Page:Popular Works of Johann Gottlieb Fichte (1889) Vol 2.djvu/53

 nevertheless, at bottom, only a mean, base, and therefore unhappy man. Hence our principle, as we ourselves have expressed it in all its rigour,—it and nothing else,—is our meaning, against which it is, and always will be, impossible to bring forward any essential objection.

Whatever has been urged against this principle hitherto since mankind had a being, or can be urged so long as it shall have a being, is grounded upon the bold assertion that man cannot forget himself, and that personal self-love has grown up in such intimate union with his nature that it is now inextricably interwoven with it. I ask such assertors, Whence then have they obtained their knowledge of what man can do, and what he cannot? Obviously this assertion of theirs can be founded on nothing else than observation of themselves;—and it may indeed be true that they for themselves, since they have become what they are and wish to remain so, may never be able to forget their own personal welfare. But by what right do they make the standard of their ability or non-ability the measure of the capacity of the Race? The noble mind can indeed understand the thought of the ignoble, for we are all born and fashioned in Egoism, and have all lived in it, and it needs struggle and effort to destroy this old nature within us; but the ignoble cannot know the thoughts of the noble, because he has never entered the world to which they belong, nor traversed it as his world has of necessity been traversed in all its extent by the noble. The latter surveys both worlds, the former only that which holds him captive;—as the Waker may in his waking understand the Dream, and the Seer conceive of Darkness; but the Dreamer cannot in his dream comprehend the Waking, nor the Blind-born imagine Light. Only when they have attained to this higher world, and have taken possession of it, shall they be able to do that which they now declare they cannot do, and only by acquiring this ability for themselves can they learn that Man is capable of acquiring it.