Page:Popular Works of Johann Gottlieb Fichte (1889) Vol 2.djvu/201

 this question than that it should be devoted to Fine Art. During War, Art can scarcely exist, far less advance with sure step and according to a settled plan;—the time of War, however, is not limited to the period when War is actually carried on; but the general insecurity of all men with respect to each other, and the constant state of preparation for War resulting from this, is itself War; and has almost the same consequences for the Human Race as active War. Only real, that is permanent, Peace, can be the parent of Art as we understand that word.

I said that only after the State has attained to perfect external security, the question arises, to what the surplus of national power, now no longer necessary for the purposes to which it was previously directed, should be applied. This question is also one which is obviously forced upon the State by the purposes of self-preservation; since, from such a considerable mass of power, undirected and uncomputed, and which nevertheless cannot by possibility remain wholly quiescent, nothing is to be expected but disturbances and hindrances to the State in the prosecution of its prescribed plans, and therefore the breaking up of its internal peace; and thus it is obvious that, in all those respects to which we have adverted, the State stands under a higher guidance, concealed it may be from itself; and that while, in its own belief, it is merely pursuing its special purpose of self-preservation, it is nevertheless, at the same time, promoting the higher purpose of the development of the Human Race.

For the rest:—It is only for the sake of completeness that we have introduced this latter point;—namely, how and under what external conditions the State is compelled, even in providing for its own preservation, to adopt the general and universally accessible form of Fine Art, as its own purpose: not by any means as indicating that this