Johann Gottlieb Fichte

“ Nature cultivates each individual only in part; but she bestows culture at every point where she encounters reasonable beings. Reason unites these points, presents to Nature a firmly compacted and extended front, and compels her to cultivate the Race at least in all its particular capacities, since she will not bestow that culture upon the Individual. Reason has already, by means of the social impulse, provided for the equal distribution of the culture thus acquired among the individual members of society, and will provide for it still further ”

“ But now society is combined like one man: what the individual could not accomplish by himself, all are enabled to perform by the combined powers of the community. Each indeed strives singly, but the enfeeblement of Nature which is the result of the common struggle, and the partial triumph which each gains over her in his own department, come to the aid of all. Thus even from the physical inequality of individuals arises a new security for the bond which unites them all in one body ”

“ The choice of a class is a free choice; therefore no man whatever ought to be compelled to any particular class, nor be shut out from any. Every individual action, as well as every general arrangement, which proceeds on such compulsion, is unjust. It is unwise to force a man into one class, or to exclude him from another; because no man can have a perfect knowledge of the peculiar capacities of another, and because a member is often lost to society altogether, in consequence of being thrust into an improper place. ”

“ We make choice of a particular class, we select one particular talent for more extended cultivation,—only that we may thereby be enabled to render back to society what it has done for us;—and thus each of us is bound to make use of our culture for the advantage of society. No one has a right to labour only for his own enjoyment, to shut himself up from his fellow-men, and make his culture useless to them ”

“ We wish to give society a member, and we make a tool; we wish to have a free fellow-workman in the great business of life, and we create an enslaved and passive instrument; we destroy the man within him, so far as we can do so by our arrangements, and are guilty of an injury both to him and to society. ”

“ The vocation of man as an individual, as well as the vocation of man in society, is now before you. The Scholar is only invested with his distinctive character when considered as a member of society. We may therefore proceed to the inquiry, What is the peculiar vocation of the Scholar in society? But the Scholar is not merely a member of society; he is also a member of a particular class in society: at least it is customary to speak of the Scholar-class—with what propriety or impropriety will appear in due time. ”

“ He finds much already done which otherwise he would have had to do for himself. He might perhaps enjoy a very pleasant existence without ever applying his own powers immediately to Nature; he might even attain a kind of perfection by the enjoyment of what society has already accomplished, and in particular of what it has done for its own cultivation. But this may not be; he must at least endeavour to repay his debt to society; he must take his place among men; he must at least strive to forward in some respect the perfection of the race which has done so much for him. ”

“ If the faculties of all are essentially the same, as they are, since they are all founded upon pure Reason, if they are all to be cultivated after a similar fashion, which is what the law requires, then the result of such a cultivation must be similar capacities in every respect equal to each other:—and thus by another way we arrive at the ultimate end of all society, as declared in our former lecture,—the perfect equality of all its members. ”

“ Thus defects of Nature in us are remedied by Reason and Freedom; the partial culture which Nature has given to the individual becomes the property of the whole race, and the race in turn bestows all its culture upon him; it gives him all the culture which is possible under the determining conditions of Nature, if we suppose that all the individuals who are possible under these conditions do actually exist. ”

“ By these different ways in which Nature acts upon man, are individuals, and what we call their peculiar, empirical, individual character, determined; and in this respect we may say that no individual is perfectly like another in his awakened and developed capacities. Hence arises a physical inequality to which we not only have not contributed, but which we even cannot remove by our freedom; for before we can, through freedom, resist the influence of Nature upon us, we must first have arrived at the consciousness and use of this freedom ”

“ Thus Reason stands in continual strife with Nature. This warfare can never come to an end, unless we were to become gods; but the influence of Nature can and ought to be gradually weakened, the dominion of Reason constantly made more powerful; so that the latter shall gain victory after victory over the former. An individual may perhaps struggle successfully against Nature at his own particular point of contact with her, while at all other points he may be completely subject to her sway. ”

“ On the supposition that man obeys the social impulse generally, it is necessary that under its guidance he should impart the advantages which he possesses to those who have need of them, and receive those of which he himself stands in need from those who possess them. And for this purpose there is no need of any particular determination or modification of the social impulse by a new act of freedom, which is all that I meant to affirm. ”

“ Reason will take care that each individual receive indirectly from the hands of society, the whole and complete cultivation which he cannot obtain directly from Nature. Society will gather together the special gifts of every individual member into a common fund for the free use of all, and thus multiply them by the number of those who share their advantages ”

“ I say, we have not yet been able to show any special determination by means of free activity; but let not this be erroneously or partially understood. The social impulse, considered generally, addresses itself to freedom only; it merely instigates, it does not compel. We may oppose, and even subdue it; we may, through misanthropic selfishness, separate ourselves from our. fellow-men, and refuse to receive anything at the hands of society, that we may not have to render back anything in return ”

“ The social impulse, or the impulse towards mutual cooperation with free reasonable beings as such, includes the two following impulses: the communicative impulse,—that is, the impulse to impart to others that form of culture which we ourselves possess most completely, to make others, as far as possible, like ourselves, like the better self within us; and the receptive impulse, that is, the impulse to receive from others that form of culture which they possess most completely, and in which we are deficient. ”

“ If, on the contrary, I choose a class,—a class being understood to be something chosen by free will, according to the common use of language, if I choose a class, I must first have become subject to Nature before it was possible for me to choose; for to that end different impulses must be awakened within me, different capacities elevated into consciousness ”

“ All the laws of Reason are founded in our spiritual nature; but it is only through an actual experience to which they are applicable that they attain empirical consciousness; and the more frequent such application the more intimately do they become interwoven with this consciousness. ”

“ I do not say that human life is at any time such as I have now depicted it; but it ought to be so, according to our practical ideas of society and of the different classes it contains; and we may and ought to labour that it may become so in reality. ”

“ If I assume this noble task, I can never reach its end; and so surely as it is my vocation to assume it, I can never cease to act, and hence can never cease to be. That which men call Death cannot interrupt my activity ”

“ Every impulse must be awakened by experience if it is to arrive at consciousness, and must be developed by numerous experiences of the same kind if it is to become a desire, and its appropriate gratification a want, of man. ”

“ The independent Non-Ego as the foundation of experience or Nature, is manifold; no one part of it is perfectly the same as another; this principle is maintained and even strictly proved in the Kantian philosophy. It follows from this, that its action on the human mind is of a very varied character, and nowhere calls forth the capacities and talents of men in the same manner. ”

“ If we apply this law to society, if we assume the existence of reasonable beings around us, then the demand that all the faculties of the individual should be uniformly cultivated includes also the demand that all reasonable beings should be cultivated uniformly with each other. ”

“ It is thus with all the laws of Reason; it is thus especially with the practical, which do not, like the theoretical, terminate in a mere act of judgment, but proceed to an activity without us, and announce themselves to consciousness under the form of impulses. The foundation of all impulses lies in our own being: but not more than the foundation. ”

“ When we contemplate the idea now unfolded, even without reference to ourselves, we see around us a community in which no one can labour for himself without at the same time labouring for his fellow-men, or can labour for others without also labouring for himself ”

“ For an inequality which occurs fortuitously and without our aid, i.e. for physical inequality, Nature is accountable; but inequality of classes seems to be a moral inequality, with respect to which, therefore, the question naturally arises, By what right do different classes exist? ”

“ But the interest is heightened when we turn our thoughts to ourselves, and contemplate ourselves as members of this great spiritual community. The feeling of our dignity and our power is increased when we say, what each of us may say, “My existence is not in vain and aimless ”