He returned to Leipzic about
the middle of May, his small stock of money exhausted by
the expenses of his journey; and was kindly received by his
friend Weisse, through whose recommendation he had ob-
tained the appointment at Zurich.
the middle of May, his small stock of money exhausted by
the expenses of his journey; and was kindly received by his
friend Weisse, through whose recommendation he had ob-
tained the appointment at Zurich.
Fichte - Nature of the Scholar
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? LETTERS TO JOHANNA RAHN.
15
the head, and the most sorrowful perversion of the heart.
Such my dear friend can never be; she cannot become such,
even were it possible--which it is not--that her character
were perverted; she can never become such, her nature has
too much reality in it. Your trust in Providence, your an-
ticipations of a future life, are wise and Christian. I hope,
if I may venture to speak of myself, that no one will take
me to be] a pietist or stiff formalist, but I know no feelings
more thoroughly interwoven with my soul than these are. "
******
"I am once more within these walls, which are only dear
to me because they enclose you; and when again left to my-
self, to my solititude, to my own thoughts, my soul flies
directly to your presence. How is this? It is but three days
since I have seen you, and I must often be absent from you
for a longer period than that. Distance is but distance, and
I am equally separated from you in Flaach or in Zurich. --
But how comes it that this absence has seemed to me longer
than usual, that my heart longs more earnestly to be with
you, that I imagine I have not seen you for a week? Have
I philosophized falsely of late about distance? Oh that our
feelings must still contradict the firmest conclusions of our
reason! "
"You know doubtless that my peace has been broken by
intelligence of the death of a man whom I prized and loved,
whose esteem was one of the sweetest enjoyments which
Zurich has afforded me, and whose friendship I would still
seek to deserve;--and you would weep with me if you knew
how dear this man was to me. "
? ****?
"Your offer of Friday has touched me deeply; it has con-
vinced me yet more strongly, if that were possible, of your
worth. Not because you are willing, for my sake, to deprive
yourself of something which may be to you a trifle, as you say
it is, --a thousand others could do that,--but that, although
you must have remarked something of my way of thinking
(' pride' the world calls it), you should yet have made that
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? 16 MEMOIR OF FICHTE.
offer so naturally and openly, as if your whole heart had told
you that I could not misunderstand you; that although I
had never accepted aught from any man on earth yet I
would accept it from you; that we were too closely united
to have different opinions about such things as these. Dear-
est, you have given me a proof of your confidence, your
kindness, your--(dare I write it ? )--love, than which there
could be no greater. Were I not now wholly yours I should
be a monster, without head or heart,--without any title to
happiness.
"But in order to show myself to you in a just light, you
have here my true thoughts and feelings upon this matter,
as I read them myself in my own breast.
"At first--I confess it with deep shame--at first it roused
my pride. Fool that I was, I thought for a moment--not
longer--that you had misunderstood what I wrote to you
lately. Yet even in this moment I was more grieved than
hurt: the blow came from your hand. Instantly, however,
my better nature awoke; I felt the whole worth of your heart,
and I was deeply moved . Had not your father come at this
moment, I could not have mastered my emotions: only shame
for having, even for a moment, undervalued you and myself,
kept them within bounds.
"Yet I cannot accept it:--not that your gift would dis-
grace me, or could disgrace me. A gift out of mere compas-
sion for my poverty I would abhor, and even hate the giver:
--this is perhaps the most neglected part of my character.
But the gift of friendship, of a friendship which, like yours,
rests upon cordial esteem, cannot proceed from compassion,
and is an honour, not a dishonour, But, in truth, I need it not. I have indeed no money by me at present, but I have
no unusual disbursements to make, and I shall have enough
to meet my very small regular expenses till my departure.
I seldom come into difficulties when I have no money,--I be-
lieve Providence watches over me. I have examples of this
which I might term singular, did I not recognise in them the
hand of Providence, which condescends even to our meanest
wants.
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? I
LETTERS TO JOHANNA HAHN. 17"Upon the whole, gold appears to me a very insignificant
commodity. I believe that a man with any intellect may
always provide for his wants; and for more than this, gold
is useless;--hence I have always despised it. Unhappily it
is here bound up with a part of the respect which our fellow-
men entertain for us, and this has never been a matter of
indifference to me. Perhaps I may by and by free myself
from this weakness also: it does not contribute to our peace.
"On account of this contempt of money, I have, for four
years, never accepted a farthing from my parents, because I
have seven sisters who are all young and in part uneducated,
and because I have a father who, were I to allow it, would
in his kindness bestow upon me that which belongs of right
to his other children. I have not accepted even presents
from them upon any pretence; and since then, I have main-
tained myself very well, and stand more h man aise than be-
fore towards my parents, and particularly towards my too
kind father.
"However, I promise you--(how happy do I feel, dear,
noble friend, to be permitted to speak thus with you! )--I
promise you, that if I should fall into any pecuniary embar-
rassments (as there is no likelihood that I shall, with my
present mode of thinking and my attendant fortune), you
shall be the first person to whom I shall apply--to whom I
shall have applied since the time I declined assistance from
my parents. It is worthy of your kind heart to receive this
promise, and it is not unworthy of me to give it. "
******
"Could anything indemnify me for the loss of some hours
of your society, I should be indemnified. I have received
the most touching proofs of the attachment of the good old
widow, whom I have seen only for the third time, and of
her gratitude for a few courtesies which were to me nothing,
--absolutely nothing,--had they not cost me two days' ab-
sence from you. She wept when I took my leave, though I
allowed her to expect that she would see me again before
my departure. I desire to lay aside all vanities: with some,
D
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? 18
MEMOIR OF FICHTK.
the desire for literary fame, &c. , I have in a certain degree
succeeded; but the desire to be beloved--beloved by simple
true hearts--is no vanity, and I will not lay it aside.
"What a wholly new, joyful, bright existence I have had
since I became sure of being yours! --how happy I am that
so noble a soul bestows its sympathy upon me, and such
sympathy! --this I can never express. Would that I could,
that I might be able to thank you.
"My departure, dearest, draws near, and you have disco-
vered the secret of making the day which formerly seemed
to me a day of deliverance the bitterest in my life. I shall
not tell you whether the day is settled or not. If you do
not absolutely command it, you shall not know of it. Leave-
taking is bitter, very bitter, and even its announcement has
always something painful in it. But one of us--and I shall
be that one--must bear the consciousness that thenceforth
(but only for a time, if God does not require the life of one
of us) we see each other no more. Unless you absolutely
require it, you shall not know when I am with you for the
last time. "
#? *'>>**
"Bern or Copenhagen, Lisbon, Madrid or St. Petersburg,
are alike to me, so far as I myself am concerned. I believe
that I am able to endure all climates tolerably well. The
true cold of winter, such as we find in Saxony, is never very
oppressive to me On this account I am
not afraid of Copenhagen. But I would rather, dearest,
be nearer thee. I am deeply moved by your tenderness; I
think of you with the warmest gratitude. On this matter
I feel with you, even although I cannot entirely think with
you. Letters go to Copenhagen, for example, as securely as
to Bern, and create as much pleasure there. Journeying is
journeying, be it long or short, and it is already almost in-
different to me whether I shall travel ten or a hundred miles.
So my understanding decides, and I cannot refute it, however
willingly this deceitful heart would do so.
"On the whole, I think of it in this way :--the great end
of my existence is to acquire every kind of education--(not
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? LETTERS TO JOHANNA RAHN.
lit
scientific education,--I find much vanity in that,--but edu-
cation of character)--which fortune will permit me.
"Looking into the way of Providence in my life, I find
that this is the plan of Providence itself with me. I have
filled many situations, played many parts, known many men,
and many conditions of men, and on the whole I find that
by all these occurrences my character has become more
fixed and decided. At my first entrance into the world, I
wanted everything but a susceptible heart. Many qualities
in which I was then deficient, I have since acquired; many
I still want entirely, and among others that of occasionally
accommodating myself to those around me, and bearing with
false men, or men wholly opposed to my character, for the
sake of accomplishing something great. Without these
qualities, I can never employ the powers which Providence
has bestowed upon me as I could with them.
"Does Providence then intend to develope these capacities
in me? Is it not possible that for this very purpose I may
now be led upon a wider stage? May not my employment
at a Court, my project of superintending the studies of a
Prince, your father's plan of taking me to Copenhagen,--
may not these be hints or ways of Providence towards this
end? And shall I, by confining myself to a narrower sphere,
one which is not even natural to me, seek to frustrate this
plan? I have no talent for bending; for dealing with people
who are opposed to me in character; can only succeed with
brave, good people;--I am too open;--this seemed to you a
reason why I was unfit to go to a Court; to me, on the con-
trary, it is a reason why I must go there, to have an oppor-
tunity of acquiring that wherein I am deficient.
"I know the business of the scholar; I have no new dis-
coveries to make about it. I have very little fitness for being
a scholar h mitier; I must not only think, I must act: least of
all can I think about trifles; and hence it is not exactly my
business to become a Swiss professor,--that is, a schoolman.
"So stand my inclinations:--now for my duties.
"May not Providence,--who must know better than I for
what I am fit and where I am wanted,--may not Providence
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? 20
MEMOIR OF FICHTE.
have determined not to lead me into such a sphere? And
may not the favour bestowed upon me by you, whose destiny
seems to be bound up with my own, be a hint, and your
proposal a way, of this Providence? May not my impulse
towards the great world be a delusion of sense, of my innate
restlessness, which Providence would now fix? This is as
possible as the first; and therefore we must just do in this
matter what depends upon us, and leave the rest to God's
guidance.
"Now I think that the way which you propose cannot
have the effect you expect from it. My essays cannot create
what is called a 'sensation;' this is not in them nor in me.
Many would not even understand their contents; those who
did understand them, would, I believe, consider me as a use-
ful man, but comme il y en a beaucoup. It is quite another
thing when one takes an interest in the author, and knows
him.
"If you should be able to excite such an interest among
your relatives, then indeed something more might be ex-
pected. But the matter does not seem pressing. Before all
things there must be a professorship vacant at Bern, and
indeed such a one as I could undertake. Then it would be
difficult, during my stay here, to make a copy of my essays.
And perhaps I shall write something better afterwards, or I
may hit upon some arrangement in Leipzic respecting these
essays, which can easily be made known in Bern. At all
events, you shall know, and every good man who takes any
interest in me shall always know, where I am. At the same
time I entreat of you,--although I know your good will to-
wards me does not need the request,--both now and after
my departure to omit no opportunity which presents itself
of doing me any service, and to inform me of it. I believe
in a Providence, and I watch its signs.
"I have but one passion, one want, one all-engrossing
desire,--to work upon those around me. The more I act,
the happier I seem to be. Is this too delusion? It may be
so, but there is truth at the bottom of it.
"But this is no delusion, that there is a heaven in the
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? LETTERS TO JOHANNA KAHN.
21
love of good hearts, in knowing that I possess their sympa-
thies,--their living, heartfelt, constant, warm sympathies.
Since I have known you intimately, this feeling has been
mine in all its fulness. Judge with what sentiments I close
this letter. "
******
"So you desire this bitter leave-taking? Be it so, but
under one condition: I must bid you farewell alone. In the presence of any other, even of your excellent father, I should suffer from the reserve of which I complain so much. I
depart, since it must be told, to-morrow eight-days. This
day week I see you for the last time, for I set out very early
on Sunday. Try to arrange that I may see you alone: how
it is to be arranged I know not, but I would far rather take
no leave of you at all, than take a cold formal one.
"I thank you heartily for your noble letter of yesterday,
particularly because your narrative confirms me so strongly
in a much-cherished principle. God cares for us--He will forsake no honourable man. "
? *? ? ? ?
"And so be convinced that nothing can turn my thoughts
from you. The reasons you have long known. You know
my heart; you know yourself; you know that I know you:
can you then doubt that I have found the only woman's soul
which I can value, honour, and love ? --that I have nothing
more to seek from the sex,--that I can find nothing more
that is mine f"
Towards the close of March 1790, Fichte left Zurich on
his return to his native land, with some letters of recommen-
dation to the Courts of Wirtemberg and Weimar. He was
once more thrown upon the world;--his outward prospects
as uncertain as when he entered Switzerland two years be-
fore. Poverty again compelled him to travel for the most part
on foot; but, as before, the toil of his journey was lightened
by a high sense of honour, an inflexible courage, an unwaver-
ing faith; and to these was now added a sweeter guide--a
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? 22 MEMOIR OF FICHTE.
I
star of milder radiance, which cast a soft but steady light
upon the wanderer's way and pointed him to a happy though
distant place of rest. His love was no fleeting passion, no
transient sensibility, but united itself with his philosophy and
his religion in one ever-flowing fountain of spiritual power.
The world might turn coldly away from him, for it knew him
not; but he did not stoop to its meannesses, because he did
not seek its rewards. He had one object before him--the
1 development of his own nature; and there was one who knew
him, whose thoughts were with him from afar, whose sym-
pathies were all his own. His labours might be arduous,
but they could not now be in vain; for although the destiny
of his being did not as yet lie before him in perfect theo-
retical clearness, yet his integrity of purpose and purity of
feeling unconsciously preserved him from error, while the
energy of his will bore him upward and onward over the
petty obstructions of life.
He arrived at Stuttgard in the beginning of April, but not
finding his recommendations to the Wirtemberg Court of
much advantage, he left it after a short stay. On his way
to Saxony he visited Weimar. He did not see Herder, who
was ill; nor Goethe, who was absent on his Italian tour; nor
Schiller, who was at that time commencing his labours as
Professor of History at Jena.
He returned to Leipzic about
the middle of May, his small stock of money exhausted by
the expenses of his journey; and was kindly received by his
friend Weisse, through whose recommendation he had ob-
tained the appointment at Zurich. Discovering no prospect
of obtaining any preceptorship of a superior kind, he engaged
in literary occupations in order to procure a livelihood. He
conceived the plan of a monthly literary journal, the princi-
pal objects of which should be to expose the dangerous ten-
dencies of the prevalent literature of the day, to show the
mutual influence of correct taste and pure morality, and to
direct its readers to the best authors, both of past and present
times. But such an undertaking was too much opposed to
the interests of the booksellers to find favour in their eyes.
"I have," he says, "spoken to well-disposed people on this
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? RESIDENCE AT LEIPZIC.
23
matter, to Weisse and Palmer; they all admit that it is a good
and useful idea, and indeed a want of the age, but they all
tell me that I shall find no publisher. I have therefore, out
of sorrow, communicated my plan to no bookseller, and I must
now write,--not pernicious writings, that I will never do,-- but something that is neither good nor bad, in order to earn a little money. I am now engaged on a tragedy, a business
which of all possible occupations least belongs to me, and of
which I shall certainly make nothing; and upon novels,
small romantic stories, a kind of reading good for nothing
but to kill time; this, however, it seems, is what the book- /sellers will take and pay for. "
So far as his outward existence was concerned, this resi-
dence at Leipzic was a period of harassing uncertainty too
often approaching the verge of misery,--full of troubled
schemes and projects which led to no result. He could ob-
tain no settled occupation, but was driven from one expedient
to another to procure the means of subsistence. At one
time he gives "a lesson in Greek to a young man between
11 and 12 o'clock," and spends the rest of the day in study
and starvation. His tragedy and novel writing could not
last long, nor be very tolerable while it did last. In Au-
gust he writes--" Bernstorff must have received my letter
and essay; I gave it into Herr Bohn's own hands, and he
promised to take care of it; yet I have no answer. A lady
at Weimar had a plan to obtain for me a good situation; it
must have failed, for I have not heard from her for two months.
Of other prospects which I thought almost certain, I shall
be silent . As for authorship, I have been able to do little
or nothing, for I am so distracted and tossed about by many
schemes and undertakings, that I have had few quiet days. In short, Providence either has something
else in store for me, and hence will give me nothing to do
here, as4indeed has been the case; or intends by these troubles
to exercise and invigorate me still further. I have lost al-
most everything, except my courage. " Again we hear of a
distant prospect of going to Vienna to prosecute his literary
schemes, and thus of being nearer,--nay, when on his way,
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? 24 MEMOIR OF FICHTE.
of even visiting Zurich. And then again--"This week seems
to be a critical time with me;--all my prospects have va-
nished, even this last one. " But his strength never failed
him; alone and unfriended, he shrank not from the contest.
Adversity might roll her billows over his head, but her rage
was spent in vain against a soul which she could bend to no
unworthy deed.
And yet he was not alone. A fair and gentle spirit was
ever by his side, whispering to him of peace, happiness, and
love. "In the twilight," says he, "before I light my lamp,
I dream myself back to thee, sit by thy side, chat with thee,
and ask whether I am still dear to thee;--ask indeed, but
not from doubt--I know before-hand that thou wilt answer
yes. I am always with thee on Saturdays. I cannot give
up those Saturday meetings. I think I am still in Zurich,
take my hat and stick, and will come to thee; and then I re-
member, and fret at fortune, and laugh at myself. "
And again,--"Knowest thou all that thou art to me, even
in this separation? When I feel vexed that of all my thoughts
there is scarcely one which I can pour forth confidently into
any human breast, then I think thee to me, and tell them
all to thee. I imagine what thou wouldst answer me, and
I believe that I hit it pretty nearly. When I walk alone,
thou art by my side. When I find that my walks hereabouts
lose their charms for me, either through force of habit, or
from the sameness which is their prevailing character; then
I show them to thee; tell thee what I have thought, or read,
or felt here;--show thee this tree under which I have lain
and meditated,--this bench on which T have conversed with
a friend,--and then the dull walk acquires a new life. There
is a garden in Leipzic which none of my acquaintances can
endure, because it is very unfrequented, and almost wholly
obscured by a thick alley. This garden is almost the only
one which is still dear to me, because it is that to which I
first resorted in my transition state from boyhood to youth,
with all the fresh outhursting feelings of that spring-time,
in which I felt so much, Here I often lead thee to walk,
and recount to thee the history of my heart.
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? RESIDENCE AT LEIPZIC.
25
"Farewell, and remain the protecting spirit of my solitude. "
Thus amid the desolation of his outward prospects the
current of his affections seems to have flowed with a fuller
and more powerful tide. Like a strong man proud of his
own strength, he bore the burden of privation and neglect;
but in the secret chamber of his heart there was a fountain
of untold bliss which sweetened even the bitterest trials:
there he found a refuge from unworthy thoughts, a strong
support in the conflict with misery and want. As the Alpine
plant strikes its roots most firmly in barren and rocky places,
so did his love cling more closely round his soul, when every
other joy had died and withered there.
"Thou dear angel-soul," he writes," do thou help me, do
thou keep me from falling! And so thou dost. What sorrow
can grieve, what distress can discourage me, so long as I
possess the firm assurance that I have the sympathy of the
best and noblest of women,--that she looks upon her destiny
as inseparably bound up in mine,--that our hearts are one?
Providence has given me thy heart, and I want nothing more.
Mine is thine for ever. "
Of a project for engaging him in the ministry he thus writes:
--" I know my opinions. I am neither of the Lutheran nor
Reformed Church, but of the Christian; and were I com-
pelled to choose, I should (since no purely Christian commu-
nity now exists) attach myself to that community in which
there is most freedom of thought and charity of life; and that
is not the Lutheran, I think I have given
up these hopes in my fatherland entirely. There is indeed
a degree of enlightenment and rational religious knowledge
existing among the younger clergy of the present day, which
is not to be found to the same extent in any other country
of Europe. But this is crushed by a worse than Spanish
inquisition, under which they must cringe and dissemble,
partly because they are deficient in ability, partly because in
consequence of the number of clergy in our land their services
can be spared, while they cannot sacrifice their employment.
Hence arises a slavish, crouching, hypocritical spirit. A re-
E
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? 2<;
MEMOIR OF FICHTE.
volution is indeed impending: but when? and how? In short,
I will be no preacher in Saxony. "
The only record that has been preserved of the opinions
he entertained at this time on the subject of religion is a
remarkable fragment entitled "Aphorisms on Religion and
Deism. " The object of this essay was to set at rest the
much-vexed questions between Philosophy and Christianity,
by strictly denning the respective provinces of each; by
distinguishing between the objective reality which reason
demands of Philosophy, and the incarnate form of truth
which Religion offers to the feelings and sympathies of men.
In the adaptation of Christianity to the wants of the sinner,
in its appeal to the heart rather than to the understand-
ing, he finds the explanation of its nature and purposes:
--" Those who are whole need not the physician, but those
who are sick. " "I am come not to call the righteous but
sinners to repentance. " This fragment, by its distinct re-
cognition of the radical difference between feeling and know-
ledge, and the consequent vanity of any attempt to decide
between the different aspects which the great questions of
human destiny assume before the cognitive and emotional
; j parts of our nature, may be looked upon as the stepping-stone
; ;to that important revolution in Fichte's mental world, to
which the attention of the reader must now be directed.
The Critical or Kantian Philosophy was at this time the
great topic of discussion in the higher circles of Germany.
Virulently assailed by the defenders of the existing systems,
with Herder at their head, it was as eagerly supported by a
crowd of followers who looked upon Kant with an almost fa-
natical veneration. Fichte's attention was turned to it quite
accidentally. Some increased success in teaching during the
winter of 1790, rendered his outward circumstances more
comfortable than before, and left his mind more at liberty
? to engage in serious study. He plunged with enthusiasm
1 into the new philosophy.
The system of religious necessarianism before alluded to,
which frequently shows itself in his letters, was by no means
in harmony with the natural bent of his character. His
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? KANTIAN PHILOSOPHY.
27
energy of will and restless spirit of enterprise assorted ill
with a theory in which he was compelled to regard himself
as a passive instrument in the hands of a higher power. This
inconsistency must have often suggested itself to him before
he met with its remedy ; he must have frequently felt, that
the theory which seemed to satisfy his understanding stood
in opposition to his feelings. He could not be contented with
any superficial or partial reconcilement of this opposition.
But he was now introduced to a system in which his diffi-
culties disappeared; in which, by a rigid examination of the
cognitive faculty, the boundaries of human knowledge were
accurately defined, and within those boundaries its legiti-
macy successfully vindicated against scepticism on the one
hand and blind credulity on the other; in which the facts of
man's moral nature furnished an indestructible foundation for
a system of ethics where duty was neither resolved into self-
interest nor degraded into the slavery of superstition, but re-
cognised by Free-will as the absolute law of its being, in the strength of which it was to front the Necessity of nature,
break down every obstruction that barred its way, and rise
at last, unaided, to the sublime consciousness of an independ-
ent, and therefore eternal, existence. Such a theory was
well calculated to rouse Fichte's enthusiasm and engage all
his powers. The light which he had been unconsciously
seeking now burst upon his sight, every doubt vanished be-
fore it, and the purpose of his being lay clear and distinct
before him. The world, and man's life in it, acquired a new
significance, every faculty a clearer vision, every power a fresh
energy. But he must speak for himself:--
Co acfjllis at Bremen.
"The last four or five months which I have passed in Leipzic
have been the happiest period of my life; and what is most
satisfactory about it is that I have to thank no man for the
smallest ingredient in its pleasures. You know that before
leaving Zurich I became somewhat sickly: either through
imagination, or because the cookery did not agree with me.
Since my departure from Zurich I have been health itself,
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? '28
MEMOIR OF FICHTE.
and I know how to prize this blessing. The circumstances
of my stay in Zurich, and still more of my travels, had strain-
ed my fancy to an unnatural height. When I came to Leip-
zic my brain swarmed with great plans. All were wrecked;
and of so many soap-bubbles there now remains not even
the light froth which composed them. This disturbed my
peace of mind a little, and it was half in despair that I
joined a party to which I ought long ere now to have be-
longed. Since I could not alter my outward circumstances,
I resolved upon internal change. I threw myself into philo-
sophy, and, as you know, into the Kantian. Here I found
the remedy for all my evils, and joy enough to boot. The
influence of this philosophy, and particularly the moral part
of it (which however is unintelligible without previous study
of the Critique of Pure Reason), upon the whole spiritual
life, and particularly the revolution which it has caused in
my own mode of thought, is indescribable. To you, espe-
cially, I owe the acknowledgment, that I now heartily believe
in the Freedom of Man, and am well convinced that it is
only on this supposition that Duty, Virtue, or Morality of
any kind, is so much as possible;--a truth which indeed I
saw before, and perhaps acquired from you. Further, it is
very evident to me that many pernicious consequences to
society flow from the commonly-received principle of the
Necessity of all human actions; that it is the source of a
great part of the immorality of the so-called higher classes;
and that if any one, accepting this principle, yet preserve
himself pure from such corruption, it is not on account of
the innocence, much less the utility, of the principle itself.
Your uncorrupted moral feelings'guided you more truly than
did my arguments; and you must admit that, in the latter
respect, error is pardonable. A multitude of others, who do
not err, have to thank, not their greater acuteness, but their
inconsequential reasoning. I am also firmly convinced that
there is no land of enjoyment here below, but a land of labour
and toil, and that every joy of life should be only a refresh-
ment and an incentive to greater exertion; that the ordering
of our fortune is not demanded of us, but only the cultivation
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? KANTIAN PHILOSOPHY.
29
of ourselves. Hence I do not trouble myself about outward
things,--endeavour not to seem, but to be; and it is to these
convictions that I am indebted for the deep tranquillity of
soul which I enjoy. My external circumstances suit well
with these dispositions. I am master of no one, and no one's
servant. I have no farther prospects: the present constitu-
tion of the church, and indeed the men who compose it, do
not please me. So long as I can maintain my present inde-
pendence, I shall do so at all hazards.
"You ask whether I contribute to the journals? No, to
none of them. It was my intention, at first, to write for the
'Bibliothek der Schonen Wissenschaften. ' But all is anarchy
there. Weisse is called the editor, but the bookseller is the
editor; and I will have nothing to do with a bookseller in
matters of this kind . I sent my essay upon Klopstock's
Messias to B. for the 'Deutsche Museum. ' He replied, that he
feared the poet, who had for some time honoured him with his
friendship, would take it ill if he should publish an essay
which might put his Messias in danger, &c. &c. I was satisfied
with his answer, for I had already repented of the sin. If
ever I become an author, it shall be on my own account.
Moreover, authorship as a trade is not for me. It is incred-
ible how much labour it costs me to accomplish something
with which after all I am but half satisfied. The more'I
write, the more difficult does it become. I see that I want
the living fire. "
On the same subject he writes to his school and college
friend Weisshuhn:--
"I have lived in a new world since I have read the Cri-
tique of Practical Reason. Principles which I believed were
irrefragable, are refuted; things which I thought could never
be proved,--as for example, the idea of absolute Freedom,
of Duty,--are proved; and I am so much the happier. It is
indescribable what respect for humanity, what power this sys-
tem gives us! But why should I say this to you, who have
known it longer than I have done? What a blessing to an
age in which morality was torn up by the roots, and the
name of Duty obliterated from every vocabulary! "
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? 30
MEMOIR OF FICHTE.
And with still greater warmth he speaks of his new studies
to Johanna Rahn:--
"My scheming spirit has now found rest, and I thank
Providence that, shortly before all my hopes were frustrated.
I was placed in a position which enabled me to bear the
disappointment with cheerfulness. A circumstance, which
seemed the result of mere chance, led me to give myself up
entirely to the study of the Kantian philosophy,--a philosophy
that restrains the imagination which was always too powerful
with me, gives reason the sway, and raises the soul to an
indescribable elevation above all earthly concerns. I have
accepted a nobler morality, and instead of occupying myself
with outward things, I employ myself more with my own
being. This has given me a peace such as I have never be-
fore experienced: amid uncertain worldly prospects I have
passed my happiest days. I shall devote some years of my
life to this philosophy; and all that I write, at least for
several years to come, shall be upon it. It is difficult beyond
all conception, and stands much in need of simplification. .
. . . The principles are indeed hard speculations which
have no direct bearing on human life, but their consequences
are most important for an age whose morality is corrupted
at the fountain-head; and to set these consequences before
the world in a clear light, would, I believe, be doing it a
good service. Say to thy dear father, whom I love as my
own, that we erred in our inquiries into the Necessity of
human actions, for although we proceeded with accuracy, we
set out from a false principle. I am now thoroughly con-
vinced that the human will is free, and that to be happy is
not the purpose of our being,--but to deserve happiness. I
have to ask pardon of thee too, for having often led thee a-
stray by such assertions. Achelis was right,--without know-
ing it indeed; and why? Henceforth believe in thine own
feelings; thou mayst not be able to confute opposing rea-
soners, yet they shall be confuted, and are so already, though
they do not understand the confutation.
? LETTERS TO JOHANNA RAHN.
15
the head, and the most sorrowful perversion of the heart.
Such my dear friend can never be; she cannot become such,
even were it possible--which it is not--that her character
were perverted; she can never become such, her nature has
too much reality in it. Your trust in Providence, your an-
ticipations of a future life, are wise and Christian. I hope,
if I may venture to speak of myself, that no one will take
me to be] a pietist or stiff formalist, but I know no feelings
more thoroughly interwoven with my soul than these are. "
******
"I am once more within these walls, which are only dear
to me because they enclose you; and when again left to my-
self, to my solititude, to my own thoughts, my soul flies
directly to your presence. How is this? It is but three days
since I have seen you, and I must often be absent from you
for a longer period than that. Distance is but distance, and
I am equally separated from you in Flaach or in Zurich. --
But how comes it that this absence has seemed to me longer
than usual, that my heart longs more earnestly to be with
you, that I imagine I have not seen you for a week? Have
I philosophized falsely of late about distance? Oh that our
feelings must still contradict the firmest conclusions of our
reason! "
"You know doubtless that my peace has been broken by
intelligence of the death of a man whom I prized and loved,
whose esteem was one of the sweetest enjoyments which
Zurich has afforded me, and whose friendship I would still
seek to deserve;--and you would weep with me if you knew
how dear this man was to me. "
? ****?
"Your offer of Friday has touched me deeply; it has con-
vinced me yet more strongly, if that were possible, of your
worth. Not because you are willing, for my sake, to deprive
yourself of something which may be to you a trifle, as you say
it is, --a thousand others could do that,--but that, although
you must have remarked something of my way of thinking
(' pride' the world calls it), you should yet have made that
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? 16 MEMOIR OF FICHTE.
offer so naturally and openly, as if your whole heart had told
you that I could not misunderstand you; that although I
had never accepted aught from any man on earth yet I
would accept it from you; that we were too closely united
to have different opinions about such things as these. Dear-
est, you have given me a proof of your confidence, your
kindness, your--(dare I write it ? )--love, than which there
could be no greater. Were I not now wholly yours I should
be a monster, without head or heart,--without any title to
happiness.
"But in order to show myself to you in a just light, you
have here my true thoughts and feelings upon this matter,
as I read them myself in my own breast.
"At first--I confess it with deep shame--at first it roused
my pride. Fool that I was, I thought for a moment--not
longer--that you had misunderstood what I wrote to you
lately. Yet even in this moment I was more grieved than
hurt: the blow came from your hand. Instantly, however,
my better nature awoke; I felt the whole worth of your heart,
and I was deeply moved . Had not your father come at this
moment, I could not have mastered my emotions: only shame
for having, even for a moment, undervalued you and myself,
kept them within bounds.
"Yet I cannot accept it:--not that your gift would dis-
grace me, or could disgrace me. A gift out of mere compas-
sion for my poverty I would abhor, and even hate the giver:
--this is perhaps the most neglected part of my character.
But the gift of friendship, of a friendship which, like yours,
rests upon cordial esteem, cannot proceed from compassion,
and is an honour, not a dishonour, But, in truth, I need it not. I have indeed no money by me at present, but I have
no unusual disbursements to make, and I shall have enough
to meet my very small regular expenses till my departure.
I seldom come into difficulties when I have no money,--I be-
lieve Providence watches over me. I have examples of this
which I might term singular, did I not recognise in them the
hand of Providence, which condescends even to our meanest
wants.
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? I
LETTERS TO JOHANNA HAHN. 17"Upon the whole, gold appears to me a very insignificant
commodity. I believe that a man with any intellect may
always provide for his wants; and for more than this, gold
is useless;--hence I have always despised it. Unhappily it
is here bound up with a part of the respect which our fellow-
men entertain for us, and this has never been a matter of
indifference to me. Perhaps I may by and by free myself
from this weakness also: it does not contribute to our peace.
"On account of this contempt of money, I have, for four
years, never accepted a farthing from my parents, because I
have seven sisters who are all young and in part uneducated,
and because I have a father who, were I to allow it, would
in his kindness bestow upon me that which belongs of right
to his other children. I have not accepted even presents
from them upon any pretence; and since then, I have main-
tained myself very well, and stand more h man aise than be-
fore towards my parents, and particularly towards my too
kind father.
"However, I promise you--(how happy do I feel, dear,
noble friend, to be permitted to speak thus with you! )--I
promise you, that if I should fall into any pecuniary embar-
rassments (as there is no likelihood that I shall, with my
present mode of thinking and my attendant fortune), you
shall be the first person to whom I shall apply--to whom I
shall have applied since the time I declined assistance from
my parents. It is worthy of your kind heart to receive this
promise, and it is not unworthy of me to give it. "
******
"Could anything indemnify me for the loss of some hours
of your society, I should be indemnified. I have received
the most touching proofs of the attachment of the good old
widow, whom I have seen only for the third time, and of
her gratitude for a few courtesies which were to me nothing,
--absolutely nothing,--had they not cost me two days' ab-
sence from you. She wept when I took my leave, though I
allowed her to expect that she would see me again before
my departure. I desire to lay aside all vanities: with some,
D
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? 18
MEMOIR OF FICHTK.
the desire for literary fame, &c. , I have in a certain degree
succeeded; but the desire to be beloved--beloved by simple
true hearts--is no vanity, and I will not lay it aside.
"What a wholly new, joyful, bright existence I have had
since I became sure of being yours! --how happy I am that
so noble a soul bestows its sympathy upon me, and such
sympathy! --this I can never express. Would that I could,
that I might be able to thank you.
"My departure, dearest, draws near, and you have disco-
vered the secret of making the day which formerly seemed
to me a day of deliverance the bitterest in my life. I shall
not tell you whether the day is settled or not. If you do
not absolutely command it, you shall not know of it. Leave-
taking is bitter, very bitter, and even its announcement has
always something painful in it. But one of us--and I shall
be that one--must bear the consciousness that thenceforth
(but only for a time, if God does not require the life of one
of us) we see each other no more. Unless you absolutely
require it, you shall not know when I am with you for the
last time. "
#? *'>>**
"Bern or Copenhagen, Lisbon, Madrid or St. Petersburg,
are alike to me, so far as I myself am concerned. I believe
that I am able to endure all climates tolerably well. The
true cold of winter, such as we find in Saxony, is never very
oppressive to me On this account I am
not afraid of Copenhagen. But I would rather, dearest,
be nearer thee. I am deeply moved by your tenderness; I
think of you with the warmest gratitude. On this matter
I feel with you, even although I cannot entirely think with
you. Letters go to Copenhagen, for example, as securely as
to Bern, and create as much pleasure there. Journeying is
journeying, be it long or short, and it is already almost in-
different to me whether I shall travel ten or a hundred miles.
So my understanding decides, and I cannot refute it, however
willingly this deceitful heart would do so.
"On the whole, I think of it in this way :--the great end
of my existence is to acquire every kind of education--(not
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? LETTERS TO JOHANNA RAHN.
lit
scientific education,--I find much vanity in that,--but edu-
cation of character)--which fortune will permit me.
"Looking into the way of Providence in my life, I find
that this is the plan of Providence itself with me. I have
filled many situations, played many parts, known many men,
and many conditions of men, and on the whole I find that
by all these occurrences my character has become more
fixed and decided. At my first entrance into the world, I
wanted everything but a susceptible heart. Many qualities
in which I was then deficient, I have since acquired; many
I still want entirely, and among others that of occasionally
accommodating myself to those around me, and bearing with
false men, or men wholly opposed to my character, for the
sake of accomplishing something great. Without these
qualities, I can never employ the powers which Providence
has bestowed upon me as I could with them.
"Does Providence then intend to develope these capacities
in me? Is it not possible that for this very purpose I may
now be led upon a wider stage? May not my employment
at a Court, my project of superintending the studies of a
Prince, your father's plan of taking me to Copenhagen,--
may not these be hints or ways of Providence towards this
end? And shall I, by confining myself to a narrower sphere,
one which is not even natural to me, seek to frustrate this
plan? I have no talent for bending; for dealing with people
who are opposed to me in character; can only succeed with
brave, good people;--I am too open;--this seemed to you a
reason why I was unfit to go to a Court; to me, on the con-
trary, it is a reason why I must go there, to have an oppor-
tunity of acquiring that wherein I am deficient.
"I know the business of the scholar; I have no new dis-
coveries to make about it. I have very little fitness for being
a scholar h mitier; I must not only think, I must act: least of
all can I think about trifles; and hence it is not exactly my
business to become a Swiss professor,--that is, a schoolman.
"So stand my inclinations:--now for my duties.
"May not Providence,--who must know better than I for
what I am fit and where I am wanted,--may not Providence
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? 20
MEMOIR OF FICHTE.
have determined not to lead me into such a sphere? And
may not the favour bestowed upon me by you, whose destiny
seems to be bound up with my own, be a hint, and your
proposal a way, of this Providence? May not my impulse
towards the great world be a delusion of sense, of my innate
restlessness, which Providence would now fix? This is as
possible as the first; and therefore we must just do in this
matter what depends upon us, and leave the rest to God's
guidance.
"Now I think that the way which you propose cannot
have the effect you expect from it. My essays cannot create
what is called a 'sensation;' this is not in them nor in me.
Many would not even understand their contents; those who
did understand them, would, I believe, consider me as a use-
ful man, but comme il y en a beaucoup. It is quite another
thing when one takes an interest in the author, and knows
him.
"If you should be able to excite such an interest among
your relatives, then indeed something more might be ex-
pected. But the matter does not seem pressing. Before all
things there must be a professorship vacant at Bern, and
indeed such a one as I could undertake. Then it would be
difficult, during my stay here, to make a copy of my essays.
And perhaps I shall write something better afterwards, or I
may hit upon some arrangement in Leipzic respecting these
essays, which can easily be made known in Bern. At all
events, you shall know, and every good man who takes any
interest in me shall always know, where I am. At the same
time I entreat of you,--although I know your good will to-
wards me does not need the request,--both now and after
my departure to omit no opportunity which presents itself
of doing me any service, and to inform me of it. I believe
in a Providence, and I watch its signs.
"I have but one passion, one want, one all-engrossing
desire,--to work upon those around me. The more I act,
the happier I seem to be. Is this too delusion? It may be
so, but there is truth at the bottom of it.
"But this is no delusion, that there is a heaven in the
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? LETTERS TO JOHANNA KAHN.
21
love of good hearts, in knowing that I possess their sympa-
thies,--their living, heartfelt, constant, warm sympathies.
Since I have known you intimately, this feeling has been
mine in all its fulness. Judge with what sentiments I close
this letter. "
******
"So you desire this bitter leave-taking? Be it so, but
under one condition: I must bid you farewell alone. In the presence of any other, even of your excellent father, I should suffer from the reserve of which I complain so much. I
depart, since it must be told, to-morrow eight-days. This
day week I see you for the last time, for I set out very early
on Sunday. Try to arrange that I may see you alone: how
it is to be arranged I know not, but I would far rather take
no leave of you at all, than take a cold formal one.
"I thank you heartily for your noble letter of yesterday,
particularly because your narrative confirms me so strongly
in a much-cherished principle. God cares for us--He will forsake no honourable man. "
? *? ? ? ?
"And so be convinced that nothing can turn my thoughts
from you. The reasons you have long known. You know
my heart; you know yourself; you know that I know you:
can you then doubt that I have found the only woman's soul
which I can value, honour, and love ? --that I have nothing
more to seek from the sex,--that I can find nothing more
that is mine f"
Towards the close of March 1790, Fichte left Zurich on
his return to his native land, with some letters of recommen-
dation to the Courts of Wirtemberg and Weimar. He was
once more thrown upon the world;--his outward prospects
as uncertain as when he entered Switzerland two years be-
fore. Poverty again compelled him to travel for the most part
on foot; but, as before, the toil of his journey was lightened
by a high sense of honour, an inflexible courage, an unwaver-
ing faith; and to these was now added a sweeter guide--a
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? 22 MEMOIR OF FICHTE.
I
star of milder radiance, which cast a soft but steady light
upon the wanderer's way and pointed him to a happy though
distant place of rest. His love was no fleeting passion, no
transient sensibility, but united itself with his philosophy and
his religion in one ever-flowing fountain of spiritual power.
The world might turn coldly away from him, for it knew him
not; but he did not stoop to its meannesses, because he did
not seek its rewards. He had one object before him--the
1 development of his own nature; and there was one who knew
him, whose thoughts were with him from afar, whose sym-
pathies were all his own. His labours might be arduous,
but they could not now be in vain; for although the destiny
of his being did not as yet lie before him in perfect theo-
retical clearness, yet his integrity of purpose and purity of
feeling unconsciously preserved him from error, while the
energy of his will bore him upward and onward over the
petty obstructions of life.
He arrived at Stuttgard in the beginning of April, but not
finding his recommendations to the Wirtemberg Court of
much advantage, he left it after a short stay. On his way
to Saxony he visited Weimar. He did not see Herder, who
was ill; nor Goethe, who was absent on his Italian tour; nor
Schiller, who was at that time commencing his labours as
Professor of History at Jena.
He returned to Leipzic about
the middle of May, his small stock of money exhausted by
the expenses of his journey; and was kindly received by his
friend Weisse, through whose recommendation he had ob-
tained the appointment at Zurich. Discovering no prospect
of obtaining any preceptorship of a superior kind, he engaged
in literary occupations in order to procure a livelihood. He
conceived the plan of a monthly literary journal, the princi-
pal objects of which should be to expose the dangerous ten-
dencies of the prevalent literature of the day, to show the
mutual influence of correct taste and pure morality, and to
direct its readers to the best authors, both of past and present
times. But such an undertaking was too much opposed to
the interests of the booksellers to find favour in their eyes.
"I have," he says, "spoken to well-disposed people on this
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? RESIDENCE AT LEIPZIC.
23
matter, to Weisse and Palmer; they all admit that it is a good
and useful idea, and indeed a want of the age, but they all
tell me that I shall find no publisher. I have therefore, out
of sorrow, communicated my plan to no bookseller, and I must
now write,--not pernicious writings, that I will never do,-- but something that is neither good nor bad, in order to earn a little money. I am now engaged on a tragedy, a business
which of all possible occupations least belongs to me, and of
which I shall certainly make nothing; and upon novels,
small romantic stories, a kind of reading good for nothing
but to kill time; this, however, it seems, is what the book- /sellers will take and pay for. "
So far as his outward existence was concerned, this resi-
dence at Leipzic was a period of harassing uncertainty too
often approaching the verge of misery,--full of troubled
schemes and projects which led to no result. He could ob-
tain no settled occupation, but was driven from one expedient
to another to procure the means of subsistence. At one
time he gives "a lesson in Greek to a young man between
11 and 12 o'clock," and spends the rest of the day in study
and starvation. His tragedy and novel writing could not
last long, nor be very tolerable while it did last. In Au-
gust he writes--" Bernstorff must have received my letter
and essay; I gave it into Herr Bohn's own hands, and he
promised to take care of it; yet I have no answer. A lady
at Weimar had a plan to obtain for me a good situation; it
must have failed, for I have not heard from her for two months.
Of other prospects which I thought almost certain, I shall
be silent . As for authorship, I have been able to do little
or nothing, for I am so distracted and tossed about by many
schemes and undertakings, that I have had few quiet days. In short, Providence either has something
else in store for me, and hence will give me nothing to do
here, as4indeed has been the case; or intends by these troubles
to exercise and invigorate me still further. I have lost al-
most everything, except my courage. " Again we hear of a
distant prospect of going to Vienna to prosecute his literary
schemes, and thus of being nearer,--nay, when on his way,
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? 24 MEMOIR OF FICHTE.
of even visiting Zurich. And then again--"This week seems
to be a critical time with me;--all my prospects have va-
nished, even this last one. " But his strength never failed
him; alone and unfriended, he shrank not from the contest.
Adversity might roll her billows over his head, but her rage
was spent in vain against a soul which she could bend to no
unworthy deed.
And yet he was not alone. A fair and gentle spirit was
ever by his side, whispering to him of peace, happiness, and
love. "In the twilight," says he, "before I light my lamp,
I dream myself back to thee, sit by thy side, chat with thee,
and ask whether I am still dear to thee;--ask indeed, but
not from doubt--I know before-hand that thou wilt answer
yes. I am always with thee on Saturdays. I cannot give
up those Saturday meetings. I think I am still in Zurich,
take my hat and stick, and will come to thee; and then I re-
member, and fret at fortune, and laugh at myself. "
And again,--"Knowest thou all that thou art to me, even
in this separation? When I feel vexed that of all my thoughts
there is scarcely one which I can pour forth confidently into
any human breast, then I think thee to me, and tell them
all to thee. I imagine what thou wouldst answer me, and
I believe that I hit it pretty nearly. When I walk alone,
thou art by my side. When I find that my walks hereabouts
lose their charms for me, either through force of habit, or
from the sameness which is their prevailing character; then
I show them to thee; tell thee what I have thought, or read,
or felt here;--show thee this tree under which I have lain
and meditated,--this bench on which T have conversed with
a friend,--and then the dull walk acquires a new life. There
is a garden in Leipzic which none of my acquaintances can
endure, because it is very unfrequented, and almost wholly
obscured by a thick alley. This garden is almost the only
one which is still dear to me, because it is that to which I
first resorted in my transition state from boyhood to youth,
with all the fresh outhursting feelings of that spring-time,
in which I felt so much, Here I often lead thee to walk,
and recount to thee the history of my heart.
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? RESIDENCE AT LEIPZIC.
25
"Farewell, and remain the protecting spirit of my solitude. "
Thus amid the desolation of his outward prospects the
current of his affections seems to have flowed with a fuller
and more powerful tide. Like a strong man proud of his
own strength, he bore the burden of privation and neglect;
but in the secret chamber of his heart there was a fountain
of untold bliss which sweetened even the bitterest trials:
there he found a refuge from unworthy thoughts, a strong
support in the conflict with misery and want. As the Alpine
plant strikes its roots most firmly in barren and rocky places,
so did his love cling more closely round his soul, when every
other joy had died and withered there.
"Thou dear angel-soul," he writes," do thou help me, do
thou keep me from falling! And so thou dost. What sorrow
can grieve, what distress can discourage me, so long as I
possess the firm assurance that I have the sympathy of the
best and noblest of women,--that she looks upon her destiny
as inseparably bound up in mine,--that our hearts are one?
Providence has given me thy heart, and I want nothing more.
Mine is thine for ever. "
Of a project for engaging him in the ministry he thus writes:
--" I know my opinions. I am neither of the Lutheran nor
Reformed Church, but of the Christian; and were I com-
pelled to choose, I should (since no purely Christian commu-
nity now exists) attach myself to that community in which
there is most freedom of thought and charity of life; and that
is not the Lutheran, I think I have given
up these hopes in my fatherland entirely. There is indeed
a degree of enlightenment and rational religious knowledge
existing among the younger clergy of the present day, which
is not to be found to the same extent in any other country
of Europe. But this is crushed by a worse than Spanish
inquisition, under which they must cringe and dissemble,
partly because they are deficient in ability, partly because in
consequence of the number of clergy in our land their services
can be spared, while they cannot sacrifice their employment.
Hence arises a slavish, crouching, hypocritical spirit. A re-
E
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? 2<;
MEMOIR OF FICHTE.
volution is indeed impending: but when? and how? In short,
I will be no preacher in Saxony. "
The only record that has been preserved of the opinions
he entertained at this time on the subject of religion is a
remarkable fragment entitled "Aphorisms on Religion and
Deism. " The object of this essay was to set at rest the
much-vexed questions between Philosophy and Christianity,
by strictly denning the respective provinces of each; by
distinguishing between the objective reality which reason
demands of Philosophy, and the incarnate form of truth
which Religion offers to the feelings and sympathies of men.
In the adaptation of Christianity to the wants of the sinner,
in its appeal to the heart rather than to the understand-
ing, he finds the explanation of its nature and purposes:
--" Those who are whole need not the physician, but those
who are sick. " "I am come not to call the righteous but
sinners to repentance. " This fragment, by its distinct re-
cognition of the radical difference between feeling and know-
ledge, and the consequent vanity of any attempt to decide
between the different aspects which the great questions of
human destiny assume before the cognitive and emotional
; j parts of our nature, may be looked upon as the stepping-stone
; ;to that important revolution in Fichte's mental world, to
which the attention of the reader must now be directed.
The Critical or Kantian Philosophy was at this time the
great topic of discussion in the higher circles of Germany.
Virulently assailed by the defenders of the existing systems,
with Herder at their head, it was as eagerly supported by a
crowd of followers who looked upon Kant with an almost fa-
natical veneration. Fichte's attention was turned to it quite
accidentally. Some increased success in teaching during the
winter of 1790, rendered his outward circumstances more
comfortable than before, and left his mind more at liberty
? to engage in serious study. He plunged with enthusiasm
1 into the new philosophy.
The system of religious necessarianism before alluded to,
which frequently shows itself in his letters, was by no means
in harmony with the natural bent of his character. His
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? KANTIAN PHILOSOPHY.
27
energy of will and restless spirit of enterprise assorted ill
with a theory in which he was compelled to regard himself
as a passive instrument in the hands of a higher power. This
inconsistency must have often suggested itself to him before
he met with its remedy ; he must have frequently felt, that
the theory which seemed to satisfy his understanding stood
in opposition to his feelings. He could not be contented with
any superficial or partial reconcilement of this opposition.
But he was now introduced to a system in which his diffi-
culties disappeared; in which, by a rigid examination of the
cognitive faculty, the boundaries of human knowledge were
accurately defined, and within those boundaries its legiti-
macy successfully vindicated against scepticism on the one
hand and blind credulity on the other; in which the facts of
man's moral nature furnished an indestructible foundation for
a system of ethics where duty was neither resolved into self-
interest nor degraded into the slavery of superstition, but re-
cognised by Free-will as the absolute law of its being, in the strength of which it was to front the Necessity of nature,
break down every obstruction that barred its way, and rise
at last, unaided, to the sublime consciousness of an independ-
ent, and therefore eternal, existence. Such a theory was
well calculated to rouse Fichte's enthusiasm and engage all
his powers. The light which he had been unconsciously
seeking now burst upon his sight, every doubt vanished be-
fore it, and the purpose of his being lay clear and distinct
before him. The world, and man's life in it, acquired a new
significance, every faculty a clearer vision, every power a fresh
energy. But he must speak for himself:--
Co acfjllis at Bremen.
"The last four or five months which I have passed in Leipzic
have been the happiest period of my life; and what is most
satisfactory about it is that I have to thank no man for the
smallest ingredient in its pleasures. You know that before
leaving Zurich I became somewhat sickly: either through
imagination, or because the cookery did not agree with me.
Since my departure from Zurich I have been health itself,
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? '28
MEMOIR OF FICHTE.
and I know how to prize this blessing. The circumstances
of my stay in Zurich, and still more of my travels, had strain-
ed my fancy to an unnatural height. When I came to Leip-
zic my brain swarmed with great plans. All were wrecked;
and of so many soap-bubbles there now remains not even
the light froth which composed them. This disturbed my
peace of mind a little, and it was half in despair that I
joined a party to which I ought long ere now to have be-
longed. Since I could not alter my outward circumstances,
I resolved upon internal change. I threw myself into philo-
sophy, and, as you know, into the Kantian. Here I found
the remedy for all my evils, and joy enough to boot. The
influence of this philosophy, and particularly the moral part
of it (which however is unintelligible without previous study
of the Critique of Pure Reason), upon the whole spiritual
life, and particularly the revolution which it has caused in
my own mode of thought, is indescribable. To you, espe-
cially, I owe the acknowledgment, that I now heartily believe
in the Freedom of Man, and am well convinced that it is
only on this supposition that Duty, Virtue, or Morality of
any kind, is so much as possible;--a truth which indeed I
saw before, and perhaps acquired from you. Further, it is
very evident to me that many pernicious consequences to
society flow from the commonly-received principle of the
Necessity of all human actions; that it is the source of a
great part of the immorality of the so-called higher classes;
and that if any one, accepting this principle, yet preserve
himself pure from such corruption, it is not on account of
the innocence, much less the utility, of the principle itself.
Your uncorrupted moral feelings'guided you more truly than
did my arguments; and you must admit that, in the latter
respect, error is pardonable. A multitude of others, who do
not err, have to thank, not their greater acuteness, but their
inconsequential reasoning. I am also firmly convinced that
there is no land of enjoyment here below, but a land of labour
and toil, and that every joy of life should be only a refresh-
ment and an incentive to greater exertion; that the ordering
of our fortune is not demanded of us, but only the cultivation
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? KANTIAN PHILOSOPHY.
29
of ourselves. Hence I do not trouble myself about outward
things,--endeavour not to seem, but to be; and it is to these
convictions that I am indebted for the deep tranquillity of
soul which I enjoy. My external circumstances suit well
with these dispositions. I am master of no one, and no one's
servant. I have no farther prospects: the present constitu-
tion of the church, and indeed the men who compose it, do
not please me. So long as I can maintain my present inde-
pendence, I shall do so at all hazards.
"You ask whether I contribute to the journals? No, to
none of them. It was my intention, at first, to write for the
'Bibliothek der Schonen Wissenschaften. ' But all is anarchy
there. Weisse is called the editor, but the bookseller is the
editor; and I will have nothing to do with a bookseller in
matters of this kind . I sent my essay upon Klopstock's
Messias to B. for the 'Deutsche Museum. ' He replied, that he
feared the poet, who had for some time honoured him with his
friendship, would take it ill if he should publish an essay
which might put his Messias in danger, &c. &c. I was satisfied
with his answer, for I had already repented of the sin. If
ever I become an author, it shall be on my own account.
Moreover, authorship as a trade is not for me. It is incred-
ible how much labour it costs me to accomplish something
with which after all I am but half satisfied. The more'I
write, the more difficult does it become. I see that I want
the living fire. "
On the same subject he writes to his school and college
friend Weisshuhn:--
"I have lived in a new world since I have read the Cri-
tique of Practical Reason. Principles which I believed were
irrefragable, are refuted; things which I thought could never
be proved,--as for example, the idea of absolute Freedom,
of Duty,--are proved; and I am so much the happier. It is
indescribable what respect for humanity, what power this sys-
tem gives us! But why should I say this to you, who have
known it longer than I have done? What a blessing to an
age in which morality was torn up by the roots, and the
name of Duty obliterated from every vocabulary! "
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? 30
MEMOIR OF FICHTE.
And with still greater warmth he speaks of his new studies
to Johanna Rahn:--
"My scheming spirit has now found rest, and I thank
Providence that, shortly before all my hopes were frustrated.
I was placed in a position which enabled me to bear the
disappointment with cheerfulness. A circumstance, which
seemed the result of mere chance, led me to give myself up
entirely to the study of the Kantian philosophy,--a philosophy
that restrains the imagination which was always too powerful
with me, gives reason the sway, and raises the soul to an
indescribable elevation above all earthly concerns. I have
accepted a nobler morality, and instead of occupying myself
with outward things, I employ myself more with my own
being. This has given me a peace such as I have never be-
fore experienced: amid uncertain worldly prospects I have
passed my happiest days. I shall devote some years of my
life to this philosophy; and all that I write, at least for
several years to come, shall be upon it. It is difficult beyond
all conception, and stands much in need of simplification. .
. . . The principles are indeed hard speculations which
have no direct bearing on human life, but their consequences
are most important for an age whose morality is corrupted
at the fountain-head; and to set these consequences before
the world in a clear light, would, I believe, be doing it a
good service. Say to thy dear father, whom I love as my
own, that we erred in our inquiries into the Necessity of
human actions, for although we proceeded with accuracy, we
set out from a false principle. I am now thoroughly con-
vinced that the human will is free, and that to be happy is
not the purpose of our being,--but to deserve happiness. I
have to ask pardon of thee too, for having often led thee a-
stray by such assertions. Achelis was right,--without know-
ing it indeed; and why? Henceforth believe in thine own
feelings; thou mayst not be able to confute opposing rea-
soners, yet they shall be confuted, and are so already, though
they do not understand the confutation.
