What acting may be, can only be contemplated, not developed from and through conceptions; but that which this contemplation contains is comprehended by the mere opposition of pure being. Acting is not being, and being is not acting. Mere conception affords no other determination for each link; their real essence is only discovered in contemplation.
Now this whole procedure of the philosopher appears to me, at least, very possible, very easy, and even natural; and I can scarcely conceive how it can appear otherwise to my readers, and how they can see in it anything mysterious and marvellous. Every one, let us hope, can think himself. He will also, let us hope, learn that by being required to thus think himself he is required to perform an act, dependent upon his own activity, an internal act; and that if he realizes this demand, if he really affects himself through self-activity, he also most surely acts thus. Let us further hope that he will be able to distinguish this kind of acting from its opposite, the acting whereby he thinks external objects, and that he will find in the latter sort of thinking the thinking and the thought to be opposites, (the activity, therefore, tending upon something distinct from itself,) while in the former thinking both were one and the same, (and hence the activity a return into itself.) He will comprehend, it is to be hoped, that—since the thought of himself arises only in this manner, (an opposite thinking producing a quite different thought)—the thought of himself is nothing but the thought of this act, and the word Ego nothing but the designation of this act—that Ego and an into itself returning activity are completely identical conceptions. He will understand, let us hope, that if he but for the present problematically presupposes with transcendental Idealism that all consciousness rests upon and is dependent upon self-consciousness, he must also think that return into itself as preceding and conditioning all other acts of consciousness; indeed as the primary act of the subject; and, since there is nothing for him which is not in his consciousness, and since everything else in his consciousness is conditioned by this act, and therefore cannot condition the act in the same respect,—as an act, utterly unconditioned and hence absolute for him; and he will thus further understand, that the above problematical presupposition and this thinking of the Ego as originally posited through itself, are again quite identical; and that hence transcendental Idealism, if it proceeds systematically, can proceed in no other manner than it does in the Science of Knowledge.
This contemplation of himself, which is required of the philosopher, in his realization of the act, through which the Ego arises for him, I call intellectual contemplation. It is the immediate consciousness that I act and what I act; it is that through which I know something, because I do it. That there is such a power of intellectual contemplation cannot be demonstrated by conceptions, nor can conception show what it is. Every one must find it immediately in himself, or he will never learn to know it. The requirement that we ought to show it what it is by argumentation, is more marvellous than would be the requirement of a blind person, to explain to him, without his needing to use sight, what colors are.
But it can be certainly proven to everyone in his own confessed experience, that this intellectual contemplation does occur in every moment of his consciousness. I can take no step, cannot move hand or foot, without the intellectual contemplation of my self-consciousness in these acts; only through this contemplation do I know that I do it, only through it do I distinguish my acting and in it myself from the given object of my acting. Everyone who ascribes an activity to himself appeals to this contemplation. In it is the source of life, and without it is death.
But this contemplation never occurs alone, as a complete act of consciousness, as indeed sensuous contemplation also never occurs alone nor completes consciousness; both contemplations must be comprehended. Not only this, but the intellectual contemplation is also always connected with a sensuous contemplation. I cannot find myself acting without finding an object upon which I act, and this object in a sensuous contemplation which I comprehend; nor without sketching an image of what I intend to produce by my act, which image I also comprehend. Now, then, how do I know and how can I know what I intend to produce, if I do not immediately contemplate myself in this sketching of the image which I intend to produce, i. e. in this sketching of the conception of my purpose, which sketching is certainly an act. Only the totality of this condition in uniting a given manifold completes consciousness. I become conscious only of the conceptions, both of the object upon which I act, and of the purpose I intend to accomplish; but I do not become conscious of the contemplations which are at the bottom of both conceptions.
Perhaps it is only this which the zealous opponents of intellectual contemplation wish to insist upon; namely, that that contemplation is only possible in connection with a sensuous contemplation; and surely the Science of Knowledge is not going to deny it. But this is no reason why they should deny intellectual contemplation. For with the same right we might deny sensuous contemplation, since it also is possible only in connection with intellectual contemplation; for whatsoever is to become my representation must be related to me, and the consciousness (I) occurs only through intellectual contemplation. (It is a remarkable fact of our modern history of philosophy, that it has not been noticed as yet how all that may be objected to intellectual contemplation can also be objected to sensuous contemplation, and that thus the arguments of its opponents turn against themselves.)
But if it must be admitted that there is no immediate, isolated consciousness of intellectual contemplation, how does the philosopher arrive at a knowledge and isolated representation thereof? I answer, doubtless in the same manner in which he arrives at the isolated representation of sensuous contemplation, by drawing a conclusion from the evident facts of consciousness. This conclusion runs as follows: I propose to myself, to think this or that, and the required thought arises; I propose to myself, to do this or that, and the representation that it is being done arises. This is a fact of consciousness. If I look at it by the light of the laws of mere sensuous consciousness, it involves no more than has just been stated, i. e. a sequence of certain representations. I become conscious only of this sequence, in a series of time movements, and only such a time sequence can I assert. I can merely state—I know that if I propose to myself a certain thought, with the characteristic that it is to have existence, the representation of this thought, with the characteristic that it really has existence, follows; or, that the representation of a certain manifestation, as one which ought to occur, is immediately followed in time by the representation of the same manifestation as one which really did occur. But I can, on no account, state that the first representation contains the real ground of the second one which followed; or, that by thinking the first one the second one became real for me. I merely remain passive, the placid scene upon which representations follow representations, and am, on no account, the active principle which produces them. Still I constantly assume the latter, and cannot relinquish that assumption without relinquishing my self. What justifies me in it? In the sensuous ingredients I have mentioned, there is no ground to justify such an assumption; hence it is a peculiar and immediate consciousness, that is to say, a contemplation, and not a sensuous contemplation, which views a material and permanent being, but a contemplation of a pure activity, which is not permanent but progressive, not a being but a life.
The philosopher, therefore, discovers this intellectual contemplation as fact of consciousness, (for him it is a fact; for the original Ego a fact and act both together—a deed-act,) and he thus discovers it not immediately, as an isolated part of his consciousness, but by distinguishing and separating what in common consciousness occurs in unseparated union.
Quite a different problem it is to explain this intellectual contemplation, which is here presupposed as fact, in its possibility, and by means of this explanation to defend it against the charge of deception and deceptiveness, which is raised by dogmatism; or, in other words, to prove the faith in the reality of this intellectual contemplation, from which faith transcendental idealism confessedly starts—by a something still higher; and to show up the interest which leads us to place faith in its reality, or in the system of Reason. This is accomplished by showing up the Moral Law in us, in which the Ego is characterized as elevated through it above all the original modifications, as impelled by an absolute, or in itself, (in the Ego,) grounded activity; and by which the Ego is thus discovered to be an absolute Active. In the consciousness of this law, which doubtless is an immediate consciousness, and not derived from something else, the contemplation of self-activity and freedom is grounded. I am given to myself through myself as something, which is to be active in a certain manner; hence, I am given to myself through myself as something active generally; I have the life in myself, and take it from out of myself. Only through this medium of the Moral Law do I see MYSELF; and if I see myself through that law, I necessarily see myself as self-active; and it is thus that there arises in a consciousness—which otherwise would only be the consciousness of a sequence of my representations—the utterly foreign ingredient of an activity of myself.
This intellectual contemplation is the only stand-point for all Philosophy. From it all that occurs in consciousness may be explained, but only from it. Without self-consciousness there is no consciousness at all; but self-consciousness is only possible in the way we have shown, i. e. I am only active. Beyond it I cannot be driven; my philosophy then becomes altogether independent of all arbitrariness, and a product of stern necessity; i. e. in so far as necessity exists for free Reason; it becomes a product of practical necessity. I can not go beyond this stand-point, because conscience says I shall not go beyond it; and thus transcendental idealism shows itself up to be the only moral philosophy—the philosophy wherein speculation and moral law are intimately united. Conscience says: I shall start in my thinking from the pure Ego, and shall think it absolutely self-active; not as determined by the things, but as determining the things.