rather, of two opposite directions of one activity) in the
ego, one of which (centrifugal, expansive) strives infinitely outward while
the other (centripetal or contractile) sets a bound to the former, and
drives the ego back into itself, whereupon another excursus follows, and a
new limitation and return, etc. With every repetition of this double act
of production and reflection a special class of representations arises.
Through the first limitation of the in itself unlimited activity
"sensation" arises (as a product of the "productive imagination"). Because
the ego produces this unconsciously, it appears to be given, brought about
by influence from without. The second stage, "intuition," is reached when
the ego reflects on sensation, when it opposes to itself something foreign
which limits it. Thirdly, by reflection on intuition an "image" of that
which is intuited is constructed, and, as such, distinguished from a real
thing to which the image corresponds; at this point the categories and the
forms of intuition, space and time, appear, which thus arise along with
the object.[1] The fourth stadium is "understanding," which steadies the
fluctuating intuition into a concept, realizes the object, and looks upon
it as the cause of the intuition. Fifthly, "judgment" makes its appearance
as the faculty of free reflection and abstraction, or the power to consider
a definite content or to abstract from it. As judgment is itself the
condition of the bound reflection of the understanding, so it points in
turn to its condition, to the sixth and highest stage of intelligence,
"reason," by means of which we are able to abstract from all objects
whatever, while reason itself, pure self-consciousness, is that from
which abstraction is never possible. It is only in the highest stage that
consciousness or a representation of representation takes place. And at the
culmination of the theoretical ego the point of transition to the practical
ego appears. Here the ego becomes aware that in positing itself as
determined by the non-ego it has only limited itself, and therefore is
itself the ground of the whole content of consciousness; here it apprehends
itself as determining the non-ego or as acting, and recognizes as its chief
mission to impress the form of the ego as far as possible on the non-ego,
and ever to extend the boundary further.

[Footnote 1: The object is a product of the ego only for the observer, not
for the observed ego itsel