Page:Popular Works of Johann Gottlieb Fichte (1889) Vol 2.djvu/171

 it philosophically, he only points out, for the purposes of illustration, the occasions on which this has been visible in History. The mere Collector of Facts indeed proceeds, and ought to proceed, quite differently. But his business is not to be despised on account of its opposition to Philosophy;—it is, on the contrary, highly honourable if properly pursued. He has absolutely no support, no guide, no fixed point, except the mere outward succession of years and centuries, wholly irrespective of their significance; and it is his business to declare all that can be discovered historically in any of these Epochs of Time. He is an Annalist. Does anything of this kind escape him?—then he has transgressed the rules of his art, and must endure the reproach of ignorance or carelessness. Now in each of these Epochs,—which he distinguishes only by their succession in Time, but not by means of their essential nature,—there lie, as only the Philosopher can tell him, or the Annalist himself if he be a Philosopher may know, the most diverse elements in immediate contact and intermixture;—the remnants of original Barbarism, or of an original Culture which has passed away without communication; remnants or else foreshadowings of all the other four Epochs of Culture;—and finally the actually living and progressive Culture itself. The merely empirical Historian has to collect faithfully all these elements just as he finds them, and to place them in order beside each other: the Philosopher who uses History for the purpose which we have here in view, has only to do with the latter element,—the actually living and progressive movement of Culture,—laying aside all the rest; and thus the empirical Historian, who should judge him according to the rules of his own art, and conclude that he was ignorant of that which he had no occasion to produce, would be at fault, for it is specially to be expected of the Philosopher that he should not bring forward on every