Page:Popular Works of Johann Gottlieb Fichte (1889) Vol 2.djvu/76

 our griefs from wounding it. The Life in the Idea is forever secured against all disturbance in this respect, for it has withdrawn itself from the sphere in which alone such disturbance is possible. For this Life there is no self-denial and no sacrifice;—the self which has to be denied, and the desires which have to be sacrificed, are withdrawn from its sight, and its love for them has disappeared. This self-denial and these sacrifices excite astonishment only in him for whom their objects still possess value, because he himself has not yet relinquished them;—when they are once relinquished they vanish into oblivion, and he finds that, in truth, he has lost nothing. The stern and authoritative Law of Duty, which presupposes vicious inclinations, and only exists that it may scare back the first movements of desire into the dim obscurities of thought, is abolished in the Life in the Idea. ‘Ce n’est que le premier pas qui coûte.’ This higher Life once attained, that which at first was enforced upon man as the stern command of Duty becomes his spontaneous rule of conduct, the end for which alone he desires to live,—his sole joy, love, and blessedness. Thus, it is only ignorance which dreams that a profound philosophy would recall the gloomy morality of self-crucifixion and martyrdom. Oh no!—it invites man to cast from him that which can afford no enjoyment, in order that the source of infinite enjoyment may approach him, and fill his being with its presence.

The Idea is independent, self-sufficient, self-existent; it lives and has its being absolutely for its own sake alone; and scorns every outward and adventitious object. Hence it does not value and love its Life according to the foreign standard of any result, use, or advantage which may arise therefrom. As in the Life of the the Idea strives constantly towards absolute worth, not mere welfare,—worth in itself, not mere deserving;—so when it nourishes the individual life of man it is wholly