freedom', of the isolated individual. But this, so far from being contrary to his rational will, his true freedom, is in truth the very means of securing them; and it is the only means. It is not until the reign of order is established and established it can never be save by compulsion that the rational will finds the conditions which are necessary to its growth. In applying compulsion, therefore, we are replacing the false freedom by the true. We are not thwarting, but fostering, the rational will; and that is the only will of which it is right to take account.
'Our opponents,' he continues, 'speak of the natural man, and the natural, instinctive will. But this will has absolutely no right to give itself outward expression. It must be suppressed wherever it shows itself; and every man who has the power has the right to carry out this suppression. Outward Right must be established by force. But the freedom of the inner will must be trained and disciplined to recognize the truth. The will to accept the Right must be built up in the conscience of every individual.
'To compel men to a state of Right, to put them under the yoke of Right by force is not only the right, but the sacred duty, of every man who has the knowledge and the power. In case of need, one single man has the right and duty to compel the whole of mankind; for to that which is contrary to Right they have, as against him, no right and no freedom.
'He may compel them to Right. For Right is an idea, absolute, definite, of universal validity; an idea which they all ought to have, and which they all will have, so soon as they are raised to his level. This idea, in the meantime, he has in the name of them all, as their representative, in virtue of the grace of God which works in him. The truth of this idea he must take upon his own conscience. He is the Master, armed with compulsion and appointed by God.'[1]
Here is the doctrine of the heaven-sent Hero with a vengeance. All that Carlyle had to do was to strip it of the qualifications with which it is only just to remember that Fichte surrounded it; to translate it from the language of
- ↑ Staatslehre: Fichte's Werke, I. iv. p. 436.
