Fichte himself supported the standpoint of this Theory of Science as follows: In every experience there is conjointly an Ego and a thing, the intelligence and its object. Which of these two sides must now be reduced to the other? If the philosopher abstracts the Ego, he has remaining an essentially thing, and must then apprehend his representations or sensations as the products of this object; if he abstracts the object, he has remaining an essentially Ego (an Ego _in itself_). The former is dogmatism, the latter idealism. Both are irreconcilable with each other, and there is no third way possible. We must therefore choose between the two. In order to decide between the two systems, we must note the following: (1) That the Ego appears in consciousness, wherefore the essentially thing is a pure invention, since in consciousness we have only that which is perceived; (2) Dogmatism must account for the origin of its representation through some essentially object, it must start from something which does not lie in the consciousness. But the effect of being is only being, and not representation. Hence idealism alone can be correct which does not start from being, but from intelligence. According to idealism, intelligence is only active, not passive, because it is a first and absolute: and on this account there belongs to it no being, but simply an acting. The forms of this acting, the system of the necessary mode in which intelligence acts, must be found from the essence of intelligence. If we should take the laws of intelligence from experience, as Kant did his categories, we fail in two respects: (1) We do not see why intelligence must so act, nor whether these laws are immanent laws of intelligence; (2) We do not see how the object itself originates. Hence the fundamental principles of intelligence, as well as the objective world, must be derived from the Ego itself.