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.