antecedent, or any reason, without even taking the trouble to show on what he bases it, Fichte assures us that the first principle must express an act. Why may it not be an objective truth? This, at least, would have deserved some attention, for all preceding schools, the Cartesian included, located the first principle among objective truths, not among acts. Descartes himself needed an objective truth in order to establish the fact of thought and existence. "Whoever thinks exists," or, in other words, "whoever does not exist cannot think."
80. This last remark shows one of the radical vices affecting the doctrine of Fichte and other Germans, who attribute an altogether unmerited importance to subjective philosophy. They accuse others of too easily making the transition from the subject to the object, but forget that they, at the same time pass, unauthorised by any reason or title, from objective thought to the pure subject. Confining ourselves to the passage of Fichte just cited, what, we ask, will an act be which neither is nor can be presented among the empirical determinations of our consciousness? The principle in question is not exempted from being known because it is absolute; for if we do not know it, we cannot assert that it is absolute; and if it is not, and cannot be presented among the empirical determinations of our consciousness, it neither is nor can be known. Man knows not that which is not present in his consciousness.
The absolute principle upon which all consciousness rests, and which makes it possible, either does or does not belong to consciousness. If the former, it is liable to all the difficulties affecting the other acts of consciousness; if the latter, it cannot be the object of observation, and therefore we can know nothing of it.
Fichte confesses that in order to arrive at the primitive act, and separate from it all that does not really belong to it, we must suppose the rules of all reflection to be valid, and start with some one of the many universally admitted propositions. "Conceding us," he says, "this proposition, you must, at the same time, concede as act that which we desire to place as the principle of the whole Doctrine of Science; and the result of the reflection must be that this act is conceded to us as the principle together with the proposition. We take any fact of empirical consciousness, and strip it one after another of all its empirical determinations, until reduced to all its purity it contains that only which thought cannot absolutely exclude, and from which nothing further can be taken."[5]
These words show that the German philosopher proposed ascending to a perfectly pure and wholly indeterminate act of consciousness, which, however, is impossible. Either he takes the act in a very broad sense, and understands by it the substratum of all consciousness, in which case he only expresses in other words the idea of substance; or else he speaks of an act properly so called, that is, of some exercise of that activity, that spontaneity which we feel within ourselves; and in this sense the act of consciousness cannot be separated from all determination without destroying its individuality and existence. Man cannot think without thinking something, desire without desiring something, feel without feeling something, or reflect upon internal acts without fixing his reflection upon something. There is some determination in every act of consciousness: an act perfectly pure, abstracted from every thing, and wholly indeterminate, is impossible, absolutely impossible; subjectively, because the act of consciousness, although considered in the subject, requires some determination; objectively, because such an act is inconceivable as individual, and consequently as existing, since it offers nothing determinate to the mind.
81. Fichte's indeterminate act is only the idea of act in general. He imagined he had made a great discovery when he conceived nothing in the groundwork but the principle of act, that is, the idea of substance applied to that active being whose existence consciousness itself makes known to us.
If we may be allowed to say candidly what we think, our opinion is, that Fichte, with all his analytical investigations, has not advanced philosophy one step towards the discovery of the first principle. We see from what has already been said how easy it is to stop him by simply demanding an account of the suppositions made on the first page of his book. Still, wishing, as we do, to oppose him with all fairness, we will not take up his ideas without allowing him to explain them himself.
"Every one admits the proposition: A is A; just as that A = A, because such is the meaning of the logical copula; and indeed without the least deliberation we perceive and affirm its complete certainty. Should any one ask a demonstration of it, we should by no means give any, but should maintain that the proposition is absolutely certain, that is, without any further foundation. Thus incontestibly proceeding with general consent, we claim the right to suppose something absolutely.
"We do not, in affirming the preceding proposition to be certain in itself, suppose that A is. The proposition A is A, is not equivalent to this: A is, or, there is an A. (To be placed without a predicate has an entirely different meaning from to be with a predicate, whereof more hereafter.) If we make A denote a space contained between two straight lines, the proposition remains exact, although the proposition, A is, be evidently false. But, we assert: if A is, A is thus. The question is in no wise whether A is in general or not. The question is not of the contents of the proposition, but only of its form; not whereof we know something, but what we know of any object whatever.
"Consequently, by the above assertion, that the proposition is absolutely certain, this is established, that between the if and the thus there is a necessary connection; and it is this necessary connection between both which is supposed absolutely and without other foundation. I call this necessary connection provisionally = X."
All this show of analysis amounts only to what every logical student knows, that in every proposition the copula, or the verb to be, denotes not the existence of the subject, but its relation to the predicate. There was no need of so many words to tell us so simple a thing, nor of such affected efforts of the understanding in treating of an identical proposition. But let us arm ourselves with patience, and continue to listen to the German philosopher:
"But to return to A itself, whether A is or not; nothing is as yet affirmed thereon. The question then occurs: under what condition is A?
"X at least is supposed in and by the me, for it is the me which judges in the above proposition, and indeed judges by X as by a law, which consequently being given to the me, and by it established absolutely and without other foundation, must therefore be given to the me by the me itself."
82. What does all this Sanscrit mean? We will translate it into English: in identical or equivalent propositions there is a relation which the mind knows, judges, and according to which it decides upon the rest: this relation is given to our mind; identical propositions need no proof in order to obtain assent. All this is very true, very clear, and very simple; but, when Fichte adds that this relation must be given to the me by the me itself, he asserts what he neither does nor can know. Who told him that objective truths come to us from ourselves? Is one of the principal philosophical questions, such as is that of the origin of truth, to be thus easily solved with a dash of the pen? Has he, perchance, defined his me, or given us any idea of it? Either his words mean nothing, or they mean this: I judge of a relation; this judgment is in me; this relation, as known and abstracted from real existence, is in me; all which may be reduced to Descartes' more natural and simple expression: "I think, therefore I exist."
83. Upon carefully examining Fichte's words, we clearly see that he made no more progress than the French philosopher. He goes on: "Whether and how A in general is supposed, we know not; but as X must mark a relation between an unknown supposition of A and an absolute supposition of A under the condition of this supposition, in so far at least as that relation is supposed, A exists in the me, and is supposed by the me, just as X. X is possible only in relation to an A: but X is really supposed in the me, therefore A also must be supposed in the me in so far as X is referred to it."
What confusion and mystery in the expression
