Page:Popular Works of Johann Gottlieb Fichte (1889) Vol 2.djvu/22

 the person has been in existence prior to the deed, in order that he might form the resolution so to act; and also during the accomplishment of the deed, in order that he might carry his previous resolution into effect; and every one might justly accept the proof of non-existence at a particular time, as equivalent to the proof of non-activity at the same time. In the same way,—if Mankind, as a Race, has done something, and appeared as the actor in such deed, this act must necessarily imply the existence of the Race at a time when the act had not yet been accomplished.)

As an immediate consequence of this remark, the Life of Mankind on Earth divides itself, according to the fundamental Idea which we have laid down, into two principal Epochs or Ages:—the one in which the Race exists and lives without as yet having ordered its relations with according to ; and the other in which this voluntary and reasonable arrangement is brought about.

To begin our farther inquiry with the first Epoch;—it does not follow, because the Race has not yet, by its own free act, ordered its relations according to Reason, that therefore these relations are not ordered by Reason; and hence the one assertion is by no means to be confounded with the other. It is possible that Reason of itself, by its own power, and without the coöperation of human Freedom, may have determined and ordered the relations of Mankind. And so it is in reality. Reason is the of the Life of a Race of Men, as of all Spiritual Life; and in this sense and in no other shall the word ‘Reason’ be used in these lectures. Without the living activity of this law a Race of Men could never have come into existence; or, even if it could be supposed to have attained to being, it could not, without this activity, maintain its existence for a single moment. Hence, where Reason cannot as yet work by Freedom, as in the first Epoch, it acts as a law or power of Nature; and thus may be present in