Page:Popular Works of Johann Gottlieb Fichte (1889) Vol 2.djvu/293

 other Life, and as the Life of the Race not individual Life,—this, as the middle sphere of this domain of Religion, may be conceived and has been conceived by us; and on the same ground, it may be conceived how each of the necessary Epochs of this Earthly Life is related to the whole, and what is the particular significance of each in itself. Here, therefore, lies the domain of the Religion of the Understanding;—and this domain we have traversed in our inquiry, putting forward the Epoch in which we live as its clearest and most intelligible point.

The question, What has been the nature of our inquiry, is answered. What we have done is this:—we have raised ourselves into the domain of Religion by that way which is the most easy and accessible to our Age,—the way of Understanding. So surely as our inquiry has been a Religious inquiry, it has been no product of our own Age but has transcended all Ages and all Time; so surely as it has applied itself especially to the dominant principle of our own Age, it has raised itself from the level of this particular Age above all Time. The greatest obstacle to reflection is when a man no longer hesitates or stumbles at anything, no longer wonders at anything, and no longer seeks any explanation of surrounding phenomena. Of all the wonders that surround a man in this condition of indifference, whatever touches him however slightly because it has a direct influence on his own personal weal or woe, is that which lies nearest to him among the events of the Time. But what cultivated mind has not sometimes at least pondered in astonishment over those wonderful phenomena, demanded the meaning of them, and earnestly longed for a solution of its questionings? Without allowing ourselves to be occupied with trifles, which often fall within the domain of the absolutely unintelligible, or even when they are intelligible lead to nothing great, we have considered and characterized the Age broadly and as a whole; but