Page:Popular Works of Johann Gottlieb Fichte (1889) Vol 2.djvu/35

 in which we, who now live and think and speak to each other, do actually exist and live. It is by no means my purpose at present to mark out the centuries, or even cycles, which may have elapsed since that which I call the Present Age first appeared in the world. Obviously, an Age can only be judged and understood by observation of those nations who stand at the head of the civilization of their time: but as civilization has wandered from people to people, so with this civilization an Age too may have wandered from people to people, remaining unchangeably one and the same in principle amid all variety of climate and of soil; and so likewise, in virtue of the purpose of uniting all nations into one great commonwealth, may the Age be arrested and detained on the stage during a considerable period of chronological Time, and thus, as it were, the Time-current be compelled to a pause. Especially may this be the case with an Age like that which we have to describe, throughout which adverse worlds meet and struggle with each other, slowly striving to attain an equilibrium, and thereby to secure the peaceful extinction of the elder time. But, it is only after we have acquired a more intimate knowledge of the principle of the Age, and have learned at the same time how history is to be questioned and what we have to seek from her, that it will be useful or proper for us to adduce from the history of the actual world whatever may be necessary for our purpose and may serve to guard us from error. Not whether our words, had they been uttered centuries ago, would then have depicted reality,—nor whether they shall picture it forth after centuries have passed away,—but only whether they now represent it truly, is the question which is proposed for your final decision.

So much by way of preface to our first task,—to unfold the principle of the Age;—now to the solution of this problem. I have laid down this principle as Liberation from the compulsion of the blind Authority exercised by Reason as