Through that which to others seems a mere dead mass, my eye beholds this eternal life and movement in every vein of sensible and spiritual Nature, and sees this life rising in ever increasing growth, and ever purifying itself to a more spiritual expression. The universe is to me no longer that ever-recurring circle, that eternally-repeated play, that monster swallowing itself up, only to bring itself forth again as it was before; — it has become transfigured before me, and now bears the one stamp of spiritual life — a constant progress towards higher perfection in a line that runs out into the Infinite.
The sun rises and sets, the stars sink and reappear, the spheres hold their circle-dance; — but they never return again as they disappeared, and even in the bright fountain of life itself there is life and progress. Every hour which they lead on, every morning and every evening, sinks with new increase upon the world; new life and new love descend from the spheres like dew-drops from the clouds, and encircle nature as the cool night the earth.
All Death in Nature is Birth, and in Death itself appears visibly the exaltation of Life. There is no destructive principle in Nature, for Nature throughout is pure, unclouded Life; it is not Death which kills, but the more living Life, which, concealed behind the former, bursts forth into new development. Death and Birth are but the struggle of Life with itself to assume a more glorious and congenial form. And my death, — how can it be aught else, since I am not a mere show and semblance of life, but bear within me the one original, true, and essential Life? It is impossible to conceive that Nature should annihilate a life which does not proceed from her; — the Nature which exists for me, and not I for her.
Yet even my natural life, even this mere outward manifestation to mortal sight of the inward invisible Life, she cannot destroy without destroying herself; — she who only exists for me, and on account of me, and exists not if I am not. Even because she destroys me must she animate me anew; it is only my Higher Life, unfolding itself in her, before which my present life can disappear; and what mortals call Death is the visible appearance of this second Life. Did no reasonable being who had once beheld the light of this world die, there would be no ground to look with faith for a new heavens and a new earth; the only possible purpose of Nature, to manifest and maintain Reason, would be fulfilled here below, and her circle would be completed. But the very act by which she consigns a free and independent being to death, is her own solemn entrance, intelligible to all Reason, into a region beyond this act itself, and beyond the whole sphere of existence which is thereby closed. Death is the ladder by which my spiritual vision rises to a new Life and a new Nature.
Every one of my fellow-creatures who leaves this earthly brotherhood and whom my spirit cannot regard as annihilated because he is my brother, draws my thoughts after him beyond the grave; — he is still, and to him belongs a place. While we mourn for him here below, as in the dim realms of unconsciousness there might be mourning when a man bursts from them into the light of this world's sun, — above there is rejoicing that a man is born into that world, as we citizens of the earth receive with joy those who are born unto us. When I shall one day follow, it will be but joy for me; sorrow shall remain behind in the sphere I shall have left.
The world on which but now I gazed with wonder passes away from before me and sinks from my sight. With all the fulness of life, order, and increase which I beheld in it, it is yet but the curtain by which a world infinitely more perfect is concealed from me, and the germ from which that other shall develop itself. My FAITH looks behind this veil, and cherishes and animates this germ. It sees nothing definite, but it expects more than it can conceive here below, more than it will ever be able to conceive in all time.
Thus do I live, thus am I, and thus am I unchangeable, firm, and completed for all Eternity; — for this is no existence assumed from without, — it is my own, true, essential Life and Being.
INDEX.
Accountability and guilt, 24. Action determines worth, 94. Activity of spirits, 173- All things as one whole, n.
Berlin, v.
Body, a sensible manifestation of self, 85.
Carlyle, iii.
Causality, principle of, 21.
Cause, 6, 8, 58.
Civilization, 120.
Cognition, I am one with the object of my,6s.
Complete consciousness of the universe, 22.
Conscience, Obedience to, 136; Voice of, 154.
Consciousness, Immediate, 38, 44, 51, 61, 71, 86; is self-contemplation, 70; of self, 41, 88; of that which is not myself, 88; of the object, 61, 78; of the universe, Complete, 22; of things, 82; root of truth, 101.
Conviction proceeds from the will, 100.
Culture proceeds from will, 100.
Death in nature is birth, 174. Demand for better world, 113. Determined, Everything, 5. Dominion of man over nature, 117.
End of my action, not proposed for its own sake, 112.
Erlangen, vi.
Evil, No advantages in, 126.
Fichte's death, vi; life, ivff.
Free states, 125.
Freedom, 57,133; conceivable only of intelligence, 30; of other beings, 1 66; satisfies heart, 32.
German people, Addresses to the, vi. Guilt and accountability, 24.
Hegel, vii.
Highest good, 28, 130.
I am a free being, 17; immortal, 141; independent, 27; not the author, but the reader, xii; subject and object, 66.
Idealism, vi.
Indecision, State of, 35.
Indifference concerning spiritual things, 146.
Infinite divisibility, 48, Intuition, 70, 77; immediate and infallible, 75; Nature of, 73.
Jena, v.
Kant, iv, vii.
Klopstock, iv.
Knowledge, representations, 91; mediate and immediate, 55; not reality, 91; of things, 70.
INDEX.
Law of duty, 140; of the spiritual world, 148, 149, 151; of supersensual world, 151, 156.
Life, 172; present and future, 138.
Man, crudest enemy of man, 117; not product of world of sense, 163. Mankind, condemned to severe toil, 115- Nature, 4, 7; blind and unconconscious, 170; Formative power of, 10, 14; is life, 174;' Manforming power of, 1 6, 17; necessarily determined, 6; Thinking principle of, 20; Violence of, 115.
Necessity exists only in thought, 83; rigid, 25.
Obedience, must serve some end, 131; to conscience, 136.
Objective reality, 61.
Organ, by which to apprehend reality, 92, 99; for knowledge of objects, 54- Origin of my conception of objects, 77.
Other thinking beings, 21.
Perception, 39; No outward, 71.
Pforta, iv.
Practical reason is the root of all reason, in.
Principle of causality, 52.
Purpose, in human existence lies beyond life, 137; partly subjective, partly objective, 98.
Rahn, Hartmann, iv. Rahn, Johanna, iv, v. Reality apprehended by faith, 99; sensuous existence, 107. Reason, Pure activity end of, 140. Revelation, Critique of, v. Rights, Demand for, 109. Schelling, v. Schleiermacher, v. Schlegel, v.
Schopenhauer, vii.
Self unfolded gradually, 13.
Sensation, consciousness of my own state, 64; an immediate consciousness, 71.
Sensations, as affections of myself, 50; in myself, 42.
Senses, external, 37; Faith in the, Space, not perceived, 50.
Spiritual things, Indifference concerning, 146.
Spontaneity, 57.
State, Foundations of a true, 123.
Subjective and objective elements, 67.
Supreme Good, 28, 130.
Thing-in-itself, a thought, 82. Thought, the source of action, 31. Tranquillity, 169. Transcendental idealists, 164. Truth, 3; Consciousness root of, 101.
Voice, of conscience, 105, 107.
Will, 23, 28; Virtuous, 23, 138; Culture proceeds from, 100; efficient cause, 143; Eternal, 157, 1 66, 167; Eternal, creator of the world, 157; Freedom of, 154; from double point of view, 150; infinite, 152, 155, 157, 162; is law, 151; living principle of reason, 134, 140; moral, 148; source of true life and eternity, 142.
World, object and sphere of duties, 1 08; supersensual, now present, 141; visible and invisible, 134.
World-plan, 162.