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This is the aim of earthly existence which Reason sets before us, and for the sure attainment of which Reason vouches. It is not a goal for which we are to strive merely that our faculties may be exercised on something great, but which we must relinquish all hope of realizing. It shall and must be realized. At some time or other this goal must be attained, as surely as there is a world of the senses, and a race of reasonable beings in time, for whom no serious and rational object can be imagined but this, and whose existence is made intelligible by this alone. Unless the whole life of man is to be considered as the sport of an evil Spirit, who implanted this ineradicable striving after the imperishable in the breasts of poor wretches merely that he might enjoy their ceaseless struggle after that which unceasingly flees from them, their still repeated grasping after that which still eludes their grasp, their restless driving about in an ever-returning circle—and laugh at their earnestness in this senseless sport—unless the wise man, who must soon see through this game and be tired of his own part in it, is to throw away his life, and the moment of awakening reason is to be the moment of earthly death—that goal must be attained. O it is attainable in life and by means of life; for Reason commands me to live. It is attainable, for I am.

III

But now, when it is attained, when Humanity shall stand at the goal—what then? There is no higher condition on earth than that. The generation which first attains it can do nothing further than to persist in it, maintain it with all their powers, and die and leave descendants who shall do the same that they have done, and who, in their turn, shall leave descendants that shall do the same. Humanity would then stand still in its course. Therefore its earthly goal cannot be its highest goal, for this earthly goal is intelligible, and attainable, and finite. Though we consider the preceding generations as means of developing the last and perfected, still we cannot escape the inquiry of earnest Reason: "Wherefore then these last?" Given a human race on the earth, its existence must indeed be in accordance with Reason, and not contrary to it. It must become all that it can become on earth. But why should it exist at all—this human race? Why might it not as well have remained in the womb of the Nothing? Reason is not for the sake of existence, but existence for the sake of Reason. An existence which does not, in itself, satisfy Reason and solve all her questions, cannot possibly be the true one.

Then, too, are the actions commanded by the voice of Conscience, whose dictates I must not speculate about, but obey in silence—are they actually the means, and the only means, of accomplishing the earthly aim of mankind? That I cannot refer them to any other object but this, that I can have no other intent with them, is unquestionable. But is this, my intent, fulfilled in every case? Is nothing more needed but to will the best, in order that it may be accomplished? Alas! most of our good purposes are, for this world, entirely lost, and some of them seem even to have an entirely opposite effect to that which was proposed. On the other hand, the most despicable passions of men, their vices and their misdeeds, seem often to bring about the good more surely than the labors of the just man, who never consents to do evil that good may come. It would seem that the highest good of the world grows and thrives quite independently of all human virtues or vices, according to laws of its own, by some invisible and unknown power, just as the heavenly bodies run through their appointed course, independently of all human effort; and that this power absorbs into its own higher plan all human designs, whether good or ill, and, by its superior strength, appropriates what was intended for other purposes to its own ends.

If, therefore, the attainment of that earthly goal could be the design of our existence, and if no further question concerning it remained to Reason, that aim, at least, would not be ours, but the aim of that unknown Power. We know not at any moment what may promote it. Nothing would be left us but to supply to that Power, by our actions, so much material, no matter what, to work up in its own way, for its own ends. Our highest wisdom would be, not to trouble ourselves about things in which we have no concern, but to live, in each case, as the fancy takes us, and quietly leave the consequences to that Power. The moral law within us would be idle and superfluous, and wholly unsuited to a being that had no higher capacity and no higher destination. In order to be at one with ourselves, we should refuse obedience to the voice of that law and suppress it as a perverse and mad enthusiasm.

* * * * *

If the whole design of our existence were to bring about a purely earthly condition of our race, all that would be required would be some infallible mechanism to direct our action; and we need be nothing more than wheels well fitted to the whole machine. Freedom would then not only be useless, but even contrary to the purpose of existence; and good-will would be quite superfluous. The world, in that case, would be very clumsily contrived—would proceed to its goal with waste of power and by circuitous paths. Rather, mighty World-Spirit, hadst thou taken from us this freedom, which, only with difficulty and by a different arrangement, thou canst fit to thy plans, and compelled us at once to act as those plans required! Thou wouldst then arrive at thy goal by the shortest road, as the meanest of the inhabitants of thy worlds can tell thee.

But I am free, and therefore such a concatenation of cause and effect, in which freedom is absolutely superfluous and useless, cannot exhaust my whole destination. I must be free; for not the mechanical act, but the free determination of free-will, for the sake of the command alone and absolutely for no other purpose (so says the inward voice of conscience)—this alone determines our true worth. The band with which the law binds me is a band for living spirits. It scorns to rule over dead mechanism, and applies itself alone to the living and self-acting. Such obedience it demands. This obedience cannot be superfluous.

And, herewith, the eternal world rises more brightly before me, and the fundamental law of its order stands clear before the eye of my mind. In that world the will, purely and only, as it lies, locked up from all eyes, in the secret dark of my soul, is the first link in a chain of consequences which runs through the whole invisible world of spirits; so in the earthly world the deed, a certain movement of matter, becomes the first link in a material chain which extends through the whole system of matter. The will is the working and living principle in the world of Reason, as motion is the working and living principle in the world of the senses. I stand in the centre of two opposite worlds, a visible in which the deed, and an invisible, altogether incomprehensible, in which the will, decides. I am one of the original forces for both these worlds. My will is that which embraces both. This will is in and of itself a constituent portion of the supersensuous world. When I put it in motion by a resolution, I move and change something in that world, and my activity flows on over the whole and produces something new and ever-during which then exists and needs not to be made anew. This will breaks forth into a material act, and this act belongs to the world of the senses, and effects, in that, what it can.

I have not to wait until after I am divorced from the connection of the earthly world to gain admission into that which is above the earth. I am and live in it already, far more truly than in the earthly. Even now it is my only firm standing-ground, and the eternal life, which I have long since taken possession of, is the only reason why I am willing still to prolong the earthly. That which they denominate Heaven lies not beyond the grave. It is already here, diffused around our Nature, and its light arises in every pure heart. My will is mine, and it is the only thing that is entirely mine and depends entirely upon myself. By it I am already a citizen of the kingdom of liberty and of self-active Reason. My conscience, the tie by which that world holds me unceasingly and binds me to itself, tells me at every moment what determination of my will (the only thing by which, here in the dust, I can lay hold of that kingdom) is most consonant with its order; and it depends entirely upon myself to give myself the destination enjoined upon me. I cultivate myself then for this world, and, accordingly, work in it and for it, while cultivating one of its members. I pursue in it, and in it alone, without vacillation or doubt, according to fixed rules, my aim—sure of success, since there is no foreign power that opposes my intent.

* * * * *

That our good-will, in and for and through itself, must have consequences, we know, even in this life; for Reason cannot require anything without a purpose. But what these consequences are—nay, how it is possible that a mere will can effect anything—is a question to which we cannot even imagine a solution, so long as we are entangled with this material world, and it is the part of wisdom not to undertake an inquiry concerning which, we know beforehand, it must be unsuccessful.

* * * * *

This then is my whole sublime destination, my true essence. I am a member of two systems—a purely spiritual one, in which I rule by pure will alone; and a sensuous one, in which I work by my deed.

* * * * *

These two systems, the purely spiritual and the sensuous—which last may consist of an immeasurable series of particular lives—exist in me from the moment in which my active reason is developed, and pursue their parallel courses. The latter system is only an appearance, for me and for those who share with me the same life. The former alone gives to the latter meaning, and purpose, and value. I am immortal, imperishable, eternal, so soon as I form the resolution to obey the law of Reason; and do not first have to become so. The supersensuous world is not a future world; it is present. It never can be more present at any one point of finite existence than at any other point. After an existence of myriad lives, it cannot be more present than at this moment. Other conditions of my sensuous existence are to come; but these are no more the true life than the present condition. By means of that resolution I lay hold on eternity, and strip off this life in the dust and all other sensuous lives that may await me, and raise myself far above them. I become to myself the sole fountain of all my being and of all my phenomena; and have henceforth, unconditioned by aught without me, life in myself. My will, which I myself, and no stranger, fit to the order of that world, is this fountain of true life and of eternity.

But only my will is this fountain; and only when I acknowledge this will to be the true seat of moral excellence, and actually elevate it to this excellence, do I attain to the certainty and the possession of that supersensuous world.

* * * * *

The sense by which we lay hold on eternal life we acquire only by renouncing and offering up sense, and the aims of sense, to the law which claims our will alone, and not our acts—by renouncing it with the conviction that to do so is reasonable and alone reasonable. With this renunciation of the earthly, the belief in the eternal first enters our soul and stands isolated there, as the only stay by which we can still sustain ourselves when we have relinquished everything else, as the only animating principle that still uplifts our hearts and still inspires our life. Well was it said, in the metaphors of a sacred doctrine, that man must first die to the world and be born again, in order to enter into the kingdom of God.

I see, oh, I see now, clear before mine eyes, the cause of my former heedlessness and blindness concerning spiritual things! Filled with earthly aims, and lost in them with all my scheming and striving; put in motion and impelled only by the idea of a result, which is to be actualized without us, by the desire of such a result and pleasure in it—insensible and dead to the pure impulse of that Reason which gives the law to itself, which sets before us a purely spiritual aim, the immortal Psyche remains chained to the earth; her wings are bound. Our philosophy becomes the history of our own heart and life. As we find ourselves, so we imagine man in general and his destination. Never impelled by any other motive than the desire of that which can be realized in this world, there is no true liberty for us, no liberty which has the reason for its destination absolutely and entirely in itself. Our liberty, at the utmost, is that of the self-forming plant, no higher in its essence, only more curious in its result, not producing a form of matter with roots, leaves and blossoms, but a form of mind with impulses, thoughts, actions. Of the true liberty we are positively unable to comprehend anything, because we are not in possession of it. Whenever we hear it spoken of, we draw the words down to our own meaning, or briefly dismiss it with a sneer, as nonsense. With the knowledge of liberty, the sense of another world is also lost to us. Everything of this sort floats by like words which are not addressed to us; like an ash-gray shadow without color or meaning, which we cannot by any end take hold of and retain. Without the least interest, we let everything go as it is stated. Or if ever a robuster zeal impels us to consider it seriously, we see clearly and can demonstrate that all those ideas are untenable, hollow visions, which a man of sense casts from him. And, according to the premises from which we set out and which are taken from our own innermost experience, we are quite right, and are alike unanswerable and unteachable, so long as we remain what we are. The excellent doctrines which are current among the people, fortified with special authority, concerning freedom, duty and eternal life, change themselves for us into grotesque fables, like those of Tartarus and the Elysian fields, although we do not disclose the true opinion of our hearts, because we think it more advisable to keep the people in outward decency by means of these images. Or if we are less reflective, and ourselves fettered by the bands of authority, then we sink, ourselves, to the true plebeian level, by believing that which, so understood, would be foolish fable; and by finding, in those purely spiritual indications, nothing but the promise of a continuance, to all eternity, of the same miserable existence which we lead here below.

To say all in a word: Only through a radical reformation of my will does a new light arise upon my being and destination. Without this, however much I may reflect, and however distinguished my mental endowments, there is nothing but darkness in me and around me. The reformation of the heart alone conducts to true wisdom. So then, let my whole life be directed unrestrainedly toward this one end!

IV

My lawful will, simply as such, in and through itself, must have consequences, certain and without exception. Every dutiful determination of my will, although no act should flow from it, must operate in another, to me incomprehensible, world; and, except this dutiful determination of the will, nothing can take effect in that world. What do I suppose when I suppose this? What do I take for granted?

Evidently, a law, a rule absolutely and without exception valid, according to which the dutiful will must have consequences. Just as in the earthly world which environs me, I assume a law according to which this ball, when impelled by my hand with this given force, in this given direction, must necessarily move in such a direction, with a determinate measure of rapidity, perhaps impel another ball with this given degree of force by which the other ball moves on with a determinate rapidity; and so on indefinitely. As in this case, with the mere direction and movement of my hand, I know and comprehend all the directions and movements which shall follow it, as certainly as if they were already present and perceived by me; even so I comprise, in my dutiful will, a series of necessary and infallible consequences in the spiritual world, as if they were already present, only that I cannot, as in the material world, determine them—i.e., I merely know that they shall be, not how they shall be. I suppose a law of the spiritual world, in which my mere will is one of the moving forces, just as my hand is one of the moving forces in the material world. That firmness of my confidence and the thought of this law of a spiritual world are one and the same thing—not two thoughts of which one is the consequence of the other, but precisely the same thought, just as the certainty with which I count upon a certain motion, and the thought of a mechanical law of Nature, are the same. The idea of Law expresses generally nothing else but the fixed, immovable reliance of Reason on a proposition, and the impossibility of supposing the contrary.

I assume such a law of a spiritual world, which my own will did not enact, nor the will of any finite being, nor the will of all finite beings together, but to which my will and the will of all finite beings is subject.

* * * * *

Agreeably to what has now been advanced, the law of the supersensuous world should be a Will.

A Will which acts purely and simply as will, by its own agency, entirely without any instrument or sensuous medium of its efficacy; which is absolutely, in itself, at once action and result; which wills and it is done, which commands and it stands fast; in which, accordingly, the demand of Reason to be absolutely free and self-active is represented. A Will which is law in itself; which determines itself, not according to humor and caprice, not after previous deliberation, vacillation and doubt, but which is forever and unchangeably determined, and upon which one may reckon with infallible security, as the mortal reckons securely on the laws of his world. A Will in which the lawful will of finite beings has inevitable consequences, but only their will, which is immovable to everything else, and for which everything else is as though it were not.

That sublime Will, therefore, does not pursue its course for itself, apart from the rest of Reason's world. There is between it and all finite, rational beings, a spiritual tie, and that Will itself is this spiritual tie of Reason's world. I will, purely and decidedly, my duty, and it then wills that I shall succeed, at least in the world of spirits. Every lawful resolve of the finite will enters into it, and moves and determines it—to speak after our fashion—not in consequence of a momentary good pleasure, but in consequence of the eternal law of its being.

With astounding clearness it now stands before my soul, the thought which hitherto had been wrapped in darkness—the thought that my will, merely as such, and of itself, has consequences. It has consequences because it is infallibly and immediately taken knowledge of by another related Will, which is itself an act and the only life-principle of the spiritual world. In that Will it has its first consequence, and only through that, in the rest of the spiritual world which, in all its parts, is but the product of that infinite Will.

Thus I flow—the mortal must use the language of mortals—thus I flow in upon that Will; and the voice of conscience in my inmost being, which, in every situation of my life, instructs me what I have to do in that situation, is that by means of which it, in turn, flows in upon me. That voice is the oracle from the eternal world, made sensible by my environment, and translated, by my reception of it, into my language; which announces to me how I must fit myself to my part in the order of the spiritual world, or to the infinite Will, which itself is the order of that spiritual world. I cannot oversee or see through this spiritual order; nor need I. I am only a link in its chain, and can no more judge of the whole than a single tone in a song can judge of the harmony of the whole. But what I myself should be, in the harmony of Spirits, I must know; for only I myself can make myself that, and it is immediately revealed to me by a voice which sounds over to me from that world. Thus I stand in connection with the only being that exists, and partake of its being. There is nothing truly real, permanent, imperishable in me, but these two—the voice of my conscience and my free obedience. By means of the first, the spiritual world bows down to me and embraces me, as one of its members. By means of the second, I raise myself into this world, lay hold of it, and work in it. But that infinite Will is the mediator between it and me; for, of it and me, that Will is the primal fountain. This is the only true and imperishable reality, toward which my soul moves from its inmost depth. All else is only phenomenon, and vanishes and returns again, with new seeming.

This Will connects me with itself. The same connects me with all finite beings of my species, and is the universal mediator between us all. That is the great mystery of the invisible world, and its fundamental law, so far as it is a world or system of several individual wills: Union and direct reciprocal action of several self-subsisting and independent wills among one another—a mystery which, even in the present life, lies clear before all eyes, without any one's noticing it or thinking it worthy his admiration! The voice of Conscience, which enjoins upon each one his proper duty, is the ray by which we proceed from the Infinite and are set forth as individual particular beings. It defines the boundaries of our personality; it is, therefore, our true original constituent, the foundation and the stuff of all the life which we live.

* * * * *

That eternal Will, then, is indeed world-creator, as he alone can be—in the finite reason (the only creation which is needed). They who suppose him to build a world out of eternal inert matter, which world, in that case, could be nothing else but inert and lifeless, like implements fashioned by human hands and not an eternal process of self-development, or who think they can imagine the going forth of a material something out of nothing, know neither the world nor him. If matter only is something, then there is nowhere anything, and nowhere, in all eternity, can anything be. Only Reason is: the infinite reason in itself, and the finite in and through the infinite. Only in our minds does he create the world, or, at least, that from which we unfold it, and that whereby we unfold it—the call to duty, and the feelings, perceptions and laws of thought agreeing therewith. It is his light whereby we see light and all that appears to us in that light. In our minds he is continually fashioning this world, and interposing in it by interposing in our minds with the call of duty, whenever another free agent effects a change therein. In our minds he maintains this world, and, therewith, our finite existence, of which alone we are capable, in that he causes to arise out of our states new states continually. After he has proved us sufficiently for our next destination, according to his higher aim, and when we shall have cultivated ourselves for the same, he will annihilate this world for us by what we call death, and introduce us into a new one, the product of our dutiful action in this. All our life is his life. We are in his hand, and remain in it, and no one can pluck us out of it. We are eternal because he is eternal.

Sublime, living Will, whom no name can name, and whom no conception can grasp!—well may I raise my mind to thee, for thou and I are not divided. Thy voice sounds in me, and mine sounds back in thee; and all my thoughts, if only they are true and good, are thought in thee. In thee, the Incomprehensible, I become comprehensible to myself, and entirely comprehend the world. All the riddles of my existence are solved, and the most perfect harmony arises in my mind.

Thou art best apprehended by childlike simplicity, devoted to thee. To it thou art the heart-searcher who lookest through its innermost thoughts; the all-present, faithful witness of its sentiments, who alone knowest that it meaneth well, and who alone understandest it, when misunderstood by all the world. Thou art to it a Father, whose purposes toward it are ever kind, and who will order everything for its best good. It submitteth itself wholly, with body and soul, to thy beneficent decrees. Do with me as thou wilt, it saith, I know that it shall be good, so surely as it is thou that dost it. The speculative understanding, which has only heard of thee but has never seen thee, would teach us to know thy being in itself, and sets before us an inconsistent monster which it gives out for thine image, ridiculous to the merely knowing, hateful and detestable to the wise and good.

I veil my face before thee and lay my hand upon my mouth. How thou art in thyself, and how thou appearest to thyself, I can never know, as surely as I can never be thou. After thousand times thousand spirit-lives lived through, I shall no more be able to comprehend thee than now, in this hut of earth. That which I comprehend becomes, by my comprehension of it, finite; and this can never, by an endless process of magnifying and exalting, be changed into infinite. Thou differest from the finite, not only in degree but in kind. By that magnifying process they make thee only a greater and still greater man, but never God, the Infinite, incapable of measure.

* * * * *

I will not attempt that which is denied to me by my finite nature, and which could avail me nothing. I desire not to know how thou art in thyself. But thy relations and connections with me, the finite, and with all finite beings, lie open to mine eye, when I become what I should be. They encompass me with a more luminous clearness than the consciousness of my own being. Thou workest in me the knowledge of my duty, of my destination in the series of rational beings. How? I know not, and need not to know. Thou knowest and perceivest what I think and will. How thou canst know it—by what act thou bringest this consciousness to pass—on that point I comprehend nothing. Yea, I know very well that the idea of an act, of a special act of consciousness, applies only to me but not to thee, the Infinite. Thou willest, because thou willest, that my free obedience shall have consequences in all eternity. The act of thy will I cannot comprehend; I only know that it is not like to mine. Thou doest, and thy will itself is deed. But thy method of action is directly contrary to that of which, alone, I can form a conception. Thou livest and art, for thou knowest, and willest, and workest, omnipresent to finite Reason. But thou art not such as through all eternity I shall alone be able to conceive of Being.

In the contemplation of these thy relations to me, the finite, I will be calm and blessed. I know immediately, only what I must do. This will I perform undisturbed and joyful, and without philosophizing. For it is thy voice which commands me, it is the ordination of the spiritual world-plan concerning me, and the power by which I perform it is thy power. Whatsoever is commanded me by that voice, whatsoever is accomplished by this power, is surely and truly good in relation to that plan. I am calm in all the events of this world, for they occur in thy world. Nothing can deceive, or surprise, or make me afraid, so surely as thou livest and I behold thy life. For in thee and through thee, O infinite One, I behold even my present world in another light! Nature and natural consequences in the destinies and actions of free beings, in view of thee, are empty, unmeaning words. There is no Nature more. Thou, thou alone, art.

It no longer appears to me the aim of the present world that the above-mentioned state of universal peace among men, and of their unconditioned empire over the mechanism of Nature, should be brought about merely that it may exist, but that it should be brought about by man himself, and, since it is calculated for all, then it should be brought about by all, as one great, free, moral community. Nothing new and better for the individual, except through his dutiful will, nothing new and better for the community, except through their united, dutiful will, is the fundamental law of the great moral kingdom of which the present life is a part.

The reason why the good-will of the individual is so often lost for this world, is that it is only the will of the individual, and that the will of the majority does not coincide with it; therefore it has no consequences but those which belong to a future world. Hence, even the passions and vices of men appear to coöperate in the promotion of a better state, not in and for themselves—in this sense good can never come out of evil—but by furnishing a counter-poise to opposite vices, and finally annihilating those vices and themselves by their preponderance. Oppression could never have gained the upper hand unless cowardice, and baseness, and mutual distrust had prepared the way for it. It will continue to increase until it eradicates cowardice and the slavish mind; and despair re-awakens the courage that was lost. Then the two antagonistic vices will have destroyed each other, and the noblest in all human relations, permanent freedom, will have come forth from them.

The actions of free beings have, strictly speaking, no other consequences than those which affect other free beings. For only in such, and for such, does a world exist; and that, wherein all agree, is the world. But they have consequences in free agents only by means of the infinite Will, by which all individuals exist. A call, a revelation of that Will to us, is always a requirement to perform some particular duty. Hence, even that which we call evil in the world, the consequence of the abuse of freedom, exists only through him; and it exists for all, for whom it exists, only so far as it imposes duties upon them. Did it not fall within the eternal plan of our moral education and the education of our whole race that precisely these duties should be laid upon us, they would not have been imposed; and that whereby they are imposed, and which we call evil, would never have been. In this view, everything which takes place is good, and absolutely accordant with the best ends. There is but one world possible—a thoroughly good one. Everything that occurs in this world conduces to the reformation and education of man, and, by means of that, to the furtherance of his earthly destination.