The whole system of "Idealism," as propounded in the German schools, is utterly baseless, and contradicts the intuitive, the universal convictions of the human mind.

For what is Idealism?
Reduced to its utmost simplicity, and expressed in the briefest formula, it amounts, in substance, to this: _that the whole universe is to us a mere process of thought_, and that nothing exists, or, at least, can be known by us, beyond _the ideas of our own minds_.

And what is the ground on which it rests?
It rests entirely on the assumption, that, since we can know nothing otherwise than through the exercise of our mental faculties, these faculties must be the sole sources of all our knowledge, and altogether independent of any external object.

According to this theory, the mind is not informed or instructed by the universe, but the universe is created by the mind; the objective is developed from the subjective; and there is no reality anywhere except in the region of consciousness.
Nature is seen only as it is imaged in the mirror within; and to us it is a mere phantasmagoria, a series of phenomena, a succession of thoughts.

"The sum total," says Fichte, "is this; there is absolutely nothing permanent, either without me or within me, but only an unceasing change.