620 PHILOSOPHICAL THOUGHT. 



him, he had approached independently the great problem 

 of philosophy, the religious problem, before he experi- 

 enced the influence of Kant's writings. Jacobi may be 

 counted among the philosophers of common-sense. He 

 never admitted that the dualism of reasoned and in- 

 tuitive knowledge could be overcome. He was influ- 

 enced by English thinkers, such as Shaftesbury, Locke, 

 and Hume, but his conception of sense was not the 

 narrow meaning of the word. Sense meant for him 

 likewise sentiment. The earlier writings through which 

 he became known would have classed him with the 

 novelists. The influence of English writers, such as 

 Richardson and Goldsmith, is quite apparent, but in 

 addition to this he also came early under the influence 

 of the writings of Eousseau through his acquaintance 

 with the Genevese philosophers Le Sage and Bonnet. 

 Jacobi had not only common-sense, he had also senti- 

 ment and sensitiveness. A pure nature with a high 

 moral tone, he nevertheless inclined towards an 

 ajsthetical view of morality, and thus it came that 

 both the sentimental and jesthetical side of his nature 

 combined to put him in opposition to Kant, to whom 

 common- sense was intellectually insufficient and whose 

 ethical system was based exclusively upon the ideas 

 of duty and obligation. Jacobi was a divided nature, 

 and he made no attempt to bring the two sides of 

 his philosophy into reasoned agreement — in fact, he 

 maintained that such dualism was unavoidable and in- 

 herent in the human mind. He had a considerable 

 personal and literary influence on other thinkers such 

 as Goethe, Fichte, and Sehleiermacher, but they all 



