Page:Popular Works of Johann Gottlieb Fichte (1889) Vol 2.djvu/519

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is not such a dead Being, but, on the contrary, is Life;—but it can only be a Power, since only a Power is the true formal picture or Schema of Life. And indeed it can only be the Power of realizing that which is contained in itself—a Schema. Since this Power is the expression of a determinate Being—the Schema of the Divine Life it is itself determined; but only in the way in which an absolute Power may be determined,—by laws, and indeed by determinate laws. If this or that is to become actual, the Power must operate in this way or that, subject to that determination.


IV.


Thus in the first place:—There can be an Actual Being out of God only through the self-realization of this absolute Power:—this Power, however, can only produce pictures or Schemes, which by combination become Actual Knowledge. Thus, whatever exists out of God, exists only by means of absolutely free Power, as the Knowledge belonging to this Power, and in its Knowledge;—and any other Being but this out of the true Being which lies hidden in God is altogether impossible.


V.


Again, as to the determination of this Power by laws:—It is, in the first place, determined through itself, as the Power of Actual Knowledge. But it is essential to Actual Knowledge that some particular Schema should be realized through this Power; and then that through the same identical Power, in the same identical position, this Schema should be recognised as a Schema, and as