624 PHILOSOPHICAL THOUGHT. 



21. portant suggestions contained in Kant's ' Critiques ' and 



Fichte. 



set himself to follow out the trains of reasoning which 

 they indicated was Fichte. He did not propose merely 

 to criticise Kant's doctrine or to take up single points, 

 as had been done by others ; he proposed to think out 

 the Kantian scheme to its completion and to bring 

 together the different lines of reasoning. But in addi- 

 tion to the Kantian philosophy there was another and 

 distinct philosophical influence which made itself felt in 

 Fichte's system. This influence came through the re- 

 newed study of Spinoza's works, which had been culti- 

 vated outside and before the appearance of the Kantian 

 philosophy by many prominent and original thinkers in 

 Germany. It formed the subject of an interesting con- 

 versation which Jacobi had with Lessing shortly before 

 the death of the latter and before the appearance, in the 

 same year, of Kant's first ' Critique.' Jacobi himself 

 published later an account of this conversation, and also 

 an exposition of Spinoza's system as well as of that of 

 Hume ; and there is no doubt that through these writ- 

 ings, which interested a much larger circle than did the 

 writings of Kant, the philosophical horizon was greatly 

 widened. 



Since that time three distinct philosophical aspects 

 have exerted a changing and recurrent influence upon 

 all the most important Continental thought. These 

 three aspects are identified with the names of Kant, 

 Spinoza, and Leibniz. It may be said that Kant 

 and Spinoza dominate the earlier, Kant and Leibniz 

 the later, philosophy of the century. 



Still more than was the case with Kant and Jacobi 



