56 ALOIS RIEHL 



structor in the Ideal. In more emphatic tones 

 Nietzsche enounces the same thought. The 

 true philosopher, he declares, is a commander 

 and lawgiver. He is one who says: It 

 shall be so. With him to know is to create ; to 

 create, to issue laws. But it was Fichte above 

 all who revived the Platonic conception of 

 philosophy and the type of the Platonic 

 philosopher. The philosopher, or, as Fichte 

 calls him, the Man of Learning, carries within 

 him in idea the form of the coming age; his 

 life is the very "life of the divine Idea as it 

 makes and unmakes the world." According 

 as this life comes out in action or confines it- 

 self to the concept, we have two main classes 

 of philosophers. The first of these Fichte 

 designates the class of rulers a name which 

 recalls Plato's Archons. To this class be- 

 long all those who have the right and the 

 natural call to form an independent judgment 

 and to decide in a way that will hold good, 

 upon the regulation of human affairs. The 

 second class, that of the philosophers or "men 

 of learning" in the narrower sense, falls again 

 into two divisions: a class who educate the 



