876 FRAGMENTS OF SCIENCE 



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

 the energy of the physical universe, of assuming various 

 shapes, and undergoing various transformations. They 

 baffle and elude the theological mechanic who would carve 

 them to dogmatic forms. They offer themselves freely to 

 the poet who understands his vocation, and whose func- 

 tion 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 

 processes known to be associated with the brain — and, as 

 far as our experience goes, indissolubly associated — sub- 

 ject to the laws which we find paramount in physical nat- 

 ure? Is the will of man, in other words, free, or are it 

 and nature equally ** bound fast in fate"? From this latter 

 conclusion, after he had established it to the entire satis- 

 faction 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 Bestim- 

 mung des Menschen" — 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 physical 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 



> Translated by Dr. William Smith of Edinburgh •. Trubner, 1873. 



