Page:Popular Works of Johann Gottlieb Fichte (1889) Vol 2.djvu/526

 abolition of the principle, the consequence of it—imprisonment in Intuition — is likewise abolished. Knowledge would then stand forth in its primitive unity, as it is perceived at first by the Doctrine of Knowledge; — in this its essential unity it would manifest itself as dependent, and as requiring a substratum — a unity which shall exist absolutely through itself. Knowledge in this form is no longer Intuition, but Thought; — and indeed Pure Thought, or Intelligizing.

Before proceeding further, we must from this central-point indicate a distinction hitherto unnoticed in the sphere of Intuition. Only through blind Instinct, in which the only possible guidance of the Imperative is awanting, does the Power in Intuition remain undetermined; where it is schematized as absolute it becomes infinite; and where it is presented in a determinate form, as a principle, it becomes at least manifold. By the above-mentioned act of Intelligizing, the Power liberates itself from Instinct, to direct itself towards Unity. But so surely as it requires a special act for the production of this Unity, — (in the first place indeed inwardly and immediately within the Power itself, because only under this condition could it be outwardly perceived in the Schema), — so surely was the Power not viewed as One in the sphere of Intuition, but as Manifold; — this Power, which now through perception and recognition of itself has become an Ego — an Individual, — was, in this sphere, not one Individual, but necessarily broken up into a world of Individuals.

This indeed does not occur in the Form of Intuition itself. The original schematizing principle, and the principle