as 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, many of whom were in the habit of talking of him with enthusiasm. His fervid and brilliant eloquence, the clearness of his reasoning, and the simplicity and correct- ness 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 on 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 Vorstellungsvermögens). The main proposition laid down and illustrated in this work is nothing more or 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:—Versuch einer Kritik aller Offenbarung (Critical Review of all Revelation), Königsberg, 1792, 1793, 8vo.; Über den Begriff der Wissenschaftslehre (On the notion of a Doctrine of Science), Jena, 1794, 8vo.; Grundlage der gesammten Wissenschaftslehre (Sketch of the Whole Doctrine of Science), Ibid., 1794, 8vo.; Grundriss des eigenständlichen der Wissenschaftslehre (Sketch of the peculiarity of the Doctrine of Science), Weimar, 1794; Vorlesungen über die Bestimmung des Gelehrten (Lectures on the Literary Calling), Jena, 1794; System der Sittenlehre (System of the Doctrine of Morals), Jena and Fichtelgebirge, a mountain group of Germany, in Bavaria, forming the centre from which three extensive mountain ranges proceed,—the Erzgebirge in a N.E., the Frankenwald in a N.W., and the Böhmerwald in a S.E. direction. The streams to which it gives rise flow towards the four cardinal points,—e.g. the Eger flowing eastward and the Saale northward, both to the Elbe; the Main westward to the Rhine, and the Naab southward to the Danube. The chief points of the mass are the Schneeberg and the Ochsenkopf, the former having a height of 3433 and the latter of 3340 feet.

Ficino, Marsilio, a distinguished Italian scholar, was born at Florence in 1453. Instead of devoting himself, as the fashion of that age was, to the study of Aristotle, he selected Plato as his favourite author; and may be considered as the restorer of that philosopher's doctrines in the west. He translated the whole of his works into Latin, besides portions of those of his most celebrated followers, such as Plotinus, Proclus, Porphyrius, and Jamblicus. He died at Correggio in 1499; and we are informed by Baronius that after his death he appeared to his friend Michael Mercato, to whom he had promised to manifest himself as a confirmation of his doctrines regarding the immortality of the soul. His collected works appeared first at Venice in 1516, and were afterwards reprinted at Basil and at Paris.

Ficus, a large genus of urticaceous plants, in which the male and female flowers are mixed indiscriminately on the inside of a hollow, turbinate, fleshy receptacle. The genus comprehends the various species of fig-trees, which are all either tropical or inhabitants of warm countries. Some of these are shrubs or small creeping plants; while others are among the largest trees of the forest. The species of ficus have alternate leaves and branches, and secrete a milky juice more or less acrid, and which exists even in the common catable fig in its unripe state. Upwards of 100 species are known, of which the following are among the most interesting.

1. Ficus Carica, a small tree which produces the common catable fig, is a native of Asia, Africa, and the south of Europe, and has been cultivated from remote antiquity on the shores of the Mediterranean. This tree grows from 15 to 25 feet high, and the trunk sometimes attains a diameter of two feet. It has rough, lobed, deciduous leaves; the flowers are minute, unisexual, and contained in great numbers in a common receptacle, which is fleshy, turbinate, and almost closed at its apex. The male flowers (which are comparatively very few in number) occupy the superior part of this receptacle, while the lower and all the remaining part is filled with the female flowers. It is this receptacle, with its multitude of minute flowers imbedded in the pulp, which when ripe constitutes the well-known fruit. In its fresh state the fig is generally of a purplish hue, and has a soft, sweet, fragrant pulp. At least fourteen varieties are cultivated in this country, generally under glass, or in warm sheltered situations. As the cultivated fig-tree bears, for the most part, female flowers only, an artificial method of fertilizing them is resorted to in the Levant. This is the interesting process called caprification. The fact of this artificial impregnation is mentioned by Aristotle, who observed that a certain insect was generated on the flowers of the caprify (wild fig), which, having become a fly, entered the unripe fruit of the domestic fig and caused it to set. Tournefort and other travellers describe the process of caprification as practised in the Levant as follows:—At a particular season branches of the wild fig are placed among the cultivated trees, and the fertilizing pollen of the wild plant is conveyed by the legs and wings of these insects (a species of Cynipis) into the interior of the receptacle. To insure success, it is requisite to observe the proper period for this operation, which should be performed just before the insects will be ready to take wing, otherwise they might be lost. The same artificial method of fecundation with regard to the date-palm was practised in early times, according to Herodotus, by the Babylonians, who used to suspend male clusters from wild dates over the females, though they appear to have regarded the small flies found among the wild flowers as the direct cause of the fertility of the females. This process, which was called pollination, was also known to the Egyptians, the Phoenicians, and other nations of Asia and Africa.

Dried figs constitute a principal article of sustenance among the lower classes in Greece and the islands of the Archipelago. The quantity imported into Britain in 1853 amounted to 50,428 cwt. The best come from Turkey, Italy, Spain, and Provence; but the Turkish figs are most esteemed.

2. Ficus sycomorus, or Egyptian Sycamore, is a large tree with widely-spreading branches, and produces a delicate eatable fruit, which does not grow upon the tender branches, but in clustered racemes on the trunk and old limbs. It is planted extensively in Egypt on the highways for the sake of the grateful shade it affords. A specimen of this tree, much gnarled and broken, is figured in Salt's Abyssinia under the name of Daroo tree. Some have supposed that the Egyptian mummy-cases were made of the wood of this tree, which would imply a wonderful degree of durability; but Professor Don is rather of opinion that the timber of Cordia Myxa was the material employed for that purpose.

3. Ficus indica, the Banyan tree, has been celebrated from antiquity for the peculiar mode of its growth. It has a woody stem, branching to a great height and vast extent, with heart-shaped entire leaves terminating in acute points. Some of these trees are of amazing size and extent, as they are continually increasing. Every branch from the main body throws out its own roots, at first in small tender fibres, several yards from the ground; but these continually grow thicker until they reach the surface, and then striking in, increase to large trunks, and become parent trees, shooting out new branches from the top, which again in time suspend their roots, and these, swelling into trunks, produce other branches, till at length a single tree forms a little forest. From its long duration, its outstretching arms, and overshadowing beneficence, the Hindus regard the banyan tree as an emblem of the Deity. Near these trees the most esteemed pagodas are generally erected; under their shade the Brahmins spend their lives; and the natives of all castes and tribes are fond of recreating in the cool recesses, beautiful walks, and lovely vistas of this umbrageous canopy, impervious even to the direct rays of a tropical sun. The most celebrated tree of this kind is one on the banks of the Nerbudda, which has been known, in the march of an army, to afford shelter to 7000 men. Much of this remarkable tree has been swept away by high floods, but the remaining portion is said to be near 2000 feet as measured round the principal stems. The name banyan is derived from baniya, i.e., a banker—the class among the Hindus with which Europeans formerly had most frequent intercourse. A representation of a banyan tree is given under Botany, vol. v., p. 77, fig. 65.

4. Ficus religiosa, the pipul tree, is a large tree common to many parts of India, and is regarded with great veneration by the Hindus as having given shelter to Vishnu at his birth. It is often planted near houses for the sake of its umbrageous canopy; and its leaves, which are heart-shaped, long, and pointed, tremble like those of the aspen. They are employed by the Arabs in tanning leather.

5. Ficus elastica, which affords a large supply of the caoutchouc of commerce, abounds in Assam, and is plentifully distributed over some other parts of India. The method of obtaining the juice has been described under the head Caoutchouc. It is a fast-growing tree, with large, shining, pointed, thick leaves, and produces a fruit about the size of an olive, but which is not eatable.