LITMIR.BIZ

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it, conceived in a more profound and philosophical spirit. This presentation, prepared in 1801, though it has received comparatively little attention, is one of the most important of Fichte’s publications. It occupies an intermediate position between his earlier and later forms of treatment, and, more than any other work, supplies that common element which is needed for the comprehension of both. This was prepared for publication. Had it been published at the time, Fichte would have been far better understood than he is. Circumstances, however, again interfered, and its publication was prevented. The next work of great philosophical importance, which Fichte published,^[9] was his lectures on “The Way to the Blessed Life,” a work which seemed to have absolutely nothing in common with his earlier philosophy, and was regarded as the beginning of a wholly new career of philosophic thought. This view the world has held to a great extent, in the face of the fact that in the preface to this work Fichte affirmed that his philosophic standpoint was unchanged.

Besides these more philosophic works, in 1805 he gave lectures on “The Nature of the Scholar,”^[10] which were published in 1806. About the same time, he gave lectures on “The Characteristics of the Present Age,”^[11] which were also published. I have compared Fichte to Carlyle. Even had the comparison not been made before, it would have been forced upon us now in naming this latter work. Never was there a more terrible arraignment of a superficial and frivolous age.

Then came the troublous times of the French war. Fichte offered his service to the government. He would accompany the soldiers, many of whom were his pupils, and inspire them by his presence and his words. This service was declined. Berlin became occupied by the enemy. Fichte was a German to his heart’s core, and went into voluntary banishment, that he might not be forced to give in his submission to the invader. He returned in 1807, and then gave, in Berlin, within the very sound of the tramp of the hostile soldiery, those magnificent lectures to the German people, which have endeared him to the heart of every German. In them he recognizes the meaning and the mission of the German nationality. Earlier, he had, as we have seen, exposed the hollowness of the civilization in which he lived. Now, in the darkest moment of his nation’s history, he found signs of promise. He uttered to his people words of hope and cheer, while he pointed to the only ground upon which this hope could be securely based.^[12]

      Here, at last, Fichte must be considered fortunate. All his life he had been burning to influence his fellow-men. He had chosen for the medium of his utterance a system of terminology which was largely regarded as ridiculous, as well as meaningless; and the high spirit of Fichte was stung by the ridicule, and was lonely in its isolation. Now, at last, the constraint and the disguise were thrown away. He stood a man among men. He stood a leader of men. The heart of the nation thrilled at his words. A century after his birth, although his philosophy was a sealed book to many of the scholars of Germany, the German people united in a tribute to his memory.

      In every way, Fichte interested himself in the national cause. His wife devoted herself to the needs of the sick and suffering soldiers. She made herself a Sister of Charity, and nursed them in the hospitals. In the midst of her labors, and on account of them, she was smitten down with a malignant fever and lay at the point of death. The term of the University was to open, and the hour for Fichte’s lectures had come. He left his wife, doubtful if he should see her again in life, and went to the lecture-room whither he felt that his duty called him. When he returned, the crisis had passed and the peril was gone. Overjoyed, with a kiss he greeted his wife back to life. Doing this, he breathed in the contagion, and was prostrated by the fever, from which he did not recover.

Nothing in the life of Fichte better illustrates the two elements of his nature than this last scene of his life. To us it seems a mechanical sense of duty that led him from the bedside of his wife, whom he supposed to be dying, to his professor’s chair. If, however, we are tempted to think him a mere bit of formality, the creature of mechanical routine, we remember this self-forgetting kiss of joy and love, and feel that his spirit was one of the tenderest as well as, in the phrase of Goethe, “the doughtiest that has ever lived.”^[13]

      I append, for convenience of reference, the leading dates in the life of Fichte:

      He was born in 1762. He became a student of Kant in 1790. He entered upon his professorship at Jena in 1794, and left it in 1799. He died at Berlin, in [1814]. The period of his life in Jena is commonly reckoned as that of his earlier method in philosophy. When his whole career as a writer is considered, it is, however, divided into three periods, of which the life at Jena makes the second.

      Footnotes

       Table of Contents

      1 ↑ Compare Fischer: Geschichte der Neuen Philosophie, 1869, V I, 224.

      2 ↑ The popular notion of the “Horned Siegfried” grew out of a misunderstanding or corruption of the epithet “horny,” which expressed the invulnerability of the hero.

      3 ↑ Fichte's Leben, etc., von I. II. Fichte, II, 15 et seq.

      4 ↑ Grundlage der Gesammten Wissenschaftslehre.

      5 ↑ Grundlage des Naturrechts.

      6 ↑ Das System der Sittenlehre.

      7 ↑ Die Bestimmung des Menschen.

      8 ↑ Darstellung der Wissenschaftslehre.

      9 ↑ Die Anweisung zum seeligen Leben.

      10 ↑ Das Wesen des Gelehrten.

      11 ↑ Die Grundzüge des gegenwärtigen Zeitalters.

      12 ↑ Reden an die Deutsche Nation.

      13 ↑ Es war eine der tüchtigsten Persönlichkeiten die man je gesehen.

CHAPTER II.

       Table of Contents

      PROBLEMS: CONSIDERED IN RELATION TO KANT.

THE reader of Kant’s “Critique of Pure Reason,” after toiling as best he can through analyses and abstractions, is pleasantly surprised by a picture which Kant suddenly conjures up before his imagination. It is that of an island, “The Land of Truth” (a charming name), and of the stormy and misty sea by which it is surrounded—a sea that tempts ever to fascinating, if fruitless, adventures.^[1] Not only had Kant, according to his just boast in this passage, explored and mapped out this island, but, if I may venture to carry out the figure a little further, upon it he had established a kingdom.

      Fichte was among the first to yield enthusiastic allegiance to the new ruler. He devoted to Kant’s service the full power of his maiden lance. He even assumed the place of chief lieutenant to his leader, and this, at first, not wholly without the encouragement of Kant himself. He soon found, however, that much remained to be accomplished, and that, if he would maintain the authority of his master, he must complete his work. He set himself to traverse regions that remained unexplored, to subdue unconquered or rebellious

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