Page:Popular Works of Johann Gottlieb Fichte (1889) Vol 2.djvu/294

 so that none of the members of this assembly will be apt to find anything passed over which specially interests him. We have characterized it in a rational and religious frame of mind, regarding all things as necessary parts of the whole, and as securely leading to nobler and more perfect results.

Thus there can be no doubt that our inquiry has transcended the limitations of Time. But this alone does not satisfy us. That it is no product, no favourite opinion, no mere prejudice of our Age, is well:—but is it not perhaps a mere nonentity, a deceptive show, a dream disappearing in the empty void of Time, and having no existence in True and Real Time? We have now to set forth the principles upon which this second question must be answered.

To this empty void of Time belongs everything which is adopted for the purpose of mere pastime, or, what is the same thing, for the satisfaction of curiosity founded upon no earnest desire of knowledge. Pastime is but an empty waste, interposed between times devoted to serious occupations. At the opening of these Lectures I undertook nothing more than that I should occupy your thoughts for a few hours of this winter in a manner neither unseemly nor disagreeable:—more I could not promise reckoning on myself alone; and to promise even this unconditionally was itself a hazard, for communication upon my part presupposed the power of receiving such a communication upon yours, and a definite communication presupposed a definite degree and form of this receptive power. If you have taken me altogether at my own word in this matter, then you may now congratulate yourselves that you have, in the course of this winter, got rid of sixteen or seventeen hours of idleness by means of a new amusement which has at least proved good, profitable, and wholesome;—and against this I have nothing to say. But in this case, it is quite certain that these