Hence, it is far from being an easy matter to give an intelligible abstract of the principles of the Doc trine of Science, especially as we must necessarily presuppose some acquaintance, on the part of our readers, with the previous metaphysical labours of Kant. Fichte commenced his philosophical career precisely at that period when the writings of Kant had nearly obtained a paramount influence in the Ger man schools, and when men even of superior talents thought it no mean glory to be able to comprehend and illustrate his doctrines. The Kantian theory was confessedly idealistic. Its celebrated author set out with an analysis of the cognitive faculty, endeavour ed to describe its various functions, and to ascertain the scope and limits of its legitimate exercise. All our knowledge, according to the critical must have a reference to possible experience. external objects, or things in themselves (noumena), we can have no absolute knowledge; for we can know nothing but what is perceived by the senses, and cop nized (if we may be allowed the expression) by oaf= intellectual faculties, according to the laws peculiar to our constitution. These intellectual laws, or subjective forms, tend to combine our knowledge, and to render the field of experience a comprehen sible whole. As we can have no knowledge of objects in theinselves, but only of their phanomena; neither can we have any knowledge of things beyond the sphere of our experience, because these can neither be perceived by our senses, nor subjected to the laws of the understanding. All reasoning, therefore, from mere ideas must necessarily be futile, because it has no reference to any corresponding object with in the limits of experience. And although we can have no absolute knowledge of objects as they really exist, yet our knowledge of them possesses a sub jective reality (i. e. a reality with reference to the thinking subject), and may be said to correspond with the objects, because, from the nature of our intellect.
tual constitution, we are incapable of receiving any other impression from them.
Reinhold was one of the earliest partisans of Kant, and one of the most ingenious and most popular commentators on the critical philosophy. But his talents were better adapted for explaining and illus trating the doctrines of others, than for discovering new truths, or inventing any original system of his own ; and although an indefatigable student of phi losophy, he seems to have never arrived at any set tled conviction in metaphysical matters, but to have alternately adopted and abandoned every new theory which was successively presented to his view. After having been, for some time, enthusiastically devoted to the doctrines promulgated in the Critical Review of Pure Reason, which he esteemed the greatest masterpiece of philosophical genius; • he at length discovered that Kant had neglected to secure the foundations of the edifice he had raised, and this de fect he attempted to supply by his own Theory of the Faculty of Perception. (Theorie des Vorstellungs vermagens.) The main proposition laid down and illustrated in this work is nothing more or less than this: We are compelled by consciousness to admit, that every perception presupposes a percipient sub ject and an object perceived, both of which must be distinguished from the perception to which they re late;—thus referring all our knowledge to conscious ness as its ultimate principle. In the enunciation of
this proposition there is nothing very new or origi nal; but the illustration of this elementary doctrine, which, as a late reviewer of the German metaphysi cal theories observes, might have formed an excel lent subject for a short philosophical dissertation of two or three sheets, is dilated into a work nearly as large as that to which it was intended to serve as a mere introduction ; nor is the unnecessary length of the treatise in any measure compensated by the portance of the truths developed, or the ingenuity displayed in the research.
With greater talents and consistency, Fichte, who announced himself as a strict Kantian, attempted to solve the same problem, and to develope a system, which, by deducing all our knowledge from one sim ple principle, should give unity and stability to the critical theory. In his Doctrine of Science ( Wissen schailskhre), accordingly, he denves all our know. ledge from the original act of the thinking subject in reflecting upon itself. I am I, (which he expresses by the formula A=A), or the absolute position of the I by the I, is in itself the certain principle of all philosophy and of all our knowledge. But the crea tive energy of the I, in the course of this reflective process, goes still farther. By its own act, also, the I places the not—I (objects) as opposed to itself. In reflecting upon itself, as the absolutely active prin. ciple, it finds itself either determined by, or deter mining the not—I. In the former case, it appears as the intelligent I; in the latter, as the absolutely free, practical I. Hence the distinction between theoretical and practical philosophy. The idea, then, which pervades the whole theory of Fichte is this: The I, or the thinking subject, is the absolutely ac tive principle, which constructs the consciousness, and produces all that exists, by position, contra-po.
sition, and juxtaposition. The whole universe, in short, is the product of the I, or thinking subject.
We have thus endeavoured to give a very concise sketch of a theory, which we shall not think of pur its various ramifications, as we should despair of making it intelligible to our readers by any length of exposition. Fichte has been praised by his countrymen for his logical and consistent rea soning; but to us it appears that his theory proceeds entirely upon arbitrary assumptions, resting upon no solid foundation. That he displays considerable in genuity in the developement of his ideas we are will ing to admit; but we are quite at a loss to perceive the merit of the theory he has advanced, when con sidered as a system of philosophical truths. The parade* of scientific deduction which his reasoning exhibits may impose upon the incautious student; but a careful examination will undoubtedly convince him, that the whole is a mere tissue of empty no tions, drawn from arbitrary and assumed principles.