And this, again, is only
possible by putting them in opposition as correspondent opposites, or
correlatives. In order to this, a something must be affirmed in the
one which is rejected in the other, and this something is the will.
I do not will to consider myself as equal to myself, for in the very
act of constructing myself _I_, I take it as the same, and therefore
as incapable of comparison, that is, of any application of the will.
If, then, I MINUS the will be the THESIS, Thou, PLUS will, must be
the ANTITHESIS, but the equation of Thou with I, by means of a free
act, negativing the sameness in order to establish the equality, is
the true definition of conscience. But as without a Thou there can
be no You, so without a You no They, These, or Those; and as all
these conjointly form the materials and subjects of consciousness and
the conditions of experience, it is evident that conscience is the
root of all consciousness--a fortiori, the precondition of all
experience--and that the conscience cannot have been in its first
revelation deduced from experience.
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