Page:Popular Works of Johann Gottlieb Fichte (1889) Vol 2.djvu/530



XIII.

In the Thought thus described I merely conceive of Knowledge as that which may be the Schema of the Divine Life, and,—since this possibility is the expression of God and is thus founded in Being,—as that which shall be the Schema of the Divine Life;—but I myself by no means am this. To be this actually no outward power can compel me; as before no outward power could compel me even to realize the Intuition of the true Material World, or to elevate myself to Pure Thought, and thereby to an actual although empty insight into the absolutely formal Imperative. This remains in my own power; but now, since all the practical conditions are fulfilled, it stands immediately in my power.

If, setting aside on the one hand mere void Intuition, and on the other empty Intelligizing, I should now, with absolute freedom and independence of these, realize my Power, what would ensue? A Schema;—a Knowledge therefore which, through Intelligizing, I already know as the Schema of God; but which, in the Knowledge thus realized, immediately appears to me as that which I absolutely shall;—a Knowledge, the substance of which proceeds neither from the World of Sense, for this is abolished,—nor from contemplation of the mere empty Form of Knowledge, for this too I have cast aside;—but which exists through itself absolutely as it is, just as the Divine Life, whose Schema it is, is through itself absolutely as it is.

I know now what I shall. But all Actual Knowledge brings with it, by its formal nature, its schematized apposition;—although I now know of the Schema of God, yet I am not yet immediately this Schema, but I am