Johann Gottlieb Fichte

“ Self-seeking is most highly developed when, after it has first affected, with insignificant exceptions, the whole body of subjects, it thereupon masters the rulers and becomes their sole motive in life. In such a government there arises first of all, outwardly, the neglect of all the ties by which its own safety is bound up with the safety of other States, the abandoning of the whole, of which it is a part, solely in order that it may not be roused from its slothful sleep, and the sad illusion of self-seeking that it has peace, if only its own frontiers are not attacked ”

“ The clear vision of the German, however, has long since come to the unshakable conviction that these are empty illusions, and that no injury or mutilation of the individual is healed by the glory of the whole nation, and we shall indeed, if a wider view of life be not brought before us, probably become dangerous preachers of this very natural and attractive doctrine. Without, therefore, taking to ourselves any new corruption, we are already in our natural condition a harmful prey; only by carrying out the proposal that has been made can we become a wholesome one. ”

“ Time is taking giant strides with us more than with any other age since the history of the world began. At some point within the three years that have gone by since my interpretation of the present age that epoch has come to an end. At some point self-seeking has destroyed itself, because by its own complete development it has lost its self and the independence of that self; and since it would not voluntarily set itself any other aim but self, an external power has forced upon it another and a foreign purpose. ”

“ Already, it is true, the quickening breezes of that other world, which the departed soul has entered, have taken it unto themselves and are surrounding it with the warm breath of love; the whispering voices of its sisters greet it with joy and bid it welcome; and already in its depths it stirs and grows in all directions towards the more glorious form into which it shall develop. ”

“ For a nation so ruined, fear and hope are henceforth completely destroyed, because control over them has now slipped from her hands, and because she herself indeed has to fear and hope, but no one henceforth either fears her or hopes for aught from her. There remains nothing for her but to find an entirely different and new binding tie that is superior to fear and hope, in order to link up the welfare of her whole being with the self-interest of each of her members. ”

“ To educate itself to possess such an eye will, therefore, be a sure means, and indeed the only means left to a nation which has lost her independence and with it all influence over public fear and hope, of rising again into life from the destruction she has suffered, and of entrusting her national welfare, which since her downfall neither God nor man has heeded, with confidence to this new and higher feeling that has arisen. ”

“ By lying fictions, and by skilful confusion of ideas and of language, princes have been libelled to the people, and peoples to princes, in order that the two parties, because of their dissension, might the more surely be controlled. All the impulses of vanity and of self-interest have been cunningly aroused and fostered, so as to make the conquered contemptible, and thus to crush them with something like a good conscience. ”

“ This pain, apart again from material fear or hope, permits the possessor of such an eye no rest until he has removed, in so far as he can, this condition which displeases him, and has set in its place that which alone can please him. For the possessor of such an eye, because of this stimulating feeling of approval or disapproval, the welfare of his whole environment is bound up inextricably with the welfare of his own wider self, which is conscious of itself only as part of the whole and can endure itself only when the whole is pleasing. ”

“ In due course we shall show that any other mark of unity or any other national bond either never had truth and meaning or, if it had, that owing to our present position these bonds of union have been destroyed and torn from us and can never recur; it is only by means of the common characteristic of being German that we can avert the downfall of our nation which is threatened by its fusion with foreign peoples, and win back again an individuality that is self-supporting and quite incapable of any dependence upon others. ”

“ But as yet the soul has no feeling for these breezes, no ear for these voices—or if it had them, they have disappeared in sorrow for the loss of mortal form; for with its form the soul thinks it has lost itself too. ”

“ Now, for the first time, therefore, it happens that the fundamental reconstruction of the nation is offered as a task to the educated classes, and if they were really to accept this offer, that, too, would happen for the first time. We shall find that these classes cannot calculate how long it will still remain in their power to place themselves at the head of this movement, since it is now almost prepared and ripe for proposal to the people, and is being practised on individuals from among the people; and the people will soon be able to help themselves without any assistance from us. ”

“ What might previously have availed, namely, if its government had held the reins strongly and firmly, is now no longer applicable, because these reins now only appear to rest in its hand, for this very hand is steered and guided by an alien hand. Such a nation can no longer depend upon itself; and it can rely as little on the conqueror, who would be just as thoughtless, just as cowardly and weak as that nation itself once was, if he did not hold fast to the advantages he had won, and exploit them in every way. ”

“ If, however, a nation so fallen were to be able to save herself, it would have to be by means of something completely new and never previously employed, namely, by the creation of a totally new order of things. Let us see, therefore, what in the previously existing order of things was the reason why such an order had inevitably to come to an end at some time or other, so that in the opposite of this reason for its downfall we may find the new element which must be introduced into the age, in order that by its means the fallen nation may rise to a new life. ”

“ For even if this attitude of mind, which prefers to roam in the shifting world of possibilities rather than to stick to what must be done, and would rather owe its salvation to blind chance than to itself, did not already in itself afford evidence, as it really does, of the most criminal levity and of the deepest self-contempt, yet all hopes and indications of this kind have absolutely no application to our position. ”

“ Let sloth and self-seeking be censured with bitter reprimand, with biting sarcasm and cutting scorn, and let them be provoked, if to nothing better, at least to bitter hatred of him who gives the reminder—such hatred is at any rate a powerful impulse; let this be done, so long as the inevitable result, the evil, is not fully accomplished, and so long as salvation or mitigation may still be expected from any improvement. ”

“ Whatever has lost its independence has at the same time lost its power to influence the course of events and to determine these events by its own will. If it remain in this state its age, and itself with the age, are conditioned in their development by that alien power which governs its fate. ”

“ No nation which has sunk into this state of dependence can raise itself out of it by the means which have usually been adopted hitherto. Since resistance was useless to it when it was still in possession of all its powers, what can such resistance avail now that it has been deprived of the greater part of them? ”

“ It is for the present, then, quite sufficient to describe this education by these its results, and for our purpose we can spare ourselves the wearisome task of analysing the inner sap and fibre of a tree whose fruit is now fully ripe and lies fallen before the eyes of all, proclaiming most clearly and distinctly the inner nature of its creator. Strictly speaking, according to this view, the present system has been by no means the art of educating men. ”

“ From this state, in which all its past world is removed from its independent influence and in its present world only the merit of obedience remains to it, it could raise itself only on condition that a new world should arise for it, the creation of which would begin, and its development fill, a new epoch of its own in history. But, since it has once fallen under alien power, this new world must be so constituted that it remains unperceived by that power, that it does not in any way arouse its jealousy ”

“ A people can be completely corrupted, i.e., self-seeking—for self-seeking is the root of all other corruption—and yet at the same time not only endure, but even outwardly accomplish splendid deeds, provided only that its government be not also corrupt. ”

“ Apathy, which is satisfied if it find meat and drink and be not subjected to bodily pain, and for which honour, freedom, and independence are empty names, is incapable of it. Pain, however, exists merely to spur us on to reflection, decision, and action. ”

“ I shall prove to you that a system of education such as we desire has actually been discovered and is already being practised, so that we have nothing to do but to accept what is offered us. As I promised you concerning the means of salvation that I should propose, this demands undoubtedly no greater amount of energy than can reasonably be expected of our generation. ”

“ He who has once undertaken to interpret his own age must make his interpretation keep pace with the progress of that age, if progress there be. It is, therefore, my duty to acknowledge as past what has ceased to be the present, before the same audience to whom I characterized it as the present. ”

“ My proposal is first and foremost that they become the authors of this new creation, thereby, on the one hand, reconciling the world to their former influence, and, on the other, deserving its continuance in the future. We shall see in the course of these addresses that up to the present all human progress in the German nation has sprung from the people, and that to it, in the first instance, great national affairs have always been brought, and by it have been cared for and furthered. ”

“ The enlightenment of the understanding, with its purely material calculations, was the force which destroyed the connection established by religion between some future life and the present, and which at the same time conceived that such substitutes and supplements of the moral sense as love of fame and national honour were but illusory phantoms. ”

“ Moreover, education, restricted in this way, has been brought to bear hitherto only on the very small minority of classes which are for this reason called educated, whereas the great majority on whom in very truth the commonwealth rests, the people, have been almost entirely neglected by this system and abandoned to blind chance. By means of the new education we want to mould the Germans into a corporate body, which shall be stimulated and animated in all its individual members by the same interest. ”

“ Rather does such an art remain to be discovered, and this discovery should be the real task of the new education. What was lacking in the old system—namely, an influence penetrating to the roots of vital impulse and action—the new education must supply. Accordingly, as the old system was able at best to train some part of man, so the new must train man himself, and must make the training given, not, as hitherto, the pupil’s possession, but an integral part of himself. ”

“ But, when this evil is so complete that we are deprived of even the possibility of sinning again in the same way, it is useless and looks like malicious joy to continue to rail against a sin that can no longer be committed. The consideration immediately drops out of the sphere of ethics into that of history, for which freedom is ended, and which regards an event as the inevitable consequence of what has gone before. For our addresses there remains no other view of the present than this last, and we shall therefore never adopt any other. ”

“ If by this means we wanted, indeed, to mark off an educated class, which might perhaps be animated by the newly developed motive of moral approval, from an uneducated one, then the latter would desert us and be lost to us; because the motives of hope and fear, by which alone influence might be exercised over it, would work no longer with us but against us. ”

“ Moreover, I presuppose that such hearers, when looking at these things with their own eyes, will have the courage to look honestly at what does exist and to admit candidly to themselves what they see, and that they either have conquered already, or at least are capable of conquering, the tendency (frequently manifested) to deceive oneself concerning one’s own affairs, and to present to the mind a less displeasing picture of them than is consistent with the truth. ”

“ So, too, the inner mental eye of man can be so accustomed and trained that the very sight of a muddled and disorderly, unworthy and dishonourable existence of its own or of a kindred race causes it intense pain, apart from anything there may be to fear or to hope from this for its own material welfare. ”

“ Above the material motive of fear or hope, and bordering immediately upon it, there is the spiritual motive of moral approval or disapproval, and the higher feeling of pleasure or displeasure at the condition of ourselves and of others. The physical eye, when accustomed to cleanliness and order, is troubled and distressed, as though actually hurt, by a spot which indeed causes the body no actual injury, or by the sight of objects lying in chaotic confusion ”