OF THE GOOD. 



161 



we might nevertheless ask the question : granting that 

 human knowledge does exist as a fact, what conception 

 have we to form of the constitution of the human mind 

 in order to explain this fact ? In the same way we can 

 treat the ethical problem : granted that morality, i.e., 

 conduct regulated by the sense of obligation, does exist, 

 what conception have we to form of human nature so 

 that this fact may become intelligible to us ? l This way 

 of putting the question, of formulating metaphysical pro- 

 blems, opens the door to a peculiar and novel form of 

 speculation; it invites the thinking mind to go as it were 

 behind the ultimate data of consciousness, to construe, so 

 to speak, an ideal ground or process, 2 lying beneath or be- 

 hind consciousness, through and out of which the ultimate 



1 The unique and original man- 

 ner in which Fichte approaches the 

 question of knowledge as well as 

 that of activity is much more 

 clearly and intelligibly explained in 

 the Introduction to his most per- 

 fect work, the ' System der Sitten- 

 lehre' (1798). A great deal of the 

 obscurity contained in his earlier 

 Treatises on ' Wissenschaf tslehre ' 

 is here removed and the funda- 

 mental problem stated very clearly. 

 " How something that is objective 

 can become subjective, how some- 

 thing existing for itself can become 

 a presentation to take up the pro- 

 blem of philosophy at this well- 

 known end how I say this remark- 

 able change can take place nobody 

 will ever explain, who does not find 

 a point in which what is objective 

 and subjective is indeed not differ- 

 entiated but one and the same. 

 Such a point our system establishes 

 and starts from it. Selfhood (Ich- 

 heit), intellect, reason or however 

 we may name it is this point. 

 This absolute identity of subject 

 and object in the Self can only be 



VOL. IV. 



inferred, cannot be shown to be an 

 immediate fact of actual conscious- 

 ness. As soon as an actual con- 

 sciousness arises, even if it is only 

 the consciousness of ourself, the 

 differentiation follows. Only in so 

 far as I distinguish myself, the 

 conscious, from myself, the object 

 of this consciousness, am I con- 

 scious of myself. On the various 

 aspects of this differentiation of the 

 subjective and objective, and again 

 of the reunion of both, depends the 

 whole mechanism of consciousness " 

 (Fichte's ' Werke,' vol. iv. p. 1). 

 "As theoretical philosophy has to 

 expound the system of necessary 

 thought implied in the fact that 

 our presentations correspond with 

 something existing, so also has 

 practical philosophy to show ex- 

 haustively that way of thinking 

 which is necessary to explain how 

 something existing can correspond 

 to our presentations and follow 

 from them " (p. 2). 



2 What Fichte terms a Prag- 

 matic Psychology. 



