74. These considerations destroy the very foundations of the system of Fichte, and that of all who take the human me as their point of departure on the voyage of science. The me, in itself, is not presented to us; we know it only by its acts; and herein it participates of a quality of other objects, the essence of which is not immediately offered to us, but only what emanates from it by the exercise of their activity upon us. Thus guided by objective and necessary truths, which are the laws of our understanding, the type of the relations of beings, and consequently a sure standard of them, we ascend by reasoning to the cognition of things themselves. We know that our mind is simple, because it thinks, whereas the composite, the multiplex cannot think. It is thus we know the _me_. We are conscious of its thinking activity, and this is the material furnished by the fact, but then comes the principle, the objective truth to illumine the fact, and show the repugnance between thought and composition, and the necessary connection between simplicity and consciousness. Upon examination, this reasoning will be found to apply not only to the _me_, but to every thinking being; and this is why we can extend our demonstration to all such beings: the _me_, therefore, which applies this truth, does not create, it only knows it, and knows itself to be a particular case comprised in the general rule. 75. To pretend that truth has its source in the subjective _me_, is to begin by supposing the _me_ to be an absolute, infinite being, the origin of all truths, and the reason of all beings; which is equivalent to making philosophy commence by deifying the human understanding. But as one individual has no more right to this deification than another, to admit it is to establish a rational pantheism, which, as we shall hereafter see, is nearly, if not quite, identical with absolute pantheism.