Page:Popular Works of Johann Gottlieb Fichte (1889) Vol 2.djvu/20

 relation to Universal Time. Hence it is clear that the Philosopher, in order to be able rightly to characterize any individual Age—and, if he will, his own—must first have understood a priori and thoroughly penetrated into the signification of Universal Time and all its possible Epochs.

This comprehension of Universal Time, like all philosophical comprehension, again presupposes a fundamental Idea of Time; an Idea of a fore-ordered, although only gradually unfolding, accomplishment of Time, in which each successive period is determined by the preceding; or, to express this more shortly and in more common phraseology,—it presupposes a World-plan, which, in its primitive unity, may be clearly comprehended, and from which may be correctly deduced all the great Epochs of human life on Earth, so that they may be distinctly understood both in their origin, and in their connexion with each other. The former,—the World-plan,—is the fundamental Idea of the entire life of Man on Earth; the latter,—the chief Epochs of this life,—are the fundamental Ideas of particular Ages of which we have spoken, from which again the phenomena of these Ages are to be deduced.

We have thus, in the first place, a fundamental Idea of the entire life of Man, dividing itself into different Epochs, which can only be understood by and through each other; each of which Epochs is again the fundamental Idea of a particular Age, and is revealed in manifold phenomena therein.

The life of Mankind on this Earth stands here in place of the One Universal Life, and Earthly Time in place of Universal Time;—such are the limits within which we are confined by the proposed popular character of our discourses, since it is impossible to speak at once profoundly and popularly of the Heavenly and Eternal. Here, I say, and in these discourses only, shall this be so; for, strictly speaking, and in the higher flights of speculation, Human Life on Earth, and Earthly Time itself, are but necessary