In the time immediately following the appearance of Kant's Critique of Pure Reason the old metaphysical systems were being undermined by the "all-crushing" ("der alleszermaltnende") Kant and the new metaphysics of Fichte and the Philosophy of Identity had not yet come into their own. In this transitional period the attention of the philosophical world in Germany was centered in the interpretation of Kantian philosophy, and especially in the understanding of the concept of the thing-in-itself. With reference to the latter Jacobi and Maimon went further than their contemporaries. Reinhold and Beck, whose contributions consisted in interpreting and explaining Kant,¹ made the Kantian philosophy accessible to wider circles. Reinhold's interpretation of Kant betrays the difficulties and apparent contradictions of critical philosophy. Jacobi and Maimon, however, grasp the full implications of the new philosophy and with respect to the problem of the thing-in-itself draw the conclusions that necessarily follow from the principles of critical philospohy. Jacobi questions the possibility of the very concept of the thing-in-itself in a system of thought that declares the object of cognition to be confined to the realm of phenomena. His analysis, however, led him away from critical philosophy to romanticism and to the adoption of a philosophical viewpoint in opposition to Kant. Maimon, on the other hand, declares that the concept of the thing-in-itself belongs to the realm of ideas in the Kantian sense, which can be approached endlessly but never fully attained. Maimon thus gives meaning and significance to the concept of the thing-in-itself in the authentic spirit of the Kantian philosophy.