OF THE GOOD. 171 



Jena under the enlightened rule of Karl August and 

 Goethe. Fichte's enemies did not dare to attack him 

 in his academic freedom ; but when, in the literary 

 journal with which he was connected, articles appeared 

 by him and followers of his which touched somewhat 

 incautiously upon religious subjects, a cry was raised 

 anonymously, fastening the stigma of atheism upon his 

 philosophy. The whole controversy was maliciously 

 handled on the one side, impatiently on the other. It 

 resulted in Fichte's dismissal from Jena, and, as I 

 stated above, in a decided change of the philosophy 

 which was taught at that centre. The specifically eth- 

 ical character disappeared in the systems of Fichte's 

 successors, Schelling and Hegel, making room for the 

 aasthetical and metaphysical. 



II. 



The third important thinker who was stirred to an 27. 



Schleier- 



original development of Kant's ideas was Schleiermacher. macher. 

 It is only quite recently, and after the idealistic as well 

 as the materialistic schools of thought in Germany have 

 run their course, that the importance of Schleiermacher 

 not only as a theologian but as a philosopher has gradu- 

 ally come to be recognised. As an instance of this I have 

 already 1 had occasion to refer to the belated appre- 

 ciation of his aesthetical speculations. But Schleier- 

 macher occupied in every way a unique position. 

 Although his mind was cast in an entirely different 



1 See supra, p. 122. 



