Hence, if you only properly understand the mechanism of this work of art, you will not need at all, as we assumed at first, to observe one part of the machinery after the other in actual perception, but after you have seen and correctly comprehended the one part, you can by its means supply all the others without actually perceiving them; you can replace them by mere conclusions from the construction of the one part, and these mere conclusions will show you all the other parts needed for the completion of the machinery.

R. Undoubtedly.

A. Is it all the same for this purpose what particular piece of machinery I give to you for examination?

R. All the same, for all the others must fit each possible piece; hence from each possible part it is possible to conclude how all the others must be constructed, in so far as they are to be determined through the mere mechanism of the work.

A. Now assume the possible case, that—in respect to a certain sphere, and to a certain extent, which this is not the place to define more closely—there is, in the manifold parts of the above-described fundamental determinations of all consciousness, such a connection, similar to the mechanical one just pointed out, and that hence each separate part of that manifold object must fit to and be determined by all other parts, and vice versa. In that case, would it not be possible to discover, by means of mere conclusions drawn from each separate part of actual consciousness, how all other consciousness must be—although that other consciousness do not become actual—precisely as you held yourself able to state from your observation of one wheel the construction of all others, although not actually observing them?

Assume, moreover, that philosophy, or, if you prefer, the science of knowledge, consists in this very hunting up of the manifold elements of consciousness, by means of conclusions drawn from the given to the construction of the not-given, and you have already a very clear conception of that science. That science is the demonstration, or the deduction, of all consciousness, of course in its primary and fundamental determinations, from some given determination of actual consciousness; precisely as you undertook a demonstration or deduction of the whole watch from one of its given wheels. That science is a demonstration of this consciousness utterly independent of actual perception in consciousness; precisely as you need not actually perceive all the other parts of the watch in order to know how they are, and necessarily must be, in actuality, if the watch is properly constructed.

R. Very true, if I reflect only in a superficial manner on what you say, and accept the comparison without objecting. But if I reflect closer, your conception appears to me to be self-contradictory. The science of knowledge, you say, furnishes me with a consciousness of the fundamental determination of my consciousness, without these determinations actually occurring in consciousness. How is that possible? Do I not become conscious of what the science of knowledge teaches?

A. Undoubtedly; precisely as you become conscious of the wheels, the existence whereof in the machine you assert from a mere conclusion, but not conscious, as if you saw or felt them. It ought to have become clear to you ere this, that there is a distinction in the modes of becoming conscious. I shall define them more clearly after a while, for the purpose of our investigation. At present, let not this deter you from accepting our assumption.

R. Truly, I have no great desire to go on and investigate what might result if the merely possible should become actual, or the impossible possible; and your presupposition of a systematic connection amongst the fundamental determinations of our consciousness seems, indeed, to belong to these impossibilities.

A. I trust I shall be able to remove your objections to the impossibility of my presupposition. For the present, please draw only one conclusion with me from that assumption—a conclusion which I cannot too speedily draw for the sake of annihilating misunderstandings of another description, and of removing their secret effects upon your mind.

If you examine a separate piece of the watch, and proceed to draw your conclusions according to the well-known laws of mechanics as to the construction of the other necessary parts, in order to give to that one part, which you actually perceive, the whole determinateness which you perceive belongs to it, do you, in this your function of drawing conclusions, actually see and feel, or perceive with your external senses, those other parts?

R. By no means.

Klick #11