We can give only a summary view of the attempts of Fichte to found a complete philosophy. Histori- cally he stands between Kant and Hegel, and forms the point of transition from the one to the other. " The end which F'ichte proposes to himself in his Wis- senschaftsk'kre is to give to science a true, that is to say, an absolute principle, reposing only upon itself, and leaving a basis to all the rest. Here the idealism of Kant is accepted in all its rigor. There is no longer any arbitrarily supposed objective element, even as a simple phenomenon. All is severely deduced from the subject, the sole term of knowledge admitted by idealism. Fichte's problem is just this : to bring out philosophy whole and entire from the £go ; and this bold reasoner proposes to give his deduction a more than mathematical exactitude. Algebra rests upon the law of identity, which is thus expressed: A=A. Fichte maintains that this law implies another, the onlj' one which a philosopher is entitled to admit with- out proof, and also the only one which he requires : Me = Me. When j'ou say A = A, you intend to affirm nothing upon the existence of A. You onl}' affirm that if A is A, A can be nothing else than A. The proposition A = A is therefore, sa3's Fichte, absolute onl3' in its /"orm, and not in its matter or contents. I know not if A exists practicalh^ and materialh' or not ; but it matters not. I am formalh' certain that given A, A cannot differ from A, and that there is necessarj' relation between these two terms. It is bj' the analy- sis of this relation that Fichte undertakes to prove the existence of £go. In the proposition A — A, he ar- gues, the first A is not considered under the same point of view as the second. The first A, as we have seen, is laid down conditionallj-, the second absolutelj'. What reduces these two terms to unity, puts them in a certain relation, judges, affirms, and constitutes this relation ? Evidentlv the Ego. Take awa3' the Ego, and vou take awa3- the relation, the two terms, the proposition A = A. Above it, then, there is a higher and more immediate truth. The principle of identity is onl3' absolute in foj'm ; the principle Me = Me is ab- solute both inform and matter; it alone is truly abso- lute. I need not follow Fichte in the course of his deduction, the most subtle and artificial which can be
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conceived. It is enough for me to know that he pushed to the utmost the straiiy;e idea of deducing a vast sys- tem of pliilosophy from this one principle, the E<jo. The E()0 alone is the principle, explaining, laying down, creating itself. 1 know not whether I should ■wonder more at the excess of extravagance to which the liuman mind may be carried, or at the amazing richness of its resources. B}' Kant it was condemned to Ix! ignorant of tlie universe and of God, locked up in the prison of the Eyo. Let him alone. This one reserved point will give him back all tlie rest. From the furthest limits of skepticism he will even pass to the most absolute dogmatism. But a little while ago he doubted of everything. Now he vaunts, not mereh- that he hioics Nature, but that he creates her. Nay, he vaunts that he creates God. Such are the very j expressions, at once absurd and logical, of Fichte. He draws nature and God from the Eg). The Ego implies the Non-E(jo. It limits itself. It is only it- self b}- opposing to itself another which is not itself. It poses itself onh' by opposing its contrary. It is it- self the link of this opposition, the synthesis of this antinomy. In fact, if the Ego only exists for itself, the facultj' of self-limitation which it possesses implies that, in itself, it is infinite and illimitable. Beyond the divisible and relative Ego, opposed to the Non-Ego, there is, therefore, an absolute Ego, comprising nature and man. This absolute Ego is God. Here, then, is thought in possession of its three essential objects ; here are man, nature, and God, in their necessary re- lation, -membeis of one identical thought, with three terms, at once separated and reconciled ; here is a phi- losophy worthy of the name ; a rigorous, demonstra- ted, homogeneous science, starting from one great principle to follow out and to exhaust all its conse- quences.
" Such, in its general principle, is the metaphysics of Fichte. His morality is a logical, though peidiaps unforeseen consequence of this. It is founded upon the Ego, whose eminent characteristic is liberty. To preserve one's own liberty, one's Ego is dut}' ; to re- spect the Ego, the liberty of others, is another not less sacred duty which becomes the foundation of right. Hence the noble stoicism of Ficlite, and that passion for liberty, which were in such perfect harmonj' with the masculine strength of his character and the gener- ous part which he plaj'ed in the political affairs of Germanv. But the importance of the system of Fichte (ioes not lie here. I find his greatness and oi-iginality in the extraordinarj' metaphysics so justlj' and boldlV called by himself subjective absolute ideal- ism. It has this singular feature, that in pushing the scepticism of Kant to its cxtremest consequences, it prepares the way for the dogmatism of Schelling and of Hegel. Not only does it prepare tlie way for, but even begins and contains this dogmatism. Fichte openly aspires to absolute science. He explains all things — man, nature, and God. He leads Gei-man philosophy, if I may venture to say so, from the sub- jective to tlic olijective by the subjective itself. From absolute scepticism he flings it into an enormous dog- matism. Setting out from a teaching so timid that it scarcely ventures to affirm one actual l>eing, it is the prelude of that ambitious philosophy which embraces in its enormous frameworks the history of man and that of nature, and pretends to an unmeasured, unre- served, and universal explanation of all things" (Sais- set, Modern raritheism, Edinb. 1863, ii, 2 sq.).