latter replied, " To
be conscious of our virtue is happiness,"— would have been

168 Kant's System of Transcendentalism.

nothing more than such a word-dispute. For as they did not
consider virtue and happiness to be two utterly distinct de
terminations of the one conception of the Highest Good,
their whole difference was one of words : the one calling the
Highest Good virtue, and the other calling the Highest Good
happiness.*

But the conception of the Highest Good is a synthetical con
ception—that is, a conception wherein two, lower, conceptions
are really (and not merely logically) united ; and hence stand
not in the relation of identity but in that of causality to each
other. The Epicureans and Stoics, therefore, instead of assum
ing that the endeavor to become virtuous and the endeavor to
become happy were identical, ought to have regarded either
the endeavor to become virtuous as of necessity (through caus
ality) conferring happiness, or the endeavor to become happy
as of necessity conferring virtue. For neither virtue alone
nor happiness alone constitutes the Highest Good, but both in
their real union constitute it.

The antinomy which results from the fact that the concep
tion of the Highest Good is such a synthetical conception, is
this one:

Either the desire for happiness is the motive impelling vir
tue but this is not possible, because such a motive would not

be moral, and hence could not impel virtue— or virtue must be
the producing cause of happiness ; but this is also impossible,
since the practical connection of cause and effect in the sensu
ous world depends not upon our obedience to the Moral Law,
but upon our knowledge of nature and upon a physical power to
use nature. Now, since the Moral Law impels us necessarily to
promote the Highest Good— not for the sake of the happiness
to result therefrom, but for the sake of the unconditioned total
ity of the object of the Moral Law, of the Good — and since the
Highest Good has shown itself to be impossible of realization,
it follows that the Moral Law itself is impossible of realiza
tion ; and hence that it is a mere creation of the imagination
and essentially false.

For this antinomy Kant offers the following solution : It is

* Strange to say, even at this day most of our disputes are merely such word-
disputes, and the result of mistaking analytical for synthetical conceptions.

Kant's System of Transcendentalism. 169

altogether true that the desire for happiness cannot impel
virtue, but it is not equally true that virtue may not be the
productive cause of happiness. True, it may not necessarily
produce happiness as its necessary effect, but neither is there
a reason why it should not. Hence only the first assertion of
the antinomy is absolutely false, and the latter only condition
ally false. And as it was discovered in the antinomies of Theo
retical Reason that although the category of freedom could not
be shown to be applicable in a world of natural mechanism,
neither could it be shown to be inapplicable in such a world
if that world were no longer regarded as a world of appear
ances but as an intelligible world : so may it now be said that
though it cannot be shown that virtue produces its propor
tionate happiness in the world of nature by natural causes, it
is at least quite possible that it may produce that happiness
as its effect in so far as that world can also be viewed as an
intelligible world wherein such a relation of causality between
virtue and happiness may have been implanted by an intelli
gible creator. Nay, this is all the more possible as the fact
of the Moral Law shows that we not only may but must view
nature in that two-fold manner, as both a world of appear
ances and an intelligible world.

It is, therefore, quite admissible because practically possi
ble to desire the promotion of the Highest Good, the whole
antinomy having vanished— as all antinomies vanish when
we remember that the world may be viewed as both an ap
pearance and phenomenon, -that is, as a Non-Ego determining
the Ego, and as a thing in itself and noumen-on, that is, as ab
solutely determinable through the Ego — and it being thus
quite possible to think virtue and happiness as necessarily
associated. It is clear that the higher of these two concep
tions in the synthetical conception of the Highest Good must
be virtue, and that hence virtue may produce happiness as its
infallible effect. May; that is to say, there is no theoretical
reason to prove why it should not, although, to be sure, there
is also no theoretical reason to prove why it should. It is only
practical reason which demands this necessary connection, and
demands it for the sake of the Moral Law. That Moral Law
we know to be a fact in us : hence, as sure as that fact is in us,
•is there in the intelligible world (i.e. in the supersensuous

170 Kant's System of Transcendentalism.

world, independent of time-connection, precisely that world
which, manifests itself in us as the Moral Law) a necessary
connection between virtue and happiness.

Having thus shown that the requirement of the Highest
Good is a necessary and thinkable one, Kant proceeds to con
nect the dialectic conception of the unconditioned with the
two determinations of the Highest Good: virtue, or morality,
and happiness. It will appear that unconditioned morality
presupposes Immortality, and unconditioned Happiness, as its
necessary associate, God. For if the unconditioned Highest
Good is to be attained through a will determinate by the
Moral Law, that will must also be unconditionally conforma
ble to the Moral Law. It must be not only a virtuous, but
a lioly will. But in the Analytic it has been shown that no
finite rational being can ever attain a perfectly holy will.
Hence that requirement can be realized only in the thinking
of an infinite progress towards the realization of that holi
ness ; and hence such an infinite progress must be assumed as
the real object of our will. Kant lays particular stress on the
practical use of the insight into such a progress, as once for
all doing away with the fantastic and lazy expectation of an
undeserved beatitude which degrades the majestic conception
of Holiness ; and in a foot-note insists that it is even a matter
of infinite progress, and hence of continuous endeavor, to keep
fixed in that progress after having once entered upon it, or, in
theological language, that no amount of conversion and sanc-
tification can secure perfectly against a relapse.

From this infinite progress Kant argues the immortality of
the soul, " because it is possible only under tlie presupposition
of an infinitely continuing existence and personality of tlie
same rational being; which is called the immortality of the
soul. Hence the Highest Good, practically, is possible only
under the presupposition of the immortality of the soul, and
hence the latter, being inseparably united with the Moral Law,
is a postulate of Practical Reason ; that is, it is a theoretical
proposition, which, though not provable as such, is insepara
bly connected with an a priori unconditionally valid practical
law."

It will be noticed that, however short and unsatisfactory
this statement is, it touches the real source of immortality by

Kant's System of Transcendentalism. 171

connecting it with the will. It is because the will must be
come holy that tlie same individual must continue to live.
Those persons who attempt to prove immortality from an
infinite progress in general culture, or in higher knowledge of
God, &c., invariably open themselves to the following refuta
tion : That culture and that higher knowledge can also be
attained if there is no immortality, for succeeding generations
will take up our culture and knowledge and develop them
higher. But no future person can take up my will and un-
' fold and develop it. If my will is to become holier, it is I
myself, the individual — for I as individual am precisely my
will — who must continue to live.

But the Highest Good is also not attained unless the hap
piness proportionate to the virtue manifested is invariably
secured. " Happiness," says Kant, " is the condition of a ra
tional being in the world, to whom everything happens accord
ing to his wish and will." Now, the Moral Law commands
unconditionally and regardless of the effect its obedience will
produce in nature ; hence finite rational beings, in so far as
they are dependent upon nature and are not the creators of
nature, cannot possibly order things so that things will happen
in the world of nature according to their wish and will because
they do their duty in the Moral World. Hence there must be
postulated a supreme cause having a causality in nature
equal to and harmonizing with the morality manifested, and
since such a causality implies will, and such a distribution
according to a plan, intelligence, there must be postulated
a Being who by his will and intelligence is the cause of
nature : God. As sure, therefore, as there is a Moral Law in
us which requires the accomplishment of the Highest Good—
a requirement that is not possible unless a God is presupposed
—just so sure is it morally necessary to believe in a God. It
is on account of this conception of God, Kant adds, that the
Christian doctrine may be said to be the only one which
establishes a full conception of the Highest Good ; and it is
because the Greeks lacked this conception, that they were
never able to solve the problem of the Highest Good. The
Greeks never rose from the ideal of the Cynics' natural sim
plicity and that of the Epicureans' prudence to any higher
than that of the Stoics' wisdom, whereas the Christians have the

172 Kant's System of Transcendentalism.

ideal of holiness. Nay, by apprehending correctly that syn
thetical character of the Highest Good, and joining therefore
to the conception of the highest morality that of the highest
happiness, the Christian doctrine has further risen to the ap
prehension of a Kingdom of God, which sliall come, "wherein
nature and morals will be made to harmonize in a. harmony
utterly foreign to each by itself, through a holy originator."

Freedom, Immortality, and God, are, therefore, the three
great cognitions which have been secured to reason by itsw
practical function as an activity ; and this result having been
reached, it may be well to recapitulate the different kinds of
proof whereby reason has throughout both Critics attained
its various cognitions.

Theoretical reason takes hold of a certain system of sensa
tions given to it — or of an Ego determined by a Non-Ego—
and proceeds to unite the manifold of those sensations into a
unity for the purpose of perception. It appears that reason
in thus uniting that manifold, or in making perception possi
ble, can do so only in the forms of time and space, and in a
certain triplicity of relation: the categories. Hence all the
proof which theoretical reason furnishes for its cognitions run
in this wise : If experience or sensuous consciousness is to be
possible, then this or tliat must be.

Hence, also, theoretical reason applies only to experience,
or to the objects of the empirical world which appear in con
sciousness; in short, to appearances, or phenomena.

Practical reason, on the other hand, takes hold of no limit-
edness, of no Ego determined by a Non-Ego; of no object,
therefore, to which theoretical reason could apply. It, as the
higher function and basis of the intelligence, rests altogether
upon itself; and the only cognition, therefore, which it utters
is the immediate one of its own absoluteness and self-determ
ination, its positive freedom, or the Moral Law. Upon this
freedom all knowledge rests; and, to state the matter con
cisely : all reason is nothing but this absolute freedom ; theo
retical reason being merely the result of its making msible
itself unto itself. Hence higher than any fact or cognition of
theoretical reason stands this absolute fact of the Moral Law
in us.

But this Moral Law, not in itself, but in its application to

Kant's System of Transcendentalism. 173

tJie empirical world, may and must again become the object of
theoretical reason; from which fact arises the sigular phe
nomenon that theoretical reason nevertheless applies its cate
gories to the object of the Moral Law : the Highest Good. In
this application theoretical reason postulates in an analogous ?
manner as it does in its application to empirical objects : If
the Moral Law is to be possible, then the immortality of the
soul and a God must be assumed.

There is, therefore, no distinction between the manner in
which reason grounds its cognitions of immortality and a
God and the manner in which it grounds its cognition of cause
and effect, for instance. The mode of argument is in each
the same. But because the former objects are grounded upon
an absolute immediate fact, and the latter upon a media
ted knowledge of an external object, we call the cogni
tions of immortality and a God Faith, and only the latter
cognitions we call knowledge. It is well to make this remark
and call attention to this distinction in the character of the
cognition to avoid word-disputes, and to cut off once for all
idle and anthropomorphistical speculations concerning the
Deity.

The Critic of Practical Reason concludes with these
memorable words : " Two things fill the soul with ever
new and increasing admiration and reverence, the oftener
and longer the mind busies itself with them: the starry
heavens above me and the Moral Law within me" Both of
these I need not hunt up, or suppose concealed in darkness
or in the region of phantasms beyond my vision: I see
them before me and connect them immediately with the
consciousness of my existence. The former begins at the
place which I assume in the external sensuous world, and ex
tends the connection, wherein I move, into that immensity of
worlds above worlds and systems of systems, wherein the eye
loses itself; and, moreover, into unlimited times of their peri
odic movement, of their beginning and duration. The second
begins at my invisible self, my personality, and represents me-
in a world which has true infinity, but is apprehensible only to
reason, and wherewith (and thereby at the same time with those-
other worlds) I recognize myself — not as there in a merely acci
dental — but in a universal and necessary connection. The first
beholding of a countless multitude of worlds annihilates, as it

174 Kant's System of Transcendentalism.

were, my importance as an animal creature, which must re
turn the matter from which it was formed to its planet (a
mere point in the universe), after having been endowed with
life for a short time, no one knows how. But the second, on
the other hand, elevates my worth as an intelligence infinite
ly, through my personality, wherein the Moral Law reveals to
me a life altogether independent of the world of animals, and
even of the whole sensuous world, at least so far as may be
presumed from the proper determination of my existence
through this law, which is not limited by the conditions and
limits of this life, but extends into the Infinite."

Reason, as a practical faculty, posits itself as absolute.
As a theoretical faculty it posits itself as limited. The syn
thesis of this thesis and antithesis is, as we have seen : pre
cisely because reason posits itself as an absolute acting for
itself does reason posit itself as limited. It could not be an
intelligence if its absolute activity were not checked. This
checkedness of its absolute activity it cannot, of course, as
cribe to itself, since the conception of itself is that of an infinite
activity, and hence cannot include the contradiction thereof;
therefore it ascribes the check to a Non-Ego. The immediate
consciousness of the check is that original system of sensations
upon which all theoretical cognition is based. These sensa
tions the Ego throws out as not belonging to it, and thus objec-
tivates them in space, taking them in again and bringing them
to consciousness in time. It relates them to each other under
the thought forms of quantity, quality and relation, and thus
rises to a cognition of what it beholds as an external world.
This cognition appears and must appear to it as altogether
fixed and determined ; hence as without freedom or the possi
bility of freedom. Nevertheless the Ego must become con
scious of itself as absolute and positively — not merely nega
tively — free, if it is to become conscious of itself as Ego.
Hence there must be for the Ego another mode of viewing
itself than as a merely theoretical function. This other mode
is the manifestation of a practical power, of an absolutely
self-determined activity. But the question arises : How can
the Ego entertain these two diametrically opposed views ?
How can it view the universe as a connected piece of mechan
ism, and yet also view itself as an absolute free activity inter
fering in it ?

Kant's System of Transcendentalism. 175

The answer to this question gives rise to the Critic of the
Power of Judgment.

It is evident that the Ego could not posit itself as Ego if
this two-fold view of the universe were not possible ; and that
hence there can be no rational being that does not in point
of fact view the universe in this two-fold way.

Each rational being, however much he may deny it, does
view the universe as not only a system of externalized sensa
tions whereof each one is dependent upon the other mechani
cally and hence is necessarily what it is, but also as a system
of sensations whereof each one might be otherwise than it is,
or as a system of purposes or designs. In truth, the purely
mechanical view of the universe is upheld only theoretically
by philosophers (one-sided idealists) like Descartes, Sweden-
borg, Spinoza, &c., whilst the pretended pure naturalists
invariably apply the conception of design ; as, for instance,
when arguing that because certain plants are produced some
where, nature must have prepared such and such a soil, cli
mate, &c., for them.

It is therefore very true that we may, and indeed should,
from a certain point of view, regard* the universe simply

* " Not only does the quantity of force remain the same, however, but likewise
the direction of that force, — a point which Descartes had overlooked, — and hence
arises the third great principle of the

41 Pre-established Harmony. For if, in nature, not only the sum offeree and its
manifestation, but likewise the sum of its directions, must be viewed as always
remaining the same, only the sum of motion increasing and decreasing in me
chanical order, it follows that every movement in Nature, in so far as it has a
direction, may be viewed as purely the result of a mechanical force; and since it
will be possible to trace it thus to a mechanical source, it will be impossible to
prove it to be originated by the self-conscious soul. If every movement of and
through our body can thus be explained as the result of the universal mechanical
law of motion, clearly uour body operates as if there were no soul in it and our
soul as if there existed no body." Hence the possibility of a pure mathematical
science of nature, without reference to a God or soul as a power in nature, and of
an explanation of all possible phenomena upon mechanical principles.

"But this would exclude all relations between the monads as such, that is, as con
centration-points of the pure Ego. No Ego could ever become conscious of itself,
if the movements of nature could be explained altogether by the law of mechanics.
The Ego could not be for itself an Ego, and, since it is Ego only in so far as it is for
itself, could not be at all. The question arises: How can the characteristic of in
tention or the conception of an end find expression in movements which can be
comprehended at the same time as purely mechanical? And the answer is: Abso
lutely because they can. There is a harmony between the world of rational ends
and the mechanical changes in nature which makes this possible ; and this har
mony is absolute, has no external ground. When a rational being sees a piece of

176 KanVs System of Transcendentalism.

under the forms of theoretical cognition, that is to say, mathe
matically under the forms of time, space, quantity, quality,
and relation ; but it is equally true that this view is only a
part-view, and leaves unnoticed a power in us which is quite
as much a fact as the power of cognition, namely, the power
of absolute acting. That power of absolute acting or the Moral
Law in us once admitted— and every rational being does admit
it at least secretly to himself— and we can no longer be satis
fied to view the world under the forms of theoretical cognition
alone, since these forms exclude real freedom, and hence do
not permit the thinking of freedom together with that of the
objective world. It is, therefore, through the union of the
forms of theoretical cognition with the manifestations of free
dom, and indeed as the only possible scheme whereby to
make those manifestations intelligible to our reason, that there
arises in us the conception of a World of Purposes, wherein
each part is viewed as determined by the other no longer un
der the causality relation, but under the relation of design ;
and since this design may be viewed in a two-fold manner, as
applicable either to the subject or to the object, there arise
the two worlds of ^Esthetics and of Designs— an art-world and
a teleological world ; both of them being nothing more than
the different modes of viewing the Moral World in the World
of Natural Mechanism. On the other hand, the fact that we
do view the world both aesthetically and teleologically proves
our freedom.

Reason views itself as absolute in the first manner— that is,
by judging upon the conformability of external objects to its
own subjective requirements— in all sesthetical judgments;

material nature which has been moulded for the expression of rational end, that
expression makes itself absolutely known to the beholder.* To ask how would be
absurd; since, if you could assign a ground, you would be merely pushing a new
link between reason and matter, without at all making the relation between reason
and the new link clearer. Thus you might continue to ask for a further ground, and
insert new links, without at all approaching nearer to the solution. On account
of the absoluteness of this relation between mind and matter, Leibnitz usually
terms it a harmony; and it is this harmony which shows how we must view^the
existence of a world of the pure Ego within a world of pure mechanism. The
world of mechanism "corresponds," as Swedenborg would express it, to the world
of intelligence; or, in Fichte's terminology, the world of nature can be compre
hended in its relation to the Ego only as a moral world."— [Extract from article on
Leibnitz in the North American Review for January, 18G9.
* Compare Fichte's Science of Rights.

Kant's System of Transcendentalism. 177

since these are all absolute in character, appealing to neither
mental nor emotional interest. It is only the agreeable and
the good which excite our interest, the first an interest of a
pathological and the second an interest of a practical charac
ter. But the simply beautiful arouses interest neither in our
heart nor head ; it neither delights us nor calls for our approv
al: it simply pleases us, and it pleases for no other reason
than because it is beautiful; and, moreover, although our
judgment has no ground for claiming universality for it, we
nevertheless do postulate this universality, and ask all other
rational beings to conform to our judgment. This fact that all
purely sesthetical judgments are of a thetical character and
at the same time claim universality, prove them to be the
products of the absolute character of the Ego, and hence in
giving these judgments the Ego necessarily views itself as
absolute and free, although it views not its pure moral nature
but an objective world.

The question, therefore, "How are synthetical judgments
a priori possible?" which is at the head of the first section of
the Critic of the Power of Judgment, The Analytic, is an
swered thus : They are possible because the absoluteness of
reason extends even to the objective world. Each individ
ual, as having in himself the fulness of that reason, neces
sarily presupposes in every other individual the same reason
or the same " supersensuous substrate of humanity," as Kant
calls it, and hence expects the same judgments ; of course,
however, only so far as that reason is undetermined by indi
vidual pathological or practical limitedness, and hence only
in regard to objects of pure beauty. Even judgments touch
ing the sublime have, therefore, not this element of universal
ity ; for whereas reason views itself as absolute in all pure
sesthetical judgments touching the beautiful simply because
it pronounces them, thereby positing the object judged upon
as adequate to itself and hence as absolute in form, reason
views itself as absolute in all judgments touching the sublime
in precisely the opposite manner ; the sublime being the name
for that, to conceive which arouses in us a power of representa
tion to which no sensuous representation can adequately
correspond; and to become conscious of this is a subjective
condition, which we cannot universally presuppose. The
beautiful arouses in us pure pleasure, a sense of adequateness

178 KaiiVs System of Transcendentalism.

in the external world to our absoluteness, which we must
presuppose in all ; whereas the sublime arouses a feeling of
displeasure, or a sense of the inadequateness of sensuous
imagination to the absolute requirements of pure reason — an
inadequateness which may be expressed both quantitatively
in the mathematically sublime and qualitatively in the dy
namical sublime — which we cannot presuppose in all precise
ly because it has a subjective presupposition.

It lies not within the purpose of this essay to follow Kant
through the latter part of the first section of the Critic of Judg
ment, wherein he elaborates his views on the beautiful and
sublime, and on art and art-matters. But it may be well to
state that that part constitutes one of the most profound and
elegant treatises upon Art-matters — a fit companion to the
works of Schiller, Lessing, AVinckelmann, and Herder ; and a
treatise which shows us Kant as a man of the world, eminent
ly susceptible to all the refinements of culture, genial, witty,
appreciative, and unbiased.

In the Dialectic of the sesthetical power of judgment, the
peculiar absolute nature of all pure art-judgments is devel
oped in the following antinomy :

Thesis : A pure sesthetical judgment is not founded on con
ception (reflection) ; for else it would be possible to decide
upon it by reflective proof.

Antithesis : But it must be founded on conception (reflection) ;
for else it would be impossible to demand universal assent to it,
and hence to enter into a dispute if that assent is withheld.

This antinomy, however, is easily solved by joining both
propositions together in the following

Synthesis: It is true that a pure sesthetical judgment is
founded on a conception ; but that conception is the undeter
minable conception of the pure Ego, and hence admits of no
proof or cognition.

Thus through beauty do we behold freedom, and in art en
ter the realm of absoluteness. Out of nothing does the artist
create his work; the ideal is neither seen, heard, nor touched
by him. He who painted the transfigured Christ, created out
of himself and saw independently of his eyesight ; he who
wrote the Seventh Symphony, created and heard independ
ently of his hearing. In music this absolute creativeness of
the pure Ego is most clearly apparent. The whole art of mu-

KanVs System of Transcendentalism. 179

sic is an absolute creation, a new world made by man. Of
this freedom and absoluteness every member of rationality
becomes conscious in pronouncing an sesthetical judgment;
and it is because art and beauty thus develop within us the
consciousness of freedom that the culture of our race is so
prominently indebted to its artists.

Reason views itself as absolute in the second manner — that
is, by judging upon the conformability of external objects to
each other — in all objective judgments expressing a purpose
or design ; because in all such judgments it can view the ex
ternal world as created for freedom, or as the production of
that absolute Ego whereof itself is an individual representa
tion. This view Kant develops in the second book of his Critic
of the Power of Judgment, or in the Critic of the ideological
as distinguished from the cesthetical power of judgment.

In the first section of the second book treating of the Ana
lytic of the teleological power of judgment, Kant gives the
deduction of that power as having its ground in the impossi
bility to comprehend the universe as simply a mathematical
machine, reason being constantly compelled — particularly in
every case of organized life — to connect the parts into a whole
by the conception of a purpose. This compulsion is evidently
grounded in our freedom, which thus endeavors to comprehend
the whole universe as existing for a purpose — namely, for the
purpose of freedom itself — freedom or reason being its own
end, and in its own absoluteness being simply because it is.

For it is true, that it is explainable why the Ego should be
generally limited — because the infinite activity of the Ego
must be checked in order to be reflected back into it, through
which procedure alone reflection can arise ; — but it is abso
lutely not explainable why the Ego should be limited in pre
cisely the manner in which it is limited. In other words, the
determinedness of that limitedness is unexplainable ; we can
well understand why there should be a universe, but not why
the universe should be constructed precisely as it is. To be
sure, we can (like Spinoza) view the whole matter as a me
chanical process, and as the necessary process of the repul
sion and attraction of the atoms which fill up the universe;
but it is also evident that this is an infinite process, which will
never, therefore, explain fully ; and that to have a full com
prehension we must have another mode of explanation.

180 KanVs System of Transcendentalism.

This mode of explanation must be one which has its abso
lute ground, and hence one which rests upon the conception
of freedom or of the Ego, since the Ego alone is absolutely
grounded in itself. Such a conception lies in the conception
of purposes. In asking for purposes reason necessarily pre
supposes itself, and thus it comes that from the teleological
point of view the universe is judged to be the production of a
design. Hence this judgment has perfect validity, provided
we remember its origin and hold it to be merely a necessary
manner of viewing, or, as Kant terms it, the result of the pecu
liar constitution of our reason, but not an actual historical
fact. We are compelled to view the organized universe as the
result of a design, and hence as accidental and not as neces
sary ; at the same time we know that historically it could not
have been made like a work of art after a preconceived pat
tern. By comprehending the ground of this necessary proce
dure on the part of our teleological reason, we at once under
stand also its limitations.

The second section of the second book treats of the Dialec
tic that occurs in this procedure and finds concise expression
for the difficulty just mentioned in the following antinomy :

Thesis : All generation of material things and their forms
must be judged as possible according to merely mechanical
laws.

Antithesis: Some products of material nature cannot be
judged as possible according to merely mechanical laws.

Which antinomy is solved in the following

Synthesis : All products of material nature must be judged
as if they were possible according to merely mechanical laws ;
but at the same time they may well be thought under another
form of relation, namely, that of design. This is not only al
lowable, but a necessity grounded in reason ; nor can it lead
to any misapprehension, provided we mistake not a neces
sary procedure of our intellect for an objective historical fact.

Such a mistake is made when the teleological view of the
world is made the basis for a proof of the existence of a God
as the maker and arranger of that system of purposes in the
world which we ourselves have put into it. This proof, for the
reason pointed out, can never have objective validity. We
may well and must indeed view the universe as if it were cre
ated after a preconceived plan — the reason why we must do

KanVs System of Transcendentalism. 181

so has been pointed out, — but we must also be careful not to
place this law of the Ego in the shape of an objective cogni
tion and attribute it to an independent Being endowed by us
with personality. To do so is unwarranted, and establishes a
transcendent dogmatism. Precisely, therefore, as the Critic
of Pure Reason warned against applying categories of exist
ence to anything which is not known to us empirically — to
God — and as the Critic of Practical Reason warned against
going any further than to say, that if we do acknowledge the
fact of a Moral Law in us we must assume a God ; so does the
Critic of the Power of Judgment conclude by warning against
the unwarranted assertion, that because we must view the
world as if it were created after a plan, therefore it must have
been historically created by a God.

It is this manner of keeping that which is a necessary mode
of acting of our intelligence from being taken for an objective,
i. e. empirical fact, which gives to Kant's system the name of
transcendental idealism, and which is the key wherewith to
unlock all the mysteries of the region of thought. Whoever
has it in his full possession sees everywhere clearly ; for him
there is nowhere darkness. The transcendental idealist
cheerfully confesses that he can bring no theoretical proof to
establish the existence of a God, of Freedom, and of Immor
tality ; but he shows the absurdity of asking such proof by
showing that the very nature of that proof is such that it
reaches only to empirical objects. But the transcendental
idealist shows directly — through pointing out in men the oc
currence of a Moral Law — and indirectly — through the fact of
ses the tical and teleological j udgments— that rational beings not
only know themselves free, but must also judge themselves to
be free. And it is important to remember that the proofs of
God and Immortality are based upon that of Freedom. This
explains why, as Kant says : we can have no cognition of God
theoretically, as to what he ?'s, but only practically, as to what
he does. Or, as Fichte expresses it : the conception of God
cannot be determined by categories of existence, but only by
predicates of an activity. Or, as we stated at the commence
ment of this article : a Science of Metaphysics as a science of
theoretical cognitions of supersensuous objects is impossible
precisely because all theoretical cognitions apply merely to
empirical objects; but a Science of Knowledge itself is not

182 KanVs System of Transcendentalism.

only possible but even necessary, because upon it rests tlie
possibility of any knowledge. We know of a God and of Im
mortality because we know of Freedom, and we know of Free
dom because if we did not know of Freedom we should not be
able to know at all.

In conclusion, it may be well to touch upon a peculiarity
in Kant's representation of transcendental philosophy, which
at first is apt to confuse the reader, namely, that he seems to
distinguish between things as they are for us (phenomena)
and things as they are for themselves ; as if there really were
such a valid distinction, and as if it really were possible for
us to assume that in the eyes of other beings things might be
different from what they are to us. For it ought to be preemi
nently clear that as rational beings we can speak and wish to
speak of things only as they arc for us (i. e. for rational be
ings), and that it is absurd and contradictory to presume that
they might be different really. They are really for us only
that which they appear to be to us, and can never be for us
otherwise. A cow is for me a cow ; what it is in itself it is
nonsense to speak of, since we can speak of it only in relation
to something else, and— since speaking is reasoning only in
relation to reasoning. In itself— i.e. unrelated to anything
else— the cow is nothing; and what it is to the ant, to the
horse, to the moon, and to all the infinite sensuous objects in
the world, it is preposterous to inquire. Hence we can speak
of the cow— and so of all things— only in their relation to
rational beings, and things are nothing but what they are to
reason. There is, however, an ineradicable tendency in the
mind to forget this (an illusion Kant calls it), and always to
speak as if the world might be otherwise in itself than what it
appears to be, and this tendency haunts even Kant's speech.
The ground is that reason adds unconsciously — but by virtue
of a necessary law of reason — to every phenomenon some
thing which does not belong to the phenomenon— namely,
Being; and now assumes this Being to be given to the phe
nomenon from some outside power merely because itself never
becomes empirically conscious of having added that Being
itself.*

*,See article in Vol. It. of this Journal, "A Criticism of Philosophical Sys
tems," particularly pp. 143-47.

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