1 82 INTRODUCTION 



be taken as showing that this connexion was from the 

 first fully realized. 'Since Leibniz/ he says, 'if we set 

 aside secondary doctrines which do not count, we see 

 that the real, the finite, is generally placed in the region 

 of the ideal. The whole real world has no existence in 

 itself, but only in the representations \_Vorstellungen] of the 

 soul. . . . Fichte takes up this idealism which is a denial 

 of the independent being of the real, and, in this regard, 

 he does not go beyond Leibniz. The only difference 

 between them is this. Leibniz cannot explain why the 

 soul or the Monad is subject to affections which produce 

 in it finite representations ; or, if he tries to find the cause 

 of this, he is obliged to place it in God, in the Infinite, 

 which involves him in inevitable contradictions. Fichte, 

 on the other hand, finds that the finite nature of the soul 

 has its explanation in the absolutely free activity of the 

 soul itself and results from this, that the soul by its own 

 act posits itself for itself as finite, as separated from the 

 absolute all, and consequently imposes on itself the ne- 

 cessity of contemplating no longer this absolute all, but 

 only the negations, limitations, bounds of its infinity V 

 Accordingly it may be said generally that in the philo- 

 sophy of Leibniz will and intelligence (appetition and 

 perception) are co-ordinate principles of things (the will 

 of God, for instance, not being prior to His understand- 

 ing nor His understanding to His will), while the 

 philosophy of Fichte is essentially a practical idealism, 

 in which will (in however undefined a form) is ultimate 

 and predominant. The ' principle of the best ' (the ten- 

 dency to realize the moral order which is the expression 

 of the infinite good will) is with Leibniz the determining 

 principle of actual, as distinct from merely possible 

 existence, while with Fichte it is the ultimate ground 

 of all reality, of the one system of things 2 . 



1 Schelling, Propaedeutik zur neueren Philosophic. Werke, vol i. 

 p. 125. 



2 An excellent account of Fichte's historical position is given in 



