Page:Popular Works of Johann Gottlieb Fichte (1889) Vol 2.djvu/279

 accomplishes, and if I do this by declaring what it does not accomplish. All previous outward forms of Christianity have had the effect of bringing Mankind, and in particular Nations and States, thus far:—that they have done many things which they would otherwise have left undone, and have left undone many things which otherwise they would have done; and in particular Superstition has constrained its subjects to abandon many pernicious, and to adopt many useful, practices. In one word: these outward forms of Christianity lie at the bottom of many phenomena and events which would otherwise never have occurred. It is not so with inward True Religion; it does not come forth into the world of outward Appearance, and impels man to no outward act which he would not otherwise have done. But it completes his own internal being, makes him wholly at one with himself, and intelligible to himself, thoroughly Free and Blessed:—in one word, it perfects his dignity.

Let us consider the highest which man can possess in the absence of Religion; I mean, Pure Morality. He obeys the Law of Duty in his breast, absolutely because it is a Law unto him; and he does whatever reveals itself as his Duty, absolutely because it is Duty. But does he therein understand himself?—does he know what this Duty, to which at every moment he consecrates his whole existence, really is in itself and what is its ultimate aim? So little does he know this, that he declares loudly it ought to be so absolutely because it ought; and makes this very impossibility of comprehending and understanding the Law,—this absolute abstraction from the meaning of the Law, and the consequences of the deed,—a characteristic mark of genuine obedience. In the first place, let not the impudent assertion be here repeated, that such an obedience without regard to consequences, and without desire for consequences, is in itself impossible and opposed to Human Nature. What does the mere sensuous Egoist,