FICHTE (Jour; THEOPHILUS), a late eminent German metaphysician, was born at Rammenau, a village of Lusatia, on the 19th of May 1762. His father was a ribbon manufacturer, and carried on a small trade in haberdashery. A wealthy person in the neighbourhood, having been struck with the ex traordinary genius which youn Fichte displayed, put him to school, in order togive him an opportu Pity of cultivating his talents; ut the boy becoming impatient of restraint, ran off, and was found sitting on the banks of the Seale, with a map, on which he was endeavouring to trace the way to America. From this period he seems to have prosecuted his studies in an extremely desultory manner; occa sionally attending the lectures of the professors of Wittemberg and Leipsic, without devoting his atten tion exclusively to any particular science. Theology, however, appears to have been his favourite study; and this predilection is conspicuous in many of his sub sequent writings, which are distinguished by a singu lar mixture of philosophical and religious mysticism. When he left the university, his situation was by no means enviable. He possessed no fortune to enable him to indulge in the luxury of philosophical specu lation ; and, in spite of his decided aversion to every kind of constraint, he was compelled, by the necessi ty of his circumstances, to accept of the situation of tutor in the family of a Prussian gentleman. His re sidence in that country enabled him to cultivate the acquaintance of the celebrated philosopher of Ko ningsberg, to whose judgment he submitted his first work, the Critical Review of all Revelations, which was published, anonymously, in 1792. In the lite rary journals, this production, which had attracted considerable attention, was ascribed to the pen of Kant, until the real author made himself known.
Having received fifty ducats from a Polish noble. man, in whose family he had been tutor, Fichte set out on a course of travels through Germany and Switzerland, and afterwards married a niece of Klop. stock's at Zurich. In 1793, he published the first part of his Contributions towards rectifying the Opi nions of the Public respecting the French Revolution. This book, which is written with considerable force and created a great sensation in Ger many, and was violently attacked in consequence of a new and apparently dangerous theory which the author advanced relative to the social contract. The
book, however, was perused with great avidity, but the attacks to which we have alluded probably pre vented him from publishing the continuation.
The reputation of Fichte was now so well estab lished, that he was soon after appointed to the phi losophical chair at Jena, as successor to Reinhold, who had been called to the University of Kiel. Here he commenced his lectures by a programme, in which he endeavoured to give an idea of the Doc trine of Science (Ffrissenschafts-khre), the name by which he distinguished the principles of that system of transcendental idealism, which he afterwards more fully developed. , Besides the ordinary duties of his professorship, he gave a regular course of lectures, in the form of sermons, every Sunday, in the year 1795, on the Literary Calling, which were numer ously attended. Having established the principles of his doctrine of science, he endeavoured to extend their application to the several departments of philo sophy ; and, with this view, he published, in 1796, his Fundamental Principles of the Law of Nature; and two years afterwards, his System of Morals. In conjunction with Niethammer, he also published a philosophical journal, in which some articles were inserted, containing certain philosophical views of re ligion, which were considered by many as tending di rectly to atheism. Among other objectionable propo sitions, it was maintained that God was nothing else than the moral order of the universe; and that, to worship God as a being who could only be represent.. ed as existing in time and space, would be a species of idolatry. One of Fichte s colleagues called the attention of the Saxon minister Burgsdorf to these heretical propositions; and the consequence was, the rigorous confiscation of the work throughout the whole of Saxony. Fichte and his friend Forberg wrote an Appeal to the Public, and several Apologies, in order to exculpate themselves from the impute tiotv of atheism. The government of Weimar be haved, on this occasion, with prudence and modera tion ; but the celebrated Herder, Vice-President of the Consistory, took part against Fichte. Eberhard on the other hand, although hostile to the metaphy sical system of Fichte, undertook his defence. The controversy was carried on with great violence, and excited considerable ferment throughout the whole of Germany.