 In 1813 Fichte canceled his lectures so that his students could enlist in the “War of Liberation” against Napoleon, of which Fichte himself proved to be an indirect casualty. From his wife, who was serving as a volunteer nurse in a Berlin military hospital, he contracted a fatal infection of which he died on January 29, 1814. Almost to the moment of his death he continued his lifelong efforts to rethink and to re-examine the basic foundations and systematic implications of his philosophy, as is rather poignantly reflected in the remarkable philosophical “Diary” in which he recorded his thoughts during this final period.