Page:Popular Works of Johann Gottlieb Fichte (1889) Vol 2.djvu/109

 which they set on foot, or the truth which radiates from their doctrines, and enlightens all men? How were that possible, when the Age passes no judgment whatever upon the importance or truth of anything, but only collects a store of opinions as materials for a future judgment? Thus he who only announces an opinion, and thereby brings his contribution to the great magazine of general speculation, in this way qualifies himself to be a leader of the host. But, as we have already observed, there is no preeminence to be attained in this Age; for every one who breathes its atmosphere, has at one time or another swelled the general store of opinion by producing some conception of his own. Unfortunately a disaster often befalls this fertile capacity of thought;—this, namely,—that the opinion which bears universal sway in the evening is in the morning forgotten by all the world, even by its own prolific inventor;—and so this new contribution to the treasures of the Age vanishes into thin air. But should a method be discovered by which this fact of an opinion having been announced, as well as the opinion itself in so far as this latter may be possible, should be firmly established and protected against the next morning’s breeze, so that all who are blessed with sound eyesight might be distinctly advertised that an opinion had been ushered into the world, and the thinker himself be provided with a safeguard against forgetting what he has thought;—if, for example, the arts of Writing and Printing were discovered then should the Age be delivered from its perplexity. Then he whose opinions stood permanently recorded by means of ink and paper should belong to the Heroes of the Age, the sublime phalanx of whom constitutes a community of votaries of Knowledge, or, as they better love to be called,—their whole being resting only on empiricism,—a Republic of Letters.

In this view the Age is by no means disturbed by the consideration that the admission into this glorious senate of humankind is usually effected through the nearest printer,