Page:Popular Works of Johann Gottlieb Fichte (1889) Vol 2.djvu/144

 unintelligible. On this account, too, these thoughts can never be proved, nor attain any greater degree of clearness than that which they already possess; but they may be postulated,—or, should the language of true Reason be already current, the reader or hearer may be directed to the ‘Intellectual Intuition’; which latter, however, has a totally different meaning in Reason from that which it bears in Mysticism. For the same reason, no account can be given of the method in which these thoughts have been discovered, because, in reality, they have not been discovered by means of a systematic ascent to a higher principle, like the primitive thoughts of Reason,—but are, in truth, the mere conceits of Chance.

And this Chance,—what is it at bottom? Although those who are in its service can never explain it, yet cannot we explain it? It is a blind thinking-power, which, like all other blind powers, is, in the final analysis, only a force of Nature from the control of which free thought sets us at liberty; depending, like all other natural conditions, upon the state of health, the temperament, the mode of life, the studies, &c. of the individual;—so that these Mystics, with their fascinating philosophy, notwithstanding their boast of having raised themselves above Nature, and their profound contempt for all Empiricism, are themselves but a somewhat unusual empirical phenomenon, without having the least suspicion of the real state of the case.

The remark that the principles of Mysticism are mere accidental conceits, imposes upon me the duty of distinguishing it from another, and, in some respects, similar process of thought;—and I embrace this opportunity of more strictly defining it. In the domain of Physics, namely, not only the most important experiments, but even the most searching and comprehensive theories are often the results of chance, or it may be said, of mere conjecture; and so must it be, until Reason be sufficiently