OF KNOWLEDGE. 



361 



nothing was more wanted than the gospel of duty, of 

 self - restraint, and the strong belief in the existence 

 of high and realisable ideals. 



Although Fichte called his philosophy " Wissen- 

 schaftslehre" a kind of theory of knowledge which 

 was to precede the different doctrines in which 

 special knowledge was communicated, we find little 

 in his writings of those kinds of investigation which 

 nowadays go under the name of Epistemology. Fichte's 

 contributions to the problem of knowledge lay in a 

 different direction ; l and though he found it necessary 



1 Though Fichte's writings are 

 now little read, it is well to note 

 that we find in them many tend- 

 encies indicated which have been 

 further developed in subsequent 

 philosophical thought. Thus he 

 suggested that only two systems 

 of philosophy are conceivable, the 

 materialistic and fatalistic on the 

 one side, the idealistic on the 

 other. This has been borne out in 

 the history of subsequent thought. 

 He terms the former dogmatic, 

 whereas the latter is, following 

 Kant, supposed to be critical. Not 

 to decide which of the two to ac- 

 cept is the attitude of scepticism. 

 The decision or choice itself de- 

 pends on the resolution of the 

 character. We shall see in the 

 sequel how this view is also that 

 of Lotze. What is peculiar ' to 

 Fichte is that he sees more clearly 

 the logical difficulties which stand 

 in the way of the materialistic 

 hypothesis than those which stand 

 in the way of the idealistic. This 

 is largely owing to the fact that 

 he stands quite outside of the 

 exact and natural sciences which 

 were making such great progress 

 during his age. A further im- 

 portant idea which has become 

 fruitful in recent philosophy takes 



with Fichte the form of denying 

 the existence of the " Thing in 

 itself" which remained in Kant's 

 philosophy as a limiting concep- 

 tion, a tribute to the common- 

 sense way of looking at things. 

 In modern philosophy this argu- 

 ment has taken the form of a 

 denial of the conception of sub- 

 stance as a fundamental principle, 

 and of replacing it by that of 

 process. With Fichte the idea of 

 substance, matter, or "Thing in 

 itself " was in the course of the 

 activity of the universal (hyper- 

 individual) intellect or self pro- 

 duced as a necessary conception. 

 The intellect, or pure reason, was 

 not merely the form, as with Kant, 

 with which to comprehend the ma- 

 terial content given by our senses ; 

 it was not only the form but also 

 the matter or content of know- 

 ledge. Thus Kant's idea of what 

 he termed the transcendental unity 

 of apperception became with Fichte 

 identical with Kant's fictitious in- 

 tuitive understanding. The unity of 

 apperception became identical with 

 intellectual intuition. Further, 

 with Fichte the problem of know- 

 ledge received an extension in a 

 direction indicated already by Leib- 

 niz, and brought out in the clear- 



