the most absolute transcendental Idealism, by making everything depend upon the oneness of the understanding or original representation; deriving our very notions of Space and Time directly from that and from the conception of Dimension, and abolishing the broad distinction which subsists between Intuitional and Sensational Perception and Thought.

JAC. SIGISM. BECK, Erläuternder Auszug aus den kritischen Schriften des Prof. Kant. Riga, 1793-94, I und II B. Vol. III is directed against REINHOLD, with this title: Einzig möglicher Standpunct, aus welchem die kritische Philosophie beurtheilt werden muss, Riga, 1796, II Bde. 8vo. Grundriss der kritischen Philosophie, Halle, 1796, 8vo. Propädeutik zu jedem wissench. Studio, ebend. 1796. Commentar über Kant's Metaphisik der Sitten, I Th. 1798, 8vo. BECK subsequently put forth: Grundsätze d. Gesetzgebung, 1806. Ein Lehrbuch der Logik, Rost. u. Schwerin, 1820, 8vo.; and Lehrb. des Naturrechts, Jen. 1820, 8vo.

Fichte's Doctrine of Science.

For the bibliography see below, § 405.

400. The philosophical labours of J. G. Fichte greatly exceeded the various attempts succeeding the diffusion of Kant's system.

He was born May 19, 1762, at Rammenau, in Upper Lusatia (Ober-Lausitz), and, after having studied at the school of Pforta and at the universities of Jena and Leipsic, passed several years in Switzerland and Prussia; and in 1793 became professor of Philosophy at Jena; resigned his office in 1799, and retired to Berlin: in 1805 filled a professorial chair at Erlangen, and afterwards in the university of Berlin; where he died, 1814. Fichte made it his object to constitute the Critical philosophy a science, founded on the most exact principles, with the hope of precluding all future errors and misapprehensions, and of annihilating Scepticism; the cause of which was defended, among others, by Schulze and Sol. Maimon. Encouraged by the success which his "Essay towards a Criticism of Revelation in general," obtained, and by the example of Reinhold's theory of the perceptive

Idea of the Doctrine of Science: Pref. p. 5. † General Principles of the Doctrine of Science.

12.

2 Königsb. 1792: second edition, 1793.

faculties, he gave full scope to his original and independent genius, which, with a firmness approaching obstinacy, led him constantly to maintain and boldly to profess the conclusions to which he had once arrived. His object was to find a system which might illustrate by a single principle, the material and formal properties of all science; might establish the unity of plan which the Critical system had failed to maintain, and solve that most difficult of all problems regarding the connection between our conceptions and their objects. Such was the origin of his Scientific Theory,' which supposes that neither Consciousness nor the objects to which it refers,-neither the material nor formal parts of knowledge, are to be considered as data; but are the results of an operation of the Ego, and are collected by means of Reflection. Fichte does not, like Kant, begin by an analysis of our faculties for acquiring knowledge,-of practical reason and judgment; nor yet, as Reinhold had done, by assuming a primitive fact, that of Consciousness; but supposes an original act of the subject (the Ego), from which he derives the very construction of Consciousness itself.

The method he pursues is as follows. He begins by investigating the conception of Science. It is a system of Knowledge determined by a higher principle, which expresses the contents and form of science. The Doctrine of Science is the science that demonstrates the possibility and validity of Science, the solidity of the principles on which it is founded as regards the form and contents, and consequently the connection of all human science. Inasmuch as this. Theory or Doctrine of Science is the highest of all scientific systems, it must be dependent on a peculiar principle, not deducible from that or any other science. The Theory of Science is independent of all others,-of itself valid and possible, and is, because it is. The Doctrine of Science implies also a System connected with it; and contrariwise, the fact of a System implies that of a Theory, and of a first and absolute principle; the circle of argumentation being complete and inevitable. There are, however, in general, three Principles of Science : 1, one absolute and unconditional as regards contents and form; 2, a principle unconditional in Wissenschaftslehre.

form, but conditional in its contents; 3, a principle unconditional in contents, but conditional in form. A Theory of Science is Philosophy, which has for its object the necessary process of the human mind in the freedom of activity. When the energies of our minds have been determined to any particular pursuit, (such as Logic, Geometry, etc.), they become the objects of a Special Science; the determination to such particular pursuits being a contingent direction imparted to free action, and consequently incomplete. On the other hand the Theory of Science is alone complete in itself, and forms a perfect whole. The objects it contemplates are, agreeably to what has been stated, the original operations of the human mind (the What), which take place according to a certain determinate method and form (the How). These become the objects of Consciousness by means of the faculty of Reflection, whose office it is to abstract and disengage the element of Consciousness in all things. In this way we attain to Absolute Unity, which comprehends all cognitions and their principles; in other words, to the pure Ego. Reflection and Abstraction are subject to certain laws of Logic, which are absolute postulates of the Theory or Doctrine of Science.

401. First principle, A A. X represents the systematic dependency of the whole. A and X being supposed to exist in the Ego, may be signified by this formulary, Ego sum Ego. This is the self-evident principle of Philosophy and Science in general (Principle of the Accord of the unconditional Postulate); expressing the necessary form and substance of Self-consciousness. In virtue of this principle we form judgments; to judge being an act and operation of the Ego. The Ego then establishes, absolutely and independently, its own existence; being at once the agent and the result of activity: in which consists the essence of Consciousness. The first operation of the Ego is that of Reflection on itself, which is occasioned by a postulated impediment opposed to its hitherto unrestrained activity. The Ego places itself in the position of the subject, inasmuch as it opposes itself as subject to the obstacle contemplated. The second principle (involved in the former), is this that the Ego is not the Non-Ego (Principle of Opposition). There remains yet a third principle, condi

tional as far as relates to its form; but not as respects its value postulated by an axiom of the Reason. To exemplify this, an action of the Ego is required, which may illustrate the opposition of the Ego and the Non-Ego in the Ego, without destroying the Ego. Reality and Negation can be associated only by means of limitations. Limitation then is the third principle postulated. Limitation again leads us on to Divisibility. Everything divisible is a quantity. Consequently in the Ego there must be granted a divisible quantity, and therefore the Ego contains something which may be supposed to exist or not to exist without detracting from the real existence of the Ego. Hence we arrive at the distinction of a separable and an absolute Ego. The Ego places a divisible Non- Ego in opposition to the divisible Ego (Fundamental principle of the Basis). Both of them have their existence in the absolute Ego, being respectively determinable by a reference to that. Hence are derived the two following propositions: 1. The Ego implies a limitation of its extent by means of the Non-Ego, which circumscribes its absolute and otherwise unlimited influence. 2. In like manner the Ego determines and defines the Non-Ego. The reality of the one circumscribes that of the other. On this point turn all the disputes between Idealism and Realism; and it is by a reference to this that they must be adjusted. The grand problem which speculative philosophy would endeavour to solve, is the accomplishment of such a reconciliation, and a satisfactory explanation of the connection between our representations and the objects to which they refer. The first of the two propositions above stated is necessary to be admitted, because without the opposition we have described there would be no such thing as Consciousness-without an object there could be no subject. The Ego cannot be said to exist except as modified by the Non-Ego: But vice versa, without a subject there can be no object: the Ego must also be admitted to exist as determining the Non-Ego: the one fact implying a passion or suffering,the other an action of the Ego. Our representation of things out of us, is a mode of acting of the Ego, whereby it transfers to the Non-Ego a real existence abstracted from itself. By such an operation of the mind the Non-Ego assumes the character of something real as respects the

Ego, inasmuch as the Ego transfers to it a portion of its own reality. Allowing that external objects impress the Representing Subject, yet this is nothing more than the opposition of those objects as the Non-Ego to our own Ego (limiting thereby the latter); the agent continuing to be ourselves and not things. From what has been stated, may be deduced: 1st. The reciprocity existing between the Ego and the Non-Ego. The action and passion of the Ego are one and the same thing, as relates to the Non-Ego. 2ndly. The operations of the Ego tend to show that the ideal and real principles, on which all comprehensibility of the circumstance that we know things out of us depends, form one and the same ground in the activity of the Ego. The explanation is to be sought in the fact that we contemplate the Ego as active, and the Non-Ego as passive; or vice versa. By such an hypothesis the discordant claims of Realism and Idealism are reconciled, and the true theory of philosophical science developed.

From such principles the transcendental theory of the faculty of mental representation infers the following conclusions. 1. Mental representation (Vorstellung) can only take place in virtue of a reciprocal relation existing between the Ego and the Non-Ego. 2. The direction of the Ego to the Non-Ego is opposed to that of the Non-Ego to the Ego. In such cases the Ego balances, as it were, between two contrary influences. Such hesitation is the effect of the imagination, which equally represents the passive and active operations of the Ego; or, in other words, conveys them to the Consciousness. 3. Such a state of hesitation implies the act of perceiving in general (Anschauen), in which it is difficult to separate the percipient Subject from the Object perceived. It is not Reflection (the tendency of which is inwards), but activity directed towards external objects,-Production. 4. From the act of perceiving results Perception, properly so called, which is the effect of the Understanding. 5. Judgment, in the next place, weighs the objects presented to it by the understanding, and defines their mutual relations. 6. The perception of the absolute spontaneousness of the Ego is the cognition of Reason and the basis of all Science.