The Vocation of Man

Thus, in the next following moment, nature will be determined exactly as it will be; specifically because it is determined in the present exactly as it is. It would necessarily be something else in that next moment if, in the present, even the smallest thing were different from how it is. And in the moment that follows that one, everything will be exactly as it will be, because in the moment immediately preceding it, everything will be exactly as it will be. Thus, each successive moment will depend on the one before it, just as that one depends on its predecessor—and so on, downward into the indefinite original: ins unbestimmte fort. Just as the previous page described a chain of causes reaching back into the past, Fichte here describes a "progression"—a chain of effects stretching infinitely into the future..

Nature strides through the infinite series of her possible determinations determinations: Bestimmungen, the specific characteristics, states, or boundaries that define a thing's existence at any given time without pausing; and the change of these states is not lawless, but strictly governed by law. Whatever exists in nature is necessarily exactly as it is, and it is absolutely impossible for it to be otherwise. I enter—