Page:Vocation of Man (1848).djvu/156

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156
BOOK III.

hesitation, certain of the result, since here no foreign power stands opposed to my free will. That, in the world of sense, my will, in so far as it is actually determined as it ought to be, comes forth into 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 only 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 or that very reason commands me to repeat