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the outer chance that brought the needed relief.

It was always the habit of Fichte to think with his pen. We have a fragment that was written in the year 1790, in which is revealed the inner crisis which his life had reached. It is entitled “Aphorisms in Regard to Religion and Deism.”^[3] In it he recognizes the great chasm that exists between the elements of our nature, between the intellect and the heart. The intellect can see nothing but a necessity by which God and man are alike bound. Sin is nothing for which one can be blamed. It is nothing that admits of forgiveness. It and its consequences spring alike inevitably from the nature of the individual. The heart, on the other hand, can not be satisfied by such a scheme. What is to be done? The only thing to be done is to draw a line beyond which speculation shall not pass. But can one do this? Can one do it, when this way of thinking is natural to him, when it is ingrained in his very being?—Here the fragment breaks off. The struggle between the head and the heart seems to admit of no issue. They could not be at peace; yet neither could yield to the other. That very year he wrote to his friend in regard to the philosophy of Kant, “This has given me a peace such as I never knew before.” He had found, he says, “a philosophy that put his heart into harmony with his head,” and he bids his friend, “Henceforth trust only your feeling, even if you cannot confute the cavillers that would reason it down. They shall be confuted, and indeed they are confuted already, only they do not yet understand the confutation.”

      To understand this sense of relief we must recognize the fact that Fichte had been entangled in a system of Determinism against which his spirit chafed, but from which he could find no relief. It was Kant who rescued him; and his reverence and his gratitude knew no bounds. He thanked him for everything, for peace in this life and for the hope of another; and wrote to a friend that he should devote the next years of his life to making the system of Kant known.

      It should be noticed that it was not the theoretical part of Kant’s work that so moved him. At the time of writing the fragment just referred to, Fichte was familiar with Kant’s discussion of the Antinomies. It was the Practical Reason that stirred his heart. It was the fact that a place had been found for the autonomy of the spirit; the discovery that the rigid necessity which had imprisoned him belonged only to the world of the intellect. The spirit itself had created this world, and was free from its tyranny.

      About this time, in part to win the appreciation of Kant, Fichte published his “Attempt at a Critique of all Revelation.” This work was conceived largely, though not wholly, in the Kantian spirit, and, through the accidental omission of the name of its author, it was received as an anonymous work of Kant. This mistake was the occasion of unbounded praise, which could not wholly be recalled when it was discovered that it was the production of an unknown student of theology. Shortly after, he published two treatises suggested by the French Revolution, that had stirred in his heart the largest hopes.

      Of these writings, the first-named proved his good angel, and was the means of his obtaining a professorship at Jena. The writings on the French Revolution proved his bad angels. They gave him the reputation of being revolutionary and democratic in his thoughts and wishes; they made the obtaining of the Jena professorship somewhat difficult; they made him an object of suspicion at Jena; and finally, as he believed, were the real cause of his losing that position. Had Fichte been a man of facile manners and tact, these difficulties would, it is probable, have soon disappeared. The opposite, however, was true. He made enemies, and sometimes thwarted the well meant efforts of his friends.

      Considering everything, Fichte must be regarded as the ideal professor. Few students have been so fortunate as those that were brought under his influence. His philosophical lectures were profound, original, and full of life. Few lectures can have put a greater strain upon the minds of the listeners than these, and few lectures so abstruse could have brought more inspiration. There was a special inspiration to the students in the thought that a new System of philosophy, or, as many of them doubtless believed, the final philosophy, was being unrolled for the first time before their eyes.

      Fichte, however, felt that with this scholastic labor his work was only half done. He had always the soul and the heart of a preacher. He yearned over the young lives that were about him, and could not rest without trying to help them. He undertook to give to the students lectures more popular and more directly stimulating to the spiritual nature than those which he gave officially. His lectures on the “Vocation of the Scholar” were thus given. They were received with enthusiasm by the students. It illustrates, however, the prejudice that existed against him, to notice the difficulties that were placed in his way. At one time the objection was that these lectures were given on Sunday, and thus put themselves into rivalry with the Church; although, in fact, the hours selected were those which the Church had left unclaimed.

      He saw the evils of the secret societies, which played a great part in the life of the student. He affected the students so strongly that they made overtures toward the dissolution of the fraternities. Had Fichte been the self-asserting man that he is often painted, he would have brought this matter to a happy conclusion. As it was, he put the affair info the hands of the Faculty, who managed it with such delays and such awkwardness that Fichte became to the students an object of suspicion. He was temporarily driven from the place by the fierceness of their misdirected wrath.

At Jena, the publication of Fichte’s philosophical system proceeded regularly and systematically. First came the “Principles of the Complete Science of Knowledge.”^[4] Then came the system of “ Natural Rights”;^[5] and, later, his system of “Ethics.”^[6] In these, his philosophy was gradually unfolded in its deeper significance. His philosophy of religion was to follow in its time. Had this development been completed, the system of Fichte would not have been the enigma that it has been.

      This natural and healthy development of his system was, however, to be interrupted. The story of this interruption cannot here be given. It is enough to say that in a journal which he edited he brought forward his views of religion in their most negative and repellant form. Suspicion, as we have seen, was already turned toward him, and this publication brought all the hostile elements into activity. Possibly, however, the publication would, without the previous suspicion, have been sufficient to cause the excitement. Formal complaints were lodged against Fichte. Never did his lack of tact and his directness of method show themselves more strongly than in his defence of himself against these charges. In one defence, he spoke of the hatred which similar misrepresentations had produced against Voltaire. Probably this placing of himself by the side of Voltaire was the very worst thing that he could have done for his own cause; but then he seems to have been thinking more of the cause of truth than of his own. On the other hand, he sent a letter to a member of the council that was to determine his fate, urging that, if the matter were decided against him, he and other professors would leave the University of Jena. This letter was taken as if it had been officially addressed to the council, and it was said that Fichte had used threats, to prevent censure. This letter determined the case. A censure was passed; it was assumed that Fichte had resigned, and his resignation was accepted. And though he, afterward, sought to explain, and withdraw the resignation, the withdrawal was not permitted.

      The member of the council most active against Fichte was Goethe. Our chief interest in the matter is to compare these master spirits as they stood over against each other. Goethe would at first have saved Fichte by passing over or around the matter as easily as possible. He approached it as a diplomatist. Fichte would force the affair to its sharpest possible issue. When this was done, Goethe from being a diplomatist became the narrow official. He granted nothing to Fichte’s impetuous temperament; he forced into a letter that might have been regarded as private, the significance of an official document; and left Fichte no opportunity for reconsidering or explaining his ill considered act. Fichte left Jena, and the University has never regained the position which it then lost.

      The importance of this transaction, to our present purpose, is the fact of the interruption which it brought to the elaboration by Fichte of his system. Henceforth it was given to the world in fragments instead of as a complete whole.

From Jena, Fichte went to Berlin, where, later, he filled a professorship. In his “Vocation of Man,”^[7] published in 1800, he gave what remains the best popular

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