Charles Carroll Everett

“ The work of Fichte was unquestionably one of the most important factors in the preparation of Hegel for his career. Fichte saw more clearly than it had been seen before, what is the true nature of philosophy, and what should be the ideal toward which it should strive. He adopted the inethod which proved so mighty in the hands of Hegel. The dialectic process which proceeds from simple affirmation, through negation, to that higher affirmation which springs from the negation of the negation, was the pulse beat of the system of Fichte, as it became afterward that of Hegel’s. ”

“ Thus, though the objective world, so far as its appearance is concerned, is in both systems the creation of the mind, the objective world of Schopenhauer has more reality than that of Fichte. It has indeed the same reality that is possessed by the world of persons.
The essential point of resemblance in the two systems is found in the fact that each recognizes the universe in general, and the individual in particular, as the manifestation of an Infinite Will that is never satisfied, and that through all eternity can never become satisfied. ”

“ We as truly make it impossible for men to act with rationality by keeping back the truth, as by saying what is false; and yet such silence is suggested by Fichte as a method of avoiding a lie. Further, the exercise of force takes from the person to whom it is applied the power to act rationally; and yet Fichte admits the right of using force in order to prevent an individual from invading the rights of others. [5] If we may use force to protect the community from a man who is hopelessly irrational, why may we not use a lie to protect the community from one who defies the laws of true living. ”

“ It is a real limitation of itself that is posited. It not only breaks itself up into these centres of consciousness, but it breaks itself up also in its manifestation. It subjects itself to the limits of time, and presents itself by piecemeal. The difficulty here, had it occurred to Fichte, would have been as great as in the case of the individual. We need here, also, a something the opposite of the Life, against which the Life may dash and be broken into the spray of countless individualities. ”

“ The general course of his thought might easily lead to a pessimism precisely similar to that of Schopenhauer. As we have seen, consciousness with him springs from the fact that the will of the individual cannot accomplish itself. It comes from the disparity between the ideal and the actual. If the world conformed to our wish, we should not know it to be a world. Consciousness may thus be said to have its root and its essence in unhappiness. ”

“ If Fichte had seen, as he came so near seeing, that the spirit is absolute, not merely absolute spirit, [6] but the Absolute, and that the process by which spirit is spirit, is its very being, he would not have needed these mechanical appliances. He would have seen that the infinite can be conceived only as spirit, because in spirit alone do we find unity and diversity, each growing out of the other. ”

“ While Fichte sought, however, to reduce to a unity the practical and the theoretical reasons, Schopenhauer sought to reduce to a unity the subjective and the objective worlds. The terms by which each described reality are practically the same; both recognized the phenomenal nature of the objective world, and both used the term, Will, to express the ultimate reality in ourselves, and in the universe. ”

“ The object of its striving is that the life of the individual shall become one with the life of God. Though this can never be accomplished, yet the life of the individual becomes more and more a part of this Divine life, and thus acquires continually more fulness and reality. ”

“ Its advance cannot be measured by its approach toward an end, for from this it must remain always infinitely removed; it can, however, be measured by its movement away from the point at which it started. As every step forward brings with it such real fruition as has been described, the fact that the progress is an endless one may add to it a new joy. ”

“ The outer world being only the reflex of the human spirit, there would seem to be little place for a philosophy of beauty. We must not forget, however, the important work done in this direction by Kant, whose system was no more favorable to these results than that of Fichte, and whose circumstances were far less so. ”

“ According to the interpretation of this school, Hegel taught that Absolute Being, which is in itself one with Absolute Thought, comes to consciousness of itself only in the individual spirit. This is so far the position also of Fichte. With him, Absolute Knowledge, in which Being or God exists, comes to self-consciousness in the individual. ”

“ It is inspiring, from the grand conception of life which it embodies. When we come to the deduction of special duties, we are, however, often disappointed. The principle upon which the duty is based is unequal to its support. ”