ABSTRACT
Three Germans, arbitrarily picked out from a multitude. The three figures of this chapter—Schopenhauer, Fichte, and Wentscher—are a fair cross section through the various philosophical schools from the seventeenth to the end of the nineteenth century in Germany. Schopenhauer's obsessive and frenzied "idée fixe" regarding will is expressed in the following sentences from his work The World as Will and Idea. Schopenhauer regarded Johann Gottlieb Fichte as his archenemy. Fichte did not preach solipsism, but he behaved like a solipsist. The three philosophers in this chapter showed a downward trend in religious commitment to any interest in religious affairs. This downward trend became apparent after Hegel, one of the last German thinkers who used God as the starting point of his system. God figures in Wentscher's writings but he kept within the bounds of a general account at the end of his work.
