Few philosophers have toiled harder than Fichte after this absolute principle; and yet, to speak plainly, he accomplishes nothing; he either repeats Descartes' principle, or amuses himself with a play upon words. We feel pity at seeing him labor so earnestly to so little purpose. We beg the reader to follow us with patience in our examination of the German philosopher's doctrine, not with the hope of finding a thread to serve as a clue to the Dædalus of philosophy, but in order to judge, with a knowledge of the cause, doctrines which have made so much noise in the world. "If this principle," says Fichte, "is absolutely the first, it can neither be defined nor demonstrated. It must express the act, which neither is nor can be presented among the empirical determinations of our consciousness, but rather lies at the bottom of all consciousness, and alone makes consciousness possible."[4] [4] _Wissenschaftslehre, Th. 1, § 1_. Without any antecedent, or any reason, without even taking the trouble to show on what he bases it, Fichte assures us that the first principle must express an act. Why may it not be an objective truth? This, at least, would have deserved some attention, for all preceding schools, the Cartesian included, located the first principle among objective truths, not among acts. Descartes himself needed an objective truth in order to establish the fact of thought and existence. "Whoever thinks exists," or, in other words, "whoever does not exist cannot think." 80. This last remark shows one of the radical vices affecting the doctrine of Fichte and other Germans, who attribute an altogether unmerited importance to subjective philosophy. They accuse others of too easily making the transition from the subject to the object, but forget that they, at the same time pass, unauthorised by any reason or title, from objective thought to the pure subject. Confining ourselves to the passage of Fichte just cited, what, we ask, will an act be which neither is nor can be presented among the empirical determinations of our consciousness? The principle in question is not exempted from being known because it is absolute; for if we do not know it, we cannot assert that it is absolute; and if it is not, and cannot be presented among the empirical determinations of our consciousness, it neither is nor can be known. Man knows not that which is not present in his consciousness. The absolute principle upon which all consciousness rests, and which makes it possible, either does or does not belong to consciousness. If the former, it is liable to all the difficulties affecting the other acts of consciousness; if the latter, it cannot be the object of observation, and therefore we can know nothing of it.