done, — but not at all by whom this may be accomplished. Here each individual is at all times ready to join his strength to that of others, to make it subordinate to that of others; and whoever, according to the judgment of all, is most capable of accomplishing the greatest amount of good, will be supported by all, and his success rejoiced in by all with an equal joy.
This is the purpose of our earthly life, which reason sets before us, and for the infallible attainment of which she is our pledge and security. This is not an object given to us only that we may strive after it for the mere purpose of exercising our powers on something great, the real existence of which we may perhaps be compelled to abandon to doubt; — it shall, it must be realized; there must be a time in which it shall be accomplished, as surely as there is a sensible world and a race of reasonable beings existent in time with respect to which nothing earnest and rational is conceivable besides this purpose, and whose existence becomes intelligible only through this purpose. Unless all human life be metamorphosed into a mere theatrical display for the gratification of some malignant spirit, who has implanted in poor humanity this inextinguishable longing for the imperishable only to amuse himself with its ceaseless pursuit of that which it can never overtake, — its ever-repeated efforts, Ixion-like, to embrace that which still eludes its grasp, — its restless hurrying onward in an ever-recurring circle, — only to mock its earnest aspirations with an empty, insipid farce; — unless the wise man, seeing through this mockery, and feeling an irrepressible disgust at continuing to play his part in it, is to cast life indignantly from him and make the moment of his awakening to reason also that of his physical death; — unless these things are so this purpose most assuredly must be attained. — Yes! it is attainable in life, and through life, for Reason commands me to live: — it is attainable, for I am.
III.
III.
But when this end shall have been attained, and humanity shall at length stand at this point, what is there then to do? Upon earth there is no higher state than this; — the generation which has once reached it, can no more than abide there, steadfastly maintain its position, die, and leave behind it descendants who shall do the like, and who will again leave behind them descendants to follow in their footsteps. Humanity would thus stand still upon her path; and therefore her earthly end cannot be her highest end. This earthly end is conceivable, attainable, and finite. Even although we consider all preceding generations as means for the production of the last complete one, we do not thereby escape the question of earnest reason,— to what end then is this last one? Since a Human Race has appeared upon earth, its existence there must certainly be in accordance with, and not contrary to, reason; and it must attain all the development which it is possible for it to attain on earth. But why should such a race have an existence at all, — why may it not as well have remained in the womb of chaos? Reason it not for the sake of existence, but existence for the sake of reason. An existence which does not of itself satisfy reason and solve all her questions, cannot by possibility be the true being.
And, then, are those actions which are commanded by the voice of conscience, — by that voice whose dictates I never dare to criticise, but must always obey in silence, — are those actions, in reality, always the means, and the only means, for the attainment of the earthly purpose of humanity? That I cannot do otherwise than refer them to this purpose, and dare not have any other object in view to be attained by means of them, is incontestible. But then are these, my intentions, always fulfilled? — is it enough that we will what is good, in order that it may happen? Alas! many virtuous intentions are entirely lost for this world, and others appear even to hinder the purpose which they were designed to promote. On the other hand, the most despicable passions of men, their vices and their crimes, often forward, more certainly, the good cause than the endeavours of the virtuous man, who will never do evil that good may come! It seems that the Highest Good of the world pursues its course of increase and prosperity quite independently of all human virtues or vices, according to its own laws, through an invisible and unknown Power, — just as the heavenly bodies run their appointed course, independently of all human effort; and that this Power carries forward, in its own great plan, all human intentions, good and bad, and with overruling wisdom, employs for its own purpose that which was undertaken for other ends.
Thus, even if the attainment of this earthly end could be the purpose of our existence, and every doubt which reason could start with regard to it were silenced, yet would this end not be ours, but the end of that unknown power. We do not know, even for a moment, what is conducive to this end; and nothing is left to us but to give by our actions some material, no matter what, for this power to work upon, and to leave to it the task of elaborating this material to its own purposes. It would, in that case, be our highest wisdom not to trouble ourselves about matters that do not concern us; to live according to our own fancy or inclinations, and quietly leave the consequences to that unknown power. The moral law within us would be void and superfluous, and absolutely unfitted to a being destined to nothing higher than this. In order to be at one with ourselves, we should have to refuse obedience to that law, and to suppress it as a perverse and foolish fanaticism.
No! — I will not refuse obedience to the law of duty; as surely as I live and am, I will obey, absolutely because it commands. This resolution shall be first and highest in my mind; that by which everything else is determined, but which is itself determined by nothing else; — this shall be the innermost principle of my spiritual life.
But, as a reasonable being, before whom a purpose must be set solely by its own will and determination, it is impossible for me to act without a motive and without an end. If this obedience is to be recognised by me as a reasonable service, — if the voice which demands this obedience be really that of the creative reason within me, and not a mere fanciful enthusiasm, invented by my own imagination, or communicated to me somehow from without, — this obedience must have some consequences, must serve some end. It is evident that it does not serve the purpose of the world of sense; — there must, therefore, be a super-sensual world, whose purposes it does promote.
The mist of delusion clears away from before my sight! I receive a new organ, and a new world opens before me. It is disclosed to me only by the law of reason, and answers only to that law in my spirit. I apprehend this world, — limited as I am by my sensuous view, I must thus name the unnameable — I apprehend this world merely in and through the end which is promised to my obedience; — it is in reality nothing else than this necessary end itself which reason annexes to the law of duty.
Setting aside everything else, how could I suppose that this law had reference to the world of sense, or that the whole end and object of the obedience which it demands is to be found within that world, since that which alone is of importance in this obedience serves no purpose whatever in that world, can never become a cause in it, and can never produce results. In the world of sense, which proceeds on a chain of material causes and effects, and in which whatever happens depends merely on that which preceded it, it is never of any moment how, and with what motives and intentions, an action is performed, but only what the action is.
Had it been the whole purpose of our existence to produce an earthly condition of our race, there would have been required only an unerring mechanism by which our outward actions might have.been determined,— we would not have needed to be more than wheels well fitted to the great machine. Freedom would have been, not merely vain, but even obstructive; a virtuous will wholly superfluous. The world would, in that case, be most unskilfully directed, and attain the purposes of its existence by wasteful extravagance and circuitous byways. Hadst thou, mighty World-Spirit! withheld from us this freedom, which thou art now constrained to adapt to thy plans with labour and contrivance; hadst thou rather at once compelled us to act in the way in which thy plans required that we should act, thou wouldst have attained thy purposes by a much shorter way, as the humblest of the dwellers in these thy worlds can tell thee. But I am free; and therefore such a chain of causes and effects, in which freedom is absolutely superfluous and without aim, cannot exhaust my whole nature. I must be free; for it is not the mere mechanical act, but the free determination of free will, for the sake of duty and for the ends of duty only, — thus speaks the voice of conscience within us, — this alone it is which constitutes our true worth. The bond with which this law of duty binds me is a bond for living spirits only; it disdains to rule over a dead mechanism, and addresses its decrees only to the living and the free. It requires of me this obedience; — this obedience therefore cannot be nugatory or superfluous.
And now the Eternal World rises before me more brightly, and the fundamental law of its order stands clearly and distinctly apparent to my mental vision. In this world, will alone, as it lies concealed from mortal eye in the secret obscurities of the soul, is the first link in a chain of consequences that stretches through the whole invisible realms of spirit; as, in the physical world, action — a certain movement of matter — is the first link in a material chain that runs through the whole system of nature. The will is the efficient, living principle of the world of reason, as motion is the efficient, living principle of the world of sense. I stand in the centre of two entirely opposite worlds: — a visible world, in which action is the only moving power; and an invisible and absolutely incomprehensible world, in which will is the ruling principle. I am one of the primitive forces of both these worlds. My will embraces both. This will is, in itself, a constituent element of the super-sensual world; for as I move it by my successive resolutions, I move and change something in that world, and my activity thus extends itself throughout the whole, and gives birth to new and ever-enduring results which henceforward possess a real existence and need not again to be produced. This will may break forth in a material act, — and this act belongs to the world of sense and does there that which pertains to a material act to do.
It is not necessary that I should first be severed from the terrestrial world before I can obtain admission into the celestial one; — I am and live in it even now, far more truly than in the terrestrial; even now it is my only sure foundation, and the eternal life on the possession of which I have already entered is the only ground why I should still prolong this earthly one. That which we call heaven does not lie beyond the grave; it is even here diffused around us, and its light arises in every pure heart. My will is mine, and it is the only thing that is wholly mine and entirely dependent on myself; and through it I have already become a citizen of the realm of freedom and of pure spiritual activity. What determination of my will — of the only thing by which I am raised from earth into this region — is best adapted to the order of the spiritual world, is proclaimed to me at every moment by my conscience, the bond that constantly unites me to it; — and it depends solely on myself to give my activity the appointed direction. Thus I cultivate myself for this world; labour in it, and for it, in cultivating one of its members; in it, and only in it, pursue my purpose according to a settled plan, without doubt or hesitation, certain of the result, since here no foreign power stands opposed to my free will.
That, in the world of sense, my will also becomes an action, is but the law of this sensuous world. I did not send forth the act as I did the will; only the latter was wholly and purely my work, — it was all that proceeded forth from me. It was not even necessary that there should be another particular act on my part to unite the deed to the will; the deed unites itself to it according to the law of that second world with which I am connected through my will, and in which this will is likewise an original force, as it is in the first. I am indeed compelled, when I regard my will, determined according to the dictates of conscience, as a fact and an efficient cause in the world of sense, to refer it to that earthly purpose of humanity as a means to the accomplishment of an end; — not as if I should first survey the plan of the world and from this knowledge calculate what I had to do; but the specific action, which conscience directly enjoins me to do, reveals itself to me at once as the only means by which, in my position, I can contribute to the attainment of that end. Even if it should afterwards appear as if this end had not been promoted — nay, if it should even seem to have been hindered — by my action, yet I can never regret it, nor perplex myself about it, so surely as I have truly obeyed my conscience in performing this act. Whatever consequences it may have in this world, in the other world there can nothing but good result from it. And even in this world,.should my action appear to have failed of its purpose, my conscience for that very reason commands me to repeat it in a manner that may more effectually reach its end; or, should it seem to have hindered that purpose, for that very reason to make good the detriment and annihilate the untoward result. I will as I ought, and the new deed follows.
It may happen that the consequences of this new action, in the world of sense, may appear to me not more beneficial than those of the first; but, with respect to the other world, I retain the same calm assurance as before; and, in the present, it,is again my bounden duty to make good my previous failure by new action. And thus, should it still appear that, during my whole earthly life, I have not advanced the good cause a single hair's-breadth in this world, yet I dare not cease my efforts: after every unsuccessful attempt, I must still believe that the next will be successful. But in the spiritual world no step is ever lost. In short, I do not pursue the earthly purpose for its own sake alone, or as a final aim; but only because my true final aim, obedience to the law of conscience, does not present itself to me in this world in any other shape than as the advancement of this end. I may not cease to pursue it, unless I were to deny the law of duty, or unless that law were to manifest itself to me, in this life, in some other shape than as a commandment to promote this purpose in my 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 incomprehensible to me here. In this life, I must will to promote it, because I must obey; whether it be actually promoted by the deed that follows my will thus fittingly 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 without 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 general;— there is something in me, and there is something required of me, which finds in this life nothing to which it can be applied, and which is entirely superfluous 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 cannot be designed solely for the development of reason, since even awakened reason commands us to maintain 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 future 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 acquire 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 confined to this material world; and it is true wisdom not to undertake an inquiry in which we know beforehand 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 startingpoint, and build upon them as our foundation; and this other life will thus be, in relation to the consequences of our virtuous will in the present, a life in sight. In that other life, we shall also have an immediate 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 commencement 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 powers, with certainty and after a fixed plan, as the 'purpose of the present life is now, and that even there a virtuous will may appear superfluous and without result. 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, direct us to a third life, in which the consequences of our virtuous will in the second life will become visible; — a life which during the second life would again 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 completed 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 perception 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 purpose 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 rules. It is only the Infinite Reason that lives immediately 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 members,— 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 dominion of the will, but whose activity is also conditioned 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 innumerable 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, purpose, and value. I am immortal, imperishable, eternal, as soon as I form the resolution to obey the laws of reason; I do not need to become so. The supersensual 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 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 raising it thereto, do I obtain the assurance and the possession of that super-sensual world.
Without regard to any conceivable or visible object, without inquiry as to whether my will may be followed 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 resistance it would encounter from the independent elements of such a world which it would set in motion; the mode of its activity would no longer exactly correspond 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, however, 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 having freedom in itself, by the mere influence of the system of the universe, perchance, as we must conceive of a formative power in Nature, — but that it absolutely disregards all earthly objects, and generally 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 accessible to it. That moral volition is demanded of us