Page:Popular Works of Johann Gottlieb Fichte (1889) Vol 2.djvu/228

 dependence on each other. Religion must never lay claim to the compulsive power by which the State enforces its purposes, for Religion, like the Love of Goodness, exists inwardly and invisibly in the heart, and never appears in outward actions, which, although in accordance with the Law, may yet have proceeded from other motives altogether;—while the State can order only the visible actions of men. Religion is Love, while force is the instrument of the State; and nothing can be more perverse than the desire to enforce Love by outward constraint. On the other hand, the State must never attempt to use Religion for the furtherance of its purposes; for in so doing, it would place reliance upon an element which is not within its power, and which on that account might not fulfil its expectations; in which case it would have calculated falsely and thus have failed in its purpose;—it must be able of itself to enforce what it commands, and must command nothing but what it is able to enforce. This is the negative influence of Religion on the State, or rather the negative reciprocal influence of both on each other:—that by the existence of the first, the State is confined within its own proper limits, and both are strictly separated from each other.

In the view of True Religion, and in particular of Christianity, Humanity is the one, visible, efficient, living, and independent existence of God; or, if the expression be not misunderstood, the one manifestation and effluence of that Existence;—a beam from the Eternal Light, which divides itself, not in reality but only to mere earthly vision, into many individual rays. Therefore all which truly belongs to this Humanity is, according to this doctrine, essentially one and identical throughout; and is in all its elements destined in the same way lovingly to return to its Original and therein to be blessed. This vocation, thus set before man by Religion, must not be disturbed or hindered by the State; which must therefore