[Literature] Johann Gottlieb Fichte: Facts of Consciousness #8/65

But the natural philosopher, even if the plant falls within his sphere of vision, may either see or not see it, as he chooses; for he may fill up the same time of his life with other thoughts. If he chooses to see and observe it, he does so by a free act, and perhaps even by an exertion to tear himself away from his other free thoughts, collecting himself for the purpose of observation: all of which does not occur in the child's mind, since to the child diversion is not possible, as it does not yet possess the diverting power: imagination. Moreover, the child is forced to accept the appearance of the plant as it may chance to present itself, observing particularly parts, which are prominent, by reason of their strength of expression or unusualness, leaving perhaps unnoticed other parts that are not so prominent; whereas the natural philosopher may guide his observation by a certain order, dwelling upon certain parts until he is quite conscious that he has seen them correctly, &c.;—in short, his observation owes its existence as well as its direction to considerate freedom, whilst in the child both the existence and the direction of its observation result from the child's present standpoint of sensuous development.

6. Remarks.—a. I have described external perception as a condition wherein consciousness has causality through its mere existence, and the new character added to it by reflection as a power to check that outflowing of causality, and constitute life a principle through a possible free deed. As an illustration of the first condition, I have pointed to the child in the first moments of its life. In grown-up men such condition should never arise again, nor ever be observed by him in himself. But there does arise a similar condition, in a certain sick state of the mind, which belongs to the province of psychology, and hence does not interest us here as such, but which we may also make use of as an illustration. Namely: a person may accustom himself, particularly if impelled by violent passions, to a free and aimless imagining (or constructing through free imagination as described above) to such an extent that this flow of his imagination begins to flow without any free act of his, altogether of itself, and that thus his sick condition begins to have causality in his imagination through its mere existence, just like the natural condition of the child in its early perception. If a sickness of this kind begins to get such a deep root as to render altogether impossible, in the checking of that flow, a direction of attention to external perception, and an oppositing of external perception to that flow of imagining: it is called Insanity.

Now if such a person were to receive sufficient power forever to check that free flow of his imagination, he would then have himself a free principle in regard to that independent and all-devouring power of imagination; just as, in our first description, consciousness rose from its first stage, and made itself a free principle in regard to the independent external perception, which devoured all its being.

b. One more remark on the distinction of free attention from that external perception which forces itself upon the mind. For the latter it is necessary that consciousness should have causality through its mere being. This causality it retains evermore, and it is cancelled by no freedom. The flow of external perception continues to flow even for the free person, since he also keeps his senses open. It is only upon his consciousness that that causality has no immediate influence; the flow, however it flows, does not take hold of his consciousness necessarily. If it is to take hold of it he must voluntarily surrender himself to it; he must voluntarily put his consciousness into that state of having immediate causality. If you call external perception x, then in the condition of that perception, xis the centre beginning and end of that whole consciousness; it cannot not be. But in the condition of attention this xhas been all through penetrated with freedom; its existence as well as its duration is product of freedom.

Let us now approach an analysis of consciousness as it is in reflection, which we could not possibly undertake before. It has two components:

1. Contemplation.—This has been described before as an immediate consciousness of selfhood, of its condition as well as of its faculty. But now we describe it with still greater exactness as follows: contemplation is that kind of knowledge which results immediately from the being of freedom.