anti-intellectualism, but they did not avoid, as he did, the
attractive doctrine of an inner intuition; according to them we can
somehow grasp the supersensible in an inner experience which Fichte
called intellectual, Schelling artistic, Schleiermacher religious. The
bankruptcy of the intelligence was overcome in their systems by the
discovery of a faculty that revealed to them the living, dynamic
nature of the universe. They were all more or less influenced by the
romantic currents of the times, seeking with Herder and Jacobi an
approach to the heart of things other than through the categories
of logic. Like Lessing and Goethe, they were also attracted to
the pantheistic teaching of Spinoza, though rejecting its rigid
determinism so far as it might affect the human will. They likewise
accepted the idea of development which the leaders of German
literature, Lessing, Herder, and Goethe, had already opposed to the
unhistorical _Aufklärung_, and which came to play such a prominent
part in the great system of Hegel.

Johann Gottlieb Fichte was born in Ramenau, Oberlausitz, May 19, 1762,
the son of a poor weaver. Through the generosity of a nobleman,
the gifted lad was enabled to follow his intellectual bent; after
attending the schools at Meissen and Schulpforta he studied theology
at the universities of Jena, Leipzig, and Wittenberg with the purpose
of entering the ministry. His poverty frequently compelled him to
interrupt his studies by accepting private tutorships in families, so
that he never succeeded in preparing him self for the examinations. In
1790 he became acquainted with Kant's philosophy, which two students
had asked him to expound to them, and to which he now devoted himself
with feverish zeal. It revolutionized his entire mode of thought and
determined the course of his life. The anonymous publication of his
book, _Attempt at a Critique of all Revelation_, in 1792, written