OF KNOWLEDGE. 



357 



These influences did not make themselves fully felt in 

 the region of philosophical thought till ten years later. 

 In the meantime a new element was imported into the 

 philosophical and literary circles of Jena through the 

 arrival of Eeinhold's successor, Fichte. He took up 

 and proposed to fulfil the second task which, as I stated 

 above, Eeinhold had set himself but had not successfully 

 carried out the unification of the Kantian doctrine. A 

 great personality, a strong and unbending character, self- 

 reliant in abstract thought as well as in action, he was 

 the very man to bring out the moral power, as well as 

 the ideal sides, of the Kantian system. 



He professed to understand Kant better than did his 

 immediate followers, including Reinhold. 1 Nor was it 

 difficult for him to find in the writings of Kant, 

 especially in the two later Critiques, 2 many valuable 

 suggestions which would aid him in the accomplishment 



1 After having lectured for, three 

 years Fichte found it advisable to 

 publish an authentic Introduction 

 to his philosophy (1797) ; partly in 

 order to correct certain misunder- 

 standings, partly also to emphasise 

 that his intention always had been 

 to expound the true Kantian sys- 

 tem. He remarks that Kant's 

 intention to give to the philoso- 

 phical thought of the age an 

 entirely new direction had com- 

 pletely failed. ' ' Kant is up to 

 now, with the exception of one 

 recently published suggestion, . . . 

 a sealed book, and what has been 

 read into it is just what is not 

 adequate and what he desired to 

 contradict. ... I have not to do 

 with the correction and extension 

 of current philosophical views, but 

 with the complete routing of them 

 and an entire reversion of thought " 



44. 



Fichte. 



(Fichte, 'Werke,' vol. i. p. 420). 

 The one exception which Fichte 

 refers to is the philosophy of Beck. 

 2 After the publication of the 

 first 'Critique' in 1781 Kant pub- 

 lished in 1785 'Principles of the 

 Metaphysics of Ethics ' ; in 1788 

 his ' Critique of Practical Reason ' ; 

 and in 1790 his third ' Critique,' 

 which was to give unity to the 

 whole of his system, the ' Critique 

 of Judgment.' Fichte published 

 in the true Kantian spirit in 1791 

 his Essay on ' Criticism of Reve- 

 lation,' in which he applied Kant's 

 principles to the religious prob- 

 lem. This was followed by the last 

 of Kant's important works, ' Reli- 

 gion within the limits of Pure 

 Reason ' (1793). It was in the year 

 1794 that Fichte came to the Uni- 

 versity of Jena. 



