cate (blue) is accidental, and not implied in the subject, board. If we affirm of a circle that it is equi-radial, the predicate indeed is implied in the definition of the subject; but the existence of the subject itself is contingent, and supposes both a cause and a percipient. The same reasoning will apply to the indefinite number of supposed indemonstrable truths exempted from the profane approach of philosophic investigation by the amiable Beattie, and other less eloquent and not more profound inaugu rators of common sense on the throne of philosophy; a fruitless attempt, were it only that it is the two-fold function of philosophy to reconcile reason with common sense, and to elevate common sense into reason.

THESIS V.

Such a principle can not be any THING or OBJECT. Each thing is what it is in consequence of some other thing. An infinite, independent thing, is no less a contradiction, than an infinite circle or a sideless triangle. Besides a thing is that, which is capable of being an object of which itself is not the sole percipient. But an object is inconceivable without a subject as its antithesis. Omne perceptum percipientem supponit.

:

But neither can the principle be found in a subject as a sub ject, contra-distinguished from an object for unicuique percipienti aliquid objicitur perceptum. It is to be found, therefore, neither in object nor subject taken separately, and consequently, as no other third is conceivable, it must be found in that which is neither subject nor object exclusively, but which is the identity of both.

THESIS VI.

This principle, and so characterized, manifests itself in the SUM or I AM; which I shall hereafter indiscriminately express by the words spirit, self, and self-consciousness. In this, and in this alone, object and subject, being and knowing, are identical,

* The impossibility of an absolute thing (substantia unica) as neither genus, species, nor individuum: as well as its utter unfitness for the fundamental position of a philosophic system, will be demonstrated in the critique on Spinozism in the fifth treatise of my Logosophia. [This is the great phi osophical work, to preparations for which Mr. C. devoted so much time and thought during his latter years.-S. C.]

each involving and supposing the other. In other words, it is a subject which becomes a subject by the act of constructing itself objectively to itself; but which never is an object except for itself, and only so far as by the very same act it becomes a subject. It may be described, therefore, as a perpetual self-duplication of one and the same power into object and subject, which pre-suppose each other, and can exist only as antitheses.

SCHOLIUM. If a man be asked how he knows that he is? he can only answer, sum quia sum. But if (the absoluteness of this certainty having been admitted) he be again asked, how he the individual person, came to be, then in relation to the ground of his existence, not to the ground of his knowledge of that exist. ence, he might reply, sum quia Deus est, or still more philosophically, sum quia in Deo sum.

But if we elevate our conception to the absolute self, the great eternal I AM, then the principle of being, and of knowledge, of idea, and of reality; the ground of existence, and the ground of the knowledge of existence, are absolutely identical, Sum quia sum ;† I am, because I affirm myself to be; I affirm myself to be, because I am.

* [“The I is nothing separate from its thinking;—the thinking of the I and the I itself are absolutely one; the I, therefore, in general, is nothing out of thinking, consequently no thing, no matter, but to all infinity the non-objective. The I is certainly an object, but only for itself; it is not therefore originally in the world of objects. It first becomes an object by making itself an object, and it becomes an object not for something without, but ever for itself alone." Transsc. Id. Transl. pp. 47-8.—S. C.]

It is most worthy of notice, that in the first revelation of himself, not confined to individuals; indeed in the very first revelation of his absolute being, Jehovah at the same time revealed the fundamental truth of all philosophy, which must either commence with the absolute, or have no fixed commencement; that is, cease to be philosophy. I can not but express my regret, that in the equivocal use of the word that, for in that, or because, our admirable version has rendered the passage susceptible of a degraded interpretation in the mind of common readers or hearers, as if it were a mere reproof to an impertinent question, I am what I am, which might be equally affirmed of himself by any existent being.

The Cartesian Cogito ergo sum' is objectionable, because either the Cogito is used extra gradum, and then it is involved in the sum and is tautological; or it is taken as a particular mode or dignity, and then it is subordinated

1 [Principia Philosophia. Pars Prima, ppgh. vi. and x. See also De Methodo, iv. pp. 18-19, edit. 1664.—S. C.]

P*

ness.

THESIS VII.*

If then I know myself only through myself, it is contradictory to require any other predicate of self, but that of self-conscious. Only in the self-consciousness of a spirit is there the required identity of object and of representation; for herein consists the essence of a spirit, that it is self-representative. If, therefore, this be the one only immediate truth, in the certainty of which the reality of our collective knowledge is grounded, it must follow that the spirit in all the objects which it views, views only itself. If this could be proved, the immediate reality of all intuitive knowledge would be assured. It has been shown, that a spirit is that, which is its own object, yet not originally an object, but an absolute subject for which all, itself included, may to the sum as the species to the genus, or rather as a particular modification to the subject modified; and not pre-ordinated as the arguments seem to require. For Cogito is Sum Cogitans. This is clear by the inevidence of the converse. Cogitat, ergo est is true, because it is a mere application of the logical rule: Quicquid in genere est, est et in specie. Est (cogitans), ergo est. It is a cherry-tree; therefore it is a tree. But, est ergo cogitat, is illogical: for quod est in specie, non NECESSARIO in genere est. It may be true. I hold it to be true, that quicquid vere est, est per veram sui affirmationem; but it is a derivative, not an immediate truth. Here then we have, by anticipation, the distinction between the conditional finite I (which, as known in distinct consciousness by occasion of experience, is called by Kant's followers the empirical I) and the absolute I AM, and likewise the dependence or rather the inherence of the former in the latter; in whom we live, and move, and have our being," as St. Paul divinely asserts, dif fering widely from the Theists of the mechanic school (as Sir I. Newton, Locke, and others) who must say from whom we had our being, and with 't life and the powers of life.

* [The contents of Theses VII. VIII. may be found scattered about in Schelling's Abhandlungen, Phil. Schrift. 223-4-5. Only the sentences at the end of Thesis VII. from “ Again, the spirit,” to the end, I do not find formally expressed in Schelling's treatise, with the exception of the words, "identity of object and subject." At pp. 223-4 Schelling says, "In regard t: every other object I am obliged to ask how the being of the same is brought into connection (vermittelt) with my representation. But originally I am not any thing that exists for a knowing subject, out of myself, as matter does, but I exist for myself; in me is the original identity of subject and object, of knowing and of being." See also how this doctrine is applied in the TRANSCENDENTAL IDEALISM, p. 63.

The last sentence of Thesis VIII. I have not met with in Schelling.S. C.]

become an object. It must, therefore, be an ACT; for every ob ject is, as an object, dead, fixed, incapable in itself of any action, and necessarily finite. Again the spirit (originally the identity of object and subject) must in some sense dissolve this identity, in order to be conscious of it; fit alter et idem. But this implies an act, and it follows, therefore, that intelligence or self-consciousness is impossible, except by and in a will. The self-conscious spirit, therefore, is a will; and freedom must be assumed as a ground of philosophy, and can never be deduced from it.

THESIS VIII.

Whatever in its origin is objective, is likewise as such necessarily finite. Therefore, since the spirit is not originally an object, and as the subject exists in antithesis to an object, the spirit can not originally be finite. But neither can it be a subject without becoming an object, and, as it is originally the identity of both, it can be conceived neither as infinite nor finite exclusively, but as the most original union of both. In the existence, in the reconciling, and the recurrence of this contradiction consists the process and mystery of production and life.

THESIS IX.

This principium commune essendi et cognoscendi, as subsisting in a WILL, or primary ACT of self-duplication, is the mediate or indirect principle of every science; but it is the immediate and direct principle of the ultimate science alone, i. e. of transcendental philosophy alone. For it must be remembered, that all these Theses refer solely to one of the two Polar Sciences, namely, to that which commences with, and rigidly confines itself within, the subjective, leaving the objective (as far as it is exclusively objective) to natural philosophy, which is its opposite pole. In its very idea therefore as a systematic knowledge of our collective KNOWING (Scientia scientiæ) it involves the necessity of some one highest principle of knowing, as at once the source and the accompanying form in all particular acts of intellect and perception.* This, it has been shown, can be found only in the act

* [Schelling says in the Transsc. Id. pp. 25-6 that, "if there is a system of knowledge the principle of the same must lie within the knowing itself;' that "this principle can be the only one" and that it is the mediate or in

and evolution of self-consciousness. We are not investigating an absolute principium essendi; for then, I admit, many valid objections might be started against our theory; but an absolute principium cognoscendi.* The result of both the sciences, or their equatorial point, would be the principle of a total and undivided philosophy, as, for prudential reasons, I have chosen to anticipate in the Scholium to Thesis VI. and the note subjoined. In other words, philosophy would pass into religion, and religion become inclusive of philosophy. We begin with the I KNOW MYSELF, in order to end with the absolute I AM. We proceed from the SELF, in order to lose and find all self in GOD.

THESIS X.t

The transcendental philosopher does not inquire, what ultimate ground of our knowledge there may lie out of our knowing, but what is the last in our knowing itself, beyond which we can not pass. The principle of our knowing is sought within the sphere of our knowing. It must be something, therefore, which can itself be known. It is asserted only, that the act of self-consciousness is for us the source and principle of all our possible knowledge. Whether abstracted from us there exists any thing higher

direct principle of the science of knowing or transcendental philosophy."— S. C.]

* [This sentence We are not investigating," &c., is in the Transsc. Id. p. 27.-S. C.]

[Thesis X. as far as the words "farthest that exist for us" is taken from pp. 27-28 of the Transcendental Idealism;—the remainder of the second paragraph, as far as the words "will or intelligence" from p. 29, with the exception of some explanatory sentences. Schelling's words in the last passage from which Mr. Coleridge has borrowed, are as follows: "To go yet further, it may be shown, and has already been shown in part (Introd. § 1) that even when the objective is arbitrarily placed as the first, still we never go beyond self-consciousness. We are then in our explanations either driven back into the infinite, from the grounded to the ground; or we must arbitrarily break off the series by setting up an Absolute, which of itself is cause and effect-subject and object; and since this originally is possible only through self-consciousness-by again putting a self-consciousness as a First; this takes place in natural philosophy, for which Being is not more original than it is for transcendental philosophy, and which places the Reality in an Absolute, which is of itself cause and effect-in the absolute identity of the subjective and objective which we name Nature, and which again in its highest power is no other than self-consciousness." Transl.-S. C.]