Johann Gottlieb Fichte

“ Only when a foreign power takes possession of him, and urges him forward, and lives within him in room of his own energy, does true and real existence first enter into his life. This foreign power is ever the power of God. To look up to it for counsel, implicitly to follow its guidance, is the only true wisdom in every employment of human life, and therefore most of all in the highest occupation of which man can partake, the vocation of the True Scholar. ”

“ If a conscientious course of study at a University secured no other advantage than that of presenting to youth a picture of the dignified calling of the Scholar as a model for life, and of repelling from this sphere those who are not endowed with the requisite power, such a course would, on account of this advantage alone, be of the utmost importance to the Student. ”

“ Amid the brilliant distinctions of office, and even in mature age, he will restlessly strive and labour to master the Idea, never resigning the hope of becoming greater than he now is, so long as strength permits him to indulge it. ”

“ The second class embraces the Scholars, properly and pre-eminently so called, whose vocation it is to maintain among men the knowledge of the Divine Idea, to elevate it unceasingly to greater clearness and precision, and thus to transmit it from generation to generation, ever growing brighter in the freshness and glory of renewed youth. The first class act directly upon the world, they are the immediate point of contact between God and reality ”

“ To undertake such an employment without the consciousness of possessing the needful power and cultivation is to profane it, and manifests a want both of delicacy and of principle. And it is impossible that he should fall into error on this point; for if he has passed through his academic course in a creditable manner, then he has certainly acquired, in some degree, a perception of what is worthy, and has obtained a standard by which he can take his own intellectual dimensions. ”

“ Would that I could make myself intelligible to you, would that I could persuade you, touching this one point which we now approach on every side! Whatever man may do, so long as he does it from himself as a finite being, by himself, and through his own counsel, it is vain, and will sink to nothing. ”

“ Without this untiring effort, much true Genius would be wholly lost, for scientific talent usually unfolds itself more slowly the higher and purer its essential nature, and its clear development waits for mature years and manly strength. ”

“ In the same place we have said that this life may manifest itself in two forms;—either in actual external Being and Action, or only in Idea; which two distinct modes of manifestation together constitute the peculiar vocation of the Scholar. The first class comprehends all those who are called to lead on human affairs, through their own strength and according to their own idea, to new and progressive harmony with each succeeding age ”

“ Every other function, whatever name it may bear, which the Educated Man [1] (who may be distinguished by this title from the True Scholar) is called upon to fulfil, is a subordinate Scholar-occupation. The Educated Man continues in it, only because he has not by his studies been able to attain to the rank of the True Scholar, but nevertheless finds here a useful purpose to which the capacities and knowledge which he has acquired may be applied. It is by no means the object of Learned Culture to train subalterns, and no one should study with a view to the office of a subaltern ”

“ With respect to the first, as he suffers no emotion within him that is not the direct emotion and life of the Divine Idea which has taken possession of him, so is his whole life accompanied by the indestructible consciousness that it is at one with the Divine Life, that in him and by him God's work shall be achieved and His Will accomplished; he therefore reposes on that Will with unspeakable love, and with the immovable conviction that it is right and good. ”

“ The higher and peculiar calling of the Scholar may be described so as to exhaust all its particular forms, and it is then easy to draw this consequence:—"All those pursuits which are usually followed by educated men, but which do not find a place in this all-comprehensive delineation of the higher calling of the Scholar, but are excluded from it, are subordinate Scholar-occupations." ”

“ The classes which we have now enumerated, whose several occupations are not necessarily portioned out to different individuals, but may readily be united in one and the same person, comprise all true and proper Scholars, and exhaust the whole vocation of those in whom Learned Culture has fulfilled its end. ”

“ Thus does his thought become holy, enlightened, and religious; blessedness arises within him, and in it, abiding joy, peace and power, as these may in like manner be acquired and enjoyed by the unlearned, and even the lowliest among men, through true devotion to God and honest performance of duty viewed as the Will of God. ”

“ In our first lecture we have already definitely characterized the life of him in whom Learned Culture has fulfilled its end:—his life is itself the creative and formative life of the Divine Idea in the world. ”

“ And it is the less necessary since this reverence for Knowledge which is felt by the Student manifests itself chiefly in the appropriate estimation and consecration of his person and is therein exhausted; while it is quite otherwise in the Finished Scholar. In the Progressive Scholar, that which he strives after—the Idea—has yet to acquire a form and an independent life:—these it does not yet possess. As yet the Student does neither immediately possess, nor is he thoroughly penetrated by, the Idea ”

“ Now, for the first time, when we have to accompany the Student from the Academy into Life, we must call to mind that the studies and character of the Progressive Scholar are not necessarily completed with his residence at the University ”

“ Either their immediate object is, by direct and free personal communication of their ideal conceptions, to cultivate in future Scholars a capacity for the reception of the Idea, so that their pupils may afterwards lay hold of it and comprehend it for themselves: and then they are educators of Scholars, Teachers in the higher or lower schools ”

“ He can as yet do nothing directly in its service; he can only live for it indirectly, by consecrating and devoting his person to its use as its appointed instrument; preserving himself pure in sense and spirit because all impurity would mar and disqualify him for that function ”