for Eng.Kelvin History assignment 2

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Johann Gottlieb Fichte: Address to the German Nation, 1806

Johann Gottlieb Fichte (1762-1814) was a German philosopher who, under the influence of Kant, promoted subjective idealism [i.e. the notion that reality exists inasmuch as the human mind perceives it, and that human life is an ongoing interpretation of the ego’s experiences of reality: “all that is is the ego”] and ethical idealism [i.e. the notion that morality is grounded in a universal moral (or divine) order, and that the ego’s goal was to harmonize itself with this moral order: “if I ought I can”]. In politics, he started by being very cosmopolitan (place of birth and ethnicity were “unnatural” constraints placed on the ego), and in favor of the rights of the individual (the “ego”) over the state (an artificial reality outside the ego). Individuals were free, but had the duty to treat each other as beings who shared the same goal of achieving moral perfection (which limited freedom). The state existed solely to ensure the protection of the individual from those who did not recognize this duty. As human society progressed morally, the state would become superfluous. As for the French Revolution - in 1794 he wrote a pamphlet in support of the revolutionaries’ actions, as they were individuals (“egos”) acting against an oppressive external structure (the French monarchy). This drew accusations that he was a “German Jacobin.” After Napoleon invaded the Germanic states in 1806, however, Fichte switched to a nationalistic stance, defending the community of Germans against the chaos and division brought about by the French imperialistic drive. He addressed several speeches to the German nobility, trying to persuade them to unite against the common enemy. In his later years, he came to believe that the state had the right and duty to intervene in the lives of individuals and assign them roles in the burgeoning German economy. The state was now seen as a reflection of the universal moral order, with which the individual had to live in harmony (by obeying its commandments). The ideal state was a complex industrial commonwealth which controlled all manufacturing and all trade with foreign countries, and allocated to each citizen his work and his wages. Some historians see in these ideas (perhaps anachronistically) the first traces of what would become the German national-socialism.

The first, original, and truly natural boundaries of a state are beyond doubt its internal

boundaries. Those who speak the same language are joined to each other by a multitude of

invisible bonds by nature herself, long before any manifestation of human culture begins; they

understand each other and have the power of continuing to make themselves understood more

and more clearly; they belong together and are by nature one and an inseparable whole. Such a

whole, if it wishes to absorb and mingle with itself any other people of different descent and

language, cannot do so without itself becoming confused, in the beginning at any rate, and

violently disturbing the even progress of its culture. So an internal boundary is drawn between

those who have a common way of speaking and thinking and the rest. […] Thus was the German

nation, united within itself by language, culture and history, and sharply enough severed from the

other people living in the middle of Europe, an invisible wall dividing peoples not akin.

That things should remain thus did not suit the selfishness of foreign countries, whose

calculations did not look more than one moment ahead. They found German bravery useful in

waging their wars and German hands useful to snatch the booty from their rivals. A means had to

be found to attain this end, and foreign cunning won an easy victory over German ingenuousness

and lack of suspicion. It was foreign countries which first made use of the division of mind

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produced by religious disputes in Germany to break up the close inner unity of Germany into

separate and disconnected parts.

They knew how to present each of the German states that had arisen in the lap of one nation as a

natural enemy to the others, against which each state must be perpetually on its guard. A nation

which had no enemy except those foreign countries themselves, and no concern except setting

itself with united strength against their seductive craft and cunning, became deeply divided. On

the other hand, they knew how to make themselves appear to the German states as natural allies

against the danger threatening them from their own countrymen, as allies with whom alone they

would themselves stand or fall, and whose enterprises they must in turn support with all their

might. It was only because of this artificial bond with foreign countries that all the disputes

which have arisen about any matter whatsoever in the Old World or the New became disputes of

the German states which had no actual dispute with one another.

Every war, no matter what its cause, had to be fought out on German soil and with German

blood; every disturbance of the power balance had to be adjusted in that nation to which such

power was refused; and the German states, whose separate existence was in itself contrary to all

nature and reason, were compelled, in order that they might count for something, to act as

supplements of the chief forces in the scale of the European equilibrium, whose movement they

followed blindly and without any will of their own. For long enough Germans belonged only to

some foreign party or other, and one seldom came across a man who supported the party of the

Germans, and was of the opinion that this country ought to make an alliance with itself.

Now, at last, let us be bold enough to look at the deceptive vision of a universal monarchy,

which people are beginning to hold up for public veneration, and let us perceive how hateful and

contrary to reason that vision is. Spiritual nature was able to present the essence of humanity in

extremely diverse gradations in individuals and in individuality as a whole, in nations. Only

when each nation, left to itself, develops and forms itself in accordance with its own peculiar

quality, and only when in every nation each individual develops himself in accordance with that

common quality, as well as in accordance with his own peculiar quality – then, and then only,

does the manifestation of divine order appear in its true mirror [i.e. the individual and the nation]

as it ought to be. And only a man who either entirely lacks the notion of the rule of law and

divine order, or else is their obdurate enemy, could take upon himself to interfere with that law,

which is the highest law in the spiritual world! Only if a nation remains in touch with the source

of original life – only in that is to be found the guarantee of its present and future worth, virtue,

and merit. If a nation’s qualities are dulled by mixing them with others’ qualities, or worn away

by friction, a flatness will result that will bring about a separation from the divine order, and this

in its turn will cause all men to be fused together in a uniform and collective destruction.

Johann Gottlieb Fichte, “Thirteenth Address,” in Addresses to the German Nation, ed. George A. Kelly

(New York 1968), pp. 190-191,193-194,197-198.

https://sourcebooks.fordham.edu/Halsall/mod/1806fichte.asp