The Vocation of Man. Johann Gottlieb Fichte
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consciousness is wholly determined, for it proceeds from his own nature:—no one can have other conceptions, or a greater or less degree of vitality in these conceptions, than he actually has. The substance of his conceptions is determined by the position which he assumes in the universe; their clearness and vitality, by the higher or lower degree of efficiency manifested by the power of humanity in his person. Give to Nature the determination of one single element of a person, let it seem to be ever so trivial,—the course of a muscle, the turn of a hair,—and she could tell thee, had she a universal consciousness, and were able to reply to thee, all the thoughts which could belong to this person during the whole period of his conscious existence.
In this system also, the phenomenon of our consciousness which we call Will, becomes thoroughly intelligible. A volition is the immediate consciousness of the activity of any of the powers of Nature within us. The immediate consciousness of an effort,—an aspiration of these powers which has not yet become a reality because it is hemmed in by opposing powers,—is, in consciousness, inclination or desire; the struggle of contending powers is irresolution; the victory of one is the determination of the Will. If the power which strives after activity be only that which we have in common with the plant or the animal, there arises a division and degradation of our inward being; the desire is unworthy of our rank in the order of things, and, according to a common use of language, may be called a low one. If this striving power be the whole undivided force of humanity, then is the desire worthy of our nature, and it may be called a higher one. The latter effort, considered absolutely, may be called a moral law. The activity of this latter is a virtuous Will, and the course of action resulting from it is virtue. The triumph of the former unassociated with the latter is vice; such a triumph over the latter, and despite its opposition, is crime.
The power which, on each individual occasion, proves triumphant, triumphs of necessity; its superiority is determined by the whole connexion of the universe; and hence by the same connexion is the vice or crime of each individual irrevocably determined. Give to Nature, once more, the course of a muscle, the turn of a hair, in any particular individual, and had she the power of universal thought, and could answer thee, she would be able to declare all the good and evil deeds of his life from the beginning to the end of it. But still virtue does not cease to be virtue, nor vice to be vice. The virtuous man is a noble product of nature; the vicious, an ignoble and contemptible one:—although both are necessary results of the connected system of the universe.
Repentance is the consciousness of the continued effort of humanity within me, even after it has been overcome, associated with the disagreeable sense of having been subdued; a disquieting but still precious pledge of our nobler nature. From this consciousness of the fundamental impulse of our nature, arises the sense which has been called ‘conscience,’ and its greater or less strictness and susceptibility, down to the absolute want of it, in many individuals. The ignoble man is incapable of repentance, for in him humanity has at no time sufficient strength to contend with lower impulses. Reward and punishment are the natural consequences of virtue and vice for the production of new virtue and new vice. By frequent and important victories, our peculiar power is extended and strengthened; by inaction or frequent defeat, it becomes ever weaker and weaker. The ideas of guilt and accountability have no meaning but in external legislation. He only has incurred guilt, and must render an account of his crime, who compels society to employ artificial external force in order to restrain in him the activity of those impulses which are injurious to the general welfare.
My inquiry is closed, and my desire of knowledge satisfied. I know what I am, and wherein the nature of my species consists. I am a manifestation, determined by the whole system of the universe, of a power of Nature which is determined by itself. To understand thoroughly my particular personal being in its deepest sources is impossible, for I cannot penetrate into the innermost recesses of Nature. But I am immediately conscious of this my personal existence. I know right well what I am at the present moment; I can for the most part remember what I have been formerly; and I shall learn what I shall be, when what is now future shall become present experience.
I cannot indeed make use of this discovery in the regulation of my actions, for I do not truly act at all, but Nature acts in me; and to make myself something else than that for which Nature has intended me, is what I cannot even propose to myself, for I am not the author of my own being, but Nature has made me myself, and all that I am. I may repent, and rejoice, and form good resolutions;—although, strictly speaking, I cannot even do this, for all these things come to me of themselves, when it is appointed for them to do so;—but most certainly I cannot, by all my repentance, and by all my resolutions, produce the smallest change in that which I must once for all inevitably become. I stand under the inexorable power of rigid Necessity:—should she have destined me to become a fool and a profligate, a fool and a profligate without doubt I shall become; should she have destined me to be wise and good, wise and good I shall doubtless be. There is neither blame nor merit to her nor to me. She stands under her own laws, I under hers. I see this, and feel that my tranquillity would be best ensured by subjecting my wishes also to that Necessity to which my being is wholly subject.
Oh these opposing wishes! For why should I any longer hide from myself the sadness, the horror, the amazement with which I was penetrated when I saw how my inquiry must end? I had solemnly promised myself that my inclinations should have no influence in the direction of my thoughts; and I have not knowingly allowed them any such influence. But may I not at last confess that this result contradicts the profoundest aspirations, wishes, and wants of my being? And, despite of the accuracy and the decisive strictness of the proofs by which it seems to be supported, how can I truly believe in a theory of my being which strikes at the very root of that being, which so distinctly contradicts all the purposes for which alone I live and without which I should loathe my existence?
Why must my heart mourn at, and be lacerated by, that which so perfectly satisfies my understanding? While nothing in Nature contradicts itself, is man alone a contradiction? Or perhaps not man in general, but only me and those who resemble me? Had I but been contented to remain amid the pleasant delusions that surrounded me, satisfied with the immediate consciousness of my existence, and never raised those questions concerning its foundation, the answer to which has caused me this misery! But if this answer be true, then I must of necessity have raised these questions:—I indeed raised them not, but the thinking nature within me raised them. I was destined to this misery, and I weep in vain the lost innocence of soul which can never return to me again.
But courage! Let all else be lost, so that this at least remains! Merely for the sake of my wishes, did they lie ever so deep or seem ever so sacred, I cannot renounce what rests on incontrovertible evidence. But perhaps I may have erred in my investigation;—perhaps I may have only partially comprehended and understood the grounds upon which I had to proceed. I ought to repeat the inquiry again from the opposite side, in order that I may at least possess a correct starting point. What is it, then, that I find so repugnant, so painful, in the decision to which I have come? What is it, which I desired to find in its place? Let me before all things make clear to myself what are these inclinations to which I appeal.
That I should be destined to be wise and good, or foolish and profligate, without power to change this destiny in aught,—in the former case having no merit, and in the latter incurring no guilt,—this it was that filled me with amazement and horror. The reference of my being, and of all the determinations of my being, to a cause out of myself,—the manifestations of which were again determined by other causes external to itself,—this it was from which I so violently recoiled. The freedom which was not mine, but that of a foreign power without me, and even in that, only a limited, half freedom,—this it was which did not satisfy me. I myself,—that of which I am conscious as my own being and person, but which in this system appears only as the manifestation of a higher existence,—this “I” would be independent,—would be something, not by another or through another, but of myself,—and, as such, would be the final root of all my own determinations. The rank which in this system is assumed by an original power of Nature I would myself assume, with this difference, that the modes of my manifestations shall not be determined by any foreign power. I desire to possess an inward and peculiar power of manifold, infinite modes of manifestation, like those powers of Nature, and this power shall manifest itself in