It is thus, indeed, that the Science of Knowledge proceeds. Let us now consider with what justice it so proceeds.
IV.
First of all: what in the described act belongs to the philosopher, as philosopher, and what belongs to the Ego he is to observe? To the Ego nothing but the return to itself; everything else to the description of the philosopher, for whom, as mere fact, the system of all experience, which in its genesis the Ego is now to produce under his observation, has already existence.
The Ego returns into itself, is the assertion. Has it not then already being in advance of this return into itself, and independently thereof? Nay, must it not already be for itself, if merely for the possibility of making itself the object of its action? Again, if this is so, does not the whole philosophy presuppose what it ought first to explain?
I answer by no means. First through this act, and only by means of it—by means of an acting upon an acting—does the Ego originally come to be for itself. It is only for the philosopher that it has previous existence as a fact, because the philosopher has already gone through the whole experience. He must express himself as he does, to be but understood, and he can so express himself, because he long since has comprehended all the conceptions necessary thereunto.
Now, to return to the observed Ego: what is this its return into itself? Under what class of modifications of consciousness is it to be posited? It is no comprehending, for a comprehending first arises through the opposition of a non-Ego, and by the determining of the Ego in this opposition. Hence it is a mere contemplation. It is therefore not consciousness, not even self-consciousness. Indeed, it is precisely because this act alone produces no consciousness, that we proceed to another act, through which a non-Ego originates for us, and that a progress of philosophical argumentation and the required deduction of the system of experience becomes possible. That act only places the Ego in the possibility of self-consciousness—and thus of all other consciousness—but does not generate real consciousness. That act is but a part of the whole act of the intelligence, whereby it effects its consciousness; a part which only the philosopher separates from the whole act, but which is not originally so separated in the Ego.
But how about the philosopher, as such? This self-constructing Ego is none other than his own. He can contemplate that act of the Ego only in himself, and, in order to contemplate it, must realize it. He produces that act arbitrarily and with freedom.
But—this question may and has been raised—if your whole philosophy is erected upon something produced by an act of mere arbitrariness, does it not then become a mere creature of the brain, a pure imaginary picture? How is the philosopher going to secure to this purely subjective act its objectivity? How will he secure to that which is purely empirical and a moment of time—i. e. the time in which the philosopher philosophizes—its originality? How can he prove that his present free thinking in the midst of the series of his representations does correspond to the necessary thinking, whereby he first became for himself, and through which the whole series of his representations has been started?
I answer: this act is in its nature objective. I am for myself; this is a fact. Now I could have thus come to be for myself only through an act, for I am free; and only through this thus determined act, for only through it do I become for myself every moment, and through every other act something quite different is produced. That acting, indeed, is the very conception of the Ego; and the conception of the Ego is the conception of that acting; both conceptions are quite the same; and that conception of the Ego can mean and can not be made to mean anything, but what has been stated. It is so, because I make it so. The philosopher only makes clear to himself what he really thinks and has ever thought, when he thinks or thought himself; but that he does think himself is to him immediate fact of consciousness. That question, concerning the objectivity is grounded on the very curious presupposition that the Ego is something else than its own thought of itself, and that something else than this thought and outside of it—God may know what they do mean!—is again the ground of it, concerning the actual nature of which outside something they are very much troubled. Hence if they ask for such an objective validity of the thought, or for a connection between this object and the subject, I cheerfully confess that the Science of Knowledge can give them no instruction concerning it. If they choose to, they may themselves enter, in this or any other case, upon the discovery of such a connection, until they, perhaps, will recollect that this Unknown which they are hunting, is, after all, again their thought, and that whatsoever they may invent as its ground, will also be their thought, and thus ad infinitum; and that, indeed, they cannot speak of or question about anything without at the same time thinking it.
Now, in this act, which is arbitrary and in time, for the philosopher as such, but which is for the Ego—which he constructs, by virtue of his just deduced right, for the sake of subsequent observations and conclusions—necessarily and originally; in this act, I say, the philosopher looks at himself, and immediately contemplates his own acting; he knows what he does, because he does it. Does a consciousness thereof arise in him? Without doubt; for he not only contemplates, but comprehends also. He comprehends his act, as an acting generally, of which he has already a conception by virtue of his previous experience; and as this determined, into itself returning acting, as which he contemplates it in himself. By this characteristic determination he elevates it above the sphere of general acting.