Page:The American Cyclopædia (1879) Volume VII.djvu/181

 FIOHTE 173 analogy of composition not only among them- selves, but with the chief constituents of the blood, animal fibre and albumen. One of the analyses of animal fi brine by Sherer might al- most equally well be given for either of the other substances, or indeed for the caseine of milk, which is a similar substance. The fol- lowing is one of many quoted by Liebig: carbon, 54*454; hydrogen, 7'069; nitrogen, 15-762; oxygen, sulphur, phosphorus, 22*715. Fibrine is exceedingly important as an ingre- dient of the blood, since it is due to its pres- ence alone that the blood is capable of coagu- lating in wounds or after the ligature of blood vessels, and thus arresting the haemorrhage which would otherwise continue to take place. Its proportion in the blood is rather over two parts per thousand, in the lymph about one part per thousand. FICHTE. I. Johann Gottlieb, a German phi- losopher, born at Rammenau in Lusatia, May 19, 1762, died in Berlin, Jan. 27, 1814. He was the son of a poor weaver, and owed his education to a wealthy nobleman, the baron of Miltitz. He studied theology at Jena, Leip- sic, and Wittenberg, 1780-'83, and for ten years obtained a precarious living as a private tutor. While at Konigsberg in 1791 he became ac- quainted with Kant, of whom he had been one of the earliest and most enthusiastic admirers, and as an application of his philosophy wrote a pamphlet entiled Kritik aller Offenbarungen ("Review of all Revelations"), which, pub- lished anonymously, was generally believed to have been written by Kant himself. In 1793, while residing in Switzerland, he published a work in two volumes " to rectify public opinion in regard to the French revolution." In 1794 he obtained a professorship of philosophy at the university of Jena through the influence of Goethe, then secretary of state of Saxe-Weimar. Here he commenced a series of lectures on the science of knowledge ( Wissenschaftslehre), and gave also a course of Sunday lectures on the literary calling. In the same year he pub- lished a treatise containing the fundamental doctrines of his philosophical system, Ueber den Begriff der Wissenschaftslehre, and during the next five years his system was matured and completed. By it he immediately took rank among the most original of living philoso- phers, and as it appeared to furnish a meta- physical basis for progressive political and reli- gious views, he was considered one of the lead- ers of the liberal party in Germany. In con- junction with Niethammer he also published a philosophical journal, in which were inserted articles containing certain views which were considered by many as tending directly to athe- ism. The grand-ducal government, alarmed at the boldness of his theories, insisted on his re- moval, and Goethe, though secretly sympa- thizing with him, felt bound to express his offi- cial disapprobation. Fichte resigned his pro- fessorship and appealed to the public in a pamphlet entitled Appellation gegen die An- Tdage des Atheismus, which, though proving his deep earnestness, could scarcely be considered a conclusive refutation of the objections raised against his doctrines. He maintained in it that science could conceive the idea of exis- tence only in regard to such beings or things as belonged to the province of sensual perception, and that therefore it could not be applied to God. God was not an individual being, but merely a manifestation of supreme laws, the logical order of events, the ordo ordinans of the universe. He said it was no less ridiculous to ask a philosopher if his doctrines were athe- istic than to ask a mathematician whether a triangle was green or red. From Jena Fichte went to Berlin, where by his writings and lec- tures he exerted a great influence on public opinion, and after the reverses which befell the Prussian monarchy (1806) became one of the most conspicuous and powerful anti-Napoleonic agitators. For a few months only (1805) he ac- cepted a professorship at the university of Er- langen, where he delivered his celebrated lec- tures Ueber das Wesen des Gelehrten. While the French conquerors were still in Berlin he delivered in the academy his Eeden- an die deutsche Nation, which are admired as a mon- ument of the most intense patriotism and depth of thought. Immediately after the es- tablishment of the Berlin university in 1810, he accepted a professorship there. In 1813 he resumed his political activity with great success. When at last the deliverance of Ger- many from French oppression had given him sufficient tranquillity of mind to resume the completion of his philosophical system, he fell a victim to the noble exertions of his wife in the cause of charity. By nursing the sick and wounded in the military hospitals for five months she had become infected with typhus. She recovered, but her husband, who had also taken the disease, succumbed to it. Besides the above mentioned publications, the following are Fichte's principal works : Grundlage der gesammten Wissenschaftslehre (1794) ; Grund- lage des Naturrechts (1796-'7) ; System der Sittenlehre (1798) ; Ueber die Bestimmung des Menschen (1801) ; Anweisung zum seligen Le- len (1806). His complete works were pub- lished at Berlin in 1845. To give a succinct and intelligible analysis of Fichte's philosophi- cal system is next to impossible. . His language is abstruse and liable to misconstruction, to which indeed Fichte's philosophy has been subject in a higher degree perhaps than that of any other modern philosopher. Thus, for instance, to designate the self-conscious intel- lect as contrasted with the non-conscious ob- jects of its conception, he uses the personal pronoun "I" as contrasted to the "not I" (Ich and Nicht-Ich, in English versions gen- erally rendered by the Latin ego and non-ego) ; and this was misconstrued by many of his con- temporaries as a deification of his own indivi- dual self, while in point of fact he meant only that which by other moderns has been called