A consciousness, which generates itself, and which yet is not the actual consciousness of which we all have possession?
A. Of course: for actual consciousness does not systematically generate itself, its manifold being connected by mere chance. That consciousness which generates itself under the observation of the philosopher is merely an image of actual consciousness.
R. An image which generates itself? I utterly cease to understand you, and I am sure I shall not understand you until you have given me a short sketch of your procedure.
A. Very well. The presupposition, from which we start, is this: that the final and highest result of consciousness, or that to which all its manifold is related as the condition to the conditioned, or as the wheels, springs, and chains in the watch are related to the hand, is nothing else than clear and complete self-consciousness, as you and I and all of us are conscious of ourselves. I say, you and I and all of us, and thereby exclude, in conformity with a previous remark, all that is purely individual, which cannot enter our system at all according to our presupposition. That, which you ascribe to your self alone, and not to me, or I only to me and not to you, remains excluded; except that you do so ascribe something exclusively to your self and I to my self and each one to his Self.
Now, this result—that complete self-consciousness is the highest and final result of all consciousness—is, as we have said, a mere presupposition, which awaits its confirmation from the system. From this self-consciousness, in its fundamental determination, the deduction begins.
R. In its fundamental determination? What does that mean?
A. In regard to that, which in it is not at all determined by any other consciousness, and which can, therefore, not be found in the deduction, but from which, on the contrary, the deduction must proceed. The presupposition is, that the manifold of consciousness contains the conditions of complete self-consciousness. Nevertheless, there may be somewhat in this self-consciousness which is not conditioned by anything else. This somewhat is to be established, and from it the deduction proceeds.
R. But how do you find it?
A. Likewise, only by a happy hit, but as somewhat, which when once found, needs and requires no further proof, but is immediately self-evident.
R. Abstaining for the present from all inquiry as to this immediate self-evidence itself, tell me, what is it in this somewhat which is thus immediately self-evident?
A. That it is the absolutely unconditioned and the characteristic of self-consciousness.
R. I shall not be able to understand you, until you tell me what this unconditioned and characteristic of self-consciousness is, which is thus self-evident.
A. It is the Ego-hood, the subject-objectivity, and nothing else whatsoever, the positing of the subjective and of its objective, of consciousness and of the object of consciousness as one and the same, and as absolutely nothing but this its identity.
R. I know from various sources, that people generally consider you very incomprehensible, and, moreover, very ridiculous in your views on this first point, which you must, nevertheless, hold to be altogether clear and comprehensible, since all your reasoning starts from it. Be good enough, therefore, to furnish me some means by which I can make it clearer to those others, in case they should ask me about it; unless, indeed, such an explanation belongs rather to the Science of Knowledge proper, and not to a mere statement of its nature.
A. It certainly belongs to this statement, for it is the previously mentioned common point of the Science of Knowledge and of actual consciousness, from which the former rises above the latter. Whosoever is to receive a perfectly clear conception of this science must know the point from which it starts, and this conception is the very thing which our statement proposes to create.
But what people say about not having understood us on that point belongs to the absolutely incomprehensible; for every child, that has but ceased to speak of itself in the third person and calls itself "I," has already realized that point, and can, therefore, understand us.
I shall have to repeat what I have said already several times. Think something: for instance, the book you hold in your hand. You can doubtless become conscious of the book as the object of your thought, and of yourself as the thinking. Do you appear to yourself as being one and the same with the book, or as another?
R. Doubtless, as another, I shall never mistake myself for the book.
A.