“It was these Romans who reunited in one State the Culture which had now been produced by the intermixture of different races, and thereby completed the period of Ancient Time, and closed the simple course of Ancient Civilization. With respect to its influence on Universal History, this nation, more than any other, was the blind and unconscious instrument for the furtherance of a higher World-Plan; after having formed itself, by its internal des tiny indicated above, into a most fit and proper instrument for that purpose.”

—  Johann Gottlieb Fichte

Source: The Characteristics of the Present Age (1806), p. 192

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Johann Gottlieb Fichte 102
German philosopher 1762–1814

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