28. Theosophy in Germany a Hundred Years Ago

Now, however, a limit to knowledge had to be reached precisely by the keenest minds that followed in the footsteps of Fichte. Pure thinking is namely only an activity of the personality, not of the individuality, which passes through the various personalities in recurring reincarnations. The laws of even the highest logic never change, even if in the stages of re-embodiments the human individuality ascends to the stage of the highest sage. The spiritual perception increases, the perceptive faculty expands when an individuality that was highly developed in one incarnation is re-embodied, but the logic of thought remains the same even for a higher level of consciousness. Therefore, that which goes beyond the individual incarnation can never be grasped by any thought-experience, no matter how refined, even if it rises to the highest levels. This is the reason why Fichte's way of looking at things, and also that of his contemporaries who followed in his footsteps, could not bring them to a realization of the laws of reincarnation and karma. Although various indications can be found in the works of the thinkers of this epoch, they arise more out of a general feeling than out of a necessary organic connection with their thought-structures. It may be said that the mission of these personalities in the history of thought was to present pure thought experiences as they can take place within an incarnation, excluding everything that reaches beyond this one embodiment of the human being.