C. But with these two problems we find ourselves involved in a contradiction. According to B, there is demanded the dominion of thought (the ideal) over the world of sense; but how is this conceivable, if (according to A) the idea, in its origin, is already only the slave of the objective? On the other hand, if the real world is something quite independent of us, and in accordance with which, as their pattern, our ideas must shape themselves (by A), then it is inconceivable how the real world, on the other hand, can shape itself after ideas in us (by B). In a word, in the theoretical certainty we lose the practical; in the practical we lose the theoretical. It is impossible that there should be at once truth in our knowledge and reality in our volition.
This contradiction must be solved, if there is to be a philosophy at all; and the solution of this problem, or the answering of the question: How can ideas be conceived as shaping themselves according to objects, and at the same time objects as shaping themselves to ideas?—is not the first, but the highest, task of transcendental philosophy.
It is not difficult to see that this problem is not to be solved either in theoretical or in practical philosophy, but in a higher one, which is the connecting link between the two, neither theoretical nor practical, but both at once.
How at once the objective world conforms itself to ideas in us, and ideas in us conform themselves to the objective world, it is impossible to conceive, unless there exists, between the two worlds—the ideal and the real—a preëstablished harmony. But this preëstablished harmony itself is not conceivable, unless the activity, whereby the objective world is produced, is originally identical with that which displays itself in volition, and vice versa.
Now it is undoubtedly a productive activity that displays itself in volition; all free action is productive and productive only with consciousness. If, then, we suppose, since the two activities are one only in their principle, that the same activity which is productive with consciousness in free action, is productive without consciousness in the production of the world, this preëstablished harmony is a reality, and the contradiction is solved.
If we suppose that all this is really the case, then that original identity of the activity, which is busy in the production of the world, with that which displays itself in volition, will exhibit itself in the productions of the former, and these will necessarily appear as the productions of an activity at once conscious and unconscious.
Nature, as a whole, no less than in its different productions, will, of necessity, appear as a work produced with consciousness, and, at the same time, as a production of the blindest mechanism. It is the result of purpose, without being demonstrable as such. The philosophy of the aims of Nature, or teleology, is therefore the required point of union between theoretical and practical philosophy.
D. Hitherto, we have postulated only in general terms the identity of the unconscious activity, which has produced Nature, and the conscious activity, which exhibits itself in volition, without having decided where the principle of this activity lies—whether in Nature or in us.
Now, the system of knowledge can be regarded as complete only when it reverts to its principle. Transcendental philosophy, therefore, could be complete only when that identity—the highest solution of its whole problem—could be demonstrated in its principle, the Ego.
It is therefore postulated that, in the subjective—in the consciousness itself—that activity, at once conscious and unconscious, can be shown.