We know very well: the Thing arises only from an act done in accordance with these laws, and is, indeed, nothing else than _all these relations gathered together by the power of imagination_; and all these relations together are the Thing. The Object is the original Synthesis of all these conceptions. Form and Substance are not separates; the whole formness is the substance, and only in the analysis do we arrive at separate forms. But this the critic, who follows the above method, can only assert, and it is even a secret whence he knows it, if he does know it. Until you cause the whole Thing to arise before the eyes of the thinker, you have not pursued Dogmatism into its last hiding places. But this is only possible by letting the Intelligence act in its whole, and not in its partial, lawfulness. Hence, an Idealism of this character is unproven and unprovable. Against Dogmatism it has no other weapon than the assertion that it is in the right; and against the more perfected criticism no other weapon than impotent anger, and the assurance that you can go no further than itself goes. Finally a system of this character puts forth only those laws, according to which the objects of external experience are determined. But these constitute by far the smallest portion of the laws of the Intelligence. Hence, on the field of Practical Reason and of Reflective Judgment, this half criticism, lacking the insight into the whole procedure of reason, gropes about as in total darkness. The method of complete transcendental Idealism, which the Science of Knowledge pursues, I have explained once before in my Essay, _On the conception of the Science of Knowledge_. I cannot understand why that Essay has not been understood; but suffice it to say, that I am assured it has not been understood. I am therefore compelled to repeat what I have said, and to recall to mind that everything depends upon the correct understanding thereof. This Idealism proceeds from a single fundamental Law of Reason, which is immediately shown as contained in consciousness. This is done in the following manner: The teacher of that Science requests his reader or hearer to think freely a certain conception. If he does so, he will find himself forced to proceed in a particular manner. Two things are to be distinguished here: the act of Thinking, which is required—the realization of which depends upon each individual’s freedom,—and unless he realizes it thus, he will not understand anything which the Science of Knowledge teaches; and the necessary manner in which it alone can be realized, which manner is grounded in the Essence of the Intelligence, and does not depend upon freedom; it is something _necessary_, but which is only discovered in and together with a free action; it is something _discovered_, but the discovery of which depends upon an act of freedom.