Page:Popular Works of Johann Gottlieb Fichte (1889) Vol 2.djvu/102

 to enforce, and for the first time to apply:—Every possible Age strives to encompass and pervade the whole ; and only in so far as it succeeds in doing this does it manifest the true character of an Age, since besides this Life of the  there is nothing remaining but the phenomena of individual life.

So also the Third Age. It is in its nature an Age of Knowledge; and it must therefore labour and strive to raise all Mankind to this position. To this Age, Understanding, as the highest and decisive tribunal, possesses a value in itself; and indeed the highest value, determining all other value: hence men are esteemed only in so far as they readily receive or studiously acquire the Conceptions of the Understanding, and easily apply and clearly discriminate among them;—and all the efforts of the Age in the Culture of Mankind must be directed to this end. It matters not that individual voices may be heard from time to time exclaiming—‘Act! act!—that is the business: what shall mere knowledge avail us?’—for either by such action is meant only another form of learning; or else those voices are but the reaction against itself of an Age dissatisfied with its own emptiness, of which we have already made mention in our last lecture: and by such a reaction this Age, in all its varied manifestations, is usually accompanied. In judging of this point, the decisive test is the Education which an Age bestows on the children of all classes, but particularly on those of the people. Is it found that, among all classes, the aim of such Education is that children should know something; and that, in particular among the people, the main object is that they should be enabled to read with facility, and, so far as it may be attainable, to write also; and generally, that they should acquire the Knowledge peculiar to the class on whom their Education devolves: as for example, where that Education is entrusted to the clerical body, that they should be well versed in