[p. 213]
|213| determinations of the object into myself, as they are. I leave the object as it is, and seek to make my representations conformable to it. I have determinations in me, and the object also has determinations in itself. The content of my representing is to be constituted as the object is. The determinations of the object in itself are rules for me. The truth of my representations consists in their agreeing with the constitution and the determinations of the object itself. The law for our consciousness, insofar as it is theoretical, is not completely passive, but it must direct its activity to receiving what is objective. Something can be an object for our perception without our thereby having a consciousness of it, if we do not direct our activity to it. This activity in receiving is attention.
§ 5
The representations which we acquire through attention we move about in ourselves through imagination, whose activity consists in calling up for us, on the intuition of an object, the image of another object which is or was connected with the former in some way. It is not necessary that the object to which imagination attaches the image of another be present, but it can also be present merely in representation. The most extensive work of imagination is language. Language consists in external signs and sounds by which one makes known what one thinks, feels or senses. Language consists in words, which are nothing other than signs of thoughts. For these signs, writing in the letters gives signs in turn. It makes our thoughts known without our having to speak in doing so. – Hieroglyphic writing differs from alphabetic writing in that it comprehends immediately whole thoughts
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