This contemplation of himself, which is required of the philosopher, in his realization of the act, through which the Ego arises for him, I call _intellectual contemplation_. It is the immediate consciousness that I act and what I act; it is that through which I know something, because I do it. That there is such a power of intellectual contemplation cannot be demonstrated by conceptions, nor can conception show what it is. Every one must find it immediately in himself, or he will never learn to know it. The requirement that we ought to show _it_ what it is by argumentation, is more marvellous than would be the requirement of a blind person, to explain to him, without his needing to use sight, what colors are. But it can be certainly proven to everyone in his own confessed experience, that this intellectual contemplation does occur in every moment of his consciousness. I can take no step, cannot move hand or foot, without the intellectual contemplation of my self-consciousness in these acts; only through this contemplation do I know that _I_ do it, only through it do I distinguish my acting and in it myself from the given object of my acting. Everyone who ascribes an activity to himself appeals to this contemplation. In it is the source of life, and without it is death. But this contemplation never occurs alone, as a complete act of consciousness, as indeed sensuous contemplation also never occurs alone nor completes consciousness; both contemplations must be _comprehended_. Not only this, but the intellectual contemplation is also always connected with a _sensuous_ contemplation. I cannot find myself acting without finding an object upon which I act, and this object in a sensuous contemplation which I comprehend; nor without sketching an image of what I intend to produce by my act, which image I also comprehend. Now, then, how do I know and how can I know what I intend to produce, if I do not immediately contemplate myself in this sketching of the image which I intend to produce, i. e. in this sketching of the conception of my _purpose_, which sketching is certainly an act. Only the totality of this condition in uniting a given manifold completes consciousness. I become conscious only of the conceptions, both of the object upon which I act, and of the purpose I intend to accomplish; but I do not become conscious of the contemplations which are at the bottom of both conceptions.