Fichte (Adamson)/Chapter VII

by Robert Adamson

CHAPTER VII.

LATER FORM OF THE WISSENSCHAFTSLEHRE.

The result of the Wissenschaftslehre, as stated in the last paragraph, proved far from final, and in fact only served to open out a series of problems, the treatment of which forms the second stage in the development of Fichte’s philosophy. As has been already pointed out, it was, historically, the effect produced by his speculations on theology, that compelled Fichte to a renewed consideration of the principles on which the Wissenschaftslehre rested, and the system of knowledge there expounded. The course of his inquiry had led him from the abstract analysis of the acts necessarily involved in the nature of self-consciousness, to the more concrete conception of the essence of reason as recognised dependence on the ultimate moral law. The successive stages had been cognition, in its various forms,—practical reason or will, and the final synthesis in which these were united.

It was now evident that the final synthesis—the concrete reality of reason—required a treatment much more elaborate than it had yet received,—that in the conception of the finite Ego as accepting the infinite vocation of the moral law, more was implied than the pure self-activity, pure freedom, through which consciousness of this vocation was possible; and that the relation between knowledge as form, will as ground of reality, and the supreme notion of the divine order, was as yet imperfect. “In a word, there was yet wanting a transcendental system of the intelligible world.”^[1] From this point onwards the inquiry centres in that divine idea of the world which appears as the guiding principle in the popular works, and which at first sight appears to have no immediate connection with the Wissenschaftslehre in its earlier form.^[2] In certain minor doctrines, the new expositions differ from the Wissenschaftslehre as already described, and the position assigned to moral independence is not exactly the same as that given to it in the ‘Sittenlehre,’ but on the whole we find nothing in them to contradict or supersede the “Wissenschaftslehre. They contain a wider, more concrete view, to which Wissenschaftslehre may be regarded as an introduction, but essentially this view is but the more complete evolution of what in an abstract fashion had already been stated there. The difficulties in the way of surveying the new treatment, and perceiving its connection with the older doctrine, arise partly from the obscurity of the language in which expression is given to the new thoughts, partly from the varied modes in which the same matter is presented. Fichte, who always laid stress on the fact of unity in his philosophy, approaches the statement from the most varied points, now selecting the ultimate ground of things, now sketching the series of processes by which our thinking reaches this ground, and again taking knowledge as a completed system, and considering what is implied by it.^[3] Many of these expositions are before us only in the form of notes for lectures, and it is a task of immense difficulty to follow the line of thought through the disjointed remarks and wilderness of abstruse illustration by which Fichte strove to make his meaning clear.^[4]

The work in which we are able to discern, with the utmost precision, the transition from the earlier to the later doctrine, is the ‘Bestimmung des Menschen,’ published in 1800.^[5] In the three books into which the work is divided, Fichte describes three fundamental views in philosophy: first, that of naturalism or dogmatism; second, that of theoretical idealism; third, that of practical faith or ethical idealism. Naturalism, the systematic development of one notion, that of the reciprocal determination of the several parts of experience, finds itself in absolute conflict with the idea of our own freedom, which is the very essence of consciousness. If it were possible for us to regard consciousness as mere object of knowledge—as a thing—then to it would apply the results of this comprehensive notion. This being impossible, natural necessity and freedom stand opposed to one another, and no means of abolishing their opposition appears to be given.^[6] In the second book, entitled “Knowledge,” the analysis of perception from its subjective side is carried out with a subtlety and exhaustiveness that leave nothing to be desired. Gradually the thinker is led on from the first naive position of intelligence to the conclusion that the whole varied contents of external experience are nothing and can be nothing but Vorstellungen, determined modes of intelligence.^[7] He is brought to the point at which “Wissenschaftslehre as theoretical ends; and the interpretation of his position, as here given, is but an expansion of the principle, already noted as fundamental in Fichte, that knowledge is pure form. The process of subjective analysis—i.e., of analysis for cognition,—when carried out rigorously, leaves as result a system of Vorstellungen. “There is nothing enduring, either out of me or in me, but only a ceaseless change. I know of no being, not even of my own. There is no being. I myself know not and am not. Pictures there are;^[8] they are all that exist, and they know of themselves after the fashion of pictures,—pictures, which float past without there being anything past which they float; which, by means of like pictures, are connected with each other; pictures without anything which is pictured in them, without significance and without aim. I myself am one of these pictures; nay, I am not even this, but merely a confused picture of the pictures. All reality is transformed into a strange dream, without a life which is dreamed of, and without a mind which dreams it, into a dream which is woven together in a dream of itself. Intuition is the dream; thought—the source of all the being and all the reality which I imagine, of my own being, my own powers, and my own purposes—is the dream of that dream.”^[9] From the point of view of knowledge, there is nothing but knowledge; and knowledge is not reality, just because it is knowledge. In the form of cognition we can never attain to more than formal truth.

With this sceptical conclusion the second book closes. In the third, the transition is effected to the higher, the practical stage of Fichte’s philosophy, by a method partly identical with that already described, but in part containing a new and startling feature. Not knowledge only, but action, is the end of existence. The restless striving after a reality which is not given in thought, has significance only in reference to the active, energetic power by which self endeavours to mould the world to its own purposes. But if we endeavour to subject this feeling of free self-activity, of independent purpose, to the analysis of reason, the sceptical doubts regarding knowledge return with their former force. It is conceivable that the distinction of the self willing and the conditions under which the volition is to be realised—the twofold aspect of all will, as thought and as act—may be nothing but the form imposed by cognitive consciousness on the operation of some unknown external power. Through this sceptical reflection, “all earnestness and interest is withdrawn from my life, and life, as well as thought, is transformed into a mere play, which proceeds from nothing and tends to nothing.” No exit is left, save that of resolute acceptance of the inner command to act, and act freely. “We must have faith in this impulse to independence, which is the very innermost secret of our nature. Thought is not supreme, but is founded on our striving energies. Unhesitating acceptance of our vocation and of the conditions implied in it—through this only has life reality for us. “There is something that must be done for its own sake—that which conscience demands of me in this particular situation of life it is mine to do, and for this purpose only am I here;—to know it I have understanding; to perform it I have power. Through this edict of conscience only are truth and reality introduced into my conceptions.”

Obedience to the law of conscience is the ground of practical belief; and from it follow, as consequences, practical belief in the existence of others, and in the existence of a real external world. To merely speculative cognition, the existence of others and of a world, must be interpreted as only a specific mode of representation; but speculative cognition is abstract and one-sided. Only in reference to action has the existence of another conscious being or of an external thing, significance for us. “We are compelled to believe that we act, and that we ought to act, in a certain manner; we are compelled to assume a certain sphere for this action; this sphere is the real, actually present world, such as we find it. . . . From necessity of action proceeds the consciousness of the actual world; and not the reverse way, from the consciousness of the actual world the necessity of action.”

Action under conscience supposes an end, not prescribed by nature, but to be realised by us in nature. As contrasted with tins end, even in its formal aspect, the world of fact presents itself as but a stage in progress towards the more perfect harmony between the conditions of life and the moral rule which is its supreme law. Improvement of nature, development of the powers of humanity, whether in science or culture or state organisation, establishment of the general rule of rational freedom,—these are contained under the comprehensive demand of conscience.^[10]

Realisation of itself in this world cannot, however, be looked upon as the one aim of the rational will. For in such realisation in deed or fact, that which is to inner consciousness the pre-eminent excellence of moral action—the intention or disposition—becomes of no account. “In the world of sense it is never of any moment how, and with what motives and intentions, an action is performed, but only what the action is.” The mechanism of the world of fact may be the form in which the divine idea partially realises itself, but it cannot be placed as coextensive with the divine idea. Our will must be thought as determined in a supersensible order, and as carrying out in the world of sense, under external conditions, what is there unconditionally demanded. “The earthly purpose is not pursued by me for its own sake alone, or as a final aim, but only because my true final aim—obedience to the law of conscience—does not present itself to me in this world in any other shape than as the advancement of this end.” “This, then, is my whole vocation, my true nature. I am a member of two orders the one purely spiritual, in which I rule by my will alone; the other sensuous, in which I operate by my deed. . . . The will is the living principle of reason—is itself reason, when apprehended purely and simply. . . . Only the infinite reason lives immediately and wholly in this purely spiritual order. The finite reason—which does not of itself constitute the world of reason, but is only one of its many members—lives necessarily at the same time in a sensuous order—that is to say, in one which presents to it another object beyond a purely spiritual activity—a material object to be promoted by instruments and powers which indeed stand under the immediate dominion of the will, but whose activity is also conditioned by their own natural laws. Yet as surely as reason is reason, must the will operate absolutely by itself, and independently of the natural laws by which the material action is determined; and hence the life of every finite being points towards a higher, into which the will by itself alone may open the way, and of which it may acquire possession—a possession which indeed we must sensuously conceive of as a state, and not as a mere will.” Thus the true essence of the finite being is his participation in the divine, spiritual order; his true vocation is the continuous approximation of his finite life to the infinite requirements of the law of this spiritual order. The divine will is the bond of union between finite spirits. God, as Malebranche finely said, is the place of spirits.^[11]

The divine life or spiritual moral order has thus appeared as involved in the very nature of self-consciousness; it is the reality which, in the earlier exposition of Wissenschaftslehre was called the idea of the absolute Ego. A new aspect is thus given to the whole nature of reason, theoretical and practical, for both appear as related necessarily to this ultimate unity. So far as the individual is concerned, there now comes forward, in place of mere formal independence—abstract freedom of thought and self-dependence in action—the free resignation of the individual to the law of the divine order, with love for it and active effort to give its precepts realisation. The position of morality, as expressed in the ‘Naturrecht’ and ‘Sittenlehre,’ has been transcended and absorbed in that of religion. The will is no longer thought as striving to realise only its own freedom, but as continuously endeavouring after full harmony between itself and the divine moral order.

The relation between the earlier and later forms of Wissenschaftslehre seems, therefore, perfectly intelligible. In the earlier doctrine the ultimate notion lay in advance as something to be reached by laborious analysis, as what is necessarily contained in consciousness. So soon as the ultimate notion had been grasped, the Wissenschaftslehre, in the strict sense, became of secondary importance. It had, as Fichte said, the value of a path and no more. The later doctrine, accepting the ultimate idea, the metaphysical unity, to which all knowledge and action, however indirectly, refer, has to develop its consequences, and in the course of the development to show what place is occupied by Wissenschaftslehre as at first conceived. That some points of the earlier doctrine receive a new interpretation is certain; that the whole manner of viewing the problem is fresh and original, is equally certain; but it requires little investigation to see that the two expositions are in fundamental agreement, and that the second of them, though, unfortunately, less completely worked out than the first, is the true and final philosophy of Fichte.

It is impossible, within the limits of this sketch, to give any adequate account of the various statements of the new doctrine successively put forward by their ever-active and prolific author. All that can be attempted is a very general description of the results which appear as permanent elements in these statements, and a notice of the difficulties which appear to arise in connection with them. For such a purpose the lectures in the ‘Nachgelassene Werke,’ may be omitted; the style in them is so obscure as to necessitate constant and extended commentary; and they are, probably, not in a shape in which the author would have wished them to be laid before the public. The most valuable and interesting works are the popular addresses on religion, ‘Anweisung zum seligen Leben,’^[12] and the treatise, prepared for publication, though not actually published during Fichte’s life, on the ‘Facts of Consciousness.’^[13] The second of these is without doubt the best introduction to the philosophy of the later period. The ultimate metaphysical principle is approached by a careful, genetic analysis of consciousness in its several stages, from immediate external perception to pure thought, in and through which the principle of existence is apprehended. The work stands to ‘Wissenschaftslehre’ very much in the position in which the ‘Phänomenologie des Geistes’ stands to Hegel’s ‘Logic.’ From the systematic fashion in which the several problems, arising in connection with the several stages of consciousness, are taken, we can discern with the greatest definiteness the divisions into which Fichte’s philosophy now falls, and so trace any resemblance to, or difference from, the earlier doctrines. In the ‘Wissenschaftslehre,’ these divisions had been two in number, theoretical and practical, corresponding to the two main faculties of thought and action, with a common introduction. The development of the Wissenschaftslehre, circular in nature, had shown that the final synthesis of the theoretical and practical was to be looked for in the more concrete treatment of what had been contained in the introduction. In the later exposition, this more concrete treatment appears definitely as a third part, following the analysis of the theoretical and practical reason, and dealing specifically with the higher faculty. It is, in brief, metaphysic or theology; and here only do we find any adequate explanation of the abstract statements with which Wissenschaftslehre started. As was pointed out, Fichte, in the first sketch of his system, adopted an artificial and somewhat forced method for bringing forward his first principle, and the nature of this method tended to perpetuate the misconception under which the whole system laboured. It appeared as if the first principle were, somehow, the expression of an act or activity on the part of the individual; that reason or consciousness was something possessed by the individual—an accident or attribute of the conscious subject. So long as this conception is suffered to hold its ground, the whole system must appear as one of subjective idealism, and the scheme of forms and categories as nothing but the logical grouping of individual subjective impressions. This, however, is in no sense, Fichte’s view, nor was it involved in the earlier Wissenschaftslehre. He is throughout true to the thought which lies at the root of the Kantian and all the post-Kantian philosophy, that the individual subject is not per se an independent, self-existent reality, but has his being only in and through reason. The ultimate distinction between self and non-self, on which individuality is dependent, is not made—or, to use the technical term, posited—by the individual reason, but by the universal common reason. “The Ego, as understood in common fashion, posits neither the external object nor itself, but both are posited through general, absolute thinking, and through this the object is given for the Ego, as well as the Ego for itself. . . . But without exception, Wissenschaftslehre has been understood as if it said the very reverse of what has just been laid down.”^[14]

The analysis of theoretical cognition in the “Thatsachen,” contains little or nothing beyond what has already appeared in the earlier Wissenschaftslehre, and differs only in the total omission of the somewhat technical phraseology and of the dialectical method there employed. More important modifications, though not alterations, appear in the treatment of the practical faculty, that through which reality is given to the mere form of knowledge.

As in the earlier exposition, the key to the new development is found in the activity of the Ego—an activity of which the Ego must be reflectively conscious, if it is to be Ego at all. The Ego is only conscious of its activity, in so far as that activity is limited or opposed. There thus lie in the consciousness of the Ego the three elements,—feeling of impulse or striving, intuition of activity, and the representation of the obstacle to activity; a representation which is the work of productive imagination. The most abstract expression for this necessary limitation of the activity of the Ego is force contemplated as matter of intuition; and this, again, may be described as matter in general, or corporeality. The essence of the external thing is force, and it is the thought of force as lying behind the specific modes of feeling which we call sensations, that gives to the object of perception its qualification as an external, real fact.

The Ego, then, is only conscious of itself as activity in a corporeal world, but to be conscious of itself as active in relation to the corporeal world, it must be for itself corporeal. The body or corporeal organism is the Ego as an objective thing. The Ego is a possible object of intuition only in so far as it is corporeal. At the same time, the Ego exists for itself only in and by reflection, and reflection is in its very essence limitative and separating. The Ego, therefore, can be conceived only as one of many Egos, which are united in thought, but manifold for intuition. A system of individuals, corporeally distinct from one another, is thus the condition under which self-consciousness is realised.

The three main features of the representation of the world as objective have thus been deduced,—a system of Egos, a system of organised bodies of these Egos, a world of the senses. All of these are to be regarded as modes or ways in which the infinite life of consciousness manifests itself. Distinction or difference among them is not absolute, but relative to the nature of finite consciousness. Fichte, therefore, with justice, repudiates certain famous distinctions which have played an unfortunate part in philosophy,—among others, the distinction of soul and body. From the speculative point of view, the soul, as popularly regarded, is but a kind of ghost. Soul and body are the forms under which imagination, or perception, if we prefer a less ambiguous term, contemplates the limited, definite activity of the Ego. At the same time, his view is not to be identified either with materialism, which likewise endeavours to regard all finite existence as the form of some underlying substance—or with subjective idealism, which regards external reality, and the existence of other Egos, as modes of the individual consciousness. The one system is incapable of explaining consciousness in general; the other fails entirely to render a reason for the difference or multiplicity of experience.

The system of finite spirits into which the one life of consciousness separates itself is, for intuition, a numerical multiplicity, without bond of union. But the physical nexus, which is impossible for them, is not to be thought as the only link of connection. The free activity which underlies individual consciousness, is no mere natural force, but, when received into consciousness, is the ethical or moral freedom of the individual spirit; and with the recognition of this ethical freedom—freedom under absolute law—a new view is opened out. In the consciousness of the moral end which is to be realised, the individual is one with the community of individual Egos. The infinite life, if it is to be realised at all, must have expression in individual forms; and each finite spirit is an individual, and is aware of himself as an individual, only in so far as he has individual duties,—a special sphere of moral action. We must therefore think of the infinite life in which we find our place, not as absolute in itself—not as mere capacity of action—but as the means of realising the moral end. The individual finite spirits are the modes in which this infinite life expresses itself,—and each has his definite position, his definite line of action, prescribed for him. No individual is originally or by nature moral; nor can he discover a priori what his specific moral vocation is to be. But he becomes moral, or attains to a consciousness of his vocation, in and through the continuous effort to realise that supreme end which unites him with all other finite spirits in an ethical community. ‘No individual form of the infinite life perishes; but no individual either is here, or will be in all eternity, an independent being. Immortality is not beyond this life, but in it. “There is no more striking proof that the knowledge of true religion has hitherto been very rare among men, and that, in particular, it is a stranger in the prevailing systems, than this, that they universally place eternal blessedness beyond the grave, and never for a moment imagine that whoever will may here and at once be blessed.”^[15]

The analysis of consciousness has thus led Fichte to a conclusion resembling in all essentials that already stated in the ‘Bestimmung des Menschen.’ The concluding portion of the work^[16] introduces a new notion or at least a change of terminology, which has given rise to much misunderstanding, and has caused excellent critics, such as Erdmann, to pronounce the later philosophy out of harmony with the earlier Wissenschaftslehre. The infinite life—that which underlies all consciousness—has been seen to be the infinite means of realisation of the supreme moral law. Its form or expression for intuition—that is, its phenomenal manifestation in actual experience—is the world of finite spirits and of nature as the organised limit of these finite individuals. But the infinite life is thus thought only as an endless, continuous change—a conception which is in itself incomplete or imperfect. The infinite life must be thought as being—as having fixity and permanence. It cannot reveal itself, save as the revelation of that which is; and its revelation is thus distinct from its being (a distinction, however, which is only for us—i.e., for consciousness). This being, which reveals itself in the infinite life, which manifests itself in the form of individual consciousness or knowledge, which exists not apart from its manifestation, but yet is as opposed to this manifestation, is the supreme unity of thought—a unity not to be perfectly comprehended, not to be grasped in thought, but seen to be the ultimate inconceivability. To this supreme unity Fichte gives the significant title—God; and in it he finds the ultimate notion of all consciousness. “Knowledge as a whole, is not mere knowledge of itself; but it is knowledge of being—of the one Being which truly is—i.e., of God. In no way is it knowledge of a being external to God,—for such is impossible beyond the being of knowledge itself or the intuition of God; and the supposition of its existence is pure nonsense. But this one possible object of knowledge is never in its entirety present to knowledge, but appears ever as broken into the necessary forms of knowledge. The exposition of the necessity of these forms is Philosophy or Wissenschaftslehre.”^[17]

The obscurity of these detached expressions may be somewhat removed by calling attention more definitely to the exact problem which Fichte now has before him, and by referring for a more detailed treatment to the popular lectures on religion.^[18] The problem is in substance the ultimate question into which run all philosophical or theological speculations—that of the relation between the finite spirit and the universe, of which he seems to form a part. Whether we call this universe God, or nature, or matter, or force, is of comparatively small moment: its character for us must depend entirely on what we think as the innermost essence of the finite spirit, and on the mode or kind of relation between this finite spirit and the ultimate reality. Now for Fichte it has become apparent, from the mere systematic analysis of consciousness, that the very essence of the finite spirit is the combination of the consciousness of moral determination with the consciousness of practical activity or will; and that through this, its innermost being, it is one member of the ethical community of spirits, whose sole aim is the infinite and constant effort towards the realisation in nature of the moral end or purpose—the subjection of nature to reasoned freedom. The individual is thus a mode or form of the process by which freedom is realised, and the infinite series of individuals makes up the complete system of modes or forms in and through which the moral life, the divine plan, is to be carried out. No one individual exhausts the possibilities of this divine life; and as opposed to its infinite being, the existence of any individual must be thought as contingent or accidental. Nevertheless, only in and through the form of individuality—i.e., of self-consciousness—can the divine life receive expression. Thus nature, as object of intelligence, and self-consciousness as the essence of intelligence, appear in their true place. They are modes of the manifestation or realisation of the moral law or ethical end. Things and finite spirits are not to be thought as developments of some inconceivable, mechanical necessity, but as the form in which the moral order—the highest expression of the reason we find in us—has existence or reality.

It is hardly surprising that, in dealing with this ultimate problem, the terms employed should often fail to convey exactly the significance of the thoughts involved. Theology, which is for the most part a bad mixture of metaphysics and popular conceptions, has suffered more than any other branch of human thinking, from the impossibility of expressing speculative results in the language of ordinary life. For thought, whether popular or general, is in essence abstraction—that is, tendency to separate what is inseparable, to give permanence and apparent independence to that which is transient and dependent. Thus the relation of the infinite moral order to the finite modes in which it takes expression for itself, is hardly to be thought without danger of falling back into the old theological error of severing entirely from one another God and the world of nature and finite spirits. That Fichte altogether escapes this danger cannot be said; but so far as it is possible to judge from all that appears in his later works, he was well aware of the danger; and one must account it an error to ascribe to him the view that Being, or God, or the ultimate reality, is distinct from the manifestation or realisation of it in the world of consciousness.

The special theology or theosophy of Fichte’s system, as was said, is most definitely stated in the lectures on the ‘Doctrine of Religion,’ and what is there given may be accepted as his final utterance on the supreme problem of speculation. As in the earlier Wissenschaftslehre, though with much greater fulness and concreteness, the exposition is twofold: first, a logical development of the relation between the ultimate reality and its form or mode or manifestation; second, a psychological history of the stages or forms of reflection by which this relation is received into the consciousness of the finite thinking subject—by which it is viewed, apprehended, or understood.^[19] It is in this second portion that Fichte begins to connect in one organic whole the elements of his system which, in the earlier Wissenschaftslehre, had been suffered to remain detached from one another.

The function of thought, as opposed to mere opinion, is to conceive of being, of the ultimate reality which underlies all objects of knowledge. True being is one, unchangeable and perdurable. But in its unity and unchangeability it does not exist; it has no reality; it is mere abstraction. To say merely that God is, is to say nothing. The existence or definite realisation of being, that, in and for which only opposition between being and existence is present and necessarily present, is consciousness,—conscious life, the life of knowledge, thought and action. Now in consciousness there is found the root of all the multiplicity of experience; for the very essence of consciousness is reflection, characterisation of the one reality by separate, individual marks. Just as light, in itself colourless, is, in relation to the eye, broken up on the surfaces of things into many various hues; so the unchangeable life is by reflection and in relation to consciousness broken up into infinitely varied forms. Consciousness, which contains in itself the element of opposition, can never transcend itself. To it the one being, apprehended by pure thought as the one being, must ever present itself in the form of representation, conception,—in the form of separate individual things. “The visible forms which by this separation are imposed upon absolute reality are discernible only in actual consciousness, and in such a way that in the act of observing them we assign to them life and permanence—and they are by no means discoverable a priori by pure thought. They are simple and absolute experience, which is nothing but experience; which no speculation that understands itself will ever attempt or desire to comprehend.”^[20]

Thus the one reality, the one life, the life of consciousness, which is the manifestation of God, breaks itself up into an endless multiplicity of individual forms,—forms which in the experience of the finite spirit must present themselves as independent, self-existing facts, but which for thought are only modes of the one, infinite life. The finite spirit may apprehend this world of phenomena and its relation to the real system by reflective consideration of it; and of such reflective consideration there are five distinctly marked stages.^[21] The first is that in which the world, as matter of outer sense, is regarded as the only existence and the only reality. Such a view is manifestly imperfect and partial—the things of sense are only there for thought; and a system which, abstracting from thought, proposes to treat them as self-existent facts, of necessity throws out of account the most important factor in the process of knowledge. This is, in essence, the view already dealt with in the first book of the ‘Vocation of Man:’ it is the view of much popular philosophy, and it is the speculative groundwork both of selfish Epicurean morality and of ethical pessimism.

The second view is that in which the ultimate reality is regarded as the law of independent, free intelligences, with equal rights. From the conception of such a law may be deduced (as was done in the earlier Wissenschaftslehre, and, implicitly, in the Kantian system) the existence of finite Egos and a world of the senses. The essence of this view is the notion of the abstract independence of the thinking subject, and in this consists its imperfection and one-sidedness. It is a purely negative standpoint, maintaining, beyond doubt, the freedom of the individual will, but rejecting all possibility of uniting moral action with consciousness of the supreme end, and love for it.^[22] The law upon which the individual rests, is only a law of order, not a creative rule. The third view takes up into itself what is of value in the second, but gives to it a higher and deeper significance. In the higher morality, as Fichte calls it,^[23] the individual is filled with the desire to realise actively the divine will. The moral law, and that which springs from it—rights and state mechanism—are regarded only as means whereby the ideas, which represent in our consciousness the prescripts of the divine will, are to receive manifestation in fact. Acceptance of these ideas—the ideas upon which rest art, science, the polity of nations and religion—and self-renunciation for them, are the only sources of truly noble action. “Everything great and good upon which our present existence rests, from which it has proceeded, exists only because noble and powerful men have resigned all the enjoyments of life for the sake of ideas.”^[24] The heroic life is the life of the higher morality, of devotion to ideas.

Even this heroic life manifests in one of its aspects an imperfection. “So long as joy in the deed is mingled with desires concerning the outward product of the deed, even the possessor of the higher morality is not yet perfect in purity and clearness; and thus in the divine economy, the outward failure of his deed is the means of forcing him in upon himself, and of raising him to the yet higher standpoint of true religion—that is, to the comprehension of what it really is that he loves and strives after.” For if he is truly penetrated with the love of the divine law and life, he will recognise as the one thing above all value the development of the divine life in him. He is one manifestation of the divine life: all that he does or thinks is the act and thought of the divine life. That the result of his thought and action should not correspond with his conception or desire will not affect him. The object of his will is only “that in the conduct of each individual there may be manifested purely that form which the essential divine nature has assumed within this particular individual—that, on the other hand, each individual may recognise God, as He is outwardly manifested to him in the conduct of all other men; that all others may, in like manner, recognise God as He is outwardly manifested to them in the conduct of this particular individual—and that thus God alone may be ever manifested in all outward appearance.”^[25]

Religion,—the fourth stage of reflection,—which thus consists in regarding and recognising all earthly life as the necessary development of the one, original, perfectly good and blessed life, may indeed be realised in conduct, although the individual has not the clear consciousness of the thought which animates and directs his efforts. But in this consciousness, the final standpoint of science or philosophy, all others are contained and involved. “Religion without science is a mere faith, though an immovable faith; science supersedes all faith and converts it into insight.”^[26] “From the beginning of the world down to the present day, religion, whatever form it may have assumed, has been essentially metaphysic; and he who despises and derides metaphysic—that is, everything a priori—either knows not what he does, or else he despises and derides religion.”^[27] The final and crowning stage of the development of the individual consciousness is therefore that in which the finite spirit by thought or reason apprehends the organic plan of existence, knows with clearness the intimate nature of the relations which unite him and all other finite spirits in one community of free intelligences with a common aim and purpose, and thus subjectively realises the supreme synthesis of thought.^[28]

Notes

1. ‘Briefwechsel,’ p. 333.
2. See particularly the lectures on the “Nature of the Scholar,” ‘Werke,’ vol. vi., and there pp. 360-371.
3. As an instance of the first method, the ‘Anweisung zum seligen Leben’ may be selected. For the second, the ‘Thatsachen des Bewusstseyns,’ and for the third, the ‘Darstellung der Wissenschaftslehre aus d. Jahre 1801,’ are the best illustrations.
4. These lecture-notes make up the bulk of the ‘Nachgelassene Werke.’
5. A translation into English has been published by Dr W. Smith. See ‘Fichte’s Popular Works,’ with a Memoir (3d ed. 1873), pp. 237-379. To this references are made.
6. Hence the title of the first book, “Doubt.”
7. The ‘Sonnenklarer Bericht’ is an excellent commentary on this second book of the ‘Bestimmung.’ Together they make a most admirable introduction to philosophical analysis.
8. The term picture must be taken in a metaphorical sense, in order to serve as translation of Bild. The English use of the term idea, as equivalent to mental picture, would be more satisfactory.
9. P. 309.
10. It is to this point that the lectures on the “Characteristics of the Present Age” attach themselves. In them, the general progress of humanity towards realisation, with consciousness of its earthly aim—“that in this life mankind may order all their relations with freedom according to reason”—is traced in its broad outlines as the foundation for a philosophy of history. In such progress Fichte distinguishes five epochs, or world ages: first, that in which reason acts as blind instinct—the state of innocence; second, that in which the growing consciousness of reason presents itself as external authority—the age of positive systems, of progressive sin; third, that in which reason reflectively frees itself from external authority, and so from all general control—the age of individualism, of completed sinfulness; fourth, that in which the rational end is apprehended as reasoned, philosophic truth—the age of reconstruction, of progressive justification; fifth, that in which the rational end, embodied in general consciousness, is artistically developed in which humanity, with clear consciousness of its own aim, endeavours practically to realise the reign of freedom,—the age of completed justification. Much that is fantastic and unreal is given in these lectures, especially as regards the first stage—the origin of history; but the general view of the progress of practical thought is luminous and instructive, and we note that here the state begins to have assigned to it a higher function in the development of human life than had been accorded to it in the earlier work (the ‘Rechtslehre’).
11. ‘Rech. de la Vérité,’ B. III. Pt. ii. ch. 6. “Demeurons donc dans ce sentiment, que Dieu est le monde intelligible on le lieu des esprits, de même que le monde matériel est le lieu des corps.”
12. Translated by Dr W. Smith (‘Fichte’s Popular Works,’ 1873. pp. 381-564). To this references are made.
13. “Thatsachen des Bewusstseyns,” ‘Werke,’ vol. ii. pp. 535-691.
14. ‘Werke,’ vol. ii. p. 562.
15. ‘Werke,’ vol. vii. p. 235.
16. “Thatsachen des Bewusstseyns,” sect. iii. ch. 5; ‘Werke,’ vol. ii. pp. 680-691.
17. ‘Werke,’ vol. ii. p. 685.
18. ‘Anweisung zum seligen Leben.’
19. The mode of exposition adopted by Fichte in the work in question resembles somewhat the well-known method of Schleiermacher’s Theology. He proceeds by an analysis of the elements involved in the religious consciousness, the mode of thought in which the apparent reality of the world of sense is recognised as apparent merely; in which the finite being contemplates, sub specie aeternitatis, his own existence and the being of all things; in which he is penetrated with the intellectual love of the real divine life underlying the apparent world; in which he becomes one with this divine life, and lives and works for it alone. The closing portions of Spinoza’s ‘Ethics’ furnish the best commentary on the ‘Doctrine of Religion.’
20. ‘Doctrine of Religion,’ p. 447.
21. It appears to me beyond doubt that Hegel, in the famous preface to his ‘Phänomenologie,’ has Fichte in view as well as Schelling; and further, that much in the ‘Phänomenologie’ is due to Fichte’s lectures on the ‘Doctrine of Religion.’ The treatment in the ‘Phänomenologie’ of the gradual rise from immediate perception to pure thought is more extended and richer than what appears in the ‘Doctrine of Religion,’ but the general resemblance is striking and unmistakable.
22. This is, in substance, the criticism of all the post-Kantian thinkers upon Kant’s notion of the categorical imperative. It appears in Schiller, Schleiermacher, and Hegel. The view, as a whole, is that of formal morality, and its historical representatives are to be found in the Stoic and Kantian systems. With what is said by Fichte may be compared Hegel’s remarks in the ‘Phänomenologie,’ pp. 147-149.
23. It is the view expounded in the third took of the ‘Bestimmung des Menschen.’
24. “Grundzüge d. gegen. Zeitalters,” ‘Werke,’ vol. vii. p. 41.
25. ‘Doctrine of Religion,’ p. 533. Cf. “Grundzüge,” Lect. xvi.
26. ‘Doctrine of Religion,’ p. 460.
27. “Grundzüge,” ‘Werke,’ vol. vii. p. 241.
28. It is impossible to do more than call attention to the fact that under this view historical Christianity must be interpreted somewhat differently from the ordinary or popular fashion. In the “Anweisung” (Lecture vi.) and in the “Staatslehre,” Fichte enters upon a very elaborate comparison between his theory of religion and Christianity, as expressed in the Johannine Gospel, which he regards as the only authentic or pure statement of the Christian faith. The distinction drawn between the historical and the metaphysical elements in Christianity (particularly in the appendix to the sixth lecture) has had great influence on the later speculative theology in Germany. It would require, however, a very detailed treatment to show precisely Fichte’s position to theology. Lasson’s work (‘J. G. Fichte im Verhältniss zu Kirche und Staat,’ 1863) is very thorough. There is also a monograph on the subject by F. Zimmer (‘J. G. Fichte’s Religions-Philosophic,’ 1878).