Page:Popular Works of Johann Gottlieb Fichte (1889) Vol 2.djvu/239

 forming but One State and possessing one common interest; until, at last, the dreaded enemy, involved in the meshes of European policy, grew old in itself and began its course of decay towards internal dissolution.

These are, in my opinion, the external conditions under which the Christian State-system of Modern Europe has begun and continued its development. How the true State-Constitution develops itself in individual States under these outward conditions, hindered or furthered by them; how it has received within itself, and further cultivated, whatever it has found already existing in the world; we shall see in the future lectures;—if we may venture to hope that these inquiries continue to possess an interest for you, and can still attract and hold together the remaining body of our accustomed hearers.