Johann Gottlieb Fichte

“ 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 only a Schema of the Schema. The required Being is not yet realized.
I shall be. Who is this I? Evidently that which is,—the Ego given in Intuition,—the Individual. This shall be.
What does its Being signify? It is given as a Principle in the World of Sense. Blind Instinct is indeed annihilated, and in its place there now stands the clearly perceived Shall. ”

“ Only through blind Instinct, in which the only possible guidance of the Imperative is awanting, does the Power in Intuition remain undetermined; where it is schematized as absolute it becomes infinite; and where it is presented in a determinate form, as a principle, it becomes at least manifold. By the above-mentioned act of Intelligizing, the Power liberates itself from Instinct, to direct itself towards Unity. ”

“ It is obvious that the position in which the Power gives itself up wholly to the contemplation of the Material World and is exhausted therein, is distinct from that in which it becomes cognizant of its Instinct towards activity in this previously recognised World;—that nevertheless there remains, even in the latter position, a Schema of present and necessary Existence, in order that it may be possible for the Instinct to enter into relations with such Existence:—and this forms the connexion between these two separate and distinct positions of Intuition. ”

“ I might say:—Every Individual can and must, under the given condition, construct the True World of Sense;—for this indeed has, beyond the universal and formal laws above deduced, no other Truth and Reality than this universal harmony. ”

“ Should the Power, by means of this Instinct and the consequent appearance of self-determination, perceive itself as in a state of real activity, then, in the perception of this activity, it would be associated with the Material World in the same undivided Form of Intuition; and hence in this Intuition, thus uniting it with the Material World, it would perceive itself as a material existence in a double relation to the Material World:—partly as Sense, that it might feel the relation of that world to its Instinct,—partly as Organism, that it might contemplate its own activity therein. ”

“ Since neither the Power itself as such, nor the Divine Life, is schematized in Intuition, by which indeed there is first introduced the practical possibility of such schematizing, it is clear that there is nothing left remaining in Intuition but the mere Form of Power as given in its immediate expression. ”

“ This Being out of God cannot, by any means, be a limited, completed, and inert Being, since God himself is not such a dead Being, but, on the contrary, is Life;—but it can only be a Power, since only a Power is the true formal picture or Schema of Life. ”

“ If it shall recognise itself as a Power to which an unconditional Imperative is addressed, it must, previous to this definite recognition, have also recognised itself generally as a Principle;—and since it can only recognise itself by means of its own self-development, it must necessarily develop itself before being able to recognise itself immediately as the Principle in this development. ”

“ It is (§ V.) a Power of Contemplation,—and that indeed without direction towards the one Divine Life, which from this standing-point remains concealed;—an undefined, wholly indeterminate, and yet absolute Power,—and hence an Infinite. It therefore schematizes itself as contemplating an infinity in one glance:—Space ”