attributing a validity to the practical reason which he denies to the theoretical reason, he falls into a manifest self-contradiction, inasmuch as the practical reason necessarily rests upon the ideas furnished by the theoretic reason. If I cannot trust my intellectual convictions, why should I trust my moral convictions? If my mind is forced to work under laws which may have no validity to other beings than man, why may not my moral sense be equally subject to forms which are not valid objectively? The innate moral conviction of duty is not stronger than the innate intellectual conviction that there is an objective world of substance, and if our conviction of the reliableness of the one set of impressions is removed we shall find it hard to rest in the certainty of the other. Kant's distinction between the theoretic and the practical reason is really very much of a piece with the old scholastic system which allowed that a thing might be philosophically false and theologically true. If the practical reason is valid for proof of what Kant admits that it proves, it is fairly retrospective, and holds good also as a proof of the objective reality of those things which the pure reason instinctively accepts as real. The ultimate consequence drawn from the doctrine of Kant is that we do not know things as they are in themselves, but as they appear to us in accordance with the constitution of our minds; that consequently our cognition is confined within the sphere of experience; and this cognition itself Kant asserts (illogically) to be objectively real. The logic of Kant's system undoubtedly demonstrates that things which are not the objects of sense are not the objects of science or knowledge, but of faith. Hence as a speculative system the critique of Kant is properly styled 'transcendental idealism,' inasmuch as it teaches that everything which transcends experience, or anything as far as it transcends experience, is merely subjectively ideal.

It is acknowledged, however, by those who have least sympathy with his system that it is one of consummate ability, and that many of its processes and results are of the highest value. Kant has left an impress on the thinking of the world which will abide while the world stands; no system of the future, properly philosophical, can entirely avoid being in some measure a development of Kant's views or an antagonistic force to them.

The philosophical systems of Germany, France, and England since Kant have all revealed his influence. The speculations of Kant have confessedly settled one great point, to wit, that all cognition, although it begins with experience, does not arise from experience alone, but that in addition to the empirical element it is requisite there should be also an intellectual element, in order to the existence of true cognition.

The doctrine of Kant was confessedly understood at the beginning by very few; it was neither understood, nor misunderstood, in the same way. Winning its way to attention very slowly, it finally attracted universal notice. No system has been more earnestly praised or more completely condemned. Apart from its matter, its method and style were objects of complaint. Its terminology was objected to as unnecessarily abstract and obscure. Herder, who greatly admired Kant, nevertheless wrote his Metacritica to show that the Critique of Pure Reason is a thing of mist, of chaos, of confusion.'

X. Subjective Idealism: Fichte.

SUBJECTIVE IDEALISM, the system of Fichte (1762-1814), the identity of thinking and being, of the subjective and objective in the Ego. The completely unknown 'thing in itself,' of Kant, is thrown aside, the sole source of cognition and of being is the subject, the mind: the Ego posits itself and the non-Ego. The 'most absolute' principle is, the Ego is equal to the Ego, A = A.

From this follows that the non-Ego is not equal to the Ego, and that the Ego is not equal to the non-Ego; but the Ego is equal to the non-Ego, and the non-Ego is equal to the Ego. The thesis and antithesis are reduced in the synthesis. The Ego posits itself as limited by the non-Ego, and thus becomes cognitive; or the Ego posits the non-Ego as limited by the Ego, and becomes active.

The idealistic character underlying Kant's system was confessed in two ways by its admirers. Those who were not willing to accept idealism endeavoured to strengthen or rather to mend the system at this point of weakness. Those who were not averse to idealism soon availed themselves of the results of the Kantian philosophy. In the former class may be mentioned Rothenflue, Institutiones. Synopsis Historia Philosophiæ, 1846, iii. 276-290.

Karl Leonhard Reinhold. In his work on the Theory of the Representative Faculty,'-his Elementary Philosophy,-he endeavoured, from the very concept of representation itself, to establish the objective reality of things. His train of thought was this: Every representation includes in itself the representing subject, the represented object, and the act of representation; hence the represented object must be something objectively real. But this proof was of no value, for it could not relieve the doubt whether the represented object is founded in the subject-mind, or is an object distinct from the mind. This was shown so forcibly by Schulze in his Aenesidemus that Reinhold abandoned his own theory.

Of the second class there speedily arose writers who endeavoured to interpret the doubtful and to develop the imperfect idealism in the system.

Beck, professor at Halle, showed that idealism is an essential element in the critical philosophy: for, according to the critical philosophy, a thing in itself is nothing else than the primitive synthesis or combination of all that is determinate pertaining to the essence of the thing, a synthesis formed by the mind itself."

Fichte's Doctrine of Science appeared between the first volume and the last of Beck. In this, removing from the system of Kant all objective reality, he substituted for that system a pure subjectivity. Hence his doctrine is styled Subjective Idealism. It has been said of Fichte that his life stirs us like a trumpet. He combines the penetration of the philosopher with the fire of a prophet and the thunder of an orator; and over all his life lies the beauty of a stainless purity.'

He conceived' of philosophy as 'the science of science'-' the knowledge of knowledge.' One of his chief works is called the 'Doctrine of Science,' 1795. He transformed the transcendental idealism of Kant into the doctrine of absolute subjectivity. Kant had endeavoured to avoid absolute idealism by granting intuitions

Versuch einer neuen Theorie der menschlichen Vorstellungsvermoegens.

2 Einzig moeglicher Standpunkt, aus welchem die kritische Philosophie beurtheilt werden muss, 1796. The first two volumes of the Erlaüternd. Auszug aus den kritischen Schriften des... Kant, of which this is the third volume, appeared in 1793. Beck showed very easily that his views were the legitimate consequence of Kant's, but he failed to prove that this was what Kant meant. See Zeller, Gesch. d. deutsch. Philosophie, 596.

of the sensitive faculty with which corresponded real objects distinct from the mind; but as this involved logical absurdity on the premises of Kant, Fichte pressed his principles to that absolute idealism which seemed to follow logically from them. The notions of Pure Reason, or universal notions, according to Kant, cannot be called objectively real, moreover, because their objective reality cannot be proven; but it is equally impossible on Kant's principles to demonstrate the objective reality of the intuitions of the sensitive faculty,-hence these also ought to be considered as mere subjective phenomena. Reasoning therefore logically on the principles of Kant, Fichte maintains that all realities are nothing but creations of the Ego, and that all existence is nothing but thought itself."

His philosophy may be reduced very briefly to these divisions: 1. Philosophy as a science of science or doctrine of science ought of necessity to proceed from a supreme principle which is per se certain.

2. But there is no principle which is certain per se except one in which the object or predicate coincides with or is identified with the subject, as, for example, A = A.

3. Since, however, the Ego has in itself both the A which it judges to be = A, and the form according to which it judges, we may substitute for the principle A = A this, the Ego = the Ego.

4. But this principle, by positing the Ego, judges. But to judge is to act. Hence the Ego posits itself in an absolute mode through the act of activity or of spontaneity essential to itself. For the Ego is reason active and at the same time convinced of its own activity. [By the word posit Fichte means to put or place to the consciousness,-to make that which is posited become a fact of consciousness.]

5. But to the Ego is equally essential reflection, through which it acquires self-consciousness, consciousness of self.

6. But the possibility of reflection is founded in appulse (Anstoss), opposition, antithesis, contrast; which antithesis cannot be explained by theoretic reason, and hence is postulated. For

Ueber den Begriff der Wissenschaftslehre. Grundlage der gesammten Wissenschafts

lehre.

SUBJECTIVE

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through this alone the Ego becomes conscious of itself, so that it first posits itself as subject, and then opposes to itself that appulse, that antithesis, as object.

7. Thus, however, the Ego-Object appears in a certain respect as non-Ego in the presence of the Ego-Subject.

8. The Ego thus determining itself through the non-Ego limits its own activity, and, though itself primarily absolute and infinite, becomes or renders itself finite and divisible.

9. To wit: the Ego positing itself as determined by the nonEgo is in a certain sense and so far passive; and the Ego positing itself as the determining non-Ego is active; and this mutual action and reaction between the Ego and the non-Ego is the condition of all representation (Vorstellens). This representation is called cogitation or thought if the Ego is conceived of as active, but is called sensation if the Ego is conceived of as passive.

Reasoning in the same manner, he explains the other faculties of the mind or the Ego, and establishes in them a twofold reality, -to wit, of the soul and of the outer world, as also of liberty and necessity.

As the fundamental positions of Fichte's philosophy seem to have peculiar difficulties to English readers, we will present them in a somewhat different manner, following the luminous exposition of them by Scholten:

1. The Ego or the subject is the sole spring of all human cognition. Philosophy starts from the Ego. That the Ego is, is an incontrovertible fact of consciousness.

2. The Ego posits itself (Ego = Ego). This Ego or subject, in conformity with the ordinary empirical consciousness, counterposits to itself an object as non-Ego. (Non-Ego is not

=

Ego.)

3. This object or non-Ego cannot, however, be regarded as in truth non-Ego without robbing the Ego of its contents, of that which is involved in it, and thus setting aside the actual being of the Ego itself.

4. As this cannot be conceded, inasmuch as the being of the Ego is grounded in the Ego itself, it follows that the non-Ego which is posited by the Ego as object is, strictly speaking, nothing else than the Ego itself. (Non-Ego = Ego.)