Page:Popular Works of Johann Gottlieb Fichte (1889) Vol 2.djvu/269

 Higher Classes in their copious and comfortable enjoyment of life do not participate in its mechanical labours:—but how these have also their labours and toils in other spheres, how they are useful and necessary for the general welfare, and even indispensable for the People themselves; and in particular, what important advantages are secured to the community by its own labour;—all this it does not know, and cannot comprehend. Under these circumstances it cannot be but that Bad Manners should become a second nature to the Lower Classes, prompting them to regard the Higher Classes as oppressors who live upon their toil, and to look upon every proposition which comes to them from that quarter as an attempt to gain some new advantage over them. There is no other way by which these Lower Classes may be assisted, or their Bad Manners improved, except by their attaining a living conviction that they are not made subservient to the arbitrary will of an individual, but to the Community as a Whole; and even this only in so far as that Whole needs their services; and that all their Fellow-Citizens, without exception, to whatever Class they belong, stand in the same position:—but, in order that they may arrive at this conviction, it is necessary that this should actually be the case; for it is in vain to indulge the hope of deceiving the Lower Classes in matters which affect their interests. Hence either Equality of Rights must be actually introduced; or else the Privileged Classes must constantly, publicly, and before the eyes of all men, act as if this Equality were introduced. This condition of things must be brought distinctly under the notice of the Lower Classes, and be made evident to them by their Teachers, who are the mediators between them and the Higher Classes, and who ought to be well acquainted with their language and ways of thinking;—in one word, the People ought to receive instruction, and indeed fundamental, solid, and convincing instruction, not in Religion only, but also regarding the State, its purposes and its laws.