The most complete development of Fichte's system of moral Fatalism is found in his last work: Die Wissenschaftslehre in ihrem Allgemeinen Umrisse Dargestellt, Berlin, 1810. It has the advantage of being only forty-six pages (duodecimo) long, while it contains his whole philosophy in a nutshell. It is therefore to be recommended to all those who consider their time too precious to be wasted on his larger productions, which are framed with a length and tediousness worthy of Christian Wolff, and with the intention, in reality, of deluding, not of instructing the reader. In this little treatise we read on p. 32: "The intuitive perception of a phaenomenal world only came about, to the end that in such a world the Ego as the absolute Ought might be visible to itself." On p. 33 we actually find: "The ought," (i.e., the moral necessity,) "of the Ought's visibility;" and on p. 36: "An ought," (i.e., a moral necessity,) "of the perception that I ought." This, then, is what we have come to so soon after Kant! His imperative Form, with its unproved Ought, which it secured as a most convenient ποῡ στῶ (standpoint), is indeed an exemplar vitiis imitabile!
For the rest, all that I have said does not overthrow the service Fichte rendered. Kant's philosophy, this late masterpiece of human sagacity, in the very land where it arose, he obscured, nay, supplanted by empty, bombastic superlatives, by extravagances, and by the nonsense which is found, in his Grundlage der gesammten Wissenschaftslehre, appearing under the disguise of profound penetration. His merit was thus to show the world unmistakably what the capacity of the German philosophical public is; for he made it play the part of a child who is coaxed into giving up a precious gem in exchange for a Nürnberg toy. The fame he obtained in this fashion still lives on credit; and still Fichte is always mentioned in the same breath with Kant as being another such Ἡραkλῆς καὶ πίθηêκος![4] Indeed his name is often placed above the latter's.[5] It was, of course, Fichte's example that encouraged his successors in the art of enveloping the German people, in philosophic fog. These were animated by the same spirit, and crowned with the same prosperity. Every one knows their names; nor is this the place to consider them at length. Needless to say, their different opinions, down to the minutest details, are still set forth, and seriously discussed, by the Professors of Philosophy; as if one had really to do with philosophers! We must, then, thank Fichte for lucid documents now existing, which will have to be revised one day before the Tribunal of posterity, that Court of Appeal from the verdicts of the present, which—like the Last Judgment looked forward to by the Saints—at almost all periods, has been left to give to true merit its just award.
[1] I.e. Scientific Doctrine.
[2] I.e. Scientific Blank. Perhaps we might translate:—"Scientific Instruction" and "Scientific Misinstruction."—(Translator.)
[3] As evidence of the truth of my words, space prevents me from quoting more than a few passages. P. 196: "The moral instinct is absolute, and its requirements are peremptory, without any object outside itself." P. 232: "In consequence of the Moral Law, the empirical Being in Time must be an exact copy of the original Ego." P. 308: "The whole man is a vehicle of the Moral Law." P. 342: "I am only an instrument, a mere tool of the Moral Law, not in any sense an end." P. 343: "The end laid before every one is to be the means of realising Reason: this is the ultimate purpose of his existence; for this alone he has his being, and if this end should not be attained, there is not the least occasion for him to live." P. 347: "I am an instrument of the Moral Law in the phaenomenal world." P. 360: "It is an ordinance of the Moral Law to nourish one's body, and study one's health; this of course should be done in no way, and for no other purpose, except to provide an efficient instrument for furthering the end decreed by Reason, i.e., its realisation,"—(cf. p. 371.) P. 376: "Every human body is an instrument for furthering the end decreed by Reason, i.e., its realisation; therefore the greatest possible fitness of each instrument must constitute for me an end: consequently I must take thought for every one."—This is Fichte's derivation of loving-kindness! P. 377: "I can and dare take thought for myself, solely because, and is so far as I am, an instrument of the Moral Law." P. 388: "To defend a hunted man at the risk of one's own life, is an absolute duty; whenever the life of another human being is in danger, you have no right to think of the safety of your own." P. 420: "In the province of the Moral Law there is no way whatever of regarding my fellow-man except as an instrument of Reason."
[4] I.e., Hercules and an ape. A Greek proverb denoting the juxtaposition of the sublime and the ridiculous. V. Greg. Cypr. M.3, 66; Macar. 4, 53; Luc. pisc. 37; and Schol. Bachm. An. 2, 332.—(Translator.)
[5] My proof for this is a passage from the latest philosophical literature. Herr Feuerbach, an Hegelian (c'est tout dire!) in his book, Pierre Bayle: Ein Beitrag zur Geschichte der Philosophie, 1838, p. 80, writes as follows: "But still more sublime than Kant's are Fichte's ideas as expressed in his Doctrine of Morals and elsewhere. Christianity has nothing in sublimity that could bear comparison with them."