478 



PHILOSOPHICAL THOUGHT. 



lectual and spiritual ends. This may be shown in 

 many ways, 1 but is interesting to us, in the present 

 connection, mainly for the important part played by 

 Fichte's political writings and addresses. 



He had been deeply moved by the want of patriotic 

 spirit during the invasion of Napoleon, in whom Hegel 

 for a moment saw an embodiment of the World Spirit. 2 

 But Fichte was powerful and successful in awakening 



1 The two sides of Fichte's ac- 

 tivity, oscillating somewhat ab- 

 ruptly between highly abstract 

 analysis and practical applications, 

 are brought out in a most in- 

 structive article by Gustav Schmol- 

 ler (1864-65, published in 1888, 

 ' Zur Litteraturgeschichte der 

 Staats- und Socialwissenschaften,' 

 pp. 28-101). He deals there at 

 length with Fichte's Socialistic 

 Treatise, to which I shall revert 

 later on. For his Socialism, in 

 opposition to that of Saint-Simon, 

 "originates in the solitary seclu- 

 sion of the scholar, battles sys- 

 tematically with the moral evils 

 of an egoistical age, attaches 

 itself everywhere to the ultimate 

 and highest reason of things, re- 

 mains without immediate practical 

 influence, nay, slumbers nearly 

 half a century forgotten and un- 

 read. But the moral kernel which 

 it contains still nevertheless bore 

 its fruits ; the practical force with 

 which the idealism of Kant and 

 Fichte reacted upon the life of 

 the German nation was not less 

 for the fact that its effects do 

 not lie on the surface. German 

 philosophy had by no means the 

 smallest part in contributing . . . 

 to maintain a healthy morality and 

 to produce an equable cultural 

 development" (loc. cit., p. 80). 



' 2 The admiration which Napoleon 

 enjoyed for a time in Germany, 



especially in the western districts, is 

 easily understood if we take note 

 of the wretched political and social 

 conditions which prevailed in many 

 of the innumerable small states 

 with their despotic governments, 

 different legal systems, and the 

 many petty restrictions and hind- 

 rances in the way of trade, com- 

 merce, and industrial life. There 

 were, of course, brilliant exceptions 

 among them, notably some of the 

 smaller states of middle Germany ; 

 but to have swept away much of 

 the obsolete institutions, to have 

 introduced a simple and intelligible 

 civil code and other improvements, 

 was considered as the work of a 

 true liberator. Whoever desires to 

 understand this temporary phase 

 of admiration for the foreign 

 invader, which survived in the 

 minds of many long after his real 

 character as a selfish tyrant and 

 oppressor had been revealed, should 

 read the memoirs of K. N. von 

 Lang, ' Aus der bosen alten Zeit ' 

 (1st ed., 1842, republished by Peter- 

 sen in 2 vols., 1910). They deal 

 mainly with the conditions which 

 existed in the south-west of Ger- 

 many and in Bavaria before, during, 

 and after the Napoleonic invasion, 

 and give also a graphic picture of 

 the disenchantment and the re- 

 action which set in and endeavoured 

 to bring back many of the abuses 

 of the old regime. 



