Page:Popular Works of Johann Gottlieb Fichte (1889) Vol 2.djvu/88

 advantage;—just as the opposite principle, that of a Life according to Reason, consists herein,—that each Individual ought to devote his own personal life to the Life of the Race; or in other words,—as it afterwards appeared that the form in which this Life of the Race enters into consciousness and becomes an active power in the life of the Individual is called Idea,—that each Individual ought to place his personal life, and power, and all enjoyment thereof, in Ideas. In order to make clearer our farther characterization of the Third Age, by contrasting it with the Life according to Reason, we have in our last two lectures entered upon a delineation of this Life, and with respect to that matter, I have now only to add the following remarks:—

In the first place: Herein,—namely, in the distinction which we have pointed out between a life devoted to mere personal well-being, and a life devoted to the Idea,—lies the difference between the Life opposed to Reason and the Life according to Reason; and it is of no importance here whether, in the latter case, the Idea reveal itself in the obscurity of mere Instinct, as in the First Epoch; or be imposed by External Authority, as in the Second; or stand bright and clear in the fulness of Knowledge, as in the Fourth; or rule in the equally clear realization of Art, as in the Fifth; and in this respect the Third Age does not stand opposed to any one of the others in particular; but, as being essentially and throughout contrary to Reason, it stands opposed to all other Time, as essentially and in substance in accordance with Reason though from Age to Age under various forms.

In the particular manifestations of the Idea, and its mode of working, which we have adduced in our last two lectures, it appears only in the form of Instinct; for we have there described only the Time which precedes the Third Age, which indeed first makes the existence of that Age possible,—and when Time in general has not yet advanced to the