Part 29

(3.) _The third principle_, conditioned in its form, is almost capable of proof, since it is determined by two others. At every step we approach the province where every thing can be proved. This third principle is conditioned in its form, and unconditioned only in its content: _i. e._ the problem, but not the solution of the act to be established through it, has been given through the two preceding principles. The solution is afforded unconditionally and absolutely by a decisive word of the reason. The problem to be solved by this third principle is this, viz., to adjust the contradiction contained in the two former ones. On the one side, the Ego is wholly suppressed by the non-Ego: there can be no positing of the Ego so far as the non-Ego is posited. On the other side, the non-Ego is only an Ego posited in the consciousness, and hence the Ego is not suppressed by the non-Ego. The Ego appearing on the one side to be suppressed, is not really suppressed. Such a result would be non-A = A. In order to remove this contradiction, which threatens to destroy the identity of our consciousness, and the only absolute foundation of our knowledge, we must find in _x_ that which will justify both of the first two principles, and leave the identity of our consciousness undisturbed. The two opposites, the Ego and the non-Ego, should be united in the consciousness, should be alike posited without either excluding the other; they should be received in the identity of the proper consciousness. How shall being and not-being, reality and negation, be conceived together without destroying each other? They will reciprocally _limit_ each other. Hence the unknown quantity _x_, whose terms we are seeking, stands for these limits: limitation is the sought-for act of the Ego, and as category in the thought, we have thus the category of determination or _limitation_. But in limitation, there is also given the category of _quantity_, for when we say that any thing is limited, we mean that its reality is through negation, not _wholly_, but only _partially_ suppressed. Thus the conception of limit contains also the conception of divisibility, besides the conceptions of reality and negation. Through the act of limitation, the Ego as well as the non-Ego, is posited as divisible. Still farther, we see how a logical law follows from the third fundamental principle as well as from the first two. If we abstract the definite content, the Ego and the non-Ego, and leave remaining the simple form of the union of opposites through the conception of divisibility, we have then the logical _principle of the ground_, or foundation, which may be expressed in the formula: A in part = non-A, non-A in part = A. Wherever two opposites are alike in one characteristic, we consider the ground as a ground of relation, and wherever two similar things are opposite in one characteristic, we consider the ground as a ground of distinction.—With these three principles we have now exhausted the measure of that which is unconditioned and absolutely certain. We can embrace the three in the following formula:

_I posit in the Ego a divisible non Ego over against the divisible Ego._ No philosophy can go beyond this cognition, and every fundamental philosophy should go back to this. Just so far as it does this, it becomes science (_Wissenschaftslehre_). Every thing which can appear in a system of knowledge, as well as a farther division of the Theory of Science itself, must be derived from this. The proposition that the Ego and the non-Ego reciprocally limit each other, may be divided into the following two: (1) the Ego posits itself as limited through the non-Ego (_i. e._ the Ego is in a cognitive (or passive) relation); (2) the Ego posits the non-Ego as limited through the Ego (_i. e._ the Ego is in an active relation). The former proposition is the basis of the theoretical, and the latter of the practical part of the Theory of Science. The latter part cannot, at the outset, be brought upon the stage; for the non-Ego, which should be limited by the acting Ego, does not at the outset exist, and we must wait and see whether it will find, in the theoretical part, a reality.

_The groundwork of theoretical knowledge_ advances through an uninterrupted series of antitheses and syntheses. The fundamental synthesis of the theoretical Theory of Science is the proposition: _the Ego posits itself as determined_ (limited) _by the non-Ego_. If we analyze this sentence, we find in it two subordinate sentences which are reciprocally opposite. (1) The non-Ego as active determines the Ego, which thus far is passive; but since all activity must start from the Ego, so (2) the Ego determines itself through an absolute activity. Herein is a contradiction, that the Ego should be at the same time active and passive. Since this contradiction would destroy the above proposition, and also suppress the unity of consciousness, we are forced to seek some point, some new synthesis, in which these given antitheses may be united. This synthesis is attained when we find that the conceptions of action and passion, which are contained under the categories of reality and negation, find their compensation and due adjustment in the conception of divisibility. The propositions: “the Ego determines,” and “the Ego is determined,” are reconciled in the proposition: “the Ego determines itself in part, and is determined in part.” Both, however, should be considered as one and the same. Hence more accurately: as many parts of reality as the Ego posits in itself, so many parts of negation does it posit in the non-Ego; and as many parts of reality as the Ego posits in the non-Ego, so many parts of negation does it posit in itself. This determination is _reciprocal determination_, or _reciprocal action_. Thus Fichte deduces the last of the three categories under Kant’s general category of relation. In a similar way (viz., by finding a synthesis for apparent contradictions), he deduces the two other categories of this class, viz., that of cause, and that of substance. The process is thus: So far as the Ego is determined, and therefore passive, has the non-Ego reality. The category of reciprocal determination, to which we may ascribe indifferently either of the two sides, reality or negation, may, more strictly taken, imply that the Ego is passive, and the non-Ego active. The notion which expresses this relation is that of _causality_. That, to which activity is ascribed, is called _cause_ (primal reality), and that to which passiveness is ascribed, is called _effect_; both, conceived in connection, may be termed a _working_. On the other side, the Ego determines itself. Herein is a contradiction; (1) the Ego determines itself; it is therefore that which determines, and is thus active; (2) it determines itself; it is therefore that which becomes determined, and is thus passive. Thus in one respect and in one action both reality and negation are ascribed to it. To resolve this contradiction, we must find a mode of action which is activity and passiveness in one; the Ego must determine its passiveness through activity, and its activity through passiveness. This solution is attained by aid of the conception of quantity. In the Ego all reality is first of all posited as absolute quantum, as absolute totality, and thus far the Ego may be compared to a greatest circle which contains all the rest. A definite quantum of activity, or a limited sphere within this greatest circle of activity, is indeed a _reality_; but when compared with the totality of activity, is it also a _negation_ of the totality or passiveness. Here we have found the mediation sought for; it lies in the notion of _substance_. In so far as the Ego is considered as the whole circle, embracing the totality of all realities, is it substance; but so far as it becomes posited in a determinate sphere of this circle, is it accidental. No accidence is conceivable without substance; for, in order to know that any thing is a definite reality, it must first be referred to reality in general, or to substance. In every change we think of substance in the universal; accidence is something specific (determinate), which changes with every changing cause. _There is originally but one substance, the Ego_; in this one substance all possible accidents, and therefore all possible realities, are posited. The Ego alone is the absolutely infinite. The Ego, as thinking and as acting, indicates a limitation. The Fichtian theory is accordingly Spinozism, only (as Jacobi strikingly called it) a reversed and idealistic Spinozism.

Let us look back a moment. The objectivity which Kant had allowed to exist Fichte has destroyed. There is _only_ the Ego. But the Ego presupposes a non-Ego, and therefore a kind of object. How the Ego comes to posit such an object, must the theoretical Theory of Science now proceed to show.

There are two extreme views respecting the relation of the Ego to the non-Ego, according as we start from the conception of cause, or that of substance. (1) Starting from the conception of cause, we have posited through the passiveness of the Ego an activity of the non-Ego. This passiveness of the Ego must have some ground. This cannot lie in the Ego, which in itself posits only activity. Consequently it lies in the non-Ego. Here the distinction between action and passion is apprehended, not simply as quantitative (_i. e._, viewing the passiveness as a diminished activity), but the passion is in quality opposed to the action; a presupposed activity of the non-Ego is, therefore, a real ground of the passiveness in the Ego. (2) Starting from the conception of substance, we have posited a passiveness of the Ego through its own activity. Here the passiveness in respect of quality is the same as activity, it being only a diminished activity. While, therefore, according to the first view, the passive Ego has a ground distinct in quality from the Ego, and thus a real ground, yet here its ground is only a diminished activity of the Ego, distinct only in quantity from the Ego, and is thus an ideal ground. The former view is dogmatic realism, the latter is dogmatic idealism. The latter affirms: all reality of the non-Ego is only a reality given it from the Ego; the former declares: nothing can be given, unless there be something to receive, unless an independent reality of the non-Ego, as thing in itself, be presupposed. Both views present thus a contradiction, which can only be removed by a new synthesis. Fichte attempted this synthesis of idealism and realism, by bringing out a mediating system of critical idealism. For this purpose he sought to show that the ideal ground and the real ground are one and the same. Neither is the simple activity of the Ego a ground for the reality of the non-Ego, nor is the simple activity of the non-Ego a ground for the passiveness in the Ego. Both must be conceived together in this way, viz., the activity of the Ego meets a _hindrance_, which is set up against it, not without some assistance of the Ego, and which circumscribes and reflects in itself this activity of the Ego. The hindrance is found when the subjective can be no farther extended, and the expanding activity of the Ego is driven back into itself, producing as its result self-limitation. What we call objects are nothing other than the different impinging of the activity of the Ego on some inconceivable hindrance, and these determinations of the Ego, we carry over to something external to ourselves, and represent them to ourselves as space filling matter. That which Fichte calls a hindrance through the non-Ego, is thus in fact the same as Kant calls thing essentially, the only difference being that with Fichte it is made subjective. From this point Fichte then deduces the subjective activities of the Ego, which mediate, or seek to mediate, theoretically, the Ego with the non-Ego—as imagination, representation (sensation, intuition, feeling), understanding, faculty of judgment, reason; and in connection with this he brought out the subjective projections of the intuition, space, and time.

We have now reached the third part of the Theory of Science, via., _the foundation of the practical_. We have seen that the Ego represents. But that it may represent does not depend upon the Ego alone, but is determined by something external to it. We could in no way conceive of a representation, except through the presupposition that the Ego finds some hindrance to its undetermined and unlimited activity. Accordingly the Ego, as intelligence, is universally dependent upon an indefinite, and hitherto wholly indefinable non-Ego, and only through and by means of such non-Ego, is it intelligence. A finite being is only finite as intelligence. These limits, however, we shall break through. The practical law which unites the finite Ego with the infinite, can depend upon nothing external to ourselves. The Ego, according to all its determinations, should be posited absolutely through itself, and hence should be wholly independent of every possible non-Ego. Consequently, the absolute Ego and the intelligent Ego, both of which should constitute but one, are opposed to each other. This contradiction is obviated, when we see that because the absolute Ego is capable of no passiveness, but is absolute activity, therefore the Ego determines, through itself, that hitherto unknown non-Ego, to which the hindrance has been ascribed. The limits which the Ego, as theoretic, has set over against itself in the non-Ego, it must, as practical, seek to destroy, and absorb again the non-Ego in itself (or conceive it as the self-limitation of the Ego). The Kantian primacy of the practical reason is here made a truth. The transition of the theoretical part into the practical, the necessity of advancing from the one to the other, Fichte represents more closely thus:—The theoretical Theory of Science had to do with the mediation of the Ego, and the non-Ego. For this end it introduced one connecting link after another, without ever attaining its end. Then enters the reason with the absolute and decisive word: “there ought to be no non-Ego, since the non-Ego can in no way be united with the Ego;” and with this the knot is cut, though not untied. Thus it is the incongruity between the absolute (practical) Ego, and the finite (intelligent) Ego, which is carried over beyond the theoretical province into the practical. True, this incongruity does not wholly disappear, even in the practical province, where the act is only an infinite striving to surpass the limits of the non-Ego. The Ego, so far as it is practical, has, indeed, the tendency to pass beyond the actual world, and establish an ideal world, as it would be were every reality posited by the absolute Ego; but this striving is always confined to the finite partly through itself, because it goes out towards objects, and objects are finite, and partly through the resistance of the sensible world. We ought to seek to reach the infinite, but we cannot do it; this striving and inability is the impress of our destiny for eternity.

Thus—and in these words Fichte brings together the result of the Theory of Science—the whole being of finite rational natures is comprehended and exhausted: an original idea of our absolute being; an effort to reflect upon ourselves, in order to gain this idea; a limitation, not of this striving, but of our own existence, which first becomes actual through this limitation, or through an opposite principle, a non-Ego, or our finiteness; a self-consciousness, and especially a consciousness of our practical strivings; a determination accordingly of our representations, and through these of our actions; a constant widening of our limits into the infinite.

2. FICHTE’S PRACTICAL PHILOSOPHY.—The principles which Fichte had developed in his Theory of Science he applied to practical life, especially to the theory of rights and morals. He sought to deduce here every thing with methodical rigidness, without admitting any thing which could not be proved from experience. Thus, in the theory of rights and of morals, he will not presuppose a plurality of persons, but first deduces this: even that the man has a body is first demonstrated, though, to be sure, not stringently.

_The Theory of Rights_ (_the rights of nature_) Fichte founds upon the conception of the individual. First, he deduces the conception of rights, and as follows:—A finite rational being cannot posit itself without ascribing to itself a free activity. Through this positing of its faculties to a free activity, this rational being posits an external world of sense, for it can ascribe to itself no activity till it has posited an object towards which this activity may be directed. Still farther, this free activity of a rational being presupposes other rational beings, for without these it would never be conscious that it was free. We have therefore a plurality of free individuals, each one of whom has a sphere of free activity. This co-existence of free individuals is not possible without a relation of rights. Since no one with freedom passes beyond his sphere, and each one therefore limits himself, they recognize each other as rational and free. This relation of a reciprocal acting through intelligence and freedom between rational beings, according to which each one has his freedom limited by the conception of the possibility of the other’s freedom, under the condition also that this other limits his own freedom also through that of the first, is called a _relation of rights_. The supreme maxim of a theory of rights is therefore this: limit thy freedom through the conception of the freedom of every other person with whom thou canst be connected. After Fichte has attempted the application of this conception of rights, and for this end has deduced the corporeity, the anthropological side of man, he passes over to a proper _theory of rights_. The theory of rights may be divided into three parts. (1) Rights which belong to the simple conception of person are called _original rights_. The original right is the absolute right of the person to be only a cause in the sensible world, though he may be absolutely (in other relations than to the sense) an effect. In this are contained, (_a_) the right of personal (bodily) freedom, and (_b_) the right of property. But every relation of rights between individual persons is conditioned through each one’s recognition of the rights of the other. Each one must limit the quantum of his free acts for the sake of the freedom of the other, and only so far as the other has respect to my freedom need I have regard to his. In case, therefore, the other does not respect my original rights, some mechanical necessity must be sought in order to secure the rights of person, and this involves (2) the _Right of Coercion_. The laws of punishment have their end in securing that the opposite of that which is intended shall follow every unrighteous aim, that every vicious purpose shall be destroyed, and the right in its integrity be established. To establish such a law of coercion, and to secure a universal coercive power, the free individuals must enter into covenant among themselves. Such a covenant is only possible on the ground of a common nature. Natural right, _i. e._ the rightful relation between man and man, presupposes thus (3) a _civil right_, viz., (_a_) a free covenant, a compact of citizens by which the free individuals guarantee to each other their reciprocal rights; (_b_) positive laws, a civil legislation, through which the common will of all becomes law; (_c_) an executive force, a civil power which executes the common will, and in which, therefore, the private will and the common will are synthetically united. The particular view of Fichte’s theory of rights is this: on the one side there is the state as reason demands (philosophical theory of rights), and on the other side the state as it actually is (theory of positive rights and of the state). But now comes up the problem, to make the actual state ever more and more conformable to the state of reason. The science which has this approximation for its aim, is polity. We can demand of no actual state a perfect conformity to the idea of a state. Every state constitution is according to right, if it only leaves possible an advancement to a better state, and the only constitution wholly contrary to right is that whose end is to hold every thing just as it is.