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Johann Gottlieb Fichte was born on the 19th May 1762, at Rammenau, in Saxon Lusatia. The little village of Rammenau lies in the picturesque country, well wooded and well watered, between Bischofswerda and Camenz, not far from the boundary separating the district of Meissen from Upper Lusatia. Here, as the traditions of the Fichte family run, a Swedish sergeant in the army of Gustavus Adolphus, who had been wounded in a skirmish in the neighbourhood, was left by his comrades in the care of one of the kindly Lutheran villagers. Returning health did not lead the stranger to take his departure. He continued under the hospitable roof of his benefactor, married the daughter of the house, and, as all the sons had fallen in the bloody wars of religion, became heir to the small portion of ground belonging to the family. From this northern settler sprang the numerous family of the Fichtes, noted, even in a neighbourhood distinguished for simplicity of manners and uprightness of character, for their solid probity and sterling honesty.

The grandfather of the philosopher, the only descendant of the original stock remaining in Rammenau, cultivated the tiny patrimonial property, and in addition carried on a small trade in linen ribbons, manufactured at his own loom. His son, Christian Fichte, was sent at an early age to the neighbouring town of Pulsnitz, and apprenticed to Johann Schurich, a wealthy linen-spinner and owner of a factory. After the fashion of diligent apprentices in all ages, Christian Fichte wooed and won the heart of his master’s daughter, but not without much trouble was the consent of the wealthy burgher given to a marriage which he thought beneath his family rank. Only on condition that his son-in-law did not presume to settle in Pulsnitz was a reluctant permission given, and Christian Fichte enabled to bring his bride to the paternal roof. With her dowry he built a house for himself in Rammenau, still in the possession of his descendants, and established there his looms. On the 19th May 1762 was born their eldest child, Johann Gottlieb, who was quickly followed by six sons and one daughter.

From what may be gathered regarding his parents in Fichte’s letters, it is plain that the marriage was not altogether productive of happiness. Madame Fichte seems never to have been able quite to forget that in uniting herself to a humble peasant and handicraftsman she had descended from a superior station. She had all the pride and narrowness of ideas which are natural possessions of the wealthier classes in a small provincial town. Her temper, obstinate, quick, and capricious, overmastered the weaker and more patient nature of her husband, and she was, to all intents and purposes, the head of the household. Her eldest son resembled her strongly in the main features of his character, though he had in addition solidity of principle and reserve, and their wills came into frequent and painful collision. The mother, like many a Scottish matron in similar case, had the darling ambition to see her talented son invested with the dignity of clergyman, and for many years circumstances led him thoroughly to coincide with this wish. As he gradually altered his views, and felt himself less and less inclined for the clerical career, his relations with his mother became more and more strained and unpleasant. Fortune had removed him from the paternal home at an early age, and he was rarely able to visit his family; but after the final decision as to his career, even such occasional intercourse seemed to cease.

The rudiments of his education Fichte began to receive very early from his father, who, when the day’s work was over, would teach the lad to read and to repeat by heart proverbs and hymns, and would talk to him of his apprentice travels in Saxony and Franconia. Of even greater importance for his training was the curiously intense interest the boy displayed in listening to the weekly sermons in the village church. These sermons he would repeat aloud, almost word for word, in such fashion as to show that the effort was not one of mere passive retention, but of active imagination. Strength of memory, intense fondness for reading and for quiet imaginative meditation, and deep earnestness of moral character, marked him at an early age as a boy of remarkable gifts. An anecdote referring to this period of his life, when he was about seven years of age, is characteristic enough to deserve notice. His father had brought him as a present from the neighbouring fair a copy of the famous story of the Invulnerable Siegfried. The delight in this book so overmastered him that his other tasks began to be neglected, and he determined to free himself from temptation by destroying the cause of the evil. Quietly and secretly he took the little book, and, after a hard straggle with himself, summoned courage enough to hurl it into the streamlet that flowed by the house. As he saw the little treasure carried away by the stream he burst into tears; but to his father’s inquiry as to how the accident had happened he would give no explanation, preferring then, as often in later years, to endure misunderstanding and pain rather than to offer defence for what he felt was right. When, some time later, his father proposed to give him a similar book as a present, he earnestly entreated that it might be bestowed upon one of his brothers, and that he might not again be subjected to such temptation.

So gifted by nature, the boy might have grown up in his narrow surroundings, able and upright, notable perhaps among his fellows, but wasting powers fitted for greater things, had not a mere accident transferred him to a wider sphere of life, and given him opportunity for a fuller development. Freiherr von Miltitz, owner of an estate at Seven Oaks, near Meissen, chanced one Sunday in the year 1771 to visit the family Von Hoffmann in Rammenau, and arrived too late to hear the sermon by the village pastor, whom he much admired. On expressing regret, he was informed that the loss could readily be repaired, for there was in the village a little lad able to repeat verbatim any sermon that had been preached. The little Fichte was sent for, and so great an impression was made upon Von Miltitz that he at once proposed to the parents to undertake the charge of the lad’s education if they would submit him to his care. No objection was raised on their side, and Fichte was forthwith removed by his patron to Seven Oaks.

The surroundings of his new home, the restraints of his new mode of life, at first weighed heavily upon the boy’s mind, and his kind protector judged it best to place him under the care of the Pastor Krebel at Niederau, near Meissen. Here he remained for nearly three years, affectionately cared for by the childless pastor and his wife, and receiving a thorough groundwork in elementary classics. In 1774 he appears to have been for a brief interval at the public school of Meissen, though there is some obscurity about this fact in his biography; and in October of that year he was entered at the famous foundation-school of Pforta, near Naumburg. His patron, Von Miltitz, had died in the early part of 1774, and we have no record to show by what means the expenses of Fichte’s education continued to be defrayed. From a chance expression in one of his letters of a later date, it would appear probable that his parents at least contributed, but undoubtedly they were not in a condition to undertake the whole charge.

The years spent at Schulpforta had a powerful influence on the development of Fichte’s character, in both a moral and an intellectual aspect. The school was even then regulated on the old monastic plan, and much resembled what in this country till recently used to be the system of the old foundation or endowed schools. The pupils were strictly secluded from the outer world; the order of daily life, of amusement, of costume, of study, was regulated by antiquated precepts. Each of the older scholars had a junior intrusted to his care, and exercised almost unlimited control over his apprentice. The happiness of the juniors thus depended much upon the qualities of the older members, and, as is inevitable in any close institution, the traditions of the place were in many respects evil, and detrimental to the character of the scholars. Such a constrained life tended only to deepen and strengthen traits already sufficiently marked in Fichte’s character. He was by nature reserved, yet opinionative—that is, little capable of altering any view of the truth of which he had become convinced, and altogether incapable of making any effort to remove misconception which might arise as to his action. The entire want of family life contributed to strengthen this habit of inner self-dependence, which could have found relief only in the manifold interests and duties, in the constant sympathy and co-operation with others, arising from the details of domestic intercourse. No substitute for this was found in Schulpforta The course of instruction, moreover, thorough but narrow—for it was almost entirely confined to the classical curriculum—was not that best suited to develop the neglected side of Fichte’s character. In his life and in his works, what one notices as most striking is his incapacity for appreciating experience. In metaphysics, in psychology, in ethics, in politics, he constructs from within. Nature, in his system, appears merely as the negative limit of mind. Nor in his practical activity, as will appear, was he more fortunate. “Fichte,” said Goethe, with much truth, “too often forgets that experience is not in the least what he has imagined it to be.” It hardly admits of question that a more realistic education, a training in physical science such as his great predecessor fortunately possessed, would have given greater weight and force to Fichte’s speculations, greater elasticity and prudence to his action.

It was some time before Fichte accommodated himself to the life at Schulpforta. He was at first unfortunate in the senior selected for him. The close restraint and the unbearable tyranny to which he was subjected preyed upon him, and, after having given warning to his senior in his naively honourable fashion that he would endeavour to escape from the school unless he were treated differently, he did begin a flight towards Naumburg, with the vague intention of making his way into the world of which he knew so little, and settling as a new Robinson Crusoe in some deserted island. Only the thought that by carrying out his exploit he would for ever cut himself off from his parents, induced him to return to the hated school A frank confession of his intention, and of the grounds for it, procured him not only pardon from the rector, but also relief from the tyranny of his former senior. He was placed under the charge of another pupil, and the years began to flow more happily for him. When at length he had reached the dignity of Primaner, he began to enjoy the greater liberty of study permitted to the senior scholars; and though the great works of recent German literature were carefully excluded from the school, he then obtained through Lieber, a newly introduced tutor, the successive numbers of Lessing’s ‘Anti-Goeze.’ The style and matter of this work made a deep impression on him, and in his enthusiastic fashion he resolved that the earliest opportunity should be taken to make himself known to the author, and acknowledge his gratitude to him. The circumstances of his life and the premature death of Lessing, however, prevented this resolution from being carried into effect.

In October 1780, Fichte’s school career closed; his final essay, ‘Oratio de recto prseceptorum poeseos et rhetorices usu,’ still existing in the archives of Schulpforta, received its meed of praise, and he was ready for the higher educational training of a university. In the Michaelmas term of that year he enrolled himself in the Theological Faculty at Jena—not, so far as we can judge, because his heart was entirely given to the theological career, but because no other seemed to present an opening to a poor and friendless student. The Jena lectures do not appear to have done much for him, and in the following year he transferred himself to Leipzig, where many of his Schulpforta comrades were settled. Here, in addition to certain lectures by Schütz on Æschylus, the course followed by him with greatest attention seems to have been that by Petzold on systematic theology. Fichte’s mind, during this period, evidently dwelt on a problem which has sorely exercised many a student in like circumstances—the relation between divine providence or foreknowledge and the voluntary determination of human action. Of the alternatives offering themselves as possible solutions, he chose with resoluteness and complete conviction that which we call technically the doctrine of determinism. The idea of the individual will as but a necessary link in the scheme of divine government, gave a certain consistency to his thoughts, and was expressed by him in various sermons preached in villages in the neighbourhood of Leipzig. From the pastor of one of these village churches he first learned that his doctrine might be designated by the hateful title of Spinozism, and from the same friend he received the ‘Refutation of the Errors of Spinoza,’ by Wolff, through which he came to know the outlines of a system destined to play a most important part in the later development of his thought. On the whole, there seems little reason to doubt that so far as the young candidatus theologiae had formed opinions upon speculative and critical subjects, they accorded with the ‘Ethics’ of Spinoza and the ‘Anti-Goeze’ of Lessing.