FIACRE, ft-a'cr (FIACHRACH), SAINT: Irish hermit; b. in Ireland c. 610; d. at Breuil, near Meaux (27 m. e.n.e. Of Paris), c. 670. Seeking seclusion he went to France with a few companions and erected a small monastery in the woods near Meaux, and also a small dwelling-house, in which he received his guests. No woman was allowed to enter his monastery. As early "the ninth century he had acquired great fame as a worker of miracles. He was thought to have effected wonderful cures merely by the laying on of his hands; and pilgrims flocked to his shrine, believing that his remains still possessed healing power. The shrine containing his remains, which was removed to the cathedral of Meaux in 1568, has been opened frequently, lastly in 1637, when some of the vertebrae were given to Carding Richelieu. Fiacre is the patron saint of gardeners and is commemorated on Aug. 30. In France his. name has been Perpetuated by the. fact that in 1640 a merchant in Paris who had carriages to rent placed the image of St. Fiacre over his door and called the establishment the Hdtel de St. Fiacre ; in course of time his carriages came to be known as " Fiatres," and the word passed into the French language as the common term for a public carriage.

Bibliography: ASB, Aug., vi. 598--62D; ASM am. II., 598-802; A.. J. Ansart. Riot. de S. Fiaae. mss. 1782; Ramrd, La Vie et lee miradss de S. Fiaere, ib. 1885 (founded on the ASB); Cirandtrait, Vie de S. Fiacre, Meaux, 1881; DCB, ii. 509-510.

FICHTE, ffa'te, IMMAMUEL HERMANN: German philosopher, son of Johann Gottlieb Fichte (q.v.); b. at Jena July 18, 1797; d. at Stuttgart Aug. 8, 1879. He was for many years a gymnasial professor at Saarbracken and Düsseldorf, and then professor of philosophy at Bonn 1836-42 (ordinary professor after 1840), and at Tübingen 1842-63. In 1863 he retired from the university and soon afterward settled in Stuttgart. He edited his father's works, founded and edited the Zeitschrift for Philosophie und spokulative Theologie, and was a prolific writer on philosophy. In metaphysics his position was that of a mediator between the two conflicting views represented by Hegel and Herbart, and, too, in. the interest of theology. His great aim was to secure a philosophical basis for the personality of God. Taking the monadology of Leibnitz as the model of a system embracing unity in plurality and plurality in unity, he sought to fuse extreme spiritualistic monism and extreme pluralistic realism into what he called concrete theism. The more important of his independent works are, Beftrage zur Charakaristik der neuern Phtlosophie (Sulzbach, 1829- 2d ed., completely rewritten, 1841);, Religion u;i~ Philosophie (Heidelberg, 1834); Die speculatiiv Theologie (3 parts, der Ethik (2 vols Leipsic, 1850-53); .Ystc. *; Schriften (2 vols., =p',S~logie (1856); VermiScht icht und ihre Be 1869~; Die theistische Weltans re zht ung (1873); and Der neuere SPiritualiSmu8 V (1878).

Bibliography: - m Eucken, in Zeils&rift I& ph""Ophid U.d phiWophi-he Kritik, ex (1897), 1-7; E. von Hartnu Geschichte der MdtaPhY&'k1 "' 367-379'Leipsic'looo. MR I