Page:Fichte Science of Knowledge.djvu/56

 science How then, and by what means do a multitude of very different propositions unite into one science, into one and the same whole?

Clearly by this, that the separate propositions are not science, but form a science only in the whole, and through their connection in the whole. But by a composition of parts you can not put something into the whole which is not to be found in one of the parts. Hence, if none of the connected propositions had certainty, there would also be no certainty in the whole formed by them. One of the propositions, at least, therefore, must be certain, and this one, perhaps, communicates its certainty to the others in this manner: that if the one is to be true, then the second must be true, etc. Thus a multiplicity of propositions would attain only one certainty, and result in only one science, for the very reason that they all have certainty and the same certainty. That one proposition which we have just now spoken of as positively certain, can not obtain its certainty from its connection with the others, but must have it beforehand; for by uniting parts you can not produce something which is in none of the parts. But all other propositions receive their truth from the first one. The first one must therefore be certain before all connection with the others; and all the others must receive their certainty only through and after the connection. From this it immediately appears that our above assumption is the only correct one, and that in a science there can