Page:Popular Works of Johann Gottlieb Fichte (1889) Vol 2.djvu/40

 found in the higher philosophy;—which individual persons exist and are in no other way than in this Earthly and Finite perception, and by means of it;—not at all in themselves, or independent of Earthly and Finite perception. You see here the origin of the division of the One Life of Reason into individual life, and the ground of the necessity which there is, for all who have not raised themselves by Knowledge above mere Earthly and Finite perception, to continue in the faith of this personal existence.

(In order that this principle may not be misunderstood in a sense entirely opposed to my meaning, I add the following;—but merely in passing, and without any connexion with my present subject:—The Earthly and Finite perception, as the foundation and scaffolding of the Eternal Life, as well as all that is contained therein,—and therefore, all the individual persons into whom the One Reason is divided by this Earthly and Finite perception,—endures, at least in memory, in the Eternal Life itself. Hence, far from anything arising out of my principle against the continuation of personal existence, this principle furnishes the only sufficient proof of it. And—to express it briefly and distinctly—persons endure through Eternity as they exist now, i.e. as the necessary phenomena of Earthly and Finite perception; but in all Eternity they can never become,—what they never were nor are,—independent beings.)

After this short digression, let us return to our task. The One and homogeneous Life of Reason of which we have spoken, dividing itself to mere Earthly and Finite perception into different individual lives, and hence assuming the form of the collective life of a Race, is, as above stated, founded at first upon Reason as Instinct, and as such regulated by its own essential law;—and this continues until Knowledge steps in and clearly comprehends this law in all its varied aspects, demonstrates and establishes it, and so makes it evident to all men;—and after Knowledge has done its part, then by Art is it built up into Reality. In this