44° FICHTE. ical situation of the time especially attracted his attention^ The last required philosophical interpretation, demanded at once inquiry into its historical conditions and a consid- eration of the means by which the glaring contradiction between the condition of the nation at the time and the ideals of reason could be diminished. The Addresses to the German Nation outlined a plan for a moral reforma- tion of the world, to start with the education of the Ger- man people ;* while the Characteristics of the Present Age, which had preceded the Addresses, defined the place of the age in the general development of humanity. The scheme of historical periods given in the Characteristics and similarly in the Theory of the State (innocence — sin — supremacy of reason, with intermediate stages between each two) is interesting as a forerunner of Hegel's under- taking. . History is produced through the interaction of the two principles, faith and understanding, which are related to each other as law and freedom, and strives toward a con- dition in which these two shall be so reconciled that faith shall have entirely passed over into the form of understand- ing, shall have been transformed into insight, and under- standing shall have taken up the content of faith into itself. History begins with the coming together of two original and primitive races, one of order or faith, and one of free- dom or understanding, neither of which would attain to an historical development apart from the other. From the legal race the free race learns respect for the law, as in turn it arouses in the former the impulse toward freedom The course of history divides into five periods. In the state of "innocence " or of rational instinct that which is rational is done unconsciously, out of natural impulse ; in
- " Among all nations you are the one in whom the germ of human perfec-
tion is most decidedly present." The spiritual regeneration of mankind must proceed from the German people, for they are the one original or primitive people of the new age, the only one which has preser-ed its living language — French is a dead tongue — and has raised itself to true creative poetr}' and free science. The ground of distinction between Germanism and the foreign spirit lies in the question, whether we believe in an original element in man, in the freedom, infinite perfectibility, and eternal progress of our race, or put no faith in all these.
