At this point it is evident that this category is not derived from experience in the sense of _an impression from without_. It is the activity of the Ego itself, and is its (the _Ego’s_) first self-externalization (or its first becoming object to itself—its first act of self-consciousness). The essential activity of the Ego itself consists in recognizing itself, and this involves self-separation, and then the annulling of this separation in the same act. For in knowing myself as an object I separate the Ego from itself, but in the very act of _knowing_ it I make it identical again. Here are two negative processes involved in knowing, and these are indivisibly one:—first, the negative act of separation—secondly, the negative act of annulling the separation by the act of recognition. That the application of categories to the external world is a process of self-recognition, is now clear: we know, in so far as we recognize predicates in the object,—we say “The Rose _is_, it is _red_, it is _round_, it is _fragrant_, &c.” In this we separate what belongs to the rose from it, and place it outside of it, and then, through the act of predication, unite it again. “The Rose _is_” contains merely the recognition of being but being is separated from it and joined to it in the act of predication. Thus we see that the fundamental act of self-consciousness, which is a self-separation and self-identification united in one act of recognition,—we see that this fundamental act is repeated in all acts of knowing. We do not know even the rose without separating it from itself, and identifying the two sides thus formed. (This contains a deeper thought which we may suggest here. That the act of knowing puts all objects into this crucible, is an intimation on its part that no object can possess true, abiding being, without this ability to separate itself from itself in the process of self-identification. Whatever cannot do this is no essence, but may be only an element of a process in which it ceaselessly loses its identity. But we shall recur to this again.) Doubtless we could follow out this activity through various steps, and deduce all the categories of pure thought. This is what Plato has done in part; what Fichte has done in his Science of Knowledge, (“Wissenschaftslehre”) and Hegel in his Logic. A science of these pure intelligibles unlocks the secret of the Universe; it furnishes that “Royal Road” to all knowledge; it is the far-famed Philosopher’s Stone that alone can transmute the base dross of mere talent into genius. V.