OF THE UNITY OF THOUGHT. 625 



did the religious problem occupy and stimulate the 

 early speculations of Fichte. Hesitating for a time 

 whether he would be a religious or a philosophical 

 teacher, he finally entered the academic career, in 

 which he became a great moral, religious, and political 

 power ; and the religious interest asserted itself in a 

 still greater degree in the later of his published works 

 and in his later courses of lectures. 



The first of his writings, which at once made him 

 celebrated, was a Critique, written in the Kantian spirit, 

 of the conception of historical Eevelation — a problem 

 which had been discussed already by Lessing in his 

 Treatise on the ' Education of Humanity,' but which 

 at that time had not yet been dealt with by Kant 

 himself. 



In opposition to the doctrine of the inherent goodness 

 of the natural man, proclaimed by Eousseau, and also 

 to the rationalistic conception of Christianity as a purely 

 moral code, Fichte dealt in his Treatise with the much 

 deeper problem of Sin, Evil, and Redemption, And 

 thus he showed a greater understanding of the religious 

 problem than was current in the existing rationalistic 

 and sentimental literature of the day. Fichte was, 

 however, forced into opposition with the orthodox 

 section, as was Lessing before him, through attacks of 

 the former, largely provoked by jealousy of his ris- 

 ing academic influence and of the novel spirit which 

 he infused into university life. Inspired as Fichte 

 was by a belief in the omnipotence and omipresence 

 of the Divine Spirit, which he conceived to be the 

 Moral Order, he nevertheless could not reconcile 



VOL. IV. 2 R 



