winter of 1793 was passed quietly at Zürich in constant meditation over the main problems of the Kantian philosophy. Partly by his own reflection, partly by the acute criticisms of Schulz, whose ‘Ænesidemus’ had appeared in the preceding year, Fichte had begun to see with clearness where the main difficulty of the Kantian system lay. The theory of knowledge expounded in the ‘Critique of Pure Reason,’ was not, so far at least as Kant’s own statement extended, a perfectly coherent whole; nor did there appear to be a consistent, logical transition from that theory to the more metaphysical notions which came forward in the Critiques of Practical Reason and of Judgment. Some assistance in working into system the parts of the Kantian doctrine was doubtless furnished by Reinhold, but with his method Fichte soon became dissatisfied. It was for him a necessity that the whole of philosophy should manifest a single principle, that the theories of knowledge and of practice should be deduced from one common source, and that the fundamental notions of speculative thought should be developed with systematic completeness. In one or two occasional reviews dating from this period, and in letters to his friends, he gave brief utterance to his convictions on this point; and, as his views grew more matured and definite, he yielded to the request of some Zürich acquaintances, and delivered during the winter a short course of private lectures on philosophy as conceived by him. The formation of his speculative doctrines was, however, accelerated by the invitation, which reached him in December 1793, to fill the post of extraordinary Professor of Philosophy at Jena, about to become vacant by the transference of Reinhold to Kiel. Reluctant as Fichte was at first to yield immediate assent to this call, he could not refuse the opportunity of entering once for all upon the career for which he appeared specially marked out, and after sending in his acceptance to Privy Councillor Voigt, he made arrangements for beginning his course at Jena in the Easter term of 1794.
The University at Jena was then at the very height of its renown. No other period, in all its brilliant history, rivals the first decades of the nineteenth century. Above all other universities in Germany it was distinguished as the very centre of the most progressive movements in philosophy and literature. The near neighbourhood of Weimar—where the most illustrious names in the new German literature congregated, where, under the genial care of a noble and enlightened prince, arts and letters flourished as in a modern Athens—gave to it additional renown, and secured the most watchful supervision over the studies of the university. More especially, however, was Jena pre-eminent as the university in which the new German philosophy had been most eagerly accepted and most fruitfully applied. Schütz, known in classical literature for his editions of ‘Æschylus’ and ‘Cicero,’ made it his boast that he had been the first to introduce the youth of Jena to the Critical Philosophy. Hufeland, an eminent jurist, expounded the principles of the Kantian ethics, and his ‘Naturrecht’ is still one of the best expositions of philosophic jurisprudence. Reinhold, who by his ‘Letters on the Kantian Philosophy’ had won the approval of the father of criticism himself, had begun in 1787, in the chair instituted specially for him, the lectures in which he endeavoured to improve and further the critical system. Schiller, called to the Chair of History in 1789, had shown how philosophical principles might be fruitfully united with historical research and artistic production. Paulus, Loder, Ersch, and Schmid, are names not to be forgotten for the services they rendered to the advancement of German thought. Altogether, the University of Jena, at the close of the eighteenth century, exhibited a degree of life and activity which raised it to the first place among the academies of Germany. The history of German philosophy, in its brightest period, is in a great measure the history of the Jena University. For there as teachers we find Fichte, Schelling, Hegel, Fries, Krause, and Schlegel; as scholars, Herbart, Schubert, Steffens, Solger, Hülsen, Hölderlin, Von Berger, and Oersted. Among the students the fame of their teachers was reflected in a peculiarly open and vigorous university life. Nowhere was there a freer or more enthusiastic academic tone than in Jena.