Page:Popular Works of Johann Gottlieb Fichte (1889) Vol 2.djvu/37

 accepting it as Unconceivable:—to the first, the Conceivable, so as thereby to order the relations of the Race;—to the second, the Unconceivable, in order to assure itself that all the Conceivable is exhausted, and that it is now in possession of the limits of the Conceivable. The former—the Age of Empty Freedom—does not know that man must first through labour, industry, and art, learn how to know; but it has a certain fixed standard for all conceptions, and an established Common Sense of Mankind always ready and at hand, innate, and ever present without trouble on its part;—and those conceptions and this Common Sense are to it the measure of the efficient and the real. It has this great advantage over the Age of Knowledge, that it knows all things without having learned anything; and can pass judgment upon whatever comes before it at once and without hesitation,—without needing any preliminary enquiry:—‘Whatever I do not immediately comprehend by the conceptions which already dwell within me, is nothing,’—says Empty Freedom:—‘Whatever I do not comprehend through the Absolute, Self-comprehensive Idea, is nothing,’—says Knowledge.

You perceive that this Age is based upon an already present conception,—an innate Common Sense, which pronounces irrevocably upon its whole system of knowledge and belief; and if we could thoroughly analyze this inborn conception or sense, which is thus to it the root of everything else, we should then, undoubtedly, be able to take in the whole system of the beliefs of the Age at a single glance, perceive the inmost spirit beneath all its outward wrappings, and bring it forth to view. Let it be now our task to acquire this knowledge;—and for this purpose I now invite you to the comprehension of a deep-lying proposition.

This namely:—The third Age throws off the yoke of Reason as Instinct ruling through the imposition of outward Authority. This Reason as Instinct, however, as we have