ot overlooked, much less denied, but combined in one with the
second (the absolute ego or the moral order of the world) and the one
before the last (moral action). It is incorrect to say that, in his later
doctrine, Fichte substituted the inactive absolute in place of the active
absolute ego, and the quiet blessedness of contemplation in place of
ceaseless action. Not in place of these, but beyond them, while all
else remains as it was. The categorical imperative, the absolute ego or
knowledge is no longer God himself, but the first manifestation of God,
though a necessary revelation of him. Religion had previously been included
for Fichte in moral action; now fellowship with God goes beyond this,
though morality remains its indispensable condition and inseparable
companion. Finally, how to construe the previously avoided predicate,
being, in relation to the Deity, is shown by the no less frequent
designation of the absolute as the "Universal Life." The expression being,
which it must be confessed is ambiguous, here signifies in our opinion only
the quiet, self-identical activity of the absolute, in opposition to the
unresting, changeful activity of the world-order and its finite organs, not
that inert and dead being posited by the ego, the ascription of which to
the Deity Fichte had forbidden in his essay which had been charged with
atheism, not to speak of the existence-mode of a particular self-conscious
and personal being. Instead of speaking of a conversion of Fichte to
the position of his opponents, we might rather venture the paradoxical
assertion, that, when he characterizes the absolute as the only true being,
he intends to produce the same view in the mind of the reader as in his
earlier years, when he expressed himself against the application of the
concepts existence, substance, and conscious personality to God, on the
ground that they are categories of sense. The chief thing, at least,
remains unaltered: the opposition to a view of religion which transforms
the sublime and sacred teaching of Christianity "into an enervating
doctrine of happiness."

CHAPTER XI.

SCHELLING.

Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph (von) Schelling was born January 27, 1775, at
Leonberg (in Wuertemberg), and died August 20, 1854, at the baths of Ragatz
(in Switzerland). In 1790-95 he attended the seminary at Tuebingen, in
company with Hoelderlin and Hegel, who were five years older than himself;
at seventeen he published a dissertation