Note (return) — Chapter II

Rightly to understand the position of Schleiermacher we must take account of his doctrine of self-consciousness. "In all self-consciousness," says he, "there are two elements, a Being ein Seyn, and a Somehow-having-become (Irgendweigewordenseyn). The last, however, presupposes, for every self-consciousness, besides the ego, yet something else from whence the certainty of the same [self-consciousness] exists, and without which self-consciousness would not be just this." 52 Every determinate mode of the sensibility supposes an object, and a relation between the subject and the object, the subjective feeling deriving its determinations from the object. External sensation, the feeling, say of extension and resistance, gives world-consciousness. Internal sensation, the feeling of dependence, gives God consciousness. And it is only by the presence of world consciousness and God-consciousness that self consciousness can be what it is.