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158 I can never resign this purpose; the deed, when it is completed, I may resign, and repeat it, or improve it. Thus do I live and labour, even here, in my most essential nature and in my nearest purposes, only for the other world; and my activity for it is the only thing of which I am completely certain;—in the world of sense I labour only for the sake of the other, and only because I cannot work for the other without at least willing to work for it.

I will establish myself firmly in this, to me, wholly new view of my vocation. The present life cannot be rationally regarded as the whole purpose of my existence, or of the existence of a human race in general;—there is something in me, and there is something required of me, which finds in this life nothing to which it can be applied, and which is entirely superfluous and unnecessary for the attainment of the highest objects that can be attained on earth. There must therefore be a purpose in human existence which lies beyond this life. But should the present life, which is nevertheless imposed upon us, and which cannot be designed solely for the development of reason, since even awakened reason commands us to maintain it and to promote its highest purposes with all our powers,—should this life not prove entirely vain and ineffectual, it must at least have relation to a future life, as means to an end. Now there is nothing in this present life, the ultimate consequences of which do not remain on earth,—nothing whereby we could be connected with a future life—but only our virtuous will, which in this world, by the fundamental laws thereof, is entirely