Out of this tendency, and especially out of the sentiments[116] and doctrines of Fried. von Schlegel, there further grew in all its manifold shapes the so-called _Irony_. This idea had its deeper root, if we take it in one of its aspects, in Fichte's philosophy, in so far as the principles of his philosophy were applied to art. Fried. von Schlegel, as also Schelling, started from Fichte's point of view; Schelling, to pass wholly beyond it, Fried. von Schlegel to develop it in a peculiar fashion, and to tear himself loose from it. As regards the intimate connection of Fichte's principles with one tendency (among others) of the irony, we need only lay stress on the following point, that Fichte establishes the =I= as the absolute principle of all knowledge, of all reason and cognition; and that in the sense of the =I= which is, and is no more than, utterly abstract and formal. For this reason, in the second place, this =I= is in itself absolutely simple, and, on the one hand, every characteristic, every attribute, every content is negated therein--for every positive matter is annihilated by absorption into this abstract freedom and unity; on the other side, every content which is to be of value for the =I=, is given position and recognition only by favour of the =I=. Whatever is, is only by favour of the =I=,[117] and what is by my favour =I= am in turn able to annihilate. Now, if we abide by these utterly empty forms which have their origin in the absoluteness of the abstract =I=, then nothing has value in its real and actual nature, and regarded[118] in itself, but only as produced by the subjectivity of the =I=. But if so, it follows that the =I= is able to remain lord and master of everything, and in no sphere of morality or legality, of things human or divine, profane or sacred, is there anything that would not have to begin by being given position by the =I=, and that might not, therefore, just as well be in turn annihilated thereby. This amounts to making all that is actual in its own right[119] a mere _semblance_, not true and real for its own sake and by its own means, but a mere appearance due to the =I=, within whose power and caprice it remains, and at its free disposal. To admit it or to annihilate it stands purely in the pleasure of the =I= which has attained absoluteness in itself and simply as =I=.