FI'CHTE, JOHANN GOTTLIEB, an illustrious German philosopher, was b. at Ram menau, in upper Lusatia, 19th May, 1762. His earliest years were marked by a love of solitary musing and meditation. When a mere child, he was wont to wander forth to upland fields, that he might enjoy the pleasure of gazing into the illimitable distance. In 1775, he was placed at the gymnasium of Pforta, near Naumberg; and in 1780 lie entered the university of Jena, where he devoted himself at first to theology. but after wards to philosophy. During the years 1784 to 1788, he supported himself in a precar ious way as tutor in various Saxon families. Subsequently, he went to Zurich in a similar capacity, where he made the acquaintance of the excellent lady who afterwards became his wife, Johanna Maria Rahn. In 1791, F. obtained a tutorship at Warsaw, in the house of a Polish nobleman. The situation, however, proved disagreeable, and was thrown up by the fastidious philosopher, who next proceeded to Konigsberg, where he had an interview with Kant, of whom he had become an ardent disciple. Here he wrote, in 1792, his Kritik nller Offenbarung (Critique of all Revelation), which he showed to that philokplier, who praised it highly, but still maintained a certain air of reserve towards the enthusiastically earnest author, which pained the latter greatly. At Konigs berg, F. was reduced to such straits for want of the means of subsistence, that he was forced to ask the loan of a small sum of money from Kant, which the latter was stoical enough to refuse. Things were now at the worst with F., and of course—accord ing to the old adage—they began to mend. He entered the delightful family of the count of Krokow, near Danzig, as tutor, was enabled to marry; and in 1794, was appointed to the chair of philosophy at Jena, where he commenced to expound with extraordinary zeal his system of trancendental idealsin. F., in fact, preached his phi losophy as if he believed its reception essential to the salvation of his hearers. In 1795, he published his TVissenschaftslehre (Doctrine of Science), in which he clearly broke away from Kant, whose speculations did itiA seem td him sufficiently thorough, or, as Eng lishmen would say, idealistic. Indeed, as early as 1'793, writing to Niethammer, he says: " My conviction is, that Kant has only indicated the truth. but neither unfolded nor proved it." An accusation of atheism, which F. fervidly but fruitlessly refuted, cost him his chair in 1709. In the previous year, he published his System der Sittenlehre (System of Ethics, Jena, 1798), considered by many to be his most mature work. He now removed to Berlin, where he delivered lectures on philosophy to a select auditory. In 1800, appeared his Lieber die Bestinzmung des .31enschen (On the Destiny of Man). In 1805, he obtained the chair of philosophy at Erlangen, with the privilege of residing at Berlin in the winter. Here lie delivered his celebrated lectures Lieber das lirtsen des Gelehrten (On the Nature of the Scholar, Berlin, 1805-1806). In the same year appeared his Grundzhge des gegenzed rtigen Zeitalters (Characteristics of the Present Age); and in 1806, his Anweisung zum seligen Leben oder die Religionslehre (The Way to the Blessed Life, or the Doctrine of Religion). But F. was a patriot as well as a philosopher. The victories of Napoleon at Auerstadt and Jena drew forth the famous Reden an die Deutschen (Addresses to the Germans). These addresses were full of the most exalted enthusiasm. F. " laments that his age has denied him the privilege accorded to ./Eschy las and Cervantes, to make good his words by manly deeds." The Prussian king appreciated the zeal of the eloquent metaphysician, and, on the restoration of peace, requested him to draw up a new constitution for the Berlin university. In 1810, the unrversity was opened, with a host of brilliant names, F., Wolff, Muller, Humboldt, De Wette, Schleiermacher, Neander, Klaproth, and Savigny. By the votes of his col leagues, F. was unanimously elected rector. Here, as at Jena, he labored with unre mitting energy for the suppression of all those customs which he deemed barbarous in themselves, and incompatible with the true idea of a scholar. In 1813, the war of inde pendence broke out, and the hospitals of the Prussian capital were soon crowded with patients. F.'s wife was one of the first who offered 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 fever, 3d Jan., 1814. After a fearful struggle, she recov ered; but her husband caught the infection, and in spite of all remedies, sank under its influence, and died 27th Jan., 1814. It is difficult to speak calmly of Fichte. His life stirs one like a trumpet. He combines the penetration of a philosopher with the fire of a prophet, and the thunder of an orator; and over all his life lies the beauty of a stain less purity. See Fichte's Leben and llterarischer Brkfwechsel (published by I. H. Fichte, 2 vols. Sulzb. 1830-31); and W. Smith's Memoir, published by Chapman and Hall (Loud. 1848). The fundamental notion of the idealism set forth in F.'s writings, at least in the earlier of them, is the sole reality of the Ego or I, which posits both itself and the Non-ego, or not-I. (The phrase "to posit," it ought to be observed here, signifies in German metaphysics, to present to the consciousness. Hence, when it is said that the ego posits itself, the meaning is, that the ego becomes a fact of consciousness, which it can only become through the antithesis of the non-ego.) Under this ego, however, must not be understood, according to the usual misapprehension, the human and finite, but the "absolute subject-objectivity" (absolute subject objectivitat) the eternal, universal reason. The ego is the absolutely productive, which, however, would not attain to consciousness of itself—i.e., of its infinite spontaneous activity, did it not at the same time place in contrast to itself, and as an impedimenf (anstoss) and limit to its activity, the non-ego—i.e., the objective world, or nature. The ego, in so far as it is determined by the non-ego, is the intelligent ego, and, as such, the subject of theoretical science; the ego, on the other hand, as determining the non-ego, is the subject of practical science. Freedom, absolute, spontaneous activity, for its own sake, is not with F., as with Kant, the condition and pre-supposition of moral action, but is itself the highest expression of the problem of the moral law. To realize this self-activity, however, the ego requires an external world of objects, in order that in them as limits it may become conscious of its own activity. To this idealistic system of ethics it has been plausibly— some think unanswerably—objected that it makes the non-ego be required as the con dition of morality, and at the same time represents the removal of this condition as the aim of moral effort. With respect to the idea of right, F.'s theory of freedom, in its fundamental principles, attached itself to the Kantian theory of freedom as the innate and primitive principle of right. Generally speaking, F. makes that which, from the stand-point of ordinary consciousness, we call the world, merely a product of the ego; it exists only through the ego, for the ego, and in the ego. F. himself afterwards modi fied or extended his system, so as to bring out more prominently the theistic character of his metaphysics. The transition to this later stage of F.'s philosophy is seen in his Bestimmung des lfenschen (Destination of Man). It arose from the intense of his nature. F. was essentially a worshiping nature, and though lie never ceased to be a philosopher, the untiring aspiration of his later years was to realize in his own way the belief of the great Jewish lawgiver: " The eternal God is thy refuge, and round thee are the everlasting arms." A popular exposition of his philosophy is given in his Anweisung rum, seligen Leben. It is set forth in a strictly scientific manner in the lec tures published in the Nachgelassene Werke, edited by I. G. Fichte (3 vols. Bonn, 1834 35), in which his Speculative Loyal and his revised theory of right and morals are par ticularly deserving of attention. Although F. never,strictly speaking, formed a school, and though his system has only been adopted by a few, such as J. B. Shad, Melimel, Cramer, Schmidt, and Trliehaelis, his influence upon the subsequent development of German philosophy has been very important. F.'s collective works have likewise been published by his son, I. H. Fichte. His popular works have been translated into Eng lish by W. Smith, and published by J. Chapman of London in his " Catholic Series." Their titles are: The Destination of Man; The Vocation of the Schaal.; The _Nature of the Scholar; The Way to the Blessed Life; and The Cha-racteristics of the Present Age.