JACOBS, LUCA

JACOBS, Luca: V. LUCA DA LEYDA.

JAEß, Diocese of — Cathedral, Reliquary of St. Cecilia. Italian art (photo Mas - Barcelona)

Ethical and psychological problems (to say nothing of that concerning the freedom of conscience, which he has discussed at length) are treated by J. sporadically and cursorily. Their solution is implicitly contained in his religious metaphysics and in his conception of God. Philosophical doctrine is always, for him, strictly connected with his religious faith, and all his metaphysics is based on the “continuous miracle, of which each person can have experience: the regeneration of man through a superior force” (Auserlesener Briefwechsel [see bibl.], II, p. 146, letter of 29 Jan. 1794). Such a force must be acknowledged.

Despite the lack of systematic structure, J. was a philosopher in the strict sense of the word. His thought responded not only to the exigencies of the times, but to the aspirations of souls weary of Enlightenment rationalism, and it transformed itself, according to the saying of Schelling who had defined J. as “perhaps the most instructive personality in all modern history and philosophy” (K. Fischer, Geschichte der neueren Philosophie, VI, Stuttgart 1894, pp. 294-96), into something of extreme significance and highly fruitful for the culture of the time.