of physics. This assumption, however, is by no means logically necessary. If it is abandoned,
percepts cease to be in any important sense "subjective," since there is nothing with which to
contrast them.
The "thing-in-itself" was an awkward element in Kant's philosophy, and was abandoned by his
immediate successors, who accordingly fell into something very like solipsism. Kant's
inconsistencies were such as to make it inevitable that philosophers who were influenced by him
should develop rapidly either in the empirical or in the absolutist direction; it was, in fact, in the
latter direction that German philosophy moved until after the death of Hegel.
Kant's immediate successor, Fichte ( 1762-1814), abandoned "things in themselves," and carried
subjectivism to a point which seems almost to involve a kind of insanity. He holds that the Ego is
the only ultimate reality, and that it exists because it posits itself; the non-Ego, which has a
subordinate reality, also exists only because the Ego posits it. Fichte is not important as a pure
philosopher, but as the theoretical founder of German nationalism, by his Addresses to the
German Nation ( 1807-8), which were intended to rouse the Germans to resistance to Napoleon
after the battle of Jena. The Ego as a metaphysical concept easily became confused with the
empirical Fichte; since the Ego was German, it followed that the Germans were superior to all
other nations. "To have character and to be a German," says Fichte, "undoubtedly mean the same
thing." On this basis he worked out a whole philosophy of nationalistic totalitarianism, which had
great influence in Germany.
His immediate successor Schelling ( 1775-1854) was more amiable, but not less subjective. He
was closely associated with the German romantics; philosophically, though famous in his day, he
is not important. The important development from Kant's philosophy was that of Hegel.
-718-CHAPTER XXI Currents of Thought in the Nineteenth CenturyTHE intellectual life of the nineteenth century was more complex than that of any previous age.
This was due to several causes. First: the area concerned was larger than ever before; America and
Russia made important contributions, and Europe became more aware than formerly of Indian
philosophies, both ancient and modern. Second: science, which had been a chief source of novelty
since the seventeenth century, made new conquests, especially in geology, biology, and organic
chemistry. Third: machine production profoundly altered the social structure, and gave men a new
conception of their powers in relation to the physical environment. Fourth: a profound revolt, both
philosophical and political, against traditional systems in thought, in politics, and in economics,
gave rise to attacks upon many beliefs and institutions that had hitherto been regarded as
unassailable. This revolt had two very different forms, one romantic, the other rationalistic. (I am
using these words in a liberal sense.) The romantic revolt passes from Byron, Schopenhauer, and
Nietzsche to Mussolini and Hitler; the rationalistic revolt begins with the French philosophers of
the Revolution, passes on, somewhat softened, to the philosophical radicals in England, then
acquires a deeper form in Marx and issues in Soviet Russia.
The intellectual predominance of Germany is a new factor, beginning with Kant. Leibniz, though
a German, wrote almost always in Latin or French, and was very little influenced by Germany in
his philosophy. German idealism after Kant, as well as later German philosophy, was, on the
contrary, profoundly influenced by German history; much of what seems strange in German
philosophical specu-