glory that lie roused and directed their efforts: — he sought to erect the structure of his country's future welfare and fame on a far deeper and surer foundation. In strains of the most fervid and impassioned eloquence he pointed out the true remedies for the national de gradation, — the culture of moral dignity, spiritual freedom and independence. In these Addresses he first announced the plan, and delineated all the chief features of that celebrated system of Public Education wliich has since conferred such inestimable benefits on Prussia, and raised her, in this respect, to a proud pre-eminence among the nations of Europe. Never were a people called upon to arouse themselves to a nobler enterprise, and never was such a summons pealed forth in tones of more manly and spirit-stirring energy. The last Address is a noble appeal to the several classes of society in Germany to unite, heart and hand, in forwarding the great work of national regeneration. We quote the peroration: — " In these Addresses the memory of your forefathers speaks to you. Think that with my voice there are mingled the voices of your ancestors from the far-off ages of gray antiquity, of those who stemmed with their own bodies the tide of Roman domination over the world, who vindicated with their own blood the independence of those mountains, plains, and streams, which you have suffered to fall a prey to the stranger. They call to you, — ' Be ye our defenders! — hand down ' our memory to future ages, honourable and spotless ' as it has come down to you, as you have gloried ' in it, and in your descent from us. Hitherto our ' struggle has been deemed noble, great, and wise; — ' we have been looked upon as the consecrated and in- " REDEN AN DIE DEUTSCHEN." 153 ' spired ones of a Divine World-Plan. Should our race ' perish with you, then will our honour be changed into ' dishonour, our wisdom into folly. For if Germany ' were ever to be subdued to the Empire, then had it ' been better to have fallen before the elder Eomans ' than their modern descendants. We withstood those, ' and triumphed; these have scattered you like chaff ' before them. But, as matters now are with you, ' seek not to conquer with bodily weapons, but stand ' firm and erect before them in spiritual dignity. Yours ' is the greater destiny, — to found an empire of Mind ' and Reason, — to destroy the dominion of rude phy- ' sical power as the ruler of the world. Do this, and ' ye shall be worthy of your descent from us! ' " With these voices mingle the spirits of your later fathers, — of those who fell in the sacred struggle for freedom of Religion and of Faith: — ' Save our honour ' too!' they call. ' To us it had not become wholly clear ' what it was we fought for; — besides our just deter- ' mination to suffer no outward power to control us in ' matters of conscience, we were also led onward by a ' higher spirit which never wholly unveiled itself to our ' view. To you this spirit is no longer veiled, if your ' power of vision transcend the things of sense; — it now ' regards you with high, clear aspect. The confused •' and intricate combination of sensuous and spiritual ' impulses with each other shall no longer govern the ' world: Mind alone, pure from all admixture of sense, ' shall assume the guidance of human affairs. In order ' that this spirit should have liberty to develope itself, ' and rise to independent existence, our blood was shed. ' It lies with you to give a meaning and a justification ' to the sacrifice, by establishing this spirit in its des- 154 MEMOIR OF FICHTE.
' tined supremacy. Should this result not ensue, as the ' ultimate end of all the previous development of our ' nation, then were our struggles but a forgotten farce, ' and the freedom of mind and conscience, for which we ' fought, an empty word, since neither mind nor con- ' science should any longer have a place among us.'
" The races yet unborn plead with you: — ' Ye were ' proud of your forefathers,' they cry, — ' and gloried ' in your descent from a noble line of men. See that ' with you the chain is not broken; — act so that we ' also may be proud of you, and through you, as ' through a spotless medium, claim our descent from ' the same glorious source. Be not you the cause of ' making us revile our ancestry as low, barbarous, and 'slavish; — of causing us to hide our origin, or to 4 assume a foreign name and a foreign parentage, ' in order that we may not be, without farther proof, ' cast aside and trodden under foot.. According as the ' next generation which proceeds from you shall be, so ' shall be your future fame: honourable, if this shall ' bear honourable witness to you; deservedly ignomi- ' nious, if ye have not an unblemished posterity to suc- ' ceed you, and leave it to the conqueror to write your ' history. Never has a victor been known to have ' either the inclination or the means of passing a just ' judgment on the subdued. The more he degrades ' them, the better does he justify his own position. ' Who can know what great deeds, what excellent in- ' stitutions, what noble manners of many nations of ' antiquity may have past away into oblivion, because ' their succeeding generations have been enslaved, and ' have left the conqueror, in his own way, and without ' contradiction, to tell their story? ' " REDEN AN DIE DEUTSCHEN." 155 " Even the stranger in foreign lands pleads with you, in so far as he understands himself and knows aright his own true interest. Yes! there are in every nation minds who can never believe that the great promises to the human race of a Kingdom of Law, of Reason, and of Truth, are idle and vain delusions, and who consequently cherish the conviction that the pre sent iron-handed time is but a progression towards a better state. These, and with them the whole later races of humanity, trust in you. A great part of these trace their lineage from us; others have received from us religion and all other culture. Those plead with us, by the common soil of our Fatherland, the cradle of their infancy, which they have left to us free; — these by the culture which they have accepted from us as the pledge of a higher good, — to maintain, for their sakes, the proud position which has hitherto been ours, to guard with jealous watchfulness against even the possible disappearance, from the great confederation of a newly-arisen humanity, of that member which is to them more important than all others; so that when they shall need our counsel, our example, our coopera tion in the pursuit and attainment of the true end of this Earthly Life, they shall not look around for us in vain.
" All Ages, — all the Wise and Good who have ever breathed the air of this world of ours, — all their thoughts and aspirations towards a Higher Good, — mingle with these voices, and encompass you about, and raise sup plicating hands towards you; — Providence itself, if we may venture so to speak, and the Divine Plan in the creation of a Human Race, — which indeed only exists that it may be understood of men, and by men be 156 MEMOIR OF FICHTE.
wrought out into reality, — plead with you to save their honour and their existence. Whether those who have believed that Humanity must ever advance in a course of ceaseless improvement, and that the great ideas of its order and dignity were not empty dreams, but the prophetic announcement and pledge of their own fu ture realization; — whether those — or they who have slumbered on in the sluggish indolence of a mere vegetable or animal existence, and mocked every aspi ration towards a higher World — have had the right, — this is the question upon which it has fallen to your lot to furnish a last and decisive answer. The ancient world, with all its nobility and greatness, as well as all its deficiencies, has fallen, — through its own unworthiness and the might of your forefathers. If there has been truth in that which I have spoken to you in these Ad dresses, then it is you to whom, out of all other modern nations, the germs of human perfection are especially committed, and on whom the foremost place in the on ward advance towards their development is conferred. If you sink to nothing in this your peculiar office, then with you the hopes of Humanity for salvation out of all its evils are likewise overthrown. Hope not, console not yourselves with the vain delusion, that a second time, after the destruction of an ancient civiliza tion, a new culture will arise upon the ruins of the old, from a half-barbaric people. In ancient times, such a people existed fully provided with all the requisites for this mission; they were well known to the cultivated nation, and were described in its literature; and that nation itself, had it been able to suppose the case of its own downfall, might have discovered the means of renovation in this people. To us also the whole sur- ILLNESS. 157 face of the earth is well known, and all the nations who dwell upon it. Do we know one, like the ances tral tribe of modern Europe, of whom like hopes may be entertained? I think that every man who does not give himself up to visionary hopes and fancies, but desires only honest and searching inquiry, must answer this question — No! There is, then, no way of escape: — if ye sink, Humanity sinks with you, without hope of future restoration!" — Seldom indeed has the cause of a nation's independence been pled on grounds so truly noble and elevating as these!
This spirit-stirring course of public activity was interrupted by a severe illness, which attacked him in the spring of 1808. It was his first illness, and it took so determined a hold of his powerful constitution, that he never thoroughly got rid of its effects. Deep-seated nervous disease, and particularly an affection of the liver, reduced him to great weakness, and for a time it seemed doubtful whether his life could be saved. It was only after some months of suffering that the dis ease settled down upon a particular limb, and left him with a rheumatic lameness of the left arm and right foot, which, with an accompanying inflammation in the eyes, hindered him for a long time from resuming his habits of active life. He was removed several times to the baths of Teplitz with beneficial effect. The tedium of convalescence was relieved by study of the great authors of Italy, Spain, and Portugal. At an earlier period of his life he had made himself acquainted with the languages of these countries, and had produced many translations from their poets, particularly an entire version of the first canto of Dante's Divina Com- 158 MEMOIR OF FICHTE.
media,* and one of the most beautiful episodes in the Lusiad of Camoens. And now, in the season of de bility and pain, the noble thoughts handed down by the great poets of the south as an everlasting posses sion to the world, became to him the springs of new strength and dignity. Nor did he cease altogether from literary exertion. During his confinement he undertook a thorough revision of his philosophical lec tures, and made extensive preparation for his future academical labours. Much of his time, too, was occu pied in the education of his only son, who speaks with deep reverence and thankfulness of the instructions thus imparted to him. Amongst his letters written during this sickness, we find a touching correspondence with Ernst Wagner, a true and warm-hearted friend of his country and of all good men, but whose spirit was crushed almost to hopelessness by the pressure of disease and penury. To him Fichte found means of affording such relief and encouragement, as prolonged, for some short period at least, a valuable and upright life.
Of his domestic life during this period, and the manner in which it too bore the impress of his high soul-elevating philosophy, we obtain the following in teresting and instructive glimpse: — " We had a family meeting for worship every evening, which closed the day worthily and solemnly; in this the domestics also were accustomed to take a part. When some verses of a chorale had been sung to the accompani ment of the piano, my father began, and discoursed upon a passage or chapter of the New Testament, especially from his favourite Evangelist John; or, when particular household circumstances gave occasion for it, * Printed in the " Vesta" for 1807.
UNIVERSITY OF BERLIN. 159 he spoke also a word of reproof or of comfort. But, as far as I remember, he never made use of ordinary practical applications of his subject, or laid down pre ceptive regulations for conduct; but the tendency of his teaching appeared rather to be to purify the spirit from the distractions and vanities of common life, and to elevate it to the Imperishable and Eternal." — So truly was his life, in all its relations, the faithful coun terpart of the noble doctrine which he taught.
On Fichte's return to active life he found liimself placed, almost at once, in a position from which he could influence in no slight degree the destinies of his fatherland. Doubts had arisen as to the propriety of placing the new University in a large city like Berlin. It was urged that the metropolis presented too many temptations to idleness and dissipation to render it an eligible situation for a seminary devoted to the educa tion of young men. This was the view entertained by the Minister Stein, but warmly combated by Wolff', Fichte, and others. Stein was at length won over, and the University was opened in 1810. The King gave one of the finest palaces in Berlin for the purpose, and all the appliances of mental culture were provided on the most liberal scale. Learned men of the greatest eminence in their respective departments were invited from all quarters, — Wolff, Fichte, Muller, Humboldt. De Wette, Schleiermacher, ]STeander, Klaproth, and Savigny, — higher names than these cannot easily be found in their peculiar walks of literature and science. By the suffrages of his fellow-teachers, Fichte was una nimously elected Rector.
Thus placed at the head of an institution from which 160 MEMOIR OF FICHTE.
so much was expected, Fichte laboured unceasingly to establish a high tone of morality in the new Univer sity, convinced that thereby he should best promote the dignity as well as the welfare of his country. His dearest wish was to see Germany free, — free alike from foreign oppression and from internal reproach. He longed to see the stern sublimity of old Greek citizenship reappear among a people whom the con querors of Greece had failed to subdue. And therefore it was before all things necessary that they who were to go forth as the apostles of truth and virtue, who were to be the future representatives among the people of all that is dignified and sacred, should themselves be deeply impressed with the high nature of their calling, and keep unsullied the honour which must guide and guard them in the discharge of its duties. He therefore applied himself to the reformation of such features in the student-life as seemed irreconcilable with its nobleness, — to the suppression of the Lands- mannschaften, and of the practice of duelling. Courts of honour, composed of the students themselves, de cided upon all such quarrels as had usually led to per sonal encounters. During his two years' rectorship, Fichte laboured with unremitting perseverance to ren der the University in every respect worthy of the great purposes which had called it into existence, and laid the foundation of the character which it still maintains, of being the best regulated, as well as one of the most efficient, schools in Germany.
The year 1812 was an important one for Europe, and particularly for Germany. The gigantic power of of Napoleon had now reached its culminating point.
WAR OF LIBERATION*. 161 Joseph Bonaparte reigned at Madrid, and Murat at Naples; — Austria was subdued, and the fair daughter of the House of Hapsburg had united her fate to that of the conqueror of her race; — Prussia lay at his mercy; — Holland and the Free Towns were annexed to the territory of France, which now extended from Sicily to Denmark. One thing alone was wanting to make him sole master of the continent of Europe, and that was the conquest of Russia. His passion for universal dominion led him into the great military error of his life, — the attempt to conquer a country defended by its climate from foreign invasion, and which, even if subdued, could never have been re tained. He rushed on to the fate which sooner or later awaits unbridled ambition. The immense armies of France were poured through Germany upon the North, to find a grave amid the snows of Smolensk and in the waters of the Berezina.
And now Prussia resolved to make a decisive effort to throw off a yoke which had always been hateful to her. The charm was now broken which made men look on the might of Napoleon as invincible; — the unconquerable battalions had been routed; fortune had turned against her former favourite. The King entered into an alliance with the Russian Emperor, and in January 1813, having retired from Berlin to Breslau, he sent forth a proclamation calling upon the youth of the country to arm themselves in defence of its liberty. Nobly was his appeal responded to. The nation rose as one man; all distinctions were forgotten in the high enthusiasm of the time; prince and peasant, teacher and scholar, artisan and merchant, poet and philosopher, swelled the ranks of the army of liberation.
102 MEMOIR OF FICHTE, Ficlite now renewed his former application to be permitted to accompany the troops in the capacity of preacher or orator, that he might share their dangers and animate their courage. Difficulties, however, arose in the way of this arrangement, and he resolved to re main at his post in Berlin, and to continue his lectures until he and his scholars should be called personally to the defence of their country. The other professors united with him in a common agreement, that the widows and cliildren of such of their number as fell in the war should be provided for by the cares of the survivors. It is worthy of remark, that amid this eager enthusiasm Fichte resolutely opposed the adop tion of any proceedings against the enemy which might cast dishonour on the sacred cause of freedom. While a French garrison still held Berlin, one of his students revealed to him a plan, in which he himself was en gaged, for firing their magazine during the night. Doubts had arisen in his mind as to the lawfulness of such a mode of aiding his country's cause, and he had resolved to lay the scheme before his teacher, for whose opinion he entertained an almost unbounded reverence. Fichte immediately disclosed the plot to the superin tendent of police, by whose timely interference it was defeated. The same young man, who acted so hon ourably on this occasion, afterwards entered the army as a volunteer in one of the grenadier battalions. At the battle of Dennewitz his life was preserved in a very remarkable manner. A musket ball, which struck him during the fight, was arrested in its fatal progress by encountering a copy of Fichte's " Keligionslehre," his constant companion and moral safeguard, which on this occasion served him likewise as a physical ^Egidus.
LAST PHILOSOPHICAL LECTURES. 163 On examining the book, he found that the ball had been stopped at these words (p. 249) — " denn alles, was da kommt, is der Wille Gottes mit ihm, und drum das Allerbeste, was da kommen konnte" — (" for everything which comes to pass is the Will of God with him, and therefore the best which can possibly come to pass.")
During the summer of 1813, Fichte delivered from the Academical Chair those views of the existing cir cumstances of his country, and of the war in which it was engaged, which he was prevented from communi cating to the army directly. These lectures were after wards printed under the title of " Ueber den Begriff des wahren Kriegs" — (On the Idea of a true War.) With a clearness and energy of thought which seemed to increase with the difficulties and danger of his country, he roused an irresistible opposition to propo sals of peace which, through the mediation of Austria, were offered during the armistice in June and July. The demands of Napoleon left Germany only a nominal independence; a brave and earnest people sought for true freedom. " A stout heart and no peace," was Fichte's motto, and his countrymen agreed with him. Hostilities were recommenced in August 1813.
In the beginning of the winter half-year, Fichte resumed his philosophical prelections at the University. His subject was an introduction to philosophy upon an entirely new plan, which should render his whole system much more easily attainable. It is said that this, his last course of academical lectures, was distin guished by unusual freshness and brilliancy of thought, as if he were animated once more by the energy of youthful enthusiasm, even while he stood, unconsciously, on the threshold of another world. He had now 164 MEMOIR OF FICHTE.
accomplished the great object of his life, — the com pletion, in his own mind, of that scheme of knowledge by which his name was to be known to posterity. Existing in his own thought as one clear and compre hensive whole, he believed that he could now com municate it to others, in a simpler and more intelligible form than it had yet assumed. It was his intention to devote the following summer to this purpose, and, in the solitude of some country retreat, to prepare a finished record of his philosophy in its maturity and completeness. But fate had ordered otherwise.
The vicinity of Berlin to the seat of the great strug gle on which the liberties of Germany were depending rendered it the most eligible place for the reception of the wounded and diseased. The hospitals of the city were crowded, and the ordinary attendants of these establishments were found insufficient in number to supply the wants of the patients. The authorities therefore called upon the inhabitants for their assistance, and Fichte's wife was one of the first who responded to the call. The noble and generous disposition which had rendered her the worthy companion of the philo sopher, now led her forth, regardless of danger, to give all her powers to woman's holiest ministry. jS^ot only did she labour with unwearied assiduity to assuage the bodily sufferings of the wounded, and to surround them with every comfort which their situation required and which she had the power to supply; she likewise poured words of consolation into many a breaking heart, and awakened new strength and faithfulness in those who were " ready to perish."
For five months she pursued with uninterrupted HIS LAST ILLNESS. 165 devotion her attendance at the hospitals, and although not naturally of a strong constitution, she escaped the contagion which surrounded her. But on the 3d of January 1814 she was seized with a nervous fever, which speedily rose to an alarming height, so that almost every hope of her recovery was lost. Fichte's affection never suffered him to leave her side, except during the time of his lectures. It is an astonishing proof of his self-command, that after a day of anxious watching at the deathbed, as it seemed, of her he held dearest on earth, he should be able to address his class in the evening, for two consecutive hours, on the most profound and abstract subjects of human speculation, uncertain whether, on his return, he might find that loved one still alive. At length the crisis of the fever was past, and Fichte received again the faithful part ner of his cares, rescued from the grave.
But even in this season of joy, in the embrace of gratulation he received the seeds of death. Scarcely was his wife pronounced out of danger than he himself caught the infection, and was attacked by the insidious disease. Its first symptom was nervous sleeplessness, which resisted the effects of baths and the other usual remedies. Soon, however, the true nature of the malady was no longer doubtful, and during the rapid progress of his illness, his lucid moments became shorter and less frequent. In one of these he was told of Blucher's passage of the Rhine, and the final ex pulsion of the French from Germany. That spirit- stirring information touched a chord which roused him from his unconsciousness, and he awoke to a bright and glorious vision of a better future for his fatherland. The triumphant excitement mingled itself with his 16G MEMOIR OF FICHTE.
fevered fancies: — he imagined himself in the midst of the victorious struggle, striking for the liberties of Germany; and then again it was against his own disease that he fought, and power of will and firm resolution were the arms by which he was to conquer it. Shortly before his death, when his son approached him with medicine, he said, with his usual look of deep affection — " Leave it alone; I need no more medicine: I feel that I am well." On the eleventh day of his illness, on the night of the 27th January 1814, he died. The last hours of his life were passed in deep and unbroken sleep.
Fichte died in his fifty-second year, with his bodily and mental faculties unimpaired by age; scarcely a grey hair shaded the deep black upon his bold and erect head. In stature he was low, but powerful and muscular. His step was firm, and his whole appear ance and address bespoke the rectitude, firmness, and earnestness of his character.
His widow survived him for five years. By the kindness of the Monarch she was enabled to pass the remainder of her life in ease and competence, devoting herself to the superintendence of her son's education. She died on the 29th January 1819, after an illness of seven days.