Page:Popular Works of Johann Gottlieb Fichte (1889) Vol 2.djvu/44

 but the fortune to possess a nature wholly animal, it would then not be obliged laboriously to seek, by means of Experience, its knowledge of the world,—that is, the means of its physical preservation,—but it would possess these a priori in the animal instinct; since in fact the ox grazing on the meadow leaves untouched those grasses which are hurtful to his nature, without ever having tasted them and discovered by experience their pernicious qualities; and in like manner takes to those which are healthful to him without previous trial; and consequently, if we were to ascribe knowledge to him, possesses a knowledge absolutely a priori and independent of all Experience. Only in the middle state between humanity and animalism is Experience, that wherein our race ranks below the animals, and in its superiority to which the meanest insect may be an object of envy to man, if destitute of a priori conceptions of an Eternal World,—only in this middle state, I say, is Experience elevated to be the crown and standard of humanity, and such an Age steps boldly forward and asks,—‘Might it but know then how any knowledge whatever is possible except by Experience?’ as if by this question, indeed, every one would be frightened, retreat within himself, and give no other answer than the desired one.

In so far as this Age admits the possibility of anything lying beyond the confines of the mere knowledge of the physical world, although it does so in a somewhat inconsequential manner, and only because such things are also present in Experience, and on account of such Experience are taught in the Schools, it becomes its highest wisdom to doubt of everything, and in no matter to take a part either on the one side or the other. In this neutrality, this immoveable impartiality, this incorruptible indifference to all truth, it places its most excellent and perfect wisdom; and the charge of having a system appears to it as a disgrace by which the reputation of a man is irretrievably destroyed. Such scientific cobwebs are only devised in order that young