The original thinking force of the universe progresses and develops itself in all possible determinations of which it is capable, just as the other original natural forces progress and assume all possible configurations. I am a particular determination of the formative force, like the plant; a particular determination of the peculiar motive force, like the animal; and in addition to this a determination of the thinking force: and the union of these three basic forces into one force, into one harmonious development, is the distinguishing characteristic of my species.

The Doctrine of a Perfect God; in whose nature nothing arbitrary or changeable can have a place; in whose Highest Being we all live, and in this Life may, and ought at all times to be, blessed;-this Doctrine, which ignorant men think they have sufficiently demolished when they have proclaimed it to be Mysticism, is by no means Mysticism, for it has an immediate reference to human action, and in deed to the inmost spirit which ought to inspire and guide all our actions. It can only become Mysticism when it is associated with the pretext that the insight into this truth proceeds from a certain inward and mysterious light, which is not accessible to all men, but is only bestowed upon a few favourites chosen from among the rest:-in which pretext the Mysticism consists, for it betrays a presumptuous contemplation of personal merit, and a pride in mere sensuous Individuality.

The subject must distinguish itself through opposition from the rational being, which it has assumed outside of itself. The subject has posited itself as one, which contains in itself the last ground of something that is in it, (for this is the condition of Egohood, or of Rationality generally;) but it has also posited a being outside of itself, as the last ground of this something in it. It is to have the power of distinguishing itself from this other being; and this is, under our presupposition, possible only, if the subject can distinguish in that given something how far the ground of this something lies in itself and how far it lies outside of itself.

The will is the living principle of the rational soul, is indeed itself reason, when purely and simply apprehended. That reason is itself active, means, that the pure will, as such, rules and is effectual. The infinite reason alone lies immediately and entirely in the purely spiritual order. The finite being lives necessarily at the same time in a sensuous order; that is to say, in one which presents to him other objects than those of pure reason; a material object, to be advanced by instruments and powers, standing indeed under the immediate command of the will, but whose efficacy is conditional also on its own natural laws.

There is nothing whatever in Existence but immediate and living Thought:-Thought, I say, but by no means a thinking substance, a dead body in which thought inheres,-with which no-thought indeed a no-thinker is full surely at hand:-Thought, I say, and also the real Life of this Thought, which at bot tom is the Divine Life; both of which-Thought and , this its real Life-are molten together into one inward organic Unity; like as, outwardly, they are one simple, identical, eternal, and unchangeable Unity.

Each citizen of a state promises, in the original compact, that he will promote, as far as lies in his power, all the conditions of the possibility of the state ; hence, also, the condition just mentioned. This he can best do by educating children who may grow up to realize various ends of reason. The state has the right to make this education of children a condition of the state-compact, and thus education becomes an external, legal obligation, which the parents owe to the state.

The Present Age, according to my view of it, stands in that Epoch which in my former lecture I named the THIRD, and which I characterized as the Epoch of Liberation-directly from the external ruling Authority, indirectly from the power of Reason as Instinct, and generally from Reason in any form; the Age of absolute indifference towards all truth, and of entire and unrestrained licentiousness:-the state of completed sinfulness.

The new education must consist essentially in this, that it completely destroys freedom of will in the soil which it undertakes to cultivate, and produces on the contrary strict necessity in the decisions of the will, the opposite being impossible. Such a will can henceforth be relied on with confidence and certainty.

Spirit: Do not be deceived by sophists and half philosophers; things do not appear to thee by means of any representatives. Of the thing that exists, and that can exist, thou art conscious immediately ; thou, thyself, art that of which thou art conscious. By a fundamental law of thy being thou art thus presented to thyself, and thrown out of thyself.

True Religion does not manifest itself outwardly, and impels man to no course of external conduct which he would not otherwise have adopted, but that it only completes his true In ward Being and Dignity. It is neither an Action, nor an incentive to Action, but a Thought:-it is LIGHT, and the One True Light, which bears within it all Life and all the forms of Life, and pervades their innermost substance. Once arisen, this Light flows on spontaneously forever, spreading itself forth without term or limit;-and it is as idle to bid it shine, as it would be to address such a command to the material sun when it stands in the noon-day heavens. It does this without our bidding; and if it shine not, then has it not arisen. At its uprising, Darkness, and the brood of spectres and phantasms which are born of Darkness, vanish of themselves.

The administrators of the executive power may be either elective or not; and in the former case all or only some of them may be elective. They are elective in a proper democracy, that is to say, in a democracy which recognizes representation. If all the public officials are directly elected by the whole people, the democracy is a pure democracy; if only some, it is a mixed democracy. The public officials may also fill vacancies themselves; this is the case in a pure aristocracy. But if only some of the magistrates are thus replaced by the public officers, and if the others are again directly elected by the people, then the form of government is that of a democratic aristocracy. A permanent president (monarch) may also be elected to exercise the executive power during his lifetime. In all these cases, either all citizens of the commonwealth, or only some of them, are eligible to office. Eligibility may, therefore, be limited or unlimited.

The End of the Life of Mankind on Earth is this,-that in this Life they may order all their relations with FREEDOM according to REASON.

My immediate consciousness, my absolute perception, cannot go beyond myself, - I have immediate knowledge only of myself, whatever I know further I know only by reasoning, in the same manner in which I have come to those conclusions concerning the original powers of Nature, which certainly do not lie within the circle of my perceptions. I, however, - that which I call myself, - am not the man-forming power of Nature, but only one of its manifestations ; and only of this manifestation am I conscious, not of that power, whose existence I have only discovered from the necessity of explaining my own.

History is mere Empiricism; it has only facts to communicate, and all its proofs are founded upon facts alone. To attempt to rise to Primeval History on this foundation of fact, or to argue by this means how such or such a thing might have been, and then to take for granted that it has been so in reality,is to stray beyond the limits of History, and produce an a priori History; just as the Philosophy of Nature, referred to in our preceding lecture, endeavoured to find an a priori Science of Physics.

When one rational being affects another rational being as mere matter, then the lower sense of that being is also affected, it is true, and is so affected necessarily and altogether independently of the freedom of that being, (as the lower sense is indeed always affected;) but it is not to be assumed that this affection was in the intention of the person who produced it. His intention was merely to attain his purpose, to express his conception in matter, and he never took into consideration whether that matter would feel it or not. Hence, the reciprocal influence of rational beings upon each other, as such, always occurs by means of the higher sense; for only the higher sense is one which cannot be affected without having been presupposed. Our criterion of this reciprocal influence remains, therefore, correct.

I believe it to be this; that my will, absolutely of itself, and without the intervention of any instrument that might weaken its effect, shall act in a sphere perfectly congenial - reason upon reason, spirit upon spirit; in a sphere to which it does not give the laws of life, of activity, of progress, but which has them in itself, therefore, upon self-active reason. But spontaneous, self-active reason is will. The law of the transcendental world must, therefore, be a Will.

The Divine Existence (Daseyn),-his Existence, I say, which, according to the distinction already laid down, is his (Manifestation and Revelation of himself-is absolute- only through itself, and of necessity, LIGHT:-namely, y the inward and spiritual Light. This Light, left to itself, separates and divides itself into an infinite multiplicity of individual rays; and in this way, in these individual rays, becomes estranged from itself and its | original source. But this same Light may also again concentrate itself from out this separation, and conceive and comprehend itself as One, as that which it is in itself,-the Existence and Revelation of God; remaining indeed, even in this conception, that which it is in its form,-Light; but yet in this condition, and even by means of this very condition, announcing it-to self as having no real Being in itself, but as only the, Existence and Self-Manifestation of God.

It is a proof that the state is not an arbitrary invention, but is established by nature and reason, when we actually find that, in places where men have lived together for a time and have become educated, states are erected, although the people in the one such place know not that the same thing has been done in other places. Each people, which does not live in a condition of nature, but has a government, no matter how constituted, has a right to compel its recognition from all adjoining states.

The fundamental maxim of those who stand at the head of this Age, and therefore the principle of the Age, is this,-to accept nothing as really existing or obligatory, but that which they can understand and clearly comprehend. With regard to this fundamental principle, as we have now declared and adopted it without farther definition or limitation, this third Age is precisely similar to that which is to follow it, the fourth, or age of Reason as Science,-and by virtue of this similarity prepares the way for it. Before the tribunal of Science, too, nothing is accepted but the Conceivable. Only in the application of the principle there is this difference between the two Ages,-that the third, which we shall shortly name that of Empty Freedom, makes its fixed and previously acquired conceptions the measure of existence; while the fourth-that of Science-on the contrary, makes existence the measure, not of its acquired, but of its desiderated beliefs.

If you want to influence him at all, you must do more than merely talk to him ; you must fashion him, and fashion him in such a way that he simply cannot will otherwise than you wish him to will.

There is nothing enduring, permanent, either in me or out of me, nothing but everlasting change. I know of no existence, not even of my own. I know nothing and am nothing. Images - pictures - only are, pictures which wander by without anything existing past which they wander, without any corresponding reality which they might represent, without significance and without aim. I myself am one of these images, or rather a confused image of these images. All reality is transformed into a strange dream, without a world of which the dream might be, or a mind that might dream it. Contemplation is a dream; thought, the source of all existence and of all that I fancied reality, of my own existence, my own capacities, is a dream of that dream.

These Lectures, conjoined with those which have already appeared under the titles of "The Characteristics of the Present Age," and "The Nature of the Scholar," in the latter of which the tone of thought that governs the present course is applied to a particular subject, form a complete scheme of popular instruction, of which the present work exhibits the highest and clearest summit; and, taken together, they are the result of a process of self-culture, unceasingly pursued during the last six or seven years of my life, with greater leisure and in riper maturity, by means of that Philosophy in which I have been a partaker for thirteen years, and which, although, I hope, it has changed many things in me, has nevertheless itself suffered no change whatever during that period.

The supervision of the state extends to the lock upon the door, and there begins mine own. The lock is the boundary line between the power of the government and my own private power. It is the intention of locks to make possible self-protection. In my own house my person is sacred and inviolable even to the government. In civil cases government has no right to attack me in my house, but must wait till I am upon public ground.

Instinct is blind;-a consciousness without insight. Freedom, as the opposite of Instinct, is thus seeing, and clearly conscious of the grounds of its activity.

That I should by necessity be either wise and good, or foolish or vicious, without having in one case or the other merit or fault - this it was that filled me with aversion and horror.The determination of my actions by a cause out of myself, whose manifestations were again determined by other causes - this it was from which I so violently revolted.The freedom which was not mine, but that of a foreign power, and, in that, only a conditional, half freedom - this it was with which I could not rest satisfied. I myself - that which in this system only appears as the manifestation of a higher existence, I will be independent, - will be something, not by another or through another, but of myself.

The nature of the Absolute State consists herein, -that all individual powers be directed towards the Life of the Race,-in place of which Race, the State puts the aggregate of its own Citizens. It therefore becomes necessary, first, that all Individuals, without exception, should be taken into equal consideration by the State; and second, that every Individual, with all his individual powers, without exception or reserve, should be taken into equal consideration. In a State so constituted, where all, as Individuals, are dedicated to the Race, it follows at the same time, that all without exception, with all the Rights which belong to them as component parts of the Race, are dedicated to all the other individual members of the State.

What man is to be, he must become; and as he is to be a being for himself, must become through himself. Nature completed all her works; only from man did she withdraw her hands, and precisely thereby gave him over to himself. Cultivability, as such, is the character of mankind. The impossibility of subsuming to the human form any other conception than that of his own Ego, is it, which forces every man inwardly to consider every other man as his equal.

I veil my face before thee, and lay my finger on my lips. What thou art in thyself, or how thou appearest to thyself, I can never know. After living through a thousand lives, I shall comprehend Thee as little as I do now in this mansion of clay. What I can comprehend, becomes finite by my mere comprehension, and this can never, by perpetual ascent, be transformed into the infinite, for it does not differ from it in degree merely, but in kind. By that ascent we may find a greater and greater man, but never a God, who is capable of no measurement.

I have distinctly announced the grounds upon which I regard the Apostle John as the only teacher of true Christianity:-namely, that the Apostle Paul and his party, as the authors of the opposite system of Christianity, remained half Jews, and left unaltered the fundamental error of Judaism as well as of Heathenism, which we must afterwards notice. For the present the following may be enough: -It is only with John that the philosopher can deal, for he alone has respect for Reason, and appeals to that evidence which alone has weight with the philosopher-the internal. "If any man will do the will of him that sent me, he shall know of the doctrine, whether it be of God." But this Will of God, accord ing to John, is, that we should truly believe in God, and in Jesus Christ whom he hath sent. The other promulgators of Christianity, however, rely upon the external evidence of Miracle, which, to us at least, proves nothing.

What, then, is the animal? First of all, a system of plant-souls. The unity of those plant-souls, which unity nature itself produces, is the soul of the animal. Its world is therefore partly that of the plants - its nourishment, for instance, it receives partly through synthesis from vegetable, and through analysis from animal nature - and partly that of the animals, whereof we shall speak directly. Each product of nature is an organically in-itself completed totality in space, like the plant. Hence, the unknown x which we are looking for must also be such a whole or totality, and in so far it must also have a principle of organization, a sphere and central point of this organization ; in short, the same which we have called the soul of the plant, which thus remains common to both. ... The animal is a system of plant-souls, and the plant is a separated, isolated part of an animal. Both reciprocally affect each other.

The Age of Empty Freedom ... does not know that man must first through labour, industry, and art, learn how to know; but it has a certain fixed standard for all conceptions, and an established Common Sense of Mankind always ready and at hand, innate within itself and there present without trouble on its part;-and those conceptions and this Common Sense are to it the measure of the efficient and the real. It has this great advantage over the Age of Science, that it knows all things without having learned anything; and can pass judgment upon whatever comes before it at once and without hesitation,-without needing any preliminary evidence:-'That which I do not immediately comprehend by the conceptions which dwell within me, is nothing,'-says Empty Freedom.

Upon the progress of knowledge the whole progress of the human race is immediately dependent: he who retards that, hinders this also. And he who hinders this, -what character does he assume towards his age and posterity? Louder than with a thousand voices, by his actions he proclaims into the deafened ear of the world present and to come -"As long as I live at least, the men around me shall not become wiser or better; - for in their progress I too, notwithstanding all my efforts to the contrary, should be dragged forward in some direction; and this I detest I will not become more enlightened, - I will not become nobler. Darkness and perversion are my elements, and I will summon all my powers together that I may not be dislodged from them."

Who am I? Subject and object in one - contemplating and contemplated, thinking and thought of. As both must I have become what I am.

Show me what thou truly lovest, what thou seekest and strivest for with thy whole heart when thou hopest to attain to true en joyment of thyself-and thou hast thereby shown me thy Life. What thou lovest, in that thou livest. This very Love is thy Life, the root, the seat, the central point of thy being. All other emotions within thee have life only in so far as they are governed by this one central emotion.

The plea of anger or of drunkenness - as having placed the criminal for the moment beyond the control of his reason - relieves him from the charge of premeditated and malicious intent; but a rational legislation will rather provide more severe than milder punishment for such cases, particularly if such a state of mind is habitual with the accused; for a single unlawful act may well constitute an exception from an otherwise blameless life. But a person who pleads, "I habitually get so angry or so drunk as not to be any longer master of my senses!" confesses thereby that he changes himself into a beast on a fixed principle, and that he is, therefore, not fit to live among rational beings.

Among other men Reason awakes in another form-as the impulse towards Personal Freedom, which, although it never opposes the mild rule of the inward Instinct which it loves, yet rises in rebellion against the pressure of a stranger Instinct which has usurped its rights; and in this awakening it breaks the chains,-not of Reason as Instinct itself, but of the Instinct of foreign natures clothed in the garb of external power.

Am I a free agent, or am I merely the manifestation of a foreign power? Neither appear sufficiently well founded.By the most courageous resolve of my life am I reduced to this! what Power can save me from it, from myself?

The purpose of the State is, as we have already shown in our last lecture, no other than that of the Human Race itself:-to order all its relations according to the Laws of Reason. It is only after the Age of Reason as Science shall have been traversed, and we shall have arrived at the Age of Reason as Art, that the State can reflect upon this purpose with clear consciousness. Till then it constantly promotes this purpose, but without its own knowledge, or free pre meditated design; prompted thereto by the natural law of the development of our Race, even while it has a totally different purpose in view;-with which purpose of its own, Nature has indissolubly bound up the purpose of the whole Race.

All law relations are determined by this principle: each one must restrict his freedom by the possibility of the freedom of the other. ... My freedom is limited by the freedom of the other only on condition that he limits his freedom by the conception of mine. Otherwise he is lawless. Hence, if a law-relation is to result from my cognition of the other, the cognition and the consequent limitation of freedom must have been mutual. All law-relation between persons is, therefore, conditioned by their mutual cognition of each other, and is, at the same time, completely determined thereby.

Blessed be the hour in which I was first led to inquire into my own spiritual nature and destination! All my doubts are removed; I know what I can know, and have no fears for what I cannot know. I am satisfied; perfect clearness and harmony reign in my soul, and a new and more glorious existence begins for me. My entire destiny I cannot comprehend; what I am to become, exceeds my present power of conception. A part, which is concealed from me, is visible to the father of spirits. I know only that it is secure, everlasting and glorious. That part of it which is confided to me I know, for it is the root of all my other knowledge.

The representation of the self-sufficiency of the I can certainly co-exist with a representation of the self-sufficiency of the thing, though the self-sufficiency of the I itself cannot co-exist with that of the thing. Only one of these two can come first, only one can be the starting point; only one can be independent. The one that comes second, just because it comes second, necessarily becomes dependent upon the one that comes first, with which it is supposed to be connected. Which of these two should come first?

Each individual imagines that he can exist, live, think, and act for himself, and believes that he himself is the thinking principle of his thoughts; whereas in truth he is but a single ray of the ONE universal and necessary Thought.

Humanity may endure the loss of everything: all its possessions may be torn away without infringing its true dignity; - all but the possibility of improvement.

The voice in my soul in which I will have faith, and for the sake of which I have faith in all else, does not merely command me generally to act, but in every particular situation it declares what I shall do and what leave undone; it accompanies me through every event of my life, and it is impossible for me to contend against it. To listen to it and obey it honestly and impartially, without fear or equivocation, is the business of my existence. My life is no longer an empty I play without truth or significance. It is appointed that what I conscience ordains me shall be done, and for this purpose am I here. I have understanding to know, and power to execute it. By conscience alone comes truth and reality into my representations.

As Being and Life are one and the same, so are Death and Nothingness one and the same. But there is no real Death and no real Nothing ness, as we have already said. There is, however, an Apparent Life, and this is the mixture of life and death, of being and nothingness.

Marriage is a union between two persons - one man and one woman. A woman who has given herself up to one, can not give herself up to a second, for her whole dignity requires that she should belong only to this one.

Science raises itself above all Ages and all Times, embracing and apprehending the ONE UNCHANGING TIME as the higher source of all Ages and Epochs, and grasping that vast idea in its free, unbounded comprehension.

An act of the mind of which we are conscious, as such, is called freedom. An act without consciousness of action is called spontaneity. I by no means assume as necessary any immediate consciousness of the act, but merely, that on subsequent reflection thou shouldst perceive it to be an act. The higher question of what it is that prevents any such state of indecision, or any consciousness of the act, we may perhaps subsequently be able to solve. This act of the mind is called thought and it is said that thought is a spontaneous act, to distinguish it from sensation, in which the mind is merely receptive and passive.

What the Greeks sought, and what they obtained, was Equal Rights for all Citizens. In a certain sense, we might even say Equal Privileges, for there was no race favoured by the constitution more than another;-but there existed a great inequality of power, which indeed arose only by accident and not by the constitution of the State, but which nevertheless the State could not remedy;-and in so far there did not exist Equal Privileges.

I am excluded from the possession of a determined object, not through the will of the other, but only through my own free-will. If I had not excluded myself, I should not be excluded. But I must exclude myself from something in virtue of the Conception of Rights.