188 



FliZA F1C11TELBERG. 



65,000 of the inhabitants are said to Irave been carried 

 oft' by the plague. 



FEZA. See Pasa. 



FEZZAN (ancieutly, Phazania) ; a country in 

 Africa, situated to the S. of Tripoli, E. of the Great 

 Desert, and sixty days' journey W. of Cairo. Hor- 

 ueniann, the German traveller, informs us, that the 

 greatest length of the cultivated part of this country 

 is about 300 English miles, from N. to S., and the 

 greatest width. 200 miles, from E. to W.; but the 

 mountainous region of Harutsch to the K.. and other 

 deserts to the S. and W., are reckoned within this 

 territory. The borderers on the N. are Arabs, 

 nominally dependent on Tripoli. Fezzan is bounded 

 E. by the Harutsch and line of deserts, S. and S. E. 

 by the country of the Tibboos. S. W. by that of the 

 nomadic Tuaricks ; W. are Arabs. The kingdom 

 contains 101 towns and villages, of which Mourzouk 

 is the capital. The climate is at no season temperate 

 or agreeable. During the summer, the heat is 

 intense, and, when the wind blows from the south, is 

 scarcely supportable, even by the natives. The soil 

 is light and sandy, and produces maize, barley, 

 pompions, carrots, cucumbers, onions, garlic, and 

 some wheat. The most common trees are the date, 

 white thorn, and the talhh. Here is little or no rain, 

 but the vegetation is luxuriant, from the number of 

 subterraneous springs. The population of Fezzan is 

 loosely estimated, from 75 to 150,000, all of whom, 

 without exception, profess the Mohammedan religion. 



FIBRIN ; a peculiar organic compound, found 

 both in vegetables and animals. It is a soft solid, of 

 a greasy appearance, insoluble in water, which 

 softens in the air, becoming viscid, brown, and semi- 

 transparent, On hot coals it melts, throws out greasy 

 drops, crackles, and evolves the smoke and odour of 

 roasting meat. It is procured, in its most charac- 

 teristic state, from animal matter. It exists in chyle 

 it enters into the composition ofblood; and it forms 

 the chief part of muscular flesh ; and hence it must 

 be regarded as the most abundant constituent of the 

 soft solids of animals. According to the analysis or' 

 MM. Gay-Lussac and Thenard, it is composed of 

 carbon 53.36, nitrogen 19.934, oxygen 19.685, and 

 hydrogen 7.021. 



FIBROLITE; a mineral first found in the Carnatic, 

 where it occurred in fibres, traversed obliquely by 

 cracks, as a component of the granite, which contains 

 the corundum. It has since been found in the U. 

 States of America, in prisms of considerable size, 

 with rhombic balls, whose angles are about 100 

 and 80. It is harder than quartz, of a grayish- 

 white colour, and a specific gravity of 3.214. It is 

 infusible before the blow-pipe ; Chenevix found the 

 specimens from the Carnatic to consist of silica 38, 

 alumine 58.25, and oxide of iron 0.75. 



FICHTE, JOHN GOTTLIEB, was born at Ram- 

 menau, near Bischoffswerda, in Upper Lusatia, in 

 1762, and owed his early instruction to the assist- 

 ance of a Mr Von Miltitz. At a later period, he re- 

 ceived a classical education at the famous Schulp- 

 forte, one of the Saxon royal schools. He then 

 studied at Jena, Leipsic, and Wittenberg, passed 

 several years in Switzerland and in Prussia Proper, 

 and in Konigsberg enjoyed the society of the great 

 Kant. His Versuch einer Kritik alter Offenbarung 

 (Essay towards a Criticism of all Revelation), Konigs- 

 berg, 1792, attracted general attention, and procured 

 him the professorship of philosophy in Jena, in 1793. 

 In 1800, he was one of the most prominent profes- 

 sors of that university during its most brilliant 

 period. Here he published, under the name of 

 Wissenschaftslehre (Theory of Science), a philoso- 

 phical system, which he founded at first on the 

 system of Kant, from whom, however, he gradually 



deviated. On account of an article Ueber den lirund 

 unseres Glaubens an eine Gottliche fVeltregierung 

 (On the Reasons of our Belief in the divine Govern- 

 ment of the Universe), whicli appeared in his period- 

 ical Philosophisches Journal (vol. 8, No. 1), he fell 

 under the suspicion of sceptical views. This gave 

 rise to an inquiry, and Fichte resigned his professor- 

 ship. He accordingly received his dismission, and 

 went to Prussia, where he lived for some time in 

 private at Berlin. In 1805, he was appointed pro- 

 fessor of philosophy at Erlangen, with permission to 

 spend the winter at Berlin. During the war be- 

 tween Prussia and France, he went to Konigsberg, 

 where he delivered lectures for a short time, re- 

 turned to Berlin after the peace of Tilsit, and, in 

 1809, on the establishment of the university in that 

 city, was appointed professor of philosophy. Fichte's 

 philosophy, though there are two distinct periods to 

 be distinguished in it, is a consistent idealism, repre- 

 senting all that the individual perceives without him- 

 self, or, rather, all that is distinguished from the 

 individual, the ego, as a creation of this / or ego. It 

 would be impossible to give our readers, in so short 

 a space as this work will allow, an intelligible view of 

 his bold system. We must refer the student to his 

 Ueber den Begriff der tVissenschaftslehre (Jena, 

 1794); Die IVissenschaftslehre in ihrem allge- 

 meinen Umrisse (Berlin, 1810) ; and the Anweisung 

 zum seligen Leben (Berlin, 1806). His practical 

 philosophy is of the purest character. His idealism 

 led him to represent the life of the mind as the only 

 real life, and everything else as a mere delusion, 

 and to believe in an almost absolute omnipotence of 

 the will. To excite his pupils to the highest virtue 

 and self-denial, was his constant aim as a teacher, 

 and his influence was great, not merely through his 

 power of expression, and the originality of his ideas, 

 but through the conviction with which he inspired 

 his hearers of his full belief in, and entire devotion 

 to, his principles. His heart was open to every 

 noble and good feeling. Unshaken integrity, con- 

 stant friendship, devoted love of what he conceived 

 to be true and good, were his characteristic traits. 

 His own excellence of life sometimes made him not 

 very indulgent towards others ; and some of his doc- 

 trines, which every one would acknowledge to be 

 good in the main, he carried too far ; as, for instance, 

 his views on national education : he wishes every 

 child to be taken from its mother immediately after 

 its birth, and educated at the public expense. When 

 Germany was bleeding under the wounds of war, he, 

 like his countrymen in general, considered Napoleon 

 as the source of the whole distress of his country. 

 Circumstances, in fact, hardly allowed a German to 

 take a different view of the subject, and his ardour 

 against the French was in proportion to the powers 

 of his mind. In 1808, he delivered Reden an die 

 Deutsche Nation (Addresses to the German Nation), 

 published at Berlin in 1808, with genuine courage ; 

 and of which we may mention that, though they 

 were directed against the French, the Prussian 

 government prohibited their republication in 1819. 

 Fichte's wife was a Swiss. At the time of the battles 

 near Berlin, in 1813, when the city was full of 

 Prussian and French wounded soldiers, females of 

 all classes served in the hospitals, the male inhabi- 

 tants being all engaged in the war. Fichte's wife, 

 who was among the ladies thus employed, was at- 

 tacked by the jail fever, then raging in the city. 

 She recovered, but her husband, who had paid un- 

 wearied attention to her, was, in his turn, attacked 

 by the disease, and died, in consequence, in January, 

 1814. He left a son, who has also devoted himself 

 to philosophy. 

 FICHTELBERG. There are two mountains of 



