drawing a conclusion from the evident facts of consciousness. This conclusion runs as follows: I propose to myself to think this or that, and the required thought arises; I propose to myself to do this or that, and the representation that it is being done arises. This is a fact of consciousness. If I look at it by the light of the laws of mere sensuous consciousness, it involves no more than has just been stated, i.e. a sequence of certain representations. I become conscious only of this sequence in a series of time movements, and only such a time sequence can I assert. I can merely state: I know that if I propose to myself a certain thought, with the characteristic that it is to have existence, the representation of this thought, with the characteristic that it really has existence, follows; or, that the representation of a certain manifestation as one which ought to occur, is immediately followed in time by the representation of the same manifestation as one which really did occur. But I can, on no account, state that the first representation contains the real ground of the second one which followed; or, that by thinking the first one the second one became real for me. I merely remain passive, the placid scene upon which representations follow representations, and am on no account the active principle which produces them. Still I constantly assume the latter, and cannot relinquish that assumption without relinquishing my self. What justifies me in it? In the sensuous ingredients I have mentioned, there is no ground to justify such an assumption; hence it is a peculiar and immediate consciousness, that is to say, a contemplation, and not a sensuous contemplation, which views a material and permanent being, but a contemplation of a pure activity, which is not permanent but progressive, not a being but a life.
The philosopher, therefore, discovers this intellectual contemplation as fact of consciousness (for him it is a fact, for the original Ego a fact and act both together—a deed-act), and he thus discovers it not immediately, as an isolated part of his consciousness, but by distinguishing and separating what in common consciousness occurs in unseparated union.
Quite a different problem it is to explain this intellectual contemplation, which is here presupposed as fact in its possibility, and by means of this explanation to defend it against the charge of deception and deceptiveness which is raised by dogmatism; or, in other words, to prove the faith in the reality of this intellectual contemplation, from which faith transcendental idealism confessedly starts—by a something still higher; and to show up the interest which leads us to place faith in its reality, or in the system of Reason. This is accomplished by showing up the Moral Law in us, in which the Ego is characterized as elevated through it above all the original modifications, as impelled by an absolute, or in itself (in the Ego), grounded activity; and by which the Ego is thus discovered to be an absolute Active. In the consciousness of this law, which doubtless is an immediate consciousness, and not derived from something else, the contemplation of self-activity and freedom is grounded. I am given to myself through myself as something which is to be active in a certain manner; hence, I am given to myself through myself as something active generally; I have the life in myself, and take it from out of myself. Only through this medium of the Moral Law do I see myself; and if I see myself through that law, I necessarily see myself as self-active; and it is thus that there arises in a consciousness—which otherwise would only be the consciousness of a sequence of my representations—the utterly foreign ingredient of an activity of myself.
This intellectual contemplation is the only stand-point for all Philosophy. From it all that occurs in consciousness may be explained, but only from it. Without self-consciousness there is no consciousness at all; but self-consciousness is only possible in the way we have shown, i.e. I am only active. Beyond it
