Page:Popular Works of Johann Gottlieb Fichte (1889) Vol 2.djvu/522

 in it; and can only be attributed to it in consequence of some characteristic mark perceived in the actual realization of the Power. The characteristic mark is this:—that the Power realize itself, with absolute Freedom, in accordance with the recognised universal Imperative.

VIII.

If it shall recognise itself as a Power to which an unconditional Imperative is addressed, it must, previous to this definite recognition, have also recognised itself generally as a Principle;—and since it can only recognise itself by means of its own self-development, it must necessarily develop itself before being able to recognise itself immediately as the Principle in this development. The necessity for this is contained in the intention that the Imperative shall become visible to it; and it may therefore be named a necessity of the Imperative—a shall of the shall—namely, a necessity of its visibility:—consequently this Imperative—this shall—lies in the primitive determination of the Power through its Being from God. Since, when it does not recognise itself generally as a Principle, it cannot, in the same position and at the same time, recognise itself in any more definite form, it is clear that these two modes of Knowledge are separate and distinct from each other. We call Knowledge by means of an immediate invisible principle—Intuition.

IX.

Since neither the Power itself as such, nor the Divine Life, is schematized in Intuition, by which indeed there