[Footnote 1: The object is a product of the ego only for the observer, not for the observed ego itself, to which, from this standpoint of imagination, it appears rather as a thing in itself independent of the ego and affecting it. Further, it must so appear, because the ego, in its after reflection on its productive activity, and just by this reflection, transforms the productive action considered into a fixed and independent product found existing.]
The "deduction of representation" whose outline has just been given was the first example (often imitated in the school of Schelling and Hegel) of a constructive psychology, which, from the mission or the concept of the soul—in this case from the nature of self-consciousness—deduces the various psychical functions as a system of actions, each of which is in its place implied by the rest, as it in turn presupposes them. This is distinguished from the sensationalistic psychology, which is also genetic (cf. pp. 245-250), as well as from the mechanical or associational psychology, which likewise excludes the idea of an isolated coexistence of mental faculties, by the fact that it demands a new manifestation of the soul-ground in order to the ascent from one member of the series to the next higher. It is also distinguished from sensationalism by its teleological point of view. For no matter how much Fichte, too, may speak of the mechanism of consciousness, it is plain to the reader of the theoretical part of his system not only that he makes this mechanism work in the service of an end, but also that he finds its origin in purposive activity of the ego; while the practical part gives further and decisive confirmation of the fact. The danger and the defect of such a constructive treatment of psychology—as we may at once remark for all later attempts—lies in imagining that the task of mental science has been accomplished and all its problems solved when each particular activity of the ego has been assigned its mission and work for the whole, and its place in the system, without any indication of the means through which this destination can be fulfilled.
%(d) The Practical Ego.%—The deduction of representation has shown how (through what unconscious acts of the ego) the different stages of cognition, the three sensuous and the three intellectual functions of representation, come into being. It has proved incapable, however, of giving any account of the way in which the ego comes at one point to arrest its activity, which tends infinitely outward, and to turn it back upon itself. We know, indeed, that this first limitation, through which sensation arises, and on which as a basis the understanding, by continued reflection constructs the objective world, was necessary in order that consciousness and knowledge might arise. If the ego did not limit its infinite activity neither representation nor an objective world would exist. But why, then, are there such things as consciousness, representation, and a world? From the standpoint of the theoretical ego this problem, "Whence the original non-ego or opposition (Anstoss), which impels the ego back upon itself?" cannot be solved, since it is only through the opposition that it itself arises. The "deduction of the opposition," which the theoretical part of the Science of Knowledge did not furnish, is to be looked for from the practical part. The primacy of practical reason, already emphasized by Kant, gives us the answer: The ego limits itself and is theoretical, in order to be practical. The whole machinery of representation and the represented world exists only to furnish us the possibility of fulfilling our duty. We are intelligence in order that we may be able to be will.
Action, action—that is the end of our existence. Action is giving form to matter, it is the alteration or elaboration of an object, the conquest of an impediment, of a limitation. We cannot act unless we have something in, on, and against which to act. The world of sensation and intuition is nothing but a means for attaining our ethical destiny, it is "the material of our duty under the form of sense." The theoretical ego posits an object (Gegenstand) that the practical ego may experience resistance (Widerstand). No action is possible without a world as the object of action; no world is possible without a consciousness which represents it; no consciousness possible without reflection of the ego on itself; no reflection without limitation, without an opposition or non-ego. The Anstoss is deduced. The ego posits a limit (is theoretical) in order (as practical) to overcome it. Our duty is the only per se (Ansich) of the phenomenal world, the only truly real element in it: "Things are in themselves that which we ought to make of them." Objectivity exists only to be more and more sublated, that is, to be so worked up that the activity of the ego may in it become evident.—The same ground of explanation which reveals the necessity of an external nature enables us to understand why the one infinite ego (the universal life or the Deity, as Fichte puts it in his later works) divides into the many empirical egos or individuals, why it does not carry out its plan immediately, but through finite spirits as its organs. Action is possible only under the form of the individual, only in individuals are consciousness and morality possible. Without resistance, no action; without conflict, no morality. Individuality, it is true, is to be overcome and destroyed in moral endeavor; but in order to this it must have existed. Virtue is a conquest over external and internal nature.
A gradation of practical functions corresponding to the series of theoretical activities leads from feeling and striving (longing and desire) through the system of impulses (the impulse to representation or reflection, to production, to satisfaction) up to moral will or the impulse to harmony with self, which stands opposed to the natural impulses as the categorical imperative. The practical ego mediates between the theoretical and the absolute ego. The ego ought to be infinite and self-dependent, but finds itself finite and dependent on a non-ego—a contradiction which is resolved by the ego becoming practical, by the fact that in ever increasing measure it subdues nature to itself, and by such increasing extension of the boundary draws nearer and ever nearer to the realization of its destination, to become absolute ego.
%2. The Science of Ethics and of Right.%
The moral law demands the control of the sensuous impulse by the pure impulse. If the former aims at comfortable ease and enjoyment, the latter is directed toward satisfaction with one's self, to endeavor and self-dependence. (Enjoyment is inevitable, it is true, as satisfaction where any impulse whatever is carried out; only it must not form the end of action.) Morality is activity for its own sake, the radical evil—from which only a miracle can deliver us, but a miracle which we must ourselves perform—is inertness, lack of will to rise above the natural determinateness of the impulse of self-preservation to the clear consciousness of duty and of freedom. For the moral man there is no resting; each end attained becomes for him the impulse to renewed endeavor, each task fulfilled leads him to a fresh one. Become self-dependent, act autonomously, make thyself free; let every action have a place in a series, in the continuation of which the ego must become independent. To this formal and universal norm, again, there is added a special injunction for each individual. Each individual spirit has its definite mission assigned to it by the world-order: each ought to do that which it alone should and can do. Always fulfill thy moral vocation, thy special destination.[1] Or both in popular combination: Never act contrary to conscience.
[Footnote 1: Although Fichte was justly charged with surpassing even the abstractness of the Kantian ethics with his bald moral principle, the self-dependence of the ego, he deserves praise for having given ethics a concrete content of indisputable soundness and utility by his introduction of Jacobi's idea of purified individuality.]
The elevation to freedom is accomplished gradually. At first freedom consists only in the consciousness of the natural impulse, then follows a breaking away from this by means of maxims, which in the beginning are maxims of individual happiness. Later on a blind enthusiasm for self-dependence arises and produces an heroic spirit, which would rather be generous than just, which bestows sympathy more readily than respect; true morality, however, does not arise until, with constant attention to the law and continued watchfulness of self, duty is done for its own sake. No man is for a moment secure of his morality without continued endeavor. In order to deliverance from the original sin of inertness and its train, cowardice and falsity, men stand in need of examples, such as have been given them in the founders of religions, to construe for them the riddle of freedom. The necessary enlightenment concerning moral conviction is given by the Church, whose symbols are not to be looked upon as dogmatic propositions, but only as means for the proclamation of the eternal verities, and which, like the state (for both are institutions based on necessity), has for its object to make itself unnecessary as time goes on.
The system of duties distinguishes four classes of duties on the basis of the twofold opposition of universal (non-transferable) and particular (transferable) duties, and of unconditional duties (directed to the whole) and conditional duties (directed toward self). These four classes are the duties of self-preservation, of class, of non-interference with others, and of vocation. The lower calling includes the producers, artisans, and tradesmen, whose action terminates directly on nature; and the higher, the scholars, teachers of the people or clergy, artists, and government officials, who work directly on the community of rational beings. Fichte's thoughtful and sympathetically written discussion of marriage is in pleasant contrast to the bald, purely legal view of this relation adopted by Kant.