Page:Popular Works of Johann Gottlieb Fichte (1889) Vol 2.djvu/58

 being imposed upon;—its true character being admirably expressed in a single phrase,—would-be-Enlightenment. Thus the highest and most refined enjoyment which he who cares best for his own advantage, and successfully pursues it through many difficulties, can attain, is the satisfaction he must feel in his own shrewdness and skill. On the contrary, the love which the Life according to Reason bears to itself, as a legitimate and well-ordered existence, manifests itself in its specific character, not as unexpected gratification, but in the dignified form of approval, esteem, and reverence.

In so far as we have attained the Life according to Reason, in the first way, namely, in conception, and as a picture of a Life removed from our own, in so far will this conception lovingly welcome and dwell upon itself in delighted complacency;—for, in that case, we shall at least have entered so far into the sphere of the Life of Reason, as to possess a worthy and adequate image of it. (We may add here, for the benefit of those who are acquainted with the scientific language of philosophy, that the feeling thus produced is an aesthetic pleasure, and indeed the highest aesthetic pleasure.)

This pleasure, however,—this approbation of something foreign to us,—something which we ourselves are not,—inspires us with respect and reverence, combined, in the best of our race, with silent unsatisfied regards thrown back upon themselves, and a secret longing to assimilate their own life to the object of their love; out of which longing the higher Life gradually unfolds itself. In so far as, in the second way, the Life according to Reason actually becomes conscious of itself as a real and present existence, it flows forth in unspeakable enjoyment and satisfaction, before the thought of which the Egoist must retreat in envy could he entertain the thought;—in this love to itself, it becomes pure Blessedness. For all feelings of disappointment and dissatisfaction, as well as those of desire and insufficiency, are nothing else