In the ego the spirit becomes the subject of the will, in the not-self the world becomes the object of representation. And since the initial content of the ego is wholly expressed by the consciousness of the separate unity of the will, and in the same way in the content of the thing = not-self there is absolutely nothing that is not given in the representation, it is self-evident that in the dissolution of the primary indifference of the subjective and the objective, the subject is only the will, the object is only the idea, and consequently the whole of being is only the will and the idea. But this first stage in the process of the dissolution of the subjective and the objective has only a transitional significance, and in the further development of the same determining process it is necessarily replaced by a new stage. The spirit, which has causally posited itself in relation to its activities as will, does not stop at this one-sided determination, and in the new process of explaining its will it produces a new dissolution, separating the will as its action from itself as the bearer of the will. He carries out the same process of dissolution in the non-ego, which is defined in relation to the volitional activities of the ego as representation, and separates the representation as the motive of its volitional activity from the non-self as the cause of the representation and, consequently, the real object of its activity. Here the definition of the world of consciousness ends. The spirit becomes the subject not only of the will, but of all the phenomena of consciousness in general, and therefore for all these phenomena the same idea of the Self becomes the centralizing point.

III. Organization of the world of ideas and concepts

1.

The process of addition and unification of representations and the completion of this process in the formation of concepts.

In the process of the development of psychic reality, the world of impressions is constantly replaced by the world of ideas, and along with this substitution, the material of mental work necessarily changes. Instead of ordering the chaos of impressions, there arises the necessity of ordering the chaos of ideas, i.e., of establishing relations between them by virtue of which they could express not only the isolated facts of being, but also whole parts of it, and not only the accidental phenomena of things, but also the constant forms of these phenomena. The fulfillment of this task is achieved in the same ways by means of which the organization of the world of impressions is achieved, i.e., by the addition of different ideas and by the unification of similar ones.

Strictly speaking, every representation, by its very nature, is always and necessarily complex, because every representation is a representation of a thing, i.e., the representation of a constant group of certain impressions which occupy a special position in the content of the representation of the properties or attributes of the thing. Consequently, there are no and cannot be simple ideas that would have as their content individual impressions, and all reasoning about such ideas is reduced only to pure misunderstandings. Of course, any impression can be thought in abstracto, but it is impossible to imagine none, because representation is the spatial determination of impressions, and therefore only objects or images can be represented under those conditions in which certain impressions are constantly connected with each other, including the impression that forms the present state of consciousness. For example, I can think of acid, but I cannot conceive of it, whereas I can freely imagine a lemon and connect with this idea a certain impression of acid. In the same way, I can, of course, think of whiteness, but I can never conceive it except outside myself and in a certain spatial form. Consequently, each representation of a single impression is possible only by the strength of the connection of this impression with a multitude of others and only in the complex of these other impressions, i.e. each representation always and necessarily forms a concrete. Therefore, the question of the composition of representations obviously does not concern the development of the content presented, but only the development of connections between individual representations; For in the first respect all representations are complex, and the development of their content can only make them more complete, but no less isolated; in the second respect, each representation, although it exists by nature separately and independently of other representations, nevertheless, by the creative process of thought, can always be placed in a certain connection with a multitude of others.

In order for several different representations to be connected in the unity of a complex representation, the presence of the same condition is necessary that makes the formation of individual representations possible, i.e., the unity of the spatial connection of representations is necessary. By virtue of this unity, the various representations are objectified in a definite order of local position, and the consciousness of this spatial correlation of them is what is called a complex representation.

If, at the same time, different representations are embraced not only by spatial connection, but also by temporal unity in the process of their formation, then their connection is affirmed by consciousness in the unity of the object represented; if temporal unity does not exist, they are recognized as a group of different objects in the represented unity of place. The representation of this tree, for example, in addition to the representation of the trunk, consists of a whole multitude of separate representations of branches and branches, of an enormous number of individual representations of leaves, and all this infinite number of representations is connected into a complex representation of one object, because in the formation of these representations there is no interruption in the moments of connection between the basic elements of sensuous-visual intuition, i.e., between the data of touch and muscular sense. On the contrary, the complex representation of the whole garden can exist only in the form of a group of different objects, because each of these objects, embraced in itself by the unity of the spatio-temporal connection of its parts, by the strength of the interruption in the relation of space and time in the primary data of touch and muscular feeling, forms a different complex, even if only of the same impressions. and therefore it is connected with other objects not by the unity of spatial connection, but only by the unity of spatial correlation, i.e. by the unity of space itself as a form of view, as an empty container of objective extensions. It is clear that the real content of a complex representation here is the representation of a place with which an indefinite number of representations of individual objects can be associated. Consequently, the formation and expansion of the number of connections between individual representations in this case is achieved in a purely external way – by means of a simple expansion of the contemplated volume and in this expansion the establishment of new spatial relations. The representation of different things, for example, can be connected with the representation of the room in which these things are placed, the representation of several rooms with the representation of a house, the representation of a house with the representation of a street, a city, etc.

The fundamental element in the content of all complex representations is the representation of place, and all objective representations that can only be connected with this basic representation are united in it, and this very unification of representations is expressed in consciousness by the representation of the spatial correlation of things. Consequently, the content of a complex representation expresses in itself only the external connection of individual representations and does not in the least concern their content, so that in this respect individual representations are not only not united in the complex, but cannot be united in it. Any complex representation is properly a multi-component representation, because it contains a series of completely independent representations, connected only together by the representation of a definite space. Consequently, in every complex representation there is not a unity of representation proper, but only a represented unity of the spatial connection of different representations.

In their content, individual representations can be completely similar to each other, and if they do exist as completely separate representations, it is only because each of them has its own spatio-temporal definition of the connection between the same dates of consciousness. My conception of this chair, for instance, is exactly identical with my conceptions of every other chair placed in this room, and yet my conception of this chair is not a conception of every other chair, because each conception is received separately and objectified separately, and I cannot conceive of this chair being placed in different places at the same time. occupied by all the other chairs. Without this local definition, the separateness of ideas would immediately disappear, and all of them would immediately merge in the complete unity of their content. Then, precisely, one image of a chair will appear in consciousness, and by virtue of the power of identity in the content of living ideas, it will replace all these ideas for thought. But since the spatial expression of representations is preserved in it, it is evident that it will itself be a representation, only not bound by the conditions of a definite place, and for this very reason uniting in itself several living representations. And since the whole process of unification of the presented content here is expressed by a simple fusion of identical representations, the image replacing them will be a merged representation.

In order to form a coherent representation, complete identity is necessary between individual representations in the basic elements that determine the possibility of any representation in general, i.e., complete identity of form (given of touch), size (given of muscular sense), and, according to the conditions of experimental development in the formation of representation, identity of color (given of vision). Only when this necessary condition exists is it possible to replace several separate representations by a single representation, and the basis is laid for the further formation of new mental products, because the process of forming a merged representation is a natural transition to a special process of generalization, and the very fact of a merged representation is the real germ of the concept. It is on this basis that in logic and psychology representations are very often confused with concepts by transforming merged representations into so-called general representations. But the merged representation is obviously not at all the same as the general representation, because the merged representation does not concern all homogeneous objects in general, but only identical objects. I may, for example, imagine one of the windows in my room, and if I do not connect my idea with a certain place in the room, then this representation of a window of mine can, of course, replace for me the representation of any other window, but not the window in general, but only from the number of windows in my own room. Of course, no one is able to imagine a window in general, as well as any other object in general, because in general it is only possible to think of things in concepts, but in no case to represent them in images. Consequently, there can be no general representations, but only merged representations, i.e., representations in which a group of identical representations can be replaced by a single representation of some object of the group, with this object detached from its real connection with a definite place.

Under conditions of limited experience, when there are only groups of a few representations, homogeneous in their content and identical in spatial determination, the unification of the represented content is fully achieved by the creation of merged representations. But with the expansion of experience, when representations arise, although homogeneous, but with different spatial definitions, the unifying role of merged representations inevitably ends, because different spatial forms cannot, of course, be defined in one spatial expression, i.e., cannot be united in one image. Consequently, in this case, only the identical content of representations can be subject to unification, apart from their different spatial expressions, and consequently this united content of representations will no longer be the content of any representation; for with the destruction of the spatial definition of impressions, the essence of the representation is also destroyed, and therefore its very possibility is eliminated. Then a certain content is not represented, but only thought of as a definite connection of impressions, or, translated into the objective phenomena of being, the thing is not represented, but only thought of as a definite connection of certain qualities. The formation of this thinking in consciousness forms an entirely new product of mental creativity – the concept.