[Footnote: Three years later, however, Fichte maintained in his patriotic Discourses to the German Nation (1807) that in 1804 man had crossed the threshold of the fourth epoch.

He asserted that the progress of "culture" and science will depend henceforward chiefly on Germany.] Fichte has deduced this scheme purely a priori without any reference to actual experience.

"The philosopher," he says, "follows the a priori thread of the world-plan which is clear to him without any history; and if he makes use of history, it is not to prove anything, since his theses are already proved independently of all history." Historical development is thus presented as a necessary progress towards a goal which is known but cannot be reached.

And this fact as to the destiny of the race constitutes the basis of morality, of which the fundamental law is to act in such a way as to promote the free realisation of reason upon earth.

It has been claimed by a recent critic that Fichte was the first modern philosopher to humanise morals.