THE LITERARY 



OF THE LINN^AN ASSOCIATION OF PENNSYLVANIA COLLEGE. 



Vol. 11 [. DECEMBER, 1846. No. 2. 



GERMAN PHILOSOPHY. 



By C. De Remusat, Member of the InsiUute of France. 



(Continued from p. 231, Vol. II.) 



FICIITE. 



The sense of that which was wanting in the criticism of Kant, ani- 

 mated his rivals and successors. Eiit it was a system so skillfully wo- 

 ven together, it seized upon the mind so powerfully that the most dis- 

 tinguished thinkers looked within it and not without it for that which 

 it lacked. They made use of Kant in order to advance beyond him, or 

 even to contradict him. The three great philosophers who have reign- 

 ed since him, have come forth from his school. 



That which was most clearly wanting to his system was a principle. 

 Among the great examples given by Descartes, is that of a philosophy 

 truly systematic, that is to say, having a principle, the source of the 

 unity of the system. Since him, wliether right or wrong, philosophy 

 has formed its ideal upon this condition. It might, therefore, be suppo- 

 sed, and so it was supposed, that if there could be found in the sys- 

 tem of Kant a principle forming as it were its apc.v, a principle not ex- 

 terior to the criticism — critical, but not dogmatic, the system would be 

 complete, and philosophy at its utmost limit. 



Such ultimately was the thought which inspired Ficiite and his fol- 

 lowers. 



Fichte announced this at the introduction of his doctrines ; he sought 

 for the most absolute principle, the absolutely unconditional principle of 

 human cognition, a principle that could be neither deduced nor demon- 

 strated. 



Every act of consciousness is a fact given in experience, an interior 

 phenomenon, accidental as an actual fact, or, as they say in Germany, an 

 empirical determination of the me. I suffer a pain, I see a rose, there is 

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