Page:Popular Works of Johann Gottlieb Fichte (1889) Vol 2.djvu/152

 more decried these writings are, the better; for, according to their principles, everything is good in proportion as it departs from the prevailing spirit of the Age;—and with these extraneous fancies they now decorate their own imperfect conceits, if indeed they do not take credit for them as their own. I may remark in passing, what cannot be denied, that among these fancies of the old and now decried Mystics, there are many admirable and genial thoughts; and we have even no wish to deny that among the more modern of them also there may be found many excellent expressions; but these gleams of genius are always surrounded by errors, and are never clear in themselves: in order to discover the beauties contained in these writings, the reader must bring similar excellencies with him to their study, and no one will learn from them who was not already wiser than they when he sat down to their perusal.

All Mysticism goes forth in a kind of enchantment; this is its invariable characteristic. What form of this art-magic, then, does that kind of Mysticism of which we now speak, exhibit? Only its Scientific form;—at least we now speak only of the scientific Mysticism of the Age; although there is doubtless another Mysticism of Art, as well as one of Life, which we may perhaps characterize at another time. This scientific Mysticism must therefore endeavour to produce some extraordinary and magical effect in science—something wholly impossible in the ordinary course of Nature. What then?—Science is either a priori or empirical. To comprehend a priori Science, partly as creating the world of Ideas, and partly as determining the world of Nature so far as it does determine it;—there is needed calm dispassionate thought, ceaselessly examining, correcting and explaining itself;—and it requires time and labour, and half a life of devoted endeavour, to produce anything remarkable after all. This is too well known for any one to dream of the influences of