which are neither parts nor emanations, neither derivatives nor copies, of the outer. The reason why we are less struck by the incomprehensible existence of these three transcendent celestial orbs is, that they are always banging before us, and that we foolishly imagine that we are creating them, whereas we only perceive them. What prototype, what plastic power have we, or what materials, to create such a spiritual world within ourselves? Let the atheist but ask himself how he came by the gigantic ideal of a Godhead which he either denies or materializes; a conception which is not formed by an accumulation of finite quantities and measures, because it is the very reverse of all measure and of all quantity? The fact is, that the atheist denies the original of the copy which he holds in his hands. As there are idealists in reference to the outer world, who fancy that the perceptions produce the objects, whereas the objects cause the perceptions; so there are idealists in reference to the inner world, who deduce being from appearance, sound from echo, existence from observation, instead of accounting, as they ought to do, contrariwise, for appearance by the existence of that which appears, and for our consciousness by the existence of that whereof we are conscious. We mistake our analysis of the world within us for its preformation; in other words, the genealogist mistakes himself for the sire.
" This inner world, which is yet more glorious and wonderful than the outer, needs another heaven than the one above us, and a higher world than that which is warmed by a sun. And therefore we say with truth, not the second earth or sphere, but the second world; that is, another world beyond this universe."— Kampaner Thal, s. W., t. xix. pp. 58-60.
The depth of thought and intensity of feeling with which Jean Paul clung to this faith in the reality of a spiritual world, and which gave to the productions of his pen a higher tone and a heavenly colouring, had the most beneficial influence upon the minds of the German public at a time when the foundations of revealed truth were undermined, no less by the lifeless dogmatism and supercilious selfishness of the champions of orthodoxy, than by the irreverent boldness of rationalistic criticism[1]; and when, moreover, the tendency of the philosophical systems which sprang up in rapid succession, was to reduce all truth, as all morality had been reduced before, to the narrow and unsound foundation of the individual self. Among the metaphysicians, Jacobi alone,
- ↑ The following passage from the unfinished preface of his last work on the immortality of the soul, throws light upon the state of feeling which was produced in Jean Paul's mind by the controversies of theologians and philosophers :—"How is it possible to write decisively on the form of immortality, seeing that the empty dogmas, and responses of philosophers, theologians, and naturalists, excite regular disgust and indignation in the mind of an old man, so that at last he wishes heartily to escape from a world full of lying libraries."—Selina, VorredeBruchstücke, s. W., vol. lxi. p. xxii.
