Johann Gottlieb Fichte

“ No one wants your oppression, your servility, your slavish subjection; but your independence, your true freedom, your elevation, and your ennoblement are wanted; for it is not forbidden to discuss these things openly with you and to show you the infallible means of attaining them. If this voice finds a hearing and has the result intended, it will set up a memorial of this greatness, and of our faith in it, for all centuries to come—a memorial which time cannot destroy, but which will grow greater, and spread more widely, with each new generation. ”

“ They would bitterly revile their own country in flattering its oppressor; they would think that diplomatic, for they do not know the mind of true greatness, but measure its thoughts by the thoughts suggested by their own pettiness; thus they would make use of literature, for which they know no other use, to pay their court by slaughtering it as a sacrificial victim. We, on the other hand, praise the greatness of the soul, with whom power lies, much more by the fact of our confidence and our courage than words could ever do. ”

“ We must at once become what we ought to be in any case, namely, Germans. We are not to subject our spirit; therefore we must before all things provide a spirit for ourselves, and a firm and certain spirit; we must become earnest in all things and not go on existing frivolously, as if life were a jest; we must form for ourselves enduring and unshakable principles which will serve as a sure guide for all the rest of our thoughts and actions. Life and thought with us must be of one piece and a solid and interpenetrating whole ”

“ So, instead of consoling ourselves for the loss of our independence with the promise of a period of bloom for our literature in the future, and instead of allowing ourselves to be deterred by consolations of that kind from seeking a means to restore our independence, we prefer to ask whether those Germans, to whom a kind of guardianship of literature has fallen, still allow, even in these days, a literature in the true sense of the word to the other Germans who themselves write and read, and whether they consider that such a literature is still allowed in Germany or not. ”

“ In proportion as the great soul feels sure of his own greatness and trusts thereto, he disdains to rule over a people with a wretched servile spirit or to be a giant among dwarfs; he disdains the thought that he must first degrade men in order to rule over them ”

“ To let everything that happens pass by one unperceived, perhaps to close eye and ear diligently to its urgent message, and even to boast of such thoughtlessness as if it were great wisdom—this may be the proper thing for a rock on which the waves of the sea beat without its feeling them, or for a tree-trunk dashed to and fro by storms without its perceiving them; but in no wise does it beseem a thinking being. Even the thinker who dwells in the higher spheres is not absolved from this general obligation of understanding his own age. ”

“ Let us suppose the worst: that they are in the right and not we, who show by our action that we make the former assumption. Is, then, the human race really to be degraded and to go under as a favour to one man who profits by the fall and to those who are afraid? Is one, whose heart bids him do it, not to be allowed to warn them of destruction? Suppose, not only that they were in the right, but that one should resolve, in the sight of this generation and of posterity, to admit that they were right and to deliver aloud on one’s self the judgment just expressed ”

“ Whether there is a sure and thorough means of preserving the German nation, and what this means may be, is the most important of the questions which I have submitted to this nation for decision. My object in answering the question, and in stating the reasons for my way of answering it, was not to say what the final judgment will be—that could not be of any use, because everyone who is to have a hand in this matter must have convinced himself in his own mind by his own activity—on the contrary, my object was only to stimulate men to reflect for themselves and form their own judgment. ”

“ It was just because we ourselves, individually and collectively, were never of one opinion, but wanted one thing to-day and something different tomorrow, and because each one made the clamour more confused by shouting something different—it was for this reason that our governments, who to be sure listened to us, and often listened more attentively than was advisable, became confused and swayed to and fro just like our own opinion. ”

“ Is not greatness based on the fact that to one person a new and individual view of the universe has dawned, and that this person has the firm will and the iron strength to impose his view on the actual world? But it is quite impossible for such a soul not to honour in peoples and individuals external to himself that in which his own internal greatness consists, viz., independence, constancy, and individuality of existence. ”

“ We must assume either that the being [2] to whom at the present time the conduct of a great part of the world’s affairs has fallen is a truly great soul, or we must assume the contrary; no third assumption is possible. In the first case: on what is all human greatness based, if not on the independence and originality of the person and on the fact that the person is not an artificial product of his age, but a growth out of the eternal and spontaneous spirit-world, which has grown up just as it is? ”

“ What, on the other hand, would be the assumption of those who entertained this fear and admitted it by their actions, and what would they proclaim to all the world as their assumption? They would acknowledge that they believed we were ruled over by an enemy of mankind, by a very base and petty Principle, alarmed by every stirring of independent strength and unable to hear of morality, religion, or ennoblement of souls without anxiety; because nothing but the degradation of men, their stupor, and their vices would make his position safe and give him hope of maintaining himself. ”

“ If our external activity is restricted and fettered, let us elevate our spirit all the more boldly to the thought of freedom; let us rise to live in this thought and make it the sole object of our wish and longing. What if freedom disappear for a time from the visible world? Let us give it a place of refuge in our innermost thoughts, until there shall grow up round about us the new world which has the power of manifesting our thoughts outwardly. ”

“ The education which we propose to the Germans as their future national education has now been sufficiently described. When once the generation that has been formed by this education is in existence—a generation impelled by its taste for the right and the good and by nothing else whatever; a generation provided with an understanding that is adequate for its standpoint and recognizes the right unfailingly on every occasion ”

“ That lack of heed to what is going on before our eyes, and the artful distraction to other objects of the attention that is everywhere aroused, would be the best thing that an enemy of our independence could wish to find. If he is sure that nothing will set us thinking, he can do anything he wishes with us, as if we were lifeless tools. It is precisely this thoughtlessness that accustoms itself to anything ”

“ But let us suppose that our language remains a living and a literary language and so preserves its literature; what sort of literature can that be, the literature of a people without political independence? What does a sensible writer want, and what can he want? ”

“ Since this generation is in the meantime not in existence, but must first be raised up by education, and since, even if everything else should go on excellently and beyond our expectation, we shall nevertheless require a considerable interval before we pass over to that new age, the more urgent question arises: How are we to manage to get through this interval? Since we can do nothing better, how are we to maintain ourselves at any rate as the soil on which the improvement may take place, and as the point of departure at which this improvement may begin its work? ”

“ We are pointing the way to a regeneration of the human race, a way to turn earthly and sensuous creatures into pure and noble spirits. Does anyone think that such a proposal could be felt as an insult by a mind that is itself pure and noble and great, or by anyone who forms himself after that pattern? ”

“ Would not those who have another world in their hearts soon become confused; and in this case would not the new education be just as useless for the improvement of actual life as the former education, and lose its savour in the same way?
179. If the majority of people continue in their previous state of heedlessness, thoughtlessness, and lack of concentration, this very result may be expected as inevitable. He who lets himself go without paying heed to himself, and allows himself to be moulded by circumstances just as they please, soon accustoms himself to any possible order of things. ”

“ When once the generation formed in this way emerges from its seclusion and appears among us, how are we to prevent it from finding among us actual conditions that have not the slightest relationship to the order of things which it has conceived as embodying the right—actual conditions under which no one understands it or has the slightest wish for, or need of, such an order of things, but, on the contrary, regards the existing state of things as entirely natural and the only one possible? ”

“ It is quite possible that all are not equally willing to hear all things; but at this time we cannot concern ourselves with that; we are urged on by necessity, and we must say just what necessity orders us to say. We are fighting for life; do they want us to walk delicately, lest some robe of state be covered with the dust we may raise? ”

“ No, my intention in the first place was to be a guide among the swarm of questions and investigations and the host of contradictory opinions concerning them, in which educated men among us have hitherto been tossed about, and to lead as many men as I could to a point where they might take a firm stand, to the point which concerns us most intimately—the point of our own common interests. My intention was to bring them in this one matter to a firm opinion which might remain unshaken, and to a clearness in which they might really see their way. ”

“ If our common affairs are at last to pursue a firm and certain course, what is there to prevent us from beginning at once with ourselves and setting the example of firmness and decision? When once a united and unchanging opinion makes itself heard, when a definite need announces itself as a general need and makes itself felt—the need of a national education, as we assume it will be—I am quite sure that our governments will listen to us ”

“ In the sphere where no one can deprive us of the freedom to do as we think best—in our own minds let us make ourselves a pattern, a prophecy, and a guarantee of that which will become a reality when we are gone. ”

“ For example, long before the most recent events, we had to hear, in advance as it were, a saying which since then has frequently been repeated in our ears: that even if our political independence were lost we should still keep our language and our literature, and thereby always remain a nation; so we could easily console ourselves for the loss of everything else. ”

“ Everyone who makes the slightest claim to culture is bound to do that. The animal life of man proceeds in all ages according to the same laws, and in this every age is alike. Only to the understanding are there such things as different ages; and only the man whose conception penetrates them lives in them, and only he exists in his own age; any other kind of life is nothing but the life of plants and animals. ”

“ He wants to think originally and from the root of spiritual life for those who act just as originally, i.e., govern. He can, therefore, only write in a language in which the governors think, in a language in which the work of government is carried on, in the language of a people that forms an independent State. For what is the ultimate aim of all our efforts even in regard to the most abstract sciences? ”

“ We are pointing out a firm and unchangeable foundation, on which the highest and purest morality, such as was never yet seen among men, may be built up at last for the world in one people and assured for all time to come, and which may thence be spread abroad among all other peoples. ”

“ In this way all literary discussion among the Germans transformed itself, like Echo in the ancient fable, into nothing but pure sound, without any body or bodily substance. We know how it is in the personal intercourse of third-rate society, and so it was in this literary fellowship; the only thing that mattered was that the human voice should go on sounding, and that each one should take up the ball of conversation and without a pause throw it to his neighbour ”

“ In every case it is only obscurity and darkness which cause alarm. Every terrifying vision vanishes when one gazes at it firmly. With the same unconcern and directness, with which we have hitherto analysed every subject that has occurred in these addresses, let us look this terror, too, in the face. ”

“ It was hitherto a custom of long standing among us that, when any earnest word was uttered, either to an audience or in print, those who never got beyond polite conversation took possession of the word and transformed it into an amusing subject of talk to relieve their boredom. ”