The Philosophy of F. H. Jacohi. 155 



in his highest, deepest, and most personal consciousness, so the 

 Giver of this spirit, God himself, is present to man through hia 

 heart just as nature is present to him through his senses. No 

 sensible object can so seiz«i upon the mind and irresistibly prove 

 itself real, as those absolute objects, the true, the good, the beau- 

 tiful, and the sublime, which can be seen with the eye of the 

 spirit. We venture the bold speech that we believe in God be- 

 cause we see him, although he cannot be seen with the eye of 

 this body." TIais spiritual vision is quite as clear as the physical ; 

 it is attended with no less feeling immediately produced in the 

 soul, than comes to the soul through the office of the outward 

 eye. It is not the eye that sees, but the soul by means of the 

 eye. Such seeing is mediate, while Jacobi, if he sees God at all, 

 must see him immediately, with no Moses and no organ of sense 

 to stand between. Actual perception is not denied to sensation 

 when it is referred to its cause. Who shall dispute that this in- 

 tuition of an invisible Deity possesses at least as high claims to 

 the character of a real perception as the sensations, exposed as 

 they are to the defects of the physical body? May not the in- 

 tuition even have some advantage, in the certainty of the objective 

 existence over mediate knowledge, at least to the subject of it? 



Sir William Hamilton maintains that in intuition cognition is 

 given unconditionally as a fact, while, in all representative per- 

 ception, the cognition is problematical. Should it be objected 

 that Hamilton assumed, in the intuition of which he speaks, that 

 the mind is conscious of only its own modification without rela- 

 tion to any object beyond the sphere of consciousness, it ought to 

 be sufficient to show that Jacobi's claims find ample room for 

 lealization under the careful definitions of this most astute phi- 

 losopher. We do not understand Jacobi to claim that his intu- 

 itions reach to a cause, which, as perceived, is outside of himself, 

 but rather that this knowledge is simple, and contains in it, as 

 Hamilton himself says, " nothing beyond the mere consciousness, 

 by that which knows, of that which is known." This conscious- 

 ness of necessity cannot reach out and take hold of the external ; 

 but if the external be spiritual in its nature, as it cannot impress 

 itself upon any physical sense, so no physical barrier can obstruct 



