OF THE GOOD. 16 ft 



through the light of reason ; these two sides of human 

 nature had been brought together in the philosophy 

 of Kant, and more perfectly in that of Fichte, 

 Moreover, Fichte's doctrine gave a more satisfactory 

 definition and explanation of the moral conscience which 

 Kant had taken as an ultimate fact or datum. This 

 explanation was traced in Fichte's system to the 

 harmony between the empirical or individual and the 

 underlying universal self. This harmony or unity 

 afforded a special kind of assurance, the certainty of 

 conscience, a guide for conduct. In his popular ex- 

 positions Fichte termed this underlying or universal 

 self, the Moral Order. With this conception he ap- 25. 



The Moral 



preached the position taken up by Spinoza, who conceived order, 

 it pantheistically ; but he was also not very far removed 

 from the position taken up by many moral philosophers 

 in this country, some of whom, with Shaftesbury, took 

 this as the ultimate datum of their ethical system, 

 whilst others, like Bishop Butler, went a step further 

 in conceiving that this moral order had its centre in a 

 personal Deity. 



Thus it was quite possible to give to Fichte's exposi- 20. 



r Twofold in- 



tion a twofold interpretation and development. It could o e f 

 either be construed pantheistically indeed, as some 

 said, atheistically being as such opposed to the existing 

 orthodox belief ; or it could, on further reflection, lead 

 to a belief in the existence of a Divine personality in 

 the commonly accepted terms of the Christian faith. 

 Thus we find, in the sequel, two opposite schools of 

 ethical thought attaching themselves to Fichte as a 

 leader in their speculation: the school of speculative 



