Epochs of the One Time and of the One Eternal Life;—and this Earthly Life with all its subordinate divisions may be deduced from the fundamental Idea of the Eternal Life already accessible to us here below. It is our present voluntary limitation alone which forbids us to undertake this strictly demonstrable deduction, and permits us here only to declare the fundamental Idea of the Earthly Life, requesting every hearer to bring this Idea to the test of his own sense of truth, and, if he can, to approve it thereby. Life of Mankind on Earth, we have said, and Epochs of this Life. We speak here only of the progressive Life of the Race, not of the Individual, which last in all these discourses shall remain untouched,—and I beg of you never to lose sight of this our proper point of view.
The Idea of a World-Plan is thus implied in our inquiry, which, however, I am not at this time to deduce from the fundamental Idea indicated above, but only to point out. I say therefore,—and so lay the foundation of our rising edifice,—the End of the Life of Mankind on Earth is this,—that in this Life they may order all their relations with Freedom according to Reason.
With Freedom, I have said;—their own Freedom,—the Freedom of Mankind in their collective capacity,—as a Race:—and this Freedom is the first accessory condition of our fundamental principle which I intend at present to pursue, leaving the other conditions, which may likewise need explanation, to the subsequent lectures. This Freedom becomes apparent in the collective consciousness of the Race, and it appears there as the proper and peculiar Freedom of the Race;—as a true and real fact;—the product of the Race during its Life and proceeding from its Life, so that the absolute existence of the Race itself is necessarily implied in the existence of the fact and product thus attributed to it. (If a certain person has done something, it is unquestionably implied in that fact that
