20 THE WORLD-ENERGY 



indeed, precisely in self-consciousness that every possible 

 phase of knowing must, in the first place, take its rise, 

 and in the outcome find its culmination. Nay, the self is 

 in truth the fundamental, vital unity actually constitut- 

 ing the whole manifold series of perceptions and concep- 

 tions that take shape in the individual consciousness. 



It is, therefore, nothing more than a truism to say 

 that, apart from this unity, the series could never be 

 known, either as a whole or in its parts ; for without the 

 unity the series could have no existence. The unity oi 

 self is the universal which, at first abstract, brings itself 

 into concrete realization, through its own activity dis- 

 played in the development of the manifold particular 

 phases of perception and conception. 



Underlying all knowledge, then nay, rather consti- 

 tuting the very core of all knowledge is the primary, or 

 rather primordial, unity of self -consciousness. 



At the same time it is easy to see that this unity is far 

 from being a simple, abstract, empty unity. On the con- 

 trary, it is dual and triple, nay, infinitely manifold. 

 First, as that which knows, it is subject; secondly, as that 

 which is known, it is object; and thirdly, as that which in 

 its very nature is self-known, it is subject-object, which 

 also necessarily implies infinite complexity. 



This indeed is substantially the standpoint of all mod- 

 ern philosophy. Descartes, the founder of modern philoso- 

 phy, finds the ultimate ground of certitude in self-refer- 

 ence. "I think, therefore I am." I, who think, first of 

 all know myself as thinking; and so long as this conscious 

 self-reference continues, I am absolutely assured in that 

 very fact of my own existence. I can indeed conceive of 

 an object as having existence, and yet as being destitute 



