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 kn… - Johann Gottlieb Fichte

The Power is given as an Infinite; — hence that which in the World of Thought is absolutely One — that which I shall — becomes in the World of Intuition an infinite problem for my Power, which I have to solve in all Eternity. This Infinitude, which is properly a mere indefiniteness, can have place only in Intuition, but by means in my true Essential Being, which, as the Schema of God, is as simple and unchangeable as himself. How then can this simplicity and unchangeableness be produced within the yet continuing Infinitude, which is expressly consecrated by the absolute Shall addressed to me as an Individual? If, in the onflow of Time, the Ego, in every successive moment, had to determine itself by a particular act, through the conception of what it shall, — then in its original Unity, it was assuredly indeterminate, and only continuously determinable in an Infinite Time. But such an act of determination could only become possible in Time, in opposition to some resisting power. This resisting power, which was thus to be conquered by the act of determination, could be nothing else than the Sensuous Instinct; and hence the necessity of such a continuous self-determination in Time would be the sure proof that the Instinct was not yet thoroughly abolished; which abolition we have made a condition of entering upon the Life in God.

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.

Time is taking giant strides with us more than with any other age since the history of the world began. At some point within the three years that have gone by since my interpretation of the present age that epoch has come to an end. At some point self-seeking has destroyed itself, because by its own complete development it has lost its self and the independence of that self; and since it would not voluntarily set itself any other aim but self, an external power has forced upon it another and a foreign purpose.