1804.] 
This general fa&t is then regarded as a 
fecondary faét to which another is oppoted ; 
itis prefumed that one (till more general 
exifts which comprehends both; and this 
procefs is continued as long as poffible. 
By this operation,which the author bim- 
felf compares totheintegralcalculus, andto 
which he has given mathematical forms, he, 
at length, arrives at the primitive unity, 
im which thought and matter, reft and mo- 
tion, exiftence and non-exiftence, are united, 
He then produces all nature, at pleafure, 
by the differential calculus*,and keeps you 
sn conftant aftonifhment by the boldre!s of 
his career, and by the confidence with 
which he afferts the ftrangeft paradoxes, 
and fometimes the mof extravagant ob- 
Jeurities. His primitive unity is neither 
God nor matter, it is both; nothing is 
perceived diftingtly, it is a mathematical 
“point, but it becomes every thing in the 
hand of the fpeculator, The univerfe is 
produced from it by an evolution which 
has no limits. 
This fyftem is derived from that of Spi- 
nofa, combined with Fichte’s ideas. It 
relembles the doftrine of the {chool of Eleus 
among theancients. Cicero, fpeaxingof Xe- 
nophanes, fays: Dixit unum effe omnia,neque 
id ele mutabile, et id effe Deum, neque zatum 
ufquam et fempiternum. ** He taught that 
the univerfe is one, that it is immutable, 
that it is God, that it never had any com. 
mencement but is eternal.” The reproach 
which the fame writer makes to that an- 
ctent philofopher is likewile applicable to 
it: De ipfa mente reprehenditur ut cetert, 
de infinitate autem vehementius, in gua nihil 
meque fentiens neque conjuncium effe poteff. 
** His opinion on the foul is blamed like 
that of other philofophers, but fi! more 
what he fays on infinity, in which there 
Cannot exift either fenfation or connec- 
tien.” 
_ One of the mofi fingular refults of this 
philofophy, taught ina Protefiant country, 
and nearly approaching to Atheifm, is the 
return of its difciples towards the Catholic 
religion; not as being the true religion, 
but as being the moft poetical and more 
favourable to that myftical exaltation of 
the mind which has fo much analogy to 
the abftragtions of the higheft department 
of metaphyfics, and fti!l more to the al- 
* The author gives the appellation of indif- 
Jerence to that fide on which objeéis refemble 
Primitive unity, and of difference to that which 
charagterizes their individual nature. He 
defiznates by the name of poles the faéts or 
Principles of nature which he oppofes te each 
other. 
On the prefent State of Philsfophy in Germany. 
207 
moft arbitrary power given to the imagins 
ation by the method of that {chool.* 
In other refpects, with Schelling, as well 
as Fichte, human reafon is the fupreme 
reafon. The former, who,’ at leaf, ad- 
mits the fimultaneous-exitience of feveral 
particular reafons, confiders the union of 
tnefe individual reafons as the univerfal 
reafon, which he whimfically denominates 
the expojing power, the moral agent of the 
divinity. With acertain fect of idealifts, 
this is the only thing that is real in this 
immenfe whole, which we denominate the 
univerfe. 
The union of the faithful of this fchool 
forms, therefore, an invifible church, an 
ideal fraternity, to which the molt zealous 
members give as a fymbol and watch-word 
the Virgin Mary: following, in this re- 
{pect, the example of various Catholic 
authors, both myftics and pcets, and par- 
ticularly of Dante, who, treading, in fome 
meafure, in King Solomon’s fteps, pre- 
fents the Virgin as a fymbol of the church. — 
It is, doubtlefs, ridiculous to fee rofaries 
in the hands of thefe new fedtaries, who 
reckon Spinofa among their greateft pro- 
phets, and who {peak of the creation of the 
univerfe as if it was from the exertion and 
even belonged to the duty of each of them. 
Thus itis that extremes meet in the ideal 
and philofopnical, as well as in the real 
world. 
This fytemof Mefirs. Schelling and He- 
el has been recently attacked, with con- 
fiderable fuccefs, by a philofopher of the 
highett eminence, who has fucceflively ex- 
mined the different (yftems of which I 
have fpoken ; who from the very infancy 
of Kantifm, forefaw the effect it would 
produce on the minds of its adherents, and 
fought togive them a better direction by 
ideas entirely contrary to thofe of the pre- 
vailing feé&t. Faithful to the philofophic 
principles tranfmitted to us by the moft 
diftinguifhed men and the mof enlightened 
ages, M. Jacobi places at the head of his 
Godirine 2 perfonal, intelligent, and remun- 
erating Deity. He thinks that this Deity 
has not given us the torch of reafon and 
the compas of the heart for no purpote ; 
that he has imparted to each creature as 
much truth as life ; that the manner in 
which we communicate with extern :] na- 
ture, and even our very exiftence are above 
ESURANCE 
* A divine of Berlin, who abounds in thefe 
ideas, has even declared in one of his works, 
that the belief in God is founded only in the 
imagination, but this faculty being the moft 
fublime endowment of man, it conftitutes 
the moft refpeétable bafis of that belief. 
our 
