Again, another sentence of J. G. Fichte’s may be quoted which brings this fact clearly before the mind. “Thus the new sense is the sense for the spirit; that for which there exists only spirit and absolutely nothing else, and for which also the ‘other,’ the given being, assumes the form of spirit and transforms itself into spirit, for which therefore _being_ in its own proper form has actually disappeared.... There has been the faculty of seeing with this sense ever since men have existed, and all that is great and excellent in the world, which alone upholds humanity, originates in what has been seen by means of this sense. It is, however, not the case that this sense has been perceived or known in its difference and its contrast with that other, ordinary sense. The impressions of the two senses melted into one another, life fell apart into these two halves without a bond of union.” The bond of union is created by the fact that the inner sense grasps in its spirituality the spiritual element which it awakens in its intercourse with the outer world. That which we take up into our consciousness from outside things thereby ceases to appear as a mere meaningless repetition. It appears as something new over against that which only external perception can give. The simple occurrence of throwing the stone, and my perception thereof, appear in a higher light when I make clear to myself the kind of task which my inner sense has to perform in regard to the whole thing. In order to fit together in thought the two influences and their modes of action, an amount of mental content is needed which I must already have acquired when I cognise the flying stone. I therefore apply a spiritual content already stored up within me to something that confronts me in the external world. And this occurrence in the external world fits itself into the spiritual content already present. It reveals itself in its own special individuality as an expression of this content.