[Literature] Johann Gottlieb Fichte: The Vocation of Man #3/65

In like manner will Nature, in the succeeding moment, be necessarily determined to the particular forms which it will then assume—for this reason, that in the present moment it is determined exactly as it is; and were anything in the present moment in the smallest degree different from what it is, then in the succeeding moment something would necessarily be ​different from what it will be. And in the moment following that, all things will be precisely as they will be, because in the immediately previous moment they will be as they will be; and so will its successor proceed forth from it, and another from that, and so on for ever.

Nature proceeds throughout the whole infinite series of her possible determinations without outward incentive; and the succession of these changes is not arbitrary, but follows strict and unalterable laws. Whatever exists in Nature, necessarily exists as it does exist, and it is absolutely impossible that it could be otherwise. I enter within an unbroken chain of phenomena, in which every link is determined by that which has preceded it, and in its turn determines the next; so that, were I able to trace backward the causes through which alone any given moment could have come into actual existence, and to follow out the consequences which must necessarily flow from it, I should then be able, at that moment, and by means of thought alone, to discover all possible conditions of the universe, both past and future;—past, by interpreting the given moment; future, by foreseeing its results. Every part contains the whole, for onlythrough the whole is each part what it is, but through the whole it is necessarilywhat it is.

What is it then which I have thus discovered? If I review my acquisitions as a whole, I find their substance to be this:—that in every stage of progress an antecedent is necessarily supposed, from which and through which alone the present has arisen; in every condition ​a previous condition, in every existence another existence; and that from nothing, nothing whatever can proceed.

Let me pause here a little, and develope whatever is contained in this principle, until it become perfectly clear to me! For it may be that on my clear insight into this point may depend the whole success of my future inquiry.

Why, and from what cause, I had asked, are the determinate forms of objects precisely such as they are at this moment. I assumed without farther proof, and without the slightest inquiry, as an absolute, immediate, certain and unalterable truth, that they had a cause;—that not through themselves, but through something which lay beyond them, they had attained existence and reality. I found their existence insufficient to account for itself, and I was compelled to assume another existence beyond them, as a necessary condition of theirs. But why did I find the existence of these qualities and determinations insufficient for itself? why did I find it to be an incomplete existence? What was there in it which betrayed to me its insufficiency? This, without doubt:—that, in the first place, these qualities do not exist in and for themselves,—they are qualities of something else, attributes of a substance, forms of something formed; and the supposition of such a substance, of a something which shall support these attributes,—of a substratumfor them, to use the phraseology of the Schools,—is a necessary condition of the conceivableness of such qualities. Further, before I can attribute a definite quality to such a substratum, I must suppose for it a condition of repose, and of cessation from change,—a pause in its existence. ​Were I to admit it to be in a state of transition, then there could be no definite determination, but merely an endless series of changes from one state to another. The state of determination in a thing is thus a state and expression of mere passivity; and a state of mere passivity is in itself an incomplete existence. Such passivity itself demands an activity to which it may be referred, by which it can be explained, and through which it first becomes conceivable;—or, as it is usually expressed,—which contains within it the ground of this passivity.

What I found myself compelled to suppose was thus by no means that the various and successive determinations of Nature themselves produce each other,—that the present determination annihilates itself, and, in the next moment, when it no longer exists, produces another, which is different from itself and not contained in it, to fill its place:—this is wholly inconceivable. The determination produces neither itself nor anything else.