The Encyclopedia Americana (1920)/Jacobi, Friedrich Heinrich

JACOBI, Friedrich Heinrich, German philosopher: b. Düsseldorf, 25 Jan. 1743; d. Munich, 10 March 1819. He was educated at the University of Geneva, and in 1764 entered upon a commercial career in his native town; after a few years he retired from business, and in 1770 became a member of the councils for the duchies of Juliers and Berg. From his university days he was actively interested in literature and philosophy, and with Wieland started a journal in which some of his own writings were first published. In 1779 he went to Munich for a short time; and in 1793 left Düsseldorf and settled in Holstein. In 1804 he was called to Munich as a member of the Academy of Sciences then newly established; from 1807 to 1812 he was president of the academy; and in 1812 retired to prepare a collected edition of his works, which, however, was not finished before his death. His writings include two philosophical romances, &lsquo;Allwills Brief-Sammlung&rsquo; (1774) and &lsquo;Woldemar&rsquo; (1779); and the more important philosophical treatises, &lsquo;Briefe über die Lehre Spinoza's&rsquo; (1785); &lsquo;David Hume über den Glauben oder Idealismus and Realismus&rsquo; (1785); &lsquo;Von den Göttlichen Dingen&rsquo; (1811). In these treatises he defines his theory that man's thought &mdash; or reason &mdash; is by its nature partial and limited, and can only connect facts, not explain their existence; and that the higher truths must be understood through another different faculty which he calls &ldquo;faith&rdquo; or &ldquo;belief&rdquo; (&ldquo;Glaube&rdquo;); he does not, therefore, seek to establish a systematic philosophy. His theories involved him in considerable controversy, especially with the adherents of the critical philosophy. His collected works were published at Leipzig (6 vols., 1812-24). Consult Deycke, &lsquo;F. H. Jacobi im Verhältniss

zu seinen Zeitgenossen&rsquo; (Frankfort 1848); Wilde, &lsquo;F. H. Jacobi: A Study of the Origin of German Realism&rsquo; (New York 1894); Crawford, &lsquo;Philosophy of F. H. Jacobi&rsquo; (ib. 1905); and Isenberg, &lsquo;Der Einfluss der Philosophie Charles Bonnets auf F. H. Jacobi&rsquo; (Tübingen 1906).