Page:Masterpieces of German literature volume 10.djvu/535

 has originated with the common people, and that hitherto all the great national interests have, in the first instance, been the affair of the people, have been taken in hand and pushed forward by the body of the people; so that today for the first time does it happen that the initiative in the cultural advance of the nation is committed to the hands of the cultured classes, and if they will but accept the commission it will be the first time when such has been the case. It will presently appear that it is quite impossible for these classes to determine how long the matter will yet rest in their discretion, how long the choice will yet be open to them whether to take the initiative in this matter or not, for the whole matter is nearly ripe to be taken in hand by the people, and it will be carried out by men sprung from the body of the people, who will presently be able to help themselves without assistance from us."

Fichte, then, knew and proclaimed this fact, that the realization of all the great national interests in the past has been the work of the common people and has never been carried out at the hands of the cultured classes. That, in spite of this knowledge, he turned to the cultured classes is due, as he himself says, to the hope he had of first and most readily making himself understood by them. It is because, in his apprehension, for the presentment of the matter to the people, the whole was, so he says, "only approaching readiness and maturity," but not yet ready and mature.

That it is possible today to do what in Fichte's time was recognized as the only fruitful thing to do, but, at the same time, as not then ready to be done, and therefore too serious to be undertaken,—this expresses the whole short step in advance that has been accomplished in Germany during the past fifty years; for you will seek in vain for the slightest progress on the part of the German government.

Fichte himself, in the passage cited, says that this advance is coming in the near future. This "near future" proves to have been fifty years removed, and I trust, Mr. President and Gentlemen of the Court, that you will all