German philosopher (1762-1814) whose work forms a bridge between the ideas of Kant and Hegel. ALS in German, signed “J. G. Fichte,” four pages on two adjoining sheets, 7.5 x 8.75, March 28, 1793. Lengthy handwritten letter to Gottlieb Hufeland, professor of law in Jena and one of the editors of 'Allgemeine Literaturzeitung,' who asked Fichte for cooperation. The main portion of the letter concerns Fichte’s 1792 script 'Vermerk einer Kritik aller Offenbarung,' which had been mistakenly issued without the author's name and was thus attributed to Kant. During the literary controversies that followed, Hufeland had taken Fichte's side.
In part (translated): "No thanks for your courageous and, to me, infinitely honorable defense of my work against the spiteful attack of the anonymous correspondent in the Allgemeine Deutsche Bibliothek! You did what you recognized as right, noble man—may your heart reward you! But what must you now feel in the face of the new, raging attack from the reviewer…
It pains me, deeply pains me, to be the innocent cause of a literary feud carried out in such a tone. The entirely innocent cause—I had attached my name and a modest preface to the work, which my publisher omitted at first… And now the reviewer has the malicious audacity to claim that I deliberately imitated Kant’s style to play a joke on the public! Should one not best answer such insolence with silent contempt? That is my resolution.
The honor of everyone involved in this matter will, I believe, depend on whether I can uphold my theory or not. The reviewer’s objections are all based on a blatant distortion of my deduction of the concept of revelation, which he presents as objectively valid, in order to place me in the most obvious contradiction with the subsequent claim that no proof for the reality of revelation can be provided.
A few more contributions to the history of this flattering—yet so enraging to my opponents—confusion:
A man who ought to know what is Kantian, if anyone does said long before my manuscript was printed that he foresaw the possibility of such a confusion. One of our most renowned theologians writes to me that he too attributed the work to Kant… Kant himself, in a letter to me, called both the work and its review in the Allgemeine Litteraturzeitung thorough; and it was certainly not his intention to harm either the then-unknown reviewer or me by revealing my name, as the reviewer maliciously insinuates." In fine condition, with slight show-through from handwriting to opposite sides.
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