To make my views clear by a distinct example: The great proprietor must be able thus to speak to his dependants, or to enable their Teachers thus to speak for him, and that with truth, calling to witness the daily testimony of their own eyes:—‘Although I possess as much as hundreds or perhaps thousands of you do together, yet I cannot, on that account, either eat, drink, or sleep, for a hundred or a thousand. The undertakings in which you see me daily engage; the experiments on a great scale with new methods of husbandry; the introduction, from distant lands, of new and nobler races of animals, new plants, new seeds; the study of their proper treatment which, being hitherto unknown, has now to be patiently sought out;—these demand great immediate outlay, and the means of defraying the loss consequent upon possible failure. You cannot afford to do this, and hence it is not required of you: but that wherein I am successful you may learn from me, and imitate; what proves unsuccessful you may avoid, for I have already encountered the risk for you. From my herds there will gradually extend to yours those nobler races of animals already domesticated with me; from my fields there will be propagated to yours those more profitable fruits already inured to the climate, with the art of their cultivation already acquired and tested at my expense. It is true that my granaries are plentifully filled with stores of every kind; but to whom among you who stood in need of aid have they ever been closed?—who among you all has ever been in difficulty and I have not succoured him? What you do not require shall, at the first signal given by the State, flow forth freely to any province of our Fatherland that may feel the iron hand of want. Grudge me not the gold which I receive;—it shall be so expended as I have hitherto expended, before your eyes, all that ever I had; there shall not be, with my will, a single farthing of it applied without some gain to the cause of Human Culture.
Page:Popular Works of Johann Gottlieb Fichte (1889) Vol 2.djvu/270
