Page:Popular Works of Johann Gottlieb Fichte (1889) Vol 2.djvu/524

 it of the appearance of Freedom, which is here an indispensable characteristic.

This activity demanded by Instinct can only be an activity exercised on the Material World. Hence the Instinct to activity comes into view in immediate relation to material existences; these are consequently recognised in this immediate relation, and acquire, through this relation, not merely extension in Space, but, even more, their internal qualities:—and by this remark we have completed the definition of material existences, which was before left incomplete.

Should the Power, by means of this Instinct and the consequent appearance of self-determination, perceive itself as in a state of real activity, then, in the perception of this activity, it would be associated with the Material World in the same undivided Form of Intuition; and hence in this Intuition, thus uniting it with the Material World, it would perceive itself as a material existence in a double relation to the Material World:—partly as Sense, that it might feel the relation of that world to its Instinct,—partly as Organism, that it might contemplate its own activity therein.

In this activity it now beholds itself as the same identical Power in a state of self-determination; but as not exhausted in any form of its activity, and as thus remaining a Power ad infinitum. In this perception of its unlimited Power there arises before it an Infinity; not in one glance, like that first mentioned, but an Infinity in which it may behold its own infinite activity; an infinite series of successive links:—. Since this activity can be exercised ad infinitum only on the Material World, Time is likewise transferred to that world in the unity of Intuition, although that world already possesses its own peculiar expression of Infinitude in the infinite divisibility of and of all its parts.

It is obvious that the position in which the Power