Every judgment implies identity of the predicate and the subject; but in the proposition: _me_ is _me_, the identity is not only implied but explicitly asserted; for which reason, the proposition belongs to the class of what are termed identical propositions, because its predicate explains nothing concerning the idea of the subject, but only repeats it. Whence then does Fichte deduce that the _me_ exists because it has supposed itself? So far we have only the _me_ saying: _me is me_; it affirms itself and thus _supposes_ itself as subject and predicate of a proposition: but it is clearer than day-light that to _suppose by affirming_ is altogether different from _supposing by producing_: on the contrary, common sense and reason alike teach that the existence of the thing affirmed is necessary to the legitimacy of the affirmation. To confound these two ideas, to consider it the same thing to _affirm_ as to _suppose by producing_, is an inconceivable absurdity.[53] [53] Here, as elsewhere, in the examination of Fichte's system, I have translated the German word _setzen_ and the Spanish _poner_ by the verb _to suppose_. Had I known any better word I should have used it, but I think this sufficiently explains the philosopher's meaning. I have also found the French word _poser_ which exactly corresponds to it, and which M. Cousin uses in his sketch of Fichte's system, translated _suppose_ by Mr. Ripley, in the _Specimens of Foreign Literature_.--TRANSLATOR. 133. Explaining this in a note, Fichte adds what follows: "It is also certainly so according to the logical form of every proposition. In the proposition A = A, the first A is that which is supposed in the _me_ either absolutely as the _me_ itself, or on any other ground as every determined _not-me_. In this case the _me_ represents the absolute subject, and hence the first A is called the subject. The second A denotes what the _me_, which takes itself as the object of reflection, finds as _supposed_ in itself because it has first supposed it in itself. The judging _me_ predicates something, not properly of A, but of itself, namely, that it finds an A in itself; and hence the second A is called the predicate. So in the proposition: A = B, A denotes that which is supposed now; B that which is found already supposed. _It_ represents the transition of the _me_ from the act of supposing to the reflection on that which is supposed."