Page:The New International Encyclopædia 1st ed. v. 07.djvu/635

* FICHTE. 579 FICHTELGEBIRGE. his Wissenschaftslehrc (Doctrine of Science), in which he clearly broke away from Kant, wh speculations did not seem to him sufficient^ thor- ough. In IT'.Mi he published Urundlagt des " turrechts (Foundati f Natural Rights); in 1798, System der Sittenlehre (System of Ethics), and ni the same year an art iil<- in a philosophical journal, which cost him dear, h was entitled "Ueber den Grund unsers Glaubens an eine gott lithe Weltregierung" (The Basis of Our Belief in a Divine Government of the World). For views therein expressed he was charged with atheism, inasmuch as he had characterized God as the living moral order of the world. In vain did he deny the atheistic nature of this doctrine; the odium theologicum was too strong for him, and he was compelled to relinquish his chair. Fichte went to Berlin, where he delivered lectures to audiences composed of men of dis- tinction, and where he made friends of such men as Schlegel, Schleiermaeher, and Tieck. In 1805 he was appointed to a professorship in Erlangen. The approach of the French army drove him in 180(! to Konigsberg, and in 1807-08 he delivered his famous "Addresses to the German Nation" ("Reden an die deutsche Nation") in Berlin. These addresses were full of the most exalted enthusiasm. The Prussian King appre- ciated the zeal of the eloquent metaphysician, and, on the restoration of peace, appointed him to a professorship in the newly founded Univer- sity of Berlin. In 1810 the university was opened with a host of brilliant name-. — Fichte, Friedrich August Wolf. Wilhelm von Humboldt. DeWette, Schleiermaeher, and Savigny. By the votes of his colleagues Fichte was unanimously elected rector. In 1813 the War of Liberation broke out, and the hospitals of the Prussian capital were soon crowded with patients. Fichte's wife was one of the first to offer her services as a nurse. For five months she tended the sick with all the patient tenderness and devotion of her nature. At last she was seized with typhoid fever, and after a fearful struggle she recovered; but her husband caught the infection, and died January 27, 1814. The fundamental notion of the idealism set forth in Fichte's writings, at least in the earlier of them, is the sole reality of the conscious self or ego, which gives rise by its activity to the not-self or non-ego, inasmuch as self-knowledge is possible only in contrast with knowledge of a non-ego. The significance of this view in the his- tory of philosophy can be understood only by comparing it with Kant's (q.v.), from which it was developed. Kant had taught that experi- ence arose from the concurrent action of sensa- tion and thought, sensation being the product of things in themselves as they affect the mind, while thought is the spontaneous activity of the conscious self. Thus, experience for Kant is dualistie. This dualism is what Fichte sought to overcome, and he set about it by denying that the sense element in experience is traceable to the action of objects independent of the percipient subject. The non-ego is the creation of the ego. This creation is not accomplished at the instiga- tion of some external stimulus. It is an orig- inal, uncaused, free activity of the self. The first result of this activity is sensation. The act of giving rise spontaneously to sensation is an unconscious act: its effect i- the first object of consciousness. Because the act is unconscious, 1 ''I i I- be obtruded upon ness from without, a well-known character! tic ol .ii inn. hy doi i ii, ell create ■■< - net ob i In order in give free plaj to its ai I ivity. It sets up an object a i limit only to I this limit. This is, I. me in 1 In- BUCI of know led e, I inning « ii b pel cepti ending with the categorical imperath the termination of the proi e at thin point the self is eonsciou I ome appa rent h a lien ob1 rusion I, a- git ing to < ' all its determinat ions. The o- it is determined by the know h dgi i I hi ego, and, as sui h, t he subject of I ence; the ego, on the other hand, as determining the non ego, i- the subject of practical science. To recapitulate, Fichte make that which, from the standpoint of ordinary con - call the world, merely a product ol the ego; it exists only through the ego. for the eg... and in the ego. The ego, however, is not held by Fichte to be the phenomenal self- thai i-. the limited temporal self which each person takes himself to he. I in the contrary, the ereativi i a uni- versal self common to all finite selvi >■ trai tion must be made from the finitude of our indi- vidual selves, for the finitude is itself a elf im- posed limit to he transcended. The universal self thus reached is God. A popular exposition of his philosophy is given in his Anwi isung ,:«»» scligen I, (ben. It is set forth in a strictly scien- tific manner in the lectures published in the Nachgelassme Werke, edited by I. G. Fichte ( :i vols., Bonn, 1834-35), in which his bptculativi Logik and his revised theory of law and morals arc particularly deserving of attention. Al- though Fichte never, strictly speaking, formed a school, and although his system has been adopted only by a few, such as J. B. Keloid, Mehmcl. ( ra mer, Schmidt, and Michaelis. his inlluein-c upon the subsequent development of German philosophy has been very important, especially through the influence he exerted upon Hegel (q.v.). Fichte's collected works were published by his son, I. II. Fichte (184.3-40). His popular works have been translated into English. Their titles are: The Destination of Urn; The Vocation of tht Schol- ar; Tin Win/ to lln- />/, Thr Charac- teristics of the Present Age; anil Outlines of the Doctrine of Knowledge. A. E. Kroeger trans lated The Science of Knowledge (1889); The Sciena ■•/ Rights (1869 and 1889) ; and The Science of Ethics as Based on (he Science of Knowledge (1897). Some of the shorter works have appeared in translations from time to time in the journal of Speculativt Philosophy. Con- sult: Ktino Fischer. Qeschichte de> Phi- losophic, vol. v. (Heidelberg, 1897 el seq.) ; id.. Fichte's Leben, Werke und hehre (ib., 1900 Adamson, Fichtt i London. 1881 l ; Everett, Fich- te's Scit >irr of Knowledgi : a Critical Exposition (Chi. -ago. 1884); Schneider, Johann Gotx Fichte ofe Socialpolitiker (Halle, 1894) ; Lindau, Fichte und der neuert Socialismus (Berlin, 1!)00) : Weber, Fichte's Socialismus und Yerhiiltnis zur Varxschen Doktrin (Tubingen, 1900): and th histories of philosophy, such as Erdmann's, Ueberweg-Heinze's, Windcl- band's, and Falckenbi FICHTELGEBIRGE. fiK'td-g. -1>. Fir-mountains). A mountain ranee of Germany, situated in Upper Franconia, Bavaria I M (in many. It 3). It occupies a central position