Page:Popular Works of Johann Gottlieb Fichte (1889) Vol 2.djvu/527

 which recognises this Schema immediately and in the very act of its production as a Schema, are of necessity numerically one, not two; and thus also, in the domain of Intuition, that which immediately contemplates its Intuition is a single, self-inclosed, separate principle, in this respect inaccessible to any other:—the individuality of all men, who, on this account, can each have but one separate individuality. But this separation of Individuals must certainly take place in that Form in which alone unity also is produced,—namely, in that of Thought;—hence the individuality we have described, however isolated it may appear in the immediate Intuition of itself, yet, when it comprehends itself in Thought, perceives itself, in this Thought, as an Individual in a world of Individuals like itself; which latter, since it cannot behold them as free principles like itself in immediate Intuition, can only be recognised by it as such, by an inference from the mode of their activity in the World of Sense.

From this farther definition of the sphere of Intuition—that in it the Principle, which through its Being in God is One, is broken up into Many—there follows yet another. This division, even in the One Thought, and the mutual recognition, which nevertheless is necessarily found in connexion with it, would not be possible were not the Object of the Intuition and of the Activity of all, one and the same,—a like World to them all. The Intuition of a World of Sense existed only in order that through this World the Ego might become visible to itself as standing under the Law of an Absolute Imperative. For this nothing more was necessary than that the Intuition of such a World should simply be;—the manner of its being is absolutely of no importance, since for this purpose any form of it is sufficient. But the Ego must besides recognise itself as One in a given Multiplicity of Individuals;—and to this end it is necessary, besides the