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 EDITED BY 
 
 WILLIAM KNIGHT, LL.D. 
 
 PROFESSOR OF MORAL PHILOSOPHY, UNIVERSITY OF ST ANDREWS 
 
 F I C H T E
 
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 FI CH TE 
 
 BY 
 
 EOBEET ADAMSOtf, M.A. 
 
 PROFESSOR OF LOGIC IN THE OWENS COLLEGE, 
 VICTORIA UNIVERSITY, MANCHESTER 
 
 WILLIAM BLACKWOOD AND SONS 
 
 EDINBURGH AND LONDON 
 MDCCCLXXXI 
 
 All IluiMx referral
 
 Education 
 Library 
 
 All f> 
 
 PREFATOKY NOTE. 
 
 THE account of Fichte's system in the latter part of 
 this volume has no pretensions to be regarded as more 
 than an introduction to his philosophy. When it is re- 
 membered that Fichte's works appear in eleven substan- 
 tial volumes, and that many of them are elaborate and 
 detailed expositions of special branches of philosophy in 
 general, it will be evident that a summary or compressed 
 statement would have but small value, and that a short 
 sketch must of necessity be introductory in character. 
 
 I have to thank Dr William Smith for the kind per- 
 mission to use his translations of certain of Fichte's 
 works. The passage quoted from the ' Eeden,' is taken, 
 with one or two verbal alterations, from his ' Memoir of 
 Fichtc.' 
 
 The delay in the appearance of this volume of the 
 series of ' Philosophical Classics ' is due to causes for 
 which I am alone responsible. 
 
 R ADAMSOK 
 
 THE OWENS COLLEGE, June 1881. 
 
 926543
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAP. PAGE 
 
 I. INTRODUCTORY, .... 1 
 
 II. YOUTH AND EARLY STRUGGLES, . . 8 
 
 III. THE JENA PROFESSORSHIP, . . 41 
 
 IV. BERLIN AND THE WAR OF LIBERATION, . 65 
 
 1. FRIENDS AND LITERARY ACTIVITY AT BERLIN 
 
 (1799-1806.) 
 
 2. FALL AND REGENERATION OP PRUSSIA : THE 
 
 BERLIN UNIVERSITY. 
 
 3. WAR OF LIBERATION : DEATH OF FICHTE. 
 
 V. GENERAL IDEA OF FICHTE's PHILOSOPHY, . 105 
 
 VI. " WISSENSCHAFTSLEHRE " IN ITS EARLIER 
 
 FORM, .... 125 
 
 1. DOGMATISM AND IDEALISM. 
 
 2. HISTORICAL ANTECEDENTS : SPINOZA AND KANT. 
 
 3. KI11ST PRINCIPLES. 
 
 4. DEVELOPMENT OF THE SYSTEM. 
 
 VII. LATER FORM OF THE "WISSENSCHAFTSLEHRE," 189 
 VIII. CONCLUDING REMARKS, 214
 
 F I C H T E. 
 
 CHAPTEE I. 
 
 INTRODUCTORY. 
 
 IT happens but rarely that the life of a philosopher has 
 been so closely connected with the historical develop- 
 ment of his people, that his name should be remembered 
 rather on account of his practical activity than for his 
 speculative researches. Yet if one does not misinter- 
 pret the evidence supplied in ample quantity by the 
 numerous speeches, addresses, essays, memorials, and 
 other documents which marked the celebration of the 
 centenary of Fichte in 1862, circumstances in his case 
 must have combined to bring about this result. Many 
 occasional references were made by various speakers and 
 writers to the philosophy of Fichte, and much was said 
 of the speculative depth and richness of his writings, 
 but all such remarks were manifestly external and by 
 the way. The subtle metaphysician of the ' Wissenschafts- 
 lehre ' had evidently, in the estimation of his admirers, 
 been overshadowed by the patriotic orator of the ' Ad- 
 p. iv. A
 
 2 FicUe. 
 
 dresses to the German Nation.' There exists not now, 
 there never did exist to any extent, a school of follow- 
 ers of Fichte ; it may well be doubted if there are at 
 present half-a-dozen students of his works. As a pa- 
 triot, as representative of what seems noblest and lofti- 
 est in the German character, he lives, and will doubt- 
 less continue to live, in the grateful remembrance of 
 his countrymen ; as a metaphysician, he lives not at 
 all beyond the learned pages of the historians of phil- 
 osophy. 
 
 That such should be the case will not appear surpris- 
 ing when there are taken into consideration the nature of 
 the historical surroundings of Fichte's career, and the 
 relations in which he stood to them. His life coincided 
 in time with the rise and partial development of the 
 two events which have most affected the current of 
 modern history, the revolution in political ideas which 
 originated in France, and the birth of intellectual activ- 
 ity in Germany. His life's work was the part he played 
 in the furtherance of these movements, and the durability 
 of his fame has of necessity depended on the signifi- 
 cance of his contributions to them, and the way in which 
 they have worked themselves out. 
 
 Although the revolution in political and social organi- 
 sations and the rise of new forms of intellectual life in 
 Germany differed widely in external features, for they 
 belonged to diverse spheres of practical activity, they 
 were in fundamental agreement, not only as regards their 
 ultimate aim, but also as regards the idea on which they 
 proceeded. Both were in character reconstructive; in 
 both the foundation for the new edifice was sought in the 
 common, universal nature of humanity itself. The new
 
 Introductory. 3 
 
 political idea of the French Eevolution an idea ex- 
 pressed clearly, though with some contradictoriness, in 
 the Contrat social was that of the human agent, endowed 
 by nature with certain primitive and inalienable rights, 
 as the unit in the organisation of the state. The individ- 
 ual, on this view, was no longer to be regarded as receiv- 
 ing all state-rights by historical accident; distinctions 
 of rank among citizens were no longer to be accepted on 
 mere ground of fact; the state itself was to be looked upon 
 as the mechanism in and through which the primitive 
 rights of all individuals may receive due and adequate 
 realisation ; and the final standard of judgment as to the 
 forms of the state organisation was placed in the reason 
 of the individual The body politic thus appeared not as 
 the accidental result of the conflict of individual, arbi- 
 trary volitions, but as the necessary product of the con- 
 joint will of individuals with common characteristics, 
 with primitive and equal rights. The individual was 
 thought of, not as the embodiment of pure arbitrary ca- 
 price, but as the expression of a certain common nature, 
 to the development of which he has an original, indefeas- 
 ible right. A doctrine like this is liable to misuse, for 
 the notion of rational liberty may easily degenerate, and 
 historically did degenerate, into the apotheosis of mere 
 power of will ; and the positive element in it, the idea 
 of the abstract rights of the individual, probably reqxiires 
 much modification : but it was an important advance upon 
 the previous theory and practice of politics. 
 
 "When one examines the general characteristics of the 
 new intellectual productions of Germany, more especi- 
 ally in the sphere of philosophy, one is struck by the 
 close resemblance in fundamental idea to that just
 
 4 Fichte. 
 
 noted. It was the essence of Kant's endeavour, both in 
 speculative and in ethical research, to show that the 
 ultimate unit, the conscious subject, was not a mere atom, 
 devoid of intrinsic characteristics, receiving all know- 
 ledge from without, and impelled to act solely by the 
 natural relations between his individual impulses and 
 things. In his view, the nature of the thinking sub- 
 ject was an indispensable factor both in knowledge and 
 in action. In all knowledge, as he strove to show, 
 there is a common element which springs from the very 
 essence of the subject as cognitive or conscious ; in all 
 action, the indispensable element is the conscious exer- 
 cise of will under common, universal law. Thus in the 
 Kantian philosophy, the ultimate standard, both of in- 
 tellectual and of ethical judgment, was indeed the individ- 
 ual, but the individual only as containing a universal or 
 common feature. On the basis supplied by this com- 
 mon element, philosophy might proceed to reconstruct 
 what had been dissolved by the speculative atomism of 
 Hume. 
 
 Although, from the nature of the matter, no similarly 
 exact statement can be given for the essence of the in- 
 tellectual efforts in the direction of pure literature, 
 there was manifest in them in various degrees the same 
 tendency towards expression of the universal common 
 elements in human life, as opposed to the treatment of 
 trivial, personal, and accidental aims and occurrences 
 which had characterised much of the earlier eighteenth 
 century literature. If evidence of this were otherwise 
 wanting, it would be amply supplied by considering the 
 excesses of the principle in the writings of the first 
 Eomantic school. Not every one could bend the bow
 
 Introductory. 5 
 
 of Kant and Fichte : the philosophic principle that the 
 individual consciousness is the ultimate test of truth 
 and goodness, became for weaker minds a practical pre- 
 cept of moral and intellectual scepticism. The universal 
 element sank out of sight, and there remained only, as 
 aim of life, the satisfaction of individual, personal ca- 
 price. ' Wilhelm Lovell ' is but a reckless parody of the 
 Kantian system ; ' Lucinde,' a hideous misapplication of 
 Fichte's ' Wissenschaftslehre.' 
 
 Now the historic results of these two movements have 
 been, for Germany at least, very different in character. 
 On the one hand, the rude shock given by the political 
 revolution and its consequences to the amorphous organ- 
 isation of the German States, absolutely forced upon the 
 German mind a conception which otherwise might long 
 have remained dormant the conception of a united, 
 single German power. History amply shows us that it is 
 often by what we in our ignorance call the brutal neces- 
 sity of facts that an idea gains for itself a place among 
 the realities of life ; and there can be no question that 
 the unity of the German people, foreshadowed in elo- 
 quent language by her patriotic thinkers at the begin- 
 ning of this century, has been wrought out, with much 
 swaying and struggling, rather by the pressure of exter- 
 nal forces than by the unanimous acceptance of the 
 idea. However this may be, and however widely the 
 united German empire may differ in inner characteristics 
 from that patriotic state to which Fichte, in his famous 
 ' Addresses,' summoned his countrymen, no German who 
 feels the full significance of the unity of his nation can 
 fail to look back with pride and gratitude to the elo- 
 quent thinker, who, with the thoroughness of a philoso-
 
 6 Fichte. 
 
 pher and the zeal of a patriot, drew in ideal form the 
 outlines of that which has now been happily realised. 
 The part which Fichte has played in this movement is 
 a warrant of undying fame. 
 
 On the other hand, the speculative movement begun 
 by Kant is yet far from having exhausted itself : it can 
 hardly be said to have begun to produce its full fruits. 
 The contributions made here by Fichte were of the highest 
 importance, and, as will afterwards become clear, they 
 form an integral portion of the completed philosophic 
 view, which in partial fashion was first presented by 
 Kant. Nevertheless, Fichte's work as a philosopher 
 was never, even for himself, a finished whole, and the 
 permanent results of his activity have been absorbed 
 in the more comprehensive elaboration of the Kantian 
 principles which make up the philosophy of HegeL It 
 is not probable, therefore, that Fichte's system, as a 
 system, will ever discharge a more important function 
 than that which has already been its work in the history 
 of philosophy. It has made clear much that was ob- 
 scure in Kant ; it has contributed to give a wider range 
 to the method of philosophy characteristic of the Kant- 
 ian system, and it has served to effect the transition 
 from Kant to Hegel. More than this it has not done, 
 and cannot do. Not without a certain historic justifi- 
 cation, therefore, has it come about that the fame of 
 Fichte depends more on his patriotic and practical 
 efforts than on his speculative labours. 
 
 Ample materials for the life of Fichte are supplied by 
 the biographical work of his son, I. H. Fichte, 'J. G. 
 Fichte's Lebenund literarischer Brief wechsel,' 2 vols., 2d
 
 Introductory. 7 
 
 ed, 1862. An interesting sketch, from these materials, 
 has been long before the English reader in Dr W. Smith's 
 'Memoir of Fichte,' 3d ed., 1873. I. H. Fichte's work 
 should be supplemented by Weinhold, ' Achtundvierzig 
 Briefe von J. G. Fichte und seinen Verwandten,' 1862 ; 
 and by Noack, ' J. G. Fichte n'ach seinem Leben, Lehren 
 und Wirken,' which is somewhat ill - tempered but 
 amusing. 
 
 The complete works of the philosopher fill eleven 
 volumes. The last three, ' Nachgelassene Werke,' con- 
 sisting mainly of the notes of lecture courses, were pub- 
 lished by I. H. Fichte in 1834-35. The other works, 
 most of which had been separately published, were col- 
 lected, arranged, and edited, also by I. H. Fichte, in 
 1845-46. The arrangement is systematic, but not free 
 from faults. Several of the more important of the popu- 
 lar writings of Fichte have been translated with great 
 elegance and skill by Dr W. Smith, to whom it is due 
 that Fichte is more than a name in this country. Trans- 
 lations of some of the philosophic works have appeared 
 in America, where the earnest study of German thought 
 has been fostered by the unwearied and self-sacrificing 
 zeal of Dr W. T. Harris, the editor of the ' Journal of 
 Speculative Philosophy.' There is no English work 
 upon Fichte's system ; in German the best expositions 
 are those of Lowe, Fortlage, Erdmann, and Kuno 
 Fischer.
 
 CHAPTEE II. 
 
 YOUTH AND EARLY STRUGGLES. 
 BIRTH AND EDUCATION. 
 
 JOHANN GOTTLIEB FICHTE was born on the 19th May 
 1762, at Rammenau, in Saxon Lusatia. The little vil- 
 lage of Rammenau lies in the picturesque country, well 
 wooded and well watered, between Bischofswerda and 
 Camenz, not far from the boundary separating the dis- 
 trict of Meissen from Upper Lusatia. Here, as the tra- 
 ditions of the Fichte family run, a Swedish sergeant in 
 the army of Gustavus Adolphus, who had been wounded 
 in a skirmish in the neighbourhood, was left by his 
 comrades in the care of one of the kindly Lutheran 
 villagers. Returning health did not lead the stranger 
 to take his departure. He continued under the hospi- 
 table roof of his benefactor, married the daughter of the 
 house, and, as all the sons had fallen in the bloody wars 
 of religion, became heir to the small portion of ground 
 belonging to the family. From this northern settler 
 sprang the numerous family of the Fichtes, noted, even 
 in a neighbourhood distinguished for simplicity of man- 
 ners and uprightness of character, for their solid probity 
 and sterling honesty.
 
 Youth and Early Struggles. 9 
 
 The grandfather of the philosopher, the only descend- 
 ant of the original stock remaining in Rammenau, cul- 
 tivated the tiny patrimonial property, and in addition 
 carried on a small trade in linen ribbons, mamifactured 
 at his own loom. His son, Christian Fichte, was sent 
 at an early age to the neighbouring town of Pulsnitz, 
 and apprenticed to Johann Schurich, a wealthy linen- 
 spinner and owner of a factory. After the fashion of 
 diligent apprentices in all ages, Christian Fichte wooed 
 and won the heart of his master's daughter, but not 
 without much trouble was the consent of the wealthy 
 burgher given to a marriage which he thought beneath 
 his family rank. Only on condition that his son-in-law 
 did not presume to settle in Pulsnitz was a reluctant 
 permission given, and Christian Fichte enabled to bring 
 his bride to the paternal roof. With her dowry he 
 built a house for himself in Eammenau, still in the 
 possession of his descendants, and established there his 
 looms. On the 19th May 1762 was born their eldest 
 child, Johann Gottlieb, who was quickly followed by six 
 sons and one daughter. 
 
 From what may be gathered regarding his parents in 
 Fichte's letters, it is plain that the marriage was not 
 altogether productive of happiness. Madame Fichte 
 seems never to have been able quite to forget that in 
 uniting herself to a humble peasant and handicraftsman 
 she had descended from a superior station. She had all 
 the pride and narrowness of ideas which are natural 
 possessions of the wealthier classes in a small provincial 
 town. Her temper, obstinate, quick, and capricious, 
 overmastered the weaker and more patient nature of her 
 husband, and she was, to all intents and purposes, the
 
 10 FichU. 
 
 head of the household. Her eldest son resembled her 
 strongly in the main features of his character, though 
 he had in addition solidity of principle and reserve, and 
 their wills came into frequent and painful collision. 
 The mother, like many a Scottish matron in similar case, 
 had the darling ambition to see her talented son invested 
 with the dignity of clergyman, and for many years cir- 
 cumstances led him thoroughly to coincide with this 
 wish. As he gradually altered his views, and felt him- 
 self less and less inclined for the clerical career, his rela- 
 tions with his mother became more and more strained 
 and unpleasant. Fortune had removed him from the 
 paternal home at an early age, and he was rarely able to 
 visit his family; but after the final decision as to his 
 career, even such occasional intercourse seemed to cease. 
 The rudiments of his education Fichte began to receive 
 very early from his father, who, when the day's work 
 was over, would teach the lad to read and to repeat by 
 heart proverbs and hymns, and would talk to him of his 
 apprentice travels in Saxony and Franconia. Of even 
 greater importance for his training Avas the curiously in- 
 tense interest the boy displayed in listening to the weekly 
 sermons in the village church. These sermons he would 
 repeat aloud, almost word for word, in such fashion as 
 to show that the effort was not one of mere passive re- 
 tention, but of active imagination. Strength of memory, 
 intense fondness for reading and for quiet imaginative 
 meditation, and deep earnestness of moral character, 
 marked him at an early age as a boy of remarkable gifts. 
 An anecdote referring to this period of his life, when he 
 was about seven years of age, is characteristic enough to 
 deserve notice. His father had brought him as a pre-
 
 Early Education. 11 
 
 sent from the neighbouring fair a copy of the famous 
 story of the Invulnerable Siegfried. The delight in this 
 book so overmastered him that his other tasks began to 
 be neglected, and he determined to free himself from 
 temptation by destroying the cause of the evil Quietly 
 and secretly he took the little book, and, after a hard 
 straggle with himself, summoned courage enough to hurl 
 it into the streamlet that flowed by the house. As he 
 saw the little treasure carried away by the stream he 
 burst into tears ; but to his father's inquiry as to how 
 the accident had happened he would give no explana- 
 tion, preferring then, as often in later years, to endure 
 misunderstanding and pain rather than to offer defence 
 for what he felt was right. When, some time later, his 
 father proposed to give him a similar book as a present, 
 he earnestly entreated that it might be bestowed upon 
 one of his brothers, and that he might not again be 
 subjected to such temptation. 
 
 So gifted by nature, the boy might have grown up in 
 his narrow surroundings, able and upright, notable per- 
 haps among his fellows, but wasting powers fitted for 
 greater things, had not a mere accident transferred him 
 to a wider sphere of life, and given him opportunity 
 for a fuller development. Freiherr von Miltitz, owner 
 of an estate at Seven Oaks, near Meissen, chanced one 
 Sunday in the year 1771 to visit the family Von Hoff- 
 mann in Eammenau, and arrived too late to hear the 
 sermon by the village pastor, whom he much admired. 
 On expressing regret, he was informed that the loss could 
 readily be repaired, for there was in the village a little 
 lad able to repeat verbatim any sermon that had been 
 preached. The little Fichte was sent for, and so great
 
 12 Fichte. 
 
 an impression was made upon Yon Miltitz that he at 
 once proposed to the parents to undertake the charge of 
 the lad's education if they would submit him to his 
 care. No objection was raised on their side, and Fichte 
 was forthwith removed by his patron to Seven Oaks. 
 
 The surroundings of his new home, the restraints of 
 his new mode of life, at first weighed heavily upon the 
 boy's mind, and his kind protector judged it best to 
 place him under the care of the Pastor Krebel at ISTied- 
 erau, near Meissen. Here he remained for nearly three 
 years, affectionately cared for by the childless pastor and 
 his wife, and receiving a thorough groundwork in ele- 
 mentary classics. In 1774 he appears to have been for a 
 brief interval at the public school of Meissen, though there 
 is some obscurity about this fact in his biography ; and in 
 October of that year he was entered at the famous foun- 
 dation-school of Pforta, near Naumburg. His patron, 
 Von Miltitz, had died in the early part of 1774, and we 
 have no record to show by what means the expenses of 
 Fichte's education continued to be defrayed. From a 
 chance expression in one of his letters of a later date, it 
 would appear probable that his parents at least contri- 
 buted, but undoubtedly they were not in a condition to 
 undertake the whole charge. 
 
 The years spent at Schulpforta had a powerful influ- 
 ence on the development of Fichte's character, in both 
 a moral and an intellectual aspect. The school was 
 even then regulated on the old monastic plan, and much 
 resembled what in this country till recently used to be 
 the system of the old foundation or endowed schools. 
 The pupils were strictly secluded from the outer world ; 
 the order of daily life, of amusement, of costume, of
 
 Schulpforta. 1 3 
 
 study, was regulated by antiquated precepts. Each of 
 the older scholars had a junior intrusted to his care, and 
 exercised almost unlimited control over his apprentice. 
 The happiness of the juniors thus depended much upon 
 the qualities of the older members, and, as is inevitable 
 in any close institution, the traditions of the place were 
 in many respects evil, and detrimental to the character 
 of the scholars. Such a constrained life tended only to 
 deepen and strengthen traits already sufficiently marked 
 in Fichte's character. He was by nature reserved, yet 
 opinionative that is, little capable of altering any view 
 of the truth of which he had become convinced, and alto- 
 gether incapable of making any effort to remove miscon- 
 ception which might arise as to his action. The entire 
 want of family life contributed to strengthen this habit 
 of inner self-dependence, which could have found relief 
 only in the manifold interests and duties, in the constant 
 sympathy and co-operation with others, arising from the 
 details of domestic intercourse. No substitute for this 
 was found in Schulpforta The course of instruction, 
 moreover, thorough but narrow for it was almost entirely 
 confined to the classical curriculum was not that best 
 suited to develop the neglected side of Fichte's character. 
 In his life and in his works, what one notices as most 
 striking is his incapacity for appreciating experience. In 
 metaphysics, in psychology, in ethics, in politics, he con- 
 structs from within. Nature, in his system, appears 
 merely as the negative limit of mind. Nor in his prac- 
 tical activity, as will appear, was he more fortunate. 
 " Fichte," said Goethe, with much truth, " too often for- 
 gets that experience is not in the least what he has 
 imagined it to be." It hardly admits of question that a
 
 H Fichte. 
 
 more realistic education, a training in physical science 
 such as his great predecessor fortunately possessed, would 
 have given greater weight and force to Fichte's specula- 
 tions, greater elasticity and prudence to his action. 
 
 It was some time before Fichte accommodated himself 
 to the life at Schulpforta. He was at first unfortunate 
 in the senior selected for him. The close restraint and 
 the unbearable tyranny to which he was subjected 
 preyed upon him, and, after having given warning to 
 his senior in his naively honourable fashion that he 
 would endeavour to escape from the school unless he 
 were treated differently, he did begin a flight towards 
 Naumburg, with the vague intention of making his way 
 into the world of which he knew so little, and settling as 
 a new Eobinson Crusoe in some deserted island. Only 
 the thought that by carrying out his exploit he would 
 for ever cut himself off from his parents, induced him to 
 return to the hated school A frank confession of his 
 intention, and of the grounds for it, procured him not 
 only pardon from the rector, but also relief from the 
 tyranny of his former senior. He was placed under the 
 charge of another pupil, and the years began to flow 
 more happily for him. When at length he had reached 
 the dignity of Primaner, he began to enjoy the greater 
 liberty of study permitted to the senior scholars ; and 
 though the great works of recent German literature were 
 carefully excluded from the school, he then obtained 
 through Lieber, a newly introduced tutor, the successive 
 numbers of Lessing's ' Anti-Goeze.' The style and matter 
 of this work made a deep impression on him, and in his 
 enthusiastic fashion he resolved that the earliest oppor- 
 tunity should be taken to make himself known to the
 
 University Studies. 15 
 
 author, and acknowledge his gratitude to him. The cir- 
 cumstances of his life and the premature death of 
 Lessing, however, prevented this resolution from being 
 carried into effect. 
 
 In October 1780, Fichte's school career closed; his 
 final essay, 'Oratio de recto prseceptorum poeseos et 
 rhetorices usu,' still existing in the archives of Schul- 
 pforta, received its meed of praise, and he was ready for 
 the higher educational training of a university. In the 
 Michaelmas term of that year he enrolled himself in the 
 Theological Faculty at Jena- not, so far as we can judge, 
 because his heart was entirely given to the theological 
 career, but because no other seemed to present an open- 
 ing to a poor and friendless student The Jena lectures 
 do not appear to have done much for him, and in the fol- 
 lowing year he transferred himself to Leipzig, where many 
 of his Schulpforta comrades were settled. Here, in addi- 
 tion to certain lectures by Schiitz on /Eschylus, the course 
 followed by him with greatest attention seems to have 
 been that by Petzold on systematic theology. Fichte's 
 mind, during this period, evidently dwelt on a problem 
 which has sorely exercised many a student in like cir- 
 cumstances, the relation between divine providence or 
 foreknowledge and the voluntary determination of human 
 action. Of the alternatives offering themselves as pos- 
 sible solutions, he chose with resoluteness and complete 
 conviction that which we call technically the doctrine of 
 determinism. The idea of the individual will as but a 
 necessary link in the scheme of divine government, gave 
 a certain consistency to his thoughts, and was expressed 
 by him in various sermons preached in villages in the 
 neighbourhood of Leipzig. From the pastor of one of
 
 1 6 Fichte. 
 
 these village churches he first learned that his doctrine 
 might be designated by the hateful title of Spinozism, 
 and from the same friend he received the ' Refutation of 
 the Errors of Spinoza,' by Wolff, through which he came 
 to know the outlines of a system destined to play a most 
 important part in the later development of his thought. 
 On the whole, there seems little reason to doubt that so 
 far as the young candidatus theologice had formed opinions 
 upon speculative and critical subjects, they accorded 
 with the ' Ethics ' of Spinoza and the ' Anti-Goeze ' of 
 Lessing. 
 
 EARLY STRUGGLES. 
 
 The three years spent at Leipzig had been years of 
 bitter poverty and hard struggle, which strengthened, 
 and at the same time tended to harden, Fichte's proud 
 and reserved spirit. Even severer discipline was in 
 store for him. The completion of his regular academic 
 course still left him without a definite profession. Less 
 and less inclined for the clerical life, and embittered by 
 the reproaches and petulant urgency of his mother, he 
 spent three years, eating his heart out, as tutor in vari- 
 ous families around Leipzig. To his humble petition, 
 in 1787, that the Consistory of Saxony would allot to 
 him some small stipend such as was often given to poor 
 Saxon students of theology, in order that he might com- 
 plete his theological studies and present himself for the 
 licentiate examination, an unfavourable answer was 
 returned. Without a profession, without friends, with- 
 out means, it seemed to him that his life had been 
 wasted. At the deepest ebb of his fortiines he obtained 
 through a former comrade, Weisse, an unexpected relief
 
 Early Struggles. 17 
 
 in the offer of a house-tutorship at Ziirich. Accepting 
 joyfully, he set out on foot, and traversing for the first 
 time German provinces outside his native Saxony, 
 reached Ziirich in September 1788. 
 
 His pupils at Zurich were the son and daughter of 
 Hcrr Ott, the proprietor of a well-to-do inn, the Gast- 
 hof zum Schwerte. Herr Ott, though somewhat sur- 
 prised at the character of the education which his new 
 tutor proposed to bestow, was not altogether unwilling 
 that his children should receive a training superior to 
 their station, but his wife bitterly resented all attempts 
 to go beyond the accustomed routine. Eichte found his 
 task no easy matter, and assuredly the means he adopted 
 for carrying it out would not readily have occurred to 
 any other tutor in like circumstances. He noted with 
 care in a daybook or journal all the errors in education 
 committed by the parents of his pupils, and submitted 
 the record weekly. His strength of character and reso- 
 luteness of purpose enabled him to bear down any active 
 opposition to his plans ; but the situation was forced and 
 unpleasing, and at Easter 1790 he made up his mind 
 to go. 
 
 During his residence at Zurich he had busied him- 
 self with many literary efforts, without in any one of 
 them manifestly finding his metier. He read and 
 translated much of the recent French literature, 
 mainly Montesquieu and Rousseau, completed a trans- 
 lation of Sallust, with an introductory essay on the life 
 and style of the author, and wrote a rather elaborate 
 critical paper on Biblical Epics, with special refer- 
 ences to Klopstock's ' Messias,' a paper, which, at 
 a later date, was timidly refused by the editor of 
 
 r. iv. B
 
 13 Fichte. 
 
 the 'Deutsches Museum,' in Leipzig. At various times 
 he preached, always with marked success, and exerted 
 himself much to have a school of oratory founded at 
 Ziirich. For this, in which he had the promise of sup- 
 port from Lavater, he drew out a complete plan, and the 
 document, published by his son, presents many features 
 of interest. 
 
 More important for his after-career than these literary 
 efforts were the friendships formed by him at Zurich, 
 especially with Lavater and with Hartmann Eahn, the 
 brother-in-law of Klopstock. Eahn was a highly cul- 
 tured man, of wide experience of life, and his house was 
 the centre of the literary reunions of Ziirich society. 
 Fichte, first introduced by Lavater, was soon received as 
 an intimate and valued friend. Hartmann Eahn's Avife 
 had been dead for some years, and his household affairs 
 were managed by his daughter, Johanna Maria, at this 
 time some thirty years of age, not specially distinguished 
 for beauty or talent, but full of womanly gentleness and 
 tact. Fichte felt himself from the first attracted towards 
 Fraulein Eahn, whose sympathetic nature enabled her 
 both to understand his restless and impetuous disposition 
 and to supply what was wanting to it. Their friendship 
 gradually gave way to a deeper feeling of mutual affec- 
 tion and esteem. Secretly at first for Fichte's pride 
 made him think that an obscure tutor had little right to 
 claim the daughter of a wealthy and influential citizen 
 they unfolded in letters their feelings for one another ; 
 but as the time of his departure from Ziirich drew near, 
 it became necessary to make known to Hartmann Eahn 
 how matters stood. When Fichte left, he was formally, 
 though privately, betrothed to Johanna Maria. #
 
 Early Struggles. 19 
 
 The course of his life was not yet clear before him, 
 and from one of the interesting letters to his betrothed 
 which has been published by his son, we can judge that 
 his own views were not decided. Many plans had been 
 debated, and on the whole his hope then was to obtain 
 a post as tutor to some influential person at one of the 
 German courts, which would give him time to discover 
 where his powers were most likely to prove successful. 
 
 " On the whole," he writes, " what I think about it is this : 
 the great aim of my existence is to obtain every kind of 
 education (not scientific education, in which I find much 
 that is vanity, but education of character) which fortune 
 will permit me. 
 
 " 1 look into the way of Providence in my life, and find 
 that this may perhaps be the very plan of Providence with 
 me. I have filled many situations, played many parts, 
 known many men and many conditions of men, and on the 
 whole I find that by all these circumstances my character 
 lias become more fixed and decided. At my first entrance 
 into the world, I wanted everything but a susceptible heart. 
 Many qualities in which I was then deficient, I have since 
 acquired ; many I still want entirely, and among others that 
 of occasionally accommodating myself to those around me, 
 and bearing with men who are false or wholly opposed to 
 my character, in order to accomplish something great. With- 
 out this I can never employ as with it the powers which 
 Providence lias bestowed upon me. 
 
 " Does Providence, then, intend to develop these capacities 
 in me ? Is it not possible that for this very purpose I may 
 now be led upon a wider stage ? May not my employment 
 at a court, my project of superintending the studies of a 
 prince, your father's plan of taking me to Copenhagen may 
 not these be hints or ways of Providence towards this end ? 
 And shall I, by confining myself to a narrower sphere, one 
 which is not even natural to me, seek to frustrate this plan ?
 
 20 Ficlite. 
 
 I have too little talent for bending, for dealing with those 
 who are repugnant to me. I can succeed only with good and 
 true people ; I am too open. This seemed to you a further 
 reason why I was unfit to go to a court ; to me, on the con- 
 trary, it is a reason why I must go there, if any opportunity 
 present itself, in order to gain what I am deficient in. 
 
 " I know the business of a scholar, and have nothing new 
 to learn about it. To be a scholar by profession I have as 
 little talent as may be. I must not only think, I must act ; 
 least of all can I think about trifles. ... I have but one 
 passion, one want, one all-engrossing desire, to work upon 
 those around me. The more I act the happier I seem to be. 
 Is this, too, a delusion ? It may be so, but there is truth at 
 the bottom of it." l 
 
 "With, many plans, and full of hope in his future 
 career, Fichte departed for Leipzig in the spring of 
 1790. His letters of recommendation to various courts, 
 however, produced no result ; the plans which he en- 
 deavoured to realise at Leipzig, mainly the establishment 
 of a literary journal, came to naught ; and in the course 
 of a few months he was again reduced to a state of Avant 
 and uncertainty even more harassing than before his 
 journey to Ziirich. Nothing that he tried seemed to 
 succeed. His Essay on Biblical Epics was rejected, as 
 has been said, by the timid editor of the ' Museum,' be- 
 caused it appeared to reflect on the fame of the great 
 Klopstock ; and for the other literary efforts in which 
 he engaged, the Avriting of a tragedy and some tales, 
 he had assuredly little faculty. A last effort to effect an 
 entrance into the Church was equally fruitless. His 
 essay or theme, probably an expansion of the ' Aphorisms 
 on Deism,' printed in the collected ' Works,' and dating 
 
 1 Leben, i. 55-53. The whole letter, as there given, is translated 
 by Dr Smith.
 
 Early Struggles. 21 
 
 from 1790, was received with praise by the President of 
 the Consistory at Dresden, but at the same time with 
 doubt. The worthy theologian thought that the author 
 was fitter for the professorial chair than for the pulpit ; 
 and Fichte, disgusted with the narrow, jealous domina- 
 tion exercised over the Saxon clergy, finally gave up all 
 hopes of carrying out his early purpose. His letters to Jo- 
 hanna Eahn during this troubled period sufficiently show 
 the distress and vexation under which his proud spirit 
 chafed. Even her affectionate counsels and earnest en- 
 treaties to return to Zurich brought small comfort to 
 him. Towards the autumn of the year, however, we 
 note a sudden and surprising change in the tone of 
 his communications. He had begun to take pupils in 
 various subjects, and among others one student presented 
 himself to obtain assistance in reading the ' Critique of 
 Pure Reason.' Fichte had made no previous study of 
 this work, but so soon as he entered upon the new line 
 of thought, he found his true vocation. From this time 
 onwards the direction of his thoughts and hopes was 
 fixed. His own words will show better than any ex- 
 ternal account what effect the Kantian philosophy had 
 upon him. 
 
 " My scheming spirit," he writes to his betrothed, " has 
 now found rest, and I thank Providence that, shortly before 
 all my hopes were frustrated, I was placed in a position 
 which enabled me to bear with cheerfulness the disappoint- 
 ment. A circumstance which seemed the result of mere 
 chance, led me to give myself up entirely to the study of 
 the Kantian philosophy, a philosophy that restrains the 
 imagination, which was always too powerful with me, gives 
 understanding the sway, and raises the whole spirit to an 
 indescribable elevation above all earthly considerations. I
 
 22 Fickle. 
 
 have gained a nobler morality, and instead of occupying 
 myself with what is out of me, I employ myself more with 
 my own being. This has given me a peace such as I have 
 never before experienced ; amid uncertain worldly prospects 
 I have passed my happiest days. I shall devote at least 
 some years of my life to this philosophy ; and all that I 
 write, for some years to come at any rate, shall be upon it. 
 It is difficult beyond all conception, and stands greatly in 
 need of simplification. The principles, it is true, are hard 
 speculations, with no direct bearing upon human life, but 
 their consequences are of the utmost importance for an age 
 whose morality is corrupted at the fountain-head ; and to set 
 these consequences before the world in a clear light would, I 
 believe, be doing it a good service." 
 
 " The influence of this philosophy," he writes to his friend 
 Achelis, with whom he had had frequent disputes regarding 
 the necessity of human actions, " and specially the ethical 
 side of it (which, however, is unintelligible without previous 
 study of the ' Critique of Pure Eeasoii '), upon the whole 
 spiritual life, and in particular the revolution it has caused 
 in my own mode of thought, is indescribable. To you, 
 especially, I owe the acknowledgment that I now heartily 
 believe in the freedom of man, and am convinced that only 
 on this supposition are duty, virtue, or morality of any kind 
 so much as possible, a truth which indeed I saw before, and 
 perhaps acquired from you. 1 ' 
 
 The letters to Fraulein Eahn now begin to breathe a 
 new tone of cheerfulness and happiness, for external 
 circumstances were at the same time improving ; indeed, 
 so joyous do they become, that it is evident the tender 
 heart of Johanna suspected a formidable rival in this 
 strange Kantian philosophy. She was not altogether 
 pleased that in absence from her he should laugh at 
 ill health and abound in the highest spirits. Friends 
 at Zurich did not think much of the Kantian philosophy,
 
 Early Struggles. 23 
 
 which was to them a thing of naught, and she feared 
 he would waste his time on utterly unprofitable study. 
 Moreover, the scandalous discoveries regarding life in 
 Leipzig made in Bahrdt's scandalous ' Leben ' led her to 
 distrust the influences of the place. With gentle per- 
 sistence she pressed upon Fichte her favourite plan, that 
 he should return to Zurich, be united to her, and trust 
 to fortune to open a way whereby his talents might 
 receive recognition. Fichte resisted for some time, 
 wished to establish some reputation for himself, dreaded 
 what might be said by the kindly critics of Zurich if he 
 accepted her proposal, but ended in the spring of 1791 
 by yielding assent to her entreaties. "At the end of 
 this month," he writes on the 1st of March, " I shall be 
 free, and have determined to come to thee. I see noth- 
 ing that can prevent me. I, indeed, still await the 
 sanction of my parents; but I have been for long so 
 well assured of their love almost, if I may venture to 
 say it, of their deference to my opinion that I need 
 not anticipate any obstacle on their part." 
 
 Evil Fortune, however, which had sorely wounded 
 Fichte many a time, had still another arrow in her 
 quiver. The failure of a mercantile house where a large 
 portion of Hartmann Eahn's possessions was invested, 
 put for a time at least an absolute obstacle in the way 
 of the projected marriage. All Johanna's care and at- 
 tention had to be bestowed upon her father, now ad- 
 vanced in years and feeble in health. Fichte, with a 
 brave heart, packed his knapsack, and set off for War- 
 saw, where he had received an appointment as house 
 tutor in a noble family. 
 
 During the autumn of 1790 he had been busily en-
 
 24 Fichte. 
 
 gaged in the first of his philosophical writings, an Eluci- 
 dation or Explanation of the 'Critique of Judgment;' and 
 he had been in hopes that the publication of this little 
 work might have preceded his proposed journey to 
 Zurich. But publishers seem to have been chary ; and, 
 after much sending to and fro, the MS. was finally 
 doomed to remain in its original unprinted form. It is 
 to be regretted that some portions of this, which appear 
 to remain, have not been included among Fichte's liter- 
 ary remains, for the account of the aim and scope of the 
 work excites some interest in it. Like most students of 
 Kant who have really penetrated into his system, Fichte 
 saw that it was above all things necessary to make clear 
 the inner connection between the leading ideas of the 
 three Kritiken. In the most difficult and yet most in- 
 structive portion of the ' Critique of Judgment,' the Intro- 
 duction, Kant had himself done something towards this 
 end ; but much yet remained, and as Fichte's later philo- 
 sophy is in essence the attempt to carry out, with a fresh 
 and original method, the union of theoretical and practi- 
 cal principles, one would gladly have known what were 
 his first impressions on the subject. For posterity, how- 
 ever, as for contemporaries, the work has remained in 
 obscurity. 
 
 At Warsaw, where he arrived in June, after a pleas- 
 ant journey, the incidents of which are narrated with 
 much spirit in his journal, Fichte found an impossible 
 task before him. His patron, the Count Platen, was a 
 good, easy-going man, though heavy ; but the Countess 
 was a veritable lady of rank, who viewed all tutors as 
 mere servants, and whose domineering disposition exacted 
 the most servile obedience from her dependants. She
 
 Visit to Kant. 25 
 
 instantly found Fichte's independent nature unbearable, 
 and his French accent atrocious. A very few days were 
 sufficient to bring matters to a crisis. The Countess 
 attempted unsuccessfully to procure for the objection- 
 able tutor a post in some other family ; and Fichte, 
 resolved not to be treated like a chattel, demanded his 
 dismissal and a sum for compensation. The dismissal 
 was given with alacrity, the compensation only after 
 threat of legal proceedings. With provision for a few 
 months, Fichte then carried out a new idea which had 
 occurred to him. He resolved to visit Kant, and set off 
 for Kbnigsberg. 
 
 KANT AND THE 'CRITIQUE OF REVELATION.' 
 
 On the 1st July he arrived in Kbnigsberg, and on the 
 4th waited upon Kant. As might have been expected, 
 he was received but coldly by the aged philosopher, 
 whose disposition was anything but expansive, and who 
 required to be known for some time before disclosing 
 any of his finer and more genial qualities. Fichte was 
 disappointed with his interview, and equally dissatisfied 
 with the result of attendance upon one of Kant's lectures. 
 He could not recognise in the professor the author of the 
 ' Critique,' and thought his manner of lecturing listless 
 and sleepy. This, too, might to a certain extent have 
 been expected, for, as we know, Kant Avas invariably 
 averse to introducing in his lectures any of those pro- 
 founder specxilations which characterised his published 
 works. Fichte, however disappointed with his first 
 reception, resolved to bring himself before Kant's notice 
 in a way which should be irresistible ; and in the soli- 
 tude of his quiet inn laboured incessantly for some five
 
 . 26 Fichte. 
 
 weeks on an essay developing in a new direction the 
 principles of the Critical Philosophy. On the 18th 
 August he forwarded his manuscript to Kant, and at- 
 tended some days later to hear his opinion of its merits. 
 Kant received him with the utmost kindness, commended 
 such of the essay as he had managed to read, declined 
 with his accustomed prudence to discuss either the views 
 of the essayist or the principles of his own ' Critique,' 
 and introduced him to several valued friends in Konigs- 
 berg to Borowski and Schulz. By this time Fichte's 
 scanty means had become wellnigh exhausted; the 
 fatigue due to his hard labour at the essay had made 
 him dispirited and gloomy; and there seemed no prospect 
 of an outlet from his difficulties. On the 1st September 
 he disclosed to Kant, in a remarkable and most charac- 
 teristic letter, the state of his affairs; indicated, as ap- 
 parently the one course left to him, a return to his 
 home, where he might study in private, and perhaps 
 obtain some humble post as village pastor; and entreated 
 that Kant would furnish him with the necessary loan 
 for carrying out this resolve. As we learn from Fichte's 
 journal, Kant declined to accede to this request, but in 
 such a manner as in no way lessened Fichte's feelings 
 of esteem and admiration for him. He recommended, 
 through Borowski, the " Essay " to his own publisher, 
 Hartung, and did his utmost to promote Fichte's welfare. 
 Hartung, however, was then absent from Konigsberg ; 
 another publisher, when applied to, declined to purchase 
 the MS.; and Fichte was compelled to accept what he 
 had resolved against, a post as private tutor. Kant's 
 friend, Schulz, obtained for him an appointment in the 
 family of the Count von Krockow, near Danzig, by
 
 Kantian Studies. 27 
 
 whom he was received, as a protege of Kant's, with the 
 most distinguished kindness. It was during the period 
 in which he was here settled, amid more genial surround- 
 ings than he had ever before known, that the surprising 
 fate of his adventurous essay opened to him a new path 
 in life. 
 
 The problem which Fichte had selected for treatment 
 according to Kantian principles, was one upon which as 
 yet the author of the Critical Philosophy had made no 
 public utterance. Doubtless the question of religion 
 had appeared in all the three ' Critiques,' but the utter- 
 ances in each of these, differing slightly from one another, 
 had not been drawn together, and their application was 
 limited to what we may call Natural Eeligion. But, that 
 a certain form of belief in a revelation or supematurally 
 given religion actually existed, was a fact, and a fact 
 requiring to be explained after the Critical Method. In 
 all the previous essays of this method, the plan of pro- 
 cedure had been identical Thus, in the 'Critique of 
 Pure Reason,' the fact of cognition being assumed, the 
 conditions under which this fact was possible were the 
 subject of investigation. In the ' Critique of Practical 
 Eeason,' the fact of morality being assumed, the condi- 
 tions under which it was possible were considered ; and 
 in the ' Critique of Judgment ' the same query was 
 answered with respect to the correspondence of natural 
 elements, either to our faculty of cognition, as in aesthetic 
 judgments, or to the idea of the whole of which they 
 are parts, as in the teleological judgment. And, so far as 
 religion was concerned, the following results had been 
 attained. The theological aspect of religion, i.e., the 
 speculative determination of the existence, properties,
 
 28 Fickte. 
 
 and modes of action of a supernatural Being, had been 
 shown to be without theoretical foundation. In the 
 forms of cognition, no theology was possible. But the 
 necessary consequences of those conditions under which 
 Morality or Reason as practical was possible, involved 
 the practical acceptance of those very theological prin- 
 ciples of which no theoretical demonstration could be 
 given. The practical postulates of the being of an In- 
 telligent and Moral Ruler of the world, and of the con- 
 tinued existence of the rational element in human nature, 
 had appeared as necessary for any intelligence conscious 
 of itself as Practical or Moral. Through these practical 
 postulates a new interpretation was given of the world 
 of sense, which no longer appeared as mere material for 
 cognitive experience, but as the possible sphere within 
 which the moral end of a Practical Reason might be 
 realised. The possibility, then, of a Natural or Rational 
 Religion, if we employ terms which have unquestionably 
 a certain ambiguity, had been sufficiently shown, and the 
 place determined which such a religion holds in the 
 series of philosophical notions. But, so far, no result 
 had appeared bearing upon the possibility of a Revealed 
 Religion ; and those fundamental features of human 
 nature which historically have always been connected 
 with the belief in a revelation, the consciousness of im- 
 perfection, of sin, of dependence upon Supreme powers, 
 apparently found no place in the Kantian scheme. 
 Here, then, was an opportunity for the application of 
 the critical principles. The possibility of a revelation 
 might be investigated in the same fashion as the pos- 
 sibility of cognition at all ; the form and content of 
 any revelation might be determined by an analysis of
 
 ' Critique of Revelation.' 29 
 
 the conditions of its possibility, just as the form and 
 content of knowledge had been determined by an analy- 
 sis of its conditions. A lacuna in the Kantian system 
 would thus be filled up. This problem Eichte proposed 
 to himself, and his essay in solution of it was sent to 
 the author of the Critical Philosophy, not originally for 
 purpose of publication, but as proof of ability to handle 
 and apply the critical method. Only with the approval 
 and by the advice of Kant himself was publication re- 
 solved upon, and the work revised and prepared for the 
 public under the title, 'An Essay towards a Critique of 
 all Revelation' ('Versuch einer Kritik aller Offen- 
 barung '). 
 
 In form and substance the ' Critique of Revelation ' 
 is purely Kantian, with here and there an admixture 
 of those additional subtleties of distinction in which 
 Kantian scholars like Reinhold were already beginning 
 to revel. Starting with a somewhat dry and abstract 
 treatment of the conditions of moral or practical reason, 
 an analysis of the will in its twofold aspect as sensu- 
 ous impulse and impulse determined by reverence for 
 moral law, the Essay summarises briefly the main princi- 
 ples of the Kantian practical theology, laying stress upon 
 the fact that the acceptance of these theological postulates 
 is not equivalent to religion, that in so far as reverence 
 for the moral law pure and simple is the guiding rule of 
 conduct, no room is left for recognition of any binding 
 force attaching to such law as the expression of the divine 
 moral order. If, however, there should be given in 
 human nature a condition of the practical motives such 
 that the force of reverence for moral law is weakened, 
 then it might be possible that additional strength should
 
 30 Fichte. 
 
 be given by some indication, otherwise furnished, that 
 the moral law is veritably the utterance of the divine 
 will In such a case, the human agent would be con- 
 strained by reverence for the divine character of the 
 moral law, and such constraint is religion as opposed to 
 theology. In this condition of human nature is found 
 the substratum of fact, in relation to which a revelation 
 is conceivable. 
 
 How, then, could the human agent be made aware 
 that the moral law is of divine origin ? Not, answers 
 Fichte, through the practical reason itself, for the laws 
 of this practical reason are self-explanatory, but only 
 through some evidence supplied by the world of sense- 
 cognition. Such evidence is not to be looked for in the 
 general view of the sense-world as the sphere within 
 which the moral end is to be realised, for this follows 
 simply from the existence of the moral laAV in us, but 
 in some fact, which manifests its supernatural origin, 
 and so necessitates the conclusion that it is the direct 
 result of the divine activity. A religion basing itself 
 upon a supernatural fact manifested in nature is a Re- 
 vealed Religion, and the conditions of the possibility of 
 such a supernatural manifestation are the conditions of 
 a Revealed Religion. 
 
 Such a manifestation must needs be an a posteriori 
 fact ; but in so far as it is simply an a posteriori fact 
 i.e., so far as the form of the manifestation is concerned 
 it cannot necessitate the conclusion that its origin is 
 divine. As regards matter or content, the manifestation 
 must be a supernatural revelation of the moral law in 
 nature, a revelation possible for an intelligent agent in 
 whom sensuous impulses have overbalanced the rever-
 
 " Critique of Revelation.' 31 
 
 ence for moral law. By such a revelation moral feeling 
 might be, as it were, awakened or implanted in the 
 heart ; for were such feeling absent, no force of reason, 
 no play of sense-impulse, could create it. A revelation, 
 then, is possible, if the human agent under such circum- 
 stances can regard certain facts in the world of sense as 
 the spontaneous effects of the divine will, and as mani- 
 festing the moral purpose of the divine will This in- 
 terpretation of the manifested fact, which is neitlier 
 reason nor sense, but, as it were, midway between them, 
 is the work of Imagination. The individual believes, 
 and may believe, that the revealed fact is not explicable 
 by natural laws ; but it is impossible for him to prove 
 that it is inexplicable by these laws. It is equally im- 
 possible that scientific proofs should be advanced that 
 what happens according to natural laws is altogether 
 explicable by them. The laws of the manifestation in 
 itself are matters of indifference ; for the revelation is 
 only relative, relative to the disturbed ro chaotic moral 
 condition of the individual human agent. The possi- 
 bility of a revelation thus rests upon the possibility of 
 a particular condition of the moral nature ; and as this 
 condition is not in itself necessary, a revealed religion 
 cannot be regarded as necessary in the same sense in 
 which the forms of thought or the postulates of practical 
 reason are necessary. If there is a revelation at all, 
 its contents must coincide with the contents of the 
 moral law, and we can judge of any professed revela- 
 tion according as it does or does not satisfy the criteria 
 deducible from these two conditions. It must be made 
 to those who are in the morally imperfect state just 
 described : it must hold out no offers which are not in
 
 32 Ficlitc. 
 
 themselves consistent with pure morality : it must not 
 effect its entrance into our thought by means which con- 
 tain anything beyond the moral principle : it cannot 
 give theoretical certainty to those postulated facts which 
 follow from the moral law. Revealed religion, then, 
 rests upon the possible needs of the human individual 
 in the course of his development towards pure morality. 
 The belief in such revelation is an element, and an im- 
 portant element, in the moral education of humanity, 
 but it is not a final stage for human thought. 
 
 It is not of interest at the present stage of our sketch 
 to consider the worth of the treatment of a difficult pro- 
 blem here presented by Eichte, for his view of religion 
 as a whole became deeper and fuller as his speculation 
 slowly worked itself free from much of the Kantian for- 
 malism. What is remarkable in the Essay is merely the 
 strength with which the requirements of pure practical 
 reason are held as the criteria for estimating the possi- 
 bility and the nature of any revealed religion. Fichte, 
 even at this stage of his philosophical career, was begin- 
 ning to lay stress upon the practical side of the Kantian 
 system, as yielding tho only complete solution of the 
 whole speculative problem. 
 
 There was some difficulty in getting the Essay brought 
 before the public. Through Borowski's friendly efforts, 
 and by Kant's recommendation, Hartung was induced 
 to accept the manuscript, and forwarded it to Halle 
 for printing. It thus became necessary that the work 
 should receive the imprimatur of the Halle censor, 
 who was Dean of the Theological Faculty. But the 
 censor hesitated to give assent to the publication of a 
 work in which it was explicitly stated that the divine
 
 ' Critique of Revelation.' 33 
 
 character of a revelation could not rest upon the evi- 
 dence of a supposed miracle, but wholly upon the nature 
 of its contents. Fichte endeavoured, but in vain, to 
 get over the difficulty by declaring that his book was 
 philosophical, not theological, and therefore stood in no 
 need of a theological imprimatur. With his usual res- 
 oluteness he absolutely declined to accede to the request 
 of friendly critics that the offensive passages should be 
 expunged, or even to the prudent advice of Kant that 
 a distinction should be introduced between dogmatical 
 belief, which was not in question, and moral faith or 
 religion based on practical grounds ; and, for a time, the 
 appearance of the work seemed more than problemati- 
 cal Fortunately, at the critical moment a change 
 occurred in the censorship of the Theological Faculty 
 at Halle. The new dean, Dr Knapp, had no scruples 
 in giving his sanction to the publication, and the Essay 
 appeared in 1792. By some accident, whether of pub- 
 lisher or printer does not seem to be known, the author's 
 name, and the preface in which he spoke of himself, 
 were not given ; and the accident was indeed fortunate 
 for Fichte. The literary and philosophic public, long 
 expectant of a work on religion by the author of the 
 ' Critique of Pure Reason,' imagined that they found in 
 this anonymous essay the clearest evidences of the handi- 
 work of the great thinker. The ' Allgemeine Literatur- 
 zeitung ' with bated breath discharged its " duty to the 
 public " in communicating to them the substance of " a 
 work which, more than any written for a long time, was 
 adequate to the deepest wants of the time, and which 
 might truly be called a word in season." "Just at the 
 moment," the notice proceeds, " when the most varied 
 p. iv. o
 
 34 Ftikte. 
 
 parties in theology are contending with one another, it 
 is more particularly of importance that a man pietate ac 
 meritis grams should come forward, and show to each in 
 what they are in error, what they exaggerate, and what 
 they assert without foundation. And in what manner 
 is this essential task executed ! Assuredly there is to 
 be found here much, perhaps all, that the greatest and 
 most deservedly famous theologians of all ages have 
 uttered regarding revelation ; but so closely knit together, 
 so thoroughly wrought into unity, so accurately de- 
 nned and justified does everything appear in this admir- 
 ably constructed system, that as regards the fundamental 
 propositions nothing is left to be desired." The review- 
 er, after modestly indicating his joy at seeing the 
 thoughts which he himself had long excogitated on the 
 same subject expressed in so masterly and complete a 
 fashion, proceeds to give an extract, with the remark 
 that " every one who has made himself acquainted with 
 even one work of the great author, here recognisable be- 
 yond possibility of error," will imagine that much more 
 valuable must remain unexcerpted ; and closes with an 
 effusion of gratitude to the great man " whose finger is 
 everywhere traceable," and who had now placed the 
 keystone in the arch of human knowledge. Other crit- 
 ics were not behind in their notices. The Jena coterie, 
 already distinguished as the centre of a progressive 
 Kantianism, commented on and discussed the Essay as 
 veritably the work of the master, and treatises pro and 
 con began to issue from the fruitful German press. 
 
 Kant did not suffer the error to remain long uncor- 
 rected. In the number of the 'Allgemeine Literatur- 
 zeitung ' following that in which the just quoted notice
 
 Political Pamphlets. 35 
 
 appeared, he published a brief statement, giving the 
 name of the author, and expressing respect for his 
 ability. It is true that the reviews of the second edition 
 of the Essay in the same journal exhibit a remarkable 
 difference of tone, but none the less Fichte's literary 
 fame was by this occurrence raised at once to a height 
 such as years of labour might not have enabled him to 
 attain. He was marked out from all the living writers 
 on philosophy as the one who seemed able with strength 
 and capacity to carry on the great work of Kant. His 
 career was determined for him, and all his vague plans 
 and projects were now consolidated. Henceforth he was 
 a philosopher by profession. 
 
 THE POLITICAL PAMPHLETS. 
 
 The success of his literary venture now enabled Ficlate 
 to think of his marriage as an event no longer to be 
 delayed by uncertainty as to his own fortunes. Some 
 portion of Hartmann Eahn's property had been saved 
 from the general wreck, and in the beginning of 1793 
 we learn from his letters to Johanna that at last all 
 might be regarded as settled. " In June, or at the 
 latest July," he writes from Danzig in the spring of 
 1793, " I shall be with thee ; but I should wish to enter 
 the walls of Zurich as thy husband. Is that possible ? 
 Thy kind heart will give no hindrance to my wishes ; 
 but I do not know the circumstances." The circum- 
 stances, as it happened, were adverse to his wish. 
 Zurich customs exacted from foreigners proposing to 
 marry in that city a certain duration of residence, and it 
 was not till the 22d of October that at Baden his mar- 
 riage with Johanna Eahn took place. A short tour in
 
 36 Ficlite. 
 
 Switzerland, partly in company with the Danish poet 
 Jens Baggesen, is noteworthy as having introduced 
 Fichte to the acquaintance of Pestalozzi, whose educa- 
 tional ideas were destined to play an important part in 
 the after-life of the philosopher. 
 
 During this calmer period of Fichte's life, the great 
 events of the French Revolution had heen rapidly de- 
 veloping themselves, and the attention of thinkers as well 
 as of the piiblic had been drawn to the principles in- 
 volved in or endangered by such a mighty movement. 
 Rehberg, the secretary to the Hanoverian Privy Council, 
 published in 1792 a work entitled ' Essays on the 
 French Revolution,' in which a doubtful and timid view 
 was expressed as to its principles, and the worst conse- 
 quences were predicted as likely to follow from them. 
 This book seems to have been the occasioning cause of 
 Fichte's anonymous political tracts, the first of which, 
 'Reclamation of the Freedom of Thought from the 
 Princes of Europe,' a fiery oratorical piece, was com- 
 pleted at Danzig. The second and more important, ' Con- 
 tributions towards the Correction of the Public Judgment 
 on the French Revolution,' was begun at Danzig, and 
 finished, so far as it went, at Zurich. In both the fun- 
 damental principle is the same. Defence of the right of 
 remodelling constitutional forms is founded on the inde- 
 feasible and inalienable right to the liberty of realising 
 the moral end of humanity, a right which precedes and 
 underlies all others. The argument is in substance the 
 translation of Rousseau's ' Contrat Social ' into the terms 
 of the Kantian ethical system ; and as the whole ques- 
 tion of Right or Law l is intimately connected with the 
 
 1 It is impossible to give any exact single equivalent in English for
 
 Political Pamphlets. 37 
 
 very essence of Fichte's philosophy, it is well to note 
 how, at this comparatively early stage of his philosophic 
 development, he expressed himself regarding it. As in 
 the case of Kant's ' Rechtslehre,' so in these essays, the 
 notion of an original contract as basis of rights within 
 the state, is accepted not as though it expressed historic 
 fact, but as the only theoretical foundation for a union 
 of intelligent, voluntary beings. Within a community 
 founded on such a contract, there are various rights and 
 degrees of rights assigned to the several individuals or 
 classes. But of those rights, some are inalienable or in- 
 defeasible, for they express the condition in the absence 
 of which the moral law, the supreme rule of conduct, is 
 of no effect ; others, rights regarding modes of action 
 merely permitted, not enjoined by the moral law, are 
 alienable, and may be resigned by the individual. Among 
 the inalienable rights, that which is all-comprehensive is 
 ethical freedom ; but in one acceptation at least, freedom 
 concerns not so much external acts as internal thoughts. 
 Nevertheless the right to free expression of opinion, to 
 free communication of thought, must be pronounced an 
 inalienable or indefeasible right, for in its absence the 
 
 the term Jlecht, which in different references may mean either law or 
 the rights of the individual about which law is concerned, may be 
 either an abstract or a collective notion, and may signify either posi- 
 tive enactments or the ultimate ethical foundation for such enact- 
 ments. In Fichte's writings a right is the specific mode of action, or 
 realisation of a motive in external fact, which is indispensably neces- 
 sary under the supposition of a common ethical law or supreme ethical 
 end. Assuming such moral end, we can point to specific modes of 
 action which must be approved by the community, unless violence is 
 done to the very notion of ethical law. Alongside of this, however, 
 there are rights which are mere specific modes of action approved by 
 the community as a whole, though not indispensable for the realisation 
 of the ethical end.
 
 38 Fickte. 
 
 possibility for acquiring the materials of thought is de- 
 stroyed. No spiritual development is possible without 
 the free interchange and communication of thought, nor 
 is it given to any man or body of men to pronounce on 
 the wisdom or goodness of thoughts with such confidence 
 as to afford foundation for a supposed right to suppress 
 freedom of thought on the ground of possible danger 
 from, errors of thinking. 1 
 
 The same fundamental principle, that the ultimate 
 foundation, and consequently the criterion, of all state 
 rights, is to be found in the conditions necessary for the 
 realisation of the ethical end, the spiritual development 
 towards moral freedom, gives an answer to the more 
 complicated problem of the right of revolution. Con- 
 stitutional forms must needs be alterable ; they cannot 
 continuously correspond to the requirements of a devel- 
 oping moral culture. No original contract can be of a 
 final nature, can prescribe limits to the moral and legal 
 development of a community. The right to state reform 
 is inalienable or indefeasible. 
 
 Nevertheless the dissolution of a constitutional form 
 implies withdrawal from the original state contract, and 
 such withdrawal appears almost in terms to contradict 
 the very notion upon which state rights are founded. 2 
 Fichte boldly faces this difficulty, contends that in all 
 cases withdrawal from contract is possible, and that law 
 or justice requires only compensation for such breach of 
 pact, not unconditional fulfilment of it. If injury has 
 
 1 Fichte's argument here may be compared with the fuller and more 
 concrete treatment of the same problem in J. S. Mill's tract, " On 
 Liberty." 
 
 2 This contradiction is left as a kind of unsolved problem by Kant 
 (see ' Eechtslehre,' 49, ' Allgemeine Anmerkung,' A.)
 
 Political Pamphlets. 39 
 
 been done by dissolving the contract on which the ex- 
 isting form of state government rests, let due compensa- 
 tion in kind and amount be rendered. Now the injury 
 may be inflicted on the state itself, or on certain privi- 
 leged classes in it. So far as the state itself is concerned, 
 the only relations of life in respect of which compensa- 
 tion could be demanded, are those which rest upon or 
 are secured by the assistance of the state e. g., rights of 
 property or right to development of one's own culture. 
 But the smallest consideration enables us to see that 
 these rights and relations are prior in nature to state 
 arrangements. They do not spring from the state, but 
 the state is the mechanism whereby they are protected 
 and regulated. No penalty, therefore, can be exacted 
 by the state in consequence of the withdrawal of one or 
 all of its members from the original contract. These 
 dissentient wills may combine and form a state within 
 the state : this is the essence of political revolution. 1 
 
 The consideration of the possible injury to privileged 
 classes in the state, consequent on revolution, leads 
 Fichte, in the second Heft of the Beitrcige, into a some- 
 what elaborate discussion of the origin of privileges in 
 general The principles of social economy involved in 
 his treatment are not so distinct as they afterwards be- 
 came ; and as in dealing with his later writings some 
 attention must be paid to them, it is sufficient here to 
 
 1 It is interesting to note that Fichte supports his argument in 
 favour of a state within the state, by pointing to examples of such 
 dual formations. These are mainly the existence of Jews in a Chris- 
 tian community, and the existence of a military class. His expres- 
 sions with regard to the Jews are hardly exceeded in bitterness by any 
 of the modern assailants of the Semitic element in Germany. See 
 specially ' Werke,' vol. vi. pp. 150, 151.
 
 40 Fichte. 
 
 remark that he subjects to the most trenchant criticism 
 the grounds for the privileges of the nobility and the 
 Church, absolutely rejects these as theoretically inde- 
 fensible, and foreshadows the semi -socialist doctrine 
 which is worked out in his later politico-economical 
 treatises. 1 
 
 These political writings, breathing the warmest enthu- 
 siasm for the French Revolution, not unnaturally drew 
 attention to Fichte. He was marked as a dangerous 
 political character, and accused, both at the time and 
 afterwards, of democratic tendencies. The influence of 
 this feeling regarding his political sympathies is a not- 
 able fact in all the events of his after-career. As we 
 shall see, much of the bitterness that was poured out 
 against him at Jena on account of his theological views 
 had its root in hatred for his advanced political doctrines. 
 In substance the pamphlets are still interesting, both in 
 themselves and as indicating the strong practical bent of 
 Fichte's thinking ; in form, however, they are somewhat 
 hard and pedantic. As in the ' Critique of Revelation/ 
 so here, the language is full of Kantian technicalities, 
 the structure and progress of the argument are deter- 
 mined by the abstract forms of the Kantian system. In 
 both works, Fichte had advanced to the limits drawn by 
 the Critical Philosophy. He was now prepared to push 
 beyond them. 
 
 1 Especially the ' Geschlossene Handels-staat ' and the ' Staatslehre.'
 
 41 
 
 CHAPTEE III. 
 
 THE JENA PROFESSORSHIP. 
 
 THE winter of 1793 was passed quietly at Zurich in 
 constant meditation over the main problems of the 
 Kantian philosophy. Partly by his own reflection, 
 partly by the acute criticisms of Schulz, whose ' ^Enesi- 
 demus ' had appeared in the preceding year, Fichte had 
 begun to see with clearness where the main difficulty of 
 the Kantian system lay. The theory of knowledge ex- 
 pounded in the ' Critique of Pure Eeason,' was not, so 
 far at least as Kant's own statement extended, a per- 
 fectly coherent whole ; nor did there appear to be a con- 
 sistent, logical transition from that theory to the more 
 metaphysical notions which came forward in the Cri- 
 tiques of Practical Reason and of Judgment. Some 
 assistance in working into system the parts of the Kant- 
 ian doctrine was doubtless furnished by Eeinhold, but 
 with his method Fichte soon became dissatisfied. It 
 was for him a necessity that the whole of philosophy 
 should manifest a single principle, that the theories of 
 knowledge and of practice should be deduced from one 
 common source, and that the fundamental notions of 
 speculative thought should be developed with systematic
 
 42 Fichte. 
 
 completeness. In one or two occasional reviews dating 
 from this period, and in letters to his friends, he gave 
 brief utterance to his convictions on this point ; and, as 
 his views grew more matured and definite, he yielded to 
 the request of some Zurich acquaintances, and delivered 
 during the winter a short course of private lectures on 
 philosophy as conceived by him. The formation of his 
 speculative doctrines was, however, accelerated by the 
 invitation, which reached him in December 1793, to fill 
 the post of extraordinary Professor of Philosophy at 
 Jena, about to become vacant by the transference of 
 Reinhold to Kiel. Reluctant as Fichte was at first to 
 yield immediate assent to this call, he coxild not refuse 
 the opportunity of entering once for all upon the career 
 for which he appeared specially marked out, and after 
 sending in his acceptance to Privy Councillor Yoigt, he 
 made arrangements for beginning his course at Jena in 
 the Easter term of 1794. 
 
 The University at Jena was then at the very height 
 of its renown. No other period, in all its brilliant his- 
 tory, rivals the first decades of the nineteenth century. 
 Above all other universities in Germany it was distin- 
 guished as the very centre of the most progressive move- 
 ments in philosophy and literature. The near neigh- 
 bourhood of Weimar where the most illustrious names 
 in the new German literature congregated, where, under 
 the genial care of a noble and enlightened prince, arts 
 and letters flourished as in a modern Athens gave to it 
 additional renown, and secured the most watchful super- 
 vision over the studies of the university. More espe- 
 cially, however, was Jena pre-eminent as the university 
 in Avhich the new German philosophy had been most
 
 The Jena Professorship. 43 
 
 eagerly accepted and most fruitfully applied. Schiitz, 
 known in classical literature for his editions of ' JEschy- 
 lus ' and ' Cicero,' made it his boast that he had been 
 the first to introduce the youth of Jena to the Critical 
 Philosophy. Hufeland, an eminent jurist, expounded 
 the principles of the Kantian ethics, and his 'Natur- 
 recht ' is still one of the best expositions of philosophic 
 jurisprudence. Keinhold, who by his 'Letters on the 
 Kantian Philosophy ' had won the approval of the father 
 of criticism himself, had begun in 1787, in the chair 
 instituted specially for him, the lectures in which he 
 endeavoured to improve and further the critical system. 
 Schiller, called to the Chair of History in 1789, had 
 shown how philosophical principles might be fruitfully 
 united with historical research and artistic production. 
 Paulus, Loder, Ersch, and Schmid, are names not to be 
 forgotten for the services they rendered to the advance- 
 ment of German thought. Altogether, the University of 
 Jena, at the close of the eighteenth century, exhibited a 
 degree of life and activity which raised it to the first 
 place among the academies of Germany. The history of 
 German philosophy, in its brightest period, is in a great 
 measure the history of the Jena University. For there 
 as teachers we find Fichte, Schelling, Hegel, Fries, 
 Krause, and Schlegel ; as scholars, Herbart, Schubert, 
 Steffens, Solger, Hulsen, Hblderlin, Von Berger, and 
 Oersted. Among the students the fame of their teachers 
 was reflected in a peculiarly open and vigorous university 
 life. Nowhere was there a freer or more enthusiastic 
 academic tone than in Jena. 
 
 The call of Fichte to Jena not, as we learn from 
 Goethe, xindertaken without some hesitation on the score
 
 44 Fickle. 
 
 of his pronounced political views was hailed by the 
 university with the keenest joy. Of all the adherents 
 of Kantianism, he alone had given proofs of ability to 
 carry forward and develop the great thoughts that had 
 already begun to exert their wonderful influence. " In 
 Jena," his friend Bb'ttiger writes to him, "there has 
 been for some weeks past an indescribable joy over the 
 triumvirate of professors due at Easter, for in addition 
 to you, there have also been called here the excellent 
 Ilgen, probably the most learned and cultured scholar 
 in Saxony, as Professor Orientalium, and Woltmann, 
 as extraordinary lecturer on History. But your name 
 resounds above all, and expectation is strained to its 
 utmost doubtless in part because you are regarded as 
 the most valiant defender of the rights of men, whereon 
 many a son of the Muses has quite peculiar ideas. This, 
 however, may easily be put to rights." 
 
 On the 18th May 1794 Fichte arrived in Jena. The 
 preceding months had been spent by him in the most 
 arduous and careful preparation for his new task. It 
 had been impossible, in the short interval allowed him, to 
 complete what he had desired to have ready, an exposi- 
 tion of his philosophic views which might serve as a 
 handbook for his prelections ; but as introductory thereto 
 he had drawn out and published the short tract, ' On the 
 Notion of the Theory of Knowledge or so-called Philo- 
 sophy,' 1 giving a preliminary sketch of the fundamental 
 
 1 ' Ueber den Begriff der Wissenschaftslehre oder der sogenannten 
 Philosophic, ' 1st ed., 1794. The term " Wissenschaftslehre," which 
 we here translate by " Theory of Knowledge," will receive more de- 
 tailed explanation when the nature of Fichte's philosophy is dis- 
 cussed. As no equivalent in English conveys its meaning with per- 
 fect accuracy, it will be employed hereafter, without translation, as a 
 technical term.
 
 TJie Jena Professorship. 45 
 
 ideas to be embodied in his philosophical lectures. The 
 tract is written with wonderful clearness, but its con- 
 tents amount to little more than the strenuous expression 
 of the need for unity of philosophical conception, toge- 
 ther with certain formal determinations regarding the 
 first principle from which philosophical thinking must 
 take its start. The somewhat abstract method here em- 
 ployed was never afterwards followed by Fichte, and it 
 is matter for regret that the general ideas of his system 
 have been mainly drawn from this early pamphlet, and 
 contain little beyond its formal statements. 
 
 The reception accorded to the philosopher at Jena was 
 of the most gratifying kind. As might have been anti- 
 cipated from Fichte's character, it was his constant aim 
 not only to reach the truth in purely metaphysical specu- 
 lation, but to make philosophic principles living rules of 
 action. The tone of his mind was prevailingly practical, 
 and it was impossible for him to remain contented with 
 mere exposition of speculative doctrines. Accordingly 
 he arranged his courses at Jena into two series : the one, 
 more elaborate and extended, on philosophy as a whole ; 
 the other, shorter and more popular, on the effects of 
 philosophic culture in general upon character and life. 
 The first course was given to the students of philosophy 
 in particular; the second, to which he then gave the 
 title of " Ethics of the Scholar," was public, and intended 
 for all the members of the academic body. In both 
 courses his success was immediate and pronounced. The 
 great hall was crowded to overflowing when his public 
 lectures were delivered, while the enthusiasm of his phi- 
 losophic students soon made the technical terms of his 
 system familiar words in academic circles and in general
 
 46 Fichte. 
 
 literature. " Since Reinhold left us," writes Forberg, 
 then a privat-docent at Jena, "liis philosophy, at least 
 among us, is absolutely dead. Every trace of the " Phi- 
 losophy without Nickname " 1 has been driven from the 
 heads of our students. They believe in Fichte as they 
 never believed in Reinhold. Doubtless they understand 
 him even less than they understood Reinhold, but they 
 believe all the more stubbornly for that very reason. 
 Ego and non-Ego are now the symbols of the philoso- 
 phers, as Matter and Form were then. About the right 
 which either party has to dissolve a contract, there is 
 just as little doubt now, as there was then regarding the 
 manifold character of matter." 
 
 To the success of his prelections Fichte's admirable 
 philosophic style contributed much. He had a mar- 
 vellous faculty of riveting attention, of compelling 
 thought to dwell upon the problems presented to it, and 
 of evolving in rigid sequence the stages of a complete 
 argument or disputation. All his writings bear more 
 or less the character of lectures, and probably his own 
 mode of speculative reflection was that of the expounder 
 conscious of an audience to whom explanations are due, 
 rather than that of the pure thinker, intent on nothing 
 but the notions before him. He was a born orator, and, 
 as we have already seen in his early life, sedulously cul- 
 tivated the oratorical faculty as that wherewith he could 
 best attain his great end, the elevation of life. His 
 personality, further, combining strength and obstinacy 
 
 1 " Philosophic ohne Beinamen," as Reinhold was pleased to call 
 his rather washed-out reproduction of Kantianism, in order to indi- 
 cate that it was neither critical nor dogmatic nor sceptical, but philo- 
 sophy simply.
 
 TJie Jena Professorship. 47 
 
 with the loftiest moral principle, found its most adequate 
 expression, and was capable of its most powerful influ- 
 ence, in oratorical efforts rather than in systematic ex- 
 position. In Fichte, as in Schelling, and generally in 
 the writers of the Eomantic period, what the historian 
 of philosophy notes as their prevailing characteristic is a 
 certain hot-headed impetuosity and impatience, which 
 contrasts unfavourably with the calm matureness of their 
 great predecessor Kant, and which almost inevitably 
 leads to a slight distrust of, or dissatisfaction with, their 
 work. Something of this distrust, as we shall see later, 
 was felt by Kant himself, who always disliked and de- 
 preciated Genie-scliwiinge, flights of genius, and trusted 
 rather to solid, patient, methodical work, than to the 
 efforts of enthusiastic imagination. 
 
 The Jena period of Fichte's life may be conveniently 
 regarded under two quite distinct aspects. It presents 
 to us, in the first place, a series of developments of 
 one speculative principle, covering the whole ground 
 of philosophy, affecting by their spirit and method all 
 contemporary criticism and literature, and bringing the 
 author into close connection, whether friendly or polemi- 
 cal, with the greatest living writers. In this sense, it is 
 simply the representation of the active results of Fichte's 
 speculative faculty. But speculative faculty was only 
 one side of Fichte's character, and when we consider 
 the several incidents of public life which mark the Jena 
 career, we find rather the development of the more im- 
 petuous temper which so frequently in the course of his 
 life led to unfortunate collisions with his surroundings. 
 The philosophical and the practical activity may thus be 
 regarded apart from one another.
 
 48 Fichte. 
 
 As respects the first, a brief notice of the successive 
 works in which the new speculative system Avas laid be- 
 fore the world, will here suffice. The lectures on 
 ' Wissenschaftslehre,' delivered to his private class 
 during the first semester at the university, were printed 
 in sheets as soon as delivered, and from these sheets 
 was formed the first systematic exposition of the new 
 doctrine, ' Foundations of the whole Wissenschaftslehre ' 
 ('Grundlage der gesammten Wissenschaftslehre,' 1st ed., 
 1794). The whole field of philosophical cognition, 
 theoretical and practical, was surveyed in this work; 
 but Fichte remained unsatisfied with the method pur- 
 sued, and in his later, more mature writings, never em- 
 ploys the abstract forms which are here brought forward, 
 and which have been falsely thought to be essential 
 elements in his system. In quick succession he put 
 forward detailed expositions of the several portions 
 briefly discussed in the 'Grundlage.' The theoretical 
 faculty of cognition was specially handled in the ' Out- 
 line of what is peciiliar to Wissenschaftslehre' (1795); 
 the practical side of consciousness in the two important 
 treatises, ' Theory of Natural Law ' (' Grundlage des Natur- 
 rechts,' 1796-97) and 'Theory of Morals' ('System der 
 Sittenlehre,' 1798); while the whole philosophy was 
 expounded in a fresh form in the ' Introductions to 
 Wissenschaftslehre,' published in the ' Philosophical 
 Journal,' vols. v. and vi. (1797), and in the 'Essay to- 
 wards a New Exposition of the Wissenschaftslehre,' vol. 
 vii. of the same periodical These writings, taken in 
 conjunction with the important ' Eeview of ^Eneside- 
 mus' (1794), make up the philosophy of Fichte in its 
 so-called earlier form.
 
 The Jena Professorship. 49 
 
 A wonderful impression seems to have been made 
 upon his contemporaries by the boldness and systematic 
 completeness of Fichte's speculation. Goethe, little 
 disposed to abstract thinking, and probably in his heart 
 of hearts not over well disposed towards an eager politi- 
 cal theorist, yet found " nothing in the first sheets of the 
 ' Wissenschaf tslehre ' which he did not understand, or at 
 least thought he understood, nothing which did not 
 harmonise with his own mode of thinking about things," 
 laboured hard to keep pace with the 'New Expositions' 
 of the prolific author, and in general extended to the 
 metaphysician a cordial and respectful admiration. 
 With Schiller, whose Kantian sympathies might have 
 led to a warmer interest in pure speculation, Fichte 
 never seems to have been on terms of unqualified friend- 
 ship. Despite the mutual esteem which they enter- 
 tained for one another, their characters were too pro- 
 nounced to admit of perfectly unclouded harmony ; and, 
 philosophically, there was a divergence between their 
 views which, on one occasion at least, led to an unfor- 
 tunate collision between them. Fichte, who had been 
 invited to contribute to the ' Horen,' then edited by 
 Schiller, forwarded for this periodical an Essay 'On 
 Spirit and Letter,' in which the editor fancied that he 
 could detect a parody of his own ' Letters on the JEs- 
 thetic Education of the Human Race.' The parody ex- 
 isted only in Schiller's over-sensitive imagination, but a 
 somewhat bitter correspondence followed his suppression 
 of the paper. Eeconciliation was effected; but, if we 
 may judge from the tone of the communications which 
 passed between Goethe and Schiller at a later date re- 
 garding Eichte's academic troubles, a secret distrust 
 
 P. iv. D
 
 50 Fichte. 
 
 and dislike continued to exist. With his philosophic 
 contemporaries Fichte's relations were of even greater 
 interest. His increasing fame naturally attracted both 
 adherents and enemies. The older Kantian scholars 
 bitterly criticised the new effort after a completeness 
 of system which had been foreign to Kant's original 
 method. The younger and more impetuous philosophic 
 students, among others Methammer, Forberg, and 
 Schelling, with equal bitterness accused their more 
 cautious predecessors of want of faith in their own prin- 
 ciples, and declared that Criticism proper had been but 
 a propaedeutic or introduction, to which the 'Wissen- 
 schaftslehre ' was the natural and necessary supplement. 
 The antagonists of all the newer philosophy, pre-emin- 
 ently Mcolai, the editor of the ' Deutsche Bibliothek,' 
 eagerly hailed the controversy as furnishing evidence of 
 the empty and contradictory character, and of the evil 
 tendencies, of the so-called metaphysics. With Kant 
 himself, Fichte's relations gradually became hostile, 
 though no open declaration was made by the aged 
 philosopher until he had been alarmed by the accusa- 
 tions of atheism brought against a system which pro- 
 fessed to be a development of his own principles. It 
 does not appear that he had ever fairly entered into the 
 spirit of Fichte's works, probably he had not even 
 studied them ; but in the Intelligence sheet of the 
 'AUgemeine Literaturzeitung ' for 1799, No. 109, he 
 published a formal disclaimer of any connection between 
 his own system and that of Fichte, declaring that the 
 ' Wissenschaftslehre ' was nothing but abstract logic, 
 valuable therefore as methodising thought, but contain- 
 ing no reference to reality, and bitterly resenting the de-
 
 The Jena Professorship. 51 
 
 scription of his own critical work as mere propaedeutic to 
 a system of reasoned philosophy. Fichte's rejoinder, 
 published in the same paper in the form of a letter to 
 Schelling, was pointed and severe. He rightly drew 
 attention to Kant's frank admission that his disclaimer 
 was personal in character, and not founded on thorough 
 appreciation of the new philosophic work, and indicated 
 that from Kant's position it was not unnatural that he 
 should regard the ' Critique ' as final, just as his oppon- 
 ents thought the ' Critique ' a worthless and unnecessary 
 attempt to transcend the well-defined and sure limits of 
 the earlier systems. 1 
 
 Kant's disclaimer came too late to he of any service 
 in checking the rapid current of speculation which had 
 its source in his own writings. Reinhold, a weak and 
 vacillating thinker, had given his complete adhesion to 
 the ' Wissenschaftslehre ; ' the Jena ' Allgemeine Liter- 
 aturzeitung,' once the organ of the Kantians, declared 
 for Fichte ; and in the ' Philosophisches Journal,' of 
 which Fichte was co-editor with Niethammer from 1795 
 onwards, the new school possessed an official organ of 
 their own. Schelling's early works gave in fresh and 
 attractive form expositions of the ' Wissenschaftslehre,' 
 applied its principles to the more profound problems of 
 metaphysics, and called attention to the advance effected 
 on the critical position. Even Jacobi, strongly opposed 
 as he was to any demonstrative or theoretical meta- 
 physic, was not proof against the attraction of the new 
 
 1 The letters between Fichte and Schelling on the subject of Kant's 
 declaration ('Leben und Brief wechsel,' vol. ii. pp. 301-308) are of 
 great interest, as indicating their views on the relation between the 
 'Critique' and Fichte's 'Wissenschaftslehre.'
 
 52 Fichte. 
 
 system, or its apparent coincidence with his own views. 
 His correspondence with Fichte is of the highest inter- 
 est, as throwing light on the philosophical and personal 
 relations of two eminent thinkers ; and although he 
 could not bring himself to see the similarity between 
 the ' Wissenschaf tslehre ' and his own doctrines, on 
 which Fichte laid so much stress, it was not till the 
 accusation of atheism had been brought against the 
 Fichtean system that he declared himself against it. On 
 the whole, during the important period from 1794 to 
 1799, the philosophy of Fichte was in the ascendant. 
 It gave a new impetus and direction to speculative 
 thought, and powerfully influenced contemporary litera- 
 ture of a non-philosophical kind. If we can discover 
 philosophical principles at all in the literary productions 
 of the earlier Eomantic school, in the writings of Tieck, 
 Novalis, and Fr. Schlegel, these bear unmistakably the 
 impress of the Fichtean system. Doubtless, this sec- 
 ondary effect of Fichte's philosophy gave additional 
 strength to the feeling gradually roused against it. 
 
 When we turn to the consideration of Fichte's public 
 life, his professorial career, during the same period, we 
 find a series of troubles and conflicts, terminating in the 
 severance of his connection with the University of Jena. 
 Minor annoyances were not wanting to him, even on his 
 entrance upon his public duties as professor. With his 
 colleague, C. C. K Schmid, an excellent empirical psy- 
 chologist but a poor philosopher, his relations had been 
 hostile even before the call to Jena, and though friend- 
 ship appeared to be established between them, the truce 
 was not of long duration. In the third volume of the 
 { Philosophisches Journal,' Schmid gave utterance to a
 
 The Jena Professorship. 53 
 
 critical judgment respecting all philosophy which pre- 
 sumed to go heyond the facts of experience, and in such 
 fashion as to indicate that he had in view the ' Wissen- 
 schaftslehre.' In the last number of the same volume 
 Fichte compared Herr Schmid's system with his own ; 
 distinguished with the utmost clearness the problem of 
 psychology from that of transcendental logic; showed 
 that of the nature of this second problem Schmid had 
 no conception whatsoever; and ended with the declara- 
 tion that henceforth not only everything uttered by 
 Herr Schmid against the ' Wissenschaftslehre ' should be 
 held by him as non-existent, but also that Herr Schmid 
 himself, in his capacity of philosopher, should be viewed 
 as a nonentity. This satisfactory result certainly could 
 not contribute to render Fichte's position easier; it is, 
 indeed, only one specimen of the unyielding temper 
 which he throughout displayed in all the actions of his 
 life, and which created enemies for him in all quarters. 
 
 Even in his first semester, Fichte found that his evil 
 political reputation was productive of discomfort. Some 
 doubts appear to have been raised regarding the public 
 lectures already alluded to, and in self-defence he pub- 
 lished a selection from them. 1 Of the nature of these 
 complaints we have no accurate information, but the 
 course of public lectures presently led to a more serious 
 trouble. In the winter semester, 1794-95, Fichte found 
 that no hour during the ordinary week-days could be 
 selected for lectures open to all the students of the uni- 
 
 1 These appear in the sixth volume of the ' Werke,' under the title 
 ' Einige Vorlesungen uber die Bestimmung des Gelehrten ' ('Some 
 Lectures on the Vocation of the Scholar '). They are more formal 
 than the lectures under a similar title delivered at Erlangen in 1805.
 
 54 Fichte. 
 
 versity, without interfering with the class arrangements 
 of his colleagues. After consultation with Schiitz, he 
 announced the lectures for Sunday mornings, between 
 10 and 11 A.M., thereby avoiding collision either with 
 the special service held for university students or with, 
 the general public church service. Hardly had this been 
 done when the Consistory of Jena raised an outcry 
 against him for endeavouring to suppress the public ser- 
 vice of God ; the Over-Consistory, of which Herder was 
 a member, repeated the cry, and appealed to the Govern- 
 ment at Weimar; while a malicious journal, 'Euda- 
 monia,' which scattered its mud with rare impartiality, 
 called attention to the connection between atheism and 
 revolutionary politics, and boldly asserted that the demo- 
 crats, under the leadership of Professor Fichte, were 
 making a deliberate attempt to institute the worship of 
 reason. The lectures were temporarily suspended, and 
 the senate of the university, after a bitter discussion, in 
 which strong opposition was raised to Fichte on grounds 
 manifestly personal, forwarded to the Government a 
 statement of their reasons for holding that the Sunday lec- 
 tures in no way infringed customary rules, recommending 
 at the same time that the hour selected should be in 
 the afternoon. The Weimar council gave its decision 
 in favour of Fichte, absolved him from all blame in the 
 matter, but significantly cautioned him to be more pru- 
 dent in the future. The lectures were continued from 
 February onwards at three in the afternoon. 
 
 This first trouble was scarcely at an end when a new 
 storm broke out. Fichte's constant aim as a public 
 teacher was the moral elevation of the character of the 
 students. The life of a scholar appeared to him a life
 
 The Jena Professorship. 55 
 
 with a noble end, and weighted with responsibilities. 
 But to all his efforts towards elevating and purifying the 
 tone of academic life, a blank wall of resistance was 
 presented by the existence of the so-called Orders or 
 Societies among the students. These orders had their 
 own code of morals, and their own regulations for public 
 and private action. One can well understand how en- 
 tirely all individuality of life and action was destroyed 
 for the student who had enrolled himself in one of these 
 societies. He could not escape the force of the general 
 judgment, and was driven, by virtue of his relations to 
 the other members, to assent to much that would have 
 been abhorrent to him in his private capacity. Fichte 
 felt very keenly the evil consequences of the secret 
 unions, and, both by his public lectures and by private 
 communications, strove to effect their abolition. It 
 was a wonderful evidence of his personal influence 
 that in the winter of 1794-95, the three orders of 
 the Jena students made overtures to him regarding the 
 suppression of their societies, and by their deputies 
 requested him to give and receive their oaths of dissolu- 
 tion. Fichte did not feel that he was entitled to con- 
 clude the matter on his own responsibility, referred 
 them to the pro-rector, and, unfortunately, undertook the 
 task of mediating between the students and the uni- 
 versity authorities, a task for which he was eminently 
 unfitted. Partly from Fichte's unpractical and over- 
 pedantic fashion of carrying on the affair, partly from 
 the natural dilatoriness of a government, especially of a 
 university government, the happy moment was allowed 
 to pass. One of the orders withdrew its offer ; the 
 others, who had placed their books of regulations and
 
 56 Fichte. 
 
 names in Fiehte's hands, were alarmed at the idea of a 
 Government inquisition into their doings, and began to 
 think that Fichte was playing them false. An inde- 
 scribable tumult was occasioned in the university. The 
 students attacked Fiehte's house on the New Year's 
 night of 1795, broke his windows, and insulted him 
 with cries and hootings. His public lectures were inter- 
 rupted, his wife was saluted with insults in the streets ; 
 and so serious did the danger appear, that in the spring 
 of 1795 he had to demand protection from the Govern- 
 ment, and finally, permission to reside out of Jena for 
 the summer of that year. The great Ego, as Goethe 
 and Schiller call him in their letters, took up his resi- 
 dence at Ossmanstadt, a pleasant little town a few miles 
 from Jena, and there remained until the storm had 
 blown over. 
 
 Two waves of trouble had thus disturbed Fiehte's 
 public career at Jena ; the third and greatest finally dis- 
 solved his connection with that university. In 1798, 
 Forberg, then rector at Saalfeld, and already noted as 
 one of the earliest adherents of the ' Wissenschaftslehre,' 
 sent in to the editors of the ' Philosophisches Journal ' 
 a paper entitled " Development of the ISTotion of Reli- 
 gion." With the argument, and in particular with the 
 tone of this essay, Fichte was but little satisfied, al- 
 though it was impossible for him to avoid agreeing with 
 some ideas in it. He was extremely unwilling to exer- 
 cise the editorial right of suppressing the paper, but 
 desired to attach to it certain footnotes, correcting or 
 amending it in accordance with what he thought the 
 truth. Of this, however, Forberg would not hear, and 
 Fichte printed the essay as it had been sent, prefixing
 
 The Jena Professorship. 57 
 
 to it a short exposition of his own views on the same 
 subject, under the title, " On the Ground for our Belief 
 in a Divine Government of the Universe." The two 
 papers appeared together in the first part of the eighth 
 volume of the ' Journal.' It was certainly a misfortune 
 for Fichte that the published exposition of his views on 
 so fundamental a question should have been limited to 
 the points discussed in Forberg's essay, for, to one who 
 now studies these documents, that essay has every ap- 
 pearance of insincerity or irony. Accepting without 
 reservation the Kantian criticism of the theoretical 
 proofs for the existence of God, Forberg likewise accepts 
 the doctrine that the belief in a divine order is prac- 
 tical, but he reduces this practical belief to mere strength 
 of moral feeling, identifies it with virtue, and therefore 
 draws the conclusion that it is perfectly compatible with 
 speculative atheism. In short, the essay is an exagger- 
 ation of the dismal rationalism into which the weaker 
 Kantians drifted, and by which they cast such discredit 
 on philosophy. It is almost a parody of the moderatism 
 which had begun to appear as the result of the Kantian 
 system in works such as those of Tieftrunk and Hey- 
 denreich. The element of speculative interest in the 
 critical philosophy, however, which was entirely over- 
 looked or reduced to a nullity by Forberg, was precisely 
 that upon which Fichte laid stress. His essay, there- 
 fore, exaggerated the agreement between his views 
 and those of Forberg, and gave too succinctly the 
 characteristic difference. 
 
 Attention was drawn to the papers by an anonymous 
 pamphlet, circulated gratuitously throughout Saxony 
 towards the close of the year 1798, and piirporting to be
 
 58 . Fichte. 
 
 a ' Letter on the Atheism of Fichte and Forberg, from a 
 Father to his Son, a Student.' Neither name of pub- 
 lisher nor place of publication was given, and it was 
 more than hinted to those who accepted the tract, that 
 it was the work of Gabler, a theologian of some repute 
 in Altdorf. Gabler, however, was not the author, and 
 protested publicly against the insult done him by such a 
 statement. The real author has never been known, and 
 the tract itself was a malicious and unfair selection of 
 certain sentences from the essays of the accused writers, 
 without reference to the context, and with such com- 
 ments as unenlightened pietism has always indulged in. 
 Moved by this pamphlet, the Over-Consistory of Dres- 
 den brought the subject before the Saxon Government, 
 who, on the 19th November 1798 published a Rescript 
 directed to the Universities of Leipzig and Wittenberg, 
 confiscating the ' Philosophisches Journal ' on the ground 
 of the atheistic utterances contained in it. The Rescript 
 was followed by a circular note, addressed to the neigh- 
 bouring German Governments, praying them to take 
 similar steps, and, in the case of the Saxe- Weimar 
 Dukes, threatening to prohibit Saxon students from at- 
 tendance at the Jena University if investigation were 
 not instantly made into the conduct of the accused pro- 
 fessors, and condign punishment inflicted were they found 
 guilty of the charge laid against them. Fichte had thus 
 a twofold charge to deal with, the public accusation of 
 atheism, and the private appeal to the supreme authori- 
 ties of the university. To the first he replied in his 
 ' Appeal to the Public against the Accusation of Athe- 
 ism,' a copy of which was forwarded in January 1799 to 
 the Grand Duke of Weimar; to the second, in the
 
 The Jena Professorship. 59 
 
 ' Formal Defence of the Editor of the Philosophical 
 Journal against the Accusation of Atheism,' 1 directed to 
 the Pro-rector of the University, and forwarded to the 
 Grand Duke in March 1799. In the 'Appeal,' a more 
 detailed exposition was given of the views contained in 
 the accused essay, and a powerful contrast was drawn be- 
 tween philosophical religion and the ordinary theology ; 
 in the 'Defence/ a skilful analysis of the full bearing 
 of his theological doctrines precedes a bold statement 
 of the real motives which had led to the accusation, and 
 a demand that in the interests of university freedom, 
 decision should be given based solely on the merits of 
 the question. In the most unqualified fashion Fichte 
 declares that the true secret of the enmity against him 
 was the dread of his political opinions, and insists that 
 the decision of the matter was of the last importance, 
 not only for his own activity as a professor, but for 
 the academic life of the university. 
 
 In order to understand the course of events, it is 
 needful to review carefully the position of the two 
 parties, Fichte on the one hand, the Saxe-Weimar Gov- 
 ernment on the other. Fichte's motives are clear and 
 unambiguous. He claimed the full right of expound- 
 ing his philosophic opinions, a right essential to the 
 very existence of a university teacher. He felt, as every 
 teacher of philosophy must feel, that the results of 
 speculative analysis will at times appear to conflict 
 with popular ideas, founded for the most part on unre- 
 
 1 The title of this pamphlet, ' Gerichtliche Verantwortungs- 
 schrift,' would be more exactly translated as 'Judicial Defence ' or 
 ' Plea in Justification.' " Gerichtlich " implies that the defence was 
 explicitly directed to a court, by whom decision on the merits of the 
 case should be given.
 
 60 Fickle. 
 
 fleeting custom or on radical error, and that if popular 
 opinion is to be the criterion of judgment, the function 
 of an investigator is destroyed. Accordingly he de- 
 manded, with all the earnestness that the importance of 
 the matter required, and with all the vehemence that 
 his impatient disposition rendered natural, that there 
 should be no compromise; that the matter should not be 
 hushed up, or conducted to its conclusion by private 
 negotiations within the university circle ; and that as the 
 accusation had been public, the decision should be public 
 also. On the other hand, what the university authorities 
 above all things desired was a mode of settlement where- 
 by peace might be secured without the necessity of any 
 public declaration. They in no way desired to limit 
 the freedom of teaching in the university; and as the 
 necessity for taking cognisance of the matter at all had 
 been forced upon them from without, they wished to 
 deal with it in such a way as neither to offend external 
 powers nor endanger their own position. It will be 
 readily understood, therefore, that Fichte's movements 
 caused them the greatest trouble and annoyance. In a 
 letter of Schiller to Fichte, written after the Grand- 
 Duke had received the 'Appeal to the Public,' the feel- 
 ings of the court-party are expressed without reserve. 
 That their intentions were friendly is stated without qua- 
 lification. " I have had an opportunity," says Schiller, 
 " of conversing recently with those who have a voice in 
 the affair, and on various occasions with the Grand-Duke 
 himself. He openly declared that nothing would or 
 could be done to limit your freedom of writing, though 
 doubtless there were some things that one would rather 
 not have stated from the professorial chair. Even as
 
 TJie Jena Professorship. 61 
 
 regards the latter point, however, this is but his private 
 opinion ; his public judgment would impose no limita- 
 tions even in respect of it." But as Schiller goes on to 
 say, the Weimar authorities regretted that he had en- 
 gaged in discussion of the matter on his own account, 
 and had appealed to the public, when his business lay 
 solely with them. Evidently in such a state of opinion the 
 'Formal Defence' was a most embarrassing document, and 
 from the expressions of all Fichte's friends regarding it, 
 we can see that they unanimously thought him grossly 
 imprudent. Eumours of all kinds were prevalent, and 
 gradually took form in the report that the "Weimar 
 Government intended to impose a censure upon Fichte, 
 which, as coming through the academic senate, must 
 needs be of a public character. 
 
 It was apparently under the influence of this rumour 
 that Fichte was induced to take a step which he after- 
 wards consistently defended, but which must be pro- 
 nounced nothing less than unfortunate. On the 22d 
 March 1799 he wrote an important letter to the Privy 
 Councillor Voigt, explicitly leaving to the discretion of 
 his correspondent either to employ it further, or to accept 
 it as an aid in forming his own opinions. In this letter he 
 declared unreservedly that he neither would nor could 
 submit to censure given through the senate. "Were 
 such to be imposed, no course would be left to him but 
 to reply by sending in his resignation and publishing the 
 present letter in explanation of his motives. The letter 
 concluded with the statement, that many important mem- 
 bers of the university agreed in the view that censure 
 on the writer would be infringement of their academic 
 rights ; that the same members had engaged, were he to
 
 62 Fichte. 
 
 resign, to resign with him, and had permitted him to 
 notify their intention. "With him, Fichte added, they 
 looked forward to find in a new university, of which 
 there was rumour, a free and honourable sphere of action, 
 such as they had hitherto enjoyed in Jena. 
 
 The new university referred to was doubtless that 
 projected at Mainz, regarding which Jung, the chief of the 
 council of Mainz, had been in communication with Fichte 
 during the preceding year, and rumours of which had 
 been alluded to by Forberg. The plan was never real- 
 ised, and the colleagues who had given their promise 
 to Fichte did not redeem it. Paulus, indeed, to whom 
 the letter had been submitted, by whose mediation it 
 was forwarded to Voigt, and who is explicitly included 
 by Fichte among the said colleagues, afterwards declared 
 that the engagement existed only in Fichte's imagina- 
 tion ; but on a point like this the statements of Paulus 
 are worthless. 
 
 It was this letter that finally decided the "Weimar 
 Government, and the member of the council whose 
 warmth overcame all hesitation regarding the action to 
 be taken was Goethe. His conservative feelings were 
 roused by the apparent endeavour to threaten the Gov- 
 ernment. " For my own part," he wrote to Schlosser 
 some months later, " I declare that I would have voted 
 against my own son, if he had permitted himself such 
 language against a Government." The Rescript of the 
 Weimar authorities, dated 29th March 1799, desired 
 the senate to censure Professors Fichte and Methammer 
 for their indiscretion, and to recommend to them greater 
 caution in bringing essays before the public. But to 
 this gentle censure there was appended a post-scriptum
 
 The Jena Professorship. 63 
 
 referring to the letter to Voigt, accepting Fichte's dec- 
 laration that he would resign, and thereby dismissing 
 him from his office. 
 
 Again the unfortunate advice of Paulus prevailed on 
 Fichte, and induced him to make a false step. Fichte 
 himself was of opinion that the letter to Voigt should 
 not have been regarded as an official document; that, 
 even had it this official character, it should have been 
 left to him to take the final step of resignation ; and, 
 more particularly, that it ought to have been considered 
 whether the condition under which he had declared 
 resignation inevitable was fulfilled by the Rescript of 
 the Government. Under these circumstances, when, 
 through the intercession of his friends, it had been 
 arranged that the publication of the Reseat should be 
 delayed for a few days, he was persuaded to forward 
 through Paulus a second letter to Voigt, in which he 
 pointed out that as the censure imposed in no way limited 
 his freedom of teaching, it did not render the resignation 
 of his office imperative, and that he would not allow the 
 public to think that he had voluntarily laid down his 
 office on account of this censure. The letter was com- 
 municated by Voigt to the Grand-Duke, who found 
 "nothing in it to cause him to alter his expressed 
 opinion." Nor did two numerously signed petitions 
 from the students, first to prevent the dismissal and 
 then to obtain the recall of their honoured teacher, alter 
 the position of affairs. 
 
 Thus Fichte's connection with Jena came to a violent 
 termination. As regards the rights of so complicated a 
 matter, there is little ground for difference of opinion. 
 Had not Fichte's impatient temper betrayed him into
 
 64 Fichte. 
 
 the strong expressions contained in the first letter to 
 Voigt, all might have been well, for the Weimar Gov- 
 ernment, despite their indignation at his impetuous mode 
 of dealing with the matter, evidently desired to retain 
 him in the university. But they erred in making such 
 use as they did of the letter, and they erred douhly in 
 the infliction of so serious a wound on the academic 
 life of Jena. For many years the effect was felt ; and as 
 Goethe himself notes, within a comparatively short in- 
 terval all the most eminent teachers had, for one cause 
 or another, migrated to other universities : Paulus, Loder, 
 both the Hufelands, Ilgen, Schelling, and Methammer 
 vanished from Jena. No injury is so great to a univer- 
 sity as a limitation in the freedom of academic teaching. 
 No mistake is so serious as to deal in diplomatic and 
 politic fashion with matters of thought and reasoning.
 
 65 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 BERLIN AND THE WAR OP LIBERATION. 
 
 THE expulsion from Jena, and the sudden termination of 
 his public career as an academic teacher, exercised a 
 powerful influence not only upon Fichte's external for- 
 tunes, but upon the development of his philosophic 
 system. The difficulties which had been raised regard- 
 ing his utterances on the supreme philosophic doctrine, 
 the being of God and the nature of His relation to the 
 individual thinking subject, compelled his attention to 
 that aspect of his system in which it was as yet imper- 
 fect or incomplete. From this time onwards the ' Wis- 
 senschaftslehre,' as it had been expounded in the works 
 already before the world, began to be incorporated in a 
 wider view of character prevailingly theological or even 
 theosophical. The whole tone or manner of treatment 
 was at the same time altered ; and Fichte, who seemed 
 ever to feel that it was next to impossible to present his 
 system in such a form as to be free from all ambiguity 
 or danger of misconception, entered upon a series of 
 popular expositions of his philosophy, which later 
 writers have had some difficulty in reconciling with the 
 results of his earlier method. A more precise account 
 p. iv. E
 
 66 FicUe. 
 
 of the relations between the earlier and later forms of 
 his philosophic doctrines will be given when the whole 
 system is reviewed ; but it is important to note here, as 
 in the case of the ' Critique of Eevelation,' a turning- 
 point in Fichte's career. 
 
 At Jena Fichte found it impossible even to continue 
 in residence : all prospect of literary activity there was 
 excluded by the Rescript of the Saxon Electorate. Nor 
 was it easy for him to find any refuge. The majority of 
 the smaller states in the surrounding district had pass- 
 ively acquiesced in the Saxon mandate : even from the 
 little princedom of Rudolstadt, where he had hoped to 
 secure a quiet retreat, he was excluded by the jealous 
 surveillance of his antagonists. The intense excitement 
 which had been roused by the discussions preceding his 
 dismissal from Jena had spread far and wide, and if we 
 may judge from his own expressions, his personal safety, 
 in many quarters, was more than problematical In this 
 uncertainty a slight accident determined his conduct. 
 The Prussian minister Dohm, passing through Weimar, 
 spent a few days at Jena, and, as was natural, conversed 
 with friends regarding Fichte's case. The indignation 
 he expressed at the treatment to which Fichte had been 
 subjected was coupled with the significant remark that 
 in Prussia no such calamities were to be dreaded by 
 thinkers who could prove themselves good and worthy 
 citizens. Fichte, acting upon the hint communicated 
 to him, wrote to his friend, Friedrich Schlegel, then 
 residing in Berlin, and was by him assured that if he 
 could make his way to that city in such a fashion as not 
 to attract undue attention, and could time his arrival so 
 as to have his case brought speedily before the King of
 
 Friends at Berlin. 67 
 
 Prussia, no hindrance need be feared. Following this 
 advice, Fichte, in the early days of July 1799, suddenly 
 left Jena, under pretext of taking a journey for recovery 
 of his health, and travelled to Berlin. A few police 
 inquiries were easily satisfied, and when the matter was 
 brought under the royal notice, it was disposed of in the 
 briefest fashion, " If," said the easy-tempered monarch, 
 "Fichte is so peaceful a citizen, and so free from all 
 dangerous associations as he is said to be, I willingly 
 accord him a residence in my dominions." As for his 
 religious views, these were dismissed in a somewhat 
 clumsy paraphrase of Tiberius's pithy saying, " Deorum 
 offensa diis curce." 
 
 1. FRIENDS AND LITERARY ACTIVITY AT BERLIN 
 (1799-1806) 
 
 "Warmly received by Schlegel, and introduced by him 
 to the circle of friends centring mainly round Schleier- 
 macher, Fichte, with his accustomed impetuosity, at 
 once began to form new and extensive plans for literary 
 work. It appeared to him that his narrow means would 
 prove more than sufficient if he and his family could 
 unite with the Schlegels and with Schelling in forming 
 a common domicile. Against the feasibility of this 
 scheme there was doubtless to be placed the unpleasing 
 relations of Friedrich Schlegel with Dorothea Yeit, who 
 had by this time separated from her husband and thrown 
 in her lot with Schlegel, and it is evident from Fichte's 
 letters to his wife that he had much to do to reconcile 
 her to the proposal. At the same time he contemplated 
 the foundation, also in concert with the above-named 
 friends, of a comprehensive literary journal, which should
 
 68 Fichte. 
 
 apply freely and boldly the principles of the new philo- 
 sophy. There seemed to be need of some such organ, 
 for the Jena 'Allgemeine Literaturzeitung,' formerly 
 devoted to the Fichtean ideas, was beginning to waver 
 in its allegiance, and Nicolai, in the 'Neue Allgemeine 
 Bibliothek,' and in many a dreary satire, was prose- 
 cuting, after his antiquated fashion, his favourite war- 
 fare against every novelty in literature or philosophy. 
 Fichte, however, had deceived himself regarding his 
 relations to his new friends. There were elements pre- 
 sent which rapidly led to discord and even to the bit- 
 terest animosity. The years from 1799 to 1806 are 
 characterised by the gradual overshadowing of the 
 Fichtean philosophy, and by the development of hitherto 
 unsuspected differences of view in the circle over which 
 that philosophy had been supreme. To understand fully 
 the movements of this period a period of painful interest 
 to the historian of literature it is necessary to note with 
 some care what were the main currents of thought and 
 the general conditions of life at Berlin. We shall find 
 in their nature the key to much of Fichte's later work. 
 
 Under Frederick the Great, Berlin had risen rapidly 
 from a position of provincial obscurity to the rank of 
 capital city in an important kingdom, and had gradually 
 become the centre of the comparatively small intellectual 
 life of Prussia, But the same events which had given 
 it importance had contributed to its corruption. The 
 manners of the Court in the time of Frederick, the open 
 devotion of that monarch to the French " Illumination," 
 the severance which his strong government caused be- 
 tween the interests of the individual subject and the 
 wider aims of political and civic life, had combined to
 
 Berlin Society. G9 
 
 give a quite peculiar character to the society of Berlin. 
 It is scarcely possible to imagine a state of greater or 
 more deeply seated social corruption than that presented 
 by Berlin in the last two decades of the eighteenth 
 century. The strong national feeling which had at 
 least been fostered by the power of Frederick seemed to 
 die out under the feeble and vacillating policy of his 
 successor, and showed no signs of revival in any of the 
 smaller states, where intense selfishness prevented any 
 united action against a common enemy. The corroding 
 influence of the narrow rationalism which had long been 
 preached by Nicolai and his coadjutors Engel and 
 Abbt, left nothing which could resist the impulse of 
 the new romantic principle rapidly acquiring dominion 
 over the younger and more impetuous spirits in Ger- 
 many. Life, divested of all permanent or general 
 interests, lends itself readily to the sway of mere ima- 
 ginative passion; and in the gospel of Tieck and Fr. 
 Schlegel, only that seemed good which commended 
 itself to the sentimental longings of the individual, 
 while social relations appeared as mere hindrances to 
 the pure poetic development of human fantasy. 1 As 
 might be anticipated from the subjection of thought and 
 action to mere sentimental imaginative longings, the 
 influence of women began to be the most prominent 
 
 1 The very essence of this mode of thought is expressed in the 
 definition of the Romantic principle by F. Schlegel, in his ' Ge- 
 sprach iiber die Poesie' (1800) : "That is romantic which expresses 
 matter of sentiment (feeling) in fantastic form i.e., in a form deter- 
 mined throughout by imagination only." The most thorough treat- 
 ments of the Romantic school are those of Hettner, ' Die Romantische 
 Schule ' (1850) ; Brandes, ' Hauptstrb'mungen der Literatur des 19ten 
 Jahrhunderts, ' Bd. II. (1873); Haym, 'Die Romantische Schule' 
 (1870).
 
 70 Fichte. 
 
 feature in society. In Berlin, as in Weimar, the leaders 
 and directors of the new romantic school were in truth 
 the women who stood in such close and ambiguous 
 relation to the better-known men of letters. Henrietta 
 Herz, Dorothea Veit, and Karoline Schelling, were the 
 most potent factors in the disturbed chaotic movements 
 of the literature of the time ; and the dismal quarrellings 
 and bickerings of men like Schlegel, Schleiermacher, and 
 Schelling, can only be understood when their relations 
 to these leaders are taken into account. 
 
 Thus, when Fichte entered Berlin society, there ap- 
 peared, as the two most important currents of thinking, 
 the old rationalistic tendency, with at least a substratum 
 of solid political feeling, represented by Mcolai, and 
 the new romantic literature, of which the manifesto had 
 just been made in Schlegel's 'Lucinde.' At first, and 
 naturally, he was attracted towards the party with whom 
 for some time he had been in sympathy, and whose 
 principles had at least a superficial resemblance to the 
 main ideas of his philosophical system ; but it was not 
 long* before the radical difference in their views made 
 itself apparent. In the first glow of friendship he 
 yielded ready assent to the plan suggested by F. 
 Schlegel of taking up residence with him, and of calling 
 to their community A. W. Schlegel and Schelling. But 
 it soon became evident that such a plan was impracti- 
 cable, partly because Fichte's strong ethical personality 
 was in itself repulsive to the Schlegels, partly becaiise 
 of the open antipathy between Dorothea Veit and the 
 wife of A. "W. Schlegel, the celebrated Karoline, married, 
 after her divorce from Schlegel, to Schelling. The pro- 
 posed journal for literary criticism proved equally im-
 
 Berlin Society. 71 
 
 practicable. Schelling was now beginning to cast him- 
 self loose from the Fichtean philosophy, and projected 
 a journal of his own. The Schlegels, who had quarrelled 
 bitterly with the 'AUgemeine Literaturzeitung,' had 
 already started the 'Athenaum,' and manifestly found 
 themselves less and less in harmony with Fichte, whom 
 they pronounced wanting in poetry and imagination. 
 Schleiermacher, finally, who had for Fichte a deep dis- 
 like, partly from personal, partly from philosophical dif- 
 ference, reviewed the ' Bestimmung des Menschen,' 
 which appeared towards the close of 1799, in a bitter 
 and contemptuous manner, Gradually Fichte withdrew 
 from the society into which he had at first been cast, 
 and associated himself more closely with men like Bern- 
 hardi, the philologist; with Zeune, lecturer at one of the 
 gymnasia in Berlin, a man excellently skilled in modern 
 languages; with Huf eland, the Court physician, whom he 
 had known at Jena ; and with Fessler, the leader of the 
 Freemason movement, which was then attracting atten- 
 tion in Germany. Ifor was he without more powerful 
 patrons. "With Beyme, Struensee, and Von Altenstein 
 he was on terms of friendship, and through the good 
 offices of the first named he obtained full permission 
 to exercise his activity as a lecturer in Berlin. 
 
 The development of his philosophic views during the 
 same period made more clear and definite the funda- 
 mental differences which separated him from the Boman- 
 tic school, and from their speculative ally Schelling. 
 For although the stress laid in the early expositions of 
 the ' Wissenschaftslehre ' upon the "Ego" or self-con- 
 sciousness as the ultimate reality in cognition and in 
 action might appear to indicate an agreement between
 
 72 Fichte. 
 
 Fichte's doctrines and those of his quondam associates, 
 yet it must not be forgotten that for Fichte, as for Kant 
 and for Hegel, the unity of thought was never the indi- 
 vidual with his empirical personal aims. It is true that 
 upon the relation between self-consciousness, which is the 
 essence of the thinking subject, and the wider sphere of 
 reality, little had been said in the ' Wissenschaf tslehre ' 
 itself, but the problem was touched implicitly in the 
 ' Sittenlehre,' and came to the foreground in the religious 
 controversy preceding the expulsion from Jena. Fichte's 
 attention seems now to have been turned entirely upon 
 those general elements in human thought and action 
 hitherto allowed to remain in obscurity in his theory ; 
 and while in his popular and published writings he gave 
 forth the results of his speculation in the form of more 
 or less completed doctrines of morality, theoretical 
 politics, history, and religion, the speculative method by 
 which these were attained, and the connection of them 
 with the earlier treatment of the 'Wissenschaf tslehre,' 
 were expounded in repeated courses of lectures. The 
 notes of many of these lectures have been published by 
 his son, 1 and at least one completed exposition of the 
 new mode of contemplating the problems of philosophy, 
 never published, but dating from the period immediately 
 after the flight to Berlin, has been included in the com- 
 pleted edition of his works. 2 The inner connection of 
 these writings with the prior stage of Fichte's public 
 philosophical activity will be discussed at a later point ; 
 meantime the external history of his labours must be 
 noted. 
 
 1 In the ' Nachgelassene Werke,' 3 vols. , 1834. 
 
 - 'DarstellungderWissenschaftslehre'C Werke,' vol. ii. pp. 1-163).
 
 The ' Vocation of Man! 73 
 
 The 'Bestimmung des Menschen ' ('Vocation of Man'), 
 published in the early part of 1800, gave great offence 
 to the Schlegels and to Schelling by the deeply relig- 
 ious tone which prevailed throughout the closing and 
 crowning portion of it. Schleiermacher, as has just been 
 said, wrote a bitterly sarcastic review, and could hardly 
 find words strong enough to express his detestation of 
 it. The truth is that Schleiermacher never advanced, 
 philosophically, beyond Spinozism, the principles of 
 which are only disguised under the mystically pious 
 tone of feeling on which all his speculation rested. 
 Xow the very aim of the ' Bestimmung des Menschen ' 
 is to show that Spinoza's position, that of pure natural- 
 ism, is transcended in ethical idealism ; and that between 
 the views of man as the mere product and flower of 
 nature, and of nature as but a form in which infinite 
 intelligence makes itself manifest in finite consciousness, 
 the opposition is radical The same opposition, it is 
 plain, must exist between idealism as conceived by 
 Fichte and the Natur-pliilosopMe to which Schelling 
 was now advancing. For in the latter, while in words 
 Reason is made the supreme unity out of which all 
 Hows, in reality Mature is regarded as an independent 
 fact, endowed with formative powers, and giving rise to 
 human consciousness as we know it. The ultimate 
 Reason, as mere Neutrum or identity of Real and Ideal, 
 can have specific character only when viewed in relation 
 to the two elements Avhich dissolve themselves into it 
 If, of these two elements, nature be conceived as the 
 jrritis, and thought as but a higher form of natural forces, 
 then, as Fichte would have said, the ultimate Being is 
 not living thought, but dead nature. A further opposi-
 
 74 Ficlite. 
 
 tion between the two thinkers arose from the difference 
 of their views regarding the mode of treating natural or 
 empirical knowledge. From Kant, Fichte had learned 
 the lesson which he never forgot, that a priori construc- 
 tions of nature are philosophically worthless. To him, 
 therefore, the exercises of Schelling's "genial imagin- 
 ation," "by means of which nature was interpreted with- 
 out experiment or observation, appeared to be absolute 
 Mysticism, mere conceits of chance. 1 
 
 With these elements of speculative difference, person- 
 al harmony was not likely to continue. The correspon- 
 dence between the two thinkers during the years 1800 
 to 1802 accompanied as it was by the publication of 
 various writings, in which Schelling not only brought 
 forward his new views, but called attention to their 
 advance upon the Fichtean position exhibits a gradual 
 cooling of friendship, culminating in the sharpest accusa- 
 tions of mutual misunderstanding. Nor did the con- 
 troversy end with the close of their correspondence. 
 In the lectures of 1804, ' On the Characteristics of the 
 Present Age/ Fichte, without naming Schelling, deduces 
 or interprets philosophically Seliwdrmerei and Natur- 
 philosophie as necessary phenomena of a corrupt and 
 unthinking age; while Schelling not only criticised 
 in an aggressively personal tone the Erlangen lectures, 
 to be mentioned presently, ' On the Vocation of the 
 Scholar,' but in 1806 summed up all his enmity against 
 his former friend in the biting ' Exposition of the True 
 Eolation between Natur-pliilosopMe and the Amended 
 
 1 See generally for Fiehte's view regarding the Natur-philosophie 
 of Schelliug, the 8th lecture of the ' Characteristics of the Present 
 Age' ('Werke/ vol. vii. pp. 111-127).
 
 Literary Activity. 75 
 
 Fichtean Theory.' Fichte's final word remained unpub- 
 lished during his life, but it now appears in his Col- 
 lected Works in the tract written in 1806, and entitled 
 ' Notice regarding the Idea of "Wissenschaf tslehre, and of 
 its Fortunes up to the Present Time.' 1 Here, without 
 any hesitation, he characterises Schelling as "one of 
 the most muddled heads that the general muddle of the 
 age has produced," as " an utterly incompetent and 
 bungling sophist," and subjects two of his writings, the 
 'Darstellung meines Systems' and the 'Philosophic 
 und Eeligion,' to the most unsparing criticism. 
 
 "With Schleiermacher there had been no open breach 
 of friendship. It is curious that Fichte does not appear 
 to have read the hostile and continued criticism of his 
 views which runs through the ' Critique of the Theories 
 of Morals ' 2 Had he done so, it would certainly not 
 have passed without notice. But with another of his 
 former allies he was presently compelled to break. Eein- 
 hold, who never seemed capable of maintaining a posi- 
 tion in philosophy except by attaching himself to some 
 more vigorous thinker, had suffered his grasp of Fichte 
 to slacken, and had been drawn towards a new luminary, 
 Bardili of Stuttgard, whose 'Grundriss der ersten Logik' 
 had appeared in 1800. Of this work, recommended to 
 him in the warmest manner by Eeinhold, Fichte wrote 
 a sharp review in the Erlangen ' Literaturzeitung,' the 
 tone of which contrasted strongly with the eulogy 
 pronounced by Eeinhold in the Jena journal A 
 "Letter to Professor Fichte" in the first number of 
 Eeinhold's 'Beytrage' (1801) was foUowed by Fichte's 
 
 1 ' Werke,' vol. viii. pp. 361-407. 
 
 8 'Grundlinien einer Kritik der bisherigen Sittenlehre ' (1803).
 
 76 Fichte. 
 
 "Reply," 1 a powerful piece of writing, valuable for the 
 light it throws upon the ' Wissenschaftslehre,' but con- 
 clusive as regards the friendship between the corre- 
 spondents. 
 
 Not content with philosophical contention, Fichte 
 turned upon the old opponent of all speculation, F. 
 Nicolai, and annihilated him in the ' Life and Singular 
 Opinions of Mcolai.' 2 All Nicolai's forms of criticism, 
 his likes and dislikes, his laborious satire, are deduced 
 with logical rigour from the first principle of his nature, 
 that all human knowledge was summed up and compre- 
 hended in him, that what he did not understand was 
 eo facto unintelligible and absurd, and that the mere 
 expression of his adverse opinion was sufficient to put 
 all opponents to rout. It is a bitter satire, not alto- 
 gether undeserved, but doing less than justice to merits 
 which Nlcolai undoubtedly possessed. 
 
 The early years of residence at Berlin were unusually 
 productive. In addition to lectures and to the writings 
 already noted, we have during this period the work 
 which in Fichte's own opinion was the most careful and 
 most maturely considered of all his productions, 'The 
 Exclusive Commercial State.' 3 This remarkable work 
 is but little known, and yet it is by far the most com- 
 plete exposition of theoretical socialism in modern 
 literature. By an exclusive commercial state, Fichte 
 understands a union of citizens under common laws, 
 in which no international trade is permitted. Of the 
 
 1 'Werke,' vol. ii. pp. 504-534. 
 
 2 ' Nicolai's Leben und sonderbare Meinungen,' 1801. 
 
 3 'Der geschlossene Handels-staat ' (1800) : 'Werke,' vol. iii. pp. 
 386-513.
 
 Economics. 77 
 
 three books into which the work is divided, the first 
 traces the principles of such a state ; the second com- 
 pares them with the actual phenomena presented by 
 communities permitting international exchange ; the 
 third considers the steps by which a state as now organ- 
 ised may make itself exclusive. The fundamental polit- 
 ical doctrines are deduced from a peculiar view regard- 
 ing property. The right of property, Fichte thinks, 
 does not extend over things, but only over modes of 
 action. The state, therefore, has to assign to each of its 
 members the sphere within which his free activity may 
 be manifested. Hence it is requisite that the state should 
 determine the distribiition of the citizens into the three 
 grand classes of producers of raw materials, manufactur- 
 ers, and merchants; should regulate the scale of production 
 and consumption ; should fix the natural ratios of value 
 in accordance with the principle that the intrinsic worth 
 of a thing is the amount of its life-supporting property ; 
 and should issue a money of its own which could be 
 contracted and expanded in amount so as to cause no 
 detriment by fluctuations of prices. In the second book, 
 where the actual economic conditions of communities 
 are considered, the ruling ideas are those so commonly 
 met with in socialist writings : that in trade left to its 
 natural course one party benefits at the expense of 
 another ; that the use of money confers a new and bane- 
 ful power on some classes of society ; and that among 
 interchanging countries, the poorer, to its certain loss and 
 harm, will gradually be drained of its metallic wealth. 
 In the third book, the way towards the exclusive state 
 is shown to be the rejection of the use of metallic cur- 
 rency, and the adoption of a circulating medium which
 
 78 Fichte. 
 
 shall be valid only within the community itself. From 
 this would naturally follow the restriction of the state to 
 its own resources and the fostering of its own industries. 
 Fichte has evidently no doubt regarding the power of 
 the state to carry on these elaborate regulative functions : 
 he never seems to have contemplated any possible dis- 
 turbance of the balance between production and con- 
 sumption, nor to have considered the natural influences 
 which determine the course and forms of industry. The 
 ' Exclusive Commercial State ' is the best illustration of 
 his total neglect of experience and want of power to 
 bring his abstract notions into connection with concrete 
 historical reality. 
 
 The lectures at Berlin continued to gain in popularity 
 and in influence. The most eminent citizens and states- 
 men were to be found in attendance on them, and it was 
 but natural that the idea should occur to reinstate Fichte 
 in some position as academical lecturer. In 1804 he 
 was invited by the Eussian Government to the newly 
 organised university at Charkow j in the same year he 
 was offered a chair at the Bavarian university of Land- 
 shut. The first invitation he declined, because he felt 
 that the foreign surroundings would diminish his influ- 
 ence and activity; the second he likewise refused, 
 rather from dread of the strong ecclesiastical feeling in 
 Bavaria than from disinclination to the university there. 
 Towards the close of the same year, however, Beyme 
 procured for him an offer, which he gladly accepted, of 
 the Chair of Philosophy at Erlangen, under condition 
 that he should be required to lecture during summer 
 only, and might reside at Berlin during the winter 
 months. In May 1805 he opened his course at Erlangen,
 
 Lectures at Erlangen. 79 
 
 was received with distinction by his colleagues, and here 
 delivered to the whole body of students the lectures on 
 the ' Nature of the Scholar,' which were published in 
 the ensuing year. 1 Almost simultaneously there appeared 
 the lectures delivered at Berlin in the winter of 1804-5, 
 ' On the Characteristics of the Present Age,' and those 
 delivered in the winter of 1805-6, 'The Way towards 
 the Blessed Life, or Doctrine of Keligion.' 2 The three 
 sets of lectures form a completed whole : the first part, 
 the ' Characteristics,' analysing the present state of cul- 
 ture and thought ; the second, ' The Nature of the 
 Scholar,' indicating the spirit in which the attempt to 
 rise to a higher stage should be made ; the third, sketch- 
 ing in bold outlines the completed reconciliation of life 
 and thought in religion. In them the results of Fichte's 
 speculation are presented in popular form, and they are 
 certainly incomparable specimens of the union of vig- 
 orous philosophical thought and masterly skill in expo- 
 sition. 
 
 The fundamental idea of these works, expressed in 
 various forms, has been made familiar to English readers 
 through the teaching of England's greatest modem 
 moralist The guiding principle of all Carlyle's ethical 
 work is the principle of Fichte's speculation, that the 
 world of experience is but the appearance or vesture of 
 the divine idea or life ; that in this divine life lie the 
 springs of true poetry, of true science, and of true reli- 
 gion ; and that he only has true life whose spirit is in- 
 terpenetrated with the realities transceuding empirical 
 
 1 ' Werke,' vol. vi. pp. 347-448. They have been translated by 
 Dr W. Smith. 
 
 2 The " Grtmdziige," in 'Werke,' vol.vii. pp. 1-256 ; the "Amvei- 
 sung," Werke,' vol. v. pp. 397-580. Both in English by Dr Smith.
 
 80 Fichte. 
 
 facts, who is willing to resign his own personality in the 
 service of humanity, and who strives incessantly to work 
 out the ideal that gives nobility and grandeur to human 
 effort. 1 By slow degrees does humanity work out its 
 aim, the perfect ordering of life according to Reason and 
 with Freedom ; and the period of construction, in which 
 the general Reason moulds and fashions the thoughts 
 and practical efforts of mankind, is preceded by the de- 
 structive period of individualist criticism. The charac- 
 teristics of this destructive age, the principles of the 
 Aufkldrung, are drawn by Fichte with a master-hand, 
 and in the state of German thought and society he had 
 before him the realisation of his sketch. The present 
 age appeared to him, in its lack of devotion to general 
 interests, in its cold individualism, mechanical statecraft, 
 and selfish morality, the condition of completed sinful- 
 ness. The call to the higher life, which he raised on 
 philosophical grounds, was soon to become the passionate 
 appeal of the patriot, who saw in the degradation of his 
 country the effects of a false system of thought and 
 ethical principle. 
 
 2. FALL AND REGENERATION OF PRUSSIA : THE BERLIN 
 UNIVERSITY. 
 
 The outbreak of the war between France and Prussia 
 in 1806 had been preceded by events which showed all 
 
 1 Mere references to Fichte are numerous enough in Carlyle (see, 
 e.g., 'On Heroes,' Lect. vi., the essays on the 'State of German Lit- 
 erature,' and on 'Novalis'), but the full significance of the relation 
 between them can become clear only when one compares the thought- 
 ful essay entitled ' Characteristics,' and the ' Sartor Kesartus,' with 
 Fichte's popular works above named, specially the ' Grundziige d. 
 gegen. Zeitalters.'
 
 Fall of Prussia. 81 
 
 too clearly how deep was the disorder and corruption of 
 the German national feeling. The selfish and vacillating 
 policy of Prussia had rendered it possible for her to be 
 the isolated object of Napoleon's hostility. The shame- 
 ful Rheinbund, completed in July 1806, had placed the 
 princes of Southern and Western Germany under the 
 headship of France, and had separated them from the 
 German empire. Even the shadowy bond which seemed 
 to unite the German States had been dissolved by the 
 Austrian emperor's renunciation of the Kaiserate, while 
 the passive attitude of Prussia during the overthrow of 
 Austria in 1805 had alienated the two great German 
 Powers. 1 The declaration of war with France was hailed 
 with joy in Prussia as the one evidence yet remaining of 
 life and independence in the state. The great triumphs 
 of the Prussian army in the past inspired a feeling of 
 confidence which unfortunately had no s*ound basis. The 
 Berlin circles waited eagerly for the news of victories 
 which they were prepared to celebrate, and the announce- 
 ment of the terrible calamities of Jena and Auerstadt 
 came like thunder from a clear sky. The Prussian power 
 at a single stroke was shattered. The army was driven 
 into fragments, fortress after fortress fell without resist- 
 ance into the hands of the conqueror, and Berlin was 
 left without defence. Fichte, with his friend Hufeland, 
 fled beyond the Oder to follow the fortunes of the de- 
 
 1 An admirable picture of German politics at this period is given 
 in the anonymous pamphlet, 'Deutschland in seiner tiefen Erniedri- 
 gung,' published in the summer of 1806, for the printing of which the 
 unfortunate bookseller Palm, of Niirnberg, was shot by order of Na- 
 poleon. The more extensive historical works bearing on the period, 
 especially the lives of Stein by Pertz and Seeley, give more copious 
 information. 
 
 P. IV. F
 
 82 Fichte. 
 
 feated king, and to await the development of the struggle 
 in East Prussia, where Russian aid could be counted on. 
 His wife remained to protect the family and goods of 
 the united households. 
 
 At Stargard, where Fichte first halted, he found to 
 his amusement a full-grown university in which his 
 name and fame were absolutely unknown, and where it 
 was necessary for him to inform his brother professors of 
 the subject which he professed. At Konigsberg, where 
 he took up residence from November 1806 till June 
 1807, he was received with more intelligent apprecia- 
 tion, was nominated temporary professor, and delivered 
 lectures, both publicly and in private, on the ' Wissen- 
 schaftslehre.' Here, too, he worked diligently at the 
 study of modern languages, which he had begun under 
 Delbriick, and above all, at Pestalozzi's educational 
 schemes, in whi<?h he seemed to find the seeds for the 
 regeneration of public feeling in Germany. The fall of 
 Danzig and the battle of Friedland drove him from 
 Konigsberg a few days before the conclusion of the 
 melancholy Peace of Tilsit. After a stormy sea-voyage 
 he reached Copenhagen, where he was greeted with 
 warm affection by his former scholar Oersted, now a 
 brilliant and successful professor at the Danish univer- 
 sity. Not till August 1807 did he return to Berlin. 
 
 The calamities of Prussia had drawn the attention of 
 all her greatest thinkers to the causes of such an unex- 
 pected collapse. With the instinctive feeling of a great 
 nation still full of vital power, it was seen that regener- 
 ation was as possible as it was necessary, but that such 
 regeneration must spring from a united and purified 
 national spirit. The old mechanism which, when ani-
 
 Condition of Prussia. 83 
 
 mated by a Frederick II., had been powerful and fit for 
 great ends, must be set aside. The antiquated laws that 
 separated the people into distinct and hostile classes, and 
 substituted class interests for public sympathy, must be 
 amended. The army, which had become an imperium in 
 imperio, so hateful that even the defeat of the nation 
 could not repress joy at the overthrow of the JunJcer- 
 tJium, must be made truly to represent the national will 
 and force. Above all, what lay as positive principle at 
 the root of all efforts towards amendment, the national 
 education must again become a training through which 
 the spiritual powers of the individual might be strength- 
 ened, and the feeling of corporate unity reinstated. 
 Chaotic enough were some of the efforts to realise these 
 obsciirely felt longings, and one must smile at the good 
 old Jahn's endeavour to regenerate the nation by convert- 
 ing it into one gigantic Turnverein (gymnastic associa- 
 tion); but nevertheless Prussia possessed a noble band 
 of clear-sighted and strong-hearted sons, who severally 
 took up and developed the ideas which converged to- 
 wards one end, the reformation of the national mind. 
 Stein and Hardenberg bent all their energies to the 
 destruction of the old land laws which still held a large 
 portion of the people in the state of villeinage, to the 
 restriction of class-privileges, and to the institution of a 
 system of local government which might knit together 
 the several members of the state. Scharnhorst under- 
 took the reformation of the military order, and laid the 
 foundations of the system which has made the German 
 army the most powerful engine of war the world has 
 ever seen. 1 To Fichte fell the task of endeavouring by 
 1 It is quite beyond the scope of this sketch to give any more tie-
 
 84 Fichte. 
 
 his eloquence to turn the attention of the nation to the 
 need for a new spiritual education. Already had he felt 
 that in this way only could he discharge his heartfelt 
 duty to the state. On the outbreak of the war in 1806, 
 he had proposed to Beyme that he should be permitted 
 to accompany the army as lay-preacher, and had received 
 from the king thanks for an offer which was not ac- 
 cepted. The call to action was even stronger now than 
 formerly, and at all hazards it was obeyed. On succes- 
 sive Sunday evenings, from 13th December 1807 to 
 20th March 1808, he delivered in the great hall of the 
 Academy of Sciences, before a crowded audience, his 
 famous " Addresses to the German Nation." The French 
 were still in occupation of Berlin : well-known spies 
 frequented the lecture-hall, and fears were openly ex- 
 pressed for the safety of the speaker. But to a spec- 
 ulative treatment of patriotism the French naturally 
 attached but small weight ; the ' Moniteur ' intimated 
 that a famous philosopher, named Fichte, was delivering 
 a course of lectures on reforms in education ; no steps 
 were taken against him either at the time or at a later 
 date, when men such as Schleiermacher and Wolf were 
 cautioned by the French commandant, Davoust. One 
 need not wonder at such indifference, for, in truth, to 
 many of his own countrymen Fichte's words were of as 
 little weight as to the foreigner. Contemporary records 
 preserve a quite surprising silence regarding the 'Reden.' 1 
 
 tailed notice of these great works. A very complete survey is con- 
 tained in Hausser's ' Deutsche Geschichte vom Tode Friedrichs des 
 Grossen,' vol. iii. pp. 120-254. The land reforms are stated with preci- 
 sion in Mr Morier's essay, ' Systems of Land Tenure ' (Cobden Club), 
 pp. 243-285. 
 1 See J. Bona Meyer. ' Ueber Fichte's Reden ' (1862). The notes
 
 'Addresses to the German Nation.' 85 
 
 The 'Addresses' link themselves naturally to the 
 'Characteristics of the Present Age.' In the latter, 
 Fichte had depicted the times as the " age of completed 
 sinfulness," and had referred them to the third great 
 epoch in the history of humanity, the period when 
 Reason is beginning to free itself from instinct and 
 authority. By the force of events this age had been 
 brought, for Germany at least, to a violent close. 
 Individualism, with its selfish morality and statecraft, 
 had been shattered by a blow dealt from without. The 
 new epoch, that of the conscious recognition of Eeason, 
 had been inaugurated, and it remained to be seen how 
 far Germany was fit to enter on its noble inheritance, 
 and by what method it should be brought to take pos- 
 session. There are thus in the ' Addresses ' two leading 
 trains of thought a survey of those elements in the 
 German spirit out of which the new state may be con- 
 structed, and an exposition of the mode by which they 
 are to be utilised. 
 
 Moral regeneration of a nation, the education of the 
 individual to the great general interests, is only possible 
 when there is a free and living national spirit, capable of 
 uniting the several members in the service of a common 
 end. The German spirit is free and living, for the 
 German people is pure and unmixed, and its history 
 is the development of a single stock. The wonderful 
 plasticity of the German language, which renders it 
 capable of expressing in vivid and pictorial fashion the 
 
 to this little pamphlet, which contains an excellent treatment of the 
 'Addresses,' give many interesting particulars regarding the circum- 
 stances under which they were delivered and the impression made 
 by them. See also Seeley's ' Stein,' vol. ii. pp. 27-42.
 
 86 Fichtc. 
 
 profoundest thought, is in itself a sufficient proof that 
 the German people has the stamp of originality. The 
 languages of the Germanic and the Neo-Latin races, as 
 compared with the pure German tongue, are lifeless and 
 mechanical. I^o people which had not a free and ori- 
 ginal national feeling could have taken up and worked 
 out to a glorious termination the great idea of the Refor- 
 mation. ~$o people save the German has proved its 
 capacity for the deepest philosophical speculation. In 
 its language, in its religious depth, and in its philoso- 
 phical power, Germany amply proves itself a free and 
 living people. For Fichte, indeed, as Kuno Fischer well 
 says, Germany is the Ego among all nations. 
 
 There lie, then, in the German spirit the possibili- 
 ties of a noble ethical life for the individual, of a pure 
 and rational state, of a religion which shall penetrate 
 the life of humanity. 1 How shall these possibilities 
 be realised? Not otherwise than by a new system of 
 national education, a system which shall have as its aim 
 the perfection of the moral nature of the individual, and 
 which shall at every step draw closer the links that bind 
 the individual to the community. The groundwork of 
 such a new education had already been laid by a deep- 
 thinking German, by Pestalozzi ; and the salvation of the 
 people is to be looked for in the universal adoption and 
 earnest realisation of what is true and original in his 
 methods. 
 
 Fichte proceeds, then, to develop at some length his 
 scheme of national education in its several stages of in- 
 
 1 It is interesting to note that Fichte thinks Germany the only 
 nation that has shown itself fit to realise the ideal of a republican 
 constitution (' Werke,' vol. vii. pp. 357).
 
 Scheme of National Education. 87 
 
 fant training, of school and university discipline. Like 
 Pestalozzi, he lays stress on the necessity of beginning 
 with real intuition and not with words or symbols ; but 
 he subjects to acute criticism Pestalozzi's method, and 
 substitutes for it a threefold training in accurate dis- 
 crimination of the elements of sense experience i.e., 
 feelings of the intuitions of external realities, and of 
 bodily movements. So soon as this preparatory disci- 
 pline has been completed, it is needful that children 
 should be removed from the many home influences that 
 corrupt education, and reduce the efforts of instructors to 
 nullity. Education is a national affair, and must be 
 conducted by the nation at the general expense. The 
 state must support a body of teachers ; and a common 
 education, embracing along with the culture of the in- 
 tellect an adequate technical training, must be provided 
 for all. 1 By this means, and by it only, the common 
 ethical feeling, the sense of national unity, can be fos- 
 tered and made productive. Germany must become an 
 "exclusive educational state," and patriotic feeling be- 
 come the mainspring of action. A united Germany 
 would be the best safeguard against the evils of the 
 artificial " balance of power " policy, which for long 
 had been the bane of the German States. It might 
 resist the evil pressure of international commerce, which 
 makes the poorer country a natural prey for the more 
 wealthy. Above all things, the unique richness and 
 depth of the German character are a sufficient demonstra- 
 tion of the folly of these dreams of universal monarchy, 
 
 1 With Fichte's idea of the necessity and value of training to some 
 mechanical occupation, one may compare the fantastic puedagogiwn 
 in 'Wilhelm Meister's Wanderjahre.'
 
 88 Fichte. 
 
 which can be realised only at the cost of national in- 
 dividuality. 
 
 To this great work, a work of the last importance, 
 not for Germany alone, but for humanity at large, all 
 ranks and classes are summoned. On the present age 
 rests the task of carrying forward the great spirit that 
 has animated civilisation, and of vindicating the noble 
 place that has been held by the German people in the 
 world's history. 
 
 " In these addresses " (thus proceeds the fine peroration 
 of Fichte's last lecture) " the memory of your forefathers 
 speaks to you. Think that with my voice there are 
 mingled the voices of your ancestors from the far-off ages of 
 grey antiquity, of those who stemmed with their own bodies 
 the tide of Roman domination over the world, who vindi- 
 cated with their own blood the independence of those moun- 
 tains, plains, and streams which under you have been suffered 
 to fall a prey to the stranger. They call to you, ' Take ye 
 our place ' band down our memory to future ages, honour- 
 able and spotless as it has come down to you, as you have 
 gloried in it and in your descent from us. Hitherto our 
 struggle has been deemed noble, great, and wise ; we have 
 been looked upon as the consecrated and inspired ones of a 
 Divine World-plan. Should our race perish with you, then 
 will our honour be changed into dishonour, our wisdom 
 into folly. For if Germany were ever to be subdued to the 
 empire, then bad it been better to have fallen before the 
 ancient Romans than before their modern descendants. We 
 withstood those and triumphed ; these have scattered you 
 like chaff before them. But as matters now are with you, 
 seek not to conquer with bodily weapons, but stand firm and 
 erect before them in spiritual dignity. Yours is the greater 
 destiny, to found an empire of mind and reason to de- 
 stroy the dominion of rude physical power as the ruler of the 
 world. Do this, and ye shall be worthy of your descent 
 from us.
 
 'Addresses to the German Nation.' 89 
 
 u With these voices mingle the spirits of your later fathers 
 of those who fell in the second struggle for freedom of 
 religion and of faith. ' Save our honour too,' they call. To 
 us it had not become wholly clear what we fought for ; be- 
 sides our just determination to suffer no outward power to 
 control us in matters of conscience, we were also impelled 
 by a higher spirit, which never wholly unveiled itself to our 
 view. To you this spirit is no longer veiled, if you have 
 vision for the spiritual world ; it now regards you with 
 high clear aspect. The confused and intricate mixture of 
 sensuous and spiritual impulses shall no longer be per- 
 mitted to govern the world. Mind alone, pure from all 
 admixture of sense, shall assume the guidance of human 
 affairs. In order that this spirit should have liberty to de- 
 velop itself, and rise to independent existence, our blood was 
 shed. It lies with you to give a meaning and a justification 
 to the sacrifice, by establishing this spirit in its destined 
 supremacy. Should this result not ensue, as the ultimate 
 end of all the previous development of our nation, then 
 were our struggles but a vain and forgotten farce, and the 
 freedom of mind and conscience for which we fought an 
 empty word, since neither mind nor conscience should any 
 longer have a place among us. 
 
 " The races yet unborn plead with you. ' Ye were proud 
 of your forefathers,' they cry, and proudly ranked yourselves 
 in a noble line of men. See that with you the chain is 
 not broken. Act so that we also may be proud of you ; and 
 through you, as through a spotless medium, claim our de- 
 scent from the same glorious source. Be not you the cause of 
 making us revile our ancestry, as low, barbarous, and slav- 
 ish ; of causing us to hide our origin, or to assume a foreign 
 name and a foreign parentage, in order that we may not be, 
 without further inquiry, cast aside and trodden under foot. 
 According as the next generation which proceed from you 
 shall be, so shall be your future fame ; honourable, if this shall 
 bear honourable witness to you ; beyond measure ignomini- 
 ous, if ye have not an unblemished posterity to succeed you, 
 and leave it to your conqueror to write your history. Never
 
 90 Fichte. 
 
 has a victor been known to have either the inclination or the 
 means of passing a just judgment on the subdued. The 
 more he degrades them, the better does he justify his own 
 position. Who can know what great deeds, what excellent 
 institutions, what noble manners of many nations of anti- 
 quity, may have passed away into oblivion, because their 
 succeeding generations have been enslaved, and have left 
 the conqueror in his own way, and without contradiction, 
 to tell their story ? 
 
 " Even the stranger in foreign lands pleads with you, in 
 so far as he understands himself, and knows aright his own 
 interest. Yes ! there are in every nation minds who can 
 never believe that the great promises to the human race of 
 a kingdom of law, of reason, of truth, are vain and idle 
 delusions, and who therefore cherish the conviction that the 
 present iron age is but a step towards a better state. These, 
 and with them all the after-ages of humanity, trust in you. 
 Many of them trace their lineage from us ; others have re- 
 ceived from us religion and all other culture. Those plead 
 with us, by the common soil of our Fatherland, the cradle of 
 their infancy, which they have left to us free ; these, by the 
 culture which they have accepted from us as the pledge of a 
 higher good, to maintain, for their sakes, the proud posi- 
 tion which has hitherto been ours, to guard with jealous 
 watchfulness against even the possible disappearance, from 
 the great confederation of a newly arisen humanity, of that 
 member which is to them more important than all others ; 
 or that when they shall need our counsel, our example, our 
 co-operation in the pursuit and attainment of the true end 
 of this earthly life, they shall not look around for us in 
 vain. 
 
 " All ages, all the wise and good who have ever breathed 
 the air of this world of ours, all their thoughts and aspi- 
 rations towards a higher good, mingle with these voices 
 and encompass you about and raise suppliant hands towards 
 you ; Providence itself, if we may venture so to speak, and 
 the Divine plan in the creation of a human race which in- 
 deed exists only that it may be understood of men, and by
 
 'Addresses to the German Nation.' 91 
 
 men be wrought into reality plead with you to save theii* 
 honour and their existence. Whether those who have be- 
 lieved that humanity must ever advance in a course of cease- 
 less improvement, and that the great ideas of its order and 
 worth were not empty dreams but the prophetic announce- 
 ment and pledge of their future realisation ; whether those 
 or they who have slumbered on in the sluggish indolence 
 of a mere vegetable or animal existence, and mocked every 
 aspiration towards a higher world have had the right, this 
 is the question upon which it has fallen to your lot to fur- 
 nish a last and decisive answer. The ancient world, with 
 all its nobility and greatness, has fallen through its own 
 unworthiness and through the might of your forefathers. If 
 there has been truth in that which I have spoken to you in 
 these ' Addresses,' then it is you to whom, out of all other 
 modern nations, the germs of human perfection are espe- 
 cially committed, and on whom the foremost place in the 
 onward advance towards their development is conferred. 
 If you sink to nothing in this your peculiar office, then 
 with you the hopes of Humanity for salvation oiit of all its 
 evils are likewise overthrown. Hope not, console not your- 
 selves with the vain delusion, that a second time, after the 
 destruction of an ancient civilisation, a new culture will 
 arise upon the ruins of the old from a half-barbaric people. 
 In ancient times, such a people existed fully provided with 
 all the requisites for their mission ; they were well known 
 to the cultivated nation, and were described in its literature ; 
 and that nation itself, had it been able to suppose the case 
 of its own downfall, might have discovered the means of reno- 
 vation in this people. To us also the whole surface of the 
 earth is well known, and all the nations who dwell upon it. 
 Do we know one, of all the ancestral tribe of modern Europe, 
 of whom like hopes may be entertained ? I think that 
 every man who does not give himself up to visionary hopes 
 and fancies, but desires only honest and searching inquiry, 
 must answer this question No ! There is, then, no way 
 of escape : if ye sink, Humanity sinks with you, without 
 hope of future restoration."
 
 92 Fichte. 
 
 "With much, that is over-strained and fantastic, much 
 that is indefinite and unpractical, the ' Addresses ' yet 
 spoke to Germans as they had not been spoken to since 
 the time of Luther. The idea of the unity of the Ger- 
 man people began in them to be detached from the old 
 ideal of the Holy Empire, and to link itself on to the 
 history of the race, and above all to the history of the 
 strongest German State, to the history of Prussia. The 
 most interesting facts in the troubled narrative of this 
 troubled period are the rise and growth of the strong 
 feeling of nationality, and the development of a more 
 definite opposition between the older forms of German 
 imperial union and the new conception of a national 
 unity, an opposition practically expressing itself in the 
 antithesis between Austria with the Kaiserate and 
 Prussia with the German Confederation. It is true 
 that the smaller German States, especially those of the 
 south and west, remained long unaffected by the new 
 movement, and hence it becomes intelligible how the 
 old history of internal dissension began to reappear in 
 Germany so soon as the foreign yoke had been thrown 
 off. Nevertheless it is to this time the historian must 
 look for the first foresh ado wings of the form of German 
 unity which has slowly been wrought out in the later 
 years of the present century. 
 
 Shortly after the delivery of the 'Addresses,' Fichte 
 was struck down by the first illness wlr'ch had seriously 
 affected him. Even his iron constitution had suffered 
 from the fatigue of the months of exile from Berlin, from 
 the anxiety and distress which continuously accompanied 
 him. The public lectures on philosophy, for which he 
 had prepared himself in the spring of 1808, were given
 
 The Functions of a University. 93 
 
 up ; and for some months he resided at Teplitz, where 
 the warm baths restored, though not completely, his 
 shattered health. 
 
 During this time an important step in the regener- 
 ation of Prussia had been under debate. When the 
 Halle University had been closed after the defeat of 
 Jena, the professors made proposals to the king that the 
 seat of the university should be transferred to Berlin. 
 This proposition was the occasion for the serious and 
 mature consideration of the advisability of having in 
 Berlin a national university. To Beyme, then Minister 
 of Instruction, the commission was given to make the 
 preliminary arrangements for such a step, and, on his 
 invitation, Fichte sent in an elaborate and carefully 
 constructed plan for the new institution. 1 Although 
 the university as it was eventually organised resembled 
 in little or nothing Fichte's ideal, the details of his 
 scheme present some points of interest. 
 
 The true function of a university, according to the 
 'Deduced Plan,' has not been in general rightly appre- 
 hended. It is not the communication of knowledge by 
 means of lectures, for, were this the aim, university work 
 would be better performed by a large collection of books. 
 The university is the crown or apex of the system of 
 education, whereby the whole powers of the individual 
 are to be trained to their highest form of exercise. A 
 university is, in brief, a school for training in the art 
 of using the understanding scientifically. All details of 
 
 1 " Deducirter Plan einer zu Berlin zu errichtenden hoheren Lehran- 
 stalt," 'Werke,' vol. viii. pp. 95-204. With this should be com- 
 pared his " Ideas on the Internal Organisation of the University of 
 Erlangen," ' Nachgel. Werke,' vol. iii. pp. 275-295.
 
 94 Fichte. 
 
 the organisation, as far as teaching is concerned, follow 
 from this general principle. Thus the lecture method 
 must be relinquished in favour of combined dialogue, 
 examination, and practice in themes or theses. The 
 scholars, who are destined to fulfil a high aim in the 
 state, who are to represent culture and intelligence, must 
 be carefully prepared in the preliminary school-education, 
 must be isolated from all the details of life, and must have 
 the means of support secured to them. The university 
 will itself form a seminary or training-school for professors. 
 From this general conception Fichte proceeds to work 
 out the details first as regards the organisation of stu- 
 dies in a university, then as regards the distribution of 
 scholars and teachers, their economy and relation to the 
 state, and finally as regards the mode in which a univer- 
 sity so constituted may actively influence the scientific 
 world. In his treatment of the first subject, we have 
 to note the occurrence of an error extremely frequent in 
 the case of systematic theorists. Fichte thinks that in 
 all branches of study the beginning should be found in 
 a kind of encyclopaedic introduction; and that for all 
 branches of study at a university, the common introduc- 
 tion is to be found in philosophy. Accordingly, the first 
 year of study is arranged to be passed under the care of 
 one professor of philosophy, who, without inculcating 
 any system, shall train the students to reflection in the 
 nature of the problems of thought and knowledge, shall 
 indicate to them how the special sciences branch off 
 from philosophy, and shall give literary and critical 
 notices by way of introduction. When this first course 
 is completed, the studies are then separated according 
 to the broad divisions of philology, philosophy, history,
 
 The Functions of a University. 95 
 
 and natural science. The old division of faculties in no 
 way corresponds to the guiding principle of university 
 training, that it shall deal with the scientific use of the 
 understanding. Law, e.g., is on the one side professional 
 merely ; on the other, when it has a scientific aspect, it 
 falls under history and philosophy. Medicine, in so 
 far as scientific, rests upon, and should be included 
 under, natural science. Theology, in like manner, must 
 be distributed partly to philology, partly to philosophy, 
 partly to history, of which last a most important chapter 
 ought to be " the history of the development of religious 
 notions among mankind." In the case of each special 
 line of study, the course begins with an encyclopaedic 
 introduction, and passes on to the more definite and 
 thorough work of detail 
 
 The students Fichte regards as divisible into two 
 grand classes. Those who, by the exercises of their 
 first course, have proved themselves fit to follow out the 
 profession of the scholar, are the Regulars, the very ker- 
 nel of the university, for whom and by whom it pecu- 
 liarly exists. They are to be distinguished not only by 
 the economical arrangements for their maintenance, but 
 even by a special academic garb. From their ranks are 
 drawn the members of the professoriate ; and Fichte, it 
 may be remarked, is emphatically of opinion that such 
 members should be young, and should not continue too 
 long in office. All other students those who use the 
 university merely as an addition to their ordinary civic 
 life are called Associates, among whom some may be 
 regarded as aspirants to the dignity of the Regulars, and 
 are therefore called Novices. 
 
 Into the arrangements for the government of the uni-
 
 96 Ficlitc. 
 
 versity, for the payment of teachers and the support of 
 scholars, Fichte enters at great length, but his treatment 
 presents little or nothing of interest. One cannot avoid 
 a feeling of surprise at the one-sided vision which could 
 see no possible evil in the reinstatement of a cloister- 
 life as the substitute for the freer academic air of a 
 university. More attractive is his discussion of the 
 methods whereby the scientific training-school is to in- 
 fluence the surrounding world. The organised force of 
 the university is to manifest itself in the continuous 
 production of three sets of records or Ada : first, a Jour- 
 nal of Scientific Art, in a peculiar sense the Ada lit- 
 eraria of the university, in which the produce of the 
 university work, including the theses of the students, 
 shall be incorporated ; second, a periodical publication, 
 containing on the one hand abstracts of the encyclopaedic 
 surveys which form the propaedeutic to all scientific 
 teaching, and on the other records of all additions to 
 scientific knowledge made in the university ; finally, 
 a critical journal, which shall serve as a guide to all 
 new scientific publications a journal of the progress of 
 literature. 
 
 Fichte's scheme, discussed with the utmost care in 
 Beyme's house by a circle of men interested in the 
 foundation of the new institution, appeared to contain 
 too many novelties to permit of its acceptance. His old 
 opponent, Schleiermacher, published in the following 
 year (1808) his 'Occasional Thoughts on Universities in 
 a German sense,' which was undoubtedly intended as a 
 counterpoise to the ' Deduced Plan;' and the organisation 
 finally adopted more nearly resembles Schleiermacher's 
 suggested modification of existing arrangements than
 
 The Berlin University. 97 
 
 Ficlite's thoroughly radical and comprehensive scheme. 
 For some years the carrying out of the intention to 
 found the new university was delayed. Stein, when 
 iu. power, was unwilling to hurry matters, and had, 
 for a time, some objections to Berlin as the seat 
 of an academic institution. Not till 1809 was the 
 affair handed over to "W. von Humboldt, with instruc- 
 tions to have it carried out. Lectures were delivered 
 in that year by Fichte, Schleiermacher, Savigny, Wolf, 
 Klaproth, and others, which were in fact, though not 
 in form, systematic university courses. The formal 
 opening was made in the autumn of 1810, and Schmalz, 
 formerly of Halle, was named first rector. An unusual 
 number of the most eminent men in literature and science 
 had been collected in Berlin during the preceding years, 
 many of whom e.g., F. A. Wolf and Buttmann though 
 not actually professors in the university, yet, as members 
 of the Academy of Sciences, contributed by lectures and 
 otherwise to the success of the new undertaking. Among 
 the great names associated with the Berlin University 
 in the early years of its existence, one notes Fichte, 
 Schleiermacher, Savigny, I. Bekker, Aug. Bbckh, Mar- 
 heineke, Neander, Eichhorn, De Wette, Solger, Ideler, 
 Klaproth, Riihs, Schmalz, and Rudolph! ; altogether a 
 constellation of brilliant stars, shedding lustre on the 
 youngest of the German academies. 
 
 In 1810 Fichte opened his course with the important 
 lectures, first published in 1817, on the 'Facts of Con- 
 sciousness.' * The new mode of viewing the system of 
 philosophy which is there presented was worked out in 
 greater completeness, though not, one must confess, with 
 
 1 ' Werke,' vol. ii. pp. 541-691. 
 P. IV. Q
 
 98 Fichte. 
 
 greater clearness, in the lectures of 1812 on 'Wissen- 
 schaftslehre,' and on ' Transcendental Logic,' l and in 
 those of 1813 on ' Wissenschaftslehre,' on the 'Theory 
 of Law,' on 'Ethics,' and on the 'Facts of Conscious- 
 ness.' 2 In these lectures one finds much difficulty in 
 recognising the brilliant expositor of the earlier ' Wissen- 
 schaftslehre.' Fichte labours with harsh and forced meta- 
 phors to make clear his new conception of the whole 
 intelligible world, of which knowledge is but an imper- 
 fect fragment; but over the entire exposition there hangs 
 an air of obscurity and mysticism foreign to his original 
 mode of thinking, and rendering comprehension of his 
 meaning unusually hard. It is evident, indeed, from 
 the continuous repetitions, from the over - anxiety to 
 clear up fundamental points, that the system itself was 
 not in all precision of outline before the mind of the 
 author. The true cause of this obscurity we shall after- 
 wards have to consider; but it must be said that, however 
 important are these lectures in the development of 
 Fichte's own thought, they have had no significance in 
 the history of speculation as a whole. His contributions 
 to the progress of German philosophy must be looked 
 for in the works published by him, and mainly in those 
 of the Jena period. 
 
 As at Jena, so here at Berlin, we have to observe how 
 difficult it was for Fichte's impetuous temper to accept 
 any situation save that of supreme ruler. His strong 
 ideas on university organisation, in particular his desire 
 by the most stringent penalties to suppress the corrup-, 
 
 1 ' Nachgel. Werke,' vol. ii. pp. 317-492 ; vol. i. pp. 103-4CO. 
 
 2 Ibid., vol. i. pp. 1-102; vol. ii. pp. 493-652; vol. iii. pp. 1-118 ; 
 vol. i. pp. 401-574.
 
 F'ichte as Hector. 99 
 
 tions.of student life, led to constant and unseemly con- 
 flicts with his colleagues. At Michaelmas 1811 he had 
 been elected rector of the university for the ensuing 
 year, but after four months of office he resigned, finding 
 it impossible to deal after his own fashion with univer- 
 sity affairs, while hampered by the constant opposition 
 of the senate. That the fault was altogether on the side 
 of his colleagues cannot be admitted. Fichte's natural 
 impatience was probably aggravated by ill health, for he 
 had never quite recovered from his one serious illness ; 
 and, if we may judge from a passage in one of Sol- 
 ger's letters, his general demeanour was little calculated 
 to produce harmony in an academic body. "Fichte," 
 writes Solger, "makes our very existence bitter by his 
 mode of acting, not only by his paradoxical whims and 
 real absurdities, but by his obstinacy and egotism. Con- 
 tinuously to Overawe by declaring, ' fat I as an indi- 
 vidual say or desire this, but the Idea which speaks and 
 acts through me,' is certainly a fine mode of speech, in 
 which I willingly recognise true and honest zeaL But 
 when he proceeds in all matters, the greatest or the 
 least, from the axiom that the Idea has selected but one 
 organ viz., Herr Fichte himself it does appear to me 
 that individuality becomes simple despotism. He has 
 no measure in anything ; for the smallest fault he treats 
 the students as though they were imps of hell He pays 
 no regard to the spirit of any law or regulation, but will 
 have the very letter, of which his interpretation is often 
 most ludicrous. The dementia which is mingled with 
 his ingenium is really childlike. On the other hand, 
 where one of his whims is in question, he will take the 
 most astounding liberties with either letter or spirit of a
 
 100 Fichte. 
 
 Law. Is he out- voted 1 he will not carry out the resolu- 
 tion of the senate, hunts up the most ridiculous reasons 
 in order to find some formal error, and, if this be unsuc- 
 cessful, appeals to the Government. Moreover, he has 
 a band of students, his devoted scholars, who have been 
 infected with his accursed desire to regenerate the 
 world. These fellows make the most shameless repre- 
 sentations to the senate, and Fichte transmits them 
 directly to the department without communicating them 
 to us as the real academic government, gives on his own 
 authority an answer to the students, and justifies them 
 against the senate." 1 
 
 3. WAR OF LIBERATION: DEATH OF FICHTE. 
 
 The close of the year 1812 was a notable epoch in 
 European history. In December the fragments of 
 Napoleon's great army, broken and shattered in the 
 Russian campaign, reached "Wilna, and the scattered 
 bands began to retrace their steps through German ter- 
 ritory with a Russian army following close upon them. 
 The magic influence of the great conqueror seemed to 
 have received its death-blow, and throughout all Europe 
 began a general stir and commotion. In Prussia more 
 especially, weak and dispirited as she then appeared to 
 be, for her army was numerically small, her fortresses 
 and chief towns still in the hands of the invader, it was 
 felt that the time at last had come for a decisive effort 
 towards independence. An indescribable enthusiasm, 
 hardly to be restrained from premature and fatal out- 
 break, agitated the whole people. The nation and the 
 army, in the most eager excitement, waited with irnpa- 
 1 From Noack, ' J. G. Fichte's Leben,' &c., pp. 541, 542.
 
 War of Liberation. 101 
 
 tience for some movement on the part of their sovereign. 
 The wisest and most prudent heads perceived how neces- 
 sary it was for the future of Prussia and of Germany 
 that their deliverance should not be left passively to the 
 exertions of the Russian power. Only by vigorous and 
 united action could Prussia hope to regain her position 
 among the Powers of Europe. Events had been to a 
 certain extent precipitated by the independent action of 
 some of the leaders e.g., by Yorck's secession from the 
 French army and conclusion of the famous Convention 
 of Tauroggen ; but it was needful that the work should 
 be taken in hand by the nation itself, and that the king 
 should be compelled to act with rapidity and vigour. 
 The flight of the king in February to Breslau, where 
 he was in comparative freedom from French control, 
 was the first decisive step, for it thus became possible 
 for him to assent openly to the alliance with Russia, 
 already initiated independently of him by Yorck and 
 Stein. 1 On the 28th of the same month was con- 
 cluded the Treaty of Kalisch, whereby the two Powers, 
 Russia and Prussia, bound themselves to carry on in 
 concert the war against their common enemy. On the 
 2d March the Russians crossed the Oder, and were fol- 
 lowed, on the 10th, by the Prussian troops. On the 16th 
 the formal declaration of war was made, and on the 
 ensuing day the king issued his famous " Summons to 
 my people." The appeal was nobly responded to. From 
 every quarter, from every rank of society, recruits and 
 volunteers poured in. The universities were emptied of 
 
 1 The troubled movements of this important time are narrated with 
 great fulness and precision in Seeley's 'Life and Times of Stein," vol. 
 iii. pp. 1-103.
 
 102 Fichte. 
 
 their students, even the gymnasia sent their Pnmaner 
 to the front. Scharnhorst's great war-mechanism began 
 to appear in its true form, and those who from age or 
 other cause were unable to serve in the ranks, enrolled 
 themselves in the Landsturm, and prepared to play their 
 part in the struggle for national independence. 
 
 To Fichte this wonderful upheaval of the Prussian 
 people presented itself in its great historical aspects as 
 the typical contest between the principles of reason and 
 self-will, and as the means by which the long-desired 
 unity of the German nation might be achieved. On the 
 19th February 1813, he closed his winter course of 
 philosophical lectures with an eloquent address to the 
 students, encouraging them in their heroic devotion, and 
 emphasising the noble character of the work on which 
 they were about to enter. 1 In the summer of the same 
 year he delivered to such audience as could be gathered 
 in the auditorium of the university, the lectures " On 
 the idea of a just war " (afterwards incorporated in the 
 posthumous ' Staats-lehre '), in which he characterised 
 with force and eloquence the significance of a national 
 war, and contrasted the idea for which the German 
 people was about to .contend with the principles of their 
 great foe. 2 By this contest, it appeared to him, the 
 unity of the German people might be attained sooner 
 than had previously seemed possible. For, as he point- 
 edly declares in the remarkable 'Political Fragment 
 from the year 1813,' "a nation becomes a nation through 
 war and through a common struggle. Who shares not 
 in the present war can by no decree be incorporated in 
 
 i ' Werke,' vol. iv. pp. 603-610. 
 - Ibid., vol. iv. pp. 401-430.
 
 War of Liberation. 103 
 
 the German nation." l As was natural, his tendency to 
 regard Prussia as the kernel and destined head of the 
 united German people received fresh strength from the 
 events of the time, for Prussia alone seemed to show the 
 genuine enthusiasm of a nation straggling for its exist- 
 ence. In brief aphoristic fashion the 'Political Frag- 
 ment' passes in review the claims of the several chief 
 states, Prussia, Austria, and Saxony, to the headship of 
 Germany, and the balance is inclined strongly towards 
 Prussia. 2 
 
 A more active part than by the lectures it was not 
 permitted to him to take. Again, as in the war of 1806, 
 he proposed to the Government that he should exercise 
 his oratorical powers on the army directly, but again his 
 request was declined. He remained in Berlin, practising 
 the military exercises in the Landsturm, and resuming, 
 in the winter of 1813, his ordinary courses of lectures at 
 the university. 
 
 The current of the war, which at first threatened 
 Berlin, had been diverted from the capital by the vic- 
 tories of Gross-Beeren and Dennewitz, but the numerous 
 combats in the immediate vicinity of the city had left 
 a sad legacy in hospitals overcrowded with sick and 
 wounded. The civic authorities, unable with the means 
 at their disposal to cope with the unusual burden im- 
 posed upon them, appealed for aid to the citizens, and 
 especially solicited the assistance of women for the work 
 of nursing. Among the first who offered their services 
 
 1 ' Werke,' vol. vii. p. 550. 
 
 2 Fichte's view on this interesting point is noted, but given some- 
 what too positively, in Von Treitschke's historical eulogy of Prussia, 
 ' Deutsche Geschichte im 19ten Jahrhundert.' See Bd. i. p. 43(5.
 
 104 Ficht&. 
 
 was the wife of Fichte, and throughout the winter 
 months of 1813 she laboured incessantly in the hospitals. 
 On the 3d January of the following year she was struck 
 down by a serious, apparently fatal, nervous fever. Her 
 husband, then opening a new course of philosophical 
 lectures, attended constantly on her during the day, and 
 left her only in the evening for his class-room. The 
 crisis had hardly been passed, and hope entertained 
 of her recovery, when the same disease struck down 
 his strong frame. For eleven days he lingered, with 
 but few intervals of clear consciousness, his sleep be- 
 coming ever deeper, till on the night of the 27th 
 January all sign of life gradually vanished. He was 
 buried in the first churchyard before the Oranienburg 
 gate in Berlin ; at his side now lie the remains of Hegel 
 and Solger. Five years later his wife was laid at his 
 feet. On the tall obelisk which marks his grave is the 
 inscription from the Book of Daniel : " The teachers 
 shall shine as the brightness of the firmament, and they 
 that turn many to righteousness as the stars that shine 
 for ever and ever." 
 
 In person Fichte was short and strongly made ; the 
 head massive, with pronounced features, keen and 
 piercing eyes, thick and dark hair. In all his move- 
 ments, as in his actions, he was quick, impetuous, and 
 strong. His life lies before us as the manifestation of a 
 powerful and heroic spirit, marked by clearness of in- 
 sight and resoluteness of conviction, and animated by 
 the loftiest ethical feeling. His errors are truly the 
 defects of these great qualities.
 
 105 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 GENERAL IDEA OF FICHTE's PHILOSOPHY. 
 
 THE philosophy of Fichte attaches itself, by a kind of 
 natural necessity, to that of Kant, of which it is an 
 extension and development, and in relation to which it 
 has its special significance. The difficulties in the way 
 of obtaining a summary view of its nature and tendency 
 are thus, for the general reader, increased. From the pecu- 
 liar form of the system, it is not at all possible to effect 
 an easy entrance into it ; but the closeness of its con- 
 nection with the Kantian philosophy renders it necessary 
 not only that the reader should become acquainted with 
 the specific character of the critical method, with the point 
 of view from which the problems of speculative thought 
 are regarded in all later German systems, but also that 
 he should have a sufficient grasp of the details of the 
 critical philosophy to appreciate what is peculiar in 
 Fichte's advance upon it. Of these fundamental re- 
 quisites for comprehension of Fichte's doctrine, the first 
 is the more important, even, one may say, the more 
 essential. The English student who has been accus- 
 tomed to the analytical and psychological method of 
 Berkeley, or Hume, or Mill, or even to the more de-
 
 106 Fichte. 
 
 veloped forms of recent realistic or scientific thinking, 
 as in Spencer, finds himself, as it were, in a new world, 
 when he is brought into contact with the Kantian and 
 post -Kantian speculations a world in which at first 
 sight all appears to be inverted or reversed. Apparent 
 inversion, as we know, may arise either from the posi- 
 tion of the things themselves, or from the inverted view 
 of the observer ; and the extraordinary difference between 
 the English and the later German philosophy is merely 
 the result of the fundamental difference in point of view 
 from which they contemplate philosophical questions. 
 The problems with which both are engaged are of neces- 
 sity the same no philosophy is ever new but the 
 methods employed are radically divergent, and not with- 
 out careful analysis and criticism can they be brought 
 within sight of one another. It is indispensable, in 
 attempting to give a systematic account of one phase of 
 German speculation, that we should endeavour to make 
 clear the characteristic feature which distinguishes that 
 mode of thought, and we can hardly do so without com- 
 paring it to some extent with the prevailing type of 
 English philosophy. So soon as the point of view and 
 method of treatment have become clear, we are in a 
 position to consider the problems to which the specula- 
 tive method must be applied, and thus to obtain a pre- 
 liminary outline or general conception of the whole 
 system. This, in the first instance, is what we propose 
 to undertake, leaving to the more detailed account of the 
 system the second introductory subject the contents or 
 results of the Kantian philosophy. 
 
 If we consider what is involved in the descriptive 
 adjectives which have been, applied to what may be
 
 The Kantian Philosophy . 107 
 
 called the current English philosophy, we shall be able 
 to discover, by mere force of contrast, some of the most 
 important characteristics of the Kantian method of 
 speculative research. Historically, indeed, the Kantian 
 method was an attempt to revise what had appeared as 
 the final result of English philosophy ; and though the 
 later post-Kantian writers make little or no reference to 
 English thought, the connection between the two is not 
 to be overlooked. A more fruitful conception of the 
 aim and function of speculative thinking is to be ob- 
 tained by working towards Kant from the position of 
 Locke and Hume than from that of Leibnitz, important 
 as the influence of the latter undoubtedly was. The 
 English philosophy, we have said, may be distinguished 
 as prevailingly analytical or psychological in method. 
 In other words, if it be regarded as the primary and 
 all-comprehensive function of philosophy to render in- 
 telligible the whole of experience, to give a systematic 
 and reasoned account of all that enters into the life of 
 the human thinking being, then the method of Locke, 
 Berkeley, Hume, and their successors, proposes to sup- 
 ply answers to the various problems into which this 
 one comprehensive inquiry divides itself, by an analysis 
 of the conscious experience of the thinking subject, by 
 a complete psychology of human nature. Conscious ex- 
 perience, that of which the individual subject becomes 
 aware as making up his existence, is regarded as material 
 upon which the processes of observation, classification, 
 analysis, employed to good purpose in physical inquiries, 
 are to be directed. At first sight, indeed, such a method 
 appears not merely natural, but the only possible way in 
 Avhich a philosophical theory, granting such to be feas-
 
 108 Mchte. 
 
 ible, can be constructed. For is not a philosophical 
 theory a kind of knowledge 1 And how otherwise than 
 by investigation of the contents of mind can we arrive 
 at any conclusions regarding the nature and limits of 
 knowledge 1 " It surely needs no argumentation," says 
 a distinguished exponent of the view, "to show that 
 the problem, "What can we know? cannot be approached 
 without the examination of the contents of the mind, 
 and the determination of how much of these contents 
 maybe called knowledge." 1 Since that which stands 
 in need of explanation is experience itself, we evidently 
 cannot explain it otherwise than by looking at it. To 
 look beyond experience is absurd ; there is evidently 
 nothing left but the examination of experience, and to 
 this philosophy must needs be confined. 
 
 It may here be remarked that any difference between 
 the philosophical methods under comparison does not 
 arise concerning the restriction of knowledge to experi- 
 ence. Fichte as well as Kant is aware that philosophy 
 has only to tkinJc experience, that it in no way adds to 
 experience, and that it must contain nothing beyond 
 experience. " I declare," he writes in one of the most 
 popular of his expositions, " the very innermost spirit 
 and soul of my philosophy to be, that man has nothing 
 beyond experience, and that he obtains all that he has, 
 from experience, from life only. All his thinking, 
 whether vague or scientific, whether popular or tran- 
 scendental, proceeds from experience and concerns nothing 
 but experience." 2 Any divergence arises, not from dis- 
 
 1 Huxley's 'Hume,' p. 49. 
 
 2 " Sonnenklarer Bericht," ' Werke,' vol. ii. p. 333. Cf. 'Werke,' 
 vol. ii. pp. 9, 10, 123, 395 ; vol. v. pp. 340-344.
 
 The English Method. 109 
 
 agreement respecting the quite empty proposition, that 
 there is nothing beyond experience, but from some differ- 
 ence in conception of experience and in the method of 
 dealing with it. Critical examination often shows that 
 under an apparently simple question or statement a whole 
 theory lies concealed, and that the inferences drawn fol- 
 low not from the fact contained in the query or proposi- 
 tion, but from the underlying theory. Thus, in the case 
 in point, the restriction of philosophical inquiry to expe- 
 rience has always meant, to writers of the English school, 
 that phenomena of inner and outer life are known in the 
 same way, and that beyond the knowledge thus obtained 
 there is nothing standing in need of investigation or 
 capable of being investigated. " Psychology," says the 
 writer previously referred to, " differs from physical 
 science only in the nature of its subject-matter, and 
 not in its method of investigation." 1 
 
 English philosophy thus starts with a definite concep- 
 tion of the nature and limits of speculative inquiry. 
 Experience, inner and outer, is equally matter for 
 scientific treatment ; and the results of such treatment 
 form, on the one hand, natural science strictly so called 
 on the other, mental science, of which certain generalised 
 propositions make up the substance of philosophy. It 
 is not putting the matter too strongly to say that the 
 categorical rejection of this psychological method is the 
 very essence of the critical philosophy, the key-note of 
 the critical spirit in speculation. For Kant, as for 
 Fichte, psychology is a science or doctrine subordinate 
 to philosophy proper, involving in its method assump- 
 tions which it is the very business of philosophy to dis- 
 1 Huxley's 'Hume,' p. 51.
 
 110 Fichte. 
 
 cuss, and employing notions which it is the function of 
 philosophy to criticise. So far from speculative prin- 
 ciples being generalisations from psychological data, they 
 are antecedent to the establishment of such data as facts 
 of experience. The naive doctrine that since cognition 
 is an aspect or form of conscious experience, its nature, 
 extent, and validity are to be considered by investigating 
 it according to the rules of scientific method, just as we 
 should investigate an object presented in outer experi- 
 ence, is not to be identified with the truth which the 
 most metaphysical thinker acknowledges, that only by 
 thought can thought be tested and examined. The 
 special lesson of the critical philosophy is that the 
 assumption of a distinction of the whole field of experi- 
 ence into the two realms of objective facts and of sub- 
 jective facts itself requires examination and defence. 
 We must consider what the significance of such a dis- 
 tinction is for the conscious subject within whose 
 experience it presents itself, and under what condi- 
 tions it can be recognised by him. Were we to begin 
 our philosophical analysis, as psychology must begin, 
 with the distinction as in some way a fact given, and 
 assume simply that the thinking subject is confronted 
 with two orders of phenomena to be interpreted through 
 the same notions, we should commit a twofold error. 
 For, on the one hand, while in words we appear to 
 assert that the two orders of facts make up all that is, 
 we have in reality placed alongside of them, in a quite 
 inexplicable fashion, the thinking subject or mind, a 
 tertium quid which certainly stands in need of some 
 explanation ; and, on the other hand, the qualities and 
 relations discoverable among facts, when contemplated
 
 The English Method. Ill 
 
 as matters of observation for the thinking subject, are 
 oiily such as appear to a supposed external observer, 
 and not their qualities and relations for the intelligence 
 whose very substance they compose. "We voluntarily 
 abstract from the essential feature of the problem, the 
 existence of the conscious subject for whom the orders 
 of facts are there present, and must therefore recognise 
 that any conclusions from investigation of the facts have 
 validity only in subordination to the abstraction from 
 which we start. Thus psychology, as ordinarily con- 
 ceived the scientific account of the phenomena to be 
 observed in consciousness, the description, analysis, and 
 history of mental phenomena stands on precisely the 
 same level as the natural sciences, and like them, leaves 
 out of consideration the problem with which philosophy 
 as sxich has to deal Even the analysis of mental states, 
 which forms a portion of psychological treatment, is the 
 analysis of them as facts of observation, that is, the de- 
 termination of the conditions on which their occurrence 
 depends, the separation of simpler and more complex 
 states, and the formulation of general laws of coexist- 
 ence and succession, not the analysis of their significance 
 as elements of the cognitive or moral experience of a 
 conscious subject The fundamental notions which we 
 apply in psychological research are those of all scientific 
 method, and concern objects i.e., things regarded as 
 existing in conjunction and mutual interdependence. 
 Their very applicability, therefore, depends on the reso- 
 lution of the prior questions as to the significance of 
 knowledge of any thing or object, and the relations 
 involved therein. Such prior questions may be called, 
 in Kantian phraseology, transcendental, and the whole
 
 '112 Fichte. 
 
 method by which they are treated the transcendental 
 method. The substitution of this transcendental method 
 for the earlier abstract metaphysics, and for the prevail- 
 ingly psychological fashion of dealing with philosophical 
 problems, is, in brief, Kant's contribution to modern 
 thought. 1 
 
 The fundamental difference between the psychological 
 method of dealing with philosophical problems, the 
 method which regards the states of mind as so many 
 definite objects for a conscious observer, and the tran- 
 scendental method, which proposes for consideration the 
 conditions under which knowledge of a thing is possible 
 for a thinking subject and the significance of such know- 
 ledge, appears with great clearness in the philosophical 
 system of Berkeley a system in which both methods 
 may be discerned, though neither receives precise ex- 
 pression, and the combination seems to have remained 
 unobserved by the author. Berkeley's thinking is in so 
 many ways typical of the English spirit, his idealism 
 has affected so much of current speculation, and his 
 position in the general development of modern philo- 
 sophy is so peculiar, that it is worth while here to scru- 
 tinise somewhat closely the principles upon Avhich he 
 proceeded. 
 
 Beyond all question, Berkeley started, in his philoso- 
 
 1 The term transcendental probably has, for English ears, an un- 
 pleasant ring, and will suggest metaphysical efforts to transcend 
 experience. It must be understood, however, that transcendental 
 method is simply the patient and rigorous analysis of experience 
 itself. For any question or theorem which might pass beyond pos- 
 sible experience, Kant reserved the term transcendent ; and the dis- 
 tinction, if not the mode of expressing it, is accepted by all his 
 successors. Neither in Kant nor in Fichte is there anything in the 
 slightest degree resembling what is commonly called metaphysics.
 
 The System of Berkeley. 113 
 
 phical analysis, with a doctrine which in terms may be 
 regarded as identical with the principle of the transcen- 
 dental method. He proposed to investigate philoso- 
 phical notions or terms in the light of the doctrine, that 
 no fact can possibly be admitted which is not a fact 
 for some conscious subject. Every metaphysical theorem 
 or notion must be subjected to the same test, reduction 
 of its terms to the experience of a thinking being. His 
 attack on abstractions is thus virtually identical with 
 the Kantian criticism of things -in -themselves. For 
 Berkeley an abstraction is a supposed fact of experience 
 which from its nature cannot possibly form part of the 
 experience of a conscious subject. If we remove from 
 a fact those relations or qualifications through which 
 only it enters into and forms portion of the conscious 
 experience of some subject, we have as result an ab- 
 stradum or contradiction, something supposed to be a 
 possible object of experience, and yet at the same time 
 wanting in the qualities requisite for any such object. 
 Material substance as distinct from the varied and 
 specifically qualified material things, unqualified matter 
 as the cause of objective phenomena, things as existing 
 out of relation to conscious intelligence, abstract ideas 
 of facts of experience, are instances of such abstraction. 
 Berkeley's demand that, before discussing problems as 
 to matter, cause, substance, and other metaphysical no- 
 tions, we shall first determine what they mean for us, 
 has the true note of the transcendental method. 
 
 On the other hand, it is equally beyond doubt that 
 Berkeley, under the influence of Locke's philosophy, 
 accepted as the criterion of the possibility of entrance 
 into the conscious experience of a subject, the possibility 
 
 P. IV. H
 
 114 Fickle. 
 
 of forming one fact of observation in the observed sum 
 of states making up conscious experience. In his view, 
 as in that of Locke, existence for a self-conscious sub- 
 ject meant individual or particular existence as an object 
 of internal observation. Thus from the outset he united 
 in one system the transcendental and the psychological 
 methods, and the history of the development of his 
 thoughts is an instructive record of the struggle between 
 the two principles. The manifold inconsistencies which 
 criticism discloses in his doctrine are natural results of 
 the attempt, however unconscious, to combine two radi- 
 cally incompatible views. 
 
 Berkeley's earliest reflections, those contained in the 
 ' Commonplace Book,' discovered and published by 
 Professor Fraser, are dominated throughout by the in- 
 dividualist notion which is part of the psychological 
 method. He is even disposed at times to reject his 
 underlying doctrine of the necessary implication of sub- 
 ject and object, and to regard mind itself as but a collec- 
 tion of particular ideas, as, indeed, mind necessarily is, 
 for internal observation. In the first formal stage of his 
 philosophy, the stage represented by the 'Principles,' 
 the most characteristic features are due to the steady 
 application of the individualist criterion. It seems evi- 
 dent to him that to the observer, regarded as standing 
 apart from conscious experience, nothing can be pre- 
 sented but isolated, single states, connected externally or 
 contingently, containing in themselves no reference to 
 underlying substance or cause, and existing only as facts 
 for an observer. The result is one aspect, unfortunately 
 almost the only aspect known, of the Berkeleian idealism. 
 Existence is the sum of states making up the experience
 
 Berkeley's Idealism. 115 
 
 of the individual ; there is nothing beyond the mind and 
 its own phenomena. From such a mere subjective fancy 
 no philosophical aid is to be found for resolving any of 
 the harder problems of thought. As the matter is well 
 put by Dr Stirling : " The same things that were called 
 without or noumenal, are now called within and phenom- 
 enal ; but, call them as you may, it is their systematic 
 explanation that is wanted. Such systematic explana- 
 tion, embracing man and the entire round of his experi- 
 ences, sensuous, intellectual, moral, religious, sesthetical, 
 political, &c., is alone philosophy, and to that no repeti- 
 tion of without is within, or matter is phenomenal, will 
 ever prove adequate." 1 In short, the slightest reflection 
 enables one to see that the most airy subjective idealism 
 and the crassest materialism are one and the same. In 
 both cases we are left with the mere statement that 
 things are what they are, and it matters not whether we 
 call them ideas or forms of matter. 
 
 This, however, is but one side of Berkeley's so-called 
 idealism. Although, while developing from the individu- 
 alist principle, he could arrive at no other conclusion than 
 that experience consists in the isolated states of the in- 
 dividual thinker, yet it seemed to him equally clear that 
 the conscious subject could not be regarded as merely 
 one of the objects of internal observation. The inde- 
 pendent existence and activity of the conscious self were 
 therefore admitted by him as somehow beyond experi- 
 ence in the narrow sense, and in a very confused fashion 
 he proceeded to ask what the significance of experience 
 could be for such a self-conscious subject. His answer, 
 given briefly and without adequate investigation of its 
 
 1 " Annotations " to Schwegler's ' History of Philosophy,' p. 419.
 
 116 F4chte. 
 
 real ground, was practically that for such a subject con- 
 scious experience must present itself as a conditioned 
 and dependent fact, as a series of accidents of which 
 intelligence or mind is the substance, as a series of effects 
 of Avhich intelligence or mind is the cause. Thus the 
 psychological idealism, reached by application of the one 
 method, was transformed by application of the other into 
 a species of objective or theological idealism. The con- 
 ception of a mere flux of conscious states was converted 
 into the more complex notion of an intelligible system 
 a world of free and independent spirits, whose modes 
 of action and passion are the several modifications of 
 actual experience as known to us. Finite minds are 
 related to one another and to the Infinite Mind by 
 mutual action and reaction. The course of nature is the 
 result of the operation of the Divine Mind on finite 
 intelligences. 
 
 A notion like this is essentially what Kant and Fichte 
 call "dogmatic." 1 It implies or starts from the assump- 
 tion of an absolute opposition between two orders of real 
 existences, the finite and the infinite mind, and endea- 
 vours to explain their reconciliation or conjunction by 
 means of a conception which has validity only for the 
 diverse objects of one conscious subject. A conscious 
 subject can only think the objects which make up his 
 experience as mutually determining, for only so do they 
 compose one experience. To transfer this notion to the pos- 
 sible relations of infinite and finite intelligences, which 
 by supposition are not mere objects for mind, is to make 
 an invalid, or technically, a transcendent use of it. No 
 
 1 See for Fichte's vigorous criticism of Berkeley, 'Werke,' vol. i. 
 pp. 438, 439.
 
 Berkeley's Idealism. 117 
 
 ingenuity can render a finite and relative notion like that 
 of causal action, or of mutual determination, adequate 
 to express the possible connection between experience 
 and the ground of all possible experience. God and the 
 world are not to be thought as respectively cause and effect. 
 The Berkeleian theological idealism thus yields no so- 
 lution of the problem it was intended to answer. It is 
 simply a translation into the language of idealism of the 
 popular view that the experience of the conscious subject 
 is due to some action from without ; and if no further 
 analysis be given, it is not of the slightest consequence, 
 philosophically, whether we say that God is the cause 
 of the varied character of conscious experience, or that 
 things in themselves are the cause. In both cases we 
 have started with the conception of the finite, self- 
 existent mind, and explain its experience as communi- 
 cated to it from without. Such a mere fashion of 
 speech makes clear neither what the significance of 
 " coming from without " can be for an intelligence pos- 
 sessing only subjective states, nor how the notion of 
 " without " can possibly arise in its consciousness, nor 
 how it comes to regard itself as finite, and to refer for 
 explanation to an Infinite Mind. 1 
 
 1 One of these unanswered difficulties suggests the reason for the 
 close similarity which has been found hetwen Berkeley and Leibnitz. 
 From Berkeley's subjective or psychological point of view, the crite- 
 rion of objectivity is want of consciousness of productive power on 
 the part of the thinking subject. Now evidently, in the absence of 
 other grounds, objectivity of this sort might be accounted for by 
 reference to unconscious acts of production on the part of the sub- 
 ject, as well as by action from without. Experience would thus be 
 the evolution of the thinking subject ; inner and outer would imply 
 only differences in the conscious activity of the subject ; the Berke- 
 leian finite mind would be identical with the Leibnitzian monad.
 
 118 Fichte. 
 
 The later stages of Berkeley's thinking show the 
 gradual perception on his part of the deficiencies in his 
 earlier doctrine. On the one hand, it became increas- 
 ingly apparent that the results of the psychological 
 method required to be qualified or limited by reference 
 to the counter-conception of the conscious subject as in 
 no sense a possible object of conscious experience : on 
 the other hand, it began to appear doubtful to Berkeley 
 how far any worth or validity could be ascribed to the 
 psychological method. He had assumed throughout his 
 earlier inquiry that to the supposed external observer, 
 whether our own mind or not, the facts of conscious ex- 
 perience would present themselves as a contingent series 
 or stream ; but it now occurred to him that in so doing, 
 he had simply cast into the mind of this external ob- 
 server all that was required to render knowledge pos- 
 sible, all that must be investigated before we can deter- 
 mine what knowledge really is. Thus, in 'Alciphron,' 
 stress is laid upon the fact that Self is not an idea i.e., 
 not an object of observation ; and on the analogy of this, 
 the wider inference is rested, that many intellectual prin- 
 ciples may likewise have validity, although what they 
 refer to can in no sense be reduced to ideas, or isolated 
 individual elements of conscious experience. In ' Siris,' 
 Berkeley begins to point out that the stream of contin- 
 gent facts of experience is not a datum requiring merely 
 to be observed, but is possible material of knowledge 
 only for an intelligence which combines the scattered 
 parts in relations not included in the conception of them 
 as mere objects. In fact, in the latest stage of his philo- 
 sophical development, it becomes evident to him that 
 the so-called simple ideas of Locke are really concrete
 
 The Psychological Method, 119 
 
 and complex units of cognition ; and that sense, so far 
 from furnishing a kind of knowledge, supplies only ele- 
 ments, which for a thinking subject are possible mate- 
 rial of knowledge. 
 
 Berkeley's doctrine has been considered in some de- 
 tail, partly because no subsequent English philosophical 
 thinking seems to have advanced beyond his position, 
 partly because one can discern very clearly in him the 
 principles upon which English philosophy has always 
 proceeded. The results of his work will probably have 
 made intelligible what is to be understood by the psycho- 
 logical method of treating speculative problems, what is 
 the precise nature of the assumptions underlying it, and 
 what, on the whole, must be the characteristic feature of 
 the opposed method. The psychological method, start- 
 ing from the point of view of ordinary consciousness, 
 in which the individual subject is confronted with two 
 dissimilar series of facts, inner and outer experience, 
 and in which each series, as it presents itself separately, 
 is viewed from the same quasi external position, proceeds 
 to treat these facts by the help of the familiar category 
 or notion of the thing and its relations to other things. 
 The world of external experience appears as a totality of 
 existing things, reciprocally determining and being de- 
 termined, each of which is what it is because the others 
 are what they are. It matters not that, by the intro- 
 duction of some subjective analysis, we reduce the sup- 
 posed things to more or less permanent groups or series of 
 sensations : the essential fact is, that they are thought as 
 making up a mechanical whole. When the same con- 
 ception is applied to inner experience, to the thinking 
 subject, his states and relations to experience in general,
 
 120 Fichte. 
 
 the only logical result is a system of completed deter- 
 minism, or, as Fichte calls it, dogmatism. Even without 
 raising the question as to the legitimacy or validity of 
 the notion thus applied to the interpretation of things in 
 external nature, Fichte points out that the same concep- 
 tion, the same method, cannot be applied to the inter- 
 pretation of the life of the conscious subject. For, here, 
 each fact is to be regarded, not only as a thing standing 
 in relations to other things, relations only conceivable 
 when we secretly postulate the presence of some mind 
 which relates the things to one another, but as a fact for 
 the conscious subject. They are not external to him, 
 but form part of his very being and substance, and 
 philosophy has specially to deal with their significance 
 for him. The psychological method has simply thrown 
 out of account or neglected the fundamental fact, that of 
 self-consciousness. Mechanical or dogmatic explanations 
 of mental phenomena may be adequate as statements 
 of the conditions under which these phenomena come to 
 be, but they are utterly inadequate as explanations of 
 what these phenomena are for the conscious subject. 
 Take as an example of the difference between the modes 
 of treatment, the important distinction appearing in con- 
 sciousness between Ego and non-Ego, self and not-self. 
 The psychological theory, if it is wise and enlightened, 
 begins by assuming provisionally the existence of objec- 
 tive conditions under which specific sensations arise, 
 and points to the variable nature of these conditions, 
 and the variable combinations of sensations which result 
 e.g., the constant presence of motor or muscular sen- 
 sations with different groups of passive sensations as 
 giving the key to the origin of the notion. But such an
 
 TJie Speculative Method. 121 
 
 explanation tacitly assumes the very point at issue. 
 "\Vliy should either passive or active sensations, or any 
 combinations of them, appear to the conscious subject 
 himself as limitations ? If we represent to ourselves the 
 conscious subject as a thing acted upon and reacting, 
 we may try by the help of this metaphor to render in- 
 telligible the fact that some states of his experience 
 appear as objective and determined, while others are 
 thought as subjective and relatively undetermined ; but 
 our explanation extends only to the metaphor and not 
 to that which is symbolised. There is no resemblance 
 between passive and active sensations, and the assumed 
 actions and reactions from which they arise ; and the 
 only problem, how the consciousness of difference arises 
 out of the sensations, is not answered by reference to 
 actions and reactions which are not in the sensations 
 at all, but, if in consciousness at all, are added by 
 thought. On the other hand, the speculative method 
 proposes, by an analysis of self -consciousness and of the 
 conditions under which it is possible, to clear up the 
 significance for the conscious subject himself of those 
 important differences which characterise his experience. 
 Nothing must here be assumed which transcends self- 
 consciousness, but nothing must be accepted as solution 
 which is not for self-consciousness. The distinction 
 between Ego and non-Ego is one for the thinking 
 subject ; it is hopeless, therefore, to look for solution to 
 hypotheses which lie outside of the thinking subject. 
 The so-called scientific method in philosophy is emphat- 
 ically the method of metaphysical assumptions, for 
 throughout its procedure it has recourse to explana- 
 tions which transcend experience.
 
 122 Fichte. 
 
 Thus the philosophy of Fichte starts with the de- 
 mand that the facts of experience shall be examined 
 as facts of self -consciousness. They exist only for a 
 thinking being, and their significance or interpretation 
 for the thinking subject is the substance of philosophy. 
 Philosophy is thus the re-thinking of experience, the 
 endeavour to construct by rigid and methodical analysis 
 that which to ordinary consciousness presents itself as a 
 completed and given whole. Speculation, therefore, in 
 no way transcends the limits of experience ; it does not 
 extend the bounds of thinking ; it intrudes in no way 
 into the province of natural science, which is but an 
 extension of ordinary consciousness. " No proposition 
 of a philosophy which knows itself is, in that form, 
 a proposition for real life. It is either a step in the 
 system, from which further progress may be made ; or if 
 speculation has in it reached a final point, a proposition 
 to which sensation and perception must be added, as 
 rationally included therein, before it can be of service 
 for life. Philosophy, even when completed, cannot 
 yield the element of sense, which is the true inner 
 principle of life (or actuality)." l Philosophy is thus the 
 subjective side of that which objectively appears or pre- 
 sents itself as reality, in ordinary life. The experience 
 of the finite subject, an experience in which, so far as 
 cognition is concerned, the inner and outer worlds are 
 distinct ; in which, so far as action is concerned, sensuous 
 impulse and reasoned purpose, personal desire and gen- 
 eral or rational will, are combined ; in which, so far as 
 the whole sphere of his finite existence is concerned, the 
 feeling of personal independence is curiously allied with 
 1 " Ruekerinnerungen," 9, ' Werke,' vol. v. p. 343.
 
 His Examination of Experience. 123 
 
 those strivings after infinite being in which independ- 
 ence would cease ; this experience, in all its diversity, 
 is the matter to be explained ; and while philosophy may 
 divide itself into various branches according to the dif- 
 ferent problems proposed, it is in a twofold sense a unity. 
 For the experience to be interpreted is one, and the 
 whole interpretation is but the exposition of the sig- 
 nificance of experience for self-consciousness, which is 
 also one. 
 
 If, now, we call any fact of experience which presents 
 itself in consciousness, a cognition or matter of know- 
 ledge, and every systematic account of any series or class 
 of such facts, a science (Wissenschaft), we shall be pre- 
 pared to understand why it was that Fichte selected, as 
 title for philosophy in general, the term, theory of science 
 or of knowledge (Wissenschaftslehre), and what are the 
 formal requirements of this comprehensive doctrine. 1 It 
 is the business of Wissenschaftslehre to develop from its 
 first principle the organic plan or complete framework 
 of human knowledge. We may assume hypothetically 
 that there is system in human cognition, and if so, we 
 assume that all principles can be shown to rest upon 
 some one comprehensive absolute principle a principle 
 incapable of proof, but giving the ground of proof to all 
 
 1 The terms theory of science and theory of knowledge have of recent 
 years acquired so special a significance among German writers on 
 logic, that either would lead to misunderstanding if applied to Fichte's 
 philosophical doctrine. Theorie der Wissenschaft has been taken 
 to mean the systematic account of the methods actually followed in 
 scientific research e.g., observation, experiment, analysis, &c. ; while 
 Erkenntnits-theorie, or theory of knowledge, when used by a logical 
 writer, implies that he brings to bear upon the doctrines of formal 
 logic the combined results of psychology and general philosophy. 
 There is a deplorable want of consistency in the use of the terms.
 
 124 Fichte. 
 
 other principles. Our assumption can receive justifica- 
 tion only in and by the course of the development itself, 
 i.e., wo can show that there is system in human know- 
 ledge if we develop completely, from its first principle, 
 all that is contained in human knowledge. 
 
 Fichte's earliest systematic work, the tract " On the 
 Xotion of Wissenschaftslehre," contains a number of 
 formal determinations regarding the new science ; but 
 the true meaning of what is there laid down becomes 
 apparent only when the nature of the doctrine itself 
 has been seen. It is desirable therefore to omit all 
 reference to this tract, at least until the system has been 
 explained.
 
 125 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 " WISSENSCHAFTSLEHRE " IN ITS EARLIER FORM. 
 
 THE general aim or spirit of the Wissenschaftslehre 
 having been determined, it becomes necessary to consi- 
 der more particularly the nature of the problems present- 
 ing themselves for solution, and the method by which 
 they are to be treated. As regards both points, the most 
 valuable writings are the two " Introductions to Wissen- 
 schaftslehre," and the " Sonnenklarer Bericht." 1 
 
 1. DOGMATISM AND IDEALISM. 
 
 The slightest reflection discloses to us the remarkable 
 distinction in consciousness between two orders of rep- 
 resentations 2 or phenomena, which we call, with some 
 vagueness, inner and outer experience. With more pre- 
 
 1 'Werke,' vol. i. pp. 419-518; vol. ii. pp. 323-420. 
 
 2 The term Vorstellung is used by Fichte, as indeed by all German 
 writers, in various senses ; and the ambiguity attaching to it is un- 
 doubtedly one of the main causes of the misunderstanding of his doc- 
 trine, as of the Kantian system. Here it is employed simply to denote 
 some form of consciousness something of which the subject is aware. 
 Nothing is thereby decided as to the mode of existence of the repre- 
 sentation. It is not meanwhile to be regarded as a subjective state 
 i.e., as a modification of the individual, particular Ego.
 
 126 FichU. 
 
 cision, we should say that, while some phenomena of con- 
 sciousness present themselves as evidently the products 
 of free mental activity, others appear in an order inde- 
 pendent of us, and are characterised for us by the accom- 
 panying " feeling " of necessity which attaches to them. 
 Now, the problem of philosophy i.e., of Wissenschafts- 
 lehre is to explain experience, to render it intelligible ; 
 and all explanation consists in rendering a reason for the 
 phenomena to be explained. The ground of experience, 
 in the highest sense, is not to be sought beyond experience 
 itself, but our reflection upon experience does undoubtedly 
 proceed beyond it, since it regards the whole as matter 
 to be accounted for. This procedure beyond experience 
 is, in fact, the process familiarly known as abstraction. 
 Philosophical theory, having presented to it the complex 
 fact of the coexistence of inner and outer experience, 
 abstracts from the condition of coexistence, and selects 
 for isolated consideration, on the one hand, the Ego or 
 conscious subject, on the other hand, the non-Ego or 
 object simply. Whether such abstraction is a legitimate 
 process may remain meanwhile undetermined, the an- 
 alysis of the problem itself will throw light upon the 
 nature of the thoughts involved in it, but by its means 
 we reach the fundamental opposition of philosophical 
 systems. Ego and non-Ego, subject and object, thought 
 and being, are separate grounds, to which the whole of 
 experience may be referred for explanation. Do we ex- 
 plain experience as the product of the non-Ego, we have 
 the system which may be called Dogmatism ; do we 
 explain the whole as springing from the Ego, we have 
 Idealism. Of the one, the typical example is the system 
 of Spinoza, in which the order and connection of thoughts
 
 Dogmatism and Idealism. 127 
 
 are explained by reference to that which does not contain 
 in itself the element of self-consciousness, where, there- 
 fore, the Ego appears as a mechanically determined unit 
 in the sum total of things. Of the other, a representa- 
 tive may probably be found in Leibnitz, though much of 
 the later Kantian speculation is only intelligible as a 
 kind of half-understood idealism. 1 
 
 Which of these counter-principles has right on its 
 side 1 Does either satisfy the requirements of philoso- 
 phical explanation? It is evident, on the one hand, that 
 the dogmatic method, if true to itself, must, in the end, 
 have resort to an absolutely unknown and unknowable 
 thing as the non-Ego. The thing-in-itself is, in fact, 
 the solution offered by dogmatism ; and such solution is 
 defective in two ways. In the first place, while for a 
 supposed external observer the existence of a non-Ego 
 might furnish explanation of what presents itself in the 
 consciousness of the subject that is to say, of the limita- 
 tion of the subject no such explanation is possible for 
 the subject himself. That he should be limited may 
 possibly result from the existence of a non-Ego ; that he 
 should know himself && limited cannot be explained from 
 the existence of the non-Ego simply. In the second 
 place, the assumed non-Ego is for the thinking subject 
 non-existent : no possible predicate can, by the subject, 
 be attached to it which does not imply reference to the 
 subject, and therefore relative, dependent existence. 
 
 1 Berkeley, as Fichte rightly notes, is ^.dogmatist; but some phases 
 of his speculation, and much of the philosophy -which has rested itself 
 on Berkeley, may be regarded as idealist. Fichte himself does not, 
 in this reference, adduce Leibnitz as the type of idealism, and there 
 are certainly elements in Leibnitz which might lead one to class him 
 otherwise.
 
 123 Fichte. 
 
 The non-Ego, as such, as thing-in-itself, is not in con- 
 sciousness, and is, for the Ego, nothing. 
 
 Dogmatism thus furnishes no explanation. The op- 
 posed principle, that of idealism pure and simple, has at 
 least one superiority : it selects, as ground of explana- 
 tion, what is unquestionably in consciousness. The Ego, 
 or subject, is known to be. But when the Ego, or subject, 
 is taken per se, and the attempt is made to deduce 
 from it the multiplicity of experience, we find a hiatus 
 which is absolutely impassable, unless our method is at 
 once guarded and comprehensive. An imperfect or half- 
 understood idealism regards the Ego as merely subject, 
 and is thus driven to the conception of self-consciousness 
 as somehow one of the facts discoverable in intelligence. 
 In this case, while it may be possible to explain that the 
 Ego should know itself as limited, it is quite impossible 
 to explain how it should know itself as limited by the 
 non-Ego. As Fichte rightly puts it, " In vain shall we 
 look for a link of connection between subject and object, 
 if they are not first and simply apprehended as a unity. 
 
 . . The Ego is not to be regarded as subject merely, 
 but as at once subject and object." l 
 
 If we translate Fichte's reasoning regarding idealism 
 into other terms, it might be expressed thus. Idealist 
 speculation has sought the ground of explanation in con- 
 sciousness, in that which is immediately and directly 
 known to us. But in so doing, it has followed the same 
 method which, when dealing with the thing-in-itself, 
 gave rise to dogmatism. It has regarded consciousness 
 as merely so much to be known, as a series of states, 
 Vorstellungen, from which nothing can possibly be ex- 
 1 " Versuch einer neuen Darstellung," ' Werke,' vol. i. pp. 528, 529.
 
 Dogmatism and Idealism. 129 
 
 tracted. It has not considered how consciousness comes 
 to be, what conditions are necessarily implied in its ex- 
 istence, what are the laws under which it acts. Thus 
 idealism drifts easily into a kind of psychological doc- 
 trine (as in Schmid, and later in Fries), or results in a 
 sceptical phenomenalism (as in Maimon and in Hume). 1 
 Only one idealist system has really gone to the heart of 
 the problem, and fairly considered how it is that, in con- 
 sciousness, there appears the opposition between Ego and 
 non-Ego ; for only one philosophy has seized the principle 
 that consciousness or intelligence as a whole is condi- 
 tioned by self-consciousness, and that the laws under 
 which self-consciousness are realised are at once the form 
 and matter of intelligence. This is the critical or tran- 
 scendental idealism of Kant, a system imperfect in 
 details, easily misunderstood, and requiring to be remod- 
 elled or restated before it can be made to yield ade- 
 quate solution of the speculative problem. 
 
 Thus for Fichte there are historically but two reasoned 
 systems of philosophy that of Spinoza and that of 
 Kant. The one is dogmatic, that is, it neglects to give 
 due weight to the principle of self - consciousness, and 
 hence endeavours to explain existence by a notion which 
 is limited, and applicable only within the experience of 
 a self-conscious subject. The other is critical, that is, 
 it recognises the great truth that all consciousness is de- 
 termined by self-consciousness, and so acknowledges the 
 due limits of thought If we were to express in a single 
 
 1 It is not a little remarkable how slight appears to have been Fichte's 
 acquaintance with Hume's writings. Scepticism, as a whole, indeed, 
 plays but a small part in his system of thinking, and is generally dis- 
 missed with a species of contempt. Cf. ' Werke,' vol. i. p. 120 n. 
 P. IV. I
 
 130 FichU. 
 
 word the characteristic feature of Fichte's system, we 
 should describe it as " Spinoza in terms of Kant." That 
 which was wanting in the critical philosophy, systematic 
 development, is predominant in Spinoza; and, as will 
 be seen, the theoretical part of the Wissenschaftslehre 
 is nothing but an inverted or idealistic Spinozism. It 
 has often been said that the influence of Spinoza over 
 the course of Fichte's speculation became more signifi- 
 cant in the second period of his literary activity; but 
 even were this the case, one must not forget that in the 
 earliest expositions of "Wissenschaftslehre, comparison 
 with Spinoza, and recognition of similarity with his 
 thoughts, appear throughout. To understand the sub- 
 stance of Fichte's speculation, some note must be taken 
 of these historical antecedents. 
 
 2. HISTORICAL ANTECEDENTS: SPINOZA AND KANT. 
 
 To any one acquainted with Spinoza's system, Fichte's 
 description of it as essentially " dogmatic " must at first 
 appear erroneous; for by a dogmatic system Fichte under- 
 stands one which deduces the order of conscious experi- 
 ence from a supposed order of things, and it needs but 
 slight knowledge of Spinoza to be aware that for him 
 any implied contrast or relation between the order of 
 ideas and the order of things has no place. It is neces- 
 sary, however, to pass beyond the mere verbal definition 
 of dogmatism on the one hand, and the mere state- 
 ment of Spinoza's opinion on the other, if we are to 
 discuss fairly the relation between them. That which 
 characterises dogmatism as a philosophical method is 
 not simply the distinction between ideas and things, but 
 the nature of the notion or category by means of which
 
 Historical Antecedents. 131 
 
 either ideas or things are made comprehensible. In all 
 cases of explanation, we find, as the residuum of analysis, 
 some fundamental relation or thought by means of which 
 the facts involved have become for us intelligible. Thus 
 the notion or relation of cause is involved in all explana- 
 tions of physical change, and itself requires to be criti- 
 cally analysed in order that we may see what assumptions 
 or underlying notions are implied in it. Now the notion 
 which dogmatism applies to explanation of experience 
 is briefly that of mutual determination, what Kant 
 called the category of Eeciprocity. Each thing, or part 
 of real experience, has its definite character by and through 
 its relations to all other things. It is determined to be 
 what it is, by virtue of the determinations of other things. 
 A notion or category of this kind is evidently highly 
 complex; and, indeed, as one might conjecture, it may 
 be applied with much variety of signification. It may 
 remain a purely mechanical category, implying only ex- 
 ternal relations of the things which compose a collec- 
 tive or aggregate whole ; or it may be elevated so as to 
 become the idea of a systematic whole, in which the rela- 
 tions of the parts are not mechanical. 1 The first signifi- 
 cance, however, is that which characterises the use of the 
 notion in the dogmatic method. For here things and 
 ideas are regarded as alike in one respect, as being alike 
 finite objects of possible cognition. Each external thing, 
 each idea, is finite in its kind i.e., is capable of being 
 limited, determined by another. Through this limitation 
 by others, each has its definite being. It matters not, 
 then, whether we regard things and ideas as composing 
 
 1 The double significance of this category is very apparent in the 
 Kantian system.
 
 132 FicMe. 
 
 two orders, of which one is cause, the other effect, or assert 
 that things and ideas are both the same, looked at from 
 different points of view ; in either case we subject the 
 facts to the same mode of explanation, regard each as 
 a unit, marked off from others, and with only external 
 relations to them, and explain the special characteristics 
 of each as depending on the coexistence of all the 
 others. 
 
 JSTow this notion of reciprocity or mutual determina- 
 tion is fundamental in Spinoza, and is that by which 
 his system has gained its greatest influence over modern 
 thought. It is true that it is not the only notion used 
 by Spinoza, in fact, the difficulties, even incomprehen- 
 sibilities, of his metaphysics arise mainly from the con- 
 junction of the notion of mutual determination with 
 that of substance, but it is a thought which is involved 
 in scientific procedure as such, and through it Spinoza 
 has been brought into the closest relations with modern 
 scientific work. The phrases, more or less commonplace, 
 by which the systematic unity of things is expressed, 
 such as, the order and uniformity of nature, the preva- 
 lence of law, are merely expressions of what is contained 
 in this notion of reciprocity. It is evident, further, 
 that if we apply this notion to the explanation of expe- 
 rience, we must regard self-consciousness, the essence of 
 the thinking subject, as merely one phenomenon, or state, 
 or thing, determined by relations to other phenomena, 
 and assume that these relations are of an external kind. 
 Thus, for Spinoza, the peculiarity of self-consciousness 
 vanishes ; and even if we interpret liberally the obscure 
 propositions ('Ethics,' ii. Props. 21 et seq.) in which the 
 Idea Mentis is treated, it is evident that self-conscious-
 
 Spinoza. 133 
 
 ness, as understood by him, is referred to that which 
 lies outside of it and therefore mechanically deter- 
 mines it. 
 
 Fichte's criticism of this dogmatic method is in form 
 and spirit identical with the later and more famous 
 expression of Hegel. He has to point out that Spinoza 
 omits altogether criticism of the notion of mutual deter- 
 mination that is to say, omits to examine the nature and 
 validity of the notion for our thinking. Had such criti- 
 cism been undertaken, it would have become apparent 
 that a category like reciprocity is entirely inadequate to 
 express the relation of self-consciousness and the expe- 
 rience to which it is related ; that substance and mode, 
 Spinoza's supreme forms, are limited in their nature ; 
 and that there is no philosophic ground for procedure 
 beyond self - consciousness. While signalising these 
 faults, Fichte nevertheless recognises the high ideal of 
 speculation which is disclosed in Spinoza's ' Ethics,' and 
 draws largely on the Spinozistic method. Many of his 
 fundamental principles, both in the earlier and the later 
 periods of his thinking, are in form and matter identical 
 with those of the ' Ethics.' There is no sufficient 
 ground for asserting, as many writers have done, that the 
 influence of Spinoza over Fichte increased, and that in 
 the final period of the latter's philosophising his exposi- 
 tion is merely a mystical Spinozism. No closer connec- 
 tion is possible than that between the theoretical portion 
 of the ' Wissenschaftslehre ' and the principles of Spi- 
 noza. The later works accentuate somewhat the reli- 
 gious aspect of the theory of knowledge, but imply no 
 other theory ; and however close in forms of expression 
 the religious doctrines of the two thinkers may be s the
 
 134 Fickle. 
 
 radical opposition in their point of view is not to be 
 forgotten. 
 
 This radical opposition in point of view was the 
 natural and inevitable consequence of the critical philo- 
 sophy. To understand the specific problems presented 
 to Fichte, it is necessary to note with some care what 
 the Kantian system had completed, and what it had left 
 undone. 
 
 To Kant the problem of philosophy in general had 
 presented itself under special aspects determined by his- 
 torical circumstances, in the main, however, under the 
 aspect of a question as to the possibility of knowledge. 
 This question he for the first time proposed to treat in 
 its wider issues, as independent of psychology and of 
 metaphysical assumptions. Beyond all doubt it was not 
 given to Kant, it is given to no thinker, to free him- 
 self entirely from the notions and phraseology current at 
 the time ; and so it has come about that the ' Critique of 
 Pure Reason,' the work in which the dogmatic method of 
 English philosophy and of Leibnitz was first subjected 
 to examination, shows in many of its main doctrines un- 
 mistakable traces of the method against which it was 
 directed. Thus, while Kant is making clear, on the one 
 hand, that knowledge, for the self-conscious subject, can- 
 not be explained by reference to a world of things 
 thought as out of connection with self-consciousness, he 
 still allows himself ambiguities of speech which might 
 be interpreted to mean that the special content of know- 
 ledge, the matter, is explicable by reference to such 
 things ; and while he makes clear, on the other hand, 
 that the conception of a mere stream of conscious states, 
 as the phenomena of an individual subject, is in itself
 
 Kant. 135 
 
 contradictory and absurd, he yet draws distinctions 
 which might be taken to imply that the difference of 
 subjective and objective in knowledge is one of kind, 
 and not a subordinate form to be explained under the 
 more comprehensive synthesis with which he started. 
 
 If, then, it be considered what was for Kant the fun- 
 damental principle of philosophical method, and how far 
 the actual results of his system correspond with the 
 requirements of the method, a summary view of the 
 problems left for solution to the post-Kantian writers 
 may readily be obtained. Now the fundamental prin- 
 ciple, disguised under many strange fashions of speech in 
 the ' Critique of Pure Eeason,' is that already described 
 as the principle of self-consciousness. All knowledge, 
 all experience, is only for a self-conscious subject. Such 
 a subject is not to be regarded as an individual, for the 
 notion of individuality implies relations of a complex 
 and quite distinct kind. It is the common element in 
 all consciousness, that by which consciousness is what 
 it is. If, therefore, the explanation of experience be 
 proposed as the problem of philosophy, the method of 
 procedure may be either an investigation of the idea 
 of self-consciousness, the determination of the conditions 
 under which it is possible, and the evolution in strict 
 sequence of the elements which are embraced in it ; or 
 by an analysis of knowledge, of experience, as it pre- 
 sents itself in ordinary, empirical consciousness, and the 
 determination of the features in it due to the presence 
 of this central unity. The second method was that 
 adopted by Kant, and the result has been somewhat un- 
 fortunate. For, in consequence of the method adopted, 
 the several elements composing knowledge were dis-
 
 136 Flchte. 
 
 cussed in isolation from one another and from their central 
 unity, and were thus, almost of necessity, viewed not as 
 elements in a synthesis, which have no existence save in 
 and through their combination, but as independent parts 
 of an integral or collective whole. Thus, in the ' Critique 
 of Pure Reason,' the problem is stated in an ambiguous 
 and confusing way; and in the ' ./Esthetik,' more particu- 
 larly, the central point of view is lost sight of in a quite 
 subordinate issue. Knowledge, Kant sees clearly enough, 
 is possible only as a synthetic combination in the unity 
 of self-consciousness. The conditions or forms of such 
 combination determine experience, or give general laws 
 to it, but such determination is merely formal Xo- 
 thing can be presented in self-consciousness which contra- 
 dicts or is out of harmony with these conditions, but the 
 specific determination of this matter of knowledge is not 
 to be deduced from the conditions themselves. Upon 
 this view of the purely formal or logical function of the 
 unity of thought rest the Kantian distinctions of the a 
 priori and a posteriori elements in cognition, of form and 
 matter, of sense and understanding, of empirical and 
 transcendent reality, of phenomena and noumena. So 
 far, then, as theory of knowledge goes, Kant, while bring- 
 ing into the foreground the very first principle of cognition, 
 fails to connect therewith the subordinate forms. Space 
 and Time are shown, on special grounds, not to be expli- 
 cable by reference to external things or to states of sub- 
 jective experience, but they are placed in no intimate 
 relation to the unity of self-consciousness. The conscious 
 subject is receptive, and, if receptive, only under the pure 
 forms of space and time. But how or why a self-con- 
 scious subject should appear to itself receptive ; how or
 
 Kant. 137 
 
 wliy, if receptive, it should be so in the forms of space and 
 time, are questions entirely unresolved. So when Kant 
 undertakes the discussion of the key-stone to his posi- 
 tion, the deduction of the categories or exposition of the 
 forms of combination which make up the nature of the 
 thinking subject, his procedure is equally external and 
 haphazard. It is certainly shown that categories are 
 implied in self-consciousness, but how or why they 
 should be so implied how or why there should be so 
 many of them and no more how they are connected 
 with one another and form a system in human know- 
 ledge, these questions, likewise, are left unsolved. 
 Further, when the categories, having been deduced as 
 the forms of the activity of the synthetic Ego, are 
 brought into relation with the forms of receptivity, the 
 results, though rich in consequences, leave much to be 
 desired. The fusion into the unity of knowledge is a 
 merely mechanical one. Categories as modes of under- 
 standing, schemata as modes of productive imagination, 
 data of sense as modes of affection, are linked together, 
 and appear to have a nature and existence independently 
 of one another, and of the synthesis in which they are 
 combined. The final result the world of sense-expe- 
 rience determined throughout by intelligence, but in 
 itself an empirically endless series of finite, limited 
 objects is not one which can satisfy the demand for 
 unity of cognition. The constant striving to transcend 
 the limits of this world of experience, to reach the final 
 synthesis in which its relation to self-consciousness shall 
 be deduced, is what Kant calls Eeason. So far as cog- 
 nition is concerned, the one result of reason is the 
 empty notion of the thing in itself, a notion which,
 
 138 McUe. 
 
 unfortunately, was by Kant so expressed, and by the 
 Kantians so understood, as to imply much of the old 
 dogmatic theory which it had been the business of the 
 ' Critique ' to explode. Kant, however, is not to be 
 credited with all that has been drawn from his specula- 
 tions by writers who had never grasped his fundamental 
 principle. For him, the thing in itself, the expression 
 of the infinite striving of self-consciousness, is discover- 
 able only in self-consciousness, as its absolute law. The 
 statement of this absolute law is certainly approached by 
 Kant from the empirical point of view or by an analytic 
 method, and the position assigned by him to the cate- 
 gorical imperative seems at first sight to sunder Reason 
 entirely from the world of experience. Nothing, indeed, 
 can make the Kantian moral theory perfectly coherent ; 
 but, with especial reference to Fichte and the later 
 German philosophy, it must be stated with perhaps un- 
 necessary definiteness, that only in the categorical imper- 
 ative does the notion of the thing-in-itself hold any posi- 
 tion as a reality in the Kantian metaphysics. 1 The final 
 synthesis, so far as it was attempted by Kant, appears 
 only in the ' Critique of Judgment,' in which, by means 
 of the notion of End, a reconciliation is sought between 
 
 1 It is much to be regretted that, almost without exception, the 
 best English expositions of Kant restrict themselves to an account of 
 the ' Critique of Pure Reason.' Nothing but error and confusion can 
 result from this arbitrary limitation. It is much as though one were 
 to treat only the theoretical portion of ' Wissenschaftslehre,' and 
 leave untouched the fundamental problems of the practical side. That 
 the Kantian theory appeared in three separate books, is no reason 
 why we shcmld treat it as three separate theories. The ' Critique of 
 Practical Reason,' moreover, though simple enough in its details, 
 stands more in need of elucidation and commentary, so far as its 
 principle is concerned, than the ' Critique of Pure Reason.'
 
 Kant. 139 
 
 the intelligible or moral world, the realm of things-in- 
 themselves, and the world of experience, of phenomena. 
 The ethical idealism with which the Kantian theory 
 closes, comes nearer to the Fichtian position than can be 
 made apparent without more lengthy analysis of Kant 
 than is here possible ; but even in it we find the same 
 tendency to separation which is the harassing feature of all 
 the Kantian work. Fichte, it must be held, was justified 
 in his constant complaint that in Kant there were really 
 three theories which are never amalgamated. " Kant," 
 he remarks in an instructive passage in the ' Nachgelas- 
 sene Werke,' " had three absolutes. . . . In the ' Critique 
 of Pure Eeason,' sense-experience was for him the abso- 
 lute ( = x) ; and in regard to the ideas, the higher, intel- 
 ligible world, he expressed himself in a most depreciatory 
 fashion. From his earlier works, and from hints in the 
 ' Critique ' itself, it may certainly be inferred that he 
 would not have halted at that position ; but I will engage 
 to show that these hints are mere inconsequences of 
 reasoning, for if his principles were consistently followed 
 out, the supersensible world must vanish entirely, and 
 as the only noumenon there would remain that which 
 is to be realised in experience. . . . The loftier moral 
 nature of the man corrected his philosophical error, and 
 so appeared the ' Critique of Practical Eeason.' In it 
 was manifested the categorical notion of the Ego as 
 something in itself, which could never have appeared in 
 the ' Critique of Pure Reason ; ' we have thus a second 
 absolute, a moral world ( = z). But all the phenomena 
 of human nature were not thereby explained. The rela- 
 tions of the beautiful, of the sublime, and of end in 
 nature, which palpably were neither theoretical nor
 
 HO Fichte. 
 
 moral notions, yet remained. Moreover, what is of much 
 greater importance, the empirical world was now absorbed 
 in the moral world, as a world in itself, a just retribu- 
 tion, as it were, for the first victory of the empirical 
 There appeared, then, the ' Critique of Judgment,' in 
 the introduction to which the most remarkable portion 
 of that remarkable work it was acknowledged that the 
 supersensible and the sensible worlds must have some 
 common though undiscoverable root, which root is the 
 third absolute ( = ?/). I sav a third, separate from the 
 two preceding and independent, although giving unity 
 to them ; and in this I do Kant no wrong, For if this 
 y is undiscoverable, it may contain the other two ; but 
 we cannot comprehend how it does so, or deduce them 
 from it. If, on the other hand, it is to be comprehended, 
 it must be comprehended as absolute ; and there remain, 
 as before, three absolutes." l 
 
 The Kantian philosophy, while definitely formulating 
 the first principle of speculation, thus left unsolved a 
 Avhole series of problems, all of them arising in connec- 
 tion with one line of thought, and furnishing the mate- 
 rial for later efforts at systematic development of the 
 principle from which it started. With more or less 
 clearness the thinkers who immediately followed Kant 
 undertook the solution of these problems, and their work 
 to a large extent determined the character of the Fichtean 
 system, and was incorporated into it Thus Reinhold's 
 constant demand for unity of principle is recognised by 
 Fichte as an attempt in the right direction, though 
 the principle selected by him, that of representation 
 
 1 ' Nachgelassene Werke,' vol. ii. pp. 102-104. See also ' Leben und 
 Briefwechsel,' vol. ii. p. 177.
 
 Kant. 141 
 
 ( Vorstellung) as the fundamental fact of consciousness, 
 was incapable of yielding any result more satisfactory 
 than had been presented in the Kantian philosophy. 
 Eeinhold evidently felt the difficulty of bringing subject 
 and object into any connection whatsoever, if they were 
 assumed as originally distinct. He therefore proposed 
 to select as starting-point the existence of the conscious 
 state or representation, in which subject and object are 
 contained as factors, and endeavoured by analysis of this 
 fact to deduce the several doctrines which in a less co- 
 herent form had been brought forward by Kant. Eut 
 in the first place, as Fichte points out in the ' Review of 
 ^Enesidemus,' l the primary datum of philosophical con- 
 struction cannot be a fact or representation, but must 
 be the simple and original activity by which the fact or 
 representation comes to be; and in the second place, 
 as had been made quite apparent by the sceptical cri- 
 ticism of ' ^Enesidemus ' (Schulze), the idea of Vorstel- 
 lung involved that doctrine which above all others was 
 a stumbling-block to the Kantians, the doctrine that 
 the matter or definite content of Vorstellung was deter- 
 mined ab extra, by things-in-themselves. So, too, Beck's 
 acute restatement of the Kantian theory had brought 
 into the clearest light the gross misconceptions which 
 might readily arise from Kant's mode of stating his 
 doctrines. To many of the Kantians, indeed, the theory 
 of the a priori character of the forms of perception and 
 thought had been nothing but a revival, in the crudest 
 sense, of the old doctrine of innate ideas. To them 
 Kant's idea of self-consciousness, as conditioning know- 
 ledge, had meant that the individual subject was some- 
 i ' Werke,' vol. i. p. 9. Cf. vol. i. p. 468.
 
 142 Fichte. 
 
 how acted upon by things, and that in consequence of 
 the a priori or innate mechanism of consciousness, the 
 effects of such action took of necessity the forms of 
 space and time and the categories. Beck's admirable 
 discussion of the Kantian distinctions between analytic 
 and synthetic judgments, synthetic a priori and syn- 
 thetic a posteriori truths, intuition and thought, pheno- 
 mena and things-in-themselves, sufficiently shoAved that 
 these were but excrescences on the Kantian doctrine, 
 merely temporary expedients for bringing the real prob- 
 lems into light ; Avhile the definiteness with which he 
 expressed the cardinal doctrine of Kant's theory, the 
 original synthetic unity of self-consciousness, threw light 
 on all the subordinate points. 1 At the same time, Beck 
 advanced no sufficient grounds for the original posit- 
 ing of the object, which according to him is the very 
 essence of the activity of self -consciousness. His the- 
 ory failed to explain how and why it is that for the sub- 
 ject there is necessarily the object, the non-Ego. It 
 left still in isolation the separate elements which had 
 been thrown together by Kant. Finally, the acute criti- 
 cisms of Maimon, for whose talent Fichte expresses un- 
 bounded admiration, had shown to demonstration how 
 utterly inconsistent with the genuine Kantian doctrine 
 was the commonly received view of the thing-in-itself. 
 He too, however, misconceived Kant's idea of self- 
 consciousness, found himself perplexed by the problem 
 of the relation between the categories or forms of thought 
 
 1 Beck's ' Einzig-moglicher Standpunckt ' (Riga, 1796), though not 
 written with much skill, is yet one of the best and most instructive 
 commentaries on the 'Kritik,' and should be neglected by'no student 
 of Kant.
 
 Kant. 143 
 
 and the given matter of sense, proceeded to accept ex- 
 perience as consisting of a given series of phenomenal 
 states, with the attributes of space and tune, rejected 
 therefore all a priori truths except the mathematical 
 or quantitative, and thus left untouched the deeper 
 problems raised by the ' Kritik.' 
 
 The way had thus been prepared for Fichte's endeav- 
 our to take up in a comprehensive fashion the speculative 
 question as it had been formulated by Kant, and to work 
 into an organic whole what had been left by Kant in a 
 fragmentary form. The artificial and sometimes forced 
 fashion in which the ' Wissenschaf tslehre ' at first pro- 
 ceeded must not disguise from us the genuine nature of 
 the task Fichte had set before him, or the principle 
 which underlies it. Firm adherence to the idea of the 
 transcendental method ; determination to accept nothing, 
 whether as fact, law, or notion, which is not deducible 
 from self -consciousness and its necessary conditions, 
 such is the spirit of the Fichtean philosophy, and from 
 it follows the demand for systematic unity of conception, 
 for a single principle out of which the multiplicity of 
 experience may be deduced, and therefore for a single, 
 all-embracing philosophical science. It is this very con- 
 sistency which renders the detailed study of the Fichtean 
 system a matter of so much difficulty, for if the funda- 
 mental idea be not grasped, and as Fichte truly says, 
 his philosophy is either to be mastered at a stroke or not 
 at all, little or none of the help which even Kant 
 affords is extended to the student. The familiar psycho- 
 logical distinctions which furnish natural divisions in 
 the Kantian theory of knowledge, are entirely want- 
 ing in the 'Wissenschaf tslehre.' Sense, understanding,
 
 144 Fichte. 
 
 reason, are not assumed as rubrics under which special 
 kinds of knowledge may be arranged, but are regarded 
 as specific modes in the development or realisation of 
 self-consciousness, and appear in their determined posi- 
 tion in the series of necessary acts by which self-con- 
 sciousness is realised. The notions by which popular or 
 unphilosophical thinking manages to explain to itself 
 the nature of things e.g., the notion of cause by which 
 we think the relation of objects to the variable contents 
 of our representations are not accepted or permitted to 
 pass until they have been deduced, or shown to arise in 
 the development of the necessary conditions of self- 
 consciousness. The Kantian categories, the anoma- 
 lous position of which had given occasion to grave mis- 
 understanding of the very meaning of the system, are 
 not in any way assiimed as pre-existing forms into which 
 matter falls ; but object as formed by the category, and 
 category as form of the object, are deduced together. 
 
 If Wissenschaftslehre is to accomplish its object 
 the systematic evolution of all that enters into conscious- 
 ness its starting-point must be found in that which 
 renders any consciousness or knowledge possible. Such 
 starting-point, by its very nature, cannot be a demon- 
 strable fact, nor can it be comprehended in strict logical 
 fashion, that is, brought under a notion. All certainty 
 rests ultimately on immediate evidence or intuition. The 
 first condition, therefore, of consciousness, must be real- 
 ised by us in the form of intuition. But the said first 
 condition of consciousness is manifestly the conscious- 
 ness of self. "Along with whatever any intelligence 
 knows," says Terrier, whose statement may here be ac- 
 cepted in place of any more elaborate treatment, " it must,
 
 His Starting Point. 145 
 
 as the ground or condition of its knowledge, have some 
 cognisance of itself." To the speculative inquirer, en- 
 deavouring to reconstruct that which is immediately 
 given in experience, the first and common ground for all 
 experience is the result of that act whereby the Ego or 
 self becomes an Ego or self. Of the necessary impli- 
 cations of this fundamental activity and its product, 
 nothing requires at first to be said ; philosophy is simply 
 the attempt to give a systematic and complete account of 
 them. But no philosophy can transcend the fact ; and 
 any problem referring to that which is absolutely dis- 
 severed from the result of the fact, must be dismissed as 
 in terms contradictory and absurd. To ask, for example, 
 whether the activity by which the Ego becomes an Ego 
 does not presuppose the prior existence, in reality, in 
 an objective fashion, of the Ego, is merely to make the 
 "wonderful assumption that the Ego is something dif- 
 ferent from its own consciousness of itself, and that 
 something, heaven knows what, lying beyond this con- 
 sciousness, is the foundation of it," l and to introduce 
 notions of a complex and hypothetical character, such as 
 existence and time, into the explanation of that with 
 reference to which only have such notions significance. 
 Doubtless, to the popular consciousness, thought presents 
 itself as merely one, and probably one of the least im- 
 portant, of the facts of experience, as arising from and 
 dependent on the nature of things. But philosophy and 
 popular thinking move on different platforms, and most 
 of the gravest errors in speculation arise from the trans- 
 ference of considerations which are in due place in one 
 of them into the other, where they are absolute absurdi- 
 
 i ' Werke,' vol. i. p. 460. 
 r. iv. K
 
 146 Fichte. 
 
 ties. The philosophical construction of the world of 
 experience is not to be confused with the world of expe- 
 rience itself, nor is it to be taken as a natural i.e., psy- 
 chological history of the development of the individual 
 mind. 1 If in the development of the necessary condi- 
 tions of self-consciousness, it is shown how the notion 
 of a non-Ego arises, if feeling and representation are 
 deduced, it is not to be supposed that by such process 
 of deduction these, as facts of experience, are produced. 
 Production and genetic construction of the contents of 
 consciousness are totally distinct. Life, as Fichte puts it, 
 is non-philosophising, and philosophy is non-living. 
 
 The intuition of the activity, whose product is the 
 reflex act of consciousness an activity the exact nature 
 of which will presently be considered Fichte calls in- 
 tellectual intuition. The name is unfortunate, both as 
 regards his predecessor Kant, and as regards his suc- 
 cessor Schelling, for, in their systems, the same term is 
 employed to denote two quite diverse facts. In the 
 critical philosophy, intellectual intuition was used to 
 indicate the supposed mode of consciousness by which a 
 knowledge of things-in-themselves might be obtained, 
 and was therefore regarded as contradictory of the very 
 principles of the system. Fichte has little difficulty in 
 showing that, so far as this meaning of the term is con- 
 cerned, there is no difference of opinion between Kant 
 and himself ; but he, at the same time, points out that 
 the whole critical analysis rested upon the fact of the 
 unity of consciousness (or, as Kant called it, the unity 
 of apperception), and that for this unity no name was 
 so appropriate as that of intellectual intuition. On the 
 * ' Werke,' vol. i. pp. 397-399. Cf. vol. v. pp. 333 et seq.
 
 Intellectual Intuition. 147 
 
 other hand, in Schelling's system, intellectual intui- 
 tion was employed to denote the consciousness of the 
 absolute, of the identity between subject and object; 
 and, in so far, there is a certain resemblance between 
 his use of the term and that of Fichte. There was, 
 however, a fundamental difference between the two 
 thinkers in regard to this identity of subject and object ; 
 and in his later writings, Fichte, to emphasise his oppo- 
 sition to Schelling, generally employed the expression, 
 free activity, to denote the fundamental act and product 
 of the Ego. 
 
 In calling the consciousness of the fundamental activ- 
 ity of the Ego intuition, Fichte had a twofold object. 
 He desired to bring into prominence the fact that he is 
 not starting with any abstract notion, but with the activ- 
 ity of the Ego an activity not to be designated thought, 
 or will, or by any other complex, and therefore mislead- 
 ing, term ; and further, to indicate from the outset what 
 was the peculiar nature of the general method of Wissen- 
 schaftslehre. For an intuition is never a datum which is 
 simply received in experience. It is invariably the pro- 
 duct of a constructive act The intuition of a triangle, for 
 example, is the consciousness of a definite and necessarily 
 determined procedure of construction within the limita- 
 tions of space; and in this process of construction we see 
 intuitively the connection of the elements, we see how 
 each subsequent portion of the construction is determined 
 by what has preceded ; and as the process is general, 
 determined only by the conditions of space, Ave are at the 
 same time aware of the generality of the result. Intuitive 
 knowledge, therefore, is genetic, and Wissenschaftslehre, 
 the systematic consciousness of what is contained in the
 
 148 Fichte. 
 
 fundamental intellectual intuition, must likewise be 
 genetic in method. Wissenschaftslehre will show " that 
 the fundamental proposition, posited and immediately 
 known as existent in consciousness, is impossible unless 
 under a further condition, and that this further condi- 
 tion is likewise impossible unless a third be added, 
 until the conditions of the first are completely devel- 
 oped, and the possibility of the same completely com- 
 prehended." 1 It will "construct the whole common 
 consciousness of all rational beings in its fundamental 
 characteristics, with pure a priori evidence, just as geom- 
 etry constructs, with pure a priori evidence, the general 
 modes of limitation of space by all rational beings. It 
 starts from the simplest and most characteristic quality 
 of self-consciousness, the intuition of the Ego, 2 and, under 
 the assumption that the completely qualified self-con- 
 sciousness is the final result of all the other qualifica- 
 tions of consciousness, proceeds until this is thoroughly 
 deduced. To each link in the chain of these qualifica- 
 tions a new one is added, and it is clear, in the direct 
 intuition of them, that the same addition must take place 
 in the consciousness of every rational being. Call the 
 Ego A. Then, in the intuition of the construction of 
 A, it is seen that B is inseparably connected with it. 
 In the intuition of the construction of B, it is equally 
 clear that C is an inseparable link, and so on, till we 
 reach the final member of A, completed self -conscious- 
 ness, which manifests itself as complete and perfect." 8 
 
 1 '\Verke,'vol. i. p. 446. 
 
 2 Fichte's expression, Anschaung der Ich-heil, is more exact, but, 
 I think, untranslatable into English. 
 
 ' Werke,' vol. ii. pp. 379, 380.
 
 Completed Self -consciousness. 149 
 
 No commentary upon these passages seems necessary, 
 save perhaps on the expression, " completed self -con- 
 sciousness," of which, indeed, the system itself is the best 
 explanation. On both sides, this notion of completed 
 self -consciousness requires to be guarded or defined with 
 regard to its essence as seZf-consciousness, and with re- 
 gard to its completion. To popular thinking, self-con- 
 sciousness is identical with individuality, with the 
 knowledge of self as a personal, active being, related to 
 others, and to a universe of things. But it is at once 
 evident that knowledge of individuality in this sense is a 
 complex fact, and a fact of which the ground or possi- 
 bility must be sought in the original act whereby the 
 subject is conscious at alL " The Ego of real conscious- 
 ness is always particular, and isolated : it is a person 
 among other persons, each of whom describes himself as 
 an Ego ; and Wissenschaftslehre must develop up to the 
 point at which such consciousness is explained. Totally 
 distinct from this is the Ego from which Wissenschafts- 
 lehre starts ; for this is nothing but the identity of the 
 conscious subject with that of which it is conscious. 
 Abstraction from all else that is contained in personal- 
 ity is necessary in order to attain this point of view." * 
 Self-consciousness, in fact, is the common element in all 
 knowledge and action, and therefore cannot in itself con- 
 tain that which is special and particular to the individ- 
 ual It is the ground of individuality ; for without it 
 there could not possibly be the developed, concrete con- 
 sciousness of personality ; but as ground, it is distinct 
 from that which is conditioned by it. We may call it, 
 if we choose, the pure Ego, or form of the Ego, Fichte, 
 i ' Werke,' vol. ii. p. 382. Cf. ' Briefwechsel,' p. 166.
 
 150 Fichte. 
 
 as above noted, occasionally employs the untranslatable 
 term Icli-heit, but under whatever fashion of speech, 
 we have to recognise in it the indispensable condition 
 of all consciousness. Intellectual intuition lies at the 
 basis of all more developed modes of mental action. 
 
 What, then, is to be understood by completed self- 
 consciousness 1 Evidently, the realisation in conscious- 
 ness of all that can be shown to be necessarily implied 
 or involved in intellectual intuition as such. For it may 
 very well happen that the peculiar activity of the Ego, in 
 becoming conscious of itself, implies a number of inter- 
 mediate stages, such, for instance, as the definite sepa- 
 ration of subject and object, self and not-self ; the definite 
 representation of each of these under special forms ; the 
 recognition of a plurality of individual active beings, with 
 rights and duties ; and all of these may speculatively be 
 exhibited as following from, and dependent on, self-con- 
 sciousness itself. In that case, completed self-conscious- 
 ness would mean, not simply the abstract moment of 
 self-identity, but the consciousness to which the indi- 
 vidual may arrive, that he occupies a place in an ideal 
 system of conscious beings, in an ideal order ; that his 
 finite existence is to be regarded as the continuous effort 
 to realise what is implied in that position ; and thus, 
 that his individuality is lost or absorbed in the univer- 
 sal, rational order. All knowledge and the varied forms 
 of law, of state mechanism, of moral duties, of religious 
 beliefs, would thus appear to consciousness as necessary 
 elements of the scheme or plan of the ideal world ; and 
 the consciousness of this ideal system, which it is the 
 business of speculative philosophy to describe, would be 
 completed self-consciousness. This is, in substance, the
 
 The Ego as Idea. 151 
 
 distinction which Fichte indicates between the Ego as 
 intellectual intuition, and the Ego as idea, " The idea 
 of the Ego has only this in common with the Ego as in- 
 tuition, that in both the Ego is thought as not individ- 
 ual, in the latter, because the form of the Ego is not 
 yet denned to the point of individuality ; in the former, 
 conversely, because the individual is lost in thought and 
 action according to universal laws. The two are opposed 
 in this, that in the Ego as intuition only the form of the 
 Ego is to be found, and no reference can be made to any 
 special matter, which indeed becomes conceivable only 
 when the thought of a world arises in the Ego while, on 
 the other hand, in the Ego as idea, the whole matter of 
 the Ego is thought. From the first, speculative cognition 
 proceeds, and to the latter it tends : only in the practical 
 sphere can the idea be posited as the ultimate goal of 
 the efforts of reason. The first is original intuition, 
 and becomes for us, when treated by thought, a notion 
 (Begriff) : the latter is idea only ; it cannot be thought 
 in a determinate fashion ; it can never exist realiter, but 
 we must continuously approximate to it." l It need not 
 surprise us that Fichte, at this period of his philosophical 
 reflection, should frequently use the term God as equiva- 
 lent to the pure Ego, regarded as idea. Such a doctrine 
 can appear startling only if we identify self-consciousness 
 with individuality, and if we fail to see that were God 
 not involved in self-consciousness, His existence must be 
 for ever contingent or unnecessary for thought. We have 
 here one of the points on which it is instructive to 
 
 1 ' \Verke,' vol. i. p. 516. The distinction here taken between 
 Begriff and Idee is, on the whole, Kantian. The passage implies 
 much that can only be made intelligible through the system itself.
 
 152 Fichte. 
 
 note the difference between Fichte's position and that 
 of Spinoza. For Spinoza, as for philosophy in general, 
 the supreme problem is to connect the particular with 
 the system of which it is a part, a problem which we 
 may call the reduction of the many to one, or by what 
 phrase we please. Now the one and the many are defi- 
 nitely described by Spinoza, but so separated as to ren- 
 der transition or union wellnigh impossible. As in the 
 Eleatic system, so in that of Spinoza, the two elements 
 fall asunder. It is true that Spinoza seems to have 
 thought the problem solved by pointing to the impossi- 
 bility of thinking the particular or finite, save as in rela- 
 tion to the infinite ; but his treatment of this necessity 
 of thinking is the weak point in his system. Modes of 
 thought become for him so many finite objects, mutually 
 determining and determined; and any relation to sub- 
 stance is thus, for them, impossible. To an intellect 
 regarding finite modes from without, it might well be 
 impossible to think of them, except as limitations of the 
 infinite substance ; but no such thought is possible for 
 the finite modes themselves. The two notions with 
 which Spinoza works substance and mutual determina- 
 tion are irreconcilable ; and their subjective counter- 
 parts, understanding and imagination, are, in a similar 
 fashion, left standing side by side. 1 It is on account of 
 this failure to unite the two elements of his system that 
 Fichte classes Spinoza as a dogmatist, and points out that 
 
 1 Expositions of Spinoza are frequently imperfect from laying undue 
 stress on one of these elements. Mr Pollock's recent very able state- 
 ment entirely rejects or casts in the shade the first of them. Spinoza 
 is treated throughout as working with the important scientific notion 
 of mutual determination.
 
 First Principles, 153 
 
 his own doctrine, on the speculative side, is Spinozism, 
 but, as containing the higher synthesis, an inverted or 
 spiritualised Spinozism. The same criticism is con- 
 tained in Hegel's pregnant remark, that Spinoza's error 
 lay in regarding God as substance, and not as spirit. 
 
 Before passing to the more explicit statement of the 
 development of self-consciousness i.e., to the systematic 
 portion of the ' Wissenschaftslehre ' it may be remarked 
 that in this notion of the Ego as both abstract unity 
 and concrete fulness, we have the transition from the 
 Kantian to the later philosophy of Hegel. For Hegel as 
 for Fichte, philosophy is the systematic development of 
 thought from its most abstract moment to the fulness 
 and wealth of real existence, and the culminating point 
 is the complete consciousness of thought as that which, 
 systematically developed, is the reality of existence. In 
 treatment of many problems the two thinkers differ ; in 
 matter, and to a large extent in form, they are at one. 
 
 3. FIRST PRINCIPLES OF 'WISSENSCHAFTSLEHRE.' 
 
 As science of science, or theory of that which is pre- 
 supposed in all consciousness, Wissenschaftslehre must 
 take its origin from that which is in itself unsusceptible 
 of proof. Its first principle cannot be a proposition for 
 which reasons can be advanced ; it cannot even be the 
 expression of a fact which is given in experience ; but it 
 must express that which lies at the basis of all experi- 
 ence, of all consciousness. The matter of the first prin- 
 ciple must therefore be unconditioned, and equally so 
 the form. "VVe may indeed assume that alongside of 
 this absolutely unconditioned first principle, two other 
 propositions may be given, two expressions of necessary
 
 154 FichU. 
 
 acts in the development of self-consciousness, the one, 
 unconditioned in form though determined as regards 
 matter ; the other, unconditioned in matter, though 
 determined as regards form. More than these three 
 there cannot be assumed ; all other propositions in the 
 theory of consciousness must be deducible from them. 
 
 What, then, is the first principle of the Wissenschafts- 
 lehre 1 Evidently, from the exposition already given of 
 the nature of this science, the first principle can be no- 
 thing but an explicit statement of the very innermost 
 nature of self-consciousness. For all consciousness, and 
 therefore all experience, is determined by self-conscious- 
 ness, and stands under it as its supreme condition. The 
 first truth must therefore be the express statement of 
 that fundamental activity by which consciousness comes 
 to be. Beyond all doubt this fundamental activity is 
 not to be thought as an object in consciousness, as one of 
 the facts which we may discover by inner observation. 
 As opposed to all the mechanical necessity under which 
 facts appear for us, this activity is freedom as such, pure 
 action, which, indeed, is or has being, but is not to be 
 regarded as being. 
 
 The explicit statement of this fundamental activity is 
 reached in Fichte's first systematic work, the ' Grundlage 
 des Wissenschaftslehre,' by a somewhat artificial method ; 
 and unfortunately, the few pages containing the appli- 
 cation of this method not only exhaust the ordinary 
 student's knowledge of the system, but supply almost all 
 that is given of Fichte's doctrine in the ordinary histories 
 of philosophy. To this cause one must refer much of 
 the misunderstanding which has undoubtedly existed 
 regarding the true nature of Fichte's speculative work.
 
 First Principles. 155 
 
 The method is certainly artificial, but as the activity in 
 question is absolutely unconditioned, there is not, as it 
 were, any one defined road by which it is to be ap- 
 proached. Fichte, accordingly, proposes to take an un- 
 deniable fact of ordinary, empirical thought, and by cri- 
 ticism to show what is implied in it. The fact selected 
 is the well-known logical or formal law of identity, A 
 is A. A is A; that is, independently of all material 
 considerations as to what A may be, this at least is true, 
 that it is itself, it is A. But such a purely formal 
 proposition makes no assertion regarding the positing or 
 affirming of A. It asserts merely that if A is posited, 
 then it is = A : in other words, it asserts the absolute 
 and unconditioned validity of a certain nexus or bond 
 = x. The nexus or bond, the law according to which 
 we judge that A is A, is only in consciousness, is only 
 for the Ego ; consequently the proposition A = A may be 
 expressed thus : A is for the Ego simply and solely by 
 virtue of being affirmed or posited in the Ego ; and the 
 nexus (x), the ground of this identity, is the affirmation 
 of the existence of the Ego, / am. Only in and for a 
 consciousness that is aware of its own identity, can the 
 law A = A have validity. The unity and identity of 
 self-consciousness thus lies at the basis of all empirical 
 consciousness, for all empirical consciousness falls under 
 the rule, A = A. But if the proposition A = A, valid for 
 all empirical consciousness, has validity only because it 
 is grounded on the fact of the identity of self-conscious- 
 ness, Ego = Ego, this identity must be the pure act of 
 the Ego itself, the mere expression or product of the 
 activity by which the Ego is the Ego at alL Self-affir- 
 mation, then, is given simply, unconditionally, as the
 
 156 Fichte. 
 
 being of the Ego. The Ego is, because it posits itself 
 as being ; it posits itself as being, because it is. The 
 fundamental activity of all consciousness is thus the 
 affirmation of itself by the Ego. " The Ego posits origi- 
 nally and simply its own being." 1 
 
 The method of arriving at this first proposition, one 
 absolutely unconditioned in matter as in form, for the 
 Ego is the common condition of all matter of conscious- 
 ness in general, and the affirmation of its self-identity, 
 the form of the proposition, is not prescribed to it from 
 without, is otherwise given by Fichte in his later ex- 
 positions. 2 In them the reader is called upon to make 
 the experiment of thinking any given object, and then of 
 thinking the Ego. In the first act, the characteristic 
 feature is the definite and recognised distinction in con- 
 sciousness between the subject thinking and the object 
 thought. In the second, it is equally plain that the 
 Ego thought and the Ego thinking are one and the same. 
 The activity of thought is reflected upon itself, and in 
 this reflection upon self consists the very essence of the 
 Ego, or of self -consciousness. " The procedure of "VVis- 
 senschaftslehre is the following : it requires each one to 
 note what he necessarily does when he calls himself, I. 
 It assumes that every one who really performs the re- 
 quired act, will find that he affirms himself, or, which 
 may be clearer to many, that he is at the same time sub- 
 ject and object. In this absolute identity of subject and 
 
 1 ' Werke,' vol. i. p. 98. 
 
 2 In the two " Introductions to Wissenschaftslehre," in the 'New 
 Exposition,' and in the ' Sonnenklarer Bericht.' The posthumous 
 "Exposition from the year 1801" ('Werke,' vol. ii. pp. 1-162) con- 
 tains in its first part ( 1-29) a most elaborate but excessively com- 
 plicated and obscure analysis of the same fundamental condition.
 
 First Principles. 157 
 
 object consists the very nature of the Ego. The Ego is 
 that which cannot be subject, without being, in the same 
 indivisible act, object and cannot be object, without 
 being, in the same indivisible act, subject ; and con- 
 versely, whatever has this characteristic, is Ego ; the two 
 expressions are the same." l 
 
 Thus the first proposition is the explicit statement 
 of that which underlies all consciousness, of the act 
 whereby consciousness is possible. It is the same propo- 
 sition which implicitly had appeared in the critical philo- 
 sophy under the term unity of apperception; but the 
 full significance of it had not been developed by Kant. 
 Beyond this truth no philosophy can go, and all true 
 philosophy depends upon the recognition of it. Any 
 metaphysical theorem which assumes an origin or cause 
 for consciousness transcending this first, primitive affir- 
 mation of the Ego by itself, is self-convicted of incom- 
 pleteness and absurdity. 
 
 It is perhaps needless to note that the Ego referred to 
 is not to be identified with the individual or person. 
 Each individual or person has in common the conscious- 
 ness of self, without which he exists not at all ; but to 
 be individual or person, more is required than is con- 
 tained in self-consciousness. Accordingly, as we shall 
 later see, although Fichte will not deny to God self- 
 consciousness in the sense here, analysed, he will not 
 admit that God is personal or individual To identify 
 any one thing or person with self - consciousness is 
 absurd. Self-consciousness is not a thing or fact to be 
 observed ; just as little is God one among the objects of 
 
 1 'Werke,' vol. ii. pp. 441, 442. Cf. < Werke, ' vol. i. pp. 522, 523, 
 529.
 
 158 Fichte. 
 
 experience to be thought of as coexisting with finite 
 spirits, conditioning or determining them, and in turn 
 conditioned or determined by them. There is, and can 
 be, from the position of pure thought, no God except 
 the ideal system which is involved in self-consciousness, 
 and in which finite spirits have a definite place and 
 function. 
 
 The fundamental mode of activity, the position of the 
 Ego by itself, if regarded in abstracto, is the logical law 
 of identity i.e., no identity of object can be thought 
 apart from the identity of the thinking self. If regarded 
 as in application to objects, it is the category of reality. 
 All reality is in and for the Ego. The categories are 
 merely the necessary modes of action of self-conscious- 
 ness viewed objectively, or in relation to the object. 
 
 Alongside of this first principle, which is uncondi- 
 tioned both in matter and in form, there may be placed 
 for the purposes of the Wissenschaftslehre two further 
 principles, one unconditioned in form but conditioned 
 in matter, the other conditioned as to form but uncondi- 
 tioned as to matter. By an artificial procedure resem- 
 bling that adopted in the case of the first principle, 
 Fichte brings forward the second, on the nature and 
 position of which the greatest misconception has pre- 
 vailed. 
 
 As certainly as the proposition, A = A, appears in em- 
 pirical consciousness, so certainly appears the allied but 
 distinct proposition, Not- A does not =A. This propo- 
 sition is not to be taken as a mere reduplication in nega- 
 tive form of the rule of identity ; it is not equivalent to 
 the judgment, Not- A = Not- A. For there is implied in 
 it a new element, Not-A, and a totally new and distinct
 
 First Principles. 159 
 
 act, that of opposing to A its negative, Not- A. So far 
 as matter is concerned, the proposition is determined ; for 
 if there is to be op-positing at all, that which is opposed 
 to A can only be Not- A. But the form of the proposi- 
 tion, the act of negation, is not conditioned by the form 
 of affirmation. Now, if we treat this proposition as we 
 treated the first, resolving it into its ultimate terms, we 
 have as result the opposition, in the Ego, of Ego and non- 
 Ego. In the Ego, the non-Ego is opposed to the Ego. 
 This second proposition is fundamental in the Eichtean 
 philosophy, but at the same time its significance is not 
 immediately evident. On the one hand, it is clear what 
 is not to be understood by the non-Ego in question. The 
 non-Ego is not the thing-in-itself. It is impossible and 
 contradictory that the Ego should affirm for itself the 
 being of that which, by definition, is not for the Ego. 
 On the other hand, it is not yet plain, and, indeed, it 
 only becomes plain from much later developments of the 
 system, what is the precise nature of the act of op- 
 positing or negating. The obscurity which rests over 
 the proposition arises from two sources. In the first 
 place, Fichte accepts, as given, a fact of empirical con- 
 sciousness, the fact of difference or opposition, and shows 
 that for a self-conscious subject, the ultimate ground of 
 all difference is the distinction of self and not-self. No 
 opposition or difference in empirical knowledge is con- 
 ceivable, if the Ego has not in itself the moment of 
 difference. As mere abstract statement of what is im- 
 plied in real consciousness, the proposition has, therefore, 
 unconditioned truth ; but it has not thereby been made 
 clear hoAV real consciousness, which is determined or 
 limited, is related to the pure unity of self-consciousness
 
 160 Fichte. 
 
 as such. All limitation is negation this is fundamental 
 for Fichte as for Spinoza, and in the second proposition 
 the ground of the maxim is given but it is not thereby 
 explained why or how there should be limitation at all 
 In the second place, the all-important distinction between 
 the abstract and concrete moments of self-consciousness 
 is easily overlooked. Fichte is here giving expression 
 to the most abstract aspect of consciousness, which 
 becomes real or concrete only after the introduction 
 of many other elements. The non-Ego referred to 
 is the abstract aspect of that which in the further 
 movement of thought presents itself as the world of 
 objects, but it is not in itself the concrete, represented 
 world. 
 
 The first proposition, as was said, is not in Fichte's 
 later expositions approached in the artificial manner 
 adopted in the ' Grundlage ; ' still less is this the case in 
 regard to the second fundamental act. In the later works, 
 specially in the 'Darstellung aus dem Jahre, 1801,' and 
 in the posthumous lectures, the statement is much more 
 concrete and intelligible. Self-affirmation of the Ego is 
 the primitive activity of consciousness. But such primi- 
 tive activity is in itself but the ground of consciousness. 
 The Ego, to be real, must be aware of its own activity as 
 affirming itself. This becoming aware of its own ac- 
 tivity Fichte calls reflection ; and it is easily seen that 
 the essential feature of reflection is self-limitation of the 
 Ego. But limitation is negation; the Ego becomes aware 
 of its own activity as self-positing only in and by oppo- 
 sition to self. Infinite activity i.e., activity related 
 only to itself is never, as such, conscious activity. 
 " Consciousness works through reflection, and reflection
 
 First Principles. 161 
 
 is only through limitation." a So soon as we reflect upon 
 the activity of the Ego, the Ego is necessarily finite ; 
 so soon as the Ego is conscious of its finitude, it is con- 
 scious of striving beyond these limits, and so of its in- 
 finitude. "Were the question raised, Is the Ego, then, 
 infinite 1 the Ego, by the very question, is finite. Is the 
 Ego finite 1 then, to be aware of finitude, it is necessarily 
 infinite ; and so on, in endless alternation. 
 
 The abstract expression of this alternation between 
 subject and object as in relation to one another, is con- 
 tained in the third fundamental proposition, that from 
 which the "Wissenschaftslehre definitely takes its start. 
 
 The second proposition has brought forward a non- 
 Ego, which is in every respect the negative of the Ego. 
 Whatever is affirmed regarding the one must be explicitly 
 denied of the other. But, if we consider our two pro- 
 positions, we shall find not only that they contradict one 
 another, but that each proposition, taken in respect of 
 the other, contradicts itself. For if the non-Ego is pos- 
 ited, the Ego is negated ; but the Ego is absolute reality, 
 and consequently the non-Ego is only posited through 
 the Ego. The Ego, therefore, both posits and negates 
 itself. It is in itself a contradiction, or unites contradic- 
 tions in itself. It is evidently impossible that both can 
 be negated ; it is equally impossible that one should be 
 negated by the other. The only solution is to be found 
 in some act of the Ego by which it is limited as regards 
 the non-Ego, and by which the non-Ego is limited as re- 
 gards the Ego : the Ego shall, in part, negate the non- 
 Ego; the non-Ego shall, in part, negate the Ego. So cer- 
 
 i Werke,' vol. i. p. 269. Cf. 'Darstellung, a. d. J., 1801, 17, 
 28, 29 ; ' Nachgelassene Werke,' vol. i. p. 79 ; vol. ii. pp. 339, 349. 
 P. IV. L
 
 162 Ficlite. 
 
 tainly, therefore, as the two fundamental propositions are 
 true, as certainly can they be combined in the unity of 
 self-conscioiisness, only if the Ego posit in itself a divis- 
 ible Ego as limited by a divisible non-Ego. In this third 
 proposition the form is conditioned, for by the needs of 
 the prior maxims it is prescribed what the activity must 
 be ; the matter is unconditioned, for the notion by which 
 the union is effected that of limitation is not prescribed 
 beforehand. The third proposition, therefore, completes 
 the principles of Wissenschaftslehre : henceforth each 
 step in the evolution of self-consciousness can and must 
 be proved to follow with demonstrative evidence from 
 them. 
 
 Moreover, the connection of the three principles, and 
 especially the mode by which the third of them was at- 
 tained, shows clearly what must be the method of evolu- 
 tion. The very essence of self-consciousness, in its double 
 moments of self-position and reflection, is the union of 
 contradictory aspects. Thesis and antithesis are the 
 formal expressions of the activity lying at the root of 
 consciousness. But contradictions can only be for a self- 
 conscious subject when united or contained in some more 
 concrete synthesis. Limitation has manifested itself as 
 the first synthesis ; but, narrowly examined, the members 
 there united will be seen to manifest new contradictions, 
 which again require to be resolved into some richer, more 
 concrete notion. The course of procedure is thus the 
 continuous analysis of the antithetical moments of each 
 notion, and the synthetical union of them : the goal is 
 the complete synthetical union of the original opposition 
 of the Ego and the non-Ego in consciousness. Term 
 after term will be introduced, until at last the gap between
 
 Development of the System. 163 
 
 these two is filled up, and the final synthesis either at- 
 tained or the full ground for its unattainability made 
 clear. The successive acts by which the new synthesis 
 conies forward, yield, in abstracto, the forms of the cate- 
 gories, which will thus be deduced systematically, not 
 accepted haphazard, as in the critical philosophy. The 
 successive modes of consciousness, in and through which 
 the categories receive application to objects, will be rigor- 
 ously developed, and not taken from empirical psychol- 
 ogy. Wissenschaftslehre is thus not only logic, in the 
 highest sense of the term, but also a phenomenology or 
 pragmatic history of consciousness. 
 
 4. DEVELOPMENT OP THE SYSTEM. 
 
 The fundamental principles contain the groundwork, 
 not only of the developed system of the Wissenschafts- 
 lehre in its earlier form, but also of the more abstruse 
 metaphysical view to which Fichte, at a later period, ad- 
 vanced. The union of opposites, as the very essence of 
 consciousness, and the reference of the opposed members 
 to the identity of the absolute Ego, although very differ- 
 ently expressed, remain common ground for both the 
 earlier and the later systematic treatments. In the first 
 form of Wissenschaftslehre, however, the interest centres 
 mainly in the deduction of the consequences involved 
 in the original synthesis ; in the later exposition, the 
 synthesis itself, as a whole, is interpreted in a new and 
 more concrete fashion. 
 
 As it is impossible here to follow the details of the 
 elaborate and compressed reasoning by which Fichte, in 
 the ' Grundlage ' and ' Grundriss des Eigenthiimlichen d. 
 Wissenschaftslehre,' traces the successive stages or aspects
 
 164 FicUe, 
 
 of thought contained in the primitive synthesis, it will 
 be advisable to preface a summary of his results by a 
 freer and less technical statement of their significance. 
 
 The original synthesis in the Ego, the divisible Ego 
 is opposed to the divisible non-Ego evidently contains 
 two propositions, each of which may be subjected to 
 analytic treatment; l for, in the first place, it is implied 
 in our proposition that the Ego posits the non-Ego as 
 determined by the Ego; and in the second place, it is 
 implied that the Ego posits itself as determined by the 
 non-Ego. The second of these is the fundamental pro- 
 position for the theoretical Wissenschaftslehre that is, 
 it expresses the very essence of the Ego as intelligence 
 generally. The first is the expression of the essence of 
 the Ego as practical The ultimate synthesis must be 
 found in that notion in which the theoretical and prac- 
 tical activities of the Ego are identified. At the present 
 stage, such ultimate synthesis appears problematical in 
 fact, and scarcely conceivable in thought. The approach to 
 it must be effected by following out the two isolated expres- 
 sions according to the general method already recognised. 
 We may thus hope to make clear, first, what the non- 
 Ego, as in thought, must be for the Ego ; in other words, 
 we may hope to obtain a complete survey of the formal 
 determinations of thought in and through which it is 
 possible for a non-Ego to be presented to intelligence. 
 How there should be a non-Ego at all will not thereby 
 be explained ; but for solution of this problem we may 
 
 1 The treatment is analytic, inasmuch as we reflectively expound 
 the oppositions contained in a given synthesis ; but the act of con- 
 sciousness through which these oppositions are given and resolved, is 
 not analytic, but a continuous series of synthetic combinations.
 
 Development of the System. 165 
 
 look, in the second place, to the development of the nature 
 of the Ego as practical 
 
 Theoretical Wissenschaftslehre is thus the systematic 
 development of the form of consciousness in which Ego 
 and non-Ego are opposed, and so opposed that the Ego 
 is determined by the non-Ego. Opposition of this kind 
 between Ego and non-Ego is the characteristic feature of 
 cognitive consciousness or intelligence. We may there- 
 fore express the business of the theoretical Wissenschafts- 
 lehre as the analysis of the notions, categories, or necessary 
 modes of action of intelligence, implied in, and making 
 tip, the essence of the recognition of a non-Ego by the 
 Ego. Popular thinking or philosophical theory employs 
 various notions in its effort to explain the relation be- 
 tween Ego and non-Ego. The Wissenschaftslehre has to 
 deduce these notions, to assign to them their value by 
 exhibiting them in their due place as stages or aspects 
 of thought, and systematically to develop them from 
 the fundamental antithesis. The results of the Wis- 
 senschaftslehre, so far as it is theoretical, are purely 
 formal ; and Kant was in a measure correct when he 
 described Wissenschaftslehre as mere logic. But it 
 was Kant's mistake, and it has been the mistake of 
 most critics of the system, to confine their view to one 
 limited aspect of it. Fichte was well aware that the de- 
 duction of the categories, which he was the first to under- 
 take in a genuinely philosophical fashion, nay, that the 
 exposition of the modes of subjective thinking, such as 
 representation, understanding, judgment, reasoning, 
 can have, within the limits of theoretical Wissenschafts- 
 lehre, nothing but formal worth. It was for him a simple 
 and incontrovertible truth, that knowledge, as knowledge,
 
 166 Fichtc. 
 
 is of necessity opposed to, and distinct from reality. Such 
 opposition is the very essence of knowledge ; and if it 
 can be shown as Fichte thought it could be shown 
 that this opposition necessarily assumes in the Ego the 
 form of representation ( Vorstellung), then it is absolutely 
 certain that for the cognitive Ego there are only repre- 
 sentations. Reality is given only in immediate percep- 
 tion, or in the element of. feeling; and feeling is practical, 
 not theoretical The logical categories, which alone give 
 significance for intelligence to the non-Ego, do not con- 
 tain in themselves the element of fact ; and were there 
 no practical Wissenschaftslehre, philosophy would remain 
 where it had been left by Kant, for Kant had seen that 
 the affection of sense was indispensable if real concrete 
 matter were to be supplied for the action of intelligence, 
 but he had attempted no deduction of affection. It re- 
 mained, in his system, a foreign ingredient ; and his in- 
 competent followers had, without hesitation, assigned 
 the thing-in-itself as ground of explanation. From the 
 very outset of his speculation, Fichte had maintained that 
 in his system alone was t v o be found the solution for the 
 difficulty left by Kant, that sensuous affection was there 
 shown to be a necessary element for intellectual function, 
 and that sensuous affection was there deduced from the 
 Ego, though not from the Ego as cognitive. 
 
 " The intellectual intuition from which we have 
 started is not possible without sensuous intuition, and 
 this not without feeling. It is a total misunderstand- 
 ing of my meaning, and a simple reversal of the very 
 meaning and purport of my system, to ascribe to me the 
 opposed view. But sense, intuition, and feeling are just 
 as impossible without intellectual intuition. I cannot
 
 Development of the System. 167 
 
 be for myself without being something (eticas = & definite 
 somewhat), and I am this only in the world of sense ; 
 I can just as little be for myself without being Ego, 
 and this I am only in the intelligible world, which dis- 
 closes itself to me through intellectual intuition. The 
 point of union between the two lies in this, that what I 
 am in the first, I am for myself only through absolute 
 self-activity regulated by thought. Our existence in the 
 intelligible world is the moral law ; our existence in the 
 world of sense is actual fact : the combining link is free- 
 dom, as absolute ability to determine the latter through 
 the former." l For this reason Fichte found himself on 
 so many points in harmony with Jacobi, whose general 
 tendency in speculation was otherwise opposed. For 
 this reason he frequently employs expressions that are 
 easily misunderstood, but which sound as though his 
 philosophy were one of so-called Common-sense. The 
 point is of the last importance, and if not kept in view, 
 a totally false impression of the system will be obtained. 
 
 In the theoretical Wissenschaftslehre, therefore, we 
 may expect, first, a pure logic of the notions through 
 which the non-Ego is for the Ego ; and, second, a genetic 
 or pragmatic history of the forms of thinking in which 
 the non-Ego is apprehended. The course of the deduc- 
 tion of the notions is the following : 
 
 The proposition The Ego posits itself as determined 
 by the non-Ego yields, on analysis, 2 the opposed expres- 
 sions, The Ego is passive as determined by the non-Ego ; 
 
 1 "Sittenlehre," 'Werke,' vol. i. p. 91. Cf. ' Werke,' vol. L pp. 
 253, 266, 301, 464, 474, 492. 
 
 2 See note p. 164 above for the significance of analysis as here 
 employed.
 
 168 Fwlde. 
 
 and, The Ego, positing itself, is active. Not only is each 
 of these expressions a contradiction in itself, but they 
 are mutually contradictory, and, if the unity of conscious- 
 ness is to be preserved, must be united through some 
 synthetic and more concrete notion. Such notion is 
 readily seen to be but a richer form of the category of lim- 
 itation or determination, from which the opposites took 
 their rise. The Ego is partly determined, partly deter- 
 mines itself. So much reality as the Ego posits in itself, 
 so much does it negate in the non-Ego ; so much reality 
 as it posits in the non-Ego, so much does it negate in 
 itself. This notion, in which Ego and non-Ego are 
 thought as mutually determining, is called by Fichte the 
 category of Reciprocal Determination (Weclisel-bestim- 
 mung). 
 
 But the expressions which have been united in this 
 second synthesis are themselves contradictory. Each, 
 therefore, must be analytically treated and synthetically 
 solved, while a final synthesis will result from the combin- 
 ation of the notions so reached, a final synthesis which 
 shall take up, in a developed form, the category of recip- 
 rocal determination. The first expression, The non-Ego 
 determines the Ego, contains, as antithetical elements, 
 The non-Ego has reality, for only so can it determine the 
 Ego ; and, secondly, The non-Ego has no reality, for it is 
 only negation of the Ego, which alone has reality. Now, 
 the positing of the Ego, through which it has reality, is 
 pure activity. The non-Ego, as negation of the Ego, 
 can, therefore, have reality, not in itself, but only in so 
 far as the Ego is passive or negatively active. The 
 notion which thus effects the desired synthesis is that of 
 causality, for the non-Ego may thus be thought as hav-
 
 Development of the System, 169 
 
 ing reality in so far as the Ego is affected (or passive). 
 Reciprocal determination in this new notion acquires 
 greater definiteness, for the order of determination is 
 fixed. The one factor has positive, the other negative, 
 activity. 
 
 The second expression, The Ego determines itself, 
 likewise contains antithetical elements viz., The Ego is 
 determining, and therefore active, The Ego determines 
 itself, and is therefore passive. K^ow the Ego, as posit- 
 ing, is the sum of all reality, and therefore of activity. 
 But, as positing, it posits a definite portion of this total 
 sphere of reality, and every definition is negative as re- 
 spects the whole. The Ego, therefore, is passive through 
 its own activity. As sum of reality and activity, the 
 Ego is substance ; a definite portion of the sphere of 
 reality or activity is accident. The new notion, the 
 synthesis of substance, thus gives a fresh definiteness to 
 the category of reciprocal determination. The passivity 
 of the Ego is determined through its activity. 
 
 The two syntheses that of causality, in which the 
 Ego is passive through activity of the non-Ego, and that 
 of substance, in which the Ego is passive through its 
 own activity are the two most important propositions in 
 the theory of knowledge ; for they are the abstract ex- 
 pressions for the counter-views of dogmatic realism and 
 subjective idealism. If the relation of Ego and non- 
 Ego is thought simply through the notion of causality, 
 all representation (Vorstellung) is regarded as the effect 
 of an objective system of things. If the relation is 
 thought through the notion of substance, all representa- 
 tions are viewed as states of the Ego. 1 Neither view 
 1 As above noted, p. 127, Spinoza (or Locke) may be taken as rep-
 
 170 Fichte. 
 
 is coherent : for the theory of representation as effect of 
 the non-Ego does not explain how such representation 
 should be thought by the Ego ; and the theory of repre- 
 sentation as state of the Ego does not explain why the 
 Ego should oppose to itself a non-Ego. They are, more- 
 over, mutually destructive. A new synthesis must be 
 found, wherein shall be contained the antithetical ele- 
 ments, passivity of the Ego as determined by activity 
 of the non-Ego, passivity of the Ego as determined by 
 its own activity. Realism and idealism must be united 
 in ideal-realism. 
 
 The exposition of this new synthesis, extending over 
 some seventy pages of the closest reasoning, interrupted 
 by frequent digressions, and complicated by divisions, 
 subdivisions and cross divisions, is the hardest and most 
 involved portion of the ' Wissenschaftslehre.' Divested, 
 so far as possible, of its technical terminology, the result 
 may be presented somewhat as follows. The Ego and 
 non-Ego have now appeared in thought as mutually 
 determining and determined, and the final relation be- 
 tween them may be expressed in the notion of reciprocal 
 action and passion (Wechsel-Thun-und-Leideii). But 
 such a relation can only be for intelligence, if there be 
 given some activity of consciousness which is at once 
 determining and determined, which shall at once posit 
 the Ego as limited by the non-Ego, and the non-Ego as 
 the limit of the Ego. The Ego itself is pure activity, 
 total reality. The new act must therefore mediately 
 posit each of the two opposed factors. It must affirm 
 the non-Ego as limiting, determining the Ego; and at the 
 
 resenting the first view, Berkeley or Leibnitz as representing the 
 other.
 
 Development of the System. 171 
 
 same time must affirm or posit tins limitation, as a limita- 
 tion of the Ego. The limit shall be posited only in so 
 far as the Ego is affirmed as passive ; the Ego shall be 
 affirmed only in so far as the limit is posited. This 
 activity, by which the infinitude of the Ego is limited, 
 this activity which continuously mediates between the 
 opposites of infinitude and finitude for the Ego is infi- 
 nite, but, as reflective, as conscious of itself, it is finite 
 Fichte describes by the term already familiar to students 
 of Kant, Productive Imagination. It is the necessary 
 activity of thought by which definiteness, or determin- 
 ateness, becomes possible for thought. By it alone the 
 Ego becomes subject and has the object over against it. 
 Subject and object are, in fact, the opposites of Ego and 
 non-Ego as appearing in theoretical cognition. No sub- 
 ject without an object ; no object without a subject. 
 Productive imagination it is which wins for us definite 
 things from the "void and formless infinite." All 
 reality is for us through imagination a proposition 
 which may afford matter for reflection to those who 
 assume that a speculative philosophy in any way endeav- 
 ours to transcend experience. The product of imagina- 
 tion, the representation (Vorstellung), is at once objec- 
 tive, for it can only be thought as related to the non-Ego 
 and subjective, for it is only for the reflective subject. 
 Hence arises that curious and most obscure property of 
 Vorstellungen, that they are invariably thought as repre- 
 sentations of some reality ; hence arises, for us, the oppo- 
 sition between the subjective and objective orders of 
 experience. 1 A thing, logically regarded, is but a com- 
 
 1 See 'Werke,' vol. ii. pp. 400, 401. The whole tract, 'Sonnen- 
 klarer Bericht,' is an essay on external perception, which might with
 
 172 Fichte. 
 
 plex of relations envisaged in imagination i.e., repre- 
 sented or definitely embodied. 1 
 
 "All difficulties," Fichte concludes, "are thus satis- 
 factorily solved. The problem was, to unite the oppo- 
 sites, Ego and non-Ego. Through the faculty of imagi- 
 nation, which unites contradictories, these may be com- 
 pletely reconciled. The non-Ego is itself a product of 
 the self-determining Ego, and not anything posited as 
 absolute and external to the Ego. An Ego that posits 
 itself as self -positing i.e., as a subject is impossible 
 without an object produced in the fashion just described 
 (the very characteristic of the Ego, its reflection upon 
 itself as a definite somewhat, is possible only under the 
 condition that it limit itself through an opposite). There 
 remains over only the question how and by what means 
 the limit, which is here assumed as explaining represen- 
 tation for the Ego, comes to be at all. This question lies 
 beyond the limits of the theoretical Wissenschaftslehre, 
 and is not to be answered within them." 2 
 
 Faculty of productive imagination is, therefore, the 
 fundamental cognitive activity. 3 It is, however, only 
 
 advantage be compared with our English analyses of the same 
 problem. 
 
 1 ' Werke,' vol. i. p. 443. 
 
 2 Ibid., vol. i. p. 218. 
 
 3 This productive imagination, it may be pointed out, is virtually 
 identical with Beck's original synthetical act. The whole question of 
 productive imagination in the scheme of the Kantian theory of know- 
 ledge requires to be more thoroughly worked than has yet been done. 
 Useful contributions to the solution are given by Frohschammer, 
 ' Ueber die Bedeutung der Einbildungskraft in der Philosophic Kant's 
 und Spinoza's, 1879' (which does not appreciate fully the place of 
 imagination in Spinoza's scheme) ; and, more recently, by Mainzer, 
 'Die kritische Epoche in der Lehre von der Einbildungskraft aus 
 Hume's und Kant's theoretischer Philosophic, 1881.'
 
 Development of the System. 173 
 
 the ground of Vorstellung ; the more definite qualifica- 
 tions of representation are due to other activities of 
 consciousness. These Fichte proceeds to trace with 
 much minuteness, giving what he describes as a " prag- 
 matic history of consciousness." The 'Grundriss des 
 Eigenthiimlichen der Wissenschaftslehre,' in particular, 
 contains an extraordinarily minute analysis and descrip- 
 tion of sensation and intuition, with a much more 
 detailed deduction of the forms of intuition than is put 
 forward in the 'Grundlage.' The characteristic feature 
 of the treatment is the continuous reference of the pro- 
 cesses described on the one hand to the non-Ego, as to 
 that with which they are concerned ; on the other hand, 
 to the Ego, as to that by which they are posited or exist. 
 The successive acts are, in truth, stages in the develop- 
 ment of productive imagination, and arise through the 
 continuous reflection of the Ego upon each of the stages. 
 The treatment is thus what in Fichte's system would 
 correspond to psychology. 
 
 The lowest stage, the first moment of the process by 
 which the Ego becomes definitely conscious of the oppo- 
 sition involved in its nature, is that in which the Ego 
 finds itself limited or rendered passive. This state or 
 condition for the Ego is not reflectively aware of the 
 activity which is, nevertheless, involved in it is sen- 
 sation (Empfindung], All sensation is accompanied by 
 the feeling of the passivity of the Ego i.e., by the feel- 
 ing of constraint or necessity. This feeling of compul- 
 sion, enriched by other products of the reflective energy 
 of the Ego, is an essential element in the belief in exter- 
 nal reality. 
 
 Sensation, however, though a passive state, is only for
 
 174 Ficlite. 
 
 the Ego ; the Ego reflects upon its own state, and there 
 is thus introduced the distinction between self and not- 
 self, which is the characteristic feature of all reflection. 
 The sensation taken reflectively, and thereby referred to 
 the non-Ego, is intuition (AnschoMung). As the Ego is 
 not reflectively aware of the activity by which it so 
 objectifies sensation, it is, in the process of intuition, 
 absorbed or sunk in the contemplation of the object. 1 
 The intuition, however, is, equally with sensation, for 
 the Ego; and the Ego, becoming reflectively aware of 
 intuition as an activity, a product of its own, so converts 
 intuition into a subjective fact, a mental representation 
 or image (Bild). The twofold action of the Ego in reflec- 
 tion upon intuition that by which it contemplates intui- 
 tion as the object, that by which subjectively it is aware 
 that the intuition is a mental fact explains the thought- 
 relation between the external object as the original, and 
 the intuition as its copy or representative, and also ex- 
 plains the distinction we draw in consciousness between 
 inner and oxiter intuition. Outer intuition is the pro- 
 cess thought as determined with respect to the content 
 or attributes of its product ; inner intuition, the process 
 thought as subjectively mine, and therefore free or un- 
 constrained as to mode of action by the object. There 
 thus arises for consciousness the important difference 
 between necessity and contingency in the sphere of intu- 
 ition, a difference which rests upon and implies the dis- 
 tinction of intuitions from one another, their reciprocal 
 determination, and the determined sequence of acts of 
 intuition. The condition under which distinction of 
 
 1 Of. ' Werke,' vol. ii. pp. 373 et seq., for a more elaborate exposi- 
 tion of this feature of Intuition.
 
 Development of the System. 175 
 
 intuitions as objects from one another is possible is 
 space; the condition under which determined acts of 
 intuition are possible is time. 1 
 
 Intuition, as such, is not yet a fixed product for the 
 Ego. The productive imagination, of which intuition is 
 a mode, fixes nothing. The definite fixing or relating of 
 intuitions is the work of understanding (Verstand), and 
 all reality for cognition is in and through the under- 
 standing. The modes of fixing are the categories already 
 deduced as involved in the very essence of consciousness, 
 and Fichte is thus enabled to show what Kant had failed 
 to do, that category, schema, and intuition are organic- 
 ally united ; that the categories are not empty forms into 
 which matter is thrown from without, but arise with the 
 objects themselves. 
 
 The understanding, of which the products are thoughts 
 or notions, is itself subject to reflection, and to a reflec- 
 tion which is, as opposed to understanding, abstractive 
 or free. The reflective action of the Ego upon the whole 
 world of objects of understanding is judgment (Urtheils- 
 kraff). The highest stage of consciousness is reflection 
 upon judgment, for in this, abstraction is made of all 
 save the Ego itself. The Ego in its pure abstraction and 
 consciousness of self is reason (Vernunff). The more 
 complete this power of abstraction, this withdrawal from 
 objectivity, the more closely does the empirical approach 
 pure consciousness. 
 
 The theoretical Wissenschaftslehre has developed com- 
 pletely the form of cognition, and has shown that this 
 
 1 The deduction of Space and Time, a remarkable piece of analysis, 
 is carried out in great detail in the " Grundriss des Eigenthiimlichen," 
 ' Werke,' vol. i. pp. 391-411.
 
 17G Fichte. 
 
 form is an organic or systematic whole. But it has pro- 
 ceeded from a proposition containing an element not yet 
 deduced or explained. The Ego, positing itself as de- 
 termined by a non-Ego, has been shown to effect this 
 position by a series of necessary, synthetic acts, through 
 which both Ego and non-Ego have appeared as determined 
 and in relations to one another. Alongside of this fun- 
 damental proposition, however, there stood a second, 
 equally necessary for consciousness viz., that the Ego 
 posits itself as determining the non-Ego. The form of 
 cognition rests entirely on the opposition between non- 
 Ego and Ego, but explains in no way the origin of this 
 opposition. The investigation must now be directed 
 upon the second proposition the foundation of the prac- 
 tical Wissenschaftslehre in order to discover whether 
 in it there may not be given a solution of the presuppo- 
 sition on which the form of knowledge has rested. The 
 practical Wissenschaftslehre is not developed by Fichte 
 with the same dialectical vigour as had been manifest 
 in the treatment of knowledge, and the more important 
 doctrines are to be sought, not in the ' Grundlage,' but 
 in the introductions to the systematic works on Law 
 and Morals. 1 
 
 The Ego as cognitive recognises reality in the non- 
 Ego, and as active or practical, as determining the 
 non-Ego, likewise ascribes reality to it. But how is it 
 possible that there should be for the Ego, which is pure 
 activity, mere self -position, a negation or opposition? 
 How is the primitive act of oppositing, already noted as 
 the most obscure and perplexed feature of the system, 
 
 1 Particularly in the " Sittenlehre " ('Werke,' vol. iv.), which is 
 Fichte's most carefully written work.
 
 Development of the System. 177 
 
 possible for the Ego ] It would be possible if the Ego 
 were to limit itself, if in addition to the activity by 
 which the Ego posits itself, there were given another 
 activity e.g., that of limitation, for the mode of 
 action of this second activity must necessarily be op- 
 position. If we call the first activity pure, the second 
 may be called objective. The union of pure and ob- 
 jective activity in the Ego would explain the Anstoss 
 or opposition upon which all cognition depends. The 
 pure activity, as self-related, is infinite ; the objective 
 activity is finite and limitative. If the Ego is to unite 
 both, it must be an infinite activity which is at the same 
 time, though not in the same sense, finite ; it must be an 
 infinite striving. Striving implies opposition, for with- 
 out obstacle, without impediment, there is only bound- 
 less activity. How shall the infinite activity of the Ego 
 be thought as infinite striving] The Ego is, but it is 
 only for itself. Reflection is thus the very law of exist- 
 ence for a conscious Ego. The Ego is only the Ego, in 
 so far as it reflects. But this reflection is the very limi- 
 tative obstacle of which the practical Wissenschaftslehre 
 is in search, and the problem is therefore solved. If 
 the Ego be not activity, infinite self-position, there 
 can be no striving. If the Ego be not reflective, it can- 
 not be conscious of itself ; it remains a thing, and not 
 an Ego. Thus the practical activity of the Ego is the 
 ground of the Anstoss, which renders intelligence pos- 
 sible ; while reflection is the ground of the self - con- 
 sciousness of the Ego. For an Ego which is not reflec- 
 tive, which is not opposed by a non-Ego, self-conscious- 
 ness is impossible, and to such an Ego the system of 
 Wissenschaftslehre has no application. 
 
 p. iv. u
 
 178 Fickle. 
 
 The complete synthesis of the opposed propositions 
 from which the start was made, has now been reached ; 
 the practical and theoretical activities of the Ego are 
 shown to be necessarily related to one another, and 
 to the absolute Ego. Without simple self-position of 
 the Ego i.e., without the absolute Ego as the idea 
 of all reality there can be no infinite striving, and 
 without infinite striving, no intelligence. At the root 
 of the infinite striving of the Ego lies the idea of the 
 infinitude of the absolute Ego an idea which, from the 
 necessary reflection of the Ego, is never completely rea- 
 lised, but towards which there is an endless tendency in 
 the Ego. The Ego, as infinite but reflective activity 
 under the idea of the absolute tendency towards self- 
 realisation, is the practical Ego, and the series of stages 
 throughout which it passes is the ideal series. The Ego, 
 as limited by the non-Ego, but at the same time as con- 
 tinuously transcending this opposition, is theoretical, and 
 the series of stages through which it passes is the real 
 series. "And so the whole nature of finite, rational 
 beings is comprehended and explained. Original idea of 
 our absolute being ; striving towards reflection upon self 
 according to this idea ; limitation, not of this striving, 
 but of our real being, which is first given through the 
 limitation through the opposing principle, a non-Ego 
 or, generally, through our finitude ; self-consciousness, 
 and in particular consciousness of our practical striving ; 
 determination of our representations thereby (with free- 
 dom and without freedom) ; through this, determination 
 of our actions the direction of our real, sensuous exist- 
 ence; continual extension of the limits to our activity." 1 
 1 'Werke/vol. i. p. 278.
 
 Development of the System. 179 
 
 Although all expositions of Fichte's philosophy bring 
 into prominence the fact that for him reason as practi- 
 cal is the ground of reason as theoretical, the signifi- 
 cance of the fact, so far as his general theory of know- 
 ledge is concerned, does not seem to have received 
 sufficient attention. It has not seen how the practical 
 side of Wissenschaftslehre bears upon and supplements 
 the proposition from which Fichte never departs that 
 knowledge is formal only, and that reality is not con- 
 tained in the form of thought or cognition. Kant had 
 made the same proposition a feature of his system, but 
 had never been able to offer any explanation of it, 
 and manifestly remained under the impression that 
 in Fichte's theoretical Wissenschaftslehre, the attempt 
 was made to extract reality out of mere form of 
 thought. 1 This, however, is by no means the truth. 
 Self-consciousness is only realised in the form of know- 
 ledge, bxit the form of realisation is not the reality itself. 
 Opposition between self and not-self is the necessary 
 form of self-consciousness, but the necessity of the form 
 does not explain the reality attaching to the two factors. 
 It is on this account that Fichte so continuously lays 
 stress on the principle that the primitive datum of con- 
 sciousness is not a fact to be cognised under the neces- 
 sary form of knowledge, but the product of an act; that 
 the essence of the conscious being is not representa- 
 tion or knowledge, but activity or freedom, which is 
 cognised under the forms of representation or know- 
 ledge. The necessary implication of activity and cog- 
 nition is, therefore, the answer supplied by him to 
 the problem left unsolved by Kant the problem of 
 1 See above, p. 50.
 
 180 Fichte. 
 
 the relation between intellectual function and affection 
 of sense. 
 
 In tracing the series of stages through which the prac- 
 tical Ego seeks realisation for itself, Fichte is describing 
 the successive forms of real fact which underlie, and 
 are necessarily involved in, the existence of a self-con- 
 scious subject. The complete exposition affords the 
 groundwork for two comprehensive philosophical doc- 
 trines that of Eights or Law, and that of Duties or 
 Morals while it culminates in a statement as to the 
 bearing of Wissenschaf tslehre on the fundamental prob- 
 lem of theology. 1 No account can here be given of 
 the systematic treatment of the doctrines of LaAv and 
 Ethics. It must suffice to indicate how these doctrines 
 are related to the general principles of Fichte's practi- 
 cal philosophy, and in what respects their fundamental 
 notions were altered or amended in the later stage of 
 his speculation. 
 
 The Ego, as has been seen, is in essence activity ; but 
 at the same time, if an Ego at all, it must posit, affirm, 
 or be aware of its own activity. The twofold aspect of 
 the Ego, as at once activity and reflection upon activity, 
 must ever be kept in mind when the effort is made to 
 trace further the conditions of self-consciousness. As in 
 the case of the several stages of cognition, so here, it will 
 
 1 The general exposition is given in the "Grundlage," 'Werke,' 
 vol. i. pp. 285-328 ; in the " Naturrecht," ' Werke,' vol. iii. pp. 
 17-91 ; in the " Sittenlehre," ' Werke,' vol. iv. pp. 18-156. No work on 
 Fichte's system with which I am acquainted makes any attempt to 
 connect what is put forward in these three quarters, and the omission 
 is doubtless one great cause of the common misconceptions of his 
 theory. The statement here given is too compressed to do justice 
 to the very elaborate analysis contained in the various writings re- 
 ferred to.
 
 Development of the System. 181 
 
 be found that the forms of practical activity result from 
 the continuous reflection of the Ego upon the modes and 
 products of its own action. The most general statement 
 which can be made regarding the whole process, sums 
 up what is developed in the successive steps by which 
 the practical Ego realises itself. 
 
 Under Avhat conditions can the Ego be conscious of 
 itself 1 Only in so far as it is practical, in so far as it is 
 a striving force, only in so far as it is will " The prac- 
 tical Ego is the Ego of original self-consciousness ; a 
 rational being immediately perceives itself only in will- 
 ing ; and were it not practical, would perceive neither 
 itself nor the world would not be an intelligence at 
 all. Will is in a special sense the essence of reason." 1 
 This striving of the Ego is only possible for conscious- 
 ness in so far as it is limited or opposed, and the state 
 of consciousness in which this hindrance to striving is 
 posited has already been described as feeling. Striving 
 which is opposed, but not absolutely, is impulse (Trieb). 
 The very innermost nature of the Ego is therefore im- 
 pulse. The Ego is a system of impulses. Feeling in 
 which the impulse or force of the Ego is checked, is 
 necessarily a feeling of incapacity or of compulsion, and 
 the combination of the immediate consciousness of our 
 own striving with the feeling of compulsion or restraint 
 is for us the first and most simple criterion of reality. 
 The external thing is for us as real as the activity of 
 the Ego with which it is bound up. " Only through the 
 relation of feeling to the Ego is reality possible for the 
 Ego, whether reality of itself or of the non-Ego. Now, 
 that which is possible only through the relation of feel- 
 1 ' Werke,' vol. iii. pp. 20, 21.
 
 182 Fichte. 
 
 ing to the Ego, while the Ego neither is nor can be con- 
 scious of its intuition of the same, and which therefore 
 seems to be felt, is matter of belief. There is, then, 
 simply belief in reality in general, whether of Ego or of 
 non-Ego." 1 
 
 The Ego, therefore, if it is to be aware of itself, if it 
 is to be self-conscious, must posit itself as acting i.e., 
 as willing, and as willing freely. This important propo- 
 sition, which lies at the root of law and morals, may 
 be examined from two sides. We may consider what 
 is necessarily implied or involved in it, and we may con- 
 sider the conditions under which consciousness of free 
 activity is possible. So far as the first aspect is con- 
 cerned, the following are Fichte's results. An intelli- 
 gence can ascribe to itself free activity only if it posit or 
 assume a world external to itself. But to posit or as- 
 sume a world external to itself seems to imply an activity 
 prior to the activity exercised upon the object, seems 
 to imply that the activity of the Ego which is free, shall 
 be at the same time determined by a prior fact. Recon- 
 ciliation of this contradiction is possible only if the Ego 
 be determined to free self-determination, and if the 
 motive or occasioning cause of this free self-determina- 
 tion be itself a rational, active Ego. The Ego, then, 
 cannot become aware of itself as a free, active being, 
 without at the same time positing the existence of an- 
 other free and active being. Individuality or personality 
 is conceivable only if there be given a multiplicity of 
 individuals or persons, and individuality is a condition 
 of consciousness of self. Nay, further, the recognition 
 
 i 'Werke,' vol. i. p. 301. Cf. vol. i. pp. 297, 314 ; vol. ii. p. 263; 
 vol. iii. p. 3.
 
 Development of the System. 183 
 
 of individuality, which is possible only in a community 
 of free, active intelligences, demands as its conditions 
 the positing of an external means of realising free acti- 
 vity i.e., of a material organism or body. The sense 
 world thus receives a deeper interpretation as the com- 
 mon ground or means of communication between free 
 intelligences. A community of free beings, finally, is 
 only conceivable if each regard himself as standing to 
 the others in a certain relation, which may be called 
 that of right or law. The essence of this relation is 
 the limitation by each of his sphere of free activity, 
 in accordance with the notion of a like sphere of free 
 activity as belonging to others. Eights, as Fichte re- 
 peatedly insists, are the conditions of individuality. 1 
 
 From this point the philosophical treatment of juris- 
 prudence takes its start. Eights have been deduced from 
 the very nature of self-consciousness, and not from any 
 ethical principle, and the whole science is treated by 
 Fichte in a strictly systematic fashion, as entirely inde- 
 pendent of ethics. In this procedure the ' JSTaturrecht ' 
 stands opposed not only to the later developments of his 
 thought, but to the earlier political doctrines of the 
 ' Contributions;' and while the work contains much acute 
 analysis of legal notions, it is, as a whole, fanciful and 
 unsatisfactory. Perhaps the most interesting doctrines 
 are the definite rejection of primitive rights as existing 
 beyond the state, the view of the state as essentially an 
 external mechanism for preserving the condition of 
 right in a freely formed community, the notion of an 
 ephoraf, or body invested with right of veto on the 
 
 1 See ' Briefwechsel,' p. 166, for a compressed statement regarding 
 the relation of individuality to the notion of the pure Ego.
 
 184 Fichte. 
 
 legislative and executive power, the theory of punish- 
 ment as purely protective, and the strongly socialist 
 principles for state regulation of property, labour, trade, 
 and money. The ' Geschlossene Handelsstaat,' already 
 referred to, is but the natural appendix to the theory of 
 rights in general. 
 
 So far, the consideration of the conditions under which 
 the Ego is conscious of itself has been external. The 
 Ego, conscious of self-existence in willing, is necessarily 
 an individual, standing in relation to other individuals. 
 The consciousness of self as willing must be further 
 analysed. But the consciousness of self as willing is 
 identical with the consciousness of self-activity, with the 
 tendency to act in independence of everything external 
 to self, with self-determination. This is the reality 
 which underlies the intellectual intuition previously 
 noted. Were not the Ego absolute tendency to free 
 activity, there would be no Ego and no self-conscious- 
 ness. The absolute thought of freedom, self-activity as 
 essence of the Ego, appears in consciousness in the cor- 
 relative form of all knowledge, as subjective, in which 
 case it is mere freedom ; as objective, in which case it 
 is necessary determination or law. The union of these 
 in the Ego is the consciousness of freedom as law, the 
 categorical imperative or moral law. 
 
 Activity, objectively regarded, is impulse or tendency 
 (Trieti). The Ego, as has been already seen, is a system 
 of impulses ; its very nature is tendency or impulse. 
 But all tendency of the Ego must at the same time be 
 for the Ego that is, must be reflectively matter of con- 
 sciousness to the Ego. A tendency of which we are 
 reflectively conscious is a need or want, and Avhen fur-
 
 Development of the System. 185 
 
 ther determined in reference to a definite object, a desire. 
 Nature i.e., our nature as a system of tendencies, has, 
 therefore, one supreme end, satisfaction of desire, plea- 
 sure or enjoyment. The Ego, however, is not merely 
 nature, but consciousness of self, and in so far is inde- 
 pendent of objects. It is at once tendency towards 
 objects and tendency towards self-activity, realisation 
 of its own independence. The very essence of the real 
 Ego is the constant coexistence in apparent isolation of 
 the two impulses natural tendency and tendency to- 
 wards freedom. Such constant coexistence is not to be 
 thought as a state or condition, but as a process. Tho 
 final end which is posited by the free self-consciousness 
 viz., absolute self-dependence, independence of nature 
 is not one to be realised as a finite state, but to be con- 
 tinually approached in an infinite series. " The Ego can 
 never be independent, so long as it remains an Ego ; the 
 final end of a rational being lies necessarily in infinity, 
 and is therefore one never to be attained, but continually 
 to be approached." 1 The vocation of a finite rational 
 being is not to be regarded as one definite thing, but as 
 a constant, infinite series of vocations, to each of which 
 it is imperatively called. " Continuously fulfil thy voca- 
 tion," is therefore the practical expression of the moral 
 law. The immediate feeling of the harmony in any case 
 between the natural tendency and the tendency to free- 
 dom is conscience. 
 
 The moral law, as the expression of the constant ten- 
 dency of the Ego towards realisation of the idea of self- 
 consciousness, self-activity, self-dependence, is the ulti- 
 mate certainty, the ground of all knowledge, and of all 
 1 ' Werke,' vol. iv. p. 149.
 
 186 FicUe. 
 
 practical belief. " Tlie supersensible, of which the reflex 
 in us is our world of sense, this it is which constrains 
 us to ascribe reality even to that reflex, this is the true 
 thing-in-itself, which lies at the foundation of all the 
 phenomenal ; and our belief is concerned, not with the 
 phenomenal, but with its sxipersensible foundation. My 
 vocation as moral, and whatever is involved in the con- 
 sciousness thereof, is the one immediate certainty that is 
 given to me as conscious of self, the one thing which 
 makes me for myself a reality. . . . Our world is the 
 sensualised material of our duty. . . . AYhat compels 
 us to yield belief in the reality of the world is a moral 
 force the only force that is possible for a free being." 1 
 
 Thus, as the series of acts by which the theoretical 
 Ego realised itself closed with the formal consciousness 
 of the independent, thinking, reflecting Ego, so here the 
 series of real acts by which the practical Ego realises 
 itself closes with the consciousness of the infinite law of 
 freedom, of duty. The. Ego, as individual, as finite 
 and real being, is at the same time the Ego with the idea 
 of its own infinite vocation and the infinite tendency to 
 realise the same. The problem of the Wissenschaf tslehre 
 has been completely solved ; the formal determinations 
 with which it started have received their real interpre- 
 tation. 
 
 It is evident that in the completed system, as here 
 conceived, no place is left for those notions which have 
 played so great a part in human thought the notions of 
 God as a personal, conscious agent, creative and regula- 
 tive of things. Such interpretation as theology could 
 receive in Wissenschaftslehre was given by Fichte in the 
 i ' Werke,' vol. v. pp. 210, 211.
 
 Development of the System. 187 
 
 essay which led to his removal from the University of 
 Jena. 1 
 
 The absolute end of reason has been seen to be the 
 infinite realisation of the moral law. The world of the 
 senses, contemplated from this point of view, is not a 
 reality in itself, but the necessary means for accomplish- 
 ing the task of reason. It has its foundation in that 
 moral law in which finite intelligences have also their 
 bond of union. Belief in the reality of the moral order 
 of the universe, conviction that the morally good will 
 is a free and effective cause in the intelligible system of 
 things, this, and this only, is belief in God. For a 
 rational being, God is the moral order of the universe, 
 not an order which has its ground external to itself 
 not an ordo ordinatus, but the order which is the 
 ground of all reality, ordo ordinans. To think of this 
 order as object of intelligence is necessarily to bring it 
 under the forms of cognition, to regard it as being, as 
 substance, as person. But such predicates have no 
 validity when applied to the moral order ; and even to 
 describe this order as supreme consciousness, intelli- 
 gence, is but of negative service, useful as obviating 
 the error of viewing the moral system as a thing, hurtful 
 as tending to inclose in limited notions that which is 
 the ground of all intelligence. The moral order is truly 
 a spiritual order, and in it only our life has reality. All 
 life is its life, and the manifestation of this life is the 
 infinite development of humanity. The life does not 
 exist as a completed fact, hence the point of view is in 
 no way to be identified with Pantheism or with Spin- 
 ozism, but eternally is to be. The individual, finite 
 1 See above, pp. 56-64.
 
 188 Fichte. 
 
 Ego, in acceptance of his position as a member in this 
 supersensible order, realises his infinite vocation, tends 
 more and more to lose his apparent individuality, and 
 approaches ever more nearly to the idea of infinitude 
 which is the characteristic mark of self-consciousness. 
 In this intelligible moral order, the problem of Wissen- 
 schaftslehre finds its final solution ; the abstract form of 
 self-consciousness here receives its concrete development 
 and completion. 1 
 
 1 Cf. the passage already quoted (p. 15), in which the twofold aspect 
 of the Ego as abstract starting-point and concrete end is indicated.
 
 189 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 LATER FORM OP THE WISSEIfSCHAFTSLEHRE. 
 
 THE result of the Wissenschaftslehre, as stated in the 
 last paragraph, proved far from final, and in fact only 
 served to open out a series of problems, the treatment of 
 which forms the second stage in the development of 
 Fichte's philosophy. As has been already pointed out, 
 it was, historically, the effect produced by his specula- 
 tions on theology, that compelled Fichte to a renewed 
 consideration of the principles on which the Wissen- 
 schaftslehre rested, and the system of knowledge there 
 expounded. The course of his inquiry had led him from 
 the abstract analysis of the acts necessarily involved in 
 the nature of self-consciousness, to the more concrete 
 conception of the essence of reason as recognised depend- 
 ence on the ultimate moral law. The successive stages 
 had been cognition, in its various forms, practical reason 
 or will, and the final synthesis in which these were 
 united. 
 
 It was now evident that the final synthesis the con- 
 crete reality of reason required a treatment much more 
 elaborate than it had yet received, that in the concep- 
 tion of the finite Ego as accepting the infinite vocation
 
 190 Fichte. 
 
 of the moral law, more was implied than the pure self- 
 activity, pure freedom, through which consciousness of 
 this vocation was possible ; and that the relation between 
 knowledge as form, will as ground of reality, and the 
 supreme notion of the divine order, was as yet imperfect. 
 "In a word, there was yet wanting a transcendental 
 system of the intelligible world." 1 From this point 
 onwards the inquiry centres in that divine idea of the 
 world which appears as the guiding principle in the 
 popular works, and which at first sight appears to have 
 no immediate connection with the Wissenschaftslehre 
 in its earlier form. 2 In certain minor doctrines, the 
 new expositions differ from the Wissenschaftslehre as al- 
 ready described, and the position assigned to moral inde- 
 pendence is not exactly the same as that given to it in 
 the ' Sittenlehre,' but on the whole we find nothing in 
 them to contradict or supersede the "Wissenschaftslehre. 
 They contain a wider, more concrete view, to which 
 Wissenschaftslehre may be regarded as an introduction, 
 but essentially this view is but the more complete 
 evolution of what in an abstract fashion had already 
 been stated there. The difficulties in the way of sur- 
 veying the new treatment, and perceiving its connection 
 with the older doctrine, arise partly from the obscurity 
 of the language in which expression is given to the new 
 thoughts, partly from the varied modes in which the 
 same matter is presented. Fichte, who always laid stress 
 on the fact of unity in his philosophy, approaches the 
 statement from the most varied points, now selecting the 
 
 1 ' Briefwechsel,' p. 333. 
 
 2 See particularly the lectures on the " Nature of the Scholar," 
 ' Werke,' vol. vi., and there pp. 360-371.
 
 Later form of the Wissenscliaftslclire. 191 
 
 ultimate ground of tilings, now sketching the series of 
 processes by which our thinking reaches this ground, 
 and again taking knowledge as a completed system, and 
 considering what is implied by it. 1 Many of these ex- 
 positions are before us only in the form of notes for lec- 
 tures, and it is a task of immense difficulty to follow the 
 line of thought through the disjointed remarks and wil- 
 derness of abstruse illustration by which Fichte strove 
 to make his meaning clear. 2 
 
 The work in which we are able to discern, with the 
 utmost precision, the transition from the earlier to the 
 later doctrine, is the ' Eestimmung des Menschen,' pub- 
 lished in 1800. 3 In the three books into which the 
 work is divided, Fichte describes three fundamental 
 views in philosophy : first, that of naturalism or dog- 
 matism ; second, that of theoretical idealism ; third, that 
 of practical faith or ethical idealism. Naturalism, the 
 systematic development of one notion, that of the recip- 
 rocal determination of the several parts of experience, 
 finds itself in absolute conflict with the idea of our own 
 freedom, which is the very essence of consciousness. 
 If it were possible for us to regard consciousness as 
 mere object of knowledge as a thing then to it would 
 apply the results of this comprehensive notion. This 
 being impossible, natural necessity and freedom stand 
 
 1 As an instance of the first method, the ' Anweisnng zum seligen 
 Leben ' may be selected. For the second, the ' Thatsacheu des Bewusst- 
 seyns,' and for the third, the ' Darstellung der Wissenschaftslehro 
 aus d. Jahre 1801,' are the best illustrations. 
 
 a These lecture-notes make up the bulk of the 'Nachgelassene 
 Werke.' 
 
 3 A translation into English has been published by Dr W. Smith. 
 S?e ' Fichte's Popular Works,' with a Memoir (3d ed. 1873), pp. 237- 
 379. To this references are made.
 
 192 Mchte. 
 
 opposed to one another, and no means of abolishing 
 their opposition appears to be given. 1 In the second 
 book, entitled "Knowledge," the analysis of percep- 
 tion from its subjective side is carried out with a 
 subtlety and exhaustiveness that leave nothing to be 
 desired. Gradually the thinker is led on from the first 
 naive position of intelligence to the conclusion that the 
 whole varied contents of external experience are nothing 
 and can be nothing but Vorstellungen, determined modes 
 of intelligence. 2 He is brought to the point at which 
 "Wissenschaftslehre as theoretical ends ; and the interpre- 
 tation of his position, as here given, is but an expansion 
 of the principle, already noted as fundamental in Fichte, 
 that knowledge is pure form. The process of subjective 
 analysis i.e., of analysis for cognition, when carried 
 out rigorously, leaves as result a system of Vorstellungen. 
 " There is nothing enduring, either out of me or in me, 
 but only a ceaseless change. I know of no being, not 
 even of my own. There is no being. I myself know 
 not and am not. Pictures there are ; 3 they are all that 
 exist, and they know of themselves after the fashion of 
 pictures, pictures, which float past without there being 
 anything past which they float ; which, by means of like 
 pictures, are connected with each other ; pictures with- 
 out anything which is pictured in them,, without signifi- 
 cance and without aim. I myself am one of these pic- 
 
 1 Hence the title of the first book, " Doubt." 
 
 2 The ' Sonnenklarer Bericht ' is an excellent commentary on this 
 second book of the ' Bestimmung. ' Together they make a most admir- 
 able introduction to philosophical analysis. 
 
 3 The term picture must be taken in a metaphorical sense, in order 
 to serve as translation of Bild. The English use of the term idea, as 
 equivalent to mental picture, would be more satisfactory.
 
 Later form of the Wissenschaftslehre. 193 
 
 tures ; nay, I am not even this, but merely a confused 
 picture of the pictures. All reality is transformed into 
 a strange dream, without a life which is dreamed of, 
 and without a mind which dreams it, into a dream 
 which is woven together in a dream of itself. Intuition 
 is the dream ; thought the source of all the being and 
 all the reality which I imagine, of my own being, my 
 own powers, and my own purposes is the dream of 
 that dream." 1 From the point of view of knowledge, 
 there is nothing but knowledge ; and knowledge is not 
 reality, just because it is knowledge. In the form of 
 cognition we can never attain to more than formal truth. 
 With this sceptical conclusion the second book closes. 
 In the third, the transition is effected to the higher, 
 the practical stage of Fiehte's philosophy, by a method 
 partly identical with that already described, but in part 
 containing a new and startling feature. Not knowledge 
 only, but action, is the end of existence. The restless 
 striving after a reality which is not given in thought, 
 has significance only in reference to the active, energetic 
 power by which self endeavours to mould the world to 
 its own purposes. But if we endeavour to subject this 
 feeling of free self-activity, of independent purpose, to 
 the analysis of reason, the sceptical doubts regarding 
 knowledge return with their former force. It is con- 
 ceivable that the distinction of the self willing and the 
 conditions under which the volition is to be realised 
 the twofold aspect of all will, as thought and as act 
 may be nothing but the form imposed by cognitive con- 
 sciousness on the operation of some unknown external 
 power. Through this sceptical reflection, "all earnest - 
 
 i P. 309. 
 P. iv. N
 
 194 Fichte. 
 
 ness and interest is withdrawn from my life, and life, as 
 well as thought, is transformed into a mere play, which 
 proceeds from nothing and tends to nothing." No exit 
 is left, save that of resolute acceptance of the inner com- 
 mand to act, and act freely. "We must have faith in this 
 impulse to independence, which is the very innermost 
 secret of our nature. Thought is not supreme, but is 
 founded on our striving energies. Unhesitating accept- 
 ance of our vocation and of the conditions implied in 
 it through this only has life reality for us. "There 
 is something that must be done for its own sake that 
 which conscience demands of me in this particular situa- 
 tion of life it is mine to do, and for this purpose only 
 am I here ; to know it I have understanding ; to per- 
 form it I have power. Through this edict of conscience 
 only are truth and reality introduced into my conceptions." 
 Obedience to the law of conscience is the ground of 
 practical belief ; and from it follow, as consequences, 
 practical belief in the existence of others, and in the ex- 
 istence of a real external world. To merely speculative 
 cognition, the existence of others and of a world, must 
 be interpreted as only a specific mode of representation ; 
 but speculative cognition is abstract and one-sided. Only 
 in reference to action has the existence of another con- 
 scious being or of an external thing, significance for us. 
 " We are compelled to believe that we act, and that we 
 ought to act, in a certain manner ; we are compelled to 
 assume a certain sphere for this action ; this sphere is 
 the real, actually present world, such as we find it. ... 
 From necessity of action proceeds the consciousness of 
 the actual world ; and not the reverse way, from the 
 consciousness of the actual world the necessity of action."
 
 Later form of the Wissenscliaftslelire. 195 
 
 Action under conscience supposes an end, not pre- 
 scribed by nature, but to be realised by us in nature. 
 As contrasted with tins end, even in its formal aspect, 
 the world of fact presents itself as but a stage in progress 
 towards the more perfect harmony between the condi- 
 tions of life and the moral rule which is its supreme law. 
 Improvement of nature, development of the powers of 
 humanity, whether in science or culture or state organi- 
 sation, establishment of the general rule of rational free- 
 dom, these are contained under the comprehensive 
 demand of conscience. 1 
 
 Eealisation of itself in this world cannot, however, be 
 looked upon as the one aim of the rational will. For in 
 such realisation in deed or fact, that which is to inner 
 
 1 It is to this point that the lectures on the " Characteristics of the 
 Present Age " attach themselves. In them, the general progress of 
 humanity towards realisation, with consciousness of its earthly aim 
 " that in this life mankind may order all their relations with free- 
 dom according to reason" is traced in its broad outlines as the 
 foundation for a philosophy of history. In such progress Fichte dis- 
 tinguishes five epochs, or world ages : first, that in which reason 
 acts as blind instinct the state of innocence ; second, that in which 
 the growing consciousness of reason presents itself as external au- 
 thority the age of positive systems, of progressive sin ; third, that 
 in which reason reflectively frees itself from external authority, and 
 so from all general control the age of individualism, of completed 
 sinfulness ; fourth, that in which the rational end is apprehended as 
 reasoned, philosophic truth the age of reconstruction, of progressive 
 justification ; fifth, that in which the rational end, embodied in gen- 
 eral consciousness, is artistically developed in which humanity, with 
 clear consciousness of its own aim, endeavours practically to realise 
 the reign of freedom, the age of completed justification. Much that 
 is fantastic and unreal is given in these lectures, especially as re- 
 gards the first stage the origin of history ; but the general view of 
 the progress of practical thought is luminous and instructive, and 
 we note that here the state begins to have assigned to it a higher 
 function in the development of human life than had been accorded to 
 it in the earlier work (the ' Rechtslehre').
 
 196 Fichte. 
 
 consciousness the pre-eminent excellence of moral action 
 the intention or disposition becomes of no account. 
 " In the world of sense it is never of any moment how, 
 and with what motives and intentions, an action is per- 
 formed, but only what the action is." The mechanism 
 of the world of fact may be the form in which the 
 divine idea partially realises itself, but it cannot be 
 placed as coextensive Avith the divine idea. Our will 
 must be thought as determined in a supersensible order, 
 and as carrying out in the world of sense, under exter- 
 nal conditions, what is there unconditionally demanded. 
 " The earthly purpose is not pursued by me for its own 
 sake alone, or as a final aim, but only because my true 
 final aim obedience to the law of conscience does not 
 present itself to me in this world in any other shape 
 than as the advancement of this end." " This, then, is 
 my whole vocation, my true nature. I am a member of 
 two orders the one purely spiritual, in which I rule by 
 my will alone ; the other sensuous, in which I operate 
 by my deed. . . . The will is the living principle 
 of reason is itself reason, when apprehended purely 
 and simply. . . . Only the infinite reason lives 
 immediately and wholly in this purely spiritual order. 
 The finite reason which does not of itself constitute 
 the world of reason, but is only one of its many mem- 
 bers lives necessarily at the same time in a sensuous 
 order that is to say, in one which presents to it another 
 object beyond a purely spiritual activity a material ob- 
 ject to be promoted by instruments and powers which 
 indeed stand under the immediate dominion of the will, 
 but whose activity is also conditioned by their own 
 natural laws. Yet as surely as reason is reason, must
 
 Later form of the Wisscnschaftslehre. 197 
 
 the will operate absolutely by itself, and independently 
 of the natural laws by which the material action is de- 
 termined ; and hence the life of every finite being points 
 towards a higher, into which the will by itself alone 
 may open the way, and of which it may acquire posses- 
 sion a possession which indeed we must sensuously 
 conceive of as a state, and not as a mere will." Thus 
 the true essence of the finite being is his participation 
 in the divine, spiritual order; his true vocation is the 
 continuous approximation of his finite life to the infinite 
 requirements of the law of this spiritual order. The 
 divine will is the bond of union between finite spirits. 
 God, as Malebranche finely said, is the place of spirits. 1 
 The divine life or spiritual moral order has thus ap- 
 peared as involved in the very nature of self-conscious- 
 ness ; it is the reality which, in the earlier exposition of 
 Wissenschaftslehre was called the idea of the absolute 
 Ego. A new aspect is thus given to the whole nature 
 of reason, theoretical and practical, for both appear as 
 related necessarily to this ultimate unity. So far as the 
 individual is concerned, there now comes forward, in 
 place of mere formal independence abstract freedom of 
 thought and self-dependence in action the free resigna- 
 tion of the individual to the law of the divine order, 
 with love for it and active effort to give its precepts 
 realisation. The position of morality, as expressed in 
 the ' Naturrecht ' and ' Sittenlehre,' has been transcended 
 and absorbed in that of religion. The will is no longer 
 thought as striving to realise only its own freedom, but 
 
 1 ' Rech. de la Verite,' B. III. Pt. ii. ch. 6. "Demeurons done 
 dans ce sentiment, que Dieu est le monde intelligible on le lieu des 
 esprits, de meme que le monde materiel est le lieu des corps."
 
 198 Fichte. 
 
 as continuously endeavouring after full harmony between 
 itself and the divine moral order. 
 
 The relation between the earlier and later forms of 
 Wissenschaftslehre seems, therefore, perfectly intelligible. 
 In the earlier doctrine the ultimate notion lay in advance 
 as something to be reached by laborious analysis, as 
 what is necessarily contained in consciousness. So soon 
 as the ultimate notion had been grasped, the Wissen- 
 schaftslehre, in the strict sense, became of secondary im- 
 portance. It had, as Fichte said, the value of a path 
 and no more. The later doctrine, accepting the ultimate 
 idea, the metaphysical unity, to which all knowledge and 
 action, however indirectly, refer, has to develop its con- 
 sequences, and in the course of the development to show 
 what place is occupied by Wissenschaftslehre as at first 
 conceived. That some points of the earlier doctrine 
 receive a new interpretation is certain ; that the whole 
 manner of viewing the problem is fresh and original, is 
 equally certain ; but it requires little investigation to see 
 that the two expositions are in fundamental agreement, 
 and that the second of them, though, unfortunately, less 
 completely worked out than the first, is the true and 
 final philosophy of Fichte. 
 
 It is impossible, within the limits of this sketch, to 
 give any adequate account of the various statements of 
 the new doctrine successively put forward by their ever- 
 active and prolific author. All that can be attempted is 
 a very general description of the results which appear as 
 permanent elements in these statements, and a notice of 
 the difficulties which appear to arise in connection with 
 them. For such a purpose the lectures in the 'Nach- 
 gelassene Werke,' may be omitted ; the style in them is
 
 Later form of the Wisscnschaftslehre. 199 
 
 so obscure as to necessitate constant and extended com- 
 mentary ; and they are, probably, not in a shape in which 
 the author would have wished them to be laid before the 
 public. The most valuable and interesting works are 
 the popular addresses on religion, 'Anweisung zum 
 seligen Leben,' l and the treatise, prepared for publica- 
 tion, though not actually published during Fichte's life, 
 on the 'Facts of Consciousness.' 2 The second of these 
 is without doubt the best introduction to the philosophy 
 of the later period. The ultimate metaphysical prin- 
 ciple is approached by a careful, genetic analysis of con- 
 sciousness in its several stages, from immediate external 
 perception to pure thought, in and through which the 
 principle of existence is apprehended. The work stands 
 to ' Wissenschaftslehre ' very much in the position in 
 which the ' Phanomenologie des Geistes ' stands to 
 Hegel's 'Logic.' From the systematic fashion in which 
 the several problems, arising in connection with the 
 several stages of consciousness, are taken, we can dis- 
 cern with the greatest definiteness the divisions into 
 which Fichte's philosophy now falls, and so trace any 
 resemblance to, or difference from, the earlier doctrines. 
 In the 'Wissenschaftslehre,' these divisions had been 
 two in number, theoretical and practical, corresponding 
 to the two main faculties of thought and action, with a 
 common introduction. The development of the Wis- 
 senschaftslehre, circular in nature, had shown that the 
 final synthesis of the theoretical and practical was to be 
 looked for in the more concrete treatment of what had 
 
 1 Translated by Dr W. Smith ('Fichte's Popular Works,' 1873. 
 pp. 381-564). To this references are made. 
 
 2 " Thatsacheu des Bewusstseyns," 'Werke,' vol. ii. pp. 535-691.
 
 200 Fichte. 
 
 been contained in the introduction. In the later expo- 
 sition, this more concrete treatment appears definitely as 
 a third part, following the analysis of the theoretical and 
 practical reason, and dealing specifically with the higher 
 faculty. It is, in brief, metaphysic or theology ; and here 
 only do we find any adequate explanation of the abstract 
 statements with which Wissenschaftslehre started. As 
 was pointed out, Fichte, in the first sketch of his system, 
 adopted an artificial and somewhat forced method for 
 bringing forward his first principle, and the nature of 
 this method tended to perpetuate the misconception 
 under which the whole system laboured. It appeared 
 as if the first principle were, somehow, the expression of 
 an act or activity on the part of the individual ; that 
 reason or consciousness was something possessed by the 
 individual an accident or attribute of the conscious sub- 
 ject. So long as this conception is suffered to hold its 
 ground, the whole system must appear as one of subjec- 
 tive idealism, and the scheme of forms and categories as 
 nothing but the logical grouping of individual subjective 
 impressions. This, however, is in no sense, Fichte's 
 view, nor was it involved in the earlier Wissenschafts- 
 lehre. He is throughout true to the thought which lies 
 at the root of the Kantian and all the post-Kantian 
 philosophy, that the individual subject is not per se 
 an independent, self-existent reality, but has his being 
 only in and through reason. The ultimate distinction 
 between self and non-self, on which individuality is 
 dependent, is not made or, to use the technical term, 
 posited by the individual reason, but by the universal 
 common reason. " The Ego, as understood in common 
 fashion, posits neither the external object nor itself, but
 
 Later form of the Wissenschaftslehre. 201 
 
 both are posited through general, absolute thinking, and 
 through this the object is given for the Ego, as well 
 as the Ego for itself. . . . But without exception, 
 Wissenschaftslehre has been understood as if it said 
 the very reverse of what has just been laid down." x 
 
 The analysis of theoretical cognition in the "That- 
 sachen," contains little or nothing beyond what has 
 already appeared in the earlier Wissenschaftslehre, and 
 differs only in the total omission of the somewhat tech- 
 nical phraseology and of the dialectical method there 
 employed. More important modifications, though not 
 alterations, appear in the treatment of the practical 
 faculty, that through which reality is given to the mere 
 form of knowledge. 
 
 .As in the earlier exposition, the key to the new develop- 
 ment is found in the activity of the Ego an activity of 
 Avhich the Ego must be reflectively conscious, if it is to be 
 Ego at all. The Ego is only conscious of its activity, in 
 so far as that activity is limited or opposed. There thus 
 lie in the consciousness of the Ego the three elements, 
 feeling of impulse or striving, intuition of activity, and 
 the representation of the obstacle to activity; a repre- 
 sentation Avhich is the work of productive imagination. 
 The most abstract expression for this necessary limita- 
 tion of the activity of the Ego is force contemplated as 
 matter of intuition ; and this, again, may be described as 
 matter in general, or corporeality. The essence of the 
 external thing is force, and it is the thought of force as 
 lying behind the specific modes of feeling which we call 
 sensations, that gives to the object of perception its 
 qualification as an external, real fact. 
 
 1 ' Werke,' vol. ii. p. 562.
 
 202 FicUe. 
 
 The Ego, then, is only conscious of itself as activity 
 in a corporeal world, but to be conscious of itself as 
 active in relation to the corporeal world, it must be for 
 itself corporeal. The body or corporeal organism is the 
 Ego as an objective thing. The Ego is a possible object 
 of intuition only in so far as it is corporeal At the 
 same time, the Ego exists for itself only in and by reflec- 
 tion, and reflection is in its very essence limitative and 
 separating. The Ego, therefore, can be conceived only 
 as one of many Egos, which are united in thought, but 
 manifold for intuition. A system of individuals, cor- 
 poreally distinct from one another, is thus the condition 
 under which self-consciousness is realised. 
 
 The three main features of the representation of the 
 world as objective have thus been deduced, a system of 
 Egos, a system of organised bodies of these Egos, a world 
 of the senses. All of these are to be regarded as modes 
 or ways in which the infinite life of consciousness mani- 
 fests itself. Distinction or difference among them is not 
 absolute, but relative to the nature of finite consciousness. 
 Eichte, therefore, with justice, repudiates certain famous 
 distinctions which have played an unfortunate part in 
 philosophy, among others, the distinction of soul and 
 body. From the speculative point of view, the soul, as 
 popularly regarded, is but a kind of ghost. Soul and 
 body are the forms under which imagination, or percep- 
 tion, if we prefer a less ambiguous term, contemplates 
 the limited, definite activity of the Ego. At the same 
 time, his view is not to be identified either with material- 
 ism, which likewise endeavours to regard all finite ex- 
 istence as the form of some underlying substance or with 
 subjective idealism, which regards external reality, and
 
 Later form of the Wissenschaftslelire. 203 
 
 the existence of other Egos, as modes of the individual 
 consciousness. The one system is incapable of explain- 
 ing consciottsness in general ; the other fails entirely 
 to render a reason for the difference or multiplicity of 
 experience. 
 
 The system of finite spirits into which the one life of 
 consciousness separates itself is, for intuition, a numerical 
 multiplicity, without bond of union. But the physical 
 nexus, which is impossible for them, is not to be thought 
 as the only link of connection. The free activity 
 which underlies individual consciousness, is no mere 
 natural force, but, when received into consciousness, is 
 the ethical or moral freedom of the individual spirit ; 
 and with the recognition of this ethical freedom free- 
 dom under absolute law a new view is opened out. 
 In the consciousness of the moral end which is to be 
 realised, the individual is one with the community of 
 individual Egos. The infinite life, if it is to be realised 
 at all, must have expression in individual forms; and 
 each finite spirit is an individual, and is aware of him- 
 self as an individual, only in so far as he has individual 
 duties, a special sphere of moral action. We must 
 therefore think of the infinite life in which we find our 
 place, not as absolute in itself not as mere capacity of 
 action but as the means of realising the moral end. 
 The individual finite spirits are the modes in which this 
 infinite life expresses itself, and each has his definite 
 position, his definite line of action, prescribed for him. 
 No individual is originally or by nature moral ; nor can 
 he discover a priori what his specific moral vocation is 
 to be. But he becomes moral, or attains to a conscious- 
 ness of his vocation, in and through the continuous effort
 
 204 FwUe. 
 
 to realise that supreme end which unites him with all 
 other finite spirits in an ethical community. 'No indi- 
 vidual form of the infinite life perishes ; but no individ- 
 ual either is here, or will be in all eternity, an independ- 
 ent being. Immortality is not beyond this life, but in it. 
 " There is no more striking proof that the knowledge of 
 true religion has hitherto been very rare among men, 
 and that, in particular, it is a stranger in the prevailing 
 systems, than this, that they universally place eternal 
 blessedness beyond the grave, and never for a moment 
 imagine that whoever will may here and at once be 
 blessed." 1 
 
 The analysis of consciousness has thus led Fichte to a 
 conclusion resembling in all essentials that already stated 
 in the 'Bestimmung des Menschen.' The concluding 
 portion of the work 2 introduces a new notion or at least 
 a change of terminology, which has given rise to much 
 misunderstanding, and has caused excellent critics, such 
 as Erdmann, to pronounce the later philosophy out of 
 harmony with the earlier "Wissenschaftslehre. The in- 
 finite life that which underlies all consciousness has 
 been seen to be the infinite means of realisation of the 
 supreme moral law. Its form or expression for intuition 
 that is, its phenomenal manifestation in actual experi- 
 ence is the world of finite spirits and of nature as the 
 organised limit of these finite individuals. But the in- 
 finite life is thus thought only as an endless, continuous 
 change a conception which is in itself incomplete or 
 imperfect. The infinite life must be thought as being as 
 
 1 ' Werke,' vol. vii. p. 235. 
 
 2 " Thatsachen des Bewusstseyns," sect. iii. ch. 5 ; ' Werke,' vol. 
 ii. pp. 680-691.
 
 Later form of the Wissenscliaftslelire. 205 
 
 having fixity and permanence. It cannot reveal itself, 
 save as the revelation of that which is ; and its revela- 
 tion is thus distinct from its being (a distinction, how- 
 ever, which is only for us i.e., for consciousness). This 
 being, which reveals itself in the infinite life, which 
 manifests itself in the form of individual consciousness or 
 knowledge, which exists not apart from its manifestation, 
 but yet is as opposed to this manifestation, is the supreme 
 unity of thought a unity not to be perfectly compre- 
 hended, not to be grasped in thought, but seen to be the 
 ultimate inconceivability. To this supreme unity Fichte 
 gives the significant title God ; and in it he finds the 
 ultimate notion of all consciousness. " Knowledge as a 
 whole, is not mere knowledge of itself ; but it is know- 
 ledge of being of the one Being which truly is i.e., of 
 God. In no way is it knowledge of a being external to 
 God, for such is impossible beyond the being of know- 
 ledge itself or the intuition of God ; and the supposition 
 of its existence is pure nonsense. But this one possible 
 object of knowledge is never in its entirety present to 
 knowledge, but appears ever as broken into the necessary 
 forms of knowledge. The exposition of the necessity of 
 these forms is Philosophy or Wissenschaftslehre." * 
 
 The obscurity of these detached expressions may be 
 somewhat removed by calling attention more definitely 
 to the exact problem which Fichte now has before him, 
 and by referring for a more detailed treatment to the 
 popular lectures on religion. 2 The problem is in sub- 
 stance the ultimate question into which run all philo- 
 sophical or theological speculations that of the relation 
 
 1 ' Werke,' vol. ii. p. 685. 
 
 2 ' Anweisung zum seligen Leben.'
 
 206 Ficlite. 
 
 between the finite spirit and the universe, of which he 
 seems to form a part. Whether we call this universe 
 God, or nature, or matter, or force, is of comparatively 
 small moment : its character for us must depend entirely 
 on what we think as the innermost essence of the finite 
 spirit, and on the mode or kind of relation between this 
 finite spirit and the ultimate reality. Now for Fichte it 
 has become apparent, from the mere systematic analysis 
 of consciousness, that the very essence of the finite spirit 
 is the combination of the consciousness of moral determin- 
 ation with the consciousness of practical activity or will ; 
 and that through this, its innermost being, it is one 
 member of the ethical community of spirits, whose sole 
 aim is the infinite and constant effort towards the reali- 
 sation in nature of the moral end or purpose the subjec- 
 tion of nature to reasoned freedom. The individual is 
 thus a mode or form of the process by which freedom 
 is realised, and the infinite series of individuals makes up 
 the complete system of modes or forms in and through 
 which the moral life, the divine plan, is to be carried 
 out. No one individual exhausts the possibilities of 
 this divine life ; and as opposed to its infinite being, the 
 existence of any individual must be thought as contin- 
 gent or accidental. Nevertheless, only in and through 
 the form of individuality i.e., of self -consciousness 
 can the divine life receive expression. Thus nature, as 
 object of intelligence, and self -consciousness as the essence 
 of intelligence, appear in their true place. They are 
 modes of the manifestation or realisation of the moral 
 law or ethical end. Things and finite spirits are not to 
 be thought as developments of some inconceivable, me- 
 chanical necessity, but as the form in which the moral
 
 Later form of the WissenschaftsleJire. 207 
 
 order the highest expression of the reason we find in 
 us has existence or reality. 
 
 It is hardly surprising that, in dealing with this ulti- 
 mate problem, the terms employed should often fail to 
 convey exactly the significance of the thoughts involved. 
 Theology, which is for the most part a bad mixture of 
 metaphysics and popular conceptions, has suffered more 
 than any other branch of human thinking, from the im- 
 possibility of expressing speculative results in the lan- 
 guage of ordinary life. For thought, whether popular or 
 general, is in essence abstraction that is, tendency to 
 separate what is inseparable, to give permanence and 
 apparent independence to that which is transient and 
 dependent. Thus the relation of the infinite moral order 
 to the finite modes in which it takes expression for itself, 
 is hardly to be thought without danger of falling back 
 into the old theological error of severing entirely from 
 one another God and the world of nature and finite 
 spirits. That Fichte altogether escapes this danger can- 
 not be said ; but so far as it is possible to judge from all 
 that appears in his later works, he was well aware of the 
 danger ; and one must account it an error to ascribe to 
 him the view that Being, or God, or the ultimate reality, 
 is distinct from the manifestation or realisation of it in 
 the world of consciousness. 
 
 The special theology or theosophy of Fichte's system, 
 as wa#said, is most definitely stated in the lectures on 
 the 'Doctrine of Religion,' and what is there given 
 may be accepted as his final utterance on the supreme 
 problem of speculation. As in the earlier Wissenschafts- 
 lehre, though with much greater fulness and concreteness, 
 the exposition is twofold : first, a logical development
 
 208 Fichte. 
 
 of the relation between the ultimate reality and its 
 form or mode or manifestation ; second, a psychological 
 history of the stages or forms of reflection by which 
 this relation is received into the consciousness of the 
 finite thinking subject by which it is viewed, appre- 
 hended, or understood. 1 It is in this second portion 
 that Fichte begins to connect in one organic whole the 
 elements of his system which, in the earlier Wissen- 
 schaftslehre, had been suffered to remain detached from 
 one another. 
 
 The function of thought, as opposed to mere opinion, 
 is to conceive of being, of the ultimate reality which 
 underlies all objects of knowledge. True being is one, 
 unchangeable and perdurable. But in its unity and 
 unchangeability it does not exist ; it has no reality ; it 
 is mere abstraction. To say merely that God is, is to 
 say nothing. The existence or definite realisation of 
 being, that, in and for which only opposition between 
 being and existence is present and necessarily present, 
 is consciousness, conscious life, the life of knowledge, 
 thought and action. JSTow in consciousness there is 
 found the root of all the multiplicity of experience ; for 
 the very essence of consciousness is reflection, character- 
 
 1 The mode of exposition adopted by Fichte in the work in ques- 
 tion resembles somewhat the well-known method of Schleiermacher's 
 Theology. He proceeds by an analysis of the elements involved 
 in the religious consciousness, the mode of thought in wTfich the 
 apparent reality of the world of sense is recognised as apparent mere- 
 ly ; in which the finite being contemplate*, sub specie csternitatis, his 
 own existence and the being of all things ; in which he is penetrated 
 with the intellectual love of the real divine life underlying the appar- 
 ent world ; in which he becomes one with this divine life, and lives 
 and works for it alone. The closing portions of Spinoza's 'Ethics' 
 furnish the best commentary on the 'Doctrine of Religion.'
 
 Later form of the Wissenscliaftslelire. 209 
 
 isation of the one reality by separate, individual marks. 
 Just as light, in itself colourless, is, in relation to the 
 eye, broken up on the surfaces of things into many 
 various hues ; so the unchangeable life is by reflection 
 and in relation to consciousness broken up into infinitely 
 varied forms. Consciousness, which contains in itself 
 the element of opposition, can never transcend itself. 
 To it the one being, apprehended by pure thought as the 
 one being, must ever present itself in the form of repre- 
 sentation, conception, in the form of separate individ- 
 ual things. " The visible forms which by this separa- 
 tion are imposed upon absolute reality are discernible 
 only in actual consciousness, and in such a way that in 
 the act of observing them we assign to them life and 
 permanence and they are by no means discoverable 
 a priori by pure thought. They are simple and abso- 
 lute experience, which is nothing but experience ; which 
 no speculation that understands itself will ever attempt 
 or desire to comprehend." l 
 
 Thus the one reality, the one life, the life of conscious- 
 ness, which is the manifestation of God, breaks itself up 
 into an endless multiplicity of individual forms, forms 
 which in the experience of the finite spirit must present 
 themselves as independent, self-existing facts, but which 
 for thought are only modes of the one, infinite life. The 
 finite spirit may apprehend this world of phenomena and 
 its relation to the real system by reflective consideration 
 of it ; and of such reflective consideration there are five 
 distinctly marked stages. 2 The first is that in which the 
 
 1 ' Doctrine of Religion,' p. 447. 
 
 2 It appears to me beyond doubt that Hegel, in the famous preface 
 to his ' Phanomenologie,' has Fichte in view as well as Schelling ; and 
 further, that much in the ' Phanomenologie ' is due to Fichte's lectures 
 
 P. IV. O
 
 210 Fichte. 
 
 world, as matter of outer sense, is regarded as the only 
 existence and the only reality. Such a view is mani- 
 festly imperfect and partial the things of sense are only 
 there for thought ; and a system which, abstracting from 
 thought, proposes to treat them as self-existent facts, 
 of necessity throws out of account the most important 
 factor in the process of knowledge. This is, in essence, 
 the view already dealt with in the first book of the 
 ' Vocation of Man : ' it is the view of much popular 
 philosophy, and it is the speculative groundwork both 
 of selfish Epicurean morality and of ethical pessimism. 
 
 The second view is that in which the ultimate reality 
 is regarded as the law of independent, free intelligences, 
 with equal rights. From the conception of such a law 
 may be deduced (as was done in the earlier Wissen- 
 schaftslehre, and, implicitly, in the Kantian system) the 
 existence of finite Egos and a world of the senses. The 
 essence of this view is the notion of the abstract inde- 
 pendence of the thinking subject, and in this consists its 
 imperfection and one-sidedness. It is a purely negative 
 standpoint, maintaining, beyond doubt, the freedom of 
 the individual will, but rejecting all possibility of uniting 
 moral action with consciousness of the supreme end, and 
 love for it. 1 The law \ipon which the individual rests, is 
 
 on the 'Doctrine of Religion.' The treatment in the 'Phanomenologie' 
 of the gradual rise from immediate perception to pure thought is 
 more extended and richer than what appears in the ' Doctrine of Re- 
 ligion,' but the general resemblance is striking and unmistakable. 
 
 1 This is, in substance, the criticism of all the post-Kantian think- 
 ers upon Kant's notion of the categorical imperative. It appears in 
 Schiller, Schleiermacher, and Hegel. The view, as a whole, is that 
 of formal morality, and its historical representatives are to be found 
 in the Stoic and Kantian systems. With what is said by Fichte may 
 be compared Hegel's remarks in the 'Phanomeuologie,' pp. 147-149.
 
 Later form of the Wissenscliaftslehre. 211 
 
 only a law of order, not a creative rale. The third view 
 takes up into itself what is of value in the second, but 
 gives to it a higher and deeper significance. In the higher 
 morality, as Fichte calls it, 1 the individual is filled with 
 the desire to realise actively the divine will. The moral 
 law, and that which springs from it rights and state 
 mechanism are regarded only as means whereby the 
 ideas, which represent in our consciousness the pre- 
 scripts of the divine will, are to receive manifestation 
 in fact. Acceptance of these ideas the ideas upon 
 which rest art, science, the polity of nations and religion 
 and self-renunciation for them, are the only sources 
 of truly noble action. "Everything great and good 
 upon which our present existence rests, from which it 
 has proceeded, exists only because noble and powerful 
 men have resigned all the enjoyments of life for the 
 sake of ideas." 2 The heroic life is the life of the 
 higher morality, of devotion to ideas. 
 
 Even this heroic life manifests in one of its aspects 
 an imperfection. " So long as joy in the deed is mingled 
 with desires concerning the outward product of the deed, 
 even the possessor of the higher morality is not yet 
 perfect in purity and clearness ; and thus in the divine 
 economy, the oiitward failure of his deed is the means 
 of forcing him in upon himself, and of raising him to the 
 yet higher standpoint of true religion that is, to the 
 comprehension of what it really is that he loves and 
 strives after." For if he is truly penetrated with the 
 love of the divine law and life, he Avill recognise as the 
 
 1 It is the view expounded in the third took of the ' Bestimmung 
 des Menschen.' 
 
 2 "Grundzlige d. gegen. Zeitalters," ' Werke,' vol. vii. p. 41.
 
 212 Fichte. 
 
 one thing above all value the development of the divine 
 life in him. He is one manifestation of the divine life : 
 all that he does or thinks is the act and thought of the 
 divine life. That the result of his thought and action 
 should not correspond with his conception or desire will 
 not affect him. The object of his will is only "that in 
 the conduct of each individual there may be manifested 
 purely that form which the essential divine nature 
 has assumed within this particular individual that, on 
 the other hand, each individual may recognise God, as 
 He is outwardly manifested to him in the conduct of all 
 other men ; that all others may, in like manner, recog- 
 nise God as He is outwardly manifested to them in the 
 conduct of this particular individual and that thus 
 God alone may be ever manifested in all outward ap- 
 pearance." 1 
 
 Eeligion, the fourth stage of reflection, which 
 thus consists in regarding and recognising all earthly 
 life as the necessary development of the one, original, 
 perfectly good and blessed life, may indeed be real- 
 ised in conduct, although the individual has not the 
 clear consciousness of the thought which animates and 
 directs his efforts. But in this consciousness, the 
 final standpoint of science or philosophy, all others are 
 contained and involved. " Eeligion without science is 
 a mere faith, though an immovable faith; science su- 
 persedes all faith and converts it into insight." 2 " From 
 the beginning of the world down to the present day, 
 religion, whatever form it may have assumed, has been 
 essentially metaphysic; and he who despises and de- 
 
 1 'Doctrine of Religion,' p. 533. Cf. " Grundzlige," Lect. xvi. 
 
 2 ' Doctrine of Religion,' p. 460.
 
 Later form of the Wissenschaftslelire. 213 
 
 rides metaphysic that is, everything a priori either 
 knows not what he does, or else he despises and derides 
 religion." l The final and crowning stage of the devel- 
 opment of the individual consciousness is therefore that 
 in which the finite spirit by thought or reason appre- 
 hends the organic plan of existence, knows with clear- 
 ness the intimate nature of the relations which unite 
 him and all other finite spirits in one community of 
 free intelligences with a common aim and purpose, 
 and thus subjectively realises the supreme synthesis 
 of thought. 2 
 
 1 " Grundziige, " ' Werke,' vol. vii. p. 241. 
 
 2 It is impossible to do more than call attention to the fact that 
 under this view historical Christianity must be interpreted somewhat 
 differently from the ordinary or popular fashion. In the " Anwei- 
 sung " (Lecture vi.) and in the " Staatslehre," Fichte enters upon a 
 very elaborate comparison between his theory of religion and Chris- 
 tianity, as expressed in the Johannine Gospel, which he regards as 
 the only authentic or pure statement of the Christian faith. The 
 distinction drawn between the historical and the metaphysical ele- 
 ments in Christianity (particularly in the appendix to the sixth lec- 
 ture) has had great influence on the later speculative theology in Ger- 
 many. It would require, however, a very detailed treatment to 
 show precisely Fichte's position to theology. Lasson's work (' J. G. 
 Fichte im Verhaltniss zu Kirche und Staat,' 1863) is very thorough. 
 There is also a monograph on the subject by F. Zimmer (' J. G. 
 Fichte's Religions-Philosophic,' 1878).
 
 214 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 CONCLUDING REMARKS. 
 
 OF the two stages into which Fichte's speculations have 
 been divided, only the first has exercised any influence 
 on the historic development of philosophy, and to it 
 consideration must be limited when the attempt is made 
 to define the historic value of the system. As has been 
 already indicated, this value appears to lie in the ex- 
 tended application made by Fichte of principles implicit 
 in the critical philosophy. It is not too much to say 
 that the full bearings of the critical method only become 
 apparent when viewed in the light of the development 
 it has received at the hands of Fichte and HegeL In 
 the Kantian system, the problems of speculation were 
 taken up in the form presented by the antecedent, 
 popular philosophy, a form essentially limited in scope, 
 and it was therefore matter of some difficulty to dis- 
 cern the real import of the new treatment to which they 
 were subjected. One may even say that from Kant 
 himself the significance of much of his work was con- 
 cealed by the limited and partial character of the ques- 
 tions which presented themselves to him as the essential
 
 Concluding Remarks. 215 
 
 problems of speculative inquiry. In the critical philo- 
 sophy can be traced the transition from the somewhat 
 narrow, psychological method, characteristic of modem 
 thought, to the larger view of speculative problems 
 which recalls the great work of the Greek thinkers. The 
 analysis of human knowledge, which had been for Locke 
 and his successors the sole function of philosophy, appears 
 in the critical system as part, though an essential part, of 
 the more comprehensive inquiry dealing with the whole 
 round of human interests, to which only the title philo- 
 sophy by right belongs. The question how the human 
 mind, regarded as a thing of definite or indefinite char- 
 acteristics, comes to have the filling-in which we call 
 experience, opens out, when duly considered, into the 
 much wider problem as to the relation of any individual 
 consciousness to the sum total of things, a relation which 
 may be either cognitive, or practical, or religious. The 
 merely subjective or psychological analysis of the cog- 
 nitions possessed by the individual mind, even if the 
 result, as stated in Locke and his followers, be accepted 
 that such cognitions are effects produced we 'know not 
 how still leaves at an immeasurable distance the true 
 problems of philosophy. For it offers no explanation of 
 the nature of this individual consciousness, formed in 
 whatsoever fashion ; effects no junction between it and 
 the universe of things supposed to originate it ; and can 
 offer as final philosophic solution nothing beyond the 
 barren propositions that experience somehow is, and that 
 it consists of states of the individual mind. 
 
 Enough has been said, in the introductory remarks to 
 the account of Fichte's system, to show that this solu- 
 tion is internally incoherent, and also to indicate where
 
 216 Fichte. 
 
 the root of the incoherence is to be found. If we start 
 in our philosophic inquiry with the supposition of an 
 individual mind and a system of things, no human inge- 
 nuity can ever effect a reconciliation between the two 
 isolated members of our hypothesis. The notion of indi- 
 viduality, one of the hardest to solve, has been the 
 stumbling-block in the way of all the eighteenth century 
 philosophy, and it is the pre-eminent merit of the critical 
 system to have for the first time subjected the notion 
 to detailed and rigorous treatment. The forms under 
 which the critical method is applied such as the dis- 
 tinctions between a priori and a posteriori elements 
 in cognition, between matter and form, between pheno- 
 mena and noumena, bstween sense, understanding, and 
 reason ought not to disguise from us the true nature 
 of the question which underlies all of them. How 
 knowledge becomes possible for any intelligence, is in 
 fact the problem how are we to think, under one of its 
 aspects, the relation between individual consciousness 
 and the wider sphere of reality ? 
 
 To Kant himself, as was indicated, the full bearing of 
 his work was not apparent. There still runs through all 
 the critical work, the obtrusive idea that the ultimate 
 reality is the individual consciousness, given as a fact, 
 and that this individual consciousness is mechanically 
 related to the sum of existence. Hence arise the nu- 
 merous obscurities and inconsistencies of the Kantian 
 system. Term after term is introduced in order somehow 
 to effect the final synthesis between the individual mind 
 and the wider sphere disclosed by reason; but such final 
 synthesis is never reached, and indeed never can be 
 reached, if at the outset an absolute difference is postu-
 
 Concluding Remarks. 217 
 
 lated. 1 That there lay in the Kantian system the germs 
 of a wider, more comprehensive solution, was undoubted; 
 and the work of that which is called by pre-eminence 
 German philosophy, has been the development of these 
 germs. 
 
 To this development, the first great contribution was 
 the ' Wissenschaftslehre. 1 In it the critical method was 
 carried out with definite consciousness of its full import, 
 and the effort was made to work out systematically the 
 thought upon which that method rested, and to apply it 
 to the resolution of the whole body of philosophical 
 problems. It has been, historically, the misfortune of 
 the ' Wissenschaftslehre,' that only its earlier form has 
 played a part in influencing subsequent thought, for the 
 defects of that form are manifest on the surface. Earn- 
 estly as Fichte strives to enforce the doctrine that self- 
 consciousness, which is for thought the ultimate ground 
 of reality, is not to be regarded as individual, but as 
 that in and through which individuals are, and are con- 
 nected with one another, he never succeeds in divesting 
 his system of a certain air of subjective idealism. More- 
 over, the special applications of his method in the sphere 
 of concrete, historical reality, show that in certain im- 
 portant aspects it had not yet lost its abstractness. His 
 
 1 The forms of this ultimate difficulty are well known to Kantian 
 students. They appear in the constant tendency to regard thought 
 as analytic, in the independence assigned to sense-affection, in the 
 subjective solution offered of antinomy, in the abstract deism of the 
 Kantian theology, in the formalism of the Kantian ethics, and in the 
 obscurity attaching to the critical treatment of teleology. The con- 
 jecture may be hazarded that, had Kant been penetrated with the 
 spirit of the Cartesian philosophy, had he known anything of Spinoza 
 as he certainly did not his work would have been more systematic 
 and fruitful.
 
 218 Fichte. 
 
 treatment of empirical science, of aesthetics, and of his- 
 tory in the widest sense, is essentially abstract and 
 barren. 1 In fact, although Fichte was perfectly suc- 
 cessful in seizing the critical principle, and in apprehend- 
 ing its universal bearing, although, further, his work 
 manifests a wonderful subtlety and skill in tracing the 
 necessary consequences of the principle, he was not able 
 to evolve systematically from it the whole body of phi- 
 losophy, nor do his results form a complete and perfectly 
 concatenated whole. It was left for a later philosopher 
 to take up afresh, in the light of the ' "Wissenschafts- 
 lehre ' and of Schelling's contributions, the critical prin- 
 ciple, and to incorporate all that was of value in them 
 in one comprehensive system. The Hegelian method 
 contains nothing but the systematic development of 
 that which had already been brought to light in the 
 ' Wissenschaftslehre ; ' but as opposed to Wissenschafts- 
 lehre, the Hegelian work has all the value of the system 
 to which the other has been the introduction. In some 
 respects, it is true, an introduction has advantages over 
 a system. The treatment is occasionally freer and more 
 independent ; and so one may always assign to the ' Wis- 
 senschaftslehre ' an honourable position alongside of the 
 Hegelian work, and may obtain from it much light on 
 what is obscure in the systematic result. But so far as 
 solution of the philosophic problem is concerned, there 
 
 1 At the same time it is to be said that the continuous objection 
 to the Wissenschaftslehre by Schelling and Hegel, on the ground of 
 its neglect of Nature, is not in all respects justified. So far as Natur- 
 philosophie is concerned, Fichte's position seems to us much more 
 secure and in harmony with the philosophic notion than that of 
 either Schelling or Hegel. The weakest portion of the Hegelian 
 system is, beyond all question, the philosophy of nature.
 
 Concluding Remarks. 219 
 
 seems nothing in the ' Wissensehaftslehre ' which is not 
 carried out with greater concreteness and fulness in the 
 later system. 1 
 
 With this view of the historical value of Fichte's 
 philosophy, it seems unnecessary to attempt any state- 
 ment as to the relation in which it stands to what one 
 may call the present radical opposition of philosophic 
 doctrines the opposition between Hegelianism on the 
 one hand, and scientific naturalism or realism on the 
 other. 2 A single remark, however, may be permitted 
 upon the defect already noted in Fichte's system, for 
 this defect indicates the point towards which, as one 
 may conjecture, philosophic thinking must be directed, 
 and at which the opposed doctrines touch one another. 
 The final notion of Fichte's philosophy, expressed 
 more clearly in the later works than in the ' Wissen- 
 sehaftslehre,' has been seen to be that of the divine 
 or spiritual order of which finite spirits are the manifes- 
 tation or realisation, and in the light of which human 
 life and its surroundings appear as the continuous pro- 
 
 1 The historic influence of the ' Wissensehaftslehre ' is not ex- 
 hausted in its influence on Hegel. At least two offshoots from the 
 Kantian philosophy owe much to the Fichtian method and principles. 
 Except his pessimism, which is no necessary consequence of the sys- 
 tem, there is absolutely nothing in Schopenhauer's philosophy which 
 is not contained in the later works of Fichte. And Herbart's Meta- 
 physic, though deviating widely from preceding systems, owes no 
 small portion of its fundamental notion to Fichte's analysis of reality 
 as simple positing by the Ego. 
 
 2 Hegelianism is here taken in a wide sense. It is not implied 
 that all or any who in the main would rank themselves on this side, 
 are inclined to accept the Hegelian work in its entirety. A thought- 
 ful and instructive notice of what is here called the radical opposi- 
 tion of philosophic doctrines will be found in Professor Masson's 
 'Recent British Philosophy' (3d ed.), pp. 277-297.
 
 220 Fichte. 
 
 gress in ever higher stages towards realisation of the final 
 end of reason. Under this conception, the oppositions of 
 thought which play so important a part in philosophy, 
 Being and Thought, Mind and Nature, Soul and Body, 
 Freedom and Law, Natural Inclination and Moral Effort, 
 Mechanism and Teleology, are reconciled. They ap- 
 pear in their due place as different aspects of the several 
 stages in and through which the spiritual order is real- 
 ised. But, as has also been seen, the element wanting 
 in Fichte's system is the definite reconciliation between 
 this view of the spiritual development of reason and the 
 natural, historical development of nature and humanity. 
 It is this second element that forms the substance of 
 modern scientific realism ; l and, as in Fichte's system the 
 difficulty is the transition from the spiritual to the real 
 order, so here, the counter-difficulty of transition from 
 the real order to the order of thought presents itself as 
 the ultimate problem. Of the value of scientific real- 
 ism as a contribution to philosophic reflection, there can 
 be no question. Every effort of speculative thought is 
 affected by the general condition of knowledge, and 
 every advance in scientific inquiry opens up new aspects 
 of these notions through which explanations of specula- 
 tive difficulties have been found. The problem which 
 now lies before philosophy is, in brief, the effort to re- 
 think the new materials that have been furnished in such 
 ample quantity. So far, however, as scientific realism has 
 yet endeavoured to offer a metaphysical explanation of its 
 own procedure, its success has been small. The attempt to 
 regard thought as somehow arising from mechanical con- 
 
 1 A system of which Mr Spencer may be taken as the best known, 
 though by no means the only or the best, representative.
 
 Concluding Remarks. 221 
 
 ditions has only resulted in the reappearance of the old 
 perplexities which pressed Avith such intolerable weight 
 upon the earlier English philosophy. We cannot regard 
 thought as merely a product, a thing, of which the char- 
 acteristics are due to the nature of the mechanical ante- 
 cedents out of which it has arisen. When we do so, 
 we are at once confronted with the problem, how are we 
 to conceive the nature of these antecedents 1 By sup- 
 position they are not in thought, but external to it, and 
 therefore never to be reached in thought. Shall we 
 then say there are varied modes of consciousness, 
 thoughts of different kinds, and, as these are products, 
 they must be due to some ultimate reality, the nature of 
 which is for ever inconceivable* ? This is merely to give, 
 as explanation, the impossibility of any explanation. 
 
 A fundamental difficulty of this nature is clear evi- 
 dence of the abstract or one-sided character of the 
 principle which has been applied. It is not possible 
 that the view of thought as a thing or product should 
 also be competent to explain the nature of thought as 
 self-consciousness. Reflection upon self, in which the 
 individual consciousness transcends its own individu- 
 ality, through which only it can recognise itself as one 
 with other individuals, is not explicable through the 
 notion of mechanical composition. Nor is scientific real- 
 ism more successful in the application of its favourite 
 conception, that of development. Neither the evolution 
 of consciousness, nor the concrete nature of consciousness 
 which appears as the final term of evolution, can be re- 
 garded as completely explained by mere reference to the 
 simplest, most abstract elements involved in the develop- 
 ment. The true notion of humanity is not to be found
 
 222 Fichte. 
 
 by consideration of the undeveloped thought, but in 
 thought in all the fulness of its concrete life and reality. 
 The external history of the several stages by which 
 human thought and culture have developed, though an 
 indispensable auxiliary to philosophic reflection, can never 
 be accepted as adequately solving the problem of the 
 significance or meaning of experience. The full treat- 
 ment of the whole mass of empirical detail is impossible 
 without a more thorough metaphysic that is, without a 
 more systematic discussion of the notions by which ex- 
 perience becomes intelligible for the conscious subject. 
 No contrast is sharper than that between scientific 
 realism and the philosophic method of which the ' Wis- 
 senschaftslehre ' is a typf); nevertheless the two are 
 complementary, and the very sharpness of the contrast 
 shows that in the reconciliation of the apparent differ- 
 ence between them lies the problem for our present 
 speculative efforts. 
 
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