Revue Encyclopedique. Par M. V. Cousin [pp. 358-377]

Germanz and Fren(ch Philosophhly.
religion. Jacobi became the rallying point of all those, who,
not having strength enough to follow the new movement, despaired of gaining absolute truth and sound philosophy, or who
pretended to found philosophy not upon science, but upon the
feeling (le sentiment) which manifests itself in another way,
in all men; a feeling often vague and sombre, and easily leading to fanaticism, if not enlightened by science. But the
principal reproach which Jacobi and his partizans brought
upon the new philosophy, was its inability to present God as
a personal being, having consciousness, feeling, love of self;
that it confounded God with nature and thus destroyed all
religion. They went farther, and contended that no philosophy could arrive at such a demonstration, because the system
of Spinosa, which they, without reason, regarded as the principal effort of the philosophic spirit, did not reach it. This
leaning (penchemnent) of Jacobi and many distinguished men,
who rallied round him, had a real, though indirect influence.
They added nothing to the stock of human knowledge, but
contributed, in spite of themselves, to the developement of
philosophy, by pointing out and constantly referring to it, all
the great questions, which, for the interest of truth, for the
satisfaction of the heart, demanded from it a solution.
"Some philosophers who followed the direction given by
Schelling, and who had undertaken to fill up the blank in this
system, viz: the soul and the spiritual world-attempted the
questions, but failed of their solution. Hegel, who rebuilt the
entire system of Schelling, and who, in logic and phenomenology of the soul, undertook principally the analysis and construction of the spiritual world, concealed his inability to give
solutions on many points under the language of Christians, to
which nevertheless he gave an altogether different meaning.
Upon the whole, the labours of Hegel and his school advanced
the state of many questions. But their true solution, as we
think, is found in the philosophical system of Krauze, who,
while admitting that God is in nature (le monde) and nature
in him, proves in him a superiority, a domination over the
world, consciousness, feelings, a distinct will, all these distinct
from the same faculties amongst men, as well as connected
with themr: consciousness, feeling, will, which constitute the
infinite personality of God, and in virtue of which a mutual
connexion between man and God can take place, in the relation commonly called religion. It is thus that having reach
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