2(l GERMAV PIIILOSOPHV 



here no principle ; and could we fix by reflection or find again by mem- 

 ory, the first in point of time of such facts as these, it would be a be- 

 ginning but not a principle. But if there was in that act, in every act, 

 or in general in acts of consciousness, any thing, even an act, upon which 

 ail consciousness might rest, which would render all consciousness pos- 

 sible, that something, that act might be the principle sought for. 



Kant admitted nothing but a principle of fact, an origin, a commence- 

 ment, experience (the sensation of Locke and of Condillac.) Fichte 

 penetrated to the very source of that fact, he scrutinized what was there 

 concealed, he examined, if there were not there something more than a 

 phenomenal modification, an accidental state, for example, a fundamen- 

 tal and primitive act, having the character and authority of an axiom, of 

 a verity certain in itself, in short, a law that should be as the source and 

 title of all cognition. And this is what he thought he had discovered 

 by means of liie following deduction. 



In order to consider the reason in an absolute manner, or in abstract 

 logic, the judgment of identity A=A is admitted as absolutely certain. 

 Of this no proof is either given or demanded. It is absolute truth. — 

 Observe, this does not affirm an existence, it only affirms a law. It says, 

 that if a thing is, it is that which it is. This is a proposition certain in 

 its form. 



Observe again, that in this judgment A as a subject is hypothetical, 

 A as a predicate is certain. We do not know whether A exists, but if 

 it does exist it is A. Thus the proposition passes from the problematic 

 to the categorical ; in the language of Fichte, the first A is supposed, 

 the second is posited. The bond that unites the one to the other, the 

 bond that is the essence of the judgment, where is it .'' whence does it 

 come .'' Evidently from tlie mind that judges. It is this that Fichte ex- 

 presses in saying that the connection X is given to the me by the me it- 

 self This A as the subject is posited hypothetically ; A, as the predi- 

 cate, is posited absolutely in the me by the me. In other words, if I 

 have A, I judge that it is A ; in still other extremes, if I think A, I think 

 of it as A, or, in fine, I think that the A which I think is the A which 

 I think. Thus A as subject, A as attribute, and the connection X which 

 unites them, all suppose the me; and the identity, which according to 

 logic is in the judgment, has for its support, in some sort, the identity of 

 the me, in such a way that A= A includes and implies me=me, or I am ; 

 and that proposition, unconditional in its form, A=A is still more un- 

 conditional in its contents ; for the me is thus necessarily given by the 

 connection X which connection X is necessary in itself. Thus in say- 

 ing A=A we announce a proposition absolute in its form, and as this 



