OF KNOWLEDGE. 



363 



Continent : the problems of education raised in France 

 by Eousseau, and practically worked out by Pestalozzi ; 

 the problem of reason and faith raised by Kant and 

 Jacobi; the problem of liberty raised by the French 

 Eevolution; the problems of the reconstruction of the 

 State and society which followed in the sequel of that 

 great movement, 1 and of the breaking down of all the 

 old landmarks during the Napoleonic wars. He found 

 a foundation whereon to build in Kant's doctrine of 

 the primacy of practical over theoretical reason, and 

 he filled in the seemingly empty forms or categories 

 of Kantian morals by emphasising a higher spiritual 

 reality. The existence of such a higher reality was 45. 

 not merely a personal conviction of Fichte's; he only representa- 



17 tiveofanew 



saw, felt, and expressed more clearly and tried to generation. 

 define what an ardent younger generation were striv- 

 ing for, and what had found expression and become 

 an active power in a new literature and a new 

 poetry. 2 In urging the necessity that all .thought and 



1 The earliest of these problems 

 was that raised simultaneously by 

 Kant in his first ' Critique,' and 

 by Jacobi in his publication, after 

 Lessing's death, of his conversation 

 with the latter on the philosophy 

 of Spinoza. Jacobi himself treated 

 of it in his subsequent writings, in 

 which he took up an independent 

 position to Spinoza, Kant, Hume, 

 and, later on, to Fichte. The 

 problem of education assumed a 

 definite form and received a prac- 

 tical and realistic treatment through 

 Pestalozzi, who published the first 

 of his popular Works in 1780, with 

 a significant appeal to Goethe to 

 identify himself with the new 

 movement, just at the time when 

 the latter was already, as is 



shown in 'Wilhelm Meister,' mov- 

 ing away from the purely classical 

 to a more practical ideal of life. 

 Fichte himself, before approaching 

 theoretically the problem of know- 

 ledge in his ' Wissenschaftslehre,' 

 had contributed to the solution of 

 these various practical problems in 

 his earlier writings on ' Revela- 

 tion ' (1792), on ' Freedom of 

 Thought' (1793), on the 'French 

 Revolution' (1793), and on the 

 'Vocation of the Scholar' (1794). 



2 Schiller had stirred the miuds 

 of the younger generation by a 

 brilliant succession of poetical and 

 dramatic productions ; had been 

 appointed to fill the Chair of 

 History in the University of Jena 

 (1787) ; had, under the influence 



