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THE PROBLEMS CONSIDERED IN THEMSELVES.

WE have thus examined the principal problems with which the philosophy of Fichte has to do, so far as they are suggested by the system of Kant. Of these problems, the first—that of the deduction of the Categories—may be regarded as affecting the form of the system; though it must be remembered that in philosophy the form is also in part identical with the material. The others concern the material of the system and, indeed, the most fundamental and important elements of the material.

However interesting it may be to trace the growth of one system out of another, to see how the later is involved in the earlier, and how the thought of humanity develops as if it were the thought of an individual, such considerations affect chiefly the student of the history of philosophy. The interest is largely technical. A more important question, then, than that of the relation of Fichte to Kant is that of the significance of the problems considered in themselves. Indeed, the study of the history of philosophy fails of its true end when it is pursued merely as a matter of historical or curious interest. One might as well watch the changing forms in the kaleidoscope, or the shifting shadows of interlacing branches, as to study the changing forms of human thought, considered simply as changing forms. For one who feels no need of an answer to the questions with which a system of philosophy deals, that system has no significance. We have now, therefore, to ask what is the permanent human interest which is involved in the problems which Fichte undertakes to solve.

We shall here consider these under their most general form, thereby reducing them to two, namely: The place of the a priori method in philosophy, and the nature of the Ultimate Reality. My intention is not at all to discuss these problems, but merely to make it appear as clearly as possible that we have in them problems that deserve to be discussed.