Page:Popular Works of Johann Gottlieb Fichte (1889) Vol 2.djvu/168

 understand them. Whether it was Moses who composed them; or,—since this, from internal evidence, may be obviously impossible,—whether it was he who collected them from mere verbal tradition and placed them on record; or whether it was Ezra, or some still later writer; is of no importance to me here:—it is even of no importance to me in this case whether any such person as Moses or Ezra ever lived; nor do I care to know how this composition has been preserved;—fortunately it has been preserved, and this is the main point. I perceive by its contents that it is a Myth concerning the Normal People in opposition to another merely Earth born People; and concerning the religion of the Normal People and their dispersion; and of the origin of the Jehovah-Worship, among the adherents of which the primitive religion of the Normal People was once more to re-appear, and through them to be spread over the whole world. I conclude from the contents of this Myth that it must be older than all History, since from the commencement of the historic period down to the time of Jesus there was none able even to understand much less to invent it; and also because I find the same Myth everywhere repeated as the mythical beginning of the History of all nations;—although in a more fabulous and sensuous form. The existence of this Myth, before all other History, is the first fact of History, and its true beginning; and therefore it cannot be explained by means of any previous fact:—the contents of this Myth are thus not History but Philosophy, and a belief in it is no further obligatory on any one than as it is confirmed by his own investigations.

We have said before, that if the true end of the Existence of the Human Race was to be attained it was necessary that the Normal People should be dispersed over the seats of Barbarism: and now, for the first time, there occurred something new and remarkable, which