From this whole inquiry it follows with certainty and distinctness that it is absolutely impossible to attain to the comprehension of the inner nature of things upon the path of mere _knowledge_ and _perception_. For knowledge always comes to things from without, and therefore must for ever remain outside them. This end would only be reached if we could find _ourselves_ in the inside of things, so that their inner nature would be known to us directly. Now, how far this is actually the case is considered in my second book. But so long as we are concerned, as in this first book, with objective comprehension, that is, with _knowledge_, the world is, and remains for us, a mere _idea_, for here there is no possible path by which we can cross over to it.
But, besides this, a firm grasp of the point of view of _idealism_ is a necessary counterpoise to that of _materialism_. The controversy concerning the _real_ and the _ideal_ may also be regarded as a controversy concerning the existence of _matter_. For it is the reality or ideality of this that is ultimately in question. Does matter, as such, exist only in our _idea_, or does it also exist independently of it? In the latter case it would be the thing in itself; and whoever assumes a self-existent matter must also, consistently, be a materialist, _i.e._, he must make matter the principle of explanation of all things. Whoever, on the contrary, denies its existence as a thing in itself is _eo ipso_ an idealist. Among the moderns only Locke has definitely and without ambiguity asserted the reality of matter; and therefore his teaching led, in the hands of Condillac, to the sensualism and materialism of the French. Only Berkeley directly and without modifications denies matter. The complete antithesis is thus that of idealism and materialism, represented in its extremes by Berkeley and the French materialists (Hollbach). Fichte is not to be mentioned here: he deserves no place among true philosophers; among those elect of mankind who, with deep earnestness, seek not their own things but the _truth_, and therefore must not be confused with those who, under this pretence, have only their personal advancement in view. Fichte is the father of the _sham philosophy_, of the _disingenuous_ method which, through ambiguity in the use of words, incomprehensible language, and sophistry, seeks to deceive, and tries, moreover, to make a deep impression by assuming an air of importance—in a word, the philosophy which seeks to bamboozle and humbug those who desire to learn. After this method had been applied by Schelling, it reached its height, as every one knows, in Hegel, in whose hands it developed into pure charlatanism. But whoever even names this Fichte seriously along with Kant shows that he has not even a dim notion of what Kant is. On the other hand, materialism also has its warrant. It is just as true that the knower is a product of matter as that matter is merely the idea of the knower; but it is also just as one-sided. For materialism is the philosophy of the subject that forgets to take account of itself. And, accordingly, as against the assertion that I am a mere modification of matter, this must be insisted upon, that all matter exists merely in my idea; and it is no less right. A knowledge, as yet obscure, of these relations seems to have been the origin of the saying of Plato, “ὑλη αληθινον ψευδος” (_materia mendacium verax_).