both in the realm of morals and of religion. It is perfectly right for a beautiful soul to be guided by the affections, even though it should thus contradict abstract moral law.
2. The Kantian philosophy was first introduced into wider circles through the Briefe über die kantische Philosophie (1786) by Karl Leonhard Reinhold (1758-1823). Reinhold had become a monk in his early youth; but when the conflict between his rationalistic philosophy and the Catholic faith became too strong, he fled the cloister, became acquainted with the Kantian philosophy at Weimar and was shortly afterwards called to a Professorship at Jena (later at Kiel) . Jena now became the center of the philosophical movement inspired by Kant. In contrast to Kant’s multiplicity of distinctions and forms Reinhold proposed the derivation of everything from a single principle as the true ideal of philosophy (Versuch einer neuen Theorie des menschlichen Vorstellungsvermogens, 1789). He deduced this principle from the postulate that every idea sustains a twofold relation, to a subject as well as to an object. Consciousness, as a matter of fact, consists of such a relationship. That which Kant called Form is that element of an idea by means of which it is related to the subject. It is necessary to assume a thing-in-itself, because it is impossible for the subject to produce the object. The fact that he conceived the thing-in-itself as something entirely distinct from consciousness subjected Reinhold to a contradiction similar to that of his master. This contradiction is clearly elaborated in G. E. Schulze’s Aenesidemus (1792).
The clearest exposition of the error resulting from postulating the thing-in-itself as a positive concept however is by Salomon Maimon (1754-1800). The thing-in-itself is intended to be the cause of the matter of our knowledge,
