equal sinfulness of all. This belief I have sufficiently described in another place;[1] I leave you to read this description for yourselves and to decide how far it fits the present time. This way of thinking and acting arises from the state of inward death, as has often been mentioned, only when that state becomes clear about itself. On the other hand, so long as that state remains in darkness, it retains the belief in freedom, which belief is in itself true, and is only a delusion when it is applied to existence in such a state of mind. Here we see clearly and distinctly the disadvantage of clearness when the soul is base. So long as this baseness remains in darkness, it is continually disquieted, goaded, and impelled by the unceasing claim to freedom, and it presents a point of attack to the attempts to improve it. But clearness completes it and rounds it off in itself; clearness imparts to this base state of mind a cheerful resignation, the calm of a good conscience, and self-satisfaction. As their belief is, so is the result; from now onwards they are in fact incapable of improvement; at the most they serve to keep alive among their betters a pitiless loathing of evil or a resignation to the will of God; but, apart from that, they are not of the least use in the world.
107. So, let there appear before you at last in complete clearness what we have meant by Germans, as we have so far described them. The true criterion is this: do you believe in something absolutely primary and original in man himself, in freedom, in endless improvement, in the eternal progress of our race, or do you not believe in all this, but rather imagine that you clearly perceive and comprehend that the opposite of all this takes place? All who either are themselves alive and creative and
- ↑ [Fichte adds this note here: see the Guide to the Blessed Life, Lecture II.]
