CHAPTER XI. TRANSITION TO ONTOLOGY.
e have thus considered Fichte’s earliest statement of his philosophy. It is, for the most part, concerned with psychological studies. It analyzes consciousness, and constructs a phenomenology of the human spirit. The problems, which, as we have seen, presented themselves in relation to the system of Kant, are, to a large extent, solved. The Categories and the faculties of the mind are shown in their organic relations to one another, and to the mind itself. The theoretical and the practical reason are also seen in their relation to one another. Each is seen to be dependent upon the other; thus the three absolutes which Fichte found in Kant, namely, the Practical Reason, the Theoretical Reason, and the Principle of Unity,—the supernatural element which manifests itself in both—are reduced to one. The I itself, with its infinite possibilities, is the supernatural element in which the theoretical and the practical reason coexist in an organic relation to one another. The Thing-in-itself is put at least in a somewhat clearer light. The contradiction, which was latent in the system of Kant, has at least been brought to consciousness. Kant, by a seeming oversight, applied, contrary to his fundamental principle, the Category of Causation to a thing outside the mind, upon which the objective world, created by the mind itself, had a certain dependence. Fichte makes clear the contradiction involved in this process, while he denies that Kant was guilty of the inconsequence. He shows, however, that this is an inconsequence that we cannot help committing. The difficulty that admits of no theoretical solution he solves practically. At least, he cuts the knot which he cannot untie. He believes that he has found the nature of the Categorical Imperative, and the ground of its absoluteness. It is the infinite nature of the I, asserting itself, and seeking to make itself wholly free of the limits by which it is confined. So far as these results are concerned, we are wholly within the sphere of Kant’s system. Indeed, Fichte regards his own system as furnishing in some sort the prolegomena to that of Kant. He leaves the student where Kant may take him up.
In all this there appear, however, indications of another side to the system of Fichte. We have only a psychology; but this, when we examine it closely, appears to involve an ontology. Difficulties still meet us, which could hardly have escaped the keen vision of Fichte. There are obvious contradictions. There is, in many aspects of the system, an incompleteness, which, it would seem, Fichte himself must have felt.
One difficulty that strikes every reader is the seeming solitariness of the I. We have been studying a single individual. We have had no hint of any reason why we should recognize other individuals, or of the relation in which we might stand to them. The world of men would seem to be, like the world of things, the creation of the productive imagination. At the same time, Fichte speaks, as a matter of course, of other individuals, thus showing that he recognized this world of men, of which his system itself would tell us nothing. Here, certainly, is a point that needs explanation.
The relation of the self-assertion of the I to the Categorical Imperative is one in regard to which some mighty assumption must have been made by Fichte, of which he has given us no hint. Kuno Fischer emphasizes what has been called the Faust-like and Titanic character of the I of Fichte. The cry of Faust was, “If ever I lay myself quietly upon a bed of rest, it will be all over with me.” So might the I speak, in the system that we are studying. Its very being is in its activity. Titan-like, it would scale the heavens; it would become infinite. This gives us a sense of awe, as if we were in the presence of some tremendous force of nature. With Fichte, however, the thought of this Titanic struggle suggests something more than awe. It calls for reverence. It manifests the loftiest ethical aspiration. It stands for the moral law itself. Surely, Fichte must have had something in his thought, which he has not yet told us.