If in Kant's doctrine we trace a certain moral pedantry; with Fichte this pedantry reaches the absurd, and furnishes abundant material for satire. Let the reader notice, for example (pp. 407-409), how he decides the well-known instance of casuistry, where of two human lives one must be lost. We find indeed all the errors of Kant raised to the superlative. Thus, on p. 199, we read: "To act in accordance with the dictates of sympathy, of compassion, and of loving-kindness is distinctly unmoral; indeed this line of conduct, as such, is contrary to morality." Again, on p. 402: "The impulse that makes us ready to serve others must never be an inconsiderate good-nature, but a clearly thought-out purpose; that, namely, of furthering as much as possible the causality of Reason." However, between these sallies of ridiculous pedantry, Fichte's real philosophic crudeness peeps out clearly enough, as we might only expect in the case of a man whose teaching left no time for learning. He seriously puts forward the _liberum arbitrium indifferentiae_ (a free and indifferent choice), giving as its foundation the most trivial and frivolous reasons. (Pp. 160, 173, 205, 208, 237, 259, 261.) There can be no doubt that a motive, although working through the medium of the intelligence, is, nevertheless, a cause, and consequently involves the same necessity of effect as all other causes; the corollary being that all human action is a strictly necessary result. Whoever remains unconvinced of this, is still, philosophically speaking, barbarous, and ignorant of the rudiments of exact knowledge. The perception of the strict necessity governing man's conduct forms the line of demarcation which separates philosophic heads from all others; arrived at this limit Fichte clearly showed that he belonged to the others. Moreover, following the footsteps of Kant (p. 303), he proceeds to make various statements which are in direct contradiction to the above mentioned passages; but this inconsistency, like many more in his writings, only proves that he, being one who was never serious in the search for truth, possessed no strong convictions to build on; as indeed for his purpose they were not in the least necessary. Nothing is more laughable than the fact that this man has received so much posthumous praise for strictly consequential reasoning; his pedantic style full of loud declamation about trifling matters being actually mistaken for such.