or its later form in Schellins's natural philosophy. . . . Jacobi did not despise reason ; he rather \)leaded for it ; but reason was not to him a faculty for the creation, dis- covery, or production of truth from itself. By reason he meant, according to the derivation of the word, that which perceives, the inmost and original sense. He did not regard reason and faith as being in conflict with each other, but as one. Faith inwardly supplies what knowl- edge cannot gain. Here .Jacobi united with Kant in acknowledging the insufficiency of our knowledge to produce a demonstration of God and divine tilings. . . . But the vacant place which Kant had therefore left in his system for divine things . . . Jacobi tilled up by the doctrine of faith" (Hurst's Hagenbach, f 7i. Hist. \Hth and l^th Cent, ii, 238 sq.). The whole philosophy of Jacobi is perhaps best stated thus : " All demonstrative systems must necessarily lead to fatalism, which, however, is ir- reconcilable with man's consciousness of the freedom of his rational nature. The general system of nature, in- deed, and man himself, so far as he is a part of that sys- tem, is pure mechanism ; but in man there is unques- tionably an energy which transcends and is superior to sense, or that faculty which is bound up with and regu- lated by the laws of nature. This higher energy is lib- erty or reason, and consequently sense and reason re- veal to man two distinct spheres of his activity — the sensible or visible world, and the invisible or intelli- gible. The existence of these worlds no more admits of demonstrative proof than that of sense and reason themselves. Now sense and reason are the supreme and idtimate principles of aU intellectual operations, and as such legitimize them, while they themselves do not receive their legitimization from aught else ; and the existence of sense and reason necessarily implies the ex- istence of sensible and intelligible objects about which they are conversant. But this existing system of things cannot have originally proceeded either from nature or from man's intellect or reason, for both nature and the human mind are finite and conditionate, and there must be something infinite and unconditionate, superior to and independent both of natmre and man, to be the source and principle of all things. This being is God. Now as man's liberty consists in his personality or ab- solute individuality, for this constitutes his proper es- sence, while the mechanism of nature is hereby distin- guished from man, that none of its members are indi- vidual of character, therefore that which is superior both to nature and to man must be perfectly and supremely individual ; God consequently is one only, and strictly personal. Moreover, as the ground of all subsistence, he cannot be without subsistence ; and as the principle of reason, he cannot be irrational. Of the existence of this divine intelligence, however, all direct proof is as impossible as a demonstration of existence simply. Gen- ersilly, indeed, nothing can be known except upon testi- mony, and whatever rests on testimony is not certainty, 'bntfaith, and such a faith or belief, when its object is the existence of a good and supreme being, is religion." It is apparent, then, that Jacobi may appropriately be look- ed upon as an advocate of religion, but by no means can he be admitted to have been a Christian philosopher ; for, although he believed in a revelation of God, he was " far from taking sides with the beUevers of revelation, in the ecclesiastical sense of the word." If it is proper to class the influence of Jacobi's philosophy with that of Fichte and Schelling, as Fai-rar {Critical History of Free Thourjhf, p. 238) does, it is well at least to concede that these philosophical systems all together certainly "fonned one class of influences, which were operating about the beginning of the 18th century, and ivere tend- ing to redeem alike German literature and theology." "Their first effect was to produce examination of the primary principles of belief, and to excite inquiry ; and, though at first only re-enforcing the idea of morality, they ultimately drew men out of themselves into aspira- tions after the infinite spirit, and developed the sense of dependence, of humility, of unselfishness, of spirituality.
They produced, indeed, evil effects in pantheism and ideology, but the results were partial, the good Avas gen- eral. The problem, What is truth? was through their means remitted to men for reconsideration ; the answers to it elicited from the one school. It is that which I can know; from the other. It is that which I can intuitive- ly feel, threw men upon those unalterable and infallible instincts which God has set in the human breast as the everlasting landmarks of truth, the study of which lifts men ultimately out of error."' One of the most cele- brated advocates of these views of Jacobi we find in Schleiermacher (compare Hagenbach, ii, 332 sq., 339), though, of course, the former only prepared the way for the latter; and, indeed, this " faith philosophy," " with some slight modilications in each case, consequent upon their philosophical system," is the theory not only of Jacobi and of Schleiermacher, but also of Nitzsch, Han- sel ( author of " Limits of Eeligious Thought" ), and probably, also, of the Scotch philosopher Hamilton (compare Cocker, Christianity and Greek Pliilosophy, p. 70 sq.). See Herbst, Biorjraphie in the lilhliothek christlicher Denker (Leipz. ISiJO), i; Max Jacobi, Brief- ■aechsel zwiscken Guthe v. Fr. H. Jacobi (Leipz. 1846) ; Gervinus, Gescliichte d. poet. Nat. Lit. d. Deutschen (3d edit.), iv, 556 sq. ; Chalybaeus, Hist. Specul. Phil. p. 60 sq. ; Ersch u. Gruber, Allgern. Encyklop.; English Cy- clop, s. V.