LECTURE V. 231 learned it by his own unhappy experience, — that those unworthy men were sunk so low that the last mis giving which truth once produced within them, the last doubt which its presence called into being, having ut terly disappeared, they became quite incapable of even examining its principles; — that even with the demand for inquiry ringing in their ears, they could only answer — " Enough! it is not true, we do not wish it to be true, for it is no gain to us." He saw all this, and his strained and disappointed feelings revolted against it. With deep indignation he rebuked his Age.
Let us not blame him for this sensibility, — it is the mark of a noble soul: he who feels the godlike within him, will often thus sigh upwards to eternal Provi dence: " These then are my brethren! these the com panions whom thou hast given me on the path of earthly existence! Yes, they bear my shape, but our minds and hearts are not related; my words are to them a foreign speech, and theirs to me: I hear the sound of their voices, but there is nothing in my heart to give them a meaning! Oh eternal Providence! wherefore didst thou cause me to be born among such men? or if it were necessary that I should be born among them, wherefore didst thou give me these feel ings, this longing presentiment of something better and higher? why didst thou not make me like them:i why didst thou not make me base even as they are? I could then have lived contentedly among them." Ye do well to reprove his melancholy, and censure his discontent, ye to whom all around you seems good; ye do well to praise the contentment with which ye derive enjoyment from all things, and the modesty with which 232 THE VOCATION OF THE SCHOLAR.
ye accept men as they are! He would have been as modest as ye are, had he been tormented with as few noble aspirations. Ye cannot rise to the conception of a better state, and for you truly the present is well enough.
In this fulness of bitter feeling, Rousseau was now incapable of seeing anything but the object which had called it forth. Sensualism reigned triumphant; that was the source of the evil: he would know how to destroy this empire of sensualism at all hazards, cost what it might. No wonder that he fell into the opposite extreme. Sensualism shah1 not reign; — it does not reign when it is destroyed, — when it ceases to exist; or when it is not developed, — when it has not acquired power. Hence Rousseau's State of Nature.
In the State of Nature the faculties peculiar to man shall not be cultivated; they shall not even be distin guished. Man shall have no other wants than those of his animal nature; he shall li ve like the beast on the meadow beside him. It is true that in this State none of those crimes would find a place against which Rousseau's feelings so strongly revolted; man would eat when he hungered, and drink when he was athirst, whatever he found before him; and, when satisfied, would have no interest in depriving others of that which he could not use himself. Once satiated himself, any one might eat or drink before him what and how much soever he would, for now he desires rest, and has no time to disturb others. In the anticipation of the future lies the true character of humanity; it is therefore the source of all human vice. Shut out the source, and vice is no more; — and Rousseau did effec tually exclude it from his State of Nature.
LECTURE V. 233 But it is also true, that as surely as man is man, and not a beast, he is not destined to remain in this con dition. Vice, indeed, would thus cease; but with it. Virtue and Reason too would be destroyed. Man becomes an irrational creature; there is a new race of animals, and men no longer exist.
There can be no doubt that Rousseau acted honour ably with men: he endeavoured himself to live in that State of Mature which he so warmly recommended to others, and showed throughout every indication of this desire. We may then put the question to him, what was it in truth which he sought in this State of Nature? He felt himself imprisoned, crushed down by manifold wants, and — what is indeed no great evil to the majority of men, but the bitterest oppression to such a man as he was, — he was often seduced from the path of rectitude and virtue by these wants. Living in a State of Nature, he thought he should be without these wants; and be spared so much pain from their denial, and so much yet bitterer pain from their dis honourable gratification; — he should then be at peace with himself. He also found himself oppressed on every side by others, because he stood in the way of the satisfaction of their desires. Man does not do evil in vain and for no purpose, thought Rousseau, and we with him; none of those who injured him would have done so, had they not felt these desires. Had all around him lived in a State of Xature, he should then have been at peace with others. Thus Rousseaii desired undisturbed tranquillity within and without.
Well: but we inquire further, — To what purpose would he apply this unruffled peace? Undoubtedly to that, to which he applied the measure of rest that did X 2 234 THE VOCATION OF THE SCHOLAR.
actually belong to him; — to reflection on his destiny and his duties, thereby to ennoble himself and his fellow-men. But how was that possible in the state of animalism which he assumed, — how was it possible without the previous culture which he could only obtain in the state of civilization? He thus insensibly transplanted himself and society into this State of Nature, with all that cultivation which they could only acquire by coining out of the State of Nature; he imperceptibly assumed that they had already left it and had traversed the whole path of civilization, and yet had not left it and had not become civilized. And thus we have arrived at Rousseau's false assumption, and are now able to solve his paradoxes without any serious difficulty.
Rousseau would not transplant men back into a State of Nature with respect to spiritual culture, but only with respect to independence of the desires of sense. And it is certainly true, that as man ap proaches nearer to the highest end of his existence, it must constantly become easier for him to satisfy his sensual wants; — that his physical existence must cost him less labour and care; that the fruitfulness of the soil must increase, the climate become milder; an innumerable multitude of new discoveries and inven tions be made to diversify and facilitate the means of subsistence; — that further, as Reason extends her dominion, the wants of man will constantly diminish in strength, not as in a rude State of Nature, because he is ignorant of the delights of life, but because he can bear their deprivation; — he will be ever equally ready to enjoy the best with relish, when it can be enjoyed without violation of duty, and to suffer the LECTURE V. 235 LECTURE V. 235 want of everything which he cannot obtain with honour. Is this state considered ideal, — in which respect it is unattainable like every other Ideal State, — so is the golden age of sensual enjoyment without physical labour which the old poets describe. Thus what Rousseau, under the name of the State of Nature, and these poets by the title of the Golden Age, place behind us, lies actually before us. (It may be remarked in passing, that it is a phenomenon of frequent oc currence, particularly in past ages, that what we shall become is pictured as something which we al ready have been; and that what we have to attain is represented as something which we have formerly lost: a phenomenon which has its proper foundation in human nature, and which I shall explain on a suitable occasion.)
Rousseau forgot that humanity can and ought to approach nearer to this state only by care, toil, and struggle. Nature is rude and savage without the hand of man: and it should be so, that thereby man may be forced to leave his natural state of inactivity, and ela borate her stores; that thereby he himself, instead of a mere product of nature, may become a free reasonable being. He does most certainly leave it; he plucks at all hazards the apple of knowledge, for the impulse is indestructibly implanted within him, to be like God. The first step from this state leads him to misery and toil: his wants are awakened, and clamorously demand gratification. But man is naturally indolent and slug gish, like matter from whence he proceeded. Hence arises the hard struggle between want and indolence: the first triumphs, but the latter bitterly complains. Now in the sweat of his brow he tills the field, and 236 THE VOCATION OF THE SCHOLAR.
it frets him that it should bear thorns and thistles which he must uproot. Want is not the source of Vice, — it is the motive to activity and virtue; indo lence, sluggishness, is the source of all Vice. How to enjoy as much as possible, — how to do as little as possible? — this is the question of a perverted nature, and the various attempts made to answer this question are its crimes. There is no salvation for man until this natural sluggishness is successfully combated, — until he find all his pleasures and enjoyments in ac tivity, and in activity alone. To that end pain is associated with the feeling of want. It should rouse us to activity.
This is the object of all pain; it is peculiarly the object of that pain which we experience at every view of the imperfection, depravity, and misery of our fel- lowmen. He who does not feel this pain, this bitter indignation, is a mean-souled man. He who does feel it, ought to endeavour to release himself from it, by di recting all his powers to the task of improving, as far as possible, all within his sphere and around him. And even supposing that his labours should prove fruitless, and he should see no use in their continuance, still the feeling of his own activity, the consciousness of his own power which he calls forth to the struggle against the general depravity, will cause him to forget this pain. Here Rousseau failed. He had energy, but energy rather of suffering than of action; he felt strongly the miseries of mankind, but he was far less conscious of his own power to remedy them; — and thus as he felt himself he judged of others; as he conducted himself amid his own peculiar sorrows, so did humanity at large, in his view, endure the com- LECTURE V. 237 raon lot. He took account of its sorrows; but he for got the power which the human race possesses, — to help itself.
Peace be with his ashes, and blessings upon his memory! He has done his work. He has kindled fire in many souls, who have carried out what he began. But he wrought almost without being con scious of his own influence; — he wrought without intending to rouse others to the work, without weigh ing their labour against the sum of general evil and depravity. This want of endeavour after self-activity reigns throughout his whole system of ideas. He is the man of passive sensibility, not at the same time of proper active resistance to its power. His lovers, led astray by passion, become virtuous; but we do not rightly perceive how they become so. The struggle of reason against passion, — the victory, gradual and slow, gained only by exertion, labour, and pain, — that most interesting and instructive of all spectacles, he conceals from our view. His pupil is developed by himself alone. The teacher does little more than re move the obstructions to his growth, and leave the rest to the care of Nature. She must henceforth and for ever retain him under her guardianship. The energy, ardour, and firm determination to war against and to subdue her, he has not taught him. Among good men he will be happy; but among bad, — and where is it that the majority are not bad? — he will suffer unspeakable misery. Thus Rousseau through out depicted Reason at peace, but not in strife; — he weakened Sense, instead of strengthening Reason.
I have undertaken the present inquiry in order to solve the famous paradox which stood so directly 238 THE VOCATION OF THE SCHOLAR.
opposed to our principles: but not for that purpose alone. I would at the same time show you, by the example of one of the greatest men of our own age, what you ought not to be. I would, by his example, unfold to you a true lesson for your whole life. You are now learning, by philosophic inquiry, what the men ought to be, with whom you have not as yet generally entered into any near, close, and indissoluble relations. You will soon come into closer relations with them. You will find them very different in reality from what your philosophy would have them to be. The nobler and better you are yourselves, the more painfully will you feel the experience which awaits you. Be not over come by this pain, but overcome it by action: — it does not exist without a purpose; it is a part of the plan of human improvement. To stand aloof and lament over the corruption of man, without stretching forth a hand to diminish it, is weak effeminacy; to cast reproach and bitter scorn on man, without showing him how he can become better, is unfriendly. Act! act! — it is to that end we are here. Should we fret ourselves that others are not so perfect as we are, when we ourselves are only somewhat less imperfect than they? Is not this our greatest perfection, — the voca tion which has been given to us, — that we must labour for the perfecting of others? Let us rejoice in the prospect of that widely extended field which we are called to cultivate! Let us rejoice that power is given to us, and that our task is infinite!
THE NATURE OF THE SCHOLAR, AND ITS MANIFESTATIONS.
BY JOHANN GOTTLIEB FICHTE.
PREFACE.
THESE LECTURES make no claim to the character of a Literary Work such as I have endeavoured to depict in the tenth of them, but are spoken discourses, which I commit to the press in the hope that they may thus be useful to some who had no opportunity of hearing them. They may also be considered as a new and improved edition of the Lectures on the Vocation of the Scholar, which I published twelve years ago; — the task being executed in such a manner as was possible under the conditions laid upon me. And were I called to account for the way in which I have fulfilled my vocation as a public teacher in Erlangen, I should have no objection to these Lectures being taken as an element in the judgment. Further, I have nothing to say about them to the reading public, with whom I feel a constantly increasing dislike to hold communication.
BERLIN, January 1806.
CONTENTS.
LECTURE I. GENERAL PLAN.
II. FARTHER DEFINITION OF THE MEANING OF THE DIVINE IDEA.
III. OF THE PROGRESSIVE SCHOLAR IN GENERAL, AND IN PAR TICULAR OF GENIUS AND INDUSTRY.
IV. OF INTEGRITY IN STUDY.
V. How THE INTEGRITY OF THE STUDENT MANIFESTS ITSELF.
VI. OF ACADEMICAL FREEDOM.
VII. OF THE FINISHED 'SCHOLAR IN GENERAL.
VIII. OF THE SCHOLAR AS RULER.
IX. OF THE SCHOLAR AS TEACHER.
X. OF THE SCHOLAR AS AUTHOR.
LECTURE I.
GENERAL PLAN.
I NOW open the course of public lectures which 1 have announced on the roll under the title " De Moribus JEruditorum." This inscription may be translated — " Morality for the Scholar," — " On the Vocation of the Scholar," — " On the Duty of the Scholar," &c.; — but in what way soever the title may be translated and understood, the idea itself demands a deeper in vestigation. I proceed to this preliminary inquiry.
Generally speaking, when we hear the word Mo rality, the idea is suggested of a cultivation of character and conduct according to rule and precept. But it is only true in a limited sense, and only as seen from a lower point of enlightenment, that man is formed by precept, or can form himself upon precept. On the contrary, from the highest point — that of absolute truth, on which we here take our stand, — whatever is to be manifested in the thought or deed of man, must first be inwardly present in his Nature, and indeed itself constitute his Nature, being, and life; for that which lies in the essential Nature of man must neces sarily reveal itself in his outward life, shine forth in Y 2 246 THE NATURE OF THE SCHOLAR.
all his thoughts, desires, and acts, and become his unvarying and unalterable character. How the freedom of man, and all the efforts by means of culture, instruc tion, religion, legislation, to form him to goodness, arc to be reconciled with this truth, is the object of an entirely different inquiry, into which we do not now enter. We can here only declare in general, that the two principles may be thoroughly reconciled, and that a deeper study of philosophy will clearly show the possibility of their union.
The fixed character and modes of action, or in a word, the duty, of the true Scholar, when contemplated from the highest point of view, can, properly speaking, only be described, not by any means enacted or im posed. On the contrary, this apparent and outwardly visible character of the true Scholar is founded upon that which already exists within him in his own being, independently of all manifestation and before all mani festation; and it is necessarily produced and unchange ably determined by this inward Nature. Hence, if we are to describe his duty, we must first unfold his Nature: — only from the idea of the latter, can the former be surely and completely deduced. To make such a deduction from this pre-supposed Nature, is the proper object of these lectures. Their contents may therefore be briefly stated: they are — a description of the Nature of the Scholar, and of its manifestations in the world of freedom.
The following propositions will aid us in attaining some insight into the Nature of the Scholar: — 1. The whole material world, with all its adaptations and ends, and in particular the Life of man in this world, are by no means, in themselves and in deed and LECTURE I. 247 truth, that which they seem to be to the uncultivated and natural sense of man; but there is something higher, which lies concealed behind all natural appear ance. This concealed foundation of all appearance may, in its greatest universality, be aptly named the Divine Idea; and this expression, " Divine Idea," shall not in the meantime signify anything more than this higher ground of appearance, until we shall have more clearly defined its meaning.
2. A certain part of the meaning of this Divine Idea of the world is accessible to, and conceivable by, the cultivated mind; and, by the free activity of man, under the guidance of this Idea, may be impressed upon the world of sense, and represented in it.
3. If there were among men some individuals who had attained, wholly or partially, to the possession of this last-mentioned or attainable portion of the Divine Idea of the world, — whether with the view of main taining and extending the knowledge of the Idea among men by communicating it to others, or of imaging it forth in the world of sense by direct and immediate action thereon, — then were these individuals the seat of a higher and more spiritual life in the world, and of a progressive development thereof according to the Divine Idea.
4. In every age, that kind of education and spiritual culture by means of which the age hopes to lead mankind to the knowledge of the ascertained part of the Divine Idea, is the Learned Culture of the age; and every man who partakes in this culture is the Scholar of the age.
From what has now been said, it clearly follows that the whole of the training and education which 248 THE NATURE OF THE SCHOLAR.
an age calls Learned Culture, is only the means to wards a knowledge of the attainable portion of the Divine Idea, and is only valuable in so far as it ac tually is such a means, and truly fulfils its purpose. Whether in any given case this end has been attained or not, can never be determined by common observa tion, for it is quite blind to the Idea, and can do no more than recognise the merely empirical fact whether a man has enjoyed or has not enjoyed the advantage of what is called Learned Culture. Hence there are two very different ideas of a Scholar: — the one, ac cording to appearance and mere intention; and in this respect, every one must be considered a Scholar who has gone through a course of Learned Culture, or, as it is commonly expressed, who has studied or who still studies: — the other, according to truth; and in this respect, he only is to be looked upon as a Scholar who has, through the Learned Culture of his age, arrived at a knowledge of the Idea. Through the Learned Culture of his age, I say; for if a man, without the use of this means, can arrive at a know ledge of the Idea by some other way (and I am far from denying that he may do so), yet such an one will be unable either to communicate his knowledge theoretically, or to realize it immediately in the world according to any well-defined rule, because he must want that knowledge of his age, and of the means of influencing it, which can only be acquired in schools of learning. Hence there may indeed be a higher life alive within him, but not an activity which grasps the rest of the world and calls forth its powers; and since, without this acquirement, the sole and peculiar purpose of Learned Culture cannot be exhibited in LECTURE I. 249 him, we may have a most superior man indeed, but no Scholar.
As for us, we have here no thought of considering this matter by outward seeming, but according to truth. Henceforward, throughout the whole course of these lectures, he only will be esteemed a Scholar who, through the Learned Culture of his age, has actually attained a knowledge of the Idea, or at least strives with life and strength to attain it. He who has received this culture without thereby attaining to the Idea, is in truth (as we are now to look upon the matter) nothing; — he is an equivocal mongrel be tween the possessor of the Idea and him who is alto gether supported and borne up by common reality; — in his vain struggles after the Idea, he has lost the power to lay hold of and cultivate reality, and now wavers between two worlds without properly belonging to either of them.
The distinction which we have already noticed in the modes of the direct application of the Idea in general, is obviously also applicable in particular to him who comes to the possession of this Idea through Learned Culture; — that is, to the Scholar. Either it is his peculiar object to communicate to others the Ideas of which he has himself attained a living knowledge; — and then his proper business is the theory of Ideas, general or particular, — he is a teacher of knowledge. But it is only as distinguished from, and contrasted with the second application of Ideas, that the business of the scientific teacher is characterized as mere theory; in a wider sense it is as practical as that of the more directly active man. The object of his activity is the human mind and spirit; and it is a most ennobling 250 THE NATURE OF THE SCHOLAR.
employment to prepare these for, and elevate them to, the reception of Ideas according to a fixed plan. Or it may be the peculiar business of him who through Learned Culture has obtained possession of Ideas, to fashion the world (which, as regards his design, is a passive world) after these Ideas; perhaps to model the Legislation, — the legal and social relations of men to each other, — or even that all-surrounding nature which constantly presses upon their higher being, — after the Divine Idea of justice or of beauty, so far as that is possible in the age and under the conditions in which he is placed; while he reserves to himself his own original conceptions, as well as the art with which he impresses them on the world. In this case he is a pragmatic Scholar. No one, I may remark in passing, ought to intermeddle in the direct guidance and ordering of human affairs, who is not a Scholar in the true sense of the word; that is, who has not by means of Learned Culture become a participator in the Divine Idea. With labourers and hodmen it is otherwise: — their virtue consists in punctual obe dience, in the careful avoidance of all independent thought, and in confiding the direction of their occu pations to other men.
From a different point of view arises another sig nificant distinction in the idea of the Scholar: this, namely, — either the Scholar has actually laid hold of the whole Divine Idea in so far as it is attainable by man, or of a particular part of it, — which last indeed is not possible without having first a clear survey of the whole; — either he has actually laid hold of it, and penetrated into its significance until it now stands lucid and distinct before him, so that it has become his own LECTURE I. 251 possession, to be recalled at any time in the same shape, — an element in his personality; — and then he is a complete and Finished Scholar, a man who has gone through his studies: — or, he as yet only strives and struggles to attain a clear insight into the Idea generally, or into that particular portion or point of it from which he, for his part, will penetrate the whole: — already, one by one, sparks of light arise on every side, and disclose a- higher world before him; but they do not yet unite into one indivisible whole, — they vanish as they came, without his bidding, and he cannot as yet bring them under the dominion of his will; — and then he is a Progressive, a self-forming Scholar — a Student. That it be really the Idea which is either possessed or struggled after, is common to both of these: if the striving be only after the out ward form — the mere letter of Learned Culture, then we have, if the round be finished — the complete, — if it be unfinished — the progressive, bungler. The latter is always more tolerable than the former, for it may still be hoped that in pursuing his course he may perhaps at some future point be laid hold of by the Idea; but of the former all hope is lost. This, gentlemen, is the idea of the JSature of the Scholar; and these are aU the possible modifications of that idea, — not in any respect changing the original idea, but wholly arising out of it; — the idea, namely, of fixed and definite being which alone furnishes a sufficient answer to the question, — What is the Scholar?
But philosophical knowledge, such as we are now seeking, is not satisfied with answering the question, What is? — philosophy asks also for the How, and, strictly speaking, asks only for this, as for that which 252 THE NATURE OF THE SCHOLAR.