p. 168
“

The purpose of the State is, as we have already shown in our last lecture, no other than that of the Human Race itself:-to order all its relations according to the Laws of Reason. It is only after the Age of Reason as Science shall have been traversed, and we shall have arrived at the Age of Reason as Art, that the State can reflect upon this purpose with clear consciousness. Till then it constantly promotes this purpose, but without its own knowledge, or free pre meditated design; prompted thereto by the natural law of the development of our Race, even while it has a totally different purpose in view;—with which purpose of its own, Nature has indissolubly bound up the purpose of the whole Race.

— Johann Gottlieb Fichte

What It Means

This is a placeholder explanation generated by the low-overhead model. It interprets "The purpose of the State is, as we have already shown in our last lecture, no other than that of the Human Race itself:-to order all its relations according to the Laws of Reason. It is only after the Age of Reason as Science shall have been traversed, and we shall have arrived at the Age of Reason as Art, that the State can reflect upon this purpose with clear consciousness. Till then it constantly promotes this purpose, but without its own knowledge, or free pre meditated design; prompted thereto by the natural law of the development of our Race, even while it has a totally different purpose in view;—with which purpose of its own, Nature has indissolubly bound up the purpose of the whole Race." in the context of "p. 168" to mean that wisdom is timeless.

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Source: Wikiquote: "Johann Gottlieb Fichte" (Quotes, The Characteristics of the Present Age (1806): Die Grundzüge des gegenwärtigen Zeitalters, as translated by William Smith (1847) Full text online) The 'What it means' explanation text was generated by Google Gemini Flash (accessed January 18, 2026). https://gemini.google.com/app
Johann Gottlieb Fichte

About Johann Gottlieb Fichte

Johann Gottlieb Fichte (19 May 1762 – 27 January 1814) was a German philosopher, who was one of the founding figures of the philosophical movement known as German idealism, a movement that developed from the theoretical and ethical writings of Immanuel Kant.