antage of a good education.
Fichte attended school in Meissen and in Pforta, and was a student of
theology at the universities of Jena and Leipsic. While a tutor in Zurich
he made the acquaintance of Lavater and Pestalozzi, as well as of his
future wife, Johanna Rahn, a niece of Klopstock. Returning to Leipsic, his
whole mode of thought was revolutionized by the Kantian philosophy, in
which it was his duty to instruct a pupil. This gives to the mind, as his
letters confess, an inconceivable elevation above all earthly things. "I
have adopted a nobler morality, and, instead of occupying myself with
things without me, have been occupied more with myself." "I now believe
with all my heart in human freedom, and am convinced that only on this
supposition duty and virtue of any kind are possible." "I live in a new
world since I have read the _Critique of Practical Reason_. Things which
I believed never could be proved to me, _e.g._, the idea of an absolute
freedom and duty, have been proved, and I feel the happier for it. It is
inconceivable what reverence for humanity, what power this philosophy gives
us, what a blessing it is for an age in which the citadels of morality
had been destroyed, and the idea of duty blotted out from all the
dictionaries!" A journey to Warsaw, whither he had been attracted by the
expectation of securing a position as a private tutor, soon afforded him
the opportunity of visiting at Koenigsberg the author of the system which
had effected so radical a transformation in his convictions. His rapidly
written treatise, _Essay toward a Critique of All Revelation_, attained the
end to which its inception was due by gaining for its author a favorable
reception from the honored master. Kant secured for Fichte a tutor's
position in Dantzic, and a publisher for his maiden work. When this
appeared, at Easter, 1792, the name of its author was by oversight omitted
from the title page, together with the preface, which had been furnished
after the rest of the book; and as the anonymous work was universally
ascribed to Kant (whose religious philosophy was at this time eagerly
looked for), the young writer became famous at a stroke as soon as the
error was explained. A second edition was issued as early as the following
year.

After his marriage in Zurich, where he had completed several political
treatises (the address, _Reclamation of the Freedom of Thought from the
Princes of Europe, who have hitherto suppressed it