Charles Carroll Everett

“ If we have done what the law forbids, we have the reproach of conscience, which reveals to us the fact that we have done wrong. If our act is in conformity to the law, we have a sense of peace, which perhaps is the first intimation that we have done right. Thus it is the act that has given a content to the law, while it was freely seeking to conform itself to the law. Thus, the problem that seemed to admit of no solution is solved. The law, through the act itself, determines the act. The act is now known to be right or wrong, through the evidence which its very existence has brought with it ”

“ Thus the act has determined the law, by giving to it a definite content. Freedom has not been violated, because the law first determined the act after its commission. The absoluteness of the law has not been violated, for it was by its spontaneous and unreasoned judgment that it pronounced the act right or wrong.
We have thus expressed, in its highest form, the possibility of perfect harmony in the nature, and the goal toward which the infinite striving of the nature tends. We cannot, indeed, consciously work toward an end which is infinitely removed. ”

“ We see here how the unconscious act of freedom on the part of the subject gives rise to the recognition of what we call the accident of the object. The limit at C is merely felt, and not perceived. As we have seen, however, the I freely posits this limit, and what is thus posited must be a matter of perception and not of feeling. There is, however, no relation between feeling and perception. Perception sees, but it is merely empty and formal. Feeling is related to reality, but it is blind. Yet the two must be united by some form of synthesis. ”

“ We have only the world of thought and the world of feeling. It is from the world of feeling that the ideal activity of the I, under the form of the productive imagination, constructs the objective world. We have further to recognize the fact that, though terms are often used by Fichte that would imply a real change in the objective world—and, indeed, such language cannot be avoided—yet really the only world with which we have to do is that of consciousness. ”

“ This is obvious from the nature of all feeling. It is the nature of the I to be both subject and object. However the fact may be concealed by the appearance of externality in any object of consciousness, the I can, in reality, have no object but itself. In the case before us, this semblance of objectivity does not exist. The I is conscious of itself as itself. It is conscious of its own striving toward an end which cannot be accomplished. This striving is something which is bound up in the very nature of the I. It is the impulse that represents its essential activity. ”

“ Since each appeals only to his own feeling, how do we know that the sensations are similar? How do we know that sugar produces a like taste in all? We associate the sugar with a fixed taste which is purely subjective, but which, by this determination, we have made objective. In other words, we give objective validity to our subjective sensation. What is an accident of ourselves, we make into an accident of a thing which lies outside ourselves. ”

“ The longing of the I looks for some result in the real world; reality manifests itself to the I only through a feeling; thus the longing is directed toward a feeling. The I has already a feeling which we will call X. The feeling X is not the longed-for feeling; if it were, the I would not feel itself limited, and would not be conscious of a longing; indeed, would not be conscious of itself at all, for consciousness springs only from the sense of limit. The desired feeling is just the opposite of X, namely —X. The object which corresponds to the feeling X we will call x ”

“ The more definite form under which the ideal perfection may be imaged, is that of harmony. In order that there may be harmony, two elements must exist, and each of these must have a certain completeness and unity. Each must be free; that is, each must be self-determined. Each, also, must determine and be determined by the other. This tendency of each of the two elements to absolute determination—that is, to determine itself and the other also—may be obviously the source of discord. We have often conflict instead of harmony. ”

“ All this shows that what we call matter is the product of the imagination. Yet we consider it something wholly external, and with right, because all agree in the recognition of it, and the production of it takes place according to a universal law of reason. ”

“ Two things are needed for consciousness; namely, a sense of fixedness and that, of freedom; for consciousness is only possible through contrast, and this contrast demands something fixed and something changeable. ”

“ Touch, in general, reaches only to the surface of a body, and gives us a sense of roughness or smoothness, of cold or warmth, and the like. Why do we extend the cold or warmth over the whole surface, and, especially, why do we extend it in our thought to the interior of the body which is unapproachable by us? ”

“ We have, in what follows, an explanation of the longing for change, which is very important in the study of the thought of Fichte. We have before seen that the I in contemplating the object applies the same test that it applies in thinking. The object, like the subject, must be a unit; therefore, it must be limited. X can only be really limited when it has given place to Y. So long as we contemplate X alone, the longing grows out of the impossibility of determination, owing to lack of limit. So soon as the other feeling arises, the limiting of X is possible, and really occurs. ”

“ When the I beholds itself, it does not seek to modify itself. It has a concept of itself which it regards as true. It has a real image of the self which it regards. The self which it beholds it finds to be both the determiner and the determined. It is what it is through its own nature. It is, therefore, an individual, and distinct from all else. This individual it calls the I.
When it turns to the external world, it would stand in the same relation to it as to itself. ”

“ As has been often stated, the activity of the I is regarded by Fichte as purely ideal. It is an activity of consciousness. Through the whole discussion we have to do with nothing except consciousness, and the content of consciousness. The demand of the I is for completeness in every object of its contemplation. It contemplates itself, and demands completeness here. ”

“ We thus reach, from a different point of view, the idea of matter, which serves us as a substratum upon which may be overlaid our sensations, as we, in the manner described, give to them an existence extra mentem. That matter is a creation of our own thought might have been suspected from the fact that we make no other use of it than that which has been described. If it is anything really outside of us, we should come to the knowledge of it by some one of the senses. ”

“ Since the imagination can posit the possibility of other objects, with other spheres of activity, in the space x or y, it separates space from the objects that fill it, and gives thus the idea of empty space. ”

“ Because the I demands totality for itself, it demands totality for its object; for only by possessing this will the object be its mirror. Totality in the object is, however, as impossible as totality in the Me. In order that an object should be indeed an object of consciousness, it must, as we have seen, possess two characteristics. It must be self-identical, and it must be limited. This limit must arise from some other object with which it stands in contrast. ”

“ All is shifting and uncertain. We need another form of relation, according to which this fluctuation is impossible. The I may still be free to connect what object it will with any given point, but its selection once made, it must abide by it.
This form of relation is what we know as time. In time there is this mingled freedom and constraint. We may put what content we will into any moment, but the content once put into it is there forever. Let e be one point in time; we may put into it the content X. This content is purely accidental, so far as this point is concerned. ”

“ All space is, however, alike, and there is no distinction possible, except under the condition that already a thing—namely, Y—is posited in a certain place, and that, therefore, we are forced to say of X that it is in a different place. All space distinctions imply space already filled. Place A in the infinite empty space, and you cannot answer the question where it is; for you have no point of measurement or departure. A could move ceaselessly in space, without our perceiving it. But as soon as B is placed in the neighborhood of A, we have some starting point. ”

“ We will regard them, so far as they are objects of perception, in space and time. Here, as before, we find that the peculiar characteristics of X are not due to Y, and the reverse. They simply serve to make perception possible, by means of the distinction of one from the other. The perception of X is, in some way, dependent upon that of Y. All the relation that we suppose to exist between them is that of mutual exclusion. There must, however, be for both some sort of determination, by which they can stand to one another in the relation described. ”

“ This, in a purely theoretical aspect, is what science is striving to accomplish. It would attain to the idea of a cosmos in which all the elements are mutually determining. This is the end which, practically, we seek in life. We demand that each of the elements that enter into it should be complemental to all the rest, so that we should have nothing further to wish for. ”

“ But the senses give us merely subjective sensation. This mutter is neither seen, nor tasted, nor smelled. Some one unused to abstract thought may suggest that it is known to us by the sense of touch, through the resistance that it offers. ”

“ We have in each ball an activity that fails of its end. We have thus in each a striving such as we found in the I. But now comes the great difference which we have elsewhere recognized. The lifeless body has no causality except outside itself. If this causality fails, it fails altogether. The I, on the other hand, has also a causality in relation to itself. Its nature is to posit itself, to reflect upon itself. The activity, then, which fails to produce the outward result, produces an inner result. If it cannot produce an act. it must produce a feeling. ”

“ This activity is one which has no complete object, but yet is irresistibly driven to pursue an object. [3] The I cannot fully picture to itself this object, and thus recognize it under its perfect ideal form. The pressure of this inward force, so far as its origin and its end are concerned, is thus unconscious, but it manifests itself to consciousness in its actual existence. The feeling which corresponds to this striving is that of longing. By longing is meant an impulse toward something imperfectly known ”

“ If it were removed, the equipoise would be disturbed, and the I, losing all power of reflection, would cease to be an I. It is not the fact, but the form of this material element, which the longing would have changed. If the world could be somewhat differently arranged, we feel that we should be satisfied. A readjustment is all that we desire. ”

“ It may. indeed, be illustrated by the pursuit of completeness by science. Science must see A as conditioned by B, and B by C, and so on forever; thus science has an endless quest for a result which it is constantly approaching, but which it can never reach. Fichte, however, refers primarily to what we regard as the real and practical relations of life. ”

“ This change of the subjective to the objective may be illustrated by the simplest sensations. What we call sweet or sour, red or yellow, no one will deny to be purely subjective. We can only say, I have such or such a sensation. But others claim also to have the sensation of sweet or sour, and the rest. ”