Page:Popular Works of Johann Gottlieb Fichte (1889) Vol 2.djvu/96

 suffer from the consciousness of unsatisfied vacuity, which manifests itself in an infinite, unappeasable, constantly recurring weariness:—it must be wearied as well as wearisome. In this unpleasant state of feeling it grasps eagerly at that which seems its only remedy,—namely, Wit; either for its own gratification, or else to break, from time to time, the weariness which it is conscious of producing in others, and thus, in the long deserts of its seriousness, to sow here and there some grain of sport. This design must indeed of necessity fail, for he only is capable of Wit who is susceptible of Ideas.

Wit is the communication of profound Truth,—that is, of Truth belonging to the region of Ideas,—in its most direct and intuitive aspect. In its most direct and intuitive aspect, I say;—and in this respect Wit is the opposite of the communication of the same Truth in a chain of consecutive reasoning. When, for example, the philosopher separates an Idea, step by step, into its individual component parts; interprets each of these separate parts, one after the other, by means of some other conception which limits and defines it, and pursues this course until he has exhausted the whole Idea; then he proceeds in the way of methodical communication and proves indirectly the truth of his Idea. Should it happen, however, that he can at last encompass the whole Idea in its absolute unity with one single light-beam which shall, as with a lightning flash, illumine and reveal it, and penetrate each intelligent hearer or reader, so that he must at once exclaim, ‘Yes, truly, so is it; now I see it at one glance;’—then is this the representation of the Idea in question in its most direct and intuitive aspect, or its expression by Wit; and in such a case by direct or positive Wit. Again, Truth may also be proved indirectly, by showing the folly and error of its opposite; and when this is done, not by methodical and gradual exposition, but in immediate and intuitive clearness, then this is indirect,