Page:Popular Works of Johann Gottlieb Fichte (1889) Vol 2.djvu/173

 interpenetrated with Life; for beyond this there is nothing but Illusion and Unreality. Nothing is as it is, because God wills it so arbitrarily, but because He cannot manifest Himself otherwise than as he does. To acknowledge this guidance, humbly to acquiesce therein, and in the consciousness of this identity with the Divine Power to attain true Blessedness, is the business of all men; to comprehend in clear intelligence what is Universal, Absolute, Eternal, and Unchangeable in this leading of the Human Race, is the business of the Philosopher; to set forth the Actual Phenomena of the inconstant and ever-changing spheres over which with steadfast course it holds its way, is the business of the Historian;—whose discoveries are only incidentally employed by the former.

It is of course to be understood that the use which we have partly made of History already, and partly still intend to make of it, can be no other than this its philosophical use, and cannot be looked at otherwise than as we have described it to-day,—I trust clearly and distinctly. Our next task shall be to show how the Idea of the State according to Reason gradually became realized among men, and at what point of this development of the Absolute State our own Age stands. In order to confine ourselves very carefully within the boundaries of our own Science, and not to give any cause on our part for reviving the old dispute between Philosophy and History, we shall not even give out that which we have to state on this subject as ascertained historical data, but only as hypotheses and distinct questions for History, leaving it to the Historian to bring them to the test of facts, and to inquire how far they are confirmed thereby. Should our views prove merely new and interesting, they may still give rise to inquiries from which at least something also new and interesting may come forth, if not exactly that which was