Page:Popular Works of Johann Gottlieb Fichte (1889) Vol 2.djvu/57

 life necessarily loves itself. But as these two forms of life are thoroughly opposed to each other, so also are the kinds of love and satisfaction which they have in themselves quite opposed to each other,—wholly and specifically different;—and in this specific difference they are easily recognised and distinguished from each other.

To begin with the love which the Life according to Reason entertains for itself. Towards this Life we may stand in a double relation:—either, we may possess it only in conception, in a feeble and imperfect representation, and only as received from others;—or, we may ourselves truly and in reality be and live this Life. That mankind cannot at the present day stand in the latter relation,—since, in that case, there would be not only no Egoism, and no Third Age of the world, but also no true Freedom,—this has already been admitted; nay more,—that we have been all fashioned and born outside of this relation, and can only by labour and toil place ourselves therein. Hence it must be the first relation, namely the possession, or the capacity of possessing, the Life according to Reason in conception, which is never wholly extinguished among men, which all have the power to attain, and by which all may at least comprehend the Life according to Reason.

The love which the Life opposed to Reason bears to itself, with which indeed we are all better acquainted, and to which our language more easily accommodates itself, manifests itself in its specific character, both in general and in particulars,—as delight in its own sagacity, petty pride in its own cleverness and penetration, and,—to designate an ignoble thing by a befitting ignoble expression,—as self-satisfied chuckling over its own cunning. Thus in the former lecture it was represented as a fundamental characteristic of the Third Age, that it looked down with haughty self-complacency on those who suffer themselves to be defrauded of present enjoyment by a dream of Virtue, congratulating itself that it is far above such delusions, and therefore secure from