78. Another consideration demonstrates the sterility of all philosophy which seeks in the me alone the sole and universal origin of human knowledge. Every cognition requires an object; purely subjective cognition is inconceivable; although we suppose the subject and object to be identified, duality of relation, real or conceived, is still necessary; that is, the subject as known must stand in a certain opposition, opposition at least conceived, with itself as subject knowing. Now, what is the object sought in the primitive act? Is it something not the subject? Then the philosophy of the subject falls into the current of other philosophies, since in this something which is not the subject are objective truths. Is it the subject itself? Then we ask, is it the subject in itself or in its acts; if the subject in its acts, then the philosophy is reduced to ideological analysis, and has no special characteristic; if the subject in itself, we say it is not known intuitively, and least of all can they who call it the absolute pretend to this cognition; it is for them even more than for others a dark abyss. In vain will you stoop over this abyss, and shout for truth; the dull rumbling which reaches your ears is only the echo of your own voice; the profound cavern rolls back to you only your own words still more hollow and mysterious.
79. Eminent among the philosophers most given to empty cavils is the author of the Doctrine of Science, Fichte, of whose system Madame de Staël ingenuously remarked, that it very much resembled the awakening of Pygmalion's statue from sleep, which, turning alternately to itself and to its pedestal said, I am, I am not.
Fichte says, in the beginning of his work entitled Doctrine of Science, that he proposes to seek the most absolute principle, the absolutely unconditioned principle of all human knowledge. This his method is erroneous: he begins by supposing what is unknown, and does not even suspect that there may be a true multiplicity in the basis of human cognitions. We believe that there may be, and that there really is such a multiplicity, that the sources of our knowledge are various, and of different orders, and that we cannot reduce them to unity without leaving man and ascending to God. We repeat it, this equivocation has become exceedingly general, and its only result has been uselessly to fatigue inquiring minds or to drive them to extravagant systems.
Few philosophers have toiled harder than Fichte after this absolute principle; and yet, to speak plainly, he accomplishes nothing; he either repeats Descartes' principle, or amuses himself with a play upon words. We feel pity at seeing him labor so earnestly to so little purpose. We beg the reader to follow us with patience in our examination of the German philosopher's doctrine, not with the hope of finding a thread to serve as a clue to the Dædalus of philosophy, but in order to judge, with a knowledge of the cause, doctrines which have made so much noise in the world.
"If this principle," says Fichte, "is absolutely the first, it can neither be defined nor demonstrated. It must express the act, which neither is nor can be presented among the empirical determinations of our consciousness, but rather lies at the bottom of all consciousness, and alone makes consciousness possible."4
Without any antecedent, or any reason, without even taking the trouble to show on what he bases it, Fichte assures us that the first principle must express an act. Why may it not be an objective truth? This, at least, would have deserved some attention, for all preceding schools, the Cartesian included, located the first principle among objective truths, not among acts. Descartes himself needed an objective truth in order to establish the fact of thought and existence. "Whoever thinks exists," or, in other words, "whoever does not exist cannot think."
80. This last remark shows one of the radical vices affecting the doctrine of Fichte and other Germans, who attribute an altogether unmerited importance to subjective philosophy. They accuse others of too easily making the transition from the subject to the object, but forget that they, at the same time pass, unauthorised by any reason or title, from objective thought to the pure subject. Confining ourselves to the passage of Fichte just cited, what, we ask, will an act be which neither is nor can be presented among the empirical determinations of our consciousness? The principle in question is not exempted from being known because it is absolute; for if we do not know it, we cannot assert that it is absolute; and if it is not, and cannot be presented among the empirical determinations of our consciousness, it neither is nor can be known. Man knows not that which is not present in his consciousness.
The absolute principle upon which all consciousness rests, and which makes it possible, either does or does not belong to consciousness. If the former, it is liable to all the difficulties affecting the other acts of consciousness; if the latter, it cannot be the object of observation, and therefore we can know nothing of it.
Fichte confesses that in order to arrive at the primitive act, and separate from it all that does not really belong to it, we must suppose the rules of all reflection to be valid, and start with some one of the many universally admitted propositions. "Conceding us," he says, "this proposition, you must, at the same time, concede as act that which we desire to place as the principle of the whole Doctrine of Science; and the result of the reflection must be that this act is conceded to us as the principle together with the proposition. We take any fact of empirical consciousness, and strip it one after another of all its empirical determinations, until reduced to all its purity it contains that only which thought cannot absolutely exclude, and from which nothing further can be taken."5
These words show that the German philosopher proposed ascending to a perfectly pure and wholly indeterminate act of consciousness, which, however, is impossible. Either he takes the act in a very broad sense, and understands by it the substratum of all consciousness, in which case he only expresses in other words the idea of substance; or else he speaks of an act properly so called, that is, of some exercise of that activity, that spontaneity which we feel within ourselves; and in this sense the act of consciousness cannot be separated from all determination without destroying its individuality and existence. Man cannot think without thinking something, desire without desiring something, feel without feeling something, or reflect upon internal acts without fixing his reflection upon something. There is some determination in every act of consciousness: an act perfectly pure, abstracted from every thing, and wholly indeterminate, is impossible, absolutely impossible; subjectively, because the act of consciousness, although considered in the subject, requires some determination; objectively, because such an act is inconceivable as individual, and consequently as existing, since it offers nothing determinate to the mind.
81. Fichte's indeterminate act is only the idea of act in general. He imagined he had made a great discovery when he conceived nothing in the groundwork but the principle of act, that is, the idea of substance applied to that active being whose existence consciousness itself makes known to us.
If we may be allowed to say candidly what we think, our opinion is, that Fichte, with all his analytical investigations, has not advanced philosophy one step towards the discovery of the first principle. We see from what has already been said how easy it is to stop him by simply demanding an account of the suppositions made on the first page of his book. Still, wishing, as we do, to oppose him with all fairness, we will not take up his ideas without allowing him to explain them himself.
"Every one admits the proposition: A is A; just as that A = A, because such is the meaning of the logical copula; and indeed without the least deliberation we perceive and affirm its complete certainty. Should any one ask a demonstration of it, we should by no means give any, but should maintain that the proposition is absolutely certain, that is, without any further foundation. Thus incontestibly proceeding with general consent, we claim the right to suppose something absolutely.
"We do not, in affirming the preceding proposition to be certain in itself, suppose that A is. The proposition A is A, is not equivalent to this: A is, or, there is an A. (To be placed without a predicate has an entirely different meaning from to be with a predicate, whereof more hereafter.) If we make A denote a space contained between two straight lines, the proposition remains exact, although the proposition, A is, be evidently false. But, we assert: if A is, A is thus. The question is in no wise whether A is in general or not. The question is not of the contents of the proposition, but only of its form; not whereof we know something, but what we know of any object whatever.
"Consequently, by the above assertion, that the proposition is absolutely certain, this is established, that between the if and the thus there is a necessary connection; and it is this necessary connection between both which is supposed absolutely and without other foundation. I call this necessary connection provisionally = X."
All this show of analysis amounts only to what every logical student knows, that in every proposition the copula, or the verb to be, denotes not the existence of the subject, but its relation to the predicate. There was no need of so many words to tell us so simple a thing, nor of such affected efforts of the understanding in treating of an identical proposition. But let us arm ourselves with patience, and continue to listen to the German philosopher:
"But to return to A itself, whether A is or not; nothing is as yet affirmed thereon. The question then occurs: under what condition is A?
"X at least is supposed in and by the me, for it is the me which judges in the above proposition, and indeed judges by X as by a law, which consequently being given to the me, and by it established absolutely and without other foundation, must therefore be given to the me by the me itself."
82. What does all this Sanscrit mean? We will translate it into English: in identical or equivalent propositions there is a relation which the mind knows, judges, and according to which it decides upon the rest: this relation is given to our mind; identical propositions need no proof in order to obtain assent. All this is very true, very clear, and very simple; but, when Fichte adds that this relation must be given to the me by the me itself, he asserts what he neither does nor can know. Who told him that objective truths come to us from ourselves? Is one of the principal philosophical questions, such as is that of the origin of truth, to be thus easily solved with a dash of the pen? Has he, perchance, defined his me, or given us any idea of it? Either his words mean nothing, or they mean this: I judge of a relation; this judgment is in me; this relation, as known and abstracted from real existence, is in me; all which may be reduced to Descartes' more natural and simple expression: "I think, therefore I exist."
83. Upon carefully examining Fichte's words, we clearly see that he made no more progress than the French philosopher. He goes on: "Whether and how A in general is supposed, we know not; but as X must mark a relation between an unknown supposition of A and an absolute supposition of A under the condition of this supposition, in so far at least as that relation is supposed, A exists in the me, and is supposed by the me, just as X. X is possible only in relation to an A: but X is really supposed in the me, therefore A also must be supposed in the me in so far as X is referred to it."
What confusion and mystery in the expression of the commonest things! How great Descartes appears beside Fichte! Each makes the fact of consciousness revealing existence the beginning of his philosophy. The one expresses his thoughts clearly, with simplicity and in a language which all the world does or may understand; the other, in order to seem an inventor, and to show that he has no master, envelops himself in a cloud of mystery, with darkness all around, whence in a hollow voice he pronounces his oracles. Descartes says: "I think, I cannot doubt it, it is a fact attested to me by my internal sense; no one can think without existing; therefore I exist." This is clear, simple, and ingenuous; it manifests a true philosopher, one without affectation or pretension. Fichte says: "Take any proposition whatever; for example, A is A: " and then goes on to explain how the verb to be in propositions does not express the absolute existence of the subject, but its relation with the predicate; the whole with a show of doctrine, wearisome in its form, and ridiculous in its sterility; and this too when he only wants to inform us that A is in the me, because the relation of the predicate with the subject, that is, X, is possible only in a being, since A denotes some being or other. Let us compare the two syllogisms. Descartes says: "No one can think without existing; but I think; therefore I exist." Fichte says literally what follows: "X is only possible in relation to an A; but X is really supposed in the me; therefore A must also be supposed in the me." There is at bottom no difference at all, and the only difference in form is that which exists between the language of a vain man and that of a sensible man.
At bottom the syllogisms are not different, we repeat it. Descartes' major proposition is: "Whatever thinks exists." He does not prove it, and admits that it cannot be proved. Fichte's major is: "X is possible only in relation to an A," or, in other words, no relation of a predicate with a subject, in so far as it is known, is possible without a being which knows. "X must mark a relation between an unknown supposition of A and an absolute supposition of the same A, at least in so far as that relation is supposed," that is, inasmuch as it is known. And how does Fichte prove a relative supposition to suppose an absolute supposition, that is, a subject in which it is supposed? Like Descartes, he does not prove it at all. There is no relative A without an absolute A; what does not exist cannot think. This is clear and evident; farther than this neither Fichte nor Descartes goes.
Descartes' minor is: "I think;" this he does not prove, but refers to consciousness beyond which he confesses that he cannot pass. Fichte's minor is this: "X is really asserted in the me;" which is equivalent to saying: the relation of the predicate with the subject is really known by the me; and as, according to Fichte himself, the proposition may be selected at pleasure, to say that the relation of the predicate with the subject is known by the me, is the same as to say that any relation whatever is known by the me; which in clearer terms may be expressed thus, I think.