Page:Vocation of Man (1848).djvu/73

Rh thy actual consciousness by means of the principle of causality) of a consciousness of things (such as ought to be, such as of necessity must be, although not accessible to thee); and now thou wilt perceive that, in the supposition thou hast made, thou hast added to a knowledge which thou hast, another which thou hast not.

I. I must admit this.

Spirit. Henceforward let us call this second knowledge, obtained by means of another, mediate, and the first immediate knowledge. A certain school has called this procedure which we have to some extent described above, a synthesis; by which we are to understand not a con-nexion established between two elements previously existing, but an an-nexion, and an addition of a wholly new element arising through this an-nexion, to another element previously existing independently of such addition.

Thus thou findest the first consciousness as soon as thou findest thy own existence, and thou dost not find the latter without the former; the second consciousness is produced in thee by means of the first.

I. But not successive to it in time; for I am conscious of external things at the very same undivided moment in which I become conscious of myself.

Spirit. I did not speak of such a succession in time at all; but I think that when thou reflectest upon that undivided consciousness of thyself and of the external object, distinguishest between them, and inquirest into their connexion, thou dost find that the latter can only be conceived of as conditioned by the former, and