 Although Novalis admires Fichte, he is more cautious in his attitude than many of his contemporaries. In the Fichte Studies he polemically asks whether Fichte has not “too arbitrarily packed everything into the I” (FS #5). And in Notes for a Romantic Encyclopaedia (Das Allgemeine Brouillon), written a few years later, his critique is poignantly articulated in the analogy between the Fichtean ego and the desolate main character of Daniel Defoe’s famous novel: “Fichte’s ego—is a Robinson Crusoe—a scientific fiction” (AB #717).