IV.
Therefore, we may affirm on these grounds, that the “summum genus,” or primitive category, is the Ego itself in its simplest activity as the “is” (or pure being if taken substantively).
Thus it happens that when the Mind comes to cognize an object, it must first of all recognize itself in it in its simplest activity,—it must know that the object is. We cannot know anything else of an object without presupposing the knowledge of its existence.
At this point it is evident that this category is not derived from experience in the sense of an impression from without. It is the activity of the Ego itself, and is its (the Ego’s) first self-externalization (or its first becoming object to itself—its first act of self-consciousness). The essential activity of the Ego itself consists in recognizing itself, and this involves self-separation, and then the annulling of this separation in the same act. For in knowing myself as an object I separate the Ego from itself, but in the very act of knowing it I make it identical again. Here are two negative processes involved in knowing, and these are indivisibly one:—first, the negative act of separation—secondly, the negative act of annulling the separation by the act of recognition. That the application of categories to the external world is a process of self-recognition, is now clear: we know, in so far as we recognize predicates in the object,—we say “The Rose is, it is red, it is round, it is fragrant, &c.” In this we separate what belongs to the rose from it, and place it outside of it, and then, through the act of predication, unite it again. “The Rose is” contains merely the recognition of being but being is separated from it and joined to it in the act of predication. Thus we see that the fundamental act of self-consciousness, which is a self-separation and self-identification united in one act of recognition,—we see that this fundamental act is repeated in all acts of knowing. We do not know even the rose without separating it from itself, and identifying the two sides thus formed. (This contains a deeper thought which we may suggest here. That the act of knowing puts all objects into this crucible, is an intimation on its part that no object can possess true, abiding being, without this ability to separate itself from itself in the process of self-identification. Whatever cannot do this is no essence, but may be only an element of a process in which it ceaselessly loses its identity. But we shall recur to this again.)
Doubtless we could follow out this activity through various steps, and deduce all the categories of pure thought. This is what Plato has done in part; what Fichte has done in his Science of Knowledge, (“Wissenschaftslehre”) and Hegel in his Logic. A science of these pure intelligibles unlocks the secret of the Universe; it furnishes that “Royal Road” to all knowledge; it is the far-famed Philosopher’s Stone that alone can transmute the base dross of mere talent into genius.
V.
Let us be content if at the close of this chapter we can affirm still more positively the conclusions of our first. Through a consideration of the a priori knowledge of Time and Space, and their logical priority, as conditions, to the world of experience, we inferred the transcendency of Mind. Upon further investigation, we have now discovered that there are other forms of the Mind more primordial than Space and Time, and more essentially related to its activity; for all the categories of pure thought—Being, Negation, &c.,—are applicable to Space and to Time, and hence more universal than either of them alone; these categories of pure thought, moreover, as before remarked, could never have been derived from experience. Experience is not possible without presupposing these predicates. “They are the tools of intelligence through which it cognizes.” If we hold by this stand-point exclusively, we may say, with Kant, that we furnish the subjective forms in knowing, and for this reason cannot know the “thing in itself.” If these categories are merely subjective—i. e. given in the constitution of the Mind itself—and we do not know what the “thing in itself” may be, yet we can come safely out of all skepticism here by considering the universal nature of these categories or “forms of the mind.” For if Being, Negation and Existence are forms of mind and purely subjective, so that they do not belong to the “thing in itself,” it is evident that such an object cannot be or exist, or in any way have validity, either positively or negatively. Thus it is seen from the nature of mind here exhibited, that Mind is the noumenon or “thing in itself” which Philosophy seeks, and thus our third chapter confirms our first.
Note.
The Materialism of the present day holds that thought is a modification of force, correlated with heat, light, electricity, &c., in short, that organization produces ideas. If so, we are placed within a narrow idealism, and can only say of what is held for truth: “I am so correlated as to hold this view,—I shall be differently correlated to-morrow, perhaps, and hold another view.” Yet in this very statement the Ego takes the stand-point of universality—it speaks of possibilities—which it could never do, were it merely a correlate. For to hold a possibility is to be able to annul in thought the limits of the real, and hence to elevate itself to the point of universality. But this is self-correlation; we have a movement in a circle, and hence self-origination, and hence a spontaneous fountain of force. The Mind, in conceiving of the possible, annuls the real, and thus creates its own motives; its acting according to motives, is thus acting according to its own acts—an obvious circle again.
In fine, it is evident that the idealism which the correlationist logically falls into is as strict as that of any school of professed idealism which he is in the habit of condemning. The persistent force is the general idea of force, not found as any real force, for each real force is individualized in some particular way. But it is evident that a particular force cannot be correlated with force in general, but only with a special form like itself. But the general force is the only abiding one—each particular one is in a state of transition into another—a perpetual losing of individuality. Hence the true abiding force is not a real one existing objectively, but only an ideal one existing subjectively in thought. But through the fact that thought can seize the true and abiding which can exist for itself nowhere else, the correlationist is bound to infer the transcendency of Mind just like the idealist. Nay, more, when he comes to speak considerately, he will say that Mind, for the very reason that it thinks the true, abiding force, cannot be correlated with any determined force.