Page:Popular Works of Johann Gottlieb Fichte (1889) Vol 2.djvu/277

 be rightly and fundamentally studied;—but to this fundamental study we are only impelled by necessity, and only at a time when Government can no longer be carried on by superficiality.

Thus the philosophical and scientific sense of the Age overthrows Superstition when it is thoroughly recognised and understood; but cannot as yet establish True Religion in its place in distinct Consciousness. Hence in such an Age, there is no longer to be found any clear and distinct conception of a Super-sensual world, either true or false.

Suppose then that such is actually the case,—that these inferences are confirmed by observation, which here again I leave to yourselves to follow out,—would it necessarily follow, because the Super-sensual is nowhere clearly comprehended, that the indistinct feeling of the Infinite, and the struggling and striving after its attainment no longer exist; in one word, that with Religion itself, the sense of Religion, or Religious Feeling, has likewise disappeared? By no means. It may be laid down as an incontestable principle, that where even Virtue and Good Manners still prevail,—philanthropy, the charities of social life, sympathy, benevolence, domestic order, the faithful and self-sacrificing attachment of husband and wife, parents and children,—there Religion still exists whether recognised or not; and there the capacity still exists for its attaining a full and conscious being. Such a people can indeed no longer entertain those Superstitions whose empire has passed away; but let the attempt be made to awaken in them clear and true Ideas of Religion, and it will soon be seen that they will be moved by these as by nothing else. And has not this, in fact, occasionally occurred in Modern Times?—and has it not been remarked upon such occasions that men of all Classes, who seemed to be dead to every other spiritual influence, have been attracted and aroused by this? Very far, therefore, from