Page:Popular Works of Johann Gottlieb Fichte (1889) Vol 2.djvu/237

 complete Personal Freedom, and the principles that no Christian can be a slave and that a Christian soil confers Freedom. On the other hand, according to the same principle, the Non-Christian or Heathen, may legitimately be made a slave.

An outward event, of too much importance to be passed over in silence, served to urge this Christian Republic of Nations into closer union with each other, to compel them to regard themselves as members belonging to one Whole, to pursue common interests, and to commence new undertakings in their common character as a Christian Republic. In Asia which, except that it probably had been the abode of the Normal People, had otherwise done nothing for Humanity save the production of the True Religion, there arose a second and younger branch of this True Religion,—namely, Mohammedanism,—obviously from one and the same source as Christianity, but by no means admitting the entire abrogation of the Ancient Covenant with God; hence accepting from Judaism whatever was applicable to its own condition, and thus bringing along with it the germ of its gradual corruption and final ruin, and rejecting the inexhaustible source of outward perfection which Christianity contains within itself. Zealous in proselytism like Christianity; expert at the sword, by which from the first it had spread itself abroad; vainly arrogating a superiority over Christianity on account of a distinction of little importance in itself, this namely, that it distinctly declared the Unity of God a doctrine which was essentially pre-supposed in Christianity, and that it was not wholly imbued with such gross superstition as the Christianity of the Time; lastly, dogmatically inculcating Despotism, and that mute and unquestioning submission which is peculiar to the East, as its political principles;—this Mohammedanism waged war with Christianity and proved a victorious assailant. Besides extinguishing Christianity altogether in a