168 



PHILOSOPHICAL THOUGHT. 



theology, more in harmony, as they would have it, with 

 the later versions of Fichte's own doctrine, and the 

 recent school of ethics in Germany, which aims at giving 

 to practical morality a foundation independent of re- 

 ligious belief, and in doing so attaches itself more closely 

 to the earlier phase or version of Fichte's philosophy. 1 

 This latter interpretation of Fichte's ethical views 



1 The school of Speculative Theo- 

 logy had its main philosophical re- 

 presentative in Immanuel Hermann 

 Fichte, the son ; he was one of the 

 first to define the principal prob- 

 lem involved, that of the idea of 

 Personality. His earliest deliver- 

 ance on the subject belongs to the 

 year 1834 ; a second edition of 

 his Tract appeared in 1855. The 

 subject itself has an enormous 

 literature, and is represented by the 

 'Zeitschrift ftir Philosophic und 

 Speculative Theologie,' founded in 

 1837, and edited by I. H. Fichte 

 himself ; the principal contributors 

 belonging not only to the Hegelian 

 school, but also to that of Schleier- 

 macher. In the mind of the editor 

 himself the subject was more inti- 

 mately connected with the ethical 

 problem, and, as such, with the 

 development which the same took 

 in the later writings of his father, 

 after Schelling and Hegel had 

 started on a different course. It 

 is also to be noted that he was the 

 first among German philosophers 

 of the nineteenth century to take 

 in hand a historical and systematic 

 study of Ethics ('System der 

 Ethik,' 1850-1853). This led him 

 on, as it has done more recent 

 thinkers, to anthropology, and 

 brought him into contact with 

 Lotze, who addressed to him a 

 polemical pamphlet. The problem 

 of the Divine Personality belongs 

 more properly to the next chapter, 

 which will deal with the religious 

 problem. I shall there refer to the 



extensive literature in Germany 

 and also to a later and independent 

 discussion of the subject in this 

 country which was also, through 

 T. H. Green, Bradley, and their 

 opponents, intimately connected 

 with the ethical problem. The 

 best expression of the opposite or 

 naturalistic view of ethics in recent 

 German philosophy will be found 

 in the writings of Prof. Jodl, to 

 whose ' History of Ethics in Modern 

 Philosophy ' I am greatly indebted. 

 Though the author closes the first 

 edition of his work with what may 

 be termed the Positivist Ethics of 

 Feuerbach in Germany, Comte in 

 France, and J. S. Mill in England, 

 in whose writings he sees a firm 

 foundation for the ethics of the 

 future, one is still in hopes that 

 the forthcoming second edition of 

 the second volume will recognise 

 that the teaching of these three 

 representatives of Positivist or 

 Naturalistic Ethics is now really 

 antiquated, and that, pre-eminently 

 in this country, but also in France, 

 a new era of philosophical thought 

 has been entered. It was opened 

 in this country by the ethical 

 treatises of Henry Sidgwick and 

 F. H. Bradley, of whom more in 

 the sequel. In connection with 

 the elder Fichte's ethics the follow- 

 ing closing passage from Jodl's 

 discussion of the subject is char- 

 acteristic of his own view as well 

 as of his interpretation of the final 

 phase of Fichte's system : " which 

 more than any other has directed 



