139. Let us give a glance at these ravings. Psychology starts from a fundamental fact—the testimony of consciousness. The human mind cannot think without finding itself; the starting-point of its psychological investigations is the proposition, I think; in this is found the identity of which Fichte speaks—the me is the me. All thought, from the first moment that it exists, perceives itself subject to a law; the perception of every thing involves the perception, either explicit or implicit, of the identity of the thing perceived. In this sense, the most simple formula in which we can express the first law of our perception is: A is A; but this formula is as sterile as it is simple; and it is impossible to conceive how any one could pretend to raise upon it a system of philosophy. This formula, supposing it to be enunciated, involves the existence of the me which enunciates it. It cannot be said that A is A, if there is not a being in which the relation of identity is supposed. If the proposition A = A is true, it is necessary to suppose an A, or a being in which it exists. A purely ideal truth, without any foundation in a real truth, is an absurdity, as we have elsewhere proved and explained at great length.[59]
140. But the existence of an ideal truth, in so far as it is represented in us, that is to say, in so far as it is a fact of our consciousness, is not necessary, but hypothetical, it exists when it exists; but when it exists it may not exist, or when it does not exist it may exist. Necessity cannot be inferred from existence: the testimony of consciousness assures us of the fact; but in this consciousness we find no proof that the fact is necessary, that it has not depended on a higher agent; quite the contrary, the sentiment of our weakness, the shortness of the time to which the recollections of our consciousness extend, the natural and periodical interruptions of them which we experience during sleep, every thing shows that the fact of consciousness is not necessary, and that the being which experiences it has but a little while ago commenced its existence, and might lose it again as soon as the infinite being should cease to preserve it. The me which we perceive within us knows itself, affirms itself; the word supposes itself has no reasonable meaning, unless it mean that the me affirms its existence; but this knowing itself is not producing itself; whoever asserts such an absurdity is under obligation to prove it.
141. In truth it requires all the gravity of Fichte to pretend to connect such a collection of extravagant absurdities into science. It was reserved for modern times to see a man seriously occupied with a system whose existence will, with difficulty, be believed by those who read the history of the aberrations of the human mind. The system of Fichte is already judged by all thinking men, and there is no surer means to make it forgotten than to expose it to the eyes of the judicious reader.
142. Having established the necessary and absolute existence of the me, Fichte proposes to demonstrate that from the me proceeds the not-me, that is to say; all that is not the me. "But the not-me can only be supposed in so far as a me, to which it is opposed, is supposed in the me (in the identical consciousness).
"But the not-me must be supposed in the identical consciousness.
"Therefore the me must also be supposed in it in so far as the not-me is supposed in it."
... "If me = me, all is supposed which is supposed in the me.... "The me and the not-me are both products of original acts of the me, and the consciousness itself is a product of the first original act of the me, of the supposition of the me by itself."[60]
This, then, is how according to Fichte, the not-me, that is to say; this which we call the external world, and all that is not the me, is born of the me; the distinction of one thing from another is a pure illusion, a play of relations by which the me conceives itself as not-me in so far as it limits itself; but the me and the not-me are absolutely identical. "The me and the not-me inasmuch as they are supposed identical and opposed by the conception of mutual limitation, are something in the me (accidents) as divisible substances, supposed by the me, the absolute and illimitable subject, to which nothing is identical and nothing opposed. There all judgments, the logical subject of which is the limitable or determinable me, or something which defines the me, must be limited or defined by something higher; but all judgments, the logical subject of which is the absolutely illimitable me, cannot be determined by any thing higher, because the absolute me is not determined by any thing they are founded on, and defined absolutely by themselves." This is the last result of Fichte's system, the me converted into an absolute being, which is determined by nothing above itself, into an unlimited and illimitable subject, an infinite being, into God. Every thing emanates from this absolute subject. "In so far as the me supposes itself as infinite, its activity (that of supposing itself) is spent on the me itself, and on nothing else than the me. Its whole activity is spent on the me, and this activity is the ground and the compass of all being. The me is therefore infinite in so far as its activity returns to itself, and consequently so far also is its activity infinite as its product, the me, is infinite. (Infinite product, infinite activity; infinite activity, infinite product; this is a circle, but not a vicious one, for it is one from which reason escapes, for it expresses that which is absolutely certain by itself, and for its own sake. Product, activity, and active are here one and the same thing, and we separate them only in order to express ourselves.) The pure activity of the me alone, and the pure me alone are infinite. But pure activity is that which has no object, but returns to itself."
"In so far as the me supposes limits, and, according to what we have said, supposes itself in these limits, its activity is not spent immediately on itself, but on a not-me which is to be opposed to it."[61]
How shall we sum up this doctrine? In the words of Fichte: "In so far as the me is absolute, it is infinite and unlimited. It supposes all that is; and that which is not supposed, is not (for it; and out of it there is nothing). But all that it supposes, it supposes as me; and it supposes the me as all that it supposes. Hence in this respect the me contains in itself all, that is, an infinite, unlimited reality.