Page:A Brief History of Modern Philosophy.djvu/176

Rh activity of the ego; but the ego posits itself. Every idea involves this presupposition in a peculiar and special form. But the only method of discovering it is by abstract reflection, for immediate consciousness reveals nothing more than its products. We are never directly conscious of our volitions and activities; we take note of our limitations, but never of the thing which is thus limited. Free, unconstrained activity, which transcends the antitheses between subject and object, can only be conceived through a higher order of comprehension, through intellectual intuition. That is to say, it transcends every concept because every concept presupposes an antithesis.

But it is impossible to deduce definite, particular objects from this free activity, i.e. from the pure ego. In addition to the presupposition of self-activity by means of which the ego posits itself, we must therefore postulate a second presupposition: The ego posits a non-ego. Both propositions, notwithstanding their opposition, must be combined, and thus by thesis and antithesis we arrive at synthesis; so that our third proposition must be stated thus: The ego posits a limited ego in antithesis to a limited non-ego. This finally brings us to the level of experience. The limited ego is the empirical ego, which is constantly placed in antithesis to objects and must constantly overcome limitations.

Fichte moreover seeks to deduce the universal forms of experience (the Kantian intuitional forms and categories) from these fundamental principles. Thus, e.g. time is a necessary form whenever several acts of the ego are to be arranged in a definite order with reference to each other, and causality comes under the third