14 FRAGMENTS OF SCIKNCti. 



kind of central energy in the human mind, capable, like 

 the energy of the physical universe, of assuming various 

 shapes and undergoing various transformations. They 

 baffle and elude the the'ological mechanic who would carve 

 them to dogmatic forms. They offer themselves freely to 

 the poet who understands his vocation, and whose function 

 is, or ought to be, to find "local habitation " for thoughts 

 woven into our subjective life, but which refuse to be 

 mechanically defined. 



We now stand face to face with the final problem. It 

 is this: Are the brain, and the moral and intellectual proc- 

 esses known to be associated with the brain and, as far 

 as our experience goes, indissolubly associated subject to 

 the laws which we find paramount in physical nature? Is 

 the will of man, in others words, free, or are it and nature 

 equally " bound fast in fate? " From this latter conclusion, 

 after he had established it to the entire satisfaction of his 

 understanding, the great German thinker Fichte recoiled. 

 You will find the record of this struggle between head and 

 heart in his book, entitled " Die Bestimrnung des Men- 

 schen" The Vocation of Man.* Fichte was determined 

 at all hazards to maintain his freedom, but the price he 

 paid for it indicates the difficulty of the task. To escape 

 from the iron necessity seen everywhere reigning in phys- 

 ical nature, he turned defiantly round upon nature and 

 law, and affirmed both of them to be the products of his 

 own mind. He was not going to be the slave of a thing 

 which he had himself created. There is a good deal to be 

 said in favor of this view, but few of us probably would be 

 able to bring into play the solvent transcendentalism 

 whereby Fichte melted his chains. 



Why do some regard this notion of necessity with terror, 

 while others do not fear it at all? Has not Carlyle some- 

 where said that a belief in destiny is the bias of all earnest 

 minds? " It is not Nature/' says Fichte, " it is Freedom 

 itself, by which the greatest and most terrible disorders 

 incident to our race are produced. Man is the cruelest 

 enemy of man." But the question of moral responsibility 

 here emerges, and it is the possible loosening of this 

 responsibility that so many of us dread. The notion of 



* Translated l>y Dr. William Smith of Edinburgh; Triibner, 1873. 



