of F. H. Jahn's unfinished Politico-military History of Denmark under the United Crowns, from King Oluf and Margarethe to the death of King Hans. He died 26th August, 1851.—M. H.
* FIBIGER, Johannes Henrik Tauber, born at Nykjöbing, 27th January, 1821, left the school of Rœskilde in 1837, became theological candidate in 1845, and chaplain of the hospital of Haderslev in 1851, and colleague of the high school there, where he acquired a reputation for various tragedies founded on scripture history, as, "Jephtha's Daughter," "Jeremiah," and "John the Baptist," in which he displays real pictorial power and a profound and earnest spirit. In his "Kors og Kjœrlighed," a domestic tragedy, he has endeavoured to open a new path for his genius, and has succeeded in giving the tone and spirit of the northern Kjœmpeviser, or heroic ballads.—M. H.
* FIBIGER, Mathilde, daughter of Lieutenant-colonel Fibiger, born at Copenhagen, 13th December, 1830, is well-known in Danish literature as the author of "Clara Raphael," a work which produced a great effect. The young and gifted author advocated in its pages, with the inspiration of genius and truth, the necessity for a freer scope being given to woman, so that she might work out an independent career for herself, according to the gifts which God has given her, and be able more fully to develope a higher life in the sphere both of religion and art. Her succeeding works—"Et. Bosog" (a Visit), a sketch from real life, and "Minona," have not excited equal attention, but they evidence the rich natural powers of the author.—M. H.
FICHET or FISHET, Guillaume, a theologian and rhetorician of the second half of the fifteenth century. The precise dates of his birth and death are unknown. Authorities differ as to his birth-place; some fixing it at Aunay, near Paris, and others at Petit Bornand in Savoy. He became a doctor and prior of the Sorbonne in 1454, and rector of the university of Paris in 1467, where he taught rhetoric, philosophy, and divinity. Louis XI. employed him in several important negotiations. Bessarion dedicated to him his Exhortation to the Christian princes to make war against the Turks. He was chamberlain of Pope Sixtus IV. Being zealous for the advancement of learning, he brought over from Germany the printers Crautz, Gering, and Friburgher, and established a printing-press in the Sorbonne. His treatise on "Rhetoric" and "Epistles" is now a rare book, and has been sold as high as £50.—W. A. B.
FICHTE, Johann Gottlieb, one of the greatest names in the history of modern philosophy. He was born at Rammenau in Upper Lusatia on the 19th May, 1762. The chief wealth of his father seems to have been a high and noble character. Though Fichte was even more a man of action than of thought, yet his life was singularly uneventful. As the descendant of a Swedish officer who had settled in Germany at the time of the Thirty Years' war, Fichte, from his aggressive temper and valiant persistency, might not unfitly be called the soldier of philosophy, and it is the individuality more than the genius which he threw into philosophy which marks his connection with it. At an early age he attracted the attention of the Baron von Miltitz, by whose help he was enabled to enjoy the benefits of a liberal education. Some ill-treatment which he had to suffer at the college of Schulpforte induced him, when about fourteen, to form the resolution of becoming a second Robinson Crusoe; and he was already on the way to Hamburg to find the distant and solitary island, when the thought of his mother caused him to renounce his project. He was, however, destined to be a kind of Robinson Crusoe in metaphysical science. This romantic incident apart, Fichte was a hard student, finding time for the chief authors of his own country as well as for the foremost writers of antiquity. His university career commenced at Jena, and was continued at Leipzig and Wittenberg. The death of the Baron von Miltitz threw him on his own resources; and for nine years he was a tutor principally at Zurich, where he formed a friendship with Pestalozzi—many of whoso ideas on education he adopted. At Zurich he was likewise introduced to a lady of the name of Rahn, a niece of Klopstock, who was destined to be his wife. In 1790 he returned to Germany, to seek there work more congenial to his taste than that of preceptor. After a disheartening pilgrimage which extended from Germany to Poland, he arrived in extreme distress at Königsberg, from which, as from a throne, Kant was dominating the world of thought. It is said that Kant received him very coldly, and refused even to relieve his most urgent wants. As Kant was not a heartless man, he was, perhaps, swayed by some prejudice. In 1792 Fichte's first production appeared; it was entitled "An Attempt at a Critique of All Revelation." It showed the bold inquirer, but not the philosophical revolutionist. About this time Fichte was an enthusiast in favour of the stupendous movement going on in France, which had not yet been disgraced by lawlessness, madness, and butchery. In 1793, having gone for a season to Zurich, he wrote two works in vindication of that grand epic at Paris, which was so soon to change into the bloodiest of tragedies. Fichte accepted in 1794 the professorship of philosophy at Jena, and now began for him a double empire—an elevating, strengthening, transforming influence on the minds of the numerous students at the university; and a direct and daring impulse given to that metaphysical development in Germany, which Kant had begun. It is a mistake to believe that Kant founded a metaphysical system. Kant, though the acutest of logicians, was not properly a metaphysician at all. With his logical weapons he demolished metaphysical systems, but he created none. When, therefore, it is said that Fichte continued Kant, this is no further true than that he was the first who, on the wreck which Kant had made, attempted to build something positive, and that something was a compound of the most exalted idealism, and the most invincible individuality. Fichte was gifted with the most energetic, heroic will, and his doctrine was simply the apotheosis of the human will. There are two kinds of pantheism—that wherein the individual expands himself into the universe, and that wherein he absorbs it; we do not use the word pantheism here in any opprobrious sense. Now, Fichte's pantheism was of the former kind; and hence, also, it has far more of moral than of metaphysical importance. Every eminent philosophical faith expresses three things—a link in the filiation; a point in the unfolding of human thought, the essential being of its author; and that which is deepest in contemporary, social, and political movements. A doctrine such as Fichte taught, arises either in times of brightest hope or of darkest despair. It was to combat darkest despair that stoicism sprang forth; it was in response to brightest hope, to the dreams excited by the French revolution, that Fichte proclaimed an evangel fit for demigods, rather than for men. Afterwards, when disenchantment came, and Germany had to fight for its existence, he gave to his doctrine, without in the main changing it, a religious garb and a mystical spirit. Fichte edited, along with his friend Niethammer, a philosophical journal, in which he inserted an article that brought upon him a ridiculous charge of atheism; as through reason, if not through the heart, no one could be more thoroughly penetrated by the grandeur of Deity. This calumny, against which he strenuously defended himself, led to his resignation. A Prussian, he sought a refuge in Prussia. In 1805 he was appointed professor of philosophy at Erlangen. His work at this time was almost more patriotic than philosophical. Mainly through the incapacity and vacillation of Frederick William III., Prussia took a most craven attitude towards France, and trying in a moment of impatience to break the degrading bondage, was crushed in October, 1806, at Jena. It was during the French occupation that Fichte delivered at Berlin his "Addresses to the German Nation," a truly heroic book, and the most eloquent of all his works. Fichte had often had to battle with adverse circumstances, and the recent war had made him, like the king, a fugitive. But when he finally fixed his residence at Berlin, he was placed high in office at the new university there, the scheme of studies in which had been principally his creation. When the war of liberation burst forth, Fichte flung himself into the contest with the noblest devotedness. His puissant prophetic voice was heard rousing the ancient German memories, the ancient German spirit. If he did not actually gird on the sword, he flashed, himself a sword, before the eyes of his countrymen. So sublime was his disregard of self, that he applied to be an almoner in one of the regiments. In the fulness of his influence, in the height of his renown, in the maturity of his genius, Fichte died. During the war of liberation a number of sick and wounded soldiers had been left at Berlin. Fichte's wife, a woman of a noble nature worthy of his own, ministered mercifully with other excellent ladies to the poor soldiers—many of whom were French. She caught the hospital fever, and communicated it to her husband; she recovered, but the disease carried him off on the 28th January, 1814. Fichte was not tall, but he was strongly built; he had the ample chest, the rugged leonine muscle, the sure glance, and the firm tread of an ancient Roman. He might be
