Now, for the first time, do I wholly
understand the doctrine which from thy lips, 0 Wonderful
Spirit!
understand the doctrine which from thy lips, 0 Wonderful
Spirit!
Fichte - Nature of the Scholar
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? 360
THE VOCATION OF MAN.
mentary satisfaction, but in accordance with the eternal law
of His being. With surprising clearness does this thought,
which hitherto was surrounded with darkness, now reveal
itself to my soul; the thought that my will, merely as such,
and through itself, shall have results. It has results, because
it is immediately and infallibly perceived by another Will
to which it is related, which is its own accomplishment and
the only living principle of the spiritual world; in Him it
has its first results, and through Him it acquires an in-
fluence on the whole spiritual world, which throughout is
but a product of that Infinite Will. Thus do I approach--the mortal must speak in his own
language--thus do I approach that Infinite Will; and the
voice of conscience in my soul, which teaches me in every
situation of life what I have there to do, is the channel
through which again His influence descends upon me. That
voice, sensualized by my environment, and translated into
my language, is the oracle of the Eternal World which an-
nounces to me how I am to perform my part in the order of
the spiritual universe, or in the Infinite Will who is Him-
self that order. I cannot, indeed, survey or comprehend
that spiritual order, and I need not to do so;--I am but a
link in its chain, and can no more judge of the whole, than
a single tone of music can judge of the entire harmony of
which it forms a part. But what I myself ought to be in
this harmony of spirits I must know, for it is only I myself
who can make me so,--and this is immediately revealed to
me by a voice whose tones descend upon me from that other
world. Thus do I stand connected with the One who alone
has existence, and thus do I participate in His being.
There is nothing real, lasting, imperishable me, but these
two elements:--the voice of conscience,_ajnd,jnjr_ft^e_Qbe-dience. Byjthe first, thespiritual world bows down to me,
and embraces me as one of its members; by the_secondJL
raise myself into this world, ,ipprphf-nd it,, and rt>>->y. t, ypon
it. That Infinite Will is the mediator between Jit _and-
'me; for He himself is the original source both of it and me. This is the one True and Imperishable for which my
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? BOOK III. FAITH.
3G1
Will yogrr<? oYftn frnrv its inmost depths; all else is meie.
appep^anofj wuuahiag, and ovor i"of"''n'r'^ in_a_new_
semblance. _
This Will unites me with himself; He also unites me
with all finite beings like myself, and is the common media-
tor between us all. This is the great mystery of the in-
visible world, and its fundamental law, in so far as it is a
world or system of many individual wills:--the union, and
direct reciprocal action, of many separate and independent
wills; a mystery which already lies clearly before every eye
in the present life, without attracting the notice of any one,
or being regarded as in any way wonderful. The voice of
conscience, which imposes on each his particular duty, is the
light-beam on which we come forth from the bosom of the
Infinite, and assume our place as particular individual be-
ings; it fixes the limits of our personality; it is thus the
true original element of our nature, the foundation and ma-
terial of all our life. The absolute freedom 'of tlm wjjlj.
whinh wp bring rlnwn with_ us. from the Infinite into the
wnrlfl nf Tirr)^, is the principle of this our life. I act:--and,
the sensible intuition through which alone I become a per-
sonal intelligence being supposed, it is easy to conceive how
I must necessarily know of this my action,--I know it, be-
cause it is I myself who act;--it is easy to conceive how, by
means of this sensible intuition, my spiritual act appears to
me as a fact in a world of sense; and how, on the other
hand, by the same sensualization, the law of duty which, in
itself, is a purely spiritual law, should appear to me as the
command to such an action ;--it is easy to conceive, how an
actually present world should appear to me as the condition
of this action, and, in part, as the consequence and product
of it. Thus far I remain within myself and upon my own
territory; everything here, which has an existence for me,
unfolds itself purely and solely from myself; I see every-
where only myself, and no true existence out of myself. But
in this my world I admit, also, the operations of other be-
ings, separate and independent of me, as much as I of them.
Ab
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? 362
THE VOCATION OF MAN.
How these beings can themselves know of the influences
which proceed from them, may easily be conceived; they
know of them in the same way in which I know of my own.
But how / can know of them is absolutely inconceivable;
just as it is inconceivable how they can possess that know-
ledge of my existence, and its manifestations, which never-
theless I ascribe to them. How do they come within my
world, or I within theirs,--since the principle by which the
consciousness of ourselves, of our operations, and of their
sensuous conditions, is deduced from ourselves,--i. e. that
each individual must undoubtedly know what he himself
does,--is here wholly inapplicable? How have free spirits
knowledge of free spirits, since we know that free spirits are
the only reality, and that an independent world of sense,
through which they might act on each other, is no longer to
be taken into account. Or shall it be said,--I perceive reason-
able beings like myself by the changes which they produce
in the world of sense? Then I ask again,--How dost thou
perceive these changes? I comprehend very well how thou
canst perceive changes which are brought about by the
mere mechanism of nature; for the law of this mechanism
is no other than the law of thy own thought, according to
which, this world being once assumed, it is carried out into
farther developments. But the changes of which we now
speak are not brought about by the 'mere mechanism of na-
ture, but by a free will elevated above all nature; and only
in so far as thou canst regard them in this character, canst
thou infer from them the existence of free beings like thy-
self. Where then is the law within thyself, according to
which thou canst realize the determinations of other wills
absolutely independent of thee? In short, this mutual
recognition and reciprocal action of free beings in this
world, is perfectly inexplicable by the laws of nature or of
thought, and can be explained only through the One in whom
they are united, although to each other they are separate;
through the Infinite Will who sustains and embraces them
all in His own sphere. Not immediately from thee to me,
nor from me to thee, flows forth the knowledge which we
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? BOOK III. FAITH.
363
have of each other;--we are separated by an insurmount-
able barrier. Only through the common fountain of our
spiritual being do we know of each other; only in Him do
we recognise each other, and influence each other. "Here
reverence the image of freedom upon the earth;--here, a
work which bears its impress :"--thus is it proclaimed with-
in me by the voice of that Will, which speaks to me only in
so far as it imposes duties upon me;--and the only prin-
ciple through which I recognise thee and thy work, is the
command of conscience to respect them.
Whence, then, our feelings, our sensible intuitions, our dis-
cursive laws of thought, on all which is founded the exter-
nal world which we behold, in which we believe that we ex-
ert an influence on each other? With respect to the two
last--our sensible intuitions and our laws of thought--to
say, these are laws of reason in itself, is only to give no sa-
tisfactory answer at all. For us, indeed, who are excluded
from the pure domain of reason in itself, it may be impos-
sible to think otherwise, or to conceive of reason under any
other law. But the true law of reason in itself is the practical law, the law of the super-sensual world, or of that sub-1lime WilL And, leaving this for a moment undecided, whence
comes our universal agreement as to feelings, which, never-
theless, are something positive, immediate, inexplicable 1
On this agreement in feeling, perception, and in the laws of
thought, however, it depends that we all behold the same
external world.
"It is a harmonious, although inconceivable, limitation of
the finite rational beings who compose our race; and only
by means of such a harmonious limitation do they become a
race:"--thus answers the philosophy of mere knowledge,
and here it must rest as its highest point. But what can
set a limit to reason but reason itself 1--what can limit all
finite reason but the Infinite Reason? This universal agree-
ment concerning a sensible world,--assumed and accepted
by us as the foundation of all our other life, and as the
sphere of our duty--which, strictly considered, is just as in-
comprehensible as our unanimity concerning the products of
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? 3G4
THE VOCATION OF MAN.
our reciprocal freedom,--this agreement is the result of the
One Eternal Infinite WilL Our faith, of which we have
spoken as faith in duty, is only faith in Him, in His reason,
in His truth. What, then, is the peculiar and essential
truth which we accept in the world of sense, and in which
we believe? Nothing less than that from our free and faith-
ful performance of our duty in this world, there will arise to
us throughout eternity a life in which our freedom and mo-
rality may still continue their development. If this be true,
then indeed is there truth in our world, and the only truth
possible for finite beings; and it must be true, for this world
is the result of the Eternal Will in us,--and that Will, by
the law of His own being, can have no other purpose with
respect to finite beings, than that which we have set forth.
That Eternal Will is thus assuredly the Creator of the
World, in the only way in which He can be so, and in the
only way in which it needs creation:--in the finite reason.
Those who regard Him as building up a world from an
everlasting inert matter, which must still remain inert and
lifeless,--like a vessel made by human hands, not an eternal
procession of His self-development,--or who ascribe to Him
the production of a material universe out of nothing, know
neither the world nor Him. If matter only can be reality,
then were the world indeed nothing, and throughout all eter-
nity would remain nothing. Reason alone exists:--the In-
finite in Himself,--the finite in Him and through Him.
Only in our minds has He created a world; at least that
from which we unfold it, and that by which we unfold it;--
the voice of duty, and harmonious feelings, intuitions, and
laws of thought. It is His light through which we behold
the light, and all that it reveals to us. In our minds He
still creates this world, and acts upon it by acting upon our
minds through the call of duty, as soon as another free be-
ing changes aught therein. In our minds He upholds this
world, and thereby the finite existence of which alone we
are capable, by continually evolving from each state of our
existence other states in succession. When He shall have
sufficiently proved us according to His supreme designs, for
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? BOOK III. FAITH.
365
our next succeeding vocation, and we shall have sufficiently cultivated ourselves for entering upon it, then, by that I
which we call death, will He annihilate for us this life, and introduce us to a new life, the product of our virtuous ac-1tions. All our life is His life. We are in His hand, and abide therein, and no one can pluck us out of His hand. We are eternal, because He is eternal. ^
Sublime and Living Will! named by no name, compassed
by no thought! I may well raise my soul to Thee, for Thou and I are not divided. Thy voice sounds within me, mine
resounds in Thee; and all my thoughts, if they be but good
and true, live in Thee also. In Thee, the Incomprehensible,
I myself, and the world in which I live, become clearly com-
prehensible to me; all the secrets of my existence are laid
open, and perfect harmony arises in my soul.
Thou art best known to the child-like, devoted, simple
mind. . To it Thou art the searcher of hearts, who seest its
inmost depths; the ever-present true witness of its thoughts,
who knowest its truth, who knowest it though all the world
know it not. Thou art the Father who ever desirest its
good, who rulest all things for the best. To Thy will it un-
hesitatingly resigns itself: "Do with me," it says, "what
thou wilt; I know that it is good, for it is Thou who doest
it. " The inquisitive understanding, which has heard of
Thee, but seen Thee not, would teach us thy nature; and,
as Thy image, shows us a monstrous and incongruous
shape, which the sagacious laugh at, and the wise and good
abhor.
I hide my face before Thee, and lay my hand upon my
mouth. How Thou art, and seemest to Thine own being, I
can never know, any more than I can assume Thy nature.
After thousands upon thousands of spirit-lives, I shall com-
prehend Thee as little as I do now in this earthly house.
That which I conceive, becomes finite through my very con-
ception of it; and this can never, even by endless exalta-
tion, rise into the Infinite. Thou differest from men, not in
degree but in nature. In every stage of their advancement
they think of Thee as a greater man, and still a greater;
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? 3GG
THE VOCATION OF MAN.
but never as God--the Infinite,--whom no measure can
mete. I have only this discursive, progressive thought, and
I can conceive of no other:--how can I venture to ascribe
it to Thee? In the Idea of person there are imperfections,
limitations:--how can I clothe Thee with it without these?
I will not attempt that which the imperfection of my
finite nature forbids, and which would be useless to me:--
How Thou art, I may not know. But, let me be what I
ought to be, and Thy relations to me--the mortal--and to
all mortals, lie open before my eyes, and surround me more
clearly than the consciousness of my own existence. Thou
workest in me the knowledge of my duty, of my voca-
tion in the world of reasonable beings;--how, I know
not, nor need I to know. Thou knowest what I think and
what I will:--how Thou canst know, through what act
thou bringest about that consciousness, I cannot understand,
--nay, I know that the idea of an act, of a particular act of
consciousness, belongs to me alone, and not to Thee,--the
Infinite One. Thou wiliest that my free obedience shall
bring with it eternal consequences:--the act of Thy will I
cannot comprehend, I only know that it is not like mine.
Thou doest, and Thy will itself is the deed; but the way of
Thy working is not as my ways,--I cannot trace it. Thou
livest and art, for Thou knowest and wiliest and workest,
omnipresent to finite Reason; but Thou art not as / now
and always must conceive of being.
In the contemplation of these Thy relations to me, the
finite being, will I rest in calm blessedness. I know im-
mediately only what I ought to do. This will I do, freely,
joyfully, and without cavilling or sophistry, for it is Thy
voice which commands me to do it; it is the part assigned
to me in the spiritual World-plan; and the power with
which I shall perform it is Thy power. Whatever may be
commanded by that voice, whatever executed by that power,
is, in that plan, assuredly and truly good. I remain tran-
quil amid all the events of this world, for they are in Thy
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? BOOK III. FAITH.
367
world. Nothing can perplex or surprise or dishearten me,
as surely as Thou livest, and I can look upon Thy life. For
in Thee, and through Thee, O Infinite One! do I behold
even my present world in another light. Nature, and na-
tural consequences, in the destinies and conduct of free be-
ings, as opposed to Thee, become empty, unmeaning words.
Nature is no longer; Thou, only Thou, art. It no longer
appears to me to be the end and purpose of the present
world to produce that state of universal peace among men,
and of unlimited dominion over the mechanism of nature,
for its own sake alone,--but that this should be produced
by man himself,--and, since it is expected from all, that it
should be produced by all, as one great, free, moral, commu-
nity. Nothing new and better for an individual shall be
attainable, except through his own virtuous will; nothing
new and better for a community, except through the com-
mon will being in accordance with duty:--this is a funda-
mental law of the great moral empire, of which the present
life is a part. The good will of the individual is thus often
lost to this world, because it is but the will of the individu-
al, and the will of the majority is not in harmony with his,
--and then its results are to be found solely in a future
world; while even the passions and vices of men cooperate
in the attainment of good,--not in and for themselves, for
in this sense good can never come out of evil,--but by hold-
ing the balance against the opposite vices, and, at last, by
their excess, annihilating these antagonists, and themselves
with them. Oppression could never have gained the upper
hand in human affairs, unless the cowardice, baseness, and
mutual mistrust of men had smoothed the way to it. It will
continue to increase, until it extirpate cowardice and slav-
ishness; and despair itself at last reawaken courage. Then
shall the two opposite vices have annihilated each other,
and the noblest of all human relations, lasting freedom,
come forth from their antagonism.
The actions of free beings, strictly considered, have results
only in other free beings; for in them, and for them
alone, there is a world; and that in which they all agree, is
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? 368 THE VOCATION OF MAN.
I
itself the world. But they have these results only through
the Infinite Will,-- the meduim through which all indi-
vidual beings influence each other. But the announcement,
the publication of this Will to us, is always a call to a par-
ticular duty. Thus even what we call evil in the world, the
consequence of the abuse of freedom, exists only through
Him; and it exists for those who experience it only in so
far as, through it, duties are laid upon them. Were it not
in the eternal plan of our moral cuture, and the culture of
our whole race, that precisely these duties should be laid
upon us, they would not be so laid upon us; and that
through which they are laid upon us--i. e. what we call evil
--would not have been produced. In so far, everything
that is, is good, and absolutely legitimate. There is but
one world possible,--a thoroughly good world. All that
happens in this world is subservient to the improvment and
culture of man, and, by means of this, to the promotion of
the purpose of his earthly existence. It is this higher
World-plan which we call Nature, when we say,--Nature
leads men through want to industry; through the evils of
general disorder to a just constitution; through the miseries
of continual wars to endless peace on earth. Thy will, O Infinite One! thy Providence alone, is this higher Nature.
This, too, is best understood by artless simplicity, when it
regards this life as a place of trial and culture, as a school
for eternity; when, in all the events of life, the most trivial
as well as the most important, it beholds thy guiding Provi-
dence disposing all for the best; when it firmly believes
that all things must work together for the good of those
who love their duty, and who know Thee.
Oh! I have, indeed, dwelt in darkness during the past
days of my life! I have indeed heaped error upon error, and
imagined myself wise!
Now, for the first time, do I wholly
understand the doctrine which from thy lips, 0 Wonderful
Spirit! seemed so strange to me, although my understand-
ing had nothing to oppose to it; for now, for the first time,
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? BOOK III. FAITH.
3GU
do I comprehend it in its whole compass, in its deepest
foundations, and through all its consequences.
Man is not a product of the world of sense, and the end
of his existence cannot be attained in it. His vocation transcends Time andJSpace, and everything that pertains t,n,
sensp What he is, and to what he is to train himself, that
he must know;--as his vocation is a lofty one, he must be
able to raise his thoughts above all the limitations of sense.
He must accomplish it:--where his being finds its home,
there his thoughts too seek their dwelling-place; and the
truly human mode of thought, that which alone is worthy
of him, that in which his whole spiritual strength is mani-
fested, is that whereby he raises himself above those limi-
tations, whereby all that pertains to sense vanishes into
nothing,--into a mere reflection, in mortal eyes, of the One,
Self-existent Infinite. ,
Many have raised themselves to this mode of thought,
without scientific inquiry, merely by their nobleness of heart
and their pure moral instinct, because their life has been
preeminently one of feeling and sentiment. They have de-
nied, by their conduct, the efficiency and reality of the
world of sense, and made it of no account in regulating their
resolutions and their actions;--whereby they have not in-
deed made it clear, by reasoning, that this world has no
existence for the intellect. Those who could dare to say,
"Our citizenship is in heaven; we have here no continuing
city, but we seek one to come;"--those whose chief prin-
ciple it was "to die to the world, to be born again, and
already here below to enter upon a new life,"--certainly
set no value whatever on the things of sense, and were, to
use the language of the schools, practical Transcendental
Idealists.
Others, who, besides possessing the natural proneness to
mere sensuous activity which is common to us all, have also
added to its power by the adoption of similar habits of
thought, until they have got wholly entangled in it, and it
has grown with their growth, and strengthened with their
strength, can raise themselves above it, permanently and
lib
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? 370
THE VOCATION OF MAX.
completely, only by persistent and conclusive thought;
otherwise, with the purest moral intentions, they would be
continually drawn down again by their understanding, and
their whole being would remain a prolonged and insoluble
contradiction. For these, the philosophy which I now, for the first time, thoroughly understand, will t,h<^first. p>>wpr
that shall set free the imprisoned Psyche. japd unfold hex.
>yingSLSO,thatJ hovering for a mminpnt. alxvyp W fnrmpr splf she may cast a glance on her abandoned slough, and then
soar upwards thenceforward to live and. riPV^g hiffopr
Spheres. .
Blessed be the hour in which I first resolved to inquire
into myself and my vocation! All my doubts are solved; I
know what I can know, and have no apprehensions regard-
ing that which I cannot know. I am satisfied; perfect har-
mony and clearness reign in my soul, and a new and more
glorious spiritual existence begins for me.
My entire complete vocation I cannot comprehend; what
I shall be hereafter transcends all my thoughts. A part of
that vocation is concealed from me; it is visible only to One,
to the Father of Spirits, to whose care it is committed. I
know only that it is sure, and that it is eternal and glorious
like Himself. But that part of it which is confided to my-
self, I know, and know it thoroughly, for it is the root of all
my other knowledge. I know assuredly, in every moment
of my life, what I ought to do; and this is my whole voca-
tion in so far as it depends on me. From this point, since
my knowledge does not reach beyond it, I shall not depart;
I shall not desire to know aught beyond this; I shall take
my stand upon this central point, and firmly root myself
here. To this shall all my thoughts and endeavours, my
whole powers, be directed; my whole existence shall be
interwoven with it.
I ought, as far as in me lies, to cultivate my understand-
ing and to acquire knowledge;--but only with the purpose
of preparing thereby within me a larger field and wider
sphere of duty. I ought to desire to have much;--in order
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? BOOK III. FAITH.
371
that much may be required of me. I ought to exercise my
powers and capacities in every possible way;--but only in
order to render myself a more serviceable and fitting instru-
ment of duty, for until the commandment shall have been
realized in the outward world, by means of my whole per-
sonality, I am answerable for it to my conscience. I ought
to exhibit in myself, as far as I am able, humanity in all its
completeness;--not "for the mere sake of humanity, which
in itself has not the slightest worth, but in order that vir-
tue, which alone has worth in itself, may be exhibited in its
highest perfection in human nature. I ought to regard my-
self, body and soul, with all that is in me or that belongs to
me, only as a means of duty; and only be solicitous to fulfil
that, and to make myself able to fulfil it, as far as in me
lies. But when the commandment,--provided only that it
shall have been in truth the commandment which I have
obeyed, and I have been really conscious only of the pure,
single intention of obeying it,--when the commandment
shall have passed beyond my personal being to its realiza-
tion in the outward world, then I have no more anxiety
about it, for thenceforward it is committed into the hands of
the Eternal WilL Farther care or anxiety would be but
idle self-torment; would be unbelief and distrust of that
Infinite Will. I shall never dream of governing the world
in His stead; of listening to the voice of my own imperfect
wisdom instead of to His voice in my conscience; or of sub-
stituting the partial views of a short-sighted creature for
His vast plan which embraces the universe. I know that
thereby I should lose my own place in His order, and in the
order of all spiritual being.
As with calmness and devotion I reverence this higher
Providence, so in my actions ought I to reverence the free-
dom of other beings around me. The question for me is
not what they, according to my conceptions, ought to do,
but what I may venture to do in order to induce them to do
it. I can only desire to act on their conviction and their
will as far as the order of society and their own consent
will permit; but by no means, without their conviction and
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? 372
THE VOCATION OF MAN.
consent, to influence their powers and relations. They do
what they do on their own responsibility: with this I
neither can nor dare intermeddle, and the Eternal Will will
dispose all for the best . It concerns me more to respect
their freedom, than to hinder or prevent what to me seems
evil in its use.
In this point of view I become a new creature, and my
whole relations to the existing world are changed. The ties
by which my mind was formerly united to this world, and by
whose secret guidance I followed all its movements, are for
ever sundered, and I stand free, calm and immovable, a
universe to myself. No longer through my affections, but
by my eye alone, do I apprehend outward objects and am
connected with them; and this eye itself is purified by free-
dom, and looks through error and deformity to the True
and Beautiful, as upon the unruffled surface of water shapes
are more purely mirrored in a milder light.
My mind is for ever closed against embarrassment and
perplexity, against uncertainty, doubt, and anxiety;--my
heart, against grief, repentance, and desire. There is but
one thing that I may know,--namely, what I ought to do;
and this I always know infallibly. Concerning all else I
know nothing, and know that I know nothing. I firmly
root myself in this my ignorance, and refrain from harassing
myself with conjectures concerning that of which I know
nothing. No occurrence in this world can affect me either
with joy or sorrow; calm and unmoved I look down upon
all things, for I know that I cannot explain a single event,
nor comprehend its connexion with that which alone con-
cerns me. All that happens belongs to the plan of the
Eternal World, and is good in its place: thus much I know;
--what in this plan is pure gain, what is only a means for
the removal of some existing evil, what therefore ought to
afford me more or less satisfaction, I know not. In His
world all things prosper;--this satisfies me, and in this belief
I stand fast as a rock:--but what in His world is merely
the germ, what the blossom, and what the fruit itself, I
know not.
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? BOOK III. FAITH.
373
The only matter in which I can be concerned is the pro-
gress of reason and morality in the world of reasonable be-
ings; and this only for its own sake,--for the sake of this
progress. Whether I or some one else be the instrument of
this progress, whether it be my deed or that of another
which prospers or is prevented, is of no importance to me. I regard myself merely as one of the instruments for carry-
ing out the purpose of reason; I respect, love, or feel an
interest in myself only as such an instrument, and desire the
successful issue of my deed only in so far as it promotes this
purpose. In like manner, I regard all the events of this world
only with reference to this one purpose; whether they pro-
ceed from me or from others, whether they relate directly to
me or to others. My breast is steeled against annoyance on
account of personal offences and vexations, or exultation in
personal merit; for my whole personality has disappeared
in the contemplation of the purpose of my being.
Should it ever seem to me as if truth had been put to
silence, and virtue expelled from the world; as if folly and
vice had now summoned all their powers, and even assumed
the place of reason and true wisdom;--should it happen,
that just when all good men looked with hope for the re-
generation of the human race, everything should become
even worse than it had been before;--should the work, well
and happily begun, on which the eyes of all true-minded
men were fixed with joyous expectation, suddenly and un-
expectedly be changed into the vilest forms of evil,--these
things will not disturb me; and as little will I be persuaded
to indulge in idleness, neglect, or false security, on account
of an apparent rapid growth of enlightenment, a seeming
diffusion of freedom and independence, an increase of more
gentle manners, peacefulness, docility, and general modera-
tion among men, as if now everything were attained. Thus
it appears to me; or rather it is so, for it is actually so to
me; and I know in both cases, as indeed I know in all pos-
sible cases, what I have next to do. As to everything else,
I rest in the most perfect tranquillity, for I know nothing
whatever about any other thing. Those, to me, so sorrowful
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? 374
THE VOCATION OF MAN.
events may, in the'plan of the Eternal One, be the direct
means for the attainment of a good result;--that strife of
evil against good"may he their last decisive struggle, and it
may be permitted to the former to assemble all its powers
for this encounter only to lose them, and thereby to exhibit
itself in all its impotence. These, to me, joyful appearances
may rest on very uncertain foundations;--what I had taken
for enlightenment may perhaps be but hollow superficiality,
and aversion to all true ideas; what I had taken for inde-
pendence but unbridled passion; what I had taken for
gentleness and moderation but weakness and indolence. I
do not indeed know this, but it might be so; and then I
should have as little cause to mourn over the one as to re-
joice over the other. But I do know, that I live in a world
which belongs to the Supreme Wisdom and Goodness, who
thoroughly comprehends its plan, and will infallibly accom-
plish it; and in this conviction I rest, and am blessed. That there are free beings, destined to reason andmora-
lity, who strive against reason, and call forth all their
powers to the support of folly and vice;--just as little will
this disturb me, and stir up within me indignation and
wrath. The perversity which would . hate what is good
because it is good, and promote evil merely from a love of
evil as such,--this perversity which alone could excite my
just anger, I ascribe to no one who bears the form of man,
for I know that it does not lie in human nature. I know
that for all who act thus, there is really, in so far as they act
thus, neither good nor evil, but only an agreeable or dis-
agreeable feeling; that they do not stand under their own
dominion, but under the power of Nature; and that it is
not themselves, but this nature in them, which seeks the
former and flies from the latter with all its strength, with-
out regard to whether it be otherwise good or evil. I know
that being, once for all, what they are, they cannot act in
any respect otherwise than as they do act, and I am very far
from getting angry with necessity, or indulging in wrath
against blind and unconscious Nature. Herein truly lies
their guilt and unworthiness, that they are what they are;
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? BOOK III. FAITH.
375
and that, in place of being free and independent, they have
resigned themselves to the current of mere natural impulse.
It is this alone which could excite my indignation; but
here I should fall into absolute absurdity. I cannot call
them to account for their want of freedom, without first at-
tributing to them the power of making themselves free. I
wish to be angry with them, and find no object for my
wrath. What they actually are, does not deserve my anger;
what might deserve it, they are not, and they would not
deserve it, if they were. My displeasure would strike an im-
palpable nonentity. I must indeed always treat them, and
address them, as if they were what I well know they are
not; I must always suppose in them that whereby alone I
can approach them and communicate with them. Duty com-
mands me to act towards them according to a conception of
them the opposite of that which I arrive at by contemplat-
ing them. And thus it may certainly happen that I turn
towards them with a noble indignation, as if they were free,
in order to arouse within them a similar indignation against
themselves,--an indignation which in my own heart I can-
not reasonably entertain. It is only the practical man of
society within me whose anger is excited by folly and vice;
not the contemplative man who reposes undisturbed in the
calm serenity of his own spirit.
Should I be visited by corporeal suffering, pain, or disease,
I cannot avoid feeling them, for they are accidents of my
nature; and as long as I remain here below, I am a part of
Nature. But they shall not grieve me. They can only
touch the nature with which, in a wonderful manner, I am
united,--not myself, the being exalted above all Nature.
The sure end of all pain, and of all sensibility to pain, is
death; and of all things which the mere natural man is
wont to regard as evils, this is to me the least. I shall not
die to myself, but only to others; to those who remain be-
hind, from whose fellowship I am torn:--for myself the hour
of Death is the hour of Birth to a new, more excellent life.
Now that my heart is closed against all desire for earthly things, now that I have no longer any sense for the transi-
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? 37G
THE VOCATION OF MAN.
/ tory and perishable, the universe appears before my eyes
clothed in a more glorious form. The dead heavy mass,
which only filled up space, has vanished; and in its place
there flows onward, with the rushing music of mighty
waves, an eternal stream of life and power and action, which
issues from the original Source of all life--from Thy Life, O
Infinite One! for all life is Thy Life, and only the religious
eye penetrates to the realm of True Beauty.
/ I am related to Thee, and what I behold around me is
related to me; all is life and blessedness, and regards me
I with bright spirit-eyes, and speaks with spirit-voices to my
heart. In all the forms that surround me, I behold the re-
Iflection of my own being, broken up into countless diversi-
Ified shapes, as the morning sun, broken in a thousand dew-
drops, sparkles towards itself.
Thy Life, as alone the finite mind can conceive it, is self-
forming, self-manifesting Will:--this Life, clothed to the eye
of the mortal with manifold sensuous forms, flows forth
through me, and throughout the immeasurable universe of
Nature. Here it streams as self-creating and self-forming
matter through my veins and muscles, and pours its abun-
dance into the tree, the flower, the grass. Creative life
flows forth in one continuous stream, drop on drop, through
all forms and into all places where my eye can follow it;
and reveals itself to me, in a different shape in each various
corner of the universe, as the same power by which in secret
darkness my own frame was formed. There, in free play, it
leaps and dances as spontaneous motion in the animal, and
manifests itself in each new form as a new, peculiar, self-
subsisting world:--the same power which, invisibly to me,
moves and animates my own frame. Everything that lives
and moves follows this universal impulse, this one principle
of all motion, which, from one end of the universe to the
other, guides the harmonious movement;--in the animal
without freedom; in me, from whom in the visible world the
motion proceeds although it has not its source in me, with
freedom.
But pure and holy, and as near to Thine own nature as
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? BOOK III. FAITH.
377
aught can be to mortal eye, does this Thy Life flow forth
as the bond which unites spirit with spirit, as the breath
and atmosphere of a rational world, unimaginable and in-
comprehensible, and yet there, clearly visible to the spiritual
eye. Borne onward in this stream of light, thought floats
from soul to soul, without pause or variation, and returns
purer and brighter from each kindred mind. Through this mysterious union does each individual perceive, understand, and love himself only in another; every soul developes itself only by means of other souls, and there are no longer in-
dividual men, but only one humanity; no individual thought
or love or hate, but only thought, love, and hate, in and
through each other. Through this wondrous influence the
affinity of spirits in the invisible world permeates even
their physical nature;--manifests itself in two sexes, which,
even if that spiritual bond could be torn asunder, would,
simply as creatures of nature, be compelled to love each other;--flows forth in the tenderness of parents and children,
brothers and sisters, as if the souls were of one blood like
the bodies, and their minds were branches and blossoms of
the same stem;--and from these, embraces, in narrower or
wider circles, the whole sentient world. Even at the root of
their hate, there lies a secret thirst after love; and no en-
mity springs up but from friendship denied.
Through that which to others seems a mere dead mass, my eye beholds this eternal life and movement in every
vein of sensible and spiritual Nature, and sees this life ris-
ing in ever-increasing growth, and ever purifying itself to a
more spiritual expression. The universe is to me no longer
that ever-recurring circle, that eternally-repeated play, that
monster swallowing itself up, only to bring itself forth again
as it was before;--it has become transfigured before me, and
now bears the one stamp of spiritual life--a constant pro-
gress towards higher perfection in a line that runs out into
the Infinite.
The sun rises and sets, the stars sink and reappear,
the spheres hold their circle-dance;--but they never re-
turn again as they disappeared, and even in the bright
cb
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? 378
thk vocation of man.
fountain of life itself there is life and progress. Every hour
which they lead on, every morning and every evening, sinks
with new increase upon the world; new life and new love
descend from the spheres like dew-drops from the clouds,
and encircle nature as the cool night the earth.
All Death in Nature is Birth, and in Death itself appears
visibly the exaltation of Life. There is no destructive prin-
ciple in Nature, for Nature throughout is pure, unclouded Life; it is not Death which kills, but the more living Life,
which, concealed behind the former, bursts forth into new
development. Death and Birth are but the struggle of Life
with itself to assume a more glorious and congenial form.
And my death,--how can it be aught else, since I am not a
mere show and semblance of life, but bear within me the
one original, true, and essential Life? It is impossible to
conceive that Nature should annihilate a life which does not
proceed from her;--the Nature which exists for me, and
lyiot I for her.
Yet even my natural life, even this mere outward mani-
festation to mortal sight of the inward invisible Life, she
cannot destroy without destroying herself;--she who only
exists for me, and on account of me, and exists not if I am
not.
? 360
THE VOCATION OF MAN.
mentary satisfaction, but in accordance with the eternal law
of His being. With surprising clearness does this thought,
which hitherto was surrounded with darkness, now reveal
itself to my soul; the thought that my will, merely as such,
and through itself, shall have results. It has results, because
it is immediately and infallibly perceived by another Will
to which it is related, which is its own accomplishment and
the only living principle of the spiritual world; in Him it
has its first results, and through Him it acquires an in-
fluence on the whole spiritual world, which throughout is
but a product of that Infinite Will. Thus do I approach--the mortal must speak in his own
language--thus do I approach that Infinite Will; and the
voice of conscience in my soul, which teaches me in every
situation of life what I have there to do, is the channel
through which again His influence descends upon me. That
voice, sensualized by my environment, and translated into
my language, is the oracle of the Eternal World which an-
nounces to me how I am to perform my part in the order of
the spiritual universe, or in the Infinite Will who is Him-
self that order. I cannot, indeed, survey or comprehend
that spiritual order, and I need not to do so;--I am but a
link in its chain, and can no more judge of the whole, than
a single tone of music can judge of the entire harmony of
which it forms a part. But what I myself ought to be in
this harmony of spirits I must know, for it is only I myself
who can make me so,--and this is immediately revealed to
me by a voice whose tones descend upon me from that other
world. Thus do I stand connected with the One who alone
has existence, and thus do I participate in His being.
There is nothing real, lasting, imperishable me, but these
two elements:--the voice of conscience,_ajnd,jnjr_ft^e_Qbe-dience. Byjthe first, thespiritual world bows down to me,
and embraces me as one of its members; by the_secondJL
raise myself into this world, ,ipprphf-nd it,, and rt>>->y. t, ypon
it. That Infinite Will is the mediator between Jit _and-
'me; for He himself is the original source both of it and me. This is the one True and Imperishable for which my
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? BOOK III. FAITH.
3G1
Will yogrr<? oYftn frnrv its inmost depths; all else is meie.
appep^anofj wuuahiag, and ovor i"of"''n'r'^ in_a_new_
semblance. _
This Will unites me with himself; He also unites me
with all finite beings like myself, and is the common media-
tor between us all. This is the great mystery of the in-
visible world, and its fundamental law, in so far as it is a
world or system of many individual wills:--the union, and
direct reciprocal action, of many separate and independent
wills; a mystery which already lies clearly before every eye
in the present life, without attracting the notice of any one,
or being regarded as in any way wonderful. The voice of
conscience, which imposes on each his particular duty, is the
light-beam on which we come forth from the bosom of the
Infinite, and assume our place as particular individual be-
ings; it fixes the limits of our personality; it is thus the
true original element of our nature, the foundation and ma-
terial of all our life. The absolute freedom 'of tlm wjjlj.
whinh wp bring rlnwn with_ us. from the Infinite into the
wnrlfl nf Tirr)^, is the principle of this our life. I act:--and,
the sensible intuition through which alone I become a per-
sonal intelligence being supposed, it is easy to conceive how
I must necessarily know of this my action,--I know it, be-
cause it is I myself who act;--it is easy to conceive how, by
means of this sensible intuition, my spiritual act appears to
me as a fact in a world of sense; and how, on the other
hand, by the same sensualization, the law of duty which, in
itself, is a purely spiritual law, should appear to me as the
command to such an action ;--it is easy to conceive, how an
actually present world should appear to me as the condition
of this action, and, in part, as the consequence and product
of it. Thus far I remain within myself and upon my own
territory; everything here, which has an existence for me,
unfolds itself purely and solely from myself; I see every-
where only myself, and no true existence out of myself. But
in this my world I admit, also, the operations of other be-
ings, separate and independent of me, as much as I of them.
Ab
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? 362
THE VOCATION OF MAN.
How these beings can themselves know of the influences
which proceed from them, may easily be conceived; they
know of them in the same way in which I know of my own.
But how / can know of them is absolutely inconceivable;
just as it is inconceivable how they can possess that know-
ledge of my existence, and its manifestations, which never-
theless I ascribe to them. How do they come within my
world, or I within theirs,--since the principle by which the
consciousness of ourselves, of our operations, and of their
sensuous conditions, is deduced from ourselves,--i. e. that
each individual must undoubtedly know what he himself
does,--is here wholly inapplicable? How have free spirits
knowledge of free spirits, since we know that free spirits are
the only reality, and that an independent world of sense,
through which they might act on each other, is no longer to
be taken into account. Or shall it be said,--I perceive reason-
able beings like myself by the changes which they produce
in the world of sense? Then I ask again,--How dost thou
perceive these changes? I comprehend very well how thou
canst perceive changes which are brought about by the
mere mechanism of nature; for the law of this mechanism
is no other than the law of thy own thought, according to
which, this world being once assumed, it is carried out into
farther developments. But the changes of which we now
speak are not brought about by the 'mere mechanism of na-
ture, but by a free will elevated above all nature; and only
in so far as thou canst regard them in this character, canst
thou infer from them the existence of free beings like thy-
self. Where then is the law within thyself, according to
which thou canst realize the determinations of other wills
absolutely independent of thee? In short, this mutual
recognition and reciprocal action of free beings in this
world, is perfectly inexplicable by the laws of nature or of
thought, and can be explained only through the One in whom
they are united, although to each other they are separate;
through the Infinite Will who sustains and embraces them
all in His own sphere. Not immediately from thee to me,
nor from me to thee, flows forth the knowledge which we
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? BOOK III. FAITH.
363
have of each other;--we are separated by an insurmount-
able barrier. Only through the common fountain of our
spiritual being do we know of each other; only in Him do
we recognise each other, and influence each other. "Here
reverence the image of freedom upon the earth;--here, a
work which bears its impress :"--thus is it proclaimed with-
in me by the voice of that Will, which speaks to me only in
so far as it imposes duties upon me;--and the only prin-
ciple through which I recognise thee and thy work, is the
command of conscience to respect them.
Whence, then, our feelings, our sensible intuitions, our dis-
cursive laws of thought, on all which is founded the exter-
nal world which we behold, in which we believe that we ex-
ert an influence on each other? With respect to the two
last--our sensible intuitions and our laws of thought--to
say, these are laws of reason in itself, is only to give no sa-
tisfactory answer at all. For us, indeed, who are excluded
from the pure domain of reason in itself, it may be impos-
sible to think otherwise, or to conceive of reason under any
other law. But the true law of reason in itself is the practical law, the law of the super-sensual world, or of that sub-1lime WilL And, leaving this for a moment undecided, whence
comes our universal agreement as to feelings, which, never-
theless, are something positive, immediate, inexplicable 1
On this agreement in feeling, perception, and in the laws of
thought, however, it depends that we all behold the same
external world.
"It is a harmonious, although inconceivable, limitation of
the finite rational beings who compose our race; and only
by means of such a harmonious limitation do they become a
race:"--thus answers the philosophy of mere knowledge,
and here it must rest as its highest point. But what can
set a limit to reason but reason itself 1--what can limit all
finite reason but the Infinite Reason? This universal agree-
ment concerning a sensible world,--assumed and accepted
by us as the foundation of all our other life, and as the
sphere of our duty--which, strictly considered, is just as in-
comprehensible as our unanimity concerning the products of
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? 3G4
THE VOCATION OF MAN.
our reciprocal freedom,--this agreement is the result of the
One Eternal Infinite WilL Our faith, of which we have
spoken as faith in duty, is only faith in Him, in His reason,
in His truth. What, then, is the peculiar and essential
truth which we accept in the world of sense, and in which
we believe? Nothing less than that from our free and faith-
ful performance of our duty in this world, there will arise to
us throughout eternity a life in which our freedom and mo-
rality may still continue their development. If this be true,
then indeed is there truth in our world, and the only truth
possible for finite beings; and it must be true, for this world
is the result of the Eternal Will in us,--and that Will, by
the law of His own being, can have no other purpose with
respect to finite beings, than that which we have set forth.
That Eternal Will is thus assuredly the Creator of the
World, in the only way in which He can be so, and in the
only way in which it needs creation:--in the finite reason.
Those who regard Him as building up a world from an
everlasting inert matter, which must still remain inert and
lifeless,--like a vessel made by human hands, not an eternal
procession of His self-development,--or who ascribe to Him
the production of a material universe out of nothing, know
neither the world nor Him. If matter only can be reality,
then were the world indeed nothing, and throughout all eter-
nity would remain nothing. Reason alone exists:--the In-
finite in Himself,--the finite in Him and through Him.
Only in our minds has He created a world; at least that
from which we unfold it, and that by which we unfold it;--
the voice of duty, and harmonious feelings, intuitions, and
laws of thought. It is His light through which we behold
the light, and all that it reveals to us. In our minds He
still creates this world, and acts upon it by acting upon our
minds through the call of duty, as soon as another free be-
ing changes aught therein. In our minds He upholds this
world, and thereby the finite existence of which alone we
are capable, by continually evolving from each state of our
existence other states in succession. When He shall have
sufficiently proved us according to His supreme designs, for
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? BOOK III. FAITH.
365
our next succeeding vocation, and we shall have sufficiently cultivated ourselves for entering upon it, then, by that I
which we call death, will He annihilate for us this life, and introduce us to a new life, the product of our virtuous ac-1tions. All our life is His life. We are in His hand, and abide therein, and no one can pluck us out of His hand. We are eternal, because He is eternal. ^
Sublime and Living Will! named by no name, compassed
by no thought! I may well raise my soul to Thee, for Thou and I are not divided. Thy voice sounds within me, mine
resounds in Thee; and all my thoughts, if they be but good
and true, live in Thee also. In Thee, the Incomprehensible,
I myself, and the world in which I live, become clearly com-
prehensible to me; all the secrets of my existence are laid
open, and perfect harmony arises in my soul.
Thou art best known to the child-like, devoted, simple
mind. . To it Thou art the searcher of hearts, who seest its
inmost depths; the ever-present true witness of its thoughts,
who knowest its truth, who knowest it though all the world
know it not. Thou art the Father who ever desirest its
good, who rulest all things for the best. To Thy will it un-
hesitatingly resigns itself: "Do with me," it says, "what
thou wilt; I know that it is good, for it is Thou who doest
it. " The inquisitive understanding, which has heard of
Thee, but seen Thee not, would teach us thy nature; and,
as Thy image, shows us a monstrous and incongruous
shape, which the sagacious laugh at, and the wise and good
abhor.
I hide my face before Thee, and lay my hand upon my
mouth. How Thou art, and seemest to Thine own being, I
can never know, any more than I can assume Thy nature.
After thousands upon thousands of spirit-lives, I shall com-
prehend Thee as little as I do now in this earthly house.
That which I conceive, becomes finite through my very con-
ception of it; and this can never, even by endless exalta-
tion, rise into the Infinite. Thou differest from men, not in
degree but in nature. In every stage of their advancement
they think of Thee as a greater man, and still a greater;
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? 3GG
THE VOCATION OF MAN.
but never as God--the Infinite,--whom no measure can
mete. I have only this discursive, progressive thought, and
I can conceive of no other:--how can I venture to ascribe
it to Thee? In the Idea of person there are imperfections,
limitations:--how can I clothe Thee with it without these?
I will not attempt that which the imperfection of my
finite nature forbids, and which would be useless to me:--
How Thou art, I may not know. But, let me be what I
ought to be, and Thy relations to me--the mortal--and to
all mortals, lie open before my eyes, and surround me more
clearly than the consciousness of my own existence. Thou
workest in me the knowledge of my duty, of my voca-
tion in the world of reasonable beings;--how, I know
not, nor need I to know. Thou knowest what I think and
what I will:--how Thou canst know, through what act
thou bringest about that consciousness, I cannot understand,
--nay, I know that the idea of an act, of a particular act of
consciousness, belongs to me alone, and not to Thee,--the
Infinite One. Thou wiliest that my free obedience shall
bring with it eternal consequences:--the act of Thy will I
cannot comprehend, I only know that it is not like mine.
Thou doest, and Thy will itself is the deed; but the way of
Thy working is not as my ways,--I cannot trace it. Thou
livest and art, for Thou knowest and wiliest and workest,
omnipresent to finite Reason; but Thou art not as / now
and always must conceive of being.
In the contemplation of these Thy relations to me, the
finite being, will I rest in calm blessedness. I know im-
mediately only what I ought to do. This will I do, freely,
joyfully, and without cavilling or sophistry, for it is Thy
voice which commands me to do it; it is the part assigned
to me in the spiritual World-plan; and the power with
which I shall perform it is Thy power. Whatever may be
commanded by that voice, whatever executed by that power,
is, in that plan, assuredly and truly good. I remain tran-
quil amid all the events of this world, for they are in Thy
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? BOOK III. FAITH.
367
world. Nothing can perplex or surprise or dishearten me,
as surely as Thou livest, and I can look upon Thy life. For
in Thee, and through Thee, O Infinite One! do I behold
even my present world in another light. Nature, and na-
tural consequences, in the destinies and conduct of free be-
ings, as opposed to Thee, become empty, unmeaning words.
Nature is no longer; Thou, only Thou, art. It no longer
appears to me to be the end and purpose of the present
world to produce that state of universal peace among men,
and of unlimited dominion over the mechanism of nature,
for its own sake alone,--but that this should be produced
by man himself,--and, since it is expected from all, that it
should be produced by all, as one great, free, moral, commu-
nity. Nothing new and better for an individual shall be
attainable, except through his own virtuous will; nothing
new and better for a community, except through the com-
mon will being in accordance with duty:--this is a funda-
mental law of the great moral empire, of which the present
life is a part. The good will of the individual is thus often
lost to this world, because it is but the will of the individu-
al, and the will of the majority is not in harmony with his,
--and then its results are to be found solely in a future
world; while even the passions and vices of men cooperate
in the attainment of good,--not in and for themselves, for
in this sense good can never come out of evil,--but by hold-
ing the balance against the opposite vices, and, at last, by
their excess, annihilating these antagonists, and themselves
with them. Oppression could never have gained the upper
hand in human affairs, unless the cowardice, baseness, and
mutual mistrust of men had smoothed the way to it. It will
continue to increase, until it extirpate cowardice and slav-
ishness; and despair itself at last reawaken courage. Then
shall the two opposite vices have annihilated each other,
and the noblest of all human relations, lasting freedom,
come forth from their antagonism.
The actions of free beings, strictly considered, have results
only in other free beings; for in them, and for them
alone, there is a world; and that in which they all agree, is
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? 368 THE VOCATION OF MAN.
I
itself the world. But they have these results only through
the Infinite Will,-- the meduim through which all indi-
vidual beings influence each other. But the announcement,
the publication of this Will to us, is always a call to a par-
ticular duty. Thus even what we call evil in the world, the
consequence of the abuse of freedom, exists only through
Him; and it exists for those who experience it only in so
far as, through it, duties are laid upon them. Were it not
in the eternal plan of our moral cuture, and the culture of
our whole race, that precisely these duties should be laid
upon us, they would not be so laid upon us; and that
through which they are laid upon us--i. e. what we call evil
--would not have been produced. In so far, everything
that is, is good, and absolutely legitimate. There is but
one world possible,--a thoroughly good world. All that
happens in this world is subservient to the improvment and
culture of man, and, by means of this, to the promotion of
the purpose of his earthly existence. It is this higher
World-plan which we call Nature, when we say,--Nature
leads men through want to industry; through the evils of
general disorder to a just constitution; through the miseries
of continual wars to endless peace on earth. Thy will, O Infinite One! thy Providence alone, is this higher Nature.
This, too, is best understood by artless simplicity, when it
regards this life as a place of trial and culture, as a school
for eternity; when, in all the events of life, the most trivial
as well as the most important, it beholds thy guiding Provi-
dence disposing all for the best; when it firmly believes
that all things must work together for the good of those
who love their duty, and who know Thee.
Oh! I have, indeed, dwelt in darkness during the past
days of my life! I have indeed heaped error upon error, and
imagined myself wise!
Now, for the first time, do I wholly
understand the doctrine which from thy lips, 0 Wonderful
Spirit! seemed so strange to me, although my understand-
ing had nothing to oppose to it; for now, for the first time,
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? BOOK III. FAITH.
3GU
do I comprehend it in its whole compass, in its deepest
foundations, and through all its consequences.
Man is not a product of the world of sense, and the end
of his existence cannot be attained in it. His vocation transcends Time andJSpace, and everything that pertains t,n,
sensp What he is, and to what he is to train himself, that
he must know;--as his vocation is a lofty one, he must be
able to raise his thoughts above all the limitations of sense.
He must accomplish it:--where his being finds its home,
there his thoughts too seek their dwelling-place; and the
truly human mode of thought, that which alone is worthy
of him, that in which his whole spiritual strength is mani-
fested, is that whereby he raises himself above those limi-
tations, whereby all that pertains to sense vanishes into
nothing,--into a mere reflection, in mortal eyes, of the One,
Self-existent Infinite. ,
Many have raised themselves to this mode of thought,
without scientific inquiry, merely by their nobleness of heart
and their pure moral instinct, because their life has been
preeminently one of feeling and sentiment. They have de-
nied, by their conduct, the efficiency and reality of the
world of sense, and made it of no account in regulating their
resolutions and their actions;--whereby they have not in-
deed made it clear, by reasoning, that this world has no
existence for the intellect. Those who could dare to say,
"Our citizenship is in heaven; we have here no continuing
city, but we seek one to come;"--those whose chief prin-
ciple it was "to die to the world, to be born again, and
already here below to enter upon a new life,"--certainly
set no value whatever on the things of sense, and were, to
use the language of the schools, practical Transcendental
Idealists.
Others, who, besides possessing the natural proneness to
mere sensuous activity which is common to us all, have also
added to its power by the adoption of similar habits of
thought, until they have got wholly entangled in it, and it
has grown with their growth, and strengthened with their
strength, can raise themselves above it, permanently and
lib
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? 370
THE VOCATION OF MAX.
completely, only by persistent and conclusive thought;
otherwise, with the purest moral intentions, they would be
continually drawn down again by their understanding, and
their whole being would remain a prolonged and insoluble
contradiction. For these, the philosophy which I now, for the first time, thoroughly understand, will t,h<^first. p>>wpr
that shall set free the imprisoned Psyche. japd unfold hex.
>yingSLSO,thatJ hovering for a mminpnt. alxvyp W fnrmpr splf she may cast a glance on her abandoned slough, and then
soar upwards thenceforward to live and. riPV^g hiffopr
Spheres. .
Blessed be the hour in which I first resolved to inquire
into myself and my vocation! All my doubts are solved; I
know what I can know, and have no apprehensions regard-
ing that which I cannot know. I am satisfied; perfect har-
mony and clearness reign in my soul, and a new and more
glorious spiritual existence begins for me.
My entire complete vocation I cannot comprehend; what
I shall be hereafter transcends all my thoughts. A part of
that vocation is concealed from me; it is visible only to One,
to the Father of Spirits, to whose care it is committed. I
know only that it is sure, and that it is eternal and glorious
like Himself. But that part of it which is confided to my-
self, I know, and know it thoroughly, for it is the root of all
my other knowledge. I know assuredly, in every moment
of my life, what I ought to do; and this is my whole voca-
tion in so far as it depends on me. From this point, since
my knowledge does not reach beyond it, I shall not depart;
I shall not desire to know aught beyond this; I shall take
my stand upon this central point, and firmly root myself
here. To this shall all my thoughts and endeavours, my
whole powers, be directed; my whole existence shall be
interwoven with it.
I ought, as far as in me lies, to cultivate my understand-
ing and to acquire knowledge;--but only with the purpose
of preparing thereby within me a larger field and wider
sphere of duty. I ought to desire to have much;--in order
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? BOOK III. FAITH.
371
that much may be required of me. I ought to exercise my
powers and capacities in every possible way;--but only in
order to render myself a more serviceable and fitting instru-
ment of duty, for until the commandment shall have been
realized in the outward world, by means of my whole per-
sonality, I am answerable for it to my conscience. I ought
to exhibit in myself, as far as I am able, humanity in all its
completeness;--not "for the mere sake of humanity, which
in itself has not the slightest worth, but in order that vir-
tue, which alone has worth in itself, may be exhibited in its
highest perfection in human nature. I ought to regard my-
self, body and soul, with all that is in me or that belongs to
me, only as a means of duty; and only be solicitous to fulfil
that, and to make myself able to fulfil it, as far as in me
lies. But when the commandment,--provided only that it
shall have been in truth the commandment which I have
obeyed, and I have been really conscious only of the pure,
single intention of obeying it,--when the commandment
shall have passed beyond my personal being to its realiza-
tion in the outward world, then I have no more anxiety
about it, for thenceforward it is committed into the hands of
the Eternal WilL Farther care or anxiety would be but
idle self-torment; would be unbelief and distrust of that
Infinite Will. I shall never dream of governing the world
in His stead; of listening to the voice of my own imperfect
wisdom instead of to His voice in my conscience; or of sub-
stituting the partial views of a short-sighted creature for
His vast plan which embraces the universe. I know that
thereby I should lose my own place in His order, and in the
order of all spiritual being.
As with calmness and devotion I reverence this higher
Providence, so in my actions ought I to reverence the free-
dom of other beings around me. The question for me is
not what they, according to my conceptions, ought to do,
but what I may venture to do in order to induce them to do
it. I can only desire to act on their conviction and their
will as far as the order of society and their own consent
will permit; but by no means, without their conviction and
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? 372
THE VOCATION OF MAN.
consent, to influence their powers and relations. They do
what they do on their own responsibility: with this I
neither can nor dare intermeddle, and the Eternal Will will
dispose all for the best . It concerns me more to respect
their freedom, than to hinder or prevent what to me seems
evil in its use.
In this point of view I become a new creature, and my
whole relations to the existing world are changed. The ties
by which my mind was formerly united to this world, and by
whose secret guidance I followed all its movements, are for
ever sundered, and I stand free, calm and immovable, a
universe to myself. No longer through my affections, but
by my eye alone, do I apprehend outward objects and am
connected with them; and this eye itself is purified by free-
dom, and looks through error and deformity to the True
and Beautiful, as upon the unruffled surface of water shapes
are more purely mirrored in a milder light.
My mind is for ever closed against embarrassment and
perplexity, against uncertainty, doubt, and anxiety;--my
heart, against grief, repentance, and desire. There is but
one thing that I may know,--namely, what I ought to do;
and this I always know infallibly. Concerning all else I
know nothing, and know that I know nothing. I firmly
root myself in this my ignorance, and refrain from harassing
myself with conjectures concerning that of which I know
nothing. No occurrence in this world can affect me either
with joy or sorrow; calm and unmoved I look down upon
all things, for I know that I cannot explain a single event,
nor comprehend its connexion with that which alone con-
cerns me. All that happens belongs to the plan of the
Eternal World, and is good in its place: thus much I know;
--what in this plan is pure gain, what is only a means for
the removal of some existing evil, what therefore ought to
afford me more or less satisfaction, I know not. In His
world all things prosper;--this satisfies me, and in this belief
I stand fast as a rock:--but what in His world is merely
the germ, what the blossom, and what the fruit itself, I
know not.
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? BOOK III. FAITH.
373
The only matter in which I can be concerned is the pro-
gress of reason and morality in the world of reasonable be-
ings; and this only for its own sake,--for the sake of this
progress. Whether I or some one else be the instrument of
this progress, whether it be my deed or that of another
which prospers or is prevented, is of no importance to me. I regard myself merely as one of the instruments for carry-
ing out the purpose of reason; I respect, love, or feel an
interest in myself only as such an instrument, and desire the
successful issue of my deed only in so far as it promotes this
purpose. In like manner, I regard all the events of this world
only with reference to this one purpose; whether they pro-
ceed from me or from others, whether they relate directly to
me or to others. My breast is steeled against annoyance on
account of personal offences and vexations, or exultation in
personal merit; for my whole personality has disappeared
in the contemplation of the purpose of my being.
Should it ever seem to me as if truth had been put to
silence, and virtue expelled from the world; as if folly and
vice had now summoned all their powers, and even assumed
the place of reason and true wisdom;--should it happen,
that just when all good men looked with hope for the re-
generation of the human race, everything should become
even worse than it had been before;--should the work, well
and happily begun, on which the eyes of all true-minded
men were fixed with joyous expectation, suddenly and un-
expectedly be changed into the vilest forms of evil,--these
things will not disturb me; and as little will I be persuaded
to indulge in idleness, neglect, or false security, on account
of an apparent rapid growth of enlightenment, a seeming
diffusion of freedom and independence, an increase of more
gentle manners, peacefulness, docility, and general modera-
tion among men, as if now everything were attained. Thus
it appears to me; or rather it is so, for it is actually so to
me; and I know in both cases, as indeed I know in all pos-
sible cases, what I have next to do. As to everything else,
I rest in the most perfect tranquillity, for I know nothing
whatever about any other thing. Those, to me, so sorrowful
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? 374
THE VOCATION OF MAN.
events may, in the'plan of the Eternal One, be the direct
means for the attainment of a good result;--that strife of
evil against good"may he their last decisive struggle, and it
may be permitted to the former to assemble all its powers
for this encounter only to lose them, and thereby to exhibit
itself in all its impotence. These, to me, joyful appearances
may rest on very uncertain foundations;--what I had taken
for enlightenment may perhaps be but hollow superficiality,
and aversion to all true ideas; what I had taken for inde-
pendence but unbridled passion; what I had taken for
gentleness and moderation but weakness and indolence. I
do not indeed know this, but it might be so; and then I
should have as little cause to mourn over the one as to re-
joice over the other. But I do know, that I live in a world
which belongs to the Supreme Wisdom and Goodness, who
thoroughly comprehends its plan, and will infallibly accom-
plish it; and in this conviction I rest, and am blessed. That there are free beings, destined to reason andmora-
lity, who strive against reason, and call forth all their
powers to the support of folly and vice;--just as little will
this disturb me, and stir up within me indignation and
wrath. The perversity which would . hate what is good
because it is good, and promote evil merely from a love of
evil as such,--this perversity which alone could excite my
just anger, I ascribe to no one who bears the form of man,
for I know that it does not lie in human nature. I know
that for all who act thus, there is really, in so far as they act
thus, neither good nor evil, but only an agreeable or dis-
agreeable feeling; that they do not stand under their own
dominion, but under the power of Nature; and that it is
not themselves, but this nature in them, which seeks the
former and flies from the latter with all its strength, with-
out regard to whether it be otherwise good or evil. I know
that being, once for all, what they are, they cannot act in
any respect otherwise than as they do act, and I am very far
from getting angry with necessity, or indulging in wrath
against blind and unconscious Nature. Herein truly lies
their guilt and unworthiness, that they are what they are;
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? BOOK III. FAITH.
375
and that, in place of being free and independent, they have
resigned themselves to the current of mere natural impulse.
It is this alone which could excite my indignation; but
here I should fall into absolute absurdity. I cannot call
them to account for their want of freedom, without first at-
tributing to them the power of making themselves free. I
wish to be angry with them, and find no object for my
wrath. What they actually are, does not deserve my anger;
what might deserve it, they are not, and they would not
deserve it, if they were. My displeasure would strike an im-
palpable nonentity. I must indeed always treat them, and
address them, as if they were what I well know they are
not; I must always suppose in them that whereby alone I
can approach them and communicate with them. Duty com-
mands me to act towards them according to a conception of
them the opposite of that which I arrive at by contemplat-
ing them. And thus it may certainly happen that I turn
towards them with a noble indignation, as if they were free,
in order to arouse within them a similar indignation against
themselves,--an indignation which in my own heart I can-
not reasonably entertain. It is only the practical man of
society within me whose anger is excited by folly and vice;
not the contemplative man who reposes undisturbed in the
calm serenity of his own spirit.
Should I be visited by corporeal suffering, pain, or disease,
I cannot avoid feeling them, for they are accidents of my
nature; and as long as I remain here below, I am a part of
Nature. But they shall not grieve me. They can only
touch the nature with which, in a wonderful manner, I am
united,--not myself, the being exalted above all Nature.
The sure end of all pain, and of all sensibility to pain, is
death; and of all things which the mere natural man is
wont to regard as evils, this is to me the least. I shall not
die to myself, but only to others; to those who remain be-
hind, from whose fellowship I am torn:--for myself the hour
of Death is the hour of Birth to a new, more excellent life.
Now that my heart is closed against all desire for earthly things, now that I have no longer any sense for the transi-
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? 37G
THE VOCATION OF MAN.
/ tory and perishable, the universe appears before my eyes
clothed in a more glorious form. The dead heavy mass,
which only filled up space, has vanished; and in its place
there flows onward, with the rushing music of mighty
waves, an eternal stream of life and power and action, which
issues from the original Source of all life--from Thy Life, O
Infinite One! for all life is Thy Life, and only the religious
eye penetrates to the realm of True Beauty.
/ I am related to Thee, and what I behold around me is
related to me; all is life and blessedness, and regards me
I with bright spirit-eyes, and speaks with spirit-voices to my
heart. In all the forms that surround me, I behold the re-
Iflection of my own being, broken up into countless diversi-
Ified shapes, as the morning sun, broken in a thousand dew-
drops, sparkles towards itself.
Thy Life, as alone the finite mind can conceive it, is self-
forming, self-manifesting Will:--this Life, clothed to the eye
of the mortal with manifold sensuous forms, flows forth
through me, and throughout the immeasurable universe of
Nature. Here it streams as self-creating and self-forming
matter through my veins and muscles, and pours its abun-
dance into the tree, the flower, the grass. Creative life
flows forth in one continuous stream, drop on drop, through
all forms and into all places where my eye can follow it;
and reveals itself to me, in a different shape in each various
corner of the universe, as the same power by which in secret
darkness my own frame was formed. There, in free play, it
leaps and dances as spontaneous motion in the animal, and
manifests itself in each new form as a new, peculiar, self-
subsisting world:--the same power which, invisibly to me,
moves and animates my own frame. Everything that lives
and moves follows this universal impulse, this one principle
of all motion, which, from one end of the universe to the
other, guides the harmonious movement;--in the animal
without freedom; in me, from whom in the visible world the
motion proceeds although it has not its source in me, with
freedom.
But pure and holy, and as near to Thine own nature as
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? BOOK III. FAITH.
377
aught can be to mortal eye, does this Thy Life flow forth
as the bond which unites spirit with spirit, as the breath
and atmosphere of a rational world, unimaginable and in-
comprehensible, and yet there, clearly visible to the spiritual
eye. Borne onward in this stream of light, thought floats
from soul to soul, without pause or variation, and returns
purer and brighter from each kindred mind. Through this mysterious union does each individual perceive, understand, and love himself only in another; every soul developes itself only by means of other souls, and there are no longer in-
dividual men, but only one humanity; no individual thought
or love or hate, but only thought, love, and hate, in and
through each other. Through this wondrous influence the
affinity of spirits in the invisible world permeates even
their physical nature;--manifests itself in two sexes, which,
even if that spiritual bond could be torn asunder, would,
simply as creatures of nature, be compelled to love each other;--flows forth in the tenderness of parents and children,
brothers and sisters, as if the souls were of one blood like
the bodies, and their minds were branches and blossoms of
the same stem;--and from these, embraces, in narrower or
wider circles, the whole sentient world. Even at the root of
their hate, there lies a secret thirst after love; and no en-
mity springs up but from friendship denied.
Through that which to others seems a mere dead mass, my eye beholds this eternal life and movement in every
vein of sensible and spiritual Nature, and sees this life ris-
ing in ever-increasing growth, and ever purifying itself to a
more spiritual expression. The universe is to me no longer
that ever-recurring circle, that eternally-repeated play, that
monster swallowing itself up, only to bring itself forth again
as it was before;--it has become transfigured before me, and
now bears the one stamp of spiritual life--a constant pro-
gress towards higher perfection in a line that runs out into
the Infinite.
The sun rises and sets, the stars sink and reappear,
the spheres hold their circle-dance;--but they never re-
turn again as they disappeared, and even in the bright
cb
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? 378
thk vocation of man.
fountain of life itself there is life and progress. Every hour
which they lead on, every morning and every evening, sinks
with new increase upon the world; new life and new love
descend from the spheres like dew-drops from the clouds,
and encircle nature as the cool night the earth.
All Death in Nature is Birth, and in Death itself appears
visibly the exaltation of Life. There is no destructive prin-
ciple in Nature, for Nature throughout is pure, unclouded Life; it is not Death which kills, but the more living Life,
which, concealed behind the former, bursts forth into new
development. Death and Birth are but the struggle of Life
with itself to assume a more glorious and congenial form.
And my death,--how can it be aught else, since I am not a
mere show and semblance of life, but bear within me the
one original, true, and essential Life? It is impossible to
conceive that Nature should annihilate a life which does not
proceed from her;--the Nature which exists for me, and
lyiot I for her.
Yet even my natural life, even this mere outward mani-
festation to mortal sight of the inward invisible Life, she
cannot destroy without destroying herself;--she who only
exists for me, and on account of me, and exists not if I am
not.
