Robert Adamson

“ In the forms of cognition, no theology was possible. But the necessary consequences of those conditions under which Morality or Reason as practical was possible, involved the practical acceptance of those very theological principles of which no theoretical demonstration could be given. The practical postulates of the being of an Intelligent and Moral Ruler of the world, and of the continued existence of the rational element in human nature, had appeared as necessary for any intelligence conscious of itself as Practical or Moral. ”

“ Revealed religion, then, rests upon the possible needs of the human individual in the course of his development towards pure morality. The belief in such revelation is an element, and an important element, in the moral education of humanity, but it is not a final stage for human thought.
It is not of interest at the present stage of our sketch to consider the worth of the treatment of a difficult problem here presented by Fichte, for his view of religion as a whole became deeper and fuller as his speculation slowly worked itself free from much of the Kantian formalism. ”

“ The same fundamental principle, that the ultimate foundation, and consequently the criterion, of all state rights, is to be found in the conditions necessary for the realisation of the ethical end, the spiritual development towards moral freedom, gives an answer to the more complicated problem of the right of revolution. Constitutional forms must needs be alterable; they cannot continuously correspond to the requirements of a developing moral culture. No original contract can be of a final nature, can prescribe limits to the moral and legal development of a community. ”

“ In this condition of human nature is found the substratum of fact, in relation to which a revelation is conceivable.
How, then, could the human agent be made aware that the moral law is of divine origin? Not, answers Fichte, through the practical reason itself, for the laws of this practical reason are self-explanatory,—but only through some evidence supplied by the world of sense-cognition. ”

“ Within a community founded on such a contract, there are various rights and degrees of rights assigned to the several individuals or classes. But of those rights, some are inalienable or indefeasible, for they express the condition in the absence of which the moral law, the supreme rule of conduct, is of no effect; others, rights regarding modes of action merely permitted, not enjoined by the moral law, are alienable, and may be resigned by the individual. Among the inalienable rights, that which is all-comprehensive is ethical freedom ”

“ The years spent at Schulpforta had a powerful influence on the development of Fichte’s character, in both a moral and an intellectual aspect. The school was even then regulated on the old monastic plan, and much resembled what in this country till recently used to be the system of the old foundation or endowed schools. The pupils were strictly secluded from the outer world; the order of daily life, of amusement, of costume, of study, was regulated by antiquated precepts. Each of the older scholars had a junior intrusted to his care, and exercised almost unlimited control over his apprentice. ”

“ A revelation, then, is possible, if the human agent under such circumstances can regard certain facts in the world of sense as the spontaneous effects of the divine will, and as manifesting the moral purpose of the divine will This interpretation of the manifested fact, which is neither reason nor sense, but, as it were, midway between them, is the work of Imagination. The individual believes, and may believe, that the revealed fact is not explicable by natural laws ”

“ Defence of the right of remodelling constitutional forms is founded on the indefeasible and inalienable right to the liberty of realising the moral end of humanity, a right which precedes and underlies all others. The argument is in substance the translation of Rousseau’s ‘Contrat Social’ into the terms of the Kantian ethical system; and as the whole question of Right or Law [2] is intimately connected with the very essence of Fichte’s philosophy, it is well to note how, at this comparatively early stage of his philosophic development, he expressed himself regarding it. ”

“ In Fichte’s writings a right is the specific mode of action, or realisation of a motive in external fact, which is indispensably necessary under the supposition of a common ethical law or supreme ethical end. Assuming such moral end, we can point to specific modes of action which must be approved by the community, unless violence is done to the very notion of ethical law. ”

“ Such evidence is not to be looked for in the general view of the sense-world as the sphere within which the moral end is to be realised, for this follows simply from the existence of the moral law in us, but in some fact, which manifests its supernatural origin, and so necessitates the conclusion that it is the direct result of the divine activity. A religion basing itself upon a supernatural fact manifested in nature is a Revealed Religion, and the conditions of the possibility of such a supernatural manifestation are the conditions of a Revealed Religion. ”

“ I know the business of a scholar, and have nothing new to learn about it. To be a scholar by profession I have as little talent as may be. I must not only think, I must act; least of all can I think about trifles. ”

“ I shall devote at least some years of my life to this philosophy; and all that I write, for some years to come at any rate, shall be upon it. It is difficult beyond all conception, and stands greatly in need of simplification. The principles, it is true, are hard speculations, with no direct bearing upon human life, but their consequences are of the utmost importance for an age whose morality is corrupted at the fountain-head ”

“ It is equally impossible that scientific proofs should be advanced that what happens according to natural laws is altogether explicable by them. The laws of the manifestation in itself are matters of indifference; for the revelation is only relative,—relative to the disturbed ro chaotic moral condition of the individual human agent. The possibility of a revelation thus rests upon the possibility of a particular condition of the moral nature ”

“ What is remarkable in the Essay is merely the strength with which the requirements of pure practical reason are held as the criteria for estimating the possibility and the nature of any revealed religion. Fichte, even at this stage of his philosophical career, was beginning to lay stress upon the practical side of the Kantian system, as yielding the only complete solution of the whole speculative problem. ”

“ It must be made to those who are in the morally imperfect state just described: it must hold out no offers which are not in themselves consistent with pure morality: it must not effect its entrance into our thought by means which contain anything beyond the moral principle: it cannot give theoretical certainty to those postulated facts which follow from the moral law. ”

“ Nevertheless the right to free expression of opinion, to free communication of thought, must be pronounced an inalienable or indefeasible right, for in its absence the possibility for acquiring the materials of thought is destroyed. No spiritual development is possible without the free interchange and communication of thought, nor is it given to any man or body of men to pronounce on the wisdom or goodness of thoughts with such confidence as to afford foundation for a supposed right to suppress freedom of thought on the ground of possible danger from, errors of thinking. ”

“ As regards matter or content, the manifestation must be a supernatural revelation of the moral law in nature,—a revelation possible for an intelligent agent in whom sensuous impulses have overbalanced the reverence for moral law. ”

“ If there is a revelation at all, its contents must coincide with the contents of the moral law, and we can judge of any professed revelation according as it does or does not satisfy the criteria deducible from these two conditions. ”

“ The right to state reform is inalienable or indefeasible.
Nevertheless the dissolution of a constitutional form implies withdrawal from the original state contract, and such withdrawal appears almost in terms to contradict the very notion upon which state rights are founded. [4] Fichte boldly faces this difficulty, contends that in all cases withdrawal from contract is possible, and that law or justice requires only compensation for such breach of pact, not unconditional fulfilment of it. ”

“ Many plans had been debated, and on the whole his hope then was to obtain a post as tutor to some influential person at one of the German courts, which would give him time to discover where his powers were most likely to prove successful.
“On the whole,” he writes, “what I think about it is this: the great aim of my existence is to obtain every kind of education (not scientific education, in which I find much that is vanity, but education of character) which fortune will permit me. ”

“ His pupils at Zürich were the son and daughter of Herr Ott, the proprietor of a well-to-do inn, the Gasthof zum Schwerte. Herr Ott, though somewhat surprised at the character of the education which his new tutor proposed to bestow, was not altogether unwilling that his children should receive a training superior to their station, but his wife bitterly resented all attempts to go beyond the accustomed routine. Fichte found his task no easy matter, and assuredly the means he adopted for carrying it out would not readily have occurred to any other tutor in like circumstances. ”

“ So gifted by nature, the boy might have grown up in his narrow surroundings, able and upright, notable perhaps among his fellows, but wasting powers fitted for greater things, had not a mere accident transferred him to a wider sphere of life, and given him opportunity for a fuller development. Freiherr von Miltitz, owner of an estate at Seven Oaks, near Meissen, chanced one Sunday in the year 1771 to visit the family Von Hoffmann in Rammenau, and arrived too late to hear the sermon by the village pastor, whom he much admired. ”

“ No substitute for this was found in Schulpforta The course of instruction, moreover, thorough but narrow—for it was almost entirely confined to the classical curriculum—was not that best suited to develop the neglected side of Fichte’s character. In his life and in his works, what one notices as most striking is his incapacity for appreciating experience. In metaphysics, in psychology, in ethics, in politics, he constructs from within. ”

“ The more I act the happier I seem to be. Is this, too, a delusion? It may be so, but there is truth at the bottom of it.” [1]
With many plans, and full of hope in his future career, Fichte departed for Leipzig in the spring of 1790. His letters of recommendation to various courts, however, produced no result; the plans which he endeavoured to realise at Leipzig, mainly the establishment of a literary journal, came to naught; and in the course of a few months he was again reduced to a state of want and uncertainty even more harassing than before his journey to Zürich. ”

“ The entire want of family life contributed to strengthen this habit of inner self-dependence, which could have found relief only in the manifold interests and duties, in the constant sympathy and co-operation with others, arising from the details of domestic intercourse. ”

“ The happiness of the juniors thus depended much upon the qualities of the older members, and, as is inevitable in any close institution, the traditions of the place were in many respects evil, and detrimental to the character of the scholars. Such a constrained life tended only to deepen and strengthen traits already sufficiently marked in Fichte’s character. ”