modification. Little comment need be made on Fichte’s conception of the German language as the sole living language, or on his notion of the part that Germany has played and must still play in the process of the salvation of the world. His whole-hearted enthusiasm for things German inclines him at times to regard everything genuinely German as necessarily good, and everything foreign as necessarily bad. It is obvious what evil results would accrue from the logical development of such a conception. He greatly exaggerates the part played by Luther and by Germany in the reformation of the Church; and it may be that his forecast of some of the good results that would follow upon the adoption of his educational reforms is fantastic and overdrawn. The fact, however, remains that these false and exaggerated ideas are but small blemishes in the work; they are easily explained, if not justified, when we consider the desperate state of the times, the exalted aim of the lecturer, the peculiar difficulty of his task, and his enthusiastic personality. In any case they do not affect to any considerable extent the tremendous influence of the Addresses at the time, and their great importance for the understanding of subsequent periods.
It is impossible within the limits of this introduction to do anything like justice to the historical and political importance of the Addresses both for Germany and for the world. It would be a most interesting and profitable study to trace, for instance, the development and practical consequences of Fichte’s idea of the closed commercial State, or to consider the influence of the principle of nationality, which he so emphatically champions, upon the course of political development in Germany and in the rest of Europe during the nineteenth century. In these and other directions it would be found that the
