Chapter 13 Volume 3 Faith-1

Terrible elf, your talk is depressing me.But you direct me to myself.If something outside of me could knock me down irreparably, what else would I be?I will obey, oh, I must obey your advice. O my distressed heart, what are you looking for?What is it that makes you indignant against a system of doctrine which my understanding cannot in the slightest dispute? The thing is this: I long for something that exists beyond mere appearance, which exists, has existed, and will exist even if there is no appearance; Make it or change it a bit.Mere appearances, I think, are deceiving reflections; my appearances ought to mean something, but if nothing outside of knowledge corresponds to all my knowledge, I feel that my whole life is cheated.There is nothing anywhere but my appearance—a foolish and ridiculous thought to the natural senses, which no one can really utter, nor need to refute.But to the man who has made a sensible judgment, knowing that it has deep grounds which cannot be refuted by mere reasoning, the thought is a depressing and destructive one.

What is this thing that exists beyond appearances that I am eager to grasp?What is the force with which it breaks into my heart?What is that central point to which it clings in my mind, which can only be removed with the mind? "It is your mission not only to know, but to act on that knowledge."As soon as I concentrated on myself for a moment, the voice resounded strongly in the depths of my soul. "You are not here to meditate on yourself in vain, or to contemplate deep thoughts of piety—no, you are here to act; and your actions, and your actions alone, determine your worth".

This voice leads me beyond appearances, beyond mere knowledge, to something that exists outside knowledge and is diametrically opposed to it, something greater and sublime than all knowledge, and containing the ultimate purpose of knowledge itself.If I were to act, I would undoubtedly know that I was acting and how I would act; but this knowledge is not the act itself, but merely the observation of the act.This voice, therefore, foretells to me exactly what I am looking for, something that exists outside of knowledge and is by its very nature completely independent of knowledge. That's the way it is, and it's what I know firsthand.But I have been engaged in speculation, and the doubts it aroused in me will secretly continue, and now I am uneasy.Since I have put myself in this position, I cannot be fully satisfied unless all that I accept is justified before the speculative court.So, I have to ask myself: how did things come to be like this?Where did that voice within me that guides me beyond the surface come from?

There is in me a disposition towards absolute, independent self-activity.There is nothing more intolerable to me than a life of being simply at the mercy of others, at the service of others, at the mercy of others; I want to be something for myself and of my own accord.As long as I am aware of myself, I feel this disposition; it is inseparably linked with my self-consciousness. I use my thinking to explain to me the feeling of this intention, as if using concepts to install eyes on this blind intention itself.Because of this disposition, I must act as a completely independent creature; this is how I understand and explain this disposition.The ego must be independent.What is the ego?The self is the unity of the subject and the object, the eternal unity of the conscious and the conscious, the intuitive and the intuitive, the thinking and the thinking.As both, I must become what I am by myself, formulate concepts all by myself, create a state of being outside concepts all by myself.But how is the latter possible?I cannot connect being with nothing, and from nothing there can never be anything.My objective thinking must play an intermediary role.But if a being is connected with another, it is just for that reason grounded in the other, and is no longer a fundamental, original, original being, but only a derived one, and I must Connection, I cannot connect with a being.

However, my thinking and formulation of the concept of purpose is absolutely free by its nature, able to create something out of nothing.I must relate my actions to a thought which can be regarded as free and entirely emanating from myself. Therefore, I conceive of my independence as ego in the following way.I think I am capable of formulating concepts because I formulate concepts, and I formulate concepts because I formulate them out of my own unlimited power to exercise power as an intellectual force.Furthermore, I consider myself to be capable of expressing concepts by real actions other than those of them; ability.The concept called the concept of purpose should not, like the concept of cognition, be a mere copy of what already exists, but rather the original of what is to be created; the real force should exist outside the concept and serve as Such power should exist independently; it should derive its determination from concepts only, and knowledge should observe it.Such an independence I feel I do have, according to that disposition.

Here it appears that there is a point at which consciousness of all reality is united; this is the real force of my conceptions and the real power of action by which I am compelled to regard myself as possessed.Regardless of the reality of the perceptual world outside of me, anyway, I myself have reality, I understand reality, it is within me, hidden in me. I imagine this real power of action of mine, but I do not invent it.The immediate feeling of my disposition to act independently is based on this thought; the thought simply reflects this feeling and receives it in its own form—the form of thought.Such an approach might stand trial in a speculative court.

Why, did I deliberately deceive myself again, this practice will not stand up to that severe judgment.