# The Vocation of Man/Part 3

BOOK III.
FAITH.
Terrible Spirit, thy discourse has smitten me to the ground. But thou referrest me to myself, and what were I, could anything out of myself irrecoverably cast me down? I will,—yes, surely I will follow thy counsel.
What seekest thou, then, my complaining heart? What is it that excites thee against a system to which my understanding cannot raise the slightest objection?
​And what is, then, this something lying beyond all presentation, towards which I stretch forward with such ardent longing? What is the power with which it draws me towards it? What is the central point in my soul to which it is attached, and with which only it can be effaced?
“Not merely to know, but according to thy knowledge to do, is thy vocation:”—thus is it loudly proclaimed in the innermost depths of my soul, as soon as I recollect myself for a moment, and turn my observation upon myself. “Not for idle contemplation of thyself, not for brooding over devout sensations;—no, for action art thou here; thine action, and thine action alone, determines thy worth.”
This voice leads me from presentation, from mere cognition, to something which lies beyond it, and is entirely opposed to it; to something which is greater and higher than all knowledge, and which contains within itself the end and object of all knowledge. When I act, I doubtless know that I act, and how I act; but this knowledge is not the act itself, but only the observation of it. This voice thus announces to me precisely that which I sought; a something lying beyond mere knowledge, and, in its nature, wholly independent of it.
Thus it is, I know it immediately. But having once entered within the domain of speculation, the doubt which has been awakened within me, will secretly endure, and will continue to disturb me. Since I have placed myself in this position, I can obtain no complete satisfaction until everything which I accept is justified before the tribunal of speculation. I have thus to ask myself,—how is it thus? Whence arises that voice in ​my soul which directs me to something beyond mere presentation and knowledge?
There is within me an impulse to absolute, independent self-activity. Nothing is more insupportable to me, than to be merely by another, for another, and through another; I must be something for myself and by myself alone. This impulse I feel along with the perception of my own existence, it is inseparably united to my consciousness of myself.
​My conception and origination of a purpose, however, is, by its very nature, absolutely free,—producing something out of nothing. To such a conception I must unite my activity, in order that it may be possible to regard it as free, and as proceeding absolutely from myself alone.
In the following manner, therefore, do I conceive of my independence as I. I ascribe to myself the power of originating a conception simply because I originate it, of originating this conception simply because I originate this one,—by the absolute sovereignty of myself as an intelligence. I further ascribe to myself the power of manifesting this conception beyond itself by means of an action;—ascribe to myself a real, active power, capable of producing something beyond itself,—a power which is entirely different from the mere power of conception. These conceptions, which are called conceptions of design, or purposes, are not, like the conceptions of mere knowledge, copies of something already given, but rather types of something yet to be produced; the real power lies beyond them, and is in itself independent of them;—it only receives from them its immediate determinations, which are apprehended by knowledge. Such an independent power it is that, in consequence of this impulse, I ascribe to myself.
Here then, it appears, is the point to which the consciousness of all reality unites itself;—the real efficiency of my conception, and the real power of action which, in consequence of it, I am compelled to ascribe to myself, is this point. Let it be as it may with the reality of a sensible world beyond me; I possess reality and comprehend it,—it lies within my own being, it is native to myself. ​I conceive this, my real power of action, in thought, but I do not create it by thought. The immediate feeling of my impulse to independent activity lies at the foundation of this thought; the thought does no more than portray this feeling, and accept it in its own form,—the form of thought. This procedure may, I think, be vindicated before the tribunal of speculation.
What! Shall I, once more, knowingly and intentionally deceive myself? This procedure can by no means be justified before that strict tribunal.
I feel within me an impulse and an effort towards outward activity; this appears to be true, and to be the only truth which belongs to the matter. Since it is I who feel this impulse, and since I cannot pass beyond myself, either with my whole consciousness, or in particular with my capacity of sensation,—since this I itself is the last point at which I feel this impulse, therefore it certainly appears to me as an impulse founded in myself, to an activity also founded in myself. Might it not be however that this impulse, although unperceived by me, is in reality the impulse of a foreign power invisible to me, and that notion of independence merely a delusion, arising from my sphere of vision being limited to myself alone? I have no reason to assume this, but just as little reason to deny it. I must confess that I absolutely know nothing, and can know nothing, about it.
Do I then indeed feel that real power of free action, which, strangely enough, I ascribe to myself without knowing anything of it? By no means;—it is merely the determinable element, which, by the well-known ​laws of thought whereby all capacities and all powers arise, we are compelled to add in imagination to the determinate element—the real action, which itself is, in like manner, only an assumption.
Is that procession, from the mere conception to an imaginary realization of it, anything more than the usual and well-known procedure of all objective thought, which always strives to be, not mere thought, but something more? By what dishonesty can this procedure be made of more value here than in any other case?—can it possess any deeper significance, when to the conception of a thought it adds a realization of this thought, than when to the conception of this table it adds an actual and present table? “The conception of a purpose, a particular determination of events in me, appears in a double shape,—partly as subjective—a Thought; partly as objective—an Action.” What reason, which would not unquestionably itself stand in need of a genetic deduction, could I adduce against this explanation?
I say that I feel this impulse:—it is therefore I myself who say so, and think so while I say it? Do I then really feel, or only think that I feel? Is not all which I call feeling only a presentation produced by my objective process of thought, and indeed the first transition point of all objectivity? And then again, do I really think, or do I merely think that I think? And do I think that I really think, or merely that I possess the idea of thinking? What can hinder speculation from raising such questions, and continuing to raise them without end? What can I answer, and where is there a point at which I can command such questionings to cease? I know, and must admit, that each definite act of consciousness may be made the subject ​of reflection, and a new consciousness of the first consciousness may thus be created; and that thereby the immediate consciousness is raised a step higher, and the first consciousness darkened and made doubtful; and that to this ladder there is no highest step. I know that all scepticism rests upon this process, and that the system which has so violently prostrated me is founded on the adoption and the clear consciousness of it.
I know that if I am not merely to play another perplexing game with this system, but intend really and practically to adopt it, I must refuse obedience to that voice within me. I cannot will to act, for according to that system I cannot know whether I can really act or not:—I can never believe that I truly act; that which seems to be my action must appear to me as entirely without meaning, as a mere delusive picture. All earnestness and all interest is withdrawn from my life; and life, as well as thought, is transformed into a mere play, which proceeds from nothing and tends to nothing.
Shall I then refuse obedience to that inward voice? I will not do so. I will freely accept the vocation which this impulse assigns to me, and in this resolution I will lay hold at once of thought, in all its reality and truthfulness, and on the reality of all things which are presupposed therein. I will restrict myself to the position of natural thought in which this impulse places me, and cast from me all those over-refined and subtle inquiries which alone could make me doubtful of its truth.
I understand thee now, sublime Spirit! I have found the organ by which to apprehend this reality, and, with this, probably all other reality. Knowledge is not this ​organ:—no knowledge can be its own foundation, its own proof; every knowledge pre-supposes another higher knowledge on which it is founded, and to this ascent there is no end. It is Faith, that voluntary acquiescence in the view which is naturally presented to us, because only through this view we can fulfil our vocation;—this it is, which first lends a sanction to knowledge, and raises to certainty and conviction that which without it might be mere delusion. It is not knowledge, but a resolution of the will to admit the validity of knowledge.
Let me hold fast for ever by this doctrine, which is no mere verbal distinction, but a true and deep one, bearing with it the most important consequences for my whole existence and character. All my conviction is but faith; and it proceeds from the character, not from the understanding. Knowing this, I will enter upon no disputation, because I foresee that thereby nothing can be gained; I will not suffer myself to be perplexed by it, for the source of my conviction lies higher than all disputation; I will not suffer myself to entertain the desire of pressing this conviction on others by reasoning, and I will not be surprised if such an undertaking should fail. I have adopted my mode of thinking first of all for myself, not for others, and before myself only will I justify it. He who possesses the honest, upright purpose of which I am conscious, will also attain a similar conviction; but without that, this conviction can in no way be attained. Now that I know this, I also know from what point all culture of myself and others must proceed; from the will, not from the understanding. If the former be only fixedly and honestly directed towards the Good, the latter will ​of itself apprehend the True. Should the latter only be exercised, whilst the former remains neglected, there can arise nothing whatever but a dexterity in groping after vain and empty refinements, throughout the absolute void inane. Now that I know this, I am able to confute all false knowledge that may rise in opposition to my faith. I know that every pretended truth, produced by mere speculative thought, and not founded upon faith, is assuredly false and surreptitious; for mere knowledge, thus produced, leads only to the conviction that we can know nothing. I know that such false knowledge never can discover anything but what it has previously placed in its premises through faith, from which it probably draws conclusions which are wholly false. Now that I know this, I possess the touchstone of all truth and of all conviction. Conscience alone is the root of all truth: whatever is opposed to conscience, or stands in the way of the fulfilment of her behests, is assuredly false; and it is impossible for me to arrive at a conviction of its truth, even if I should be unable to discover the fallacies by which it is produced.
So has it been with all men who have ever seen the light of this world. Without being conscious of it, they apprehend all the reality which has an existence for them, through faith alone; and this faith forces itself on them simultaneously with their existence;—it is born with them. How could it be otherwise? If in mere knowledge, in mere perception and reflection, there is no ground for regarding our mental presentations as more than mere pictures which necessarily pass before our view, why do we yet regard all of them as more than this, and assume, as their foundation, ​something which exists independently of all presentation? If we all possess the capacity and the instinct to proceed beyond our first natural view of things, why do so few actually go beyond it, and why do we even defend ourselves, with a sort of bitterness, from every motive by which others try to persuade us to this course? What is it which holds us confined within this first natural belief? Not inferences of reason, for there are none such; it is the interest we have in a reality which we desire to produce;—the good, absolutely for its own sake,—the common and sensuous, for the sake of the enjoyment they afford. No one who lives can divest himself of this interest, and just as little can he cast off the faith which this interest brings with it. We are all born in faith;—he who is blind, follows blindly the secret and irresistible impulse; he who sees, follows by sight, and believes because he resolves to believe.
What unity and completeness does this view present!—what dignity does it confer on human nature! Our thought is not founded on itself alone, independently of our impulses and affections;—man does not consist of two independent and separate elements; he is absolutely one. All our thought is founded on our impulses;—as a man’s affections are, so is his knowledge. These impulses compel us to a certain mode of thought only so long as we do not perceive the constraint; the constraint vanishes the moment it is perceived; and it is then no longer the impulse by itself, but we ourselves, according to our impulse, who form our own system of thought.
But I shall open my eyes; shall learn thoroughly to ​know myself; shall discover that constraint;—this is my vocation. I shall thus, and under that supposition I shall necessarily, form my own mode of thought. Then shall I stand absolutely independent, thoroughly equipt and perfected through my own act and deed. The primitive source of all my other thought and of my life itself, that from which everything proceeds which can have an existence in me, for me, or through me, the innermost spirit of my spirit,—is no longer a foreign power, but it is, in the strictest possible sense, the product of my own will. I am wholly my own creation. I might have followed blindly the leading of my spiritual nature. But I would not be a work of Nature but of myself, and I have become so even by means of this resolution. By endless subtilties I might have made the natural conviction of my own mind dark and doubtful. But I have accepted it with freedom, simply because I resolved to accept it. I have chosen the system which I have now adopted with settled purpose and deliberation from among other possible modes of thought, because I have recognised in it the only one consistent with my dignity and my vocation. With freedom and consciousness I have returned to the point at which Nature had left me. I accept that which she announces;—but I do not accept it because I must; I believe it because I will.
The exalted vocation of my understanding fills me with reverence. It is no longer the deceptive mirror which reflects a series of empty pictures, proceeding from nothing and tending to nothing; it is bestowed upon me for a great purpose. Its cultivation for this ​purpose is entrusted to me; it is placed in my hands, and at my hands it will be required.—It is placed in my hands. I know immediately,—and here my faith accepts the testimony of my consciousness without farther criticism,—I know that I am not placed under the necessity of allowing my thoughts to float about without direction or purpose, but that I can voluntarily arouse and direct my attention to one object, turn it away again towards another;—know that it is neither a blind necessity which compels me to a certain mode of thought, nor an empty chance which runs riot with my thoughts; but that it is I who think, and that I can think of that whereof I determine to think. Thus by reflection I have discovered something more; I have discovered that I myself, by my own act alone, produce my whole system of thought, and the particular view which I take of truth in general; since it remains with me either to deprive myself of all sense of truth by means of over-refinement, or to yield myself to this view with faithful obedience. My whole mode of thought, and the cultivation which my understanding receives, as well as the objects to which I direct it, depend entirely on myself. True insight is merit;—the perversion of my capacity for knowledge, thoughtlessness, obscurity, error, and unbelief, are guilt.
There is but one point towards which I have unceasingly to direct all my attention,—namely, what I ought to do, and how I may most suitably fulfil the obligation which binds me to do it. All my thoughts must have a bearing on my actions, and must be capable of being considered as means, however remote, to this end; otherwise they are an idle and aimless show, a mere waste of time and strength, and the perversion ​of a noble power, which is entrusted to me for a very different end.
I dare hope, I dare surely promise myself, to follow out this undertaking with good results. The Nature on which I have to act is not a foreign element, called into existence without reference to me, into which I cannot penetrate. It is moulded by my own laws of thought, and must be in harmony with them; it must be thoroughly transparent, knowable and penetrable to me, even to its inmost recesses. In all its phenomena it expresses nothing but the connexions and relations of my own being to myself, and as surely as I may hope to know myself, so surely may I expect to comprehend it. Let me seek only that which I ought to seek, and I shall find; let me ask only that which I ought to ask, and I shall receive an answer.
I.
That voice within my soul in which I believe, and on account of which I believe in every other thing to which I attach credence, does not merely command me to act in general. This is impossible; all these general principles are formed only through my own voluntary observation and reflection, applied to many individual facts; but never in themselves express any fact whatever. This voice of my conscience announces to me precisely what I ought to do, and what leave undone, in every particular situation of life; it accompanies me, if I will but listen to it with attention, through all the events of my life, and never refuses me my reward where I am called upon to act. It carries with it ​immediate conviction, and irresistibly compels my assent to its behests:—it is impossible for me to contend against it.
To listen to it, to obey it honestly and unreservedly, without fear or equivocation,—this is my true vocation, the whole end and purpose of my existence. My life ceases to be an empty play without truth or significance. There is something that must absolutely be done for its own sake alone;—that which conscience demands of me in this particular situation of life it is mine to do, for this only am I here;—to know it, I have understanding; to perform it, I have power. Through this edict of conscience alone, truth and reality are introduced into my conceptions. I cannot refuse them my attention and my obedience without thereby surrendering the very purpose of my own existence.
Hence I cannot withhold my belief from the reality which they announce, without at the same time renouncing my vocation. It is absolutely true, without farther proof or confirmation,—nay, it is the first truth, and the foundation of all other truth and certainty, that this voice must be obeyed; and therefore everything becomes to me true and certain, the truth and certainty of which is assumed in the possibility of such an obedience.
There appear before me in space, certain phenomena, to which I transfer the idea of myself;—I conceive of them as beings like myself. Speculation, when carried out to its last results, has indeed taught me, or would teach me, that these supposed rational beings out of myself are but the products of my own presentative power; that, according to certain laws of my thought, I am compelled to represent out of myself my ​conception of myself; and that, according to the same laws, I can only transfer this conception to certain definite intuitions. But the voice of my conscience thus speaks:—“Whatever these beings may be in and for themselves, thou shall act towards them as self-existent, free, substantive beings, wholly independent of thee. Assume it as already known, that they can give a purpose to their own being wholly by themselves, and quite independently of thee; never interrupt the accomplishment of this purpose, but rather further it to the utmost of thy power. Honour their freedom, lovingly take up their purposes as if they were thine own.” Thus ought I to act:—by this course of action ought all my thought to be guided,—nay, it shall and must necessarily be so, if I have resolved to obey the voice of my conscience. I shall therefore always regard these beings as in possession of an existence for themselves wholly independent of mine, as capable of forming and carrying out their own purposes;—from this point of view, I shall never be able to regard them otherwise, and my previous speculations shall vanish from before me like an empty dream.—I think of them as beings like myself, I have said; but strictly speaking, it is not mere thought by which they are first presented to me as such. It is by the voice of my conscience,—the command:—“Here set a limit to thy freedom; here recognise and reverence purposes which are not thine own.” This it is which is first translated into the thought, “Here, certainly and truly, are beings like myself, free and independent.” To view them otherwise, I must in action renounce, and in speculation disregard, the voice of my conscience.
Other phenomena present themselves before me which ​I do not regard as beings like myself, but as things irrational. Speculation finds no difficulty in showing how the conception of such things is developed solely from my own presentative faculty, and its necessary modes of activity. But I apprehend these things, also, through want, desire, and enjoyment. Not by the mental conception, but by hunger, thirst, and their satisfaction, does anything become for me food and drink. I am necessitated to believe in the reality of that which threatens my sensuous existence, or in that which alone is able to maintain it. Conscience enters the field in order that it may at once sanctify and restrain this natural impulse. “Thou shalt maintain, exercise, and strengthen thyself and thy physical powers, for they have been counted upon in the plans of reason. But thou canst only maintain them by using them in a legitimate manner, comformable to the inward nature of such things. There are also, besides thee, many other beings like thyself, whose powers have been counted upon like thine own, and can only be maintained in the same way as thine own. Concede to them the same privilege that has been allowed to thee. Respect what belongs to them, as their possession;—use what belongs to thee, legitimately as thine own.” Thus ought I to act,—according to this course of action must I think. I am compelled to regard these things as standing under their own natural laws, independent of, though perceivable by, me; and therefore to ascribe to them an independent existence. I am compelled to believe in such laws; the task of investigating them is set before me, and that empty speculation vanishes like a mist when the genial sun appears.
In short, there is for me absolutely no such thing as ​an existence which has no relation to myself, and which I contemplate merely for the sake of contemplating it;—whatever has an existence for me, has it only through its relation to myself. But there is, in the highest sense, only one relation to me possible, all others are but subordinate forms of this:—my vocation to moral activity. My world is the object and sphere of my duties, and absolutely nothing more; there is no other world for me, and no other qualities of my world than what are implied in this;—my whole united capacity, all finite capacity, is insufficient to comprehend any other. Whatever possesses an existence for me, can bring its existence and reality into contact with me only through this relation, and only through this relation do I comprehend it:—for any other existence than this I have no organ whatever.
To the question, whether, in deed and in fact, such a world exists as that which I represent to myself, I can give no answer more fundamental, more raised above all doubt, than this:—I have, most certainly and truly, these determinate duties, which announce themselves to me as duties towards certain objects, to be fulfilled by means of certain materials;—duties which I cannot otherwise conceive of, and cannot otherwise fulfil, than within such a world as I represent to myself. Even to one who had never meditated on his own moral vocation, if there could be such a one, or who, if he had given it some general consideration, had, at least, never entertained the slightest purpose of fulfilling it at any time within an indefinite futurity,—even for him, his sensuous world, and his belief in its reality, arises in no other manner than from his ideas of a moral world. If he do not apprehend it by the thought ​of his duties, he certainly does so by the demand for his rights. What he perhaps never requires of himself, he does certainly exact from others in their conduct towards him,—that they should treat him with propriety, consideration, and respect, not as an irrational thing, but as a free and independent being;—and thus, in supposing in them an ability to comply with his own demands, he is compelled also to regard them as themselves considerate, free, and independent of the dominion of mere natural power. Should he never propose to himself any other purpose in his use and enjoyment of surrounding objects, but simply that of enjoying them, he at least demands this enjoyment as a right, in the possession of which he must be left undisturbed by others; and thus he apprehends even the irrational world of sense, by means of a moral idea. These claims of respect for his rationality, independence, and preservation, no one can resign who possesses a conscious existence; and with these claims, at least, there is united in his soul, earnestness, renunciation of doubt, and faith in a reality, even if they be not associated with the recognition of a moral law within him. Take the man who denies his own moral vocation, and thy existence, and the existence of a material world, except as a mere futile effort in which speculation tries her strength,—approach him practically, introduce his own principles into life, and act as if either he had no existence at all, or were merely a portion of rude matter,—he will soon lay aside his scornful indifference, and indignantly complain of thee; earnestly call thy attention to thy conduct towards him; maintain that thou oughtst not and darest not so to act; and thus prove to thee, by deeds, that thou art assuredly capable of acting upon ​him; that he is, and that thou art,—that there is a medium by which thou canst influence him, and that thou, at least, hast duties to perform towards him.
Thus, it is not the operation of supposed external objects, which indeed exist for us, and we for them, only in so far as we already know of them; and just as little an empty vision evoked by our own imagination and thought, the products of which must, like itself, be mere empty pictures;—it is not these, but the necessary faith in our own freedom and power, in our own real activity and in the definite laws of human action, which lies at the root of all our consciousness of a reality external to ourselves;—a consciousness which is itself but faith, since it is founded on another faith, of which however it is a necessary consequence. We are compelled to believe that we act, and that we ought to act in a certain manner; we are compelled to assume a certain sphere for this action; this sphere is the real, actually present world, such as we find it;—and on the other hand, the world is absolutely nothing more than this sphere, and cannot, in any other way, extend itself beyond it. From this necessity of action proceeds the consciousness of the actual world; and not the reverse way, from the consciousness of the actual world the necessity of action:—this, not that, is the first; the former is derived from the latter. We do not act because we know, but we know because we are called upon to act:—the practical reason is the root of all reason. The laws of action for rational beings are immediately certain; their world is only certain through that previous certainty. We cannot deny these laws without plunging the world, and ourselves with it, into absolute annihilation;—we raise ourselves from ​this abyss, and maintain ourselves above it, solely by our moral activity.
II.
There is something which I am called upon to do, simply in order that it may be done; something to avoid doing, solely that it may be left undone. But can I act without having an end in view beyond the action itself, without directing my intention to something which can become possible through my action, and only through that? Can I will, without having something which I will? No:—this would entirely contradict the nature of my mind. To every action there is united in my thought, immediately and by the laws of thought itself, a condition of things placed in futurity, to which my action is related as the efficient cause to the effect produced. But this purpose or end of my action must not be given to me for its own sake,—perhaps through some necessity of Nature,—and then my course of action determined according to this end; I must not have an end assigned to me, and then inquire how I must act in order to attain this end; my action must not be dependent on the end; but I must act in a certain manner, simply because I ought so to act;—this is the first point. That a result will follow from this course of action, is proclaimed by the voice within me. This result necessarily becomes an end to me, since I am bound to perform the action which brings it, and it alone, to pass. I will that something shall come to pass, because I must act so that it may come to pass;—thus as I do not hunger because food is before me, but a thing becomes food for me because I hunger; so I ​do not act as I do because a certain end is to be attained, but the end becomes mine because I am bound to act in the particular manner by which it may be attained. I have not first in view the point towards which I am to draw my line, and then, by its position, determine the direction of my line, and the angle that it shall make; but I draw my line absolutely in a right angle, and thereby the points are determined through which my line must pass. The end does not determine the commandment; but, on the contrary, the primitive purport of the commandment determines the end.
I say, it is the law which commands me to act that of itself assigns an end to my action; the same inward voice that compels me to think that I ought to act thus, compels me also to believe that from my action some result will arise; it opens to my spiritual vision a prospect into another world,—which is really a world, a state, namely, and not an action,—but another and better world than that which is present to the physical eye; it makes me aspire after this better world, embrace it with every impulse, long for its realization, live only in it, and in it alone find satisfaction. The law itself is my guarantee for the certain attainment of this end. The same resolution by which I devote my whole thought and life to the fulfilment of this law, and determine to see nothing beyond it, brings with it the indestructible conviction, that the promise it implies is likewise true and certain, and renders it impossible for me even to conceive the possibility of the opposite. As I live in obedience to it, I live also in the contemplation of its end; live in that better world which it promises to me.
​Even in the mere consideration of the world as it is, apart from this law, there arises within me the wish, the desire,—no, not the mere desire, but the absolute demand for a better world. I cast a glance on the present relations of men towards each other, and towards Nature; on the feebleness of their powers, the strength of their desires and passions. A voice within me proclaims with irresistible conviction—“It is impossible that it can remain thus; it must all become different and better.”
I cannot think of the present state of humanity as that in which it is destined to remain; I am absolutely unable to conceive of this as its complete and final vocation. Then, indeed, were all a dream and a delusion; and it would not be worth the trouble to have lived, and played out this ever-repeated game, which tends to nothing, and signifies nothing. Only in so far as I can regard this state as the means of a better, as the transition point to a higher and more perfect state, has it any value in my eyes;—not for its own sake, but for the sake of that better world for which it prepares the way, can I support it, esteem it, and joyfully perform my part in it. My mind can take no place in the present, nor rest in it even for a moment, but is irresistibly repelled from it; my whole being flows onward, heedless of restraint or barrier, towards that future and better state of things.
Shall I eat and drink only that I may hunger and thirst and eat and drink again, till the grave which is open beneath my feet shall swallow me up, and I myself become the food of worms? Shall I beget beings like myself, that they too may eat and drink ​and die, and leave behind them beings like themselves to do the same that I have done? To what purpose this ever-revolving circle, this ceaseless and unvarying round, in which all things appear only to pass away, and pass away only that they may re-appear unaltered;—this monster continually devouring itself that it may again bring itself forth, and bringing itself forth only that it may again devour itself?
This can never be the vocation of my being, and of all being. There must be something which exists because it has come into existence; and now endures, and cannot again re-appear, having once become such as it is. And this element of permanent endurance must be produced amid the vicissitudes of the transitory and perishable, maintain itself there, and be borne onwards, pure and inviolate, upon the waves of time.
Our race still laboriously extorts the means of its subsistence and preservation from an opposing Nature. The larger portion of mankind is still condemned through life to severe toil, in order to supply nourishment for itself and for the smaller portion which thinks for it;—immortal spirits are compelled to fix their whole thoughts and endeavours on the earth that brings forth their food. It still frequently happens, that when the labourer has finished his toil, and promises himself in return a lasting endurance both for himself and for his work, a hostile element will destroy in a moment that which it has cost him years of patient industry and deliberation to accomplish, and the assiduous and careful man is undeservedly made the prey of hunger and misery;—often do floods, storms, volcanoes, desolate whole countries, and works which bear the impress of a rational soul are mingled with their authors in the ​wild chaos of death and destruction. Disease sweeps into an untimely grave men in the pride of their strength, and children whose existence has as yet borne no fruit; pestilence stalks through blooming lands, leaves the few who escape its ravages like lonely orphans bereaved of the accustomed support of their fellows, and does all that it can do to give back to the desert regions which the labour of man has won from thence as a possession to himself. Thus it is now, but thus it cannot remain for ever. No work that bears the stamp of Reason, and has been undertaken to extend her power, can ever be wholly lost in the onward progress of the ages. The sacrifices which the irregular violence of Nature extorts from Reason, must at least exhaust, disarm, and appease that violence. The same power which has burst out into lawless fury, cannot again commit like excesses; it cannot be destined to renew its strength; through its own outbreak its energies must henceforth and for ever be exhausted. All those outbreaks of unregulated power before which human strength vanishes into nothing, those desolating hurricanes, those earthquakes, those volcanoes, can be nothing else than the last struggles of the rude mass against the law of regular, progressive, living, and systematic activity to which it is compelled in opposition to its own undirected impulses;—nothing but the last shivering strokes by which the perfect formation of our globe has yet to be completed. That resistance must gradually become weaker and at length be exhausted, since, in the regulated progress of things, there can be nothing to renew its strength; that formation must at length be completed, and our destined dwelling-place be made ready. Nature must gradually be resolved into a ​condition in which her regular action may be calculated and safely relied upon, and her power bear a fixed and definite relation to that which is destined to govern it,—that of man. In so far as this relation already exists, and the cultivation of Nature has obtained a firm footing, the works of man, by their mere existence, and by an influence altogether beyond the original intent of their authors, shall again react upon Nature, and become to her a new vivifying principle. Cultivation shall quicken and ameliorate the sluggish and baleful atmosphere of the primeval forests, deserts, and marshes; more regular and varied cultivation shall diffuse throughout the air new impulses to life and fertility; and the sun shall pour his most animating rays into an atmosphere breathed by healthful, industrious, and civilized nations. Science, first called into existence by the pressure of necessity, shall afterwards calmly and carefully investigate the unchangeable laws of Nature, review its powers at large, and learn to calculate their possible manifestations; and while closely following the footsteps of Nature in the living and actual world, form for itself in thought a new ideal one. Every discovery which Reason has extorted from Nature shall be maintained throughout the ages, and become the ground of new knowledge, for the common possession of our race. Thus shall Nature ever become more and more intelligible and transparent, even in her most secret depths; and human power, enlightened and armed by human invention, shall rule over her without difficulty, and the conquest, once made, be peacefully maintained. This dominion of man over Nature shall gradually be extended, until, at length, no farther expenditure of mechanical labour shall be ​necessary than what the human body requires for its development, cultivation, and health; and this labour shall cease to be a burden;—for a reasonable being is not destined to be a bearer of burdens.
But it is not Nature, it is Freedom itself, by which the greatest and most terrible disorders incident to our race are produced; man is the cruelest enemy of man. Lawless hordes of savages still wander over vast wildernesses;—they meet, and the victor devours his foe at the triumphal feast:—or where culture has at length united these wild hordes under some social bond, they attack each other, as nations, with the power which law and union have given them. Defying toil and privation, their armies traverse peaceful plains and forests;—they meet each other, and the sight of their brethren is the signal for slaughter. Equipt with the mightiest inventions of the human understanding, hostile fleets plough a way through the ocean; through storm and tempest man rushes to meet his fellow-man upon the lonely, inhospitable sea;—they meet, and defy the fury of the elements, that they may destroy each other with their own hands. Even in the interior of states, where men seem to be united in equality under the law, it is still for the most part only force and fraud which rule under that venerable name; and here the warfare is so much the more shameful that it is not openly declared to be war, and the party attacked is even deprived of the privilege of defending himself against unjust oppression. Smaller associations rejoice aloud in the ignorance, the folly, the vice, and the misery in which the greater number of their brethren are sunk, and make it their avowed object to retain them in this state of degradation, and even to plunge ​them deeper in it, in order that they may perpetuate their slavery to themselves,—and to destroy any one who should venture to enlighten or improve them. No attempt at amelioration can anywhere be made without rousing up from slumber a host of selfish interests, and exciting them to war against it; without uniting together the most varied and opposite opinions in a common hostility. The good cause is ever the weaker, for it is simple, and can be loved for itself alone; the bad attracts each individual by the promise which is most seductive to him; and its adherents, always at war among themselves, so soon as the good makes its appearance, conclude a truce, that they may unite the whole powers of their wickedness against it. Scarcely, indeed, is such an opposition needed, for even the good themselves are but too often divided by misunderstanding, error, distrust, and secret self-love; and that so much the more violently, the more earnestly each strives to propagate that which he recognises as best, and thus dissipates by internal discord a power, which, even when united, could scarcely hold the balance with evil. One blames the other for rushing onwards with stormy impatience to his object, without waiting until the good result shall have been prepared; whilst the other blames him that, through hesitation and cowardice, he accomplishes nothing, but allows things to remain as they are, contrary to his better conviction; and that for him the hour of action never arrives:—and only the Omniscient can determine whether either of the parties in the dispute is in the right. Every one regards the undertaking, the necessity of which is most apparent to him, and in the prosecution of which he has acquired the greatest skill, as the most important ​and needful,—as the point from which all improvement must proceed; he requires all good men to unite their efforts with his, and to subject them to him for the accomplishment of his particular purpose, and holds it to be treason to the good cause if they refuse;—while they on the other hand make the same demands upon him, and accuse him of similar treason, should he refuse. Thus do all good intentions among men appear to be lost in vain disputations, which leave behind them no trace of their existence; while in the meantime the world goes on as well, or as ill, as it can without human effort, by the blind mechanism of Nature,—and so will go on for ever.
And so go on for ever?—No;—not so, unless the whole existence of humanity is to be an idle game, without significance and without end. It cannot be intended that those savage tribes should always remain savage: no race can be born with all the capacities of perfect humanity, and yet be destined never to develop these capacities, and never to become more than that which a sagacious animal by its own proper nature might become. Those savages must be destined to be the progenitors of more powerful, cultivated, and virtuous generations;—otherwise it is impossible to conceive of a purpose in their existence, or even of the possibility of their existence in a world ordered and arranged by reason. Savage races may become civilized, for this has already occurred, and the most cultivated nations of modern times are the descendants of savages. Whether civilization be a direct and natural development of human society, or ​invariably arise through instruction and example from without, and the primary source of all human culture must be sought in a super-human guidance,—by the same way in which nations which once were savage have emerged into civilization, will those who are yet uncivilized gradually attain it. They must, no doubt, at first pass through the same dangers and corruptions of a merely sensual civilization, by which the civilized nations are still oppressed, but they will thereby be brought into union with the great whole of humanity, and be made capable of taking part in its farther progress.
It is the vocation of our race to unite itself into one single body, all the parts of which shall be thoroughly known to each other, and all possessed of similar culture. Nature, and even the passions and vices of men, have from the beginning tended towards this end; a great part of the way towards it is already passed, and we may surely calculate that this end, which is the condition of all farther social progress, will in time be attained. Let us not ask of history if man, on the whole, have yet become purely moral! To a more extended, comprehensive, energetic freedom he has certainly attained; but it has been hitherto an almost necessary result of his position, that this freedom has been applied chiefly to evil purposes. Neither let us ask whether the aesthetic and intellectual culture of the ancient world, concentrated on a few points, may not have excelled in degree that of modern times! It might happen that we should receive a humiliating answer, and that in this respect the human race has not advanced, but rather seemed to retrograde, in its riper years. But let us ask of history at what ​period the existing culture has been most widely diffused, and distributed among the greatest number of individuals; and we shall doubtless find that from the beginning of history down to our own day, the few light-points of civilization have spread themselves abroad from their centre, that one individual after another, and one nation after another, has been embraced within their circle, and that this wider outspread of culture is proceeding under our own eyes. And this is the first point to be attained in the endless path on which humanity must advance. Until this shall have been attained, until the existing culture of every age shall have been diffused over the whole inhabited globe, and our race become capable of the most unlimited inter-communication with itself, one nation or one continent must pause on the great common path of progress, and wait for the advance of the others; and each must bring as an offering to the universal commonwealth, for the sake of which alone it exists, its ages of apparent immobility or retrogression. When that first point shall have been attained, when every useful discovery made at one end of the earth shall be at once made known and communicated to all the rest, then, without farther interruption, without halt or regress, with united strength and equal step, humanity shall move onward to a higher culture, of which we can at present form no conception.
Within those singular associations, thrown together by unreasoning accident, which we call States,—after they have subsisted for a time in peace, when the resistance excited by yet new oppression has been lulled to sleep, and the fermentation of contending forces appeased,—abuse, by its continuance, and by general ​sufferance, assumes a sort of established form; and the ruling classes, in the uncontested enjoyment of their extorted privileges, have nothing more to do but to extend them further, and to give to this extension also the same established form. Urged by their insatiable desires, they will continue from generation to generation their efforts to acquire wider and yet wider privileges, and never say “It is enough!” until at last oppression shall reach its limit, and become wholly insupportable, and despair give back to the oppressed that power which their courage, extinguished by centuries of tyranny, could not procure for them. They will then no longer endure any among them who cannot be satisfied to be on an equality with others, and so to remain. In order to protect themselves against internal violence or new oppression, all will take on themselves the same obligations. Their deliberations, in which every man shall decide, whatever he decides, for himself, and not for one subject to him whose sufferings will never affect him, and in whose fate he takes no concern;—deliberations, according to which no one can hope that it shall be he who is to practise a permitted injustice, but every one must fear that he may have to suffer it;—deliberations that alone deserve the name of legislation, which is something wholly different from the ordinances of combined lords to the countless herds of their slaves;—these deliberations will necessarily be guided by justice, and will lay the foundation of a true State, in which each individual, from a regard for his own security, will be irresistibly compelled to respect the security of every other without exception; since, under the supposed legislation, every injury which he should attempt to do to another, would not ​fall upon its object, but would infallibly recoil upon himself.
By the establishment of this only true State, this firm foundation of internal peace, the possibility of foreign war, at least with other true states, is cut off. Even for its own advantage, even to prevent the thought of injustice, plunder, and violence entering the minds of its own citizens, and to leave them no possibility of gain, except by means of industry and diligence within their legitimate sphere of activity, every true state must forbid as strictly, prevent as carefully, compensate as exactly, or punish as severely, any injury to the citizen of a neighbouring state, as to one of its own. This law concerning the security of neighbours is necessarily a law in every state that is not a robber-state; and by its operation the possibility of any just complaint of one state against another, and consequently every case of self-defence among nations, is entirely prevented. There are no necessary, permanent, and immediate relations of states, as such, with each other, which might be productive of strife; there are, properly speaking, only relations of the individual citizens of one state to the individual citizens of another; a state can be injured only in the person of one of its citizens; but such injury will be immediately compensated, and the aggrieved state satisfied. Between such states as these, there is no rank which can be insulted, no ambition which can be offended. No officer of one state is authorised to intermeddle in the internal affairs of another, nor is there any temptation for him to do so, since he could not derive the slightest personal advantage from any such influence. That a whole nation should determine, for the sake of plunder, to make war ​on a neighbouring country, is impossible; for in a state where all are equal, the plunder could not become the booty of a few, but must be equally divided amongst all, and the share of no one individual could ever recompense him for the trouble of the war. Only where the advantage falls to the few oppressors, and the injury, the toil, the expense, to the countless herd of slaves, is a war of spoliation possible and conceivable. Not from states like themselves could such states as these entertain any fear of war; only from savages or barbarians, whose lack of skill to enrich themselves by industry impels them to plunder; or from enslaved nations, driven by their masters to a war from which they themselves will reap no advantage. In the former case, every individual state must, through the arts of civilization, already be the stronger party; against the latter danger, the common advantage of all demands that they should strengthen themselves by union. No free state can reasonably suffer in its vicinity associations governed by rulers whose interests would be promoted by the subjugation of adjacent nations, and whose very existence is therefore a constant source of danger to their neighbours; a regard for their own security compels all free states to transform all around them into free states like themselves; and thus, for the sake of their own welfare, to extend the empire of culture over barbarism, of freedom over slavery. Soon will the nations, civilized or enfranchised by them, find themselves placed in the same relation towards others still enthralled by barbarism or slavery, in which the earlier free nations previously stood towards them, and be compelled to do the same things for these which were previously done for themselves; and thus, of ​necessity, by reason of the existence of some few really free states, will the empire of civilization, freedom, and with it universal peace, gradually embrace the whole world.
Thus, from the establishment of a just internal organization, and of peace between individuals, there will necessarily result integrity in the external relations of nations towards each other, and universal peace among them. But the establishment of this just internal organization, and the emancipation of the first nation that shall be truly free, arises as a necessary consequence from the ever-growing oppression exercised by the ruling classes towards their subjects, which gradually becomes insupportable,—a progress which may be safely left to the passions and the blindness of those classes, even although warned of the result.
In these only true states all temptation to evil, nay, even the possibility of a man resolving upon a bad action with any reasonable hope of benefit to himself, will be entirely taken away; and the strongest possible motives will be offered to every man to make virtue the sole object of his will.
There is no man who loves evil because it is evil; it is only the advantages and enjoyments expected from it, and which, in the present condition of humanity, do actually, in most cases, result from it, that are loved. So long as this condition shall continue, so long as a premium shall be set upon vice, a fundamental improvement of mankind, as a whole, can scarcely be hoped for. But in a civil society constituted as it ought to be, as reason requires it to be, as the thinker may easily describe it to himself although he may nowhere find it actually existing at the present day, and as it ​must necessarily exist in the first nation that really acquires true freedom,—in such a state of society, evil will present no advantages, but rather the most certain disadvantages, and self-love itself will restrain the excess of self-love when it would run out into injustice. By the unerring administration of such a state, every fraud or oppression practised upon others, all self-aggrandizement at their expense, will be rendered not merely vain, and all labour so applied fruitless, but such attempts would even recoil upon their author, and assuredly bring home to himself the evil which he would cause to others. In his own land,—out of his own land,—throughout the whole world, he could find no one whom he might injure and yet go unpunished. But it is not to be expected, even of a bad man, that he would determine upon evil merely for the sake of such a resolution, although he had no power to carry it into effect, and nothing could arise from it but infamy to himself. The use of liberty for evil purposes is thus destroyed; man must resolve either to renounce his freedom altogether, and patiently to become a mere passive wheel in the great machine of the universe, or else to employ it for good. In soil thus prepared, good will easily prosper. When men shall no longer be divided by selfish purposes, nor their powers exhausted in struggles with each other, nothing will remain for them but to direct their united strength against the one common enemy which still remains unsubdued,—resisting, uncultivated nature. No longer estranged from each other by private ends, they will necessarily combine for this common object; and thus there arises a body, everywhere animated by the same spirit, and the same love. Every misfortune to the ​individual, since it can no longer be a gain to any other individual, is a misfortune to the whole, and to each individual member of the whole; and is felt with the same pain, and remedied with the same activity, by every member;—every step in advance made by one man is a step in advance made by the whole race. Here, where the petty, narrow self of mere individual personality is merged in the more comprehensive unity of the social constitution, each man truly loves every other as himself,—as a member of this greater self which now claims all his love, and of which he himself is no more than a member, only capable of participating in a common gain or in a common loss. The strife of evil against good is here abolished, for here no evil can intrude. The strife of the good among themselves respecting good, disappears, now that they find it easy to love what is good for its own sake alone, and not because they are its authors; now that it has become of all-importance to them that truth should really be discovered, that the useful action should be done,—but not at all by whom this may be accomplished. Here each individual is at all times ready to join his strength to that of others, to make it subordinate to that of others; and whoever, according to the judgment of all, is most capable of accomplishing the greatest amount of good, will be supported by all, and his success rejoiced in by all with an equal joy.
This is the purpose of our earthly life, which reason sets before us, and for the infallible attainment of which she is our pledge and security. This is not an object given to us only that we may strive after it for ​the mere purpose of exercising our powers on something great, the real existence of which we may perhaps be compelled to abandon to doubt; it shall, it must be realized; there must be a time in which it shall be accomplished, as surely as there is a sensible world, and a race of reasonable beings, existent in time, with respect to which nothing earnest and rational is conceivable besides this purpose, and whose existence only becomes intelligible through this purpose. Unless all human life be metamorphosed into a mere theatrical display for the gratification of some malignant spirit, who has implanted in poor humanity this inextinguishable longing for the imperishable only to amuse himself with its ceaseless pursuit of that which it can never overtake,—its ever-repeated efforts, Ixion-like, to embrace that which still eludes its grasp,—its restless hurrying onward in an ever-recurring circle;—only to mock its earnest aspirations with an empty, insipid farce;—unless the wise man, seeing through this mockery, and feeling an irrepressible disgust at continuing to play his part in it, is to cast life indignantly from him, and make the moment of his awakening to reason also that of his physical death;—unless these things are so, this purpose most assuredly must be attained.—Yes! it is attainable in life, and through life, for Reason commands me to live:—it is attainable, for I am.
III.
But when this end shall have been attained, and humanity at length stand at this point, what is there then to do? Upon earth there is no higher state than ​this;—the generation which has once reached it, can do no more than abide there, steadfastly maintain its position, die, and leave behind it descendants who shall do the like, and who will again leave behind them descendants to follow in their footsteps. Humanity would thus stand still upon her path; and therefore her earthly end cannot be her highest end. This earthly end is conceivable, attainable, and finite. Even although we consider all preceding generations as means for the production of the last complete one, we do not thereby escape the question of earnest reason,—to what end then is this last one? Since a human race has appeared upon earth, its existence there must certainly be in accordance with, and not contrary to, reason; and it must attain all the development which it is possible for it to attain on earth. But why should such a race have an existence at all,—why may it not as well have remained in the womb of chaos? Reason is not for the sake of existence, but existence for the sake of reason. An existence which does not of itself satisfy reason, and solve all her questions, cannot by possibility be the true being.
And, then, are those actions which are commanded by the voice of conscience,—by that voice whose dictates I never dare to criticise, but must always obey in silence,—are those actions, in reality, always the means, and the only means, for the attainment of the earthly purpose of humanity? That I cannot do otherwise than refer them to this purpose, and dare not have any other object in view to be attained by means of them, is incontestible. But then are these, my intentions, always fulfilled?—is it enough that we will what is good, in order that it may happen? Alas! ​many virtuous intentions are entirely lost for this world, and others appear even to hinder the purpose which they were designed to promote. On the other hand, the most despicable passions of men, their vices and their crimes, often forward, more certainly, the good cause than the endeavours of the virtuous man, who will never do evil that good may come! It seems that the Highest Good of the world pursues its course of increase and prosperity quite independently of all human virtues or vices, according to its own laws, through an invisible and unknown power,—just as the heavenly bodies run their appointed course, independently of all human effort; and that this power carries forward, in its own great plan, all human intentions, good and bad, and, with superior power, employs for its own purpose that which was undertaken for other ends.
Thus, even if the attainment of this earthly end could be the purpose of our existence, and every doubt which reason could start with regard to it were silenced, yet would this end not be ours, but the end of that unknown power. We do not know, even for a moment, what is conducive to this end; and nothing is left to us but to give by our actions some material, no matter what, for this power to work upon, and to leave to it the task of elaborating this material to its own purposes. It would, in that case, be our highest wisdom not to trouble ourselves about matters that do not concern us; to live according to our own fancy or inclinations, and quietly leave the consequences to that unknown power. The moral law within us would be void and superfluous, and absolutely unfitted to a being destined to nothing higher than this. ​In order to be at one with ourselves, we should have to refuse obedience to that law, and to suppress it as a perverse and foolish fanaticism.
No!—I will not refuse obedience to the law of duty;—as surely as I live and am, I will obey, absolutely because it commands. This resolution shall be first and highest in my mind; that by which everything else is determined, but which is itself determined by nothing else;—this shall be the innermost principle of my spiritual life.
But, as a reasonable being, before whom a purpose must be set solely by its own will and determination, it is impossible for me to act without a motive and without an end. If this obedience is to be recognised by me as a reasonable service,—if the voice which demands this obedience be really that of the creative reason within me, and not a mere fanciful enthusiasm, invented by my own imagination, or communicated to me somehow from without,—this obedience must have some consequences, must serve some end. It is evident that it does not serve the purpose of the world of sense;—there must, therefore, be a super-sensual world, whose purposes it may promote.
The mist of delusion clears away from before my sight! I receive a new organ, and a new world opens before me. It is disclosed to me only by the law of reason, and answers only to that law in my spirit. I apprehend this world,—limited as I am by my sensuous view, I must thus name the unnameable—I ​apprehend this world merely in and through the end which is promised to my obedience;—it is in reality nothing else than this necessary end itself which reason annexes to the law of duty.
Setting aside everything else, how could I suppose that this law had reference to the world of sense, or that the whole end and object of the obedience which it demands is to be found within that world, since that which alone is of importance in this obedience serves no purpose whatever in that world, can never become a cause in it, and can never produce results. In the world of sense, which proceeds on a chain of material causes and effects, and in which whatever happens depends merely on that which preceded it, it is never of any moment how, and with what motives and intentions, an action is performed, but only what the action is.
Had it been the whole purpose of our existence to produce an earthly condition of our race, there would only have been required an unerring mechanism by which our outward actions might have been determined, and we would not have needed to be more than wheels well fitted to the great machine. Freedom would have been, not merely in vain, but even obstructive; a virtuous will wholly superfluous. The world would, in that case, be most unskillfully directed, and attain the purposes of its existence by wasteful extravagance and circuitous byeways. Hadst thou, mighty World-Spirit! withheld from us this freedom, which thou art now constrained to adapt to thy plans with labour and contrivance; hadst thou rather at once compelled us to act in the way in which thy plans required that we should act, thou wouldst have ​attained thy purposes by a much shorter way, as the humblest of the dwellers in these thy worlds can tell thee. But I am free; and therefore such a chain of causes and effects, in which freedom is absolutely superfluous and without aim, cannot exhaust my whole nature. I must be free; for it is not the mere mechanical act, but the free determination of free will, for the sake of duty and for the ends of duty only,—thus speaks the voice of conscience within us,—this alone it is which constitutes our true worth. The bond with which this law of duty binds me is a bond for living spirits only; it disdains to rule over a dead mechanism, and addresses its decrees only to the living and the free. It requires of me this obedience;—this obedience therefore cannot be nugatory or superfluous.
And now the Eternal World rises before me more brightly, and the fundamental law of its order stands clearly and distinctly apparent to my mental vision. In this world, will alone, as it lies concealed from mortal eye in the secret obscurities of the soul, is the first link in a chain of consequences that stretches through the whole invisible realms of spirit; as, in the physical world, action—a certain movement of matter—is the first link in a material chain that runs through the whole system of nature. The will is the efficient, living principle of the world of reason, as motion is the efficient, living principle of the world of sense. I stand in the centre of two entirely opposite worlds:—a visible world, in which action is the only moving power; and an invisible and absolutely incomprehensible world, in which will is the ruling principle. I am one of the primitive forces of both these worlds. My will ​embraces both. This will is, in itself, a constituent element of the super-sensual world; for as I move it by my several successive resolutions, I move and change something in that world, and my activity thus extends itself throughout the whole, and gives birth to new and ever-enduring results, which henceforward possess a real existence and need not again to be produced. This will may break forth in a material act, and this act belongs to the world of sense, and does there that which pertains to a material act to do.
It is not necessary that I should first be severed from this terrestrial world before I can obtain admission into the celestial one;—I am, and live in it even now, far more truly than in the terrestrial; even now it is my only sure foundation, and the eternal life on the possession of which I have already entered is the only ground why I should still prolong this earthly one. That which we call heaven does not lie beyond the grave; it is even here diffused around us, and its light arises in every pure heart. My will is mine, and it is the only thing that is wholly mine and entirely dependent on myself; and through it I have already become a citizen of the realm of freedom and of pure spiritual activity. What determination of my will—of the only thing by which I am raised from the dust into this region—is best adapted to its order, is proclaimed to me, at every moment, by my conscience, the bond that constantly unites me to this world;—and it depends solely on myself to give my activity the appointed direction. Thus I cultivate myself for this world; labour in it, and for it, in cultivating one of its members; in it, and only in it, pursue my purpose according to a settled plan, without doubt or ​hesitation, certain of the result, since here no foreign power stands opposed to my free will. That, in the world of sense, my will, in so far as it is actually determined as it ought to be, comes forth into action, is but the law of this sensuous world. I did not send forth the act as I did the will; only the latter was wholly and purely my work,—it was all that proceeded forth from me. It was not even necessary that there should be another particular act on my part to unite the deed to the will; the deed unites itself to it according to the law of that second world with which I am connected through my will, and in which this will is likewise an original force, as it is in the first. I am indeed compelled, when I regard my will, determined according to the dictates of conscience, as a fact, and an efficient cause in the world of sense, to refer it to that earthly purpose of humanity as a means to the accomplishment of an end;—not as if I should first survey the plan of the world, and from this knowledge calculate what I had to do; but the specific action, which conscience directly enjoins me to do, reveals itself to me at once as the only means by which, in my position, I can contribute to the attainment of that end. Even if it should afterwards appear as if this end had not been promoted—nay, if it should even seem to have been hindered—by my action, yet I can never regret it, nor perplex myself about it, so surely as I have only obeyed my conscience in performing this act. Whatever consequences it may have in this world, in the other world there can nothing but good result from it. And even in this world, should my action appear to have failed of its purpose, my conscience or that very reason commands me to repeat ​it in a manner that may more effectually reach its end; or, should it seem to have hindered that purpose, for that very reason to make good the detriment, and annihilate the untoward result. I will as I ought, and the new deed follows. It may happen that the consequences of this new action, in the world of sense, may appear to me not more beneficial than those of the first; but, with respect to the other world, I retain the same calm assurance as before; and, in the present, it is again my bounden duty to make good my previous failure by new action. And thus, should it still appear that, during my whole earthly life, I have not advanced the good cause a single hair’s-breadth in this world, yet I dare not cease my efforts:—after every unsuccessful attempt, I must still believe that the next will be successful. But in the spiritual world no step is ever lost. In short, I do not pursue the earthly purpose for its own sake alone, or as a final aim; but only because my true final aim, obedience to the law of conscience, does not present itself to me in this world in any other shape than as the advancement of this end. I may not cease to pursue it, unless I were to deny the law of duty, or unless that law were to manifest itself to me, in this life, in some other shape than as a commandment to promote this purpose in my own place;—I shall actually cease to pursue it in another life in which that commandment shall have set before me some other purpose wholly incomprehensible to me here. In this life, I must will to promote it, because I must obey; whether it be actually promoted by the deed that follows my will thus fittingly directed is not my care; I am responsible only for the will, but not for the result. Previous to the actual deed, ​I can never resign this purpose; the deed, when it is completed, I may resign, and repeat it, or improve it. Thus do I live and labour, even here, in my most essential nature and in my nearest purposes, only for the other world; and my activity for it is the only thing of which I am completely certain;—in the world of sense I labour only for the sake of the other, and only because I cannot work for the other without at least willing to work for it.
I will establish myself firmly in this, to me, wholly new view of my vocation. The present life cannot be rationally regarded as the whole purpose of my existence, or of the existence of a human race in general;—there is something in me, and there is something required of me, which finds in this life nothing to which it can be applied, and which is entirely superfluous and unnecessary for the attainment of the highest objects that can be attained on earth. There must therefore be a purpose in human existence which lies beyond this life. But should the present life, which is nevertheless imposed upon us, and which cannot be designed solely for the development of reason, since even awakened reason commands us to maintain it and to promote its highest purposes with all our powers,—should this life not prove entirely vain and ineffectual, it must at least have relation to a future life, as means to an end. Now there is nothing in this present life, the ultimate consequences of which do not remain on earth,—nothing whereby we could be connected with a future life—but only our virtuous will, which in this world, by the fundamental laws thereof, is entirely ​fruitless. Only our virtuous will can it, must it be, by which we can labour for another life, and for the first and nearest objects which are there revealed to us; and it is the consequences, invisible to us, of this virtuous will, through which we first acquire a firm standing point in that life from whence we may then advance in a farther course of progress.
That our virtuous will, in and for and through itself, must have consequences, we know already in this life, for reason cannot command anything which is without a purpose; but what these consequences may be,—nay, how it is even possible for a mere will to produce any effect at all,—as to this we can have no conception whatever, so long as we are still confined within this material world; and it is true wisdom not to undertake an inquiry in which we know beforehand that we shall be unsuccessful. With respect to the nature of these consequences, the present life is therefore, in relation to the future, a life in faith. In the future life, we shall possess these consequences, for we shall then proceed from them as our starting-point, and build upon them as our foundation; and this other life will thus be, in relation to the consequences of our virtuous will in the present, a life in sight. In that other life, we shall also have an immediate purpose set before us, as we have in the present; for our activity must not cease. But we remain finite beings,—and for finite beings there is but finite, determinate activity; and every determinate act has a determinate end. As, in the present life, the actually existing world as we find it around us, the fitting adjustment ​of this world to the work we have to do in it, the degree of culture and virtue already attained by men, and our own physical powers,—as these stand related to the purposes of this life,—so, in the future life, the consequences of our virtuous will in the present shall stand related to the purposes of that other existence. The present is the commencement of our existence; the endowments requisite for its purpose, and a firm footing in it, have been freely bestowed on us:—the future is the continuation of this existence, and in it we must acquire for ourselves a commencement, and a definite standing-point.
​As in the present life it is only from the command of conscience to follow a certain course of action that there arises our conception of a certain purpose in this action, and from this our whole intuitive perception of a world of sense;—so in the future, upon a similar, but now to us wholly inconceivable command, will be founded our conception of the immediate purpose of that life, and upon this, again, our intuitive perception of a world in which we shall set out from the consequences of our virtuous will in the present life. The present world exists for us only through the law of duty; the other will be revealed to us, in a similar manner, through another command of duty; for in no other manner can a world exist to any reasonable being.
This, then, is my whole sublime vocation, my true nature. I am a member of two orders:—the one purely spiritual, in which I rule by my will alone; the other sensuous, in which I operate by my action. The whole end of reason is pure activity, absolutely by itself alone, having no need of any instrument out of itself,—independence of everything which is not reason,—absolute freedom. The will is the living principle of reason,—is itself reason, when purely and simply apprehended; that reason is active by itself alone, means, that pure will, merely as such, operates and rules. Immediately and wholly in this purely spiritual order lives only the Infinite Reason. The finite reason—which does not itself constitute the world of reason, but is only one of its many members,—lives necessarily at the same time in a sensuous order; that is to say, ​in one which presents to it another object besides a purely spiritual activity;—a material object, to be promoted by instruments and powers which indeed stand under the immediate dominion of the will, but whose activity is also conditioned by their own natural laws. Yet as surely as reason is reason, must the will operate absolutely by itself, and independently of the natural laws by which the action is determined; and therefore does the sensuous life of every finite being point towards a higher, into which the will, by itself alone, may open the way, and of which it may acquire possession,—a possession which indeed we must again sensuously conceive of as a state, and by no means as a mere will.
These two orders,—the purely spiritual and the sensuous, the latter consisting possibly of an innumerable series of particular lives,—have existed in me from the first moment of the development of my active reason, and still proceed parallel to each other. The latter order is only a phenomenon for myself, and for those whose being is similar to my own; the former alone gives it significance, purpose, and value. I am immortal, imperishable, eternal, as soon as I form the resolution to obey the laws of reason; I do not need to become so. The super-sensual world is no future world; it is now present; it can at no point of finite existence be more present than at another; not more present after an existence of myriads of lives than at this moment. My sensuous existence may, in future, assume other forms, but these are just as little the true life, as its present form. By that resolution I lay hold on eternity, and cast off this earthly life and all other forms of sensuous life which may yet lie ​before me in futurity, and place myself far above them. I become the sole source of all my own being and its phenomena; and, henceforth, unconditioned by any thing without me, I have life in myself. My will, which is directed by no foreign agency in the order of the super-sensual world, but by myself alone, is this source of true life, and of eternity.
But it is my will alone which is this source of true life, and of eternity;—only by recognising this will as the peculiar seat of moral goodness, and by actually raising it thereto, do I obtain the assurance and the possession of that super-sensual world.
Without respect to any conceivable or visible object, without inquiry as to whether my will may be followed by any other result than the mere volition,—I must will in accordance with the moral law. My will stands alone, apart from all that is not itself, and is its own world merely by itself and for itself; not only as being itself an absolutely first, primary and original power, without any preceding influence by which it may be governed, but also as being followed by no conceivable or comprehensible result, or second step in the series, by which its activity might be brought under the dominion of a foreign law. Did there proceed from it any second, and from this again a third result, and so forth, in any conceivable sensuous world opposed to the spiritual world, then would its strength be broken by the resistance it would encounter from the independent elements of such a world which it would set in motion; the mode of its activity would no longer exactly correspond to the purpose expressed in the volition; and the will would no longer remain free, but be partly limited by the peculiar laws of its ​heterogeneous sphere of action. And thus must I actually regard the will in the present sensuous world, the only one known to me. I am indeed compelled to believe, and consequently to act as if I thought, that by my mere volition, my tongue, my hand, or my foot, might be set in motion; but how a mere aspiration, an impress of intelligence upon itself, such as will is, can be the principle of motion to a heavy material mass,—this I not only find it impossible to conceive, but the mere assertion is, before the tribunal of the understanding, a palpable absurdity,—and here the movement of matter even in myself can only be explained by the internal forces of matter itself.
Such a view of my will as I have taken can, however, only be attained through an intimate conviction that it is not merely the highest active principle for this world,—which it certainly might be without having freedom in itself, by the mere influence of the system of the universe, perchance, as we must conceive of a formative power in Nature,—but that it absolutely despises all earthly objects, and generally all objects lying out of itself, and recognises itself, for its own sake, as its own ultimate end. But by such a view of my will I am at once directed to a super-sensual order of things, in which the will, by itself alone and without any instrument lying out of itself, becomes an efficient cause in a sphere which, like itself, is purely spiritual, and is thoroughly accessible to it. That moral volition is demanded of us absolutely for its own sake alone,—a truth which I only discover as a fact in my inward consciousness, and to the knowledge of which I cannot attain in any other way:—this was the first step of my thought. That this demand is ​reasonable, and the source and standard of all else that is reasonable; that it is not modelled upon any other thing whatever, but that all other things must, on the contrary, model themselves upon it, and be dependent upon it,—a conviction which also I cannot arrive at from without, but can only attain by inward experience, by means of the unhesitating and immovable assent which I freely accord to this demand:—this was the second step of my thought. And from these two terms I have attained to faith in a super-sensual Eternal World. If I abandon the former, the latter falls to the ground. If it were true,—as many say it is, assuming it without farther proof as self-evident, and extolling it as the highest summit of human wisdom,—that all human virtue must have before it a certain definite external object, and that it must first be assured of the possibility of attaining this object, before it can act, and before it can become virtue; that, consequently, reason by no means contains within itself the principle and the standard of its own activity, but must receive this standard from without, through contemplation of an external world;—if this were true, then might the ultimate end of our existence be accomplished here below; human nature might be completely developed and exhausted by our earthly vocation, and we should have no rational ground for raising our thoughts above the present life.
But every thinker who has anywhere acquired those first principles even historically, perhaps by a mere love of the new and unusual, and who is able to prosecute a correct course of reasoning from them, might speak and teach as I have now spoken to myself. He ​would then present us with the thoughts of some other being, not with his own; everything would float before him empty and without significance, because he would be without the sense whereby he might apprehend its reality. He is a blind man, who, upon certain true principles concerning colours which he has learned historically, has built a perfectly correct theory of colour, notwithstanding that there is in reality no colour existing for him;—he can tell how, under certain conditions, it must be; but to him it is not so, because he does not stand under these conditions. The faculty by which we lay hold on Eternal Life is only to be attained by actually renouncing the sensuous and its objects, and sacrificing them to that law which takes cognizance of our will only, and not of our actions;—renouncing them with the firmest conviction that it is reasonable for us to do so,—nay, that it is the only thing reasonable for us. By this renunciation of the Earthly, does faith in the Eternal first arise in our soul, and is there enshrined apart, as the only support to which we can cling after we have given up all else,—as the only animating principle that can elevate our minds and inspire our lives. We must indeed, according to the figure of a sacred doctrine, first “die unto the world and be born again, before we can enter the kingdom of God.”
I see—O I now see clearly before me the cause of my former indifference and blindness concerning spiritual things! Absorbed by mere earthly objects, lost in them with all my thoughts and efforts, moved and urged onward only by the notion of a result to ​be realized out of ourselves,—by the desire of such a result, and our enjoyment therein,—insensible and dead to the pure impulse of reason, which gives a law to itself, and offers to our aspirations a purely spiritual end,—the immortal Psyche remains, with fettered pinions, fastened to the earth. Our philosophy becomes the history of our own heart and life; and according to what we ourselves are, do we conceive of man and his vocation. Never impelled by any other motive than the desire after what can be actually realized in this world, there is for us no true freedom,—no freedom which holds the ground of its determination absolutely and entirely within itself. Our freedom is, at best, that of the self-forming plant; not essentially higher in its nature, but only more artistical in its results; not producing a mere material form with roots, leaves, and blossoms, but a mind with impulses, thoughts, and actions. We cannot have the slightest conception of true freedom, because we do not ourselves possess it; when it is spoken of, we either bring down what is said to the level of our own notions, or at once declare all such talk to be nonsense. Without the idea of freedom, we are likewise without the faculty for another world. Everything of this kind floats past before us like words that are not addressed to us; like a pale shadow, without colour or meaning, which we know not how to lay hold of or retain. We leave it as we find it, without the least participation or sympathy. Or should we ever be urged by a more active zeal to consider it seriously, we then convince ourselves to our own satisfaction that all such ideas are untenable and worthless reveries, which the man of sound understanding unhesitatingly rejects; and ​according to the premises from which we proceed, which are made up of our own inward experiences, we are perfectly in the right, and secure from either refutation or conversion, so long as we remain what we are. The excellent doctrines which are taught amongst us with a special authority, concerning freedom, duty, and everlasting life, become to us romantic fables, like those of Tartarus and the Elysian fields; although we do not publish to the world this our secret opinion, because we find it expedient, by means of these figures, to maintain an outward decorum among the populace; or, should we be less reflective, and ourselves bound in the chains of authority, then we sink to the level of the common mind, and believing what, thus understood, would be mere foolish fables, we find in those pure spiritual symbols only the promise of continuing throughout eternity the same miserable existence which we possess here below.
In one word:—only by the fundamental improvement of my will does a new light arise within me concerning my existence and vocation; without this, however much I may speculate, and with what rare intellectual gifts soever I may be endowed, darkness remains within me, and around me. The improvement of the heart alone leads to true wisdom. Let then my whole life be unceasingly devoted to this one purpose.
IV.
My moral will, merely as such, in and through itself, shall certainly and invariably produce consequences; every determination of my will in accordance with ​duty, although no action should follow it, shall operate in another, to me incomprehensible, world, in which nothing but this moral determination of the will shall possess efficient activity. What is it that is assumed in this conception?
Obviously a Law; a rule absolutely without exception, according to which a will determined by duty must have consequences; just as in the material world which surrounds me I assume a law according to which this ball, when thrown by my hand with this particular force, in this particular direction, necessarily moves in such a 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 motion of my hand, I already perceive and apprehend all the consequent directions and movements, with the same certainty as if they were already present before me; even so do I embrace by means of my virtuous will a series of necessary and inevitable consequences in the spiritual world, as if they were already present before me; only that I cannot define them as I do those in the material world,—that is, I only know that they must be, but not how they shall be;—and even in doing this, I conceive 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 of the material world. My own firm confidence in these results, and the conception of this law of the spiritual world, are one and the same;—they are not two thoughts, one of which arises by means of the other, but they are entirely the same thought; just as the confidence with which I calculate on a certain motion in a material body, ​and the conception of a mechanical law of nature on which that motion depends, are one and the same. The conception of a Law expresses nothing more than the firm, immovable confidence of reason in a principle, and the absolute impossibility of admitting its opposite.
I assume such a law of a spiritual world,—not given by my will, nor by the will of any finite being, nor by the will of all finite beings taken together, but to which my will, and the will of all finite beings, is subject. Neither I, nor any finite and therefore sensuous being, can conceive how a mere will can have consequences, nor what may be the nature of those consequences; for herein consists the essential character of our finite nature,—that we are unable to conceive this,—that having indeed our will, as such, wholly within our power, we are yet compelled by our sensuous nature to regard the consequences of that will as sensuous states:—how then can I, or any other finite being whatever, propose to ourselves as objects, and thereby give reality to, that which we can neither imagine nor conceive? I cannot say that, in the material world, my hand, or any other body which belongs to that world and is subject to the universal law of gravity, brings this law into operation;—these bodies themselves stand under this law, and are able to set another body in motion only in accordance with this law, and only in so far as that body, by virtue of this law, partakes of the universal moving power of Nature. Just as little does a finite will give a law to the super-sensual world, which no finite spirit can embrace; but all finite wills stand under the law of that world, and can produce results therein only inasmuch as that law already exists, and inasmuch as ​they themselves, in accordance with the form of that law which is applicable to finite wills, bring themselves under its conditions, and within the sphere of its activity, by moral obedience;—by moral obedience, I say, the only tie which unites them to that higher world, the only nerve that descends from it to them, and the only organ through which they can re-act upon it. As the universal power of attraction embraces all bodies, and holds them together in themselves and with each other, and the movement of each separate body is only possible on the supposition of this power, so does that super-sensual law unite, hold together, and embrace all finite reasonable beings. My will, and the will of all finite beings, may be regarded from a double point of view:—partly as a mere volition, an internal act directed upon itself alone, and, in so far, the will is complete in itself, concluded in this act of volition;—partly as something beyond this, a fact. It assumes the latter form to me, as soon as I regard it as completed; but it must also become so beyond me;—in the world of sense, as the moving principle, for instance, of my hand, from the movement of which, again, other movements follow,—in the super-sensual world, as the principle of a series of spiritual consequences of which I have no conception. In the first point of view, as a mere act of volition, it stands wholly in my own power; its assumption of the latter character, that of an active first principle, depends not upon me, but on a law to which I myself am subject;—on the law of nature in the world of sense, on a super-sensual law in the world of pure thought.
What, then, is this law of the spiritual world which I conceive? This idea now stands before me, in fixed ​and perfect shape; I cannot, and dare not add anything whatever to it; I have only to expound and interpret it distinctly. It is obviously not such as I may suppose the principle of my own, or any other possible sensuous world, to be,—a fixed, inert existence, from which, by the encounter of a will, some internal power may be evolved,—something altogether different from a mere will: For,—and this is the substance of my belief,—my will, absolutely by itself, and without the intervention of any instrument that might weaken its expression, shall act in a perfectly congenial sphere,—reason upon reason, spirit upon spirit;—in a sphere to which nevertheless it does not give the law of life, activity, and progress, but which has that law in itself;—therefore, upon self-active reason. But self-active reason is will. The law of the super-sensual world must, therefore, be a Will:—A Will which operates purely as will; by itself, and absolutely without any instrument or sensible material of its activity; which is, at the same time, both act and product; with whom to will is to do, to command is to execute; in which, therefore, the instinctive demand of reason for absolute freedom and independence is realized:—A Will, which in itself is law; determined by no fancy or caprice, through no previous reflection, hesitation, or doubt;—but eternal, unchangeable, on which we may securely and infallibly rely, as the physical man relies with certainty on the laws of his world:—A Will in which the moral will of finite beings, and this alone, has sure and unfailing results; since for it all else is unavailing, all else is as if it were not.
That sublime Will thus pursues no solitary path withdrawn from the other parts of the world of reason. ​There is a spiritual bond between Him and all finite rational beings; and He himself is this spiritual bond of the rational universe. Let me will, purely and decidedly, my duty, and He wills that, in the spiritual world at least, my will shall prosper. Every moral resolution of a finite being goes up before Him, and—to speak after the manner of mortals—moves and determines Him, not in consequence of a momentary satisfaction, but in accordance with the eternal law of His being. With surprising clearness does this thought, which hitherto was surrounded with darkness, now reveal itself to my soul; the thought that my will, merely as such, and through itself, shall have results. It has results, because it is immediately and infallibly perceived by another Will to which it is related, which is its own accomplishment, and the only living principle of the spiritual world; in Him it has its first results, and, through Him, it then acquires an influence on the whole spiritual world, which is nothing but a product of that Infinite Will.
Thus do I approach—the mortal must speak in his own language—thus do I approach that Infinite Will; and the voice of conscience in my soul, which teaches me, in every situation of life, what I have there to do, is the channel through which again His influence descends upon me. That voice, sensualized by my environment, and translated into my language, is the oracle of the Eternal World which announces to me how I am to perform my part in the order of the spiritual universe, or in the Infinite Will, who is Himself that order. I cannot, indeed, survey or comprehend that spiritual order, and I need not to do so;—I am but a link in its chain, and can no more judge of ​the whole, than a single tone of music can judge of the entire harmony of which it forms a part. But what I myself ought to be in this harmony of spirits I must know, for it is only I myself who can make me so,—and this is immediately revealed to me by a voice whose tones descend upon me from that other world. Thus do I stand related with the One who alone has existence, and thus do I participate in His being. There is nothing real, lasting, imperishable in me, but these two elements:—the voice of conscience, and my free obedience. By the first, the spiritual world bows down to me, and embraces me as one of its members; by the second I raise myself into this world, apprehend it, and act upon it. That Infinite Will, however, is the mediator between it and me; for He himself is the original source both of it and me. This is the one True and Imperishable for which my soul yearns even from its inmost depths; all else is mere appearance, ever vanishing, and ever returning in a new semblance.
This Will unites me with himself; He also unites me with all finite beings like myself, and is the universal mediator between us all. This is the great mystery of the invisible world, and its fundamental law, in so far as it is a world or system of many individual wills:—the union, and direct reciprocal action, of many separate and independent wills; a mystery which already lies clearly before every eye in the present life, without attracting the notice of anyone, or being regarded as in any way wonderful. The voice of conscience, which imposes on each his particular ​duty, is the light-beam on which we come forth from the bosom of the Infinite, and assume our place as particular individual beings; it fixes the limits of our personality; it is thus the true original element of our nature, the foundation and material of all our life. The absolute freedom of the will, which we bring down with us from the Infinite into the world of Time, is the principle of this our life. I act:—and, the sensible intuition through which alone I become a personal intelligence being supposed, it is easy to conceive how I must necessarily know of this my action,—I know it, because it is I myself who act;—it is easy to conceive how, by means of this sensible intuition, my spiritual act appears to me as a fact in a world of sense; and how, on the other hand, by the same sensualization, the law of duty which, in itself, is a purely spiritual law, should appear to me as the command to such an action;—it is easy to conceive, how an actually present world should appear to me as the condition of this action, and, in part, as the consequence and product of it. Thus far I remain within myself and upon my own territory; everything here, which has an existence for me, unfolds itself purely and solely from myself; I see everywhere only myself, and no true existence out of myself. But in this my world I admit, also, the operations of other beings, separate and independent of me, as much as I of them. How these beings can themselves know of the influences which proceed from them, may easily be conceived; they know of them in the same way in which I know of my own. But how I can know of them is absolutely inconceivable; just as it is inconceivable how they can possess the knowledge of my existence, and its ​manifestations, which nevertheless I ascribe to them. How do they come within my world, or I within theirs,—since the principle by which the consciousness of ourselves, of our operations, and of their sensuous conditions, is unfolded from ourselves,—i.e. that each individual must undoubtedly know what he himself does,—is here wholly inapplicable? How have free spirits knowledge of free spirits, since we know that free spirits are the only reality, and that an independent world of sense, through which they might act on each other, is no longer to be thought of. Or shall it be said, I perceive reasonable beings like myself by the changes which they produce in the world of sense? Then I ask again,—How dost thou perceive these changes? I comprehend very well how thou canst perceive changes which are brought about by the mere mechanism of nature; for the law of this mechanism is no other than the law of thy own thought, according to which, this world being once assumed, thou continuest to develope it. But the changes of which we now speak are not brought about by the mechanism of nature, but by a free will elevated above all nature; and only in so far as thou canst regard them in this character, canst thou infer from them the existence of free beings like thyself. Where then is the law within thyself, according to which thou canst unfold the determinations of other wills absolutely independent of thee? 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 through the One in whom they are united, although to each other they are separate; through the Infinite Will who sustains and embraces them all in His own ​sphere. Not immediately from thee to me, nor from me to thee, flows forth the knowledge which we have of each other;—we are separated by an insurmountable barrier. Only through the common fountain of our spiritual being do we know of each other; only in Him do we recognise each other, and influence each other. “Here reverence the image of freedom upon the earth;—here, a work which bears its impress:”—thus is it proclaimed within me by the voice of that Will, which speaks to me only in so far as it imposes duties upon me;—and the only principle through which I recognise thee and thy work, is the command of conscience to respect them.
Whence, then, our feelings, our sensible intuitions, our discursive laws of thought, on all which is founded the external world which we behold, in which we believe that we exert an influence on each other? With respect to the two last—our sensible intuitions and our laws of thought—to say, these are laws of reason in itself, is only to give no satisfactory answer at all. For us, indeed, who are excluded from the pure domain of reason in itself, it may be impossible to think otherwise, or to conceive of reason under any other law. But the true law of reason in itself is the practical law, the law of the super-sensual world, or of that sublime Will. And, leaving this for a moment undecided, whence comes our universal agreement as to feelings, which, nevertheless, are something positive, immediate, inexplicable? On this agreement in feeling, perception, and in the laws of thought, however, it depends that we all behold the same external world.
“It is a harmonious, although inconceivable, limitation of the finite rational beings who compose our ​race; and only by means of such a harmonious limitation do they become a race:”—thus answers the philosophy of mere knowledge, and here it must rest as its highest point. But what can set a limit to reason but reason itself?—what can limit all finite reason but the Infinite Reason? This universal agreement concerning a sensible world,—assumed and accepted by us as the foundation of all our other life, and as the sphere of our duty—which, strictly considered, is just as incomprehensible as our unanimity concerning the products of our reciprocal freedom,—this agreement is the result of the One Eternal Infinite Will. Our faith, of which we have spoken as faith in duty, is only faith in Him, in His reason, in His truth. What, then, is the peculiar and essential truth which we accept in the world of sense, and in which we believe? Only that from our faithful and impartial performance of our duty in this world, there will arise to us throughout all eternity a life in which our freedom and morality shall prolong their activity. If this be true, then indeed is there truth in our world, and the only truth possible for finite beings; and it must be true, for this world is the result of the Eternal Will in us,—and that Will, by the law of His own being, can have no other purpose with respect to finite beings, than that which we have set forth.
That Eternal Will is thus assuredly the Creator of the World, in the only way in which He can be so, and in the only way in which it needs a creation:—in the finite reason. Those who regard Him as building up a world from an everlasting inert matter, which must still remain inert and lifeless,—like a vessel made by human hands, not an eternal procession of His ​self-development,—or who ascribe to Him the production of a material universe out of nothing, know neither the world nor Him. If matter only can be reality, then were the world indeed nothing, and throughout all eternity would remain nothing. Reason alone exists:—the Infinite in Himself,—the finite in Him and through Him. Only in our minds has He created a world; at least that from which we unfold it, and that by which we unfold it:—the voice of duty, and harmonious feelings, intuitions, and laws of thought. It is His light through which we behold the light, and all that it reveals to us. In our minds He still creates this world, and acts upon it by acting upon our minds through the call of duty, as soon as another free being changes aught therein. In our minds He upholds this world, and thereby the finite existence of which alone we are capable, by continually evolving from each state of our existence other states in succession. When He shall have sufficiently proved us according to His supreme designs, for our next succeeding vocation, and we shall have sufficiently cultivated ourselves for entering upon it, then, by that which we call death, will He annihilate for us this life, and introduce us to a new life, the product of our virtuous actions. All our life is His life. We are in His hand, and abide therein, and no one can pluck us out of His hand. We are eternal, because He is eternal.
Sublime and Living Will! named by no name, compassed by no thought! I may well raise my soul to Thee, for Thou and I are not divided. Thy voice sounds within me, mine resounds in Thee; and all my thoughts, if they be but good and true, live in Thee also. In Thee, the Incomprehensible, I myself, and ​the world in which I live, become clearly comprehensible to me; all the secrets of my existence are laid open, and perfect harmony arises in my soul.
Thou art best known to the child-like, devoted, simple mind. To it Thou art the searcher of hearts, who seest its inmost depths; the ever-present true witness of its thoughts, who knowest its truth, who knowest it though all the world know it not. Thou art the Father whoever desirest its good, who rulest all things for the best. To Thy will it unhesitatingly resigns itself: “Do with me,” it says, “what thou wilt; I know that it is good, for it is Thou who doest it.” The inquisitive understanding, which has heard of Thee, but seen Thee not, would teach us thy nature; and, as Thy image, shows us a monstrous and incongruous shape, which the sagacious laugh at, and the wise and good abhor.
I hide my face before Thee, and lay my hand upon my mouth. How Thou art, and seemest to Thine own being, I can never know, any more than I can assume Thy nature. After thousands upon thousands of spirit-lives, I shall comprehend Thee as little as I do now in this earthly house. That which I conceive, becomes finite through my very conception of it; and this can never, even by endless exaltation, rise into the Infinite. Thou differest from men, not in degree but in nature. In every stage of their advancement they think of Thee as a greater man, and still a greater; but never as God—the Infinite,—whom no measure can mete. I have only this discursive, progressive thought, and I can conceive of no other:—how can I venture to ascribe it to Thee? In the Idea of person there are imperfections, ​limitations:—how can I clothe Thee with it without these?
I will not attempt that which the imperfection of my finite nature forbids, and which would be useless to me:—how Thou art, I may not know. But Thy relations to me—the mortal—and to all mortals, lie open before my eyes:—let me be what I ought to be, and they will surround me more clearly than the consciousness of my own existence. Thou workest in me the knowledge of my duty, of my vocation in the world of reasonable beings:—how, I know not, nor need I to know. Thou knowest what I think and what I will:—how Thou canst know, through what act thou bringest about that consciousness, I cannot understand,—nay, I know that the idea of an act, of a particular act of consciousness, belongs to me alone, and not to Thee,—the Infinite One. Thou willest that my free obedience shall bring with it eternal consequences:—the act of Thy will I cannot comprehend, I only know that it is not like mine. Thou doest, and Thy will itself is the deed; but the way of Thy working is not as my ways,—I cannot trace it. Thou livest and art, for Thou knowest and willest and workest, omnipresent to finite Reason; but Thou art not as I now and always must conceive of being.
In the contemplation of these Thy relations to me, the finite being, will I rest in calm blessedness. I know immediately only what I ought to do. This will I do, impartially, joyfully, and without cavilling or sophistry, for it is Thy voice which commands me to do it; it is the part assigned to me in the spiritual ​World-plan; and the power with which I shall perform it is Thy power. Whatever is commanded by that voice, whatever executed by that power, is, in that plan, assuredly and truly good. I remain tranquil amid all the events of this world, for they are in Thy world. Nothing can perplex or surprise or dishearten me, as surely as Thou livest, and I can look upon Thy life. For in Thee, and through Thee, O Infinite One! do I behold even my present world in another light. Nature, and natural consequences, in the destinies and conduct of free beings, as opposed to Thee, become empty, unmeaning words. Nature is no longer; Thou, only Thou, art. It no longer appears to me to be the end and purpose of the present world to produce that state of universal peace among men, and of unlimited dominion over the mechanism of nature, merely for its own sake;—but that it should be produced by man himself,—and, since it is expected from all, that it should be produced by all, as one great, free, moral, community. Nothing new and better for an individual shall be attainable, except through his own virtuous will; nothing new and better for a community, except through the common will being in accordance with duty:—this is a fundamental law of the great moral empire, of which the present life is a part. Thus is the good will of the individual so often lost to this world, because it is but the will of the individual, and the will of the majority is not in harmony with his;—and then its results are to be found solely in a future world. Thus do even the passions and vices of men cooperate in the attainment of good,—not in and for themselves, for in this sense good can never come out of evil,—but by holding the balance against the opposite vices, and, ​at last, by their excess, annihilating these antagonists, and themselves with them. Oppression could never have gained the upper hand in human affairs, unless the cowardice, baseness, and mutual mistrust of men had smoothed the way to it. It will continue to increase, until it extirpate cowardice and slavishness; and despair itself at last reäwaken courage. Then shall the two opposite vices have annihilated each other, and the noblest of all human relations, lasting freedom, come forth from their antagonism.
The actions of free beings have, strictly considered, only results in other free beings; for in them, and for them alone, there is a world; and that in which they all agree, is itself the world. But they have these results only through the Infinite Will,—the medium through which all individual beings influence each other. But the announcement, the publication of this Will to us, is always a call to a particular duty. Thus even what we call evil in the world, the consequence of the abuse of freedom, exists only through Him; and it exists for those who experience it only in so far as, through it, duties are laid upon them. Were it not in the eternal plan of our moral culture, and the culture of our whole race, that precisely these duties should be laid upon us, they would not be so laid upon us; and that through which they are laid upon us—i.e. what we call evil—would not have been produced. In so far, everything that is, is good, and absolutely legitimate. There is but one world possible,—a thoroughly good world. All that happens in this world is subservient to the improvement and culture of man, and, by means of this, to the promotion of the purpose of his earthly existence. It is this ​higher World-plan which we call Nature, when we say,—Nature leads men through want to industry; through the evils of general disorder to a just constitution; through the miseries of continual wars to endless peace on earth. Thy will, O Infinite One! thy Providence alone, is this higher Nature. This, too, is best understood by artless simplicity, when it regards this life as a place of trial and culture, as a school for eternity; when, in all the events of life, the most trivial as well as the most important, it beholds thy guiding Providence disposing all for the best; when it firmly believes that all things must work together for the good of those who love their duty, and who know Thee.
Oh! I have, indeed, dwelt in darkness during the past days of my life! I have indeed heaped error upon error, and imagined myself wise! Now, for the first time, do I wholly understand the doctrine which from thy lips, O Wonderful Spirit! seemed so strange to me, although my understanding had nothing to oppose to it; for now, for the first time, do I comprehend it in its whole compass, in its deepest foundations, and through all its consequences.
Man is not a product of the world of sense, and the end of his existence cannot be attained in it. His vocation transcends Time and Space, and everything that pertains to sense. What he is, and to what he is to train himself, that he must know; as his vocation is a lofty one, he must be able to raise his thoughts above all the limitations of sense. He must accomplish it:—where his being finds its home, there his thoughts, too, seek their dwelling-place; and the truly human ​mode of thought, that which alone is worthy of him, that in which his whole spiritual strength is manifested, is that whereby he raises himself above those limitations, whereby all that pertains to sense vanishes into nothing,—into a mere reflection, in mortal eyes, the One, Self-existent Infinite.
Many have raised themselves to this mode of thought without scientific inquiry, merely by their nobleness of heart and their pure moral instinct, because their life has been preeminently one of feeling and sentiment. They have denied, by their conduct, the efficiency and reality of the world of sense, and made it of no account in regulating their resolutions and their actions; whereby they have not indeed made it clear, by reasoning, that this world has no existence for the intellect. Those who could dare to say, “Our citizenship is in heaven; we have here no continuing city, but we seek one to come;”—those whose chief principle it was “to die to the world, to be born again, and already here below to enter upon a new life,”—certainly set no value whatever on the things of sense, and were, to use the language of the schools, practical Transcendental Idealists.
Others, who, besides possessing the natural proneness to mere sensuous activity which is common to us all, have also added to its power by the adoption of similar habits of thought, until they have got wholly entangled in it, and it has grown with their growth, and strengthened with their strength, can raise themselves above it, permanently and completely, only by persevering and conclusive thought; otherwise, with the purest moral intentions, they would be continually drawn down again by their understanding, ​and their whole being would remain a prolonged and insoluble contradiction. For these, the philosophy which I now, for the first time, thoroughly understand, will be the first power that shall set free the imprisoned Psyche and unfold her wings, so that, hovering for a moment above her former self, she may cast a glance on her abandoned slough, and then soar upwards, thenceforward to live and move in higher spheres.
Blessed be the hour in which I first resolved to inquire into myself and my vocation! All my doubts are solved; I know what I can know, and have no apprehensions regarding that which I cannot know. I am satisfied; perfect harmony and clearness reign in my soul, and a new and more glorious spiritual existence begins for me.
My entire complete vocation I cannot comprehend; what I shall be hereafter transcends all my thoughts. A part of that vocation is concealed from me; it is visible only to One, to the Father of Spirits, to whose care it is committed. I know only that it is sure, and that it is eternal and glorious like Himself. But that part of it which is confided to myself, I know, and know it thoroughly, for it is the root of all my other knowledge. I know assuredly, in every moment of my life, what I ought to do; and this is my whole vocation in so far as it depends on me. From this point, since my knowledge does not reach beyond it, I shall not depart; I shall not desire to know aught beyond this; I shall take my stand upon this central point, and firmly root myself here. To this shall all my thoughts and endeavours, my whole powers, ​be directed; my whole existence shall be interwoven with it.
I ought, as far as in me lies, to cultivate my understanding and to acquire knowledge;—but only with the purpose of preparing thereby within me a larger field and wider sphere of duty. I ought to desire to have much;—in order that much may be required of me. I ought to exercise my powers and capacities in every possible way;—but only in order to render myself a more serviceable and fitting instrument of duty, for until the commandment shall have been realized in the outward world, by means of my whole personality, I am answerable for it to my conscience. I ought to exhibit in myself, as far as I am able, humanity in all its completeness;—not for the mere sake of humanity, which in itself has not the slightest worth, but in order that virtue, which alone has worth in itself, may be exhibited, in its highest perfection, in human nature. I ought to regard myself, body and soul, with all that is in me or that belongs to me, only as a means of duty; and only be solicitous to fulfil that, and to make myself able to fulfil it, as far as in me lies. But when the commandment,—provided only that it shall have been in truth the commandment which I have obeyed, and I have been really conscious only of the pure, single intention of obeying it,—when the commandment shall have passed beyond my personal being to its realization in the outward world, then I have no more anxiety about it, for thenceforward it is committed into the hands of the Eternal Will. Farther care or anxiety would be but idle self-torment; would be unbelief and distrust of that Infinite Will. I shall never dream of governing the world in His stead; of listening to the ​voice of my own imperfect wisdom, instead of to His voice in my conscience; or of substituting the partial views of a short-sighted individual for His vast plan which embraces the universe. I know that thereby I should lose my own place in His order, and in the order of all spiritual being.
As with calmness and devotion I reverence this higher Providence, so in my actions ought I to reverence the freedom of other beings around me. The question for me is not what they, according to my conceptions, ought to do, but what I may venture to do in order to induce them to do it. I can only desire to act immediately on their conviction and their will, as far as the order of society and their own consent will permit; but by no means, without their conviction and consent, to influence their powers and relations. They do, what they do, on their own responsibility: with this I neither can nor dare intermeddle, and the Eternal Will will dispose all for the best. It concerns me more to respect their freedom, than to hinder or prevent what to me seems evil in its use.
In this point of view I become a new creature, and my whole relations to the existing world are changed. The ties by which my mind was formerly united to this world, and by whose secret guidance I followed all its movements, are for ever sundered, and I stand free, calm and immovable, a universe to myself. No longer through my affections, but by my eye alone, do I apprehend outward objects and am connected with them; and this eye itself is purified by freedom, and looks, through error and deformity, to the True and ​Beautiful, as upon the unruffled surface of water forms are more purely mirrored in a milder light.
My mind is for ever closed against embarrassment and perplexity, against uncertainty, doubt, and anxiety;—my heart, against grief, repentance, and desire. There is but one thing that I may know,—namely, what I ought to do; and this I always know infallibly. Concerning all else I know nothing, and know that I know nothing. I firmly root myself in this my ignorance, and refrain from harassing myself with conjectures concerning that of which I know nothing. No occurrence in this world can affect me either with joy or sorrow; calm and unmoved I look down upon all things, for I know that I cannot explain a single event, nor comprehend its connexion with that which alone concerns me. All that happens belongs to the plan of the Eternal World, and is good in its place: thus much I know;—what in this plan is pure gain, what is only a means for the removal of some existing evil, what therefore ought to afford me more or less satisfaction, I know not. In His world all things prosper;—this satisfies me, and in this belief I stand fast as a rock:—but what in His world is merely the germ, what the blossom, and what the fruit itself, I know not.
The only matter in which I can be concerned is the progress of reason and morality in the world of reasonable beings; and this only for its own sake,—for the sake of this progress. Whether I or some one else be the instrument of this progress, whether it be my deed or that of another which prospers or is prevented, is of no importance to me. I regard myself merely as one of the instruments for carrying ​out the purpose of reason; I respect, love, or feel an interest in myself only as such, and desire the successful issue of my deed only in so far as it promotes this purpose. I regard all the events of this world, in the same way, only with reference to this one purpose; whether they proceed from me or from others, whether they relate directly to me or to others. My breast is steeled against annoyance on account of personal offences and vexations, or exultation in personal merit; for my whole personality has disappeared in the contemplation of the purpose of my being.
Should it ever seem to me as if truth had been put to silence, and virtue expelled from the world; as if folly and vice had now summoned all their powers, and even assumed the place of reason and true wisdom;—should it happen, that just when all good men looked with hope for the regeneration of the human race, everything should become even worse than it had been before;—should the work, well and happily begun, on which the eyes of all true-minded men were fixed with joyous expectation, suddenly and unexpectedly be changed into the vilest forms of evil,—these things will not disturb me; and as little will I be persuaded to indulge in idleness, neglect, or false security, on account of an apparent rapid growth of enlightenment, a seeming diffusion of freedom and independence, an increase of more gentle manners, peacefulness, docility, and general moderation among men, as if now everything were attained. Thus it appears to me; or rather it is so, for it is actually so to me; and I know in both cases, as indeed I know in all possible cases, what I have next to do. As to everything else, I rest in the most perfect tranquillity, for I know nothing ​whatever about any other thing. Those, to me, so sorrowful events may, in the plan of the Eternal One, be the direct means for the attainment of a good result;—that strife of evil against good may be their last decisive struggle, and it may be permitted to the former to assemble all its powers for this encounter only to lose them, and thereby to exhibit itself in all its impotence. These, to me, joyful appearances may rest on very uncertain foundations;—what I had taken for enlightenment may perhaps be but hollow superficiality, and aversion to all true ideas; what I had taken for independence, but unbridled passion; what I had taken for gentleness and moderation, but weakness and indolence. I do not indeed know this, but it might be so; and then I should have as little cause to mourn over the one as to rejoice over the other. But I do know, that I live in a world which belongs to the Supreme Wisdom and Goodness, who thoroughly comprehends its plan, and will infallibly accomplish it; and in this conviction I rest, and am blessed.
That there are free beings, destined to reason and morality, who strive against reason, and call forth all their powers to the support of folly and vice;—just as little will this disturb me, and stir up within me indignation and wrath. The perversity which would hate what is good because it is good, and promote evil merely from a love of evil as such,—this perversity which alone could excite my just anger, I ascribe to no one who bears the form of man, for I know that it does not lie in human nature. I know that for all who act thus, there is really, in so far as they act thus, neither good nor evil, but only an agreeable or disagreeable feeling; that they do not stand under their own ​dominion, but under the power of Nature; and that it is not themselves, but this nature in them, which seeks the former, and flies from the latter with all its strength, without regard to whether it be, otherwise, good or evil. I know that being, once for all, what they are, they cannot act in any respect otherwise than as they do act, and I am very far from getting angry with necessity, or indulging in wrath against blind and unconscious Nature. In this indeed lies their guilt and their unworthiness, that they are what they are; and that, in place of being free and independent, they have resigned themselves to the current of natural impulse.
It is this alone which could excite my indignation; but here I should fall into absolute absurdity. I cannot call them to account for their want of freedom, without first attributing to them the power of making themselves free. I wish to be angry with them, and find no object for my wrath. What they actually are, does not deserve my anger; what might deserve it, they are not, and they would not deserve it, if they were. My displeasure would strike an impalpable nonentity. I must indeed always treat them, and address them, as if they were what I well know they are not; I must always suppose in them that whereby alone I can approach them, and communicate with them. Duty commands me to act towards them according to a conception of them, the opposite of that which I arrive at by contemplating them. And thus it may certainly happen, that I turn towards them with a noble indignation, as if they were free, in order to arouse within them a similar indignation against themselves,—an indignation which in my own heart I cannot ​reasonably entertain. It is only the practical man of society within me whose anger is excited by folly and vice; not the contemplative man who reposes undisturbed in the calm completeness of his own spirit,
Should I be visited by corporeal suffering, pain, or disease, I cannot avoid feeling them, for they are accidents of my nature; and as long as I remain here below, I am a part of Nature. But they shall not grieve me. They can only touch the nature with which, in a wonderful manner, I am united,—not myself, the being exalted above all Nature. The sure end of all pain, and of all sensibility to pain, is death; and of all things which the mere natural man is wont to regard as evils, this is to me the least. I shall not die to myself, but only to others; to those who remain behind, from whose fellowship I am torn:—for myself the hour of Death is the hour of Birth to a new, more excellent life.
Now that my heart is closed against all desire for earthly things, now that I have no longer any sense for the transitory and perishable, the universe appears before my eyes clothed in a more glorious form. The dead heavy mass, which did but stop up space, has vanished; and in its place there flows onward, with the rushing music of mighty waves, an eternal stream of life and power and action which issues from the original Source of all life—from Thy Life, O Infinite One! for all life is Thy Life, and only the religious eye penetrates to the realm of True Beauty.
I am related to Thee, and what I behold around me is related to me; all is life and blessedness, and regards me with bright spirit-eyes, and speaks with spirit-voices to my heart. In all the forms that ​surround me, I behold the reflection of my own being, broken up into countless diversified shapes, as the morning sun, broken in a thousand dew-drops, sparkles towards itself.
Thy Life, as alone the finite mind can conceive it, is self-forming, self-manifesting Will:—this Life, clothed to the eye of the mortal with manifold sensuous forms, flows forth through me, and throughout the immeasurable universe of Nature. Here it streams as self-creating and self-forming matter through my veins and muscles, and pours its abundance into the tree, the flower, the grass. Creative life flows forth in one continuous stream, drop on drop, through all forms and into all places where my eye can follow it; and reveals itself to me, in a different shape in each various corner of the universe, as the same power by which in secret darkness my own frame was formed. There, in free play, it leaps and dances as spontaneous motion in the animal, and manifests itself in each new form as a new, peculiar, self-subsisting world:—the same power which, invisibly to me, moves and animates my own frame. Everything that lives and moves follows this universal impulse, this one principle of all motion, which, from one end of the universe to the other, guides the harmonious movement;—in the animal without freedom; in me, from whom in the visible world the motion proceeds although it has not its source in me, with freedom.
But pure and holy, and as near to Thine own nature as aught can be to mortal eye, does this Thy Life flow forth as the bond which unites spirit with spirit, as the breath and atmosphere of a rational world, unimaginable and incomprehensible, and yet there, clearly ​visible to the spiritual eye. Borne onwards in this stream of light, thought floats from soul to soul, with out pause or variation, and returns purer and brighter from a kindred mind. Through this mysterious union does each individual perceive, understand, and love himself only in another; every soul developes itself only by means of other souls, and there are no longer individual men, but only one humanity; no individual thought or love or hate, but only thought, love, and hate, in and through each other. Through this wondrous influence does the affinity of spirits in the invisible world permeate even their physical nature; manifest itself in two sexes, which, even if that spiritual bond could be torn asunder, would, simply as creatures of nature, be compelled to love each other; flow forth in the tenderness of parents and children, brothers and sisters, as if the souls were of one blood like the bodies, and their minds were branches and blossoms of the same stem; and from these, embrace, in narrower or wider circles, the whole sentient world. Even at the root of their hate, there lies a thirst after love; and no enmity springs up but from friendship denied.
Through that which to others seems a dead mass, my eye beholds this eternal life and movement in every vein of sensible and spiritual Nature, and sees this life rising in ever-increasing growth, and ever purifying itself to a more spiritual expression. The universe is to me no longer that ever-recurring circle, that eternally-repeated play, that monster swallowing itself up, only to bring itself forth again as it was before; it has be come transfigured before me, and now bears the one stamp of spiritual life,—a constant progress towards ​higher perfection in a line that runs out into the Infinite.
The sun rises and sets, the stars sink and reappear, and all the spheres hold their circle-dance; but they never return again as they disappeared, and even in the bright fountain of life itself there is life and progress. Every hour which they lead on, every morning, and every evening, sinks with new increase upon the world; new life and new love descend from the spheres like dew-drops from the clouds, and encircle nature as the cool night the earth.
All Death in nature is Birth, and in Death itself appears visibly the exaltation of Life. There is no destructive principle in Nature, for Nature throughout is pure, unclouded life; it is not death which kills, but the new life, which, concealed behind the former, begins, and developes itself. Death and Birth are but the struggle of life with itself to assume a more glorious and congenial form. And my death,—how can it be aught else, since I am not a mere show and semblance of life, but bear within me the one original, true, and essential Life? It is impossible to conceive that Nature should annihilate a life which does not proceed from her; the Nature which exists for me, and not I for her.
Yet even my natural life, even this mere outward manifestation to mortal sight of the inward invisible Life, she cannot destroy without destroying herself,—she who only exists for me, and on account of me, and exists not if I am not. Precisely because she destroys me, must she animate me anew; it is only my higher life, unfolding itself in her, before which my present life can disappear; and what mortals call Death is the ​visible appearance of a second Life. Did no reasonable being who had once beheld the light of this world die, there would be no ground to look with faith for a new heavens and a new earth; the only possible purpose of Nature, to manifest and maintain Reason, would be fulfilled here below, and her circle would be completed. But the act by which she consigns a free and independent being to death, is her own solemn entrance, intelligible to all Reason, into a region beyond this act itself, and beyond the whole sphere of existence which is thereby closed. Death is the ladder by which my spiritual eye ascends to a new Life, and a new Nature.
Every one of my fellow-creatures, who leaves this earthly brotherhood, and whom my spirit cannot regard as annihilated,—because he is my brother,—draws my thoughts after him beyond the grave;—he is still, and to him belongs a place. While we mourn for him here below, as in the dim realms of unconsciousness there might be mourning when a man bursts from them into the light of this world’s sun, above there is rejoicing that a man is born into that world, as we citizens of the earth receive with joy those who are born unto us. When I shall one day follow, there will be but joy for me; sorrow shall remain behind in the sphere I shall have left.
The world, on which but now I gazed with wonder, passes away from before me, and sinks from my sight. With all the fulness of life, order, and increase which I beheld in it, it is yet but the curtain by which one infinitely more perfect is concealed from me, and the germ from which that other shall develope itself. My Faith looks behind this veil, and cherishes and ​animates this germ. It sees nothing definite, but it expects more than it can conceive here below, more than it will ever be able to conceive in all time.
Thus do I live, thus am I, and thus am I unchangeable, firm, and completed for all Eternity;—for this is no existence assumed from without,—it is my own, true, essential life and being.
THE END.
PRINTED BY ROBERT HARDIE & COMPANY, FREDERICK STREET, EDINBURGH.