Page:Popular Works of Johann Gottlieb Fichte (1889) Vol 2.djvu/246

 from the realms of Barbarism, which would give another aspect to the business, but within the empire of Christianity itself. To what purpose did they propose to apply this accession of power, and to what purpose did they actually apply it when it was attained? To acquire yet more extensive possessions. And where would this progress have had an end, had matters but proceeded according to the desire of these States? Only at the point where there was nothing more left to satiate the desire of acquisition. Although no individual Epoch may have contemplated this purpose, yet is this the spirit which runs through all these individual Epochs, and invisibly urges them onward.

Against this desire of aggrandizement, the less powerful States are now compelled to contrive means for their own preservation;—one condition of which is the preservation of other States, in order that the power of the natural enemy may not be increased by the acquisition of any of these States to the prejudice of the rest:—in one word, it becomes the business of the less powerful States to maintain a Balance of Power in Christendom. ‘What we ourselves cannot acquire, no other shall acquire, because his power would thereby obtain a disproportionate addition;’ and thus the care of the greater States for their own preservation is at the same time the protection of the weaker communities:—or, ‘If we cannot hinder others from aggrandizing themselves, then we must also secure for ourselves a proportionate aggrandizement.’

No State, however, strives to maintain this Balance of Power in the European Republic of Nations, except on account of its being unable to attain something still more desirable; and because it cannot yet realize the purpose of its individual aggrandizement, and the idea of Universal Monarchy which lies at the foundation of that purpose:—whenever it becomes more powerful it surely embraces this design. Thus each State either strives to attain this Universal Christian Monarchy, or at least to acquire the power