John Thophilus, an eminent German metaphysician, was born at Rammenau, a village of Lusatia, on the 19th of May 1762. His father was a ribbon manufacturer, and carried on a small trade in haberdashery. A wealthy person in the neighbourhood having been struck with the extraordinary genius which young Fichte displayed, put him to school, in order to give him an opportunity of cultivating his talents; but the boy becoming impatient of restraint, ran off, and was found sitting on the banks of the Saale, with a map, on which he was endeavouring to trace the way to America. From this period he seems to have prosecuted his studies in an extremely desultory manner; occasionally attending the lectures of the professors of Wittenberg and Leipzig, without devoting his attention exclusively to any particular science. Theology, however, appears to have been his favourite study; and this predilection is conspicuous in many of his subsequent writings, which are distinguished by a singular mixture of philosophical and religious mysticism. When he left the university, his situation was by no means enviable. He possessed no fortune to enable him to indulge in the luxury of philosophical speculation; and, in spite of his decided aversion to every kind of constraint, he was compelled, by the necessity of his circumstances, to accept the situation of tutor in the family of a Prussian gentleman. But his residence in Prussia enabled him to cultivate the acquaintance of the celebrated philosopher of Königsberg, to whose judgment he submitted his first work, the Critical Review of all Revelations, which was published anonymously in 1792. In the literary journals, this production, which had attracted considerable attention, was ascribed to the pen of Kant, until the real author made himself known.

Having received fifty ducats from a Polish nobleman, in whose family he had been tutor, Fichte set out on a course of travels through Germany and Switzerland, and afterwards married a niece of Klopstock's at Zurich. In 1793, he published the first part of his Contributions towards rectifying the Opinions of the Public respecting the French Revolution. This book, which is written with considerable force and originality, created a great sensation in Germany, and was violently attacked, in consequence of a new and apparently dangerous theory which the author advanced relative to the social contract. The book, however, was perused with great avidity; but the attacks to which we have alluded probably prevented him from publishing the continuation.

The reputation of Fichte was now so well established, that he soon afterwards obtained an appointment to the philosophical chair at Jena, as successor to Reinhold, who had been called to the university of Kiel. Here he commenced his lectures by a programme, in which he endeavoured to give an idea of the Doctrine of Science (Wissenschaftslehre), the name by which he distinguished the principles of that system of transcendental idealism, which he afterwards more fully developed. In 1794, besides the ordinary duties of his professorship, he every Sunday gave a regular course of lectures, in the form of sermons, On the Literary Calling, which was numerously attended. Having established the principles of his doctrine of science, he endeavoured to extend their application to the several departments of philosophy; and with this view he published in 1796 his Fundamental Principles of the Law of Nature, and two years afterwards his System of Morals. In conjunction with Niethammer, he also published a philosophical journal, in which some articles were inserted, containing certain philosophical views of religion, which were considered by many as tending directly to atheism. Amongst a number of objectionable propositions, it was maintained that God was nothing else than the moral order of the universe; and that, to worship God as a being who could only be represented as existing in time and space, was a species of idolatry. One of Fichte's colleagues called the attention of the Saxon minister Burgsdorff to these heretical propositions; and the consequence was, the rigorous confiscation of the work throughout the whole of Saxony.

Fichte and his friend Forberg wrote an Appeal to the Public, and several Apologies, in order to exculpate themselves from the imputation of atheism. The government of Weimar behaved on this occasion with prudence and moderation; but the celebrated Herder, vice-president of the consistory, took part against Fichte. Eberhard, on the other hand, although hostile to the metaphysical system of Fichte, undertook his defence. The controversy was carried on with great violence, and excited considerable ferment throughout the whole of Germany.

In the mean time Fichte resigned his professorship at Jena, and repaired to Berlin, where he met with a very flattering reception. Here his time was occupied in giving private lectures, and in composing his various writings. In 1800 he published a short treatise, entitled The Exclusive Commercial State, containing one of those philosophical systems of political economy from which the praise of ingenuity cannot be withheld; whilst, at the same time, the most cursory view of the general principles on which it is founded must be sufficient to convince us that it could never be advantageously reduced to practice.

About this period Fichte met with a formidable rival in Schelling, who had formerly been a warm partisan of the Doctrine of Science, but who now separated from his master, and propounded a new metaphysical theory of his own, which soon acquired a large share of popularity at the German universities, especially at Jena. Fichte indeed endeavoured to modify his theory of the Doctrine of Science, and to present it to the world in a new and more attractive form; but he never again recovered the sway which he had formerly exercised over the public mind. Meanwhile, his ardent wish to be again placed in an academical chair was at length gratified by M. de Hardenberg, who in 1805 procured for him the appointment of ordinary professor of philosophy in the university of Erlangen. This appointment was accompanied with the especial favour of being permitted to pass the winter at Berlin, in order to continue his lectures there. But this state of amphibious professorship, as his friends used to call it in jest, did not last long. During the summer of 1805 he delivered at Erlangen his celebrated lectures On the Essence of the Literary Character (über das Wesen des Gelehrten). The following winter he delivered to a numerous audience the course which he afterwards published under the title of Guide to a Happy Life. This was one of those publications in which he attempted to present his metaphysical doctrines to the public in all their sublimity, and, at the same time, with such clearness, as should render them intelligible to common readers.

The disasters which assailed the Prussian monarchy in 1806 were attended with serious consequences to Fichte. Erlangen having ceased to be a Prussian university, he did not await the entry of the French into Berlin, but fled to Königsberg; and thence proceeded to Riga. In the summer of 1807 he delivered a course of philosophical lectures at Königsberg. The peace which ensued enabled him to return to Berlin, where he pronounced his famous Orations to the German Nation, which were enthusiastically read and applauded throughout all Germany. When the university of Berlin was founded, he obtained, through the interest of M. de Humboldt, the situation of rector, which secured to him an honourable revenue, whilst his rank, as first professor of philosophy, gave him great academical influence.

His health, however, had suffered considerably from the shocks he had for some time experienced, and he found it necessary to have recourse to the waters of Bohemia, from which he derived great benefit. But his wife was attacked with a nervous fever, in consequence of her attendance on the deserted sick; and although she recovered, Fichte, whose affection would not allow him to leave her for a moment, caught the infection, and died on the 29th of January 1814.

Fichte was small in stature, but stout and well formed; his countenance was expressive of thoughtfulness and determination. In his intellectual character, genius was combined with inflexible firmness; and these qualities enabled him to surmount difficulties which would have overwhelmed a man of less vigorous temperament. In other respects his dispositions were amiable and his morals correct. It was in the academical chair that the genius of Fichte was manifested in its greatest splendour. It was said of him that he was born a professor; and there was indeed a charm in his manner of lecturing which had a powerful influence on the minds of his pupils, several of whom we have heard talk of him with enthusiasm. His fervid and brilliant eloquence, the clearness of his reasoning, and the simplicity and correctness of his language, seemed to diffuse a magic light and colouring over the darkest and most abstruse metaphysical problems. Those who were charmed with his eloquence were easily convinced by his reasoning, and became willing converts to his doctrines. His writings, especially those works in which his peculiar doctrines are propounded in a systematic form, are by no means so attractive as his lectures appear to have been. On the contrary, notwithstanding a constant affectation of strict and simple reasoning, his propositions are enveloped in such a degree of transcendental obscurity, as renders it extremely difficult to comprehend either the basis or the scope of that system of doctrines which he laboured to establish.

Hence it is far from being an easy matter to give an intelligible abstract of the principles of the Doctrine 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 German 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, and endeavoured to describe its various functions, as well as to ascertain the scope and limits of its legitimate exercise. All our knowledge, according to the critical philosophy, must have a reference to possible experience. Of 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 cognized (if we may be allowed the expression) by our 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 comprehensible whole. As we can have no knowledge of objects in themselves, but only of their phenomena, 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 within 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 subjective reality (that is, a reality with reference to the thinking subject), and may be said to correspond with the objects, because, from the nature of our intellectual 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 illustrating the doctrines of others, than for discovering new truths, or inventing any original system of his own; and although an indefatigable student of philosophy, he seems to have never arrived at any settled 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 defect he attempted to supply by his own Theory of the Faculty of Perception (Theorie des Vorstellungsvorgangs). The main proposition laid down and illustrated in this work is nothing more nor less than this: We are compelled by consciousness to admit that every perception presupposes a percipient subject and an object perceived, both of which must be distinguished from the perception to which they relate; thus referring all our knowledge to consciousness as its ultimate principle. In the enunciation of this proposition there is nothing very new or original; but the illustration of this elementary doctrine, which, as a late reviewer of the German metaphysical theories observes, might have formed an excellent 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 importance 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 resolve the same problem, and to develop a system which, by deducing all our knowledge from one simple principle, should give unity and stability to the critical theory. In his Doctrine of Science (Wissenschaftslehre), accordingly, he derives all our knowledge 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 creative energy of the I, in the course of this reflective process, goes still further. By its own act, also, the I places the not-I (objects) as opposed to itself. In reflecting upon itself, as the absolutely active principle, it finds itself either determined by or determining 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 active principle, which constructs the consciousness, and produces all that exists, by position, contraposition, 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 pursuing through 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 reasoning; but to us it appears that his theory proceeds entirely upon arbitrary assumptions, resting upon no solid foundation. That he displays considerable ingenuity in the development of his ideas we are willing to admit; but we are quite at a loss to perceive the merit of the theory he has advanced, when considered 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 notions, derived from arbitrary and assumed principles.

In attempting to apply the principles of his doctrine of science to the theory of morals and the law of nature, Fichte exhibited many original and paradoxical opinions, along with some very just and ingenious philosophical observations. In his later writings he considerably modified his original theory of the doctrine of science, and produced a system of philosophical and religious mysticism, which appears to have given birth to the transcendental idealism of Schelling, an author who seems to have carried the extravagance of speculative reasoning to its utmost limits.

The following is a list of the works of Fichte.

1. Versuch einer Kritik aller Offenbarung. (Critical Review of all Revelation.) Königsberg, 1792, 1793, Svo. 2. Ueber den Begriff der Wissenschaftslehre. (On the notion of a Doctrine of Science.) Jena, 1794, Svo. 3. Grundlage der gesammten Wissenschaftslehre. (Foundation of the whole Doctrine of Science.) Ibid. 1794, Svo. 4. Grundriss des eigenthümlichen der Wissenschaftslehre. (Sketch of the peculiarity of the Doctrine of Science.) Weimar, 1794. 5. Vorlesungen ueber die Bestimmung des Gelehrten. (Lectures on the Literary Calling.) Jena, 1794. 6. System der Sittenlehre. (System of the Doctrine of Morals.) Jena and Leipzig, 1795. 7. Beiträge zur Berichtigung der Urtheile des Publikums ueber die Französische Revolution. (Materials for Rectifying the Opinions of the Public respecting the French Revolution.) 8. Grundlage des Naturrechts. (Foundation of the Law of Nature.) Jena, 1796, 1797. 2 vols. Svo. 9. Appellation an das Publicum ueber die ihm beygemessenen atheistischen Ausserungen. (Appeal to the Public respecting the atheistical expressions imputed to him.) Jena and Leipzig, 1799. 10. Ueber die Bestimmung des Menschen. (On the Destiny of Man.) 11. Der geschlossene Handelsstaat. (The exclusive Commercial State.) 12. Sonnenklarer Bericht an das grössere Publicum ueber das eigentliche Wesen der neuesten Philosophie. (Luminous Report to the greater public on the peculiar Character of the modern Philosophy.) Berlin, 1801. 13. Wissenschaftslehre. (Doctrine of Science.) Tübingen, 1802, Svo. 14. Vorlesungen ueber das Wesen der Gelehrten. (Lectures on the Literary Character.) Berlin, 1806. 15. Die Grundzüge des gegenwärtigen Zeitalters. (The Characteristics of the present age.) Ibid. 1806. 16. Anweisung zum seligen Leben. (Guide to a Happy Life.) Ibid. 1806. 17. Reden an die Deutsche Nation. (Discourses to the German nation.) Ibid. 1806. 18. Die Wissenschaftslehre in ihrem allgemeinsten Umriß dargestellt. (The Doctrine of Science exhibited in its most general outline.) Ibid. 1810. 19. Friedrich Nicolai's Leben und Sonderbare Meinungen, herausgegeben von Schlegel. (Life and singular opinions of Frederic Nicolai, edited by Schlegel.) Tübingen, 1801. 20. Antwortschrieben an K. L. Reinhold, auf dessen Beyträge zur leichteren Übersicht des Zustandes der Philo-