FIClfTK. 79 



and, whilst every empirical judgment A=^B supposes and contains the 

 pure judgment me=me, it by no means follows that A=B or me=not- 

 me is the equivalent of nie=me, especially as A= — A is not identi- 

 cal with A=A. So much for the judgment itself. 



Let us pass on to the one who judges ; certainly the one who per- 

 ceives the object of sensation is the one that receives the sensation, and 

 the identity of the subject is implied in every act of cognition ; but 

 there is in every act of cognition besides the thing known the peison 

 that knows, and although it necessarily contains the knower, the known 

 is not the knower. The proof of this is, that in order to find an act of 

 cognition where one is the other, you are obliged to produce by abstrac- 

 tion the pure judgment me=me, but the pure judgment is never rca'i, 

 it is a logical supposition which you can only realize by that peculiar 

 faculty which Fichte calls the transcendental sense. It is a j^osleriori 

 that you must re-produce that a priori. You ascend from the concrete 

 to this abstraction ; but the abstract, which is the condition of the con- 

 crete, is by no means the concrete ; and, in every actual, real, empirical, 

 concrete judgment, ii is admitted that the object supposes the subject, 

 but is not the subject, hi A=B, B contains the subject plus an object, 

 me plus a not-me, the sentient plus the sensation [senti.) Fichte with 

 Kant tells us that what is perceived is nothing more than the percipient, 

 and that a representation is only a state, a phenomenon, or a result of 

 the representative. Ontologically, there is no doubt ground for this ; 

 substantially there need not be in the me anything but the me, the not- 

 me being there only ideally. Yet there must be some sort of dif- 

 ference between the representative and the thing represented, for Fichte 

 himself distinguishes them by an essential designation, calling the one 

 me, the other not-me. 



But, says he, the not-me is not a real negative, it is the me limited. 

 But why is the me limited .'' It limits itself, is his answer, and as the 

 act of limitation is its own act, the limited me is still the me, and it is 

 the me that produces the not-me. It must first be proved that it limits 

 itself freely. I know that it is said that every act is free, but this is an 

 abuse of the word free, — and it is only meant by that word that it is in it- 

 self that the active finds the principle of the act; such liberty is at the 

 bottom only an internal necessity. To say that the me posits and lim- 

 its itself by a free act of its own activity, is to say that it is made to 

 posit and limit itself, that it is its proper nature so to do, and that it 

 would not be intelligent if it obeyed without consciousness an external 

 necessity. The consciousness of the necessity of its acts would be 

 about the whole of the liberty of the me of Fichte and of Schelling. 



