Here is the corner stone of Kant’s realism. I _must think_ something as thing in itself, i. e. as independent of _me, the empirical_, whenever I occupy the standpoint of the empirical; and because I _must think_ so, I never become conscious of this activity in my thinking, _since it is not free_. Only when I occupy the standpoint of philosophy can I _draw the conclusion_ that I am active in this thinking. Footnote 9: To state the main point in a few words: _All being_ signifies a _limitation of free activity_. Now this activity is regarded _either_ as that of the mere intelligence, and then that which is posited as limiting this activity has a mere _ideal being, mere objectivity in regard to consciousness_.—This objectivity is in every representation (even in that of the Ego, of virtue, of the moral law, &c., or in that of complete phantasms, as, for instance, a squared circle, a sphynx, &c.) _object of the mere representation_. Or the free activity is regarded as _having actual causality_; and then that which limits it, has _actual_ existence, the _real world_. Footnote 10: I have repeated this frequently. I have stated that I could absolutely have no point in common with certain philosophers, and that they are not, and cannot be, where I am. This seems to have been taken rather for an hyperbole, uttered in indignation, than for real earnest; for they do not cease to repeat their demand: “Prove _to us_ thy doctrine!” I must solemnly assure them that I was perfectly serious in that statement, that it is my deliberate and decided conviction. Dogmatism proceeds from a _being_ as the Absolute, and hence its system never rises above being. Idealism knows no being, as something for itself existing. In other words: Dogmatism proceeds from necessity—Idealism from freedom. They are, therefore, in two utterly different worlds. INTRODUCTION TO IDEALISM. [From the German of SCHELLING. Translated by TOM DAVIDSON.] I.—IDEA OF TRANSCENDENTAL PHILOSOPHY. 1. All knowing is based upon the agreement of an objective with a subjective. For we _know_ only the true, and truth is universally held to be the agreement of representations with their objects. 2. The sum of all that is purely objective in our knowledge we may call Nature; while the sum of all that is subjective may be designated the _Ego_, or Intelligence. These two concepts are mutually opposed. Intelligence is originally conceived as that which solely represents—Nature as that which is merely capable of representation; the former as the conscious—the latter as the unconscious. There is, moreover, necessary in all knowledge a mutual agreement of the two—the conscious and the unconscious _per se_. The problem is to explain this agreement.