Page:Popular Works of Johann Gottlieb Fichte (1889) Vol 2.djvu/64

 Faith in another world, which they attested so nobly by their deeds; and what this Faith, as an act of the mind, really is. Does not the mind which faithfully accepts another world as certain, in this very acceptance renounce the present?—and is not this Faith itself the sacrifice, once and for ever accomplished and perfected in the mind, and which only manifests itself outwardly when special circumstances call it forth? Let it be no wonder at all, but quite a conceivable thing, and only what thou thyself, who makest this objection, wert thou in the same position, wouldst do,—that they willingly sacrificed everything to their belief in an Eternal Life:—let this be so; then is it the wonder that they did believe; in which belief the Egoist, who is incapable of letting the Present escape, even for a moment, from his view, can never follow nor even approach them.

Who has united rude races together, and reduced opposing tribes under the dominion of law, and to the habits of peaceful life? Who has maintained them in this condition, and protected existing states from dissolution through internal disorder, or destruction by outward power? Whatever name they may have borne, it was Heroes, who had left their Age far behind them, giants among surrounding men in material and spiritual power. They subdued to their Idea of what ought to be, by whom they were on that account hated and feared; through sleepless nights of thought they pondered their anxious plans for their fellow-men; from battlefield to battlefield they rushed without weariness or rest, renouncing the enjoyments which lay within their grasp, making their life a spoil, often shedding their blood. And what sought they by these labours?—and how were they rewarded? It was an Idea, a mere Idea of a new condition of things to be brought about by them, to be realized for its own sake alone, and without reference to any ulterior purpose;—this it was which inspired them; and it was the unspeakable delight of this Idea which rewarded and