Our highest wisdom would be, not to trouble ourselves about things
in which we have no concern, but to live, in each case, as the fancy
takes us, and quietly leave the consequences to that Power. The moral
law within us would be idle and superfluous, and wholly unsuited to a
being that had no higher capacity and no higher destination. In order
to be at one with ourselves, we should refuse obedience to the voice
of that law and suppress it as a perverse and mad enthusiasm.
* * * * *
If the whole design of our existence were to bring about a purely
earthly condition of our race, all that would be required would be
some infallible mechanism to direct our action; and we need be nothing
more than wheels well fitted to the whole machine. Freedom would then
not only be useless, but even contrary to the purpose of existence;
and good-will would be quite superfluous. The world, in that case,
would be very clumsily contrived--would proceed to its goal with waste
of power and by circuitous paths. Rather, mighty World-Spirit, hadst
thou taken from us this freedom, which, only with difficulty and by a
different arrangement, thou canst fit to thy plans, and compelled us
at once to act as those plans required! Thou wouldst then arrive at
thy goal by the shortest road, as the meanest of the inhabitants of
thy worlds can tell thee.
But I am free, and therefore such a concatenation of cause and effect,
in which freedom is absolutely superfluous and useless, cannot exhaust
my whole destination.
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