Page:Popular Works of Johann Gottlieb Fichte (1889) Vol 2.djvu/65

 indemnified them for all their labours and sacrifices;—it was this Idea which lay at the root of their inward life,—which cast the outward life into shade, and threw it aside as something undeserving of thought;—it was the power of this Idea which made them giants in physical and mental energy, although by birth like their fellow-men; and their personal life was dedicated to this Idea which first moulded that life into a worthy and accepted offering.

What impels the King, securely seated on a hereditary throne, with the fulness of the land spread out before him for his enjoyment,—what impels—(to combine my question with a well-known example so often misconstrued by a race of pigmy sentimentalists)—what impels the Macedonian hero to leave his hereditary kingdom already well secured on all sides and richly provided for by his father and to seek foreign lands to the conquest of which he forces his way by unceasing efforts? Will he thereby be happier or more contented?—What chains victory to his footsteps, and scatters before him in terror the countless hordes of his enemies?—Is this mere fortune? No!—it is an Idea which first gives the impulse, and which crowns the effort with success. Effeminate half-barbarians had looked down with scorn upon the most highly civilized people then living beneath the sun on account of their smaller numbers, and had even dared to entertain the thought of their subjugation; they had actually subdued kindred tribes dwelling in Asia, and subjected the cultivated and the free to the laws and odious inflictions of rude and enslaved nations. This outrage must not be perpetrated with impunity: on the contrary, the civilized must rule and the uncivilized must obey, if Right is to be the Law of the world. This Idea had already been long cherished in the nobler Grecian minds, until in Alexander it became a living flame which animated and consumed his personal