the soul-ground in order to the ascent from one member of the series to the next higher.  It is also distinguished from sensationalism by its teleological point of view.  For no matter how much Fichte, too, may speak of the mechanism of consciousness, it is plain to the reader of the theoretical part of his system not only that he makes this mechanism work in the service of an end, but also that he finds its origin in purposive activity of the ego; while the practical part gives further and decisive confirmation of the fact.  The danger and the defect of such a constructive treatment of psychology—­as we may at once remark for all later attempts—­lies in imagining that the task of mental science has been accomplished and all its problems solved when each particular activity of the ego has been assigned its mission and work for the whole, and its place in the system, without any indication of the means through which this destination can be fulfilled.

%(d) The Practical Ego.%—­The deduction of representation has shown how (through what unconscious acts of the ego) the different stages of cognition, the three sensuous and the three intellectual functions of representation, come into being.  It has proved incapable, however, of giving any account of the way in which the ego comes at one point to arrest its activity, which tends infinitely outward, and to turn it back upon itself.  We know, indeed, that this first limitation, through which sensation arises, and on which as a basis the understanding, by continued reflection constructs the objective world, was necessary in order that consciousness and knowledge might arise.  If the ego did not limit its infinite activity neither representation nor an objective world would exist.  But why, then, are there such things as consciousness, representation, and a world?  From the standpoint of the theoretical ego this problem, “Whence the original non-ego or opposition (Anstoss), which impels the ego back upon itself?” cannot be solved, since it is only through the opposition that it itself arises.  The “deduction of the opposition,” which the theoretical part of the Science of Knowledge did not furnish, is to be looked for from the practical part.  The primacy of practical reason, already emphasized by Kant, gives us the answer:  The ego limits itself and is theoretical, in order to be practical.  The whole machinery of representation and the represented world exists only to furnish us the possibility of fulfilling our duty.  We are intelligence in order that we may be able to be will.

Action, action—­that is the end of our existence.  Action is giving form to matter, it is the alteration or elaboration of an object, the conquest of an impediment, of a limitation.  We cannot act unless we have something in, on, and against which to act.  The world of sensation and intuition is nothing but a means for attaining our ethical destiny, it is “the material of our duty under the form of sense.”