Robert Adamson

“ Some assistance in working into system the parts of the Kantian doctrine was doubtless furnished by Reinhold, but with his method Fichte soon became dissatisfied. It was for him a necessity that the whole of philosophy should manifest a single principle, that the theories of knowledge and of practice should be deduced from one common source, and that the fundamental notions of speculative thought should be developed with systematic completeness. ”

“ Altogether, the University of Jena, at the close of the eighteenth century, exhibited a degree of life and activity which raised it to the first place among the academies of Germany. The history of German philosophy, in its brightest period, is in a great measure the history of the Jena University. For there as teachers we find Fichte, Schelling, Hegel, Fries, Krause, and Schlegel; as scholars, Herbart, Schubert, Steffens, Solger, Hülsen, Hölderlin, Von Berger, and Oersted. Among the students the fame of their teachers was reflected in a peculiarly open and vigorous university life. ”

“ The great hall was crowded to overflowing when his public lectures were delivered, while the enthusiasm of his philosophic students soon made the technical terms of his system familiar words in academic circles and in general literature. “Since Reinhold left us,” writes Forberg, then a privat-docent at Jena, “his philosophy, at least among us, is absolutely dead. Every trace of the “Philosophy without Nickname” [2] has been driven from the heads of our students. They believe in Fichte as they never believed in Reinhold. ”

“ His increasing fame naturally attracted both adherents and enemies. The older Kantian scholars bitterly criticised the new effort after a completeness of system which had been foreign to Kant’s original method. The younger and more impetuous philosophic students, among others Niethammer, Forberg, and Schelling, with equal bitterness accused their more cautious predecessors of want of faith in their own principles, and declared that Criticism proper had been but a propaedeutic or introduction, to which the ‘Wissenschaftslehre’ was the natural and necessary supplement. ”

“ Reinhold, a weak and vacillating thinker, had given his complete adhesion to the ‘Wissenschaftslehre;’ the Jena ‘Allgemeine Literaturzeitung,’ once the organ of the Kantians, declared for Fichte; and in the ‘Philosophisches Journal,’ of which Fichte was co-editor with Niethammer from 1795 onwards, the new school possessed an official organ of their own. Schelling’s early works gave in fresh and attractive form expositions of the ‘Wissenschaftslehre,’ applied its principles to the more profound problems of metaphysics, and called attention to the advance effected on the critical position. ”

“ Accepting without reservation the Kantian criticism of the theoretical proofs for the existence of God, Forberg likewise accepts the doctrine that the belief in a divine order is practical, but he reduces this practical belief to mere strength of moral feeling, identifies it with virtue, and therefore draws the conclusion that it is perfectly compatible with speculative atheism. In short, the essay is an exaggeration of the dismal rationalism into which the weaker Kantians drifted, and by which they cast such discredit on philosophy. ”

“ Reluctant as Fichte was at first to yield immediate assent to this call, he could not refuse the opportunity of entering once for all upon the career for which he appeared specially marked out, and after sending in his acceptance to Privy Councillor Voigt, he made arrangements for beginning his course at Jena in the Easter term of 1794.
The University at Jena was then at the very height of its renown. No other period, in all its brilliant history, rivals the first decades of the nineteenth century. ”

“ Paulus, Loder, both the Hufelands, Ilgen, Schelling, and Niethammer vanished from Jena. No injury is so great to a university as a limitation in the freedom of academic teaching. No mistake is so serious as to deal in diplomatic and politic fashion with matters of thought and reasoning.
Notes
↑ ‘Ueber den Begriff der Wissenschaftslehre oder der sogenannten Philosophie,’ 1st ed., 1794. The term “Wissenschaftslehre,” which we here translate by “Theory of Knowledge,” will receive more detailed explanation when the nature of Fichte’s philosophy is discussed. ”

“ But your name resounds above all, and expectation is strained to its utmost doubtless in part because you are regarded as the most valiant defender of the rights of men, whereon many a son of the Muses has quite peculiar ideas. ”

“ Under these circumstances, when, through the intercession of his friends, it had been arranged that the publication of the Rescript should be delayed for a few days, he was persuaded to forward through Paulus a second letter to Voigt, in which he pointed out that as the censure imposed in no way limited his freedom of teaching, it did not render the resignation of his office imperative, and that he would not allow the public to think that he had voluntarily laid down his office on account of this censure. ”

“ The Rescript was followed by a circular note, addressed to the neighbouring German Governments, praying them to take similar steps, and, in the case of the Saxe-Weimar Dukes, threatening to prohibit Saxon students from attendance at the Jena University if investigation were not instantly made into the conduct of the accused professors, and condign punishment inflicted were they found guilty of the charge laid against them. Fichte had thus a twofold charge to deal with,—the public accusation of atheism, and the private appeal to the supreme authorities of the university. ”

“ Of this, however, Forberg would not hear, and Fichte printed the essay as it had been sent, prefixing to it a short exposition of his own views on the same subject, under the title, “On the Ground for our Belief in a Divine Government of the Universe.” ”