The PMosbphy of F. H. JacoU. 147 



an anomalous position, which must be explained in one of these 

 two wajzs, namely, either Jacobi was in error in supposing that 

 the head positively demanded pantheism and the heart Christian- 

 ity, or we are constituted with a cruel and irreconcilable antinomy, 

 waging perpetual war in the center of our being, and setting one 

 member against another in a manner for which no development 

 theory can account, and of which no beneficent Creator could be 

 guilty. This is the most important error of which Jacobi can be 

 convicted, as he himself clearly saw. He was fully aware that his 

 doctrines must break into two opposed systems, one of which 

 must be false, by the most positive principles of logical opposiiion. 



An antinomy may well lie under the suspicion of being nothing 

 more than a convenient name under which to cover the short- 

 sightedness of men. CanGrod's laws confiiot ? or can it really be 

 that both the affirmative and negative of any given proposition 

 can be supported with equally strong proofs. By any given man, 

 perhaps they may. In a boys' debating club they often are ; but 

 even the boys usually think that, if they knew all, the scale would 

 promptly turn to one side or the other. With what reason, then, 

 do men talk of antinomies as soon as the pros and cons seem to 

 balance? It is clear that the data upon which rests one of the 

 conflicting judgments must be either inaccurate or inadequate, 

 unless there is a fallacy in the logic. 



A supposed conflict of laws is sometimes attributed to the error 

 of applying reason to matters beyond its sphere, as though there 

 were spheres where reason could mislead, or where it were better, 

 forsooth, to be unreasonable. Both Locke, in his " Essay Con- 

 cerning the Human Understanding," and Kant, in his " Critique 

 of Pure Keason,"' have given expression to views of which this 

 would be a bald, but perhaps not altogether unfair, statement. 

 Not the excess, but the deficiency, of reason leads to error; and 

 laws which really conflict must be human. The Creator of the 

 macrocosm created also the microcosm, and "I doubt not through 

 the ages one increasing purpose runs." Kob the world of the 

 faith that all things fit into the harmonious plan of the Author of 

 all, and the philosophy of history, and the grand system of cor- 

 related sciences, which thrill us with enthusiastic delight as they 



