FICHTE
Johann Gottlieb Fichte was born at Rammenau, in Upper Lusatia, 1762. A
nobleman of Silesia became interested in the boy, and having committed
him first to the instruction of a clergyman, he afterwards placed him at
the high school at Schulpforte. In his eighteenth year, at Michaelmas,
1780, Fichte entered the university at Jena to study theology. He soon
found himself attracted to philosophy, and became powerfully affected by
the study of Spinoza. His pecuniary circumstances were straitened, but
this only served to harden his will and his energy. In 1784 he became
employed as a teacher in a certain family, and spent some time in this
occupation with different families in Saxony. In 1787 he sought a place
as country clergyman, but was refused on account of his religious
opinions. He was now obliged to leave his fatherland, to which he clung
with his whole soul. He repaired to Zurich, where, in 1788, he took a
post as private tutor, and where also he became acquainted with his
future wife, a sister’s daughter of Klopstock. At Easter, 1790, he
returned to Saxony and taught privately at Leipsic, where he became
acquainted with the Kantian philosophy, by means of lessons which he was
obliged to give to a student. In the spring of 1791 we find him as
private tutor at Warsaw, and soon after in Konigsberg, where he
resorted, that he might become personally acquainted with the Kant he
had learned to revere. Instead of a letter of recommendation he
presented him his “_Critick of all Revelation_,” a treatise which Fichte
composed in eight days. In this he attempted to deduce, from the
practical reason, the possibility of a revelation. This is not seen
purely apriori, but only under an empirical condition; we must consider
humanity to be in a moral ruin so complete, that the moral law has lost
all its influence upon the will and all morality is extinguished. In
such a case we may expect that God, as moral governor of the world,
would give man, through the sense, some pure moral impulses, and reveal
himself as lawgiver to them through a special manifestation determined
for this end, in the world of sense. In such a case a particular
revelation were a postulate of the practical reason. Fichte sought also
to determine apriori the possible content of such a revelation. Since we
need to know nothing but God, freedom, and immortality, the revelation
will contain naught but these, and these it must contain in a
comprehensible form, yet so that the symbolical dress may lay no claim
to unlimited veneration. This treatise, which appeared anonymously in
1792, at once attracted the greatest attention, and was at first
universally regarded as a work of Kant. It procured for its author, soon
after, a call to the chair of philosophy at Jena, to succeed Reinhold,
who then went to Kiel. Fichte received this appointment in 1793 at
Zurich, where he had gone to consummate his marriage. At the same time
he wrote and published, also anonymously, his “_Aids to correct views of
the French Revolution_,” an essay which the governments never looked
upon with favor. At Easter, 1794, he entered upon his new office, and
soon saw his public call confirmed. Taking now a new standpoint, which
transcended Kant, he sought to establish this, and carry it out in a
series of writings (the _Wissenschaftslehre_ appeared in 1794, the
_Naturrecht_ in 1796, and the _Sittenlehre_ in 1798), by which he
exerted a powerful influence upon the scientific movement in Germany,
aided as he was in this by the fact that Jena was then one of the most
flourishing of the German universities, and the resort of every vigorous
head. With Goethe, Schiller, the brothers Schlegel, William von
Humboldt, and Hufeland, Fichte was in close fellowship, though this was
unfortunately broken after a few years. In 1795 he became associate
editor of the “_Philosophical Journal_,” which had been established by
Niethammer. A fellow-laborer, Rector Forberg, at Saalfeld, offered for
publication in this journal an article “to determine the conception of
religion.” Fichte advised the author not to publish it, but at length
inserted it in the journal, prefacing it, however, with an introduction
of his own. “_On the ground of our faith in a divine government of the
world_,” in which he endeavored to remove, or at least soften, the views
in the article which might give offence. Both the essays raised a great
cry of atheism. The elector of Saxony confiscated the journal in his
territory, and sent a requisition to the dukes Ernest, who held in
common the university of Jena, to summon the author to trial and
punishment. Fichte answered the edict of confiscation and attempted to
justify himself to the public (1799), by his “_Appeal to the Public. An
essay which it is requested may be read before it is confiscated_;”
while he defended his course to the government by an article entitled
“_The Publishers of the Philosophical Journal justified from the charge
of Atheism_.” The government of Weimar, being as anxious to spare him as
it was to please the elector of Saxony, delayed its decision. But as
Fichte, either with or without reason, had privately learned that the
whole matter was to be settled by reprimanding the accused parties for
their want of caution; and, desiring either a civil acquittal or an open
and proper satisfaction, he wrote a private letter to a member of the
government, in which he desired his dismission in case of a reprimand,
and which he closed with the intimation that many of his friends would
leave the university with him, in order to establish together a new one
in Germany. The government regarded this letter as an application for
his discharge, indirectly declaring that the reprimand was unavoidable.
Fichte, now an object of suspicion, both on account of his religious and
political views, looked about him in vain for a place of refuge. The
prince of Rudolstadt, to whom he turned, denied him his protection, and
his arrival in Berlin (1799) attracted great notice. In Berlin, where he
had much intercourse with Frederick Schlegel, and also with
Schleiermacher and Novalis, his views became gradually modified; the
catastrophe at Jena had led him from the exclusive moral standpoint
which he, resting upon Kant, had hitherto held, to the sphere of
religion; he now sought to reconcile religion with his standpoint of the
_Wissenshaftslehre_, and turned himself to a certain mysticism (the
second form of the Fichtian theory). After he had privately taught a
number of years in Berlin, and had also held philosophical lectures for
men of culture, he was recommended (1805) by Beyme and Altenstein,
chancellor of state of Hardenberg, to a professorship of philosophy in
Erlangen, an appointment which he received together with a permit to
return to Berlin in the winter, and hold there his philosophical
lectures before the public. Thus, in the winter of 1807-8, while a
French marshal was governor of Berlin, and while his voice was often
drowned by the hostile tumults of the enemy through the streets, he
delivered his famous “_Addresses to the German nation_.” Fichte labored
most assiduously for the foundation of the Berlin university, for only
by wholly transforming the common education did he believe the
regeneration of Germany could be secured. As the new university was
opened 1809, he was made in the first year dean of the philosophical
faculty, and in the second was invested with the dignity of rector. In
the “war of liberation,” then breaking out, Fichte took the liveliest
participation by word and deed. His wife had contracted a nervous fever
by her care of the sick and wounded, and though she recovered, he fell a
victim to the same disease. He died Jan. 28, 1814, not having yet
completed his fifty-second year.
In the following exposition of Fichte’s philosophy, we distinguish
between the two internally different periods of his philosophizing, that
of Jena and that of Berlin. The first division will include two
parts—Fichte’s theory of science and his practical philosophy.
I. THE FICHTIAN PHILOSOPHY IN ITS ORIGINAL FORM. 1. THE THEORETICAL
PHILOSOPHY OF FICHTE, HIS WISSENSCHAFTSLEHRE, OR THEORY OF SCIENCE.—It
has already been shown (§ 39) that the thoroughly-going subjective
idealism of Fichte was only the logical consequence of the Kantian
standpoint. It was wholly unavoidable that Fichte should entirely reject
the Kantian essentially thing (_thing in itself_), which Kant had
himself declared to be unrecognizable though real, and that he should
posit as a proper act of the mind, that external influence which Kant
had referred to the essentially thing. That the Ego alone is, and that
which we regard as a limitation of the Ego by external objects, is
rather the proper self-limitation of the Ego; this is the grand feature
of the Fichtian as of every idealism.
Fichte himself supported the standpoint of this Theory of Science as
follows: In every experience there is conjointly an Ego and a thing, the
intelligence and its object. Which of these two sides must now be
reduced to the other? If the philosopher abstracts the Ego, he has
remaining an essentially thing, and must then apprehend his
representations or sensations as the products of this object; if he
abstracts the object, he has remaining an essentially Ego (an Ego _in
itself_). The former is dogmatism, the latter idealism. Both are
irreconcilable with each other, and there is no third way possible. We
must therefore choose between the two. In order to decide between the
two systems, we must note the following: (1) That the Ego appears in
consciousness, wherefore the essentially thing is a pure invention,
since in consciousness we have only that which is perceived; (2)
Dogmatism must account for the origin of its representation through some
essentially object, it must start from something which does not lie in
the consciousness. But the effect of being is only being, and not
representation. Hence idealism alone can be correct which does not start
from being, but from intelligence. According to idealism, intelligence
is only active, not passive, because it is a first and absolute: and on
this account there belongs to it no being, but simply an acting. The
forms of this acting, the system of the necessary mode in which
intelligence acts, must be found from the essence of intelligence. If we
should take the laws of intelligence from experience, as Kant did his
categories, we fail in two respects: (1) We do not see why intelligence
must so act, nor whether these laws are immanent laws of intelligence;
(2) We do not see how the object itself originates. Hence the
fundamental principles of intelligence, as well as the objective world,
must be derived from the Ego itself.
Fichte supposed that in these results he only expressed the true sense
of the Kantian philosophy. “Whatever my system may properly be, whether
the genuine criticism thoroughly carried out, _as I believe it is_, or
howsoever it be named, is of no account.” His system, Fichte affirms,
had the same view of the matter as Kant’s, while the numerous followers
of this philosopher had wholly mistaken and misunderstood their master’s
idealism. In the second introduction to the Theory of Science (1797),
Fichte grants to these expounders of the Critick of pure Reason that it
contains some passages where Kant would affirm that sensations must be
given to the subject from without as the material conditions of
objective reality; but shows that the innumerably repeated declarations
of the Critick, that there could be no influence upon us of a real
transcendental object outside of us, cannot at all be reconciled with
these passages, if any thing other than a simple thought be understood
as the ground of the sensations. “So long,” adds Fichte, “as Kant does
not expressly declare that he derives sensations from an impression of
some essentially thing, or, to use his terminology, that sensation must
be explained from a transcendental object existing externally to us: so
long will I not believe what these expounders tell us of Kant. But if he
should give such an explanation, I should sooner regard the Critick of
Pure Reason to be a work of chance than of design.” For such an
explanation the aged Kant did not suffer him long to wait. In the
_Intelligenzblatt der Allgemeinen Litteraturzeitung_ (1799), he
formally, and with much emphasis, rejects the Fichtian improvement of
his system, and protests against every interpretation of his writings
according to the conceit of any mind, while he maintains the literal
interpretation of his theory as laid down in the Critick of Reason.
Reinhold remarks upon all this: “Since the well known and public
explanation of Kant respecting Fichte’s philosophy, there can be no
longer a doubt that Kant himself would represent his own system, and
desire to have it represented by his readers, entirely otherwise than
Fichte had represented and interpreted it. But from this it irresistibly
follows, that Kant himself did not regard his system as illogical
because it presupposed something external to the subjectivity.
Nevertheless, it does not at all follow that Fichte erred when he
declared that this system, with such a presupposition, must be
illogical.” So much for Reinhold. That Kant himself did not fail to see
this inconclusiveness, is evident from the changes he introduced into
the second edition of the Critick of Pure Reason, where he suffered the
idealistic side of his system to fall back decidedly behind the
empirical.
From what has been said, we can see the universal standpoint of the
Theory of Science; the Ego is made a principle, and from the Ego every
thing else is sought to be derived. It hardly needs to be remarked, that
by this Ego we are to understand, not any individual, but the universal
Ego, the universal rationality. The Ego and the individual, the pure and
the empirical Ego, are wholly different conceptions.
We have still the following preface to make concerning the form of the
Theory of Science. A theory of science, according to Fichte, must posit
some supreme principle, from which every other must be derived. This
supreme principle must be absolutely, and through itself, certain. If
our human knowledge should be any thing but fragmentary, there must be
such a supreme principle. But now, since such a principle does not admit
of proof, every thing depends upon giving it a trial. Its test and
demonstration can only be thus gained, viz., if we find a principle to
which all science may be referred, then is this shown to be a
fundamental principle. But besides the first fundamental principle,
there are yet two others to be considered, the one of which is
unconditioned as to its content, but as to its form, conditioned through
and derived from the first fundamental principle; the other the reverse.
The relation of these three principles to each other is, in fine, this,
viz., that the second stands opposed to the first, while a third is the
product of the two. Hence, according to this plan, the first absolute
principle starts from the Ego, the second opposes to the Ego a thing or
a non-Ego, and the third brings forward the Ego again in reaction
against the thing or the non-Ego. This method of Fichte
(thesis,—antithesis,—synthesis) is the same as Hegel subsequently
adopted, and applied to the whole system of philosophy, a union of the
synthetical and analytical methods. We start with a fundamental
synthesis, which we analyze to produce its antitheses, in order to unite
these antitheses again through a second synthesis. But in making this
second synthesis, our analysis discovers still farther antitheses, which
obliges us therefore to find another synthesis, and so onward in the
process, till we come at length to antitheses which can no longer be
perfectly but only approximately connected.
We stand now upon the threshold of the _Theory of Science_. It is
divided into three parts. (1) General principles of a theory of science.
(2) Principles of theoretical knowledge. (3) Principles of practical
science.
As has already been said, there are three _supreme_ fundamental
principles, one absolutely unconditioned, and two relatively
unconditioned.
(1.) _The absolutely first and absolutely unconditioned fundamental
principle_ ought to express that act of the mind which lies at the basis
of all consciousness, and alone makes consciousness possible. Such is
the principle of identity, A = A. This principle remains, and cannot be
thought away, though every empirical determination be removed. It is a
fact of consciousness, and must, therefore, be universally admitted: but
at the same time it is by no means conditioned, like every other
empirical fact, but unconditioned, because it is a free act. By
affirming that this principle is certain without any farther ground, we
ascribe to ourselves the faculty of _positing_ something absolutely. We
do not, therefore, affirm that A is, but only that if A is, then it is
equal to A. It is no matter now about the content of the principle, we
need only regard its form. The principle A = A is, therefore,
conditioned (hypothetically) as to its content, and unconditioned only
as to its form and its connection. If we would now have a principle
unconditioned in its content as well as in its connection, we put Ego in
the place of A, as we are fully entitled to do, since the connection of
subject and predicate contained in the judgment A = A is posited in the
Ego and through the Ego. Hence A = A becomes transformed into Ego = Ego.
This principle is unconditioned not only as to its connection, but also
as to its content. While we could not, instead of A = A, say that A is,
yet we can instead of Ego = Ego, say that Ego is. All the facts of the
empirical consciousness find their ground of explanation in this, viz.,
that before any thing else is posited in the Ego, the Ego itself is
there. This fact, that the Ego is absolutely posited and grounded on
itself, is the basis of all acting in the human mind, and shows the pure
character of activity in itself. The Ego _is_, because it posits itself,
and it only is, because this simple positing of itself is wholly by
itself. The being of the Ego is thus seen in the positing of the Ego,
and on the other hand, the Ego is enabled _to posit_ simply by virtue of
its being. It is at the same time the acting, and the product of the
action. I am, is the expression of the only possible deed. Logically
considered we have, in the first principle of a Theory of Science, A =
A, the logical law of identity. From the proposition A = A, we arrive at
the proposition Ego = Ego. The latter proposition, however, does not
derive its validity from the former, but contrarywise. The prius of all
judgments is the Ego, which posits the connection of subject and
predicate. The logical law of identity arises, therefore, from Ego =
Ego. Metaphysically considered, we have in this same first principle of
a Theory of Science, the category of _reality_. We obtain this category
by abstracting every thing from the content, and reflecting simply upon
the mode of acting of the human mind. From the Ego, as the absolute
subject, every category is derived.
(2.) _The second fundamental principle_, conditioned in its content, and
only unconditioned in its form, which is just as incapable as the first
of demonstration or derivation, is also a fact of the empirical
consciousness: it is the proposition non-A is not = A. This sentence is
unconditioned in its form, because it is free act like the first, from
which it cannot be derived; but in its content, as to its matter it is
conditioned, because if a non-A is posited, there must have previously
been posited an A. Let us examine this principle more closely. In the
first principle, A = A, the form of the act was a positing, while in
this second principle it is an oppositing. There is an absolute
opposition, and this opposition, in its simple form, is an act
absolutely possible, standing under no condition, limited by no higher
ground. But as to its matter, the opposition presupposes a position; the
non-A cannot be posited without the A. What non-A is, I do not through
that yet know: I only know concerning non-A that it is the opposite of
A: hence I only know what non-A is under the condition that I know A.
But now A is posited through the Ego; there is originally nothing
posited but the Ego, and nothing but this absolutely posited. Hence
there can be an absolute opposition only to the Ego. That which is
opposed to the Ego is the non-Ego. A non-Ego is absolutely opposed to
the Ego, and this is the second fact of the empirical consciousness. In
every thing ascribed to the Ego, the contrary, by virtue of this simple
opposition, must be ascribed to the non Ego.—As we obtained from the
first principle Ego = Ego, the logical law of identity, so now we have,
from the second sentence Ego is not = non-Ego, the logical law of
contradiction. And metaphysically,—since we wholly abstract the definite
act of judgment, and, simply in the form of sequence, conclude not-being
from opposite being,—we possess from this second principle the category
of _negation_.
(3.) _The third principle_, conditioned in its form, is almost capable
of proof, since it is determined by two others. At every step we
approach the province where every thing can be proved. This third
principle is conditioned in its form, and unconditioned only in its
content: _i. e._ the problem, but not the solution of the act to be
established through it, has been given through the two preceding
principles. The solution is afforded unconditionally and absolutely by a
decisive word of the reason. The problem to be solved by this third
principle is this, viz., to adjust the contradiction contained in the
two former ones. On the one side, the Ego is wholly suppressed by the
non-Ego: there can be no positing of the Ego so far as the non-Ego is
posited. On the other side, the non-Ego is only an Ego posited in the
consciousness, and hence the Ego is not suppressed by the non-Ego. The
Ego appearing on the one side to be suppressed, is not really
suppressed. Such a result would be non-A = A. In order to remove this
contradiction, which threatens to destroy the identity of our
consciousness, and the only absolute foundation of our knowledge, we
must find in _x_ that which will justify both of the first two
principles, and leave the identity of our consciousness undisturbed. The
two opposites, the Ego and the non-Ego, should be united in the
consciousness, should be alike posited without either excluding the
other; they should be received in the identity of the proper
consciousness. How shall being and not-being, reality and negation, be
conceived together without destroying each other? They will reciprocally
_limit_ each other. Hence the unknown quantity _x_, whose terms we are
seeking, stands for these limits: limitation is the sought-for act of
the Ego, and as category in the thought, we have thus the category of
determination or _limitation_. But in limitation, there is also given
the category of _quantity_, for when we say that any thing is limited,
we mean that its reality is through negation, not _wholly_, but only
_partially_ suppressed. Thus the conception of limit contains also the
conception of divisibility, besides the conceptions of reality and
negation. Through the act of limitation, the Ego as well as the non-Ego,
is posited as divisible. Still farther, we see how a logical law follows
from the third fundamental principle as well as from the first two. If
we abstract the definite content, the Ego and the non-Ego, and leave
remaining the simple form of the union of opposites through the
conception of divisibility, we have then the logical _principle of the
ground_, or foundation, which may be expressed in the formula: A in part
= non-A, non-A in part = A. Wherever two opposites are alike in one
characteristic, we consider the ground as a ground of relation, and
wherever two similar things are opposite in one characteristic, we
consider the ground as a ground of distinction.—With these three
principles we have now exhausted the measure of that which is
unconditioned and absolutely certain. We can embrace the three in the
following formula:
_I posit in the Ego a divisible non Ego over against the divisible Ego._
No philosophy can go beyond this cognition, and every fundamental
philosophy should go back to this. Just so far as it does this, it
becomes science (_Wissenschaftslehre_). Every thing which can appear in
a system of knowledge, as well as a farther division of the Theory of
Science itself, must be derived from this. The proposition that the Ego
and the non-Ego reciprocally limit each other, may be divided into the
following two: (1) the Ego posits itself as limited through the non-Ego
(_i. e._ the Ego is in a cognitive (or passive) relation); (2) the Ego
posits the non-Ego as limited through the Ego (_i. e._ the Ego is in an
active relation). The former proposition is the basis of the
theoretical, and the latter of the practical part of the Theory of
Science. The latter part cannot, at the outset, be brought upon the
stage; for the non-Ego, which should be limited by the acting Ego, does
not at the outset exist, and we must wait and see whether it will find,
in the theoretical part, a reality.
_The groundwork of theoretical knowledge_ advances through an
uninterrupted series of antitheses and syntheses. The fundamental
synthesis of the theoretical Theory of Science is the proposition: _the
Ego posits itself as determined_ (limited) _by the non-Ego_. If we
analyze this sentence, we find in it two subordinate sentences which are
reciprocally opposite. (1) The non-Ego as active determines the Ego,
which thus far is passive; but since all activity must start from the
Ego, so (2) the Ego determines itself through an absolute activity.
Herein is a contradiction, that the Ego should be at the same time
active and passive. Since this contradiction would destroy the above
proposition, and also suppress the unity of consciousness, we are forced
to seek some point, some new synthesis, in which these given antitheses
may be united. This synthesis is attained when we find that the
conceptions of action and passion, which are contained under the
categories of reality and negation, find their compensation and due
adjustment in the conception of divisibility. The propositions: “the Ego
determines,” and “the Ego is determined,” are reconciled in the
proposition: “the Ego determines itself in part, and is determined in
part.” Both, however, should be considered as one and the same. Hence
more accurately: as many parts of reality as the Ego posits in itself,
so many parts of negation does it posit in the non-Ego; and as many
parts of reality as the Ego posits in the non-Ego, so many parts of
negation does it posit in itself. This determination is _reciprocal
determination_, or _reciprocal action_. Thus Fichte deduces the last of
the three categories under Kant’s general category of relation. In a
similar way (viz., by finding a synthesis for apparent contradictions),
he deduces the two other categories of this class, viz., that of cause,
and that of substance. The process is thus: So far as the Ego is
determined, and therefore passive, has the non-Ego reality. The category
of reciprocal determination, to which we may ascribe indifferently
either of the two sides, reality or negation, may, more strictly taken,
imply that the Ego is passive, and the non-Ego active. The notion which
expresses this relation is that of _causality_. That, to which activity
is ascribed, is called _cause_ (primal reality), and that to which
passiveness is ascribed, is called _effect_; both, conceived in
connection, may be termed a _working_. On the other side, the Ego
determines itself. Herein is a contradiction; (1) the Ego determines
itself; it is therefore that which determines, and is thus active; (2)
it determines itself; it is therefore that which becomes determined, and
is thus passive. Thus in one respect and in one action both reality and
negation are ascribed to it. To resolve this contradiction, we must find
a mode of action which is activity and passiveness in one; the Ego must
determine its passiveness through activity, and its activity through
passiveness. This solution is attained by aid of the conception of
quantity. In the Ego all reality is first of all posited as absolute
quantum, as absolute totality, and thus far the Ego may be compared to a
greatest circle which contains all the rest. A definite quantum of
activity, or a limited sphere within this greatest circle of activity,
is indeed a _reality_; but when compared with the totality of activity,
is it also a _negation_ of the totality or passiveness. Here we have
found the mediation sought for; it lies in the notion of _substance_. In
so far as the Ego is considered as the whole circle, embracing the
totality of all realities, is it substance; but so far as it becomes
posited in a determinate sphere of this circle, is it accidental. No
accidence is conceivable without substance; for, in order to know that
any thing is a definite reality, it must first be referred to reality in
general, or to substance. In every change we think of substance in the
universal; accidence is something specific (determinate), which changes
with every changing cause. _There is originally but one substance, the
Ego_; in this one substance all possible accidents, and therefore all
possible realities, are posited. The Ego alone is the absolutely
infinite. The Ego, as thinking and as acting, indicates a limitation.
The Fichtian theory is accordingly Spinozism, only (as Jacobi strikingly
called it) a reversed and idealistic Spinozism.
Let us look back a moment. The objectivity which Kant had allowed to
exist Fichte has destroyed. There is _only_ the Ego. But the Ego
presupposes a non-Ego, and therefore a kind of object. How the Ego comes
to posit such an object, must the theoretical Theory of Science now
proceed to show.
There are two extreme views respecting the relation of the Ego to the
non-Ego, according as we start from the conception of cause, or that of
substance. (1) Starting from the conception of cause, we have posited
through the passiveness of the Ego an activity of the non-Ego. This
passiveness of the Ego must have some ground. This cannot lie in the
Ego, which in itself posits only activity. Consequently it lies in the
non-Ego. Here the distinction between action and passion is apprehended,
not simply as quantitative (_i. e._, viewing the passiveness as a
diminished activity), but the passion is in quality opposed to the
action; a presupposed activity of the non-Ego is, therefore, a real
ground of the passiveness in the Ego. (2) Starting from the conception
of substance, we have posited a passiveness of the Ego through its own
activity. Here the passiveness in respect of quality is the same as
activity, it being only a diminished activity. While, therefore,
according to the first view, the passive Ego has a ground distinct in
quality from the Ego, and thus a real ground, yet here its ground is
only a diminished activity of the Ego, distinct only in quantity from
the Ego, and is thus an ideal ground. The former view is dogmatic
realism, the latter is dogmatic idealism. The latter affirms: all
reality of the non-Ego is only a reality given it from the Ego; the
former declares: nothing can be given, unless there be something to
receive, unless an independent reality of the non-Ego, as thing in
itself, be presupposed. Both views present thus a contradiction, which
can only be removed by a new synthesis. Fichte attempted this synthesis
of idealism and realism, by bringing out a mediating system of critical
idealism. For this purpose he sought to show that the ideal ground and
the real ground are one and the same. Neither is the simple activity of
the Ego a ground for the reality of the non-Ego, nor is the simple
activity of the non-Ego a ground for the passiveness in the Ego. Both
must be conceived together in this way, viz., the activity of the Ego
meets a _hindrance_, which is set up against it, not without some
assistance of the Ego, and which circumscribes and reflects in itself
this activity of the Ego. The hindrance is found when the subjective can
be no farther extended, and the expanding activity of the Ego is driven
back into itself, producing as its result self-limitation. What we call
objects are nothing other than the different impinging of the activity
of the Ego on some inconceivable hindrance, and these determinations of
the Ego, we carry over to something external to ourselves, and represent
them to ourselves as space filling matter. That which Fichte calls a
hindrance through the non-Ego, is thus in fact the same as Kant calls
thing essentially, the only difference being that with Fichte it is made
subjective. From this point Fichte then deduces the subjective
activities of the Ego, which mediate, or seek to mediate, theoretically,
the Ego with the non-Ego—as imagination, representation (sensation,
intuition, feeling), understanding, faculty of judgment, reason; and in
connection with this he brought out the subjective projections of the
intuition, space, and time.
We have now reached the third part of the Theory of Science, via., _the
foundation of the practical_. We have seen that the Ego represents. But
that it may represent does not depend upon the Ego alone, but is
determined by something external to it. We could in no way conceive of a
representation, except through the presupposition that the Ego finds
some hindrance to its undetermined and unlimited activity. Accordingly
the Ego, as intelligence, is universally dependent upon an indefinite,
and hitherto wholly indefinable non-Ego, and only through and by means
of such non-Ego, is it intelligence. A finite being is only finite as
intelligence. These limits, however, we shall break through. The
practical law which unites the finite Ego with the infinite, can depend
upon nothing external to ourselves. The Ego, according to all its
determinations, should be posited absolutely through itself, and hence
should be wholly independent of every possible non-Ego. Consequently,
the absolute Ego and the intelligent Ego, both of which should
constitute but one, are opposed to each other. This contradiction is
obviated, when we see that because the absolute Ego is capable of no
passiveness, but is absolute activity, therefore the Ego determines,
through itself, that hitherto unknown non-Ego, to which the hindrance
has been ascribed. The limits which the Ego, as theoretic, has set over
against itself in the non-Ego, it must, as practical, seek to destroy,
and absorb again the non-Ego in itself (or conceive it as the
self-limitation of the Ego). The Kantian primacy of the practical reason
is here made a truth. The transition of the theoretical part into the
practical, the necessity of advancing from the one to the other, Fichte
represents more closely thus:—The theoretical Theory of Science had to
do with the mediation of the Ego, and the non-Ego. For this end it
introduced one connecting link after another, without ever attaining its
end. Then enters the reason with the absolute and decisive word: “there
ought to be no non-Ego, since the non-Ego can in no way be united with
the Ego;” and with this the knot is cut, though not untied. Thus it is
the incongruity between the absolute (practical) Ego, and the finite
(intelligent) Ego, which is carried over beyond the theoretical province
into the practical. True, this incongruity does not wholly disappear,
even in the practical province, where the act is only an infinite
striving to surpass the limits of the non-Ego. The Ego, so far as it is
practical, has, indeed, the tendency to pass beyond the actual world,
and establish an ideal world, as it would be were every reality posited
by the absolute Ego; but this striving is always confined to the finite
partly through itself, because it goes out towards objects, and objects
are finite, and partly through the resistance of the sensible world. We
ought to seek to reach the infinite, but we cannot do it; this striving
and inability is the impress of our destiny for eternity.
Thus—and in these words Fichte brings together the result of the Theory
of Science—the whole being of finite rational natures is comprehended
and exhausted: an original idea of our absolute being; an effort to
reflect upon ourselves, in order to gain this idea; a limitation, not of
this striving, but of our own existence, which first becomes actual
through this limitation, or through an opposite principle, a non-Ego, or
our finiteness; a self-consciousness, and especially a consciousness of
our practical strivings; a determination accordingly of our
representations, and through these of our actions; a constant widening
of our limits into the infinite.
2. FICHTE’S PRACTICAL PHILOSOPHY.—The principles which Fichte had
developed in his Theory of Science he applied to practical life,
especially to the theory of rights and morals. He sought to deduce here
every thing with methodical rigidness, without admitting any thing which
could not be proved from experience. Thus, in the theory of rights and
of morals, he will not presuppose a plurality of persons, but first
deduces this: even that the man has a body is first demonstrated,
though, to be sure, not stringently.
_The Theory of Rights_ (_the rights of nature_) Fichte founds upon the
conception of the individual. First, he deduces the conception of
rights, and as follows:—A finite rational being cannot posit itself
without ascribing to itself a free activity. Through this positing of
its faculties to a free activity, this rational being posits an external
world of sense, for it can ascribe to itself no activity till it has
posited an object towards which this activity may be directed. Still
farther, this free activity of a rational being presupposes other
rational beings, for without these it would never be conscious that it
was free. We have therefore a plurality of free individuals, each one of
whom has a sphere of free activity. This co-existence of free
individuals is not possible without a relation of rights. Since no one
with freedom passes beyond his sphere, and each one therefore limits
himself, they recognize each other as rational and free. This relation
of a reciprocal acting through intelligence and freedom between rational
beings, according to which each one has his freedom limited by the
conception of the possibility of the other’s freedom, under the
condition also that this other limits his own freedom also through that
of the first, is called a _relation of rights_. The supreme maxim of a
theory of rights is therefore this: limit thy freedom through the
conception of the freedom of every other person with whom thou canst be
connected. After Fichte has attempted the application of this conception
of rights, and for this end has deduced the corporeity, the
anthropological side of man, he passes over to a proper _theory of
rights_. The theory of rights may be divided into three parts. (1)
Rights which belong to the simple conception of person are called
_original rights_. The original right is the absolute right of the
person to be only a cause in the sensible world, though he may be
absolutely (in other relations than to the sense) an effect. In this are
contained, (_a_) the right of personal (bodily) freedom, and (_b_) the
right of property. But every relation of rights between individual
persons is conditioned through each one’s recognition of the rights of
the other. Each one must limit the quantum of his free acts for the sake
of the freedom of the other, and only so far as the other has respect to
my freedom need I have regard to his. In case, therefore, the other does
not respect my original rights, some mechanical necessity must be sought
in order to secure the rights of person, and this involves (2) the
_Right of Coercion_. The laws of punishment have their end in securing
that the opposite of that which is intended shall follow every
unrighteous aim, that every vicious purpose shall be destroyed, and the
right in its integrity be established. To establish such a law of
coercion, and to secure a universal coercive power, the free individuals
must enter into covenant among themselves. Such a covenant is only
possible on the ground of a common nature. Natural right, _i. e._ the
rightful relation between man and man, presupposes thus (3) a _civil
right_, viz., (_a_) a free covenant, a compact of citizens by which the
free individuals guarantee to each other their reciprocal rights; (_b_)
positive laws, a civil legislation, through which the common will of all
becomes law; (_c_) an executive force, a civil power which executes the
common will, and in which, therefore, the private will and the common
will are synthetically united. The particular view of Fichte’s theory of
rights is this: on the one side there is the state as reason demands
(philosophical theory of rights), and on the other side the state as it
actually is (theory of positive rights and of the state). But now comes
up the problem, to make the actual state ever more and more conformable
to the state of reason. The science which has this approximation for its
aim, is polity. We can demand of no actual state a perfect conformity to
the idea of a state. Every state constitution is according to right, if
it only leaves possible an advancement to a better state, and the only
constitution wholly contrary to right is that whose end is to hold every
thing just as it is.
The absolute Ego of the Theory of Science is separated in the Theory of
Rights into an infinite number of persons with rights: to bring it out
again in its unity is the problem of _Ethics_. Right and morals are
essentially different. Right is the external necessity to omit or to do
something in order not to infringe upon the freedom of another; the
inner necessity to do or omit something wholly independent of external
ends, constitutes the moral nature of man. And as the theory of rights
arose from the conflict of the impulse of freedom in one subject with
the impulse of freedom in another subject, so does the theory of morals
or ethics arise from such a conflict, which, in the present case, is not
external but internal, between two impulses in one and the same person.
(1) The rational being is impelled towards absolute independence, and
strives after freedom for the sake of freedom. This fundamental impulse
may be called the pure impulse, and it furnishes the formal principle of
ethics, the principle of absolute autonomy, of absolute
indeterminableness through anything external to the Ego. But (2) as the
rational being is actually empirical and finite, as it by nature posits
over against itself a non-Ego and posits itself as corporeal, so there
is found beside the pure impulse another, the impulse of nature, which
makes for its end not freedom but enjoyment. This impulse of nature
furnishes the material, utilitarian (eudœmoniacal) principle of striving
after a connected enjoyment. Both impulses, which from a transcendental
standpoint are one and the same original impulse of the human being,
strive after unity, and furnish a third impulse which is a mingling of
the two. The pure impulse gives the form, and the natural impulse the
content of an action. It is true that sensuous objects will be chosen,
but by virtue of the pure impulse these are modified so as to conform to
the absolute Ego. This mingled impulse is now the moral impulse. It
mediates the pure and the natural impulse. But since these two lie
infinitely apart, the approximation of the natural to the pure impulse
is an infinite progression. The intent in an action is directed towards
a complete freeing from nature, and it is only the result of our
limitation that the act should remain still conformable to the natural
impulse. Since the Ego can never be independent so long as it is Ego,
the final aim of the rational being lies in infinity. There must be a
course in whose progress the Ego can conceive itself as approximating
towards absolute independence. This course is determined in infinity in
the idea; there is, therefore, no possible case in which it is not
determined what the pure impulse should demand. We might name this
course the moral determination (destiny) of the finite rational being.
_The principle of ethics is, therefore: Always fulfil thy destiny!_ That
which is in every moment conformable to our moral destiny, is at the
same time demanded by our natural impulse, though it does not follow
that every thing which the latter demands agrees therefore with the
former. I ought to act only when conscious that something is duty, and I
ought to discharge the duty for its own sake. The blind motives of
sympathy, love of mankind, &c., have not, as mere impulses of nature,
morality. The moral impulse has causality as having none, for it demands
be free! Through the conception of the absolute ought, is the rational
being absolutely independent, and is represented thus only when acting
from duty. The formal condition of the morality of our actions, is: act
always according to the best conviction of thy duty; or, act according
to thy conscience. The absolute criterion of the correctness of our
conviction of duty is a feeling of truth and certainty. This immediate
feeling never deceives, for it only exists with the perfect harmony of
our empirical Ego with that which is pure and original. From this point
Fichte developes his particular ethics, or theory of duties, which,
however, we must here pass by.
Fichte’s _theory of religion_ is developed in the above mentioned
treatise: “_On the ground of our faith in a divine government of the
world_,” and in the writings which he subsequently put forth in its
defence. The moral government of the world, says Fichte, we assume to be
the divine. This divine government becomes living and actual in us
through right-doing: it is presupposed in every one of our actions which
are only performed in the presupposition that the moral end is
attainable in the world of sense. The faith in such an order of the
world comprises the whole of faith, for this living and active moral
order is God; we need no other God, and can comprehend no other. There
is no ground in the reason to go out of this moral order of the world,
and by concluding from design to a designer, affirm a separate being as
its cause. Is, then, this order an accidental one? It is the absolute
First of all objective knowledge. But now if you should be allowed to
draw the conclusion that there is a God as a separate being, what have
you gained by this? This being should be distinct from you and the
world, it should work in the latter according to conceptions; it should,
therefore, be capable of conceptions, and possess personality and
consciousness. But what do you call personality and consciousness?
Certainly that which you have found in yourself, which you have learned
to know in yourself, and which you have characterized with such a name.
But that you cannot conceive of this without limitation and finiteness,
you might see by the slightest attention to the construction of this
conception. By attaching, therefore, such a predicate to this being, you
bring it down to a finite, and make it a being like yourself; you have
not conceived God as you intended to do, but have only multiplied
yourself in thought. The conception of God, as a separate substance, is
impossible and contradictory. God has essential existence only as such a
moral order of the world. Every belief in a divine being, which contains
any thing more than the conception of the moral order of the world, is
an abomination to me, and in the highest degree unworthy of a rational
being.—Religion and morality are, on this standpoint, as on that of
Kant, naturally one; both are an apprehending of the supersensible, the
former through action and the latter through faith. This “Religion of
joyous right-doing,” Fichte farther carried out in the writings which he
put forth to rebut the charge of atheism. He affirms that nothing but
the principles of the new philosophy could restore the degenerate
religious sense among men, and bring to light the inner essence of the
Christian doctrine. Especially he seeks to show this in his “Appeal” to
the public. In this he says: to furnish an answer to the questions: what
is good? what is true? is the aim of my philosophical system. We must
start with the affirmation that there is something absolutely true and
good; that there is something which can hold and bind the free flight of
thought. There is a voice in man which cannot be silenced, which affirms
that there is a duty, and that it must be done simply for its own sake.
Resting on this basis, there is opened to us an entirely new world in
our being; we attain a higher existence, which is independent of all
nature, and is grounded simply in ourselves. I would call this absolute
self-satisfaction of the reason, this perfect freedom from all
dependence, blessedness. As the single but unerring means of
blessedness, my conscience points me to the fulfilment of duty. I am,
therefore, impressed by the unshaken conviction, that there is a rule
and fixed order, according to which the purely moral disposition
necessarily makes blessed. It is absolutely necessary, and it is the
essential element in religion, that the man who maintains the dignity of
his reason, will repose on the faith in this order of a moral world,
will regard each one of his duties as an enactment of this order, and
will joyfully submit himself to, and find bliss in, every consequence of
his duty. Thou shalt know God if I can only beget in thee a dutiful
character, and though to others of us thou mayest seem to be still in
the world of sense, yet for thyself art thou already a partaker of
eternal life.
II. THE LATER FORM OF FICHTE’S PHILOSOPHY.—Every thing of importance
which Fichte accomplished as a speculative philosopher, is contained in
the Theory of Science as above considered. Subsequently, after his
departure from Jena, his system gradually became modified, and from
different causes. Partly, because it was difficult to maintain the rigid
idealism of the Theory of Science; partly, because Schelling’s natural
philosophy, which now appeared, was not without an influence upon
Fichte’s thinking, though the latter denied this and became involved in
a bitter controversy with Schelling; and, partly, his outward relations,
which were far from being happy, contributed to modify his view of the
world. Fichte’s writings, in this second period, are for the most part
popular, and intended for a mixed class of readers. They all bear the
impress of his acute mind, and of his exalted manly character, but lack
the originality and the scientific sequence of his earlier productions.
Those of them which are scientific do not satisfy the demands which he
himself had previously laid down with so much strictness, both for
himself and others, in respect of genetic construction and philosophical
method. His doctrine at this time seems rather as a web, of his old
subjective idealistic conceptions and the newly added objective
idealism, so loosely connected that Schelling might call it the
completest syncretism and eclecticism. His new standpoint is chiefly
distinguished from his old by his attempt to merge his subjective
idealism into an objective pantheism (in accordance with the new
Platonism), to transmute the Ego of his earlier philosophy into the
absolute, or the thought of God. God, whose conception he had formerly
placed only at the end of his system, in the doubtful form of a moral
order of the world, becomes to him now the absolute beginning, and
single element of his philosophy. This gave to his philosophy an
entirely new color. The moral severity gives place to a religious
mildness; instead of the Ego and the Ought, life and love are now the
chief features of his philosophy; in place of the exact dialectic of the
Theory of Science, he now makes choice of mystical and metaphorical
modes of expression.
This second period of Fichte’s philosophy is especially characterized by
its inclination to religion and Christianity, as exhibited most
prominently in the essay “_Direction to a Blessed Life_.” Fichte here
affirms that his new doctrine is exactly that of Christianity, and
especially of the Gospel according to John. He would make this gospel
alone the clear foundation of Christian truth, since the other apostles
remained half Jews after their conversion, and adhered to the
fundamental error of Judaism, that the world had a creation in time.
Fichte lays great weight upon the first part of John’s prologue, where
the formation of the world out of nothing is confuted, and a true view
laid down of a revelation co-eternal with God, and necessarily given
with his being. That which this prologue says of the incarnation of the
Logos in the person of Jesus, has, according to Fichte, only a historic
validity. The absolute and eternally true standpoint is, that at all
times, and in every one, without exception, who is vitally sensible of
his union with God, and who actually and in fact yields up his whole
individual life to the divine life within him,—the eternal word becomes
flesh in the same way as in Jesus Christ and holds a personal, sensible,
and human existence. The whole communion of believers, the first-born
alike with the later born, coincides in the Godhead, the common source
of life for all. And so then, Christianity having gained its end,
disappears again in the eternal truth, and affirms that every man should
come to a union with God. So long as man desires to be himself any thing
whatsoever, God does not come to him, for no man can become God. But
just so soon as he purely, wholly, and radically gives up himself, God
alone remains, and is all and in all. The man himself can beget no God,
but he can give up himself as a proper negation, and thus he disappears
in God.
The result of his advanced philosophizing, Fichte has briefly and
clearly comprehended in the following lines, which we extract from two
posthumous sonnets:
The Eternal One
Lives in my life and sees in my beholding.
Nought is but God, and God is nought but life.
Clearly the vail of things rises before thee;
It is thyself, what though the mortal die
And hence there lives but God in thine endeavors,
If thou wilt look through that which lives beyond this death,
The vail of things shall seem to thee as vail,
And unveiled thou shalt look upon the life divine.