Page:Popular Works of Johann Gottlieb Fichte (1889) Vol 2.djvu/268

 esteem those who by their own conduct invite contempt; or by strictly repulsing every approach of the other Class, and carefully shutting themselves up from such contact in a system of narrow exclusiveness.

How shall these two estranged Classes of the same State now peacefully reunite and harmonize in one and the same system of Good Manners? The most advantageous means of attaining that end would be, that they should be bound together by Knowledge; and indeed that the Citizen-class should first find themselves in possession of this Knowledge, and that the communication of it should proceed from them. Were it at first to be an acquisition of the Privileged Classes, it might be feared that they would seek to retain exclusive possession of it, and so appropriate, in addition to the accidental distinctions of fortune, the far more important superiority of true worth. Of the Citizen, educated by the light of true Knowledge, it may be expected that he will rightly understand and appreciate the real meaning and value of these distinctions of the Privileged Classes,—perchance as we have set these forth in our preceding lecture,—and just upon that account will be as far from over-estimating as from grudging them. The Educated Man of the Privileged Classes, would acquire a new, peculiar, and personal value, which would powerfully dispose him to open his eyes to the light which true Knowledge throws upon his fortuitous and hereditary Privileges. To both, the distinctions which exist between them in matters of small moment would readily disappear before their Equality in those higher Privileges upon which they set supreme value.

Both Classes, now united by this tie, still stand opposed in society to the great mass of the People who are engaged in mechanical and manual labour, and who on that account are almost universally without that perfect instruction of which they stand in need. This large Class feels the oppression of its daily toil; it sees that the