and by the French, who at present had their foot upon our necks, he was regarded as the worst of political fire-brands. This latter opinion he certainly merited well; for, to do him justice, he hated our oppressors, and laboured against their cause with all the hatred befitting a genuine son of the Germanic soil. He now held a professorship at Erlangen; but his patriotic sentiments had made that place too hot to hold him, and the fear of a French dungeon drove him, as an outcast, to Königsberg.
I met him for the first time at an evening party at the house of professor Porschke. On introducing him to me, our boat remarked that he hoped the gentlemen would forget that they had ever attacked one another in their writings. I thought he might just as well have let that observation alone; for Fichte, flaring up, declared that for his part he was willing to forget it in the present company, but that he never would retract one word that he had written against professor Krng. Upon which I mildly rejoined, that I did not wish him to do so, but that I claimed for myself the same privilege of inflexibly adhering to my opinion respecting him. In the mean time more guests arrived, so that our dialogue, which promised to be any thing but a friendly one, was broken off. He sat next to me, however, at table: we steered clear of philosophical topics, and as the wine warmed his heart, he expanded, I thought, into greater friendliness and amiability. His object in coming to Königsberg, was to deliver a course of lectures. The crowd that thronged to hear his introductory discourse was tremendous. In the very first hour, however, in which he publicly opened his lips in Königsberg, he was guilty of the gross imprudence of speaking of Kant and the critical philosophy in terms of strong disparagement. This in a town in which Kant had reigned like a philosophic god! It was more than the Königsbergers could endure. They testified their disapprobation by shuffling loudly with their feet. Fichte, however, nothing daunted, but rather encouraged, by their dissatisfaction, went on to speak more and more slightingly of the sage. Many people then got up and left the room, and never returned to listen to him. But he still continued to attract a large audience, which, however, his own domineering temper at last reduced to nothing. It had been the custom at Königsberg and elsewhere, from time immemorial, for students to be permitted to attend the college lectures gratis (hospitiren) during the first fortnight of the session. But Fichte declared that he would permit no one to sorn upon him in that way—that if people intended to listen to his lectures, they must table down the fee forthwith, at the very commencement of the course; and in enforcement of this law, he took his post at the door of the lecture-room, and demanded from each man his money or his ticket as he entered; if he could produce neither of these, he was turned back. This conduct was too offensive to be endured; his host of hearers very soon deserted him, and he was at last left with only three pupils. Even these three complained that they could make nothing of his lectures; but they were induced to remain, as one of them informed me, by the assurances on the part of Fichte, that if they would but have patience, and wait out. his concluding lecture, the whole science would burst upon them like a revelation. But, added my informant, not one blink of light ever came my way. Fichte himself quitted Königsberg after delivering a very short course, much out of humour with its dull inhabitants, who, he averred, had no organ for the comprehension of his sublime "science of human knowledge." (Wissenschaftslehre.)
But it was written in the book of fate that Königsberg was not to be my permanent resting place. I received a letter from Reinhard, informing me that a vacancy had occurred in the university of Leipsic, and urging me to accept the situation. In other circumstances, I should certainly have hesitated, for the terms were not so favourable as those I was leaving behind me at Königsberg; but I was determined, by the declining health of my wife, whose constitution required a milder climate than the north of Germany, to avail myself of the proposal, and accordingly I once more packed up my household gods, and took the road to Leipsic in 1809.
Stage the sixth. My Professorship in Saxony—1809. * * * (My heart leaped up when I entered once more the boundaries of my native land after
