632 PHILOSOPHICAL THOUGHT. 



departure from the position of Fichte in a suggestion 

 made by the latter himself. 



In one of the earliest of his many introductions and 

 expositions of his doctrine, published in the year 1794, 

 Fichte had dealt with the problem, how can we represent 

 to ourselves the fact of consciousness i.e., of the know- 

 ledge of self ? how is self-consciousness possible ? and 

 finding that this fact implies the conscious distinction of 

 a self and a not-self, he infers that the first act of the 

 mind or intellect, which he conceives as an active 

 principle, is the differentiation of subject and object, of 

 self and not-self. This distinction presupposes a condi- 

 tion in which these two opposites were still undifferenti- 

 ated, merged into one. This undifferentiated condition 

 is the state of unconsciousness. Consciousness emerges 

 or rises out of unconsciousness by an act of the uncon- 

 scious self. Fichte 's whole interest lay in the development 

 of the conscious self, which, after the process of differenti- 

 ation, possessed, as it were, the greater share of reality, 

 in as much as the fundamental active principle had now 

 become a free and self-conscious will with an object to 

 work upon. But this was not the only possible view. 

 The centre of gravity might not necessarily lie on one 

 side of the duality of subject and object, it might lie, as 

 it were, between the two, it might be the point of 

 identity or indifference ; also it might lie on the other 

 side, in the not-self, in that region of facts and experi- 

 ence which the intellect looks upon as the outer world 

 or as Nature. And inasmuch as this outer world ap- 

 pears as a separate existence detached from the thinking 

 self which retires into the position of a mere beholder, 



