7« OEllMAN PHJLOSOPHY. 



i admit Ihiit ill order to know anything which is not me, thn pres- 

 ence of ilje me is as necessary to the object as to the subject, in the 

 judgment of the most ordinary sensation, it is necessary that the one 

 M'ho judges be the one who has the sensation. The sensation is from 

 me, of me ; it supposes tlie me. The object of sensation or perception 

 is not such but upon the condition of the me of which sensation attests 

 not only the activity but likewise the potence. Thus it may be said 

 that tlie not-me does not exist to the me but upon the condition of the 

 me. 1 further agree and admit that- the rae is the condition of the not- 

 me, that Ls to say, if there were no me, the not-me would not only be 

 unknown but as though it had no existence whatever. Yet, from the 

 fact that the not-me has reference to the me, and that the me guaranties 

 the not-me, it does not at all result that the not-me is identical with the 

 me. Without doubt, in the pure consciousness, tlie subject takes itself 

 as object, which might be expressed in all its force by saying that the 

 me views itself as the not-me, in such a way that the me properly so 

 called makes a circle and is only the identity of subject and object. — 

 This apparent and momentary duality returns to unity by a sort of trip- 

 licity; thus the subject me, the object me=me, or the thesis plus the 

 antithesis unite together by synthesis. This thus at last reverts to the 

 idea (so common in philosophy) of the unity, identity, and simplicity 

 of the human mind. But if that unity is the means of every act of 

 cognition and is in some sort comprised in it, if the judgment me=me is 

 the condition and as it were the mould of all judgment, it is not less true 

 that in every actual, real judgment of the empirical me, there is, by means 

 of the me, a conception of the not-me, and something more than the ab- 

 stract consciousness of the pure me. A=B, the me thinks the not-me, 

 is the general form of every real judgment. The system of Fichte ad- 

 mits that in such a judgment the thought [that which is thought] is still 

 the thinker, the not-me is still the me, B is A. We also have admitted 

 that in the pure judgment the me takes itself as the not-me. That was 

 to compare the pure judgment to the empirical judgment; Fichte him- 

 self compared the empirical witli the pure judgmeiit. But from the fact 

 that we did not mean that in the pure judgment the me properly be- 

 comes a not-me, we did not concede that in the empirical judgment the 

 iiot-me is properly the me or identical with the me. To sustain this, 

 recourse must be had to artifices of language and reasoning. The not- 

 me, says one, being the negative of the me, exists only by the me. But, 

 supposing that the not-me were only a negation, it would still be some- 

 thing different from the me, it would be that which the me is not at all ; 

 to be the me in so far as it is not. is not to he the one in so far as it is. 



