THE 
 
 DESTINATION OF MAN, 
 
 BY 
 
 JOHANN GOTTLIEB "^FICHTE. 
 Cranölatctf fvain tUt (Btvmnn, 
 
 Br 
 
 Mus. PERCY SINNETT. 
 
 " By the roaring billows of Time thou art not engulplied, but borne aloft into 
 the azure of Eternity." — Carlyle. 
 
 LONDON: 
 
 CHAPMAN, BROTHERS, 121, NEWGATE STREET. 
 M.DCCC.XLVI, 
 

TMNSLATOR'S PREFACE. 
 
 The present translation was made several years ago, not then 
 
 with a view to publication, but for the sake of obtaining a 
 
 more intimate knowledge of a book that appeared of unusual 
 
 interest and importance. Its faults therefore are at all events 
 
 not those of haste or carelessness. Those who are acquainted 
 
 ■.th German philosophical language, will I believe admit the 
 
 -quently great difficidty of finding in English, strictly cor- 
 
 sponding terms ; but with all the errors of wliich I am, or 
 
 : a not, conscious, I have great satisfaction in introducing 
 
 to the notice of Enghsh readers. 
 
 It is, as its author has declared, not intended merely for 
 :ofessed students, but for all who are capable of giving it 
 jme attention, and who take up a book with some more 
 ^rious pm-pose than that of passing more easily an idle 
 ' om\ The Idealism of Fichte differs, it -wäll be seen, from 
 lat of Berkeley, with whose works also he was wholly un- 
 .'• jquainted; and it wülnot escape the more critical reader, that, 
 s I have already had occasion to notice,* he has found it ne- 
 cessary to adopt ultimately, as a principle of metaphysical 
 truth, that intuitive belief, or, as it is sometimes called, common 
 sense of mankind, which he had rejected at fii'st as the basis 
 even of material reality. 
 
 To these beliefs — immediate, universal, irresistible, hke the 
 voice of the Creator speaking to us — we must it appears retm^n, 
 as to an ark of safety, after our longest flights. 
 
 The opinion that has prevailed so long in England, that 
 German philosophy is a mere " metaphysical hocus pocus, or 
 logical card castle," that the speculations that have occupied 
 the lives of some of the greatest tliiukers that ever lived, have 
 
 * In an article on Fichte's Life, in tlie Foreign Quarterly Review 
 for October 1845, No. 71. 
 
U TKANSLATOU S PREFACE. 
 
 been always empty and futile, and barren of any practical 
 result, is apparently fast giving way to one very different. 
 
 Such men as Ficlite did not, assuredly, devote themselves to 
 babbling " a jargon of vain philosophy," like the idle jugglers, 
 with words, to whom the expression was applied, but believed 
 that they had found truth, to them, infinitely precious. We 
 may not be able to view it from the same point ; with our best 
 efforts we may fail to see clearly, but we shall sm-ely not im- 
 prove our chance by shutting our eyes. Those also who have 
 once entered on this path cannot well turn back, but must go 
 on till they reach a resting place ; and assm-edly they -will 
 gain nothing by attempting anything like self-deception or 
 masquerading in the forms of a bygone time. 
 
 We may indeed look back with a sort of longing to those 
 earlier ages, when, as it is commonly supposed at least, a tran- 
 quil childlike trust in all which on authority was taught, per- 
 v.aded all minds, " and spread a universal peace o'er land and 
 feea." in place of the restless fennentations, and anxious ques- 
 tionings that disturb us now. But whatever we may think of 
 this, it is obvious we can no more return to the real temper of 
 those times than to the statm-e of om* childhood, and the 
 effort to resume its outward habits -will faü as completely as that 
 of the elderly gentleman in Hoffmann's tale, who sought to re- 
 store the Idyllic joys of his infancy, by complimenting himself 
 every Christmas Eve with an assortment of such play tilings as 
 delighted him in that happy period. 
 
 If however we have seen that this cannot be, may we not 
 accept it as an assurance that it ought not to be ? May we not 
 trust Providence so far as to believe that what is impossible 
 for us, is neither necessary nor desh-able ? A different task 
 perhaps is assigned to us, — " There are diversities of gifts, but 
 the same spirit." 
 
 London, Dec. 20th, 1845. 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 Whatever of tte recent philosophy is likely to prove ser- 
 viceable beyond the limits of the schools, presented in the 
 order in which it would naturally occur to an unsophisticated 
 understanding, is intended to form the contents of this volume. 
 The elaborate defences made only to meet the artificial objec- 
 tions and extravagances of the learned, have been deemedüui- 
 necessary here, and whatever serves only as a foundation flH|e 
 positive sciences or for the deliberate and arbitrary education 
 of the human race, has been omitted, as lying within the pro- 
 vince of statesmen and the appointed teachers of the people. 
 
 The book is therefore not intended for philosophers byprofes- 
 sion, who will find in it nothing that may not be found in other 
 writings of the same author. It is intended to be intelligible 
 to aU readers who are able reaUy to understand a book at all. 
 Those who have accustomed themselves merely to the repeti- 
 tion of certain sets of phi-ases in varied order, and who mistake 
 this operation of memory for that of the understanding, will 
 probably find it unintelligible. It ought to exercise on the 
 reader an attractive and animating power, raising him from 
 the sensuous world, to that which is above sense. The author 
 at least has not perfonned his task without some of this happy 
 inspii-ation. Often dm-ing the labour of execution, the fire 
 with which a design is entered upon becomes exhausted, but 
 immediately on the conclusion of a work the author is scarcely 
 
ill a position to judge of tliis point. How far he has suc- 
 ceeded in the attainment of his proposed object he cannot 
 decide ; this must be determined by the effect produced on 
 the readers to whom it is addi-essed. One remark, however, 
 he deems it necessary to make — namely, that the " I" who 
 speaks in the book is by no means intended for himself, but 
 it is his earnest wish that it should represent the reader, who 
 is entreated, not merely to apprehend historically what is here 
 presented to him, but really and truly, during the reading 
 of the book, to hold converse with his oivn mind, to reason, to 
 draw conclusions, and to develop by liis own mental effort 
 the train of thought laid before him. 
 
 
 
THE DESTINATION OE MAN. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 At last, then, I may liope that I am tolerably well acquainted 
 with the world that sui-rounds me. In the imanimons decla- 
 ration of my senses, in unfailing experience alone have I placed 
 my trust. What I have beheld, I have touched — what I have 
 touched, I have analysed. I have repeated my observations 
 again and again, I have compared the various phenomena 
 together, and only when I could perceive their connection, 
 when I coiüd explain and deduce one from the other, and 
 foresee the result, and that the result was such as to justify 
 my calculations, have I been satisfied. Therefore am I now 
 as weU assm-ed of the accm-acy of this part of my knowledge, 
 as of my own existence ; I walk with a fiim step in this my 
 world, and would stake welfare and life itself on the infalli- 
 büity of my convictions. 
 
 But what then am T, and what is the aim and end of my 
 being ? The question is superfluous. It is long since I have 
 been made well acquainted with these points, and it would take 
 much time to recapitidate aU that I have heard, learnt, and 
 believed concerning them. And by what means then have I 
 attained this knowledge which I have this confused notion of 
 possessing ? Have I, urged on by a burning desire of know- 
 ledge, toiled on through uncertainty and doubt and contra- 
 diction? Have I, when any thing appeared credible, ex- 
 -R 9, 
 
4 THE DESTINATION OF MAN. 
 
 amined, and sifted, and compared, till an inward voice pro- 
 claimed, irresistibly, and without a possibility of mistake, 
 " Thus it is, as sui-ely as thou livest?" 
 
 No ! I can remember no such state of mind. Those in- 
 structions were bestowed on me before I desired them, the 
 answers were given before the questions were proposed. I 
 heard, for I could not avoid doing so, and much of what I 
 heard remained in my memory ; but "^vdthout examination, and 
 without interest, I allowed every thing to take its place as 
 chance dii-ected. How then could I persuade myself that I 
 really possessed any knowledge iipon these points ? If I can 
 only be said to know that of which I am convinced, and 
 which I have myself wrought out, myself experienced, I can- 
 not tiTÜy say that I know anything at all of the aim and 
 end of my being. I know merely what others profess to 
 know, and all that I can really be assured of is, that I have 
 heard them speak so and so upon these things. 
 
 TVTiilst then I have inquii-ed into and examined for myself 
 with the most anxious care, comparatively trivial matters ; in 
 things of the highest import I have relied whoUy on the care 
 and fidelity of others. I have attributed to others an inter- 
 est in the highest affairs of humanity, an earnestness and 
 acciu-acy which I by no means discover in myself. I have 
 regarded them as indescribably superior to me. Whatever of 
 truth they really possess, they can have attained by no other 
 means than by their o^vn meditations, and why may not I, by 
 the same means, attain the same ends ? How much liave I 
 undervalued and degi-aded myself ! 
 
 It shall be no longer thus. From this moment I will 
 enter on my rights, on the dignity to which I liave a claim. 
 Let all that is foreign to my ovm mind be at once re- 
 nounced! I will examine for myself. It may be that 
 secret wishes concerning the termination of my inquiries, 
 that a partial inclination towards certain conclusions, will 
 awaken in my heart. I -u-ill forget and deny these wishes, 
 and allow them no influence in the direction of my 
 
thoughts. I will go to work mih. scrupulous severity. 
 What I find to be truth shall be welcome to me, let it 
 sound as it may. I will kuow. With the same certainty 
 with wliich I can calculate that this ground wül bear me 
 when I tread on it, that this fii'e will bm'n me if I ap- 
 proach too near it, will I know what I am, and what I 
 shall be; and should this not be possible, thus much at 
 least will I know, that it is not possible. Even to this 
 result will I submit, if it should present itself to me as truth. 
 
 I hasten towards the fulfilment of my task. I seize on 
 Nature as she hastens ever onward in her flight, detain her for 
 an instant, and contemplate steadily the present moment, — 
 this natm'c on which my thinking powers have been developed, 
 and for which the conclusions, vaHd in her domain, have 
 been foimed. 
 
 I am sm-rounded by objects which I am compelled to re- 
 gard as wholes, subsisting for themselves, and separately 
 from each other. I behold plants, trees and animals, I ascribe 
 to each individual certain signs and attributes by which I dis- 
 tinguish it from others ; to this plant, such a form ; to an- 
 other, another ; to this tree, such and such leaves ; to another, 
 others differing from them. Every object has its appointed 
 number of attributes, neither more nor less. To every ques- 
 tion, whether it is this or that, is, for any one acquainted 
 with it, a decisive yes or no possible. Every thing that is, 
 is something, or it is not — has a certain colour, or has it not 
 — ^is tangible, or is not, and so on. Every object possesses 
 its properties in an appointed degree, which it neither exceeds 
 nor falls short of. Every thing that is, is definite, deter- 
 mined ; is some one thing, and is not something else. 
 
 Not that I am unable to conceive an object hovering be- 
 tween opposite limitations. I am certainly able to do this, 
 for half of my thoughts consist of such. I think of a tree in 
 general. Has this tree leaves or not, fruit or not ; and if so, 
 in what quantities ? To what species does it belong ? How 
 large is it ? AU these questions must remain unanswered, 
 
Ö THE DESTINATION OF MAN, 
 
 for my thought is undetennined, and does not represent any 
 particular tree, but a tree in general, and it has no real ex- 
 istence, for whatever reaUy exists, has its appointed number of 
 all its possible attributes, and each of these in its appointed 
 measure, although I may never be able to comprehend aU the 
 properties of any one object, or to apply to them any standard. 
 
 Natm-e, hovrever, hastens on through her everlasting trans- 
 formations, and while I am speaking of the present moment, 
 it is gone, and aU is changed ; in the same manner, the mo- 
 ment before my observation, aU was otherwise, it had not 
 always been as I found it, it had become so. Why then, and 
 from what cause, had it become what it was ? ^Vhy had 
 Natm-e, amidst the manifold, infinite possible varieties of 
 being, assumed precisely these, and no others ? Eor this 
 reason, that certain others had preceded them, and these 
 in the same manner will determine those which shall follow ; 
 and these again others, to infinity. Were the smallest thing 
 at the present moment different fi.'om what it is, then neces- 
 sarily in the foUovnng moment woiüd something else be dif- 
 ferent, and again in the succeeding one, and so on for ever, 
 Natm-e in her never-ceasing changes follows steaduy certain 
 iindeviating laws. I find myself in a close chain of pheno- 
 mena, in which every link depends on that which has preceded 
 it, so that if, at any given moment, I could be made acquaint- 
 ed \\ith aU existing conditions of the universe, I should be 
 able to declare what they had been in the preceding moment, 
 and what they would be in that which was to follow. 
 
 In every part I find the whole, for every part only, by 
 means of the whole, has become what it is. 
 
 '\'\Tiat I have discovered then I find amounts to this; that to 
 every existence another must be pre-supposed, to every con- 
 dition another preceding condition. Let me pause a little 
 here, for it may happen, that on my clear insight into this 
 point may depend much of the success of my futiu'C inquuy. 
 
 Why, and from what cause, I had asked, are the modifica- 
 tions of objects precisely such as I find them to be assmning 
 
thus, without a moment's hesitation, and' without proof, as an 
 absokite and certain tmth, that they had a cause, — that not 
 by themselves, but by something beyond them, they had ob- 
 tained existence and reality. I had found myself compelled 
 to assume another existence as a necessary condition of 
 theirs. 
 
 But why, then, did I find their existence insufficient to it- 
 self, incomplete ? What betrayed to me a want in them ? 
 This, without doubt ; that, in the first place, these qualities or 
 attributes do not exist in and for themselves, — they are forms 
 of something formed, modifications of something modified; 
 and the conception of what, in the language of the schools, 
 has been called a substratum, a something capable of receiving 
 and supporting the attributes, must be always added to them. 
 Further, that to such a substratum a certain quality is attri- 
 buted, supposes a condition of repose, and cessation from 
 change, othermse there could be no determinate modification, 
 'but merely a passing from one state to another. A state of 
 mere passivity is an incomplete existence ; some activity is 
 necessary to form what may be called the basis of the suf- 
 fering. What I found myself compelled to suppose was 
 by no means that in the successive changes which nature 
 undergoes, one brings forth the other— that the present modifi- 
 cation annihilates itself, and, in the next moment, when it no 
 longer exists, produces another to occupy its place. The 
 modification produces neither itself nor anything out of itself. 
 What I found myself compelled to assume was an active 
 force, peculiar to the object, to accomit for the gradual origin 
 and the changes of those modifications. And what, then, do 
 I conceive to be the natm-e or essence of this power, and the 
 modes of its manifestation ? I know no more than this, that 
 it is capable,under certain conditions, of producing, certainly 
 and infallibly, a determinative effect, and no other. The prin- 
 ciple of activity, of arising and hecoming, is certainly in itself. 
 As surely as it is a force, it is capable of setting itself in mo- 
 tion ; — the cause of its having developed itself in a certain 
 
ö THE DESTINATION OF MAN. 
 
 manner, lies partly in itself, as it is a force, and partly in the 
 circiunstances under Avhich it developes itself. Both these 
 — the inward determination of a force from itself, and the 
 external, by circumstancesj must be united to produce a ^iven 
 change. 
 
 Every force, so far as I can conceive of one, must be de- 
 terminate, but its detemiination is completed by the circum- 
 stances under which it is developed. A force exists in my 
 conception only so far as I can perceive its working. An in- 
 active /orce is enth-ely inconceivable. 
 
 I see a flower that has sprung out of the earth, and I con- 
 clude that a formative power exists in natm-e. Such a for- 
 mative power exists for me only so far as this flower and 
 others, and plants, and animals exist. I can describe this 
 power merely by its efi"ect, and it exists for me no fm-ther than 
 as producing flowers and plants, animals and other organic 
 forms. I will go further, and maintain that a flower, and pre- 
 cisely this flower, could exist in this place, only so far as all 
 circumstances united to make it possible ; but that by the 
 union 'of all these circumstances for its possibility, the real 
 existence of the flower is by no means explained to me, and 
 for tliis I am compelled to assume a pecuhar original power in 
 Nature, and precisely a flower producing power, for another 
 power of Nature, under the same circumstances, might have 
 produced something enth-ely different. 
 
 When I contemplate all things as one whole, I perceive one 
 Natm-e— one force : when I regard them as individuals, many 
 forces, which develop themselves according to their inward 
 laws, and pass through all the forms of which they are 
 capable ; and all the objects in Natm'e are but those forces 
 under certain limitations. Every manifestation of cveiy indi- 
 vidual power of Natm-e is determined — partly by itself, 
 partly by its o^\ti preceding manifestations, and partly by the 
 manifestations of all the other powers of Natiu-e, with Avhich 
 it is connected ; but it is connected with all — for natm-e is 
 one connected whole. Its manifestations are, therefore, strictly 
 
necessary; and it is absolutely impossible that it should be 
 other than what it is. 
 
 bi every moment of her dm-ation, Nature is one con- 
 nected whole ; in every moment must every individual part be 
 what it is, because aU others are what they are, and a single 
 gTain of sand could not be moved from its place without, 
 however imperceptibly to us, changing something tlu'oughout 
 aU parts of the immeasui-able whole. Every moment of 
 dm-ation is determined by all past moments, and will deter- 
 mine aU futm-e moments ; and even the position of a grain 
 of sand cannot be conceived other than it is, without sup- 
 posing other changes, to an indefinite extent. Let us imagine, 
 for instance, this grain of sand lying some few feet fm-ther 
 inland than it actually does ; then must the storm-wind that 
 di-ove it in from the sea shore have been stronger than it 
 actually was ; — then must the preceding state of the atmo- 
 sphere, by which this wind was occasioned, and its degree of 
 streng-th determined, have been different from what it 
 actually was, and the previous changes which gave rise to 
 this particTilar weather — and so on. We must suppose a 
 different temperature from that which really existed, — a 
 different constitution of the bodies which influenced this 
 temperature : the fertility or barrenness of countries, — the 
 duration of the life of man — depend, unquestionably, in a 
 great degree upon temperature. How can we know, since it 
 is not given us to penetrate the arcana of Nature, and it is 
 therefore allowable to speak of possibilities ; — how can we 
 know, that in such a state of the weather as we have been sup- 
 posing, in order to carry this grain of sand a few yards further, 
 some ancestor of yours might not have perished from hunger, 
 or cold, or heat, long before the birth of that son from whom 
 you are descended, and thus you might never have been at all: 
 and all that you have ever done, and all that you ever hope to 
 do in this world, must have been hindered, in order that a 
 grain of sand might lie in a different place ? 
 
 B 5 
 
CHAPTER II. 
 
 I MYSELF, witli all that I call mine, am but a link in this 
 chain of rigid natm-al necessity. There was a time — so 
 others teU me, and although I am not immediately conscious 
 of it, I am compelled by reason to admit it as a truth, — there 
 was a time in which I was not, and a moment in Avhich I 
 began to be. I then only existed for others — not yet for 
 myself. Since then, myself, my conscious being, has gi'adually 
 developed itself, and I have discovered in myself, certain 
 faculties and capacities — wants and natm'al desii-es. I am a 
 definite creatm'e, which came into existence at a certain 
 time. 
 
 I have not come into existence by my own power. It 
 M^oidd be the highest absmxlity to suppose that before I was at 
 all, I coidd bring myself into existence: I have, then, been called 
 into being by a power out of myself. And what shoidd this 
 be but the universal power of natm'e, of wliich I form a part? 
 The time at which my existence coimnenced, and the attri- 
 butes belonging to me, were determined by this universal 
 power of Natm'e ; and aU the forms imder which these, my 
 inborn attributes, have since manifested themselves, have been 
 determhied by the selfsame power. It was impossible that 
 instead of me, another shoidd have arisen,-^it is impossible 
 that at any moment of my existence, I should be other than 
 what I am. 
 
 That my successive states of being have been accompanied 
 by consciousness, that some of them, such as thouglits, reso- 
 lutions and the like, appear to be nothing but various modifi- 
 
DOUBT. 11 
 
 cations of consciousness, need not perplex my reasonings. It 
 is the nature of tlie plant regaüarly to develop itself, of the 
 animal to move towards the attainment of certain ends, of 
 the man to think. Wliy should I hesitate to acknowledge 
 the latter as an original power of nature, as weU as the first 
 and second ? Nothing could prevent me from doing so, but 
 the astonishment I feel at such a conclusion. Thought is 
 assuredly a far higher and more subtle operation of natm-e, 
 than the formation of a plant or the motion of an animal, I 
 cannot explain how the power of nature can produce thought, 
 but can I better explain its operation in the production of a 
 plant, in the motion of an animal ? To attempt to deduce 
 thought from any mere organisation of matter, is an extrava- 
 gance into which I shall not easily faU ; but can I then explain 
 from it the formation of the simplest moss ? Those original 
 powers of natm-e cannot be explained, for it is only thi'ough 
 them that we can explain any thing. Thought exists in natm-e, 
 as well as the creative power which gives birth to the plant. 
 The thinking being arises and develops himself by natural 
 laws, and exists through natm-e. There is therefore in nature 
 an original thinking power, as well as an original plant- 
 creating power. 
 
 This original thinking power advances and develops itself 
 tlu'ough all the modifications of which it is capable, as the 
 other original forces of natm-e assume all possible forms. I, 
 like the plant, am a particular manifestation of the formative 
 power ; like the animal, a particular manifestation of the power 
 of motion, and in addition to these a particidar manifestation 
 of the thinking power ; and it is the union of these three 
 original forces in one harmonious development that makes 
 the distingTiishing characteristic of any species, as it is the 
 distinguishing characteristic of the plant species, to be merely 
 a manifestation of the plant-forming power. 
 
 Figure, motion, thought, in me, are not consequent on one 
 another, but are the simultaneous and harmonious develop- 
 ments of what might be called tlie man-forming power, neces- 
 
yZ THE DESTINATION OF MAN. 
 
 sarily maiiifesting itself in a creature of my species. I am 
 not what I am, because I tliink so, or will so, nor do I think 
 and will because I am, but I am, and I think, both abso- 
 lutely. 
 
 As certainly as those original powers of Natui'e exist for 
 themselves, and have theii- own internal laws and purposes, 
 so certainly must their manifestations in the world of reality, 
 if left to themselves and not subjected to any foreign force, 
 endm-e for a certain period of time, and pass through a certain 
 series of changes. That which shoiüd vanish at the moment 
 of its production coidd not be the expression or manifestation 
 of an original power, but only an effect of the combined ope- 
 ration of various powers. The plant when left to itself pro- 
 ceeds from the first germination to the ripening of the seed. 
 Man, a particular manifestation of all the powers of Nature in 
 their union, when left to himself, (no accident intervening) 
 proceeds from birth to death in old age. Hence, the dm-ation 
 of the life of man and of plants, and the various modifications 
 of this their Life. 
 
 Tliis form, this motion, this thought, this dm-ation of all 
 essential qualities, amidst many non-essential changes, belong 
 to me as to a being of my species. But this man-forming 
 power in Nature had displayed itself before the commence- 
 ment of my existence, under various conditions and cü'cum- 
 stauces. These external cifcumstances have determined the 
 particidar mode of theii- present operation in the production 
 of precisely such an individual of my species as I am. The 
 same circumstances can never recm*, or the whole of Nature 
 must retrograde. The same individuals can never again 
 receive reality. Further, the man-forming power of Natm-e 
 has manifested itself", at the time of my production, under 
 manifold conditions and circimistances. No combination of 
 circumstances can perfectly resemble those under which 1 
 received existence, and unless the universe could be diAided 
 into two similar but unconnected worlds, two perfectly simi- 
 lar individuals cannot be produced. 
 
DOTJBT. 13 
 
 By these conditions and cii'cumstances, it was determined 
 what this definite person / should become, and the laws by 
 which I am that which I am, are universal. I am that which 
 I am, because in the connection of the great whole, only such 
 a one, and absolutely no other, was possible, and a spirit who 
 could look tln-ough aU Natm-e, would, from the knowledge of 
 a single man, be able to determine what men had been before, 
 and what they would be at any moment. In one person he 
 would obtain the knowledge of all. This, my connection 
 with the whole of Nature, it is, then, which determines what 
 I have been, what I am, and what I shall be. The same 
 spirit would be able, at any moment of my existence, to form 
 infallible conclusions on what I had hitherto been, and what 
 I was to be. All that I am and shall be, I am and shall be 
 of necessity, and it is impossible that I should be otherwise. 
 
 I do, indeed, feel an inward consciousness of independence; 
 of having, on many occasions in my life, exerted a free 
 agency ; but this consciousness may easily be explained, on 
 the principles ah-eady laid down, and is perfectly reconcileable 
 with the conclusions I have di-awn. My immediate con- 
 sciousness, my absolute perception, cannot go beyond myself, 
 — I have immediate knowledge only of myself, whatever I 
 know fm-ther I know only by reasoning, in the same manner 
 in which I have come to those conclusions concerning the 
 original powers of Nature, which certainly do not lie within 
 the circle of my perceptions. I, however, — that which I call 
 myself, — am not the man-forming power of Nature, but only 
 one of its manifestations ; and only of this manifestation 
 am I conscious, not of that power, whose existence I 
 have only discovered from the necessity of explaining my 
 own. This manifestation, however, is certainly the pro- 
 duction of an original and independent force, and must 
 appear as such in my consciousness. For this reason do I 
 appear to myself as a free agent in those occurrences of my 
 life, in which the independent force, falling to my share as an 
 individual, manifests itself without hindi'ance ; but, as subject 
 
14 THE DESTINATION OF MAN. 
 
 to constraint, wlien, by any combination of cii-cumstances 
 beyond the limits of my individuality, I cannot do wliat I 
 miglit otherwise be capable of doing, — when my individual 
 force, by the excess of antagonist forces, is compelled to 
 manifest itself othervvise than in accordance with its own laws. 
 Bestow consciousness on a tree, and let it freely gi-ow and 
 spread out its branches, and bring forth leaves and buds, and 
 blossoms and fruits, after its kind. It ■will be aware of no 
 limits to its existence in being only a tree, and a tree of a 
 certain species, and an individual of that species ; it wiH feel 
 itself free, because, in all those manifestations, it vvill act ac- 
 cording to its nature ; it can will nothing more than what that 
 nature requires. 
 
 But let unfavom-able weather, insufficient nomishment, or 
 other causes, liinder its growth, and it -will feel itself confined, 
 restrained, because an impulse of its natm-e cannot be satisfied. 
 Bind its free waving branches to a wall, force foreign branches 
 on it by gTafting, and it will feel itself constrained ; it vnR gTOw, 
 but in a direction different from that of its own natm-e; it vnR 
 produce fruit, but not such as it woidd, of itself, have brought 
 forth. In my immediate consciousness, I appear to myself as 
 free ; by meditation on the whole of Natm-e, I discover that 
 freedom is impossible ; the former must be subordinate to 
 the latter, for it is only to be explained through it. 
 
CHAPTEK III. 
 
 With what satisfaction do I now survey this system which 
 my understanding has built up ! What order, what firm con- 
 nection do I find in the whole of my knowledge — how easy is 
 it to smwey its extent ! Consciousness is no longer that ano- 
 maly in nature, whose relation to existence is so incomprehen- 
 sible ; it is native to it — one of its necessary manifestations. 
 Nature rises gradually in the definite series of her productions. 
 In unorganised matter she is a shnple existence ; in the plant 
 and the animal, she tm-ns back to operate internally on her- 
 seK to produce form and motion ; — in man as her highest 
 masterpiece, she perceives and contemplates herself, and be- 
 comes twofold, existence and consciousness in one. What I 
 know of my own existence and of its limitations, is easy to 
 explain. My existence and my knowledge have one common 
 foundation in Natm'e. My existence must necessarily be aware 
 of itself — for therefore do I call it mine, — and my recognition 
 of corporeal objects mthout myself is equally comprehensible. 
 The forces in whose manifestation my personality consists — 
 the formative — ^the moving — the thinking powers, exist not 
 through aU Nature, but only within definite limits. By the 
 limitation of my own being, I perceive other existences 
 which are not me. Of the first I am immediately conscious, 
 and the knowledge of the latter is its necessary consequence. 
 Away, then, with those imaginary influences and operations of 
 external things upon me, by means of which they are sup- 
 posed to force upon me a knowledge which is not in and can- 
 not proceed out of them. The foundation of my belief in 
 
16 THE DESTINATION OF MAN. 
 
 the existence of an external world lies in myself, and not in 
 it, in the limitations of my own being. By means of these 
 limitations, the thinking principle in me proceeds out of her- 
 self, and obtains a knowledge of the whole, but every indivi- 
 dual regards it from a different point of view. 
 
 In this manner, I obtain the idea of other thinking beings 
 Hke myself. I, or the thinking power within me, become 
 aware of some thoughts which have developed themselves 
 from within, and of others, which, not having so developed 
 themselves, lead me to infer the existence of other thinking 
 beings like myself. Natm-e, in me, is conscious of the whole 
 of herself, but only thus ; that beginning wäth individual con- 
 sciousness, she proceeds to the consciousness of imiversal 
 being, by explanation according to the law of causaKty, The 
 law of causality affords a point of transition, from the parti- 
 cular witliin myself to the universal Avhich lies beyond the 
 limits of my being, and the distingiiishing characteristic of 
 these two kinds of knowledge is, that one is the immediate 
 residt of contemplation, the other of reasoning. 
 
 In each individual, Natui-e beholds herself from a different 
 point of view. I lie beyond thee, as thou beyond me. Prom 
 om* several points we describe various paths which may here 
 and there intersect each other, but never run parallel. 
 
 In the consciousness of aU iudividuals taken together, con- 
 sists the complete consciousness of the universe, and there is 
 no other ; for only in the i^ldi^•idual is limitation and reality. 
 
 The declaration of the consciousness of every indindual is 
 infallible, if it be the consciousness hitherto desciibed ; for 
 this consciousness develops itself out of the whole course of 
 the laws of Natiu-e. Nature cannot contradict herself ;- 
 wherever there is a conception, there must be a correlative 
 existence, for conceptions are produced simxdtaneously with 
 their correlatives. To every indindual is liis particular con- 
 sciousness determinate ; for it proceeds fi'om his Natm*e. . No 
 one can have another kind or degree of it than lie actually 
 has. The substnnco of his knondedac is determined bv the 
 
DOUBT. 17 
 
 place which he occupies in the universe; its clearness and 
 vividness, by the higher or lower degree of efficacy manifested 
 by the force of humanity in his person. Give to Nature a 
 single definition of a person, let it be ever so apparently 
 trivial ; the coui'se of a muscle, the tm-n of a hair, she would 
 be able, had she a universal consciousness, to declare what 
 would be his whole course of thought, dming his whole course 
 of being. 
 
 According to this system also, it is easy to comprehend the 
 phenomenon of our consciousness called the will. Will is 
 the immediate consciousness of the activity of the inward 
 powers of our ISTatm-e. The immediate consciousness of an 
 effort, an aspiration of these powers which is not yet activity, 
 because restrained by opposing forces — this is inclination or 
 desire ; the struggle of contending forces is irresolution ; the 
 victory of one is the resolution of the will. 
 
 Should the force, striving after activity, be one that we 
 have in common with the plant or the animal, there arises a 
 discord and degradation of our inward being, the desire is not 
 suitable to om- rank in the order of things, and according to 
 a common expression, may be called a low one. Should it 
 comprehend om- whole undi\'ided humanity, it is suitable to 
 cm* natm-e, and may be called a moral law. The activity of 
 this latter is a vii'tuous will, and the actions resulting from 
 it are idrtue. 
 
 "V^Tiichever of these forces should obtain the victory, ob- 
 tains it of necessity ; its superiority is determined by the 
 whole connection of the universe. By the same connection 
 also is the want of vii-tue or the vice of each individual irre- 
 vocably determined.* But, not-withstanding this, vii-tue is 
 stul virtue ; and vice, vice. The virtuous man is stul a noble, 
 excellent production of natm'e ; the vicious, an ignoble and 
 
 * Give to Nature again the course of a muscle, the turn of a hair, 
 in a certain individual, and could she answer thee, she would be able 
 to foretell all his good and evil deeds, from the beginning to the end of 
 his life. 
 
18 THE DESTINATION OF MAN. 
 
 contemptible one : but both, are equally creatiu'es of neces- 
 sity. 
 
 There is, indeed, such a feeling as remorse ; the conscious- 
 ness of the continued aspiration of humanity in me, even 
 after it has been overcome; a disquieting, but still costly 
 pledge of our noble nature. 
 
 From this consciousness arises the conscience, and its 
 greater or less susceptibility, down to its absolute defection 
 in various individuals. An ig-noble natm-e is not capable of 
 repentance, for the force of hiunanity in liim is not capable of 
 contending with the lower impulses. Eeward and punish- 
 ment, are the natural consequences of vu'tue and "vdce, for the 
 production of new virtue and new \T.ce. By frequent and 
 important victories, the peculiar force is strengthened and 
 extended ; by inactivity or fi-equent defeat, it becomes weaker 
 and weaker. The ideas of guilt, of imputed transgi-ession, 
 have no meaning but w^hat relates to the laws of society. He 
 oiüy is guilty, who compels society to employ an artificial 
 external force, to restrain in him the impulses which Avoiüd 
 be injurious to the general welfare. 
 
CHAPTEE IT. 
 
 My inquiry is closed, and my desire of knowledge satisfied. 
 I know what I am, and wherein consists the nature of my 
 species. I am a manifestation of a self-determining power 
 of Natiu-e, whose operation is determined by the whole of the 
 universe. 
 
 It is impossible for me to obtain an insight into my indi- 
 vidual being in its foundations, for I cannot penetrate into 
 the interior of Natm-e ; but I have an immediate conscious- 
 ness of what I am at the present moment, I can mostly re- 
 member what I have been, and I shall learn in due time what 
 I shall be. 
 
 This discoveiy can indeed be of no use to me in the regu- 
 lation of my actions, for I do not triüy act at all ; Natm-e acts 
 in me, and to make myself other than what Natm'e has made 
 me, is totally out of my power. 
 
 I may repent, and rejoice, and form good resolutions, — 
 although, strictly speaking, I cannot even do this ; for aU these 
 things come to me of themselves, when it is appointed for 
 them to do so. 
 
 Most certainly I cannot, by all my repentance, by aU my 
 resolutions, produce the smallest alteration in the appointed 
 com'se of things. I stand under the inexorable power of rigid 
 Necessity ; should she have destined me to become a fool and 
 a profligate, a fool and a profligate, without doubt, I shall be- 
 come. Should she have destined me to be wise and good, 
 wise and good I shall doubtless be. There is neither merit 
 nor blame to be ascribed to her or to me. She stands under 
 
20 THE DESTINATION OP MAN. 
 
 her own laws, I under hers. It would therefore contribute 
 to my tranquillity to subject even my wishes to that power 
 to which my existence is entirely subject. 
 
 Oh these rebellious wishes ! For why should I longer con- 
 ceal from myself the melancholy, the aversion, the horror 
 which seized me when I saw how my inquiry must end. I 
 had solemnly promised myself that my inclinations should have 
 no influence on the com'se of my reflections, and as far as I am 
 aware I have really allowed them none. But may I not con- 
 fess that this result contradicts the deepest wants, wishes, 
 aspirations of my nature ? And how, in spite of its apparent 
 accm-acy, and the cutting sharpness of the proofs by which it 
 seems to be supported, can I ti-uly beUeve in an explanation 
 of my natm-e which destroys every hope for which I wish to 
 live, and without wliich I should cui'se my existence ? ^Vhy 
 should my heart momir at, and be lacerated by that which so 
 perfectly satisfies my understanding ? '\\Tien nothing in 
 Natm-e contradicts itself, is the life of man only a pea-petual 
 contradiction — or perhaps not the Hfe of man in general, but 
 only of me and of those who resemble me ? Had I but re- 
 mained content in the pleasant delusions that smTounded me, 
 been satisfied with the consciousness of my existence without 
 those anxious questionings whose solution has made me miser- 
 able ! But if this solution be the true one, I could do no 
 otherwise than I have done. I did not raise these difiiciüties, 
 but the thinking natui-e within me raised them. I was des- 
 tined to this misery, and I moui'u in vain the innocent un- 
 consciousness which is lost to me for ever. 
 
 But let me take com'age ! Should I lose all else, let that 
 never forsake me. Merely for the sake of my ^vishes, did they 
 appear ever so sacred, or did they lie ever so deep in my heart, 
 I cannot renounce what appears to rest on irrefragable proofs. 
 But I may perhaps have erred in my investigation ? I may 
 have taken but a one-sided, or too nan-ow \iew of the question. 
 I shoidd begin the inquiry again from the opposite point. 
 What is it that I find so revolting in the decision to whicli I 
 
DOUBT. 21 
 
 have come ? To wliat did my wishes point ? Let me before 
 all things make clear to myself what are the inclinations to 
 which I appeal. 
 
 That I should by necessity be either wise and good, or fool- 
 ish or vicious, without having in one case or the other merit 
 or fault — this it was that filled me with aversion and horror. 
 The determination of my actions by a cause out of myself, 
 whose manifestations were again determined by other causes — 
 this it was from which I so violently revolted. The fi-eedom 
 which was not mine, but that of a foreign power, and, in that, 
 only a conditional, half freedom — this it was with which I could 
 not rest satisfied. I myself — that which in this system only 
 appears as the manifestation of a higher existence, I wUl be 
 independent, — vnR be something, not by another or through 
 another, but of myself. 
 
 The rank which in that system is assumed by an original 
 power of Natm'e I will myself occupy, with this difference, 
 that the modes of my manifestations shall not be limited by 
 any foreign powers. I will have an inward force, a peculiar 
 capacity of manifold, infinite manifestation like those powers 
 of Nature, but whose movements shall not be, like theirs, 
 limited or defined by external conditions. What then, ac- 
 cording to my ^dsh, shall be the seat and centre of this pecu- 
 liar inward force ? Not my body, evidently, for that I will- 
 ingly allow to pass for a manifestation of the powers of 
 Nature ; not my sensual inclinations, for these I regard as the 
 relations of these powers to my consciousness. My capacities 
 of thought and of volition then ? Nothing will content me 
 but absolute freedom of the will, by means of which I may 
 act on, and mould, and move, fii-st my own frame, and through 
 it the world sm'rounding me. My active natural powers shall 
 be subordinate to my wiU, and absolutely set in motion by no 
 other force. I wül have freedom to seek a supreme spiritual 
 good, and a capacity to recognise it ; and if I do not find it, 
 the fault shall be mine. My actions shall be the immediate 
 result of my own will, and of no other power whatever. The 
 
22 THE DESTINATION OF MAN. 
 
 powers of my mind and body, detennined and subject to the 
 dominion of my ■will, shall operate on the external world. I 
 ■will be the lord of Natm-e, and she shall be my servant. I will 
 influence her according to the measure of my capacity, but she 
 shall have no influence on me. 
 
 These then are my wishes and aspirations, and they are 
 wholly denied and contradicted by a system that has never- 
 theless satisfied my understanding. Instead of being inde- 
 pendent of Natui-e, and of any spiritual' law not seK imposed, 
 I am merely a definite link in her mighty chain. If such a 
 freedom as I have desired be at all conceivable, it is possible 
 that a more complete and thorough investigation may discover 
 it to me, and compel me to receive it as a reality, and 
 to ascribe it to myself, so as to afford an entire refutation 
 of my former conclusions. This is now the question : — 
 
 I will be fi-ee in the sense stated, I wül make myself what- 
 ever I shall be. I must then, and herein lies the difiiculty, 
 and indeed at first sight the absurdity of the idea, I must 
 already be in a certain sense that ■ndiich I would become in 
 order to become so ; I must possess a twofold being, of which 
 the first shall contain Wq fundamental determining principle of 
 the second. If I interrogate my consciousness, I find that I have 
 the knowledge of various probabilities of action, from amongst 
 which, as it appears to me, I can choose any one. I run 
 through the whole circle, enlarge it, compare one ■with the 
 other, and at length decide on one, and tliis resolution of my 
 wül is followed by a corresponding action. Here then cer- 
 tainly I am in thought, Avhat subsequently, by means of tliis 
 thought, I am in wU and in action. I am as a thinking, Avhat 
 I afterwards am as an active being. I have determined my 
 existence in reality by my thought, and my thought abso- 
 lutely by pre\ious thought. One can conceive of any certain 
 state of a mere manifestation of one of the powers of Natiire, 
 of a plant for instance, as preceded by another indeterminate 
 state, in which, left to itself, it might have assiuned any one 
 of an infinite variety of possible modifications. These mani- 
 
DOUBT. 23 
 
 fold possibilities certainly exist in it, but not /or it, since it is 
 not capable of the idea, and cannot choose, or of itself put 
 an end to this state of indecision : this must be effected by an 
 external cause, which will determine it to one or other of these 
 various possibilities. Tliis possible determination can have no 
 previous existence in thought, for the plant is capable of only 
 one mode, that of real existence. In maintaining formerly 
 that the manifestation of every force must receive its com- 
 plete determination from without, I took cognizance Avithout 
 doubt only of such as are incapable of consciousness, and have 
 merely an existence in the phenomenal world. Of them the 
 above assertion holds true without the slightest limitation. 
 With respect to intelligences, the grounds of this assertion are 
 not admissible, and it appears, therefore, over hasty to extend 
 it to them. 
 
 Freedom, such as I have described, is conceivable only of 
 intelligence ; but under its assvimption man, as well as nature, 
 is perfectly comprehensible. My corporeal frame, and my 
 capacity of operating on the world of sense, are, as in the 
 former system, manifestations of certain powers existing in 
 Nature, and my natm-al inclinations are the relations of these 
 manifestations to my consciousness. The mere cognition of 
 what exists independently of me arises under this supposition 
 of freedom, as well as in the former system, and so far both 
 agree. But here begins the contradiction : mider the former 
 system my capacity of sensuous acti-\dty remains under the 
 dominion of Natm-e, and is set in motion by the same power 
 which produced it, and thought has no other affair than that 
 of looking on; according to the present system, this capacity, 
 when once produced, falls under the dominion of a power 
 above Nature, and entirely superior to her laws. The office 
 of thought is no longer merely to contemplate, but to set in 
 motion this capacity. In the one case, forces, to me external 
 and invisible, put an end to my state of indecision, and limit 
 my capacity and my consciousness of it, that is to say, my 
 wiU, to a certain point, exactly as in the plant ; in the other 
 
24 THE DESTINATION OP iiAN. 
 
 I find myself free, and independent of the influence of 
 all external forces, putting a voluntary end to the state of 
 indecision, and determining my own action, according to the 
 degree of knowledge I may have attained, of what appears 
 best. 
 
 Which of these two opinions shall I adopt ? Am I a free 
 agent, or am I merely the manifestation of a foreign power ? 
 Neither appear sufficiently well founded. For the fii'st there 
 is nothing more to be said than that it is conceivable. In the 
 latter I extend a proposition perfectly valid on its own gTOund, 
 fui'ther than it can properly reach. If Intelligences are in- 
 deed merely manifestations of a certain power of Nature, I 
 do quite right to extend this proposition to them. The ques- 
 tion is only whether they really are such, and it shaU be solved 
 by reasoning from other premises, not however fi-om a one- 
 sided answer assumed at the veiy commencement of the 
 inquiry, in which I deduce no more from the proposition than 
 I have previously placed in it. There does not seem to be 
 sufficient proof of either of these two positions. The case 
 cannot be decided by immediate consciousness ; I can never 
 become conscious either of the external forces which in the 
 system of universal necessity determine my actions, nor of 
 my own individual power, by which, under the supposition of 
 free agency, I determine myself. 
 
 Whichever of the two systems I shall adopt, it appears that 
 I must do so without sufficient proof. 
 
 The system of freedom satisfies — the opposite one lolls, — 
 annihilates the feelings of my heart. To stand by, cold and 
 passive, amidst the vicissitudes of events, a mere mirror to 
 reflect the fugitive forms of objects floating by, such an exist- 
 ence as tliis is insupportable to me ; I despise and renounce 
 it. I WÜ1 love ! — I will lose myself in sympathy for another ! 
 I am to myself, even, an object of the highest sympathy, which " 
 can be satisfied only by my actions. I will rejoice and I -nTll 
 momn. I wiU rejoice when I have done what I call right, I 
 will lament when I luvvc done wrong, and even this sorrow 
 
DOUBT. 25 
 
 sliall be dear to me, for it will be a pledge of future aniend- 
 ment. In love oidy is life, without it is deatli aud annihila- 
 tion. ColcUy and insolently does the opposite system advance, 
 and tm-n this love into a mockery ; the object of my deepest 
 attachment into a delusion, a cobweb of the brain. It is not I, 
 but a foreign, and to me unknown power that acts in me. I 
 stand abashed with my affections of the heart, and my virtuous 
 win, and blush for what is best and pm-est in my natm-e, for 
 the sake of which alone I wish to be at all, as for an absm-dity 
 and a folly. What is holiest to me has become a prey for scorn. 
 
 It was without doubt my interest in these feelings and 
 affections which induced me, although unconsciously, in the 
 compaencement of the inquiry which has driven me to despaii", 
 to regard myself at once as fi-ee and independent, and it was 
 also this interest which has led me to carry out, even to convic- 
 tion, an opinion which has nothing in its favom- but its pos- 
 sibility, and the impossibihty of proving the contrary ; it was 
 this which has hitherto restrained me from this undertaking, 
 froin the attempt to explain my own natm-e and existence. 
 
 The opposite system, barren and heartless indeed, but 
 inexhaustible in explanation, wül explain also tliis wish for 
 freedom, and this aversion to the contrary supposition. It 
 explains all my objections drawn from my own consciousness, 
 and as often as I say I find thus and thus, it replies with the 
 same horrible calmness, " that I say also, and more than that 
 I wül explain why it is of necessity thus." "Thou standest," 
 wül it answer to my complaints, " when thou speakest of thy 
 heart, thy love, thy sympathy, at the point of immediate 
 consciousness of thine own being, and thou hast confessed this 
 ab'eady in asserting that thou art to thyself an object of the 
 highest interest. Now it is ah-eady known and proved, that 
 this thou for whom thou art so deeply interested, where 
 it '' is not an active force, is at least an impulse of thy 
 individual inward natm-e ; it is weU known that every 
 impulse re-acts on itself, and incites itself to action; it is 
 therefore conceivable how this impulse must manifest itself 
 c 
 
26 THE DESTINATION OF MAN. 
 
 in a conscious being, as love, as aspiration after free indivi- 
 dual efficacy. 
 
 " Couldst tliou change thy narrow point of vision in self- 
 consciousness, for the higher one of the universe, which thou 
 hast promised thyself to take, it would become clear to thee, 
 that what thou hast named thy self-love is but the interest 
 which the power manifesting itself in thee has to maintain 
 itself in this manifestation. Do not then appeal again to thy 
 self-love, which, if it could prove anything, would merely 
 prove that Nature in thee was interested in her own pre- 
 servation. Thou hast readily admitted, that although in the 
 plant there exists a peculiar instinct or impulse to grow and 
 develop itself, the activity of this impulse is defined and 
 limited by forces lying beyond itself. Bestow for the moment 
 consciousness upon the plant, and it will contemplate, vdth 
 interest and self-love, this its instinct of growth. Convince it 
 by reasoning that this instinct is not able of itself to effect 
 any thing whatever, but that the measure of its expression of 
 itself is always determined by something out of itself, and it 
 will perhaps speak as thou hast spoken, and behave in a 
 manner that may be pardoned in a plant, but by no means in 
 thee, wlio art unquestionably a higher production of Nature, 
 and capable of contemplating the universal whole." 
 
 What can I answer to this representation ? Should I attempt 
 to place myself in this much-talked-of universal point of vision, 
 doubtless I must blush and be silent. It is therefore a ques- 
 tion, whether I shall do this, or confine myself to the range 
 of my o-\vn consciousness ; whether knowledge shall be sub- 
 ordinated to love or love to kiaowledge. The one has but 
 a bad reputation among people of understanding, the other 
 renders me indescribably miserable, by annihilating myself iu 
 myself. I cannot do the one without appearing in my own 
 eyes to commit a folly, nor the other without what seems a 
 moral suicide. 
 
 The question camiot remain undecided ; for on its solution 
 hangs the whole dig-uity and tranquillity of my existence. 1 
 
DOUBT. 37 
 
 lind it nevertheless impossible to decide, and have absolutely 
 no gTOunds of decision for one opinion or the other. Intoler- 
 able state of uncertainty and irresolution. By the most 
 ooui-ageous resolve of my life am I reduced to this ! what 
 Power can save me from it, from myself? 
 
 c 2 
 
CHAPTER V 
 
 KNOWLEDGE. 
 
 SoREOW and anxiety coiToded my heart. I cui'sed the day 
 which recalled me to an existence in whose truth and signifi- 
 cance I could no longer trust. I awakened in the night from 
 unquiet di'eams, but I sought in vain for a ray of spiritual 
 light that might lead me out of the labjTinth of doubt iii which 
 I had become entangled. 
 
 Once, at the hour of midnight, a wondrous spirit appeared 
 to pass Mpfore me, and to address me, — 
 
 "-^^1^ mortal," I heard it say, " thou heapest eiTor upon 
 eiTor, and fanciest thyself wise. Thou tremblest before the 
 terrible pictures wliich thou hast thyself toued to create. 
 Take corn-age to be truly wise. I bring thee no new revela- 
 tion. All '^lat I can teach thee thou ab-eady knowest, and 
 I need but recall it to thy remembrance. I caimot deceive 
 thee, for thou, thyself, wilt declare me in the right, and 
 shouldest thou be deceived, thou \n\.t deceive thyself. Listen 
 then, and reply to my questions." 
 
 I took corn-age. " The appeal is to be made to my own 
 understanding, and I will rely on its decision. He cannot 
 force me to think otherwise than I do think, "'t^^lat is to 
 produce con-\dction in me must be the residt of my own rea- 
 soning. Speak, Wonderful Spirit !" I exclaimed, " whatever 
 tliou art. Speak, and I will listen. Question me, and I will 
 answer." 
 
 The Spirit. Thou wilt admit that the objects thou seest 
 around thee really have existence out of thyself ? 
 
 I. Certainly I do. 
 
KNOWLEDGE. Zy 
 
 Spirit. And liow fhen dost thou know of tMs existence ? 
 
 I. I see them, hear them, feel them. They discover them- 
 selves to me through all my senses. 
 
 Sjpirit. Indeed! Thou wilt perhaps presently be inclined 
 to take back the assertion that thou really seest, feelest, and 
 hearest these objects. For the present I will speak in thine 
 own manner, as if by means of thy sight, touch, and hearing, 
 and by them only, thou didst perceive the real existence of 
 objects. But observe, by means of thy sight, touch, and other 
 senses. Or is it not so? Dost thou perceive them otherwise 
 than through thy senses, and can an object be said to exist for 
 thee, otherwise than that thou seest, hearest it, &c. ? 
 
 /. By no means. 
 
 Spirit. Objects are therefore perceptible merely in conse- 
 quence of a certain modification of the external senses. Thou 
 knowest of their existence merely by thy knowledge of this 
 affection or modification of thy sight, touch, &c. The phrase 
 thou hast employed — ' these objects exist out of myself,' re- 
 solves itself into this — 'I see, hear, feel, and so forth?' 
 
 I. This is my meaning. 
 
 Spirit. And how then dost thou know that thou seest, 
 hearest, feelest, and so forth ? 
 
 /. I do not understand thee. Thy questions appear to 
 me unintelligible. 
 
 Spirit. I AViU endeavour to explain them. Dost thou see 
 thy sight, and feel thy touch, or hast thou a higher sense, by 
 which thou perceivest the affection of thy organs of sense ? 
 
 /. I have not. I knoAV immediately that I see and feel, 
 and what I see and feel. I know this immediately and ab- 
 solutely. I know it because it is, and not at all by the in- 
 tervention of any other sense. For this reason thy question 
 appeared strange to me, because it appeared to thi-ow a doubt 
 on this immediate perception. 
 
 Spirit. This was not my intention. I wished only to in- 
 duce thee to make clear to thyself this immediate perception. 
 Thou liast therefore an immediate consciousness of sight and 
 
30 THE DESTINATION OF MAN. 
 
 touch. Thou art conscious of a certain affection of thy- 
 self? 
 
 I. Doubtless I am. 
 
 Spirit. Thou hast a consciousness of thy seeing, feeling, 
 and so forth, and thereby thou obtainest a perception of the 
 object. Couldst thou not perceive it mthout this conscious- 
 ness ? Canst thou not perceive the existence of an object by 
 sight or touch, without knowing that thou seest or touchest ? 
 
 /, Certainly not. 
 
 Spirit. It is then the immediate consciousness of thyself, 
 and of the modifications of thyself, which forms the necessary 
 condition of aU other consciousness. Thou canst not know 
 any thing, without knowing that thou knowest it ? 
 
 /. Certainly I cannot. 
 
 Spirit. Therefore that objects exist, knowest thou only in- 
 asmuch as thou seest, touchest them, and so forth, and that 
 thou seest or touchest, thou hast an immediate consciousness. 
 In all perception, thou perceivest only thyself and thine own 
 state, and what does not affect this state is not perceived at 
 aU? 
 
 /. I have already admitted this. 
 
 Spirit. I would repeat it, in every variety of form, if I saw 
 reason to doubt that thou hadst thoroughly comprehended, 
 and permanently impressed it on thy mind. Canst thou say, 
 I am conscious of external objects ? 
 
 I. By no means, if I speak accm-ately ; for the sight and 
 touch by which I perceive objects are not consciousness itself, 
 but only that of which I am first and most immediately con- 
 scious. Strictly speaking, I can say no more than that I am 
 conscious of seeing and touching. 
 
 Spirit. Eemember then what thou hast now clearly under- 
 stood, that in all perception thou perceivest only thine own state 
 of being. I wiE, however, continue to speak thy language, since 
 it is most familiar. Thou hast said that thou canst see, hear, 
 and feel objects. How then, with what attributes, dost thou 
 see or feel them ? 
 
KNOWLEDGE. 31 
 
 I. I see this object blue, that red. When I touch them, I 
 find this smooth, that rough — this cokl, that warm. 
 
 Spirit. Thou knowest then what is red and blue, cold and 
 warm, smooth and rough ? 
 
 /. Undoubtedly I do. 
 
 Spirit. Wilt thou then explain to me what they are ? 
 
 /. That cannot be explained. Look! Direct thine eye 
 towards that object, the sensation of which thou art conscious, 
 through thy vision, I call red. Touch the surface of tliis ob- 
 ject, what thou feelest, I call smooth. In the same way 
 I have arrived at this knowledge, and there is no other 
 method. 
 
 Spirit. But can we not at aU events, from some of these 
 qualities, known immediately by sensation, deduce a know- 
 ledge of others differing from them ? If, for instance, any 
 one had seen red, green and yellow, but never a blue coloiu- ; 
 had tasted sour, sweet and salt, but never bitter, — could he not, 
 by reflection and comparison, attain to a knowledge of what 
 was blue or bitter, without having ever seen or tasted eithei- ? 
 
 I. Certainly not. What is matter of sensation can only be 
 felt, not thought. We cannot obtain it by deduction, it must 
 be by immediate perception. 
 
 Spirit. Strange ! That thou shouldst boast of a kind of 
 knowledge, which thou hast attained thou knovvst not how ! 
 Thou hast asserted that thou canst see a quality in one object, 
 feel one in other, hear one in a third, and thou must, there- 
 fore, be able to distinguish sight from touch, and both from 
 hearing ? 
 
 /. Without doubt. 
 
 Spirit. Thou wilt maintain further, that this object 
 is blue, that red, ' this smooth, that rough. Thou must 
 therefore be able to distinguish red from blue, and smooth 
 from rough ? 
 
 /. Most certainly. 
 
 Spirit. And this difference has been discovered according 
 to thine own assertion, not by reflection and comparison of 
 
33 THE DESTINATION OF MAN. 
 
 thine own sensations, therefore perhaps by comparison of 
 objects out of thyself ? 
 
 /. This is impossible, for my perception of objects pro- 
 ceeds from my perception of the variations of my own state 
 of being, and depends upon it. By these variations only do 
 I distinguish objects at all. I learn indeed to connect these 
 sensations with the arbitrary signs, red, blue, smooth and 
 rough ; but I do not learn to distinguish the sensations them- 
 selves; this 1 do immediately. I cannot, indeed, describe 
 how they differ, but I know that they must differ as much as 
 the sensations they produce. 
 
 Spirit. And thou canst distinguish these independently of 
 aL. knowledge of the objects themselves ? 
 
 /. I must so distinguish them, for my knowledge of things 
 in themselves depends on these distinctions. 
 
 Spirit. Which knowledge is obtained, therefore, merely 
 through thy consciousness of the various states or affections 
 of thine ö-^vn being ? 
 
 /. By no other means. 
 
 Sjnrit. But in this case, thou shouldst content thyself "v\äth 
 saying, — " I feel myself affected in the manner that I call 
 red, blue, smooth, rough." Thou shoiüdst assert nothing fur- 
 ther of these, than that they are sensations existing in thyself, 
 and not transfer them to an oliject lying entii-ely out of thyself, 
 and declare them to be modifications of those objects, whilst 
 they are in fact only modifications of thyself. Or dost thou 
 by calling things red, blue, and so forth, really mean any 
 thing more than that thou art afi'ected in a certain manner 
 by them ? 
 
 I. I perceive that I really know no more than what thou 
 sayest, and that transposition of what is in me to something 
 out of myself is very strange, though nevertheless I caimot 
 refrain from it. My sensations are in myself and not in the 
 object, for I am myself and not the object. I am con- 
 scious only of my ovm state, and not of that of the 
 ol)jcct, and if there be any such thhig as consciousness of 
 
KNOWLEDGE. 33 
 
 tlie object, it can be neither sensation nor perception. 
 Thus much is clear. 
 
 Sjnrit. Thy conclusions are quickly formed. Let us look 
 at this matter on aU sides, that I may be sm-e that thou wilt 
 not some time or other wish to di-aw back from what thou 
 hast now fi-eely admitted. Is there then in the object, ac- 
 cording to thy usual conception of it, any thing more than its 
 red colour, its smooth surface, and so on ; in short, any thing 
 besides the characteristic marks of which by sensation thou 
 art conscious ? 
 
 /. I believe there is : besides these qualities there is the thing 
 itself to which they belong : a supporter of these athibutes. 
 
 Spirit. But by what sense dost thou perceive this supporter 
 of attributes ? Dost thou see it, or feel it, or what ; or is there 
 perhaps for this a peculiar sense ? 
 
 I. No. I believe that I see and feel it. 
 
 Spirit. Indeed ! Let us examine this a little more closely : 
 art thou then conscious of sight absolutely, or only of seeing 
 certain things ? 
 
 /. My consciousness of sight is always limited to certain 
 objects. 
 
 Spirit. And what was this limited consciousness of sight, 
 with respect to the object before us ? 
 
 I. That of red colom*. 
 
 Spirit. And this red is something positive, a simple sensa- 
 tion, a certain state of thine own existence ? 
 
 /. This I comprehend. 
 
 Spirit. Thy conception therefore should be simply of a red- 
 ness, and notliing more. But the conception is nevertheless 
 of red extended over a broad sm-face, a sm-face which thou 
 dost not see. How is this ? 
 
 /. I believe I can explain it, though it is strange I do not 
 indeed see the sm-face, but I feel it when I pass my hand 
 over it, and as my sensation of sight remains the same 
 dm-ing that action, I imagine the red extended over the sur- 
 face, since I always see the same red. 
 c 5 
 
34 THE DESTINATION OF MAN. 
 
 Spirit. It may be so if thou feelest oiily a surface, but let 
 us see if this be really the case. Thy sense of touch is not 
 absolute ; that is, thou art always conscious of touching some- 
 thing ? 
 
 /. Certainly. Sensation is always definite; we never 
 merely see, or hear, or feel, but always see colour, red, green, 
 blue ; feel smooth, rough, cold, warm ; hear the voice of man, 
 the sound of the violin. Let that be settled between us once 
 for aU. 
 
 Spirit. Willingly. And in what thou hast called feeling a 
 smface, thou art immediately conscious of notliing more than 
 of feeling smooth or rough, and so on ? 
 
 /. Certainly. 
 
 Spirit. This smooth or rough is like the red colour : a sen- 
 sation entii'ely simple ; and I ask why this simple sensation 
 should be extended in thy conception over a surface any more 
 than the simple sensation of sight. 
 
 I. This smooth smface is not perhaps in all points equally 
 smooth, but is merely so in various degi-ees, only that language 
 does not afford me any signs by which to express their differ- 
 ences. I distinguish them however unconsciously, and con- 
 ceiving them as placed by the side of each other. I thus 
 form the conception of sm-face. 
 
 Spirit. But canst thou have opposite sensations at the same 
 moment, be affecte d at the same time in such different ways ? 
 
 I. By no means. 
 
 Spirit. Those various degrees of smoothness, which thou 
 hast assumed in order to attempt to explain what thou canst 
 not explain, are nevertheless nothing more than various and 
 successive sensations ? 
 
 /, I cannot deny this. 
 
 Spirit. Thou shoiddst then describe them according to thy 
 real experience, as existing successively to one another in time, 
 and not as simultaneously existing in space. 
 
 I. I see this, and I find that nothing is gained by my as- 
 sumption. But my hand, with which I touch the object, and 
 
KNOWLEDGE. 35 
 
 cover it, is itself a surface, and by it I perceive tlie other sur- 
 face, whicli is also a greater one, since I can spread my hand 
 several times upon it. 
 
 Spirit. Thy hand is a siuface ! How dost know thou that ? 
 How dost thou attain the consciousness of thy hand at all ? 
 Is there any other way, than that by means of it thou canst 
 feel other objects, or that it can be employed as an implement 
 or tool, or that thou perceivest it by its toucliing some other 
 part of thy body ? 
 
 /. No. There is no other way. I feel with my hand some 
 other object, or I feel the hand itself by the sensation of some 
 other part of my body. I have no immediate, absolute con- 
 sciousness of my hand, any more than of the sense of sight or 
 touch in general. 
 
 Spirit. Let us take the case merely in which the hand is 
 regarded as an implement, for that will decide at the same 
 time the second. In the immediate perception of it can lie 
 nothing further than what belongs to touch and to sensation 
 in general ; to that which leads thee in consciousness to 
 regard thyself as the conscious being. Either thy sensation 
 is of the same kind, in which case I cannot see Avhy thou 
 shoiddst extend it over a smface, and not rather conceive of 
 it as of a point ; or if thy sensations are various, why thou dost 
 not conceive of them as succeeding one another at the same 
 point. That thy hand should appear to thee as a surface, is 
 just as inexplicable as the idea of a surface in general. Do 
 not employ what is itseK unexplained to explain anything 
 further. The second case in which thy hand or any other 
 member is itself the object of sensation, is easily understood 
 from the first. Thou perceivest it by means of another part, 
 wliich then becomes the sentient one. I ask the same ques- 
 tion concerning it, and thou wilt just as little be able to 
 answer. So wiU it be with every other surface. It may be 
 that the consciousness of extension out of thyself, proceeds 
 from the consciousness of thine own extension as a material 
 
36 THE DESTINATION OF MAN. 
 
 body, and depends upon it ; but it is then necessary to ex- 
 plain this extension of thy material body, 
 
 I. It is enough. I perceive clearly that I neither see nor 
 feel the superficial extension of the properties of bodies ; I see 
 that it is my constant practice to conceive as extended over a 
 surface what nevertheless in sensation is merely a point, and 
 to represent as contemporaneously existing, what I know only 
 as successive. I discover that I proceed in fact exactly as the 
 geometer does in the construction of his figm-es, extending 
 points to lines and lines to sm-faces. It seems strange that 
 I should do so. 
 
 Spirit. Thou dost what is yet more strange. This outer 
 sm'face, this extension, thou canst not indeed truly see or feel, 
 or perceive by any sense, bu.t at least thou canst see red upon 
 it and feel smoothness. But why dost thou extend this sur- 
 face to a solid mathematical figure, and assume the existence 
 of an inward body beneath the sm-face ? Canst thou see it, 
 feel it, or by any sense recognise its existence ? 
 
 I. By no means. The space within the sm-face is impene- 
 trable to my senses. 
 
 Spirit. And yet thou hast assumed the existence of an in- 
 terior Avhich thou hast not perceived by any sense ? 
 
 /. I confess it, and my sm'prise increases. 
 
 Spirit. ^Vhat is then this something beneath the sm'face ? 
 
 I. I conceive of it as of something similar to the surface, 
 something tangible. 
 
 Spirit. We must examine this more closely. Canst thou 
 divide the mass in which thou hast imagined the body to consist? 
 
 /. I can. Of course I do not mean Anth instrmnents, but 
 in thought divide it to infinity. No part can be so small as 
 not to be fm-ther di\äsible. 
 
 Spirit. And in this division dost thou ever reach a point at 
 which these particles become no longer perceptible in them- 
 selves ? I say ill themselves, that is, not merely \rith reference 
 to thy senses. 
 
KNOWLEDGE. 37 
 
 I. I do not. 
 
 Spirit. Sensible, perceptible absolutely ? Or witli certain 
 properties of colour, roughness, smoothness and the like ? 
 
 /. Undoubtedly mth certain properties. Nothing can be 
 sensible or perceptible absohitely, without reference to any 
 property that can be perceived. 
 
 Spirit. This is but to extend to the mass the susceptibüi- 
 ties that belong to thyself, which lead thee to regard what is 
 visible as coloured, what is tangible as rough, smooth, and the 
 like. Yet these things are only certain affections of thine owir 
 organs of sense. Or dost thou think otherwise ? 
 
 /. By no means. This is merely a necessary inference from 
 what I have already admitted. 
 
 Spirit. And yet thou hast in reality no perception but of a 
 surface ? 
 
 I. By breaking it, I could perceive an interior. 
 
 Spirit. So much thou knowest therefore in advance. And 
 tliis infinite divisibility — ^in which as thou hast maintained 
 thou canst not reach a point at which the atoms become ab- 
 solutely imperceptible, hast thou ascertained it by experiment, 
 or canst thou do so ? 
 
 /. Certainly I cannot. 
 
 Spirit. To sensations therefore which thou hast had, thou 
 hast added in thy conception others which thou hast not had, 
 and canst not have ? 
 
 I. I am sensible only of a suiface. I am not sensible of what 
 lies Ijeneath it, yet I assume that it exists. This I must admit. 
 
 Spirit. And when brought to the test of experiment, the 
 real sensation is found to correspond with thy preconception? 
 
 I. Certainly. When I break through the sm-face of a body, 
 I find beneath, something perceptible, as I have before said. 
 
 Spirit. But thou hast also spoken of something beyond the 
 senses, and not perceptible to them. 
 
 /. I have asserted that in the division of a corporeal mass 
 to infinity, I can never come to what is in itself imperceptible, 
 although I can never make this division. 
 
38 THE DESTINATION OF MAN. 
 
 Spirit. Of the object, therefore, we have nothing remaining 
 but what is perceptible — what possesses the property of pro- 
 ducing sensation. And this perceptibihty thou hast extended 
 thi'ough a cohesive mass divisible to infinity, so that the true 
 supporter of attributes, the object which thou hast sought, 
 must, after all, be nothing more than the space which it occu- 
 pies ? 
 
 /. Although I cannot be satisfied with this, but must stul 
 conceive in the object something more than this property of 
 perceptibility, and the space which it occupies, yet I must con- 
 fess that I cannot explain what that is. 
 
 Spirit. Confess whatever really appears to thee at the moment 
 to be true. What is now dark will presently become brighter, 
 and the imknown be made kno^^Ti. The space itself is not 
 perceived, and thou canst not understand why this percepti- 
 bility should be extended in conception thi-ough a space. Just 
 as little canst thou understand how the idea of something per- 
 ceptible out of thyself has been attained, since thou art reaUy 
 conscious of a sensation in thyself, not as the property of a 
 thing, but as the peculiar affection or state of thine own 
 
 I. I see clearly that I perceive in reality nothing more than 
 my own state of being, and not the object in itself. I neither 
 see it, feel it, nor hear it ; but on the contraiy, precisely there, 
 where the object should be, aU seeing, feeling, and so forth, 
 comes to an end. Sensations, as affections of myself, are 
 simple and have no extension ; they are not contiguous to one 
 another in space, but successive to one another in time. I do, 
 however, conceive them as contiguous in space, and it appears 
 to me that it may be exactly at this point, tliis extension, and 
 tliis changing of what is only a perception in myself, to some- 
 thing perceptible without me, that a consciousness of the ob- 
 ject arises Avithin me. 
 
 Spirit. This conjectm-e may be verified ; but coidd we raise 
 it immediately to a couAdction, Ave shoidd yet attain to no 
 clear insight, for the liigher question avouUI vcniaiu to be an- 
 
KNOWLEDGE. 39 
 
 swered — Why dost thou extend thy sensation through a space? 
 Let us then immediately state this question. I have my rea- 
 sons for this, in the following more general manner. How 
 does it happen that from thy consciousness, which is nothing 
 more than consciousness of thine own state, thou proceedest 
 beyond thyself, in order to add to the perception of which 
 thou art conscious, a something, perceptible, of which thou 
 art not conscious ? 
 
CHAPTER VI. 
 
 KNOWLEDGE. 
 
 /, Sweet or bitter, rough or smooth, cold or warm, an 
 agreeable or disagreeable smell, signifies nothing more than 
 what awakens in me this or that sensation ; and the case is 
 the same with respect to sounds. A relation to myself is 
 always indicated, and it never occurs to me that the sweet 
 or bitter taste, the pleasant or unpleasant smell, lies in the 
 thing itself. It lies in me, and is only excited by the pre- 
 sence of the object. It appears indeed as if the case might be 
 different, with the affection of the sight, such as colours, 
 which might not be pm'e sensations, but something interme- 
 diate ; yet when we think well of it, red, blue, and so on, 
 mean nothing more than what produces a certain sensation of 
 sight. This leads me to conjectm'e how I may attain to a 
 knowledge of things out of myself. I am affected in a certain 
 manner — this I know absolutely ; and my affection must have 
 a cause, which does not exist in me, and must consequently 
 exist out of me. I reason thus instantaneously and involun- 
 tarily, and assume the existence of such a cause in the object. 
 This cause must necessarily be one from which my sensation 
 can be explained ; I am affected in a certain manner wliich I 
 call a sweet taste, and the object must therefore be of a kind 
 to awaken a sweet taste, or by a more rapid form of speech 
 must be S2ceet, and in this manner I determine the object. 
 
 Spirit. There is some truth in this, tdthough it is not the 
 whole tiiith. What this is may perhaps appear in due time. 
 Since however in other cases as well as this, thou Mill return 
 
KNOWLEDGE. 41 
 
 incontestably to this idea of a cause, we will endeavour to 
 render perfectly clear what is really meant by it. We will 
 admit that the assertion is perfectly correct, that by an invo- 
 luntary course of reasoning, from the effect to the cause, thou 
 hast first attained to a knowledge of the object ; — ^w^hat then 
 was it of which thou wert conscious in perception ? 
 
 J. Of being afieeted in a certain manner. 
 
 S])irit. But of an object, affecting thee in a certain manner, 
 thou wast not conscious in perception ? 
 
 /. By no means. I have already admitted this. 
 
 Spirit. By this idea of causality therefore thou art enabled 
 to add to a knowledge which thou hast, another which thou 
 hast not ? 
 
 /. The expression is strange ! 
 
 Sjnrit. Perhaps I may succeed in rendering it less so : let 
 my expressions however appear to thee as they may, they are 
 intended merely to lead thee to produce in thine own mind 
 the same train of thoughts that I have produced in mine. 
 When thou hast mastered the idea, express it as thou wilt, 
 and with as much variety as possible, and be sure that thou 
 wilt always express it weU. How and by what means dost 
 thou know of this affection of thyself ? 
 
 /. I know not how to answer thee in words. Because my 
 subjective consciousness, as far as I am an intelligent being, is 
 inseparably united with this knowledge. Because I am no 
 fui'ther conscious than as I am aware of these affections. 
 
 Spirit, Thou hast therefore an organ or faculty, that of 
 consciousness, by which thou perceivest these affections? 
 
 /. I have. 
 
 Spirit. But an organ or faculty by which thou perceivest 
 the existence of the object in itself thou hast not ? 
 
 I. Since thou hast convinced me that I neither see nor feel 
 the object itself, nor embrace it with any external organ, I 
 find myself compelled to confess that I have not. 
 
 Spirit. Consider well of this admission. What is an ex- 
 ternal sense in general, and how can it be external, if it does 
 
42 THE DESTINATION OF MAN. 
 
 not take cognisance of the external object, but only of the 
 affections or states of thine own being ? 
 
 /. I do disting-uish gi-een, sweet, red, smooth, bitter, rough, 
 the sound of a violin and of a trumpet. Among these sensa- 
 tions I discover in some a certain similarity, although in some 
 other respects I perceive their difference ; thus green and red, 
 though different, are both sensations of sight ; rough and 
 smooth, of touch; sweet and bitter, of taste. Sight, taste, and 
 so forth, are not in themselves sensations, for I never see or 
 feel absolutely, but always, as thou hast already remarked, 
 see red or green, taste sweet or bitter, &c. Sight and taste 
 are only higher forms or classes to wliich I refer the immediate 
 sensations. I see in them no external senses, for they take 
 cognisance only of the modifications of the inward sense ; of 
 the affections of my being. How I come to regard them as 
 external senses is the question — for I do not take back my 
 assertion that I have no organ for the object itself. 
 
 Spirit. Thou speakest nevertheless of objects as if by some 
 organ their existence were reaUy kno-\^Ti to thee ? 
 
 /. I do so. 
 
 Spirit. And this, according to thy previous assumption, in 
 consequence of a knowledge which thou really dost possess, 
 and for which thou hast an organ, and for the sake of this 
 knowledge? 
 
 /. It is so. 
 
 Spirit. Thy real knowledge, that of thy sensations or affec- 
 tions, is to thee like an imperfect knowledge, which requires 
 to be completed by another. This other new kind of knoAv- 
 ledge thou hast described to thyself, not as what thou hast, 
 but as what thou shouldst have, if it were not that thou hast 
 no organ by which to attain it. " I know nothing indeed," 
 thou seemest to say, " of things existing out of myself, but 
 they must nevertheless exist, if I could but tbid them." A re- 
 lation is thus formed with them in thought, by means of a 
 supposed faculty, which nevertheless thou dost not possess . 
 Strictly speaking, thou hast no consciousness of things in 
 
KNOWLEDGE. 40 
 
 themselves, but only by means of the idea of causality, a con- 
 sciousness of -vvlrat should be a consciousness of things, but 
 which does not really belong to thee. Thou wilt therefore 
 admit, that to a knowledge which thou hast, thou hast added 
 another which thou hast not ? 
 
 /. I must allow this. 
 
 Spirit. We will call this second knowledge, obtained by 
 means of another, a mediate, and the first an immediate know- 
 ledge. The latter presents itself to thee simultaneously with 
 the consciousness of existence, the former is deduced from it. 
 
 /. It is not, however, successive to it in time, for I am 
 conscious of the object at the same moment in which I am 
 conscious of myself. 
 
 Spirit. I did not speak of a succession in time ; my mean- 
 ing was, that when thou couldst distinguish by reflection thy 
 consciousness of thyself fi'om that of the object, and inqidre 
 about their connection, thou wouldst discover that the former 
 was the necessary condition of the latter, which depended 
 wholly upon it. 
 
 /. If tliis be all, I have already admitted as much. 
 
 Spirit. The second consciousness, I repeat, is produced, en- 
 gendered, by a real act of the mind. Or dost thou find it 
 otherwise ? 
 
 /. I do, indeed, add to the consciousness of sensation, 
 which is simultaneous with that of existence, another which I 
 do not find in myself; and as by this I double and complete 
 my real consciousness, I maybe said to perform a mental act. 
 I am, however, tempted either to take back my admission or 
 the whole supposition. I am perfectly conscious of perform- 
 ing a mental act, when I form a universal conception, when in 
 doubtful cases I choose one of various possible modes of ac- 
 tion which lie before me. Of the mental act, however, which, 
 according to thy assertion, I perform in the representation of 
 an object out of myself, I am not conscious at aU, 
 
 Spirit. Do not be deceived. Of these acts of the mind 
 thou art only conscious by proceeding through previous states 
 
44 THE DESTINATION OF MAN. 
 
 of iiTCsolution and indetermination, to wliich these acts put 
 an end. In the case I -have supposed, there is no pre^-ious 
 indecision; the mind has no need of deliberation concern- 
 ing the object producing a definite sensation. An act of the 
 mind of which we are conscious, as such, is called freedom. 
 An act without consciousness of action is called spontaneity. 
 I by no means assume as necessary any immediate conscious- 
 ness of the act, but merely, that on subsequent reflection thou 
 shouldst perceive it to be an act. The higher question of what 
 it is that prevents any such state of indecision, or any conscious- 
 ness of the act, we may perhaps subsequently be able to solve. 
 This act of the mind is called thought ; (a word which I also 
 shall employ ;) and it is said that thought is a spontaneous 
 act, to distinguish it from sensation, in which the mind is 
 merely receptive and passive. How then does it happen that 
 to the sensation which thou certainly hast, thou addest in thy 
 thought an object of which thou knowest nothing ? 
 
 /. I assume as certain that my sensation must have a 
 cause. 
 
 Spirit. Wut thou then not explain to me what is a cause ? 
 I. I find a certain thing determined this way or that. I 
 am not content ^NiXh. knowing that it is so, I assume that it 
 has become so, and that, not by and through itseK only, but 
 by means of a power out of itself. This foreign power, that 
 made it what it is, contains then its cause. That my sensa- 
 tion must have a cause, means merely that it must be pro- 
 duced in me by a force out of myself. 
 
 Spirit. This force or cause, thou addest in thought to the 
 sensation of which thou art immediately conscious, and thus 
 arises in thee the conception of an object. Let it be so : 
 but now take notice ; if thy sensation must have a cause, I 
 admit the correctness of the inference ; and I see with what 
 perfect right is assumed the existence of things out of thyself, 
 of which thou knowest notliing. But how theu dost thou 
 know, and how can it be proved, that thy sensation must 
 have a cause ? Or in the more general manner in -which thou 
 
KNOWLEDGE. 45 
 
 hast stated the proposition, why canst thou not be satisfied to 
 know that something is ? Why must- thou assume that it has 
 become so, or that it has become so by means of an extrane- 
 ous force ? 
 
 Z. I cannot avoid thinking thus. It seems as if I knew 
 this immediately. 
 
 Spirit. What this answer, " thou knowest it immediately," 
 may sig-nify, we shall see if we are brought back to it as to 
 the only possible one. We will however first try aU other 
 methods of obtaining, by reasoning, the grounds of the asser- 
 tion that everything must have a cause. Dost thou know 
 this by immediate perception ? 
 
 /. How could I ? since in perception there is notliing more 
 than a consciousness that in me something is, by no means 
 however that it has become so; far less that it has become so by 
 an extraneous force lying beyond the limits of perception. 
 
 Spirit. Or is this idea obtained by generahsing thy obser- 
 vation of things, out of thyself, whose cause thou hast inva- 
 riably discovered to lie out of themselves, and applying this 
 observation subsequently to thyself and the various states of 
 thine own being ? 
 
 /. Do not treat me like a child, and ascribe to me evident 
 absm'dities. By the idea of cause I first arrive at a know- 
 ledge of the existence of things out of myself ; how then can 
 I by observation of these things obtain the idea of a cause. 
 Shall the earth rest on the great elephant, and the great ele- 
 phant again upon the earth ? 
 
 Spirit. Is then this idea deduced from another general 
 truth ? 
 
 I. Which again could be found neither in immediate per- 
 ception, nor in the observation of external things, and con- 
 cerning the origin of which thou wouldst start further ques- 
 tions ! I might say I obtained this fundamental tnith by 
 immediate knowledge. It is better that I should say this at 
 once of the idea of causahty. 
 
 Spirit. Let it be so ; we should then obtain besides the 
 
46 THE DESTINATION OF MAN. 
 
 first immediate knowledge by sensation, another immediate 
 knowledge concerning a general truth. This knowledge that 
 thy sensation must have a cause, is entirely independent of 
 the knowledge of things in themselves ? 
 
 /. Certainly, for the latter is obtained only by means of it. 
 
 Spirit. And thou hast it absolutely in thyself ? 
 
 I. Absolutely, for only by means of it can I proceed out of 
 myself. 
 
 Spirit. Out of thyself therefore, and thi-ough thyself, thou 
 prescribest laws to existences and their relations ? 
 
 /. If I wish to speak accurately, I must say that I prescribe 
 laws to the images of these existences and their relations, 
 which are formed in my own mind. 
 
 Spirit. Be it so. Art thou then conscious of these laws in 
 any other manner than by acting in accordance with them ? 
 
 /. My consciousness of them begins with that of sensation. 
 My representation of an object according to the law of cau- 
 sality, is simultaneous with the sensation. Both the con- 
 sciousness of my own state and the representation of the 
 object producing it, are inseparably imited. No conscious- 
 ness occurs between these two ;— and it is impossible that I 
 should be conscious of this law, previously to acting in 
 accordance with it. 
 
 Spirit. Thou actest in accordance \vith this law therefore 
 unconsciously, and instantaneously, yet but a short time since 
 thou didst declare thyself conscious of it, and expressed it as 
 a general proposition. How is this ? 
 
 /. Doubtless thus. I observe my own mind subsequently 
 to having thus acted, and comprehend these observations in 
 one general proposition. 
 
 Spirit. Thou canst therefore become conscious of these acts? 
 
 /. Most certainly I can, and I di^dne thy intention in 
 asking tliis question. This is the above-mentioned second 
 kind of immediate consciousness, that of my actions, as the 
 first is that of my sensation or passive states. • 
 
 Spirit. Eight ! Thou canst become conscious of thine 
 
KNOWLEDGE. 47 
 
 own act subsequently, by free observation of thyself and by 
 reflection. Thou art not, however, immediately conscious of 
 it in acting ? 
 
 I. I must be so, for I am conscious of my representation of 
 the object at the same moment as of the sensation. I have 
 discovered the solution ; I am immediately conscious of my act, 
 only not as such, for it presents itself to me as a consciousness 
 of the object. Subsequently by free reflection I become con- 
 scious of this as of the act of my own mind. My immediate 
 consciousness is twofold, consisting of a consciousness of a 
 state of suifering, which is sensation, and of action in the repre- 
 sentation of an object according to the law of causality, the latter 
 consciousness being immediately connected with the former. 
 
 My consciousness of the object is only a yet um-ecognised 
 consciousness of my production of tlie representation of an ob- 
 ject. Of this production I know no more than that it is I who 
 produce, and thus is all consciousness no more than a con- 
 sciousness of myself, and so far perfectly comprehensible. Am 
 I^in the right? 
 
 Spirit. Perfectly so ; but whence then is derived the neces- 
 sity and universality thou hast ascribed to these propositions, 
 to that of causality for instance ? 
 
 /. From the immediate feeling that I cannot act otherwise 
 as long as I have reason, and that no other reasonable being- 
 can act otherwise. When I say that all that is contingent, 
 such as my sensation, must have a cause, I mean that a cause 
 always was, is, and wül be conceived by me, and by every 
 thinking being in a similar case. 
 
 Spirit. It appears then that all thy knowledge is merely a 
 knowledge of thyself, that thy consciousness never proceeds 
 beyond thyself, and that what thou hast regarded as a con- 
 sciousness of the real existence of the object is no more than 
 a consciousness of thine own representation or conception of 
 an object, produced according to an inward law of thought, 
 and necessarily co-existing with thy sensation. 
 
CHAPTEE TIL 
 
 KNOWLEDGE. 
 
 /. Go on boldly. I have not only not interrupted thee, but 
 have even assisted in the development of these inferences. 
 Now however I find it, in earnest, necessaiy to retract my 
 position, that by means of the law of causality I attained the 
 knowledge of the existence of external things. I could by 
 this means become conscious only of a force out of myself, in 
 the same manner as for the explanation of magnetic pheno- 
 mena, I suppose a magnetic — or for the explanation of elec- 
 trical phenomena, an electrical — force in Nature. 
 
 The world without me appears by no means as a mere force. 
 It is something extended, soKd, sensible — not hke a mere 
 force with its various manifestations. It does not merely pro- 
 duce effects — it has properties. In the apprehension of it I 
 am inwardly conscious of something quite different from mere 
 thought. This appears to me as perception, although it has 
 been proved that it cannot be such, and it -niU be dilficult for 
 me to describe the kind of consciousness that I seem to have 
 of it, and to separate it from those other kinds of which we 
 have spoken. 
 
 Bpirit. Thou must nevertheless make the attempt, or \ve 
 shaU not come to a clear understanding. 
 
 /. I win endeavom- to open a way towai-ds it. I beseech 
 thee, if thy organs of sight resemble mine, to fix thine eye on 
 yonder object, and, forgetting thy previous reasoning, to tell 
 me candidly what is the impression produced in thee. Dost 
 thou not look over, and perceive at a single glance, a surface. 
 
KNOWLEDGE. 
 
 and hast thou the most distant or obscure conception of that 
 operation of extending a red point to a line, and a line to a 
 surface of which thou hast spoken ? It is an afterthought to 
 divide tliis surface into Hnes and points. Would not every 
 unprejudiced observer say and insist that he really saw a sui'- 
 face? I say "saw." 
 
 Spirit. I am ready to concede all, and find that my self- 
 observation corresponds exactly with thine. Thou must not 
 however forget that it is not om- design to relate to one 
 another whatever takes place in consciousness, as in a journal 
 of the human mind, but to consider its various phsenomena in 
 their connection, and to explain and deduce one from another; 
 and that consequently no one of thine observations, which 
 (^nnot certainly be denied, but which we would fain have ex- 
 plained, can overtm-n any one of my correct inferences. Do 
 not therefore, in considering the resemblance of this kind of 
 consciousness of bodies out of thyself, to real perception, 
 overlook the great difference which nevertheless exists between 
 them. 
 
 I. I was about to remark on this difference. Each indeed 
 appears as an immediate, and not as an acquired consciousness; 
 but sensation is consciousness of my own state. The con- 
 sciousness of the object appears to have no relation to myself. 
 I know that it is, and that is aU ; it does not concern me 
 further. If in the first instance I seem Hke soft clay, on 
 which now this, now that impression is made, in the other I 
 am like a miiTor over which the forms of objects pass, with- 
 out occasioning the slightest change in it. This difierence 
 however is in favour of my argument. I seem to have a real 
 independent consciousness of external existences entirely dif- 
 ferent from sensation or a consciousness of the various states 
 of my own being. 
 
 Spirit. This is well observed, but be not too hasty. If 
 we have been correct in om- former conclusion, that thou canst 
 have immediate consciousness only of thyself; if the con- 
 sciousness now in question is neither of action nor of sufli'ering, 
 
 D 
 
50 THE DESTINATION OP MAN. 
 
 may it not be a hitherto unrecoguised consciousness of thine 
 own existence? Of thy existence inasmuch as thou art a 
 knowing, or intelligent being ? 
 
 I. I do not understand thee ; but help me, for I wish to 
 do so. 
 
 Spirit. I must theii claim thy whole attention, for I am 
 obliged to go deeper than we have hitherto gone into this 
 matter, and to seek far, for the answer to thy question. "What 
 art thou ? 
 
 /. To answer this question in the most general manner I 
 must say I am I, myself. 
 
 Spirit. I am content with the answer. What is involved 
 in this idea of I, and how dost thou attain it ? 
 
 /. I can only make myself understood by opposition. An 
 external existence — a thing, is something out of me, the intel- 
 ligent being cognizant of it. Concerning it there arises the 
 question — since the thing cannot know of itself, how can a 
 knowledge of it arise ? And, since all its modifications lie in 
 the circle of its own existence, and by no means in mine, how 
 can a consciousness of it arise in me ? How does the thing 
 affect me ? "What is the tie between me, the subject, and the 
 thing Avhich is the object of my knowledge ? Of what I am, 
 I know no more than that I am, but here no tie is necessary 
 between subject and object. My own being is this tie, I am 
 at once the subject knowing, and the object known of ; and 
 this reflection or return of the knowledge on itself is what I 
 designate by the term /, if I have any determinate meaning. 
 
 Spirit. Therefore it is in the identity of both subject and 
 object, that tliine existence as an intelligent being consists ? 
 
 /. It is so. 
 
 Spirit. Canst thou then comprehend this identity, which 
 is neither subject nor object, but lies at the foundation of 
 both ? 
 
 /. By no means. It is the condition of aU my knowledge, 
 that the conscious being, and what he is conscious of, appear 
 as separate. I cannot even conceive any other kind of eon- 
 
KNOWLEDGE. 51 
 
 sciousness. In recognising my own existence, I see myself as 
 subject and object, which however are immediately connected. 
 
 Spirit. Canst thou be conscious of the moment in which 
 this incomprehensible one di^dded itself thus ? 
 
 /. How can I ? since my consciousness only becomes pos- 
 sible by means of this separation — since it is my conscious- 
 ness itself that thus separates. 
 
 Spirit. Of this separation, then, thou becomest immediately 
 conscious, in becoming conscious of thyself? This, then, 
 shoiüd be thine actual original existence ? 
 
 /. So it is. 
 
 Spiirit. And on what then is this separation based ? 
 
 /. I am an intelligence, and have consciousness in myself. 
 This separation is the condition and result of this conscious- 
 ness. It has its basis, therefore, in myself. 
 
 Spirit. Thou art an intelligence, and as such thou art to 
 thyself an object of knowledge. Thine objective knowledge 
 presents itself therefore to thy subjective knowledge, and 
 hovers before it, although without any consciousness on thy 
 part of such a presentation. Is this what thou wouldst say ? 
 or canst thou bring forward some more exact characteristics 
 of subject and object as they appear in consciousness ? 
 
 /. The subjective contains within itself the basis of con- 
 sciousness according to its form, but by no means according 
 to its matter. That a consciousness, an inward power of 
 conception and contemplation, should exist, depends on the 
 subject ; but that this or that is conceived or contemplated, 
 depends on the object. The objective contains the basis of 
 its existence within itself; the subjective appears as the still 
 and passive min-or, before which the objective floats. That 
 the first should reflect images, belongs to its own nature ; 
 that this or that is reflected, depends on the object. 
 
 Spirit. The subjective, then, is precisely so constituted as 
 thou hast described the consciousness of objects out of thyself 
 tobe? 
 
 /. It is so, and this agreement is very remarkable. I 
 1) 2 
 
52 THE DESTINATION OP MAN, 
 
 begin half to believe that out of the internal laws of my own 
 consciousness may proceed even the conception of an exist- 
 ence out of myself, and independent of any act of mine ; and 
 the basis of this conception may be nothing more than these 
 laws themselves. 
 
 Spirit. And why only half believe ? 
 
 I. Because I do not yet see why it should produce pre- 
 cisely this conception of a solid extended mass occupying a 
 certain portion of space. 
 
 Spirit. Thou hast nevertheless seen above that it is no 
 more than thine own sensation which thou extendest thi'ough 
 space, and thou hast imagined the possibility that it may be 
 exactly by this extension in space that it becomes transformed 
 to thee into something sensible. Por the present we have 
 only to explain the manner in which this conception of space 
 arises. Let us then make the attempt. I know that thou 
 canst not become conscious of thy intelligent activity as such 
 untü it passes through some change of state. If thou shouldst 
 attempt to represent it to thyself, whust perfonning this 
 function, — passing from one state to another, — ^how would it 
 appear to thee ? 
 
 I. My spiritual faculty appears as if moving from one 
 point to another — as if di-awing a line. A positive thought 
 makes a point in tliis line. 
 
 Spirit. And why as if drawing a Kne ? 
 
 /. I cannot answer this, or state the cause of it, without 
 passing the limits of my own existence. I can say only it 
 is so. 
 
 Spirit. Thus, then, appears to thee a particular act of thy 
 consciousness. How then appears, not thy self-produced, but 
 thy inherited or acquii'cd knowledge, from which all particulai- 
 thought is only the renewal or fm-ther modification ? Under 
 what image does this appear ? 
 
 I. Evidently as something in which one can draw lines 
 and make points in all dnections, namely, as space. 
 
 Spirit. Now then it wül be clear to thee, that what pro- 
 
KNOWLEDGE. 53 
 
 ceeds from tliine own mind may nevertheless appear to thee 
 as an existence out of thyself ; nay, must necessarily appear 
 so. Thou hast penetrated to the true source of thy concep- 
 tions of thinpjs out of thyself. This is not perception, for thou 
 perceivest only thine own state. It is not thought, for things 
 do not appear to thee as the product of thought. It is, really 
 and in fact, an absolute and immediate consciousness of an 
 existence out of thyself, just as perception is an immediate 
 consciousness of thine own state. Do not be deceived by so- 
 phists and half philosophers ; things do not appear to thee 
 by means of any representatives. Of the thing that exists, 
 and that can exist, thou art conscious immediately ; thou, 
 thyself, art that of which thou art conscious. By a funda- 
 mental law of thy being thou art thus presented to thyself, 
 and thi'own out of thyself. In aU consciousness I contem- 
 plate myself, and the objective, that which is contemplated, is 
 also myself, — the same I which contemplates, presented ob- 
 jectively. I see — and am the conscious being — see my own 
 visual sensation, and am also that of which I am conscious. 
 For this reason is the object transparent to thy mind's eye, 
 because it is thy mind itself. I divide, limit, determine the 
 possible forms of things, and the relations of these forms pre- 
 vious to aU perception ; and no wonder — for I divide, Umit, 
 and determine only my own knowledge. Thus does a know- 
 ledge of things become possible. It is not in them, and can- 
 not proceed out of them ; it proceeds from thee, and from a 
 law of thine own nature. 
 
 Tliere is no external sense, for there is no external percep- 
 tion. There is, however, an external contemplation — not of 
 the object — but of a knowledge not subjective — but presented 
 to, hovering before, the subject. Through the means of this 
 external contemplation are perception and sense regarded as 
 external. I see or feel a surface — but I contemplate my 
 sight or vision of a surface. Space — penetrable, transparent, 
 illuminated, the pm-est image of my knowledge, is not seen, 
 but contemplated in the mind, and in it is my own vision 
 
54 THE DESTINATION OF MAN. 
 
 contemplated. The light is not out of, but in me, and I am 
 the light. Thou hast formerly replied to my question, " How 
 dost thou know that thou seest and hearest ? " by saying that 
 thou hast an immediate knowledge or consciousness of these 
 sensations. Now, perhaps, thou wilt be better able to ex- 
 plain this immediate consciousness of sensation. 
 
 /. It must be a two-fold consciousness. Sensation is itself 
 an immediate consciousness, for I am sensible of my own 
 sensation ; but from this arises no knowledge of external ex- 
 istence, for I am sensible only of my own state. I am how- 
 ever, originally, not merely a sensitive, but also a contempla- 
 tive being ; not merely an active, but also an intelligent one. 
 I contemplate my sensation, and there arises from myself and 
 my ov/n natm'e, a knowledge, a cognition of an existence. 
 Sensation becomes transformed into a capability of sensation ; 
 the various affections of my senses, as red, smooth, and so 
 forth, into a sometJdng red, and smooth, out of myself, Avhose 
 existence I contemplate as in space, because the contempla- 
 tion itself is space. Thus does it become clear why I believe 
 I see or feel sm-faces, which, in fact, I neither see nor feel; 
 but I contemplate my own sensation of sight or touch as that 
 of a surface. 
 
 Sinrit. Thou hast well understood me, or rather thyself. 
 
CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 KNOWLEDGE. 
 
 /. It is then not at aU by means of an inference di'awn, 
 consciously or unconsciously, from the law of causality, that 
 the object appears to me ; it is immediately presented to my 
 consciousness without any process of reasoning. I cannot, as 
 I have just done, say that perception becomes transformed into 
 a something perceivable, for this is the fii'st in consciousness. 
 It is not of an affection of my own sight or touch, which I 
 call red, smooth, and so on, but of a red, smooth object I 
 am conscious. 
 
 Spirit. If, however, thou shouldst be obliged to explain 
 what is red, smooth, and the like, thou couldst not possibly 
 make any other reply than that it was that by which thou 
 wert affected in a certain manner ? 
 
 /. Certainly, if you ask me this question, and I make an 
 attempt to explain it. In fact, however, neither I nor any 
 one else asks this question. I forget myself entii-ely, and 
 lose myself in contemplation of the object. I am not con- 
 scious of my own state at all, but only of an existence out of 
 myself. Eed and green are properties or attributes of a 
 thing, and that is aU. The matter can be no fm-ther explained, 
 any mure than, according to what we have agreed on, my af- 
 fection can be further explained. This is most evident in the 
 affections of sight. Colom- appears as something out of my- 
 self, and it would never occur to a man of unsophisticated un- 
 derstanding to explain it as that which caused a certain affec- 
 tion or state of beinsr in himself. 
 
56 THE DESTINATION OF MAN. 
 
 Spirit. Assuredly, however, he would do so if we asked 
 what he meant by sweet or sour. We will not now stop to 
 inquire whether the sensation of sight is more than pure sen- 
 sation ; whether it may not be a something intermediate, be- 
 tween sensation and contemplation, and their connecting unk 
 in om" minds. I admit the assertion, and it is extremely 
 welcome to me. You can, indeed, lose yourself in contempla- 
 tion of the object, and without directing particular attention 
 to yom'self, or without interest for any particular external ac- 
 tion ; you do so natm-aUy and unavoidably. This is the re- 
 mark to which the defenders of a vain consciousness of exter- 
 nal things have recourse, when it is shown that the law of 
 causality, by which their existence might be inferred, exists 
 only in om-selves. They deny then that any such inference is 
 made, and, inasmuch as they refer to real consciousness in 
 certain cases, this cannot be disputed. These same defenders, 
 Avhen the nature of contemplation fi'om the laws of intelligence 
 itself is explained to them, di-aw themselves this inference, 
 and are never weary of repeating that there must be some- 
 thing external to us which compels us to make this inference. 
 
 I. Let us not concern om-selves about them at present, I 
 have no preconceived opinion, and seek only for truth. 
 
 Spirit. Contemplation necessarily proceeds from the per- 
 ception of thine own state, although there may not be at every 
 moment a clear consciousness of such a perception. Even in 
 that consciousness in wliich thou losest thyself entii-ely in the 
 object, there is still something wliich is only possible from a 
 close observation of thine own state. 
 
 /. That is to say, that at aU times the consciousness of ex- 
 istence out of myself is accompanied by an unobser\-ed con- 
 sciousness of my own state of being — the first dependent on 
 the latter. Is it not so ? 
 
 Spirit. This is my meaning. 
 
 I. Prove this to me, and I shall be satisfied. 
 
 Spirit. Dost thou regard objects as placed generally in 
 space, or as each occupying a certain portion of space ? 
 
KNOWLEDGE. 57 
 
 I. The latter — for every object has its determinate size. 
 
 Spirit. And do various objects fall in the same part of 
 space ? 
 
 /. By no means. They exclude each other. They are 
 over or under, behind or before, one another. Nearer to me, 
 or further fi'om me. 
 
 Spirit. And how dost thou come to this measm-ement and 
 arrangement of space ? Is it by sensation ? 
 
 /. How can it be, since space itself is no sensation ? 
 
 Spirit. Or is it by contemplation ? 
 
 I. This cannot be, for contemplation is immediate and in- 
 fallible. What is contemplated does not appear as brought 
 forth and cannot deceive. But I midertake to estimate the size 
 and distances of objects, and their positions with respect to 
 others ; and it is known to every tyro that we first see aU 
 objects in the same lin«, and learn to calculate their greater 
 or lesser distances. An infant stretches out its hand towards 
 distant objects as if they lay immediately before him, and one 
 bornblindwho should suddenly receive sight would do the same. 
 
 This representation of distances is therefore a judgment 
 formed by means of the understanding. I may err in my 
 estimation, and what are called optical deceptions are not 
 deceptions of sight, but eiToneous judgments formed con- 
 cerning the size of objects and the various relations between 
 them, and consequently concerning their true figm-e and 
 distance. The object is really as I behold it in space, and 
 the colom- which I observe is hkewise real— in this there is 
 no deception. 
 
 Spirit, And what is then the principle of this judgment — 
 to take the easiest case — how do you judge of the distances 
 of objects ? 
 
 /. Doubtless by the greater strength or feebleness of im- 
 pressions otherwise similar. I see before me two objects of 
 the same red colom*; the one whose colour appears the 
 fainter, I regard as the more distant, and as much more 
 distant as it is fainter. ^ . /^^ ■i ; 
 
58 THE DESTINATION OF MAN, 
 
 Spirit. Therefore it is according to the degree of strengtL. 
 in the impression. And how then do you estimate this 
 degree of strength ? 
 
 I. Obviously, by my observation of the manner in which 
 I am affected, and, moreover, by very slight differences in the 
 mode of my affection. 
 
 Thou hast conquered ! AH consciousness of objects out of 
 myself is determined by a clear and exact consciousness of 
 my OAvn state, and I reason from the effect produced in me to 
 the cause of this effect out of myself. 
 
 Spirit. Thou hast yielded so quickly, that I must now 
 carry on the argument against myself in thy name. My 
 proof can hold no further than for those cases in which an 
 actual consideration and estimate of the size, distance, and 
 position of objects takes place. In most instances, however, 
 a judgment is formed of the size and distance of an object 
 at the very moment in which it is perceived. 
 
 /. When we have once learned to estimate distances by the 
 strength of the impression, the rapidity of the judgment is 
 merely the consequence of its frequent exercise. I . have 
 learnt by a lifelong experience to calculate distance by this 
 means, and the representation that I now make of them is 
 combined of sensation, contemplation, and former judgTaents, 
 of the last of which only I am conscious. I do not any 
 longer see a red or a gTeen out of myself, but a red and 
 a green at different distances ; and this last addition is merely a 
 renewal of a judgment formerly attained by a reasoning process. 
 
 Spirit. Is it not then now become clear, whether the 
 existence of objects out of thyself is discovered by 
 reasoning, or intuitively contemplated, or obtained by a com- 
 bination of both ? 
 
 /. Perfectly ; and I believe that I have now obtained the 
 fullest insight into the origin of the representation of objects 
 out of myself. Fh-st, then, I am, simply because I am con- 
 scious that I am, conscious of my existence as an intelligent, 
 practical being. 
 
KNOWLEDGE. 5« 
 
 The first consciousness is sensation, the second contem- 
 plation — imlimited space. 
 
 What is unlimited I cannot comprehend, for I am finite. I 
 limit, therefore, by my thought a certain portion of the universal 
 space, and place the former in a certain relation to the latter. 
 
 Thirdly, My own sensation forms the scale by which I 
 measm-e this limited portion of space. Wliat afiects me in 
 , such or such a manner, stands in such or such a relation to 
 other things affecting me. The properties or attributes of the 
 object proceed from the consciousness of my own sensations, 
 the space which it fills from intuitive contemplation. By a 
 process of thought, both are united in one, and by the act 
 of my own mind, by which it is viewed as in space, that 
 wliich was merely a state or aflection of my own being be- 
 comes an attribute of the object. It is, however, placed in 
 space, not by intuitive contemplation, but by thought, by the 
 measming and regulating power of. thought. Not that this 
 act is to be regarded as a creation by thought, bu.t merely a 
 limitation of a given product of contemplation and sensa- 
 tion. 
 
 Spifit. What affects me in such or such a manner is to be 
 ■placed in such or such a relation. This is the process fol- 
 lowed in arranging and measuring objects in space. But in 
 declaring that it affects thee in a certain manner, do we not 
 assume that it affects thee generally ? 
 
 /. Doubtless we do. 
 
 Spirit. And is any representation of an external object 
 possible, which is not in this manner limited and defined in 
 space ? 
 
 J. No ; for an object is not generally in space, but each one 
 in a limited portion of space. 
 
 Spirit. Therefore in fact, whether consciously or not, every 
 external object is represented by thee as affecting thyself, as 
 certainly as it is represented as filling a certain portion of 
 space ? 
 
 /. That follows, certainly. 
 
60 THE DESTINATION OF MAN, 
 
 Spirit. And what kind of representation is that of an 
 object aifecting thyself ? 
 
 /. Evidently an act of thought ; and of thought according 
 to the law of causality above mentioned. I see now stul 
 more clearly that the consciousness of an object is doubly 
 united to my self-consciousness, by intuitive contemplation, 
 and by thought according to the law of causality. 
 
 Spirit. It must then be possible for thee to become con- 
 scious of this act of thought ? 
 
 /.■ Doubtless it must ; although usually I am not so. 
 Spirit. To this passive state, this affection of thyself there- 
 fore, thou must add the supposition of an activity out of thy- 
 self, such as thou hast before described in reference to the law 
 of causality ? 
 /. I must. 
 
 Spirit. And with the same validity, and the same signifi- 
 cation as before. Thou canst not think otherwise, and canst 
 know nothing more than that thou dost think so ? 
 /. Nothing more. This we have abeady seen. 
 Spirit. In so much then the object is the product of thy 
 thought ? 
 
 /. Certainly, for this follows from the former premises. 
 Spirit. And what then is this object discovered by the idea 
 of causality? 
 
 I. K force existing out of myself. 
 
 Spirit. Which is neither discovered by the sensation nor by 
 contemplation ? 
 
 /. No ; I am always perfectly conscious that I do not per- 
 ceive it immediately, but only by means of its manifestations ; 
 although I ascribe to it an existence independent of my own. 
 I am afiected, and I infer that there must be something that 
 affects me. 
 
 Spirit. The object intuitively contemplated, therefore, is very 
 different from the object of the understanding. The one ap- 
 pears before thee extended in space ; the other, the inward 
 force, is discovered only by a process of reasoning. 
 
KNOWLEDGE. 61 
 
 /. I place this force also in space, and connect it with the 
 extended mass which I contemplate. 
 
 Spirit. And what then is, according to thy view, the rela- 
 tion subsisting between it and the mass ? 
 
 I. The mass, with its properties, is itself the effect and 
 manifestation of the inward force. This force has a twofold 
 operation ; one by which it maintains itself, in a certain defi- 
 nite foim ; another, by which it appears and afl:ects me in a 
 certain manner. 
 
 Spirit. Thou hast formerly sought for a supporter of attri- 
 butes, other than the space containing them ; a something 
 permanent amidst the vicissitudes of perpetual change ? 
 
 /. I have, and this something permanent is found. It is 
 this force itself, which endm-es for ever, assiuning and sup- 
 porting aU change. 
 
 Spirit. Let us now cast a glance back on what we have 
 ^tablished. Thou findest thyself in a certain state, affected 
 in a certain manner, which thou callest red, smooth, sweet, 
 and so on. Dost thou know more in this case, than simply 
 that thou art thus affected, that such a sensation exists ? 
 /. I do not. 
 
 Spirit. Further, by a law of thy nature as an intelligence, a 
 space is conceived by thee ; or dost thou know more than 
 this concerning this matter ? 
 I. By no means. 
 
 Spirit. Between this state or sensation of which thou 
 art conscious, and that conception of space, there is not 
 the smallest connection except that which exists in thy con- 
 sciousness itself. Or dost thou perceive any other ? 
 /. I see none. 
 
 Spirit. Thou art, however, a reasoning as well as a con- 
 templative, and a sensitive being. Thou dost not merely 
 feel thy state or sensation, it is also present to thy thought, 
 and thou findest thyself compelled to assume a cause ex- 
 isting out of thyself, a foreign force. Dost thou know more 
 of this than that such an inference is imavoidable ? 
 
62 THE DESTINATION OP MAN. 
 
 I. I can know no more tlian that I am compelled to thin 1c 
 this by an inevitable law of my own thought. 
 
 Spirit. Through this thy thought, first arises a connection, 
 between the sensation which thou feelest, and the space intui- 
 tively contemplated by thee. Thou refen-est to the latter the 
 cause of the former. Or is it not so ? 
 
 /. It is so. Thou hast clearly proved that I effect this 
 connection by the process of my own thought, and that it 
 is neither felt nor contemplated. Of any connection beyond 
 the limits of my consciousness I cannot speak. I cannot 
 proceed a hair's breadth further, any more than I can spring 
 out of myself. To attempt to represent a connection between 
 things in themselves, with the / in itself, is to ignore the 
 natm-e of thought, or to speak of that as thought, which no 
 one can ever think. 
 
 8])irit. From thee then I need fear no contradiction when 
 I say, that om* consciousness of external existence is abso- 
 lutely nothing but the product of om- own faculty of presenta- 
 tion, and that we know nothing more of external objects than 
 that we have a certain determinate consciousness of them sub- 
 ject to certain laws. 
 
 I. I cannot deny this. It is so. 
 
 Sj)irit. Canst thou aught object to the bolder statement of 
 the same proposition ; that in that which we call intuiti^'e 
 knowledge or contemplation of the external world, we con- 
 template only om-selves, and that om- consciousness is and can 
 be only a consciousness of the modifications of our own ex- 
 istence ? 
 
 I say also thou wilt not be able to advance aught against 
 the assertion, that if the external world generally arises for 
 us only thi-ough our o-wn consciousness, what is individual 
 and particular in this external world can arise in no other 
 manner ; and if the connection between what is external to 
 us and om'selves is merely a connection in om* OAvn thought, 
 then is the connection of the maiüfold objects of the external 
 world, this and no other. As clearly as I have shovm thee 
 
KNOWLEDGE. 63 
 
 the origin of this general presentation of objects beyond thy- 
 self could I -also show how there arises an infinite multiplicity 
 of objects, mutually related, determining each other with rigid 
 necessity, and forming a complete system, such as thou thyself 
 hast weU described. I spare myself this task however, since 
 I find that thou hast abeady arrived at the result for the sake 
 of which alone I should have undertaken it. 
 
 I. I see this result, and must submit to it. 
 
 Spirit. And with this insight, mortal, be for ever free from 
 the fear which has been to thee a som-ce of torment and 
 humiliation ! Tremble no longer at a necessity which exists 
 only in thine own thought ! fear no longer to be overwhelmed 
 by things which are the product of thine own mind, to find 
 thyself the thinking being placed in one class, with what is 
 brought forth t)y tliine own thoughts. As long as thou 
 couldst beheve that a system of things such as thou hast 
 described, really existed out of and independently of thyself, 
 and that thou wert but a link in this great chain, such a fear 
 might be weU grounded. ISTow that thou hast seen that aU this 
 exists but in thee and through thee, thou wilt doubtless no 
 longer fear that which is but the creature of thine own mind. 
 Prom this fear I mshed to free thee, and I leave thee now to 
 thyself. 
 
CHAPTER IX. 
 
 KNOWLEDGE. 
 
 /. Stay, false Spirit : is this the wisdom thou hast promised 
 me? Thou first fi-eed me indeed from all dependence by- 
 transforming me and all that suiTOunds me into a phantom, 
 into nothing. Thou hast loosened the bonds of necessity by 
 annihilating all existence. 
 
 Spirit. Is the danger so great ? 
 
 /. And thou canst jest ! According to thy system. 
 
 Spirit. My system ! We have toiled together in its erec- 
 tion. Thou hast seen aU as clearly as myself. It would be 
 hard for thee at present to enter fully into my system of 
 thought. 
 
 I. CaU it by Avhat name thou wilt, om- inquiries have 
 ended in blank nothingness. Presentation, modification of 
 consciousness ! Mere consciousness is but an image, a 
 shade without reality : in itself it cannot satisfy me, and has not 
 the smaUest worth. I might endiu-e to see this material world 
 without me vanish into a mere pictm-e, and be dissolved into 
 a shadow ; but my own personal existence vanishes Avith it. 
 It becomes a mere series of sensations and thoughts mthout 
 end or aim. Is it not so ? 
 
 Spirit. I say nothing in my own name. Examine — inves- 
 tigate — help thyself. 
 
 I. I appear to myself as a body existing in space, \vith 
 organs of sense, capacities of action, a physical force governed 
 by a win. Thou wilt say, as thou hast before said, of objects 
 out of myself, that it is a combined product of sensation, 
 thought and intuitive contemplation. As I have been com- 
 
KNOWLEDGE. 65 
 
 pelled to admit that what I call red, sweet, hard, and so on, is 
 nothing more than an affection of my own organs, and that 
 only by contemplation and thought it is placed in space, and 
 regarded as a property of a thing existing independently of 
 me, so shall I also be compelled to admit that this corporeal 
 frame, with its organs of sense, is but a sensualization of my 
 inward thinking self ; that I, the spiritual pm-e intelligence, 
 and I, the corporeal frame in the corporeal world, are one and 
 the same, merely viewed from different points, conceived by 
 two different faculties — that of pm-e thought, and external con- 
 templation. 
 
 Spirit. This wul certainly be the result of any inquiry that 
 may be instituted. 
 
 I. And this thinking, willing, intelligent being, however 
 thou mayst name it, possessed of these faculties of thought, 
 volition, and so forth, in whom these faculties rest, — how shall 
 I have attained a knowledge of it ? Is it by immediate con- 
 sciousness ? This cannot be ; for I am conscious only of spe- 
 cial acts of thought, volition, he, but not of the capacities 
 through which they are performed, far less of a being in whom 
 these capacities rest. I contemplate the specific thought 
 which occupies the present or the succeeding moment, and 
 there tliis intellectual contemplation ceases. This inward 
 contemplation again becomes an object of thought ; but ac- 
 pording to the laws by which tliis thought acts, it is but a 
 half and imperfect thought, as the thought of my state dm-ing 
 sensation was only a half thought. As formerly to the pas- 
 sive receptivity I added in thought an active power, so here 
 to the determinate thought or wul of any specific moment, I 
 add a determinable, — an infinite, manifold possible thought or 
 will. This manifold possibility of thought I conceive as one 
 definite whole, and thus arises the idea of a finite power of 
 thought, a something different from the thought itself, a being 
 or essence possessing this power. But on higher principles, 
 it is conceivable that this thinking essence may be produced 
 
66 THE DESTINATION OF MAN. 
 
 by thoiiglit itself. Thought in general is creative ; intui- 
 tive contemplation gives the naked fact, and nothing more. 
 Thought explains this fact, and unites it to another, not found 
 in intuition, but produced pm-ely by thought itself. I am 
 conscious of a certain thought ; thus far, and no farther, does 
 intuitive consciousness proceed. I think this thought, that 
 is, I call it forth from an indeterminate possibility to deter- 
 minate existence ; and thus do I with every determinate act or 
 thought of which I am conscious, and thus arise for me those 
 series of powers or capacities, and of beings possessing them, 
 which I assume. 
 
 S])irit. Even with respect to thyself, therefore, thou art only 
 conscious of this or that determinate state of sensation, con- 
 templation, or thought ? 
 
 /. That / feel, I contemplate, / think ? as the real founda- 
 tion of the thought, contemplation, or sensation? By no 
 means ! Not even so much as this have thy principles left me. 
 
 Spirit. Very possibly. 
 
 I. Nay, of necessity. All that I know is my consciousness. 
 All consciousness is either immediate or mediate. The tu'st is 
 self-consciousness ; the second, consciousness of that which is 
 not myself. What I call /, is therefore absolutely nothing 
 but a certain modification of consciousness, immediate, and 
 retui-ning into itself, instead of being dii-ected outward. 
 Since this is the necessary condition of aU consciousness, 
 it must, whether perceptibly or not, accompany all other, and 
 therefore do I refer aU thought to this I and not to the thing 
 thought of out of me. Otherwise the / would at every 
 moment vanish, and for every new conception a new I would 
 arise, and I woiüd never mean anything more than not tJie 
 thing. 
 
 This scattered self-consciousness is united by thought itself, 
 into the unity of the supposed capacity or power of thought. 
 According to this supposition, aU conceptions of which I am 
 immediately conscious, proceed fi-om one and the same power, 
 
KNOWLEDGE, 67 
 
 which, rests in one and the same being, and thus arises for me 
 the idea of personal identity and of the real and effective 
 power of this personality — necessarily a mere fiction, since the 
 personality itself is a fiction. 
 
 Spirit. Thou reasonest correctly, 
 
 /. And thou canst find satisfaction in this ! How can I 
 truly say / feel, I think, I contemplate ? It would be more 
 correct to say, " it is felt," " it is thought," and so on ; nay, if 
 stul more cautious, it would be better to say, " the thought 
 appears," so much only is tiody known — the rest is merely a 
 supposition — a fiction. 
 
 Spirit. It is well expressed. 
 
 I. There is nothing endming, permanent, either in me or 
 out of me, nothing but everlasting change. I know of no ex- 
 istence, not even of my own. I know nothing and am no- 
 thing. Images — pictm-es — only are, pictiu'es which wander by 
 without anything existing past which they wander, without 
 any corresponding reality which they might represent, with, 
 out significance and without aim. I myself am one of these 
 images, or rather a confused image of these images. AU 
 reality is transformed into a strange di-eam, without a world 
 of which the dream might be, or a mind that might di-eam it. 
 Contemplation is a di-eam ; thought, the source of all exist- 
 ence and of all that I fancied reality, of my own existence, 
 my own capacities, is a dream of that di-eam. 
 
 Spirit. Thou hast well understood aU. Use the sharpest 
 words thou canst find to make this result hateful, it is never- 
 theless unavoidable, unless thou wilt, perhaps retract, the ad- 
 mission thou hast made ? 
 
 /. By no means. I have seen, and now see clearly, that it 
 is so, yet I cannot believe it. 
 
 Spirit. Thou seest it clearly, yet cannot believe it ? That 
 is strange ! 
 
 I. Ruthless, mocking spirit ! I owe thee no thanks for hav- 
 ing guided me on tliis path ! 
 
68 THE DESTINATION OF MAN. 
 
 Spirit. Shortsighted mortal ! Thus is it ever with thy race. 
 Didst thou suppose that these results were less evident to me 
 than to thyself, and that I did not beforehand clearly see, how 
 by these principles aU reality was annihilated, aU existence 
 transformed into a dream ? Didst thou take me for an admirer 
 of this system, or suppose that I regarded it as a complete 
 system of the human mind ? 
 
 Thou hast sought to know, and thou hast chosen a 
 wrong path. Thou hast sought knowledge where no know- 
 ledge can reach, and hadst persuaded thyself that thou 
 hadst obtained an insight into that which by its very nature 
 cannot admit of it. I found thee in this state of mind, 
 I wished to free thee from thy false knowledge, but by no 
 means to bring thee the true. 
 
 Thou wouldst know thine own knowledge. Is it won- 
 derful that in this attempt thou hast discovered nothing 
 more? What is discovered by and through knowledge, is 
 nothing more than knowledge. All knowledge consists of 
 representations, images, and thou hast asked for some 
 correlative to these images. This demand cannot be satis- 
 fied by knowledge; a system of mere knowledge, is a 
 system of mere pictures, without reality, significance or 
 object. 
 
 The reality in which thou hast formerly believed, the sen- 
 suous material world of which thou hast feared to be the 
 slave, has vanished, for the sensuous world arises to thee 
 only thi-ough knowledge, and is itself thy knowledge. Thou 
 hast seen the delusion, and mthout denjing thy better insight, 
 canst never again be deceived by it. This is the sole merit 
 of the system at which we have toiled together ; it destroys 
 and anniliilates eiTor. It can give no trath, for it is absolutely 
 empty. Thou seekest, as I weU know, something real and 
 permanent lying beyond these mere appearances, a different 
 kind of reality from that which has been even now annihilated. 
 But in vain dost thou seek this through thy knowledge. 
 
KNOWLEDGE. 69 
 
 Hast thou no other organ by which to apprehend it ? If not 
 it will never be found by thee. 
 
 Thou hast however such an organ ; let it be thy care to 
 awaken and vivify it, and thou wHt attain the most perfect 
 tranquuhty, I leave thee now to thyself. 
 
CHAPTER X. 
 
 Terrible Spirit, thy words have crushed me. But thou 
 lifist referred me to myself, and what were I, could anjihing 
 out of myself iiTecoverably cast me down ? 
 
 How is it that my heart revolts at a system against wliich 
 my understanding can object nothing ? It is that I require 
 something beyond these mere images or mental conceptions, 
 something that is and would be if the conception were not, 
 and which the conception takes cognisance of, without in the 
 smallest degree affecting. A mere conception is a delusion, 
 and if my entire knowledge be nothing more, I am defi'auded 
 of my life. That nothing exists but ideas, conceptions, is, to 
 the common sense of mankind, a laughable absm-dity. To 
 the more instructed judgment, awai'e of the deep, and, by 
 mere reasoning, irrefragable gromids for such an assertion, it is 
 an overwhelming, an annihilating thought. 
 
 And what is then this something lying beyond aU concep- 
 tion, towards which I look mth such ardent longing ? "What 
 is the power which draws me towards it ? What is the cen- 
 tral point in my soul with which it is united ? 
 
 Not merely to know, but according to thy knowledge to do, 
 is the destiny of man. " Not for leism^ely contemplation of 
 thyself, not to brood over devout sensations, art thou here. 
 Thine action, thine action alone, determines thy worth." 
 
 This voice, which somids fi-om the innermost recesses of my 
 soul, leads me out of mere knowledge, to something hing 
 beyond and entirely opposed to it ; something which is higher 
 
FAITH. 71 
 
 than all knowledge, and contains within itself the end and 
 object of all knowledge. 
 
 If I shall act, I shall doubtless know that I act, and how 
 I act ; but this knowledge wül not be itself the act, but wiU 
 merely behold it. Tliis voice then announces to me what I 
 sought, a something lying beyond knowledge, and in its 
 natm-e entirely independent of it. Thus it is, I know this 
 immediately, intuitively, but I have entered on the territories 
 of speculation, and doubt once awakened wül continue secretly 
 to disturb me, unless I can justify my belief even before this 
 tribunal. I must ask myself therefot-e, how is it thus? 
 Whence arises that voice in my soul which leads me beyond 
 the boundaries of knowledge ? 
 
 There is in me an impulse to absolute independent self- 
 activity. Nothing is more insupportable to me, than to be 
 merely by another, for another, and through another. 
 
 I vnR be something by my own unaided effort. This im- 
 pulse is inseparably united with my self-consciousness. 
 
 I endeavom- to explain this feeling, to give sight to this 
 blind impulse by thought. It m-ges me to independent 
 action. Who am I? Subject and object in one — contem- 
 plating and contemplated, thinking and thought of. As both 
 must I have become what I am ; as both must I originate 
 ideas, and produce a state or mode of being beyond them. 
 I ascribe to myself as an intelligence the power of originating 
 the idea of a purpose, and furtlier of manifesting this idea in 
 action ; a real effective productive power, which is something 
 quite different from the capacity of ideal conception. Those 
 ideas of purpose or design are not, like the ideas of knowledge, 
 imitations or representations of something already given, but 
 much rather types of something yet to be produced. The 
 power or force which produces them lies beyond them, and 
 only becomes manifest in them. Such an independent 
 energy it is that in consequence of this impulse I ascribe to 
 myself. 
 
 Here then, it appears, does the consciousness of all reality 
 
72 THE DESTINATION OF MAN. 
 
 begin; the real eflBcacy of my idea, and the real power of 
 action which in consequence of it I am compelled to ascribe 
 to myself, commences at this point. Let it be as it may with 
 the reality of the sensual world, I have reality in myself. 
 
 I can make this active power the subject of thought, but I 
 do not produce it fi-om my thought. The immediate feeling 
 of this impulse to activity lies at the foundation of my thought, 
 and thought does no more than conceive this feeling accord- 
 ing to its own laws. 
 
 Tet let me pause ! Shall I wilfally and iutentionaUy 
 deceive myself? Can this be justified before the tribunarof 
 speculation ? I feel indeed an impulse towards external action, 
 and since it is I who feel this impulse, and neither vsdth my 
 feeling nor my consciousness I can pass out of myself, it ap- 
 pears that the fundamental basis of this impulse is in myself, 
 that it is a self-originated activity. Might it not be however 
 that this impulse, although I cannot perceive it, is in reality the 
 impulse of a to me iavisible, foreign power ? and the idea of 
 my free activity, a delusion consequent on the naiTo-wness of 
 my sphere of vision ? I have no reason to suppose this, but 
 also no reason to deny it. I must acknowledge that I abso- 
 lutely know nothing and can know nothing of it. 
 
 Do I then really feel within myself that power of fi-ee ac- 
 tion, which, strangely enough, I ascribe to myself mthout 
 knowing anything of it ? 
 
 By no means ; for it is merely that something determinable, 
 which, according to the well-kno\vn laws of. thought, is sup- 
 posed as the som'ce of all that is determinate. 
 
 Is that impulse towards the imagined realization of an idea 
 anything more than the usual process in aU objective think- 
 ing, which always seeks to appear something more than mere 
 thinking ? Why shoidd it be more in this case than in the 
 other ? I feel this impulse I say, and think this since I say 
 it. Do I then really feel it, or only tliink I feel it ? Is not 
 aU that I call feeling really a presentation of objective thought 
 and the first transition point of aU objectivity ? And do I 
 
FAITH. 73 
 
 then really think, or do I merely dream that I think ? What 
 can hinder the everlasting continuance of such questions ? 
 At what point can they be forced to stop ? I must confess 
 that at every step in the manifestations of consciousness it is 
 possible to stop, and by reflection lieget a new consciousness, 
 and that thereby the fii'st immediate consciousness is diiven 
 a step fiu-ther back, and darkened and made doubtful, and 
 that to this ladder there is no highest step. I know that the 
 system which has so revolted me, as well as all scepticism, 
 rests on the clear consciousness of this procedm-e. 
 
 I know that according to this system I must refuse obe- 
 dience to that voice which seems to speak from my soul. I 
 cannot tcill to act, for according to that system I cannot knoio 
 whether I do really act or not : that Avhich seems my action, 
 must as a mere pictm-e, perhaps a delusive picture, be per- 
 fectly indiiferent to me. AU interest, all earnestness, is eifaced 
 from my life, and life and thought are transformed into a mere 
 play, proceeding from nothing and tending to nothing. 
 
 Shall I then refuse obedience to that voice ? I will not. 
 I will freely jaeld myself to the destiny towards wliich this 
 impulse points, and will find in this resolution the truth and 
 reahty of thought, as weU as aU other truth and reahty which 
 it supposes. I will keep within the limits of sound natural 
 thought where this impulse has placed me, and renounce aU 
 those subtile investigations and refined sophistries which alone 
 could make me doubt of its truth. 
 
 I understand thee now, sublime Spirit ! I have found the 
 organ by which to apprehend this reality, and probably all 
 other. It is not knowledge, for knowledge can only demon- 
 strate and -establish itself; every knowledge supposes some 
 higher knowledge on which it is founded, and of this ascent 
 there is no end. It is Faith, that voluntary reposing on the 
 views naturally presenting themselves to us, because tlirough 
 these views only we can fulfil our destiny ; which approves of 
 knowledge, and raises to certainty and conviction that which 
 
 E 
 
74 THE DESTINATION OF MAN. 
 
 witliout it might be mere delusion. It is no knowledge, but 
 a resolution of the will to admit this knowledge. This is no 
 mere verbal distinction, but a true and deep one, pregnant 
 with the most important consequences for my whole character. 
 Let me for ever hold fast by it. AU my conviction is but 
 faith, and it proceeds from the heart, and not from the under- 
 standing. Knowing this, I wiU enter into no dispute, for I 
 foresee that in this way nothing can be gained. I wül not 
 suffer my conviction to be distm-bed by it, for its soiu'ce lies 
 higher than all disputation ; I will not endeavom- by reason- 
 ing to press my conviction on others, or will not be discom-aged 
 if such an undertaking should fail. I have adopted my mode 
 of thinking for myself, and not for others, and to myself only 
 need I justify it. Whoever has the same upright intention, 
 WÜ1 also attain the same or a simuar conviction ; and without 
 it, this is impossible. Now that I know tliis, I also know 
 from what point aU cultm-e of myself and others must pro- 
 ceed ; fi-om the wiU, and not from the imderstanding. Let 
 the fu'st only be fii'mly directed towards the good, the latter 
 will of itself apprehend the true. Should the latter be ex- 
 ercised and developed whilst the fii'st remains neglected, 
 nothing can come of it but a facility in vain and endless 
 sophistical refinements, into the absolute void inane. Now 
 that I know this, I am able to confute all false knowledge that 
 might raise itself against my faith, for I know that every 
 seeming truth, born of thought alone, and not idtimately 
 resting on faith, is false and spurious ; for knowledge, pm-ely 
 and simply such, when carried out to its utmost consequences, 
 leads to the comdction that we can know nothing. Such 
 knowledge never finds anything in the conclusions that it has 
 not previously placed in the premises by faith, and even tlien 
 its conclusions are not always correct. In this I possess the 
 test of all truth and of all couAdction ; truth originates in the 
 conscience, and what contradicts its authority, or renders 
 us unwilling or incapable of rendering obedience to this 
 authority, is most certainly fiilse, shoiüd I even be un- 
 
able to discover the fallacies through which it is accom- 
 pMshed. 
 
 Thus also has it been with every human creature, who has 
 been born into the world. Uncojisciously they have aU seized 
 on the reality which exists for them only thi'ough faith, and 
 this intuitive faith forces itself on them simultaneously with 
 theh' existence. If in mere knowledge, in mere perception 
 and thought, we can discover no ground for regarding our 
 mental presentations as more than mere pictures, why do we 
 aU nevertheless regard them as more, and imagine for them 
 a basis, a substratum independent of all their modifications ? 
 If we all possess the capacity and the instinct to go beyond 
 this natm-al view of things, why do so few foUow this instinct, 
 exercise this capacity, nay, even resist, with a sort of bitterness, 
 when one seeks to urge them towards tliis path? ^Miat holds 
 them imprisoned in these natural boundaries ? Not inferences 
 of reason, for there are none which could do this. It is our 
 deep interest in reality that does this ; in the good that is to 
 be produced, in the common and sensuous that is to be enjoyed. 
 From this interest, this concern in reahty, can no one who 
 lives detach himself, and just as little from the faith which 
 that brings with it. We are aU. born in faith, and he who is 
 blind, follows blindly the secret and ii'resistible attraction ; 
 he who sees, follows by sight, and believes because he vidll 
 believe. 
 
 What unity and completeness, what dignity, does our 
 human natm-e receive from this view. Om- thought is not 
 based on itself, independently of our instincts and inclinations ; 
 man does not consist of two existences running parallel to 
 each other ; he is absolutely one. Om- entire system of 
 thought is founded on intuition, and as is the heart of the in- 
 dividual, so is his knowledge. Our instinct forces on us a 
 certain mode of thought, only so long as we do not perceive 
 the constraint ; the moment the constraint appears, it vanishes, 
 and it is no longer the instinct by itself, but we ourselves 
 through our instinct, who form our system of thought. 
 E 2 ' 
 
76 THE DESTINATION OF MAN. 
 
 But it is appointed that I sliaU open my eyes ; shall learn 
 to know myself ; shall perceive the constraint, and that I shall 
 thus of necessity form my own mode of thought. I am 
 absolutely free — the source of my own spii-itual life as of my 
 thought. I wotdd not that my character should be the pro- 
 duction of Natm'e, but of myself, and I have become that which 
 I would be. 
 
 By the unlimited pm-suit of sophistical subtilties I might 
 have darkened and made doubtful the natui-al view of my own 
 spiritual nature, but I have chosen the system I have now 
 adopted with foresight and deliberation from other possible 
 modes of thought, because I regarded it as the most worthy 
 the dignity of my natm'e and destiny. Freely and consciously 
 1 have retm-ned to the point at which Nature had abandoned 
 me. I admit her declaration, not because I must, but because 
 I will. 
 
 The noble destiny to which my understanding is appointed, 
 fills me with reverence. It no longer serves merely to call 
 forth an endless succession of representations proceeding from 
 nothing and tending to irothing ; it is entrusted to me for a 
 great purpose. Its cultivation to this end is confided to my 
 hands, and wiU be at my hands again required. I know im- 
 mediately, and my faith requii-es no fm-ther confu'mation of 
 this than my immediate consciousness that I am not necessi- 
 tated to a blind and aimless succession of thoughts, but that 
 I can voluntarily dii-ect my attention to one object, and turn 
 it from another ; that it is I who think, and that I can choose 
 the subject of my thought. By reflection I have fomid that my 
 whole manner of thinking, and the views which I take of truth, 
 depend only on myself, since I can choose whether I wül go 
 on siibtihsing tiU I lose aU. power of recognising truth, or whe- 
 ther I wiU jdeld myself to it with faithful obedience. My 
 mode of thinking, the cultivation of my understanding, and 
 the objects to which I dii-ect, it depend enth-ely on my will. 
 True insight is merit ; the perversion of my capacity for know- 
 ledge, thoughtlessness, error, and unbelief, are culpable. 
 
FAITH. 77 
 
 There is but one point towards which I should unceasingly- 
 direct my thoughts, — ^namely, what is appointed for me to do, 
 and what is the most suitable mode of doing it. 
 
 My thoughts must bear relation to my actions, and must be 
 regarded as means to this end, otherwise they are idle and 
 aimless, a mere waste of time and strength, and the perversion 
 of a noble power. 
 
 I may hope, I may sm'ely promise myself success in this 
 pui'pose. The Natm-e on which I have to act is not a system 
 foreign to myself, into which I cannot penetrate. It is regu- 
 lated by my own laws of thought, and cannot but agree with 
 them ; its interior must be transparent, penetrable, and cog- 
 noscible to me. It expresses everyw^here nothing more than 
 the relations of my own being, and I may hope as certainly to 
 know it as to know myself. Let me seek only what I should 
 seek, and I shall find; let me ask only what I should ask, and 
 I shall receive an answer. 
 
 The voice in my soul in which I will have faith, and for the 
 sake of which I have faith in all else, does not merely com- 
 mand me generally to act, but in every particular situation it 
 declares what I shall do and what leave undone ; it accom- 
 panies me through every event of my life, and it is impossible 
 for me to contend against it. To listen to it and obey it 
 honestly and impartially, without fear or equivocation, is the 
 business of my existence. My life is no longer an empty 
 play without truth or significance. It is appointed that what 
 conscience ordains me shall be done, and for this pui-pose am 
 I here. I have understanding to know, and power to exe- 
 cute it. 
 
 By conscience alone comes truth and reality into my repre- 
 sentations. I cannot refuse to it my attention and my obedi- 
 ence, if I would not renounce the end of my existence. It is 
 true, and the foundation of all other truth and reality, thai its 
 voice is to be obeyed, and consequently aU is true which is 
 assumed in the possibility of such an obedience. 
 
 There appear before me in space, certain phsenomena, to 
 
7ö THE DESTINATION OF MAN. 
 
 wliich I transfer the idea of myself. I conceive them as 
 being like myself. A certain speculative system has indeed 
 taught me, or would teach me, that these rational beings out 
 of myself are but the productions of my own power of re- 
 presentative perception; that according to the laws of my 
 thought I am compelled to carry my ideas thus out of myself, 
 and that by the same laws I can only apply them to certain 
 conceptions of space, time and the like. But the law of my 
 conscience requii'es me to regard them as free substantive 
 existences, enth-ely independent of myself, and declares that 
 the purposes of theii- being lie in themselves, and that I dare 
 by no means interfere with their fidfilment, nay, that I am 
 bound to forward it to the utmost of my power. It com- 
 mands me to reverence their freedom, and to sympathise in 
 theii' destiny as similar to my own. In this maimer wül and 
 must I act towards them, if I have resolved to obey the voice 
 of my conscience ; and regarding them from this point, 
 the speculations wliich perplexed me vanish like an empty 
 dream. I think of them as beings like myself I have said ; 
 but strictly speaking, it is not by mere thought that they are 
 presented to me as such. It is by the voice of my con- 
 science saying, "Tliis is the limit of thy fi-eedom; here 
 know and reverence the aims of others." This is but 
 translated into the thought, here is another being fi-ee and 
 independent like thyself, thy fellow creature ! 
 
 There appear before me other pheenomena, which I do not 
 regard as beings Hke myself, but as things in-ational. Spe- 
 cidation finds no difficulty in showing how these are deve- 
 loped from, and are the necessary productions of, my owti 
 representative perceptions. But I apprehend these things, 
 also, by want, and desire, and enjojTnent. Not by the men- 
 tal conception alone, but by hunger, and thii-st, and satiety, 
 docG anything become for me food and drink. I am necessi- 
 tated to believe in the reahty of that which tlu-eatens my 
 sensuous existence, or in that which alone is able to maintain 
 it. Conscience comes to the assistance of this natm-al in 
 
FAITH. 79 
 
 stinct, and consecrates and limits it. Thou shalt preserve, 
 exercise, strengthen thy sensuous power, for it has been 
 counted upon in the plans of reason ; but thou canst only pre- 
 serve it by employing it in a manner conformable to the in- 
 M^ard laws of these things. There are, also, other beings in 
 thy likeness, upon whose force, also, calculation has been 
 made, as upon thine. Permit to them the same use of all 
 that has been allowed to thee. Respect, as their right, what 
 is destined for thein ; what is destined for thee, as thine. 
 Thus shaE I act — according to this action must I think. I 
 am compelled to regard these things as standing under their 
 own laws, independent of, though perceivable by, me — the 
 laws of natui'c, and therefore to ascribe to them an indepen- 
 dent existence. I am compelled to believe in such laws, the 
 task of investigating them is set before me, and that empty 
 speculation vanishes like a mist before the sim. In short, 
 there is for me no such thing as a pure existence, in which I 
 have no concern, and which I contemplate merely for the sake 
 of the contemplation. It exists for me merely by its relation 
 to me, and there is one relation to which aU others are sub- 
 ordinate — that of moral action. My world is the object and 
 sphere of my duties, and absolutely nothing more ; my capa- 
 city, and the capacity of all finite beings, is insufficient to 
 , comprehend any other. 
 
CHAPTER XI. 
 
 All which exists for me, presses on me by this relation only 
 its existence and reality ; only by this do I apprehend it, and 
 I have no organ by which to apprehend any other existence. 
 
 To the question, whether, in deed and in fact, such a world 
 is present as I represent to myself, can I give no more fimda- 
 mental answer — ^none more raised above doubt, than this. I 
 have, most certainly, such and such determinate duties, and 
 they cannot be othermse fulfilled than in such a world as I 
 represent to myself. Even to any who had never meditated 
 on his moral destiny, if there coidd be such a one, or who had 
 never formed any resolution concerning it, even with a ■\T.ew to 
 an indefinite future, even for him, his sensuous world, and his 
 belief in its reality, arises in no other manner than fi-om his 
 ideas of a moral world. If he shoidd not apprehend this by 
 the thought of his duties, he certainly will by the demand for 
 his rights. "V\Tiat he does not require of himself he wall cer- 
 tainly require of others ; that they should treat him with con- 
 sideration, not as an irrational thing, but as a free and intelli- 
 gent being ; and thus, that they may be enabled to meet his 
 own claims, he will be necessitated to regard them, also, as 
 free and independent of mere natm-al agency. If he proposes 
 to himself no other object in his relations to things sm-round- 
 ing him than that of enjoyment, he at least requires this en- 
 joyment as a right, and demands from others that they shoidd 
 leave him undisturbed in this enjoyment ; and thus embraces 
 even the world of sense in his moral idea. These claims of 
 regard for the preservation of his own existence, for liis free- 
 
FAITH. 81 
 
 dorn and rationality, no one wul willingly renounce ; and in 
 Ms ideas of these claims, at least, is found earnestness and 
 belief in reality, and denial of doubt, if even they are not 
 associated with the acknowledgment of a moral law in his 
 heart. 
 
 It is not therefore the operation of what we regard as 
 things external, wliich do indeed exist for us only inasmuch as 
 we know of them, and just as Kttle the play of imagination 
 and thought, whose products as such are no more than empty 
 pictures, but the necessary faith in our own freedom and 
 energy, and in the reality of our actions, and of certain laws 
 of human action, which lie at the root of all om" consciousness 
 of external reality, a consciousness which is itself only belief, 
 founded on another unavoidable belief. We are compelled to 
 admit that we act, and that we ought to act, in a certain 
 manner; we are compelled to assume a certain sphere for 
 this action — this sphere is the actual world as we find it. 
 From the necessity of action proceeds the consciousness of 
 the external world, and not the reverse way, from the con- 
 sciousness of the external world the necessity of action. 
 From the latter is the former deduced. We do not act be- 
 cause we know, but we know because we are destined to act ; 
 practical reason is the root of all reason. The laws of action 
 for rational creatiues are of immediate certainty ; and their 
 world is only certain so far as these are so. We cannot deny 
 them without anniliilating the world, and om'selves with it. 
 We raise ourselves from nothing, and maintain ourselves 
 above it solely by om- moral agency. 
 
 I am required to act, but can I act without having in view 
 something beyond the action itself, without directing my in- 
 tentions to something which coidd only be attained by my 
 action ? Can I wul, without willing some particidar thing ? 
 To eveiy action is united in thought, immediately and by the 
 laws of thought itself, some futm-e existence — a state of being 
 related to my action as effect to cause. This object of my 
 action is not, however, to determine my mode of action^ — I 
 e5 
 
82 THE DESTINATION OF MAN. 
 
 am not to place tte object before me, and then determine how . 
 I am to act that I may attain it — ^my action is not to be de- 
 pendent on the object, but I am to act in a certain manner, 
 merely because it is my duty so to act ; this is the iu-st point. 
 That some consequence will foUow this action I know, and 
 this consequence necessarily becomes an object to me, since I 
 am bound to perform the action which must bring it to pass. 
 I wiU that something shall happen, because I am to act so 
 that it may happen. As I do not hunger because food is pre- 
 sent, but a thing becomes food for me because I hunger, so I 
 do not act thus, or thus, because a certain end is to be 
 attained, but the end is to be attained since I must act in the 
 manner to attain it. I do not observe a certain point, and 
 allow its position to determine the dii-ection of my line, and 
 the angle that it shaU make ; but I draw simply a right angle, 
 and by that determine the points through which my Kne must 
 pass. The end does not determine the commandment, but 
 the commandment the end. 
 
 I say it is the law of my action, itself, which points out to 
 me its object. The same inward voice that compels me to 
 think I ought to act thus, compels'me also to believe that my 
 action will have some result : it opens to my spiritual vision 
 a prospect into another world — another and a better than 
 that which is sensually present to me ; it makes me aspii-e 
 after this better world, embrace it with every impulse, Mve in 
 it, and in it alone find satisfaction and tranquuEty. The law 
 of my action guarantees to me the certain attainment of its 
 object. Tlie resolution to direct aU nay powers of life and 
 thought to fidfil this law brings with it the immoveable con- 
 viction, that the promise implied in it is true and certain. 
 As I live in obedience to it, I live also in the contemplation 
 of its end ; live in that better world wHch it foretells to me. 
 
 Even in the mere consideration of the world as it is, apai't 
 fi-om this law, I am conscious of the ■ndsh — the earnest de- 
 sii'e — the absolute demand for a better. I cast a glance upon 
 the present relations of manJrind among themselves and to 
 
FAITH. 83 
 
 ,(;^ nature, upon the weakness of their powers, the strength of 
 • ^heir passions and desires. I cannot think of the present 
 
 /state of humanity as of one destined to be permanent, as its 
 .^ entii-e and ultimate destination. Then, indeed, were all a 
 4j3ream and a delusion, and it would not be worth the toil of 
 (living to renew perpetually this idle game, tending to nothing, 
 ^\|ignifying nothing. 
 
 _/ Only inasmuch as I may contemplate it as the means to 
 //a better, as the transition point to a higher and more per- 
 vlfect state, does it obtain any value in my eyes. Not for its 
 own sake, but for the sake of that which it prepares us for, 
 can I support it, esteem it, and joyfully perform my part in it. 
 My mind can take no hold on the present world, nor rest in 
 it a moment, but my whole natm-e rushes onward with irre- 
 sistible force towards that fut\u:e and better state of being. 
 
 Shall I eat and diink only that I may hunger and thii'st, 
 and eat and drink again, till the gTave which yawns beneath 
 my feet shall swallow me up, and I myself become the food 
 of worms ? Shall I beget other beings in my likeness, that 
 they too may eat and di'ink and die, and leave behind them 
 other beings to do the like ? To what pm'pose this perpetually 
 revolving circle, this everlasting repetition, in which things are 
 produced only to perish, and perish to be again produced ; this 
 monster continually swallowing itself up, that it may again 
 bring itself forth, and bringing itself forth only that it may 
 again swallow itself up ? 
 
 Never ! never ! can this be my destiny or that of my race. 
 There must be something, which is, because it has become 
 thus, and remains permanently, and can never become again. 
 And what is to;endm'e must be brought forth in the changes , -i v ^ 
 of what is transitoiy and perishable, and be carried forward ' i 
 safe and inviolate upon the waves of time. 
 
 Oiu- race still struggles for its subsistence and preservation 
 with a resisting natm-e. Still is the larger portion of mankind 
 condemned to severe toil, in order to procin-e nourishment for 
 itself and for the smaller portion which thinks for it ; im- 
 
84 THE DESTINATION OF MAN. 
 
 mortal spiiits are forced to fix their whole thoughts and 
 endeavours on the ground that brings forth their food. Often 
 ' does it happen that when the toil is finished, and the labourer 
 ; promises himself its long lasting fruits, a hostile element AviU 
 ; destroy in a moment the results of long-continued industry 
 ; and patient deliberation, and cast him out a prey to misery 
 Jand hunger. Storms, floods, volcanoes, desolate whole 
 countries, and works bearing the impress of a rational soul, 
 are hm-led, with their authors, into the wüd chaos of death 
 and destruction. Disease snatches into an untimely grave 
 men in the pride of their strength, and childi-en whose exist- 
 ence has yet borne no fruit ; pestilence sweeps blooming lands : 
 and regions, won from the wilderness by the toil of man, be- 
 come deserts again. Thus it is now, but thus shall it not be 
 for ever. No work bearing the stamp of reason, and under- 
 taking to enlarge her dominion, can ever wholly perish. The 
 victory which the in-egular violence of conflicting elements has 
 obtained, must at least tend to their exhaustion and ultimate 
 reconciliation. All those outbreaks of the power of natm'e 
 before which the strength of man sinks into nothing, those 
 earthquakes, those desolating hunicanes, those volcanoes, 
 can be nothing more than the last struggles of the crude mass, 
 against the subjection to regular progTCssive laws to which it 
 is compelled, nothing but the last strokes of the not yet com- 
 plete foi-mation of cm- globe. That resistance must gradually 
 become weaker and be at length exhausted, since in the regu- 
 lar com-se of things there can be nothing to renew its 
 strength ; that formation must be at length completed, and 
 cm- destined dwelling be made ready. Nature must gTadually 
 : attain such a point of development that her proceedings can 
 be secm-ely counted upon, and that her power shall bear a 
 detenninate proportion to that which is destined to contract 
 it — that of man. Insomuch as this proportion has akeady 
 ' been established, and civiHzation obtained a firm footing, the 
 works of man, by their mere existence, shall re-act on Natm-e, 
 with a new and vivifying force beyond the intention of their 
 
FAITH. 85 
 
 authors.^ The more regular and various culture of the soil 
 shall give a new impulse to life, and vegetation shall ameliorate 
 and disperse the heavy and baneful vapours that hang over 
 desei'ts, marshes, and primeval forests, and the sun shall 
 pour more animating rays into an atmosphere breathed by 
 healthfid, industrious, and cultivated nations. Science, first 
 awakened by the impulse of necessity, shall now cabnly study 
 the unchangeable laws of Natm-e, and calculate their possible 
 consequences ; and while closely following the footsteps of 
 Natm-e in the actual world, form for itself a new ideal one. 
 Every new discovery shall be retained, and form the foundation 
 for further knowledge, and be added to an accumulating 
 stock, the common possession of our race. Natm-e shall 
 become more and more intelligible, and transparent light shall 
 be thrown on her profomidest mysteries, and human power, 
 armed by human invention, shall exercise over her a boundless 
 control, and the conquest once made, be peacefully maintained. 
 No further expenditm-e of mechanical toil shall be necessary 
 than what the liiunan body requii-es for its exercise and 
 healthy development ; and work shall cease to be a burden, 
 for a reasonable being is not destined to be a bearer of 
 
 Tv( burdens. 
 
 
 
 %.^ 
 
CHAPTER XIT. 
 
 The greatest and most terrible disorders are not, however, 
 f^ the effects of natural causes, but of freedom itself ; man is 
 '■■' the cruelest enemy of man. Lawless hordes of savages still 
 wander over vast wildernesses ; man meets his fellow man as 
 a foe, and perhaps triumphs in devom'ing him for food. Where 
 civilization has succeeded in uniting these wild hordes, and 
 subjecting them to the social law, they attack each other as 
 nations with the power which law and miion has given them. 
 Defying toil, and danger, and privation, armies penetrate 
 forests and cross wide plains, tiU they meet each other, and 
 the sight of theii" brethren is the signal for mutual murder. 
 Armed with the most splendid inventions of human ingenuity, 
 hostile fleets traverse the ocean ; through waves and storms 
 man rushes to meet man upon the lonely, inhospitable sea, to 
 destroy, each the other with their own hands, amidst the 
 raging of the elements. 
 
 In the interior of states, where men seem to be united in 
 equality under the law, it is for the most part only force and 
 fraud which rule in her venerable name, and this kind of war 
 is so much the more shameful that it is not openly declared 
 to be such, and the party attacked is not awai'e of the neces- 
 sity of defence. 
 
 Smaller associations rejoice aloud in the ignorance, the folly, 
 the vice and misery of the greater nmnber of then." brethren, 
 and make it confessedly theii- object to retain them in this 
 condition, in order to prolong their subjection. No move- 
 ment towards its amelioration can anywhere be made without 
 
FAITH. 87 
 
 / . . 
 
 ;'' raising- up a host of selfish interests to war with the naover ; 
 , who must be prepared to see the most various and contra- 
 __ dictory opinions leagued together against him in common hos- 
 ^itüity. The good cause is ever the weaker, for it can be loved 
 ijor itself alone ; the bad attracts each individual by the pro- 
 ■' mise most seductive to him, wliilst the clash of contending 
 : interests is hushed in one common opposition to the good 
 wherever it is found. Scarcely, indeed, is such an opposition 
 needed, for error, misunderstanding and distrust divide even 
 the good, and the divisions are widened by the earnestness 
 with which each strives to carry out his own views of what is 
 best, and thus is dissipated and lost, the strengih wliicli, even 
 if united, would hardly suffice to hold the scale even. One 
 blames the other for rushing with stormy impetuosity towards 
 his object, without waiting till time should have opened the 
 way to it ; whilst the other blames him for hesitation and 
 cowardice, for allowing tilings to be done contrary to his 
 better conviction, and for never regarding the present mo- 
 ment as the right one for action. The Omniscient alone can 
 determine which of the disputants is in the right. 
 
 Every one regards the point to which he has devoted him- 
 self, and wldch he best understands, as the most important 
 and irecessary, the point where aU reform must begin ; he re- 
 quires aU to unite with him for the execution of his particidar 
 object, and regards it as treason to the good cause if they re- 
 fuse. Thus do all good intentions among men appear to be 
 lost in fruitless strivings, whilst, in the mean time, all goes on 
 , ^as well, or as ill, as it woidd do without these struggles, by 
 'the mere blind mechanism of Natm'c. 
 
 Thus is it now, but thus shall it not be for ever, or human 
 life would be an idle game, without meaning and without end. 
 Those savage hordes shall not always remain savage : no race 
 can be born with all the capacities of perfect humanity, yet 
 destined never to develop these faculties, or to become more 
 than a sagacious animal might be. Those savages are des- 
 tined to be the progenitors of generations of powerful, civu- 
 
88 THE DESTINATION OF MAN. 
 
 ized, and virtuous men, or their existence would be without 
 an object. The most cultivated nations of modern times are 
 the descendants of savages. Whether human society natu- 
 rally tends towards this cultivation, or that the first impxdse 
 must be given by instruction and example from without, and 
 the original source of all human cultm-e must be a revelation 
 from above, — by the same path, whatever it may be, which 
 former savage tribes have followed, may the present also at- 
 tain it. They must, no doubt, pass through the same perus 
 of a fii-st merely sensual civilization, with which society is stul 
 struggling, but they wül nevertheless be brought into asso- 
 ciation v/ith the great whole of humanity, and be enabled to 
 take part in its further progTcss. 
 
 ! It is the destiny of om- race to become united into one 
 great body, thoroughly connected in all its parts, and possessed 
 of similar ciiltm-e. Nature, and even the passions and vices 
 of Man, have from the beginning tended towards this end. 
 A great part of the way towards it is ah-eady passed, and we 
 may surely calculate that it wül in time be reached. 
 - Let us not ask of liistory if man on the whole be yet be- 
 come more purely moral ! To a more extended, compre- 
 hensive power he has certainly attained, although as yet this 
 power has been too often perhaps necessarily misapplied. 
 Neither let us ask whether the intellectual and cesthetic culr 
 ture of the antique world, concentrated on a few points, may 
 not, in degree, have excelled that of modern days. The answer 
 might be a hmnüiating one, and it might appear that in these 
 respects the human race had rather retrograded than advanced 
 in the com-se of time. But let us ask at what period the ex- 
 isting culture has been most widely diffused, and distributed 
 among the greatest number of individuals ; and we shall 
 doubtless find that from the beginning of history to our own 
 day, the brightness of those few points has been extending in 
 wider and wider cii'cles, and that one individual after the 
 other, one nation after the other, has been ülumiuatcd, and that 
 the light is spreading fm-ther and fm-ther under our own eyes. 
 
FAITH. 89 
 
 ^ This is the first station point of humanity on its endless 
 ^path. Until this has been attained, until the existing ciutui'C 
 '. of eveiy age has been diffused over the whole inhabited earth, 
 j^nd every people be capable of the most unlimited communi- 
 i^cation with the rest, must one nation after another, one con- 
 ' tinent after another, be arrested in its course, and sacrifice to 
 the great whole of which it is a member, its stationary or re- 
 trogressive age. When that first point shall have been at- 
 tained, when thought and discovery shall fly from one end of 
 the earth to the other, and become the property of all, then 
 without further interruption, without halt or regress, oiu* race 
 shall move onward, with united strength and equal step, to a 
 perfection of culture, to describe which thought and language 
 
 /--■'In the interior of those associations formed rather by for- 
 / tuitous circumstances, than by reason, called States, — after they 
 have subsisted for a time, when the resistance excited by new 
 oppression has been luUed to sleep, and the fermentation of con- 
 tending forces appeased, (abuse, by its continuance, and by 
 general endm-ance,. assumes a sort of permanent form, and the 
 ruling classes, in the uncontested enjoyment of the privileges 
 they have gained, have nothing more to do than to extend 
 them further, and to secure also this extension. Urged by 
 this insatiable desire, they vdll continue these encroachments 
 from generation to generation, and never cry "hold, enough !" 
 tiU the measure of oppression shall be full, and despair give 
 back to the oppressed, what centuries of injustice had de- 
 prived them of courage to claim. They will then no longer 
 endm-e any among them who cannot be content to be on an 
 equality with others. As a protection against reciprocal in- 
 justice"^!- new oppression, aU wiU take on themselves the 
 same obligations. Their deliberations, in which every one 
 shall decide, whatever he decides, for himself, and not for one 
 subject to him, whose sufferings will never reach him, and in 
 whose fate he takes no concern — these deliberations, in which 
 no one can hope to be the one to commit an injustice, but 
 
90 THE DESTINATION OF MAN. 
 
 every one must fear that he may suffer it — these deliberations, 
 wliich alone deserve the name of legislation, unlike the ordi- 
 nances of a league of lords to the numerous herds of their 
 slaves — these institutions will be necessarily just, and will lay 
 the foundation of a true state, in which each indi-sddual, by 
 the care for his own secmity, will be compelled to pay regard 
 to the secmity of others, since every injury attempted must 
 infaUibly recoil on him who attempts it. 
 j.^ By the establishment of this true state, and of a firm inwaxd 
 ; I peace, is at the same time foreign war, at least mth other 
 / true states, become impossible. In order to avoid doing in- 
 I jury to its own citizens by accustoming them to injustice, vio- 
 ' lence, and robbery, and pointing out other roads to gain than 
 those of duigence and activity, every true state will as severely 
 prohibit, as carefully prevent, or as exactly compensate and as 
 severely punish, an injury to the citizen of a neighboming 
 state, as to one of its own. This law concerning the security 
 of neighbours is a necessary one to every state that is not an 
 association of robbers, and by this means is every just com- 
 plaint of other states prevented, and every case of necessary 
 defence among nations entirely obviated. There will be no 
 longer necessary, permanent, and intimate relations of states 
 as such -Rath each other, which might lead to strife, but 
 usually only of individual citizens ^dth individual citizens : a 
 state can be injm-ed only in the person of one of its citizens, 
 and the injmy is atoned for by immediate compensation. 
 
 Between such states as these, is no rank to insult, no ara- 
 bition to offend. No officer of one state can be entitled to 
 mingle in the internal affairs of another, nor could he hope 
 to draw the smallest advantage from any influence he coiüd 
 so obtain. 
 
 That a whole nation should determine, for the sake of 
 plunder, to make war on a neighbour, is impossible ; for in 
 a state where all are equal, the plunder could not be the 
 portion of some few, but must be divided amongst aU, and 
 the share of no indi-\ddual could ever repay the cost of the 
 
FAITH. 91 
 
 war to him. Only where all the advantage falls to the op- 
 .; pressor, and all the toil and suffering to the numerous herd of 
 Eis slaves, is a war of this natm-e possible and conceivable. 
 : States like these could have nothing to fear from states re- 
 sembling them ; but merely from savages, or barbarians, who, 
 ; unskilled to enrich themselves by industry, would fain do so 
 ^ by war ; or from nations of slaves, driven by their masters to 
 j a war from which they will reap no advantage. As to the 
 i first, every individual state must, by the arts of civilization, 
 / necessarily be the stronger; against the latter, it is the 
 I obvious policy of all to strengthen themselves by union. It 
 is evidently dangerous to the tranquillity of free states to 
 suffer others to exist as their neighbom-s, to whom wars of 
 conquest might be advantageous ; and it is, therefore, to their 
 interest to see all around them free, and to extend for their 
 own states the victories of civilization over barbarism, of 
 freedom over slavery. Soon will the nations civuized by 
 them, find themselves placed in the same relation towards 
 others still enslaved, and compelled to pm-sue towards them 
 the same course of conduct ; and thus, of necessity, by the 
 existence of some few really free states, the diffusion of civili- 
 zation, fi-eedom, and universal peace embrace the whole globe. 
 Thus, from the establishment of a just and upright internal 
 *\ government, and of peace between individuals, will neces- 
 ' sarily follow integrity in the external relations of states, and 
 universal peace among them. The establishment of a just 
 and upright internal government, however, fmd the libera- 
 tion of the first nation that shall be really free, must be the 
 necessary consequence of the increasing pressui-e of the 
 dominant classes, upon those beneath them ; and the ope- 
 ration of this cause may be safely left to the passions 
 and the blindness of those classes, even notwithstanding all 
 warnings they may receive. In these only true states aU 
 temptation to evil will be taken away, and there will be every 
 possible inducement to every man to direct his will to what 
 is good. 
 
92 
 
 THE DESTINATION OF MAN. 
 
 • No human creature ever loved evil for the sake of evil; 
 but only the advantages and enjoyments he hoped from it, 
 and vfhich in fact, in the present condition of humanity, do 
 sometimes result from it. As long as this condition shall 
 continue, as long as a premium shall be set on vice, no 
 thorough reformation of mankind, as a whole, can ever be 
 looked for. But in a social constitution, such as we have 
 imagined, evü conduct will offer no advantages — nay, rather 
 wül be certainly prejudicial, and by the operation of self- 
 love itself will the extravagances of self-love in unjust 
 actions be repressed. 
 
 By the institutions of such a state will every injm-y to others, 
 every encroachment on theii- rights, not merely be vain, but as- 
 suredly prejudicial to him who should make the attempt. 
 
 In his own country — out of his country — on the whole 
 I earth, he shaU find no one whom he can injure with impunity. 
 No one will resolve on Avickedness which he can never exe- 
 cute, and which can produce nothing but his own damage. 
 The use of hberty for evil purposes is taken away; man 
 must resolve either to renounce his free agency, and become a 
 mere passive machine in the great whole, or to employ it for 
 good. And thus, in soil thus prepared, wiU good easüy^ 
 prosper. When men shaU be no longer divided by a selfish 
 separation of interests, and their powers exhausted in a 
 struggle with each other, nothing -^viU remain for them but to 
 turn their united strength against their common antagonist, a 
 resisting, still uncultivated natm-e. No longer distracted by 
 private ends, they wül unite for a common object, and form 
 one body, every where animated by the same sph-it, and the 
 same love. Every loss to the individual is a loss to the 
 whole ; every step forward made by one man is a step forward 
 for his race. The strife of good and evü is abolished, for the 
 evü finds no place. The strife of the good between them- 
 selves is abohshed, for each regards what is good for its own 
 sake, and not because he is the author of it. That the truth 
 should be discovered, that the usefiü action should be done, is 
 
 ■'•'^Li^t/tX. fMil^ 
 
 tr f^^H--^ "■' 
 
FAITH. 93 
 
 V all important ; not at all by Avliom it shall be done. Every 
 
 ; one is ready to join bis strength to that of others, to become 
 subordinate to others ; and whoever is most capable will be 
 
 , supported by aE, and his success rejoiced in by all, with an 
 
 I equal joy. 
 
 ..This, then, is the object of our eartldy existence, which 
 
 ■' reason sets before us, and for the infallible attainment of 
 which she is our warrant. This is not merely the goal 
 towards which we must all strive, that we may exercise our 
 powers on something great that is never to be realised ; it 
 shall, it must be realised, as surely as a sensuous world and a 
 
 , race of reasonable beings exist in time, and for whose exist- 
 
 ' ence no serious and rational pm-pose but this is conceivable. 
 If all human life be merely a spectacle for a malignant spirit,) q^IAIo.A,-', 
 if this inextinguishable longing after the eternal and im-~ — ^~~~~^ 
 perishable, this ceaseless pm-suit of Avhat for ever escapes us, 
 this restless hm-rying forward in an ever-revolving circle, be 
 merely a mocking jest, shall not a wise man refuse to play 
 his part in such an idle pageant, and the moment of 
 awakening reason be the last of his earthly life? If this 
 shaU not be, then is this end an unattainable one. 
 _ \lt is attainable in life and through life, and reason herself 
 is.„ihe pledge to me for its attainment in commanding me 
 
 ! to live. 
 
CHAPTEE, XIII. 
 
 But when this goal shall have been attained, and the human 
 race at length stand at this point, what then ? There can 
 be no higher state upon earth, and the generation which has 
 once reached it, can do no more than maintain itself there, 
 and die and leave it to descendants who must also do the 
 same. Humanity must then become stationary ; and there- 
 fore can this, the highest earthly end, not be the highest end 
 of human existence ? This earthly end is conceivable, and 
 attainable, and finite. If we consider all preceding generations 
 as merely means for the production of this last complete 
 one, we do not escape the question of reason — to what end 
 then is this last one ? Since a human race is come upon the 
 earth, its existence must, indeed, have an end accordant with, 
 and not contrary to, reason ; but were it not better that it had 
 never been withdrawn from night and chaos ? Keason does 
 not exist for the sake of Kfe, but life for the sake of reason. 
 An existence which does not of itself satisfy reason and solve 
 all her doubts, cannot be the true one. 
 
 And are then, indeed, the actions which the voice of con- 
 science commands — that voice whose dictates I never dare 
 dispute — are they always the means, and the only means, for 
 the attainment of this grand end of human existence ? It is 
 indisputal)le that in acting thus, my intentions must be 
 directed to this end ; but are then these, my intentions, 
 always fulhlled ? Is it enough that we will what is good, 
 tluit it may happen ? Oh, how many virtuous intentions are 
 
TAITH. 95 
 
 entirely lost for this world, and how many appear rather 
 likely to oppose than to forward the end we have in view ! 
 (On the other hand, how often do the most despicable passions 
 of men, their vices and their crimes, forward more certainly 
 the good cause, than the endeavours of the upright man, who 
 will never do evil that good may come of it ! It seems that 
 the good of the world is destined to grow and prosper, quite 
 independently of aE human virtues and vices, by its own 
 laws, through an invisible and unknown power, as the 
 heavenly bodies run their appointed coui'se, high above all 
 human effort ; and that this power carries forward in its omti 
 grand plan all human intentions, good and bad, and moulds 
 to its own high purposes that which was xmdertaken for others 
 far different. 
 
 If the attainment of this earthly end, therefore, could be the 
 whole object and end of our existence, and that thus every 
 question might be solved, then would this end be not om-s, 
 but the end of that unknown power. We can never at any 
 moment know with certainty what will tend to the advance- 
 ment of this end ; and nothing would remain to us but to 
 give by our actions some material, no matter what, for this 
 power to work upon, and to leave to it the care of moidding 
 this material to its own pui-poses. 
 
 It would, in that case, be the highest wisdom not to trouble 
 ourselves about what does not concern us, but to live as 
 our inclinations might lead us, and calmly leave the conse- 
 quences to that unknown power. The moral law in our hearts 
 would be idle and supei-fluous, and entirely unsuitable to a 
 being destined to nothing higher than this. 
 
 In order to come into harmony with ourselves, we cannot 
 refuse obedience to that voice and repress it by all means as a 
 troublesome and foolish fancy. 
 
 Yet wiE I not refuse obedience to the voice of my con- 
 science : as truly as I live and breathe wiE I live according to 
 her dictates, and let this resolution be &st and highest in my 
 
96 THE DESTINATION' OF MAN. 
 
 mind, that on which all else depends, but which depends on 
 nothing else, — ^the inward principle of my spiritual life. 
 
 As a reasonable being, however, I find it impossible to act 
 without knowing why and for what ; without placing before me 
 something as the object and end of my action. If this obedi- 
 ence be a reasonable obedience, if the voice that I obey be 
 really that of my highest reason, and not a mere delusion of 
 fancy, or an enthusiasm communicated to me somehow from 
 without, this obedience must have some consequences, must 
 serve to some end. It is evident that tliis end is not that of 
 earthly existence, or of the present world. It mujt be then 
 ( that of a higher world, above the present. 
 
CHAPTEE XIV. 
 
 /fllE V( 
 
 'he veil of delusion falls from my eyes ! I receive a new 
 organ, and a new world opens before me. It is disclosed to 
 me only by the law of reason. I apprehend this world (for, 
 confined, as I am, within sensuous views, I must thus name 
 the unnameable) — I apprehend this world merely in and 
 through the end for which my obedience to the law of con- 
 science was appointed. 
 
 How could I ever suppose that this law had reference to 
 the world of sense, or that the whole end and object of this 
 obedience was to be found within the plan and scope of 
 earthly existence, since that on which alone this obedience 
 depends can never be an effective cause in this world, and 
 can never have any result. 
 
 In the world of sense, moving on the chain of material 
 causes and effects, in which whatever happens must depend 
 on whatever happened before, it can never be of any moment 
 with what intentions and dispositions an action is performed, 
 but merely what the action is. Had it been the whole pur- 
 pose of om- existence to produce any earthly state of humanity, 
 the thing required would have been some infallible mechanism 
 by which om- actions might have been invariably determined, 
 and we need have been no more than wheels well fitted to 
 such a machine. Eree agency would have been, not merely 
 vain, but positively injiuious ; and our good intentions, our 
 virtuous will, entirely superfluous. The world would be, in 
 that case, most ül regulated, and the purposes of its existence 
 attained by the most cü'cuitous methods and by a needless 
 
 F 
 
98 THE DESTINATION OF MAN. 
 
 profusion. Had the Divine Antlior of it, instead of bestow- 
 ing on us tliis freedom, so hard to be reconciled mth the 
 other parts of His plan, chosen rather to compel us to act in 
 the manner most conformable to them, these ends might have 
 been attained by a shorter method, as the humblest of the 
 dwellers in these His worlds can see. 
 
 But I am free, and therefore such a chain of causes and 
 effects as would render freedom superfluous and pm-poseless, 
 cannot include my Avhole destination. I am free, and it 
 is not merely my action, produced by mechanical means, but 
 the free determination of my free will to obey the voice of 
 conscience, for the sake of conscience only, that decides my 
 moral worth. 
 
 The everlasting world now rises before me more brightly, 
 and the fundamental laws of its order are more clearly re- 
 vealed to my mental vision. The wül alone, lying hid from 
 mortal eyes in the obscm-est depths of the soul, is the first 
 link in a chain of consequences that stretches thi'ough the in- 
 visible realms of spirit, as, in this terrestrial world, the action 
 itself, a certain movement communicated to matter, is the 
 first link in a material chain that encu'cles the whole system. 
 The will is the effective cause, the living principle of the world 
 of spb'it, as motion is of the world of sense. I stand be- 
 tween two opposite worlds ; the one visible, in which the act 
 alone avails ; the other invisible and incomjirehensible, acted 
 on only by the wül. I am an effective force in both these 
 worlds. My wiU embraces both. This will is in itself a 
 constituent part of the transcendental world. By my free de- 
 termination I change and set in motion something in this tran- 
 scendental world, and my energy gives birth to an effect that is 
 new, permanent and imperishable. Let this wül manifest 
 itself in a material deed, and this deed belongs to the world 
 of sense, and produces in it whatever effect it can. 
 
 It is not only when the tie wliich bends me to this terres- 
 trial world shall have been broken, that I shaU obtain admis- 
 sion into the transcendental one. I am and live already in it 
 
FAITH. 99 
 
 more truly than in the terrestrial. On it alone do 1 rest even 
 now, and for the sake only of the everlasting life, on the pos- 
 session of which I have ah-eady entered, can I wish to con- 
 tinue this earthly one. What we call heaven does not lie 
 only on the other side of the grave ; it is diffused over natui'e 
 here, and its light dawns on every piu'e heart. My wiU is 
 mine, and it is all that is truly mine, and entirely dependent 
 on myself, and thi-ough it am I akeady become a citizen of 
 those realms of freedom and spiritual activity. What deter- 
 mination of my will (of the only thing which raises me from 
 the dust to enter these realms) may be conformable to their 
 order, the voice of my conscience alone can tell me, for that is 
 the tie by which I am united to them, and it depends only on 
 myself to give it the appointed direction. I prepare myself, 
 then, for this world — prepare myself in it and for it, I pursue 
 my object without doubt or hesitation, certain of success, since 
 no foreign power can interfere with my free will. That in the 
 world of sense my will manifests itself in action, is the law of 
 this sensuous world, but the will alone is wholly and purely 
 mine. It was not necessary that there should be another 
 particular act on my part, to unite it with the deed in 
 which it is manifested ; it manifested itself thus according 
 to the law of that second world with which I am connected 
 by my wiU, and in which this wül likewise is an original 
 force. 
 
 I am compelled indeed, when I regard my will thus mani- 
 fested in action as an effective cause in the sensuous world, to 
 regard it as a means to the attainment of that earthly end of 
 human existence ; not as if I should first look over the divine 
 plan of the world, and calculate from it what I had to do, 
 but that the action which my conscience tells me to regard as ray 
 duty, should appear to me as the only means by which in my 
 position I could contribute to the attainment of that end. If 
 it should afterwards appear that this end has not been ad- 
 vanced, — ^nay, should it seem even to have been hindered by 
 it, I can never repent, if I have reaUy obeyed my conscience 
 F 2 
 
100 THE DESTINATION OF MAN. 
 
 in acting thus. Whatever consequences it may have for this 
 world, for the other, nothing but good can result from it. 
 And even for this world's sake, should my action appear to 
 have faued of its object, my conscience will command me to 
 persevere in my efforts. Should I fail again and again, and 
 should it appear that during my whole life I have not ad- 
 vanced the good cause a haii''s breadth, it is still not permitted 
 to me to cease my struggles in its behalf. Let me be disap- 
 pointed in my attempts ever so often, I must Etui believe 
 that the next wiU be successful. IFor tli^e_£iDiritaal _w^ no_ 
 ,.step can be ever lost. I do not toü to reach the earthly goal 
 for its own sake alone, or regard it as a final aim ; but rather 
 because obedience to the voice of conscience presents itself 
 to me in this world, as a means of advancing this end. 
 Should it appear otherwise, I might renounce this end, and 
 I shall do so in another life, when some other object, now 
 entirely incomprehensible to me, shall be set before me. 
 
 Whether, in this life, the actions resulting from a pure 
 sense of duty, do always tend to the advancement of the great 
 end of the progress of the human race, is not my care. I am 
 responsible only for the will, the intention, but not for the 
 result. I am bound to keep this end in view and to be im- 
 wearied in my efforts for its attainment ; but the only certain 
 results of my energy lie beyond this Avorld of sense. 
 
 I will endeavom* to establish myself firmly in this new -view 
 of my destiny. The present life cannot be rationally regarded, 
 as containing the whole end of my existence, or of that of the 
 human race in general. There is something in me, and 
 something is required of me, which finds no apphcation in 
 this life, and which is entü-ely superfluous and unnecessary 
 for the attainment of the highest objects which can be attained 
 on earth. The existence of man must therefore have some 
 object which lies beyond it. Should however this earthly life, 
 for the purposes of Avhich om* reason commands us to exert 
 our best powers, not be entirely vain and fruitless, it must at 
 least have relation to a futm-e one as means to an end. 
 
FAITH. 101 
 
 The ultimate consequences of all our actions, in the present 
 life, must remain on earth, and we are connected ^\äth a future 
 world by no other tie than hj our will, which, for this world, 
 is enth-ely fruitless. Oui* vii'tuous wiH only can it, must it 
 be, by which we are destined to prepare for a future state, 
 and for the objects there to be attained ; and the consequences 
 now invisible to us of our upright intentions, wiU obtain for 
 us a station there, whence we may proceed further on our 
 com-se. 
 
 Tliat om' vii'tuous wiU, in and for itself, must have some 
 consequences, we know akeady in this life ; for om- reason 
 cannot command what is entü.-ely fruitless. But what these 
 consequences are, or how it is possible that a mere will can 
 effect any thing at all, we know not, and as long as we are 
 confined within the bmits of this material world, we cannot 
 know. With respect to the nature of these consequences, the 
 present life, therefore, in relation to the futm-e, is to be re- 
 garded as a life m faith. 
 
 The future^ in which we shall be in possession of those con- 
 sequences, musfbe a life of clear insight. There as well as 
 here some object must be placed before us, as the end of our 
 exertions, for we must remain active beings. But we must 
 remain finite beings, and our activity must therefore be deter- 
 minate, and every determinate activity must have an object. 
 
 As the actual state of the present world, the degrees of 
 civilization and virtue found to exist among men, and our own 
 powers of action, are related to the objects of this life, so will 
 be to those of the futm-e the consequences of om* virtuous will 
 in this. 
 
 The present is the commencement of our existence ; a firm 
 footing in it, and an endowment of all the powers and facul- 
 ties necessary for it, has been fi-eely bestowed on us. The 
 futm-e life will be the continuation of om' existence, and oin- 
 station there we must earn for om-selves. 
 
 •In this point of view, the present life no longer appears 
 vain and useless j it is given us that we may obtain for our- 
 
102 THE DESTINATION OF MAN. 
 
 selves a place in the futui-e one, and tlms it is connected with 
 our whole immortal üfe. 
 
 It is very possible, that the immediate objects of this second 
 life may not be more certainly attainable by finite powers 
 than those of the present, and that even there a vii-tuous will 
 may sometimes appear superfluous. But it can never be lost. 
 Its necessary efficacy would, in that case, refer us to a fiuiher 
 stage of our progress, in which the consequences of om- good 
 will would appear, and in reference to which this second life, 
 also, would be a life of faith, but of faith firmer, and more 
 impossible to be shaken, from oui* having ah-eady experienced 
 the trustworthiness of reason, and gathered the fruits of a 
 pure heart in a perfected life. 
 
 As in the present life it is only from a certain law of action 
 that we acquire the idea of a certain object to be attained, 
 and from this o\ir whole intuitive perception of an external 
 world ; just so in the futm-e, upon a similar, and now to us 
 inconceivable law, will be founded our idea of the immediate 
 objects of that Hfe, and the intuitive perception of a world 
 in which we shaU perceive the consequences of om* good in- 
 tentions in the present. The world exists for us but by the 
 idea of duty, and the other wiU be revealed to us in a similar 
 manner, for in no other manner can it be revealed to a rea- 
 sonable being. 
 
CHAPTER XV. 
 
 ■ This then is my true natui-e, my whole sublime destination. I 
 am a member of two orders ; of one pm-ely spiritual, in which I 
 rule merely by pure will, and of a sensuous one, in which my 
 act alone avaus. The whole aim of reason is its own. activity, 
 independent, unconditional, and having no need of any 
 organ beyond itseK. The will is the living principle of the 
 rationd soul, is indeed itself reason, when purely and simply 
 apprehended. That reason is itself active, means, that the 
 pm-e -^vill, as such, rides and is effectual. The infinite reason 
 alone lies immediately and entirely in the pm-ely spiritual 
 order. The finite being lives necessarily at the same time 
 in a sensuous order ; that is to say, in one which presents 
 to Mm other objects than those of pure reason ; a material 
 object, to be advanced by instruments and powers, standing 
 indeed under the immediate command of the will, but whose 
 efficacy is conditional also on its ovni natm-al laws. Yet 
 as certainly as reason is reason, must the will operate 
 absolutely by itself, and independently of all the natural laws 
 which determine the action, and therefore does the sensuous 
 life of every finite being point towards a higher, into which 
 the will itself shall lead him, and of which it shall procure 
 him possession, a possession which indeed wiU be again sen- 
 sually present as a state, and by no means as a mere will. 
 
 These two orders, the piu-ely spiritual, and the sensuous, 
 the latter consisting of an immeasurable suceession of states, 
 have existed in me from the first moment of the development 
 of my active reason, and proceed parallel to each other. The 
 
104 THE DESTINATION OF MAN. 
 
 latter producing phsenomena cognisable by myself and by 
 other beings similar to myself; the former alone bestowing 
 on them significance, purpose, and value. I am immortal, 
 imperishable, eternal, as soon as I form the resolution to 
 obey the laws of eternal reason ; I am not merely destined to 
 l)ecome so. The transcendental world is no futm'e world, it 
 is now present ; it can at no period of finite existence be 
 more present than at another ; not more after the lapse of 
 myriads of ages than at this moment. My futm^e sensuous 
 existence may be liable to various modifications, but these are 
 just as little true life, as those of the present. By that reso- 
 lution of the wiR I lay hold on eternity, and rise high above 
 all transitory states of existence. My TviU itself becomes for 
 me a spring of eternal life, when it becomes a som-ce of moral 
 goodness. Without view to any fm-ther object, without in- 
 quuy as to whether my will may or may not have any re- 
 sult, it shall be brought into harmony with the moral law. 
 My will shall stand alone, apart from aU that is not itself, and 
 be a world to itself, not merely as not proceeding fi-om any 
 thing gone before, but as not giving bii-th to any thing follow- 
 ing, by which its efficacy might be brought under the opera- 
 tion of a foreign law. Did any second effect proceed fi-om 
 it, and from this again a thh-d, in any conceivable sensuous 
 world, opposed to that of spii-it, its strength would be broken 
 by the resistance it would encounter, the mode of its opera- 
 tion would no longer exactly coiTespond to the idea of voli- 
 tion, and the ^viU would not remain free, but be limited by the 
 peculiar laws of its heterogeneous sphere of action. 
 
 Thus indeed must I regard the wül, in the present material 
 world, the only one known to me. I am indeed compelled to 
 believe, or to act as if I believed, that by my mere volition, my 
 tongue, my hand, my foot, could be set in motion ; but how 
 an impidse of intelligence, a mere thought, can be the prin- 
 ciple of motion to a heavy material mass, is not only not 
 conceivable, but, to the mere imderstanding, an absm-dity. To 
 the understanding, the movemeirts of matter can only be 
 
FAITH. 105 
 
 explained by tlie supposition of forces existing in matter 
 itself. 
 
 Such a view of the will as I have taken can only be attained 
 by the conviction that it is not merely the highest active prin- 
 ciple for this world, as it might be without freedom, and as 
 we imagine a productive force in Natm-e to be, but that it 
 looks beyond aU earthly objects, and includes its own ultimate 
 object in itself. By this view of my wül I am referred to a 
 super-sensuous order of things, in which the avüI, without the 
 assistance of any organ out of itself, becomes, in a purely 
 spiritual sphere, accessible to it and similar to itself, an effective 
 cause. The knowledge that a virtuous wül is to be che- 
 rished for its own sake, is a fact intuitively perceived, not 
 attainable by any other method. That the promotion of this 
 virtuous WÜ1 is according to reason, and the source of aU that 
 is truly reasonable, that it is not to be adjusted by any thing 
 else, but that aU else is lo be adjusted by it, is a conviction 
 which I have likewise attained by this inward method. From 
 these two terms I arrive at a faith in an eternal super- 
 sensuous world. Shoidd I renounce the tu'st, 1 abandon at the 
 same time the latter. 
 
 If, as many say, assuming it without fm-ther proof as self 
 evident, as the liighest point of human wisdom, that all 
 human vii'tue must have a certain definite external aim, and 
 that we must be sm-e of the attainment of this end, before 
 we can act virtuously; and that, consequently, reason by no 
 means contains within itself the principle and the standard 
 of its own activity, but must discover tliis standard by the 
 contemplation of the external world, — tlien might the entire 
 purpose of our existence be found below ; our earthly destiny 
 would be entirely explanatory and exhaustive of our human 
 nature, and we should have no rational ground for raising our 
 thoughts above the present life. 
 
 As I have now spoken however, can every thinker, who has 
 any where historically received those propositions, also speak 
 and teach, and accurately reason ; but lie would present to us 
 F 5 
 
J 06 THE DESTINATION OF MAN. 
 
 the thoughts of others, and not his own, and all would float 
 before him empty, and Avithout significance, because he Avould 
 be wanting in the sense by which he might seize on its reality. 
 He is like a blind man who may have learned historically 
 certain truths concerning colours, and built upon them just 
 theories, without any colom- in fact existing for him. He may 
 say that, under certain conditions, so and so must he, but not 
 that it is so for him, because he does not stand mider these 
 conditions. The sense by which we may lay hold on eternal 
 life, can only be attained by a real renunciation of the sensual 
 and all its objects, for the sake of that law which lays claim 
 ordy to our wall, and not to our act. It surrenders these 
 things with the fullest conviction that this conduct only is 
 truly rational. By this renunciation of the earthly, does the 
 faith in the eternal arise in our soul, and stand there alone, 
 as the sole support to which we can cUng, as the only ani- 
 mating principle that can warm oiu- hearts or inspii'e our 
 lives. We must truly, according to the image of a holy doc- 
 trine, fii'st die to the world and be born again, before we can 
 '. enter the kingdom of God. 
 
 I see now clearly the cause of my former indifference and 
 blindness to spiritual tilings. Occupied only with eartldy 
 objects, all my thoughts and endeavom-s fixed upon them, 
 moved only by desii-e of a result, of consequences to be 
 realised out of myself, unsusceptible and dead to the pure 
 impulse of legislative reason, which presents to us an end 
 purely spiritual, the immortal Psyche remains \\ith her 
 pinions boimd and fastened to the earth. 
 
 Om- philosopliy is the history of oiu* ova\ heart and life, 
 and according to what we find in ourselves is our \iew of 
 man and his destiny. No true freedom exists for us, so long 
 as we are m-ged oidy by the desire of what can be realised in 
 this world. Om- freedom is no more than tliat of the plant, 
 more wonderful in its result, but not in its nature higher ; in- 
 stead of a certain confonnation of matter, with roots, leaves and 
 blossoms, bringing forth a mind väi\\ thoughts and actions. Wc 
 
FAITH. 107 
 
 cannot understand true freedom as long as we are not in pos- 
 session of it ; we either draw down the word to our own sig- 
 nification, or simply declare aU such phrase to be nonsense. 
 By wanting the knowledge of om- own ft-eedom we lose at the 
 same time all sense of another world. 
 
 All discussions of this kind pass by us like words with 
 which we have no concern, hke pale shadows, mthout form, 
 or colour, or meaning, on which we know not how to lay 
 hold. Should we be urged by a more active zeal to investi- 
 gate them, we shoiüd separate, see clearly, and be able to 
 prove, that all these ideas are mere worthless and untenable 
 reveries, which a sound understanding will reject at once ; 
 and according to the premises from which we shoidd proceed, 
 ch-awn from our own experience, we should be perfectly in the 
 right. 
 
 The doctrines preached in the midst of us, even to the po- 
 pulace, and from special authority, concerning moral freedom, 
 duty, and everlasting life, are turned into romantic fables ; 
 and have no more reality for us than those of Tartarus and 
 the Elysian fields, although, from an opinion of their utility 
 in restraining the people, we do not say this openly. 
 
 In one word, it is only by the thorough amelioration of the 
 will that a new light is thrown on our existence and future 
 destiny; without this, let me meditate as much as I wiU, and 
 be endowed with ever such rare intellectual gifts, darkness 
 remains in me, and around me. The improvement of the 
 heart alone leads to true wisdom ; let then my whole life 
 tend to this end ! 
 
CHAPTEE XVI. 
 
 My vii-tuous will, then, in and tlirougli itself, sliall certainly 
 and invariably produce consequences. Every determination 
 of my -will in accordance vpith duty, even if it should not re- 
 sult in any action, shall operate in another, to me incompre- 
 hensible, world, and nothing but this shall operate in it. In 
 thinking thus, I assume that there exists a law, that is, a 
 certain nüe liable to no exception, by which a vii-tuous will 
 must have consequences, just as in this material world there 
 exists a law by which this ball, thi-own by my hand with a 
 certain force, in a certain direction, necessaruy moves in a 
 certain dii'cction with, a certain degree of velocity, — perhaps 
 strikes another ball with a certain amount of force, wliich in 
 its tm-n moves on with a certain velocity, and so on. As here 
 in the mere direction and movement of my hand, I know, and 
 mentally embrace, in my calculations, aU the subsequent di- 
 rections and movements, mth the same certainty as if they 
 were abeady present and perceived by me ; just so does a 
 virtuous WÜ1 originate a series of necessary and inevitable con- 
 sequences in the spiritual world, except that I camiot calcidate 
 them, but merely know that they must be, without being able 
 to tell by what means. I thus obtain the idea of a law of the 
 spü'itual world, in which my pm-e will is one of the moving 
 forces, as my hand is one of the moving forces of the material 
 world. The idea of this law of the spiiituid world, and the 
 firmness of my confidence in it, are one and the same thought, 
 as the secmity with which I reckon on a certain motion of a 
 material bodv, and the idea of a mechanical law of natm'e on 
 
FAITH. 109 
 
 which it depends, are one and the same. The idea of lato ex- 
 presses nothing more than the firm, iimnoveahle repose of 
 reason on an idea, and the impossibility of believing the con- 
 ftrary. 
 
 (I assume the existence of such a law of a spmtual \Yorld, — 
 not made by my will, nor by the will of any finite being, nor by 
 the will of aU finite beings taken together, but to which they are 
 aU subject. Neither I nor any finite and sensual being, is able 
 to conceive how a mere will can have any consequences at all, 
 or what they can be ; for in this consists the very essential 
 characteristic of om- finite natm-e, that we are unable to con- 
 ceive this. We have indeed the mere will as such in our 
 power, but since we cannot conceive its consequences, we 
 cannot propose them to om-selves as objects. I cannot say 
 that, in the material world, my hand, or any other body be- 
 longing to it, and subject to the universal law of gravitation, 
 gives this law of motion ; for it stands itself under this law, and 
 is able to set another body in motion merely in accordance with 
 it, and inasmuch as it partakes of the universal moving power 
 of Natm-e. Just as little does a finite wiU give the laAv to the 
 transcendental world, which no finite spirit can embrace, but 
 aU finite wiUs stand under this law, and can become efficient 
 causes in that world, only inasmuch as that law exists, and 
 they bring themselves under its operation by a conformity 
 to moral duty, the only tie which miites us to tliis higher 
 world, and the only organ that can enable us to re-act upon 
 it. As the universal force of attraction holds bodies together 
 in themselves, and to each other, so does that super-sensual 
 law miite and hold together all finite reasonable beings. My 
 \vill, and the will of all finite beings, may be regarded in 
 a twofold point of view ; as a moving principle in the sensual 
 world — for instance, of my hand, from whose movement, 
 agaiu, other movements follow ; and as a moving principle in 
 the transcendental world, giving rise to a series of spmtual 
 consequences of which as yet I have no conception. In the 
 first point of view, as a mere volition, it stands wholly in my 
 
110 THE DESTINATION OF MAN. 
 
 own power ; in tte latter point of view, as an effective cause, it 
 does not depend on me, but on the laws to wMcli I am subject; 
 to the law of nature in the world of sense, and to the super- 
 sensual law in that which is transcendental. 
 
 What, then, is this law of the spiritual world which I con- 
 ceive ? I believe it to be this ; that my will, absolutely of 
 itself, and without the intervention of any instrument that 
 might weaken its effect, shall act in a sphere perfectly con- 
 genial — reason upon reason, spirit upon spirit ; in a sphere to 
 which it does not give the laws of life, of activity, of progress, 
 but which has them in itself, therefore, upon self-active reason. 
 But spontaneous, self-active reason is wiU. The law of the 
 transcendental world must, therefore, be a WiU. A Will 
 which operates purely as wiU ; of itseK, without other instru- 
 mentality or sensual material for its operation, which is, at the 
 same time, will and act, wiih whom to will is to do — to com- 
 mand is to execute. A Will, which is itself law ; liable to no ac- 
 cident or caprice, nor requiring previous thought and hesitation 
 — eternal, unchangeable, on which we may infallibly reckon as 
 the mortal counts securely on the laws of his material world. 
 That sublime Omnipotent Will does not dwell apart. There 
 exists between him and all his rational creatui-es a spiritual 
 bond, and he himself is this spiritual bond of the rational 
 universe. Let me wiU, pm-ely and decidedly, my duty, and 
 in the spiritual world, at least, I shall not fail of success. 
 Every virtuous resolution of a finite being influences the Om- 
 nipotent WiU (if I may be aUowed to use such an expression), 
 not in consequence of a momentary approval, but of an ever- 
 lasting law of his being. With sm-prising clearness does this 
 thought now come before my soul, which hitherto was sm-- 
 rounded by darkness ; the thought that my wih, as such 
 merely, and of itself, could have any consequences. 
 
 It has these consequences because it is immediately and in- 
 fallibly perceived by another Will to which it bears affinity, 
 which is at the same time wUl and act, and the oiüy Uving 
 principle of the spiritual world ; its first results are in him, 
 
FAITH. Ill 
 
 and, througli him, on the world, which is but the ]n-oduct of 
 the Infinite Wül. 
 
 Thus — (for the mortal must speak in his own language,) — 
 thus do I communicate with that Infinite WiU ; and tkrough 
 the voice of conscience in my heart, which proclaims to me 
 what I have to do in every situation of my life, does he again 
 communicate with me. That voice, sensuahzed and translated 
 into my language, is the oracle of the Eternal, which an- 
 nounces to me what is to be my part in the order of the spi- 
 ritual world, or in the Infinite WiU, who himself makes that 
 order. I cannot, indeed, see through, or over, that spiritual 
 order, and I need not to do so. I am but a link in the chain, 
 and can no more judge of the whole, than a single tone can 
 judge of an entire harmony. But what I, myself, shall be in 
 this harmony of spirits I must know, and this is revealed to 
 me. Thus am I connected with the Infinite One, and there is 
 nothing real, lasting, imperishable in me, but the voice of con- 
 science, and my free obedience to it. By the fu'st, the spi- 
 ritual world bows down to me, and embraces me as one of its 
 members ; by the second I raise myself into it ; and the In- 
 finite Win miites me with it, and is the source of it, and of me. 
 This only is the true and imperishable, for which my soul has 
 yearned. All else is but phsenomenon — phantasm, which 
 vanishes, and retmiis in a new form. 
 
CHAPTEB XYII. 
 
 The Infinite Will unites me with himself, and ^dth all finite 
 beings such as myself. The great mystery of the invisible 
 world, and its fundamental law, inasmuch as it is a world or 
 system of many individual wiUs, is the union, and reciprocal 
 action, of many self-active and independent wills ; a mystery 
 which lies in the present life, obvious to aU, without any deeming 
 it matter for wonder. The voice of conscience, which im- 
 poses on each his particular duty, is the ray proceeding from 
 the Infinite One to each inrlividual, the trae constituent and 
 ■ basis of his life. The absolute fi-eedom of the wiU, which we 
 derive fi-om the Infinite, and bring with us into the world of 
 time, is the principle of tliis om- life. I act, and the sensual 
 perception by which alone I become a personal intelligence 
 being supposed, it is easy to conceive that I must know of this 
 my action, and that it must appear as a fact in a sensual world, 
 and that inversely by the same seusuaHzation, the, in itself, 
 purely spiritual law of duty should appear as the command to 
 such or such an action. It is conceivable that a world shoidd 
 appeal- to me as the condition of this action, and in part the 
 consequence and product of it. Thus far I remain on my own 
 territory ; aU this has developed itself purely out of myself ; 
 I contemplate only my own state of being. But in this, my 
 world, I admit, also, the operations of other beings indepen- 
 dent of me, and self-active like myself. That they shoiüd 
 know of their own operations, as I of mine, is conceivable. 
 But how I shoiüd know of them is entirely inconceivable, as it 
 is that they should have the knowledge of my existence, and 
 
FAITH. 113 
 
 its manifestations wHch I ascribe to them. How do tliey en- 
 ter my world, or I theirs — since the principle by which we 
 become conscious of oiu'selves and our operations, finds here 
 no application? How have free spirits knowledge of fr'ee 
 spmts, since we know that free spirits are the only reahty, 
 and that a substantial external world of matter, thi-ough wliich 
 they might act on each other, is not to be thought of. Or 
 shall we still say, we perceive our rational feUow beings by the 
 changes they produce in the material world ? In this case it 
 may be asked again, how we perceive these changes ? I com- 
 prehend very well that we should perceive changes brought 
 about by the mechanism of nature ; for the law of this me- 
 chanism is no other than the law of om' own thought. But 
 the changes of which we speak are not brought about by the 
 mechanism of nature, but by a free Avill raised above all na- 
 ture ; and only inasmuch as we thus regard them, do we in- 
 fer the existence of beings hke om-selves. By what law in 
 om'selves, then, could we discover the manifestations of other 
 beings absolutely independent of us ? In short, this mutual 
 recognition and reciprocal action of fr-ee beings in this world, 
 is perfectly inexplicable by the laws of natm-e, or of thought, 
 and can only be explained by the supposition of their being 
 all united in the one Infinite Will, supporting each in his 
 sphere. The knowledge which we have of each other does 
 not flow immediately from you to me, and fr-om me to you, 
 for we are separated by an insurmountable barrier ; but we 
 recognise each other in him who is the common source of our 
 being. My conscience commands me to respect in a fellow 
 creatm-e the image of fi-eedom upon the earth. Again, — 
 whence come om- feehngs, om* sensual perceptions, om- dis- 
 cm-sive laws of thought, on which is founded the external 
 world which we behold, in which we believe we influence each 
 other ? With respect to the two last, it is no answer to say, 
 these are the laws of reason in itself. Por us, indeed, it may 
 be impossible to conceive any other law of reason than that 
 under which we stand, but the actual law of reason in itself is 
 
114 THE DESTINATION OF MAN. 
 
 the law of the transcendental world, or of that subUme Will, 
 whence comes the universal agreement in feelings, which, 
 nevertheless, are something positive, immediate, inexplicable. 
 From this agreement, however, in feeling, perception, and in 
 the laws of thought, proceeds om- agi'eement in that sensual 
 world which we all behold. 
 
 This unanimity concerning the external world, which we 
 aU receive as the sphere of oui" duty, is, when closely looked 
 into, just as incomprehensible as our unanimity concerning the 
 products of our reciprocal free agency. This is the result of 
 the one Everlasting Infinite WiU. Our faith in duty, of which 
 we have spoken, is faith in him, in his reason, in his truth. 
 The only pure and absolute truth which we admit in the ex- 
 ternal world is that oui* faithful and impartial perfonnance of 
 om* duty in it wiü. open to us a way to an everlasting life of 
 moral freedom. 
 
 If this be, then indeed is there truth in this present world, 
 and the only truth possible for finite beings : and it must be, 
 for this world is the result of the Eternal Will in us, and this 
 WiU can have no other purpose with respect to finite beings 
 than that which we have seen. The Eternal Willis therefore 
 the Creator of the World, as he is the Creator of the finite 
 reason. Those who will have that a world must have been 
 created out of a mass of inert matter, which must always re- 
 main inert and lifeless, like a vessel made by himian hands, 
 know neither the world nor him. Eeason alone truly exists. 
 The Infinite in liimself, — the finite in him ; and in our minds 
 alone has he created a world, or at least that by whicli and 
 through which we unfold it. It is in his light that we behold 
 the light, and all that it reveals to us. In our niinTls he con- 
 tinues the creation of the world, and acts on them by the caU 
 to duty. In our minds he upholds the Avorld and the finite 
 existence of which alone we are capable, by causing one state 
 to arise perpetually from another. When he shall have suf- 
 ficiently proved us for om* fm-ther destination, and we suffi- 
 ciently cultivated ourselves, by that wliich we call death, will 
 
FAITH. 115 
 
 he annihilate for us this life, and awaken us to the new life 
 wrought out for us by our vü'tuous actions. Our Hfe is his 
 life. We are in his hands, and remain in them, and no one 
 can tear us from them. 
 
 Great living Will ! whom no words can name, and no con- 
 ception embrace, well may I lift my thoughts to thee, for I 
 can think only in thee. In thee, the incomprehensible, does 
 my own existence, and that of the world, become compre- 
 hensible to me ; all the problems of being are solved, and the 
 most perfect harmony reigns. Thou art best divined by 
 humble, child-like simplicity ; thou knowest her heart, and art 
 the always-present witness of all its dispositions, and though 
 they should be mistaken by all the world, thou wilt not mis- 
 take them. Thou art her father, who lookest ever kindly on 
 her, and all for her good. To thy decrees does she resign 
 herself, body and soul. " Do with me what thou wilt," she 
 says ; " I know that it will be good for me, as surely as I 
 know that it is thou who dost it." 
 
 I veil my face before thee, and lay my finger on my Mps. 
 What thou art in thyself, or how thou appearest to thyself, I 
 can never know. After living through a thousand Lives, I shall 
 comprehend Thee as little as I do now in this mansion of clay. 
 What I can comprehend, becomes finite by my mere comprehen- 
 sion, and this can never, by perpetual ascent, be transformed 
 into the infinite, for it does not differ from it in degree merely, but 
 in kind. By that ascent we may find a greater and greater man, 
 but never a God, who is capable of no measurement. I have and 
 can imagine only this discm-sive, progressive consciousness, and 
 how could I ascribe this to thee ? In the idea of personality 
 is included limitation, and I cannot ascribe to thee one with- 
 out the other. I will not attempt what is impossible to my 
 finite natm-e ; I will not seek to understand thy nature 
 in itself; but thy relations to me, the finite creature, and to 
 all finite creatures, Ke open before my eyes. Let me only 
 become what I ought to become, and they wiU appear to me more 
 brightly, more clearly, than my consciousness of my own ex- 
 
116 THE DESTINA.TION OP MAN. 
 
 istenee. Thou hast wrought in me the recogiiition of my 
 duty, and of my destination in the rank of reasonable beings; 
 — ^how, I know not and I need not to know. Thou knowest 
 what I think and will ; how thou canst know it, by what act 
 thou canst attain this consciousness, I know not, — nay, I 
 know that the idea of an act, and an especial act of conscious- 
 ness, belongs to me, the finite, and not to thee, the infinite. 
 Thou A^oUest, for thou hast willed that my free voluntary 
 obedience should have consequences through aU eternity ; but 
 the mode of thy volition I do not understand, and know only 
 that it cannot be like mine. Thy will itself is deed, but its 
 mode of operation is entirely different from any which I can 
 conceive. Thou livest and art, for thou knowest, ^dUest, and 
 workest every where present to the finite reason, but thou art 
 not that which tlu'ough all eternity can alone be regarded by 
 me as an individual existence. 
 
 In the contemplation of this, thy relation to me, will I re- 
 pose in cabn blessedness. I know immediately what is neces- 
 sary for me to know, and this will I joyfiüly, and without 
 hesitation or sophistication, practise, for it is thy voice which 
 commands me, the order of thy spiritual universe in me, and 
 the power with which I shall perform my part in it is thine. 
 ^ATiat is by thy voice therein commanded to me is truly and 
 certainly good. I am tranquu in all the events of this world, 
 for it is thy world. Nothing can appear to me strange or 
 perplexing, or discom-aging, as sm-ely as thou livest and I 
 perceive thy Hfe ; for in thee, and tlu-ongh thee, Infinite 
 Power, do I behold even the present world in another Hght. 
 Nature, and natural consequences, become mimeaning, empty 
 words, as applied to the destinies and actions of free beings. 
 Nature is no longer, but only thou art. It no longer appears 
 to me as the grand aim and pm-pose of the present world, to 
 bring forth that state of universal peace among men, and of 
 boundless dominion over the mechanism of natm-e merely for 
 its OAvn sake, but that it shoiüd be the work of man himself, 
 for aU, and through all, a great free moral comnmuity. It is 
 
FAITH. 117 
 
 the fundamental law of the gi-eat moral empii'e, of which the 
 present world forms but a part, that neither any amelioration 
 or any moral progress should be possible for an indi-^ddual, by 
 any other means than by his own virtuous will, and it is also 
 ti-ue of communities. Thus it happens that the good inten- 
 tions of the indi^ddual are so often lost to this world, when 
 the wül of the majority is not conformable to his, and have 
 theu" result solely in the futm-e. Thus it happens that the 
 passions and vices of men co-operate in the attainment of 
 good, not in and for themselves, for in this sense can never 
 good come out of evil, but by holding the balance of the 
 opposite vices, and at length, by their excess, annihilating them 
 and themselves. Oppression could never have gained ground 
 if the cowardice, baseness, and mutual mistrust of men had 
 not opened a way to it. It vnR continue to grow worse, until 
 despair shall once more awaken com'age, and cowardice and 
 slavery be swept away together. Then vnR the two opposite 
 ^äces have annihilated each other, and the noblest product of 
 human society, lasting freedom, come forth from their con- 
 flict. 
 
 The actions of free beings have, strictly considered, only 
 results in other free beings ; for in them and for them alone 
 is the world ; and that in which they aU agree is the world. 
 But they have these results tlu-ough the Infinite WiU, from 
 whom individuals proceed, and the revelation of this Wül to 
 us is always a call to a certain duty ; therefore even what Ave 
 call evil in the world, the consequence of the misuse of free- 
 dom, proceeds also from him, and exists only as the occasion 
 of duty. Did it not form part of the eternal plan of our 
 moral cultm-e, and that of our race, that the duties arising 
 from it should be laid on us, they would not be so laid, and 
 what we caU evü would not have existed. Every thing that 
 is, is good, as being suitable to its end. Only one world is 
 possible, and that is good. AH that happens in this world 
 tends to the amelioration and cultm-e of the human race, and 
 by means of this to the attainment of the earthly object of 
 
118 THE DESTINATION OF MAN. 
 
 its existence. It is to ttis great plan we allude when we 
 say, Nature leads men through want to industry, through 
 the evils of general disorder to a legal constitution, through 
 the miseries of continual wars to endless, everlasting peace. 
 Thy will, Infinite Being, thy Providence alone, is this 
 higher nature. This also is best understood by the artless 
 simplicity which regards this life as a place of probation, 
 and cidture a school for eternity, which, in all the events 
 of Hfe, the most trivial as well as the most important, be- 
 holds thy guiding Providence disposing all for the best, 
 which firmly believes that all things must work together for the 
 good of those who love their duty, and seek to know thee. 
 
CHAPTER XVIII. 
 
 Oh, how have I wandered in darkness dm-ing the past 
 days of my life, how have I heaped error upon error, and 
 deemed myself wise ! Now first do I understand the doc- 
 trine which seemed so strange to me ; for now fii'st do I 
 comprehend it in its whole compass, in its deepest founda- 
 tions, and tlu'ough all its consequences. 
 
 Man is not the mere product of the sensual world, and 
 the whole aim of his existence cannot be attained in it. His 
 high destiny passes time and space, and all that is sensual. 
 What he is, and what he is to make himself, he must know ; 
 as his destiny is a lofty one, he must be able to raise his 
 thoughts above - aU sensual limits ; where his true home is, 
 thither must his thoughts necessarily fly, and his real humanity, 
 in which his whole mental power is displayed, appears most 
 when he raises himself above those limits, and all that be- 
 longs to the senses vanishes in a mere reflection to mortal 
 eyes, of what is transcendent and immortal. 
 
 Many have raised themselves to this view without any 
 com'se of intellectual inquiry, merely by nobleness of heart 
 and pure moral instinct. They have denied in practice the 
 reality of the sensual world, and made it of no accoimt in 
 their resolutions and their conduct, although they might never 
 have entertained the question of its real existence, far less 
 have come to any conclusion in the negative. Those who 
 are entitled to say, " Our citizenship is in heaven, we have 
 here -0 abiding place, we seek it in a world to come," 
 those whose chief principle it was to die to the world, to 
 
120 THE DESTINATIOK OF MAN. 
 
 be bom again, and abeady here below to enter on the 
 kingdom of God, certainly set no value on what is merely 
 sensual, and were, to use the scholastic expression, " transcen- 
 dental Idealists." 
 
 , ! Others, who, with the natural tendency to sensuality common 
 to U.S all, have strengthened themselves in it by the adoption 
 of a system of thought leading in the same direction, can 
 only rise above it by a thorough and persevering course of 
 investigation ; with the pm-est moral intentions they would be 
 liable to be perpetually di'awn down again by their intellectual 
 mistakes, and their whole nature would be involved in inex- 
 tricable contradiction. 
 
 -. i Por such as these will the philosophy, which I now first 
 truly understand, be the fii'st power that can enable the im- 
 prisoned Psyche to break from the chrysalis and unfold her 
 wings ; poised on which, she casts a glance on her abandoned 
 cell, before springing upward to K^'e and move in a liigher 
 sphere. 
 
 Blessed be the hour in which I was first led to inquire into 
 my own spiritual natm^e and destination ! All my doubts are 
 removed ; I know what I can know, and have no fears for 
 what I cannot know. I am satisfied ; perfect clearness and 
 harmony reign in my soid, and a new and more glorious 
 existence begins for me. 
 
 My entire destiny I cannot comprehend ; Avhat I am to 
 become, exceeds my present power of conception. A part, 
 which is concealed fi'om me, is -vdsible to the father of spirits. 
 I know only that it is secm-e, everlasting and glorious. That 
 part of it which is confided to me I know, for it is the root 
 of all my other knowledge. 
 ' I know at every moment of my life what I have to do, and 
 i this is the aim of my existence as far as it depends on myself. 
 Since my knowledge does not reach beyond this, I am not re- 
 quired to go further. On this centival point I take my stand. 
 To this shall all my thoughts and endeavom's tend, and my 
 whole power be directed — my whole existence be woven 
 faround it. 
 
121 
 
 Irr. 
 
 It is my duty to cultivate my understanding and to acquire 
 knowledge, as mucli as I can, but purely A\dtli the intention of 
 enlarging my sphere of duty ; I sliaU desire to gain much, that 
 much may be requii-ed of me. It is my duty to exercise my 
 powers and talents in every dii-ection, but merely in order to ren- 
 der myself a more convenient and better qualified instrument for 
 the work I am called to do ; for until the law of God in my 
 heart shall have been folfilled in practice, I am answerable for 
 it to my conscience. It is my duty to represent in my person, 
 as far as I am able, the most complete and perfect humanity ; 
 not for its o-mi sake, but in order that in the form of 
 himianity may be represented the highest perfection of virtue. 
 I shall regard myself, and all that in me is, merely as the 
 means to the fulfilment of duty; and shall have no other 
 anxiety than that I may be able, as far as possible, to fulfil it. 
 When, however, I shall have once resolutely obeyed the law 
 of conscience, conscious of the purest intentions in doing so ; 
 when this law shall have been made manifest in practice, I 
 have no fm-ther anxiety ; for having once become a fact in the 
 world, it has been placed in the hands of an eternal Provi- 
 dence. Fm-ther care or anxiety concerning the issue were 
 but idle self-torment; would exhibit a want of faith and 
 trust in that Infinite Power. I shall not dream of governing 
 the world in His place ; of listening to the voice of my own 
 limited understanding, instead of His voice in my conscience, 
 and substituting for His vast and comprehensive plans, those 
 of a narrow and short-sighted individual. I know that to 
 seek to do so, would be to seek to distm-b the order of the 
 spiritual world. 
 
 As with tranquil resignation I reverence the decrees of a 
 higher providence, so in my actions do I reverence the free- 
 dom of my fellow creatures. The question for me is not what 
 they, according to my conceptions, ought to do, but what I 
 may do to induce them to it. I cannot Avish to act on them 
 otherwise than through their own conviction and their own 
 AVÜ1, and as far as the order of society and their own consent 
 
 G 
 
133 THE DESTINATION OF MAN. 
 
 Avill permit me ; by no means however to influence their 
 powers and circumstances, independently of their own con- 
 victions. They do what they do on their own responsibility : 
 in this I dare not interfere, and the Eternal Will will dispose 
 aU for the best. All that I have to do is to respect their 
 liberty, and make no attempt to destroy it, because it appears 
 to me ill employed. 
 
 .1 raise myself to this point of view, and become a new 
 creature ; my whole relations to the present world ai-e changed, 
 the ties by which my mind was closely connected with it, and 
 followed aU its movements, are broken for ever, and I stand 
 cahnly in the centre of my own world. My eye only, and not 
 my heart, is occupied with worldly objects, and this eye is 
 "fiUed with light," and looks through eiTor and deformity, to 
 'the True and the Beautiful. My mind is for ever closed 
 against perplexity, and embarrassment, and imcertaiaty, and 
 douijt, and anxiety. My heart, against grief and repentance 
 as well as against desire. There is but one thing that I wish 
 to know, and that I infaUibly shall know, and I refrain from 
 forming conjectm-es as to what I am sure I can never with 
 certainty know. No possible event has power to agitate me 
 with joy or sorrow, for I look down calm and mimoved upon 
 all, since I am aw^are that I am not able to understand events 
 in all then- bearings. All that happens belongs to the ever- 
 lasting plan of Providence, and is good in its place : how much 
 in this plan is pm'e gain, how much is merely good as means 
 to some further end, for the destruction of some present evil, 
 I know not. I am satisfied with, and stand fast as a rock on, 
 the belief that all that happens in God's world, happens for 
 the best ; but what in that world is merely germ, what blos- 
 som, what fruit, I know not. 
 
 J^- ..The only cause in which I can be deeply concerned is that 
 of the progress of reason and morality in the minds of ra- 
 tional creatm*es, and this pm-ely for the sake of this progress. 
 Whether I am the instrument chosen for this pm-pose, or an- 
 other, whether my endeavom's succeed or faü, is of no import- 
 
FAITH. 133 
 
 ance. I regard myself merely as a destined labom-er in this 
 field, and respect myself only inasmuch as I execute my task. 
 I look on all the occurrences of the world only in their rela- 
 tion to this object, and it matters not whether I or another 
 have the chief share in them. My breast is steeled against 
 personal insults and vexations, or vain-glorious exultation in 
 personal merit, for my personality has vanished in the con- 
 templation of the gi-eat object before me. 
 ;,, - Should it seem to me that truth has been put to silence, and 
 (^-jvirtue trampled under foot, and that folly and vice wUl cer- 
 tainly triumph ; should it happen, when all hearts were fiUed 
 with hope for the human race, that the horizon should sud- 
 denly darken around them as it had never done before ; 
 should the work, well and happily begun, on which aU eyes 
 were fixed with joyous expectation, suddenly and unexpectedly 
 be turned into a deed of shame, — yet wUl I not be dismayed : 
 nor if the good cause should appear to g-row and flomish, the 
 lights of freedom and civilization be diffused, and peace and 
 good-wiU amongst men be extended, shall yet my efl^orts 
 be relaxed. 
 
 - Those apparently melancholy events may, for aught I know, 
 be the means of bringing about a good result ; that struggle 
 of folly and vice may be the last that they shall ever maintain, 
 and they may be permitted to put forth aU their strength, to 
 lose it in one final defeat. Those events of apparently joyful 
 promise may rest on an uncertain foundation ; what I regarded 
 as love of freedom, may be but impatience of restraint; what I 
 attributed to gentleness and peacefulness, may originate in fee- 
 bleness and effeminacy. I do not indeed know this, but it 
 might be that I had as little cause to moiu-n over the one as 
 to rejoice over the other. All that I know is, that the world 
 is in the hands of omnipotent wisdom and goodness, who looks 
 through his whole plan, knows aU its bearings, and will infal- 
 libly be able to execute whatever he intends. On this convic- 
 tion I repose with a calm and blessed assurance. 
 
 That they are free and rational creatures, destined to make 
 G 2 
 
124 THE DESTINATION OF MAN. 
 
 progress towards perfect reason and moral purity, who thus 
 exert all tlieir powers in the promotion of folly and vice, need 
 excite no violent indignation. The depra^dty of hating what 
 is good for its own sake, and choosing evil because it is evil, 
 for the mere love of it, which alone could justly awaken anger, 
 I cannot ascribe to any human creature, for I know that it 
 lies not in human natm'e to do so. I know that for all who 
 act thus there is generally no good or evil, but merely the 
 agreeable or disagreeable, and that they are not under their 
 own control, but under that of natm'al appetite, which seeks 
 the former, and flies from the latter with all its strength, with- 
 out any consideration whether it be in itself good or e^dl. I 
 know that being what they are, they cannot act otherwise than 
 as they do act, and I am far fi-om the folly of growing angry 
 at what is of necessity, or seeing cause for indignation in 
 blind and brute impulse. 
 
 ;'ln that indeed lies their guilt and their degi'adation, that 
 they are what they are, instead of having striven to resist the 
 current of passion and animal natm'e by the force of reason, 
 as free and rational beings. 
 
 This alone could justly awaken my displeasm'e ; but here I 
 fall into an absurdity. I cannot blame them for their want of 
 moral freedom, unless I regard them first as free. I wish to 
 be angry with them, and find no object for my anger. "\'\Tiat 
 they actually are, does not deserve it— what might deserve it, 
 they are not ; and if they were, they would not deserve it. 
 
 My displeasure strikes a nonentity. I must indeed treat 
 them and addi-ess them as if they were what I well know 
 they are not, and manifest a noble indignation at their con- 
 duct, with a vieAV of arousing a similar feehng in their oun 
 breasts against themselves, although I am conscious in my 
 heart that no such feeling can be rationally entertained against 
 them. It is only the acting man of society whose anger is 
 excited by folly and ^dce : the contemplative man reposes un- 
 disturbed in the tranquillity of his ovra spirit. 
 
 Coi-poreal suffering, sorrow and sickness, I must indeed 
 
 I 
 
FAITH. 125 
 
 imavoidably feel, for they are occurrences of my natm*e, and 
 as long as I remain on eartli I am a part of natm'e ; but they 
 shall not overcloud my spirit. They can reach only the nature 
 with which I am in a wonderful manner united, not what is 
 properly myself, the being exalted above nature. The certain 
 end of all pain, and of aU susceptibility of pain, is death ; and 
 among aU which the man of mere natm-e is apt to regard as 
 evüs, this is the least. 
 
 I shall not die for myself, but only for others ; for those 
 who remain behind, from whose connection I am torn : for me 
 the horn- of death is the hour of birth to a new, more magni- 
 ficent Kfe. 
 
 Let my heart be once closed against earthly desire, and the 
 miiverse will appear before me in a glorified form : the dead 
 heavy mass, which did but fill up space, has disappeared, and 
 in its place there rushes by the bright, everlasting flood of life 
 and power from its infinite source, AJl life, Omnipotent 
 Father, is thy life ! and the eye of religion alone penetrates to 
 the realms of truth and beauty,' 
 
 I am related to thee, and what I behold around me is re- 
 lated to me ; all is full of animation, and looks towards me 
 with bright spiritual eyes, and speaks with spirit voices to my 
 heart. In aU the forms that surround me, I behold the 
 manifold reflections of my own being, as the morning sun, 
 broken into a thousand dewdi'ops, sparkles towards itself. 
 
 Thy life, as alone the finite mind can conceive it, is self- 
 forming, self-representing WiU, which, clothed to the eye of 
 the mortal with multitudinous sensuous forms, flows through 
 me and the whole immeasm'eable universe, here streaming as 
 self-creative matter through my veins and muscles — there 
 pom'ing its abundance into the tree, the flower, the grass. 
 
 Creative life flows like a continuous stream, di'op on drop, 
 into all forms tlu-ough which my eye can follow it, and into 
 the mysterious darkness where my own frame was formed ; 
 dancing and rejoicing in the animal, and presenting itself 
 every moment in a new form ; the only principle of motion 
 
126 THE DESTINATION OF MAN, 
 
 that, from one end of the universe to the other, conducts the 
 hcUTHonious movement. 
 
 But pure and holy, and as near to thine own natm*e as to 
 the eye of the mortal anything can be, when it forms the bond 
 which unites spüit with spirit, and encompasses them all, is 
 the breath and atmosphere of the rational world. Incompre- 
 hensible, unimaginable, yet visible to the mental sight. Ho- 
 vering over this sea of light, thought passes from soul to soiQ, 
 and is reflected back purer and brighter fi'om that of a fellow- 
 creatm-e. By this mystery does the individual understand 
 and love himself in another, and every mind develops itself 
 from other minds, and there is no single man, Ibut one huma- 
 nity. By this mystery does the affinity of spirits in the in- 
 visible world pass into their corporeal nature, and manifest 
 itself in two sexes, which, even if the spiritual bond could be 
 broken, would, as creatures of pm'e natm-e, be compelled to 
 love. It breathes through the tenderness of parents and chil- 
 dren and brethren, as if the souls were of one blood like the 
 bodies, and their minds but blossoms and branches of the 
 same stem ; and from these flows in wider and wider circles 
 tül it embraces the whole sentient world. The thirst after 
 love lies even at the root of hate, and no enmity springs up 
 but from friendship denied. 
 
 In that which to others appears a dead mass, my eye be- 
 holds this everlasting life and movement tlu'oughout the sen- 
 sual and sph'itual world, and sees this üfe for ever rising and 
 refining itself to more and more sphitual expression. The 
 universe is for me no longer that eternally-repeated play, that 
 ever-returning circle, that monster swallowing itself up, to 
 bring itseU" forth again as it was before ; it has become 
 sphitualized to me, it bears the stamp of spirit in a constant 
 progi'ess towards perfection. 
 
 The sun rises and sets, and the stars vanish and return 
 again, and all the spheres move in theii" harmonious circling 
 dance, but they never retm'n exactly what they were before, 
 and in the bright springs of life itself is life and progress. 
 
FAITH. 127 
 
 Every liour whicli they lead on, every morning, and every 
 evening, sinks with new increase tipon the world; new life 
 and new love descend like dew-drops from the clouds, and en- 
 circle natm-e as the cool night the earth. All death in nature 
 is birth, and in death appears visibly the advancement of life. 
 There is no killing principle in natm-e, for nature throughout 
 is life ; it is not death wliich Idlls, but the higher Kfe, which, 
 concealed behind the other, begins to develop itself. Death 
 and birth are but the struggle of life with' itself to attain a 
 higher form, and how could my death be other — mine — when I 
 bear in myself not merely the form and semblance of life, but 
 the only tnie original and essential life ? It is not possible 
 that nature could annihilate a life which has not its origin in 
 nature ; the natm-e which exists for me, and not I for her. 
 
 Yet even this my natm-al life, even this mere semblance, 
 clothing to mortal sight the inward invisible life, can she not 
 destroy — she who exists for me, and exists not if I am not ? 
 My present life disappears only before the higher life develop- 
 ing itself fi-om within ; and what mortals caE death, is the 
 visible appearance of a second animation. Did no rational 
 ci-eatm-e which had ever beheld the Hght- of this world die, 
 there would be no possible -ground to anticipate a new heavens 
 and a new earth ; the only purpose of natm-e, to present and 
 to maintain reason, would be fulfilled, and its span would have 
 been complete. But the act by which" she appears to destroy a 
 being free and independent of her, is to the eye of reason the 
 solemn announcement of a transition beyond her sphere. 
 Death is the ladder by whicli my spiritual vision ascends to 
 new heavenly life. 
 
 Every one of my fellow creatures, who leaves this earthly 
 circle, and whom I cannot regard as annihilated, di-aws my 
 thoughts after him beyond the grave. He is stül, and to him 
 belongs a place. Whust we mourn for him here, as in the 
 dark reahns of unconsciousness there might be moui-ning when 
 a man is to behold the light of the sun, above, there is rejoic- 
 ing that a man is born into that world, as we citizens of the 
 
138 THE DESTINATION OF MAN. 
 
 earth receive witli joy and welcome those bom to us. When 
 I shall be called on to foUow them, there will be but joj' for 
 me, for sorrow remains in the sphere which I shall be leaving. 
 The world of nature, on which but now I gazed with wonder 
 and admiration, sinks before me. With all its abomiding life 
 and order and bounteous increase, it is but the cm-tain which 
 hides one infinitely more perfect — the germ fi'om which that 
 other shall develop itself. My faith pierces through this veil, 
 and broods over and animates this germ. It sees indeed 
 nothing distinctly, but it expects more than it can conceive, 
 more than it will ever be able to conceive until time shall be 
 
 THE END. 
 
 Printed by Richard Kinder, Green Arbour Court, Old Bailey. 
 
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