154 Wisconsin Academy of /Sciences, A7-ts, and Letters. 



a conviction of the demands of the understanding. A stronger 

 logical faculty would have scorned the ambiguous position which 

 Jacobi under protest occupied. It may not be evident which was 

 the weaker, his "faith" or his reason, but his preference between 

 the horns of his dilemma was unmistakable and strong. The 

 sphere of the simple understanding he plainly calls inferior, since 

 it sadly disappoints the highest aspirations of which we are capa- 

 ble. These are satisfied in the intuitions of the divine, in which 

 Jacobi realizes the highest of all possible objective revelations. 

 To rescue these intuitions from the fatal monism of Spinoza, 

 Jacobi deliberately sacrificed his philosophy, such as it was, in 

 favor of his faith. From that moment he formed a marked con- 

 trast with Spinoza. The latter knew no personal God ; Jacobi 

 ever felt his presence and heard his voice. Spinoza knew no 

 causes except as immanent in matter and necessary ; Jacobi recog- 

 nized a Final Cause, and was conscious of his own freedom, and 

 of his own accountability. Spinoza consequently enjoys a pas- 

 sionless repose, fearing nothing and hoping nothing, and witness- 

 ing the dissolution of his body with a stolid resignation, regarding 

 his decay as another proof of his brotherhood with the clod. 

 Jacobi, however, quick with the pulsations of 'an endless life, 

 stretching eagerly forward to catch glimpses of the dawning of 

 the bright to-morrow of his soul's desire, is by no means satisfied 

 with the realizations of this life, but is more than satisfied with 

 its hopes. 



With Fichte and his ideal projection of subjective images 

 Jacobi felt considerable sympathy. Fichte's soul was quick to 

 recognize the spiritual forces of the universe, but he did not per- 

 ceive their objective character. At this point Jacobi resists again 

 an apparently valid conclusion in the clear light of his own in- 

 tuitions. He was sure he saw, in the moral order of the world, 

 a Father's hand ; Fichte saw only a reflection of his own volitional 

 activity. Such intolerable consequences of the reasoning of his 

 metaphysical contemporaries, Jacobi escaped by resorting to the 

 oracles of a higher authority. "There dwells within us," he said, 

 "a spirit sent immediately from God, constituting the most essen- 

 tial part of our human nature. As this spirit is present to man 



