362 



PHILOSOPHICAL THOUGHT. 



in his later years to enter into more detailed logical 

 and psychological discussions, the principal interest he 

 took in it was to enforce by argument, as well as by 

 the influence of his powerful personality, a conviction 

 of the existence, for the human mind, of a definite 

 and immediate source of certainty regarding the highest 

 problems of conduct, action, and duty. In fact, he 

 laboured perhaps more than any other thinker at the 

 establishment of a philosophical creed that should 

 be of practical value in the solution of the great 

 problems which were then being ventilated on the 



est terms subsequently by Lotze. 

 Knowledge does not deal only with 

 an increasing number of purely 

 empii'ical data, the things and 

 events which surround us ; it does 

 not, secondly, consist in addition 

 only in certainty — that is, in the 

 necessary connection or relation of 

 things (laws physical and mental) ; 

 but it consists, thirdly, also in a 

 comprehension of the meaning of 

 things, of their purpose, of the 

 all -embracing system or order of 

 the whole. Thus Knowledge is, 

 first, descriptive, and as such con- 

 tinually accumulating and extend- 

 ing itself ; secondly, constructive 

 and synthetical, joining together to 

 a necessai-y system ; and, thirdly, 

 synoptic, viewing and interpreting 

 the whole in a general scheme, re- 

 vealing the meaning and purpose of 

 things. And, lastly, we find two 

 modern ideas foreshadowed already 

 in Fichte's doctrine. The begin- 

 ning of philosophy is not a logical 

 principle which would require i)roof, 

 and thus lead to an endless regres- 

 sion of thought. The beginning of 

 philosophy is a postulate : you must 

 do something, you must act. The 

 idea of action nvolves that of over- 

 coming a resistance. In following 



out this train of thought, a meaning 

 is assigned to the objects or tasks 

 which present themselves to be 

 solved ; ever reappearing in new 

 forms, they constitute tiie activity 

 of the intellect. Difference and 

 opposition is always required to 

 maintain action. The overcoming 

 or solution of existing differences 

 and difficulties produces ever new 

 and higher tasks. Logically this 

 scheme is indicated by the formula 

 of thesis, antithesis, and synthesis ; 

 in Fichte's system we find the 

 birth of the dialectical method 

 practised and extolled later on bj'^ 

 Hegel. Inasmuch, however, as 

 Fichte is forced to throw back the 

 whole of the active process of the 

 intellect into a hj^per - individual 

 region, he leads the way to the 

 world of the unconscious, out of 

 which the diifei-ence of subject and 

 object, of self and other selves, 

 emerges in the minds of finite 

 persons. The conscious activity of 

 the conscious and moral self leads 

 us back to the conception of an 

 unconscious striving or instinct as 

 the source and essence of all real- 

 ity. This idea we also meet with 

 under various forms in recent 

 philosophy. 



