BOOK III. FAITH. 137 own place; — I shall actually cease to pursue it in another life in which that commandment shall have set before me some other purpose wholly incompre- hensible to me here. In this life, I must will to pro- mote it, because I must obey; whether it be actually promoted by the deed that follows my will thus fit- tingly directed is not my care; I am responsible only for the will, but not for the result. Previous to the actual deed, 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 with- out 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 gen- eral;— there is something in me, and there is some- thing required of me, which finds in this life nothing to which it can be applied, and which is entirely su- perfluous 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 can- not be designed solely for the development of reason, since even awakened reason commands us to main- tain it and to promote its highest purposes with all I3« THE VOCATION OF MAN.
our powers, — should this life not prove entirely vain and ineffectual, it must at least have relation to a fu- ture 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, but the fundamental laws thereof, is entirely fruitless. Only our virtuous will can it, must it be, by which we can labour for another life, and for the first and nearest objects which are there revealed to us; and it is the consequences, invisible to us, of this virtuous will, through which we first ac- quire a firm standing-point in that life from whence we may then advance in a farther course of progress.
That our virtuous will in, and for and through itself, must have consequences, we know already in this life, for reason cannot command anything which is without a purpose; but what these consequences may be, — nay, how it is even possible for a mere will to produce any effect at all, — as to this we can form no conception whatever, so long as we are still con- fined to this material world; and it is true wisdom not to undertake an inquiry in which we know before- hand that we shall be unsuccessful. With respect to the nature of these consequences, the present life is therefore, in relation to the future, a life in faith. In the future life, we shall possess these consequences, for we shall then proceed from them as our starting- point, and build upon them as our foundation; and this other life will thus be, in relation to the conse- quences of our virtuous will in the present, a life in sight. In that other life, we shall also have an im- BOOK III. FAITH. 139 mediate purpose set before us, as we have in the present; for our activity must not cease. But we remain finite beings, — and for finite beings there is but finite, determinate activity; and every determinate act has a determinate end. As, in the present life, the actually existing world as we find it around us, the fitting adjustment of this world to the work we have to do in it, the degree of culture and virtue already attained by men, and our own physical powers, — as these stand related to the purposes of this life, — so, in the future life, the consequences of our virtuous will in the present shall stand related to the purposes of that other existence. The present is the commence- ment of our existence; the endowments requisite for its purpose, and a firm footing in it, have been freely bestowed on us: — the future is the continuation of this existence, and in it we must acquire for ourselves a commencement, and a definite standing-point.
And now the present life no longer appears vain and useless; for this and this alone it is given to us — that we may acquire for ourselves a firm foundation in the future life, and only by means of this foundation is it connected with our whole external existence. It is very possible, that the immediate purpose of this second life may prove as unattainable by finite pow- ers, with certainty and after a fixed plan, as the 'pur- pose of the present life is now, and that even there a virtuous will may appear superfluous and without re- sult. But it can never be lost there, any more than here, for it is the eternal and unalterable command of reason. Its necessary efficacy would, in that case, di- rect us to a third life, in which the consequences of our virtuous will in the second life will become vis- ible; — a life which during the second life would again 140 THE VOCATION OF MAN.
be believed in through faith, but with firmer, more unwavering confidence, since we should already have had practical experience of the truthfulness of reason, and have regained the fruits of a pure heart which had been faithfully garnered up in a previously com- pleted life.
As in the present life it is only from the command of conscience to follow a certain course of action that there arises our conception of a certain purpose in this action, and from this our whole intuitive percep- tion of a world of sense; — so in the future, upon a similar, but now to us wholly inconceivable command, will be founded our conception of the immediate pur- pose of that life; and upon this, again, our intuitive perception of a world in which we shall set out from the consequences of our virtuous will in the present life. The present world exists for us only through the law of duty; the other will be revealed to us, in a similar manner, through another command of duty; for in no other manner can a world exist for any reasonable being.
This, then, is my whole sublime vocation, my true nature. I am a member of two orders: — the one purely spiritual, in which I rule by my will alone; the other sensuous, in which I operate by my deed. The whole end of reason is pure activity, absolutely by itself alone, having no need of any instrument out of itself, — independence of everything which is not reason, — absolute freedom. The will is the living principle of reason, — is itself reason, when purely and simply apprehended; that reason is active by itself alone, means, that pure will, merely as such, lives and BOOK III. FAITH. 141 rules. It is only the Infinite Reason that lives imme- diately and wholly in this purely spiritual order. The finite reason, — which does not of itself constitute the world of reason, but is only one of its many mem- bers,— lives necessarily at the same time in a sensuous order; that is to say, in one which presents to it another object, beyond a purely spiritual activity: — a material object, to be promoted by instruments and powers which indeed stand under the immediate do- minion of the will, but whose activity is also condi- tioned by their own natural laws. Yet as surely as reason is reason, must the will operate absolutely by itself, and independently of the natural laws by which the material action is determined; — and hence the sensuous life of every finite being points towards a higher, into which the will, by itself alone, may open the way, and of which it may acquire possession, — a possession which indeed we must again sensuously conceive of as a state, and not as a mere will.
These two orders, — the purely spiritual and the sensuous, the latter consisting possibly of an innu- merable series of particular lives, — have existed since the first moment of the development of an active reason within me, and still proceed parallel to each other. The latter order is only a phenomenon for myself, and for those with whom I am associated in this life; the former alone gives it significance, pur- pose, and value. I am immortal, imperishable, eter- nal, as soon as I form the resolution to obey the laws of reason; I do not need to become so. The super- sensual world is no future world; it is now present; it can at no point of finite existence be more present than at another; not more present after an existence of myriads of lives than at this moment. My sensuous 142 THE VOCATION OF MAN.
existence may, in future, assume other forms, but these are just as little the true life, as its present form. By that resolution I lay hold on eternity, and cast off this earthly life and all other forms of sensuous life which may yet lie before me in futurity, and place myself far above them. I become the sole source of my own being and its phenomena, and, henceforth, unconditioned by anything without me, I have life in myself. My will, which is directed by no foreign agency in the order of the super-sensual world, but by myself alone, is this source of true life, and of eternity.
It is my will alone which is this source of true life, and of eternity; — only by recognising this will as the peculiar seat of moral goodness, and by actually rais- ing it thereto, do I obtain the assurance and the pos- session of that super-sensual world.
Without regard to any conceivable or visible object, without inquiry as to whether my will may be fol- lowed by any result other than the mere volition, — I must will in accordance with the moral law. My will stands alone, apart from all that is not itself, and is its own world merely by itself and for itself; not only as being itself an absolutely first, primary and original power, before which there is no preceding influence by which it may be governed, but also as being followed by no conceivable or comprehensible second step in the series, coming after it, by which its activity may be brought under the dominion of a foreign law. Did there proceed from it any second, and from this again a third result, and so forth, in any conceivable sensuous world opposed to the spiritual world, then would its strength be broken by the re- sistance it would encounter from the independent ele- BOOK III. FAITH. 143 ments of such a world which it would set in motion; the mode of its activity would no longer exactly cor- respond to the purpose expressed in the volition; and the will would no longer remain free, but be partly limited by the peculiar laws of its heterogeneous sphere of action. And thus must I actually regard the will in the present sensuous world, the only one known to me. I am indeed compelled to believe, and consequently to act as if I thought, that by my mere volition, -my tongue, my hand, or my foot, might be set in motion; but how a mere aspiration, an impress of intelligence upon itself, such as will is, can be the principle of motion to a heavy material mass, — this I not only find it impossible to conceive, but the mere assertion is, before the tribunal of the understanding, a palpable absurdity; — here the movement of matter even in myself can be explained only by the internal forces of matter itself.
Such a view of my will as I have taken, can, how- ever, be attained only through an intimate conviction that it is not merely the highest active principle for this world, — which it certainly might be, without hav- ing freedom in itself, by the mere influence of the system of the universe, perchance, as we must con- ceive of a formative power in Nature, — but that it absolutely disregards all earthly objects, and gener- ally all objects lying out of itself, and recognises itself, for its own sake, as its own ultimate end. But by such a view of my will I am at once directed to a super-sensual order of things, in which the will, by itself alone and without any instrument lying out of itself, becomes an efficient cause in a sphere which, like itself, is purely spiritual, and is thoroughly ac- cessible to it. That moral volition is demanded of us 144 THE VOCATION OF MAN.
absolutely for its own sake alone, — a truth which I discover only as a fact in my inward consciousness, and to the knowledge of which I cannot attain in any other way: — this was the first step of my thought. That this demand is reasonable, and the source and standard of all else that is reasonable; that it is not modelled upon any other thing whatever, but that all other things must, on the contrary, model themselves upon it, — and be dependent upon it, — a convic- tion which also I cannot arrive at from with- out, but can attain only by inward experience, by means of the unhesitating and immovable as- sent which I freely accord to this demand: — this was the second step of my thought. And from these two terms I have attained to faith in a super-sensual Eternal World. If I abandon the former, the latter falls to the ground. If it were true, — as many say it is, assuming it without farther proof as self-evident and extolling it as the highest summit of human wis- dom,— that all human virtue must have before it a certain definite external object, and that it must first be assured of the possibility of attaining this object, before it can act and before it can become virtue; that, consequently, reason by no means contains within itself the principle and the standard of its own activ- ity, but must receive this standard from without, through contemplation of an external world; — if this were true, then might the ultimate end of our exist- ence be accomplished here below; human nature might be completely developed and exhausted by our earthly vocation, and we should have no rational ground for raising our thoughts above the present life.
BOOK III. FAITH. 145 But every thinker who has anywhere acquired those first principles even historically, moved perhaps by a mere love of the new and unusual, and who is able to prosecute a correct course of reasoning from them, might speak and teach as I have now spoken to my- self. He would then present us with the thoughts of some other being, not with his own; everything would float before him empty and without significance, be- cause he would be without the sense whereby he might apprehend its reality. He is a blind man, who, upon certain true principles concerning colours which he has learned historically, has built a perfectly correct theory of colour, notwithstanding that there is in re- ality no colour existing for him;— he can tell how, under certain conditions, it must be; but to him it is not so, because he does not stand under these condi- tions. The faculty by which we lay hold on Eternal Life is to be attained only by actually renouncing the sensuous and its objects, and sacrificing them to that law which takes cognizance of our will only and not of our actions; — renouncing them with the firmest conviction that it is reasonable for us to do so, — nay, that it is the only thing reasonable for us. By this renunciation of the Earthly, does faith in the Eternal first arise in our soul, and is there enshrined apart, as the only support to which we can cling after we have given up all else, — as the only animating prin- ciple that can elevate our minds and inspire our lives. We must indeed, according to the figure of a sacred doctrine, first " die unto the world and be born again, before we can enter the kingdom of God."
14(5 THE VOCATION OF MAN, I see — Oh I now see clearly before me the cause of my former indifference and blindness concerning spir- itual things! Absorbed by mere earthly objects, lost in them with all our thoughts and efforts, moved and urged onward only by the notion of a result lying beyond ourselves, — by the desire of such a result and of our enjoyment therein, — insensible and dead to the pure impulse of reason, which gives a law to itself, and offers to our aspirations a purely spiritual end, — the immortal Psyche remains, with fettered pinions, fastened to the earth. Our philosophy becomes the history of our own heart and life; and according to what we ourselves are, do we conceive of man and his vocation. Never impelled by any other motive than the desire after what can be actually realized in this world, there is for us no true freedom, — no freedom which holds the ground of its determination absolutely and entirely within itself. Our freedom is, at best, that of the self- forming plant; not essentially higher in its nature, but only more artistical in its results; not producing a mere material form with roots, leaves, and blossoms, but a mind with impulses, thoughts, and actions. We cannot have the slighest conception of true freedom, because we do not ourselves possess it; when it is spoken of, we either bring down what is said to the level of our own notions, or at once de- clare all such talk to be nonsense. Without the idea of freedom, we are likewise without the faculty for another world. Everything of this kind floats past before us like words that are not addressed to us; like a pale shadow, without colour or meaning, which we know not how to lay hold of or retain. We leave it as we find it, without the least participation Or sympathy. Or should we ever be urged by a more BOOK III. FAITH. 147 active zeal to consider it seriously, we then convince ourselves to our own satisfaction that all such ideas are untenable and worthless reveries, which the man of sound understanding unhesitatingly rejects; and according to the premises from which we proceed, made up as they are of our inward experiences, we are perfectly in the right and secure from either refu- tation or conversion so long as we remain what we are. The excellent doctrines which are taught amongst us with a special authority, concerning freedom, duty, and everlasting life, become to us romantic fables, like those of Tartarus and the Elysian fields; although we do not publish to the world this our secret opinion, because we find it expedient, by means of these fig- ures, to maintain an outward decorum among the populace; or, should we be less reflective, and our- selves bound in the chains of authority, then we sink to the level of the common mind, and believing what, thus understood, would be mere foolish fables, we find in those pure spiritual symbols only the promise of continuing throughout eternity the same miserable existence which we possess here below.
In one word: — only by the fundamental improve- ment of my will does a new light arise within me concerning my existence and vocation; without this, however much I may speculate, and with what rare intellectual gifts soever I may be endowed, darkness remains within me and around me. The improve- ment of the heart alone leads to true wisdom. Let then my whole life be unceasingly devoted to this one purpose.
148 THE VOCATION OF MAN.
IV.
My Moral Will merely as^sjiich, in and through itself, shall certainly and invariably produce conse- quences; every determination of my will in accordance with duty, although no action should follow it, shall operate in another, to me incomprehensible, world, in which nothing but this moral determination of the will shall possess efficient activity. What is it that is assumed in this conception?
Obviously a Law; a rule absolutely without excep- tion, according to which a will determined by duty must have consequences; just as the material world which surrounds me I assume a law according to which this ball, when thrown by my hand with this particular force, in this particular direction, neces- sarily moves in such a direction with a certain degree of velocity, — perhaps strikes another ball with a cer- tain amount of force, which in its turn moves on with a certain velocity, — and so on. As here, in the mere direction and motion of my hand, I already perceive and apprehend all the consequent directions and move- ments, with the same certainty as if they were al- ready present before me; even so do I embrace by means of my virtuous will a series of necessary and inevitable consequences in the spiritual world, as if they were already present before me; only that I cannot define them as I do those in the material world, — that is, I only know that they must be, but not how they are not two thoughts, one of which arises by Law of the spiritual world, in which my pure will is one of the moving forces, as my hand is one of the moving forces of the material world. My own firm confidence in these results, and the conceptions of this BOOK III. FAITH. 149 Law of the spiritual world, are one and the same; — they are not two thoughts, one of which arises by means of the other, but they are entirely the same thought; just as the confidence with which I calcu- late on a certain motion in a material body, and the conception of a mechanical law of nature on which that motion depends, are one and the same. The conception of a Law expresses nothing more than the firm, immovable confidence of reason in a principle, and the absolute impossibility of admitting its oppo- site.
I assume such a law of a spiritual world, — not given by my will nor by the will of any finite being, nor by the will of all finite beings taken together, but to which my will, and the will of all finite beings, is sub- ject. Neither I, nor any finite and therefore sensuous being, can conceive how a mere will can have conse- quences, nor what may be the true nature of those consequences; for herein consists the essential charac- ter of our finite nature, — that we are unable to con- ceive this, — that having indeed our will, as such, wholly within our power, we are yet compelled by our sensuous nature to regard the consequences of that will as sensuous states: — how then can I, or any other finite being whatever, propose to ourselves as objects, and thereby give reality to, that which we can neither imagine nor conceive? I cannot say that, in the ma- terial world, my hand, or any other body which be- longs to that world an I is subject to the universal law of gravity, brings this law into operation; — these bod- ies themselves stand under this law, and are able to set another body in motion only in accordance with this law, and only in so far as that body, by virtue of this law, partakes of the universal moving power of 150 THE VOCATION OF MAN.
Nature. Just as little can a finite will give a law to the super-sensual world, which no finite spirit can embrace; but all finite wills stand under the law of that world, and can produce results therein only inas- much as that law already exists, and inasmuch as they themselves, in accordance with the form of that law which is applicable to finite wills, bring themselves under its conditions, and within the sphere of its ac- tivity, by moral obedience; — by moral obedience, I say, the only tie which unites them to that higher world, the only nerve that descends from it to them, and the only organ through which they can re-act upon it. As the universal power of attraction embraces all bodies, and holds them together in themselves and with each other, and the movement of each separate body is possible only on the supposition of this power, so does that super-sensual law unite, hold together, and embrace all finite reasonable beings. My will, and the will of all finite beings, may be regarded from a double point of view: — partly as a mere volition, an internal act directed upon itself alone, and, in so far, the will is complete in itself, concluded in this act of volition; — partly as something beyond this, a fact. It assumes the latter form to me, as soon as I regard it as completed; but it must also become so beyond me: — in the world of sense, as the moving principle, for instance, of my hand, from the movement of which, again, other movements follow; — in the super-sensual world, as the principle of a series of spiritual conse- quences of which I have no conception. In the former point of view, as a mere act of volition, it stands wholly within my own power; its assumption of the latter character, that of an active first principle, de- pends not upon me, but on a law to which I myself BOOK III. FAITH. iSt am subject; — on the law of nature in the world of sense, on a super-sensual law in the world of pure thought.