 XIV. Faith. Causes and effects cannot be my destiny. The veil of delusion falls from my eyes. I receive a new organ, and a new world opens before me. It is disclosed to me only by the law of reason. I apprehend this world for confined as I am within sensuous views. I must thus name the unnameable. I apprehend this world merely in and through the end for which my obedience to the law of conscience was appointed. How could I ever suppose that this law had referenced to the world of sense, or that the whole end and object of this obedience was to be found within the plan and scope of earthly existence, since that on which alone this obedience depends can never be an effective cause in this world and can never have any result? In the world of sense, moving on the chain of material causes and effects, in which whatever happens must depend on whatever happened before, it can never be of any moment with what intentions and dispositions an action is performed, but merely what the action is. Had it been the whole purpose of our existence to produce any earthly state of humanity, the thing required would have been some infallible mechanism by which our actions might have been invariably determined, and we need have been no more than wheels well fitted to such a machine. Free agency would have been not merely vain, but positively injurious, and our good intentions, our virtuous will, entirely superfluous. The world would be, in that case, most ill-regulated, and the purpose of its existence attained by the most circuitous methods and by a needless profusion. Had the divine author of it, instead of bestowing on us this freedom, so hard to be reconciled with the other parts of his plan, chosen rather to compel us to act in the manner most conformable to them, these ends might have been attained by a shorter method as the humblest of the dwellers in these his worlds can see. But I am free, and therefore such a chain of causes and effects as would render freedom superfluous and purposeless cannot include my whole destination. I am free, and it is not merely my action produced by mechanical means, but the free determination of my will to obey the voice of conscience for the sake of conscience only that decides my moral worth. The everlasting world now rises before me more brightly, and the fundamental laws of its order are more clearly revealed to my mental vision. The will alone, lying hid from mortal eyes in the obscurest depths of the soul, is the first link in a chain of consequences that stretches through the invisible realms of spirit, as in this terrestrial world, the action itself, a certain movement communicated to matter, is the first link in a material chain that encircles the whole system. The will is the effective cause, the living principle of the world of spirit, as motion is of the world of sense. I stand between two opposite worlds, the one visible in which the act alone avails, the other invisible and incomprehensible acted on only by the will. I am an effective force in both these worlds, my will embraces both. This will is in itself a constituent part of the transcendental world. By my free determination I change and set in motion something in this transcendental world, and my energy gives birth to an effect that is new, permanent, and imperishable, that this will manifest itself in a material deed, and this deed belongs to the world of sense, and produces in it whatever effect it can. It is not only when the tie which bends me to this terrestrial world shall have been broken that I shall obtain admission into the transcendental one. I am and live already in it more truly than in the terrestrial. On it alone do I rest even now, and for the sake only of the everlasting life, on the possession of which I have already entered, can I wish to continue this earthly one. What we call heaven does not lie only on the other side of the grave. It is diffused over nature here, and its light dance on every pure heart. My will is mine, and it is all that is truly mine, and entirely dependent on myself, and through it I am already become a citizen of those realms of freedom and spiritual activity. What determination of my will, of the only thing which raises me from the dust to enter these realms, may be conformable to their order. The voice of my conscience alone can tell me, for that is the tie by which I am united to them, and it depends only on myself to give it the appointed direction. I prepare myself then for this world, prepare myself in it and for it. I pursue my object without doubt or hesitation, certain of success, since no foreign power can interfere with my free will. That in the world of sense my will manifest itself in action is a law of this sensuous world, but the will alone is holy and purely mine. It was not necessary that there should be another particular act on my part to unite it to the deed in which it is manifested, it manifested itself, thus according to the law of that second world with which I am connected by my will, and in which this will likewise is an original force. I am compelled indeed when I regard my will thus manifested in action as an effective cause in the sensuous world, to regard it as a means to the attainment of that earthly end of human existence, not as if I should first look over the divine plan of the world and calculate from it what I had to do, but that the action which my conscience tells me to regard as my duty should appear to me as the only means by which in my position I could contribute to the attainment of that end. If it should afterwards appear that this end has not been advanced, nay, should it seem even to have been hindered by it, I can never repent if I have really obeyed my conscience in acting thus. Whatever consequences it may have for this world, for the other, nothing but good can result from it. And even for this world's sake, should my action appear to have failed of its object, my conscience will command me to persevere in my efforts. Should I fail again and again, and should it appear that during my whole life I have not advanced the good cause, a hare's breath, it is still not permitted to me to cease my struggles in its behalf. Let me be disappointed in my attempts ever so often, I must still believe that the next will be successful. For the spiritual world no step can ever be lost. I do not toil to reach the earthly goal for its own sake alone, or regarded as a final aim, but rather because obedience to the voice of conscience presents itself to me in this world as a means of advancing this end. Should it appear otherwise, I might pronounce this end, and I shall do so in another life, when some other object, now entirely incomprehensible to me, shall be set before me. Whether in this life the actions resulting from a pure sense of duty do always tend to the advancement of the great end of the progress of the human race is not my care. I am responsible only for the will, the intention, but not for the result. I am bound to keep this end in view, and to be unwirried in my efforts for its attainment, but the only certain results of my energy lie beyond this world of sense. I will endeavor to establish myself firmly in this new view of my destiny. The present life cannot be rationally regarded as containing the whole end of my existence, or of that of the human race in general. There is something in me, and something is required of me, which finds no application in this life, and which is entirely superfluous and unnecessary for the attainment of the highest objects which can be attained on earth. The existence of man must therefore have some object which lies beyond it. Should, however, this earthly life, for the purposes of which our reason commands us to exert our best powers, not be entirely vain and fruitless, it must at least have relation to a future one as means to an end. The ultimate consequence of all our actions in the present life must remain on earth, and we are connected with a future world by no other tie than by our will, which for this world is entirely fruitless. Our virtuous will only can it, must it be, by which we are destined to prepare for a future state and for the objects there to be attained. And the consequences now invisible to us of our upright intentions will obtain for us a station there, once we may proceed further on our course. That our virtuous will in and for itself must have some consequences we know already in this life, for our reason cannot demand what is entirely fruitless. But what these consequences are, or how it is possible that a mere will can affect anything at all, we know not, and as long as we are confined within the limits of this material world, we cannot know. With respect to the nature of these consequences, the present life, therefore, in relation to the future, is to be regarded as a life in faith. The future, in which we shall be in possession of those consequences, must be a life of clear insight. There, as well as here, some object must be placed before us, as the end of our exertions, for we must remain active beings. But we must remain finite beings, and our activity must therefore be determinate, and every determinate activity must have an object. As the actual state of the present world, the degrees of civilization and virtue found to exist among men, and our own powers of action, are related to the objects of this life, so will be to those of the future the consequences of our virtuous will in this. The present is the commencement of our existence, a firm footing in it, and the endowment of all the powers and faculties necessary for it have been freely bestowed on us. The future life will be the continuation of our existence, and our station there, we must earn for ourselves. In this point of view, the present life no longer appears vain and useless. It has given us that we may obtain for ourselves a place in the future one, and thus it is connected with our whole immortal life. It is very possible that the immediate objects of this second life may not be more certainly attainable by finite powers than those of the present, and that even there a virtuous will may sometimes appear superfluous. But it can never be lost. It's necessary efficacy would, in that case, refer us to a further stage of our progress in which the consequences of our good will would appear, and in reference to which this second life also would be a life of faith, but a faith firmer and more impossible to be shaken, from our having already experienced the trustworthiness of reason, and gathered the fruits of a pure heart in a perfected life. As in the present life it is only from a certain law of action that we acquire the idea of a certain object to be attained, and from this our whole intuitive perception of an external world. Just so in the future, upon a similar and now to us inconceivable law, will be founded our idea of the immediate objects of that life, and the intuitive perception of a world in which we shall perceive the consequences of our good intentions in the present. The world exists for us but by the idea of duty, and the other will be revealed to us in a similar manner, for in no other manner can it be revealed to a reasonable being. This, then, is my true nature, my whole sublime destination. I am a member of two orders of one purely spiritual in which I rule merely by pure will, and of a sensuous one in which my act alone avails. The whole aim of reason is its own activity, independent, unconditional, and having no need of any organ beyond itself. The will is the living principle of the rational soul, is indeed itself reason when purely and simply apprehended. That reason is itself active means that the pure will, as such, rules and is effectual. The infinite reason alone lies immediately and entirely in the purely spiritual order. The finite being lives necessarily at the same time in a sensuous order, that is to say, in one which presents to him other objects than those of pure reason. A material object to be advanced by instruments and powers, standing indeed under the immediate command of the will, but whose efficacy is conditional also on its own natural laws. Yet, as certainly as reason is reason, must the will operate absolutely by itself and independently of all the natural laws which determine the action, and therefore does the sensuous life of every finite being point towards a higher, into which the will itself shall lead him, and of which it shall procure him possession, a possession which indeed will be again sensually present as a state, and by no means as a mere will. These two orders, the purely spiritual and the sensuous, the latter consisting of an immeasurable succession of states, have existed in me from the first moment of the development of my active reason, and proceed parallel to each other. The latter, producing phenomena cognizable by myself and by other beings similar to myself, the former alone bestowing on them significance, purpose, and value. I am immortal, imperishable, eternal, as soon as I form the resolution to obey the laws of eternal reason. I am not merely destined to become so. The transcendental world is no future world. It is now present. It can at no period of finite existence be more present than at another, not more after the lapse of myriads of ages than at this moment. My future sensuous existence may be liable to various modifications, but these are just as little true life as those of the present. By that resolution of the will I lay hold on eternity, and rise high above all transitory states of existence. My will itself becomes for me a spring of eternal life when it becomes a source of moral goodness. Without view to any future object, without inquiry as to whether my will may or may not have any result, it shall be brought into harmony with the moral law. My will shall stand alone, apart from all that is not itself, and be a world to itself, not merely as not proceeding from any thing gone before, but as not giving birth to anything following, by which its efficacy might be brought under the operation of a foreign law. Did any second effect proceed from it, and from this again a third, in any conceivable sensuous world, opposed to that of spirit, its strength would be broken by the resistance it would encounter. The mode of its operation would no longer exactly correspond to the idea of volition, and the will would not remain free, but be limited by the peculiar laws of its heterogeneous fear of action. Thus indeed I must regard the will in the present material world, the only one known to me. I am indeed compelled to believe, or to act, as if I believed, that by my mere volition, my tongue, my hand, my foot, would be set in motion. But how an impulsive intelligence, a mere thought, can be the principle of motion to a heavy material mass, is not only not conceivable, but to the mere understanding and absurdity. To the understanding the movements of matter can only be explained by the supposition of forces existing in matter itself. Such a view of the will, as I have taken, can only be attained by the conviction that it is not merely the highest active principle for this world, as it might be without freedom, and as we imagine a productive force in nature to be, but that it looks beyond all earthly objects, and includes its own ultimate object in itself. By this view of my will, I am referred to a super sensuous order of things, in which the will, without the assistance of any organ out of itself, becomes in a purely spiritual sphere, accessible to it, and similar to itself, an effective cause. The knowledge that a virtuous will is to be cherished for its own sake, is a fact intuitively perceived, not attainable, by any other method. That the promotion of this virtuous will is according to reason, and the source of all that is truly reasonable, that it is not to be adjusted by anything else, but that all else is to be adjusted by it, is a conviction which I have likewise attained by this inward method. From these two terms I arrive at a faith in an eternal super sensuous world. Should I renounce the first, I abandon at the same time the latter. If, as many say, assuming it without further proof as self-evident, as the highest point of human wisdom, that all human virtue must have a certain definite eternal aim, and that we must be sure of the attainment of this and before we can act virtuously, and that consequently reason by no means contains within itself the principle and the standard of its own activity, but must discover this standard by the contemplation of the external world, then might the entire purpose of our existence be found below. Our earthly destiny would be entirely explanatory and exhaustive of our human nature, and we should have no rational ground for raising our thoughts above the present life. As I have now spoken, however, can every thinker who has anywhere historically received those propositions also speak and teach and accurately reason, but he would present to us the thoughts of others and not his own, and all would float before him empty and without significance, because he would be wanting in the sense by which he might seize on its reality. He is like a blind man who may have learned historically certain truths concerning colors, and built upon them just theories, without any color in fact existing for him. He may say that under certain conditions so and so must be, but not that it is so for him, because he does not stand under these conditions. The sense by which we may lay hold on eternal life can only be attained by a real renunciation of the sensual and all its objects, for the sake of that law which lays claim only to our will and not to our act. It surrenders these things with the fullest conviction that this conduct only is truly rational. By this renunciation of the earthly does the faith in the eternal rise in our soul, and stand there alone, as the sole support to which we can cling, as the only animating principle that can warm our hearts or inspire our lives. We must truly, according to the image of a holy doctrine, first die to the world and be born again before we can enter the kingdom of God. I see now clearly the cause of my former indifference and blindness to spiritual things. Occupied only with earthly objects, all my thoughts and endeavours fixed upon them moved only by desire of a result, of consequences to be realized out of myself, unsusceptible and dead to the pure impulse of legislative reason, which presents to us an and purely spiritual, the immortal psyche remains with her opinions bound and fastened to the earth. Our philosophy is the history of our own heart and life, and according to what we find in ourselves is our view of man and his destiny. No true freedom exists for us so long as we are urged only by the desire of what can be realized in this world. Our freedom is no more than that of the plant, more wonderful in its result, but not in its nature higher, instead of a certain confirmation of matter with roots, leaves and blossoms bringing forth a mind with thoughts and actions. We cannot understand true freedom as long as we are not in possession of it. We either draw down the word to our own signification or simply declare all such phrase to be nonsense. By wanting the knowledge of our own freedom, we lose at the same time all sense of another world. All discussions of this kind pass by us like words with which we have no concern, like pale shadows without form or color or meaning, on which we know not how to lay hold. Should we be urged by a more active zeal to investigate them, we should separate, seek clearly, and be able to prove that all these ideas are mere worthless and untenable reveries, which a sound understanding will reject at once, and according to the premises from which we should proceed, drawn from our own experience, we should be perfectly in the right. The doctrines preached in the midst of us, even to the populace, and from special authority concerning moral freedom, duty, and everlasting life, are turned into romantic fables, and have no more reality for us than those of Tartarus and the Elysian Fields. Although, from an opinion of their utility in restraining the people, we do not say this openly. In one word it is only by the thorough amelioration of the will that a new light is thrown on our existence and future destiny. Without this let me meditate as much as I will, and be endowed with ever such rare intellectual gifts. Darkness remains in me and around me. The improvement of the heart alone tends to true wisdom. Let then my whole life tend to this end. End of Section 15. Section 16 of The Destination of Man by Johann Gottlieb Fishta Translated by Jane Sinett This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Chapter 16 Faith A will which is itself law My virtuous will then, in and through itself, shall certainly and invariably produce consequences. Every determination of my will in accordance with duty, even if it should not result in any action, shall operate in another to me incomprehensible world, and nothing but this shall operate in it. In thinking thus I assume that there exists a law that is a certain rule liable to no exception, by which a virtuous will must have consequences. Just as in this material world there exists a law by which this ball, thrown by my hand with a certain force, in a certain direction, necessarily moves in a certain direction, with a certain degree of velocity. Perhaps strikes another ball with a certain amount of force, which in its turn moves on with a certain velocity, and so on. As here, in the mere direction and movement of my hand, I know and mentally embrace in my calculations all the subsequent directions and movements, with the same certainty as if they were already present and perceived by me. Just so does a virtuous will originate a series of necessary and inevitable consequences in the spiritual world, except that I cannot calculate them, but merely know that they must be, without being able to tell by what means. I thus obtain the idea of a law of the spiritual world, in which my pure will is one of the moving forces, as my hand is one of the moving forces in the material world. The idea of this law of the spiritual world, and the firmness of my confidence in it, are one and the same thought, as a security with which I reckon on a certain motion of a material body, the idea of a mechanical law of nature, on which it depends, are one and the same. The idea of law expresses nothing more than the firm immovable repose of reason on an idea, and the impossibility of believing the contrary. I assume the existence of such a law of a spiritual world, not made by my will, nor by the will of any finite being, nor by the will of all finite beings taken together, but to which they are all subject. Neither I nor any finite and sensual being is able to conceive how a mere will can have any consequences at all, or what they can be. For in this consists the very essential characteristic of our finite nature, that we are unable to conceive this. We have indeed the mere will as such in our power, but since we cannot conceive its consequences, we cannot propose them to ourselves as objects. I cannot say that in the material world, my hand, or any other body belonging to it, and subject to the universal law of gravitation, gives this law of motion. For it stands itself under this law, and is able to set another body in motion merely in accordance with it, and in as much as it partakes in the universal moving power of nature. Just as little does a finite will give the law to the transcendental world, which no finite spirit can embrace, but all finite wills stand under this law, and can become efficient causes in that world only in as much as that law exists, and they bring themselves under its operation by a conformity to moral duty, the only tie which unites us to this higher world, and the only organ that can enable us to react upon it. As the universal force of attraction holds bodies together in themselves, and to each other also, so does that super sensual law unite and hold together all finite reasonable beings. My will, and the will of all finite beings, may be regarded in a twofold point of view, as a moving principle in the sensual world, for instance, of my hand, from whose movement again other movements follow, and as a moving principle in the transcendental world, giving rise to a series of spiritual consequences of which as yet I have no conception. In the first point of view, as a mere volition, it stands wholly in my own power. In the latter point of view, as an effective cause, it does not depend on me, but on the laws to which I am subject, to the law of nature in the world of sense, and to the super sensual law in that which is transcendental. What, then, is this law of the spiritual world which I conceive? I believe it to be this, that my will, absolutely of itself, and without the intervention of any instrument that might weaken its effect, shall act in a sphere perfectly congenial, reason upon reason, spirit upon spirit, in a sphere to which it does not give the laws of life, of activity, of progress, but which has them in itself, therefore upon self-active reason. But spontaneous self-active reason is will, the law of the transcendental world must therefore be a will, a will which operates purely as will of itself, without other instrumentality or sensual material for its operation, which is, at the same time, will and act, with whom to will is to do, to command is to execute, a will which is itself a law, liable to no accident or caprice, nor requiring previous thought and hesitation, eternal, unchangeable, on which we may infallibly reckon, as the mortal counts securely on the laws of his material world. That sublime, omnipotent will does not dwell apart. There exists between him and all his rational creatures a spiritual bond, and he himself is the spiritual bond of the rational universe. Let me will purely and decidedly my duty, and in the spiritual world at least, I shall not fail of success. Every virtuous resolution of a finite being influences the omnipotent will, if I may be allowed to use such an expression, not inconsequence of a momentary approval, but of an everlasting law of his being. With surprising clearness does this thought now come before my soul, which hitherto was surrounded by darkness, the thought that my will, as such, may be merely, and of itself, could have any consequences. It has these consequences because it is immediately and infallibly perceived by another will to which it bears affinity, which is at the same time will and act, and the only living principle of the spiritual world. Its first results are in him and through him on the world, which is but the product of the infinite will. Thus, for the mortal must speak in his own language, thus do I communicate with that infinite will, and through the voice of conscience in my heart, which proclaims to me what I have to do in every situation of my life, does he again communicate with me? That voice, sensualized and translated into my language, is the Oracle of the Eternal, which announces to me what is to be my part in the order of the spiritual world, or in the infinite will, who himself makes that order. I cannot indeed see through or over that spiritual order, and I need not to do so. I am but a link in the chain, and can no more judge of the whole than a single tone can judge of an entire harmony. But what I myself shall be in this harmony of spirits, I must know, and this is revealed to me. Thus I am connected with the infinite one, and there is nothing real lasting imperishable in me, but the voice of my soul. By the first, the spiritual world bowels down to me, and embraces me as one of its members. By the second, I raise myself into it, and the infinite will unites me with it, and is the source of it, and of me. This only is the true and imperishable for which my soul has yearned. All else is but phenomenon, phantasm, which vanishes and returns in a new form. End of Section 16 Section 17 of The Destination of Man by Johann Gottlieb Fichte Translated by James Sinett This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Chapter 17 Faith, the Infinite Will The Infinite Will unites me with himself and with all finite beings such as myself. The great mystery of the invisible world and its fundamental law, in as much as it is a world or system of many individual wills, is the union and reciprocal action of many self-active and independent wills, the mystery which lies in the present life, obvious to all without any deeming it matter for wonder. The voice of conscience, which imposes on each his particular duty, is the ray proceeding from the infant one to each individual, the true constituent and basis of his life. The absolute freedom of the will which we derive from the Infinite and bring with us into the world of time is the principle of this our life. I act and the sensual perception by which alone I become a personal intelligence being supposed, it is easy to conceive that I must know of this by action and that it must appear as a fact in a sensual world and that inversely by the same centralization, the in itself purely spiritual law of duty, should appear as the command to such or such an action. It is conceivable that a world should appear to me as the condition of this action and impart the consequence and product of it. Thus far I remain on my own territory. All this has developed itself purely out of myself. I contemplate only my own state of being, but in this my world I admit also the operations of other beings independent of me and self-active myself, that they should know of their own operations as I of mine is conceivable. But how I should know of them is entirely inconceivable, as it is that they should have the knowledge of my existence and its manifestations which I ascribe to them. How do they enter my world or I theirs since the principle by which we become conscious of ourselves in our operations finds here no application. How have free spirits knowledge of free spirit since we know that free spirits are the only reality that a substantial external world of matter through which they might act on each other is not to be thought of, or shall we still say we perceive our rational fellow beings by the changes they produce in the material world. In this case it may be asked again how we perceive these changes. I comprehend very well that we should perceive changes brought about by the mechanism of nature, for the law of this mechanism is no other than the law of our own thought. But the changes of which we speak are not brought about by the mechanism of nature, but by a free will raised above all nature, and only in as much as we thus regard them do we infer the existence of beings like ourselves. By what law in ourselves then could we discover the manifestations of other beings absolutely independent of us? In short this mutual recognition and reciprocal action of free beings in this world is perfectly inexplicable by the laws of nature, or of thought, and can only be explained by the supposition of there being all united in the same one infinite will, supporting each other in his fear. The knowledge which we have of each other does not flow immediately from you to me and from me to you, for we are separated by an insurmountable barrier, but we recognize each other in him who is the common source of our being. My conscience commands me to respect in a fellow creature the image of freedom upon the earth. Again once come our feelings, our sensual perceptions, our discursive laws of thought, on which is founded the external world which we behold, in which we believe we influence each other. With respect to the last two it is no answer to say. These are the laws of reason in itself. For us indeed it may be impossible to conceive any other law of reason than that under which we stand, but the actual law of reason in itself is the law of the transcendental world, or of that sublime will. Once comes the universal agreement in feelings which nevertheless are something positive, immediate, inexplicable. From this agreement, however, in feeling, perception, and in the laws of thought, proceeds our agreement in that sensual world which we all behold. This unanimity concerning the external world which we all receive as the sphere of our duty is when closely looked into just as incomprehensible as our unanimity concerning the products of our reciprocal free agency. This is the result of the one everlasting infinite will. Our faith and duty of which we have spoken is faith in him, in his reason, in his truth. The only pure and absolute truth which we admit in the external world is that our faithful and impartial performance of our duty in it will open to us a way to an everlasting life of moral freedom. If this be then indeed there is truth in the present world and the only truth possible for finite beings. And it must be, for this world is the result of the eternal will in us, and this will can have no other purpose with respect to finite beings than that which we have seen. The eternal will is therefore the creator of the world, as he is the creator of the finite reason. Those who will have that a world must have been created out of a mass of inner matter which must always remain inert and lifeless like a vessel made by human hands, know neither the world nor him. Reason alone truly exists, the infinite in himself, the finite in him. In our minds alone he is created a world or at least that by which and through which we unfold it. It is in his light that we behold the light and all that it reveals to us. In our minds he continues the creation of the world and acts on them by the call to duty. In our minds he upholds the world and the finite existence of which alone we are capable, by causing one state to arise perpetually from another. When he shall have sufficiently proved us for our further destination, and we sufficiently cultivated ourselves by that which we call death, will he annihilate for us this life and awaken us to the new life brought out for us by our virtuous actions. Our life is his life. We are in his hands and remain in them, and no one can tear us from them. Great living will, whom no words can name, in no conception embrace, well may I lift my thoughts to thee, for I can think only in thee. In thee the incomprehensible does my own existence, and that of the world become comprehensive to me. All the problems of being are solved, and the most perfect harmony reigns. Thou art best divine by humble childlike simplicity. Thou knowest her heart, and art the always present witness of all its dispositions, and though they should be mistaken by all the world, thou wilt not mistake them. Thou art her father, who lookest ever kindly on her, and all for her good. To thy decrees does she resign herself, body and soul. Do with me what thou wilt, she says. I know that it will be good for me, as surely as I know that it is thou who dusted. I veil my face before thee, and lay my finger on my lips. What thou art in thyself, or how thou appearest to thyself I can never know. After living through a thousand lives I shall comprehend thee as little as I do now in this mansion of clay. What I can comprehend becomes finite by mere comprehension, and this can never by perpetual assent be transformed into the infinite, for it does not differ from it in degree merely, but in kind. By that assent we may find a greater and greater man, but never a God who is capable of no measurement. I have and can imagine only this discursive progressive consciousness, and how could I ascribe this to thee? In the idea of personality is included limitation, and I cannot ascribe to thee one without the other. I will not attempt what is impossible to my finite nature. I will not seek to understand thy nature in itself, but thy relations to me. The finite creature and all finite creatures lie open before my eyes. Let me only become what I ought to become, and they will appear to me more brightly, more clearly, than my consciousness of my own existence. That has wrought in me the recognition of my duty and of my destination in the rank of reasonable beings. How I know not, and I need not to know. Thou knowest what I think and will. How thou canst know it, by what act thou canst attain this consciousness, I know not. Nay, I know that the idea of an act in a special act of consciousness belongs to me, the finite, and not to thee, the infinite. Thou willest for thou hast willed that my free voluntary obedience should have consequences through all eternity. But the mode of thy volition I do not understand, and I know only that it cannot be like mine. Thy will itself is deed, but its mode of operation is entirely different from any which I can conceive. Thou livest an art for thou knowest, willest, and workest, everywhere present to the finite reason. But thou are not that which through all eternity can alone be regarded by me as an individual existence. In the contemplation of this, thy relation to me, will I repose in calm blessedness. I know immediately what is necessary for me to know, and this will I joyfully, and without hesitation or sophistication, practice, for it is thy voice which commands me, the order of thy spiritual universe in me, and the power with which I shall perform my part, in it is thine. What is by thy voice therein commanded to me is truly and certainly good. I am tranquil in all the events of this world, for it is thy world. Nothing can appear to me strange or perplexing or discouraging, as surely as thou livest, and I perceive thy life. For in thee and through thee, infinite power, do I behold even the present world in another light. Nature and natural consequences become unmeaning, empty words as applied to the destinies and actions of free beings. Nature is no longer but only thou art. It no longer appears to me as the grand aim and purpose of the present world to bring forth that state of universal peace among men in a boundless dominion over the mechanism of nature merely for its own sake, but that it should be the work of man himself for all and through all a great free moral community. It is the fundamental law of the great moral empire of which the present world forms but a part that neither any amelioration or any moral progress should be possible for an individual by any other means than by his own virtuous will, and it is also true of communities. Thus it happens that the good intentions of the individual are so often lost to this world when the will of the majority is not conformable to his, and have their results solely in the future. Thus it happens that the passions and vices of men cooperate in the attainment of good, not in and for themselves, for in this sense can never good come out of evil, but by holding the balance of the opposite vices and at length by their excess annihilating the men themselves. Oppression could never have gained ground if the cowardice, baseness, and mutual distrust of men had not opened away to it. It will continue to grow worse until despair shall once more awaken courage, and cowardice and slavery be swept away together. Then will the two opposite vices have annihilated each other, and the noblest product of human society, lasting freedom, come forth from their conflict. The actions of free beings have strictly considered only results in other free beings, for in them and for them alone is the world, and that in which they all agree is the world. But they have these results through the infinite will from whom individuals proceed, and the revelation of this will to us is always a call to a certain duty. Therefore even what we call evil in this world, the consequence of the misuse of freedom, proceeds also from him and exists only as the occasion of duty. Did it not form part of the eternal plan of our moral culture, in that of our race, that the duties arising from it should be laid on us? They would not be so laid, and what we call evil would not have existed. Everything that is is good, as being suitable to its end. Only one world is possible, and that is good. All that happens in this world tends to the amelioration and culture of the human race, and by means of this to the attainment of the earthly object of its existence. It is to this great plan we allude when we say nature leads men through want to industry, through the evils of general disorder to a legal constitution, through the miseries of continual wars to endless everlasting peace. Thy will, O infinite being, thy provenance alone, is this higher nature. This also is best understood by the artless simplicity which regards this life as a place of probation and culture a school for eternity, which in all the events of life the most trivial as well as the most important, beholds thy guiding providence disposing all for the best, which firmly believes that all things must work together for the good of those who love their duty and seek to know thee. Section 18 Of the Destination of Man by Johann Gottlieb Fishte translated by Jane Sinett This is a LibriVox recording, all LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org Chapter 18 Faith Creative life flows like a continuous stream. Oh, how have I wandered in darkness during the past days of my life? How have I heaped error upon error and deemed myself wise? Now first do I understand the doctrine which seems so strange to me. For now first do I comprehend it in its whole compass, in its deepest foundations and through all its consequences. Man is not the mere product of the sensual world and the whole aim of his existence cannot be attained in it. His high destiny passes time and space and all that is sensual. What he is and what he is to make himself he must know, as his destiny is a lofty one, he must be able to raise his thoughts above all sensual limits where his true home is. Thither must his thoughts necessarily fly and his real humanity in which his whole mental power is displayed appears most when he raises himself above those limits and all that belongs to the senses vanishes in a mere reflection to mortal eyes of what is transcendent and immortal. Many have raised themselves to this view without any course of intellectual inquiry merely by nobleness of heart and pure moral instinct. They have denied in practice the reality of the sensual world and made it of no account in their resolutions and their conduct, although they might never have entertained the question of its real existence far less have come to any conclusion in the negative. Those who are entitled to say our citizenship is in heaven, we have here no abiding place, we seek it in a world to come. Those whose chief principle it was to die to the world to be born again and already here below to enter on the kingdom of God certainly set no value on what is merely sensual and were to use this scholastic expression transcendental idealists. Others who with the natural tendency to sensuality come into us all have strengthened themselves in it by the adoption of a system of thought leading in the same direction can only rise above it by a thorough and persevering course of investigation. With the purest moral intentions they would be liable to be perpetually drawn down again by their intellectual mistakes and their whole nature would be involved in inextricable contradiction. For such as these will the philosophy which I now first truly understand be the first power that can enable the imprisoned psyche to break from the chrysalis and unfold her wings, poised on which she casts a glance over her abandoned cell before springing upward to live and move in a higher sphere. Blessed be the hour in which I was first led to inquire into my own spiritual nature and destination. All my doubts are removed. I know what I can know and have no fears for what I cannot know. I am satisfied. Perfect clearness and harmony reign in my soul and a new and more glorious existence begins for me. My entire destiny I cannot comprehend. What I am to become exceeds my present power of conception. A part which is concealed from me is visible to the father of spirits. I know only that it is secure, everlasting and glorious. That part of it which is confided to me I know, for it is the root of all my other knowledge. I know it every moment of my life what I have to do, and this is the aim of my existence as far as it depends on myself. Since my knowledge does not reach beyond this I am not required to go further. On this central point I take my stand. To this shall all my thoughts and endeavours tend and my whole power be directed, my whole existence be woven around it. It is my duty to cultivate my understanding and to acquire knowledge as much as I can but purely with the intention of enlarging my sphere of duty. I shall desire to gain much, that much may be required of me. It is my duty to exercise my powers and talents in every direction, but merely in order to render myself a more convenient and better qualified instrument for the work I am called to do. For until the law of God in my heart shall have been fulfilled in practice I am answerable for it to my conscience. It is my duty to represent in my person as far as I am able the most complete and perfect humanity, not for its own sake, but in order that in the form of humanity may be represented the highest perfection of virtue. I shall regard myself and all that in me is merely as the means to the fulfillment of duty and shall have no other anxiety than that I may be able, as far as possible, to fulfill it. When, however, I shall have once resolutely obeyed the law of conscience, conscious of the purest intentions in doing so, when this law shall have been made just in practice, I shall have no further anxiety, for having once become a fact in the world it has been placed in the hands of an eternal providence. Further care or anxiety concerning the issue where but idle self-torment would exhibit a want of faith and trust in that infinite power. I shall not dream of governing the world in his place of listening to the voice of my own limited understanding, instead of his voice in my conscience, and substituting for his vast and comprehensive plans those of a narrow and short-sighted individual. I know that to seek to do so would be to seek to disturb the order of the spiritual world. As with tranquil resignation I reverence the decrees of a higher providence, so in my actions do I reverence the freedom of my fellow creatures. The question for me is not what they, according to my conceptions, ought to do, but what I may do to induce them to it. I cannot wish to act on them otherwise than through their own conviction, and their own will, and as far as the order of society and their own consent will permit me, by no means, however, to influence their powers and circumstances independently of their own convictions. They do what they do on their own responsibility. In this I dare not interfere, and the eternal will will dispose all for the best. All that I have to do is to respect their liberty, and to make no attempt to destroy it, because it appears to me ill-employed. I raise myself to this point of view and become a new creature. My whole relations to the present world are changed, the ties by which my mind was closely connected with it, and followed all its movements are broken forever, and I stand calmly in the center of my own world. My eye only, and not my heart, is occupied with worldly objects, and this eye is filled with light, and looks through forever and deformity to the true and the beautiful. My mind is forever closed against perplexity and embarrassment and uncertainty and doubt and anxiety, my heart against grief and repentance, as well as against desire. There is but one thing that I wish to know, and that I infallibly shall know, and I refrain from forming conjectures as to what I am sure I can never with certainty know. No possible event has power to agitate me with joy or sorrow, for I look down calm and unmoved upon all, since I am aware that I am not able to understand events in all their bearings. All that happens belongs to the everlasting plan of providence, and is good in its place. How much in this plan is pure gain? How much is merely good as means to some further end for the destruction of some present evil I know not? I am satisfied with and stand fast as a rock on the belief that all that happens in God's world happens for the best, but what in that world is merely germ, what blossom, what fruit I know not? The only cause in which I can be deeply concerned is that of the progress of reason and morality in the minds of rational creatures, and this purely for the sake of this progress. Whether I am the instrument chosen for this purpose or another, whether my endeavors succeed or fail is of no importance. I regard myself merely as a destined laborer in this field, and respect myself only in as much as I execute my task. I look on all the occurrences of the world only in their relation to this object, and it matters not whether I or another have the chief share in them. My breast is steeled against personal insults and vexations, or vanglorious exaltation in personal merit, for my personality has vanished in the contemplation of the great object before me. Should it seem to me that truth has been put to silence, and virtue trembled underfoot, and that folly and vice will certainly triumph, should it happen when all hearts were filled with hope for the human race, that the horizon should suddenly darken around them as it had never done before, should the work well and happily begun, on which all eyes were fixed with joyous expectation, suddenly and unexpectedly be turned into a deed of shame, yet will I not be dismayed. Nor if the good cause should appear to grow and flourish, the lights of freedom and civilization be diffused, and peace and goodwill amongst men be extended, shall yet my efforts be relaxed. Those apparently melancholy events may for ought I know, be the means of bringing about a good result. That struggle of folly and vice may be the last that they shall ever maintain, and they may be permitted to put forth all their strength to lose it in one final defeat. Those events of apparently joyful promise may rest on an uncertain foundation. What I regarded as love of freedom may be but impatience of restraint. What I attributed to gentleness and peacefulness may originate in feebleness and effeminacy. I do not indeed know this, but it might be that I had as little cause to mourn over the one as to rejoice over the other. All that I know is that the world is in the hands of omnipotent wisdom and goodness, who looks through his whole plan, knows all its bearings, and will infallibly be able to execute whatever he intends. On this conviction I repose with a calm and blessed assurance, that they are free and rational creatures destined to make progress towards perfect reason and moral purity, who thus exert all their powers in the promotion of folly and vice, need excite no violent indignation. The depravity of hating what is good for its own sake, and choosing evil because it is evil, for the mere love of it, which alone could justly awaken anger, I cannot ascribe to any human creature, for I know that it lies not in human nature to do so. I know that for all who act thus there is generally no good or evil, but merely the agreeable or disagreeable, and that they are not under their own control, but under that of natural appetite, which seeks the former, and flies from the latter with all its strength, without any consideration whether it be in itself good or evil. I know that being what they are they cannot act otherwise than as they do act, and I am far from the folly of growing angry at what is of necessity, or seeing cause for indignation in blind and brute impulse, and that indeed lies their guilt and their degradation, that they are what they are, instead of striving to resist the current of passion and animal nature by the force of reason, as free and rational beings. This alone could justly awaken my displeasure, but here I fall into an absurdity. I cannot blame them for their want of moral freedom unless I regard them first as free. I wish to be angry with them and find no object for my anger, but they actually are, does not deserve it. What might deserve it they are not, and if they were they would not deserve it. My displeasure strikes at non- entity. I must indeed treat them and address them, as if they were what I well know they are not, and manifest a noble indignation at their conduct, with a view of arousing a similar feeling in their own breasts against themselves, although I am conscious in my heart that no such feeling can be rationally entertained against them. It is only the acting man of society whose anger is excited by folly and vice, the contemplative man reposes undisturbed in the tranquility of his own spirit. Pervorial suffering, sorrow, and sickness I must indeed unavoidably feel for they are occurrences of my nature, and as long as I remain on earth I am a part of nature, but they shall not overcloud my spirit. They can reach only the nature with which I am in a wonderful manner united, not what is properly myself, the being exalted above nature. The certain end of all pain and of all susceptibility of pain is death, and among all which the man of mere nature is apt to regard as evils. This is the least. I shall not die for myself, but only for others, for those who remain behind, from whose connection I am torn. For me the hour of death is the hour of birth to a new, more magnificent life. Let my heart be once closed against earthly desire, and the universe will appear before me in a glorified form. The dead heavy mass, which did but fill up space, has disappeared, and in its place there rushes by the bright, everlasting flood of life and power from its infinite source. All life, O omnipotent father, is thy life, and the eye of religion alone penetrates to the realms of truth and beauty. I am related to thee, and what I behold abound to me is related to me. All is full of animation, and looks towards me with bright spiritual eyes, and speaks with spirit voices to my heart. In all the forms that surround me, I behold the manifold reflections of my own being, as the morning sun, broken into a thousand dewdrops, sparkles towards itself. Thy life, as alone the finite mind can conceive it, is self-forming, self-representing will, which, clothed to the eye of the mortal, with multitudinous sensuous forms flows through me and the whole immeasurable universe, here streaming as self-creative matter through my veins and muscles, there pouring its abundance into the tree, the flower, the grass. Creative life flows like a continuous stream, drop by drop, into all forms through which my eye can follow it, and into the mysterious darkness where my own frame was formed, dancing and rejoicing in the animal, and presenting itself every moment in a new form. The only principle of motion that, from one end of the universe to the other, conducts the harmonious movement. But pure and holy, and as near to thine own nature as to the eye of the mortal, anything can be, when it forms the bond which unites spirit with spirit, and encompasses them all, is the breath and atmosphere of the rational world. Incomprehensible, unimaginable, yet visible to the mental sight. Hovering over this sea of light, thought passes from soul to soul, and is reflected back, pure and brighter, from that of a fellow creature. By this mystery does the individual understand and love himself in another, and every mind develops itself from other minds, and there is no single man but one humanity. By this mystery does the affinity of spirits in the invisible world pass into their corporal nature, and manifest itself into sexes, which, even if the spiritual bond could be broken, would as creatures of pure nature be compelled to love. It breathes through the tenderness of parents and children, and brethren, as if the souls were of one blood, like the bodies, and their minds but blossoms and branches of the same stem, and from these flows in wider and wider circles till it embraces the whole sentient world. The thirst after love lies even at the root of hate, and no enmity springs up, but from friendship denied. In that which to others appears a dead mass, my eye beholds this everlasting life and movement throughout the sensual and spiritual world, and sees this life forever rising and refining itself to more and more spiritual expression. The universe is for me no longer that eternally repeated play, that ever-returning circle, that monster swallowing itself up to bring itself forth again as it was before. It has become spiritualized to me. It bears the stamp of spirit in a constant progress towards perfection. The sun rises and sets and the stars vanish and return again, and all the fears move in their harmonious circling dance, but they never return exactly what they were before, and in the bright springs of life itself is life and progress. Every hour which they lead on, every morning and every evening, syncs with new increase upon the world. New life and new love descends like dew drops from the clouds, and encircle nature as the cool night at the earth. All death and nature is birth, and in death appears visibly the advancement of life. There is no killing principle in nature, for nature throughout is life. It is not death which kills, but the higher life, which concealed behind the other begins to develop itself. Death and birth are but the struggle of life with itself to attain a higher form. And how could my death be other, mine when I bear in myself not merely the form and semblance of life, but the only true original and essential life? It is not possible that nature could annihilate a life which has not its origin in nature, the nature which exists for me, and not I for her. Yet even this, my natural life, even this mere semblance clothing to mortal sight the inward invisible life can she not destroy? She who exists for me and exists not if I am not? My present life disappears only before the higher life developing itself from within, and what mortals call death is visible appearance of a second animation. Did no rational creature which had ever beheld the light of this world die, there would be no possible ground to anticipate a new heavens and a new earth. The only purpose of nature, to present and maintain reason, would be fulfilled, and its ban would have been complete. But the act by which she appears to destroy a being free and independent of her is to the eye of reason the solemn announcement of a transition beyond her sphere. Death is the latter by which my spiritual vision ascends to a new heavenly life. Every one of my fellow creatures who leaves this earthly circle and whom I cannot regard as annihilated draws my thoughts after him beyond the grave. He is still and to him belongs a place. Whilst we mourn for him here, as in the dark realms of unconsciousness there might be mourning when a man is to live the light of the sun, above there is rejoicing that a man is born into that world, as we citizens of the earth receive with joy and welcome those born to us. When I shall be called on to follow them, there will be but joy for me, for sorrow remains in the sphere which I shall be leaving. The world of nature on which but now I gazed with wonder and admiration sinks before me. With all its abounding life and order and bounteous increase it is but the curtain which hides one infinitely more perfect. The germ from which that other shall develop itself. My faith pierces through this veil and broods over and animates this germ. It sees indeed nothing distinctly, but it expects more than it can conceive. More than it will ever be able to conceive until time shall be no more. End of section 18 End of The Destination of Man by Johann Gottlieb Fishta translated by Jane Sennett 1804-1870