because in free Thinking you can certainly take hold of each single condition. For consciousness contains not only necessity of Representations, but also freedom thereof; and this freedom again may proceed according to rules. The Whole is given to you from the point of view of necessary consciousness; you find it just as you find yourself. But the _composition_ of this Whole, the order of its arrangement, is produced by freedom. Whosoever undertakes this act of freedom, becomes conscious of freedom, and thus establishes, as it were, a new field within his consciousness; whosoever does not undertake it, for him this new field, dependent thereupon, does not exist. The chemist composes a body, a metal for instance, from its elements. The common beholder sees the metal well known to him; the chemist beholds, moreover, the composition thereof and the elements which it comprises. Do both now see different objects? I should think not! Both see the same, only in a different manner. The chemist’s sight is _a priori_; he sees the separates; the ordinary beholder’s sight is _a posteriori_; he sees the Whole. The only distinction is this: the chemist must first analyze the Whole before he can compose it, because he works upon an object of which he cannot know the rule of composition before he has analyzed it; while the philosopher can compose without a foregoing analysis, because he knows already the rule of his object, of reason. Hence the content of Philosophy can claim no other reality than that of necessary Thinking, on the condition that you desire to think of the ground of Experience. The Intelligence can only be thought as active, and can only be thought active in this particular manner! Such is the assertion of Philosophy. And this reality is perfectly sufficient for Philosophy, since it is evident from the development of that science that there is no other reality. This now described complete critical Idealism, the Science of Knowledge intends to establish. What I have said just now contains the conception of that science, and I shall listen to no objections which may touch this conception, since no one can know better than myself what I intend to accomplish, and to demonstrate the impossibility of a thing which is already realized, is ridiculous. Objections, to be legitimate, should only be raised against the elaboration of that conception, and should only consider whether it has fulfilled what it promised to accomplish or not. ANALYTICAL AND CRITICAL ESSAY UPON THE ÆSTHETICS OF HEGEL. [Translated from the French of M. Ch. Bénard by J. A. Martling.] ANALYSIS.