practical philosophy also Kant left much unfinished.  The categorical imperative is susceptible of further deduction, it is not the principle itself, but a conclusion from the true principle, from the injunction to absolute self-dependence on the part of reason; moreover, the nature of our consciousness of the moral law must be more thoroughly discussed, and in order to gain a real, instead of a merely formal, ethics the relation of this law to natural impulse.  Finally, Kant never discussed the foundation of philosophy as a whole, but always separated its theoretical from its practical side, and Reinhold also did nothing to remove this dualism.  In short, some things that Kant only asserted or presupposed can and must be proved, some that he kept distinct must be united.  In what way are both to be accomplished?

Since correct inferences from correct premises yield correct results, and correct inference is easy to secure, everything depends on the correct point of departure.  If we neglect this and consider only the process and the results of inference, there are two consistent systems:  the dogmatic or realistic course of thought, which seeks to derive representations from things; and the idealistic, which, conversely, seeks to derive being from thought.  Now, no matter how consistently dogmatism may proceed (and when it does so it becomes, like the system of Spinoza, materialism and fatalism or determinism, maintaining that all is nature, and all goes on mechanically; treats the spirit as a thing among others, and denies its metaphysical and moral independence, its immateriality and freedom), it may be shown to be false, because it starts from a false principle.  Thought can never be derived from being, because it is not contained therein; from being only being can proceed, and never representation.  Being, however, can be derived from thought, for consciousness is also being; nay, it is more than this, it is conscious being.  And as consciousness contains both being and a knowledge of this being, idealism is superior to realism, because idealism includes the latter as a moment in itself, and hence can explain it, though it is not explicable by it.  Dogmatism makes the mistake of going beyond consciousness or the ego, and working with empty, merely formal concepts.  A concept is empty when nothing actual corresponds to it, or no intuition can be subsumed under it (here it is to be noted that, besides sensuous intuition, there is an intellectual intuition also; an example is found in the ego as a self-intuiting being).  Philosophy, indeed, may abstract and must abstract, must rise above that which is given—­for how could she explain life and particular knowledge if she assumed no higher standpoint than her object?—­but true abstraction is nothing other than the separation of factors which in experience always present themselves together; it analyzes empirical consciousness in order to reconstruct it from its elements, it causes empirical consciousness to arise before our eyes, it is a pragmatic history of consciousness.  Such abstraction, undertaken in order to a genetic consideration of the ego, does not go beyond experience, but penetrates into the depths of experience, is not transcendent, but transcendental, and, since it remains in close touch with that which is intuitable, yields a real philosophy in contrast to all merely formal philosophy.