Johann Gottlieb Fichte

“ On the other hand, and in the same way, the art of education will never attain complete clearness in itself without philosophy. Hence, there is an interaction between the two, and either without the other is incomplete and unserviceable. If only because the German has hitherto brought to completion all the steps of culture and has been preserved in the modern world for that special purpose, it will be his work, too, in respect of education. But, when education has once been set in order, the same will follow easily with the other concerns of humanity. ”

“ Of the separate and special means of once more raising the German spirit a very powerful one would be in our hands if we had a soul-stirring history of the Germans in that period—one that would become a book for the nation and for the people, just as the Bible and the hymn-book are now, until the time came when we ourselves had again achieved something worthy of record. ”

“ In earlier times and in other places reformers had inspired masses of the people, and gathered and formed them into communities. Yet these communities found no firm abiding-place on the foundation of the existing constitution, because the princes and rulers of the people did not come over to their side. At first no more favourable destiny seemed to await Luther’s Reformation. The wise Elector, under whose eyes it began, seemed to be wise rather in the foreign than in the German sense. ”

“ Compare the histories of both; contrast the continual disorders, the internal conflicts, nay, even wars, the constant change of constitutions and rulers in the latter with the peaceful unity and concord in the former. How could it be more clearly demonstrated that there must have been an inward difference in the dispositions of the two nations? The German nation is the only one among the neo-European nations that has shown in practice, by the example of its burgher class for centuries, that it is capable of enduring a republican constitution. ”

“ What shall we do to be saved? When this question fell on barren soil, where either it remained undecided whether such a thing as salvation was really possible, or else, even if that was assumed, there was still no firm and decided will to be saved—on such soil religion from the very beginning did not affect life and will, but remained suspended in the memory and the imagination like a faint and quivering shadow. So all further enlightenment concerning the condition of the existing religious ideas was similarly bound to remain without influence on life. ”

“ The great events of national or world importance have hitherto been brought before the people by speakers who came forward voluntarily, and the people have taken up the cause. Though their princes, from love of foreign ways and the craving for brilliance and distinction, might at first separate themselves, as those did, from the nation and abandon or betray it, they were afterwards easily swept into unanimity with the nation and took pity on their peoples. ”

“ Only the nation which has first solved in actual practice the problem of educating perfect men will then solve also the problem of the perfect State.
Since our reformation of the Church, the last-mentioned problem of education has more than once been attempted by foreign countries in a spirited fashion, but in accordance with their own philosophy; and among us a first result of their efforts has been to stimulate some to imitation and exaggeration. To what point the German spirit once more has finally brought this matter in our days we shall relate in more detail at the proper time. ”

“ The second step, which is really the continuation and completion of the first, namely, to discover in our own selves this religion, and with it all wisdom—this, too, was prepared by foreign countries and completed by the German. The next step forward that we have to make in the plan of eternity is to educate the nation to perfect manhood. Without this, the philosophy that has been won will never be widely comprehended, much less will it be generally applicable in life. ”

“ There were renewed among them, late in time, all the miracles that Christianity showed forth among those who professed it when it began. All the utterances of that period are filled with this universal concern for salvation. Behold in this a proof of the characteristic quality of the German people. By enthusiasm it can easily be raised to enthusiasm and clearness of any kind whatsoever, and its enthusiasm endures for life and transforms life. ”

“ That age was the nation’s youthful dream, within a narrow sphere, of its future deeds and conflicts and victories, and the prophecy of what it would be once it had perfected its strength. Evil associations and the seductive power of vanity have swept the growing nation into spheres which are not its own ”

“ When later the untouched and genuine works of the old culture fell into the hands of these peoples, and when the impulse to think and understand for themselves was thereby stirred into action, then, partly because this impulse was new and fresh to them, and partly because they had no inherited terror of the gods to act as a counterpoise, the contradiction between blind faith and the strange things that in course of time had become its objects was bound to strike them far more sharply than it had struck the Romans themselves when Christianity first came to them. ”

“ The perception of an utter contradiction in what one has hitherto faithfully believed excites laughter. Those who had solved the riddle laughed and mocked; and even the priests, who had also solved it, laughed with the rest; they could do so in safety, because only very few people had access to the classical culture which broke the spell. Here I refer especially to Italy, the chief seat of neo-Latin culture at that time, the other neo-Latin races being still very far behind Italy in every respect.
They laughed at the deception, because there was no earnestness in them to turn bitter. ”

“ Others during the Reformation may have had earthly aims, but they would never have been victorious had there not been at their head a leader inspired by the eternal. That this man, who always saw that the salvation of all immortal souls was at stake, fearlessly and in all earnestness went to meet all the devils in hell, is natural and in no way a wonder. Here we have a proof of German earnestness of soul. ”

“ In another respect, however, Germany exercised a general and permanent influence on other countries—though, indeed, not on the common people, but on the educated classes—by its reformation of the Church. By means of this influence Germany once more made other countries its forerunners and its instigators to new creations. Free and spontaneous thinking, or philosophy, had frequently been stimulated and practised in the preceding centuries under the dominion of the old doctrine ”

“ But such a history should not set forth deeds and events after the fashion of a chronicle; it should transport us by its fascinating power, without any effort or clear consciousness on our part, into the very midst of the life of that time, so that we ourselves should seem to be walking and standing and deciding and acting with them. ”

“ They renounced all, endured all tortures, and fought in bloody and indecisive wars, solely that they might not again come under the power of the accursed Papacy, but that the light of the gospel, which alone can save, might shine upon them and upon their children’s children. ”

“ In general, we may say that this is what always happens in every conflict of German seriousness with the foreign spirit, whether the latter is found in foreign or in German lands; the foreign spirit is quite unable to comprehend how anyone can wish to raise such a great to-do about unimportant things like words and phrases. ”

“ The reason for this result is as clear as day; the State in accordance with reason cannot be built up by artificial measures from whatever material may be at hand; on the contrary, the nation must first be trained and educated up to it. ”

“ One must confess that there was a darkness and unclearness in the anxiety of that generation about the salvation of souls, since it was a question, not merely of changing the external mediator between God and man, but of needing no external mediator at all and of finding the bond of connection in one’s self. ”

“ In what has been said you have a clear conspectus of the whole history of culture in the modern world, and of the never-varying relationship of the different parts of the modern world to the world of antiquity. ”

“ In these cities every branch of culture quickly developed into the fairest bloom. In them arose civic constitutions and organizations which, though but on a small scale, were none the less of high excellence ”

“ Their exclusive possession of rare knowledge strengthened them in their position as a distinguished and educated class, and so they were quite willing that the great multitude, for whom they had no feeling, should remain under the sway of the deception and thus be more subservient to their purposes. ”