Page:Popular Works of Johann Gottlieb Fichte (1889) Vol 2.djvu/42

 receives without labour or toil of its own, as its hereditary patrimony; which is born with it like its hunger and its thirst, and which it now applies as the undoubted measure of all existence and all worth.

Our first problem is solved;—the significance of the Third Epoch is, as we promised that it should be, dragged forth from its concealment and brought forward into open day, and we cannot now fail in likewise reproducing its systems of faith and practice with as much accuracy and sequence as it could itself exhibit in their construction. In the first place,—the fundamental maxim of the Age, as already announced, is now better defined, and it is clear that from its asserted principle ‘What I do not comprehend, that is not,’ there must necessarily follow this other:—‘Now I comprehend nothing whatever except that which pertains to my own personal existence and well-being; hence there is nothing more than this, and the whole world exists for nothing else than this,—that I should be, and be happy. Whatever I do not comprehend as bearing upon this object, is not,—does not concern me.’

This mode of thought is either operative only in a practical way, as the concealed and unconscious, but nevertheless true and real, motive of the ordinary doings of the Age,—or it elevates itself to theory. So long as it only assumes the first form, it cannot easily be laid hold of and compelled to avow its real nature, but generally retains a sufficient number of lurking holes and ways of escape; it has not yet become a specific Epoch, but is only in the early stages of its development. So soon, however, as, having become theory, it understands itself, admits its own proper significance, and loves, approves, and takes pride in itself, and indeed accounts itself the highest and only truth, then does it assume the distinct Epochal character, reveal itself in all the phenomena of the Age, and may now be thoroughly comprehended by its own admissions. We prefer to approach the subject at its clearest point, and shall