. The Philosophy of F. H. JacoU. 159 



magically reveals to us a physical universe and enforces its ac- 

 ceptance may similarly discover the Cause of the universe and 

 enforce a belief in that Cause. This it does, and no human race 

 is known that has not some notion of God. 



Clearer and more full than this universal faith are the direct 

 revelations to the spiritually minded, who, like Socrates and 

 Jacobi, seem to have found a shorter way to the knowledge of 

 God than through the regularly accredited prophets. This per- 

 sonal inspiration seems to resemble, in the strength of the convic- 

 tion which it carries, that instinct which Kant has denominated 

 " the voice of God." Brute instinct is concerned with nothing but 

 what is essential to the well-being of the species. All this it fails 

 not to supply. Birds know how to build nests, but they do not 

 know how they know, or what principles require them to build 

 as they do. Men no more about the instincts that supplement 

 reason in their own species. God supplies whatever is out of 

 reach that is essential to any of his creatures. In endowing man 

 with a soul God fixed upon him another necessity quite as urgent 

 as the preservation of his body, namely, the preservation of his 

 soul. The Creator is, then, under an equal, or still greater, obli- 

 gation to supply whatever is demanded by the interests of our 

 spiritual nature. It is not unreasonable, therefore, that we should 

 listen for the voice of God in a new revelation. Jacobi and mill- 

 ions more say they hear it. They find revealed in it the 

 Almighty and an endless life. They touch, as it were, the supra- 

 sensible, and know it by a sort of spiritual empiricism. They are 

 profoundly convinced. The demonstrations of the spirit are irre- 

 sistible, but if denied, they can no more be forced upon a skeptic 

 than the axioms of geometry. 



We cannot too highly applaud the opinion of Victor Cousin, 

 that " the error of Jacobi's school was not to see that this truth- 

 speaking enthusiasm is only a purer and higher application of 

 reason, in such manner that faith has its root in reason." This 

 " enthusiasm," in the mouth of Cousin, suggests no reproach, but 

 rather implies a reason which flies while the sj/llogism creeps. It 

 must be conceded also that this slower method is, by its very 

 nature, debarred from ever demonstrating the infinite, and thus 



